Violent Crime

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Stephen Timms

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend is a consistent advocate not just for his constituency but for the young people he has helped to escape a life of crime in the past. He asks about knife crime prevention orders. The Offensive Weapons Act 2019 has recently received Royal Assent, and we are aiming to introduce the secondary legislation that we need to alter to enable the piloting of these orders as soon as possible. We are intending to do this in the autumn. The police asked for these preventive powers, and through the Offensive Weapons Act, we have been able to deliver them.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Will the Minister join me in welcoming the London Borough of Newham’s recent decision to appoint 30 additional youth workers? Does she recognise that drastic cuts in youth service funding since 2010 have made the current problems worse?

[Victoria Atkins]

I genuinely thank the right hon. Gentleman for all that he does on this issue. It is a particular issue in his constituency, and I respect his work. I welcome that announcement about youth workers. The way in which youth services have been funded is, of course, a point of tension between the Government and the Opposition, but if the London Borough of Newham has been able to find the resources to invest in that, and if it thinks that that is the best way of spending that money, that is the sort of local approach that we fully support. I wish those youth workers the very best in their work in his constituency.

Knife Crime

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Stephen Timms

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I note that some 50 officers were recently sworn in to serve the good county of Essex. We are all learning about, and determined to do something about, the link between exclusions and participation in or victimisation by gangs. The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who is sitting next to me, is awaiting delivery of the Timpson report on exclusions. We need to make sure that if children are excluded—if that is what a headteacher believes to be appropriate not just for the child, but for the wider school community—they have excellent provision of services outside mainstream schooling.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Is it not now beyond dispute that the Government’s cuts to police officer numbers have gone much too far?

[Victoria Atkins]

I think we all recognise that the demands on policing have changed and intensified in recent years, not just in the realm of serious violence but, for example, in the investigation of historical sexual abuse. There has been a rise in the recognition of modern slavery cases, and in the reporting of domestic abuse cases. That is happening because we are trying to help people to understand when they have been victims of crime, and it has added to the existing pressures on the police. That is precisely why the Home Secretary has said that police funding is his priority for the next spending review, and it is why we have increased the funding to police forces for next year by nearly £1 billion with the help of police and crime commissioners.

Offensive Weapons Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Stephen Timms

Tuesday 11th September 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Victoria Atkins]

Clause 40 sets out the short title on Royal Assent, which is the Offensive Weapons Act 2018. The scope of the Bill is limited to those matters relating to offences involving offensive weapons. The Bill is not a general Bill about violent crime or crime more generally. It is limited to the criminal use of weapons such as knives, corrosive substances and firearms.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 40 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

New Clause 5

Presumptions in proceedings in Scotland for offence under section 1, 3 or 4

‘(1) This section applies for the purposes of any trial in proceedings for an alleged offence under section 1(1), 3(2) or (3) or 4(4).

(2) Where—

(a) a substance is found in a container (whether open or sealed), and

(b) there is on the container a description of the contents of the container,

the substance found is to be presumed to be a substance of that description.

(3) Where an open container is found which—

(a) is empty or contains an amount of a substance which is insufficient to allow analysis of it,

(b) was sealed at the time it was sold or delivered, and

(c) has on it a description of the contents of the container,

the container is to be presumed to have contained, at the time it was sold or delivered, a substance of that description.

(4) At the trial, any party to the proceedings may rebut the presumption mentioned in subsection (2) or (3) by proving that, at the time of its sale or delivery, the substance in the container was not of the description on the container.

(5) A party may lead evidence for the purpose of rebutting the presumption only if the party has, not less than 7 days before the date of the trial, given notice of the intention to do so to the other parties.’—(Victoria Atkins.)

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 14.

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 6

Presumptions in proceedings in Scotland for offence under section 5

‘(1) This section applies for the purposes of any trial in proceedings for an alleged offence under section 5(1).

(2) Where—

(a) a substance is found in a container (whether open or sealed), and

(b) there is on the container a description of the contents of the container,

the substance found is to be presumed to be a substance of that description.

(3) Subsection (4) applies where—

(a) an open container is found,

(b) a substance has been poured out of, or otherwise removed from, the container,

(c) the container is empty or contains an amount of the substance mentioned in paragraph (b) which is insufficient to allow analysis of it, and

(d) the container has on it a description of its contents.

(4) The container is to be presumed to have contained, immediately before the action mentioned in paragraph (b) of subsection (3) was taken, a substance of the description mentioned in paragraph (d) of that subsection.

(5) At the trial, any party to the proceedings may rebut the presumption mentioned in subsection (2) or (4) by proving that, at the time the offence is alleged to have been committed, the substance in the container was not of the description on the container.

(6) A party may lead evidence for the purpose of rebutting the presumption only if the party has, not less than 7 days before the date of the trial, given notice of the intention to do so to the other parties.’—(Victoria Atkins.)

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 14.

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 1

Annual report on corrosive substance attacks

‘(1) The Secretary of State must, within twelve months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, publish an annual report on the data available on the number of corrosive substance attacks in the UK in each of the last five years.

(2) The annual reports published under section 1 must include, but are not limited to—

(a) the location of the attacks;

(b) the corrosive substance used; and

(c) any other information as may be available on each attack.”—(Stephen Timms.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

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[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the right hon. Member for East Ham for tabling new clause 1 and very much appreciate the interest he has and the expertise he brings—sadly it is from his own constituency. He and I do not restrict our discussions to activities in the Chamber or parliamentary questions. We of course discuss it outside the formal parliamentary procedures as well, because it is a concern that he, I and other Members of the House share.

The right hon. Gentleman has raised many questions, on Second Reading and in Committee, about the statistical data for corrosive attacks. He will know from the parliamentary questions he has tabled that the Home Office does not collect specific data from police forces on acid and other corrosive attacks as part of its regular data collection. That is going to change. As he said, Assistant Chief Constable Rachel Kearton, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on corrosive attacks, has stated that my officials are working with the NPCC to look at how offences involving acid and other corrosives can be captured better in police data, to understand the scale of the attacks.

A bid for a new collection on corrosive attacks has been submitted as part of the annual data requirement return to the Home Office. That bid is currently being considered by a group of Home Office and policing experts. If successful, it will require all 43 police forces across England and Wales to report instances of attacks involving corrosives to the Home Office on an annual basis. The intention is for the data collection to be routinely published. I am happy to look at the factors that the right hon. Gentleman has pressed, not just in new clause 1 but in the relation to the point about age. My officials have heard that and I have asked the police to action that.

The publication of data from police forces alongside data on other crimes involving serious violence is the best way forward to understand and address corrosives attacks. I do not believe that a statutory annual report on statistical data is the best way forward in helping us to understand the issue and prevalence of corrosive attacks. I intend the data to be collected and published and the right hon. Gentleman and others will then obviously have access.

[Stephen Timms]

I am grateful to the Minister and encouraged by her answer. Will she confirm that, if the bid she described is successful, information about location, substance and age would be accessible not just to the Home Office but to the public, through the way that the statistics are presented?

[Victoria Atkins]

As I said earlier, my officials have heard what the right hon. Gentleman has said and I will ask for those factors to be included in the assessment of the bid. I do not want to make promises without having spoken to the experts who will making the decision. Clearly, there would be as much as information as possible on a day-to-day basis in collecting the evidence. The data comes from police officers sitting down at a computer entering the data. We need to ensure that officers are using their time at the computer as usefully and productively as possible. I will ensure that the elements he suggests are considered in the assessment of the bid.

The right hon. Gentleman asked for a United Kingdom-wide report. The issue of corrosives used as an offensive weapon is a devolved matter in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and it would therefore be a matter for the devolved Administrations to agree to provide relevant data. Given the great working relationship between the Scottish and UK Governments on this, I am sure we are all heading in the same direction, if I might put it that way. I do not want to pre-empt the Scottish Government but I am sure they will be made aware of this discussion. I hope I have given the right hon. Gentleman enough clarification on the approach ahead in relation to collecting statistical data on corrosive substance attacks and that, on that basis, he will feel able to withdraw new clause 1.

The starting point of new clause 25, which was tabled by the hon. Members for Sheffield, Heeley and for Lewisham, Deptford, sometimes gets lost in the rough and tumble of parliamentary debate. I am grateful to the shadow Minister that that has not been present in this Committee. There has been constructive debate about the Bill because—this is the starting point—we all want this serious violence to stop. I hope Opposition Members believe my sincerity and that of all my colleagues. We may have different ideas about to achieve that but, if we keep returning to that fundamental principle, I am convinced that we will come up with the solutions.

The hon. Member for Bristol South referred to the work of previous Governments and I take on board her learning. That is one reason why we have the serious violence taskforce, which I will come to in more detail in due course. It features not only Home Office Ministers but Ministers from across Government and Members of Parliament from across the House, including Members of the Opposition who have spoken very forcefully on these issues—the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) is a member of that taskforce, as is my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) because of his experience working with the Centre for Social Justice. There is a willingness to learn from history and other models.

I should clarify one point. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley accused me and other Ministers of never referring to the public health approach. That is not correct. She may not be a regular reader of my blogs, but I wrote only recently on serious violence for The Voice and specifically mentioned the joined-up public health approach of the serious violence strategy.

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[Victoria Atkins]

When the Prime Minister was Home Secretary, she insisted on that protection. That was in 2015. This year, the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service met or spoke to every chief constable. With the help of police and crime commissioners, we are securing an extra £460 million in overall police funding.

In terms of the numbers, the hon. Lady mentioned the last violent crime peak. I am not sure that it was just 2008—I do not necessarily accept her assertion that that is not comparable with this period. Of course, we had far higher police officer numbers in the mid to late 2000s, yet we had that last violent crime peak. That is why we are steering a middle course by raising police funding as far as we can, and by giving police and crime commissioners the power to recruit more officers if they wish to. Indeed, most police and crime commissioners are recruiting more officers, and we welcome that—that is their decision.

[Stephen Timms]

Earlier, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley referred to today’s National Audit Office report, which, as I understand it, makes the point that the Home Office has not made an assessment of the effect of the reduction in the number of police officers and police staff by 44,000 since 2010. In what sense can a reduction of 44,000 be described as protecting police resources?

[Victoria Atkins]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that in 2010 we had to make changes to the Home Office budget, and other budgets in Government, because of the serious financial situation we found ourselves in. We know the reasons for that. We had to make tough decisions, which have been borne not just by the police but by others. We have to live within our means. As we have seen this year, we have reached a place where we have been able to increase the amount of overall police funding, but if we are going to have this debate, let us not forget the reasons why the coalition Government were in that position in the first place. It is not a fair representation.

