Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th April 2023 Grand Committee

I urge the Minister to continue the discussions about what more can be done and to give serious consideration between now and Report to including this amendment, or something like it, in the Bill as it proceeds to the statute book. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow that powerful, comprehensive and, I think, highly persuasive speech from the noble Lord, Lord Alton. I will be extremely brief but, given there was not space to attach my name to this amendment, I wanted to briefly offer Green support. I hardly need to declare my position as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has already done that, but I will do so for the record.

I just want to make two points. I am perhaps slightly less optimistic than the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who said that if we create this law, the sanctioned individuals will declare. However, this amendment would create a weapon to use against them when they do not. So I would perhaps frame that slightly differently. This really relates to the debate on the previous day in Committee when we talked about SLAPPs. We know the limitations—we have just been discussing the limitations of the resourcing and capacity of our enforcement vehicles. It will likely very often be NGOs and journalists who expose this, but if we bring in the anti-SLAPP rules and this rule, we will see the seizures actually happening and the Bill being effective.

Secondly, through this Bill we are aiming—as we aimed with the previous economic crime Bill—to close lots of loopholes. I assume, however, that not even the Minister will say that, once we have done all this, everything will be fixed and we will not have any future problems. As evidence for that, in August last year the register of overseas entities came in and yet the figures show that little more than half the relevant properties owned by overseas companies have been declared.

We in this Committee are looking at making a difference not just in theory but in practice, and that is what this amendment would do.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to support the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on this amendment. I have supported him on a number of amendments in other areas, and I have learned not to do too much research because however much you have done, he will have said it by the time you get the chance to say it.

The Government have recognised the importance of asset seizure. Back in the heady days of March 2022, the then Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, James Cartlidge—he has of course moved on since then—said that the Government were looking at

“how we can go further to crack down on illicit money in British property, including considering temporary asset seizures beyond the freezing regime that we already have in place”.—[Official Report, Commons, 22/3/22; col. 147.]

However, that is not an easy task, and this is a bit more than closing a few loopholes. Many experts have flagged risks relating to seizing assets—I am sure that the Minister will remind us of that when we come to it—particularly without the necessary proof of criminality. For assets belonging to individual oligarchs, concerns have been raised over the rule of law, due process and property rights. In the case of state assets, objections include sovereign immunity—something that I think I mentioned in a previous debate—and the fear that other states may withdraw their reserves. This is a big issue, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned. When we focus on the Russian sanctions, for example, we see that the UK has frozen billions of pounds of Russian assets under the sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine. The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation—OFSI—has reported that £18 billion owned by individuals and entities associated with Russia’s regime has been frozen since the beginning of that war. Some estimates suggest that more than £40 billion could be frozen or immobilised if further sanctions were put in place.

However, assets frozen under sanctions are passive. Funds frozen under the UK sanctions regime cannot be retrieved or repurposed. In fact, these should be returned at the end of the war if sanctions are lifted. Meanwhile, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, pointed out, the UK is asking the taxpayer to fund the war effort and, no doubt, the repair of Ukraine if and when we get to that point. So, there is quite a lot at stake.

Amendment 85 is a way of trying to do this and cut through the complication relatively simply and ingeniously —for which I claim no credit. It seeks to strengthen the UK sanctions regime and find a route that allows us to recover these frozen assets, which have been concealed in the past. As we have heard, the mechanism we propose would impose a duty on sanctioned persons proactively to disclose all their assets held in the UK and criminalise the failure to disclose such assets as a form of sanctions evasion.

If a sanctioned person fails to declare all their assets and further assets are uncovered by the authorities, they are guilty of a criminal offence—sanctions evasion. Those undisclosed assets may then be seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. This seizure would be subject to the same safeguards that courts currently uphold in criminal and civil recovery processes, following due process and ensuring that any deprivation of private property is not disproportionate to the public interest in seizing the proceeds of crime.

Given that sanctions evasion is already a criminal offence in the UK, this amendment would be a straightforward way rapidly to scale up assets that may be susceptible to seizure. Adding a requirement to disclose all assets held within six months prior to designation would also capture assets such as those set out by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. It is for these reasons that we support this amendment.

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[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, who so ably chaired the Fraud Act 2006 and Digital Fraud Committee of which I was also a member. She has given a lot of detail, so I will try to slash out bits of my speech that she has already covered and not repeat too much—I apologise if I fail slightly in that.

I think that we all know about the scale of fraud in this country. However, I think it is worth repeating what the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, said about the impact that fraud has on the victims. This is not just a financial crime and “Oh, I’ve lost some money”. We heard stories about mental health issues, even suicide, arising from frauds. It is a really serious matter. Losing your life savings is serious but it goes way beyond that.

Yet we do not seem to have taken much action. We have heard several times about the 1% of law enforcement resources that are focused on it. The government response has been fragmented—we refer in our report to an “alphabet soup” of bodies dealing with it. Our report referred to this creating

“a permissive culture across Government and law enforcement agencies towards fraud and the criminals who perpetrate it”.

