My Lords, I believe the case for this amendment has already overwhelmingly been made from all sides of this Committee. The Green group would have attached our name to it to make it even more cross-party, had there been space.
I go to the words of one victim that, I believe, sum this up. They are taken from an article in the popular mainstream magazine Vogue, published this week. They are from a single victim whom it called “Chloe”, whose stalker was jailed after breaching protective orders more than a dozen times, even though he had never been convicted of stalking. Chloe told Vogue:
“The system designed to protect us is broken and reactive. It waits for harm … I will live in fear until the day he dies.”
Those are the words of lived experience. The system is broken. I believe the case for this amendment and for a strategy has been overwhelmingly made.