Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Alex Chalk and Sarah Newton

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Newton]

I am going to pass my opportunity over to Alex.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Q Thank you very much. I declare an interest: I am pretty sure I have prosecuted offences that were defended at the bar by Bindmans.

Mr Schwarz, can I ask briefly about your helpful point on an apparent inconsistency between domestic and wild animals and explore a little bit about how much that matters? I am conscious that, if a robbery takes place and there are two robbers, one of whom is 18 years and one day old at the time of the offence and the other is 17 years and 360 days, they will be sentenced under different regimes, even though, as far as they are concerned, they are two young men of effectively identical age. Equally, if there is a traffic offence and a prosecutor decides the driving fell far below the standard of a reasonably careful and competent driver, they get charged with dangerous driving. Equally, if another prosecutor says, “Well, I don’t think it quite crosses ‘far below’, but it was below the expected standard, so I’m going to charge it as careless driving,” that offending would be sentenced under different regimes. Have the courts not shown themselves to be well able to deal with such discrepancies without any real manifest injustice to anyone?

Mike Schwarz: I can see I have struck a lawyer here. There is a difference, actually, and it is one of substance. There is a principle behind treating adults differently from juveniles, and a principle behind treating careless driving differently from dangerous driving. As we all know, the law has to draw a line because there is a reason for doing so. The distinction between the sectors of domesticated and wildlife animals, and treating them differently in terms of sentence, does not appear to have a principle, unless Parliament is saying that the animal suffers less in the wild as the result of unnecessary cruelty, or that it is more important to punish suffering in the domesticated area. For what it is worth, I think the suffering is the same, and it is for Parliament to decide whether the two should be distinguished from each other. That is where the distinction lies.

It begs the question of what the animal welfare legislation is generally about. It seems to be about protecting animals, punishing bad behaviour by humans and stopping it being propagated elsewhere. In the sentencing guidelines and the offences, however, there is no demarcation between sectors to say that one sector is more worthy of protection than the other is, which is why I go back to the point on the level playing field across the two areas.

Further Education Funding

Debate between Alex Chalk and Sarah Newton

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

rose—

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

rose—

[Richard Graham]

I will give way to Cheltenham and then Truro.

Draft Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2017

Debate between Alex Chalk and Sarah Newton

Monday 23rd October 2017 General Committees

[Sarah Newton]

I appreciate the support of Her Majesty’s Opposition and the other comments that have been made.

I was delighted that we were able to publish the drugs strategy. It has largely had a warm welcome, including from the Labour party. I am very appreciative of that. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley pointed out that the national recovery champion potentially has a significant role, and I am pleased about the warm welcome for that. As the hon. Lady will know, it takes time to make public appointments; there must be a proper, rigorous public appointment process. That process has started and we very much hope that someone will be in the post, up and running, before the end of the year, or in the early part of next year. The work of constructing the board is, of course, moving along.

The drugs strategy was the result of a huge amount of cross-Government working. We have good inter-ministerial working, and the hon. Lady will note that the strategy is a joint one, owned by me and by the Department of Health. That is important, because the heart of the strategy is to enable people to break their addiction and to prevent people from becoming addicted to harmful substances in the first place; the recovery champion sums up the heart of the strategy.

We are working urgently and at a considerable pace with other Departments to implement the strategy. I am sure that the hon. Lady noticed over the summer the excellent work published by the Department of Health, which examined what works in recovery services. We set out an ambitious outcomes framework to enable people to get access to services that enable them to sustain their recovery over a long period. We have made good progress in implementing many aspects of the drugs strategy that we communicated in the summer.

The crime survey, about which there were some questions, is incredibly important. It has been running for decades and provides a very large sample—38,000 people, on a regular basis, give extremely good and valuable data on the experience of crime from a victim’s point of view. That helps us and those engaged in policing to make sure that there are the right resources, by which I do not mean just monetary resources: we make sure that the police have the tools they need, and that we have set out the right offences to enable them to bear down on crime.

The survey is important, but of course it is not the only one we use in relation to drugs policy. We have used a lot of data gathered from Public Health England. The hon. Lady will be well aware of the investment the Government have made in the past few years across the UK, with a lot of support from our colleagues in Scotland, so that we collect good toxicology information and so that emerging and changing trends in drug use are captured in the data collected by Public Health England, as well as through the crime survey.

I assure the hon. Lady that we are evidence-based policy makers, and always want to make sure that we have the most appropriate and up-to-date evidence on which to form our policies. We also work with the ACMD: not only do we ask it for advice about particular substances and how they should be scheduled, but we ask it to consider the effectiveness of drug and alcohol rehabilitation services. It has an important role to play, and undertakes research to enable us to do our work.

