Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, our amendment adds a new ground for the issuing of a closure notice that would allow premises to be closed in cases of sexual offences against a child. It is largely a preventive measure but would be an important extra tool in tackling this problem. No one could have failed to be distressed and horrified by the reports late last year of groups and gangs of men who abused young and vulnerable girls. They did so by a cold, calculating and sinister grooming process, sometimes involving drink and drugs, which allowed them to sexually and physically abuse these children. So cleverly warped are these groomers’ tactics that the children—and vulnerable adults—may not even realise at the time that they are being abused and exploited.

We have an opportunity in the Bill to provide more ammunition for those trying to prevent this shocking and evil crime. I hope noble Lords will allow me to put on record my gratitude to those who brought this matter to my attention: Tony Lloyd, the police and crime commissioner for Greater Manchester; Colin Lambert, leader of Rochdale Council; and Jeanette Stanley, Rochdale’s safety community manager. They have given me some hugely important and useful evidence. I know they have been in contact with Home Office Ministers as well. Their experience and knowledge of what works in tackling such crime and where the gaps are in legislation is invaluable. I know that the Minister shares my concerns on this issue and I hope that the Government will share my view of the suggestions that these people brought forward to try to tackle this problem.

They are seeking an immediate closure power where there is a safeguarding threat. Greater Manchester Police has evidence of properties that are unregulated and unlicensed being used in a variety of ways to prey on vulnerable adults and sexually exploit children “behind closed doors”. Yet the only powers the police have—and will have in legislation if the amendment is not passed—is to close premises on anti-social behaviour grounds. Now that the police have evidence of the shape and extent of this problem, that is no longer enough. In Rochdale, they have been able to use the current anti-social behaviour closure order power on a number of occasions to good effect because they also had sufficient evidence of recent and repetitive anti-social behaviour incidents. However, the main reason for obtaining a closure order was because of safeguarding concerns involving children and young adults. That power allows a short-term disruption to the abuse while the police can then take longer-term permanent action.

Norman Baker, as Home Office Minister in the other place, has responded to the suggestion outlined in our amendment that closure powers exist under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. He is absolutely right—they do—but they apply only to prostitution and pornography, not to protecting children and vulnerable adults. The powers do not allow for the swift action that is needed. However, perhaps the most serious problem with that approach is that to use a sexual offences order, evidence of a criminal offence is needed. The grooming method of such gangs is quite sophisticated in a warped way, and many victims of child rape and sexual abuse do not complain. They may even believe that their abuser is their boyfriend and that they have sex with his friends to please him. While in the clutches of these men, the victims cannot even recognise that they are being abused.

This is a simple amendment. It obviously does not solve all the problems but it will make a difference. Tony Lloyd and Councillor Colin Lambert first wrote to Minister Jeremy Browne on 4 October last year seeking this help to tackle the problem. I put on record my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, as Minister, for his willingness to discuss these issues with me. I really hope that the Minister can accept this amendment but I would be happy for him to take it away to consider further, and for us to bring something back at Third Reading. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness raises a hugely important matter. I was glad to hear her say that she would welcome the Minister taking the matter away, but I have to say that my reaction would be to wonder whether, as she says—and I am not doubting what she says—there are gaps in our legislation that mean there are problems for the authorities. If that were the case, I should have thought it necessary to make changes to the Sexual Offences Act. I question whether the changes should be made in this Bill, given that the offences she is talking about are of a very different order from the nuisance and disorder that this part of the Bill is addressing.

There is also the difficult issue of taking steps to prevent something that might be a criminal offence—we are talking about something rather different in this part of the Bill—without having gone through prosecution and so on. I have not had a discussion with the Minister —he might be about to take the ground completely from under my feet—but it seems that we are talking about something very important but rather different.

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[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the Minister for his response in this regard. It contrasts quite starkly with the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who seemed to be much against taking action in the Bill. However, his response—

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I apologise to the House if I was not clear. I was entirely sympathetic with the thrust of what the noble Baroness was seeking to do but was suggesting, precisely as the Minister has said, that the Sexual Offences Act might well be the place to do it.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

It came over rather more negatively than that, but the Minister’s response was very useful and I think it showed a clear determination to take action on this. I am very happy to enter into discussions with him and we should be able to find a way to bring this back at Third Reading. It is an urgent issue: children are being abused today and will be abused tomorrow and the day after, and we have a real opportunity here to make a difference. I am grateful to the Minister for seizing the opportunity and I look forward to our further discussions.

