Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Rooker 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 declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I wish to speak in support of Amendment 167 in the name of my noble friend Lady Bertin and others.

I have long supported the view—also held by the Local Government Association—calling for the Government to introduce a national domestic abuse perpetrator strategy. It is clear that the right interventions at the right time can stop abuse occurring, recurring or escalating. According to the organisation Respect, there are around 400,000 perpetrators causing high and medium levels of harm across England and Wales, and yet only a small percentage of these—fewer than 1%—get the specialist intervention that might prevent future abusive behaviour.

The strategy should focus on community-level initiatives and communication campaigns for those seeking help and let them know where to access such help. Perpetrator interventions need to be responsive to the cultural context in which they are delivered. Programmes for children and young people are also needed to ensure that they are appropriately educated about domestic abuse and that prevention starts at the earliest stage. These programmes should also be available for those excluded from mainstream school. Some consideration should also be given to accommodation for perpetrators. This is an important aspect of helping the domestic abuse victim to remain in their own home, if it is safe to do so, and ensuring that the perpetrator leaves.

I am pleased to have added my voice to others emphasising to government the urgent need to produce a much-needed perpetrator strategy.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I begin by congratulating both my noble friend Lord Hunt and the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, on the way that they introduced this group of amendments. The examples that they gave to illustrate their points were horrendous by any stretch of the imagination.

My noble friend Lord Hunt’s point about the need for a cultural change is significant. I have looked at some of the figures that have been published; I do not wish to repeat them in detail, but the numbers of people involved are phenomenal. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, also gave a very stark example. I understand and accept that the role of the police has changed in recent years; I know in particular that it is taken incredibly seriously by the part of the police family which with I am familiar in the West Midlands.

I do not want to repeat what others have said, but my central point relates to the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, regarding Amendment 167; I agree entirely with their thrust and indeed support them. She mentioned that the overall costs were thought to be something like £66 billion and that there was a need for funding—probably £600 million. The point I want to make is that in order to have a strategic government approach, you must break the Whitehall silos.

This takes me back. I am not going back to the good old days, but I can remember when, in 1997, along with many others, I entered government after decades in opposition. We made an attempt, over a range of issues, to try to work across Whitehall, and it is not easy to break the silos. It has to be driven by ministerial commitment; it has to be known that the Minister at the top—in fact, the Prime Minister really, when you come down to it—has a bang-on, full-hearted commitment to something because that can be used to drive from the top. In both my first and second departments, when I was still in the House of Commons —first MAFF and then DSS; two very different departments—I can remember occasions when bright and, I will say, youngish civil servants moved from the department to go to work at some of the cross-departmental units that had been set up. One reason was that they saw the benefit of working in those units in terms of their career and promotion prospects and an enhanced role in the Civil Service—they were committed to the issues; this is not in any way a criticism of the individuals concerned—simply because of the drive to get cross-departmental work going and to break the silos. I realise that over the years, more particularly towards the latter end of the Labour Government years, things fell by the wayside. It does not mean that it cannot be rebuilt.

I would encourage the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, and others, and the Ministers as well, to learn from experience. You do not have to reinvent the wheel. There are people around with experience—there are of course ex-heads of the Civil Service in your Lordships’ House who would fully take on board the points that I am making. You have to build a strategy that crosses the silos and breaks them down. If you do not do that, it will not work. That is what will filter to the cross-departmental work and indeed the cross-agency work outside government at other levels.

My central message, based on my own experience where I can see how things have worked in the past and indeed how they have not worked—I have examples I could use where it has not been successful—is on this issue of the silos and the cross-departmental working in Whitehall. The effect on civil servants is absolutely fundamental to success. I hope that this can be taken on board. I know that the Home Office Ministers have been very receptive on a range of legislation recently, but this has to permeate right across Whitehall.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the comprehensive opening by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. He and every other noble Lord who has spoken have stressed the urgent need to overhaul and broaden our perpetrator strategy.

Amendment 164 from the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, would correct a very obvious deficiency in the Bill and in our current arrangements for protecting potential victims from known perpetrators who present serious risks to those they may prey on in future, notably women with whom they form new relationships, but sometimes men, when those new partners know little or nothing of their past offending and nothing of the risk they take by being with them.

However, it is not always new partners who may be threatened. Serial stalkers threaten victims they hardly know but who still stand to be harassed by them in life-destroying ways. We know how stalking offences, which may not cause physical harm, can cause long-lasting and sometimes permanent psychological damage. Happy, untroubled lives can easily be reduced to anxious existence only, with work, travel and lives at home overshadowed by ever-present fear.

The case for this amendment is as clear as could be. There can be no argument against including domestic abuse offenders and stalkers in the arrangements already in place under the 2003 Act for serious sexual and violent offenders, including MAPPA. But these arrangements badly need enhancing, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and others have explained, by establishing MAPPA-plus.

