Victims and Prisoners Bill (Seventh sitting)

Edward Argar Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 29th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham—not only for her powerful speech today, but for the huge amount of work that she has done on this very, very important issue. All of us here today can hear how absolutely important it is that the Government act on this issue. We fully support her in her endeavours and urge the Minister to respond positively and to find a way through. Registered sex offenders cannot be allowed to change their names without informing the police, and without the police then being able to take action. Leaving that loophole open calls into question the integrity of all the schemes that the public rely on. We all think that the public are safe through such mechanisms, as my hon. Friend set out.

I am stumped for words by what my hon. Friend has called out, some of which is deeply shocking. The child sex offender disclosure scheme, the domestic violence disclosure scheme, and the Disclosure and Barring Service all rely on having the correct name. If they do not have that, how do they go about safeguarding the many survivors and victims out there? My hon. Friend pointed out that an offender can easily change their name from anywhere, even prison, and there is no joined-up approach between the statutory and other agencies. I understand from the data that she collected that the Home Office has confirmed that more than 16,000 offenders were charged with a breach of their notification requirements just in the five years between 2015 and 2020.

The BBC discovered that 700 registered sex offenders have gone missing in the last three years alone, so it is highly likely that they breached their notification requirements without getting caught. Families and survivors deserve to know if a perpetrator has changed their name. Relying on a system that depends on registered offenders self-reporting changes in their information is dangerous, and an enormous risk to public safety. I hope that the Minister will respond with the positive message that he will go back to his Department and work with colleagues to change that.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Ms Elliott. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for her amendment and the debate that it has provoked, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) for his campaigning on this issue and his ten-minute rule Bill. I congratulate the hon. Lady on her dexterity in bringing the matter into the scope of the Bill, but above all I recognise the serious concern that certain categories of offender, such as sex offenders, might change their name to evade monitoring, which would clearly not be right. I pay tribute to Della and the Safeguarding Alliance for their work; I hope to meet them in the coming weeks to discuss the matter.

The UK already has some of the toughest powers in the world to deal with sex offenders and, more broadly, other offenders who pose a risk, but we are committed to ensuring that the system is as robust as it can be. The majority of offenders released from prison are subject to strict licence conditions to manage the risk of harm that they pose. In July 2022, a new standard licence condition was introduced that requires offenders to notify their probation practitioner if they change their name. Failure to disclose it is a breach of licence and could result in recall to custody.

However, as the hon. Lady ably illustrated in her remarks, that relies on those individuals doing the right thing. Given the nature of the offences and of the individuals concerned, I suggest that that poses a significant level of challenge. I will ask my officials to take away the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud raised about gov.uk, which sits with the Cabinet Office, and ask that it be looked into.

As right hon. and hon. Members will be aware, there are multi-agency public protection arrangements designed to protect the public, including victims of crime, from serious harm by sexual offenders, violent offenders, terrorists and other dangerous offenders. They require the local criminal justice agencies and other bodies dealing with offenders to work in partnership. Measures are also in place that legally require registered sex offenders to inform the police of any name change; where a registered sex offender poses a specific risk in relation to name changes, the courts can restrict their ability to change their name, although again the same challenge exists.

Disclosure of any name change to victims is currently decided on a case-by-case basis. There will be a careful risk assessment process to consider whether disclosure of a name change is necessary for the protection of a victim, or whether it could provoke threats to the family of the offender or others, which could put them at risk. The process does need to be managed on a case-by-case basis. I do, however, fully understand the intention behind the ten-minute rule Bill, the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Rotherham, and indeed the strength of feeling in the Committee today—and which I think we saw through attendance in the House when the ten-minute rule Bill was debated—to ensure that there are no loopholes that allow sex offenders to change their names unregistered.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

I know that the Minister takes his brief incredibly seriously and recognises the severity of the consequences as things currently stand. I think he has also heard the degree of support within this room—and, I am quite sure, within the House—to do something quite dramatic to close this loophole. I will therefore gladly accept his offer, but I really need to see something different on the face of the Bill at a later stage, because we have to do something.

[Edward Argar]

Because of the nature of the parliamentary Session and the carry-over, we will have a period between this Bill’s leaving Committee and its returning to the Floor of the House on Report, which I suspect will happen around Christmas time, given uncertainty over the timing of the King’s Speech. I am happy to use that period to work with the hon. Lady to see whether we can find a way forward ahead of Report stage.

[Sarah Champion]

I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley.

[Sarah Champion]

The Minister can address sentences and conditions, but we absolutely need the Home Office on board.

[Edward Argar]

indicated assent.

