Oral Answers to Questions

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank the Chairman of the Select Committee for that question. We will take every action necessary to make sure that we deal with the scourge of drugs in our prisons.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

After a constituent of mine residing in HMP Lindholme was seriously assaulted when other inmates had access to keys to their cells while he did not, is it not abundantly clear that the people who are in charge of our prisons are not governors, and certainly not the Secretary of State, but the prisoners?

[Mr Gyimah]

That is certainly not the case. We do recognise, however, that by recruiting more staff and strengthening the frontline we will make it much easier for staff to challenge and support prisoners. That is why we have announced new investment to recruit 2,500 new officers for our jails, and we are also enabling a caseload of one prison officer per six prisoners, so that they can support our prisoners in the efforts to rehabilitate them.

Domestic Abuse Victims in Family Law Courts

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friends on bringing this debate to the Floor of the House of Commons. I acknowledge Women’s Aid for the protection and support it provides to women and children, and for all the vital work it does to highlight the suffering caused by domestic violence. In particular, I pay tribute to Denise and all her staff at Grimsby Women’s Aid, and all the women I have met there. They are amazing and, despite some real tragedies and difficulties, they continue to face life with bravery and extraordinary good humour.

Several victims of domestic violence have come to my surgeries in Grimsby looking for help because they feel they have been let down. They feel that the whole system is stacked against them. They are the ones who have to move out of the area they lived in. They are the ones who have to provide the burden of proof; that all falls on them. They are the ones whose parenting is constantly questioned. They are the ones who live in fear of abuse and in fear of losing their children. They are the victims, but too often they feel that they are treated with suspicion rather than compassion, and that they are made to feel as though they are the guilty party.

The way in which family courts operate reveals a real lack of understanding of the situation in which victims of domestic violence find themselves. As we have heard in so many testimonies today, victims clearly should not have to share a waiting room with their abuser, and they should not have to face cross-questioning from them. As the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who has just left her place, mentioned earlier, it is too difficult for individuals to be faced with their abuser in a small space.

I want to thank Rochelle, one of my constituents, for allowing me to use her name—in fact, she was insistent that I use it—to highlight her very personal and individual difficulties, which represent the difficulties of so many women. She fled her abusive partner, yet she has been forced to face him in court several times during the last six years. He is using the court system to gain access to her, and as a means of getting around the restraining order. The courts have failed to provide security at their meetings. She has been made to sit at the same table as her former partner in a small room, and he has taken such opportunities to make horrendous sexually derogatory comments to her. This man had twice put her in hospital while she was pregnant. She should never have to be in the same room as him again, but she feels that the family court forced her back into the perpetrator’s presence and under his control. In addition, she has had no access to social housing, because the local authority deemed her to have made herself intentionally homeless, after having fled her home. That is incredibly common. As we have heard, she is not alone in being in such a situation.

[Seema Malhotra]

I thank my hon. Friend for her speech. She has highlighted a very important issue, which has certainly become increasingly apparent to me from my casework, about the training given to local authority teams—sometimes in social services and sometimes in housing—that deal with family issues involving domestic violence or domestic abuse. Does she agree with me about the importance of awareness, training and leadership in local authorities on such issues?

[Melanie Onn]

Absolutely. I agree with my hon. Friend that training plays a big part, and there is a lot more that could be done with cross-agency working and understanding.

When I visited a school in my constituency recently, I was really shocked to hear a support worker—she has worked in a school for nearly 30 years, and lives in the community in which she works—say she believed that about one in five children at that school were in families that had experienced domestic violence. The figure is shocking in itself. On the positive side, however, she said it was very important in a school environment that children should feel they have a safe space, where they feel they have good relationships with and can open up to the staff. My hon. Friend’s point about training applies to schools as well.

I believe that a lot of this is unreported violence. Will the Government consider how they can give people greater confidence in the system? People also need to recognise violence in the household as a problem. I think some people accept it as part of a volatile relationship and may not even recognise it as domestic violence. That is where the coercive element also comes in. That makes me believe all the more that good relationships education in schools can help children to realise that those are not normal relationships, and that that is not how loved ones behave towards one another.

Before the summer, I tabled some parliamentary questions relating to the effect of domestic violence on the children who are subject to it or who witness it, and I am very concerned that the Government do not seem to be sufficiently interested in that subject. I asked how many children the Government estimate live in homes where domestic violence occurs, and how they believe the educational attainment of children who experience domestic violence is affected. The answers I received from the Department for Education stated that, although it counts the number of referrals to children’s social care in which domestic violence is a factor, its figures do not include all children who experience domestic violence, and it does not publish attainment data for children who have been referred. Would not greater cross-departmental work ensure that domestic violence is better understood, highlighted and prevented? I worry that those answers show a lack of urgency in tackling this problem.

Finally, and quickly, I want to raise an issue that another constituent brought to me in relation to the Concentrix debacle that is currently being uncovered. A women with two children had her tax credit money stopped two weeks ago because she had been subject to a random check. She was told she was suspected of living with a partner. Concentrix would not disclose the name of the person it suspected to be living with her, and it would not make any home visits. She is a single parent, and she has been left to evidence the fact that she is single. She has now been forced to use food banks and to have meals at her parents’ house, and she has received assistance with her children’s school uniform costs. This is particularly difficult because my constituent is a victim of domestic violence. She has had to set up her life again from scratch to make sure that she and her children are safe. Again, it feels as though the state and all the agencies involved are working against her having a fresh start.

The lack of sensitivity, awareness and preparedness across state agencies—from the welfare system to family courts, as well as the police and the education system—lets down children and victims of domestic violence, and leaves them feeling as though the whole system is working against them.

Court Charges (Access to Justice)

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

I call Lisa Nandy.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

It is Melanie Onn.

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

I beg your pardon; I blame my hon. friend.

[Melanie Onn]

Thank you, Mr Gray; the Minister referred to me as Liz Saville Roberts yesterday, so I am not doing very well.

On the point about people who are unable to pay the costs, for some, a financial penalty is utterly meaningless. Those without the means to pay are without the means to pay, and reducing the cost will not make a difference if they are already severely indebted. If they are not in a position to earn any additional funds, does it not add to the burden of an administrative system to seek to reclaim costs from somebody who clearly is never going to be able to pay them?

[Mr Vara]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for intervening; she gives me the opportunity to explain an important issue. The criminal courts charge is payable only after, first, the compensation has been paid; secondly, the victim surcharge has been paid; thirdly, the prosecution costs have been paid; and, fourthly, fines have been paid. A judge imposes those, and only when all four have been paid does the criminal courts charge come along; and, although set at a specific rate, it is nevertheless assessed by the court’s officers on the basis of ability to pay. That means that the other debts, income and all other such financial factors are taken into account; and then, based on what the officer feels is an acceptable way for the charge to be paid, the money is paid, after the other four impositions have been dealt with. I might add that if an individual has made all reasonable efforts to make the payment and they have not reoffended, then after two years whatever is left is scrapped.