Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

18. What steps she is taking to tackle metal theft.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

19. What steps she is taking to tackle metal theft.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)]

As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced in a statement to the House in January, we are taking legislative action to tackle metal theft, including raising the financial penalties for rogue dealers, banning cash payments for scrap metal and giving the police powers to enter unregistered scrap yards. That is part of a coherent package of measures, which includes enhanced enforcement through the funding of a £5 million national metal theft taskforce.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Bruce]

Almost every Church of England church in my constituency has suffered metal theft. Will the Minister assure me that penalties for those found guilty of acts of metal theft will appropriately reflect the huge costs to local churches in seeking to repair damage, which far outweigh the scrap value of what is stolen?

[James Brokenshire]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend about the impact of metal theft. The new provisions include an unlimited fine, and we will look closely at their impact as they come through.

Human Trafficking

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir. I must first thank the Speaker for granting a very important debate on the need for a national rapporteur on human trafficking.

I am delighted to see that the excellent Minister for Immigration will be replying to the debate. He is well known for his commitment to fighting the evil of human trafficking and, along with the Prime Minister, he has the desire to put the United Kingdom at the forefront of that fight. Sometimes it is like pushing at an open door, and I am really grateful that he is here. I would also like to thank James Newhall, my special adviser on human trafficking, and Tatiana Jordan, who is working in my office as an intern. She did much of the research and drafted this speech.

At the beginning of any human trafficking debate, thanks must be given to Anthony Steen, the former Member for Totnes. If he had not raised the issue of human trafficking in the previous Parliament, we would not be where we are today. Anthony has helpfully made a number of suggestions that have been incorporated into this speech.

As chairman of the all-party group against human trafficking, I would like to say that there is one small area where the Government could move the cause forward, improve the fight against trafficking and, at the same time, save taxpayers’ money. One of the problems surrounding human trafficking is the lack of reliable information and data analysis permitting us to assess the scope of the problem in our country. The solution in the UK to that challenge is to establish an independent national rapporteur.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing the debate and on the excellent work he is doing as chairman of the all-party group against human trafficking. Does he agree that a positive example has been provided by the Dutch national rapporteur in this area, who since 2000 has made some 200 recommendations to the Dutch Government, many of which have led to improvements in Government policy in the field of human trafficking in that country?

[Mr Bone]

I am very glad that I gave way to my hon. Friend who is, of course, a very worthy colleague of mine on the all-party group. She is absolutely right about the Dutch rapporteur, about whom I will say a bit more later in my speech.

An e-petition on the subject reads as follows:

“Human trafficking is serious, international, organised crime. The money generated from it (an estimated $32 billion per annum worldwide) is only marginally less than from arms dealing and drug smuggling. Tackling it is a priority for all political parties and the current Government. Much effort is expended by NGOs, Police, Social Services and other key Government agencies, to tackle human trafficking in the UK and protect its victims. However currently there is no independent monitoring system to ensure that work is effective and coordinated. We call on the Government to establish an independent watchdog, in line with the recommendations of the CoE Convention on trafficking in human beings, to which the UK is a party, to monitor the performance of key agencies ensuring that victims’ needs and experience are central. The watchdog should report to Parliament on a regular basis to ensure transparency and accountability.”

Like many other e-petitions, once it reaches 100,000 signatures, the Backbench Business Committee can consider it for a debate. I am on the Backbench Business Committee, too.

I am pleased to be able to say to the Minister that that e-petition is well on the way to succeeding. This morning, I checked how many signatures there were and I am pleased to say that there were 116. That highlights the problem of the issue. Human trafficking is evil, wicked and underground. It is modern-day slavery, but so few people know about it. A national rapporteur would unite all our anti-trafficking efforts under one roof and guide us through the main challenges, making recommendations on measures that might be required on a policy level to protect victims’ rights and prosecute the traffickers.

As stated by our gutsy Home Secretary in “Human Trafficking: the Government’s Strategy”:

“The UK has a good record in tackling human trafficking...We need to do more to stop this horrific crime…By applying to opt in to the EU Directive on human trafficking, we have demonstrated our commitment to working with other countries in Europe to drive up standards across the continent in tackling trafficking.”

