Asylum Support (Prescribed Period) Bill [HL]

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 13th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, together with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, as two founder members of the Lister terriers pack, I pay tribute to the leader of our pack; I am privileged to stand up and support her Bill. I thank the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, as the former chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, because one of the few strengths of the House of Commons is the Select Committee. It looked at this matter in great detail and came out with a recommendation to do precisely what the Home Office has just done, so I pay tribute to her and to the committee’s effectiveness.

I wish to speak specifically about the issue of age-disputed children; I also have some questions on it. Between April and June this year, 2,088 age disputes were raised. There are several specific challenges that age-disputed young people face in navigating this process. Clearly, there are vulnerability and safety issues. Although the Home Office works with organisations that provide some support, it is not always done terribly effectively. Those organisations are often not specialists in supporting age-disputed young people and often direct them back to the British Red Cross. Migrant Help, which is contracted to provide move-on advice, told us that it does

“not provide this service to age-disputed young people”.

However, it added that it would be willing to provide this service outreach in some cases; perhaps the department could get in touch with Migrant Help and see whether there would be some sense in trying to make that systematic and part of the process.

The move-on process is often the starting point for engaging with family reunion, which is a highly emotional and sometimes mildly traumatic process. For age-disputed young people who are sponsoring family members—some of them are—that makes it particularly complex. Can the Minister look at those specific issues? I do not expect an answer from the Dispatch Box; perhaps he could write to us so that we can follow up on that. I would be most grateful.

So I entirely agree with the purpose of the Bill. I also entirely echo the third cheer of my noble friend Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, not least because many of us have a vivid memory of this being discussed at great length in this House, with a significant amount of support in particular from the then Government’s ranks, led by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud. I seem to recall her saying that allowing migrants to help is entirely in line with what she regards as a core Conservative value.

Domestic Abuse: Victims and Survivors

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I too pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm, and to Her Majesty the Queen; I saw the documentary and thought her unforced, natural empathy had huge power.

I applaud the Government for their commitment and focus to reduce violence against women and girls, and I commend them particularly for the appointments of Jess Phillips and Alex Davies-Jones. As a head-hunter for 31 years, I could never understand why previous Conservative Governments did not immediately put the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, into a position to deal with domestic abuse, on the basis that she was far better qualified than anybody else in that Administration. However, the Conservative Government did many things that I did not fully understand.

I pay tribute to the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Nicole Jacobs, and her team for all they do. What a legacy this Government have inherited. Nicole Jacobs’s six priorities for the Government encompass: domestic abuse service provision and funding; the policing and criminal justice system; children and young people, and the trauma that domestic abuse can create; family courts; migrant survivors; and domestic homicide and suicide.

Turning briefly to domestic abuse services and funding, her submission to the Autumn Budget and spending review has some significant requests in it, including £303.8 million for community-based DA support, of which £187.8 million should be ring-fenced to ensure that it delivers what is planned.

I am particularly concerned about how we tackle the policing and criminal justice challenges, with only 6% of domestic abuse crimes reported to police resulting in a charge and even fewer resulting in a conviction. Multiagency and cross-geography co-ordination and co-operation are simply not working. With 43 police forces and police and crime commissioners, it is “Let a thousand flowers bloom” and priorities are all over the place. The police force data quality is inconsistent and our ability to measure the effectiveness of measures to reduce domestic abuse is severely handicapped by systemic shortcomings—a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Gale.

The Minister may remember the interchanges we had last week about the new initiatives on stalking and independent stalking advocates. Can he commit to ensuring that this strategy is truly cross-governmental? It needs to bring in health, education, welfare, communities and local government. Can he use his best efforts to ensure that we have far more effective and focused metrics to measure success and, equally helpfully, to measure failure?

Tackling Stalking

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the Statement yesterday by the Government. I was taking part in an online conference organised by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust yesterday morning and the Minister, Jess Phillips, was there in her usual form—she has the ability, as a politician, to speak words that do not sound as if they are being spoken by a politician. In a way that was slightly pertinent to the debate we have just had, she understands the language that victims use themselves and need to hear so that they know they are being heard. I commend her for that. I have four particular points that I would like to raise.

The first is that the Government’s pledge to reduce the level of violence against women and girls is entirely welcome. It is a no-brainer. How to do it is of course the problem. At the moment, a lot of the funding for stalking is inextricably linked with that for domestic abuse. The two are not the same. They overlap, but a very significant part of stalking, about 64%, is not domestic abuse related and, if that is not recognised as the separate issue that it is, and is not given the right resources, we will continue to have all sorts of problems.

