International Women�s Day

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered International Women�s Day.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate and draw the House�s attention to my entry in the Register of Members� Financial Interests. I am an ambassador for Ask for Angela, a great scheme whereby someone feeling unsafe in a club can go to the bar and talk to somebody, and they will help in any way they can. I am also an ambassador for fair pay with the global fair pay charter, which aims to improve the living conditions and pay for more than 25 million tea plantation workers worldwide, many of whom are women. As we know, financial independence is a route out of an abusive relationship.

I congratulate this Parliament on being the most diverse Parliament, with 41% female Members. We all know our number, Madam Deputy Speaker: I was the 286th woman to be elected to this House, and the first elected black female Minister in the UK, under Gordon Brown�s Government. As shadow Minister, I was instrumental in getting the International Women�s Day flag flown over the House and in getting the first IWD debate on the Floor of the House. I remember asking the Speaker at the time whether my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), who is now the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, could read out the names of the women who had been killed by men to start the debate�just that, without a speech. I think it still took about seven or eight minutes. Ten years later, that list is still just as long; it still takes that amount of time. How can that be? How can it be that a woman is still killed every three days by a partner or former partner? There are still women who are not counted, such as women who commit suicide because of domestic abuse and trans women and girls.

I have been thinking about this a lot. I have been told that heterosexual or straight white men and boys feel that there is no longer a place for them in society, and that is why they are turning to the far right. That really saddens me, because there is a place for everyone in society. There is, of course, a place for straight white men and boys; there is a very important role for them to play in society. We will hear a lot today about the fact that one woman is killed every three days, and that 97% of them are killed by men, the majority of whom are white. If we want to protect women, we need to reach out to men�the ones who are informed, kind and loving�and we need to say, �We need you now, more than ever before.� Right now, there are some serious, toxic, misogynistic men�some of whom are straight�and they are harming women, society, gay people and black people. This is the very foundation on which we live. We need to say no.

[Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glynd?r) (Lab)]

In the UK, a woman is murdered by a current or former partner every week. According to research from Women�s Aid, 46% of women have faced some form of abuse in an intimate relationship during their lifetime. Given these harrowing statistics, we must confront domestic abuse for what it truly is: a national emergency. Does she agree that lifesaving specialist domestic abuse services, which have been chronically underfunded, must receive the investment that they so desperately need?

[Dawn Butler]

My hon. Friend hits on an important point. We absolutely need that investment. If we are serious about saving lives, we need to do whatever it takes. If we want to see a reduction in the number of women being killed, we need to invest in making that happen.

We also need to have those uncomfortable conversations. It is not tough to hit women, as is spouted by Andrew Tate, or to rape women, or to ridicule women or girls because they have said no. We have to have those conversations. We have to say, �This is wrong.� We have to talk to all the men feeling like that. I am wearing a male shirt and tie today, but it does not mean that the world is going to run out of male shirts and ties. There is enough to go around for everybody, and we have to have that conversation.

We have to show men loving women. We have to educate boys and girls. It is interesting that some fathers treat their daughters like princesses, and think that by treating them that way, their daughter will learn how to be treated, but the reality is that they will learn by how their father treats his partner.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I cannot stay for the debate, unfortunately, but I wanted to have this on the record. The statistics on the murders of women in Northern Ireland are the highest in the United Kingdom. The Minister knows that. Does the hon. Lady agree that when it comes to addressing the murders of women across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, we need a strategy that starts here in Westminster and sweeps out to the rest of the regions? We have to better manage and respond to this issue and protect our women and ladies and young girls, both in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom.

[Dawn Butler]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I am sure he will be forgiven for missing half of a debate today.

Women are being killed�that is a fact. We have got too used to talking about the statistics without thinking about who is at the end of it, and that we are losing a woman every three days to murder. It starts somewhere. At the end of the day, the way that women are demonised and attacked, and the way that we attack trans women�it starts somewhere. It is a deliberate act and action.

I also want to thank organisations such as the Fawcett Society, Centenary Action�whose all-party parliamentary group I co-chair with the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies)�and the Asian Women's Resource Centre in Brent. It is important that we start to celebrate women, as the Mayor did in renaming the Overground lines. The line that I get on was renamed the Lioness line. At first, I was a little confused�I thought, �Am I on the right train?� Now, though, I smile, because I know that when people ask why it is called the Lioness line, the response will always be, �Because a really great female football team brought the cup home.� Those are the little things that we can do that will make a big difference. Many men feel insecure about that, so we need to tell them not to worry and to just chill.

There are men who say that we should not talk about firsts�women who are first to do this, or first to do that. I say that we should celebrate those women, because they show that we have made a bit of progress. For example, we have the first female Deputy Speaker of colour in the Chair�congratulations on that, Madam Deputy Speaker. [Hon. Members: �Hear, hear!�] We have the first female metro mayor, Tracy Brabin and the first registered blind MP for Battersea, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova). I could spend my whole time talking about all those firsts, but we do still have a way to go.

There are more good people in the world than bad. I see men in power saying, �Don�t celebrate women. Don�t talk about women.� Some even say, �Erase women�, which is really quite scary. They are literally trying to erase women and our achievements, but I know that there are men who can and must speak out. The reality is that we have some aggressive, white supremacist males who are saying that women should not exist, or that we belong in the kitchen and that is it. We cannot go backwards. We have come too far, so that just ain�t going to happen.

