Marriage between First Cousins

Richard Holden Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

I will call Richard Holden to move the motion. I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention in 30-minute debates. I call Richard Holden to move the motion.

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government policy on marriage between first cousins.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I rise to speak on a topic that many in our country assume is already settled. People assume that the marriage of first cousins is prohibited, as it was for 1,000 years in England. Yet that is not the case today. Despite deep cultural, medical and societal reasons to avoid such unions, our laws have remained unchanged since the era of Henry VIII. To many, that is a source of bewilderment and bafflement—as it was to me, until I dug deeper and realised some of the real dangers that widescale first cousin marriage can bring.

The Church banned first cousin marriage in the fifth century. By the 11th century it had prohibited marriage up to sixth cousins. That ban was reversed by a Tudor monarch with a perhaps chequered marital record and we have remained broadly silent on the issue ever since. However, the rights and freedoms of individual citizens, society and our broader understanding have moved on, and our laws must do the same.

This is not a call for a legislative knee-jerk reaction. Silence, as Matthew Syed has powerfully written in The Times, does not constitute neutrality. Silence is a fundamental choice with serious consequences, both for children born with preventable disorders, and even more so for men and women denied basic freedoms and for communities fragmented from wider society. I urge the House and the Minister to recognise the scale of the issue and—I hope—the moral imperative to act. My argument rests on three key tenets: freedom, social cohesion and health.

During the last Parliament I worked with campaigners to end virginity testing and hymenoplasty. In doing so I stood on the shoulders of giants: brave women from many organisations who support young women trapped in oppressive familial and extended family tribal systems. I pushed for a private Member’s Bill, and then via amendments to the Health and Care Act 2022, with Baroness Sugg in the House of Lords helping as well; the Government accepted the argument by tabling their own amendments. When I picked up that campaign, via a chance encounter with an item on BBC Radio 1’s “Newsbeat”, there was no politician of any party leading the charge in this House. Some of the activists involved might have been a bit miffed that a new, unknown Back-Bench Tory MP was leading their cause—but they got me, and we managed to push through some of the changes that they had been fighting for so bravely and with such strength for such a long time.

What was the reason behind women being forced to undergo procedures that are at best pseudo-scientific, and at worst deeply harmful? It was unscientific concepts of virginity linked to gender-oppressive ideas of purity in an oppressive patriarchal culture. Often those were linked to forced marriages. Some of their stories will never leave me: young women who had had their education and ambitions cut short being sent to marry men they had never met—men chosen not for compatibility or affection, but to preserve family alliances, assets or bastardised notions of honour.

Such arrangements are not just about culture; they are also about control. The system is upheld by pressure and enforced through silence, and people attempt to justify it through tradition. When marriage is confined within families, the cost of refusal rises astronomically: it is not simply turning down a partner, but rejecting grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts and the entire network of family and friends—and that has a price. Choice under those circumstances is no choice at all. That is why I see the legislation that I put forward in my private Member’s Bill, the Marriage (Prohibited Degrees of Relationship) Bill, and the debate we are having today as an extension of the work I did in the last Parliament.

We have heard, rightly, about patriarchal systems that rob women of autonomy, but in cousin marriage those systems are particularly resilient. Why? Because the families are not just connected, but fused—inextricably joined. The pressure is not just external, from legal systems; it is intimate and wholly inescapable, especially when it is generation after generation.

Men are trapped too; I have been told of British Pakistani men forced into such arrangements by community and familial obligations, terrified to defy expectations and cut ties with cousins whom they often consider, because of the closeness of their relationship, almost as siblings. There are even cases of gay men and women who have been forced to marry out of familial obligation. That is not hypothetical: since raising this issue, I have been contacted by scores of youth workers, healthcare professionals and ordinary members of the community who have thanked me for raising it and asked me to keep going. They need politicians to speak up, because they feel that they cannot.

Beneath the surface and behind closed doors, there is support and a real hunger for change in these communities. Sadly, what is lacking is the political courage to match that quiet majority—and it is a quiet majority in all parts of our community: polls show that support for reform is not linked to the black, white or other populations, and a YouGov poll just a few weeks ago showed that a majority of British Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities back a ban on first cousin marriage. The vain virtue signallers who said that moves in this direction would be racist must take a look at themselves; they are the ones opposing a majority of the communities that they play-act at representing.

For people in the communities I am speaking up for—most of the British Pakistani community, where this is a big issue, and to a lesser extent the Traveller community—cousin marriage is entangled with status, tradition and expectations, and speaking out can be very dangerous. As with forced marriage and female genital mutilation, silence only enables the system. Only sunlight breaks the cycle, and that means naming the issue, debating it and legislating against it.

Some critics say a ban would infringe upon people’s freedom—but what freedom are we protecting? The reality for so many is a life predetermined by bloodline and birth order. We are not protecting a freedom; we are perpetuating oppression. Whose freedom, if any, are we protecting? Purely the freedom of the oppressor to oppress and keep down—not the freedom of the individual. The state already intervenes where power dynamics distort consent. We rightly outlaw relationships between teachers and pupils or therapists and clients, because of the imbalance. The same must apply here.

Let us not forget that most cousin marriages are not one-offs. In some cases, they are multi-generational. With each generation, the chance to choose diminishes further. The net tightens and lives are lost in the gaps.

I move now beyond individual freedom to the broader issue of social cohesion. Patrick Nash, an Oxford theologian, argues that cousin marriage undermines trust in public institutions; when communities marry inward, loyalty is channelled inward to extended families and clan structures, rather than to the important shared civic values of the nation state and wider society.

