Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

This is such a Clapham omnibus of a Bill that to try to make sense of it could lead one to arrive, potentially, at a bewildering range of destinations. My sympathies are with the Minister, who mounted the bus several hours ago, still has a while to go, and, I suspect, has as little idea as most of us do exactly where she will end up.

I shall focus on three particular areas, all of which are pertinent to the Bill and which share a concern to build on and improve the considerable advances we made in recognising and reducing violence against women and girls, which we spent so much useful time on earlier this year in scrutinising the Domestic Abuse Bill. First, working closely with Nicole Jacobs, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, I am pleased to support the amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, talked about. The noble Lord, Lord Polak, talked about it too, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, will mention it as well.

Given the Government’s commitment to try to do something about the level of violence against women and girls, I find it extraordinary that the idea of individual choice, or local choice, which seems to be a central tenet of faith for quite a lot of people of a Conservative persuasion, will allow local areas to decide for themselves whether they think violence against women and girls is a serious enough issue to be put on a list of crimes that must be taken into account.

To put this into context, I would ask the Minister and her colleagues in another place how comfortable any Minister, or any MP, would feel, trying to look a grieving family in their constituency in the face and explain why, if they had been so fortunate as to live in an adjoining area that did regard violence against women and girls as serious, their mother, daughter or sister might still be alive. I would rather you did that than I, because I would find it very difficult to talk my way out of.

Secondly, during proceedings on the Domestic Abuse Bill, the Government agreed to require all police forces in England and Wales to start trialling, from this autumn, the recording of misogynistic hate crimes. For that we are extremely grateful. But there is still a major anomaly in current hate crime legislation, in that sex is the only protected characteristic not recognised in criminal sentencing. The Law Commission is deliberating on this, but it has already clearly indicated that this would be a desirable change in the law.

By adding sex, or gender, to the list of aggravating factors in sentencing, our courts would be able to recognise how and when individuals are targeted for criminal acts simply because of their identity. To assist with sentencing, the police could be required to record the data necessary for a prosecution, which could aid the detection and prevention of such crimes. This action would equalise sex or gender with the other protected characteristics under the Equality Act, such as those of disabled people, people from minority backgrounds and members of the LGBT+ community.

During the course of the Bill we will suggest two possible courses of action to the Government. The first would be directly legislating to include sex or gender in Section 66 of the Sentencing Act 2020, which would ensure that those factors could be considered as aggravating factors in an offence. As an alternative, we will propose that, if the Government insist that they wish to wait until they can consider the final Law Commission recommendations, we legislate now to guarantee parliamentary time to consider the review in a timely fashion, by requiring the Minister to enact the recommendations of that review via an amendable statutory instrument under the super-affirmative procedure. I, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, would be pleased to sit down with the Minister and explain our reasoning.

Thirdly and lastly, as articulated just now by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, there is the issue of stalking and perpetrator management. Despite the Domestic Abuse Act and strategies for this and that, the metronome of two women dying every week continues week in, week out. We will come back in Committee with a variety of ways in which we feel this can be mitigated.

We have so much more to do to safeguard the women and girls who rely on us to speak up on their behalf. They are not pulling down statues or assaulting emergency workers; they are in danger of losing their lives. We have a duty of care to them, their families and their children to protect them.