Change of Name by Registered Sex Offenders

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this very important debate. I am so grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for the work she has done for victims and survivors. While Under-Secretaries may come and go, it is so reassuring to see the hon. Lady in her place, constantly standing up for victims and survivors.

I want to tell the story of my constituent Joanna. Joanna is an amazing young woman. She is bright, she is brave and she is beautiful. Joanna is a student paramedic and has just started a family. She has her whole life ahead of her. Joanna wants her story to be told, because for too long there was silence. It is by speaking out that we secure justice for victims and survivors such as Joanna, and we must listen to their voices.

For much of her young life, Joanna was a victim of serious sexual abuse. She was the victim of a manipulative, depraved man called Clive Bundy. The scale and nature of the abuse is beyond comprehension; it was discovered when the police identified sexual images online. Clive Bundy was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

After serving only seven years, Clive Bundy is up for parole. This child sex offender is no longer Clive Bundy. This person has changed their name by deed poll, and this person has changed their gender identity. Under the law, Clive Bundy no longer exists. Clive Bundy has chosen the name of Claire Fox. Under section 22 of the Gender Recognition Act 2004, we cannot say even that this is so. Joanna’s fear is that this new identity erases Clive Bundy, erases the terrible harm that he did, erases Joanna’s experience. She fears that the world can refuse to acknowledge that Clive Bundy and his terrible crimes ever even existed—that we can just pretend that the trauma she still suffers, the trauma Clive Bundy caused her and others, did not happen, because he does not exist.

What is certain is that Claire Fox will be afforded enhanced rights of privacy that should never, ever be afforded to a serious child sex offender. I believe in redemption, I believe in rehabilitation, but that does not and cannot mean that we rewrite the past. It does not mean that these truly horrific crimes simply never happened. Joanna wants the names of Clive Bundy and Claire Fox to be linked on official records because Clive Bundy and Claire Fox are the same person. The law requires us all to pretend that that is not so: the law requires us to pretend that a convicted serial child sex offender, Clive Bundy, no longer exists. The impact on Joanna is deeply distressing. She speaks of her past coming back to haunt her, of the constant fear, of always looking over her shoulder, and of her anxiety that her new life and her young family could be under threat and that she is, in her words,

“once again that young abused scared little girl—that no one protected.”

We are told this is a loophole in the Disclosure and Barring Service which can perhaps be fixed, but I am going to call it what it is. This is a grotesque injustice to victims—victims whom we failed and victims whom we will fail again if we allow the law to pretend that the crimes of sexual offenders like Clive Bundy can be expunged by deed poll and never referred to again.

The question of whether Claire Fox is a continuing threat to society is a matter for the Parole Board, and this is an issue that I will be pursuing with the relevant Minister through separate avenues, but today’s debate is about whether sex offenders can erase their identities. The rights of victims and the vulnerable matter more than the rights of serial child sex offenders. We all know that that is the case. I therefore ask the Minister to be brave enough to say that it is the case, and to have the courage to stand up and change the law for Joanna, and for Della, and for all those victims who will come after them if we do not act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miss Dines]

I am grateful for that intervention. This is an area that I am particularly interested in, as it poses a conflict of competing interests: that of the person who has had a serious offence perpetrated against them, and that of someone who wants to move on in their life for perhaps bona fide—not necessarily nefarious—reasons. There are competing legal interests that need careful thought, and I am looking into that.

[Lucy Allan]

I thank the Minister for her response. Will she please work closely with the victims Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), who is sitting next to her today? He is somebody of great integrity who commands respect across the House. With the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice working together, I know that this problem can be solved. Will the Minister please confirm that?

[Miss Dines]

If I may say so, I have been afforded the utmost professionalism and courtesy by colleagues in the Ministry of Justice. It has been very helpful. We are working on this matter together; we were discussing it just yesterday.

HM Passport Office Backlog

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I congratulate the Minister on his diligence in tackling this difficult problem. Will he continue to help the constituents of Telford in the way that he has? Every single one of my constituents has received their passport when I have approached the Minister. Will he continue to offer that level of assistance across the House to all Members who approach him?

[Kevin Foster]

That intervention serves as a reminder of the effectiveness delivered by my hon. Friend and the wise choice Telford residents made at recent general elections in electing such a hardworking Member of Parliament to advocate on their issues in this place. I must say that I have not done what my hon. Friend says only for Conservative colleagues; I have also assisted on issues raised by other Members, including one or two who left the Chamber at the start of the debate potentially because of what it was about.

We are keen to get on with delivering services but colleagues will recognise that there is a very great surge of demand. It was interesting to hear the example from the US; there are plenty of other examples of this problem from around the world despite the interesting comments we have heard that have tried to make out that it is somehow unique to Britain. Some Members need to visit a website or two or read an international newspaper; they will then find out that such things do actually happen across the world, not just in the United Kingdom. We will certainly carry on our work, and we are grateful for my hon. Friend’s support.