At Harvard, Joseph Henrich has documented how the decline of cousin marriage helped to build western liberal democracies. When families are forced to look beyond their kin networks for marriage partners, new alliances form. Societies move beyond tribal loyalty to a broader civic trust. Studies show that, where cousin marriage continues, there is reduced integration, lower social mobility and higher incidence of corruption. Why? Because when job, marriage, dispute resolution and identity all sit within the same extended family structure, wider society fades from relevance.

If we want a society that functions on the basis of fairness, where the rule of law prevails and where people engage beyond their own, we cannot allow closed family systems to continue to flourish unchallenged. So-called community leaders—often unelected and unaccountable—who derive their authority from familial networks become gatekeepers for those people and communities. They decide who speaks, who marries whom and who gets heard. This system is self-perpetuating. These are not British values, and those who perpetuate such systems should be exposed. In many cases, those leaders are the ones resisting reform, not because the arguments for change are weak, but because their own power depends on those structures being preserved. Reform threatens their influence. That is why this issue matters so much.

We must remember that cousin marriage is not a religious obligation, but a cultural tradition, and traditions can and must change. Other nations have already exhibited powerful leadership in this area; we should look towards countries such as Norway, Sweden and Denmark for a steer. Those countries are liberal democracies with incredibly strong human rights records. They are not reactionary or anachronistic, but fundamentally progressive. Why, then, are we allowing Britain to lag behind? We hear concerns about cultural insensitivity—I have been accused of it myself—but is it not far more insensitive to ignore the pleas of those trapped within those structures? Is it not condescending to assume that communities cannot adapt or reform?

We should be empowering individuals, not entrenching power in extended family hierarchies. The state’s job is not to ratify patriarchal bargains, but to protect liberty, health and the chance of every citizen to live a full and independent life. When cousin marriage is prevalent, society and integration suffer, and shared spaces become fewer; school catchments, neighbourhoods and even workplaces can fracture along the lines of extended kin. That is not diversity at its best, but division at its worst. It is not about faith or race. It is about what sort of country we want to live in: one ruled by fear masquerading as family loyalty, or one where each citizen stands equal, with rights and responsibilities to each other deeper than those of family and clan. Those fundamentals are the foundation of a modern nation state and ones I believe this Parliament, this Government and this House should uphold.

Finally, I come to science and the health issue, because the best understood point against cousin marriage, though it is not core to my argument, is health. The Born in Bradford study, one of the UK’s most comprehensive birth cohort analyses, has followed 11,000 children.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the right hon. Gentleman for bringing this issue forward. It is a difficult subject, and one that can be hard to listen to and respond to in a balanced way. I thank him for doing that well. Does he not agree that the science showing that the prevalence of birth defects doubling in cases of cousin marriage is reason enough to consider drastic legal action? While education is an enviable end-goal pathway, the stats show that it is not effective enough at present. In the interim, for the sake of children and communities, does he agree that action should be taken?

[Mr Holden]

The hon. Member contributes so often to our debates in such a thoughtful way. He raises an important point about health, which I will develop. The health issues are of fundamental importance but, as I have said in my speech, there are broader societal concerns that mean this issue should be higher up the Government’s agenda more generally as well.

For unrelated parents, the Born in Bradford study found that around one in 40 children are born with serious birth defects. Among first cousins, that rises to roughly one in 15, even when controlling for poverty, education and maternal age. That is more than double the risk. It cannot be stressed enough that this is not an isolated issue. In some communities, cousin marriage remains par for the course—the typical, not the atypical. In parts of Bradford, for instance, over half of all mothers of Pakistani heritage are married to first or second cousins.

That is hardly new information; as far back as the 19th century, the British Medical Journal documented inherited risks from unions between first cousins. Charles Darwin himself was married to his first cousin, and he suspected a link between his marriage and the poor health of his children, three of whom died young and five of whom suffered from chronic illnesses or disability.

The genetic risks run from the well-known Tay-Sachs, thalassaemia and cystic fibrosis to the under-recognised microcephaly, heart defects and intellectual disabilities. Those disorders are often lifelong, and the toll is felt not just by families, but by wider society—by the NHS, by our special educational needs system and across communities.

Alison Shaw, professor of social anthropology at Oxford, has written extensively on cousin marriage in British-Pakistani communities. Drawing on public health data, she highlights that children born to first cousins face roughly double the risk of serious genetic disorders compared with those of unrelated parents. Some have suggested that genetic testing could solve the problem but, while certain conditions can be screened for, many cannot. More importantly, testing does nothing to address the broader issues I have already spoken of around coercion and lack of real choice.

Moreover, as UK Biobank studies demonstrate, multi-generational first cousin marriages exponentially compound risk. The DNA profiles in such families begin almost to mirror those of siblings, or certainly uncle-niece relationships, which often carry much higher risks of severe birth defects, when first cousin marriage occurs generation after generation. In broader culture, people often think of the Habsburgs as a reference point, but this issue is more than mere historical curiosity; it is sadly representative of a contemporary crisis that continues to affect families today.

Behind every statistic lie families, clinicians and patients struggling to manage lifelong consequences. What makes this more painful is that so many of these conditions are entirely preventable. When the science is clear, it beggars belief that we still choose not to do anything. We must stop pretending that this is a marginal issue. The data is clear: it is not anecdotal, but systematic. The status quo is not neutral; it is a form of abandonment, and sustaining it is indefensible.

If we were to design a system that throttled personal freedom, threw in major health issues and undermined national cohesion, we could hardly do better than the widespread practice of first cousin marriage. We ban incest for good reasons. We recognise the power imbalances inherent to sexual relationships between teachers and pupils, doctors and patients, uncles and aunts and their nieces and nephews, and parents and their children. We legislate to protect the vulnerable, so why are we silent here? Sadly, I fear that it is because we fear being called intolerant and it is sometimes easier not to look. The truth is that inaction is not neutrality; it is complicity. We must do better.

