Knife Crime: West Midlands

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of knife crime in the West Midlands.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Caroline. I want to tell you about Ryan Passey. Ryan was aged only 24 when he died from a single fatal stab wound to the heart during a night out at Chicago’s club in Stourbridge in 2017. Six months later, a jury heard Kobe Murray, who was 19 at the time, admit to stabbing an unarmed Ryan through the heart during a dancefloor brawl. This shook the community to the core. Following what is known as a perverse verdict, Kobe Murray walked free from court acquitted of both murder and manslaughter. The verdict shocked Ryan’s devasted family, his friends and the community. We can only imagine the anguish of losing a child in such a manner and the perpetrator walking free.

Knife crime has touched our community in an unimaginable way, and that was compounded by news of another shocking death—that of Cody Fisher, who was stabbed and killed in a Birmingham nightclub on Boxing day last year. A more recent death is that of Bailey Atkinson. On Sunday morning, as I was putting the finishing touches to my speech, I was shocked to hear of yet another fatal stabbing—that of Akeem Francis-Kerr in a local Walsall nightclub. I am led to believe that there was yet another yesterday, and that, last night, there was a machete attack in Walsall. These are lives needlessly lost, and the families are now in torment.

If I may, Dame Caroline, I will read a statement from the Passey family about the loss of their son to knife crime:

“Ryan was an amazing, bubbly 24-year-old who loved football, his family, friends, and life.

On the 6th of August 2017 our whole world was shattered when on a night out with his best friend, Ryan was stabbed through his heart inside a busy nightclub in Stourbridge and died shortly later at Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham.

In February 2018 at Birmingham Crown Court, his killer, who admitted to stabbing Ryan, was unbelievably acquitted of both his murder and manslaughter—claiming he had acted in self-defence and accidentally stabbed Ryan. Kobe walked free from court without any punishment.

The Acquittal verdict for our family caused us double trauma. It was as though Ryan had been murdered twice.

The past 5 years continue to be traumatic for us all and we have not been able to grieve properly for Ryan. No family should have to go through what we are experiencing. We continue to suffer daily following the loss of our only child. His sudden death leaves our lives empty and always wondering, what may have been?

The impact on our lives is immeasurable.”

Dame Caroline, we can only imagine what it must feel like to have watched your child go out for a night only to be told hours later that they were never coming home. The escalating horror of knife crime is all too real, and West Midlands police recorded the highest rate of knife crime in England and Wales over the past year.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this matter to the House. Knife crime—whether in the west midlands or across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—is incredibly destructive for families and for people. My information, which relates to Northern Ireland, is that between December 2020 and November 2021 there were 15 murders; one manslaughter; one corporate manslaughter, which included six people; 23 attempted murders; and 58 reported threats to kill involving knives or other sharp instruments. It is clear that knife crime is on the rise. Does the hon. Lady agree that that rise creates an obligation to increase minimum sentencing to ensure that those who carry a knife do so in full knowledge of the prison time they will face should they choose to use it?

[Suzanne Webb]

I am pleased to say that some of my constituents have raised two petitions on that matter, and I look forward to seeing how they are pursued through the legislative agenda.

West Midlands police recorded the highest rate of 152 offences involving a knife crime per 100,000 of the population in 2021-22, which is significant. The possession of weapons, including knives, has increased since 2012 by 496% to 7,257 incidents a year.

Proscribed Psychedelic Drugs

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt]

I have learned so much with the hon. Gentleman over the last five years, as well as with the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols), who has joined this debate with personal testimony and the most enormous strength; I know that she has had conversations with the Minister, and I thank him for making time for these conversations and for learning.

It is the Minister to whom, inevitably, we now look for positive leadership in this space. That is why I do not want to push him this evening. I could have spoken for five minutes and then left him swinging on the hook, where we could beat him all around the Chamber trying to defend the indefensible of how we got into this position, but I do not want to do that. I want this debate to be a positive contribution, to lay out the challenge of why we are having to respond in this way and to give the Minister the room for manoeuvre to come forward with positive answers about all the opportunities of this policy.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman and I may have some differences of opinion on this. The Minister responsible in the previous Administration was the person who enabled my constituent, young Sophia Gibson, to get medicinal cannabis, which helped to stop the fits that that wee girl had. Today, her and her family have a better standard of life. While I understand that steps sometimes have to be taken, I would caution that we do not move forward until we are absolutely sure that there will be no side effects. In Sophia’s case, it worked, but it will not work in every case.

[Crispin Blunt]

I listened with care to the hon. Gentleman and thank him for attending this debate and for championing the cause of his constituent. It is part of a piece. Behind the consideration of psychedelics sits consideration of cannabis as a medicine and, indeed, a wellness treatment. There is a huge economic as well as a health opportunity. They are not completely unrelated. His points are well made, but we do not want to get ourselves into a place where we have so much anxiety about risk where risk does not really exist in reality that we create blocks to progress.

