Victims and Prisoners Bill

Debate between Baroness Newlove and Lord Roborough

Committee stage
Monday 26th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I support these amendments, and I am so glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, is back where she belongs, speaking on a topic that she is so passionate about.

Laura Richards has been mentioned by many speakers, and social media has a good way of reacting: I have her on Instagram as we are speaking, to give me some pointers, even though she is in California. Laura Richards is the expert on all this, and her patience to fight for victims over the years is commendable. She said she knows there is going to be change and she keeps doing it for victims—I admire this lady.

In the year ending March 2022, only 1.4% of reports to police about stalking ended with the stalker being convicted. That says a lot about how seriously stalking is taken by the very agencies that are supposed to protect victims. Most stalkers never see the inside of a prison cell; instead, they receive fines or community or suspended sentences, as has previously been spoken about. Really, for me, it is about listening to the human side of all these cases, and that is what we must never forget. It is not just about lessons learned or guidance. These are not items we pick up from supermarket shelves; these are human lives—people who have been brutally murdered, after several years of absolute hell, by someone who has done it on more than one occasion.

I really want to understand why the Government will not look at this register seriously. I spoke in the Domestic Abuse Bill when that came through. This has to be the end of it all. Instead of guidance, we must have proper risk management of stalkers and domestic abusers because, at the moment, it is virtually non-existent for convicted, or unconvicted, men who pose such a huge risk to women and children—now more than ever, we need to make sure that they feel safe and listened to. These are psychopathic people who do horrendous crimes to humans, and families have to pick up the pieces.

I am concerned about Zoe Dronfield, and I have picked up on certain things that my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, has mentioned. I will take that offline, because I sympathise with not having any control. As somebody who is still going through the criminal justice and parole system, I am very interested in the next stage of the Bill, which is about parole, and what it does and does not do. The victim has no control, or right to know what the offender is doing. We cannot find out what is going on, but the offender knows exactly where the victim is, because of exclusion zones and everything else. I do not speak for anyone else but as a victim who is watching out, for my three daughters, for offenders who are going to be released. When we are talking about stalking laws, this is important, because having no control more or less means that the victim has to shape their life around safety, whereas the system should protect victims more than ever.

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for her amendment relating to Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements, and all noble Lords who have contributed to this heartfelt debate. These are horrific offences, taken with the utmost gravity by the Government.

Amendment 148A seeks to include relevant domestic abuse and stalking perpetrators on licence within the remit of management under Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements—MAPPA. That would create a legal requirement on the police and the Prison and Probation Service to assess and manage the risks posed by individuals whose offending has taken place in the context of domestic abuse or stalking, and who either have more than one conviction of this nature or are assessed as posing a high risk of serious harm.

Amendment 148B seeks to make amendments to the Sexual Offences Act 2003, imposing on domestic abuse and stalking offenders the same requirements that apply to registered sex offenders. This would require the offender to report personal information to the police, including where they are living, their bank account details and passport details.

The Government agree that robust management of perpetrators of domestic abuse and stalking is crucial to help keep the public safe. We completely agree with the spirit of these amendments; however, we believe the objectives can already be met through current provision and policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment is important. As someone who knows first-hand what it is like to gather information and then find out that the Home Office wants to gather information about red flags, I have to say it is amazing that all that information is shared for the Home Secretary to look at on a murder case.

I agree with the passionate assertion by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, that data sharing is important. In a domestic homicide review, the families already know the information and have complained about it, but the Government have to wait for this review to come out with “lessons learned”. That is further insulting to the victims’ families and indeed to the victims, and it beggars belief that we have not moved on.

I want to tell my noble friend about data sharing. I attended a MARAC a few years ago as Victims’ Commissioner—not every MARAC is fantastic, I have to say—and what concerned me was that when a police officer gave evidence that the prisoner had been released, his offender manager, who was at that same table, was concerned because the last thing she knew was that he was still meant to be in prison. She had to leave the room to double-check, because he should not have been released. Unfortunately, I did not manage to find out the result, but the police and offender management had to try to establish whether the prisoner had even been released. That shows how important it is for data to be shared for the protection of victims. People need to understand what can be shared so they can find out whether a prisoner is even in their cell.

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for his amendment regarding the Multi Agency Public Protection System, MAPPS. I understand that the debate has not really been very much to do with MAPPS, but I will first address the amendment, which does address it. Amendment 148C would place a duty on the Secretary of State to publish a report on progress of the development of MAPPS for prisoners subject to notification requirements and licence conditions under the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, within 12 months of Royal Assent.

It may be helpful if I provide some explanation of MAPPS. This will answer some of those questions, but I have better answers at the end. MAPPS is a Home Office IT project, currently jointly funded with the Ministry of Justice, to enable the improved management of dangerous offenders, including violent and sex offenders, under Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements, or MAPPA. It is intended to replace the current case management system, the ViSOR database, which has been the main IT tool used by the police, probation and prison services since 2005.

The current database, ViSOR, while stable, is now almost 20 years old. The Home Office and the Ministry of Justice began work on MAPPS in 2020 to enable criminal justice agencies to share information in real time and improve their risk assessments and the management of all MAPPA nominals. That can include domestic abuse perpetrators and stalkers, as referenced in Amendments 148A and 148B.

I am sure we all agree that it is essential that police and other MAPPA agencies have the tools they need to manage the risk posed by serious offenders, and MAPPS will do just that. The new functionality will include greater capacity; a more intuitive system with push notifications; and increased mobility. MAPPS, as a new and modern system, will be more responsive to agency needs, and adaptable to any new notification requirements.

As noble Lords would expect for a project so important to public safety, we are being diligent in our approach to MAPPS development. MAPPS is a custom product, being built to meet the bespoke needs of police, prison and probation officers as well as other MAPPA authorities. While third-party contractors are used, given other discussions on the Bill, I am sure that noble Lords will want to note that Fujitsu is not involved in MAPPS development and never has been.

We welcome the interest in the MAPPS programme and, while the work is ongoing, the Government will of course further update Parliament on its development and implementation. Given that MAPPS is already being designed specifically to meet the needs of those agencies involved in the management of all MAPPA offenders, in conjunction with those very agencies, I do not consider that the proposed report would say anything more than has already been mentioned, and it is therefore unnecessary.

I turn to the debate that we have had in Committee. MAPPA deals only with convicted offenders under four categories, but much of the debate has been about information sharing in a way that is not consistent with that use of it. In answer to numerous noble Lords—the noble Lords, Lord Coaker, Lord Ponsonby and Lord Russell of Liverpool, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Newlove and Lady Brinton—on data sharing, the PCSC Act put beyond doubt the authority of agencies to share relevant information for the purposes of assessing and managing an offender’s risk, and to enable agencies and individuals who do not have a duty to co-operate to share information where they can contribute to the assessment and management of an offender’s risk. These measures clarified existing arrangements and will ensure that agencies understand how any sharing of information for the purposes of MAPPA management interacts with the obligations contained in the data protection legislation.

In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, we are bringing coercive individuals under the management of MAPPA but it is potentially under the lower categories 2 and 3, as I mentioned in the previous debate. There have been numerous questions. I am sure I have not answered them all and I will write to noble Lords.