Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Polak Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 1st February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I was pleased to add my name to Amendment 101, which in some ways follows on from my group of amendments on social security, debated last Wednesday.

If we had a decent social security system that provided genuine security to survivors of domestic abuse, including economic abuse, and still had a national emergency scheme like the Social Fund, we might not need local welfare assistance schemes. As it is, such schemes, which constitute the final safety net—leaving aside charitable support—are in a parlous state, despite the welcome injection of cash to help cope with the pandemic.

When local welfare assistance schemes were introduced to replace the national Social Fund, the Government refused to make them compulsory or to ring-fence the money allocated, despite your Lordships’ best efforts. It is no surprise, therefore, that when local authorities are strapped for cash because of years of cuts, research by the Children’s Society last year found that one in seven local authorities does not even run a scheme any more. It found that, of 121 authorities that provided spending data, about three-quarters spent less than half their allocated budget on local welfare assistance schemes. That budget has itself been cut, so that overall, it stands at less than half the money that was allocated to the Social Fund it replaced.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, has pointed out, the lack of any regulation has given rise to our old friend the postcode lottery, which is particularly damaging to domestic abuse survivors who might find themselves excluded by local connection criteria if they have moved local authorities to escape their abuser. A woman might find herself excluded because she is subject to the “no recourse to public funds” rule. It is essential that any guidance issued under this amendment, should it eventually pass, ensures that these groups are covered.

More generally, domestic abuse survivors need the security of knowing that they can get appropriate help from local authorities and not just help in kind which may well not be appropriate. It is not good enough that we have to rely on a charity to provide basic information on state local welfare assistance schemes because central government have taken the Pontius Pilate approach and washed their hands of all responsibility for the schemes, ignoring the recommendations of the Work and Pensions Committee in a previous Parliament.

Paul Maynard MP on the Government Back Benches is leading a cross-party call tomorrow in the Commons for a review of local welfare assistance schemes, supported by among others former Secretary of State Iain Duncan Smith. Mr Maynard stated:

“We need to ensure we learn the lessons of the pandemic to embed a better provision of emergency support for some of the most vulnerable in our society.”

This amendment would at least require central government to exercise some responsibility towards this particularly vulnerable group of people and it therefore deserves support.

I also want to speak briefly in support of Amendment 176, leaving it to the sponsors of the amendment to make the case more fully. I am sure no one would dispute the importance of specialised domestic abuse provision for a range of minority groups, including particular provision by and for domestic abuse victims and survivors. It is just such provision which has been particularly vulnerable to funding cuts and changes in commissioning practises in recent years, as was discussed earlier. That is sufficient reason for supporting this amendment, but it would also go some way to redress the balance, following the welcome introduction in the Bill of a duty on local authorities to assess the need for accommodation-based services by ensuring the duty in this new clause covers community-based services. As important as accommodation-based services are—they are very important—the Justice Secretary noted at Second Reading debate in the House of Commons that 70% of domestic abuse victims never set foot in a refuge. Many of them will seek support from community-based services.

The Government say they need more evidence about the need for community-based services and that nothing can be done until the domestic abuse commissioner designate has completed her investigation. However, the domestic abuse commissioner herself and organisations on the ground insist there is ample evidence to make legislative provision now. What further evidence do the Government need?

In Committee in the Commons, the Minister assured MPs that

“the Government are committed to addressing”

Whatever the domestic abuse commissioner’s findings are,

“that the commissioner will publish her report under clause 8”,

and the Government are

“required to respond to it within 56 days.” ”—[Official Report, Commons, Public Bill Committee, 11/6/20; col. 249.]

That is all well and good, but this Bill will be on the statue book by then. The chances of another Domestic Abuse Bill coming along in the near future must be slim—just look at how long it has taken us to get to this point on this Bill. I hope the Government will listen to the experts, the domestic abuse commissioner designate and organisations on the ground and extend the duty on local authorities to assess the need for community-based services and accept this amendment as a way of doing so.

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 176 and 177, in my name, and I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, and the noble Lords, Lord Russell of Liverpool and Lord Rosser, for their support. Amendment 176 is broad, and, to try to help the House, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby will speak to non-discrimination and the need for specialist services; the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, will speak on community-based services and how they support victims and provide perpetrator programmes; and the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, will speak to the unintended consequences that the Bill risks having.

As I said last week, I am delighted that it is my Government who are putting forward this Bill, which has my strong support. I thank Barnardo’s and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, among others, for their help and advice.

At the outset, I welcome the announcement today of £40 million funding for community-based sexual violence and domestic abuse services. The Government have acknowledged the effect that the pandemic has had. This welcome government support only strengthens my argument that community-based services need long-term and sustainable funding. I hope the Government can solidify their good intentions by announcing that they will place community-based services on the same statutory footing as accommodation-based services.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, was right just now. On 16 June last year, the domestic abuse commissioner designate wrote to the Domestic Abuse Bill Public Bill Committee in the other place to follow up on her oral evidence to it. I am happy to quote from her letter:

“As I said in my oral evidence, I strongly welcome the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s proposal to require Local Authorities to provide accommodation-based services, but it must go further. In order to address the breadth of domestic abuse services, the statutory duty must encompass those community-based services that are accessed by the majority of victims, survivors and their children, and must also include quality provision for perpetrators. I have very real concerns about Local Authorities redistributing their funding simply to meet the statutory duty, and therefore deprioritising those critical community-based services that can intervene earlier and prevent a survivor from being forced to flee to a refuge. There is already ample evidence to support this, and while my mapping work may well add to this evidence base, it is wholly unnecessary for Parliament to wait for it to complete before considering this issue.”


This is very clear. The commissioner designate acknowledges that the exercise will provide useful analysis of spending by local authorities on community-based services, but, crucially, she says that Parliament does not need to wait in legislating. She said this in June, and she has not changed her mind. This governmental concern about waiting is not shared by the commissioner and so many others, and I ask my noble friend the Minister to look at this again.

The other main concern has been the need to consult other public authorities. The new clause in Amendment 176 is structured so that it would improve service provision with immediate effect, with public bodies able to take into account relevant circumstances in deciding what constitutes “reasonable steps” and sufficiency. Taking new information into account, the nature of what constitutes “reasonable steps” and sufficiency will change accordingly as and when the outcome of any consultation or mapping exercise becomes available.

Many agencies are needed to tackle domestic abuse: among them are the police, housing, children’s services and the NHS. A multiagency approach is critical to ensuring that victims of domestic abuse are able to live and rebuild their lives free of abuse. The amendment brings these agencies together in a holistic approach.

The path to tackling domestic abuse is ensuring that all victims, adults or children, are able to access the support they require to recover from the trauma that they have experienced. For some victims, fleeing their home and seeking refuge in safe accommodation —a truly traumatic event in itself—may be their only option. Of course, this is no easy decision to arrive at: they may move miles away from their support networks and abandon their possessions and, sometimes, livelihoods, and their children may be taken out of their school—all for the pursuit of safety, while the perpetrator remains in the comfort of their own home.

For many victims, leaving home is just not an option: 70% of domestic abuse victims never set foot in safe accommodation, and it is clear that victims who are disabled, elderly, BAME or LGBTQ all face additional barriers to accessing safe accommodation—not to mention the vast number of child victims who are trapped. This is why I urge the Government to be bold and ensure that the Bill will help as many people in need as possible.