Clause 7 - Establishment and conduct of reviews
Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill [Lords]
10:00 am
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Shadow Minister, Home, Constitutional & Legal Affairs; Chesham and Amersham, Conservative)
I am not here to do the Government's job. I admit that the wording of the clause is a little woolly, and that has worried me. The Solicitor-General will probably rely on the fact that the Government intend to issue guidance to make everything clear. I do not want to pre-empt anything that the Solicitor-General says, but it will be useful to hear how the provisions will be drawn together. I hope to raise a similar point on clause stand part, should you consider that we need a clause stand part debate, Dame Marion. I hope that the Minister will respond to the hon. Lady's intervention, particularly in the light of dramatic events that hit the news recently.
Not enough is known about the dynamics of domestic violence and what leads to death in those situations. The amendments were originally tabled in
the other place by Baroness Walmsley. I welcome the opportunity that they give us to create a vehicle that will allow us to build up a more comprehensive picture of the circumstances that surround domestic homicide. It would be a great shame if the Government missed this opportunity to create what could be a truly comprehensive vehicle by failing to include the deaths of children under 16, and continued to rely, as they seem intent on doing, on part 8 serious case reviews.
I understand that the serious case reviews apply to children under 18. By selecting the age of 16 for the clause, however, the Minister has a clumsy overlap of about two years, which seems a little odd. When this matter was discussed in the other place, Baroness Scotland merely brushed that overlap to one side. On 2 February, she said:
''But we believe that that overlap should be kept to a minimum.''—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 February 2004; Vol. 657, c. GC225.]
I hope that the Minister will tell us how that overlap will be kept to a minimum, because the Government are creating more complications for themselves at a time when they are doing something particularly good in trying to create a comprehensive vehicle to analyse these situations. According to Baroness Scotland, the serious case reviews are conducted under a Department of Health provision, which is one complication. Another complication is that the domestic homicide reviews that the clause establishes will remain with the Home Office, while the part 8 reviews are a matter for the Department of Health. Those of us with ministerial experience under our belts know the horrors of anything that falls between two or three Departments.