Domestic Abuse Bill

Paul Scully Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the many fantastic and powerful speeches that we have had today. When I have spoken before in this place about domestic abuse, I have talked about the fact that it can happen to anybody. Over the last year, a number of people have come forward with very similar stories, including that they have subsequently found out that the person involved was a repeat offender, and they were perhaps the second, third, fourth or fifth individual that that person had got to, abused and then discarded.

There are some really important measures in the Bill; I will not go through them all for reasons of time. We have been working for a long time with organisations such as Women’s Aid on cross-examination in the family courts. Although this does not particularly need legislation, I would also like more awareness in the family courts of cluster B personality disorders, such as narcissistic personality disorder, so that people hearing the evidence are not taken in by a perpetrator’s superficial charm.

We have talked about economic abuse. I commend the work of organisations such as Lloyds bank, which is offering extra support to people it discovers are experiencing financial, economic and domestic abuse. It is so important that we educate others, including GPs. We heard from the former Secretary of State for International Trade, my right hon. Friend for—

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Wendy Morton)]

North Somerset.

[Paul Scully]

My hon. Friend could have intervened and given me an extra minute, by the way.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) talked about the advice GPs have given about perpetrators. In the case of Luke and Ryan Hart, the GP explained that he thought their father, who went on to shoot their mother and sister in broad daylight, was a fine, upstanding member of society. Clearly, he was totally taken in by that gentleman’s narcissistic personality disorder.

The Bill’s measures on secure tenancies raise a few more questions. Crisis raised with me and other Members the fact that people who flee abusive relationships and request emergency housing have to keep telling their story at every level. It would be fantastic to have a single advocate with whom those people could go through that process, easing the burden on them. There is nothing worse for people than having to rehash their story time and again. Not everybody is as bold and brave as the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) and can use their story for such powerful advocacy. Extraordinarily, the perpetrator often stays in the property; the person fleeing has to give up everything rather than being supported to stay in their house.

I welcome the introduction of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, which means we can start to talk about awareness. We are working on an awareness campaign that talks about entry-level red flags to stop people getting into abusive relationships in the first place. That is being led by the Daily Express, along with my former staff member, Robyn Thackara, who has become a formidable campaigner on emotional abuse issues and in particular highlights narcissistic personality disorder. They are doing a wonderful job to explain those basic things to stop people getting involved.

There is no domestic violence without emotional abuse in the first place, whether that is gaslighting or projection. Often, women—although, as we have discussed, this is not necessarily solely about women—are less like a frog in boiling water, which will leap out when it first senses danger and pain, than a frog in cold water that is heated up slowly. Women are often drawn into an abusive relationship over a period of time, until it is too late—until they have been brainwashed and, in effect, kidnapped in plain sight.

It is important to understand that, when we highlight narcissistic personality disorders and cluster B disorders, we are talking about people who cannot easily change. We therefore need to put the emphasis back on ensuring that people do not get involved in the first place and that all the organisations around them, and all of us, are aware. We need to talk about these things in the same way we talk about things such as “stranger danger” so we can look out for each other and people do not get in this position in the first place.

Victims Strategy

Paul Scully Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

Let me begin by echoing what has been said by Members, including my hon. Friend the Minister, about the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and the amazing work that she has done. She is championing her constituents, as her name suggests, and it is important that she does not become a victim in any sense. There should be no witch hunt surrounding any of us who do our jobs and champion our constituents.

I welcomed what the Minister said in introducing the victims strategy, which is an important piece of the jigsaw that includes the need to reduce crime overall, to secure justice for victims and to reassure people and make them feel safe. The serious violence strategy, the Offensive Weapons Bill, the forthcoming domestic abuse Bill and this victims strategy should be all of a piece rather than working in isolation.

If the Minister wants any advice on how to roll out the strategy and make it a really meaningful document, he could do worse than come down to the Churchill Room at 7 o’clock this evening. Coincidentally, a couple of my constituents, Ray and Vi Donovan, will be attending a dinner there. They run the Chris Donovan Trust. What happened to them was this. Chris was walking along the street with his brother one day. He was beaten up, left to die, run over and dragged by a car—murdered, 16 years ago.

Ray and Vi, who naturally experienced a lot of anger and horror at losing their child, have turned that horror, that anger and frustration, into an incredible charity. They actually met the perpetrators who served their sentence, and they now go out into prisons and schools and work on restorative justice. They realise that victims are not just the people who have lost loved ones, and that any serious crime such as murder creates any number of victims because people’s lives are written off.