We need only to look at what has happened in recent days with the release of the report on grooming gangs. I think back to the Labour MPs who raised that issue at a much earlier stage, such as Ann Cryer, who spoke passionately about it almost two decades ago. There is a lot to learn from people who have gone before us.

My Bill currently sits before the House. I thank the Members who have already put their names to it, including the hon. Member for Liverpool Walton (Dan Carden), my right hon. Friends the Members for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) and for Newark (Robert Jenrick), the hon. Member for North Northumberland (David Smith), my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien), the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), my hon. Friends the Members for Fylde (Mr Snowden), for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) and for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott).

I urge the Government to take this matter seriously and to listen to the survivors, to professionals and to the silent majorities in the affected communities. We must stop treating such issues as a taboo. If the so-called community leaders had got their way, we would have kept marriage under 16 and we would not have banned hymenoplasty and virginity testing or people being taken abroad for forced marriage. This should not be a taboo issue; it is a public health issue. It is about liberty and integration.

The aim is not to condemn, but to liberate, in order to ensure that our country is one where freedom does not end at the edge of tradition, where cohesion is built on our common citizenship, not inherited constraint, and where children are not born into suffering that we have the power to prevent. We have a chance to take a lead and make a statement that in 21st century Britain, freedom, health and integration matter. I hope the Minister will hear that call.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Holden]

May I take the Minister back to a point she made about forced marriage? I understand her commitment, and that of the Government, on this issue, but surely she must recognise that when we are looking at a rate of first cousin marriages of between one in 200 and one in 500 in normal society, but a rate of one in two in certain communities, real questions must be asked. How can anybody in those communities really speak out about that issue and the concerns around forced marriage? It is so clear that the family ties are so strong, generation after generation, that they make it almost impossible for people to come forward.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I totally agree with the right hon. Member. He makes a very powerful point, which speaks to why we need to look at this issue very carefully. With certain groups engaging in this practice, we cannot just have a knee-jerk reaction; he mentioned that in his speech. Others are calling for me to have a knee-jerk reaction on humanist weddings, for example, and to just quickly lay a statutory instrument to make that change possible. I am not about creating piecemeal legislation in an area that is very complex.

I want to reassure the right hon. Member that the Government are not ignoring this issue. We are considering it deeply and in the round, but it is responsible of us to consider it carefully and with the appropriate communities, which he mentioned, so that we get a full picture of the situation.

That brings me to the central proposal in this debate, which is to ban first cousin marriage. It is worth noting that during the past 14 years, when the prevalence of first cousin marriage was higher than it is now, the previous Government, in which the right hon. Member was a Minister, took no steps to introduce a ban. As I have said, first cousin marriage is complex and sensitive, and this Government are considering it with the seriousness that it rightly deserves.

The right hon. Member will also be aware that in 2022, when the Law Commission published its comprehensive review of weddings law, the previous Government had ample opportunity to raise the issue of first cousin marriage in response to that report, but they chose not to respond at all. In the report, the Law Commission set out a number of issues with marriage law, including inconsistency and unfairness across different groups and faith communities. We are considering the report and the wider issues of weddings law, including first cousin marriage, and I want to put that on record today.

My officials are working hard on weddings law reform, as am I, and an update from the Government on our position will come very soon. I am happy to continue to engage with the right hon. Member and any other Members or those outside this place who want to discuss this matter further as we prepare our plan for weddings reform.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Holden Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

We are investing in probation. Funding will increase by £700 million by the final year of the spending review. That is a 45% increase in annual budgets, which will fund further recruitment on top of the 1,300 officers we will recruit this year and the 1,000 officers we recruited in the previous year. That will support our investment in services that rehabilitate offenders and cut crime.

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

The Lord Chancellor admitted in a recent interview with The Times that her sentencing reforms will create “inevitable tensions” with the Government’s efforts to halve knife crime and rates of violence against women and girls. It sounds like she does not really believe in these reforms, which have been trotted out by David Gauke, the Prisons Minister in the other place and the Prison Reform Trust. Does the Lord Chancellor realise that none of them is elected, and that if this package fails to keep our streets safe and restore the criminal justice system, the country will hold her and this Government to account?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I think the country will hold to account those responsible for the absolute mess that this Government inherited. Nowhere in the right hon. Gentleman’s question did he acknowledge that under the Government of which he was a member and for which he campaigned, prisons were brought to the brink of collapse. These reforms are necessary. This Government will not allow our prisons to run out of places—the one thing everybody agrees we cannot allow to happen. The only reason that is a possibility is because of the Tory party.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Holden Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

Safety in prisons is a key priority, and we are working hard to make prisons as safe as possible. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the concerns at Parc. I have recently visited HMP Parc, as has the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), and the Prisons Minister in the other place. On that visit, I saw how seriously the director is taking these issues and engaging closely with families on their very real concerns.

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

The catastrophic security failure at HMP Frankland has exposed the danger that terrorist prisoners can pose to prison officers and other inmates across the prison estate. Will the independent review also examine the culture of gang-related violence and intimidation that have contributed to such incidents in our prisons?

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

There is an ongoing audit of all the review’s recommendations. Our thoughts remain with our brave prison officers who were attacked, and with the victims of the Manchester Arena bombing and their families, who are understandably concerned by the shocking events in HMP Frankland. My right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor took immediate action to set a review in place.

Sentencing Council Guidelines

Richard Holden Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

The Lord Chancellor has made her position clear. She immediately met the Sentencing Council, and she is writing to it again to set out her concerns, and the Sentencing Council has committed to responding to them quickly.

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

The Minister complains about having to explain the Government’s position, but why can he not just explain to us why the Secretary of State has not fixed this issue yet? It seems that there has been a meeting, but she has not even written a letter in the last three weeks explaining what she wants to happen. That is why I thank you very much indeed, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question again. The Minister has not actually fixed the problem that we are all talking about.

