Criminal Justice Bill

Debate between Maria Miller and Tracey Crouch

2nd reading
Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson). She knows that I very much agree with the sentiment that she has just expressed around the criminalisation of women who are in one of the most difficult situations. In years gone by, people who took their own lives were subject to the criminal law. We have seen the error of our ways and changed the law on that, and I hope that we will on this too.

There are many good things in this Bill, and we have heard from the Home Secretary that there are more good things to follow, particularly the legal duty to report child sexual abuse and the prohibiting of sex offenders from changing their names. The hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) has had a great deal to do with those measures and she certainly has my fulsome thanks for all the work she has done on them. These are important changes, and the fact that the Government have listened demonstrates not only the strength of her arguments but the strength of our ministerial team.

There is nothing more corrosive than the fear of crime, and we therefore have to be careful in how we use language to frame this debate. At the beginning of today’s debate, there were way too many statistics being bandied around for my liking, so I am going to start my comments with one fact. I was going to quote Mark Twain, but I am not sure that the word “lie” is acceptable parliamentary language, so I will not talk about lies and statistics; I will just talk about facts.

One of the most important facts, and one that will help to stop an unnecessary fear of crime, is that this Government have put in place 20,000 more police officers. We now have over 149,000 police officers in England and Wales and the fact is that that is the highest number on record. That is unequivocal. I would like to pay tribute to my local constabulary, Hampshire police, and particularly to my police and crime commissioner, Donna Jones, because they have gone above and beyond what the Government asked for, which was around 500 new officers in Hampshire. More than 600 new officers have been recruited to Hampshire. Those are facts, not statistics, so hopefully we can all agree on them.

It is important that we do not use inflammatory language when it comes to crime, because people become unnecessarily concerned. I see that on the doorstep when people start talking about their fear of burglary, whereas the Home Secretary has rightly said that burglary rates have fallen dramatically. There are many other sorts of crime that we should be concerned about, so let us not make our residents concerned about things that have fallen dramatically.

As my right hon. Friend said, this Bill demonstrates the constantly changing shape of crime. People find new unacceptable ways to benefit from others, and we have to make sure they become illegal. Following some very high-profile cases, of which we are all aware, I very much welcome the introduction of a broader offence of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm. I also welcome the new aggravating factors that increase the seriousness of child sex offences where there is grooming, and of murder connected with the end of a relationship. There are important changes to be made.

There will be a duty on the College of Policing to issue a code of practice on ethical policing, which is particularly important for those of us who are proximate to the Met police—my constituency almost neighbours the Met.

There are powers for the courts to order the attendance of offenders at sentencing hearings, and to punish them if they do not attend—again, this follows some very high-profile cases. Obviously, refusing to attend a sentencing hearing can cause huge distress to families.

The Bill also has measures on knife crime. Basingstoke is a county-lines town, as we are a gateway to Hampshire. We have seen some horrific knife crimes involving young people, often from south London, and I am not surprised to see that knives account for more than 40% of homicides in the last year. The Government have introduced measures to increase the maximum penalty and to criminalise the intent to cause fear of violence, and these are all things that need to be better dealt with in law.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) spoke about the antisocial behaviour provisions, which will introduce new powers to lower the age limit of community protection notices to cover younger perpetrators aged 10 or above. It is sad that I recognise the measure’s importance, because my local police have talked to me about people under the age of 16 who are creating appalling nuisance and antisocial behaviour in my community. Extending community protection notices to that younger age group, and increasing the upper limit of fixed penalty notices, will help to give the police the tools they need to deal with the real crime in our community.

I will now comment on two particular elements of the Bill, before suggesting a couple more that the Minister may want to think about. Although I understand the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford, I think the measures on nuisance begging and rough sleeping will be more warmly received in my community than she suggests, because organised begging in our town centre, often by criminal gangs, and begging that causes a nuisance around shops and cash machines is a concern not only to residents but to retailers and business owners. It is important that we have measures in place to deal with these issues as robustly as possible, but—and this is an important but—they need to go hand in hand with effective measures to make sure we do not simply move the problem of rough sleeping either into our prisons or into other communities.