Metal Theft

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

As a member of the all-party group on combating metal theft, which offices initiated this debate, I welcome and support the motion. We must address the widespread and growing problem of metal theft, and ensure that together we deliver a robust approach to fight this crime, which is blighting so many lives and communities. My constituent, the venerable Ian Bishop, Archdeacon of Macclesfield, asked me some time ago to highlight the issue in the House, and I am pleased that the Government are taking action to introduce a cashless payments system. They are perhaps doing so in no small part because of the number of questions that have been raised by those of us who attend questions to the Church Commissioners in this House—this is perhaps evidence of the worth of attending those questions.

Ian Bishop has asked me to reiterate the concerns that he has expressed. Every Church of England church in my constituency has been hit by metal theft in the past four years, and that has had a seriously debilitating effect on both the financial stability and morale of churches. He recounts one minister sobbing on his shoulder following a metal theft. The insurance available to churches is wholly insufficient to offset the consequences of this crime. He explained it as follows today. Ecclesiastical Insurance, the major insurer of churches, can provide only £5,000 of compensation for incidents of metal theft. In extreme cases, when the historic fabric of a church suffers water damage, the costs of repair easily exceed £100,000, which means that churches are, in effect, uninsurable and left at the mercy of those who perpetrate these crimes.

Ian Bishop has also highlighted to me the “ludicrous position” of the Church Buildings Council and English Heritage being too slow to allow churches to use alternative materials on grade I listed buildings. Such an approach encourages metal theft to become a cyclical crime, with the criminals winning again. I feel another Church Commissioners question coming on.

It is not only churches that suffer. In my constituency there has been a significant increase in the number of thefts of iron work from highways in the past 18 months—sometimes as many as 20 to 30 gullies a day. These are very expensive to replace, with installation costing £300 to £400 per gully, and the costs are paid by local council tax payers. Just last Saturday a constituent reported that on walking to my surgery he noticed the theft of metal posts that had been put in place to protect the public from falling into the canal at a risky point. That left a dangerous gap between the water and the popular walkway alongside the canal. It was reported to me today, on telephoning his home to check his account, that on his return from my surgery he noticed that the next set of posts had been stolen too.

The Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964 needs to be updated. I, too, applaud the Government for their initiative in amending the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill and I thank Home Office Ministers for introducing the move towards cashless transactions. However, we also need changes to police powers to close unscrupulous scrap metal dealers and to give police the authority to search all premises owned and operated by scrap metal dealers. The police should be given the power to inspect any articles or records kept on site and there should be an ability to close dealerships. We need a move to a robust and compulsory licensing scheme to replace the present inadequate and outdated registration scheme. The use of CCTV should help. A comprehensive package of measures is needed to address this grave and far from victimless crime.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Alcohol (Under-18s)

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

Thank you very much, Mrs Riordan, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time in a Westminster Hall debate. I suspect that it is not what I am about to say that is causing colleagues to leave Westminster Hall so quickly.

At the outset, I declare an interest, in that the father of the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), who is the Minister responding to the debate, is a constituent of mine. I hope that that fact might sway the Minister when he makes his remarks.

This debate has been prompted by continuing concerns in Newquay, which is in my constituency, about under-age drinking, including its health impacts, its role in causing antisocial behaviour and the part that parents can play in providing children with alcohol for consumption in an unsupervised setting.

The Chamber will be aware that, like many other seaside towns and many of our city centres, Newquay has had its share of problems associated with binge drinking. The Chamber may be interested to know that 5,000 unaccompanied 16 and 17-year-olds arrive in Newquay every year during a four-week period, mostly to celebrate the end of their GCSEs. Sadly, this annual pilgrimage—some might call it a rite of passage—has become associated with drink-related antisocial behaviour.

