Domestic Abuse Bill

Maria Miller Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

To start this second Second Reading debate, I thank again the Members of both Houses who were members of the draft Bill scrutiny Committee, which I chaired a year ago. It was a Joint Committee, and I particularly thank Baroness Bertin, who was battling the symptoms of morning sickness in our early sessions. To mark the significant amount of time that has passed since our Bill Committee reported, I am pleased to tell the House that the very young Edward Louis Grist was born on 5 December and is almost five months old. General elections, Brexit and pandemics may have got in the way of the legislation, but we have a chance to put that right today.

In our extensive scrutiny of the Bill, we held seven evidence sessions. The Government have responded positively to many of the recommendations that we made because of that evidence. I welcome the Government’s decision to include in the Bill the duty on local authorities in England to provide support for victims and their children in refuges and other safe accommodation, and to provide funding to do that. I am sure Ministers will be pressed firmly in Committee on that funding promise.

At this point, I might want to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) to her place on the Front Bench. I am very glad to see that she is still there, because I seem to recall a while ago her indicating that if funding for refuges were ever made statutory, her job would be done. I am sure she would agree with me that there is much more work for both she and I to do in this area and to make sure that the Government deliver on all their important promises.

Other recommendations from the Committee that have been taken forward by the Government include the issue of the interpretation of the definition of domestic abuse. We had a long and hard debate on this, and we are particularly pleased to see that the statutory definition will be coupled with guidance, particularly on how to deal with the effects that domestic abuse has on children. There is also the fact that, overwhelmingly, this is a crime where the victims are women, and that is an important thing the Government have acknowledged. The Government have also agreed, as a result of the evidence they heard from the Committee, that there will be a mandatory ban on cross-examination of domestic abuse victims by their perpetrators in the family courts, as well as in the criminal courts. The Chairman of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), referred to that.

However, there are two outstanding issues on which I would like to press my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor. The first is making sure that we have the report from the panel considering the extension of special measures to family courts as soon as possible, and that there is no further delay on that being put in place, particularly given the current circumstances.

Secondly, and equally importantly, we must make sure that there are provisions for migrant women, and that they are made clearer by the Government not at any point in the future, but now and today, because there are currently no provisions in the Bill for migrant women facing domestic abuse, and that is not acceptable. As the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) said, a victim is a victim regardless of their immigration status, which is an important point that we should all take away from today’s debate.

The Committee recommended that a firewall be established separating the reporting of crime and access to support services from immigration control. I was alarmed to see that a recently published FOI request showed that 27 out of 45 police forces routinely share details with the Home Office if victims have insecure immigration status, so this is a live issue, which I know my right hon. and learned Friend will be very well aware of.

We meet to debate the Bill in unprecedented times, and I know from speaking to my own local domestic abuse charity in Hampshire, Stop Domestic Abuse, that there are real concerns about the potential for funding issues in relation to a spike in cases when the lockdown is lifted. I would like to take this opportunity to applaud all the work that it is doing to support my constituents. Many domestic abuse organisations are concerned about this issue, and I would like to add my voice to the support for at least part of the very generous £750 million announced by the Chancellor to be earmarked for specialist services.

The impact of this pandemic on our lives is profound, but for those living with domestic abuse it is not only the virus that is life threatening, and we need to take this opportunity today to act.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Maria Miller Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 6th July 2020 Commons Chamber

Two thirds of victims of domestic abuse are women and one third are men, according to the Office for National Statistics. As it happens, two thirds of people who are murdered are men and two thirds of people who take their own life are men. Does anybody seriously want to stand up and say that we should ignore the one third of victims of murder who are women or the one third of those who take their own life who are women simply because they are in a minority? Of course not, and the same should not apply when it comes to domestic violence. Being a male victim of domestic violence should not be less important or more important than being a female victim.

[Mrs Miller]

I am listening to my hon. Friend very carefully and I have read through his amendments very carefully, but I am not clear which aspect of the Bill he is disagreeing with, because this Bill of course covers every victim of domestic violence. What changes does he want to the Bill?

[Philip Davies]

My right hon. Friend makes a fair point, but unfortunately the Bill is not actually quite as it seems. There are references saying that the Government should take note of, and services should be provided on the basis of, the fact that women are more likely to be a victim than a man, but it should be irrelevant. It does not matter whether the victim is a male or a female—it is completely irrelevant—and we should take out any of those kinds of reference. The Bill should be gender neutral. That is the point I am trying to make.

