Hotel Asylum Accommodation: Local Authority Consultation

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, the noble Lord is entirely right that, of the small-boat arrivals in 2021, 96% are still awaiting an initial decision, as the Minister in the other place said. However, we made more than 14,500 decisions in the year to June 2021, concentrating on deciding older claims, high-harm cases, cases with extreme vulnerability, and children.

The noble Lord alluded to the notification of local authorities. Clearly there has been difficulty in notifying local authorities. That has been a real focus for the department. I am unsure whether he will have seen the “Dear colleague” letter that went around the Members of the other place, notifying them that it will absolutely be the rule that they get at least 24 hours’ notice, but it is hoped to be longer than that. I would be very grateful to hear from any noble Lords who are concerned by any hotels they may be aware of where due notice has not been given to the local authority and to the Member for the relevant constituency.

As to the point about unaccompanied children going missing from hotels, any child going missing is extremely serious, which is why we work closely with local authorities and the police to operate a robust missing persons protocol to ensure that their whereabouts are known and that they are safe. We work to ensure that vulnerable children are provided with appropriate placements for their needs, and we have changed the national transfer scheme so that all local authorities with children’s services must support young people. Home Office and contractor staff identify cohorts of young people considered at greater risk of going missing and, of course, risk assessments and safety plans are undertaken on arrival in mitigation of this risk.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister knows that I have raised the health service provision for those at Manston and when they have been dispersed elsewhere. Today, I am hearing from local authorities and directors of public health locally that scabies is increasing. It is racing through the hotels where these asylum seekers have been sent. In some places, the rate is 70% because they do not have the clean clothes and linen necessary for the clothes that have mite infestation to be thoroughly washed. Worse, the Home Office and Clearsprings have refused to provide specialist creams at those hotels for asylum seekers to use. Even worse, because of the scheme under which those being dispersed from Manston come, the usual grant to GPs is not made available, which means there is no money locally, so asylum seekers can use only 111 or 999. Will the Minister agree to meet to discuss this as a matter of urgency? I appreciate that health is not in his brief, but there are some holes, particularly about health funding and stopping this mass infestation of scabies.

[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.

Asylum Seekers: Accommodation

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I entirely agree with the right reverend Prelate. The issues surrounding the allocation of accommodation are certainly the subject of concentrated effort by Home Office officials, and it is the intention to improve notification. I add that we are incredibly grateful for the activities of church groups and others who help provide assistance to those accommodated in hotels.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, following on from the right reverend Prelate’s question and that of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, it appears, worryingly, that the Home Office is still not talking to the directors of public health in local areas receiving people from Manston. On 1 November, the Minister said that there were four cases of diphtheria. I am hearing that there are now nearly 40 cases, and we know that people are not being tested as they leave Manston. The Minister offered to write to me before; will he now agree to meet to discuss this urgent health issue?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My understanding is that there are 12 diphtheria cases, but I will certainly make further inquiries in light of that. I can assure the noble Baroness that healthcare in contingency asylum accommodation is a priority. Those contracted to the Home Office endeavour to ensure that people accommodated in hotels or other contingency accommodation are signposted to GP practices, and there is local health screening in most cases.

Western Jet Foil and Manston Asylum Processing Centres

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her kind remarks. She is right to observe that we have that common interest in terms of our professional origins. I imagine her question relates to the question posed in perhaps more clear terms by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, about the use of the word “invasion” by the Home Secretary. I take the view that the expression the Home Secretary used was intended to—and did—convey the scale and challenge we face as a country from the numbers crossing the channel. Millions of people across this country are rightly concerned about that and want to know that we have a robust but secure asylum system. A significant proportion of those arriving on our shores are economic migrants, many from countries such as Albania. A quarter of all migrants this year came from Albania, which is demonstrably a safe country. The Home Secretary and the entire ministerial team will see what they can do to bear down on those numbers.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The Statement says that 12,000 people have arrived at both Manston and Western Jet Foil since Ms Braverman became Home Secretary in September, and 9,500 have already been transferred out. As the Minister mentioned, there have been confirmed cases of diphtheria and other infectious diseases at the very overcrowded Manston centre in the last month. Diphtheria is a notifiable disease under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, and directors of public health and their local authorities have statutory duties to manage notifiable disease outbreaks, including tracking, testing and tracing not just those with the disease but their contacts. Can the Minister explain why the Home Office has refused to work directly with directors of public health and their local authorities in the areas receiving these asylum seekers from Manston, despite repeated requests?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question. I do not have the answer, so I will find out what it is and write to her.

Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse: Final Report

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her remarks and commend her for her efforts when she was working with the right honourable Member for Maidenhead. I am grateful for the opportunity to commend the former Prime Minister for her extraordinary work on this.

