Domestic Violence

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2014 Westminster Hall

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

I extend my congratulations to the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) on securing the debate. He powerfully set the scene in relation to domestic abuse and domestic violence, recognising the work of Women’s Aid, the wider issues of domestic and sexual abuse, controlling behaviour and the impact on children. He also raised the question of how domestic violence cuts across class, ethnicity and background, and the fact that it is an issue for all of us. He showed how important it is to recognise the impact of domestic abuse and violence on people’s life chances, education and so on.

It is clear that domestic and sexual violence is little short of a national scandal and we need to do much more. Statistics have been shared in the debate, and however we look at things, the scale of reported incidents is staggering. Women reported more than 12 million incidents of domestic abuse last year. At least 750,000 children a year in the UK witness violence in their home, and two women a week are killed by their partner, or an ex. In some areas almost one in five 999 calls is about domestic violence. We also know that one in three 16 to 18-year-old girls has experienced groping or otherwise unwanted sexual touching at school and elsewhere. There are wider issues as well, if we treat violence against women and girls as the broader theme: thousands of girls are at risk of female genital mutilation and others disappear to become victims of forced marriage or honour violence—and it has been more comfortable for us to turn a blind eye to those issues.

I was proud to be at the launch of Plan International’s campaign to face up to violence against girls, and the launch of the END FGM campaign at the south bank just a few weeks ago. I pay tribute to the work done by many campaigners to raise our awareness of these issues which take the lives and health of millions of women and girls around the world, and to enable them to tackle them in their own families and communities. Domestic violence is a huge drain on the economy, as well as a blight on society. Domestic abuse alone costs the UK almost £16 billion a year.

The hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) talked about the importance of women’s refuges, and about under-reporting and funding issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie) described domestic abuse as a silent shame and spoke eloquently about those who suffer in silence, and about the need for support that victims can rely on. He also talked about our reluctance to get involved in what we see as something that happens behind closed doors, and about the idea that it is not for society to question what happens in the family sphere. We have come a long way from the time when rape in marriage was legal, but we have much further to go. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about strategies that are in play in Northern Ireland. Hon. Members are united in arguing that we need to do far more to prevent domestic abuse and domestic violence. My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) talked about prevention, protection and provision—the core strands of the strategy that we need.

I have had some discussions since I took on my new role as the shadow Minister for preventing violence against women and girls, and I have heard of shocking experiences, but I want to speak about those things in the context of three important areas. The first is prevention, and stepping up the challenge. The history of the issue includes reforms made under the Labour Government, such as specialist domestic violence courts, multi-agency risk assessment conferences and independent domestic violence advisors. That work has continued under the present Government. If we consider things collectively, we see that we have not managed to stem the tide of the prevalence of domestic abuse and violence. The second area I want to mention is support services—something frequently raised by hon. Members in the debate. Those who are victims of domestic violence, men or women, should be able to have confidence that services are available for them, and that they will get such services without delay.

The third area is improved access to justice, which has also been raised today, in terms of the performance of police, and by the HMIC in its report earlier this year. Hon. Members who have talked to women in refuges will know the struggle that they have to be heard in the court system and the lack of speed with which our court systems work to tackle some issues of domestic violence and issues between couples—I am referring to both the civil and criminal courts.

Let me start with prevention. I want to talk a little bit about sex and relationship education, which has been raised. Let us consider the challenges that young people face today and what they experience: they are under a lot of pressure to conform, whether that is through accessing pornography online, or through gang culture in some areas and in our schools. Having compulsory sex and relationship education is important, and it is not just about theory. Talking to those who have been delivering courses in schools, I have heard about how young people have developed the confidence to start talking about what is happening to them at school and, sometimes, at home. It is not just about theory, but about giving young people the resilience to stand up and be able to voice what is going on in their lives, and to be able to make very positive choices for the future. It is also very important in interrupting behaviours that may be learned at home if young people are experiencing domestic violence themselves, and watching it happening between their parents. It is also true to say that 88% of parents want sex and relationship education to be compulsory to tackle the dangers of pornography.

