Oral Answers to Questions

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

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

As we have heard this morning, the Government are committed to reducing reoffending rates across the board, not least because it is a specific target of the crime and justice taskforce set by the Prime Minister. We will be bringing forward a number of plans over the next weeks and months to do so, not least the reinvigoration of integrated offender management, on which I will be leading across the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office.

[Elliot Colburn]

The Chris Donovan Trust is an amazing local charity set up by a local couple, Ray and Vi Donovan, whose son tragically lost his life through unprovoked violence. Carshalton and Wallington residents recognise the incredible work of the trust to raise awareness of restorative justice and other victim programmes after Ray and Vi Donovan met their son’s killers. What further steps will the Department take to expand restorative justice programmes to help to reduce prisoner reoffending?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing this organisation to my attention, not least because I read Ray and Vi Donovan’s booklet last night, “Understanding Restorative Justice”, and their very moving testimony of what happened to them. They have an incredible capacity for forgiveness, having forgiven their son’s killers, who perpetrated an appalling act, depriving them of the life of their child. They found it in themselves to forgive those three criminals, as they were then, and to move on with their lives. I will be more than happy to consider what more we can do in this area as we move towards our plans on rehabilitating offenders, and I would be honoured to meet Ray and Vi, if my hon. Friend was willing to bring them to Westminster when normal life resumes.

[Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)]

If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

15. What steps his Department is taking to support victims of (a) rape and (b) sexual abuse through the criminal justice system.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Kit Malthouse)]

The Government are committed to ensuring victims of rape and sexual violence have access to high-quality support services to help them cope and, as far as possible, recover from the effects of this devastating crime. From April, we will be increasing funding to rape support services by 50% to £12 million and investing an additional £1 million for independent sexual violence advisers annually until 2022.

[Selaine Saxby]

My constituent Dominique Martin has suffered the horror of being a rape victim twice in her life. Dominique described her ordeal to me as “like being murdered, except you are left alive.” What is more, Dominique has had to wait 18 months and counting to see the local mental health team. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the issues Dominique has raised to ensure nobody else has to suffer in the same way?

[Kit Malthouse]

It is obviously very distressing to hear about this particular case, and I am very sorry for the experience of my hon. Friend’s constituent. I am, of course, more than happy to meet her to discuss these matters. As the 2018 victims strategy has an ambition to join up services across Government and, indeed, with the third sector, I will endeavour to make sure a Health Minister is there as well.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

16. What recent assessment he has made of the ability of social security claimants to access early legal advice.

Prisons and Courts Bill

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Garnier]

I do not have an argument with that at all. The argument for making our prisons work for the public as a whole, for the victims of crime and for prisoners is not just moral and political, but economic. We push hundreds of millions of pounds into the criminal justice and prison systems, and what do we do with that investment? We produce failure. If the prison system was a business or a factory, and if I, as the managing director of that business or factory, pushed millions and millions of pounds into the process, but the things that I produced broke or failed 65% of the time, I would get the sack or my investors would go elsewhere. That is the economic argument. It happens to be bolstered by a moral argument and a political argument that we need to do better on prisons, but I do not resile from the fact that the money that we spend on prisons is not well spent, because it does not produce a lower rate of reoffending, or teach people to read and write so that they can get jobs.

Some 95% or 98% of the 85,000 people currently in prison will come out. I have sat as a judge for 20-odd years. I have put plenty of people into prison for perfectly good reasons, but if they come out of prison still addicted to drugs, still mentally ill, still unable to read or write and still incapable of getting a job, and if they then reoffend because they have no other ambition but to do what they have always done, which is to commit crime, what I am sensibly doing with the public’s money? Not much. It seems to me that there should be a perfectly straightforward economic consensus. Forget whether I am a lily-livered liberal—[Interruption.] Of course, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and I belong to the same political party and, although he is rather more expert than me, we both take an interest in racing.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend is making an important point, but to achieve a compromise between him and my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), does he accept that if we were more successful at rehabilitating low-level offenders—I think that my right hon. and learned Friend is correct about that—it would leave more space for us to lock up more serious offenders for longer, thereby satisfying the public’s need for more severe sentences for very violent and serious crime?

[Sir Edward Garnier]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I have sent plenty of people to prison, some of them for very long periods of time. I wish that we were able to make sure that those who do not need to go to prison, or who need to be sent to another place, such as a mental hospital, could be dealt with in a more sensible, productive, efficient and effective way. The argument is not about whether criminals are good people and whether we should love them dearly and hug hoodies; it is about doing what is best for all of us and ensuring that the money raised through taxes—the money spent on the health service and education—is properly devoted and directed towards getting these people better so that they do not do it again. Most people who have their house burgled want to ensure that the person responsible is caught, stopped and dealt with but, secondly, they want to be sure that that person does not do it again. If all we do is feed the conveyer belt, we achieve nothing but a waste of money.

The crux of the problem that we face with prisons—it is not a new problem—is overcrowding. I wrote a paper called “Prisons with a Purpose,” having visited 65 of the 140 or so prisons, young offenders institutions and secure training units when I was shadow Minister for prisons between 2005 and 2009. It was abundantly clear then, as I suspect it is now, that our prison estate was woefully overcrowded. We cannot sensibly rehabilitate or reform prisoners, adequately protect the public, prepare prisoners for life outside and maintain a safe and secure environment within our prisons unless we deal with the problems of overcrowding. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), the Minister for prisons, are fully aware of that. They have been inside prisons and know what is going on, and they have to deal with the arithmetic of how to spend the money in the most sensible way, subject to the demands of the Treasury.

The task of the Secretary of State and the Minister is a difficult one. The aims that the Secretary of State has written into the Bill are good, but in six months or a year—or a suitable time period after the Bill has been enacted—I do not simply want a report from the Secretary of State or the chief inspector of prisons, welcome though such reports are; I want real, practical advances. It is one thing to write things in the Bill; it is quite another to ensure that they happen.

Most centrally, we must address the hideous problem of overcrowding because with overcrowding we get churn. A person who is sentenced to prison at Canterbury Crown court is sent that night to Canterbury prison.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson).

I have been disappointed to hear prison being disparaged so much in this debate, as prison is actually a pretty successful place. According to the Ministry of Justice’s own figures, the longer people spend in prison, the less likely they are to reoffend. The Ministry’s latest figures, released in November 2016, show that although 60% of those released from a sentence of less than 12 months go on to reoffend, only 37% of those who serve a sentence of between 12 months and four years, 24.7% of those who serve a sentence of four to 10 years, 15.6% of those who serve a sentence of 10 years or more, and 11.4% of those sent on an indeterminate sentence go on to reoffend after release. Prison is clearly not the problem because the longer people spend in there, the less likely they are to reoffend. Perhaps the problem is that they are not spending long enough in prison. That seems to be the lesson from those figures.

[Kit Malthouse]

I have some sympathy with part of what my hon. Friend says, but does he accept that those statistics ignore the nature of the offence? For instance, quite a lot of people are serving very long sentences for murders—crimes of passion—that they may have committed only once in their life and are unlikely to go on to commit again, whether they go to prison or not.

[Philip Davies]

The problem with that is the example of those who serve less than 12 months. If my hon. Friend looks at the figures, he will find that it is very difficult to be sent to prison for a first offence and a short sentence. People who are eventually given short prison sentences have been given community sentence after community sentence, which have not worked. The reason that these people end up in prison on a short sentence is that the courts eventually say, “We have no other option but to send you to prison because every other intervention we’ve tried has failed.” The reoffending rate for the cohort of people who end up in prison after community sentences was 100%. The fact that they have a reoffending rate of 60% when they leave prison is a greater triumph than was shown by community sentences for that cohort of people who end up in prison.

