Domestic Abuse Bill (First sitting)

Luke Graham Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th October 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Q Justice is not devolved to Wales, yet many of these critical services are, and you are answerable to the Home Office. Do you feel that there should be answerability to Wales, given the critical nature of those services, which are devolved, and the fact that criminal justice over-straddles that?

Nicole Jacobs: I understand what you are saying. In other words, would I welcome the idea, for the issues that I would predominantly be working on, of answerability to Wales or Welsh Ministers? Of course, any mechanism that is appropriate to do that would be important to me. In fact, yesterday the national advisers were saying that they really welcomed the idea that I would be meeting the breadth of Ministers in Wales. They were not very territorial about that; they liked the idea that, once things have settled down, we will find ways to work together. There is obviously some resource that I can bring, in terms of things that they would like to get done. Again, I would be very cautious to learn exactly what is happening before setting out some kind of plan, not knowing how all of it co-ordinates or connects with Welsh colleagues, or whether it is welcome.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

Q Welcome and congratulations. My questions will be a bit about Wales, but also Scotland and Northern Ireland. I do not want to put you in a constitutional hotspot, because most Ministers and MPs could not answer some of these questions, but hopefully they will help to clarify the position and provide a bit of guidance to us. You will be held accountable to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, because there are Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland MPs who sit in this place and will, of course, hold you to account. One part of the Bill is the advisory board—clause 11, I think. As part of that, part 4 and subsections (a)(b)(c) and (d) specify certain participants who should be part of the advisory board. It is very specific about ensuring the representation of the interests of voluntary organisations that work with victims of domestic abuse in England, healthcare services in England and providers of social care in England. Given that, certainly for now, you cover England and Wales, do you think it would be helpful for us to specify the same stakeholders from Wales to ensure that they are on the advisory board and that England and Wales are represented at that level?

Nicole Jacobs: Potentially. Because some of those issues are devolved to Wales, I would not want to impose the requirement that someone would have to come and sit on an advisory committee of mine if they thought, “In actuality, this is something that we govern ourselves.”

My intention is that the advisory committee will not just be set at 10. That is something that I was looking at last week. It could be set there, but there could be any number of advisers. In fact, I have been highly encouraged to use advisers from areas that perhaps do not sit in that official capacity. I think I would be seeking out advice. There is incredible work being done in Scotland. There is good legislation and really interesting work there. I think that, in any respect, I would be very curious and would want advice from outside Wales and England.

I suppose I would leave it to you to consider whether it is necessary to have them as official advisors. If my role and passion in life is seeking out the best practice —I assure you that it is—I would not be restricted by borders in that way. I would be very interested to visit—I often do this—and hear about work in Scotland, and I would like to know more about Northern Ireland. I am learning every day about Wales, and have done for the past few years, since that legislation was introduced.

[Luke Graham]

Q That leads me to my next question. In your experience—obviously, you come from the United States, which is federal system with several different states and lots of different jurisdictions, but they come together as one country—do you find that domestic abuse or relationships stop at certain political jurisdictions?

Nicole Jacobs: No, not at all. You will have issues related to people moving from one place to another. In fact, that is a tactic that abusive people use to isolate their partner or family from sources of support. There is no doubt that there is a need to co-ordinate and understand cross-border.

[Luke Graham]

Q You have talked a lot about the mapping exercise that you want to undertake. Do you foresee problems in having a national network, when it is not actually national—it covers England and Wales only, which is not our country but only two parts of it? Do you foresee major problems with that, especially when many victims, as in my constituency, will be flipping between different parts of the UK or will have family the length and breadth of the UK?

Nicole Jacobs: You are correct that that is true. My understanding is that what is happening in Scotland is quite impressive in terms of legislative changes. I know from a frontline-service perspective that in England we often look to Wales and Scotland to see what is happening there. I would not anticipate there being something superior happening in England. It would be more about learning, co-ordinating and making sure that my office would talk to equivalents in Scotland. My understanding of Scotland is that there is more of a regional and planned perspective of services. There is a lot of learning there, and certainly co-ordination.

Looking down the line, if there was a view taken between countries that there was inconsistency in service provision and something to bring back to you, that would certainly happen. I can imagine there would be a lot of cross-border support. I am about ending the postcode lottery: if there was a related issue in Scotland, I cannot imagine we would not find ways to work together and to promote those ideas. I hope that addresses it.

