Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Priti Patel and Jess Phillips

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I agree with the sentiments that he echoes and would be very happy to meet him to discuss the matter. There are many, many legitimate concerns about pornography and the wider harms—age access, age verification and all sorts of issues, some of which the Government are picking up right now. The online harms Bill is one area, but there are other things that we can and should be doing.

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

Since the publication of the VAWG strategy, rape charging has fallen to an all-time low, leaving more people accused of rape in communities than ever before. Operation Bluestone found that the monitoring of previous offenders was failing to use

“intelligence to establish whether suspects had been named in previous offences.”

Operation Soteria found that

“officers were not routinely monitoring known offenders of sexual crimes”,

leading to a “total lack of morale” among police. This week the inspectorate said that alleged rapists were escaping justice, citing a case in which an alleged rapist was acquitted after the police and the Crown Prosecution Service had failed to present evidence in court showing that he had allegedly raped two other people previously.

I ask the Home Secretary to set out for the House exactly where, in the strategy and in her plans, are the proper monitoring and offender management that will stop any offender, let alone the most violent and repeat rapists, because that is not even nearly happening now.

[Priti Patel]

As the hon. Lady will know, both the rape review and the criminal justice taskforce have been clear and explicit about the actions that are being taken across Government. Operation Soteria, which she mentioned, is being rolled out to 14 other police forces. It is important for us to fix these key gateways—the way in which the police investigate cases, the handovers to the Crown Prosecution Service, and how it all works throughout the criminal justice system—and that is being done as a result of the rape review and work with the Justice Secretary. [Interruption.] I hear the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) talking about “12 years”, but the rape review report was published last year. This Government are fixing many of the long-established problems in the criminal justice system that have led to some of the most appalling outcomes. We can all agree, if on nothing else, on the need to fix those appalling outcomes for rape victims.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Priti Patel and Jess Phillips

Monday 12th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

First, I am appalled and very sorry to hear of the offence—the sexual assault—that took place outside my hon. Friend’s constituency office. There is a range of work taking place across Government right now, but importantly, he addresses the point about the lack of protection and the way women do not feel that it is safe to walk our streets. Many women around the country have sensed that and we have heard that as well in the call for evidence; we had over 180,000 people respond to our call for evidence on the VAWG strategy. He will see in the next few weeks the details of our approach because we will announce it, rightly, through the appropriate measures and means. But this is not just about policing; it is about the criminal justice system, public attitudes and how women are treated and how women are respected, and there is a lot of work that we will need to do together on this.

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

Shockingly, I could not agree with the Home Secretary more. I am not sure that I will say that many times in my life, but she is absolutely right that the respect of women when they come forward is very, very important. The heartbreaking cases of Bibaa Henry, Nicole Smallman and Sarah Everard have raised serious questions about police handling of reported violence against women and girls. There is currently an ongoing investigation into claims that Kent police failed to look at the incident of indecent exposure linked to Sarah Everard’s killer in 2015. There is also a probe into the Metropolitan police’s alleged failure to investigate allegations of indecent exposure in February this year. I am afraid to say that there will be a similar pattern all over the country. Can the Home Secretary tell me exactly what the Government are doing to ensure that allegations such as indecent exposure are taken seriously by police forces and that cases involving police officers as perpetrators are not ignored in the future, as they have been in the past?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. First and foremost, there should be no aspect of anybody ignoring these cases whatsoever, particularly from a policing perspective. She has rightly highlighted, I am afraid, some incredibly tragic and harrowing cases. Those of us who have sat down with family members of those who have been involved in these cases know that they are absolutely awful at every single level, so it is right that there are various investigations. There are independent investigations taking place into the cases that the hon. Lady has raised directly, and rightly so, by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, but there is no place for anybody to hide and that applies equally to the police. While we always want the full force of the law to be applied to perpetrators of violence and the most abhorrent crimes, any police involvement must also be uncovered, and that means that the police must be held to account—commissioners, chief constables, those at the highest level of policing—and I can give her every assurance that we as a Government are making sure that happens.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Priti Patel and Jess Phillips

Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Gentleman has highlighted some important points around rape, sexual violence and abuse within the criminal justice. I can confirm that, as part of the work of the Crime and Justice Taskforce, the Government, with the Ministry of Justice and the courts system, are looking at a range of measures to see how we can do more to fast-track cases and also to make sure that victims are protected in the right kind of way, as the hon. Gentleman has said. Alongside that, a great deal of work has taken place across Government with the end-to-end rape review.

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

I am delighted to hear that the Home Secretary has finally joined up with us on trying to do better to address violence against women and girls, and that the taskforce was announced last week; we look forward to working with her. We are hopefully going to enter a new era on street harassment, thanks to the deeds of Labour women here in the Commons and in the other place, who pushed the Government to record misogyny as a hate crime. With that in mind, may I ask the Home Secretary what she intends to do to train police forces? Can she tell us why only half of English and Welsh forces have undertaken Domestic Abuse Matters training, even though research shows that where forces have received it, there is a 41% increase in coercive control arrests?

The Minister for safeguarding, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), said over and over again last week that police training was important in improving the dreadful and worsening outcomes for abused women in this country, so how come, under her watch and the watch of the Home Secretary, only half of forces have undergone the necessary, proven training? Will the Home Secretary tell the House what she has done to ensure that all are trained, other than just saying she wants them to be? We need deeds, not words; otherwise, her Home Office will keep releasing more and more violent perpetrators back on to our streets.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Priti Patel and Jess Phillips

Monday 13th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. The protection of children is an important issue—children are victims when it comes to domestic abuse, and it is a sad fact that children often witness some of the most abhorrent abuse of their parent or others—and the Bill does exactly that. I am really pleased and proud that we have made sure that children are at the heart of the Bill. It is right that we safeguard and protect them.

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

Between 2015 and 2019, despite domestic violence cases rising by 77%, charging fell by 18% and conviction by 20%. In 2018-19, there were almost 60,000 reports of rape to the police, but less than 1,800 were charged and less than 1,000 convicted. The number of cases of rape referred by the police for charging decisions fell by 32% in 2019. How does the Secretary of State account for her Government’s performance in the falling rates of charge and conviction in sexual and domestic violence?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady will know that extensive work has been undertaken across Government, not just recently but in previous years as well. I am absolutely committed, as is my right hon. and learned Friend the Justice Secretary, to ensuring that we take an end-to-end approach to this through the royal commission that we are establishing on the criminal justice system, and that much more work is undertaken within policing to ensure that charges are undertaken and that the right kind of effective training is put in place for police forces and police officers. I have been very clear about that through all my work in policing, as has the Policing Minister. Ultimately, charging and getting those cases to court has to be the priority, which is why the Home Office is taking the right approach and working in the right way with the criminal justice system and the Lord Chancellor.