HM Passport Office provides an expedited service where an application from the UK has been with it for longer than 10 weeks. Where a customer in those circumstances can provide evidence that they are due to travel within the next fortnight, their case will be prioritised. That helps to ensure that the small percentage of people whose application has taken more than 10 weeks will continue to receive their passport ahead of their travel. I must stress that this expedited service comes at no additional cost to our constituents. For those who require their passport sooner than 10 weeks, Her Majesty’s Passport Office offers urgent services, available for a further fee.

Child Sexual Exploitation by Organised Networks

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to be called to speak in this very important debate, Ms McVey. I thank the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for all she has done, and also Professor Alexis Jay OBE for all her work on this national inquiry. In her words:

“Any denial of the scale of child sexual exploitation—either at national level or locally…must be challenged.”

It is that issue that I want to talk about today.

Seven years ago when I became an MP, victims came to me and said that they wanted to be heard. They said that they wanted people to know what had happened to them, and they wanted a local inquiry into what happened in Telford. The response of the authorities was, “There’s nothing to see here now. It is all in the past; we have learnt the lessons.” In fact, what shocked me at the time and is even more shocking today is that the council leader used his position—his local power—to prioritise protecting the reputation of the council. The council published on its website an open letter to the Home Secretary, setting out why no CSE inquiry was needed in Telford, and arranged for 10 important men to sign that letter. It was signed by the council leader, the chief executive of the council, the director of children’s services, the cabinet member for children’s services, the chair of the safeguarding board, the chief officer of the health board, and even West Mercia’s police and crime commissioner. To be clear, the very people who should have prioritised protecting young women and girls in Telford signed a letter saying, “There is nothing to see here now.”

At that time, those 10 men had not met a victim of CSE. Most of them are no longer in post, and I am grateful for that. The council leader, Councillor Shaun Davies—who will not mind a namecheck, as he has never been averse to self-publicity—was using political power to silence vulnerable, powerless women and girls: my constituents, victims of CSE who wanted their voices heard. I pay tribute to all those who joined Telford victims to campaign for a Telford-specific CSE inquiry, and to the determination and bravery of the victims who made that inquiry happen. We in Telford are very fortunate that the then Minister for local government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), took up this case and ensured that the campaign for a local inquiry was successful.

Now, almost six years later—six years!—the inquiry into CSE in Telford is about to report. The culture of denial must end, and these women’s voices must be heard. There must be no more obstacles put in the way of transparency, and of bringing this issue into this place and to the attention of those in positions of power. I thank the hon. Member for Rotherham for all she has done to shine a light on those who would rather have institutional denial and institutional blindness. It must end, and this debate helps to achieve that goal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

Thank you, Ms McVey. It is not just a privilege to serve alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion); it is also really inspiring to work alongside her on these issues, and it is no surprise that it is her who has called today’s debate.

From point of view of the Labour party, we would want to see every single recommendation in the report implemented in full. My hon. Friend described many of these reports as being used to swat flies, which is how it feels to somebody who has been working on this for a decade. It feels like lots and lots of words have been written and literally no progress has been made. The Labour party would also support absolutely every single one of my hon. Friend’s recommendations that go further.

One of the things that is absolutely maddening about trying to interact with—I am going to say any part of the Home Office, on anything—is the issue of data, and the complete and utter lack of it. As someone who is very long in the tooth in this area—I worked with Barnardo’s and set up sexual exploitation services across the midlands over a decade ago—the thing that shocked me was the issue around disability that was found in this report: the vast number of children, especially those with autism, found by the report but not borne out by the data. There is no data on that.

We count what we care about in this country. Why on earth are we not counting? Why on earth—to the point made by the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford)—do we not have a full and complete dataset on both perpetrators and victims in this case? I cannot ring the Home Office today and say, “How many people from this area have come forward about sexual exploitation? How many of them have a disability?” I would be surprised if I could even get the gender data. What I would get is: “Oh, we don’t collect that and it’s going to take us too long.” This is an absolutely fundamental problem. It is a failing that has been raised again and again and again. I ask the Minister: please, please stand up and say that the Government commit to this—it is literally a form that the police have to fill in. It is not that onerous, and the data is so vital to our ability to tackle this.

Another area—where I am afraid to say the similarity with almost every other part of my men’s violence against women brief carries over—is the very shocking findings in the report about the

“difficulties…in identifying networks or groups of abusers,”

and the fact that police forces were “not able to provide” evidence of networks. The report states:

“The Inquiry was particularly struck by the reporting that there were no known or reported organised networks in two of the case study areas.”

We have spent so much time and we have come a long way, actually. If I were to say one thing has changed in the last 10 years, it is that we are much better at knowing that there are victims everywhere. What we have made no progress on is trying to actually monitor and manage, let alone identify, the offenders for these crimes. It is the same with rape. It is the same with domestic abuse. There is the report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services about domestic abuse. The report that is due to come out on Friday about rape will inevitably say the same thing—as if I do not already know what it is going to say, but one has to make the pretence.

This report says the same thing, which is that there is a fundamental flaw in the monitoring and managing of known and repeat offenders. In looking at serial offenders in crimes by men against women, HMICFRS found that most police force areas had not been monitoring or offender-managing the most serial and violent perpetrators at all, and that is exactly what is happening in these cases.

