Rape: Criminal Prosecutions

Maria Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, if she will make a statement to the House on the incidence of rape cases not taken forward for criminal prosecution.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Victoria Atkins)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for posing this important question. Last year, in the end-to-end rape review, the Government committed to more than doubling the number of adult rape cases reaching court by the end of this Parliament. We are under no illusions about the scale of the challenge, but we are starting to see early signs of progress. More victims are reporting cases to the police. The police are referring more cases to the Crown Prosecution Service, and the CPS is charging more cases. Rape convictions are increasing: there has been a 67% increase since 2020. Timeliness is improving; the time between a charge being brought and cases being completed continues to fall—it is down five weeks since the peak in June last year.

That is encouraging, but it is just the start. That is why we have identified eight levers that are driving the change. First, we are increasing victim support. We have quadrupled the funding for victim support since Labour was in power—it will rise to £192 million by 2024-25—and we are increasing the number of independent sexual and domestic violence advisers to more than 1,000 by 2024-25.

Secondly, we are rolling out pre-recorded cross-examination for rape victims to all Crown courts nationally. That will help to prevent more victims from being retraumatised by the experience of giving evidence in a live trial. Thirdly, suspect-focused investigations—this is known as Operation Soteria—are being rolled out nationally. That will be completed in the first half of next year, and it will mean that the police focus on the suspect’s behaviour, rather than on the victim’s credibility. Fourthly, we have reformed and clarified disclosure rules, and are working with the police to make sure that victims’ mobile phones are examined only where strictly necessary.

Fifthly, we are reducing the stress of intrusive requests for third-party information—for example, medical or social services records—and are working with the police and the CPS on ensuring that they are gathered only when relevant. Sixthly, we are boosting capacity and capability by increasing the ranks of our police and the number of specialist rape and sexual offences roles in the CPS. Seventhly, our efforts to expand Crown court capacity will continue with a £477 million investment over the next three years to reduce victims’ waiting time for trials. Eighthly, our criminal justice system delivery data dashboard is increasing transparency and giving Government and local leaders the information that they need in order to do better for victims.

We are going even further than the commitments that we made in the rape review, because we have listened to victims and those who work with them. We recently announced a pilot of enhanced specialist sexual violence support in three Crown court centres. This Government are on the side of victims. We want no rape victim to feel as though they are the one on trial. We want every rape victim to feel that they can come forward and seek support. We want to lock up the rapists who commit these abhorrent crimes. We want to protect the public. We will make our streets safer.

[Dame Maria Miller]

I thank my hon. Friend for her reply, for coming to the House to set out the additional measures that the Government are putting in place, and for allowing hon. Members to probe the effectiveness of those measures and what is being done to address the unacceptable decline in rape prosecutions in recent years.

The figures show that more than 67,000 rapes have been reported—the highest figure on record, but probably still only the tip of the iceberg. Despite the measures that my hon. Friend has announced, victims still face the trauma of knowing, when they report, that in the past, police, court staff and many others have not been properly trained to support victims—hence the high drop-out rate among victims taking cases forward. The measures that my hon. Friend has introduced will start to help, but rebuilding trust with victims cannot be done overnight. That is why it is so important that Ministers talk about the measures that they are introducing and come to this House to enable us to inquire about their effectiveness.

The Government’s independent adviser on the rape review said recently that

“no one involved thinks where we are is good enough—because it is not even remotely good enough”.

She said that a year on, we are

“doing better, but still pushing further.”

By coming to the House today, the Minister is enabling hon. Members to hear more fully what she and other Ministers are doing to rebuild trust among victims and, importantly, to deliver the Government’s ambition to double the number of rape cases that reach the courts by the end of this Parliament—an ambitious plan on which we need to hold the Government’s feet to the fire.

[Victoria Atkins]

I sincerely thank my right hon. Friend for asking this urgent question. She is absolutely right to identify the need to rebuild trust in the system among victims. The golden thread that runs through all our work is non-defensive transparency. That is why, in our forensic examination of each stage of the criminal justice system, we are working with the police, the CPS, the judiciary, as constitutionally appropriate, and all the agencies, as well as the vital victim support charities and agencies. We are working together so that at each and every stage we can measure the impact of our efforts and try to communicate it to victims.

