Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

I will come to that later in my speech, but it was exactly the point that I tried unsuccessfully, as so often, to raise with the Minister in my intervention. In the amendments, we accept the evidential basis, but we are seeking to broaden it to include exactly the sort of organisations that my hon. Friend mentioned. Last time I checked, at least 21 right hon. and hon. Friends supported amendment 74, some of whom wish to speak in the debate, and we have other important debates this evening, so I will try to keep my comments relatively brief. According to the Home Secretary's November 2010 publication, ““Call to end violence against women and girls””, 1 million women a year experience domestic abuse in Britain. When those women make the decision to leave their abusive partners, often quite suddenly, they need care and expert legal help to escape safely and, if they have children, to ensure their safety too. For more than 60 years, family legal aid has provided that expert legal assistance, helping millions of people, mainly women, to escape violent, abusive and sometimes life-threatening relationships. In November last year, the Government announced consultation on their plans to reform legal aid. As the Minister said, they plan to take family law out of the scope of legal aid, except when domestic abuse has occurred, but reason that making domestic violence the ““gateway”” to legal aid will also create an incentive for false claims of domestic violence. So they proposed a limited range of objective proof of domestic violence that would need to be presented before legal aid was granted. Five thousands groups and individuals responded to the Government's consultation, and almost all were opposed. As a result, on Second Reading, the Secretary of State announced a partial U-turn, adding to his list of evidential criteria. In the revised list, legal aid will be granted when a victim has obtained a civil injunction or criminal conviction against her abuser. We welcome that additional criterion, but fear that it is insufficient. Research has shown that, whereas more than half of women have suffered some form of domestic abuse during their lifetime, only a minority ever apply for injunctive release or report the abuse to the police. Women who, for whatever reason, do not want to go through legal proceedings, whether because of fear or simply because they are unwilling to relive the abuse again and again during the judicial process, will be disfranchised by the Government's plans. Legal aid will be granted when a victim has been referred to a multi-agency risk assessment conference—a MARAC—as the Minister confirmed today, or domestic violence must have been established as fact in the family courts. MARACs are a great success, but they are typically used for very serious cases. The final criteria that the Government allow are especially perverse, given that legal aid will not be available to obtain a finding of fact in the family courts. The Minister may say that that is not the case, but that is what the legislation seems to say. As such, the Government's plans to remove family legal aid, except when a narrow and onerous range of objective proof is present, will place thousands of vulnerable women at considerable risk. That is why women's groups, practitioners and the Opposition continue to harbour deep concern. Labour's amendment seeks to widen the evidential criteria of domestic violence to ensure that as many victims as possible receive help, while retaining the Government's decision to limit private family legal aid to victims of domestic abuse. In doing so, we have tried to come to a joined-up, comprehensive view of the evidential criteria for domestic abuse that already exist in various Departments. The Government's statement of intent, ““Call to end violence against women and girls””, recognises that violence against women requires a focused and robust cross-government approach, underpinned by a single agreed definition. The Opposition entirely agree, as do the courts. The recent Supreme Court case, Yemshaw v. London Borough of Hounslow, reinforced the courts' view that there is but one definition of domestic abuse, and the Association of Chief Police Officers has promulgated that definition. The evidential criteria for domestic abuse are not currently set out in the Bill, but they are set out in the response to consultation. The Government plan to promulgate the evidential criteria by order, which is why I fear that the amendment of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) is insufficient by itself. We entirely support her amendment, but mine would go further in placing the evidential criteria into primary legislation. The criteria in my amendment are an amalgamation of the objective criteria for ascertaining whether domestic violence has occurred from the Government's response to consultation and the UK Border Agency's criteria used in immigration cases. The amendment would do nothing more than unify best practice across government by ensuring that we have one singular evidential definition of domestic violence, much as the hon. Lady's amendment would ensure that we have one singular descriptive definition of domestic violence. The sort of evidence that my amendment would allow is as follows:"““a relevant court conviction or police caution…a relevant court order (including without notice, ex parte, interim or final orders) including a non-molestation order, occupation order, forced marriage protection order or other protective injunction…evidence of relevant criminal proceedings for an offence concerning domestic violence or a police report confirming attendance at an incident resulting from domestic violence…evidence that a victim has been referred to a Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (as a high-risk victim of domestic violence) and a plan has been put in place to protect that victim from violence by the other party…a finding of fact in the family courts of domestic violence by the other party giving rise to the risk of harm to the victim””." I suspect that, so far, the Government are broadly with us, but what I sought from the Minister and did not obtain, is the reason why the following evidential criteria are inappropriate:"““a medical report from a doctor at a UK hospital confirming that the applicant has injuries consistent with being a victim of domestic violence, such injuries not being limited to physical injuries…a letter from a General Medical Council registered general practitioner confirming that he or she has examined the applicant and is satisfied that the applicant has injuries consistent with those of a victim of domestic violence…an undertaking””—" the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) is not in his place, but he raised this point—"““given to a court that the perpetrator of the abuse will not approach the applicant who is the victim of the abuse””." I hope that the Minister has read the Law Society's comments—he may be familiar with practice in the family courts—that many more matters are dealt with by way of undertaking than by way of trial process. Excluding undertakings from his criteria makes it not only logistically more difficult, but almost certain that the trial process, with all the inherent difficulties of inflaming the situation, will be the norm rather than the exception.