Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Ratification of Convention) Bill

Sarah Champion Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 16th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

Erm, no! It was worth thinking about for a few seconds. If the hon. Lady comes back to me later, I may well oblige her—I could not resist that temptation.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Philip Davies]

Yes, I will.

[Sarah Champion]

I really appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s tone and the fact that he recognises the seriousness of this matter. I must point out to him that there are two parts to the Bill: combating violence against women and domestic violence. It does not say whether the domestic violence is against men, women or children.

[Philip Davies]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for highlighting that, and I will come on to that. As she rightly said, and as I tried to illustrate at the start of my contribution, there are two separate elements to this Bill, and I want to do justice to both of them if I may.

To be honest, I cannot believe that this needs saying, but it is so discriminatory and sexist to say that we should be focusing only on violence against women. If this was the other way around, there would be an absolute outcry from people in this House, and rightly so. I do not take the view that violence against women and girls is somehow worse than violence against men and boys. As far as I am concerned, all violence is unacceptable, and all violence against the person should be punished by law. Both men and women are victims and both are perpetrators of these crimes. I believe in true equality, and want people to be treated equally whether they are a victim or a perpetrator of crime.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his words and will address them in some detail. I want to start, however, by congratulating the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) on securing this private Member’s Bill and on the hard work and graft she and her team have put into making sure this issue remains on the Government’s agenda, maintains a high profile and is given the recognition in this country that it deserves. She said in her opening remarks that there had been 58,000 cases of domestic violence in Scotland in one year alone, and she went on to say that one in three women across the world will experience some form of abuse. That shows us why both this debate and the ratification of the Istanbul convention are so incredibly important.

The hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr Mathias) described her experience in her constituency and said that a police officer had told her that we are more unsafe in our own homes than we are on the streets. Again, that clearly illuminates the scale of the problem and the risks women are facing on a daily basis. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) spoke very emotionally of the work she did when running a refuge and made us all realise that Christmas is a very significant time for many families, when women are doing everything they possibly can to abate the violence they live with daily, so that their children can experience a safe Christmas, if not a joyful one.

I agreed with the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) on one point: all of us in this House want true equality, but we get true equality by dealing with gendered violence when we see it, so that then we can go forward on an equal basis. Sadly, unless we ratify the convention and unless the Government keep doing their sterling work to eliminate violence against women and girls internationally, we will never get that to point.

It was particularly poignant to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) speak about her former role at the highly regarded charity Respect, where she worked on perpetrator programmes to prevent violence. We focus so much on the crime that we tend not to focus on prevention, which is where we fall short as a society. Unless we address the underlying motivations that lead to violence and coercive control within relationships, we will never eradicate the problem—no matter how good our legislation is.

My hon. Friend once said something that has always stuck with me: over the decades that she worked with offenders, she met only one or two where, had there been appropriate intervention at an early age—whether at six, 16 or 26—they would not have become a perpetrator. It this House’s duty to ensure that perpetrator and early intervention programmes are at the core of all that we do.

Turning to the Minister’s remarks, I welcome his saying that he will do much more work with the police. This is about not only about getting legislation here, but getting it applied on the ground to protect everyone and to ensure a safe society for all. I commend the police because they have moved seismically from not even really acknowledging in some cases that domestic violence could happen to actively getting involved in tackling it. I ask the Minister to ask the police to ensure that the children are safe when they attend domestic violence callouts because I still hear about cases in which that was not automatic.

I am pleased to be able to say from the outset that I support the Bill, and I am proud that the Leader of the Opposition has confirmed that a Labour Government would ratify the Istanbul convention. In a post-Brexit Britain, international conventions and their obligations will become more important than ever, providing us with an external perspective and the chance to learn from other countries. International human rights conventions create clear standards and minimum expectations that every citizen can rely on.

