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The Guardian
a day ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Labour not learning lessons from deaths of domestic abuse victims, report finds
The voices of women who have died at the hands of a partner or former partner are being ignored and the government is failing to heed warnings from their deaths, a damning report from the domestic abuse commissioner reveals today. An examination into how the government learns lessons from the deaths of domestic abuse victims has found that half of the national recommendations made in domestic homicide reviews (DHRs) are not put into action, with only a quarter fully implemented. The domestic abuse commissioner, Nicole Jacobs, told the Guardian that a study of DHRs – carried out whenever anyone over 16 is murdered in a domestic setting – revealed a 'deeply concerning' lack of oversight at the top of government. Between 2019 and 2021 DHRs made 110 national recommendations, the majority of which were for the Home Office. Of these only 25% were fully implemented, while a further 25% were deemed to be happening already, 21% were missing, 20% were partly met and 8% were not met. The report found that 'most shockingly' in the majority of cases government departments were not aware a recommendation had been made to them, and not a single one could confirm they had told the review's local authors about the action they had taken. Despite the value of DHRs, which were introduced in 2011, the report states: 'We currently have no idea the extent to which recommendations and action plans are being implemented on a national level. This is a huge opportunity missed.' Asked if the government was ignoring the voices of women who had been killed, Jacobs said: 'Yes, we're ignoring that tragedy. The whole point of these reviews is to shine a light on what is going wrong.' Jacobs said that in hundreds of meetings with the families of women who had been killed by domestic abusers, they all spoke of their desire to prevent further murders. Calling for more accountability and central oversight, she added: 'What we're saying at the moment is we're not willing to put in the work to make sure that we're doing everything we can so that no one else has to go through this.' The government's highly anticipated Violence Against Women strategy, part of Keir Starmer's pledge to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) in a decade, is expected in September. Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, has promised to tackle the 'scourge of femicide' and reduce the number of women killed by partners and former partners. But Jacobs said she worried that instead of a 'big vision' the government was employing a 'spending review strategy' and risked limiting itself to 'what was affordable right now'. She urged Starmer to take control in delivering the promise. 'The prime minister and the most senior people in government have got to stop – right now – and take a very hard look to see if their commitments are anywhere near where they need to be,' she said. 'This is the critical moment. It is now or never. This is going to be the period where they will either look back in 10 years and say that's when we made the decisions that really turned the tide on this or when the opportunity was missed.' Jacobs, who became the first person to hold the post in 2021 when it was created by the Domestic Abuse Act, already has concerns. Failing to put tackling VAWG at the heart of the government's 10-year plan for the NHS, launched this month was a missed opportunity, she said. Analysis shows that the NHS has more contact with victims and perpetrators than any other public service, but a recent report concluded that the health service is failing victims by not training staff. 'When the VAWG strategy is published later this year it must link more closely to the NHS plan to make sure the NHS plays its part in keeping victims and survivors safe,' said Jacobs. Before the review Jacobs – who knows the pressure of the frontline having run a domestic abuse services for 20 years – said it was time for cash-strapped services dealing with abuse victims to get core funding from the government, in the same way that the Domestic Abuse Act imposed a duty on local authorities to provide refuges. Last year a slew of women's charities wrote to Starmer to warn him that funding cuts and rising costs would have 'dire consequences' for victims of domestic and sexual violence and put the government's mission to halve violence against females 'in jeopardy'. 'When those services are not there victims die, are severely harmed and suffer lifelong impacts,' said Jacobs. 'There is a tragic human cost to that but an economic cost as well.' A spokesperson for the Home Office said it did a public consultation on DHR in 2024 and was looking at the statutory guidance underpinning the recommendations to ensure 'a more effective process'. Phillips said: 'My thoughts are with the family and friends of those who have lost a loved one to domestic homicide. Every single death is a tragedy, and more needs to be done to ensure domestic homicide reviews are effective and timely. 'A new oversight board with publicly-appointed members and training for review chairs would make sure recommendations went to the right person, and lessons were learned. We cannot afford to have recommendations lost.'
