Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

James Paice Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

I will not give way again, because I want to move on to new clauses 2 and 3.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) on tabling the new clauses and on the campaign that she has led on tackling child exploitation. Sexual grooming and child abduction are difficult subjects to talk about in our society, but we must remain vigilant and do all that we can to protect children and correct anomalies in our laws. As a father of three, I applaud the parliamentary inquiry that she led with Barnardo’s. There has been much support for her new clauses from police forces and leading children’s charities. That is reflected in the fact that the proposals have the backing of Members from all parts of the House. I therefore hope that the Government will give the new clauses proper consideration. The Minister said that he was sympathetic to them in Committee, so I look forward to hearing what he has to say tonight.

Amendment 20 was tabled by my hon. Friends the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) and for Hammersmith and myself. There is agreement on both sides of the House about the need to tackle extreme forms of pornography. In recent months, we have heard warnings from the Children’s Commissioner about how violent pornography is distorting our children’s understanding of sexual relationships, including the normalisation of sexual violence in gangs. Research by Rape Crisis South London has shown that extreme material that depicts and glorifies rape is readily available online. We therefore welcome the steps that are being taken by the Government in the Bill.

Our amendment is designed to clarify the proposals to reflect a promise that the Prime Minister made last summer. He pledged, with regard to extreme pornography,

“to make sure that the same rules apply online as they do offline.”

Our concern is that the Bill will fall short of that. We agree that a careful balance needs to be struck so that the standard for criminalising possession is very high and people’s private sexual behaviour is respected. We think, however, that the legislation would be improved by replacing the Government’s description of rape in proposed new subsection (7A) with the text used by the British Board of Film Classification—a well-established test that is already used to judge offline content.

Amendment 20 would improve the law in two ways. First, it would make it clear that the ban on possessing rape pornography extends to all depictions of rape, even if they are staged. Portrayals of actual rapes are very rare. The content that has been identified by Rape Crisis South London and the Children’s Commissioner is primarily commercial pornography with high production values, poor acting and staged violence. It is not clear whether, under the Bill, that would be deemed realistic enough to secure a prosecution. It would certainly be banned offline, which is what the Prime Minister’s promise was based on. Secondly, the amendment would ensure that content was banned if it showed rape, but not the act of penetration. I hope that the Minister will reflect on both those points and consider accepting our amendment. It would not only implement the Prime Minister’s promise, but make it clear that extreme pornography that depicts rape and glorifies sexual violence should not be permitted in our society.

Before I go into the merits of new clause 15, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), who has campaigned so hard on this policy. It is important to recognise that the overwhelming majority of the British public are very proud of our armed forces and hold them in very high regard. We see that right across our country. Just a glance at the latest Ministry of Defence reputation survey shows that the armed forces have a favourability rating of about 85%. That is testimony not just to the way in which those in uniform serve us in theatres abroad, but to the contribution they make to our local communities.

The sad truth, however, is that not all men and women who serve our country receive such a warm welcome when they return from operational duty. I will give three brief examples. The first case was reported by BBC Radio 5 Live and involved a soldier called Lee. He was returning to his home in Bolton from a three-month tour in Afghanistan, when he was set upon by a group of drunken thugs. When the police caught up with them, the attackers said they wanted to prove “how hard they were” by attacking a soldier.

The second example relates to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games—an event that would not have been possible without the help of our armed forces to make it safe and secure. There were reports of troops being advised to travel together in groups after a number of soldiers were

“attacked, verbally abused and harassed”.

In one particularly nasty case, an off-duty soldier was badly beaten by four men not far from Tower Hill tube station, after the attackers noticed that he was carrying a military bag.

Thirdly, let me briefly tell the story of an 18-year-old called Alexander, who was training to be a soldier in the Coldstream Guards. He was assaulted in August last year, when he was jumped by a gang of eight attackers as he walked through an underpass near his home in Exeter. When they saw that he was wearing his military backpack, they stopped him and asked whether he was in the forces. The gang surrounded him, kicked him to the ground and tried to attack him with a screwdriver. Alex later told his local newspaper:

“They kept shouting Lee Rigby—like they wanted to re-create what happened.”

I am sure that the whole House will agree that those cases are appalling, abhorrent and completely unacceptable. Unfortunately, they are far from unusual. I draw the House’s attention to the armed forces and society survey that was carried out by Lord Ashcroft, with the assistance of the Ministry of Defence. The study contacted 9,000 serving personnel across all three branches of the armed forces, and is acknowledged to be the most detailed and in-depth study in the area. The survey contains a number of startling statistics. It found that more than 20% of service personnel had suffered verbal abuse in the previous five years and that about one in 20 had been the victim of violence or attempted violence.

