Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Philp]

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

[Chris Philp]

[Sarah Champion]

[The Chair]

[Sarah Champion]

[Chris Philp]

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[Alex Cunningham]

[Sarah Champion]

I am frustrated that the Government agreed to my amendment to a previous Bill to introduce relationship and sex education that should have become mandatory in September 2020 but it has not yet been enacted, while we see ever younger children engaged in completely inappropriate actions of a sexual nature. There are preventive measures that we could put in place but we must also consider, and address accordingly, what it is that some children that I am thinking about, such as children in gangs, are being subjected to that makes them feel that they need to go along with the norm of the gang rather than the norm of society. I am not talking about giving any group special treatment; I am talking about taking steps to fix the justice system so that it operates in a fair and proportionate way for everybody.

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[Alex Cunningham]

[Sarah Champion]

The amendment seeks to achieve two changes to the Bill, both of which have the potential to improve significantly the capacity of our child welfare system to meet the needs of the most vulnerable children and to keep them safe. First, it seeks to reverse the exclusion of local authorities from running secure schools, which are defined in clause 138(4) of the Bill as secure children’s homes.

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[The Chair]

[Sarah Champion]

[The Chair]

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 15th June 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Philp]

I will follow your direction, Sir Charles, by saying just a few words on this clause, which is relatively straightforward and, I think, pretty inoffensive.

Clause 130 simply creates a requirement for probation officials to consult key local and regional stakeholders on the delivery of unpaid work. Unpaid work—or community payback, as it is sometimes known—combines the sentencing purposes of punishment with reparation to communities. We believe that, where possible, unpaid work requirements should benefit the local communities in which they are carried out. Nominated local projects are already popular with sentencers and the public, but there is currently no requirement for probation officials to consult stakeholders on the design or delivery of unpaid work, so members of communities and organisations within particular local areas that are best placed to understand the impact of crime and what might be useful in the local area do not necessarily have their say.

Clause 130 simply seeks to address the gap by ensuring that key local stakeholders are consulted, so that they can suggest to the probation service what kind of unpaid work might be useful in their local area. We hope that local community groups and stakeholders come up with some good ideas that the probation service can then respond to. That seems to be a pretty sensible idea. The probation service in some areas may do it already. This clause simply creates a proper duty, or a requirement, for the probation service to do it. Of course, if we understand the needs of local communities and their thoughts, we can improve the way unpaid work placements operate to support rehabilitation and also help the local community. If the local community can visibly see offenders doing unpaid work in their local area, whether it is cleaning off graffiti, cleaning the place up or whatever else it may be, that will, we hope, demonstrate that the programme is giving back to and improving the local community, but delivering a punitive element as well.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Philp]

I was about to conclude, but of course I will take the intervention.

[Sarah Champion]

When I used to run a children’s hospice, we had offenders under probation supervision come in. They were meant to be doing gardening at the children’s hospice, but instead they sat around smoking cigarettes. We kept on raising that with the probation worker, because we had invited the offenders there to give them a second chance, to help with their rehabilitation, to enable them to contribute to the community and so on. But the probation officer said, “What do you want me to do? I can’t beat them; I can’t make them work, but they have to come on these schemes.” Could the Minister give some examples of how the probation service will have the resources and the influence to ensure that people who are out in their local community are actually—

[The Chair]

Order. This is meant to be an intervention, not a speech. The hon. Lady is entitled to make a speech and could have made a speech, but can we treat this as an intervention?

[Sarah Champion]

I apologise, Sir Charles.

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. First, I am extremely disappointed and somewhat shocked to hear that people who were supposed to be doing work at a hospice in Rotherham in fact sat around smoking cigarettes. That is obviously shocking and not what the orders are supposed to be about. The hon. Lady says that the probation officer shrugged their shoulders and said, “Well, what can I do about it?” Of course, if the person, the offender, was not doing the work that they were supposed to be doing, that would amount to a breach of the unpaid work requirement, and they could be taken back to court to account for their breach, so I am extremely disappointed by the attitude of the probation officer that the hon. Lady just described.

The hon. Lady asked about resources. Extra resources are going into the probation service for it to supervise exactly these kinds of activities, and I would expect them to be supervised and policed properly. I will certainly pass on her concern to the relevant Minister. I have already made contact about fixing a meeting for the hon. Lady and the Prisons Minister that we talked about in this morning’s session, in relation to victims being consulted about probable decisions. The same Minister, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, is responsible for the probation service as well—I am just adding to his workload. I will raise it with him, but I would certainly urge the hon. Member for Rotherham to raise this issue in the same meeting, because I know that the account she just gave will concern my hon. Friend as much as it concerns me.

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[Alex Cunningham]

I thank the Minister very much for that—it will, of course, be on the record, which I am very pleased to note. Before I get into my speech, I would like to thank Transform Justice and the Alliance for Youth Justice for the extremely helpful work they have done on this part of the Bill. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), the former shadow Justice Minister, who worked extremely hard on these particular issues. I am grateful to him.

Clause 131 amends the legislative threshold for remanding a child to custody. It will mean that remand to youth detention accommodation can be imposed only in the most serious cases, where a custodial sentence is the only option and the risk posed by the child cannot be safely managed within the community. It will introduce a statutory duty which states that courts must consider the interests and welfare of the child before deciding whether to remand them to youth detention. It also imposes a statutory requirement for the courts to record the reasons for the decision.

First, let me say that we are pleased with the direction of travel that this clause indicates, and we are keen for the Government’s work in this area to succeed. We are in complete agreement with the Government that custodial remand should be used only as a last resort for children. However, we do think that there is scope for these proposals to go further in tightening the threshold for remanding a child into custody. I will speak more on that when we discuss our amendments.

The current youth remand provisions were introduced in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 and I well remember the Public Bill Committee, where I had the privilege of serving as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Sadiq Khan, now our excellent Mayor of London, and also my good friend. By 2019, the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse noted a significant increase in the use of custodial remand for children. The Opposition warmly welcomes measures which aim to reduce the number of children remanded into custody, especially in light of the fact that in 2018/19 only a third of children remanded to custody or local authority accommodation later received a custodial sentence.

Our concerns about the use of custodial remands for children are compounded by the extreme racial disproportionality on remand, and the record proportion of children in custody who have not yet been tried in court.

Against the backdrop of the record court backlog and the waiting times for trial, there could not be a more opportune moment to address these issues. We particularly welcome the introduction of the statutory duty to consider the welfare and best interests of the child. We believe that, while these proposals can go further—I know that the Minister will listen carefully to our proposals shortly—these changes will help to reduce the number of children who are unnecessarily remanded to custody, so we are pleased to support them.



However, there are a couple of points on which I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts. Has he any further information to share with the Committee on his Department’s considerations of the impact that police remand has on custodial remand? Are there any plans to address that? Research by Transform Justice shows that police remand, where the child is detained by the police until court either in a police cell or in a local authority PACE bed—under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984—is a driver of custodial remand. Transform Justice explains that point:

“This is because any child remanded by the police has to be presented in court within 24 hours, meaning Youth Offending Team staff often don’t have enough time to develop a bail package that will satisfy the court. Children who appear from police custody also usually appear in the secure dock, which can bias courts to view the child as more ‘dangerous’ and therefore more suitable for custodial remand.”

The criteria for police remand are spelled out in section 38 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act and are very different from those used by the court for remand. In fact, the criteria for police remand of children are almost identical to those for adults, unlike the child-first approach taken in so many other areas of the justice system.

We know that the police remand more children than the courts. Of the 4,500 children who appeared in court from police custody in 2019, only 12% went on to be remanded by the court. Some 31% of those remanded by the police went on to be discharged, dismissed or have their case withdrawn, while 37% went on to get a fine or community sentence. The figures illustrate that police use of remand is seriously out of synch with the courts already. This clause may further widen that gap.

Is the Minister not concerned that the police may continue to overuse post-charge detention, undermining the positive efforts of the clause to reduce unnecessary custodial remand for children? Will the Government consider updating the police remand criteria, so they are in line with the new court remand criteria, to ensure consistent decision making across the whole criminal justice system?

I am greatly supportive of the provision in the clause that requires courts to record their reasons for remanding a child, not least because it will provide valuable data on the use of remand, which will enable us to continue to make improvements in this area. For that to be most effective in informing future policy decisions, we would need to have some sort of centralised monitoring system. Will we have such a system? It would mean that the need to record reasons would not only focus the mind of the court in a specific case; it would also benefit the system as a whole, as each case can inform our ongoing learning process about the use of remand and its effectiveness. Has the Minister considered the possibility of such a centralised monitoring system?

It has been suggested that the obligation on the court to record reasons would be most effective if courts had to specify why non-custodial alternatives were deemed unsuitable and how each of the custodial remand conditions has been met. Is that the kind of detail that the Minister envisages the obligation should entail? I am sure we all agree that it would be helpful for that level of information to be provided, so I am interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts.

Turning to the amendments, as I said earlier, the reforms to the threshold for remanding a child in custody are welcome, but there are a couple of areas where we believe they should go further. The Opposition amendments, if adopted, would get us closer to the goal of custodial remand being used only as a truly last resort.

Amendment 128 seeks to tighten the history test by defining a recent history of breaching bail or offending while on bail as having been committed within the last six weeks. The clause currently makes provision to amend the history condition so that the previous instances of breach or offending while on bail must be “significant”, “relevant” and “recent”. In order to reduce the number of children held unnecessarily on remand, it would be helpful to amend the clause so that there is a clear definition of “recent”.

In defining recent, we have to be mindful of what that means to a child. As the Alliance for Youth Justice notes:

“If we are to take a child-centred approach, we must consider how children experience time, and recognise the well-established principle that children change and develop in a shorter time than adults.”

The Youth Justice Board for England and Wales has recommended that “recent” be no longer than within a six-week period. I hope that the Minister will agree that clarity on that point would be of great assistance to the courts. I would be interested to hear from him what discussions his Ministry of Justice colleagues have had regarding defining a time limit for this condition.

Amendment 129 is a straightforward amendment to the necessity condition that would again help achieve the aim of using custodial remand for children only as a last resort. Although we welcome the strengthened wording of the necessity condition included in the Bill, which would require remand to be used only when the risk posed by a child cannot be safely managed in the community, we share the concerns of the sector that the benefits arising from this change may be undermined by its drafting. The amendment would therefore tighten and strengthen the wording. Transform Justice says that these benefits of the current proposed change to the necessity condition

“will be undermined by the loose wording of one of the other necessity conditions: that remand to YDA is necessary to prevent further imprisonable offences. This condition is highly subjective and casts a wide net, which may be widened further by youth sentencing provisions elsewhere in the bill.”

We share the concern expressed by the Alliance for Youth Justice that

“the latter part of the condition (to prevent the commission of an imprisonable offence) sets such a low threshold for meeting the Condition as to render the first threshold (to protect the public from death or serious personal injury) somewhat redundant.”

The amendment would tighten the latter part of the condition by ensuring that it applies only to serious imprisonable offences, which we think better reflects the intention of the clause.

Finally, amendment 130 would compel the court to record the age, gender and ethnicity of a child remanded in custody in order to provide better data on remand, particularly on disproportionality. We believe that this could be a helpful tool in addressing the deeply concerning and increasing levels of disproportionality at this point in our justice system. The numbers beggar belief. Nine out of 10 London children who are remanded are from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. A deeply comprehensive report that was published by the Youth Justice Board in January shows that race alone is a factor in remand outcomes for children. The researchers gathered data on thousands of English and Welsh cases, and information provided in practitioner assessments. Even when other related factors were controlled for mixed ethnicity black children, they were, as the Youth Justice Board notes,

“still more likely to be remanded in custody and, if not remanded, more likely to be subject to restrictions on bail.”

This is a serious injustice in our system that needs to be urgently addressed. More needs to be done than this amendment makes provision for, but it would be a helpful tool in breaking down the disproportionate outcomes that we are seeing. The amendment would at the very least provide accurate data to help understand this disparity, in line with the “explain or reform” principle outlined in the Lammy review, which I think is an eminently sensible step in the right direction. I hope that the Minister agrees and look forward to hearing his thoughts. I would also be grateful if he could share with the Committee any other initiatives his Department is working on to address this flagrant disproportionality in youth remand.

[Sarah Champion]

I fully support the arguments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North on the amendments. I have a fundamental concern about remanding children. It impacts on them disproportionately in terms of their future outlook, opportunities and potential. We see within the remand youth justice system some of the highest levels of disproportionality in the criminal justice system. Although Labour Members welcome the measures in the Bill to tighten the tests that the courts must satisfy to decide whether to remand a child in custody, we still have concerns about this section of the Bill.

We agree with the policy to encourage the courts to impose a custodial remand only when absolutely necessary while ensuring the public remain safe, but as my hon. Friend stated, there are real concerns about the overrepresentation of black, Asian and minority ethnic people, who make up only 12% of the UK population but half the youth prison population. I would be much more comfortable if we were using the Bill to look at the reasons for that disproportionate make-up, rather than at further punitive measures. We have to take steps to ensure that all people, particularly all children, can reach their potential. I am very mindful of the fact that the literacy rate of the prison population is so much lower than that of the rest of the population. Why are we not investing more to address those underlying issues?

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[Alex Cunningham]

Secure children’s homes accommodate boys and girls aged 10 to 17 assessed as particularly vulnerable. As well as children held on justice grounds, secure children’s homes accommodate children detained on welfare grounds for their protection or the protection of others. The explanatory notes state that they

“currently rely on inherent powers to make arrangements for the ‘mobility’ of children detained in such accommodation to help address their offending behaviour and to support the integration of children back into the community at the end of their sentence. Clause 137 would provide a statutory power for the temporary release of children detained in SCHs. The Secretary of State or the registered manager of the home would be able to temporarily release a child to whom the clause applies. Temporary release under this clause could be granted under conditions. The Secretary of State and registered managers would have concurrent powers to recall children temporarily released…If the period for which the child is temporarily released expires or if the child has been recalled, the child would be deemed to be unlawfully at large.”

Overall, we are supportive of the Government’s proposals in this area and recognise that a good balance has to be struck between allowing temporary release of children from secure children’s homes to support their reintegration into society, and close monitoring of children on temporary release for risk management purposes.

The Opposition understand that temporary release is an important part of the rehabilitation process for children sentenced to custody, and that some child sentence plan objectives will require them to attend meetings or participate in activities outside the secure establishment. As the Youth Justice Board notes in its briefing,

“Allowing children to be released temporarily supports their constructive resettlement into their community both in maintaining family ties and allowing children to start or maintain education placements.”

While the clause is effectively just putting into statute practice that is already in place, we are pleased to see the Government conferring authority for these decisions and processes to the secure school provider, as they will be best placed to support the child in question.

Research published by the Department for Education comparing children on justice placements and those on welfare placements in secure children’s homes concluded that children on justice and welfare placements are fundamentally the same children. The research found that the level of risk posed by individual children was not related to whether they were on a justice or welfare pathway. The report examined whether there was a need to separate children on justice and welfare placements, but concluded that, rather than separating them, if anything the children would benefit from greater integration. While secure children’s homes managers already have powers under section 25 of the Children Act 1989 to consider and approve temporary release for children on welfare placements, we are pleased that the new provisions will put those managers in the same position for sentenced children on justice placements.

We note the concerns of the Howard League, however, that the clause applies only to children who have been sentenced and therefore excludes children who are held in secure children’s homes on remand from being able to access temporary release. The Howard League points out that this change will therefore create a disparity between children who are in secure children’s homes and children who are in secure training centres. Rule 5 of the Secure Training Centre Rules allows children who are on remand to be temporarily released. It explains that unless temporary release also applies to children on remand in secure children’s homes and schools,

“there is a risk that this will undermine the ‘seamless service’ between custody and the community which the Government envisions for secure schools”

We agree with the Howard League that all children remanded to custody should have access to temporary release where appropriate, as they do in secure training centres.

The Bill’s fact sheet on this provision says temporary release is “not a relevant factor” for children on remand. I find this surprising given that we know that, as a result of court delays, children are sometimes subject to quite lengthy custodial remands. The Alliance for Youth Justice further points out:

“introducing new legislation which restricts temporary release in Secure Children’s Homes to sentenced children would be detrimental, particularly to the development of Secure Schools, which we know have ambitious plans for transitions into the community.”

I would be interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on this and wonder why this distinction has been maintained. Will he consider including children on remand in these provisions? It would be helpful to be reassured on that point, but on the whole we are pleased with the proposal and will offer it our support.

As we have heard, clause 138 would amend the Academies Act 2010 so that 16-to-19 academies can provide secure accommodation for the purpose of restricting liberty but only if approved to do so by the Secretary of State. On the whole, the Opposition support the principle of secure academies and we do not strongly object to these academies being run by charitable entities. But, as ever, there are some areas in which I seek the Minister’s reassurances, especially with this clause, as comprehensive information is not available from the Government.

The Alliance for Youth Justice briefing on this clause says:

“We are aware of concerns that have been prompted by this section of the Bill around the lack of clarity on the status of Secure Schools, in particular what legislation, regulation and guidance will govern and oversee their activities. It has been confirmed to the AYJ by the Youth Custody Service and Oasis Charitable Trust, that Oasis Restore, the first Secure School pilot, will be registered as a Secure Children’s Home and regulated by Ofsted. It has also been confirmed that 12-to-18-year-olds may be placed in Oasis Restore.”

There is clear discomfort in the sector about the limited information available on the plans for Oasis Restore and how the model will operate in practice. Can the Minister confirm that his Department will publish more information on this? Can he provide a timeframe for publication?

Another issue raised by the sector is that it is unclear how the introduction of secure schools fits into the long-term strategy for the youth secure estate. I understand that it is the Government’s stated intention for secure schools to replace young offender institutions and secure training centres, but we have not yet seen any proposed timeline for such changes. Can the Minister provide more information on his Department’s intended timeline for the changeover to secure schools for the Committee today?

The first secure school is being established in Medway, but I understand that children from across the UK can be sent there. Hazel Williamson put it very well in our evidence session when she said:

“As an association of YOT managers, we believe that children in custody…should be placed in small, secure units close to their homes. We do not advocate large custodial establishments where children are placed far away from their home; we would advocate small custodial units.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 20 May 2021; c. 133, Q212.]

Can the Minister confirm that the Government’s timetable for delivering secure schools will not entail children being detained hundreds of miles from their homes while still only a small number of these establishments are available?

The Youth Justice Board has shared its concerns about the links to children entering the youth justice system from practices such as off-rolling children. Indeed, there is a high prevalence of expelled children in the children’s secure estate. For instance, in 2018 in HMYOI Feltham, 89% of children had been excluded from school.

Can the Minister confirm that any academy trusts selected through the tendering process to open or run a secure school have got, as the Youth Justice Board put it

“the necessary skills, expertise, structures and ethos to support children in a secure setting”?

I know that the Howard League wrote to the Secretary of State on this issue last year, and its briefing says:

“This clause provides a legal basis for the ‘secure school’ model of youth custody: it allows academies to provide secure accommodation for their pupils if they have been approved to do so and establishes that running a secure academy is to be treated as fulfilling the charitable purpose of ‘advancement of education’ under s3(1) of the Charities Act 2011. In April 2020, the Charity Commission noted that ‘the proposed purposes of secure schools, as we understand them, do not wholly fall within the descriptions of purpose in s3(1) of the Charities Act 2011’ and that ‘we do not think the operation of a secure school can be exclusively charitable’. In November 2020, the Howard League wrote to the Secretary of State outlining the concerns that locking children up does not fall within charitable objectives. The proposal compounds this issue.”

It would be helpful if the Minister could share with the Committee his discussions with the Charity Commission, so that we all better understand the position that has been reached on this knotty issue.

Amendments 123 and 133 both relate to the inspection regime for secure 16-to-19 academies. Amendment 123 would make secure 16-to-19 academies subject to annual inspection by Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons, and amendment 133 would make them subject to annual inspection by Ofsted. I understand that the current inspection framework will come from Ofsted. However, I am sure the Government would agree that a secure school is a very different entity from a standard school. We therefore believe that such schools would benefit from a different inspection regime, to ensure that no aspects of their running are overlooked. Although it is true that it is not a prison, a secure school is still part of the secure estate, so there is expertise that Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons can provide. Indeed, when Ofsted does inspections on the secure estate, HMIP is part of the broader inspection team. We think the inclusion of HMIP is important and should be put on a statutory footing. I hope the Government agree that it would add value to the monitoring and running of the secure school system as it is rolled out, so I hope they will be able to support our amendment 123.

As I outlined in my earlier speech, there is still much that is unknown and has yet to be decided in relation to secure schools. For that reason, we think it would be important for there to be regular inspections, especially in the early years of operation. That is why our amendment 133 provides for annual inspection by Ofsted, to ensure that nothing slips through the cracks. Furthermore, we are entrusting such schools with the care of some of our most vulnerable children at a point in their lives when positive and engaged care can have the most impact, so it is only right that the schools are subject to the most rigorous monitoring while they do so. I hope that the Government agree and can support amendment 133.

Amendment 146, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, allows for local authorities to establish and maintain a secure 16-to-19 academy, and to exclude profit-making bodies from doing likewise. I am sure she will address her amendment in detail, but she has our support.

