Women’s Suffrage Centenary Fund

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

On the last point, the Government will certainly think about how they can celebrate the role of women both in Parliament and, more broadly, in public life. On the small grants fund, the noble Baroness is absolutely right that people have not heard yet, but they will do very soon.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, given the quite magnificent array of women artists in this country—painters, sculptors, writers and, of course, composers—might it not be appropriate to commission a memorial to Emily Davison, who took her suffragette protest to the Derby and was killed by the King’s horse, having hid here the previous night in a cupboard in the undercroft?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that Emily Davison is certainly a woman to be celebrated. However, on the funding of statues of some of the great women who have taken part in women’s suffrage over the last 100 years, it should not be a case of either/or. There are too few statues commemorating the women who have helped to shape our nation. We welcome the efforts of all charities and campaigners who are actively involved in this process.

Policing and Crime Bill

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 30th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)]

My Lords, I whole- heartedly support the amendment. It seems to me that the arguments that have been adduced are utterly overwhelming. The current situation is restrictive, and unnecessarily so. I was greatly impressed by what one might call the testimony of my noble friend Lord Blair, who speaks with an abundance of authority and experience on this matter. It is a nonsense to cling to the present restrictions, which are wholly unjustified. Everything that I saw in the 25 or so years that I served as a judge and a recorder supports that.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, listening to this debate, I found myself wondering, like the noble Lord, Lord Harris, exactly what the Government were hoping to achieve. To be generous, I imagine that they were trying to assist with the rights of the defendant as well as help the police. I can understand if that was the aim but, from what we have heard, neither of those objectives will be secured in this way. Therefore, I hope that the noble Baroness will be able to give a positive reply and that perhaps the Government will put forward their own amendments, as my noble friend Lord Blair suggested.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, in moving Amendment 108A, has made a compelling case. No one wants anybody to be on pre-charge bail any longer than is absolutely necessary. Her amendments seek to take account of the realities on the ground in local police forces, and the Government should accept them and the flexibility that they offer to police forces. She gave detailed figures to support her argument, and my noble friends Lord Bach and Lord Harris of Haringey spoke about the realities on the ground and the risk of a significant burden on police forces.

We should of course set the number of days that an individual can be on pre-charge bail before the matter is reconsidered at a maximum that is necessary, reasonable and proportionate. There should not be a target date, which in the majority of cases will not be met. The noble Baroness suggests in her Amendment 109 that 56 rather than 28 days is a more realistic target to work towards. There appears to be little to be gained from bringing people back only to be rebailed because the inquiries have not been completed—often, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Blair, and my noble friend Lord Harris, because other agencies have not completed their work on behalf of the police within 28 days.

Amendment 115, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, would place a duty on the Secretary of State to commission, two years after the passing of this Bill, a report on the impact of the 28 days. That strikes me as a very wise thing to do and I hope that the Government will accept it. We want to ensure that Parliament and Government are informed with proper data before coming to a decision.

Amendment 116 in this group, which has not yet been referred to, is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford. It responds to the case made by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, who is not in his place at the moment. The Government listened to that case and I welcome the fact that they have put forward an amendment today.

Policing and Crime Bill

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - part one): House of Lords
Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I, of course, defer to the extensive knowledge of the noble Lord, who was born many decades before the Taser was invented. He is right that of course there are alternative methods, but pinning somebody against a wall and pushing them hard and repeatedly with a NATO shield is also a fairly violent response. We are not talking about nice situations; we are talking about a situation where something major in terms of an intervention is needed to save somebody’s life. Under those circumstances, I think a blanket proscription which says you must not use a Taser is a mistake.

There are also questions about why this amendment refers simply to mental health wards. There are violent incidents every night in accident and emergency departments. Are we saying that we would permit the use of a Taser in an incident in an accident and emergency department, but if exactly the same incident occurred in a mental health ward that would not be the case? The noble Baroness may actually be saying that Tasers should not be used at all. That is fine—it is a perfectly legitimate argument, and there is a debate to be had, but it seems a strange anomaly to make a distinction between one type of hospital ward and another.

The issue that has to be addressed is why so many incidents get out of hand in mental health wards. If that can be resolved—and I suspect it will mean staffing and may mean improved training and a lot of de-escalation—concern about the sheer number of times the police are called out to incidents of this sort would be diminished. The fact is that that is the problem, and that is the problem that must be addressed. A blanket ban on Tasers does not solve that problem; it just creates other problems, which is unsatisfactory.

