Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse: Final Report

Laura Farris Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. One problem with tackling child sexual abuse is that it can happen in so many different settings and environments that it is difficult to have one central location always to deal with it. But what we can do is provide the services, expertise and some of the different initiatives I referred to in my comments to help bring that support. I absolutely agree with him and I am determined to do that, on behalf of all the children who have been abused and to prevent further abuse in future.

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

I, too, pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) for establishing the inquiry, and to Professor Jay for her report. I know something about how difficult and painstaking the evidence-gathering exercise was, because I was a barrister on the inquiry for a year in 2017. From Dolphin Square to the Catholic Church, from young offenders institutes to residential schools, the findings of the inquiry reveal the extent of prolonged child abuse, often in places where children were meant to be kept safe. Repeatedly it was found that if they complained about it, they were accused of lying or were even blamed for it happening in the first place.

There are multiple lessons from the report, but I would like to ask my right hon. Friend about the specific findings in relation to sexual predators—paedophiles—who travel overseas to abuse children. The report finds that civil orders restricting foreign travel are often underused and ineffective, because they only prohibit travel to a named country, which means that the perpetrator can circumvent that restriction by taking a different route. Will he say what the Home Office is doing to tighten up the restrictions in that area specifically?

[Grant Shapps]

First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her work in 2017—these cannot have been easy pieces of legal work to do. She is right to say that it is never the fault of the victims and we need to make sure that the response from officialdom is never to disbelieve and never to blame the victim either. She raises an important point about the narrow scope of those civil orders. We will certainly be undertaking to look at those and how they could operate much more efficiently.

Ukraine

Laura Farris Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I have made my point on security checks. We have been the target, basically, of Putin’s Russia. On the EU’s approach, the EU is still discussing how it intends to operationalise its mechanism. I am in touch with the commissioner. As soon as I know more from the commissioner, obviously we will work with them. We are not working in isolation: I want to make that quite clear to all colleagues. We are working with everyone. Of course, that also means sharing information and helping each other out. As I have said, this is an evolving situation.

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

I welcome the offer that the Home Secretary has announced to the Ukrainian people at this moment of desperate need, and her reassurance that there will be no limit on the numbers of Ukrainian people who can enter the United Kingdom under one of the qualifying schemes.

A constituent of mine emailed me today about his mother and father-in-law—Ukrainian nationals who have escaped the country and are now in a European country. They have applied for a visitor visa and have been told that they face a 15-day delay. Could I meet the Home Secretary, or one of her officials, to see what we can do to accelerate their safe passage to the United Kingdom?

[Priti Patel]

Of course. I say to all Members of the House who have cases coming to them that, as I have said, we will have staff in Portcullis House from tomorrow. We will write to all Members this afternoon with basic information about where to go with their cases. Of course, I am more than happy to pick up cases directly from colleagues, as I have been doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Laura Farris Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

We are obviously all distressed to hear the news from Bristol. Any life lost to drugs is obviously to be mourned. Anyone interested in lawfully undertaking activities that include the possession, supply or production of controlled drugs, including through the course of drug testing services, can already apply to the Home Office for a domestic licence, and they will be subject to the usual visits and considerations about the activities that they undertake. I understand the hon. Lady’s implication that we should look at this subject in the round. It is our hope that we will publish later this year a comprehensive, cross-Government strategy on drugs in the round, including on their impact and what we can do about them.

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

9. What steps her Department is taking to work with the police in helping to reduce violence against women and girls.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rachel Maclean)]

Cases including the sickening murder of Sarah Everard and the appalling murders of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman have caused immense pain and understandably prompted huge concerns. That is why the Home Secretary commissioned an inspection of the police response to violence against women and girls, and why we supported the recommendation to appoint a full-time national policing lead to drive forward progress on this hugely important issue.

[Laura Farris]

I also extend my deepest sympathies to the families of Sir David Amess and James Brokenshire. Southend has lost two sons and we have lost two very special parliamentary colleagues.

I would like to recognise the work that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has been doing over the past few, very challenging weeks, which have had damaging implications for the relationship between the police and the safety of women. Last week, The Times reported that more than half of the disciplinary hearings that had been conducted over the past three years were held in private and almost no force published the findings. We know how important transparency is to public confidence, so will my hon. Friend the Minister tell us what steps she is taking to ensure that members of the public can see what is going on with their local force?