Labour has called for SRE in all state-funded schools from key stage 1, because there are aspects of age-appropriate sex and relationship education that are important for every age. Many young children at school today are not part of a huge family. Many are single children or have siblings who are younger, and they are learning how to share and about relationships for the first time. Having a way in which children learn about the values of respect, with others their own age, is incredibly important. A mum called me about an experience that her six-year old daughter had in her school: she was effectively assaulted by young boys her age. The school did not take it seriously. The trauma that the girl went through could be regarded as parallel to that experienced by someone of 16 or 26. In the end, she left school, and her mum is campaigning for change.

On support services, I pay tribute to the work of Women’s Aid, the End Violence Against Women Coalition, Rape Crisis and others. They do incredible work, not only in delivering services but in raising the profile of issues at a national level, and in making sure that we are getting the message of prevention and support out there.

We have talked today about the importance of funding. Labour and the shadow Home Secretary have committed to a new £3 million annual fund for refuges supporting victims of domestic violence. As we have said, we want to see the continuation of a national network of refuges. A 31% cut in funding for refuges and specialist advice is undermining action against domestic violence. In some areas, there is absolutely no specialist refuge. Refuges have also been disproportionately affected by cuts to local government, and according to Women’s Aid, eight refuges are under imminent threat of closure and are currently running on reserves.

Labour’s commitment is fully funded, through a small percentage of savings from abolishing the expensive police and crime commissioner elections. We are also calling for new FGM protection orders to stop children suspected of being at risk of FGM being taken abroad. On that, there is some commonality but also some differences between us and the Government, and we are looking at other measures that we will be able to bring in from the women’s safety commission, led by Vera Baird, QC, and Diana Holland. We hope to be launching those next month.

Before closing, I want to say a few words about improved access to justice. We need to ensure that there is a joined-up justice system that works fast, gets it right and is cost-effective and easy to access. We believe that we need a new commissioner for domestic and sexual violence who sits at the heart of Government to ensure that victims’ voices are heard, that there is a way they are heard fast, and that there is a fast response to the challenges that are being raised. I am working closely on that with Keir Starmer, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, because we need to see a new agency—a new body—that can sit alongside the Victims’ Commissioner and the Children’s Commissioner to say we need to join this up, but we need some challenge to the centre in order to make sure that victims’ voices and victims’ challenges come through to the system as a whole.

We also need new national standards for policing to drive up performance across the board. We have all heard harrowing stories of victims who do not feel that they have been believed. I met a woman at a refuge who told me that the policeman who attended when she was a victim of serious violence at the hands of her partner thought that she was drunk when, in fact, she was concussed, having been hit around the head by her partner. Police training needs to be updated and refreshed. We need to make sure that there are minimum standards so that victims will be believed; so that we know such incidents will be dealt with within an allotted time; so that evidence will be collected and the follow-up will be done; and so that the Crown Prosecution Service’s advice will be sought early to build a case. Those are all vital to maintaining public confidence in policing.

I close by saying that this has been an incredibly important debate. We know that we are a long way from the end of this, and that we need to bring in measures, as Labour hopes to do in its first Queen’s Speech, in a Bill addressing violence against women and girls. The fact that we have come together in this debate this afternoon and that this debate has also been led by men is an incredibly important step that we are taking, collectively as the British Parliament, to say that we want to make sure that there is zero tolerance of violence in relationships, that that message goes early to schools and our young people, and that we address these matters with the utmost seriousness in every way that we can, from every part of Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Norman Baker]

Some of the £40 million—not a great proportion, it has to be said—goes towards helping organisations that are there directly to provide an outlet for men who wish to report such matters. We think that the number of men who were victims of domestic abuse was 721,000, and of that number, 517,000 experienced partner abuse. That may be same-sex partner abuse or by women on men. Nevertheless, it is also a very high figure, and the hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to it, although it would be wrong of me not to point out that the majority of domestic abuse is by men on women.