[Sarah Champion]

My amendment 146 is designed to ensure that local authorities are able to run secure 16-to-19 academies, either alone or in consortia, and to prevent such establishments from being run for profit. I will go into the detail of why, but, fundamentally, I do not think profit should be made from keeping our children safe. We are seeing some pretty gross examples of that at the moment.

In December 2016, the Government committed to phase out child prisons—by that, I mean juvenile young offenders institutions and secure training centres—and to replace them with a network of secure schools and children’s homes. I hope that this is not just the Government playing semantics and that they really are going to get rid of these institutions, because it is very clear, and the Youth Justice Board concedes, that secure training centres are not fit for purpose.

The Government must speed up the phasing out of secure training centres. When introducing secure schools and academies, they must ensure that they will meet high standards of care. We must ensure that secure children’s homes take an approach that fulfils all of a child’s needs and that they are not seen as cash cows for the private firms who run them to make huge profits.

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[Sarah Champion]

I do not wish to divide the Committee. I am content with what the Minister said about profit, but I would be grateful if he could write to me about why local authorities cannot apply.

[The Chair]

Minister, are you willing to do that?

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 15th June 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Building an extra 10,000 prison cells is very costly. Does the Minister agree that investing more in rehabilitation and preventive programmes might be a better use of the money?

[Chris Philp]

Of course, we do believe in rehabilitation and prevention, and a lot of work is going on in that area, but we are talking about people who have been convicted of offences such as rape and murder. On Second Reading, Members made the point about making sure that particularly sexual offenders, including rapists, spend longer in prison. There were different views on how that could be achieved, but there seemed to be broad unanimity across the House that such offenders should spend longer in prison, and the clause does exactly that. However, it in no way detracts from the importance of prevention and rehabilitation that the hon. Lady mentioned a second ago.

I should say that caught in this clause are not just sexual offenders who commit offences, including rape, with a life sentence, but also the most serious violent offenders, which includes those who commit manslaughter, attempted murder, soliciting murder, and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, so I think our constituents up and down the country will welcome the fact that these serious offenders will spend two thirds of their sentence in prison and not just a half.

Provision is also made in this clause for the two-thirds release requirement to apply to those under the age of 18 who were given a youth standard determinate sentence of seven years or more for a sexual offence with a maximum penalty of life, and for the other very serious violent offences just referred to. The changes are made by inserting new section 244ZA into the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to make the necessary provisions. The measures will ensure that the proportion of the sentence reflects the gravity of the offence committed, and are intended to address long-held concerns, both in Parliament and among the public, about the automatic halfway release for serious offenders.

The two-thirds point also aligns with the release point for offenders found to be dangerous and therefore serving an extended determinate sentence, whose eligibility for release by the Parole Board commences from the two-thirds point, so it introduces consistency and coherence into the sentencing regime as well. On that basis, I commend this very important clause to the Committee.

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[Chris Philp]

Let us move on to clause 108, which relates to a new power for the Secretary of State to prevent the automatic release of offenders serving a standard determinate sentence, where release is ordinarily automatic, and instead refer them to the Parole Board in certain, very limited circumstances.

With a standard determinate sentence at the moment, there is automatic release at either the halfway point or, for more serious offences, at the two-thirds point, as per clauses 105 and 106. Clause 108 creates a new power to allow the Secretary of State to refer a prisoner who is in custody and assessed as dangerous to the Parole Board, to decide whether or not they are safe to release. Prisoners who are serving a standard determinate sentence, for any offence, who have become dangerous or who are identified as being dangerous while they are in prison get this referral.

To be clear, we are not creating a new kind of indeterminate sentence like the old imprisonment for public protection sentences, created in 2003, in which the sentence could carry on forever if someone were considered to be dangerous. The maximum sentence originally passed by the court on conviction and sentencing still applies.

We are not overriding the sentence of the court, but we are saying that if an offender is identified as dangerous they may continue to serve their determinate sentence until its end, unless and until the Parole Board, after the release point, decides that they are safe to release. It means that if someone becomes dangerous, they do not automatically get released early.

[Sarah Champion]

The Minister will see from an upcoming amendment that I am interested in this clause. Can he give some clarification? Will he define “dangerous”? I assume that is within the prison context, as opposed to the crime being served for.

Will the Minister give some details on when and why the Secretary of State might intervene? At the moment, depending on the Parole Board’s decision, the Secretary of State already has 21 days to intervene. Will he explain what the clause will bring to the table?

[Chris Philp]

I am happy to answer all those questions, which are good questions. The 21-days provision that allows the Parole Board to think again has nothing to do with this; it is completely separate. It is a live issue in the terrible Pitchfork case, which Members will be aware of.

The provision in which the Parole Board takes a decision to release and the Secretary of State may ask it to think again, within 21 days, applies to any Parole Board release and is a matter currently being considered. That is wholly separate from this provision. It relates to any Parole Board release decision and was prompted by the awful Worboys case two or three years ago.

Here we are talking about where a prisoner is serving a standard determinate sentence and would ordinarily be released automatically without any Parole Board involvement at all, and the Secretary of State says, “Well, I think actually they are now dangerous”—I will come on to what that means in a minute—“and instead of automatic release, can the Parole Board look at the case and decide whether they are suitable for release, once their release point is passed?” That is different from the 21-days reconsideration.

The hon. Member for Rotherham asked for the definition of becoming dangerous and whether it means dangerous in a prison context. The answer is no. It does not mean dangerous in a prison context; it means dangerous to the public. One might ask what “dangerous to the public” means. The definition of “dangerous” in this context has a high threshold—we anticipate this provision will be used extremely rarely; it is not going to be a commonly used provision. It is that an offender is at “significant risk” of causing “serious harm” to the public by committing murder or one of the serious offences listed in schedule 18 of the Sentencing Act 2020, such as manslaughter, rape or terrorist offences, and that the risk cannot be sufficiently managed through the use of licence conditions.

If a referral is made, the Parole Board will consider it. It may say, “We will release them anyway” or, “We think there is a danger; we are going to keep them inside.” It can only keep them inside prison until the end of the original sentence that the court handed down.

I will give an example not caught by our new provisions. To take the example the shadow Minister used, let us say there is a six-year sentence for kidnapping. Currently, there would ordinarily be automatic release after three years. If for some reason there is evidence that the person who has been committed for kidnap might commit a terrorist offence or might kill someone, the Secretary of State can refer and the Parole Board will then consider, “Are they dangerous? Can we release them?” If it decides to keep them in prison, they can be kept in prison up to the six years of the original sentence, but no later. During the final three-year period in my example, the Parole Board will look at the case periodically.

If, after reference to the Parole Board, the prisoner thinks there has been an unreasonable delay—“I should have been released after three years, but it is now three years and six months and no one has looked at it; this is unreasonable”—they can refer the matter to the High Court to get it sorted out. There is a safety mechanism so that there cannot be an unreasonable delay.

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The Opposition, as will be clear to the Minister now, have real concerns that clause 108 would put the public at increased risk, which is simply unacceptable. For that reason, we cannot support it.

[Sarah Champion]

It was not my intention to make a speech on this clause, but more questions are being raised than answered, and I hope that the Minister will be able to answer a few of them.

I share the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North, and there are many questions, but I have always had a problem with the idea of someone being given a sentence and serving only a third or two thirds of it. I would much rather that it were clear that a sentence was for this amount of time in prison and that amount of time under licence in the community, because I think that would give clarity. My concern about the clause is that it almost creates a hierarchy of sentencing, which I find confusing.

I know well only the behaviour of sexual offenders, and I am yet to find any form of rehabilitation or punishment that effectively changes their behaviour, so I could argue persuasively here that they will always be a danger and that there is always a potential risk. I also believe, however, that we need a justice system that is fair and transparent so that we can follow it, and I am not sure that the clause would allow us to do that. I am concerned that if someone is released at the end of their sentence after serving a full term, the probation, rehabilitation and limits that a licence would put around them might not be there, meaning that their transition into the community is abrupt and does not have the level of support that is needed to curb some people’s behaviour.

I am concerned that the Minister did not once mention whether victims would be consulted. My amendment 145 deals with that. Who could be better than victims and survivors to say whether a person is a danger and to influence the decision of the Lord Chancellor? I am also concerned that there may be subjectivity in decisions made by this Lord Chancellor and future Lord Chancellors—that cannot be allowed to happen. I really hope that the Minister will give some reassurances on the points that I have raised, because at the moment the clause would not be a successful one.

[Hywel Williams]

I want to raise one particular point. Is the Minister aware of the Welsh Government’s recently published race equality action plan, which states its commitment to developing a race equality delivery plan that will address the over-representation of black, Asian and minority ethnic people in the criminal justice system? Indeed, in Wales, more black and minority ethnic people are in prison than elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Does he share my concern that this and other clauses might militate against the policy of the Senedd in Cardiff, a legislative public body that has been democratically elected?

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[The Chair]

Before we move on, I remind the Committee that it was notified to the Chair that the Whips wish to get to clause 138 by close of play today. We are moving at glacial pace. I know these are important matters but, if we continue to move at that pace, the Whips may want to recalibrate their lofty ambitions over lunch.

Clause 109

Power to make provision for reconsideration and setting aside of Parole Board decisions

[Sarah Champion]

I beg to move amendment 145, in clause 109, page 98, line 41, at beginning insert—

‘(1) In subsection (3) of section 239 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (the Parole Board), after 3(b) insert—

“(c) the views of the victim or victims of the crime to which the case relates””

This amendment would amend the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to ensure victims/survivors are consulted in parole decisions which will affect them.

I have tabled the amendment because two survivors have raised this as an issue with me this year. I have briefly spoken to the Minister because I am not sure that the amendment will achieve the job I hope it will. By raising it, I hope the Minister will work with me to come up with a solution, because we have a real problem here.

The amendment aims to amend the Criminal Justice Act 2003, to ensure that victims and survivors are consulted on parole decisions that affect them. Currently, victims of crime, such as child abuse, can submit a victim impact statement before it is decided whether the abuser will receive parole. Victims should be informed when their abuser is released from prison or is on parole. However, too often that process is not carried out and victims are unaware that their abuser has been released from prison, or has been moved to a different category of prison.

The all-party parliamentary group for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse found in its survey that as many as 75% of victims are not informed about their perpetrator being released on parole. One survivor who contributed to the report said:

“I found out my abuser was living nearby. In a town I visited regularly with my children for their sports club. And nobody bothered to inform me. I found this completely unacceptable.”

The shock and fear of finding out unexpectedly can be incredibly distressing for victims. Another survivor said:

“I was petrified because they gave him my name and all he’s got to do is look on the electoral roll and he could find me.”

Including victims and survivors in the parole decision-making process would let them understand how and why decisions are made. In discussion of the previous clause, the Minister presented an argument around the word “dangerous” and what makes an offender dangerous. Who better to feed in that information to the Parole Board’s decisions or the Lord Chancellor’s decisions than the victims and survivors themselves? Furthermore, allowing survivors to contribute to the process would ensure their voice is heard and the terror they have experienced in the past will not be relived—if they are listened to.

My amendment would ensure the Parole Board must consult with the victim during any decisions that would give recommendations resulting in parole for the offender. It would amend the Criminal Justice Act 2003, so the Parole Board must take account of the views of the person to whom the case is related. If it becomes a legal necessity for the Parole Board to consult with the victim, the potential for them to not be informed would not be an issue.

In 2019, the Government pledged to allow victims into parole hearings and, in 2020, they also consulted on making some parole hearings open to victims. Both of those followed the Worboys case, which exposed the failures of the parole process. At the time, the Government said they wanted to increase survivors’ ability to challenge release decisions if they felt the decision was flawed. That would save time and resources by consulting with the victim before the decision is made. The current system is not working for victims. We need a justice system that puts victims at the heart of its decisions.

This is not me just making a speech. As I said earlier, this is because I have two cases at the moment where the parole process has completely failed. Both relate to Rotherham survivors of past historic child sexual exploitation, and the first case is a survivor who I will call Elizabeth. The perpetrator was sentenced to nine years for two counts of rape of a girl under 16 in 2018. They were transferred after two and a half years to a category D prison, which we would view as an open prison. They were also told they could have day release but for covid-19.

The victim had signed up to the victim contact scheme, which should have ensured she was notified and provided with information about key stages in the offender’s sentence, including for those cases where release falls to the Parole Board. She should have been consulted on the timing of the Parole Board’s review and whether the offender was released or moved to open conditions. All of that should have been relayed to her. The victim should have been notified that the transfer to open conditions was being considered, and then she should have been told of the outcome. At the moment, victims have only a right of notification, and notification took place, in this case, after the decision was made.

I raised the issue with the Minister, who responded, explaining the legal position that, in accordance with legislation at the time, the offender is required to serve half of the sentence in custody, with the remaining period served in the community on licence and subject to supervision by the National Probation Service. During the custodial period, offenders must be held in the lowest security conditions necessary to manage the safety of their identified risk of escape or absconding, the risk of harm to the public and the risk of any serious disorder. Those are the considerations, not the impact on the victims.

The errors in the case, as identified by the Minister, were that the prison is responsible for managing a case. The prison offender manager should have contacted the victim liaison officer directly to let them know that the move to open conditions was under consideration, but they failed to do so. The senior manager has spoken to the staff at the prison, and a reminder has been sent to all of the staff reminding them to follow the correct procedure. The requirement has been raised with the National Probation Service regional implementation managers to take forward and ensure other prisons follow the correct process.

I will quote from the letter from the Solicitor General dated 21 October 2020.

“The reason for informing victims before the decision is taken, is to ensure that victims are kept updated with developments, so that a move to open conditions does not come as a total shock, and also to ensure the prison is aware of any exclusion zones which the victim has requested. This can help to inform which open prison an offender is moved to. I should like to underline that the Government shares the concerns about offenders who commit very serious crimes, and yet are released automatically at the halfway point in their sentence. We have taken action to address this through legislation we introduced earlier this year. We are committed to ensure that serious offenders spend the time in prison that reflects the gravity of their crimes and intend to bring forward proposals to further strengthen the law in this area”—

the Bill that we are all serving on.

So we got an apology, commitments and managers and staff spoken to. It was never going to happen again, and then, lo and behold, two months later, I got a near identical case—case B. The perpetrator was sentenced to nine years on three counts of sexual activity with a child in 2018. The offender was transferred to a category D prison in February 2021—again, two and a half years after the sentence—but the victim was not notified until April, three months after the offender was moved to a category D prison. Again, the victim was signed up to the victim contact scheme, but was not notified until after the transfer had taken place.

Again, I contacted the Minister, and in January 2021 the prison offender manager told the victim liaison officer that the offender had been assessed as suitable for open conditions in October and that an open prison had confirmed they would accept the offender, but the date of transfer had not been finalised. The POM should then have informed the victim liaison officer when the open conditions were considered, not just about the decision. Once the victim liaison officer was notified, the victim should have been notified, but that did not happen. The victim liaison officer asked to be notified when the transfer had taken place, but the prison, whose responsibility this was, failed to inform her. The victim liaison officer became aware themselves only in April when the community offender manager made inquiries about the conditions that the victim would wish to request for temporary release of the prisoner who raped her three times when she was a child.

Something is going horribly wrong. We have a system in which, twice in six months, victims of the most serious crime have been let down by the state. The system that the Minister currently has in place is not working, so how can we make sure that this does not keep on happening again and again? I am one MP and I have had two cases in the past six months, so it concerns me that this is happening all over the country, but survivors would not think to go to their MP to get it raised. The transfer of offenders guilty of serious offences to open conditions after just a quarter of their sentence is deeply wrong. The thought of an offender being back in the community is deeply traumatising for victims who have already been through both the crime and also the ordeal of a trial only comparatively recently. Notification is vital, as should be consultation. However, consultation is not offered and the system for notification is clearly dysfunctional.

As I said to the Minister, I am not sure that my amendment is the correct amendment, but I really need some reassurances to make sure that victims are both notified and consulted. To refer back to the previous clause, how are we meant to know whether an offender is dangerous and a risk unless we actually hear from the people who have been subjected to the horror that that person can wreak?

[Alex Cunningham]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham on tabling amendment 145, which has been crafted with her characteristic care and has won support from colleagues across the House. Contrary to what she might think, I think it is the right amendment. The Opposition fully support the principle behind amendment 145 that victims and survivors deserve to be at the heart of criminal justice and, in this case, to be consulted on decisions made by the Parole Board that affect them. The amendment is a simple one, and I will not detain the Committee by repeating the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham on the technical aspects of how it would work

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I will take that as a check on the reins. I have nothing further to say on amendment 145, Sir Charles.

[Sarah Champion]

I am grateful for the Minister’s comments. I have worked extensively with the Government’s victims team and it is fantastic. The victims code is great, but only if it is implemented. The problem we find is that people are not notified when the offender is coming up for parole consideration, so their rights are not activated because they do not know that that situation is occurring.

I accept his generous offer of meeting the hon. Member for Cheltenham, which I will take up. With that reassurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Chris Philp]

I beg to move amendment 132, in clause 109, page 99, line 11, leave out

“resulted from a clear mistake”

and insert

“it would not have given or made but for an error”.

This amendment ensures that the language used in the new provision about when the Parole Board can set aside decisions aligns with a recent High Court judgment which ruled on the circumstances when a Parole Board decision can be revisited and makes a drafting clarification.

I am sorry to have spoiled the anticipation by jumping early. May I speak to clause 109 as well?

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Tenth sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Victoria Atkins]

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

[Victoria Atkins]

[Victoria Atkins]

[Sarah Champion]

[Victoria Atkins]

[Sarah Champion]

[Victoria Atkins]

[Victoria Atkins]

[Sarah Champion]

[Victoria Atkins]

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Tenth sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th June 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so. This is about ensuring that the rights that we have spoken about so far are protected, and that the integral balance of the social contract is maintained. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right.

The police already have the power to impose any necessary conditions on marches. If it is acceptable for the police to impose any such conditions on processions, as they have been able to do since the 1930s, it is difficult to see the basis for the Opposition’s objection to affording equivalent powers to impose conditions on an assembly when it presents an equivalent public order risk.

In his evidence, Chief Constable Harrington said words to this effect—my apologies to Hansard: “We asked for consistency between processions and assembly, which this Bill does.” The police will impose those conditions only where they are necessary and proportionate, complying with their obligations under the Human Rights Act 1998. In fairness, Chief Constable Harrington set out the care and training that the police receive to ensure that they can carry out their obligations carefully.

Clause 56 closes the loophole in the offence of failing to comply with a condition attached to a procession or assembly. When the police impose conditions on a protest to prevent serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community, they ensure that protesters are made aware of those conditions through various means. Those can include communicating with protesters via loudspeakers or handing out written leaflets.

Some protesters take active measures, such as covering their ears and tearing up leaflets without reading them, to ensure that they are not aware—or to complain that they were not aware—of the conditions being placed. Should they go on to breach the conditions, they will avoid conviction as, under current law, an offence is committed only if a protester knowingly fails to comply with the condition.

Clause 56 will change the threshold for the offence to include where a protester ought to have known of the conditions imposed, closing the loophole in the current law. That is a commonly used fault element in criminal law—indeed, I note that the hon. Members for Stockton North and for Rotherham use it in new clause 23, which provides for a new street harassment offence. The police will continue to ensure that protesters are made aware of the conditions, as they currently do. The onus on the prosecution would change from having to show that an individual was fully aware of conditions, to showing that the police took all reasonable steps to notify them. As I said earlier, the standards and burdens of proof apply, as they do in any other criminal case: it is for the Crown to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.

This particular proposal was examined by the policing inspectorate and it is again worth quoting from its report in March. It said:

“Our view is that the fault element in sections 12(4) and (5) and sections 14(4) and (5) of the Public Order Act 1986 is currently set too high. The loophole in the current law could be closed with a slight shift in the legal test that is applied to whether protesters should have known about the conditions imposed on them. On balance, we see no good reason not to close this loophole.”

The clause will also increase the maximum penalties for offences under sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act 1986.

Due to the increasingly disruptive tactics used by protesters, existing sentences are no longer proportionate to the harm that can be caused. Organisers of public processions and assemblies who go on to breach conditions placed by the police, as well as individuals who incite others to breach conditions, will see maximum custodial sentences increase from three to six months. Others who breach conditions will see maximum penalties increase from level 3 to level 4 on the standard scale, which are respectively set at £1,000 and £2,500.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Can the Minister give an example of an occasion when the current sentence has not been proportionate, in her opinion? Is she looking at custodial sentences and considering the impact they would have on the courts and on the Prison Service?

[Victoria Atkins]

The custodial aspect has been increased from three months to six months in relation to organisers of public processions and assemblies who go on to breach conditions, as well as those who incite others to breach conditions. The sentence in relation to the fine is for those who breach conditions. They go in a different category from organisers and those who incite others to breach conditions.

I do not have any examples to hand immediately, but I imagine some will find themselves in my file in due course. We are looking at maximum sentences, but it is still for the independent judiciary to impose sentences in court on the facts of the case that they have before them. That is another safeguard and another check and balance within this legislation. It will be for the judiciary to impose individual sentences, but it is right that Parliament look at the maximum term.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

I thank the Minister for her clarity on that. I completely support her point when violence is being done or emergency services are being blocked and the disruption is in no way proportionate to the nature of the protest, but I would like her to give some clarity on the issue of noise. Is it a decibel thing? Is it an irritation thing? Who decides what the irritation is? What is and is not acceptable? Would the threshold be lower in a small village because noise would not normally be heard, whereas in a big city with lots of industrial sites it would be a lot higher? It is that subjectivity that I put to the Minister.