[Luke Graham]

Q It does. I appreciate that. I have one final question, if the Chair does not mind. Unfortunately, in an area such as this, your role is so worthy and so wanted throughout the United Kingdom. I do not want to put you in a political hotspot with our constitution, whether it is Brexit or other movements where the UK can become a bit of an issue. However, I have a big concern. In my constituency I have Clackmannanshire, which has the highest instance per head of domestic abuse in Scotland. It is as much of a postcode lottery in Scotland as it is in other parts of the United Kingdom.

To be devolved does not mean to be separate. You come from a country with a federal system; the point about eminent domain still rests within this UK Parliament, as the sovereign Parliament. I do not see this as an either/or model. I would be very keen for a role such as yours to have a UK-wide remit, following a similar model to the Office for Veterans’ Affairs that was recently launched, which connects devolved and reserved matters and guarantees guidelines and standards throughout the United Kingdom, which I think is exceptionally important.

Do you foresee any problems? The Bill is quite specific about Wales. Paragraphs (c) to (g) of clause 6(2) talk about

“undertaking or supporting (financially or otherwise) the carrying out of research; providing information, education or training…to increase public awareness…consulting public authorities…co-operating with, or working…with, public authorities, voluntary organisations and other persons”.

At the moment, the Bill talks about

“co-operating with, or working jointly with, public authorities, voluntary organisations and other persons, whether in England and Wales or outside the United Kingdom.”

I find it bizarre that we are creating a Bill that says, “We want you to co-operate with England and Wales and other countries outside the UK, but not the two other constituent parts of the United Kingdom.” Do you foresee any problems for us in trying to extend your role in just paragraphs (c) to (g)—which currently apply to Wales—to Scotland and Northern Ireland? Obviously we might have to stagger that for Northern Ireland because we have no Assembly just now, but do you foresee any problems with extending your role for guidelines, consultation and research, so you can complete the mapping exercise and make sure that the service is provided to all citizens of the United Kingdom, rather than just two constituent parts of it? I will take away the political side for a minute—that is our job—but from a practical point of view, so long as you got a budget uplift to match, do you foresee any problems in your role being extended to Scotland and Northern Ireland?

[The Chair]

May I intervene for a moment? We have less than 15 minutes left and we still have four colleagues who have been waiting patiently to ask their questions. I wonder whether we could just speed it up, please.

Nicole Jacobs: I will give you a quick answer. I am not sure about some of that, but my instinct about the things you listed is that certainly some would be easier than others and, from my own knowledge of working, some things—such as the good practice mapping and some research—might be more welcome to colleagues in Scotland. Whether that extends to the whole breadth of the activities you described, I am not sure. My understanding of Scotland is that there are different structures, and different things are perhaps being mapped and planned that I am not aware of.

[Luke Graham]

Q There is no commissioner in Scotland. We have no equivalent. Currently, it falls between the courts and Police Scotland to pick up some of the activity. We have no commissioner, so this would not be a substitute; it would be a complement. The idea is that, just as in Wales, you would have a role in that consultation on the work. Obviously, a legislative consent motion could be passed in the Scottish Parliament so that this was done in consultation and agreement with different levels of government rather than being imposed with an iron fist. I just wonder whether you foresee problems on an operational level. I know about the political bits; those are for us to deal with. I am just interested in that operational point.

Nicole Jacobs: Without having thought about it very much, I would say that some of those points seem obvious, but I am afraid I would have to consider some of the others further. There are things I know of happening in Edinburgh in children’s social care—“Safe and Together”—on which we are already co-ordinating with England. There are really obvious things to me about learning and maybe some shared research and other matters. On whether it extends to the whole list, I would have to come back to you or defer to your decisions.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

Q Welcome to the post. What should we say in the Bill about perpetrators? There is a lot about prevention orders and so on, but what should we say about that? Should we say anything about rehabilitation or should we just lock them all up? What should we do?

Nicole Jacobs: I would say a couple of things. There are some criminal justice elements in the Bill. Making those robust and effective is not necessarily to do with locking people up but about ensuring that the criminal justice system is working in the way that it should and that is set out. I believe that one of the things we do not do enough is to prioritise multi-agency working around the courts system. In the area I have come from, we have specialist courts. We have a court management group, which is all the criminal justice partners and the specialist service, and they can collectively remember and problem solve around the mistakes that they inevitably may be making. That is not intentional; sometimes it is to do with the bulky way that our criminal justice system works. In terms of holding perpetrators to account, I suppose the one thing I would really encourage the Committee to consider is in what ways, in piloting the DVPOs, we could consider what helps to make the implementation work. We should not just say, “Are the police doing it or not?”, as if it is down to one entity; it has to be the whole of the criminal justice system working.