[Rachel Maclean]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that public confidence in the policing response is vital to tackling violence against women and girls. I am determined, as is the Home Secretary, to do all we can to combat these sickening crimes. We are committed to ensuring that policing is subject to stringent levels of transparency and accountability. Misconduct hearings are chaired independently of forces by legally qualified chairs. Sometimes those hearings must be held in private, for several legitimate reasons. We will be looking at the matter further to ensure that the system is accountable to the public.

Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape

Laura Farris Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I am sorry to hear the numbers from South Yorkshire, and I know the hon. Lady will address them with the police and crime commissioner there, who is responsible for the performance of the police. He also chairs the local criminal justice board, which is designed to bring partners together in that area to work on exactly these issues. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill includes provisions that will focus on offences that largely impact women, not least the end of the halfway release for serious sexual offenders, including rapists who, when the Bill goes through, will have to serve two-thirds of their sentence, providing greater protection and justice for their victims.

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con) [V]]

Because the majority of rapes take place behind closed doors, where the victim knows the perpetrator, and in circumstances that are incredibly difficult to prove afterwards, it has always been a difficult crime for which to get a conviction. The most striking features of the current rate are the high rate of attrition, and the fact that the CPS has seen fit to update the rape and serious sexual offences guidance all the way through the year on victim behaviour. Does my hon. Friend think there is a case for specialised prosecutors, and a specialist sexual offences court to deal with such crimes?

[Kit Malthouse]

I had the pleasure of watching a talk that my hon. Friend gave last night to a think-tank about these issues, and she was very thoughtful and interesting on this subject. Across all crime types we see that specialism pays, both in apprehending the perpetrator, but also in getting a conviction. We must ensure that the police and CPS can develop those specialisms. All prosecutions are currently charged by specialist RASSO prosecutors, but a collective expertise must be a key mission for us. Alongside that, we must ensure that victims have specialist support, and expertise is key to that.

My hon. Friend is right to say that this is a particularly difficult, evidential situation, where often it is one word against another, and other circumstantial evidence may or may not lead to a conviction. I want to concentrate on the key area of recent reporting, and on encouraging people to report as soon as possible. As she will know, there is a short forensic window in such situations—normally 7 to 10 days—and there are sensitive forensic facilities where evidence can be gathered. We know that in such circumstances, the likelihood of conviction is much greater. For historical offenders it is even more difficult, which is why expertise is even more important.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Laura Farris Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 15th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

I would also like to pay tribute to the great Cheryl Gillan, an inspirational and supportive colleague whose presence is felt very strongly on this side of the House. The Bill returns to us in different and better shape from how it left us. The amendments do not just add content, but expand the framework through which domestic abuse in all its insidious complexity is understood. It is something that may well outlive the relationship. I have seen through work I have done with a particular constituent of mine that coercive or controlling behaviour can live long after the couple have stopped living under the same roof.

The Bill recognises that the threat of certain forms of abuse can be as pernicious as the act itself. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) for the beautiful way she expressed the shame and humiliation that lies at the heart of revenge porn, which is an offence irrespective of whether the threat is actually carried out. The amendments provide protection against sexual violence that does not depend on any particular relationship status. The measures on revenge porn and non-fatal strangulation and the prohibition on the rough sex defence are all examples of that, and I pay tribute to Baroness Newlove for succeeding where we failed.

The Bill has evolved in part into a very significant body of law on sexual violence. It says to women, “It doesn’t matter if he is your husband or just someone that you met on Tinder. If he tries to choke you, that is a crime. If he tries to silence you by saying that he will share images of you online, that is a crime. If he hurts you, whether through choking or anything else, and says that you were up for it, that will not work; it is a crime.”

This Bill comes at a very important moment in a national conversation we are having. We know such things are happening because of the countless women who have submitted their stories to the campaign group We Can’t Consent To This in the past 18 months, detailing terrifying sexual violence in intimate encounters, and the more than 14,000 young women who have submitted anonymous testimonies on “Everyone’s Invited”, in particular describing the sharing of online images. Then there are the 40% of young women who told the BBC in 2019 that they had experienced unwanted strangulation. What we have heard time and time again is that they just thought it was normal. They did not think that they could report it. For now, these changes meet that challenge and give women a route to justice in respect of these crimes.

