Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, to this Chamber. We look forward to working with him over the coming years.

Other noble Lords have said that this is a Christmas tree Bill. I have always thought that Home Office Bills are more like snowballs: as they roll down the parliamentary hill, more and more things stick to them. My noble friend Lady Smith gave a very clear explanation of this complicated Bill and the areas where we on these Benches believe there needs to be probing, discussion, challenge and change.

I intend to address only two areas, Part 9 and 10, and will be raising these issues and probing them in detail in Committee. I give noble Lords notice that these will be the first parts to be taken in Committee on 12 November—the Bill is being taken slightly out of order—so that they can put the date in their diaries if they wish to take part in those discussions.

Part 9 concerns sexual harm prevention orders and sexual risk orders, which aim to improve the protection of vulnerable children at risk of sexual harm. Part 10 concerns forced marriage. As my noble friend Lady Smith said, we all agree that forced marriage should never be tolerated. We would like to see effective and properly resourced support for the victims and prevention through education and work in the communities concerned. We also believe that it is right to have a thorough discussion which makes a clear case for criminalisation and how it might work.

Turning first to Part 9, I thank the following organisations for their excellent joint brief about this matter: the NSPCC, Barnardo’s, the Children’s Society, Action for Children and Save the Children. They have extensive expertise in supporting children who are victims of or at risk of sexual abuse and exploitation. They generally support the sexual harm prevention orders and sexual risk orders as set out in Part 9. The two new orders will replace existing powers, and the threshold for risk will be lowered to cover any case of sexual harm, not just cases of serious sexual harm. These orders seek to improve the protection of vulnerable children at risk of sexual harm.

If these orders simplify the current system, they are to be welcomed. In relation to non-conviction behaviour, reducing the number of acts of harm required for an order to be used from two to one means they can be more easily obtained. Extending the ability to use these orders to protect all children under 18, including 16 and 17 year-olds, recognises that older children are still vulnerable and can be subject to child sexual exploitation and abuse. The inclusion of vulnerable adults in the SHPO and SRO is welcome because we know that young adults with learning difficulties or special educational needs are targeted by individuals looking to exploit them.

It seems likely that further work needs to be done in relation to how young people under 18 subject to the orders are supported. Some young people who may be subject to the new order may have been the victims of sexual exploitation themselves or may have become involved as a means of self-preservation, as the brief describes. We will be seeking safeguards from the Government for young people under 18 who are subject to the orders to ensure that they receive the support they need, including an assessment of their emotional, welfare and behavioural needs, and therapeutic and/or educational support.

We are concerned that breach of the child SHPO without conviction, or the SRO, can result in five years’ imprisonment when a child has not actually committed a criminal offence. We know that custody may not be the most effective way to tackle children’s criminal behaviour, and custody for under-18s should be used only as a very last resort in the most serious and violent offences. One therefore has to question whether it is appropriate where children have not been convicted of an offence. We are very concerned about the use of custodial sentences for under-18s, and we hope the Minister can give us some guidance on this either now or in Committee. For example, what measures do the Government propose for under-18s subject to these orders? Will the Government consider prescribing in guidance the use of therapeutic support and/or education and an assessment of needs when the orders are applied to under-18s? Will the Government review and evaluate the effectiveness of the orders when applied to under-18s, such as the rates of reoffending and the effectiveness of any assessment of needs? Children’s organisations are not alone in their concern about this, as Liberty has included it in its brief on the Bill.

Turning to forced marriage, Clause 107 makes breach of a forced marriage protection order a criminal offence with a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment, and Clause 108 makes it a criminal offence for a person to use violence, threats or any other form of coercion for the purpose of causing another person to enter into a marriage without their free and full consent. An offence is committed whether the violence, threats or other forms of coercion are directed at the victim of forced marriage or at another person. The maximum sentence in a magistrates’ court is a fine or six months’ imprisonment. In a Crown Court it is seven years’ imprisonment.

Sections 5 and 6 cover extraterritorial jurisdiction so that if the prohibited acts are committed abroad by a UK national or permanent UK resident, or to a UK national or permanent UK resident, it will be an offence under domestic law and triable in the courts of England and Wales.

Forced marriage is one of the manifestations of modern-day slavery. Thanks to the work of my noble and learned friend Lady Scotland, the former Attorney-General, and my noble friend Lady Ashton, the former Children’s Minister, as well as the exemplary work of the Forced Marriage Unit and a number of charities, this country is a world leader in tackling this horrendous practice. The introduction of the civil forced marriage protection order has afforded some protection to victims or potential victims, but people who seek to consign their victims to a life of miserable servitude should face the full rigour of the criminal law.

All of us who talk about this issue should, however, be clear about the difference between an arranged marriage and a forced marriage and be careful in the language we use.

We know forced marriage is a serious concern that affects thousands of young people across the United Kingdom, but there are no reliable figures on it. The Government’s Forced Marriage Unit indicates that the number stands at 1,500 to 1,700 a year, but experts and agencies alike admit that it is a hidden problem. There may be as many as 5,000 or 8,000 or possibly more.

In Committee, the Commons received written evidence and interviewed witnesses from two organisations, the Freedom Charity and Karma Nirvana. The Freedom Charity was set up with the primary aims of making forced marriage a criminal offence and working on its prevention. It made the powerful point that many schools fail young women who are victims of forced marriage. The schools are not equipped to recognise the signs, they have not trained their teachers, and occasionally they have not responded to pleas for help. I think we must explore this in Committee. Karma Nirvana said in Committee that it did not think this went far enough. In other words, both these organisations are in favour of the Government’s proposals.

There was, however, written evidence submitted to the Home Office inquiry and to the Committee from several long established women’s organisations, including the Southall Black Sisters; Ashiana, which runs the only forced-marriage refuge in the country; and Imkaan, a much respected BME women’s organisation consisting of academics, judges and others who disagreed with the evidence given to the Committee. I have read the evidence of these organisations. They raise serious questions about criminalisation, and they give proposed alternative routes. I think it is a shame that these organisations were not interviewed by the Committee at the time because, as a result, balanced scrutiny of this issue did not adequately take place in the Commons, and there was little recognition that there were two sides to this argument. That was recognised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which makes exactly this point on page 28. Concerns have also been raised by the Children’s Commissioner.

That is why, on these Benches, we would like there to be a much more considered debate about criminalisation and its implication. We take very seriously suggestions that victims may be more reluctant to report an offence if they believe that their family members, such as parents, may be criminalised and sent to prison. Some of these organisations have suggested that, rather than create a specific offence of forced marriage, we could treat forced marriage as an aggravating factor of those serious crimes. Did the Minister consider that approach? Has he heard the arguments on the other side of the debate on criminalisation? What is the evidence that this is the right road to take? We need to see it. We need the Minister to agree to meet these organisations if he has not done so.

Liberty said to the Committee that it believed that the Government needed to make the case for criminalisation. We are not at all opposed to strengthening and building on the work done to stop forced marriage, but we hope to see the evidence and arguments spelled out in Committee.