Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Morrow Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 5th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morrow (DUP) [V]]

My Lords, I commend the Government for bringing forward this Bill and for tabling what is now Clause 65 as an amendment in the other place so that the ability of men to claim a defence of consent in situations where women have been killed or injured as a result of sexual violence will end. I am, however, very perplexed at the lack of joined-up policy-making, since the Government have not introduced the age-verification regime to protect children and young people from online pornography. This would include blocking illegal content to prevent children and young people being exposed to material that effectively normalises expectations of rough sex.

Last month, the Government set out new plans for how they will regulate access to online pornography, and I very much agree with the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that these proposals constitute

“a much watered-down proposal”—[Official Report, 16/12/20; col. 1711.]

than the legislation Parliament rightly sanctioned in Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act but which, inexplicably, the Government have not implemented. Unlike the legislation we have already passed, the proposals will cover only user-generated content, not all commercial pornographic websites. I cannot understand the logic of that differentiation. Savanta ComRes polled 2,049 men in Great Britain between 7 and 10 February last year for Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio Scotland. It asked the following question about rough sex:

“Thinking specifically of times you performed slapping, choking, gagging or spitting during consensual sexual activity, to what extent do you think pornography influenced your desire to do so?”


Some 57% of those questioned said it did to some extent, of whom 20% said it influenced their acting in that way “a great deal”.

Last January, the British Board of Film Classification reported its findings on young people’s use of pornography. It said:

“Beyond creating unrealistic expectations of sex, some young people felt pornography had actually affected their expectations of, and behaviour during, sex, particularly in the copying of ‘rough’ or ‘forceful’ sex seen in pornography.”


In the light of this comment, do the Government have evidence that there is no rough sex on commercial pornographic websites? I urge the Government to adopt joined-up thinkng in their approach to domestic violence and the impact of pornography on children, young people and adults. Just as I did on 16 December, I again

“urge the Government to adjust their course and ensure that the protections in their online harms Bill are just as robust as those in Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act, and to implement Part 3 in the interim so that children can be protected while we wait for the online harms Act”—[Official Report, 16/12/20; col. 1718.]

I also find that there is a gap in the Domestic Abuse Bill. A coalition of organisations that provide support for victims has highlighted the lack of provision to support community-based services, where 70% of victims receive their support. I am thinking of SafeLives, Barnardo’s, Action for Children, the NSPCC and others which provide an excellent service in this field. I contend that more independent domestic violence and abuse advisers are urgently required. It is they who “enable people to survive when they are feeling very alone”, to quote one victim.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Morrow Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 25th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morrow (DUP) [V]]

My Lords, I, too, wish to commend the Minister on bringing this solid piece of legislation before the House and getting it to this stage. However, I rise to speak in support of these two amendments and commend those who tabled them and brought them before the House. I know the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, speaks with personal knowledge on this issue, having listened to her on another occasion and to what she has said today. When someone refers to their personal experience, I think it is always prudent, has a lot of merit and deserves a lot of close attention.

I want to address my comments today to the narrow issue of parental alienation. I am aware that this legislation applies primarily to England and Wales, not Northern Ireland. However, it is important that all parts of the UK are able to move forward with these protections as soon as possible. A gap in legislation was created when the Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended. My DUP colleagues and I will support the amendment in the event of the Committee dividing. It would insert parental alienation into the definition of domestic abuse in Clause 1.

Sadly, we live in a society today where there are thousands of parents who do not have any relationship with their children, and in some of these cases simply because one parent, for no good reason, turned their child against them. This amounts to abuse and is debilitating. Parental alienation is a serious, deliberate manipulation of a child by one parent against the other parent. Of course, it can take many forms, including speaking negatively to the child about the other parent, reducing and controlling the child’s contact with the other parent, cancelling contact at the last minute and forbidding the child to talk about the other parent.

The effects can be life-changing. A child may believe that their parent is bad and dangerous. This can adversely affect a child’s mental health in later years. The child can be left bereft of the love, compassion and guidance of a parent. The alienated parent cannot share key milestones in their child’s life. I do not think it is possible to overstress the importance and influence of parents in their children’s life. Often by the time alienation has been proven through the courts it is much too late to encourage a child to see his or her other parent. Clinical depression, anxiety, fractured attachments, suicide ideation, deliberate self-harm, alcohol abuse, premature sexual activity and academic underachievement may have already occurred.

The sweeping generalisation that parental alienation is a concept being used by fathers as a tool to silence female victims of domestic violence is not accurate. There is a real risk that those advocating that position will neglect the needs of those men and women who do not have convictions for domestic violence or other offences but have been cut off from contact with their children and grievously miss them.

