Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Yvette Cooper

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I too want to begin by paying a huge tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) for her bravery in speaking out, because that is a message not just to those across the country who experience coercive control or abuse but to everybody else, including those of us across the Chamber who think she is wonderful but who did not know all she was going through and who want to support her and other people who experience abuse, control or violence across the country.

It is also really important, at a time when this Parliament and the country can feel hugely divided and angry, that we have seen so many people from both sides of the House come together on an area that is so important and in which radical reforms are needed. I pay tribute to all on the Opposition side of the House, and also to the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for the work that she and her Committee have done on this legislation. This comes at a time when the number of people dying from domestic violence is increasing, and we should not ignore the fact that in some areas the problem is getting worse; it is not an area in which improvements are happening and we just need to go further.

I welcome the introduction of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner. I raised that issue with the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) in 2013, so it is good to see this happening now, but I do think that the role has to be more independent. We have seen from the experience with the anti-slavery commissioner and the immigration inspectorate that there is a need for greater independence. Many of these issues were also raised by the Home Affairs Committee in our report last October, and I welcome some of the measures for stronger powers, including prevention powers, and the inclusion of economic abuse in the statutory definition.

I want to raise four areas where I think more action is needed. First, the creation of a commissioner is not an alternative to having a proper action plan from the Home Office and the Government. The number of domestic abuse cases reported to the police has gone up by 40% in the last two years. However, over the past four years the number of cases referred to the Crown Prosecution Service has gone down by 20%. The number of prosecutions for domestic abuse has gone down by 20%. A huge systems failure is going on, and we cannot just tell ourselves it is about changing attitudes, crucial though that is. Action is needed to make the system work and to address the fact that so many cases now involve online abuse, stalking and control, making them more complex.

Our police and social services are often also badly overstretched. I have seen cases in my constituency in which obvious things were not done for victims of domestic abuse: the police were too overstretched and did not gather crucial evidence from A&E departments, for example, or individual police officers—although well intentioned—did not know about the coercive control legislation introduced in 2015. It is not enough just to change the law; we need a proper action plan to deal with the reduction in prosecutions.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is so right about why we are here today to discuss the Bill. I, too, pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), who spoke so eloquently and emotively. Does my right hon. Friend agree that one reason why we cannot get to grips with this issue is that the resources and support for the support network—the wonderful women’s charities and domestic abuse charities—have dwindled and been taken away? If we do not support them, they cannot support the women who need their support.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. Refuge, for example, has faced funding cuts of some 80% of its services over recent years—that was the evidence given to the Joint Committee. We also heard that 60% of referrals to refuges were unsuccessful because of a lack of bed spaces. I hope that in Committee we can look more closely at the recommendation from the Home Affairs Committee to have a statutory duty on local authorities to provide refuge places with sustainable funding supported by Government.

I want to raise the point about what happens to serial perpetrators, including serial stalkers. We recommended in our report that the Government should introduce a national register of serial stalkers and domestic violence perpetrators. We know from the ONS evidence that around a third of victims of domestic abuse suffer from more than one type of abuse, with partner abuse and stalking being the most common combination. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust told us that 55% of callers to the national stalking helpline were being stalked by an ex-partner. We need more co-ordination between police and social services to address that.

In a case in my constituency, a man has just been sentenced to 11 years for violent assault. He tied a noose around his partner’s neck and lifted her off the ground. It was part of a series of sustained attacks. At the time, he was on bail for other attacks, including punching his previous partner in the face, trying to suffocate her and wrapping a phone cord around her neck. He also threatened to tie a rope round her child’s neck and drag him behind his van. Laura Richards of Paladin, the anti-stalking charity, warned that this particular man had abused at least four women before, including some years ago grabbing a 17-year-old by the hair and kneeing her in the face, and the following year grabbing another woman by the throat and headbutting her in the mouth. Yet this man was able to go on and commit the abuse for which he has now been sentenced. There are so many other cases that involve serial abuse, yet the onus is still on potential victims of domestic abuse or stalking to raise their concerns with the police, rather than agencies having a responsibility to manage the risk, identify those who are committing serial violence and make sure that action is taken before it is too late.

Let me briefly raise the other concerns we had. As well as seeing the commissioner be more independent, I hope the Government will also take further account of the gendered nature of abuse. Of course men and women can both be victims of domestic abuse, but the Minister will know that women are more likely to be the victims of abuse and of the most serious abuse. That is part of a wider context of violence against women and girls. We owe it to those who experience terrible coercive control, and to their children, who can bear the greatest scars, to ensure we use this Bill to make the maximum possible change in people’s lives.