Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

Debate between Paul Beresford and Steve McCabe

Monday 23rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)]

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 greatly strengthened the legislation that deals with paedophiles. Year by year, some of us have used various Home Office Bills to put little baubles and bangles on it and there has been a huge number of changes. One result has been that persistent predatory paedophiles in this country have often moved overseas. Many of them moved to south-east Asia until the south-east Asian nations tightened up and now many of them are moving to Brazil. I have a particular interest in the situation in Brazil.

Some of the ammunition has come from the fact that much of our paedophile legislation is extraterritorial, so when individuals from this country go to other countries, do their dastardly deeds and come back, we are able to deal with them under our legislation when we have the evidence, perhaps provided directly by the security or police forces in the other countries. The effect of that has been a move away from south-east Asia, mainly to places such as Brazil. People are picking on Brazil because of the big sports events. We saw that recently with the World cup. A group in my constituency has been fighting for street children and it had a big campaign called “It’s a penalty”. It explained to people from this country who were flying to Brazil that if they had sex with children out there, they could be prosecuted here.

In Committee, Members on both sides were congratulating ourselves on getting two new offences on contact with a child and on predatory paedophile manuals. In the middle of all that, one of us suddenly noticed that we were taking away the extraterritorial aspect of both offences. Not too surprisingly, there was a faint squawk.

We have had a decent response on one issue. Amendment 10 will bring back the extraterritorial aspect for contact with a child, but not for predatory paedophile manuals, as I brought to the attention of Front Benchers. If we are going to prosecute individuals in this country because they have predatory paedophile manuals, why should we not penetrate overseas to catch them doing exactly the same thing? Logic tells me that if it is good enough to do it here, it is good enough to apply it to predatory paedophiles in other countries. That has been very successful with other bits of legislation. However, it was indicated clearly in the opening speech that it will not apply to this provision.

It is probably pointless to push the Solicitor-General on that issue at this point. [Interruption.] He is nodding with a smile on his face, which is not particularly helpful. I would love to push the issue, but I will not. However, I will reflect on where I have made mistakes between Committee stage and this stage, gather my ammunition and knock on his door as I move on to ten-minute rule Bills and the next Home Office Bill to try to add it. For tonight, I am sitting tight, but the warning is there: I will be back.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I will concentrate on new clause 17. I assume that the Solicitor-General will not accept the proposal, but I hope he will tell the House where he is with the 12-week consultation. I join the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) in asking that we try to hammer out a sensible agreement on the issue—preferably between all parties and before the election—so that we get something done in the interests of children.

I assume that most of us here want children to be protected and that the vast majority of decent people who choose to work with children want to protect them. However, I do not want people to be driven into some kind of defensive posture whereby they are more concerned about protecting themselves than using their professional judgment because of a badly framed mandatory reporting rule. No one who has looked at Rotherham or at any of the other scandals can fail to have a sense of revulsion at those senior staff who turned a blind eye, those who did not want to know when they should have been asking serious questions of the more junior staff, and those who blamed the victims whom they should have been protecting.

We need a measure of mandatory reporting that prevents people from evading their responsibilities, and ensures that there is no, “I didn’t know; they didn’t tell me” get-out clause, and no opportunity for institutions or individuals to view reputational damage as an excuse to sweep things under the carpet. That kind of mandatory reporting could be useful in helping the rest of us to protect children. I therefore hope that the Minister will tell the House what his intentions are and where he is with the consultation and that, in the spirit of cross-party support, he will consider the offer from me and the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham.