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Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Buckland]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Her point about guidance will be key to all this. While we may be good at passing a law, it is for the prosecuting authorities and child protection agencies to enforce it, so we would be failing in our duty if we did not explain through debates in the House what we mean.

Empirical research shows that emotional abuse may be the most damaging form of child maltreatment because those who are responsible for administering it almost invariably are those responsible for enabling children to fulfil their developmental milestones. What do I mean by emotional neglect? It can include forcing a child to witness domestic violence, scapegoating a child, inflicting systematic humiliation and enforcing degrading punishments.

The effects of emotional neglect have been shown to be potentially lifelong and as profound, if not more so, than some of the physical effects on children. They can include depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, personality disorder, aggression, dissociation, mental illness and even suicide. Children who experience rejection or neglect are less able to learn and achieve good educational outcomes than their peers, so in addition to the psychiatric evidence that we have of the harm caused by emotional neglect, there is growing evidence from neuroscience that brain development is inhibited as a result, which itself leads to significant harm. We cannot ignore the developing science; we would be failing in our duty if we did.

The language of section 1 of the 1933 Act is antiquated. It uses words such as “wilful”, which has been defined by the courts as meaning “reckless”. Well, why does the Act not say that? It would be so much easier if we amended the law to make sure that people given the task of interpreting it did not misunderstand “wilful” as requiring specific intent or as being more intentional than the law requires. Why should we put people through their paces in that way by relying on archaic language?

Similarly, terms such as “unnecessary suffering” were good for the time of Dickens, but are not necessarily appropriate now. The term “significant harm” is the one that I strongly advocate. It replicates the term already used in civil law and it is the threshold test used when child protection issues are dealt with. Why not just streamline the system by bringing the language into line with that already used? The term “significant harm” can be understood but still sets a high threshold, and it goes a long way towards allaying some of the concerns of those who say that this will open the floodgates to prosecutions of the firm but fair parents about whom I was talking earlier.

The police and those involved in social work welcome the proposed reform. As I said, there was concern about the inability of the police to intervene in cases of non-physical harm, and the dislocation between criminal and civil law was leading to problems in enforcement and in interpreting the role of the police. We are making the law clear not only for members of the public but for those in the law enforcement agencies who have to do this difficult and sensitive work.

We should look at what is happening overseas. Action for Children commissioned research from 31 jurisdictions across Europe, Asia, north America, Africa and Australia, including common law jurisdictions with which we can draw direct parallels. In 25 of those 31 jurisdictions, the criminal law explicitly encompasses emotional abuse. We can see from that trawl of other countries’ legislation that emotional abuse is already recognised in other parts of the world.

How emotional abuse is defined will obviously be important when it comes to presenting evidence in court, and assistance will be gained, as it is now, from experts in the field who are trained in understanding the intellectual and psychological capacity of children. There is concern in the community of expert witnesses that, with pressure on resources, their job will become more difficult. I understand that, and it will be important to acknowledge that during our debates and to work out ways in which the criminal justice system can accommodate expert testimony. It must do so in a way that is fair to all parties while serving the interests of justice and allowing objective expert evidence to be relied on by juries when discharging their duties and applying the high test of the criminal standard of proof. The combination of significant harm and the criminal standard of proof is protection enough for those who say they are worried that the floodgates will be opened upon responsible heads.

We therefore move away from words and phrases such as “neglect”, “wilful” and “unnecessary suffering” to the term “maltreatment”, which covers the gamut of different types of harm that are caused, sadly, to our children. At a stroke it makes clear the options available to the courts. It allows sentencers the ability properly to reflect criminality by those responsible for the care of children in sentencing them appropriately. Finally, it deals with a long-standing anomaly that I am surprised we allowed to continue for so long.

This law will not apply retrospectively. We cannot, and it is right that we do not, make something criminal that was not criminal at the time it happened. I know that for those people who contacted me and other colleagues in recent months about the enduring effects of the emotional abuse that they suffered that may come as a bitter pill, but it would not be right to try to change a well known and well respected principle of law, a principle that is recognised internationally. We have to look to the future, but in doing so we should not forget the victims of the past who until now have had to suffer in silence and who have not had the justice that they deserve.

I am proud to support a Government who listened to a consultation that was conducted in recent months and who listened to the calls from my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams), who had a private Member’s Bill in the last Session, to my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee), to me and to Members of the Opposition and former Members, such as the late Paul Goggins. Let this stand as one of his epitaphs. Let it stand as an acknowledgement of the power of politics when people come together, recognise a wrong and seek to make it good.

I have said a lot about child neglect. It is something that I saw in my own working life, and I found those cases some of the most difficult to deal with. Hon. Members who have been in practice well understand what I say. However, I do not stand here on an emotional basis; I stand here on the basis of evidence, a sense of responsibility that we as legislators must always do what is right in terms of developments in science, and a genuine and steadfast belief that when it comes to the criminal law, not only must we try to keep pace with developments, but—to use the phrase that I used earlier in another context—we must do everything we can to future-proof it. I thank my hon. Friends on the Front Bench for listening and taking appropriate action.

I have mentioned human trafficking and slavery, but I want to finish on a positive note. Unless every town, city and village in this country wakes up to the reality of human trafficking and slavery in its midst, we are not going to solve the problem. We have an increasingly aware police force, which increasingly understands the challenge and is sourcing important training and support.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend interested to know that Churches Together in west Cheshire, part of Weaver Vale, held a conference attended by churches from the whole of Cheshire West, as well as the police force and the local authority, to make sure that all the villages and all the communities throughout Cheshire are aware of human trafficking?