At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, we have been waiting for months for the national fraud strategy—I think I detect that the Minister is as frustrated as we are about the delay. I am pleased that it has moved from “shortly”, as he said on 15 November last year, to “genuinely imminent” today. We look forward to it. However, the delay does not inspire huge confidence in how seriously the Government are taking this.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, described what we called the “fraud chain” in our report. It is sometimes known as the “kill chain”; we decided that that was not a particularly pleasant phrase, but it again conveys the seriousness of it. Some parts of the chain are, at last, taking action. In particular, the banking sector has taken a number of actions that have had a positive impact; the introduction of the confirmation of payee process is a good example. But why has that sector in particular taken action? I would argue it is because it has had, almost alone in the chain, a real financial incentive to do so with the voluntary reimbursement code. It has been on the hook for paying back and reimbursing, therefore it is trying to do something to stop it. The voluntary code is now becoming mandatory under the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which is welcome.

It is also interesting to see, in the financial services and banking area, some competitive elements creeping in. The TSB uses the fact that it now reimburses all APP fraud losses as a selling point, which is encouraging. On the other hand, those banks that did not sign up to the voluntary reimbursement code are often cited as being more likely to see greater fraud levels on their customers; with less incentive to take action, they have taken less action. Making the code mandatory will, I hope, force them to start to do so.

We have heard about the other players in the fraud chain, those who make it possible for the fraudster to carry out the fraud—the enablers, if you like. They have no such incentive to act at the moment and, as a result, they have not acted, or not in any meaningful way. These enablers are players such as social media companies, search engines, online dating companies, the telecoms industry, website hosting companies, email platforms, ISPs, online gaming platforms, intermediary platforms and those selling bulk SIM cards or SIM farms, which the fraudsters use—and many more. I am sure that, as this area moves and changes, as it does very rapidly, we will see fraudsters constantly jumping into new areas and doing new things. They will react; there will be plenty more that we have not thought about.

From speaking to a major UK fintech, I know that around half the frauds it sees start from platforms operated by Meta, and more than half arise on just four platforms. In a debate on protecting vulnerable people from fraud on 2 December 2021, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, answering for the Government, said:

“As for discussions with Facebook, I have lost count of the number of discussions that I have had. One thing that we said way back in the day was, ‘Look, if you don’t sort some of these problems out, we’re going to legislate to sort them out’—and this is where we are now”.—[Official Report, 2/12/21; col. 316GC.]


A year and half later, we are still there.

As we have heard, we were particularly unimpressed with the telecoms industry, which was at best depressingly complacent. Who in this Room has not received a fraudulent SMS message or phone call appearing to come from a UK number such as HMRC or Royal Mail? I guarantee that nobody in this Room has not. To be fair, some telecoms companies are now taking action. EE, for example, flags suspicious calls, which proves that it can be done. But most have not taken action. They are paid for all these calls and texts, as the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, has said but, because there is no come-back on them at all, they have taken little or no action to stop them. I have not been able to find reliable data as to what proportion of scams originate from telecoms companies; rough data seems to indicate that it is somewhere around 20% to 25%.

Amendment 94 aims to create an incentive for all players in the fraud chain to take action. Effectively, it creates an offence of failing to take reasonable steps to prevent the use of a company’s services for the purpose of committing fraud—by a third party; it does not have to be related to the company. The amendment is deliberately scoped widely, rather than industry by industry; it tries to make it so that anyone providing a service that could reasonably be expected to be used by fraudsters should have to take reasonable steps to detect and prevent that use. That does not seem particularly extreme. It creates a defence that the company had in place such procedures as it was reasonable, in all the circumstances, to expect to detect and prevent the use of its services for the purposes of committing fraud, or that it could not reasonably have known that they were being used for such purposes.

When we get to the discussion that we will no doubt have about this being disproportionate, I will disagree. Any court is going to look at a small company, and that is one of all the circumstances that it will take into account when deciding what would be reasonable for detecting and preventing fraud. It cannot be too much to ask that companies should have to put reasonable procedures in place. I think that it is a pretty low bar, but I am sure that we would all be very happy to discuss how the amendment might be tweaked or changed to ensure that it does not have a disproportionate impact on businesses. But it would be good to hear whether, first, the Minister agrees that there is genuinely a problem in this area and, secondly, whether he agrees conceptually that creating a real incentive for companies to take more care to ensure that their services are not being used by criminals is necessary.

The Online Safety Bill goes some way to achieving this in some respects—and I thank the Minister for arranging for me to meet officials yesterday, who were extremely helpful in getting me up to speed on what that Bill does. It does that especially in relation to fraudulent advertising, and that is very welcome, but it does not cover all the enabling industries, even the ones we know about now, let alone those in future. It does not cover telecoms, email providers or web-hosting companies, for example, and is more focused on the large players. It also does not cover all the activities. Previously I mentioned people selling SIM farms or other tools used by fraudsters. They would not be caught by it. It will not catch the SMS with a link to a fake Royal Mail site, for example.

