Metropolitan Police: Strip-search of Schoolgirl
Debate between Baroness Benjamin and Baroness Williams of Trafford(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
The right reverend Prelate may have heard me say, when we discussed Sarah Everard’s murder, that I would not feel confident in saying no to the police if I were requested to do something. In a way, that is at the heart of this issue. It will all come out in the IOPC review, but did the school have confidence in saying, “Excuse me?” to the police or, “This is the way that we do safeguarding at this school”? That will all come out in the review. However, whatever the organisation, whether it is schools, teachers or the health service, we need to have confidence in challenging—not refusing but challenging—the police if we think they have got it wrong.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, childhood lasts a lifetime. The indignity that child Q had to go through is going to scar her for life. My daughter is a teacher and she too was appalled to learn about this blatant act of abuse of human and legal rights in a school—a place where children should be protected from physical and emotional harm. After the death of George Floyd, and Black Lives Matter, we all should know better. The police should know the importance of following the stringent guidelines and procedure when dealing with cases involving young people, especially those of colour, so both teachers and the police have questions to answer. What is being done to reinforce the safeguarding measures already in place to ensure that this kind of abusive and traumatic incident never, ever, happens again?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
The noble Baroness will have heard me talk about some of the measures that are already in schools and public institutions to safeguard children. Safeguarding children should be at the centre of what we do as public servants. There are clear guidelines around safeguarding and the type of thing we were talking about this week in relation to child Q. Strip-searching is probably one of the most intrusive things that one could ever do to a child.
I am going to beg the indulgence of the House and ask whether the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, might be allowed to come in.
Windrush Compensation Scheme
Debate between Baroness Benjamin and Baroness Williams of Trafford(3 years ago)
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Baroness Benjamin
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that people who applied to the Windrush Compensation Scheme have their claim decided as a matter of urgency.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, we remain committed to ensuring that people receive every penny of compensation that they are entitled to and we have offered more than £37.2 million. There is no cap on the amount that we will pay and we have removed the end date of the scheme. Suggestions that only 5% have received a payment are misleading; 29% of the claims that we have received have had a payment. We are processing claims as quickly as we can and continue to make improvements. Many of these were recognised in the Home Affairs Select Committee’s report, but we recognise that there is more to do and will consider the report carefully.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
I thank the Minister for her reply. I declare an interest as chair of the Windrush Commemoration Committee, which is placing a national Windrush monument at Waterloo station, where I arrived when I was a 10 year-old in 1960. It will celebrate the enormous contribution of the Windrush generation to Britain.
But the Windrush scandal has created a stain on British history, and many innocent people branded as illegal, now in their 70s and 80s, are still traumatised by the burden of proof and the treatment that they have endured. There is an overwhelming feeling of distrust and a feeling that their compensation claims will never be paid. So to reassure these British citizens who have served this country well for generations, will the Government consider appointing an independent body to deal with the Windrush compensation scheme before any more of these claimants pass away?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
First, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness and all that she has done for the Windrush generation. I totally agree with her that the scandal of it, which spanned several decades, and Parliaments and Governments of every colour, is indeed a stain on our history.
With regard to the evidence, we have designed the scheme to be as simple as possible, and its whole rationale is to pay compensation, as opposed to not paying it. So the scheme operates on the balance of probabilities, and we will work with individuals to support them to provide and obtain as much information as possible to support their claim. We want to make it easy, not difficult, for them to do so, so caseworkers will contact other government departments and third parties, such as previous employers, if necessary. In July, we published refreshed casework guidance that clearly sets out how caseworkers should apply the balance of probability and go about gathering that evidence. We want people to receive the maximum amount of compensation, not the minimum, to which they are perfectly entitled.