[Kit Malthouse]

rose—

[Philip Davies]

I do not have time to give way to my hon. Friend again.

The Bill contains provisions to toughen up the current position on the use of mobile phones. I am sick to death of seeing pictures of smiling criminals from within prison cells, surrounded by all kinds of creature comforts and ill-gotten gains courtesy of the use of mobile phones in prison. More concerning is the use of phones to intimidate or threaten victims, or to ensure the continuation of crimes, so I welcome the steps the Government are taking to deal with that scourge.

I have some concerns about extending the use of video links in certain cases, and I am certainly not comfortable with people using video equipment in all kinds of venues that are not courts. I shall listen to the points made by those promoting such technology, but sometimes, in the interests of justice, saving a few pennies should not be the overriding factor. We need to be very careful that, in trying to protect victims, we do not affect the scales of justice and end up with a situation where it is difficult for defendants to have a fair trial. Having a fair trial should be paramount, just as it is essential to deal appropriately with those found guilty. I am not overly keen on the sound of the online conviction process, so I will be listening with interest to the types of offences it might cover. The Magistrates Association also has concerns about this, and I hope they are considered carefully.

I am concerned about the abolition of the local justice areas, which organise magistrates and their work within geographical locations. I understand that some work can be done in different areas, but there is something to be said for the argument that justice should be dispensed locally. I hope we do not end up with a situation whereby all kinds of cases are being heard randomly all over the country for no good reason.

I have a bit of concern about judicial appointments and the drive for diversity. Surely we should just be interested in recruiting the best people. It should be irrelevant whether they are men or women, black or white, Christian or Muslim, gay or straight. Who cares about any of those things? We want the best person for the job, irrespective of their gender or race. Surely that is what equality means in this day and age—not just giving somebody a job out of tokenism because they happen to tick a particular quota box. Let us stick to appointing people on merit alone, and ignore every other irrelevant factor about them.

In my brief contribution, I want to focus on what is missing from the Bill, which is more important than what is in it. I would like the whole sentence given by the courts to be served. People should certainly should not be automatically released halfway through their prison sentence, as is the case at the moment. That was a scandal when it was introduced. The Conservative party was apoplectic when the last Labour Government introduced it, but we now seem to think that it is wonderful to release people automatically halfway through their sentence, irrespective of how badly they behave in prison. I will certainly table an amendment at a later stage in the passage of the Bill to ensure that any prisoner who assaults a prison officer cannot be released automatically halfway through their prison sentence. We must have some proper punishments for assaulting prison officers. The least that prison officers deserve is that kind of support.

One reason for the breakdown of order in prisons is that prisoners know that no matter how badly they behave, they will be released halfway through their sentence. All that is given for assaults on prison officers is extra days. As I indicated in my intervention on the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), who has done a great job and should be commended greatly for all her work on defending prison officers and police officers, the average number of extra days given to a prisoner for assaulting a prison officer was 20 days in 2010 and 16 days last year. That is completely and utterly unacceptable. I am sure that the Prison Officers Association would welcome the Government saying that if a prisoner assaults a prison officer, their opportunity for automatic early release halfway through their sentence will end, and that their position will be judged on whether they are safe to be released out into the public.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

Mr Deputy Speaker, I am learning to love my place in the pecking order in this building: first, because I get to hear splendid debates such as this one in their entirety, and in particular the thoughtful and moving speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Amanda Solloway); and, secondly, because by my maths, I have an hour in which to speak—[Interruption.] Oh, dear; well, perhaps half an hour. I hope that Members are all sitting comfortably.

Four years as deputy mayor for policing taught me everything I needed to know about the dreary cycle of despair that our criminal justice system had become. The endless merry-go-round of the same people going through the hands of the same organisations year in, year out turned me into a “convicted” penal reformer, so I am extremely pleased to welcome the Bill.

My four years at City Hall left me broadly with two frustrations, which I will share with Members because I think that they have some bearing on the Bill. The first is that while there have been attempts at rehabilitation in the criminal justice system—presumably not as ambitious as the proposals of my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor—too often the effort and money were spread far too thinly. The jam in a finite world was spread very thinly across the youth estate and the adult estate to the extent that the marginal difference that the funding or any programme might make was hardly noticeable. The research into rehabilitation programmes attempted in the criminal justice system over the past 30 years shows that not many of them have made a difference above 2% or 3%, and much of that has often been explained away by the characteristics of the people they have been dealing with. While this Bill is extremely welcome and I approve wholeheartedly of the bias towards rehabilitation in part 1, and although I know that much of the radicalism of the Lord Chancellor’s programme is in the White Paper, I urge her to think carefully about where she puts her resources.

In my view, the earlier we spend the money, the better. We get much more bang for our buck by spending money on offenders aged between 18 and 25 than, sadly, by spending on somebody over 25. The truth about crime is that generally people either grow out of it or become habituated in it. That is why the bulk of offenders tend to be under 25, hence that is where we should be spending the money. If we had endless sums, we would obviously spread the money, but we do not, so I urge the Lord Chancellor to spend it in the way I propose.

My second frustration was the paltry sentences that were often handed out for very serious crimes. Individuals in London who were convicted of quite serious non-fatal stabbings would be given four years and then would be out after 24 months. That really is a disgrace and, as we learned in London, such a sentence is certainly not a significant deterrent to the commission of those kinds of crimes. The truth is that people were being given those sentences and let out that early because of the pressure on the system and the numbers in it. Time and again I would get the message back that the police and the Crown Prosecution Service were nervous about putting cases in front of the courts because of the pressure on prisons, and often because the youth estate was struggling to take the people it should be taking, particularly given that it often had to separate individuals because of gang affiliations.

That means that we need to clear out some space. In short, my view is that we are locking up far too many of the wrong people, but not locking up the right people for long enough. Lots of clever, smart technology-based disposals are available these days for low-level offending, such as tagging and testing. We should be pushing hard and much more enthusiastically to put those measures into effect in this country so that we can clear space in our prisons, meaning that longer sentences can be served by those convicted of serious offences, particularly violent crime.

On part 2 of the Bill—the courts section—I welcome the reforms, and particularly the use of technology, because we know that there are broadly two deterrents to committing crime: first, the probability of getting caught, which is down to the skill of the police; and, secondly, the certainty and swiftness of sentencing. Criminals who are caught and then put before the courts swiftly, and who are certain in the knowledge that they will be convicted and of what their sentences will be, are much more likely to be deterred. Anything that brings about swift and certain justice is therefore to be welcomed.

Overall the Bill is heading in the right direction, but there are three areas in which I would like the Secretary of State to consider welcoming amendments from me. The first is about the probation service. I have long held the view that we will make very little progress on the rehabilitation of offenders outside prison until the police get involved. For my money, probation should be an arm of policing. Offender management in the community should be done by the police. That would be more effective, because they have personnel in those communities 24 hours a day, and they are already monitoring many of the offenders.

Such a change would also yield enormous savings. At the moment, there are double estates, double chief executives and double HR departments, and all the people—probation officers and police officers—are often sitting in the same meeting talking about the same individual. Giving the probation service to the police and letting them manage offenders in the way they are supposed to be managed would be a huge step forward. Let us consider the health service. If we separated GPs into a different department from hospitals, everyone would think we were mad, yet we put the police and the management of criminals coming out of the secure estate into different departments. Bringing probation back would be an enormous improvement. It would signal a step change in offender management on the streets that would make a huge difference, and it would also save money.