Those statistics are genuinely appalling, particularly when they are put in those terms. I have read them as percentages, which perhaps seem rather dry, but to give numbers is harrowing. The Government have made it clear that they are determined to work across agencies and across departments; that work will be ongoing, and all relevant departments will be involved in it.

Something the Home Secretary said bears repeating: when asked about a Minister for children, he said:

“We all … have to be Ministers for children”.


I think he is right.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, it is disappointing that recommendation 13, on mandatory reporting, is not a pure system; it is a bit of a hotchpotch of mandatory reporting systems. Will the Government undertake to compare recommendation 13 to successful models of mandatory reporting elsewhere in the world, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Ireland and the USA? In particular, will they compare the views of public bodies before it was introduced and after? In each of those countries, there has been a significant gain in confidence in the regulated bodies that have to report.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for those suggestions. I will happily take them back to the department and Home Secretary, and strongly recommend that he investigates them.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 17th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely. I invite the noble Baroness to speak.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for his comprehensive introduction to this amendment and his explanation of the different types of stalking.

When Gracie Spinks was stalked and then murdered in June by a non-partner, her case was made infinitely worse by the behaviour of the police both before and after she died. In February, she had reported the worrying behaviour of Michael Sellers to her local police. Despite his behaviour escalating, she had no support from them. There are also issues about the behaviour of officers after her murder, and five have now been issued with IOPC disciplinary notices.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Lords Hansard - part one & Report stage
Monday 13th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

I am so glad to have the approbation of the noble Lords opposite, for whom I have the greatest respect—on their negotiated stopping site.

That is what I invite the House and the Minister to consider, and perhaps the Minister will respond in due course, saying why my idea is not quite as wonderful as I think it is.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am a patron of the Traveller Movement. I thank the Minister for reaching out to those of us interested in this issue and I am sorry that the change in date meant that I was unable to attend. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, for her dedicated work in co-ordinating the efforts of those of us who remain very concerned about these clauses in the Bill.

In Committee, we had a full debate on how the clauses on authorised encampments are a breach of the human rights of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities to live a nomadic life. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, because he has tried to propose a compromise regarding stopping sites. It certainly merits listening to, and I hope the Minister will take account of it.

In my contribution today, I wish to focus on just one area. Clause 63 also creates the right for the police to confiscate a vehicle that may be an individual and their family’s main residence. That confiscation would have the most extraordinary consequences, giving the police very strong powers that they do not have in respect of other people’s principal residences. If the police were to confiscate a vehicle under this clause, families would not only become homeless, but because they would be deemed to have become intentionally homeless, there is a possibility that their children would be taken into care, especially if there was no appropriate emergency accommodation locally. By doing that, parents may also not be able to move on to their next planned place of work.

I support Amendment 55ZC from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, which protects individuals by preventing police confiscating their vehicles if it would make the individual owner, and their family, homeless.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council could not be clearer. It said:

“We believe that criminalising unauthorised encampments is not acceptable. Complete criminalisation of trespass would likely lead to legal action in terms of incompatibility with regard to the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Public Sector Equality Duty under the Equality Act 2010, most likely on the grounds of how could such an increase in powers be proportionate and reasonable when there are insufficient pitches and stopping places?”


In Committee, the Minister said that these clauses are not targeted at the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community, but it certainly looks that way, especially as the Government explicitly referenced Traveller caravans in the background briefing to the Queen’s Speech. The Government have also made it clear that they are not criminalising trespass more generally. Even if the outline of these proposals were in the Government’s manifesto, actions that target one particular community, infringing their human rights and giving the police powers that they have said repeatedly that they do not want, cannot be right. I hope that the Minister will rethink this deplorable legislation.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise for not raising my eyes to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, initially. Her remarks are well worth paying attention to.

I am flattered by the attribution of influence by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier. I have taken a slightly different route, but his amendment is interesting. All the amendments in this group are aimed at resolving prejudice against and actual homelessness of the Gypsy and Traveller communities. They all deserve serious consideration. Amendment 57 in the name of my noble friend Lady Lister and the cosignatories of my amendment would deal with the underlying social situation of these fellow citizens, in particular the non-arrival of the strategy initiated quite some time ago by the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, when he was the very effective Minister responsible, and I think endorsed by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams.

I will speak to Amendment 55ZB in my name and supported by a distinguished cross-party group to whom I express my gratitude. I will move it to a vote if its thrust is not accepted by the Government. I am also grateful to the Minister for the meeting she gave several of us last week, when she said that the provision of the sites for Gypsies and Travellers was a planning matter and an amendment that dealt with that was not for this Bill. Indeed, it is a planning matter, as the police said in their evidence to the consultation on the Bill, but the trouble is that the lack of sites and consequent vulnerability of Gypsies and Travellers to summary eviction is inexplicably linked. Despite the noble Baroness’s assurance at our meeting that she would consult DLUHC on a way forward, I have heard nothing further.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Wednesday 8th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 11, and speak to Amendments 22, 25 and 30. I thank the Minister for our very helpful meeting this morning, and for the detailed letter I received at 4 pm. I have carefully considered the points raised, and reread the letter to ensure I had understood it, but the basics facts remain the same—as I think the Minister realises—and I will do my best to explain them.

