I propose that the consultation process for quality standards also seeks views on the accreditation mechanism. My preference would be for external accreditation, which would be much more robust, as opposed to self- accreditation, because then we would all mark ourselves up. [Interruption.] I get so confused by the campanology-like level of bell-ringing in this place at the moment.

It has also been proposed by Respect that sites be accredited, not programmes or curricula, as that will help to ensure that delivery meets standards.

We have seen that in lots of instances. In fact, funded by the Home Office, I have written such programmes on many occasions, including teenage relationship abuse programmes, that have gone on to be accredited by the Home Office. When I used to hand them over to a school to deliver, I knew I could not guarantee the quality of the delivery, even though the programme was accredited and might be a step forward—I would say that if I had written it. This did once lead to my husband saying that I was a perpetrator of domestic abuse, as I had left the papers of the accredited programme I was leading on the table, and one of the questions was, “Does he open your post?” My husband said, “You always open my post,” but the bills would not get paid if I didn’t.

An accredited programme goes some way, but if you hand it over to somebody who is not an expert, it could be degraded, so accreditation of delivery is important. External accreditation could work as follows: a standard is included in the body of what the Home Secretary publishes; a list of accredited agencies approved against the standard is given, with a mechanism for review—I have more to say about that later—such as ways that agencies could apply to accredit or ways that checks could be made to ensure that existing accreditation agencies were performing correctly; commissioners commission programmes only from accredited sites, which would certainly have helped in the example I talked about; reaccreditation could be required every three years, or earlier in the case of significant changes to the structure or operation of the programme; and, accreditation-failed services would have six months to meet the standard before commissioners are expected to decommission, which is not dissimilar to an Ofsted—“Get a bit better, and we’ll come back and have a look.”

As for the guidance from Respect, any quality assurance guidance will have to be combined with significant investments, so that a range of interventions are available and there are skilled assessments, on a case-by-case basis, regarding the suitability of any given intervention for a specific perpetrator.

The Committee has made reference after reference to this being a landmark Bill, and perpetrators have been long overlooked—I include myself in that category. The development of a properly funded national strategy for perpetrators, together with correct quality assurance accreditation for perpetrator programmes, would allow the Bill to effect lasting change, in way that has not been seen before.

In reference to new clause 27 and the national perpetrator strategy, we all know the statistics about how many women are murdered each and every week. The cost of the abuse of victims identified in a single year, according to the Home Office, is £66 billion. I understand that I am speaking to the idea of a level of investment, but we are talking about £66 billion in cost. Research conducted by the University of Bristol shows that a perpetrator who has been assessed as high risk, and whose case is heard at a multi-agency risk assessment conference for victims, generates a cost of £63,000 as a result of his or her domestic abuse behaviour.

There are proven ways of reducing abuse, which are not currently being used. Less than 1% of the 400,000 or so perpetrators who are assessed as posing a high or life-threatening risk to their partners get specialist intervention. The figure of 831,000 victims each year was given for children yesterday, and I am talking about 400,000 high-risk perpetrators. I have had a domestic abuse, stalking and honour-based violence risk assessment in front of me about a woman who had been beaten in the face with a brick that morning, and she was considered to be at medium risk. So I am sure that the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster knows and others can imagine what the cases would be like in a MARAC meeting about high-risk victims of domestic harm. Only 1% or so of those perpetrators have had an intervention in this regard.

There are proven interventions, as I have already said. For example, Drive combines behaviour change work with police-led disruption. Its work with high-harm perpetrators has been shown to reduce the number of perpetrators using physical abuse by 82% and jealous and controlling behaviour by 73%. I do not know how we measure the reduction of somebody’s jealous and controlling behaviour, but obviously somebody came up with a metric. The operational costs of Drive are between £1,800 and £2,000 per perpetrator.

