Domestic Abuse Protection Notices and Orders
Jess Phillips Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) and I are today pleased to announce the launch of a pilot for the new domestic abuse protection notice (DAPN) and domestic abuse protection order (DAPO). DAPNs and DAPOs will be launching in Greater Manchester Police, three London boroughs with the Metropolitan Police Service—Croydon, Bromley and Sutton—and the British Transport Police. A further two sites, North Wales Police and Cleveland Police, will be onboarded in early 2025.
The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 legislated for the new DAPN and DAPO with the aim to bring together the strongest elements of the existing protective order regime into a single, comprehensive, flexible order.
The roll-out of these new protections is a key part of the Government’s safer streets mission and the unprecedented aim to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) in a decade. Domestic abuse is the most prevalent form of VAWG, with 2.2 million people estimated to have experienced domestic abuse in the year ending June 2024 [1]. Taking action to tackle domestic abuse and improve the justice system response to this abhorrent abuse is therefore central to achieving this Government’s ambition. The previous Government failed to roll out these new protections.
The new DAPN and DAPO will provide protection from all forms of domestic abuse, including controlling or coercive behaviour and will give the police and courts powers to impose tougher restrictions on perpetrators of domestic abuse, including mandatory notification requirements, attendance at a behaviour change programme and electronic monitoring. Breach of any requirement imposed by the DAPO will be a criminal offence punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both. The DAPO will also be the first cross-jurisdictional order available in the family, civil and criminal courts meaning police, victims and third parties can apply.
In accordance with section 50 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, I am publishing police statutory guidance on DAPNs and DAPOs and the consultation response. A public consultation was undertaken for eight weeks in February 2024 on the draft statutory guidance and this updated statutory guidance reflects the feedback from the consultation. The guidance aims to provide police forces with information to support the effective use of DAPNs and DAPOs. These will be published on www.gov.uk today.
We would like to thank all the partners who have worked so hard to reach this point. This is an important step in strengthening the police and criminal justice response to domestic abuse and keeping victims safe.
[1] Crime Survey for England and Wales, respondents aged over 16 in England and Wales.
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Violence against Women and Girls
Jess Phillips Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Mark. I thank the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) for her impassioned speech. However, I must give the biggest credit to my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) for bringing forward a debate on such an important issue. I have handled a lot of cases in my life, and have seen almost every way that the systems that are meant to protect us, such as the courts system, are used against victims in a patriarchal system. However, I have never seen a case that compares to the one that my hon. Friend spoke so bravely about, where our very democracy is used to allow a perpetrator to control. As in the case of Gisèle Pelicot, whose name has been mentioned today, it takes a huge amount of bravery to try to shift the shame elsewhere and keep speaking up. It has been a pleasure to work with my hon. Friend over the years, and long may that continue.
I am going to do something that did not always happen when I was on the other side in a debate: try to answer Members’ questions—that was not always my experience. Please bear with me if I jump around a bit. First, my hon. Friend is exactly right that we must make this issue everybody’s problem. By “everybody”—others mentioned the issue of silo Government—I mean every Government Department. I joked this morning that I was struggling to connect the issue to solar panels, but give me time.
To the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford, I say that the Conservative Government had a good track record of changing legislation, but what did not change at the same pace were the systematic processes that ensure that the legislation means something on the ground. Today we launched domestic abuse protection orders. The previous Government passed those into law, and three years after the fact, the first one was handed out this morning.
It will take a huge amount—a lot of different Departments and people having the will—to make things happen, and my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse is exactly right about that. A cross-Government strategy must not be just a piece of paper that sits on a shelf, and we say, “We’ve ticked that box.” It has to be targeted, and it has to have the will of everybody. As she said, that is what we will do. That will be out next year.
A number of people, including my hon. Friend, mentioned the concerning issue of non-contact sexual offences. Part 1 of the Angiolini review, which followed the death of Sarah Everard, made a huge number of recommendations with regard to how the police handle non-contact sexual offences. That was also mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (John Slinger). Frankly, it is not good enough, is it? It is woeful. I picked up a case just this morning, funnily enough, involving somebody sending naked images of themselves to someone—I will not use the colloquial term, even though I am sure everybody would expect me to; I am a Government Minister now.
These things have to be taken seriously. The Home Office is looking into the evidence about the escalation of non-contact sexual violence to contact sexual violence, because that evidence base does not currently exist, even though common sense would lead us all to assume it does. We need to ensure that we are continuing to work on that.
The issue of migrant women came up a number of times; my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) raised it, as did my hon. Friend the. Member for Poplar and Limehouse. Quite astutely, my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe reminded me of all the things I have said in the past on this issue. Although I now find myself in a different position, my heart is exactly in the same place. The issue of how migrant women are supported in our country is one that we are currently giving huge attention to. I do not care what stamp is in someone’s passport; if they have been abused on these shores, they deserve protection on these shores. That is what we will continue to strive for.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is right to say that I have a special interest in Northern Ireland. That is not to say that I do not love Wales and Scotland as well, because I do, but my father, who also raised me to be a feminist, makes my loyalty to Northern Ireland a tiny bit stronger than to elsewhere.
Alicia Kearns
The Minister and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) may welcome the information that the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee will hold specific hearings on violence against women and girls in Northern Ireland in the next few months. I am sure we will share with them in the next few months the outcomes of those hearings.
Jess Phillips
Yes, I had heard that from the Chair, and I am very pleased about it. For the now finally formed Government of Northern Ireland—we were all delighted to see that happen—one of their top priorities, in not a long list for government, is violence against women and girls. I will go over in January to work with the devolved Government and the Police Service of Northern Ireland to see how we can help each other to make this issue better.
Another point to make is about women’s experiences in post-conflict areas. Lots of people have mentioned conflict zones, but the women’s experience of violence in conflict zones, and then post conflict, does not get discussed when we talk about peace treaties and what needs to be put in place to rebuild infrastructure. We must not lose sight of that either.
Staying on the theme of the international stage, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald) said that this might not be my area to talk about with regard to Malala Yousafzai, so I will take this moment to shamelessly say that it is literally my area, because I am her Member of Parliament. I feel pretty proud that it was my city that took Malala in when she really needed refuge. I once had to lecture her school class about activism and how to be better activists, and this was after she had won the Nobel peace prize. That was a moment in my life that I felt slight shame in, but I hope they took something away from it.
I met with Malala recently on the very issue, as touched on by the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford and my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North, of the experiences of women in Afghanistan and the regime they are—I cannot even say “living under”—under. In fact, I met some of her people yesterday and will be continuing those conversations, and when I met with Malala herself it was with Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Ministers, so those conversations are ongoing.
The issue of funding was mentioned by many, and my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) mentioned a statutory duty in her comments. This links to the point about Cheshire. When my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) and I visited Cheshire police, we saw NHS-funded posts, probation-funded posts, police-funded posts and police and crime commissioner-funded posts sitting in a room together working tirelessly, and this goes to the point from my hon. Friend about rolling this out, as it is in London with the Metropolitan police and only two other areas. It is all well and good the Government saying, “I’m gonna have this fund and that fund”, but we will never solve this issue unless violence against women and girls is specifically mainstreamed into funding programmes in every locality, in every Department. This cannot be just a nice-to-have on International Women’s Day, and the example in Cheshire is a fantastic one, so we know it can work elsewhere. This is about the Government seeing what levers we can pull to ensure that that can happen.
Dan Norris (North East Somerset and Hanham) (Lab)
Many social workers and police officers have kind hearts and great practice. How will the Government reach out to encourage their best practice while at the same time dealing with the bad practice?
Jess Phillips
My hon. Friend makes a very important point, because trusting police officers comes up quite a lot, and the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse talked about how trust in police was at its lowest. What I would say is that the women who I have worked with over the years do not have the privilege of having an alternative to trusting the police; they have to trust them, because in most of their cases that is the only option they have. We also must work to ensure that, as my hon. Friend suggested, we do not demoralise the workforce with review after review, which sometimes demoralises people and makes this process a sort of check-box exercise of, “I did everything I should have”, rather than people’s response being, “Are you all right, love?”
My hon. Friend is absolutely right—the Government will have a fierce regime for standards in policing, but we will always celebrate good practice. This morning, I was in the constituency of the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor)—well, I was not in his constituency, but I was with his borough command, as Sutton and Cheam will be one of the first areas to have the roll-out of domestic abuse protection orders. I met dedicated staff from Sutton Council who work on domestic abuse and the police officers working in that borough command to make sure the roll-out happens. I could not have asked for better examples of police officers; they were totally dedicated. We need to do both things; celebrate the good and punish the bad.
I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume) on Anna’s case that—I am sure my officials will get annoyed with me doing this every time—I am personally happy to help Anna. I cannot listen to that story and not think that something has to be done about Anna’s specific case. However, we cannot just change things for Anna; we have to change them for everybody. We have to make sure that such stories—I do not want to sit and listen to such stories for the next five years. However, changing things will take quite a lot of time.