I understand that people want us to do more and go faster, and that they want to see improvements. However, I ask colleagues across the House to please bear in mind that what we say in this place has a resonance with victims. We must ensure that we are being accurate about progress when it is happening, so that we encourage victims to come forward, and so that they know that change is happening in the system.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Maria Miller Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

I am conscious of time, you will be glad to hear, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I have kept my points very brief and I will save my main points for group 3, but I will briefly voice my disappointment and dismay at the undemocratic way in which the Government have amended this mammoth piece of legislation. Eleventh-hour amendments introduced in the House of Lords were thankfully defeated in a very public and, I am sure, embarrassing way for the Government. That should never have happened, and I pay tribute to those in the Lords who opposed them. This place is here for a reason. We are here for a reason. It is not for the Government to bypass the scrutiny that this place provides. I have received hundreds of emails from concerned constituents that their rights are being steamrollered by behaviour like that.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I think, listening objectively to today’s debate, there is an enormous level of agreement on both sides of the House that there is a job of work to be done to protect women against abuse, and that there are different options for how we might achieve that. That is the point at debate: what we do, not whether we need to do something. That is really important to acknowledge. I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for his opening explanation of the resistance particularly to amendment 72, and I commend my near neighbour in Hampshire, my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, for her excellent and impassioned speech on why we need to do more.

The Lords amendments show that more can be done. Lords amendments 13 and 57 show that the Government can continue to be pressed to do more on these important issues. I am glad to see that they are doing more to extend serious violence duties to include domestic abuse and sex offenders. Lords amendment 57 extending the time limit in the way that it does will significantly help. The real issue is, if we want to tackle the issue of sexual harassment and the abuse of women, how do we do that most effectively? I think Amendment 72 has been looked at in detail by the Law Commission, which has been looking at the issues since 2018. There is, I am afraid to say, widespread support for the Government’s thesis that this is not the right way to tackle the problem.

The Law Commission is very clear that there is demonstrable need for additional law when it comes to supporting and protecting women and girls, and that there is more than ample evidence of the harm that is done. Its real concern is how we tackle this in practice. We have to listen very carefully; otherwise, we risk undoing the good work that has been done. The need for additional law is not under debate; it is the form that that law takes. Sometimes we just have to take a moment, and I think that this is a case in point. We cannot just say, “Something must be done.” We have to ensure that we are doing the right thing. We have to accept the role of the Law Commission in helping us to make law that works in practice. It does not see misogyny being a hate crime as the way to solve the problem that has been so eloquently outlined by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Its concern is not because of a lack of understanding of the problem; it is whether the change that is being proposed will work in practice.

Although I listened very carefully to the interventions of the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), it concerns me that the solution that is being put forward involves carve-outs for domestic violence and sexual offences, which could in a way suggest, or give people ammunition to say, that those issues are not as connected with misogyny as I am frankly sure that most Members of this House would agree that they are. The concern is not about being able to prove that a crime was motivated by hostility to gender—a point made by the CPS and Rape Crisis. In particular, Rape Crisis said that such an approach would make trials even more complex—an issue brought out by an hon. Member earlier. I also fear trial juries being asked to navigate questions around gender-based hate crime, which frankly we in this House find very difficult to navigate our minds around—all of this leaving people very confused.

I really hope that the Minister, although he may not be able to go much further today, can very shortly tell us much more about what he will be doing on issues that the Women and Equalities Committee has been looking at for more than five years. We did Select Committee reports on sexual harassment in schools back in 2015, in universities, in public spaces, online and in the workplace. This is not a new issue; this has been an issue looked at not only by the Law Commission but by the Select Committee for well over six or seven years. It would be disappointing if the Government were coming back now to say that they will be taking further the idea of public sexual harassment, as if it were a new notion that had just emerged from the ether. It is something that many of us have been looking at, and calling for it to be tackled more effectively, for a number of years.

Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Minister can, when he sums up, indicate in a little more detail how he intends to take forward what I think will be a sensible way of trying to tackle the issue that has been so eloquently talked about in today’s debate. Adding sex or gender into hate crime law may not be the way to tackle things, but there is extensive evidence of how the harm disproportionately impacts women, especially online. The Government have a VAWG strategy, and today they are launching a communications strategy, but too many of us still see deficits in the law when it comes to sexual harassment. There needs to be more focus on prevention by demonstrating across the board that sexual harassment towards women, in the same way that my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North talked about, is a crime that is utterly unacceptable whenever it occurs, at any stage of our lives. Until we get to that stage, all of us will be calling on the Government to take more action.