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[Victoria Atkins]

Of course, Mr Gapes. I apologise—we feel passionately about this subject across the House.

I am very conscious of factors such as homelessness, school exclusions and domestic abuse. We will introduce a draft Domestic Abuse Bill, which I hope will have very positive consequences regarding children entering violent crime as a knock-on effect. Such legislation is all part of our overall strategy on violent crime, and on ensuring that children grow up with good life chances.

I hope that I have given hon. Members enough clarification on how we want to advance the serious violence strategy and I invite the right hon. Member for East Ham to withdraw new clause 1.

[Stephen Timms]

We have had an interesting and valuable debate, and my hon. Friends have made a compelling cause for new clause 25.

My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central was right to draw attention to the problem of growing exclusions from school as a big contributor to rising youth violence. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley had some troubling statistics from her area about what academy chains are doing on that front. I am glad that the Minister said that she is also worried about that problem as part of the pattern. Alongside that are big worries about community policing resources. I noticed that the National Audit Office said this morning that police and crime commissioners

“received 19% less funding from central and local sources in 2018-19 than they received in 2010-11, in real terms.”

The Minister made a perfectly fair point about what the coalition Government set out to do in 2010, but it is clearly not the case that police resources have been protected; they have been very sharply reduced since 2010, and that is part of the present problem. The cuts in youth services that have been mentioned are an important part of the backdrop. We need a much more serious and substantial, long-term, whole-system response to the problem of youth violence than we have seen so far.

I was encouraged by the Minister’s answer to my remarks on new clause 1. She was unable to give me the cast iron guarantee that I would have liked that all the information will be made public very soon. However, she has persuaded me that she would like it to be if possible. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the new clause.

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[Victoria Atkins]

First, may I express my sympathy—and, I am sure, the sympathy of the Committee—for those whom the right. Hon. Member for East Ham described as victims of these fake corrosive attacks, if I may put it that way. I very much hope that they received the support they needed in dealing with those awful and frightening situations.

Cases where a person threatens another with what purports to be a weapon are already criminal offences. The law already provides sufficient powers to the police and CPS to prosecute that type of offending and we would suggest that there is no gap in the law. I am now going to read the detail.

There are various offences that would cover this type of threat—for example, the offence of common assault and the offences available under the Public Order Act 1986. Common assault is any conduct by which a person causes another to apprehend immediate and unlawful personal violence. This offence could be charged where a person threatens another with a substance that that person claims or implies is corrosive.

Section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986 makes it an offence to use threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour towards another person with the intent of causing that person to believe that immediate, unlawful violence will be used against him or her. We would argue therefore that these offences would already apply to the scenarios that the right hon. Gentleman has described. Section 5 of the Public Order Act also makes it an offence for a person to use threatening or abusive words or behaviour or disorderly behaviour that is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress. Again, we would say that such incidents could fall within the definition of section 5.

Finally, I would like to draw attention to the fact that police officers and others can also consider the facts of the case and, if relevant, consider whether the crimes committed fall under the category of hate crime. If the crimes have a racially or religiously motivated intent, courts can impose strong sentences.

I hope that I have answered the very proper points raised by the right hon. Gentleman and alleviated any concerns he may have about a potential gap in the law. I therefore invite him to withdraw his proposed new clause.

[Stephen Timms]

I am grateful to the Minister for her response. The police view, which is set out clearly in the article from The Times of 8 December, is that

“officers lack the tools and powers to defend the public from the growing menace”.

That is quoting the work of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, naming Assistant Chief Constable Rachel Kearton. It seems to me that there is a problem here and I would like to press the proposed new clause to a vote.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

Offensive Weapons Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Stephen Timms

Tuesday 11th September 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Timms]

Thank you, Mr Gray, and I bid you a warm welcome back to the Chair of our Committee. One of the welcome contributions in the Bill is bringing the law on acid and corrosive substances into line with the law on knives, so that possession without good reason is an offence. There is evidence that, in some cases, criminal gang members have switched from knives to acid because, since possession of acid has not been an offence, it has been less risky for them to carry it than to carry a knife. In my view, the Bill is absolutely right to bring the law on acid into line with the law on knives.

However, there are two respects in which, if the Bill is not amended, the law on acid will still be less demanding than it is on knives. I think they should be aligned throughout, which is what new clauses 3 and 4 are designed to achieve. Proposed new clause 3 makes it an offence to possess a corrosive substance on educational premises. It has long been an offence to have a knife in school. Clause 21 relates to section 139(a) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and rightly extends the current ban on possession of knives in schools to cover further education colleges as well. The ban in schools was introduced in the Offensive Weapons Act 1996 when Michael Howard was Home Secretary—that is the second occasion I have had to refer to something he has done. The same ban should cover corrosive substances. It is a lengthy new clause, but with a straightforward effect. I hope that the Minister will recognise the validity of the attempt and be able to accept it, or something very like it.

New clause 4 would extend to corrosive substances the prohibition on threatening people with knives that already applies in schools. It has been an offence in schools since 2012, since the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act. Again, the Bill is extending the existing prohibition on knives from schools to further education premises, which is the right thing to do. New clause 4 applies the same prohibition to corrosive substances.

I suggest that neither of the proposed new clauses is contentious—none of us wants people to have corrosive substances or threaten other people with them in schools or further education colleges. The new clauses extend to acid existing measures that cover knives and I hope the Minister agrees to them.

It occurred to me that another way of achieving the same result might be to widen the definition of “offensive weapon” to include corrosive substances, because the wording in the existing prohibitions is about offensive weapons. If one said that corrosive substances are offensive weapons, that might have the same effect as proposed new clauses 3 and 4. I would be interested to know whether that was considered. This is an offensive weapons Bill—it does not say anywhere that corrosive substances and corrosive products are offensive weapons and I appreciate that there might be technical difficulties in doing so. In the absence of that, the two new clauses would deal with the gap. I hope the Minister feels able to commend them.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. As the right hon. Gentleman has set out, there are existing offences under section 1 of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953 and section 139A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which deals with incidents of threat or possession on school premises. The Bill extends these offences to cover further education premises as well as school premises.

The intention behind the amendments seems reasonable, but there are several reasons why we did not consider it necessary to extend the corrosive substance provisions in this way when developing the Bill. First, the scale of knife crime is significantly higher than that involving a corrosive substance. There were more than 18,000 recorded offences of knife possession last year and more than 40,000 recorded knife offences involving a bladed article. By contrast, there are only around 800 attacks a year using corrosives.

The impact of any crime using a knife or a corrosive substance is devastating, but the scale of the problem is different. In drawing up the Bill, we tried to keep in mind the proportionate use of corrosives. We wanted to take action against the possession of corrosives on the street because there is little evidence to suggest that possession of corrosives on educational premises was an issue. However, I accept that crime and crime types change. We were reassured by the fact that existing offences that can already be used in relation to possession of corrosives on school premises, and in future on further education premises, cover the situations to which the right hon. Gentleman referred.

For example, if a student is carrying a corrosive cleaning fluid on school premises and there is evidence that they intend to use it as a weapon, such as indicating on social media or through talking to friends that they intend to do that, the offence of possessing an offensive weapon on school and further education premises would apply. Similarly, decanting the corrosive into another container to make it easier to use as a weapon would also be covered by that offence. Carrying any corrosive substance on the way to school or college would also be an offence under clause 5.

The only scenario in terms of possession that is not covered is where a student has a corrosive substance on school or further education premises in its original container and there is no evidence that they intend to use the substance to cause injury. This is a very discrete possibility, but one that the right hon. Gentleman has alerted us to. As I have already indicated, I will be happy to consider this further.

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[Victoria Atkins]

I am just looking into the detail of that. The fact of the intention makes it different from the very limited set of circumstances that I have just dealt with, where the substance is in the original container and there is no evidence that the person intends to use it to cause injury.

On new clause 4, and the creation of a new offence of threatening with a corrosive substance on school and further education premises, the gap is perhaps even smaller. It is already an offence to threaten someone with an offensive weapon on school premises, which will be extended by the Bill to cover further education premises. Any student threatening someone with a corrosive substance would be caught because they clearly intend the corrosive to cause injury.

As I said, I will continue to consider new clause 3. On that basis I invite the right hon. Member for East Ham to withdraw it.

[Stephen Timms]

I am grateful to the Minister for agreeing to consider further the content of new clause 3 with, I presume, a view to come back to it on Report.

I thought the argument that she used at the beginning of her remarks was a bit disappointing. She seemed to say, “Well, there aren’t that many acid attacks, therefore we don’t need to legislate on it.” Thankfully that view, which has long been held by Government, has changed, and I very much welcome the fact that the Bill makes the possession of acid an offence without a requirement for evidence that somebody intends to injure somebody with it. That has always been the difficulty: simply possessing acid has not, up until now, been an offence. Thankfully it is made an offence by the Bill, and I welcome that.

The argument for new clause 3 is that possessing acid in schools ought to be an offence as well, because how can a school or further education college show that a student with acid intends to injure somebody with that acid? That is exactly the difficulty that the police have always had. Nevertheless, the Minister has said that she will give the matter further consideration and come back to us on Report. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 7

Prohibition of air weapons on private land for those under the age of 18

“(1) Section 23 of the Firearms Act 1968 is amended in accordance with subsections (2) to (3).

(2) Omit subsection (1).

(3) Omit subsection (3).”—(Karin Smyth.)

This new clause would amend the Firearms Act 1968 to prevent a person under the age of 18 from having an air gun on private land other than as part of a sporting club.

Brought up, and read the First time.

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[Stephen Timms]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

On 8 January 2018, The Sun reported the case of 32-year old Andreas Christopheros. He was the victim of an acid attack on his doorstep in 2014. He lost 90% of his face and will need 10 years of facial reconstructive surgery. He lost the sight of one eye, and is in danger of losing it in the other in due course. As it turned out, it was a case of mistaken identity. The perpetrator wanted revenge on somebody for an alleged assault on a relative but knocked on the wrong door. Mr Christopheros had no connection at all with the incident for which revenge was being sought, but he has a lifetime of problems ahead as a result of the injuries inflicted on him. Given what has happened to him and his future prospects, he talked a great deal of sense during the interview published in The Sun, and he made the point that

“one bit of legislation which I’d really love to see be pushed through is a decanting legislation; to make it an offence to decant acid from its original, well-labelled bottle, into any other receptacle.”

In his case, the acid was held in a beaker by the person who knocked on his front door and then just thrown over him. New clause 11 is another measure that aims to make it a bit harder to use acid to commit a crime. New clause 11 says that a container in a public place holding acid in circumstances in which it is in the public place for good reason must be clearly marked or labelled as containing a corrosive substance. It would be an offence, as in my view it certainly should be, to carry acid around in, for example, a Lucozade bottle, which, as we have heard, has happened too often over the last year or two.

