Victims and Prisoners Bill (Ninth sitting)
Tuesday 4th July 2023
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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The Chair
Before we start, I have a few preliminary reminders: switch off electronic devices or turn them to silent; no food or drink, except for the water provided, is permitted in this sitting; and send your speaking notes to [email protected], or pass them to Hansard colleagues in the room.
Clause 16
Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie.
Clause 16 raises the profile of the Victims’ Commissioner, a vital and powerful voice for victims. Previous office holders—we have spoken of them in previous sittings: Louise Casey, Helen Newlove and Vera Baird—have all been dedicated in speaking up for the needs of all victims and witnesses, especially the most vulnerable.
The Victims’ Commissioner plays a crucial role in advising national policymaking, raising awareness of the common issues faced by victims and witnesses, conducting research, and assessing how the criminal justice and victim support agencies comply with the code. However, in the 2021 victims consultation, we heard that the commissioner requires further powers to effectively carry out their duties.
The clause introduces a requirement for the Victims’ Commissioner to lay their annual report in Parliament, which will give greater prominence to the report and amplify victims’ voices. It also bolsters the status of all Victims’ Commissioner reports by requiring Departments and agencies under the remit of the Victims’ Commissioner to respond to recommendations directed at them in all published reports within 56 days. They must say what action they plan to take in response to the report or explain why no action will be taken.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
Will the Minister give way on that point?
Maria Eagle
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way so early in his remarks. Does he agree that for a Victims’ Commissioner to be effective, they have to be in post? Can he give us an update on how the recruitment of Dame Vera Baird’s successor is going? There has now been a gap between Dame Vera leaving and whoever the new postholder is to be taking up their post.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her intervention; I said that I thought that I could predict her question, and I did—in my head—with a fair degree of accuracy. I gently refer her to the response that I gave to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff North, in our deliberations last week. This is a hugely important post, as the right hon. Lady highlighted in her intervention, and it is right that we take it seriously and get it right.
I suspect that Opposition Members may raise wry smiles at this, but we have had a number of Lord Chancellors in the past year. The Victims’ Commissioner is an important post to which a Lord Chancellor can recommend an appointment to the Prime Minister. The current Lord Chancellor has been in post for a few months now, and he wants to ensure that he reviews the situation and gets it right so that he is happy with the postholder, but he shares my view—and indeed that of the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood—that it is important that we get this done properly and as swiftly as possible.
The proposals in clause 16 will better hold agencies to account and ensure that they are actively considering victims’ experiences and how they can be improved. The clause also adds to the list of agencies that the Victims’ Commissioner may make recommendations about, crucially adding police and crime commissioners and the criminal justice inspectorates.
As set out previously, the Bill also puts in place mechanisms to improve the processes for monitoring compliance with the victims code, both locally and nationally. The Victims’ Commissioner is expected to have an important voice in those discussions, where systemic issues have been escalated, so that action can be taken to drive improvements. Together, the measures add to the existing broad Victims’ Commissioner powers, allowing the Victims’ Commissioner to tailor their role as they see fit to achieve their functions and outcomes for victims. We expect that that will result in better treatment of victims at both local and national levels, fulfilling the most important function of the Victims’ Commissioner.
As set out in previous Committee sittings, and as I said to the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood, a recruitment process is under way, and we take it extremely seriously. With that in mind, I commend clause 16 to the Committee.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for addressing the clause. As I have already outlined, regarding my previous amendments that would have strengthened the powers and authority of the Victims’ Commissioner, we fully support the function of a robust and independent Victims’ Commissioner. We first asked for a provision to grant the commissioner a statutory duty to prepare and issue a report to lay before Parliament in early 2021, so I am glad that the Government have finally caught up and heeded our calls.
We believe that victims’ rights should be a parliamentary responsibility, and I am pleased that the report will not just go to the Secretary of State. During the evidence sessions, Dame Vera raised her concerns about the efficacy of the data that will be available to the commissioner for the purposes of their report—something that I have also raised in debates on earlier amendments. Will the Minister outline how a future Victims’ Commissioner, when appointed, will receive the appropriate data and information to allow for independent scrutiny? The Bill at present fails to do that.
The Victims’ Commissioner’s powers under clause 16 do not go far enough in ensuring that victims have a steady, reliable voice that criminal justice agencies and the Government must listen to. Granting agencies the duty to respond to the commissioner’s recommendations is a welcome first step, but how will the Government ensure that agencies respond and comply? I understand that the Domestic Abuse Commissioner is still waiting for a response to their “Safety Before Status” report five months after the deadline. Can the Minister explain why the Government do not believe it is necessary to respect the powers of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and respond to such a pivotal report? Can he reassure all of us here that exactly the same practice will not just happen again to the Victims’ Commissioner?
Edward Argar
There were a number of points there, to which I will respond swiftly for the benefit of the Committee. I note the point made by the shadow Minister about having asked for such provision in 2021. In a gentle way, I must say that she was beaten to it—by Dame Vera, in fact; she and I had discussions about how that might happen in 2018-2019, just before I was reshuffled to the Department of Health and Social Care, so I am pleased to see the measure before us today.
The Bill already contains data transparency provisions and a duty on the Secretary of State and others to publish the data at both a local and national level. That will give a huge additional layer of data granularity for not just the Victims’ Commissioner, but others, including Members of this House, to scrutinise.
I turn to the duty to respond. I suggested to the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood that I had predicted her question. I thought this could have been the other question she might have gently sent in my direction—about the “Safety Before Status” report and the response time to it. I note that the other report by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner was responded to. We always seek to respond within the timelines set out. As the hon. Member for Cardiff North will be aware, that particular report is a matter for the Home Office, but I will ensure that my colleagues in the Home Office are made aware of her remarks.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 16 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 17
His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to debate clauses 18 to 20 stand part. [Interruption.] I will speak more slowly between clauses next time so that the Minister can find his notes.
Edward Argar
As the day goes on, Mr Hosie, I get more dextrous when it comes to finding the right piece of paper to respond to interventions or, indeed, to your swift running of the Committee.
These clauses have been grouped together, because while each separate clause relates to each of the separate criminal justice inspectorates in turn, they all introduce the same measures. Each of the inspectorates named in the legislation has a role in the oversight of victim treatment in the criminal justice agencies they inspect. His Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons oversees the responsibilities prisons have to victims, and His Majesty’s inspectorate of probation oversees the delivery of probation’s responsibilities towards victims. That includes the victim contact scheme and the role of probation in protecting the public and keeping victims safe.
His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services oversees the delivery of the police’s responsibilities towards victims, including how forces protect vulnerable people and the service provided to victims throughout their engagement with police. His Majesty’s chief inspectorate of the Crown Prosecution Service oversees the delivery of the CPS’s responsibilities towards victims, including the victims communication and liaison scheme and the service provided to certain groups, such as victims of domestic abuse. Increasing transparency around the performance of criminal justice agencies and ensuring clear oversight when victims are treated poorly are both integral parts of driving improvements for victims. In delivering these aims, the inspectorates’ diligent reporting on the efficiency and effectiveness of criminal justice agencies is vital, and we fully recognise the importance of their work in ensuring victims are treated as they should be.
The inspectorates play a key role in scrutinising the performance of the agencies that they inspect and monitoring the delivery of recommendations, utilising tools such as re-inspections where required. Their work promotes effective practice, challenges poor performance and encourages improvement. We want to build on that foundation to deliver further progress for victims, with clauses 17 to 20 bolstering the inspectorates to enhance victim focus in their work.
The clauses will achieve that by empowering Ministers to jointly direct that a joint inspection programme must include provision for the inspection of victims’ issues, creating a sharper focus on how victims are treated and where to focus improvements. That new power will be an addition to existing ministerial powers to drive improvements with regard to code compliance. They will also be able to use the newly collected and shared code compliance information that we touched on in the debate on the previous clause to inform the use of the power. Joint inspections will involve the inspectorates working together to address cross-cutting systemic issues that impact victims and their experience of the criminal justice system.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend join me in particularly welcoming the inclusion of His Majesty’s chief inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service, given that many victims’ experiences—sometimes adverse experiences—of the criminal justice system occur in the courts? Of course, it is not for us to tell the judiciary what it should do, as we have been reminded during the passage of the Bill. There is not an inspectorate of the court service in the same way, so does my hon. Friend agree that the inspectorate of the CPS can, to some extent, fulfil the role of improving the experience of victims through the court process?
Edward Argar
When I see my hon. Friend rise to ask a question, I always look at him with a degree of trepidation, because he knows of which he speaks, having for many years served in the youth justice system. He is right that, as well as the judiciary being independent, and that independence being, quite rightly, jealously protected, so too are individual prosecution decisions by the CPS. His Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service inspectorate, exactly as he says, has the potential to make a huge impact here, because we often hear from many victims that the court stage of the process of seeking justice can be very challenging for them. The clauses will ensure that victims’ issues are comprehensively assessed, with associated action plans driving improvements so that victims receive the service they deserve.
Maria Eagle
I am having a look again at the report of the Justice Committee—the pre-legislative scrutiny of what has ended up being the first part of the Bill. The Select Committee raised the issue that the general difficulty that inspectorates have relates to having levers available to them to ensure that their recommendations, if they are even accepted, are implemented. The inspectorates all use different methodologies. I wonder whether the Government have developed any plans to ensure that the inspections that he is legislating for give levers to the inspectorates, so that we do not merely get what often happens now, which is repeated reports making the same points, with the inspectorates having no way, even if their recommendations are accepted, of ensuring that anything is done about them.
Edward Argar
The right hon. Lady makes a couple of important points. First, on the different methodologies, while I expect that we will want to see consistency in the application of principles to them, I suspect that, by the nature of what they are inspecting and the independence of each of the inspectorates, there will be some tailoring and divergence in how they operate in terms of their inspections.
On the right hon. Lady’s broader point, which I think was the thrust of her intervention, and the PLS point about how inspectorates get traction with their recommendations, we have set out in debates that we would expect the recommendations to be responded to and acted upon, but ultimately it will be for those who are accountable for running the individual services, be they Ministers, the Director of Public Prosecutions, or ultimately the Attorney General in the case of the CPS, to heed those recommendations and act on them.
I think that it is right that Ministers respond to, for example, the recommendations of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, which answers directly to the Prisons Minister, and ultimately to the Secretary of State, but it would not necessarily be appropriate if Ministers were compelled to enact every recommendation without consideration. It is right that there is a degree of agency for the Secretary of State, for which of course they are accountable to this House and to hon. Members.
I suspect that if there were sensible recommendations to be made and a Secretary of State ignored them, the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood would be one of the first to challenge them on the matter in this House. I think the provision strikes an appropriate balance. Any Secretary of State or agency head who did not give careful consideration to the recommendations of an inspectorate would be—“reckless” is the wrong word, so let’s say “courageous”, in the language of Sir Humphrey.
To conclude, the clauses require the inspectorates to consult the Victims’ Commissioner when developing their inspection programmes and frameworks. That will ensure that the commissioner can advocate for what matters most to victims, with their invaluable insight considered throughout the consultation process. Centring the victim experience in this way will promote positive change across the criminal justice agencies that are inspected. I commend the clauses to the Committee.
Anna McMorrin
It is clear from my previous amendments to the Bill on expanding the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner that the commissioner should be widely consulted for the majority of matters in the victims code. I am pleased that the Government have accepted the recommendation following pre-legislative scrutiny by the Justice Committee to place a duty on criminal justice inspectorates to consult the commissioner when developing their work programmes and frameworks to drive improvements, because it is the victims’ experiences and what they go through that matter.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood was absolutely right when she emphasised, as the Select Committee set out, that the inspectorates need the levers to act when these issues are pointed out. It is imperative that a formal consultative role is established as only some inspectorates routinely consult the Victims’ Commissioner. I welcome this provision, but would like to see that point emphasised.
Edward Argar
When responding to the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood, I should have thanked and paid tribute to the work of the Justice Committee for its pre-legislative scrutiny, which played a huge role in improving the original clauses and drafting of this part.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 17 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 18 to 20 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 21
Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Edward Argar
Clause 21 simplifies the process for victims of crime to escalate complaints about their experiences as a victim. The policies and approach introduced in the legislation will lead to improved experiences for victims, but if things do go wrong, the clause will help them raise their concerns more easily and seek redress. It does that by giving victims the ability to complain directly to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, rather than referring their complaint through an MP, where their complaint relates to their experience as a victim of crime. Victims may either make a complaint themselves or do so through a nominated representative, such as a friend or relative.
The change addresses a concern that some would call the “MP filter”, which may be a barrier for victims and deter them from escalating complaints against public bodies due to a complicated and intimidating process. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House respond swiftly and sensitively to ombudsman forms that they are sent by their constituents in cases that come before them, and that all Members seek to assist their constituents in that respect. However, we are seeking to simplify this process further. Given the nature of complaints that may arise in this context, it is possible that some victims may not feel comfortable approaching their MP to share a potentially traumatic experience. I hope they would, but I appreciate some may not.
The PHSO is an independent complaint-handling service with extensive expertise in driving improvements in public services and identifying the most appropriate route for redress. When it decides that an organisation has not acted properly, it can recommend that the organisation prevents the issue from occurring in the future, acknowledges its mistakes, issues an apology or makes a payment to the complainant, or all of the above. It may also follow up to check that action has been taken and report to Parliament where an organisation has failed to follow recommendations, and that, of course, is central to improving activity and delivery. It is therefore important that complainants feel confident and comfortable when making a complaint, to encourage them to do so when needed and, as a consequence, to prevent similar issues in the future.
Anna McMorrin
There have been calls for some years to remove the MP filter so that victims who want to complain do not have to go through their MP. I met the ombudsman in July last year, and they made it clear how essential it was for the MP filter to be removed, so I am glad the Minister has outlined this proposal and finally conceded the point.
This move has widespread approval both inside and outside Parliament, but it is long overdue. The Government introduced a draft Bill back in December 2016 to remove the MP filter. How many victims could have sought support directly from the ombudsman in the last six years had the Government followed through with that Bill? That is not to mention the fact that the MP filter was intended as a temporary measure to be phased out after five years when first introduced in 1967. Yet here we are in 2023.
I also echo the ombudsman’s further request to allow victims to make a complaint in formats other than in writing. The Government’s response to the Justice Committee was that complainants can nominate someone else, such as a family member, to submit the complaint for them. However, there is a consensus that that does not go far enough in ensuring that everyone has adequate access to this vital public body.
The ombudsman’s consultation response on the Bill outlined the issue using a case in which the complainant stated they found the system difficult to navigate because they could not read or write. There is no guarantee that this individual would be able to nominate someone close to them to handle this incredibly sensitive and very personal issue for them, so I wonder whether the Minister might consider conceding on this point. Finally, it is worth noting that the ombudsman service is not well known among victims of crime, so how will the Government increase its visibility?
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance for, I think, the first time, Mr Hosie. It is not so much that I want to make a speech; it is just that I feel compelled to say thank you to the Minister for moving on this issue.
In the 10 years I have been an MP, I have always felt quite compromised by being another level of the bureaucracy slowing down my constituents in getting through to an ombudsman-type person. That has always felt odd and inappropriate, and it gives false hope and a false understanding that MPs have some involvement in this process. It also took away another tool, but now we can act as lobbyists, as well as having the commissioner in place.
It is good to hear that the individual will have responsibility in terms of the victims code, because we keep asking about accountability and how to make sure the code is applied in an even-handed way geographically. I warmly welcome this change, which is well overdue, and I am glad the Bill is bringing it forwards.
Maria Eagle
I also approve of the fact that the MP filter is going, but it has had some advantages. They have, perhaps, paled in comparison with the disadvantages, but I have always found when assisting constituents that the filter makes it possible to ensure that the application is in a fit state. It is not always easy these days to get separate advice—a lot of the advice agencies are not operating in the way they were—and I have frequently seen constituents’ applications that could be better set out and, perhaps, that could make the points that I know about, because I know the case, more persuasively. I think there is an issue about quality in that sense.
I know that the ombudsman is set up to find out what has really gone on and treat the person making the application fairly, but it is constrained by what is written in the application and the documents that have been sent. Many people who want to complain are very involved in their case and do not necessarily put it in the strongest possible manner.
In the past, I have not referred cases to the ombudsman when it has been absolutely clear to me that they will not succeed. In part, that is because, in a way, I am in a better position to explain to my constituent why they will not succeed and to make sure that they do not have false hope. I am clear with them that I am not going to send a case forward to the ombudsman if I absolutely know that it will not succeed, because that will not do them any favours. One can imagine that more cases may come to the ombudsman that are not going to succeed.
Sarah Champion
I hear my right hon. Friend’s point about being that first filter, but does she think it is fair that we are put in that position? I understand what she says about cases going forward that might not be appropriate, but I have never felt easy about that being my role.
Maria Eagle
I understand my hon. Friend’s point. Indeed, when I first came into Parliament many moons ago, that was how it worked; it was just one of those roles that one had, and so one tried to make the best of it. If there is a chance of deterring a case that has absolutely no chance of success and is not going to help the constituent concerned because it is inevitable that they will not get what they want, then perhaps having the MP there to explain it helps. There is no doubt that one can become a lightning rod for annoyance in those circumstances, and that is not a happy place to be.
I prefaced my remarks by saying that I approve of the MP filter going, but I think that there is an issue here that a greater number of cases that are less well prepared and have no chance of succeeding may go forward to the ombudsman. I wonder what the Minister is going to do, both on providing resources for the parliamentary commissioner and on providing the public with information and, perhaps, other ways of getting advice in completing applications, to ensure that the intent of this positive legislative change will not be overshadowed by some of its potential consequences.
Edward Argar
I also met Rob Behrens, the ombudsman, and I pay tribute to him and his team for their work. I am pleased by the broad consensus in the Committee. I note what the shadow Minister said; all I will say is that I am bringing this measure forward and that I am grateful for her support.
I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for her kind words. It is always a pleasure to do political business with her, if I may put it that way. I sometimes wish that some of what happens in Committee Rooms was rather better publicised. People watch Prime Minister’s questions and think that is everything that happens, whereas in fact there is quite a lot of constructive to and fro in rooms such as this when we are seeking to improve legislation.
As ever, the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood makes a very important point. When we seek to change or influence something in this place, there is rarely a simple, binary choice between an unadulterated good, without any downsides, and an unadulterated bad, without any upsides. On balance, I believe that we are taking the right approach and that the positives significantly outweigh the negatives, but she is right to highlight the challenges. Not only can a Member of Parliament sometimes help to strengthen an application before it is made, but it can be useful to an MP to see applications so that they know if there is an issue. If there are suddenly two or three about the same organisation and the same issue, that aids Member of Parliament in standing up in the House to challenge a Minister, or to hold an agency to account about what may be a more systemic problem.
That said, I do not think that the approach that we are adopting would preclude someone from seeking advice from a Member of Parliament if they so wished as they prepared their form. Some of my constituents have found the ombudsman service quite helpful, not in prejudging a case but in giving some pretty good advice when they ask, “What do I need to submit with it?” There is also some pretty good advice on the service’s website.
Ultimately, the clause should make it easier for people to complain, but I agree with the right hon. Lady that we need to provide support to ensure that they can make their best complaint, if that makes sense, to the ombudsman, in order to give them the best chance of having it looked at in the best possible light. I will take away the point that she makes, and reflect on whether we can do more as Government, and as parliamentarians, to promote awareness of the PHSO route, and how we might better support people in going through it.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 21 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 12
Duty to collaborate in exercise of victim support functions
Sarah Champion
I beg to move amendment 89, in clause 12, page 10, line 5, at end insert——
“(1A) For the purposes of this section, the relevant authorities for a police area in England must together conduct a joint strategic needs assessment.
(1B) The Secretary of State must, drawing on assessments prepared under subsection (1A), provide a statement every three years on current support for victims of domestic abuse, including—
(a) volume of current provision,
(b) levels of need, and
(c) investment.”
Amendment 89 requires the relevant authority for a police area in England to conduct a join strategic needs assessment. The amendment is supported by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner Nicole Jacobs, and I thank her and her team for both the evidence that she submitted and her help with the amendment. Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 made great strides by placing a duty to plan and provide accommodation-based support for survivors of domestic abuse, including their children. However, there is no such duty for other essential community-based services, such as counselling, therapeutic support and advocacy, which are vital for survivors to find safety and recover from abuse.
In November last year, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner released the findings from her mapping of domestic abuse services across England and Wales, titled “A Patchwork of Provision”. She found that most victims and survivors wanted some form of community-based support. For example, 83% wanted counselling and therapeutic support, 74% wanted one-to-one support, such as a caseworker, and 65% wanted mental health care. There is a clear need for a range of community-based services, and a duty to collaborate would be a step forward in helping to co-ordinate the response.
However, victims and survivors are diverse, and so are their needs, which all too often are not being met. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s report found a huge discrepancy in the provision of services across England and Wales, and an acute lack of funding, particularly among “by and for” services. Fewer than half of survivors were able to access the community-based support that they wanted. Only 35% said that accessing help was easy or straightforward. Over 70% of survivors who wanted support for their children were unable to access it, and only 7% of survivors who wanted their perpetrator to receive support to change their behaviour was able to get it.
Only 23% of survivors who wanted help to stay in work were able to get it, and just 27% who wanted help with money problems or debt received it. The mapping highlighted how effective and critical such services are in supporting victims and survivors of domestic abuse, but over a quarter of domestic abuse services were forced to cease some services altogether due to a lack of funding. Among “by and for” organisations, that rose to 45%. For children, who are recognised as victims in their own right for the first time in the Domestic Abuse Act, the Bill becomes empty legislation unless there is funding to provide services for them, or structures in place to understand their needs and provision.
The duty to collaborate will make some progress in responding to that need. However, I am unsure how a local strategy can have any material and substantial impact without a joint strategic needs assessment, which I will refer to as a JSNA from this point forwards. JSNAs draw from data to create a description of the place and population, taking into account the social, demographic and economic characteristics of the population in that area. They identify risk and protective factors to ensure effective commissioning. They provide the multi-agency partnership with important information to inform local initiatives, including data and typologies of domestic abuse, trends, volume, extent and distribution.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her amendment, which, as she set out, would require relevant authorities for a police area to conduct a joint strategic needs assessment—I may adopt the same shorthand as she did in order to save words—as part of their obligations under the duty to collaborate to inform the strategy for commissioning victim support services. The amendment would also require the Secretary of State to use the assessments to publish a statement every three years on the current support for victims of domestic abuse, using the needs assessments to assess whether provision is in line with need.
The hon. Lady is quite right to highlight the importance of service provision for such victims and survivors. It is something that she has championed, and that with passion and experience the shadow Home Office Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, has raised on every occasion in this House when she has had the opportunity since we were both elected together in 2015; I pay tribute to her for her work in this space.
It is vital that we have the relevant support services to fit the local needs of victims and that a bespoke approach is taken, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach set at a national level. That is why the funding system for victim support services operates as it does. I sometimes fear that some of the debate around duties to fund specific individual services slightly risks over-constraining individual local commissioners in their ability to meet the needs of their particular communities and to ensure that there is an appropriate blend of services, be they general services, “by and for” services or very specific services, so I sound a slight note of caution there. Of course, when it comes to overall funding—I suspect we may touch on this in subsequent debates—in the Government’s view the spending review, rather than individual legislation, is the right place to set such funding limits.
Grants and funding are supplied to PCCs to allow them to use their knowledge of local need and provision to choose what they fund. As part of the process, relevant local needs assessments that indicate the needs of victims already take place regularly as part of good commissioning practice. The grant funding is provided to commission practical, emotional and therapeutic support services for victims of all types of crime in their local areas. PCCs are expected to carry out needs assessments, which will allow them to target the funding and ascertain the level of need and demand in their area.
Sarah Champion
I am listening intently to what the Minister is saying. For clarification, I am not asking for a prescription like, “Five per cent. of support goes to people with dogs.” What I am saying is that authorities need a robust understanding of their demographics so that they are able to justify that they are supporting the needs in their areas. As the Minister has moved on to PCCs, will he comment on whether he believes that system is working? PCCs are individuals—political appointments—and I wonder whether that is leading to some of the subjective delivery we are seeing nationally, which I know he seeks to address.
Edward Argar
The hon. Lady makes a couple of points. First, my remarks a moment ago were made in the context of the broader debate that can often happen around the funding of services. To her specific point, I fear I may detain the Committee a little while, but I suspect I will address her points within that context.
Police and crime commissioners are directly elected and therefore accountable to their communities, but there is always—I suspect that, under any Government of any political complexion, there will always be—the perennial debate of how to strike the appropriate balance: local flexibility and tailoring to meet local needs, versus the challenge of how to achieve a degree of consistency and avoid the so-called—this is a dreadful phrase— postcode lottery. That is always going to be a tension within the system. The challenge for us all, whichever side of the House we sit on, is how to strike the appropriate balance between those two approaches: the national and consistent approach, versus a degree of local tailoring, which reflects not only local need but political decision making by police and crime commissioners.
Sarah Champion
As the Minister knows, I am trying to help. Would it not help the Secretary of State and the Government if an agreed baseline of data was collected? A region may push back on it, but it gives the Government a guide to see whether an area is succeeding or failing, and whether they need to be asking questions. For example, we do the same thing with ambulance times—we have that baseline. There will be local variations that can be discussed with the Secretary of State, but the baseline gives the Minister the opportunity to make investigations.
Edward Argar
I reassure the hon. Lady that if she allows me to develop my point a little, I will address her specific JSNA point before I conclude.
As the hon. Lady will be aware, we published our victims funding strategy last May. I am pleased that that was published, not least because I set it in train back in 2018 when I was last a Minister in the Department. I am pleased that it has seen sunlight. The strategy provides a framework for how agencies should work together to best resource the victim support sector. Within it, there is a clear expectation that commissioners carry out regular needs assessments, using all the data required to commission appropriate services for victims in their areas, including victims with tailored needs. The duty to collaborate in the Bill, which the hon. Lady touched on, is clear that relevant agencies must work together to ensure that services that meet local needs are commissioned and provided for.
Clause 13(3) requires relevant authorities to have regard to any assessment of the needs of victims that they have already carried out when preparing their joint strategy. We will be issuing statutory guidance to accompany that duty. That will set out clear expectations for how the duty should be carried out, as well as good practice, including around data and consistency of data. The guidance will set out that relevant authorities are expected to explain in their joint commissioning strategy how they have had regard to the relevant needs assessments, and how commissioning decisions meet those needs.
I understand the points made by the hon. Lady, both in her opening remarks and in her interventions. I share her view that support services have to be commissioned in line with, and reflect, genuine need. That is why we have created the duty. To a degree, it reflects the duty created under the Health and Care Act 2022 for integrated care boards and integrated care systems in that context. We should allow local flexibility in the services that are offered but seek to avoid duplication and gaps where multiple agencies commission the same service in some spaces and nothing is commissioned in others. It is a cornerstone of the duty that local needs must be assessed and considered. For those reasons, we do not believe that the amendment is required to clearly state that a joint needs assessment must be considered, but I have a few more remarks to reassure the hon. Lady.
Subsection (1B) of amendment 89 would require the Secretary of State to provide a statement every three years on the current support available for victims of domestic abuse, including the volume of provision, levels of need and investment. The Department receives regular monitoring returns from PCCs and the support services that we commission. The returns include data that indicates how many victims are seeking support, and provide insight into demand and levels of need across England and Wales, which informs national commissioning decisions.
We are committed to improving our understanding of need and the impact of funding at a national level. To do that, we have introduced core metrics and outcomes to be collected from all victim support services that are commissioned through Government funding streams as part of the victims funding strategy. We will also establish an oversight board to monitor them.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
The trouble with the data that the Minister is describing is that it will not be all the data in a local area if it just comes from a PCC, because the vast majority of community-based services for victims of domestic and sexual violence come from a local authority. Unless that data is all pulled together with a joint needs assessment, the Minister, up here in this ivory tower, will get only a tiny fraction of the reality.
Edward Argar
The shadow Minister highlights one of the issues that we grappled with in the course of drafting the victims funding strategy. I pay tribute to the Domestic Abuse Commissioner for her work in trying to grapple with this issue as well. I am talking about trying to get an understanding of what is provided in a given locality, not just from the money provided by central Government—we can track that and see what is commissioned—but through local authorities and, in some cases, although I suspect it is not a huge amount, elements of NHS service provision.
Edward Argar
I take the hon. Lady’s point. I am no longer a Health Minister, but I suspect that were I ever to be so lucky as to be reshuffled back into that role, she would gently, or perhaps less gently, lobby me on that point. Of course, there is also the provision of services that are not funded by a statutory body but are voluntarily supported and funded. That is not to say that that is a reason not to fund services statutorily; equally, in regard to understanding the provision locally, it is important to understand all aspects of that provision.
I will turn to the JSNA—
Sarah Champion
You probably will in an hour or so. [Laughter.] I do not want to push the amendment to a vote, but I would like the clarity that will prevent me from doing so. Is the Minister saying that in the statutory guidance he will require or ask for data not only from the PCCs but from the local authority, the NHS and—one hopes—community services?
Edward Argar
I suspect that I have but two or three minutes more, and I hope that in that time I will be able to address adequately the hon. Lady’s concerns. The funding strategy’s oversight board will review collected data returns to establish where there are obvious gaps in current funding, where we may be duplicating funding across Government and where we could improve collaboration at national level to improve services for victims. The duty to collaborate will further improve our—
Sarah Champion
Minister, I think you have an hour, not two minutes, so please take your time.
Edward Argar
I will not test your patience in that way on a Tuesday morning, Mr Hosie.
The duty to collaborate will further improve our understanding of both local need and the services commissioned for victims of not only domestic abuse but sexual abuse and other serious violence offences. The publication of the joint commissioning strategies will give valuable insight into the levels of service that victims are receiving in each police area across England and an assessment of how areas are making improvements against local objectives or key performance indicators. An oversight forum will then scrutinise those strategies, assess how well the duty is executed nationally, share best practice and help to devise plans for improvement.
A national statement every three years focused solely on domestic abuse would not in itself hugely build on the understanding that the Secretary of State already has through existing mechanisms or necessarily better help local areas to understand need. The strategies published under the duty to collaborate will instead provide information of the type, or a large amount of it, that the hon. Member for Rotherham is asking for—that is, on the volume of provision, levels of need, and investment—for not only domestic abuse but sexual abuse and other serious violent offences more broadly, and with the important local context that is useful for commissioners. I therefore encourage the hon. Lady not to press the amendment to a Division, as the Secretary of State will in effect have access to all the information that she asks for. However, although I am—
Edward Argar
I give way to the shadow Minister, but let us hope she does not dissuade me from what I am about to say.
Jess Phillips
I do not wish to dissuade the Minister. In my local area, there is a “by and for” service that is run specifically for Afghan women, that is completely funded, usually, by the will of volunteers, and that is dealing every year with hundreds of cases of Afghan women who are victims of domestic abuse, and it does not get its funding from any of these sources. How will the Secretary of State know that that is an issue?
Edward Argar
The hon. Lady did not quite succeed in dissuading me from what I was about to say, which is that although I am unable to accept the hon. Member for Rotherham’s JSNA amendment at this time, I will reflect very carefully on its import and what she said, and particularly on the words of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner in the oral evidence we heard, and in the context of the points made by the hon. Members for Birmingham, Yardley and for Rotherham about the challenges in understanding service provision when that is not funded through a national or a public funding stream.
I cannot commit further than that, but I will commit to reflecting very carefully, between Committee stage—as this is a carry-over Bill, we will have a few months—and before it returns to the House on Report, on the points that the hon. Members and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner have made very eloquently.
Sarah Champion
I apologise for testing your kind patience, Mr Hosie. While the Minister is in a reflective mood, I hope he will also reflect on the financial and time commitments that might be placed on organisations, and try to ensure that we get the data we need with the lightest of touches. I am grateful for his movement on the issue, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Jess Phillips
I beg to move amendment 80, in clause 12, page 10, line 16, at end insert—
“(3A) In discharging their duty under this section, relevant authorities must collaborate with specialist women’s community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support services within the police area, as commissioned under section [Commissioning of specialist women’s community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support services].”
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 19—Commissioning of specialist women’s community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support services—
“(1) It is the duty of relevant local authorities to commission specialist women’s community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support services for victims in accordance with need.
(2) The services provided under subsection (1) must include, but are not limited to—
(a) counselling and other psychological support,
(b) advice and advocacy support in relation to welfare benefits, debt and access to financial support,
(c) support for children affected by domestic abuse,
(d) legal advice,
(e) victims helplines,
(f) support for victims of domestic abuse, sexual violence, trafficking or modern slavery who offend as a result of that abuse,
(g) perpetrator programmes with a priority outcome of increased safety and freedom for victims,
(h) support for victims of elder abuse,
(i) support for victims of stalking,
(j) support for families where a relative has died by suicide following domestic abuse,
(k) support for victims of modern slavery and trafficking,
(l) support for so-called ‘honour-based’ abuse victims,
(m) outreach and education initiatives aimed at raising awareness of domestic abuse and sexual violence, and
(n) ‘By and For’ services that support individuals with protected characteristics.
(3) In discharging the duty under this section, the relevant local authorities must have particular regard to the need for such services provided by, and for the benefit of those with protected characteristics.
(4) The Secretary of State must by regulations—
(a) define ‘specialist community based services’ in collaboration with the violence against women and girls sector, and
(b) set out how providers are to be regulated.”
Jess Phillips
I apologise for my lateness, Mr Hosie. I am suffering from a weird bout of dizziness, which I have never had before in my life.
Jess Phillips
I will attempt to stand, but should I need to sit down I will. I am fine if I just stand still.
Unsurprisingly, I will follow on from the theme of my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham regarding exactly how the very welcome duties around domestic abuse and sexual violence will work in practice. I am afraid that the Bill runs the risk of having a good title—obviously I preferred it when it just had the word “victims” in it—but not much else in this space. No one is not on the side of victims. Everyone wants them to be looked after and cared for. The problem, as is so often the case, is that the devil is in the detail. The support, care and provision of services that victims need are specialist, tailored guidance and support in the face of tragedy, abuse, exploitation, fear, anger and loss. I tabled the amendment and new clause in recognition of the specialist services that are needed if we are to truly deliver on the promised principles of the Bill.
My commitment to specialist services and my desire to get specialisms written into the law is, and will be, lifelong, because I have watched as generic services have taken over from specialist support-based services. In my constituency, I have seen a case where the perpetrator is being supported by the same service as the victim, which is both unethical and dangerous. That happens because there are all-encompassing, non-specialist victims-based services rather than specialist women’s services. I gently point out to all Government Committee members that there is a huge desire from the Government to talk about women-only spaces. I notice that it is politically expedient to talk about women’s specialisms in some aspects of our politics; if only putting women’s specialisms into the law were such a hot topic. I notice that much less debate goes on about that.
The amendment and new clause would clarify that police and crime commissioners, local authorities and health bodies must commission specialist women’s community services that will provide the support, care, prevention and guidance that victims need. Without specifying the types of services that should be commissioned to best serve victims, the duty will undoubtedly incentivise large generic contracts and not local specialist services—a real risk to which I will return.
First, though, I will make the argument for specialist provision and pay homage to the providers that deliver it. It is easy to make such an argument when we hear of the need, experiences and injuries of victims, and the sheer scale of crimes suffered. We know that such services are currently available to victims. For example, community-based domestic abuse services are life-saving and, crucially, life-building for victims of some of the worst crimes, but an estimated 70% of domestic abuse victims and survivors who seek support rely on community-based services.
