Criminal Justice Bill (Third sitting)
Alex Cunningham ExcerptsThursday 14th December 2023
(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24 View all Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 12 December 2023 - (12 Dec 2023)
Stephen Metcalfe
Q
Nick Smart: The powers on sale and manufacture are welcome in addressing those who use social media such as Snapchat to sell knives to groups. The prohibited knives in a public place distinction is welcome. We have tried for some time to do that. For example, you have to prove three different elements to prove that something is a zombie knife, but now there is a provision in the Bill. I guess an aggravating factor that might be linked to the sentencing guidance is having that prohibited knife in your possession. Again, taking that into account in a court of law is welcome. The set of provisions around knife crime is very welcome.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Q
“Police-perpetrated domestic abuse related issues—and that means three key things to me. One is being more proactive about removing warrant cards if someone is under investigation for crimes relating to violence against women and girls or domestic abuse. The second is the specified offences that I believe should be listed that would constitute gross misconduct; again, I think they should be defined as domestic abuse, sexual harassment, assault and violence, so-called honour-based abuse, and stalking. The third is stronger provisions in relation to police vetting—requiring that every five years, and ensuring that if there is a change in force, police vetting takes place. Tightening up those provisions is not currently in the Bill and I think it should be.”––[Official Report, Criminal Justice Public Bill Committee, 12 December 2023; c. 24, Q55.]
Do you agree?
Nick Smart: If we take the last point first, vetting more frequently during an officer’s service is welcome, and if they change force, entirely appropriate. We agree with that.
On gross misconduct, if you permit me, I have some data to share. We are talking about not just domestic-based issues, but superintendents served gross misconduct papers in the past few years for various things. In 2018-19, 19 of our members were served and two sacked; in 2019-20, 19 were served and four sacked; in ’20-21, nine gross misconducts, two sacked; and in’21-22, 12 with one sacked.
What that shows about gross misconduct is that roughly 80% of officers who are served with gross misconduct papers have NFA—no further action—taken against them. We suggest looking at cases on a case-by-case basis and, if it involves serious wrongdoing, that should be a matter for the appropriate authority to look at a severity assessment and to make that assessment straightaway. We believe we find that a quarter of our professional standards departments go to gross misconduct almost immediately, and if 80% to 85% of officers have no further action taken when they are given those gross misconduct papers, that indicates to us that the severity assessment is wrong in the first place. If there is wrongdoing and it is clear, however, then gross misconduct papers should be served.
We would say, again, that at the merest hint of a suggestion, police professional standards departments serve a gross misconduct, but we think that there should be more of an investigation to establish the facts before gross misconduct papers are served. But where there is a clear chain of evidence that relates to an individual and wrongdoing, it is entirely appropriate, and we support gross misconduct papers being served.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Nick Smart: I think that the way in which we as a service approach gross misconduct could do with a refresh. We have discussed that as a Police Superintendents’ Association, because our colleagues are usually the heads of professional standards departments making those assessments. Culturally, I think we go in low, so it is easy to give somebody a gross misconduct paper, whereas some work with the College of Policing to refresh how we approach that might be welcome, so that gross misconduct is served appropriately to the right individuals and we do not clutter professional standards departments with investigations that are going nowhere ultimately.
The Chair
Q
Nick Smart: If I may, there is one item—the powers of entry—which I think you alluded to. An issue that we looked at was that of immediacy. Section 18 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 allows the police to search after arrest, and that requires an inspector’s authority. In certain circumstances, if the inspector is not available or there is a policing need, the constable can go in and get retrospective authority.
In the circumstances outlined in the Bill’s powers of entry, nothing in there regards that immediacy. If the officer at the time needs to go in to recover the property but cannot get hold of the inspector—for example, if the inspector is in custody dealing with a review, or they are dealing with a complaint or a critical incident, and because they need to review what is going on and then give that authority—it would be helpful to have that provision in so that the officer can seek that respective authority from the inspector as per section 18 of PACE. The precedent is there, but a provision would tackle immediacy—
The Chair
We now welcome Mark Fairhurst. Would you like to introduce yourself to start with?
Mark Fairhurst: Sure. I am Mark Fairhurst, the national chair of the Prison Officers Association. I am also a serving prison officer, and have been since 1992.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Mark Fairhurst: We are really short of space at the moment. That is why the Government introduced an earlier release scheme to relieve some of the pressure. As it stands today, we probably have about 850 spaces left in the adult closed male estate. At the time the Government introduced these temporary measures, we had less than 200 spaces left. As the backlog in the courts gets dealt with, and we see more people getting sent to prison, we are really struggling for space. That means we now have to overcrowd already overcrowded prisons. There is a really big strain on the system at the moment. I believe that, come next spring—March or April time—we will be in crisis again with prison spaces as things start to ramp up.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Mark Fairhurst: No, they did not consult us at all. It was on the backburner for some time, but we were not made aware of it until it was actually going to be announced and put into action. Our response to it would have been the same no matter what: you need to look at sentencing first and foremost, particularly for those serving the shorter sentences. That would free up a lot of space. Overcrowding prisons even more just puts more pressure on the system. We need to look at prisoners serving sentences of imprisonment for public protection as well. We have about 3,000 people who are serving indeterminate prison sentences. They are not all a risk to the public. We need to look at that as well, to free up some space.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Mark Fairhurst: The problems I can foresee are that, for one, you have to have the agreement of the country you are going to deport them to. Secondly, you need to know the identity of the person and what country they are actually from—a lot of people do not divulge what country they are from. Thirdly, if you are going to send foreign criminals back to their country of origin and not insist that they finish their prison sentence in that country, there is not much of a deterrent to foreign offenders committing crimes in this country, because they will get a shorter prison sentence and will be sent back home at the taxpayer’s expense. Those are the problems I can foresee.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Mark Fairhurst: Again, it is all about cost. How much is it going to cost the taxpayer? Is it practical? How do we get them there? How many are we going to send? Our budgets are getting cut year on year through His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and the Ministry of Justice. Are we going to be given additional funding for it? The Government have promised 20,000 additional prison spaces. That is all well and good, but we cannot build prisons quickly enough and we cannot staff them because we are in a staffing crisis—we just cannot retain people.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Mark Fairhurst: It is welcome that the Government have decided that there is a presumption against shorter sentences. If they focused more on community sentences that the public have confidence in, that would help. If they focused on a re-sentencing exercise for IPP prisoners, as the Justice Committee recommended, that would free up a lot of space. But again, have we got enough probation staff in our communities to supervise offenders given community sentences? That is another big issue.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Mark Fairhurst: We will just see more and more pressure heaped upon us because prisons are already overcrowded. It will heap even more pressure on people. We cannot retain staff; most of them leave within the first two years of service. We do not have the infrastructure in many Victorian jails in inner cities to accept more people, so how quickly will we build new prisons and when will they be ready? More importantly, how will we staff them? For everybody’s notation, we are seeing a ramp-up in violence against staff, and more and more incidents of concerted indiscipline. It is only going to get worse the more we crowd prisons.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Mark Fairhurst: Not really. It works in the open estate. The open estate is very successful at preparing people for release and for getting back into their communities, but it is not practical in inner city local jails because we simply do not have the resources to do that. I would rather the Government focused on increasing community sentences with the correct supervision, and expanding the open estate so we could prepare people for release and hopefully rehabilitate them.
