Criminal Justice Bill

Richard Graham Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

The Bill makes it clear that any actions that will be taken will be in response to a continuing refusal to abide by the moving-on powers that the Bill provides, so I do not agree with the hon. Lady’s assessment of how this will play out in practice. However, as I say, this is the Second Reading of the Bill and there will be opportunity through its passage for ideas, thoughts, concerns and potential improvements to be put forward. I encourage her and the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) to put forward their ideas, because we recognise that this is an important issue. We want to get it right, but we are responding to specific concerns that have been raised.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The Home Secretary is right to say that the Vagrancy Act, as it comes to its bicentenary, is ripe for renewal and change, and there is an interesting debate to be had. He is right to identify that it is a problem for many of our constituents. The other problem, which he knows I will be talking about later, is the offence of spiking. I was listening keenly to what he said and no doubt he will touch on that in a moment or two.

[James Cleverly]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the need to update a number of provisions, including the Vagrancy Act 1824. I know he feels strongly about that and, through the passage of the Bill, I am more than happy to listen to his contributions about other opportunities to update and modernise legacy legislation, which has served us well but for a very, very long time, to ensure that it is relevant for the modern world, not the Victorian—or sometimes Georgian—era when the provisions were originally drafted.

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[Priti Patel]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right; we have had discussions about that point previously. I think this might be an opportune moment to pay tribute to those police officers who have lost their lives defending communities, being braver than ever and going after the criminals out there. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] We see so many acts of bravery, but I am sorry to say that they are sometimes not recognised enough. A lot of our police officers sadly get a bad rap because of other reporting issues and all sorts of things, but the reality is that we should pay tribute to and give the right recognition to those who are out there on the frontline, defending us. The right hon. Lady will be familiar with the police bravery awards—what a sobering moment, when we honour our police officers—but we must do more to represent the fallen and to protect family members. That is why the police covenant is so important. I would like this House and Ministers in particular to do much more collectively to recognise that bravery, because the families of officers are affected in a very challenging way.

[Richard Graham]

I was moved, around the period of remembrance, that Gloucestershire Constabulary arranged for a short ceremony in which all the MPs in our county gathered together with the Gloucestershire Constabulary to commemorate those who had died in earlier conflicts and those who have suffered during very difficult moments more recently. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is something that might be rolled out across the country?

[Priti Patel]

That is a very nice practical example of a community coming together to commemorate and recognise that public service. We are speaking about people who give public service to our country to protect us all, while at the same time making enormous sacrifices. I had the great privilege of spending much of my time as Home Secretary with law enforcement, including police officers on the frontline, and with some of their family members, so I have heard first-hand testimony of the sacrifices made. That is particularly the case for the loved ones of officers who have died in the line of duty; it is incredibly sobering.

This Bill is important, and as it progresses I look forward to working with the Front-Bench team on the measures they are introducing. I will touch on some of the positive measures, as there are sections of the Bill that are hugely welcome. This legislation goes further in giving the public confidence in criminal justice and policing to keep our citizens and our country safe. There are provisions to address the use of 3D printers and electronic communications devices that aid vehicle theft. I think it is fair to say that we are great believers in designing crime out through the use of technology—making it harder for criminals who abuse the system to even commit the crime in the first place. The measures in the Bill should help in that preventive work.

Criminals are clever: they are constantly adapting, they are agile and they evolve their methods. As legislators, we must be prepared to make sure that we can do more to support the police to fight offenders. I welcome more details on how the Government will continue to grow their plans. The Policing Minister mentioned facial recognition, and I support that work. It is about time that we stood up to some of the legal challenges and brought in more facial recognition provisions to strengthen law enforcement.

I particularly welcome the measures in clauses 9, 10 and 18 relating to knives and bladed articles. I agree that more can be done. Online loopholes around the purchase of weapons has been a subject of discussion in the House for a long time, and I think we could do much more there. It is a fact that we are all horrified and shocked by the impact of knife crime on our streets on victims and their families. The lives of so many young people are blighted by the horrors of knife crime, and we can absolutely come together on this issue. Our hearts go out to victims of knife crime and their family members. We never, ever want to experience the grief and anguish that they endure, but we can do more. I pay tribute to the many campaigners in this space; we should stand with them to do much more.