On its own, new clause 11 will not solve our problem, but I think it could help. It will constrain a little the ready and cheap access to liquid capable of inflicting appalling injuries, which is part of the backdrop for the rapid growth in this crime over the past five years.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for East Ham for tabling this new clause on making it an offence to have a corrosive substance in an unmarked container. I assume that he has introduced it because of concerns that clause 5 does not go far enough. I assure him and others that there is no need for this amendment, because under section 1 of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953, anyone who is in possession of a corrosive substance can be prosecuted as being in possession of an offensive weapon, where it can be proved that they are carrying it with the intention of causing injury. The definition is set out in section 1, whereby an offensive weapon means

“any article made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person, or intended by the person having it with him for such use by him or by some other person”.

Intent to cause injury can be inferred from the context of the circumstances surrounding the offence, for example, transferring it into a container that is easier to carry or to use as a weapon. The Crown Prosecution Service has refreshed its guidance to prosecutors on offensive weapons, which includes references to the carrying and use of acid and other corrosives. The guidance covers the appropriate charges and public interest considerations to ensure that any decisions reflect the seriousness of these crimes.

Furthermore, clause 5 strengthens the powers available to the police and the CPS in cases where people are carrying corrosive substances for use as a weapon or to threaten people. By making it an offence to possess a corrosive substance in a public place, we are removing the burden on the police and the prosecution to prove that the person was carrying the corrosive with the intent to cause injury. It puts the onus on the individual to prove that they were carrying a corrosive substance in a public place with good reason or with lawful authority.

I hope that I have persuaded the right hon. Gentleman that the amendment is not required and invite him to withdraw it.

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[Stephen Timms]

I am not convinced. The problem is that the Minister is again going back to the argument about the 1953 Act and the fact that if someone intends to cause injury, it has always been an offence to carry acid. That is true, but if we accept that argument—if the Minister accepts it—we would not have measures in the Bill making possession of acid an offence. I am glad that she has got over the previous argument for not doing that and that the Bill now makes the possession of acid an offence.

I am concerned about the sort of situation where somebody is lawfully carrying acid, because they have a legitimate purpose to use it, and then, for whatever reason, the container falls into the wrong hands. I think we should be very cautious about this stuff. If it is on the streets, it should be clearly marked as a corrosive substance dangerous to life and limb and liable to cause injury. It should therefore be a requirement that the containers in which it is being carried are properly marked accordingly. I do not think the Minister has set out—

[Victoria Atkins]

In the scenario the right hon. Gentleman has set out, the acid or the corrosive substance is in the possession of someone who has lawful authority or good reason to carry it, and it then falls into other hands—I think those were his words. Of course, the moment it falls into other hands—perhaps someone swipes it in the street, or something—if that other person taking possession of it does not have good reason or lawful authority and they are in a public place, they fall foul of clause 5. I would argue that that is a very simple possession offence. We have included the defence to cover, for example, people going about their lawful business and buying cleaning products because they want to use them at home with no ill intent whatever, but the simplicity of clause 5 is deliberate, in order to cover the sort of scenario where the person is carrying the acid from the shop in a carrier bag and it is stolen. I hope that helps.

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[Victoria Atkins]

As I said at the start of my speech, the backdrop to this debate is the major piece of ongoing cross-governmental work on the online harms White Paper. My officials have certainly been looking at the adequacy of existing offences as part of that review, but we already have in place legislation that applies to sales, be they face-to-face or remote, and it would be for the CPS to answer how many offences have been prosecuted under the relevant section. I hope that this debate has enabled the Committee to give comforting reassurance to those who investigate and prosecute that they can and should look at online platforms under the 1988 Act.

[Stephen Timms]

I am encouraged by what the Minister is saying, but last week she did draw a distinction between platforms—I think she gave the example of Amazon—that were themselves selling a product and those that were simply facilitating the sale of a product from another supplier or seller, perhaps in China. Is she now suggesting that, under the current law, both activities are illegal? Or is it only the former, as she suggested last week?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am coming to that. It is also possible to bring charges under sections 44 to 46 of the Serious Crime Act 2007—that is, for intentionally encouraging or assisting an offence, encouraging or assisting an offence believing it will be committed, or encouraging or assisting offences believing one or more will be committed. It is possible that a website that facilitates sales, either by selling directly or through a marketplace model, could be prosecuted for allowing an advertisement to sell a prohibited weapon on the website, even if the site is not the seller. Powers are currently in place for persons or companies that list, advertise or facilitate the sale of an offensive weapon through a website registered under their name. In the circumstances and against the backdrop of the online harms White Paper, new legislation to criminalise such behaviour is not required at this stage. I invite the right hon. Gentleman to not press the new clause to a vote.

Subsection (1) of new clause 31 refers to offensive weapons. Those who have looked at it in detail wonder whether, in fact, the intention was to refer to articles with a blade or point, which are subject to age restrictions under section 141A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. The new clause uses the term “offensive weapon” and, like new clause 12, duplicates existing legislation. It is already an offence under section 141 of the 1988 Act to advertise, list or sell offensive weapons to which the section applies, regardless of the age of the buyer. We consider that if any company or person who owns the website were proven to be selling, offering to sell or exposing for the purpose of sale offensive weapons listed in the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988, they would have committed an offence under section 141. On age-restricted sales of articles with blades or points, it is an offence under section 141A of the 1988 Act for any person to sell to a person under the age of 18 an article to which the section applies.

[Victoria Atkins]

Section 141 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 applies to weapons listed in the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988, which include any knife that has

“a concealed blade or a concealed sharp point and is designed to appear to be an everyday object of a kind commonly carried on the person or in a handbag, briefcase or other hand luggage”.

The offence applies to all kinds of sales, be they face-to-face or remote. We consider that a website selling directly, or using a marketplace model to allow sellers to use a website, would probably be caught under the wording of the legislation. The Crown Prosecution Service agreed with this analysis—in fact, I have just been handed information that says that there seem to have been no such cases. This is an untested area of law, but the Crown Prosecution Service seems to be of the view that the legislation already covers this area.

Last week, we discussed kitchen knives—or rather, knives that have a legitimate purpose and are not offensive unless they are used with an offensive intent.

[Stephen Timms]

I am encouraged that the Minister is saying that eBay and all the other platforms—I think this will come as quite a surprise to them—are currently breaking the law. Does she have any idea why there have not been any prosecutions? What would it take to initiate a prosecution of eBay? There is absolutely no dispute: these things are legal, they are all on the website at the moment, and no doubt people are making purchases of them. What would it take to initiate a prosecution?

[Victoria Atkins]

I just want to clarify that the language of the legislation—I am looking for assistance on this—in relation both to articles with blade or point and to corrosive products, refers to a person who “sells”, and we consider that, unlike section 141 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, it would not apply to a person or company that facilitates the remote sale but is not the seller. I commend the right hon. Gentleman for finding an area of law that we have yet to discover, if I may put it that way, and as the Court of Appeal puts it when they overturn a previous judgement. I would like this to be clarified and I will write to the Committee tomorrow, if I may, with clarification on the legal advice, as it is an important point and there seem to be many manifestations of the advice.

We can see the difficulties of this legislation and I accept that, but we come back to the fact that the White Paper seeks to address many different types of online harms. We would like that to be a consolidated and considered piece of work, and during the couple of months that the Bill makes its way through the House, we propose to stick with the law as it is and we invite the Opposition not to press new clause 31.

[Stephen Timms]

I hope that the Minister was right that these people are all currently committing offences. We await with interest her letter tomorrow setting out a considered view. This is a matter that we ought not to let drop. It is clearly a significant part of the problem, and it is a significant part of the reason for these dreadful weapons being on the streets and in the wrong hands. I take her point that the issue is terribly complicated. I will return to the issue on Report, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 13

Offensive weapons and online videos

“(1) It shall be an offence for a website to host online or distribute a video in which a person displays an offensive weapon in a threatening manner.

(2) No offence is committed under this section if—

(a) the website removes the video within 24 hours of the registered owner of the website being informed that the video includes a person displaying an offensive weapon in a threatening manner.

(3) In this section, ‘threatening manner’ means that the person (‘A’) uses the weapon in such a way that a reasonable person (‘B’) who was exposed to the same threat would think that there was an immediate risk of physical harm.”—(Stephen Timms.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Timms]

As before, I thank the Minister for giving way. I agree with a great deal of what she is saying. She talked about efforts to remove illegal material online. The difficulty here is that, as far as I know, the material we have been talking about is not illegal. It is not against the law to host a music video where another gang is threatened. The purpose of the new clause is to make it illegal. Can the Minister hold out the prospect that the Government are going to change the law in this area so that it will become illegal, given the cross-party support that the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire referred to?

[Victoria Atkins]

Any video that incites violence—and we have heard awful examples today—is committing an offence. We have a very simple principle, which emerged from the consultation that was conducted earlier this year by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport—namely, that if it is illegal offline, it is illegal online. Those are principles of which we remind the tech companies repeatedly—not just in this field but in others, such as terrorism and child pornography. We heard that the Home Secretary has rightly praised the large tech companies for their work in tackling terrorism, but it is our expectation that the lessons they have learned in that field are spread to other areas where harms are caused online.

It is already an offence to incite, assist or encourage criminal offences. Indeed, social media companies have policies in place on incitement and threats and we are working with the sector to ensure that those are applied in a timely manner, without delay. We believe that the offences are there in law in terms of incitement; we are very much approaching this in a cross-governmental, holistic way, with the online harms White Paper later this year. I therefore invite the right hon. Gentleman to withdraw the new clause.

[Stephen Timms]

I am grateful to Committee members for their support. My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn is absolutely right to press for specific penalties for hosting videos of the kind that we have been talking about. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central for her well-informed observations and her expertise in this area, developed through her work on the Home Affairs Committee and in the all-party parliamentary group. I must say, I did not know that Germany had laws along these lines already, and I am grateful to her for pointing that out to us. I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire for affirming the cross-party support in the Committee for action in this area.

My worry about what the Minister said is that I do not think a prosecution of YouTube for one of the videos that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central said are currently available would be successful. I may be wrong, but there certainly have not been any prosecutions, and I do not think that, if there were one, it would succeed. That is why I think the law should be changed, as set out in new clause 13, so it is clear that hosting material that directly, or sometimes rather subtly, incites violence between groups of young people is against the law. That would give the action groups and taskforces that my hon. Friend has been describing the tools they need to get on with their job.