The noble Baroness also referred to the overuse of Tasers elsewhere in the community, the probable discrimination and the fact that black people are more likely to be tasered than others. That is a real concern. I am aware that in London, at least, the mayor’s office requires that on every single occasion that a Taser is drawn, an individual is red-dotted when a Taser is pointed at them or a Taser is discharged, the circumstances are recorded and it is reported to the Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime. I assume that the Minister has those figures to hand. It would be very interesting to know—it is quite a substantial number of cases. It is also interesting that often the mere act of red-dotting an individual—pointing the Taser at them—is enough to de-escalate the situation without discharge. It would be interesting to know whether those statistics tell us in how many instances Tasers were used in a mental health ward. I assume that the detail that is collected would enable that; I hope it does. It is certainly important that whenever a Taser or any other force is used, it should be properly recorded together with the circumstances and the ethnicity of the person against whom it was used. I understand that that is included in guidelines which are emerging from the College of Policing. I strongly welcome them because that will enable us to have a baseline to be able to see what is happening and to deal with issues where there is discrimination or overuse of force under whatever circumstances. By “overuse of force”, I do not mean just Tasers; I mean all forms of force.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I do not think any noble Lord wishes to see Tasers used in hospital settings except under the most extreme circumstances. However, I am very persuaded by what I have heard from other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Dear. I would like to put the position slightly from the point of view of the patient. When I was a young man, I had quite a lot of experience of psychiatric wards—not, I hasten to add, as an inmate—and they can be terrifying places of extreme violence.

This amendment would mean that police officers could not use a Taser. I can foresee circumstances where somebody gets hold of a kitchen knife, for example, and is in a volatile state—the kind of volatile state that people who have not seen this kind of mania find hard to imagine. It is truly terrifying. We have to give some credit to people who are managing the situation. Given the information we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, I would like to think that the police are acting responsibly, so we have to assume that somebody assesses the situation and decrees that it is so dangerous that the best way of not harming the mental patient any further is to use a Taser. I really cannot see how we could stop the police having that possibility at their disposal.

My concern is very much from the point of view of the patient, but there are occasions when a Taser just might be in the best interests of the patient.

[Lord Ouseley (CB)]

My Lords, as a signatory to this amendment, I certainly do not think that it is as crazy as it seems. I certainly support the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. She has very eloquently put forward the reasons why the amendment should be supported. I never felt that the amendment would be accepted, for the very reasons that noble Lords have given in speaking against it—and I understand why they said what they said. It is almost out of desperation that an amendment like this appears. Noble Lords have already mentioned the issue that has led to it: the desperation among people working with black and minority communities in such situations. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, mentioned the Care Quality Commission overseeing the way in which the police are involved in such settings and the way in which the Taser has become not just a weapon to stun—which might be necessary in such dangerous situations—but a weapon that has led to fatalities. Those organisations such as Black Mental Health UK that have been raising these issues for the last few years are concerned that no one seems to be listening.

Mental health is in crisis, and you cannot see this amendment in isolation from the other amendments that have been put forward, many of them by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, today. That package of improvements, alongside the improvements that are set out in the Bill, would hopefully get us to a stage that might minimise the need for Tasers to be used in the desperate situations that occur and require intervention. With the number of call-outs that are being made to the police, out of the desperation of staff who cannot cope, the police service is almost becoming an auxiliary to the mental health services in some areas. Part of what has to happen is that we address the deficiencies that exist, including in the quality and number of staff. An amendment such as this brings attention to the problem and brings our concerns to the fore about how we care for desperate people who require health professionals and as far as possible provide them with the care, protection and safety that they need—staff as well as patients. If we had got that right, we would not have put down an amendment such as this, which is one of sheer desperation.

Other amendments are important to improve the service to get us to the point where we would not have to say this. If we had before us all the information that has been asked for by Members tonight, it would enable us to see exactly what the scale of the problem is—rather than it being sensationalised in a way that may not actually be the case—and would guide us towards a sensible situation. As a last resort and in an emergency, police officers called to and deployed in such situations may have to use a Taser. It should not, because of creep, become something that causes as much concern as it does, but the reality of the use of Tasers in everyday policing and of the discrimination that is inflicted on black and minority-ethnic communities means that this is a real concern which we must address.

