My Lords, I was very happy to put my name to the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, but first I will refer briefly to Amendment 277. The first thing I have to say is that, as any inhabitant of the West Midlands will know, the noble Baroness who moved the amendment is the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley. It is pronounced “Cradely”, not “Cradley”—it is a bit like “Chumley” instead of “Cholmondeley”.
My second point is this: the point made by the noble Baroness about the amount of time that sometimes elapses before individuals feel able to come forward is a moot one. Yesterday evening, I watched a new programme with my daughter. It was a documentary on a well-publicised streaming platform that begins with the letter “N”; I will not advertise it here. The programme is called “Procession” and deals with the way in which five men, all of whom were the victims of predatory Catholic clergy 30 to 40 years ago, have finally started being able to talk about what happened to them and come to terms with it. When something like that happens to one at that age—in this particular instance, these young men were even younger than the people we are talking about, aged between 13 and 16—it does not take a brilliant imagination to work out the sort of trauma that it must instil in people and how difficult it can be even to recognise it oneself, let alone bring oneself to talk to others about it. The noble Baroness’s point was well put; it will be hard to disagree with her.
On Amendment 292C, first, I put on record my thanks—indeed, our thanks—to Yvette Cooper, who has been pursuing this forensically in another place. Her latest attempt was made today when she asked the Home Secretary directly what her view on this is and whether anything will happen. I am not clear why we
are debating this amendment at all because, on 5 July, Victoria Atkins, now in the Ministry of Justice but the then Home Office Minister, said this in the House of Commons when talking specifically about this same amendment:
“We take this issue very seriously, and I can assure the House that we will return with a proposal at a later stage. I certainly do not rule out an amendment, if appropriate, in the Lords. This must be looked into”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/7/21; col. 572.]
There it is on the record.
As the noble Baroness said, the Home Office seems to have developed a sort of hotline with certain reporters in the BBC, where certain potential developments are briefed to the BBC, which puts them out fairly prominently. There is then complete radio silence; there is no acknowledgement by the Government or Home Office in any way, shape or form that a briefing took place, so we are left in a slight quandary as to whether it did or not. Unlike some noble Lords, those of us on the Cross Benches have a high enough regard for the BBC that we tend to believe it when it comes out with something like this, so I find this practice of putting these things out into the public domain then saying nothing about them somewhat unhelpful. Frankly, it is a sort of legislator abuse since many of us are trying to do our best in talking on behalf of others and it is confusing when the Government apparently say one thing to the media and then stand at the Dispatch Box and say something similar to what they have been saying, sometimes for many years. My noble friend Lady Newlove put the case clearly.
5.45 pm
It is moot to remember that only 70% of the police forces that were asked to respond to Freedom of Information requests by the BBC actually responded. If you do the maths, this means that the figures we have are about 30% underreported. The volume of types of assault that have been reported as being related to domestic abuse have soared, particularly during the pandemic. In the law of unforeseen consequences, one result of the welcome developments that the Government are making through the Domestic Abuse Bill and some of the ancillary legislation is the likely possibility that more of these instances will be reported because, one hopes, more women will have sufficient confidence to go the police and get a responsive response. More and more police officers are being trained to recognise domestic abuse and respond appropriately. Let us assume, first, that more women will, we hope, report. Secondly, we hope and expect that the police will respond more positively and quickly. However, if that is the case, we will have created another problem for ourselves because there will be a logjam in the system in trying to cope with the increased volume. That is a compelling reason for the two-year extension of the time limit for after these assaults are reported. If we do not do that, everything will come to a huge, legislative constipatory stop, which is in nobody’s interest. I look forward to the Minister’s response.