Clause 2 - Definition of “personally connected”

Part of Domestic Abuse Bill – in the House of Commons at 2:45 pm on 15 April 2021.

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Photo of Maria Miller Maria Miller Conservative, Basingstoke 2:45, 15 April 2021

May I again associate myself with the remarks about the passing of Prince Philip and of our wonderful colleague Cheryl Gillan?

This Bill was announced four years ago, and two generations later—sorry, two general elections later; it feels like two generations— we are on the cusp of it going on to the statute book. It is important to think about the time and the perspective, and to try to understand how the Bill’s evolution reflects the very much broader way society now understands the many forms of violence against women. Although I completely agree with the Minister that we cannot dilute the focus of this Bill from that specifically about domestic violence, and we are right to resist Lords amendments 1 to 3 to expand the application of the Bill to include paid and unpaid carers, we need to acknowledge that the Bill is not the same as it started out and that that is because of how we have seen and been appalled by the way in which violence affects women’s lives.

We have an opportunity in this Bill to ensure that women and girls know that they do not have to suffer abusive behaviour without having the support of the criminal justice system, but we also need the Government to make sure that there is consistency across all elements of Government policy in this respect; when it comes to schools, online and workplaces, we have to make sure that Government strategy reflects that there is no place anywhere in our society for abuse and violence against women. I hope that the Minister, whom I know feels this as strongly as I do, will make sure that this is reflected in the new strategy that she puts forward for the Government in the coming months, because at the moment there are inconsistencies there and that is confusing and undermining for women.

I welcome the approach that the Government and particularly the Minister have taken and the spirit of collaboration and co-operation across the House, which is important on an issue such as this. This Bill is not about what the Conservative or Labour party thinks; it is about what society thinks about women’s roles. That is hugely important when it comes to what my right hon. Friend Mrs May said about how the Bill will only be of benefit if the police and judiciary put it into practice. In demonstrating that this is an issue that society feels strongly about and that transcends individual party interests, we demonstrate that what they have to embed, not just in their training systems but in their culture and ethos, is that violence against women is not acceptable in our society.

I commend the co-operative approach that the Government have taken, which I certainly saw when I chaired the Joint Committee scrutinising the Bill—which now feels like a lifetime ago. Indeed, the Government addressed almost all the Committee’s recommendations. In considering the more than 80 amendments today, we should not forget how far the Bill has taken us in making the culture change that we need to see, through establishing a commissioner, having the definition, stopping cross-examination by perpetrators and providing access to special measures. These things cannot be taken for granted, which is why we need to get the Bill on the statute book in its own right. We need those things to start to happen, rather than just continuing to talk about them. That is why I hope this is the last debate we have on the Bill.

I wish to speak in favour of two amendments that the Government are taking on board today. The first is Lords amendment 35, which concerns the disclosure of private intimate images. As other hon. and right hon. Members have said, it recognises a crime—the threat to publish private and intimate images—that has an appalling impact on those affected. I pay tribute to Refuge and its “The Naked Threat” campaign, but let us ponder what my hon. Friend Ruth Edwards said. She reminded us that one in seven women have experienced a threat to share an image in this way.

I fear that this will only become an increasing problem, because we have failed to tell young people that they should not share intimate images of themselves—that it is against the law and that they might never be able to remove them from the internet for the rest of their lives. We have failed to tell them that. In speaking in support of Lords amendment 35, I also urge the Minister to ensure that we tell young people, in our newly mandatory sex and relationship education—which, after 20 years of debate, has been on the statute book effectively since last September—that they cannot share such images. It is against the law and is not a normal part of growing up. We have still not landed that message.

My hon. Friend’s constituent Natasha’s story was from an adult’s perspective, but there will be hundreds and thousands of young women, and men, listening to this debate who are also living in fear of intimate images being released that they know that others have. This is a ticking time bomb and something that I hope my hon. Friend on the Front Bench and other Ministers will address even more directly in the online harms Bill and in response to the Law Commission’s long overdue consultation on intimate image abuse, which will look not only at the publication of such images but at issues such as cyber-flashing, which my hon. Friend Fay Jones mentioned.

The other amendment that I want briefly to speak in support of is Lords amendment 36, which concerns non-fatal strangulation. As Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee and the Joint Committee on the Bill, I have heard various evidence from young people under the age of 18 about how strangulation had become a routine part of their sexual experiences. I do not think we can overestimate the seriousness of this issue at all. I go back to my message to the Minister about telling young people that it is unlawful. Strangulation, simulated strangulation or semi-strangulation is not part of a normal loving relationship. If we do not tell young people that and they still have considerable access to extreme pornography, then we cannot expect anything to happen with regard to tackling the aggression rather than simply punishing the offenders.

The one hanging thread that remains from our Joint Committee inquiry into and scrutiny of the Bill is the individuals who have no recourse to public funds. That was not addressed at all when we scrutinised the Bill in Committee and it is, correctly, an issue we need to debate today. We need to get it right, and I just want to press the Minister a little further on it. No one wants to create a system that has the unintended consequence for migrant women of potentially putting them into a situation where they could be subject to further abuse as a result of the way our system of support works.

When we took evidence, the Joint Committee saw that there were very strong views on both sides on the support that would be in place for migrant women in particular. We took very strong evidence that said that a complete firewall was not always in the best interests of data and not always in the best interests of victims. We made a recommendation that there should be a much more robust Home Office policy on the use of firewalls and data in separating policy and practice with regard to support on immigration control.

The Minister has introduced a way forward on that with the pilot scheme she announced, the support for migrant victims scheme, but I feel we need more detail. We need to understand what will happen as a result of the pilot. Will £1.5 million be sufficient funding for the number of women who find themselves in a situation where they are suffering domestic abuse yet have no recourse to support? What metrics will be used to determine whether the pilot has been successful? How will it be rolled out? It is there to find more information, because the Government felt there was insufficient evidence to shape a policy in this area, but we really need to see from the Government more details about how the scheme, when it ends in 12 months’ time, will be evaluated and then taken forward. We cannot allow ourselves to be continually in the situation where we do not know how to put in place a long-term scheme to support migrant women who find themselves in this situation. I hope the Minister might at least be able to indicate today when we can expect to get more information and more detail. Maybe she could provide a briefing to those of us who follow these issues very closely.

In conclusion, the Bill was framed as a gateway to the ratification of the Istanbul convention. That is important because, as one hon. Member mentioned, we need to get ratification of the Istanbul convention. I hope that once the Bill goes on to the statute book that is what will happen—again, maybe the Minister will want to comment on that. The Bill is another clear sign of the Government’s commitment to helping to tackle the culture of violence towards women in this country, but there is much more to do, especially in the online world, and we need to keep going with our efforts to stop violence against girls and women around the world. We need to make sure we keep our focus on this very significant issue. By having this debate in the House of Commons today, we are showing that abuse is no longer something that will be tolerated in this country and that there is no place for violence against women at all. With this Bill, we will be adding yet another important piece of legislation to the statute books to ensure that women are safer in their day-to-day lives in our country.