Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Non-Afl)

My Lords, I support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady May, on her words and her fantastic editorship of the “Today” programme on New Year’s Day, where she highlighted the problems of domestic abuse. This amendment would make a significant difference to the safety of victims. We are making progress in seeing victims coming forward and, when they do, protecting them. Victims live with the fear that their perpetrator will contact them at any time. The Probation Service is doing an excellent job, most of the time, but change and training take time, especially to embed themselves, and, as has been witnessed, without proper training, devastating consequences can occur. My noble and learned friend Lord Garnier stated that it is all about risk and how to assess it. This amendment is easy to incorporate, is easy to carry out and could put a significant safety valve in the system while the necessary training is put in place. I ask the Minister to try to see in his mind that this would be a good thing to do. When I was sitting on that Bench, every now and again an amendment to a Bill would come forward and I would think, “This really could work”, but I was always being put off, either by the Bill team or by the department. Occasionally, I took it into my own head and did something off my own bat. I was then told, when I left the Chamber, “You’re making government policy. That’s not what you’re meant to do”. But I did not get the sack, so it was worth doing.