The two other amendments are of less significance, but they might help the Lord Chancellor with her budget. The first is to do with coroners courts. I do not know how she voted on this matter, but I am a proponent of assisted dying. I have supported it for a long time, and I think it is the next great liberal cause for this country. However, there is a wrinkle in the law that causes unnecessary distress to those who travel overseas for the purpose of seeking assistance to take their own life. At the moment, if the family of the deceased return from Switzerland with their ashes, there is no inquest and they can scatter them in privacy. If, however, they wish to repatriate the body of the deceased, the coroner has an obligation to open an inquest because the death is deemed to be uncertain. There might well be an autopsy, and a criminal investigation would follow, although a prosecution would not, because the Crown Prosecution Service has already given guidance that it will not pursue the prosecution of people who have travelled overseas for the purpose of assisted suicide.

An amendment to the Bill allowing coroners the same discretion as they have in this country for those kinds of deaths, if they were satisfied of the purpose for the individual travelling overseas, would allow people to bring the body back for burial in the UK. That would save the coroners courts time and money, because several hundred people have now been involved in such cases, and it would also avoid enormous distress for families who naturally want to fulfil the wishes of the deceased, but fear an inquest and prosecution, and therefore opt for cremation overseas. Such a provision would be a small adjustment to remove an inconsistency in the law relating to prosecution by the CPS and what coroners are obliged to do, and it would relieve a huge amount of distress.

The third amendment that I hope the Lord Chancellor will consider relates to charging for alcohol and drugs testing. She might be aware that, some years ago, I managed from outside this place to get alcohol abstinence orders on to the statute book. There was a huge battle in this House and the House of Lords, but in the end we beat the then Lord Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who objected to people convicted of alcohol-related offences being compelled to be sober for three or six months. Anyway, we got this on to the statute book, but the Government would not agree to offenders being charged for their testing.

In similar schemes overseas, offenders are charged for their testing. In the US, for example, they pay $1 a test—about £1 a test—and that changes the psychology involved. It means that offenders who undergo testing of their sweat, urine or breath take more responsibility for their own sobriety. They are investing in their own freedom. By undergoing the testing, they are avoiding a prison sentence, which means that they can maintain contact with their families and keep their jobs, but they have to remain sober for three or six months. Having to invest a small amount in those tests means that, psychologically, they are taking responsibility for them, and it also means that the scheme is self-funding. Under such a system, police and crime commissioners, who have not taken up this disposal with alacrity, despite the fantastic results when it was tried in Croydon, would have the business case to do so, because it would be a source of funding for them.

[Dr Wollaston]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the immediacy of consequences has contributed to the success of such schemes overseas? In other words, if someone fails a test, they are immediately taken back into custody.

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When I was at City Hall, we found that this disposal had taken off like wildfire in South Dakota—the judges loved it; it was enormously effective; recidivism rates were incredibly low; and the compliance percentage rates were up in the high 90s. This is all based on the notion that justice is swift and certain if an offender contravenes the rules of the scheme, and that offenders take responsibility for their own punishment and feel invested in it. Every time they reach for a drink, they have to decide whether they want to stay out of prison. As a result, the disposal has been enormously successful and is spreading across the entire United States. We have the power here; it just needs the small adjustment of allowing the police or courts to charge offenders a nominal amount for testing—money that they were spending on booze or drugs—which would allow them to invest in their own rehabilitation and therefore make some progress.

I welcome the Bill. It is a refreshing step in the right direction of breaking the dreadful merry-go-round with which I lived for far too long.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

The main mechanism by which we get foreign national offenders out of our jails, which we are very keen to do, is the early removal system, which transfers out about 1,800 a year. The European prisoner transfer agreement is therefore in addition to the early release scheme, but it may be helpful to my hon. Friend if I give him the figures. The transfer agreement was implemented only in 2013, and we got 19 out in 2014, 38 out in 2015 and 29 out in 2016, to date, with a roughly similar number awaiting transfer.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

Is the identity of prisoners who are returned to their countries of origin registered with UK Visas and Immigration, so that when they attempt re-entry to the UK they can be identified? Even if that were the case, is it right that we could not prevent their re-entry unless we were to leave the EU?

[Andrew Selous]

If a prisoner is deported, they are not allowed to return to the United Kingdom during the period of their sentence.

Policing and Crime Bill

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ann Coffey]

I wish to say a few words about new clauses 13 and 14, which stand in my name. New clause 13 would make it an offence for adults to groom children and young people for criminal behaviour, and new clause 14 would introduce a new grooming for criminal behaviour prevention order, which I would call a “Fagin order”. The new Fagin orders would ban criminal adults from contacting a child. Just as with children groomed for child sexual exploitation, we must recognise that young people drawn into criminality and drug dealing have, in the first instance, often been groomed and manipulated.

Currently, we have numerous prevention orders available to the police to combat grooming for child sexual exploitation, including sexual risk orders, sexual harm prevention orders and child abduction warning notices. I would like to see the creation of a similar order to be used where children are being groomed by organised crime to act as drug runners. That would be a practical way of disrupting activities including the phenomenon of “county lines”, whereby criminals groom and coerce children and young people into selling class A drugs many miles from home, often in quiet towns. Organised crime is aggressively creating new markets for drugs, in every seaside town and every small country village across the country. Criminals used to do their own drug running, but now they are actively identifying groups of vulnerable children to use, including those living in children’s homes and pupil referral units, to minimise the risk to themselves. As I said in a previous debate, county lines is the next big grooming scandal on the horizon. It takes many forms, but its basis is using vulnerable children and adults to develop new markets for drugs.

One example I saw involved a 15-year-old girl who was offered £500 to go “up country” to sell drugs. She had the class A drugs plugged inside her but was then set up by the original gang and assaulted on the train, and had the drugs forcibly removed from her. She was told she must pay back £3,000 to the group for the stolen drugs, and had to continue to sell drugs and provide sexual favours. The threat of child sexual exploitation for girls in gangs is known, but the added factor of being trafficked to remote locations compounds their vulnerability. Those young people are at risk of physical violence, sexual exploitation, and emotional and physical abuse. That model of grooming arguably involves both trafficking and modern slavery. Children from Greater Manchester are being groomed by criminal gangs and have been found selling drugs in places as far away as Devon. These gang members are rather like modern-day Fagins or Bill Sikes: hard men who groom youngsters and get them to do their dirty work. They need to be stopped in their tracks.

The recent Home Office report “Ending gang violence and exploitation” said that young girls are often groomed for involvement in criminal behaviour and harmful sexual behaviour as part of gang culture. Indeed, the most recent Rotherham trial showed the connection between organised crime and drugs and child sexual exploitation. I have read the recent Home Office report and also the National Crime Agency report on county lines from August 2015, and I think this development is not fully understood or recognised. Someone, somewhere needs to take ownership of a strategy to disrupt this aggressive organised network, and that strategy needs to put the safeguarding children first. I am not pretending for one minute that Fagin orders would be a silver bullet, but they would indicate a change in culture and a recognition that the responsibility lies with the adults who groom the children. We really cannot afford to make the same mistakes as we did with child sexual exploitation, where we let terrible things happen to children because we blamed them for bringing about their own exploitation.

Child sexual exploitation and drug running and involvement with criminal activities are often intertwined, which is why we need a two-pronged approach. Just as we have prevention orders for child sexual exploitation, we should have similar prevention orders for adults grooming children for criminal behaviour. We need a response to county lines that ensures that children are found, safeguarded and supported out of gangs, and that adults are stopped as early as possible from grooming and manipulating children, and are punished to the full extent of the law. Until then, it will continue to be the young victims who are exploited, blamed and then punished as their abusers and puppet masters continue with a trade that nets organised crime millions of pounds a year.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to you for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker. I speak in support of new clauses 15, 16 and 18, which stand in my name and those of others. First, however, I wish to add my voice to those of the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller)—my neighbour. It is clear from the amendments in this legislation and elsewhere that the law is struggling with protecting children online; it is old and ineffective, and it really does not appreciate the dangers that are out there for children on the internet. I sincerely hope that my right hon. Friend is right and that the digital economy Bill is used to increase the protection for children online, not least because part of the reason for not tackling this problem in the way we should is that there is big money to be made here. This is a commercial enterprise: pumping this stuff out on to people’s screens and computers across the country, if not the world. There is therefore a certain sloth, an idleness, in the digital community in dealing with it. The truth is that, technically, we could switch off this stuff tonight if we wanted to. We have no problem stopping children getting into our bank accounts and buying things on Amazon or wherever it might be, and yet children can easily access pornography every day, 24 hours a day, without any protection whatsoever unless their parents intervene. That really is a disgraceful state of affairs.

