UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE
To be published as HC 880-i

HOUSE OF COMMONS

ORAL EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE THE

Home Affairs Committee

Follow-up on Domestic Violence, Forced Marriage and "Honour"-Based Violence

Tuesday 22 March 2011

Nicola Harwin and Nicola Sharp

JASVINDER SANGHERA and A SURVIVOR OF FORCED MARRIAGE

LYNNE FEATHERSTONE

Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 100

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Home Affairs Committee

on Tuesday 22 March 2011

Members present:

Keith Vaz (Chair)

Mr James Clappison

Dr Julian Huppert

Steve McCabe

Alun Michael

Bridget Phillipson

Mark Reckless

Mr David Winnick

________________

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Nicola Harwin, Women’s Aid, and Nicola Sharp, Refuge, gave evidence.

Q1 Chair: Ms Harwin and Ms Sharp, thank you very much for coming to give evidence to the Committee this morning. Perhaps I could start with this question: have you both been consulted on the development of a Violence against Women and Girls Strategy and the action plan that has been published by the Government?

Nicola Harwin: Yes, we have. Our organisations have indeed been consulted.

Nicola Sharp: Yes, that is correct.

Q2 Chair: Are there any key omissions from this consultation, in your view?

Nicola Harwin: Probably in terms of the areas that we discussed in the consultation, even those issues that were not put forward originally, we would have fed back our whole range of concerns. But one of our prominent concerns on the action plan and what has come out of it, is that, while we welcome the national funding that has been allocated to national helplines, the provision of independent domestic violence advisors and independent sexual violence advisors-IDVAs and ISVAs-and support for multi-agency risk assessment conferences-MARACs-of £28 million, and indeed the funding that has come in from the Ministry of Justice for rape crisis funding, nevertheless many other local and often key refuge and outreach services are not going to benefit from this ringfenced funding from central government and face direct risk at the present time.

Nicola Sharp: We would echo the concerns that Nicola Harwin has put forward. The other thing that we really welcomed was the UN definition of violence against women and girls, but I think we are also concerned in relation to the strategy and the action plan that it does not address the issues of trafficking and prostitution as well. We see those as key omissions to the violence against women and girls strategy.

Q3 Chair: What is the UN definition?

Nicola Sharp: The UN definition of violence against women and girls has been adopted cross-governmentally and it includes sexual violence, domestic violence, female genital mutilation, false marriage-all the things that we would consider to be violence against women and girls, apart from trafficking and prostitution, which fall under the UN definition, but the UK Government are not using.

Q4 Bridget Phillipson: Could you just tell us what you think the impact of spending cuts will be on local services, particularly women’s refuges?

Nicola Harwin: In responding, I want to draw on two surveys that we have carried out in the last year. The first is a survey that we do annually, which we carried out in June 2010, that told us how many refuges, bed spaces and outreach services there were in the country and how many women and children were being supported in the previous year-125,000 women and 55,000 children were being supported through refuge, outreach and similar services. That survey also revealed to us that we still have under 75% of the bed spaces that a select committee in 1974 recommended. That is 35 years ago.

Our most recent survey, carried out in February, revealed that 60% of the respondents had no knowledge of any funding, had no guaranteed information about funding after 1 April this year; 72% of those did not have any information on funding for outreach services, 60% for refuge, 72% for outreach, 60% for children’s services. Looking at the statistics for survivors who were supported in 2009-2010, if we look at it proportionally we could say that if those services are not funded and those cuts are carried out we will be looking at something like 70,000 women and their children who might not have a service in the coming year.

Nicola Sharp: What I would add to that is that the cuts at local level seem to be disproportionate to the cuts that were made to the spending budget at national level. I think the Government sent a really strong message to local authorities by minimising those cuts that, at local level, the cuts should not be disproportionate to the services. Speaking as the largest service provider in England, Refuge is negotiating with about 20 local authorities at the moment. We have negotiated contract reductions with them. We are realistic. We realise that there is going to be less money. We are trying to protect the quality of our services through doing that, but cuts have ranged from 2% to 25%. In a way, it is luckily nowhere near the levels of cuts experienced elsewhere. For example, in Devon I think the initial cut was going to be 100% and now it has been negotiated down to 42%. Again, Devon recognised that it would not be able to support the women and children within the county who needed those services.

The other thing that Refuge is finding as a service provider is that, in making those cuts, we are having to take a real hit on our management charge, which means that the infrastructure that allows us to negotiate with local authorities is under threat. It means that we have to do more fundraising in order to raise core funds to keep the organisation going and obviously that is really challenging in this current climate. Refuge is actually facing a large financial deficit for the next financial year, so we are really concerned about the future.

Something else that I would like to raise in relation to the local authority decision-making is that a lot of local authorities, particularly those in rural areas, are questioning whether they should be providing refuge space for women who do not come from the local area. Obviously, this is a key concern to us, because national government previously recognised that refuges were a national resource. A third of local authorities do not provide specialist domestic violence services anyway. Some local authorities are looking to limit how many women from outside the local area can come into refuge, which is having a negative impact again on women’s ability to access refuge space. It is a question of safety. If women need to move away, they may need to move out of the local area across local boundaries in order to access safety.

Q5 Bridget Phillipson: On that front, I understand those concerns and, Ms Harwin, you co-signed a letter, I think just last week, to the Daily Telegraph with the Housing Minister and the National Housing Federation on that issue. I would like to ask for a further explanation on the rationale there. I accept the points that you are making that local authorities do have choices in this, but at the same time a 12% cut to supporting people is still quite a significant cut. Would it not perhaps be better to be arguing for reintroduction of ringfencing in supporting people?

Nicola Harwin: I think that is where there is a contradiction in Government policy, because effectively there has been ringfencing for IDVAs and ISVAs, though of course that has to be matched by local authority funding, which is reasonable. Some IDVA and ISVA posts are run by organisations like ourselves, along with refuge services and other outreach services. They have a particular role in working with high-risk victims. One of the concerns about this is that those services are to some degree-we welcome that-being ringfenced because they are a funding process that local authorities can match, but the other services are not. I think there is a real problem with that. Because we have had supporting people ringfenced off, as we have heard, the cuts are being made disproportionately. Many of our members were prepared. They had initial notice of the cuts and they were prepared to try to work out how they could deliver leaner services, but we have cut all the fat we can, basically. We cannot do any more.

The other thing I want to add is that it is a false economy to be making these cuts, because many of our member services, particularly in refuges, are dealing with families with multiple needs. If refuge places are being cut-there are local authorities around the country that have two refuges and are going to cut one-that means that something like 100 families may not be accommodated that year. So we are thinking, "Where are those families who have high support needs going to go?" It is quite likely that some of their children may need to be taken into care. That costs the taxpayer between £500 and £700 a week. There are a lot of issues that I think local authorities are not addressing.

The other thing we are finding, and we were talking about this before we came in, is that the commissioning framework that is now in existence-it has been a problem for several years really-means that we are seeing services commissioned where the independent local provider, who may have been in existence for a very long time and providing high-quality services, is being driven out by local authorities tendering out services to large-scale providers, often national registered social landlords, who are actually seriously cutting the kind of provision. One example is in west London. A refuge that for 25 years has had three refuge workers to deal with 12 families-I mean 12 families at any one time; it could be 100 families in a year-is now cut down to one refuge worker who is supposed to be providing a service 24/7. I worked in a refuge in 1980, three decades ago, and I had 12 families to look after. At that time, I was the only paid staff and could not provide the quality and safe service required to prevent repeat victimisation.

Q6 Dr Huppert: Can I go back briefly to a comment Ms Sharp made about authorities not wishing to fund services for people who are not from their area? It does seem to be quite a serious concern, given the nature of this. I went to the Cambridge refuge relatively recently and the whole purpose was to have people who were not from Cambridge. That is exactly the point. I understand that there was a certain reciprocal arrangement between various authorities. Are you saying that authorities will not fund people who do not go to a refuge in their own area, or that they will not fund people from their area to go to a refuge elsewhere? Both sound quite alarming, but I would be interested if you could just comment on exactly what is going on.

Nicola Sharp: Yes, I would say practice is quite mixed at the moment. As you say, it is a nonsense really to expect local women to go to local refuges. What used to happen under the Supporting People regime was that if a refuge was going to be decommissioned then the Secretary of State had to give permission for that to happen, recognising that there was a national level of spaces that were needed in order to meet the demand across the country. Unfortunately, the spaces have never met the demand. What we are finding with the localism agenda, as I said, is that local authorities are saying, "Our services are for local people. We are not going to pay for people outside of the local area to use services based in our vicinity."

