My Lords, for those who are wondering why I am at this position in the list, it is because I wanted to speak personally on this issue, rather than as the Liberal Democrat Front-Bench spokesperson on the Bill. Having just listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, that turns out to have been a wise decision. I remind the House of my experience of 30 years as a police officer in the Metropolitan Police service and as a survivor of same-sex domestic violence. Those are the positions from which I make this speech, rather than as the Liberal Democrat Front-Bench spokesman on the amendment.
I want to start by saying that, obviously, I cannot talk about the substance of this amendment without addressing the context of last week’s events. I echo the comments of former Chief Constable Sue Fish, quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool. I did not hear Sue Fish on “Woman’s Hour”, but I want to echo what she said.
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As I said in the House yesterday, a serving police officer has been charged with kidnap and murder. He is innocent until proven guilty, and the matter is sub judice. Other Metropolitan Police officers are awaiting trial in connection with sharing selfies taken with the bodies of two women who had been murdered. Some years ago, there was an investigation into officers sharing violent pornography while on duty. I believe that there is a prima facie case for an investigation into whether a toxic macho culture exists in the Metropolitan Police Service. Sue Fish thinks that it should go broader than that, beyond any investigation into these specific incidents.
There is also a prima facie case that politics is becoming increasingly populist—not just in this country—and that this facilitates and encourages
“misogyny, xenophobia and intolerance of diversity.”—[Official Report, 16/3/21; col. 186.]
I do not care which political party noble Lords are from or whether they belong to none, if we advocate for or acquiesce to the erosion of civil liberties and support an authoritarian approach to issues that require a far more nuanced approach just to gain votes, we are facilitating and encouraging that culture. It is time politicians woke up and accepted responsibility for what is happening in our country.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, questioned whether this amendment would result in trivial offences being kidnapped and the development of thought police. I am reminded of the time many years ago when the probation service had a rule that it would not engage with racist offenders. It changed its mind on that approach because it felt that it could do some good with these offenders. Its report was called From Murmur to Murder, because people who expressed racist views could end up murdering on the basis of their hatred. I am not suggesting that trivial offences should be recorded as misogyny; I am suggesting that crimes should be recorded as misogynistic if it is
suspected that the motivation of the offender was hatred on the basis of sex and gender. I will come to the noble Baroness’s concerns about including gender a little later.
Some people claim that this amendment would make misogyny a hate crime. It does not. It requires police forces to record offences only where someone perceives that the offender demonstrated
“hostility or prejudice based on sex or gender”.
I have seen emails urging noble Lords to vote for this amendment, one of them written after the author witnessed the appalling scenes at Clapham Common on Saturday evening. It says about offences motivated by misogyny:
“Only when all police forces treat these incidents seriously and with compassion will women begin to rebuild their trust in the police.”
After the week we have had, they may well be right, but nothing in this amendment requires the police to treat offences motivated by misogyny seriously and with compassion.
I want misogyny to be treated as a hate crime comprehensively—not only for the police to record it but for them to provide an enhanced response to victims and provide more support, as is the case with other hate crimes. I also want the courts to treat misogyny as an aggravating factor when it comes to sentencing. When offences are motivated by misogyny, the criminal justice system’s response should be better for victims and make things worse for perpetrators. The Law Commission is looking at doing just that in its review of all hate crimes. The last thing I want is for the Government to say to the Law Commission, “Relax, we dealt with this in the Domestic Abuse Bill”, when this amendment does not do the job.
Hate crimes are crimes against a vulnerable group whose members are targeted because of their membership. I know; I am gay. On Sunday, a government Minister claimed that misogyny cannot be a hate crime because women are not a minority. Hate crimes require an enhanced response from the criminal justice system because victims are targeted because they are vulnerable, not because they are in a minority. In the case of misogyny, on average, women are physically vulnerable to male violence. Men abuse women because they can—because the power in a patriarchal society rests predominantly with them. That makes women vulnerable to abuse because they are women, which is why misogyny should be treated as a hate crime. Being targeted because of your vulnerability demands enhanced victim support and demands that offenders are treated more severely by the courts. This amendment does neither of those things.