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Moved by

[Baroness Hamwee]

62: Clause 69, page 41, line 37, leave out “habitually”

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[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 71, 72, 73, 74 and 75. These amendments are concerned with people who are affected, and how they are affected, by closure notices and closure orders. Amendment 62 addresses those who “habitually”—that is the term in the Bill—live on the premises and their entitlement to access. The subsequent amendments deal with the clauses relating to temporary orders and their extension and discharge, and appeals, as well as the extent of the building which may be the subject of an appeal.

I am concerned about the employees who live on site. Pubs, hotels and other leisure establishments often include accommodation for junior staff and not just for the managers. When I raised this at the previous stage, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, said that closure notices could be,

“tailored to the appropriate circumstances”.—[Official Report, 2/12/13; col. 14.]—

we were talking about security and safety—but that the Government considered that the exception should be limited to residents who are habitually resident and, in the case of an appeal, to those who have an interest in the premises, meaning a financial or legal interest.

The draft guidance, which we have seen, seems to consider these issues only to the extent of the police or the local authority, allowing discretion for the retrieval of items left on the premises. My concern goes wider than that. A young person employed in the sort of situation to which I have referred may well be living a long way from home and quite suddenly lose the place where they are living, if not habitually at that point. I am not suggesting that this may be a widespread situation but, for those affected, it will be very significant and I wonder whether my noble friend on the Front Bench can give me any more assurances. I am simply not confident that the legislation allows for enough to go into the guidance to cover the points that I am making. I beg to move.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Hamwee has explained, these amendments relate to the closure powers in Chapter 3 of Part 4 of the Bill. She has also indicated that her particular concern is to protect the interests of employees—such as caretakers, for example—who may live on premises subject to a closure notice or order. Amendment 62 relates to the use of the term “habitually” in the context of Clause 69(4). That subsection provides that a closure notice cannot prohibit access by a person who habitually lives on the premises. The term “habitually” in this context means those who routinely or regularly live at those premises. It could, for example, cover students who live away from the family home for part of the year but routinely return to the family home as their main residence or those who spend the majority of the week living at the pub in which they work.

The term is commonly used in legislation setting out entitlement to social security benefits, such as the Income Support (General) Regulations 1987. It is also used in the family law context when a court decides cases under the Child Abduction and Custody Act 1985, where it is often relevant to decide in which country a child habitually resides. When approaching this test in each context in which it has arisen, the courts have said that it is essentially a question of fact to be determined by reference to all the circumstances of a particular case. We expect the police and local authorities to follow the same approach in this context and assess each circumstance on a case-by-case basis. However, it is important to retain this word so that we exclude persons who may only occasionally live on the premises: for example, a friend of one of the residents who may just be spending time there over a weekend or at a sleepover.

Amendments 71, 72, 73 and 75 all seek to extend certain rights—for example, the right of appeal against a closure order—to persons who live on the premises concerned. Such rights already apply to persons on whom a closure notice has been served and on persons who have an interest in the premises. The Government are satisfied that these existing provisions are wide enough to protect the position of employees who may reside on the premises.

In Committee, I explained that the reference in the Bill to a person having an “interest” in the premises covers those who have a financial or legal interest. I would fully expect that any employee who has been furnished with accommodation as part of his or her employment would have their entitlements to such accommodation set out in either their contract of employment or an associated tenancy agreement. That being the case, I am satisfied that in any such formal relationship between an employee and the owner or occupier of any such premises subject to an application for a closure order, the employee will be a person with an interest in the premises and therefore already covered by the provisions provided in Clauses 74 to 77.