In the rest of the time allowed, I want particularly to focus on my amendment 24, which is about classing parental alienation and when a parent deliberately prevents the other parent from having contact with their child or children for no good reason as domestic abuse. There are thousands—hundreds of thousands—of mums and dads, as well as grandmas and grandads, who do not have any relationship with their children at all, simply because one parent has deliberately and for no good reason turned their child against the other parent. I think they will find it quite extraordinary that all the main political parties are trying to block parental alienation being in the Bill as the criminal offence of domestic abuse. Parliament is failing those people, but I will keep speaking up for them. This is simply cruel—not just for the parent, and the grandparents, deprived of access, but for the children. It should be quite clearly classed as domestic abuse if this is done without any good reason at all.

I am very grateful to the Minister for including parental alienation and preventing contact with children as examples of domestic abuse in the recently released draft of the statutory guidance that goes alongside this Bill. I would have liked to see this in the Bill itself, but I believe that this is a momentous development, as it means that when considering domestic abuse, parental alienation and preventing contact are now specific examples that the Government have highlighted in their guidance. Such individuals, including those men and women who have written to me about their distressing personal experiences and who are clearly suffering now, have a message from the Government that what they are experiencing is clearly abuse. I very much hope that this will be of significant comfort to those who currently feel completely helpless in these situations.

Of my other amendments, I want to highlight one in particular in the time I have left. It is about lie detector tests, which have not come up in the rest of the debate. My amendment 26 would remove the use of lie detector tests. I am on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, and we did an inquiry into “The Jeremy Kyle Show”. Many people in this House revile Jeremy Kyle because he used lie detector tests on his programme, and people pointed out that they are not reliable and that they come up with dodgy results. It seems extraordinary that the same people who pointed out that it was outrageous for Jeremy Kyle to use lie detector tests in an entertainment programme because they were not reliable would support using them in something as serious as this, when clearly the tests are just as unreliable as in his case. I would like to see the evidence that says that these tests are accurate and justifies their use, which, by the way, will presumably exonerate Jeremy Kyle; otherwise, we should not touch them with a bargepole. I look forward to hearing the Government’s evidence to support the use of lie detector tests. However, the main important message from me is that parental alienation is and should be domestic abuse.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

It is not particularly a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who talks about the alienation of fathers and grandparents when the family court has given and continues to give parental rights to men who have perpetrated violent crimes against their children. I find it absolutely disgusting.

The ongoing covid pandemic has shone a light on the paucity of services available to victims of domestic violence. Since 2010, funding for services has been decimated, as has been shown time and again, with mainly women and children finding themselves homeless and unsupported after falling victim to domestic abuse. That is why the Bill is welcome, even though it has been a long time coming. The Bill, at its heart, must be about providing services to people who have become victims of abuse by their partner, regardless of their gender. We know that it is mainly women who suffer from domestic abuse, be it physical violence, threatening behaviour or coercive control. The consequence of that could be an unwanted pregnancy.

Throughout lockdown, access to telemedicine has meant that illegal and highly unsafe abortion has almost completely disappeared across Great Britain. That is why I fully support new clause 28, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), which would ensure that women in abusive relationships can access care in a way that would not put them in danger. Abortion is essential healthcare, and many women in abusive relationships would seek to end a pregnancy without their partner’s knowledge. The current law puts those women in danger. That situation cannot continue. I welcome that the Minister mentioned a public consultation. The new clause would not change the underlying law on abortion. It would not change the time limit or the many healthcare laws and regulations that govern abortion. It would simply enable the most vulnerable women to access the care they need without the threat of prosecution.

Prosecutions must be brought where a defence of rough sex is invoked. There can never be consent where someone dies—never. I commend the work of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) on this matter. Protection for women killed by men who claim that consent was granted is surely one of the most basic rights. We should pass into law measures that make it clear that that will not be tolerated. Speaking out on one’s experience of domestic violence is a very brave thing to do. A fear of reprisal stops many from speaking out. That is why I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), who found it too difficult to come to the Chamber to speak this evening.

Many of the measures in the Bill are welcome, but there is such a hill to climb. We need to keep on protecting victims and their children. That is not just victims of domestic abuse. We must ensure that we provide a safe and fair family court system and that our justice system protects those who have been subjected to sexual assault. The overhaul of the family court for domestic abuse victims will transform so many lives, many of whom I have represented. I welcome the Government’s commitment to amending the Bill so that victims of domestic abuse will be automatically eligible for special measures in the family court.