A central part of the system is the violent and sex offender register, ViSOR, a national database that enables agencies to register offenders, to carry out risk assessments and keep them up to date, and to manage and keep track of offenders. It is important that the register is national because offenders travel. It has been far too easy in the past for offenders to leave one area and set up home in another, where they are unknown to the police and manage to commit appalling repeat offences, without warning lights ever flashing.

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[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con) [V]]

My Lords, like others, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, on championing the rights of older people over so many years. I will speak in support of Amendments 165 and 166.

At Second Reading, I highlighted the ONS statistics showing that in 2017, when it comes to older victims, more than 200,000 people aged 60 to 74 experienced domestic abuse in England and Wales. One in four victims of domestic homicide are over the age of 60. Age UK argues that older victims are systematically overlooked, suggesting that an older person being physically or mentally abused by their adult child or grandchild, family member or spouse of 50-plus years is far less likely to be recognised for who they are—a victim. It is a well-known fact that, in the UK, women regularly outlive men. As a result, they are often more vulnerable, living on their own and frail.

The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, highlighted the work of Hourglass, formerly Action on Elder Abuse. Its recent polling, conducted during the pandemic last year, showed that the number of calls related to the abuse of older people by a neighbour doubled. Meanwhile, 38% of calls in the first six months of 2020 related to sons or daughters as the perpetrators. Hourglass also reports that financial abuse is the most common type of abuse reported to its helpline, making up 40% of calls in 2019. These facts only reinforce the importance of these two amendments.

Amendment 165 is needed because financial assessment is an important marker and access point where potential abuse can be identified. Amendment 166 will ensure powers equal to those tried and tested across the border in Scotland and is an important safeguard for all, including older victims. How we treat our vulnerable is a reflection of our society and the elderly, like the very young, are among the most vulnerable. We need a zero-tolerance attitude to abuse, whatever the age of those involved, and must work hard to protect the vulnerable and support the many hidden victims of such crimes.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I too pay many congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross. I mean this in the most polite way possible: during our time in opposition in the 1980s and 1990s, when I spoke on social services from the Front Bench—in other words, a long time ago—Sally was always there with helpful briefings. She has massive expertise and real hands-on experience of these issues.

I support both amendments in principle. I could quibble, as one or two others have done, about some of the detail, but they are both to be supported in principle, because this is an untapped area. In respect of Amendment 165’s provision for

“carrying out a financial assessment for adult social care”,

no one has yet mentioned that the person concerned—the older person—may well be the owner of the property. They may not be living in the property of their children or grandchildren. I can remember one occasion when a residential home in my former constituency was going to be closed. All the residents had to be assessed as to whether they might need nursing care, residential care or supported care. It was found that something like 10% of them could go off and live independently. What social services told me was: “We don’t know why they were there in the first place”. They had effectively been dumped by their families in order to get their hands on property.

All kinds of issues are involved here, not just, as some noble Lords have implied, the frustration due to the actual burden of caring. It would be quite valid if, where there is a suspicion, it is reported. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, talked about worries over being reported to social services or the police. The fact is that if there is good multi-agency working at local level, and the police were contacted first, you would expect them to say to social services, “Could you run the rule past this one?” In other words, it ought to be a multi-agency approach and it should not matter where the first contact is made. There ought to be a local procedure, and there should be no problem about worrying whether the police are contacted first.

As the noble Lord, Lord Randall, said, it will be interesting to hear the Minister’s explanation of why it works well, as one assumes, in Scotland and Wales and cannot work in England. I was amazed when I looked at the amendment originally, to be honest, by the implication that social workers did not have the power of entry, so I checked that. I understand the problems of PACE from my other activities and my interests in the food industry.

There is an issue where a professional has reasonable grounds for believing abuse may be taking place. First, it ought to be reported and secondly, if need be, access ought to be given. It seems quite simple: those two issues are not part and parcel of what goes on at present, and we require legislation to deal with it. If legislation is required to make the system work and protect older people from such abuse, then so be it.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will be quick, partly because noble Lords have already said almost everything there is to say about this, but also because it seems so obvious. These quite simple amendments would bring us up to date with other Administrations and it seems sensible to accept them.

Statutory reporting is an important tool, which we do not make enough of at the moment. Domestic abuse, child sexual abuse and other hidden crimes often arouse at least some level of suspicion and we need what was called earlier “the professional curiosity” to kick in, so that perhaps more will be reported. Whether that suspicion is noted by a social worker, teacher, or bin man, it should trigger a process of reporting and investigation that could lead to survivors being supported and perpetrators facing justice. Far too many cases go unreported at the moment, because it is too easy to pigeon-hole these human tragedies as “not my job” or “above my pay grade”, or simply because people do not know where to turn.

Implementing statutory reporting will lead to every individual understanding their role in tackling domestic abuse and require the authorities to put the process in place to deliver. This could matter more and more with our aging population. This abuse could happen more frequently, so these provisions would be needed with increased frequency. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, hugely for bringing these two amendments forward and look forward to returning to them on Report.