Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

Debate between Diana Johnson and Robert Buckland

Monday 23rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor-General]

I am interested in suggestions from any quarter about the terms of reference for a consultation. I want it to be meaningful and comprehensive, which is why there will be a full 12 weeks to allow many people to make submissions. I am open to all constructive suggestions, wherever they come from. As my right hon. Friend said, this issue is about much more than mere party politics, and I hope that that gives her the assurance she seeks.

[Diana Johnson]

I am listening carefully to the Minister, and of course we all want to get this issue right. I am struck by the fact that the Government managed to have a consultation on the reporting of FGM, and the Bill now contains amendments to take that forward. It seems to me a missed opportunity that we are not able to do that with mandatory reporting at the same time.

[The Solicitor-General]

I hear what the hon. Lady says and take her remarks in the spirit that I know she intends. We are moving on these issues, and much has been achieved in the past few years in acknowledging that we are dealing with children and can no longer have a sort of double standard when it comes to their protection. In Committee we debated so-called “ostensible consent”, which at one time was in sentencing guidelines. That has gone from the law—indeed, a case I conducted in the Court of Appeal last week made it absolutely clear that for young children the concept of consent in sexual activity has no place in the law of England and Wales. Let me reiterate my point: we are making progress and there will be a consultation as soon as possible. I therefore urge the hon. Lady and Opposition Members not to divide the House on the new clause.

On new clause 2, I listened carefully to the impassioned speech of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann). It was the sort of speech that we need to hear in this House because it reiterated not only his determination to uncover child abuse—whether historical or current—but the determination that we should all have to follow evidence wherever it may lead without fear or favour.

As we know, the Official Secrets Act is intended to protect certain classes of particularly sensitive information such as security and intelligence matters, and it provides for a number of offences that prevent current or former Crown servants or Government contractors from disclosing certain information without lawful authority. It does not prevent protected information from being disclosed to an officer of an official investigation or inquiry into historical child abuse. In particular, information may be disclosed where the disclosure is made in accordance with that person’s official duty or is otherwise authorised. Departments and Ministers can permit current and former civil servants and Government contractors to share knowledge and documentation with an inquiry. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made clear in her statement to this House on 4 February, official authorisation would be given for the Goddard inquiry.

On the historical institutional abuse inquiry in Northern Island, the Attorney-General has already made a public undertaking that no evidence given by a person to the inquiry will be used as evidence against them in any criminal proceeding, including any offence under the Official Secrets Act. Indeed, the Attorney-General would be ready to consider any similar request from Justice Goddard if one were made. I assure the hon. Member for Bassetlaw that the Government are committed to assisting Justice Goddard’s inquiry and all other inquiries into child abuse. We are satisfied that the Official Secrets Act is not, will not, and should not be a bar to evidence being provided, but I am grateful to him for raising that important issue.

Let me turn to new clause 11, in the name of the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd). As he said, this has been covered in Committee. I reiterate that anomalies will inevitably exist when it comes to how we classify children and young people in law. I am afraid there is no one age division to fit all circumstances. Despite the fact that, with his usual cunning, he has come up with a slightly different way of dealing with some of the mischiefs I mentioned in Committee, I am still concerned that, in genuinely attempting to correct one anomaly, we might end up creating another. We still believe that in this area of the law we need to focus on the protection of children and young persons under the age of 16.

In that spirit, I will come on to new clause 27, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood). Her tenacity knows no bounds. She has done a lot of work to expose the scourge of child sexual exploitation in both her local area and nationally. I am grateful to her for once again raising this issue. We need to have the correct balance between additional protection, and recognition of the relevant rights and responsibilities of young people in this age group. We have given much thought to this matter. The key question for the Government is whether we think the police have sufficient powers to replace restrictions and prohibitions on people who pose a risk to vulnerable young adults aged 16 and 17. We think that the new sexual risk orders—I will come on to them in a moment—will provide the police with the powers to tackle predators. Breach of such an order will carry a sentence of up to five years’ imprisonment. We think the right balance is being struck with the combination of child abduction warning notices and sexual risk orders. We therefore do not think that we need to change the law on child abduction at this stage. That allows me neatly, I hope, to deal with new clause 19, tabled by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion).