The hon. Lady commented on the changes in the crime survey and sample sizes, and I shall write to her about why we decided to proceed as we are doing, and how we will make sure to everyone’s satisfaction that we collect the data we need to do all we can to keep people safe. It is pleasing that, after a sustained effort over a number of years, fewer people—particularly young people—are taking drugs, but clearly I am worried, as are the Government, about the number of people who are dying from overdoses. We are doing a huge amount of work to tailor interventions so that lives are saved, to protect people and to enable them to make the journey to recovery.

I hope that those answers are reassuring, and that I have made the case to support the measure.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I entirely support the measure, but will the Minister clarify the position regarding the Psychoactive Substances Act? This substance was presumably already controlled under that legislation. What will bringing the substance within the 1971 Act bring to that prohibition, which aims to increase protection in our country?

[Sarah Newton]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He is absolutely right. The great success of the Psychoactive Substances Act is that, when Public Health England or police officers are worried about a new substance they see appearing on the market, immediate protection can be put in place, with a lesser burden of evidence required than for full scheduling, to prevent people from getting that harmful substance. Temporary control orders give time for the evidence base to be gathered—the full toxicology reports and the data from Public Health England and police forces—and put in the round to measure the harm in full, so that we can properly schedule substances under the 1971 Act, which is exactly what we are seeing today; the whole process is working its way through.

Stronger penalties are associated with the possession or dealing of drugs according to the schedule. We very much hope that those stronger, tougher penalties act as a deterrent and send out a clear message to young people or anyone that these are harmful substances that we do not want them to even think about taking.

General Election Campaign: Abuse and Intimidation

Debate between Alex Chalk and Sarah Newton

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for sharing that experience. She is absolutely right: it is essential that people from every sort of background and from every part of our country feel that they can represent their communities. The Conservative party has put in a lot of effort over a number of years to break down the barriers so that people with disabilities can serve their communities locally or nationally. I was very proud of our party for setting up a new fund in the Cabinet Office, which provides funding to people who need to make reasonable adjustments to stand for office and to serve their community. I hope that my hon. Friend will pass on to that candidate our sincere gratitude for her perseverance—not being bullied or intimidated, but carrying on and taking a message of hope to her community. I encourage her to report that incident to the police. She has clear online evidence of hate crime perpetrated against her, and I would fully expect her local constabulary to take that seriously and go after the appalling person who wrote such things.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the social media platforms have a role to play? So many people get fed up with reporting abuse and nothing seems to happen to the individual who perpetrates it. If social media companies are serious about upholding their house rules, is it not vital that they issue a system of yellow cards and, if necessary, red cards to stop people having the platform they need to perpetrate this vile abuse?

[Sarah Newton]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. When social media companies are notified of this type of abuse, harassment and bullying, we expect them to take that material down. The police have the power to request that such material is taken down. It is important that people report instances of hate crime, and that those reports are followed up and prosecuted.

The law does not differentiate criminal offences committed on social media from those committed anywhere else. It is the action that is illegal. Robust legislation is in place to deal with internet trolls, cyber-stalking, harassment, and perpetrators of grossly offensive, obscene or menacing behaviour. A number of criminal offences may be committed by those abusing others on social media. These include credible threats of violence; damage to property; sending grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing messages; harassment; and stalking.

The Crown Prosecution Service recently revised its guidelines on social media to help to ensure a robust criminal justice system response. The updated guidelines incorporate new and emerging crimes that are being committed online and provide clear advice to help with the prosecution of cyber-enabled crime. On 21 August, the CPS published new public statements on how it will prosecute hate crime. The Director of Public Prosecutions committed the CPS to treating online hate crimes as seriously as those committed face to face. The CPS also launched revised legal guidance that sets out how prosecutors should make the charging decisions and handle these cases in court.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Newton]

I am pleased to hear that my hon. Friend has recently visited the BBC. Its fact-checking work is invaluable during elections and all year round. A number of extremely good programmes on the radio and television look at statistics and provide really good rebuttals to some of the myths we hear peddled. Social media companies need to do more. They have a responsibility to act when there is clear evidence of information being put out and leading to the sort of harm we are seeing.

[Alex Chalk]

rose—

[Sarah Newton]

I will just finish my point, but then I will definitely take more interventions.

The work we are doing in schools is incredibly important, so that young people are taught to be critical thinkers, are robust and are able to ask themselves some straightforward questions about the motivation of the person putting information before them. They will then become more resilient and questioning, coming to their own conclusions and accessing the very good resources that give the facts of the matter.

[Alex Chalk]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the duties of social media companies have to go beyond simply deleting an offensive post? They have to ensure that there are consequences for the perpetrator by suspending or even deleting their account. The companies show themselves to be incredibly reluctant to do so, no doubt for financial reasons, and they need to reassess. Does she agree?

[Sarah Newton]

There must be consequences for perpetrators of hate crime and the list of crimes that I have outlined. It is essential that people report, so that the police can take the appropriate action and people feel that there are consequences for the crimes they commit.