Ray and Vi also work with other charities. Along with the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), who is in the Chamber, I attended an awards ceremony that they hosted recently. They present awards to other small charities, typically run by the families of other victims of serious crime who have been murdered. They have taken that negative energy and turned it into something really positive to prevent people from going down the same path and creating more victims. One of the people to whom they awarded a prize was the Victims’ Commissioner for London, Claire Waxman, who had suffered a horrendous amount of abuse from a long-term stalker.

I have often spoken about domestic abuse in this place, and I am glad that the subject has arisen now. We must go further in ensuring that we support domestic abuse victims fully. A family member has gone through some harrowing times over the last few years because of her controlling, coercive partner. Fortunately, she did not have to be cross-examined, but that is not always the case, despite the Government’s best efforts. I know that many courts are working to try to separate entrances—certainly in the criminal courts people cannot be cross-examined by the alleged perpetrator, but in the family courts they can. Organisations such as Women’s Aid have given many examples of that.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman’s constituent has been affected by the fact that universal credit payments are made to only one member of the household, but that can make the position even worse for families in which domestic abuse is an issue. He might like to have a word with the Secretary of State, who does not seem to want to introduce split payments to this flawed process.

[Paul Scully]

I do not think that that applies in the case that I have mentioned, but the hon. Lady has made a very interesting point.

We need to do more to ensure that victims cannot be questioned by perpetrators, which, effectively, extends suffering for many years.

There have been more than 100 victims in London this year. We have seen victim after victim portrayed in photographs in the Evening Standard. That senseless loss of life is often, but not solely, a result of gang activities. It is important to remember these victims’ names, from Kyall Parnell, who was only 17 and who was stabbed in Tulse Hill on New Year’s Eve, to Sandra Zmijan, whose body was found in a back garden in west London only about three weeks ago, on 24 September.

Just this week I was walking through Victoria station on my way to Westminster, as I usually do on my daily commute, and saw members of the Metropolitan police and some family members and activists handing out leaflets and posters. They wanted to find one of the most wanted people, Shane O’Brien. He murdered someone three years ago, and we must not forget his victim’s name: Josh Hanson, who was murdered in Eastcote in Hillingdon three years ago. They are trying to find Shane O’Brien and bring him to justice, so that Josh Hanson’s family, who are victims as well, can have some justice. If anybody can help, the incident room can be reached on 0208 785 8099, or people can report via Crimestoppers. We need to look at all these things as part of a holistic solution in London and across the country.

That wider solution includes ensuring we can protect our police on the street. I am working closely, as our party’s vice-chairman for London, with Shaun Bailey, who is talking about putting 1,000 more police on the street, using lessons from New York, which is utilising artificial intelligence and technology to release police from certain activities and on to the frontline. But this is not just about money, although that is important—I know every London MP of every political hue calls for extra resource for the Met police; it is also about how that money is spent. The Met police have £110 million from Government—from the precept, and therefore from the Mayor as well. So this has come from right across the board: the Mayor has the money, and he has given it to the Met police, and now we have to make sure that they can use it effectively to recruit the policemen we need.

We must move on from that consideration, too, because by the time someone has a knife in their hand and a policemen has found them, it is too late. We need to reach these people far earlier—not at secondary school, but at primary school.

The victims strategy fits in well in the London knife crime context not just through the ability to give someone who has been a victim and is a member of a gang the emotional support they need, but by having a way of removing them from the situation that would allow them to enter into gang retribution, so that we can break the cycle. The victims strategy can be used as a method of breaking the cycle, too.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I thank my near constituency neighbour for giving way, and he is right: he and I have attended many events to commemorate the work done by Ray and Vi Donovan. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that restorative justice must be part of a holistic solution for victims? Even in very serious cases, for instance involving people who have been assaulted, some victims find that restorative justice can contribute and help them even if they have been badly affected by a crime.

[Paul Scully]

The right hon. Gentleman is right. I have no idea how Ray and Vi Donovan had the chutzpah and courage to meet the people who murdered their son. They have such an inner strength, and they still exude that to this day; people can see that every time they meet them. The right hon. Gentleman is right that to understand can bring some sense of closure and sense that justice can be served in full, so that a victim’s family and friends can move on with their lives as well.