I was about to mention two powerful initiatives that we have been rolling out across England and Wales to support victims. The domestic violence disclosure scheme is a system whereby anyone can seek disclosure of a partner’s violent past. Those with the legal right to know are provided with information that could well save lives, empowering them to make an informed choice about their future. As the Minister for Crime Prevention, I say that if we can prevent crime in the first place, that is the best outcome.

Domestic violence protection orders offer respite to victims in the immediate aftermath of domestic abuse. They have the power to ban a perpetrator from the home and from having contact with the victim for up to 28 days. That offers both the victim and the perpetrator the chance to reflect on the incident. In the case of the victim, it provides an opportunity to determine the best course of action to end the cycle of abuse. In my view, it is a welcome change that it may be the perpetrator who is required to leave the house, rather than the victim leaving, as has all too often been the case in the past. Together, the two initiatives significantly improve the reality for victims of these appalling crimes.

[Seema Malhotra]

Will the Minister give his assessment of the take-up so far of domestic violence protection orders?

[Norman Baker]

The early indications are encouraging. The orders are certainly working, but as the hon. Lady will appreciate, we have rolled them out just recently so we do not have the full-year figures yet. Of course, we will, as a matter of course, publish those figures as and when they are available, but the early indications, as I said, are positive.

Also important is the Government’s decision in April 2011 to place domestic homicide reviews on a statutory footing. Now, every local report on a domestic homicide is reviewed and quality-assured by a panel of independent and Home Office experts. Each review results in a tailored action plan that must be delivered by the area in question to ensure that we learn from those individual tragedies. The Home Office has published a document collating the national lessons learned from those reviews and making recommendations to local areas to drive improvements in practice.

Of course, we have more to do. I think that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said that every 30 seconds a victim of domestic abuse summons up the courage to call the police. That is a huge percentage of the number of calls that the police receive. When a victim reaches out for help, it is vital that the police are equipped to respond effectively and to end a cycle of abuse that in many cases will have been going on for years. Sometimes a person will have been subjected to abuse 50, 60 or 70 times before they make that call to the police. It is also vital that victims have confidence that the criminal justice system will prosecute the perpetrators of these appalling crimes and will work for the victims.

Following a dip in referrals from the police to the Crown Prosecution Service, I am encouraged to see that the volumes of referrals, prosecutions and successful convictions are rising. For example, the volume of referrals to the CPS rose to 103,569 in 2013-14. That represents a rise of 17.5% from the previous year and the highest level ever. It compares with 91,184 referrals in 2009-10. Following action that we have taken with the Attorney-General, the number of defendants being charged has risen from about 60,000 to almost 73,000 in the last year. That represents a 21% increase and, again, the highest level ever achieved. It is subsequently translating into a rise in conviction rates, from 72% of those facing a charge in 2009-10 to 74.6% in 2012-13. However, I am the first to say that, despite the encouraging rise in referrals and prosecutions, we need to do more to ensure that front-line agencies treat domestic abuse as the serious crime that it is.

Hon. Members will be aware that HMIC published its report in March this year on the police response to domestic abuse across all 43 forces in England and Wales. That report made for depressing reading. It showed that a combination of poor leadership, bad culture and basic policing skills being lacking was failing victims. For example, on leadership, the report found that many chief constables and their top teams still focused more on volume and acquisitive crime reduction than on domestic abuse. Leadership on domestic abuse was not present, translating into poor management and supervision in the police to reinforce the right behaviours, attitudes and actions of officers.

On culture, HMIC identified that there were many examples of officers who work tirelessly to keep victims safe and sometimes with little support from their wider force, but there were also officers who showed a poor attitude towards victims and failed to treat them with the empathy they deserve. Victims reported feeling judged and not taken seriously.