[Stella Creasy]

I will start, because I have had an unintended hiatus from being in the Chamber as a result of having to breastfeed a child, by welcoming the Government’s commitment to amendment 56. It is a cross-party amendment, and I pay tribute to Lord Pannick and Baroness Hayman for the work that they did in the House of Lords on it, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith), who also led on it, and above all to Julia Cooper, who was a much braver woman than me. I experienced someone taking a photograph of me breastfeeding my child without my permission. She did too, but she challenged the person and went to the police. The police said that there was no protection for her. She started a petition. She took that voice and has turned it into this legislation. We should all be grateful for a woman like that, who stood up.

What Julia faced is what we are also here tonight to talk about on amendment 72. I certainly hope that the Minister, who has come to the debate rather late but I appreciate has come with a deep concern for women’s rights, has been talking to his colleague Lord Wolfson, whose argument against making it illegal to photograph without her consent a woman who was breastfeeding was that a man might be taking pornographic photographs of his wife on a beach and accidentally catch a woman breastfeeding in his camera lens, and that would be terrible. Of course, many of us think for some time about that husband’s discussions with his wife before we think that that is a realistic example.

Time and again on the Bill, we are told that, when it comes to women’s safety, matters are complex. It is put in the “too difficult” box. The trouble for Ministers tonight is that next week will be the anniversary of the murder of Sarah Everard. Since Sarah was murdered, we have had more deaths: the murders of Bibaa and Nicole, and of Sabina. In my constituency, I hear countless stories of violence against women. It is the fierce urgency of now that drives this piece of work. I am sure that the Minister is aware, because he has been asking us repeatedly whether we have read the report of the Law Commission, of its provenance. I was on the upskirting Bill, and the Government agreed to commit to the recommendation of the Law Commission as a result of an amendment that we tabled then, recognising that there were crimes driven by misogyny, and that that was putting women at risk.

It was time to turn the debate around—to stop telling women to keep themselves safe and providing money for lighting, because somehow it is about where they go running, and to start saying that this is about the perpetrators, and holding them to account for what they do. The challenge before the Minister is Lords amendment 72, which, again, is another cross-party effort. I pay tribute to Baroness Newlove, who is a goddess in my mind for her determination to speak up for victims, and Lord Russell, as well as my colleagues on the Government Benches who have been working to look at these issues. We are listening to the police. We are listening to the quarter of police forces that already record sex or gender when it motivates crimes, to help them catch the perpetrators. They recognise that it helps. It helps them to develop the patterns of behaviour.

I gently say to the Minister that when he says the problem is that women do not report, he needs to ask himself, as the policing Minister, not why women are not reporting, but why they do not feel they can come forward to report. It is not about the women; it is about the reporting. It is about the response they get. My colleague, the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), is absolutely right when she says that everybody knows a victim and everybody probably knows a perpetrator. Many women will have experienced sexual harassment. They will have experienced abuse online, offline and in our daily lives to such an extent that it infuses what we do: the flinch when we come out of a tube station to make sure there is nobody behind us; carrying our keys in our hands; worrying about what our daughter is wearing; and hoping that our son is not one of those people who does it.

The truth for the Minister is that the police are telling us, “Actually, we have a clear policy that helps us to identify people early on.” He is right when he talks about patterns of escalation. Many perpetrators start with what people might think of as lower-level offences. I have to tell the Minister that I have always said I will stop campaigning on this issue when I go to the wedding where the bride gets up and says, “Well, he followed me down the street demanding I get in the back of the van because he wanted to grope me and I thought it was the most romantic thing ever.” It does not happen. What does happen is that that is the daily experience for women across the country and the truth is that the Bill does not offer anything to resolve that. It does not offer anything to back the police, when they say to us that they want to capture that data.

I understand the concern raised about the carve-out and I will come on to that specifically, but we should be very clear that the first thing the amendment would do is record all that data, including domestic abuse and rape, as misogynistic, because it would help to form a pattern. When we talk to the police in the areas where they are recording it, it is not, frankly, the catcalling that people are reporting. It is serious sexual assault, violence against women, rape and abuse, because they have the confidence that the police are going to recognise it for what it is, which is serious violence.