Female Genital Mutilation

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they intend to take in the light of NHS statistics showing that in 2015 over 1,000 cases of female genital mutilation were reported every three months and the lack of any successful prosecutions to date.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, in 2003 the late Ruth Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, introduced the Bill making female genital mutilation illegal. To date, there has not been a single successful prosecution—a fact made all the more shocking, seemingly, by NHS statistics showing that, in 2015, over 1,000 cases were reported in each three-month period. Are the Government surprised by these figures and how are they reacting to them?

I say “seemingly”, because NGOs have told me that they are not surprised; it is what they have known for some time. Furthermore, the figures revealed some worrying facts: there was some evidence of girls mutilated here in the UK and GPs do not appear to have been involved with the issue as much as they might be in some areas. They could do more to advertise the dangers as, for example, they do in their surgeries about diabetes or heart disease.

The need for a national action plan is paramount. What has happened to the 2014 draft? We are behind practically every other EU country; even countries with far less widespread problems have implemented action plans, including Ireland and Scotland. The NGOs are there and they would love to work more closely with the Government. Of course, progress has been made. The mere fact that we have these NHS statistics, appalling though they are, is a huge leap forward.

There has also been a strong emphasis on education. This has to be the way to secure a change of attitude within these communities, where FGM is normally not to be questioned. This issue is almost always spoken of in terms of women but, vitally, we must target men as well for it is in their name that FGM continues. This is an area to which we could usefully devote more time and resources. Girls are told that men will not want to marry them if they cannot be seen to be pure or if they are in danger of realising sexual desire. Obviously, men need to take a lead in this area.

Of course, prosecution is important, and I will come on to this, but prevention is even more important. The UK is starting to provide a talking point for young girls who are beginning to say no. I have been deeply moved by the testimony of women who have been cut, speaking of their experience—for example, on “Woman’s Hour” and at the University of Warwick—with great dignity, telling not only of their medical and psychological wounds but of their hope and determination not to allow their daughters to go through this ordeal.

Several charities are doing sterling work in sub-Saharan Africa to get men and women talking about and questioning FGM. Here in the UK, local government, in the form of the National FGM Centre, has had considerable success in places such as Newham and Bristol in getting skilled and dedicated social workers to shift attitudes in areas where women and girls are vulnerable. The charity FORWARD is an African diaspora women’s campaign and support organisation. It has been working tirelessly to end FGM in the UK for more than 20 years. I pay tribute to it, to Men Speak Out, which works throughout Europe to engage men in the process of ending FGM, and Equality Now, which attempts to bypass the cultural barriers by framing them within the context of violence done to women and girls. So there is hope, and another reason for securing this debate is to keep the subject aired and current. Many experts and victims believe it is crucial that the word of mouth is that FGM is no longer acceptable and that girls and mothers in this country can and should resist it. It will take time. Deep-seated cultural traditions are not changed overnight.

There are in the Chamber today distinguished members of the medical profession who can attest to the effects of FGM with far more authority than I can. But FGM is child abuse and its implementation is torturous, causing lifelong grievous bodily harm. That is reflected in sentences that the courts could hand out if they were ever to get to deal with a conviction; 14 years in prison awaits anyone convicted of carrying out FGM.

These mutilations are frequently performed by people with no medical training in unhygienic surroundings, using old razor blades or broken glass. My noble friend Lady Cox deeply regrets that she cannot be in her seat. She has witnessed examples of this terrible damage on her journeys around the world. As she says, there is no anaesthetic and the results often lead to sepsis. The actual degree of cutting varies but it can range from the attempted excision of the clitoris to deny the victim sexual pleasure or desire to the cutting off of the labia, both minor and major, and the sewing up of the skin across the vaginal opening, leaving only a tiny hole for natural functions. I apologise to noble Lords for the graphic nature of this but it is important that we never lose sight of the quite terrible pain and damage inflicted.

In the UK, 60,000 girls are thought to be at risk. I have a few more statistics: 137,000 girls and women in the United Kingdom are living with the consequences of FGM. Many of these, it must be said, were cut outside the UK before arriving here. More than 130 million girls and women worldwide have undergone FGM. It is practised in more than 29 countries.