We should use the digital economy Bill to create the offence of living off immoral earnings for these internet providers, because, by turning a blind eye and not interrogating the data that are coming through their pipes, that is effectively what they are doing. They should turn off such material so that eyes below the age of 18 cannot see it. They are living off immoral earnings and they are not living up to their duty to society and to our children. We need to find some way to make them face up to their obligations.

I have three children, two of whom are very small. I feel as if I am in a daily fight for them with the media—whether it is TV, online or whatever it might be. We carefully ration what they get and what they can see. I hope to God that, as they grow and become teenagers, I can protect them from the worst excesses, but I need some help. I need help from the Government. I also need help from those who control the data and our access to the internet. They can do it in any number of ways and they should be forced to do it on pain of significant financial penalties. It is only when the pound is there and their profits are threatened that they will finally focus and come up with the technical solutions that we need.

[Tim Loughton]

I would have liked to have added my name to my hon. Friend’s amendment if I had got my act together in time. I was out with a group of people working for a tobacco company recently. We went on stings to local newsagents and other such places buying illegal, counterfeit and discounted cigarettes. In many cases, those cigarettes were advertised by a phone number, which we then rang up. Very clearly, it could only have resulted in criminal activity. Just as my hon. Friend is very much making the point about prostitution, which clearly is only going to lead to illegal activity, it is so easy for us to be able to use those phone numbers, and those telephone companies should be taking a greater responsibility.

[Kit Malthouse]

Exactly right. My hon. Friend brings me neatly on to new clause 16, which deals with that matter.

I know that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, have been an aficionado of my political career, so you will know that, 15 years ago I was charged with getting rid of prostitutes’ cards in telephone boxes. It was costing Westminster council about a quarter of a million pounds a year to remove these things, and so I was given the job of getting rid of them. We tried clearing them out and putting up false cards so that people were misdirected. We tried all sorts of things. In the end, the only solution that we came up with that we and BT felt would work was barring the numbers. I visited all the mobile companies and, as people had landlines in those days, all the landline companies as well—NTL, BT and all the rest. I said to them, “When we notify you of this number, we would like you to bar it.” They said, “We will not do that, but we will if you manage to make placing the cards an offence.” They thought that I would give up at that stage, as there would be too much of a mountain to climb. None the less, we decided to have a go, and so ensued a two-year campaign to get that offence on the statute book.

During those two years, I learned the truth about prostitutes’ cards and, indeed, the advertising of prostitution generally. Effectively, being allowed to advertise for free and in an unrestricted way on our streets, in the back of our newspapers and online is organised crime. When someone gets one of these numbers, they are ringing not a prostitute who is a victim, but a switchboard. When they ring the number and say what they want, they will get a menu of women—mostly it is women—trafficked or otherwise, of all ages, creeds and races. They can pick from the menu. Those numbers then gather a bit of value. Once someone is a punter and they have used the number and got what they wanted, they will use it again and again and again.

I started to learn that understanding the economics behind these telephone numbers is key to how we can eradicate them. Once we realise that these numbers carry a value and that there is a stream of income attached to them, it becomes even more pressing that we should bar them. When we add to that the fact that the printing of the cards, the advertising, and the websites also cost money—prostitutes’ cards are printed in the hundreds of thousands to make them incredibly cheap—we can see why making it dangerous to advertise a telephone number could become an extremely effective deterrent. If they advertise a number that is gathering income, and it is barred within 24 hours, they lose all of that income. Hitting them in the pocket is the most effective way to do it.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Just for clarity, behind every one of those numbers is a woman who very, very often might have been abused as a child or trafficked into the country. They might have an incredibly violent pimp who is working her. Is the hon. Gentleman looking to prosecute the woman who, in my experience, is usually the victim and not the belle de jour that is often presented, or is he going after the pimps, the manipulators and the gang leaders that are behind it all?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am absolutely not targeting the women at all. This is about the organised crime that is creating the number, printing the card, placing the card, and victimising the woman. It is about cutting off their access to cash, and therefore restricting their ability to build a business off the back of this free advertising.

Eventually, after a two-year campaign, we got the offence made illegal. I was helped by friends in the House of Lords. The night that it was enacted by Her Majesty the Queen, we arrested the first carder—an Italian law student. I remember it well. He was bailed and disappeared back to Italy. The very next week, I had a meeting with the mobile phone companies and they completely welched on the deal. They did not realise that we would get it done, and that by campaigning for two years and by having a bit of gumption, we would manage to achieve our goal.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The use of the term “welching” in that context is deeply disrespectful to the people of my country, and I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his comment.

[Kit Malthouse]

I do unreservedly withdraw it. It was an unfortunate use of the word. I think that the spelling is different, but the hon. Gentleman is quite right. Let me say that the phone companies reneged on the deal—I ask him to forgive me. It is a word in common parlance, but I should not have used it.

The phone companies completely reneged on the deal. As a result, I have been waiting for the opportunity to try to put to the Government the idea that there is this solution to the problem. I present here a simple solution, which is, effectively, if the chief officer of police finds a number being advertised in their area for the purposes of prostitution, they can apply to a magistrate to have the number barred. That means that both the police officer and the magistrate have to judge whether that is a measured thing to do; it is not automatic. It is for the police to decide. I would advise the police officers to warn the owner of the number that this is about to happen before they do it. It is a relatively simple solution, and I guarantee that it will result in the disappearance of these cards from Liverpool, Manchester, the west end or wherever they may be.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is right that the scheme could be extended. There could be numbers used for dealing drugs and for selling cigarettes. Numbers for prostitution and drugs could be on the internet. People can access such numbers quite freely at the moment. We need to cut the numbers. If we do it swiftly, we will certainly go a huge way towards suppressing the activity and making it difficult for criminal and customer to connect. I do not intend to press my amendment to a vote, but I ask the Government to look at it—the Minister has promised to do so—and hopefully it will come back in the Lords.

I have tabled another two new clauses. You will have noticed, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I have had a theme during my time in this House, which is the protection of children. It has alarmed me for some time that the legislation protecting children is elderly, out of date and very patchy. The offence of child cruelty, which I am seeking to raise the tariff for tonight, dates back to the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. It still includes things such as allowing a child to be burned, which used to arise when we sent them up chimneys. The legislation is very elderly and is really not fit for purpose. The last time the sentence for child cruelty was looked at was in 1988. We have not looked at it for nearly 30 years, and yet the number of offences is rising quite significantly. Clearly, the deterrent effect is not working. I am given to understand that the Sentencing Council will review child cruelty over the coming summer. If it does so, we are duty bound to try to give it a bit of headroom and move the tariff up from 10 years to 14 years for the most severe offences.

New clause 15 is about reviewing all child offences. We have been very good in the House in seeking to protect vulnerable groups by legislation generally. If someone commits a crime against someone who is gay because they are gay, they will get an aggravated sentence. Similarly, if they commit a crime against someone who is black because they are black, they will get an aggravated sentence. If they commit an offence against someone on the grounds of their religion, they will get an aggravated sentence. Yet if they commit an offence against a child because they are a child, they will not necessarily get an aggravated sentence.

