Jess Phillips: Will the Minister elaborate on that point and say in which CCG areas that would not be appropriate? She is saying that certain CCGs, for whatever reason, would not have to provide services for victims of domestic abuse.
Jess Phillips: I thank the Minister for allowing me to intervene again—this is almost greedy on my part. She was talking about all the organisations that took part and what they said about what the barriers were. Could she enlighten us on what they said the barriers were in relation to migrant women?
Jess Phillips: How do we stop—I quote someone’s email—an “HMO daddy”? How do we stop them claiming to offer all of those things? What will we put in place that is beyond what is currently in place to assess use of the housing benefit system, which, I hasten to add, is not working?
Jess Phillips: I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady from Scotland, which is not currently covered by the Bill. The Home Office is, of course, in charge of the policy that covers Scotland with regard to this area of immigration and the destitution funding that is put in place in those circumstances. She is right that there are hundreds of voices—nay thousands, according to the petitions on this—on one...
Jess Phillips: Absolutely—the hon. Lady makes an important point. Constituents of mine, because of the accommodation that is provided under the contracts for refugees in this country, have moved overnight to different areas. They have pulled their children out of school and been sent to different areas as part of what we used to call NASS—National Asylum Support Service—accommodation. The terminology...
Jess Phillips: Absolutely. Sheldon police station is no longer a police station, and there is now a planning application for it to become temporary accommodation. To return to the debate, police stations were often built in communities. My father was born in Sheldon, on the estate that the police station looks over. It is built on a sort of plinth, making it possible to see across the whole community. It...
Jess Phillips: Hope springs eternal for what I am covering here being in the regulations. Had we seen the regulations, we would not have to debate whether it is going to be in them. Unless the regulations are drawn according to clearly defined grounds, I fear that there is a real risk that people will just say, “Yes, I am a provider for victims of domestic violence.”
Jess Phillips: I absolutely agree, and I have no reason to doubt that there will be transparency in drawing up the regulations. However, I am not entirely sure why we cannot include in the Bill our opposition to that sort of accommodation. The amendment would require that the relevant accommodation, as defined in regulations, must be safe for survivors and their children and that the definition must include...
Jess Phillips: I again thank the Minister, but with the greatest respect to the Secretary of State, unless something is written into the Bill, I do not know whether she will agree with what I am saying about what determines safe accommodation. All I seek to do in amending the Bill is a belt-and-braces job to ensure that that is the case—that what is perceived as good refuge accommodation is written into...
Jess Phillips: Absolutely. I have talked about my love of section 17 of the Children Act—I love to turn to a law. Had those issues been left to regulation, they would have been the responsibility of any incumbent Government, even when it seemed that literally anything could have happened in our politics over the past 10 years. Had section 17 not been written into law, it would have had to be done by...
Jess Phillips: I beg to move amendment 67, in clause 53, page 34, line 23, after “area,” insert— “by all persons affected by domestic abuse regardless of status, duly taking into account the special situation of women and children, with reference to a national needs assessment,”. This amendment strengthens the duty placed on Local Authorities by Part 4 and provides clarity about what Local...
Jess Phillips: There is a huge number of different proposals in this group. I have tabled two alternative options with respect to part 4 of the Bill, and there is an element of cross-over. Ultimately, however, the purpose of each is different, albeit equally important. Due to the way in which the proposals are grouped, there will be some jumping around, but I will do my best to ensure that it is as easy as...
Jess Phillips: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the £5 million allocated through Police and Crime Commissioners to support sexual violence services during the covid-19 outbreak.
Jess Phillips: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the planned timescale is for the £5 million funding to be allocated through Police and Crime Commissioners to support sexual violence services during the covid-19 outbreak.
Jess Phillips: I recognise what the Minister says about the fact that perpetrator programmes are used elsewhere. Very often in children’s services, I have seen people sent on perpetrator programmes that, I am afraid to say, are useless. If only everything was as perfect as it is in Westminster.
Jess Phillips: I apologise if I did not cover all the boroughs in London. I did not come up with the amendments all by myself; the specialist sector is working with us to ask for these things, and the reality is that, as sometimes happens in this place, we will say how something is on the ground and we will be told that that is not the case. We will be told, “Actually, no; it’s going to be fine because...
Jess Phillips: I welcome what the Minister says. I suppose the reality is that if that does not happen, I have no recourse beyond changing this Bill. Actually, I can just stand in this building and say, “Things aren’t working and we don’t have good perpetrator systems,” but it will largely fall on deaf ears. It might not—we cannot know which ears it will fall on—but, largely, when people come...
Jess Phillips: It will be a very thin silver lining to what has been an enormous cloud over our country. The Minister is absolutely right: we have been learning some things in this period. Because of the availability of resource in our police forces as a result of the reduction in other areas of crime, this will in some regards be a high point—a gold standard—in terms of how we act in domestic violence...
Jess Phillips: It is very pleasing to hear that—it is reassuring. I urge that the point is made explicitly in the guidance that will go along with all the orders. I wanted that on the public record.
Jess Phillips: I beg to move amendment 51, in clause 33, page 21, line 3, leave out subsection (2) and insert— “(2) A domestic abuse protection order that imposes a requirement to do something on a person (“P”) must— (a) specify the person who is to be responsible for supervising compliance with that requirement; and (b) meet the standard published by the Home Secretary for domestic abuse...