Religious leaders all over the world and of virtually every persuasion have continually stated that there are no doctrinal reasons whatever to justify or encourage FGM. So it is worrying that an Indian Muslim sect, Dawoodi Bohra, which has several thousand followers in the UK, has been encouraged to practise its form of FGM—khatna—by its leader, Mufaddal Saifuddin. His senior representative, a Mr Vaziri, has just been sentenced to 11 months in prison by an Australian court for his part in trying to cover up acts of FGM. The mother of the girls in question has been sentenced to 11 months’ home detention for allowing her two daughters to be harmed, as has the midwife who mutilated the girls. The judge made it clear that Australia was sending a message that it simply would not tolerate this abhorrent practice. If Australia can achieve success in prosecution, why cannot we?

Will the Minister make it absolutely clear, as set out in law, that should anyone encourage others to practise FGM they would be committing a criminal offence? We need to fire this shot across the bows of groups such as Dawoodi Bohra, so that their members are in absolutely no doubt about the grievous consequences of such actions. The one recent prosecution which the CPS mounted sadly failed—or perhaps not sadly, because it was regarded by many in the legal and medical professions as flawed from the outset.

The Government have made it clear on previous occasions that they do not believe in mandatory examination as in France, where many successful prosecutions have been obtained. The Minister will probably repeat this view but, on the other hand, we simply cannot avoid the issue of prosecution while girls in this country are being cut and in danger of being cut. I have a suggestion involving limited and targeted examination, given the 2015 NHS reports of FGM, which have to be reported to the police. I would be grateful if the Minister could give us, if he knows, an indication of what steps the police have already taken as a result of these cases. Among the many thousands of referrals, there must be some leads on which they could act, so here surely is an opportunity to gain convictions. After all, if the police have reports of drug dealing, for example, they get a search warrant. They will question or observe known acquaintances and build up a case. Might not these NHS reports provide fertile ground for the Government to consider targeted mandatory examinations, where reports reveal a hotspot of activity? We know that there are such, for example in London.

I am deeply grateful to the noble Lords who are taking the trouble to speak in this debate. I believe passionately that it is our duty to keep this awful practice under scrutiny and make it clear that in this country, we will pursue with the full force of the law those who encourage or practise the mutilation of young girls, thus damaging their capacity to lead their lives as young women to the full and to hamper seriously their prospects of conceiving and giving birth to healthy children.

Asylum Support (Amendment No. 3) Regulations 2015

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I will just add something very briefly to that. I was extremely disturbed personally by what happened in this House yesterday: my heart was very much with a lot of the opposition amendments but my brain said that I should observe the conventions I signed up to when I joined this House in 2013, although we can all interpret those in different ways. However, in the light of that, I say to the Government that there is a limit to how much one can feel pushed, to a certain extent, in relation to humanitarian concerns. I look to the Minister to show the human face of this Government. We have heard some very disturbing facts, and I want to be reassured that this Government are a humanitarian Government —as they have often boasted they are and as I believe is essentially the case—and do care about these issues and about people who are clearly suffering.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for their Motions and all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. It has been a very difficult debate to listen to from the Front Bench. There is no mistake about that. I preface my remarks by saying that I am acutely aware that we are talking here about some of the most vulnerable people—not just in the country but on the planet—who have sought refuge in this country. I have no qualms about that at all. Nor do I for one minute suggest that the sums that we are talking about are anything other than the amounts required to meet the essential living needs of individuals. That reflects a level which is barely above the level of destitution as we would define it. I preface my comments with those remarks.

There have been a number of incredibly thoughtful and powerful speeches, and I have here a large number of responses from my officials. Time may not permit me to move all the way through them, but I do want to address some elements. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, and several other noble Lords including the noble Lord, Lord Alton, talked about the people who come to this country seeking asylum, their background, where they come from—Eritrea and other different places—and the journeys that they have been on to reach here. What greets them on arrival here with their desire to claim asylum?

