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Violence Against Women

I do not want to trump the hon. Gentleman, but I want to talk about the first Select Committee dealing with this matter, before the modern, new Select Committee system was established. In 1975, I tabled a question and, for my pains, I was put on the Select Committee on Violence in the Family—an experience that I found truly amazing. In five months we held 23 meetings, heard evidence from eight Ministers—most of them pretty useless—received memorandums from 50 individuals and groups and heard evidence from a High Court judge, which was pretty unusual. We worked hard and finished that inquiry, which created quite a stir. Then we moved on to violence against children in the family, following the terrible death of Maria Colwell. We saw, in those early days, the relationship between two major aspects of policy. I am pleased to see that, as time has gone on, there has been a greater awareness that one cannot regard a single area of policy as divorced from so many other areas of policy. There has to be a degree of integration, not just co-operation. Where is the dividing line between violence in the family and violence against women? The mistake we made in our report was calling it, "Violence in the family". As time has gone on, ever more violence has taken place outside marriage and that matter is now being dealt with far better. We produced pretty influential reports. We received one letter from an irate constituent of somebody or other who complained and asked, "Why are you focusing entirely on violence against females? My wife is violent and she's beating me up regularly, so please include in your analysis a little bit about violence the other way round." With the passage of time, that is becoming rather more common. We started the ball rolling, and that was important. I shall show the attitude at that time, before the present enlightened era. In our first report we said:""a general impression must be recorded at the outset. We have been disappointed and alarmed by the ignorance and the apparent apathy of some Government Departments and individual Ministers towards the extent of marital violence. Hardly any worthwhile research into either causes or remedies has been"" provided. Responsibility is diversified""between many Government Departments. No fewer than seven"" appeared before us. Our report concluded:""Only in a very few of these Departments does the problem of marital violence receive anything other than a very low priority either in terms of manpower or financial resources."" I do not think the situation is remotely like that now; if I said that it was, I would be punched on the nose, and deservedly so. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that there have been substantial changes. Our report made a number of recommendations, and I hope that the Minister will consider them. We are still waiting for some of them to be implemented, which is par for the course for Select Committee reports. We recommended that more work be done in schools to break the cycle of violence—that recommendation was made almost 30 years ago. We said other things which may have become inappropriate with the passage of time, but some of our proposals remain relevant. Most members of the Committee are now dead, and I am sure that the civil servants are, but perhaps someone should read those two reports. They show that it was not the new system in 1989 that inaugurated competent Select Committees. The absence so far of any discussion of the world outside is evidence of our indifference to the fact that other countries have domestic violence problems. Some have fewer problems and some infinitely more. I looked to see what international organisations have taken the lead and whether their words, resolutions and documents are relevant. They include the United Nations, the European Union, the Council of Europe, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. There has been an enormous output of recommendations and rules—almost treaties—imploring people and insisting that Governments do more. Many have, and have been inspirational, but probably half the countries in the world could not give a toss what any such document contains, especially those where violence and warfare are occurring and where rape is almost seen as a perk—a supplement to the low income paid to those who fight. Laws are not enforced, and there may not even be any laws to be enforced. We should see our major problems in perspective. I hope that more influence can be projected into those countries that are totally indifferent to implement the legal treaties they have signed, at least to some extent. Domestic violence is international; it always has been and I fear that it will remain so for a long time, unless more influence can be exerted on countries to eliminate any freedom that men, whether soldiers or civilians, feel they have to commit it. Thankfully, some countries are bucking that trend. We have not spoken much about percentages, because we all know that they are pretty worthless. I hope that you will not rule me out of order, Mr. Benton, but in a moment of frivolity, although this is not a frivolous matter, I worked out that if 4 per cent. of males commit acts of violence in the family, 23 Members of Parliament—in the past, of course; no-one here would be guilty of that abhorrent activity—and 7.5 women would have done so. I am not a statistician, but someone may be able to have a stab at providing figures to show that it is feasible that Members of Parliament, former MPs or prospective parliamentary candidates may have a few shadows that they want to hide. That is how close the problem is. It is not a problem of class, nationality or residence here; it is a problem that exists and we have not done enough about it, although much more is being done. Fast-forwarding from 1975 to the present, there has been a massive outpouring of literature from novelists, serious writers, non-governmental organisations and think-tanks. Although some people may disagree, the issues are debated more, and more people are aware of them. There has been a huge increase in NGO co-operation, and it is immensely valuable. Departments are not as ignorant of the issues as they used to be. Instead of having no Minister responsible for the matter, we now have a large group of Ministers from different Departments. Although some outsiders would dissent