The victims code is already in place, but research for the strategy found that people do not know that the code is there; only 18% of victims understand that it exists, so often they do not know what support is available for them. The strategy talks about the fact that the utmost respect should be afforded to victims and so forth. These are basic requirements, frankly, that we would expect everybody to already appreciate. None the less it cannot be said loudly enough that there is a strategy. Too often in any area of government these considerations can be lost in bureaucracy and we can forget that these are real people—that they are individuals who need individual, tailor-made support.

I have talked about domestic violence refuges around the country and the £18.8 million of welcome funding that is already going into accommodation services. I urge the Minister and the Government to make sure that that money goes into supporting local authorities, as they are best placed to know the resource needed in their local area, but they might not always have the capacity and expertise to be able to roll that out, because we know that two thirds of women fleeing domestic violence are not going to want to stay in their local area. They will have to move from their local area, so just going to their local authority is not necessarily enough. Any move the Government can make to support local authorities in adding expertise will be gratefully received, rather than just letting them tackle that in isolation.

I welcome the Minister’s words about the greater use of video. That is fundamental, and will ensure that victims do not have to make testimony after testimony, repeating the experience they have had and bringing it back to them. Instead they can have a sense of finality and closure by reporting it once, getting through their testimony once, and then bringing the perpetrator to justice. That will speed up the system and allow victims to move on with their lives.

Domestic Abuse Victims and Family Courts

Paul Scully Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

It is pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ryan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) on securing the debate and on her amazing and powerful speech. Hansard does not record blushes, but she has done a fantastic job, as ever, on an important subject.

When we talk about domestic abuse in this place, there is often a lot of commentary along the lines of, “What about the men?” Of course, we know that women are not the only victims of domestic abuse, but it is an unassailable truth that the vast majority are women, so I make no excuse for the fact that we are concentrating on women predominantly, and Women’s Aid has been an invaluable organisation in pushing the campaign on this issue.

I look forward to the introduction of the domestic abuse Bill. We have all been working towards it and pushing for it, and it will be welcome. I understand that one of the main reasons for the delay was that we were trying to get a good, rounded definition of domestic abuse and coercive control so that there can be legislation. In the 2016 debate, I raised a couple of examples of coercive control, one of which involved a family member of mine, to show that it is not something that just happens to other people. It can happen to people of any background, from any geographical area. The woman in question had a tracker put on her car—that was the level of control that the man wanted. That makes me think, “Crikey, what would have happened if she was in court with him?” if she faced that level of coercive control. That level of control, which might start with a tracker, can mean a repeat of abuse in court, bringing up time and again the previous horrific instances.

Before we look at what we are pushing for in campaigning, it is important to acknowledge the good things the Government have done. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley correctly said that, in too many cases, there are still curtains and screens around certain areas. However, family procedure rules part 3A and practice direction 3AA came into effect only in November last year, and they will, unfortunately, take time to get through the court system—indeed, certain areas that require separate waiting rooms might even need new construction.

None the less, more can clearly be done, and I take the hon. Lady’s point about robing rooms—we have one of those here, so perhaps we can think about that as well. We must speed up action to ban perpetrators from cross-examining victims in court, because there cannot be anybody in this place who believes that that is right. Women’s Aid has said that a perpetrator can be seen as a violent criminal in a criminal court but as a good enough parent in a family court, which is patently ridiculous.

The hon. Lady mentioned the need for more female judges. Clearly, the numbers and percentages are too low, but that in itself is not necessarily the origin of bad judgments. Indeed, it was a female judge who sent Ellie Butler back to my constituents in Sutton, which resulted in her death shortly afterwards. We need judges who are not out of touch and who can relate to people—the hon. Lady referred to that. We need a judiciary that can take a rounded position, in the same way that anybody outside a court room might think, “My goodness. This is so obvious. Why are we not doing it?”

In conclusion—I know other Members want to speak—let me say to the Minister that I am looking forward to the domestic abuse Bill. If I can help in any way in formulating it and pushing it through this place, I would be more than happy to do so, because we have been waiting for this Bill for so long.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Scully Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Phillip Lee]

The hon. Lady is right that such events are tragic. We are working extremely hard on training staff to recognise the particular needs of transgender offenders. The challenge for the system is that they are a relatively small number of people spread across a number of prisons. We are making some progress, but there is more to do.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

It is good to hear the Minister offer to speak to Members around the House about the courts in their patch. When she does so, will she explain to them about modernisation and digitisation, and how those changes may improve access to courts?