Finally, Amendment 74 seeks to clarify the circumstances in which an appeal against a decision to make or extend a closure order may be made. Of course, I understand that my noble friend has in mind the situation where an appellant may wish to challenge the extent of a closure order in terms of those parts of a building or structure which are covered by the order. Again, I can assure my noble friend that the provisions in the Bill as drafted allow for this. Clause 77(6) enables the court hearing an appeal to make whatever order it thinks appropriate. This would include varying the terms of a closure order so that it applies to a more limited part of the building or structure in question. Therefore, an employee living on-site could use the appeal to argue that a closure order should not include his or her living area. I hope that, in the light of the explanation that I have given, my noble friend is reassured and will be content to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, in the Minister’s explanation of “habitually”, which I understood from the previous stage, the example he used of a student whose real home—if I can put it that way—was somewhere else actually confirmed exactly what I was worried about. That part therefore did not reassure me, but I am helped by his more extended explanation of the term “interest”. I know when I am beaten, so I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 62 withdrawn.

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[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, first, I should like to clarify a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, and reinforce what she said about the Landlord and Tenant Act issues under secure tenancies.

The legal situation, as I understand it from my profession as a chartered surveyor, is that tenants are responsible for the actions of those living with them only to the extent of the lease terms and the demise concerned. It does not and never has extended to liability for the wider actions of members of a tenant’s household elsewhere. Even general paving clauses such as “immoral or illegal activity” have, as I understand it, been pleaded in vain. I put that clearly. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, has raised a valid point here. The whole of Clause 91 looks like being a knee-jerk reaction that would go beyond what is necessary and desirable.

I would like to ask one or two questions for clarification. What about the whole question of the rehabilitation of offenders? When somebody has been indicted, put into prison, served their sentence and comes out, what are the circumstances in which a court will grant this further period of indefinite rustication, if you like, from any sort of enjoyment of a place that they can call a home and to which they can naturally relate? What are the safeguards? Is this the default position, or does it concern the second or third strike after the event? We do not know and I invite the Minister to clarify the position.

Moreover, what about the selective post-sentence treatment of rioters as a particular species of offender under the Bill—as opposed to, say, murderers or other offenders? Very large numbers of offences are anti-social, and virtually all have a victim class of some sort who would naturally look, under the terms of the overarching principle of this Bill, to some sort of rebalancing. I worry about the singling out of this class of offender. Maybe the Minister can explain how that works. This provision could result in a class of persons without rights to occupy anything that they could call a home of their own. That needs to be circumscribed and contained in some way because the circumstances of the offence will not necessarily be replicated. If there is no risk of replication, what is the court being instructed to do? The justification is rebalancing towards the interests of victims—for them to feel that justice has been done. Would Clause 91 achieve that rebalancing? I am not clear that it would.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, the term “knee-jerk reaction” was used. I think we are all clear—let me use a synonym—that it was an immediate reaction to the riots of 2011. I am never comfortable with using legislation to give a message. At the previous stage I proposed amendments that were replicated in what we have today because I recognise the political realities of the situation and the circumstances in which that message had been given.

I was horrified when I looked at Hansard to see that I was on record as saying that I was happy with the clause. Hansard now knows that I was not happy with the clause and is correcting the record from Committee stage. As I say, I recognise the strength of feeling and where we might well end up. Knowing how the two Houses work and that this clause has been considered by the Commons, I went straight to what I hoped might be a way of ameliorating the situation, which was to suggest that it be limited to serious offences. That is a very significant change and taken with the other safeguards—that is how I look at them—which the Minister has listed, I am perhaps somewhere between where Hansard said I was and where I was. I am not happy but I am not nearly as unhappy as I might have been.

I was interested to know what had happened in Wandsworth after the 2011 riots and checked with the council. I understand that that council—presumably this is not the case with every local authority—has specific tenancy conditions covering the behaviour of tenants and it considered the criminal activities as coming within those conditions. The housing professional from whom I have heard talked about the double jeopardy term being used as a criticism but said, however, that the ground relating to possession for a serious conviction has existed since 1985. In essence, if the new ground meant that a tenant living in one borough could be pursued if convicted in connection with rioting in another borough I can see the attraction but I doubt whether the courts will agree. I am grateful to the Minister for bringing forward the amendments today.