[Victoria Atkins]

That is precisely why we are introducing an objective test in clause 54(3). The hon. Lady will see the wording:

“For the purposes of subsection (1)(ab)(i), the noise generated by persons taking part in a public procession may have a relevant impact on persons in the vicinity of the procession if—

(a) it may result in the intimidation or harassment of persons of reasonable firmness with the characteristics of persons likely to be in the vicinity.”

That is consistent with other parts of the criminal law. The wording continues:

“or (b) it may cause such persons”––

that is, persons of reasonable firmness––

“to suffer serious unease, alarm or distress.”

We have been very mindful of trying to help the police because it would be a matter for the police to weigh up during a procession, assembly or one-person protest or before one starts. It would be for the senior officer to make that assessment, but it is an objective test.

I hope that the hon. Lady will not mind my raising it, but the example she gave of the impact that hearing a drill had on her personally was her personal, subjective experience; we are saying that this would have to be an objective test—the reasonable firmness of people in the vicinity of that noise.

[Sarah Champion]

Let me give an example that I am sure everyone in this room will have experience of, as I have. An MP might be speaking at a demo or rally and a group of people feel the need to say, “See you next Tuesday” during the speech. That distresses the church group being addressed. Would that reach the threshold? Is it more of a decibel thing rather than it being directed to the MP? For example, in Rotherham the community came together to hold peaceful vigils but the far right held counter-protests in which they felt the need to call us paedophiles.

I appreciate that I am being annoying on this, but I just do not get it. These particular cases feel subjective and that is why I would like to get the clarity bedded down.

[Victoria Atkins]

First and foremost, the hon. Lady is certainly not being annoying; she is doing her job and her duty on the Committee. I am feeling my way here carefully because obviously Ministers should not comment on individual cases, but, on her example, in a scenario where someone is being at shouted at or spoken to as she described, there is a very good argument for saying that the person doing the shouting is committing a public order offence under the 1986 Act—that could be a section 5 offence of causing harassment, alarm or distress at the moment.

Again, I read across to other parts of public order legislation. That is why the objective test is an important one. We want first to be consistent with other public order measures. However, we recognise that there may be some instances in which an individual, for whatever reason—medical or otherwise—may have a particular sensitivity. In the criminal law, we say, “Look, we have got to deal with this on an objective basis, because it is the criminal law and the consequences of being convicted of a criminal offence are as serious as they are.” I have some hypothetical examples to give a bit of colour in due course, but, if I may, I want to complete outlining the checks and balances as written in the Bill so that everyone has a clear picture of the steps that a senior officer will have to go through to satisfy herself or himself that a condition can be imposed on the grounds of noise.

The senior officer must decide whether the impact is significant. In doing so, they must have regard to the likely number of people who may be affected, the likely duration and the likely intensity of that impact. The threshold at which police officers will be able to impose conditions on the use of noise is rightly very high. The examples I have been provided with—I am sure the Committee will understand that I am not citing any particular protest or assembly—are that a noisy protest in a town centre may not meet the threshold, but a protest creating the same amount of noise outside a school might, given the age of those likely to be affected and how those in the school are trying to sit down to learn on an average day. A noisy protest outside an office with double glazing may not meet the threshold, but a protest creating the same amount of noise outside a care home for elderly people, a GP surgery or small, street-level businesses might, given the level of disruption likely to be caused. Again, that refers to the conditions in clause 54(3) about the likely number of people, the likely duration and the likely intensity of that impact on such persons.

[Victoria Atkins]

Indeed. Of course, we are rightly sitting here scrutinising every single word of the Bill carefully, but a senior police officer on the ground will have had a great deal of training and years of experience as an officer working in their local communities. They will also have the knowledge of their local communities. I imagine that policing a quiet village and policing the centre of Westminster are two very different experiences, and the officers making such decisions will be well versed in the needs of their local areas. None the less, officers across the country will be bound by the terms of subsection (3)—those checks and balances I have referred to throughout—and the European convention on human rights.

[Sarah Champion]

I thank the Minister for being generous; it is appreciated. On the examples I supplied, her response was that the existing legislation ought to be covering the point. She mentioned a case study in which a protest could reach the threshold if there was no double-glazing. What concerns me is the organiser who could now face up to six months in jail. Are they meant to know whether properties do or do not have double-glazing, and therefore instruct the march to be silent for a specific 100 yards, as they could otherwise fall foul of the earlier clause? I say to the Minister that I just do not like subjectivity when it comes to the law.

[Victoria Atkins]

The organiser in those circumstances would, of course, be liable to having a committed an offence only if they breached the order. Indeed, this is the important point. It is for the police to make that assessment. If the police have a conversation with an organiser and say, “We believe that using your very high-level amplification system in this residential street meets the criteria under subsection (3) such that we are going to impose a condition asking you to turn it down,” the organiser, or the person deemed to be the organiser, will have had that conversation with an officer, and I very much hope that they will abide by the condition. If they do not, that is where the offence comes in, and that is a choice for the organiser.

As is already the case with processions, those conversations will happen and it will be a matter for the organiser as to what course of action they choose to take. One hopes that they will take the advice and guidance of the police, adapt and therefore be able to continue with their protest in a way that meets the expectations of the local community or local businesses. I appreciate that the detail is incredibly technical, and I am trying to work through every set of factual circumstances. I understand absolutely why people want to work through those, but there are checks and balances that run throughout the Bill.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Ninth sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th June 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Bambos Charalambous]

Parliamentarians have a long history of protesting with many different organisations, so I encourage those who feel strongly willed to join protests, if they are appropriate. Clearly, such protests need to be within the scope of the law. If they are breaking the law, the protests need to be dealt with. That is why we have the law, and that is why the law is in place. People need to be respectful of the law in all circumstances.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend was as struck as I was when we had the witnesses in front of us and the police said that, actually, they feel that they have enough powers. They might not be used evenly across the country, which is obviously something on which we need more robust guidance. I remember that when I was very young, in ’89, I came down from the University of Sheffield to protest against the poll tax. We had big demonstrations here in London, and the police felt completely able to charge us on horses. We were kettled, and it was terrifying. Multiple arrests were made without the due process going through. In my opinion, and in the opinion of the witnesses, the police seem to have the powers. Is he as concerned as I am about where these changes are coming from, what the motivation is, and whether they are actually necessary?

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. These are operational matters for the police. The police currently have the powers, and they have to be mindful of the impact of their powers on a demonstration and whether they will inflame the situation. Good policing will err on the side of caution on some occasions, but sometimes the police need to deal with a situation that they think will get out of hand. Trying to legislate for what is in the discretion of police officers is wrong, and we should actually trust the police in using their powers of discretion.

The clauses would also widen the types of conditions that the police could place on static protests. The clauses would significantly lower the legal test that must be met for the police to issue conditions on protests. The police would be able to issue conditions on protests where they are noisy enough to cause “intimidation or harassment” or

“serious unease, alarm or distress”

to bystanders. Before using their amended section 12 powers to issue conditions on a protest, the police would have to consider the “likely number of persons” affected by the protest, the “likely duration” of the impact, and the “likely intensity” of the impact. The clauses would also widen the types of conditions that police can issue on static protests to match their powers relating to protest marches. The police would also be able to issue any condition on static protests that they think is necessary

“to prevent…disorder, damage, disruption, impact or intimidation”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. These are human rights that have been fundamentally fought for and won. We need to do everything we can to secure them, and they should not be watered down as easily as is being proposed in the Bill.

These powers would also amend the offence of failing to comply with a condition imposed by the police on a protest. It would remove the legal test that requires protesters knowingly to breach a condition to commit an offence. People would commit the amended offence if they disobeyed a condition that they ought to have known was in force. Finally, these powers would allow the police to issue conditions on one-person protests. Currently, protests must involve at least two people in order to engage police powers.

The question we raised about how to ensure that protests are peaceful and how to balance the rights of others to go about their daily business is an important one as the covid crisis eases. We know that the emergency legislation introduced by this place shifted the balance of power away from citizens and towards the state. Organisations such as Liberty, Members across the House, lawyers and others have been concerned throughout that those powers are too great. We gladly handed over those powers, which was the right thing to do, but it is crucial, as we move out of the covid crisis, that we restore those rights with equal enthusiasm.

We need to remember that covid and public health formed the context within which many of the arguments over protests during the past year have occurred. Things have not been as they normally are. Decisions about allowing protests have had an extra layer of complexity, because of the need to protect public health. Decisions have been hampered by the inevitable problems of interpreting exactly what new laws mean, or should mean, in terms of protest. The fact that covid laws did not ban protests has meant that each decision has in part been subjective, putting the police in the firing line for every decision made.

I have heard many times from the police over the past year that they have struggled to be the ones interpreting the law, without the leadership from Government that they needed. The lack of the promised direction from the Home Secretary over the weekend of the Sarah Everard vigil is a stark case in point. The police were seen to be the ones making the political decisions because there was too much ambiguity in the law. That must be a firm lesson for us going forward. It is our job to define the law in a clear way, so that the police are not the ones getting the blame for our law making.

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend has got to the nub of the problem, which was highlighted by a number of the witnesses, as I will come to in my speech. This is ambiguous and lacks the clarity that the police need. There is no drive from the police that they need this measure, so why is it in the Bill? What is the motivation behind it? I support my hon. Friend in saying that it should not be there.

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, which I will come to later. The Bill includes many ambiguous clauses that will no doubt cause lots of legal argument in the effort to define what they mean. That puts the police in an impossible situation.

A good starting point for this debate are the Peelian principles expressed by Sir Robert Peel when he set out ethical policing in the early 19th century:

“To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect. To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws. To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend again makes a very good point. The Government clearly have a desire to imprison more people, because they are embarking on a prison-building programme—I do not know whether that is part of the reason why they are introducing these powers. Good policing is using discretion, dealing with each occasion as it arises and policing in a sensitive way. Arresting people should be a last resort, albeit one that the police should use when appropriate.

To quote Matt Parr further:

“I think there are dangers and, as ever, the bar for measuring what was significant or what was serious should be a high one. We all recognise that. It should not be done on the flimsiest of pretexts. Again, it would then be open to challenge, and I think police officers would only wish to use it when they were confident.”—(Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 53, Q77.]

Matt Parr made some important points that should serve as a reminder to Ministers of the problems with clauses 54 to 60. He did not want a lower threshold; he wanted more training for police officers so that they can better understand how articles 10 and 11 might be adhered to. However, the clauses widen the legislation significantly. Does that not make the job of the police in enforcing the legislation more complex?

Lochlinn Parker, the head of civil liberties at ITN Solicitors, said:

“It is going to be down to police officers to try and determine a highly nebulous idea: what is annoying? Everybody is annoyed when a protest takes over the street, but lowering that [threshold] significantly is creating a situation where, if minded to, there will be very little protest that would be lawfully allowed.”

He continued:

“Police will be asked, as they frequently are by the government and the press, why wasn’t more done to stop this protest which caused disruption and problems”.

He also said:

“The political pressure on the police, and potentially their own inclinations in terms of keeping control and order, is going to come to the fore.”

Bob Broadhurst was gold command for the policing of the 2009 G20 protests and now lectures at the London Policing College. Apparently, he choked on his coffee when reading the explanatory notes for the Bill. He said:

“They’re saying protestors are now using new tactics—they’re locking themselves in, they’re gluing themselves down, they’re blocking roads. They were doing that 30 years ago.”

He went on to say:

“None of these tactics are new.”

Clifford Stott, a professor of social psychology at Keele University and expert in protest and police behaviour, argues that, although he vehemently disagrees with the proposals,

“under the Human Rights Act, the police will not be able to enforce any elements of the legislation which interfere with Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights—freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association.”

[Sarah Champion]

Does my hon. Friend share my concerns that the people who are absolutely set on protesting are going to do it regardless of the legislation, in that getting arrested is almost part of their MO? Does he also share my concern that the Bill will have a chilling effect on people’s right to protest, full stop? Secondly, there will be people who are, in their understanding, at completely lawful protests, and will, without any intention on their part, get caught up when the bar is lowered. A whole group of people who should not be arrested will, as my hon. Friend said, be clogging up the police system.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Again, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The lowering of the bar will mean that innocent people will be caught up in something when they have gone to protest about a perfectly valid issue that they are concerned about. They may get caught up in this unwittingly and could end up being criminalised as a result .

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[Bambos Charalambous]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. Absolutely, we do not want to be a country that is seen to be oppressing its people. Those rights to protest are at first lost gradually, then quickly, so the transition from what is seen to be a democracy to authoritarian state happens very quickly and we need to be wary of that. We cannot go down that path.

[Sarah Champion]

I am grateful that the Foreign Secretary has been very good on protecting the right to protest internationally. It seems somewhat hypocritical that we are reducing the right to protest here while on the international stage we are advocating for it.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Again, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We cannot be seen to be criticising other Governments for the way they suppress the right to protest when we are doing the same here. That weakens our global standing and we should not go down that path.

The College of Policing has authorised professional practice, or APP, that contains 30 tactical options to deal with public disorder and protest. It is out of date. It does not include recent relevant case law or information on certain new and emerging tactical options. The college is planning a review. The inspectorate states:

“By 30 June 2022, the College of Policing, through its planned review, should bring the public order authorised professional practice (APP) up to date and make arrangements to keep it current, with more regular revisions as they become necessary. It would also be beneficial to consolidate the APP, protest operational advice and aide memoire into a single source (or a linked series of documents).”

The inspectorate notes:

“We found that forces do not do enough to share legal opinion or case law on protest policing. And officers and staff rarely use Knowledge Hub’s ‘Specialist Operational Support—Public Order Public Safety’ group… By 31 December 2021, chief constables should make sure that their legal services teams subscribe to the College of Policing Knowledge Hub’s Association of Police Lawyers group.

By 31 December 2021, the College of Policing should ensure that all Public Order Public Safety commander and adviser students attending its licensed training are enrolled in the College of Policing Knowledge Hub’s Specialist Operational Support—Public Order Public Safety group, before they leave the training event…

In making decisions about how to respond to a protest, public order commanders need to consider domestic human rights legislation. And they must also consider a patchwork of European case law. These have established precedents on issues such as how long protests can reasonably go on for, and the level of disruption that protests can reasonably cause.”

The inspectorate stated:

“Examining the gold strategies and silver plans submitted as part of our document review, we found that commanders generally showed a grasp of human rights legislation. However, we did not see evidence that they consistently considered the wider legal picture.”

The inspectorate also recommended:

“By 30 June 2022, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, working with the College of Policing, should provide additional support to gold commanders to improve the quality of gold strategies for protest policing. This support should include the creation and operation of a quality assurance process; and/or the provision of more focused continuous professional development. The additional support should ensure that gold commanders for protest operations include an appropriate level of detail within their gold strategies. This may include the levels of disruption or disorder above which enforcement action will be considered…

By 30 June 2022, the National Police Coordination Centre should revise the national post-event learning review form so that it contains a section to report on the policing operation’s impact on the community…

Forces usually have good protest-related briefing processes and commanders’ decisions generally reach the front line effectively. However, gold strategies often do not set out the limits of acceptable behaviour from the protesters. Better explanations of these limits would help officers to understand what is expected of them and empower them to take appropriate action.

Non-specialist officers receive limited training in protest policing. As a result, they often lack confidence in using police powers. Some officers are anxious about attracting complaints and being filmed in protest situations. It is important that forces provide good-quality training and briefing before deploying officers into these situations.

Forces should make better use of community impact assessments to evaluate the impact of protests on those who live in, work in or visit an area. The process should include regular reviews and updates, so the police can respond to changing circumstances. Only seven of the ten forces we inspected submitted any community impact assessments for examination, and some of those we examined were of a poor standard”.

With the covid legislation, we have seen the difficulty that rushing through new police powers can bring for the police. They have managed to do a brilliant job of enforcing the new laws, but they have faced a number of difficult decisions owing to the loose drafting of the law, and they have received criticism where they have got it wrong. The new protest powers will force the police to make political decisions about which protests they deem unlawful. That is extremely concerning and will put the police and the public in a difficult position.

Why do the Government want to make the police the gatekeepers for public protests? The Government are choosing to ignore the many peaceful protests that go ahead and are attended by police. The public order measures in the Bill risk putting the police in a trying position more often, and they risk creating more disorder and disruption. The Government should be putting the police in a position whereby the rules are not too confusing or too broad. If they do not do so, that will only create more flashpoints.

It is clear that police support for the Bill is not what the Government are saying it is. The Metropolitan police want more clarity on ways to manage very disruptive protests that go on and on, and to make sure that emergency services can get through roads. That is understandable, but the police want more clarity and certainty, which is what they said in the evidence sessions. These provisions bring the opposite. Instead of a modest reset, we have in front of us clauses that significantly widen police powers on public order.

Clauses 54 to 60 mark a substantial change in the approach to policing protest, which has the potential to be applied disproportionately and could curtail article 10 and article 11 rights that the inspectorate of constabulary is keen to protect. The police already have the powers to break up protests that cause harm, serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of a community. Many of the country’s best lawyers are telling us that the Public Order Act 1986 and the many other powers on the statute book to police protests are enough.

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[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend is entirely correct. It is a question of proportionality, and we need to make sure that we are allowed to get here as parliamentarians, but also that protesters are allowed to air their views. It is about striking that balance. The legislation goes too far the other way, and does not strike such a balance. It is too much against the right to protest.

The reports by the inspectorate ask for modest changes, but the Government decided to go much further. The Bill targets protesters causing “serious unease”, those being too noisy and those causing serious annoyance. Clause 54 amends section 12 of the Public Order Act 1986 so that police officers can issue conditions on protest marches that generate noise, but may have significant relevant impact on persons “in the vicinity” or that may result in “serious disruption” to the activities of an organisation in the vicinity.

[Sarah Champion]

I do not know whether it was recorded properly, but I do not think we ever got to the bottom of what “serious noise” was. During our evidence session, a drill was going in the next room. I suffer from tinnitus and it was driving me insane. I could not concentrate and I wanted it to stop, but there are examples of protests at which I would be chanting and would think that that was acceptable. Did we ever get to the bottom of what “serious noise” was?

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I do not think that we ever did, and that is part of the problem because there will be a disparity in how the Bill is implemented, which will lead to confusion because what one person regards as noise may not be what another person regards as noise. The last thing we want is confusion when protests are being policed.

Under clause 54, noise would have to have a relevant impact, resulting in intimidation, harassment, serious unease, alarm or distress to bystanders. The vague term “serious unease” is a very low threshold for police-imposed conditions.

[Sarah Champion]

Owing to the areas I campaign on, I have had protests against me and that does cause me serious unease—it is horrible. They have led to death threats and all manner of things, but I would not stop people’s right to protest because we all have our rights and I find it incredibly chilling that people’s rights are going to be stopped.

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[Victoria Atkins]

Let me make a genuine effort to help Her Majesty’s official Opposition. They are surely not saying that death threats are an acceptable form of protest. Death threats are terrifying for those who are victims. Indeed, I would say they impede democracy in this country precisely because people worry about the threats to their personal safety. I just want to clarify.

[Sarah Champion]

On a point of order, Mr McCabe. I think the Minister has misinterpreted what I said. I had protests against me that were rallying the crowds, which led to the exact same phraseology that went into death threats. I am saying that that was incredibly chilling and uncomfortable. Of course I wanted it to stop, but I do not try to deny people’s right to protest.

[The Chair]

I think we have clarified the Member’s position.

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[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It would be helpful if we had an idea of the definition of “disruptive noise”. If we are to pass the Bill, we should know what we are passing.

There have been problems when the police have not satisfactorily communicated conditions to protesters. Will the Minister provide the Committee with evidence to justify the proposed widening of criminal responsibility in clause 56? The HMICFRS report talked about a slight shift in the legal test on that, but what the Government propose goes way too far. Sir Peter Fahy, former chief constable of Greater Manchester police, said that the legislation includes “some really dodgy definitions” that the police are supposed to make sense of. The point of protest is to capture people’s and the Government’s attention. Sometimes protests are noisy and sometimes annoying, but they are as fundamental to our democracy as Parliament is and as the courts are.

On 6 October last year, I had the pleasure of witnessing an impressive and effective protest outside Parliament, which was organised by the Let Music Live campaign to highlight the plight of freelance musicians who received very little support from the Government during the coronavirus pandemic. The protest involved 400 socially-distanced musicians, all dressed in black, playing 90 seconds, or 20%, of Gustav Holst’s “Mars”. Not only was the demonstration eye-catching, but it used the sound and the loudness of Holst’s piece to convey the message.

The demonstration consisted of 90 seconds of sound building until it came to an abrupt stop. Would such a protest fall foul of clause 54? I fear it might, but who would be qualified to assess whether a 90-second blast of Holst’s “Mars” constituted noise that might have a “significant” or “relevant” impact on “persons in the vicinity”? The phraseology is so vague and devoid of precise meaning that it will be a legal nightmare for the police to determine what the terms “significant”, “relevant” and “impact” mean for the purposes of the Bill.

[Sarah Champion]

I wonder whether the bar would be set at exactly the same level if the music were not classical, but heavy metal. Are we getting into a really subjective area here?