Several Members mentioned employment. I would be happy to have a conversation with the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), as I have already had many times, about exactly what she is seeking to achieve. The tackling violence against women and girls strategy is a cross-Government strategy and women will absolutely have a role in it. I mean, women do go to work; indeed, that feels like all I do. But women being safe at work was one of the things that she and I discussed while we were fighting for the domestic abuse protection orders to cover a woman’s workplace, when we served on the Domestic Abuse Bill Committee. As I say, I am more than happy to work with her, and workers’ rights and how we deal with people’s employment will absolutely be part of Government strategy.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) talked about Zara Aleena’s family, who I know well and have worked with over the years. We absolutely must ensure that we do not hear such a story again. My hon. Friend told the story of Zara Aleena and her perpetrator. The failings in Zara’s case show exactly what I am saying about a crippled system; we could make better law, or better rules, but the system of probation had been so crippled that that was the outcome. I feel immensely upset about Zara’s case.
Many Members mentioned education; indeed, somebody asked me directly if I speak to the Department for Education. My officials or I speak to the DFE daily. Apart from the Ministry of Justice and the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), with whom I work very closely, this mission focuses most on the Department for Education, because prevention is vital.
Many Members have spoken about boys. For example, as the mother of sons myself, I was affected by the harrowing stories that my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) told about boys’ attitudes. We have got to prevent this—I am sick of just putting bigger plasters on cuts. We have got to work very closely on prevention and on perpetrator work to prevent those who are already showing signs from escalating, and we will absolutely do that.
To answer the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford, Operation Soteria, having been rolled out, goes into a new phase in January where police forces have to tell us how exactly they are going to be doing it. There is no proposed end to Operation Soteria. I continue to see its benefits and work closely with the academics and police forces that undertook the work on it.
On the point about measurements, the overarching measurements we will seek to use will be just one thing. I refuse to make a target and miss a point. It is quite easy to juke stats anyway, isn’t it? Many different metrics sit underneath the overarching measure. The exercise on exactly what that measure will be is currently ongoing. The measure currently used in this instance is the crime survey of England and Wales. But we have to look at many other metrics, whether they are attitudinal, about femicide, or about issues with delivery in schools. It is not just the Home Office working on that; every Department is currently busily working on what their metrics might be. When the measurements are properly announced, I am determined to make sure that they do not just hit a target and miss a point.
On the flexible fund program, I am not going to commit to any funding anybody has asked me about today. I literally cannot, as that process is currently ongoing. However, I have seen the value of the flee fund over the years.
The pornography review is due, I think, very early next year. It was started by the previous Government and we will be working on it. As the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford said, the Online Safety Act only goes so far. I do not know how apocryphal this is, so I apologise if I am misleading the House, but I saw in a news article that Pornhub had said it had found some sort of workaround to the Online Safety Act. It was somehow going to make out like it was not a pornography site, so I assume we will all be going on Pornhub later to buy books. Is it that what they are offering? The use of graphic pornography in society has caused many of the things people have talked about today.
I am meant to have said all these things the Government are going to do and are currently doing. I think I have said most of them in answer to the questions. I will finish by saying that I wanted to cry today when I was with the police force in south London and the first domestic abuse protection order, something we had waited so long for, was handed out. The police officer was so delighted, and I felt like a new dawn was coming.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jess Phillips Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Cat Eccles (Stourbridge) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
The Government have set out an unprecedented mission to halve violence against women and girls within a decade. I say this on White Ribbon Day, and it is good to see everybody wearing their white ribbons. We are determined to tackle the scourge of domestic abuse in all its forms. From early 2025, Raneem’s law, which will embed domestic abuse specialist teams into 999 control rooms in order to improve the police response to domestic abuse crimes, will ensure that victims get a swift and specialist response when they call for help. We will also, finally, launch the pilot of the domestic abuse protection orders and roll them out across the country, which the previous Government failed to do three years after the fact of the law changing. So we will be providing stronger protections for survivors and ensuring that perpetrators are properly monitored and managed.
Cat Eccles
I thank the Minister for her response. My constituent Samantha Billingham is a domestic abuse survivor who now runs training sessions on coercive control. Coercive control is a thread that runs throughout all abuse, and I was shocked to hear that it does not form a core part of the training for the police, social workers or any other domestic violence training. Will the Minister meet me and Samantha to ensure that coercive control forms a key part of domestic violence training?
Jess Phillips
I have met Samantha Billingham, a local west midlands legend campaigning in this space, a number of times and I share my hon. Friend’s shock at the lack of knowledge about coercive control. All police, social workers and others in contact with victims of domestic abuse ought to be aware of coercive control and its insidious effects on the victim, and of course I would be delighted to meet her.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
There is a significant disparity in sentencing for murder based on whether a weapon was taken to the scene of a domestic crime or was already present. Sentences for murderers who used a weapon already available at the crime scene start 10 years lower than sentences for those who brought a weapon with them. Does the Minister agree that this disparity must be tackled?
Jess Phillips
I thank the hon. Lady and pay tribute to Julie Devey and Carole Gould, two of the parents who are fighting this campaign. A Ministry of Justice sentencing review is currently ongoing, and I know that Carole and Julie and Members here will want to feed into that.
Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)
Gregor Poynton (Livingston) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
There is nothing more important for the Government than keeping our children safe. That is why I am appalled by the volume of child abuse that is proliferating online, and why we are determined to act. We are committed to robust implementation of the Online Safety Act 2023, which contains strong protections for children, but we will not hesitate to go further if tech companies fail to play their part. Our investment in the National Crime Agency, GCHQ, an undercover online network of police officers and the tackling organised exploitation programme is supporting our efforts to keep children safe online by targeting and stopping the highest harm and most technically sophisticated offenders.
Gregor Poynton
I greatly welcome the action that the Government are taking, but the fight against child sex abuse online is only as strong as its weakest link, and Facebook’s decision to allow the encrypted sharing of images makes it a very weak link indeed. Does the Minister share my anger that Facebook appears to be turning a blind eye while its platform becomes a safe haven for paedophiles?
Jess Phillips
My hon. Friend raises an extremely serious issue. I assure him that we very much share his concerns. The Home Secretary has met representatives from Meta and our officials are in regular contact. What we say in all those discussions is very simple. For years, Meta has been an industry leader when it comes to preventing and detecting child sex abuse online, and what we all want to see is it continuing to play that positive role and not—as my hon. Friend fears—going in the opposite direction.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
My constituent lost his son to suicide following exposure to an online suicide forum. He is sadly one of 88 known Britons, the youngest of whom was just 17, whose deaths have been linked to this one site. Under the Online Safety Act, the Technology Secretary has the powers to include such small but very dangerous sites under category 1—the most heavily regulated category—but Ofcom has advised him against doing so. Will the Minister press her colleagues in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to include these exceptionally dangerous sites in category 1?
Jess Phillips
I pay tribute to the hon. Member’s constituent. It is unimaginable for any parent to have to go through something like that. We at the Home Office are working incredibly closely with our DSIT colleagues as the Online Safety Act comes into force to ensure that it is as strong and robust as it can be. We are having those conversations daily.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
Chris Bloore (Redditch) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
The scale of violence against women and girls in our country is intolerable, and the Government will treat it as a national emergency. As part of this mission, we are bringing together Ministers from right across Government so that every Department does its bit, from prevention work in schools through to relentless pursuit of dangerous perpetrators. On top of that work, we have already begun strengthening the police response to domestic abuse. We will mark the next 16 days of activism with further announcements on our work to tackle spiking, stalking and other VAWG crimes.
Laura Kyrke-Smith
Charities such as Aylesbury Women’s Aid do brilliant and vital work to support survivors of domestic abuse. However, when these survivors interact with other public-facing services such as emergency or healthcare services, they are not always met with the same level of understanding. What measures is the Minister taking to ensure that survivors of domestic violence and abuse are met with a trauma-informed approach across all public services?
Jess Phillips
A massive thank you to Aylesbury Women’s Aid for the amazing work that it is clearly doing. I am afraid that my hon. Friend and victims are exactly right in their assessment. That is why we must have a completely cross-Government approach to ensuring that no matter where a victim stands up, all services take responsibility for their role in the lives of those who are suffering.
Monica Harding
As the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) pointed out, coercive control is a criminal offence but it is often overlooked, despite research suggesting that it is the third highest risk factor in domestic homicide. In my surgeries in Esher and Walton, victims have told me that there is not a sufficient understanding of coercive control in police interviews, particularly when other crimes are being investigated. What assessments are being made of the effectiveness of the roll-out of the domestic abuse risk assessment—DARA—toolkit, which was introduced by the College of Policing in 2022?
Jess Phillips
A number of different risk assessment tools are used, whether DARA or Dash—the domestic abuse, stalking, harassment and honour-based violence risk assessment—which has a more historical grounding and is used more widely. I want the hon. Lady to know that it is impossible to read any domestic homicide review in our country for the past decade and not think that risk assessments, and how well they are used and operating, is something that we should look at.
Chris Bloore
Will the Minister join me in thanking the incredible staff at the Sandycroft centre in my constituency, who offer life-saving support for vulnerable people in times of crisis? Will she visit the centre with me to hear from CEO Lee McKenzie and the independent sexual violence advisers, who are on the frontline tackling increased violence against women and girls?
Jess Phillips
As it is very local to me, I take a particular interest in the Sandycroft centre. Such centres are invaluable to vulnerable women, and I would be delighted to visit him and Lee—it would be a 15-minute drive.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
Does the Minister agree that local charities like Jasmine House, which operates in my constituency, play a vital role in supporting women who have been victims of a sexual crime? But in addition to the worry of constantly trying to find funding, they are concerned about the impact that the Government’s proposed increase in employer’s national insurance will have on their ability to continue providing that help. Does the Minister agree that they should be exempt from the changes to national insurance contributions?