Children are not a protected group in law, unlike other minority and vulnerable groups, and they should be. I am grateful to Public Bill Office for helping me try to draft an amendment that would allow me to do that. The best way that we could find to do it was to require the Sentencing Council to review all offences for children within 12 months, to allow us all to have our say about aggravating the sentences when offences are committed against children.

I have attempted to insert this principle in previous Bills—principally, in the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. Sadly, the Government would not accept my amendment, which would have ensured that anyone who sold a psychoactive substance to a child would get a stiffer sentence than if they sold it to a 55-year-old man. It seems crazy to me that that would not happen, but the Government would not accept the amendment, so this is my attempt to do something similar.

All my amendments are probing. I am willing to give the Government time, in consultation, to look at them again. I hope that they will come back in the Lords, but if they do not, I gather that, pleasingly, we get a policing and crime Bill along in the House once every six months, so I will get another chance. On that basis, I hope that my hon. Friends will look at the amendments at least and give them a thumbs-up for future consideration.

[Sarah Champion]

I rise to speak predominantly to new clauses 6, 10, 41 and 60, which have been tabled by Opposition Front Benchers. The intention behind the new clauses is to provide stronger safeguards against the sexual exploitation and abuse of children and to disrupt the perpetrators of those heinous crimes before they have the opportunity to destroy a child’s life.

I start with new clause 6, which relates to the extension of child abduction warning notices, known as CAWNs, which are a vital tool for the police in the prevention of the abuse and exploitation of children. CAWNs are issued by the police at the request of a parent or legal guardian. They disrupt contact between a child and an adult believed to be in the process of grooming that child for sex. Currently, the police can issue a CAWN in relation to any child under the age of 16, but only a tiny minority of 16 and 17-year-olds, including children who have been taken into care under section 31 of the Children Act 1989, those who are subject to an emergency protection order and those in police protection. All other 16 and 17-year-olds are left unprotected.

By definition, children in care are vulnerable. The last available annual statistics show that 4,320 16 and 17-year-olds who became looked after by the local authority would not be eligible for the protection of a child abduction warning notice. The Minister has previously expressed some scepticism about the proposals to extend the use of those notices to all children in care. I recognise the sensitivities about the law in this area, given that 16 and 17-year-olds are legally able to marry and consent to sexual activity, but that group of children—yes, they are legally children—are living unstable and risky lives. They face a significantly greater risk of sexual exploitation than others and are targeted by adults who exploit their vulnerability, yet the police are denied access to a critical intervention tool that would help to keep them safe.

I agree with the Minister that CAWNs are an imperfect tool, but we agree that children of any age, including those who are 16 and 17, must be able to rely on the state for protection. For three years, I have been pushing successive Ministers to find a solution. The way to deal with complex issues is not to avoid them altogether. We need to persevere and collaborate so that we can find the best possible solutions. It is vital that we get legislation to protect all children up to the age of 18 from abuse, and it is important that we get that legislation right. I know that the Minister is not minded to support new clause 6, so what assurances can she give us that the Government plan to ensure that children up to the age of 18 are protected from the early stages of sexual grooming?

Next, I turn my attention to new clause 60, which, unlike new clause 6, relates to the existing use of child abduction warning notices by the police. CAWNs are not legally enforceable. Breaching a notice is not a criminal offence but does form an evidence base for future action. That further action, according to Government guidance, is meant to take the form of a sexual harm prevention order or a sexual risk order, both of which require a higher threshold to use. They are legally enforceable and punishable with criminal sanctions.

In theory, that is a good system. It allows the police to intervene formally to prevent harm at the earliest possible stage when concerns have been expressed about an adult’s behaviour towards a child. Even when demonstrable evidence is sparse, the police have the ability to take further action, using the breach of a CAWN as evidence. The police currently have the tools to escalate their response to keep, and continue to keep, a child safe. The problem is that police forces in England and Wales are failing to record the breach of a child abduction warning notice. Indeed, they are failing to record the issuing of a notice in the first place and the actions that follow from that breach.

Policing and Crime Bill

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th April 2016 Commons Chamber

“Volunteers have a very important role to play in supporting policing, but not to place themselves in potentially dangerous situations. When the Home Secretary consulted on her proposals to increase volunteers’ powers, I said at the time she was trying to provide policing on the cheap.”

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I understand the point the hon. Gentleman is making, although I do not agree with him. Does he accept that there are circumstances in which we all have police powers? If I witness somebody committing what I consider to be an indictable offence, I am able, as a citizen, to arrest them without a warrant. Does he agree, therefore, that if we are going to have volunteers among the police—unless he wants to do away with them completely—they should at least be trained? If they then find themselves in a situation of danger where they may have to act as a police officer, they can do so, perhaps using purely that power of citizen’s arrest?

[Jack Dromey]

The problem is that the Government have failed to spell out how they will ensure that these volunteers are properly trained and properly accountable, or how there will be clarity about their role—as I will say later, the Government have ruled out nothing in terms of the role volunteers might play in the next stages. The hon. Gentleman will no doubt want to come back on that issue, but on the particular point he raised, perhaps he will wait until I get to the relevant part of my speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Dromey]

Absolutely. Under the current arrangements in the police service, there is an agreement between the Home Office, the National Police Chiefs Council, the College of Policing and the police staff unions that police support volunteers should bring additionality to the workforce but should under no circumstances replace or be a substitute for paid police staff. The Government claim that they have protected police funding and that they are not using the provisions to plug holes left in the workforce from funding reductions. If plugging gaps in our hollowed-out police service is not the Government’s aim in these ill-though-out proposals, there should be no reason whatsoever for them not to support amendment 10.

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman needs to realise that he is walking into a cul-de-sac, which may not be of his own making. Independent custody visitors are essentially police volunteers who visit custody suites, and a case could probably be made by a smart lawyer that they substitute for custody officers in their supervisory role. Are they the kind of people that he wants to get rid of?

I urge the hon. Gentleman to listen to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier). We have a duty in this House not to create Heath Robinson legislation. Amendments 11, 12, 13 and 10 seem to me to be an extraordinarily roundabout way to disagree with what the Government are trying to do through the previous amendments. Surely the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) should simply vote against those amendments, rather than creating this Byzantine structure to negate what the Government are trying to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

I call Kit Malthouse.

[Kit Malthouse]

What an honour it is to be called before all these august Members!

In respect of amendments 11, 12, 13 and 10, I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) on manfully—or indeed womanfully—arguing what seems to be a lost cause; Conservative Members eloquently made the case that the proposals are nonsense.

Fundamentally, the hon. Gentleman is saying through his amendments that he does not trust a chief police officer to get right the architecture around volunteers used in their organisation. He is saying that a chief constable cannot be trusted to organise and train volunteers correctly—but if they cannot be trusted to do that relatively simple task, how can they be trusted to handle some of the risks that they face on a daily basis, even with their warranted force? As he considers these matters over the next couple of hours, I urge him to think about withdrawing his amendments and simply to vote against the Government’s amendments if he believes that to be right. His would be Heath Robinson legislation, as I said, and the House has a duty to keep things simple.

I am extremely supportive of new clause 1. As the hon. Gentleman said, the proliferation of knives, particularly these unpleasant zombie knives, has caused a huge problem, particularly in urban areas and especially in London. We have seen some tragic cases over the last two or three years. A while ago, as people will remember, there was some alarm about air rifles and air-powered weapons; as a result, the legislation on purchasing air rifles was changed so that they could not be bought other than face to face. Now, when someone buys an air rifle online, it has to be delivered by the firearms dealer, who has to verify, face to face on the doorstep, that the person is who they say they are and of the correct age, and that the weapon can be sold to them lawfully. Alternatively, there is a mutual network of firearms dealers operating in such a way that someone can buy from one and pick up from another, who will verify that person’s identity and age.

