Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

Debate between Sarah Champion and John Bercow

Monday 23rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Thank you for removing the time limit, Mr Speaker, not only because the voices of victims and survivors do not get enough air time in this place, but because, as those who have spoken before me have shown, there is a lot of passion about this topic and an awful lot of commitment to it.

I welcome new clauses 8 and 3 and Government amendments 13 to 17, which aim to remove the term “child prostitution” from legislation. Victims and survivors I have met say that the term makes them feel incredibly dirty and as though they colluded in the crime in some way. However, the amendments remove the term from only three of the 16 relevant pieces of legislation. If I pass the list to the Solicitor-General, will the Government make a serious, long-term commitment to remove the term from each of those pieces of legislation? I would be very grateful for that.

I want principally to speak to new clause 19 and follow on from the contribution of the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), who spoke eloquently and has done most of the preparatory work. I have met the Solicitor-General, spoken at Committee stage and exchanged letters with him. He has expressed the view that, if child abduction warning notices were to become statutory, that would cause an unnecessary replication of sexual risk orders, which are being introduced by the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. However, given that the legislation has not yet been enacted and guidance not yet published, I cannot be entirely satisfied that SROs will close the gap that has been identified in child protection.

One concern is that the application of SROs to low-level grooming activities seems to depend on an officer taking a very wide interpretation of an

“act of a sexual nature”.

Unless the guidance is very specific and the training given to police very thorough, I am not convinced that officers will feel confident to use SROs on, for instance, a 20-year-old who is hanging around with a 14-year-old.

My cross-party inquiry with Barnardo’s last year found that police officers were clearly familiar with the use of child abduction warning notices, and everyone we interviewed asked that they be made statutory. My fear is that, rather than reducing bureaucracy, the Solicitor-General will create more by having another power, as opposed to strengthening the existing one.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Lady for her extreme succinctness.