Strategy for Tackling Violence against Women and Girls
Debate between Baroness Benjamin and Baroness Williams of Trafford(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
Well, I think the noble Baroness will have heard me addressing the issue of public sexual harassment to the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Paddick—which is to say that not only is it completely unacceptable but we are looking at where there might be gaps in the law to address it. We are compliant with the Istanbul convention in all but three areas, and I can assure the noble Baroness that we are committed to ratifying and will do so as soon as we are fully compliant. We will then inform Parliament of the date. We will be compliant once Northern Ireland has introduced its new domestic abuse offence in the autumn and we have determined our compliance position on migrant victims. She will know about the pilot scheme. The House must acknowledge that, in some cases, we do more than we need to do to be compliant—for example, with forced marriage protection orders—but we are not complacent.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, nowhere in the Statement is there any mention of online pornography. Yet the Times and the Telegraph both reported that Wayne Couzens, who pleaded guilty to the rape and murder of Sarah Everard, was obsessed with violent, extreme pornographic websites. So what assessment have the Government made of the effect of their decision in 2019 not to implement Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act, as planned, on the safety of women and girls? It would have meant that, since the beginning of 2020, we would have had a regulator with powers to take robust action against any pornographic website showing extreme, violent pornography in the UK.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising this, and she is absolutely right in what she said. I know this will not be to her full satisfaction, but we are, through the Online Harms Bill, going to be addressing some of the issues that cause concern, such as user-generated pornography. I know that is not what she is referring to, but we are going some way towards addressing it.
Children: Online Grooming
Debate between Baroness Benjamin and Baroness Williams of Trafford(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and declare an interest as a champion of the Internet Watch Foundation and a vice-president of Barnardo’s.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, the rise in self-generated indecent images of children is extremely concerning. These images can have devastating impacts on young people, putting them at risk of blackmail, coercion and, of course, further abuse. Through the online harms Bill we intend to publish a new duty of care for online companies towards their users, overseen by an independent regulator. Our response during the pandemic includes amplifying messages to stakeholders to help children to stay safe online.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, professionals working in child protection, such as those at Barnardo’s and the NSPCC, have been raising concerns about the impact of the lockdown on children, which has created a perfect storm that has led to an increase in online child abuse. The Internet Watch Foundation has warned of a rise in self-generated illegal images of young children which it has had to take down, up almost 50% on last year. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that there is a renewed focus on prevention and the protection of children, who are spending more time online, to guarantee that they are properly supported with high-quality online safety advice, funding and resources?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I agree whole- heartedly with the noble Baroness: she is absolutely right that the figures she quotes are staggering and worrying. I commend the Internet Watch Foundation for the work it is doing. I know that officials are engaging very closely with the IWF to explore what more we can do to tackle this sort of online grooming. I also know that RSE in schools is another area through which we can engage with children to prevent this sort of thing happening in the first place.
Domestic Abuse
Debate between Baroness Benjamin and Baroness Williams of Trafford(4 years ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
The noble Baroness asks a very pertinent question in this field. The Government have put in place several forms of protection for victims to prevent continued coercive control, which so often goes on after the event, and economic abuse, including accommodation, community-based services and counselling. The Domestic Abuse Bill and wider action plan will help to ensure that victims have the confidence to come forward and report their experiences, safe in the knowledge that the justice system and other agencies will do everything they can to protect and support them and their children and pursue their abuser.
Baroness Benjamin (LD) [V]
My Lords, recent shocking evidence showed a 20% rise in babies being killed or harmed at home during the first lockdown. In normal times, 50% of children in need of support from local authorities come from homes with domestic abuse. The Domestic Abuse Bill promises additional support for victims and children in safe accommodation, but this will not help those who do not or cannot flee their own homes. Will the Minister tell us how the Bill will improve support for victims and their children while they live in an abusive family home?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I hope that I have outlined some of the measures that we intend to put in place. The noble Baroness will recall, some time ago when we discussed this, I explained how we will support people through local authorities in their own homes who need to be kept safe for a short period of time through safe rooms, et cetera. However, the whole point of the provisions of the Domestic Abuse Bill is to deal with all the things that she outlines, including supporting women who have suffered abuse and their children, and establishing perpetrator programmes, which are so often overlooked but are at the heart of us tackling this awful crime.
Windrush Compensation Scheme
Debate between Baroness Benjamin and Baroness Williams of Trafford(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
I thank the noble Baroness for making that point. We have got to get a balance on streamlining the process on often quite complicated situations. Yesterday my right honourable friend the Home Secretary invited Members of the House of Commons to see some of the casework that is going on to demonstrate how absolutely thoroughly we are considering and processing these claims. There is a balance to be struck between making sure that everyone gets the full amount to which they are entitled and doing it in a timely fashion. I do not disagree with the noble Baroness in part, but we need to do it thoroughly and properly and ensure that everyone gets the full amount to which they are entitled.