This is where we need to come back to the historical context that led to the irrationality of the position we are in, which of course was the thalidomide crisis. That crisis led to the tightening of a number of regulations concerning the testing of investigational drugs. The commendable intent of those regulations was to ensure that drugs came to the market safe and effective. Double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trials became the gold standard for testing emerging medicines, but because psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is ultimately a form of psychotherapy, rather than a drug treatment in the traditional sense, strict adherence to those standards proved close to impossible to meet. The story of psychedelics is thus one of an extremely promising treatment modality that was lost in discussion over how to understand and evaluate therapeutic treatment effectiveness.

The primitive design of psychedelic trials in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as a lack of flexibility in how regulators evaluated more traditional pharmaceutical interventions, ultimately led to psychedelic-assisted therapies falling below the cut-off for approval as market-authorised medicines. Those drugs were completely novel to researchers and regulators. They troubled the distinction between biological psychiatry, with its pharmacological interventions, and the psychological arm of psychiatry and its psychotherapies. Given the novelty of the way in which these treatments work and the virtual impossibility of designing placebo controls for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, it is no wonder that the trials of those drugs did not meet the standards of regulators remaining faithful to the standards used to test pharmaceutical interventions on their own. These treatments are fundamentally forms of psychotherapy, and need to be tested as such.

A flexible and intelligent capacity to measure the efficacy of a drug that facilitated psychotherapy was simply not yet present in the culture of the regulators of the time. With the stigma surrounding those drugs fuelling the tabloid appetite for excitable exaggeration, misinformation abounded about these mysterious, mind-altering substances. They appeared to belong to indigenous communities in remote jungles—surely there was nothing to learn there. I think that, in the decades since, we have learned a great deal about learning from experiences elsewhere in the world. In reality, death and injury rates, both physical and psychological, from unadulterated psychedelics are extremely low. Teams of researchers from the United States, the UK, the EU and Australia have consistently found psychedelics to be of the lowest possible harm potential of all the controlled drugs to both user and society. Those studies considered the physiological toxicity of these drugs, as well as other risks.

However, these drugs are best administered within supportive psychotherapeutic environments; doing so reduces the risks yet further. The medical research shows that, when administered in such settings, psychedelics are associated with very positive psychotherapeutic outcomes. For example, research by Robin Carhart-Harris and others in 2016 showed a significant decrease in depressive symptoms for up to six months—that in a cohort already suffering from treatment-resistant depression. Research by Ross and others in 2016 showed significant decreases in anxiety and depression, and research by Johnson and others in 2014 showed that 80% of the cohort were abstinent from smoking following treatment with psilocybin. Mental health harm is estimated to cost the UK economy more than £110 billion a year annually, a staggering 5% of our gross domestic product. Smoking alone costs the economy £14.7 billion per year, £2.5 billion of which falls to the national health service. Even if psychedelics were to play a small role in improving outcomes in those areas, the impact would be huge, given the impact of those areas on society and the economy.

The safety of these drugs has been firmly demonstrated, too. Phase 3 trials are now under way, meaning that their safety is well enough established in healthy and clinical populations that regulators are allowing research into their effectiveness in clinical treatment. Psilocybin and the other psychedelics have been well enough established as safe—that is all but unquestioned within the scientific and medical literature—and when administered under the supervision of trained professionals in suitably controlled environments, we move from a risk range of “minimal” to one of “very significant benefit”. The method of achieving the maximum benefit for patients and its extent is yet to be established, but there is every indication that it will be remarkable compared with psychotherapy unassisted by pharmacology or today’s pharmacological assistance of antidepressants, from which a depressing number of patients—please excuse the pun, Mr Deputy Speaker—now need withdrawal services, something that my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes is campaigning to address.

Research methods have matured since prohibition, so the best and easiest way to obtain information on how effective psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies will be in the real world is to establish research and access to prescribing physicians and researchers, but we are already falling behind. The potential has been identified across the world. To our embarrassment as a nation committed to science, entrepreneurship and sustaining one of the world’s great financial sectors, not only has $7 billion been raised on the markets of North America to invest in this emerging bioscience technology—as compared with very little raised here—but our scientists, having largely owned this knowledge within the United Kingdom, are now following that investment.

The market for psychedelic substances is projected to grow from $2 billion in 2020 to $10.7 billion by 2027. Facilitating the investigation of these drugs in that way would have allowed the United Kingdom to become the leading country in the study of the therapeutic potential of the psychedelic class of drugs and simultaneously facilitate access for patients. Hopefully, it is not too late, but unless this science is noisily supported and championed in the UK, it will be too late for the United Kingdom to make its proper contribution in this area.

