Tackling Stalking

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing this Statement to your Lordships’ House. On this side, we welcome the Government’s announcement on stalking. I am sure that all noble Lords will wish to do everything that we possibly can to tackle violence against women and girls. There have been many tributes paid to Nicola Thorp for sharing her experiences, and I wish to echo those. It takes courage to speak up, and I cannot thank her enough for raising this situation.

The previous Conservative Government made real progress on this issue. I can put it no better than the shadow Minister in the House of Commons, who said:

“We launched our tackling violence against women and girls strategy to increase support for victims. We elevated violence against women and girls to a crime type that police leaders must treat as a national threat. We ensured that victims can always access professional support. We doubled the maximum sentence for stalkers from five to 10 years, keeping behind bars for longer those who devastate their victims’ lives. We also made stalking a specific offence, to ensure that women and girls are protected and to show beyond doubt that stalking is a crime”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/12/24; col. 184.]


The number of people who have been stalked dropped 0.5% from 2010 to 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics. We on this side of the House very much welcome the Government’s actions on stalking, and we want to work with them to eradicate this crime once and for all. I wish to ask the Minister just a couple questions around this. Can he confirm that, in continuing the excellent work of the previous Government, conversations are happening with relevant Ministers in the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure that there is a truly cross-departmental focus on eradicating stalking? Also has the Minister had conversations with officials in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to ensure that cyberstalking is being clamped down on? What resources is the Minister providing to police forces to ensure that this heinous crime is being tackled in all cases?

In closing, let me say that the Government can be assured that we on this side of the House will continue to fully support efforts to combat this abhorrent behaviour.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, it is a very old declaration of interest, but I was a member of the independent parliamentary inquiry on stalking, led by Elfyn Llwyd MP, which published its results in 2012 and led to the first change of legislation that identified stalking as a separate criminal offence, as opposed to it just being gathered in under harassment, as had happened before. I was also a victim of sustained stalking before the days of online stalking, over a period of two and a half years. Indeed, my noble friend Lady Thornhill was also in receipt of some of the very unpleasant attentions of this person.

The independent inquiry found that victims of stalking, whether domestic or not, had little confidence in the criminal justice system, from the way that police handled cases and helped victims and how the CPS frequently plea-bargained with perpetrators, resulting in a distinct lack of justice for egregious cases of stalking. I wish that I could say that this was history, but it is not. Nothing has changed in the cultural way that the entire criminal justice system deals with stalking. The law may have changed, but far too many stalking victims are still told that they should welcome the attention. Far too many find that their cases are plea-bargained away to harassment or some other minor offence and, as a result, that gives encouragement to the perpetrators. The reason that I mention this is that one of the things that was recognised was that many stalking cases involve perpetrators with fixated threats; they are manipulative people who have coercive-control behaviour, very deceitful behaviour and—most worryingly—with some perpetrators, a ratcheting-up of their illegal behaviour. Not enough is done to support victims of stalking.

In my particular case, it did not start with violence at all, but the reason why the police moved quickly at the end of a two and a half year period was because the perpetrator was using kitchen knives to slash tyres and their adviser said that, having done this to houses and damaged houses of the people he wanted to target, the next thing he would do after using these knives on inanimate objects would be to move to people. He was then swiftly arrested. Helpfully, he pleaded guilty and there has been nothing else since, but it was a pretty awful two and a half years.

This Statement focuses on the police response, where the Minister talks about those who have not been listened to or have even been told that they should have been flattered by the stalking actions. I welcome the fact that the Government recognise this, but the three issues that the Government are responding on—multi-agency statutory guidance on stalking, again; a review of stalking legislation, again; and publishing more data, again—are all welcome, but will not change things.

I pay particular tribute to Nicola Thorp. She is a brave woman, and we salute her, but she is one of many women who repeatedly have to tell their stories. Why, therefore, are false claims to families, friends and workplace victims able to be ignored when it comes to plea bargaining? I ask that, because these really manipulative stalkers do that. London’s victims’ commissioner, Claire Waxman, is herself a victim of stalking. Her perpetrator, whom she did not know, has been jailed seven times, and the behaviour continues. Once known, police can advise victims on how to protect themselves—for example, by installing alarms in their homes. If the individual who is being stalked recognises them, they can go to the police and say, “I’ve seen them in the vicinity of my house”. If they do not know who they are, how can they report when they are in danger?

