Domestic Abuse Bill — House of Commons, 2020-07-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): Those were two very powerful speeches, which is right because this is a really important Bill. It is a major aspect of reform of family private law. The Lord Chancellor is entitled to great credit for what he has done. It is the second time in almost a fortnight that he has brought in major reforms and we should remember that. We have reformed divorce law and now how we deal with private family law I welcome the comments by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) from the Opposition Front Bench, because this is something we ought to deal with together. It is a difficult and complex area. As Chairman of the Justice Committee, I can say that we have wrestled with some of those issues from time to time. As a practitioner, as a constituency MP and as a human being, I have seen the consequences of some of the deficiencies in the law as it currently stands. This is a major reform and we should welcome it. There is more to do, I have no doubt, but it is a good step forward. In particular, the changes to the procedures in the family court, which have taken some time to get through, are really important. I hope we will now see that properly resourced. I hope also that we will follow that through in some of the understanding that is required, for example, with regards to acquired brain injury—a point made by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) in a previous debate—and some of the pressures that are put on people through coercive control, which this Government have recognised and taken on board beyond most others. We need ensure that we keep practice in line with the letter of the law I am particularly pleased that the Bill has dealt with the issue of non-fatal strangulation. As a legal practitioner, it always struck me that this was a real difficulty—when one could not prove the necessary intent under section 18 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. The irony was that if somebody died, we could prove manslaughter, but sadly we could not prove anything less. That is another gap that the Bills fills An awful lot of really important points have been covered by the Bill, but I suspect that the overall thrust is that we are determined to improve the situation of victims in the criminal courts and the family courts. Ironically, crime got in front of the family division in many ways, when it came to the protection of witnesses and the special care that should be given to people. Judges and practitioners have repeatedly sought this and it has been delivered. I hope that we can now move forward towards better reform of private family law generally. But may I just make a final prod to the Lord Chancellor in a nice way, and say that that requires resource? It requires resource for the judges, the ability for people to sit the requisite hours, and resource for those who undertake a number of onerous duties referred to in the Bill on behalf of the public to be properly recompensed. I suspect that he will do that We ought to welcome this legislation, and, above all, welcome the fact that we are moving away from what was rather a blame culture in the way in which we dealt with family law, and towards something that is much more constructive. Maybe we should move forward in such a way in a number of other matters too.