My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. They reminded us just how popular these amendments are, as almost every single one of them was backed by many organisations and individuals. Whereas popularity is not necessarily a good guide to the way we approach legislation, in this case we ought to be listening to the people who know what they are talking about. We have talked extensively about stamping out domestic violence, misogyny and gender-related violence. We have discussed the fact that domestic abuse is endemic in our society, and these amendments would hand important tools to people who try to be in the arsenal in that fight.
Amendment 164 requires the monitoring and rehabilitation of serial domestic abusers and stalkers. That is an important requirement. It means that they are treated alongside other violent and sexual offenders. Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements—MAPPA—are about protecting society as a whole, and individuals against the most dangerous and sinister people in our society. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, used the phrase “change the culture”. Changing culture is incredibly difficult. It takes a huge amount of work, but that is the only way we have to make a difference in this, and we have to change the culture.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, used a very good phrase, “professional curiosity”, and I will come on to that in the next group of amendments. That is something we should encourage so that people spot exactly what is happening. So often, people feel that they should not get engaged because it is personal and involves people’s privacy. MAPPA would bring together the police, probation and prison services and draw support and co-operation from social services, health, youth offending teams, Jobcentre Plus, local housing and education authorities. It would also take the responsibility off the victim for reporting it themselves, which is crucial. MAPPA is a ready-made system.
With this Bill, we recognise that as a society we have failed to treat domestic abuse as the serious and grave offence that it is, so updated arrangements would be perfect—MAPPA-plus—and a natural extension of MAPPA. Then we can recognise domestic abusers as dangerous people who need that level of intervention and co-ordination. It is essential if we are to stamp out domestic abuse and misogyny in the way that any civilised country would expect us to do.