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.