You have to understand that unfortunately in the prison system, rehabilitation is just a word—a headline. We do not have the resources to rehabilitate anybody because we do not have enough activity spaces or workspaces. We struggle to recruit teachers and give everybody a purposeful workspace in our prisons. That really needs to be addressed.
The other focus is that a lot of people in prison really should not be there because they have severe mental health disorders. They would be better suited serving their sentence in secure mental health institutions, so maybe we need to look at investing in that as well.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Mark Fairhurst: It is quite easy for prison officers to force someone to attend court; we restrain them on to a cellular vehicle and then they are taken to court. The problem arises at the other end because the courts are run by private security firms now. Have they got the staffing levels needed to take someone who has been recalcitrant off a bus and into a cell in the court? Have they got the resources to drag them into the dock if they are still displaying violent tendencies? Will that disrupt proceedings in the court? Will they be abusive to victims? Will it be distressing for the victims of crime to witness that in the dock? There are a lot of issues we need to look at.
Laura Farris
Q
Mark Fairhurst: Judges have always had the discretion to order a defendant into the dock. When we used to run a court in the ’90s, there was many a time that we would have used force on a prisoner to get them in front of a judge. That discretion has always been there. It is the right way to do things—we are best suited to decide when it is appropriate and proportionate to use force.
I would like to see dialogue between the staff in the courts and the judge because, if the prisoner is being extremely violent or aggressive, I do not think sitting them in front of a judge is the right way to do things. Maybe we could do it remotely, in a secure room, so the victim still has the opportunity to read out their impact statement, rather than proceedings being disrupted—when you do things remotely, you have the ability to mute. We could still force the prisoner to address those victims, and the victims would feel as if they were getting some sort of justice.
Criminal Justice Bill (Second sitting)
Alex Cunningham ExcerptsTuesday 12th December 2023
(4 months, 4 weeks ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24 View all Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 12 December 2023 - (12 Dec 2023)
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Q
Rebecca Bryant: Look at how we respond to antisocial behaviour. It is a partnership response—things like Supporting Families, which used to be Troubled Families, and those types of interventions and support provided to the whole family, which are trauma-informed and understanding of adverse childhood experiences, and recognise that behaviour is often a symptom of something happening within the family environment. We should be taking a whole-family approach, rather than looking at a young person, a 10-year-old, as an individual on their own. There is something there about the drivers of why that young 10-year-old is behaving in the way that they are. It is much more complex than focusing on a specific incident perpetrated by a child at the age of 10.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Rebecca Bryant: That is a fair assessment. Civil enforcement powers do not enforce; all they really do is set out very clearly how society expects individuals to behave. There is an expectation when that order is given that the person is able to comply. If a young person aged 10 or 11 is perpetrating and demonstrating this type of behaviour, are you setting them up to fail if you are not thinking about different sorts of interventions and support? You could think of supporting the parent to become a better parent, able to set boundaries and support longer term change, or using other trusted adults and other types of intervention and remedy to support that young person to change.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Andy Marsh: In explaining this, I am in no way seeking to justify a lack of attention, but when a call is made to a police control room, they will triage it and they will use something called a threat, harm and risk matrix. If the offender has left the scene and no one is at immediate risk, that is unlikely to secure an immediate deployment. There is more likely to be a follow-up investigation. The retail crime action plan and guidance on our website, and all the focus on the use of images and facial recognition and on persistent offenders, is bringing a much sharper focus to an area of standards and police response that has slipped to an unacceptably low level.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Andy Marsh: Yes, that is very often the case. For example, if on the one hand you had an incident of shoplifting where the offender had left the scene—let’s say the items stolen were less than £50—but on the other hand you had a report of a domestic violence incident or some antisocial behaviour happening on the street right now, those two calls would be prioritised above the shoplifting.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Andy Marsh: When you look at the changes in crime type over the last decade, we have seen a very significant rise in what I would call complex crime and vulnerability. The answer is that the police need to be able to respond to complex crime and vulnerability, and they need to be able to secure the confidence of the public in their ability to deal with shoplifting. I am a big supporter of neighbourhood policing. We intend next year to introduce a professionalising neighbourhood policing programme, which will give neighbourhood officers, for example, not only the training and skills to deal with shoplifting, but the new powers on antisocial behaviour to keep their communities safe.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Andy Cooke: No, the law is not different. The aggravating factor is that it is inside your house, not in a public space. People may consider that one is worse than the other, but at the end of the day the offence is the same, unless there is a weapon involved, as it obviously becomes a different offence after that—in private and in public—but both are equally serious.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Andy Cooke: The law would not necessarily say so. It would depend on the circumstances, on the weapons used and on whether it was a public or a private place. An open shop is, to a great extent, seen as a public place. The point I am trying to make is that an assault on a shop worker in a shop is a serious issue, and policing needs to do better to respond to these issues. I do not think there is any chief constable in the country who would disagree with that.
You asked if it was a resource issue. If there were more police officers, then they would be able to respond to more issues. Part of it is around prioritisation; and chief constables are responsible for the prioritisation that they choose. Have chief constables across the board got that prioritisation right? In my view, no, because a lot of the neighbourhood crimes we see—the thefts, car crime, burglaries, robberies—for some time have not been given sufficient credence, nor sufficiently tackled, as we have seen from the very low charge and disposal rates.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Andy Cooke: I understand fully the point you are making. I think it might strengthen the response from the police, as opposed to strengthening the law. The question of whether there should be a separate offence for teachers or other people in the community has been asked already. There are enough laws to deal with this. It is the response from policing that needs to improve. The response from some of the retailers themselves—that is, the bigger retailers, who can afford to put more money into this—also needs to improve.