I want to speak briefly on judicial training. I start by reminding the House of what the Court of Appeal said about that in an appeal it heard on domestic abuse about a fortnight ago. It said that while domestic abuses are often not “crystal clear”, where there is detailed guidance on judicial training, the number of appeals tends to be smaller.

I would like to talk about judicial training in the context of non-fatal strangulation, which is something I have raised with Lord Wolfson. Subsection (2) of clause 72 says that the offence is initiated by consent. I understand as a matter of law and principle why that is, but we need to be realistic about what the offence looks like. First, we know that it is occurring frequently, and we know that it occupies a sprawling kind of grey area. As the Centre for Women’s Justice put it, there is

“growing pressure on young women to consent to violent, dangerous and demeaning acts”,

such as strangulation, most likely

“due to the widespread availability…and use of extreme pornography.”

Without proper training from the Judicial College, it is easy to see how the defence could be used to lead to an acquittal.

Very often, perhaps always, the victim will have consented to sex in the first place. She may on a previous occasion have consented to strangulation or something like it under duress or a desire to please, and by the time she reports it to the police, she may not have very strong evidence of physical injury. We know from precedent, such as the Samuel Price case in 2015 on very similar facts, that her history will be used against her in evidence and will be relevant. Judicial training is imperative so that a case founded on these facts is not destined to fail.

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

I would also like to associate myself with colleagues’ remarks about the sadness of the passing of His Royal Highness the Prince Philip, our dear colleague Dame Cheryl Gillan and of course Baroness Shirley Williams in the other place, and I send my sincere condolences to their families and friends.

I will be supporting the Lords amendments to this important Bill tonight. That we should need a Domestic Abuse Bill is a sad indictment of our society, but the facts speak for themselves. In England and Wales, two women a week will die at the hands of their partner, ex-partner or a family member. Yes, domestic abuse affects men as well, but most abuse is directed at women. Seventy-three years on from the commitment to universal human rights, which declared that

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”—

that women are equal to men—our fundamental rights to life are being denied by too many.

This violence against women and girls in a domestic or wider setting has context. For some, girl babies are seen as less important than boy babies, and daughters who are deemed to have shamed their families are punished, sometimes fatally. Too many still see their wives and daughters as chattels, and too many justify rape on how women dress. Our right to an education, to marry whom we wish, to work in whatever job we wish—limited only by our abilities, not by prejudice and discrimination—and to be paid equally for that work still elude us. If we want to stop violence against women, including in the home, we need a cultural change. Society needs to stop paying lip service to women’s rights and to treat women equally in every aspect of life, and this culture change requires leadership.

In addition to the cultural context, if we are going to try to prevent domestic abuse, we also need to recognise its drivers, including socioeconomic conditions. Yesterday, at the Work and Pensions Committee, we heard evidence that, although domestic abuse happens in all walks of life, being under financial pressure is associated with an increased risk of abuse. Poverty cannot be decoupled from abuse; it is both a cause and a consequence.

The lack of provision in the Bill to address wider cultural issues and the socioeconomic context associated with abuse were discussed at a recent Oldham roundtable looking at the impacts of covid on domestic abuse over the last year. In addition to these gaps, I noted with some concern that the detection of abuse at community level did not translate into incidents reported to the police. Reflecting national patterns during the first lockdown in Oldham, the average number of cases at MARAC doubled every fortnight and the numbers of children on child protection plans following domestic abuse concerns increased by 41%, but this was not reflected in the numbers of domestic abuse incidents reported to the police, which has remained fairly static at about 400 a month. This obviously suggests that domestic abuse has been under-reported and that there is an increased problem of hidden abuse, as colleagues have been discussing as we have been going along.

The concerns raised in Oldham about the provisions in the Bill were particularly related to the issues, first, of victims with complex needs; secondly, of victims with no recourse to public funds; and finally, of the practical implementation of the Bill and its funding mechanisms. On victims with complex needs, including disabled people or people with a mental health condition, there were concerns, on top of the shortage of refuge places ordinarily, about the new duty to support a victim in safe accommodation and the availability of appropriately adapted or supported safe accommodation. Basically, there are not enough places. I would also like to support my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and other colleagues who have been raising the disappointment regarding the Government’s position on abuse of disabled women by their carers and the lack of the support for the Lords amendments on this, which we think is very short-sighted.