What worries me is that the approach of using lots of different pieces of legislation to deal with this problem, such as the Online Safety Bill and the others that the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, mentioned, leaves us in danger of creating a piecemeal approach, mirroring the alphabet soup of responsible bodies that I mentioned. This amendment would create an overarching obligation on any business to take reasonable steps to prevent the use of its services by fraudsters, whether on or offline.

Amendment 91, in the name of Baroness Bowles, attacks the problem from the point of view of regulators, conferring a duty on them, or giving them the option, to create a duty to prevent or facilitate crime regulation. It names a number of regulators, including Ofcom in respect of telecoms and other communications platforms. It mentions the ICAEW, so I should remind the Committee of my interest as a member of that body—I keep doing that, I am very boring. Personally, I think these two amendments would actually work quite well together. If Ofcom, for example, set out a code of conduct for telecoms companies to follow, that could work as the defence mentioned in Amendment 94.

However we do it, we must incentivise all enablers in the fraud chain to do the right thing. There is an excellent opportunity in this Bill to do it now. Further delay will lead to countless more innocent people losing their savings and being traumatised. I very much hope the Minister will be willing to approach this constructively, even if he does not like some of the specifics in the amendments. I support the noble Baroness’s suggestion about the analysis of how all these Bills work together, which would be very helpful.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord, Lord Vaux, and everyone who has contributed to this crucial debate. I feel I should begin with an apology for not taking part in the debate on the failure to prevent in the first group, but that is because I was in the debate on the Online Safety Bill, with an amendment to which I had attached my name. It is a grave pity that we are debating two such important and closely linked Bills on a Thursday, with the pressures that is putting on your Lordships’ House, but in this group we have seen that we are overcoming those challenges and doing a great job of scrutiny, as we should be doing.

I will be quite brief and again try not to go over any of the same ground as others, but something that struck me when I looked at the Online Safety Bill was that action against fraud and other crime was utterly missing from it. In fact, I considered tabling amendments, but the drafting job was, frankly, beyond the capabilities available to me. The way it has worked out fits very well with this Bill and draws on the capacity of people involved with this Bill, whereas the other Bill has been taken in a somewhat different direction. It is worth noting that this is a safety issue—the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, referred to this. The noble Baroness said that it does not only affect older people, but it is worth noting that it is particularly an issue for them. If you are hit by a fraud when working in a system that you already found challenging and difficult to engage with, you lose confidence in your ability to operate in the world. We have a loneliness epidemic, with many people struggling to survive, with the Government stressing digital first, digital first. The impact on older people in particular is an earthquake through their lives, and that needs to be noted.

Lots of people talked about the scale of that problem, but I do not think anyone has mentioned that UK Finance, the trade association for the UK banking and financial sectors, said that financial fraud is now a national security threat. That ties in with the earlier amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Alton. In the first half of 2021, more than £750 million was stolen, and that was a 30% increase on the same period from the previous year, so we are looking at something that is escalating and absolutely demands action.

Short-term Holding Facility (Amendment) Rules 2022

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I support the Motion to Regret in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. The Government were clearly right to openly acknowledge that the Manston short-term holding facility had been operating outside of legal requirements and that action was needed to improve conditions at the site. Therefore, the decision then to use secondary legislation not only to extend the length of detention powers at such facilities but to reduce the required safeguarding standards must be highly regrettable. It cannot be right that, when the immigration estate fails to meet legislation passed by this House, the response is simply to rewrite the rules. I am reading a lot about the Soviet Union at the moment, and there is an echo of that: if the five-year plan was not met, you simply changed reality to meet what you were going to get.

It is important not to forget that short-term holding facilities accommodate families, children, and survivors of torture and trafficking, following people’s often traumatic journeys. We should be committed to the highest safeguards when seeking to accommodate individuals in this position, and take the right steps to identify those with protection needs. I therefore ask the Minister why it was deemed necessary to reclassify Manston as a residential holding room, thereby disapplying key safeguarding rules for short-term holding facilities. Why was only one fewer day of permitted detention justification for such a downgrade in safeguarding rules and standards?

I want to be brief, so I will pay attention to just two key issues. First, it is unclear whether the Rule 32 process will fully apply to residential holding rooms. Will detention therefore be reviewed within the mandatory timeframes for those identified as vulnerable through the Rule 32 process? The modification to a review as soon as is practicable, as suggested in the Explanatory Memorandum, is highly concerning, as individuals, including children, may be harmed further by their continued detention.

Secondly, why is there no requirement for minors or families to be in sleeping accommodation in residential holding rooms that is inaccessible to other detained individuals not known to them? Surely this requirement should never be downgraded when it comes to a child, and the risk is even greater with extended detention for up to 96 hours.