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

The consultation was held under the previous Government, who not only expressed no concern, but welcomed what the Sentencing Council was doing. Immediately on seeing the guidelines as drafted, the Lord Chancellor acted to sort out the mess left by the Conservative party.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Holden Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

The hon. Member is right. It is already expected that defendants will attend sentencing hearings, but we know that some take the opportunity not to face the families of their victims, which causes huge trauma to some of the families. We will clarify and put on a statutory footing the expectation of attendance at sentencing hearings, along with sanctions for dealing with offenders who still, despite being compelled to attend court—even through the use of reasonable force—seek to disrupt hearings.

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

7. What steps her Department is taking to help tackle hyper-prolific offenders.

[Katie Lam (Weald of Kent) (Con)]

19. What steps her Department is taking to help tackle hyper-prolific offenders.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Shabana Mahmood)]

The Government have inherited a situation where 10% of offenders account for 50% of all offences. We have also inherited an epidemic of shoplifting, the kind of antisocial crime that blights communities. I have commissioned David Gauke to review how sentences could be reformed to address prolific offending, reduce reoffending, cut crime and ultimately make our streets safer.

[Mr Holden]

I believe in second chances, and perhaps even more chances in some cases, but the excellent Policy Exchange report, “The ‘Wicked and the Redeemable’: A Long-Term Plan to Fix a Criminal Justice System in Crisis” found that hyper-prolific offenders—those with more than 45 previous convictions—are sent to prison on fewer than half of the occasions on which they are convicted of a subsequent indictable or either-way offence. Given that those people commit such high numbers of crimes, which usually affect our least affluent constituents, what consideration have the Government given to the report’s recommendations, particularly on introducing a mandatory two-year sentence for hyper-prolific offenders who are convicted of a subsequent indictable or either-way offence?

[Shabana Mahmood]

The right hon. Member raises an important point about an issue that blights communities across the country. I agree that we need a specific strategy for dealing with prolific offenders. Of course, different organisations use different definitions of what counts as a prolific offender or hyper-prolific offender, and that is why I have asked David Gauke to look specifically at this cohort of offenders in the independent sentencing review. The revolving door of prison and other types of sentences for them is clearly not having an impact. We must think about the interventions that will make the biggest difference to the largest number of those offenders, so that we can cut crime and have fewer victims.

Violence against Women and Girls

Richard Holden Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I was not expecting be called so early. I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this important debate.

I have taken part in many debates on these topics over the years, and they show the House at its best, because they are when we come together. This House, when speaking with one voice in our determination to tackle these issues, is incredibly powerful. What we say is heard beyond these walls; it is heard by law enforcement, the judiciary, the media and others. I am grateful for this chance to speak together and come together to find ways to tackle horrendous crimes.

As I said in my intervention on the shadow Minister, we are talking about a process, not an event. We are all working towards the eradication of these crimes, and making them socially unacceptable in our country, but that is a massive challenge. Anybody—any Government—who stands still on this issue will go backwards, because the offences change and technology enables new offences. When I was a Minister in the Home Office, the idea of deepfake imagery or even revenge porn was simply not coming across my desk. It simply was not happening; the technology was not there. We all have to be on our guard, and must make sure that we all work towards tackling those crimes.

I agree with the Minister, who made a powerful speech, that this is not a problem that can be solved only by women. Women and girls are predominantly the victims, but we need men to be part of the solution, and I am grateful to see so many men in the Chamber today. There have been too many occasions when taking part in this sort of debate has felt like being in a women-only club. We need men to be part of the solution and to work with us.

I have sat where the Ministers are sitting, and I suspect that I have felt the frustrations that they are feeling. I have probably felt what one of the Ministers—the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips)—is feeling particularly acutely this week, having been through many media onslaughts on social media and otherwise over the years. I have immense sympathy for what she is going through.

There is frustration as well because the levers that can be pulled by a Minister to resolve these issues are really quite limited. We can legislate—of course we can—but the police need to understand what the crime looks like. I refer here to my taking the coercive control offence through Parliament 10 years ago. I remember the media at the time saying, “Why on earth are you doing this? There is no way that this can ever be prosecuted. There is no way that anyone can ever understand it. There is no way that they can ever get the evidence.” I remember saying to one journalist, “So is that your answer—just don’t do it, because it’s too hard?” Surely we need to do these difficult things, but we also need to recognise that seeing the fruits of our labours will take a long time and that these things do not change overnight.

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making an important point. Does she agree that this House has to legislate in order to lead cultural change in our country? Furthermore, does she support some of the work that the Government are doing in exactly that direction?

[Dame Karen Bradley]

I do agree with my right hon. Friend: I fully support what the Government are doing and I fully support their aims and goals. We might have slightly different ways of getting there, but all of us in this House want the same thing. We need to be supportive. If we scrutinise the Government and suggest areas where they might improve their position or their policies, it is not a criticism of their intent; it is merely that we think there may be other ways of doing things or that there may be improvements that could be made. I took such suggestions when I was a Minister in the faith in which they were intended, and I hope that that will happen here. I am certain that, with the two Ministers on the Front Bench, that will absolutely be the case.

Earlier, I was talking about the levers that can be pulled. When those levers need to be enforced by law enforcement, local authorities, the health service or education, there is a real frustration that there is not a simple direction that can be given so that everyone understands the changes that, as a Minister, one wants to see. That is why cross-departmental work is so important. I believe that inter-ministerial groups are being deployed again, which is an excellent step, and I wholeheartedly congratulate the Government on that. When I was a Minister, such groups were so, so important.

