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

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

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

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend makes a perfectly valid point. If we follow the logic of today’s debate, the Geneva convention should have applied only to men, as they were much more likely to be subjected to what it was intended to cover. I think that that would be nonsense, and I suspect that my hon. Friend and most people here think that it would be nonsense too, but it is amazing that when it falls on the other side, everyone is silent. That is the hypocrisy I want to expose today and I am going to press on and expose it.

To highlight the fact that men are more likely to be the victims of violent crime, I will quote the recent statistics from the Ministry of Justice on the representation of females and males in the criminal justice system. They confirm that men are nearly twice as likely to be the victim of violent crime than women. According to the crime survey of England and Wales, 1.3% of women interviewed reported being victims of violence compared with 2.4% of men. My point also applies to children. Again according to the crime survey for England and Wales, in 2015-16 a smaller proportion of girls than boys reported being victims of violence—4.2% of girls versus 7.7% of boys.

It is not just with violence generally that men do worse than women. When it comes to the most serious cases, according to the crime survey for England and Wales, in 2015-16 women accounted for 36% of recorded homicide victims while men were victims in 64% of cases. Clearly, on every possible level of crime, a man is more likely to be the victim than a woman.

Although we have not heard much, if anything, about this today, men are also victims of domestic violence. It is right that in two thirds of domestic violence incidents a woman is the victim, which is absolutely outrageous, but in a third of cases the victim is a man. It may well be that some people in this House think we should only be concerned about the two thirds who are women, but I do not. We should be concerned about all victims of domestic violence equally. They are all victims of domestic violence and we should consider them equally whenever we consider a response to it, not just the two thirds who happen to be women.

According to the Office for National Statistics report “Focus on Violent Crime and Sexual Offences”, which relates to the year ending March 2015 and which was released in February, the crime survey of England and Wales estimates that 8.2% of women and 4% of men reported experiencing any type of domestic abuse in the last year—that is all forms of abuse. That is equivalent to an estimated 1.3 million female victims and 600,000 male victims, all of whom, in my opinion, equally deserve our support. The ONS also confirms that 6.5% of women and 2.8% of men reported having experienced any type of partner abuse in the last year, equivalent to an estimated 1.1 million female victims and 500,000 male victims.

The Bill refers to preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. Although the first part is relatively clear, the second bit, about domestic violence, is not so clear, because of the definition of domestic violence. Our definition of it includes non-violent components, so we need to be very careful when bandying around figures about domestic violence. That is inevitably the problem with a wide definition. It has the word “violence” in the title, and people then understandably assume it relates to physical violence, but that is not always necessarily the case and that can be quite confusing. We must also remember that domestic incidents include people in relationships, as well as those in family and other relationships that could be considered domestic in nature. What I am trying to say is that the notion that in every case of domestic violence or abuse the perpetrator is a big, burly wife-beater is just that—a notion, not fact.

I asked the House of Commons Library for some information on what is known as the Istanbul convention, which this Bill seeks to ratify. The Library said that it is a Council of Europe convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. It was adopted by the Council of Europe on 7 April 2011, was open for signature on 11 May 2011 at the 121st session of the Committee of Ministers in Istanbul, and entered into force on 1 August 2014. The UK signed the convention on 8 June 2012, but has not yet ratified it. Some countries have signed the convention, like the UK, and some have signed it and ratified it as well. I will not go through all the countries and give their positions on it, although it is very illuminating and relevant to the debate, but I do not want to test the patience of the House.

Some countries have signed the convention but not ratified it, like us. Sudan was mentioned as an illustration earlier. As my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) rightly highlighted, Germany has not ratified it. Nor has Iceland, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Croatia and Cyprus. They are all members of the European Union, which is apparently such a fine institution that SNP Members are desperate for us to remain part of it, yet their wonderful partner countries have not bothered to ratify the convention either. There was no mention of that, strangely, in the speech made by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan. It is particularly interesting to note that Ireland only signed the convention on 5 November 2015, and has also not ratified it. Perhaps the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) might want to have a word with his friends in the Irish Republic to ask why they have not ratified it.

SNP Members were up in arms earlier about something that they never bothered to read and that they knew nothing about, but I will help them out, as I can tell them what article 1 says. It sets out five purposes, and the first is to

“protect women against all forms of violence, and prevent, prosecute and eliminate violence against women and domestic violence”.

The second is to

“contribute to the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and promote substantive equality between women and men, including by empowering women”.

The third is to

“design a comprehensive framework, policies and measures for the protection of and assistance to all victims of violence against women and domestic violence”.

The fourth is to

“promote international co-operation with a view to eliminating violence against women and domestic violence”,

and the fifth is to

“provide support and assistance to organisations and law enforcement agencies to effectively co-operate in order to adopt an integrated approach to eliminating violence against women and domestic violence”.

Let us consider the first point. Of course we are all united in our opposition to any violence against women and girls. I will repeat that, Mr Deputy Speaker, if you do not mind, because I want to make it clear so that nobody misunderstands the terms of this debate. We are all united in our opposition to any violence against women and girls. I would be astounded if any of us were not. I pride myself on being one of the most hard-line Members on matters of law and order and sentencing, and I always find it rather strange that those who speak passionately about how we should have zero tolerance of violence against women and girls and violence against people—which I agree with—are often the same people who then argue that the perpetrators of violence should do anything but be sent to prison.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman has helpfully laid out the objectives of the Istanbul convention. Can he explain precisely what he sees as the downside of ratifying the convention, given all that it could do to achieve much greater focus and energy in the prevention of violence against women and girls, and for all those—whether male or female—who will be victims, particularly given the scale and nature of domestic violence?