Given that the Government are looking to impose a duty on the Secretary of State to detain those in contravention of Immigration Rules for any length of time deemed appropriate through the Illegal Migration Bill, this debate reminds us that detention safeguards and accommodation rules are vital in protecting the most vulnerable people. I therefore ask the Government to ensure full scrutiny of these rules as facilitated through the passage of the Bill, rather than has been the case in this instance thus far.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I first thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for tabling this Motion to Regret, and echo her call for these rules to be withdrawn—they are unacceptable.

I think it is useful to put this in the context of Oral Questions earlier. We heard the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, speaking for the Government on their plans for the Council of Europe summit in Reykjavik. The noble Lord said that this was

“an important opportunity for member states to renew their commitment to human rights, democracy and the rule of law”.

Yet here we are, debating regulations that clearly fail to meet basic standards of human rights. Basic standards are being denied to people in the UK. That is horrifying in its own moral terms but, thinking about the state of the world and the role the UK Government say they wish to play in it, it is definitely going to damage our status and our ability to have impact in the rest of the world.

It might be said that it is some of the usual suspects in your Lordships’ House who are saying these things, but we are reflecting the conclusions of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. These regulations remove important safeguards and reduce standards, including for children and vulnerable adults, and the Government have

“not provided an adequate policy justification”

for or consulted on these changes. This was brought in while the House was in recess. There are blows everywhere to democracy, the rule of law and all the things that the Government say they are standing up for.

I want to briefly reflect, drawing on a report by Amelia Gentleman in the Guardian last month, on what was happening at Manston and what is apparently being regularised. The journalist quoted a Home Office employee who said that what was happening in Manston

“had got way beyond what was ethical and humane … There were people who’d been sleeping on a mat on the floor of a marquee for 20 days”.

Some families had been

“shut inside tents without access to fresh air”

for seven days. This is unacceptable.

One of the other issues was private security contractors. It is a particular concern where we see removal of democratic oversight through outsourcing and privatisation. A company that usually does security for festivals and shopping centres suddenly had staff, clearly not trained for the practices, who had to deal with a very difficult situation.

There is a lot to say, but we have limited time, so I want to focus on a couple of issues. There are much broader issues around immigration detention and the fact that the UK is one of the very few countries in the world that locks up for an indeterminate period—sometimes for years—people who have not even been accused of any crime. I ask the Minister directly, under the RHR regulations we are debating, why is there no maximum legal time limit, as there is to an STHF? Will the Government commit to introducing a time limit?

What kind of system have we now arrived at? Will the Minister confirm that the current changes will see a dramatic change in the amount and form of detention being used in the UK in the coming months and years? Is the Minister concerned about increasing breaches of human rights, in particular the right to be protected from arbitrary detention, torture and inhumane and degrading treatment?

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, if I did not speak to this Motion and support it, I think I would be haunted by the ghost of the late Lord Eric Avebury, for whom improvement of the conditions in which people are held at the border was something of a mission. I appreciate that I am speaking of a Member of this House who died some time ago, but his legacy lives on with some of us.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has been very thorough. I hope that the Minister managed to note all her questions. If I repeat any of them, I apologise to the House; I do not think my editing quite kept up with all she had to say. The noble Baroness said that the House did not need reminding of the concern there has been, and which remains, about conditions at Manston and the number of people held in those conditions. Perhaps we should not be surprised that, instead of changing “facilities”—a term which I find rather inappropriate in this context—to fit the rules, the rules are being changed to fit the facilities.

Anti-social Behaviour Action Plan

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I take what the right reverend Prelate says very seriously. She raised very interesting points. She will appreciate that it is above my pay grade to commit to look at definitions and so on, but I will certainly take that back and make sure that discussions are advanced on the subject.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Paragraph 71 of the Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan refers to the youth investment fund, which it says is

“investing over £300 million in … new and refurbished facilities”.