If I were to ban steps�I ask Members to bear with me for a moment�and replace them with a slope, would that stop people from getting to their destination? No, it would not, but would it help people who have problems with walking or who are in a wheelchair to get to their destinations? Yes, it would. This is not necessarily about taking something away. It can be about changing something to help other people also get to their destination. To all those boys and men who feel that they have to turn to the far right or to become incels, I say, �Is it time to change? Is it time for you to change how you talk, how you act, and the attitude that you take? Would you like your mother, your sister, your girlfriend or your partner to be talked about or treated in the way that you treat women?�

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Highgate) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. I am sure that all those young women in Brent and north London who are watching her will be very proud.

One topic that often comes up in our local mothers� WhatsApp chats is social media. My hon. Friend is talking a lot about change. Statistics show that, after spending time online and on social media, 40% of young women and girls feel lonely and depressed because of all the online abuse. Does she think that social media platforms need to take some responsibility for the content that is amplified through their platforms?

[Dawn Butler]

Social media platforms have a vital role to play. They understand that negativity spreads faster than positivity. In the old days of legacy media, it was often said, �If it bleeds, it leads�. Those platforms are absolutely aware of the damage that they do. They will not voluntarily make the changes that they need to make and, as a Government, we need to legislate for those changes to be made.

When I watched the story of the Women�s Army Corps unit of colour, which stars Kerry Washington as Captain Charity Adams, I actually cried. The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion contributed to the war effort in a unique way. They sorted through 17 million pieces of mail and delivered it to American soldiers on the frontline. Those 855 black women improved morale and brought hope to the frontline, yet after going through all of that, they were discriminated against and history tried to erase them. We have to wonder why that is. Why do people continually try to erase women and people of colour from history?

[Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham Erdington) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for securing this debate. As we mark International Women�s Day, I have to say that I am proud�absolutely honoured� to stand here not only as a black woman, but as a former nurse. However, black people are four times more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act 1983. Does she agree that we can only truly say that we have honoured International Women�s Day when this glaring disparity is addressed?

[Dawn Butler]

My hon. Friend is also a first, so I congratulate her on that�and, yes, I absolutely agree with her on that point.

On average, we will all live to see 80 Christmases. The thing is, what are we going to do with them? Some people in the world are acting like they will live forever�God, I hope we do not, and I know that that will not be the case�but some pass through the world, leaving it just as they found it. Our job in Parliament is to change the world for the better. We need to leave an indelible footprint by ensuring that the world protects all women, not just straight, white women. We should start with the gay women, the black women and the disabled women. If we protect those, we will protect all women and the world will be a better place.

I often say that I cannot get my rights until everybody has their rights, because our rights and our lives are very much intertwined�whether we believe it or not. And just because I am pro-women, pro-LGBTQI+ and pro-black, it does not mean, as has been said online, that I am anti-white; far from it. I am pro-jerk chicken and rice and peas and I still love a bit of pie and mash and fish and chips. We can love more than one thing and be pro many things.

I want to end with a cold reality check. In Malcolm Gladwell�s brilliant book, �The Tipping Point� and in his follow-up book �Revenge of the Tipping Point�, he talks about the law of the very few, the overstory and the counterfactual line �what would have happened if�. We were slowly winning the war on highlighting violence against women and girls, highlighting injustices and highlighting discrimination, but we did not appreciate the honest conversations that we needed to have around how epidemics work, or appreciate the power of group proportions.

We are fooling ourselves if we think that we bear no responsibility for this epidemic of violence against women and girls. Epidemics have rules and they have boundaries. They are subjected to overstories, and we in society are in a position of power to create those overstories. These overstories change in size and shape when they reach a tipping point and it is possible to know when we are reaching that tipping point. We are currently at that tipping point when it comes to violence against women and girls.

The opioid crisis in the US is a lesson for us all. Most of the medical profession acted professionally, but a tiny fraction�just a few�did not, and that was enough to fuel an opioid epidemic in the US. That tiny fraction was driven by a certain class of people, and those people can be identified. The tools needed to control an epidemic are right in front of us. They are sitting on the table, and we can either grab those tools or let the unscrupulous people grab them. If we grab them, we can build a better world.

We need to take action and have an honest conversation. We need to ensure that organisations that believe in fair pay get the procurement contracts. We need to be mindful about the social media platforms that we use, and we need to elect people who care for many people, not just the 1%. By doing that, we will accelerate action, which is the theme of International Women�s Day this year.

I end with a message to the straight white boys and men in the middle of the table: �We need your protection, we need your love, we need your care and we need your kindness.� We know, as I have said, that daughters and young girls learn how to be treated by their partners by watching how men treat women in their lives, and young boys learn how to be men from the men in their lives, so we need all men, regardless of colour, class and economic status, to lead by example. Women are literally fighting for their lives. I want every single man in the world watching this debate to join us in that struggle. We should all believe in fairness. We should all believe in ending discrimination and homophobia.

In the time that it has taken me to make this speech, one woman globally will have been killed by her partner or a family member. May her soul rest in peace.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dawn Butler]

I thank the Minister for doing what she does and reading out those names. This was a very difficult debate to have had, and I feel more emotional than normal because I fear that things are going to get worse. I fear that that list is going to get longer, because we are at a tipping point. If we do not stop what is going on around the world, and if we do not call it out, it will get worse.