Telegraph
23-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Wave goodbye to the British middle classes, exploited to extinction under Starmer's Labour
Jeremy Clarkson's declaration that Britain has 'fallen off a cliff ' in the past 20 years is hard to disagree with. Referencing the boarded up shops, our sewage infested rivers and the fact you still can't get a decent mobile phone signal in some parts of the country, he said: 'I don't know what they do with the money.' Quite. Government spending remains at a record high, along with the tax burden – and yet, as Nigel Farage has repeatedly pointed out: 'Nothing works'. I'm proud of my country and I don't like beating the 'broken Britain' drum but the truth is that we are being led by donkeys down a path to self-destruction in what has now come to be known as Starmergrad. From the EU 'reset' surrender to the £30 billion Chagos Islands giveaway, with badly negotiated trade deals with India and the US thrown into the mix, this Labour Government appears intent on humiliating the UK on the world's stage. The socialist motivations are plain to see in the demeaning clause in the Chagos agreement, which obliges Britain to be 'mindful of the need to complete the process of decolonisation of Mauritius', even though the islands have never been part of the East African country's territory. Could there be a better reminder of how we're ruled by people whose politics haven't matured since their days in the junior common room? What a pathetic bunch of sell outs. Domestically, things aren't faring much better. If you're middle class, you've felt 'Britain falling off a cliff' acutely. We thought things were bad last year when Labour cut the winter fuel payment in an assault on supposedly wealthy 'Boomers' and Rachel Reeves imposed record tax rises in the Budget. Despite promising not to tax 'working people', the increase in employers' national insurance contributions and the lowering of the threshold at which they pay them has done precisely that. The Office for Budget Responsibility said that, as a result of autumn's fiscal fiasco, the tax burden will reach 'a historic high of 38 per cent of GDP by 2029/30' and predicted inflation and interest rates will both be higher. Indeed, we are already seeing evidence of this with inflation having just jumped to 3.5 per cent driven by higher payments for gas, electricity, water and transport in 'awful April'. 'Faster and deeper' interest rate cuts now look increasingly unlikely. Combined with the Chancellor's 'lowest ever fiscal headroom' of £9.9 billion, more tax rises seem inevitable, not least if Labour are to perform a u-turn on the winter fuel cut. And who will pay for all this? Middle England, of course. If you were ever in any doubt as to the level of hatred Labour reserves for successful, aspirational people like you and me, then just look at the contents of Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner's leaked memo. Sent to Reeves ahead of the autumn Budget, it proposed eight tax increases including reinstating the pensions lifetime allowance and changing dividend taxes. She also suggested raiding the million people who pay the additional rate of income tax and a higher corporation tax level for the banks. Although the Chancellor may have resisted the Corbynista proposals first time round, the document is likely to become a blueprint for Left-wing Labour MPs disgruntled with the Prime Minister over his attempts to cut benefits and bring down immigration. In Rayner's warped, Marxist mind working people only include those on the factory floor or in the public sector and members of her union paymasters. If you're earning above minimum wage for the private sector, or the business owner who pays workers' wages, then you can be taxed until the pips squeak. Ironically, the Deputy Prime Minister and her ilk are much more likely to stand up for the nine million people who are economically inactive in this country than to protect actual 'working people' who also happen to be middle class. Rayner has a name for such people which I believe starts with 'Tory' and ends with 'scum'. The trouble for Labour, however, is that thanks to the cost of living crisis and the wanton profligacy of successive governments, those earning £50,000 to £80,000 do not have any money left to give. Having spent the last decade being fiscally dragged into higher tax rate bands, relatively modest earners are now paying eye-watering tax rates. In 2010, the 40 per cent higher-rate threshold stood at £43,875, which was 83 per cent higher than average earnings. Today, workers only need to earn 37.6 per cent more than the average wage to be taxed at the higher rate. This figure is expected to fall even further to just 28.3 per cent by 2027-28, according to Taxpayers' Alliance analysis. If this wasn't all costly enough, consider the impact that immigration has had on house prices in middle-class areas, on top of the price of practically everything having shot up since Covid. Factor in Labour's utterly vindictive VAT on private school fees (which along with the assault on second-home ownership, lays bare the average Labour cabinet minister's contempt for anyone with any aspiration) and it's a recipe for disaster. And to think these class warfare waging maniacs may also be eyeing up a wealth tax. Last October, a dozen Labour MPs joined a cross-party call for an 'extreme wealth' tax in that month's Budget. They wrote to the Chancellor to demand a new 2 per cent tax on assets worth more than £10 million, which they claim could raise £24bn per year. Although Reeves again resisted the pinko proposal, she continues to be lobbied on the issue and is likely to face increasing pressure in the coming month, not least as Unite has also been pushing for it. With figures showing that one millionaire left Britain every 45 minutes in the year Labour came to power, we already know that such policies have no impact on the super rich, who can simply move elsewhere, and only serve to hammer those contributing the most to Treasury coffers: hard working, professional moderate earners. They belong to the 40 per cent of the population who pay at least 83 per cent of the taxes that fund our public services. Labour's unending tax assault on the middle classes isn't just preventing growth and prosperity, it's breaking the backbone of Britain.