We must also ensure that there is a multi-agency working. We have to make sure—I saw this myself as a Minister—that the police are not the point of last resort. I remember going to visit the A&E at the Royal Stoke, my local acute hospital, 10 years ago and seeing the domestic violence specialists spotting the signs of domestic abuse. That is vital. So, too, is the schoolteacher recognising that when the child is coming to school late every day, or missing their class, something is wrong and action needs to be taken. We cannot always leave this to the police and law enforcement. We must make sure that there is multi-agency working. Having domestic abuse specialists in 999 centres and emergency centres is another a good step.

I introduced a VAWG strategy in 2016 when I was a Minister. Another one was introduced in 2021, and I know that we will get another one soon. I am certain that that will be victim focused. These are crimes that cannot be tackled without putting the emphasis on the victims. But all victims are different. The abuse that one victim has suffered will be different from that of another victim.

Let us be clear: getting someone who has been a victim of one of these most horrendous of crimes to accept that they are a victim is incredibly difficult. To be brave enough to pick up the phone to dial 999 is a really big step, because that victim has probably been enduring the abuse over many, many occasions. She does not believe that she is a victim. She thinks that she is in control. She thinks that she can deal with this problem without involving the authorities. We have to get to the point where victims are able to accept that they are victims and where we give them the support that is needed. That is why the multi-agency approach is so important.

A victim of female genital mutation will be different from a victim of modern slavery, and a victim of domestic abuse will be different from a grooming victim. They all have individual needs. Even within the categories, there will be different needs. It may be better for some victims of domestic abuse to remain in their homes and for the perpetrator to be removed and tackled. [Interruption.] Absolutely. I see the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley doing a thumbs away sign. I totally agree with her. However, for other victims that will simply not be practical. There need to be places of safety that those victims can be taken to. Those places of safety need to be different for each victim. A mother with children needs a different place from a young girl, and that young girl needs a different place from somebody who has severe learning disabilities, mental health issues or addiction. There are all sorts of problems that victims face—often caused by the abuse—and they need different approaches.

I have made the point about multi-agency working, but we cannot arrest our way out of the problem. There needs to be a strategy that looks across all aspects of the four Ps, as they used to be called in my time at the Home Office—the pursuit, protect, prevent and prepare strands. We need to make sure that we take every step possible.

I welcome the ringfencing of funding that the Minister talked about. I am keen to make sure that police, fire and crime commissioners and mayors who have responsibility for these areas have the correct funding to commission the services that they need to support victims.

My final point is on the online world. Not only do new offences get created, but the online world has provided a place of safety for perpetrators. Behaviour that is simply unacceptable offline is something that is normalised, socialised and anonymised online. A person can go online and find somebody who has a similar interest to them in something that is totally and utterly unacceptable. They have some images that they can share. They do not know who they are dealing with, so therefore it is fine. They can look at those images because nobody knows that it is them, nobody knows what they do in the real world, and nobody knows that they are looking at them. It also seems absolutely normal, because everybody else is doing it in this room. This is an incredibly difficult thing to solve. It is really difficult to get normal policing methods to work in this environment.

Children of Prisoners

Richard Holden Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that, this being a half-hour debate, there will be no opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered support for and identification of the children of prisoners.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I am delighted to have secured this Westminster Hall debate. First, I want to thank the Government for their manifesto commitment, which states:

“The children of those who are imprisoned are at far greater risk of being drawn into crime than their peers. We will ensure that…young people are identified and offered support to break the cycle.”

That is an important commitment that I know the Minister feels strongly about. Some important work backs that up. Around half of prisoners are parents of children aged 17 or younger, according to a report by the London School of Economics. Often, they and their care givers will both be in need of assistance and support, to provide a stable and nurturing environment, when a partner or former partner is in prison. In some cases, both parents might be in prison and relying on grandparents, and that support is also often required when a mother is in prison.

Children with an imprisoned parent are 25% more likely to suffer from mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, insomnia and eating disorders. Negative school experiences can also come from that—they are common. Many children and families impacted by parental imprisonment also face severe economic hardship—something that can also be worsened by parental imprisonment. Recent data from Oxfordshire county council found that, at the point of a parent’s first imprisonment, half of identified children were receiving free school meals. Following parental imprisonment, that figure rose by at least 20%, if not more. Alarmingly, those children are also more likely to engage in criminal behaviour, with an estimated 65% of young boys of imprisoned parents—two thirds—eventually going on to offend themselves.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the right hon. Gentleman for securing the debate. I always do quick research on these matters. Does he not agree that we must also consider the vulnerable adult children of prisoners and the difficulties they can face in trying to understand the massive shift that can take place in their life? Support is not always readily available for that vulnerable group, and changes need to be made.

[Mr Holden]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point. He touches on the important point behind a lot of this. When parents are imprisoned, caring responsibilities are often the last thing that the state or anybody else thinks about. We are at the crux of what I am trying to get to today.

I would like to thank Sarah Burrows and everyone at Children Heard and Seen, including my friend Ed, who drew me towards the research in this area. I thank them for what they have raised, because this is all about ensuring a child-focused approach. Too often, the children of prisoners are mentioned only in the context of maintaining relationships with the person imprisoned and ensuring that the person imprisoned has a good opportunity—this is a worthwhile thing to do—to reduce their reoffending and recidivism. One thing that has been lost to some degree in this debate is the support required for those children and young people. As the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, in some cases vulnerable adult children might also need support. That is what I am trying to highlight in this debate today: it is the children affected who are at the centre of this.

Sixty seven per cent of children do not visit a parent in prison, while 37% go further and have no contact with their parent at all. We need to focus on what is best for the child, taking into account the often incredibly difficult family relationships and the issues caused by crimes such as domestic violence—which the Minister is working on at the moment—sexual abuse, in some tragic cases, and parental homicide.

