It is an honour to lead this debate on domestic abuse offences, and a particular honour to do so on the very spot from which I saw the most moving speech that I have ever seen in the House of Commons being given. It was in 2016, around November or December time, and it was given by Michelle Thomson, who was then the independent Member of Parliament for Edinburgh West. She spoke about her experience of abuse and being a victim of violence at the hands of a man, and at the end of that speech she said:
“I am not a victim. I am a survivor.”—[Official Report, 8 December 2016; Vol. 618, c. 409.]
Those words sent a shiver down my spine, gave me goosebumps, and unlocked in me a real determination to try to use my own experience and my family’s experience to improve what life is like for victims and survivors across the country.
I say in Michelle Thomson’s words that I, too, am not a victim, but I am a survivor. As a result of that, and also of my mum’s experience at the hands of a former partner of hers, we know what domestic abuse looks like. I know what it is to be crying upstairs under the covers as a child, listening to shouting, screaming, smashing and the rest coming from downstairs and not knowing if mum was okay. I know what it is to go downstairs the morning after and see broken glass, or a kicked-in hoover and the rest, and to not know whether mum was okay. I know what it is to live in a household where you are worried that any word that you say, any movement that you do and any thought that you might have can be attacked by an abuser in your own home who is meant to keep you safe and who you are meant to trust.
There are so many people across our country who are victims and survivors of domestic abuse and other forms of abuse. It is estimated that one in five people will be a victim or a survivor of domestic abuse in their lifetime. In my view, the law does not go far enough to protect people in those circumstances. Great progress was made in the last Parliament in the form of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which defined domestic abuse in law for the first time. It also created a series of domestic abuse-aligned offences, including coercive and controlling behaviour, non-fatal strangulation and non-fatal suffocation, but I am afraid that that piece of legislation, and indeed our legislative framework overall, do not go far enough to recognise the domestic abuse that my family has experienced and that many Members of this House will be familiar with, too.
An example of a failing in the law exists in the form of the experience undergone by an extremely brave and inspirational survivor, Elizabeth Hudson. Elizabeth was a victim, a survivor, of domestic abuse at the hands of her ex-husband. He, among many other terrible acts at home, held a knife to her throat. He was convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm for his crimes. For her, and for so many, such a conviction does not reflect the full gravity or the full circumstances of such a nefarious crime. That has led to all sorts of problems, not just for Elizabeth but for many other survivors as well.