I thank everybody who contributed to the debate. It has been a powerful debate, and it is wonderful for Members to have an excuse to talk about the brilliant women in their constituencies. It has been great to hear about them, and I would love to meet them all. Women have talked about their lived experiences: about being pregnant and how they were treated as a disabled woman; about being the youngest woman in Parliament and how they are treated; and about being raped and how they have come through that. I hope that everybody outside the Chamber hears that lived experience and hears those stories.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

And we should never need an excuse.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered International Women�s Day.

Church of England: Safeguarding

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

I declare my role as a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee.

I am grateful that we have been granted this opportunity to discuss a serious matter of importance to our constituents, to the Church of England, and most importantly to the victims and survivors of abuse. I am grateful to all right hon. and hon. Members who are here on behalf of their constituents.

As a Member of Parliament and a Christian who believes in the Church and the positive, powerful role it plays in our communities, I believe that the stories of survivors and their calls for change must be heard, both here today and by the General Synod of the Church of England. For those in the Chamber, in the Gallery and at home, it is important to note that this debate may include difficult matters. I trust that it will be a measured debate. This is a sensitive topic, and I know that Members on both sides will want to advance the interests of those who have suffered abuse within the Church.

My constituent Dame Jasvinder Sanghera will be known to Members across the House for her campaigning on abuse of many kinds. She served as the survivor advocate on the Church of England’s independent safeguarding board. In this role, she worked closely with survivors, some of whom join us today. My team and I have worked with her since my election last year. Along with her colleague Steve Reeves, she has advocated for survivors by escalating their cases for review, challenging processes and pushing for justice. I commend her and her work.

In preparation for this debate, I met members of the group of survivors involved with the independent safeguarding board sample cases—they call themselves the ISB 11. I have heard stories that I will never forget. What struck me most is that they see themselves as survivors not only of the initial abuse they received but of the Church’s safeguarding process—one that has forced these brave and courageous people, who have stood up to power, to re-live, lengthen and even amplify the abuse they have received.

[Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for the way he is setting out this debate. Does he agree that independent safeguarding is paramount? As he said, survivors of abuse have had to re-live it over and over. This is an establishment where they should have felt safest.

[Luke Myer]

I could not agree more; that is the crux of my speech. It is essential that the victims and survivors are heard. I am grateful to the Minister and the Second Church Estates Commissioner, both of whom are leaders on these matters, for being here to hear the stories and to respond.

The stories include that of Mr X, who was the first and only survivor to have an ISB case review published. Throughout his life, Mr X has sought justice after he was abused by three individuals in the Church. He ended up having his business and livelihood destroyed by civil litigation and he is yet to see justice. Another survivor told me of an ongoing, decades-long fight for justice. West Midlands police commented on the case:

“it doesn’t normally take 20 years for a complaint to be investigated”.

Another survivor, a woman who wishes to remain anonymous, told me that she now has a heart monitor because of her severe panic attacks. She told me:

“The priest that abused me still lives in my area. The community has ostracised me and I am now housebound, I want the truth to come out. Jas and Steve have supported me the best they can, at one point we talked every week. If they had not been there I think I would have taken my life.”

Another survivor told me that he feels that previous recommendations have fallen on deaf ears, with steps to protect perpetrators rather than to support victims. Perhaps most harrowingly of all, one of the ISB 11, who is just over 18 years old, having initially suffered abuse at the age of eight, is still fighting for justice. At such a young age, he has already been waiting over half his life to see justice. I have no doubt that many Members across this House will have heard similar stories.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Marsha De Cordova)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to speak in the debate in my capacity as Second Church Estates Commissioner. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer) on securing this extremely important debate, and on the way in which he so eloquently set out the issue, the challenges, and the action and next steps that need to be taken. I share his desire to see survivors of abuse treated justly, with dignity and respect, and for perpetrators to be fully held to account. Like him, I look forward to a time when we all have our confidence in the Church of England’s safeguarding practices fully restored.

When I was appointed Second Church Estates Commissioner last October, I could not have foreseen the storm that was about to engulf the Church. Since the publication of the Makin report, which exposed the devastating abuse inflicted by John Smyth, MPs—myself included—have received correspondence from constituents, local clergy, and victims and survivors. Indeed, in this debate we have heard from many Members from across the House about the many challenges that this issue has raised for them. They have rightly expressed their concern about the historical and ongoing failures to keep people safe in the Church—the one place that anybody would expect to be a place of safety and sanctuary. They have also expressed concern about what looks to be a lack of consistency and transparency in the Church’s approach to safeguarding and disclosures of abuse.

[Dawn Butler]

One of my constituents told me that they could not go back and tell their parents what was happening to them because it was at the church, which was supposed to be a place of sanctuary where they were safe. To find out that those at the head of the Church would move abusers to another church, instead of moving them out of the Church and into jail, just added another insult to injury. Does my hon. Friend agree that that needs to stop now?

[Marsha De Cordova]

My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that I agree with her 100%.

These failures are not new. As my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland highlighted, before the Makin review there was the independent inquiry into child sex abuse. Over the past nine years, there have been multiple reviews into safeguarding abuses in the Church of England—multiple reviews with multiple recommendations, I might add. There have been some positive steps and changes, and I commend the work of the national safeguarding team and many people in our local parishes and dioceses around the country, who have all been working incredibly hard, but I think we can collectively agree that more needs to be done. Victims and survivors have been waiting for too long. We have come to a point where both Parliament and the public need to see the Church fully committed to change.