[Philip Davies]

My hope is that, by the time I have finished speaking, the hon. Lady will be much wiser about why I wholly oppose the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Seema Malhotra]

Has the Minister been able to consider any alternative timetable that he might bring to this House if he disagrees with what is proposed in the Bill, and can he also commit in principle that Government time will be allocated to the ratification of the Istanbul convention?

[Brandon Lewis]

I hope my next words will put the hon. Lady’s mind at rest. Both those points and any others Members may wish to raise are areas we will all want to consider more fully in consultation with the devolved Administrations and return to in Committee. However, at this stage I am pleased to say the Government support the Bill in principle.

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

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 24th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whiteford]

No, I will not. The hon. Gentleman has more than enough air time. Everybody recognises that some men will experience gender violence and domestic violence, and that sometimes the perpetrator will be female, but in the real world in which we live the people who experience sexual and domestic violence are overwhelmingly female; women are disproportionately subjected to these forms of violence and abuses on a colossal scale—we cannot ignore that reality. The large majority of perpetrators, although by no means all, happen to be men; no credible, documented source of evidence anywhere in the world suggests otherwise. We do ourselves a huge disservice if we pretend that this is just another case of “the boys against the girls”—we are not in primary 4. It is a grave distortion of a terrible, systemic abuse of human rights to ignore the profound gender inequalities that drive and compound sexual violence and domestic abuse.

It is also important to say that some types of sexual violence are becoming more prevalent. Crime in Scotland is at a 40-year low, yet sexual offences are rising. That could be due to more people reporting what has happened to them, and in the wake of the exposure of the Savile review we know that there has certainly been a spike in the reporting of historic incidents. But I fear that this is also to do with a genuine increase in new types of gender-based violence, which are partly facilitated by this saturated world we live in of violent sexual imagery: the emergence of so-called “revenge porn”, which was not possible until the advent of smartphones; and things such as so-called “date rape” drugs being available. Those things were not problems 20 or 30 years ago but they have become prevalent problems now, and they are driving an increase in sexual assaults in particular. However, women’s inequality is still a key feature of every society in the world, and that is what is really underpinning gender-based violence.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech and an important point. I congratulate her on her ongoing work on this issue and I hope everyone will vote in support of the Bill today. We came into this Chamber with the horror of the Helen Bailey story in today’s papers, her partner having been jailed for 34 years for her murder. Does the hon. Lady agree that this highlights how the crime of domestic violence and violence against women hits? Age and background are not relevant, as this is a universal crime. Finding a way of raising awareness among young people will be the best gift we can give them in terms of prevention, and supporting the Bill today will be global Britain in action.

[Dr Whiteford]

The hon. Lady makes a series of salient points in her concise intervention, and of course our condolences go to the friends and family of Helen Bailey, whose dreadful murder made us all pause for thought and for breath. It was a truly horrific crime and I am glad her killer has been brought to justice.

The hon. Lady also anticipated the points I was just about to make on the universality of gender-based violence. I talked a lot on Second Reading about the differential experiences of gender-based violence, and in explaining why I will be opposing amendments that have been tabled, I will reiterate the points I made then. Although this is a universal crime that affects women right across the spectrum, we know that low-income women, disabled women and women under 30 are more likely to experience gender-based violence than others. We know that women from some ethnic and cultural minorities are exposed to greater risk of specific manifestations of violence, such as female genital mutilation or forced marriage. Sexual violence can happen to any of us—it affects people of all economic and social backgrounds and ages—but there are deep structural social inequalities reflected in our likelihood of experiencing sexual and domestic violence, and gender inequality is the cross-cutting factor that underpins and compounds them all.

If we are serious about ending these forms of abuse, we need to understand their manifestations and end the denial—the blind spot—about the far-reaching effects of wider gender inequality. Women may have secured equality before the law—de jure equality—but we are nowhere near achieving de facto equality, or equality in practice. We need just to look around Parliament or to listen to the amount of air time that people get in Parliament, including today, to see that. Until we get that equality in practice, women will continue to face life-threatening, life-changing abuse over the course of their lives.

I now want to turn to the amendments tabled by the Minister, all of which I am happy to accept. I am grateful for the way in which the Government, in proposing some significant changes, have worked to retain the principles, intention, integrity and spirit of the Bill. We are at our best as legislators when we use those areas where there is already a large degree of common ground and consensus to find compromises and push forward together where we are able to do so. Although these Government amendments were not tabled in time for the Committee, the Government were able in Committee to outline their intentions in some detail and to indicate the areas in which they planned to amend the Bill on Report.

Government amendment 1, which removes clause 1, is undoubtedly the amendment over which I still have some reservations, but I am prepared to take in good faith the Government’s commitment that they will move forward with all due haste to make the legislative changes they need to make to bring the UK into compliance with the Istanbul convention. I reject absolutely the assertion from those on the Tory Back Benches that the Government do not care about these issues. I urge anyone who takes that view to speak to some of the women on the Tory Benches, including those who have so courageously spoken about their own experiences of domestic abuse. Tory women are no more immune from gender-based violence than anyone else; all of us are affected. I believe genuinely that there is a shared commitment on this, including a personal commitment from the Prime Minister.