My comments also apply to Amendment 25, but I will focus on the three identical amendments to the three clauses. They ensure that disclosure of information by one public body to another under Part 2 of the Bill does not contravene data protection legislation. This is an incredibly important principle, yet the data sharing provisions in Part 2, as the Bill stands, would enable data protection legislation to be breached. Data protection legislation does permit information to be shared for the purposes of preventing crime, which is important too. If Amendment 11, along with identical Amendments 22 and 30, is passed, personal data could be passed to be police, but professionals could not be forced to do so against their professional judgment. That is the key principle we want to achieve.

The Minister’s letter says that the data shared under the duty is intended primarily to consist of aggregated and anonymous data, et cetera. But we have to focus on what the Bill says, rather than what our excellent Minister may intend. As I said to her this morning, if our Minister were Home Secretary, I might be content with the wording in the Bill, on this issue—I am not sure about everything else—as I have great respect for both our Ministers.

The Minister also says the duty applies to duty holders, not directly to front-line professionals, including youth and social workers. But it is these professionals who hold the information which the police may find helpful, not directors of social services, for example.

It is vital that, if we are to deal with serious violent crime, we do not undermine prevention work. It is therefore important that young people trust their teachers and youth workers. We believe these professionals must be able to exercise their professional judgment about whether it is more effective and important, in preventing serious violence, to be able to continue working with vulnerable and potentially dangerous young people to steer them away from drugs and crime, or to pass on information to the police. There will be times when the sharing of information with the police may be the first, and immediate, priority. However, if in the professional judgment of the teacher or youth worker working with the young people is the top priority, then she or he must be able to exercise that judgment, in my view.

The Minister is likely to argue that the modification of the disclosure of information legislation envisaged in the Bill is similar to that in other Bills and therefore should be accepted. We had a lengthy discussion on that issue this morning. On checking these other Bills it appears the context is quite different, as is the nature of the information that may be shared. The closest example is the Environment Act, which uses similar wording to that in Clause 9, under which information sharing may be required. However, in the Environment Act, this relates to whether public authorities are complying with environmental legislation; it has nothing to do with personal information for law enforcement purposes, which is an entirely different matter. The Medicines and Medical Devices Act only requires information to be shared without consent in a veterinary context—you cannot really ask a cow for her consent to pass on information about her. Therefore, this is not relevant to this Bill.

It seems the Government may not have drawn the right conclusions from the criticism of the Met Police’s gangs matrix system. As the Minister knows, Corey Junior Davis was murdered after his details in the Met Police’s gangs matrix were shared and fell into the wrong hands.

The system that produced that breach is being reproduced in the Bill. Surely, we will see replicated across the country other harms generated by the Met Police’s gangs matrix: young people losing college places that would probably have given them a route out of trouble; the application of eviction notices likely to lead them on a downward spiral of drugs and crime; and endless costly and pointless stop and searches, thereby undermining young people. We could also expect a repeat across the country of the discriminatory profiling that was inherent in the Met Police’s gangs matrix.

I very much welcome the Government’s acceptance of the need to respect the professional judgment of medical and social care personnel. All that we are asking for in the amendment and, indeed, the other two in the group is that the same respect for personal judgment be applied to teachers and youth workers as the Government now recognise should be given to doctors and others. Without these amendments, the work of the key public servants to prevent serious violence will be jeopardised, an issue that I should have thought the Government would be concerned about.

The Bill also gives the police the power to monitor compliance with the duty to require other bodies to share information with them, and it gives the Secretary of State enforcement powers to back those police powers. The amendment offers vital protection for professionals in exercising their judgment on how best to reduce serious violence by their clients.

The Minister has said that the collection of data is necessary in order to identify the kinds of serious violence that occur in an area and, so far as it is possible to do so, their causes, and then prepare and implement a strategy with bespoke local solutions. I am sure that the Minister knows that no personal information is required in order to do that. It is well established that anonymous data is sufficient to develop appropriate strategies. The draft statutory guidance says that most information will be depersonalised, but it does not say in what circumstances it will not. If it were clear that it was all about professional judgment, that would be fine—and that is what we are seeking.

