Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Lords Chamber

The purpose of the amendment is to make the law crystal clear that it is always an offence to send sexual messages or to elicit sexual messages from a child to make it easier for the police and the authorities to intervene at an early stage before harm is caused to the child. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, as I did on Report, I support the principle of this amendment. Listening to the last example given by the noble Lord—“Honey, you look hot in your bikini”—if I were a mother with a young teenage child who had received that message and I went to the police, showed them the message and was told, “There’s nothing wrong in law here”, I would have less confidence in our legal system.

I am not convinced that a new offence is not needed, as has been argued. I have not looked at Section 78; indeed, I have not done as much detailed work as perhaps I should. Listening to the noble Lord, however, I find quite a difficulty in a “sexual communication” that comes from someone and “sexual response”. It seems that a sexual response is needed for these offences, but that of course that is not at all how the child sees it. Yes, we are accustomed not to seeing but to knowing that there are a lot of photographs around with people topless on beaches, often celebrities seeking to attract attention. I am not sure that I would like to go down the route of trying to analyse their motives.

If there is to be an amendment, it must be right. The worst thing would be if there were inherent problems within it. I do as I did before and I hope it does not provoke teasing from the noble Lord; I assure him that I am trying to be supportive in this. I thank the NSPCC, with which I had the opportunity to meet briefly at the beginning of the week. I understand that it is consulting more widely on this. I do not want to refer to all the points that I have made, either in the previous debate or with the NSPCC, but I am glad to see that it is now suggested that the offence should be put into the Sexual Offences Act 2003, because that gives the context for penalties. I am not sure that there are penalties attached to this amendment.

I see that the words in proposed new subsection (4) come from Section 73 of that Act. I am not sure whether repeating them in a slightly different way in this amendment does not cause a bit more difficulty. In Section 73, they are a defence against aiding, abetting and so on. I think they may be interpreted there not as an exhaustive list, but there is a question in my mind as to whether in this amendment they are an exhaustive list.

Finally, in the context of online grooming, the terminology of “reasonably believe” in proposed new subsection (1)(b) causes me some concern about the evidential problems. Something like “making reasonable endeavours” to establish whether B is 16 or over would better lend itself to giving evidence to the court.

What all this amounts to is not opposition but urging us to get this right. Whether we get it right today or, as I said on Report, by an amendment during the Commons stages of this Bill, I hope that we end up with something that is workable, acknowledges current technology and is not simply defensive of the offences that are on the statute book at the moment. I am usually the first to say that if there is already something that covers this, we should not be looking for something else, but with this issue we should be looking for something else.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, had the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, tabled this amendment I would have put my name to it. I do not want to take up time at Third Reading to repeat what the noble Baroness has said, but I ask the Minister to be in touch with those in the Home Office who will be dealing with the Bill in the other place, and not to disregard what she has said. It is really worth having a further look at this serious matter. There are communities which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has said, are different from most of us and where there is a degree of not just influence but power among certain elements of those communities. That leads to this appalling FGM taking place on children in this country. I am also supportive of what the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said. This is a good part of the Bill and the Government are to be congratulated on it. However, they could do better.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, the Government have made enormous progress in addressing the legislation so well, to the extent that a Government can in practice respond to FGM. Like others, I encourage the filling of a gap which seems to have been identified. I do not want to say more this afternoon but I wanted to put on record my support for the noble Baroness and my admiration for her keeping going on this issue.