A report from the University of Bristol shows a 30% reduction in the number of criminal domestic violence and abuse incidents among a cohort of perpetrators receiving an intervention, compared with a control group. In another study, by the University of Northumbria, an intervention was found to lead to a 65% reduction in domestic violence and abuse-related offending and a social return on investment of £14 for every £1 spent. About five years ago in the voluntary sector, we had to work out exactly what the amount of money saved was for every £1, and I have noticed that it is always between £10 and £15.

Survivors also support perpetrator programmes. Some 80% of survivors advised the call to action for a perpetrator strategy co-ordinated by the Drive partnership. They think that the perpetrator programmes’ interventions for perpetrators are a good idea. That is a really important point. I take a dim view of domestic abuse perpetrators, but Committee members would be surprised, if they spent time with them, that victims of domestic abuse often do not take a dim view of the people doing the abuse. After all, they loved them and/or married them. We hear it again and again. The thing that always got to me was hearing, “He’s not a bad dad; he’s just bad to me.” I heard a lot of, “He’s quite a good dad and good with the babbies.” But you also hear, “I want him to be able to get help.” I am not of the opinion that drugs and alcohol make somebody a domestic abuser. Power, control and patriarchal norms make somebody a domestic abuser, but if a pattern is exacerbated by drug and alcohol use, there is definitely a sense that victims want support and help for their perpetrators.

When I worked as an independent domestic violence adviser, I often thought there should be an IDVA for perpetrators. The reason why women end up taking their violent perpetrators back again in incident after incident is that their perpetrators end up homeless, and they are the father of their children, or their perpetrators have nowhere to go and no one to support them to find a job, or, when they come out of prison, no one to resettle them. So they lean on the victim, as their previous partner, and the victims want to believe that they can help. It is a terrible human condition that makes people not just say, “Sling yer hook; you’re a wrong ’un.” We all think we would say that, but, if there was somebody there for the perpetrator, like there is somebody for the victim, it would take the burden off the victim, so victims really do want interventions for perpetrators.

Unfortunately, programmes are patchy, and their availability is limited. There is a limited range of perpetrators that they can reach safely, and the programmes vary in quality. The desire for a strategy, which the new clause asks for, reflects that understanding. Lots of areas—any public body with any commissioning role, whether that is health services, local authorities and so on—have thrown a little extra money at the end of the financial year and said, “Okay. Let’s have a perpetrator thing.” I have been in those meetings many times, and I have found that the cohort of perpetrators we are going to work with becomes complicated. Who will we work with? If we say we will go for high risk of harm, a small organisation in a local area will not be able to handle high-risk violent offenders. Then we come down to the next level and say people on child protection. Immediately, when those services are being commissioned, the number of people who can go on them is limited. In victims services, we just say, “Yes, there will be a service,” no matter who they are or whether they are on child protection. With perpetrators, however, because there is no proper strategy or system for commissioning and understanding services, those services, even where they exist, are for a narrow cohort that has been identified as possible to manage—it might be that someone is on a child protection plan or the DASH risk assessment of the victim is low to medium—which immediately limits the ability of certain people to be safe.

In addition, for some groups, such as LGBT+ perpetrators, there are almost no suitable interventions available. The vast majority of perpetrator programmes commissioned in areas have heteronormative ideals. If a judge is faced with a case where he has to dispense this duty, through the DAPO, for a same-sex male couple, for example, there would not necessarily be anywhere for them to go, even if they wanted to. Actually, I would bet my bottom dollar that what we will find with the positive duty is that, even if a judge says, “You have to have this positive duty,” in the vast majority of places in the country, there will be nothing, so people will just say, “Oh well.” In making that decision, the judge was doing the right thing and trying to change something, but actually there is nothing, and probation will just say, “I’ll Google it. Let’s do it one to one.”

The Joint Committee on the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill noted the need for investment in perpetrator programmes and for “co-operation with expert providers”. In addition, the Government’s impact assessment for the Bill estimates that DAPOs will generate a need for 15,200 extra places on behaviour change and drug and alcohol problem programmes.