It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. We have heard two of the most powerful speeches I have heard in my time in Parliament. First and foremost by a country mile was that by the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield). It was one of the bravest and most powerful speeches I have ever heard not just in this place but anywhere. Her contribution to this debate will be remembered for an awfully long time, and this debate will be remembered for her contribution to it. Following hot on her heels was my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), who also made an incredibly powerful speech regarding his late constituent. If those examples do not force us into some kind of action, nothing will. It is a pleasure to follow their speeches.
I want to make points that I do not think anyone else will make, which is often my role in these debates. I want to try to stop all the consensus in terms of the idea that we have had throughout this debate that domestic violence is a gender-based crime. It is not, and we would be doing a huge disservice if we were to run away with that idea and make this legislation work only on that basis. Men are perpetrators of domestic violence; men are victims of domestic violence. Women are perpetrators of domestic violence; women are victims of domestic violence. I will go through the figures in a second to show why it is not gender-based. We in this House have a duty to treat everybody equally before the law. I hope that it does not matter whether the perpetrator is a man or woman—they should face the full rigour of the law regardless—and whether the victim is a man or woman, they should have exactly the same safeguards from this House. I hope that that is what this legislation will do and I do not want to hear any ideas that it should not be like that.
For the record, the latest official figures that are available show that someone is one and a half times more likely to be a female victim of domestic violence in a lesbian relationship than in a heterosexual relationship.
We should not be leaving behind those victims of domestic violence by running away with the idea that it is gender-based. In fact, 5.1% of men reported being victims of non-sexual partner abuse with a male partner, which is exactly the same level as women have with a male partner. Men are just as likely to abuse a male partner as they are a female partner. So this is not gender-based violence—it is unacceptable violence by all sorts of people and we should treat them all equally before the law.