There are, as you said, some authorities that have operated reciprocal agreements, but that works only where both local authorities have services. Obviously, that cannot work for women who are coming from outside the local authority area. People are also suggesting something called cross-purchasing, whereby if one local authority takes a woman in from another local authority then the local authority from which the woman came should pay for her refuge space. That has brought in lots of difficulties at the most basic level in terms of increased administration for refuges, who are then having to chase lots of local authorities in order to get funding for women to come to that refuge.

Q7 Alun Michael: I was going to ask an open-ended question, but I think you have answered it. It is difficult to see the Government developing and delivering a national strategy if there has been such a level of reduction of facilities at the local level, isn’t it?

Nicola Sharp: Yes. What we have always argued for is a national delivery plan for domestic violence services. As I indicated in an earlier answer, a third of local authorities do not provide specialist domestic violence services anyway and demand exceeds supply.

Q8 Alun Michael: How does the central funding commitment from the Home Office now compare with the commitments of the previous Government?

Nicola Sharp: As Nicola Harwin has already indicated, we welcome the ringfenced funding for the IDVAs, ISVAs and MARACs. I think that sends a good message to local authorities, as I have previously mentioned, but we are finding it very challenging on the ground. For example, our experience with the IDVAs is that the Home Office is putting up £20,000 per advisor per local level. That is obviously not enough to pay for a whole IDVA, so we are looking to local agencies to contribute the rest of the money. What we are finding is that local authorities will not make decisions in relation to the IDVA funding until they find out whether the Home Office is going to fund that post, which means that decisions that need to be taken now because of the financial year we will not be able to take until the end of March.

Q9 Alun Michael: The commitment, which this Government have committed themselves to as well, in the Compact process of threeyear rolling funding, has disappeared then, has it, effectively?

Nicola Sharp: Well, we have been given the funding on a threeyear rolling basis from central government. The trouble is that it does not pay for the whole role at local level.

Q10 Alun Michael: Yes, but that is not what is being followed by local government then?

Nicola Sharp: No, it isn’t. They are waiting to hear what the Home Office is going to do.

Q11 Alun Michael: Because the commitment was for local government as well as national government in the Compact process.

Nicola Sharp: Local authorities should stick to the Compact process as well, but what we generally find is that they don’t.

Q12 Alun Michael: That presumably puts pressure on fundraising and looking for other sources of money. Given public preferences about where they put their donations, do you think that the concept of participatory budget is going to lead to this area of activity losing out? What is your experience here?

Nicola Harwin: I think it is going to be extremely difficult. I know that pilots are going on at the present time in a number of areas, but they seem to consist of various proposals being put forward at meetings that the public can attend to comment on. I think the difficulty is that because domestic abuse, and in fact all forms of domestic and sexual violence, are such hidden crimes and so difficult to talk about, it is going to be quite hard for anybody. It is not a popular subject with the public. I think it is going to be quite hard to have a powerful lobby. I think we are going to see more pressure for roads and not refuges, to be perfectly honest.

Q13 Alun Michael: A final question from me. There is quite a lot of evidence, isn’t there, that the victims of domestic violence typically have been injured and, therefore, required use of public services, hospital services, on a large number of occasions before anything comes to the attention of either the police or those who can help. Is there any evidence that constraints on the public finances are leading to more being done to give information and intervene at an earlier stage rather than waiting for that very often delayed report to be made?

Nicola Harwin: I think there are some opportunities in the current proposals for public health. While there are problems in other areas, there is actually for the first time a recognition of domestic violence in those proposals. There have been some important studies that have shown how intervention in A&E or in a hospital setting or in a communitybased health setting can make a difference. But I think the critical issue is that we have to have sufficient advocates, whether you call them IDVAs, ISVAs, outreach workers, whatever. You have to have that specialist role because that is the role that research has shown makes a key difference in the performance of the public health service and, indeed, the early intervention that means that you don’t get the escalation.

Chair: We are coming on to early intervention in one second.

Q14 Dr Huppert: Just to return to funding for particular individuals, there is a particular problem, as I understand it, for people whose immigration status means that they are tagged as not having access to public funds. In Cambridge we have had a number of people like that. There was a Sojourner scheme to try to provide some funding for them; I think it was for 20 days initially and another 20 days while an application was processed. Again, we have used the Sojourner project in Cambridge quite a few times. How successful do you think it has been? As you probably know, the Home Secretary, I think two weeks ago, announced that it was going to be continued. Is that something that you welcome? Are there any changes that should be made in it?

Nicola Harwin: We certainly do welcome it. As a national organisation, Women’s Aid for a number of years had our own voluntary fund called the Last Resort Fund, by which we continually attempted to raise money to support women in order to stay in refuges. The Sojourner Project, the programme over the last period, has been extremely welcome and certainly our annual survey showed that 445 women with no recourse to public funds stayed in refuges last year and about 40% of those had actually used the Sojourner Project.

On the other hand, one of the concerns is that because the period of time is limited during which support is given and the woman has to have a successful outcome of her application for indefinite leave to remain, a lot of refuge services were unwilling to take the risk, if the application was unsuccessful, of then having the person and the family in the refuge and having to support them.

We certainly welcome the work that the Home Office has done with the UK Border Agency and the fact that we are going to be seeing some support coming from the Department for Work and Pensions in the future. It is a much better position than it was, but I think there are still a number of concerns, including the fact that only those who are here on a spousal visa will be eligible for this scheme. Other women at risk and in vulnerable situations with different immigration status will not be able to use it.

Q15 Steve McCabe: I take it you are both familiar with the Bristol University NSPCC research, I think it was 2009, which said that one in six young women said they had been pressured into having sex and one in 16 said they had been raped. What do you think are the policy implications of that kind of information for any early intervention strategy to help protect young women?

Nicola Harwin: In Women’s Aid, and indeed in Refuge, we have always supported effective prevention work and I think it needs to be done on a number of levels. It needs to be done in terms of public awareness, but it also needs to be done within the education system. At Women’s Aid, two years ago now we developed something called the Expect Respect toolkit as part of our campaign to promote healthy relationships, because I think that is the key. It is about promoting healthy, respectful relationships with children and young people, girls and boys, from a very early age. I think that it is important that the Department for Education takes a significant role in looking at how that can be developed in schools in an effective way.

Nicola Sharp: I think we were all very disappointed that personal social health and economic education did not become statutory under the previous Administration, and we are concerned that there are no plans for it to become so under the new coalition Government. It really is important that issues like this are talked about in schools because, as you rightly noted, younger people are more at risk of violence than older people. It is really important that they are taught about these issues in school so that they can recognise abuse.

I think three previous Select Committees have made this recommendation that domestic violence and violence against women and girls more generally is talked about in schools. I know that the women we support just say, "We wish we had known earlier. We wish we knew what domestic violence was." If they had known, for example, the range of control that some partners used against them, they would have been in a better position to identify it and to exit early from the relationship.

Q16 Steve McCabe: As you have acknowledged, there are probably now no plans for any specific education component in the schools, but I think there is going to be some kind of public awareness campaign. What do you think is the major difference? If we are trying to save money and times are tight, why not just a public awareness campaign? What is missing by doing that by itself?

Nicola Harwin: Well, I think the trouble with a public awareness campaign is that it is very hit and miss and there has never been any successful evaluation of them. We know from campaigns like drink driving and wearing a seatbelt and HIV and Aids that when you run these campaigns awareness can change practice for a short period afterwards, so there is a value in that. But I am not sure how much children and young people engage in those campaigns, and I think it really is about prevention and protection, enabling children to develop protective behaviours at a very early age.

Nicola Sharp: The Home Office ran a communications campaign specifically targeted at teenagers last year, and that was really welcomed. It was important; there were primetime adverts. It really helped raise awareness and I know Refuge and Women’s Aid worked on the internet microsite that supported that campaign. Unfortunately, the Department for Education-or the Department for Children, Schools and Families at that time-did not engage with the campaign. So children were seeing the adverts; they had lots of questions; it was raising their awareness. They went to school, but the teachers did not know anything about the campaign. I know we worked at the last minute to try and get some resources into schools, but they did not get there in the time that was needed. There were lots of unanswered questions. So what you are doing is raising awareness about an issue but unless professionals can respond to that awarenessraising activity when it is raised by their students, and they can talk to them about it, unless they are aware of the specialist agencies that we run to put those people in touch with, then you are opening a can of worms but you are not then directing people to the support services that they need.