The use of psilocybin and other psychedelics in psychiatry is of even greater medical and scientific importance than simply their commercial promise, yet the Government still want to evaluate the evidence regarding safety, scheduling and classification. To add insult to injury, it seems that they will only do so following a successful application for a medical formulation containing psilocybin to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.

In practice, there appear to be three routes to the rescheduling of a substance within the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001, of which it seems the Home Office remains wedded to one: rescheduling being triggered following a market authorisation by the MHRA. The more evidence-based route—a self-commissioned review by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs—is effectively ruled out because of the AMCD’s lack of funding and capacity. The simple third route is for the Minister in the Home Office to take the initiative and commission such a review of evidence with a view to rescheduling by the ACMD.

The Minister, had I given him time, would no doubt have referred to his commissioning of the ACMD to investigate barriers to researching substances controlled under schedule 1, and especially psilocybin, which I welcome. Forgive me for offering him time to reflect further before responding to more colleagues than just me. In July 2017, the then Home Secretary commissioned a review of the barriers to research caused by drugs designated as schedule 1, only for the long-term recommendations of the ACMD to be rejected. The current review has already been ongoing since 2020. Is this delay without cost?

Members of Parliament from across the House have provided to me and others, including the Home Office, a proposal for the Minister to safely resolve the issue based on evidence and in a short space of time. Indeed, when cannabis-based products for medicinal use were rescheduled in 2018, it took a mere 12 weeks. When the evidence and need are so overwhelming, just as they were for cannabis-based products for medicinal use, for what reason can the Government wait to take decisive action? The letter of the laws that govern use in medicine and science of these controlled substances is designed to be flexible and permissive. As I understand it, nearly two years ago, when the then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), endorsed advice from his policy unit to get this done, the Home Office dived for the weeds of process around an application for a medicine before contemplating changing scheduling or classification.

I have asked the Home Office on three occasions by written parliamentary question whether it has in its possession any evidence that supports the current scheduling of psilocybin. I am wholly certain the answer is none. The MHRA, the Food and Drugs Administration, the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration and the UK science and research community all know there is not that evidence. Every day that we do not act to support and enable the efforts of UK researchers, we hinder the progress of science and put what were our globally renowned research institutions at a growing disadvantage.

Perhaps most scandalously of all, this delay in the science now will be delay in the medicine deployed and the therapeutics established on the basis of those medicines. Some 1.2 million people with depression in the UK will continue to provide the grim reaper with 18 suicides a day. Our untreatable soldiers, traumatised from their active service in Iraq and Afghanistan, will continue to self-medicate with alcohol and other unsupervised drugs to the misery of themselves and their families. Addiction will be treated less effectively. Anxiety will not be addressed as it could be. That pain, and the scale of the economic cost to our country, demanded “Action This Day” a long time ago.

All that I have heard reinforces my hope that the Minister will break the logjam, which would be in direct accord with the Government’s 10-year drugs plan that aims to put evidence at the heart of drug policy. Behind the issue of psychedelics—practically and intellectually the easiest part of the drug policy thicket—sits the possibility of a legal cannabis and hemp industry, with huge economic and environmental positives to secure. The chance to seize that low-hanging fruit and reap the rewards presents itself to the Minister, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister has begun the machinery of government changes that should enable many departmental Ministers, as yet unrepresented in the councils and committees that in effect control our nation’s drug policy, to make a reality of that opportunity. If we make a reality of policy based on evidence, we can finally start to right the wrongs of 60 years of policy failure. The Minister has a historic opportunity to radically improve the lives of millions of his fellow citizens while helping the United Kingdom to be a world leader in medical research. Current drug policy has produced far more victims than successes; he can begin to reverse that.

Illegal Migration Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I appreciate your instruction to all our colleagues, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The way to stop these deaths is to stop the boats. Secondly, the critics ignore the fact that our policy does in fact guarantee humanitarian protection for those who genuinely need it. Our policy is profoundly and at its heart a humane attempt to break the incentive that sustains the business model of the smuggling gangs. People pay thousands of pounds to make these journeys to the UK.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

As the Secretary of State probably knows, I chair the all-party parliamentary group on international freedom of religion or belief. Many people across the world are persecuted, discriminated against or abused physically, and have to leave their countries. Some of those, as she will know, are living in other countries, and it is taking so long to process their applications so that they can get here. She probably shares my opinion that is important that true asylum seekers get the opportunity to come here. Can she assure me and the House that those who are persecuted or discriminated against will have the opportunity to come here for asylum?