Jess Phillips
I pay tribute to Jasmine House. As someone who applied for funding for a similar centre, I understand exactly the funding pressures that its staff will face. What the sector really needs is stability, the assurance of more than single-year funding, which the Government are looking at, and making sure that we mitigate to ensure that there is enough.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
Anneliese Midgley (Knowsley) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
I have visited The First Step, and to say that it is run by brilliant Merseyside women would be an underestimation. Specialist “by and for” services play an essential role and provide tailored support to victims and survivors. We understand the challenges that the sector faces, in particular with the level of demand their services are currently facing. All decisions on funding after March 2025 are subject to the spending review process.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
Disabled women are almost three times more likely to experience domestic abuse and almost twice as likely to report sexual violence. Does the Minister agree that it is important for not only her Department but the police to work with disabled women-led organisations to understand the intersection with gender-based violence and the double whammy that affects disabled women?
Jess Phillips
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I pay tribute to Stay Safe East, one of very few specialist disability and domestic abuse charities. Without “by and for” services, we simply would not be serving most of the women in our country who need support.
Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)
A report published today shows that 60,000 hours are taken up each year investigating non-crime hate incidents. Does the Minister agree that confidence in the police could be restored if they prioritised their time and resources to investigate actual crime rather than hurt feelings?
Director of Labour Market Enforcement: Interim Annual Strategy 2024-25
Jess Phillips Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
Alongside the Minister with responsibility for employment rights, competition and markets, my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders), I am today publishing the labour market enforcement annual strategy for 2024-25, submitted by the Director of Labour Market Enforcement, Margaret Beels OBE. The strategy will be available on gov.uk.
The director’s role was created by the Immigration Act 2016 to bring better focus and strategic co-ordination to the enforcement of labour market legislation by the three enforcement bodies which are responsible for state enforcement of specific employment rights:
The Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate;
His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs national minimum and living wage enforcement team; and
The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority.
Under section 2 of the Act, the director is required to prepare an annual labour market enforcement strategy that assesses the scale and nature of non-compliance in the labour market, and sets priorities for future enforcement by the three enforcement bodies and the allocation of resources needed to deliver those priorities. The annual strategy, once approved, is laid before Parliament. The director is a statutory office-holder independent from Government, but accountable to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade and the Home Secretary.
In line with the obligations under the Act, Margaret Beels submitted this strategy for 2024-25 on 25 March 2024—it has since been revised and resubmitted to the new administration. This strategy continues on from the 2023-24 strategy by using the same four themes to provide an assessment of the scale and nature of non-compliance, and notes sectors where the risk level has changed. The strategy sets out the DLME’s desire to achieve improved cohesion and join-up between the DLME and the three state enforcement bodies through non-legislative measures, including suggestions of where the enforcement bodies and sponsor departments should be focusing their efforts.
The Government’s view is that the enforcement bodies have been funded sufficiently to deliver the activities set out in the strategy. The DLME carried out stakeholder engagement for the 2024-25 strategy with a call for evidence. In previous years, the Government published a response to the strategy setting out the approach we will take to the recommendations. Following their submission, the enforcement bodies have had an opportunity to review the recommendations, and we have sought agreement on the recommendations ahead of publication of the strategy.
As part of the Government’s commitment and in line with the ambition set out in Make Work Pay, the Fair Work Agency will bring together existing state enforcement functions and incorporate a wider range of employment rights. The DLME, as do we, consider the recommendations to still be appropriate to not only co-ordinate the enforcement of labour market legislation currently, but to help pave the way for the FWA by continuing to support the close collaboration of the enforcement bodies.
I thank the DLME for her strategy and encourage her to continue to work closely with stakeholders and the enforcement bodies.
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Oral Answers to Questions
Jess Phillips Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
Restoring confidence in policing is one of the core aims of the Government’s safer streets mission. That means ensuring robust responses to the crimes that devastate lives and corrode our communities. We are also committed to improving police standards, and will announce steps to strengthen the police misconduct and vetting system shortly.
Matt Western
It is almost two years since Warwickshire police issued a community protection notice against Warwickshire hunt. Eight months later, it was mysteriously replaced by a secret protocol. The police and crime commissioner, who receives financial support from the Countryside Alliance, claims that he knew nothing of the protocol. The chief constable refused to give me a copy and now she has resigned, claiming retirement. Trust in the PCC and the leadership of Warwickshire police has been seriously damaged. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the need for a truly independent inquiry, as opposed to the sham one being undertaken by the PCC?
Jess Phillips
I thank my hon. Friend and as a local to Warwickshire I take a keen interest in those matters myself. Of course, I will meet him, along with the Minister for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson). It is vital that the public can trust that those who police us, and who are in charge of our police, are held to account as everybody else should be.
Jayne Kirkham
Despite town and city councils in Cornwall employing street rangers and antisocial behaviour officers and having ShopWatch radios funded from their precept or business improvement districts, shop managers still struggle with shoplifting and ASB. The record under our Conservative PCC on answering and responding to 101 calls is poor, and those crimes are chronically under-reported. Shop workers feel powerless and there is a desperate need for more neighbourhood police. Can the Minister explain how trust in police and the rule of law will be restored to retail staff and shop managers?
Jess Phillips
As the Home Secretary laid out, extra neighbourhood policing is important not just because we need more police on our streets, but because when our constituents—shop workers and those who own businesses—call the police, if they get no response confidence drops. The neighbourhood police that there will be across the country, including in Cornwall, will help with confidence, not just with crime.
Siân Berry
I thank the Minister for her answers. We have seen a toxic culture in some police services, including WhatsApp messages that are racist, homophobic and sexist, displaying deep prejudice. Will she clarify when the multiple recommendations from the Home Office review into the process of police officer dismissals will be actioned, including changing the law so that those who fail re-vetting can be more simply dismissed?
Jess Phillips
I could not agree more that we need to strengthen this area, with women especially feeling less confidence over the last few years. We will announce in due course—I promise the hon. Lady that we are working on this at pace—how we are going to ensure that police conduct and vetting systems are fit for purpose, to bring back some of the trust that has been lost.
Mr Adnan Hussain (Blackburn) (Ind)
Although I welcome the Home Secretary’s response on antisocial behaviour involving e-scooters and bikes, I wish to reiterate the concerns of my residents in Blackburn. Will she consider not only additional powers for the police but civil powers for local authorities to combat hotspot areas before somebody is seriously hurt?
Jess Phillips
As the Home Secretary outlined on neighbourhood policing, we will bring in respect orders to ensure that antisocial behaviour in particular areas is targeted in a way that it simply has not been in recent years.
Mr James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
The operational independence of the police goes to the heart of public confidence in policing. As Foreign Secretary, I saw where political interference in policing is rife, and that is not a direction that the UK should travel in, so does the Home Secretary believe that it is right for Ministers to overrule the threat assessment of the police and security services, does she believe that some free concert tickets are the appropriate price for scrapping police independence, and after the appalling results of recent negotiations with the British Medical Association, the RMT and Mauritius, has she considered recruiting Taylor Swift’s mum as a Government negotiator?
Jess Phillips
As it falls to me to answer this, let me say that the right hon. Gentleman knows fine well that operational decisions for policing fall to the police, in this situation and in every other. I would certainly welcome it if Taylor Swift’s mother stood for the leadership of the Conservative party; she would really offer something that is not currently available. The substantive question was about confidence. The confidence of women in policing, and its ability to keep women in our country secure, dived under the previous Government, so confidence definitely needs to be restored.
Mr Cleverly
When I was Home Secretary, on numerous occasions I had to deal with foreign VIPs demanding, or requesting, a level of protection that we did not feel was appropriate. Does the Home Secretary recognise the difficult position that she has put her own Foreign Secretary in when such future requests come in and they have to be denied, as those individuals will pray in aid the protection package put in place for a rockstar?
Jess Phillips
I remind the right hon. Gentleman and the House that concerts were cancelled in Vienna because of a terror threat that the CIA identified could harm tens of thousands of people. I sat in this very Chamber last week in front of Figen Murray—the mother of Martyn, who was killed at an event in Manchester. The idea that we should not take that security seriously is, I am afraid, something that I simply do not agree with.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
We are absolutely looking at how we can strengthen stalking protection orders. We will look at our stalking laws in the round, but also at how policing handles all cases of violence against women and girls and at the training that will be needed.
Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)
Gregor Poynton (Livingston) (Lab)
The Home Secretary may be aware of the data that the Internet Watch Foundation released last week on the increasing amount of AI-generated child sexual abuse content available to everyone on the internet, finding that it has increased in the last six months alone. That is clearly illegal, so what are the UK Government doing to stamp down on that horrific crime?
Jess Phillips
Let me make it clear that the new Government intend very swiftly to set up new taskforces to ensure that across Departments—in this case, with our counterparts in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology—we do everything we can to end the scourge of online child abuse, and child abuse not online.
