Domestic Abuse: Children

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of protecting children from domestic abuse.

You will be pleased to know what a marvellous pleasure it is to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I would like to begin where we typically end our debates in Westminster Hall, and that is by thanking all hon. Members present. I am well aware that, on a topic such as this, what often compels people to speak is painful lived experience; so I sincerely thank everyone who has come here today, whether to bravely share their own experience or to represent the children in their constituency who otherwise do not have a voice in this place. It is appreciated and truly important.

This debate unfortunately stems from deep tragedy and systemic failure. As many will know, I have tabled it in honour of the 19 children killed by perpetrators of domestic abuse between 2015 and 2024. Their stories are solemn reminders of the danger of placing an outdated emphasis on parental contact above all else.

I recognise that there have been important strides in recent months, and I want to sincerely commend the work of my Government in repealing the presumption of parental contact in family courts and introducing a new police duty to notify schools of domestic abuse incidents. Those are significant steps forward, but we cannot stop here.

While I have rightly praised this Government, I also want to acknowledge the previous Government for introducing the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. We are here today because, for the first time, children were recognised as victims in their own right in that legislation. That Act was a vital step forward. It diagnosed the problem we face, but it did not provide an adequate cure.

Paragon, which does incredible work in my constituency of Isle of Wight West, told me:

“As children are now being recognised in their own right as victims of domestic abuse, we are seeing an increase in referrals for support. We have had no increase in funding to provide additional capacity to support children and young people and as a result we have a short waitlist in place. Waiting for this crucial support is not ideal.”

This reality is grimly reflected in the national picture. Women’s Aid’s “On Track” data reveals that there are more children than adults living in refuge spaces, but accessing a refuge does not mean that life returns to normal for those children. Further research by Women’s Aid shows that extended stays in refuge often disrupt education, school and routines. Many still face significant barriers to securing a school place after moving, because their mothers often have to cross local authority boundaries to stay safe. For those children, safety often comes at the cost of stability.

I am deeply grateful to have spoken with abuse survivors, including one of my constituents whose experience illustrates why prevention is so vital. As both a child victim and later a victim in her own relationship, she would have benefited enormously from early intervention. She has bravely agreed for me to share her story today. The following words are hers:

“Before I had even started primary school, domestic abuse had already shaped me. When home isn’t safe, fear becomes your earliest teacher. You don’t play freely in the world—you withdraw from it. Trust feels dangerous, friendships feel risky, and when every day is lived in the shadow of survival, confidence has no chance to bloom, nor your dreams any chance to grow. And in the classroom where children would feel free to learn and explore, that same fear follows you. Concentration becomes impossible, achievement feels out of reach, and you fall behind long before anyone realises, you’re not struggling with the work, you’re struggling with the trauma.

And, like so many children, I became part of a cycle that I never chose. After watching my mother suffer abuse, I unknowingly followed the same pattern. My daughter was born into a home where she, too, witnessed fear, control, and harm—things no child should ever see. Left unchecked, domestic abuse doesn’t just scar one generation; it echoes through the next.

What’s even more tragic is that my abuser had once been a child victim himself. He grew up watching violence without the support, education or therapy he so desperately needed. Without intervention, he grew into the only model he had ever known.

The cycle only ends when children are supported—when they are protected, when they learn about healthy relationships, are given tools to recognise abuse, and helped to heal from the trauma they witness. When they are shown that the devastating effects of domestic abuse do not have to be their inheritance.

I count myself lucky to live on the Isle of Wight, where support for my daughter exists—support that can quite literally save children’s futures. But across the country, too many children do not have this help. And without it, they stand little chance of breaking the cycle themselves.”

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he agree that, given that the concept of parental alienation—largely used by fathers against mothers in cases involving domestic violence in the family courts—does not have a robust, methodologically sound or scientific basis, the use of regulated and unregulated experts on it should be prohibited in the family courts?

There is very little I can add, other than to say that I wholeheartedly agree. That is a very important part of this debate, so I thank my hon. Friend sincerely.