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. First, this is a consultation, and I am very happy to engage with any colleagues who would like to discuss it, because we are listening. Secondly, the future of our courts is exciting, and transformation will take place through technology. Interestingly, in a document entitled “Transforming Our Justice System”, the then Lord Chief Justice, the then Lord Chancellor and the Senior President of Tribunals highlighted the fact that as our courts and tribunals are modernised, we will need fewer buildings.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Paul Scully Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir William Cash]

My hon. Friend might just reflect on the fact that there is no other way of transposing the legislation. I drafted the original repeal Bill, so I understand it very well. I did so before the referendum, in fact, because—I say this to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe—I believed we would win. In reality, once we have brought this into UK law, we will be able to have our own Bills—on agriculture, fisheries, customs, immigration, and various other parts of our constitutional arrangements—that can be properly discussed and amended.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that every single one of the regulations coming into UK law is already abided by in this country and in this Parliament and are to its satisfaction at the moment?

[Sir William Cash]

Yes, the reality is that the Bill, if and when it goes through—and I believe it will—will incorporate into UK law EU legislation already consented to in the way that my hon. Friend mentions. We have agreed to them, but unfortunately they have not had the democratic legitimacy that will be conferred upon them when the Bill goes through.

I proceed now to the important question of the European Court of Justice. I made this point to the Prime Minister about 10 days ago and again to the Brexit Secretary last week. I wish to mention three pieces of case law that we inherited when the treaties that had accumulated after 1956 came upon us through section 2 of the 1972 Act. The first two are Van Gend en Loos in 1963 and Costa v. ENEL in 1964. In its judgment in the first case, the European Court asserted that

“the Community constitutes a new legal order in international law for whose benefit the states have limited their sovereign rights”.

In Costa v. ENEL, the Court ruled:

“The transfer by the States from their domestic legal system to the Community legal system of rights and obligations arising under the Treaty carries with it a permanent limitation of their sovereign rights”.

In 1970, in the Handelsgesellschaft case, the Court said that community law should take precedence even over the constitutional laws of member states, including basic entrenched laws relating to fundamental rights. It does not get more profound than that. Those decisions are mere assertions by the Court, yet under section 3 of the 1972 Act, we agree to abide by them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Scully Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

What the public expect is for those fines to be collected in the most efficient and effective way possible.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

T9. Can the Minister update me on when the revised version of practice direction 12J will be adopted and how the Government will ensure that judges and magistrates are aware of the change in order to improve guidance for judges overseeing child contact cases with allegations of domestic abuse?

[Dominic Raab]

We are absolutely committed to doing everything we can to improve the treatment of victims in the justice system. In relation to the practice direction to which my hon. Friend refers, we expect to receive the revised version from the president of the family division for ministerial agreement by the end of this month.

Domestic Violence Victims: Cross-Examination

Paul Scully Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Heald]

I should be happy to discuss the issue with the hon. Lady, and to look into it in due course. This, however, is a discrete matter and an important one. I should like it to be tackled swiftly, and I do not intend to widen what we are doing at present, because I want to get on with that.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

Women’s Aid has raised this issue on a number of occasions, most recently in its important and hard-hitting report “Nineteen Child Homicides”, which revealed that 25% of women interviewed had been cross-examined and that one woman who had been raped, beaten and abused for six years was cross-examined for three hours. Notwithstanding the need to get it right in the review, will my right hon. and learned Friend introduce legislation as soon as possible to ensure that that can never happen again?

[Sir Oliver Heald]

My hon. Friend has highlighted an important case, as well as the work done by Women’s Aid. He is right to say that that issue needs to be tackled urgently.

Domestic Abuse Victims in Family Law Courts

Paul Scully Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on securing this debate, which I am happy to support, and for her incredibly powerful opening speech. It was a fantastic job to put that on the record. I congratulate Women’s Aid for its important and hard-hitting report, “Nineteen Child Homicides”, which makes for difficult reading. It is always difficult to hear such examples, but hear them we must. The individual cases show that domestic abuse is not just an abstract issue. The lives of 19 real children were cut short, another two children were seriously harmed, three mothers were killed, seven fathers subsequently committed suicide, and four fathers were convicted and imprisoned. Many more people are likely to have been directly touched by these tragic events—siblings, grandparents, surviving wives, family and friends. All those men were known to agencies. Eleven of the 12 men were known to the police as well.