I also echo colleagues’ remarks concerning the Lords amendments to address the lack of support for women with no recourse to public funds—predominantly but not exclusively migrant women. Currently, the destitution domestic violence concession scheme is a lengthy and bureaucratic process, leaving these women in limbo, often without access to the support they need, and we need to change that.

On the practicalities of implementing the Bill, there are concerns that the timescales for local authorities will be challenging in the context of an ongoing pandemic, particularly in regard to the requirements to have local strategies in place by August and to spend budget allocations by April 2022. Similarly, there is concern that funding will be skewed towards services around the narrowly defined duty for local authorities, at the expense of other essential support services, and that needs to be addressed. Given the timescales, local authorities will need to commit funding in advance of the strategic framework being ready, and they may not be able to spend the full allocation within this year. I hope that the Minister will also be able to address those remarks in her closing statement.

The Bill is a good move forward, but supporting the Lords amendments could make it even stronger, and I hope colleagues will support it.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Laura Farris Excerpts

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

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

There is much that I welcome in the Bill, in particular that the Government have adopted recommendations made by the independent inquiry on child sexual abuse. I have a direct interest in this because I worked on it before entering Parliament. I think I am right in saying that this is the first time that the inquiry’s recommendations have been brought into law. It is a powerful thing for the survivors to see the nightmares of their past informing the laws of the future, first, by extending the definition of “position of trust”. When we looked at sports coaches and religious leaders, what they shared was status not just in their sphere but in their community. The children they chose tended to be vulnerable in the first place. They built on the bonds of trust with families to establish extended periods with those children, often overnight, and they were willing to engage in extended patterns of grooming to do so. There are other categories of worker to whom that applies and I hope the Government will keep an open mind on that.

It is also a core finding of the inquiry that we are failing to properly protect children against the worst kinds of abuse because offenders can travel abroad and find impoverished and vulnerable children to seriously sexually exploit. So I welcome the extension of the sexual harm prevention orders to limit their ability to travel and to give the Secretary of State the right to list countries. We know and the National Crime Agency knows what countries that takes place in. However, to be effective we must also take action against social media companies, which all too often are allowing very violent sexual exploitation to be streamed across their platforms. The abuse happens abroad, it is consumed in the United Kingdom and, if we do not take the opportunity to address that in the online harms Bill, I do not know if we ever will.

Similarly, on managing terrorist risk offenders, I particularly welcome the new powers given to the Parole Board under clause 108 to restrict the release of those who may have been radicalised in prison. This goes directly to the lone wolf attack in Forbury Gardens, on the doorstep of my constituency, where the assailant had been released just 17 days before and it might have changed the outcome.

I want to close by saying something about violence against women. I cannot accept that this Government are not doing all they can to protect women in this Bill, but particularly in the context of the Domestic Abuse Bill. It is so rare to have two new sexual offences identified in one piece of legislation, together with the new offence of coercive control.

[Andrew Griffith]

My hon. Friend speaks very eloquently about sexual violence against women and we would like to hear more from her.

[Laura Farris]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend.

In the last week, a new conversation has crystallised about the safety and dignity of women and their ability to move around in public, and attention must be paid to their voices. I do not think the Bill is the place to rush through new measures or to bolt on new provisions, but I think the Government have an opportunity to begin an important conversation through their VAWG strategy, and I think there is a place for focused legislation on the issue at the end of the year.

Policing and Prevention of Violence against Women

Laura Farris Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

In response to the hon. Lady’s question about operational tactics—of which kettling is one, based on a police assessment around a situation, a protest or an event—the police themselves make judgments and decisions about the tactics that they use as part of their operations.

The hon. Lady raised an important point about disabled people who wish to express themselves by participating in protests. Of course, their needs can be met by working with the police, and many organisers talk to the police about the groups of people and the characteristics of individuals who are coming out to protest. This is not a one-size-fits-all approach. She will be well aware of the approach that the police take in engaging with organisers over protests.

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

I would like to put on record my sympathies to the family and partner of Sarah Everard.

