My Lords, the Home Office has provided an additional £2 million in funding to bolster specialist domestic abuse helplines and websites. This will ensure that all victims can access vital support safely and securely; it is in addition to the £750 million announced by the Treasury for charities. Alongside this, the Home Office has published specific guidance on GOV.UK and launched a new awareness campaign to signpost support services for victims.
The shocking increase in domestic violence, with a doubling of deaths and a 50% increase in calls to helplines, shows that there is more than one kind of epidemic happening in this country today. More than 60% of the women were turned away from refuges before the coronavirus epidemic. However, some good can come of this. This week, the Home Affairs Committee recommended a cross-government approach to tackling this scourge on our nation. For example, we could loosen the rules and speed up the availability of housing benefit to help refuges move families into social and other accommodation, thus unblocking the places in refuges. Will the Minister use her considerable powers of persuasion to knock departmental heads together and make tackling domestic abuse a central pillar of our Covid-19 response? Will she meet me, Women’s Aid and other charities virtually to ensure that we leave this crisis in a better position to protect victims than before we knew that the coronavirus existed?
I think the noble Baroness will agree that we have always had a cross-government approach on domestic violence. Certainly, some of the round tables that we had before coronavirus, in the lead-up to the Domestic Abuse Bill, were very consensual and collaborative. It is certainly something that I will continue to promote. We have been meeting and engaging virtually with charities right from the start of the outbreak of this pandemic.
We are also concerned about children trapped in dangerous domestic situations. What measures are the Government taking to protect those children? More widely, can the Minister say what they are doing to protect children at risk of sexual and other abuse?
I recognise the noble Lord’s point about children—they are at the brunt of abuse, or are witnesses to abuse. As I meant to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, I am on a call every day with the Home Secretary and her operational partners, who are very alive to what might be going on behind closed doors. In the last four weeks, the NCA has developed and disseminated 1,060 child sexual abuse packages for police forces to investigate. Those figures are horrific, but it is testament to the good work of our police forces.
We have heard about the surge in calls to the domestic abuse helpline but we have not seen a corresponding rise in calls to the police. What are the Government doing to understand this discrepancy so that we can make sure that victims also feel able to contact the police should they need to do so?
The noble Baroness is absolutely right. There is a mismatch between inquiries to the helpline and what police are reporting. But even among police forces there is quite a disparity; the Met are seeing far higher incidences than are other police forces. Again, on those operational calls, police are really vigilant on spotting the signs of domestic abuse. It is a priority activity for the Home Office at this time.
There is clearly a lack of capacity in refuges for women fleeing abuse. Will the Government take a serious look at what the French Government announced in March—that they would fund hotel rooms, sitting empty, for victims of domestic violence, and consider opening pop-up counselling centres in supermarkets for easy access to advise and support victims of domestic violence? Will the Minister take this back and give a response to these proposals?
I found it very difficult to hear the question of the noble Baroness, but I think it was split into two parts, the first being on lack of capacity in refuges. I am not saying that this is a positive outcome but refuges are reporting vacancies, which is both a good and a bad thing. She said something about how in France people can report in through supermarkets—
My Lords, I declare that I am chairing an inquiry into alcohol harms. When will the data on alcohol-fuelled domestic violence during lockdown be made available and collated with sales, given that over half of intimate partner and almost all family homicides in 2014-15 involved alcohol and that the latest research shows that alcohol-fuelled violence is disproportionately clustered in the lowest socioeconomic groups—the people living in particularly difficult situations?
One positive thing to come out of the current pandemic, if there is anything positive to report at all, is the decline in drink-related crimes after hours. However, the noble Baroness is absolutely right that data on the harms of alcohol behind closed doors is yet to be released. I think we will know it retrospectively, and the House will of course be interested in this and all other aspects of domestic violence as time goes on. We will report back to the House on the outcomes of that. So one of the positive things is the lack of violence on our streets, but the downside of that is what is happening inside the home.
My Lords, continuing the theme of children, given that lockdown has removed children’s usual contacts with schools, community groups and services, what are the Government doing to increase public awareness and provide advice and support for children at this time?