My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, that this has been a very good debate. I join noble Lords in commending the noble
Baroness, Lady Royall, who has done a huge amount of work in this area and with whom I have worked over several years now. I think she would join me in paying tribute to John Clough—his daughter met her death at the hands of a serial stalker—and his family. I also pay tribute to Cheryl Hooper; I had not heard that story until my noble friend Lady Newlove talked about it today.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, that it is a classless crime. When I visited my noble friend Lady Barran’s charity, SafeLives, way back when and heard the various testimonies, it really underlined the fact that it does not matter who you are or where you are from: this can affect you. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, also gave a very moving testimony. I also echo my noble friend Lord Farmer’s point about the cycle of abuse. I join him in paying tribute to the troubled families programme which, as its name suggests, takes a whole-family approach to the issue of domestic abuse.
I will deal first with Amendment 164 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. This seeks to amend the Criminal Justice Act 2003 so that individuals convicted of more than one domestic abuse or stalking offence should automatically be subject to management under Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements. Management under MAPPA may result in these individuals being recorded on ViSOR, the dangerous persons database.
The amendment also seeks to place a duty on the Government to issue a report six months after Royal Assent to review these changes to the Criminal Justice Act. This review would include details of consideration given to assessing and managing the risks of domestic abuse or stalking posed by perpetrators convicted of offences other than those outlined in the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 for stalking or an offence for behaviour that amounts to domestic abuse within the meaning of Clause 1 of the Bill.
I agree with the intentions behind this amendment. We want to make sure that we have the right systems in place to allow the police and partner agencies to identify the risks posed by high-harm, repeat and serial perpetrators and to act accordingly to protect victims. However, the provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 already provide for these offenders to be managed under MAPPA arrangements.
Individuals who are convicted of offences listed in Schedule 15 to the 2003 Act and sentenced to 12 months or more are automatically eligible for management under MAPPA category 2 when on licence. These offences include domestic abuse-related offences such as threats to kill, actual and grievous bodily harm, and attempted strangulation, as well as harassment and stalking involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress within the Protection from Harassment Act. There is also discretion for people who have been convicted of other domestic abuse or stalking offences and who have been assessed as posing a risk of serious harm to be managed under MAPPA category 3.
Guidance makes it clear that MAPPA should be actively considered in every case of domestic abuse. The guidance specifies that offenders should be considered for category 3 where they demonstrate a pattern of offending behaviour indicating serious harm, such as
domestic abuse, that was not reflected in the charge on which the offender was actually convicted, are convicted of the controlling or coercive behaviour offence, or are serial domestic abuse perpetrators. My instinct is that instead of amending the current legislation, there is probably more value in making better use of the existing MAPPA framework and related police systems and we recognise the need to strengthen the use of these. Listening to noble Lords, I do not think that they would inherently disagree with that point. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, pointed out what she saw as some of the deficiencies undermining it.
It is also true that not all victims of domestic abuse call the police and not all victims wish to pursue a criminal justice outcome against their abuser. There are many other statutory agencies involved in families’ lives, not just the police, which is why effective multi-agency working is so vital to ensuring that the risks faced by victims of domestic abuse and their children are properly identified and assessed. I do not think noble Lords would disagree with that either. That is why the package of non-legislative action that underpins the Bill covers the full range of front-line professionals with a role to play in protecting and supporting victims of domestic abuse, including schools, children’s social care, job centres, the NHS and local authorities.
My noble friend Lady Newlove and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, mentioned Clare’s law, otherwise known as the domestic violence disclosure scheme. It already provides a system for the police to inform partners and ex-partners of a person convicted of domestic abuse-related offences about that person’s offending history. Importantly, that is from both a right-to-know and a right-to-ask point of view. Clause 70 places the guidance for the police on the DVDS on a statutory footing. This will help to improve awareness and consistent operation of the scheme across police forces.
Work has already begun on improving existing police information systems. I am pleased to say that we have already completed the first phase of work, looking into the current functionality of ViSOR. The College of Policing has issued a set of principles for police forces on the identification, assessment and management of serial or potentially dangerous domestic abuse and stalking perpetrators. More generally, as part of the £10 million funding announced by the Chancellor in last year’s spring Budget, we have now allocated £7.2 million—the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, referred to it—in 28 funding awards to police and crime commissioners for the introduction of perpetrator programmes for domestic abuse, including stalking, such as the Drive Project that noble Lords have been referring to so positively.