[Suella Braverman]

We have a proud and extensive tradition of offering refuge to hundreds of thousands of people who apply according to our system and our criteria. I am proud of the refuge and security that we have provided to people fleeing the very circumstances to which the hon. Gentleman refers.

By ensuring that people do not remain here, we are removing their incentive to make the journey in the first place. But crucially, if people are truly in need of protection, they will receive protection in Rwanda. Critics overwhelmingly fail to acknowledge that fact. Let us be clear: Rwanda is a dynamic country with a thriving economy. I have enjoyed visiting it myself, twice, and I look forward to visiting it again.

Illegal Migration Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

One of the root causes of this problem is the proliferation of sophisticated, well co-ordinated and well-resourced criminal gangs operating across transnational boundaries on the continent. That is why we have increased resources for the National Crime Agency and increased co-operation and intelligence sharing with the French. Only by working together with our European partners will we be able to smash the business model of the people smugglers.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

For myself, for the Secretary of State and for many there is a need to help and protect the vulnerable. Does the Secretary of State acknowledge that with the better weather there will undoubtedly be a rise in the numbers making illegal crossings? Does she believe that we should engage further with the French authorities to facilitate legal migration in a more structured way? Will the Bill enable those who seek asylum legally to be processed efficiently, while sending the clear message that if they come here illegally, asylum will automatically be denied?

[Suella Braverman]

We institute in the Bill some procedural requirements and limitations on legal claims, and time limits for bringing those claims. The aim is to reduce attempts to thwart removal and detention, and it strikes the right balance between fairness and compassion.

Manchester Arena Inquiry: Volume 3 Report

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

We are working on that, and as I have said, there has already been a huge amount of change, reform and improvement within the agencies as a response to the event in 2017. This report marks another step forward. We will consider everything and we will move forward accordingly, but we will also be responding both to Bishop James Jones’s report on the experiences of the Hillsborough families and to the report of the Daniel Morgan independent panel, following which we will consider fully the recommendation on the full duty of candour.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

First, may I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and the compassion and tone of her response? I think we all deeply appreciate it and thank the Secretary of State for that. On behalf of my party, the Democratic Unionist party, I wish also to record that our thoughts and prayers are with all those who lost loved ones and who today grieve greatly.

Will the Secretary of State accept that the parents of the children slaughtered and maimed are not looking for apologies? Instead, they are looking for improvements to ensure that no parent goes through the devastation that they have felt and still feel. For those parents and those families, what further changes will stem from the finalisation of this report?

[Suella Braverman]

The hon. Gentleman puts it very well. Just to give a sample, even before this report was published, since 2017 MI5 and other partners have conducted a series of reviews, subject to robust external oversight, and the Intelligence and Security Committee has published a report. There were hundreds of recommendations, and many of them have been implemented already to improve counter-terrorism operations, to improve intelligence sharing, to build a better response that goes traditional security agencies, and to connect expertise and all kinds of public sector authorities. A lot of work has been delivered, and we want to build on that.

Change of Name by Registered Sex Offenders

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the change of name by registered sex offenders.

I am grateful to have the opportunity to lead this debate. I thank all the Members who have supported this campaign. I particularly thank the survivors, many of whom are here today, for their tireless work to try to close this loophole and make sure no one else suffers as they have been forced to.

This debate is specific: it is about registered sex offenders changing their name without the knowledge of the police, leading to many offenders going missing, securing a Disclosure and Barring Service check under the new name and then reoffending. Unless this loophole is closed, it makes a nonsense of the schemes the public rely on to detect offenders. For example, the sex offenders register, the child sex offenders disclosure system, the domestic violence disclosure scheme and the Disclosure and Barring Service all rely on having the correct name.

I first found out about this dangerous loophole through the incredible campaigning work of the Safeguarding Alliance three years ago. Its findings and the impact this has had on survivors are truly chilling. I have repeatedly raised the issue with the Home Office and Justice Ministers, as well as the Master of Rolls, who oversees the enrolled deed poll, yet still no tangible change has taken place.

Currently, under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, all registered sex offenders are legally required to notify the police of any change in their personal details, including a change of name and address.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing this forward. I think every one of us in this House supports her in everything she does, and we greatly admire her tenacity and courage on these issues. Unfortunately, I cannot stay for the debate as I have other engagements, but does she agree that the fact that, from a period in 2019 to June 2022, there were 11,536 prosecutions of sex offenders for failing to notify the police of a change in their personal information, such as their name, shows the scale of the issue and demonstrates that we must legislate to protect our vulnerable as a matter of urgency? I know that is what she wants and it is certainly what I want as well.

[Sarah Champion]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is as tenacious as I am in trying to challenge these gross abuses of the system. The figures he quotes are Safeguarding Alliance figures that it got as a result of freedom of information requests, but they are only for some police forces, so the scale of the issue is much greater than even that shocking figure.