I say that as somebody who is currently in the middle of supporting the most difficult and complex case that I have ever seen in my life, and I have seen many cases. If the woman were standing here, she would tell us that nothing has changed in the last 10 years. Ten years ago, she was 13, and that was when she started to be abused. That is when the same gang that is currently abusing her started—10 years ago. She is now 23 years old, and I have to see her for hours every week to try to get her to the point of view of trust. It is exactly like when I met with the victims in Telford. This woman says exactly the same thing to me, and it goes exactly to the point that was made about court procedures being too slow. She says, “You can’t keep me safe if I come forward. You might lock up this one person, although you won’t even necessarily put him on remand”—absolutely not with the court process at the moment; he is less likely to be sent on remand—“but what about that one, and what about him, and what about this man, and what about the 50 men who raped me last week?” This is not the movies—there is no witness cabin that they can go to in the woods. What the women in Telford told me was, “You can’t guarantee my safety. I won’t come forward.”

[Lucy Allan]

Is the hon. Lady aware that in Telford we have had a series of car fire-bombings related exactly to this, which have put victims in fear? I thank her for raising that point.

[Jess Phillips]

Absolutely. This is the exact same issue as in the cases that I have handled over the years. The offenders know. I have seen messages saying, “We can see you’ve been to the police station.” That should be evidence enough and yet it is not. This is the reality for victims.

I want to stress the point that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham and others that the Minister could say she was going to go away and stop, literally today, the use of unregulated accommodation for children aged 16 and 17. It feels like we are about five years into that being requested. This situation has come about—the debate in the main Chamber is exactly the same debate as is currently going on here—entirely because of the squeeze on the availability of regulated, well-provided, decent accommodation in this space. I say as somebody who used to run that accommodation that there has been a retraction in it that has made it profitable. Imagine thinking, “I’m going to get a house full of kids who have been sexually exploited, because it’ll be a nice tidy earner.” As a taxpayer, I do not want to be paying for that. The Government should rule it out today. They should say that this will never happen again. When the Minister says that there is enough money in the system for it not to be happening, perhaps she can enlighten us as to why it is happening.

While I have this opportunity, I will just take one second to say that we have to do considerably more to stop the cliff edge that does not even happen at 18 but happens at 16, because for these children, it stays with them forever.

Child Sexual Exploitation: Bradford

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. We need to understand the scale of the problem across the Bradford district, and I will come on to that later in my speech. Only this summer, in July, a light, limited, 50-page review was released, and Bradford Council and our new West Yorkshire Mayor feel that that is acceptable. We need a full Rotherham-style inquiry to look at this, so that we can get real learnings and provide reassurance for victims.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on being brave enough to bring this matter forward with such passion and such force. May I suggest that he works closely with the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who has been a huge support to me in tackling these issues? Local councils do not want to have inquiries. My local council vigorously opposed an inquiry, and when we eventually succeeded in getting one, with great help from the then Home Secretary, it ambushed the inquiry by deluging it with 1 million documents. Four years on, the victims in my constituency who came to me for a solution have not had their inquiry. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to go for a Rotherham-style inquiry, which was effective and delivered what it needed to—justice for victims.

[Robbie Moore]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I wholeheartedly agree with the points she makes. She kindly made reference to my hon. Friend—if I may say so—the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). This is one of the most important debates that we must have in this House, but when I look at the Opposition Benches, I see that she is the only hon. Member who has turned up to the debate. That speaks volumes. I thank her for coming along; it is exceptionally kind. I agree that yes, we must have a full Rotherham-style inquiry to get to grips with the issue, because I certainly do not want it to continue to be swept under the carpet.

I want to make the point that this is not about race or pitting communities against each other; it is about looking at the facts so that we can address them and move forward. Of course it is about looking at that common denominator, but it is no different from identifying other common denominators when looking at child sexual exploitation, such as we have seen in inquiries on similar subjects—regarding the Catholic church, for example. The reality is that we must understand the complexities that relate to a community so that we can move forward.

The consequences of not acting are extremely serious. If we tiptoe around the edges or fail to talk openly about these challenges, we fail both the victims and the Pakistani community. Those victims, mainly young girls, are having their lives ruined at a young age by vile and disgusting sexual abuse, and it is all being done while authorities, including Bradford Council and West Yorkshire police, turn a blind eye and fail to take action year after year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point. She is entirely right that a whole-system response is required so that victims can rebuild their lives. I shall touch on that further later on in my speech.

I recognise the pain and trauma endured by those who have suffered at the hands of these vile criminals, and I understand their need for answers to the failures and for reassurance that the system that let them down so badly will not do so again. I welcome Bradford Council’s work to improve its response to child sexual abuse and exploitation by identifying poor practice through the recent review, but I also expect the council to listen close to the real concerns expressed by Members this evening and to take the most thoroughgoing approach to ensuring that all lessons have been learned and that local partners are doing everything possible to identify child sexual abuse and exploitation and protect children from harm, without letting political and cultural sensitivities deter them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley spoke about the groups committing these crimes in the Bradford area and the need to recognise their common characteristics. The Government are clear that child sexual exploitation happens in all areas of the country and can take many different forms. We know that it is not exclusive to any single culture, community, race or religion, but community and cultural factors are very relevant to the understanding and tackling of offending in each local area, as my hon. Friend set out so eloquently. Let me repeat that political and cultural sensitivities must not deter agencies from uncovering and preventing such devastating crimes. Every local authority must ensure that children are safeguarded, and every police force has a duty to investigate effectively and thoroughly when children come to harm.

