Criminal Justice Bill

Debate between Emma Lewell-Buck and Maria Miller

Report stage
Wednesday 15th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Maria Miller]

The speech from the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has served to demonstrate the extraordinary breadth of the Bill. I have sat heard this afternoon about the incredible work done by my colleagues, on both sides of the House, on an immense range of issues, and I think that that must underline to our constituents how hard many Members work on very, very difficult matters. The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) has called on us to be persistent. She will think that I am a very persistent Member of Parliament when it comes to the issue of intimate image abuse, which I have been talking about for nigh on a decade. She is right: we have to be persistent, because it pays off.

I want to touch briefly on some of the amendments and new clauses that have been discussed today before I turn to new clause 86. Let me first reiterate my support for new clause 2—tabled by the Mother of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman)—which deals with the question of parental responsibility after rape. It is an important new clause, and I hope that Ministers have listened closely to what has been said. Let me also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Kate Kniveton), who has spoken out movingly on this issue.

The amendments on spiking tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) are a testament to persistence, and he deserves all our gratitude not only for the work he has done in getting his proposals to this stage, but for keeping us all so well informed about the work that he is still doing. Amendment 160, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes)—the Chair of the Select Committee—has picked up some of the issues that I shall be talking about, namely the way in which we treat non-consensual sexual images. The Government need to do more work on this: “must try harder” is my suggestion.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), whose name is attached to new clause 62, made an extremely moving speech about his proposal for legislation to deal with that most appalling of crimes, the sexual abuse of people who have died and are in the safety of a mortuary. New clauses 25 and 26 were tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), and I hope that Ministers listened carefully to the compelling case that she made about the rapidity with which the online world is moving and the need for us to keep the law up to date.

Let me now turn to new clause 86. I am pleased that the Government tabled it, although they knew that this matter needed to be addressed following the passage of the Online Safety Act 2023. The new clause shows that they continue to understand the importance of classifying the making of intimate images without the permission of the person in the picture as a sex crime. Yet again, however, we are trying to tackle it as though it were more about why the pictures were taken, rather than about the fact that they were taken in the first place. That is the wrong approach, and it is as wrong now as it was when we debated this issue in the Online Safety Bill. I thought that we had dealt with that argument, but clearly we have not.

It was out of scope of the Online Safety Bill to make the making and taking of an intimate image without consent a crime, so I really welcome the fact that the issue is being dealt with now. The Online Safety Bill tackled the distribution of those images, but we argued successfully during the passage of that Bill that when it comes to sexual offences—new clause 86 creates a sexual offence—our law needs, first and foremost, to be about consent. It must be about whether there is consent or not, not about whether the perpetrator intended to cause distress or alarm. Despite the response to my intervention earlier, it remains unclear to me why new clause 86 is not constructed in the same way as the provisions in the Online Safety Act 2023, given that it will work hand in hand with them.

So, what are we talking about? We are talking particularly about whether it should be a crime for somebody to take or make an intimate sexual image of another person without their consent. At the moment, the Bill says that it will be a crime only if the Crown Prosecution Service can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the person taking or making the picture had the intention to cause the victim alarm, distress or humiliation. Mention was made earlier of online rape, and that is the terminology that many of the victims use. The victims I have spoken to are still a victim of that crime, whether or not the perpetrator had the intention to cause them alarm, distress or humiliation.

Even more concerning is the fact that the Government already know from evidence that many of the people who create these images do so not to do harm, cause distress or alarm their victims; they do it for money. Oddly, they sometimes do it for fun. They do it for their mates. They do it because they have a collection of similar pictures. All those people who have had nude images created or taken are no longer victims if a good lawyer can prove that the person taking the image had no intention to cause alarm, distress or humiliation. That has to be wrong, and I call on the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), who is sitting on the Front Bench, and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), to think again. They have not got this right.

The harm lies in creating the sexually explicit image without consent. The Bill sets out that that is not the way the law will treat this, and that someone will have to prove an intention. There needs to be a motive of the perpetrator proving sexual gratification. As all the lawyers in this room know—I am not one of them—that is incredibly difficult. A consent-based approach would focus on the core wrong of non-consensual sexual conduct. Motives are not required in most sexual offences.