A number of constituents have approached me about their custody cases. Some mothers were unhappy, some fathers felt that they had been treated badly, and grandparents felt unable to get a look-in. Whatever the rights and wrongs of those individual cases, it is clear that the right thing to do is to put the child first, at the centre of decision making.

There are many examples of good practice in family courts, including at my closest court in Croydon, but as we have heard, there is much more that can be done and lessons to be learned. In a number of cases protective screens, video links, separate waiting rooms and separate entrances are available where appropriate, but as we have heard, that does not always work. The Women’s Aid report details a survey of people who have gone through the family court system, highlighting areas of concern. Some 55% of the women said that they had no access to any protection measures in the court. Extraordinarily, 25% of the women had been cross-examined by their former partner during proceedings, including one woman who described how the man who had raped her, beaten her and abused her over a six-year period interrogated her for three hours in the court. Imagine what that poor lady must have gone through, revisiting all those experiences.

The survey reveals that 39% of the women were verbally or physically abused by their former partner while on the family court estate, 44% reported that the judge granted child contact to the father when they knew that the children had been directly abused by the father, and 76% reported that the judge granted child contact to the father when they knew that the children had witnessed domestic abuse.

I want to touch on two cases. First, I shall add a 20th child to that list—Ellie Butler, who lived her short life in Sutton in my constituency. Her parents met in a club in Sutton in March 2006. Ben Butler had a criminal record including violence, attempted robbery and intimidation of a witness. He also had a conviction for assaulting his former girlfriend. Within weeks, Jennie Gray was pregnant with Ellie.

The first time Butler was left alone with Ellie—when she was just six weeks old—she sustained minor burns to her forehead and hand. Shortly afterwards, when that was brushed off as an accident, Butler again looked after Ellie. That evening, he took her to St Helier Hospital—our local hospital—where she was diagnosed with injuries that suggested she may have been violently shaken. He was arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm, and the London Borough of Sutton started proceedings to have Ellie taken into care.

In January 2008, His Honour Judge Atkins found that Butler had been responsible for both sets of injuries and ruled out Ellie’s mother as a long-term carer. In August of that year, he awarded temporary custody to Ellie’s maternal grandparents, Neal and Linda. Butler went to prison, during which time Jennie Gray discovered she was pregnant again and hid the birth from the local authorities. In October 2009, Butler was released on bail and walked free on appeal after three judges ruled that his conviction was unsafe.

However, the quashing of the conviction did not automatically reverse the ruling that the parents were unfit to care for Ellie, so Butler went to war with the authorities, and three years later, Lady Justice Hogg made a decision that was to prove fatal for Ellie: not only did she return Ellie to her parents’ custody—brushing aside convictions, commenting that the violent behaviour that they related to was not directed at children—but went on to write in her judgment:

“It is seldom that I see a ‘happy end’ in public law proceedings. It is a joy for me to oversee the return of a child to her parents.”

Ellie’s grandfather, Neal Gray, was said to have warned her, “You will have blood on your hands,” and how prescient he was.

In addition to the judgment, Lady Justice Hogg made an order that meant that all files held by the authorities should be amended to include a prominent reference to the fact that Butler and Gray had been exonerated of any blame for Ellie’s injuries and, effectively, that they should proactively inform other agencies of Butler’s innocence. What can the agencies make of that? How can they be denied the ability to review what was happening when a clean sheet was restored to these people?

It was not long after Ellie went back that she suffered a broken shoulder. The parents sought no medical help as they sought to hide things from the authorities. Then, in October 2013, Ellie was found dead, at the hands of Ben Butler. The parents concocted a plot to cover up the real cause of death—even sending Ellie’s younger sibling to discover the body as part of the plot.

Ellie’s grandparents had not given up fighting for her. They fought hard for the custody of the two children. Unfortunately, Linda, Ellie’s grandmother, died the day the trial started, but Neil, the grandfather, continues to speak out against the ruling, which led to Sutton Council and other agencies being unable to do their job—and they did do a very good job, but with their hands tied. My heart goes out to Neil and his other grandchild. I was able to catch a moment with the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), who has had to leave the debate. Both of us remain open for Neil to approach us, and we would like to support him in any way we can.