We ran a very effective programme in Basingstoke under the then Conservative administration that I hope the current independent administration will continue. It was started by then Councillor Terri Reid, who worked with Julian House, a well-known charity that, through its outreach work, supports rough sleepers into accommodation and into the help they need. If the Minister’s intention with this Bill is to marry together these provisions with effective support, I can see how it might work. This measure worked in my constituency because the money that was given by the Government to the upper tier authority was passported down to the lower tier one, and it could then work much closer to the community and to the problem, making sure that we have effective plans in place. The number of people now homeless in my community is extremely small indeed.

[Tracey Crouch]

I want to put on the record, for clarity, that the Bill contains separate provisions to deal with nuisance begging and with nuisance rough sleeping. Nuisance begging is absolutely an issue that blights communities, and people from across the House will agree that the provisions from clause 38 to clause 50 are definitely necessary—the question is whether that needs to be done in this Bill. Nuisance rough sleeping is addressed from clause 51 and it is entirely separate. The criminalisation of the rough sleepers is the issue here, not the nuisance begging, which is dealt with under entirely separate provisions.

[Dame Maria Miller]

Let me confirm that I was talking about rough sleeping. The antisocial behaviour action plan, which is cited in the explanatory notes, to provide the support that is needed is vague, and I hope that the Minister will reassure us that far more support will be given to local authorities if these measures come through, to make sure that they have effective provisions in place.

I will speed up, Mr Speaker. The provisions in the Bill on intimate image abuse relate directly to the Law Commission’s work in this area. Again, I pay tribute to it for bringing forward those provisions and to the Government for taking them up. They will start to complete the necessary legislation to protect individuals from intimate image abuse online. To have an intimate image published online without one’s consent is akin to rape and it is now being dealt with in the criminal law, for which the Government are to be applauded. I also thank Professor Clare McGlynn, at Durham University, who has done so much work in making sure that these provisions are as they should be.

There are a couple of issues where the Government might consider adding provisions into the Bill. I have already raised the first of those with the Home Secretary in my intervention: non-consensual intimate images not being removed online, even though they may have been part of a criminal case where somebody is now in jail. There are mechanisms for us to be able to remove these images, but it sounds as though some people are not removing them and that the law may need to be tightened further. Finally, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North has suggested that this Bill may be a place to decriminalise abortion for women. We will come later on, perhaps in the remaining stages, to whether this Bill is the right place to do that, when there is perhaps not sufficient time to go through all the details. If that were to be the case, I gently suggest that perhaps the Government will want to look again at my sentencing guidelines Bill so that we make sure we continue to take incremental steps to modernise the way women are treated in the law on abortion. We have had provisions on buffer zones and telemedicine, and sentencing could well be a way in which we could make sure that women are starting to be treated in the way they should be: as patients and not as criminals when it comes to abortion.

Press Self-Regulation

Debate between Maria Miller and Tracey Crouch

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. I would like to see a robust press, and I am sure the press would never want to be seen as irresponsible. He is right that it is important that we adhere to the timetable before the House, but, again, I make no excuses to the House today for getting this right. Working with the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham and the noble Lord Wallace in the other place, we will make sure that we do everything that we can, particularly to address the issues of arbitration and the editors code, and make sure that everybody is aware of the additional changes that we have made, as we have highlighted before, with regard to Scotland. It is important that the Scottish press is able to have access to the charter in the same was as any other press.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

Further to the royal charter’s extremely swift passage through both Houses of Parliament, what legal advice has the Secretary of State subsequently received on whether exemplary damages and the allocations of costs would breach article 10 of the European convention on human rights, and will that form any basis for future discussions with the industry?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Maria Miller and Tracey Crouch

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: sponsorship can be crucial in not only increasing the prominence of women’s sport but in enabling more women to go to an even higher level within their sport. I have been looking at this with people who are setting up support systems. Importantly, I recently held a round table with the press and with governing bodies, because we need to create the demand for such sponsorship, and that is all about creating an increased profile for women in their sporting areas.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

The prominence of role models is very important in relation to girls’ participation in sport. Will the Secretary of State update the House on the timetable for improving the broadcasting and reporting of women’s sport?