Nicola Harwin: I think that is the thing, really; you have to have the services in place so that people who are living in violent and abusive situations-we know that three quarters of a million children are every year-can get help and support. Children’s services in terms of specialist domestic abuse services have always been the poor relation. It is catch as catch can from charity to run those services.

Q17 Mark Reckless: Do you believe that the Government’s strategy sufficiently addresses the evidence of failings, particularly in police procedure, that we saw from the Independent Police Complaints Commission’s report into the Maria Stubbings murder?

Nicola Sharp: What we are concerned about from the IPPC’s investigations and just through what we hear about in our practice on a daytoday basis is that the basics in terms of responding to domestic violence just are not there. I think the key thing for us still is the attitudes of police officers and people who come into contact with victims of domestic violence. There are still people who do not understand the dynamics of domestic violence; who continue to blame the victim. When highrisk victims such as Maria Stubbings are calling out for support, not enough is being done to respond to them and to take their concerns seriously.

Nicola Harwin: I think ACPO has recognised, and the Scrutiny Committee for the domestic violence protection orders-the "Go" orders-recognised, that hundreds of thousands of victims call the police and there is no further action. The problem with this, even though there has been some very, very good training and guidance has been issued, is that what is happening across the country is very, very patchwork. The police response has implications for all the other sources of support that victims of domestic violence might have. Very often, evidence that the police have held an investigation is critical for getting legal aid, or for not having to go into mediation if you are going for divorce and separation. There are a lot of things that it links into, so if police do not perform well at local level then that has a knock-on effect on victims’ other choices.

Q18 Mark Reckless: You mentioned legal aid. I think the proposal is that legal aid should still be available for victims of domestic violence or in divorces where domestic violence has been an issue. I have had concerns raised from two angles on this and I am not sure how significant they are. One is that there is a suggestion of a 12-month cutoff, so if it was more than 12 months ago then you would not have eligibility; and the other is that-I don’t know if there is any basis for this at all-allegations of domestic violence might be made that might not otherwise be made because of the availability of the legal aid. Are either of those real concerns in your mind?

Nicola Harwin: My real concern is that a number of different things are happening in terms of policy and they are not being linked in. Take the situation, and I have a particular survivor in mind here, of someone who has been abused and controlled and living in a very fearful situation for, say, 15 years. The physical violence might have been quite a long time in the past, but her whole life is controlled. If she then got to a position where she really couldn’t stand to live in that situation any more or felt that the risk was escalating, and she applied for legal aid to get a non-molestation order or an occupation order, for example, then she wouldn’t necessarily be able to get it because the violence was so long ago. But if she then thinks, "Right, my only choice is to get out of this place and go to a refuge" and then after that wants to get a divorce and make arrangements for children, the new regulations on mediation-the practice direction that is coming in on 6 April-will say that if she has not had a police investigation or a protection order of some kind, then she has to go into mediation with the person of whom she is terrified. What I am saying is that these things are not being linked together and some women are really going to be put at risk with the current position and arrangements for legal aid.

Nicola Sharp: I would echo all of that, but I would also refer to the definition that is being used of domestic violence within the legal aid reform proposals, which is only acknowledging physical harm. You say that some people will be coming forward and perhaps falsely claiming domestic violence, but that won’t be the case at all. People who are experiencing domestic violence and really need support will not be able to get that support because, unless they can demonstrate physical harm, they will not be deemed to have experienced domestic violence. While we recognise that domestic violence is being recognised as a particular issue, we need to recognise that physical harm is just one element of domestic violence. You need to be looking at financial harm, emotional harm, sexual harm, and so on.

Q19 Mark Reckless: I didn’t say false allegations, though that could be covered by what I said, but I am also aware that domestic violence is often significantly underreported. The availability of legal aid, not least because of the difficulties of someone in that situation without it, could perhaps lead to people coming forward with genuine cases who might not otherwise have done.

Nicola Sharp: I think my response would be the same. Women who are experiencing domestic violence generally are going to struggle to come forward and access legal aid under these current proposals because the definition is so problematic. In a way, we do not see it as an exemption at all because very few women will be able to demonstrate physical harm. The most high-risk women’s lives are so controlled that they have never been able to go to the doctor on their own to disclose domestic violence. They have never been able to have physical injuries photographed or documented because they have never been able to phone the police, for example. It really is those highrisk women who are most in need who are going to most struggle to get the legal aid support going forward.

Nicola Harwin: There is an irony that the Supreme Court ruled only a month ago that domestic violence should not be defined purely as physical violence in relation to court proceedings-civil court proceedings, housing proceedings-yet we have a legal aid framework that says you cannot even get into that court to have your domestic violence discussed because you are going to be barred if it is not physical violence. There is a real irony there.

Q20 Chair: Ms Harwin, Ms Sharp, thank you very much for your evidence today. What you have had to say to the Committee is extremely helpful and useful and it certainly will be reflected in the report that we will publish. If there is anything that you have forgotten to say to us or any additional information that could be helpful to us, please write to us and let us have that information.

Nicola Harwin: That we will do.

Nicola Sharp: Thank you very much.

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Jasvinder Sanghera, Karma Nirvana, and [Witness], a survivor of forced marriage, gave evidence.

Q21 Chair: Could I call to the dais Jasvinder Sanghera and [Witness], please? Ms Sanghera, you are a veteran of these committees, having given evidence before, so you know the format. Welcome, [Witness], to this hearing. We are looking at the issue of violence against women and we want to concentrate in our evidence from you today, which you will give before the Minister comes in at about 1.15pm, on the issue of forced marriages.

I wonder if we could start with you, Ms Sanghera. Could you tell us something about your experiences of forced marriages, and especially perhaps focus-we don’t need the whole history of forced marriage because the Committee knows about these matters, having taken evidence before-on the role of the front-line professionals and how they reacted to individual cases and how you think that focus can be improved?

Jasvinder Sanghera: Well, first and foremost, I sit here today as a survivor of a forced marriage, as does [Witness], so we are both survivors of forced marriages. I represent Karma Nirvana, which is a national charity. We are based in Leeds and we support both men and women and all victims of forced marriage and "honour"based violence.

The front-line professional is the most crucial individual in terms of a first front-line response because our victims will make contact with a professional, we hope-a teacher, a GP, or it can be a police officer, and certainly through us, a charity. That response is critical to them either being alive or not being alive, and I will say it as clear as that, because what we know and what past evidence clearly tells us, and certainly the last inquiry evidence, is that the failure to risk assess appropriately in these cases did lead to homicides of individuals.

Q22 Chair: Yes. Identify the types of professionals. You have been very clear as to what their role is. Are we talking about the police? Are we talking about entry clearance officers? Who are we talking about if you were trying to find the top three professionals you would have to go to?

Jasvinder Sanghera: For me, the top three would be professionals in education, certainly schools. Two years ago we saw a lack of engagement from schools, and in my opinion that is still the case. On 1 March, this month, I wrote personally to 65 schools-I have all the areas listed here in front of me-urging head teachers and governors to work with us in framing this as a child protection issue. To date, I have had two responses. I would say teachers are your top people from a preventative point of view. Second to that would be primary care-so, GP. Police officers are normally last resort for our victims.

Q23 Chair: If we can concentrate on schools for the moment, because, of course, the Committee was very concerned about the absence of young, in particular Pakistani, girls from schools all over the country, particularly in urban areas. We were not satisfied, as I remember, with the response that the then Government gave to the activities of head teachers in monitoring what happened to these pupils. Are you saying that the situation has not improved in the last two years?

Jasvinder Sanghera: With conviction, I am saying that the situation is the same. I say that from the point of view that a third of our callers to the helpline are under the age of 16 years old. Currently we receive 450 calls a month nationally on the Honour Network Helpline.

Q24 Chair: Yes. We will come on to the helpline in a moment. If we could just concentrate on the schools, I think that the Committee would be most grateful if you could give us a list of the schools that have caused you concern, because I think we would like to follow up and ask them what they have been doing. If they do not respond to you, then we would expect to see a response to the Committee; we are concerned with what is happening. There is no point in Select Committees publishing reports if nobody acts upon them. If you could give us that list, that would be very helpful.

Jasvinder Sanghera: By all means. One of the things that we have to acknowledge here also is that the teachers who call the helpline-I am going back to the teachers’ experience here-have very little knowledge of the dos and the don’ts and how to respond to young people. Sometimes their responses actually put our victims at risk. Yesterday I had a call from a victim from Leicester and this young girl was at risk of being taken out of school. She told the teacher and the teacher contacted the family. Now, the first rule is you do not contact the family. Sadly, that young girl was put at risk as a result of that and still is not back at school.