I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement. In the last few months I have been working with Our Streets Now on the issue of public street harassment: vile and explicit language that is aimed at women with the purpose of degrading them. It is often aimed at children—schoolgirls. I look forward to my right hon. Friend’s strategy later this year, but will she consider, as part of that, introducing legislation that might address the issue?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I have met many schoolgirls who are a part of that campaign. We will consider all options as part of the VAWG strategy.

Serious Criminal Cases Backlog

Laura Farris Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

We have opened 36 Nightingale courts across the country. I am sorry that there is not one so far in the hon. Lady’s county, but I would be willing—delighted, in fact—to speak with her about her proposals for her county. If she would like to make contact, I will happily either exchange correspondence or have a meeting to discuss those ideas. There are sometimes reasons why a particular building is not suitable that are not immediately apparent—it might be to do with custody cells or something else—but I am happy to have a proper, detailed conversation with her about her ideas, to see what can be done. If she follows up with my office or my Department, I will be delighted to do that.

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con) [V]]

Last year, the Ministry of Justice received calls to temporarily dispense with juries as a way of clearing the backlog in the criminal justice courts. I pay tribute to the Secretary of State for his determination not to do this. However, will my hon. Friend reassure the House that as he works to accelerate the disposal of criminal matters, he remains committed to preserving juries as a fundamental cornerstone of the criminal justice system?

[Chris Philp]

Yes, we do remain committed to the foundation stones of our justice system. Just as we have not cut any corners in delivering justice in these difficult past few months, we do not plan to cut any corners in the future.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Laura Farris Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 6th July 2020 Commons Chamber

I leave Ministers with this one thought: our response to coronavirus has shown the speed at which we can move if we have to. Would it not be wonderful if that approach was adopted for the Law Commission’s review, and we saw it reporting by the end of this year, instead of next?

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

I will confine my remarks to Government new clause 20, which concerns the rough sex defence. Those on the Front Bench should feel proud of the new clause. The first question that any Government have to answer when they bring new legislation before the House is why the legislation is needed. It has been said, “If the common law already says that someone cannot consent to serious injury or death, does Parliament need to legislate?” The answer is emphatically yes, and here is why. R v. Brown, the authority for this issue, which is nearly 30 years old, does not cover consent in all forms of sexual harm. There are other cases—contradictory cases—that can be applied, and we saw that pretty starkly in the case of Natalie Connolly, where R v. Brown was applied, but only in part. When it came to her internal injuries—the ones that were the most savagely inflicted, the most serious and the most proximate cause of death—the court applied a completely different case and concluded that the violence in that context was lawful. That could not happen under new clause 20, because it rules out the possibility of consenting to any serious harm for sexual gratification, and the inconsistency goes.

The second problem with Brown is that it answered one specific question: whether the defence of consent should apply to the infliction of bodily harm in the course of sadomasochistic encounters. I have heard it described as a case about consensual torture. That has always created the risk of conflating violent sex in a domestic abuse context with BDSM, as we saw in Natalie Connolly’s case and those of others. Sadomasochism becomes a prism through which the violence on the night is interpreted, because Brown invites that.

Not only does that traduce the reputation of the victim, but it offends one of the most fundamental principles of justice, that he who asserts must prove. In those serious cases, it was not proven in a way that a member of the public would understand. All we know is that it was violent and it was sexual and that she is dead. New clause 20 reduces the risk of the courts being drawn into such considerations by drawing a line through consent in the first place.

Above all, codifying the defence sends a powerful message about what we as a society say about sexual violence and degrading behaviour in a way that the common law never could. In fact, new clause 20 is not didactic—it does not try to tell people how to live their private lives—but it sends a powerful message to the perpetrator that they will be responsible for all the consequences of their actions, which is a game changer when rape convictions are at an all-time low.

The most affecting feature of the last two weeks has been other countries’ reactions to the Government’s decision. In New Zealand, where they were as appalled by the Grace Millane case as we were, Ireland, Hungary, Germany, France and Canada, people are writing about what the British Government are doing in the context of similar cases that have been before their courts and with reference to Members of their own Parliaments who are working to achieve the same thing. The Ministers involved should feel proud of the leadership that they have shown.

