Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

James Gray Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading - Day 1
Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Parts of the Bill could have been removed and we could have had a cross-party discussion on making the rest of it work. The Government have failed to take that approach.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that for him to vote against the entire Bill, much of which is extremely good and much of which the Labour party has campaigned for for many years, because he believes that there may be some curtailment of free speech—I do not believe that is the case—in one small part of the Bill, would be to throw the baby out with the bath water? Surely that is the wrong thing to do.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I will come to other concerning aspects of the Bill in a moment, but it says a great deal that when I am talking about the great British tradition of the right to protest, it is a Conservative Member of Parliament who stands up to challenge it. That is quite remarkable.

Let me turn to what is needed to address the appalling issue of violence against women and girls. To our shame as a country, we see unacceptable levels of female homicides at the hands of men every year. Labour is committed to working on a cross-party basis to bring forward additional protections; to deliver on the inadequate sentencing for domestic homicides; and to address unacceptable and intimidating street harassment. Labour is committed on stalking, on improving rights for victims of crime, on better domestic abuse services and on recognising misogyny as a hate crime.

There are wider issues, too. On 29 January, I wrote to the Government, together with the shadow Secretary of State for Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy); the shadow Housing Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire); the shadow Minister for domestic violence and safeguarding, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips); and the shadow Minister for victims and youth justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle). We raised the awful practice of sex for rent—people coerced into providing sex in lieu of payment—and put forward proposals. We wrote to the Secretary of State for Justice, the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government; not one of them has even bothered to reply. That shows that this is a Government who too often like to talk tough but who fail to take the action needed. In its current form, the Bill does not meet the ambition of the time and will be a terrible missed opportunity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I do absolutely support that and I will come to it in a moment but, to deal with the first part of the hon. Gentleman’s question, he seemed to imply that I did not understand the value of war memorials. I absolutely do. The difference is that this Bill has now been extended to every form of memorial, including statues of slave traders. It really sums up the problem with the Government’s approach. If they genuinely wanted to introduce proportionate measures to protect war memorials, they could have done so and not introduced the measures that they actually have.

I come to the sentencing elements of the Bill. It is of course right to extend whole-life orders to cover the premeditated murder of a child. The tragic murder of Ellie Gould on 3 May 2019 highlights the failure of the justice system to impose strict enough sentences on those who murder in a domestic setting and the issue of the age of the killer. But this measure is insufficient. The current approach to sentencing seems to forget the context in which many female victims are killed—in the home, with a weapon taken from that location. The minimum tariff in such cases is 15 years, but it is 25 if the weapon is brought to the scene of the crime. That is a systemic problem; violence against women and girls seems to be seen as less serious than other forms of violence. This has to be addressed.

The Opposition also say that tougher sentencing on its own is not enough. We know that wider change across our society is needed, and we know that the Government who have decimated our public services over the past 11 years have totally lost sight of addressing the causes of crime as well, with the sadly predictable consequences of rising violent crime in every single police force area of England and Wales. The Bill is shamefully short of measures to address the unacceptable violence women and girls face. In that, it fails woefully to meet the urgent need for change.

[James Gray]

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned my constituent, Ellie Gould, and her appalling murder two years ago. He is right to say that we campaigned for the issue of premeditation, as proved by taking a weapon to the scene, to be removed. I hope therefore that he will vote for the Bill this evening. There is one counter-argument to that, however. Abused women at home may well defend themselves with a knife, bottle or other weapon at home, and if that were to happen and it became premeditated, that defence would be lost.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

With great respect, the hon. Gentleman identifies a complexity, but I think he agrees with me that that difference in the law—the 15 and 25-year tariffs—is not justifiable as it stands and needs to be equalised.

The need for overdue action brings me to elements of the Bill that have taken too long to introduce, but which we welcome. My hon. Friends, often working across the parties, have campaigned passionately on important issues and they have secured change. It is welcome that the Government have finally brought before Parliament the long-awaited legislation to increase the maximum sentence for assault on emergency service workers to up to two years in prison. I want to pay special tribute to the tireless work of my hon. Friends the Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Halifax (Holly Lynch) in securing this change. They have been campaigning since 2018. Indeed, on 27 April 2018, when the matter of two-year sentences was considered, the then Minister said that

“it would begin to create the kind of situation that exists in Russia, which I hope will never exist in the UK”.