I recognise that this is a rather complicated issue, so I will withdraw new clause 13, but I hope that something else will come forward on Report to enable us to make progress. The hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire said that this is perhaps not the right place to make the change. I do not think it really matters where it is done, as long as it is done. This Bill gives us an opportunity, and I hope that in due course it will be taken. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 14

Enforcement

‘(1) It shall be the duty of every authority to which subsection (4) applies to enforce within its area the provisions of Clauses 1, 3, 4, 15 and 18 of this Bill.

(2) An authority in England or Wales to which subsection (4) applies shall have the power to investigate and prosecute for an alleged contravention of any provision imposed by or under this section which was committed outside its area in any part of England and Wales.

(3) A district council in Northern Ireland shall have the power to investigate and prosecute for an alleged contravention of any provision imposed by or under this section which was committed outside its area in any part of Northern Ireland.

(4) The authorities to which this section applies are—

(a) in England, a county council, district council, London Borough Council, the Common Council of the City of London in its capacity as a local authority and the Council of the Isles of Scilly;

(b) in Wales, a county council or a county borough council;

(c) in Scotland, a council constituted under section 2 of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994(1);

(d) in Northern Ireland, any district council.

(5) In enforcing this section, an enforcement authority must act in a manner proportionate to the seriousness of the risk and shall take due account of the precautionary principle, and shall encourage and promote voluntary action by producers and distributors.

(6) Notwithstanding subsection (5), an enforcement authority may take any action under this section urgently and without first encouraging and promoting voluntary action if a product poses a serious risk.”—(Stephen Timms.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

As always, I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Member for East Ham for tabling these new clauses. It is important to note that it is possible for the legislation to be enforced by the police and that the Crown Prosecution Service can prosecute retailers who have breached the law if appropriate. On several occasions in my previous career, there were joint prosecutions—not necessarily just with the CPS, but with the Health and Safety Executive and local councils—and in the old days, prosecutions on housing benefit fraud. There are already powers in law to enable that to happen; the Bill can be enforced through those measures.

It might be helpful briefly to explain how trading standards officers and local authorities enforce the legislation on the age-restricted sale of knives. Local authorities have taken action in the past, and prosecute the sale of knives using the general powers in section 222 of the Local Government Act 1972. Section 222 provides powers to local authorities in England and Wales to prosecute or defend legal proceedings

“Where a local authority consider it expedient for the promotion or protection of the interests of the inhabitants of their area”.

Those powers have been used to prosecute retailers in this context. Between 2013 and 2017, there were 71 prosecutions of sellers who sold knives to persons under 18. Although it is not possible to identify from the records whether the prosecution was brought by a local authority or the CPS, because the organisations do not maintain a central database that can run a report by specific offence, we understand that it is likely that the majority were brought by trading standards. Indeed, National Trading Standards has agreed to manage the prosecution fund that was introduced as part of the serious violence strategy, and it will work with local authorities in areas hit by knife crime to conduct test purchase operations and prosecute retailers if appropriate.

[Stephen Timms]

My understanding is that the powers the Minister has referred to could not be used to undertake prosecutions of offences under this legislation. That is the reason for tabling these new clauses—to ensure that trading standards officers have powers to act on the matters covered by the Bill. My understanding is that current powers would not allow that. Can she confirm whether I am right about that?

[Victoria Atkins]

My next paragraph reads: there is no reason why trading standards could not use the general powers under the Local Government Act 1972 to enforce the provisions in the Bill in relation to the sale of knives and corrosives. Of course, it is possible for the police and the CPS to use it, but I will seek further confirmation of that important point—it is quite right for the right hon. Gentleman to have raised it.

When I think back to the cases I prosecuted with local authorities, usually on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive, I was always struck by how well such organisations could work together and ensure that the needs of the local community were met. We know that the police often have all sorts of issues with time and resources, and it is helpful to have extra resources available through trading standards officers and local councils to assist in prosecuting these sorts of cases. Of course, trading standards officers will have the expertise in these cases, and will not only be experienced in test purchase operations but—

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Timms]

I rise briefly to support the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn and to welcome the fact that she has raised this in the Committee.

There is certainly a close link between acid attacks on one hand, and the use of mopeds on the other. I will highlight one particular group of victims here, which is moped delivery drivers. I think the series of attacks that she referred to was aimed at a group of drivers, a number of whom I have met. In particular, I pay tribute to Mr Jabed Hussain, who was himself a delivery driver with UberEats and was the victim of one of these attacks. He has since joined the International Workers Union of Great Britain to bring together the very vulnerable people who work delivering meals and all sorts of things around London. There are large numbers of them now, but they are pretty exposed, and if people come after them with acid they are in a dangerous situation.

When I last spoke to him, Mr Hussain had not yet been able to get back to his work because of the trauma he had suffered as a result of the attack inflicted on him. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this important issue and I hope the Minister will be able to respond sympathetically to what she has said.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn for tabling this new clause. We understand why she and the right hon. Member for East Ham, and those from other constituencies, are rightly concerned about the use of motorcycles, mopeds and scooters to commit crime. We know also that the use of corrosive substances in these circumstances is a worryingly frequent occurrence. Indeed, the fear, and short-term and long-term effects that such attacks can have, were made clear to me when the constituent of the right hon. Member for East Ham, Mr Jabed Hussain, came to talk to me about the effects that such attacks have on him and his fellow delivery drivers.

Offensive Weapons Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Stephen Timms

Committee Debate: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 6th September 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Victoria Atkins]

The amendments in this group do one thing: provide a defence for museums and galleries, so that they can continue to own and display historical examples of flick knives and gravity knives. I will explain why such a defence is needed.

The 1959 Act makes it an offence to sell, manufacture, hire or import flick knives and gravity knives, so the supply of these weapons has been inhibited since then, and as we have just agreed, clause 19 updates the definition of the flick knife. Clause 20 extends the prohibition on the supply of flick knives, including those caught by the new definition, and gravity knives by making it an offence simply to possess such knives. The intention behind these measures is to make it harder for young people to get hold of dangerous weapons and to ensure that the police can take action when they come across these weapons.

Flick knives and gravity knives exist as pure weapons; they have no purpose other than to cause injury. That is why we have been keen to ensure that the law keeps pace with their design. The new definition will assist in that. Although it is not an offence to buy flick knives and gravity knives, anyone who has bought one from overseas since 1959 has broken the law by importing it. We have become aware through the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport that some museums, such as the Imperial War Museum and the Royal Armouries Museum, hold examples of flick knives and gravity knives in their collections. Some come from the first and second world wars or are considered to be of historical interest in other ways. These museums are also, in some cases, restricted by law as to how they can dispose of items in their collections and may only be able to do so in certain, very narrow circumstances.

The amendments in this group provide a defence for museums and galleries, should they ever be prosecuted for the offence of possessing a flick knife or gravity knife. The provisions enable them to hold and display historical examples of such weapons, to acquire new items, and to lend or hire such items to other institutions for cultural, artistic or educational purposes. They are similar to provisions already provided for museums and galleries for weapons covered by section 141 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. We have agreed with the devolved Administrations that the defence will apply to museums across the United Kingdom.

Where a member of the public owns a flick knife or a gravity knife that is of historical interest, they can pass them to a museum or surrender them to the police under clause 24 of the Bill and claim compensation. I hope that explains why these amendments are necessary, and that they will be supported by the Committee.

Amendment 35 agreed to.

Amendments made: 36, in clause 20, page 19, line 14, at end insert—

‘(3A) After subsection (2) insert—

(2D) It is a defence for a person charged in respect of any conduct of that person relating to a knife of a kind described in subsection (1)—

(a) with an offence under subsection (1), or

(b) with an offence under section 50(2) or (3) of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979,

to show that the conduct was only for the purposes of making the knife available to a museum or gallery to which this subsection applies.

(2E) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under subsection (1A) to show that they possessed the knife only in their capacity as the operator of, or as a person acting on behalf of, a museum or gallery.

(2F) If the operator of, or a person acting on behalf of, a museum or gallery to which this subsection applies is charged with hiring or lending a knife of a kind described in subsection (1), it is a defence for them to show that they had reasonable grounds for believing that the person to whom they lent or hired it would use it only for cultural, artistic or educational purposes.

(2G) Subsection (2D) or (2F) applies to a museum or gallery only if it does not distribute profits.

(2H) In this section “museum or gallery” includes any institution which has as its purpose, or one of its purposes, the preservation, display and interpretation of material of historical, artistic or scientific interest and gives the public access to it.

(2I) A person is to be taken to have shown a matter mentioned in subsection (2D), (2E) or (2F) if—

(a) sufficient evidence of the matter is adduced to raise an issue with respect to it, and

(b) the contrary is not proved beyond reasonable doubt.””

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 35.

Amendment 37, in clause 20, page 19, line 27, at end insert—

‘(4) It is a defence for a person charged in respect of any conduct of that person relating to a knife of a kind described in paragraph (1) with an offence under paragraph (1) to show that the conduct was only for the purposes of making the knife available to a museum or gallery to which this paragraph applies.

(5) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under paragraph (2) to show that they possessed the knife only in their capacity as the operator of, or as a person acting on behalf of, a museum or gallery.

(6) If the operator of, or a person acting on behalf of, a museum or gallery to which this paragraph applies is charged with hiring or lending a knife of a kind described in paragraph (1), it is a defence for them to show that they had reasonable grounds for believing that the person to whom they lent or hired it would use it only for cultural, artistic or educational purposes.

(7) Paragraph (4) or (6) applies to a museum or gallery only if it does not distribute profits.

(8) In this Article “museum or gallery” includes any institution which has as its purpose, or one of its purposes, the preservation, display and interpretation of material of historical, artistic or scientific interest and gives the public access to it.

(9) A person is to be taken to have shown a matter mentioned in paragraph (4), (5) or (6) if—

(a) sufficient evidence of the matter is adduced to raise an issue with respect to it, and

(b) the contrary is not proved beyond reasonable doubt.” —(Victoria Atkins.)

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 35.

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

[Stephen Timms]

I have a question arising from what the Minister said earlier about what Border Force can do if it finds an offensive weapon coming across the border in a parcel or something of that kind. She said that if Border Force believes that there is a good prospect that the police could prosecute, it is empowered to seize the weapon. Proposed new section 1(1A) of the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959 says:

“Any person who possesses any knife of a kind described in subsection (1) is guilty of an offence.”

It is clear that a person who receives such a weapon commits an offence, and from what the Minister was saying, Border Force would be empowered to seize that weapon. However, where under-18s are receiving knives, it is the seller who commits the offence by selling a knife to a person under the age of 18.