These are incredibly modest amendments that, added to the government amendments, would go some way towards protecting the efficacy of our public services and enable young people to benefit from preventive and therapeutic interventions. These are the best hope of preventing serious violence over many years. We are not talking just about a one-off crime here. We are talking about the culture and style of life, and these public servants are working on the front line to try to divert these young people into education, training, jobs and so on. Instead of doing that, it is a huge thing to somehow divert those people into the criminal justice system. Punitive responses are never the right answer to vulnerability and deprivation—generally the backdrop to serious violence.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister and her officials in the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Care for meeting me, the noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, the General Medical Council, the British Medical Association and the National Data Guardian, and for listening carefully and agreeing that a patient’s personal information should not be disclosed under regulations made under Clauses 9, 15 or 16 by a health or social care authority, which currently includes a clinical commissioning group in England and a local health board in Wales, or under regulations made under those clauses. However, I wonder whether the Minister can help me and confirm that Clause 17, where the Secretary of State can instruct the transfer of information, even if a specified authority refused, will definitely not apply to patient data.

I am entirely supportive of the amendments in the group tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and my noble friend Lord Paddick. While I am grateful that the Government have recognised that there is something particular about a patient’s personal health data, there still remains the issue relating to staff in a specified authority being asked to hand over personal data to the police and other bodies. There are some roles, such as youth workers and children’s home workers, where trust has had to be built up with the people who come to them. Any data relating to those at-risk people, whether potentially violent or potential victims, should not do anything to harm that relationship. As the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has said, anonymised data can be used.

As we know from doctors’ and nurses’ ethical arrangements, there are exceptional times when it is important for such information to be passed to the authorities. I believe that we can rely on the workers in other sectors to see that responsibility. Amendment 24 specifically sets out the ethical and legal rules that should apply.

Finally, I believe that the Secretary of State should not have these powers, however rarely they might be used, so I also support my noble friend Lord Paddick’s Amendment 35.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendments in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. I draw your Lordships’ attention to my interests in policing ethics and my work with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, as set out in the register. I trust that those interests assure your Lordships that I am a strong supporter of effective policing, not its adversary.

As an occasional statistician, I am also well aware of the power and utility of data. Good data, including on the risks of serious violence, can provide the evidence that allows the limited resources of our police forces to be directed to the particular challenges faced in different contexts and localities. Perhaps it is because I trained not as a lawyer but as a mathematician that I hold firmly to the maxim that, before one can begin to find the right solution, one has to have clearly defined the problem. I am not sure that these clauses, as presently drafted, fully pass that test.

If the problem is that there are occasions when the sharing of personal data will be necessary in order to detect or prevent serious violence, such powers already exist. Indeed, they go further than simply applying to certain public bodies. Like all of my right reverend and most reverend friends on these Benches, I am a data controller—a fancy title—handling often very sensitive personal information regarding clergy, church officers and children who are in the care of churches. I know my general duties regarding when I ought to disclose such data to police or others. When I need specific advice, I have access to my legal secretary, my diocesan safeguarding adviser and others. It is difficult to see what a new duty on some public bodies to share identifiable personal information will add to this.

Alternatively, if the problem is the need to collect and process data sets that allow the setting of more general policing priorities and interventions, it is difficult to see why that cannot be done in ways that remove all identifiable personal details and hence are entirely compliant with the GDPR and other data protection law. I struggle to see why there is a need to create an opt-out for the anonymised data that can drive better policing.

The amendments that I and others have put our names to would, I believe, strengthen the Bill, making it clear that it is seeking not to set aside data protection law but to allow anonymised data to be shared where this will produce better policing outcomes. They would reassure children, vulnerable people, victims of crime and others that their personal data will not be shared, beyond that which is already shared under existing legislation. They would allow youth workers, whether they are employed by the Church, local authorities or whomever, to continue to be trusted by those who come to them.

As has been alluded to, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams—who, were it not for the particular protocols of this place, I would be proud to refer to as my noble friend—has already accepted the principle that health bodies should not be compelled to share patient data. It is not a huge leap to extend that to other authorities.

Operation Warm Welcome

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Viscount will of course appreciate that I cannot talk about individual cases at the Dispatch Box, but I appreciate his concern for his friend and his family. I would definitely appreciate the noble Viscount writing to me and then we can take the case forward.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, NGOs are reporting that there is no co-ordination on cross-departmental issues relating to the two separate Afghan refugee schemes. They are telling us that any request is pointed to a different department: MoD points to FCDO, the FCDO points to the Home Office and it points to the Department for Levelling Up. It feels like nothing is getting done. Will the Minister undertake, as a matter of extreme urgency, that a publicly named Minister and civil servant be given responsibility for cross-departmental working relating to the Afghan refugee schemes?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I hope I can satisfy the noble Baroness in naming that Minister. It is my honourable friend Victoria Atkins, who is based in MoJ, DLUHC and the Home Office, and is responsible for the Afghan resettlement scheme.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th November 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Brinton]