I am 6 feet 2 inches—nearly—and quite a big chap. I am much more frightened of zombie knives than of air rifles, so I urge the Government to look carefully at new clause 1. It would be a valuable addition to our armoury as we try to keep these weapons out of the hands of people who should not have them. Having said that, I do not think it would be a silver bullet—not much we do in the House is; many of these knives are bought on the dark web, where things are a little more amorphous, identities more difficult to find and things are often posted illegally. Many firearms are bought on the dark web and sent to the UK through the normal post, but the police are becoming quite sophisticated at picking them up, and the same could be true of knives. I therefore urge the Government to adopt the new clause.

I am similarly supportive of new clause 19, on flares at public events. They are not allowed at football matches any more, but elsewhere they often cause injury and terror—people, particularly children, are frightened of them—so it would be sensible to outlaw their use in those circumstances.

Finally, I will speak briefly—we are pressed for time—to new clause 17, which stands in my name. This is a probing amendment, as they say, and I have no intention, at this stage, of putting it to a vote, but I will give Members the back story because it might well appear in the other place.

Members might remember that three or four years ago City Hall ran a big campaign to get a disposal on to the books called “compulsory sobriety”, which manifested itself as alcohol abstinence monitoring orders made against people who have committed a crime where alcohol was a contributory factor. Essentially, an offender, rather than going to prison, which would mean losing their job and contact with their family, is sentenced to wear an alcohol-testing tag or bracelet that, for three, four or six months, tests their skin every 30 seconds to make sure they are not drinking. If they drink and the tag detects it, a signal is sent, the police apprehend them and they go back into the criminal justice system and might well get a custodial sentence. Effectively, the offender is in charge of their own custody.

These orders have been hugely successful in the United States. In South Dakota, where they started, there has been massive compliance and a drop in the number of people arrested for drink-driving and dying on the roads. I learned this morning that there has also been an increase in life span because there is less drinking. South Dakota is a big, flat state; there is not much to do except drink a lot and beat each other up, as in parts of this country. That was happening an awful lot, until these orders were introduced by the now famous prosecutor, Larry Long. They have changed the alcohol environment there entirely.

We managed to get the orders on the statute book here, and a pilot in Croydon over the last couple of years has resulted in a 93% compliance rate among offenders fitted with a tag and an extremely good reoffending rate—once someone has had three to six months off the booze, they do not tend to go back but instead learn the error of their ways. However, there is one aspect of the scheme in the states that we did not adopt but which they think is critical to its success: the ability to charge offenders for their own testing.

In the United States, when somebody is put on this disposal and they go to be tested, more often than not they appear twice a day at the police station, blow into a breathalyser and pay a buck, or a dollar, a test. Effectively, that is money that they would otherwise have spent on booze. From the point of view of the criminal justice system, that makes the scheme self-financing.

[Sir Edward Garnier]

I can see that my hon. Friend is on to a good thing here. As someone who has not sentenced anyone to this type of order but has sentenced people to the drug testing orders under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, I would like to ask whether this should be a compulsory requirement. Is it that the police “must” or “may” charge? If it is the former, I think my hon. Friend will find that many people who fall into this sentencing remit will be so chaotic, at least to start with, that they will not have the finances to be able to reimburse the state for the charge.

[Kit Malthouse]

My right hon. and learned Friend makes a valid point. However, these people are somehow financing an alcohol habit, so they are paying for alcohol. I think my right hon. and learned Friend would be surprised at the demographic of offenders. In the US, this was more often used for repeat drink-driving than anything else. In this country, repeat drink-driving is predominantly a crime of white, middle-aged, professional men; it is they who get done most for this offence. One hopes that they would indeed be able to afford to pay the cost.

My right hon. and learned Friend is, however, right that the proposal is that the police “may” charge. They do not have to. If a PCC believes it would be useful, they could apply to the Home Secretary to run a scheme on a charging basis and then decide on the charge. It might be 50p a day, a pound or £3—who knows? It will depend on the area and the level of offences committed.

Having this particular power adds two critical things to the scheme. First, one of the successes in the US is that the scheme gives offenders the notion that they are in control of their destiny. Every time they reach for a drink, they have to think about the consequences. That is why there is such high compliance—because people feel they are in control. At the same time, having to pay provides an even greater sense of ownership of the disposal. Offenders understand that this is a punishment; they understand that they have to take responsibility and finance the scheme themselves. It is essentially “the polluter pays”.

Secondly, although this disposal has been wildly successful in London and has spread to the rest of the capital, it took a lot of up-front Government funding to get the scheme out there. The Ministry of Justice had to put in £500,000 and the Mayor has done the same to get the facilities out and around town. If we want the disposal to spread so that other PCCs take it up, there needs to be a business case. Bluntly, I am a Conservative, and if there is a flow of income coming from this disposal to a PCC in a way no other disposal will allow, I believe PCCs would be more likely to use it and invest the money up front; they would know that the income would come in to finance it.

I realise that offenders paying for their own punishment would be a new departure for the British criminal justice system, but I think it could be useful given that alcohol abstinence monitoring orders are themselves a new departure. There may be some cultural difficulties. When I first proposed the disposal, I went to see my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who was then Lord Chancellor. His first response was to say, “Good grief, you can’t stop people from having a pint!” I explained that if these people break somebody’s jaw or cause a crash because they have been driving drunk, of course we can. If we put them in prison, we stop them drinking. This was just a way of doing that, I explained, without incarcerating people. It is much cheaper, much quicker and, if the Government are kind enough to think about this new clause—perhaps following it up in the other place—the disposal could be self-financing and help to save a huge amount of money.

[Andrew Gwynne]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse). I start by saying that I have always been supportive of the police; I was brought up to be. I can remember my mum telling me as a very young child that if I ever got lost the police were my friends and that I should always seek out a police officer, who would always try to find where my mum and dad were. That is hopefully an ethic that I have passed on to my own children. That, I think, is where we must start.

In this country, there is a degree of consensus about the nature of policing, because we have developed, over a long period, the concept of policing by consent. I think that Parliament, when passing legislation both here and in the other place, must do everything in its power to ensure that we do not move away from that important concept. A number of measures in the Bill deserve to be scrutinised properly before Parliament decides whether it is appropriate to extend the powers in the way that the Minister proposes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Gwynne]

I hope that we would not have to face a situation in which chief constables inappropriately use the powers that the Government are seeking to extend to them, but it is our duty to legislate for a situation where that might be the case. I do not want, at some stage in the future, a chief constable to be all over the headlines of the national press because they have done something that they should not have done but to get out of that because the intention of the Act was not clear. All I am asking for is some clarity from the Minister. If we have to wait to get this right, the Government have the power to carry over legislation. Bills do not fall at prorogation if the Government want to carry them over. Actually, the Government could easily amend the Bill and clarify the point during the remaining stages.

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman is making a peculiar point. If he is saying that, essentially, we should not give chief constables a particular power because, at some point in the future, they may well fall foul of it or misuse it, then there are lots of other powers that we give chief constables to which he may wish to apply that rule. For instance, a chief constable is able to license a police officer to handle a firearm. If that firearm is used incorrectly, as we have tragically seen in the past, then the chief constable faces the consequences—whether that be legal consequences or otherwise. Does he think therefore that this principle that we cannot trust these highly trained and highly experienced chief constables to use their discretion should be applied to other perhaps more critical areas of their operation?

