Domestic Abuse Bill — House of Lords, 2021-01-05
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, like many noble Lords, I have found this a moving and extraordinarily well-informed debate. Like them, I support the Bill but want it strengthened, particularly on extending the duty on local authorities to deliver support to victims who live in community settings and ensuring, as UNISON has advocated, that the victims of domestic abuse are protected at work through the extension of domestic abuse protection orders to the workplace. I should like immigration law amended to abolish the "no recourse to public funds" condition and extend the destitute domestic violence concession to at least six months Like many noble Lords, I should like to see the introduction of new offences of non-fatal strangulation or suffocation. I noted this morning that the Ministry of Justice was quoted as saying that there was no need for that change because there were already offences on the statute book. However, it is clear from the evidence we received that the police do not treat this issue seriously enough and, even when charges are brought, they do not reflect the severity of the offending Although I support those major issues, the area on which I want to focus most is older victims of domestic abuse. One problem, as Age UK points out, is that we currently do not know the true prevalence of domestic abuse among older people due to current ONS data collection policy. That is changing, and the statistics we already have are, none the less, stark. The number of older adults affected by domestic violence continues to rise. According to Age UK’s analysis of the Crime Survey for England and Wales for the year ending March 2019, nearly 190,000 older women and 1,137 older men experienced domestic abuse. One in five victims of domestic homicides is over the age of 60 Earlier, the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, spoke powerfully on this issue. Like her, I want the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour, under Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015, to be extended to cover abuse by family members who are not living with the victim. My noble friend Lord Rosser made some powerful points on that. The current offence covers such behaviour by a family member, including financial abuse, but only when they are living with their victim. According to research, most perpetrators of financial abuse against elderly people were family members, rather than partners, and only 25% lived with their victims. As Gary FitzGerald, formerly chief executive of Action on Elder Abuse for 18 years, has stated: "Older women can have a higher level of physical, emotional and particularly financial dependence on perpetrators, and will often have experienced the abuse for a much greater period of time. It is those psychological and emotional relationships that are crucial in considering coercive control, much more so than whether or not the victim is living with the perpetrator." UK criminal law must afford victims equal protection and subject abusers to equivalent penalties, irrespective of their place of residence. I very much hope that we can achieve that in the Bill.