I am very concerned—even more so now—about violence and harassment directed at women and girls on the streets. However, this Bill is about domestic abuse against all victims—including male ones, who make up a third of all victims of domestic abuse. Men are three times less likely to report being a victim of domestic abuse than women. There is a danger that this amendment would further discourage such reporting if it were included in this Domestic Abuse Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, referred to retired Chief Constable Sue Fish, who argues that women are less reluctant to come forward once misogyny is recorded.
However, the underreporting of domestic abuse is even worse when the victim is male or in a same-sex relationship than it is with women victims of male domestic abuse. Associating domestic abuse with misogyny could make that underreporting worse; for example, by leading to a victim thinking, “I am a male victim but this can’t be domestic abuse as it’s not motivated by misogyny”.
As I said in Committee last week, the essence of a coercive and controlling relationship is when
“compliance is rewarded and defiance is punished.”—[Official Report, 10/3/21; col. 1736.]
I know; I have been there. In the domestic abuse setting, it is difficult to differentiate those elements of coercive and controlling behaviour that are motivated by misogyny from those that are simply the exercise of power by one partner over another. There were no amendments to this Bill seeking domestic abuse to be recorded as motivated by race or by homophobia, because domestic abuse is a serious offence in its own right. Any enhanced victim support or aggravating factor for it to be treated as a hate crime is eclipsed by the seriousness of the substantive offence of domestic abuse.
I am not yet convinced that the downsides of this amendment in relation to domestic abuse, and the potential for shifting the dial further towards the exclusion of victims of domestic abuse who are not victims of male violence against women, have been adequately addressed.
That having been said, we need to reverse the tide of populism and its associated impact on the way that women are being mistreated on our streets, but not by simply requiring the police to record misogyny as a motivation and leaving it at that, as this amendment does. I could not vote for this amendment because it does not go far enough, and it potentially provides the Government with an excuse not to do what really needs to be done: to make misogyny a hate crime with enhanced care for victims and harsher penalties for offenders.
I thank the Minister for advance sight of her speech on this amendment—assuming that she has not changed it since Monday. I agree that Section 44 of the Police Act 1996 makes Amendment 87B unnecessary if, and only if, the Government use existing legislation to require police forces to record offences in accordance with the amendment. I will listen carefully to the Minister, but the Government’s concession does not go as far as the amendment and is in danger of creating unintended consequences.
Here I return to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, considering gender. If the Government only require police forces to record crimes where the victim perceives them to have been motivated by hostility based on the victim’s sex, which is what I believe the Government’s concession consists of, it does not go far enough. Current hate crime offences are recorded when anyone perceives the offence to have been motivated by hatred, not just the victim. The amendment includes sex and gender, and this is important. If an offender believes the victim is a woman, and anybody perceives that the offence was motivated by hatred of women, it should be recorded
as a crime motivated by hatred of women. It makes no difference in these circumstances whether the victim is a transgender woman. Where the victim or a witness believes that they were attacked because they were a woman because they perceive the offender believed the victim was a woman, it should be recorded as such. The use of the term “sex” on its own may exclude some offences, and the whole purpose of recording these offences is to ensure the recording of any attack motivated by hatred of women. Whether they are allegedly by some people who think that trans women are not real women does not make any difference; if that is what they thought the person they were attacking was, it should be recorded as misogyny.
If noble Lords or Members of the other place do not think we should wait for the Law Commission’s report, there is an imminent legislative opportunity to make sure that hatred of women is treated in every way as a hate crime. We could work cross-party to amend the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which is being debated in the Commons, to make misogyny a hate crime in every sense of the term. Even if the noble Baroness is not convinced by the Government’s concession, we do not need to rush this amendment through now when the ideal legislative opportunity is at our fingertips.