I also say to the Minister gently that he might want to correct the record, because the Law Commission did not look at this very proposal. This proposal is based on the Bertin amendment. The Bertin amendment carves out a definition of serious sexual violence which we did not have, so by its very definition the Law Commission could not have looked at it to consider whether or not it addresses that concern. It is not that we should not record data where crimes are misogynistically motivated, but how we deal with them in sentencing. Carving these offences out does not mean that they are not misogynistic; it means we ensure that the already pitiful sentencing regime does not go any lower.

There is something crucial in the amendment about how it works with the police and the courts, and what the police are telling us in the areas where they are doing this. I see Government Members who have police who are doing it. The police want the courts to back them. They are gathering the data and using it to track perpetrators, finding them early on in their offending careers before we get to the points that people are talking about in the press. They want the courts to back them, just as they back them when it comes to hatred of someone’s skin colour or their religion.

Twenty or 30 years ago, when I was a young woman—a long time ago—there was a culture where things were said on TV and things that people said that we would now rightly recognise as racist or as religious hatred. Hate crime legislation does not just target perpetrators, but cultures. Most of all it changes the culture within the police, because the police forces that are doing this are talking about the mindset change among their members. As a Member for a local community where women have been ignored by the Met police for years, I have to say that that mindset change is something we should all desperately want, so we can recognise the danger when somebody starts following women and how that might escalate. We have all seen it in those reporting histories.

--- Later in debate ---

The carve-out ensures that sentences are not lesser. As we have said, Stephen Lawrence’s killers were not tried for a hate crime, but we all recognise the hatred that drove the crime. Carve-outs are not an unusual precedent. They exist within legislation. What the Law Commission was concerned about was how to do the carve-out. The Bertin amendment, which Lords amendment 72 is based on, answers that point.

[Mrs Miller]

I am listening very closely to what the hon. Lady is saying, but the Law Commission was very clear in saying that this would make matters so much more complex, and it worries about how that would affect securing the sort of convictions that I know the hon. Lady and I want to see.

[Stella Creasy]

I hope the right hon. Member will understand what I am saying. The Law Commission did not look at this amendment, which has learned from the Bertin amendment. [Interruption.] She shakes her head, but the Bertin amendment, which sets out explicitly the offences we would carve out, did not exist during the time of its work. One argument the Law Commission made was with regard to the difficulty of carving those offences out. The amendment builds on where a carve-out can be made.

IOPC Report on Metropolitan Police Officers' Conduct: Charing Cross Police Station

Maria Miller Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

As I am sure the Chair of the Select Committee will recognise, the advent of the pandemic meant that we had to find innovative ways to continue with our recruitment process. We are obviously reviewing them as we emerge from the pandemic, to ensure that we get them exactly right. As I explained earlier and as I am sure the right hon. Lady knows, we have commissioned a general inquiry across UK policing to look at vetting procedures to make sure that the police across the UK have consistency—because each force is responsible for its own vetting—and that that net is drawn as sharply as we possibly can to ensure that we get the right people into policing.

Critically, however, it is important that we monitor carefully how those new young police officers coming through feel and what they are being exposed to, and give them the confidence to know that where there is bad behaviour, they are able to call it out without detriment to themselves. There is not just one piece of the jigsaw; an entire machine needs to be built to ensure integrity in all police officers—to build confidence among the British people that the right people are getting into policing, that they are being maintained in policing and that, where things go wrong, corrective action can be taken quickly.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

The racism, misogyny and bullying uncovered by the report are damning, but I do not believe that it is reflective of the vast majority of our police forces, as my right hon. Friend just said. We owe it to those officers to root out this behaviour. The IOPC started its investigations four years ago, and similar investigations in Hampshire—as the Minister will know, as my near neighbour—took three years. What is my right hon. Friend doing to ensure that investigations are completed in a more reasonable timeframe, and that anonymity is not used to hide those who are involved in such heinous behaviours?

[Kit Malthouse]

My right hon. Friend is quite right that we need to ensure that inquiries are speeded up as much as possible. I hope that she will remember that, a year or so ago, we introduced reforms to the way in which the IOPC operates to push it to ever greater alacrity in its inquiries. Now, in the case of an inquiry going over 12 months, it is required to write a letter to the appropriate authority—whether that is the police and crime commissioner or me—to explain why. Often, the delay is the fault not necessarily of the IOPC, but of inquests, criminal inquiries or correspondence providing information that extends the timeframe. However, we need to know why.

