My Lords, Amendment 10 is in my name and is supported by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I support the amendments in her name—Amendments 8, 9 and 14. We should explore the definition of “personally connected”. I am not sure that the Bill as we see it includes all those people who could be included as personally connected.
Amendment 9 is about domestic servitude and I should declare my interest as a deputy chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation, along with the noble and learned Baroness—domestic servitude has been a long-standing issue for us. I recognise that there are other possible categories of people who are in the same household. My understanding of the word “domestic” is that it means “in a home”, so “domestic abuse” should cover those people who are ordinarily staying in that household, which is why I have put down Amendment 10.
The Minister may well say that some of these instances are already covered by other Acts and I would not think that that was not necessarily the case, particularly in connection with the other amendments dealing with disabled people and carers. However, I remind my noble friend that, when we were working on the early stages of Modern Slavery Bill, one of the reasons for the Bill was to put all the legislation together so that it was less confusing not only for the courts but for the police and other authorities. I ask that we have a serious look, before Report, at how “personally connected” could be better defined.
I would also like to speak to Amendment 8 on forced marriage, which is again in the name of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and which she explained admirably, as always. I watched a compelling drama on television a few months ago, which was based on fact, about honour killing. Watching that shocked me, and we have to take every opportunity to try and address something like that—though that
ultimately ended in murder and was dealt with by the appropriate legislation—which in many ways starts with abuse.
6.30 pm
In general, I support all of these amendments. We need to look at “personally connected” in Clause 2. The final amendments relate to Clause 3, and with Amendment 14, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has hit on something very important. We have to recognise that there are domestic situations which do not necessarily reflect our own experiences, and those are exactly the sort of cases where serious and unpleasant domestic abuse happens, and we should be ready to make sure that the law covers all of those instances. I look forward to hearing what the Minister says, and perhaps at Report, we can have something in front of us which clarifies some of these points.