Commercial Sexual Exploitation
Jess Phillips Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for securing this debate, which, as she pointed out, is my first as a Home Office Minister—although definitely not my first on this subject, by any stretch of the imagination. From the outset, let me say that it is a privilege to have been asked by the Prime Minister to serve, and to work on some of the issues to which I have devoted much of my life both inside and outside this building.
We have an enormous task on our hands. Debates such as this underline why it is so critical that we make real progress in protecting women—and in this instance, men as well, and all people—from harm. We know that sexual exploitation disproportionately affects women and girls. As I said, it affects men as well, although those who are buying sex tend always to come from the same group.
It is time that we treat tackling violence against women and girls as the national emergency that it is. New Government policies will be announced in due course, but I want to restate that I believe passionately that change in this area is needed and, until it is achieved, we must not rest. On hearing accounts such as those we have heard tonight from my hon. Friend, I am not sure how we could come to any other conclusion. I will continue to work closely with charities and non-governmental organisations—I have met almost all those mentioned by my hon. Friend—to support services in advancing their efforts to protect survivors and hold perpetrators to account.
Turning to the specific points of the debate, this Government will use every lever available to stop commercial sexual exploitation, and all kinds of sexual exploitation. We are committed to tackling the harms that it brings. The most vulnerable in our society deserve nothing less. When looking at commercial sexual exploitation, it is undeniable that we have to consider carefully those who are exploited under the guise of completely legitimate prostitution. That is often the argument that comes back, but not one that we should recognise.
We are only a couple of weeks into the new Government, so I hope that Members will understand that I am not in a position today to make commitments on specific policies. However, I want to make it clear to my hon. Friend and all Members that they will be coming, and she has my word that I expect change in this space. Currently, the acts of buying and selling sex are not in themselves illegal in England and Wales. However, some activities that can be associated with prostitution are offences, including activities linked to exploitation, which she talked about.
The Sexual Offences Act 2003 makes it illegal to pay for the sexual services of a prostitute subjected to force, threats or any other form of coercion or deception. This is a strict liability offence, meaning that it is not a valid defence that the defendant did not know that the person was being exploited or had been subject to force or coercion. As my hon. Friend pointed out, I have very grave concerns about how well this works in practice—I am happy to say from here that it does not. Like so many convictions that we seek for crimes of violence against women and girls, the numbers are woeful.
We want to understand the scale of the issue and how best to respond to it. The Home Office is currently providing £1.36 million of funding to Changing Lives—I declare that I was the chair of the Changing Lives adult sexual exploitation partnership, though I am no longer—to address the current gaps in evidence of the levels and types of online abuse and exploitation, to help us better understand the pathways that are needed to improve support. This is important work and I thank the amazing Changing Lives for undertaking it. We are also providing £378,000 of funding over two years to Trevi Women, which provides trauma-informed support to women survivors wishing to exit on-street prostitution.
We are aware of the different legislative approaches to prostitution, such as those implemented in Northern Ireland and different parts of Europe. There is a wide range of potential legislative approaches. Further work is needed to understand the options we will have as a Government. I will work with the NGOs and charities to explore those options, ensuring that the protection of women and girls from exploitation is at the forefront of our approach.
The trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation is a horrific crime, and we are determined to safeguard victims and to bring ruthless perpetrators of this crime to justice. That means ensuring that the police relentlessly pursue perpetrators who pose the greatest risk to women and girls, using all the tools at our disposal to protect victims and get dangerous perpetrators off our streets.
As I am sure hon. Members are aware, sexual exploitation is a significant part of the trafficking space in this country. We will build on the Online Safety Act 2023 to ensure that online companies fulfil their duty to eradicate this exploitation from their sites. There is much work to do in this particular space, as has been highlighted by my hon. Friend. I have had many cases where this has not been handled well at all. Indeed, there are images of me on pornographic websites that I cannot get taken down.
We will use every lever to halve violence against women and girls in the next decade in the Home Office and across the whole of Government, with policing and other experts. The demand for commercial sexual services fuels the exploitation of women who are forced or coerced into prostitution. The use of commercial sexual services should not be normalised. We will look across Government to use all the levers available to change attitudes in the longer term, reducing demand for commercial sexual services and protecting women from exploitation.
We hope to see huge advances on the issue of sex for rent. I tip my hat to the now Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hove and Portslade (Peter Kyle)—
Arrests and Prison Capacity
Jess Phillips Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Chris Philp
Crime is taken very seriously, which why it has fallen by 6% in the past year and 55% since 2010. The right hon. Gentleman referred to a period of just eight days when a contingency was considered but not used. The Lord Chancellor, rightly and in a thoughtful and measured manner, has taken steps that will take effect tomorrow to ensure that such a contingency is not required in future. That is a responsible way of handling the situation.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
The Minister has stood in front of us today and said, “It would never be any of the kind of crimes you’re talking about.” The Prime Minister said last week at Prime Minister’s questions:
“No one would be put on the scheme”—
the early release scheme—
“if they were deemed a threat to public safety.”—[Official Report, 15 May 2024; Vol. 750, c. 249.]
The Minister is basically saying the same today, yet my inbox is full of cases of where perpetrators of domestic violence, rape, sexual violence and child abuse against multiple victims are being released early from prison. Does he think that someone who has raped someone, gone to prison, come out and done it again is not deemed a threat to the public?
Chris Philp
The Justice Secretary has assured me that Dartmoor is a well-run and well-regarded prison. One of the reasons why my colleagues in the Ministry of Justice, here on the Benches, are presiding over such a large increase in prison capacity is to ensure that prisoners are better rehabilitated in the prison estate. The hon. Gentleman rightly mentioned reoffending: preventing reoffending is critical. Much offending is connected with drug addiction—some estimates suggest nearly half—so getting more people into treatment is important, both in the courts system and in the prison estate. It is critical that, as people leave prison and re-enter the community, the drug treatment they received in prison continues in the community. We call it continuity of care, and it has increased quite dramatically recently—I would like it increase even more. That is one of the ways that we will reduce reoffending, which, as he said, is an important policy objective.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wonder if you could help me to get some answers. The Minister said during the urgent question that certain criminals who are a risk to the public would not be released, unlike Charlie Taylor, the inspector of prisons, who said that high-risk prisoners are being released under the scheme.
I have heard of a case where it took the court 29 months to hold a sentencing hearing on actual bodily harm against two different people as part of a domestic abuse situation. The prisoner was sentenced to four years, and was deemed to be such a risk because of previous sexual violence convictions that he was put on remand. On the day of the sentencing hearing, he was released immediately because he had been identified as suitable for early release. Yet the Minister told me today that no one with a history of sexual offending, who was a risk to the public or who had committed domestic abuse would be released. That is just one of many cases. I wonder whether the Prime Minister or the Minister has misled the House. Could you advise me how I could take that up?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. I am sure she meant to say that she was indicating that any misleading of the House would be inadvertent. I am not responsible, obviously, for responses from Ministers, but the Minister, who is still here, will have heard her comments, as will have those on the Treasury Bench. Does the Minister wish to speak further to that point of order?
Criminal Justice Bill
Jess Phillips ExcerptsWednesday 15th May 2024
(2 years ago)
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Laura Farris
I want to be crystal clear that, under the new clause, the offence is committed if the pseudo-image is created without the consent of the person who is the subject. That is at subsections 1(c) and 2(c) of proposed new section 66AD.
Let me talk for a moment about intent. The new clause differs from some of the content in the Online Safety Act 2023. It does not relate to intimate images, such as a person wearing a swimsuit, but applies to sexually explicit images, which are defined in legislation. It requires not only that the image is sexually explicit and is created without the consent of the subject matter, but that it is done for the purposes of sexual gratification or with the intent of causing humiliation, alarm or distress. I gently say that a similar measure was debated in the Bill Committee. I think it was tabled by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), and he will recognise that the intent of the provisions that the Government have adopted is the same as the Opposition’s.
I am aware of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke is saying about the base events. Perhaps I can allay her concerns by simply saying this: it is a novel new measure for any Government to take. She makes sensible and compelling arguments on this point, and I hope she will feel reassured if we take an iterative approach for the time being. She will recall that the Law Commission recommended that we did not introduce legislation at all, and I will come on to say a little about that. It is right to say that other countries are looking at us carefully. The Justice Secretary was at the G7 in Venice just last weekend, and other G7 Justice Ministers had noticed that we are making this change and were observing carefully. We are making this change because we recognise the inherent risk posed by these images and that the offence is overwhelmingly targeted at women, predicated on an absence of consent. As such, we consider it a gateway to more serious offending.
We make some points by way of clarification. We carefully considered the Law Commission’s recommendations in its excellent report on intimate image abuse, which has informed much of our recent work, although respectfully on this, we have diverged from its point of view. In response to some of its concerns, I would like to reassure the House. We recognise that the amendment could criminalise young people, particularly teenage boys. To reduce the risk of over-criminalisation, we believe that we have set pragmatic parameters. Creation alone will be a non-imprisonable offence, although it will incur a potentially unlimited fine. The offence of creation alone would not attract notification requirements, meaning that the offender will not be placed on the sex offenders register. As hon. Members will know, all of that changes if the image is shared. Victims of that offence will be entitled to automatic anonymity in line with all the other sexual offences and they will also be eligible for special measures at trial. We are delighted to see major deepfake websites withdraw from the United Kingdom and we encourage the others to follow their lead.