Q25 Chair: Are we still saying, as we did unequivocally-not we did, as you did and others-that we are dealing primarily with girls going back to Pakistan or are we widening the areas, widening the countries?

Jasvinder Sanghera: We have to widen the areas.

Q26 Chair: So Pakistan and what other countries?

Jasvinder Sanghera: Pakistan, India. We have callers from Egypt. We have young girls and boys, too-we must not forget boys-and we are beginning to see an increase of percentages across the board where we see dual heritage children also being at risk of "honour"based violence and forced marriage.

Q27 Chair: We will come back to the helpline in a moment. [Witness], in a nutshell, could you tell us your experience?

Witness: I was 14 when I first was put on the child protection register because I was beaten up by both my parents. My mum is a general practitioner and my dad is a businessman. They both went to universities here; both have been educated. I was only 15 when I got sent away to Pakistan and I came back and found out that I was engaged to someone that I didn’t know. I was young, I was naïve at that time, so I was given presents, I was given money and I didn’t really think of it much as I was growing up.

I then realised that things were happening and I was being put into something I didn’t want to be. I was 16 and I said to my mum, "I don’t think I can carry on with this. I want a career, I want an education". My mum and dad decided to pull me out of school. I went to my social worker, who was involved with me since I was 14, and I sat down and I said to my social worker, "You need to help me. They are going to send me away to Pakistan and get me married off and this is not what I want". She, in front of me, picked up the phone and rang my parents up and said to both my parents, "Your daughter is kicking off here. Can you come and take her home? We can’t deal with her any more". The sad point is that I was put into danger and anything could have happened to me. You hear about honour killings and stuff, but my social worker did ring up my parents and say, "Can you take her away? She’s kicking off".

Q28 Chair: What happened after that?

Witness: My parents came in. They took me away and they pulled me completely out of college. I had just passed my-

Q29 Chair: You were then 16?

Witness: I was 16. I was achieving good grades; I was achieving As and Bs. They took me out of college. The college didn’t ask why I was going out, what was I going to do with my life, if I was going to carry on with my education.

One day they decided to tell me about two hours before my flight was due to leave that I was being sent to Pakistan on a holiday. I still rang up social services and I said, "This is what is happening and I’m sure there is something fishy behind it. I’m going to get married. Please help me". No one came to help me. I told them what airport I was leaving from; I told everyone. No one came. I was sent away to Pakistan and I was only 16, just two weeks before my 17th birthday, and I got married off to a 27-year-old guy that I had never seen in my entire life.

Q30 Chair: Presumably he then got permission to come here, did he?

Witness: No, it didn’t work that way.

Q31 Chair: What happened?

Witness: I got married off. I suffered domestic abuse and sexual violence.

Q32 Chair: In Pakistan?

Witness: In Pakistan. I was sexually abused by my own husband and I was domestically abused by him. I couldn’t leave the house, I couldn’t use the phone, I couldn’t use the internet. I was like a prisoner at home.

I found out I was pregnant in August 2008 and that is when I decided to ring up my parents and tell them I wanted to come back, that I would complete my education and go to uni, but on the basis I would sponsor my husband at the same time. It took a lot of convincing and they gave my ticket and passport back to me, because I didn’t have them at all. I came back and I explained to my parents what had happened to me, what I had gone through, and they said to me that at the end of the day he was my husband and even if he killed me, they had nothing to do with it.

During this period of time, my college didn’t contact my parents, they didn’t contact me. They had my email address. No one bothered as to where I was, if I was okay, if I was still alive. I am not going to the doctor’s. I am an asthma patient. I go to the doctor’s every month. No one wanted to know how my health was, if I am attending college, if I am going to go to uni. I had offers from a uni. I came back and I left home and I went to college and I told my head of sixth form what happened to me. It was only then they helped me, but even then it was too late because-

Q33 Chair: Did you have your child?

Witness: I didn’t. I got stabbed.

Q34 Chair: You got stabbed by whom?

Witness: I got stabbed. There was a person who was following me from college every day to home. I was living in a young people’s accommodation and one night I was out. I was heavily pregnant, six months, six and a half, and this guy, he had a hoodie on and he came and stabbed me.

Q35 Chair: Do you think that was related to your marriage?

Witness: Definitely. Definitely. That guy got caught but he got released. They knew that he was related to my parents’ business. Nothing got done. I went to the police. I wanted to take action, but I got told I had to have 15 pieces of evidence to go to court or else I can’t go to court. I was put in a position where I can’t do things; I can’t prove people wrong. I can’t tell the world that this is what has happened and they need to take action.

Q36 Chair: What happened to your husband? Did he apply to come here?

Witness: My husband is in this country. He did apply to come in this country. I told the Home Office what happened to me. I warned them not to let him come into this country on any basis. I have evidence from the police to say that I was sexually abused by him, domestically abused by him, but they still let him in this country. He is in this country today.

Q37 Chair: Yes. This is one of the problems the Committee raised with the then Home Secretary about the fact that people like you are regarded as third parties when somebody makes an application. The Committee has written on a number of occasions and never really received a satisfactory reply. We will write again about this issue. So, he is here. Do you know whether he has citizenship?

Witness: I don’t know. I have nothing to do with him. I live away, far away from my parents. I haven’t spoken to my parents in the last two years.

Q38 Chair : Are you still married or divorced from him?

Witness: That is another question. That is another thing. I have to go to court every month now. One minute the judge says, "Yes, you are legally married in this country". The other minute they say, "Actually, no, we need more evidence. We need to contact this person". I was married somewhere where I don’t know of. All I know is that I signed papers. I was only 16, 17 at that time. I was married in 2008 and even today I don’t know whether or not I am legally married in this country. If 10 years down the line I want to get married, I don’t know if I can.

Q39 Chair: Yes. Ms Sanghera, this seems like a case we have heard before where a woman like [Witness] is in this position. It ends up that the whole purpose seems to be to bring a spouse into this country. Is this a typical story? Is this the kind of stories that you hear every single day in your organisation?

Jasvinder Sanghera: Absolutely. The severity of the attack that happened to [Witness] is not typical; that is the extreme end of the scale, sadly. But the stories of victims who are pressured to sponsor foreign nationals into this country is a common story. Also we hear the story of being pressured to sponsor them into this country. They are told, "We’ll just call him over, then once he is here you can leave him." All the different dynamics come into play with regards to the family members.

Q40 Bridget Phillipson: Ms Sanghera, could you just talk a bit more about the helpline you referred to earlier? Have you seen an increase in calls, and the geographic spread of those calls, and what changes have happened as a result of the helpline? What changes have there been as the public and professionals become more aware of the challenges facing women as a result of forced marriage and socalled "honour"-based violence?

Jasvinder Sanghera: I am going to refer to some of the statistics from the helpline, because we have an iCal service that collates all the calls that come to the line. We record geographical regions, the age of the caller, a number of things, and the type of the abuse, which has been submitted to the Committee. The helpline was launched in 2008. It is the only national helpline that supports victims of forced marriage and "honour"-based violence. We support men and women, and also professionals can call the line to inform their risk assessment processes. Also, a victim can access a survivor on a helpline. These are survivors who have been trained in call handling, who have been through this and come out the other end. They mirror [Witness] and offer empathy.

The line was launched in 2008. In the first year we received 2,532 calls nationally in the UK. Geographically, what I have are the top 10 cities where we are seeing trends and we seem to be getting most of the calls. One of the things that impacted the trends was where we went out and raised awareness in cities. We went to 15 cities last year, with road shows, and as a result there is a 20% increase in calls from those cities; places like Leicester, Manchester, Leeds and so on.

In 2009 the calls doubled. We received 5,599 calls. Just to note, the funding for the helpline initially was funded by the Government’s forced marriage unit, then by the Ministry of Justice, and this year the funding is by the Ministry of Justice, but that ceases at the end of this month. This year we have received 4,815 calls, which is a decrease, but that is because the service was reduced last year as a result of not receiving the funding.

Just a point to note, the Home Affairs Select Committee in 2008 did urge the Government to sustain the helpline, but we have entered no discussions with any of the Government Departments, not for want of trying, to discuss sustaining the helpline. The reduced service has also calculated that we have missed calls. Every call we miss that comes to the line gets recorded. On average we are missing 50 calls a month, so these are people calling the line and we are not there to take the calls. Those calls go to our answer phone; they go to our email; some don’t leave messages. But on average in a year we could be missing 600 victims because we are not there at the end of the line. Full service is 9.30 am until 9.00 pm, seven days a week. Presently it is running five days a week, office hours-9.30am until 5.00pm.

