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Lady Hermon (North Down) (UUP): I assure you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I have done my maths and will keep my comments short to allow other hon. Members to speak.
I am rather embarrassed, as I believe that I am the only Member of Parliament from Northern Ireland here today. I regret that. Domestic violence is a very serious problem in Northern Ireland and, if the statistics are correct, six people there died as a result of paramilitary violence, but on average six people a year die as a result of domestic violence. If the House were discussing paramilitary violence, I imagine that representatives of the other parties would be present. However, I note with deep regret that they are not present for a debate on domestic violence. As has been said many times before, murder is murder is murder—whether it is the result of paramilitary or domestic violence. The victims were loved by someone and their loss is very sad and should be taken just as seriously whatever the cause.
I welcome the fact that the vast majority of the provisions in the Bill have been extended to Northern Ireland. A fact that is often overlooked in the House is that criminal law is not a devolved issue. Even for the brief time that we had a devolved Assembly and 108 Members sat in Stormont dealing with social security and other devolved issues, criminal law was not among them. Responsibility for criminal law has always remained here at Westminster. Given the results of the Assembly elections last November in which the Democratic Unionist party and Sinn Fein did so well, it is hard to envisage the Assembly rising from the ashes, because that would mean that the First and Deputy First Ministers, who are jointly elected, would come from Sinn Fein and the DUP. It does not take a crystal ball to see that the Assembly will not reconvene until some time in the future, but we live in hope.
While criminal law remains a responsibility of the House, it is a matter of deep concern that, in many aspects, the people of Northern Ireland have been left behind. The legislation on antisocial behaviour that was passed in the House last year did not extend to Northern Ireland. We are only just finishing the consultation on antisocial behaviour orders in Northern Ireland—they are still not available to us. I listened to questions about the implementation and enforcement of ASBOs during Home Office Questions today and thought, "What a luxury to have them." I praise the Home Office for extending the vast majority of the Bill's provisions to Northern Ireland. Domestic violence is a serious problem in Northern Ireland. Last year's police statistics show that reported incidents of domestic violence in Northern Ireland have increased by more than 9 per cent. I emphasise the word "reported" because as all hon. Members who have participated in the debate appreciate, the cases reported to the police represent only the tip of the iceberg, because the vast majority are not reported.
It will have been clear to the Government from my earlier interventions that I am extremely disappointed that the provisions in part 3 of the Bill on the code of practice for victims and the commissioner for victims and witnesses will not be extended to Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) cast doubts on
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the likely effectiveness of the commissioner, but I think that the proposal is good and long overdue. Unfortunately, however, the Northern Ireland Office is currently resisting the extension of the provisions to Northern Ireland, which is totally unjustifiable.
The reason why the Northern Ireland Office is reluctant for the remit of the victims' commissioner to be extended to Northern Ireland lies in the "Review of the Criminal Justice System in Northern Ireland", which was one of two reviews undertaken after the Belfast agreement was signed—of course, the other was the Patten report on policing. The contents of the review are not written in tablets of stone because when it has suited the Government, they have brought forward measures earlier than the review recommended while omitting other measures.
An entire chapter of the review is devoted to victims, and it examined proposals for an advocate for victims in Northern Ireland. It was concerned that because Northern Ireland was a "relatively small jurisdiction"—that is important, because it is a jurisdiction with 1.7 million people—the proposal to have a separate advocate for victims
"might merely serve to diminish the stature and effectiveness of the Criminal Justice Inspectorate"
"across the responsibilities of the individual criminal justice organisations."
That argument was fairly laudable four years ago when the review was published.
The criminal justice inspectorate, which was cited as the excuse for not having an advocate for victims in Northern Ireland, was established two years ago by the Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 2002, and Mr. Kit Chivers—a good appointment—was appointed as the chief inspector of criminal justice with great fanfare, song and dance and razzmatazz in June 2003. However, on 19 May 2004, at column 1092W of Hansard, I asked how often the Secretary of State had met the chief inspector of criminal justice. I received the answer "not yet". The inspectorate is not even up and running, and we do not expect that it will be in operation until the autumn. That is gravely disappointing.