That survivor’s story is, heartbreakingly, just one among many that I know will echo across our communities. In the year ending March 2024, an estimated 1.8 million children in England were affected by domestic abuse. Although 70% of affected children have stated that they would seek support for domestic abuse, 61% state that they would not know where to go to find it. The Government’s commitment to halving violence against women and girls is noble, but we must ensure that every child is protected, that court-ordered safeguards are robust, and that trauma support for newly single parents is properly funded. Education and community support must play a central role in breaking the cycle of intergenerational abuse, empowering future generations to prevent harm, protect potential victims and stop abusers before they begin to engage in this behaviour.

I therefore call on the Government to take the following actions: to amend the Children Act 1989 to reflect better the lived experience of children and young people affected by domestic abuse, and to embed our enhanced understanding of abuse, making it clear that coercive control constitutes harm to children; to publish a clear timeline for implementing the family court reforms recommended in the Ministry of Justice harm panel review of 2020; to roll out mandatory multi-agency training on domestic abuse across the family justice system; and to invest in the design and delivery of the violence against women and girls prevention programmes in schools and other educational settings. The political will is there, and I believe that we have the right voices in charge to enact the change that we need and that our children deserve, but we must take decisive action to stop this silent crisis from escalating into a catastrophe. We owe it not only to survivors, but to the women and children who are no longer with us. Their stories cannot be in vain.

It is a pleasure to serve under your leadership, Ms Jardine. I sincerely thank the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) for securing the debate. I had thought that I might need to intervene on him to allow him to catch his breath, but he managed to share some deeply emotional stories very well.

I am here to talk about Sara Sharif, a constituent of mine who was abused, tortured and murdered by those who should have loved her. The safeguarding report was published earlier this month. I will not read it all, but I want to highlight some particular issues to shape the debate, and I hope the Minister will respond to them. The safeguarding report had 15 recommendations, some national and some local. I would like the Minister to confirm that she and her team will read the safeguarding report and act on those recommendations with the urgency they deserve. We need to set a precedent that safeguarding reports with national implications are responded to by the Government as a matter of policy and urgency. That has not happened yet.

I hope that the Minister will take away the lessons learned on the home-schooling rules that were highlighted in the safeguarding report. Home-schooling is hugely beneficial for some children, but Sara Sharif’s father used those loopholes to hide the abuse. I hope that the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will ensure that we register all children and that any parent suspected of abusing their child loses their right to home-schooling. People should have a right, but not when there are safeguarding concerns. Lots of amendments have been tabled to the Bill, and I hope that that one is taken forward.

Will the Minister comment on the inadequacies not only of Surrey county council’s children’s services, but of under-pressure children’s services across the country? Vulnerable children are being looked after by overworked social workers who need better training—the safeguarding report says so. We should train and support them better. They wanted to take Sara Sharif away from her family before she was born, but they were convinced otherwise. Can we learn those lessons and empower people to protect our future generation?

Order. I am confident that we will get everybody in if speakers can keep themselves to five or six minutes.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) for securing this debate. It is incredibly emotional, and he opened it passionately and well.

There are children in my constituency of Stafford, Eccleshall and the villages, and across our country, whose lives are being shaped, often silently, by domestic abuse. In Stafford borough, one in four women will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime. And across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent, in a three-month period between April and June this year, nearly 500 children needed support from a local domestic abuse service. Yet, despite the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 recognising children as victims in their own right, less than a third of children whose guardian sought help were able to access support. There is legislation, but it is not doing enough or translating to change.

There are ways in which we are fortunate in Stafford. Organisations such as Staffordshire Women’s Aid and the integrated local services supporting victims and their children do extraordinary and often unseen work. Their leadership shows what it takes to make legislation real. I pay special tribute to Charlotte Almond, the exceptional chief executive officer of Staffordshire Women’s Aid. Charlotte has been unwavering in her communications with me, and yesterday she raised the hidden harm that children face through post-separation abuse where perpetrators continue their coercive control through family courts and the children themselves. She told me:

“Every service must see and hear the child as a victim in their own right.”

She is correct.

I acknowledge that the Government have made significant progress. The Ministry of Justice’s commitment to repeal the presumption of parental involvement is a landmark moment. The family courts have long been a site of acute harm for women and children. Ending the assumption that contact with both parents is automatically in a child’s best interests is not just welcome; it is saving lives. This is a huge win for victims and for the frontline organisations that have fought for it. Every one of them deserves incredible respect.

