Domestic Abuse Bill

Tracy Brabin Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

It is very welcome that, seemingly against the odds, we are finally debating this Bill—a Bill that sadly could not be more needed in the situation we now find ourselves. Lockdown has been hard for many, but none more so than victims of abuse, where the domestic prison already exists. During lockdown, no flags are raised when a woman and her children are not seen by friends or family members, or when they fall out of their social circle, no longer hanging out with friends at work.

Covid lockdown is an abuser’s nirvana. Too many women are suffering today and they need urgent action, especially when this surge in cases was foreseeable. Mass isolation, children no longer in school, and the closure of many routes to safety and support: this is fertile territory for those who wish to assert control and increase physical and emotional harm. Sadly, during the lockdown we have seen an escalation of domestic violence, from two women a week murdered by their partner or ex to the shocking number of five women, on average, being murdered a week.

So this Bill is welcome, especially the statutory definition of domestic abuse that includes emotional, coercive and economic as well as physical abuse, as well as the legal establishment of a domestic abuse commissioner, putting the guidance supporting Clare’s law on a statutory footing, and the new domestic abuse protection notice orders prohibiting cross-examination of the victim by the abuser in family courts. However, with cases of abuse rising every day, urgent action needs to be taken now. At least £75 million of the £750 million package announced by the Chancellor for charities should be released as a matter of urgency. Once women are free to ask for help, there will inevitably be a surge of requests for support, and we must be ready.

We all know that economic and physical abuse are not two different issues, and I welcome this addition to the new statutory definition of domestic abuse. They are both about power and control. Women’s Aid has said that a woman is more likely to leave an abusive relationship if she has £100 in the bank. Access to money is access to freedom. Those who wish to harm their partners and exes know this. Economic abuse ranges from keeping a woman in poverty to not letting her handle her finances, spending money from the victim’s own bank account, running up bills in the victim’s name, prolonging the sale of a house that is jointly owned, interfering with a woman’s employment—risking her only source of income—or refusing to pay child maintenance.

I have heard many examples of this abuse from a number of very brave constituents from Batley and Spen. I am so impressed by their courage and their resilience. One constituent, Kirsty Ferguson, was coerced into signing up for a number of mortgages against her will. After their separation, her ex refused to pay any bills, refused to sell the houses, even when instructed by the courts, and refused to take her name off the paperwork. His words to her were: “I am going to destroy you.” Without any support from the building society, banks or police because of a lack of legislation, she was left alone in this fight. When the properties were repossessed, her credit rating plummeted, making it almost impossible to rebuild her life. She is still unable to get a loan, a credit card or a mortgage. Kirsty and others have been abandoned by the system. Some 60% of domestic abuse survivors are in debt as a result of economic abuse. Government must ensure that joint claimants of universal credit are offered separate payments as a default. Domestic abuse survivors must be made exempt from the legal aid means test, and provided with paid employment leave. A duty of care must be placed on banks and financial institutions to support domestic abuse survivors.

I have also seen in the cases brought to me in my constituency surgeries that the family courts are not fit for purpose. They offer the abuser a second bite at the cherry, driving the victim through painful and unnecessary hearings. Currently, a perpetrator of domestic abuse is seen as a violent criminal in the criminal courts but a good enough parent in the family courts. We desperately need a safer family courts and child contact systems.

Finally, I would like to take a moment to add my support to the campaign by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) to prohibit defendants’ reliance on the rough sex defence that their victim consented to her injuries. In 1996, two women a year were killed or injured during what defendants called consensual rough sex. By 2016, this figure had rocketed to 20 women per year—a tenfold increase. I am sure that it has gone up further, with BBC research revealing that a third of UK women under 40 have experienced unwanted slapping, choking, gagging or spitting during consensual sex. In the cases of the 20 women killed, only nine men were convicted of murder, while nine were convicted of manslaughter and one case resulted in no conviction. I believe that the men who use this claim do so because they see it working. We must do all we can to end this horrific travesty.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Tracy Brabin Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

It has been an absolute honour and privilege to be part of this debate. Certainly, no one was unmoved by the contributions by my hon. Friends the Members for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) and for Bradford West (Naz Shah). These personal contributions make so much difference to women outside this place.