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Diana Johnson and Robert Buckland

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for setting out the amendments in the group. These are a completely new set of provisions on child protection, which the House did not have the opportunity to deal with on Second Reading or in Committee, so we are grateful for the opportunity to discuss them this afternoon. The House has, however, had several excellent debates on child protection over the last year, which is testament to how seriously colleagues of all parties take these issues and want to engage with them.

The amendments before us are the result of hard work and concern across the House. I want to pay tribute in particular to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) for her sterling work. I pay tribute, too, to the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), whose new clause appears in this grouping; to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey), who has done an enormous amount of work on this subject; and to my right hon. Friends the Members for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins).

Government new clause 8 is the lead amendment in the group. As the Minister has set out, it is designed to make a sensible addition to the offences that can lead to action being taken against those who commit them. As we know, this came out of the tragic case of Maria Stubbings, who was murdered by her ex-partner, Marc Chivers. The Independent Police Complaints Commission recognised that there were gaps in the law in respect of the supervision of offenders convicted overseas. The Opposition are pleased to support this sensible new clause.

Government new clause 14 deals with sexual harm prevention orders and sexual risk orders, while I understand Government new clause 15 deals mainly with saving and transitional provisions. Government new schedule 1 provides for the practical introduction of the new orders, alongside new clause 5, tabled by the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon and 67 other hon. Members, as the Minister pointed out, which creates the new child sexual abuse prevention order.

The Opposition support the need to amend the current law. The sexual abuse and grooming cases that occurred in Oxford shocked the country, and the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon has rightly gained huge respect from across the House for the serious way in which she has looked to address the issues with the Childhood Lost campaign. I know that she has worked with a number of charities, including the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Barnardo’s, the Children’s Society, ECPAT UK, Action for Children, and many others.

We are pleased that the Government have accepted the need for change, and have tabled their own amendments. We especially welcome the fact that the Government amendments extend the risk of sexual harm orders to adults as well as children. We should be interested to hear how the Minister intends to address the other key activities of the Childhood Lost campaign which are important in keeping our children safe.

Ten years on, it is right for us to think about what was done by the Sexual Offenders Act 2003 and what parts of it need to be updated. The Act was a milestone that played a crucial role in improving our legislation on sex offences in many key respects, for instance by outlawing grooming. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East for the key role that he played in introducing the legislation.

The sad truth is that sex offenders, more than any other group of offenders, are prone to reoffend. We must accept that most sex offenders continue to pose a threat to children after their initial offences. That does not, of course, mean that all offenders will reoffend, but it does mean that we should try to identify those who pose the greatest risks, and try to do everything possible to mitigate those risks. Labour introduced three distinct powers which were intended to control the risks posed by known sex offenders.

The Minister referred to the sexual offences prevention order, which was the first order that could be imposed on someone who had been convicted, and was to be applied at the time of conviction—or subsequently by the police—only if there was evidence of dangerous behaviour after offending. It covered both children and adults. The order allowed the courts to impose conditions on the offender that they considered to be necessary to reduce the risk of sexual harm. The risk of sexual harm order could be imposed without a conviction if a chief police officer had a reasonable belief that someone within his region had twice committed a sexual offence, and that an order was necessary to protect the public. That covered only children. The foreign travel order could be imposed only after conviction, but required evidence of post-conviction behaviour that gave cause for concern. An example was the order imposed on Paul Gadd, also known as Gary Glitter.

I think that all those measures were important, and demonstrated the commitment of the last Government to combating sex crime. However, it is clear that all three now need to be improved. The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon has undertaken important work in that regard in considering how we can improve the operation of the orders. I pay tribute to the recent report by the Association of Chief Police Officers and Hugh Davies QC on the workings of the current regime. New clause 5, tabled by the hon. Lady, would reform the risk of sexual harm order and establish a child sexual abuse prevention order extending to children under 18 rather than 16. It also—importantly—covers children and young people both inside and outside the United Kingdom, and would remove the requirement for two contact offences to be considered before an order could be made.