[Sarah Champion]

With the Minister’s nodded confirmation that that will happen, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

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[Janet Daby]

I, too, endorse the proposals brought forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham. In 2021, the former Victims’ Commissioner stated that 43% of rape victims pulled out of cases. I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees that trials can be especially difficult for victims, and that therapy guidance for victims pre-trial must be of a high standard and advertised to victims if the Government are to tackle worrying attrition rates in rape cases. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Edward Argar]

Amendment 53 would place in the victims code a requirement to inform victims of their right to access pre-trial therapy, and require the CPS to annually review the implementation of its pre-trial therapy guidance. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for provoking this debate by tabling the amendment.

It is vital that victims get the support they need to cope and recover from the impact of crime, and pre-trial therapy is a hugely important part of that. The hon. Member for Lewisham East commented on the number of complainants and victims who withdraw from a case—the technical phrase is victim attrition; it is not the best phrase in the world—or do not see it through. A variety of reasons and a range of factors sit behind that. Lack of therapeutic support may not be the only one, but it is undoubtedly one of them. I am aware of instances where victims have mistakenly been advised not to seek the therapeutic support they need and to which they are entitled while they are involved in a criminal justice process. That should not happen, and I am again grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for raising that.

The first part of the amendment would require the victims code to include a specific requirement on all criminal justice agencies to inform victims of a right to pre-trial therapy. I hope I can reassure the hon. Lady to a degree that there are already many provisions in the Bill and, indeed, beyond it to make victims aware of how they can access pre-trial therapy. What came through in her remarks is that the challenge is not the obligations in the Bill or other legislation, but how they are operationalised and pull through into the experiences people have when interacting with the system.

The Bill already includes the code principle that victims should be able to access services that support them, including specialist services. The code itself includes the detail that those services can include pre-trial therapy and counselling, and we are introducing a new duty in the Bill on certain criminal justice agencies, including the police and the CPS, to raise awareness of the code and the rights within it. None the less, I am open to considering how we can make information relating to pre-trial therapy clearer in the new victims code, as it is critical that practitioners do not, even inadvertently, deter victims from seeking the support they need.

As hon. Members will be aware, we have committed to consult on an updated victims code after the passage of the Bill, and as I have said on previous occasions, I am happy to work with the hon. Member for Rotherham and others on the Committee on the new code. We have put out an indicative draft, which is almost a pre-consultation consultation, but that allows the flexibility for hon. Members and others to reflect back their thoughts on it.

[Jess Phillips]

As a point that may be interesting as we try to get this right established is that when I ran a rape crisis counselling service, this was not particularly an issue. Something has happened—something chilling—in the last eight years that means it is now a pressing issue. It was never the case, and rape crisis counsellors would always just make very sparing notes. Something has gone wrong, and in trying to move forward we should do a piece of work on where it started to go wrong.

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady brings to the House and this Committee a huge amount of experience from having worked in this sector and seen changes to it, and an interest that she has maintained since being elected to the House—at the same time as I was—and through her shadow ministerial roles. She is right; it is important that, if things have changed, we seek to understand the genesis of and the reasons for that change, and how to address it.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

The point being made about delay is important. The pandemic was of course a very difficult period for the courts. Is the Minister able to give us any reassurance that the courts will be able to hear these cases more quickly? I suspect one of the reasons for this situation is that, if there is a very long period between the incident and the time of trial and there are counselling notes over an extended period, there is a temptation to see if there is an element of coaching—the hon. Member for Rotherham made that point—or even inconsistent statements, as a period of time has lapsed.

[Edward Argar]

My right hon. and learned Friend is right to highlight the importance of this point. On the big picture of court backlogs, it is important to remember that 90% of cases are dealt with in magistrates courts swiftly. It is the serious cases, such as those we are discussing, that are sent to the Crown court, and that is where we do see delays. There has been investment in Nightingale courtrooms—a new sort of super-court, if I can put it that way—just up the road from my constituency, in Loughborough. We are implementing a range of measures to tackle the backlog. He is absolutely right that the timeliness of a case being heard is a key factor in a victim sticking with the process and being able to give their best evidence. He is also right that the longer the delay, the greater the temptation to seek more “evidence”, more documents, over that period. Timeliness is hugely important.

We will also continue to take action to ensure that victims are not put off from seeking support due to fear that their therapy notes may be unnecessarily accessed as part of a criminal investigation, including through the proposed Government amendment that was alluded to, which will place a duty on police to request third-party materials that may include pre-trial therapy notes only when necessary and proportionate to the investigation.

[Sarah Champion]

I want to explore the Minister’s phrase about victims giving their “best evidence” in court. I have tried to get to the bottom of what is going on in the minds of the police. I think they see victims of crime as witnesses, rather than victims in their own right. They are trying to protect the evidence, effectively, to get the conviction that they want. The police need to understand that a well-supported victim is able to give the best evidence, because they have confidence and clarity of mind, and the support of knowing that there is someone there who has got their back. The reason I am arguing for a provision in the Bill—perhaps under an expansion of what specialist services means; I am happy if it is in the guidance—is to make the police aware that there is no chilling effect from a victim having pre-trial therapy.