I turn to Government new clause 87, which introduces a statutory aggravating factor for manslaughter involving sexual conduct. The clause corresponds to, and potentially should be read in conjunction with, section 71 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which says that it is not a defence to argue that a victim consented to the infliction of serious harm for the purpose of sexual gratification.
We have long held concerns about killing of this nature where, by definition, the victim cannot give an account of consent, yet on occasions the court has implicitly sought to categorise the killing as a consequence of sexual choice, as opposed to the consequence of the development of social norms based on structural inequality. We invited the eminent criminal barrister Clare Wade KC to consider the issue specifically in her domestic homicide review last year. She said that cases of this nature must be viewed through the prism of coercive control and that
“the policy underpinning law ought to consider the wider harms which emanate from the behaviour which can and does lead to this category of homicide.”
We agree, and we are increasing the punishment for degrading and abusive conduct of this nature. Following careful consultation with the Sentencing Council, we are tabling a statutory aggravating factor so that sentences for manslaughter involving sexual conduct must be more severe. It will cover all cases where the act is directly attributable to sexual conduct.
I want to provide the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) with one point of reassurance. She will know from all her work, and particularly the research conducted by We Can’t Consent To This and the team, that of all these homicides almost 60% are strangulation cases. I know that that is not the point that she wishes to make with her amendment, but there is some overlap.
On parental responsibility, as hon. Members will be aware, the Government have already amended the Children Act 1989 via the Victims and Prisoners Bill to provide for the automatic suspension of parental responsibility in cases where one parent kills the other. We are making an amendment to develop the law further, providing that, where a father is convicted of child rape, parental responsibility that he may have for any child will be automatically suspended.
I pay tribute to the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman)—I think that she is in the wars at the moment—for the way in which she has presented this issue. She has advanced the compelling argument that we have long-established principles to protect children from sex offenders by placing people on the sex offenders register and protecting them from working with children, but while we have measures to protect other people’s children, the same protection does not exist for the children of the offender unless the mother goes to the family court to remove his rights.
I also pay tribute to Sanchia Berg, the journalist who revealed this issue through her work and highlighted the practical obstacles that some mothers had faced in making this application, as well as other families who have talked about their experience, including via their Member of Parliament, one example being my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Saqib Bhatti); I am not sure if he is in his place.
The father will still be able to apply to the family court to have the suspension of his parental responsibility lifted, but it is obviously fair to assume that, if he has been convicted of child rape, such an application is unlikely to succeed. We have also included a clear requirement for this measure to be reviewed after it has been in place for three years.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see in the Public Gallery some of the families who have championed this issue in the west midlands. Am I right in thinking—I really hope that I am not—that this measure covers only those convicted of the rape of a child, not other sexual offences against a child and a child aged 13 or over?
Laura Farris
The hon. Member is correct. I simply want to say again that this is a novel power that we are extending to Crown court judges, who typically do not have any knowledge of family law matters or a family law background. Once again, we think it is right that we take an iterative approach. There was a dialogue between the Mother of the House and the Lord Chancellor on this point, and she agreed with the approach. I do not want to put words in her mouth, and I am keenly aware of her absence when she should be speaking to her new clause, but I believe that she is satisfied with where we have got to. I commend the new clause and urge all colleagues to give it their support.
I turn next to new clauses 94 and 95 and new schedule 4. I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for his excellent campaign and dedication to crafting a new offence. I must also mention my hon. Friends the Members for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell) and for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson), who also came to see me and made a really compelling argument.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I will call Members whose amendments have been selected for separate decision first. I call Jess Phillips.
Jess Phillips
I was not expecting it to be me—thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have tabled amendments. I am sure everybody in this House will be delighted to hear that I will not be pushing all of them to a vote, because we could be here all night if I did.
Many people have put in a great amount of work, including the previous speaker, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison). I wonder whether, in her summing up, the Minister could give us some idea of whether the Bill will ever make it on to the statute book, because we are all working hard to put things into law, but we potentially have just 12 weeks left in this place, and it is a pretty long Bill to get through the Lords. I am worried about progress being stalled and about whether we are wasting our breath, but here I am and I will waste mine.
New clause 44, which stands in my name, seeks to replace the term “controlling prostitution for gain” with “sexual exploitation of an adult”, and to provide a definition of adult exploitation in the Sexual Offences Act 2003. In 2015, a significant change was made through the Serious Crime Act, whereby “controlling a child prostitute or a child involved in pornography” was replaced with the term “sexual exploitation of a child”.
Children who were once labelled prostitutes are recognised as being children who have been groomed and abused, and who are in desperate need of support. Unfortunately, no such change occurred for adult victims of sexual exploitation. I noted the earlier conversation on the issue of cuckooing, and the importance of understanding that a person can be groomed and coerced. The people who rent or own properties in that circumstance would be adults, so we do recognise that adults can be groomed; it just is not reflected in our laws. In fact, new clause 47, which also stands in my name, talks about that as well.
Sexual exploitation occurs when individuals or a group take advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, manipulate or deceive a person into sexual activity. That is often done in exchange for something that the victim needs or wants, and it will disproportionately benefit the perpetrator. The impact on lives is devastating.
One case study from the STAGE group highlights the sudden change in perception of sexual exploitation as a person reaches adulthood:
“Meena was 15 when she was introduced to her perpetrator. He began…supplying her with alcohol and drugs to the point she developed a dependency on alcohol. He used her fear around shame as a form of control to ensure she did not speak out about the abuse he would subject her to. Between the age of 15-18 Meena was seen as a victim of CSE and professionals did all they could to safeguard her. At 18 the exploitation was continuing. However, since moving into adult services the police and adult social care have questioned whether Meena was just making unwise choices and whether she was getting something out of these exchanges… Meena had a missing episode. She was located following a sexual assault. However, the responding police officer informed”
her support worker
“that this experience cannot be sexual exploitation because Meena is over 18.”
The lack of a legal definition and the continuing label of sexual exploitation of adults as “controlling prostitution for gain” has led to the continued abuse of countless women like Meena and to the lack of response from safeguarding agencies. New clause 44 would play a vital role in changing the perception of adult victims of exploitation. As I have said, new clause 47 would make an aggravating factor of the grooming in these cases—adult cases—just as we do in cases of childhood sexual exploitation.
Since 2019, the STAGE partnership against adult sexual exploitation, which I declare I am the chair of, has supported over 700 adult women who have experienced grooming, and that is just in the north-east and Yorkshire. STAGE’s work has confirmed that grooming is a common technique used to manipulate people for sexual exploitation. There are considerable overlaps in the perpetrators’ behaviour and tactics with those seen in cases of child sexual grooming, and it has a devastating negative impact on people’s ability to consent and make capacitated decisions. It is a deliberate process of limiting the freedoms of a person by gaining control over them and creating dependency. However, for adults who have experienced grooming, it is often reduced to making poor life choices because of the belief that grooming can only happen to children. Adult victims of grooming are repeatedly asked victim-blaming questions such as, “Why did you get back in the car? Why did you stay with them? Why didn’t you leave?”
I do not know if Members of this House have seen the TV programme “Baby Reindeer”, but it is one of the best examples I have ever seen. It is interesting because it is about a man, and I therefore think that, as a nation, we might be more ready to believe it. There is an incident where he goes back to somebody with more power than him, who has a hold over him in his career and is feeding him drugs for dependency. He goes back, but under our current laws he would not be considered to have been groomed. That would not be a mitigating factor in any case that he could take. If he was a child, it would be a mitigating factor—nobody is arguing against that.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
The hon. Lady is making an important point. All of this comes back to how we view vulnerability, because it displays itself in very different ways. In almost all these cases, there is some base vulnerability, and a drug addict or a person who has been accused of various things realises that, on balance, they had better do what they are told or coerced into. That is the real point, is it not?
Jess Phillips
I absolutely agree, and it can truly happen to anybody—we have seen how people even in this House can be coerced into things. It is dangerous. If there are criminal charges for blackmail, sexual violence or whatever against a person, grooming should be an aggravating factor, regardless of age, on the basis—as the right hon. Gentleman rightly says—of a differential of vulnerability. Until grooming of adults is recognised in legislation, it will continue to be misunderstood by law enforcement and the criminal justice system, and victims will not be adequately protected.
New clause 45 would essentially decriminalise the offence of loitering or soliciting for the purposes of prostitution, and repeal section 1 of the Street Offences Act 1959. Tens of thousands of sex trade survivors who are convicted of that offence endured violence and abuse from punters and pimps, or they were criminalised for offences arising from their exploitation. The exploiters and abusers remained at liberty, continuing to offend, while we criminalised the victims.
In one case I was told of, a young woman was 15 when she was first exploited into prostitution by a man posing as her boyfriend. He became her pimp, and as well as sexually abusing her himself, he made her sell sex on the street where she often feared for her life. For years she suffered violence and abuse from her pimps and punters, and was regularly arrested by the police while they exchanged friendly greetings with her pimp—that, by the way, is essentially protected under the law in our land at the moment, which needs some heavy review. As a consequence of that history, which dates back to the 1980s, she has 39 convictions for soliciting and loitering, which will remain on her record for life, despite her having exited prostitution more than 30 years ago. She is one of thousands of women who have lived through that experience.