Finally, the most powerful message of new clause 20 is a tacit one about the dignity of the women who have been killed in this way. It is not the perpetrator in the dock who gets to define her, or the judge in his sentencing remarks, but we in Parliament who draw a line in the sand and say, in effect, what the victims and their families never could: that she could not consent to that.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It is a delight to have heard the excellent points of the hon. Member for Newbury (Laura Farris). I put on record three fantastic women who have worked in this area in my constituency: Denise Marshall, who was the chief executive of Eaves, the wonderful Mary Mason, who was the chief executive of Solace Women’s Aid, and Harriet Wistrich, who is the director of the Centre for Women’s Justice and who worked hard on the Sally Challen case. That case is not dissimilar to those that the hon. Lady mentioned, although, of course, Sally Challen was acquitted after many years in prison and was subject to some awful coercive behaviour from her partner who she actually killed. My constituent Harriet Wistrich worked hard on that case, which is now a precedent. We need those important test cases to prove how we can improve the law and women’s experience.

I welcome three other elements of the Bill: first, the robust framework for the new domestic abuse commissioner; secondly, the two new civil protection orders, which will strengthen the everyday practice on domestic abuse; and thirdly, the secure lifetime tenancy in England housing authorities. I mention briefly the work of Hearthstone, which is Haringey Council’s excellent housing provision for women facing domestic violence. The fact that it is embedded in the local authority allows much better quality allocations for women who face uncertain housing situations.

The test of the Bill is not just how well written it is or what fantastic speeches we may give tonight, but the quality of the legal aid that women and victims of domestic violence can get day in, day out in our courts. I am sorry to say that legal aid still does not match the desperate need of so many women victims. I hope that the Government will look at the provision of legal aid in future, although not necessarily specifically in this legislation. In terms of the practice and the everyday experience, we need excellent legal representation for those women. I also put on record my support for amendment 35 looking at misogyny as a hate crime, which my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) has spoken eloquently about as part of the ratification of the Istanbul convention.

I want to put on record my support for new clause 22 for women who have insecure immigration status and a fear of deportation. Looking through my casework of this month, I had the case of a woman who had no recourse to public funds and was not able to gain access to important financial provisions in that she did not have access to housing benefit and all the other provisions. Fortunately, having written to the Home Office, my caseworker had an amazing success—a huge thank you to my team—but this cannot be down to individual cases on a case-by-case basis such as this; we need a much more holistic look at “no recourse to public funds”.

I was very pleased to hear the Minister announce this evening that there will be a pilot scheme worth £1.5 million, but I fear that pilot schemes peter out, are introduced very late on in the financial year and tend to be very piecemeal. In my view, we desperately need to pass new clause 22 so that we can take in the most vulnerable women, including those with no recourse to public funds, whom we see in our surgeries. We cannot rely on the fact that they may pop into our surgeries and we can write to the Home Office. We need a much more inclusive provision, so hon. Members should please vote for new clause 22.

Reading Terrorist Attack

Laura Farris Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. As we discussed this morning, the way in which the community has come together—the multi-faith groups, as we discussed earlier, the emergency services and the police officers, who both of us have met—is absolutely outstanding. Like him, I pay tribute to the friends and family members of those hurt or killed and, as ever, the police officers and emergency services, who responded with such swiftness and bravery. We will continue our discussions about the support that he needs for his constituents at this very difficult time.

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

My constituency borders Reading, and I speak on behalf of everyone in Newbury in sending my deepest sympathies to the families of the victims. I also thank Thames Valley police for an exceptional response on Saturday night. No charging decision has been made, but in the last three years there have been five lone wolf attacks, in Streatham, in Fishmongers’ Hall, on the tube at Parsons Green, on Westminster Bridge and at the Manchester Arena. What reassurances can my right hon. Friend give that the counter-terrorism services have sufficiently robust surveillance powers to monitor this most unpredictable of threats?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend raises important questions. Surveillance and monitoring of individual subjects of interest is crucial to how they are managed and watched within our community. She asked specifically about resources. I speak to those services every week, and we have these discussions. However, while resourcing is one thing, this is about access to information and intelligence and how it blends together and is combined. To be specific in answer to her question, the services have the resources that they need. There is always more work to do, and I am sure there is more that can be done in the future. I have already said in my statement that we need to listen and to learn from what has happened—that will evolve over time, as the investigation proceeds—and if we need to do more, that is exactly what we will do.