However, I want to make it abundantly clear that I am not in any way seeking to challenge cases where a child has valid reasons for rejecting a parent, such as abuse or neglect, or where they have been unavailable to a child due to a prolonged period of addiction or of working overseas. My understanding of these amendments is that they are focused on situations where children become alienated through no fault of the affected parent, so it is critical that the Committee recognises that the harm caused in these cases is not restricted to abuse of a child. We should not ignore the fact that there is a range of motivating factors and circumstances involved in parental alienation, but I consider it appropriate to place it within the domestic abuse legislation as it victimises both parent and child.

I recognise and welcome that the Minister has already taken steps to classify parental alienation as an example of the psychological abuse in draft statutory guidance accompanying the Bill. On balance, however, I do not believe that this represents a level of protection or impetus that full legislative protection would provide.

My party, the DUP, has some concern around whether parental alienation will receive the attention it deserves in training and guidance on criminal behaviours without it being specifically stipulated as an offence in the Bill. Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly raised similar points during the development of the Domestic Abuse and Family Proceedings Bill. We must ensure that there is knowledge, understanding and application of domestic abuse law as it relates to parental alienation.

We are mindful that these amendments and the Bill in general would address only issues relating to parental alienation at the point at which harm has been caused. While it may dissuade such behaviour in the future, we also recognise that prevention and earlier and better support for parents—and between parents and children—are key to improving long-term outcomes for children and families. There is a need for better collaboration between health and justice departments right across the UK in respect of this and specific policies on alienation.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I support the Bill. The mental and physical damage of domestic abuse goes far beyond the pain and anguish caused at the time it occurs and stays with the victims and their families for many years, if not for the rest of their lives. It is important that we do all we can in this legislation to help victims to get out of abusive relationships and rebuild their lives.

I speak to Amendments 2 and 4, which propose to add parental alienation to the definition of abusive behaviour and therefore to every provision of the Bill. I fear that the proposed amendments may undo much of the work that the Bill seeks to do to protect victims of domestic abuse by swinging the pendulum of control back to the perpetrator of domestic abuse, rather than the victim, in making counterallegations.

Without meaning to sound flippant, at its extreme, any parent going through a break-up or divorce could find themselves of accused of domestic abuse under the Bill, and that is not what the Bill is intended for. I wonder whether the concern of the noble Lords who tabled these amendments is already covered by the combination of Clause 1(3)(e) and Clause 1(5). Alternatively, if the noble Lords behind the amendments have a specific instance in mind, they should look at where that could be catered for in specific clauses, but not as a wholesale change to the entire Bill in this way.

I can see these amendments having massive unintended consequences if they are included. I urge the Committee to accept neither change, to maintain the integrity of the Bill.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Morrow Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 10th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Eaton (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak in support of Amendment 177A, so ably proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin.

Protecting children from pornographic websites is no less important now than it was in 2015, when the seminal Conservative manifesto commitment was made to

“stop children’s exposure to harmful sexualised content online, by requiring age verification for access to all sites containing pornographic material”.

Similarly, protecting children from pornographic websites is no less important now than when the Digital Economy Bill became an Act of Parliament in 2017.

The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, and others have eloquently covered many points I wished to make, and therefore I will not repeat them. However, I would like to make two points.

First, in understanding the full significance of Amendment 177A, it is important to see it as an investment to reduce the incidence of domestic violence in the future. A significant proportion of online pornography depicts sexual violence, and if Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act is not implemented, under-18s will be exposed to this content and will conclude that violence is a normal part of sexual relationships. This will, in turn, inevitably impact behaviour, not only among under-18s now but as they grow into adulthood. Protecting children from access to this pornography is not just about impacting them today; it is about impacting their development because of the consequences that it will reap tomorrow, when they are adults, in levels of domestic violence.

Secondly, I observe that the challenge we face is not unique to the UK. A US survey of 2,227 men and women aged 18 to 60 years old, published in 2020, found that

“the associations between pornography use and sexual behaviors was statistically significant. … Clinicians need to be aware of recent potential shifts in sexual behaviors, particularly those such as choking that may lead to harm.”

The authors also said:

“We were struck that one-fifth of women … reported having been choked as part of sex.”


In this context, it seems the 2015 Conservative manifesto was ahead of its time.

[Lord Morrow (DUP) [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak in support of Amendment 177A. Along with other speakers, I was not at all reassured by the Minister’s letter in which she confirmed the central concern that many noble Lords set out on Second Reading; namely, that unlike Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act, which equally engaged user-generated and non-user-generated content on pornographic websites, the online safety Bill will narrow its concern to user-generated content. I also thought the Government’s response rather missed the point that I and other noble Lords sought to make on Second Reading. What the Minister wrote was couched in the terms of the original Digital Economy Bill debate. Those concerns are of course important, but are not the presiding context of this debate.

