Community Payback

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

It was a pandemic!

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (James Cartlidge)]

It was a pandemic!

[Ellie Reeves]

The huge fall started years before the pandemic in 2017, and it has continued since. No one had heard of covid in 2017, so it is disingenuous to suggest that it is all because of covid.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con)]

11. What steps her Department is taking to dismantle the operations of county lines drugs gangs.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

12. What steps her Department is taking to dismantle the operations of county lines drugs gangs.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

18. What steps her Department is taking to dismantle the operations of county lines drugs gangs.

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[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The use of drugs is simply unacceptable and the fact of the matter is that those who misuse and take drugs should also be aware of the consequences of their actions: children around the country are being trafficked and abused and used by drugs gangs to fuel people’s drug addictions. A great deal of work is taking place across Government on this, including by Dame Carol Black, who did a review of drugs and has provided further evidence on what other measures the Government can bring in, in addition to law enforcement measures.

[James Cartlidge]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s robust approach to this, but I echo the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts). The concern is that with schools closed, children will have more time on their hands and that is a vulnerability. Will she assure us that what we do to encourage online activities and so on for them can be looked at across Departments, so that we reduce the likelihood of this happening?

Public Services

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

If Members persevere, I will come to them shortly. I also know that many Members want to speak in the debate.

This Government are backing our police and it is important, now more than ever, to support our police and our intelligence and security services to keep us and our country safe. If I may, Mr Speaker, I will give a few examples that I think the House would like to hear. With the changing profile of crime, policing in the UK has had to adapt to confront new types of criminality, ranging from county lines to organised crime, violence on our streets and the horrendous harms, often against children and the vulnerable, that are often conducted online through the dark web.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I very much welcome the extra police we will see in Suffolk and the extra powers for the criminal justice system to act as a deterrent. Does my right hon. Friend share my concern about the young age at which people are getting caught up in county lines? What can we do to work across Departments, particularly with education, to keep children away from this trafficking?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that ongoing issue. Young people need to be protected. Through the public service duty announced in the Queen’s Speech, much more can be done by agencies and Departments working together to provide support and preventive measures. Quite frankly, far too many young people are being exploited. The Government are recruiting 20,000 new police officers and investing in not only their training and equipment, but their protection, so that they are empowered to tackle such crimes. [Interruption.]

While Opposition Members chunter from a sedentary position, it is worth reminding them that the Labour party would recruit 10,000 fewer police officers and, importantly, fail to back our brave police officers. Police forces and officers have told us that they need backing to search people for bladed weapons to tackle the appalling knife crime we are seeing. That is why we have lifted restrictions on emergency stop-and-search powers for all forces in England and Wales—something described by the shadow Home Secretary as “unhelpful”.

When our frontline officers told us they needed to be better able to defend themselves against reckless armed violent criminals and thugs, we listened. That is why we have announced a new £10 million fund to give police chiefs the ability to equip officers with Taser. Again, we have not heard from shadow Ministers, who have refused to back this measure. I urge them to back this investment in our frontline officers, who protect our people, our communities and our country.

Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Friday 15th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

As I will come on to say shortly, there have been some ups and downs with getting this Bill through. Back in October, on the civil partnerships clauses, the Prime Minister herself, in an article in the London Evening Standard, made it clear that Government policy was now firmly in favour of extending civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples. That was a clear undertaking, which was almost unanimously supported by Members of this House and very largely supported by Members of the other House. We have factored in the legislation in such a way that it can be brought in this year, which is really important and means it will also comply with the Supreme Court judgment. If there are people who have not entered into a civil partnership—presuming there are those who want it, and I know there are—before the end of this year, I shall be more than a little peeved, but I shall also be greatly surprised. That is not a problem I anticipate.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I think this is an excellent Bill in principle, but I want to clarify one specific point. Subsection (2) of the new clause says:

“The Secretary of State must exercise that power so that such regulations are in force no later than 31 December 2019.”

Presumably, that does not stop them coming in earlier. Has my hon. Friend any expectation that they will do so?

[Tim Loughton]

That is a very good point. I appreciate my hon. Friend’s support in saying that the Bill is very good in principle, but I also think it is very good in practice. If he remembers, the amendment that I added on Report said that the Government needed to implement this legislation within six months of Royal Assent. That was actually quite a tall order and, for all sorts of reasons, the Government were not as prepared as they might have been for this change in the law, which the Prime Minister finally gave her complete assent to in October. I was therefore content to let the six months slip, but the principle that it needs to happen by the end of the year is very important. As I will mention in a minute, a number of consultation exercises still need to take place to make sure that we get this absolutely right. Let us remember that this legislation does not give rise to the specific changes in the law; it enables the Secretary of State to bring in the changes that will enable opposite-sex couples to enter into a civil partnership. An awful lot of detail still needs to go with that, although I am glad to say that a lot of work has now been done by civil servants.

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[Tim Loughton]

There are some financial consequences—mostly about private pensions—just as there were when civil partnerships were introduced for same-sex couples. That was accounted for in the Government’s previous consultations—my right hon. Friend may remember that there was a consultation on extending civil partnerships before the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, and again afterwards as a result of an amendment I tabled. The Government are aware of the financial consequences, which are not huge and are relatively insignificant, and they have consulted on them. He need not worry that this Bill will be costly—indeed, I assure him that parts of it will save money.

Subsection (7) allows the Secretary of State to make regulations that protect the ability to act in accordance with religious belief. That could include, for example, ensuring that religious organisations are able to decide whether to host opposite-sex civil partnerships on religious premises, which should remain a decision for an individual religious organisation—I am not proposing any changes there. Subsection (8) enables the regulations made under the new clause to amend, repeal or revoke primary legislation, and amendments to clause 5 will ensure that those regulations are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure—I know that right hon. and hon. Members will be concerned about that. That will ensure that the regulations receive proper parliamentary scrutiny and are debated in this House and the other place.

Amendments 3, 4 and 5 make the necessary changes to the supplementary provisions for making regulations in clause 5, and amendment 6 changes the long title of the Bill to reflect the fact that clause 2 no longer relates to the publication of a report on civil partnerships, and instead relates to the extension of civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples—that is how it was when the Bill first started out, before the Government wanted me to change it. We are back where we were originally, but there has been a lot of good fun in the process.

Other clauses in the Bill that attracted widespread support across the House and beyond are completely intact, helped by various assurances given in the Lords by Baroness Hodgson and Baroness Williams, particularly about the consultation on moves to extend the power of coroners to investigate stillbirths. Other parts of the Bill add mothers’ names to marriage certificates—that has not been available in England since 1834—enable coroners to investigate stillbirths where appropriate, and oblige the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to review how we might register stillbirths before 24 weeks, which are technically referred to as late-term miscarriages. A working party has already started work on that. It has slightly ground to a halt since last autumn, but it will be obliged to report under provisions in the Bill. A lot of work still needs to be done on that difficult subject, about which hon. Members heard many emotional testimonies during the passage of the Bill.

Perhaps I may crave the House’s indulgence before I conclude my remarks, because this will hopefully be the final hurdle for a Bill that started in this House on 19 July 2017, but had its genesis in amendments that I proposed to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill in 2013. This Bill has kept me awake for much of the past 20 months or so, and I wish to say some thank yous.