[Andrew Gwynne]

The hon. Gentleman has, inadvertently, made my case for me. He talks about extending firearms powers to police officers. That is the difference—he is talking about police officers. Chief constables are accountable for police officers. What we are talking about here is extending the use of CS gas to volunteers. We need to be very clear in the Bill what Parliament intends and how Parliament expects that power to be used. If the power is abused or misused, it is Parliament that will be at fault because it has not been clear about the fact that these are volunteers, not police officers.

I appreciate that other Members want to contribute to the debate. I return to the fundamental point about policing by consent. If we extend to volunteers, who are not warranted police officers in the form of special constables, powers that we would expect warranted police officers to be given, Parliament must be very careful and clear about the intention and the use of those powers, so that there are appropriate checks and balances if those powers are misused or abused, which we hope they will not be.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Raab]

As I have said, we will consult this year and consider the full range of driving offences. It is important to ensure that there is proper accountability, as well as consistency between bespoke sentences for offences in this area and wider sentencing, particularly for homicide offences.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

One key driver of deaths on the road, and indeed all dangerous driving offences, is alcohol. Given the enormous success of the pilot in Croydon, with 93% compliance, and the compelling evidence from the United States, will the Minister consider alcohol abstinence monitoring orders—otherwise known as compulsory sobriety—as a mandatory punishment for those who are convicted of driving offences when alcohol is involved?

[Mr Raab]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point that is grounded in practice from overseas, and we would certainly be willing to consider that during our consultation.

Justice

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Ministerial Corrections

The following are extracts from the Opposition day debate on Prisons and Probation on 27 January 2016.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has made an important point about reoffending. I wonder whether he has had a chance to consider my suggestion that the probation and police services should be merged so that offender management outside the prison estate became the responsibility of the police, who, in the end, are having to pick up the pieces. Might we not see a step change in the numbers that he has just outlined if we made that move, as well as quite a large financial saving?

[Michael Gove]

I thank my hon. Friend for the work he did as Deputy Mayor of London, when he was responsible for policing and crime and made a significant contribution to reducing knife crime on our streets and in deploying the Metropolitan police more effectively. I think all of us would agree that prisons and probation cannot work effectively unless there is a close working relationship with the police service. However, I would caution against making a change at this point of the kind my hon. Friend suggests. It is a fascinating idea, and it has been put to me by others whom I respect, but we are just 12 months into the transforming rehabilitation programme initiated by my predecessor, and it is only appropriate that we acknowledge that that programme has already seen an increase in the number of frontline probation officers, again of more than 500.

[Official Report, 27 January 2016, Vol. 605, c. 341.]

Letter of correction from Michael Gove:

An error has been identified in the response I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) in the Opposition day date on Prisons and Probation.

The correct response should have been:

Prisons and Probation

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that, if we are to deal with this problem, we must be vigilant in ensuring that we have not just staff but the training that is needed to support them.

The hon. Gentleman’s mention of the chief inspector of prisons gives me an opportunity to repeat what I had a chance to say only briefly yesterday, and again to express my gratitude to Nick Hardwick for the role that he has played. His latest annual report certainly does not make comfortable reading for someone in my job, but I would far rather have someone who told us the truth, and ensured that we performed our duties as elected representatives and as Ministers in the full knowledge of the truth, than someone who felt, for whatever reason, that they had to varnish or edit the truth. As I think most people would acknowledge, Nick Hardwick and I do not come from exactly the same point on the ideological spectrum, but because I am committed to using every talented voice and experienced pair of hands that I can find in order to improve our prison system, I am delighted that he accepted my invitation to chair the Parole Board.

It is understandable that, during an Opposition day debate, the hon. Member for Hammersmith should point the finger at failings that he alleges are unique to the Conservatives, and it is understandable that he should focus on the trends and statistics that appear to have worsened under a Conservative Government. However, it is also appropriate to recognise that, as was pointed out by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier), there were problems under Labour as well. For example, the incidence of reoffending—which I think provides a real index of the effectiveness of our prisons—is broadly unchanged. I do not say that because I want to make a partisan point; I say it merely because I want to emphasise the difficulties that we all face in improving our prison and probation service. In 2009, 46.9% of those who served custodial sentences went on to reoffend. The figure is now 45.1%. If I wanted to make a partisan point, I would say that the number of reoffenders had declined, but in fact the difference is statistically insignificant, and it is a reproach to all of us.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has made an important point about reoffending. I wonder whether he has had a chance to consider my suggestion that the probation and police services should be merged so that offender management outside the prison estate becomes the responsibility of the police, who, in the end, are having to pick up the pieces. Might we not see a step change in the numbers that he has just outlined if we made that move, as well as quite a large financial saving?

[Michael Gove]

I thank my hon. Friend for the work he did as Deputy Mayor of London, when he was responsible for policing and crime and made a significant contribution to reducing knife crime on our streets and in deploying the Metropolitan police more effectively. I think all of us would agree that prisons and probation cannot work effectively unless there is a close working relationship with the police service. However, I would caution against making a change at this point of the kind my hon. Friend suggests. It is a fascinating idea, and it has been put to me by others whom I respect, but we are just 12 months into the transforming rehabilitation programme initiated by my predecessor, and it is only appropriate that we acknowledge that that programme has already seen an increase in the number of frontline probation officers, again of more than 500.[Official Report, 23 February 2016, Vol. 606, c. 3-4MC.] Yes, it has brought in commercial expertise, but it has also brought in the charitable and voluntary sector and, for the first time, there is a direct requirement to provide support for those prisoners who leave after serving sentences of 12 months or less.

I think that was a humane and wise decision on the part of my predecessor, because we know that people who serve shorter sentences are more likely to reoffend. We can debate the factors that drive that, but what is undeniable is that if someone has served a shorter sentence—if they are part of that cohort more likely to reoffend—they deserve the support of probation just as much as, if not more than, other offenders.

The situation that used to prevail, where these offenders would be given £46 and left to their own devices as they went through the prison gate, was replaced by my predecessor and it is only appropriate that this House, whatever other criticisms it directs at this Government, acknowledges that that was a step forward for which he was responsible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. We already take seriously the position of veterans in the criminal justice system. At the behest of my predecessor, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) has produced a report on the care of those offenders, and the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice, is carrying forward that work. In particular, he is working with Care after Combat, a charity that supports offenders who have been in the military.

The hon. Gentleman’s point about problem-solving courts is also powerful. When I had the opportunity to visit the United States of America, I saw how veterans courts, drugs courts and problem-solving courts can make a real difference in keeping people out of jail and helping them to put their lives back together, so I would be more than happy to ensure that the Minister talks to the hon. Gentleman.

The hon. Gentleman’s intervention brings me on to my next point. Yes, there are some people in our prisons who deserve to be there because they have done wrong. Yes, there are some people in our prisons who are there because of mental health or personality disorders. And then there are other people who have made profound mistakes, crossed the line and committed crimes, but whose actions deserve to be placed in context. I am not for a moment suggesting that the pain a victim feels is any less as a result of the difficult circumstances that some people have been brought up in, but if we want to ensure that there are fewer victims and less pain, we need to ask ourselves what led that young man or woman into criminal activity.

In many cases, the individual will have grown up in a home where violence was the norm. They might have witnessed domestic violence in their very early years. Their brain development might have been arrested by a failure to ensure that there was a loving and secure attachment to a parent or carer who put them first. There might have been an absence not only of love but of loving authority—perhaps no one cared enough about them to teach them the difference between right and wrong. Someone who grew up in such circumstances could go to primary school ill-equipped to benefit from good teaching and go on to secondary school still unable to read.

Such people could find in the culture of gangs on the streets a warmth, a false camaraderie and a sense of self-esteem that they had never found anywhere else. That individual could then go on to commit crimes. Of course, once that individual has broken the law, justice must be done. However, as well as ensuring that justice is done in our courts, we must also ensure that social justice is done on our streets. That means looking at some of the root causes—family breakdown, substance abuse, domestic violence—that contribute to the difficulties that these young people grow up in.