I am perhaps more concerned, however, by something that Baroness Scotland rightly and properly said in the other House, and I am pleased that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins), who will take the Bill through the Committee, is back in the Chamber to hear this point. Baroness Scotland said:
"I need to be clear that the intention of this legislation is to introduce rights for all victims of crime. We are not looking to create a hierarchy of victims, attaching greater importance to some types of victims than others."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 March 2004; Vol. 658, c. 1452.]
I tell the Under-Secretary that the substantial majority of people of Northern Ireland voted in a referendum for the Belfast agreement. Clause 1 of the agreement said that the people of Northern Ireland wished to remain part and parcel of the United Kingdom unless, and until, a majority voted otherwise. The people of North Down expect to be treated in exactly the same way as those in North Devon.
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Given that Baroness Scotland assured the other House that there would not be a hierarchy of victims, the people of Northern Ireland need not only words, but action. To use a horrible phrase, albeit one that describes the situation accurately, they need joined-up government, rather than enormous amounts of time and money being wasted on truth and reconciliation commissions. Such proposals will not bring justice and truth in Northern Ireland, but a lot of pain will be caused to many people. The way forward for the Government and the many thousands of victims of Northern Ireland would be to extend the Bill—lock, stock and barrel—to Northern Ireland as quickly as possible.
8.34 pm
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab): It is always a great privilege and pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon).
Domestic violence is now the second most common crime in the United Kingdom. The House can take pride in the fact that not only do we have a Government who are introducing this Bill, but we have many hon. Members—I do not count myself among them, not having been here for long—who have consistently, across many years, spoken up for those who do not have a voice for themselves. Such legislation will help to reduce the occurrence of the insidious incidence of domestic violence that can trap and torment adults and children alike into a personal hell, from which many have traditionally seen no escape.
I suggest that we are speaking for those who do not readily have a voice themselves. Let us put that assertion and the bland statistics behind domestic violence in context. It has been mentioned that in each year of the British crime statistics, in excess of 500,000 people will be subject to domestic violence. That means that if we filled the Chamber to capacity with those people every day, and if we debated the subject every day and listened every day to those who suffer from personal abuse, we would finish that debate not next year, not one year hence, not two years hence, but in April 2007. That is the scale of the problem and the challenge that we face. It also shows the scale of the testimonies of despair, pain and hurt that we would hear. Yet that is only the recorded incidence of domestic violence.
We have one afternoon and one evening, yet in this one sitting we can begin to act for the many silent voices that also haunt the Chamber and this country. Those silent voices haunt the pages of the supplementary questionnaire to the British crime survey, which show that more than six out of 10 women and nine out of 10 men who were subjected to domestic violence did not believe that what had happened to them was in any way a crime. On a related issue, there are the silent voices of more than four out of 10 women who have been subjected to rape, as defined by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, but who do not conceive of themselves as having been raped. There are also the innocent and reluctant observers of domestic violence—the children who stand by and watch. Those are the silent voices behind the pages of what are merely reported crime statistics.
My wife works in an accident and emergency department of a major south Wales hospital. In addition to the expected and accidental injuries that come
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through the doors every hour of the day and night, there are also the unexpected and the non-accidental. One recent study suggested that in one inner city hospital, more than one in three women who entered the doors of the A and E unit had been victims of domestic violence at some point.
The most abused are often women, making up, as has been mentioned, more than eight out of 10 of those who are at the receiving end of domestic violence. However, they are not the only victims. Some men are also abused. Also, children continue to see one parent abusing another. It is believed that nine out of 10 children are in the same room or the next room during attacks on their parents. One in three will try to intervene. The physical scars of domestic violence, and sometimes the deaths through domestic violence, are often just the most obvious and immediate manifestations of such abuse, but the emotional scars and the repercussions on the mental health of those involved—not least the children trapped in the mayhem—are sometimes difficult to see, but equally long lasting and potentially devastating to the individual's whole life.