Baroness Benjamin (LD) [V]
My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Windrush Commemoration Committee. For more than 40 years I have been striving for true racial equality, and I have sat on many panels and committees to address the issue—but to little avail. There are hundreds of recommendations in existing reviews; it is exasperating. So, while I welcome the formation of the Windrush cross-government committee and the promise to implement all Wendy Williams’s recommendations, if the Government are truly serious about tackling systemic racial inequality, the time has come to establish a far wider-ranging, effective and comprehensive race equality strategy. Will the Government commit to working together across government with appropriate stakeholders to implement a race equality strategy at Cabinet level?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for all the work she has done in this area. I hope that the progress we have made on this is some comfort after seven decades of inequality being built up because of successive Governments—we all need to look to ourselves—putting in place policies that have made it more difficult for members of the Windrush generation and others to settle and make their lives here. I shall certainly take back what she said about a race equality strategy. I hope the noble Baroness is happy about the cross-government working group in the sense that it brings in a whole-of-Whitehall approach not only to look at some of the lessons that Wendy Williams wants us to look at but to tackle the problems that occur across government departments in exacerbating race inequality.
Black Lives Matter: Protests
Debate between Baroness Benjamin and Baroness Williams of Trafford(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
I thank the noble Lord for making that point. The Wendy Williams review has to be answered in a timely fashion and my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has committed to doing so. Wendy Williams was very clear in her recommendation that she did not want the Government or the Home Secretary to rush to respond but to reflect on the very good points she had made in her review. The Prime Minister’s commission will not in any way undermine the work that the Home Office is doing. The noble Lord talked about the review being on my desk. It is not on my desk, but we all share responsibility for it.
Baroness Benjamin (LD) [V]
My Lords, monuments are intended to commemorate important and significant events in our history. Black history needs to be addressed. I am proud to chair the Windrush Commemoration Committee, which, under the auspices of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, will unveil in 2022 a Windrush monument at Waterloo station, where thousands of Caribbeans arrived. There will also be an IT educational element to it, celebrating major contributions that Caribbeans have made to Britain. This must not be a one-off, so will the Government consider commissioning more such monuments, such as a national slavery monument, to document our history and demonstrate that black lives really do matter?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I commend the noble Baroness on all that she has done in securing a Windrush Day and on the work she has done on the Windrush monument at Waterloo to commemorate those people who arrived here to rebuild this country after the war. On a national slavery monument, I do not know whether the noble Baroness knows the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool—I bet she does. I am racking my brains to remember whether there is actually a statue outside it, but positioned as it is, in the very heart of a city built in many ways on slavery, it is a reminder to us all of why black lives matter.
Child Sex Predators
Debate between Baroness Benjamin and Baroness Williams of Trafford(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and declare an interest as a champion of the Internet Watch Foundation.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, child sexual abuse is an abhorrent crime and tackling it is a key priority for the Home Office. We aim to prevent offending by halting the escalation of harmful sexual behaviour in young people. We support the Lucy Faithfull Foundation’s Stop It Now! campaign, which signposts those concerned about their behaviour towards confidential support, and the joint project by the Marie Collins Foundation and the Internet Watch Foundation to increase awareness of the law.
Baroness Benjamin
I thank the noble Baroness for her Answer. In April, during lockdown, data from three internet companies serving the UK market and deploying the Internet Watch Foundation’s webpage blocking list identified 8.8 million attempts to access known sexual abuse imagery of innocent children. The IWF is essential in preventing internet users, especially young men, accessing—often accidentally—this type of horrific content and going on to commit sexual offences. What are the Government doing to tackle the issue of the estimated 300,000 people who currently pose a threat to children in the UK, and what steps are they taking to encourage smaller ISPs that do not deploy the list?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Baroness points towards the international response required here. We not only engage with our Five Eyes partners but employ technology for takedown of such images, as do our international partners. We engage with our police and law enforcement agencies to enable the takedown of these sorts of images. On a practical level, we work with NGOs to ensure that children are kept safe online and that some of the things they do online are safe.