The Chair
If there are no further questions, I thank our witnesses for their evidence. We will move on to the next panel. Thank you very much, the two Andys.
Examination of Witness
Dame Vera Baird KC gave evidence.
The Chair
I just gave the very briefest background.
Dame Vera Baird: Well, I’ve lived a long time—let’s be careful.
Alex Cunningham
Q
You are aware that the Victims and Prisoners Bill is still going through Parliament; it is hoped that it will be improved somewhat in the Lords. Can you offer a general comment on how you see this Bill providing additional solace for victims?
Dame Vera Baird: I think there are some bits of it that are good and perhaps will be very helpful to victims. The real problem with the Bill, if I may be really clear about it, is that it does not really contribute to solving the key criminal justice issues of the day, which are that charging has collapsed, prosecutions are few, there is a backlog of 65,000 at the courts—which has got worse, not better, since the end of the pandemic—and the prisons are full. There is no coherent strategy or provision in the Bill that is tackling any of those issues. Fine, there is some change to sentencing, but you have to appreciate how few people get as far as sentencing these days. I wonder whether we are not starting at the wrong end.
However, having said that—and I do say that, very strongly; and in that sense, the Bill is a disappointment—there are some bits of it that are very welcome.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Dame Vera Baird: I think that rationalising the way intimate images are dealt with is very good. The Law Commission has done a really good job of doing that. I think there are a couple of missing bits, which I could come back to later. Probably some of the aggravating sentence provisions are good, but I am worried about the fact that the Wade review has not been implemented as a whole.
There is a risk with the aggravations of sentence in domestic abuse without the mitigating factor in the Wade review. If someone strikes back after suffering coercive control for a long time, that should be a serious mitigation. I can easily see some of the aggravating provisions catching women, who will not be protected by the mitigation. Although some of the aggravations are fine, that is a real problem for women victims of coercive control—coercive control is 90-odd per cent. men on women; there is no doubt of that. That is the classic model of male-on-female, spousal domestic abuse. I am worried a little bit about that, but the basic provisions are reasonably okay.
I am pretty worried about prisoners going abroad. The problem with that is that it is permission without really knowing what permission is being given for: we do not know what kind of prisoners will go, whether it will be in the middle of their trial, whether it will be while they are still on remand or any of it. That is a little worrying. It is a bit of a mixed bag.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Dame Vera Baird: I am not sure what the grooming one adds; I think it just broadens it. If grooming is involved, it is already taken into account as an aggravating factor in sentencing. Perhaps we can do that with a person who might have abused a groomed child directly. Perhaps this provision broadens it so that if the person who fixes up the child is also groomed—perhaps become someone has gone through him, grooming is in the environment and so it will enhance the sentence. The Bill broadens this a little; if it does, it is a good flag to wave because we want to tackle grooming and make sure it is taken into account. But I do not see it as a major change.
The problem is where there is a victim of someone abusive, and the killing is brought about by the victim’s decision to try to leave—or to leave. So we are looking at aggravating the sentence of an abusive person when the victim has said she is going to leave. That is a classic model, which Jess knows all about: the eight steps to homicide. That has been well researched. Professor Jane Monckton-Smith talks about this: when the victim says she is going to leave is the most dangerous time. That is the time when killing happens, so it is appropriate to aggravate the sentence because of that position being there—it is commonplace.
The worry is that sometimes women who have been coercively controlled for a very long time and have suffered badly are also aware that their husband is being unfaithful with someone else. He says that he is going off with the other woman, and that can trigger her to kill him. Without the protection in the Wade review—to say that if she is being coercively controlled, that is a mitigation—what you will have done is to aggravate her sentence through this change, which is not a thing that anyone intends. It could do with just another quick look at how it will work.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Dame Vera Baird: I am honestly not sure about that; I have not given it much thought. It sounded like what we would expect to be there, so I do not think I have much of a comment.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Dame Vera Baird: As I am sure the Ministers know very well, this adds absolutely nothing to the current law. A judge can order somebody to come into court. If they do not, it is a contempt of court.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Dame Vera Baird: But you can already use reasonable force. As long as it is proportionate and necessary, the Prison Service is entitled to use reasonable force to fulfil the orders of the judge. If the judge says, “You must come” and you do not come, it is, No. 1, a contempt of court. And guess what the maximum sentence is for a contempt court? It is two years, exactly as it is in the Bill. If a person does not want to come and the officers regard it as necessary and proportionate to use force to bring them, they are entitled to do exactly that to fulfil the judge’s requirements. There is really no change here.
I well understand the sense from a victim that they want this moment—“Right, he’s going to face what he’s done now and I’m going to get some benefit from that.” But the reality is that you cannot capture somebody’s mind, can you? There are always risks that people who are dragged into court might be a nuisance. You can just imagine what could be done there. So it is a very difficult one to get right, although I understand the impulse to try to do this.
I think it was the former Lord Chief Justice John Thomas who suggested that a better way was to make sure that if the person does not come out of the cell, he is in a cell to which the sentencing can be broadcast. He cannot get away and the victims know that he has, as it were, faced his moment. Whatever he is doing—whether he is listening or he is not—they do not know, and that is the time passed.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Dame Vera Baird: I think they probably need to be strengthened quite a lot. I do not think there is anything in there that could criminalise somebody who provided a means for doing it as opposed to encouraging it. So if someone provides—I do not know—a knife or some drugs, I am not sure there is provision for that, and I think that is a big miss. This is a really worrying area and we need to legislate, and that is one of the good things in the Bill.
Laura Farris
Q
In that context, coercive control is making its way through in different forms. I have a narrow question about what you thought about the use of MAPPA—multi-agency public protection arrangements—in relation to the management of a serious coercive control offence.
Dame Vera Baird: I think it is good to state that formally. I am sure that it happens now quite a lot.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, who is joining us via Zoom. For this panel we have until 4.10 pm, so could Members keep an eye on the clock?