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that this will be very subjective. I used to play rugby, and this is what we would have called a hospital pass. It is going to put the police in an impossible situation, and they will have to make judgments about what constitutes “significant”, “relevant” and “impact.”

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[Bambos Charalambous]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and ask, well, why not? Does he not think that is a noise? If it is not a noise, why is that not set out in the legislation? Where is the guidance on it? The legislation is badly worded and wrong, and its vagueness will cause confusion. The hon. Gentleman has demonstrated the point I am making; he says it is a load of rubbish, but in my view that would be captured under the legislation. Are songs and music exempt? Perhaps the Minister will tell us.

Some protests and processions are loud, colourful and joyful. I am sure the Minister is aware of the explosion of colour and sound that is the Pride parade, which takes place in towns and cities across the country. Pride in London is a wonderful event, and the procession is a joy to watch. It is also very noisy. There are drums, whistles, sound systems and cheering crowds; it is quite something. Will the London Pride parade, which passes down the top part of Whitehall, constitute noise and have a significant and relevant impact on persons in the vicinity? Part of the point of Pride is to be noisy. Could Pride be outlawed for being noisy? If not, why not? Let me put on record my support and solidarity of the LGBT+ community during this Pride month.

Even if the Minister brushes off music, song and noise made by the Pride parade as not constituting noise for the purposes of the Bill, does she concede that noise can be an integral part of protest? Earlier this year, we watched in horror as the military staged a coup against the democratically elected Government of Myanmar. There was outrage among people as the military clamped down on protest and imposed curfews. Faced with the prospect of curfews and armed brutality against street protests, protestors found other ways to make their protest heard. In February, in the city of Yangon, ordinary citizens staged a noisy protest, by banging pots and pans and anything they could lay their hands on from their balconies and homes, to create an almighty din and show civil disobedience and anger against the coup. Those same protestors in the UK, banging their pots and pans, would fall foul of clause 54. Noise is part of protests; whoever drew up the proposals clearly has not thought through the dilemma that the police will face, putting them in an invidious position as they try to enforce these sloppily drafted clauses.

I am surprised that the Government, who pride themselves so much on their libertarian values, are so prescriptive and authoritarian in trying to pass the legislation. The right to protest is a fundamental freedom, as is freedom of speech. The former Prime Minister and Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), was right when she said on Second Reading that the legislation is concerning and risks going against the right of freedom of speech. On the power of the Home Secretary to make regulations on the meaning of serious disruption to the activities of an organisation or the life of the community, the right hon. Member made another important point, saying:

“It is tempting when Home Secretary to think that giving powers to the Home Secretary is very reasonable, because we all think we are reasonable, but future Home Secretaries may not be so reasonable.”—[Official Report, 15 March 2021; Vol. 691, c. 78.]

If there were a peaceful protest outside the Home Office that the Home Secretary did not like, everyone could be criminalised for shouting too loud, so that people working were not disturbed. Does the Minister have a cause that she cares deeply about and may want to protest about? The Home Secretary would have the ultimate say on whether what she was saying was right or wrong. I know that I would not want the Home Secretary to have that power.

Michael Barton, the former chief constable of Durham police, compared the measures in the Bill to those of a paramilitary-style police force, and asked if the Government are

“happy to be linked to the repressive regimes currently flexing their muscles via their police forces?”

I reiterate his question to the Minister, and I hope she will answer it. The very same Home Office that is offering Hong Kongers British national overseas visas to escape the oppressive regime that last week banned the annual vigil to commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 would criminalise those Hong Kongers for demonstrating loudly outside the Houses of Parliament. Once again, the Government are on the wrong side of the argument; instead, they find themselves on the same side as those who curtail the right to protest and silence the voices of the people.

[Sarah Champion]

The march in Hong Kong that my hon. Friend refers to shut down the city. We, as a country, have been very outspoken about China’s action towards those protestors, for criminalising them in such a mass brutal manner. I bring my hon. Friend back to the hypocrisy that we might see should we welcome those protestors with welcome arms while, as he says, criminalising them in this country.

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Why do we criticise the regime in Hong Kong when we are going to be imposing limitations on the right to protest here? It just does not make any sense. It does not add up.

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Clause 57 is designed to protect vehicular access to Parliament; it would amend the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 to expand the controlled area around Parliament to include Canon Row, Parliament Street, Derby Gate, Parliament Square and part of the Victoria Embankment. The amended area would still be far smaller than the designated area under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, and it would add obstructing the passage of a vehicle into and out of the parliamentary estate to prohibited activities in the controlled area, as in section 75. The amendment would ensure that preventing access to the parliamentary estate was prohibited, but would not give the police powers to arrest those who contravene it.

[Sarah Champion]

It is very obvious that this is a contentious topic, and the one that has gained the most media attention for this Bill. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate for making a very persuasive case. I must challenge my friend the hon. Member for Ashfield because I think his criticism was unjust, but it does highlight that what one person thinks is nonsense can be a very passionate thing for another, and we all deserve the right to protest.

I would like to start by making the argument, again, that the police already have wide powers to impose conditions on both static assemblies and marches, as well as broad discretion in how those powers are applied. Let me quote from the Liberty briefing:

“The cumulative effect of these measures—which target the tools that make protest rights meaningful – constitute an attack on a fundamental building block of our democracy.”

Liberty say that the clauses are fundamental block on our democracy. They say that these are draconian measures that impose disproportionate controls on free expression and the right to protest; measures that will have an unfair impact on black, Asian and ethnic minority people.

It is unfortunate that the amendments tabled by Labour have not been selected. I would like to state that Labour is very supportive of the measures that allow access for emergency services, but overall I personally think that the clauses go far too far, and I support my honourable colleagues in wanting to vote against this clause. It should not be in this Bill.

I am interested to hear from the Minister whether she agrees with the witnesses we heard from that the police already have sufficient powers to deal with protests. In the evidence session, Matt Parr said,

“there is quite a stark difference between London, which obviously gets a disproportionately large number of protests, and elsewhere.”

He said that senior police officers outside London

“tended to think they had sufficient powers”—[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 53, Q77.]

Again, I would be very interested to hear from the Minister if she thinks that these measures are actually London-centric, and not needed in places like Rotherham—I see the Minister grimace, and I share that—or if they are needed across the country. Furthermore, how will she make sure that police forces across the country handle them at the same level, and will there be training and support to enable them to understand exactly where to apply them?

I ask that because in Rotherham, after the scale of the child abuse in the town became known, the far right would come and basically put the town into lockdown every month. It was incredibly intimidating. It stopped businesses being able to trade and basically drove people off the streets and out of the town centre because they were too scared to go in. We then had a change in the police officer in control of the protests. He swiftly applied different measures on the route they could take—they could not meet in the centre of town—the level of planning and the level of security that the protestors had to put in place, and quickly the protests started to diminish to the point at which they stopped. It was clear to me at that point that the police do have the powers; it is about whether they know about them and have the ability and indeed the resources to enforce them.

Rotherham has a long and proud but also bloody history of protest. I think in particular of the battle of Orgreave, which was a pivotal event in the UK miners’ strike and has been described as a brutal example of legalised state violence. That was just one event of many in the mid-1980s that led to the Public Order Act 1986. Why has it taken from 1986 until now for Ministers to feel that we need new legislation? I also raise that because the brutal way in which the police dealt with those protestors has led to mistrust and suspicion towards our police forces and I really do not want to see this legislation, if it goes forward, building on that level of mistrust not just in Rotherham but across the country, because once trust is lost it is almost impossible to bring it back.

I turn to some of the key organisations that submitted written evidence or were witnesses and spoke against these measures. Liberty has said that

“the Bill drastically limits the right to protest.”

The Good Law Project said:

“The provisions threaten to neuter protests in ways that would render them ineffective—effectively taking away one of the only ways in which people can express their dissatisfaction in a democratic society.”

It went on to say:

“The Bill renders the UK an outlier when it comes to international human rights norms around the right to peaceful assembly.”

I find it really disturbing—not least as Chair of the International Development Committee—that we are stepping away from our international obligations and doing so on the right to protest, which I know the Foreign Secretary is really keen to uphold internationally. The movement we see in the Bill is disturbing.

Rights of Women said:

“The Bill is a further dangerous extension to police powers that exemplifies the rolling back of our human rights and ignores a history of violence against women at the hands of the police.”

A petition entitled “Do not restrict our rights to peaceful protest” in response to the Bill has more than 250,000 signatures. Two hundred and forty-five organisations signed a letter co-ordinated by Liberty and Friends of the Earth to the Government on 15 March, which said that the Government’s proposals were cause for “profound concern”. The organisations highlighted “draconian…police powers” to restrict protest. Organisations who signed the letter include Amnesty International, Greenpeace, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Unite, Rights of Women, Inquest and the Northern Police Monitoring Project.

The Bar Council said:

“There are clear tensions between this section and the freedom of protest and expression (both protected under the European Convention on Human Rights). It gives expansive powers to the police, which encompass the arrest of one individual who is independently protesting. There are legitimate concerns that it would allow the Government to prevent protests with which it does not agree.”

That is one of my biggest concerns. Let us look at former and current Government Ministers who are against the proposals.

[Alex Cunningham]

The written evidence from Leeds for Europe quotes Mr Justice Laws saying that a margin must be given to protests. He also said:

“Rights worth having are unruly things. Demonstrations and protests are liable to be a nuisance. They are liable to be inconvenient and tiresome, or at least perceived as such by others who are out of sympathy with them.”

However, under the new powers in the Bill, if the Home Secretary is out of sympathy with a particular protest or protest group, she could ban them from protesting. Surely that is an affront to our democracy.

[Sarah Champion]

It absolutely is. My hon. Friend lays a very startling future before us. It might not even get to the Home Secretary—it might be an individual police officer who makes the call, or a chief constable or a police and crime commissioner. That is what concerns me.

By their very nature, protests are designed to be annoying, to be loud, to raise their views. When we look back at our history, where would we be without protest? It is inconceivable. This country has a proud history of protest—however annoying, however much of a nuisance protests are. That is what moves us forward as a democracy. To lose that, or to have it chipped away, is a very disturbing position.

That view is echoed by former and current Government Ministers. On 7 September 2020, the Minister for Crime and Policing, the hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), affirmed:

“The right to peaceful protest is a fundamental tool of civic expression”

and promised that protest

“will never be curtailed by the Government.”—[Official Report, 7 September 2020; Vol. 679, c. 384.]

What has changed in the intervening nine months?

The former Attorney General, Dominic Grieve QC, said that

“no new laws were required if the police used the substantial powers they already have”.

On Second Reading, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead said:

“I do have some concerns about some of the aspects of the public order provisions in the Bill. I absolutely accept that the police have certain challenges...but freedom of speech is an important right in our democracy, however annoying or uncomfortable that might sometimes be…Protests have to be under the rule of law, but the law has to be proportionate.”—[Official Report, 15 March 2021; Vol. 691, c. 78.]

We would all agree that protests have to be under the rule of law, but I think we would disagree on the proportionality.

Also on Second Reading, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) said:

“Is the Bill perfect? No, it is by no means perfect. I hope that it will be corrected as it goes through. Will that happen? Certainly. I accept that there are issues around freedom of speech and the right to assemble, and I think that these will be dealt with during the course of the debate.”—[Official Report, 15 March 2021; Vol. 691, c. 90.]

I hope that that is true.

Let us turn to the ambiguities in the proposed legislation. Evidence given by witnesses in the Joint Committee on Human Rights session on the proposed police powers showed that the terms

“serious unease, alarm and distress”

are not sufficiently clear for protesters to predict when conditions might be imposed on demonstrations. I reiterate the call from my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate: the Minister needs to set out exactly what serious unease, alarm and distress is, as well as what serious noise is. Jules Carey from Bindmans LLP said the terms are

“too vague in law to have any meaningful impact or sensible interpretation. They also create a threshold that is too low.”

The Good Law Project says of the clauses that,

“the cumulative effect is likely to be deeply damaging”

because of their ambiguity, and because the police

“will have considerable scope to test the limits of their own powers.”

The Bar Council said:

“The present drafting is also vague and will require interpretation by the senior courts before the precise meaning of the law becomes settled. We consider this to be undesirable in legislation which limits fundamental civic rights.”

The Good Law Project, the Bar Council and witnesses from evidence sessions for the Bill Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights say the wording is too vague for protesters to interpret. How will the Minister ensure protesters will not get arrested at peaceful protests due to their understanding of current legislation?

In our evidence sessions, Matt Parr, Her Majesty’s inspector of constabulary, said:

“We were very clear in what we said that any reset should be modest.”

We seem to have drifted a long way from modest—most organisations who have given evidence have argued that the changes in this part of the Bill are not modest. He continued:

“We also said that, because of article 10 and article 11 rights, some degree of disruption is not just an inevitable by-product, it is sometimes the whole point of the exercise of protest, and on that basis, it has to be encouraged.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 52, Q77.]

Councillor Caliskan, from the Local Government Association, said:

“In my experience, from having spoken to council leaders from across the country, the best way that peaceful protest is facilitated is planning in advance. That means the community and organisers having a good relationship with the police, and local forces working closely with local authorities”.––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 60, Q92.]

That is another concern—that these parts of the Bill will undermine the good working relationships and trust, and that will go on to make it even more difficult to organise peaceful protests.

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One of the reports I have read states that 46 police officers were injured in the “Kill the Bill” protests. That included paint being sprayed into their eyes, or officers being dragged into the crowd and beaten. I am sure that no one in this Committee Room agrees with those violent tactics used by the “Kill the Bill” protestors. We are right to bear in mind the enormous pressures that police officers are under when it comes to policing some of these very large-scale protests.

[Sarah Champion]

Would those actions not already be criminal activity under existing legislation?

[Victoria Atkins]

They would. The hon. Lady may remember that I questioned Mr Wagner about his interpretation of the Public Order Act. We acknowledge, and I think the police have said, how dynamic a public protest can be; it changes very quickly and they have to make decisions very quickly, on the ground. I asked Mr Wagner, because I was slightly concerned about some of the evidence he had given earlier:

“Do you accept that the Public Order Act 1986 is a piece of legislation that has stood the test of time and should remain in law?”

He said:

“I think I would be neutral on that. It is a very wide piece of legislation. Every time I read it, I am pretty surprised at how wide it is already. What I am pretty clear about is that section 12 does not need to be widened.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 76, Q109.]

Then I asked whether that meant the Public Order Act went too far for his liking. He replied:

“Well, potentially. The proof is often in the pudding. It depends on how the police use it and whether they are using it effectively.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 76, Q110.]

I agree wholeheartedly with his summation that it is about how the police employ the powers, but we need to just have in mind the range of views that have been expressed by witnesses giving evidence to the Bill Committee, whether in writing or orally. It would appear that there are some for whom the current legislation goes too far, yet we hear of instances such as the “Kill the Bill” protests where very significant harm has been done to police officers. Hon. Members will be able to draw on their own memories of other protests that have resulted in police officers being very badly injured and hurt by the protests of a minority. It shows, again, the need for a balance.

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[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Lady has summarised the very great responsibilities borne by senior officers in charge of protests. Of course protest should not be banned—I said at the beginning that that is not what the Bill is about—but the point does show the very fine judgments that senior police officers have to make in the moment of the protest. Where there are organisers, they will have been able to have discussions beforehand, but where protests spring up on social media and it is not clear who the organisers are, police officers are having to make decisions on the ground very quickly.

I am asked what has changed in the 35 years since the Public Order Act came into force. The role of social media in getting the message out, and protests being organised at very short notice, means that it can be difficult for police officers to identify to whom they should be speaking when it comes to how these protests or gatherings are policed and managed.

The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate mentioned Pride. I would not call Pride a protest, although it may have had its roots in protest. I hope we now see it as a glorious celebration enjoyed, from the photographs I have seen in newspapers, by the police as much as by other people in attendance. That is an example of a gathering where the organisers are very clear, and they work extremely well with the police to ensure that the procession, the celebration, is enjoyed by all and is safe for all.

[Sarah Champion]

First, people all around the world are being murdered for being gay, so there is the element of protest. Secondly, can the Minister confirm that the measures she is putting in the Bill would address the fire-starting protests that come up? If that is the nub of what she is trying to address, it seems to me that the clauses go a lot further than that.

[Victoria Atkins]

That is one of the things addressed by the Bill’s clauses. If I may, I will go methodically through the examination of the clauses.

There is a reason why we are trying to draw consistency between processions and assemblies. In 1986, the distinction between the two might have been very clear, but we heard evidence from the police that nowadays a protest can become an assembly and an assembly can become a protest. They change, so we are trying to bring consistency between the two forms of gathering, irrespective of the mobility of the participants, so that we have clarity of law as to what applies to participants when they gather together.

At this stage in my submission, I am going to introduce some context. Again, the misunderstanding might have arisen that the measures will apply to every single protest that ever takes place, which is not the case. In his oral evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights on 28 April this year, Chief Constable Harrington said that between 21 January and 21 April this year, more than 2,500 protests were reported to the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and of those 2,500 protests, conditions were imposed on 12.

As I develop my argument and talk about these powers being used very carefully by the police, and about the checks and balances within the legislation, I point to how rarely the conditions are imposed in the range of protests that go ahead. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby might have wished that conditions were imposed in other protests, but we foresee the legislation being deployed rarely and very carefully.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Eighth sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th May 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

As the Committee will remember, I gave a very quick example of circumstances in which it would be appropriate for the authorised person to use information extracted from a digital device: when a person is missing, it would be appropriate to do that rather than wait for a review of many hours of closed circuit television footage. I hope that has dealt with that part of new clause 49.

New clause 49 also incorporates a definition of “agreement”. In order for authorised persons to exercise the power to extract information from digital devices, device users other than children or adults without capacity must voluntarily hand over their device and agree to the extraction of information. Authorised persons must explicitly ask device users for their agreement. The code of practice will provide guidance on: how agreement is to be obtained by the authorised person; ensuring it is freely given; and how the device user is made of aware of their right to refuse. The code will set out the best practice that authorised persons should follow when obtaining agreement, such as providing a copy of the digital processing notice for the device user to read and sign.

The final change made by new clause 49 is that it would define an adult as a person aged 18 or over, rather than 16 or over, as set out in chapter 3 of part 2. I understand this was not raised by the Victims’ Commissioner, but we have listened, and have thought very carefully about the imposition of that age in the Bill. In setting the age at 16, we were keen to ensure that those aged 16 to 17 were given appropriate control over their personal devices. That is not dissimilar from the position in other legislation, such as the Mental Capacity Act 2005, which recognises the rights of young people aged 16 and 17. However, we note the concerns raised in the debate, and we will reflect on them.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

May I say how grateful I am that the Minister is clearly in listening mode on this issue? The difference with the Mental Capacity Act 2005 is that it does not define 16 and 17-year-olds as adults. It is that particular word, not the inclusion of that age bracket, that we are concerned about.

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Lady. As I say, we will reflect on the issue.

New clause 50 would provide that, where the user of a device was a child or adult without capacity, their views were sought and taken into account when someone else was making a decision on their behalf regarding the extraction of information from their device. We agree on the point about children. Indeed, clause 37(4) makes an equivalent provision, so we are not sure there is much between us on this point. We rely on clause 37(4) to ensure that the views of the child are taken into account.

We do not, however, agree that it is appropriate to include equivalent provision for adults without capacity. With such people, it is the capacity of the individual user that is relevant, and that is determined on the basis of a case-specific assessment. It is only if, as a result of that assessment, the person is deemed not capable of making the decisions that someone else is asked to make it. Authorised persons using that power will still have to comply with their existing responsibilities under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the associated code of practice or equivalent provisions in Scotland and Northern Ireland. We will, however, include guidance and direct authorised persons to the relevant statutory responsibilities in the code of practice.

New clause 52 seeks to expand the list of statutory consultees in respect of the code of practice to include the Victims’ Commissioner, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and representatives of victims and witnesses, but clause 40 already places a duty on the Secretary of State to consult

“(a) the Information Commissioner,

(b) the Scottish Ministers,

(c) the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland, and

(d) such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”

We believe this last line affords sufficient flexibility to capture those other persons listed in new clause 52. I can assure the Committee that we will work closely with the Victims’ and Domestic Abuse Commissioners, and other relevant groups, as we develop the code.

The new clause also lists matters to be addressed in the code of practice. We do not dispute the relevance of many of the matters listed in new clause 52(5), but putting such a list in the Bill is unnecessary. The code needs to be comprehensive and fit for purpose, and it will be prepared in consultation with interested parties and subject to parliamentary scrutiny.

Amendment 94 seeks to provide for independent legal advice for device users. Ensuring that victims are properly supported is a priority for this Government. The code of practice will make it clear that investigators should inform people about the use of the power, and ensure that they are fully aware of their rights. This information will include: why they are asking for agreement, what will happen to the individual’s device, what information will be extracted from the device, how long it may be retained for, and what will happen to any irrelevant material found on the device.

We are aware of the impact that requests for personal information can have on victims of sexual violence, and we believe that individuals should be supported in the process. We are fully committed to giving support to victims of crime, including access to independent sexual violence advisers, who we believe have a role in helping to explain the power to victims; as I have said, we are investing in 700 more of these posts this year.

We are exploring the findings of the sexual violence complainants’ advocate scheme, piloted in Northumbria, as part of the rape review, which will be published shortly. We do not think that chapter 3 of part 2 of this Bill is the right place to address this broader issue about the provision of legal advice to victims and witnesses, given the wider impact across the criminal justice system.