He went on to say that such sentences would create

“a category of a superior form of human being with an entitlement to a quite separate form of protection.”—[Official Report, 27 April 2018; Vol. 639, c. 1193.]

Those comments were, frankly, deplorable and the Government’s conversion to the two-year penalty is to be welcomed.

The pandemic has been a powerful reminder, not that one should be needed, of the extraordinary bravery and commitment that our frontline emergency workers have shown throughout. They have put themselves in harm’s way to keep us safe day in, day out, even at the very height of the first wave, when tests and PPE were so shamefully hard to come by. Despite that work, emergency service workers have been subjected to a rising number of attacks in this past year, with a 31% increase in attacks compared with in 2019.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Let me make some progress; I have taken a number of interventions.

I come to the police covenant and frontline police officers across the country. Like the Home Secretary, I meet the chair of the Police Federation and work with him on a regular basis. Only in recent days, I met my local officers in Gwent—virtually, of course—with hon. Friends and listened to the work that they are doing. It is clear that throughout this pandemic frontline officers are putting themselves at risk to keep us safe, but across the board, frontline workers in the police, fire service, education and so many other areas are facing a pay freeze. Their efforts in this pandemic are being rewarded with a real-terms pay cut.

The police covenant is welcome but overdue—it is in this Bill, some three years after it was promised. It is right that the Home Secretary makes an annual report to Parliament, addressing key issues on physical protection, health and wellbeing, and support for families, but we will study this provision closely, in consultation with representatives from across policing. We will be arguing for protections including support for mental health, which is too often overlooked.

I turn to the toughening of sentences for those who cause death by dangerous driving. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) deserves great credit for securing these changes, together with other right hon. and hon. Members who signed the Bill introduced by the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), last year. They included my hon. Friends the Members for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) and for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), together with MPs from a number of parties. We support those proposals; too many people have taken lives and left families heartbroken, with insufficient punishment—that has to end.

On the extension of laws that prevent adults in positions of trust from engaging in sexual relationships with young people under 18, sports coaches and faith leaders should be included in those safeguards. I give great credit here to my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), with others, including Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch). I am sure everyone from across the House would send her our very best wishes.

[James Gray]

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman and the whole House will be pleased to hear that my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford was in the Tea Room this afternoon and she tells me that her treatment is fully successful and she will be on her way to a full recovery shortly.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

That is a wonderful intervention to take; I am sure we will all be delighted to hear that.

The Government could do more on the issue I was discussing. For example, tutors and driving instructors are not included, and I hope that the Home Secretary will look at that again.

Another area where some measures are welcome is in parts of the review from my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham being implemented, but that review was published in September 2017, nearly four years ago; there are provisions for the pilot of problem solving courts, for recognising the remand of children as a last resort and for reform of the criminal records disclosure regime. On the issue of reform of the Disclosure and Barring Service, I wish to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) for his work in securing that change.

All those things are welcome and overdue, but we have heard such powerful testimony of the lived experiences and family legacies of the prejudice that black people have faced. Black people have bravely stepped forward to share their testimony of structural racism and the impact it still has. The Government cannot ignore the disproportionality that exists from start to finish in our criminal justice system and continue to take steps that make it worse. The Bill contains so-called serious violence reduction orders, which raise serious questions about disproportionality and community trust. As a minimum, the whole of the review by my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham, all 35 recommendations, should be progressed without further delay.

Similarly, the Government must look again at the sections of this Bill on unauthorised encampments. The proposals create a new offence of residing on land without consent in or with a vehicle. The loose way it is drafted seems to capture the intention to do this as well as actually doing this, with penalties of imprisonment of up to three months or a fine of up to £2,500, or both. This is clearly targeted at Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, and the criminalisation would potentially breach the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Equality Act 2010.