Even if I say so myself, this Bill is quite a remarkable achievement—[Interruption.] I am going to say so myself, and I really do not care: it is a remarkable achievement, and will be law in a few weeks’ time. As I said at the outset of my remarks, this is the most greedy and ambitious private Member’s Bill that I have seen in my 22 years in this House. It proposes not one but no fewer than four main changes to the law. It involves legislation involving not just one Department but four, and the engagement of not one but four Secretaries of State, three of whom unhelpfully got reshuffled when the Bill was approaching Second Reading, which meant that I had to start my difficult negotiations all over again in January 2018.

This is not a handout Bill, and it would not be happening had not various people supported putting all these clauses together. As I said, I made it so complicated because in my 22 years in this House of applying for the private Member’s ballot each year—other than when I was a Minister—and failing to be picked, this was the first time my name came up, and no doubt it will be the last. I went for broke, and I think we have come up trumps.

We started in the Commons on 2 February 2018, not knowing whether the Bill would receive its Second Reading, and we had to make a number of last-minute compromises. We had a lot of help from Baroness Hodgson and Baroness Williams, and other organisations that have fought tirelessly for this Bill, such as the Equal Civil Partnerships campaign—its members are looking down from the Gallery very sedately and excitedly, ahead of the celebration that we will have later on—as well as other organisations, such as the Campaign for Safer Births, and I particularly pay tribute to Nicky Lyon, Michelle Hemmington and Georgie Vestey. A few other institutions were not quite as supportive, but we got the Bill through anyway and I will not name them.

[James Cartlidge]

I was pleased to speak on Second Reading, but I think one question was not covered—forgive me if it was. It will be interesting to see what happens to civil partnerships before we break up the fundamental partnership that we are currently debating, but what is the impact on nationality rights for those in civil partnerships compared with those in a traditional marriage? Is it the same, because that issue will be important in the coming months for those in a civil partnership with an EU citizen?

[Tim Loughton]

As I think I said rather unfairly to one of our colleagues who made a not-dissimilar slightly technical point on Report, nobody likes a smart-arse. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend and I are very good friends, Mr Speaker, and I am grateful to him because he raises a good point. I have had a number of emails from people who live abroad or who have had ceremonies in other jurisdictions, and part of the consultation and final details that need to be added to the Bill are on such matters. The principle is to replicate absolutely the rights and opportunities that are available for same-sex couples. If the Bill does not try to achieve complete equality, or as close to it as is physically possible, it will not have achieved what it tries to achieve. This is all about equalities and equal opportunities.

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[James Cartlidge]

It is a great pleasure to stand up as an anointed smartarse and talk on this important subject.

Before I do so, I want to echo all the words that have been spoken today about what has happened in New Zealand. It is a terrible, terrible tragedy. If I may say, Mr Speaker, as the Foreign Secretary’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, it is possible—I hope this is not the case and I have no information—that, given the links between our two countries, family members will be worried about loved ones who may be abroad. As always, the consular service is there and available. I am sure all colleagues know that there is a private number they can use if constituents who are concerned about family members in New Zealand contact us. Let us hope that that is not the case.

It is a great pleasure to speak in support of the Bill and I very much agree with the principle behind it. When I spoke on Second Reading, I said that if there was one question that it raised in principle—this goes to the core of the amendment we are discussing—it was whether, in effect, this was a commitment-light choice; we were saying to people that they could have a civil partnership if they did not want to make the full commitment of, shall we say, a conventional marriage. I reflected on that and came to the conclusion that, on the contrary, civil partnerships were a way for people who, for many reasons, would not have wanted to go down the traditional route, to show commitment to a far greater degree.

One very real case reinforces that and underlines the point of the Bill, which I think will have huge use and ramifications for our society. It is the case of a councillor in Babergh District Council in my constituency. It is her personal testimony and it just so happens that she is also my parliamentary researcher. She is Councillor Harriet Steer and she has given me this testimony to share with my hon. Friend. She will be getting married in May. She says:

“We would have chosen a civil partnership if the option was available to us. The main reason being that traditional marriage carries a lot of archaic rhetoric that does not sit comfortably with us as a couple, or with me as a woman and Gustaf as a Swedish man brought up to believe fully in equality. This in no way diminishes our desire to commit ourselves to the relationship and each other.”

This is key. She goes on to say:

“We want to cement our commitment for a number of reasons, including that if we were to have children, they would be part of a committed family structure. I have grown up with the security of knowing that my parents are committed to one another and our family, and that provides a level of security that I would wish to afford to our children in the future. It is also a celebration of the fact that we have spent nearly a decade with each other, and provides legal benefits to the relationship. For example, if I were in an accident I would want Gustaf to decide what happens rather than my parents, as he will have a much clearer idea of my wishes.”

She concludes:

“A civil partnership would provide us with the elements of a traditional marriage that we are seeking without the heavily sexist sentiments and history. It would not diminish our commitment to the institution that we are joining but result in a better fit.”

[Neil O’Brien]

Does my hon. Friend agree with his researcher that marriage has sexist connotations?

[James Cartlidge]

I am reading out her personal and passionately held views. I certainly would not make any judgment on them. The interesting thing is that when my researcher passed me this note, she said that she was discussing the Bill last night with friends. She is in her mid-20s. They all said that they would prefer this route than marriage. I think that that is profoundly interesting.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

I have heard equally powerful testimonies from those who are the product of broken marriages and who come to the idea of marriage with a lot of baggage. Is that something my hon. Friend recognises?

[James Cartlidge]

That is an excellent point. Frankly, whatever form the legal joining takes, we cannot legislate for humanity’s various ways of working positively and negatively and interacting with one another. There will be breakdowns in civil partnerships just as in traditional marriages. I hope that having this structure means that more people bring more stability for their children and to their lives in a way that they find amenable. I think that this is a historic moment and that this option will become very common. I do not know what assessment or predictions have been made of the likely take-up—who can possibly say?—but I think that this change will have a very significant impact.

[Julian Knight]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech and it is really interesting to hear the thoughts of his parliamentary assistant, who feels similar to me. Does he agree that people of faith—I am a person of faith—also have to have strength in their faith to understand others who do not have that faith and perhaps to allow them complete equality under the law?

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[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. In reading this real-life testimony and talking about the potential impact of the new structure, I can imagine that there would be those who say, “Well, hold on a minute. What about religious marriage? What about commitments through historical, established ways?” but the point is that the Bill is no threat. It just provides a different way for people who do not have those views. As my hon. Friend rightly says, a part of faith—particularly of the Christian faith and, I imagine, all other faiths—is that we tolerate people who take a different view. Indeed, the vile act overnight goes against all religions, precisely because it goes against the principle of religious tolerance.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend that all true followers of a faith would absolutely abhor what happened last night. No religion calls for blood, slaughter and murder in that way.

Turning to the Bill, a comment was just made about the idea of marriage versus civil partnership, but many people who have a religious faith have a very different view of marriage from those who do not have faith and get married. It is not just the idea that people in a marriage have one set of views compared with those in civil partnerships. Those entering into marriage will have varied views. I view it as an act of union before God, whereas those getting married at a local register office may take a very different view. It is about what it means to the couple and the individuals concerned.

[James Cartlidge]

That needs no further comment—it was brilliantly put, as always, by my hon. Friend. I look forward to hearing from him today, as we so often do on private Members’ Bills.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) referred to the principles that lie at the heart of the Bill and this particular part of it in terms of equality, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), but there is something else as well. My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) read out the note from his constituent—I think he said she was a councillor—and she used the words, “We would have chosen”. Is not the principle choice and freedom? Today more than ever we should absolutely make sure that we reinforce that principle at the heart of the Bill.