Amendment 115 to schedule 3 seeks to exclude immigration officers from the list of persons authorised to carry out a digital extraction. Immigration officers play a vital role in protecting vulnerable people, particularly those who may be victims of trafficking, and it is important that they are able to obtain information that may be vital in those and other investigations. The power in schedule 3 ensures that all authorities extract information in a consistent way, and put the needs and privacy of the user at the forefront of any request. Any person being asked to provide a device will be made aware of their rights, including their right to refuse.

The hon. Member for Rotherham asked about a parliamentary question that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Croydon South, answered. I am told that mobile phones are seized under statutory powers where there is a reasonable belief that evidence of a criminal offence will be found. The subsequent examination of the device will be conducted in forensic conditions, and in such a way as to target only the relevant material. The handset will be retained for as long as is required to support any criminal proceedings before being returned to the owner.

Finally, there is also a Government amendment in this group: amendment 63, which ensures that the definition of the common council of the City of London is used consistently throughout the Bill. The City of London Corporation has both public and private functions, and it is therefore appropriate that public legislation applies to the corporation only in respect of its public functions. Government amendment 63 provides that the reference to the common council relates to

“its capacity as a local authority”,

which brings clause 37 into line with other provisions in the Bill referencing the common council.

To sum up, this is the first time that a clear and consistent approach to the extraction of information from digital devices with the device user’s agreement has been written into primary legislation. The provisions remove legal ambiguity around the practice and, for the first time, enshrine the protections and safeguards that authorised persons must adhere to when exercising that power. It is a significant step forward in driving a consistent approach across the Union for the law enforcement authorities that exercise these powers, and for victims and witnesses in the criminal justice system. Of course, there is more to do outside the Bill in a range of areas, but we are committed to working with victims and survivors and with charities and commissioners to ensure that when implemented, the provisions command the trust and confidence of victims and witnesses. Many of the issues raised in the new clauses can and will be addressed through the code of practice, so I hope that the hon. Member for Croydon Central will feel able to withdraw her amendments and support Government amendment 63 and clauses 36 to 42 standing part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

The full package of these reforms will be named “Kay’s law” in memory of Kay Richardson, who was murdered by her ex-partner following his release under investigation despite evidence of previous domestic abuse. No conditions were imposed and the police gave Martin the keys back to the home he had shared with Ms Richardson. Martin let himself into the house and waited for Ms Richardson, who was 49, before attacking her with a hammer and strangling her. Kay’s mother Audrey Richardson said:

“They might as well have gone and opened the door for him”.

I think we will all want to keep in mind Kay and her family, and all victims of perpetrators who have caused harmed while on RUI, as in Kay’s case, or while continually in breach of bail conditions.

We are all largely pleased with the provisions on pre-charge bail, in that they reverse what amounted to mistakes made in the 2017 reforms, but it is important, if we want to achieve justice that is fair and efficient, that it comes alongside the Government investing in every part of our criminal justice system and tackling some of the many challenges that it faces.

To set the context, the reforms pursued by the Government in 2015 to 2017 introduced the presumption against the use of pre-charge bail. These reforms also introduced strict time limits on the use of pre-charge bail. They were designed to reduce both the numbers of individuals subject to, and the average duration of, pre-charge bail. That was supposed to address concerns that unconvicted individuals were being subjected to pre-charge bail conditions for long periods of time without due process.

The House of Commons Library says:

“There is no official data about who is released from police custody and how they are released. However, data obtained from various freedom of information requests suggest that the number of suspects released on pre-charge bail fell substantially following the 2017 reforms.”

The use of RUI

“increased rapidly as a result.”

A BBC investigation found that in one three-month period, 12 forces released more than 3,000 suspects of violent crime, murder, rape and sexual offences. Officers use RUI when they want more time to gather evidence and when the preconditions for pre-charge bail have not been met. There is no requirement for RUI suspects to report to the police, and the police have no power to place conditions on their movements or activities—although some RUI suspects will voluntarily attend further questioning at the request of the police. There are no time limits within which officers must conclude their investigations against RUI suspects and the police are under no obligation to keep them informed about the progress of their investigation.

Many stakeholders from across the criminal justice system have been critical of these 2017 reforms. The use of RUI, particularly in cases involving violent and sexual offences, puts vulnerable victims at risk because pre-charge bail conditions are not imposed on suspects. There are also concerns that the rights of RUI suspects are being undermined. Investigations against RUI suspects, on average, take longer and the police are not required to inform suspects about their progress while investigations are ongoing.

Zoë Billingham of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary said in December 2020, on the police and Crown Prosecution Services’ response to the changes, that the full consequences

“had not been thought through”.

The report said that of 140 cases examined, in 62 cases a suspect was released under investigation when bail with restrictions should have been used. The inspector said:

“These cases included domestic abuse, sexual offences and offences against children—serious crimes. This is extremely worrying, especially for the victims in these cases, who had no bail conditions in place to keep them safe.”

The report found one case where a suspected paedophile was arrested and, after three months, the bail restrictions lapsed. This was because delays in getting digital evidence from the suspect’s devices meant police feared they would fall short of meeting the threshold to get bail extended. The report also raised particular concerns about domestic abuse cases. Billingham said:

“It has a profound effect on victims’ confidence that they are being taken seriously and staying with cases that can drag on for months and years.”

We welcome the changes, but have suggested some amendments; I will talk about amendment 95 first. Part 3 of schedule 4 would impose a duty on officers to seek the victim’s views on whether pre-charge bail or street bail should be applied, and their views on what conditions should be attached, when it is reasonably practical to do so. Amendment 95 simply strengthens that wording, so that the views of victims must be sought by the investigating officer when setting pre-charge bail conditions, not

“if it is reasonably practical to do so”,

but unless there is an exceptional reason not to do so; it tilts the balance in favour of seeking the views of a victim. It is vital that there be greater consideration of the needs of the victim in setting bail conditions, to protect them and ensure that they are able to continue through the criminal justice process safely and with full confidence.

Amendments 96 and 97 would ensure that the personal situation and needs of the victim, as well as all the circumstances, are taken into account to ensure that any variations necessary to the conditions can be put in place to protect the victim. The needs and situation of the victims must be taken into account when setting pre-charge bail.

It has, sadly, often been the case that victims—largely female victims of rape, domestic abuse or sexual exploitation—are hesitant to provide complete evidence of their personal situation or needs due to fear that the perpetrator will find out and put them, or their family, at risk. It is not right that victims do not feel that the police can protect them enough. Pre-charge bail can be broken and, as this is not a specific criminal offence, the custody clock can currently be run down by continuous breaches of pre-charge bail conditions.

I will talk about the measures in the specific context of domestic abuse, which represents one third of violent crime recorded by the police, and approximately one fifth of all adult homicides—half of all adult homicides when the victim is female. It affected 2.3 million adults in the last year. The criminal justice system still has a long way to go in bringing perpetrators to justice and in providing a consistently good response for domestic abuse survivors.

Over the past couple of years, there has been a notable decline in the number of offences prosecuted by the CPS relating to domestic abuse, despite there being no reduction in prevalence and an increase in offences recorded by the police. Between April 2014 and March 2020, the annual number of domestic abuse-flagged cases referred to the CPS by the police fell by 37%, with similar declines in prosecutions and convictions. In the year ending March 2020, only 9% of domestic abuse-related crimes recorded by the police led to a charge or summons, and the CPS convicted 47,000 domestic abuse cases, compared to 758,000 police-recorded offences relating to domestic abuse.

As incidents of domestic abuse often take place in private, the complainant may be the only witness. CPS guidelines for prosecutors state that:

“Giving evidence may be very difficult for them, or may cause additional difficulties (for example, fear of reprisals; safety of their children; increased family pressures or serious financial repercussions; fear of being 'outed'; fear of a lack of support by the criminal justice system, or specialist support organisations; or, an emotional attachment or loyalty towards the defendant), leading to uncertainty about the course of action they should take.”

[Sarah Champion]

I support the amendments that my hon. Friend is putting forward, because the intention is to put the victim at the absolute centre of all of this. Does she agree that we also need the resources to enable the police to back that up, and to enable the voluntary sector and social workers to put in place the support that she is talking about?

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Nearly 5,000 women are turned away from refuges each year, because the support just is not there and so much provision has been taken away. That applies across all kinds of different aspects of the support that should be in place.

It is well known that separation and reporting to police are periods of heightened risk in abusive relationships, and the effectiveness of bail conditions can be critical. The Centre for Women’s Justice has said that it hears from frontline women’s services that breaches of bail are extremely common, and that women often cease to report them once they find that nothing is done by the police after their initial reports. Some victims withdraw support for prosecution in such situations and sometimes disengage from the domestic abuse service. In its briefing, the Centre for Women’s Justice says that

“in the worst case scenarios women feel so unprotected that they reconcile with suspects and return to abusive relationships, because the separation has increased the dangers they face in the short term. As the only power available to police following a breach of pre-charge bail is to arrest the suspect and release him again on bail, officers sometimes say there is nothing they can do. Police often don’t contact a victim until some time has passed since the reported breach, and many breaches are by phone or electronic communications. In these situations there is little purpose in arresting and releasing the suspect on bail again, and it is understandable that officers take no action.”

New clause 54 has been tabled to probe the Minister and to seek some clarifications and assurances on a number of problems that the police deal with and that have been brought to my attention by several police organisations. New clause 54 would make a breach of any condition of pre-charge bail, such as not being allowed to go to someone’s house, to turn up at the school gates or to visit a certain restaurant, a criminal offence. That would prevent the custody clock being run down by purposeful breaches of bail, and it would particularly protect victims in domestic abuse cases, so that abusers are less likely to breach conditions by returning to the home of the victim. If the enforcement around breach of bail could be strengthened, it would likely drive down the number of offenders who breach bail conditions, and it would allow the police to focus on the worst offenders. It is a straightforward amendment, which was drafted with victims in mind but was recommended to us, as I say, by senior members of the police.

The Police Superintendents Association has spoken to us about making the breach of pre-charge bail conditions a stand-alone criminal offence. Paul Griffiths was clear about this in the evidence session. He said that the PSA has concerns about breach of police bail and that

“bail conditions are imposed and then suspects continue to breach those bails. Of course, those bail conditions would be there to protect victims or even the wider public. It could be extremely useful to us for that to be an offence in its own right. I note that there is an introduction to prevent the start of the custody clock, which was another risk that we thought may come from somebody who would consistently breach their bail, risking an impact on the investigation custody time limits for other aspects for which they were under investigation. The Bill suggests that three hours is sufficient to deal with that breach of bail, and that seems appropriate, but it could be beneficial to the police service for that to be an offence in its own right in terms of processing individuals for such breaches.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 30-31, Q45.]

Could the Minister give us her views on that opinion and on the problem that we are seeking to overcome?

I appreciate that part 5 of schedule 4 would make amendments to the functions of the PACE clock, as it would suspend a detention clock for three hours when someone is arrested for failure to comply with bail. The amendments are supposed to prevent suspects from running down their PACE clock by repeatedly breaching bail. However, the view of many senior police whom I have met is that it is not long enough and that they would prefer the breach of pre-charge bail conditions to be a separate offence. I am aware that the Minister might say that to make the breach of pre-charge bail conditions a stand-alone offence could create an imbalance whereby the breach of post-charge bail conditions is not a stand-alone criminal offence, but I would appreciate her giving her views on how we can tackle this issue.

The Centre for Women’s Justice had a slightly different proposal, which is a two-stage process whereby a breach of bail conditions triggers a presumption that the police will impose a domestic abuse protection notice and apply for a domestic abuse protection order. Once the order is in place, a further breach would be a criminal offence, so it creates a “two strikes and you’re out” process. Perhaps the Minister will give us her view on that.

I reiterate that we very much welcome these much-needed reforms to pre-charge bail. Can the Minister talk us through what plans the Government have to monitor the changes to ensure they are effective and how they will ensure that the data on how each police force deals with suspects after they have been released from custody is clear and can be sufficiently reviewed so that victims across the country can be better protected?

[Sarah Champion]

I am in the unusual position of having found out that things were going wrong with pre-charge bail at the same time that the Minister did. We were both in Rotherham with the National Crime Agency, to learn more about how it was investigating past cases of child sexual exploitation. There was a throwaway line by the officer about how things had got a lot more complicated since pre-charge bail was brought in through the Police and Crime Act 2017, and I have to say that I did not know anything about it.

Pre-charge bail does exactly what it says. Before 2017, the police were able to put in place restrictions on a person before they were charged, such as “You cannot leave the country” or “You cannot go within 100 yards of the victim.” This is really important in a place such as Rotherham, because the victims—the survivors—and the perpetrators are sometimes both still living on the same street, or their children may still be going to the same school, but also because a number of the perpetrators are dual nationality and there is a flight risk. The problem the police had was that there was a window of 28 days during which they had to make the charge, and with child abuse cases, particularly past child abuse cases, it can take months if not years to gather all of the evidence they need to make that charge. We found in Rotherham that the police were having to sit on their hands and hope that the perpetrator did not either flee or—as unfortunately happened in a number of well-documented cases—engage in intimidation. There was a lot of intimidation of victims and witnesses because the police were not, for example, able to put distance restrictions on the then alleged perpetrators.

I really welcome that these restrictions are back. I do not want to reflect on the omission in the intervening years—the fact that they were not in place. I am grateful that the police were creative and used release under investigation, because that was really all that they had, but it was not good enough, and it is not good enough. I am proud to support my hon. Friend’s amendments on this topic, which I think strengthen the Bill and make it even more victim-centred. However, I thank the Minister for listening to the women of Rotherham, the National Crime Agency, and all the other forces up and down the country. These events demonstrate to me that we make legislation with the best of intentions, but sometimes the unintended consequences are severe, so I am grateful that the Government have recognised that mistake and redressed it through this Bill.

What I would say, though—I have to say something, Minister—is that child abuse cases and many sexual offence cases are, by necessity, resource-heavy. If she can do more to put resources within the reach of officers so that they can speed up these cases as much as possible in order to eliminate the ongoing trauma that survivors go through, that would be deeply appreciated.

[Victoria Atkins]

Before I explain the clauses, we should remind ourselves why the 2017 Act was passed. Colleagues may remember that in the first half of the past decade, there were several very high-profile investigations into very serious allegations of child sexual abuse and exploitation. There was an understanding that in some cases—not all—we had to look at bail conditions and so on to ensure that these complex investigations were carried out as efficiently and quickly as possible. That was the driving sentiment behind the 2017 legislation. We have listened to the police and to victims and survivors and charities that work with them. We want to improve the efficiency of the pre-charge bail system and encourage the use of bail where necessary and proportionate.

The hon. Member for Croydon Central explained the background to this clause and schedule and its reference to Kay Richardson, whose murder has already been described. When we scrutinised the Domestic Abuse Bill, I said that the experiences of individual victims and their families were behind many of the measures introduced to improve court processes, for example, and to help with services and refuges. This is such an example. Colleagues will understand that we wanted to take time to work through the measures in this Bill and this schedule in order to ensure they were as effective as possible in helping victims. It could not be included in the Domestic Abuse Bill, but I am pleased it is in this Bill.

The motivation behind Kay’s law is to provide better protection for victims through the anticipated increased use of pre-charge bail and to refocus the system, with victims at its heart. The hon. Lady’s amendments and new clause allow us to discuss two significant elements of this reform package: the duty to seek views from alleged victims on pre-charge bail conditions and the consequences for a suspect who breaches those conditions.

As with other measures in the Bill, our reforms to pre-charge bail put victims at the centre of the changes we are making, to help ensure that they are better protected and involved in decisions that affect them. The views of victims on bail conditions and how these can best safeguard them are vital to enable the police to build a full picture of all the relevant circumstances.

I hope we can all agree that this must be balanced against the need for operational flexibility within policing and the need to balance victims’ rights against those of the suspect. While I would expect officers to seek the views of victims in the vast majority of pre-charge bail cases, that may not always be practicable. For a variety of reasons, a victim may be uncontactable by the police. The duties imposed by the legislation must be proportionate within the investigation. It would not be right, and could be disproportionate, to require officers to hold a suspect in custody longer than appropriate until that contact is made. The current wording goes far enough to ensure that the duty is followed in all cases where it is practical to contact the victim.

We are not of the view that the Bill should be amended to require that officers discharge this duty in every case, unless there are exceptional circumstances. We need this change to work in practice for the benefit of victims and the wider public. I make it very clear that this is the expectation within this legislation, but we have to reflect operational practicalities and the balancing act of ensuring the rights of both victims and suspects.

Amendments 96 and 97 seek to provide that the personal circumstances of the victim are taken into account where bail conditions are varied. I agree with this view but believe that the drafting of the Bill as is, coupled with the current legislation in this area, already provides for this. When imposing or varying conditions, custody officers must take into account a number of considerations, including the need to ensure that the suspect does not interfere with witnesses or obstruct the course of justice, and that will include consideration of the victim’s circumstances and needs. The duty set out in the Bill also requires further consideration by the investigating officer to determine which of the bail conditions are relevant conditions—conditions that relate to safeguarding the victim. I anticipate that that will also require consideration of the victim’s personal circumstances and needs as part of this overall assessment.

Finally in this group, new clause 54 aims to create a criminal offence of breach of pre-charge bail conditions. I understand that there is a long-held concern about the sanctions available when a suspect on pre-charge bail breaches their bail conditions. We should remember that officers will, in the first instance, consider whether the behaviour or actions that breached the conditions amount to a separate offence, such as harassment or intimidation. Equally, there are civil orders that can be put in place, breaches of which constitute an offence. I am thinking of a sexual risk order, a stalking protection order and when in due course they are piloted, the new domestic abuse protection orders. I also have concerns around creating an offence without an understanding of the number of people that it would be likely to affect. I am pleased to say that data collection in this area is being improved, but we do not yet have a full picture of what the effects of such an offence are likely to be on suspects, victims and the wider criminal justice system.

To support the increased data collection around breaches, the Bill includes provision for a pause on the detention clock following arrest for breach of conditions to encourage the police to arrest in those instances. The issues raised by the amendments are all ones that we would expect the College of Policing to address in the statutory guidance provided for in the new section 50(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. In the longer term, across the board of Home Office policy, we will keep under review the case for any additional sanction where pre-charge bail conditions are breached as the reforms provided for in the Bill settle in and we have better data on which to make a decision. For now, however, I invite the hon. Member to withdraw her amendment.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 43, accordingly, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

I will start with new clause 37 on extending double jeopardy. I start with a quote from Dean Radford in the Metro in 2019,

“Like many young boys who grew up with a dream of becoming a footballer, the sport was my whole life. It was the be-all and end-all. I didn’t even want to think about not being offered a contract. That dream looked like it could become reality when I made it to Southampton Football Club at 13 years old. They had produced some of my favourite football heroes and I was given the amazing opportunity to train with boys like myself, who wanted to be the next big thing in football. All of this came to a halt when I was subjected to sexual abuse at the hands of a coach I trusted and looked up to.”

In the 1980s, Radford was one of six boys allegedly abused by their football coach and scout Bob Higgins at Southampton football club. Higgins was acquitted of all charges in the ’90s and continued in same line of work. In 2016 the football abuse scandal rightly erupted, and more than 100 people came forward in relation to Higgins. Higgins was convicted of 45 counts of indecent assault involving 23 victims over a period from 1971 to 1996.

The Criminal Justice Act 2003 sets out exceptions to the law of double jeopardy if the offences are considered “severe” or “serious”. Murder, kidnapping, serious drug offences, serious criminal damage offences, and penetrative child sex offences all come under that definition. The schedule does not exempt any offences relating to non-penetrative sexual assault or sexual activity with a child. Due to double jeopardy exemptions not applying in sexual assault or indecent assault, the original six complainants against Higgins from the 1990s were prevented from having their case reheard. I find it shocking that the law does not deem non-penetrative child abuse as serious or severe enough for retrial.

The Government is right to acknowledge that extending the list of qualifying offences is not something to be undertaken lightly, but any form of child sexual abuse, whether it involves penetration or not, should be considered a serious or severe offence. Survivors do not differentiate between the severity of different forms of sexual abuse; they do not have a hierarchy. They judge it by the impact on their lives, which tends to be both devastating and lifelong. Abuse of a child should be the very definition of a serious crime, regardless of whether penetration has taken place. I return to the quote from Dean Radford in 2019. He says:

“even though Higgins is in jail right now, he spends no time in his cell for the abuse he [allegedly] subjected us to. He sits in jail knowing he got away with it when it comes to us. He took away years of my childhood and ruined my adult life, without paying any consequences for it. There isn’t one day that I don’t feel sick to the stomach, or sleep through one night without waking up and thinking of what he did to me.”

New clause 37 would amend schedule 5 to the Criminal Justice Act to include child sex offences set out in sections 7 to 10 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and sections 14 and 15 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956. Will the Government at the very least commit to a review of the law in this area? It has been 20 years since the Law Commission conducted such a review. The proposed changes to the double jeopardy laws have received widespread support, including from the Victims’ Commissioner, the all-party parliamentary group for adult survivors of child sexual abuse, and over 15,000 people who have signed a change.org petition.