If Border Force found a knife in a parcel addressed to an individual, and was aware, or could establish, that the individual was under the age of 18—admittedly, it probably would not know that—would Border Force be able to seize it? My worry is that it probably would not, because nobody would have committed an offence. The person who has bought the knife has not committed an offence; because of the way the law is framed, the seller has committed the offence, but the seller is outside the UK and outside the remit of the law. If Border Force found a knife addressed to somebody under 18, would it be unable to seize it because no offence had been committed, or is there some basis on which it could seize it? It would clearly be an unsatisfactory state of affairs if Border Force could not do that.

The Minister quite rightly explained that Border Force would need to be satisfied that there was a reasonable chance of a prosecution being secured. Where a knife or other offensive weapon is being sent to an under-18, it is not clear that an offence has been committed. Does that mean that Border Force would not be able to seize the knife? If that is the case, we may need to look at how the law is framed, because I want to see Border Force playing a role in—

[Stephen Timms]

I raise the matter under clause 20 because the clause provides a form of words that clearly gives Border Force the ability to seize a weapon on the basis that the Minister explained. My concern is that if a knife is sent to an under-18 and the seller is outside the UK, no offence may technically have been committed, and Border Force might not be able to intervene. I just wanted to clarify the position, but I am grateful for your indulgence, Mr Gray, and for the compliment.

[Victoria Atkins]

If we are talking about clause 20 and flick knives, those knives are so offensive that there is no age restriction on their possession; if the Bill were passed with this clause, anyone in this room who possessed a flick knife would be committing a criminal offence. The clause aims to assist the police in circumstances where they make a house arrest—I am speculating—and one of those items is found. At the moment, the police cannot charge for simple possession because there is a gap in the law, so we are trying to close that gap.

[Stephen Timms]

I am grateful to the Minister, and I completely accept that the position in clause 20 is clear: an offence would have been committed, and Border Force could seize the knife. I have a question arising from our earlier debates about knives being sent to under-18s. As far as I can see, an offence has technically not been committed in that situation, so would Border Force be unable to seize a knife at the border, even though it knew it was being sent to an under-18?

[Victoria Atkins]

It is an offence to import a flick knife under the 1959 Act, so the offence would be the 17-year-old trying to import a flick knife, because it is such an offensive weapon.

[Stephen Timms]

rose—

Offensive Weapons Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Stephen Timms

Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 6th September 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Gray.

The clause is the first of the Bill to deal with knives. I report to the Committee with a heavy heart that there were 702 knife crimes in my borough of Newham last year—the second-highest number in London and a 15% increase on the previous year. Of those, 214 involved injury. In London as a whole, there were 80 fatal stabbings in 2017, including of 20 teenagers. I need not elaborate to underline the horror of those figures, and particularly of the fact that so many young people lost their lives as a result of being stabbed.

That was in 2017. In the first three months of 2018, there were 30 fatal stabbings in London. The fatality rate for those three months was 50% higher than in 2017. Of the 30 people who died, six were teenagers. It was reported in April, I think, that in the first couple months of this calendar year, London had a higher murder rate than New York, which is extremely troubling and chilling for all of us.

I looked this morning at the website of my local paper, the Newham Recorder. There are three headlines there at the moment: “Guilty: Three teenagers convicted for stabbing 14-year-old boy in Manor Park”; “Police appeal to find Fatjon Koka following stabbing in Stratford”; and “Man to appear in court following Romford Road stabbing”. Those are three separate and entirely unrelated items in the current issue of my local newspaper. The changes to the law in the Bill to bear down on this scourge are extremely welcome. There is clearly a pressing need to get a grip on what is going on, to change things, and to stop this seemingly rapidly escalating problem affecting so many people, particularly the young.

To get on top of this problem, we will have to increase police resources. For a number of years, the Government cut police resources and police numbers, and crime did not rise, but an increase in crime was utterly inevitable given the scale of the reduction in police numbers. The crime surge was delayed, but it is now very much with us. It is hitting us extremely hard. I very much hope that the clause and the other measures in the Bill will help, but we will need significant additional police resources.

On Tuesday, the Committee discussed how the Bill would affect sellers of corrosive products outside the UK. The same issues arise in the case of sellers of knives who are outside the UK; as I understand it, the Bill deals with them in the same way as sellers of corrosive products. We had a debate on Tuesday about my new clause 9, and as I indicated in the context of corrosive products, I am not convinced that the way the Bill deals with this problem is altogether satisfactory. The concern is greater here, because as I informed the Committee on Tuesday, Mr Raheel Butt has pointed out to me that it seems to be the norm for online purchases of appalling knives to be made from suppliers outside the UK, on platforms such as eBay. The Minister pointed out on Tuesday that the purchase of knives disguised to look like something else is clearly illegal in the UK, but there is no shortage of online platforms offering those products in the UK. They are freely available to purchasers here, even though their purchase is illegal, and in the particular case I mentioned, the suppliers were all located outside the UK.

Will the clause not have effect if a seller is outside the UK, as was the case with corrosive products, which we discussed on Tuesday? Will we therefore need to depend on separate measures—set out, I think, in clause 18, in which a responsibility is placed on delivery companies—to address the problem of sales from outside the UK? If so, can the Minister can clarify the position in cases where sellers are located elsewhere in the EU? As I have pointed out previously, eBay offers some pretty ghastly weapons supplied by firms in Germany, which is a member of the European Union, as are we, at the moment. Will clause 12 have no effect on sellers located elsewhere in the EU, as I think the Minister indicated was the case in the parallel discussion we had on Tuesday? If so, I am a little bit puzzled as to why. If a seller in Germany sells a weapon that is illegal in the UK to somebody in the UK, or a knife to a 16-year-old in the UK, how is it not possible to prosecute that company somewhere else in the European Union for having committed an offence?

We had a debate on Tuesday about amendment 53, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley, which proposed that the age threshold for knife purchases be raised from 18 to 21, and the Minister quite properly explained some of the difficulties with that. However, I hope that we will not leave this issue here. There is a compelling case for saying that some of those very unpleasant weapons, the only purpose of which can be to do damage to others, should not be freely available, as they are at the moment, to 19 and 20-year-olds. I take the point that there is not an amendment that would have that effect on the amendment paper at the moment, but I hope that we will not let this matter pass. We have to change the way the age restrictions work and find ways to limit the supply of weapons that are inflicting appalling injuries—and indeed death—on far too many people in our country.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

It continues to be a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. Police records show that knife crime has increased by 16% and possession offences have increased by 28% in the year ending March 2018. The right hon. Member for East Ham has given us a taste of the devastation that those offences cause to not just the people immediately involved in the aftermath of an attack—families and friends—but the wider community. That is why, after months of detailed work with charities, the police, local authorities, health care providers and others, the Government gathered together the evidence and published the “Serious Violence Strategy” in April this year. I hope the right hon. Gentleman and others will see that it is a game-changer in how we tackle serious violence. It does not just focus on how the police tackle serious violence, although that is very important, but puts the emphasis on early intervention. As we know from discussions in this Committee, many perpetrators and victims of these crimes are children.

As part of the strategy, we are investing £22 million over the next two years in a new early intervention youth fund to provide joined-up support to youth groups and communities working with children and young people. The right hon. Member for East Ham mentioned police resources; I will touch on that lightly, as we discuss this subject in many forums. Although the policing response is incredibly important, there are other much bigger drivers of the upsurge in violence. Sadly, we all know the upturn in county lines and know that the drugs market is a major driver of the violence, but that is for another occasion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

Months of work have gone into the “Serious Violence Strategy”, and the Bill will try to assist not only the police but online retailers. I do not for a moment suggest that they are deliberately trying to evade the law, and we want to help law-abiding retailers to fulfil their responsibilities under the law. We hope that setting out these conditions, which will no doubt be widely disseminated in the industry and among retailers, will help retailers satisfy themselves that they have met the expectations of the law on those sales. The clause should be read in conjunction with clause 15, which is another stage in the process of preventing knives that are bought online being delivered to residential premises.

[Stephen Timms]

The Minister gave the example of somebody aged 16 buying a knife online. I am not sure that an offence would have been committed there if the supplier of the knife was based outside the UK. I do not know if they were, but that is very likely; they could have been from Germany or China. Was there a prosecution in that case, and if the supplier was outside the UK, is there nothing the law can do about it?

[Victoria Atkins]

Because Bailey was killed, the police who conducted the investigation charged the young boy with murder. The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the subsidiary offence of possession was probably not on the indictment—or the Scottish equivalent—although I do not wish to speculate on that. However, Aberdeen City Council conducted an independent review of the circumstances of Bailey’s death and found that the boy had bought the knife via Amazon.co.uk. The point of the clause is to say that if someone is relying on the existing defence of having taken reasonable precautions, they must meet the four conditions in clause 12. It sets out those conditions in a strict manner. I will come on to the point about overseas sales in a moment, if I may.

[Stephen Timms]

By the sound of it, there should have been a prosecution in that case. Someone who was 16 was sold a knife. Clearly, if it was a UK supplier—I think the Minister indicated that it was—a criminal offence had been carried out. Surely there should then have been a prosecution.

[Victoria Atkins]

It was sold by means of Amazon. It was a Scottish case, so I will have to find that out for the right hon. Gentleman, but I make the point about Amazon. If he remembers, we had this discussion about the difficulty with Amazon or a business such as Amazon. That difficulty is discerning when Amazon is selling in its own right as Amazon and when it is acting as a marketplace, antiques fair or whatever analogy one wants to use. That is difficult, a very tricky area in which to put into law the ill-harm we are addressing. The provisions on overseas sales try to address that. I do not pretend that we are 100% there, but we are trying to weave our way through to ensure that companies that knowingly take on online delivery of overseas sales meet the threshold. We will return to that at the appropriate clause.

Clause 12 amends section 141A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which makes it an offence to sell bladed articles to people under 18. That defence—namely, that the seller took

“all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid the commission of the offence”—

is modified, or explained, in clause 12 for when the sale is conducted remotely. If sellers do not put in place minimum requirements to meet the conditions set out in the clause, they will not be able to avail themselves of the defence that they took “all reasonable precautions” or “exercised all due diligence” to avoid an offence being committed.

The first requirement is that the seller has a system in place to verify the age of the purchaser. Sellers are expected to have robust age-verification processes to reassure themselves that the person to whom they are selling is 18 or above. The legislation does not prescribe what constitutes a robust age-verification procedure, and that is deliberate, because we know all too well how quickly the online world is moving. The age-verification industry is evolving rapidly, as we saw with the Digital Economy Act 2017. We do not want to put something in statute that is a commercial decision for retailers or that might result in out-of-date measures in 12 months’ time or ones that could already be improved.