It would only be right to highlight the fact that many organisations are involved in changing that domestic environment. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan) was one of many who talked of their role in that. Those organisations give options to those who feel that they cannot speak out or escape their predicament and cannot alone build an alternative future. The refuge centres throughout the UK give assistance not only to women, but to families, so that they can begin the path that ends the violence.
Wales has 31 women's aid groups, including one in my constituency, which provide temporary accommodation. Caerphilly has a year-long pilot project—one of two in the UK—that aims to stop domestic violence and, at the same time, deal with the under-reporting of incidents. Only last month, the first all-Wales helpline for victims of domestic violence was launched in Penygroes. The helpline offers confidential information and support for individuals. In the autumn, we begin a programme that deals with the child victims of domestic violence, who are now beginning to show, as one could foretell, disturbing signs of becoming violent and aggressive themselves.
There is an economic cost as well to domestic violence and abuse. According to the manager of the Cardiff women's safety unit, domestic violence is the biggest cause of murder in south Wales and costs society around £1.1 million each year. Although the moral case for ending violence is paramount, the financial case is also compelling.
So we are making steady progress in Wales, but we have much more to do. As we highlight the issue today, I urge anybody who feels that they are in a situation of violence to seek assistance from the many organisations that can help. The Bill will augment that work by helping to diminish the occurrence of violence and by creating the legislative and, most importantly, as other hon. Members have mentioned, the societal climate in which violence in the home is simply not tolerated.
Today we find ourselves in a position to instigate change; the Prime Minister has rightly described the Bill as
"a symbol of our determination to rebalance the whole criminal justice system around the needs of the victim".
I have confidence in the fundamentals of the Bill and in the parameters and guidance that it sets forth for the judicial system. We stand in an enviable position: we have reached a point where we can, if not end, at least sharply reduce the incidence of domestic violence. I think of provisions in the Bill such as the new police powers that make domestic violence an arrestable offence; the penalties of up to five years in prison; the power to issue restraining orders even when the defendant has been acquitted but where the court believes that there is still a risk of abuse; the extension of the civil law to cover same-sex couples in cohabitation; and the new offence of causing or allowing the death of a child or a vulnerable adult. There is so much good in the Bill that the welcome that it has generally received should be no surprise. The changes will strengthen the law so that those who perpetrate the crimes will be punished, while the victims' rights will be restored to where they belong.
The Bill has been welcomed by many working in the field and across the party political spectrum, as we have seen from today's debate, but as any legislation proceeds, there are always calls for fine-tuning or strengthening of the provisions. The Minister will be aware of those concerns. They have been taken up by many organisations and have been reiterated to me by organisations in south Wales, which are hugely supportive of the Bill but which want the Minister to respond sympathetically to the following issues.
First, how can the Bill ensure that there is safe contact with parents and family when a relationship breaks down? Should that need for safe contact be enshrined in legislation? If not, my constituents ask me, how can safe contact be achieved, particularly in the light of evidence that some children may continue to be put at risk by being put into contact with schedule 1 offenders or those on the child protection register, when sometimes such contact is unsupervised—or even by being ordered to reside with parents who have a history of violence? When the Minister responds to the debate, will he confirm that he recognises that danger, and will he demonstrate how it can be avoided if the need for safe contact is not to be enshrined in legislation?
Secondly, will the Minister explain how adequate provision of services for the victims of violence—services such as advocacy, protection and support—is to be achieved across the UK? I recognise that that will entail partnership and multi-agency working, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North said, but will the Minister expand on the additional funding recently announced for the crime and disorder reduction partnerships, and confirm that that funding is applicable also to Wales?
Although it is true that domestic violence may never be completely eradicated, this Bill offers the legislative framework that will create a climate in which abuse cannot thrive and will not be tolerated. Given that 120 women and 30 men are killed each year by their partner, what better place than here and what better time than now to help to end the daily torment of thousands of our constituents and of many thousands of women, men and children in every part of the UK, and to put to rest the ghosts of domestic violence that haunt this House and houses throughout the country?
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8.44 pm
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