The case of Dean Radford, who was abused by Bob Higgins, is just one that devalues the fairness that should exist in our criminal justice system. Higgins was convicted of abusing a total of 24 boys, but the police, Crown Prosecution Service and clearly the criminal jury and judge appreciated the veracity and importance of Radford’s evidence, because as he was a witness at Higgins’ trial in respect of the abuse—but he did not get the conviction in relation to Higgins’ abuse of him.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. My constituent Ian Ackley was also abused, by Barry Bennell. He was one of the first whistleblowers on the sexual abuse of young men by football coaches, but because he was one of the first, he did not get the support that others got subsequently. As a result, he was encouraged to allow certain offences not to be pursued as much as he would have liked. Does she think that, with additional support, that would change—and how does that relate to her new clause?

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend knows that I have the great privilege of knowing and working with Ian. He is a remarkable survivor, who does everything he can both to prevent and to seek justice for child abuse. The problem in a lot of these cases is that the abuse happened in the past. As technology has moved forward—in the use of DNA, for example—the evidence available now will be so comprehensively different from that available to those brave enough and successful enough to try to get a case to court in, say, the ’70s or ’80s, that not to allow double jeopardy in the case of child abuse seems a really poor and morally reprehensible decision. We have the opportunity to change that now for these specific cases.

As I said, the last review into double jeopardy was conducted 20 years ago by the Law Commission. Since then, the disclosure in 2017 of abuse by Jimmy Savile and in 2016 of abuse within football, and disclosures in other parts of society have changed the societal landscape so radically that I ask the Minister to consider at the very least initiating such a review.

I will end with a question that I put to the Victims’ Commissioner:

“Non-penetrative child abuse offences are not seen as serious crime; therefore, they do not fall under the double jeopardy rule. Should they be?”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 20 May 2021; c. 113, Q178.]

Her answer, in a word, was yes. I urge the Minister, if she will not accept the new clause, to consider a review into this important topic, which is widely supported by the public and a number of bodies.

I will now speak to new clauses 39, 40 and 41 together, while giving a little bit more detail on each one. They all relate to online sexual abuse of children. It might seem silly to say, but people seem to see online abuse as not as severe as abuse in a room, which is nonsense, because online abuse is a child being abused; they are just not in the same room as the abuser. I have to put a health warning on some of the examples that I will give, but I need to give them to explain. Hopefully no one in this room has any knowledge about what is going on out there on the internet, but unfortunately some of us work in this field and so do know. It is pretty chilling, hence my earlier attempt to put “trauma” into the police covenant.

I have worked really closely on these new clauses with the International Justice Mission, which is a fantastic organisation.

[Victoria Atkins]

indicated assent.

[Sarah Champion]

The Minister is nodding. The IJM is leading the way in working collaboratively with international justice departments, police departments and local voluntary organisations around the world. It gave me one example from its recent work in the Philippines, where it has been spending a lot of time. Recently, Philippines police rescued a three-month-old baby in an operation to free children from online sexual exploitation, and weeks later they brought a two-year-old to safety. This is what we are talking about when we talk about online abuse.

The International Justice Mission reports that children it has helped to rescue have been abused by family members. It has been supporting children who have, for example, contracted sexually transmitted diseases as a result of their abuse. Online sexual exploitation includes creating, possessing or distributing child sexual exploitation material such as photos or videos. Traffickers livestream the exploitation to satisfy the online demand of child sex offenders paying to direct the abuse in real time. That crime has been growing internationally, particularly during the covid pandemic, as online offenders have been at home with greater access to the internet and with fewer eyes on them, while victims have been locked into the same environment as their traffickers.

The National Crime Agency has stated its belief that the UK is the world’s third largest consumer of livestreamed abuse. That means that people here are sat in their homes directing the abuse of a child in another country. We must strengthen our criminal legal framework for apprehending those offenders in the UK. They may not physically not carry out the act, but they are directing it, and as far as I am concerned, that is as good as.

The International Justice Mission research shows a trend of relatively lenient sentencing for sex offenders in the UK convicted of abusing children in the Philippines, for example. Offenders serve on average only two years and four months in prison, even though they spent several years and thousands of pounds directing the sexual abuse of children. Those sentences do not represent justice for the survivors and, probably just as important, they do not deter the perpetrators. Prevention is vital, but a framework must be in place to give law enforcement the tools they need to act effectively.

I welcome some of the changes in the Bill, which will really help to deal with the problem, including clause 44 and the positive shifts on sentencing for those convicted of arranging or facilitating sexual abuse. We could go further simply by including online offences.

[Sarah Jones]

I cannot really argue with the points my hon. Friend makes, which seem completely correct. At the bottom of my road was the Shirley Oaks home, which was the scene of massively severe child abuse decades ago. Victims are still coming forward and being compensated for it. The internet now makes it possible for huge numbers of people to be involved in that kind of awful activity, so it is even more important not only that we catch up and stop seeing online offences as different criminal offences, but that we ensure that our response to that crime and our sentencing are such that we can stem the tide. We need to go even further, because that kind of abuse is so widely available that perpetrators can abuse children in any country around the world.

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend makes absolutely the right point. I am talking about UK offenders abusing children internationally, but hon. Members, particularly the Minister, will also be very aware of the rapid escalation of abuse of UK children through online means.

I remember when I first started to research the issue. Simon Bailey, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for child protection, said, “Sarah, what you need to understand is that when a family is sat down watching ‘Antiques Roadshow’ on a Sunday night, and the six-year-old is there playing on their iPad, they could be being groomed and abused in the same room as the parents, and the parents just don’t understand that.” It always chills me. If I may deviate very slightly, Chair, it frustrates me enormously that the Government’s legislation for mandatory relationship education for all children from primary school age, which should have been introduced in September, still has not been brought forward. We have to address that because covid has really escalated the abuse faced by children in this country and internationally.

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Territorial application is making sure that it does not matter where in the world the offences happen, they can still be prosecuted. Section 72 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 makes it clear that the offences can be prosecuted even when the physical act happens outside the United Kingdom. A section 14 offence—the one being strengthened by clause 44—again applies to acts conducted or carried out in any part of the world. The law allows prosecution for an act committed elsewhere, where the communication is online. That is already inherent in section 14; it is inherent in the 2003 Act, which we are strengthening.

[Sarah Champion]

The Minister’s speech is incredibly reassuring, and I am glad that it will now be in black and white in the transcript, because it gives the comfort that we need. However, hearing everything that he is saying, is there any objection to putting the words “online” or “international” in the Bill, just for clarity and just because there is a change? The likelihood of people reading through all the guidance when they are making a decision is slender, whereas they will go to the Act and it would be there in black and white, which would give a lot of comfort.

[Chris Philp]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. My clear understanding is that the police already prosecute for these offences. I will go away and double-check with colleagues to make sure that there is no scope for misunderstanding by law enforcement authorities: the police; the National Crime Agency; and the Crown Prosecution Service. Having investigated that question further, I will write to her with the reply to her question. The law permits it, and the law is being used. However, I will just seek that assurance that there is no misunderstanding by practitioners. My understanding, as I say, is that they are prosecuting and getting some convictions, but I will double-check her point and get back to her in writing.

I think that speaks to the issues raised in new clauses 40 and 41. In relation to new clause 39, I think that the essence of what the hon. Lady is seeking to achieve is delivered by clause 44, as it is drafted, by making the maximum penalty the maximum sentence for the underlying act that is committed. To take the most extreme and distressing example, if someone is being raped and that has been incited, facilitated or arranged online, that facilitation will now—if we pass this clause—lead to that maximum sentence applying. It will be the underlying offence that triggers the maximum sentence, which I think addresses the point that she is quite rightly making in new clause 39. I believe that clause 44 addresses that issue.

Finally, there is the question of new clause 37, which is concerned with double jeopardy. I completely accept, and I think the Government accept, that this is an incredibly difficult area, where a very difficult balance has to be struck, because on the one hand we have long-standing interests of natural justice, which say that someone can only be tried for a given offence once for reasons of fairness, natural justice and finality, but on the other hand there are the points that the hon. Lady has very powerfully made concerning these very distressing offences.

As the hon. Lady said, this issue was looked at by the Law Commission in the early 2000s and then legislated for via the 2003 Act. In fact, the Law Commission initially only recommended that the exemption to double jeopardy should apply to murder. However, when Parliament debated this question, it decided to expand the range of exemptions, which were covered in schedule 5 to the 2003 Act, to cover, in addition to homicide, other offences, as she said, such as rape, penetrative sexual offences, kidnapping and war crimes. Such offences are generally punishable by a term of life imprisonment, or in one or two cases by the exceptionally high standard determinate sentence of 30 years.

A line has to be drawn as these things are balanced, which is an extremely difficult line to draw, because there will always be offences that are just over the non- exception side of that schedule 5 line, which are very grave offences. The hon. Lady very powerfully described why those offences are so appalling, offensive and terrible. She is right—they are—but we have to try to strike a balance in deciding where that line is drawn. Clearly, offences of rape and sexual assault involving penetration are exempted—they can be tried again—but those that do not involve penetration are not in schedule 5, so the rules on double jeopardy apply.

The Bill does not change that, and there are no plans to change where the line is drawn. As the hon. Lady raised the question in such powerful terms, I will raise it with more senior colleagues in Government to test their opinion—I can make no stronger undertaking than that—to ensure that her point, which she articulated so powerfully, gets voiced. I will let her know the response. I do understand her point, but there is a balance to be struck and considerations of natural justice that need to be weighed as well.

[Sarah Champion]

I appreciate what the Minister is saying. In that discussion, will he throw in the potential of another review? In relation to this crime, things have moved on so much, not in the last 20 years, but in the last five years, so it would be good to hear his colleagues’ thoughts on that as well.

[Chris Philp]

Well, I have reached the end of my remarks—

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[The Chair]

I know that members of the public get a little confused by this, so I remind them that the new clauses were debated as part of our discussion on clause 44 because that is where they sit most logically, but we will vote on them at the end of our consideration.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 44 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 45

Positions of trust

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 7, in clause 45, page 37, line 1, leave out subsections (2) and (3) and insert—

“(2) In section 21, after subsection (5), insert—

(5A) This subsection applies if A is regularly involved in caring for, training, supervising or being in sole charge of B and none of subsections (2) to (13) of this section otherwise applies.”

(3) In section 16—

(a) in subsection (2)(a), leave out ‘or (5)’ and insert ‘, (5) or (5A)’;

(b) in subsection (4)(a), leave out ‘or (5)’ and insert ‘, (5) or (5A)’.

(4) In section 17—

(a) in subsection (2)(a), leave out ‘or (5)’ and insert ‘, (5) or (5A)’;

(b) in subsection (4)(a), leave out ‘or (5)’ and insert ‘, (5) or (5A)’.

(5) In section 18—

(a) in subsection (2)(a), leave out ‘or (5)’ and insert ‘, (5) or (5A)’;

(b) in subsection (4)(a), leave out ‘or (5)’ and insert ‘, (5) or (5A)’.

(6) In section 19—

(a) in subsection (2)(a), leave out ‘or (5)’ and insert ‘, (5) or (5A)’;

(b) in subsection (4)(a), leave out ‘or (5)’ and insert ‘, (5) or (5A)’.”

This amendment aims to ensure that all adults who are in a position of trust are subject to the child sexual abuse offences provided for by section 16 to 19 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, rather than simply extending the definition to those who coach, teach, train, supervise or instruct children in a sport or a religion.

I am sorry; everyone must be sick of my voice now. I must say that I am sick of giving this speech on positions of trust, because I have given it so many times. I will start, somewhat cheekily, by quoting the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle, back to herself on clause 1 and the police covenant. On Tuesday, she said:

“We have kept the wording deliberately broad to ensure that there is room within the legislation to allow the Secretary of State to consider issues of importance as they arise, and the issues that have been raised here will be included in those considerations.”—[Official Report, Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 25 May 2021; c. 198.]

I ask her to take a similar approach on positions of trust. I am hugely—[Interruption.] Oh. I will ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Croydon South, to listen to the other Minister’s wise words when it comes to considering positions of trust. It is a real collaborative effort when it comes to tackling child abuse, and I do appreciate that.

Let me set out my stall. At the time of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, it was rightly identified that certain adults had a position of trust over a child that made it all the more inappropriate for them to have sexual relations with that child. I am talking specifically about children aged 16 or 17 who are able to have sex within the law, and who are able to give consent. Because of the adult’s position of trust, they have a disproportionate amount of power over that child, which brings into debate the free gift of consent that a child could give because of that power imbalance. Clause 22(2) of the Sexual Offences Act defines someone in a position of trust, saying,

“a person looks after persons under 18 if he is regularly”—

that is a key word—

“involved in caring for, training, supervising or being in sole charge of such persons.”

I think we would all agree on that.

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[Alex Cunningham]

My mum is a wise older woman who will be 88 on 1 August. She has offered me many a statement, and sometimes direction, that has given me food for thought and helped me form opinions or even take action to work for change. One expression she would use in the past was, “We all come into the world the same way, and we all leave it the same way.” She knew, as we all do, that opportunities between and birth and death vary tremendously for our people. We need to work for equality wherever we can, particularly for our children and young people. We need to apply that work on equality to this Bill, to ensure that all young people are protected from adults in a position of trust over them and, where they are exploited, to ensure that the full weight of the law is felt by those who have betrayed that position and possibly ruined young persons’ lives.

The Opposition have worked for months with the police and policing and justice stakeholders from across the field in drawing together our various amendments. It has been extremely heartening that Ministers have already shown a great willingness to work together to improve the Bill. That has been extremely welcome thus far, and I hope it will extend to our discussion on clause 45.

This matter has strong cross-party support, and I am sure hon. Members join me in giving wholehearted thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham and those she paid tribute to earlier—the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford and Baroness Grey-Thompson—for their tireless work prosecuting the case and campaigning for wider protections for our children.

The proposed extension to the definition of “position of trust” is very much welcomed by the Opposition, but it is vital that we do not miss this opportunity to introduce a comprehensive solution that protects children from potentially abusive adults in positions of influence over them in all activities and settings. It is time to Close the Loophole, as the NSPCC has called its campaign.

Before I discuss the excellent amendment from my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, on which she made an outstanding and meaningful speech, I would like to seek some clarity about who is covered by the definition currently in the Bill, to eliminate confusion. Can the Minister confirm that, with regard to sports, the current wording covers those adults who are instructing and training children in recreational physical activity that is not directly leading to a specific competitive event or display—for example, swimming lessons or dance classes? Can he also confirm that, with regard to religion, the current wording covers adults who are leading activities that have a religious ethos, or who are operating under the auspices of a specific religious organisation or denomination, but where the activities are not directly related to religious practice—for instance, a temple youth group, a church camp or outdoor activities? What happens there? I would welcome clarity on all those points. The possible confusion in the current wording, which has been pointed out by the NSPCC, means that the clause as it stands may not cover all sporting and religious activity.

The lack of clarity about the Government’s proposals goes to illustrate the issue at hand. Why are we excluding children from the protections of this clause in some settings, but not in others? I will repeat that point a few times. Why have the Government chosen to draw the line here? Why are some children being safeguarded and others left at risk? As it stands, the Government will be excluding children from this new protection in many settings, such as music, creative and performing arts, tutoring, cadets, driving lessons and youth clubs.

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend is making a very strong point. I am thinking about this from a parent’s point of view. At the moment, they assume that everybody in a position of trust over their child, as they would see it, is covered by this legislation. It seems ridiculous that, when we are talking about a child in school—I will stay with the example of the maths teacher—the maths teacher would be convicted if they had sex with a 16-year-old, but if the child leaves school and goes to a maths tutor, the maths tutor could have sex with them and would not be prosecuted. The issue is just about getting clarity for everyone on this.

[Alex Cunningham]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. It illustrates exactly what we are about here, which is that everybody should be treated the same. Incidentally, I had an excellent maths teacher; I do not remember his first name, but he was Mr Fielding, and he was a first-class maths teacher.

I am sure that we all agree that extracurricular activities such as those that I have outlined are vital for children’s development. They provide opportunities for children to learn new skills, make new friends and develop self-confidence. But why should those young people not be afforded the same level of protection when doing them?

I discussed this issue recently with my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), and she shared with me a number of horrendous cases of abuse by adults in positions of trust that have arisen in her constituency, yet the definition proposed by the Government would not cover these horrific abuses. I understand that she discussed one particular case in meetings with Justice and Home Office Ministers, so she was surprised, as I am, that no action was taken in this legislation to deal with people in similar situations in the future.

I am sharing details of the case here with my hon. Friend’s permission. She said:

“With regard to tutors, we had a dreadful case of grooming and then assault on a teenager who was a music student, by her private tutor.

She was groomed from the age of 14, was a rising talent, which he nurtured and there came a relationship of dependency in the light of this.

He then raped her when she turned 16.

The case went to the CPS but they did not proceed with the case despite the support of the local police.

It destroyed her.

Music lessons were conducted in private. He held her future career in his hands.

He was in a position of trust and abused that trust.”

Can the Government explain why they have chosen not to extend the positions of trust laws to cover all situations like this, where the adult holds the power to influence a young person’s future and is in close contact with the child? If we fail to close this loophole, we will fail young victims like the young woman in the case I just described.

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As noted by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, while subsection (2) allows the Secretary of State to add or remove activities in the future, we are concerned by the challenge of collecting data on something that is not defined in law.

[Sarah Champion]

Like my hon. Friend, I am somewhat perplexed. He is right: subsection (2) suggests that the Government recognise that additional careers may need to come under the legislation, now or in the future, so why are they closing the door now when they recognise that they will need to open it again in a year or in 10 years? NSPCC research on the cases it already knows have been prosecuted identifies—as well as the teaching professions, faith and sport—transport, youth work, scouts, cadets, charities and the performing arts as the most prevalent careers for cases. We know that there are more cases.

[Alex Cunningham]

Yes, and that seems so obvious. The briefings we have received from different organisations outline that the fact that this is the case across all the activity that my hon. Friend describes. How will the Minister determine what is to be added or removed in future? What criteria will be used to determine which child should be protected and which should not?

No doubt a robust mechanism will be required to monitor the implementation and to ensure that no child is placed at unnecessary risk, but the legal framework makes it difficult to collect comprehensive data on the scale of abuse by those in positions of trust. We have insight to the scale of the problem, and I thank the NSPCC for providing these figures and pay tribute to it. The NSPCC is probably one of the clearest about what it is trying to achieve; when it sends me a brief, I know exactly what it wants, and I trust it tremendously when it tells me things.

The NSPCC tells me that the Office for National Statistics has analysed child sexual abuse data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which asks people over 16 to report on their experiences of abuse in childhood. It found that in 9.7% of all contact child abuse cases, and in 4.4% of all non-contact child abuse cases, the perpetrator was an adult in a position of trust or authority over the child. For males—this actually surprised me—19% of contact abuse was by a person in a position of trust or authority.

In the data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, the definition of a person in a position of trust or authority included positions currently included in the definition of positions of trust, such as teachers and social workers, and persons included within the Government’s proposals in clause 45, such as sports coaches and religious leaders, as well as positions that remain outside the Government’s proposals, including private tutors, youth workers and those leading music and creative activities, which we have covered.

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[Alex Cunningham]

Indeed I do. People say, “It doesn’t matter what laws you pass; people will find a way.” That is one of the terrible things in our society.

Having heard what both my hon. Friends have said, I reflect on the parents and the trauma that parents face when they realise that they have allowed their child—their daughter—to be tutored by a particular person to learn the piano, or entrusted them to a sports coach working with 20 children, who goes on to abuse them. The parents have that guilt—guilt they have to live with. It is not their fault, but they still have to live with the guilt.

We must strengthen the law as much as possible, so that if such cases come to light the perpetrators face the full force of the law, and we must not allow any loopholes whatever to protect any of those people.

The figures from the NSPCC that I mentioned come from a series of freedom of information requests on all local authority children’s services in England and Wales between 2014 and 2018. The NSPCC found that over a four-year period there were 653 complaints about adults who were not covered by the criminal law having sex with 16 and 17-year-olds in their care. That compares to 1,025 criminal offences of abuse of a position of trust of a sexual nature in the same period.

The NSPCC also asked local authorities to provide information about the fields of work of the referrals: 26% were cases in sport and leisure settings; 12% were in religious group settings; 11% were cases involving transport or involving drivers—my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central referred to cases involving driving instructors; 5.7% were in settings of voluntary or charity work; and another 5.7% were in cadet organisations. That is 653 cases where our law did not protect vulnerable young people.

We have a chance to extend that provision to protect children in those settings future and I urge the Government to take it—please do not lose the opportunity. Those figures are deeply disturbing, but statistics alone do not convey the impact that abuse of a position of trust has on children and young people, including the truly devastating impact when someone is told that what happened to them is not a criminal offence and nothing can be done about it. Too many young victims are being given the message that the adult who abused their position did nothing wrong and that to have prevented it from happening the young person should not have consented.

With support from the NSPCC, “Hannah”, whose name has been changed, and two other brave young women directly affected by that form of abuse wrote directly to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. “Hannah” told the NSPCC, “When I turned 16, ‘Jeff’, my swimming coach, began to comment on my appearance. He would tell me that I looked nice or that clothes looked good on me. No one had ever said these things to me before, and I wasn’t sure how to feel. Soon he started pushing the boundaries. Initially he would just give me a hug. Then one day he gave me a hug and put his hand on my bottom. ‘Jeff’ spent a long time making me feel comfortable. I remember the first time we kissed. After training, we started to be intimate in that way a couple would. After some time, we started having sex. This was my first sexual experience. ‘Jeff’ told me to keep this a secret. I was under the impression when ‘Jeff’ told me not to tell anyone that it would be for the best for my swimming, and this would develop into a proper relationship and we could tell everyone. I wanted to tell my friends, but I knew I couldn’t. When this relationship came tumbling down, I changed with it. I was left feeling really angry, I was a difficult person to be around. It took me a long time to trust friends and family, to let them hug me again.”