We have to ensure that safeguarding is transparent, accountable, consistent in its approach to disclosures of abuse, and trusted by the public, congregations, clergy and, most importantly, victims and survivors. That is why, at the General Synod in February, during my maiden speech, I made clear my support for the Church’s safeguarding operations to be wholly independent of the Church. That was the approach put forward by the Church’s lead bishop for safeguarding, Joanne Grenfell, and it was known as model 4. That approach would have created independent safeguarding operations, an independent complaints process, an independent scrutiny function and independent audits. It was supported by Professor Alexis Jay, who was the author of the report “The Future of Church Safeguarding”, known as the Jay review, and by local clergy in my constituency of Battersea. They made it clear to me that, while they are getting on with the day-to-day work of the Church, serving and supporting their local community on the frontline, they want to see the Church as an institution show some humility. Like me, they do not think that the Church should mark its own homework.

It was therefore a huge disappointment to me that the Synod chose not to back a wholly independent model of safeguarding. Instead, it opted for the creation of an external scrutiny body to examine the Church’s safeguarding practices. That approach was known as model 3, and it will see the transfer of most of the functions currently delivered by the Church’s national safeguarding team, except policy development, to an external employer.

Although model 3 includes looking at some of the practicalities of creating a fully independent safeguarding body to take on all the Church’s safeguarding work, I do not believe that that was the approach that needed to be taken, as I have outlined. It is vital, however, that the work is taken up with urgency and at pace. At present, there are no clear deadlines and no clear plan for taking the work forward. I believe we need to see a clear plan if we are to give victims and survivors, and the public, hope that the Church will really transform its approach to safeguarding, and the safety of those who are part of it.

It was right that the Synod voted to

“lament and repent of the failure of the Church to be welcoming to victims and survivors and the harm they have experienced and continue to experience in the life of the Church”,

but we need to remember that keeping people safe and ensuring accountability is the best way to honour victims and survivors of abuse. Some are probably watching today’s debate; some may even be here in person. They will be listening, and they will know better than any of us that there is still a long way to go. The Church must treat its work on independent safeguarding operations as a matter of urgency. We need no more blocking; we just need action, because action will speak louder than any words that any of us say here today.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland for his commitment to seeing this change through. He should be commended for his relentlessness in ensuring that this place has the opportunity to debate the issue. This is one of the first Adjournment debates on an issue that affects the Church, and it is important that many hon. Members have chosen to be in the Chamber, to contribute and to raise such important issues.

As I said when the Makin report was published in November last year, this has to be a watershed moment for the Church to transform both its culture and its safeguarding structures. Unless that happens, what will happen to the Church? Many of us here are Christians and followers of Jesus, so we want to see the Church change. The Church is a voice for the voiceless, as many of us know, and I hope I will not find myself in this Chamber in a year or two repeating the same sentiment.

Violence against Women and Girls

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) on securing this debate. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of launching a new report, “Why Should Our Rage Be Tidy? Minoritised Survivors’ Experiences of Mental Health in the Context of Violence-Abuse.” I hope the Minister has a copy—if she does not, I will make sure she gets one—because it contains some excellent recommendations. It was produced by Imkaan and the Women and Girls Network, and it has received UK Research and Innovation funding. When we hear the statistics, such as one woman killed every three days, we think: “When is that going to change? How are we going to change it?” That report will help.

I also want to highlight the Level Up campaign, which calls on the Independent Press Standards Organisation to introduce an amendment to the editors’ code so that when the press reports on domestic abuse and the murder of missing women, it does not sensationalise them as it normally does. That needs to change. It is inaccurate and undignified, and it prioritises sensationalism and negatively frames the victims—it suggests that they deserved it. I want to see words such as “sexism”, “misogyny”, “extremism” and “terrorism” used to describe violent men; “jilted partner” just will not do. I hope the Minister looks at that report so that we can work together and begin to move in the direction of eradicating violence against women and girls.

Facial Recognition: Police Use

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir John Whittingdale]

As I understand it, the number of false positives recorded depends to some extent on the threshold at which the technology is set.

[Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)]

The report by the national physical laboratory said that it had to be set at 0.6 for it to have fewer misidentifications, but there is no such thing as no misidentifications or people not being wrongly identified. It is also easy for a police service to lower that number. Because we have no judicial oversight, it is very problematic.

[Sir John Whittingdale]

The hon. Lady is completely right. I think the police are generally being responsible in its use and setting the threshold as recommended, but that is another example where there is no requirement on them to do so, and they could lower it. Regarding deployment in Essex, the chief constable told me there was just one false positive.

I attended a meeting with Baroness Chakrabarti, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington, where Shaun Thompson, an anti-knife community worker, spoke to us. He had been held by the police for 30 minutes and forced to provide all sorts of identity documents, as a result of a false positive. On the extent to which it is occurring and whether racial bias is involved, there is some evidence that that is the case. That makes it all the more important that we provide assurances.

We have heard from several campaign organisations that are concerned about the use. They vary in the extent to which they believe it is a legitimate technology. Big Brother Watch has described live facial recognition technology as

“constant generalised surveillance”

and has said that it is

“indiscriminately subjecting members of the public to mass identity checks”

which undermines the presumption of innocence.