I am pleased to see that clause 13 and schedule 2 include new provisions to strengthen the legal framework to prevent people taking, sharing and broadcasting intimate images—of course, I am referring to revenge porn. There are still loopholes, and we want to do more to close them. It is a sickening offence that blights people’s lives. Essex police investigated a very high-profile revenge porn case that led to the successful prosecution of an offender, Stephen Bear. I pay tribute to Georgia Harrison, who was on television again just yesterday, both for her bravery in speaking out so strongly and encouraging others to come forward and for the many ways in which she has championed this issue. Our laws have to be flexible and able to adapt to modern technology, so that victims are protected from the people who commit those dreadful crimes.

That brings me on to the measures in the Bill that cover the management of offenders who have a record of coercive and controlling behaviour. Clause 30 puts those offenders under the multi-agency public protection arrangements, which is very welcome. Those measures build on a strong record of supporting victims of domestic abuse and violence, and it is vital that they are put into effective practice. Having mentioned domestic abuse and violence, I want to touch on a really harrowing aspect of that issue: domestic homicides. A great deal of work has taken place in the Home Office around domestic homicide reviews. I led that work, and would like to see it strengthened so much more. We see too many loopholes, and I am afraid local authorities are not always following up on domestic homicide reviews in the way we would like them to. A lot of good practice is already out there, with some local authorities championing that work, working with multi-agency teams and law enforcement.

I also welcome the measures in clause 32 of the Bill to confiscate the proceeds of crime, and serious crime prevention orders, which are dealt with in clauses 34 and 37. Again, it is important that we constantly adapt and update our legislation, and that those measures are operationalised and implemented in an effective way. I look forward to hearing more details from the Government about those areas.

I have already touched on the great work undertaken to keep our streets safe and fight crime, particularly the work of the police, who are on the frontline. I believe that we should back the police when it comes to new technology, but also by standing by them as legislators, including in difficult times when the way in which they are policing and operationalising and their professional judgments are under scrutiny, including public scrutiny. The police are the ones who put themselves in harm’s way to protect the public, and in recent weeks, we have seen the pressures they face when it comes to policing in challenging circumstances. I pay tribute to the police—I have seen them in very difficult situations. They are skilled professionals, and the recruitment of 20,000 police officers did not come out of the ether. A great deal of detailed work took place around that recruitment, but also around retaining them—how our laws back them, and how new technology and funding enables them to do their jobs. Our police officers are a credit to our country, and we should always show them our appreciation. They are diligent and maintain the highest possible standards, as I have seen myself.

However, we have of course seen some shocking and disturbing incidents, inappropriate conduct and serious criminality involving police officers. We have debated that issue in this House many times, both during my time as Home Secretary and since I left that position. It is right that chief constables and police commissioners across the country work to improve professional standards—I have had many discussions to that effect—but it is also important that we learn the lessons when things go wrong. In particular, the measures in clause 73 relating to ethical policing and the duty of candour can build on the work that has taken place through recent reviews. Of course, inquiries are still taking place, in particular the Sarah Everard inquiry that Dame Elish is working on. It is important that we maintain those standards going forward—we have a lot of work to do.

I will now touch on some areas in the Bill where I want to see greater scrutiny to ensure that the measures in this legislation will make a difference and will go further in some quarters. One area that needs reflection is clause 19, which the Chair of the Justice Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), touched on already. That clause contains measures that would permit entry into private premises without a warrant.

I am the first to recognise the desired outcome that the Government are seeking: to support the police in tackling the issue of stolen goods by enabling them to enter and search premises and to seize items without a warrant. We all want to see those responsible for those crimes apprehended more quickly, and the goods returned to their rightful owners—that is absolutely right. Too often, victims of crime are left frustrated by the challenges involved in investigating those crimes and getting their goods back. However, as the party of law and order that believes in safeguarding the rule of law, I want to ensure that if this power is introduced, freedom and civil liberties are maintained and due process remains in place. There is the prospect that that power will be misused, leading to miscarriages of justice.

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[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

The Conservative writer and statesman John Buchan said:

“You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilisation from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass.”

Too often, our constituents are exposed to how fragile that thread is as they deal with the barbarity of crime. It is true that, as the new Home Secretary said, some crimes have fallen—burglary has certainly declined, as well as some other crimes—but too many of our constituents have a diminishing faith in the rule of law. Order delivers and depends on a secure sense of certainty shaped by shared values and, as communities become increasingly fragmented by social breakdown, those values are eroded. There are many reasons for that, but just two of them are the pace and character of change. We cannot admit 1.3 million people into the country in just two years and hope that communities will hang together. In some places, there is nothing to integrate into, even if the people coming would like to do so. We have to deal with the rapid pace of change and its effect on the character of community and the shared values on which we all depend.