In previous Bills such as the Domestic Abuse Bill, the Government have sought to have protections from on high, not from local commissioners. They decided it was more important to make sure that refuge-based accommodation services were provided in all areas. However, they did not put the specialisms in, as I will come to in a minute. Currently, 70% of people are seen by community-based services, so we are touching only a fraction. Refuge, the UK’s largest domestic abuse charity, states that 80% of its thousands of service users access some kind of community-based specialist service, but inconsistent provision across the country means that many survivors are not able to access such support. In 2022, less than 50% of those who wanted to access community-based services were able to.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
We all have female constituents who have been victims and who need community-based services. I have had constituents contacting me who are on a very, very long waiting list. Those specialist services are not there at present. Not only do we need them, but we need the funding to be in place for them.
Jess Phillips
I absolutely agree. In my local area, we have had to shut down waiting lists, and not just because of their length: there have been cases of domestic homicide, where women have been murdered while on a waiting list for services. Those agencies that were not able to provide specialist services then feel the hand of blame coming from the state: because people were dwindling on waiting lists, the agencies get a level of blame for the murder of those women. In the worst possible circumstances, we cannot even operate waiting lists any more. They just shut them.
The care and support that victims and survivors need are specialised and wide-ranging. In new clause 19, we have laid out some of the key services that need to be provided. The mental health impacts of domestic abuse and sexual violence cannot be overestimated, so counselling and other psychological support is central. In Women’s Aid research, almost half of women in refuge reported feeling depressed or having suicidal thoughts as a direct result of the domestic abuse that they experienced. Throughout the journey of the Bill, we have heard the heartbreaking case of Katie, who took her own life following sexual abuse. Katie was a childhood friend of the journalist Charlie Webster, who wrote:
“The thing about the trauma of sexual abuse, it doesn’t just go away. What happened to Katie made her feel worthless like she wasn’t enough, and it impacted her mental health, as is common for all survivors, me including.”
We must ensure that victims can get the help they need.
The organisation Surviving Economic Abuse has done extraordinary work on raising the profile of economic abuse and the devastating, complex impact on domestic abuse victims’ lives. Some 95% of domestic abuse victim-survivors experience economic abuse, and the lack of access to economic resources post separation is the primary reason why women return to an abusive partner. It is crucial that survivors have access to specialist experts who understand economic abuse, as well as advocacy support in relation to welfare benefits and debt and access to financial support to rebuild their lives.
The impact of domestic abuse on children is a shamefully underdeveloped area of policy. Colleagues and I were successful in securing the recognition of children as victims in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, but what does that actually mean in practice? One in seven children and young people under the age of 18 will have lived with domestic violence at some point in their childhood, but the provision of children’s support services nationally is patchy, piecemeal and precarious. I am one of the nation’s leading experts in this, but if a child in my constituency came to me today and said, “I’m not a direct victim of domestic abuse, but my mum is being beaten up by my dad every day,” I would not know where to send them. I would not know where to refer that child.
Sarah Champion
Will the Minister give way? Sorry, I mean the shadow Minister.
Sarah Champion
I wonder whether my hon. Friend heard the “Woman’s Hour” piece last week. Olivia Colman is a trustee of a theatre group that goes into primary schools specifically to raise issues that are uncomfortable, but also to try to give some support to those hidden children who will be seeing domestic abuse and to try to prevent perpetrators in future.
Jess Phillips
Absolutely. That organisation is called Tender; I am also a patron, along with Olivia Colman. Again, that support is only provided through having good headteachers or good local commissioners. There is nothing from this building or nationally that says there must be specialists going into every school, because if in every single school there is a class of 30 kids, and one in seven—my gosh, I am so dizzy that my maths will not work it out, but we will have a huge number of children in every class who suffer this in silence. They need specialist support available to them. We are failing to reach and save children in dire domestic abuse circumstances.
Edward Argar
It is good to see the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, in her seat. I hope she is feeling a bit better, although I am pleased that neither her eloquence nor her passion for the subject has been impaired. I am grateful for her amendments to place a duty on relevant local authorities to create specialist women’s community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support services for victims, in accordance with need. Her new clause 19 would also require the Secretary of State to define in regulations “specialist community based services”, after agreeing that definition in collaboration with the violence against women and girls sector, and to set out in regulations how providers are to be regulated.
Supporting victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence is an absolute priority for the Government. As I said in responding to an earlier group of amendments, I recognise the hon. Lady’s expertise and commitment to the issue. I hope that one thing we can both agree on is the importance of getting the right support for victims of these crimes. She is absolutely right: there is a place for broadly based general support services for victims of crime, but equally I have seen at first hand, both in my current incarnation in this role and previously, the importance of specialist services, particularly “by and for” services and trauma-informed services, if we are to succeed in reaching out to and being able to help victims and survivors of those horrendous crimes and give them the confidence to engage and be supported.
Amendment 80 calls for collaboration with the providers of community-based specialist services for female victims of domestic abuse and sexual abuse. The duty to collaborate set out in clauses 12 and 13 is specifically and purposely placed on the commissioners of services only—that is, police and crime commissioners, local authorities and integrated care boards in England—as it is a duty to collaborate when commissioning services. To expand collaboration beyond commissioners would risk changing the objectives of that duty, which are to encourage more strategic and joined-up commissioning of services, rather than to dictate or fix which types of services the commissioners, who understand the needs of their area best, should focus on and should aim to commission.
I appreciate the hon. Lady’s ambition to ensure that specialist women’s support services are properly considered as part of that commissioning process. As needs will vary locally, the Department provides police and crime commissioners with grant funding to commission practical, emotional and therapeutic support services for victims of all crime types in their local areas. PCCs are expected to carry out needs assessments to inform their local commissioning decisions, as I mentioned in discussing a previous amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Rotherham.
Sarah Champion
This point builds on my previous amendment. Budgets are tight and PCCs are trying to get the most support from their limited budgets. Can the Minister point to anything in the Bill that will make sure that the specialist services get a look-in? My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley touched on generic services, which we were seeing a lot. Brexit was meant to eliminate having to go to the lowest bidder, the European regulations and that sort of stuff. My fear is that unless there is something the Minister can point to in the Bill that embeds that need for both demographic and specialist support services, the PCCs will go for the cheapest, most common provider.
Edward Argar
I slightly differ from the hon. Lady’s perspective; I do not believe that it is necessary to have that provision in the Bill. There are other mechanisms, be they through statutory guidance or through commissioning guidance and the work that is done together. We have touched on this point before, but the challenge is the extent to which we think mandating—and thereby, to a degree, being prescriptive—is appropriate, versus being permissive, for example by setting out guidance and expectations, but saying that it is for a directly elected and accountable police and crime commissioner to make decisions and be accountable to their electorate and their public for what they are doing and whether they are making the right decisions.
Jess Phillips
I understand entirely—I am a firm democrat and I will fight for democracy—but I am afraid the idea that very marginalised groups of people with very little resource could launch a campaign to spark public interest in, say, Lincolnshire to get the 19% of people who voted in the PCC election to change the balance is for the birds. I say that as someone who has tried to do it. I am not entirely sure that PCCs can truly be accountable to their electorates on the issue. If we are seeing gaps, surely it is Parliament’s responsibility to deal with them.
Edward Argar
I was going to make the point that, sitting alongside local accountability and local tailoring, we also have—as the hon. Lady will know, and for want of a better term—a national approach. The context is slightly different, but we have the rape and sexual abuse support fund, for example, which is nationally commissioned. With RASAF, we seek to fill gaps in provision and ensure there is a geographical spread.
I will turn to individual services in a moment, but in any locality a PCC might say, in relation to the point made by the hon. Member for Rotherham, “I have limited resources, so I will put them where the greatest number of victims are in my area.” However, a small number of victims might not be covered by that, because they are a small number in that locality. That is why we have the national approach sitting alongside to ensure that there is national provision in a number of areas.
Jess Phillips
On the idea that there is anywhere in our country where victims of domestic abuse are small in number, let me say that the national average is 19% of all victims of crime, and domestic abuse represents the highest volume of any crime in our country where calls go to the police. I do not expect the Minister to have the data to hand, but I would like to see a PCC’s office that is spending 19% of its budget on this.
Edward Argar
I will see whether I can get that data. On the hon. Lady’s point about the figure of 19%, she is right to highlight the horrifying prevalence of that crime, which often goes unnoticed because of the nature of reporting and the nature of the crime. Moreover, there are particular groups within the figure and within the cohort of victims, for example minorities. A PCC might take the view that in a locality a particular group might need specific trauma-informed services, which, given their choice of resource allocation, might not have been catered for. That is why we seek at national level to try to address such issues with direct funding grants and with agreements that we reach, for example through the RASAF.
Our role as Government is to set the expected standards for the approach to commissioning of victim support services. At a macro level, we have done that through the victims funding strategy, which clearly sets out the expectation for commissioners to put victims at the centre of commissioning. We wholeheartedly agree that commissioners should consider a range of different services, including specialist women’s community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support, and that they should choose to commission services that best fit the needs of their population.
Let me turn to the specifics of the amendment. I am in agreement on the importance of commissioners drawing on the expertise of providers of victim support services when preparing and revising their joint strategies. That is why clause 13(2) specifically requires relevant authorities to consult with persons who represent the interests of victims, providers and other expert organisations. We would expect them to consult with providers of specialist services for female victims of domestic abuse and sexual abuse, as well as “by and for” services in the children’s sector, to name but a few more. However, we do not consider it proportionate to list in legislation organisations with which commissioners must consult, which would risk resulting in a hierarchy of services or unintentionally omitting organisations providing valuable and important services.
In addition, we intend the accompanying statutory guidance to set out that local commissioners should consider engaging with a range of providers that reflect the types of service required in their area, such as women-only services, when considering their statutory duty to consult persons appearing to them to provide relevant victim support services and other appropriate persons. Guidance will also support commissioners by recommending standards and processes for that consultation. We are engaging with both providers and local commissioners as we develop that guidance so that we can reflect best practice, and I would be very happy to work with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley to explore how guidance may further support commissioners in fulfilling their obligations to reflect the views of providers, and those who support victims, in their joint-commissioning strategies.
I reassure the hon. Lady that the Government are fully aware that domestic abuse and sexual violence disproportionately impact women and girls. Beyond the Bill, in February 2023 we published a revised strategic policing requirement, which includes violence against women and girls as a national threat for policing to respond to. In 2021, the Government published a new and ambitious cross-Government tackling violence against women and girls strategy to help to ensure that women and girls are safe everywhere. That includes a new full-time national policing lead on violence against women and girls, DCC Maggie Blyth, who I have had the privilege of meeting; I know that the shadow Minister meets her regularly as well. She is now in post and is doing an excellent job in the role.
We have awarded £125 million through the safer streets fund and the safety of women at night fund to make our streets safer for women and girls. We have contributed up to £3.3 million to fund the roll-out of Domestic Abuse Matters training to police forces. That includes funding the development of a new module to improve charge rates. The Government are also taking targeted action against sexual violence, including through the 24/7 rape and sexual abuse support line, which offers free, confidential emotional support for victims and survivors.
I therefore encourage the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley—I do not know whether she is persuadable—not to press her amendment to a Division. The duty to collaborate focuses only on commissioning bodies, as they are best placed to meet the objectives of our duty. In the Government’s view, the Bill already includes provision for engagement with providers, such as providers of specialist women’s services for domestic abuse and sexual violence, underpinned by the statutory guidance that will be produced.
New clause 19 would place a duty on relevant local authorities to commission specialist women’s community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support services for victims in accordance with need. It would also require the Secretary of State to define in regulations “specialist community based services”, after agreeing that definition in collaboration with the violence against women and girls sector, and to set out in regulations how providers will be regulated.
We do not fully share the hon. Lady’s view about the extent to which local authorities should be required to fund particular types of community-based services; again, that goes to the point underpinning my earlier remarks about it being a local decision for which local authorities would be accountable. In our view, it is for local commissioners to determine what services to fund, noting the additional national strand of direct funding alongside that. That determination will be based on their assessments of the needs of their local populations, knowledge of available services and their understanding of those services and their provision. Our concern is that the approach set out in the new clause risks excluding or minimising the importance of some of the other service types that commissioners could consider for victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence. As drafted, the new clause could risk creating a hierarchy.
On overall funding, we believe that the right approach to setting funding levels continues to be through the spending review process, rather than individual pieces of legislation. That allows Government and individual Departments to outline priorities and respond to changing circumstances; allows the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider a range of funding requests and pressures, recognising the finite amount of taxpayer money available to any Government; and allows those priorities to be considered in the round.
I hasten to add that I am not in any way questioning the importance of these vital services. I have had the privilege of visiting a number of them, both as Under-Secretary of State and in my present role. I have seen at first hand the amazing work that they do. They often go above and beyond the resources that they have available, in their own time and with their own resources, so passionate are those who work in this part of the sector to assist to the best of their ability those who need their help. That is one of the reasons that we have included ringfenced funding in our grants to PCCs for community-based services for victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence.
In allocating money to PCCs, there is always a balance to be struck. Many PCCs, I know, would prefer a greater proportion of their funding to be unringfenced and to be used entirely at their discretion within those broad parameters. We think that we have struck the appropriate balance, with them having a degree of discretion, but with some ringfenced funding to address particular needs.
Sarah Champion
I am listening intently to what the Minister is saying. He says that he is concerned that the list of services put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley has the potential to create a hierarchy of services, but he has only detailed IDVAs and ISVAs further on in the Bill. How does the Minister hold both those thoughts?
Edward Argar
I suspect that when we reach that clause, we will debate that exact point. However, to pre-empt what I will say about that clause—I shall say this briefly before you call me to order, Mr Hosie—the reason is that ISVAs and IDVAs have a particular, evolving and developed professionalism that gives them a particular locus within the criminal justice system. It is quite right that we cannot issue guidance to judges, because they are the independent judiciary, but through this approach to ISVAs and IDVAs we can seek to give the judiciary greater confidence in the professionalism of those roles. We thereby hope to see the judiciary being more willing to utilise them in the court process. That is my rationale, but we may debate that point when we come to the relevant clause.
New clause 19 also highlights the importance of legal advice for victims. The Government asked the Law Commission, as part of its work on the use of evidence in sexual offence prosecutions, carefully to review the law, guidance and practice relating to the trial process in prosecutions of sexual offences, an issue in which I know the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley takes a close interest. That will include consideration of whether independent legal advice and representation would be beneficial where personal records are sought, or more widely for the trial process.
On setting out how providers are to be regulated, we do not want to take a prescriptive approach in legislation. Local commissioners regularly review the services they commission to ensure high standards of victim services and will set relevant and tailored quality standards in their agreements with local providers. I suspect that a degree of the debate here is around where the line lies between prescription and a permissive approach.
As I have said in response to similar amendments, we have allocated a substantial amount of funding for domestic abuse and sexual violence victims and survivors, demonstrating the Government’s commitment to victims of these crimes. We are making it clear to commissioners and funders that they should consider the value and role of specialist-based support services when assessing local need to inform the distribution of funding, but ultimately local commissioners are best placed to determine how those services should be provided locally. On that basis, I gently encourage the shadow Minister not to press her amendment to a Division.
Jess Phillips
I will respond to some of what the Minister has said. His charming hope that all commissioners are absolute experts in this is not one that I share. I have been a commissioner on a local authority, and I think Birmingham remains probably the only part of the country to commission sexual violence services as part of its sexual health commissioning, and sexual and domestic abuse services as part of its substance misuse commissioning. The reason is that I was the commissioner and I am an expert in this.
In our evidence session, the woman from Rape Crisis said that she could not think of any specialist Rape Crisis services being commissioned by mental health services in our country. There is this idea that commissioners all have a total understanding of specialist domestic and sexual violence services. I have a plan for someone who works in the service to become a commissioner in every service, to ensure that that happens, but given the failure of my ability to influence Bury St Edmunds Council to have someone from women’s aid services elected to it, I will struggle. I do not think we can argue that commissioners know best. I have watched them know very little about anything to do with this topic. They are not specialists. They need to be told what specialisms they have to provide.
On hierarchy, I totally agree about the paradox that my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham pointed out. I want there to be a hierarchy. That is what I am saying: I am asking for a hierarchy, where specialist services are placed at the top and generic support services are just that.
I will not press the amendment to a vote, because I genuinely believe that we can get to an agreement on this issue prior to Report. I totally believe in the Minister’s will to do that. I say gently, though, that evidence from the Domestic Abuse Act shows that if we do not write these provisions into legislation, local authorities will just take refuge accommodation in-house and it will become completely non-specialist—it has been staffed by men, for example. We did not get this written into the Domestic Abuse Act, but I would really like the words “women” and “women’s specialist services” to exist somewhere in the Bill. Although I will not press the amendment to a vote today, I stand ready to make this argument again later. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Anna McMorrin
I beg to move amendment 9, in clause 12, page 10, line 22, at end insert—
“(d) offences against children.”
This amendment would extend the duty to collaborate to include victim support services for child victims.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 19, in clause 12, page 10, line 22, at end insert—
“(d) fraud.”
This amendment would extend the duty to collaborate to include victim support services for victims of fraud.
Amendment 82, in clause 12, page 10, line 22, at end insert—
“(d) modern slavery.”
This amendment would extend the duty to collaborate to include victim support services for victims of modern slavery.
Anna McMorrin
I will start with amendment 9. As it stands, the duty to collaborate in the Bill is limited to victim support services for domestic abuse, conduct of a sexual nature and serious violence. All of that is welcome, but it is such a restrictive remit that it excludes vulnerable victims who would benefit from joined-up services. Extending the duty to collaborate to include victim support services for child victims would ensure that children’s needs are guaranteed to be front and centre of any collaboration that takes place.
In her evidence session, when asked whether children should be included in the duty to collaborate, the response of the Children’s Commissioner for England and Wales was, “Absolutely.” I am happy to see that the duty to collaborate is in the Bill, but there needs to be more accountability around it. If we are going to put children as victims into the Bill, we have to recognise that they experience crime and victimhood very differently. What we need to put around them, to make sure that they are supported and can process things to see justice delivered, is different. Including children in the duty to collaborate would allow a national network, operating through regional and local levels, to enable every child to have the same experience and the best support. At present, as the Children’s Commissioner outlined,
“it is just not there.”––[Official Report, Victims and Prisoners Public Bill Committee, 20 June 2023; c. 24, Q51.]
According to Victim Support, children and young people are disproportionately more likely to be victims of crime, particularly the most serious crime. They often experience those crimes in their homes, schools and communities, and the crimes are sometimes carried out by people who should keep them safe. The Howard League for Penal Reform surveyed over 3,000 children in schools over a period of seven years; of those, 95% of children aged 10 to 15 reported being a victim of crime. Including them in the duty to collaborate is imperative to ensuring that the relevant agencies are prioritising children’s unique needs. That is what amendment 9 seeks to do.
Amendment 19 would include victims of fraud in the duty to collaborate. I put on the record my thanks to Catch22 and the shadow Attorney General’s team for working with me on the amendment. Concerns have been raised around there being a need to collaborate only with a subsection of crime types. That dilutes and undermines the importance of other crime types. Fraud is the UK’s most prevalent crime type.
Janet Daby
According to UK Finance, over £1.2 billion was stolen through fraud in 2022. Does my hon. Friend agree that victims of fraud must be mentioned in the Bill?
Anna McMorrin
Absolutely, and that just goes to emphasise the importance of the amendment. The cost to the mental health and wellbeing of victims of fraud is significant. In the year ending December 2022, 3.7 million offences were reported to the crime survey for England and Wales—a huge number, equating to 41% of the total offences experienced in that period. I am sure that the Minister has not had a chance to look yet, but our amendment has received coverage in The Times today, which reports that fewer than one in 3,000 fraud offences committed last year resulted in a prison sentence.
Far too often, The Government have treated fraud as a second-tier type of crime, and if Government Committee members reject that characterisation, I need only quote their own Ministers’ words back to them. In February last year, when he was the Business Secretary, the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) told the BBC that fraud was not the sort of crime that people experience in their daily life. Shortly afterwards, the Government’s counter-fraud Minister, Lord Agnew, resigned that post in protest at the
“combination of arrogance, indolence and ignorance”
that he had observed in the Government’s response to fraud. The Treasury, he said,
“appears to have no knowledge of, or little interest in, the consequences of fraud to our economy or society.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 January 2022; Vol. 818, c. 20-21.]
Bear in mind that that was when the current Prime Minister was in charge at the Treasury.
Is it any surprise, then, that a year after a previous Prime Minister and Home Secretary were chastised by the Office for National Statistics for leaving out fraud when they talked about the overall rates of crime in our country, the current Prime Minister and Home Secretary repeatedly did exactly the same in the House? Minister after Minister has tried to play down or simply ignore the most frequently experienced crime in our country, and I fear that by not having it in the Bill the Government are seeking to do the same. All of us whose constituents have fallen prey to scammers know that it is anything but a victimless crime. I am sure that every Committee member is dealing with constituents who have become victims to fraud. We are talking about thousands upon thousands of lives being ruined in our communities—retired people losing all their savings, and mums and dads losing the money that they had set aside for when their children went to university, or to help them to put a deposit on a house.
According to the Government’s fraud strategy, published in May, 300 people who contacted Action Fraud last year to report their losses were considered by the call handlers to be at risk of suicide. Just last week, we heard that two elderly pensioners lost £27,000 because criminals posing as police officers had persuaded them to withdraw large sums of cash. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham pointed out, last year alone over £1.2 billion was stolen through fraud. It is the most commonly experienced crime in the country, ruining the lives of millions, yet the Government did not see fit to include victims of it in the duty to collaborate. I am sure that the Minister will agree that they would benefit from a multi-agency approach. I am keen to hear his response before deciding whether to push the amendment to a vote.
Sarah Champion
The amendment is supported by the Centre for Social Justice, which identified that the duty to collaborate must cover support services for victims of modern slavery. Local authorities, the police and the NHS are all key agencies that come into contact with victims of modern slavery, and have a role to play in supporting them, alongside specialist programmes such as the national referral mechanism. That can range from immediate emergency support and protection to providing longer-term social care support or housing. There is a particular gap for victims before and after their contact with the NRM, and the lack of support often means that they have to choose between being destitute and going back to their exploiter.
Local authorities are the primary agency providing care and support for children, and only some children receive the additional support of independent child trafficking guardians. However, there is often confusion among local authorities about their responsibilities for supporting modern slavery victims. There is also often a lack of co-ordination with specialist support providers under the Home Office modern slavery victim care contract. Victims are passed from pillar to post, unable to access the support they need.
Police often find modern slavery victims out of hours, when access to other services is limited. Clear, joined-up strategies for supporting victims of modern slavery would help prevent those victims being placed in unsuitable and unsafe accommodation after being identified by the police—that is, of course, if the police identify them as a victim of modern slavery. A lack of clear and joined-up referral pathways can mean that victims of criminal exploitation, especially young people exploited in county lines drug dealing, find themselves arrested, rather than safeguarded and therefore given support.
The gaps in support provision particularly impact British victims of modern slavery. In 2022, the highest number of British “possible victims” were identified since the NRM began. One in five NRM referrals in 2022 was for a British child. It is essential that we get the support for that group of victims right. Research suggests that many British victims in particular are not accessing specialist support available under the NRM, either because they are not identified as victims of modern slavery as they or the professionals have misunderstood their entitlement to support, or because they choose not to be referred. That leaves them without access to specialist support, and their particular needs may not be recognised by mainstream providers.
The definition of victims in clause 12 lacks clarity in respect of modern slavery victims. Some modern slavery victims are victims of other offences listed in clause 12(4), such as sexual offences or serious violence. However, modern slavery can also result from threats, deception, and financial control and coercion, which may not meet the threshold of serious violence. The particular needs and experiences of modern slavery victims need to be considered in strategies, assessments and the exercise of support functions. That is best accomplished by listing those victims in the duty to collaborate.
Explicitly including modern slavery victims in the duty to collaborate would address local authorities’ confusion and lack of awareness of their responsibilities to support victims of modern slavery. It would strengthen the implementation of the modern slavery statutory guidance. It would lead to stronger local co-ordination by the police, the NHS and councils when it comes to identifying support needs, providing support and monitoring the recovery of modern slavery victims. It would also help ensure that British victims who do not enter the NRM receive appropriate support that recognises and responds to their needs and experience of exploitation.
We cannot let more vulnerable people slip through the gaps in local service provision. A joined-up approach to tackling modern slavery is needed, and I truly believe that amendment 82 will facilitate that.
Maria Eagle
I rise to support all the amendments, but I will briefly say something about amendment 19. We have all come across extremely distressing cases of fraud in our constituency. In 2012—10 years ago—2,629 people were jailed for fraud, but last year the figure was 1,177. However, the number of offences rose from 441,000 in 2012 to 3.7 million last year.
There has been an absolute explosion in that type of offence, and there are consequently many more victims, who often lose their life savings and their future security. Almost nothing is done for them. They are simply left to feel as though they have been duped and are stupid, and nobody seeks to help them. Normally, they do not even get any kind of response from Action Fraud, which is like a black hole; once a report is made to Action Fraud, the person who made it never hears from Action Fraud again. It is hard enough for a Member of Parliament to get a letter out of Action Fraud about a particular case.
Given the explosion in the number of fraud cases, it is surely important for the Government to take this issue seriously, and to recognise that the people involved are victims, who need support, just as any other victims do. I hope that the Minister, when he replies, will give an assurance that much more will be done to recognise that victims of fraud need the support that this Bill seeks to give to victims.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Members for Cardiff North, and for Rotherham, for their amendments, which seek to expand the duty to collaborate so that under that duty, support services must be provided to victims of fraud, victims of modern slavery and child victims.
The duty to collaborate will require local commissioning bodies such as police and crime commissioners, local authorities and integrated care boards in England to work together when commissioning support services for the victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violent crimes. We have focused on the victims of those crimes because they are particularly traumatic crimes with a high number of victims each year. They are also crimes where there will be a particular benefit from collaboration, as victims of them typically access a range of services across health, local authorities and policing. However, we are committed to providing support for all victims. Beyond the Bill, the Government are committed to supporting victims of all crime types; support is available through PCC-funded services, and there is other specific support for victims of terrorism.
If I may, I will take the amendments slightly out of order. I turn first to amendment 19, which seeks to include victims of fraud under the duty to collaborate on victim support services. Clearly, this Government take extremely seriously the challenge posed by fraud and its impact on victims. As I have said, the Government have been very clear about our determination to support all victims of crime, and we are taking steps to improve local collaboration on support for victims of fraud. This includes supporting the multi-agency approach to fraud—or MAAF, if I may abbreviate—which brings together relevant local agencies to improve the quality of support available to fraud victims. MAAF hubs should be rolled out across all England and Wales by September.
The duty to collaborate focuses on crime types for which support services are commissioned by a combination of police and crime commissioners, local authorities and health bodies. The measure seeks to bring together those who commission those services, so that commissioning is co-ordinated and strategic, with better join-up and smoother referrals for victims. It is important that the duty be focused on crime types for which services are commissioned by a specific combination of PCCs, local authorities and integrated care boards, so that collaboration can have the maximum and intended impact.
Support for fraud victims is typically delivered through PCC-commissioned local services and the National Economic Crime Victim Care Unit. Because of this, many victims of fraud would be less likely to benefit from collaboration between PCCs, local authorities and ICBs. However, the duty does not prevent local commissioners from collaborating on other crime types, including fraud.
More broadly, the Government have allocated £400 million over three years to tackle economic crime, including fraud, and to help fund the National Economic Crime Victim Care Unit, which supports fraud victims. We are also providing over £30 million to City of London police to support the upgrade in the Action Fraud service; the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood touched on that service. A number of improvements have already been made to the system to improve the victim reporting experience and the quality and timeliness with which cases are sent to police forces for action.
Opposition Members have highlighted the scale and impact of fraud. That is why the Government take fraud so seriously and have done so much in this space. The Government published “Fraud Strategy: stopping scams and protecting the public” in May, as the hon. Member for Cardiff North said. This strategy sets out how Government, law enforcement, regulators, industry and charities will work together to cut fraud incidents by 10% by the end of this Parliament, and includes measures to improve the support available to victims of fraud. As we roll out those initiatives, we will continue to consider how victims of fraud can be better supported.
Amendment 9 seeks to ensure that specific support services for child victims are provided. I agree that it is vital that child victims be able to access the specialist support that they need in order to cope and recover from the impacts of crime. The Bill aims to improve the support offered to children and young people. Child victims are covered by the definition of victim in part 1 of the Bill, and by the current code. The duty to collaborate requires local authorities, police and crime commissioners and integrated care boards in England to collaborate when commissioning victim support services for both adults and children who are victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violent offences.
To emphasise the inclusion of children in the duty, following pre-legislative scrutiny, we amended the definition of victim to clarify that child victims who witness and/or experience the effects of domestic abuse are victims, and amended clause 1 to emphasise that commissioners must have regard to any assessment of the needs of child victims when preparing their joint commissioning strategy.
The duty focuses on crimes that are particularly traumatic, have a high number of victims each year, and for which services are commissioned by a combination of police and crime commissioners, local authorities and health bodies. Those services will benefit from collaboration to reduce duplicative commissioning and improve strategic co-ordination of support. Including all offences against children brings a vast range of services into scope, not all of which require a collaborative approach; that would risk diluting the focus of the duty.
Finally, I turn to amendment 82, which would seek to include support services for victims of modern slavery in the duty to collaborate. The Government are committed to supporting all victims of crime, including those who are subjected to modern slavery. Clause 12, which the hon. Member for Rotherham is seeking to amend, already requires local commissioning bodies such as police and crime commissioners, local authorities and integrated care boards in England to work together when commissioning support services for domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violent crimes.
Local commissioners can already consider victims of modern slavery under the duty to collaborate, where those crimes apply, and we envisage that it is likely that for the most part, modern slavery victims will have suffered conduct that constitutes domestic abuse, sexual abuse or other serious violent crimes—particularly because “serious violence” includes threats of violence—and therefore will already be captured by the duty to collaborate.
We intend to clarify in accompanying guidance that modern slavery victims can, and are likely to be, captured by the duty. The duty does not list crime types that commissioners must consider in relation to serious violence, and instead allows local areas to make that decision based on the impact on the victim and the maximum sentence that a crime could receive. Commissioners can therefore already consider modern slavery, where that comes under the definition in the clause, under the duty to collaborate.
Sarah Champion
I hear what the Minister is saying. I also heard the word “should” rather than “must”. Will the Minister clarify that in the guidance, there will be an explanation of how modern slavery presents? A lot of modern slavery—I am thinking particularly about prostituted women—involves coercion and intimidation. Those people will probably not present themselves as victims in the usual sense; they will probably argue about that. There needs to be a bit more understanding, rather than us just saying “modern slavery”.
Edward Argar
I will try to answer quickly, before we get cut off by the end of the sitting. I take the hon. Lady’s point. Recently I attended a Select Committee sitting in which we looked at so-called honour-based violence and abuse. One of the key points that came out of that was that a multiplicity of offences constituted so-called honour-based abuse, and the same is true of modern slavery. It is important that we reflect those multiple indicators in the guidance.
The definition of serious violence in the duty mirrors the approach taken to the serious violence duty derived from the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022; that provision does not list specific offences, but instead defines serious violence based on the impact on the victim, and the maximum penalty for the crime committed. A more prescriptive approach of specifying types of serious violent crime would risk excluding offences that commissioners may want to consider, and would not allow for the necessary flexibility.
More widely, the Government are committed to supporting victims of modern slavery and ensuring that they get the support that they need. For example, children’s services work in close co-operation with the police and other statutory agencies to offer potentially trafficked children the protection and support that they require as part of the local needs assessment. “Working together to safeguard children 2018” sets out the system of multi-agency safeguarding arrangements established by the Children and Social Work Act 2017.
The Government have rolled out independent child trafficking guardians to two thirds of local authorities in England and Wales. Those roles are delivered by Barnardo’s until March 2024. They provide additional advocacy and support to child victims of modern slavery. Adult victims of modern slavery in England and Wales can access support through the national referral mechanism, under the Government-funded modern slavery victim care contract.
Every year, we support thousands of adult victims, so that they can begin rebuilding their life, engage with the criminal justice system and transition back into the community following their traumatic experiences. The current contract is delivered by the Salvation Army. I would be more than happy to work with hon. Members going forward, as we monitor the success of these initiatives in helping victims of modern slavery.
Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill (Twelfth sitting)
Tuesday 4th July 2023
(3 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 View all Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 4 July 2023 - (4 Jul 2023)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 6 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 6 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 6 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 6 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
I have the usual preliminaries before we begin. Remember to switch your electronic devices to silent. The Speaker does not permit food or drinks, other than the water provided, to be consumed during the sitting. If Members could email their speaking notes to [email protected] or pass them on when they have finished speaking, that would be extremely helpful.
You may have spotted at the top of today’s amendment paper that there is a supplementary programme motion in the name of Mr Wood, the Government Whip. I understand that he does not intend to move it at this point in the proceedings, but that he may move it at the end of the sitting. Is that correct?
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Yes, Chair, either this morning or at the start of the afternoon—whichever is appropriate.
The Chair
Okay, we will take it later. That is fine.
Clause 216 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 217
Prohibition of unfair commercial practices
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
I beg to move amendment 71, in clause 217, page 146, line 5, leave out second “trader” and insert “person”.
This amendment ensures that the definition of “commercial practice” for the purposes of Chapter 1 of Part 4 of the Bill includes an act or omission by a trader relating to the promotion or supply of a consumer’s product to another consumer.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clause stand part.
Clauses 218 to 222 stand part.
Kevin Hollinrake
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr McCabe.
Clause 217 sets out the unfair commercial practices that are prohibited. Those include misleading actions, misleading omissions, aggressive practices, contravention of the requirements of professional diligence, the omission of material information from an invitation to purchase, and the practices listed in schedule 18.
The clause also defines important terms for the purpose of this chapter, including “commercial practice”, “consumer” and “trader”. Commercial practice is defined as any act or omission by a trader relating to the promotion or supply of any trader’s product to a consumer or of a consumer’s product to another person. As such, a business providing a platform on which products are promoted or supplied may fall within the scope of this chapter.
Government amendment 71 is a technical amendment to clause 217. It ensures that the Bill reflects acts or omissions by traders that are currently covered by the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, or the CPRs for short. It ensures that traders that enable private individuals to sell products to each other are within the scope of this chapter, reflecting the scope of current law.
Clause 218 defines and prohibits commercial practices that are misleading actions and restates the equivalent provisions from the CPRs. It protects consumers from traders who deceive through the provision of false and misleading information.
Clause 219 defines and prohibits commercial practices that are misleading omissions. It requires traders to provide consumers with the information they need in an up front, clear and timely manner to make an informed transactional decision.
Clause 220 defines and prohibits commercial practices that are aggressive and restates the equivalent provisions from the CPRs.
Clause 221 defines and prohibits commercial practices that contravene the requirements of professional diligence and restates the equivalent provisions from the CPRs. It requires that traders do not engage in practices that fall below the standard of skill and care they may be reasonably expected to have provided.
Clause 222 lists what information must be provided to consumers when a commercial practice is an invitation to purchase. The information is deemed material.
I hope hon. Members will support Government amendment 71, and I propose that clauses 217 to 222 stand part of the Bill.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
Is it not the shadow Minister first?
