End-to-end Rape Review

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Before I call the Lord Chancellor, I wish to remind Members that the House’s sub judice resolution means that reference should not be made to any case in which proceedings are active in the United Kingdom courts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Last week, the Secretary of State took the bold step of saying that he was “sorry” and “deeply ashamed” for how he and his Government had failed rape victims. “Sorry” is a word that we do not hear often in this House, and we certainly do not hear it enough. It is, frankly, a difficult word for politicians to say, but when a politician says sorry, it means they are taking responsibility and expressing regret for mistakes that have caused large swathes of the public to suffer.

The Secretary of State was right to apologise, but his apology has been made meaningless by his attempt to avoid taking responsibility over the weekend. Under his watch, the conviction and prosecution rates for rapists have fallen to a record low. In the year 2016-17, there were 41,616 rapes recorded in England and Wales—a third less than currently—and there were 5,090 prosecutions and 2,991 convictions. In 2019-20, the most recent year for which we have available data, the police recorded 55,130 rapes but there were only 2,102 prosecutions and 1,439 convictions. Rape convictions and prosecutions more than halved in just a few years, even despite the number of recorded rapes having rocketed upwards.

It is impossible to separate those appalling statistics from the decade of Conservative cuts that have accompanied them. Funding for the Ministry of Justice has fallen by 25% since 2010. When asked by the BBC whether the removal of funding for legal services was linked to the downward trends, the Secretary of State admitted that that is “self-evidently the case.” Ten years of cuts to the courts, legal aid, police and the Crown Prosecution Service have created an environment in which victims are denied justice and criminals are let off the hook. The Lord Chancellor swore an oath

“to ensure the provision of resources for the efficient and effective support of the courts”;

clearly, he has failed.

After we have waited two years for the review to be published, its recommendations do not go far enough. Despite the Secretary of State’s having admitted that his funding cuts helped to cause the crisis, almost no new funding at all is announced in the review. The review lumps in spending on domestic violence and rape as a headline to misrepresent the truth; the reality is that the vast majority of the funding for refuge accommodation—which is of course vital—has nothing to do with increasing rape prosecutions or convictions. The only mention of new funding is the £4 million over two years for independent sexual violence advisers. That equates to £15 per rape victim for a year. Does the Secretary of State really think that is enough funding to address the failings that the report sets out?

The review mentions the pre-recording of evidence for intimidated victims, which is a vital reform, but why are the Government re-piloting the scheme for a further two years when they have piloted it twice already? Does the Secretary of State doubt that the current two-to-three-year waiting list to get a rape case to court is leading to many dropping out? Why are the Government not funding specialist units for rape cases throughout the country? The pilot in Avon and Somerset has been successful, but the Government are going to roll it out for only one year, among just four more police forces—more piecemeal pilots and nowhere near enough funding and long-term commitment to make any real impact. We know the problems, we have the answers and the technology is in place—what is the hold-up?

As the Opposition spokesman, it is my job to hold the Secretary of State to account. For his apology to have meaning, it needs accountability alongside it. In their rape review, the Government outline their commitment to return the volume of cases being referred by the police and charged by the Crown Prosecution Service and then going to court to at least

“2016 levels by the end of this Parliament.”

We in the Opposition said that by the end of this Parliament is not good enough. Rape victims cannot be forced to wait another three years for conviction and prosecution levels to return to 2016 levels. We demanded that the Secretary of State met the target within a year, but, bafflingly, his response was to describe such a target as “constitutionally illiterate”. We know that this failure affects several Departments. We know that the Crown Prosecution Service is independent, with oversight by the Attorney General’s office. We know that the police are overseen by the Home Office. But we also know that the health of the justice system as a whole has a huge impact on the likelihood of a victim pressing charges, the police charging a suspect and a conviction being secured. Victims are facing delays because of the Justice Department’s cuts to the courts and legal aid, and it is because of those delays that 44% of rape victims are pulling out of the justice system altogether.

In describing such a target as constitutionally illiterate, the Secretary of State suggested that the record low prosecution and conviction rates for rapes were out of his hands. That runs counter to his previous apology in which he took responsibility for them. Does he, or does he not, take responsibility for this Government’s hollowing out of the justice system? If not, does he intend to take his apology back? Do the Government intend to meet their target of returning the number of rapists who face justice to 2016 levels, or have they done a U-turn and scrapped that target?

The Secretary of State cannot show disdain for the constitution whenever it suits him and then blame the constitution when he is trying to defend his own failings. Enough is enough. Will he reverse these failures within a year, or will he resign?

[Mr Speaker]

This is a very, very important subject and it is quite right that we are having this statement, but there are other Members besides those on the Front Benches whom I need to hear from. It is important to all colleagues to get on the record, so please, whether we are talking about the Minister or the shadow Minister, we must stick to the time that the House has agreed to. It is not what I have agreed to, but what the House and Members have signed up to. Please, let us ensure that everybody gets a fair chance.

[Robert Buckland]

I am mindful of your stricture, Mr Speaker.

May I remind the right hon. Gentleman very firmly about what I said? I rightly took responsibility and apologised for the overall failure that has led us to this situation. I do that as somebody who is politically responsible; I accept that without any qualification. I accept as well that resources are a matter for the Government, and I explained that, in the context of what we were left with, decisions were made back in 2010 that did indeed result in reductions. None the less, he will know as well that the issue with regard to the prosecution of rapes is not just about resources. It is about culture. It is about the way in which victims have, for far too long, been the focus of all attention. I know he agrees that that is inappropriate and that it is time for a much more perpetrator-focused approach.

When we calmly look at the figures for rape prosecutions over the past 10 or 15 years, we will see an encouraging rise from 2010 to about the middle of the decade, then a sustained improvement until about 2017-18, and then this very concerning decline that I have rightly acknowledged. That in itself tells us that something has happened here with regard to the way in which these cases are approached, and that has caused huge concern. There was a judicial review case about it that we are familiar with, which was hotly disputed between the Crown Prosecution Service and the sector, and, rightly, we waited for that to be concluded before we published this review. I say again to him what I said yesterday, which is that to in any way suggest that an increase in prosecutions and the bringing of cases should be linked to the fate or otherwise of a politician is constitutionally illiterate, dangerous, and the sort of approach that could lead to allegations of improper pressure being put on independent prosecutors.

I wonder whether, before he issued his public pronouncement, the right hon. Gentleman cleared it with his own boss. I can imagine the scene: me, as Lord Chancellor, speaking to the Director of Public Prosecutions in a way that would have crossed the line with regard to his prosecutorial independence; of course, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) was the DPP, and I am pretty sure about the answer that I would have got from him. I think that the silence of the Leader of the Opposition on this matter speaks volumes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who, as a practitioner in the law, dealt with, in a family context, many of the consequences of serious sexual abuse. She will see that the report does include direct reference to our ambition to return phones within 24 hours, or to provide a swap-around service so that if the phone cannot be handed back, then a substitute will be given. However, this needs to go further with regard to investment in analytics. That is why this year I shall host a tech summit to bring together the sector in a way that can only lead to enhancements in the speed and quality of data analysis, because she is quite right that we need to improve that experience quickly.

[Mr Speaker]

I now suspend the House for three minutes to enable the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.