Can the Minister confirm a report this afternoon from Civil Society that said that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has, given the “challenging financial climate”, just given £31 million of what was previously a £380 million capital fund for this programme back to the Treasury? This programme was announced as a £500 million plan in 2019 by the then Chancellor, Sajid Javid. Can the Minister confirm that this is indeed a cut in the provision for this capital programme? Further, can the Minister comment on the fact that local authority spending on youth clubs in 2020-21 was £379 million—a 74% real cut over the previous decade? How will the Government be able to deliver on this plan without youth clubs, which are an important way of involving young people and children in communities, giving them a place to go and a route towards the future?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I can neither confirm nor deny the first part of the noble Baroness’s question because I have not seen the report, so I do not have detailed knowledge of the situation to which she refers. I go back to my answer in my initial remarks, which is that 1 million extra hours of youth services are planned under this programme. We will invest over £500 million to provide high-quality local youth services so that, by 2025, every young person will have access to regular clubs and activities, adventures away from home and opportunities to volunteer—the sort of life-enriching stuff that we would probably all take for granted. I hope they make the most of those opportunities.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, on a different subject, the Statement refers to cracking down on illegal drugs. This would seem to be entirely going against the advice of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, which in December was recommending the extension nationwide of its very successful schemes piloted in Durham and Thames Valley where, instead of prosecuting users of hard drugs such as heroin, cocaine and ecstasy, users were offered access to addiction services. At that time, when the Government were talking about being harsher on drug users, the Association of Directors of Public Health wrote to the Government to protest at the plan to criminalise the vulnerable and double down on a failed model. Has the war on drugs not clearly failed over decades? Why are the Government not taking advice from experts and the police on the direction of travel on how to deal with what is clearly a huge blight on the lives of individuals and on communities?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, it sounds to me as if the noble Baroness is asking whether we should decriminalise or go in that direction. We have no plans to do so. Our approach on drugs remains clear. We must prevent drug use in our community, support people through treatment and recovery and tackle the supply of illegal drugs. There is a substantial body of scientific and medical evidence to show that controlled drugs are harmful and can damage people’s mental and physical health and our wider communities. The decriminalisation of drugs in the UK would not eliminate the crime committed by the illicit trade, nor would it address the harms associated with drug dependence or the misery it can cause. Of course we take the plight of addicts seriously, and I do not think anything in this anti-social behaviour plan will make life harder for them. The point is to go after the anti-social behaviour; it is about the behaviour, not their plight.

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 8th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Murray is going to hate me, but I have just had agreement through the usual channels that we will go an extra 10 minutes, given the demand for questions. So we will hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, from my noble friend Lord Balfe and from the Cross Benches.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I am sure the Minister will wish to correct an erroneous statement that he made in responding to the Front-Bench questions. He said there are 100 million refugees in the world. That is not what the Statement says. The figure from which the Statement draws comes, I believe, from the UNHCR: 100 million displaced people in the world, most of whom are in the countries of origin. I am sure the Minister will want to correct that. I am going to pick up on the question of children. Have the Minister or the Government considered what life would be like for a 16 year-old, a 15 year-old or a 17 year-old being held—warehoused—in this country and then, the day they turn 18, being thrown out, even though we know they are a refugee?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness and I entirely accept her correction. She is quite right about the figure of 100 million: it is displaced persons. On her second point, I am afraid I do not accept that it would be appropriate to exclude everyone under 18 from the operation of the scheme, and it is obvious why that should be: sadly, such an exception would generate very great abuse.

Prostitution

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking in response to the report of the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee on Prostitution (Third Report, Session 2016–17, HC 26); and in particular, the recommendations on (1) decriminalising soliciting; and (2) amending brothel-keeping laws to allow independent sex workers to operate together indoors for safety.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, following the committee’s report, the Government commissioned research on the prevalence and nature of sex work. This did not lend itself to clear recommendations on a new approach. We continue to engage with the police and others, with a focus on reducing the harm that can be associated with prostitution. We know there are links between brothels and organised criminal gangs and have no plans to amend legislation in this area.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the Minister for his Answer. I note that the Independent reported in December that the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s lead on prostitution and sex work said he was working alongside the Government to reassess the brothel-keeping legislation particularly. His words were

“I don’t think that is helpful.”

This occurs, of course, in the context of the cost of living crisis. To quote a sex worker from Leeds:

“We’re in the middle of a cost of living crisis, and although sex work is legal there aren’t any regulations and safe places for people to work legally, and the wages haven’t gone up at all. Survivalist sex work is a massive issue”.


In December, the talk was of action.

[Noble Lords]

Question!

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

If you will let me. The talk in December was of action. Are the Government going to urgently look at this question, particularly in light of the cost of living crisis?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Baroness is quite right. The DCC and the Safeguarding Minister had an introductory conversation at the end of January in which they discussed all those issues. The Safeguarding Minister highlighted that the Government are not minded at present to seek to change the law, based partly on a lack of unequivocal evidence. On the cost of living crisis, we are obviously extremely concerned to hear of women who feel they have no other choice but to turn to sex for survival. We are committed to ensuring that no one finds themselves in this position.

Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but I do not believe that he was here at the beginning of the Statement.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I apologise that I am not able to let the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, in; it is not in my power.

As both the Front-Bench questioners mentioned, despite the fact that the Statement makes no reference to it, the judges found that the cases of the individuals affected on the Rwanda flight were handled so chaotically and inappropriately by the Home Office that they should never have been on that flight in the first place. This is interesting when you note the rather slighting way in which the action of the European Court of Human Rights is referred to in this Statement, given that it was absolutely crucial for the rights of those individuals, as acknowledged by our court. None the less, those cases were clearly rushed.