The current system is leaving some children living on their own—I will move on to some case studies in a moment, but that is one of the things that has really hit me about this issue. Children Heard and Seen has heard of multiple cases where a child has been discovered living on their own, and not in just one part of the country. If I may turn to the steps we are pressing the Government to take, that is one of the reasons it is so important that those children are individually identified, to ensure that support is there. If we do not have a national register or a system to ensure that the data is fed in, we will not understand the depth of the issues involved.

I want to pick up on a couple of case studies brought forward by Children Heard and Seen. In one case, a man went to prison for sexual offences, and it was only after the house was targeted by vigilantes that a victim support caseworker found his 15-year-old daughter living there on her own. In another case, a criminologist conducting research in a women’s prison was told by a prisoner that her two daughters were living on their own without any money for food. In another, a 16-year-old boy arrested at the same time as his parents was released shortly afterwards and became the sole carer of his eight-year-old brother. In another, an employer requested a welfare check after a woman had not shown up to work for some time. The employer reached out even though they may well have thought that she had decided to no longer be in employment. When the police went to her address, they found a 15-year-old boy living in his own with no gas or electricity. He had been getting up and going to school every day without anyone knowing that his mum was in prison.

Those are just a few of the cases that have been brought forward. They are particularly important because often in these families the children themselves will have had a difficult relationship with the state over many years. Sometimes, especially if those children are into their teenage years, they may feel able to in some way look after themselves. They could have been in and out of state care or support in some ways over many years, and might not have positive relationships—they might not have positive relationships with wider family, either. That is one reason it is so important that we get this right.

[Jake Richards (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

I praise the right hon. Gentleman for securing this Westminster Hall debate and raising this issue so powerfully. He is right about the focus on young people, which has to be part of the commitment, but this is also about the whole family and making sure that contact between parents, children, the wider family and prisons works for the children as well. Does he agree that that will help everyone and also help to tackle reoffending?

[Mr Holden]

I cannot agree more with the hon. Member. He raises an important point—yes, in many circumstances, help for families and children of prisoners can help the prisoners—but he is also right to say that that would be a side benefit. As a country, we should be concentrating on helping the children of prisoners wherever possible—we also want wider family support and networks to be involved where possible. As in the case studies I have spoken about, there may be situations, particularly if people are somewhat estranged, where the extended family do not know that their child has gone to prison and that their grandchild is therefore trying to care for themselves at home. Some of those family relationships may have broken down. That is another area where the hon. Member makes an important point about what more we can do.

The Government recently brought forward the first published estimate of the number of children of prisoners, which is definitely a welcome step. However, what we really need is a system to identify the children involved, not just an estimate of how many there are. An estimate is useful for helping to determine some of the broader policy changes that may be required, and possibly to help the Government to calculate some of the costs involved and where measures need to be targeted. But what we are interested in—on both sides of the House, I think—is identifying the individuals who need support and ensuring that support is provided, because an estimate does not do anything to identify those most in need.

As I have said, a commitment to identify and support children with a parent in prison was included in Labour’s manifesto, and Lord Timpson has stated that it is one of his top priorities as the Minister with responsibility for prisons.

The Ministry of Justice was recently asked what steps it is taking

“to ensure that the children of those imprisoned are (a) identified and (b) offered support”.

The response was that it is

“working closely with the Department for Education to determine how to effectively identify these children and provide support”.

I really hope that, as the MOJ does that, there is no need for a lengthy consultation, because there are children out there today who need such support. It has been suggested that half of prisoners have children under the age of 18. If that is correct, we are talking about tens of thousands of young people, of whom perhaps hundreds or even thousands might not be receiving any proper support.

I say to the Government that there does not need to be a lengthy consultation. Children Heard and Seen has a readymade solution. In collaboration with Thames Valley police, it has created, in Operation Paramount, the first mechanism ever to identify and support children with a parent in prison. Operation Paramount cross-references data from His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service with existing police data to identify children who have been left behind, right from the point that an individual enters the prison system. Data that previously had been used only to track a prisoner’s movements through prison to their eventual release can now be used to identify vulnerable family members who were left behind when an individual was imprisoned.

If this system was rolled out nationally and schools were involved, it could essentially act as the national identification system that I hope hon. Members from across the House want to see. There would be two parts. The system would be used first of all to identify these children and young people, and secondly to provide support for them.

When an adult is sentenced or remanded in custody, a combination of the existing data from the Prison Service, the police and the relevant local authority should be used to identify the home address of a child linked to that offender. I do not think that is too much to ask for, because all that data already exists.

Secondly, a designated safeguarding lead at the child’s school should be notified before the start of the next working day. Registered nurseries, pre-school settings and childminders could also be informed. I am also particularly interested in the point that the hon. Member for Strangford made about considering other cases, too, perhaps where there is a special need. Within the education setting, the DSL should then be able to liaise with other members of staff and external agencies, if necessary, to deliver the appropriate support for the child in question.

Thirdly, I would ask the Government to consider whether children with a parent in prison should be made eligible for pupil premium funding, as we do in other circumstances. That might be worth considering given reoffending rates, because if we can get some of them down, that would be a very good long-term investment. Although I am obviously speaking as a Back Bencher today, this is something that might receive cross-party support in the future.

Fourthly, we need to ensure that children with a parent in prison are not left to live on their own. If we could identify them and provide the necessary support at the earliest stage, we could help to mitigate some of the impacts I talked about in my opening remarks—children living in absolute poverty, going on to become offenders themselves or being left vulnerable to crime in their homes and communities. We could ensure that, at the earliest possible stage, they are supported to mitigate the impact of their parents’ imprisonment and wrongdoing. In this day and age, we should not punish children for the crimes of their fathers or mothers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I welcome that intervention. As I will explain, it is difficult for any child when a parent is taken away and is unable to be with them. As a parent, I find it really difficult to have to be away from my child for four days a week. I am sure that the hon. Member understands that the impact is in some regard immeasurable. We do not know the impact on those children but, as a Government or as a parent, we try to give them as much support as we can. When one parent is in prison, that is not always possible. This is about what we can do to provide them with that support.