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent contribution and he is absolutely right. It is interesting that the Bill brings not only choice, but responsibility. We are not talking about some sort of libertarian agenda. The Bill provides a chance to have a choice and also to bring greater stability to people’s lives and for the children that they may have, so that is a very good point.

I want to make one more point about my researcher, Councillor Steer, whose testimony on this important matter I read out. It is fair to say that she is not a Brexiteer and that she sees certain advantages in marrying a Swede—although, of course, that is not the reason. I raised that point in intervening on my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, the promoter of this very good Bill, because it is important and will bring focus in future to what happens on someone’s nationality if they have a civil partnership as opposed to a marriage, and so on. However, there are finer legal minds in the Chamber today to comment on these matters, and I will leave that to them.

On timing, it is interesting that my researcher would have chosen the option under the Bill. The sooner that it can be available, the better, because there really are people on whose lives the Bill would impact and who would choose to go down this route. It is satisfying to know that the very latest that the provisions may be used is new year’s eve. I imagine that if that is when there is the first civil partnership under the Bill, there will be quite a party.

Finally, I note that amendment 1 refers to the “financial consequences” of civil partnership. In my experience, there is a lot of complexity around inheritance tax regulations, pensions and so on, and I hope that others may be able to clarify the implications of some of those points. I am very happy to support the Bill. Not only is it a very good Bill in the areas that it covers, such as marriage certificates and others, but I think it will be historic and in future standard practice by which people cement commitment and show their love for each other in a way that is no more or less worthy than any other.

[Victoria Prentis]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), who spoke very passionately. I echo what he said at the beginning of his speech: it is relevant, when, on Fridays, we consider important, life-changing events, that we think about people around the world recovering in the aftermath of a horrific attack in New Zealand. I think today about my constituents going to Friday prayers at our two mosques in Banbury. That will be a difficult and worrying experience for people all around the world and it is right that we should think of them.

This is the third time that I have risen to support the Bill. We could view it as hatched and matched, and now is the time to dispatch it to the wider world. I am very glad to see that the Lords considered it in such detail and to be here today for its return to the Commons. I appreciate the Bill’s far-reaching scope, but it has come a long way since it was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton)—my good friend. It is customary on Fridays for us all, at this point in the dispatching process, to praise to the skies the hon. Member who has brought the Bill to its dispatching moment, but as he did that so well himself, I do not know that I need to add much, apart from to congratulate him on ultimately getting dressed this morning and to thank him for the persistence and good humour with which he has involved very many people in both Houses in the production of the Bill.

Looking around the Chamber, I see my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), who I remember had a very emotional debate in Westminster Hall when we first arrived in this place about mothers’ names on marriage certificates. I think that he, like me, would like to pay tribute to our other right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman), who has worked particularly hard on that issue, which really is irritatingly long overdue.

In all seriousness, I pay great tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, who has worked hard, even if he knows it himself. I wish all parts of the Bill well. It has had cross-party support and I hope that we can come to an agreement today so that it can get through its remaining stages and receive Royal Assent before the end of the parliamentary Session. I also hope that Members in the Chamber continue to push. We may have achieved consultations and we may have got the Government to agree to look at things, but we want to deliver on all the Bill’s promises, so that dispatching means fruition rather than the sadder meanings of the word.

The focus of amendments from the Lords centre around extending civil partnerships to other couples. We have moved from a position where the Government were going to undertake unspecified work on how that could be done to putting an obligation on the Minister for Women and Equalities to prepare a report on the subject. We find ourselves today with a real commitment to bring in the necessary regulations before the end of the year. This is a great example of how Back-Bench MPs can work with Government to bring about change, and it is possibly also an example of why we think that a deal is better than no deal.

I also welcome the reassurance in subsection 7 that the decision to host an opposite-sex civil partnership on religious premises will remain a decision for individual religious organisations. I know that the Bishop of Oxford made an extremely thoughtful contribution when the matter was discussed in the other place last week.

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[Julian Knight]

Thank you for calling me so early in the debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. Let me add my comments to those of other Members about the tragedy—the abomination—that has been unfolding in New Zealand overnight. As one who represents a very diverse community in Solihull, I have seen at first hand just how disgusting religious intolerance is: not so long ago, a pig’s head was left at a mosque. I shall be writing to and communicating directly with leaders of the Muslim community in Solihull. We really must stamp out this religious intolerance.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who has been very modest during the debate. He is noted for that. [Laughter.] I pay tribute to him for the way in which he has persevered relentlessly with the Bill, in the face of some opposition at times, for the way in which he has worked across parties, and for the way in which he has put his case. All that has been an example of true, fine parliamentary activity.

I am sure that I speak for the great majority of Members when I say how pleased I am to see this important Bill making such fine progress. As my hon. Friend said, it is an ambitious Bill. It tackles several social wrongs at once, and does so with great precision and attention to detail. Many of its provisions, especially those updating the law on marriage, are long overdue, and will do much to bring that ancient institution into line with the evolving values and mores of British society today.

The absence of mothers from marriage certificates is an absurd anachronism which, my hon. Friend tells me, has persisted for 182 years; I had thought it was 150. That is utterly ridiculous. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) in paying tribute to my good friend, my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman), who is another fine parliamentarian and a superb neighbour, for the work that she has done.

As I have mentioned before, I have personal experience in this regard. The stark reality is that 90% of single parents are women, and I myself was raised by my mother from the age of 10. She worked two jobs and raised me single-handedly, which probably equates to a third job. She worked herself to a standstill, and between the ages of 14 and 18 I had to become a young carer because of all that hard work. She had worked for British Telecom, and in a bar at night; she would start at 8 am and finish at 11 pm. I was lucky enough to keep a good relationship with my father over the years, but my mother raised me, and I was appalled to find, when I got married in 2014, that as far as the official documents were concerned, she might as well not have existed. But she mattered, of course, and that was entirely unjust. I am delighted and relieved that this glaring oversight will be corrected in the very near future.

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful and personal point, and we all admire him for his bravery in doing so. Does he not agree that one of the great powers and privileges we have in Parliament is the ability to correct historic injustices that we have experienced directly, so that others may not suffer the same fate?

[Julian Knight]

I thank my hon. Friend. He is a very compassionate and good friend of mine, and he is absolutely correct. I just wish we could have done this sooner, but we are here now, getting it done, and that is thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham.

I am pleased that the Government are taking the opportunity provided by the Bill to review the way in which we record marriages in this country. The fact that the alternative means of achieving some of these important reforms via secondary legislation, which would involve reissuing tens of thousands of paper records, was found to be so extraordinarily inefficient, time-consuming and expensive has shone a spotlight on how analogue the marriage registration system still is. I know that some of this officialdom has become part and parcel of the wedding ritual, and I hope that the process of signing the register and receiving a certificate can remain for those who want it, but there is no doubt that moving towards a secure, streamlined and centrally accessible marriage register is a logical step forward.

The second important change ushered in by the Bill is the opening of civil partnerships to heterosexual couples. As I said earlier, I am married and I am pro-marriage. It is an ancient and precious institution, which offers happiness and security to millions of people in this country. As a Conservative, however, I recognise that institutions only survive to become ancient and precious if they are able to adapt to social change. As I also said earlier, people of faith must have strength in that faith, and must understand and adapt. There is no doubt that public attitudes towards marriage, in both its legal and its religious dimensions, have evolved since the law was last updated.