The tragic deaths of 16-year-old Paddy Higgins and 18-year-old Andrew Curwell in 2009 served as a wake-up call to the local community in Newquay that action needed to be taken to protect children and young people when they visit Newquay to prevent similar accidents occurring in the future. Newquay has risen to that challenge. The formation of the Newquay Safe Partnership has seen organisations and individuals including Devon and Cornwall police, Cornwall county council, residents, local businesses and organisations representing pubs and clubs, the off-licence trade and providers of accommodation working together to tackle alcohol misuse and irresponsible behaviour.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, as has been stated in a recent report by the think-tank Demos, parental involvement is vital? That report shows that, if income, education, ethnicity and gender are discounted, styles of parenting are very influential, and it also showed that a combination of discipline, affection and parental involvement ensure that 16-year-olds are less likely to engage in dangerous drinking.

[Stephen Gilbert]

The hon. Lady has pre-empted a point that I was going to make later, namely that in many cases parents underestimate their influence on their children. She is right to quote the Demos research.

Public services in Newquay have risen to the challenge of dealing with under-age drinking. We have seen the introduction of Challenge 25, with staff being given training to spot fake identity cards; there is a confidential phone number to report proxy buying, which is the buying of alcohol by adults for children; and a code of conduct has been introduced for bar crawls. The police have introduced a “follow you home” scheme, which sees the local Newquay force inform parents and local authorities in an individual’s home town about instances of antisocial behaviour that take place on holiday. There are also new minimum safety standards for local providers of accommodation, and there is concerted police action to seize alcohol in the streets and on public transport. Coast Safe, an alcohol awareness and seaside safety lesson package for teenagers, was launched yesterday. It was put together with the help of Newquay schoolchildren, and it is sponsored by St Austell Brewery. It aims to provide a resource for schools across the country to reduce loss of life and serious injury among young people by encouraging sensible drinking and responsible enjoyment in seaside towns.

The cost of crime in Newquay in 2008-09 was more than £9 million. The success of the Newquay Safe Partnership is that it has reduced that cost by more than £250,000. Nuisance behaviour is down by 22%; violence is down by 7%; and drug offences are down by 14%. I commend all the people who are involved in the Newquay Safe Partnership scheme.

Although most parents want to introduce their children to alcohol in a responsible and measured way, one contributory factor to the binge drinking and antisocial behaviour that we see in Newquay, and indeed in other seaside towns, and it is a factor that the police remain concerned about, is the way in which some parents send their children to Newquay with huge amounts of alcohol. I will give some examples of this parental behaviour supplied by Devon and Cornwall police, which put the issue into context and which may benefit the Chamber.

One Newquay guest house has reported that parents regularly turn up with their children and a car boot full of booze. When told by the management that that is unacceptable, parents seek to meet their children elsewhere in the town to pass the alcohol to them. In one case, 67 cans of Special Brew were seized from four children who were visiting Newquay for a weekend. Another guest house reported finding 350 items of alcohol in one room that had been let out to just six children who were visiting Newquay. A local caravan site seized more than 353 cans and bottles containing alcohol from 16-year-olds during a 10-day period, including 117 cans of Stella and 5 litres of vodka. On one day in July this year, police confiscated 443 cans and bottles containing alcohol from children arriving in Newquay on public transport. One 16-year-old girl arrived in the town for a four-day break with £300 in her wallet, and later that same day she was found incapacitated by alcohol and her parents were asked to come to Newquay to collect her. A youth mentoring scheme reports that 70% of young people have been given alcohol by their parents.

As I have said, the vast majority of parents want to introduce their children to alcohol in a responsible and supervised way, but it seems that some parents are not considering the impact of leaving their children unsupervised in an unfamiliar town with large amounts of alcohol. When police and other local authorities or local people, such as the managers of hotels or guest houses, try to reproach parents about their behaviour, they are often met with hostility. Police were told by the parents of one 16-year-old boy, who had 64 cans of Special Brew seized from him, that they were “spoiling his fun”.

In Newquay, as in other seaside towns, local public authorities effectively adopt young people when they are in the town.

Human Trafficking

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Field]

I confess that I do. It is important, and I hope that the Minister will specifically pick up that point, because in this shadowy world beyond what one might regard as the normal scrutiny of the political process, it is all the more important that the voiceless are given a distinct voice of the kind that the hon. Gentleman has described.