There is another problem, which sadly is prevalent in the Chamber; I hear it prosecuted many times. That is to assume that the focus in criminal justice should be on the criminal, not the crime; the cause, not the event. That implicitly limits—I would say that it reduces—our concern for victims as we perpetually ask why something has happened rather than what has happened. The effect of a crime—the event—is immediately felt, and the consequences of that event are measurable, so let us stop agonising about why, and deal with what and how, and what we will do about it.

What will the Government do about it in the Bill? There is much to be welcomed. The new crackdown on antisocial behaviour is overdue and insufficient but welcome. There is the concentration on knife crime and new offences for carrying knives. That, by the way, needs to be backed up with much more extensive use of stop and search—I hope we will hear that from the Minister when she winds up—because there is no point in having something on the statute book that says, “If you carry a weapon, you will be prosecuted” if we do not know whether people are carrying one or not. We know that stop and search works and we want to see more of it.

There are also sensible changes to the laws on vagrancy. Again, let us be crystal clear about those changes. The Bill says—this is not the hyperbole we have heard from some Opposition Members—that we will ban begging where it is causing a public nuisance such as by a cashpoint, in a shop doorway, on public transport, or approaching people in their cars at traffic lights. It will also introduce a new offence targeted at organised begging, which can be facilitated by criminal gangs to gain money for illicit activity—that is organised, orchestrated begging on a large scale. It will also introduce powers for the police and local authorities to address rough sleeping where it is causing damage, disruption, harassment, distress, or a security or health and safety risk such as the obstruction of fire exits or blocking pavements. That all sounds eminently reasonable.

Of course, those measures are not part of a bigger strategy on homelessness—I acknowledge and accept that—but my constituents tell me that they suffer from exactly the things that I have just detailed and want something done about it. The Government are to be congratulated for responding to those calls. The Government are right, too, to insist that criminals are in court when sentenced. We all saw recently that Lucy Letby was able to avoid meeting the families of her victims by cowering in her cell when she was duly sentenced.

There are things that are not in the Bill. I would have liked it to look at raising minimum and maximum sentences for all kinds of crimes. I would like more custodial sentences, not fewer, and not just for serious crimes. We have heard a lot about shoplifting. Let us imagine if we said to our constituents that the Government are increasing sentences for serious crimes, but a perpetual shoplifter will never go to prison; someone engaged in criminal damage by defacing or attacking a war memorial in our constituencies will not go to prison; someone involved in perpetual antisocial behaviour will not go to prison. That is not good enough, it is not what our constituents expect or want and it is not what the Government should do.

[Richard Graham]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the power of community payback is enormous, visible and makes a huge difference to our communities? When those who commit petty crimes are seen to be painting or gardening in city or town parks, the offence is commensurate with the justice mooted, and we can all benefit from that.

[Sir John Hayes]

Yes, but it is a big mistake to assume that the principle aim of criminal justice is to avoid recidivism. That seems to underpin much of what the Government think. It is true that we want to stop people becoming perpetual criminals, but that is not the only measure of criminal justice. The purpose of justice is to punish. People want to see

“the infliction of an ill suffered for an ill done”.

For people’s faith in criminal justice to be maintained, they need to know that if someone does something wrong, they will suffer for it.

Similarly, imprisoning someone takes them away from where they committed the crime and thereby stops them from committing another. In the case of shoplifting, at the very least it provides respite for those plagued by shoplifters—often, the same families, groups and social networks are involved in that concentrated and organised shoplifting. It is not the person stealing the occasional thing; unfortunately, it has been institutionalised in certain criminal communities and among a certain kind of felon. We need to think about criminal justice in those terms. Community sentencing can play a part, but it is important that criminal justice is retributive. That argument is made to me perpetually by my constituents, but in their eyes, it seems to fall on deaf ears among the political elite. Protecting the public, punishing criminals and providing victims with a sense that justice has been done are all essential to maintain popular faith in criminal justice.

I know that others want to speak, and too many speeches in this Chamber are too long. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, there is no such thing as a political speech that is too short. So I will conclude with a different quote from a different character. C S Lewis said:

“I think the art of life consists in tackling each immediate evil as well as we can.”