The Prime Minister’s Statement this week on so-called illegal immigration—it should be stated clearly in your Lordships’ House that no person is illegal and every person is entitled to flee and seek refuge in cases where they need asylum—spoke of handling cases in days or weeks rather than months or years. How will the Government fairly, legally and justly handle cases, given what happened in the rushed circumstances of this case?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

If I may, I will turn first to the point made by the noble Baroness in respect of the Rule 39 indication made by the Strasbourg court in one of the cases of those to be removed on the initial Rwanda flight. I point out to the noble Baroness that, domestically, the Divisional Court and the Court of Appeal refused to grant an interim injunction, and the President of the Supreme Court in the United Kingdom refused permission to appeal against that decision. As was revealed during yesterday’s debate in the other place, it seems that the Russian judge granted the Rule 39 indication without hearing submissions from the UK Government and without providing any formal avenue to appeal against that decision. I do not accept that there was any automaticity about the interim relief afforded by the Strasbourg court.

I turn to the judgments on the eight specific written decisions. As I have already noted, the department has accepted the criticisms of the court, revoked those decisions and will redetermine them. It has revised and improved the decision-making process to ensure that the errors highlighted by the court will not be repeated.

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[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am afraid that I cannot answer the noble Lord’s question because the litigation is ongoing. One of the issues that will be canvassed on 16 January is costs. I assure my noble friend that we will be seeking costs against those parties who have lost in respect of their challenges to the Government.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Minister has referred a number of times to stopping people coming across the channel in small boats. If the Government are successful in that, what assessment have they made of other routes that people would be likely to attempt and how much more dangerous they are likely to be?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Obviously, the Home Office is alive to all the possible opportunities. The noble Baroness will not be surprised if I do not outline them at the Dispatch Box. Clearly, careful consideration of any displacement activity is undertaken, and steps are being taken to address any other possible vulnerabilities.

Hotel Asylum Accommodation: Local Authority Consultation

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Certainly on my visit to Manston a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to meet the healthcare staff and visit the healthcare centre. I assure the noble Baroness that concern is paid to the health of those passing through Manston, and it is hoped that any conditions they suffer from at that time are treated, in particular with the topical creams that she suggests. I am concerned by what she said about what is happening with Clearsprings, but I am afraid that without a bit more detail, which I am sure she will provide, I cannot answer now, but I will do that. As to a meeting, certainly I am aware that she has raised this issue a number of times, and I am happy to have a meeting with her if that would assist.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My question follows on from that of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, in referring to the company Clearsprings Ready Homes, which has a 10-year contract to supply hotel accommodation. A couple of weeks ago it emerged that the company’s profits were up sixfold in the past year and that three directors had shared dividends of almost £28 million. I contrast that with the asylum seekers in hotels who get £8.24 each week to buy essentials, which amounts to little more than £1 a day. Does the Minister think that money going in dividends is the best way for government money to be spent?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Obviously it is not for me to comment on the entirety of the commercial operations of Clearsprings; nor do I know the extent to which the contracts for asylum accommodation are responsible for its profit margin, so it would not be appropriate for me to answer that question.

Public Order Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate, has it not? We have spent almost as much time debating this clause, which was not, of course, part of the Bill in the first place, as the House of Commons spent debating the entire Bill. I broadly support my noble friend Lord Farmer’s amendment, but I support it because I want the Minister to go back and have a serious look at this clause, which was not a government clause in the first place.

I came into politics in the 1960s, and one of the first things I was involved in was supporting David Steel’s Act, so let there be no doubt as to where I stand on this issue, but I think we are getting two things mixed up. We are mixing up the need to protect people who decide to take advantage of a law that is on the statute book with harassment and other offences. The first question we need to ask is: do we need an extra law? Do we need it at all? Do we need Clause 9? It came in as a private Member’s initiative in the other place. I am not sure we need it. I think that in this past 70 years we have managed reasonably well on policing this.

I also draw attention to the fact that this whole wretched Bill, which we have now lost sight of because of this clause, is actually a fairly fundamental attack on many civil liberties which we cherish and believe in. I reflect that in the past couple of years, during the Covid epidemic, we have accepted restrictions on freedom which, in my view, were unwise, unwelcome, unwanted and unnecessary. We are now in a position where expressing statements—and you have only to look at some of the things online about Covid—is no longer acceptable. We are in a position where we have a very authoritarian undertone in the way in which public discourse in Britain is being conducted, and this is part of it. Unfortunately, these two things have got mixed up together.

I think that we probably do not need this clause at all. If we do need it—this is one of the jobs the Minister has—it needs to be sorted out substantially. I would like to think—and I do not wish to be part of it—that he calls together the various protagonists and tries to get some common sense out of this. I do not hold the other place in quite the same reverence as my good and noble friend Lord Cormack does. I think MPs probably saw something that was a very good press release come along and they voted for it. I think that was probably half the aim.