The Government’s proposals create two new orders. New clause 14 creates the sexual harm prevention order, which can be applied to anyone who has been convicted or cautioned for a sexual violent offence, including offences committed overseas. It will replace the sexual offences prevention and foreign travel orders. The new order will be required for the purpose of protecting the public generally, or any particular member of the public, from sexual harm. I understand that the new clause removes the requirement for a risk of serious sexual harm, which takes it down one level. The Opposition welcome that. The court must be satisfied that the defendant’s behaviour makes it necessary for an order to be made. Again, only one contact offence is required, which means that more people can be included in the grouping.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is providing a very helpful summary of the changes. I think that the removal of the word “serious” is a very important change, because it significantly widens the ambit of police activity in this area. The word “serious” creates quite a high threshold, and far too many cases were slipping through the net because they did not meet that criterion.

[Diana Johnson]

I am grateful for that intervention, and I know that the hon. Gentleman speaks from a great deal of experience as a member of the Bar and so fully understands the implications of the removal of the word “serious” from this definition.

Sexual risk orders can be applied to any individual who poses a risk of sexual harm in the UK or abroad, even if they have never been convicted, and replace the risk of sexual harm orders—again, these orders will apply to both adults and children. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, the Minister confirmed that the sexual risk order could be applied to a child sex offender but did not deal with the other issue she raised about the rehabilitation of a child who was subject to one of these orders. Will he deal with that in his closing remarks and say what is being put in place to support those children and young people to rehabilitate them?

One key theme of these new orders is that both are equally committed to protecting children across the world. That is vital, because sex crimes are committed across the globe and, increasingly, paedophiles will cross borders to commit abuse. The global nature of sex crimes means that it is right that we make it easier to prevent foreign travel by known paedophiles and that we give equal prominence to crimes committed abroad when we are looking at the imposition of a civil order to protect children in the UK. We also need, however, to examine the issue of people who have not been convicted but pose a threat to children. I understand that the changes proposed today will also make it easier to impose an order when a criminal offence has not been committed. Such an example may be where an individual has attempted grooming on the net, for example, by impersonating a young person on social media, but has not actually, at that stage, committed a crime. Will the Minister explain whether the Government have any plans for introducing changes to legislation to make the grooming of a child on the internet an offence? I understand that it is only at the point when the person physically meets the child that an offence is committed.

One thing that the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon has drawn attention to in the very good briefing she has provided is the fact that very few risk of sexual harm orders have been imposed each year. We hope that these new provisions will make it easier to acquire an equivalent restriction, by making orders applicable to cases where a crime was committed aboard or where the behaviour does not constitute an offence at this time. However, I wish to refer to the issue raised by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), which related to the standard of proof required.

One reason it is hard to impose a risk of sexual harm order is that such orders demand a criminal standard of proof, even though they are civil orders, and that difficulty may remain in respect of the future orders. The demand for a criminal standard of proof was not actually in the Sexual Offences Act and there was some confusion therefore about the standard of proof required. The Home Office did issue guidance, which suggested a civil standard of proof—the “reasonable belief” approach. However, the courts tended to take a different approach and it was only in 2012—[Interruption.] I can see that the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) is about to intervene. It was only in 2012 that the issue was settled by the courts in the case of Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis v. Robert Ebanks, which established a binding precedent on the criminal standard.

[Mr Buckland]

The hon. Lady is making a very important point about the standard of proof. One key consideration is that breach is a criminal offence, and therefore there is a serious issue to consider as to the criminal consequences of a civil order that could be obtained by a civil standard of proof. That consideration was uppermost in the mind of the court considering that case and should be uppermost in our minds. As legislators, we need to get the balance right, and so the standard of proof should be a high one.

[Diana Johnson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Again, I know that he speaks from great experience. I simply ask why so few orders have been taken through the courts and whether we need to consider the whole issue of the standard of proof that is required. We support the Government’s new clauses and amendments, which we think have a lot of merit.