The Chair
I thought you were indicating. This is what happens when you are drafted in at the last moment, isn’t it? I will eventually wake up; do not worry.
Neil Coyle
Thank you, Mr McCabe. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair.
In speaking to the amendments, may I thank the organisations that have contributed? There is a whole range of them, but I would particularly like to thank the British Toy and Hobby Association and Electrical Safety First, not least because they are based in the best constituency in the country: Bermondsey and Old Southwark. The other organisations include Which? and trading standards bodies. There is a range of amendments in my name covering a range of issues. They have at their core the need to protect British consumers, British businesses and British standards. I want to air a lot of issues. I hope I will not need to force votes and I am keen to hear what the Minister has to say in response.
Amendment 118 would make a person marketing goods online a trader for the purposes of the Act. Amendment 119 would make it an unfair commercial practice to sell goods online unless the specified safety requirements have been complied with. Amendment 123 should be self—
The Chair
Order. Mr Coyle, we seem to have got out of sync. You are currently speaking to your amendments, but we have not quite got to them,
Neil Coyle
Are we not there yet, Mr McCabe? It looks like it is me who needs to wake up.
The Chair
It has been an early start for all of us. Why not just pause there and we can return to you later?
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr McCabe.
Before we turn to the group led by amendment 118, I will make some brief remarks on clause 217 stand part and speak to Government amendment 71. Clause 217 sets out a general prohibition on unfair commercial practices. As the Minister has outlined, it defines commercial practice as
“any act or omission by a trader relating to the promotion or supply of—
the trader’s product to a consumer
another trader’s product to a consumer, or,
a consumer’s product to the trader or another trader”.
Subsection (4) introduces provisions outlining what constitutes an unfair commercial practice, which may include a misleading action, a misleading omission or an aggressive practice, and those are dealt with in the following clauses. In addition, the subsection states that a commercial practice is unfair if it is listed in schedule 18, which we will debate in detail shortly.
We welcome the clause as a necessary provision in prohibiting unfair commercial practice, and I reiterate that we look forward to working with the Minister, including in today’s debate. If there are ways in which we can improve the Bill, we are very happy to work collaboratively so that it is as robust as possible. The amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark in the light of our discussions with stakeholders will play an important part in those deliberations.
Amendment 71 ensures that the definition of commercial practice for the purposes of chapter 1 of part 4 of the Bill includes an act or omission by a trader relating to the promotion or supply of a consumer’s product to another consumer. We welcome this amendment, which importantly ensures that the actions of rogue traders still fall under the definition of commercial practice and supports the integrity of the regime.
Clause 218 introduces provisions defining commercial practices that are misleading actions. We welcome the clause, which provides a necessary definition of a misleading action, and support its inclusion in the Bill.
Clause 219 introduces a definition of commercial practices that count as misleading omissions. Under the clause, a misleading omission would constitute the omission of material information and information that the trader is required by another enactment to provide. As with clause 218, it is a common-sense, straightforward clause and we support it.
Clause 220 sets out how an aggressive practice could constitute harassment, coercion or undue influence. That can involve behaviour before a contract or purchase is made, but it can also occur after a transaction has taken place. We support the definition’s inclusion in the Bill, but I ask for clarification. I draw the Minister’s attention to subsection (3)(a), where the Bill states that
“‘coercion’ includes the use or threat of physical force”.
Does the Minister intend that coercion includes many other threats, be they financial or personal blackmail, to suggest just a couple? Is there a wider definition or guidance on interpretation that would be helpful in providing clarification for the consumer as well as for those making a decision under the clause? I would welcome clarity from the Minister on that.
Clause 221 defines commercial practices that contravene the requirements of professional diligence. That includes practices that fall short of the standard of skill and care that a trader may reasonably be expected to exercise towards consumers and that is commensurate in the trader’s field with honest market practice or the general principle of good faith. That is important for rooting out rogue traders who may not be qualified for their profession, whether they are builders, electricians or other experts. We welcome the definition.
Clause 222 sets out where a commercial practice would be considered to have omitted material information. Subsection (2) lists what would constitute an omission, including the main characteristics of a product, the business address and the delivery price, among other things. Although we support the list of omissions and welcome its inclusion in the Bill, elements of the clause could go further to provide more protection to consumers, as reflected in amendment 127, tabled by Opposition Front Benchers, and amendment 126, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, which we will come to.
Kevin Hollinrake
I think there is just one key point that the hon. Lady asked me to address, which is about other types of coercion. Looking at the definition with regard to practices, clause 220 talks about “coercion or undue influence”. Under subsection (3),
“‘undue influence’ means exploiting a position of power in relation to consumers so as to apply pressure in any way”.
I think that covers the definition, as she requested.
Amendment 71 agreed to.
Neil Coyle
I beg to move amendment 118, in clause 217, page 146, line 11, at end insert—
“(c) a person marketing P’s goods for sale online.”
This amendment makes a person marketing goods online a trader, for the purposes of this Act.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 119, in clause 217, page 146, line 22, after “222),” insert—
“(ba) a product is sold online, and the operator of the online marketplace has not taken reasonable steps, as defined by regulations made under section 234 of this Act, to ensure that the goods offered for sale in the online marketplace comply with—
(i) the General Product Safety Regulations 2005 (SI 2005 No 1803) (‘the 2005 Regulations’), and
(ii) such other safety requirements as the Secretary of State may specify.”
This amendment makes it an unfair commercial practice to sell goods online unless the specified safety requirements have been complied with.
Amendment 123, in schedule 18, page 343, line 2, at end insert—
“32 Marketing online products that are either—
(a) counterfeit; or
(b) dangerous.”
Amendment 120, in clause 218, page 147, line 9, at end insert—
“(e) an operator of an online marketplace failing to take reasonable steps, as defined by regulations made under section 234 of this Act, to ensure that no goods offered for sale in the marketplace have been the subject of a notification to an enforcement authority under regulation 9 of the 2005 Regulations.”
This amendment makes it a misleading action to sell goods online without taking reasonable steps to ensure that those goods have not been subject to a recall.
Amendment 124, in clause 223, page 150, line 27, at end insert—
“(4A) Where a commercial practice has been found to be unfair under paragraph 32 of Schedule 18 of this Act, the authorities under this section have the power to require the removal of the relevant online marketing from the internet.”
Amendment 121, in clause 234, page 158, line 4, at end insert—
“(4A) The Secretary of State must by regulations define ‘reasonable steps’ for the purposes of sections 217 and 218 of this Act.”
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to make regulations to define “reasonable steps” for the purposes of clauses 217 and 218 of this Act.
Amendment 122, in clause 241, page 160, line 14, at end insert—
“‘online marketplace’ means a service using software, including a website, part of a website or an application, operated by or on behalf of a trader, which allows consumers to conclude distance contracts with other traders or consumers;
‘safety requirement’ includes—
(a) any relevant enactment governing the safety of products or of a specific type of products,
(b) any voluntary national standard of the United Kingdom, and
(c) any standard adopted by an international standardising body.”
This amendment defines the terms “Online Marketplace”, and “Safety Requirements”.
Neil Coyle
It will surprise no one that I wish to speak to these amendments; I am sorry for being rusty. Having been on Bill Committees previously and managed to get amendments through, or at least poached by the Government, I feel embarrassed to have slipped up on this one.
I went through the amendments previously, so I hope Members can copy and paste from previous debates. Amendment 123 is self-explanatory. Amendment 120 would make it a misleading action to sell goods online without taking reasonable steps to ensure that the goods have not been subject to a recall. Amendment 124 would create the takedown power—the power to remove dangerous or counterfeit goods from online sales. Amendment 121 defines reasonable steps. Amendment 122 defines an online marketplace and safety requirements, in line with the bodies who have contributed who are still concerned about where things are at in the Bill.
I think the Government’s original aim was to publish a draft Bill; this Bill took some organisations by surprise, and I think a lot are playing catch-up, hoping that issues will be aired here and that Ministers will be meeting with them soon, ahead of the Lords stages. They hope to see a bit more progress on some measures in the Bill. Most accept the need for this legislation, but very few seem convinced that the Bill does the complete job.
Mr McCabe, you were not in the Chair for our evidence sessions, where we had all the “wild west” references. The Minister suggested a Clint Eastwood in “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” character to help take action. For those not familiar with the genre, that is the third film of Sergio Leone’s trilogy, and Clint played an antihero. He takes Tuco in to claim the reward, and then shoots him down from the noose, in order to claim further, higher rewards down the line—so that is an intriguing analogy from the Minister.
The first film in the trilogy was “A Fistful of Dollars”. I am here with “For a Few Dollars More”—the second in the trilogy—to offer a better system, with some improvements to what the Government have put forward, to try to do a better job. For those who are familiar with “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, there are only two kinds of people in this world—those who have seen the film, and those who have not.
The main amendment that I wish to speak to is amendment 124, and the takedown power to require the removal from online trade of counterfeit or dangerous products. This would deliver, in part, what the Minister, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton, said on Second Reading of the Online Sale of Goods (Safety) Bill, in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), when pressed about taking items offline. He said that,
“we should go further than that and require marketplaces to ensure that such products are not on their sites at all, ever, and that they check to ensure that they do not appear and, indeed, remove retailers who have transgressed.”—[Official Report, 20 January 2023; Vol. 726, c. 715.]
This group of amendments, and particularly amendment 124, help deliver what the Minister said he would like to achieve, and what I hope the Bill will achieve by the point it completes its progress through both Houses.
Fundamentally, it comes back to what customers believe. My constituents, and customers, believe whether they are shopping at Argos on the Old Kent Road or on Amazon online that the goods they are buying will meet the required UK standards. That is simply not what is happening.
Some 90% of toy sales online are through Amazon, eBay and AliExpress. I have referred to Amazon previously, and I do not want to pick on Amazon, but it is one of the big three. It has done some work to try to address the concerns of organisations and trade bodies, but it is simply not enough. In its US annual report a couple of years ago, Amazon acknowledged that it was, in its own words,
“unable to prevent sellers in our stores or through other stores from selling unlawful, counterfeit, pirated or stolen goods”.
I use Amazon to represent online marketplaces more generally, because of the familiarity of customers. They believe it is a reputable organisation and trust that it meets standards, but that is not the case.
Of course, Amazon also has an ongoing battle with the GMB on recognition, which it should have resolved some time ago. Ministers should have been supportive on that issue: they say they want a high-skills, high-wage economy, and that is what trade unions set about to deliver, and that is certainly what the GMB is seeking, in partnership with the Amazon workforce.
Frankly, it is a bit shocking that some of these amendments are necessary, but they are. The British Toy and Hobby Association survey “Don’t Toy with Children’s Safety” highlights some significant concerns. The toy industry is worth £3.2 billion to the UK economy—it is a massive sector. The survey showed that, in 2021, 60% of the toys tested were unsafe for a child to play with, and 86% of the toys freely available online were illegal to sell in the UK. That is appalling for lots of reasons, including because some of it is counterfeit.
We touched on this point in previous debates. British companies trade legitimately in goods that they are licensed to provide and make. They hold a trademark. It is insulting for them to have others trading on profitable sites such as Amazon and others with contempt for UK law, in a way that would be tackled if it was happening in a physical shop or even down a market. The truth is that Del Boy’s products would meet higher standards than some of those sold online. Platforms have been accommodating counterfeit, hooky, shoddy and dangerous goods for far too long.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Paul Scully)
I can confirm that the letter went out yesterday morning.
Neil Coyle
Maybe it is still in the internal post. I thank the Minister for the letter; it would be nice to know what it says. The point is that the Bill does not make clear how customers will secure redress. It presents a convoluted route of multiple agencies and potential court action that people simply will not want to take.
My amendment does not go as far as some have suggested. It is a moderate suggestion. There have been suggestions that there is full and shared liability for platforms for any product sold and that some of the measures should be retrospectively implemented so that there should be penalties on those who have sold goods that they know to be counterfeit or dangerous going back for years. I hope that amendment 121 in particular, but also other amendments in this group, are useful to the Government in delivering their aims and defending customers and businesses.
The wording of amendment 124 is crucial; I hope that the Minister will come back to this when he responds to the debate. It would “require the removal”. It is not a request to remove a product; it is a requirement to remove a product. It could be put in the hands of all the bodies in clause 143, with penalties and timely action to prevent a fatality if this is not done quickly enough. The use of the word “require” is deliberate, because the power to request is in other legislation. For example, the police can request the removal of video footage from YouTube that is incitement to violence or hatred, is homophobic or is incitement to violence between gangs. One meeting I had with the Met revealed that more than 300 requests to take down videos had been ignored by YouTube. They included calling for revenge and the murder of specific individuals in revenge attacks between gangs in London. The police should have a stronger power than that, but as with this legislation, the power to request that something is removed is insufficient; it must be the power to compel the removal, similar to—for those familiar with local authority powers—a cease and desist order by a planning body. That would be a comparable power if the Government are keen to have something stronger than that offered in the current legislation.
I hope that amendment 124 helps British businesses, jobs, standards and customers and helps the Government —that is why I am here today. Ministers claim that they want to make the UK the “safest” place in the world to be online, and here are the means to deliver that laudable aim.
Seema Malhotra
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his tour de force in going through his amendments and the reasons for tabling them. We can all agree that as a package, the amendments move us further forward in ensuring that there is adequate regulation of products sold in online marketplaces. My hon. Friend also made reference to the work of Electrical Safety First and its research. Having met the organisation, spoken at its event in Parliament and seen the important work it does through the all-party parliamentary group on online and home electrical safety, I think I can say that we all recognise that we must ensure the steps taken in the Bill will be adequate to deal with the challenges we know consumers face and which can put families, lives and businesses at risk.
My hon. Friend spoke to his amendments. Amendment 118 makes someone marketing goods online a trader. Amendment 119 makes it an unfair commercial practice to sell goods online unless the specified safety requirements have been complied with. Amendment 124 provides for a takedown power, about which the Minister has made some positive comments. We believe very strongly that that is needed, and I hope that he will give a commitment today about how we can take it forward, and whether the Government will accept the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, which we support, or introduce their own during the course of the Bill.
Kevin Hollinrake
I appreciate the continued spaghetti western analogies. In my case, “Pale Rider” might be a more apt example, as obviously my demographics mean that I am pale, stale and male, but we are keen to ensure that we have a proper shoot-out with the people the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark describes. I am totally onside with the vast majority of what he says. He knows we need to make sure we take the right kind of action in this area, and his amendments would add provisions related to product safety to regulate the sale of dangerous and counterfeit goods in online marketplaces. Existing UK product law is clear: all products must be safe, including those sold online. However, we recognise the challenge the growth of online marketplaces has created for how we deliver product safety in a global economy. I gently say to the hon. Gentleman: these are not just UK-based problems: this is a global problem. As he knows, marketplaces operate around the globe and other jurisdictions are also seeking to tackle the issue.
I hosted a roundtable with major online marketplaces in April and was clear that, in addition to their current duties, they must do much more to keep unsafe products off their sites, including removing third-party sellers who supply unsafe goods. That point was mentioned on Second Reading of the Online Sale of Goods (Safety) Bill, as the hon. Gentleman referenced just now. The Office for Product Safety and Standards, which I visited in Teddington, is following up with a programme of test purchases. There I saw at first hand some of the potential products sold online, such as toy magnets that do not comply with UK product standards. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) has done fantastic campaigning in that area on button batteries. There is much we need to do. This is not just a consumer safety problem: it is about creating a fair and level playing field for UK retailers. The hon. Gentleman mentioned Argos and Amazon, but I would add our local high-street electrical stores, which have also been disadvantaged by online marketplaces being able to operate in the way they do.
Neil Coyle
I do not remember any western in which a sheriff held a roundtable. In terms of the outcome, what is the pace at which counterfeit or dangerous goods will be removed? That is the concern for consumers. Even if I buy something, discover that it is shoddy and report it through the process in the Bill, there is still a significant gap in time before something is taken off. The takedown power is crucial to prevent further hundreds, thousands or millions of that product being sold or marketed to people when it is known to be dangerous or faulty and could put lives at risk.
Kevin Hollinrake
I entirely agree. We do not think the marketplaces are going far enough. It is a key phrase that the likes of Amazon, Wish and so on just see themselves as marketplaces rather than distributors. Our point is that they are distributors. The key thing is making sure that is properly defined in law. The hon. Gentleman is right to point out some of the percentages. That is the work done by the OPSS, defining that between 60% and 80% of the products it sampled were unsafe. That is clearly and completely wrong.
Neil Coyle
The Minister is coming to it, but the takedown power is the crucial bit to do that and it is what the OPSS, which he refers to, says it wants.
Kevin Hollinrake
Perhaps if the hon. Gentleman allows me to go through my speech, I might be able to give some answers to his points. We are on exactly the same page on this and we have to get this right. He talks about getting the analysis right and raised a different analogy of where he considers we may have got that wrong in the past. It is important we get this right. From our perspective, the product safety route is the right way to do this. The whole product safety framework will be reformed, including online sales, and that holistic review of product safety, taking existing obligations into account—we believe there are distributor obligations—is the most appropriate vehicle for meeting concerns about unsafe goods sold online.
Neil Coyle
The shadow Minister also asked when the product safety review will take place.
Kevin Hollinrake
Very shortly. I just answered the shadow Minister; there is no prolonging this issue from my perspective. We are keen to get on with this but want to make sure the review is in the right place and the right shape when it happens. We want it to happen very soon.
The forthcoming consultation will include proposals to ensure that shopping online is as safe as on the high street and that there is a fairer playing field for law-abiding businesses. We anticipate publishing these proposals soon and look forward to continuing engagement with our stakeholders to inform and shape our proposals.
Amendment 124 would give powers to the Competition and Markets Authority and trading standards to require the removal of marketing material for counterfeit and dangerous products online. We believe, however, that extensive enforcement powers are already available. For example, when a trader markets misleading or faulty goods online, enforcers including the CMA and trading standards can apply to the court for an enforcement order to stop and prohibit the marketing and sale of the offending goods under part 3 of the Bill. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman will let me get to the point where I think he wants me to get to, that will be the point made in the letter.
Part 3 of the Bill gives the CMA the power to impose an online interface order against the infringer or a third party. That type of order or notice may require the removal or alteration of online content on a website that gives access to or promotes the offending goods. The hon. Gentleman’s point was about similar powers for other enforcement bodies such as trading standards. As I said to him, however, in a letter that I think he received yesterday, that is something I am keen to explore, and will do so over the summer. I will give him a final chance to intervene, if he wants, and then I will conclude.
Neil Coyle
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way and for his reassurance that this will be looked at over the summer. As things stand, the Government are saying—the Minister has just said—that a product could cause a fire and potentially a fatality, but still the process would be to report it through a particular agency and possibly take court action, rather than what the regulators want to do and customers want to see, which is the take-down of the item to prevent any further dangerous incident or potential fatalities. I hope that the Minister gets to a point where that immediate power will be available.
Kevin Hollinrake
I totally understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, which is why I will look at it over the summer. It is not provided for in the Bill, but he makes a good point and I am keen to explore the options. We will come back to the House at some point to report what we will do in this space. I therefore very much hope that he will withdraw his amendments.
Neil Coyle
With that reassurance of looking at this further over the summer and to improve on where things stand, I will take the Minister at his word. The idea that we can support everything in a product safety review that will start we know not when feels a bit like missing the bus—or missing the stagecoach, to stick with the analogy. The powers need to be in the Bill to ensure that when the product safety review is done, the vehicle is already available to enable dangerous or counterfeit goods to be removed, but given his reassurance, I beg to ask to leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 217, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 18
Commercial practices which are in all circumstances considered unfair
Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)
I beg to move amendment 68, in schedule 18, page 343, line 2, at end insert—
“32 Making claims about—
(a) the environmental benefits, or
(b) the sustainability (as defined by section 234(1C)) of a product or service which are not based on evidence which can be verified by a court.”
This amendment seeks to ban the practice of “greenwashing”. It would include the making of unsubstantiated claims about the sustainability of products and services an unfair commercial practice.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 69, in clause 234, page 157, line 29, at end insert—
“(1A) The Secretary of State must consult on a definition of sustainability for the purposes of paragraph 32 of Schedule 18.
(1B) A consultation under subsection (1A) must—
(a) set out which products and services can be labelled sustainable; and
(b) require the definition to comply with international standards.
(1C) Following a consultation under subsection (1A) the Secretary of State must by regulations amend this Chapter to add a definition of sustainable.”
This amendment seeks to ban the practice of “greenwashing”. It requires the Government to define which products and services can be labelled “sustainable” and requires that this definition complies with international standards.
Richard Thomson
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. With your indulgence, if it is appropriate, I will also speak to amendment 69 and am happy to speak to amendments 115 and 116.
Richard Thomson
Thank you for your guidance, Mr McCabe.
I have not yet spoken in Committee, and the reason for that is simple. As I said on Second Reading, from a Scottish National party perspective, we think that the Bill is generally speaking a good Bill. Our concern is primarily with the bits that we feel are missing, so the amendments that I will speak to this morning and afternoon are with a view to fill in some of the potholes that we see in the road for the Bill.
Amendments 68 and 69 would tackle the phenomenon of greenwashing. By that, I mean the practice by which companies use advertising and/or public messaging to appear more eco-friendly, whether in the generality or with regard to specific products, than is actually the case. The amendments would compel the Secretary of State to consult on a definition of sustainability for these purposes that is in line with international standards and then to amend the relevant chapter to add that definition to the Bill, and to add greenwashing to the schedule 18 list of practices which are in all circumstances considered unfair.
Seema Malhotra
I will speak just briefly to schedule 18 and then to amendments 68 and 69. I thank the hon. Member for Gordon for his amendments and his explanation of them.
Schedule 18 introduces—
The Chair
Order. The general debate comes at the end. We need to stick with the amendment.
Seema Malhotra
That is fine. I have one line, but it can come later.
Amendment 68 would ban the practice of greenwashing. Making unsubstantiated claims about the sustainability of products and services would be an unfair commercial practice. Amendment 69 is consequential on amendment 68 and would require the Government to define which products and services can be labelled “sustainable”, and requires that the definition complies with international standards.
I support the principle of the amendments tabled and the arguments made. They are along the lines of the discussion that we had in Committee last week when I spoke to the issues around greenwashing, our standards and support for evidence. I asked the Minister what overall strategy he has to ensure that green claims are accurate and evidenced, and I asked that we have a strategy for the prevention of false claims as well as a mechanism for enforcement against them. As has been argued, that issue is on the increase, particularly for younger people.
Research has shown that those under 35 across the world make decisions about products, services and even their employment on how much they trust the information that they see in relation to sustainability and climate responsibility. If we do not tackle that issue, we will see a further increase in people misleadingly marketing products because they know that those issues drive consumer purchases. They have great influence on consumer purchases and decisions.
The Minister might refer to the green claims code introduced by the CMA. Important work has been done, but in the absence of any real leadership or strategy from the Government I want to ask the Minister whether they intend to put the green claims code, or its successor, on a statutory footing. Making sure that we have a robust legislative underpinning and strategy for such issues is increasingly important, because many stakeholders see a gap.
Greenwashing was also mentioned by consumer groups in the Committee’s evidence sessions. I would press the Minister on whether the Government have plans to introduce amendments on the issue, and to strengthen voluntary or other codes relating to green claims and expectations. In an increasingly green economy, consumers are at risk of falling victim to misleading green advertising, and legislation needs to catch up.
Kevin Hollinrake
Amendments 68 and 69 would add the practice of greenwashing to the list of banned practices in schedule 18, and would introduce a requirement for the Government to consult on the matter. I thank the hon. Member for Gordon for his amendments, and I absolutely agree that consumers should not be misled. I admire his commitment to recycling, which is admirable. I wondered whether I should touch on that, given the difficulties that the SNP has got into with its deposit return scheme, but—
Richard Thomson
I thank the Minister for that sideswipe, but it would be a great deal easier for the Scottish Government to comply with an English-designed scheme if that scheme was actually in existence for us to emulate. Absent our deposit return scheme, we are stuck with the recycling schemes that we have, and I wonder whether the Minister will get to the point.
Kevin Hollinrake
I was just referring to the hon. Gentleman’s point. I will briefly say that our perspective is that a nationwide scheme would be best for business.
Misleading consumers about the environmental qualities or impact of goods and services in a way that causes, or would likely cause, consumers to take a different decision is already against the law. Furthermore, under clause 187, when the CMA gives a provisional notice to a person in respect of an infringement of the unfair trading provisions, the CMA can require the respondent to provide evidence to substantiate the claims that they make to consumers. That meets the shadow Minister’s requirement. It is against the law to mislead, and as she says, the CMA’s draft guidance on sustainability agreements between businesses, which aim to ensure that environmental goals are achieved, will give greater clarity on these issues. Those interventions are already significant. The Government’s priority is to ensure that interventions support our environmental goals; we would then observe their impact before taking further steps. I hope the hon. Member will withdraw amendment 68 on that basis.
Richard Thomson
I am sorry to disappoint the Minister, but this is an issue of fundamental importance, and if I withdrew the amendment, it would be an opportunity missed. Of course, we could go through any number of proposed amendments to the Bill and say that there is already legislation in place that in some way tackles that issue. Of course it is true that there are measures on this issue, but there is still a proliferation of claims out there that have not been tackled by existing legislation. I know the Minister is a keen advocate for ensuring that markets work as effectively as they can, and for allowing markets to reach conclusions. The amendment is simply a tool that would allow Ministers to act in the interests of consumers. It would be a missed opportunity not to push it to a vote, and not to include it in the Bill.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Seema Malhotra
I beg to move amendment 115, in schedule 18, page 343, line 2, at end insert—
“32 At any stage of a purchase process, presenting a price for a product which omits obligatory charges or fees (or an estimate thereof) which are payable by the majority of consumers, which are not revealed to the consumer until later in the purchase process.”
This amendment adds the practice of “drip-pricing”, a pricing technique in which traders advertise only part of a product’s price and reveal other obligatory charges later as the customer goes through the buying process, to the list of unfair commercial practices.
Amendment 115 would add the practice of drip pricing to the list of unfair commercial practices. Drip pricing is a pricing technique whereby traders advertise only part of a product’s price and reveal other obligatory charges later as the customer goes through the buying process. For example, an airline may advertise a flight abroad at a certain cost that does not include an obligatory seat charge. That is added only later in the purchasing process, by which point the consumer has already prepared to purchase the product and is less likely to stop the purchase. The argument that this practice should be included in the Bill was well documented during the Committee’s evidence sessions. The consumer group Which? stated:
“We think that drip pricing is another practice that is very harmful. There is a lot of evidence that that is the case, and it should be included on the face of the Bill.”––[Official Report, Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Public Bill Committee, 13 June 2023; c. 13, Q16.]
That sentiment was reflected in Committee by Citizens Advice, the National Consumers Federation and Consumer Scotland, all of which argued that schedule 18 could be improved by adding the practice of drip pricing. Which? provided evidence of consumer detriment in its written submission, which states:
“We know that in many online markets people overpay for products and services because only part of an item’s price is initially shown and the total amount to be paid is revealed only at the end of the buying process. For example, multiple hotel booking firms were shown to have failed to have displayed compulsory charges such as taxes, booking or resort fees in the headline price. However, while the use of these practices is common, the CMA has found its enforcement against drip pricing has been inhibited by the absence of an explicit ban.”
In its 2021 paper, “Reforming Competition and Consumer Policy”, the CMA notes:
“Drip pricing causes real detriment to consumers...Advertising of Prices market study concluded that of a series of different price framing practices, drip pricing was clearly the most harmful frame for consumers in terms of purchasing and search errors, and that raised levels of consumer learning did not fully mitigate issues with the practice. Lengthy transaction processes associated with drip pricing can ensure consumers gain a greater sense of ownership of a product and are less likely consider other offers once additional costs are revealed.”
It is clear that the introduction of drip pricing to the list of unfair commercial practices would be supported by consumer groups and the CMA, so I urge the Minister to consider supporting the amendment. I look forward to his response.
Kevin Hollinrake
I share the hon. Member’s concerns. That is why we commissioned research earlier this year, which we will publish shortly. It will detail how widespread and harmful the practice is. The Prime Minister has already said that we will gather evidence on what steps the Government should take to tackle drip pricing, so I think we are aligned in our commitment to tackling the issue.
One of the key challenges, which I do not think the hon. Lady addressed, is distinguishing drip pricing that is harmful or anti-competitive from practices that may offer greater value to the consumer—for example, a company offering optional extras such as faster postage or insurance. We will consult during the passage of the Bill on which elements of drip pricing might need tackling, and on whether further action is required. We believe it is important to conduct that exercise first, so that we have a proper, evidence-driven policy. I hope the hon. Member will withdraw the amendment.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his comments. There are issues to consider in relation to the amendment, but I think the broad thrust of the argument for taking action is clear. The Minister says that the findings of the research will be published shortly; I am assuming that “shortly” is not in more than a year’s time. We need to clarify that with the Government. If shortly means shortly, however, then I would be grateful for confirmation that, on the basis of the research, the Minister intends to address drip pricing; that may determine the wording in the Bill. Can the Minister confirm that there is an intention to address the issue during the passage of the Bill, perhaps through a Government amendment? The Opposition are very willing to work with the Government on that.
Kevin Hollinrake
I am keen to make a commitment to work with the hon. Member on the issue, and to ensure that a measure is brought forward as quickly as possible. I cannot give a precise date, but it will be very shortly.
Seema Malhotra
On the basis that shortly means shortly, I am willing to withdraw the amendment. Will the Minister clarify that he expects the research to come forward before Report, so that we have time to look at it? That would be a good point at which to bring forward an amendment on the issue.
Kevin Hollinrake
I cannot say when Report will be, and I do not have the timetable for that, or for the consultation on the work that we may need to do on the issue. I cannot make that precise commitment, but we are very committed to delivering on drip pricing. As the hon. Member knows, the Prime Minister spoke on it, so I cannot imagine that there will be any undue delay.
Seema Malhotra
On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Seema Malhotra
I beg to move amendment 116, in schedule 18, page 343, line 2, at end insert—
“32 Commissioning, incentivising or authorising the writing or submission of false consumer reviews or endorsements, in order to promote products.
33 Offering or advertising to submit, commission or facilitate false consumer reviews or endorsements.
34 Displaying consumer reviews of products on an online interface—
(a) without taking reasonable and proportionate steps to ensure that such reviews are submitted by consumers who have used or purchased the products in question;
(b) where any consumers who provided reviews were incentivised to describe certain products in a particular way, without taking reasonable and proportionate steps to ensure this is not the case; or
(c) in a way that deceives or manipulates consumers, or where a practice has been undertaken in relation to reviews that otherwise materially distorts or impairs the ability of consumers to make free and informed decisions, without taking reasonable and proportionate steps to ensure this is not the case.”
This amendment adds the practice of commissioning fake reviews, offering services to write fake reviews, and displaying consumer reviews without taking reasonable steps to verify their accuracy, to the list of unfair commercial practices.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 125, in schedule 18, page 343, line 2, at end insert—
“32 Stating or otherwise creating the impression that reviews of a product are submitted by consumers who have actually used or purchased the product without taking reasonable and proportionate steps to check that they originate from such consumers.
33 Submitting or commissioning another legal or natural person to submit false consumer reviews or endorsements, or misrepresenting consumer reviews or social endorsements, in order to promote products.”
This amendment would add fake reviews to the list of banned practices.
Seema Malhotra
I am pleased to speak to amendment 116, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd and me. I will also touch on amendment 125, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark. They are similar provisions, and he will want to make his own arguments for amendment 125.
Amendment 116 adds the practice of commissioning fake reviews, offering to provide the service of writing fake reviews, and displaying consumer reviews without taking reasonable steps to verify their accuracy to the list of unfair commercial practices. Amendment 125 would similarly add fake reviews to the list of banned practices. We support both the amendments, but I will speak to amendment 116 in more detail, as it provides a more comprehensive legislative basis for banning fake reviews, and was recommended by the consumer group Which?.
When the Bill was published, the Government announced with much fanfare that they would introduce provisions banning the unfair commercial practice of fake reviews. However, nowhere in the Bill is there any measure that bans fake reviews. The supposed banning of fake reviews can be found in clause 234, which gives the Secretary of State the power to add to the list of banned practices. Unless the Minister corrects me, all we have is a promise from the Government that at some point in the future—beyond 2025—fake reviews might be banned. As Which? said during the Committee’s evidence sessions,
“We do not think that we should wait. Clearly, fake reviews are harmful, so the buying, selling and hosting of fake reviews should be included in schedule 18.”––[Official Report, Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Public Bill Committee, 13 June 2023; c. 13, Q16.]
It was not just consumer groups that expressed that sentiment; the British Retail Consortium also stated:
“We are concerned about fake reviews. We support the banning of them. We wish that what the Government propose for them was on the face of the Bill.”––[Official Report, Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Public Bill Committee, 13 June 2023; c. 49, Q78.]
I would be grateful for the Minister’s explanation of why the Government have left a ban out of primary legislation. One view is that the Government intended to include a ban, but ran out of time. Well, we have time to catch up during the passage of the Bill. Retail and consumer groups consider this measure very much noticeable by its absence, and it is important and significant that we address it during the passage of the Bill.
I have no doubt that the Minister will stress the need for further work and consultation on the issue. If so, perhaps he could also reflect on the considerable evidence of consumer detriment caused by fake reviews. Which? research from 2020 found that consumers are far more than twice as likely to buy poor-quality products that have been boosted by fake reviews. That affects the Minister’s constituents, mine, and those of every Member of this Committee.
As the CMA has noted, the average UK household spends £900 a year as a result of being influenced by online reviews. That demonstrates how significant the financial damage of fake reviews can be. In the Department for Business and Trade’s research from April this year, 11% to 15% of reviews in the category that it assessed were fake. That is the Government’s own research. The evidence is clear: action on fake reviews is needed now to protect consumers from their negative consequences. I would go so far as to say that the Opposition are doing the Government a favour by introducing these amendments. We have done the Government’s work for them.
I urge the Minister to support the amendments. Perhaps he will want to bring forward his own, as the Government are known to take good ideas when they see them, many of which they take from the Opposition. We understand that there has been significant dysfunction in Government, which may have got in the way of their doing the work that the country needs them to do. I therefore urge the Minister to support the amendments. He may also want to bring forward his own amendments at a future stage of the Bill or in the other place. I jest, with good reason, but we are not precious; we just want the right thing to be done. I hope that in his response, the Minister will confirm what action the Government will take during the passage of the Bill.
Richard Thomson
I very much support amendment 116, to the extent that I withdrew my attempt at an amendment that would have countered fake reviews. It is clear that fake reviews are a matter of real concern, not just for reputable companies, but for consumers, who like to rely on customer feedback before making some of their most important financial choices. Schedule 18 defines and sets out unfair practices, and it is only right that fake reviews be added to them. We again come back to the fundamental principle that if a market is to work effectively and efficiently, people need access to timely and accurate information. That goal of having accurate information in the marketplace is subverted considerably when fake information and misinformation are allowed to abound.
Neil Coyle
My hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston and the hon. Member for Gordon have already made some excellent points, so I will be brief.
Amendment 125 would add fake reviews to the list of banned practices. No customer should be hoodwinked by the deceitful practice of submitting a fake review. Fundamentally, many customers see fake reviews as fraud, which is the fastest-growing crime. Our police services are overstretched and sadly, under this Government, they do not have the resources to tackle fraud. The amendment examines alternative routes to securing action to tackle a problem that is leading to dangerous circumstances, as has been outlined.