I am a person of faith, although sometimes it is quite a fragile faith, but an increasing number of my fellow citizens are not, and I quite understand why many of them would be uncomfortable at the prospect of marriage. Even a civil ceremony carries the weight of a long and deeply religious history. I recognise, too, that after decades of rising divorce rates, there are doubtless many people who have experienced marriage, either personally or close at hand, and decided that it is not for them. The fact that I myself did not marry until I was nearly 40 may be an indication of the long-term effect that a marriage breakdown can have. None of that should for one moment be taken to imply that those people’s love for, and commitment to, their partners is any less than the love and commitment felt by those who do decide to get married, but the law as it stands assigns an inferior legal status to their relationships.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) mentioned financial implications. It is important to align inheritance tax and pension rights so that heterosexual civil partners have the same rights as those of the same sex. That should not be left to the discretion of trustees in private pension schemes. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham raised the question whether pensions could be passed to siblings. It would be a matter for the trustees, but I know of very few who do that at present.

I had hoped for a change in the way in which heterosexual couples in civil partnerships are treated in more sensitive circumstances, such as those involving hospitals. On Second Reading, I spoke of my personal experience when I lost my partner in a road traffic accident in 1999. I will not go over that particular story again, but I will say that I had to almost beg my way into a ward where the woman I loved was dying. That was not right, and I really hope that no one else will have a similar experience.

As for the law governing stillbirths, I am glad that the Bill deals so sensitively with what must be an unimaginably painful topic for so many. It is never right when arbitrary officialdom intrudes to compound the grief of a bereaved family, let alone when it stands in the way of a proper investigation of a child’s death. It is quite right that the law will be changed so that coroners are able to investigate stillbirths; that is an important extension to unborn children and their parents of rights due to every living person.

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[Kevin Foster]

I agree, and as always my hon. Friend brings his expertise in that industry to the Chamber. Yes, this does create tenancy rights, and again I do not see any reason why extending this to mixed-sex civil partnerships would have any different impact on the landlord-tenant relationship from that which same-sex couples and civil partnerships have had.

This Lords amendment is very welcome, and I want to reflect briefly on one of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton): that this does not force a religious organisation to offer civil partnerships. If a Church decides it wishes only to offer marriage in a sacramental sense, it still has that choice. This is not about taking away anyone’s right or ability or forcing someone to offer something they do not wish to offer; it is about extending choice to those who currently do not have it.

I appreciate that not everyone wants to get married in church; that is not the right option for everyone—although for me it was. Not everyone necessarily wants to have the institution of marriage, given what some people foresee as its historical position. I personally profoundly disagree; I believe it is about a unique partnership that puts two people together for life, and that is very special.

My mother passed away in 2014, but my father would still see himself as married to my mother today, five years after her death. My grandparents were together for 57 years prior to my grandmother’s death. For them it was something that was unique and very special, and it signified what they meant to each other. I accept that for my family that was achieved through religious marriage in church, whereas for others it would be through the choice of a civil partnership which they feel better reflects their lifestyle or the choices they wish to make. I do not see why now in the 21st century the law should not allow them that opportunity. No one is not going to be able to get married because this has passed; it just gives people a choice.

[James Cartlidge]

We are used to this tradition of Friday speeches. The whole point is that we are giving a new right, not taking any away from people.

[Kevin Foster]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I could not have put it better myself. This is about new rights, new choices and new abilities for people, to reflect the different lifestyles and relationships of today.

The Bill will also help to deal with the idea of the common law spouse. Too many people think that they have some sort of status as a common law husband or wife, right up until the point when tragic circumstances occur and they suddenly discover that they have virtually no status at all. In fact, they have the same status as a mate they know down the pub. That is when things start to go wrong, but the Bill should help to reduce the number of such occurrences.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O’Brien]

My hon. Friend is right to add that.

As I said, this Bill does two wonderful things with which I completely agree, but I will now talk about my dog in the manger. There is no point in having a Parliament if we cannot have disagreements in it, and this is the whole point of the exercise. I start my remarks on this by putting on the record my support for equal marriage for gay people. I always have done, including when that hugely important reform was made. Despite the fact that this country has made a huge amount of progress, there is still a large amount of discrimination against gay people, and it is easy not to notice it if one is heterosexual. For example, I read not that long ago about a man who was kicked to death by a gang of wicked people in Trafalgar Square—the centre of our capital city—just for being gay.

I was a strong supporter of equal marriage for gay people because it marked another step towards just treating gay people like everybody else. I support the goal of equivalence for heterosexual and homosexual couples, but I would rather achieve it in a different way. I thought that civil partnerships were a useful stepping stone towards equal marriage for gay people, but now we have got there, I would prefer simply to have equal marriage for heterosexual and homosexual couples.

When this Bill was previously debated in Parliament, two different arguments were made for having two different types of marriage, and I use “different types” advisedly. The first argument was that a lesser type of marriage was being created—a sort of “try before you buy”—but that argument was strongly objected to by other supporters of the Bill, including the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who said that the two types of marriage were equal. There was no consensus on that argument, and it has not been one of the main arguments made today.

The second argument is that marriage is in some way a religious, paternalistic or sexist institution. Some Members have alluded to that with references to people getting in touch with them to say that that is how they feel about marriage, which is why they would like a civil partnership instead. It is important to note that the Lords made a clear, adamantine distinction between religious and civil marriage and that this House cannot regulate religious marriage. As my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) pointed out, the two are completely different. We cannot put a window into men’s souls, and it was important during the passage of the legislation for equal marriage that we made the huge distinction between civil and religious marriage, which continues in this Bill. There is no question of religious ministers being forced to do anything, but they are welcome to choose to do so if they want. That is the right balance.

Several Members have described how people have suggested to them that marriage is a religious or sexist institution, but if there is anything sexist about it, we should change that and ensure that it is not. It would surprise my wife if I told her that she had agreed to take part in a patriarchal or religious institution. We are both atheists, and we were not allowed Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” as a wedding song because it is religious, so we missed out on that opportunity because of the important distinction. One of the reasons why I do not agree with this measure is that I do not want to endorse that argument. If people feel like that, they are wrong. We must do everything we need to do, because they are wrong. Let us change it if there is a problem, but the onus is on those who want the change to make the case for it.

I believe that a single institution would be better for equality. It would be a simpler story. Gay people can get married and straight people can get married. We can all get married—simple. There will not be different types of things for different types of people. I am nervous, as the House can tell, about some of the arguments made for extending civil partnerships, not least this “try before you buy” argument about it being a softer thing. I find that particularly concerning.

I have put my concerns about this measure on the record, and my eloquent hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) is right that this will be a popular measure and that a lot of people will take it up. I think it will be widely used, and he is right about that, but I am concerned.

[James Cartlidge]

Forgive me if I am wrong, and I imagine that it would be hard to measure, but many of the people who go down this route would not have got married. This is an additional choice, rather than something that removes a choice. We should open our eyes to the fact that people see this is as something different that suits them, and we should embrace it as a positive new development.

[Neil O’Brien]

That is probably the strongest argument for it, but my hon. Friend has already said that his constituent was going to get married in the absence of this measure. I am nervous about the argument, “I would prefer something else because I feel that marriage is sexist.”

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for his thorough explanation of clause 2 as it now stands in the Bill. I also pay tribute to him and his co-promoter, Baroness Hodgson, who guided the Bill so expertly through the other place, for their commitment to the vital issues that the Bill seeks to address, including the extension of civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples.