In attempting to write my speech, and also listening to contributions from other MPs, what strikes me is the names of women and children throughout the year, and years previously, who were murdered as victims of domestic abuse. This Bill could not be more needed. The Home Secretary said yesterday at the Conservative party conference that the Conservatives are now the party of law and order once again. I would gently encourage Conservative Members to say to the Home Secretary that the way to bring murder numbers down is by committing 100% to this Bill.

We need to encourage the Government to accept the gendered nature of domestic abuse, with women being twice as likely to experience domestic violence and men far more likely to be perpetrators. As the Istanbul convention says,

“it should not be overlooked that the majority of victims of domestic violence are women and that domestic violence against them is part of a wider pattern of discrimination and inequality.”

I urge the Government to think again about ratifying the Istanbul convention.

I want to congratulate the family of Clare Wood for creating Clare’s law, including Clare’s dad, my constituent Michael Brown. The domestic violence disclosure obligation is vital in fighting domestic violence, but the heartbreak is that it is a postcode lottery, and only 45% of requests are granted. Early disclosure could save a woman’s life, so it is heartbreaking that this right to know and right to ask is a postcode lottery. When women are desperate—when they do need to get away—the Government must accept this obligation.

As my colleagues have said, refuges must be available. Over 400 women a week are denied a place of safety because there is not capacity. This is absolutely criminal. They go back to situations and we know what the conclusion is. We have heard their names today. We need greater clarity on the definition of domestic abuse, including distinctions between intimate partner abuse and other forms of family abuse. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West that BAME victims of abuse must also have extra special resources to support them.

In the short time remaining, I will mention some of my constituents. Lucy, a young woman with a son, has suffered. The hon. Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) alerted us to the Kafkaesque nature of the family courts. Her son has been taken from her and placed with the dad, and the mum is really concerned about the son’s welfare. We must support these women to ensure that no child suffers because of the arcane nature of some of the family courts.

Jess and Kirsty were victims of economic abuse, driven to the brink by partners stealing from them and blocking legitimate sales of joint properties. The problem is that the banks have no legislation and cannot support. The police cannot support because no legislation is in place. These women are therefore pushed into poverty, often on to benefits and into temporary bed and breakfast, and the children suffer, all because the men in their lives are able to afford to drag them through the courts and strip them of their hard-earned cash and safety net. The Bill needs to go further with the banks so that they show flexibility and understanding when survivors are struggling to get out of financial agreements, such as a joint bank account or mortgage.

I pay tribute to my own council, Kirklees, in particular cabinet member Councillor Viv Kendrick, for taking a proactive approach to the issue. Just this week, Kirklees launched its own domestic abuse strategy based on a model used by the SafeLives charity. The partnership approach recognises that domestic abuse is not just a criminal problem or problem affecting children. It brings together, holistically, the police, clinical commissioning groups, safeguarding groups, community rehabilitation companies, the probation service, housing associations, drugs misuse services and more to tackle the problem, sharing information and pushing prevention and early intervention.

I must also mention meeting a young woman who was a victim of domestic violence and was saved by Sure Start. I also encourage the Government to think about those services for women with children.

Dangerous Driving

Tracy Brabin Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 236952 relating to dangerous driving.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mrs Moon. The petition calls for life sentences for causing death by dangerous driving.

To lose a child is the worst thing that most of us could imagine. To lose a child at the age of only four, mown down by a speeding driver, is something we do not even wish to imagine. Yet that is what happened to Mr and Mrs Youens, who started the petition. To listen to their story is to step into a world of horror. To hear about parents called to a hospital knowing that something must be dreadfully wrong; to see their child grievously injured; to have to follow the ambulance transferring her to Alder Hey, unable to go into that ambulance because the doctors were still working to keep her alive; and to hear their story of lying with their daughter until she died is something I do not have the words to describe. I cannot even pretend to plumb the depths of their grief, but I do congratulate them on their courage and tenacity in wanting something good to come out of that grief. They began that process when they allowed some of Violet’s organs to be donated after her death to save other lives. Many of her organs could not be used because her injuries were so severe. Her parents have continued the process with the petition because, as they rightly say, they do not want anyone else to suffer.

