Home Affairs

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Buckland]

My hon. Friend has made a fair point, but I am afraid that he is in error. The directive provides a power that allows member states to have a registration system for people who wish to stay here for longer than three months. Let us not propagate the myth that the directive is an open door. It is not, and, with domestic enforcement, it can be better managed.

My hon. Friend makes a proper point about planning and public services, but we must also remember that without some migration some of the jobs that need to be done in our economy are not going to be done, and the question we have to ask is, who will do that work?

I am a great campaigner for the rights of people with disabilities, and I passionately believe they have their role to play in our growing work force. I know that is what they want, and that is also what they deserve, but getting to that ideal stage takes time. It takes time for employers to start to understand the benefits of employing people who perhaps have more challenges than others. While I want to get there, I understand the pressure on employers who, for example, cannot collect their crop or who cannot find a suitable person to fulfil a care role. Working with employers to encourage more employment locally—more indigenous employment, as it were—is a laudable aspiration and is the right thing to do, but to try artificially to close a door is bad news for our country and our economy and is not a realistic approach to a problem that has deeply complex origins and should not be viewed through the prism of cheap headlines and political slogans. That is what happens far too often in the debate on migration, and it is time we stopped that misleading and unhelpful approach. Let us show leadership on that issue.

Turning to issues relating to the UK passport agency, may I thank it for having helped a constituent of mine reach the beaches of Normandy last week? Mr Harry Prescott is now 92 years of age. The last time he was in Normandy he was a 21-year-old Royal Marine in Operation Overlord. By an odd quirk, he was not classified as a British citizen. He was born in Canada to UK parents, and for various reasons never ended up with a British passport. He wanted to play his part in the 70th anniversary commemorations, however, but when the time came for him to apply for a passport, he encountered a number of blocks to his application—the sort of bureaucracy that I know drives Members of this House quietly round the bend and which was certainly causing him a degree of frustration. I was contacted by 47 Royal Marine Commando Association about his predicament, and together we were able to prevail on the passport service to pull its finger out and get on with the job of issuing him with a passport. He was therefore able to join his comrades and colleagues and play his part in commemorating the momentous events that took place in Normandy 70 years ago. I therefore offer my genuine thanks, via my hon. Friend the Minister, to those in the passport service who made that possible.

With the help of Action for Children, one of our leading children’s charities, and other parliamentarians, I have been campaigning for a number of years now for a reform to the criminal law of child neglect. Paul Goggins has been referred to in many other contexts, but it would be wholly wrong of me not to pay tribute to him for the work he did on this important issue. The Crime and Courts Act 2013 was in Bill form when Paul presented an amendment in his and my name which will, in effect, be the basis of a provision that will appear in the Serious Crime Bill. The argument is a simple one. The criminal law of child neglect was drafted way back in 1868—some 150 years ago. It served an important purpose in its time, but times move on. Just because a law is old does not mean it is a bad law—far from it—but with the knowledge and understanding we now have about the full effects of all types of abuse of children and young people, I think it was remiss, to say the least, that we had not before now updated the criminal law to keep pace not only with developments in science and understanding, but with the developing civil and family law that already recognises varying types of abuse, including emotional abuse, when considering issues of family protection and whether or not a child is at risk or has experienced significant harm.

Very often, emotional abuse does not come alone. It will be accompanied, sadly, by physical and sexual abuse. Daniel Pelka is one of many well-known cases in which the signs of emotional abuse were emerging before the physical abuse took its toll on that poor young lad. It pains me to think that the police, the prosecuting authorities and all those with responsibility for child protection did not have that extra tool in the box when it came to dealing with emotional abuse. I am not saying that it might have changed the course of young Daniel’s life, but it could have made a difference to his life and it certainly will make a difference to the lives of hundreds of children and young people in this country if and when we amend the law to include emotional abuse. The criminal law is an interesting thing for those who have been imbued with it for the past 20 years, as I have. I believe that a lot of people would have been shocked to realise that section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 covered only physical harm, but it was made crystal clear in a House of Lords case back in 1981 that that section was limited to the

“physical needs of the child and does not cover other aspects such as moral and educational”.

That meant that the door was firmly shut on emotional abuse.

A lot of people have asked me in the past few months how one defines emotional abuse and whether the new measure will not be a problem when it comes to parenting. Are we in danger of criminalising the firm but fair parent who deprives their child of an Xbox if there has been a misdemeanour in the household? Not a bit of it. It is not about firm but fair parenting. It is not about people who administer reasonable chastisement on their children. It is not about the millions of decent men and women who, like many of us in this Chamber, learn every day what it is to bring up a child. It is about the systematic abuse of children by people who either should know better or in some sad cases do not know better.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has touched on an important point about this measure to protect children from neglect. Does he agree that it will be exceptionally important that the guidelines for the Serious Crime Bill define emotional abuse carefully so that statutory agencies are able to understand what they will be enforcing and parents understand the new legislation? Safeguarding sections on school websites will be a valuable resource to help parents to understand exactly what it is intended to protect against.

