Lord Rooker
Main Page: Lord Rooker (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Rooker's debates with the Home Office
Wednesday 27th January 2021
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Domestic Abuse Bill 2019-21 View all Domestic Abuse Bill 2019-21 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 124-III Third marshalled list for Committee - (27 Jan 2021)
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Burt and I have Amendments 24, 25 and 26 in this group. Clause 7(2) sets out the powers that the domestic abuse commissioner can exercise in pursuit of her functions. I read that subsection as not being exhaustive, and I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that when responding to the debate. I ask because, as I say, subsection (2) is about powers, not functions, and Clause 10 gives the commissioner the usual facilitative—if that is the word—incidental and conducive powers.
In any event, Amendment 24 would include powers relating to perpetrators, including words similar to those in Clause 7(2)(a), which relates to services to people affected by domestic abuse. I appreciate that there are other paragraphs—(c) is one of them—that are not limited to victims, but a specific reference to why people abuse seems appropriate. I think we can agree, since this is a point that has been made by a number of speakers and we will come back to it, that many noble Lords regard this as a crucial issue. I certainly do.
Amendment 26 would extend the power in Clause 7(2)(g). That power as drafted provides for the commissioner being able to co-operate or work jointly with public authorities, voluntary organisations and other persons. We would extend that to making recommendations to voluntary organisations and others. Under Clause 7(2)(b) the commissioner can make recommendations to a public authority. I think that all those to whom recommendations can be made should be included in the clause.
The Bill as drafted regards co-operation and joint working with public authorities as being likely to prompt recommendations—hence the Bill before us— but co-operation and joint working with voluntary organisations are not exactly the same. I would have said it was implicit that recommendations to them could follow, were it not for the distinction in the drafting of the Bill.
Amendment 25 is a consequential bit of drafting. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]
My Lords, in the interests of making progress, I have nothing further to add to what the noble Baroness has just said.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.
Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I will not be as brief on this group as I was in the previous group. I very much support Amendments 31, 32 and 48 in the name of my noble friend and I simply do not see why the Secretary of State wants such a controlling role over the commissioner. The first commissioner is clearly a person of substance, and we would expect the successors to be persons of substance. I want to explore a bit of the detail. If we do not have openness and transparency, frankly, we will not engender confidence from the media, opinion formers, legislators or potential victims of domestic abuse. It is pretty crucial. Without openness and transparency, confidence is at risk. Let us think about this because, on Monday evening, the Minister admitted, after one of my questions, that the accounting officer function rests with the Home Secretary, not the commissioner.
In addition to my time at the Food Standards Agency, I worked in six government departments over 12 years, and I can assure noble Lords that, on more than one occasion sitting in on meetings, I heard the words uttered by a person in the room, where there was a dispute going on, “This is an accounting officer function, and this is what I have decided.” In the main, I tended to go along with that: obviously, it was usually the perm sec. It is a killer point to make in any dispute that a department might have with one of its other bodies, and it is not about money. The title is actually not quite right here, because it is the accounting officer who ends up before the Public Accounts Committee—again, accounts—but it looks at the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of the function and the role; it does not look just at the pounds, shillings and pence, if I can put it that way.
Then you have to look at the staff. It was agreed by Ministers on Monday that the commissioner’s staff would be Home Office civil servants. It is clear that they will be civil servants, but I have not worked out why they have to be from the Home Office. It ought to be possible for civil servants from across Whitehall to apply to be on the staff of the domestic abuse commissioner. They will be a small group, so will one of them be the legal adviser to the domestic abuse commissioner? Will she have a legal team of her own, made up of Home Office civil servants giving her advice—from the lawyer to the client—about the functions set out in subsection (4)(a) and (b)? Of course, it might be that the budget put together by the Home Secretary does not allow for a legal team for the commissioner, who will then have to make use of the Home Office legal team, which I should imagine is pretty extensive. Where is the client-lawyer relationship when the commissioner might be in dispute with the Home Secretary about what is to be admitted, or not admitted as the case may be?
I freely admit that some of these questions go beyond the clause, but I want to be practical about the situation that will arise if there is a problem. I know nothing about the problems of other commissioners as regards legal disputes. I assume that in most cases the Permanent Secretary of the department will be the accounting officer, so they will have the final word. I can assure noble Lords that it is pretty powerful in Whitehall when other civil servants hear the accounting officer assert their role. I am therefore not sure, if the position is as I have painted it, whether one could use the word “independence” in terms of the domestic abuse commissioner in any way, shape or form, unless some of these amendments are carried forward into the Bill. I will leave it there.
Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) (V)
My Lords, it is always good to follow the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. Even when he speaks for a bit longer than previously, his words are full of expertise and to the point.
When I looked through these amendments, I was particularly attracted to Amendment 31 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and my noble friend Lord Cormack. I agree that Parliament should be much involved in these reports, so I looked a bit further and noted that Clause (8)(6) states
“The Commissioner must arrange for a copy of any report published under this section to be laid before Parliament.”
I have been listening intently to the debate and trying to find out why, if it is to go before Parliament in any case, according to the Bill, there is a need for the amendment.
I agree that it is down to Parliament to decide whether it is debated, perhaps in a Select Committee, and echo the points made by my noble friend Lord Cormack. On this issue and indeed on so much else, there is so much expertise in your Lordships’ House that it would be meritorious to do that—or indeed on the Floor of either or both Houses. Presumably in previous times it would have been very much for the Government and the business managers to arrange that, but these days in the other place there are various avenues for Select Committee and other reports to be debated. I am not entirely sure whether there is a need for these amendments as such. One thing that comes into all this, I suggest, is that there is always mistrust about why things are being put in. Perhaps subsection (6) could be looked at so that it says something like, “the commissioner must arrange for a copy of any report published under this section to be laid before Parliament at the same time as it is reported to the Secretary of State.” There would be no question of the report being held back from Parliament.
My other point relates to the phrase
“The Secretary of State may direct the Commissioner to omit material”.
My noble friend Lord Cormack was technically correct when he said “censor”, but we might call it redaction because in some cases it would be wise to do that. I cannot imagine that someone with the expertise of the commissioner would do that, but it is there. However, I also note that before the Secretary of State does so, the commissioner has to be consulted. The real point of what we are discussing is independence, as other speakers have said. I echo the concerns I had when we considered the Modern Slavery Act. If I remember correctly, we had to insert the term “independent anti-slavery commissioner” to try to convince people that it was in fact an independent position. However, as we know, the commission relies on the Home Office for its financing, staffing and so on. As my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering said, we will certainly have similar discussions when we come to consider the Environment Bill and the chair of the office for environmental protection.
The calibre of the candidates who will fulfil these roles should mean that they will feel independent. However, if I had a cynical streak—I am afraid to say that it does occur from time to time—I might say that it would probably be better if the commissioner served their term and was not up for reappointment. I cannot help feeling that if someone thinks, “Am I going to be reappointed or not?”, it might just curb some of their exuberance for making comments or giving directions that they feel the Home Office, in this case, would not like.
I remain slightly sceptical about whether these amendments are required and look forward to hearing what my noble friend the Minister says. I have not yet made up my mind about whether, when the Bill comes to Report, I would support some of these amendments if no changes have been made. However, I feel that noble Lords are perhaps being a little too cynical about the intentions in these provisions.
Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I too wish to mention the brilliant introduction to this group of amendments by my noble friend Lady Lister. I was also completely moved by the speech of my noble friend Lady Primarolo, whose experience I shared in the other place.
Universal credit is complex. It came about after I left the House of Commons and I do not do constituency surgeries any more, but is it working well? I think it was in 2018, as what I might call a floating member of the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments at a time when extra members were needed, that I saw first-hand the inability of the DWP to take on board some of the issues.
I have a very brief cautionary tale about universal credit from first-hand experience. Late last year I received a note from the family of a former constituent. They are in Australia, and they were getting hassle from the DWP about debt relating to a Social Fund loan in 1994. The couple in Australia were informed that they were claiming universal credit and that the debt would be taken from their payments each month. It did not take me long to get that sorted—about a month—but when I thought it was all closed, they received more letters demanding repayments.
The alleged debt was from 1994; they have been in Australia since 2006 and the first contact from the DWP was in 2019. They have never had a loan or been on universal credit. In fact, as I informed the DWP, I suspected that there was an internal fraud going on. This got sorted completely just before Christmas when the DWP confirmed that no claim for universal credit had been made by them or anyone using their details. Interestingly, the DWP said in writing: “Regrettably, it appears to be a system error.” So I do not need any lectures from anyone—I know I am not going to get one from the Minister because I have great respect for her—telling me that all is well with universal credit; to judge by my brief experience of a particular case and my experience on the statutory instruments committee, it clearly is not.