Amendment 125 would provide a stronger power than the one proposed, and it has been called for by organisations representing British customers and responsible British businesses. It would be better for good business, better for customers and better for ensuring that standards were upheld. The charity Electrical Safety First, which is based in Bermondsey and Old Southwark, has said that in one of its investigations 93% of products bought from online marketplaces were unsafe—93%! In some significant part, that is down to fake reviews imposing a false legitimacy on goods. People buy because they believe other people have bought and have had an enjoyable experience or got the product they sought.
My hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston has already provided examples of the need to protect consumers, and I draw the attention of the Committee these live examples, which are happening right now. “A portable heater” was on eBay and people were saying it was fine, but it had
“easy access to live parts with 240 volts running through the heating element, posing”
what ESF called
“an imminent risk to life.”
Another example is a
“‘water-proof’ extension lead… on Amazon.”
Guess what? There are
“no water-proof capabilities”
and this
“presents a significant risk of electric shock. This item has already been recalled as unsafe by the Office for Product Safety and Standards”.
A combination of the takedown power and the removal of fake reviews that claimed that these products were okay and good to use would be a significant step forward—one that, sadly, is not in the Bill.
One last example is the bargain beauty products—not something I buy often for myself—on eBay that had no fuse in the plugs. That is how dangerous they were. Those goods, known to be dangerous, are still online. Removing fake reviews might help to prevent people from buying such shoddy items, but removing the goods altogether should be the fundamental aim. I politely suggest that the Minister adds ESF and specific consumer groups such as Which? to his round of pending meetings, to ensure that the Bill is improved—and to tackle the problem that he previously acknowledged existed. He likened himself earlier to “Pale Rider”. He may think he is “Pale Rider”, but I am not convinced that he has turned up on a horse, or even on a pony. Given that there is no baron here, it is more as though he is on a rocking horse.
Kevin Hollinrake
I am not sure that I can take that analogy any further. I think we are all in agreement. They say that the art of originality is to remember what you have heard but forget where you heard it. The Opposition say that we are stealing their good ideas, but obviously we committed some time ago to taking action in this area. I am not averse to taking some of the good ideas that we hear from the Opposition from time to time, but we also have to ensure that we reject the many bad ideas we hear from them in debates.
The Government agree that legislation to tackle fake reviews should be strengthened. We anticipate doing so by adding to the list of banned practices. However, it is important to get the details of those proposals right. That includes defining what we mean by fake reviews and how “reasonable and proportionate” steps will be understood. Similarly, we want those rules to encompass the manipulation of reviews that may harm consumers, which also needs detailed work with stakeholders to define. For example, the issue is not just about people trying to boost reviews, as the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston stated; it is also to do with people removing negative reviews inappropriately, which might affect ratings on review sites. The Government will therefore be consulting on fake reviews during the passage of the Bill to ensure that these rules work as intended and are clear for businesses. We will be doing that shortly, in the autumn.
The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark talked about ESF and Which?. I have spoken to both organisations and met them regularly. In fact, one of my first jobs in my ministerial role was to speak at an Electrical Safety First conference. On that note, I hope that hon. Members will withdraw their amendments.
Seema Malhotra
I am slightly disappointed by the Minister’s response; it does not sound as if there is anything other than long grass here. Significant groundwork has been done, both within Government and with stakeholders. Having another consultation in the autumn is like long grass: it is designed to spin things out until we reach 2025 and then there is something to add to the schedule. Unless the Minister wants to tell me that there is an intention to do more during the course of the Bill, we will be pushing this to a vote.
Seema Malhotra
Schedule 18 introduces a list of commercial practices that will automatically be considered unfair in all circumstances and will be prohibited. The list is long and comprehensive, and the Opposition welcome every practice listed, including a seller’s claiming to be a signatory to a code of conduct when they are not, falsely claiming that a product is able to prevent disease, providing inaccurate information about the availability of a product, and threatening a consumer if they do not buy a product.
However, we are concerned that there are significant omissions, which we addressed during our debates on the amendments. We will be happy to consider alternative wording, but we will continue to pursue additions that we believe would strengthen the Bill and its implementation. Nevertheless, we support the inclusion of this important schedule in the Bill.
Kevin Hollinrake
As has been said, the schedule protects consumers from the most prevalent and harmful commercial practices engaged in by deceitful traders. It largely replicates schedule 1 to the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 and provides a list of 31 commercial practices that are banned in all circumstances due to their inherently unfair nature. Among those practices are operating pyramid promotional schemes, displaying trust marks without obtaining the necessary authorisation, and stating that a product can be legally sold when it cannot.
Question put and agreed to.
Schedule 18 accordingly agreed to.
Clauses 218 to 221 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Seema Malhotra
I beg to move amendment 127, in clause 222, page 149, line 21, at end insert—
“(j) for goods and services offered on online marketplaces, whether the third party offering the products is a trader or not, on the basis of the declaration of that third party to the provider of the online marketplace.”
This amendment would add whether or not a third party seller on an online marketplace is a trader or a consumer to the list of omissions of material information in an invitation to purchase.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 126, in clause 222, page 150, line 11, leave out “and its price”.
This amendment expands the definition of an invitation to purchase to cases where the information provided to the consumer covers the characteristics of the product but not its price.
Seema Malhotra
It is a pleasure to speak to amendment 127, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd, and to make some remarks about amendment 126, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark.
Amendment 127 would add whether a third-party seller on an online marketplace is a trader or a consumer to the list of omissions of material information in an invitation to purchase. We have already raised concerns about the safety of products sold in online marketplaces, specifically through third-party sellers, and these concerns are accentuated by the inexplicable delay—it has been over a year since its publication was first promised, as we have discussed—of the product safety review into precisely this issue. In the meantime, the amendment would provide an extra safeguard for the consumer by making it mandatory for them to be informed about the status of a seller when they purchase a product online. That is particularly important in an increasingly digital economy, in which almost every individual or business can sell but consumers are unaware that they have different rights and forms of redress, depending on the status of the seller.
Consumer rights groups regularly conduct studies of products sold by third-party sellers on online marketplaces to test whether they comply with UK safety requirements. For example, in February this year, Which? sent 10 plug-in mini-heaters bought from online marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay to be tested at its product safety lab. All of them failed and were illegal to sell in the UK. That is especially dangerous for consumers in the light of the Conservatives’ cost of living crisis, which is resulting in people being pushed to buy cheaper, less reliable products.
Although only comprehensive Government action on this front will lead to the issue being properly tackled, the amendment would go part of the way towards providing the consumer with more power in online marketplaces, by informing them of the status of a seller and that their rights of redress when purchasing some products will vary from the rights they have when buying from the high street. It is a common-sense amendment that will help inform consumers in our digital economy and subsequently reduce the risks they face when buying from online marketplaces, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Amendment 126 would expand the definition of an “invitation to purchase” to cases where the information provided to the consumer covers the characteristics of a product but not its price. My hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark will speak to the amendment, which raises important questions for the Government. Removing the price from the definition of an “invitation to purchase” would ensure that many rogue traders, and the services they offer, were in scope of the definition.
As the Chartered Trading Standards Institute has pointed out, many rogue traders who target vulnerable consumers do not give a price when offering to do work. This means that it would automatically not be considered an “invitation to purchase”, and the regulations in clause 222 would not apply. By removing the reference to “price” in the definition of an “invitation to purchase”, the amendment would ensure that more rogue traders fall under the definition and can be caught by the legislation. The Minister may have his own views on the amendment. This is a really important issue, so I would welcome his response on the effectiveness of the amendment in addressing the issue and on the impact it could have.
Neil Coyle
I have a few brief supplementary comments, further to the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston. I just want to point out an anomaly and the problematic nature of the wording of the Bill, which I hope the Government will re-examine before they go further.
Amendment 126 would expand the definition of “invitation to purchase” to cases in which the information provided to a consumer covers the characteristics of a product, but not its price. That might sound counterintuitive, as it did to me when I first went through this with organisations, but it would expand the goods and services covered by the legislation. That is important, because the use of “price” in the wording of the Bill could prohibit action against a rogue trader. The existing wording might stop the Government meeting the aims that they are setting out to achieve.
The suggestion is that the specific requirement that the price be covered, if that is not the price paid, will potentially prevent action from being taken against a trader who deliberately advertises a price, but then changes it. An example might be where someone arranges for a person to come and fix a car part, a boiler or a pipe leak, and that person then arrives and says, “The product you’ve looked at online is not compatible with your boiler,”—or their fittings, their car or whatever it might be—“but guess what: I’ve got a different one in the van that’s a bit cheaper,” or a bit more expensive, “but will do the job better for you.”
By making a slight change to the wording of the Bill to remove the words “and its price” on page 150, amendment 126 would deal with that kind of rogue practice, which is out there and which has been raised by trading standards. The fear among the bodies that are trying to secure greater action against rogue traders is that the existing wording of the Bill allows wiggle room and will let the dodgy practices continue. I hope that airing that specific, possibly niche concern today will give us greater time to capture it and ensure that the Bill does not preclude action against rogue traders where specific prices are agreed up front but that is not the deal that takes place, because someone pays for a cheaper or even a more expensive alternative that does the same job.
Having flagged that concern, I hope that the Government will look again at the wording and at how they will meet their overall aim, which I support.
Kevin Hollinrake
It is an interesting point. We took the decision to strengthen the existing provisions in the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 in relation to invitations to purchase by removing the need for enforcers to prove that the transactional decision test has been met. This significantly increases the criminal liability of unscrupulous traders.
Amendment 126 would expand the definition of an invitation to purchase still further to cases in which information about products is presented to consumers without a price shown. We are concerned that that would expand the definition too far. Moreover, other provisions in chapter 1 of the Bill will achieve a similar aim: they will prohibit traders from making misleading statements or omissions in respect of all commercial practices. We feel that that covers this issue. However, I am happy to have further conversations with the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, certainly based on the evidence he has received, which I am happy to look at.
Amendment 127 would require that information as to whether a third-party seller or online marketplace is a trader or a consumer be added to the list of material information in an invitation to purchase. We have the same aim. Clause 222(2)(c) will require
“the identity of the trader and the identity of any other person on whose behalf the trader is acting”
to be disclosed. Moreover, subsections (2)(d) and (e) will require a range of contact details to be provided to consumers about who they may be buying from.
Accordingly, I hope that hon. Members will not press their amendments.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his comments. We still take the view that this needs to be tighter. In the light of his intentions, which we understand, we will take it away and look at it again. I do not want to lose our amendment, but we will not press it to a vote today. Perhaps we can come back to it at a future stage of the Bill.
Neil Coyle
I am grateful to the Minister for saying that he will look at the evidence. I am happy not to press amendment 126.
Seema Malhotra
I beg to ask leave to withdraw amendment 127.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 222 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 223
Public enforcement
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kevin Hollinrake
Clause 223 sets out who is responsible for enforcing the prohibition on unfair commercial practices. Trading standards have a duty to enforce the prohibitions in their areas across Great Britain. The Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland has a duty to enforce the prohibitions in Northern Ireland. The CMA has the power to enforce the prohibitions on a civil and criminal basis in the UK.
Seema Malhotra
We welcome clause 223. As the Minister states, it introduces provisions relating to the enforcement of the prohibition of unfair commercial practices, setting out how local weights and measures authorities—trading standards—will have a duty to enforce the prohibitions. The CMA will also have enforcement powers. We have talked several times in this Committee about the importance of trading standards in enforcing the regime. How involved have the CMA and trading standards been in the discussion around the powers in the Bill?
Is the Minister confident that local trading standards officers have the resources to enforce the regulations, especially after 13 years of what can only be described as a managed decline of local trading standards authorities, with local services facing a 52% reduction in service capacity under the Government’s watch since 2010? It is important to know that, because where increased expectations are coming through in legislation the question is whether there will be capacity to deliver on the new demands. I would be grateful for his response.
Kevin Hollinrake
I have meetings with the national teams of trading standards, and indeed the CMA, on a regular basis. We have had numerous discussions about the legislation, if the hon. Lady means her question broadly. Indeed, she was able to question some of those witnesses in the recent evidence sessions. Clearly, resources for trading standards are a matter for local authorities, not central Government. It is for local authorities to determine where those resources are committed.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 223 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 224
Rights of redress
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kevin Hollinrake
Clause 224 sets out the conditions under which consumers may exercise redress rights. The main condition is that misleading actions or aggressive practices must play a significant factor in the consumer’s decision to make payment for the supply of a good or enter a contract. Without the clause, victims of rogue traders who engage in lies and aggressive selling practices would be left with no private right of redress.
Seema Malhotra
Under clause 224, as the Minister says, the consumer will be able to enforce their right to redress relating to unfair commercial practices, subject to conditions, including that they have entered into a relevant contract, that the trader has engaged in a prohibited practice, that the prohibited practice was a significant factor in the consumer’s decision to make payment, and that the product concerned is not of an excluded type. Those are important provisions, including in the context of our debate about greenwashing. That is why it is important that we take forward the issues we have debated. None the less, we welcome the clause and these important provisions.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 224 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 225
Rights of redress: further provision
Richard Thomson
I beg to move amendment 67, in clause 225, page 152, line 30, at end insert—
“(4A) The Secretary of State must by regulations make any further provision necessary to ensure that the rights of redress available under this Chapter are equivalent to, and not lesser than, those available under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (S.I. 2008/1277).”
This amendment seeks to ensure that the “Consumer Rights to Redress” that will be set out through secondary legislation cannot offer a reduced level of the protection than the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 114, in clause 225, page 152, line 33, at end insert—
“(7) The Secretary of State must—
(a) prepare a report on the merits of introducing a consumer right to individual and collective redress by regulations set out in 225(1), and
(b) lay a copy of this report before Parliament.
(8) The report must be laid within the period of 12 months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to prepare and lay before Parliament a report on the merits of introducing a consumer right to individual and collective redress through secondary legislation, as is the case in EU member states.
Richard Thomson
As the explanatory statement sets out, amendment 67 seeks to ensure that the consumer rights to redress introduced through secondary legislation by Ministers cannot offer less protection than the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. That statutory instrument was effectively the successor to the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 and was designed to implement the unfair commercial practices directive as part of a common set of European minimum standards for consumer protection. Consumers, not just in Europe but throughout the UK, have benefited immensely from those protections. It is important as a point of principle that as legislation is repealed or evolves, there should be no inadvertent reduction in baseline consumer protections. There should be a reduction in consumer protections only where the Government deliberately choose to do so and we have an open debate.
The amendment is very much about ensuring that nothing slips down the drain inadvertently in terms of consumer protection. If the Government are not minded to accept it, what existing protections will they unwittingly let fall by the wayside? The amendment would capture the baseline level of protection through future secondary legislation. I look forward to the Minister’s remarks.
Seema Malhotra
I am pleased to speak to amendment 114, which stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd. I will also make reference to amendment 67, tabled by the hon. Member for Gordon.
Amendment 114 would require that the Secretary of State prepare and lay before Parliament a report on the merits of introducing a consumer right to individual and collective redress through secondary legislation, as is the case in EU member states. Amendment 67 would ensure that the consumer rights to redress set out in secondary legislation cannot offer less protection than the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. We support the principle of amendment 67, which would have a similar effect to amendment 114 by ensuring a more robust consumer right to redress.
More specifically on amendment 114, I refer the Minister to the written evidence of Which?, which notes that
“the Bill states that ‘Consumer Rights to Redress’ may be provided for in future secondary legislation, so it will give the Secretary of State powers to amend these rights. These rights are fundamentally important, as they include payment of damages when a trader misleads a consumer. We want assurances that they will not be downgraded as a result of this process, and a commitment from the Government to strengthen redress procedures when these new regulations are drafted.”
Amendment 114 would require a commitment from the Government to report on doing that, aiding the process of strengthening redress procedures when new regulations are drafted. I urge the Government to support amendments 114 and 67, and to ensure that consumer rights to redress are as strong as they can be, particularly in an increasingly digital economy.
Kevin Hollinrake
Amendments 67 and 114 deal with consumers’ private rights to redress. I agree with the hon. Members for Feltham and Heston and for Gordon that it is vital that consumers have robust private rights of redress.
Amendment 67 would limit changes by regulation to the consumer rights of redress to those that are equivalent to the remedies in the CPRs—the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. The Bill includes powers to amend rights of redress. That could include how such rights are exercised; the powers could also be used to make those rights clearer and simpler. Those would be positive changes for consumers that might not meet the test of equivalence to the current regulations that the amendment would impose. We would like to retain the ability to exceed the existing private redress provisions, if appropriate, which may encourage more consumers to make use of these rights. The first regulations made using the power will be to create the new regime to replace the current private redress provisions in the CPRs. Accordingly, those regulations will be subject to parliamentary approval via the affirmative procedure, thereby providing for appropriate parliamentary oversight of use of the power.
I turn to amendment 114. The courts already have the power to make an enforcement order against an infringer, or to accept undertakings from them to provide redress to affected consumers, through the measures in part 3. Enforcers can also accept undertakings from infringers to provide redress to affected consumers. For example, in 2021 the CMA secured an undertaking from Teletext Holidays to pay over £7 million in outstanding refunds from package travel trips cancelled due to covid-19.
The Bill will make the power to require enhanced consumer measures directly available to the CMA. Consumers also already have individual private rights of redress. In the “Reforming competition and consumer policy” consultation, we consulted on whether to introduce a right for consumers to bring collective redress. Responses were mixed, with concerns raised about unintended consequences such as the creation of a claims culture and inadvertently disincentivising the bringing of proceedings by consumer groups.
The hon. Member for Feltham and Heston referred to the EU situation. The outcome, however, is similar to the desired situation under the EU’s directive on collective redress, which requires member states to designate entities, such as consumer organisations, that can bring actions for collective redress on consumers’ behalf. The EU does not mandate that member states introduce direct rights for individual consumers to bring an action for collective redress.
We will keep the evidence under review, but our priority is to embed the CMA direct enforcement regime and understand the impact that it makes. On that basis, I hope that hon. Members will not press their amendments.
Richard Thomson
With regret, I am not minded to withdraw amendment 67. I hear what the Minister says about how the Government may wish to go beyond existing levels of consumer protection. That is welcome where appropriate, but I do not see anything in the amendment that would prevent Ministers from doing that. The key element in the amendment is to capture a baseline level of protection, equivalent to what was in the 2008 regulations, to ensure that there is nothing that dips below that without a conscious decision to do so having been taken and debated. On the basis that there is nothing that would prevent the Government from enhancing the levels of protection at any time, I am keen to divide the Committee.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Victims and Prisoners Bill (Tenth sitting)
Tuesday 4th July 2023
(3 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 View all Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 4 July 2023 - (4 Jul 2023)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
Amendment 19, in clause 12, page 10, line 22, at end insert—
“(d) fraud.”
This amendment would extend the duty to collaborate to include victim support services for victims of fraud.
Amendment 82, in clause 12, page 10, line 22, at end insert—
“(d) modern slavery.”
This amendment would extend the duty to collaborate to include victim support services for victims of modern slavery.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
I will quickly respond to the Minister’s comments on amendment 9. I take what he said about ensuring that collaboration includes support for different sorts of victim, but the point that I am outlining in the amendment—that child victims often need a very different type of support—is backed up by a lot of evidence and the many organisations we worked with to table the amendment. I would like the Minister, when taking the Bill forward, to reflect on that and to see what he can do to encourage and include collaboration specifically with child victims and support services. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment proposed: 19, in clause 12, page 10, line 22, at end insert—
“(d) fraud.”—(Anna McMorrin.)
This amendment would extend the duty to collaborate to include victim support services for victims of fraud.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)
I beg to move amendment 29, in clause 12, page 10, line 36, leave out “disclosure or”.
See the explanatory statement to Amendment 30.
Edward Argar
I will be brief. These amendments are part of a collection of minor and technical amendments that have been tabled across the Bill to ensure that consistent terminology is used in relation to data protection. These changes are primarily for the purposes of clarifying the provisions and ensuring that they work as intended; they do not constitute a policy change and are not intended to have substantive effects. The amendments in this group make changes to clause 12 to remove the term “disclosure” and insert
“within the meaning given by section 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018”,
to ensure consistency with existing legislation.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
That is absolutely fine. The amendment seems fairly minor, so knock yourselves out!
Amendment 29 agreed to.
Amendment made: 30, in clause 12, page 10, line 37, at end insert
“within the meaning given by section 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018”.—(Edward Argar.)
This amendment and Amendment 29 give “processing” of information the same meaning as in the Data Protection Act 2018. Processing includes disclosure and other uses of information, so there is no need to refer separately to disclosure.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 43, in clause 12, page 10, line 37, at end insert—
“(8A) Collaboration under this section may include the co-location of services in accordance with the Child House model, as defined by the Home Office guidance entitled “Child House: local partnerships guidance”, published 6 September 2021.”
This amendment would include within the duty to collaborate the use of the Child House model, described by the Home Office guidance as “a multi-agency service model supporting children, young people and non-abusing parents, carers and family members following child sexual abuse”.
The purpose of the amendment is to promote the establishment of child houses as part of the relevant authority’s duty to collaborate in the exercise of its victim support function. Although the Bill seeks to collaborate between commissioners, it does not provide the firm direction needed to enable the joint multi-disciplinary service provision that makes such a difference to child victims. By rolling out the child house model, we can ensure that children are provided with both therapeutic support and support to navigate the criminal justice process all under one roof.
Too many children face a lack of support after experiencing sexual abuse. Young victims seeking justice are faced with extremely distressing delays in the justice system, as waiting times for child sexual abuse cases have surged in the past few years. Ministry of Justice data shows that the average number of days between a defendant in child sexual abuse cases in England and Wales being charged and the criminal trial starting rose by 43% in four years. That is from 276 days in 2017 to 395 days in 2021—a lot of time in a young life. For children already suffering with depression or post-traumatic stress disorder as a consequence of the abuse, the drawn-out process of waiting for a trial to start and end can be extremely distressing and compound the significant mental health impacts of the abuse.
In 2020, the Office for National Statistics found that around half of child sexual abuse cases did not proceed further through the criminal justice system, citing one of the reasons as being that victims worried that the process would be too distressing. Going through a police investigation and prosecution as a victim is often described as inherently traumatic—think of that for a young child. That is because during the process of a police investigation and trial, a child or young person often has to retell the experience of abuse multiple times, usually in an environment that is unfamiliar, intimidating and confusing.
NSPCC research found that support for child witnesses varied depending on location and that only a small minority were ever offered communication support through a registered intermediary. NSPCC analysis of freedom of information data revealed that in 2020-21, only 23% of the 119 local authorities that responded across England and Wales said they provided dedicated support for young victims in the form of independent and specially trained advisers. Research shows that children face an inconsistent network of agencies and services after experiencing sexual abuse. Instead, we could use the approach of a child house.
A child house provides a child-centred model in which the agencies involved in supporting young victims, including healthcare, social care, children’s independent sexual violence advisers—CHISVAs—the third sector and police, all provide co-ordinated services in an integrated, child-friendly environment. It is literally under one roof, and that supports children to give their best evidence. Currently, there is only one child house in England and Wales: the Lighthouse in London. They would love Members to go and visit them. It is a fantastic place and just a tube ride away—do go and see it.
In 2021, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime was commissioned to evaluate the Lighthouse. As part of its research, children were consulted on their experiences. MOPAC found that the model addresses concerns that children who reported sexual abuse often face—that is, multiple interviews with social workers, the police and other professionals. Children who had used the Lighthouse complimented the care and respect they received from the staff. Being able to go at their own pace with choice and control was described as valuable. Children emphasised the positive impact that the homely atmosphere had and said that the environment was created by the little things, such as being offered a hot drink and police officers not wearing uniforms.
One child spoke about their experience to the NSPCC, saying—I slightly paraphrase: “Looking back on the Lighthouse, even though obviously I wish I hadn’t had to go there, I think they just made the experience of having to go there a lot less harder than it had to be…And yeah, I did feel like almost loved there. I guess looking back I didn’t realise at the time how easier things were made for me with the Lighthouse being there.”
The child house model has been recommended by the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, the Home Office, NHS England, the Children’s Commissioner for England and the Government’s own tackling child sexual abuse strategy, as well as the British Medical Association. Despite those endorsements and a wealth of evidence that supports the effectiveness of the model, the Bill does not address the fragmented support landscape currently faced by children. I ask the Minister to listen to all the evidence, use the opportunity in the Bill and commit to rolling out the brilliant model of child houses across the country. We really can demonstrate what a difference that would make to all child victims.
Jess Phillips
I rise to agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham and remind the Committee that the Children’s Commissioner mentioned the Lighthouse what might be a record number of times; I am sure that Hansard would tell me one way or the other. The experts are telling us that the approach works and I have some experience of the alternative—when cases fall apart and children are completely unsupported. That still happens in the vast majority of cases, I am afraid, so I support the amendment.
Edward Argar
I am grateful, as ever, to the hon. Member for Rotherham for the amendment, which would include within the duty to collaborate the use of the child house model. Co-located, child-centred support services, including those delivered in accordance with the child house model, do excellent work in supporting child victims of crime. Like other Committee members, I recognise the work done by the Lighthouse. I also take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work done by Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner, and her deputy Ellie Lyons, in campaigning for and highlighting the rights and needs of children.
The Government recognise the importance of the co-located child-centred support service, which is why we provided £7.5 million towards a pilot of the UK’s first child house, in Camden. Following that, we have published guidance for local partnerships that wish to introduce similar models for child victims in their area. The duty to collaborate aims to facilitate a more strategic and co-ordinated approach to commissioning and to improve the strategic co-ordination of services, so that all victims get the timely and quality support that they need.
The legislation requires commissioners to collaborate when commissioning services for victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violent offences. As we discussed this morning, it allows for flexibility for local commissioners to decide what services will best meet the needs of their population; that could include commissioning co-located services, exactly as the amendment suggests.
Listing in legislation the sorts of services that commissioners may or must consider is, I fear, slightly over-prescriptive—this goes back to the debates we have had about a number of amendments. I repeat what I said in those debates: it would risk excluding some of the other excellent service models that local areas may also want to commission, although I do not in any way diminish the huge impact that the child house model clearly has.
The duty also requires commissioners to consider any assessment of the needs of children when preparing their joint commissioning strategy. Statutory guidance will support commissioners in doing this, encouraging the co-production of services where appropriate and linking to the “Child House: local partnerships guidance” document. As the original draft Bill already allows local commissioners to adopt the approach where appropriate, we believe that it strikes an appropriate balance. I hope that the hon. Member for Rotherham might be persuaded to agree.
Sarah Champion
I thank the Minister for his warm words in support of the child house model. This was always a probing amendment. I hope that the commissioners listen to the Minister’s support for the model and act accordingly. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Sarah Champion
I beg to move amendment 83, in clause 12, page 10, line 40, at end insert—
“(10) The Secretary of State for Justice must ensure the relevant authorities have sufficient funding to exercise their functions in relation to relevant victim support services.”
This is not a probing amendment. For me, this is the nub of the gap in the Bill. Amendment 83 would make the Secretary of State for Justice ensure that the relevant authorities have sufficient funding to exercise their functions in relation to victim support services. I put on the record that the amendment is supported by Refuge. Its recent report, entitled “Local Lifelines”, highlights that
“Due to inconsistent funding of support services across the country, survivors face a postcode lottery”.
Collaboration between relevant public authorities is part of the solution. However, without funding, the duty to collaborate will not result in a meaningful change for survivors.
The Minister has talked about the duty to collaborate helping to identify duplications and gaps, but there are no duplications in this threadbare sector—only gaps, which cannot be filled without additional funding. Community-based domestic abuse services provide holistic, specialist support to women and children experiencing domestic abuse in local settings. Some 95% of survivors supported by Refuge, the UK’s largest provider of gender-based violence services, rely on some form of community-based service, yet far too often, through no fault of their own, survivors are unable to access community-based services due to the postcode lottery in service provision across the country.
In 2022, the report published by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, “A Patchwork of Provision”, estimated that fewer than half of survivors who wanted to access community-based services were able to. Minoritised women seeking support from specialist “by and for” organisations face even greater barriers to accessing support. It is therefore vital that the Victims and Prisoners Bill introduces strong measures to safeguard these services.
Although the Ministry of Justice has committed to increasing funding for victims and witness support services to £147 million per year until 2024-25, that funding is not ringfenced to domestic abuse services. Existing commitments are simply insufficient to meet the demand for specialist domestic abuse community-based services across the UK. In the witness sessions, the Minister asked how much was needed for that; I can confirm that Women’s Aid put the cost at £238 million per year. I know that seems like a lot of money, but when we look at other schemes and how casually we now talk about billions and trillions, £238 million to provide the services we need to make this Bill as effective as the Minister wants it to be seems somewhat slender.
Amendment 83 would strengthen the duty to collaborate to require the Secretary of State to provide sufficient funding for relevant authorities to exercise their functions in relation to relevant victim support services. Refuge’s report demonstrates the extent of funding challenges facing frontline domestic abuse community-based services. More than four in five, or 85%, of frontline workers surveyed by Refuge said that their service is impacted by insufficient funding. Funding gaps are particularly acute for mental health support, early intervention and support for children and young people.
In many cases, funding contracts are simply insufficient to cover the costs of running a safe and effective service. That leaves organisations reliant on insecure and fundraised income, which is fundamentally unsustainable. For the financial year 2021-22, more than half of Refuge’s income was generated from fundraising sources. In this cost of living crisis, many charities are seeing their fundraising income falling dramatically.
In addition to insufficient fundraising, short-term contracts and recruitment challenges are exacerbating the insecurity facing many community-based services and contributing to rising caseloads. More than three quarters, or 76%, of frontline workers surveyed by Refuge said that their caseload had increased over the past 12 months. That comes at a time when victims and survivors need our support more than ever. The cost of living crisis is exacerbating the financial hardship victims and survivors face when fleeing abuse. Survivors typically flee with few possessions and often have to give up their jobs for their own safety. According to Refuge, as a result of this crisis more women are going to community-based services with financial support needs, such as food bank referrals and debt advice. Community-based services are not only transformational for victims and survivors; they are critical to managing the cost of domestic abuse to society.
According to Government estimates, domestic abuse costs society a staggering £78 billion a year. Economic analysis published by Women’s Aid early this year shows that every £1 invested in domestic abuse services will result in at least £9 of savings to the public purse. The case for investing in community-based services is therefore clear. Sustainably funding specialist support services, which reduce the need for victims and survivors to use statutory services, will save money in the long term while transforming the lives of victims, survivors and their children.
Jess Phillips
I just want to draw a comparison between services—for example, in the health service—that we fund and do not expect to get to crisis point. The best example I can ever think of is diabetes services. Imagine if the scheme in our country was that 10% of all people who have diabetes could access insulin and the other 90% could access insulin only at the point that they were about to die. That is the current situation with community-based services in domestic abuse services. If you fund crisis, you get crisis. If you fund prevention, you get prevention. That is simply the case at the moment.
We ration provision. We literally have a form for it, called the DASH—domestic abuse, stalking, harassment and honour based violence—risk assessment. A DASH risk assessment will be undertaken and you will be given a score—almost like, “How good is your domestic abuse?” We will come to some of these issues when we debate independent domestic violence advisers. From that score, a decision will be made about what sort of service you can access—not you, Mr Hosie; rather what sort of service “one” can access. I have seen DASH risk assessments where a woman has been hit repeatedly with a brick in the face and was not given a high risk of harm on her risk assessment. To be given a high risk of harm on a risk assessment, someone basically has to be at imminent risk of death. It is a bit like high risk in children’s social care; in the vast majority of the country, a parent basically has to have a knife to the child’s throat for the case to reach the threshold for any sort of children’s social services care.
Imagine if people got that kind of level with diabetes and we said, “You can have the insulin. There may be a service for you, but not necessarily,” and to everybody else who we could avoid elevating to the risk level of having been hit around the face with a brick, we said, “Go on this waiting list. Come back later. We’ll manage you in the community,” which basically means, “Go away until he knocks on your door 17 times with a machete and even then we won’t consider you high risk of harm.” Those are literal cases that I have handled.
I speak in absolute support of my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham. I also want to make a broader point about funding. The Justice Committee’s pre-legislative scrutiny report said that around £40 million, if not more—I think that figure is correct, but I am more than happy to correct the record if I have got it wrong—is being allocated to legal aid access for people who do not like their parole decision. The Minister has stood up a number of times today and said that the way to get money is by going to the Chancellor and doing it through the financial systems, which of course was not the case in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, because the money was allocated for the refuge assessment. The only money that is being allocated in this Bill is something that can be accessed by, for example, murderers but not by the people they would go on to murder.
Edward Argar
I fear that this is one area where I may not be able to bring the hon. Member for Rotherham with me. I will try but I suspect I may be out of luck on this one. I am grateful to her for the amendment and for the opportunity to debate this important matter.
To the point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley about the Parole Board, my recollection of what the Committee and the assessment looked at was not additional new money being made available in the way she suggests for part 3 but not for part 1, but a recognition of the cost implications of those changes based on the current entitlements to legal aid and the way the process works.
Edward Argar
I take her point, but I add the nuance that it is not a case of new money being allocated. It is an assessment of the consequences of a legal entitlement that would exist in those circumstances.
To speak to the broader point, I agree with the hon. Member for Rotherham on the importance of sufficient funding for victims’ services and ensuring that, where we can, we also provide funding to commission services on a multi-year basis. That was one of the key pillars of the victims funding strategy. That reflected what I, when I was last doing this job, was told by the sector, and what the hon. Lady will have been told as well, about the challenge of small, short-term pots of money—a situation that results in a number of key staff spending most of their time not delivering the service but writing bids to try to collate enough to meet the financial needs of that service. The funding strategy recognises and reflects that, so the Government do recognise that, where possible, that should be the approach adopted.
Outside of legislation we are more than quadrupling funding for victims’ services—as a basket, as it were—by 2024-25. That funding is up from £41 million in 2009-10, and includes an additional £6 million per annum through this spending review period, which is provided directly to police and crime commissioners and ringfenced for domestic abuse and sexual violence services in response to increased demand. Through the Bill, we are creating a statutory duty on PCCs, integrated care boards and local authorities in England to collaborate when exercising their victim support functions for victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violent crimes. That will mean that support is better co-ordinated and more effective. Collaboration should also improve use of existing funds.
Monitoring of local need and provision provides Government with valuable intelligence and insights. To improve our understanding of demand and the impact of the services we fund, we have introduced through the victims funding strategy a core set of metrics and outcomes that are being collected across Government. The reality is, however, that this information is used to inform decisions made through the spending review process, which continues to be the right approach to setting Government budgets, as it recognises that there is a finite amount of taxpayers’ money and there are finite funds.
I would gently argue that individual Bills setting funding requirements in an unco-ordinated way is not the most appropriate or effective way to consider Government spending and prioritisation of funding in the round. I was going to say, “as a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury,” but I only did that job for 11 days—maybe that still counts. I would nevertheless argue that considering funding in the round during the spending review process is the right approach. Continued flexibility is required when considering funding levels, and I do not believe that fixing funding in primary legislation is the right approach in that context. I fear I may not carry the hon. Member for Rotherham with me on this one occasion, but it was worth a try.