I have been dealing with a young woman who was groomed and raped at age 15 by a man many years her senior. Her case was not taken seriously, and even though the perpetrator admitted what he had done in a police interview, it was not taken any further. Now, a few years on, this man has been sentenced to prison and is on the sex offenders’ register, but my constituent has suffered the most appalling neglect and lack of support in bringing the case, so much so that she feels worse for doing it. No victim of any crime should ever be made to feel such regret. This is not an isolated incident; we have all dealt with cases where women have not been believed and where children have been endangered. Without proper funding, services cannot be provided to people who need them. Without funding, people fall through the cracks, and for far too long too many have fallen through these cracks and been let down. We cannot let that continue. I think we all, on both sides of the House, agree on that.

[Mrs Miller]

We are dealing with extremely serious issues here, but I have to say that, at times, the passage of this Bill has been a little like the running of the grand national. Whether it is Brexit getting in the way, or general elections, or most recently covid-19, Ministers should get an award for resilience in taking the Bill forward, and we have to make sure that it does not fall at the last hurdle—Becher’s brook, perhaps. We must resist the temptation to make it a Christmas tree Bill—to put in so many things we feel strongly about that the Bill falls, perhaps not in this place but in the other place. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) was right to say that we have to make sure the Bill is the best shape it can be.

I am pleased that the Minister listened carefully, not just to Labour Front Benchers, but to the Joint Committee I chaired that looked at the evidence submitted on the first draft of the Bill, and has agreed to make fundamental changes through new clause 15, about including the impact on children of domestic violence; new clauses 16 and 17, responding to recommendations we made about special measures in family court proceedings; and new clause 18, which reflects the Joint Committee’s recommendations on blocking cross-examination of victims by alleged perpetrators. That is important cross-party work, which shows that Joint Committees can add considerable value to the progress of Bills such as this one. I pay tribute to the Ministers for continuing to listen and for acting so swiftly on new clause 20, about rough sex, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), and my new hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) for all their hard work in bringing this to fruition in such a short time.

In common with my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), I believe that, although there is room for changes such as the inclusion of new clause 20, this is not the time to address the issues—the very serious issues—that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) raises in new clause 28. The rushed nature of its drafting leaves us with a clause that is open to great misinterpretation and does not do justice to the hon. Lady’s entirely honourable intentions in raising the issue. I could not support the new clause if she pressed it to a vote, because without the amendments proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), there would be a serious risk of exposing some of the most vulnerable members of our society—victims of domestic abuse—to what would be, to all intents and purposes, an unregulated abortion service, which I know is not the hon. Lady’s intention.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I am a little concerned about what the right hon. Lady just said. We have the Abortion Act 1967 and a plethora of regulations and professional standards, so even with the telemedicine currently in place, it is governed by regulation and legislation. I would not want anyone to think that was not the case.

[Mrs Miller]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, but she would be encouraging people to undertake abortions outside regulated premises. That is not necessarily her intention, but it is how the amendment could be interpreted.



Let me turn to a couple of issues that the Government still need to consider. First, there is the issue of migrant women, which many organisations have raised as a continuing concern. Equally, I am concerned that there is a lack of evidence on which the Government can base a more concrete solution. I am pleased that the Government have announced a £1.5 million fund to support safe accommodation for migrant women, but I am not pleased that it is yet another pilot because pilots have a tendency to go on, and then we have elections and then nothing really changes. Can whoever is summing up for the Government go into a little more detail on that? In Committee, the Minister touched on the use of the national referral mechanism for trafficking victims as a possible concrete route forward. Could that be scaled up to deal with this issue? How would victims access it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Chancellor. After three years, I am delighted that I might get the last word on this Bill. I will echo some of the thanks that he has laid out.

When I was speaking to the Deputy Chief Whip earlier, he said, “You know on Third Reading, Jess”—which I have not prepared for at all, because I did not think we would actually get to it—“you’re not allowed to just go on about what you want in the Bill,” so I might just sit down, because my forte is going on about what I want in the Bill. As it passes Third Reading, I feel slightly bereft about not updating it anymore. It seems that, since I was elected to this House, it has been going through.