Another case is far too close to home for me. It involves someone I know very well, and the situation is ongoing, so I will not be too specific. A few years ago, Anna met someone she later discovered had two children from a previous relationship. The mother and children had ended up going to a refuge—changing their name and moving away secretly. Even though social services were closely involved, he managed to track them down within months by trawling the electoral rolls, among other things.

Anna soon found herself in a very controlling relationship—we have heard about control this afternoon—stripping her away from her family and friends. He used drugs and was violent on occasions. She eventually had a child, but the situation continued to deteriorate, affecting the child’s upbringing and stability. Anna was helped by her partner’s mother eventually to leave and start again on her own, but that was not the end. Anna found a tracker in her car. She was continually harassed and stalked, as were family members. Agencies were aware. The police were aware. She was in and out of police stations to give statements. He would pound on the door at night, jumping over the back fence and smashing the glass to get in the door.

Anna has had to learn so much for herself about the system. Her former partner has a good solicitor, and he knows how to make the best of the system—not for the child, but for the solicitor’s client. She could not apply for a non-molestation order while he was on police bail. When the police were looking to arrest him, her family could not find out whether he was actually detained, because of data protection issues.

The police have Anna on an alert list, with a promised five-minute response time. Unfortunately, the last time, it took 25 minutes. Obviously, we can understand police pressures, but the promise of a response in five minutes or 25 minutes makes all the difference when someone is trying to plan for these eventualities. At least if someone knows that it will be 25 minutes, they can try and deal with that as best they can.

Anna has the support of both families—her own and her partner’s. Her parents discovered that they were grandparents quite a long time after she was stripped from the family. They now have a wonderful, happy grandchild. Anna has become the most amazing mother in the face of such diversity, and her child is thriving. She is lucky: she could easily have found herself on the Women’s Aid list. I am so delighted that she has not, although the matter is nowhere hear closed.

Please let us do more to support the work of the groups associated with Women’s Aid. Let us do more to improve the response for people like Anna and children like Ellie. We cannot let them down. Looking at families, I know how helpless they feel in these cases. I cannot begin to imagine actually being involved at the heart of such abuse, as we heard in the case of Claire. It is really important that the police, the agencies and, of course, the family courts do everything they can—and that we work to make those agencies and family courts work—so that these tragedies cannot happen again.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill (Third sitting)

Paul Scully Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

A very quick answer, please; we are moving on.

David Orr: Broadly speaking.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

Q 144 You have touched on a few areas. In 2014, the housing association sector produced a surplus of £2.4 billion. The Government assessment is that the sector is financially robust. Do you agree with that, and are you well-placed to deliver efficiency savings to manage the reduction? If you agree, could you outline some of the ways you might look at doing that, beyond what you said?

David Orr: I think that, in truth, there is no sector anywhere that is not still capable of making further efficiency savings. That is as true in our sector as it is anywhere else. Specifically, Government direct investment in housing associations is at a very low level. Ten years ago, when the Government put in a pound of public money, housing associations were generating £1.60 of private investment. Now, the Government put in a pound of public money and housing associations generate £6 of private investment; I think that is a pretty impressive efficiency gain. To be able to do that, housing associations have to be financially robust and be able to generate surpluses that give confidence to the investors in our sector.

It is cause and effect. If you create an environment in which you require people to be social enterprises and behave in an entrepreneurial way, you need to be able to generate the surpluses. Most of it is not available cash. In our sector more than anywhere else, surpluses are not paid as dividends to shareholders; they are reinvested in building new homes and providing services. Yes, there is apparently an amount of surplus that could be squeezed, but if you squeeze the surplus you get fewer new homes.

[Paul Scully]

Q 145 Can I ask Councillor Porter and Mike Donaldson whether there is a way beyond what we have already talked about for the Government, local authorities and housing associations to create further efficiency savings, with all three working together?

Gary Porter: All three working together? There are big tranches of other Government Departments that own land in areas that are controlled by councils that could be building more homes. If you could speak to the Ministry of Defence or the national health service—any of the big landholding Departments—about releasing that land to local authorities to add value by putting planning permission on them, we could use that for pushing out private sector rent and private sector buy to sell. We could put public sector cheaper rents on there; we could do whatever you wanted with it if you freed up the land. Trying to get Government Departments to do it is difficult—that has been the case for the 15 years since I became a councillor. It does not matter which party is in government it is, the one thing that whoever is in charge of a Government Department does not like doing is releasing land that they are sitting on. But we could all work together quite easily.