The point made at Second Reading and, indeed, today is very much about the fact that much online pornography depicts sexual violence, including the rough sex practice that is the subject of Clause 65. In this context, the key point is that if Part 3 is not implemented, under-18s will be exposed to pornographic material on pornographic websites, including depictions of rough sex, and this will foster the thought that sexual violence is just part of the norm of sexual relationships. Moreover, and crucially, this will not only impact on under-18s as under-18s, but shape their thoughts and attitudes as they move into adulthood, making sexual violence and domestic abuse more likely.

In this context, the key problem with the Government saying that we should abandon Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act in favour of an online safety Bill that will target only user-generated content is the fact that depictions of sexual violence occur in non-user-generated pornography as well as in user-generated pornography. We must target, as Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act does, both user-generated and non-user-generated content on pornographic websites.

In this regard, it is interesting to note that Savanta ComRes polling from last September showed that 81.5% of people in Northern Ireland thought that the Government should implement Part 3 immediately and simply add additional protections in relation to other online harms when the online safety Bill is passed. The UK figure was 74% if the “don’t knows” were removed. It is not hard to imagine what would happen if that polling was repeated today, presenting people with the fact that the Government are seeking not only needlessly to delay the provision of protection for children from pornographic websites, but to narrow that protection down to pornographic websites with user-generated content.

My concern at the Government’s failure to engage with Part 3 from the perspective of the presenting issue in this Bill is greatly compounded by the fact that the letter inexplicably makes no reference to the two reports that the Government published on 15 January that highlight the connection between pornography consumption and behaviour, including male sexual violence. I very much hope that when the Minister responds to this debate she engages with Amendment 177A and Part 3 from the perspective of the domestic violence concern that informs our discussions today.

There are two other things about the Minister’s letter that cause me real concern. First, it contains the statement:

“Under our proposals, we expect companies to use age assurance or age verification technologies to prevent children from accessing services which pose the highest risk of harm to children, such as online pornography.”


This is a very clear shift from the previous language “we will require”, which is the essence of legal compulsion. Why the change?

Secondly, the letter’s final paragraph states that the online harms Bill will be more robust than the DEA because it will cover not only extreme pornography. Part 3 of the DEA was never just about protecting under-18s from extreme pornography or pornographic websites. It was about protecting them from all pornography on pornographic websites, that which is legal as well as that which, like extreme pornography, is illegal. If I have misunderstood what the Minister means by the final paragraph of the letter dealing with pornography, will she please explain when she responds to the debate?

One of the other concerns that I have about the idea that the online safety Bill would be better than Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act at protecting children from material that normalises sexual violence relates to enforcement. When the Digital Economy Bill was introduced, the primary means of enforcement was through fines. However, Parliament pointed out that of the 50 most popular pornographic websites in the UK, none was based in the UK and that enforcing fines in other jurisdictions would be impractical.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Morrow Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 17th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morrow (DUP) [V]]

My Lords, I again commend the Government for bringing forward the Bill, as I have done throughout its passage through this House. I thank the Minister for the work that has been undertaken thus far. However, as the tragic events in Clapham so shockingly remind us, speed is of the essence when it comes to changing the attitude of men and boys towards women and girls in our society.

The Minister has been keen to point out that the Government’s own pornography research does not prove causation—how could it? It does demonstrate a clear association between pornography consumption and male aggression and sexual violence, as does other research in the field. In this context, addressing the impact of pornography consumption on male aggression towards women must form part of a credible legislative approach to violence against women and a credible response to the outpouring of stories that we have all been moved by this week.

In recent debates, much has been said about how Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act protects children from pornographic websites through age verification. That is certainly very important because, if Part 3 was in place now, children today would be less likely to be exposed to pornographic websites. It would therefore be less likely that they would move into adulthood with the expectation that violence is a natural part of sexual relationships, with all that this means for behaviour.

However, after the events of last week, it is also important to stress that another feature of Part 3—namely, the regulator’s power to take robust action against websites showing illegal extreme pornography, regardless of age verification—is important, because it will help foster an environment that challenges the normalisation of violence against women. It is a vital change that women and children could benefit from right now, that could have brought huge benefits from last year and, crucially, that could bring huge benefits very quickly, for reasons I will explain, if the Government implement Part 3.

The latest letter on this from the Minister comes with an estimated timetable of between 22 and 27 months for implementing Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017, with a new regulator. This is perhaps the finest example of a cannot-do, rather than a can-do, attitude to emerge from Whitehall since Sir Humphrey Appleby took his retirement. It is deeply problematic for at least two reasons. First, it clearly draws out the process to the greatest possible extent, making it as long as possible. Secondly, it rests upon a strategy that hopes that none of us will be cute enough to spot the elephant in the room.