Growing up with a parent in prison is incredibly tough for many children. As the right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay outlined, it is widely recognised as an adverse childhood experience that affects not just a child’s day-to-day life, but their longer-term opportunities and outcomes. We owe it to every child with a parent in prison to ensure that that disadvantage does not become ingrained from generation to generation.

I am grateful to the organisations that have brought this important issue to the Government’s attention, including the Prison Advice and Care Trust, North Eastern Prison After Care Society and Children Heard and Seen. I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), and the noble Lord Farmer.

These children may have parents in prison, but they too are locked in an invisible cell—one of separation, loss and disruption. The situation is particularly acute for children whose mothers go to jail: around three quarters leave the family home while their mam is locked up, losing not only their parent, but their school and home all at once. Many of the children are passed between family members, but some end up in care.

More broadly, research shows a range of immediate and longer-term effects on children who have parents in prison, including on their physical and mental health, and engagement at school. They are also at risk of following the same path into the criminal justice system. We have to ensure that we reach such families and get them the support they need, and in our manifesto we committed to doing just that.

[Mr Holden]

I thank the Minister for recognising the work of charities across the country, and I thank Members of both Houses for pushing the issue. Does she also welcome the work of BBC Radio 4’s “Woman’s Hour” a couple of weeks ago? It devoted an entire week to the subject, and had the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Jake Richards) and myself on to talk about it. In doing so, it brought to life some of the stories that we are debating today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Holden Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

Such schemes and initiatives are exactly the sort of thing that this Government want to celebrate as best practice and replicate in other settings.

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

Answers to my recent written parliamentary questions have talked of the positive impact that relations with families can have on prisoner resettlement. However, in a number of cases, particularly those involving sexual violence, the prisoner has no contact with the family and their release is usually a traumatic moment for those families and children. That is why I welcomed Labour’s manifesto pledge to introduce a national identification system for the children of prisoners as a vitally important measure. What are the Government doing to meet that pledge and break the offending cycle across generations?

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

Identifying children with a parent in prison is important for ensuring that they receive the support they need. Strengthening family ties remains an integral aspect of our work, which is why our family support workers help to re-establish appropriate family ties and facilitate visits from prisoners’ children. My officials are working closely with the Department for Education to determine how much more we can do in this space.

--- Later in debate ---

[Shabana Mahmood]

Personally, I am of the view that deportation for somebody who has been convicted and is due to be imprisoned in our country is as good a punishment as serving time in a prison in this country. We are looking actively at what more we can do to make the early removal scheme as effective as possible, including potential options to bring forward the point of early removal from this country. I will be working with colleagues in the Home Office as we develop our plans in this area.

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

One of my constituents—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. This is the first topical question.

[Mr Holden]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Shabana Mahmood)]

I think Members from all parties need a reminder about the form in this House for oral questions, Mr Speaker.

Since the last Justice questions, I have launched an independent review of sentencing. It will ensure that there is always space for dangerous offenders in our prisons and that we expand the use of punishment outside prisons, so that no Government are ever forced to release prisoners early again. The Government have also introduced their first Budget and we have seen an additional £850 million of funding for the Ministry of Justice.

I note the arrival of the new shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). While rumour has it that this job was not his first choice and he may have been asked to do it on more than one occasion by his new boss, I warmly welcome him to his new position.

[Mr Holden]

One of my constituents has been attending court to resolve a matter around divorce and periodical payments since 2015. Although she has achieved positive results at all the court hearings, with many court orders, sadly there have always been errors and incompetence in the system. Will the Minister meet me to discuss these matters so that I can get a final resolution, after almost a decade, for my constituent?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am shocked to hear about the extent of the delay in the case of the right hon. Gentleman’s constituent. He is welcome to write to me with the specific details and I will ensure he gets a meeting with the relevant Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Holden Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Lady, but I strongly disagree with her remark that we are ignoring the problem. As she will know from Home Office questions, in which we have had many exchanges over the Dispatch Boxes about that issue, the Home Office is leading on a review of the laws relating to street harassment—not to mention the significant amounts of funding that we have put in to local councils all over the country to keep women and girls safe at night.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

Under the Ministry of Justice’s masterplan to increase the number of approved premises available, high-risk and very high-risk offenders could be located at Highfield House in Consett right in the centre of my local town, in a residential area near a lot of local youth facilities. Will the Minister meet me to discuss that, because it is quite inappropriate for the location that has been suggested?

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing his constituents’ concerns to the House and I would be delighted to meet him to discuss that in detail.

Approved Premises (Substance Testing) Bill

Richard Holden Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

First, I declare my interest as a former non-executive director of Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and a magistrate member of the Sentencing Council. I also want to thank all those, including Clerks, Whips, officials and the Minister, who helped me to get the Bill to this stage.

I have risen in this House on several occasions to speak about our prison and probation services, and I have paid tribute to the staff working in them, whom I genuinely consider to be the hidden heroes of our public services, but there is an important aspect of our justice system that I have not thus far highlighted: approved premises. Indeed, while many people are familiar with prisons and probation, there is much less awareness of approved premises, yet they provide a critical step in the rehabilitation of offenders. Let us never forget that rehabilitation means there will be less reoffending, and that in turn means fewer victims of crime—something each and every one of us in this House must surely welcome.

Approved premises are essentially hostels which provide temporary accommodation for people who have been released from prison but are considered to present the highest risk to the community. They also house a small number of people on bail as well as high-risk offenders serving community sentences. There are just over 100 APs in England and Wales, with about 2,300 bed spaces between them, and the average stay in them is 12 weeks. The role of approved premises is to ensure that those with the highest risk and most complex needs receive additional, targeted residential supervision and rehabilitative support.