I pay huge tribute to the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) for her work in the Home Office and latterly as Prime Minister. I told a story in Committee about how, on one occasion when she was Home Secretary, I was a candidate in the election so when she visited the refuge where I worked, I was allowed to work from home that day for shame that I might show up the organisation with the Home Secretary there. She visited where I used to work on a number of occasions and has always been, I would say, mostly in the right place around domestic abuse. We would not be here today had it not been for her efforts.

I also pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and the work done by the Joint Committee, which was very thorough and detailed and has definitely led to the Bill being in the position that it is.

[Mrs Miller]

That gives me the opportunity to thank the other members of the Committee in both Houses, the other place and here, for the assiduous way in which they attended the Committee and for the excellent evidence that we were given by a large number of organisations. I also thank the Clerks of the House, who, when it comes to these sorts of Bills, go from a standing start to being ready for action almost overnight. They have our undying gratitude.

[Jess Phillips]

I could not agree with the right hon. Lady more about the Clerks of the House. I had not quite understood, until I was in my current position, exactly how much they do, but I feel as though Kevin from the Clerks’ office is currently on my speed dial and I will definitely be buying a hat if he ever gets married. I feel very close to the Clerks of the House now.

I want to pay tribute to the Ministers on the Bill Committee. Everybody today has rightly paid tribute to Ministers from the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice for their efforts and their open hearts and minds throughout the Bill, and I certainly echo that. I also want to pay tribute to a former Member, Sarah Newton, who is no longer here. I was about to say that she was the first Minister I ever sat down with and talked to about the Bill, but actually I think that was the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley). I pay tribute to them both.

On my side of the House, I first wish to say a big thank you to my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds). Since he has taken up his position, he has really prioritised the issue of domestic abuse. In the context of the covid crisis we are currently facing, he is pushing every day for things to be better for victims in England, Wales and across the United Kingdom. My hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) dealt with these issues very ably in Committee. I also want to make a special mention to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), who felt that she could not speak today. We owe her an enormous debt of gratitude for what she has done.

Inevitably, I am going to forget somebody. Never list a group of people, because you will inevitably forget some of them. I do it with my children, so we will have to see how I go. I wish to thank: Women’s Aid, SafeLives, Southall Black Sisters, the Latin American Women’s Rights Service, Nicole Jacobs, End Violence Against Women, Vera Baird, Hestia, Refuge and every single organisation working every day across the country to support people directly. They have worked on the Bill just as much as anybody in this House. They put a lot of effort into the policy work and we are better representatives for the work they have all done.

I welcome what the Lord Chancellor said with regard to timeliness, and the severity and importance that he puts on the issue around the family courts he mentioned today. I look forward to the details of the review, and the pilot scheme, of migrant women’s support services.

I came to this House inspired by women and children who had been abused. It is an honour to stand in the Third Reading debate of the Domestic Abuse Bill. This place can seem completely otherworldly. The words written in the Bill will seem in many cases completely otherworldly to the vast majority of the people I have supported in my life as victims of domestic abuse. But the message it sends is that we can hear them, and that is a message we should send loud and clear from this place. Finally, in Third Reading part 1, I hope the Bill only ever has a part 1.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Maria Miller Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 15th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for all that she has done with regard to recognising the problems around threats to publish intimate images. Will she join me in saying that we need to make sure that the law is all-encompassing in this area? It is important to improve the law on revenge pornography as it stands now, introduced by this Government, but it is even more important that we have a wholesale review of this area, such as that which is part of the Law Commission’s review.

[Victoria Atkins]

I agree completely with my right hon. Friend. I thank her for the work she has done over many years to address this and other issues particularly affecting women and girls. We very much take that point. We have worked on the amendment with Baroness Morgan to have an immediate impact, but in addition we look forward to receiving the Law Commission’s report and recommendations later this year—it is looking at the whole of the law on the use of intimate images and other types of malicious communications on the internet. If the law needs to be changed to reflect recommendations, we can address those in subsequent legislation. These clauses apply to all relationships and all encounters of a sexual nature, from a Tinder hook-up to a marriage of many decades. Those protections will be enshrined in this Bill.

I turn to another amendment that I know has been welcomed warmly by survivors and campaigners: the extension of the coercive and controlling behaviour offence to include post-separation abuse. We listened very carefully to debates in this place, as well as to charities such as Surviving Economic Abuse and, of course, to survivors themselves. We reviewed the offence to see how it is working after five years of being in force and we published that review in March.

