Serious Crime Bill [Lords]
Debate between Diana Johnson and Cheryl Gillan(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Diana Johnson
I entirely agree that we need to listen to young women, mothers and families, which is why it has been so important that, over the past few years, young women have felt strong enough to come forward and champion the cause for themselves.
The Bill includes a number of vital measures, such as the FGM protection orders, a new offence of failing to protect a girl from FGM and anonymity of survivors for life. We welcome those measures and give them our full support. However, although they address the matter of ways to respond when a girl is at immediate risk of being cut or has been cut, they do not go far enough in helping to prevent the crime of FGM in the first place.
The new offence would, for the first time, give parents and girls the opportunity in law to challenge the public encouragement of FGM. It has a stronger preventive effect than any other measure in the Bill, and it seeks to change the culture and break the cycle.
The measures currently on the statute book are not working. Thousands of girls in the UK are at risk, yet, since FGM was made a crime 30 years ago, there have only ever been two prosecutions and no convictions. Our proposals will criminalise every published statement or speech encouraging FGM, and will allow the police to issue encouragement warning notices and to follow up with encouragement warning orders, the breach of which would be a criminal offence. This would be a proportionate response and would send out a message of zero tolerance of such violence against girls. It is precisely the message that we need to send, as it makes a clear statement that there is no cultural excuse for violence against women and girls. I hope the Minister will feel able to respond positively to those amendments.
New clause 2 was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) along with many other right hon. and hon. Members. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work, for pursuing child abuse cases and for ensuring that the perpetrators are brought to justice. Labour Front Benchers are entirely sympathetic to his approach, and we think that it is absolutely the right thing to do. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that new clause in his closing remarks, and I hope that the Government will feel able to support my hon. Friend. If they feel that the wording needs to be tidied up so that it flows a little better, there is an opportunity to do that when the Bill returns to the other place.
New clause 11, which was tabled by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), relates to the protection that should be offered to 16 and 17-year-olds. The Children’s Society has provided an informative brief about why 16 and 17-year-olds need that additional protection. Briefly, it recognises that 16 and 17-year-olds in other parts of the world have protections that we do not have in this country, which is why we support the measure.
New clause 17 relates to mandatory reporting. We will be moving to a vote on this matter. An amendment was moved in Committee, which dealt with a consultation on mandatory reporting. We listened very carefully to what was said and feel that our new clause deals with some of the issues that the Government were concerned about, and we hope that they will support it today.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
The hon. Lady may know that I have, in the past, spoken up on behalf of Mandate Now and my constituent Mr Tom Perry. I am very keen on mandatory reporting, but having looked carefully at the proposed new clause, I have found that under subsection (2)(a), she is permitting undefined circumstances as a reason not to refer an incident for independent assessment. In the view of Mandate Now, and in my opinion, that completely undermines the concept of mandatory reporting. She may be pressing the new clause to a vote, but those of us who believe in mandatory reporting will not be able support it because it is badly flawed, and looks, I am afraid, like a rehash of some old wording.
Diana Johnson
I am sorry that the right hon. Lady feels that. Mandatory reporting is clearly complicated and this is quite a technical area. We have proposed the new clause on the basis of the best advice we have received about how to do this, alongside advice and guidance from some of the children’s charities, and we recognise that this is a difficult area. I am sorry that the right hon. Lady does not feel able to support us, but I hope that those on the Government Front Bench will reconsider their view on mandatory reporting. We feel that it is a positive step that should be taken forward.
Mrs Gillan
It is important that we take this seriously, and having dealt with my constituent and these issues for some time I agree with the hon. Lady that mandatory reporting is essential. As I understand it, the Government will have a consultation on the process so that we get it absolutely right. It is therefore a shame to force a vote tonight on something that is flawed and that does not do the job. I ask the hon. Lady and her colleagues on the Front Bench to think again. Obviously, we cannot start the consultation during the period of purdah, but it will start immediately after the general election, as I understand it.
Diana Johnson
It is disappointing that we have not been able to have that period of consultation, because the question of mandatory reporting has been around for considerably longer than the Serious Crime Bill. It has been raised by the shadow Home Secretary a number of times over the past couple of years. It is a shame that we are in the position we are in today, because we could have moved on the issue earlier.
Let me move on to new clause 19, for which I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). Those on the Labour Front Bench are supporting her amendment, which will introduce child abduction warning orders, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will speak with great knowledge and passion about the subject. I know that her experiences as a constituency MP have shaped her view of the changes she wants to see in the Bill. I will not go into the details of the new clause, but I hope that we will have an opportunity to test the opinion of the House on this as it would give law enforcement an important tool for tackling some of the exploitative actions of certain members of our communities towards young people.