[Mr Buckland]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Her point about guidance will be key to all this. While we may be good at passing a law, it is for the prosecuting authorities and child protection agencies to enforce it, so we would be failing in our duty if we did not explain through debates in the House what we mean.

Empirical research shows that emotional abuse may be the most damaging form of child maltreatment because those who are responsible for administering it almost invariably are those responsible for enabling children to fulfil their developmental milestones. What do I mean by emotional neglect? It can include forcing a child to witness domestic violence, scapegoating a child, inflicting systematic humiliation and enforcing degrading punishments.

The effects of emotional neglect have been shown to be potentially lifelong and as profound, if not more so, than some of the physical effects on children. They can include depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, personality disorder, aggression, dissociation, mental illness and even suicide. Children who experience rejection or neglect are less able to learn and achieve good educational outcomes than their peers, so in addition to the psychiatric evidence that we have of the harm caused by emotional neglect, there is growing evidence from neuroscience that brain development is inhibited as a result, which itself leads to significant harm. We cannot ignore the developing science; we would be failing in our duty if we did.

The language of section 1 of the 1933 Act is antiquated. It uses words such as “wilful”, which has been defined by the courts as meaning “reckless”. Well, why does the Act not say that? It would be so much easier if we amended the law to make sure that people given the task of interpreting it did not misunderstand “wilful” as requiring specific intent or as being more intentional than the law requires. Why should we put people through their paces in that way by relying on archaic language?

Similarly, terms such as “unnecessary suffering” were good for the time of Dickens, but are not necessarily appropriate now. The term “significant harm” is the one that I strongly advocate. It replicates the term already used in civil law and it is the threshold test used when child protection issues are dealt with. Why not just streamline the system by bringing the language into line with that already used? The term “significant harm” can be understood but still sets a high threshold, and it goes a long way towards allaying some of the concerns of those who say that this will open the floodgates to prosecutions of the firm but fair parents about whom I was talking earlier.

The police and those involved in social work welcome the proposed reform. As I said, there was concern about the inability of the police to intervene in cases of non-physical harm, and the dislocation between criminal and civil law was leading to problems in enforcement and in interpreting the role of the police. We are making the law clear not only for members of the public but for those in the law enforcement agencies who have to do this difficult and sensitive work.

We should look at what is happening overseas. Action for Children commissioned research from 31 jurisdictions across Europe, Asia, north America, Africa and Australia, including common law jurisdictions with which we can draw direct parallels. In 25 of those 31 jurisdictions, the criminal law explicitly encompasses emotional abuse. We can see from that trawl of other countries’ legislation that emotional abuse is already recognised in other parts of the world.

How emotional abuse is defined will obviously be important when it comes to presenting evidence in court, and assistance will be gained, as it is now, from experts in the field who are trained in understanding the intellectual and psychological capacity of children. There is concern in the community of expert witnesses that, with pressure on resources, their job will become more difficult. I understand that, and it will be important to acknowledge that during our debates and to work out ways in which the criminal justice system can accommodate expert testimony. It must do so in a way that is fair to all parties while serving the interests of justice and allowing objective expert evidence to be relied on by juries when discharging their duties and applying the high test of the criminal standard of proof. The combination of significant harm and the criminal standard of proof is protection enough for those who say they are worried that the floodgates will be opened upon responsible heads.

We therefore move away from words and phrases such as “neglect”, “wilful” and “unnecessary suffering” to the term “maltreatment”, which covers the gamut of different types of harm that are caused, sadly, to our children. At a stroke it makes clear the options available to the courts. It allows sentencers the ability properly to reflect criminality by those responsible for the care of children in sentencing them appropriately. Finally, it deals with a long-standing anomaly that I am surprised we allowed to continue for so long.

This law will not apply retrospectively. We cannot, and it is right that we do not, make something criminal that was not criminal at the time it happened. I know that for those people who contacted me and other colleagues in recent months about the enduring effects of the emotional abuse that they suffered that may come as a bitter pill, but it would not be right to try to change a well known and well respected principle of law, a principle that is recognised internationally. We have to look to the future, but in doing so we should not forget the victims of the past who until now have had to suffer in silence and who have not had the justice that they deserve.

I am proud to support a Government who listened to a consultation that was conducted in recent months and who listened to the calls from my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams), who had a private Member’s Bill in the last Session, to my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee), to me and to Members of the Opposition and former Members, such as the late Paul Goggins. Let this stand as one of his epitaphs. Let it stand as an acknowledgement of the power of politics when people come together, recognise a wrong and seek to make it good.

I have said a lot about child neglect. It is something that I saw in my own working life, and I found those cases some of the most difficult to deal with. Hon. Members who have been in practice well understand what I say. However, I do not stand here on an emotional basis; I stand here on the basis of evidence, a sense of responsibility that we as legislators must always do what is right in terms of developments in science, and a genuine and steadfast belief that when it comes to the criminal law, not only must we try to keep pace with developments, but—to use the phrase that I used earlier in another context—we must do everything we can to future-proof it. I thank my hon. Friends on the Front Bench for listening and taking appropriate action.