If I just give you a snapshot of calls as we stand today, we receive in the region of 450 calls a month. A year-I gave you the statistic of how many thousands we receive-2,673 calls are unique callers. So these are new callers to the line, not repeat callers. As a percentage of callers-this is a significant one-63% of the callers do not report to agencies such as police, teachers and GPs. They come to us before they go to the professionals. I think that is a significant point to make.

Q41 Bridget Phillipson: That is really helpful, thank you very much. If I could just ask you a question on a slightly different topic, and I will preface this by saying that I do fully support the need for specialist services for BME women and the different and difficult challenges that they will face that are often, as with any survivor, unique. My concern is, though that, increasingly, while a lot of professionals don’t recognise the challenges women from the BME community face and don’t appropriately deal with them, equally in my experience-I managed a women’s refuge that had a large number of BME women before I was elected-we moved from a position of the police, for example, not being willing to intervene on the grounds that they would be seen to be racist, to compartmentalising and putting the issues in a box that was perhaps separate from the broader context of violence against women. While I accept the different challenges that BME women face, I was increasingly concerned that the matter could be just put in a box as "honour"-based forced marriage without understanding its context in terms of violence against women both in this country and internationally.

Jasvinder Sanghera: You are absolutely right to say that. Last year our poster campaign was, "Forced marriage is abuse, not cultural". Many professionals will ring the helpline with real fears because they have been trained to the hilt to be culturally sensitive and there is a real fear that they may be called a racist. We have to frame this within a child protection framework and criminal activity, and that is what we are doing on the lines all the time. Many people do turn a blind eye. That has been evidenced with schools and that is still the case today with education.

This requires a public campaign. We need to say, "This is abuse" and give professionals the confidence to respond to it as that. In my experience of professionals, most of them want to do the right thing but they are not trained to do that and to respond to this as abuse in the way that you are saying. We treat it differently because it is a different culture. It is not part of my culture to be abused. The case is quite clear and I say this again, Chair-children are still missing from education today. If an Asian child goes missing from school they are not given the same level of investigation as a white child. Why? Because they are Asian. Why? Because it is their culture, it is what they do, isn’t it? This is what we are hearing from our victims, from their experiences, and this is [Witness’s] experience, too. It was the experience of my seven sisters in school and certainly my experience, and that was 30 years ago.

Q42 Bridget Phillipson: What I increasingly saw was that the police were being trained on these issues, and that was a massive improvement. They were trained to recognise, in the force area that I operated, the unique nature of some of what BME women faced, but there was a tendency, because they had had this training, to overreact once the woman was in a place of safety. They would often push the woman into making choices in a certain direction and almost in an alarmist way say, "You can’t do that. You’ll be murdered. It’s ‘honour’ based. This is what happens in your culture". Now, I am fully accepting of the risks that women face, but I think we have to empower women to make those choices for themselves once they are in a place of safety, and I am talking very much from the context of women while in a place of safety. My worry is that we do have to allow women to make choices once they are in an informed, safe place to do so.

Jasvinder Sanghera: I completely agree with that point, but from this side of the fence, on the helpline, I have to say that if you were to do a straw poll of ringing six police forces today and six schools today, you would get a very different response. In fact, it is not the over-alarmist response; it can sometimes also be the opposite where they are looking at this and thinking, "Oh, hands off, this is ‘honour’-based violence and forced marriage. I had better tread carefully". I have not really seen what you are telling me with regards to the alarmist response of a professional.

Q43 Mark Reckless: First a question to [Witness]. I noted your comments about the social workers and how you weren’t properly dealt with at all by them, and also about the college not having followed up. I apologise if I have missed the comment, but can I just clarify whether you had any involvement with the police? What was the police involvement again?

Witness: Police were involved. I was 14 when I was put on the child protection register because I was beaten up by my parents. Police had been involved from the age of 14 onwards, but no one has ever come to me and said, "Oh, actually, are you okay? What has happened today?" or come and visit me. I had no one visit me. I had no one give me a call. No one said to me where am I going. So many months I was away from England, no one wanted to know me.

Q44 Mark Reckless: Was there ever a particular police officer who had any individual responsibility for dealing with you, perhaps in the way the social worker should have done?

Witness: No. There wasn’t anyone in particular who I dealt with. The police officer would change every day. I would have to explain my story every day to someone, and it got really tedious because forced marriages, it is not a small matter, it is a big matter and being stabbed is nothing. I could have been dead, I would not be here today, but I got help from people walking past. It was 8.00 pm, October time, where winter is early, it gets dark early. No one would have seen me.

Q45 Mark Reckless: Do you think that having-no guarantees-a named police officer perhaps with responsibility for you-

Witness: Absolutely, having a contact telephone number or a name of an officer who is dealing with your case or an email address, someone you can keep up to date with, would have been really helpful. It is important today that whoever is in this situation should be able to get as much help as they can.

Q46 Mark Reckless: Thank you. The police involvement didn’t work in [Witness’s] case. Could I ask Jasvinder, from your experience, where police interpersonal action works better, is that because national guidance is rolled out or is it because a particular area puts a focus on and acts successfully in this area?

Jasvinder Sanghera: I would say it is the second point. Indeed, they will be following national guidance. The ACPO strategy has certainly helped and people refer to that all the time, as has the definition of "honour"-based violence. What we have been mindful of is that our victims have multiple perpetrators, never one. There can be up to 15 people involved in the abuse. In my experience-we have managed to present to 23 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales-you normally find there is a police lead within that police force who is really driving it. That is where you see the changes-for example, in Cambridge, Cleveland and Derbyshire police force. That is because we have gone directly to them and worked with them and they have contacted us. There is a willingness to work with us, but not so much from the national perspective.

Q47 Mark Reckless: Locally, it has been at the force level rather than at a basic command unit level that you are having the interface and they are driving it?

Jasvinder Sanghera: It has been at the force level. We focus our energies in particular areas within a police force. Cleveland police force, for example, launched the very first Choice helpline; the focus was in the area with the majority of minority groups, which would be Middlesbrough. In Leicester, it would be Leicester City as opposed to the outskirts of Leicester.

Chair: I always like an advert for Leicester even though it is perhaps not as good news as we would have liked.

Q48 Mr Clappison: I want to ask you about the raising of the age for sponsors from 18 to 21. The previous Government raised the age for both marriage visa sponsors and the incoming spouse from 18 to 21 in November 2008. Since then, the Court of Appeal has ruled against that change and the Government are appealing that decision. Do you think that that increase is a good thing or a bad thing?

Jasvinder Sanghera: I am fully supportive of raising the age of consent and I say that again with conviction because our victims clearly tell us that that very often is a safeguard for them, only with the caveat that we are doing some preventative work. Most victims don’t even know if it is 16, 17 or 21. However, where the families find out that is the case, our victims are alerted to that and there is an opportunity for them to think about options, so we need to be able to access them.

Q49 Mr Clappison: You are reflecting the evidence that you have seen in the view that you take?

Jasvinder Sanghera: Yes, from calls to the helpline, from victims. I have heard victims say to me, "Raising the age of consent has actually saved me".

Q50 Chair: It is not the age of consent that has been raised; it is the age at which you can gain admission to this country.

Jasvinder Sanghera: Yes, absolutely, apologies.

Chair: I don’t think the Government have gone that far.

Jasvinder Sanghera: Yes, sorry, my apologies.

Q51 Mr Clappison: Could I ask about the procedures for visa sponsors, particularly where they are reluctant to sponsor a visa? Do you think that those procedures are as suitable as they could be from the point of view of, say, somebody who is abroad and wants to alert the authorities to the fact that they are a reluctant sponsor?

Jasvinder Sanghera: The only thing I would say in relation to that is very often our victims require their disclosures to be confidential. That is the key significant thing here because they don’t wish that information to be passed on to their family or passed on to the person abroad. They wish to make the disclosure but not for the reasons to be given to the family or to the person abroad. It needs to be confidential.

Q52 Chair: But the problem then, of course, is when the visa is refused and it gets to the tribunal in Hatton Cross, the poor victim has to go to give evidence to bring her husband in. There has to also be confidential disclosure to the judge, has there not?

Jasvinder Sanghera: Yes.

Q53 Chair: It is the process. That has not changed in two years since our report, has it? Nothing has changed?

Jasvinder Sanghera: No.