Times have changed. Those in much of street prostitution are now widely understood to be the victims, and they are usually no longer arrested. The new clause would provide the necessary recognition that women convicted of such offences were not criminals. It would ensure that the UK complies with international human rights obligations to women exploited in prostitution, and it would replicate the majority of Council of Europe states that have fully legalised or decriminalised prostitution, or adopted the sex buyer model, which decriminalises only those exploited and not those who profit or benefit from prostitution.
New clause 46, which is connected to new clause 45, would create a mechanism for those who received convictions for loitering and soliciting for the purpose of prostitution to have them disregarded. We have seen quite a push in the House regarding the criminalisation of people from the Post Office and—quite rightly—to have those convictions quashed. I am asking us to consider those young children and very vulnerable women who were criminalised, because that will remain on their criminal records until the survivor reaches the age of 100. It means that women who were convicted continue to be disadvantaged by the mandatory retention of such records, as a result of being historically subject to violence and exploitation. Despite recent changes to the disclosure regime, women are still at risk of those records being disclosed in certain circumstances. In the Post Office drama, one woman could not go into her kid’s school to do a painting session. We are talking about women who have been exploited not being able to go into our kids’ schools.
New clause 48 argues that strangulation should be seen as an aggravating factor in the sentencing of murderers, and the Minister sought to address some of these issues. Working with many families of murdered women, many of them speak to me of the horrors of how their loved one was killed by strangulation. Strangulation is not a weapon. Weapons have different sentencing regimes, and in this instance, a man’s strength is their weapon; he brings a weapon by bringing the strength to strangle and kill somebody. We have gone over the debates and the amazing work of Carole Gould and Julie Devey looking at the differentiation between those who kill a stranger or anyone in the street with a knife getting a 25-year minimum sentence, and someone who kills their wife with a knife in their home getting a 15-year minimum sentence. That is fundamentally wrong. Schedule 21 to the Sentencing Act 2020 needs a massive review, but one thing we could definitely do is put in aggravated factors specifically on strangulation, as Clare Wade suggested.
We debated new clauses 49 and 50 extensively in Committee, and they relate to whether victims of domestic violence deserve defences in the law. I imagine this matter will get an even bigger run-out in the Lords. Many learned Members of the other place very much wish to see these mitigations for cases where women commit crimes as a result of the pattern of abuse they have suffered. I look forward to that being the ongoing debate down there.
We did not debate new clause 93 in Committee, so I will just talk about it. I like it as a policy, because it does not cost anything, which the Minister will be pleased to hear. It calls for the sentencing code to be amended to require judges to consider making compensation orders where there is evidence of economic loss or damage as a result of the offence. I know from my constituents and the charity Surviving Economic Abuse that even when a survivor is lucky enough to have her case reach court and her abuser handed a prison sentence, she has to live with the long-lasting impact of the abuse. Some 5.5 million UK women have had their money and belongings controlled by their current or former partner in the past 12 months. Many economic abuse survivors often end up homeless, destitute and with damaged credit scores that prevent them from rebuilding their life.
While the sentencing code requires judges to consider awarding compensation when making their judgments, in reality they do not. Research by Surviving Economic Abuse looked at successful controlling or coercive behaviour prosecutions that featured economic abuse between 2016 and 2020, and it found that despite evidence of loss and damage caused by the perpetrator, just 2% of cases resulted in the perpetrator being ordered to pay compensation. New clause 93 would help ensure that judges consider whether a compensation order is appropriate in cases of economic abuse.
That is the end of my amendments. However, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) has had many a mention today. She cannot be here today, but she has asked me to make some remarks on new clause 2 on her behalf. I make them very much on my behalf, too, with one particular question to the Minister. I have already asked her about the age being under 13. If somebody came to me and said that the father of their children had raped a 14-year-old, I do not think they would be particularly happy that they still had to go through the family court process, so I very much hope that when the Minister says this is an iterative process, that will actually be the case. There are still massive safeguarding issues.
New clause 2 would change the law to protect the children of convicted child sex offenders by taking away their father’s parental rights. That would be hugely significant and would lay down that fatherhood is a privilege, not a right and that people will forfeit it if they are a danger to their children. That would be a major change. The patriarchal hangover whereby a father’s rights over a child were sacrosanct will, at long last, give way to the priority of protecting the child.
It has long been recognised that children need protecting from sex offenders. While in the 1990s we brought forward protection for children through the sex offenders register and restrictions on people who have been convicted of serious sexual offences, we did not tackle parental rights and protect the offender’s own children. Somehow, the patriarchal view that a father’s rights over their own children must not be disturbed was a carve-out. Obviously that was wrong, because the rights of the child—not the rights of the father—should be at the forefront.
A recent family court case in Cardiff put a spotlight on that. When the father of Bethan’s daughter was sent to prison for child sexual abuse, Bethan was horrified to discover that, despite being in prison, he still had rights over their child. When he was sentenced, he was given an order banning him from any future contact with children, but that ban did not extend to his own children. Bethan spent £30,000 going through the family court fighting to protect her child from him.
The courts and the law should step forward to protect children. It should not be left to the mother—especially because, in most of these cases, the mother will be a victim as well. The court should strip the father who has done the offending of rights over his child.
As the Government have said, they are adopting this change. I have already said that I have concerns about some of the limitations with regard to the offence type. Let us be honest: I do not believe in the rights of fatherhood when parents are abusive at all.
When working with my right hon. and learned Friend, there are a lot of messages—that is what it is always like. The drafting of the legislation has essentially been copied and pasted from previous campaigns that we worked on with regard to Jade’s law on homicide, and there is a worry about the drafting of proposed new section 10B to the Children Act, which requires local authorities to make an application to the family court to review the decision to remove the sex-offending father’s parental right in every case, even when there is no issue at all with the mother. In her closing remarks, will the Minister address that?
Several hon. Members rose—
Laura Farris
My right hon. Friend is quite correct: that is the basis on which the Government cannot accept the amendments. Of course, everybody agrees that water companies should be punished as robustly as possible, but it is also the case that we have pre-existing offences that apply. Pollution incidents are already the subject of criminal sanctions available to the Environment Agency under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016, and there is a serious risk of duplication, not least because—I hope the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) will not mind my saying this—the sanctions he has included in his amendments are just more fines, and we already have a fines regime.
Let me set out very briefly the basis on which, in a principled way, we are saying no to the amendments. As the environment regulator, the Environment Agency can and does prosecute company directors and other senior officers under the relevant regulations. It has a power to fine, and there can be convictions for polluting rivers and coastal waters, where it can be proved that the offence has been committed. Expanding criminal liability would simply create a repetition of the existing powers. It is the Government’s view that the amendments would create a dangerous and unacceptable risk of double jeopardy across the two regulatory regimes that are administered by Ofwat and the Environment Agency.
The amendments would simply duplicate the existing sanctions, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) put it, for not meeting performance commitments. More seriously, they could undermine the robustness of the Environment Agency’s criminal sanction regime. On that basis, I hope the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale will understand why we do not want to see duplication in an area where there is already the capacity to prosecute, a criminal law regime and the sanction of fines, which is everything that his amendments seek.
Jess Phillips
I fear the Minister is coming to the end of her remarks, but she has not addressed my new clause 44. Does she have any comment on it?
Laura Farris
I thank the hon. Lady for reminding me, but I had not forgotten. I listened carefully to her speech and I have read all her amendments, not all of which were selected, but some of which she has raised before. On the general defence, she will know that the Law Commission is currently undertaking a review of the defence of duress in relation to women and the crime—
Laura Farris
I know that the amendment has not been selected, but I want to provide the hon. Lady with some reassurance on it, because we on this side of the House continue to think about the issues she has raised. She is aware of the Law Commission’s review of the defence of duress as it applies to murder. I want to provide her with an update and some reassurance that we will take the lessons that come out of that review, and consider it more widely, if appropriate, in alignment with the point that I think she made earlier in this debate.
On new clause 44, this is an important point between us, but the Government are resisting it not because there is any real dispute of principle, but because there is dispute of degree. There is a concern that by amending the wordings of sections 52 and 53 of the Sexual Offences Act, as so drafted, we could unnecessarily narrow the scope of section 52 as it has been applied in the criminal courts and potentially add an additional element to be proved in relation to section 53 that could make prosecution harder. We disagree not on the principle but about whether it will have the effect she is looking for. I did listen carefully to her speech and the way that she has presented the argument on previous occasions.
Angiolini Inquiry Report
Jess Phillips Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
James Cleverly
As I said in my response to the shadow Home Secretary, the simple truth is that there is no consistency across the country. Some forces deal with these issues better than others. We want to ensure that we increase the focus on such issues right across the country. The strategic policing requirement that I put forward is part of driving that attitudinal change right across the country. I demand that all police forces treat this as a priority issue, taking it as seriously as their work on counter-terrorism policing, for example, and that they learn from best practice, which is why I have spoken extensively with the College of Policing about the issue. Every woman everywhere in the country should have confidence in their police force.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I would like to send my love to Sarah Everard and to the families of the 340 women in this country who have been killed since the day she was killed.