I have mentioned human trafficking and slavery, but I want to finish on a positive note. Unless every town, city and village in this country wakes up to the reality of human trafficking and slavery in its midst, we are not going to solve the problem. We have an increasingly aware police force, which increasingly understands the challenge and is sourcing important training and support.

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[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), who spoke so eloquently and passionately on a vital issue of deep concern.

Last week, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said that one of the tests for a Queen’s Speech is whether it responds to the anxieties people feel in their communities. Many of us will recognise that one such anxiety expressed by some of our constituents is about immigration. We should be able to debate immigration, both in Parliament and with our constituents, because it has a vital place in the history of our country. Our success as a nation was built on being outward-facing and welcoming, and over centuries, immigration has made Britain the country we are proud of and it has an important role in our future. However, it must be controlled and managed to ensure that the system is fair and works in the interests of everyone, and of course that it has public confidence and support.

Despite its importance, immigration did not get a single mention in the Queen’s Speech. This Government’s policies over the past four years have not promoted an open and honest debate, or delivered the progressive and fair approach that this country needs. Instead we have seen the use of irresponsible “Go Home” vans and heard a lot of tough talk, while at the same time the ill-conceived targets for net migration that the Government set have been missed by a mile. The Prime Minister promised to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands, but it has actually risen to 200,000.

Indeed, it is worse than that. Not only are the Government failing to tackle some of the very real issues affecting our communities—such as the way some employers exploit cheap migrant labour to undercut local pay and conditions, or the impact of cuts to our vital public services—but their policies on immigration are damaging the future prosperity of cities like Nottingham by discouraging bright overseas students from coming to study at our universities. Back in March I met the pro-vice-chancellors with responsibility for international students from Nottingham Trent university and the university of Nottingham. They were extremely concerned about the impact that Government changes to visa applications and post-study work entitlements are having on the recruitment of international students, and about the implications of that for the economic success of our city.

Higher education is one of the UK’s most important export industries. There are currently around 11,000 international students in Nottingham across our two universities, and there is monetary value to their being there. Nottingham Trent university estimates that the total spend of their international students—fees plus accommodation and living costs—is around £60 million. The corresponding figure for the university of Nottingham is £160 million. Those universities estimate that when we take into account the multipliers—the extra value of that expenditure for the local economy—the combined value of international students to the Nottingham economy is somewhere in the order of £374 million per year, supporting hundreds of jobs in our city and the wider east midlands region.

The concern for our universities, which are operating in an increasingly competitive global marketplace, is that the Government’s rhetoric and policies are putting students off coming to the UK to study. Higher Education Statistics Agency data show that the total number of international students studying at higher educational institutions in the UK has declined for the first time since records began in 1994. The biggest drop off in visas is for students from the Indian subcontinent, with India, Pakistan and Bangladesh seeing reductions in the year to March 2013 of 38%, 62% and 30% respectively. That is particularly alarming as those are among the countries forecast by the British Council to have the biggest increase in outbound student mobility up to the year 2020.

The ability to work in a country after study is one of the most significant factors that students consider when deciding where to study. A recent survey by Universities UK found that 56% of respondents cited the possibility of obtaining post-study work experience as a factor they considered when applying to the UK. According to a 2011 survey by the UK Council for International Student Affairs, the abolition of the post-study work route has had the greatest negative impact of all recent visa changes on students’ decisions to study in the UK, especially at postgraduate level. If the Government do not think again—I hope the Minister will respond to these issues in his closing remarks—Nottingham and other UK cities could face an immediate impact on their local economies, risk missing out on some of the brightest overseas students, and lose the wider cultural benefits of hosting students from across the world.

There is also a longer-term impact because we know that young people who study here are the Government, business and cultural leaders of the future, and therefore we are also losing out on the opportunities for international influence and inward investment that educational opportunities in the UK can foster and encourage.

Let me turn to the issues that the Government are simply failing to address and which concern many of my constituents. The Government have said that a key priority is to

“continue to build an economy that rewards those who work hard.”

Unfortunately, for many people in Nottingham that does not reflect their experience of the last few years. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) noted last week, 5 million people in Britain—one in five workers—are low paid, and for the first time ever most of the people in poverty are in work. Yesterday, the Nottingham Post reported that 16,000 people a year rely on food banks in our county, and charities tell us that low wages and insecure contracts are contributing to the huge increase in that number. That is why I raised the need for financial security in employment with the Prime Minister last week. Unfortunately, he failed to address the concern I was expressing on behalf of my constituents about the quality and security of the new jobs being created and about their ability to earn a decent living wage.

As we are a trading nation, a “close all the doors” approach to immigration cannot work, but neither can a laissez-faire right-wing approach to free movement that allows employers to exploit cheap labour. It is bad for the migrant workers being exploited, it is bad for local workers whose wages are undercut and it is bad for responsible employers who want to offer fair rewards. Labour is the only party offering practical solutions to stop this exploitation in the workplace. Instead of remaining silent, the Government should have included an immigration Bill to stop workers being undercut.