I hope that after tonight, before we get to the next stage, we will be able to look at this in cool sort of way, and we will then get back to the rest of the Bill, which has some points in it that I find deeply regrettable and is not the sort of Bill that I would like to see passed by this House, but this is not part of it. This was a bit of private initiative written on top of it, and it is fundamentally mixing up two things: the right of the citizen to protest and the right of another citizen to make use of a law that has been there a long time and is working. Of course, we do not want people to be harassed and the like, but we also want to keep a sense of proportionality in all of this, and we need to remember that a calm head is probably a very useful thing to have when you are faced with an emotive issue such as this.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I am acutely aware of the time and, having spoken extensively in favour of Clause 9 at Second Reading, I rise briefly to express the Green group’s support for the amendment in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who made an important point. I will also speak in opposition to the other amendments in this group and address some points in the debate that I think may have been perhaps rather pointedly aimed in our direction.

There has been some discussion about how other elements of the Bill are aiming to restrict protest and this is seen to be restricting protest, but there is something profoundly different here. There is nothing in Clause 9 that stops people who are opposed to abortion or the provision of abortion services protesting on the high street, outside Parliament or on the M25. They could choose to do that; there is nothing in Clause 9 that would stop that happening. That is calling for system change, that is directed at our politics, at the way our society and our law work, but there is a profoundly different situation where protest is directed at an individual person, a patient who is seeking healthcare or advice about healthcare, to discourage them from receiving that healthcare. One point that has not been raised tonight, that I think really should be, is the fact that there is a risk if someone is driven away by this protest, they then seek to access irregular services, which are now broadly available on the internet, at potentially great cost to their health and well-being.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said that this is a catch-all amendment in that it is seeking to have broad coverage across the country. That is the alternative, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, said, to having a postcode lottery, where some people whose councils can afford to take action have protection and other people, often in poorer areas of the country where councils do not have the money, do not have protection.

The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, was concerned about intimate pressure. Let us look at where pressure for an abortion comes from. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan referred to mothers who fear not being able to pay for a baby. It is not just fear; the practical reality is that the greatest pressure for abortion in this country comes from an inadequate benefits system. I note that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, has been prominent in campaigning for the end to the two-child limit. I will join him and anyone else who wishes to campaign against this inadequate system.

I have one final point which I think has not been addressed. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, questioned necessity. A number of noble Lords asked what has changed since 2018. What has changed is this. A huge amount of what we see in the UK has been imported from the United States of America. We have seen an extremely well-funded and emboldened movement coming from the US to the UK. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, referred to his experience as a constituency MP. That was some time ago. Since then, and certainly since 2018, the levels of funding and pressure have changed. A movement started in the US is aiming to act around the world. I do not say that your Lordships’ House should stand up against this movement if it seeks to campaign to change the law in the UK—personally, I want to see full decriminalisation of abortion. I accept their right to campaign against the law and the system, but I will not accept their right to target individual patients seeking healthcare.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I do not want to prolong this debate, which has been extremely interesting and very rewarding in many ways. I want to make one or two short points, both relating to amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. I agree with one and disagree with the other.

In Amendment 89, the noble Baroness asks the Committee to take out paragraph (b),

“persistently, continuously or repeatedly occupies”.

I have some problems with this paragraph because I am not sure to what the word “occupies” refers. The grammar of this paragraph needs to be looked at very carefully. Unless the territory being referred to as being occupied is clear, this phrase is extremely broad. That is why I support all the amendment proposed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Sugg, Lady Barker and Lady Watkins of Tavistock. These are in line with the Constitution Committee’s report, which said that the phraseology of this clause should be looked at carefully to ensure that it is not any wider than it needs to be. Paragraph (b) should be looked at again because the word “occupies” raises questions which need to be carefully looked at and properly defined.

Amendment 80 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, asks us to insert the words “without reasonable excuse”. In a previous debate, I expressed quite a few views on the use of the words “reasonable excuse”. We need to take a decision about this ourselves. The trouble with putting this in as a defence is that it would be passed to the police on the spot to decide whether or not trying to express one’s opinion or what motivates the individual to say or do what they are doing is a reasonable excuse. That is the problem. We need to take a decision and not leave it to the police or the courts.

The Court of Appeal—I beg the pardon of the noble Baroness—has been doing its best to soften the Ziegler case, which we discussed last time, to make it clear that there are certain offences, of which the Colston case is one, where damage is done or the activity is sufficiently serious that make it impossible to sustain a reasonable excuse defence. This is probably one of these cases. With great respect to the noble Baroness, these particular words should not go in. Otherwise, we are just creating more problems than we are trying to solve.

Public Order Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I should perhaps declare an interest as a regular tofu eater. I would be very happy to share some of my recipes with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker.

My noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb will be leading for the Green group on the Bill. My role here is a supporting one but, since I was listed to speak first, I have to set out a very simple position: protest is not a crime. I note that, as many noble Lords including the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans have said, in effect that is what your Lordships’ House already concluded in its strong and effective action on the then Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill earlier this year. The House then expressed its opinions in the strongest possible terms, yet here we are again.