There are also existing provisions in the Bill that will help to improve the management of the risk posed by domestic abuse perpetrators. The new domestic abuse protection orders—DAPOs—will provide an additional tool for managing the risk posed by perpetrators by enabling courts to impose a range of conditions, including electronic monitoring, or tagging, and positive requirements. DAPOs will also require perpetrators subject to an order to notify the police of their name and address and any change in this information, and that will help the police to monitor perpetrators’ whereabouts and the risk that they pose to victims.
Regarding stalking specifically, in January of last year we introduced new civil stalking protection orders, which can also impose positive requirement conditions on perpetrators. These orders, which were welcomed by most stalking charities, enable early police intervention pre conviction to address stalking behaviours before they become deep-rooted or escalate. Therefore, while we agree with the spirit of the noble Baroness’s amendments, we do not feel that it is necessary to accept them at this stage.
I am similarly supportive of the intention behind Amendments 167 and 177B, which call on the Government to prepare a domestic abuse perpetrator strategy. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has been more generous in his time than my noble friend Lady Bertin, and that has been spotted and pointed out already, but the substance of the two amendments is the same. The Government are clear that we must hold perpetrators to account for their actions, and we are ambitious in our aim to prevent these destructive crimes happening in the first place. My noble friends Lord Polak and Lord Farmer spoke very eloquently about that.
I am also sympathetic to the aims outlined in the calls to action for a perpetrator strategy, which are reflected in the amendments. We recognise that more work is needed to improve the response to perpetrators, and in particular to increase the provision of effective perpetrator interventions. I assure the Committee that we already have a programme of work under way to address the issues raised by the amendments and by the calls to action.
What we are not persuaded of is the need for an inflexible legislative requirement for a perpetrator strategy, but the Government of course endorse the need for such a strategy. Indeed, I can inform the Committee that, later this year, the Government will bring forward a new, ambitious strategy to tackle the abhorrent crime of domestic abuse. This strategy will be holistic in its approach to tackling domestic abuse and will outline our ambitions not only to prevent offending but to protect victims and ensure that they have the support they need. It is right that we have a strategy that takes a holistic approach to tackling domestic abuse.
In the meantime, we are building our evidence base to inform this work. As part of his spring Budget last year, the Chancellor allocated £10 million to fund innovative approaches to tackling perpetrators and preventing domestic abuse. As I have said, more than £7 million of this has been allocated in 28 funding awards to PCCs from all areas of England and Wales to support the adoption of a range of domestic abuse perpetrator-focused programmes in their area. To strengthen the evidence base of what works in preventing reoffending, as part of this funding, PCCs will be required to conduct an evaluation of their project to measure outcomes for perpetrators, victims and survivors of domestic abuse.
We value the importance of research in helping to improve our understanding of perpetrators of domestic abuse. That is why we will also be funding a range of research projects that focus on topics including drivers and aggravating factors, and what works in preventing offending, identifying perpetrators and improving
understanding of underrepresented groups to further aid our understanding of perpetrators of domestic abuse. I will provide the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, with more details on this, but I know that the contracts have gone out today. I think she will agree that the findings from this research will play a key role in helping to shape the domestic abuse strategy.
In addition, the designate domestic abuse commissioner, Nicole Jacobs, has already begun mapping the range of interventions currently available for non-convicted perpetrators who are showing signs of abusive behaviour, which will allow us to better assess where there is unmet need for this cohort.
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I must mention two things that have come out consistently today—and I really welcome their mention. My noble friends Lady Bertin and Lord Farmer, and the noble Lords, Lord Rooker and Lord Kennedy, talked about a whole of government approach. They are absolutely right. This does not exist in a vacuum in the Home Office; it needs a whole of government approach to get it right. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, gave a very good example of the GP letters, which I think we have not heard the last of. The noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, talked about sex and relationships education in schools being such a much-needed development in teaching school-aged children what healthy relationships look like, because some of them may be witnessing domestic violence in their own home. It was of course made compulsory as of last September. Several noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Hunt, Lord Rooker and Lord Kennedy, talked about the culture change that is needed, and I could not agree more.
Finally, I hope that noble Lords will agree that the work currently under way to achieve a comprehensive package of perpetrator programmes and improve our understanding of what works in managing offenders and preventing reoffending, as well as our upcoming domestic abuse strategy that will look to incorporate this, already meets the essence of these amendments and, on that basis, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and, through her, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, I think, will be content to withdraw the amendment.