In a Labour Queen’s Speech there would be measures to strengthen minimum wage enforcement by giving councils a new role and increasing the maximum fine to £50,000.

[Nicola Blackwood]

In the light of the hon. Lady’s comments, does she welcome the fact that the Government have raised the minimum wage, and will legislate in the small business Bill to help enforcement of the minimum wage and remove exclusivity from zero-hours contracts?

[Lilian Greenwood]

Of course I welcome the measures that the hon. Lady mentions, but they are not enough. Banning exclusivity from zero-hours contracts does nothing to help people who are working regular hours week in, week out but never have the security of a proper contract. That is why we are asking the Government to go further.

A Labour Government would ban employment agencies that only recruit workers from abroad and would make serious exploitation a crime, to prevent dodgy gangmasters exploiting migrants to undercut jobs and wages. We would also strengthen border controls to tackle illegal immigration and stop abuse, but welcome overseas students coming to the UK and immediately remove them from the net migration target. We would act where the Government have not and strengthen checks on short-term student visitor visas which are open to abuse.

We would also introduce a “make work pay” Bill to reward hard work, raising the national minimum wage to a higher proportion of average earnings and guaranteeing a regular contract to those on zero-hours contracts who work regular hours month after month but have no security for themselves or their families.

Fifteen years ago I worked as a trade union officer in Derbyshire. Many of the low-paid home care workers had a small number of contracted hours but regularly worked many more hours. We reached a deal under which those hours were gradually incorporated into their contracts. I recognise that employers and employees sometimes need flexibility, but people also need financial security, and we are proposing a workable option that would provide that.

Labour would encourage businesses to pay the living wage with “make work pay” contracts. I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the Labour local authorities that are leading the way on this, ending poverty pay among their own staff and only contracting with those employers who pay a living wage. I also pay tribute to organisations such as Nottingham Citizens, which is working in our city to demonstrate the value of a living wage to employers and holding us politicians to account.

The message that we heard loud and clear in the recent elections is that people want politicians who listen to their concerns, talk to them and are not afraid of debate. People are worried but we should not stoke those fears. Hostility and division are not the way forward. Britain needs fair and practical solutions. That is what a Government should offer. The coalition is not offering what people need, but a Labour Government will.

[Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)]

One of the pledges I made when I was elected was to put local people first; to listen to my constituents all year round and to take what they say seriously. I was grateful in that election for the help of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) and it is a pleasure to follow her. Many of the issues she will have heard when she campaigned in Corby and East Northamptonshire are the same as those raised by her constituents, as she illustrated in her speech in which she made incredibly important remarks on immigration.

Every Friday, I send out an e-newsletter that is read by thousands of people across Corby and East Northamptonshire. I asked recently what my constituents would like to see included in the Queen’s Speech. I received nearly 100 responses. I wish that I could put all the contributions on the record. I assure my constituents that I have read and taken on board their views. I offered three priorities that I wanted to see in this year’s Queen’s Speech: an end to the abuse of zero-hours contracts, a guarantee of GP appointments within 48 hours and a freeze on energy bills. I was pleased to see mention of zero-hours contracts in the Queen’s Speech, but I agree with my hon. Friend that the Government will not take the action that is really needed to stop the exploitation that is so prevalent in my constituency. I was disappointed that there was nothing in the Queen’s Speech on the NHS, and that there was nothing on tackling the rip-off gas and energy prices that my constituents face, when bills have gone up by £300 a year under the coalition Government.

My constituents told me that they want action to build more houses, and action on skills training and better quality apprenticeships. They told me they want help for families, particularly action to make child care more affordable.

[Nicola Blackwood]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andy Sawford]

I will give way. I can anticipate the hon. Lady’s remark.

[Nicola Blackwood]

The hon. Gentleman is aware that apprenticeships have more than doubled under this Government.

[Andy Sawford]

What my constituents want is real quality apprenticeships. They want level 3 apprenticeships and beyond. They want real pathways into employment. They want people to have the opportunity to become skilled tradespeople.

My constituents want more rights for fathers. They want to look at the impact of the abolition of crisis loans. They want action to support the wider implementation of the living wage. I, too, welcome the leadership that has been shown by Labour local authorities around the country, but I want to see a much more widespread take-up of the living wage, including by the private sector. They want the bedroom tax to be scrapped, because they recognise it is unfair. They want action on care for the elderly and more support for people with dementia. They want a more progressive tax system and the reversal of the tax cut for millionaires. My constituents told me they want a Bill that will allow for votes at 16. They want to end the use of unqualified teachers in classrooms. They want investment in green energy. They want to close the loopholes used by large corporations to evade tax. They want more scrutiny of the defence cuts that are being pushed through. They want to end the dogma-driven privatisation of public services. They want to really get banks lending, particularly to small businesses. They want to improve the condition of roads and they want a Bill on street lights.