Alex Cunningham
Q
Jonathan Hall: There is only one measure that deals with counter-terrorism. It has to do with allowing released terrorist offenders of a certain category to be subject to polygraph measures. In principle, I suggest that polygraph measures for released terrorist offenders are a good thing; there was an evaluation by the Ministry of Justice in October that tends to support that. However, there are some significant reservations about the way the provision is being put before Parliament, which involves—impermissibly, I think—giving the Secretary of State powers that should belong to judges. This is a slightly technical point, but if you will give me a moment, I would like to explain it.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Jonathan Hall: What I am saying is that normally it is for judges to decide whether a person is a terrorist. That is what they do: either someone is convicted of or pleads guilty to a terrorism offence, or the judge makes a special determination that their offence, which could be something like robbery or assault, was done either in the course of terrorism or for the purposes of terrorism. But this clause would allow the Secretary of State to do that exact exercise in relation to people who were convicted pre-2009. You might well have someone coming up for release who went to prison having been convicted of a non-terrorism offence, but now finds themselves converted into a terrorist offender by a decision of the Secretary of State. The view I take is that that is really a function of judges.
In fact, if you look at the wording of the Bill, the Secretary of State will be allowed to be “satisfied”—not beyond reasonable doubt, just satisfied—on exactly the same test that currently applies to judges. There is obviously a fundamental issue there, which I can expand on, but there is also a really practical issue, because what is a terrorism offence is not always very obvious. Can I give you an example, so that this does not sound pie-in-the-sky and theoretical?
Alex Cunningham
Yes, please.
Jonathan Hall: I do not know whether the Committee recalls the Liverpool Women’s Hospital bombing, but there was a gentleman in 2020 who blew himself up in a taxi, and it looked like a classic terrorist attack. He was a Muslim, although it appeared that he had converted to Christianity, and he had a suicide vest packed with explosives. The police did a two-year investigation—he killed himself, so there was no prosecution—and they concluded that in fact it was not terrorism at all. He was simply affected by a grievance to do with not being granted asylum.
That shows you how difficult it is. I would be really wary about the Secretary of State being allowed to go back in time to look at all these old offences and say, “I decide that this was a terrorism offence.” The Bill does not give a right to be heard to the person who is going to find his conviction converted into a terrorism offence. It does not give the prosecution a right to be heard, which is actually quite important because the prosecution will often understand these things very well. It would allow the Secretary of State, I think, to act on the basis of intelligence that is not even shown. In principle, it seems to me wrong.
This issue has arisen before. I do not know whether the Committee is aware, but you will have people who were convicted of terrorism offences abroad; if they are British nationals, they will perhaps be deported to the UK after they have served their imprisonment. There is a provision in the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 that allows the chief officer to go to a judge and say, “Look: we think that this person was convicted of a terrorism offence that is the same as a terrorism offence in this country. Can you please certify that that is the case, or can you certify that the offence was committed in the course of terrorism?” If the judge says yes, that allows all the post-release measures—such as polygraph measures, with which this clause is concerned—to be applied. So there is a model that already exists for old foreign offences. Slightly ironically, the power that Parliament is being asked to create here would make the protections available to a domestic offender less than those that apply to a foreign offender.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Jonathan Hall: No, I do not think so at the moment. I am in constant contact with counter-terrorism police and the Home Office. I am not aware that the Government are looking for yet further types of measure; if they were, I think they would have sought to bring them in within this Criminal Justice Bill. All that this particular measure does is allow an existing measure, polygraphs, to be applied to a wider range of people. My beef with that is that it allows it to be applied to people who have never been convicted of terrorism, without it going in front of a judge. So I think that the answer is no.
Laura Farris
Q
Jonathan Hall: I was in favour of polygraph measures after Fishmongers’ Hall. It was partly on the back of one of my recommendations that polygraph measures were brought in. They always, or at least for a long time, existed for sex offenders. You will recall Usman Khan, who was clearly a very deceptive man. My view was that polygraph measures could be useful.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Professor Penney Lewis, commissioner for criminal law at the Law Commission. We have until 4.30 pm for this panel. Could you please introduce yourself for the record?
Professor Lewis: I am Professor Penney Lewis; I am the commissioner for criminal law at the Law Commission of England and Wales.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Professor Lewis: We are extremely pleased that there are measures from four of our projects in the Bill. Those are the provisions that I can speak about today. Those four projects are intimate image abuse; modernising communications offences; corporate criminal liability; and confiscation of the proceeds of crime. If I say a little about each of those—[Interruption.]
The Chair
Can we all check that our phones are on silent, please, and that they haven’t got a mind of their own?
Professor Lewis: I will start with confiscation, because that is the largest area of the Bill; the provisions are in schedule 4. The review aimed to simplify, clarify and modernise the post-conviction confiscation regime—in other words, the confiscation of the proceeds of crime after someone has been convicted.
We know that the current regime works in some cases, where it can result in funds being allocated to victims through compensation that can be paid out of confiscation, but there is still a fairly strong consensus among stakeholders that the current regime is inefficient, overly complex and in some cases ineffective, with weak enforcement methods. Our recommendations were aimed at improving the current system to give courts more powers to enforce confiscation orders and seize offenders’ assets, but also to limit unrealistic orders that can never be paid back and to speed up confiscation proceedings, thus allowing victims to receive compensation more quickly.
I will touch on the other three projects, which have a smaller number of measures in the Bill. As I think most of you will know, some of the recommendations that the Law Commission made on intimate image abuse were implemented in the Online Safety Act 2023: the offences of sharing an intimate image without consent and with no reasonable belief in consent; and threatening to share an intimate image. The other recommendations that we made were taking an intimate image without consent; and installing equipment in order to take an intimate image without consent. Those offences could not be included in the Online Safety Act because they are not communications offences, so this is really the second half of the implementation of our recommendations.
We aimed to provide a clear, coherent and cohesive set of offences that would cover all types of sharing and taking without consent, that would have one consistent definition of an intimate image and that would reflect different motivations that defendants might have for sharing and taping intimate images without consent, including cases where the defendant apparently has no motive. We recognise more serious culpability with motives of intending to cause humiliation, alarm or distress, or for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification, but we also recommended criminalising cases where those motives cannot be proven. We are very pleased that those offences have now been included in the Criminal Justice Bill.
Briefly, corporate criminal liability is another example of the completion of implementation—something that we discussed in our options paper. It was not a full report, so it did not have recommendations, but it had a number of options. One was reform of the identification doctrine. You may know that the Economic, Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 included reform of the identification doctrine, which allows for the attribution of personal criminal liability to the corporation in certain circumstances where the person is a senior manager, so it expands that form of attribution. That could only be done in relation to economic crime in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, so the reform in this Bill basically expands that to include all types of crime for which a corporate liability may be appropriate.