Q54 Chair: The Home Office won’t tell you what is going on and the judges will not help you and the entry clearance officer won’t help you?

Jasvinder Sanghera: No.

Q55 Chair: It is that process that we need to look at?

Jasvinder Sanghera: Absolutely. One of the things that has changed, I would say, and that we need to build on is the relationship with the forced marriage unit and support services in supporting the victim when that is happening. We need to build on that.

Q56 Mr Winnick: [Witness], I wonder if I could ask you first regarding the very moving account you gave of your circumstances. It is obviously, though not novel to us, deeply distressing, to say the least, to hear how you were treated. The aspect that I want to ask you about is your parents. You said, in effect, that far from having any support they took the view of the husband.

Chair: Mr Winnick, do you want to repeat the question?

Mr Winnick: When you spoke to your parents about the circumstances, if I remember what you said was that it was up to your husband, you must listen and obey your husband. Is that so?

Witness: Yes.

Q57 Mr Winnick: Did that come as a surprise to you that instead of getting the support one would expect, they took that attitude?

Witness: It is surprising because I am their daughter. They have given birth to me. They haven’t given birth to my husband. He is a second person and it was shocking to say that they classified me as his property. I am a human being, I have feelings. I am no one’s property. I can stand up for myself. They said that he is my husband, he has every right to do what he wants, and if he kills me they don’t care. That is wrong.

Q58 Mr Winnick: To say the least, obviously. That type of culture is to be condemned. Would you say that was common among quite a number of parents from that background or was it unique?

Witness: It is, because for them this marriage is very important. They want to get this guy over here and expand their family, and they will go to any extent to save the marriage and make sure that the girl doesn’t leave the husband and walk away from it.

Q59 Mr Winnick: Was there any financial aspect or it was simply that as far as they were concerned you were his property and that was the end of it?

Witness: Absolutely.

Q60 Mr Winnick: Are you in contact with your parents now?

Witness: Not at all.

Q61 Mark Reckless: You mentioned earlier, I think, that your mother was a GP and your father was a businessman. I suppose I had an assumption, which may well be incorrect, that having qualified at that level it was perhaps less likely for parents to have that attitude. Is there any basis for that at all in either your or Jasvinder’s experience; clearly not in yours but your experience of others?

Jasvinder Sanghera: We have dealt with a case where a consultant employed by the NHS in this country held a gun to his 27yearold daughter’s head and said he would "blow her fing brains out" if she dishonoured this family and did not marry the man they chose. She went into witness protection. She is now rebuilding her life. That case was two years ago. This cuts across all classes, as does domestic violence.

Just a point about collusion, family members collude and this is the sad thing that our victims, everybody who is meant to love you the most turns against you. I have been disowned by my family for 29 years now. That position doesn’t change.

Q62 Mr Winnick: Would you say that those who are born here, when they become parents in due course will take a different attitude; that this is not a culture that cannot be broken?

Jasvinder Sanghera: I believe we need to take responsibility for sending out a very strong message that this is unacceptable and what will happen if people continue to do this. We find that younger generations are taking on the same value and belief systems, especially younger brothers who feel they have to safeguard the honour of their sister. Then they become the enforcers of the honour system within the family. If you look at honour killings here in this country, the majority of murders, the actual act of killing, is committed by a minor, because these families know that minors get lesser sentences. If I just may add, I have seen in my own family my sisters, who are British born, force their own children to marry. I have seen that personally.

Q63 Mr Winnick: It is a pretty long, drawnout struggle, isn’t it?

Jasvinder Sanghera: Which is why we have to challenge it as a Government. I believe the Government have a responsibility to send out a strong message about this issue, and that is how it is going to be tackled.

Q64 Chair: On that, the final question is about the awareness that ought to have been raised, certainly as a result of our last report, at a school level. Is enough being done by the Government to raise that awareness? I think there were concerns that when this was raised in schools the teachers and the head teachers were regarded as being racist because they raised it. Is that still the case? Are you satisfied with the level of awareness?

Jasvinder Sanghera: I am not at all satisfied with the level of awareness that has been raised and we can evidence that and I certainly will give you the list and the evidence. More importantly, I think, the Government have done some very good work around the guidelines. We were told these were statutory guidance, which we are not seeing implemented on the ground. I understand that the deputy Education Minister wrote to all head teachers urging them to implement the guidance, but there has not been any followup. We only know this if our victims tell us there has been a change, but our victims do not. They are telling us the opposite.

May I just add one thing, Chair, if I may, because this concerns me greatly? Forced marriage protection orders, civil orders, are a way forward. However, I am not aware of any other injunction in this country under which the individual is returned to the perpetrators. In these cases, forced marriage protection orders are issued to our victims, in the main minors, then those victims are returned to multiple perpetrators in that house. Once that front door closes, I am not aware of who is monitoring the implementation of that order because the named people may not be intimidating them but, believe me, there are many other family members that are. Then our victim is put under great pressure and that is a huge concern to us.

Q65 Chair: Yes. We are going to have to write to you about a number of other matters because obviously the reason why we are doing this inquiry is that we want to make sure that, having published such an important report two years ago, it is followed up. That is why we are doing it. We will write to you again if we may. If you could let us have that list, we will write to the education authorities that have not responded to you because we are very keen to know what is happening.

One final, factual, very brief answer: the balance between girls or women who are forced into marriage and boys or men, what is the balance? Is it 70:30, 50:50?

Jasvinder Sanghera: I would say now, since we constituted ourselves to support both men and women, we have seen an increase in males reporting. On the helplines it is 70:30.

Q66 Chair: To women, so 70% are women?

Jasvinder Sanghera: 70% women, 30% men. Incidentally-I know you have told me to hurry-our helpline is at risk of closure. It will close at the end of April if it is not funded by the Ministry of Justice. The application has gone in.

Q67 Chair: Finally, to help us, the numbers who contacted the helpline last year, just off the top of your head?

Jasvinder Sanghera: Off the top of my head, last year it was in the region of 5,500 calls. We have seen a decrease in the year 20082009. In 20092010 the decrease has purely been about the fact that our service has been reduced. We are currently missing 50 calls a month on the helplines.

Q68 Mr Winnick: I wanted to ask, Chair, if I may, if we could have more details, if that is possible. What I also find rather shocking is that, despite all the circumstances that you have explained, your husband, if he could be described as such, was given clearance to come into this country. How and why?

Jasvinder Sanghera: This is not uncommon.

Mr Winnick: I believe, Chair, if we could get details of this particular case, I think it would help us.

Chair: We will. It is actually in our last report as well, our concern, and we will write to you with those details. We will pursue the issue of the third party person who is never given any information by the Home Office.

Thank you very much. Obviously what you have had to say is of great interest to the Committee. [Witness], for you it must be a daunting experience appearing before the Select Committee as you have today. We are most grateful. You have obviously had a very traumatic life, but we are so relieved to see that you are building your own life despite everything that has happened to you. You have our respect and admiration for what you have done. Thank you for coming in. Ms Sanghera, thank you.

Jasvinder Sanghera: Thank you.

Examination of Witnesses

Witness: Lynne Featherstone, MP, Minister for Equalities, gave evidence.

Q69 Chair: Could I call the Minister to the dais with an apology to the Minister for keeping her waiting, having asked her to come here at 1.15pm. Minister, we know you have had a very tough morning being in a Committee. We do not want to add to your burden. I hope to end the session at 2 pm so I ask colleagues for brief, to the point questions and, Minister, I am sure you will give us brief and succinct answers as you have always done in the past. Perhaps I could start with you. What is the rationale behind introducing a violence against women strategy at this time?

Lynne Featherstone: I think it is very clear that this Coalition Government want to make a public statement and commitment to ending violence against women and girls and to build on the work that has gone before. It is also important to broaden it out to what is in our strategy, which extends the principles that came in just before the election away from simply the prosecution side to putting more emphasis on preventing violence against women and providing for the victims.

Q70 Chair: Why have perpetrator programmes been excluded from the Government’s strategy?

Lynne Featherstone: Perpetrator programmes have not actually been excluded from the Government’s strategy. The National Offender Management Service-NOMS-as you know, runs perpetrator programmes currently in prisons and is about to launch its new programme. I think it is coming out in the spring. We are still funding the Respect helpline. We are also looking to things like, for example, the New York Police Department because it has a programme where it works continuously with families where there is a history of domestic violence and concentrate on the male violence within that family.

Q71 Chair: Funding issues are obviously going to be an important aspect of what is happening in this area. What are you doing to discourage local authorities from making those disproportionately large cuts that we have heard about as far as services are concerned?