On the points made about the split in the benefit and its construction, it was obviously done in such a way that it is completely out of bounds for anyone fleeing a home because of domestic abuse. I certainly hope these points are going to be taken on board.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I have been sitting here working out what on earth I could say that would add meaningfully to this fantastic debate. I particularly commend my noble friend Lady Lister, who has always been a stalwart on these matters.
This has taken me back to the Welfare Reform Bill, as it then was, and the endless but pointed debates we had about the problems that were being stacked up by the system being introduced. I remember that at one stage, the Minister complained that food banks had built up because they were a “free good”—which perhaps reflects a bit on how the system was viewed.
It is time for a fundamental review of the system. We have enough expertise in your Lordships’ House, let alone in the other place. We have heard a good deal of that today and we need to build on that. I hope the Minister will support much of what she has heard from noble Lords today. From my point of view, as someone who is rather out of date on these matters, it has been a privilege to listen to such powerful presentations.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, this is a very simple and straightforward amendment. It requires the commissioner to use the power under Section 15 of the Bill to help ensure that the children of victims are not further disadvantaged by losing their places on NHS waiting lists by virtue of having to move to escape the abuser. The commissioner must issue the request to every clinical commissioning group and every NHS body she deems necessary, within six months of the Bill coming into law, to co-operate to this effect, and to ensure that it is done within 12 months.
We know that waiting lists can vary from area to area, but the overall effect should be that no child waits longer than they would have in the original area to whose waiting list they were originally referred. On the pre-legislation consultation committee, we heard of children who never get the treatment that they need through having to move areas and losing their place for treatment on NHS waiting lists. This must no longer be allowed to happen. Why should these young victims be made to suffer this?
I hope that on this very simple amendment, the Minister will be able respond in a positive manner. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, but it is not simple. I live in Ludlow, 10 miles from the Welsh border. As far as I can see, this amendment applies only to England. There will be people who live in the north of England, close to the Scottish border. There will be people who seek sanctuary in different places. It is not always something you can control if you are on the move and fleeing. What happens to children who are moved from England to Wales or Scotland, or, in rare but not impossible cases, as I recall from the experiences of my constituents, people who flee back to Northern Ireland?
This looks simple and the aim is absolutely bang on. It must be the case that children do not suffer, but we do not have a national health service, do we? We call it the National Health Service, but it is not national; it is devolved. How do we get around the problem of children who have crossed to one of the devolved Administrations? That is the only point I wish to make on this amendment.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]
My Lords, we should all be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, for moving this amendment, and it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I bring to this amendment my experience as a clinician some time ago in paediatrics—where, sadly, I admitted several abused children who had been caught in a complex cycle of domestic abuse—as well as my later clinical experience.
When children have experienced or witnessed abuse, some of them then move to live with kinship carers, or they move with the escaping parent, often to a different health provider area. They have to start all over again with schooling and health support. They may change GPs or move from one hospital referral list to another. There are waiting lists across the majority of specialty services required for many different types of support and intervention these children may need and for which they have been referred.
Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I am grateful for the way in which my noble friend Lady Armstrong introduced the amendment. I am going to raise only two issues, both of which have already been touched on, so I am not going to go into detail.
I want to raise the issue of who pays, for this simple reason. The amendment puts a duty on the specified authorities and uses the word “must”. The first thing those authorities are going to say to the domestic abuse commissioner is, “You’re ordering me to do this, so you’ve got to pay for it”, in which case it goes back to the Home Office, because it is still the Home Secretary who controls the budget.
A very fair point that has been raised already is that such training ought to be part and parcel of the duties of the authorities concerned anyway, even without this. However, the fact is that imposing a new duty—and, by the way, I agree with the new clause—means that there is still the nitty-gritty about the transfer of funds. Maybe that could be put in the amendment on Report.
The other issue, which has also been raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is the police. Say it is 2 am and they are called to a squabble—there is banging, shouting and clattering, and the police turn up. They need to be trained to spot the issues. It can be confusing in the dead of night, maybe with upset children around, to find out what the cause is. They also need to have excellent contacts with trained social workers so that they do not fob them off. So there are some issues here.
I am not certain whether there would be an issue around whether the police force concerned is in a rural or urban area; it is true that the issues vary. But the fact is that, many times, although not the majority, the police will be the first port of call—the first on the case, as it were—and it could be in the middle of the night. They need that vital training, and so do the people they are going to communicate with.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, went into that in greater detail, so I am not going to go further into it. But the finance issue has to be addressed.