Sarah Champion
I always have respect for the Minister and he is right: I understand the analysis he puts forward but I do not agree with it, because there are other examples where money is attached to a Bill. Although I think the Minister will have a fight on his hands with this, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn,
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Edward Argar
Clause 12 introduces a joint statutory duty on police and crime commissioners, integrated care boards and local authorities to collaborate on relevant victim support services. As a result of the clause, we have for the first time a framework for collaboration when commissioning support services for victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violence that amounts to criminal conduct.
The duty focuses on child and adult victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violent crime, as they are particularly traumatic crimes for the worryingly high number of victims each year. It does not include accommodation-based services, which are covered by separate legislation under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, as was alluded to by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley. Victim support services are crucial for victims to be able to cope with and recover from the impact of crime. Across the three crime types, victims typically access a range of services from health, local authority services and policing bodies. At present, services are not always co-ordinated and victims can find them to be disjointed when moving between them. As a result of the clause, we expect the relevant authorities to consider the entirety of the victim support service pathway and strategically co-ordinate and target services where victims need them most.
Clause 12 should be considered alongside clause 13, which we are shortly to debate and which requires the authorities to prepare, implement and publish a local commissioning strategy. We expect this activity to lead to increased join-up between services, a common understanding of local need and systematic sharing of information, leading to more informed decision making in commissioning. The clause also enables the sharing of relevant information to support that duty. With that, I commend the clause to the Committee.
Jess Phillips
I do not have much more to say, as I made most of my comments around clause 12 in its entirety when moving amendment 80. We recognise the good intention of the provision, but feel it has some way to go to not just be words on goatskin, which is what I am always concerned about. Words on goatskin are all well and good, but when it comes to how this legislation acts in people’s lives on the ground, I think it still has some way to go—but the intention is obviously one that we would support.
Edward Argar
I commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 12, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 13
Strategy for collaboration in exercise of victim support functions
Sarah Champion
I beg to move amendment 87 in clause 13, page 11, line 3, at end insert—
‘(aa) prepare an assessment of the needs of victims (including victims who are children or have other protected characteristics) in the area,’.
This amendment would require the relevant authorities in a police area in England to assess the needs of victims in their area.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 88 in clause 13, page 11, leave out lines 16 to 18 and insert—
‘(a) the assessment of the needs of victims (including victims who are children or have other protected characteristics) carried out under subsection (1),’.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 87 and would require the relevant authorities to have regard to their assessment of the needs of victims when preparing the strategy.
Sarah Champion
Both amendments seek to ensure that the strategy for collaboration takes into account victims’ needs. Amendment 87 would require the relevant authorities to begin the strategy of preparing an assessment of victims’ needs. That must include a specific requirement to assess the need of child victims and those with other protected characteristics, who are particularly vulnerable and must be subject to additional considerations by the relevant authorities. It is a logical place to begin and, as I stated when arguing for the joint strategic needs assessment, it would fail to be an effective collaboration if needs were not evaluated to begin with.
Amendment 88 would require the relevant authorities to consider the needs assessment when putting together the strategy to collaborate. Some partnerships may do that once the Bill is passed, but we must ensure that every region has the same standards and processes so that the needs of all victims, and particularly child victims, are met across the country. The amendment would enable the strategy to collaborate and be more cost-effective and ambitious when fulfilling the duty the Minister wants it to achieve.
Jess Phillips
I do not have much to say other than that I entirely support the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham.
Edward Argar
I am grateful, as ever, to the hon. Member for Rotherham for her amendment, which would require the relevant authorities in a police area in England to assess the needs of victims in their area and then take that assessment into account when devising strategies under the duty to collaborate. I already touched on that when debating an earlier amendment, so I will seek not to repeat myself—at least not too much—although, I am afraid that some of the arguments will be the same.
The Government agree that needs assessments are vital in informing local commissioning decisions, and relevant local needs assessments that indicate the needs of victims already happen regularly as part of good practice. The Ministry of Justice provides police and crime commissioners with grant funding to commission practical, emotional and therapeutic support services for victims of all types of crime in their local areas. In order to achieve that and to know which services are required, PCCs are expected to carry out needs assessments that will allow them to target the funding and ascertain the level of need and demand in their area.
There are also several other needs assessments that local commissioners carry out, which give an assessment of the needs of victims. They include, but are not limited to: the serious violence joint strategic needs assessment, which indicates levels of serious violence and the volume of victims in an area; the public health joint strategic needs assessment, carried out by local authorities and health and wellbeing boards, which sets out social care and public health needs; and safe accommodation needs assessments, which give an indication of the number of domestic abuse victims requiring safe accommodation in an area.
We have been clear with commissioners in the victims funding strategy that needs assessments are a central pillar of commissioning victim support services. To do that, the victims funding strategy sets out a clear expectation that commissioners carry out regular needs assessments using all the data required to commission appropriate services for victims in their areas, including victims with tailored needs.
Sarah Champion
The amendment is very specific about children, so would the Minister touch on that, please?
Edward Argar
I reassure the hon. Lady that I will turn to that. I have a little more to say, though not too much. To ensure that the victims funding strategy is improving commissioning practices and outcomes for victims—all victims, including adults and children—we will set up a cross-Government oversight board, which I have mentioned, to monitor delivery against the strategy. I am encouraged by the engagement with commissioners and providers to date, which indicates that the standards set within the victims funding strategy are being upheld, but we will of course continue to monitor adherence to those standards.
The duty to collaborate aims to ensure that the relevant authorities come together to utilise all the relevant needs assessments that I have set out when commissioning services for adults or children, as well as any other relevant data or information. Clause 13(3) requires the relevant authorities to have regard to any needs assessments that they have already carried out in respect of the needs of particular groups of victims when preparing their joint strategy. Statutory guidance for the duty will clarify that, when commissioning, the relevant authorities are expected to set out in their joint commissioning strategy how they have had regard to the relevant needs assessments, and how commissioning decisions aim to meet the identified needs of different groups.
We fear that placing that in legislation would be duplicative of existing practices that currently work effectively, and which our duty to collaborate will only enhance. Indeed, by virtue of the relevant commissioners under the duty working together, assessing existing needs and publishing their commissioning strategies, they will build up a clear picture of the local landscape of victims services and the local populations. The strategies will then clearly set out how they will, over the coming period, deliver a more joined-up and effective service for victims, including child victims.
I am happy to work with the hon. Member for Rotherham to identify the benefits and drawbacks of the current system. As I set out earlier, I continue to reflect on the points that she and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner made about joint strategic needs assessments, which shades into what I believe the hon. Lady is seeking to get at with the amendment.
Sarah Champion
I thank the Minister for his offer to collaborate on this. I have been working with the NSPCC, which has much more experience than I do, so we would gratefully accept the offer, and on that basis I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Sarah Champion
I beg to move amendment 84, in clause 13, page 11, line 8, at end insert—
“(d) ensure that services commissioned as part of the strategy are given contracts or grants for a minimum of three years, unless it would not be justifiable and proportionate to do so.”.
I present this as a probing amendment because I sadly know the Minister’s position. He was right to highlight earlier the eternal misery of short-term contracts as a result of short-term funding, and just how much the community invests in funding bids, some of which are successful and some of which are not. I am sure that we both agree that that money would be better spent on the services themselves.
Longer-term contracts are essential to help ease the insecure funding landscape facing the specialist domestic abuse sector. Amendment 84 would introduce a requirement that services commissioned under the duty to collaborate be delivered through sustainable contract terms of three years or more. That would enable community-based services to take root in a local area, recruit to permanent contracts, and provide women and children with the security and stability that they desperately need when fleeing domestic abuse. Some 64% of frontline workers surveyed for Refuge’s report, “Local Lifelines”, said that their services were impacted by short-term contracts. Frontline workers highlighted the challenges of delivering a service under short-term contracts due to the time and resources that it takes to implement a new service and embed the idea.
If a contract is for two years or less, it often takes the length of the contract for the service to become established within a local area. Then it stops, or the whole process starts all over again, at which point survivors must find new sources of ongoing help, which can be incredibly unsettling and traumatic for those victims. Short-term contracts force charities to spend resources rebidding for contracts rather than supporting their clients. It also presents significant recruitment challenges, as services can only offer short fixed-term, rather than permanent, posts. Given the transformative impact of community-based services on a survivor’s journey towards safety and independence, ensuring services are properly staffed and well established in their local area is vital. I know that the Minister understands that. Through an adequate, sustainable funding offer for community-based services delivered via long-term contracts, these services can take root in the community and provide the stability that women and children need.
Jess Phillips
I entirely endorse and support the amendment. As someone who was in charge of fundraising for a small community-based organisation, I know that the amount of money wasted getting in human resources experts is significant. It happened to me on a number of occasions: it would roll around to December and people would be put on notice just before Christmas—because of the financial year, staff can be given three months’ notice at Christmas, which is always a really cheerful thing to have to do as a boss of one of these organisations.
I also point out that the problem has been exacerbated by the current delays in both the policing and the court-based systems. That adds a new flavour for domestic abuse community-based services or sexual violence community-based services. Yesterday, I was interviewed by police in a case. Hilariously, the police officer said to me, “Are there any dates you might be on holiday?”, and I said, “Well, I’m going away in August,” and I thought, “Hope springs eternal—it will be August 2025 before I see the inside of that courtroom.”
The situation is that a victim could come forward, go through the process with the police and the charge could take a year, let alone the court time taking another two years. The lack of continuity of even the same service, let alone the same person, still being in place because of the way short-term contracts in this space work is exacerbated by delays in the system. We have to skin the cat we have, and that cat is one of delay in this process. Three years from complaint to end on anything that would be seeing the inside of a Crown court is standard at the moment, so the very least we should seek to do is ensure that at least three-year contracts are provided in this space.
Edward Argar
We touched on a number of the elements that I am going to talk about when we debated amendment 83, which the hon. Member for Rotherham moved earlier, so I will be relatively brief. I agree with her on the importance of sufficient funding for victims’ services and ensuring that, where we can, we provide the funding to commission services on a multi-year basis.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, is right to highlight the challenges: not only the demand pressures on a charity or a service provider but the fact that those most experienced at meeting that demand and providing the service are often the people who have to sit writing the responses to the invitations to tender or bids. I say that as someone who, before coming to this place, was a trustee of an environmental-regeneration employment charity. The challenge is having certainty of income and also a diversity of income streams, so that the charity can insure itself against any one of them suddenly saying it will no longer provide funding.
It is absolutely right to highlight the fact that individuals invest not just money but time, and that the work is often done outside office hours because they are at work during working hours and spend their evenings doing it. I visited a project in north-west London a little while ago and had exactly that conversation with some of the trustees and the senior staff there. Without a degree of certainty on funding, where that is possible, the challenge is not only the effort of constantly bidding for it but the risk of losing good people who, however passionate and however much of a vocation it is for them, often want at least a degree of predictability in their lives so that they know they can pay their bills.
Amendment 84 seeks to ensure that commissioned services are given contracts or grants for a minimum of three years. As I just alluded to, I recognise the importance of sustainable funding for victim support services and how it can affect the reliability and consistency of services. We listened to service providers, who told us that single-year funding presented the biggest challenge to them in delivering support for victims, and we have already committed to multi-year funding, where possible, outside legislation. We have committed £154 million per annum of our victims budget on a multi-year basis across this spending review period, totalling a minimum of £460 million over three years.
Multi-year funding will allow for greater staff retention, opportunity for services to innovate and invest for the long term in the services they are able to provide, and— to the point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley—allow victims to receive a greater degree of consistency and continuity in the support they need, particularly when they have begun to build up a rapport and trust with those with whom they are working. That is why we have put multi-year funding at the centre of our victims funding strategy, in which we reaffirmed that commitment and set out an expectation for all commissioners to pass multi-year commitments on to their providers.
Sarah Champion
The amendment was probing and provided a good opportunity for me to remember how hard you fought the last time you were in this role to get multi-year funding agreements in place. It helps enormously to have you in post and to get you on the record. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Chair
May I gently remind all colleagues, who are all very experienced, that I did not promise anything or deliver anything? The Minister did.
Sarah Champion
I beg to move amendment 85, in clause 13, page 11, line 13, at end insert—
“(ba) persons appearing to the relevant authorities to represent persons providing relevant victim support services for children,
(bb) victims,”.
This amendment would require the relevant authorities to consult victims and organisations providing support to child victims in preparing their strategy.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 81, in clause 13, page 11, line 14, at end insert—
“(d) victims to whom relevant victim support services are being, or may be, provided.”.
This amendment would require the relevant authorities to consult victims who are, or may be, receiving support services when preparing their strategy.
Sarah Champion
Apologies for getting overexcited, Mr Hosie.
Amendment 81 is supported by London’s Victims’ Commissioner, Claire Waxman, and it is worth reminding the Committee that Claire started campaigning for a victims Bill in 2014 or 2015. I pay huge tribute to her for never giving up. The fact that we are here debating it is in no small part due to her campaigning. Amendment 85 is supported by the NSPCC, to which I am grateful.
Amendment 81 would simply require that the relevant victims are engaged and consulted when authorities prepare the strategy for collaboration. We must ensure that victims themselves are engaged in the strategic planning for victim support services, because they know best. Amendment 85 seeks to make it clear that we must ensure that organisations that provide support to child victims are similarly consulted. As I have already made clear, children have very specific needs as victims. There must be a link between recognising children as victims and the duty to deliver a strategy for collaboration in the exercise of victim support functions, to ensure that commissioners include support services for children when preparing their joint commissioning strategies.
Considering children’s support needs as distinct from those of adults is vital. It is crucial for commissioners to reflect children’s needs effectively when they prepare their joint commissioning strategies. It is especially key at a time when child abuse continues to rise. At least 500,000 children a year are estimated to suffer abuse in the UK, one in 20 children in the UK have been sexually abused, and an estimated one in five children have experienced severe maltreatment. Last year, for the first time more than 100,000 cases of child sexual abuse were reported. NSPCC freedom of information data found that police in England and Wales made nearly 700 referrals a day to children’s social services about domestic abuse in 2021, totalling 245,000 cases that year.
Recognition of children in the relevant authorities’ victims’ needs analysis is welcome, and I welcome what the Minister has previously said, but the relevant authorities must have a duty to consult the providers of children’s services to ensure that those services are included in commissioning strategies. Simply including children in the victims’ needs analysis is not enough to ensure that support is in place. NSPCC freedom of information figures demonstrate that many local authorities are not accessing readily available information about child victims of domestic and sexual abuse. When asked, 50% of local authorities did not have any records of the number of child victims who had experienced either sexual or domestic abuse in their area, despite their statutory obligations to undertake a joint strategic needs assessment to improve the health and wellbeing of their communities.
It concerns me that the Bill risks undermining the important recognition that child victims must come within scope of the Bill if the duty to deliver a strategy for collaboration in exercise of victim support functions—I would love it if it could be called something snappier —does not include a duty to consult the providers of children’s services. I hope the Minister recognises that risk and therefore accepts the amendment.
Jess Phillips
I completely support the amendment and just wish to say that although I and others will talk about the lack of available support services for victims of domestic and sexual violence more broadly, there is no group more populous and more poorly served than children. The idea that children’s services would not be included seems bizarre, and the argument has been eloquently put.
Edward Argar
I thank the hon. Member for Rotherham for her amendments, which would require the relevant authorities to consult victims who are or may be receiving support services when they prepare their strategies. I also take the opportunity to pay tribute to the work of Claire Waxman, whom the hon. Lady rightly mentioned. I have a huge respect for Claire Waxman. We do not always agree on everything, but she is a formidable and passionate campaigner in this space and she manages to do that and achieve results while being an incredibly nice person as well. She is incredibly successful in what she does and I wish her continued success—albeit perhaps not in every aspect, because sometimes she will push me a little too hard. We should all be grateful to her for her work.
Amendment 85 would require the relevant authorities to consult providers of support services for child victims, as well as victims directly, when they prepare their joint strategy. I will address the two parts of the amendment in turn. I agree that engagement with the providers of services for child victims can provide valuable insight into local decisions, including on how commissioning is likely to impact victims, communities and the capacity of organisations to provide support. Our view is that the Bill already meets that objective. Clause 13(2)(b) requires the authorities to consult
“persons appearing to the relevant authorities to represent persons providing relevant victim support services”.
I am happy to make it clear to the Committee that that includes the providers of services for child victims.
Furthermore, we intend for statutory guidance to set out in more detail how relevant authorities can ensure that child victims’ needs are met. That is intended to include how they can engage directly with victims if they consider it appropriate to do so, and take into account the views of providers and experts in the sector. I am happy for the hon. Member for Rotherham to give her thoughts on what that statutory guidance should contain, based on her work with the NSPCC and other organisations; as on other aspects of the Bill, I will work with her to see whether we can create something that works. Although I agree with the objective behind the first part of the amendment, we do not consider it necessary.
The second part of the amendment would require the authorities to engage directly with victims. I agree that they should take into account the views of victims when they prepare their joint strategy. That is why clause 13(2)(a) requires them to consult those representing the interests of victims and clause 13(2)(c) gives scope for them to engage directly with victims if they consider it appropriate to do so. Again, we intend for the statutory guidance issued under clause 14, which we will turn to shortly, to make that clear and set out in more detail the considerations that should be taken into account by the authorities when deciding who they should engage with, as well as our expected standards and process for consultation.
In addition, clause 13(3) requires authorities to have regard to any assessments of the needs of victims, including child victims, and the relevant victim support services that are available in the police area. The measures in the clause, taken together, ensure that the voices of victims and the expertise of victim representatives will be considered when the joint strategy is prepared. I do not believe that the second part of the amendment is necessary, given the extant clauses and subsections.
Amendment 81 would require the relevant authorities to consult victims who are, or may be, receiving support services when they prepare their strategies. I agree that is an important issue. Clause 13 already sets out that the relevant authorities—police and crime commissioners, integrated care boards and local authorities in England—must consult persons who represent the interests of victims, those who provide relevant victim support services and other persons the relevant authorities consider appropriate. That not only requires consultation with those who represent victims’ voices but gives ample scope for the relevant authorities to engage victims directly when they consider it appropriate to do so. We intend for the statutory guidance issued under clause 14 to set out in more detail what commissioners may want to take into account when they consider their duty to consult, including how to engage with victims effectively and, importantly, in a trauma-informed manner.
Engaging with victims to better understand their experiences in accessing services is undoubtably beneficial to the improvement of commissioning and outcomes for victims. Alongside allowing for direct engagement with victims themselves, clause 13 requires the relevant authorities to consult persons who represent victims. That is because some victims may prefer to be represented by another body—an advocate, a campaigner, a charity or a service provider—and we believe the legislation should be flexible enough to allow for that. We do not want to disadvantage victims who do not have the resources, autonomy or confidence to speak up for themselves. We should also recognise that there are organisations that are experienced in taking views from a representative spread of victims, feeding back to commissioners, and ensuring those views are heard and are useful in the commissioning process.
I hope I have given the hon. Lady some reassurance that we believe the clause already covers what she seeks to achieve.
Sarah Champion
I wonder whether the Minister will give a bit of clarity. A lot of the solutions he is setting out are based on the statutory guidance; will we get draft statutory guidance before the Bill receives Royal Assent, or will it only come afterwards?
Edward Argar
As with other elements, such as the draft victims code, or the draft draft victims code, and the guidance, my intention—I suspect we will come to that when we discuss independent domestic violence advisers and independent sexual violence advisers—is that where possible we will publish as much statutory guidance in draft while the Bill is going through the House. That is facilitated by the fact that this is a carry-over Bill, so there is more time for right hon. and hon. Members to engage with the guidance. It will also inform the latter stages of the Bill’s passage through this House and the other place.
Sarah Champion
The Minister referred to the draft draft victims code consultation, but we have been unable to find that, so will he share it with the Committee?
Edward Argar
Through the Chair and if appropriate, I will ask my officials to communicate via the Clerk where that can be found, so that it can be circulated to Committee members for their information as we continue our deliberations. On that basis, I ask the hon. Lady to consider withdrawing her amendment.
Sarah Champion
I take the Minister’s comments at face value and am glad that we have them on the record. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Anna McMorrin
I beg to move amendment 15, in clause 13, page 11, line 14, at end insert—
“(d) the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses.”.
This amendment would require the relevant authorities to consult the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses when preparing their strategy for collaboration.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 16, in clause 13, page 11, line 20, at end insert—
“(c) any guidance prepared by the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses on collaboration between victim support services.”.
This amendment would require the relevant authorities to consider any guidance prepared by the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses when preparing their strategy for collaboration.
Anna McMorrin
I will refer to amendments 15 and 16 together. The clause outlines that relevant authorities in each police area must prepare a strategy for victim support services. Such collaboration is welcome, but there is one glaring omission: the Victims’ Commissioner.
In previous amendments, we have debated proposed increased powers for the Victims’ Commissioner, who is the one who voices the concerns of the voiceless—the victims. It is therefore imperative that, in the strategy preparation, the agencies must include guidance from the Victims’ Commissioner and consult that office. Only then will victims really have an independent voice advocating for them right down to the local level, where victims will see that most genuine change and impact.
The commissioner’s office can consult on best practice from the very beginning, guiding the authorities to make the meaningful change that the Minister wants the Bill to introduce. It is essential that the Victims’ Commissioner is consulted when the relevant authorities are preparing their strategy for collaboration on victim services; that is why I moved this amendment and tabled amendment 16. I am sure that the Minister will agree that that is needed in the Bill and that this oversight is simply an error that can be easily fixed.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the shadow Minister for her amendments and for her exposition of them. I agree with her on the importance of local areas reflecting the views and expertise of those representing the interests of victims when preparing and revising their strategies.
The amendment would require consultation with the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses when preparing local strategies, but I stress the existing requirement for the relevant authorities to engage with those who represent victims and providers, as well as other expert organisations. The clause deliberately does not specify any persons or organisations, to avoid being overly prescriptive.
As a—if not the—leading figure representing victims, we expect local areas to consult the commissioner when preparing their strategies, unless there is a justifiable reason not to do so. We intend the statutory guidance issued under clause 14 to set out who local commissioners might want to consider engaging with, as well as the standards and process for consultation. We believe that that will reflect whom we think should be consulted, but leaves sufficient flexibility, rather than placing a limiting or prescriptive list in primary legislation.
Amendment 16 seeks to require the relevant authorities to have regard to any guidance prepared by the commissioner. We intend the statutory guidance to set out clearly how we expect the relevant authorities to consider commissioning best practice and how to meet the needs of those with protected characteristics. That includes paying due regard to relevant research and reports published by key stakeholders, including the commissioner.
In developing the guidance thus far, the Ministry of Justice has engaged extensively with other Departments, local commissioners, experts and the victim support sector. I am grateful to all who have provided valuable input, including the Office of the Victims’ Commissioner. In light of that and given that we believe in being permissive rather than prescriptive in primary legislation, we think statutory guidance represents the appropriate balance in this space. I encourage the shadow Minister to consider not pressing her amendments.
Anna McMorrin
I am grateful to the Minister for setting that out: what will be said in statutory guidance and his explanation for deliberately avoiding a prescriptive list in the Bill. However, a reference to the Victims’ Commissioner is the core essence of what the Bill is about. Certainly part 1 is about giving a voice to victims, which is within the remit of the Victims’ Commissioner. I beg him to look at this again, and to be more prescriptive within the statutory guidance to ensure that there is a deliberate reference to the Victims’ Commissioner for those relevant authorities. Would he consider that?
Edward Argar
I am always happy to consider the suggestions put forward by the hon. Lady.
Anna McMorrin
I thank the Minister for that. I will not push the amendment to a vote, but hopefully we will work together on the statutory guidance. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Sarah Champion
I beg to move amendment 90, in clause 13, page 11, line 19, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—
“(b) any assessment of the victim support services consulted in carrying out their duty under section (12).”
This amendment would ensure that when preparing the strategy for collaboration, relevant authorities must have regard to any assessment of the victim support services consulted under section 12.
This is a probing amendment, which seeks to strengthen the strategy for collaboration by requiring relevant authorities to consider any assessments made under the duty to collaborate. Currently, clause 13 (3)(b) says that when preparing the strategy, relevant authorities must have regard to
“the relevant victim support services which are available in the police area (whether or not provided by the relevant authorities).”
As we have discussed, it is vital for victims’ needs to be considered, and that will take place under subsection (3)(a). However, the strategy must also take into account any review of support services that the relevant authorities may undertake under the duty to collaborate. That is key in preparing the strategy as it will help them to identify gaps in services and where local need for services is stronger.
We cannot simply suggest that authorities consider the support services available; we must ask them to be more ambitious than that. By requiring them to consider any evaluations of services, we can enable them to strengthen the options available for victims and ultimately improve the outcomes of the Bill. Wherever possible, we must ensure that the services available to victims are as strong as they can be. The best way to make that happen is by local partners taking into account local need. However, for that to take place consistently across the country, we must improve the wording of the clause so that all assessments of services are always taken into account.
Jess Phillips
I do not have anything to add to what has already been said. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for her amendment, which, somewhat like amendments 87, 88 and 89, would require relevant authorities for a police area to conduct a joint strategic needs assessment to inform the strategy for commissioning victim support services as part of the duty to collaborate. I am also grateful to her for highlighting that she has approached this as a probing amendment. I will respond to it in that vein, noting again the context of my previous comments about her broader calls for a JSNA.
The Government agree it is vital that relevant support services fit the local needs of victims, and that victims’ needs form the centre of any commissioning decision. Current systems are created so that commissioners place the victim at the heart of commissioning, enabling a bespoke approach rather than a one-size-fits-all approach set nationally.
PCCs are able to allocate the grants and funding supplied by my Department based on relevant needs assessments, which already happen as part of good commissioning processes. Those assessments enable PCCs to target funding into practical, emotional and therapeutic support services for victims of crime, where it is most needed in their area. PCCs, local authorities and integrated care boards are also required to carry out a joint strategic needs assessment under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which should indicate the level of serious violence and the number of victims affected.
Both domestic abuse and sexual abuse are now considered forms of serious violence—and in my view, rightly so. Local authorities and integrated care boards also already carry out separate assessments that indicate the needs of victims, including the needs assessment under part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which sets out the needs of victims in accommodation-based services, and the JSNA that informs the public health and wellbeing strategy.
Clause 13(3) requires PCCs, local authorities and integrated care boards to have regard, when preparing their joint strategy, to any needs assessments that they have already carried out and that reflect the needs of victims. Statutory guidance will state that relevant authorities should then set out in their joint commissioning strategy how they have had regard to the relevant needs assessments and how commissioning decisions aim to reflect and to meet the identified need.
Sarah Champion
I pause the Minister at the point of the black hole that he may well be about to backfill. If, in doing the assessment, the authorities found a big gap in provision in, say, Muslim women’s support services, would they then have to fill that gap and provide those services or would they just say, “Oh, that’s awful; we have a big gap in those services”?
Edward Argar
As I have said in previous responses, the funding is finite. There is a degree of flexibility—not total flexibility, because there are, as she will be aware, some ringfenced pots for police and crime commissioners to address specific needs. They also have their core funding. It is down to them to determine how they spend that funding and that finite pot of money, but having regard to the work that they have done in terms of needs assessments. To be blunt, they cannot spend what they do not have. They have a finite pot, so they will have to determine how that is most effectively used to meet the needs that they have identified.
The victims funding strategy, which we published in May last year, also sets a clear expectation that commissioners should carry out regular needs assessments using all the data required to commission appropriate services for victims in their area, including victims with tailored or specific needs. Due to the recent publication of the victims funding strategy—notwithstanding its genesis back when the hon. Lady and I talked about it in 2018, pre pandemic—we are still in the relatively early stages of assessing its impact and the pull-through into what happens on the ground.
For those reasons, I am not convinced that the amendment is required to clearly state that joint needs assessments must be considered at this stage. However, I understand the points that the hon. Lady made and, as always and as I have said more broadly in the context of needs assessments, I am happy to converse with her and look to work with her as we go forward.
Sarah Champion
For me, this amendment comes back to the idea that “you only know what you know”. My concern is that if the Minister, the Secretary of State, is clear that this assessment needs to be done and if gaps are found, there is the need to fill those gaps; I still do not have the assurances.
I am thinking of situations where, for example, English is not someone’s first language or they need British Sign Language, or where there are cultural issues and someone wants a culturally sensitive service. I would welcome the opportunity to work with the Minister. The amendment layers on to others that have come previously, which may well be put to a vote at a later point, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Sarah Champion
I beg to move amendment 86, in clause 13, page 11, line 27, at end insert—
“(5A) The relevant authorities must publish an annual report containing—
(a) information about the action they have taken to implement the strategy prepared under this section, and
(b) information about their compliance with the duty to collaborate under section 12 of this Act.”
This amendment would require the relevant authorities to publish an annual report about the implementation of the strategy and their compliance with the duty to collaborate in the exercise of victim support functions.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 9—Reviewing compliance: duty to collaborate—
“(1) A police and crime panel which oversees services in a police area must keep under review how the relevant authorities which provide services in the police area provide those services in accordance with their duties under section (12) and (13) of this Act.
(2) In this section, the reference to a “police and crime panel” is to be read in accordance with Schedule 6 to the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011.
(3) In this section, “relevant authorities” has the meaning given by section 12(2).
(4) For the purposes of subsection (1), police and crime panels must prepare and publish an annual report setting out how the relevant authorities are fulfilling their duties under section (12) and (13).
(5) A report under subsection (4) must set out, in particular—
(a) how the relevant authorities are assessing the needs of victims;
(b) how the relevant authorities are meeting the needs of victims; and
(c) how the relevant authorities are collaborating to represent the interests of victims.
(6) The police and crime panel must send a copy of any report published under subsection (4) to the Secretary of State.
(7) The Secretary of State must then publish an annual statement on the state of victim support.”
This new clause aims to establish a review of compliance with the duty to collaborate and add in a layer of accountability to oversee this new duty.
Sarah Champion
I apologise for taking up so much of the Committee’s time; I am very grateful for everyone’s indulgence. I do it just to try to get the best Bill, one that we can all be proud of.
Amendment 86 would require the relevant authorities to publish an annual report about the implementation of the strategy and their compliance with the duty to collaborate in the exercise of victim support functions, and new clause 9 aims to establish a review of compliance with the duty to collaborate and add in a layer of accountability to oversee the new duty. This is very much building on the debate that we have been having.
The duty placed on local authorities, integrated care boards and the police and crime commissioners to collaborate in their exercise of victim support functions is an important step towards ensuring that victims receive necessary support. However, although the duty to collaborate is important at the moment, there is no way of measuring the effectiveness of this model.
Jess Phillips
I was the chair of the west midlands police and crime panel, so I suppose I will say that in that role I would have been more than happy to undertake this particular piece of work. The truth is that we count what we care about and we try to ignore everything else. If I were to think about all the different strategies and timeframes for schemes that were meant to be better for victims that I have come across in my 20 years in this area, I would say that they are just sitting on a shelf gathering dust and have meant absolutely nothing on the ground. It would be a very high number—more than the number of amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, but only just. The truth is that unless we have a proper scrutiny function, albeit from the Victims’ Commissioner nationally or through a local situation—as my hon. Friend said, she has basically designed a system that could work perfectly well—my worry is that we will get a lot of nice words saying, “Of course we are going to ensure that all our mental health services are trauma-informed.” It is just words; it does not mean anything on the ground. We need some level of scrutiny on specific outputs, key performance indicators, timeframes, what is improving and what needs to be improved.
This is not about criticism. Domestic homicide reviews, serious case reviews and all the systems we put in to scrutinise post-something terrible happening to somebody or some terrible crime have become a bit of a blame game that, at times, can freeze people into inaction. It should be a process of scrutiny for the good and the bad, for a genuine conversation and for Government to be able to say, “This doesn’t seem to be working. What needs to happen across the country for it to work?”, so I absolutely support the amendment.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham, as ever, for her amendments. Amendment 86 would require the relevant authorities to publish an annual report about the implementation of the strategy and their compliance with the duty to collaborate in the exercise of victim support functions. New clause 9 would establish a review of compliance with the collaboration duties in clauses 12 and 13 and add a layer of accountability to oversee the new duty by requiring police and crime panels to keep under review how the relevant authorities that provide services in their area are doing so in accordance with their collaboration duties under clauses 12 and 13.
I seek to reassure the hon. Lady that the existing requirements of the duty to collaborate will achieve a high level of transparency and the Government have a plan for an effective system of oversight for this duty, which I will set out. The relevant authorities—police and crime commissioners, integrated care boards and local authorities in England—will already be under an obligation to publish, review and revise their commissioning strategies, including publishing any revised versions or revisions. This is to ensure transparency, as the strategies must contain information on how they consider they are fulfilling or intend to fulfil their duty under clause 12. We intend these strategies to be assessed by the national oversight forum, about which we have spoken previously in Committee and which was announced in our consultation response in 2022. This ministerial-led group will scrutinise the local strategies, assess the effectiveness of collaboration and how well the duty is executed. It will have an ongoing role in monitoring the performance and outputs of local strategies against the objectives that local areas have set.
Under clause 13, local areas must review and revise strategies from time to time so that they reflect the changing commissioning landscape and emerging local need. We expect strategies to be reviewed annually and revised fully approximately every four years. That is an expectation we will test in practice when we consult formally on the statutory guidance in due course. At the point of review and revision, the oversight group will have oversight responsibility to consider whether the next set of objectives set by local areas are ambitious and deliverable. I therefore contend that requiring an additional annual report as intended by amendment 86 is to a degree duplicative of the extant intentions under the clauses.
Sarah Champion
At this point, does the Minister have details of who will be on the oversight board?
Edward Argar
It is something that we continue to work through. I have alluded in previous comments to some of those whom we hope will be engaged—the Victims’ Commissioner and others—but if it is helpful, in the spirit of sharing what we have, even as a working document as we work our way through the Bill, I am open to considering sharing that as well with members of the Committee.
Edward Argar
In that context, I will gently say—and this may be a little less consensual than what I would normally say—that one of the people on the group will be the relevant Minister, but I fear that Opposition Members may have a long wait before that will necessarily apply to them. They may take a different view. On new clause 9, I agree with the hon. Lady—
Edward Argar
Not on that! I agree with the hon. Member for Rotherham on the importance of ensuring appropriate and robust oversight and monitoring of the duty to collaborate. I hope to reassure her that many of her proposals are satisfied by our existing clauses and the Government’s existing plans. Where we have taken a different approach from her recommendations, I will explain our reasoning.
The purpose of the duty is to create a framework that facilitates local collaboration and leads to more targeted and joined-up local commissioning that meets local needs. The measures we are introducing to achieve that are as framed in clauses 12 and 13. As I have said, we will be setting out plans for that clear system of oversight, which we think is essential to ensuring that it meets its aims. The details of that will be set out in statutory guidance. That oversight group will have an ongoing role in monitoring the performance and outputs of local strategies against the objectives that local areas have set. As I have alluded to, under clause 13 local areas must review and revise strategies from time to time.
I turn briefly to potential membership of that group, to put a little gloss on it that might help to inform any feedback the hon. Lady subsequently wishes to give. It needs to have a representative membership that represents and scrutinises the relevant authorities—police and crime commissioners, integrated care boards and local authorities. Those people will need to have the right seniority to discuss and take decisions on issues relating to the three crime types included in the duty: domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violent offences.
As well as Ministers and senior representatives from the relevant delivery authorities that have the ability to scrutinise local plans, it is important that we are able to bring different perspectives to the discussions. In the case of police and crime commissioners, that could include representatives from police and crime panels or, for example, the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners. We continue carefully to consider what representation may be required and I am open, as ever, to working with the hon. Lady on that.