[Lucy Allan]

Does the Minister agree that child sex abuse and child sexual exploitation are different crimes and that the police should not include them jointly and make assumptions based on the outcomes of their doing so? If they put them together, they end up saying that it is a white crime. I had to battle hard against anybody saying that it is not about taking into account the cultural factors because it was all bunched together. They would then also say that it just happens at home, domestically. It is important to take on board the fact that grooming and street grooming are different from child sexual abuse in a domestic setting.

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank my hon. Friend very much for making that point based on her considerable experience and incredible commitment in respect of the issues that she has been tackling in Telford. I shall talk about the collection of data and the analysis of types of crimes and of perpetrators and victims. She is right that that is at the heart of what we must do to improve our response, which is why the Home Office is committed to improving the collection and analysis of data. In March this year, the Home Secretary introduced a new requirement for police forces to collect ethnicity data for those arrested and held in custody as a result of their suspected involvement in group-based child sexual exploitation. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the complexity of these crimes and the need for us to fully understand them in order that we may root them out.

As a Government, we are further supporting local areas to understand and tackle the threat in their areas by funding the prevention programme delivered by the Children’s Society. Co-ordinators in each of the 10 policing regions are delivering tailored interventions based on police intelligence, to improve collaboration and help to identify specific threats in each region. The programme has led to the increased identification of victims. We are funding regional child sexual abuse and exploitation analysts in every policing region, as well as a pilot project on tackling organised exploitation, which is developing a system to bring together intelligence at local, regional and national level, thereby improving analysis and tasking so that police throughout the country can understand and respond more effectively.

Nationally, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse is demanding accountability for past failings and making practical recommendations to ensure that children are given the protection that they need. A report on child sexual exploitation by organised networks is expected this autumn, with a final report due in 2022. We will continue to carefully consider all the inquiry’s recommendations to ensure that real and permanent change is delivered in how children are safeguarded.

Work is already under way to take action now. Earlier this year, we published a tackling child sexual abuse strategy, setting out how we are driving action across every part of Government, across all agencies and sectors and with charities, communities, technology companies and society more widely. In the beating crime plan, we have reaffirmed our strong commitment to delivering increased reporting of these crimes to the police, increased numbers of offenders brought to justice, improved victim care and support, which was raised rightly by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), and an overall fall in the prevalence of these offences.

Public Order

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I refer the hon. Lady to my comments on this issue earlier on.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has offered her full support to our police in tackling violence, vandalism and disorderly behaviour. Will she encourage the Mayor of London to follow her lead?

Child Protection

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

Of course I agree, and my hon. Friend will know about the work of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse on historical allegations of institutional abuse and, indeed, about the work of police forces up and down the country to investigate not just current allegations but historical allegations, too.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her statement. One of the most challenging aspects of child sexual exploitation is that vulnerable victims find it very difficult to work with the police. All too often, the police attitude towards these vulnerable children is that they brought it on themselves or even that they consented to the crimes against them. What is she doing to challenge those attitudes and to ensure that, no matter how vulnerable the child or what their background, they are taken seriously and that these crimes are prosecuted?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend, who does so much to represent the interests of her constituents in this regard. Some of the reports we have seen from, say, Operation Augusta—there are other examples—have been absolutely shocking in the allegations of what police officers may or may not have said to young people reporting very serious crimes. Let me be clear at the Dispatch Box that no child should be subjected to sexual exploitation or abuse. No child should be dismissed in the way they sadly have been historically. We should all see what we can do, not just as constituency MPs but as friends, neighbours and family members, to ensure every child feels safe to report incidents of abuse and that those reports are taken seriously and are listened to.

Retail Workers: Protection

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mike Amesbury]

I do, and I thank my hon. Friend for his powerful contribution.

I know that the Minister will point to the call for evidence that closed in June last year as a sign that the Government are listening to retail workers about this issue. I am pleased that that call for evidence took place, following hard work by my colleague David Hanson, the former Member for Delyn. I am sure that people across the House will recognise his campaigning on this issue.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. I congratulate him on securing this important debate—the attendance is excellent. I represent a constituency with a large shopping centre at its heart. We are reliant on our shop workers for so much of our economy’s success. Will he join me in congratulating the British Retail Consortium on its campaigning on this issue?