Hearing the devastating impact of that horrific abuse is absolutely heartrending. I want to put on record the great debt of gratitude that we as parliamentarians owe to the courageous young people, such as “Hannah”, who work with the NSPCC to lobby the Government on the issue. Their civic-mindedness in the wake of such dreadful abuse is so very admirable, and because of their work, alongside others, the law will be improved to protect more young people.

In the event that the Government do not support my hon. Friend’s excellent amendment, will the Minister say how the risks associated with positions that remain outside the definition—for example, private music tutor or cadet leader—will be monitored? The consistent collection and monitoring of data relating to the implementation and effectiveness of clause 45 are vital if it is to protect the full range of young people who may come into contact with personal abusers. If the Minister will not do what the Opposition consider the right thing, will he please provide clarity on the review mechanisms the Government will put in place to decide whether further extensions of the definition of “positions of trust” in clause 45(2) should take place?

I want to consider some of the Government’s previous objections to the extension of the ambit of the “positions of trust” definition. In March 2020, during a Westminster Hall debate on sports coaches in positions of trust, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), said:

“What is at stake here is a need to balance the legal right, as prescribed by Parliament, for young persons aged 16 and over to consent to sexual activity, with the proper desire to protect vulnerable young people from manipulation.”

Although I agree that it is not our place to deny age-appropriate rights as prescribed by Parliament, this is not an attempt to raise the age of consent by stealth. It is an attempt to offer extra protection to young people when they are specifically in a context where there is a disproportionate power imbalance.

[Sarah Champion]

I hear that the Government use that excuse a lot, and my rebuttal is always that it has not been an issue for the past 18 years when it has been in place for teachers, so why would it suddenly be an issue with different professions?

[Alex Cunningham]

Again, my hon. Friend makes it very clear that we are bamboozled by the approach that the Government are taking. Surely the figures that I mentioned earlier show that there is significant prevalence of abuse in such settings, and that Parliament should step in and offer protections to our young people. Later today, we will be talking about memorials. Apparently, the law could be changed, and one person extra might go to prison as a result of the new legislation, yet here is a serious situation whereby many people could be sent to prison for the abuse of young people, but the Government are not making the necessary changes. We hope that the Minister is actually listening.

In Westminster Hall, the hon. Member for Cheltenham said:

“Another complicating feature is the evolving case law in the area. In certain situations, the criminal division of the Court of Appeal has already been clear that supposed consent may be vitiated or even negated, thereby creating a criminal offence in any event… That is important because, as the Crown Prosecution Service now indicates in its charging decisions, in certain circumstances that ruling could apply where perpetrators were in a position of power in which they could abuse their trust over a victim. If we look at the CPS charging decision—in other words, when making a decision about whether there truly was consent in a relationship—one of the matters that has to be considered is:

‘Where the suspect was in a position of power where they could abuse their trust, especially because of their position or status’”—

including, as he said himself—

“‘a family member, teacher, religious leader, employer, gang member, carer, doctor.’”

He continued:

“The point is that it is no longer necessarily automatically good enough for the defendant to say, ‘Look, she consented’, if in fact that will was suborned in some way. That might well be a very proper reason why the CPS could conclude that there had been no consent.”—[Official Report, 4 March 2020; Vol. 672, c. 304WH.]

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[Chris Philp]

I think that was the constituency case raised by the hon. Member for York Central. In that case, the victim alleged rape—she was saying that there was no consent—and in cases where there is no consent, it is obviously appropriate that it is investigated as rape and prosecution is sought for rape. The legislation we are discussing today deals with cases where there is consent. I do not know the particulars of the case—the shadow Minister said that it was not subsequently proceeded with—but that is a non-consent case. We are discussing cases where, even with consent, it is still held that an offence has been committed.

I think we are agreed about the need for reform. We have listened carefully to the cases that have been made, and have made these proposals. The shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Rotherham have raised a number of questions through their amendments and in their speeches, the first of which is, “Why shouldn’t this be much broader? Rather than specifying sports and religion, why not—as amendment 7 does—have a very broad clause that says

‘if A is regularly involved in caring for, training, supervising or being in sole charge of B’?”

That is an extremely broad set of definitions, and it is not completely clear from that very broad drafting who might or might not be included in them. The shadow Minister asked, “Why be specific? Why not be general?” The first reason for wanting to be specific rather than general—specifying these two roles, religion and sport, to start with—is so that people have certainty about which side of the line they are on. If the clause is drafted very broadly—“caring, training, supervising”—supervising is an extraordinarily broad term, so it would not be immediately obvious who is included and who is not included. One of the features of good law is that the people who might be subject to it have some pretty good degree of certainty about whether they are going to be affected or not. The Government’s concern about terms as broad as “supervising” is the question of what is covered by them. What is included, and what is excluded? There are a lot of things that could be covered by the term “supervising”.

[Sarah Champion]

As I am sure the Minister is aware, amendment 7 is a direct lift from the Sexual Offences Act 2003, so the definition that he is pulling apart now is already law. The bit that we are challenging is adding the specific job titles to the legislation, which I think is already fit for purpose.

[Chris Philp]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point. However, the point about providing some degree of certainty for someone in a particular role in this context, which is at the edge of the law—where the law is evolving—none the less has some validity.

Having said that we want to be specific rather than general for the reason just outlined, the question that then arises—which the shadow Minister and the hon. Lady have asked—is, “Why these two roles? Why sports and religion to start with?” I stress the words “start with”. The reason is twofold: first, those particular roles carry an unusual degree of influence.

Religion is a powerful force. Ministers of religion or people who lead religious congregations often wield very extreme and high levels of influence over their congregations and their followers. It therefore seems appropriate to recognise the high degree of influence that flows from that particular religious context.

In the case of sports coaches, there is clearly a degree of physical proximity. In fact, the shadow Minister, powerfully and eloquently illustrated in describing the case of Hannah—the case of the swimming coach—how it is that sports settings are so easily abused. That is why sport was selected as one of the two specific areas. It also flows from the data. In fact, the shadow Minister referred to the January 2020 report of the all-party parliamentary group on safeguarding in faith settings, chaired by the hon. Member for Rotherham. It analysed the 653 complaints mentioned by the shadow Minister and, in 495 of those, the type of role that the person was discharging was identified. The figures I have are slightly different from the shadow Minister’s—they are broadly similar, though—and the top two categories were sport, at 31%, and faith, at 14%. Therefore, the two roles here are the two top roles revealed by that survey. Of course, there were other roles with smaller percentages.

[Sarah Champion]

The frustration of wearing a mask is that the Minister cannot see that I am smiling. He is quoting back all the arguments I have been making for the last five years—I am grateful that they have sunk in. He is right that we went for the most obvious and biggest offenders, but that is now. As I said in my speech, I am concerned that in five years it may be counsellors, whom we have not mentioned today but have a huge influence over the people they support, or an online form that turns online grooming into real abuse. I completely agree with him, but this measure needs to be future-proofed so that we do not keep having the same arguments as the professions and influences change.

[Chris Philp]

I pay tribute again to the work done by the hon. Member in this area over many years and the work done by her all-party parliamentary group. I am glad that we agree on the starting point, because she has called for it and the data of her all-party parliamentary group points to it as well. The question is how it is best future-proofed and whether one tries to do so with the general provisions in amendment 7, which would run the risk of giving us a lack of clarity and potentially inadvertently criminalising some situations that hon. Members may not feel appropriate, or with the other approach of starting with these two specifics—I think we agree they are the right starting point, because the evidence points there—and adding further positions as the evidence base develops. That is what proposed new section 22A(4) of the 2003 Act will do: it will give the Secretary of State power to add other specific roles as that evidence base develops.

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[Chris Philp]

The criteria are not specified in subsection (4), which simply says:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations amend subsections (1) and (2) to add or remove an activity in which a person may be coached, taught, trained, supervised or instructed.”

However, providing the profession or category of person being added is involved in coaching, teaching, training, supervision or instruction—provided they do one of those things—they are capable of being added.

On the criteria that might be applied, that would be for the Secretary of State and a Delegated Legislation Committee to determine. I suggest that what would make sense is for the criteria to consider two or three things: first, the degree of influence that the person has—that case has been met in the case of sports’ coaches and religious ministers or practitioners—and, secondly, that there is an evidence base to demonstrate that abuse of that position of authority is occurring. Again, that case has been made for sports and ministers or practitioners of religion, because the data that the APPG received shows that.

I suggest to the Committee—this is not in the legislation—that if those two criteria are met, it might be appropriate to make further additions, but that would be for the Secretary of State and a Delegated Legislation Committee to decide, case by case. I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Rotherham, the APPG and others will make that case. The mechanism is there to add things pretty quickly from month to month, or year to year, as the cases get laid out.

In conclusion, it strikes the Government that the provision is the best way of protecting vulnerable people—we have started with sports and religion—but we have also created the facility to expand the list quickly and easily by delegated legislation, as the case gets made by campaigners over time. On that basis, I hope that the Committee will be content to see clause 45 stand part of the Bill. I hope that the provisions that I have been explaining mean that amendment 7 does not need to be pressed to a vote.

[Sarah Champion]

I have heard everything that the Minister said. I 100% put on the record my gratitude that our work to research and prove the case around faith leaders was heard and listened to. However, my concern is the clarity. No legislation is effective unless it is out in the public domain, whether that is for the professionals who need to use it or, for example, the victims or families who need to know it is there.

As the Bill stands, my concern is that, were we to go to for the

“regularly involved in caring for, training, supervising or being in sole charge of”

persons as the definition that means it is a crime, any parent or individual would know what that meant. I do not want to press the amendment to a vote now, but I will reserve the right to later, because 21 MPs spoke on this in the Chamber, so I think it needs to be heard by the Minister. We need that clarity so that any parent or child knows what their rights are. Just having certain professions defined muddies the waters further rather than a blanket definition based on role and responsibility. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[The Chair]

We have had a fairly thorough debate, so I am not sure there is any need for a clause stand part debate.

Clause 45 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 46

Criminal damage to memorials: mode of trial

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Seventh sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th May 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be back here today. Before I get into the detail of the clauses, I want to put some questions to the Minister, to reflect on the importance of reviews when there have been homicides or unexplained deaths and to give an example.

I was reading the serious case review about Child Q, who was aged 16 when he died following a moped crash. One might think, “There’s a child who died following a moped crash. End of story.” but because he was a vulnerable adolescent there was a comprehensive serious case review into his life, his death and what happened.

At the time of his death, he was a looked-after child in children’s services and was living in the midlands with members of his extended family. On the day of the collision, he had been released on conditional bail from a remand court for breach of his court order. Family members and professionals had requested that he be made the subject of a curfew and tagging, but that, for whatever reason, was not put in place and he returned to London, where the fatal accident occurred.

He started his life as an aspirational boy and had wanted to be a professional footballer. His first conviction ended those aspirations and the motivation to play football. Throughout his life he lived with various family members and foster carers. He was often missing and was both a victim and a perpetrator of various offences. He was involved in high-risk behaviour and believed to be a gang member. When interventions were made, he appeared to understand that his life was very high risk, but seemed almost resigned to the inevitable risks that he was facing. During the latter stages of professional involvement, Child Q asked the professionals, “Where were you when I was six?”

This 16-year-old died because of a moped crash, but because of this review we can learn that bail conditions and tagging would have helped him to make the decision not to travel to London. We have learned that this child was in and out of care and often went missing, that interventions were not made and that the problems started very early. Although that could not in itself have prevented that death, there is a story behind that child that we can learn from.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend may not know that I used to run a children’s hospice. Child deaths are very rare, but a review such as this enables the family to have the closure that they need to move on, enables the lessons to be learned and enables the whole community to grieve and draw a line under something. Of course it is important to understand the failings that occurred so that they never happen again, but also in the broader context, conducting a review is a really important thing to do. In terms of costs and resources, these deaths are not that common; this does not happen that often, but when it does, it destroys a community, not to mention the family.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She speaks with great experience, and she is absolutely right: doing these reviews has wider benefits. Reading the review on Child Q and hearing the stories from the father, mother and family members about him, we can see, hopefully, some form of the beginnings of closure from the review. Therefore we are very much in favour of extending homicide reviews in the way provided for under the Bill. We have some amendments, but they come later, so I will not speak to them now.

To do the victims and their families and friends justice, we need to ensure that the lessons are learned. Part 2, chapter 2 of the Bill will require police, local authorities and clinical commissioning groups to conduct offensive weapon homicide reviews when an adult’s death involves the use of an offensive weapon. Police recorded 625 homicide offences in the year ending December 2020. Of all homicides recorded in the last year—the latest year that we have information for—37% were knife-enabled crimes. A large proportion of homicides involve offensive weapons. In the year ending March 2020, 275 homicides involved a sharp instrument, 49 involved a blunt instrument and 30 were homicides involving shooting. It is therefore absolutely right that the Government look to learn the lessons from those homicides not currently reviewed by multi-agency partners.

In my constituency, there have been incidents in which adults have been killed and an offensive weapon was involved. In one instance, there were incidents in the same area within weeks of each other. Those cases were not linked together, but actually, when people looked into the background and how those murders occurred, it turned out that they were linked.

It is therefore important that the pathways that lead people to be involved in homicides, whether as victims or perpetrators, can be understood and the knowledge can be shared. Offensive weapon homicide reviews will be similar to the domestic homicide reviews that already take place. Domestic homicide reviews are carried out when someone over the age of 16 dies as a result of domestic violence, abuse or neglect. The Government have committed to taking action to address homicide, but have not previously committed to introducing offensive weapon homicide reviews specifically.

Clause 23 will require an offensive weapon homicide review to be carried out when a qualifying homicide has taken place. A qualifying homicide occurs when an adult’s death or the circumstances or history of the person who has died meet conditions set by the Secretary of State in regulations. In accordance with clause 27, the purpose will be to identify lessons to learn from the death and to decide on actions to take in response to those lessons.

Clauses 24 to 35 do a number of things, including giving the Secretary of State the power to specify the relevant review partners in regulations and which of the listed public bodies will need to carry out the review in these circumstances, and to clarify when offensive weapon homicide reviews do not need to be carried out. Importantly, review partners must report on the outcome of their review to the Secretary of State. In addition, there are other key regulations about the obligations of offensive weapon homicide review partners.

Clause 33 is important, as it will require offensive weapon homicide reviews to be piloted before they are brought into force. The Secretary of State will be required to report to Parliament on the pilot. It is vital that offensive weapon homicide reviews are piloted before being rolled out nationally, but the provisions are fairly light on detail. It would be helpful if the Minister could provide any further information on the piloting. Can she clarify how many local authorities or police forces they will work with to pilot the reviews?

Standing Together, a domestic abuse charity, recently reviewed domestic homicide review processes in London boroughs. Its 2019 report identified several areas for improvement, including how domestic homicide reviews are stored and retrieved, how chairs are appointed, and how appropriate funding is secured. It also highlighted that not enough sharing of knowledge is happening.

We are glad that the pilot partners will report on these reviews before they are implemented, but could the Minister explain in a bit more detail what those reports will include? Will there be regular reporting and evaluation of these offensive weapons homicide reviews once they are implemented? Where there is an overlap, and a homicide fits into two different categories—for example, if there is a domestic homicide review and an offensive weapons homicide review—how will the lessons be learned? Will there be two reviews, or just one? I am also keen to hear how the lessons from all existing homicide reviews can be better understood and shared between partners to ultimately make our streets safer and save lives.

The Secretary of State is given the power to make regulations on offensive weapons homicide reviews, to provide information on how to identify which local services are relevant to the review and how local services can negotiate who carries out the review when the circumstances are not clear. This is defined in regulatory powers, not on the face of the Bill; perhaps the Minister could explain why, and also explain what her expected timeframe is for these powers. If the duty to conduct these reviews will not be carried out until the criteria are defined in regulation, will there be a delay? What period of time is the Minister expecting that to be—because those regulations will need to go through Parliament—and what will happen after the regulations are published? Can she provide any data on how many more homicide reviews this change will actually bring; what expected number of reviews will need to be undertaken? Finally, what are the plans for budgets to cover local safeguarding partners’ costs for the delivery of these reviews? That question was raised in evidence from the Local Government Association, so will the Home Office be submitting a case to increase the funding for local authorities? If not, how does it envisage that these reviews will be funded? I will leave it there.

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[Sarah Jones]

As more and more crimes take place online or are enabled through digital devices and the internet, the extraction of information from electronic devices has increasingly become a routine part of criminal investigations, but the way in which such information can be made available to law enforcement, prosecutors and the defence has rightly received a great deal of attention and scrutiny in recent years, particularly in rape cases. It has become the norm for rape complainants to be asked to hand over digital devices and for most or all of the material to be checked through in detail. The Victims’ Commissioner said in her excellent evidence to the Committee last week that, through her recent survey of rape complainants and her network of stakeholders, she had heard that

“the CPS frequently seeks a level of material straight away, before it charges, and if a complainant refuses, the case just does not get considered for charge. That is very, very troubling, and it has a chilling effect not only on current victims, but on reporting, and it could impact victim attrition.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 20 May 2021; c. 110, Q174.]

I will give some examples that have come to light and that reflect many people’s experience. These are the words of Courtney:

“After a two-and-a-half-year investigation into my sexual assault case, which had witnesses and a potential second victim, the police told me the CPS was going to drop my case if I didn’t give them a download of my phone. When I asked them what was the reasonable line of inquiry, they told me that I could be lying. There could be something that discredits me on there. I could be hiding something. And to me, that’s not reasonable. I was asked why I was concerned, but actually it’s totally rational to fear giving your phone over to the police. I think most people would not want to give the contents of their phone to their mother”—

I certainly would not—

“let alone the government or the person who attacked them who may, because of rules around disclosure, get access to it. When I refused my case was immediately dropped.

The CPS turned its back on me and treated me as a suspect—they made it so clear that I was alone and I was powerless. That anyone can rape me with impunity unless I submit to the court’s illegal demands.

And it became clear to me that I needed to work to change that, because it can’t go on. I had my power taken away from me from the assault, I had my power taken away from me from the criminal justice system. I was left in a really bad place. There were times, you know, I didn’t want to be here anymore. But taking up this case, working with the Centre for Women’s Justice, it’s been so important for my mental wellbeing. I feel like, for the first time in a while, I’m coming to terms with everything that happened to me.”

A woman who was raped by a stranger in London told The Independent newspaper that she dropped her case after the police demanded access to her mobile phone. She said:

“It made me very angry, it made me feel like I was the one on trial and they were trying to seek out ways it was my fault.”

She added that she was concerned that evidence of past one-night stands could be used against her in court. Another woman who faced the same demand after the Metropolitan police had identified her attacker using DNA told that paper that the investigation felt like “one intrusion after another”. She said:

“I’m not actually sure I would have gone ahead with the case if I’d known what was part of the process.”

In another case, the CPS demanded to search the phone of a 12-year-old rape victim despite the fact that the perpetrator had admitted the crime. The case was delayed for months as a result. Finally, a different woman reported being drugged and then attacked by a group of strangers, but the case was dropped after she refused to hand over seven years of phone data.

Analysis of a rape crisis administrative dataset conducted by the office of the Victims’ Commissioner showed that one in five victims withdrew complaints at least in part because of disclosure and privacy concerns. Victims in 21% of cases had concerns about digital downloads, about disclosing GP, hospital, school and employment records, and about a combination of negative press coverage. Home Office data also shows an increase in pre-charge withdrawal of rape complaints. In the year ending December 2020, 42.8% of rape offences were closed as part of what is called the “evidential difficulties” category—where the victim did not support further police action against a suspect—compared with 25.6% in 2015. As we know, the charge rate for sexual offences is just 3.6%, and for rape it is 1.6%.

Such stark figures will not help with the concerns of many senior police chiefs that there has been a fall in public and victim confidence in the police in relation to rape cases, in particular. The issue of digital data extraction plays a big role in that, which is why we have tabled amendments. I am sure the Minister will say that clause 36 is required to tidy up the law so that it is clear about what the police can and cannot do, but with our amendments we are seeking to define and improve the rights of victims so that it is clearer to them when data should and should not be extracted.

Amendment 94 would ensure that users of electronic devices are offered free, independent legal advice before information on their device could be accessed, and it was recommended by the Victims’ Commissioner. It is vital that victims understand their rights so that they can make an informed decision on whether to agree to handing over their device for digital download.

[Sarah Champion]

I can only speak from my constituency experience, but many women have come to me having gone to report offences against them in childhood or rape offences against them. They are not in a position to give consent; they are not even in a position to understand what is going on—they are in a highly traumatised state. Walking into a police station is a very shocking thing. They go up to the front desk, get a meeting—one hopes—with an officer, and they are then told to hand over their phones or the police cannot proceed. Will my hon. Friend comment on that inherent power imbalance and the vulnerability of people in that situation—they were all women in those cases—who are expected to make an informed choice?