Liberty has gone further, saying:

“Creating law to govern police and private company use…will not solve the human rights concerns or the tech’s inbuilt discrimination…The only solution is to ban it.”

I do not agree with that, because I think there is clear evidence that it has a real benefit in helping the police apprehend people who are wanted for serious offences, but one of my major concerns is the lack of any clarity in law about how it should be used.

I am grateful to the Library, which has provided advice on that point. It says:

“There is no dedicated legislation in the UK on the use of facial recognition technologies.”

Instead, its use is governed by common law and by an interpretation of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, although that Act does not mention live facial recognition technology, and some case law, such as the Bridges case. Even in the Bridges case, the Court of Appeal found that

“The current policies do not sufficiently set out the terms on which discretionary powers can be exercised by the police and for that reason do not have the necessary quality of law.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I thank the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) —or I could say my right hon. Friend, if he does not mind—for securing this debate. I have spoken to the Secretary of State and Ministers in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and there is an awareness that we need a lot of careful and considerate thinking on this issue. Obviously, a new Government have just come in and this is not a new issue, as the right hon. Member for Maldon said—LFR was first used in 2017, so there is a lot of clearing up that has to be done.

Live facial recognition changes one of the cornerstones of our democracy: an individual is innocent until proven guilty. With this technology, if the machine says an individual is guilty because they have been identified using live facial recognition, they then have to prove their innocence. That is a huge change in our democracy that nobody has consented to. We have not consented to it in this place, and as we police by consent as a society, that should really worry us all.

[Chris Philp]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way; I am looking forward to this debate and to concluding it for the Opposition later.

On the question of changing the burden of proof or undermining the concept that someone is innocent until proven guilty, the technology absolutely does not change that. What it does is give the police a reason to stop somebody and check their identity to see whether they are the person wanted for a criminal offence. It certainly does not provide evidence on which a conviction might be secured. In fact, it is no different from the police stopping someone because they are suspicious of them, and it is a lot more accurate than stop and search, about which I am sure the hon. Lady has views. It is simply a tool to enable the police to stop somebody and check their identity to see whether they are the person who is wanted. It certainly does not undermine the very important principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty.

[Dawn Butler]

The shadow Minister has hit on an important point regarding reasonable suspicion. What is reasonable suspicion? How have the police got to that point? If he is then going to make reference to watchlists, who is put on a watchlist? We know, for instance, that the Met police has hundreds of thousands of people on its system who should not be there. We know that the watchlist can consist of people it considers to be vulnerable, such as those with mental health issues. Anybody in this room could be put on a watchlist, so I am afraid the shadow Minister has not quite nailed the point he was trying to make.

[David Davis]

I am very much on the hon. Lady’s side of that argument, partly because we are a country where it is not normal to stop people and ask for their identity cards, which is why we have had a few battles over that in the past. Also, the technology is prone to slippage. Way back when—probably when the hon. Lady was still at school—we introduced automatic number plate recognition to monitor IRA terrorists coming from Liverpool to London. That was its exact purpose, but thereafter it got used for a dozen other things, without any legislative change or any approval by Parliament.

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Order. Could I ask Members to keep interventions as interventions?

[Dawn Butler]

Thank you, Dame Siobhain. Yes, it is really important that we talk about this openly. That is what we are supposed to do in this place, right? Anybody can be put on the watchlist. Seven police forces are currently using LFR. One that I know of—I am not sure about the others—the Metropolitan Police Service, is in special measures. I do not think it should be given any additional powers while it is in special measures.

The thing is that we know very little about the software or what is in the black box that is developed by these systems. What we can look at is the outcome, and we know that the outcome does not identify very well black women’s faces, especially, and black and Asian people. There is a lower identification threshold for those people, so that is a concern.

It is also really interesting that even when LFR is set at 0.6, a police super-spotter is more accurate. We have specialist police officers who spot people very quickly, and they are more accurate than this system, so it becomes the case that a police service will try to prove that the system it has bought is value for money. We can imagine a police officer not getting many hits with LFR at 0.6 and lowering that to 0.5 so that they can get more hits, which in turn means that more people are misidentified, so there should be regulation around this issue.

Taking away somebody’s liberty is one of the most serious things we can do in society, so we need to think very carefully if we are going to introduce something that accelerates that. It is good that for the first time we are having the debate on this issue. As the right hon. Member for Maldon said, the EU permits LFR only where there is prior judicial authorisation and in cases in which the police need to locate a missing person, for instance. That is something we need to consider.

I want to say this: I like technology. I am very much into our civil liberties. We need to protect our digital rights as human beings and individuals. I love technology— I used to be a coder—but we should not rush to do things because people get excited. There are really four people in the debate on this issue. It reminds me of four of my mates when we go out clubbing. Bear with me. We have the person who will stay at home because they are not bothered—they do not care—and we have the people who do not care about this issue: “It is going to happen; let it happen.” We have the person who will come, but they are a bit moany. They do not really like the music, but they will come anyway because they do not want to miss out.

We then have the person who is completely drunk on it all: “Give it to me. I’ll take everything.” There are people who just love anything to do with technology and will say, “Look, let’s just throw it all in the mix and it’ll all be fine.” And there is me. I am the person who likes the music and the food, but I need to keep sober to make sure everyone gets home safely. In this debate about AI, we need to be sober to make sure that everybody gets home safely and that when we roll out AI, we do so in a way that is fair and compassionate and in line with our values as British citizens.