The national referral mechanism is a framework for identifying victims of human trafficking and ensuring that they receive appropriate care. It essentially means that if the police, social services or NGOs believe that they have encountered a trafficking victim, a referral is made for a decision on whether they qualify for a place in a Ministry of Justice safe house for 45 days. The 45-day period is designed to allow the referred person to recover and reflect on whether they wish to co-operate with police inquiries, return to their country of origin or take other action to get their life back on track.

The situation with child trafficking victims is slightly different in having its focal point with the trafficking unit of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. Its work is assisted in the London area by Paladin, a dedicated team of Metropolitan police officers and UKBA staff based at Heathrow, who are tasked with stopping child trafficking through the entry points into London. Profiled compellingly by Bridget Freer in April in The Sunday Times magazine, Paladin is an absolutely tiny team with an enormous remit.

There are many deep concerns about the effectiveness of the approach being taken. UKHTC has been absorbed into the Serious Organised Crime Agency, a move criticised on the basis that the sheer size of SOCA dilutes the sense of purpose in dealing with human trafficking. With SOCA due to be replaced by a national crime agency, where do we anticipate UKHTC being placed?

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate, and I, too, must apologise that I have to leave before its end. Does he agree that the reorganisation has exacerbated the problem of the re-trafficking of victims, which needs to be urgently addressed? So many victims, who are initially secured in a safe house, are returned and re-trafficked by the very people from whom they were saved.

[Mr Field]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. One difficulty, even with the 45-day cooling-off period, is that a probably tragically high proportion of those who go through that process become known to the authorities later for other human trafficking matters.

The NRM has been rightly condemned for the quality of the decisions, the poor impression given to victims, the lack of an appeals process and the failure to gather comprehensive data on the scale of the problem. There is concern, too, that insufficient resources are directed at policing teams. In April 2009, for example, the Home Office decided to discontinue funding for the Met’s human trafficking unit—the only specialist police human trafficking unit in the country. The Met has since allocated a portion of its own budget to continue its trafficking work and to set up specialist crime directorate 9, which is the human exploitation and organised crime unit. I recently met Detective Superintendent Mick Duthie to discuss his work. There are now 38 people in his team, but their remit takes in not only trafficking, but a range of other street problems, vice, kerb crawling, casino fraud, money laundering and obscene publications, which, as one might imagine, are massive problems in their own right in the mere 6 square miles of my constituency. One wonders whether the other problems are crowding out trafficking.

We all appreciate that these are times of great financial austerity, and there is no realistic expectation of huge additional funding any time soon. The SCD team tries to be creative by setting up joint investigation teams and applying for EU funding streams, for example, but there are huge budgetary pressures, not least as trafficking investigations tend to be complex and lengthy, with overseas elements adding substantially to the costs.

Detective Superintendent Duthie is convinced that more must be done to educate police officers, local authorities and health workers to spot the signs of trafficking. Sometimes, the different teams that come into contact with victims do not get the right information from them or pick up the trafficking indicators.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Bruce]

My hon. Friend has referred to local authorities, and one local authority department that has an eagle eye on what is going on in property is the planning or development control department. Perhaps we have missed a trick in not involving them in the partnership working of locating properties in which such activity is happening.

[Mr Field]

My hon. Friend is right. She has a background as a lawyer, and I am sure that she dealt with such problems on a day-to-day basis in her former career. As I see in my constituency, the reality is that agencies are generally only alerted to these issues when there is a tip-off from local residents—for example, we have all been contacted by people who live next door or very near to a brothel. I suspect that a significant number of safe houses—safe from the perspective of traffickers—operate for months or years without being detected.

[Fiona Bruce]

Those properties are often residential properties in which a business is being run, and if that happened with many other types of business, the local authority would take immediate action due to the contravention of planning legislation. More initiative and activity from planning officers in that respect would greatly assist us.

[Mr Field]

My hon. Friend’s point is well made, although, without wishing to defend the planning officer fraternity too much, I suspect that the phenomenal financial constraints that most local authorities find themselves under mean that they are not necessarily prioritising this area, but it is important that we put those concerns on the record.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2011 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

1. What steps she plans to take to amend the licensing regime affecting the sale of alcohol.

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

2. What steps she plans to take to amend the licensing regime affecting the sale of alcohol.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

The Government are taking forward proposals in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill to reform the alcohol licensing regime. These include charging a fee for late-night licences, making it easier for communities to have their say on local licensing matters, doubling the fine to £20,000 for those found persistently selling alcohol to children and overhauling the temporary event notices so that existing loopholes can no longer be exploited.

