My Lords, in moving Amendment 4 to Clause 2 I will also speak to my Amendments 5 and 6. These amendments would bring the abuse of disabled people by carers within the scope of domestic abuse under Clause 2. I should mention that I have also tabled Amendments 46 and 47, which would make identical changes in relation to controlling or coercive behaviour under Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015. They will be discussed on another day.
I thank the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and her officials for our recent meeting, which was very helpful in clarifying our mutual concerns, which I will refer to in a moment. Sadly, I have heard nothing further since, so I assume that the Government are not yet convinced that the Bill should include disabled people and carers. I hope that, after hearing today’s contributions, the noble Lord the Minister will commit to return at Third Reading with an alternative clear offer, otherwise I am afraid that I will have no other option than to divide the House.
Amendment 4 has cross-party support. I am grateful to all co-signatories for their advice and backing on this issue, and to many other Members across the House who also wished to be co-signatories. Since Committee I have given the issue a lot of attention, consulting, among others, organisations dealing with disabled victims of domestic abuse. I also sought a legal opinion from lawyers specialising in social care and disability discrimination.
The vast majority of carers are caring, compassionate and utterly loyal. We owe our lives to them—I know I do—but in a small number of cases this is not so. Domestic abuse is not limited to family members or sexual partners. That is what we used to understand by the term; today, we know better. Disabled people of any age can be abused by those on whose care they rely. These relationships often involve an imbalance of power and are just as susceptible to abuse as those between family members or partners. Disabled people may be wholly dependent on another to live an independent and active life, 24 hours a day. That dependency and the trust that it requires makes them an easy target to exploit or abuse.
The Joint Committee on the draft Bill recognised that abuse by carers “mirrors” abuse
“seen in the other relationships covered by this Bill”,
and, importantly, occurs in a domestic setting. It recommended amending Clause 2 to include all disabled people and their carers, paid or unpaid.
Some of our closest and most intimate personal relationships are with those who care for us. Many carers see us naked in the shower, have access to our bank accounts and observe us at our weakest, physically, mentally or emotionally. This can make us feel very vulnerable. They are often privy to things that we do not share even with our family or partners.
I speak from 30 years of personal experience, but not only from that: I am also as a former CEO of the National Centre for Independent Living, working with thousands of disabled people who managed their carers, often termed personal assistants. I remember one haunting example of abuse of a severely disabled man without speech who came to me. He had a communication board that was regularly removed from reach so that his carer was not interrupted. He was too afraid to complain because, as he put it, of the “likely consequences”. Evidence from Stay Safe East and other organisations clearly demonstrates that such abuse continues today.
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To deny such people the protection of this Bill would be wholly unjust and discriminatory. The abuse is no different. As the legal opinion says, it is also likely to be unlawful discrimination contrary to Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and Article 3 on inhuman or degrading treatment, or Article 8 on respect for private and family life.
If the Government wish to exclude disabled people from the Bill they must show a genuine reason for doing so and for why it is appropriate and necessary. I have not yet heard a convincing explanation. I ask the Minister: who was consulted in the disability sector? I know that government officials spoke to carers and
women’s groups. While they are often the primary carers, it is equally important to get the views of those in receipt of care.
The Government’s main objection, indicated in my recent meeting with them, is that including disabled people and their carers “would change the definition”, and while they accepted that the abuse is the same, they felt, in their words, that it was “not domestic abuse as people understand it”. I find this completely bizarre. It is hard to believe that the public would make that distinction. If the abuse takes place at home, in a relationship akin to family members or partners, that is abuse in a domestic setting and warrants the same protection.
The other objection is that it would widen the scope of the Bill too far, including all sorts of carers, such as a friend who does the weekly shop. This completely misses the point. Caring for a disabled person might start with friends or neighbours popping in occasionally, but evidence from Stay Safe East shows that it sometimes develops into an unwanted personal relationship that encroaches on the disabled person’s private life, which the carer then exploits.
So often when disabled people fight for their civil and human rights, we are told that our demands would open the floodgates to unmanageable litigation. It has happened at every stage of the campaign for disability rights legislation. This is not the place to repeat that exercise.
The Government also say that disabled people are already protected from carer abuse, and point to the safeguarding provisions in the Care Act 2014 as the answer to abuse by carers. But Section 42 requires local authorities, where they think there is a risk of abuse, only to make inquiries to see whether action is needed. Many disabled people do not engage with social services safeguarding. Thousands of disabled people employ their own carers or personal assistants and are not touched by social services. It is simply inadequate to protect disabled people and not fit for purpose.
Similarly, Section 20 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, which creates the offence of ill treatment or wilful neglect, applies only to paid carers. It is a higher bar than proving abuse under this Bill. Unlike this Bill, neither of those provisions gives disabled people the means to deal with abuse themselves—they have to rely on others. Nor do they have access to the other benefits of this Bill, such as the new commissioner’s role.
We have an opportunity to make this a truly progressive Bill, one that understands multiple circumstances in which domestic abuse arises. Disabled people have not been well served in recent years, and the pandemic has shone a spotlight on discrimination by indifference. Let us not endorse that again in this Bill. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.