If a registered sex offender wants to change their name, they must tell the police within three days, or they could face up to five years in prison. But these notification requirements leave the onus entirely on the offender to self-report changes in their personal information. If the sex offender breaches these requirements, and therefore faces prison, they must first be caught.

Data that I and others have collated shows that the scale of this issue is breathtaking. The Home Office confirmed, in responses to my written parliamentary questions, that over 16,000 offenders were charged with a breach of their notification requirements between 2015 and 2020. A Safeguarding Alliance FOI request to the Crown Prosecution Service found that over 11,500 registered sex offenders were prosecuted for failure to notify changes of information between 2019 and 2022. Those breaches are likely to have been for name changes or other such changes. It is clear that offenders are changing their names and not disclosing their new name to the police, but the exact scale of the problem remains impossible to capture. It is important to emphasise that these are only the cases we know about: many more offenders could have breached their notification requirements without the police’s knowledge. Offenders are also required to visit a police station to comply with notification requirements, but only once a year.

Evidently, thousands are getting caught when they breach their requirements, but it appears that many are not. An FOI request by the Safeguarding Alliance to police forces confirmed that at least 913 registered sex offenders have gone missing between 2017 and 2020. However, only 17 of the 45 police forces responded to the request, indicating that that figure is only the tip of the iceberg.

New data secured by the BBC demonstrates the same ongoing pattern, allowing offenders to slip through the cracks. Over 700 registered sex offenders have gone missing in the last three years. It is highly likely that they breached their notification requirements without getting caught, making them an active risk to the public. Again, only 31 of 45 police forces responded to that request.

Many offenders are following the rules. At least 1,400 registered sex offenders have notified police forces of name changes in the past three years, with 21 of the 45 police forces able to provide that data. However, the number of cases where notification requirements are not being obeyed far outweighs those where they are. We cannot rely on a system that depends on registered offenders self-reporting changes in their information. If we do not urgently improve the system, we will have to accept that hundreds more offenders will continue to disappear from the system meant to safeguard us.

When I first learned about this breach, I spoke to my local police chief. He was genuinely stunned. We was unaware of the loophole and asked how he was meant to find someone when they no longer knew who they were looking for. If we are going to protect children and vulnerable people, and prevent further abuse, we must be able to keep track of those who are already known to be a safeguarding risk. Unless we address the failure in the current system, police will continue to be unaware of a name change and the sex offenders register will not be up to date with the new names, therefore considerably reducing its effectiveness.

It is vital we remember not only the danger posed to society by sex offenders changing their names, but the devastating impact it has on their previous victims. Della Wright is an ambassador for the Safeguarding Alliance and a survivor of child sexual abuse. Della has spoken so bravely to tell her story in support of so many other victims who have been impacted by this serious safeguarding loophole. I pay huge credit to her, as her tenacious campaigning is what has brought this issue to public attention.

When Della was a child, a man came to live in her home, becoming one of her primary carers and repeatedly sexually abusing her. Years later, when Della reported the abuse, her abuser was already known to the police and he had committed further sexual offences against many more victims. Della was made aware that he had changed his name; he had changed it at least five times, enabling him to relocate under the radar and evade justice. When Della’s case was finally brought to court, he again changed his name, this time in between being charged and appearing in court for the plea hearing. That slowed down the whole process as new court papers needed to be submitted in the new name.

The additional distress to Della made a complete mockery of the justice system, but sadly Della’s case is far from unique. The Safeguarding Alliance is working with dozens of survivors—a number of them are here today—who have discovered their abuser has changed their name. Many say their perpetrators change their name before charging, meaning their birth name remains unmaligned. Perhaps most chilling for me is that, with a new name, they can apply for a new passport and driving licence, which means they can apply for a clean DBS check in that new name.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

My personal position is that when someone carries out such heinous crimes, some of their liberties will be taken away. We need the Minister to look very closely at what those liberties are, particularly when there is an incredibly apparent safeguarding risk from names being changed, as the hon. Member outlined. I will come to Ben Lewis, because his case outlines a number of flaws in the system.

Let me say to the Minister that our systems are not joined up. People are actively looking for those weaknesses and exploiting them. I urge her to do all she can to close them as quickly as possible.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Lady is being very generous. My constituents, and those of the hon. Lady and of all Members, want legislation to give safety to mothers and children. We do not see that at the moment, as she has reinforced to the Minister. Does she feel that this debate should be the start of a campaign to change legislation to protect those who are under threat?

[Sarah Champion]

I completely agree. So many MPs are here, even though on Thursdays we are usually in our constituencies, because they have changed their diaries to show their support and solidarity. I hope that the Minister recognises that.