On core policing skills, basic evidence collection that could help to support a prosecution to bring a perpetrator to justice simply was not happening. When HMIC reviewed 615 actual bodily harm cases connected with domestic abuse, photographs of injuries were taken in only half the cases and, in 30% of cases, officers’ statements lacked important details about the crime scene or the victim.

The failings I have described meant that, crucially, the priority that police and crime commissioners give domestic abuse in their crime plans, which is quite general, I am happy to say, was not translating into operational reality. That is completely unacceptable. People in desperate circumstances should know that they can rely on the police to respond quickly, effectively and professionally. Chief constables must take urgent action to make significant changes to front-line policing so that victims are protected and perpetrators brought to justice.

To ensure that real change happens, the Home Secretary and I sit on a new national oversight group that she has established and that meets quarterly to drive through the recommendations in HMIC’s report. I am pleased to inform hon. Members that we will shortly publish our first progress report, a copy of which will be placed in the Library of the House.

All police forces in England and Wales have now submitted action plans to HMIC to address the report’s findings. HMIC will quality-assure those plans over the next two months with voluntary sector partners, and will report its findings at the next national oversight group meeting in December. I expect police and crime commissioners and the College Of Policing to use the plans, plus the outcomes arising from the national oversight group, to support their forces and hold them to account.

Some forces have already taken action to address the issues that HMIC has highlighted. Merseyside police identified a problem with the initial evidence collected by officers in domestic abuse cases and trained 1,500 front-line officers to improve their investigation skills. Following a re-inspection, Gloucestershire police have been deemed by HMIC to be much improved. We are seeing good progress, and it shows that the police can respond in a positive and effective way.

I am clear that the work that the police are undertaking to improve their response must be supported by the Government and the wider response of the criminal justice system. Last month, the Secretary of State for Justice announced a victims package, which launched a new package of reforms including the establishment of a new victims information service and strengthening the protection for vulnerable victims by improving the court experience. We are also piloting pre-trial cross-examination in three Crown courts, and the Director of Public Prosecutions is updating guidance for prosecutors to complement that work.

The Government will ensure that front-line criminal justice agencies have the tools they need to tackle domestic abuse effectively. Hon. Members will be aware that the Home Office has recently concluded a consultation on whether the law on domestic abuse needs to be strengthened, a point that many hon. Members have made this afternoon. There is widespread understanding that domestic abuse is not simply about physical violence, and the expanded definition that we introduced last year makes it clear that domestic abuse extends to coercive and controlling behaviour. We want to ensure that the legal framework is unambiguous in recognising and prosecuting domestic abuse in all its forms. We received more than 750 responses to our consultation, which we are currently analysing, and we will publish our response shortly.

Let me pick up some of the points that hon. Members have raised. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Upper Bann for referring to the White Ribbon pledge. I can inform him that I have signed it, because it was initiated by my local authority, which has a good record on the matter. I encourage other hon. Members to do likewise.

The hon. Gentleman was right to refer to the effect of domestic violence on children. That is a serious issue, and he is quite right that the effects can remain with children throughout their lives. Although I cannot provide a statistical analysis, I have a suspicion that those who witness or are subject to domestic violence at an early age may be more vulnerable to sexual violence later in life than those who do not. Witnessing violence in the home at an early age cannot be good for children.

Several hon. Members spoke about refuges. I have made it plain that local authorities that provide money for refuges should not see cutting refuges as an easy saving. I appreciate that local authorities are under considerable financial strain, but they should not be cutting services for vulnerable people. I understand that the case has been made for looking afresh at national funding for refuges, and I have met Women’s Aid and other groups to discuss the matter. We are currently considering where we go with that, but I want to make it plain that we should see no further closures of refuges in this country.

