My Lords, I will be brief. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, on the important Amendment 44. I wish to speak in particular to Amendment 15 in this group, which would transform and regularise the very disparate current systems by which front-line staff of public authorities inquire into domestic violence and take action.
Since Committee, when we last debated this amendment, my noble friend Lady Armstrong has removed the statutory duty wording in order to see this important provision in the Bill. She and I have also had a helpful meeting with the Minister, whom we thank for her time. The new amendment makes clear
that there should still be a transparency mechanism to hold public services to account. It is important to note that the domestic abuse commissioner remains supportive of this new adapted amendment and that, as my noble friends Lady Armstrong and Lord Hunt have said, adequate resources are needed to monitor and annually report on statistics on training in such inquiries.
In Committee, the Minister said she did not want sensitive and complex conversations turned into some sort of tick-box exercise. That is understandable, but our response is that the amendment would actually give public services and staff the space and independence to use their professional judgment as long as the context was transparent for monitoring purposes.
In her letter to my noble friend Lady Armstrong following our meeting, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, makes the helpful observation that relevant public authorities, as listed in Clause 15, are subject to the duty to co-operate with the commissioner, and that this would include the provision of statistics and other information specified in subsection (1) of the new clause, as my noble friend said. She also makes it clear that it is open to the commissioner to address matters relating to training and reporting in her duty to produce an annual report. But, while I hear and to some extent understand the Government’s reluctance to give specific direction in primary legislation to the domestic abuse commissioner regarding the need for public authorities to undertake front-line training, the present situation, based as it is on guidance, cannot continue to let down victims as it does. I look forward to the Minister’s response, in which I hope we will hear clearly her agreement with the principle of the amendment and how it can be taken forward.
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