[Fiona Bruce]

The Cheshire ArcAngel team does excellent work to combat under-age drinking and sales to under-age drinkers, including working with responsible retailers. Licensing officers inform me, however, that current procedures make enforcement action unwieldy and protracted, even when a sale to an under-age individual has clearly occurred. Will the Minister look into enforcement difficulties, such as problems identifying which salesperson to prosecute, the tactic of a swift change of a named licence holder making closure notices hard to apply and the omission of a power to require mandatory staff retraining?

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question and join her in commending the work of ArcAngel in Cheshire. The work that it does is similar to that of other groups throughout the country. Certainly it is important for us not only to change the legislation to ensure that the things I set out in my original answer occur, but to ensure that enforcement takes place properly. I am sure we will be happy to look at the particular issues that she raises in relation to the difficulty of enforcement.

Human Trafficking

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) on securing this timely and important debate on the trafficking of human beings, and forced prostitution. I can see that it is an issue that she cares about deeply, and I share that with her. We need to recognise the fact that human trafficking, and, by extension, the exploitation of vulnerable women and children through prostitution, happens in the UK, and is something we should continue to fight. I am pleased that the coalition Government have agreed to tackle human trafficking as a priority.

I also want to highlight the fact that the issue could affect any of our constituencies. Early last year, as part of the nationwide Operation Pentameter, which my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) referred to, and which was aimed at tackling human trafficking and raising awareness of modern-day slavery, the Cheshire police—who oversee my constituency among others—arrested a woman in a constituency near mine who had trafficked human beings for sexual exploitation. That woman had managed brothels and trafficked women, and was also in possession of drugs. She was given a custodial sentence, and rightly so.

We also know that what is happening is bigger than just a couple of cases. According to research published in August for the Association of Chief Police Officers, there are at least 2,600 women in prostitution who have been trafficked into the UK, and at least 9,200 who are considered to be vulnerable, whose situation is more complicated and who might be considered to have been trafficked within the UK, or who are controlled in some other way, such as through drug dependency. Those are large and distressing numbers and they do not include victims of trafficking and forced labour.

As I have said, I am pleased that the coalition is committed to tackling human trafficking as a priority. However, without wanting to go into the reasons for the Government’s decision to opt out of the EU directive on human trafficking, I want to ask the Minister to consider a concern that was put to me in a letter, which I am sure many colleagues have received, from a social policy charity that works with non-governmental organisations on the ground to help women exit prostitution. Its concern is that victims of trafficking who have undergone some of the most severe human degradation, often having been raped or forced to take drugs, may still face the trauma of prosecution. That needs to be reviewed.

The “Human Trafficking and Smuggling” legal guidance advises prosecutors who review cases in which a trafficked victim may have committed a criminal offence while in a situation of coercion that, where there is clear evidence that the suspect has a credible defence of duress, the case should be discontinued on evidential grounds. However, there is information to suggest that that approach is not being practised as robustly as it perhaps could be. For example, a prosecutor can take such steps to discontinue a case only if they have information from the police or other sources that the suspect might be a victim of trafficking; and that is relevant only where the criminality is a direct consequence of the trafficking situation.

In another case that has been brought to my attention an unopposed appeal against conviction was brought before the court, and was granted by Mr. Justice Cox on 26 June 2008. That is admittedly some time ago, but the case was brought to me by the POPPY project, which has already been referred to with applause during the debate. On 17 March 2008 the appellant had pleaded guilty at Canterbury Crown court to an offence of using a false identity card with the intention of using it as her own and was sentenced to eight months imprisonment, less 16 days spent on remand. Research by the POPPY project subsequently showed that the woman was the victim of trafficking into England for prostitution. I believe that the case may be one among many, but one is enough to require me, and the Minister, to look into the matter, and find out whether our current processes are sufficiently robust to protect such victims—for indeed they are victims, not offenders, and should be treated as such.