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[Baroness Hamwee]

With the leave of the House, just to pursue the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, the information that I had from the chief executive of Wandsworth was that, in that borough after the 2011 riots, 12 notices of seeking possession were served, which is the first step in eviction proceedings. That resulted in an outright possession order and subsequent eviction in one case; seven others resulted in possession being granted but suspended on terms or an undertaking being given to the court. That, of course, supports what the noble and learned Baroness said about the court’s position.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

This has been a good debate on an important subject, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, for bringing it to us today. However, I reiterate that, as with the existing discretionary grounds for possession, the legislation has always contained important safeguards—not least the discretion of the court, at the end of the day. However, this has been recognised by the Government in our amendments, reflecting the key concerns, if not all the concerns, of the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

A lot of noble Lords have spoken in this debate, including the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, my noble friend Lady Hamwee, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, my noble friend Lord Elton, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, my noble friend Lord Paddick and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. A number of points have been made, all working on a theme.

To put the debate in context, I remind the House that the Housing Act 1996 already provides for a ground of possession where a tenant, a member of their household or a visitor has been convicted of anti-social behaviour or a criminal offence in the locality—there is the difference—of their property. Many of the issues that noble Lords have pointed to are already familiar to those who have to make the decisions. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, referred to the debates in Wandsworth, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Hamwee for giving us the figures there. Such decisions have to be made by housing authorities and landlords over time in any event, and the courts themselves have to consider the impact not only on the perpetrator of the crime but on the family. This is familiar ground.

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[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, it seems that in Scotland the provisions which are in force have not been as effective as one would have hoped. I am not sure that the laws against proxy purchasing of alcohol have been terribly effective. I would be concerned if bringing in a further measure which failed to achieve what we wanted to see was a deterrent to anything more effective. Is the Minister aware of what the police think about this? After all, enforcement is what matters when one is introducing a new offence.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, when we debated this issue on 4 December, we agreed that, because smoking is largely an addiction taken up during childhood or adolescence, reducing the availability of tobacco to young people is important if we are to succeed in reducing overall smoking uptake. This new clause seeks to create a new criminal offence of an adult purchasing, or attempting to purchase, tobacco products on behalf of a child or young person under the age of 18. This act is commonly known by the phrase, “proxy purchasing”.

While smoking prevalence among young people has declined considerably in recent years, there are still each year around 300,000 young people in England under the age of 16 who try smoking for the first time. As a starting point, we must continue to take action to encourage adults to quit smoking. If smoking is seen by young people as a normal part of everyday life, they are much more likely to become smokers themselves. The Government’s Tobacco Control Plan for England is clear that, to promote health and well-being, we will work to encourage communities to reshape social norms, so that tobacco becomes less desirable, less acceptable and less accessible. We aim to stop the perpetuation of smoking from one generation to the next.

We need to think carefully about whether creating a proxy purchase offence would have an impact on how accessible tobacco is to children and young people, and whether it would have a meaningful impact on reducing smoking rates among young people. Obtaining cigarettes from retailers is just one of many avenues by which young people access tobacco. We know that children and young people obtain their cigarettes from a wide range of sources. Some young people take tobacco from their parents, from other family members or from older friends. In such circumstances, no proxy purchase has occurred. Introducing a new proxy purchase offence would not tackle that particular way of getting tobacco.

I understand that introducing a proxy purchase offence for tobacco is supported by some retailer organisations, including the Association of Convenience Stores and the National Federation of Retail Newsagents. Let me be clear that I recognise the important role played by retailers in ensuring that tobacco products are sold in accordance with the existing age-of-sale legislation. I also want to recognise the important work that retailer organisations have played in recent years to support their members in meeting age-of-sale requirements.

I realise the difficulties that some retailers face, and I understand why some feel that it should be an offence to buy tobacco on behalf of under-18s. I also understand that the creation of a proxy purchasing offence has the support of the tobacco industry—as the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, said. However, I am sure that noble Lords will agree that the creation of effective and practicable legislation should be informed by evidence. In the area of proxy purchasing, the Government’s current view is that we want to see evidence that a proxy purchase offence would be effective both in reducing young people’s access to tobacco and in having a deterrent effect on those adults who are prepared to buy cigarettes on behalf of children and young people.