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[Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)]

I thank every Member here for coming to this debate and I thank the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) for securing it in the first place.

I have worked on this issue for many years. In my previous job, I attended and observed the first deployments of live facial recognition by the Metropolitan police, which is many years ago now. Since then, the gap between its increasing use and the lack of a legislative basis has grown wider and wider. In that time, many thousands of people have had their personal data captured and used by the police when there was absolutely no reason for that. Many people have been misidentified, but the accuracy issue is not my main concern.

The unlegislated use of the technology is incredibly worrying. In my previous job on the London Assembly, I asked the Met and the Mayor of London many questions about that. I asked for watchlist transparency, but I did not get it. I heard the initial promises—“Oh, it will be very transparently used, we will communicate it, and no one will have to walk past it without knowing.” All those reassurances just faded away, because there is no real scrutiny or legislation. We need to debate the subject from first principles. As other Members have pointed out, we have had proper debates about identity cards and fingerprint and DNA data, but not about this extremely intrusive technology. It is more concerning than other technologies because it can be used on us without our knowledge. It really does engage our human rights in profound ways.

For all those reasons, the use of facial recognition by the police has been challenged by the Information Commissioner, the Surveillance Camera Commissioner, the Biometrics Commissioner, London Assembly members, of whom I was one, Senedd Members and Members of Parliament here. The only detailed scrutiny of the technology has resulted in calls for a halt to its use; I am thinking of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee. The Justice and Home Affairs Committee has also called for primary legislation. That is the absolutely key question. The EU has had the debate and looked at the issue in detail, with the result that over there what is used so much by the UK police is restricted to only the most serious cases of genuine public safety. That absolutely needs to happen here.

The legislation needs to look not just at police use of the technology, but private use. I have seen its use by private companies in the privately owned public space in King’s Cross. Data from there has been shared with the police; the police initially denied knowing anything about it and then later apologised for that denial. If private companies are collecting data and sharing it with the police, that needs to be scrutinised. If private companies are using the technology, that needs to be legislated for as well.

[Dawn Butler]

The hon. Lady is making an incredibly powerful speech. Is she aware of the Big Brother Watch campaign to try to stop large shops from capturing people’s faces and saying that they are shoplifters? They then get stopped in other places, but they are not aware of that process.

[Siân Berry]

Yes, I am aware of Big Brother Watch’s excellent campaigning on this issue. It has identified a serious breach of human rights. There is the potential for a serious injustice if people are denied access to their local shops based on a suspicion that has put them on a watchlist that may or may not be accurate. There is no oversight. We need to debate these things and legislate for them.

I tabled a written question to the Minister about putting regulation and legislation behind the police use of live facial recognition. The answer stated that the technology is governed by data protection and equality and human rights legislation, and supplemented by specific police guidance. I do not believe that police guidance is sufficient, given the enormous risks to human rights. We need a debate on primary legislation. I hope that the Minister will announce that that process will start soon and that this unlawful grey area will not be invading our privacy for much longer. This issue is urgent.

[James McMurdock (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Reform)]

I appreciate that we are having this debate, because it is surprising that we have got to where we are without legislation and firm frameworks in place. I really like the phrase “first principles”, and one of the first principles of the police is “without fear or favour”. That is an exceptional phrase that, if perfectly implemented, we would all benefit from, although of course we recognise that in the real world there is no such thing as perfect.

I am grateful that concerns have been raised about how the technology we are discussing impacts the assumption of innocence—we should all be very careful about that—although I also appreciate the point that it does not impact innocence but provides the opportunity for a human to check. If done properly, that is no bad thing, but we are right to discuss the issue in serious terms in our legislature because there is a danger of an unofficial assumption of guilt. Let us take the example of local shopping centres, which we heard about earlier. If an issue has not been escalated to the police or courts, but some local security officers have seen the same images on cameras and that information has gone round by radio, a gentleman or a lady out with their children doing the weekly shop may suddenly not be able to get in and do what they need to do. That is the kind of pervasive and damaging thing that could easily slip under the radar; we should all be mindful of that.

I want to touch briefly on transparency. This is clearly a developing technology and we would be wrong not to look at its benefits, but we must be mindful of the harm it could do along the way. If people find that they are getting an unfair crack of the whip—that is probably an inappropriate term—and are suffering as a result of this technology, we need to nip that in the bud, and be very direct and open about the failures so that we can make adjustments.

[Dawn Butler]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that black men are eight times more likely to be stopped and search by the police than their white counterparts, and 35 times more likely under section 60? This technology accelerates the discrimination that is already in the system.

[James McMurdock]

Absolutely. Let me put it like this: if any of us were to turn up at a social event and unexpectedly find a large swarm of police, that would give us a moment’s pause for thought. We need to be careful to ensure that this technology is not a more pervasive version of that example. It must not be constantly in existence, attached to every CCTV camera, without us even being aware of it.

To go back to transparency, we have to be open and frank about any issues with how the technology is being implemented, so that we can fix them. I agree that there absolutely could be issues, and we definitely want to be on the right path.

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[Dawn Butler]

But when we look at the numbers of people, something like 0.5% of scans—I cannot remember the statistic—still result in somebody being misidentified.