[Mike Amesbury]

I certainly will. In my short time in Parliament—two and a half years and two general elections—I have had the pleasure of meeting representatives of the British Retail Consortium.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

First, the hon. Gentleman will know that ultimately how violence is treated and whether charges are brought is a decision for the police and the courts, but I take his broader point. He will be pleased to know that when it comes to all types of crime, whether serious violence or other crimes, there has been a decline of some 12% since September 2010 in his Derbyshire force area. I am sure he will welcome the extra resources that have been given to his local police force, which will certainly help it to fight crime.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

T3.   I am very grateful to the Secretary of State for his commitment to preventing child sexual exploitation. The authorities in Telford who agreed to hold an inquiry into CSE a year ago have only this past week started to look for a chair to lead the promised inquiry. Learning lessons from the past is vital to protecting our young people today, so does he agree that that shocking lack of urgency in getting this inquiry started could place more young people at risk of CSE in Telford?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

I am pleased that there has been some progress—albeit, as my hon. Friend describes, in small steps—in the inquiry in Telford. The fact that an inquiry chair has been advertised bodes well for the process overall, but as a good constituency MP she will continue to pressure the local council to ensure that it continues its work expeditiously.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

Of course, it is crucial that the settled status scheme gives people a digital confirmation of their right to live, work and rent property in the UK, and we are absolutely committed to doing that.

The hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of people with minor tax discrepancies. It is important to reflect that there have been several instances where those minor discrepancies have run into tens of thousands of pounds, and it is crucial that we pick up any discrepancies between what people are declaring as their income for immigration purposes and their income for tax purposes. We want to make sure that we collect the amount of tax that is owing.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

5. What steps he is taking to tackle the sexual exploitation of vulnerable children.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

The Government attach the highest priority to tackling child sexual exploitation and abuse, declaring it a national threat and investing significantly in law enforcement capacity to transform the police response. Last year’s “Tackling child sexual exploitation” progress report announced a £40 million package of measures to protect children and young people from sexual abuse and exploitation, and to crack down on offenders.

[Lucy Allan]

I thank the Minister for her response. Child sexual exploitation victims often struggle to get justice. What steps will she take to ensure that the police identify grooming and child sexual exploitation, and that they do not mistake those serious crimes for consensual sex?

[Victoria Atkins]

I know that my hon. Friend is pursuing this campaign with great vigour. We have provided £1.9 million to the College of Policing to develop a training package for first responders to vulnerable people. The package teaches the importance of applying professional judgment when identifying signs of issues such as grooming, and police guidance makes it clear that sexual grooming and sexual communication with a child are offences in their own right.

Prevent Strategy

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered implementation of the Prevent Strategy.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Sir David. I am pleased to have the opportunity to raise this important issue. The statutory Prevent duty introduced in 2015 has given rise to increasing levels of concern in different parts of our communities and of the House. There is now a level of disquiet, which it would be wrong to ignore, about how the Prevent duty is working in practice and its impact on community cohesion.

The Prevent duty requires those in a position of trust, such as teachers or doctors, to report people who they perceive might be a risk—

[The Minister for Security (Mr Ben Wallace)]

I am sorry to intervene on my hon. Friend so early, but I am afraid that she has repeated the same line she said at the beginning of the debate on her private Member’s Bill on Friday. There is no requirement to report; there is a requirement to put in place safeguards and risk assessment for children. She may look at the guidance, at paragraphs 67 and 68 on page 11. It does not include a requirement to report. I ask her to change that line, because it is part of peddling a myth of what Prevent is about.

[Lucy Allan]

I thank the Minister for correcting me on that point. I am opening a debate on issues of concern to many people, and I would not want to fall inadvertently into any traps of myth-peddling.

The people referred to Prevent are those perceived to be at risk of being drawn into terrorism and those deemed possibly to be susceptible to extremism, including non-violent extremism. Today I want to highlight the difficulties that the Prevent duty is creating. I want to set out why, despite individual examples of good practice, Prevent as a concept or strategy to draw people away from terrorism is not working. I also want to draw attention to the way such concerns are being dismissed, rather than listened to, and the way those who express them are being depicted as seeking to undermine Prevent or even our security.

All of us come to this place with the objective of giving a voice to those who are not being listened to or heard, and of campaigning on something we have seen to be wrong or not working—we want to put it right and highlight where it is happening. That is what I am seeking to do in this debate.

The greatest difficulty with Prevent is that it is driving a wedge between authority and the community. The problem lies in the way the communities most affected by Prevent experience and perceive the strategy. For all its good intentions, if it is perceived by those it affects as punitive or intrusive, it will not be productive or have the desired effect.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I am listening with interest to the point my hon. Friend is making, which reflects the evidence that the Women and Equalities Committee gathered for our report on challenges that Muslim people face in the workplace. Has she had a chance to look at that report, which backs up some of her points?

[Lucy Allan]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making that point. Absolutely, Select Committees such as the Home Affairs Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights have looked at all of this in some detail, so in preparing for the debate I read the reports of her Committee and those others. The reports reflect several recurring themes, such as how communities perceive Prevent and what they feel about the way it is being operated. That is incredibly important. If the strategy is to succeed and make us safer, people have to consent to it; they have to buy into it and accept that it is helpful, not intrusive or punitive. If we do not deal with the perception and how people are experiencing Prevent, it will not work.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech and is to be commended for bringing this matter before the House. She is saying that communities need to be at the heart of any Prevent strategy. Prevent must not be seen as Whitehall imposing its views on communities, whatever those communities are. The strategy must work in tandem and engage with them in order to find a solution to the problems of terrorism.