Finally—yes, I am getting to the end of my answer—one offence in the Bill, which is encouraging or assisting a serious self-harm, is again the expansion of something that was the implementation of a recommendation for the Online Safety Act from our modernising communications offences project. That offence was included in the Act insofar as it was a communications offence, but it is also possible to encourage self-harm by handing somebody a knife, so this expanded offence in the Criminal Justice Bill includes that kind of more physical assistance. It is not restricted to assistance by way of communication.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Professor Lewis: Those clauses are not the implementation of any Law Commission recommendations, I am afraid. The Law Commission does not take a position on those parts of the law that we have not had the opportunity to investigate or to speak to stakeholders about. I am afraid I cannot help on that.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Professor Lewis: It is not something we have looked at in relation to that clause. I would take a very small opportunity here to mention that we are about to start a project on defences for victims who kill their abusers, so we will be looking at the kind of relationship that should qualify in relation to defences. We are aware that if, for example, one restricts it to intimate-partner violence, then one risks excluding “honour-based” killing, which can also happen in a family context. We are planning to look at that, but we have not looked at it yet.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Professor Lewis: I am really sorry to disappoint, but it is not something we have looked at. We did look at homelessness as a possible protected characteristic for the purposes of hate crime law when we did the project on hate crime law a few years ago, which you may remember. That was a really interesting and revealing experience, because when we first started talking to stakeholders, some of them, including Shelter, were quite opposed to the idea of including homelessness as a protected characteristic—they thought that it entrenched homelessness when we should be trying to remove it and prevent it.
When Shelter spoke to homeless people on our behalf, which was really helpful, and when we spoke to homeless people, they actually described a lot of very horrific criminal behaviour perpetrated against them, and they experienced that as a hate crime. They experienced it as involving hostility towards them because they were homeless. We have some experience of looking at that. Ultimately, we did not recommend the expansion of hate crime law; as you may remember, there was a lot of opposition to its expansion. But we certainly saw the benefit of making sure we spoke to homeless stakeholders in order to really understand their lived experience.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Professor Lewis: I am afraid that is not something that we have looked at.
Chris Philp
Q
Professor Lewis: Many paragraphs of the schedule do implement our recommendations. We are extremely pleased to see our recommendations implemented extremely swiftly. This project only reported over a year ago. We obviously do think that the changes we recommended would make a difference in the ways I mentioned earlier, which included improving enforcement and the ability to seize offenders’ assets, limiting unrealistic and in some cases unfair orders, and allowing victims to receive compensation more promptly.
We estimated at the time that the reforms could lead to an extra £8 million in funds being retrieved from criminals in England and Wales every year. That obviously helps to return more money that can be used on public services, for instance. I am happy to talk in more detail about specific recommendations if that would be helpful.
Criminal Justice Bill (First sitting)
Alex Cunningham Excerpts(4 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Vicky Ford
Q
Baljit Ubhey: I think it could be helpful in communicating very specifically. At the moment, there is a specific offence under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. In addition, there is the Offences against the Person Act 1861, which is old legislation although we still use it for a wide variety of criminality. I take the point, however, that the language of some of the offences under that Act may not be as explicit. We can prosecute spiking, whether it is related to sexual offences or otherwise, but modernising may be helpful.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
If there is time, Chair, I would like to ask a couple of things.
The Chair
Absolutely. There is time. So that Members are aware, we have until 10.37 am. Please make the most of our esteemed guests.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Baljit Ubhey: It is an important measure, given some of the high-profile cases we have seen and the impact they have had on victims. We will have to look very carefully at how we apply for that power—which allows the court or the prosecutor to apply for compulsory attendance—and seek victims’ views. The consideration to think about is whether that would cause extra violence. There is something in the Bill about the use of force, which prison custody officers would need to think about. As the provisions stand, I think prison officers will still have the discretion even if there is an application. I can see why it is in the Bill, but we will have to wait and see how it operates in practice.
Alex Cunningham
Q
The Bill also proposes to transfer prisoners to foreign prisons. That will require international co-operation. I am interested to know whether the police or anybody else have any reservations about transferring people to foreign prisons.
Graeme Biggar: It is probably more a matter for the police than for the NCA. The challenge for us will be our ability to demonstrate that there will be human rights protections in the jurisdiction that the individuals are being transferred to. If we are trying to extradite people from the UK and cannot guarantee where they will be in prison, that will be a challenge in getting the extradition. That will need to be worked through as this proposal is taken forward.
Gregor McGill: I think that is right: I echo what Mr Biggar said. In the extradition world, extradition is a state to state agreement. One state negotiates with another state about returning someone to a state. Bring a third state into that equation and it becomes much more complicated. When we are bringing someone over here, we have to give assurances about prison conditions, and so on. It will become more bureaucratic and more difficult, potentially, in those circumstances. We will have to see what the regulations say.
There is also another pitfall.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Gregor McGill: It is not for prosecutors to say what the regulations should say; that is political. As I say, extradition is an agreement between one state and another to transfer one person from one jurisdiction to another. That transferring country could become a little bit more concerned if they think they have to deal with a third state down the road, because they lose control over it. That is the point I was going to make. Once you send someone to another jurisdiction, you lose control over that person; they become subject to the laws of the country to which they are being sent. That can be another complication. If they commit an offence while they are in custody, over there they would have to be dealt with for that offence. If they escaped from lawful custody when they were there, that would have to be investigated by that new country. Those matters are political decisions, but the issues are practical. Echoing what Graeme said, I would have thought that there will be human rights challenges.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Gregor McGill: Yes, they would.
Alex Cunningham
So, as you say, it is quite complicated.
Gregor McGill: It adds a further layer of complication to an already complicated process, if I may put it that way.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Baroness Newlove and Nicole Jacobs. For this panel we have until 11.25 am. Welcome to you both. Would you please introduce yourselves for the record?
Baroness Newlove: I am Baroness Newlove, Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales.
Nicole Jacobs: I am Nicole Jacobs, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Nicole Jacobs: There are several provisions in the Bill that I am interested in and support, and then there are a few issues that I feel are not currently in the Bill that could be and should be. First, on measures that are in the Bill, are some of the sentencing provisions that stem from Clare Wade’s review of sentencing, which I fully support. That was a range of recommendations, some of which have been picked up and some of which have not, but they were really put forward by Clare Wade KC to be taken as a whole. I am very supportive of the fact that in this Bill, murder at the end of a relationship is a statutory aggravating factor; there are other recommendations to be looked at and considered to see whether the legislation could be improved in any way, but I am certainly supportive of what is there already.