292K: After Clause 170, insert the following new Clause—
“Desecration of a corpse
(1) A person (‘D’) is guilty of an offence if—(a) D acts with severe disrespect to a corpse, and(b) D knows that, or is reckless to whether, their acts are one of severe disrespect.(2) In subsection (1)(a), disrespect to a corpse includes but is not limited to—(a) dismembering a corpse, including—(i) removing or attempting to remove identifiable body parts such as teeth, or fingers;(ii) decapitation or attempted decapitation;(b) destroying or attempting to destroy a corpse by means or burning or the use of chemicals.(3) For the purposes of subsection (1)(a), whether an act is one of severe disrespect is to be judged according to the standard of the reasonable person.(4) A person is not guilty of an offence under this section if—(a) the act would otherwise be criminal under section 1 of the Human Tissue Act 2004,(b) the act is also a criminal offence under section 70 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (sexual penetration of a corpse), or(c) the act is a lawful cremation under the Cremation (England and Wales) Regulations 2008.(5) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable—(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both;(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years.”Member’s explanatory statement
The current common law offence of preventing a lawful and decent burial is rarely used. This amendment therefore creates a specific criminal offence of desecration of a corpse to address intentional acts of disrespect towards a deceased person’s remains.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, Amendments 292K and 292L in my name seek to create a criminal offence of desecration of a corpse and concealment of a corpse. At present, there are only common-law offences of preventing a lawful burial and obstructing a coroner by concealing a body.

Marie McCourt, the mother of Helen McCourt, still does not know what happened to her daughter who disappeared on 9 February 1988, or where her body was hidden or disposed of. Marie is one of those extraordinary women who absolutely refused to stop looking for her daughter, even though Helen’s murderer, who was convicted on clear DNA evidence, has not only served his term in prison but been released on licence. Despite being pressed repeatedly by the authorities over the years, he has refused to say where Helen’s body was left or what happened to it.

Marie has been arguing for decades that the desecration and concealment of a corpse is an extra-heavy sentence on the victim’s loved ones. She has supported the families of many other victims who have seen their loved ones murdered but have no remains to bury, or have heard of unspeakable desecration of their bodies.

In 2015 Marie started to campaign for a change in the law for these killers, seeking to require them to reveal where their victims’ remains were before being considered for parole. In July 2019, she was successful in getting that law changed—but not in time for her daughter’s killer. Marie was not doing it just for her, her family or Helen’s friends. She does not want anyone else to go through the agony they have faced for over three decades.

Others have also spoken out: Coral Jones, Tony Cox and Lesley Rees are the parents and family members of April Jones, Lorraine Cox and Michael O’Leary, who were also not just murdered but had their bodies desecrated by their murderers. Some remains were dismembered and some were burned. These families have had the extra distress of not knowing what happened to part or all their loved ones’ bodies. For these families there is no closure. More recently, Sarah Everard’s remains were burned by her murderer—although in her case police were able to find her remains.

At present, with the common-law offence of preventing a lawful burial, and these days with excellent forensic skills such as those used by police and forensic staff in the Sarah Everard case, it is possible to identify not just remains but also links with the murderer. The common-law offence of obstructing the coroner by concealing a body is rarely used, and there are no consequences for a convicted killer who continues to conceal the whereabouts of a body. Some killers enjoy having this last part of control over their appalling acts. They know that most families will never have a day without reliving the distress of their loved one being murdered. Refusing to disclose what they have done with the body, or where they have concealed a corpse or partial remains, is a form of control.

I thank Marie McCourt, Fiona Duffy and Claire Waxman, the London victims’ commissioner, and her office, for helping to brief me this. There can be few things worse for a family than hearing that a loved one has been murdered. To then learn that their remains have been further abused or have never been found causes unimaginable distress. The current laws are inadequate and mostly not used by prosecutors. These amendments say that these two offences should become criminal offences where an offender has done an intentional act of disrespect towards the deceased person’s remains. The second amendment makes it a criminal offence for an offender to refuse to co-operate in the recovery of their victim’s remains. These offences will punish an offender who has committed these unspeakable acts beyond murder, and also perhaps begin to bring closure to grieving families. I beg to move.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Brinton for introducing these amendments, which we support. The “Helen’s Law” campaign has achieved a great deal by persisting in campaigning for victims and their families by ensuring that failure to disclose the whereabouts of a victim’s body can increase the killer’s time in custody. These amendments go further, as my noble friend has explained. She has worked with Helen’s mother, Marie McCourt, and others on these amendments, proposing to create specific offences of desecration of a corpse and concealment of a body.