As far as transparency and anonymity are concerned, I have written recently to all legally qualified chairs of disciplinary panels to say that there should be a stringent examination of whether those hearings need to be held in private or in public. It is absolutely vital for trust in policing that the British people not only know that justice is being done in a disciplinary process, but can see it too.

Cyber-flashing

Maria Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate; we all wait for the Minister’s response. She touched on the issue of a consent-based approach. That touches on the core wrong, which is that it is a non-consensual sexual act. Does she join me in urging the Minister to look at what is happening in Texas, California, New York, Virginia and Wisconsin, all of which are adopting a consent-based approach when legislating for this offence?

[Fay Jones]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. Looking through the prism of consent empowers victims and lowers the threshold for people to take this forward. Consent is extremely important. The lawful consensual sharing of images between adults is fine and appropriate if it involves free choice, but it is important to recognise when that crosses the line, and that is through consent.

To my hon. Friend’s point, a consent-based offence covers all forms of cyber-flashing, regardless of the motives of the sender. Motive requirements create an unjustified hierarchy of abuses and victims, which does not reflect victims’ experiences. Technology companies, the media, politicians and employers all have a part to play in developing policies and practices to challenge everyday sexism, structural sexism and harmful sexual behaviours.

I want to point out the work that Bumble is doing. Bumble is a dating app on which women initiate the conversation, and its ethos is around protecting those who use the app. Not only does Bumble have a one-strike-and-out policy for people who are reported for lewd activity, but it has “private detector” technology that recognises and blurs explicit images, and offers recipients the chance to view the images or block the senders. That is industry-leading technology, and I commend those at Bumble for taking that approach. They have been involved in other initiatives around the world, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke said.

I had best draw my remarks to a close because I know that we all want to hear from the Minister. It is imperative that we criminalise cyber-flashing in England and Wales as soon as possible. Every day without an offence in place means that victims are denied an effective route to justice. Let us lead the way by continuing the progress that the Government have already made, and make cyber-flashing illegal once and for all.

Sexual Misconduct in the Police

Maria Miller Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

Of course we all agree with the sentiments expressed by the right hon. and learned Member. This kind of behaviour has no place in British policing. She is right that we need to pay constant attention to the processes and products that policing has so that we can root out this behaviour and deal with it once and for all. She will know that the office of constable is a sacred and special one within our society, and certainly within our legal system. We must do all we can to protect its integrity, but at the same time recognise that even constables are owed due process, and that where complaints are made, we must have a robust system around those complaints and detecting abhorrent behaviour. Where that abhorrent behaviour is detected, the system must enable us to examine the behaviour, give a fair hearing, and then deal with those officers accordingly.

The right hon. and learned Member will know that there has been significant work in this area over the past few years following a report by the inspectorate back in 2019 that looked at the specific issue. The National Police Chiefs Council has, as I say, set up a working group in which the Home Office participates to try to strengthen these routes. The inspectorate reported then that excellent progress has been made but there was still much more to do, not least in the detection and internal reporting of these matters. I am hopeful that the inquiry, when it completes, will give us the tools we need and the work processes to pursue to enable us to make sure that the net is ever tighter in maintaining the integrity of British policing.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

We know that sexual abuse in our schools, our universities and our colleges is endemic. It is part of the culture that too many people still grow up with in our country, so little wonder it continues on into the workplace, including the police force. We have to change that culture. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the police, and indeed all employers, should stop using non-disclosure agreements to cover up allegations of unlawful behaviour at work, including sexual misconduct, and that anonymity should never be granted to protect the identity of police officers who are found guilty of sexual misconduct?

[Kit Malthouse]

I applaud the sentiments behind my right hon. Friend’s work in this area. NDAs are profoundly to be avoided. I cannot, I have to say, envisage the circumstances in which they would be used in policing, not least because, as I said earlier, following changes in the law, offences of this type have to be referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct. Decisions are therefore taken independently in terms of the investigation and the proposed sanction. The disciplinary structure around police constables, which then follows those allegations or charges, is an independent one, run by an independent panel and with an independent qualified chair who makes decisions about disclosure or otherwise regarding the case. I cannot see that an NDA would necessarily be applicable in those circumstances, but she is right to point out that they are deeply undesirable.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Maria Miller Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

To start this second Second Reading debate, I thank again the Members of both Houses who were members of the draft Bill scrutiny Committee, which I chaired a year ago. It was a Joint Committee, and I particularly thank Baroness Bertin, who was battling the symptoms of morning sickness in our early sessions. To mark the significant amount of time that has passed since our Bill Committee reported, I am pleased to tell the House that the very young Edward Louis Grist was born on 5 December and is almost five months old. General elections, Brexit and pandemics may have got in the way of the legislation, but we have a chance to put that right today.