Frankly, it is for business owners to decide which solution is best for their business model. I draw an analogy with the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which does not set out what is expected of anyone running a business such as a construction company or an iron foundry, but does set out the expectation that those employers will take all reasonable practicable steps to protect their workforce and members of the public.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

Yes, that is absolutely what we are trying to improve upon. Some retailers think that that is sufficient. It is simply not sufficient. If they are going to make those sales, I am afraid that, in the interest of the wider community, they have to ensure that they are lawfully permitted to sell to the people to whom they are selling. A tick-box exercise is simply not good enough.

A second requirement is for the package to be marked clearly to the effect that it contains an article with a blade—or one that is sharp and pointed—and that it can be delivered only into the hands of a person aged 18 or over. Frankly, I should have hoped that sellers would already have similar arrangements, if they wanted to ensure that a knife sold remotely would not be handed over to a person under 18, under current legislation. However, unfortunately some sellers do not mark the package as age-restricted, so we are building the further safeguard into the Bill.

The third requirement is for the seller to take all reasonable precautions to ensure that when the package is delivered it is handed to a person aged 18 or over. Again, the seller has a responsibility to ensure that the company delivering the item understands that age must be verified before it is handed over. The fourth requirement is for the seller not to deliver the package, or arrange for it to be delivered, to a locker. Some delivery companies nowadays have those facilities. That is not permissible for the sale of bladed articles—bladed products—under the clause. Obviously it would fall foul of the age verification process.

We expect that, with the placing of those minimum requirements on a statutory footing, they will be standard practice to comply with existing legislation.

[Stephen Timms]

Before the Minister concludes, can I ask the question I raised earlier? Is it the case that a seller outside the UK is outside the jurisdiction of the measures?

[Victoria Atkins]

It is. There are very few offences for which we have been able to seek extraterritorial jurisdiction. The right hon. Gentleman will know, for example, that if murder or female genital mutilation are planned outside the jurisdiction, we can make applications for extraterritorial jurisdiction to be satisfied, but on this occasion if the act of sale takes place outside the UK, it is not covered by the Bill. That is precisely why we are using clause 18 to try none the less to contain that activity.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 12 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 13 and 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 15

Delivery of bladed products to residential premises etc

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend makes a very fair point and I have no doubt that it was instances such as that that lie behind the framing of the clause as it stands. Indeed, I myself have been contacted by a company that sells tools for hunting; I think that is right. That company asked whether my amendment would exclude the delivery of knives to sole traders—people working from home.

I must say that I have got a bit less sympathy for people who are selling knives from home than for people like my hon. Friend’s constituent, who are simply obtaining tools for their own use to pursue their occupations. Of course, if we went down the amendments 46 and 48 route, whereby such things could be supplied only to a registered business address, that would avoid the difficulty to which my hon. Friend rightly refers. The amendment 47 approach would exclude delivery to people such as my hon. Friend’s constituent, and I accept that that would be difficult to justify. That is why I made the point that I do not think that either of the two approaches I have described is the solution to the problem. The Government are right to want to restrict sales of very dangerous weapons to people’s homes. There is a bit of a loophole here, and I hope it can be addressed.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his amendment. We have tried to limit the impact of these measures wherever possible to the issue of real concern: preventing young people from having access to the most offensive types of knives online. We are not trying to make life difficult for the constituent of the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn. It is a balancing act.

Amendment 46 would have the effect of restricting the range of addresses to which a remote seller can send a bladed product. It might mean, for example, that bladed products bought online could not be sent to a school or a hospital, which may not be registered as business addresses. A person working from home—for example, someone working part-time or engaged in irregular work from home—might not have registered their home as a business address. A farm might or might not be registered as a business address. We are very conscious of the fact that clause 15 will already have an impact on the online trade of bladed products, which can cover anything from breadknives to specialist bladed knives used for woodworking or agricultural activities, as the right hon. Member for East Ham described. We are trying to limit the impact on that legitimate trade by allowing deliveries to businesses to continue. The business could be a farm, a hospital, a school or a business run from someone’s home.

We considered using a registered business address as the basis for the offence, but we decided against that because there is no simple way for sellers to ascertain whether a premise is a registered business address—particularly if the person working there is self-employed or part-time. Of course, not all types of businesses that we would want to be able to receive deliveries will necessarily operate from a registered business address. We therefore took the approach of preventing the dispatch of bladed products to a premise that is used solely as a residential premise. That will allow deliveries to continue to hospitals, hotels, care homes, schools, restaurants, farms and any residential premise from which a business operates, such as a plumber who operates from home.

The right hon. Gentleman gave the example of a flat above a shop. It depends on the construction of the premise, but if it is a divided premise—in other words, if the flat has nothing to do with the shop—I suspect it would be viewed as a residential premise and so would be covered by the clause.

[Victoria Atkins]

There are a range of ways in which the seller may satisfy themselves of that purpose. They could ask the buyer to produce evidence that the address to which they are delivering is a business. It might take the form of a document confirming that it is a registered business address. It might be that the buyer supplies business papers showing the address, a document setting out that the property is subject to business rates or a simple confirmation email from the buyer to confirm that they work from that address.

There are many ways in which to tackle this issue, and the step-by-step process that the Bill proposes will make it less and less likely that a young person who is sadly on a path of criminality will think it is worth the hassle, frankly. Sellers emailing buyers to confirm their business address and to ask what sort of business they operate and so on will put a responsibility on the buyer as well, and rightly so. I hope that that explanation of our approach satisfies the right hon. Gentleman, and I invite him to withdraw his amendments.

[Stephen Timms]

I am grateful to the Minister for that response, which she set out clearly. I am interested to hear that officials considered the approach based on a registered business address. In my mind, given the importance of restricting access to dangerous weapons, it might not be a bad thing to say to people that, if they want to buy what can be used as a dangerous weapon, they will have to register their address as a business address. However, I take the point that that is perhaps not the appropriate step to take for now. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

This is all it is. I hope that this message is made clear to those retailers who have understandably expressed concerns: it is simply about ensuring that, at the point of sale, they have done what they should have done to check the age of the customers they are selling to. Frankly, they should have been doing that for the past 30 years. Let us not forget that the item will be clearly labelled at the point of handover—that is a condition of clause 12, as it is for the retailer to ensure that the delivery company, the post office, or whoever, knows that—and those conditions must be met. A great deal of thought has gone into the clause. We have very much tried to balance the needs of small businesses, Royal Mail and other delivery drivers, and of the law-abiding community who want to purchase knives online. We have excluded businesses run from home because we have listened to the responses to the consultation. We accept that a farm may well require bladed articles, and a farm on which someone lives and from which they run their business is frankly not the target of the Bill.

[Stephen Timms]

As I have indicated, I am comfortable with the clause, although the Minister should acknowledge what my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley pointed out. It will not be possible in future to have kitchen scissors, for example, delivered to a home because they have blades longer than 3 inches. That is what the Minister is telling the Committee, and I have no problem with that, but she must acknowledge that that is indeed the implication. If kitchen scissor blades are longer than 3 inches, which normally they are, as I understand the clause it will not be possible to have those scissors delivered to a home; they will have to be picked up from a post office.

I want to ask her, as well, about my point on overseas sellers. As I understand it, someone selling products to customers outside of the UK will be able to carry on posting them directly to customers’ homes without any hindrance. Is that correct?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am afraid I will not say that all kitchen scissors are prohibited under the legislation, as the right hon. Gentleman would like me to do. With the best will in the world, I cannot say whether every pair of kitchen scissors has 3-inch blades or not. [Interruption.] I am sorry, I did not hear the intervention from the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley. Manufacturers will have to look at the definition. We have tried to accommodate the needs of business while keeping the intent of the Bill intact.

We will move on to the international element in clause 18, but extraterritorial jurisdiction issues mean that because the point of sale is overseas and English jurisdiction does not stretch to Germany or China, we have had to try to deal with what we can here in the UK. We will move on to that debate in due course, but there is a reason we have differentiated UK and international sales. If a manufacturer or a seller has an existing agreement with a delivery company, and the delivery company knows the person to whom they are selling products, we expect them to make age checks themselves. That is a different scenario from, say, the woodcutter in Hampstead who sells the items. They can use all the delivery companies in this country as long as they follow the steps, and someone will have to go to a shop or a post office to pick the package up.

Offensive Weapons Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Stephen Timms

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Victoria Atkins]

The differences are simply to reflect the differences between Scottish law and the law in the rest of the United Kingdom. As I said, Scottish law requires corroborated evidence. We need to ensure that any necessary forensic testing can be undertaken, for example. The reasons behind the defences are to keep things in step with the law that is already the case in Scotland and to enable the defences to be applied appropriately. As I referred to, we have a legislative consent motion from the Scottish Government already, and they are supported by the Crown Office and the Procurator Fiscal Service, which will be responsible for prosecuting the offences in Scotland.

Amendment 13 agreed to.

[Stephen Timms]

I beg to move amendment 10, in clause 1, page 2, leave out lines 18 to 21 and insert

‘a product which is capable of burning human skin by corrosion.’

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I will return to that point in a moment, if I may.

On clause 5 generally, we have taken a different approach because we want to reflect the operational realities of police officers on the ground trying to deal with situations in which they think a young person or people have potentially decanted corrosive and harmful substances into different containers. They are not chemists and they do not have a laboratory on the street to help them decide whether the exact concentrations set out in schedule 1 have been met, so we wanted to come up with a definition that could be used widely as part of operational policing, based on the effect that the substance could have.

We use “substance” from clause 5 onwards to differentiate it from the schedule 1 substances. The resulting definition captures all the substances listed in schedule 1, all of which are capable of burning human skin, but it might also include other substances that are capable of such burning, by corrosion, for example an acid not currently listed there. It will also help police, subject to the stop-and-search consultation that we have open at the moment, to seize substances they find on the street without having to worry about their specific chemical make-up. We hope, therefore, that by having two separate definitions of corrosives in the Bill we are addressing both the operational needs of the police and the expectations of manufacturers and retailers, while also helping them.

In response to the hon. Lady’s query about lower concentrations, the level could be lower, for example 10% rather than 15%, but for some it is a very low concentration, for example at 0.5% it may no longer burn the skin. The point is to enable officers on the ground to make arrests as they deem appropriate, and in due course the substances will no doubt be examined and the appropriate offence charged, if a charging decision is made.

I hope that I have reassured the right hon. Member for East Ham on his concerns about having two different definitions. Ultimately, they are meant to try to ensure that the most dangerous, harmful substances are caught by schedule 1, while also ensuring that police officers are able to do their job on the ground, day to day, under clause 5.