Although hon. Members have not raised this point, we must do everything we can to help local authorities to commission services properly, because there is clearly a problem with that. Some local authorities have commissioned services in a way that does not help refuges, and that must be addressed. For example, some refuges have said that they will accept references only from the local community, but if a woman has been subject to physical abuse, the last thing that she will want to do is to stay in her community. She will want to escape from it, so that condition, which some local authorities have imposed, is nonsensical. The Home Office is working with local authorities to help them with commissioning practices, to ensure that they get the best value for money and the best service for those—predominantly women—who use refuges. More can be done on that. Current commissioning practices waste money by imposing requirements that are not necessary for the operation of the refuge service, and that money could be better spent on protecting women.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) mentioned the engagement of football authorities. As he recognises, they responded quite well to the initiative that he mentioned. I have had a meeting with the various elements of football—the FA, the Premier League and others—to discuss what they might do further to deal with domestic violence, and how they might use their voices to help tackle that societal problem. They have gone away to consider what they can do to help, and I am waiting for them to come back with their offer. We are very much on the case with that, and I am grateful to the football authorities, in their various guises, for the positive way in which they have engaged with me and the women’s organisations to which my hon. Friend referred.

The hon. Member for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie) mentioned a figure for the increase in domestic violence. I urge caution, because it can be difficult to determine to what extent there has been an increase in domestic violence, and to what extent there has been an increase in reporting. Those are not quite the same thing, as he will appreciate. The Government is encouraging victims of violence to come forward—that is a common approach across the House—and they are doing so, partly because they now have more confidence in the police than they used to. When we see figures for the number of reported incidents of domestic violence, we must be careful not to assume that that represents an increase, because it may simply represent a welcome increase in reporting. That is not to be in any way complacent about the figures, because they are far too high. I simply want to put a cautionary marker on the use of such figures. The hon. Member for Strangford raised that point as well, and I hope I picked his point up, too.

The question of legal aid was raised by the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne), and I want to provide her with some reassurance. We have retained legal aid in key areas that impact on women, particularly injunctions to protect victims from domestic abuse, and in family cases such as child contact or division of assets after separation where domestic violence is a feature. We continue to provide civil legal aid for the victims of domestic violence to apply for protected injunctions, such as non-molestation orders. We will also continue to waive the financial eligibility limits in such cases. Our changes to the scope of legal aid do not affect those cases.

The hon. Lady expressed her view that personal, social, health and economic education should be mandatory in state schools. The Home Office has done a great deal to help to educate boys, in particular, about the nature of appropriate relationships. We have run a successful campaign, as I hope the hon. Lady knows, called, “This is abuse”, involving stars from “Hollyoaks” and various pop bands. We have used MTV and other channels to ensure that the campaign reaches young people, and the response to it has been quite good. I understand entirely the point about compulsory PSHE, which several others have echoed, and I have raised that with the new Education Secretary. I do not want to commit her to anything, but I think she is prepared to look at the matter, so we might make some progress on that front.

I welcome the shadow Minister to her post, in what I believe is her first outing in such a debate, and I agree with much of what she said. I agree that we must have the confidence of victims if they are to come forward, and I have tried to address that point in my response. I also agree that the performance of the police and the Courts Service must improve. I hope she acknowledges that we are taking steps to bring about such improvements, as I have outlined.

The shadow Minister mentioned the figure of 31% in relation to cuts to refuges. That is not a figure I accept. It comes from a survey based on an average from 63 local authorities that made cuts to their refuge service, which did not take into account the responses from 201 authorities that did not make cuts. That figure, therefore, is inaccurate and misleading, and I would be grateful if she did not use it. As I have made clear, I am in no way complacent about refuges, but we must make sure that the figures we use are accurate.

The situation that faces us is no small challenge. The Government has introduced significant initiatives to enhance victim safety, but we have also made it clear that changes to the law or new powers alone are not sufficient. We must not fall into the trap of thinking that the statute book is the answer to everything, because it is not. The police have significant changes to make following HMIC’s report. I am determined to create an environment in which all victims of domestic abuse who find the courage to seek help have their needs met. That will, ultimately, encourage more victims to come forward, which will mean that more perpetrators are brought to justice, more cycles of abuse are disrupted and we take a giant step closer to becoming a society in which domestic abuse is a thing of the past.