Having said that—I talked about the duty—I believe there is very little consistency in terms of enabling people to engage and change their behaviour. I would include that in the broadening of the statutory duty. Again, you will hear later from Jo Todd, who is much more of an expert than me, about the breadth of service. There is a perpetrator strategy that many organisations have signed up to that I am very interested in, and which I am sure you will have sight of or will perhaps be given in written evidence. I would stand behind that type of strategy, which is about prevention, provision of service and what I would call incentives to change—both carrots and sticks. What do we do to really have the breadth of provision that we need? Of all the domestic abuse provision, that is probably the most patchy in terms of where you could find places to change.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Second sitting)

Luke Graham Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th October 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Carolyn Harris]

Thank you very much. Diolch yn fawr.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

Q Thank you very much for coming to the Committee today, and for your time. You mentioned that you had communicated with the devolved Administration in Scotland as well. Could you just elaborate on some of the communication you had and on the sharing of best practice, if any?

Nazir Afzal: It is premature, to be honest. The Scottish Government do not have a role of the kind that you have in the Bill, and that the Welsh Government have. It would be premature of me to tell you what their plans are. There is certainly good practice—there is no getting away from it. When we talk about knife crime, we talk about the public health approach in Glasgow, do we not? If the public health approach can work for knife crime, it can work for violence against women and domestic abuse. The idea of being able to contain people who are currently infected, for want of a better term, and then prevent others from becoming so by dealing with the infection—it is the same thing with domestic abuse. They are applying the kind of approach we are taking in Wales, and I hope England will do the same. There is good learning, good sharing and good practice. The Scottish Government are probably no further forward than England in relation to structural governance issues, but the will is certainly there.

I go back to what I said. Part of the problem, as HMI indicated earlier, is that we have a bit of a perfect storm right now. Scottish police numbers and health service numbers have been reduced. There has been an impact on all sorts of areas where previously the people were there to provide that level of service. NGOs do not have the same funding. If you have a significant increase in victims, as we have had over the past three years or thereabouts, there is nobody there to provide them with the service. Scotland is no different from England and Wales in that regard.

[Luke Graham]

Q No, I appreciate that. The section of the Bill on the commissioner’s role talks about the establishment of an advisory board. The Bill mandates that the board must include representatives from voluntary organisations and healthcare professionals from England, but there is nothing about Wales. Given that Wales is a central part of the advisory board, would you like to be on the board?

Nazir Afzal: Not me personally, because I have not got the time, but I certainly think that Wales should be on it. It is an England and Wales board, even if there are reserved and devolved areas. I cannot see any reason why Wales should not be present. We currently engage with the Home Office even though, technically, it does not have responsibility for certain parts of what we do in Wales. I see no problem with that.

[Luke Graham]

Q This is important, and I do not want to put you in a constitutional hotspot, but devolved does not mean separate. A lot of the Bill is meant to be set by the UK Parliament. Some Members will push for it to be extended in certain areas to Scotland. As I have experienced with my constituents, domestic abuse in relationships does not respect county or other political boundaries. Do you agree that—framed as the Bill is about sharing best practice, sharing standards, ensuring that certain standards are reinforced throughout the entire United Kingdom and ensuring that analysis is shared throughout the United Kingdom—this is a good space for the Bill to play in, and that it can respect devolution within the United Kingdom and the role of central Government?

Nazir Afzal: Yes, 100%. The victim referral pathways could involve a victim from—well, I had one a long time ago in London who was moved to Inverness. If we do not have common practices, and so forth, rest assured that that would be a recipe for disaster. You need to have an understanding across borders, despite the fact that, jurisdictionally, there will be differences.

[Vernon Coaker]

Q In your evidence to us just a few minutes ago, you said that there were some issues with the Bill and that you would be happy to share them with the Committee. Could you please do that?