New clause 26 sets out special measures for victims of sexual offences in recognition of the fact that they will almost certainly be afraid and distressed at the prospect of giving evidence in court. In particular, someone who has been subjected to domestic coercive control intended to reduce their self-esteem and make them a virtual prisoner of the defendant will inevitably suffer fear and distress at the prospect of giving evidence about it and coming face to face with the defendant in a public court. There can be no doubt that had the offences of coercive control existed at the time of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, which the new clause would amend, the authors would have included this provision.
The new clause is practical. Unless a complainant can be given a guarantee from the start that they will not have to give evidence face to face with the perpetrator, they might not have the confidence to proceed. If the best that can be said by others is that at some future stage they will ask a judge to grant special measures, that might not reassure a vulnerable victim enough, which might be the difference between supporting a prosecution and getting a conviction and not doing so. There is a public interest in prosecutions for this type of offence as perpetrators of domestic abuse are often serial offenders and other potential victims need to be protected, but a victim should automatically be entitled to protection in their own right.
Finally, Government amendment 10 builds on the work done by the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) over a number of years. The extraterritorial nature of the offence was mentioned in Committee and I am pleased that the Government have moved on this. I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the work he has carried out over many years in the House to improve protection for children.
Mrs Gillan
I want to continue my challenge to new clause 17, specifically on behalf of Mandate Now, which was set up by my constituent Tom Perry and seeks to introduce a new law making it mandatory for people working in regulated activities to report their suspicions to the local authority.
I am delighted that the Opposition support mandatory reporting, but I am disappointed with the flaws in their new clause. I believe that mandatory reporting is inevitable, but its design will be critical. It is not a law that, as MandateNow says,
“can be lifted from a shelf, applied and switched on.”
It is a complicated and nuanced subject and such a law needs very careful construction, as I am sure the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) appreciates, particularly having adopted the position that Opposition Front Benchers have taken up recently.
The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) struck a chord with me when he said that there should be no no-go areas, which is absolutely right. I am worried that new clause 17 would create such no-go areas, and protect and enshrine them in a flawed law.
It appears from new clause 17(1)(c) that the duty to report would apply only when harm is caused in the setting of a regulated activity. As I understand it, children who are abused at home would remain outside its scope. Multiple concerns, or even any concern about any child, brought to the attention of staff—for example, at their school—would not necessarily be caught by the provision as currently drafted.
Diana Johnson
The right hon. Lady and I have already had an exchange on this issue. What happens in a school is obviously a regulated activity, so my understanding is that if teachers working in the school become aware of the issue, that would be covered by the new clause.
Mrs Gillan
Mandate Now’s understanding is that such a situation would not be covered. If abuse occurs outside one of the regulated activities, but is brought to the attention of someone involved in a regulated activity, there appears from the drafting of subsection (1)(c) to be a possibility that the abuse would not be a mandatorily reportable incident.
Subsection (1)(c) would require that a person
“becomes aware that a child has been harmed”.
That requirement is problematic. So often with sexual abuse, it is very difficult to suspect it, let alone to know about it. Mandate Now’s challenge to the proposal from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is absolutely right. A law that depends on somebody being “aware” is drafted in a dangerously vague way. It will not catch most cases. The hon. Lady should therefore consider using the phrase that a person must act on “reasonable grounds of suspicion”. Such a change would improve the drafting of her new clause 17.
Similarly, the exemption in subsection (2)(a) permitting undefined circumstances as a reason not to refer an incident for independent assessment totally undermines the concept of mandatory reporting. When might it be in the interests of a child to be harmed and for those who know or suspect to do nothing about it? Such a situation needs to be made explicit.
Subsection (2)(b) is almost a facsimile of the current and porous position. In complying with current non-mandatory reporting clauses in institutional child protection procedures, personal liability seems to be avoided. The proposal continues a failed narrative in which reporting to the local authority for independent assessment is reliant on what the person responsible for reporting believes. For example, if a member of staff refers a case to the head teacher as the designated person and nothing happens, because the head believes it is not in the child’s interests to refer it or follows the inadequate professional guidelines—as it happens, they are discretionary—then the new clause will produce no change. As Mandate Now has stated, the exceptions in subsection (2) undermine the already underpowered provisions in subsection (1).
As the hon. Lady will know, an earlier amendment on mandatory reporting was moved in the other place, but was withdrawn on an assurance from the Government that they would start a consultation on mandatory reporting. She and I know, as does the Solicitor-General, that the terms of reference for the consultation have not yet been drawn up.
We are approaching something called the general election, so there is purdah. I have a proposition to make to both Front Benchers: it would be good to work on this matter on a cross-party basis. It should not be a political subject, but something on which we agree. Rather than putting new clause 17 to a vote, it would be good if they met behind the Chair and agreed to the Government drawing up the terms of reference with the Opposition and publishing them as soon as possible during the period of purdah before the general election. In that way, all the victims and people relying on this place to improve the situation for our all future children, and to learn from the history faced by many of our constituents, would have a lot more confidence that we are doing our job correctly.