Registered sex offenders are supposed to inform the police if they go abroad but, again, that does not always happen. Let me turn to the example of Ben Lewis. He was a registered sex offender who changed his name, moved to Spain and obtained a clean DBS check under his new name. He then worked in British schools in Madrid until he was arrested for further offences. I am in touch with the mother of one of the children he abused, and I thank her for all her campaigning to raise awareness of this safeguarding failure, but it should not have happened. Action to stop it happening is long overdue.

Almost two years ago, with cross-party support, I tabled a new clause to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which required the Government to conduct a review into registered sex offenders changing their names. The review has been completed, but Ministers say that it is an internal document and that the findings will not be published. The Home Office also asked former chief constable Mick Creedon to carry out an independent review into the management of sex offenders in the community. One assumes that it should have covered this issue—we do not know the terms—but, again, we have no information on its findings.

This is clearly a matter of acute public interest. More than 37,000 people signed a petition calling for action more than two years ago. Public money is being spent, but we have seen no outcomes. We need transparency to know that Ministers are working to provide solutions to these issues. I would be grateful if the Minister updated us on those reviews.

What can be done to address the loophole? There are simple, immediate changes that could take place to address some of the safeguarding failures. The College of Policing guidance states that police can take pre-emptive action where an offender is likely to change their identity or leave the country. Those actions include requesting the Passport Office and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to put an electronic marker on the offender’s file to alert the officer in charge if an application should be made. As I said, a driver’s licence or passport is required for a DBS check, so that would also prevent registered sex offenders acquiring a clean DBS check if applied to all registered sex offenders’ files. However, the guidance states:

“To avoid unnecessary or high volumes of requests to these agencies, enquiries should be limited”

to where, apparently, a specific risk factor applies. That means that it is not being applied to all sex offenders, though I would say that all registered sex offenders are a risk.

I believe that this electronic tagging must be mandatory for all registered sex offenders. I accept that that would only retrospectively alert the police to a name change, but at least it would enable them to act and to keep track of an offender’s identity once a breach occurs, so it would be better than what we have already. It would not pick up on cases in which offenders have already changed their name, so I will do everything I can to work with the Minister and find a solution where offenders have already carried out that change.

In response to BBC FOI requests, neither the Passport Office nor the DVLA was able to provide detailed answers about how often they actually use these measures. The deed poll records team at the Royal Courts of Justice said that

“we simply enrol the change of name applications completed by the applicants.”

That is a very passive position to take. They did say that they would

“check for particular change of name for specific year when a Data Protection Act request had been received”.

Again, that requires police or Ministers to proactively ask for that information, which a sex offender can just change without any restraint. I understand that there may be sensitive information linked to such requests, but parliamentarians and the public must be assured that systems are being used effectively.

I appreciate that electronically flagging every registered sex offender’s file requires additional resources, but surely preventing the risk of more offences would be worth the costs. To be clear, when sex offenders are no longer on the register, such a requirement would not be necessary, in my opinion. However, the current system is being exploited by hundreds of sex offenders, and action needs to be taken now.

I am not asking for a ban on all registered sex offenders changing their name. We must take a nuanced approach, and in any case how would we monitor the scheme if the responsibility were left to them? Circumstances differ, and we must allow police the operational independence to make decisions as to whether offenders should be able to change their name. However, where such decisions are made, victims and survivors must be informed, safeguarding must be prioritised and the systems must be joined up so that registered offenders can be tracked regardless of the name they use.

Missing Person Case: Cathryn Holdsworth

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the missing person case of Cathryn Holdsworth.

It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Mr Vickers. Cathryn was a 72-year-old woman who went missing in September 2017 from the Illingworth area of Halifax. As the investigation into her disappearance is now into its sixth year, I have secured this debate in order to once again raise the profile of her case in the hope that someone somewhere knows something and comes forward to share information. It is difficult to talk today about the case of a missing woman without sending our heartfelt condolences to the family of Nicola Bulley. I cannot begin to imagine what they are going through. I am sure all Members will want to join me in letting her loved ones know that they are very much in our thoughts.

Cathryn Holdsworth lived alone and almost always left the house with the assistance of a walking frame. She had numerous ailments that required her to take regular medication. She is 5 feet 2 inches, of medium build, with what has been described as very short, speckled grey hair. The last confirmed sighting of Cathryn was captured on closed circuit television on Saturday 9 September 2017 as she entered the Tesco store in Halifax town centre. Police know that she used a bus pass to head towards home. CCTV from the bus was unavailable, so could not confirm exactly where Cathryn got off the bus. However, it is assumed that she reached home because her coat, ear muffs and walking frame that she was using in the CCTV footage were found inside her property.

