Support for Black Victims of Domestic Abuse

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I warmly congratulate the Petitions Committee for having the foresight to take on this debate. Before I talk about the subject, I pay tribute to Valerie Forde. Valerie was my constituent. Her daughter is still a constituent. Valerie is still very warmly remembered. She was a big community figure and very active in the Hackney Marsh Partnership. She was very popular and is fondly remembered by anybody who ever met her. Valerie’s daughter is clear that today we need to remember what she gave in life as well as how she left it. Her daughter, Jahzara, was bright and bubbly with everything ahead of her, but her life was cruelly cut short by an awful act of violence.

Valerie’s family have asked me to reflect on the impact that her and Jahzara’s murder has had on them. The impact goes on forever and ever. It will be felt by the family members and friends for a very long time to come. There are big issues, of course, about what happened at the time, which I will not repeat here in the time I have available. I refer hon. Members to my Adjournment debate in June 2020, when I highlighted some of the disparities in support for black women victims of domestic abuse. I put on record my thanks again to Sistah Space for its work in highlighting the disparities in support and, crucially, in understanding of black women victims of domestic violence.

The figures are stark. Freedom of information data from 30 police forces shows, as my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) highlighted, that between 2016 and 2020 police forces were one and a half times more likely to bring forward a charge when the victim or survivor was white than when they were black. The proportion of black and minoritised victims since the start of the pandemic is higher than the previous 15-year average for domestic homicides and higher than the 2019 data by five percentage points. The number of high-risk domestic abuse cases heard in Hackney increased by 20% in the first year of the pandemic—that is, the financial year 2020-21.

Those are stark figures, and there are many reasons for that. Much of it is about misunderstanding, to put it politely; some of it is about unconscious bias; and some of it is about racist attitudes that lead to stereotyped views of how people should be treated. That is unacceptable. Domestic violence is a horrible thing to happen to anyone. It rips apart families and causes grief all round, but for there to be a disparity even in this horrendous field because of the colour of your skin is unacceptable. Each of those domestic violence figures is one too many, so what needs to be done?

As well as Valerie’s law, which is a really good initiative, there are wider things that can be done. Small specialist organisations that work with specific groups—in this case, black women—often find it hard to compete for the contracts that are let by local authorities, the Metropolitan police or the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, due to the funding cuts we have seen in local authorities over many years and the knock-on effect on the services those councils provide. We know that however good a council is, very often people need specialist services that are from the community and understand it, and can make sure that where there is a gap in understanding, it can be bridged. There is also clearly a need for greater representation of black women at policy level, as well as delivery level. Too often, we hear the phrase “BAME”, which glosses over the many differences between different groups. It is really important that black women specifically have a space marked out for them to get the support they need.

If we are talking about things not being done about people without people, it is heartening that we are finally seeing far more black women in Parliament. For a very long time, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) was the only black woman in this place, and then for some time was one of only two. It is only in recent years that we have seen far more people in this place and, indeed, in government who have, and should have, more understanding of what is going on—a voice at the table to argue for people, which is a start. However, I think all my right hon. and hon. Friends would agree that that is not enough. It needs to happen at community level, from local council level right down to local delivery level—so that simple things, such as the colour of a bruise on black skin, do not have to be explained because somebody in that situation knows what they are looking for.

Valerie’s law is a simple, proportionate step, and I hope the Minister will be sympathetic to it. It is about mandating guidance to police forces at the first stage of their training. It is not a difficult thing to do, and it can be taken beyond just black women, because it is important that the cultural sensitivities of other communities are understood. We are in the midst of recruiting a large number of additional police officers; that programme is going quite well in terms of numbers, but as the National Audit Office report that was published on Friday highlights, recruiting is only one step. Those officers then have to be trained and deployed—trained in training, but trained on the streets as well, the training that happens when a young officer turns up for the first time to a domestic violence situation.

Depending on that officer’s background, they may never have met a black woman before. We know that happens in the Met, so it is really important that Valerie’s law is brought in now so that those new police officers can start out to hopefully help transform the culture of the Met, which—as my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead has highlighted—has been rocked from top to bottom through a series of unacceptable racist and misogynist incidents. This law is a proportionate step that is simple to introduce, and I hope the Minister will embrace it quickly, so that those new police officers who are being recruited can learn from the beginning how they need to support black women who are victims of domestic violence.