The statutory guidance will set out clear advice on what form the national oversight structure will take and how the relevant authorities can participate and engage with it. I believe that this national oversight system will be effective, proportionate and less complex than alternative models. I am afraid I do not share the perspective that police and crime panels should take on oversight responsibilities to keep the relevant authorities under review in relation to the duty, and prepare and publish the annual report. I will set out my reasons and rationale for that.
First, the bodies that the hon. Lady would like police and crime panels to scrutinise are subject to different individual accountability arrangements. Under this duty, the Secretary of State will issue guidance to integrated care boards, PCCs and local authorities in relation to their collaboration duties under the Bill. While PCCs are scrutinised by those panels, and can be in respect of any of their functions, they, together with local authorities, are ultimately held to account at the ballot box—I suspect we would all hope to see higher turnouts in elections for those important offices, given the functions they perform, but it is of course the choice of our constituents as to whether they vote.
Secondly, it is important to stress that this is a joint statutory duty placed equally on police and crime commissioners, integrated care boards and local authorities. Victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violent crimes typically access a range of services across health, local authority services and policing provision. That is the primary reason why our duty to collaborate is a joint one.
Police and crime panels are rightly focused on scrutinising the relevant PCC on any decisions and actions taken in connection with the commissioner’s role—again, including this new addition to their obligations—but they do not have scrutiny powers over local authorities or integrated care boards. The proposed clause would therefore require going beyond the role, function and powers of the panels. It would also potentially infringe the independence and respective scrutiny arrangements of the other bodies under the duty. The Government currently have no plans to review the role and powers of police and crime panels or to change their remit.
I turn to the hon. Lady’s recommendation for police and crime panels to publish and prepare an annual report setting out
“how the relevant authorities are fulfilling their duties under section (12) and (13)”,
in particular how they are assessing the needs of victims, meeting the needs of victims and collaborating to represent the interests of victims. The new clause asks police and crime panels to publish that annual report setting out how relevant authorities are fulfilling their duties, in particular addressing those key points that I have highlighted. I would argue this additional layer of oversight is, again, not strictly necessary, given the extant obligation on these authorities to publish their commissioning strategies, and given the statutory duty for those strategies to contain information on how they consider they are fulfilling, or intend to fulfil, the collaboration duty under clause 12.
Sarah Champion
The Minister has put forward a persuasive argument. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Edward Argar
The purpose of clause 13 is to improve how support services for victims are planned locally. Clause 13 requires the relevant authorities to undertake certain activities as part of their duty to collaborate, as set out in clause 12.
Police and crime commissioners, integrated care boards and local authorities within a police area are required, first, to prepare, implement and publish a joint local strategy, setting out how they consider that they are fulfilling, or intend to fulfil, their duty to collaborate in relation to victim support services. Crucially, by ensuring transparency and a better understanding of the aims and approaches of each commissioning area, the strategy will be expected to demonstrate how commissioning areas work together, what their approaches are to commissioning and how their decisions will meet the needs of their community.
Secondly, the strategy must be informed by certain activities, including existing assessments of victims’ needs—including children and those with protected characteristics —and the views of those representing the interests of victims and service providers, ensuring that strategies are developed with the necessary information and the right expertise. Importantly, more effective use of existing joint needs assessments should help to build an improved understanding of local need, and therefore more targeted commissioning activity and better decision making.
Thirdly, the strategy will be reviewed and revised from time to time so that it reflects the changing commissioning landscapes and emerging local need. By increasing collaboration, we expect that local strategies will lead to changes in commissioning processes, including reduced duplication through increased joint working; a common understanding of local need and effective provision; and transparency, including on how decisions are informed by consideration of needs assessments. As a result, victims should experience a more joined-up pathway, resulting in quality support enabled by better co-ordinated and targeted local use of resources and interventions, and timely support facilitated by better joining up so that victims can more seamlessly move between services.
Clause 14 requires the Secretary of State to issue guidance that will support PCCs, integrated care boards and local authorities in carrying out the duty to collaborate. It requires them to have regard to this guidance when discharging their duties under clauses 12 and 13. The guidance will cover topics such as how collaboration is expected to work in practice, information on strategy development and content, and how we expect areas to monitor the impact of the duty.
The clause also requires the Secretary of State to consult relevant stakeholders, such as local commissioners and providers, when drafting the guidance, so that it is useful and reflects the operational reality. The clause is important because it ensures that commissioners are clear about what is expected of them and can carry out activity in a consistent way across England. We anticipate that persons who interact with the bodies subject to the duty will also look at the guidance to understand the expectations for the bodies. Following parliamentary passage of the Bill, we expect to formally consult on the guidance and plan for implementation as soon as practically possible. I commend that clauses 13 and 14 stand part of the Bill.
Jess Phillips
Clause 13 says that relevant authorities will collaborate on a strategy on aims and approach to commissioning, and that they must engage victims and those who represent victims; again, this must mean specialist service providers for victims—and by that, I mean that those service providers must be specialist. The clause also states that authorities must base their strategy on the needs of victims. We would clarify that this must be according to need. In order for areas to understand their local need, they must consider the volume of victims, the cohort and characteristics of victims, and the impact on victims. The authorities must have all that information, as a needs assessment can only truly be made if we know the facts first; otherwise, it is based not on any understanding, but on perception.
When it comes to gendered violence, the lack of data is a massive issue. It is an issue that is beyond the parameters of this debate, but as we make new law, as we are doing today, we should try to address it. Data is really important to how we do a needs assessment because, I am afraid to say, so much is missing. Take, for example, the outrageous lack of data accessible to fully investigate and comprehend the relationship between protected characteristics and gendered violence. The Femicide Census tells us that in 79% of cases where a woman was murdered by a man during the period of 2008 to 2018, the ethnicity of the victim was not recorded. Although the Office for National Statistics provides an analysis of homicide offences by “ethnic appearance”, the data is not broken down by gender. This must change. We need to make sure that when we are putting together strategies and needs assessments, they are based not on assumptions but on facts. I fear that the current data collection situation, both nationally and locally, does not allow for that process to be as good as it could be.
We are fine for clauses 13 and 14 to stand part of the Bill.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the shadow Minister, particularly for her comments on data. I may not quite be Mystic Meg, but I sense some possible future amendments or at least a debate on this matter when we reach Report stage. I am happy to engage with her on this in the interim, and I am grateful for her support for the clauses.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 13 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 15
Guidance about independent domestic violence and sexual violence advisors
Sarah Champion
I beg to move amendment 57, in clause 15, page 12, line 5, at end insert—
“(c) independent stalking advocacy caseworkers”.
This amendment would ensure the Secretary of State must also provide guidance around stalking advocates, rather than limiting to ISVAs and IDVAs.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 56, in clause 15, page 12, line 12, at end insert—
“(c) ‘independent stalking advocacy caseworker’ means a person who provides a relevant service to individuals who are victims of criminal conduct which constitutes stalking”.
This amendment would ensure that the Secretary of State must also provide guidance around any relevant specialist community-based services, rather than limiting to ISVAs and IDVAs.
Sarah Champion, before you speak to your amendments, let me say this: you never need to apologise to this Committee or anyone else for trying to make legislation better.
Sarah Champion
That is very decent of you, Mr Hosie. Thank you very much.
Amendments 57 and 56 attempt to ensure that the Secretary of State must also provide guidance around stalking advocates, rather than just limiting it to ISVAs and IDVAs. I hope that I will be able to make my argument to the Minister using his own words from earlier.
The Bill as it currently stands, in my opinion and that of many others, does not go far enough to ensure that victims of stalking will be supported, as it makes no specific reference to this very specific crime. Stalking is a highly complex offence, requiring criminal justice agencies to understand the patterns of obsessive controlling behaviour, which, when seen as individual occurrences, may not appear to constitute criminal practice. Victims of stalking often experience prolonged periods of victimisation, often not reporting stalking behaviour until after they have experienced more than 100 instances. Sadly, criminal justice agencies and inspectorates lack training and expert understanding of the complexities of this crime, and the specific trauma that victims of stalking experience. Furthermore, justice on stalking is not currently being delivered. In 2019-20 there were more than 1.5 million estimated victims of stalking, but just 3,506 stalkers were charged. Only 304 of those charged received custodial sentences.
The Government must prioritise raising awareness and understanding of stalking in criminal justice agencies, because victims are currently falling through the gaps. The Bill represents an opportunity for the understanding of stalking to be improved. By explicitly acknowledging the specific characteristics of stalking, services will ensure victims are not excluded from the right to safety and support.
The Suzy Lamplugh Trust says it welcomes the decision to elevate the importance and understanding of ISVA and IDVA roles under clause 15. I echo that, and it is very welcome. But while IDVAs and ISVAs do vitally important work for their specific victim groups, they are not necessarily stalking specialists, nor are they expected to be. Stalking is a complex crime, and victims must be supported by specialist advocates who have expertise in the area.
At present, the Bill neglects to include a definition for independent stalking advocates. Given that stalking is often misunderstood by criminal justice agencies, victims of stalking will once again fall through gaps in support if explicit reference to their needs is not made. It is well documented that stalking advocates have a huge impact on improving the experience of victims. Some 90% of respondents to the Suzy Lamplugh Trust’s research “Bridging the Gap” stated that their stalking advocate helped them to navigate the criminal justice system. I thank the Suzy Lamplugh Trust for its help with this amendment.
Stalking advocates support victims in a holistic way to help them to manage and cope with their situation and to recover from abuse. They carry out risk assessments and ensure that safety plans are put in place to protect victims and those around them, including any dependants, from further harm. Unfortunately, stalking advocates are underused. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust research demonstrates that 77% of stalking victims did not access a stalking advocate; 69% accessed no advocacy at all; only 4% accessed support from a non-specialist service such as an IDVA or ISVA; and just 15% of victims were referred to a stalking advocate by the police, further demonstrating low levels of understanding of stalking in criminal justice agencies.
If clause 15 made specific reference to independent stalking advocates, the guidance that the Secretary of State has committed to issue should include a definition of stalking advocates and clarity on the services they provide. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust has shown that victims not supported by an advocate had a one-in-1,000 chance of their perpetrator being convicted, compared with one in four if they had a stalking advocate. The amendment would not only provide much needed support for victims, but help enable justice to be secured.
This morning, in response to new clause 19, the Minister said:
“Our concern is that the approach set out in the new clause risks excluding or minimising the importance of some of the other service types that commissioners could consider for victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence. As drafted, the new clause could risk creating a hierarchy.”
That exact argument applies here. I completely understand his response to me that ISVAs and IDVAs need specific training for judges to recognise their judgments and advice in courts. Independent stalking advocates receive training and qualifications such as the level 4 ISAS—independent stalking advocacy specialist—course, which is accredited by the University of Hertfordshire.
These are vital professionals who must be included in the Bill. We cannot limit clause 15 solely to ISVAs and IDVAs when so much abuse begins with stalking. We must enable victims of this preventable crime to access support at an early stage that has statutory guidance, just as those who have experienced sexual or domestic violence will be able to.
Jess Phillips
In support of amendments 56 and 57, I say gently to the Minister that a one-time Back Bencher who is now Secretary of State for Justice introduced legislation that put stalking protection orders in place. That was undoubtedly based on a harrowing case he came across as the Member for Cheltenham. In my experience of working with him on stalking, he has always been a true and brilliant ally in this space, so I could imagine him moving the amendment. We could go back to him gently for his agreement to it.
One important thing to mention is that stalking is distinct from the crimes of sexual violence and domestic abuse. Normally, I am on my feet complaining that people do not understand that stalking happens as part of domestic abuse and that someone can be a victim of domestic abuse and coercive control but then, following separation, go on to be a victim of post-separation stalking. That is largely misunderstood by criminal justice agencies.
It is important to put stalking specialists into clause 15 because there are lots of cases where people are stalked by strangers, work colleagues and housemates. When we debated the Domestic Abuse Bill, an amendment tabled by Liberal Democrat members of the Committee was about whether abuse in a student house share could be considered domestic abuse. Stalking sits distinctly in many cases involving strangers, colleagues and house shares.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
I want to highlight the brilliant point made by my hon. Friend, as well as by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham. Does she agree that children—girls especially, but boys as well—are often stalked, which is extremely frightening and scary for them, and that that also needs to be highlighted and addressed in the Bill?
Jess Phillips
Absolutely. For any hon. Member who has experienced stalking themselves—unfortunately, we are a prime category for some of this stalking behaviour—it will not come as a surprise that, from my experience, the first threat place that people go to is to antagonise me about my sons, where they go to school and that sort of information. Children are undoubtedly used, often completely unawares, as part of a pattern of stalking, creating further stress and multiple victims in that instance. Children are often targeted and used in circumstances to attack an adult. As somebody who has run IDVA and ISVA services—in fact, the organisation I used to work for now has specific stalking advocates—I know that stalking is distinct, specific and different. The element of post-separation domestic abuse, as well as the important fact that it is a stranger-based issue, makes the argument for the need for that specialism.
Sarah Champion
The Minister argued that IDVAs and ISVAs both engage with the criminal justice sector and therefore need to be recognised as such in the Bill. In my hon. Friend’s experience, is it the same for stalking advocates?
Jess Phillips
Absolutely. A case that I handled very recently was a post-separation issue, but was not at the relevant risk level. As I said earlier today, a person has to be at incredibly high risk of harm to be allocated an IDVA who will take them through the criminal justice system, or they have to be going through the criminal justice system.
In the case that I handled, a person broke up with somebody who, six months later, started turning up at her place of work. The victim then went to the police station and said, “This is my ex-partner,” but she could not point to any particular history of abuse or anything that had been criminal at the time. She said, “He’s now turning up at my place of work and sending me messages on Facebook,” but that is not at the level that will get anyone access to an independent domestic violence adviser. I immediately said, “Do you have a stalking protection order in place?” She said, “What’s a stalking protection order?” She had been to the police, but she did not have a specialist advocate with her, or even just somebody telling her what question to ask. She now has a stalking protection order in place, because she knows what one is.
There is a need for specialist advocacy in cases that will never breach the criminal space of domestic abuse or the risk level that would allow for an IDVA. That is very important, because those cases can still be criminal without ever touching the desk of one of those agencies. I therefore totally support my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, and I imagine that the Secretary of State for Justice may agree with us.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for amendments 56 and 57 and grateful to her and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, for this debate. The amendments would expand the Bill’s requirement for the Secretary of State to issue guidance on ISVAs and IDVAs so that it also included independent stalking advocacy caseworkers. Specialist stalking services, including independent stalking advocacy caseworkers, do vital work to identify risk and provide practical guidance and safety advice for victims. They can help victims to navigate the criminal justice system. The hon. Member for Lewisham East was right to highlight that this crime can affect children as well as adults, and we should not forget that.
The Government are committed to protecting and supporting victims of stalking. The hon. Member for Rotherham was right to highlight the huge impact that stalking can have and the trauma that can result, and the shadow Minister was adroit at gently reminding me of my boss’s views and work on this subject in the past. For example, the Government introduced stalking protection orders in 2020, and almost 1,000 were issued in the first 23 months. The Home Office also continues to part-fund the national stalking helpline, which is run by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, to which I pay tribute, and provided £160,430 between April 2022 and March 2023. We have also provided funding for police-led projects to tackle the behaviour of stalkers and thereby provide greater protection to victims. In May, we announced awards to 10 police and crime commissioners to fund perpetrator interventions, wholly or partly, between April 2023 and March 2025.
In the Bill, we have chosen to focus on guidance for ISVAs and IDVAs because the consultation highlighted that greater consistency and awareness of ISVAs and IDVAs was particularly needed, especially given the number now working across the sector. We believe that that can best be addressed through statutory guidance. I agree that independent stalking advocacy caseworkers, or ISACs—I may just stick to the full wording—are important and can be just as effective, but we are not yet convinced that Government intervention by way of statutory guidance is necessary on the basis of the evidence that we have seen thus far. We do not feel that there is the same pressing need to drive further awareness and consistency of the roles, given the degree of consistency that exists.
I am, however, open to working with the hon. Member for Rotherham—and with the shadow Minister if she wishes to join, as I suspect she might—to continue to reflect on and consider how and whether Government support to independent stalking advocacy caseworkers can be improved. But I also believe that it will be important to assess the impact and effectiveness of the guidance on ISVAs and IDVAs, subject to the passage of the Bill, before considering whether to extend it to other groups in the same format. As I say, I am happy to engage with the hon. Member for Rotherham in that respect.
On the point about hierarchy or the lack thereof, I reassure the hon. Lady that guidance for ISVAs and IDVAs should not be taken to indicate any sort of funding or other hierarchy of them over independent stalking advocacy caseworkers or any other type of specialist support. Funding decisions for different types of support are made by local commissioners based on their assessment of the local need, and the guidance on ISVAs and IDVAs will be explicit that there should be no presumption of a hierarchy when it comes to those funding decisions.
Sarah Champion
I just want to re-read the statistic that victims not supported by an advocate had a one-in-1,000 chance of their perpetrator getting convicted, compared with a one-in-four chance for those who had a stalking advocate. The Minister knows that pretty much all my time in Parliament has been spent trying to prevent abuse. This seems a very worthy investment and a very worthy amendment to the Bill. I will grab with both hands the opportunity to meet him and understand why he does not, at this point, agree.
Sarah Champion
I am happy to go to a beach somewhere. At this point, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Sarah Champion
I beg to move amendment 62, in clause 15, page 12, line 5, at end insert—
“(c) any other specialist community-based services relevant to the criminal conduct.”
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 61, in clause 15, page 12, line 12, at end insert—
“(c) ‘specialist community-based service’ means a person who provides a relevant service to individuals based on a protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 or the specific nature of the crime faced by the victim.”
Amendment 58, in clause 15, page 12, line 13, leave out “or (b)” and insert “, (b) or (c)”.
Amendment 59, in clause 15, page 12, line 16, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
“(4) Guidance under this section about service providers under subsection (1) must include provision about—
(a) the role of such providers;
(b) the services they provide to—
(i) victims, including (where relevant) victims who are children or have other protected characteristics, or
(ii) persons who are not victims, where that service is provided in connection with a service provided to a victim;
(c) how such providers and other persons who have functions relating to victims, or any aspect of the criminal justice system, should work together;
(d) appropriate training and qualifications for such providers.”
Amendment 60, in clause 15, page 12, line 28, leave out from beginning to “must” and insert
“The service providers listed in subsection (1)”.
New clause 18—Guidance about community-based specialist domestic abuse services—
“(1) The Secretary of State must issue guidance about community-based specialist domestic abuse services.
(2) Guidance under this section must include provision about—
(a) the definition and role of community-based specialist domestic abuse services;
(b) the support that such services provide to—
(i) victims, including (where relevant) victims who are children or have other protected characteristics, or
(ii) persons who are not victims, where that service is provided in connection with a service provided to a victim;
(c) how such services and other persons who have functions relating to victims, or any aspect of the criminal justice system, should work together;
(d) appropriate training and qualifications for providers of such services.
(3) Providers of community-based specialist domestic abuse services must have regard to guidance under this section when exercising their functions.
(4) Any other person who has functions relating to victims, or any aspect of the criminal justice system, must have regard to guidance under this section where—
(a) the person is exercising such a function, and
(b) the guidance is relevant to the exercise of that function.
(5) Subsection (4) does not apply to anything done by any person acting in a judicial capacity, or on the instructions of or on behalf of such a person.
(6) In this section, ‘domestic abuse’ has the same meaning as in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 (see section 1 of that Act).”
Sarah Champion
The amendments are all on specialist community-based support, which I have a great deal of time and respect for. I know that the Minister is very aware of its value, so I hope that I am pushing at an open door in support of it, even if he might have different opinions about where that support should land.
Going back to amendment 57, I repeat that the inclusion of guidance and IDVAs and ISVAs in the Bill is genuinely very welcome. I commend the Minister for that, and I mean no disrespect to him in what I will say next: there are concerns that defining only those roles will direct victims to support based in the criminal justice system rather than whichever form suits them best. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner has stressed that most victims and survivors do not go into the criminal justice system, so we must ensure that support and investment beyond IDVAs and ISVAs is easily accessible.
I appreciate that the Minister has made it clear that a victim does not need to report a crime to access support. I am therefore concerned that it is a serious oversight by him not to make it clearer that specialist support that does not go through a criminal footing is equally regarded in the Bill. My amendment 62 complements and reflects the intention behind new clause 19 in ensuring that all forms of specialist support are seen as just as crucial as that provided by ISVAs and IDVAs. It also aligns with amendment 26, tabled by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, which I very much support. I am glad that he has brought referring victims to restorative justice services into the debate.
It must be the victim’s choice which route they pursue to cope with and recover from the crimes that have been committed against them. Since the duty on local authorities to provide accommodation-based support was enacted in the Domestic Abuse Act, providing that form of support is now an overwhelming focus within the majority of local authority commissioning strategies, at the expense of other forms. However, the vast majority of victims also want to access support in the community, with 83% wanting counselling or therapeutic support. For victims of domestic abuse accessing support, 70% would do so via community-based services. According to SafeLives, the vast majority of victims never spend time in refuge accommodation. Women’s Aid’s annual survey reported that, in a single year, 187,000 children and 156,000 women were supported by community-based services. Thank goodness they were there. I commend them. Refuge’s recent report “Local Lifelines” found that 95% of survivors supported by Refuge use community-based services.
Jess Phillips
I rise to speak to new clause 18—is that where we are at? Yes, because Sarah spoke to all the provisions together. I will make some remarks too, although I imagine they are relatively similar. I should not have called her Sarah; I meant my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham—I apologise for using her name. I did not say “you”, but I did break that particular protocol. It has been a long day.
Jess Phillips
In his remarks, the Minister said that consultation highlighted the need to define IDVAs and ISVAs, and that may well be true in the purest sense of what they were initially intended to be—certainly much more with IDVAs than ISVAs—which was about specific guidance. We had court-based IDVAs when we used to have specialist domestic abuse courts everywhere, and it is absolutely right that it becomes about the criminal justice system.
I have to say that ISVAs were not about the criminal justice system originally, and their services took a much more holistic approach. The term became what we called anyone who supports someone who comes forward about sexual violence and abuse. In domestic abuse services, of course, there were both; we had floating support, housing support and refuge support workers, as well as people who may be going through the courts, so it made sense to have a different name. That is just a potted history of IDVAs and ISVAs.
The consultation may have said that it was important to identify and define IDVAs and ISVAs and to ensure that criminal justice agencies—specifically judges and the courts—take them seriously. Who could disagree with that? However, if we were to consult any agency that runs IDVA or ISVA services, or domestic abuse and sexual violence services, not one of them would think that it should be exclusively about IDVAs and ISVAs. If we are going to lean on consultation in one regard, then the evidence here is that the sector is not against the definitions, but rather the narrowness of the definitions. Throughout the day, the Minister has talked about the danger of narrow definitions—I just point out that irony.
New clause 18 follows on from the previous debate about community-based, specialist domestic abuse services, which come in a variety of forms. Women and children seek support and help in different ways, including outreach support, floating support, formal counselling and support groups—the list goes on. By only formalising the IDVA models, we risk creating a tiered hierarchy and adversely affecting other models of community-based specialist provision. Once again, that then poses the risk of more generic services, or services that are run in-house.
What is to stop Birmingham City Council saying, “We have a load of ISVAs that work in our service. We are going to train a load of ISVAs and we will take any funding in-house”? I have great respect to Birmingham City Council—I was a member of the council for some years—but it is not a specialist domestic abuse service, and nor should it ever be trusted to be one. It is not independent; they are the people who run the housing; they are the people an ISVA will sometimes have to help a victim take to court—that happens quite regularly. Regarding Victim Support, with the greatest respect to it as an organisation, it is not a specialist sexual violence service, and yet, across the country, it does have ISVA services.
I find the creep towards the generic a worry. Actually, it is not a worry; it is a fact. I have seen it; it is happening, and it has been happening in a new commissioning environment for some time. I have outlined the evidence of the trend already, and the same warnings apply here. Crucially, victims with protected characteristics value and need access to holistic support and intersectional advocacy from organisations led by and for black and minoritised women and those providing specialist advocacy for LGBT+ and for deaf and disabled victims, and I also mentioned specialist services for victims of forces-based violence. Those organisations commonly sit outside the IDVA model but are crucial to the provision of support for such groups.
Another thing that worries me concerns allowing somebody to go into court, be that a family court or another civil court environment for non-molestation orders or other domestic abuse protection orders—there are various different orders, which are currently not worth the paper they are written on, but they exist, so let us pretend they are a solution. If someone does not have an IDVA qualification and is a floating community-based support worker from the local LGBT specialist support service, a judge will not allow that person into the court, because of the idea of that qualification. Also, how do we know that people do not call themselves IDVAs and ISVAs without the qualification? It is not like having a degree; it is a different thing. So there are some real dangers in this. I have seen these things happen. Even though I am qualified in this space, I was not allowed to sit with a rape victim in court recently, because I was not an ISVA. That seems like a—
Jess Phillips
It does seem like a hierarchy. Obviously, I won the argument on that, but that was what I was initially told. There are many examples of why this is a problem.
Studies have shown that disabled women are twice as likely to experience domestic abuse. They are also twice as likely to suffer rape and sexual assault. Yet, the charity SafeLives’s multi-agency risk assessment conference data shows that, nationally, only 3.9% of referrals are disabled victims. Disabled women are four times more likely to report abuse by multiple perpetrators and to experience abuse for longer. Disabled women are more likely to experience abuse by a family member than non-disabled women. Stay Safe East is a user-led specialist organisation supporting disabled victims, and its experience with clients mirrors those harrowing statistics.
Disabled victims may also face specific forms of domestic abuse or their circumstances or impairment being weaponised against them—for example, control of food or drink or medication, withdrawal of care, restricting access to disability equipment, restricting access to other professional advice or help, theft of benefits, and the threat that they will be put into care or have their children taken away from them. Those specific experiences and intersecting discriminations mean that organisations that can provide tailored and holistic care are crucial and wanted by victims. Likewise, in research by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, it was found that people wanted specialist services. Those services, such as Stay Safe East, are small—I do not want to speak out of turn, but I think four people work there, so it is not a big organisation. However, it is one of the only specialist domestic abuse organisations; those people are not all IDVAs, yet this is absolutely the specialist agency.
The new clause and the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham are to try to ensure that judges and police forces—judges more so, but police forces too—will understand. They are quite rigid about who is allowed in, who is not and who they can take advice from. I really worry that we are about to undermine vast swathes of very professional and learned specialists just on the basis of a qualification they do or do not have.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to hon. Members for their amendments, and I will seek to respond to them all in turn.
Amendments 62 and 61 would expand clause 15 so that the Secretary of State would be required to issue guidance about specialist community-based services for victims, in addition to ISVAs and IDVAs. I understand the concerns that the clause’s focus on ISVAs and IDVAs alone could result in the Government being seen to place their focus on them above other forms of community-based support. I recognise that there are mixed views in the sector about that, and concerns have been expressed. Let me reassure the Committee that that is not the case and that the intention behind the amendments can be addressed through other means.
Edward Argar
I will refrain from biting—I almost did.
To help ensure that women and girls are safe everywhere, in July 2021, we published our cross-Government tackling violence against women and girls strategy. That was followed by a cross-Government tackling domestic abuse plan in March 2022, investing more than £230 million of cross-Government funding into tackling this hideous crime, including more than £140 million for supporting victims and more than £81 million for tackling perpetrators.
Through the commitments set out in those strategies, the Government aim to transform how systems and society respond to violence against women and girls. That is in addition to the increased funding for support services and the increased numbers of ISVAs and IDVAs that I have already referenced. I hope that that demonstrates, to some extent, how we are taking action to further support the sector.
We have chosen a narrower focus for the Bill’s measures to issue guidance than new clause 18 would. IDVAs are a particular type of community-based specialist support service for victims of domestic abuse; our focus on them is in response to the victims Bill consultation. I know that, as the hon. Members for Rotherham and for Birmingham, Yardley set out, IDVAs are only one part of the domestic abuse support landscape, as they predominantly support high-risk victims. However, as I have said in relation to similar amendments, we do not believe that Government intervention through guidance issued about all community-based specialist domestic abuse services is the right approach.
The hon. Member for Rotherham said in our debate on new clause 19 that these services offer a vast range of support, including counselling, advice, advocacy and helplines. We want to get the balance right: we want Government intervention only when it is needed and will yield a positive benefit to support services. Our general approach is to set national commissioning standards and then allow local decision making by local commissioners. National guidance, such as the victims funding strategy and the national statement of expectations, sets standards but empowers commissioners to fund services of a quality and type that meet their local needs.
Our view is that additional guidance for ISVAs and IDVAs is necessary, given the growing number of roles and the lack of consistency. However, given the wide variety of roles within all community-based services, it is less clear what guidance about their roles, training and qualifications would bring, except possibly additional complexity and work for them. The key point is that ISVAs and IDVAs are particularly involved with the criminal justice process.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley highlighted the judicial discretion in this space and the approaches adopted by judges in their courts. I will not stray into that. Although we cannot direct or guide judges because they are quite rightly independent, we can improve their confidence in the professionalism and the work of ISVAs and IDVAs through this guidance, because of that particular intersection with the criminal justice process.
I always welcome further discussion with the hon. Member for Rotherham, as I hope I have made clear in the past few days, but I encourage her not to press the amendment to a Division.
Sarah Champion
I thank the Minister for his comments. I understand but disagree with his argument, but I will not press the amendment to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider new clause 8—Assessment of numbers of independent domestic violence and sexual violence advisors, stalking advocates and specialist support services—
“Within six months of the passing of this Act, and annually thereafter, the Secretary of State must—
(a) make an assessment of the adequacy of the number of independent domestic violence and sexual violence advisors, stalking advocates, and specialist support services in each region of England and Wales, having regard to the population in each region, and
(b) publish that assessment.”
This new clause would require the SoS to make an assessment of the adequacy of the number of ISVAs, IDVAs, stalking advocates and specialist support services in each region of England and Wales.
Edward Argar
With your permission, Mr Hosie, I will address clause 15 and then, once I have heard Opposition Members’ arguments, speak to new clause 8 at the end.
Clause 15 introduces a measure that seeks to improve consistency and awareness of the roles of independent sexual violence advisers and independent domestic violence advisers, who play a crucial role in supporting the needs of victims. We heard during the victims Bill consultation about the need for improved information, awareness and consistency in relation to the ISVA and IDVA roles. In particular, we were told that their remit is not sufficiently clear, which could hamper effective collaboration; that their service provision is not always consistent; and that the existing guidance is outdated and unclear in some places. However, we know that there is a crucial need to allow flexibility and innovation in how ISVAs and IDVAs support victims as an independent sector.
Clause 15 seeks to address that issue by placing a duty on the Secretary of State to issue guidance about ISVAs and IDVAs and placing a duty on ISVAs, IDVAs and other relevant persons to have regard to the guidance. We believe that statutory guidance can strike the right balance by raising awareness and improving consistency without stifling independence and flexibility. It will cover minimum expectations and best practice for ISVAs and IDVAs working with victims and other agencies and services, and will seek to support practical improvements in how agencies work with ISVAs and IDVAs.
We have focused on ISVAs and IDVAs, as they are some of the most common and well-known support roles for victims of sexual and domestic abuse. We recognise the value they add in reducing the attrition of victims who have engaged with the criminal justice process, and preventing them from feeling that they have to drop out at any point. That reflects their crucial role in the criminal justice system in particular. We know that those who received their support are nearly 50% less likely to withdraw from the process. It is also important, as we increase the number of ISVAs and IDVAs to over 1,000 by 2024-25, that the roles achieve greater awareness and consistency to provide the quality service victims deserve.
However, we absolutely do not intend this measure to detract from the important diversity of the wider support sector, or inadvertently to create a hierarchy of support services in which only ISVAs and IDVAs are commissioned or favoured. We are carefully working with the sector to develop the guidance to make sure we get this right. We will ensure that the guidance clearly recognises the wider support sector and makes clear to commissioners their responsibility to consider all victims. That guidance, which will be required by the clause, will therefore meet an evidenced need for a growing part of the support sector. It will be one part of the ongoing and wider work that the Government are focused on to improve support for victims.
Sarah Champion
I rise to speak to new clause 8, which is a slender amendment and my last, so I hope the Minister will look favourably on it.
For years, as we know from our debates in Committee, victims and survivors have faced a postcode lottery in support services, but access to sexual violence advocates, domestic violence advocates and stalking advocates varies hugely around the country. For the Bill to be successful, we need an accurate picture of what such services look like now. If we do not know where the gaps are, how will we fill them sufficiently?
The Domestic Abuse Commissioner has done excellent mapping work across the country and shown where the gaps are in provision for domestic abuse victims, but victims of all crime face patchy services. Support services differ greatly, depending on where in the country victims access them. As my hon. Friends and I have outlined, stalking advocates are crucial for women all over the country but are rarely accessible for most victims, even though they dramatically increase the chance of prosecution.
ISVAs and IDVAs provide crucial services, but if not all victims can access them, not all victims can have their rights met. The criminal justice system is incredibly difficult to navigate. An advocate is crucial for justice to be achieved and support to be received. I urge the Minister to accept that there are huge gaps in the provision available and, by accepting new clause 8, to require the Secretary of State to carry out a review.
Jess Phillips
It would be lovely to know how many ISVAs and IDVAs there are across the country, and what that means, because we also have hospital IDVAs who do not necessarily interact with the criminal justice system at all, but are responsive in accident and emergency. It would be lovely to know that, so I agree with new clause 8—I had ticked it off eagerly and could not see the number for a moment.
I have some real concerns about the clause standing part of the Bill, in particular about the hierarchy. I will not push the clause to a vote today, as I imagine that this is an area that will evolve. I want to see the professionalism of the sector that I worked for, but perhaps the professionalism of the job that I once had should include something about the levels of pay. I guarantee that writing the level of professionalism into a particular job title will not mean that anyone who does it breaches being paid more than £30,000 a year, if they are lucky. On one side, we want professionalism, but on the other side we are happy to allow a group of, frankly, quite low-paid women to do this very difficult work that we respect enough to write into our law. I have concerns about the clause as a whole, but I will agree that it can stand part for now.
Edward Argar
I will respond briefly to new clause 8, tabled by the hon. Member for Rotherham, which seeks to require an assessment of the Secretary of State and that that assessment is published annually.
As the hon. Lady pointed out, understanding the needs of victims and the provision available to them is crucial to ensuring that future services are commissioned and designed to support victims adequately. However, that needs to be appropriately balanced to ensure that processes are not burdensome on the services themselves, which is routinely of concern to them.
Our approach recognises that the needs of victims, and the provision currently available, will differ locally. We therefore devolve responsibility for commissioning and funding to local bodies that can appropriately assess and consider local needs. That ensures a tailored approach to commissioning services for communities. I am pleased to reassure the hon. Member for Rotherham that there are already a range of mechanisms in place for monitoring victims’ needs and the provision of services.
Edward Argar
I beg to move amendment 31, in clause 22, page 18, line 3, leave out “a disclosure or” and insert “the”.
See the explanatory statement to Amendment 34.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendments 32 to 34.
Clause stand part.