[Stephen Timms]

I am grateful to the Minister, but I must say that I do not understand her explanation. I think that what she has done, very effectively, is to make a good case for the schedule 1 approach. I completely accept that retailers need to be clear about what it is they are not allowed to sell, but surely police officers equally need to be clear about what people are not allowed to carry around the streets.

[Victoria Atkins]

To be clear, we know that some people who see acid as a weapon of choice decant the substance into a drinks bottle. Sometimes even the containers the substances are sold in do not have the percentages on them, which is why barcoding for manufacturers will be so important in helping retailers understand. We cannot expect officers, with the best will in the world, to know, when presented in the high street with a water bottle full of a clear substance, that it is hydrofluoric acid of greater than 0%, or any of the other substances in schedule 1, so the reason for the two separate definitions is to try to ensure that clause 5 works on the ground for officers.

My concern about amendment 12, if I have understood the right hon. Gentleman correctly in that it imposes the schedule 1 definition on clause 5, is that it would restrict the application of that clause. There will be corrosive substances that if on human skin for long enough could start to burn it but which do not fall into the very high harm category of products we have put into schedule 1.

I am sorry for the long intervention.

[Stephen Timms]

So the Minister is saying it is a question of the severity of the effect of the substance. That is a little bit more helpful, but I am still puzzled. If a police officer takes a Lucozade bottle that has something dodgy in it, I am not sure they will be able to establish very readily on the spot whether it is a corrosive substance or not.

[Victoria Atkins]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. This is why the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory is developing test kits to help the police. It will not be a terribly complicated, scientific laboratory-type test, but it will be a test that they can use on the ground in the heat of what may be a quite volatile arresting situation.

[Stephen Timms]

I am grateful to the Minister for that. That sounds like a welcome step. Will that kit test for things in schedule 1 or for general corrosion? [Interruption.] Okay.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

If I may, I will write to the hon. Lady, because she raises an important point. I emphasise that the Bill has a schedule that reflects its policy intent and not that of other legislation. I ask her to withdraw the amendment.

[Stephen Timms]

The Minister referred to amendment 11 in her remarks on the previous group. I want to query one particular aspect of schedule 1 because there is a broader point here. She said something about schedule 1 and the DSTL submission that has been made available to the Committee—I am grateful to her for ensuring that we had that in time for this debate. What I am not clear about is what exactly the basis is for including something in schedule 1 or the annex to the summary of the scientific evidence. What is the basis for setting the concentration that is spelt out in the Bill? Is there a threshold for the degree of corrosiveness—or something—that must be passed in order for a substance and a concentration to be specified on the face of the Bill? When we saw the scientific evidence, or the summary of it, I hoped that we would have some information about that, but it is a very thin document; it is an annotated couple of sides and does not tell us very much more than the schedule itself. I wonder whether the Minister can tell us a little more about the basis for including each of the entries in schedule 1.

Offensive Weapons Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Stephen Timms

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 4th September 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

Clause 1(10) provides a delegated power for the Secretary of State, and for the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland, to amend schedule 1 by secondary legislation. Such regulations would be subject to the affirmative procedure. Any changes required in future will be undertaken on the advice of the police—including Police Scotland, which would not be covered by the amendment because it is not part of the National Police Chiefs Council—and of our scientific advisers, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. We would also consult with manufacturers, retailers and the Scottish Government before making any regulations to amend the schedule.

Although we would take police and scientific advice, consult with others and make the outcome of those discussions available to Parliament when making any regulations, we do not think that there needs to be a legal requirement to publish evidence. Parliament will have ample opportunity in the debates on the regulations in both Houses to question the Government about why we are amending the schedule. Having a legal requirement could also lead to problems; for example, if the NPCC changed its name, further primary legislation would be needed before any regulations could be made.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Clause 1(10) refers to the “appropriate national authority” to make additions or changes to schedule 1. Could the Minister clarify what that authority will be? Will it be a different authority in different parts of the UK, or a single authority throughout?

A couple of times, the Minister made the helpful point that regulations to make such changes will be subject to the affirmative rather than the negative procedure. Could she point us to where in the Bill that assurance is provided? I have not been able to find it.

[Victoria Atkins]

The appropriate national authority will be the Secretary of State in England, Wales and Scotland, and the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland. We will consult the Scottish Government, however, because clauses 1 to 4 deal with matters that are reserved in relation to Scotland.

The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point about where in the Bill the affirmative procedure is specified. Clause 37(2) requires that regulations be

“approved by a resolution…of each House of Parliament.”

As ever, I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his forensic eye for detail, and I invite the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East and the right hon. Member for East Ham for the amendments and the new clause. If I may, I will deal with amendments 43 and 44 first and then move on to new clause 9.

I start by saying that, sadly, it is of course not just in the context of the use of offensive weapons that there are people who do not have the scruples that we do when it comes to crimes and harms; they use online platforms to sell their wares. Indeed, only yesterday my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary gave a powerful speech on his expectations of all members of the tech industry when it comes to addressing the horrific prevalence of child sexual exploitation online. We are discussing here a different form of criminality, but of course we have to work to ensure that criminals do not have a gaping hole open on the internet to sell these horrific weapons.

Section 141 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 prohibits the sale, importation and other things of disguised knives. The Bill extends that to cover their possession, so I hope that that addresses the point made about the disguised weapon that Mr Butt—

[Stephen Timms]

Can the Minister clarify the law on this? If it is illegal to sell disguised weapons in the way that she has just said, but there are loads of them on eBay and anyone can look them up and anyone can buy them, who is committing an offence in that situation?

[Victoria Atkins]

If I inadvertently fall into error, I will write to the right hon. Gentleman to correct what I have said. With marketplace platforms such as eBay or Amazon, it depends. Let us take the example of Amazon. Sometimes Amazon sells as a retailer itself and at other times it is acting as—well, it has been described to me as an antiques fair where someone comes and puts up their stall. Because Amazon has headquarters in the UK, we believe that these provisions apply to those instances where it is selling the knives itself, directly. With the marketplace/antiques fair example, we are in very difficult territorial waters, because of course then Amazon is not selling the item directly itself. It depends on where the seller is based. Section 141 of the 1988 Act addresses the importation of weapons. The example of a zombie knife or a disguised weapon would fall under that section.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Timms]

The Minister made the point earlier, if I understood her correctly, that it is illegal to sell a disguised weapon. Lots of those kinds of weapons are freely available on ebay.co.uk, which presumably has some sort of UK presence. They are being sold by companies in China and around the world. If one of those companies sells a disguised weapon to somebody in the UK, has a crime been committed?

[Victoria Atkins]

These weapons, I hasten to add, are the ones described under the 1988 Act and under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988. If an item is an offensive weapon under that order, its importation is an offence. I am pretty sure I am on the right track. If the sale was a UK seller to a UK buyer, that is covered by section 141, but if it was a Chinese seller, using the right hon. Gentleman’s example, we do not have jurisdiction. We do, however, have jurisdiction over the person buying a disguised weapon, which is obviously one of the harms we are trying to address in the Bill.

[Stephen Timms]

But if it is, as it would be in the case of an eBay purchase, an individual buying the product online and then receiving it through a postman or courier, has anyone committed an offence? If so, who is it?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am struggling to keep up with the example. If an individual has imported a disguised weapon, it falls under section 141. If a UK purchaser has bought it from a UK seller, then both can be prosecuted under section 141 because sale and importation are in that section. If it is a UK buyer and an overseas seller, it is the buyer of a disguised weapon who falls foul of section 141. I hope that assists the right hon. Gentleman.

To deal with the point that the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East made—I am moving on from amendments 43 and 44—we do not want to put deliverers, couriers and office workers in the impossible position of trying to guess whether a parcel may or may not contain offensive weapons, which is why we have defined things in the way we have in the Bill. There is a contract with the delivery company and the seller to deliver it. We would obviously expect the seller to make it clear, or for the delivery company to satisfy itself, that the requirements of the Bill were being met.

On new clause 9, I have already referenced the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988. It is already an offence to sell, manufacture, hire, loan or gift such weapons in the UK and to import such items, so we are of the view that the criminality that the right hon. Member for East Ham rightly seeks to address is covered by existing legislation, regardless of whether it occurs inside or outside the EU.

[Stephen Timms]

The Minister has given the Committee a lot of helpful information. From what she says, anyone who buys the kind of product that I described, which is freely available on eBay, is committing an offence. If I buy a disguised weapon on ebay.co.uk from a Chinese company, I am committing an offence. How is it that eBay continues to offer all these things on its platform? At the very least it is highly irresponsible because, by definition, anyone who clicks on that item and makes a purchase is committing a crime. Surely that should not be permitted?

[Victoria Atkins]

That is a very good question for those tech companies—not just eBay but others—that allow those items on to their platform. The right hon. Gentleman knows that the Government will look at the huge issue of online responsibility and online harms in a White Paper being published later this year. That will cover not just the incidences we are looking at now but sexual abuse, violence, online trolling and bullying, and so on. These are all issues that we have drawn consultations on and that we are carefully considering. I will make sure that the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport very much bear the right hon. Gentleman’s point in mind.

[Stephen Timms]

rose—

[Stephen Timms]

I rise to make a contribution. The Minister referred to the obligations that the clause places on delivery companies in cases where purchases are made from a company outside the UK, as we have just discussed, with the onus therefore needing to be on those companies. Will she spell out for us what checks the delivery company will be required to make? She emphasised the importance of not making unreasonable demands of delivery companies, but how far will the legislation expect them to go in making sure that they are not delivering a corrosive product to somebody’s home?

[Victoria Atkins]

The defence is set out in subsection (5). It is the same threshold as that set out in clause 2: taking all reasonable precautions and exercising all due diligence.

[Stephen Timms]

Can the Minister—

[Stephen Timms]

I am grateful, Mr Gray, and I apologise for the confusion. I will make one final contribution, if I may. Can the Minister tell us a little more about what is regarded as reasonable? If a delivery company enters into a contract to deliver products from a supplier outside the UK and that supplier says that none of the products is corrosive, and if the delivery company believes them, has it taken all reasonable steps, or should it check the consignments to see what is in them? Should it check all of them, or just some of them? It would be helpful if the Minister could tell us a little more about what is expected of delivery company in such situations.

[Victoria Atkins]

The delivery company will know the nature of what it is delivering, because it will be under the arrangements with the seller. It is about whether the person it is handing the package to is over the age of 18. I am speculating, but it may well be that delivery companies set demands and expectations on the people with whom they enter into agreements when people are selling corrosive substances or bladed articles. The point is that it is about a contract to deliver substances or products that may fall under the Bill, as well as knives.

Offensive Weapons Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Stephen Timms

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 17th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

Yes.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The list of corrosive substances in schedule 1 is based on some scientific advice that the Government have received, as I understand it. Could that advice be made available to us as well?