When Friends, Families and Travellers researched the consultation responses the Government received, they found that 84% of the police responses did not support the criminalisation of unauthorised encampments. Little wonder that senior police officers are telling us that the changes in the Bill would add considerable extra cost to already stretched policing, while making situations worse. I ask Ministers to think of the signal they are sending. We have already had the discussion about how responding to letters to the Home Office quickly is not the Home Secretary’s strong point, but she will surely have seen the letter to her in January—possibly not, given her earlier answer—from nine different organisations, ranging from the Ramblers to Cycling UK. That letter sets out that these unclear proposals not only risk discriminating against Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, but risk criminalising wild camping and even rough sleepers in makeshift shelters or tents.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

It is a privilege to be called so early in this extremely important debate. As always, it is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, although I am a little puzzled, because most of the amendments to the Bill to make it better that she talked about would not be possible if, thanks to the power of her rhetoric, she persuaded the House to vote against Second Reading, since there would be no Committee stage in which to do that. I suspect that, even though she will go through the No Lobby, she actually hopes that the Bill will go into Committee.

I congratulate the Home Secretary and the Lord Chancellor on this outstandingly good Bill designed to make us all safer in so many different ways, but I want to focus on one small aspect of the Bill: the sentencing of minors in clauses 101 to 105. The Home Secretary knows well the case of my constituent Ellie Gould, and she kindly saw the Gould parents on one occasion. Ellie Gould was brutally murdered in her own home by 17-year-old Thomas Griffiths in May 2019. It was the most horrible murder of the worst kind, with a knife found at the scene of the crime.

Griffiths’ 12 and a half-year sentence was shorter than it should have been for three reasons: first, because he pled guilty, and I am glad that he did; secondly, because he was a junior at the time of the offence, albeit he was 18 at the time he was convicted; and thirdly, because, rather than taking a knife with him to the murder, he picked one up in the kitchen. He none the less stabbed Ellie multiple times using that knife and then sought to pretend that Ellie had done it to herself. It was very much a premeditated crime—there is no question about it—but because he did not bring a knife to the scene, he only got 12 and a half years, rather than the significantly longer sentence he would have got otherwise.

I pay tribute to Ellie’s parents, Matt and Carole Gould, and a group of her school friends, who have been tireless in fighting to change the law in respect of a brutal crime of this kind. I thank the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary for having listened carefully to them. Under clause 101, a 17-year-old who turns 18 during the course of the trial, as happened in this case, will now face a similar penalty to the one they would face if they had been 18 at the time of the crime. Until now, a 17-year-old was treated much the same as a 10-year-old, and of course, they are very different people. A sliding scale will now be introduced, so that a 17-year-old will be pretty much treated as an adult. That would have increased Thomas Griffiths’ sentence to 14 years. We also welcome the ending of the automatic review halfway through the sentence, which, apart from anything else, causes huge stress and trauma to the victim’s family.

However, the Bill does not address the third anomaly, which is that had Griffiths brought the knife to the scene rather than pick it up in the kitchen, his sentence would have more than doubled—he would have got up to 27 years, rather than 12 and a half. Surely a frenzied attack of this kind, whether it is done with the knife that someone brings with them or a knife that they find in the kitchen, deserves the fullest possible sentence in the law.

There is an argument that women who are victims of domestic abuse may carry out a murder in self-defence using a knife at home. Surely the criminal law could find a way of saying that murder in self-defence under those conditions is quite different from a brutal murder such as that of Ellie Gould. The Lord Chancellor has said that he will consider this matter further, probably outside the context of the Bill. None the less, I hope that such a differentiation will be made possible in the near future, because this is a very important matter, and it touches on the tragic case of Sarah Everard.

Nothing can bring Ellie Gould back. Nothing can assuage the grief of her parents. Incidentally, nothing can assuage the grief of Thomas Griffiths’ parents, who are also my constituents; they have lost their son in a very real way too. But strengthening the sentencing regime, as the Bill does, will at least mean some lasting legacy. It is, indeed, Ellie’s law.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

After the next speaker, the time limit will be reduced to three minutes.