[Maria Miller]

Improvements in the coverage of women’s sport in the broadcasting or the press sector are up to the editorial control of those organisations. However, I absolutely believe that the Government can have an important role in voicing the nation’s belief that great women’s sport is going on out there that needs support. I have been working with press and broadcast organisations to highlight the great work that they are already doing, but also building on that further.

Press Regulation

Debate between Maria Miller and Tracey Crouch

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

Clearly that is something for the editors as employers to look at carefully. I hear the point that the hon. Gentleman makes—it is important that we have a journalistic industry with integrity, and I am sure that he is making that point very well and that it will be heard by people outside the House.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on coming up with proposals that avoid legislation, but she has sadly failed to satisfy fully either side in the debate. Will she specifically tell the House how the proposals are viewed by the local press, and what representation it will have under future regulatory structures?

[Maria Miller]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s contribution, and I hope that by trying to take the Leveson proposals and make them workable we will come to an arrangement that everyone will feel will make the situation much better for the future. She is right to raise the issue of the local press: the press industry itself, in its deliberations on the new self-regulatory body, is looking at that in detail. It is for it to work out how the local press is accommodated, but I echo her concern, particularly given, as we all know, the financially difficult times that the local press faces, and remembering that it is not necessarily the architect of the problems that we are trying to address. That needs to be recognised in the way in which self-regulation is worked through in future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Maria Miller and Tracey Crouch

Thursday 10th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady has shown that this is not about asking what the problem is—she has clearly articulated it. There is an appetite to watch women’s sport and we need to ensure that it is followed up by more broadcasting and coverage in the press. I was pleased to hear the BBC announce in December that it will broadcast all of England’s UEFA European women’s championship games when the team heads to Sweden in July, and the semi-finals and finals, across BBC 2 and BBC 3. In addition, all other peak-time matches will be broadcast on BBC 3. That is the sort of action we want to see, and it will set a bar for the other channels and media to follow.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

The coverage and reporting of women’s sport is incredibly important, but the issue should not be seen in isolation. Will the Secretary of State explain how we can encourage better commercial opportunities in women’s sport, as that will encourage girls and women to participate more?

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I know she takes a deep interest in this matter. The sports marketing bureau, which will be launched shortly, will do exactly what she is talking about: highlight marketing opportunities in women’s sport and across the board. We want to see companies capitalising on the clear interest and appetite for women’s sport to ensure that it grows.

Leveson Inquiry

Debate between Maria Miller and Tracey Crouch

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I want to make some progress, because I know that many right hon. and hon. Members want to contribute to the debate.

Questions also have to be asked about the report’s data protection proposals and their potential impact on investigative journalism. We need to give careful consideration to whether it would be appropriate for the Information Commissioner to investigate and then decide on the public interest, which, in effect, is what would happen if the report were implemented in full. As Lord Justice Leveson himself says, changing exemptions for journalists would be significant. This goes to the heart of the balance between the freedom of the press and the individual’s right to a private life. These issues require serious thought. I hope that in today’s debate we can bring out that and other elements of the report, and not only focus on the narrow issue of statutory underpinning.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

Thousands of excellent local and regional journalists will be affected by the changes to the regulatory structures for the press. When my right hon. Friend meets editors later this week to discuss the changes, will she ensure that the local press has an equal voice in the design and operation of the new system?

[Maria Miller]

I will certainly listen very carefully to the concerns of the local press. As I said earlier, we all want to see a thriving press industry. We know the financial pressures and constraints that it is under in this country, whether at a national or local level. We need to ensure that coming out of this process, we have not only a regulatory system that encourages the right sort of journalism, support and reporting, but a thriving press.