Edward Argar
I shall be relatively brisk. As with the Government amendments moved earlier, these are minor, technical amendments. They relate to the provisions on data protection. We are making these amendments across the Bill to ensure that the terminology on data protection is consistent. For example, the amendments will remove superfluous words that could be confusing, as “processing” information can cover a range of activity, including “disclosure”, which is mentioned separately. These changes primarily clarify the provisions and ensure that they work as intended; they do not constitute a policy change and are not intended to have substantive effects.
Clause 22 makes it clear that where data handling is required, the appropriate data protection legislation must still be followed. Where data processing is required under part 1 of the Bill, it is predominately for performance improvement and strategic monitoring—for example, in relation to compliance with the victims code. We do not anticipate that this will require the sharing of personal data. Nevertheless, it is vital that we ensure that the necessary protections are in place so that the collecting and handling of data is done fairly, lawfully and for specified purposes, and that nothing compromises victims’ confidentiality or jeopardises their ability to consent to access services and support. We have already engaged with the UK’s Data Protection Authority during the development of these requirements and will carry out further consultation during the development of the regulations in so far as any requirements relate to the processing of personal data.
Anna McMorrin
I rise only to agree with the Minister. I have no comments to make on the clause, because it is an important part of ensuring that the Bill works in terms of data protection.
Amendment agreed to.
Amendments made: 32, in clause 22, page 18, line 4, leave out “disclosure or”.
See the explanatory statement to Amendment 34.
Amendment 33, in clause 22, page 18, line 5, leave out “a disclosure or processing” and insert “it”.
See the explanatory statement to Amendment 34.
Amendment 34, in clause 22, page 18, line 11, leave out “has” and insert “and ‘processing’ have”.—(Edward Argar.)
This amendment and Amendments 31, 32 and 33 give “processing” of information the same meaning as in the Data Protection Act 2018. Processing includes disclosure and other uses of information, so there is no need to refer separately to disclosure.
Clause 22, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 23
Consequential provision
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Edward Argar
I will now be even brisker: the Bill provides a new statutory framework for the victims code, so this clause will repeal the existing provisions, so that the updated statutory basis of the code is clear. That requires repealing the relevant provisions relating to the victims code in the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004. Once in force, these provisions will allow a new victims code made under this Bill to come into effect, and the current victims code will cease to operate.
The clause also makes sure that other relevant legislation reflects that change. This includes the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman—the Parliamentary Commissioner—to accept complaints about the victims code, and the Victims’ Commissioner, given their responsibility for overseeing the operation of the code.
Anna McMorrin
This part of the Bill refers to the code of practice for victims. We need to ensure that if this Bill progresses, much of what has been discussed is reflected in it as we move forward, so that it is improved for victims—because that is what this is about. It is about victims’ experiences and real lives. The vast majority of victims do not get their entitlements. We currently have a Bill that falls short of that, but I hope that together we can robustly improve it and ensure that victims’ lives and experiences are changed for the better.
Edward Argar
I note what the shadow Minister said. While there may be areas where we disagreed as we went through part 1 of the Bill, I am grateful thus far for the positive and constructive tone adopted by Members on both sides of the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 23 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned.— (Fay Jones.)
Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill (Thirteenth sitting)
Tuesday 4th July 2023
(3 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 View all Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 4 July 2023 - (4 Jul 2023)
The Chair
That is a good way to start our session.
Clause 225
Rights of redress: further provision
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss that clause 226 and 227 stand part.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dame Maria. Clause 225 enables the Secretary of State to make new regulations for consumers to have a right to unwind, a right to discount and a right to damages. The regulations may cover, among other things, how such rights are to be exercised and when damages are to be payable. Before these regulations are made, the existing private redress provisions set out in the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 will continue to apply. The first use of the power will be subject to the affirmative procedure, ensuring appropriate parliamentary scrutiny.
Clause 226 sets out how consumers can exercise their right to redress and allows consumers to undertake civil court action. Any legal claim must be brought within the time limit for simple contracts that applies under the Limitation Act 1980. If successful, a consumer will then have the right to unwind, the right to a discount, or the right to damages.
Clause 227 outlines the relationship between consumers’ private redress rights and other claims that are related to the prohibited practices of misleading actions and aggressive practices. It states that a consumer is not prevented from pursuing a claim under a rule of law, equity, or other legislation, but they cannot recover compensation twice for the same conduct.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Dame Maria. I thank the Minister for his opening remarks. He covered how clause 225 confers a power on the Secretary of State to make regulations providing rights of redress to consumers, including the right to unwind relevant contracts, receive a discount, receive damages and so on.
The Opposition support the clause and recognise the need for further provisions for rights of redress, but why is that being left to secondary legislation? Does the Minister know when the Secretary of State may exercise this power? There is a danger of further delay. Why is this a power, rather than a duty? Perhaps the Minister can come back on why it was decided that the legislation be set out in this way. I can understand that there may be some reason to allow for further provision, but one would have thought that some measures would be brought in earlier.
Clause 226 sets out how a consumer can enforce their rights to redress, and I thank the Minister for his comments on it. Specifically, it sets out how a consumer with the right to redress by virtue of the regulations would be able to enforce their rights through making a claim in the civil courts. In Scotland, proceedings could be brought before the sheriff or the Court of Session. We welcome this clause in ensuring consumers have swift access to means of redress.
We also support clause 227, which would have the effect of avoiding double compensation, which is a common-sense and welcome provision.
The Chair
For the avoidance of doubt, if anybody wants to remove their jacket, please feel free to do so. It is a little muggy in here.
Kevin Hollinrake
I am very grateful. I have just a couple of points. Obviously, no gap will occur because of this, because the existing provisions are still effective until the provisions are replaced by any provisions made by the regulations. The reason for doing it like that is to create more flexibility around different measures that might need to be introduced. The world of consumers, consumer behaviour and activity providing services for consumers and goods is changing rapidly, so it makes sense to take a more flexible approach.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 225 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 226 and 227 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 228
Inertia selling
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kevin Hollinrake
Clause 228 protects consumers against inertia selling, which occurs when traders send unsolicited products to consumers and then demand payment for the products or that the products be returned or safely stored. The clause provides clarity for consumers and traders, leaving no room for doubt. Consumers are exempt from any obligation to pay for the unrequested products, return them or store them safely. The lack of a response by a consumer to a trader does not mean that the consumer has agreed to pay for, return or store the product.
Seema Malhotra
The Minister has laid out the reasons for this clause, which we very much support. It is important to support consumers against inertia selling, and it is a real worry when we hear of cases where traders demand an immediate or deferred payment for the return or even the safekeeping of products that have been supplied but not solicited by the consumer. It is important that we clarify that consumers are not required to pay for products supplied unsolicited by the trader, so we support the clause.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 228 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 229
Offences
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendments 72 and 73.
Clause 230 stand part.
Government amendments 74 to 77.
Clauses 231 to 233 stand part.
Kevin Hollinrake
Clause 229 sets out that it is a criminal offence for a trader to engage in a commercial practice that involves any of the following: misleading actions, misleading omissions, aggressive practices, any of the practices in the list of banned practices in schedule 18, save for those expressly excepted, and/or knowingly or recklessly engaging in a commercial practice that contravenes the requirements of professional diligence.
Clause 230 describes the defences that may be available to defendants charged with offences under clause 229. These are a defence of due diligence and an innocent publication defence. To avail of the due diligence defence, a defendant must prove that the offence was due to the act or omission of a third party or information provided by a third party. The innocent publication defence is available, in certain circumstances, to a defendant charged with a relevant offence that is alleged to have been committed by the publication of an advertisement.
Government amendments 72 and 73 preserve the current effect of existing consumer law by excluding contraventions of the requirements of professional diligence from the offences to which these defences apply.
Clause 231 sets out the rules on liability when a trader commits an offence as a result of an act or omission by another person, and when a body corporate commits an offence. It is a restatement of the same provision in the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, or CPRs.
Government amendments 74 to 77 preserve the current effect of the CPRs. This means that contraventions of professional diligence are excluded from the offences to which the criminal liability of others applies.
Clause 232 sets out the penalty for offences. It is a restatement of the same provision from the CPRs.
Clause 233 sets out the time limit for prosecution. This is within three years of the offence taking place, or within one year of the discovery of the offence by the prosecutor, whichever is earlier. The time limit is the same as set out in the CPRs and enforcers will be familiar with their application.
I hope that the Committee will support Government amendments 72 to 77 and clauses 229 to 233.
Seema Malhotra
Clause 229 introduces provisions setting out the conditions under which it would be a criminal offence for a trader to engage in an unfair commercial practice of a kind prohibited by clause 217. The Minister outlined what those practices would be: a misleading action, a misleading omission, omission of material information from an invitation to purchase, and so on. The clause also makes every practice listed in schedule 18 a criminal offence, apart from using editorial content in the media to promote a product where it is not made clear that it is a paid-for promotion, or including in an advert a direct appeal to children to buy advertised products.
The Opposition recognise the importance of making unfair practices criminal offences and support this clause. However, why does the legislation specifically make two practices in schedule 18 not subject to a criminal offence?
Clause 230 provides a range of potential defences for an offence charged under clause 229. We recognise the need for a defence of due diligence and therefore support this clause. However, we would welcome further explanation from the Minister regarding subsection (1), which specifically outlines that it is a defence for the trader if the offence was “a mistake or accident”. I just wonder whether there is any more guidance regarding what the bar or threshold is here, and about how individuals and businesses will be required to prove that an offence occurred as a result of a mistake or accident.
Amendment 72 ensures that the defence provided for under clause 230(1), the defence of due diligence, does not apply in relation to an offence under clause 229(4). This replicates the current position under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. We welcome this common-sense amendment, and we similarly welcome amendment 73.
Clause 231 sets out that where a body corporate commits an offence with the consent of an officer of that body, both the officer and the body corporate can be prosecuted and punished. This also applies if the offence is attributable to neglect on the part of the officer. We welcome this clause because it ensures that all those responsible for an offence that has a detrimental impact on consumers are subject to being held accountable and to action as a result of that offence.
Amendments 74 to 77 ensure that the imposition of liability on another person does not apply to an offence under clause 229(4). This replicates the current position under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. Assuming that this is consistent with the current legislation, the Opposition of course support this amendment.
Clause 232 sets out the penalty for offences under this chapter, and how a person guilty of an offence is liable to a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years. We support this clause.
Finally, clause 233 outlines the time limits for prosecution under clause 229, with a prosecution needing to begin within three years of an offence, or within one year of the offence being discovered by the prosecutor. We support this clause, although is the Minister confident that within a year of discovery will be long enough, particularly considering the current resourcing pressures on our prosecution and justice systems? He may have confidence, and of course we do not want to lengthen the timescales, but how will he know how many prosecutions are missed due to running out of time?
Kevin Hollinrake
The banned practices to which the shadow Minister and I have referred are not currently subject to criminal liability, and we did not consider it appropriate to introduce new criminal offences.
On the “mistake or accident” defence, the defendant has an obligation to prove it was a mistake or an accident, which I think is a reasonable provision.
The timescales are replicated from the current timescales in the 2008 regulations, so there is nothing new here. We are pretty confident the timescales will be appropriate but, of course, we will continue to engage with the relevant enforcement bodies to make sure they are appropriate.
Seema Malhotra
How will the Minister know how many prosecutions are missed due to running out of time?
Kevin Hollinrake
We have continuing engagement with the various enforcement bodies, such as trading standards and the Competition and Markets Authority, through either officials or Ministers. If there were a problem, we are confident we would receive that feedback and be able to make a decision on how to act accordingly.
Seema Malhotra
It was meant to be an intervention, but the Minister sat down.
Kevin Hollinrake
I have concluded my remarks.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 229 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 230
Defence of due diligence and innocent publication
Amendments made: 72, clause 230, page 154, line 32, at end insert “subsection (1), (2), (3), (6) or (7) of”.
This amendment ensures that the defence provided for in clause 230(1) (defence of due diligence) does not apply in relation to an offence under clause 229(4) (offence of engaging in an unfair commercial practice which involves a contravention of the requirements of professional diligence). This replicates the current position under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.
Amendment 73, clause 230, page 155, line 5, after “under” insert “subsection (1), (2), (3), (6) or (7) of”.—(Kevin Hollinrake.)
This amendment ensures that the defence provided for in clause 230(3) (defence of innocent publication) does not apply in relation to an offence under clause 229(4) (offence of engaging in an unfair commercial practice which involves a contravention of the requirements of professional diligence). This replicates the current position under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.
Clause 230, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 231
Offences: criminal liability of others
Amendments made: 74, clause 231, page 155, line 30, after “under” insert “subsection (1), (2), (3), (6) or (7) of”.
This amendment ensures that the imposition of liability on another person does not apply in relation to an offence under clause 229(4) (offence of engaging in an unfair commercial practice which involves a contravention of the requirements of professional diligence). This replicates the current position under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.
Amendment 75, clause 231, page 155, line 31, leave out “section” and insert “subsection”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 74.
Amendment 76, clause 231, page 155, line 40, after “under” insert “subsection (1), (2), (3), (6) or (7) of”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 74.
Amendment 77, clause 231, page 155, line 41, leave out “section” and insert “subsection”.—(Kevin Hollinrake.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 74.
Clause 231, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 232 and 233 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 234
Powers to amend this Chapter
Seema Malhotra
I beg to move amendment 129, in clause 234, page 157, line 30, leave out subsection (2).
This amendment would ensure that future “banned practices” are both criminal and civil breaches, reflecting their potential seriousness and putting them in line with all but two of the current banned practices.
This amendment would ensure that future banned practices are both criminal and civil breaches, reflecting their potential seriousness and putting them in line with almost all other current banned practices. As we understand it, under the legislation as drafted, any practice added later by the Secretary of State will not be subject to criminal enforcement. Perhaps the Minister can clarify that, because it is slightly unclear. Given that clause 234 is the means by which the Government are planning to take action on fake reviews, will the Minister confirm his intentions on penalties for breaches?
This is a straightforward amendment that seeks to ensure that future action against fake reviews, or any other unfair commercial practice, is just as robust as the action taken on the face of the Bill. I do not intend to press the amendment to a vote, but I would be grateful for a clarification from the Minister because, during the course of the Bill, we will want to understand the penalties and be clear about those for different practices.
Kevin Hollinrake
I thank the hon. Lady for her amendment and her remarks. She will be aware that, ordinarily, when criminal offences are created, it is important and beneficial for Parliament to have ample opportunity to scrutinise them. That is usually via primary legislation, rather than powers given to Government. There is, of course, nothing to prevent Members of Parliament from introducing primary legislation to criminalise specific practices in future, should the House consider it desirable to do so. In the meantime, any new practices added to schedule 18 will continue to benefit from the relevant civil penalties, as well as the greater deterrent effect that we expect from the considerable reforms that we are introducing.
On the penalties themselves, we will go much further than any UK Government have ever done before; we are empowering the courts and the CMA to impose fines of up to the higher of £300,000 or 10% of worldwide turnover for infringements of consumer-protection law.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his comments. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clauses 235 to 242 stand part.
Government amendment 78.
Clauses 243 and 244 stand part.
Kevin Hollinrake
Clause 234 gives powers to the Secretary of State to amend this chapter. New regulations using the powers may not be made before consultation and will be subject to the affirmative procedure. For example, the power to amend the list of banned commercial practices in schedule 18 will allow the Government to respond more quickly to emerging consumer harms and ensure that appropriate levels of consumer protection are maintained.
The power to amend the list of information deemed to be material in an invitation to purchase means that we can ensure that consumers get the information that they need when they prepare to make a purchase. The power to amend the list of prohibited practices in clause 224(7) will enable the Government to extend private rights of redress to further commercial practices, such as misleading omissions. I hope that hon. Members will agree that it is critical to future-proof the Bill through these provisions, given the constantly evolving environment in which traders operate.
Clause 235 establishes that the Crown is not criminally liable for any infringement of the regulations. This does not affect the application of the regulations in relation to a person in public service of the Crown.
Clause 236 states that a contract or agreement is not void purely because of a breach of this chapter, except for cases where voiding of the contract arises as a result of a consumer exercising their right to redress.
Clause 237 defines “transactional decision”. This is an important and broad definition, which includes decisions before any purchase has taken place as well as decisions after a purchase has taken place.
Clause 238 defines an “average consumer”. It largely restates the equivalent provision from the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.
Clause 239 defines “average consumer” in situations where a group of consumers are particularly vulnerable to a commercial practice. It recognises and makes explicit that consumers may be vulnerable for a range of reasons, including their age, health, credulity and circumstances.
Clause 240 defines “product” for the purposes of this chapter. A product can mean goods, services and digital content. That is important as it means consumers are protected from unfair trading practices when purchasing digital content from businesses online.
Clause 241 defines a range of other terms used in part 4, chapter 1 of the Bill. Clause 242 provides an index of defined terms in this chapter.
Clause 243 revokes the 2008 regulations and re-enacts their substance in part 4, chapter 1 of the Bill. It also makes a small number of consequential amendments to other UK legislation.
Government amendment 78 makes a minor consequential amendment to section 393 of the Communications Act 2003 to include part 4 of this Bill. That will enable Ofcom and the CMA to collaborate in relation to matters covered by part 4 in the same manner that they do for the consumer protection regulations.
Clause 244 sets out that the 2008 regulations will continue to apply to any unfair acts or omissions occurring before this Bill is enacted. The clause also provides that part 4A of the consumer protection regulations, which deals with private right of redress, will continue to apply until new regulations are made under this chapter. I hope hon. Members will accept amendment 78, and I commend the clauses to the Committee.
Seema Malhotra
Clause 234 introduces a provision allowing for the Secretary of State to amend the list of banned practices in schedule 18. The clause will be the route through which we may see later action on fake reviews. The Opposition welcome the flexibility this gives the regime and supports the clause, but I want to ask the Minister one question on changes that can be made.
We have talked about additions, but there is also the power to remove a practice from the schedule. We understand the principle and the importance of the flexibility to add practices, particularly considering the ever-increasing ways that rogue traders can mislead consumers in not only the digital economy, but in the real world. However, I would welcome clarity on the circumstances in which the Government would want to remove a practice from the list and, more importantly, the process it then uses to do so. Will it be subject to similar procedures? It would be helpful to understand that for the record.
Clause 235 exempts the Crown from criminal liability as a result of the provisions in this chapter but does not affect their application to persons in service of the Crown. Will the Minister clarity that Crown exemption?
Kevin Hollinrake
I think the hon. Lady asked two questions, and I missed the second one. While she is thinking about what the second question was, I will address the first one, which was about why we are establishing the power to delete practices from the banned list. That is because some practices may become redundant or have needless duplication that we need to avoid. For example, Parliament may choose to provide for regulation elsewhere to better address a particular service so that we do not get duplication. The power will require parliamentary approval through the affirmative procedure. As a consequence, there will be a requirement for us to consult on any such changes.
Seema Malhotra
I think the Minister was referring to my second question on the meaning of average consumers and vulnerable persons. Rather than wanting any changes, I wanted him to recognise that someone’s circumstances can lead to an over-assumption of their vulnerability, and an interpretation of that vulnerability can make it more difficult for those who really do know what they want, even though they are in those circumstances.
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Lady makes a very good point. Regulators play a part in this as well by ensuring that the average consumer is assessed correctly and that there is relevant assessment of any characteristics. Businesses can be challenged on the back of that to ensure that they do not exploit consumers, especially those who are vulnerable to a particular commercial practice.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 234 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 235 to 242 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 243
Consequential amendments etc relating to this Chapter
Amendment made: 78, in clause 243, page 161, line 21, at end insert—
“(3A) In section 393(5) of the Communications Act 2003 (exceptions to general restrictions on disclosure of information), after paragraph (r) insert—
‘(s) Chapter 1 of Part 4 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2023.’”—(Kevin Hollinrake.)
This amendment enables OFCOM to disclose information to the CMA for the purpose of the CMA exercising its functions under Chapter 1 of Part 4 of the Bill in the same way that OFCOM may currently disclose information to the CMA for the purpose of the CMA exercising its functions under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.
Clause 243, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 244 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 245
Overview
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clauses 246 and 247 stand part.
That schedule 19 be the Nineteenth schedule to the Bill.
Kevin Hollinrake
In chapter 2 of part 4 of the Bill, we are introducing measures to give consumers new rights over their subscription contracts, while ensuring that businesses are not overburdened by regulations. The measures are an important part of the Government’s commitment to help consumers have more control over their spending. Together, they will deliver £400 million in consumer benefits per year.
Clause 245 assists readers to navigate the chapter. Clause 246 provides a legal definition of a subscription contract.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
Can the Minister clarify from when the Government expect these specific clauses to be implemented?
Kevin Hollinrake
There may be some regulations to deploy after that. I can find out for definite if the hon. Gentleman gives me a few minutes. It is in the Bill, of course, so it should be pretty quick.
Clause 246 provides a legal definition of a subscription contract, which is principally one that automatically renews or continues so that a consumer continues to be liable for payments unless they end the contract. That includes contracts that are of fixed duration but can be ended earlier by the consumer. Contracts that offer a free or reduced-cost trial for a defined period and then revert to a higher cost are also in the scope of the chapter. It is critical that such contracts are included as calculations show that each year, around a quarter of consumers get rolled over accidentally from free or reduced-price trials.
Clause 247 provides for specific sectors and subscription contract types to be excluded from the chapter and those sectors are detailed in schedule 19. The sectors have been excluded because they are already subject to regulation and may be supervised by a specialist regulator. To apply the chapter to them would overburden them with regulation and trespass on the remit of a specialist regulator. It could also potentially create conflict between the regulation and legislation, particularly if the sectors already provide consumers with similar protections.
Sectors may also have been excluded on public policy grounds, such as the exclusion for childcare. The childcare sector, like many of the other excluded sectors, provides an essential service and these are not the type of contracts that we consider raise the risks commonly associated with a subscription trap. The exclusions in schedule 19 may need to change over time as the regulatory and legislative regimes for the excluded sectors change. That is why clause 247 ensures that the Secretary of State has the power to adapt the provisions through secondary legislation.
Seema Malhotra
Clause 245 provides an overview of this chapter, which centres around duties on traders in relation to subscription contracts and the rights of consumers if those duties are breached. The chapter also introduces further rights and protections for consumers in relation to subscription traps, specifically regarding the right to cancel contracts during cooling-off periods, and the information that must be made available to consumers.
We welcome the principles of the chapter and I note that before the Bill was bought before the House, the Labour party had already announced that we would legislate in government to tackle subscription traps and protect consumers, particularly in the light of the Conservative cost of living crisis, because we know that things have become worse for consumers. Any time the Government want to adopt a Labour proposal, we will welcome it. We have tabled some new clauses in this area, which I will come to later.
Let me start by welcoming the action on subscription traps taken by the Government so far in the Bill. As I said before, Citizens Advice estimates that £306 million a year is spent on unwanted subscriptions in the UK, so we need to act and, in that spirit, to work constructively with Ministers to ensure that the measures are as robust as possible.
Clause 246 defines the scope of subscription traps, which are defined as a business-to-consumer contract for the supply of goods, services and digital content that either auto-renews for an indefinite or fixed period or contains a free trial or specified reduced price for a specified period in the contract, after which time the contract renews and the consumer becomes automatically liable for payments. We welcome the definition and the important inclusion of subscriptions that start with a free trial, a technique that is commonly used. However, I want to press the Minister on subsection (1), which sets out that
“a subscription contract is a contract between a trader and a consumer”.
The Minister will probably have a straightforward answer on how business-to-business subscriptions are covered. There are plenty of instances where a business may pay for a subscription, so I would welcome assurances about how businesses are covered, particularly smaller businesses and those run by the self-employed.
Kevin Hollinrake
I think the hon. Lady raised two points. The provisions apply specifically to traders to consumers, not traders to businesses. On how we determine the exemptions, such as for magazines, delivery services, gyms, software and so on, a range of stakeholders, including regulators, businesses and consumer groups, developed the list and the scope of sectors that are exempt from the subscription measures.[Official Report, 20 July 2023, Vol. 736, c. 13MC.]
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 245 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 246 and 247 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 19
Excluded contracts
Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)
I beg to move amendment 117, in schedule 19, page 349, line 39, at end insert—
“Non-commercial society lotteries
13 (1) A contract under which a lottery ticket or tickets are purchased for one or more non-commercial society lotteries.
(2) In sub-paragraph (1), “non-commercial society” has the meaning given by section 19 of the Gambling Act 2005, and “lottery ticket” has the meaning given by section 253 of that Act.”
This amendment seeks to exclude lottery tickets purchased for non-commercial society lotteries from the scope of the provisions on subscription contracts.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Maria.
A few moments ago, I was encouraged to hear the Minister express a desire not to trespass on any of the specialist regulators, and I am delighted to say that that is exactly what the amendment is intended to achieve. I hope we can all agree that charity lotteries do an awful lot of good. They raise an awful lot of money, and they are fun. They are also already heavily regulated by the Gambling Commission. If the Gambling Commission does not fall under the category of specialist regulator, I am not entirely sure what does.
I raised this issue on Second Reading, but I was beaten to the punch by the right hon. Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker), who said that subscription-based charity lotteries
“are already heavily regulated by the Gambling Commission”.—[Official Report, 17 May 2023; Vol. 732, c. 882.]
He wanted to see whether such lotteries could be removed from schedule 19, and the Minister committed to looking at the matter in detail. I do not know what the result of the Minister’s deliberations has been. I know that by the time the Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology was on his feet to sum up he was certain that it would fall outside the scope of the Bill. Despite his best efforts on that occasion, I have to say that some of the representatives of the charity lottery sector I have spoken to are not reassured.
There remains an uncertainty. For all the best intentions of Ministers, and whatever ends up in Hansard as a result of our discussions on Second Reading and today, the Bill contains significant ambiguity. In that regard, it is unclear in a way that it does not need to be. Amendment 117 would add charity lotteries to the list of excluded contracts in schedule 19, so it would remove any remaining doubt that they are excluded from the provision. They will therefore be able to continue under the legislative environment that the Government have already set for them, which seems to work quite successfully, and will be able to do so without having any additional inhibitors put in their way in collecting revenues from the public and their customers, and crucially in paying out to good causes, which I am sure that we have all seen the benefits of across our constituencies.
Seema Malhotra
I do not propose to say much on the amendment. The hon. Member has laid out his arguments, and it would be helpful to hear some clarity from the Minister on his position.
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Member for Gordon makes an excellent point. As he said, the point was raised on Second Reading. We appreciate the work that society lotteries do in terms of fundraising—that £400 million a year is vital for many good causes. It is certainly not our intention to capture society lotteries, including the national lottery, in this chapter of the legislation on subscription contracts. We are working with the society lottery sector to understand whether we need to further clarify the legislation to reflect that. I am sure that we will discuss the issue again during later stages of the Bill.
Richard Thomson
If the Minister can assure me that we will have that open dialogue, and that the Government will share the outcomes of their deliberations, at this stage I am content to withdraw the amendment, but I will return to it on Report, contingent on what he is able to say at that point. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 19 agreed to.
Clause 248
Pre-contract information
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss:
That schedule 20 be the Twentieth schedule to the Bill.
Clauses 249 to 253 stand part.
New clause 5—Contract renewal: option to opt in—
“(1) Before a trader enters into a subscription contract with a consumer where section 246(2) applies, the trader must ask the consumer whether they wish to opt into an arrangement under which the contract renews automatically at one or more of the following times—
(a) after a period of six months and every six months thereafter, or
(b) if the period between the consumer being charged for the first and second time is longer than six months, each time payment is due.
(2) If the consumer does not opt into such an arrangement, the trader must provide a date by which the consumer must notify the trader of the consumer’s intention to renew the contract, which must be no earlier than 28 days before the renewal date.
(3) If the consumer has not—
(a) opted into an arrangement under subsection (1),
(b) given notification of the consumer’s intention to renew by the date specified under subsection (2), the contract will lapse on the renewal date.”
This new clause would allow the consumer to opt-out of their subscription auto-renewing every six months, or if the period between payments is longer than six months, before every payment. If the consumer does not opt-in of auto-renewal, they would be required to notify the trader manually if they wanted to renew.
New clause 6—Contract renewal: variable rate contracts—
“(1) Before a trader enters into a subscription contract with a consumer where section 246(3) applies, the trader must ask the consumer whether they wish to opt into an arrangement under which the contract renews automatically on the date the consumer becomes liable for the first charge or the first higher charge.
(2) If the consumer does not opt into an arrangement under subsection (1), the trader must provide a date by which the consumer must notify the trader of the consumer’s intention to renew the contract, which must be no earlier than five days before the renewal date.
(3) The trader must also ask the consumer whether they wish to opt into an arrangement under which the contract renews automatically—
(a) after a period of either six months from the first charge or higher charge and every six months thereafter, or
(b) if the period between the consumer being charged for the first and second time is longer than six months, each time payment is due.
(4) If the consumer does not opt into an arrangement under subsection (3), the trader must provide a date by which the consumer must notify the trader of the consumer’s intention to renew the contract, which must be no earlier than 28 days before the renewal date.
(5) If the consumer has not—
(a) opted into an arrangement under subsection (1) or subsection (3), or
(b) given notification of the consumer’s intention to renew by the date specified under (as the case may be) subsection (2) or subsection (4),
the contract will lapse on the next renewal date.”
This new clause would introduce an option for the consumer to opt out of their subscription auto-renewing after their free or discounted trial. Otherwise, they would have to notify the trader manually if they wanted to continue the subscription. It also introduces an option for the consumer to opt out of their subscription auto-renewing.
Kevin Hollinrake
Clause 248 places duties on the trader to provide the consumer with pre-contract information set out in schedule 20 before they enter a contract. All key pre-contract information must be given together to the consumer and separately from any other information. That is to ensure that it is not obscured by technical detail or marketing material and the consumer’s attention is focused on the information that they need to make an informed decision.
Clause 249 sets out obligations on the trader in concluding a contract, such as ensuring that the consumer expressly acknowledges their payment obligation if the contract is made online. That will ensure that consumers are fully aware of the contract they are entering.
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
As the hon. Member for Gordon said, the national lottery has an amazing track record—£47 billion has been given to good causes over many years—and we do not want this great institution, of which we should all be proud, to be hamstrung by endless requirements such as reminder notices. Will the Minister table amendments to the Bill on reminder notices ahead of Report that would ensure that the national lottery is exempt, as intended?
Kevin Hollinrake
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we do not intend to include national lotteries or society lotteries in this legislation. We are talking to those bodies to ensure that they are confident that that is the case. If we need to amend the Bill to do that, we will, but those conversations will continue. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point.
Clause 250 requires traders to send reminder notices in certain instances. A reminder must be sent on the first occasion that a subscription renews, including when a free or low-cost trial is coming to an end. That will ensure that consumers know they will soon become liable for payments, or higher payments, and can decide whether they want to continue the contract.
Neil Coyle
The Minister says that clause 250 is relevant only in certain circumstances. Can he be clear that the Government’s intention is not for the provision to cover someone who has perhaps been a decades-long subscriber to, for example, Sky? I hate to pick a particular company, but it is for the purposes of the conversation—I am not a Sky subscriber. Is the Minister saying that, if a person had had a contract for a decade and was a regular viewer of sports channels, or whatever it might be, they would not be caught by the clause? The “certain circumstances” do not seem to be well understood by some businesses outside this building.
Kevin Hollinrake
We have had dialogue with Sky, and many other organisations have contacted us to clarify some points. A subscription contract with Sky would fall under the provisions. Sky may be concerned about certain things, in terms of cooling-off periods, but I have not had any feedback from Sky or others that they have concerns about these particular provisions, unless the hon. Gentleman wants to mention something specifically.
Neil Coyle
I think that Sky briefed quite widely—it briefed members of the Committee and beyond—that it thinks that it is caught by the provision and that it covers all contracts. I can understand that a person would be caught by the new provisions if they had a new contract where there was a discount, as my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston already pointed out, but to impose the condition retrospectively on business contracts that someone could have had for decades seems to place a new onus on existing business arrangements. The Government have avoided doing that in other legislation, and I wonder about the rationale. I picked Sky off the top of my head, but it is an organisation that is concerned.
Kevin Hollinrake
I did not quite understand the hon. Gentleman’s point when he first made it. I think he is saying that it covers existing contracts as well as new contracts. Is that his point, and can I come back to him on it?
Kevin Hollinrake
After the first renewal reminder, consumers with a monthly renewing contract will be sent a reminder around the six-month mark. For contracts that renew less frequently than every six months, such as annual subscriptions, a reminder will generally be sent whenever the contract renews.
Clause 251 sets out the required timescales for serving reminder notices. Parts 1 and 2 of schedule 20 set out what pre-contract information traders must give to the consumer before they enter a contract. Part 3 of schedule 20 sets out the information that traders must include in a reminder notice.
I can address the point made by the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark right now, if he would like: the subscription contract clauses will apply only to new contracts taken after chapter 2 comes into force. Reminder notices must include information on the forthcoming payment, including any increase since the last renewal. They must also include an indication of how long the consumer will be committed following renewal, and how to end the contract should the consumer wish to.
Neil Coyle
I thank the Minister for giving way; he has been very generous. To be clear, is it the Government’s expectation that a subscription could be cancelled through a single communication from any device or social media platform? Over recent days, significant figures have tried to close bank accounts and other things by tweeting. Is it the Government’s expectation that this communication would come from a verified point of contact, such as an email address or phone number that the company holds? Otherwise, I could set up a Twitter account—or a Threads account, as we have seen this week—in the Minister’s name and then cancel his TV, or other, subscriptions.
Kevin Hollinrake
I may have misunderstood his point, but I think the example he gave was of a bank closing an account from Twitter. That is the other way around—that is the bank closing the account rather than the customer.
Kevin Hollinrake
Okay, but I think clause 252 is clear that there must be a straightforward cancellation route for consumers to exit a contract. He appears to describe a convoluted route, but I did not quite understand it. Would he like to expand on his point?
Neil Coyle
Sorry if I was not clear. I thank the Minister for checking. Will it have to be from a single point of contact, such as a verified address, to protect the customer as well as the business? If I wanted to cancel a contract, would I have to use the email address or phone number that the company holds for me and not, as the Bill currently reads, a Facebook post or something that the business may not be able to confirm is mine? Does that help?
Kevin Hollinrake
I am not sure whether it does or not. I refer the hon. Gentleman to one of my earlier points: it is a straightforward cancellation route. What he describes to me is not a straightforward cancellation route. That is the key definition. We can have a discussion after this sitting.
Clause 253 requires a trader to send a notice confirming when the contract was, or will be, ended once they have been notified of cancellation by the consumer. This also applies where a consumer exercises a cancellation right under this chapter. The trader must provide this notice promptly, and on a durable medium, and refund consumers any overpayment for which they are no longer liable.
I now turn to new clauses 5 and 6, which I will address together. They propose that traders must obtain a consumer’s express agreement to an auto-renewing contract by the consumer’s active opt-in. Through new clause 5, when consumers sign up to a subscription contract, they would have to be given the option to choose whether their subscription auto-renews after six months. If they do not choose this auto-renewal option, the contract would end after six months unless the consumer expressly asks for it to continue.
New clause 6 would apply equivalent requirements to contracts that auto-renew after a free or low-cost trial and may also auto-renew again subsequently. The Government share the view that consumers must be able to avoid being trapped in unwanted subscriptions and ensure their hard-earned cash is spent only on subscriptions they actually want. However, we know that the majority of consumers enjoy the auto-renewing features of their subscription contracts and the convenience they provide.