Violet-Grace was with her grandmother when a car doing 83 mph in a 30 mph zone mounted the pavement. The car was stolen and had false numberplates. Violet suffered catastrophic injuries and died later. Her grandmother suffered life-changing injuries. The driver and his passenger did not even attempt to help, and they fled the scene. There is evidence that they had to step over the bodies of their victims lying in the road to get out of the car. The driver, Aidan McAteer, fled to Amsterdam to clear his head, as he said later, and smoke some weed. Clearly, he thought it was all about him. Eventually, he returned to this country and was tried and sentenced to nine years and four months. His passenger got six years and eight months. Neither showed any remorse, either at the time or later. In fact, they had their sentences increased while in jail for having illegal mobile phones and posting on social media. That does not seem much for a young life so cruelly taken and other lives destroyed in the process. As Mr and Mrs Youens said to me, the driver and his passenger will be out after serving less time than Violet-Grace lived.

The law does not cope well with such offences. It leaves families believing they have not had justice and the public looking on in amazement at what seem to be unduly lenient sentences. I met some of the families today and heard their stories. They told me that they felt they were treated as though they were the criminals. They were not allowed to show emotion in court and were sometimes told not to sit in the court. They were not allowed to read out all their victim statement in case it upset the perpetrator. They sometimes felt that they were the ones on trial. These cases are not unique. There are a lot of them, and our justice system is simply not working for these people.

I have other examples. In February this year, a driver was sentenced for causing the death of a pedestrian and catastrophic damage to a house when he was driving at twice the legal speed limit. He was a lorry driver—a professional—and he got 10 years and six months. In March, Antonio Boparan was sentenced for causing the death of Cerys Edwards. She was only 11 months old when he hit her in 2008 and she was held to have died later from complications arising from her injuries. He got 18 months, having previously served 21 months for dangerous driving. Families have told me this afternoon of seeing people cheer in court because their sentence was so light and of people who did not go to jail at all. That matters for confidence in our justice system.

It is a long time since I practised law, and I know, from being around the courts, it is very difficult to make judgments on cases unless you have heard all the evidence, but I believe that in the most serious cases we ought to have life sentences available. As Mr Youens said to me, in the wrong hands a car is a lethal weapon.

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a passionate and moving speech, and I am pleased to see so many families here. She, like me, will have spent far too many hours in grieving families’ living rooms talking about these issues and their relatives taken away so swiftly. Does she agree that people who hire high-performance vehicles should be held liable if those vehicles that they give to others are then used in criminal acts of murder on our streets?

[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. We need to do many things to reform the law. We have had numerous petitions on increasing sentences for death by dangerous driving, and on imposing lifetime bans for people convicted of dangerous driving.

I had a letter from Amy O’Connor, whose brother, Andy, was killed on his way to the gym one morning. It took 15 days to find the van and the perpetrator because the van had been hidden. By that time, it was impossible to do drug or alcohol tests, and the only thing the driver could be charged with—she understands why—was leaving the scene of an accident. She very reasonably asks why do we not increase the sentence for people leaving the scene of an accident when they have caused death or serious injury.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tracy Brabin Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

My right hon. and learned Friend is a great authority on the law. There are a number of issues here, ranging from the exact sentences that can be imposed to the work my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is doing to introduce new sentences for animal cruelty. I look forward to discussing all those issues both in the House and over a cup of tea.

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

16. What recent assessment he has made of trends in the levels of violence and self-harm in prisons.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Dr Phillip Lee)]

Health services are commissioned by NHS England, which is responsible for assessing provision of mental health treatment in prisons in England. In Wales, health is devolved to the Welsh Government and separate arrangements are made for assessment.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)]

My apologies, Mr Speaker.

There have been worrying increases in levels of violence and self-harm. As was said earlier, a lot of that is being driven by new drugs inducing psychotic episodes. We are working hard on this issue. We have provided training to an additional 14,000 prison officers focused on issues of violence and self-harm. More staffing will help, but there is much more to do.

[Tracy Brabin]

The Minister will be aware that incidences of self-harm in prisons have risen by 75% since 2007. I appreciate the Minister giving us the drivers of violence and self-harm in prisons, but will he tell us in more detail what steps he will take to reduce the amount of self-harm and suicide? Does he agree that part of the solution is encouraging the use of mental health treatment requirements, which has fallen by 48%?