Any attack that is motivated by hate for our armed services is one too many. Our service personnel do not ask for special treatment, but they rightly expect not to be discriminated against because of what they do for our country. That is why we are proposing action through new clause 15. It would make physical or verbal attacks against members of our armed forces an aggravated offence, when the prosecution can establish that a person’s service in the armed forces was a motive for the assault. It is a small change, but one that would send a strong signal that we will not tolerate such attacks as a society. It builds on existing laws that cover assault that is motivated by other characteristics. I hope that the Minister will give it proper consideration and support it today.

I am aware that the Government have expressed two clear reservations with the proposal. Let me deal with them both. The first argument is that the existing laws are adequate. Indeed, the veterans Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), told the House earlier this year that

“the sentencing guidelines make it clear that if somebody is assaulted by virtue of their being in the armed forces, that is clearly an aggravating feature”—[Official Report, 17 March 2014; Vol. 577, c. 545.]

That sounds clear, but we do not believe that it is that straightforward in practice. The current sentencing guidelines for assault do not include any specific references to members of the armed forces. They say that it will be an aggravating factor if an offence is committed

“against those working in the public sector or providing a service to the public”.

It is not clear whether that definition would always include members of the Royal Navy, the Army or the Royal Air Force, nor whether it extends to when they are off duty, which is when many such assaults take place. Amending the law so that the armed forces are specifically mentioned would bring much greater clarity.

The second argument was made by the Minister in Committee who noted:

“The current provisions deal with hostility on the grounds of race, religion, disability and sexual orientation, all personal characteristics that are beyond a person’s immediate control. Hostility on those grounds makes the offence particularly harmful, both to vulnerable individuals and to communities… However, hostility based on occupation is of a different kind.”––[Official Report, Criminal Justice and Courts Public Bill Committee, 27 March 2014; c. 518.]

I have three points for the Minister to consider. First, I understand the distinction that has been made, but what a person chooses to do with their life can become every bit as much a part of their identity as who they are or where they come from. That is especially the case for people who dedicate their lives to serving our country across the world. Secondly, I do not think that an attack on a young soldier such as Alexander, because of the uniform he was wearing, is any less harmful to our society than when people are assaulted because of who they worship or the colour of their skin. All our communities hold close connections to the men and women who put their lives on the line for us, and any hateful attack on that can be just as damaging to the bonds of our society as an attack motivated by characteristics already protected in law.

Thirdly, the Minister will know that offences are already in place that specifically cover assaults against people in certain occupations: police constables, prison workers, immigration officers and emergency workers in Scotland. Surely our armed forces deserve the same recognition. That is why my right hon. Friends the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Defence Secretary have committed the next Labour Government to taking action on this matter. We will introduce an armed forces Bill in our first Queen’s Speech, tackling the issue of the assaults that we are debating today and outlawing other forms of discrimination against our service personnel. The Opposition have pledged to do that next year, but Ministers have an opportunity to make a head start and take action now.

I urge Members across the House to support new clause 15 today. Our men and women in the Navy, Army and Royal Air Force serve us with dignity and bravery, and in this important year of remembrance, as we reflect on those who have made sacrifices for us in conflicts past and those who continue to serve us today, it is our duty to ensure that they are treated with dignity in return.

[Sir James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I do not want to do permanent damage to the reputation of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), but he will be surprised to know that I agreed with a large amount of what he said—that will come as a bit of a shock to him.

I rise mainly to speak to new clauses 2 and 3, although I am in an invidious position, because the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), in whose name they stand, has not yet spoken to them, and I do not wish to detract from her remarks or steal her thunder. I entirely support the comments by the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) about the work that she has done. I served on the panel that looked into child sexual exploitation, and I found it an illuminating and at times emotional experience, but it was very rewarding. We listened to young people who had been exploited, and to those who work in the legal system or courts, such as judges, as well as to the police who have to deal with these issues day in, day out.

I particularly support new clause 2. I do not wish to go into it in detail, because the hon. Member for Rotherham should have the privilege of doing that herself, but the fundamental point of reducing the number of grooming offences from two to one is something with which most people would agree. I hope that the Government will be sympathetic to the new clause, and even if they cannot accept it tonight I like to think that this will be a significant step towards introducing it.

Sadly, we are now all too familiar—partly from the various cases following Operation Yewtree, but from many other cases too—with the fact that child exploitation by adults appears to be far too common an activity. It is something that we in this House should all condemn, as I know we do, and we need to be able to stop it wherever possible. It seemed clear from the work of the panel and the evidence that we were given, that reducing from two to one the number of occasions that someone can contact children with a view to exploitation is perfectly sensible and reasonable, and—most importantly—could lead to a reduction in the number of victims. I strongly support new clause 2.