[Lucy Allan]

I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I am delighted that he made that point, and that he made it so eloquently, because he has helped to articulate my argument.

Under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, Prevent moved from being a co-operative and voluntary action by the community to being a statutory duty, and therein lies the problem. A failure to meet a statutory duty can have negative consequences, for example for teachers in schools. Ofsted assesses whether the duty has been met and delivers a grading for the achievement of compliance with it. The grading will be reduced if a school has not complied with the duty. As a school governor, I have seen the incentive to make referrals under Prevent. If we do not make them, we might feel that we will get into trouble, or that there will be a negative impact on the school or a teacher’s career.

That approach has led to an exponential increase in the number of referrals since Prevent became a statutory duty. One child a week under the age of 10 is being reported to Prevent—I use the word “reported”, but perhaps I should use “referred” instead.

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making some good points about concerns in certain communities, particularly the Muslim community. Does she accept that one issue is that of miscommunication? My understanding is that Prevent is not only about the Muslim community, which seems to be the focus for a lot of the discussion; it is also about the real danger from right-wing extremist groups. Prevent is focused on training people to understand that as well.

[Lucy Allan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have not so far mentioned, and I think I will not mention at any point, the Muslim community specifically. However, I will mention some use of Prevent to tackle the far right, which is a good point and one we should all take on board.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is being most generous in giving way. In the course of her speech, will she tackle an important evil that Prevent is designed to counter and mention how it is used to build up our child safeguarding provisions?

[Lucy Allan]

My hon. Friend raises an extremely important issue, to which I will devote a whole section of my speech. I have concerns about the conflation of safeguarding and counter-extremism measures, which I will come to in due course.

The Government naturally have a duty to protect the public, and they are seeking to discharge that duty through the Prevent strategy. We all want to see extremism tackled, and the intention of Prevent is, in theory, to stop young people being drawn into terrorism and to protect them from extremist views that might render them more susceptible to radicalisation. We get into more difficult territory, however, when we start to tackle belief, ideas and the expression of political and religious views. The whole issue then becomes a great deal more complicated. We could find ourselves in a situation in which the Government decide which views are too extreme and debate can be shut down, so that issues that are better discussed and challenged openly are driven underground.

That is all before anyone has even done anything, Prevent is operating in a pre-crime space, which sounds positively Orwellian. That is at the heart of some of the concerns being expressed about the Prevent duty. Our schools need to be places where young people can discuss any issue at all and develop the ability to see extremist ideologies for what they are. We need to help young people develop the resilience to challenge those ideologies, and if we expose them to only the views that the Government find acceptable, we deny them the opportunity to challenge alternative views and fail to equip them with the ability to think critically and learn how to exercise judgment.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady talks about children. Is she aware of a recent case in Bedfordshire where a school called the police because a seven-year-old child had been given a plastic gun as a present? Neither of the child’s parents was an observant anything; the father was a lapsed Muslim and the mother was a Hindu. If Prevent has reached the stage where people call the police on seven-year-old children, something is wrong.

[Lucy Allan]

I agree. I am aware of that case, and there have been many similar cases. That is a real concern, because it puts teachers in the position of having to take action that they might feel is inappropriate, because they do not want to damage their school’s credibility and its Ofsted reports. We are suddenly in a cycle where people say, “Let’s report people just in case.” The Minister will say that Prevent is a protective and safeguarding measure. We must be very careful not to use words to describe what is happening that do not necessarily reflect reality.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir David Crausby (in the Chair)]

Order. I will call the first of the three Front Benchers at 3.30 pm. Several Back Benchers want to speak, and there will be little enough time for them to do so, so I say to the Front Benchers: hold your horses until you get the opportunity to make a speech.

[Lucy Allan]

I thank the Minister for his intervention. What is important about what he said is that although the incident was not referred under the Prevent mechanism, the same actions were taken. The teachers concerned would have been trained in Prevent and alert to this whole issue. Although they did not formally trigger the Prevent mechanism, they still called the police about an issue that might otherwise have been to do with extremism. It is important to bear that in mind.

From what I have seen, when schools look for signs of extremism, they do not really know what they are looking for. They often come up with suggestions for things that might be grounds for referral that have no possible connection at all to extremism. I have sat in governors’ meetings where teachers who want to comply have openly discussed scenarios such as a child coming into school and saying that he has been on a Fathers 4 Justice march or a march to protest against badger culls. To me, Prevent is certainly not intended to tackle that. There is no indication that that type of activity would lead to extremist or terrorist behaviour. It is greatly concerning that people are sitting around in schools thinking, “What possible scenarios can we come up with?”

More and more public sector workers are being trained in how to report under the Prevent duty, but that does not make me feel any more comfortable. I believe that some 600,000 people are now trained to refer people under Prevent for the purposes of re-education and religious guidance. That does not give me confidence at all; it actually makes me feel more concerned. We should not, as a matter of course, have people sitting and waiting to spot signs when, if there had been grounds to report them, their own good judgment may have kicked in and enabled some less intrusive, less authoritarian approach to be taken to deal with the issue.