Some of my constituents told me that they want a balanced and practical debate on immigration. Migration plays a big part in the history of Corby and East Northamptonshire. Over the generations, people coming from across the UK and around the world have mixed with Northamptonshire people to create a distinctive, incredibly strong and proud community. People coming to the area have contributed enormously both economically and culturally, and they will continue to do so: Scottish people, people from Ireland and Wales, Serbians who came and helped to build the pipeline under the ocean that got the fuel across to the allied troops landing on D-day, the Bangladeshi community that has become established in the past 20 years or so—I was very proud of our first Bangladeshi Muslim mayor last year—and the recent development of the Zimbabwean community. There has also been significant migration of people from countries new to the European Union who, like migrants before them, have brought new ways of life, new languages and new shops on our high streets.

All of these changes can be unsettling. They can cause anxiety and they do raise questions about the impact on local services and the labour market. Part of the issue is that people feel that the Government are just not working for them. People in my constituency are being exploited at work, they are struggling to access housing, they are facing problems accessing health services and they are finding it difficult to get a school place for their child. The problem is partly about demand, with a growing population—people coming to Corby and us having the highest birth rate in the country—and people living longer.

When the Scots arrived in the inter-war years, there was a need to ensure that the effect on existing residents was managed, that tensions were overcome and that new services and facilities were provided to meet the needs of a growing town. That challenge has been met by each generation. It has been met by those determined to make our community work, not by those who want to channel people’s anxiety and concern into blaming people who seem different—who sound or look different, maybe worship a different god or speak a different language.

In my constituency, everybody comes from somewhere else—including me. I can trace my family on my father’s side back eight generations, but what of the ninth? On my mum’s side, my nan is of Irish descent and my granddad Scottish. People in Corby remember the discrimination. They remember the signs saying “No Blacks. No Irish. No dogs.” When the Government sent around vans saying “Go Home”, I found graffiti outside the mosque in my town that said “Go Home”. I felt ashamed of my Government. When I hear about the bullying of children in school because they look or sound different, I wonder where those attitudes come from and why our Government have given them succour.

We should debate the changes in our society, including the effects of immigration, in a way that actually helps us positively to address the issues. I have pushed for practical policies to deal with people’s concerns, such as the way the local labour market is being undermined by the exploitation of migrant workers. We need more action to enforce the minimum wage; we should double the maximum fine. I want councils to be given the power to enforce the minimum wage and I am pleased that that commitment has been made, in the event that there is a Labour Government next May.

I want to see the scope of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority extended, not necessarily to regulate in ever more sectors or to license, because those things can be costly and may not be necessary or practical. But where the authority recognises problems in other sectors—for example the car wash industry—it should be able to take action and to follow the intelligence. We should strengthen the law so that recruitment agencies cannot discriminate against UK workers in applying for jobs. We need housing laws to stop migrant workers being exploited and crammed into beds in sheds, undercutting local workers. A Polish constituent came to see me recently to describe his experience of arriving in Corby, his passage having been facilitated by an agency. When he got here he found that the house he was promised was appalling and the job he was promised amounted to a few days’ agency work.

We need to make sure that we give people here the skills they need for the future by ensuring that large companies offer apprenticeships for local workers when they are at the same time bringing in workers from outside the UK. We need more stringent border checks, which is why I have opposed cuts to border control. On these critical issues of access to services and housing, when my constituents say from time to time—other hon. Members will have heard this—“Migrants are given the housing,” I say, “Well, it is very difficult for anybody to access housing. The waiting lists are incredibly long. The issue is that we simply have not been building enough housing for a long time.” The real issue is housing supply, not the recent wave of migration into my community.

Concerns about crime have come to the fore in my constituency recently. After a long period when crime has been falling, it is deeply worrying to hear of an increasing number of violent crimes. I am concerned that there is complacency in Corby and East Northamptonshire about the level of crime and the challenge we face. I know that the police based locally—operating in East Northants from their base in Thrapston, and in Corby—do their absolute best. I also know, because they tell me, that they have been diverted away to other areas.

Crime has been falling over recent years. I am concerned that the police commissioner is now taking resources from Corby to put them into Northampton, Kettering and other towns. I would ask him directly about this but I have not found him open to a proper and honest dialogue about the impact of his policies. It is proving difficult to hold him to account. This has been part of the weakness of the police commissioner model. I have concerns about the costs and the politicisation that we have seen. The first act of the Northamptonshire police and crime commissioner was to appoint his campaign manager and three other political allies to the posts of deputy commissioner on salaries of £65,000 a year, the equivalent of 11 constables on the streets of Corby and East Northamptonshire.

A special report published recently by the Northampton Chronicle and Echo found that the number of staff employed by Northamptonshire’s police and crime commissioner has almost trebled and the wage spend nearly doubled in the 18 months since he started his job. He now employs 34 staff at a cost of £1.4 million. The office of the police and crime commissioner in Northamptonshire has 10 more staff than the West Midlands commissioner, who covers an area five times as large. Will the Minister look into this spending and whether it represents value for money? It does not give me confidence that the police force in Northamptonshire has the leadership it needs.