In fact, I am concerned that some of the evidence that is currently available suggests that creating a proxy purchasing offence would have only limited benefit. For example, a Scottish study published in August 2013 looked at how young Scottish smokers living in disadvantaged communities obtained their cigarettes. The study concluded that the introduction of a proxy purchasing offence in Scotland had had little discernible impact.

Nevertheless, that is not to say that evidence does not exist, and I encourage those who support this amendment to provide evidence of the likely public health benefits of creating a proxy purchasing offence to the Department of Health for further consideration. Proxy purchasing of tobacco is an area that the Department of Health is keeping under review, and any further evidence that is provided will be carefully considered. I assure noble Lords that I will draw the attention of my noble friend Lord Howe to the debate we are having on the subject this afternoon.

As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said, those in support of a proxy purchase offence point to Scotland, where the offence was introduced in April 2011. While I understand that a light-touch approach has been taken on enforcement and that the legislation has been in place only for a few years, I note that only one fixed penalty notice has been imposed since the offence was introduced, and that there have been no convictions. Furthermore, whether the legislation has had any deterrent effect is also not clear.

The statistics for the similar offence of the proxy purchase of alcohol show that convictions are few and far between in that area, too, in no small part because of the burden of proof required. Furthermore, the alcohol offence includes a defence that the purchaser had no reason to suspect that the individual they bought the alcohol for was under 18. This amendment does not address that point.

Whether local authorities want the creation of a proxy purchasing offence is not at all clear at the moment. After all, they rather than the police would be responsible for enforcement. The Minister responsible for public health made it clear during a debate on this issue in the House of Commons in October that the Government would be happy to hear the views of local authorities on the potential for effective enforcement, or to hear of good examples of existing local measures to reduce access to tobacco by young people. I also call on those in the public health community to provide this sort of evidence for the creation of a proxy purchasing offence. I want to be clear that we are not rejecting the creation of a proxy purchasing offence outright, but we need to give the matter further consideration.

While we understand the views of retailers and the tobacco industry on proxy purchasing, the Department of Health will continue to work with local authorities and the public health community to understand their views. I want to reassure your Lordships that the Department of Health will also keep under review relevant evidence and experience from elsewhere. I again encourage those with evidence to make it available; I cannot reiterate that enough.

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[Lord Hope of Craighead]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, was kind enough to mention me, and perhaps I may add a footnote to what he said about Scotland and the measure that deals with emergency workers. Of course, an assault, in both the law of Scotland and the law of England, is a crime, and in a sense you could say that it was not necessary to pass that measure at all because any court when presented with evidence of an assault would pass an appropriate sentence if the individual was convicted.

However, the value of the measure, which got a lot of publicity, was its deterrent effect. After all, the last thing that one wants is to have the assault committed. The Government in Scotland were trying to reduce the very unfortunate crescendo of assaults on emergency workers—firemen, ambulance people and so on—and to some extent the measure appears to have had that effect. Therefore, the deterrent effect is as valuable as any sentencing. As I said, in an ideal world, if something was a crime, the individual tempted to do the act described as criminal would refrain from doing it. It is because of the deterrent effect that I think there is a good deal of force behind the amendment.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I thought that at the previous stage the noble Lord, Lord Condon, had it right when he said he feared that,

“the real mischief they and we might seek to address is not the absence of suitable offences but the absence of action”.—[Official Report, 4/12/13; col. 255.]

I asked questions of my noble friend about sentencing, the aggravating nature of that type of offence and so on, and I am afraid that I have not changed my mind about those two aspects.

I am interested in the definition of “worker” in the noble Lord’s amendment. One qualifies, as it were—that is not quite the right term but he will know what I mean—only if one is “physically present”. Reading that, I wondered how that works with his requirement for malice in subsection (2) of the proposed new clause. When I saw the word “malice”, I thought that he had in mind, for example, someone who—possibly for very personal reasons—does not like people who work in jobcentres but then discovers that his neighbour works in a jobcentre. Is that malice towards all such people for that sort of reason or are we talking about something very personal? Does it mean being in the workplace or in the sort of situation that I have suggested, hanging around until one’s neighbour comes out of the house and having a go at him for that reason?

