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

Tania Mathias Excerpts

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

[Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) on securing this very important debate. She has my absolute and full support.

The Istanbul convention is historic, as has been said. It is the first international treaty that legally defines violence against women: a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women. I believe that this is absolutely the right time for this Government to ratify the convention. It is overdue, but this is an historic time: our Prime Minister is a woman; our Home Secretary is a woman; and a woman is bringing in this Bill. It is indeed a good time to bring this forward.

I applaud the Government for signing up to the convention four years ago. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), said this month that the Government are complying with every single aspect of the convention. I applaud the fact that this Government have extra-territorial jurisdiction over female genital mutilation and forced marriage, about which I have spoken previously.

Ratifying the convention is important for my constituents so that the Government are aligned with what is going on at the ground level in all our constituencies. Amazing work is being done in my Twickenham constituency, but it was only through my work as a local councillor and now an MP in the area that I realised how appalling the challenge is. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said, this is a huge challenge for our society, and I know it is a huge challenge for Twickenham.

On average, the police are called out in my borough two to three times every night for domestic violence. A few months back, I spent a Saturday night/Sunday morning shift with the police, and even though I knew the statistics I was horrified by what I saw. That afternoon, I had been knocking on doors down one of our prettiest streets in Twickenham—I had spoken to many people that Saturday—yet that night and in the early hours of Sunday morning, I was in the police van after a serious incident of domestic violence. I did not know whether I had spoken that afternoon either to the victim or to somebody who had committed violence. There was absolutely no way I could have known that. I realised that, given that MPs tend to knock on doors on every street, we might be meeting someone who is either a victim or a perpetrator of this crime on every street.

I had a constituency meeting with police, charities and the Greater London Authority to talk about what we could do in our area. It was chilling to hear from one of the police officers when he said that in this borough “we are more unsafe in our own homes than we are on the streets”.

[Dr Philippa Whitford]

It is recognised that we are more likely to see women from poorer backgrounds captured in the data, but in the more middle-class and better-off circles of society is there not even greater pressure on women not to report? Working as a doctor, I met many women patients beaten below the neck, so that the injuries would not show. They were covered in bruises, yet they still came out with the “It’s my fault; I should not have done this or that” type of comment. We must not be misled by the data into thinking that this is not an issue among the better-off.

[Dr Mathias]

I think the data are likely to show that this is happening in every country, every street and in every type of household. My concern for London is that we are not aware of it going on much in our neighbours’ homes. What I find in Twickenham is that the good Samaritans are everywhere. If there has been an incident—thankfully a very rare incident—of violence on the street, about half a dozen people will be there immediately. If somebody has suffered a fall or a seizure or a heart attack on Twickenham’s streets—it does not happen that often—half a dozen people will be there immediately again. When that happens, somebody will contact me the next day—they know how to track me down—and they will ask me, “How is that person? Are they all right?”

We therefore know that in our communities the good Samaritans are looking out for each other, but there are never half a dozen good Samaritans when domestic violence happens in people’s homes. We need people to know what is going on, and all over the UK there is a 24-hour helpline, 0808 2000 247. We have a brilliant one-stop shop in my borough. People are reaching out, but what I am saying is that to ratify the convention we need to align with what is going on in our constituencies at ground level.

About 60 years ago, about 20,000 women marched in Pretoria, using that wonderful phrase, “Wathint’ Abafazi Wathint’ Imbokodo”—I hope I can be forgiven my bad pronunciation—“You strike a woman, you strike a rock”. I believe that this convention is our equivalent of saying precisely that. This is the time; I support the Bill.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Yesterday, the Culture Secretary agreed to come back to the Dispatch Box if a further security breach were to be revealed at the national lottery. In the last few minutes, the Gambling Commission has published a document saying that it was

“more likely than not that a fraudulent prize claim had been made and paid out.”

There is potentially a great lotto robbery. Camelot has been fined £3 million and has been found to be in breach of three parts of its licence. Have you had a request, Mr Speaker, from a Minister to make an urgent statement to the House, so that the Department can guarantee to millions of lottery players in the UK that the game is safe?

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[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will also come on to article 1, which makes it clear that discrimination against men is absolutely fine as far as the convention is concerned. It flies in the face of the impression that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan wants to give. There is an easy way to deal with this, as we all seem to be in agreement: we can go back to the drawing board and bring forward a Bill on which we can all agree.

[Dr Mathias]

In view of the fact that the Government have signalled that they will ratify this convention, is my hon. Friend saying that he does not want the Government to ratify it?

[Philip Davies]

I am against ratifying it, and I am trying to set out my reasons for my view. I want the Government to ratify something that targets all violence. During the course of my speech, I will test out Members’ commitment to stamping out violence—whether it be by men or women.

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

Tania Mathias Excerpts

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

[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.

[Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)]

I greatly appreciate how the hon. Lady has acknowledged the cross-support on this issue and everything she has done in the Chamber and outside it. She has the full backing of female Conservative Back Benchers, but I also applaud my male colleagues, who are also behind her.

[Dr Whiteford]

I am grateful for that intervention. As I said on Second Reading, actions speak louder than words. We have heard a lot of warm words and verbal commitments in principle about the Istanbul convention for nearly five years now, but the process had clearly stalled. So I am delighted that a few days ago, ahead of this debate, the Prime Minister announced new legislation on domestic abuse and expressed her support for this Bill. I hope the Minister will be able to say more about that proposed legislation and will confirm whether the Government intend to use it to address the outstanding issues, particularly those relating to extra-territorial jurisdiction, which have been the last main barrier to the ratification of the convention. Will the Minister also say whether there are plans to strengthen compliance with the convention in areas in which we all know there is massive room for improvement, such as on coercive control and the way the family courts, and their equivalents, work in all our jurisdictions? Will she also set out how discussions are progressing with the devolved Administrations, which support the Istanbul convention but also have competencies and steps to take towards ratification in such areas?

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[Mr Chope]

I hear what my hon. Friend says, and I am grateful to her for that intervention. I am sure that others will be able to check out the issue to see whether it will need further discussion when the Bill gets to the other place. However, having said that, and in light of her intervention, I am not going to speak to the new clauses and amendments that I have tabled, because I get the feeling that the House would like to move on to debate other issues.

[Dr Mathias]

Charming.

[Mr Chope]

Sometimes one despairs at one’s colleagues, but I will not do that in public.