Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

Baroness Bray of Coln Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak on this important Bill. While suggestions circulate that we are sitting in an inactive Parliament, it is gratifying to see that business of such significance is still being done. The Bill is forward looking in the issues it addresses. The need to update laws on matters such as the recovery of assets, online and organised crime, and the protection of children reflects the growing sophistication of the criminals who threaten our security.

It would be difficult for me, as an Ealing Member of Parliament, to discuss tackling serious crime without mentioning the dreadful murder that took place in Ealing last year. The chief suspect was Arnis Zalkalns, whose murder conviction in Latvia was not known to the police in London. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary reassures me that work is being done to make policing more effective across borders, particularly within the European Union, and I strongly support measures to do so. Cross-border co-operation is becoming increasingly vital in the fight against modern crime. Terrorists and organised criminal gangs do not respect national boundaries; cybercrime is similarly international, and the law must catch up with such threats to our individual and national security. The Bill contains a number of provisions relating to jurisdictions that should make prosecution in the UK possible where currently it is not.

Across London, the rates of many sorts of crime have fallen over the last year. In 2013-14, compared with the previous year, burglaries were down by 8%, knife offences by 11.5% and gun crime by 17%. Police report that better intelligence work is reducing gang activity, too. That is a great achievement by the Met, and London's streets really are a bit safer as a result, but new sorts of crime are replacing the old and that is why the Bill is both timely and necessary.

The threat of radicalisation of young people is a real issue in some parts of my constituency, and I have been involved for some time now with a local Somali group addressing that very concern, but in addition to understanding better what can draw young people into that way of life, we need real and severe punishment for those planning terrorist activity. We must do all we can to make it clear that this is by no means a glamorous life choice. I very much welcome the measures in the Bill to extend extraterritorial jurisdiction so that those involved in UK-related terrorist activity abroad can be brought to justice.

The jurisdictional measures relating to female genital mutilation are equally important. FGM is a crime that it is hard to imagine is committed in the modern world, let alone in this country. There are groups, including some in my own constituency, doing vital work in communities to break down the walls of silence that can surround this problem, but the law needs to be very clear as well. The Bill is a welcome measure saying that those who are involved in that sort of abhorrent crime will be prosecuted: technicalities about UK residency status will no longer be a bar to prosecution; failure to protect against this barbaric practice will also be a crime, and absolutely right, too. The other important change is the provision for anonymity for the victims of FGM. More must be done to encourage reporting, as currently victims are very reluctant to do so. In the meantime we must continue to work with groups such as the Somali Anti-Tribalism Movement and use their knowledge and awareness of these crimes to bring them out into the open and make them liable to criminal prosecution.

Last year I was briefed on online crime by the Mayor of London’s office for policing and crime, whose analysis shows that while the number of many so-called traditional crimes is falling, new sorts of crime emerge, much of which are online. People must be protected online as they should be in the real world, whether it be from online fraud, sexual exploitation or from larger scale cyber-attacks. Of small and medium-sized businesses surveyed in 2012, 87% reported security breaches, and phishing e-mails to individuals are now a part of daily life for anyone with an e-mail account. I am one of the many who have been taken in by an e-mail claiming to come from a bank and given out my personal details. Fortunately, I realised my mistake and made a very rushed phone call, but it is easy to see how people are fooled into doing this.

I welcome the new focus the Bill is bringing to online fraud and scamming. At the moment, the Action Fraud reporting line seems to do little more than forward reports from victims to the local police force, which will not normally have the expertise to investigate properly; as a result, little gets done. I hope that the Bill, along with initiatives such as the work being done at city hall, will help to galvanise a more effective response. I think it quite right that obtaining tools used for online offences should be an offence in its own right, much as possessing an illegal weapon or a spying device already is.

Sadly, social media have become a more dangerous place for children, making them vulnerable to bullying and sexual predators. In addition to the laws already in place I welcome the criminalisation of the possession of written material containing practical advice on how to commit a sexual offence against a child. Those paedophile manuals provide detailed advice on entrapping, grooming, how to find a child, how to offend and how to evade capture. It is absolutely right that that appalling material can no longer be legally held and that possession will be dealt with more robustly.

Moving on to the growing menace of cyber-threats, clause 40, which deals with unauthorised acts causing or creating a risk of serious damage, seems to me an example of sensible adjustment of the law to reflect the world in which it exists. The possible damage caused by cyber-attacks has grown massively as the criminals—not to mention certain countries—become more sophisticated. I cannot claim to be an expert in how attacks are launched, but the recent Sony case was a reminder that they are sophisticated, hard to trace and often international in nature. It is common sense that the scale of the deterrent must be proportionate to the potential damage caused by the crime. However, it is not hard to imagine how a cyber-attack could result in loss of life or a threat to national security, and a maximum sentence of life imprisonment should be available to the courts in these cases. I therefore welcome the creation of the new category of offence, as I welcome all the efforts made by this Government to give our law enforcement agencies the tools they need to tackle the threat of online crime in all its forms.

In all, this Bill is a sensible and timely package of measures to get tougher on some very serious crimes. I have not touched on the proceeds of crime or drug-related measures, but they too deal with issues that will affect all our constituencies and, again, reflect the more organised and sophisticated sorts of crime that the law must address. I have no hesitation in supporting them.