We will never eradicate the wickedness of crime. No society ever has. But in tackling evil, first we must recognise it, and secondly be intolerant of it. To be intolerant of wickedness is not only the right thing ethically but would allow us to say with pride that we are defending the innocent against those who seek to make their lives a misery. Let us move forward with the Bill with a spirit of righteous intolerance of evil. On that note, I look forward to the new Minister, whom I welcome to her place, illustrating her vigorous intolerance of all that is wicked and criminal.

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[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

What a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson) and to hear her mention the issue of spiking, as several others have done. I will not speak for quite as long as the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), who I think managed 40 minutes, but there is enough time to mention two or three quick points of interest to the House.

This is, after all, a debate on issues of huge importance to all our constituents, issues of safety and justice. Much has been said from all parts of the House that many of us can agree on. I particularly enjoyed the speeches from my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller), the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild) and the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North has done great work on spiking. She, I, the former Home Secretary my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham, and others are completely aligned in our proposal to the Ministers on the Front Bench and to the Home Secretary that this is not just a great opportunity to follow through on some of the things that are already in the Bill—for example, the importance of criminals attending their sentencing, preventing sex offenders from changing their names to confuse the register of sex offenders and other very good initiatives—but a historic opportunity to make spiking a separate, specific offence defined in law and to send a very clear message to a lot of people. This is not the first time that I have sung this tune, Mr Deputy Speaker. As you and others will be aware, we had debates in my name in January, two ten-minute rule Bills in January 2022 and June of this year, and a Home Affairs Committee report in April this year. They have all recommended the creation of a separate offence of spiking.

It now falls to the new Ministers, whom I warmly congratulate on their appointments—especially new the safeguarding Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris)—to seize the moment and bring the change to life. The reason it matters so much is partly that, rather like the with Vagrancy Act 1824, we need to update legislation to reflect modern practice and language. We need to define the term “spiking”, bring together elements of two separate existing acts—one of them Victorian—and ensure that the police record complaints and accusations, help to collect evidence, and refer cases to the CPS when appropriate.

However, behind all that is the straightforward truth for anyone listening to the debate: we all know, or know of, at least one person who has been spiked. That includes several Members of this House or members of their families, as well as so many of our constituents. Almost all those cases have not been reported or recorded. Let me give three quick examples of spiking that we do know about.

The first is an example sent to me this morning by a colleague whose friend, a male in his 60s, was here in London on business. He dropped

“into a pub near his hotel and had his drink spiked.”

The guy who spiked the drink

“supposedly ‘helped’ him back to his hotel where the assault and rape happened.”

The individual who was raped was not a gay, so it was particularly traumatic. Our colleague from this House says that the individual thus abused

“is mostly over it now”.

That is just one example of an incident that has not gone anywhere near the police, let alone the courts.

There is, of course, an infamous example from Manchester that has come to light and, indeed, gone on to court: the case of Mr Reynhard Sinaga, who raped more than 50 men under the guise of being a Christian befriending those who were sleeping rough in the evening. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) has mentioned his constituents Mandy and Colin Mackie, who created Spike Aware UK after their son Greg’s tragic death following a spiking.

All three examples are relatively unusual, partly because they have come to light, but also because they are all male on male. However, we know—both anecdotally and through research done by Stamp Out Spiking, for example—that the vast majority of cases are man on woman, especially in the night-time economy and particularly among university and college students, although by no means exclusively. So there is a key element of violence against women and girls in the whole business of spiking, which is another reason tackling it is so important.

Sceptics tend to ask, “So how many spiking crimes have been committed?” That is an almost impossible question to answer, not just because there is currently no offence of “spiking”, but because proving attempts or committed acts of spiking is hard, and the presence of drugs in the body fades quite fast. That only emphasises why legislative change is necessary: once spiking is an offence in its own right, those who have been spiked will get more support from the police, the CPS, the NHS and night-time economy venues. That is why many police forces, including Gloucestershire constabulary—my local force—and its chief constable, and PCCs including Gloucestershire’s excellent Chris Nelson, recognise that making spiking an offence in its own right matters. It will enable proper data collection, encourage victims to come forward, and drive technical changes to capture the evidence more effectively, and, crucially, it should result in an increase in simple messaging and a decrease in offences.

If we can achieve all that through some crisp drafting by the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, we will have done many people a great favour.