Domestic Violence (Police Response)

Debate between Norman Baker and Mary Macleod

Thursday 10th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Norman Baker]

When I said low-level, I was referring to perhaps each individual instance, but I very much accept that the accumulation of such instances may, of course, have a result that is worse than an instance of violence. I am sorry for giving the wrong impression.

As I said, we think that the behaviour we are discussing is already covered by the law; the issue is that the data are not being collected and the evidence accumulated in a way that leads to successful prosecutions in many cases. Nevertheless, we do believe that it is possible to deal with such behaviour under existing laws. I am reluctant to move towards having narrowly defined, specific laws, because the thrust of the Government’s intention has been to move away from that. Narrowly defined law can lead to people finding loopholes, which were mentioned by the hon. Member for Warrington North. An example of our intention is that we have amended the antisocial behaviour legislation to make general offences easier to deal with, because exemptions have been found that made prosecutions unsuccessful. I believe that a general definition that can include coercive behaviour will be a more successful way forward, provided that the police are collecting the evidence and a system is in place to enable that to be successfully followed through to a prosecution.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham mentioned the provisions of the Children Act 1989. He made an important point and, as he said, it has not been given sufficient attention in the past. I will undertake to see what we might do to tie the Department for Education rather more into these matters—he will be aware of my wish to do so—and to ensure that legislation that is specifically children-orientated is given proper attention. He is right to say that children are not necessarily attacked physically, but can suffer significantly, as he very eloquently outlined, as a result of being in a place where domestic violence occurs, particularly when it occurs over a long time. That will be very damaging to children.

The hon. Member for Warrington North was right to refer to the work on gangs, because the work by the Deputy Children’s Commissioner in the harrowing report on gangs demonstrated how teenage girls in particular are often subject to appalling violence. That is one reason why we have been running the “This is Abuse” campaign, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth referred. That is also why it is targeted particularly at boys, why the message is very clear that no means no, and why we are trying to educate young boys in particular about what consent is. Clearly, there is an issue about people understanding consent, and that needs to be rectified.

We are also using role models who will be effective in getting these messages across, so that it is not Ministers or police officers who are communicating the messages to young boys; it is, for example, pop stars. We have used the band The Wanted, Jason Derulo and people like that, and we have also used outlets such as MTV. We have tried to use the outlets and the people who will be effective in getting the messages across, and I think that we have been quite successful in doing that.

The HMIC report states that an

“HMIC inspection on child protection is currently underway. It will review how effective the police are at keeping children safe.”

The Department for Education believes that it is important that police advise children’s social care when children are in an abusive environment. In the most severe cases, children at immediate risk should be immediately protected by being removed if necessary. If there is further work to do to link up the police and children’s services, I hope that will be considered by the oversight group as well.

[Mary Macleod]

One of the important points that my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) talked about was the impact that domestic violence has on children in the long term. It is almost as though it is subconscious, learned behaviour that could affect them. Although yes, the issue is absolutely about immediate safety, it is also about ongoing support, counselling and mentoring to support those children, so that they can get over some of the experiences that they have been through—the learned behaviour can sometimes be very much in the subconscious—so that they do not go on and repeat such behaviour later on in their own lives.

[Norman Baker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is a clear generational pattern, in that those who have been abused are more likely to abuse others in future, or to allow themselves to be abused in the future, than those who have not suffered such abuse in their formative years. Therefore, cutting the generational link is very important, so she is absolutely right to draw attention to that.

I want to mention Cumbria constabulary, which is currently running a pilot in one area of the force. For medium and high-risk cases involving children, the force will make contact with a nominated person at the child’s school to alert them that the child has been at home when a domestic abuse incident took place, so there may be a risk. That seems to be a very good example of the police working sensibly with those who have responsibility for caring for children. Leicestershire police is also piloting a similar approach with a number of schools in Leicester, where the force notifies the school if the child has witnessed a domestic violence or abuse incident.

I have mentioned one or two matters to which the hon. Member for Warrington North referred, but I will pick up one or two other points to try and be comprehensive in my response. She referred to police IT systems. I mentioned the digitisation that is going on in the police, which is both making the police more effective and saving money. The other steps that are being taken through technology are doing those two things as well. Police IT will be discussed with police leadership as part of the agenda for the national oversight group that the Home Secretary has established. I had not yet addressed that point of the hon. Lady’s.

The last point I wanted to make was about saving money. The hon. Lady referred to the fact that dealing with domestic abuse will save money, as though that were a motivation for the Government. It will save money; she is right in the analysis that doing the right thing and reducing the number of cases of domestic abuse will end up benefiting the public purse, but I want to be absolutely clear to all Members today that that is not a motivation that is driving the Government. What is driving the Government today is our horror at domestic abuse and domestic violence, and our determination to stamp it out. If it saves money, that is a beneficial side effect, but it will not be the driver either way. Even if it costs money, we will be taking action on this front.