We acknowledge that coercive and controlling behaviour continues and indeed may escalate following separation, so amendment 34 will extend the offence to cover post-separation abuse between former intimate partners and interfamilial abuse, regardless of whether the family members are living together or not. The amendment will send a strong message to perpetrators that controlling or coercive behaviours, irrespective of the living arrangements, are forms of domestic abuse and that the criminal law is there to protect victims.

The Bill also revolutionises the help that is available to victims who need to flee relationships to refuge or other safe accommodation. It is revolutionary in that it helps to ensure that they are helped to recover from their experiences. Part 4 introduces a duty on tier 1 local authorities to provide specialist services to such victims and we have announced £125 million of funding to support that provision in the Bill.

There is a cross-party desire to see those measures matched by equivalent provision in respect of community-based support. This Government are alive to such calls. Police and crime commissioners, and others, already provide significant community-based support to victims of crime, but we need better evidence of the gaps in current provision and how they might best be addressed. That is why the Government have now committed to consult on the provision of community-based support as part of this summer’s consultation on the new victims’ law. That commitment to consult is backed up by Lords amendments 5, 8 and 10 to 16. Lords amendment 5 will place a duty on the domestic abuse commissioner to publish a report, under her new powers in the Bill, on the provision of and need for community-based services. Lords amendments 8 and 10 to 16 will place a duty on tier 1 local authorities, with the support of their domestic abuse local partnership boards, to monitor and report on the impact of the safe accommodation duty on the provision of community-based support in their area. Taken together with the responses to our victims’ law consultation, those amendments will ensure that the Government have all the information they need to build on the strong foundations of existing community-based services.

Some of the most upsetting and torturous experiences that victims can experience happen after a relationship has ended, in the family and civil courts. Lords amendments 17 and 24 to 31 relate to special measures and the ban on cross-examination in person in civil proceedings. In short, those amendments more closely align the position in the civil courts to that in the family courts, so that victims of domestic abuse have the benefit of automatic eligibility for special measures to enable them to give their best evidence and to ensure that they are protected from being cross-examined in person by their abuser. Our justice system should not be used as another form of abuse. This Bill will help to protect victims and secure justice.

In the case of the family courts, perpetrators can continue abuse through repeated unmeritorious proceedings. Lords amendment 33 amends the Children Act 1989 to prevent such vexatious claims. The amendment makes it clear that a court may make a barring order in circumstances where it is satisfied that a further application made by the named person would put the child or another, for example the parent victim, at risk of harm. For all the victims and survivors I have met, and whose stories we have heard in the Chamber: these measures are to help you all to secure justice, as you deserve.

Lords amendment 39 would ensure that a health professional working in a general practice that holds an NHS contract cannot charge for evidence to show that a patient has been the victim of domestic abuse for the purpose of obtaining legal aid. We recognise that it is already the case that most GPs do not charge for such evidence, but the amendment will ensure that no victim faces that barrier to obtaining legal aid.

The Bill also reaches beyond these shores. Lords amendments 70 to 82 amend the extraterritorial jurisdiction provisions in the Bill to remove the dual criminality requirement for relevant sexual offences, including rape, committed outside the UK by UK nationals. That will enable UK nationals who commit marital rape in countries where such behaviour is not criminal to be prosecuted in UK courts. This is also a significant step forward towards ratifying the Istanbul convention, as it addresses one of the three outstanding matters set out in the statement to the House in October last year.

I turn to the 12 sets of Lords amendments to which we have tabled motions to disagree. I emphasise that, in line with our approach throughout the Bill, where we do not agree with the amendments, and where possible, we have sought to address the concerns raised through practical measures instead. The first set of amendments relates to the definition of domestic abuse. Lords amendments 1 to 3 would bring abuse by all carers of disabled persons, paid and unpaid, within the definition of domestic abuse in the Bill. I hope it is clear—it perhaps does not need saying—that the Government abhor all abuse, and we have every sympathy for the spirit of these amendments. Abuse of disabled people by their carers must be called out and acted upon. The issue before us today is whether this is the right Bill to strengthen the protection for disabled people.