The police commissioner intends to close Corby police station. I recognise that the Elizabeth street station is ageing, but the answer is to improve it or to look for a new operational base in Corby. The police commissioner has already begun downgrading the station. The cells are now no longer used. That has not been made public but I know this from police officers and, in fact, had it confirmed in a letter from the chief constable about a month ago. The police now have to go out of the area when they make an arrest or to take people into custody, wasting valuable time and resources by going to the opposite end of what is a large county to travel across. When the commissioner talks about a “police presence” in Corby when the police station goes, I hear alarm bells. A shop window is okay, but it is not a replacement for an operational police base. The House of Commons Library figures show that Corby will be the largest town in the whole country without a police station if the Elizabeth street station closes in a few years’ time and is not properly replaced with an operational base.

High-profile crimes in Corby, such as the recent sexual assault on Oakley road and the two violent attacks in successive weeks on the land behind Stephenson way, have caused widespread concern. I recently attended a big public meeting in town and found that people were appalled to hear that the police station was being downgraded and could close altogether. They want a fair share of policing resources and they want street lights turned back on, because they feel unsafe as a result of this short-sighted policy by the Tory county council.

There are concerns, too, in the rural areas about acquisitive crime and antisocial behaviour in some of the small towns. Some brilliant PCSOs are doing good work. I recently attended the JAG—joint action group—team about crime across East Northamptonshire, but resources are again a challenge.

We now have in Northamptonshire the highest reported number of rape cases, which leads to the concern in my community about recent sexual attacks. We have issues about referrals to the Crown Prosecution Service. We have a cloud hanging over the future of Corby magistrates court. Our probation service—one of the best in the country—is being closed down because of another of this Government’s dogmatic privatisations. We have cuts to resources for dealing with domestic violence and to women’s refuges as a result of cuts arising from the reorganisation of the PCT and probation. I want to pay tribute to the campaign led by Sally Keeble in Northampton and Corby councillor Mary Butcher to save the refuges. They won a temporary reprieve of six months, but the future still looks uncertain and I hope that the Home Secretary shares my concern and will look into it.

I hope that Ministers hear the warning alarm I am sounding about police and crime issues in Northamptonshire. I really hope that they will look further into them and will in due course make a proper response to the concerns I have raised.

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[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans), and I hope he will not spend the next few minutes trying to block me out. I want to welcome certain measures in the Modern Slavery Bill and the Serious Crime Bill, and I apologise for being late, but I was coming from the Select Committee on Home Affairs.

As many Members have mentioned, trafficking and exploitation is a despicable crime whereby organised criminals prey on the most vulnerable in our community for profit. It is important to recognise that the victims are not just those who are trafficked as migrants, but also include British citizens, who are perhaps vulnerable due to learning disabilities or poverty. It is exceptionally important that, as we raise awareness of trafficking and exploitation, we do not stereotype either the perpetrators or the victims and thereby risk making certain types of criminal or victim effectively invisible to our criminal justice system or the wider community. For that reason, I hope the anti-slavery commissioner will have a role in both commissioning accurate data-gathering and raising awareness of the true nature of trafficking and exploitation in the United Kingdom.

I also welcome the measures that increase the tariffs for trafficking and introduce trafficking prevention orders. They mirror the sexual risk orders that we have already legislated for as part of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 to tackle child sexual exploitation. I have spoken to police officers up and down the country and they have made it clear to me that these orders will be invaluable tools in disrupting the deeply destructive activities of child sexual exploitation and trafficking gangs.

I also ask that we look at reforming abduction warning notices. At present they are split into two different orders: victims in care are protected up to the age of 18, but victims who are not in care are only protected up to the age of 16. This is discriminatory and unacceptable and it would be a perfectly simple reform for us to equalise the warning notices so that all children were protected up to the age of 18 and any breach of such an order carried a penalty.

As the relevant Minister is in his seat, I also ask him to consider court reforms for victims in all these areas. We should not force victims who have been abused in such appalling ways, even if they have managed to have the bravery to come forward and go through the trauma of a police investigation, to suffer our current adversarial court system and the indignity and anxiety of its procedures. I particularly suggest that we consider the pre-recorded evidence pilot and extending the age limit up to 24, as many victims do not get to court until they are much older, even if they are abused as children. We should also consider mandatory training not only of prosecutors but of all judges and defence barristers in cases involving sexual abuse and exploitation.

Similar measures have been included in the Serious Crime Bill, with gang injunctions and serious crime prevention orders. The Home Affairs Committee inquiry that I have just come from is part of an inquiry into gang and youth crime. It is disappointing that robust data on gangs and gang-related crime are sparse. In 2012 the Metropolitan police identified 259 violent youth gangs in 19 gang-affected boroughs. The Children’s Commissioner has estimated that 12,000 children are at risk of gang-related violence. The conclusion is that urgent work is needed to improve data gathering so that we are able to assess properly where progress has been made as a result of the Government’s strategy. Despite a strong commitment from the Government, demonstrated by the ending gang and youth violence strategy, which has made progress in many ways, it is difficult to assess progress when the database is not robust enough.