The truth is that, if the Government were prepared to redesignate the BBFC as the regulator for Part 3 during the interim period, while the online harms Bill is being developed, then women and children would benefit within a matter of months from the very important protections that this House has already sanctioned in relation to pornographic websites. The taxpayer would also see a return on the £2.2 million investment in the steps taken in preparing for implementing Part 3.

The question the Government must answer is this: is bowing to their preference that Ofcom be the regulator, rather than the BBFC, so important that they are prepared to demand that the price for it is that women and children should be denied the protections that this House has sanctioned for them for a period of years? We can argue about how long it might take for the online harms framework to reach the point of implementation, but if we use the Digital Economy Act as a model, we can assume that the time from the arrival of the primary legislation in Parliament to the point at which it and the attendant secondary legislation and guidance are passed will be about three years. Is the Prime Minister prepared to tell the women and children of the United Kingdom that his preference for Ofcom over the BBFC is so great that women and children should be denied these important protections from pornographic websites for some years, even though he can still have Ofcom when the online harms regime comes into play? Is he prepared to ignore Women’s Aid? Are the Government saying that, because they cannot consent to this, we should cease support for this amendment and all those who want implementation now?

I trust that the Prime Minister still has his political wits about him. I trust that he will think better of taking a different position from all these bodies and the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, whom the people of this country hold in such high regard. Redesignation would take 40 days, as per Section 17 of the 2017 Act, where it was agreed that we should give the websites three months to get ready.

By my reckoning, if the Government show a fraction of the determination that we saw at the vigil in Clapham on Saturday night, Part 3, with all its protections for women and children, could be in force before this House rises for the Summer Recess. It is my great hope that the Government will do the right thing today and tell the Minister before she gets to her feet that she can announce that the Government will now implement Part 3, so that the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, whose leadership on this issue demands our great respect, can withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness O’Loan (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak today in support of the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin. I am grateful too for the powerful briefings and extensive correspondence on this amendment that I have received from several organisations and individuals.

Like other noble Lords who have spoken, I have seen the Government’s letter of 8 March. I found it unconvincing and I am concerned that there is a danger of completely missing the point of the amendment. As we saw over the weekend, the country is very concerned about attacks on women. I think, too, that we are all concerned about the level of violence against children, and indeed against men, in our society. It is clear that the consumption of pornography is associated with aggression and violence against women, men and children. This is an issue on which we can act today.

Had the Government implemented Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act as planned, we would have had a functioning regulator today. He or she would have been able to take a series of robust actions against any pornographic website showing illegal extreme pornography. We would have seen the introduction of age verification on pornographic websites.

Today, 14 women’s organisations, including Women’s Aid, have written to the Prime Minister asking him to instruct his Ministers to respond to the debate by making a commitment to implement Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act as an interim measure to protect women and children, treating them with dignity between now and when the online harms regime will be ready, probably in three years.

The suggestion in the Government’s letter that

“commencing Part 3 of the 2017 Act as an interim measure would … create a confusing and fragmented regulatory landscape”

is unconvincing; it is also regrettable.

The online harms Bill is not yet before Parliament; it will take time to pass through Parliament and, even if it is passed as suggested and the Government commence implementation immediately, the interim arrangements proposed today would be in place and working for two or three years before it would be realistically possible for any benefit to be experienced through such an Act. That would be years of additional protection before any further legislation was operative.

If providing a greater measure of protection for women and children is a critical issue, as the Government have said, they cannot continue to argue that the legislation that we have passed should not be implemented now, even as work proceeds on developing even better legislation for the future. With child-on-child sexual abuse, we know that between 2012 and 2016 there was a 78% rise in England and Wales. Research from 2017 on preventing harmful sexual behaviour involved interviews with young sexual offenders, asking them what might have stopped them. Their answers included “help in management of pornography”. Implementing Part 3 would do this; it would help to save and protect until new legislation is enacted.

I urge the Government to respond positively to noble Lords who have spoken in favour of this amendment and the many women’s groups that have written to the Prime Minister today, and I shall support the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, if she divides the House on this amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I hope that my noble friend in her letter, and I in my contribution, explained the reasons why we think it would take so long, because it has been de-designated. As the noble Lord will know, work is already going on in relation to Ofcom in preparation for the online safety Bill which, for the reasons I have outlined, we think better addresses the concerns that he and other noble Lords have raised in this debate.

[Lord Morrow (DUP) [V]]

My question is quite similar. Why is it more important not to have the BBFC and leave women and children with no protection at all for three years? As has already been said, if you used the BBFC, it would just take over three months to have that.