Violence Reduction, Policing and Criminal Justice

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

On the contrary. I know that my right hon. Friend rightly, on behalf of his constituents, wants to ensure that those who destroy lives and have a corrosive impact on communities are brought to book. That is why the provisions have been carefully constructed and calibrated to ensure that those who are unable or unwilling to abide by an order of the court can expect to hear the clang of the prison gate. Not only will the proverbial sword of Damocles be hanging over them, but for those who commit an offence when they are subject to a court order—be it a supervision order, a community order or a non-molestation order—the presumption no longer applies. We send a clear message to criminals: obey the order of the court or expect to go to prison.

Judges will retain their discretion to impose immediate custody when an offender poses a significant risk of physical or psychological harm to an individual—this is to the direct point made by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford—so that domestic abuse offences and other violent offences against women and girls can and will continue to be punished, with immediate custody protecting victims. Nothing changes, but for those whose sentence is suspended, the courts will be able to continue to use a range of requirements, including curfews, electronic tags, community payback and exclusion requirements. Those who do not comply or who commit further offences can be brought back to court and risk being sent to prison.

Alongside that, we want to ensure that we have the prison places to keep serious and dangerous offenders locked up for longer, while allowing lower risk offenders to benefit from community-based restrictions to assist with their resettlement, get back into work and start contributing to society where that can be safely managed. For that reason, we are extending home detention curfew to offenders serving sentences of over four years and keeping our tough restrictions that prevent serious violent, sexual and domestic abuse offenders from accessing this facility.

The Criminal Justice Bill includes measures that deliver on three strategic objectives: first, protecting the public from violence and intimidation; secondly, enabling law enforcement agencies to respond to changing technology deployed by criminals, including by equipping them with sufficient powers to address emerging types and threats; and thirdly, strengthening public confidence in policing. We will protect the public from violence and intimidation by strengthening the law on the taking of intimate images without consent and expanding the offence of encouraging or assisting self-harm.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. We used to have happy times on the Justice Committee together when we were little striplings. What he is saying sounds good, but my question is this. Last year, the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) and I amended the Public Order Act 2023 to stop intimidatory protests against women using abortion clinics. Although it was passed, that is the only section that has not been enacted. Ealing Council does not know whether to renew its temporary order, which is coming up again. If the law was passed and enacted, it should not have to. Can he tell Ealing Council and the whole country what to do when women every day face intimidation?

[Alex Chalk]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. We did indeed have a productive and non-partisan time on the Justice Committee. On the specific important point she raises, the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), will address that point in closing—but essentially, it will happen in due course.

We will protect the public from violence and intimidation by strengthening the law on the taking of intimate images, as I have indicated. We will increase the multi-agency management requirements on offenders convicted of coercive or controlling behaviour. As I say, that was not an offence in 2010. We are implementing a further recommendation in the domestic homicide sentencing review, giving judges the discretion at sentencing to add a statutory aggravating factor for a killing connected to the end of a relationship, many of which are committed where there has been a history of coercive or controlling behaviour. That man who says, “If I can’t have you, no one will” can expect a more serious penalty.

Finally, it is a further insult to families when perpetrators refuse to appear in the dock to face up to the consequences of their actions, so it is quite right that we will give judges the power to order offenders to court and punish those who refuse.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

After 13 years of Tory austerity, what a thin King’s Speech it was from a Government who are out of touch and out of ideas, and hopefully soon out of office. They promise change by wheeling out the Prime Minister who ran off after he accidentally bequeathed us Brexit. Then there is the ex-Home Secretary, who is so fixated by the next Tory leadership race that she forgot her function of keeping the streets safe. She made them less safe by stoking unrest and fear, and encouraging a right-wing mob on to our streets—kudos to Sir Mark Rowley and the Met for standing up to the meddling.

Crime and antisocial behaviour need neighbourhood policing, but this gimmicky Government still have not restored to 2010 levels the officers they cut. Hate crime should not be on our streets, but sadly, events far off have triggered Islamophobic and antisemitic events nationally and even locally in the past month. I was alarmed by reprehensible individuals hooting horns and provocatively waving flags in Acton on 7 October, the day of the worst atrocity in Israel’s history. Since then, we have shockingly also seen red paint daubed on two mosques, three times between them, and on a Syrian café. That is disgraceful.

With winter approaching, there should not be street homelessness and rough sleeping in one of the richest countries on earth in 2023. That is also disgraceful, as is the ex-Home Secretary calling it a “lifestyle choice”. Reclaiming the streets also means an end to the grisly roll-call: Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa and Zara Aleena, who were only walking home. However, my last example is from the streets of Gaza, which have dominated MPs’ inboxes and filled our TV screens with desperation, death and destruction. I have heard it at first hand from a man who came to see me, whose brother had lived in Ealing and trained as a surgeon at Guy’s before returning to Gaza with his expertise. He has not moved from Al-Shifa Hospital since the start of the war. That hospital is now a household name, surrounded by tanks and with no food, water or power.

Long before Hamas’s despicable slaughter on 7 October started this cycle of violence, the new Foreign Secretary called Gaza an open-air “prison camp” that is unsustainable. Those words are now truer than ever, so I back Labour’s amendment tonight demanding both the end of violence and a two-state solution, stressing the importance of international law, and condemning Hamas, illegal settlements and west bank violence. I have also put my name to amendment (b), which asks for some of the same stuff, including the release of hostages—who themselves are at risk from 20 hours a day of incessant bombardment—but also calls for the end of the siege of Gaza, condemns collective punishment, and urges the Government to press for a negotiated ceasefire that is binding on all sides, not a surrender. All wars end in ceasefire eventually. We cannot continue at the rate we are seeing, with lost lives and 50% of buildings in Gaza demolished; it is only a month in.

Even The Sun called this a “damp squib” of a King’s Speech, from a party for whom it truly feels like the end of days. To paraphrase the Spice Girls, what we want—what we really, really want—and what this country needs is a general election now. Bring it on!