These amendments address serious and real human suffering caused by preventing a victim’s family from recovering the body of their loved one, whose life has already been cruelly snatched from them. The proposed offences would respond to that cruelty in a way that may be inadequate in reducing the hurt, but at least they reflect the justified anger we all feel when killers compound their inhuman actions with further callousness and inhumanity. As my noble friend explained, the existing legislation is not only inadequate but rarely used. We support her amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

I do not say that the Government will adopt the specific approach taken in this amendment, nor am I ruling out further future changes to the law on the desecration of a corpse after consideration of the evidence that emerges following recent events. I hope that the Committee acknowledges the ongoing work that is taking place to establish the facts to be learned from these recent events but that, given the reassurance that these matters are being considered, the noble Baroness feels able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

I thank all speakers for their thoughtful and moving responses to the difficult issues covered by these amendments. I particularly thank my noble friend Lord Paddick for his support; he was absolutely right to talk about the devastating, inhuman and callous behaviour that these two amendments attempt to codify. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, reiterated the key legal arguments and had information that I did not—that there have been at least 54 murder cases where this is relevant. I thank them both for their support.

The Minister says that Amendment 292L narrows the area from the common law equivalent and that the sentence is less. The problem is that the common law equivalent is never used. The reality is that many prosecutors do not recognise it, and noble Lords know that there are a number of times when prosecutors do not go for more serious charges to ensure that they get something through a court that a jury recognises. But it is important to understand that we are not proposing to repeal the common law offence. It is vital to understand that. The amendment deliberately did not propose repealing the common law offence expressly to keep it on the statue book and therefore give the courts full discretion to use it, if they so wish.

On Amendment 292K, the Minister said it is paramount that bodies should be treated with respect, and he is absolutely right. He also said that desecration to facilitate the hiding of the body is an aggravating factor, but too rarely has that been recognised. I am grateful that he used the word “may” in possibly considering these issues as part of the inquiry into the Tunbridge Wells case. I spoke on the Statement on this matter in your Lordships’ House, when it came up two or three weeks ago, and one of the problems with the current crime of necrophilia, which, from memory, has been on the books since either 2013 or 2003—I apologise for not remembering which—is that it has never been used. We have these cases that either are too embarrassing to deal with or have concerns from prosecutors that they will not get past a jury.

Will the Minister have a meeting with me to consider changing that word “may” and to see whether it is possible to include this in the inquiry? Despite the acts of the Tunbridge Wells case being different, the consequences remain the same for the families of the bereaved. In the meantime, I am content to withdraw the amendment and will consider whether to bring both back on Report.

Amendment 292K withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

This is what the amendment is asking the Government to do. If we do not do it, stalking will stalk us and the Government Front Bench into the foreseeable future. The Minister is already very familiar with the shock troops who support the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, on the issue of immigration and citizenship fees, known under the banner of the “Lister terriers”. I give the Minister fair warning that the Royall-Brinton group—the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady Brinton—are gathering under the banner of “Stalk the stalkers”. There is far too much talking about stalking and not enough effective action, however genuinely hard Her Majesty’s Government have tried. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, has very ably set out the reasons why this amendment has been tabled, so I will be brief. Let me put it politely: the House will know that a number of us remain concerned that stalking is still not taken seriously by the Home Office, the Government and some parts of the criminal justice system. We know that training remains patchy, and that victims are still told they should be grateful for the attention of their stalker. That is why we tabled this amendment to create a stalking strategy—not for the first time; I have been tabling amendments on a stalking strategy for a decade—for training in recognising, and working in a truly multidisciplinary way to recognise, possible stalking perpetrators, and to let MAPPA professionals become involved at an early stage as soon as the possibility of fixated and obsessive behaviour emerges.

The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, told your Lordships’ House during the passage of the Domestic Abuse Bill, on consideration of Commons’ amendments, that the Government were consulting with different key parties in the criminal justice system to amend the guidance on MAPPA and to recognise and manage stalking. I thank her for sharing the proposed revisions to the statutory guidance. She said:

“Once the revised guidance is settled, we will promulgate it through a Written Ministerial Statement, and this will provide an opportunity to update the House on the delivery of the other commitments I have set out. Noble Lords talked about having some sort of debate in this place, perhaps after the Summer Recess.”—[Official Report, 27/4/21; cols. 2180-81.]


When will this be brought back to your Lordships’ House for such a debate?

The noble Baroness also said:

“We are also legislating already in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill to put beyond doubt the powers of duty to co-operate agencies to share information under MAPPA by clarifying existing information-sharing provisions. We are investing new resources to tackle perpetrators, with an additional £25 million committed this year.”—[Official Report, 27/4/21; col. 2182.]


I understand that that is not just stalking perpetrators but perpetrators of a range of serious crimes.