A recent Centre for Social Justice report on girls and gangs found that

“the daily suffering of girls goes largely unnoticed. They live in a parallel world where rape is used as a weapon and carrying drugs and guns is seen as normal.”

Those giving evidence this afternoon to us were clear that more progress needed to be made in protecting the most vulnerable girls and on utilising better the expertise of the voluntary organisations working in this field. To that end, can I ask that, along with the reforms of stop and search, which will help to build confidence among gangs and in the community, the measures in the Bill should include steps to integrate the ending gang and youth violence strategy with the ending of violence against women and girls strategy and the new action plan on child sexual exploitation? If those are not properly integrated, we will fail to leverage the improvements that we should be able to achieve.

Finally, in our Committee session we heard that such was the fear and hostility to the establishment among many who were caught up in gang life that many who suffered domestic abuse, rape and violent assault never sought formal help. The natural consequence of this and the extreme trauma that they experienced was high levels of mental illness and post-traumatic stress disorder among gang members. One study conducted by Professor Coid found that 85.8% of gang members had antisocial personality disorder, 25.1% had psychosis, 58.9% had anxiety disorder and 34.2% had attempted suicide. I hope that Ministers will consider what steps can be taken to address these truly horrifying statistics, each of which represents an individual living in truly desperate circumstances.

The Serious Crime Bill and the Modern Slavery Bill together do much to offer hope to some of the most vulnerable victims of crime in the United Kingdom today, but I hope that as they progress through the House they can get even better and improve the lives of those vulnerable victims even more.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

We have had a very interesting debate this afternoon. I have been sitting here for most of it and have learnt a great deal and been very glad of the opportunity to hear the contributions.

The hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) put it on record that he is not a creep, something that Members in all parts of the House know in any event and which he really did not need to do. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) gave a very interesting analysis of UKIP in which he talked about the financial meltdown, saying that many people felt there was no control of such major issues by traditional politics. He felt that the public are looking for answers and that that had a lot to do with the rise of UKIP. He put some interesting matters before us, including a discussion of the biography of Jenkins.

The hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) made a bold speech on the benefits of immigration and started listing all the things that the Liberal Democrats would like to have done if the Tories had not stopped them. In doing so, he ran the gauntlet of the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) and his friends, but he kept going. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about the pressure on services created by immigration and the fact that Dr Clare Gerada had said that doctors should not be a type of border agency, a sentiment that he supported. He was concerned about how we can ensure access to services for the right people.

The hon. Member for Peterborough seemed to be unclear about whether he believed there should be a limit on the number of Brits going to Spain, and he accused the Scottish National party of narrow chauvinistic attitudes. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd) gave us the benefit of his 22 years’ experience and told us that no matter how slim the Queen’s Speech is, even those who find it bordering on anorexic may find something worth welcoming. However, he regretted the fact, as did many Members, that the Government seem to have dropped the Wild Animals in Circuses Bill, as it was not included in the Queen’s Speech, although legislation on plastic bags was.

The hon. Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee) gave a very thoughtful speech about the Modern Slavery Bill. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) treated us to one of his best “Braveheart” speeches. It seems that the rest of us in Westminster are picking on him. The hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) spoke knowledgably about energy policy and in favour of fracking, telling us that the rest of the world was doing it and that we need to do it to be competitive. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) paid a worthy tribute to Anthony Steen and the work he has put into the Modern Slavery Bill. I know that Members of the House would want to thank Anthony Steen and all those who have put so much work into the thinking behind the Bill.

The hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) spoke about police cuts and a great deal about immigration. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) talked about crime rates and how reported crime is going up but conviction rates are not matching that, which has a particular impact on women. He spoke very movingly about his relative, Agnes, who was murdered, and how the rest of his family remain to this day victims of that crime. He talked about the Modern Slavery Bill and his thinking on it, listing what he had been expecting, or hoping, to find in the Bill and explaining how it fell short of expectations by saying what was missing. I commend to the Home Secretary the Hansard report of many of the contributions about what else should be included in the Bill.

The hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) made a welcome appeal for political leadership on immigration, asking that we do not fan the flames of prejudice. He also gave the very powerful example of a 92-year-old constituent who had struggled to get a passport to go back to the Normandy beaches that he had fought on as a 21-year-old. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) talked about job insecurity, low wages and the house crisis in the south-west, and asked where the measures were to address those core problems for her constituents.

My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) made an intelligent and thoughtful contribution to the immigration debate and expressed concern that the Home Secretary seems not to be taking seriously the concerns expressed by many Members about backlogs at the Passport Office. My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) spoke with great passion about a case which she believes has been a travesty of justice, and showed her real campaigning zeal on that matter.

