Draft Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Legal Aid: Family and Domestic Abuse) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2023

Shaun Bailey Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 General Committees

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate today and to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cardiff North. I had not intended to contribute to this debate, but it is quite a personal one for me as the son of a survivor of domestic abuse.

I saw the shambolic system under the previous Labour Government. After having lived through that and experienced that myself, I question the narrative of the land of milk and honey under that previous Administration. However, I agree with the hon. Lady. In the broader context of support for survivors, the order is long overdue. I welcome what my hon. Friend the Minister has done to ease access. I remember my mum’s own story as a survivor of domestic abuse. She struggled to access the justice system at the time, and she had to face down my father —who tried to throw her over the balcony of the court building itself during their hearings— in court because there was no way in which the evidence could be taken that did not involve her having to encounter him.

I support freeing up the system to make it more accessible. I particularly want to draw attention to the provisions around medical practitioners providing evidence, because I have seen at first hand how difficult it is for survivors to go through this system while staying safe. We need to couch this in terms of what it is: ultimately, when we talk about domestic violence, it is a threat to someone’s life. I have seen that at first hand, and I spoke about it when I got into this place. The reason I am here is because of the fights that my mum had to go through in order to just keep me and my sister alive, quite frankly, and to ensure that my father never got within five feet of us.

Making the system easier in any way is, in my view, the right thing for the Government to do, but it is probably 25 years overdue. That is not the Minister’s fault: Governments of all colours have had abysmal track records in this space. I am glad to see that we are finally going some way towards remediating and rectifying that. Of course, there is more I would like to see. We made steps in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021; we need to keep building on that legislation, and I implore my hon. Friend the Minister to do so. We have spoken many times about the work that he and right hon. and hon. Friends in his Department are doing.

It is also good to see an expansion of ease of access to legal aid, for once. Too often, we hear other narratives around legal aid, but it is such a vital part of this process. Just to give an example, during my childhood we were homeless, so accessing the justice system in the way that people currently have to do was just not doable. What my hon. Friend the Minister has done today would have meant that my mum could access that system more easily, and she would have been able to get to the end of this horrific process in a quicker way and one that kept her safe and ensured that she could keep us protected. That is who I think of as I make this speech. As I say, Mr Vickers, I had not intended to contribute to this debate, but the nature of this SI is personal to me. Quite often, we come into these Committees thinking that the piece of delegated legislation we are considering is quite odd and abstract, but this one is not. It is about people’s lives; it is about the experiences that so many people up and down this country are having to go through, but quite frankly, should not have to go through.

I thank the Committee for its indulgence in letting me speak to this piece of legislation. While it is overdue, it is very welcome, and I hope that it is not the end, but merely part of the process as we build a system that supports survivors. We have to remember that the people in these situations are survivors, not victims, and we can help them by ensuring they get access to justice and the systems they need, so that they can carry on with their lives. At the end of the day, if it were not for people like my mum, I would not be stood here right now—it is as simple as that—so I thank my hon. Friend the Minister. Let us hope that we can get some positives out of what is a horrendous situation.