[Chris Philp]

On the misidentification rate, I think the Bridges court case set a standard of a false positive rate of one in 1,000: out of every 1,000 people stopped, 999 are the people the police think they are, while one is misidentified. The Minister may have more up-to-date figures, but from my recollection the system in practice is running at about one in 6,000. That is an extraordinarily high accuracy rate—much more accurate than a regular stop and search.

About 25% to 30% of regular physical stops and searches, where a police officer stops someone and searches them for drugs or a knife or something, are successful. About 70% are unsuccessful, while the equivalent figure for live facial recognition is 0.02%. That means that this technology is 4,500 times less likely to result in someone being inappropriately stopped than a regular stop and search. It therefore hugely—by three orders of magnitude—reduces the likelihood of someone being improperly stopped and searched.

I turn to the use of the technology on the ground. I asked for it to be trialled in the centre of Croydon, which is the borough I represent in Parliament. Over the past nine months or so, it has been deployed on a relatively regular basis: about once a week. I believe that the Minister was supposed to go down this morning to have a look; I certainly encourage her to go again as soon as she can. By the way, the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) asked whether people know when the technology is being used. The answer is yes: one of the guidelines is that public signage must be displayed telling the public that the technology is in use.

Over that period in Croydon, there have been approximately 200 arrests of people who would not otherwise have been arrested, including for all kinds of offences such as class A drugs supply, grievous bodily harm, fraud and domestic burglary. It has also included a man who had been wanted for two rapes dating back to 2017. That wanted rapist would be free to this day if not for this technology. Just a couple of weeks ago, a man was stopped and subsequently arrested in relation to a rape allegation from June this year. There are people who are alleged to have committed rape who would not have been stopped—who would still be walking free—if not for this technology. It is only the fact that they walked past a camera outside East Croydon station or somewhere that has meant they were stopped by the police. They will now have a normal trial with the normal standards of evidence, but they would not have been caught in the first place if not for this technology.

I have done quite a lot of public meetings on this. I explain, “These are the people who get caught, and the price the public pay is that you might get scanned when you walk down Croydon High Street, but if you are innocent your picture is immediately deleted.” By and large, the overwhelming majority of the people in Croydon think that a reasonable trade-off.

There should be protections, of course. Several hon. Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon, have rightly said that there should be guidelines, rules and procedures. However, it is not true that there is a complete vacuum as far as rules and regulations are concerned. The Bridges case at the Court of Appeal in 2020 looked at how South Wales police were using the technology between 2017 and 2020. It found that some of the ways they were using the technology were not appropriate because they broke rules on things like data protection privacy. It set out in case law the guidelines that have to be adhered to for the technology to be lawful—things like public signage, the rate of accuracy and having no racial bias.

Secondly—I do hope I am not taking the Minister’s entire speech—there are guidelines for police. The College of Policing has national authorised professional practice guidelines that the police are supposed to stick to. There is a debate to be had about whether, for the sake of clarity and democratic accountability, we in Parliament should set something out more formal; my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon made that point. I think there would be some merit in clarifying at a national level where the guidelines sit, but I would not go as far as Europe. If we had done so, those rapists would not have been arrested. I would also be careful to ensure that any legislation is flexible enough to accommodate changing technology. Primary legislation may not be the right vehicle: a regulation-making power might be a more sensible approach, so that things can be kept up to date from time to time.

While we consider that, I strongly urge the Minister not to halt the use of the technology. As we speak, it is arresting criminals in Croydon and elsewhere who would not otherwise be caught. I urge her to continue supporting the police to roll it out. I think some money was allocated in the Budget for the current financial year, to continue developing the technology. I would welcome an update from the Minister on whether that money is still being spent in the current financial year. I do hope it has not somehow been snaffled by the Treasury in a misguided cost-saving effort—

Violent Disorder

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Member makes an important point. There is no doubt that the swift response from the police, the prosecution and the criminal justice system had a strong impact and was clearly a deterrent and an overwhelming signal to people that if they get involved in disorder they will pay the price. The implicit point in his question is that there are long delays in the criminal justice system at the moment. We have often seen long delays in prosecutions. We are keen to work closely on that. We want to see better co-operation between policing and the Crown Prosecution Service in order to remove some of the bureaucracy that is in place and to speed up charges. We recognise there has been a lot of damage to the criminal justice system. We need to tackle that and turn it round, because that is fundamental to respect for the rule of law.

[Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)]

May I just say what a powerful statement my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) made? There is no excuse for being racist or for using the innocent lives of Elsie, Alice and Bebe. I thank the Home Secretary for mentioning Cher Maximen and Mussie Imnetu. It is important that we are all mindful about how we use language in this House, especially when we are referring to immigration and migration. It is also important that we talk not only about thuggery and racism, but about Islamophobia. The rise in racism is frightening, and Love Music Hate Racism is doing a lot of work around raging against hate. I hope my right hon. Friend will help to encourage it in that work. Does she agree that we do need stronger regulations around social media companies?

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s points. One of the most troubling things that we saw during those days of violent disorder was people feeling fearful to be out on the streets because of the colour of their skin. That should never happen in our country, which is why we do have to challenge racism and extremism wherever they are found. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology is bringing forward measures under the Online Safety Act 2023 that will require social media companies to take action where there is criminal content. There has been considerable concern about criminal content remaining online, and we need the social media companies to take responsibility for that.