Specialist Disability Employment

Debate between Maria Miller and Tracey Crouch

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I can absolutely understand that hon. Members are speaking with a great deal of passion, because this is a very important issue that affects some of the most vulnerable people in our constituencies. However, I gently remind the hon. Gentleman that if we are truly going to be people who stick up for disability equality and for disabled people in this country, who number some 6.9 million, then these are the changes that we need to make and that disabled people and disabled people’s organisations have called for. The previous Government were fully aware of that. The modernisation plan has not done what was required, and we are now taking that money and making it work harder for disabled people.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

Royal British Legion Industries, which is based in Aylesford, employs many disabled people in its factories. We must be very mindful in this place that whenever politicians make an announcement about disability employment, it can be incredibly frightening. Will the Minister therefore reassure my constituents that this Government will do all they can to continue to provide good-quality employment for disabled people?

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to remind us all that what we say here can cause a great deal of fear and concern among the people we represent. Therefore, at all points in time, we should stick to the facts. In this case, the facts are that the £350 million budget for specialist employment support is being protected and that today’s announcement will mean that more than 8,000 extra disabled people will be able to be supported. She speaks with a great deal of knowledge in this respect. The organisation that she mentions has also been involved in the Work programme, which is also there to support disabled people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Maria Miller and Tracey Crouch

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question concerning an issue that I know he cares about and puts a lot of thought into. The carers whom I have met since taking up my position feel strongly that it is not only the financial benefits and supports that are important, as they also want the ability to get into work. At the moment, one in five carers are forced to quit work rather than to carry on, as they would like to. We will therefore focus on making sure that these people get access to flexible working, personalised budgets and direct payments and, in the long term, we will have a commission for long-term care. That is how we can ensure that the support for carers is in place. There were measures in the Budget that will help to make sure that financial support is there for carers, particularly in the area of housing.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

There are 21,000 carers in Medway. They do an invaluable job which is often unrecognised, but the benefits system remains incredibly complex, and many are unaware of their entitlements. What plans has the Minister to simplify the system to make it more accessible to them?

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. Carers find it incredibly difficult to navigate the benefits system. We will do all that we can to remove any disincentives preventing people from going out to work. The one thing that we will not do is implement the policy of clawing back 1.5% of carer’s allowance, as the last Government did. That is the last announcement that carers would want to hear at this time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Maria Miller and Tracey Crouch

Monday 14th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

We should be absolutely clear that the rules for determining eligibility for free school meals have not changed, and all pupils who currently qualify for free school meals will continue to be eligible. The issue was dear to the hon. Lady’s heart and something that she pushed forward when she was in government, and I should like to reassure her that there are pilots in place in Newham, Durham and Wolverhampton to see whether there is a robust case for extending free school meals. We feel that the extension was prematurely announced, without evidence from the pilots, so I ask her why, if she felt so strongly about the issue, she did not push it forward earlier in the 13 years of a Labour Government.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

8. What his policy is on the provision of support for people who are unable to work as a result of a disability.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

The Government recognise that some people will not be able to work, or prepare for work, because of a disability. Those people will receive unconditional support and be able to have help to find employment on a voluntary basis. Financial support for those who are unable to work will be through cash benefits, such as the disability living allowance and the employment and support allowance, replacing incapacity benefits.

[Tracey Crouch]

I thank the Minister for her reply. Royal British Legion Industries, based in my constituency, provides an important service to people with disabilities. Will the Minister assure the House that the Government will use the expertise of such organisations to help people with disabilities get back to work?

[Maria Miller]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question and also pay tribute to the Royal British Legion and its work, because it plays a vital role in supporting disabled people into work and helping those who are furthest from the workplace to acquire the skills that they need. The specialist knowledge of such organisations is absolutely vital and will be an important part of the Work programme that the employment Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) has already announced, because those organisations have the on-the-ground knowledge of how best to support disabled people.