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. I think progress is being made. In saying that, I point to, for example, the work being done through Operation Soteria. I pay tribute to the work of Chief Constable Sarah Crew and her officers in Avon and Somerset, and there are others working on these issues around the country, trying to change that understanding. There is of course more to do, which is why the hon. Lady has brought forward the amendment, but I see some encouraging signs, particularly in the work that Sarah has been leading.

The second part of the amendment would place a requirement on the Crown Prosecution Service to annually review the implementation of pre-trial therapy guidance. I reassure the hon. Lady that the Crown Prosecution Service already has a robust compliance and assurance regime across all its areas, which includes specific questions on consideration of the privacy rights of victims. The CPS is also a key part of Operation Soteria. Next month, the CPS will relaunch its individual quality assessment guidance, which is its assurance tool to make sure it is delivering high-quality casework. That will include additional information on consideration of a victim’s privacy rights during an investigation, which I hope will help bring consistency across the CPS.

I urge the hon. Lady not to press the amendment to a Division, as I do not believe that including this measure in the Bill is necessarily the best approach. As I have said a number of times, I am happy to work with her in respect of the code, the consultation and how we might draw this out a bit more clearly, but also on an operational basis more broadly. I suspect that we may be spending a lot of time together over the summer and coming months, given the number of commitments I have made to work with her. There may be ways that we can also work with colleagues at the Home Office, the police and others to make sure that what is already there is fully understood and operationalised.

[Sarah Champion]

Given those assurances, I will withdraw the amendment. I agree with the Minister that it is about the first or second community officer someone speaks to—that seems to be where the misunderstanding is, so we have to find a way to filter the message down down. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

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[Edward Argar]

Amendment 64 would require the victims code to state that victims must be informed of their rights to access special measures in the family court. We agree that all participants in court proceedings, including in the family court, should be able to give evidence to the best of their ability, and I appreciate that the shadow Minister cited a number of harrowing cases and highlighted some broader issues. If I may, I will confine myself rather more narrowly to the scope of the amendment. I will also highlight that I would be very wary of trespassing into territory that would see me commenting on what is rightly subject to judicial discretion and the decisions of individual judges.

We already have a number of measures in place to support participants in the family court whose ability to give evidence is impacted, as the shadow Minister set out, by the trauma and retraumatisation of having experienced domestic abuse and then having to give evidence. Examples of those special measures in family proceedings include giving evidence behind a protective screen or via video link.

In section 63 of our landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021, on which there was a large amount of cross-party co-operation—I am looking at the shadow Home Office Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley—we have strengthened eligibility for special measures for victims of domestic abuse in the family courts. I gently disagree with the hon. Member for Cardiff North when she says that it has made no difference. As a result, the existing Family Procedure Rules automatically deem victims of domestic abuse as vulnerable for the purposes of considering whether a participation direction for special measures should be made. That provision came into effect on 1 October 2021. However, the decision is quite rightly a matter for the presiding judge in the case.

As the hon. Member for Cardiff North highlighted, what the amendment addresses is raising awareness of rights—not the decision made by the judge, but awareness that the rights exist and that an application is possible. I agree that it is important not only that this provision exists, but that participants in the family court are made aware of it. However, I stress that the victims code and the provisions in part 1 of the Bill are intended to set out the minimum expectations for victims navigating criminal justice processes, rather than other proceedings or settings such as the family court. It is important to highlight that distinction.

We are, however, committed to ensuring that participants in family proceedings are aware of the role of special measures and of their entitlement to be considered for them. Following the implementation of the provision in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, the Ministry of Justice and His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service have been monitoring the data on special measures requests using the online application service. We have been assessing what more could be done to make parties aware of their rights with regard to the provision of special measures.

As a result of the changes that have been made, guidance has been developed in collaboration with the Family Justice Council, which provides information on the support and special measures available at local courts. This information is now set out with notices of hearing in all family cases.

I hope that what I have said goes some way towards reassuring the Committee that we are taking steps to make sure that victims of domestic abuse are aware of the special measures that they can access in the family courts. We are consulting on the victims code; I say to the Committee that that, rather than the Bill, would be the right place for consideration of such measures. Placing such measures in primary legislation would add rigidity to what should be a flexible process to update the code and ensure that the rights enshrined within it keep pace. On that basis, I encourage the shadow Minister not to press amendment 64 to a Division.

[Anna McMorrin]

I understand what the Minister says, and I appreciate his reflections, but I have to point out the number and the intensity of issues that I have raised and the amount of concerning evidence from the women I have spoken to. The amendment would have an impact on real cases. It would go some way towards helping victims to understand that they can get access to special measures in court. I have given illustrations from cases in which rape victims were not able to have a screen and were forced to speak to the perpetrator. They need to feel that they are empowered, that they are survivors and that they have the ability to ask for those special measures.

Amendment 64 would go a long way towards ensuring that things start to change—that the culture starts to change—in the family courts. That is why I would like to press it to a vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made.