I briefly mention one particular case where an ex-partner, who had continuously stalked his ex and her son, was given her new secret address by the children’s social worker, because he said he was so distraught at not being able to see his son. As a result of that action a handful of years ago, he broke into her new flat, threw his son against the wall and then raped the mother in front of the child. That is because the agencies did not know. It is fine to have victims informed, but can the Minister say whether other agencies involved in these cases will also know, so that that sort of mistake cannot be repeated?

Can the Minister also confirm, as has already been mentioned, that he will commit to requiring social media companies to publish reports setting out the actions that they have taken to address online abuse and stalking against women and girls? Will they be informed about these perpetrators who are repeat offenders? Social media companies will not pick it up on their own but, once they have a name and an IP address, which the police will have, it would be easy to do so.

I end by saying that I broadly welcome this Statement, as I think all victims of stalking do, but the biggest issue is how we can change the culture in the police and the criminal justice system. It is apparent that, 12 years since the new laws were introduced, it is the culture on the front line of the criminal justice system that needs to be changed.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I am grateful to His Majesty’s Opposition for their support for the measures and for the work that was done by the previous Government in highlighting and putting in place legislation that had Opposition support at the time to at least start to address this problem. I say to the noble Lord and to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that I think the Government’s pledge, our manifesto commitment, to halve the level of violence against women and girls over a 10-year period will send a clear signal to both central government and external agencies that relate to government on this issue and many others that this is a really important issue that has to be addressed by the state and by other bodies involved in dealing with the state. I hope that will assure the noble Baroness that this issue is being raised in importance. With a target being set of halving of violence against women and girls, of which stalking forms part, that is a measurable impact that agencies, the police and others will need to respond to government on, and I hope that raises it as a whole.

I particularly welcome the mention by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, of Nicola Thorp and her work. It takes a great deal of bravery to come forward, and she has done that. He mentioned the co-operation between government departments. Certainly, the Ministry of Justice, the department of the Home Office that I represent, and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology have a stake in improving the performance of the Government and agencies in this area.

One thing that came out of this Statement, which both noble Lords mentioned, is the multiagency guidance and the guidance to various agencies dealing with this, including government agencies that are responsible as arm’s-length bodies or agencies delivering for central government departments. I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said “again”, but I say to her that there has not been any guidance given to date by government on a multiagency basis that is effective. This is the first time this has happened and, in the Statement, we have agreed to do that.

Cyberstalking is important and will be part of the assessment of the government response downstream. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned resources. We are in a very strange time, as the House will recognise, when we have not yet announced the police settlement for next year until December, we have not yet allocated resources for 2025-26 and we have not yet determined, with the Treasury, resources for 2026-29. These matters will come in due course, but we have not done that yet.

The issue of culture change, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is extremely important, as is putting victims at the heart of the response, which is why we refer not just to Nicola Thorp but to the work of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust and the way it has responded. The noble Baroness raised a number of issues relating to social media. That is equally important, but I say to all Members of this House that if they look at the Statement, the work on multiagency guidance will be brand-new and important. The review of legislation to see how we can improve many of the areas which both Front Bench spokespeople mentioned is important. The collection and publishing of data for the first time is important. The victim’s right to know, which the noble Baroness focused on, is extremely important, because once the victim knows, then steps can be taken and action monitored and individuals can respond to the agencies that I mentioned. That is in this proposed legislation the first time. The management of behaviour to tackle some of the long-term issues of low-level offenders, initially, who may raise the level of their game is equally important and is in for the first time. The stalking protection orders that we will put in place when parliamentary time allows are extremely important and will help prevent further engagement by stalkers when those are legislated. The national standards for examining how we can deal with individuals will raise the level of this issue and improve the performance of our agencies, which are all equally important.

Many of these matters that were announced in another place this week and are being repeated here today will require legislation in this or a later Session of Parliament, but I hope the Government’s intention is clear: we will not stand for stalking; we want to give victims protection; we want to improve the performance of the Government and their agencies in this area; and we want to ensure that there is a legal basis to give the type of protection that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, both suggested. This will be an ongoing discussion as legislation comes before the House, and I look forward to both noble Lords contributing to helping improve the performance for victims and the prevention of this activity in the first place.