from my view that there is more sophistication among civil servants, the evidence in 1975 was laughable. When we had the follow-on investigation into violence against children, Barbara Castle was the Minister. She was venerated, but she was more of a big ideas person and her knowledge of detail was slight. It was profoundly disappointing to see one of my icons perform so miserably and badly. She was given a bad time by the then Chairman, Willie Hamilton. I jumped in to rescue her four times, and I was irritated when I read her autobiography to see that the abusive words that she had intended for the Chairman were directed at me. Unfortunately, she had expired, so I could not obtain retribution for the terrible slur. There have been directives from the Government, and the wonderful Library briefing gives a summary of the steps that the Government have undertaken to protect people from domestic violence since 1997. It is a long list. Some hon. Members may say that it is one thing to pass laws and to publish documents, but where is the beef? The evidence is reasonably strong, and my view is that the Government's endeavours have been valiant and largely successful, but others disagree. Looking through the literature, the Select Committee on Home Affairs was partly supportive and partly critical. NGOs and Victim Support were critical—one would expect that from an NGO—but also complimentary. Refuge was welcoming but disappointed. The Minister commented on one, but I do not have time to list the complaints. A report to which I hope the Minister will respond is from the NGO End Violence Against Women, and was launched by Mr. Phillips. The Minister defended the Government's view. There were some powerful arguments and my hon. and learned Friend rehearsed them. The map produced was almost entirely blank. According to the criteria, there were 13 cities and towns involved, including my home town of Walsall, but the report did not say what was going on elsewhere. If someone is lucky enough to live in my area, there is an excellent service. If they are not, however, they will have to travel a long way—if they are from Scotland, it will be an excessively long day. Looking at the map and the blanks, I was amazed at how many big cities are bereft of what the organisation would consider to be a minimal provision. There have been criticisms, but it is important to recognise that enormous reforms have been made. The last part of my presentation is about my constituency. I have been critical of much that does or does not go on in my constituency which, alongside that of my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), has a pretty high poverty rate. I do not suggest that the poorer someone is, the more likely they are to thump their spouse. However, I am pleased that there is a good service in my constituency. It is getting better, and in my view it is the epicentre of a set of fairly integrated structures. When the Minister visits other areas looking for best practice, I hope that she will come to my area and visit the Walsall Domestic Violence Forum, which is absolutely superb. In fairness to the local authority, there is a network of structures that includes voluntary organisations, elements of the health service, the police and an excellent public protection unit—the list is long. Those are brought together into a framework that makes co-operation relatively easy. I have been to almost all of those organisations, and to the refuges—I am sorry if I have left any out—and I have been deeply impressed. My hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Lynda Waltho) looks green with envy, but her constituency attracts all our people to its shopping precincts, so it benefits in both ways. In its annual report, the Domestic Violence Forum states:""We have a number of dedicated services to provide support, advice and information to people experiencing domestic abuse. These include two 24 hour help-lines to meet the needs of service-users from a diverse community. These services are widely promoted via regular advertising in local media and the distribution of leaflets to a wide range of places accessed by the public including; medical surgeries and centres, police stations, housing and social care offices, community and leisure centres etc. We also provide various modules of training in domestic abuse and related issues. This serves to raise awareness of professional and community members, allowing them to respond appropriately and effectively to their service users. Walsall Domestic Violence Forum brings together professionals from across the range of organisations working with people affected by domestic abuse. These include representatives from police, probation, social care, housing, health and voluntary sector (Victim Support, Relate, Citizens Advice Bureau etc). This multi-agency partnership has now produced a second three-year strategy to reduce domestic abuse having successfully met, or exceeded, all targets as set in the initial strategy produced in 2000. Our Crisis Intervention Service is in place to reduce sickness and distress in victims of domestic abuse following an incident."" It has 60 trained and experienced staff who do incredibly good work, so there is a relatively good side to the situation—it is something that we do well. If anybody has listened to the debate or reads about it, I would willingly pass on material to show what a good operation is. The people who lead the forum are scintillating. I have helped them on a number of occasions and defended them from those on the council who do not have the same attitude towards that sort of service. The organisation is able to earn money by providing classes, and it has received money from the national lottery in the past. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has helped, and the organisation also provides services for social services. When money comes in, the Government push a large sum the way of related organisations in many parts of the country. However, what irritates me—and I would welcome a comment or a letter from the Minister on this—is that because the Government want to decentralise decision making, the decision on how that money is spent is left to the local authority. Therefore, the money is not ring-fenced as it should be, but is at the mercy of the council. Some of those people are decent, but others—and in the past, officers of the local authority—have been decidedly unhelpful.