Newbury MP Laura Farris: Pressure mounting on households
Concern over 'hidden victims' of lockdown
I write this column, one week into the second period of lockdown, aware that the pressure on many households is mounting.
If homeschooling felt like a novelty at first – with just two weeks left of the spring term – it is now far more of a challenge.
Parents must manage their jobs and their children’s education (sometimes out of the same living room) and find time to squeeze in all the day-to-day domestic tasks while they’re at it.
It’s exhausting and pretty much impossible to keep on top of.
But the signs are starting to show that it is working and your efforts are literally saving lives.
I am truly grateful to you.
As the weeks stretch out, it becomes apparent that ‘the vulnerable’ are not confined to those who are elderly or unwell.
It also includes children with troubled home lives for whom school provides structure, sanctuary and a watchdog for potential signs of abuse.
There are women suffering domestic abuse, confined at home with their abusers, and people with serious mental health problems who are cut off from the support services on which they rely.
These are people for whom the virus poses a huge secondary risk and they are its hidden victims.
Last week, I sat on the Home Affairs Select Committee to take evidence from the Domestic Violence Commissioner, the Children’s Commissioner and the NSPCC to get the true picture.
Some of the statistics make for worrying reading.
Mortality rates for domestic abuse, which usually hover at around two per week seem to have spiked to five per week during lockdown.
Less than five per cent of children from vulnerable households who are entitled to attend school are doing so, and worse, many don’t seem to be logging on to school systems and are slipping off the radar.
There is evidence to suggest that child sex abusers are finding ways to reach children online, aware that the lockdown will increase their screen time.
The Government is committed to supporting these groups and has committed £160m in additional funding for domestic abuse
charities to be distributed at a local level.
But there is more that could be done.
Extra resources must be provided to social workers to establish and sustain contact with hard-to-reach families during the
lockdown.
There needs to be more creativity in domestic abuse responses – since many victims cannot pick up the phone to the police with their abuser in the home.
Supermarket help points are one idea, but the role of friends and neighbours is also critical.
Our report on this will be published at the end of this week.
As Parliament meets this week – ‘virtually’ for the first time in its 700-year history – I’ll be pressing the Government on support for West Berkshire’s businesses, health services and residents.
But it will also be these invisible victims, hidden away behind closed doors, that I will be speaking for.
Because “getting through this together” includes everyone, particularly those without a voice.