The Government are very supportive of clause 2 and the policy intentions behind it. I would like to answer the concern voiced earlier about the difference between “may” and “must”. Clause 1 confers a power to make regulation, but clause 2(2) imposes an obligation to exercise that power by 31 December 2019. I hope that sets at rest those concerns arising from this long and often held debate about “may” and “must”.

I thank my hon. Friend and Baroness Hodgson for the open and receptive way in which they have worked with the Government, officials and others to improve the drafting of the clause. As my hon. Friend outlined, clause 2 now requires the Secretary of State to make regulations to extend civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples by no later than 31 December 2019 and empowers the Secretary of State to make other provisions in view of the extension of eligibility.

There remains much work for the Government to do before then. There are some complex implementation issues that will need to be considered in the coming months, including the formation, dissolution and voiding of civil partnerships; considering what religious protections should be put in place; the implications for private sector, state and public sector pensions; other financial entitlements, including tax credits, capital gains tax and housing benefit; international recognition of relationships formed here and abroad; the consequences for a civil partnership of one partner seeking a gender recognition certificate; a series of devolution issues; conversion rights between civil partnerships and marriages and vice versa; checking the many thousands of existing references to civil partnerships across the statute book; and drafting the necessary amendments, scrutinising and laying the regulations, and scheduling time for debates in Parliament. This is because the Civil Partnership Act 2004 is bespoke to same-sex couples and simply amending that legislation will not give opposite-sex couples the necessary rights, protections and entitlements.

It is also important that we take the views of the public and stakeholders on many of these issues to ensure that we exercise the regulation-making powers to create a new civil partnership regime that works for opposite-sex couples, that is fair and that is human rights compliant. Previous experience suggests that we are likely to receive thousands of responses to the consultation, and we will need to allow time to consider these and for the Government to respond.

That said, the Government are committed to changing the eligibility requirements for civil partnerships by the end of the year. This is very much an end date, rather than a target, and we are working to implement the new regime at the earliest opportunity. Our aim is that by the end of this year opposite-sex couples will be able to register and form civil partnerships. I hope that hon. Members will support my hon. Friend’s amendments, which will enable the Government to make the necessary changes so that opposite-sex couples will finally be able to express their commitment to each other in the way that best suits them.

Throughout this debate, many colleagues across the House have contributed and paid tribute to my hon. Friend and the good work that the Bill is trying to do. I am grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Torbay (Kevin Foster) and for Harborough (Neil O'Brien) and especially to my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), who gave a moving account of his mother and the desire to see her name on his marriage certificate. I am also grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) and for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) and to the Opposition Front-Bench team.

The Government have no intention of dragging their feet. It will come as no surprise to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that this is not a normal part of my portfolio as Security Minister, but I asked in preparation for this debate what exactly would take time to implement.

[James Cartlidge]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this measure will bring security to a great many people?

[Mr Wallace]

I think we all need stability these days, and this will definitely add to that. Stability in our relationships is incredibly important. We all aspire to that as a good basis for our society. Strong personal relationships will lead to a strong society, and I fully endorse the aims of the Bill.

I rarely attend private Members’ days, but it is nice at this time—with the awful goings-on in Christchurch and the goings-on outside in this divided country—to see a succession of Bills, especially this one, that are about doing some good in people’s lives, which is what everyone across the House wants to do. I am incredibly pleased to have been a part of that in these few short hours. It is easy to forget that Members of Parliament, who are denigrated and now targeted and ridiculed at both ends of the political spectrum, more often than not do good things together to make people’s lives better, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend who has steered through both Houses a Bill that will make a difference for the good to many people’s lives.

Lords amendment 1 agreed to.

Lords amendments 2 to 6 agreed to.

Deprivation of Citizenship Status

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The right hon. Gentleman rightly brings to the attention of the House the fact that these are tough decisions that have to be made after weighing a number of factors. I will not refer to an individual case, but he talks about people in camps abroad who are members of terrorist organisations. We might have limited evidence of what they have done as members of those organisations, but we know that they have joined. I hope he accepts that there are risks of their staying in the region and of returning to the UK—there are risks both ways, which is why each case should be looked at individually and judged on its own facts. I do not pretend for a second that these are easy decisions. Any Home Secretary must take all factors into account and everything should be balanced out, but ultimately it is my responsibility to keep our citizens safe. That must be paramount in my mind when making decisions.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I strongly welcome the action taken by the Home Secretary. There has been a lot of use of the word “arbitrary”, but surely the key point is that the young lady chose voluntarily to go out and join and live among a terrible regime that has behaved in a barbaric fashion. Has he reflected on whether she wants to come back because she has regret and feels remorse, or whether she wants to come back because the caliphate is being defeated? My constituents would ask why someone can choose to go and join an organisation while it destroys, but be welcomed back as if nothing has changed once it finds its downfall.

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend will understand if I do not talk about a particular case. As I said earlier from the Dispatch Box, we believe that more than 900 people have gone to Syria and Iraq to join terrorist organisations, many of whom have promoted that fact. As I said a moment ago, it is hard to gather evidence on what they may or may not have done, but we know the cause with which they have aligned. We know what those terrorist organisations stand for, their objectives and the kind of things that they do.

It is worth recalling that Daesh is a lot weaker than it was even a year ago, but certainly a lot weaker than it was when many people went out and joined it two or three years ago. It is not surprising that those who are there and who seem to be being pushed out of the region want to come home. They might have that thought, but we must know about each individual. It is our duty and our right to think carefully about the best interests of this country and how best to protect our citizens.

UK Nationals returning from Syria

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Monday 18th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I will not talk about a particular case, but I absolutely understand the sentiments that my hon. Friend has expressed, and I think that they are the sentiments of the vast majority of the constituents whom we are all here to represent. We must indeed use all the legal means that we have to ensure that those who have supported terror groups, either at home or abroad, are always punished for that, and are brought to justice.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

May I pursue the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), and mention another—I would argue—ill-judged comment? In an attempt to build sympathy, the lawyer representing Miss Begum has also compared her to a first world war veteran suffering from shell-shock. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is deeply insulting to many thousands of former servicemen and their families? Those servicemen suffered deep trauma fighting for this country and defending democracy, rather than joining a terrorist group that was out to destroy it

[Sajid Javid]

That is another of the points that Members have made today about a particular case. Again, the solicitor should be very careful about the remarks that are made, and reflect very deeply on them. My hon. Friend has raised a good example of why that is so important.

Police Funding Settlement

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I thank the hon. Lady for welcoming the increased recruitment of police officers in Humberside, which, I should add, was made possible by a police settlement that she voted against. This settlement enables the police and crime commissioner and the new chief constable to continue that process, not least as the increased costs and the pension costs are absorbed.

The hon. Lady made an important point about what will happen beyond 2019-20. We have made it very clear that the conversation about ongoing management of the need for increased employer contributions to public pensions is wrapped up in the conversations about the comprehensive spending review that is expected next year, which are now live.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Tomorrow afternoon I will host a meeting in the village of Lavenham, together with the police and crime commissioner, Tim Passmore, and the chief constable. It is likely to be attended by about 100 farmers, and will deal specifically with the issue of rural crime following a wave of significant incidents on the Suffolk-Essex borders in recent months. While I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, what message will he give me to take to that meeting about the resources to which we may look forward in Suffolk as a result of his statement?