Immigration and Home Affairs

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Cleverly]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right; although it did not make its way through all its parliamentary stages, the proposals that we put in the Criminal Justice Bill strengthened the accountability framework for officers and strengthened police leadership to take action. Again, I hope that the Government will continue that incredibly important work, and once again I put on record my willingness to support them in ensuring that the disciplinary practices within policing give women the confidence to come forward.

[Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)]

Is it not true that the net number of police is lower after 14 years of Tory Government? There has been a net loss to policing. Does the shadow Home Secretary agree that the reason we have not hit our numbers in London for the Met Police is that we are in special measures, and there needs to be caution over the police who are recruited? We need to ensure there are good police officers, so it is about quality, not just quantity.

[Mr Cleverly]

I disagree with the hon. Lady’s assessment of police numbers. That does not accord with the figures that I have seen. Police numbers are up, and we had plans to recruit even more. I get the party loyalty towards the Mayor of London, but the simple fact of the matter is that all police forces have to ensure that there are vetting procedures in place. The vetting procedures for the Metropolitan Police are no more onerous than for other forces around the country, yet many other police forces, including my own, have record numbers of police officers. The Metropolitan Police is the best-funded police force per capita in the country, and yet, with all the freedoms that the Mayor of London has and with all the money that was put on the table, he has failed to recruit the police officers that the capital city needs. That has an impact not just on people who live and work in London, but on visitors and people who travel through it.

In a constantly evolving criminal landscape, we delivered the online fraud charter. It was a world-first agreement, with 12 of the biggest tech companies as signatories, proactively to block and remove fraudulent content from their platforms. Facebook, Instagram and Amazon were among those key signatories. We introduced the National Security Act 2023 and the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, and we proscribed Hizb ut-Tahrir, Terrorgram and the Wagner Group, to make promotion and membership of those organisations illegal.

To conclude, the right hon. Lady has a tough job. Home Secretary will always be a tough job. However, during our time in government we ensured that she has more police officers at her disposal, an effective small boats operational command, an effective immigration enforcement command and a suite of legislation to allow her to match the rhetoric of the campaign to her action in government.

The Home Secretary has inherited falling met migration figures, a growing economy and a large parliamentary majority to ensure she gets her business through the House. While we will be critical when the Government make mistakes and will seek to ensure that they do the right thing, we all have a desire for her Department to succeed and indeed an interest in its doing so. On that point, I wish her the very best of luck.

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[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member makes a really important point: this is about all of us, and Northern Ireland has some of the highest levels of domestic abuse murder. This issue is immensely serious, and the safeguarding Minister is already planning to have those discussions, because we should all be learning from each other about what it takes to save lives and keep people safe.

We will bring in new powers on antisocial behaviour, including new respect orders and new action on off-road bikes, which are dangerous and deafening and are being used to terrorise some communities. We will also take action against the soaring shoplifting that has seen supermarkets chain butter, cheese and fabric conditioner to the shelves, reversing the previous Conservative policy on low-value theft, and we will stand up against the appalling violence against shop workers. For years, the Co-op, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, major retailers, small shop owners and shop workers across the country have urged us to strengthen the law against assaults on shop workers, and through this King’s Speech, we will do so.

We will also increase standards in policing, including through mandatory vetting standards across forces and improvements around misconduct.

[Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)]

On the topic of mandatory vetting, does my right hon. Friend agree that we should also have psychological testing for the police? Some of the incidents that have been brought to light, such as the kidnapping and killing of Sarah Everard and the pictures taken of Bibaa and Nicole in Brent, are appalling and can only be done by people who have lost compassion in their job.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Some of this is about the vetting standards before people are appointed as police officers, but some of it is about the culture that can operate within forces—or small groups within forces—that always needs to be challenged, including by leadership. We want to see national vetting standards.

Let us be clear: there are police officers who do an incredible job every day of the week to keep us all safe, while also showing immense bravery. For 14 years running, I have been to the police bravery awards to hear incredible stories of heroism, but those brave officers are badly let down—just as communities are badly let down—when other officers fail to meet those standards or when they abuse the power they have. That is why the standards and safeguarding issues are so important.

Turning to knife crime, no parent should have to lie in bed worrying that a son or daughter might not come home. One of the hardest things is to talk to parents who are grieving—who stand with a photo in a frame, because that is all they have. It is important that all our communities take action to prevent our young people from being dragged into crime and violence. The King’s Speech means new laws to get dangerous knives off the streets, such as ninja swords of the type that was used to kill 16-year-old Ronan Kanda near his home in Wolverhampton two years ago. I pay tribute to the tireless campaigning of Pooja, Ronan’s mother. We will also set up a radical new Young Futures prevention programme to stop our teenagers being drawn into a life of violent crime, bringing services together around young people in the way that the last Labour Government’s Sure Start programme did for our youngest children. It will be a programme for teenagers, to help them get back on track.

We will also bring forward new legislation on borders, security and immigration. Legal migration has trebled in the past five years; the biggest driver has been overseas recruitment, with work visas soaring because the last Government ran what was effectively a free-market, laissez-faire approach to both the economy and the immigration system. They completely failed to tackle skills shortages: areas such as engineering have been on the shortage list for decades if not generations, never having a proper programme. We have seen the number of engineering visas go up while the number of engineering apprenticeships has gone down. We have to turn that around, which is why, as well as continuing with visa controls, we will draw up new arrangements to link the points-based system with new skills plans. That is why the Education Secretary has drawn up plans for Skills England.