Coalition scraps law for domestic abuse victims

Louise Nousratpour
Wednesday August 4, 2010
The Morning Star

A scheme to help people escape domestic abuse by banning violent partners from the family home is to be abandoned by Equalities Minister Theresa May due to government cuts.

Under the previous Labour government's "go orders," police would have been given power to remove violent partners from their homes for up to two weeks.

The domestic violence protection orders, which passed into law in April, would have given victims the chance to seek help and break the cycle of violence.

The scheme was to encourage police to take a pro-active approach to domestic violence and was aimed at improving conviction rates.

Almost 750,000 incidents are reported to the police every year, yet fewer than a third of them result in criminal charges.

But according to reports on Wednesday, Ms May wants to scrap the orders, which were to be rolled out across England and Wales next year.

The Home Secretary insisted that she had made the decision following pressure from the government to slash £2.5 billion from the Home Office's annual budget.

Wednesday's revelations followed a leaked letter from Ms May to George Osborne on Tuesday, in which the Equalities Minister warned the Chancellor that his spending cuts could be in breach of equality laws.

Ms May wrote "there is a real risk of successful legal challenge" by ethnic minorities groups, women, the disabled and elderly people.

Anna Bird of Fawcett Society, which has already filed a legal challenge, said the letter revealed that ministers were aware of legal requirements to assess the impact of spending cuts on different groups.

"Despite repeated requests, the Treasury have not provided any evidence that any such an assessment took place," she noted.

"The Fawcett Society filed papers last week with the High Court seeking a judicial review of the government's recent Budget."

The group argued that even a top-line assessment of the Budget measures showed 72 per cent of cuts will be met from women's income as many of the cuts are to the benefits that more women than men rely on.

Also, women make up the majority of public-sector workers whose jobs and pensions are under threat.