In the following days Cathryn’s neighbours were asked to take delivery of a parcel for Cathryn when a delivery driver could not get an answer at her address. The neighbours grew increasingly concerned when they could not reach Cathryn over a number of days. They officially reported her missing to the police on 19 September 2017. That leaves a window of 10 days in which Cathryn could have gone missing. I spoke to Cathryn’s neighbours ahead of this debate today and they gave me a strong sense of a woman who was vulnerable. She had had falls in the house previously and often wore an alarm around her neck to alert help if she needed it. They felt it was highly unlikely that she would have left the house without the aid of her walking frame, which was still inside the house.

Police have undertaken extensive work to search her home address and the surrounding area for any signs of Cathryn, but it has not provided any answers. There have been public appeals for information, including social media campaigns, as well as bank, phone and CCTV inquiries, which have generated some lines of inquiry but ultimately no conclusions. Cathryn is understood to have had links to Blackpool and Cornwall, and appeals for information have been shared in those areas. She also has links to Brighouse in the neighbouring constituency to Halifax, where she lived for a number of years and owns a property.

In May 2020 the appeal to find Cathryn was relaunched. Detective Inspector Clare Turner said:

“Whilst considerable time has passed since Cathryn’s disappearance, we are still continuing our efforts to find her. We know Cathryn had previous links to Blackpool in Lancashire and Cornwall. However…I would ask for this appeal to be shared far and wide in order to reach as many people as possible. Our number one priority is Cathryn’s welfare; we believe her to be vulnerable and we are continuing to appeal”

for anyone with information to get in contact.

I want to thank those who have worked on the investigation, with special thanks to Detective Chief Inspector Samantha Lindsay, Detective Inspector Jarrod McSharry and Inspector Jim Graham for their assistance in preparing for this speech. I also thank two of Cathryn’s neighbours, Muriel and Mariana, who spoke to me ahead of today to help me build up a better understanding of Cathryn and the timeline leading up to her disappearance.

The Minister will appreciate that, unlike on other occasions, I am not looking to him for answers in this debate. However, I hope that in advance of today’s debate his officials have had the opportunity to speak to West Yorkshire police about the investigation and that he will join me in urging the public to share information about Cathryn and to think back to 2017, and for anyone who might know anything about her disappearance or who is able to offer information that might assist the investigation to come forward so that we might finally be able to find Cathryn.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for securing a debate on this case. I am aware of it, having done some research before I came down. I commend her determination on behalf this lady. Does she agree that the case of this vulnerable missing lady is not only heartbreaking, but reveals a clear failure in procedures and systems across the board that need to be challenged and, ultimately, changed? Will the hon. Lady urge the Minister to use this opportunity and example to prevent further cases such as this? This case is horrendous and terrible, but it should lead to a change that makes it easier for others in future.

[Holly Lynch]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for that intervention. He is always so diligent in his participation in these debates. He makes an incredibly important point. I have had the opportunity to speak to police officers and those investigating this case, and have put pressing questions to them. I am satisfied that all lines of inquiry have been and are being investigated.

When researching for this debate, I was struck by how many missing people are still out there. There are still so many investigations without conclusions as to the whereabouts of lots of vulnerable people. It is absolutely right that we continue to ensure that the specialist training and resources are there to support those investigations, so that we can bring closure and place a spotlight on those really difficult cases where we still need to do so much for finances. The hon. Member is right to make that point.

It falls to me to say that, if people have further information they would like to share with the police, I urge them to call 101 and ask to speak to Calderdale criminal investigation department, or to email [e-mail]. I urge everybody to take part in sharing information about this campaign, in the hope that we can finally shed some light on what has happened to Cathryn.

Security Threat to UK-Based Journalists

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that there is more we can do, and I am very glad the NUJ is supporting this. The NUJ has formerly worked extremely closely with groups like Reporters Without Borders, which has done enormously important work in defending journalism around the world. This Government are absolutely committed not just to supporting journalists here at home, but to making sure journalists can be free around the world, which is why the Government, and in former years the Foreign Office, have supported various different projects for journalistic freedom around the world.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for his statement and, as always, for his and our Government’s determination to maintain freedom and protect safety. I would be grateful if he assured us of the Government’s commitment, which I am sure they hold, to supporting a free press in countries where freedom of religion or belief is regularly and violently violated. We are seeing serious repercussions for those who speak out about injustice in countries where freedom of religion or belief is a concern, with Iran being a priority concern. The regime in Iran is violent, brutal, bloodthirsty and guilty of some of the worst crimes in the world. What assessment has the Minister made of the crackdown on media reporting and freedom of religion and belief?

