Clause 7 - Establishment and conduct of reviews
Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill [Lords]
2:30 pm
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Shadow Minister, Home, Constitutional & Legal Affairs; Chesham and Amersham, Conservative)
There's optimism. I apologise if I repeat myself. It will only be one sentence, I am sure.
This very simple amendment was spawned from my looking closely at the Bill and the categories laid out in subsection (4). It is intended to add mental health trusts and members of any educational establishment to the list. I can anticipate the Solicitor-General's response: I am sure that she will say that she relies on clause 7(6), which grants the Home Secretary the power to vary the list of persons and bodies in subsections (4) and (5) by order. In all probability, she will need to rely on that subsection sooner rather than later, given that local probation boards will disappear and the catchily named National Offender Management Service will come into play. In fact, the service started on 1 June. It would be interesting to know when the anticipated changeover will take place and whether the provision will hold good on the statute book until legislation in the next Session makes the changes to the probation service.
However, to dispel the argument before the Solicitor-General deploys it, I want to consider the persons and bodies she has already included in the list in subsection (4)(a). The list appears broadly to cover health, education, social services, the probation service and the police. I want to establish whether the two groups that I want to add to the Bill are presumed to be covered, or whether, as I suspect, they have been left out and could be included only by relying on clause 7(6) or the discretion of the Secretary of State.
Although my amendment does not cover this, it would have been comforting to see the coroner mentioned. The coroner obviously has a tremendous contribution to make to domestic homicide reviews. I would like the Solicitor-General to consider that.
In debates so far, concern has been shown over the gaps that exist in the case of a family that has never had contact with the statutory agencies and which
therefore may not become the subject of a serious case review. I admit that the Solicitor-General has sought to put our minds at rest, but I am still not particularly convinced that what she says is necessarily the case. Women's Aid has identified the lacuna in relation to so-called middle-class families.
I want to add the two extra categories to subsection (4)(a) for the following reasons. A young person—albeit over the age of 16—may have attended a private school, college or university, or another educational establishment. Equally, he or she may have been at a state school. By including in the Bill the additional category of members of any educational establishment, we can ensure that vital information can be captured from that source to inform the lessons to be learned from the death.