Domestic Abuse Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Peter Kyle and Andrew Bowie

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 4th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Kyle]

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

Domestic Abuse Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Peter Kyle and Andrew Bowie

Committee stage
Thursday 4th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Kyle]

Q Reading your evidence last night, one can sense the weariness of the frequency with which you have had to feed information in for a very long time. This is a fresh opportunity. I am sorry if it feels repetitive to you. There are many of us who are trying to do justice by some of the work and experience you have had.

In your written evidence and in your verbal evidence today you say that the pilot will cover support for about 130 to about 150 women. How many women will be left out from that? How many people are we talking about in general, in total?

Pragna Patel: I wish I could tell you that. I wish I could tell you how many women there are who are subject to abuse in this country and who are subject to no recourse to public funds. Those figures just do not exist, and that is part of the problem. That is part of the problem of why this issue is so invisible.

Some of the ways in which we have tried to gauge is by looking at how many women, for example, have received the DDVC. I think the figure in 2019 was, if I am not mistaken, that about 1,200 were entitled to the DDVC. If we then look at Women’s Aid statistics and the statistics that Southall Black Sisters have gathered over the years, which suggest that two-thirds of the women who come to us are not entitled to the DDVC, we get a figure of 3,000-odd women. That is the best estimate I can give you. It probably could be more because of under-reporting, so we are talking about possibly low thousands. That is why it is not beyond our ability to ensure that those women receive the support they need.

There is enough evidence. We do not need another pilot project to assess needs. Those needs have been assessed by my organisation and others over the years. The Home Office internal review has not been published. We would like to see that published. We would like to see what the equality outcome of that has been. That would also help us in terms of understanding where the gaps in the evidence are.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

Q A few moments ago you said that you wanted a gendered definition of domestic abuse. I completely understand that everybody acknowledges that the overwhelming number of victims of domestic abuse are women and that is tragic. Are you not worried that, in doing that, we would actually overlook and possibly leave behind some male sufferers of domestic abuse?

Pragna Patel: I think it is possible to provide a gendered analysis of domestic abuse while also recognising that there are circumstances in which men also face abuse. I do not think that the two need be mutually exclusive. I think it is possible for us to draft the Bill in such a way—the way in which we talk about the fact that it applies to many groups in society but the overwhelming victims are women—that it should not necessarily do what you fear might happen. The disadvantage of not making it gendered—I have seen this in our local area and the way in which statistics are gathered and skewed. Let me give you an example, if I may.

When a woman reports domestic abuse and the police turn up at the door, the perpetrator usually makes a counter-allegation and says, “Well, actually, it was her abusing me.” The police feel that they cannot judge who is the victim and who is the perpetrator. What they have done—we have seen this in a number of our cases—is that they either label both as perpetrators or both as victims. There have been circumstances when the victim herself has been labelled the perpetrator and arrested and charged. What that then means is that the statistics gathered locally are skewed, because it suggests that more men are victims of domestic abuse than they are. In all these cases where women have been categorised as perpetrators, by the time they have got to court those charges have been dropped, because the context has been interrogated and it has been seen that they were the victims.

What I am saying is that that then skews the statistics. It then skews the policies that are needed to deal with abuse and skews policies that are needed to deal particularly with prevention and who the target audiences should be. It is dangerous not to reflect what is a social—and a global—reality and what is recognised in other UN laws, in international human rights law, under the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and in the Istanbul convention itself: that domestic abuse is gendered. It does not mean, therefore, that we cannot accept that abuse also occurs towards men and make sure that there are also protective measures to deal with that.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Peter Kyle and Andrew Bowie

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 4th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Andrew Bowie]

Q Suzanne, I do not know whether you heard my original question, but if you had a shopping list for the new designate domestic abuse commissioner, what would you prioritise for her to focus on?

Suzanne Jacob: Apologies, because I am struggling to hear Ellie, so I may at times repeat some of her no doubt very good points. Everyone in the sector hugely welcomes not just the creation of the role, but the appointment of Nicole Jacobs specifically. She is an extremely adept and well qualified person, and as many people have said she is already making a difference in the role. I think we have to be a little bit careful in terms of overstretching our expectations not just of what the person can do but of what the role can do, and making sure that we do not blur the boundary between the Government’s responsibility and the responsibility of the independent commissioner.

It is particularly important to make sure that we do not end up with things parked with the commissioner that can and should be dealt with much more quickly. For example, at SafeLives, we are concerned that as currently drafted, the statutory duty does not live up to the big ambition that we know the Government have around responding to domestic abuse, supporting as it does just 0.5% of the total of the more than 2 million victims who experience domestic abuse every year.

The mapping process that has been suggested for the commissioner, I would suggest, is a repetition of quite a lot of mapping processes. I have been at SafeLives for five and a half years and I think we have taken part in at least one, if not more, mapping processes with the Government every year that I have been in post. I suggest that, in terms of priority need, it is that cross-Government picture that will be really important. The commissioner made the point clearly that the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice in particular have borne the burden of domestic abuse for many years, but actually every single part of Government has a big role to play. We have not seen all parts of Government playing that role particularly well in the past.

In terms of priorities, it would be brilliant to see the commissioner, as Ellie said as well, resourced to address things such as the family court, domestic homicide reviews, mental health connections to domestic abuse, and the needs of children and young people, which primarily sit outside the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. That is where I would love her to start.

[Peter Kyle]

Q Ellie, you will often be the first point of call when people call the helpline. What are the barriers to support that go beyond the helpline?

Ellie Butt: The national domestic abuse helpline is a national resource that is often, as you say, the first place a women might call if she thinks that she is experiencing domestic abuse, wants to talk to somebody, or is looking for a service or some information or advice. We have seen demand for that service increase hugely since the covid-19 pandemic struck. Our calls and contacts are up by 66% and web traffic, which includes the ability to live chat with our helpline team, has increased by more than 900% in the last few weeks. It is a hugely important and in-demand service.

There is the challenge of just ensuring that we can meet that demand. It is also important for the helpline team and for women calling the helpline that they have somewhere to go and there is a service for them when they call. That is why what is really needed to accompany the Bill is funding for the full range of specialist services that women and children need. We know that there are not enough refuges to meet demand in this country. I have been looking at the stats this week and the number of women calling the helpline, seeking a refuge place and there not being one suitable for them has been slightly increasing over the last few weeks. That is a huge worry. There is a real opportunity with this Bill to fix that and to get the duty right, so the full range of services that women need is there for them.

I know that you have already heard lots of evidence about this today, but the support for migrant women is not good enough. There are often very few options for them if they have no recourse to public funds. Again, the Bill is a real opportunity to fix that so that all women can access the range of services from the specialist third sector and from public services. Those are some of the key challenges when women call the helpline.