Lynne Featherstone: I think in the Home Office we are doing everything we possibly can, firstly by sending out the message loud and clear. We, centrally at the Home Office, have had severe cuts, but we are ringfencing £28 million of stable funding over four years to the domestic violence against women sector. We have £11 million from the Ministry of Justice for rape crisis centres, to send out that message that even in difficult times this is a sector that has to be protected and provided for. In terms of supporting people where a ring fence was removed two years ago, 99p out of every pound is still going on this. So any council that disproportionately cuts funding to vulnerable groups is being disproportionate. Now we have to hold them to account. Baroness Hanham is working with the Local Government Association setting up workshops to try and get it through. We recognise that this Budget has had consequences from the report that Women’s Aid did, but we want to make sure by the next Budget-

Q72 Chair: Have you spoken to Eric Pickles about this? Or has the Home Secretary spoken to him?

Lynne Featherstone: I have spoken to Andrew Stunell, who is the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Govt, to say that we need to get this message out loud and clear. In the Home Office, as I said, we are leading by example and we are meeting enough people that that message should go out. That is why in the inter-ministerial group we have raised the issue and that is where Baroness Hanham from DCLG has taken on that particular mission to work with the Local Government Association-to work with local councils-to make sure they understand. Also, the public sector equality duty comes in on 5 April and there will be an actual mechanism before the next Budget that people can use.

Q73 Dr Huppert: Minister, can I ask you a bit about human trafficking and what support work the Government are doing? I believe there has been an announcement today.

Lynne Featherstone: Today, indeed.

Dr Huppert: Can you perhaps first update us on that?

Lynne Featherstone: I don’t know what time the statement was made and whether I am in the clear.

Chair: Well, we give you clearance and immunity.

Lynne Featherstone: Thank you very much, Chair. We are minded to opt in to the European Directive on Human Trafficking. It now has to go through the various procedures in this House and the European Scrutiny Committee and so on. I will be very relieved, at Oral Questions, to no longer answer questions about when we are going to opt in.

Q74 Chair: The Committee is very pleased with that decision.

Lynne Featherstone: Yes, I am sure everyone is very pleased, but it is worth keeping an eye on the human trafficking strategy, which goes above and beyond.

Chair: Yes, which Dr Huppert is going to probe you on further.

Lynne Featherstone: Is he?

Dr Huppert: Is he?

Chair: Or not.

Dr Huppert: I was actually planning, Chair, to move on to the Sojourner Project, if that is all right with you.

Chair: You may. Maybe you could also cover the funding to the Poppy Project.

Q75 Dr Huppert: Indeed. We understand that funding to the Poppy Project has been reduced quite significantly. How does that leave financial support for victims of human trafficking?

Lynne Featherstone: Well, there are two things. As the Committee would know, the victims have no recourse to public funds. Is that what you are talking about? You said the Sojourner Project.

Dr Huppert: I think the Chair wants me to ask another question first.

Lynne Featherstone: About Poppy and Eaves?

Q76 Chair: Yes. Are you cutting the funding to Poppy? Poppy says that the Government are cutting the funding to the Poppy Project.

Lynne Featherstone: As I am aware it was being re-tendered. I don’t have an actual answer. I am not aware of it.

Q77 Chair: Would you let us know before next week, because they are coming to give evidence to us and we would like to be accurate?

Lynne Featherstone: I will certainly let you know, Chair.

Q78 Dr Huppert: In that case, I apologise for the confusion. What I would then like to move on to is the Sojourner Project, which as I am sure you know supports women who don’t have recourse to public funds. In Cambridge we have a number who go through the Cambridge women’s refuge. I think we were delighted that a couple of weeks ago the Home Secretary said that funding would continue for a project like that. Is that now going to be a permanent scheme? Is it going to be the same system? How will you ensure both that there are refuge spaces available and that indefinite leave to remain can be processed fast enough? We have heard there have been problems with the time scale for that.

Lynne Featherstone: That is about four questions in one. There are two things going on. There is the current Sojourner pilot and we will continue that until such time as the new system comes in, and that means 50 days of support and so on. The new system will come in in, I think, in April 2012, and that extends the time of support to 10 weeks, which should allow the application, which I will go into in a moment. What it does is during that 10-week period there will be leave to remain, which will give the person access to the normal benefit system to which anyone who is entitled to be here has access.

In terms of speed, there was an issue. That has now improved beyond measure. Something like 70% of cases are now processed within 20 days and 86% within 30 days. Instead of being disparate all over the country, it is specialist now; it is fast tracked. Cases go to Liverpool where you have the most senior case workers, who are experienced in domestic violence. The thought is that by extending 60 days and 40 days, that extra time of 10 working days in the middle should be enough to get the vast majority of extra information that someone requires for an application to be approved for the permanent decision to be made. That should be enough to get it through. Obviously, we will keep a watching brief to see that it is, but we expect the vast bulk of decisions to be made within that time period so it will be sorted while they still have the support in place.

Q79 Dr Huppert : I very much welcome that. It seems very poor to leave people destitute for a long period. One thing that was touched on earlier was the number of spaces available in refuges, and a concern that refuges are closing and there is not enough space to cope with demand. Is that something you are aware of?

Lynne Featherstone: Clearly, in the financial climate, I hope this sends out a signal that there is some funding there for spaces. At the moment, that is being tendered for. There is a change in the procurement process that may also lead to concerns. There was a single provider, but that did not give the flexibility that we needed. Sometimes people were turned away and then charities stepped in, so we, as a Government, did not know where people were. The new system has more flexibility and an ability to track people through the system.

Q80 Mr Clappison : When will the independent evaluation of Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conferences be completed, and do you have any concerns that the murder rate has not reduced since their introduction?

Lynne Featherstone: The review was undertaken following a request by the Home Secretary. The review has been done. It has helped improve our understanding, but we are still considering the findings before moving forward. It is quite clear to me from meeting with a number of groups from the voluntary sector, including Women’s Aid, last week, that there is a mixed view that MARACs have the potential to be the answer but at the moment the practice thereof is not necessarily living up to it. So we are going to analyse and then report our findings in the late spring.

Q81 Mr Clappison : Do you see any contradiction between your stated aim of putting prevention at the heart of the strategy and ring-fencing central funding for crisis services only?

Lynne Featherstone: Not really, because I think you have to make a distinction between what is urgent and what is a priority. I think if someone is in trouble and destitute they need urgent and instant provision, but the ambition is to end violence against women and you are only ever going to do that if you put in place preventative measures. Prevention is a priority, but it is not something you can do overnight. In terms of urgency, it is about making sure a woman is not in danger and has the support she needs.

Q82 Chair : We have just heard evidence, and you heard a bit of the evidence, from Ms Sanghera and [Witness] about forced marriages. Is that part of your portfolio?

Lynne Featherstone: Yes, it is.

Q83 Chair : The Committee is very concerned that many of the recommendations that we put forward two years ago have not been implemented. I know this is not your portfolio; you do not deal with immigration. One of the major concerns was the fact that when a victim of a forced marriage writes to an entry clearance officer or to the Home Office there is no feedback as to what has happened to the letter, apart from a person being told that they are a third party. I appreciate that you were probably in Committee when [Witness’s] began her evidence, but it mirrors other evidence that I have seen in my surgery and others may have seen, which is that the spouse is allowed to enter the country. Given the Government’s correct commitment to reduce the levels of immigration, especially of bogus people entering this country, would you accept that this is something that ought to be pursued?

Lynne Featherstone: I came in and only heard the second half of her evidence, but it seemed to me there were a number of issues raised by that evidence that we at the Home Office need to take away and have a look at more seriously.

Chair: Yes, would you?

Lynne Featherstone: I am happy to undertake to do that.

Chair: I will write to you about those issues, because we are concerned.

Lynne Featherstone: If you would.

Chair : We did ask for this to happen two years ago and it just has not happened, and [Witness] and Ms Sanghera, of course, have the prospect of going through a terrible life as a result of these dreadful people-and then they are allowed to come into Britain and settle here.

Lynne Featherstone: I must say, from that evidence, it does seem to be a serious issue that the Home Office needs to look at and I am undertaking to do so, even though it is not my portfolio.

Q84 Chair : Would you also share concern about the fact that the helpline that Ms Sanghera runs, which is the basis of people ringing the forced marriage unit, is about to close?

Lynne Featherstone: My understanding is that she has submitted an application for funding to the Ministry of Justice, which will very soon be decided. The forced marriage unit though, has a hotline and anyone can ring the national domestic hotline, so from the Home Office we are not proposing to fund her particular line.