Listening to today’s debate, it really struck me that there has been a great deal of discussion about locking on. We have heard from a number of noble Lords who have been in a position of policing instances where it has occurred. I am not sure that there are many Members of your Lordships’ House who have been on the other side of this.

I speak here not from first-hand but second-hand experience because, at the Preston New Road fracking site a couple of years back, I acted for a couple of hours as a welfare support for a locked-on protester. This was a young woman who, by the time I was speaking to and supporting her, had been in that position for 17 hours, with her arm locked in a tube outside that fracking site, to stop the lorries getting through. I invite your Lordships to imagine—it may be hard for the House to imagine this—what it is like in the dark and cold, with the fear of scrambling at 1 am or 2 am to lock yourself on in the middle of a path that lorries go down, and to remain there by your own choice for hour after hour because you believe in the principle and the cause. That, of course, was and is the cause of preventing the beginning of a new fossil fuel industry in the UK. It was in defence of a local community vehemently opposed to fracking at the Preston New Road site. Even as I stood there, with the sound and smell of the angle grinders very close to that young woman’s arm while the police cut her out, the overwhelming majority of vehicles going past were tooting their support.

The issue we are talking about, fracking, is of course one on which, just last week in the other place, my honourable friend Caroline Lucas encouraged—and got—the Prime Minister to say that we will keep the fracking ban. It is one case among very many. Many Members of your Lordships’ House have mentioned the suffragettes. So often, people have behaved according to their principles in a way perceived at the time as transgressive. They put their bodies and freedom on the line and, looking back now, we say, “Weren’t they brave? Didn’t they help to deliver us the society that we have today?”.

However, as I said, my role today is very much a supporting one so, for the rest of my speech, I will focus on Clause 9 and speak in very strong terms in support of it. As I am sure most Members of your Lordships’ House already know, its provisions will introduce buffer zones around abortion clinics. The clause was brought into the Bill following a free vote in the Commons of 297 to 110, a majority of 187. That is definitive: we often hear in this House that we are the unelected House and should not go against the Commons. Here, we have a clear expression of a view from the Commons that I hope your Lordships’ House will uphold.

It is clear that we need blanket buffer zones around all abortion clinics. No other approach is workable and existing legislation does not allow what is needed. We are talking about enabling women to access, and healthcare professionals to provide, a lawful and confidential health service without harassment or intimidation. Many noble Lords will have received—I would be delighted to forward it to anyone who has not—the joint briefing backed by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of Midwives, the BMA and a number of medical providers, among others.

It is worth thinking about why we are where we are. We are seeing the importing of politics that has caused enormous damage in the United States of America. From what has happened there, it is already evident that ending legal abortions does not stop abortions; it just makes them more dangerous. Making access to abortion more difficult increases the risk of dangerous, even deadly, abortions occurring.

In some of the commentary on this, it is worth saying that this clause restricts the location of where protests happen but does not stop protests. So, if anyone says, “You were just talking about protests against fracking”, I say yes, but this is a different case study. It stops protests from happening in a location where one would cause great distress and harm.

Perhaps not everyone has seen what happens in some of these protests. There are displays of graphic images of foetuses and there are large marches that gather outside clinics, hassling women, patients going into the clinics and members of staff. Indeed, some patients are followed down the street, which is unacceptable. Some patients attending for abortion care are vulnerable, and they may be feeling stigmatised or fearful about losing their privacy. Of course, a significant number are under 18, some have mental health issues, and some are at risk of honour-based or gender-based violence.

Perhaps this issue does not get as much coverage as it might, but 50 clinics and hospitals have been targeted in the last five years. Only five—10%—are now protected with public spaces protection orders, which are only a stopgap. They create a postcode lottery and—I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association—impose a significant cost on local authorities choosing to bring in such orders, which need to be renewed every three years.

Clause 9 follows leadership in other parts of these islands. The Northern Ireland Assembly passed a Bill for buffer zones in March, and the Scottish Government have expressed support for a Bill to introduce them there. Every year, more than 100,000 patients are treated by a clinic that has been targeted by these groups. In the last five weeks, at least 15 clinics have been targeted, including some based in hospitals, GP surgeries and residential areas. I strongly urge the House to keep Clause 9.

Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse: Final Report

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Statement made in the other place says, in summary:

“Victims need to know … that they will be heard and protected.”


I will pick up a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, who focused on the issues of the justice system. Abusers will of course seek out the most vulnerable: those who are the most excluded from society, including young people who may not be in education, employment or training; asylum-seeking children, as many noble Lords have identified; and those from particularly economically and socially disadvantaged communities. For them to be genuinely heard and to be able to talk to a sympathetic ear, resources will be needed in places such as schools and with their GPs and social workers—indeed, if one can imagine it, with immigration officers and border staff. Will the Minister acknowledge that there needs to be adequate resources in all those institutions where vulnerable children will encounter potentially responsible adults? The resources need to be there to enable those institutions to react appropriately.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Of course, I acknowledge that resources need to be adequate.