Legal Aid, Sentencing & Punishment of Offenders Bill — Civil Legal Aid For Domestic Abuse Victims — 17 Apr 2012 at 20:15

The majority of MPs voted against specifying in primary legislation what counts as evidence that domestic abuse has occurred and so entitles the victim to civil legal aid.

MPs were considering the Legal Aid, Sentencing & Punishment of Offenders Bill[1]. The motion passed in this vote was:

  • That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 194

Lords amendment 194, which was rejected in this vote was[2][3]:

  • Page 121, line 31, at end insert—
  • “( ) For the purposes of this paragraph, evidence that abuse has occurred may consist of one or more of the following (without limitation)—
  • (a) a relevant court conviction or police caution;
  • (b) a relevant court order (including without notice, ex parte, interim or final orders), including a non-molestation undertaking or order, occupation order, forced marriage protection order or other protective injunction;

The above would have been added to the end of section 10 of Schedule 1 of the Bill titled "Victims of domestic violence and family matters" which defines when civil legal aid would be provided to victims of domestic abuse.

The explanatory notes[4] describe the effect of the rejected amendment 194 as follows:

  • Lords Amendment 194 would place on the face of the Bill a list of the forms of evidence that would be accepted as demonstrating domestic violence against an individual for the purpose of that individual’s qualifying for legal aid in private family law proceedings, rather than leaving this matter to be covered in regulations.

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Debate in Parliament | Source |

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Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (Aye)Minority (No)BothTurnout
Alliance0 10100.0%
Con251 (+1 tell) 0082.4%
DUP8 00100.0%
Green0 10100.0%
Independent0 10100.0%
Lab0 234 (+2 tell)091.8%
LDem43 (+1 tell) 0077.2%
PC0 30100.0%
Respect0 10100.0%
SDLP0 2066.7%
Total:302 243086.1%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
no rebellions

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