[Mr Hurd]

Like many colleagues, my hon. Friend has been a tireless advocate of increased resources for policing, and specifically for Suffolk policing. This settlement builds on the settlement for 2018-19, which provided an additional £3 million for Suffolk: it will allow a further investment of up to £9 million. What my hon. Friend can communicate to that meeting is the Government’s determination to ensure that Suffolk and other police forces have the resources that they need to meet the increasing demands caused by the change in and variety of crime in his area. I do, of course, understand the significance of rural crime, and the determination of farmers to ensure that the police and crime commissioner is attributing the right level of importance to it.

Stalking Protection Bill

James Cartlidge Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 23rd November 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is obviously a great expert on these matters and I do not want to divert him too much, but while probably all of us in this Chamber have been trolled—we have probably all been trolled repeatedly, with quite vicious language at times; it is a function of being in this place—hopefully most of us have not been stalked. Surely one thing we need to be clear on is the difference between the two. Presumably the lines will blur as cyber-crime grows and that sort of behaviour continues.

[Alex Chalk]

My hon. Friend makes an acute point. We must always recognise that whenever we legislate in this place, there is always the potential for the law of unintended consequences to apply. One thing that the courts will have to consider is precisely what stalking means, and that is covered by the Bill. Notwithstanding the possible pitfalls, there is no doubt that there was a gaping hole that needed to be filled. We in this country have moved much faster than most to seek to fill that gap.

I do not want to spend too much time looking into the history, but it is important to spend a moment putting the measures into context. The maximum penalty was five years’ imprisonment. When the judge came to sentence my constituent’s stalker at Gloucester Crown court, he said, “I simply don’t have the powers required to do justice in this case.” We know that if the maximum sentence is five years, which is of course 60 months, and the defendant pleads guilty—very often the evidence is so overwhelming that that is the only sensible approach for them—that takes it down to 40 months. They then serve half, and indeed they may even be released on a tag before the halfway point, so in reality the maximum penalty is around 18 months’ imprisonment. For a GP who has been stalked for seven years, driven to post-traumatic stress disorder and advised to come off the General Medical Council register, and who cannot begin to rebuild their life until they know that the person is in custody and they themselves are safe, 18 or 20 months is manifestly inadequate. I was therefore grateful to colleagues from all parties who came together to change the law and protect victims.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cartlidge]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster). He said that the House probably did not want to hear more, but he does himself a disservice. I was certainly left wanting more, and I look forward to hearing him speak on other matters, possibly later today. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) for introducing this important Bill. As a child I remember being a great fan of the Sherlock Holmes series with Jeremy Brett, and the episode that scared me the most was “The Solitary Cyclist”—

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

indicated assent.

[James Cartlidge]

The Minister clearly shares that recollection. As a child I found the concept of a lone female on a bicycle being followed at distance by someone else on a bicycle absolutely terrifying. That was a drama, and without giving a spoiler to anyone who does not know the story, the gentleman was not quite as nefarious as perhaps the lady had feared at the start, but in summarising the sense of fear produced by stalking, that story left an indelible mark.

I wish to refer to a specific constituency case regarding this Bill, but I will keep it for Third Reading when I hope to catch your eye, Mr Speaker, because it is more a point of principle. It is a matter that I have previously discussed with the Minister, and I think it may well be raised in another place, perhaps by Lord Deben or the newly ennobled Lord Garnier. The point is incredibly important to me personally and to my constituency, so I shall keep it for Third Reading.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay I welcome amendment 1 on the Ministry of Defence police and the British Transport police, and I shall focus my remarks on that. South Suffolk contains the village of Wattisham. Strictly speaking the Wattisham Army airbase is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), but many service people reside in my constituency. They live either on the base or in the nearby town of Hadleigh.

To underline the importance of that base, at the Remembrance Sunday service in Hadleigh the entire regiment and town come out, and we have a fly-past by Apache helicopters. I do not know what the probability is or what the statistics are on stalking occurring in those residential homes, either within the base or for service personnel who live in towns, but I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay that there is every reason to extend these powers to those officers because stalking could occur. Stalking is not confined to any part of society—it embraces all of society, including my constituents, and it affects men and women as both victims and perpetrators.

The British Transport police are often undervalued, but they perform a fantastic job protecting the transport network. My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay referred to being on the tube at twenty to nine in the morning, and being uncomfortably and involuntarily close to people and their armpits—[Interruption.] I am sure you have experienced it too, Mr Speaker, and that is the nature of the tube at busy times. It can be quite unpleasant, but we grin and bear it so to speak. The point is that someone could be on that tube following, pursuing or stalking someone. I do not necessarily understand exactly when the order could be placed, and whether it would be done by the normal constabulary in respect of the person being stalked and their home address, or whether the British Transport police would have specific responsibility for doing that. I will leave that to finer legal minds than mine, but the logic of extending those powers seems straightforward, and I am happy to support the amendment.

[Justine Greening (Putney) (Con)]

I want to build on my hon. Friend’s powerful point by saying that, in my community, public transport is essentially how everybody gets around. People often travel on the overland or underground late at night, and this is a crucial amendment to a crucial Bill that I very much support. I am pleased that my hon. Friend supports the Bill, and I add my support to his.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cartlidge]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Although most of her constituents use public transport, things are slightly different in rural constituencies where there is more dependency on the car, which leads on to a point about police resources.

[Kevin Foster]

I am very much enjoying my hon. Friend’s detailed remarks and his usual analysis of the Bill. Does he agree that involving the British Transport police—or, for example, the Metropolitan police—means that either/or, or even both could apply to the court? That is the approach they should adopt, rather than waiting to agree or thinking that the other force will act. Each force has the ability to apply once the evidence is there. Will my hon. Friend join me in encouraging information sharing between the forces so that we do not have half the evidence required with the British Transport police, and half with the Metropolitan police, without the two being put together?

[James Cartlidge]

That is a good point, and the fact that I am unable strictly to comment on it underlines why politicians should probably not have a role in frontline policing matters. We do, however, have responsibility for making the law and resourcing the police, and I want to focus on that point. My right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening) made a good point about public transport. We have public transport in South Suffolk—indeed, many of my constituents wish we had more buses and so on, and there is one train station—but in rural constituencies people overwhelmingly rely on cars. This is an issue of police resources. On many occasions I have been happy to defend the Government’s position of enabling police and crime commissioners to decide whether to raise the precept to fund the police, but if we pass laws that may result in more being asked of the police, we must ensure that they have the resources to carry out those tasks.

Putting aside the money coming from the precept, we feel concerned that the funding formula penalises Suffolk. Norfolk is a very similar county in many ways—of course, it is not quite as good in some respects—and it receives about £1 million more per year than Suffolk for no obvious reason, and significantly more per head, which is even more indefensible. I very much welcome the funding to deal with violence against women, but will it be distributed to forces under the current formula, and how will that be determined? Stalking is a terrible crime that we all oppose—that is why we are here to support the Bill. If it is that serious a crime, and if the police are to be given more resource to deal with it, how will that resource be distributed and where will it come from?

I support the amendment but I have a caveat about resourcing. As the Minister will be aware—perhaps the note from the officials is on this point; I hope it is—on funding we must take rurality into account, and not just in terms of reliance on the car. I submitted a written question to the Home Office to ask whether it has considered the difference in cost between rural and urban policing, and it responded that no such study has been undertaken.