The Home Secretary said that the strategic policing requirement is designed to make this issue as important as terrorism, but which police force in the country with a counter-terrorism unit has the same number of officers in that unit as it does specialists in violence against women and girls? Why did his Department spend £50 million last year on 6,700 Prevent referrals to prevent people from ending up in terrorism, but £18 million on 898,000 police reports of domestic abuse? We have 6,000 on one side and nearly 1 million on the other; the Home Office spends £18 million on DV perpetrators and £50 million diverting terrorism perpetrators, and says, “We are taking it just as seriously.”
To say, “We are doing everything possible in flagging intelligence” is just not true. Currently, if someone is found by a family court in this country—a British court —to have raped their wife, raped one of their children or abused their children, no police force in the country would be entitled to that information when doing their vetting. Will the Home Secretary commit to ensuring that, if someone who wants to become a police officer or a social worker has been found by a British court to have committed rape or child abuse, that information will all be made completely and utterly available?
Criminal Justice Bill (Fifteenth sitting)
Jess Phillips ExcerptsTuesday 30th January 2024
(2 years, 4 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24 View all Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 30 January 2024 - (30 Jan 2024)
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I put my name to this new clause tabled by the Mother of the House, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman)—she has had some mentions. I absolutely agree with it. It is important, but, to be completely honest, for me it is far too small in its approach. I believe that the family courts in our country are harming—well, killing—children. Yesterday, the head of the family court division said on BBC Radio 4 that austerity is harming children and putting more children into care. We have been campaigning on family court justice for a decade, and progress has been slower than slow; I cannot think of an adjective. But people who abuse their families should not be allowed access to their children.
The new clause is specifically about those convicted of sexual offences against children. To be completely clear, those convicted in our family courts of sexual offences against children are not barred from parental responsibility for their own children—they can be barred from seeing anybody else’s children, but their own children are not immediately excluded. I am afraid that child abuse cases are taking place in our family courts, and not only do we allow children to be alone with parents who are abusers, but we sometimes remove children from the person trying to keep them safe and place them with those abusers. The new clause would protect children specifically from fathers convicted of serious child sex offences.
When a man commits a serious sexual offence, he has to go on the sex offenders register and is prevented from working with children. That protects other people’s children but not his own, and he retains parental responsibility. Currently, a father convicted of child sexual offences automatically retains parental responsibility. My right hon. and learned Friend’s new clause would make the default position that he would lose his parental responsibility, subject to that being reinstated by a family court on his application if it is judged to be in the child’s best interest.
The new clause follows important work done on this issue by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion)—including through the Victims and Prisoners Bill Committee, which I was also on—and Jade’s law, which was added to that Bill to protect children by removing parental responsibility from a man who kills a child’s mother, or a parent who kills any parent. The new clause would similarly remove the parental responsibility of the father where he is convicted of sexual offences against children.
There is a BBC News article relating to Bethan in Cardiff, who has spent £30,000 protecting her daughter from the child’s father, who has been convicted of paedophile offences. The clause would make it the default position that parental responsibility is removed in such a case, meaning mothers do not have to go through such an arduous and expensive process. It could, however, be reinstated by the family court on application if it is judged to be in the best interests of the child.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mrs Latham. I welcome the new clause tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham and outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley. New clause 3, as we have heard, seeks to remove the parental responsibility of people convicted of sexual offences against children and I welcome the tremendous cross-party support it has received. The new clause’s core aspect is the welfare of the child. I am one of those whose ambition in being elected to this place was to work for the benefit of young people, and the new clause does that.
The proposal would go some way to strengthening the law around the welfare of a child whose parent has been convicted of sexual offences against children. There are very limited cases where the court has allowed an application to terminate a person’s parental responsibility. They include a 1995 case in which the court terminated the parental responsibility, acquired by a parental responsibility agreement, of a father who had been sent to prison for causing serious injuries to his child.
In 2013, the court removed the parental responsibility of a father who had been imprisoned for sexual abuse of his child’s half-sisters. In a further case in 2013, the court terminated the parental responsibility of a father who was serving a prison sentence for a violent attack on the child’s mother. Finally, in a 2021 case, the court terminated the parental responsibility of a father who had a significant offending history, including sexual offences against children. In other words, this is already happening.
On Second Reading, I spoke about the need to amend the Bill so that offenders who have sexually harmed children and are sent to prison as a result lose the ability to control their own children from behind bars. That measure is long overdue and will ensure all children are safe from those dangerous predators, including their own parents. The key problem to address is: how can a man—it is usually a man—considered too dangerous to work with or be around other people’s children be allowed to have parental responsibility that effectively makes him responsible for all manner of decisions affecting their child’s life, but which may not be in the best interests of the child? Why should any child be subject to any form of control by a convicted sex offender who is unlikely to be part of their lives for years ahead, and possibly forever?
In response to a question on the proposed new clause, Dame Vera Baird told Committee members that she had reservations about the definition of a sexual offence in the context of the Bill as she felt it might be too wide. That said, I hope the Government will at least support the new clause in principle and perhaps return to the issue on Report so that we can take another step in the quest of all of us here to protect children. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Laura Farris
The new clause seeks the automatic suspension of parental responsibility where a parent has been convicted of a serious sexual offence against a child. We understand fully the motivation in bringing the new clause. We have discussed it and I respect the remarks that have been made. I want to confine my remarks to the contours of the current system and where that fits in relation to Jade’s law, which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley has already alluded to, and how that was introduced in the Victims and Prisoners Bill.
Starting with the current state of the law, the paramountcy principle is the cornerstone of the family justice system. There must be full consideration of the best interests of the child as a starting point. The hon. Member for Stockton North has just given an example of a number of cases where the parent had committed a very serious sexual offence and the family court acted accordingly to suspend parental responsibility.
Jess Phillips
Perhaps the Minister would like to see my email account, which has a folder specifically for the thousands of cases from the family court where the cornerstone is absolutely not the safety of the child. There are lots of cases where that does not happen—far more than the handful that have been referred to.
Laura Farris
I noted what the hon. Lady said in her opening remarks, but I will go through the legal landscape before I come to other issues. As I say, we are carefully considering the force of the new clause.
In cases in which a parent has been convicted of a child sexual offence, the family court has the power to strip out parental responsibility. That decision is made only after careful consideration of the best interests of the individual children, to ensure that their needs are the driver for action. Decisions about suspending or restricting parental responsibility have significant ramifications for children, which is why judges prefer to consider each case on its individual merits and make a decision that is specific to the best interests of that child.
We must not conflate suspending an individual’s parental responsibility with a punishment. It is a step that is taken to protect the child from harm, and because of that it must be taken when it is in the best interests of the child. The new clause, as drafted, makes no provision for the consideration of the best interests of the child. For that reason, we think it engages article 8 consideration under the European convention.
Members are of course aware that the Government recently tabled an amendment to the Victims and Prisoners Bill that will automatically suspend parental responsibility where a parent has been convicted of the murder or the manslaughter of the other parent. We wish to make clear that distinction. In many cases in which one parent has killed the other, the children involved will have no one left to exercise parental responsibility, apart from the killer of their other parent. In such circumstances, we think that it is right that whoever is left caring for the child, whether that be a grandparent or even the local authority, is spared the onus being on them to commence family proceedings to restrict the offender’s parental responsibility.
Where a parent has committed a serious offence other than murder or voluntary manslaughter, it is likely that there will be another parent able to exercise parental responsibility and apply to the family court.
Jess Phillips
Does the hon. Lady think it is okay for a woman who has been abused and had her husband convicted of paedophilia to pay £30,000 in order to keep her children safe?
Laura Farris
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. That case has caused concern, and we have been looking carefully at the legal aid position, which I will come on to.
As I was saying, where a parent has committed a serious offence other than murder or manslaughter, it is likely that there will be another parent able to exercise parental responsibility and make the application to the family court—I will come to legal aid in a moment—for the well-established method of restricting the offender’s parental responsibility.
Lord Meston, a family court judge who sits in the House of Lords, made a speech on the Victims and Prisoners Bill in which he warmly welcomed the inclusion of Jade’s law as a way of automatically restricting the rights of the other parent. I just say this in passing. He was invited to consider whether there should be the automatic suspension of parental responsibility if another kind of crime was committed. He said something that we have noted as part of our thinking:
“However, on reflection, I do not think that the Crown Court should be expected, as part of a sentencing exercise, to make automatic prohibited steps orders”
in different cases. He continued:
“The Crown Court will not have, and cannot be expected to have, a full appreciation of the family’s structure and dynamics, and of the circumstances of the children concerned, and will not have input from Cafcass.” Lords—[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 December 2023; Vol. 834, c. 2094.]
That is not determinative of our thinking, but it is the reflection of a family court judge who sits in the other place. That is what he said in relation to Jade’s law while, of course, welcoming it.
The automatic nature of the new clause would mean there would be no space for the court to consider the wishes of the other parent or the wishes of the children as to whether the matter should be brought to a family court.
Jess Phillips
The new clause clearly states that the other parent can apply to the court to have their wishes heard, but it is not the responsibility of a completely innocent mother, in most cases, to have to protect her child from a sex offender.
Laura Farris
I accept that the new clause gives the other parent the right to return to the family court, but effectively it could force a child to make applications to the family court to have their wishes considered.
Laura Farris
Because there has to be an application for the reinstatement of parental responsibility. That is what the new clause states at proposed new section 2A(2).