Another point is MAPPA—the multi-agency public protection arrangements between police, prison and probation—and adding coercion and controlling behaviour to that. I am very supportive of that, but I would have some comments, if you wanted to hear them, about the limitations of what that will achieve. There is also the College of Policing issuing a code of practice about ethical policing, which I obviously welcome, but I have a few comments that relate to improving it. Then there is the issue of police-perpetrated abuse or misconduct. There are provisions in the Bill that address how that will be dealt with if the chief constable does not feel that the outcome of the police tribunal is appropriate. I support those provisions, but I have more concerns about the police and crime commissioner being involved if there are concerns about the chief constable. Those are some of the main points.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Nicole Jacobs: Police-perpetrated domestic abuse related issues—and that means three key things to me. One is being more proactive about removing warrant cards if someone is under investigation for crimes relating to violence against women and girls or domestic abuse. The second is the specified offences that I believe should be listed that would constitute gross misconduct; again, I think they should be defined as domestic abuse, sexual harassment, assault and violence, so-called honour-based abuse, and stalking. The third is stronger provisions in relation to police vetting—requiring that every five years, and ensuring that if there is a change in force, police vetting takes place. Tightening up those provisions is not currently in the Bill and I think it should be.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Baroness Newlove: I was brought in to scrutinise the Victims and Prisoners Bill. What is in this Bill that is not in the Victims and Prisoners Bill is recognising victims of antisocial behaviour. That is why I have written to Ministers. In fact, there will be something going their way on antisocial behaviour. I welcome that we are dealing with antisocial behaviour in the Bill. However, to me it is still about hitting the mark that it should be hitting—recognising victims and the impact of antisocial behaviour. I say that because the police really are the people they go to and they do not make that criminal threshold—joining all the dots together—beforehand.
For me, it is about getting the right priority. It is not about making more enforcement powers for the police, because there are that many pieces of legislation that the toolbox is overflowing; it is about ensuring that the range of powers is used correctly, and that the police are made aware of them. Further down the line, it is also about looking at the appeal route of antisocial behaviour case reviews, which I addressed in my final report, “Living a Nightmare”. That is one of my asks of this Committee: to look at the PCC reviewing the appeal, but also at having an independent person, because it is very much all about people who have looked at it in the first place marking their own homework. My second ask is having the victim impact statement involved in the appeal system. We do it in parole, and we do it in court trials.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Baroness Newlove: That is not an area I work on. I would have to write to the Committee on that. For me, it is about victims of crime per se, so I have no real evidence to answer that. All I can say, from anecdotal evidence, is that self-harm is a big issue in this day and age, and it was highlighted in the Online Safety Bill. I would not like to recommend anything when I do not have the evidence to support it.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Nicole Jacobs: The Clare Wade review stemmed from the Victims’ Commissioner and my office writing to Robert Buckland asking for the review to be undertaken, and it was really welcome. I suppose she was weighing the difference between simply raising sentencing thresholds and having a more nuanced response. What she came up with was a set of recommendations to add what she feels are the key contexts to domestic abuse, which we are seeing in sentencing being chronically overlooked and misunderstood.
What she has recommended does not cherry-pick one or two or three, but says, “If we want a nuanced, really informed approach to understanding domestic homicide review sentencing, we have to look at these in the whole.” One of those is obviously homicide after separation. That is the most common time we see domestic homicides. It is totally reasonable for that to be recognised in this Bill. The trouble is, several things are not. Things like non-fatal strangulation, which is one of the most common ways people are murdered in domestic homicide cases, is not there, nor is overkill—the context of controlling and coercive behaviour. I understand that the Law Commission is consulting on some things, but it seems to me a missed opportunity to not move forward on some of those recommendations, which were so carefully thought through.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Baroness Newlove: In terms of victims and their families, both personally and professionally assumptions are made about them when people do not even understand the victim’s journey. I get annoyed at that. I think this is a very important point, because victims sit there for weeks or months on end, listening to evidence and having no voice at all. Part of the victims code is to have the victim impact statement, and there is the ability to read it out if there is conviction. I think it should be respected that the family have that kind of relationship, because they have listened to that evidence about their loved ones. Personally, I can say that I have sat there for 10 weeks and not been able to say anything.
I also think that you do not know how to judge an offender. They could say that they are coming in the dock and then not play ball. I have seen for myself—evidence shows this—that even through the court trial they will turn their backs, goad you and do everything. If it is still to the judge’s discretion and direction, I would like—I have said this previously—for the judge to own the courtroom if the offender does play in the dock and does not respect the perimeters. Victims’ families are told to respect the perimeters of the courtroom, and the judiciary needs to have that respect. If it happens that they do not want to turn up in dock, a deadline should be put on what is going on. If not, put something in their cell if they are in the court building.
Anecdotally, I used to work in the magistrates courts and we had stipendiary magistrates. You never messed with them. You had to have all your ducks lined up. We would visit the prison cell if they did not want to come down. There is a way of dealing with things, and we have moved on a lot since then—I am talking about many years ago.
UK-Rwanda Partnership
Alex Cunningham Excerpts(5 months ago)
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James Cleverly
We will absolutely remain in compliance with international law.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
The Home Secretary has used some choice language in this place, and in recent times he associated a particular favourite word of his to his own Government’s Rwanda policy. What specific changes have been made for him to become such a robust defender of it now?
James Cleverly
I am not quite sure what the point of that question was, Mr Deputy Speaker. If the hon. Gentleman really wishes for me to do so, I can clarify the points I made that he refers to, but I suspect that he does not really want me to.
Legal Migration
Alex Cunningham Excerpts(5 months, 1 week ago)
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James Cleverly
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. Ultimately, the decisions that we make here affect the lives of others. We should always be conscious of the impact of our decisions. That is why we have listened carefully to those who have spoken of housing shortages and school places becoming harder to find in their local areas. With figures significantly higher than promised, they would want us to take action. We are now taking action—that was always part of taking back control. We hear over and over from Opposition Members that they do not want us to take action. They are fundamentally wrong on this issue.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
When it was raised last week by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the shadow Home Secretary, it appeared that the Home Secretary did not even realise that foreign workers were being paid 20% less than UK workers—the so-called “salary discount”—but he has followed her good advice and I welcome the end of that discrepancy. How will the new payroll be applied to those already here?
James Cleverly
It will be brought in in the early part of next year, in close co-ordination with the Migration Advisory Committee. No one who is already here will be disadvantaged. Ultimately, we want a high skilled, high wage, high productivity economy. The shadow Home Secretary says that the Labour party wants to address those issues, but I made a quiet prediction to myself and others that each and every intervention from the Labour Back Benches would be in complete contradiction to her position from the Labour Front Bench. Let us see.