The second is that, while it is valiant to try to do something about the perpetrators, I think that that will not be done effectively by the current ways in which it is being done. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust has pioneered a programme called MASIP, which is a way of getting every informed body around the same table so that together they can speak with a real insight into and knowledge of the individual perpetrator, his history—it is usually a he—and behaviour, the type of stalker he is, the probability or possibility, if there is any, of his being able to be influenced to stop doing what he has been doing. That really needs to be encouraged. It is an existing best practice and it works.

Thirdly, access to independent stalking advocates is vital. The statistics are simply spellbinding. For every victim who has access to an independent stalking advocate, the chance of conviction is one in four. For a victim without that access, it is one in 1,000. Even those who do not know very much about statistics would recognise the quantum difference between the two.

The last is best practice. Jess Phillips mentioned yesterday, and it is in the Statement, the best practice that exists, for example, in Cheshire. Cheshire is really at the top of the Premier League—thinking about another Bill that is taking an inordinate amount of time your Lordships’ House—in terms of working in a co-coordinated way, being very open-minded and prepared to pioneer approaches that I fear the majority of police forces, for all sorts of good reasons, I am sure, have not done. We know that it works there incredibly well. The Government have inherited a system of 43 different police forces and 43 different police and crime commissioners, and we have a system where the British tendency to try to create the wheel in our own image repeatedly exists and flourishes in that environment. There is a point at which His Majesty’s Government will have to mandate best practice and ensure that it is adhered to. If we know it works, let us use it.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his very constructive contribution. I cannot compete with Jess Phillips in terms of language, but I will certainly refer the points that have been made throughout this debate back to her. I think the noble Lord will recognise that Jess Phillips is absolutely 100% committed to meeting the target set in the Government’s manifesto. She is passionate about the issue of violence against women and girls and understands the very point the noble Lord mentioned about the difference between domestic violence and stalking. She is cognisant of the fact that she will need to work with other government departments, such as the Ministry of Justice, in particular, to improve performance in these areas.

The noble Lord mentioned stalking advocates, which is a very constructive contribution. I will refer to Jess Phillips’ speech, note it and look at how we can work with the suggestion in due course.

Best practice is extremely important. Cheshire is just over the border from where I live, and I know the area very well and all the good practice going on there. Part of the Government’s objectives, as set out in the Statement, is to ensure that we look at best practice, incorporate it into guidelines and work together with a number of agencies—health, police, probation and others—to give statutory guidelines downstream and to help support agencies in reducing the level of stalking and linked criminal activity.

The noble Lord makes an extremely valid point, because the question of advocates has arisen. Last year, the police recorded 131,912 stalking incidents, and only 8% of those ended up in a charge. Some 66,000 of those cases—this shocked me and will shock the noble Lord—were closed due to the victim not supporting action. The point he makes about stalking advocates is central to that issue; people need support, because for many it may be the first time they have come into contact with the criminal justice system. All of us have different experiences of it, but this might be the first time they have met with a police officer in the context of themselves or a court. Therefore, an expert who can stand back and provide guidance and reassurance might well lift that 52% non-progression rate. The number of people convicted of stalking offences, which increased last year under the previous Government by 39%, is still only 1,239; that compares with a recorded stalking offences figure of 131,000. That needs to change, along with the culture. I hope that the measures in this Statement will assist in that, if not complete the task.

Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 27th November 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I will be brief. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has made a fairly persuasive case for this. I would hope that to a large extent what he is looking for is already happening fairly systematically as part of good practice in any regulatory authority. Given that it is likely that a large amount of our regulation will probably continue to be broadly in alignment with the EU, it would make a lot of sense for our respective regulatory authorities to be in pretty close contact to make sure that they have, to the extent that it is sensible, the same view and understanding and the same breadth in scanning the different international regulations so that, essentially, they are talking the same language. That would be extremely helpful.

In principle, this is a very good idea. However, it is fine for us, as legislators, to talk theoretically or in detail about statutes and subsections, but the proof is the view business takes of what we are discussing. If business regards this as entirely sensible and something that should be done anyway as a matter of doing regulation well, that is well and good. If it has concerns that this will complicate things further, slow things down and lead to slightly arcane arguments about relative international standards from goodness knows where in the world, I suspect it will not be quite so keen.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Lansley for introducing his amendments so incredibly clearly and expertly. It is obvious that international standards are vital for facilitating global trade. Products that adhere to international standards are more easily accepted across borders. They reduce trade barriers, open new markets for UK business and so on. They ensure that UK products can continue to compete internationally and maintain their high reputation for quality and reliability.

Aligning product requirements with international standards ensures that UK consumers also benefit from high levels of safety. This alignment builds consumer trust, as consumers know that the products they are buying meet rigorous global benchmarks. Amendment 43 specifies that this requires consultation. It is vital that consultation takes place with experts. In principle, we absolutely support the spirit and intent of these amendments.