Jess Phillips
The hon. Lady said that a child would have to make an application to the family court. How is that the case?
Laura Farris
The child would have to advance what their best interests are to the family court, if parental responsibility has already been suspended.
Laura Farris
We have carefully considered the case in Cardiff. I want to make it clear that legal aid is available for a prohibited steps order and specific issue order in specific circumstances, subject to means and merits tests and evidence requirements relating to domestic abuse or the protection of children being met. Where the subject of an order has a relevant conviction for a child abuse offence, it is likely that the application would satisfy the relevant evidence and merits criteria. We are looking into why that was not the case for the lady in Cardiff.
Jess Phillips
Could I also open all the other cases with the Legal Aid Agency? The vast majority of people I encounter—there are thousands, and I have sat in the family court for hours—have not been able to access legal aid. Every one of them is a victim. Perhaps the Minister could look into that.
Laura Farris
That warrants a response, and the hon. Lady will get one.
My final point, to which the hon. Lady alluded in her opening remarks, when she said she hoped the provision might go wider, is that one of the conceptual difficulties with the new clause is that it would seek to remove parental responsibility in cases of serious child sexual abuse, but it is silent on, for example, child murder. Or what about perhaps a serious case of terrorism, where we could advance a plausible argument? We think there are issues around the scope of the new clause.
Jess Phillips
I could not agree more—the scope needs to be much wider—so will the Minister and the Government, by Report stage or in the Lords, finally act on the harms review by tabling amendments to the Bill that we can all be proud of?
Laura Farris
As I say, we are looking at the definitional issues. We are also looking carefully at the paramountcy principle, which underpins the way in which cases are approached in the family court. The new clause has a worthy aim. We have huge sympathy for families in these circumstances and want to do as much as possible to support them in getting the right outcome for their children. At present, we do not think the new clause is the right way to do that, and we urge the hon. Lady to withdraw it.
Jess Phillips
For nearly 10 years I have had Ministers stand in front of me and say, “We are a bit worried about” some legal word or other. How many children have died because of family court proceedings in the 10 years that we have been trying to raise the alarm? The family courts in our country will be the next Rotherham or Rochdale. State-sanctioned child abuse is going on and we all just turn a blind eye. The things that I have seen in courts are harrowing. I have watched children being removed from their loving mothers and placed fully in the care of paedophiles—proven child abusers. For me, we cannot casually sit here and pretend that that is okay.
Funnily enough, one of the people I started this campaign with, all those years ago, was the current Justice Secretary. Why is it taking so long to do something about the family courts in our country? They are actively dangerous, everybody knows it and nobody is doing anything about it. It is like the Post Office; I will not be one of those people who sat by and did nothing.
I will not press the new clause to a Division, because its scope is not wide enough and does not deal with half the harms that I see. If the Minister wants to take away the parental responsibility for children from terrorists she can knock herself out—I will support it. I will support any movement towards progress in the family court, because I have seen none. I look forward to the Government coming forward with an all-singing, all-dancing proposal that will make children safe. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
On a point of order, Mrs Latham. I find it really hard to hear my colleagues in this room. Could I ask you, and other hon. Members, to please speak as loudly as possible?
Jess Phillips
In a case that I have come across, a woman who was a victim of domestic abuse was charged under the crime of joint enterprise and received a longer sentence—because she pleaded not guilty—than the person who abused her and killed somebody by pulling the trigger of a gun. Is my hon. Friend concerned that in some cases of joint enterprise, those who have not had it proven that they had a significant part to play get longer sentences than those who did?
Peter Dowd
My hon. Friend gets right to the nub of this matter, and she is absolutely right. I agree with her point. Dr Gerry points out that the case of Fiaz, in which she was lead counsel, highlights the need for legal clarity. Judges are currently required to direct juries to consider the significance of a defendant’s contribution to an offence, and that is leading to numerous miscarriages of justice. Only Parliament can fix that.
I have a number of questions for the Minister. If the new clause is unnecessary, as may be claimed, can the Minister explain why when schoolchildren spontaneously gather for a fight and one of them unfortunately dies, they are sometimes all prosecuted even when they have had no contact with the victim and no weapon? That is one of the many such examples provided by Dr Gerry, who, as I said, was the lead counsel in the landmark Jogee case.
Is the Minister be willing to meet Dr Gerry and other experts in this field who can explain why this change of law is so badly needed? Can the Minister explain why the Crown Prosecution Service’s own database suggests that black people, as I indicated earlier, are 16 times more likely than white people to be prosecuted for homicide or attempted homicide under joint enterprise laws? What assessment have the Government made of the reasons behind that remarkable statistic? It is shocking. Is it not obvious why campaigners say that joint enterprise is too often used as a racist dragnet? Finally, will the Minister agree that it is not in the public interest to prosecute those who have not made a significant contribution to a crime?
Jess Phillips
Can the Minister tell me what protections are in place for the woman in the case that I outlined? She was considered to be an accessory to a crime. She was a victim of coercive and controlling behaviour, and the crime was a part of a pattern of domestic abuse.
Laura Farris
In that circumstance, the defence of duress would be available to the victim in the ordinary way.
Jess Phillips
Currently, that is absolutely not what is happening in our criminal courts. It is currently no defence for victims of domestic abuse in these cases to say, “I’m a victim of domestic abuse: that’s why I ended up here.” The Minister is saying that there is the defence of duress; I am saying that it never gets used. It does not stack up, and this is not happening in reality. She has spoken of her pride in the Government over coercive control. Does she think that there need to be specific elements, within this conversation about joint enterprise, to protect people who are coerced into such behaviours?
Laura Farris
We will come on to some amendments of that nature and I will deal with them in due course, but the defence of duress is a standard defence in the criminal context. [Interruption.] These are the criminal defences that get advanced.
In response to the hon. Member for Bootle, this is an area of the law that is intrinsically linked with other inchoate offences such as encouraging or assisting a crime. We think that it is too difficult to require the prosecution to prove a significant contribution; as we say, the very important case of Jogee has set clear parameters for both the conduct element and the mental element, which we think creates the correct framework of common law. For those reasons, the Government are unable to support the new clause, and we ask the hon. Member for Bootle to withdraw it.
Jess Phillips
I support the shadow Minister’s every word and point out, as he has done, the level of cross-party support for a change to this particular piece of law. In some way, I hope to outline some of the reasons why not many cases of cuckooing have been brought forward. I saw a case of a young woman, who was exploited from childhood into adulthood through the care system—and then in her own private property; men would come around to rape, sexually assault and sell her in her own property. People might, perfectly reasonably, say, “Why wouldn’t you call the police?” Well, there were kilos of cocaine and heroin left in her property, and she was absolutely convinced—nothing that I could convince her otherwise—that she would be criminalised if she called the police to her home. In other cases, there might be a cannabis farm in the ceiling, for example, and people are convinced that they will be criminalised.
Without doubt, there are more people in our prisons who have been victims of human trafficking than there are human traffickers. Certainly, for those charged under any of the crimes in the Modern Slavery Act, there will be many more people in our prisons who should actually have been saved by the provisions in that Act that say that criminalisation should not occur—yet it does, every single day; we continue to criminalise people in that manner, even when they are the victim of the crime. The vulnerable people in these cases know that, so they do not report the crimes.
We have had lots of discussions about finding weapons that are not just a kitchen knife in people’s houses. If authorities were to go into the home of a young woman who had been in the care system and had been difficult at times, and they found lots of drugs and weapons, do we honestly think that she would not be convicted of that crime? If we do, we are not living in reality at all. It is vital to have an understanding of what happens in these cuckooing cases. We need to recognise it to try to overcome some of the criminalisation, and the threat of criminalisation, that already exists.
I have met girls who have had photographs taken of them holding guns that have been used in fatal injuries, as a threat to them that they will be put up for that crime. When somebody has been groomed that well, they will believe it, no matter what I say—even if I say, “I will stand next to you in the courtroom and I will make sure this doesn’t happen.” It does happen. Recognising in law that this crime is specifically about taking over a home, and leaving incriminating evidence around the place, is really important in changing that.
Chris Philp
It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. I thank the hon. Member for Stockton North for the thoughtful and considered way in which he moved the new clause. He and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley both expressed sentiments about protecting vulnerable individuals from the practice known as cuckooing, and I will start by saying that the Government are just as concerned as they are. We are united in our shared desire to protect vulnerable people from the exploitation that they both described, so we are unanimous in our objectives in this area.
As the hon. Member for Stockton North said, most commonly the practice of cuckooing is associated with drug dealing, but it can be associated with other forms of criminality. I will raise a couple of points about his new clause. First, as it is currently drafted, there would be no requirement for there to be any coercion. For the proposed new offence to be made out, it would simply be sufficient for somebody—the perpetrator or alleged perpetrator—to occupy a residential building lawfully occupied by another, and then to commit a criminal offence.
The new offence of cuckooing would be made out even if there was no coercion and, in fact, even if it was done consensually. If the person who owned the house gave their free consent, without coercion, to the alleged perpetrator, the new offence proposed by the new clause would be committed. As I say, there is no requirement in the drafting for any form of coercion or even non-consent, whether or not there was coercion or exploitation. The way it is drafted goes beyond what I would expect in a cuckooing offence, where I imagine there would be some form of coercion, and non-consent by the person who owns the property.