Ms Carol Baxter:

The Government is very committed to the introduction of domestic violence leave. This is a groundbreaking and key achievement. In developing leave we have to be very conscious of practices in other jurisdictions and a range of considerations. Five days has been put forward because it reflects the practice in a range of jurisdictions. The introduction of such leave enables a range of purposes to be achieved in terms of going to court, medical appointments and so on.

The reason we are talking about a review is that it is very hard to know at this stage how much leave somebody will need. This is a relatively untested area. At the same time, we have to be mindful of the business needs of employers. That is why it seemed reasonable to start with five days, which achieves quite a lot. It enables the victim, who is a very important person in this process, to undertake a range of things and protect himself or herself in the context of the experience of domestic violence while, from an employer's point of view, having regard to business needs. My colleague will speak about the definition of "employee", which was a particular concern of Deputies.