First, as has been mentioned, they will be given somewhere furnished to live. It will be equipped with bed linen, towels and kitchen utensils. It will be covered for repairs and will have its utility bills—electricity, gas and water—and council tax all paid for. They will get that £36.95 to cover food, clothing and toiletries. They will get additional help, if they are pregnant, of £3 per week. If they have a baby under the age of one, they will get £5 per week; for a child aged one to three, £3 per week. They will get a one-off £300 maternity payment if the baby is due within eight weeks. They will get access to the National Health Service, free prescriptions for medicine, free dental care, free eye tests and help with paying for glasses. They will get access to the education system and free school meals.

I want to put that down because it may all seem obvious, but I want to put it on record that I understand—I totally get it—that this country has a proud record of offering a helping hand to those people who come here seeking asylum, and I want to make it absolutely clear that there is a level of support which is there and is to provide them with safety and a base from which they can begin their appeal. They will also have access to Migrant Help, a fund of about £400 million per year which goes towards providing asylum support in this country. Migrant Help will get alongside people and advise them of their needs. Providing they pass the merits test, they will also have access to legal aid and legal advice to help them to prepare their case and work their way through what must be a daunting process. Also, as the noble Baroness mentioned, they will have access to language training.

This is all seen in the context of what should be a temporary situation. For far too long, it was the case that people were in a sense parked on these benefits and lived in great hardship for a long period of time. One of the things which we want to make absolutely clear is that we want speedy decisions. In fact, we were challenged in court over this very issue of wanting quick decisions, because we think that quick decisions are in the best interest of the individuals concerned, and where they are granted leave to remain in this country and granted asylum, they have access to the full range of benefits and they will be able to work—a point made by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. The speed of decision-making is absolutely critical.

Then we come to the point about the absolute cash sums. I preface this by stating that I know that these would not be called generous. They were linked to the system of income support that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, talked about. That situation changed in 2008 and we moved on to the system that we have now. That was the subject of a challenge by Refugee Action referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. This really went to town in challenging the methodology that we were using. Far from disregarding this and not being mindful of it, we set about undertaking a revision of the methodology. Everything that we have set out here is driven by that new methodology, looking at the things that needed to be taken into account and trying to put a price on them. On the basis of undertaking that revised methodology, not in contravention of but in compliance with that legal judgment, we have arrived at a position, with data from ONS and other sources, that because of economies of scale, the argument for providing an additional premium for children is no longer there. They can meet essential living needs through the economies of scale of a family living together.

I know that we are talking about vulnerable people. I know that we are talking about people who are hovering precariously above the line of destitution, with all sorts of pressures on their mind. However, those of us who have had families would all recognise that, if you are cooking a meal for four, it is less expensive per unit than if you are providing food for one. I do not want to go too far down that road, other than to say that it is on that basis that officials checked the methodology against the court’s basket of measures.

I am aware that there were a number of specific questions. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked two very specific questions in relation to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, and the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, also mentioned it. I wanted to say this in the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, who was here a moment ago, but I fully recognise that this was hardly textbook behaviour in terms of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. That is a point which I have made in person, having gone to see the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne. We did not just ignore the committee. I actually provided a response to the judgment. James Brokenshire provided a response to the judgment. That is contained in the report of the Secondary Legislation Committee. Moreover, the additional material that was required, to say how we had arrived at the judgment and what the impact of it would be, was provided in the appendix, along with a copy of the letter to the National Asylum Stakeholder Forum. Those things were provided but I accept that it was not textbook. I really made a thing with officials of wanting to make sure that we improve our game in making sure that Parliament has the right opportunity to scrutinise these very important instruments and pieces of legislation, especially when they involve a significant change.

Of course, one of the difficulties was that we had a general election in the middle of the arrangements. That made it much more difficult and it meant that, for the regulations to come into force on 10 August, they needed to be announced 21 days in advance, which is the requirement. That is why they were laid on 16 July. Then of course they lay before Parliament to be prayed against for a period of 40 days, which is what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has taken advantage of.

I have tried to set out that there is a substantial basis of support for asylum seekers. We recognise that they are vulnerable. These cash payments need to be seen in the context of that wider support. When people question whether the cash sums are below the poverty line—we were talking about what poverty was in terms of 60% of median earnings—we need to remember that that is in cash terms. But we are talking here not about that but about all the other things: the homes fully furnished; the repairs already paid for; all the utilities bills paid; all the council tax paid; and all the healthcare paid. All of that is there.