Criminal Justice Bill
Alex Cunningham ExcerptsTuesday 28th November 2023
(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Over the past 13 years, our criminal justice system—once the envy of the world—has crumbled as a consequence of Tory mismanagement, but I pay tribute to the police and the court and probation staff who work hard in such difficult circumstances. Victims in our country are left traumatised, waiting years for justice only to be let down again; trials are delayed for years on end and victims pay the price, with record numbers withdrawing from their cases. The Crown court backlog now stands at a record high of almost 65,000 cases. There is a crisis in prison capacity, to the point where convicted criminals are having to be let out early or are even not being sentenced in the first place, despite the Government’s fantasy plans to send prisoners aboard. The Home Secretary talks about powers, but can the Minister tell us what discussions with credible partner countries have taken place to make that fantasy a reality?
Simply put, this Conservative Government have failed in the first duty of Government: to keep its citizens safe. This Bill is further evidence of that continuous failure, and while it contains some measures that we on the Labour Benches welcome, it is the absences that are most glaring. The Bill contains no assurance at all that the existing systems in our country are ready to cope with the many changes it will introduce, as the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) recognised in her speech.
Time and again, this Government have failed to deliver the prison places we need. They have once again pushed back their deadline for delivering all 20,000 places, this time shifting their own target from 2025 to 2030. According to the most recent debate, only 8,200 places are due to be delivered by 2025, a shortfall of nearly 60%. With 10 Justice Secretaries and eight Home Secretaries in 10 years, this Government have focused on fighting each other instead of fighting for justice, and it is the British people who have paid the price. There have been repeated urgent warnings going back years: the 2020 prison population projections predicted a significant rise to 98,700 by September 2026, and the National Audit Office also warned in 2020 that
“demand for prison places could exceed supply between October 2022 and June 2023.”
After that warning from the NAO, the Government introduced a number of measures through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 that added even more pressure to the capacity crisis. I was the shadow Minister on the Public Bill Committee at that time, and I raised my concern with the Minister, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp)—he is just taking his seat—who is now the Policing Minister. If the House will indulge me a little as I quote myself, in Committee I put it to the Minister:
“The Opposition would welcome further information from him about the impact on the prison system… The impact is to be felt very shortly indeed, and at a time when our prison services are recovering from the exceptional operational difficulties of the pandemic… Given all the additional prisoners that the system will have to cope with in not just seven or eight years’ time but as early as next year”—
this was last year—
“how will the Government ensure that our prisons do not become even more overcrowded and unsafe?”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 8 June 2021; c. 422-3.]
So there it is: we were raising serious concerns, but Ministers fobbed everyone off with the assurances that all would be well. However, we know that the building programme is now well behind and our prisons are absolutely stuffed. It is no way to run a Government.
As the Prison Reform Trust has said:
“This lack of strategic approach means that the prison service has been forced to operate in an almost perpetual state of crisis. To cope, it has pursued short-term expediency over effective long-term planning. This has included a reprieve of prison accommodation which should have been decommissioned decades ago; the use of police cells; the rapid construction of temporary cells”—
and—
“a staff recruitment scheme working flat out to keep officer numbers stable”.
Indeed, it is only now that prisons are completely at full capacity that we have seen any sort of acknowledgement from the Government, and then only out of sheer necessity, not because they have some sort of new commitment to prison reform.
The best the Government can do is a series of half-baked ideas that do nothing to address the very serious and immediate issue of convicted criminals who should be in prison being out on our streets instead because there are not enough cells to put them in. I know most of those ideas are contained in the Sentencing Bill, but as we have heard, this Bill contains the provisions relating to the transfer of prisoners to foreign prisons. However, these provisions will make absolutely no impact on the current crisis because we do not have a deal in place with another country. It is nothing more than gesture politics.
Reducing demand on the prison system is also dependent on a robust probation service that can supervise and work with probationers to reduce crime, but there is a capacity crisis there too. Probation delivery has been seriously undermined by the failed structural reforms of this Conservative Government. The disastrous transforming rehabilitation reforms have left probation, in the words of the Public Accounts Committee,
“underfunded, fragile and lacking the confidence of the courts.”
The probation inspectorate has found
“a critical lack of frontline staff”
that has led to “excessive caseloads”. Recent research has found that less than half of probation practitioners believe they have a manageable workload. The probation service needs ambitious and transformative support from Government, but this Bill is yet another missed opportunity. While the extension of polygraph conditions and the changes to multi-agency public protection arrangements are welcome, it is an insult that these are all that is on offer from a Government who have driven probation into the ground.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said in her opening speech, there are a number of measures in the Bill that we actually support. First, I would like to refer to the speech by the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who felt the need to be blunt with her own colleagues when addressing the outdated Vagrancy Act. She is right that aggressive rough sleepers need support, and that issuing prevention orders does nothing to address the underlying problem.
We back the powers to compel attendance by offenders at sentencing hearings, and I pay tribute to Farah Naz, Cheryl Korbel, Ayse Hussein and Jebina Islam for their tireless campaigning on this issue. However, it will be no surprise to the Government that we support this measure, since we have been calling for new laws to be introduced on this since April last year.
Let me give hon. Members a preview of another request that we similarly invite the Government to borrow from us. We would like to see the Bill amended so that offenders who have sexually harmed children and are sent to prison as a result lose the ability to control their own children from behind bars. This is a long overdue measure that will ensure all children are safe from these dangerous predators, including their own parents.
We have had a good debate, and before concluding I would like to refer to some of the other speeches made by our colleagues. I was pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) celebrating today, and I welcome the fact that her long campaign to stop sex offenders changing their names has come to fruition. She also went on to address all manner of other things including action on the sharing of explicit images.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, spoke of a campaign for a specific offence of spiking. She spoke of her Committee reports on policing and the work needed to build trust within the community, and I am pleased to see that she has the cross-party support she wants.
The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) said too many statistics had been bandied about but then went on to give some of her own—but she claimed they were facts rather than statistics. Yes, the Government might have gone some way towards replacing the police that they had cut over all those years, but it is the job they are doing that matters and we need more of our police out on the streets.
My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) talked about the epidemic of knife crime in our community and the need for so much to be done, and the need for a public health approach and prevention as well. My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) talked about the proposals for offenders to face their sentencing in court but rightly questioned how that would work. She joined in the concern about rough sleepers and made the point that they are more likely to be a victim of crime than to commit crime. And we would of course all expect a long and comprehensive speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), covering everything from policing by consent to misconduct and shop crime to fraud.