The focus of this Bill is on domestic abuse as it is commonly understood—that is, abuse by a current or former intimate partner, or by a family member. That is the approach taken in the Istanbul convention, which I know many hon. Members are keen for the UK to ratify. Where a disabled person is abused by a partner or family member, the abuse will be covered by the definition as already agreed by this House. However, Lords amendments 1 to 3 would bring in a much wider range of relationships, outside a domestic abuse setting. We should steer away from diluting the purpose of the Bill.

As I have said, however, in inviting the House to disagree with these Lords amendments, we do not wish to downplay or deny for one moment the experience of disabled people who are abused by their paid or volunteer carers. There are protections in place, including the offences in the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 relating to ill treatment and wilful neglect. However, we have listened carefully to the experiences and concerns raised in this House and the other place. We want to find practical ways in which to address those concerns. That is why the Government intend to carry out a review of the protections for people at risk of carer abuse. We will engage with the noble Baroness Campbell of Surbiton and the disabled sector on the scope of the review, but it would broadly seek to examine the protections offered against carer abuse and the support available to victims. We have listened and we will act.

--- Later in debate ---

I am also pleased to support Lords amendments 47 and 48, which acknowledge the authority of the Senedd in Wales and prevent the Secretary of State from undermining the devolution agreements. I wish to make a further reference to the situation in Wales, as I feel Wales can be held up as a beacon of good practice. We already have the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015 in place, and it was accompanied by a national strategy in 2016. Together, they set out measures to improve prevention, protection and the provision of support, to tackle domestic abuse, taking a multi-agency and collaborative approach. So I respectfully suggest that yet again Wales is ahead of the game and England can learn from us. However, the good work already done is hampered by a decade of cuts from central Government. Women’s Aid estimates that £393 million is needed for domestic abuse services annually. We need secure, sustainable, long-term funding from central Government, and this includes reversing the 41% real-terms cut in legal aid expenditure on civil domestic violence cases since 2012. Therefore, alongside this Bill and these Lords amendments, I call for those resources to be made available, so that the effective protection and support is available to all victims of domestic abuse.

[Mrs Miller]

May I again associate myself with the remarks about the passing of Prince Philip and of our wonderful colleague Cheryl Gillan?

This Bill was announced four years ago, and two generations later—sorry, two general elections later; it feels like two generations— we are on the cusp of it going on to the statute book. It is important to think about the time and the perspective, and to try to understand how the Bill’s evolution reflects the very much broader way society now understands the many forms of violence against women. Although I completely agree with the Minister that we cannot dilute the focus of this Bill from that specifically about domestic violence, and we are right to resist Lords amendments 1 to 3 to expand the application of the Bill to include paid and unpaid carers, we need to acknowledge that the Bill is not the same as it started out and that that is because of how we have seen and been appalled by the way in which violence affects women’s lives.

We have an opportunity in this Bill to ensure that women and girls know that they do not have to suffer abusive behaviour without having the support of the criminal justice system, but we also need the Government to make sure that there is consistency across all elements of Government policy in this respect; when it comes to schools, online and workplaces, we have to make sure that Government strategy reflects that there is no place anywhere in our society for abuse and violence against women. I hope that the Minister, whom I know feels this as strongly as I do, will make sure that this is reflected in the new strategy that she puts forward for the Government in the coming months, because at the moment there are inconsistencies there and that is confusing and undermining for women.

I welcome the approach that the Government and particularly the Minister have taken and the spirit of collaboration and co-operation across the House, which is important on an issue such as this. This Bill is not about what the Conservative or Labour party thinks; it is about what society thinks about women’s roles. That is hugely important when it comes to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) said about how the Bill will only be of benefit if the police and judiciary put it into practice. In demonstrating that this is an issue that society feels strongly about and that transcends individual party interests, we demonstrate that what they have to embed, not just in their training systems but in their culture and ethos, is that violence against women is not acceptable in our society.

I commend the co-operative approach that the Government have taken, which I certainly saw when I chaired the Joint Committee scrutinising the Bill—which now feels like a lifetime ago. Indeed, the Government addressed almost all the Committee’s recommendations. In considering the more than 80 amendments today, we should not forget how far the Bill has taken us in making the culture change that we need to see, through establishing a commissioner, having the definition, stopping cross-examination by perpetrators and providing access to special measures. These things cannot be taken for granted, which is why we need to get the Bill on the statute book in its own right. We need those things to start to happen, rather than just continuing to talk about them. That is why I hope this is the last debate we have on the Bill.