Modern Slavery Act 2015 (Transparency in Supply Chains) Regulations 2015

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I wonder if I could add to that, because it is part of the same question. I am sure that the Minister does not mean it in this way, but the more it is said that this is not a matter for government, the more one worries about how the Home Secretary is going to fulfil her duties in keeping the matter under review if she does not have that facility available to her. The information is very much a matter for government and therefore the Government must have an interest in ensuring that it is easily accessible.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

In order to save the Minister from popping up and down like a jack-in-the-box, perhaps I may add one point which may help my noble friend Lord Alton. If by civil society one were able to define that by ruling out commercial interests, that would go a long way towards meeting the point being made.

[Lord Bates]

I am grateful for all those points. Let us remember that as this Act went through we debated whether it should be a statutory responsibility to do this or whether it should be something on which the Government should take the lead. The Act has come through in its present form. I hear the voices saying that all these points are needed. If an organisation does not file its statement on its website for the financial year, on or after 31 March, there are remedies set out in the Act as to what can happen as a result of that. Therefore, this is a very serious statement, but it is an added tool for people to use.

For example, many times we have seen stories in the press about practices in the supply chains of organisations. Now, to go along with those investigations in the press, there would be an ability for them to say, “Well, of course, this is what the said company said on its own website about its supply chain”. People can then draw an additional conclusion from that statement.

We are moving further down this route. These are early days and we will need to see how it comes about. Guidance will be published, on which we have consulted extensively. It will provide further information about what should be done and how it should be presented. However, we are where we said we would be when we passed the Act and we should allow these regulations to come into force so that it can be seen to work and can be evaluated after a period of examination. I beg to move.

Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, I briefly want to say that this is a real sea-change in attitude. I am delighted to hear the Opposition Front Bench because I have, in the past, argued with Ministers on other Benches who could not see the point of changing the word “prostitution” because they said that a crime was still being committed. Everyone now has understood that the language changes the attitude to the child and we are now really seeing children as victims. I am enormously grateful for this sea-change. It will change the way in which young people and children are dealt with. We know that the police have had a huge change in attitude in the way in which they work with these young people. The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children, which looked at working with the police, heard from them on numerous occasions how helpful it would be if we perceived children as victims and no longer as perpetrators of crimes in this sexual area. I am immensely grateful to the Government for this work.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s move in this direction whereby children are regarded as victims. We all know that a 14 year-old can be manipulative, but the important point about these amendments is that they put the onus on the adult not to transgress. In other words, they must make sure that they are not committing a crime and I am sure that this is what the Government wish to see. Putting the onus on to adults who get into correspondence with children is an extremely good move.

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the contributions made in this short debate, particularly those made by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. She is right about what is happening here. In some ways, the language needs to catch up with the change in attitudes in society, as was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth. We need to do that catching up, but the law also needs to catch up with the technology, as was pointed out by the noble Baroness. We talk about this applying equally online and offline, because sadly we know that more often than not the engagements of these communications have been in an online community, where the perpetrator is not visible. It is therefore absolutely right, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that we should ensure that responsibility rests with the person who is making that initial contact.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, questioned the use of the term,

“offers or provides sexual services”,

in Commons Amendment 4. I have some sympathy with the comments she made, but in amending the Sexual Offences Act we sought to avoid changing the ambit of the relevant offences. The existing wording achieves this objective. I should stress that the wording,

“offers or provides sexual services”,

is used to define the term “sexually exploited” and should be read in that context. With those reassurances, and appreciative of that welcome, I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Bates, knows, I have taken a great interest in this subject. I am in favour of the Government taking every action they can, but having listened to my noble friends on these Benches, I have to say that we should row back from this new clause. As I listened to my noble friend Lord Patel, I could imagine the circumstances of a seriously ill child whose parents knew that if they took her to a hospital and she was examined, they would be putting themselves at risk. As we have heard, we could be creating an even worse situation. We have to try to seize the whole problem of FGM, but it must be done at an earlier stage. I have suggested before that if there is to be anything mandatory, perhaps it must be examination at a much earlier stage, but that is another matter.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I found this quite extraordinary when I read about it in the newspapers. That is not because I do not think that the Government should be taking a strong line—I admire that—and not because we need to take action against FGM—many of us have spoken about it—but because we had an in-depth debate in which the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and I held slightly different views about mandatory reporting. When we looked at mandatory reporting in its broader sense, it was clear that the differences between us were all about unintended consequences and not having thought through the issue from beginning to end. I was under the impression that mandatory reporting was to be taken away and there would be an in-depth look at the issue with a different sort of consultation, after which we would come at it again. FGM is at the most complicated end of mandatory reporting, as we have heard from my noble friends, so I had assumed that it would be included in that further debate. I am surprised that the provision has been brought forward in this way, even though most of us would want any possible action taken to prevent FGM.