[Rory Stewart]

The hon. Lady is absolutely correct that mental health is at the heart of a lot of these issues. On the concrete steps we are taking, one is the training for 14,000 additional officers and the second is the proper use of the ACCT—assessment, care in custody and teamwork—strategy, which is the process for assessing the risk posed to the prisoner and coming up with a plan to deal with it. We have managed to significantly reduce suicide over the past 18 months, but the level is still far too high. Any death is a great tragedy, and we will continue to work very closely to reduce suicide further.

Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Tracy Brabin Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 20th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

rose—

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I have had various people email me and twitter me—or whatever the verb is. [Interruption.] Tweet to me. Anyway, they asked whether lifeboat staff will be included, and, of course, they are included. For that matter, the Mines Rescue Service in my constituency is as well, because search and rescue people are absolutely vital. My hon. Friend makes the very good point that many of these people are volunteers. We could, of course, argue that most emergency workers go the extra mile, and that extra mile often means, effectively, that they are working as volunteers. That is why we should stand by them.

[Tracy Brabin]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I have been saving up my hon. Friend.

[Tracy Brabin]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. He mentioned that violent crime is on the rise and that people in some properties are being flagged up as potentially violent to the police. I have been lobbied by constituents who are PCSOs and find themselves increasingly going into potentially violent situations with no handcuffs, pepper spray or any of that. Will they also be included in the Bill, so that they, too, will be protected?

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. I am not entirely sure that they would be. If that is the case, we will make sure in Committee, when I have taken a bit more legal advice, that they are included, because it would be bizarre in the extreme if they were not. PCSOs in my constituency are an absolutely vital part of the equation of community policing, and we should afford them exactly the same protection.

I should say that I have had an awful lot of conversations with Ministers over the last few weeks about the Bill, which has been a delight, and I am not entirely convinced that we yet have the definition of an emergency worker in the Bill right, because some people who work in the NHS who should be included would not be. I have talked to Ministers, and they are absolutely clear that we will put that right in Committee, so I hope both the elements I have mentioned can be put right in Committee.

Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks

Tracy Brabin Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

Yes, prison governors will have control over their budgets and will be able to make decisions about staffing and how their staff are deployed from this April. We have to be absolutely clear. The POA says that this unlawful strike action is about pay. However, only last week we announced not only promotion opportunities but increased pay for vast numbers of prison officers across the country.

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

Having had an in-depth conversation with a constituent who has just left his role as a prison officer, I understand that the prison population is getting younger, that Spice and mental health issues are on the rise, and that morale is at rock bottom. Given the POA instruction urging its members to withdraw from detached duties such as Tornado work during prison riots, what is the Minister doing to reassure the families of vulnerable people in prison that they will not suffer during this dispute?

[Mr Gyimah]

The best reassurance we can give to the families of prisoners is for the Prison Officers Association to withdraw its bulletin and not to pursue unlawful strike action.

Domestic Violence Victims: Cross-Examination

Tracy Brabin Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Heald]

My view is that this is a narrow issue involving banning perpetrators or alleged perpetrators from cross-examining victims, as we do in criminal cases. That is a narrow issue on which I think we all agree. The sort of arrangements that will need to be put in place have already been tried in the criminal courts. If the hon. Lady has any particular ideas or concerns, I would obviously be happy to discuss them with her, but I do not think that this is a complicated matter. It is a simple one that needs urgent action.

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

I am aware that this focuses on the adult victims of domestic abuse, but research from Safelives has shown that an estimated 130,000 children in the UK live in households with a high risk of domestic abuse and a significant risk of harm or death. Thousands more live with other levels of domestic abuse every day. Will the Minister please clarify that, as recommended by Women’s Aid, there should not be an assumption of shared parenting in child contact cases where domestic abuse is a feature?

[Sir Oliver Heald]

The hon. Lady makes an important point, and the courts are clearly alive to this matter. We have to give some discretion, however, because family cases involve a wide range of factors. I think that the judges do a good job. I want to put on record that these are not easy cases and that our judges have to have an element of discretion. I would like to ensure that that remains the case, although I acknowledge that she makes a good point.