[Paul Scully]

Q 146 Obviously, in London you got the London Land Commission to release some of the Greater London Authority land and Transport for London land.

Gary Porter: Yes, but the rate of the One Public Estate stuff is very slow. I still think that there are probably quite a few cases of underreporting of assets and things. There are some imaginative things. We have made a few suggestions to the Treasury, which I will not say in this room because it might scare the horses elsewhere. There are quite a few things we could do to work together to achieve a better outcome. It comes back to the same thing: we need more homes. That is the only way of sustainably bringing down the bill.

[Paul Scully]

Q 147 The current intention of the legislation is to have in place exemptions that are broadly the same as those already in place in the rent standard. Does the panel believe that the exemptions in the rent standard are the right ones?

[The Chair]

Shall we hear from the others—Mr Graham and Mr Donaldson?

Alastair Graham: The exemption needs to be couched in the widest terms possible to ensure that people with learning disabilities and other vulnerable groups are properly protected from the impact of the legislation. It is fairly widely recognised that legitimate extra costs are involved in housing people with learning disabilities and other vulnerable groups. However the exemption is phrased, we need to make absolutely sure that we protect those vulnerable groups in the years going forward.

Mike Donaldson: We support the exemption of supported housing or specialised housing, because it operates completely differently from general needs housing. If it is not exempt, it will put very vulnerable people at risk. Given that the objective here is to reduce the housing benefit bill, we also think that housing which has been provided to people who are not in receipt of benefits should be exempt too, particularly intermediate market rent. We credit-check these people to make sure that they can afford the rent from their own means and do not need to be supported by the state. We think that that should be exempt as well. There is a technicality around affordable rent. Affordable rent, which was introduced by the coalition Government, is a gross rent and it includes a large slice of service charge. The Bill talks about rent, not about rent and service charges. That is a confusion, and it needs to be looked at. It is a technicality, but it does need to be sorted out.

David Orr: I think the Bill identifies, broadly speaking, the right areas for considering exemption. The supported housing exemption as presently defined in the Bill is too narrow, and we would argue that it should be what is called specified housing. This is housing which is not covered by the universal credit arrangement. DWP has already accepted that this kind of housing should be exempt from those normal arrangements because of the amount of care and support that is provided.

A separate area that is not mentioned at all in the Bill is relatively recent new large-scale voluntary transfer organisations. Their business plans are very much under pressure, because they entered into 30-year contracts based on a series of assumptions about rent that were formally approved by the Government. They are not going to be able to meet their promises—or, in some cases, meet their contractual obligations—and they are under very, very severe pressure. We think that there should be exemptions there.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill (Second sitting)

Paul Scully Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Order. This is not a discussion; this is evidence taking. We will now call Paul Scully, followed by Hannah Bardell—you have let me down slightly there, Hannah, if I may say so. Then we will move to Peter Heaton-Jones and Corri Wilson. Neil, you can come in after that.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

Q 50 When you were talking about sanctions, did you say that single parents were wrongly sanctioned?

Octavia Holland: Single parents are much more likely to be wrongfully sanctioned, yes.

[Paul Scully]

Q 51 What are you basing “wrongfully” on? You talked about some thoughts when you spoke about not being able to take particular jobs. Are you basing that on appeals statistics?

Octavia Holland: Yes. It is based on sanctions that were applied and then overturned. That is the evidence.

[Paul Scully]

Q 52 Fair enough. You also mentioned work coaches at the beginning. Do the rest of the panel believe that the additional help that the Government are giving in terms of additional work coach resources and flexible support funds allow parents to participate better in the labour market?

Tony Wilson: Lone parent personal advisers, as they used to be called, or lone parent work coaches, are one of the great success stories of Jobcentre Plus over decades. The work that Jobcentre Plus advisers and contractors pioneered on engaging with lone parents in a specialist and intensive way, and joining up access to childcare, training and reskilling and employment support has been fantastically good. We need more of it, and we need to cherish and protect it. The problem is that the flexibilities within Jobcentre Plus mean that we are seeing an increase in generalist rather than specialist advisers. We are seeing some loss of lone parent specialist resource. We are not seeing the same approach to having lone parent advisers in every office, for example. However, Jobcentre Plus has done a fantastic job over the years supporting lone parents into work.

[The Chair]

The clock is ticking, and I have four colleagues to get in.