I was also interested in subsection (4) of the proposed new clause. If I remember rightly—I have not gone back to check—I think that on the previous occasion the noble Lord talked about “evidence from a single source”. That seems to be a matter for the courts. We should not tell the courts how to assess evidence. If he is saying that there is some restriction on the way they are working at the moment, it may be a different matter—but, again, that made me wonder where the noble Lord was going with this.

On the aggravating nature of the offence, we have to be careful not to devalue the importance of that approach to sentencing. This, of course, is not the only aggravating factor for the courts, but the Sentencing Council does a very important job in identifying appropriate aggravating factors.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock very eloquently made the case in support of this amendment. It is really about supporting victims of assault by a member of the public in the course of their employment and in the course of earning their livelihood. I suppose that the question is whether one feels that the matter should be dealt with by regarding that kind of assault as one of a great many aggravating factors in an assault case, or whether it should be regarded as a separate offence. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, referred to the impact of the new offence in Scotland in relation to assaults on emergency workers.

It is worth looking at some of the figures that have emerged. Those from the HSE’s Crime Survey for England and Wales show that there were nearly 650,000 reported incidents of violence at work and that workplace violence comprises some 31% of all reported crimes of violence. The HSE found that the occupations at greatest risk were those that involved working with the public. That is hardly a surprise, but nevertheless it was confirmed by the HSE.

Reference has been made to the position of shop workers. USDAW, the union that represents them, undertakes members’ surveys, which show that in the past year 4% of retail staff were attacked at work—which is equivalent to some 120,000 assaults—and 34% were threatened with violence. In addition, 17% of those attacked did not report the offence—and we can all speculate as to why that might have been the case.

People at work—in their employment, in the course of earning their livelihood— are in a different situation from most other people. The reality is that an assault on somebody at work can be quite traumatic. It can lead to a situation where somebody is reluctant or fearful to go back to their place of work and be in exactly the same situation that they were in when they were attacked, facing a constant stream of strangers, any one of whom could become violent. One can also find cases of people assaulted by a member of the public in the course of their employment where the assault leads to them actually losing their job and their livelihood, because they are so traumatised that they are no longer able to return to the same job at the same location and to carry on with that employment. Those are among the victims who feel that sentencing probably does not reflect the effect that that kind of assault can have on their lives.

As has already been said, many people in the course of their employment are actually put in the way of danger by their work. They are the kind of people who have already been mentioned: public transport staff, fire workers, security staff, emergency service workers and shop workers. They often have to deal with people who are aggressive, drunk or attempting to break the law. Those workers are the kind of people who can be working late at night, sometimes on their own and in areas of anti-social behaviour which most people voluntarily avoid for their own safety. Workers in that situation do not have that particular option.

Some staff in the course of their employment dealing with the public have an obligation to seek to enforce the law. Those, for example, who serve alcohol are required to obtain proof of age from the purchaser. They are required to refuse to serve someone who is drunk and they are required to refuse a proxy sale of alcohol—although not of tobacco, as we were discussing earlier. Those kinds of actions are all major triggers for assaults on staff, and reference has already been made to the situation in that regard. In the USDAW survey, some 30% of assaults arose from challenging age-restricted sales, and some 15% related to people who appeared to be committing theft.

Those actions, carried out by people in the course of their employment who are required to seek to enforce the law, place workers at risk. If they are not undertaken—particularly in relation to refusing to serve people with alcohol when they are under age, or refusing a proxy sale of alcohol—staff can be liable for prosecution or for action to be taken against them for failing to carry out their duty to seek to enforce the requirements of the law where it applies.

There are, therefore, differences in the position of people who are assaulted in the course of their employment. They cannot run away; they cannot move somewhere else; they have to go back to their employment after an assault and be in the same situation in exactly the same circumstances as they were, facing members of the public and probably fearing that the same kind of thing might happen again. In some cases, it can cost them their jobs because the experience has been so traumatic that they feel they cannot carry on. Many are put in danger by the nature of their work or the kind of job they have to do; many are required to enforce the law as part of their work.

Like my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, I hope that we will get a more sympathetic response to this amendment. There is a case for having a separate offence of assault on a person in the course of their employment by a member of the public, and for not regarding it as simply one of a large number of aggravating factors for the offence of assault.