In our extensive scrutiny of the Bill, we held seven evidence sessions. The Government have responded positively to many of the recommendations that we made because of that evidence. I welcome the Government’s decision to include in the Bill the duty on local authorities in England to provide support for victims and their children in refuges and other safe accommodation, and to provide funding to do that. I am sure Ministers will be pressed firmly in Committee on that funding promise.

At this point, I might want to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) to her place on the Front Bench. I am very glad to see that she is still there, because I seem to recall a while ago her indicating that if funding for refuges were ever made statutory, her job would be done. I am sure she would agree with me that there is much more work for both she and I to do in this area and to make sure that the Government deliver on all their important promises.

Other recommendations from the Committee that have been taken forward by the Government include the issue of the interpretation of the definition of domestic abuse. We had a long and hard debate on this, and we are particularly pleased to see that the statutory definition will be coupled with guidance, particularly on how to deal with the effects that domestic abuse has on children. There is also the fact that, overwhelmingly, this is a crime where the victims are women, and that is an important thing the Government have acknowledged. The Government have also agreed, as a result of the evidence they heard from the Committee, that there will be a mandatory ban on cross-examination of domestic abuse victims by their perpetrators in the family courts, as well as in the criminal courts. The Chairman of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), referred to that.

However, there are two outstanding issues on which I would like to press my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor. The first is making sure that we have the report from the panel considering the extension of special measures to family courts as soon as possible, and that there is no further delay on that being put in place, particularly given the current circumstances.

Secondly, and equally importantly, we must make sure that there are provisions for migrant women, and that they are made clearer by the Government not at any point in the future, but now and today, because there are currently no provisions in the Bill for migrant women facing domestic abuse, and that is not acceptable. As the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) said, a victim is a victim regardless of their immigration status, which is an important point that we should all take away from today’s debate.

The Committee recommended that a firewall be established separating the reporting of crime and access to support services from immigration control. I was alarmed to see that a recently published FOI request showed that 27 out of 45 police forces routinely share details with the Home Office if victims have insecure immigration status, so this is a live issue, which I know my right hon. and learned Friend will be very well aware of.

We meet to debate the Bill in unprecedented times, and I know from speaking to my own local domestic abuse charity in Hampshire, Stop Domestic Abuse, that there are real concerns about the potential for funding issues in relation to a spike in cases when the lockdown is lifted. I would like to take this opportunity to applaud all the work that it is doing to support my constituents. Many domestic abuse organisations are concerned about this issue, and I would like to add my voice to the support for at least part of the very generous £750 million announced by the Chancellor to be earmarked for specialist services.

The impact of this pandemic on our lives is profound, but for those living with domestic abuse it is not only the virus that is life threatening, and we need to take this opportunity today to act.

Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Bill

Maria Miller Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 12th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

My hon. Friend rightly points out the sad local connection to that appalling case last year. I know that she shares my—and indeed, I think, the whole House’s—commitment to maximum effort when it comes to protecting the public. It is clear that we must put a stop to the current arrangements whereby a dangerous terrorist can be released from prison by automatic process of law before the end of their sentence, so we must do so as quickly as possible.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the legislation that has been put before the House today. The Secretary of State is talking about resources. Will he outline any estimates he has made of the number of individuals who might be covered by this legislation so that we can perhaps understand the impact that it could have had on our police forces if those individuals had been released from prison early?

[Robert Buckland]

The number of offenders, either terrorist offenders or offenders who have committed offences with a terrorist link, is about 50. That does not sound like a large cohort, but in this particular situation of extreme gravity, we cannot afford to allow any further incidents to happen. I have spoken about the need to minimise risk; that does not mean that we can eliminate risk. That is why this emergency measure is, in my judgment and the judgment of the Government, absolutely necessary if we are to meet the concerns of my right hon. Friend and other hon. and right hon. Members.