---

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, I move the amendment standing in my name not in any way to cause anxiety or concern to the Minister, or with any lack of appreciation for how far the Government have moved. I say straightaway that I welcome the moves that have been made in the right direction. However, I hope the Minister will forgive me when I say that I regret that such a move was not done immediately and that we have had to wait so long. I hope the noble Lord will not find me ungracious when I say that I would invite him to move a little further. The amendments that have been proposed by the Government widen the evidential gateway provided by the Bill as it stood before: my amendments take it just a little further. Domestic violence applications are of great importance, not just because they relate to a large proportion of women, but also, as the noble Lord knows, because they affect men and many children. Up to 950,000 children are affected by domestic violence every year. My amendments specifically permit well founded evidence of abuse certified by a court and/or prescribed in regulations to be used in support of an application for legal aid relating to matters that touch on domestic violence. In addition, my amendments provide that no evidence shall be deemed inadmissible on the basis of the expiration while the general limitation period under the civil standard has not elapsed; in effect, moving limitation from the two years provided in the Government's proposed regulations to six, which I think causes greater consistency. Your Lordships will know that, in my Amendment 196B, I also seek to extend that more generous time limit to applications made in relation to children's cases. The House has heard from me, at Second Reading, in Committee and on Report, about the importance of these issues to victims of domestic violence and their children. These amendments are, I respectfully say, vital. They are vital to all victims who may be affected by domestic violence. It is the reality of the domestic violence victim's life that has to be properly acknowledged. Although I thank the Minister for moving both in scope on the definition and on the definition itself, it is clear from what he said in moving his Motion that the Government do not entirely understand the issues in relation to domestic violence as I had hoped that they would. The evidential test is there to provide assurance that there is cogent information on which to base the assertions of domestic violence made by an applicant. The evidential gateway is just that: an evidential test to support the definition. The Government seek, on the basis of the amount of money that they have available, to narrow that gateway in a way that denies the reality of many victims' lives. I would love to be able to say that my fear in relation to these amendments is misplaced. The reason I know that, tragically, it is not, is that I have had the privilege of working in this field since 1977. We know, through experience and the empirical data that we have, the consequence of a narrower gateway because there has been one in the past and we know that lives have been lost. In many cases, women—I say ““women”” because 89 per cent of repeat victims are women—will not get the support they need. I will give one example, which has been given to us by St Anthony's Centre for Church and Industry in Manchester. It relates to a case where a woman had entered into a marriage which was violent and traumatic. She wanted to start divorce and financial proceedings. She did not go to a refuge. She left her home and went to live at her parents' house. While there, she was not able to work because she used to work for her husband in his business, so she lost her job; she was his bookkeeper. The husband remained in the joint home. He moved his mistress into that home and refused to engage in the divorce proceedings at all for a considerable amount of time. The wife could do very little about it. Eventually, because he would not negotiate and because she had no money and he had a great deal, she went and obtained legal aid to assist her to go back into the house and, if not to go back into the house, to get her just desserts in terms of financial relief. The husband had engaged some very expensive solicitors. She did not have any money to do so. That woman, today, would get legal aid. If your Lordships were to agree with the amendments and pass them in accordance with the Government's proposal, she would not. There are other cases. For example, a woman left her husband because of his violence and did not go back. She did not apply for any financial relief or anything at all. She simply wanted safety for herself and her children. Eight years later—way outside the two-year time limit—her husband came to apply for contact with those children. She had not gone to the police. She had not gone to her doctor. She had not gone to a refuge, because she had gone to her mother's house. Neither had she sought to enter into litigation. But she did not have any money. At the moment, she is able to get legal aid; if these provisions are passed, she will not. I know that the noble Lord would want to provide help and assistance for those sorts of cases, but the current provisions will not do that which the Government purport to want. I wish that I could simply say to the House that we have moved far enough, but it is now a matter of whether the House and the Government will choose to assist those who are in dire need. It is not a matter of us not knowing what the impact will be. On a number of occasions, the noble Lord has said that we are in a financially difficult position and that we cannot do all that we would like to do but that we have to narrow the gateway. I could understand narrowing the gateway if it were to relate to those who make unmeritorious claims, who do not need the help and support of legal aid and indeed whose lives will not be adversely affected or put at risk. If that were the case, I could see that the Government would have a choice. However, post-separation violence occurs in 50 per cent of the cases that we deal with. These are not cases, as the noble Lord seeks to say, where those involved could go for an injunction. In many of these cases the violence occurred a long time ago but the risk of violence to the victim and often to the victim's children is still there. We have a choice to make. In my humble submission, that choice should be one that we make in favour of women, children and victims of domestic violence whatever their gender who will have no other viable means of support. I say very clearly to the noble Lord that we on this side of the House have made a choice: our choice is to support victims and their children. I would love the Government to be able to say amen to that, not just in terms of desire but in reality. While many women do not have the support that they need, we cannot close our eyes. I would like to remind the House of the Women's Aid snapshot survey that was done on 16 June last year. It showed that on just one day 224 women were turned away from refuge services: 163 because there were no spaces for them; 13 because they had no recourse to public funds; and 48 for other reasons such as complex needs. That demonstrates that even allowing accessing refuge services as evidence of eligibility for legal aid will exclude many women who are simply unable to access such services and yet are experiencing violence. We have to remember that if a woman has a male child who is over the age of 11, she will not have access to a refuge because such children are excluded, often because of their gender. Statistics from Women's Aid show that the number of women and children supported annually by all domestic and sexual violence services—both refuge-based and non-refuge-based—is 124,895: so 17,615 women are in refuges annually and 107,280 are in other services such as outreach and drop-in. Looking at the list to which the Minister has referred in his remarks, if only those who are actually admitted to a refuge are able to seek and obtain support, what about the 107,000 women who seek outreach and drop-in support? The noble Lord knows that these amendments are widely supported by the Women's Institute, Rights of Women, Mumsnet and many other agencies, including the faith communities. I ask the noble Lord to think very carefully as to whether the Government cannot in good conscience widen the evidential gateway and the time limit to enable those with bona fide claims to be better supported. I accept that even the list and the proposals that I make will still exclude many bona fide cases. This causes me a great deal of pain and concern, but I have taken into account fully what the noble Lord has said about the restrictions that must now be put on the legal aid budget. I have accepted them. I cannot accept that the minimum standard that we have outlined in my amendment—to give succour to those in need—cannot be afforded by us as a country. If we cannot afford to protect women, children and men who are in this position we are a very poor country indeed. I beg to move.