Nazir Afzal: Absolutely. The main one is the public duty. We have found in Wales that unless you mandate it, it does not happen. Furthermore, unless you ring-fence it, it does not happen either. Our experience—the experience across England and Wales, actually—has been that if people have made cuts, they have made them in areas they see as soft, and strangely, they see this area as soft. That is ridiculous, frankly, but none the less that is what they do. Unless you say—we have not said this in Wales—“0.5% of your income must go on whatever it is” and ring-fence it, it does not happen.

The public duty side of it certainly needs to be clearer, because people do opt out. One third of mental health trusts in England do not have a strategy that deals with domestic abuse. Given the number of victims who will be suffering either as victims or, potentially, as perpetrators, that is scandalous. My experience tells me that unless you mandate these things, it does not happen. That is issue No. 1, and I clearly think that is right.

Black and minority ethnic victims have been let down. Do you know how many independent domestic violence advisors in England and Wales work specifically with BME people? There are four.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Norris]

Q Is anywhere doing it really well at the moment? Postcode lotteries have winners as well as losers. Does anywhere model the sort of thing that you are talking about?

Eleanor Briggs: Yes. The research that we did with Stirling has three different case studies of how local authorities are operating. One is high functioning, one is doing okay, and one is a really poorly functioning local authority. We will happily share that to show you how the different models are working. We hope that through an expanded duty everyone could get up to that high-functioning model.

[Luke Graham]

Q My question builds on those of some of my colleagues regarding how children who experience domestic abuse link with potential fostering services, the Department for Work and Pensions, and future education opportunities. Having had a number of constituents and some family go through a similar process, I know that there is a lot of opportunity to fall through gaps. What, in your view, are the elements of best practice? If they are not in the Bill already, we can try to add them. Certainly, we can share such best practice more widely, supporting an individual in an abusive situation and then connecting them with DWP services, education and other opportunities.

Sally Noden: I can talk about a case study. I think this will answer your question—tell me if it does not. Within our service, we had a referral of a sibling group. There is a waiting list, and by the time of the referral one of the children had been removed—in fact, all three of them had been removed and one was in a foster placement on their own. We continued with that work; our original piece of work was with the foster carer and the young person.

We linked up with children’s social care and with the foster carer, and we met with mum, because the young child was potentially going to go back home—so we linked up in terms of what sort of therapeutic support we could offer this young person. In fairness, children’s social care linked up with us as well and ensured that we were speaking to the right people. We needed to speak to the foster carer. We might have spoken only to mum, or we might not have spoken to her.

The big piece of work that we did with that young person was trying to work out their emotional responses to the uncertainty that they were going to go through. That was a huge piece of work, because they did not know whether they were going to go home. At one point, the courts were looking at whether dad was a potential caregiver. Dad had been the perpetrator of domestic violence towards mum. We had to do some work, although the child was not really in recovery because they still had lots of uncertainties; they really needed some therapeutic support in working out their emotions and their lack of knowledge about what was going on.

I do not know whether that quite answers your question. We ensured that we connected up, and doing so has to be everybody’s responsibility. It is the same with adult services. Often you see the adult presented, and you do not connect up whether the child will have to move school, and what will happen to them and their education. That is why it is so important to have children named as victims in the Bill, because people then have to connect it up, from all services.

Eleanor Briggs: I would add that if we got a wider duty, looking more broadly than accommodation-based services, that would help because you would have the board and representatives from all relevant partners across the local authority on that board looking at their joined-up response. That would get them talking, and would be such an opportunity. If they were looking more widely than just at accommodation, they would pick up on those issues.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Q It all sounds a bit precarious. A lot of excellent work is going on, but it is not certain that it will continue in a consistent way. You seem to be putting quite a lot of eggs in the basket of the wider duty, which will be a way to drive resource and underpin greater consistency, so that we are not just dependent on lottery funding that is falling. Can you explain how you think that will work?

Eleanor Briggs: I suppose the way the duty will be set up is that the boards will come together and do an assessment of what is happening their area; what the needs are and how they can commission services to meet those needs. I think the current version of it will look at accommodation-based needs, whereas the way that we envisage it, they will look at the whole spectrum. With other organisations, we would like to look at perpetrators as well, so that we can get a proper picture. We are looking to end this problem and that also involves support for perpetrators. They look at the whole thing as a holistic issue and look at where support is needed. Obviously, that demands a good risk assessment and the right people being there, but proper funding is also key. For this duty to be in place will need proper funding, so that once the assessment is done, the right services can be commissioned and funded properly so that that support is in place.