Q85 Chair : I understand that, but she provides, of course, specialist services, which are not provided at the moment, and the helpline has obviously been very successful, but would you look at that? I don’t want you to make a funding decision now because I think the Committee will want to write to the Lord Chancellor.

Lynne Featherstone: Let us be hopeful that the Ministry of Justice will hear that and I am happy to undertake to say that I heard the evidence and to write a letter to them on that.

Chair: Wonderful. That is very helpful, thank you Minister.

Q86 Mr Winnick : Just on the aspect of people coming to this country like the witness’s husband, is there not a possibility that politicians are also somewhat at fault because-that could include me for that matter-constituents come or write and ask us to make representations, and in so doing, in some instances we are not necessarily acting in the interests of the person in the United Kingdom.

Lynne Featherstone: I am sorry. I didn’t quite get-

Mr Winnick : What I am saying, in effect, is that some people-

Lynne Featherstone: Are you saying someone like that young lady comes in?

Chair : No, the spouse.

Lynne Featherstone: She is already here and the spouse is-

Q87 Mr Winnick : What I am saying is Members of Parliament tend to write to Ministers arising from representation made to us by constituents, one way or another, and in some instances it may well be that we are doing a disservice to-

Lynne Featherstone: Do you mean in terms of entering into the country?

Mr Winnick: Yes. Because we are not in a position to make the checks.

Lynne Featherstone: The judgments. Yes, we are undoubtedly at fault because we act as a sort of post box sometimes. People come to see us and we refer it on and dealing with the scale of what we do, I think sometimes we can be forgiven, but that does mean that we do not perhaps always pay the necessary attention to the individual circumstances. It is difficult when someone makes representations-I think quite frankly if someone came to my surgery, if that young lady had come to my surgery and made-you are saying the parents-

Chair: But she wouldn’t, you see, because if she came, what she would come as is-what Mr Winnick is saying is-

Lynne Featherstone: No, he is saying the parents would come-

Chair: The parents would come and say, "Write a letter because the husband got-"

Lynne Featherstone: Maybe there is an awareness raising we need to do particularly for those MPs who live in areas where this is quite an issue. It is not even across the country; some of us have more of these issues than others.

Q88 Mr Winnick : It is a factor, in my view, that all of us should take into account, from whatever political party.

Lynne Featherstone: That awareness of forced marriage is very, very important and we still are not doing enough to get the word out, even though we have guidance and we go into schools and do all of that very good work. The forced marriage unit does a tremendous amount of work; it has done 100 events, I think, this year. But it goes on because it is very hard to reach from a governmental position into the heart of a community.

Q89 Mr Winnick : Like all other Members of the House of Commons, I am involved so I am not taking a holier than thou attitude by any means. Minister, as far as I understand the position, turning to another aspect, domestic violence victims will be protected from cuts in legal aid but not if their partner accepts a caution. That is as I understand the situation.

Lynne Featherstone: I do not know that directly. I will have to write to the Committee, Chair, if that is all right, on that point, but the issue of legal aid for those who are claiming domestic violence is trying to find the criteria to make it validated. That is one of the key issues for those claiming domestic violence as a reason to get legal aid. It is like all of those things-once there is a provision that allows aid money, then there are always some people who may claim it falsely and you want to be sure that that money is going to those who need it. So you have to judge that objectively.

Mr Winnick: Perhaps you could write to us with all the relevant information.

Lynne Featherstone: Yes, I am more than happy to do so.

Q90 Mr Winnick : As I said, if the partner accepts a caution, it does not apply. The other question I want to ask you is how far do you feel schools should-secondary schools perhaps more than primary schools-make the subject of domestic violence a topic that is taught?

Lynne Featherstone: Young people would benefit from being taught a whole range of things, including, obviously, the issue of consent in preventing violence against women, and at the moment we are considering how these issues can be levered into schools. There is an issue of keeping the core curriculum, and allowing teachers to teach. We have all, I think, been guilty of wanting teachers to take on the whole world because you have all these children in one place. But certainly there is a review going on of PSHE-an internal review.

Q91 Chair : Sorry, can you tell us what that means?

Lynne Featherstone: Personal health and social education, which is not statutory in schools but which the vast majority of schools do teach, and that has been the vehicle for all of these extra study subjects-domestic violence, consent and so on.

Q92 Chair : Is that compulsory?

Lynne Featherstone: It is not compulsory.

Q93 Chair : Do you think there is a case for making it compulsory?

Lynne Featherstone: It is very unlikely to be made compulsory. At the moment we are doing an internal review to see how far it goes. I think we would want schools to want to do this. Just speaking personally for a moment, Chair, my experience with schools is that if they are forced to do something it then depends totally on the teachers-how civics is taught for example; whether someone really feels it is important. So it may be that there are other people who can take it on for schools, not burdening teachers, but that is part of the internal review.

Q94 Mr Winnick : Are you satisfied that if a pupil at a school-it would probably be a female but not necessarily-tells the teacher that she is under pressure to go to India or Pakistan and has the strongest suspicion that it is for the purpose of marriage, that school will alert the appropriate authorities and give protection, or not?

Lynne Featherstone: Schools have an absolute duty to safeguard and if the front-line awareness is being raised enough, that should ring alarm bells, because it is a school’s duty to then involve the local authority, which has the local duty of safeguarding children. At the moment, the forced marriage unit is undertaking a review of the arrangements for the statutory application of all of this. My feeling is, probably not. I recently re-launched the guidelines, for example, on female genital mutilation and I felt those were very helpful, for example, because they go into schools and it gives the teacher the ability to spot the symptom and knows where to refer it to. So I think that is the issue, and you work in a direction. You wish everyone was perfect in every school. The information is out there, but it is not necessarily taken on. That is why we are going to review how it has been implemented.

Q95 Mark Reckless : I wanted to ask you a particular point about this draft convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, which I think is a Council of Europe document. It was reported by The Times on 8 March that Britain, by which I assume the Government, correct me if I am wrong, was trying to water this down and in particular wants to replace the words, "Violence against women is understood as a violation of human rights" with, "Violence against women constitutes a serious obstacle for women’s enjoyment of human rights". Has the Government any comment or position on that?

Lynne Featherstone: I think four relatively small technical issues are being looked at that were raised as concerns by the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and, I can’t remember, it might have been another ministry as well. Obviously, the Ministry of Defence would be the likely one to have-the Ministry of Justice would have raised the one you raise and we are still in negotiation, still seeking clarification to try and move forward in a consistent way.

Q96 Mark Reckless : But do you not have a role from an equalities perspective of joining up the approach between the various Departments on this type of issue?

Lynne Featherstone: I certainly write extremely cogent comments on submissions that may bring this to my attention as to where Departments should go in my view, but the Government have not multilaterally come to a decision yet on how to move forward. We are totally and utterly committed to stopping international violence. I think there has been some mischief played with some of the wording, and I don’t think it is about weakening. I think it is about trying to make sure that anything we commit to we can carry out, and it is in our own control in overseas territories so that we are not committing, in writing, in a convention, to something that we couldn’t deliver. I am hoping this will all be sorted out before we get to the other end of the negotiations.

Q97 Mark Reckless : Notwithstanding the Council of Europe or this particular convention, in your view is violence against women a violation of their human rights or merely a serious obstacle for their enjoyment of human rights?

Lynne Featherstone: It is a violation of their human rights without any question.

Q98 Mr Clappison : You are the Minister in charge of this, is that right?

Lynne Featherstone: In charge of which piece of this? I am not in charge of the Ministry of Defence or the Ministry of Justice.

Mr Clappison: No, but somebody must be in charge of the Government’s position on the convention on human rights.

Lynne Featherstone: Well, it is written around to all the Ministries. The Home Secretary would be the person.

Q99 Mr Clappison : The Home Secretary. So it is in your Department?

Lynne Featherstone: I would believe so.

Q100 Mr Clappison : Could you point out to the other Departments that are getting in touch with you, who have special pleadings, that this is a convention that is being agreed by 47 member states and the more that individual member states try to change or water down the wordings of their individual requirements the more it weakens the convention as a whole?

Lynne Featherstone: I may well have done that already and I am more than happy to do it again.

Chair : Minister, you have been so helpful with your answers that we are going to adjourn slightly earlier than I anticipated. Thank you very much for giving evidence. It was very clear and very precise and we are very grateful. Would you let me have those letters that you promised?

Lynne Featherstone: I will do, Chair.