Domestic Abuse Bill

I must draw the House’s attention to the fact that financial privilege is engaged by Lords amendments 41 and 43. If the Lords amendments that engage financial privilege are agreed to, I will cause the customary entry waiving Commons financial privilege to be entered into the Journal.

Clause 2

Definition of “personally connected”

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Lords amendment 2, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 3, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 4 to 8.

Lords amendment 9, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 10 to 32.

Lords amendment 33, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 34 to 36.

Lords amendment 37, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 38, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 39.

Lords amendment 40, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 41, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 42, and Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) to (c) in lieu.

Lords amendment 43, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 44 to 82.

Lords amendment 83, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 84 to 86.

Before I start my speech, may I beg your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, and place on the record not only my condolences to Her Majesty the Queen but my and my constituents’ heartfelt thanks to His Royal Highness Prince Philip? He was the personification of public service, dedicating his life to Her Majesty and to serving our country for more than 70 years, and he did so with great style and often a twinkle in his eye.

May I also pay tribute to my friend, the right hon. Dame Cheryl Gillan, who passed away very recently? She would have loved to take part in today’s debate. She was a huge advocate for the vulnerable, including those who live with autism. She was a wonderful, wonderful friend and colleague to us all, and she will be very, very sorely missed.

We support the vast majority of the 86 amendments that the Lords have sent to us. Indeed, we have worked with peers in many instances to bring those amendments forward. There are 12 sets with which we do not agree and I will deal with those in due course. But I would like to take a moment to reflect on the events of recent weeks and the concerns, the experiences and indeed the fears expressed by women and girls across the country.

This Bill will help millions of women and girls who are living with abuse, whose emotions are manipulated by their abusers for their own disgusting gratification and control, and who want happier, healthier lives free from abuse. However, thanks to amendments made in this place and the other place, the Bill will reach even more women than that. On Report, I was pleased that we were able to respond to the calls by the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) and many other hon. Members to clarify the law surrounding the so-called rough sex defence. Hon. Members also argued, as part of that debate, for a bespoke new offence of non-fatal strangulation to strengthen the criminal justice response to that form of physical abuse. We listened carefully to the debate on the matter, including the compelling evidence presented to me by Dr Cath White, taking into account the concerns that cases of non-fatal strangulation can often be difficult to prosecute. That is why we concluded that a bespoke offence was necessary and that that should apply both to domestic abuse cases and to other cases where strangulation or suffocation were a factor. On conviction of the new offence, as now provided for in Lords amendment 36, the defendant could receive a harsher sentence as the harm required to qualify for the maximum five-year penalty has been reduced. We are drawing firm lines in the Bill as to what can and cannot constitute lawful violent sexual behaviour.

But harmful and abusive behaviour sadly extends beyond that. Lords amendment 35 seeks to extend the revenge porn offence to include threats to disclose such images. One in seven young women have been subjected to threats to use revenge porn. I thank colleagues across the House who have worked so hard on this topic, including the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee—my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes)—my hon. Friends the Members for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) and for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards), and of course Baroness Morgan of Cotes in the other place. I would also like to thank a young woman I met through my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe—Natasha Saunders, who described to me her experiences of the use of threats of revenge porn. She has found the wherewithal to use those experiences to campaign on this matter very strongly and effectively.

Although the Law Commission is currently reviewing the law around intimate image abuse, we recognise the case for immediate action to better protect victims from that form of abuse and Lords amendment 35 does just that.

I thank my hon. Friend for all that she has done with regard to recognising the problems around threats to publish intimate images. Will she join me in saying that we need to make sure that the law is all-encompassing in this area? It is important to improve the law on revenge pornography as it stands now, introduced by this Government, but it is even more important that we have a wholesale review of this area, such as that which is part of the Law Commission’s review.

I agree completely with my right hon. Friend. I thank her for the work she has done over many years to address this and other issues particularly affecting women and girls. We very much take that point. We have worked on the amendment with Baroness Morgan to have an immediate impact, but in addition we look forward to receiving the Law Commission’s report and recommendations later this year—it is looking at the whole of the law on the use of intimate images and other types of malicious communications on the internet. If the law needs to be changed to reflect recommendations, we can address those in subsequent legislation. These clauses apply to all relationships and all encounters of a sexual nature, from a Tinder hook-up to a marriage of many decades. Those protections will be enshrined in this Bill.

I turn to another amendment that I know has been welcomed warmly by survivors and campaigners: the extension of the coercive and controlling behaviour offence to include post-separation abuse. We listened very carefully to debates in this place, as well as to charities such as Surviving Economic Abuse and, of course, to survivors themselves. We reviewed the offence to see how it is working after five years of being in force and we published that review in March.

We acknowledge that coercive and controlling behaviour continues and indeed may escalate following separation, so amendment 34 will extend the offence to cover post-separation abuse between former intimate partners and interfamilial abuse, regardless of whether the family members are living together or not. The amendment will send a strong message to perpetrators that controlling or coercive behaviours, irrespective of the living arrangements, are forms of domestic abuse and that the criminal law is there to protect victims.

The Bill also revolutionises the help that is available to victims who need to flee relationships to refuge or other safe accommodation. It is revolutionary in that it helps to ensure that they are helped to recover from their experiences. Part 4 introduces a duty on tier 1 local authorities to provide specialist services to such victims and we have announced £125 million of funding to support that provision in the Bill.

Lords amendment 33 takes us into the arena of judicial training, requiring the Secretary of State to set out a strategy and timetable for such training. Again, we agree, and we understand the motivations behind this amendment. No one can dispute the need for judges and magistrates to be properly trained in these matters, nor do we dispute that this must continue to be a developing process, and one of improvement. Indeed, the judiciary understands this and agrees. The Judicial College is committed to reviewing and improving training on domestic abuse. Moreover, the president of the family division has indicated that he will consider making recommendations regarding training, taking into account this Bill, the harm panel report and the four recent Court of Appeal judgments in domestic abuse cases.

The issue with Lords amendment 33 is not the ends it seeks, but the means of achieving them. It is not for the Government to dictate to our independent judiciary how they are trained. There are important constitutional principles at stake here; I have no doubt that the president of the family division will have taken notes on the debates on this amendment in the Lords and will again today, and will take appropriate action, but it is right that we leave it to him to do so and do not undermine the independence of the judiciary by endorsing this amendment.

I move now to Lords amendments 37, 38 and 83. They deal with two separate but related issues. Lords amendment 37 aims to extend the householder defence in section 76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 to victims or survivors of domestic abuse. Although the Government sympathise with the aim behind the amendment, we are not persuaded that it is necessary. We are not aware of any significant evidence demonstrating that the current full and partial defences available are failing victims of domestic abuse accused of crimes against their abuser. We are also concerned that the proposed defence could, as it provides a full defence to murder, be open to misuse, potentially even by an abuser, who could seek to claim they were the victim of domestic abuse, rather than the actual victim. We believe therefore that although it is very difficult to achieve, the law currently strikes the right balance between the interests of the defendant and, importantly, those of the victim as well.