[Dr Poulter]

My hon. Friend might be aware that I am one of those public sector workers when I am not working as an MP. May I reassure her that a lot of work on Prevent goes on, particularly in psychiatry, and we use clinical judgment in exercising our duties? Referrals are rarely made to Prevent through mental health services unless there is a reason for doing so. Referrals are usually made due to the exploitation of an individual by other people, and it is those people who end up being referred and engaged in the Prevent process, not the individual themselves.

[Lucy Allan]

My hon. Friend makes a good point.

Children and young people will always test boundaries, and playground banter and bragging must not be seen as potentially sinister things where children must be watched. That breeds fear, suspicion and mistrust, which concerns me.

My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) raised safeguarding. I want to challenge the way that Prevent is packaged as a safeguarding measure. In effect, we are told, “Prevent must be a good thing, because it is intended to keep us safe.” It is depicted as offering support and advice to ensure that susceptibility to radicalisation is diminished. It is a real concern that that is how the Government perceive Prevent, because that perception is out of step with how Prevent is interpreted and perceived by those affected by it. In the context of Prevent, safeguarding is often about forcible state intervention in the private life of an individual when no crime has been committed, and that is inevitably experienced in a negative way.

It is important to understand that families subjected to safeguarding measures will, in any event, experience them as frightening, shaming and stigmatising. Someone in a position of trust—whether a teacher or a doctor—is used to gather and share data, often about young children, without consent, investigations are conducted and the police are involved. That process is anything but supportive and helpful; it destroys trust. A less heavy-handed approach would be far more constructive. Calling that approach safeguarding, and conflating counter-extremism measures and safeguarding, is quite dangerous.

[Victoria Prentis]

I, too, was one of those public sector workers before being elected. The difficulty is that counter-terrorism is the extreme end of what the Prevent strategy tries to deal with. The other measures—those to do with child safeguarding—are often part and parcel of the journey to countering terrorism and the problems that are experienced in families who are becoming radicalised. My hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Byron Davies) knows well that criminal activity is very much part of terrorism. I wonder whether my hon. Friend the Member for Telford will talk about those links, which are rightly made.

[Lucy Allan]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. I reiterate that we should not present Prevent as simply supportive and helpful; we must be more aware of the way it is perceived by the people to whom it is delivered. If we do not try to put ourselves in the shoes of the people who experience it, Prevent will not achieve what we want it to achieve. It is all very well for the Government to say, “Well, we know best, we want the best and we are well intentioned. We want to support and protect people.” Actually, if we call the police, share data and stigmatise people, we will alienate them. My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury may not agree that that can happen, but I urge the Minister to try to anticipate how he might feel if his children were subjected to a safeguarding procedure. That process is intimidating and frightening, and there is no doubt that people feel ostracised and alienated by it, however well intended it is.

That brings me quite neatly to the way the Government are responding to the concerns that have been raised by Members of several parties in this House and in the Lords, and by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, David Anderson QC and many others. We must listen to people when they raise concerns. It is not enough just to say, “Well, it’s well intended and there are good examples of it working well in practice for individual cases.” This is a much bigger issue of principle; it is about whether our communities will be safer or less safe as a result of Prevent. It is about whether communities feel stigmatised, alienated or marginalised. If people are saying that is how they feel, there is a duty on the Government to listen and not just bat their concerns away by saying, “Well, they don’t understand the level of terrorist threat,” “They are seeking to undermine Prevent,” or “They are doing something that is destructive of our efforts to keep society safe.”

I ask the Minister to listen and to understand that the state can be oppressive and authoritarian when it intervenes and interferes in the lives of individuals. People who are concerned about Prevent should not be dismissed as failing to understand or for not being a criminal barrister or having the right knowledge of such things. That is how they feel, and I urge the Government to listen to that. I do not believe the narrative that people are somehow motivated to undermine Prevent. They are just raising concerns, and it would help community cohesion if there was an overt attempt to hear those concerns and not just plough on regardless.

The terror threat is real and we must take all measures to reduce it. I do not underestimate the difficult job that the Minister and his Department have in doing that—I fully support him in his efforts—but the statutory Prevent duty is not the way to do it. It is too blunt an instrument.

I ask the Minister to consider the Select Committee reports we have talked about and to reflect on their recommendations. Some incredibly important work—research done and evidence taken—has been done on that and it would be helpful if all of that was taken on board. I ask him in particular to consider the views of David Anderson QC and the evidence he gave to those inquiries. He had been out in the communities, talking to the people affected, and his specific recommendation was that there should be an independent review of the Prevent duty. I gently ask the Minister to give that further consideration.

The Government have said in response to concerns that they intend to strengthen Prevent. I urge the Minister to consider whether the desired outcome would be more achievable if we were to use more emotional intelligence and consent, in a collaborative, community-led way at the grassroots, rather than the muscle of continued forced state intervention, which is what is implied by strengthening Prevent, even if that is not the intention.

Our safety and security is too important. We must get this right. It is therefore essential that we reflect on all these issues. I am grateful to the Minister for coming here today and for all the contributions that have been made.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to make a small contribution to the debate under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) on securing the debate and giving us the opportunity to discuss this issue.