I wish to speak in favour of two amendments that the Government are taking on board today. The first is Lords amendment 35, which concerns the disclosure of private intimate images. As other hon. and right hon. Members have said, it recognises a crime—the threat to publish private and intimate images—that has an appalling impact on those affected. I pay tribute to Refuge and its “The Naked Threat” campaign, but let us ponder what my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) said. She reminded us that one in seven women have experienced a threat to share an image in this way.

I fear that this will only become an increasing problem, because we have failed to tell young people that they should not share intimate images of themselves—that it is against the law and that they might never be able to remove them from the internet for the rest of their lives. We have failed to tell them that. In speaking in support of Lords amendment 35, I also urge the Minister to ensure that we tell young people, in our newly mandatory sex and relationship education—which, after 20 years of debate, has been on the statute book effectively since last September—that they cannot share such images. It is against the law and is not a normal part of growing up. We have still not landed that message.

My hon. Friend’s constituent Natasha’s story was from an adult’s perspective, but there will be hundreds and thousands of young women, and men, listening to this debate who are also living in fear of intimate images being released that they know that others have. This is a ticking time bomb and something that I hope my hon. Friend on the Front Bench and other Ministers will address even more directly in the online harms Bill and in response to the Law Commission’s long overdue consultation on intimate image abuse, which will look not only at the publication of such images but at issues such as cyber-flashing, which my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Fay Jones) mentioned.

The other amendment that I want briefly to speak in support of is Lords amendment 36, which concerns non-fatal strangulation. As Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee and the Joint Committee on the Bill, I have heard various evidence from young people under the age of 18 about how strangulation had become a routine part of their sexual experiences. I do not think we can overestimate the seriousness of this issue at all. I go back to my message to the Minister about telling young people that it is unlawful. Strangulation, simulated strangulation or semi-strangulation is not part of a normal loving relationship. If we do not tell young people that and they still have considerable access to extreme pornography, then we cannot expect anything to happen with regard to tackling the aggression rather than simply punishing the offenders.

The one hanging thread that remains from our Joint Committee inquiry into and scrutiny of the Bill is the individuals who have no recourse to public funds. That was not addressed at all when we scrutinised the Bill in Committee and it is, correctly, an issue we need to debate today. We need to get it right, and I just want to press the Minister a little further on it. No one wants to create a system that has the unintended consequence for migrant women of potentially putting them into a situation where they could be subject to further abuse as a result of the way our system of support works.

When we took evidence, the Joint Committee saw that there were very strong views on both sides on the support that would be in place for migrant women in particular. We took very strong evidence that said that a complete firewall was not always in the best interests of data and not always in the best interests of victims. We made a recommendation that there should be a much more robust Home Office policy on the use of firewalls and data in separating policy and practice with regard to support on immigration control.

The Minister has introduced a way forward on that with the pilot scheme she announced, the support for migrant victims scheme, but I feel we need more detail. We need to understand what will happen as a result of the pilot. Will £1.5 million be sufficient funding for the number of women who find themselves in a situation where they are suffering domestic abuse yet have no recourse to support? What metrics will be used to determine whether the pilot has been successful? How will it be rolled out? It is there to find more information, because the Government felt there was insufficient evidence to shape a policy in this area, but we really need to see from the Government more details about how the scheme, when it ends in 12 months’ time, will be evaluated and then taken forward. We cannot allow ourselves to be continually in the situation where we do not know how to put in place a long-term scheme to support migrant women who find themselves in this situation. I hope the Minister might at least be able to indicate today when we can expect to get more information and more detail. Maybe she could provide a briefing to those of us who follow these issues very closely.

In conclusion, the Bill was framed as a gateway to the ratification of the Istanbul convention. That is important because, as one hon. Member mentioned, we need to get ratification of the Istanbul convention. I hope that once the Bill goes on to the statute book that is what will happen—again, maybe the Minister will want to comment on that. The Bill is another clear sign of the Government’s commitment to helping to tackle the culture of violence towards women in this country, but there is much more to do, especially in the online world, and we need to keep going with our efforts to stop violence against girls and women around the world. We need to make sure we keep our focus on this very significant issue. By having this debate in the House of Commons today, we are showing that abuse is no longer something that will be tolerated in this country and that there is no place for violence against women at all. With this Bill, we will be adding yet another important piece of legislation to the statute books to ensure that women are safer in their day-to-day lives in our country.