Through these new clauses, if a consumer had not opted-in to an auto-renewing contract, but they decide they want to keep their subscription, they would have to repeatedly respond to emails or similar to continue their subscription, or risk it unintentionally lapsing. That risk could be multiplied across each subscription they hold. For that reason, the Government decided not to pursue that approach, which was supported by our public consultation.
It is also important to consider the burdens the changes could place on businesses. The measures would add significant regulatory costs to businesses as they adapt their business models to meet the proposals. We are confident that the approach we have taken strikes the right balance of ensuring consumers are able to exit their contracts at various points during their contract, as well as maintaining consumer convenience.
Furthermore, the existing clauses in this chapter already achieve much of the ambition of the amendments. As I set out earlier, clause 250 will ensure consumers are sent regular reminders about their subscription, including towards the end of a free or low-cost trial. These reminders will ensure that consumers have the right information at the right time to decide if they want to continue their contract, or cancel it.
In addition, through clause 252 we will ensure easy cancellation routes so that subscriptions are as easy to leave as they are to enter. Finally, the Bill enhances consumers’ existing cooling-off rights. Clause 256, which we will discuss shortly, introduces an extra 14-day cooling-off period after a free or low-cost trial, and at the 12-month mark when a longer-term contract auto-renews. That means that, if for any reason a consumer has not been able to take action to cancel before renewal, they have an extra chance to do so.
Together, those measures will ensure that consumers can make informed decisions about their subscription contract. They also make it easy to leave while avoiding creating additional steps for those who want to continue. I hope that reassures hon. Members that the Bill will enable consumers to manage their contracts effectively, and that they feel able to withdraw the amendments.
Seema Malhotra
Clause 248 introduces provisions requiring traders providing a subscription contract to give consumer information as set out in schedule 20, which I will say a few words on shortly.
We very much welcome this clause as necessary in ensuring consumers are as informed as they possibly can be before entering into a subscription contract. I just ask the Minister to expand on subsection (2) It sets out that the information must be provided
“as close in time to entering into the contract as is practicable”.
I would welcome clarification on that requirement. Under that provision, exactly when would the Minister expect a time as close to entering into the contract to be practicable?
Schedule 20 on pre-contract information and reminder notices sets out information that is required for traders to give to consumers before entering into a subscription contract. Among other things, it would require traders to provide information on how often payments will be taken, to provide consumers with a pro-rata cost per month, to state the minimum total amount for which a consumer would be liable under the contract, to outline how the consumer could exit the contract, and to provide a summary of the consumer’s right to cancel the contract and of the right to cancel the contract within a renewal cooling-off period. The schedule is necessary for giving consumers the chance to have that information before entering into a subscription contract. We welcome its inclusion in the Bill.
Clause 249 introduces provisions requiring traders to ensure that the final step consumers take when entering into an online contract involves the consumer expressly acknowledging that the contract imposes an obligation on them to make payments to the trader. This clause and clause 248 are vital in ensuring consumers are informed before choosing to enter into a subscription—a minimum requirement for ensuring effective consumer protection in this area.
The Opposition welcomes how, if the trader does not comply with that requirement, the consumer would not bound by the subscription contract. In addition, traders would be required to give consumers additional information on whether there are any restrictions on the delivery of the product to be supplied under the contract, and which means of payment would be accepted for the contract.
Clause 250 covers reminder notices. Alongside clause 251, it has the effect of requiring traders to issue written reminder notices to consumers explaining that a subscription contract is going to continue, and a renewal payment will fall due unless the consumer takes steps to end it. Those reminder notices would not need to be issued more frequently than once every six months, which we welcome as a timeframe allowing for informed consumers without causing undue annoyance. The first reminder notice must include the first renewal payment, for which the consumer will become liable under the contract, and each subsequent renewal payment. We welcome the clause, and I will further discuss ensuring that consumers are not locked into subscriptions in the provisions to come.
Clause 251 sets out the timing and content of the reminder notices. Under the clause, the reminder notice must be given to the consumer between three and five working days before the last cancellation date, meaning the last day on which the consumer can end the contract and avoid becoming liable for the next renewal payment. The Opposition welcome the timeframes, including that for a 12-month subscription contract, as giving the consumer sufficient time to decide whether they still want their subscription contract to continue and, if necessary, to cancel the contract before a renewal payment is due.
Clause 252 introduces provisions imposing on traders an obligation to put in place arrangements to enable consumers to end a subscription contract in a single communication and without having to take any unreasonable steps. The purpose of the clause is to prevent traders adopting practices that would deliberately hinder a consumer exercising their rights to exit a subscription contract. It is a welcome clause, which should tackle the practice of, as the explanatory notes set out, requiring consumers to phone a call centre, complete a long form, or complete a survey of their reasons for exiting—all those things are barriers to the consumer making the decision to exit the contract. Those are unnecessarily onerous cancelling terms, and could lead to consumers not cancelling a subscription when they need to. Sometimes that could also be because people are short of time or they may not be able to do everything in one moment.
It should be as easy to exit the contract as it is to enter it. Will the Minister expand on whether he is confident the provision will have the desired effect of stopping traders making it harder to leave a contract than to enter it? Does he think the provision goes far enough in ensuring there are not those undue hurdles?
Clause 253 relates to where the consumer has exercised a right to cancel and sets out a requirement on the trader. The trader is to give the consumer an end-of-contract notice acknowledging the request to cancel, which must be in writing and there must be a clear date when it is going to take place. The end of contract notice must be given within three working days after the day on which the consumer has given notice of cancellation, or, when the consumer notifies cancellation online, the trader must give the end of contract notice within 24 hours of cancellation. In addition, any overpayment received by the trader must be refunded to the consumer. We welcome the clause as providing greater transparency for the consumer throughout the cancellation process.
Kevin Hollinrake
There are a few points to pick up on there. The shadow Minister wanted clarification on what “as soon as practicable” means. We expect traders to provide consumers with the relevant pre-contract information immediately before concluding the contract. If the contract is concluded online, that information should be provided during the online order process. If face to face, the trader should give that information before a contract is agreed.
The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark raised a point about when the provisions will commence. We do not clearly have a set commencement date at this point in time, but we are keen to get these measures in place to protect consumers. We also recognise that there must be sufficient time for businesses to adapt, and we will engage with stakeholders, including the ones referred to by the hon. Gentleman, to ensure that an appropriate transition takes place. When cancelling or ending a contract, is a single tweet enough? I think that was the hon. Gentleman’s point. The ability of the consumer to end their contract by notifying the trader by any means is a safety net whereby consumers can always use the fall-back option of a simple notification if it is preferable or easier for them, particularly if the trader has failed to provide a clear route for consumers to end their contract.
Where necessary, the Government will provide further clarification in business guidance, which will obviously include discussions with stakeholders. However, as the provisions state, it is important that consumers notify a trader in a way that clearly communicates their intention to end the contract, which can be actioned by the trader. Hence this notification must be given in a sufficiently clear manner. I think it is fair to say that a sole tweet probably would not be sufficiently clear.
Neil Coyle
I think that last comment about a tweet not being sufficient would be welcomed by responsible businesses that just want to use the verified contact details.
The other point is perhaps a bit more worrying, Chair. We are quite well into this Bill Committee. There is an economic impact assessment. The Minister has said today that the measures would be implemented immediately, but has just corrected that in his final comment. The assessment set out here does not now include the cost to business of implementing these measures, because we do not have a start date. How can businesses plan to implement measures when they do not know their start date, and they do not know because the Minister is still clarifying what would be considered sufficient contact from a customer to close an account?
Do the Government intend to provide new impact assessments to reflect what the Minister has just said—?
Neil Coyle
When will the Government provide the right figures for what this will cost businesses in Britain?
Kevin Hollinrake
The assessment is set out. The impact assessment for businesses states a figure of £179 million, I think.
Kevin Hollinrake
No, I am not giving way, thank you very much, because I want to address the hon. Gentleman’s points.
Regarding when these provisions will commence, of course we do not know how quickly this legislation will pass through both Houses of Parliament. It will be subject to much debate, including by people such as the hon. Gentleman. However, I have said clearly that the Government will give guidance and work with stakeholders to make sure that they fully understand the provisions in this legislation and have time to prepare for them. That is what I said in my earlier remarks, so I think the hon. Gentleman is being a bit churlish in terms of that perspective, perhaps for political purposes. However, all the way through this legislation, we have been keen to strike a balance between what is right for consumers and right for businesses. That is a balance we intend to strike, because we fully recognise the needs of business as well as the needs of consumers.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 248 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 20 agreed to.
Clauses 249 to 253 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 254
Terms implied into contracts
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kevin Hollinrake
Clause 254 sets out that a trader’s compliance with their main duties under this chapter is an implied term in every subscription contract. The clause is necessary as it gives the consumer access to legal remedies or defences to a claim by the trader where the trader has failed to comply with duties set out in this chapter.
Clause 255 gives consumers a right to cancel their contract if a trader fails to give the required key pre-contract information or reminder notices, or if their failure to provide an easy way of ending the contract means that a consumer remains trapped in their contract. Consumers who cancel their contract as a result of such breaches will be able to do so without penalty, and in prescribed circumstances may be entitled to a refund.
Seema Malhotra
Clause 254 sets out that the trader must comply with certain terms in every subscription contract they enter into, and various information is given about what is expected. We welcome the inclusion of clauses 254 and 255 in the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 254 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 255 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 256
Right to cancel during cooling-off periods
Giles Watling
I beg to move amendment 113, in clause 256, page 170, line 22, leave out “any circumstances” and insert
“circumstances where the consumer has not yet made use of the goods or service provided under the contract”.
I had intended to withdraw this amendment, because I received assurances from the Minister that the Government will take this issue seriously. I tabled it because of concerns about the length of cooling-off periods. People can join a service, binge watch an entire series, resign, and then go back again and again. The Minister assured me about that, but I look forward to hearing his comments.
Kevin Hollinrake
I thank my hon. Friend for his amendment. He is absolutely right to draw attention to this issue.
The initial cooling-off period ensures that a consumer has 14 days to cancel after signing up if they change their mind or do not like the product. The renewal cooling-off period further strengthens consumers’ cancellation rights by giving them an additional 14-day window to cancel their contract later on in some circumstances.
My hon. Friend makes important points. Cancellation rights should be fair to businesses, of course. The aim of the measures in the Bill is to give consumers a window in which they can change their mind before taking on, or renewing, a contract for what can be a significant ongoing liability. We heard several examples of consumers who missed the end of their free trial by a short period, and were then committed to an expensive contract because they had not cancelled in time. However, my hon. Friend makes a good point because there are particular circumstances around the supply of digital streaming services that have to be taken into account to ensure the Bill is fair to businesses. We will engage with businesses, regulators and consumers to ensure that refund and return sales are fair and practical, and work across all sectors, including digital streaming. We intend to return to this issue in secondary legislation to ensure the provisions are fair to providers and the services they provide. I very much hope my hon. Friend feels able to withdraw his amendment. We will engage in further discussions in due course.
Giles Watling
I thank my hon. Friend for his reassuring comments. He says we will deal with this issue later when we come to secondary legislation, so I will not press the amendment. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kevin Hollinrake
Clauses 256 and 257 set out an initial cooling-off period, and, in some circumstances, a new renewal cooling-off period. They provide that the consumer can cancel any time after signing up until 14 days after receiving goods, or 14 days after the date of the contract for anything else, such as services or digital content. The renewal cooling off period will apply when a free or low-cost trial ends and the consumer becomes liable for payments or higher payments. It will also apply when a contract auto-renews to a new term of 12 months or longer.
Clause 258 requires traders to give consumers a cooling-off notice whenever a renewal cooling-off period applies. This information confirms that the contract has renewed and informs consumers of their right to cancel.
As I mentioned in relation to amendment 113, clause 259 creates a regulation-making power. The regulations may provide for conditions or restrictions on the exercise of a cancellation right. They will set out detailed rules on the consequences of cancellation for the consumer’s refund rights and any arrangements for goods to be returned to the trader.
Clause 259 also gives power for a cooling-off period to be extended in specified cases. The regulations will set clear expectations on traders and consumers, so that they know their respective rights and responsibilities when a consumer cancels their subscription contract. Government will work with a range of stakeholders in developing the regulations. Where we intend to make regulations containing rules extending a cooling-off period, we have committed in clause 259(5) to consult.
Seema Malhotra
The clause gives the consumer the right to cancel a subscription contract without penalty during the initial cooling-off period and any renewal cooling-off period. That right, exercisable in any circumstances, cannot be subject to any restrictions or conditions imposed by the trader. The definition and timescales of cooling-off periods are defined in later clauses.
The clause is important to give consistency to the consumer about what rights they should expect in both initial and renewal cooling-off periods. We welcome the clause enabling the consumer to stop the renewal of a contract that may have renewed without them realising. I am also grateful to the Minister, for his response to amendment 113 and the questions posed by the hon. Member for Clacton.
Clause 257 sets out the meaning of initial and renewal cooling-off periods, as well as the timescales for such periods. We welcome the clause and the clear definitions. Under clause 258, the trader would be required to give a consumer notice of each renewal cooling-off period. Again, we welcome that, the clarification of consumer rights in those periods and the provision of transparency to consumers.
Clause 259 provides a delegated power for the Secretary of State to make further provision, by regulations, on the exercise of a consumer’s rights to cancel a subscription contract. It specifically empowers the Secretary of State to make provision on the exercise of the rights of a consumer to cancel a subscription contract, the consequences that follow a consumer exercising such rights, and extending a cooling-off cancellation period in such cases and to such an extent as the regulations may specify. We recognise the need for flexibility in this new subscription contract regulatory regime, and thus the flexibility to future-proof the regime, dealing with circumstances as they arise. We support this clause as well.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 256 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 257 to 259 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 260
Offence of failing to provide pre-contract information about initial cooling-off rights
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clauses 261 and 262 stand part.
Amendment 128, in clause 263, page 175, line 40, leave out
“level 5 on the standard scale”
and insert—
“the statutory maximum;
(c) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to a fine (or both).”
This amendment would make subscription traps offences “triable either way”, therefore bringing it in line with other similar offences in the Bill, for example for misleading actions.
Clause 263 stand part.
Kevin Hollinrake
The clause sets out that the trader commits an offence if they enter into an off-premises subscription contract and do not provide information about a consumer’s initial cooling-off cancellation right. Off-premises contracts mainly consist of contracts that are not concluded on the trader’s business premises and include situations such as doorstep selling.
In off-premises sales, the consumer is typically more vulnerable to poor trading practices. It is therefore necessary to make breach of this requirement an offence to act as an extra deterrent to rogue traders. That approach maintains consistency with the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, which stipulate that failure to provide required pre-contract information about cooling-off cancellation rights in the case of off-premises contracts is an offence.
Clause 261 provides a defence for a person charged with the offence set out in clause 260. That is to ensure that if an offence was committed due to the act or omission of a third party and without fault on the part of the person charged, they are not held criminally liable. The trader must prove that they exercised due diligence to avoid the offence being committed by themselves or another person under their control. Clause 262 sets out that an officer can be held criminally liable if an offence was committed by a company or other corporate body with the consent or connivance of that officer or due to their neglect. That is necessary to strengthen the deterrent effect of the offence and hold other responsible people accountable. Clause 263 sets out that traders who commit an offence contrary to clause 260(1) are liable to a fine.
Amendment 128 would allow traders to be prosecuted in both magistrates court and Crown court and increase potential penalties, including imprisonment, where traders do not inform consumers about their cancellation rights before entering off-premises subscription contracts. I appreciate that hon. Members wish to ensure that penalties are consistent with those elsewhere in the Bill. However, the penalties are designed to be consistent with those for failure to provide information about cancellation rights for off-premises contracts in the 2013 regulations, which currently govern all consumer contracts and will continue to govern other off-premises contracts. Consistency is important to ensure that breaches of equivalent rules are treated fairly and consistently, regardless of the type of contract. I therefore urge that the amendment be withdrawn.
Seema Malhotra
Clause 260 creates an offence where a trader fails to provide the relevant information on a consumer’s initial cooling-off cancellation rights before entering into an off-premises subscription contract. That contract is defined in subsection (5) and could include contracts concluded by door-to-door sellers or traders using temporary high street stands. It is a welcome clause and an important way of increasing consumer protection, ensuring that all kinds of subscription contracts and not just those entered into online are regulated under the chapter.
Clause 261 introduces a provision providing traders with a defence of due diligence to the offence laid out in clause 260. That defence enables the trader to prove that another person was responsible for the offence and that the trader took all steps to avoid committing the offence. While we recognise that it is important that traders have a right to a defence, I welcome the Minister’s assurances that this has been worked through and there is confidence that rogue traders will not be able to abuse that defence and argue their way out of criminal enforcement by claiming due diligence.
Clause 262 would establish direct liability for company officers for offences committed by the body corporate in circumstances where it is proven to have been committed with the consent or connivance of a company officer or neglect on their part. We welcome the clause.
Finally, clause 263 sets out how a person who commits an offence under clause 260 is liable on summary conviction to a fine. The Minister has outlined his response to that and it is helpful for me to briefly speak to amendment 128, tabled by myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd. As is clear in the explanatory note, the amendment
“would make subscription traps offences ‘triable either way’, therefore bringing it in line with other similar offences in the Bill, for example for misleading actions.”
The Minister has outlined another way in which he sees that as being consistent with how penalties are applied.
We will not push the amendment to a vote. The most important thing is that there is consistency, and we will look again at what the Minister has said today.
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Lady asks me to address her point about the defence of due diligence. The defences listed in the clause are consistent with defences in other areas of the law, so we are comfortable that they strike the right balance.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 260 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 261 and 262 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 263 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 264
Information and notices: timing and burden of proof
Kevin Hollinrake
I beg to move amendment 79, in clause 264, page 176, line 31, after “period” insert “or date”.
This amendment corrects a drafting error.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clause stand part.
Clauses 265 to 271 stand part.
Government amendments 80 to 82.
Clauses 272 and 273 stand part.
Kevin Hollinrake
Clauses 264 to 273 set out how to determine when information or notices are deemed to have been given and where the burden of proof lies in any dispute. Clause 264 sets out how to determine whether a trader or consumer has taken action as required by this chapter, and who is responsible for proving that.
Government amendment 79 is a drafting amendment to ensure consistency across the affected subsection as to when a consumer is treated as having given notice of their desire to end or cancel their subscription contract. The amendment is important to ensure that the clause works as intended, and I hope Members agree that it necessary.
Clause 265 will ensure that any term in a subscription contract that conflicts with this chapter will have no legal effect. That includes any term that seeks to exclude or restrict a trader’s liability arising from the implied terms of this chapter. In cases specified in regulations under clause 269(1)(e), the clause will also prevent traders’ contract terms from allowing them to take a renewal payment before the day on which a subscription contract renews.
Clause 266 sets out that a consumer can seek legal remedies, other than those set out in the chapter, if a trader breaches a term of a subscription contract. They can claim those remedies, in addition to ones under this chapter, as long as they do not recover twice for the same loss.
Clause 267 ensures that the measures in the chapter will apply where a UK consumer and an overseas trader agree a contract governed by a foreign law if the contract has a close connection with the UK. Whether that is the case will depend on the circumstances, including whether the overseas-based trader targeted the consumer in the UK. That will ensure that traders cannot avoid providing UK consumers with the protections of this chapter simply by operating or structuring their operations overseas. The clause also makes it clear that the chapter applies only to new contracts and not to existing ones, reflecting the usual principle that new regulatory requirements should not operate retrospectively. Clause 268 sets out that this chapter applies to the Crown.
Clause 269 sets out the powers for the Secretary of State to make regulations in relation to a number of matters covered by this chapter, including regulations related to information and notices that traders must provide to consumers, arrangements traders must make to enable consumers to exit their contracts, and details regarding overpayments and refunds. Regulations may also restrict what notice period traders can require from consumers to end their contract. Most of the areas covered by this power involve matters of detail on which the Government will likely want to make different provision for different kinds of cases and contract models.
Seema Malhotra
I welcome the speed with which we are moving through these clauses. Clause 264 specifies the timing and burden of proof for information and notices that are given under this chapter. For the electronic communication of notices or information, the clause makes it clear that delivery would be deemed instantaneous, even if the consumer does not receive the notice due to a reason beyond the trader’s control.
Subsection (6) specifies that in a dispute as to whether any information or notice has been given to the consumer, the burden of proof would be on the trader. We welcome that provision. However, under subsection (7), the burden of proof would be on the consumer in any dispute regarding whether a notice to end a contract or cancel it was sent to the trader, or with regard to the timing of that notice.
While the Opposition recognise the need for a balanced burden of proof, I draw the Minister’s attention to the written evidence submitted by consumer group Which?, which states in relation to subsection (7):
“We think this is unfair as it would create a disproportionate burden on consumers in situations where consumers cancel via means under the control of the trader. An example of this would be completing an online form, from the traders website, where no explicit confirmation has been given that the subscription has been cancelled.”
Can the Minister outline, for the benefit of the Committee, what will happen in such cases, where the consumer must cancel through a means that cannot be easily used or saved as evidence of cancellation? Does he not accept that in such circumstances, placing the burden of proof on the consumer is impractical, so there may need to be additional protections?
Amendment 79 corrects a drafting error, so we support it. Clause 265 introduces provisions such that any term in a contract contravening the regulations in this chapter has no legal effect. We welcome the clause ensuring that traders are unable to work their way around these regulations and therefore support its inclusion in the Bill.
Clause 266 clarifies that any rights the consumer may have under common law for breach of any term of a subscription contract are not limited by rights specified in this chapter. We welcome the clause ensuring that consumers are able to exercise both kinds of right in combination, providing ease for consumers.
Clause 267 introduces provisions regarding the application of this chapter. It sets out that if a trader were to choose the law of another country to govern a subscription contract but the contract has a close connection to the UK, chapter 2 would still apply. We welcome this common-sense clause, which enables the regime to be effectively enforced.
Under clause 268, the Crown would be bound by the provisions in chapter 2 but would not be criminally liable as a result. It would be helpful for the Minister to clarify what those circumstances might be, so that we can understand the provision more clearly.
Clause 269 grants the Secretary of State a delegated power to make regulations in relation to how and when information or a notice required to be given by traders to consumers under chapter 2 may or must be given, what information notices given under chapter 2 must contain, what arrangements a trader must make under clause 252 to enable consumers to end contracts, and when a consumer may exercise such a right, specifying the period in which a trader must refund an overpayment. While the Opposition recognise the need for this delegated power, it is not clear to us why these regulations are being left to secondary legislation and are not on the face of the Bill. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify that and the reason for the regulations being subject to the negative procedure.
Clause 270 makes consequential amendments to the specified sections of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and will ensure that information given to consumers as part of the pre-contract information required under chapter 2 is treated as a term of the contract. In effect, traders would not be able to make changes to the matters covered by this pre-contract information without the agreement of the consumer. We welcome that provision.
Clause 271 makes further consequential amendments to other legislation, and we support it. Clause 272 sets out general interpretations for this chapter, including definitions of “business”, “consumer”, “goods”, “trader” and “working day”. We support the clause and welcome its inclusion. Amendments 80 to 82 have the effect of expanding the definition of “durable medium” for the purposes of this chapter. We support these amendments. Clause 273 provides an index of defined expressions in the clause. It is self-explanatory, and we support it.
Kevin Hollinrake
The shadow Minister makes some fair points. In terms of the requirement for the consumer to prove cancellation, as she no doubt recognises, clause 6 contains obligations on the trader as well, to ensure that there is a burden of proof on them as to whether the information notice had been given by the trader to the consumer.
Clause 253 requires the trader to send an acknowledgment to the consumer that they received the notice to end the contract. We also address this in business and consumer guidance. This approach to burden of proof and the trader’s duty to confirm receipt of cancellation via their website is in line with the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. Businesses and consumer advice bodies are familiar with those regulations, and traders should be used to complying with them.
There is no policy justification for emanations and servants of the Crown not to be bound by this chapter if they are entering a contract with consumers of the kind regulated by this chapter.
We will certainly work with businesses, regulators and consumer groups in developing the regulations under these chapters to ensure they are fair and proportionate, and to make sure that the arrangements for things like how traders issue reminder notices work for both parties.
Amendment 79 agreed to.
Clause 264, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 265 to 271 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 272
Interpretation
Amendments made: 80, in clause 272, page 180, line 35, leave out “pre-contract”.
This is a drafting amendment to expand the definition of “durable medium”.
Amendment 81, in clause 272, page 181, line 1, leave out “pre-contract”.
This is a drafting amendment to expand the definition of “durable medium”.
Amendment 82, in clause 272, page 181, line 4, leave out “pre-contract”.—(Kevin Hollinrake.)
This is a drafting amendment to expand the definition of “durable medium”.
Clause 272, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 273 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 274
Meaning of “consumer savings scheme contract”
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clauses 275 and 276 stand part.
That schedule 21 be the Twenty-first schedule to the Bill.
Clauses 277 to 282 stand part.
New clause 7—Regulation of consumer savings schemes—
“(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations establish a system under which the Financial Conduct Authority has responsibility for regulating consumer savings scheme contracts.
(2) Regulations under this section—
(a) must be made within six months of this Act being passed, and
(b) are subject to the affirmative procedure.
(3) In this section, a ‘consumer savings scheme contract’ has the meaning given in section 274.”.
This new clause would make the FCA, rather than local authorities, responsible for regulating consumer savings scheme contracts.
Kevin Hollinrake
Part 4, chapter 3 of the Bill introduces requirements that businesses operating consumer savings schemes such as Christmas savings clubs adequately protect consumers. Clause 274 defines consumer savings scheme contracts for the purposes of the Bill as including contracts that seek to incentivise members not to withdraw their money until a certain time.
Clause 275 sets out definitions. Clause 276 gives the Secretary of State the power to amend schedule 21 to exclude contracts or arrangements in specific sectors. That will ensure businesses are not subject to dual regulation and safeguards them from overburdensome or potentially contradictory regulations.
Schedule 21 provides a specific set of exclusions from the regulations for certain arrangements, including for small businesses with low-value schemes.
Clause 277 sets out that consumer savings schemes must be underpinned by arrangements covering the cost of refunding consumer payments in the event of the trader’s insolvency. It allows traders to choose trust arrangements or insurance. This is the heart of the regulations. Users of consumer savings schemes make payments in good faith expecting to be able to redeem their money at the end of the savings period, and these provisions will protect consumer payments and maintain confidence in the sector.
Clause 278 specifies the baseline requirements for traders choosing the insurance option. They include a requirement that it must be sufficient to return all moneys saved by scheme users not redeemed at the time of insolvency.
Clause 279 specifies minimum requirements for traders protecting payments via trust arrangements. Those requirements cover the protection of consumer moneys and also permitted uses of funds, ensuring they can only be used to supply the goods and services consumers signed up for.
Clause 280 places traders under a legal duty to convey certain information to a consumer about the protection mechanism used. That is necessary to ensure consumers can check their money is protected as required and know what to do if they need to reclaim it.
Clause 281 adds this part of the Bill to the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008, which means that businesses with primary authority partnerships will be able to receive tailored advice, helping reduce the costs of compliance without reducing regulatory protections. Clause 282 defines certain terms in this part of the Bill.
Neil Coyle
I have a couple of points; I will try to keep them brief. The clause fundamentally rejects where the Government suggest the responsibility for oversight of a savings scheme should sit. I was just listening to the Minister, and it is probably worth flagging up the message from the Chartered Trading Standards Institute on this. The Government say that they have assessed where this should sit; they say that they have worked with partners and consulted, but that does not seem to be the feeling of the chartered institute covering the sector, whose language is interesting:
“These brand new provisions have been inappropriately dumped on local authority trading standards to deal with, but it would be much better placed to give the Financial Conduct Authority the responsibility to regulate new provisions on savings schemes which are similar in nature to banking and other financial matters already regulated by the FCA. Saving schemes are often national schemes”—
such as Farepak, which Members will be familiar with. No individual local authority could have prevented what happened with Farepak; I think that is the point it is making. I will come back to its direct comments—
“and therefore should be in the remit of a national regulator with the experience and resources to deal with financial matters. CTSI would like to see all references to local authorities removed in these provisions and to pass on responsibility.”
The Minister says that the FCA is not the right vehicle or body. Perhaps there is space and time to examine what that body should be. The point made by trading standards is that they do not have the skillset to oversee financial services in the way that the Government are demanding. They do not have the resources—that is the point made in our evidence sessions. This follows 13 years of cuts to weights and measures—to trading standards—which we have seen across the country; there has been a 50% cut in their capacity to do the job. Again, this is the Government trying to insist that local government take on greater responsibility after cuts to their own resources.
Southwark is a case in point. We have seen similar cuts to trading standards, but also to the overall council’s budget. The Government reduce the responsibilities of central Government Departments, such as the Home Office, and pass on additional costs running into the millions for things such as emergency children’s services with no recourse to public funds, without giving additional resources to councils to do so. This is another case in point where the Government are trying to push a new power and demand on to an already overstretched and under-resourced arena.
New clause 7 would have made the FCA the relevant body, rather than local authorities, but the point of the new clause is that trading standards should not be made responsible for something when they do not have the expertise or resource to be effective. If the Government do not think it should be the FCA, it is up to the Government to come back and find the right body. It is the Government’s legislation; they want it to be effective, and for these saving schemes to not collapse and leave people without, so it is incumbent on the Government to come up with either the resources and skills—training, whatever it might take—for trading standards to do this, or an alternative body to oversee these specific saving schemes. It is important at this stage to flag that concern, because there is a deep resentment, almost, from the sector over the Government’s suggestion that trading standards take this on, yet the Government still insist that it is the appropriate vehicle.
I hope there is still time to review which alternative body might be able to take on this task. This feels like something that a national body should deal with, and it should not sit with local authorities as operators and rogue traders may cover whole regions of the country, not one single local authority. I did listen to the Minister, and take onboard his suggestion that the FCA is not necessarily the right vehicle, therefore I am prepared to withdraw this amendment, as drafted, but I would like to see a commitment to reconsider where this responsibility sits.
Seema Malhotra
Clause 274 introduces the definition of a “consumer savings scheme contact” for the purposes of this chapter. Specifically, the clause defines it as a contract under which the consumer makes payments to a trader,
“the trader credits those payments to an account that is held by the trader for the consumer…and the payments credited to the consumer’s account provide a fund for the consumer to redeem as goods, services or digital content”.
The definition forms part of new provisions introduced by this chapter which are important for protecting consumers who use consumer savings schemes, and we welcome this. Clause 275 defines other terms used in this chapter—and in clause 274—and we welcome the further clarity this brings.
Clause 276 introduces schedule 21, which sets out arrangements that are excluded from the scope of a consumer savings scheme contract. It includes regulated financial services activities, arrangements for the supply of utilities, a contract between a consumer and a trader where the trader’s turnover is less than £1 million per year, childcare voucher schemes, and package holidays .
We welcome that exclusions might be necessary in cases where it is impractical for these regulations to apply. However, I would welcome some further clarification on paragraph 3 of the schedule to set out how contracts offered by small businesses are exempt. Is that in relation to wanting to have the right balance between smaller businesses and consumers? We obviously want to ensure that the consumer is as protected as possible in these contracts, so I would be grateful for a response from the Minister on that.
Clause 277—“insolvency protection requirement”—introduces provisions regarding the event of a trader’s insolvency and covering the costs of returning to the consumer any protected payments at the time of the insolvency. We do welcome that, and it is important in the context of record levels of insolvencies. It is a particularly unstable period, and it is important for consumers to have protections.
Clause 278 sets out what is understood to be an “appropriate policy” in the instance of a trader complying with the provisions in clause 277 by taking out an insurance policy. Under the Bill, an appropriate policy is one in which consumers are insured with cover for the refunding of prepayments held in the consumer’s account that have not been redeemed at the time of insolvency. The insurer must also be authorised by UK authorities. We welcome this clause, though I ask the Minister to expand on subsection (3), which requires the trader to
“meet the costs of arranging and maintaining an appropriate policy”
and explicitly inhibits traders passing that cost on to consumers.
I would be grateful for two things. First, will the Minister explain how we can be confident that the trader will not find a way to pass on this additional cost to the consumer? Secondly, will the Minister confirm how quickly, in the event of insolvency, consumers can expect to have their prepayment refunded? It would be helpful if he could clarify that. Does he feel that provision is tight enough in the Bill?
Clause 279 applies in circumstances where a trader complies with the insolvency protection requirements in clause 277 by using a trust arrangement. It sets out how it must ensure consumer prepayments are held in a trust located in the UK. The consumer’s prepayments must also be held in a trust until either the funds have been redeemed or the payments have been returned to the consumer. Similarly to clause 278, the Opposition welcome this clause as providing greater protections under consumer savings schemes in circumstances where the trader becomes insolvent.
I refer the Minister to subsection (7), which requires the cost of administering the trust to be paid for by the trader. Again, how will the Minister be able to safeguard against the trader passing this additional cost on to the consumer?
Clause 280 sets out the information requirements attached to this chapter. Specifically, it sets out that, within 30 working days of the consumer’s first payment into the savings scheme, the trader must provide:
“the name, address, telephone number and email address of the insurer or trustees responsible for protecting the consumer’s payments;
where insurance arrangements are in place, the policy number for the policy under which the consumer’s payments are protected;
where trust arrangements are in place, a copy of the trust deed under which the consumer’s payments are held.”
It is a welcome provision, but will the Minister expand on the 30-day time period? On what basis does the Minister believe that the trader would need 30 days to put these arrangements in place? Would these arrangements not happen automatically as soon as the consumer enters the scheme? That is an important question for ensuring that the consumer is informed of their protections.
Clause 281 would add chapter 3 of part 4 of the Bill to the list of enactments in schedule 3 of the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008. We welcome the clause.
Clause 282 introduces definitions for the purposes of this chapter. Similarly, we welcome the clause in providing the transparency, consistency and clarity needed.
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark thinks that trading standards is not the right body; the Government think that it is, and that position—of it not being the Financial Conduct Authority—is supported by the Law Commission. These are clearly not financial products. They are not defined as such in the relevant legislation.
Trading standards already has a business relationship with supermarkets. There is already a Primary Authority Supermarkets Group in the trading standards network; it therefore seems logical, given that supermarkets will probably be offering these kinds of services, that this should be handled by trading standards.
Neil Coyle
Why does the Minister think that the Chartered Trading Standards Institute does not want this responsibility?
Kevin Hollinrake
That is not the feedback that I have heard. I am very happy to see the information that the hon. Member has in front of him and to try to meet those concerns of the trading standards body. Trading standards is the most relevant body in our view; the hon. Gentleman may take a different view, and he is entitled to do so.
The shadow Minister mentioned small businesses. The small businesses that are excluded are those with an annual turnover of less than £1 million and collect less than an average of £10 a month from customers, so we do not see those as having the same potential detriment as with other, larger organisations.
As for traders passing on the costs of the insurance or the trust, they are clearly prohibited from doing so in this legislation. There is a requirement, as the hon. Lady will have seen, for the accounts of a relevant trader to be audited every three years; we would expect those checks to take place at that point to ensure that it was being done appropriately.
On payments being made, clearly that will be a case for either the insolvency practitioner or the insurance company, but we would expect that fees held in trust would be rapidly returned to people who were due to have their money returned. On the shadow Minister’s point about 30 days, well, it is
“before the end of 30…days”,
so the information may well be provided, as she would desire, much more quickly than that.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 274 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 275 and 276 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 21 agreed to.
Clauses 277 to 282 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Mike Wood.)