It is my belief that Prevent is making a positive difference. The Government are working in partnership with local communities and grassroots organisations to challenge poisonous extremist narratives and safeguard our young people and society. The battle against terrorist recruiters must be fought on several fronts, including online as well as in our communities. Much of the work being done in the UK is world leading, including the first counter-terrorism internet referral unit dedicated to taking down hundreds of pieces of extremist and terrorist content that are referred to it every day, which has now been replicated internationally. However, extremism cannot be defeated by the Government and law enforcement alone: it is vital that everyone plays their part.

The importance of the Prevent strategy was made clear in the other place in 2016. I draw attention to Channel, which is one part of the broader Prevent agenda. It is an intensive, one-to-one mentoring programme that challenges violent views through the de-programming and rewiring of an individual. About 7,500 referrals were made to Prevent in 2015-16—around 20 a day. Of those referred to the scheme, which was set up in 2005 in the wake of the 7/7 bombings, one in 10 were deemed to be vulnerable to terrorism and were referred to Channel, while a quarter were found to be vulnerable but not at risk of involvement in terrorism.

Baroness Williams of Trafford has noted that

“since 2012 over 1,000 people have received support through Channel, the voluntary and confidential programme which provides support for people vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism. The vast majority of those people went on to leave the programme with no further terrorist-related concerns.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 December 2016; Vol. 777, c. 1544.]

That shows the important work that Channel and Prevent are undertaking. Every time a person receives support and turns their back on the hatred of extremism is a life saved, a family with renewed hope and a community that is brought closer together, not dragged further apart. Each person who is aided is a story of the struggle to battle extremism, but with each person we move a step closer to defeating the poison of radicalisation and those who would seek to drive us apart.

[Lucy Allan]

My hon. Friend is making an important speech. Does he agree that the statutory duty in Prevent puts it on to a different level from being just a voluntary and community-based source of support and guidance?

[Byron Davies]

I understand what my hon. Friend says but, at the end of the day, it is a set of guidelines that we would be floundering without. I accept what she says to a certain extent, but that guidance has so far proven to be of great advantage.

As I was saying, those lives saved shine a light on the positive difference Prevent makes to safeguarding people, particularly children, from the risks of radicalisation—which I think further addresses my hon. Friend’s point. Indeed, Simon Cole, who is the chief constable of Leicestershire and the National Police Chiefs Council’s lead on Prevent, said the scheme is “fundamental” to fighting terrorism. It is clear from intelligence sources, police on the ground and those in the communities that Prevent plays a crucial role in combating terrorism and extreme ideologies.

Furthermore, Prevent protects our young people, who are the future of our society, from the poison of hatred and vitriol from whatever ideology or extremist element it comes from. Indeed, schools play a vital role in protecting pupils from those risks, and it is right and important that these issues are discussed in an open and trusting environment.

[Lucy Allan]

Does my hon. Friend agree that trust is important in making Prevent work? If people are reported behind their backs without their knowing, does he not think that erodes trust?

[Byron Davies]

I agree that it is a question of trust, and of communities understanding the principle behind Prevent. The Government certainly have a big part to play in that, and I think we all share a responsibility for that.

It is the essence of our values that we can discuss the risks of a certain ideology or way of thinking in an open and trusting environment that allows full examination of the issue—not behind closed doors or simply ignoring it in the hope that the problem goes away, because it simply never does. If we are to have a healthy society, the most significant and meaningful thing we can do is to ensure that our children grow up with the key values of tolerance, respect for other cultures, creeds and races, a healthy respect for the rule of law and an inquisitive attitude towards those who wield power.

We must therefore continue to support the vital programmes that challenge those ideologies and individuals that seek to undermine our society, and the foundations on which it is built, with poisonous and extremist narratives. That is why I am particularly pleased that Prevent focuses on all forms of terrorism, including the particularly dangerous and disgusting ideology of the extreme right, as I have mentioned, and not only on one community.

I know that the Home Affairs Committee and others have expressed concerns that Prevent is perhaps not quite as community-led as it should be and is treated with suspicion by some. It is not unusual that schemes and programmes are treated with suspicion by certain communities at first; perhaps we must all work a bit harder at it. I witnessed that at first hand while working with communities on numerous issues during my time with the police service. It takes time to build trust and rapport with local communities, but I know the Government and those delivering Prevent work tirelessly to address certain perceptions and beliefs, and that they are more aware than anybody of the importance of working in partnership with communities and grassroots organisations.

We must not forget that the Government cannot do everything alone; communities and individuals need to step forward. We all need to step forward and play our part in fighting extremism and its root causes wherever we find them without fear or favour. Radicalisation devastates the lives of individuals, their families and communities. Prevent does not target anyone—it is about safeguarding those at risk, plain and simple. Prevent is, and must be, fundamentally rooted in and led by communities. Those delivering Prevent travel the length and breadth of the country to engage with community leaders, civil society groups, local authorities and frontline workers.

We must support this vital work to ensure that we safeguard those who are at risk of the terrible toxicity of radicalisation, and to persuade them of a different outlook based on tolerance and respect for other cultures, of which I spoke earlier. With each person, this scheme helps our society to become healthier, which is why I am, and will continue to be, a strong supporter of the scheme.