My Lords, I too wish to pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, for her two decades of campaigning after a horrific experience that most people would not be able to turn into such a positive contribution. I wish her, the co-signatories to the amendment and all Members of your Lordships’ House a happy International Women’s Day. It is a celebratory moment, as well as a moment of remembrance which was started over 100 years ago by radical working women.
I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, for doing something that seems all too rare in our polarised and sometimes even toxic public discourse. She has listened. I did not participate in this part of the debate in Committee, but I was struck by her speech and by the contributions that were informed by the work of various women’s organisations, and survivor organisations in particular, about the contested or loaded nature of the term “parental alienation”. I am not a psychologist, a social worker or an expert on this topic, but I was moved by contributions from those who are, not least the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle.
It seems that the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, has indeed listened and has attempted in her reformulation to address behaviour rather than syndromes in a precise way that is more appropriate to legislation on difficult issues. I have no doubt that many abusive men will seek to use the term “alienation” as a stick with which to beat the surviving former partner, but, equally, I have no doubt that men and women are capable of weaponising their children during terrible relationship breakdown. I also have no doubt that this is a gendered world and a very unequal one, whether we like it or not, and that this inequality affects women, but also men and boys. It is a very vicious spiral indeed.
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I turn now to the precise drafting of both the amendment and the Bill as it stands, because I have to agree with the co-signatory to the amendment, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and my noble and learned friend Lord Morris of Aberavon. It is absolutely beyond doubt that, to quote the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, to use a child as a proxy in a dispute between parents, to weaponise or manipulate them in the way described, whether the perpetrator is male or female, is indisputably covered by the Bill as it is currently drafted.
I shall briefly explain why. First, Clause 1(3)(a) to (e) covers
“physical or sexual abuse … violent or threatening behaviour … controlling or coercive behaviour … economic abuse … psychological, emotional or other abuse.”
Secondly, and most crucially, this behaviour is covered in Clause 1(5) and is taken as being directed at the victim of domestic abuse even if it is directed at another person, for example the victim’s child. So if you combine the very explicit reference to behaviour that is directed at a child as a means of getting at the victim of domestic abuse with the earlier categories of controlling behaviour or psychological and emotional abuse in particular, there is no doubt in my mind that the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, about a parent’s behaviour being deliberately designed to damage the relationship and so on is covered. That being the case, I think it would be a mistake to add a “such as”. That term is always difficult and potentially dangerous as a statutory construction, for the reasons given by my noble and learned friend Lord Morris of Aberavon.
In this particular context, my concern is that if we were to say, at the end of Clause 1(5), “such as deliberately designed to damage”, what about the situation where a child is threatened with violence rather than being manipulated for the purposes of destroying the relationship with the other child? That “such as” has not been included and we do not want to suggest in any sense a hierarchy of abuse or to emphasise the manipulation against another parent through, for example, threatening a child with violence. “If you leave me, I will poison your child against you” is a terrible threat, as are “If you leave me, I will beat up the children” or “If you leave me, I will cut off the children.” These are all terrible evils that in the Bill as currently drafted were intended to be and are addressed.
I hope that the Minister will agree with that construction. I think it is beyond doubt, but it is for her, obviously, as the Minister to say whether I am right. If she agrees with my construction that this is clearly covered, in particular by the use of Clause 1(5), I really hope that, as was indicated by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, will feel able to withdraw this amendment, not because it depends on statutory guidance—that will no doubt be argued about and the detail will be got right; there is more room for all sorts of psychological debates about syndromes, et cetera, but that is not my place—but because the clause as drafted already covers the evil that the noble Baroness has spent so many years trying to address. If the Minister is of that view and puts it on the record, that will be a matter of Pepper v Hart and public record.
With that, I congratulate everyone who has spoken in this debate, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, for listening and for her courage, and others who perhaps disagreed with her amendment but none the less understand that this is a terrible thing to do to a child. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, that the child comes first from a human rights perspective. This is a terrible thing to do to a child, but it is also a heartbreaking thing to do to a former partner.