[Alex Chalk]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the impact of rurality. Does he agree that in that context it is even more important to consider technological solutions, so that individuals are able to record and report allegations that relate to stalking or other offences, without necessarily having to make long journeys to local police stations to make a statement? Only by properly harnessing technology can the police truly build effective prosecutions that lead to justice.

[James Cartlidge]

I talked earlier about my lack of expertise in police matters, but of course my hon. Friend has considerable expertise on criminal law matters. I am sure he is correct about the role of technology.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank everyone who has contributed today with thoughtful speeches and interventions, including my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), my neighbour, whom I join in his tribute to the police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall for her courage in talking about her experience. I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston), and for Dudley South (Mike Wood), for their thoughtful interventions. I thank the hon. Members for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), as well as my hon. Friends the Members for Croydon South (Chris Philp), and for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), for their ongoing and long-standing work. I greatly appreciate all the support I have received from colleagues across the House.

As we have heard, stalking is an insidious and dangerous crime with devastating consequences for victims and their families. Acts that initially appear, as we have heard, to be trivial, when seen as a whole have an extraordinary effect, not just on the individuals immediately affected but on everyone around them. Stalkers contact not just members of the family—my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham spoke about his constituent, Dr Aston—but people’s workmates and neighbours. There is a sense in which it never stops. As we heard from my hon. Friend, it is often described as murder in slow motion. It affects people’s physical and mental health, leaving them feeling isolated and fearful. It can escalate rapidly. In the context of domestic violence, about 50% of threats of violence are acted on, and there are many examples in which stalking has escalated to rape and murder.

Stalking behaviour is much more common than people realise. About one in five women and one in 10 men experience some kind of stalking behaviour in their adult lifetime, according to the crime survey for England and Wales. It typically takes about 100 episodes of stalking behaviour for victims to come forward. That is what the Bill is partly about. It is also about raising awareness and allowing this to be taken seriously. We hear time and again of people coming forward to report stalking behaviour, but it is dismissed as somehow a compliment.

[James Cartlidge]

I am impressed by what my hon. Friend is saying, as it shows the great passion that she has brought to the Bill. We would all agree that it adds huge value by protecting our constituents and bringing greater security and peace of mind to those who have suffered from this, knowing that others may be better protected in future.

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank my hon. Friend.

Raising awareness will help to encourage more people to come forward. There has been some encouraging progress. In the 2017-18 crime survey for England and Wales, there were more than 10,000 recorded offences of stalking, almost double the previous number of 5,313. The increase is likely to be due to improvements in the recording of the crime, rather than an increase in stalking. That is an important point: laws in themselves will not protect victims. A key focus is to make sure that we have better recording so that victims are more confident about coming forward. That does not mean that every instance of unwanted attention will lead to prosecution for stalking—of course not.

Stalking is a type of harassment characterised by fixation and obsession. As hon. Members have said, the Bill will allow earlier intervention, rather than allowing that to become a deeply ingrained pattern of behaviour that carries on for decades. We heard that Emily Maitlis’s stalker pursued her for more than two decades and even, disgracefully, managed to continue his behaviour from prison. There is a possibility that, if we can intervene at an earlier stage, we can stop this behaviour in its tracks, and I think that that is an important aspect of the Bill.

I pay tribute to the courage of all the victims who have come forward and spoken out. I am not talking just about celebrities; as we have heard, stalking affects people in their everyday lives, and stalking patterns of behaviour sometimes follow relatively trivial encounters. I pay particular tribute to Alexis Bowater, from my own area, for her long-standing work and her campaign for changes and increased protections.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

The hon. Lady could not be more wrong. We are not talking about mergers; we are talking about the imperative on those deploying public money to use it in the smartest possible way and to make the best possible use of the public resources at their disposal. It is about value for money, which of course the Labour Front-Bench team has no interest in at all.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

3. What steps the Government are taking to reduce modern slavery.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

The Government are tackling the abhorrent crime of modern slavery both at home and overseas. We have strengthened the law enforcement response and introduced new requirements for businesses to report on slavery in their supply chains, and are transforming the support we provide to victims. Internationally, we continue to work to stop modern slavery wherever it occurs.

[James Cartlidge]

I strongly welcome the steps the Government are taking to tackle modern slavery. Does the Minister agree that, as we leave the EU and bring in much tougher rules on unskilled immigration from the EU, we will need to be vigilant to ensure that it does not provide new opportunities for people traffickers who may seek to exploit those tougher rules?

[Victoria Atkins]

Our determination to tackle modern slavery will be unaltered by our exit from the EU. On 6 September, the Government announced the introduction of a new seasonal workers pilot for horticulture, but we are of course very alert to the risks noted by the independent Migration Advisory Committee, which my hon. Friend outlined, and we will work with sectors, including the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, to ensure that migrant workers are protected against modern slavery and other labour abuse.

Rural Crime and Public Services

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh]

I could not agree more. It is exactly the same in my own home force of South Yorkshire. The pernicious and long-term effects of deindustrialisation in communities are often the same issues that other rural forces and areas experience and are affected by.

The feelings of isolation can be strong and overwhelming, particularly for vulnerable individuals in rural areas such as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore). If police do not have the ability to reach out, they will feel ever more vulnerable. The Conservative party used to be clear on this. A leaked internal communiqué said that

“police-stations are important to local communities and the sheer number of closures is worrying.”

But since that communiqué, closures have rocketed. Nearly 400 police stations have closed in England and Wales, with the number of front counters open to the public falling from over 900 in 2010 to just over 500 today. It is harder to ignore the knock-on effects that sales of police stations and closures of custody suites have had on policing. Particularly in large rural areas, officers now have to drive for long distances to take offenders into custody, taking them off the streets for a considerable period of time.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Is the hon. Lady actually saying that she would reopen those police stations?

[Louise Haigh]

No. I am saying that we would properly resource the police to be able to do their job, unlike the Conservative party. In reducing the police, as the Conservatives have done, to nothing more than a flashing blue light that only arrives when the absolute worst has happened, not only have they destroyed the police’s ability to prevent crime from happening in the first place; they have rolled back all the progress of the previous generation in building trust with the police in the hardest-to-reach communities. That is the danger of the loss of community officers from rural police forces.

The devastating assault on the strength of our police service as a result of decisions taken by the Conservatives has undermined the fundamental foundations on which policing in this country has been based. Chief among these is the notion that every community matters and every community deserves a police service that is able to respond to the challenges that it deems important. Although the challenges and risks for each community may vary, each is deserving of a community police service, and the priorities of local communities are of equal merit.

The independent inspectorate of constabulary laid bare the breathtaking pressure that the police are now under thanks to the financial constraints imposed on them by the Government and by rising demand. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary said that

“policing is under significant stress. On occasions, that stress stretches some forces to such an extent that they risk being unable to keep people safe in some very important areas of policing.”

Not only have we lost more than 21,000 police officers; thousands of emergency calls are waiting in queues with not enough officers to respond. Some victims facing an emergency get no response at all. The police have yet to assess risk posed by more than 3,000 individuals on the sex offenders register. We do not know whether those individuals are a threat to the public. There is a shortage of more than 5,000 detectives, as unsolved crime rose to 2.1 million crimes last year.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I am unaccustomed to being called this early in a debate; it is something of an inversion of the norm.

First, I want to respond to the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant), as it takes a brass neck for the SNP Front-Bench spokesman to complain about the over-centralisation of this country when it is a system that massively benefits his constituents, and in particular his party as it does not have to make the tough decisions we face in other parts of the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) was absolutely right: my constituents are net contributors, whereas those of the hon. Member for Glenrothes are net recipients. That is a great unfairness, and I would prefer it if his party recognised that now and again. But I am going to move on to the subject in hand.