My final point is that this clause cuts across the basic principle that the child’s needs are paramount, something which is repeated in all our children’s legislation. Here, the child’s needs are no longer paramount—the community wish to take action becomes paramount. I hope that this will be taken away and looked at again in relation to the arguments which have been made.

Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister will know that I have spoken on this subject several times in the House and asked Questions on it.

Female genital mutilation is one of the most shocking things that is happening in our society. I would very much like to endorse the words of my noble friends and anything that brings home to the general public the seriousness of this offence. At this very moment, in our country young girls are having their genitals mutilated. It is the most appalling thought. Anything that can be done to strengthen the law; anything that can make people realise how very seriously the Government take this issue, which I know they do; anything that can be done should be done.

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to add my support for this amendment and perhaps add a story of my own. This is not a new issue. As long ago as the 1990s, I made a television programme exposing the practice of female genital mutilation, which went out in prime time on BBC television’s first channel, BBC1. It was quite explicit and voiced the alarm of Somali women themselves, who explained to me that the perpetuation of this practice resided with the grandmothers in their community who felt that what was good enough for them should be imposed on their children. It was the mothers who remembered their own experience who were eager to have that change for their children. It has not yet happened. Getting this accepted is a disgraceful slow process.

The explanation lies in the fact that, in the 1990s, we were very aware of multiculturalism and the need to respect other cultures. It beggars belief now, but at the time we felt that, if that was their culture and their tradition, then so be it; we felt that we were not in a position to feel superior. We have come a long way, but we have not come far enough. It is time to press forward with this and not to go on talking about it.

Hillsborough

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My own commitment to freedom of information is that I am the Minister responsible for freedom of information within the Home Office, and I take that role very seriously. Noble Lords will understand that there are sometimes genuine conflicts between a wish to be transparent and open and to put material in the public domain and the efficient achievement of justice, with the impartiality of evidence. Premature revelation of facts that perhaps should not be revealed might pose threats to the admissibility of evidence.

I understand totally where the noble Lord is coming from and acknowledge the importance of the Freedom of Information Act, which I would like to believe has enhanced public life. However, there are occasions when perhaps it is unwise to challenge decisions made in good faith. I will certainly report the matter back to the Home Secretary. As I say, I am meeting her this afternoon, and I shall report back on the question that the noble Lord asked.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

I congratulate the Government and express my sympathy to the families involved. There is one other wider point of importance that comes out of this, which the Minister touched on. I wonder whether he would agree with me that even since Hillsborough and with the lessons that we have learnt, many people distrust bodies investigating themselves and other bodies investigating bodies that are only remotely removed from them. If one marvellous thing could come out of this it would be that, by pursuing the truth in the way the Minister has mentioned, the public might begin to get greater confidence in investigations into wrongdoing.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, makes a good point on this area of public confidence in the police, in particular. This is a policy area within the Home Office currently which we are taking very seriously. Noble Lords will know that the College of Policing has been set up. A code of ethics is part and parcel of its immediate mission statement. It is very much in the interests of a country that is dependent upon policing by consent that that consent can be given in confidence that the police are acting genuinely in the interests of the public, not of themselves. I could not agree more with what the noble Lord said.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I have always been cautious about taking the latter point that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, has made. I always appreciate the noble and learned Lord’s contributions, but just putting something on the statute book because it might work is probably not a particularly good way of going about things.

Having said that, the Government are serious about evaluating this issue. We know that it has been rather disappointing in Scotland—I think the noble and learned Lord would know that from his own experience—and I gave some illustration of that. It may not be the solution, but it is certainly a possible solution, and I urge the House to allow the Government to evaluate that in a proper fashion.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, if I may make one small point—

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I remind the House that we are on Report and that, after the Minister has spoken, unless it is a point of clarification or elucidation, normal convention is that there are no further interventions.