Mention was made earlier about the way in which some organisations have removed nudification apps from their websites. I am concerned that they might work out that if they stated that their motive was just to make money, they would not be breaking the law if they allowed those nudification apps to continue to be available. I am also concerned as to whether the Government have talked to Ofcom, the regulator, about how it will be able to limit the appearance of these images, given the way in which the law is currently framed.

So, there are two questions from me. Will the Minister urgently reconsider new clause 86 and bring it into line with the Online Safety Act? I have a simple idea for her, which is to amend the amendment so that it is consistent with the Online Safety Act in having a base offence that includes production of a sexual image, which can include the taking or creating of an image. Or, the Government could amend their proposed creation offence to make it consent-based, not intention-based. The former I think, is straightforward.

Secondly, I welcome the fact that some companies are taking pre-emptive action to remove their nudification apps, which I called for in the 2021 International Women’s Day debate, but they will quickly see that this incredible loophole means that, so long as they have the right legal defence, such nudification apps are entirely within the law. Will the Minister tell the House how the Government are going to make these nudification apps unlawful, and get rid of them once and for all, as people across the nation want?

I thank Professor Clare McGlynn again for assisting me in interpreting the intention of Government amendment 86. It was published on Thursday, so I apologise to the House for not being able to give a more detailed analysis—I have had it for only the past three days. I hope that, at some stage, Ministers will be in a position to explain their thinking and, I hope, change their mind. I know the safeguarding Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury has put in writing that she wants to send a “crystal clear message” that making intimate image material is “immoral” and “a crime.” She needs to try harder to make sure the Bill does just that.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

I rise to make a short speech in support of new clause 9, in the name of the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison). I thank her for her kind words about my friends and constituents Maxine and Tony.

Maxine Thompson-Curl lost her son, Kristian David Thompson, in 2011. He was just 19 years old, and his life was taken by one punch. One punch can and does kill. To lose a loved one at a young age in such a senseless way, when they were simply on a night out, is a pain that I cannot imagine.

Since Kristian’s passing, Maxine has devoted her life to raising awareness, supporting others and campaigning for stronger sentencing. She has done this via her charity One Punch UK, which she runs with her husband Anthony Curl. Using her pain, love and grief, Maxine has always been relentless in educating people to stop, think and walk away instead of using their fists.

Although it is generally accepted that there is a concerning rise in one-punch attacks across the UK, there are no official figures on the lives lost and devastated by a single punch. What we do know is that, almost every time a precious life is taken in this way, it is reported that the perpetrator was intoxicated, and their sentence for taking the life of another is almost always extremely lenient. The average sentence is four years, and some walk away after just four months in prison. That is four months for taking somebody else’s life. Justice is an important cornerstone of our legal system. Although nothing at all can bring back a loved one, for many people an important part of being able to grieve is knowing that there are consequences for the person who took their loved one away from them.

New clause 9 would put an end to lenient sentences and would hopefully act as a deterrent, so that people think and walk away before using their fists. It would also mean that we have reliable data on the prevalence of one-punch attacks. In the first four years after similar legislation was passed in Australia, the number of one-punch deaths halved. One Australian attorney general has reported a massive reduction in violence since the legislation was introduced.

More than five years ago, the then Minister said that he was happy to look at my proposal in relation to one-punch sentencing, and I am pleased that the Government have looked at this new clause and agreed with the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland, but my constituents remain of the view that stronger sentencing is needed. It is indeed what they have campaigned on for many years. With that in mind, I carefully considered the Minister’s response to the new clause in Committee, and I am not fully convinced of her argument. She stated that one-punch attacks are already covered under manslaughter, but there is no mandatory minimum sentence for manslaughter and therefore no minimum sentence for one-punch attacks. That is why we ask for that in the new clause. She stated that the Government wished to avoid “anomalies in the law”, and gave the example of someone being killed by a punch to their abdomen. She will know, as will other hon. Members, that a single punch to the head is likely to be more catastrophic than a single punch to the abdomen, as it can cause fatal damage to the brain; it can stop breathing, starving the brain of oxygen, and cause the victim to collapse and strike their head on a hard surface.