Unfortunately, the number of deaths among approved premises residents has increased over recent years, and many of those deaths are believed to be related to taking drugs. As a result, the independent prisons and probation ombudsman has rightly made repeated recommendations about the urgent need for a comprehensive drugs strategy for the approved premises estate. I am sure that I surprise no one when I say that the use of drugs in approved premises can have a significant impact on the physical and mental wellbeing of residents in both the short and the long term. Of course, drug use also undermines a person’s ability to engage in work or other activities that would help their rehabilitation.

My Bill today is a response to this problem. It would enable approved premises to create a comprehensive framework for drug testing, and it would also bring them in line with the substance testing regime in prisons. This was established by the Prisons (Substance Testing) Act 2021, which was the private Member’s Bill promoted by our greatly missed colleague and my constituency neighbour Dame Cheryl Gillan. I was proud to serve on the Bill Committee for that legislation, and I am delighted to say that it received Royal Assent earlier this year, having been supported by all parties in this House, as I hope my Bill will be.

Currently, residents in approved premises can be tested for drugs only at the request of staff, in accordance with the house rules that are a condition of their residence. Although that provides a basis for drug testing, it does not set out a comprehensive statutory framework for the testing of illicit substances, the scope of substances for which testing can be conducted or the types of sample that may be taken. I submit that that needs to change.

One reason for the need for more formalised and widespread testing is that patterns of drug misuse in both custody and the community are changing. In particular, psychoactive substances have become much more prevalent within the illicit economy in approved premises. These are particularly unpleasant, and one of the most worrying aspects of them is their unpredictable impact on different individuals. Some people become catatonic after taking them. Others suffer convulsions, vomiting or temporary loss of vision. Still others become anxious, aggressive or even engage in extreme behaviours that almost defy the imagination. They can easily pose a serious danger to others and indeed to themselves.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for speaking on this. I well remember the debate we had in Committee, when I picked up that Bill from Dame Cheryl, on prisons testing and substance misuse. I also remember speaking to those from the Prison Officers Association during the passage of that Bill, and they said to me that some of the interactions they were having with prisoners were off the scale, even compared with the issues they had with controlled substances, with prisoners attempting to commit suicide, in absolute rages and totally uncontrollable. Are those the sort of examples he is trying to pin down with this Bill so that things like that in treatment centres in the community can be addressed?

[Rob Butler]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Those are exactly the types of behaviour that cause real concern. I would like to take the opportunity to thank him for picking up the mantle on that prisons Bill from Dame Cheryl Gillan. He talked about the Prison Officers Association, and it is worth mentioning that, according to a recent staff survey in approved premises, the main substance of choice in those premises is now psychoactive substances, so anything we can do to stamp out their use is bound to be of benefit.

A further challenge comes from prescription and pharmacy medicines, which can also be abused by some residents when medication is brought into the premises from outside. That may have been legally obtained by somebody else or it may have been imported, but it is then taken by residents in an illicit way to get high, and that can at times even prove lethal. Yet the current drugs testing regime in approved premises can test only for four groups of drugs—opioids, cannabis, cocaine and amphetamines. Therefore, first, my Bill will extend the range of substances that can be tested to cover all forms of psychoactive substance as well as prescription and pharmacy medicines, in addition of course to the existing drugs. Alongside that, the Bill also introduces urine testing rather than the currently used oral fluid testing. There are relatively few drugs that can in fact be detected reliably in oral fluid. That means that the current testing regime is unable to identify much of the potential drug use among residents. As a result, it is not possible to tackle the problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rob Butler]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Throughout the pandemic, Ministers have frequently come to the Justice Committee to talk to us and account for what is going on in prisons.

At the beginning of the pandemic, given the presence of so many people in such close and confined circumstances, it was feared that prisons could easily become super-spreader locations, and it is a huge tribute to the staff in our prisons, at all levels, that that did not happen. In fact, the number of people who succumbed to covid-19 on the custodial estate was very small indeed. Achieving that required restrictions of their normal activities, on the rehabilitation programmes and so on, and of course we want to overcome that as quickly as possible, but I think that the key aim has been to save lives, and I pay tribute to HMPPS for achieving that.

I have had the opportunity to talk to staff involved in running approved premises, and they believe that their colleagues—and, importantly, residents—would welcome these proposals. My final word—

[Mr Holden]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Rob Butler]

It will not be my final word, because I am taking another intervention!

[Mr Holden]

I was a special adviser in the House of Lords during the passage of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. That Act specifically excluded caffeine, which is by far the most broadly used psychoactive substance available. I note that the Bill does not currently refer to the exclusions in the Act, but merely mentions psychoactive substances. Will my hon. Friend assure me that at a later stage—perhaps in Committee, if his Bill makes it that far—caffeine will be excluded, so that I shall be able to support the Bill’s Second Reading?

[Rob Butler]

I hope that my hon. Friend will support the Bill today, and that sounded like a very good effort at volunteering to be a member of the Bill Committee. I am now drawing to a conclusion, and I beg the indulgence of my hon. Friends in not making further interventions for the moment.

The Bill may seem fairly insignificant or even trivial to some, but drug use is pervasive. It is so often the major driver in the commission of crimes. In the 12 years that I spent as a magistrate, I lost count of the number of defendants who appeared in front of me either because they were stealing to feed their habit, or because they had committed the offence when they were high. Anything we can do to help people steer clear of drugs, including psychoactive substances and illicit medication, has the potential to cut crime.

The House has the opportunity today to support provisions that would enable us to better identify and respond to new and emerging patterns of drug use in approved premises, which would help to reduce the number of drug-related deaths and, ultimately, support reductions in reoffending. I hope that the benefits I have laid out in some detail are clear and that the Bill will gain support from Members on both sides.