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Gentleman will understand that I answer for the Home Office, not the Foreign Office, so I will not give an assessment of Iran other than to say that that brutal regime has murdered LGBTQ communities. It has murdered Jews. It has murdered Muslims. It has murdered Christians. It has murdered Baha’is. It has murdered, frankly, pretty much anybody it can get its hands on. Tragically, it has conducted a regime of terror against women who refuse to be told what to wear. It is a regime that has violated so many principles not just of international law, as I said, but of Persian culture. It is an absolute abomination and this Government stand in full solidarity with those who are defending their human rights and we absolutely stand for freedom of religion and belief.

Probationary Police Officers: Cost of Living

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to introduce the Adjournment debate this evening, and I thank the Minister for being in his place at the outset. It is important to set the tone for this important issue, and that is that in Northern Ireland we have a police service that is in crisis. It is in crisis for several reasons, which need to be addressed if the problems with the recruitment of police probationers, and of new blood into the service, are to be thoroughly and properly addressed.

The crisis is such that it is not unusual to hear statements in the local media, from Police Federation chiefs and other senior police officers, about their concern that the growing levels of criminality in Northern Ireland are because the police have a budgeting crisis. That deepening budget crisis needs to be nipped in the bud before the policing crisis becomes so deep that we cannot deal with it.

Let me set the scene. The Police Service of Northern Ireland faces an unprecedented operating shortfall of some £226 million for the next three years. There will be a net loss of more than 300 officers in this financial year alone. But that tells only half the story. On average, 36 officers leave the PSNI every month. Many of those officers are probationary officers who joined the service wanting to make a difference, but who then realised that they cannot afford to do the job. Unlike any other service, they are being squeezed from both sides. The arrangements that we have in place say that there should be 7,500 police officers in Northern Ireland, and we are about 1,000 short. So officers are squeezed because they have to do more duties to try to keep up—they are running just to stand still and maintain where we are. On the other side, they face a budgetary crisis which means that they are not properly rewarded for the extra hard work that they are doing.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend my hon. Friend for introducing the debate. This is a big issue, which is why we are all here to support him. We all hear of young PSNI officers leaving to work in car dealerships and even, in one case I heard of, in Tesco, because of what was described to me as “low morale”, but in fact it is clear that the stress of working for the PSNI is not compensated enough. Many realise that the negligible pay is not enough and we must urgently review that. In other words, we must provide better wages to retain the quality officers that we now have.

[Ian Paisley]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. In setting the scene, I will come on to some of the detail in a moment, but he has put his finger on what police officers are being forced to do in their private lives to try to make ends meet.

Northern Ireland now has the lowest number of officers since the formation of the PSNI. I remember being on the Police Board at the time when the PSNI came into existence, and we were promised that the number of police officers would keep pace with the developing needs of the community. We reduced the service from between 12,000 and 13,000 officers right down to 7,500. Today we have between 6,700 and 6,800 officers, which frankly is not enough.

We should recognise not only that are we 800 below where New Decade, New Approach tells us that police levels should be, but that Northern Ireland’s population has risen in recent years. In fact, it has risen by 300,000 people since the Patten report recommended that police numbers should be cut from that high point. If we were doing a fair calculation, a more realistic revised figure, against the backdrop of Northern Ireland becoming a peaceful society without terrorism, would be having 8,600 police officers, given the size of our population, but that is not the case. Police officers, including young officers and probationary officers, joined the service and realised that they are being squeezed because there is an insufficient number of colleagues to do the work and they are not being properly rewarded for doing the job.

Hillsborough Families Report: National Police Response

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, which is a good one. Charters, codes and so on, in this context or any other, are only as good as their implementation. The College of Policing—particularly Chief Constable Andy Marsh, who leads it—has made it clear that implementation of the charter will be a topic in training across all 43 police forces. Moreover, I expect His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services to ensure it looks at that when it conducts its regular PEEL—police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy—inspections. I would be happy to raise the matter next time I see Andy Cooke, the chief inspector, to make sure that he is keeping an eye on the issue. The hon. Lady raises a very good point, and I will take it away.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne), as always, and others in this Chamber who have consistently brought this matter to the fore. No words and no amount of money can bring back a loved one or soothe the grief of loss, but the Minister will know that full accountability and openness can help some people to move on. Does he really believe that is being achieved? Will he consider implementing and legislating on the proposals in the 2017 Jones report as a signal that changes will be made to prevent this from ever happening again?

[Chris Philp]

Closure for victims’ families through openness is critical. The bishop’s report was an important part of that, as were the various inquiries that happened in the aftermath; we will respond in full. There were, I think, 25 points of learning, some of which address the issues that the hon. Gentleman has quite rightly spoken about. When we respond in full to the bishop’s report, those issues will be addressed.

In closing, I repeat that I want to see this happen as quickly as possible. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have made very clear the House’s expectation that it will happen as quickly as possible. I will make sure that it is my duty to ensure that it does.