The hon. Lady is giving some personal stories, which are always very hard to tell because their seriousness and trauma always lies with us in our hearts. I wish the hon. Lady well as she pursues her case, and I support her.

The hon. Member is correct that these are really emotional subjects. It is happening to too many children across our country, and my constituent says it better than I could:

“This is not just about my family; it highlights a much wider and deeply concerning issue. Too many parents are silenced and disbelieved when trying to protect their children from post-separation abuse. Agencies are quick to label these cases as ‘conflict’ or ‘parental alienation’, rather than recognising patterns of coercive control that continue long after relationships end.”

Until this Government ended the presumption of parental involvement, those abusers could continue to weaponise their children against their own parent, forcing the victim who left them to continue to be held to their abuser’s will. That has to end. I will follow the progress very closely.

The hon. Lady is making an extremely powerful speech. Does she agree that children who have suffered abuse and neglect can exhibit behaviours at school and other social settings that would have them punished or excluded from those settings? Abuse has knock-on effects and a wider impact on the whole of a child’s life.

It is a widely acknowledged fact that if a young person or child experiences abuse, it continues to have a wide range of impacts throughout their life. It is important that this Government have set the direction. The legislation is there, the ambition is there and the sector is ready. We must match ambition with investment, law with implementation, and promises with performance, because children cannot wait. They deserve safety, stability and a childhood free from fear.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank and congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) on securing this important debate. This is a heartbreaking topic. Tackling and preventing the harms being caused to children in their home demands urgent attention.

When I think about domestic abuse against children, my mind often goes back to the posters we had when I was growing up, and that we may have seen recently in shopping centres and train stations, with two adults arguing and a child crouched in the corner and watching in fear. That image is everywhere when we talk about children and domestic abuse: the child on the sidelines, quietly absorbing the trauma around them.

The reality is far worse than that familiar picture, because children are not just witnesses: 1.8 million children in the UK are experiencing domestic abuse right now. Women’s Aid has found that, in the last 30 years, 67 children have been killed by a parent who was also a perpetrator of domestic abuse, often during contact arrangements. That statistic and the fact it could happen during contact arrangements genuinely stopped me in my tracks. The more recent National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children briefing on child deaths due to abuse or neglect from July of this year estimates that at least one child a week is killed through abuse or neglect. In our country—in any country—that is completely unacceptable.

The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 recognises children as victims in their own right, which was the right move. However, I came across another troubling fact during research for this debate. In 2022, after that legal change, less than a third of survivors who wanted support for their children were able to get it. That demonstrates that changing the law does not automatically cause tangible change. If we do not fund the services or create spaces for children to heal and feel safe, the law is just a line on a page.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) on securing this important debate and on his powerful opening speech.

For far too long, our understanding of the impact of domestic abuse on children failed to recognise the reality. Children do not simply witness domestic abuse, they experience it, they suffer it and they are profoundly affected by it. Living in a home in which domestic abuse is taking place is traumatising for children. It makes them feel frightened, insecure, sad and alone. It undermines the essential security that the home environment should provide. It affects children’s understanding of relationships and what is normal, and children often take on a completely misplaced sense of responsibility for what is happening or for protecting other members of the family.

These issues are, sadly, very widespread. One in seven children and young people will have an experience of domestic abuse at some point during their childhood. The Office for National Statistics records that, in 32% of domestic abuse cases, there was at least one child under the age of 16 living in the household.

The Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s recent report, “Victims in Their Own Right? Babies, children and young people’s experiences of domestic abuse”, is a sobering read. The commissioner listened extensively to children and young people affected by domestic abuse. They told her it is important that they are listened to, that they are taught how to recognise domestic abuse and that they receive proper support to recover from it.

They also told the commissioner about some of the barriers they experience in getting support, including failing to recognise that abuse is taking place and the influence of other family members. They also cited unwanted contact arrangements as a barrier. I therefore welcome the Government’s recent decision to end the presumption of contact, and I pay tribute to Claire Throssell, who has campaigned so hard in the name of her sons, Jack and Paul, to see this change in the law.