Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I was quite surprised to see the amendments, and also the way they have been motivated—by the need to get children in the Bill, as though there were a lack of sympathy with children as victims, particularly of sexual abuse. That is not something that I am aware of in society, which seems to me to be more than preoccupied with that issue, and rightly so.

If anything, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester made clear, it depends which children you are talking about, because one of the shocking aspects of the Rochdale grooming scandal was that a particular group of children were seen to be the wrong kind of children—in the words of the perpetrators, “white trash”. If you read the many reports on this, as I have done, even the officialdom—the police, local authorities, social workers and all sorts of things—saw these children as perpetrators who could be ignored. In general, society is horrified, it seems to me, at child abuse, but it depends which children. I did not know that we needed to get the idea of children as victims on the face of this kind of Bill in order to be sympathetic to children as victims, so I am a bit confused about the necessity of that. However, I am open to being convinced.

As it happens, I completely agree with the horror of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, at child spies, and I share that point of view as well. But she does raise a problem that I have with Amendment 10, inasmuch as I think it is unclear what the definition of “child criminal exploitation” would be. Where it says that

“a child under the age of 18 is encouraged, expected or required to take part in any activity that constitutes a criminal offence”,

first, there would be an argument about those child spies. Other people would presumably say that that was not what was happening there.

But there is a danger, particularly when we use that wording: “encouraged, expected or required” is very loose in terms of problems we might well have with agency of young people. We have already heard about anti-social behaviour; often that is committed by under-18s. Knife crime is often committed by under-18s. There is a danger that, in our attempt at fighting genuine exploitation of children to force them into criminal activity, we end up in a situation whereby young people, who I am afraid can on occasion be responsible for crimes, are able to say that they did not do it because they were encouraged or put under pressure and so on. I am just worried about the wording there.

Finally in this group—and this is not something I like doing, because I have enormous respect for the noble Lord, Lord Hunt—I absolutely disagree with his Amendment 9 on verbal harm. One thing that is quite interesting is this idea that we have to make young people—or everybody—aware of the dangers of verbal harm. The one group of people who are very aware of the dangers of verbal harm are young people and children because they are reared in a society that tells them that words are harmful. They are so embroiled in that notion that, as we know, they will say that they are victims because of words that have been said to them. We see this played out in schools, sixth forms and universities all the time, to the detriment of free speech.

People might think that is glib, but I am constantly involved in arguing the point with young people who say that words are as harmful as fists, knives and anything else and that they should not be exposed to individuals saying certain words because they are just as harmful as criminal activity. I do not want the Bill to give even more succour to this idea that words, which are often opinions that people do not like, are harmful. Even though words can make you feel uncomfortable, we must distinguish between words and actions, in my opinion, and not encourage young people to always think that they are victims of some crime if they hear words that they find unpleasant, even though I understand that some words are unpleasant to be on the receiving end of.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 6 and 10 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. I was pleased to hear that verbal abuse is being highlighted and I commend the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for that.

Children who are criminally exploited suffer unimaginable abuse and harm, which have long-lasting impacts and can cause physical and mental harm and trauma which can impact their development. As we know, childhood lasts a lifetime so this will go on to affect society in the long term, directly and indirectly.

The Covid-19 pandemic increased the risk of children being exploited and this has been made even worse by the cost of living crisis. Despite this, all too often children who are victims of exploitation are blamed and criminalised for their own abuse. Black and minority ethnic children and children in care are more likely to be criminalised than other children, which can be a double jeopardy for them.

There is no statutory definition of child criminal exploitation, which means that those working with children lack a shared understanding and can miss key intervention points and fail to identify victims. For child victims, this means that they are falling through the cracks of statutory support and perpetrators of this vile abuse are going unpunished.

At Second Reading, the Minister set out that a definition of child criminal exploitation already exists in statutory guidance, which is a good step in recognising the issue. However, confusion remains among those on the front line, and it is clear that a statutory definition would be welcomed by them. The Government need to use the Bill to give child criminal exploitation a statutory definition in its own right.

In 2021, Barnardo’s—I declare an interest as its vice-president—made a freedom of information request to police forces across the UK. Some 30 police forces responded, but only one force was able to provide any data about child criminal exploitation. Interestingly, many forces asked Barnardo’s about how child criminal exploitation is defined, which shows just how misunderstood it is by those working in this area. A police officer who spoke to the Children’s Society said:

“What is applying in Newcastle is totally different to Surrey, and current definitions are too open to interpretation and this breeds an inconsistent approach”.


Other police officers working on the front line have said that they would definitely value a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation, and that the definitions that already exist in statutory guidance are weaker and can be harder to prove.