Despite her encouraging us to bring back stalking-specific matters to this Bill because they were not appropriate for the Domestic Abuse Bill, it is noticeable that there is still no sign of a stalking strategy. It is as if stalking protection orders, now passed, are the magic answer, when actually they are part of the toolkit for managing fixated and obsessive perpetrators who may not come under domestic abuse legislation. As the noble Lord, Lord Russell, demonstrated, the patchy application of SPOs is real evidence of the old problem continuing. The choice about how to apply the stalking laws remains with people inside the police and courts system.

In a case in Wales in the last two weeks, a man was charged with two incidents relating to stalking his ex-partner, but she had already moved home twice and it is evident from the case that this stalking had been going on for a considerable time. Can the Minister say what training is happening within all police forces and all the courts—family as well as criminal—and for social workers, among others involved in MAPPA?

It is 13 years since my stalker was convicted—after 100 incidents had happened—and close to 10 years since stalking was created as a separate offence from harassment, but people being stalked still have to face many issues in the system because there is no overarching strategy for dealing with stalking. It is time that there was.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has eloquently and bravely described on a number of occasions and brought home to us just how important it is to tackle stalking in an effective way. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, who has been an inspiration during our discussions on these issues.

I will make just two points to emphasise the excellent speech by the noble Lord, Lord Russell. First, he mentioned the huge number of women who are victims of stalking and the disgracefully low number of prosecutions. The problem is not just the inconsistencies to which he and HM Inspectorate have referred. It is also clear that in too many police forces stalking is seen as a low-level nuisance behaviour issue rather than the serious crime it often is.

We know that a number of stalking perpetrators who potentially pose the highest risk to victims would not meet the threshold for the assessment and management of risk for a relevant domestic abuse or stalking perpetrator, as proposed under the MAPPA model. This is a big problem. As the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, which does so much fantastic work in this area, has identified, stalking is often not recognised as a crime. The level of risk to a victim is therefore inadequately identified and addressed, and this has the potential to put many lives in serious danger.

I refer the Minister to Dr Jane Monckton Smith’s 2017 study of 358 homicides, all of which involved a female victim and a male perpetrator. It revealed stalking behaviour as an antecedent to femicide in 94% of those cases. That demonstrates why it is so important to work on prevention and action in relation to stalking.

The noble Baroness responded at great length to our previous debate in Committee, setting out the proposals and the actions her department is taking. As the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said, in the end they do not really amount to a cohesive strategy that will actually start to take this seriously. I hope the Minister will perhaps agree to reflect on this between now and Report to see whether we can take this any further.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Monday 22nd November 2021 Lords Chamber

This leads me back to the issue of collecting information on those with GRCs. There has been much passionate discussion in recent years, particularly on social media, about how trans people are treated by the police and other parts of the criminal justice system. But because forces are not recording accurate sex data or data about people in possession of GRCs, much of this debate is based not on accurate information but on anecdote. This cannot be a sensible way to debate important societal problems or to develop effective policies for tackling them; hence the case for this amendment, which would give us reliable, timely, consistent national data about whether the victims and perpetrators of crimes are male or female—a question which presently cannot be answered with confidence. For these reasons, I commend this amendment to the Committee. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I wish to speak against this amendment, because on first reading it set off a number of alarm bells. But I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, that I listened carefully to what he said, to try to understand his arguments. For me, there are consequences for trans people in the amendment that no other group of people with protected characteristics would have to face in our society.

Those who have laid and spoken to amendments to this Bill against transgender people have repeatedly said there is a data collection problem. But I do not understand why the data needs to be collected by the police, given that for most crimes—whether the victim or the person being arrested, as set out in this amendment—being a trans person is just not relevant.

A parallel example would be requiring a disabled person to register with the police. I have chosen this example deliberately because, four years ago, I was physically attacked in my wheelchair at Euston station. For that incident, the wonderful British Transport Police recorded the crime as a disability hate crime—the crime, note, not the victim or the perpetrator. I would be appalled if every time I reported a crime thereafter—online fraud, for example—I had to say, “By the way, I’m disabled and I’m on your disability register.”

Rape offences are probably the only offences where the police need to know the sex of the offender because the legislation is dependent on the person’s genitals. It is otherwise not relevant information because the police do not need to know it. The noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, says that it is easy to add one section to the crime reporting information system—CRIS—but is it so easy? Adding just one extra category will take time and, for an existing reporting system, is usually very much more expensive than expected. Just ask the Government about the costs of adding the booster jab details to the Covid app, when they have thrown millions at IT during the pandemic.

I note that the amendment says that the above

“does not constitute an offence under section 22 of the Gender Recognition Act 2004”,

which prevents the disclosure of this protected information. On what grounds, then, is it acceptable to share people’s protected characteristics when the GRA says that is private information? In the context of personal information, can the noble Lord confirm whether the amendment complies with GDPR? I am not sure that it does, as it is not personal information that is essential to record.