[Victoria Atkins]

If I may, I will check with the officials and get back to the Committee on that.

Corrosive Substance Attacks

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Stephen Timms

Wednesday 20th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Victoria Atkins]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention, and I will move on to the more detailed points of her speech. My speech is a bit of a patchwork, and I am conscious of time. I want to allow her to respond formally to the debate, but I hope that she will glean from parts of my speech the intention of the Home Office at this stage.

We hope to announce a set of voluntary commitments shortly. They have been developed with the British Retail Consortium and tested with the Association of Convenience Stores and the British Independent Retailers Association to ensure that they are proportionate and workable for any size of retailer: large, medium and small. I encourage all retailers to sign up to those commitments once they are in place—indeed, I would be grateful if hon. Members would encourage retailers in their constituencies to sign up to them.

I also commend those retailers who have created their own voluntary initiatives. The right hon. Member for East Ham mentioned 126 in Newham, and I commend and thank them for taking such steps. But we know this has to be co-ordinated, which is why we have not only voluntary commitments but other plans further down the line. We hope that that will make a real difference on the street.

[Stephen Timms]

I have listened with great interest to what the Minister has said. Does she recognise that there is a case for making the cut-off age 21 rather than 18, which is the age the Government have referred to so far?

[Victoria Atkins]

Let me put it this way: I listened to the right hon. Gentleman with great interest, and I will certainly go back and discuss that with my officials. I will leave it there. We will work our way through that. However, I take his points, particularly about gang membership. Last week, I visited an amazing organisation called Safer London, which does a lot of work with gangs and their victims. The age profile of the people it works with is striking. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that point.

I also thank the hon. Member for West Ham for her point about online sales. The voluntary commitment we are developing will apply to both over-the-counter and online sales. We are also in discussions with online marketplaces about what action they can take to support our action plan and restrict access to the most harmful corrosive products.

The hon. Lady and several other hon. Members asked about the licensing system. In 2015, the Home Office introduced a cohesive licensing regime for explosive precursors and poisons, including substances such as hydrochloric acid, nitric acid and sulphuric acid. We continue to review whether the restrictions in the Poisons Act 1972 need to be extended to cover other substances and, as I said, we are developing a set of voluntary commitments for individual retailers in relation to access to those products. I listened with care to the hon. Lady’s points about licensing.

The hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) concentrated on the Deregulation Act 2015. The Government did not remove controls on sulphuric acid through that Act. Prior to the 2015 amendments to the Poisons Act 1972, no checks were required when a business was registered with its local authority to sell sulphuric acid and other poisons. The 2015 changes placed a mandatory requirement on retailers and suppliers to report any suspicious transactions involving the listed poisons and other substances, and introduced a requirement for members of the public to obtain a licence to purchase higher-risk regulated substances. Restrictions on who could sell the most dangerous poisons, and requirements for details to be registered when they were sold, were retained. However, we understand why hon. Members posed those questions. We are all talking about trying to restrict access to these terrible substances.

We are also looking at what manufacturers can do to help, which includes looking at packaging. We have spoken to the UK Cleaning Products Industry Association and the Chemical Business Association to see how they can support the action plan. We fully recognise that we need the help of manufacturers and retailers to stop these substances from getting into the wrong hands. However, we must ensure that there is effective support for victims and survivors in the event that they do, and the action plan puts them at the heart of our response.

It is vital that appropriate support is available to victims, both through the initial medical response and beyond. In the critical moments after an attack, victims must be treated quickly and correctly. The hon. Member for West Ham made interesting suggestions about various substances that may help. We have tried to ensure that the emergency services’ response is co-ordinated. The police, fire and rescue and ambulance services have developed a tri-service agreement on responding to this sort of attack. That means that the control room has an agreed checklist to provide advice, which ensures a consistent response from all three emergency services. That agreement has been trialled in London and will be rolled out nationally. The National Police Chiefs Council has also developed training and advice for first responders and police officers about how to treat victims at the scene. The situation is very dynamic in those vital first minutes, so the more we can do to help them, the better.

We also want to try to help the public to understand what they should do if they are on the scene of this sort of incident. NHS England, along with the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons, has launched advice to the public about what to do in the event that they are caught up in an acid or corrosive substance attack. That advice is three words: report, remove and rinse. People should report an attack to the emergency services as soon as they can, remove any garments that may be storing or have soaked up corrosive substances, and then rinse, rinse, rinse with water. Obviously, the emergency services can do more when they arrive.

This is, of course, not just about the few minutes after an attack—it is also about aftercare. The Department of Health and NHS England have mapped the specialist burns services that acid attack victims can access for treatment, which helps to ensure that there is consistent national provision for victims and their families. NHS England is also working with the British Burn Association to review all national burn care standards and outcomes to try to ensure that people are treated consistently and properly. However, as hon. Members explained, such attacks have a psychological impact as well as a physical effect. The Department of Health is engaging with NHS England’s lead commissioner to ensure that psychological support is provided to victims through all referral routes, including hospital emergency departments, GPs and ophthalmic services. We are conscious that we need to help people not just in the short term but in the longer term.

Putting the difficult medical aspects to one side, we need victims’ help to bring criminals to justice, so we want to try to ensure that victims feel as confident as possible about coming forward to report crimes and to support prosecutions. Hon. Members mentioned the disappointingly low prosecution rate. It is incredibly difficult for victims in such circumstances to find the wherewithal to stand up in court and give evidence. That is why my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions and the National Police Chiefs Council lead, Assistant Chief Constable Rachel Kearton, about the importance that police and prosecutors should place on identifying the potential need for special measures in court, to try to make victims as comfortable as possible so that they give the best evidence they can. The National Police Chiefs Council has also produced a strategy, which has been disseminated to all forces.

I was asked about Crown Prosecution Service guidance. The service has issued new interim guidance, which helps prosecutors to assess which charges to bring and how to manage such cases, and emphasises the importance of victim personal statements in all cases involving attacks with acid and other corrosive substances. I have a background in prosecuting. Although I did not prosecute this type of case, I cannot stress enough how effective a victim personal statement can be in ensuring that the victim’s voice is heard in court in the moments before a judge delivers their sentence.

We are told that the final CPS guidance will be issued in the new year. The police are also being encouraged to prepare community impact statements, which the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), who is no longer in his place, mentioned, to ensure that courts are fully aware of the impact of these offences on individuals and communities.

Finally on justice, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley asked me about the victims law. I am told that that is a matter for the Ministry of Justice. That is not a terribly satisfactory answer, so I will write to her after I learn the status of that from the Ministry of Justice.

[Stephen Timms]

I thank the Minister for her comprehensive response. One issue I do not think she has touched on so far is the possible timing for the new offence of possession of acid. The Government made the welcome commitment to introduce that, but when can we look forward to it coming forward?

[Victoria Atkins]

We have committed to a consultation, which has just closed, and we are reviewing its results. This debate is helpful in showing the concern Members have about the need for such an offence and getting it on to the statute book as quickly as possible, but at the moment we must concentrate on reviewing the results of the consultation.

Justice cannot be secured without effective policing. The Home Office is working closely with the National Police Chiefs Council lead, Assistant Chief Constable Rachel Kearton, and the Metropolitan Police Service to ensure that the policing response is effective in preventing these crimes from happening in the first place, but, if they do happen, to ensure we provide a strong and robust response and appropriate support to victims.

In addition to the policing strategy and medical training I have already mentioned, specialist investigative guidance has been developed for officers regarding conducting the forensic search. We want to help officers understand how to recover substances and any exhibits safely and to handle them in a way that helps provide the evidence to build a case for prosecution.

The National Police Chiefs Council lead has also commissioned data from all forces to develop our understanding of the scale and extent of attacks. I know data collection has concerned hon. Members. In addition to that, the Home Office has commissioned academic research to develop our understanding of the motivations of those who carry and use acid and corrosives in violent attacks and other criminal acts. We want to use the findings from that research to help inform our prevention and enforcement responses. We very much hope to have the findings available in the middle of next year.

The last category in the four-point action plan is that of ensuring that legislation is understood and consistently applied. We have reviewed the current legislation to ensure that everyone working within the criminal justice system, from police officers to prosecutors, has the powers they need to punish severely those who commit these appalling crimes.

Hon. Members will be aware that, as we have discussed, this autumn we launched a consultation on new laws on offensive and dangerous weapons, which included proposals to prohibit sales to under-18s and to make it an offence to possess a corrosive substance in a public place without good reason. I can tell from the contributions of those present that that offence would meet with a lot of agreement in the House of Commons.

We also looked into the proposal of introducing minimum custodial sentences for those caught carrying corrosive substances repeatedly. Of course, we hope that an offender would receive a custodial sentence on the first offence anyway, but we want to make it clear that the continued carrying of such substances is not acceptable. The consultation closed on 9 December and officials are working on it carefully and quickly. We will consider the responses to that consultation in the proposals.

We have also been clear that the life sentences should be not just for the victims of these horrendous attacks. Anyone using acid or other corrosive substances in an attack has committed a very serious offence of assault and, depending on the severity of the injuries, can be prosecuted with offences attracting substantial custodial sentences on conviction, including life imprisonment for a section 18 assault—grievous bodily harm. Indeed, mention has been made of the sentence delivered yesterday to Arthur Collins of 20 years’ imprisonment and five years on licence for his appalling attack in a nightclub. May that sentence ring loud across the streets of London—the judiciary will not accept that sort of conduct in their courts.

I was asked about the Sentencing Council. It is currently developing a new guideline on possession of dangerous weapons and threats to use them. The guidelines will also take into account offences involving acid, which would be categorised as a highly dangerous weapon, given the significant harm that it is likely to cause victims. Possession of, and threats to use, a highly dangerous weapon would place the offender in the highest category of culpability. We hope to have those guidelines soon, but in the meantime the Sentencing Council has confirmed that the use of corrosive substances shows high culpability and should attract higher sentences.

I thank hon. Members again for their contributions and want to make it clear that the Government are committed to tackling the use of acid and other corrosives in violent attacks. It is vital that we work together to protect the public and prevent attacks, which is why we are working so closely with a range of partners including the police, the CPS and retailers. We will continue to review and monitor the implementation of the action plan. In addition to the action plan, the Government are committed to tackling serious violence, and that is why the Home Secretary has announced a new serious violence strategy, which will be published in early 2018. I very much see acid attacks being included as part of that strategy.

I hope that hon. Members are reassured about the progress being made with the action plan and about our continued commitment to tackle and prevent these terrible crimes. The words of Katie Piper and other victims ring loud in our ears. We will not allow these people to take victims’ identities away.