We then heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) and for Corby (Andy Sawford) who made important speeches, particularly on immigration issues. They had clearly listened to the concerns that their constituents have expressed over the past few weeks and months when my hon. Friends have been knocking on doors and standing on doorsteps listening. They had given the issues thoughtful consideration, particularly in relation to what we should do about gangmasters, problems with housing and undercutting of wages. They proposed solutions and again drew the comparison between the ideas that are bubbling under among Labour Members and the lack of any solutions in the Queen’s Speech.

My hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) made a passionate speech about prison overcrowding and penal policy. He showed himself to be a consummate professional, and despite being heckled by rattling speakers, kept going and silenced them. Finally, we heard from the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), who talked about data gathering and about gang and violent crime. She said that the daily suffering of girls who were on the edges of crime seemed to go unmentioned and ignored. It is important that she raised the issue in the House, and that girls who are the victims of crime and are on the edges of these gangs are not ignored. We need to address the relevant policy issues.

The Queen’s Speech contains a number of Bills relating to home affairs which are linked by themes. My concern is that although they sound marvellous and can be talked up beautifully in the press, the Bills often disappoint when we look at the nitty-gritty. For example, on the confiscation of criminal profits, the National Audit Office report was a call to arms as it showed that only 26p of every £100 of profits a criminal makes is confiscated. Some £1.5 billion has eluded the authorities because the assets have been hidden, siphoned away overseas or eroded by third-party claims.

The report focused our minds as never before on what we should do. Labour has pledged to introduce a raft of measures which would strengthen the confiscation regime. Although on the whole we welcome the Serious Crime Bill, we wonder whether it will deliver everything that is promised. Will it live up to its rhetoric or will it ultimately be disappointing? We will look carefully at whether there are serious measures in relation to the disclosure of third-party claims. We particularly believe that they should be at the restraint order stage and not too late. We are quite happy to share our ideas if Ministers will listen to, for example, our proposals that costs should be recoverable by defendants in freezing order applications, and that when defendants ask for their costs in freezing order applications, the amount they get back should be only at legal aid rates. We are happy to share our ideas on how to put pressure on defendants to bring their assets back to the United Kingdom.

The Home Secretary was so busy fighting with the Secretary of State for Education that she may not have noticed all the details that I put into my speech at the Proceeds of Crime Lawyers Association annual general meeting. If she has not seen the speech, I would be happy to send it to her. It went into some detail about what we believe should be done so that criminal assets can be confiscated properly. We wish to give the Home Secretary some advice. One of the most important ways of seizing the profits of crime is to foster better relations with overseas jurisdictions, because once those assets are overseas, they are very difficult to get back. We need to foster better relations to ensure that overseas jurisdictions will co-operate with us.

It is extraordinary that since 2008, £200 million-worth of assets have been frozen by the UK courts in response to overseas requests for legal assistance, but not a single penny of that money has been repatriated to the countries that asked us to seize and freeze those assets. If we do not co-operate with overseas jurisdictions, how can we expect them to co-operate with us? This is not something that requires legislation, but it needs clear policy drivers and it needs to be led on.

On professional organised crime, we will be watching carefully to see whether the measures announced with such trump will be a rehashing of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. We are concerned that David Thomas, the former head of the Home Office financial intelligence unit, recently told journalists that too often the Government dragged their feet in responding to foreign freezing requests, if they responded to them at all, because they consider them too much of a headache. We really need to be serious about reciprocity if we want to seize criminal assets.

As for the child abuse provisions, the extension of the definition of child cruelty is welcome, but it must be seen against the background of child cruelty conviction rates having fallen. In 2009, the rate was 720, and in 2013 it fell to 553. It is important to extend the offence, but it is also important to use the current law and ensure that there are proper prosecutions and convictions. With regard to the law on female genital mutilation, we ask the Government to consider the call from the Director of Public Prosecutions for anonymity of victims. We do not believe that that is in the current legislation, but it needs to be considered.

The Bill that has perhaps been praised the most is the Modern Slavery Bill. It is generally to be welcomed, but, again, we must look at the enforcement record. We know that the law on human trafficking has a bad enforcement record. In 2013, there were just 28 prosecutions for trafficking for sexual exploitation, and only 11 convictions. In relation to child protection, 300 children who had been trafficked were rescued from their traffickers and placed in care but then went missing. We have been calling since 2010 for legal guardians, and we are impatient that the legislation contains only enabling powers and that we must await the results of trials. We welcome statutory defence of victims of trafficking to ensure that they are not prosecuted for crimes that they are forced into, and we welcome the fact that there will be statutory guidance on victim ID and victim services, but we are concerned that the national referral mechanism is not working properly and needs review. Again, I discovered recently in a freedom of information request from the Crown Prosecution Service that it usually does not go to the national referral mechanism until after someone has been prosecuted and sentenced. In those circumstances, the data base is hardly doing the job it is supposed to be doing.

[Nicola Blackwood]

As I understand it, the NRM has been under review since April, and it is well known that that was a necessary process. Does the hon. Lady not welcome the prevention orders that are proposed in the Modern Slavery Bill, which will be a key tool for police in disrupting the very trafficking networks that she is talking about?