The elimination of violence against women and girls is an area of great importance to this House and one in which we should always be aspiring to achieve more. Ending violence against women and girls requires a radical, seismic, societal shift in power and attitudes, and this House must be instrumental in that work. We need to acknowledge that this is gendered violence carried out against women and girls because they are women and girls. It is this that makes the Council of Europe convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, otherwise known as the Istanbul convention, so important. It is an historic convention that provides an international legal framework for tackling violence against women and girls. It is the first of its kind, and I am proud that a Labour Government led the negotiations that brought it into existence. If implemented, the convention would provide a step change in how violence against women and girls is considered, tackled and prevented. It requires states to take comprehensive action, set out minimum standards and create legally binding measures to tackle and prevent violence against women and girls.

The Istanbul convention sets out the need to place victims at centre of all measures to tackle violence against women and girls. It highlights the role of civil society and calls on Governments to ensure that organisations have the resources and recognition required to do a good job. It sets out clearly what survivors of violence need, and can expect, from their Governments to live in safety. Importantly, it calls on states to prevent violence and to take steps to eradicate the prejudices, customs, traditions and all other practices that contribute to violence. The sheer strength of the convention serves only to highlight how disappointing it is that the Government have yet to ratify it. It has now been four years and six months since they signed it.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley said, the Government should be congratulated on their progress to end violence against women and girls. The Home Office’s strategy for ending violence against women and girls shows a demonstrable commitment to tackling these heinous crimes. I particularly welcome the fact that the Minister went into some detail about the work this Government are doing internationally, as it is a source of great pride to us all as a country, and they should be commended on it. But we do have so much further to go. As the Equality and Human Rights Commission has said, a legislative commitment to implement the Istanbul convention would drive forward important and necessary changes to the way the UK protects women and girls against violence. Without ratification, the convention is just a piece of paper. Without ratification, it affords no one rights, it creates no minimum standards and it is impossible to hold the Government to account.

The Government have said that they are committed to ratification, and I am grateful to the Minister for that, yet despite a co-ordinated and consistent campaign from Members from across the House, charities and the public, the Government appear to be dragging their feet. The Minister has said that the Government need to establish extra-territorial jurisdiction over a range of offences, as required in the convention, prior to ratification, but they have been saying that since July 2014. Both Home Office and Ministry of Justice Ministers have given the same excuse for their failure to ratify the convention for two and a half years. It is understandable that obstacles to ratification exist—they existed for all the signatory countries—yet our Government are yet to inform the House what exact legislative changes are needed. When will the Government set out the timetable for overcoming the obstacles to ratification? How many offences will need legislative change? As the Minister said, these changes will cut across devolved and reserved powers, so what conversations has he had with three devolved Parliaments and Assemblies? Will the Government commit today to setting out a timetable to achieve the cross-UK and cross-government changes needed to ratify the convention? We understand that changes to domestic law are required, but the Bill will hold the Government to their commitments.

I believe that two substantive areas of Government policy would require improvement to meet the provisions under the convention, although these things absolutely would not prevent ratification. First, there is an urgent need for statutory, age-appropriate, sex and relationships education in schools, to give children the knowledge, resilience and confidence they need to maintain healthy friendships and to recognise abusive or coercive behaviour. The convention contains explicit requests for education work to help prevent violence, and we can make huge steps towards fulfilling this requirement with statutory sex and relationships education. Secondly, the convention gives all survivors of domestic abuse the right to access the specialist support services, which they need to live in safety and rebuild their lives, yet refuge services see their funding shrink rapidly. Without a strategic approach to the delivery and funding of specialist domestic violence services across the country, this Government cannot claim to meet the provisions in the convention.

To conclude, the Bill would provide a duty to take all reasonable steps to overcome the final obstacles towards ratification. It would push the Government forward on the reforms needed to meet provisions in the convention, such as sustainable funding for specialist refuges, and statutory sex and relationships education in schools. The Bill would provide us with the evidence we need that the Government truly are committed to ratification of the convention and a timetable to prove that they will do it. We need urgent action to tackle and prevent violence against women and girls, and the Bill would show that the Government are committed to that goal. I therefore urge all Members to support the Bill.