In this Bill, and indeed in the Sentencing Bill, there are a number of clauses that will lead to more people being imprisoned or being imprisoned for longer and we support many of them. However, it beggars belief that such proposals are put forward without any certainty whatsoever that the Government will be able to actually provide the prison places needed. It is no good posturing on law and order when the criminal justice system is crumbling as a result of 13 years of mismanagement by this Conservative Government. This Bill is yet another failure of this Government’s record on justice, but we will work with Ministers to improve it where we can.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Cunningham Excerpts(5 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
That concludes proceedings on questions.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I will take points of order after the urgent question, unless they are directly relevant to what has just been said.
Madam Deputy Speaker
It is not directly relevant to a question that has just been answered—well, I am guessing it is not. [Interruption.] Order. We are moving on to a very important matter and I expect the House to be quiet to listen to the urgent question from Mr David Lammy.
Points of Order
Alex Cunningham Excerpts(5 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have advised the respective offices of the Members of this House whom I will refer to in this point of order.
It is extremely sad that the Home Secretary has not the guts to admit to his appalling remark made about my Stockton North constituency from the Front Bench and apologise to the people I have the privilege of representing. There was quite a chain of events last week. After I raised the matter on the Floor of the House, the Home Secretary first denied he had said anything at all. The Government then sent out the Tory party chairman, the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), to tell the media that no words had been uttered from the Treasury Bench. Next up, the Leader of the House said she had been told by the Home Secretary that he had not said anything and she believed him. She did not help matters by referring to Billington instead of Billingham.
The Home Secretary clearly took them both for fools, as he later admitted his foul language but tried to minimise the damage to his reputation by claiming his remark was aimed at me. Well, that is all right then, but it is untrue and has been shown to be untrue. My thanks go to The Mirror and the other wizards out there who have proved that to be the case.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman, who used the word “untrue.” I think he could find another way of expressing that, as I am sure he would not wish to say that a right hon. Member of this House had uttered something that is untrue.
Alex Cunningham
Madam Deputy Speaker, you offer me a considerable challenge. Perhaps the Home Secretary has inadvertently misled people across the country in relation to this particular matter.
This matters: people take notice of what the Home Secretary says and his talking down of Stockton and Teesside can have consequences. He may have whispered in your ear, Madam Deputy Speaker, but can you advise me on whether you have any powers to order him to return to the Dispatch Box to apologise in person for insulting Stockton, rather than hiding behind the half-truths uttered on his behalf by an official?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He will recall that I answered a similar point of order last week, when he raised one aspect of this matter. At that point, I reminded all Members of the need for good temper and moderation in the language they use in this Chamber.
The hon. Gentleman asks me if I have power to require the Home Secretary to return to the Chamber. I do not need such a power; the Home Secretary has voluntarily returned to the Chamber, and if he would care to make a point of order, further to that point of order, the Chamber will hear him.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Cleverly)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. For the avoidance of doubt, the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) accused me of making derogatory remarks about his constituency. My response, issued through my office, was that I did not, would not and would never make such comments about his constituency. What I said was a comment about him. My apology was for using unparliamentary language, but I will make it absolutely clear, for the avoidance of doubt and with no ambiguity, that I did not, would not—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. This is not a debate, and the matter is now closed. The Home Secretary has rightly come to the Chamber. He has apologised to the hon. Member for Stockton North. That is an apology rightly due to him, and I hope he will accept it.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I will briefly listen to the hon. Gentleman, but I wish to close this matter.
Alex Cunningham
I do not require any apology for an insult against me, because it did not happen. You have just intimated, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the Home Secretary has apologised to me. He has not apologised to me. He has not apologised to the people of my constituency. He has apologised for using unparliamentary language.
Madam Deputy Speaker
The right hon. Gentleman has issued an apology. I require an apology for the use of unparliamentary language, and the right hon. Gentleman, the Home Secretary, has given that apology. It is my understanding that he has also apologised to the hon. Gentleman—whether the hon. Gentleman accepts it or not is a matter for him. I require an apology, the Home Secretary has issued that apology, and the matter is now closed. I must say that the people who elected us to this place expect us to concentrate now on the very serious matters that we have been discussing and that we are going on to discuss.
Illegal Migration
Alex Cunningham Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need a fair and equitable system. That is why he contributed to the creation of the national dispersal model, which we continue to pursue. We have now created the first large sites: we have stood up our site at Wethersfield in Essex and we are proceeding to stand up the site in Lincolnshire, as well as the barge in Portland. Why are we doing that? It is because we do not want the UK to be considered a soft touch. It is not right that someone who might have been sleeping in a camp in France comes across in a small boat and finds himself in a Holiday Inn in Oxford. That makes the UK a laughing stock. We had to change that, which is why we have put in place those larger sites. They are more appropriate, they save the taxpayer money, and they send a signal about the strength of the UK’s resolve to tackling this issue.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
The Minister is very selective with his dodgy statistics, but what I would like to know is whether he is still planning to site an accommodation barge on Teesside.
Robert Jenrick
We are always looking for further locations, but we do not currently have any agreement with ports in Teesside.
Illegal Migration Bill: Economic Impact Assessment
Alex Cunningham Excerpts(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Deterrence has to be at the heart of our approach, whether domestically in terms of making it harder to live and work illegally in the United Kingdom, or internationally with the work we are doing upstream. The Rwanda policy is a critical part of that. The Home Secretary, the Prime Minister and I meet every week to ensure we are ready to operationalise the policy as soon as we have the ability to do so. We will await the judgment of the court. Of course, we hope it will uphold the very strong judgment we received from the High Court earlier in the year.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
The Government’s failing asylum seeker policy also impacts on local areas in the UK where large numbers of asylum seekers are accommodated. The Government promised not to increase the number of asylum seekers in the north-east, but the Minister told me in a letter this week that that would not stop a large barge being sited on the Tees. Is Teesside getting hundreds or thousands more asylum seekers, yes or no?
Robert Jenrick
I am surprised by the hon. Gentleman’s approach because he voted against every measure we brought forward to tackle this challenge. As a result, more people will come to the United Kingdom illegally on small boats. I suspect he cannot even bring himself to call these individuals illegal migrants. We are taking the tough steps we need to tackle this issue. We are also looking at new ways to accommodate people. Barges and vessels are options being pursued by the Irish, the Belgians, the Dutch and the SNP in Scotland.