[Kit Malthouse]

My right hon. Friend is making a profound and powerful point, with which I agree. Does he also agree that the involvement of alcohol is one of the largest drivers of short sentences, and that it often tips people over the edge? He will be aware of the compulsory sobriety project, which has been running in Croydon with powerful results. Now that he has licensed its use across the country, will he put some of his Department’s resources into spreading this disposal, which avoids the need for people to go to prison altogether and is a much more effective treatment for the problem? In removing alcohol, it removes offending.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The Minister for Policing has been closely involved in that pilot. So far as we can see, sobriety tags have made a significant contribution to reducing reoffending, and we hope that they will be able to form part of a significant extension of what is known as electronic monitoring, or tagging—in other words, ways in which individuals can be monitored to ensure that they stay on the straight and narrow, as far as possible, in a cheaper and more effective way that can often enable them to maintain their links with work, family or education, which are critical to improving their lives.

That brings me to the hon. Member for Hammersmith’s challenge: what are we going to do about these things? I will be honest: I came into this job not expecting to be in it, but I have found it fascinating and challenging and I have found some of those with whom I have to work inspiring. In contrast to the time that I spent at the Department for Education—I had three years to shadow; when I came to office I had a clear plan that I wished to implement, although not one that necessarily recommended itself to all parts of the House—I have deliberately set out to listen and to learn. I have asked people whose idealism is not in doubt and whose ability is clear to explore the landscape for me. That is why I asked Sally Coates, who cares about the education of the disadvantaged, to look at education in our prison system. Her report will be published in the next couple of months.

It is already clear, as a result of a decision made at the time of the autumn statement, that money that was previously spent by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will now be spent by us in a way that suits prisoners and the needs of offenders and of wider society rather than the requirements of a further education framework that was not appropriate for all offenders. More will be said by Sally in due course and by Charlie Taylor, who has devoted most of his career to working with some of the most difficult young people and who, in his review of the youth estate, has drawn preliminary lessons similar to those highlighted by the hon. Member for Hammersmith.

Yes, it is the case that young offenders are, in many cases, better cared for in smaller environments. Yes, it is the case that they need structure and discipline in their lives, but they also need a clear path towards educational attainment. One problem in our prisons is that, for many, educational attainment is capped by the way in which qualifications have been funded and educational providers have been procured. Prisoners have had diet after diet after diet of level 2 qualifications, which initially may give them a sense of purpose and renewed hope, but ultimately end up with them on a hamster wheel where they are not making the progress—in terms of education and of rehabilitation—that we would like to see.

I have addressed the issue of improving education. I have also asked the Under-Secretary to lead a programme to ensure that we can get more prisoners working fruitfully. That will mean: building on the success of organisations such as Halfords and Timpson that have done so much to recruit offenders; incarnating the lessons that the Mayor of London pointed out last week when he said that many employers found that ex-offenders are more honest and more reliable than many of those whom they hire; and providing new incentives for prison governors to give their inmates meaningful work. We must think hard about how we can expand the use of release on temporary licence.

We need to give governors more power to ensure that offenders, at a particular point in their sentence when the governor is as sure as he or she can be that that individual’s risk to others is diminishing, have the opportunity to go out during the day to work or to acquire educational qualifications to prepare them for life on the outside. Almost every prisoner will be let out at some point; we cannot keep every criminal in jail forever. If we are to release prisoners at some point, it is far, far better that they have, by a process of acclimatisation and growth, learned what it is to work responsibly in an appropriate environment or to work hard to acquire the educational qualifications that will give them a new start.

As well as giving governors more power over release on temporary licence, we want to give them more autonomy overall. In offering governors more autonomy, I know that there will be some—perhaps it will be colleagues in the Prison Officers Association—who think that this is a Trojan horse for privatisation or for a bigger role for the private sector. Let me say two things. First, the private sector has had something to offer in prisons, and that is something that unites both Front-Bench teams. There was a growth in the number of private prisons under Labour, and private prisons such as G4S’s Prison Parc in Bridgend do an exemplary job. That is underlined in every inspection.

I want to see governors who are currently in the system—people who joined the National Offender Management Service because of their idealism—given more freedom within the state sector to do what they do best. Baldly, my model is one of academy principals or of the chief executives and clinical directors of NHS foundation trusts who have shown that, with increased autonomy within a structure of clear accountability, they can achieve significant improvements.

I began by saying that I was grateful for the tone in which this debate was opened by the hon. Member for Hammersmith and I am looking forward to hearing and reading as many of the contributions as possible. Let me apologise to the House for the fact that I will have to leave the Chamber at 5.30, although I hope to return at 6.30. Every single contribution to this debate matters. All 85,000 of the prison population, which is so often out of sight and out of mind, are individuals whom we should see not as liabilities but as potential assets. Many of them have led broken lives and many of them have brought pain and misery into the lives of others, but we want to ensure that, in the future, they can contribute to our society rather than bring more pain and misery.

We are tough on crime in the Conservative party, and we appreciate that really being tough on crime means being intellectually tough enough to wrestle with the problems of why crime occurs and how to stop criminals from offending again. What is truly soft on crime is being intellectually soft and reaching for easy, simple soundbites instead of intellectually rigorous solutions, and that is why I commend the Government’s prison reform programme to the House.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [Lords]

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Lyn Brown]

In speaking to new clause 2, I praise the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) and the Local Government Association.

The powers in new clause 2 are comparable to the closure powers for premises that serve alcohol under the Licensing Act 2003. The new clause will provide a helpful interim power for local authorities when premises notices have been ignored. I do not see why we should treat outlets that are suspected of ignoring warnings to stop selling psychoactive substances any more gently than those that are believed to be selling alcohol illegally.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I rise to speak to amendments 2 and 3, which stand in my name. They deal with one small anomaly in the Bill and one more fundamental issue.

It is accepted in the Bill that the selling of psychoactive substances to children is a heinous crime that should attract an aggravated sentence. The Bill contains the aggravating factor of selling psychoactive substances outside a school, which will attract a stiffer sentence. However, there is a group of children who are more vulnerable than those who go to school and that is those who live in children’s homes. I am therefore seeking to make it an offence to sell these substances outside a children’s home.

I understand that the Government are keen to rely on sentencing guidelines to bring in these measures. However, that raises the question of whether we should have any aggravating factors at all. These provisions mirror exactly those in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. As far as I can see, that is the only reason why children’s homes are excluded from the Bill. I ask the Minister to consider the logic of including selling these substances outside a children’s home alongside selling them outside a school.

The second issue is more fundamental. I am seeking to make it an aggravated offence to sell these substances to anybody under 18. The law for the protection of children in this country is patchy, old and confused. In particular, it does not privilege children as a group against whom committing a crime is particularly serious. We privilege lots of other groups, including those with a religious faith, those of particular ethnicities and those of a particular sexuality. If a crime is committed against those people because of who they are, it is more serious in sentencing terms. Children are not among that group.

My amendments therefore seek to make the sale of psychoactive substances to anybody under 18 a more serious offence in the eyes of a judge and one that attracts a stiffer sentence. I am doing this in the hope that when any future criminal justice or sentencing Bill appears, the House will do what it did in 2012, when it made the transgender community an aggravated feature, as it is called, which means that any offence that is committed against them because of their particular characteristics attracts a similar sentence. I hope that we will do the same for children in future legislation.

It is about time that we focused on some of the very old children’s legislation and brought it up to date. The first step in doing so is to send a signal to the courts and the public in general that we see children as a group that is worthy of special protection.