12. Submissions on Behalf of the Southall Black Sisters by Ms Sergides

Lady Hallett: I hope I pronounced your name correctly.

Ms Sergides: You have, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you.

Ms Sergides: My Lady, I represent Southall Black Sisters, led by Liz Davies KC, instructed by Public Interest Law Centre. I am grateful for the opportunity to make oral submissions given our previous indication that we would not do so.

I wish to raise two points in addition to our written submissions, and I will be brief.

The first relates to Rule 9 requests. We support the written submission made by the children’s rights organisations that the Home Secretary at the relevant time, Priti Patel, should be served with a Rule 9 request. Her and her department’s awareness of the potential implications of lockdown on domestic abuse, both in anticipation of the first lockdown and the lessons learned from the first lockdown for subsequent lockdowns, are relevant.

Furthermore, we submit that Rule 9 requests should also be served on units within the Home Office, namely the violent crime reduction unit and the unit on enforced marriages in particular. This is a matter we have raised in previous written submissions and it is clear that both units held information relating to domestic abuse against women and girls before and during the pandemic.

This is information that may have been essential to decisions mad relating to three key areas, namely identifying potential victims of domestic abuse, communicating information about potential victims of domestic abuse across government departments, and importantly, the decisions, if any, made in respect of the support services provided to survivors of domestic abuse while being unable to leave their homes.

It may transpire that these units were not in fact consulted at all in decisions relating to women and girls, and that itself will be relevant, but we will only know this if Rule 9 requests are made of them.

My second point relates to expert evidence. My Lady, in respect of the experts on inequality set out by Mr Keith King’s Counsel this morning, we welcome the proposed expert evidence from Professor James Nazroo, Tom Shakespeare, Professor Nick Watson and Clare Wenham. However, none of these experts are able to give evidence on violence towards women and girls, or the discrimination and inequality faced by them aside from the important issues relating to intersectionality. We therefore submit that consideration should be given to an expert who is able to address issues specifically relating to violence towards women and girls in addition to the discrimination faced by women, and in particular to ethnic and minority women.

In short, my Lady, expert evidence on inequalities faced by women and girls goes beyond health inequalities.

My Lady, you already have in writing our recommendations and suggestions on experts and I respectfully ask you give them further consideration.

My Lady, thank you for your time.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much indeed.

Right, now Ms Henke King’s Counsel for the Welsh Government.