I return to why the amendment was laid. Can the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, answer some questions to try to explain the aims of his amendment? I will give a hypothetical example: a trans individual is subject to house burglary or to a street mugging unrelated to their gender. This amendment requires them, if they report that crime, to out themselves to the police. Why should they suffer that loss of privacy and human rights, and to what end? Why should trans people face such a disincentive to report crimes perpetrated against them? Why is this the one group of people being singled out as victims?

I have a second example. A trans person is arrested for being drunk and disorderly but they have been assaulted and in fact are suffering from concussion, which can give the same appearance. That would be a defence to any charge but they are required to out themselves upon arrest. Why? A key tenet of our law is that accused persons are presumed innocent and mostly have the same right to privacy and liberty as all citizens. That is different for criminals. The noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, referred two or three times to crimes and criminals but that is not what this amendment says. It concerns anyone who is arrested. What is the position of an accused person who refuses to provide the relevant information? The amendment does not make this clear. Would they be obstructing a police officer in the execution of their duty under Section 89(2) of the Police Act 1996?

A further real concern about this amendment, if enacted, is that it would prevent trans people coming forward to report being victims of crime as they would have to out themselves. Many would not be comfortable with disclosing that sort of information. It also implies that a gender recognition certificate is what defines gender, whereas many trans people do not have or want one of them.

The fundamental problem for me, though, is the labelling and targeting of trans people, either as victims or those arrested by the police, alone of any group in our society. While this amendment may not be being instructing them at this stage to wear a pink triangle on their jackets at all times, there would be a data pink triangle. It would set them apart from every other grouping in society. It sets a dangerous and unacceptable precedent. I hope the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I have put my name to this amendment and I shall speak in support of it. I very much welcome the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, presented the argument. He gave a lot of detail, and at this time of night I will not go over it again, but I want to emphasise one or two points.

To begin with, I say that I sort of understand the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and I take them seriously, because anybody who thinks that any proposed legislation will discriminate against one group deserves to be heard and to have those questions explored. But at the core of this is the collection of data; we are an immensely data-rich society at the moment. Sitting here, throughout the debates this evening, there have been so many times when the argument that has been put forward has depended on the collection of data. Whichever public service you look at, whether it be education, health, the criminal law or whatever, much of the progress that we have made over previous decades has been because we have had the ability to collect data.

I am a woman, and I think that my sex has made many advances over the past decades because people arguing for legislation that has protected women, men, people with disabilities and people who are transgender have been able to make the case only because they have been able to collect the data. Unless you have the data, you are arguing vaguely about some impression about something that might happen, so I am deeply wedded to the idea of collecting data in the formation of public policy and the advancement of political ideas.

I think that is defensible, but I do not take for granted the fact that we do not give something up in the collection of that data. I will be honest. I am trustee of a number of charities, as I think everybody in this Chamber is. Every year, when I am asked to fill in the data declaration, I see another bit of data there. Sometimes, I think “Why do they want to know that about me?”, and the one I am saying that about at the moment is sexuality. I sit there, I tick the box that says “heterosexual”, and I think “What’s that got to do with me being a trustee of this body?” But I sign it, because I think that, on the whole, that declaration of bits of information about ourselves can be put to the common public good. If we were to look at charities, without declaring that information, how do we ever get to make the argument that women, or people who are black or from ethnic minorities, or from the gay community, are not represented on charities? Whether we like it or not—and I accept that it is difficult to come to terms with it sometimes—it is about the protection, rights and freedoms of individuals. But I would never say that we do not pay a price for the collection of this data, or that we must not continuously and constantly make sure that the data we are asking to be collected is in the public policy interest.

That is why I have come to this amendment and why I very much support the arguments that have been made. What the amendment asks is simply that we collect two bits of data, among others. One is the sex at birth and the other is any gender acquired during the lifetime of the person. Without that, I do not know how we can go on to develop public policy in the pursuit of those who have committed crime and of the public duty to protect those who have been victims of crime. Unless we have the data about how many of which groups there are, they will be ignored.

I have sat through a long and very interesting debate today. My noble friend on the Front Bench said that one of the most important things about the Bill before the Committee is that it is a Bill about protecting women and girls. I do not know how you do that unless you collect the data. We have heard about county lines and knife crime. Unless we collect the data to know that many of the people who are drawn in and persuaded to commit those crimes are young men, we cannot develop a suite of policies that support them. When we collect data about sex, it is entirely proper to ask about acquired gender as well. We must not conflate the two.

The problem at the moment is that different police forces are collecting data about sex at birth and about gender acquired at some other point and then conflating the two. We do not have the sequencing of data and information across police forces in this country that can enable us to make public policy. That is what this amendment is asking. It wants to disaggregate those, as the mover of the amendment has said.