As an MP for a rural constituency, I am particularly concerned about this subject and I welcome the fact that Her Majesty’s Opposition have tabled this motion. I last spoke on the subject in the final stages of the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill—the Bill of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)—on Friday 27 April. I said that I was concerned that we seemed to be living in more violent times, and that comment then unexpectedly appeared all over the local radio and newspapers because many of my constituents share that sense.

This debate is not about the sort of stats we bandy across the House in political fashion; this is about the experience of recent months in South Suffolk, where we have unquestionably had a spate of serious incidents. In the last week in Sudbury, the main town in my constituency, there was a very violent rape, for which I am glad to say there has been an arrest of an individual today by the police in Sudbury. I pay tribute to them, because at the same time as they have been investigating that crime, police in our part of the world have been focused on a very serious murder in Ipswich, of a 17-year-old, which was raised by my constituency neighbour the hon. Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin) at Prime Minister’s questions today. The sense of greater violence is therefore impossible to escape, and is, I am afraid, borne out by the figures for Suffolk: there has been a 29% increase in violent crime in Suffolk in the year to September 2017.

The context of this, however, is an overall fall in recorded crime in the independent crime survey for England and Wales of 38% since 2010. That is a very large decrease in overall crime, and it has occurred at a time when, because of the funding pressures we were under—because of the deficit we inherited—we have seen significant reductions in police numbers; I would be the first to accept that.

But this is the thing: if we have seen such a fall in crime when police numbers have been falling, it cannot simply be the case that police numbers are the sole determinant of the level of crime. This spike in violence, which has been seen in other parts of the country too, is a relatively recent phenomenon, and I want us to move away from these political brickbats about how many police stations have been closed—I should point out that some 400 police stations were closed between 1997 and 2007. Instead, we should try to understand why we are seeing this change. I want to try to understand some of those causal factors in my brief remarks.

[Mr John Hayes]

My hon. Friend is right to say that police numbers are not the sole determinant of a rise or fall in crime, but they must be a determinant. In Lincolnshire, fundamental flaws in the funding formula have left us short of funds, and that makes it very difficult for my excellent local police force to respond to crimes of the kind that he has just described.

[James Cartlidge]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. The way I would put it—which is kind of what he is saying—is that the fall in numbers does not, of itself, drive the social behaviours that cause a change in crime, but clearly, in an ideal world, we would have more officers to deal with it. It is a question of how we respond to the situation.

In terms of the primary causal factors, lots of hon. Members have talked about the county lines crime phenomenon, which was on the front page of The Sunday Times as recently as 6 May. It is a real problem not only in Suffolk but right across the country. The statistics show that 85% of police forces across England and Wales are dealing with county lines, and that 80% of those cases involve children. This is a serious crime phenomenon, and the growth in county lines, which involves increasing violence, leads to the spread of drug crime, knife crime and other associated crime.

There is another factor, which I find potentially the most interesting. I was at the Suffolk show recently, and I was talking to the chief constable. I asked him why he thought there had been this change in behaviour, and he said that social media were a really important factor because the videos and other media that are shared by the young people in gangs are being used to goad them. The gangs are goading each other into more violent behaviour in a competitive fashion. That is the type of behaviour that we see in the very worst crime areas such as Mexico, which has a terrible murder rate. The reason that crime escalates in such areas is that more violence is used to mark out and defend territory. We are seeing gang violence worsening here because the gangs are becoming competitive, and social media drive that competition because the videos—which, according to my chief constable, are often of very high quality—are being used to brag and to goad.

I do not pretend to have the answer on the social media issue, but I believe that the companies providing the media—they are private companies—have a social responsibility to involve themselves in this. I fundamentally believe that the primary responsibility of the Government is the defence of the realm, at home and abroad, and if the media companies will not get involved, we will have to start talking about the defence of the virtual realm. We cannot have any no-go areas in crime; we do not want them in a physical sense, and we cannot have them in a virtual sense either. I for one would support more powers to ensure that social media companies took action on these kinds of videos to ensure that they are not shown, not displayed and do not incite greater gang violence.

I also want to talk about funding. As my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) said, police numbers may not directly cause the changes in crime rates, but we need the officers in place if we are to resource our forces to deal with the changing patterns of crime. There are two elements involved: national funding and local funding. On national funding, I recently tabled a written question to the Home Secretary asking him what assessment he had made of the different costs involved in policing rural and urban areas. The answer from the Home Office was that it had made no such study and that there was no such information. I believe that rural MPs should be engaging with local stakeholders such as the National Farmers Union and possibly the Country Land and Business Association to look into the hard stats and the evidence. If we want to go to a Government Department and ask for a change in the spending formula to favour our local area—or rural areas more broadly—we have to have the evidence to show that we need that extra funding. A study of the cost of rurality in policing would be very welcome, and I would certainly support one.

My last key point is about local funding. I disagree with Opposition Members on this point. I strongly support the use of the precept to fund the police, for the simple reason that it is a guarantee that the money will be spent in our county. If we increase the precept to fund the police in Suffolk, it might cost more than an increase in central taxation that people would not necessarily notice, but every pound will be spent in the county on the Suffolk constabulary. I want to see more of that, and I would go further. I would like to see more of what I call parish policing, where parishes—or perhaps groups of parishes in electoral wards—would have the opportunity to fund their own police community support officers. This is where we must be realistic about rural crime. When the police in Suffolk deal with a major incident, such as the stabbing we had in Ipswich, or when we have the threat of terrorism, it is unrealistic to expect the force to prioritise shed theft or the theft of tractors at the same time, no matter how many officers we have. If our villages and rural communities want the added value of an extra visible police presence, they should be prepared to see something on top of the precept and get direct policing as a result—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) wants to intervene—she is obviously very interested in what I am saying—I will be more than happy to take an intervention, because she completely failed to answer the question about police stations earlier. In fact, when I asked her whether she would reopen closed police stations, she confirmed that Labour would not, and I do not understand why on earth an Opposition would criticise something that they are not going to reverse.

[Ruth George]

I am sitting here fairly flabbergasted listening to the hon. Gentleman making the case for some of his poorest constituents paying the price of delivering the sort of law and order that he says is the Government’s responsibility—the first responsibility of the state is to keep its population safe. People are already paying an extra £12 a year in Derbyshire, so how much more does he want his constituents to have to pay to get back to proper levels of policing?

[James Cartlidge]

I would be more than happy for them to pay more. Is the idea that the poorest cannot afford 50p extra a month on their precept to get a police officer? The point is that it would be a choice for the community. Many communities would not choose to have parish policing or direct policing, but it is a new option for them.

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

rose—

[James Cartlidge]

I will take one last intervention, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you will be pleased to know that I will then be concluding.

[Mrs Badenoch]

Does my hon. Friend agree that many of our constituents have requested the ability to pay more specifically for local policing? Constituents have written to me to say that if the Treasury could not fund it, they would happily pay extra.

[James Cartlidge]

Absolutely. I will finish by saying that the local funding formula means that funding is transparent—people will know that the money will be spent in their county. We should still look at the national formula, but the model of elected police and crime commissioners being responsible for the money raised locally in a clear and transparent fashion is the right one, and we should use it to get more officers on the beat, providing greater security and comfort to our constituents.