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about that power imbalance. I have not been in that situation myself, but I can only imagine the bravery that it would take for someone just to take those first steps into a police station and recount what has happened to them, given how awful that would make them feel, let alone potentially handing over everything on their phones.

We were all watching Dominic Cummings yesterday—well, some of us were. [Interruption.] Whatever we think of him, right or wrong, he commented, “Well, I would not just hand my phone over so you could look, just to fish to see if there was anything on it that you thought might be relevant.” It is the same situation here. If people have past sexual history, which most people have, the idea that that would be used against someone in that vulnerable position—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

That is completely right and why we think that having some advice would help in both directions. It would help be clear about when a phone should or should not be handed over, but it would also hopefully help give people confidence when handing it over is the right thing to do, because it is reasonable and proportionate for the police to ask for it, for whatever reason they have given. We hope that that legal advice and support at that stage would help stop anything from being just a fishing expedition, while also giving people confidence to hand over their phones when that is the appropriate thing to do.

I am grateful to the Home Office for funding a pilot of independent legal advice for rape complainants dealing with digital download in Northumbria. The Sexual Violence Complainants’ Advocate scheme pilot engaged local solicitors to provide legal advice and support to rape complainants in Northumbria, related to the complainants’ article 8 rights to privacy. The pilot demonstrated what was happening in practice and found that about 50% of requests were not strictly necessary or proportionate. Some police officers who participated in the scheme expressed concern about this culture. One said:

“I could talk all day about third-party material, and it is the real bone of contention. It’s one of the things that has given me sleepless nights over the years.”

They go on:

“I had a rape team investigator say to me on one occasion, or a former rape team investigator, say to me, ‘I had to like leave the rape team because of what I was asked to do, in relation to victims, I couldn’t do it’. And I think, you know, that, for me just spoke volumes. And lots of people were expressing their concerns, including me, but when that officer said that to me, I kind of thought, d’you know what, there’s something sadly wrong here.”

Another contributor said:

“I would love to see a document where somebody who has looked at third-party material has actually considered the Article 8 rights of the victim. ’Cos I don’t think you’ll find that anywhere.”

Furthermore, another said:

“In terms of the 3rd party material: I have obtained as much as I need from her phone. I have just received her Local Authority Records from [Council] and I am awaiting her medical records and school records. Once I have reviewed this material, I will be able to go to the CPS for a decision. Unfortunately, as you are no doubt aware, the CPS will not entertain any files for charging decision unless this material is reviewed without exception regardless of the circumstances.”

[Sarah Champion]

I think we all—well, most of us—got a fantastic briefing from Big Brother Watch, Amnesty, End Violence Against Women and so on. Within that, they refer to these things as digital strip searches, which tend to be carried out more often on women than men.

Perhaps I can read something out and ask for my hon. Friend’s opinion:

“The scale and depth of the police’s mobile phone searches are incomparable with the police’s legislative powers to carry out physical searches.”

An average phone

“would amount to police searching someone’s property and taking copies of all photographs, documents, letters, films, albums, books and files.”

Furthermore, some

“phones can contain over 200,000 messages and over 100,000 photos”,

and the information

“can run to many thousands of pages. An average individual’s mobile phone can contain the equivalent of 35,000 A4 pages of data.”

Will my hon. Friend, and indeed the Minister when she speaks, comment, first, on the relevance of that; secondly, on why, digitally, police have so much further reach, without the necessary applications to court in place; and, thirdly, on the impact—my hon. Friend rightly mentioned this—that that is having on court and CPS time, and the costs associated with it, in an already highly clogged-up court system?

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend has made a series of correct points. Across the board, in the digital and the online worlds, when it comes to laws, we are behind what is happening in the real world. A significant number of changes need to be looked at to come up to date with what is already happening. We would argue that this is one of those examples.

As well as impacting victim attrition, this issue is a factor in deciding whether to even report a rape or a crime in the first place. The Victims’ Commissioner survey of rape complainants showed that, for some, scrutiny of their personal lives—including their digital lives—was a consideration in their decision not to report. For those who did report, the experience was felt to be “invasive” and “traumatic”, with many feeling that the process was not properly explained. The survey stated:

“Just 33% agreed that the police clearly explained why any request to access mobile phone and other personal data were necessary and 22% that they explained how they would ensure that data would only be accessed if relevant and necessary. Requests for these data were often considered invasive and intrusive, and survivors had serious concerns about this.”

A female is quoted as saying:

“I was also reluctant to do so because I felt my [F]acebook data and mobile phone information would not have supported my account as I had been friendly with the perpetrator before the incident.”

Another said:

“I was happy to provide my mobile phone for them to download all the vile messages that supported my assaults. The police said they would download all messages between me and my ex-husband but they actually downloaded all of my phone every message…and all my privacy was gone.”

Many respondents felt that they had no choice but to hand over devices for scrutiny, and that raises issues around what is meant by “voluntary” in the context of a police power. Arguably, it confirms the need for safeguards in legislation, which speaks to what my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham said about the power balance and what “voluntary” means. The Victims’ Commissioner said:

“Many survivors said they wanted to help with the investigation and achieve a positive outcome. Some did not believe that they could refuse such requests, that they did not have anything to hide, or thought the request was simply part of normal investigation procedures. However, most survivors had concerns around the disclosure of personal data and access to records.”

A 2020 report by the Information Commissioner on mobile phone data extraction outlined that the way in which police were operating did not comply in a number of respects with data protection legislation, and argued that the gateway of consent that police had been reliant on was not open to them for a number of reasons. They could rely on “strict necessity” for law enforcement purposes, but that comes with a number of prior conditions that must also be met. The report also outlined concerns about the realities of such downloading and how it impacts on other’s rights to privacy, such as family and friends, whose sensitive data may also be contained on the complainant’s mobile, but from whom consent is never sought.

A great deal of work has been done at policy level to address some of the issues, but none of the work to date has sought to alter police powers to obtain and scrutinise a digital device. Existing case law legislation and guidance make it clear that agreement to digital extraction can be sought only if the officer believes that relevant material can be extracted from a phone for criminal investigations—that means that it is relevant to a reasonable line of inquiry.

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend would be making an incredibly powerful argument if she was making it on behalf of the criminals, but she is actually making it on behalf of the victims of crime. Surely, this level of invasive behaviour as regards their most private and personal things, after they have been the victim of a crime, is truly shocking.

[Sarah Jones]

I completely agree. The issue of people having things on their phone that relate to their family or friends, which they feel it would be terrible for others to see, has not been thought through.

In the Bater-James Court of Appeal judgment, the judges were clear that there should not be speculative searches, and that there must be specificity based on a reasonable line of inquiry. The information should be extracted only in so far as it is strictly necessary and proportionate to the investigation, and the officer must be satisfied that there are no other, less intrusive means available to them of pursuing that line of inquiry. It is vital that the police can rely on “strict necessity” for law enforcement purposes from the perspective of data protection, but it is also vital that the victims agree to the download, meaning that they fully understand what is being sought, and that the agreement is freely given.

In an evidence session last week, we heard from Martin Hewitt of the National Police Chiefs’ Council that there is an ever-increasing

“volume of digital evidence that is required for almost every investigation.”

He said:

“That has created real pressure on the time limits of investigations and our ability to gather the evidence that we need to take an investigation forward. We have increased the capability. It is partly about equipment and having the right equipment to be able to extract digital evidence. It is also about having officers and staff who have the right capabilities to assess that evidence and produce it in an evidential form…However, the flip side and the really important point is making sure that what is being done is lawful, proportionate and necessary. Again, that side of the work is equally important…So we need the legal framework to allow us to do that properly and we then also need the resourcing and the capabilities to do it within the right time limits.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c.16, Q21.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend talks about the being able to access the device only if there is a reasonable line of inquiry. Should the police or investigating body also look to follow that reasonable line of inquiry through other methods, rather than automatically making a call on that digital device?

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: other means of investigating should be pursued before there is that intrusion of taking people’s phones. The Victims’ Commissioner has recommended that guidance be issued mandating that a record be made of the decision-making process of the authorised person in identifying a reasonable line of inquiry, so that it can be scrutinised at a later date.

The next problem is that clause 36(5)(b) states that an authorised person using the power should be

“satisfied that exercise of the power is necessary and proportionate to achieve that purpose.”

The Victims’ Commissioner advises that the test should be that the authorised person is satisfied that exercise of the power is strictly necessary and proportionate to achieve that purpose, and we have incorporated that language into our new clauses. Statute and case law insist on strict necessity as the only appropriate test in circumstances where sensitive data—such as health data, sexuality data, or information about others—will be processed. A complainant’s phone will nearly always contain such information, and as such will automatically require sensitive processing. In their clauses, the Government have removed “strictly” from the test, creating a far lower threshold than the one that the Data Protection Act 2018 intended for processing this type of material, and meaning that victims’ article 8 rights are less protected.

The next problem is that the phrase “reasonably practicable” in clause 36(7)(b) is incompatible with the data protection legislation, and there are concerns that this gives police a means of easily dismissing other options. The term

“strictly necessary for the law enforcement purpose”

under the Data Protection Act places a higher threshold on processing based on this condition. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham said, controllers need to demonstrate that they have considered other, less intrusive means, and have found that they do not meet the objective of the processing. The test does not ensure that. Under the clauses, police could decide, having considered alternative means, that it is not practical to get the information via those means. The risk for rape victims is that, both culturally and due to operational constraints, the most practical or easiest path to obtaining the information sought will nearly always be the victim’s phone. Again, normal practice is being bolstered by this legislative power, and there are limited safeguards for victims.

The final point of concern for the Opposition is that in the clauses, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North said, the authorised person has no obligation to obtain the views of children and those without capacity when seeking to obtain information from their phones. Neither the police nor the person giving agreement in those people’s stead is obliged to ensure that their views are considered.

[Sarah Champion]

This relates to amendments of mine that will be debated later. I wonder whether something needs to be inserted about language competency. My amendments deal with asylum seekers who do not have English as their first language. Should language competency also be a consideration, so that we ensure that people actually understand their rights?

[Sarah Jones]

Yes. Whenever people hand over personal information, they need to know why they are doing so, and the implications. That is as important for a child as for an adult, and we need to make sure that principle is enshrined properly in law.

It is important to safeguard the human rights of children, and to ensure that only specified persons can agree to handing over information and providing a device on behalf of children, who must be consulted before a decision is made. The same should apply to adults without capacity, and we have effected this principle in our new clauses.

Another issue—the Minister was looking at this last week —is that for the purposes of this chapter, clause 36(10) defines an adult as a person aged 16 or over, and a child as a person under 16. Hazel Williamson, chair of the Association of Youth Offending Team Managers, said in evidence to us last week:

“We should treat children as children until they are 18 and they should be sentenced as a child until they reach the age of 18. In an ideal world, we would look beyond that, because many people do not develop fully, in terms of brain development, until they are in their mid-20s.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 20 May 2021; c.136, Q223.]

Our amendments would change the age from 16 to 18. I would like to learn from the Minister why the Government chose to define “adult” in that way.

While we welcome the code of practice attached to this legislation, there is no detail yet about what it may contain, and there is no duty on the Secretary of State to consult victims’ representatives or champions in creating it. Our new clause would require the Secretary of State, when preparing the code of practice, to consult a range of parties, including the Information Commissioner, the Victims’ Commissioner, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and other regional and national bodies.

Our new clauses also list matters that the code of practice should address, because protection for victims should be in the Bill. Clauses 36 to 42 provide the police with a wide-ranging power to obtain and scrutinise victims’ phones, with virtually no safeguards for victims. It is said that some protections are intended to be put into the code of practice, but the police will not be obliged to follow it. There are concerns that the clauses will provide the police—and the Crown Prosecution Service, via the police—with a legal basis for carrying on as they have been. The police accept that the Victims’ Commissioner’s proposals are appropriate for their purpose, and would give a better balance as regards victim protection. I thank the Victims’ Commissioner and her team for all their work to guide us though this tricky area of law. I hope that the Minister will listen to the concerns we have raised.

[Sarah Champion]

I thank my hon. Friend for all the points she made, which, to be quite honest, are common sense, but would cause a huge shift in victims’ and survivors’ perceptions of their rights. I have questions for the Minister.

On data storage and security, I am sure we were all pretty shocked and disgusted to hear that images relating to Sarah Everard were not secure in the police system. While I have a very high regard for the police, they can be a leaky sieve—let us be honest. Why do we not simply clone phones at the point of taking them? Why is it months, or usually years, before the victim gets their phone back? Would it be possible to put in legislation or guidance a timeframe on how long that phone can be held for? Having spoken to officers, it seems that cloning a phone is complicated and geeky; it tends to be put in a back drawer until they absolutely have to do it. A timeframe would give a lot of comfort to victims and survivors; they would know it was only a week until they got their photos back, for example.

Finally, a myth has been perpetuated that victims and survivors have to hand over their phone or mobile data to the police or their case will not be taken forward. I have heard examples of victims and survivors being told expressly that if they do not hand it over, they are withholding evidence and could be prosecuted. At that point, unfortunately, a number of survivors drop out of the process and withdraw their charges altogether. If the Minister is able to give reassurance on that, that would be hugely appreciated.

I turn to amendment 115, on the list of people who may extract data. The list is pretty extensive, but one group stood out: immigration officers may request a mobile phone. A few months ago, I went to a large asylum hospital in my constituency, where there were 50 to 100 men—I do not know how many—and what concerned them most was that, literally as they entered the country, their mobile devices and indeed clothes were taken off them. There was no debate or explanation; it is just part of the process.

I completely understand the argument that very bad people, such as gangmasters, who come into the country may have a lot of contacts that are relevant to police inquiries. The police and transport police are already on the extensive list of people who may access electronic devices, so if an immigration officer was concerned, they could get a police officer to take the digital device away. That is not a problem. Extracting data is a complex process that requires specialist experience, and it ought to be managed under the law. I am concerned that we are asking immigration officers to be incredibly mindful, and to be trained and resourced, and to have all the skills, to request that device.

The people I met fell into three camps: economic migrants, who have paid to come over here; people who have been trafficked over here; and those brought in specifically for modern slavery. All the men I spoke to wanted to see pictures of their loved ones. They wanted those memories from home, and a mobile phone may be the best way to hold those memories and connections.

I do not know anyone’s telephone number aside from my parents’—it was the one I grew up with. I can call the police, the NHS helpline and my mum, but everything else is stored on my phone. If I lost it, I would not know how to respond—and I have back-ups that I can access, and English as my first language. When I changed phones, I did not download properly and lost five years of photos. That was so painful. Imagine someone being trafficked into this country, and probably horrifically abused on the way in. The one thing they can hold on to is their memories on that digital device, but that is taken away. They have no information about why it was taken, or when it will be returned, and all their contacts have been lost.

All the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central made apply in this case. Immigration officers are one of the groups who may take these devices—this is not a dig against immigration officers, who do a difficult job—but in any other situation a police officer or a court order would be required to take such detailed data. I ask the Minister please to remove immigration officers from the list.

[Victoria Atkins]

I welcome the discussion about this chapter of the Bill, because the framework we are setting out is a really important step forward in improving the expectations about and management of digital data that victims and complainants may have on their digital devices. Of course, completely understandably, the focus has been on complainants in sexual violence cases—I will go into some detail on that in due course—but the chapter applies across the board. If, for example, in cases that do not relate to sexual violence, a mobile phone is deemed to be relevant and the authorised person is satisfied that the exercise of the power is necessary and proportionate, this chapter will apply.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

Thank you. The Minister for Crime and Policing, my hon. Friend Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) answered the urgent question on the timing of the rape review. Colleagues will know that for the last two years, the Government have commissioned intensive research into each stage of the process within the criminal justice system of a rape case or a sexual violence investigation, from the moment of reporting through to the moment when the case finishes, whether by way of a verdict or if a trial does not go ahead for any number of reasons. We had very much hoped to publish that review by the end of last year. However, we were very understanding of the fact that the Victims’ Commissioner and women’s charities wanted to make representations, in particular looking at the shadow report by EVAW—End Violence Against Women. We were mindful that there was a super-complaint under way as well. Therefore, we have paused publication in order to take into account some of those factors.

The Minister for Crime and Policing informed the House this week that we plan to publish the review after the Whitsun recess. It will show the Government’s intentions in relation to this particular category of cases, sexual violence cases, and will of course sit alongside this Bill, but will go much further than the Bill. On some of the situations, scenarios and experiences that were described today and last week in evidence, I just urge caution until the rape review is published, because there may be answers in that document.

In terms of the legal framework, I think it is really important that we have this in the Bill and that the rights of victims and of suspects and defendants are set out and clarified and that we introduce consistency where that has been alleged in the past to be missing.

I note just as an example that one of the other ways in which we are really trying to help victims of sexual violence is through support for independent sexual violence advisers. We already have ISVAs working with victims across the country. This year, we have been able to announce the creation of 700 new posts, with some £27 million of funding. I give that just as an example. This is an important part of our work, but it is not the only piece of work that we are doing to address some of these very genuine concerns.

[Sarah Champion]

I am hearing everything that the Minister is saying. Knowing that the review is coming out—I assume it is something that she has been working on or very closely with, because of her intense involvement and support in this area—does she feel that the measures in the Bill are proportionate or are they something that, once the review comes out, she may look at changing, to ensure that the safeguards that she speaks of are embedded in the final Act that we see?

[Victoria Atkins]

We have been working together on this. We must not not forget that the background to the legal framework has to take into account the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 and the more general disclosure rules, for example. But this has been very much a piece of work across Government, because we want this framework to give confidence and clarity to victims and to suspects, but also, importantly, to the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, because they are the ones who must administer and work within the legal framework and the code of practice.

If I may, Mr McCabe, I will take a bit of time, because this is such an important measure and I am mindful that there are questions about it, to set out some of the detailed thinking behind the way in which the clauses have been drafted. The current approach to the extraction of information from digital devices has indeed been criticised by some as feeling like a “digital strip-search” where devices have been taken as a matter of course and where, in many cases, all the sensitive personal data belonging to a device user was extracted and processed even where it was not relevant to the offence under investigation. We absolutely understand the concerns that have been raised in relation to that.

[Victoria Atkins]

I will deal with that in detail in due course. Just so that colleagues understand how that age was settled upon, in the drafting we carefully considered people’s views, including the Information Commissioner, about the freedoms and the feelings of power and authority that users of devices have. We settled on the age of 16 because we understand that a 16-year-old is different from a 12 or 13-year-old, if their parents have allowed them mobile phones, although I am banning my son from having a mobile phone until he is at least 35, but there we go. A moment of lightness, sorry.

I will deal with the point in more detail later, because it is important, but there is a difficult balance to maintain between rights of victims, suspects and defendants but also rights of users, particularly under the European convention, so that has been the Government’s motivation in this. However, we are alive to scrutiny.

[Sarah Champion]

I think this involves the focus that I hope the Minister is going to come to. I hear everything she has just said about the justification and I am going along with that, but it is clear in subsection (10):

“In this Chapter—

‘adult’ means a person aged 16 or over”.

Why was that specific wording chosen rather than “the remit of the clause covers people from the age of 16 onwards”, for example?

[Victoria Atkins]

I will come to that later, but the hon. Lady knows that I am in listening mode on this. The Bill includes requirements to obtain agreement to extract information; to ensure there is reasonable belief that the required information is held on the device; and, before using this information, to consider whether there are less intrusive means of obtaining it. That is an important point that I know hon. Members have focused on. The clauses will ensure that the victim’s right to privacy will be respected and will be at the centre of all investigations where there is a need to extract information from a digital device.

The Bill also includes a new code of practice. This will give clear guidance to all authorities exercising the power. It will address how the information may be obtained using other, less intrusive means; how to ensure that agreement is freely given, and how the device user’s rights are understood. All authorised persons will have a duty to have regard to the code when exercising or deciding whether to exercise the power. The clauses are also clear that the code is admissible in evidence in criminal or civil proceedings and that a failure to act in accordance with it may be taken into account by the court. It will give up-to-date, best practice guidance for selectively extracting data considering existing technological limitations. That will be updated as and when further capabilities are developed and extended to all authorities able to use this power.

--- Later in debate ---

We are also mindful that technological developments, and with it the capabilities of the police and others, are fast-moving. While we are keen to see the adoption of new tools by police officers, we also need to ensure that the legislation reflects current capabilities and does not require amendment as each development in technology occurs.

[Sarah Champion]

I hear what the Minister says about cloning and the risk that it is not suitable for admission in court. Will the Minister comment on a kindness that could be done—giving a clone of photos to an asylum seeker, for example?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am so sorry—I have not quite understood the hon. Lady. On the taking of a phone, if I have just been told that we are concerned about the ramifications of cloning it, I do not see why we would clone it despite those reservations in order to provide photographs. I would be very uneasy about having differences in how the police handle digital data depending on the personal circumstances of the person from whom they have taken a phone, including nationality. I would be very cautious about going down that road.

[Sarah Champion]

I did not mean to be used in court. I meant for the individual who has lost their one contact with home—that they could get a copy or a print-out of photos, rather than the device just being taken away with no explanation of when they are going to get it back again.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am very cautious about distinguishing between different victims. Perhaps the hon. Lady is alleging that the person she is talking about is a victim. The framework is about consistency and clarity, and I would be concerned about having caveats here and there in order to fit individual facts. Part of this test is about relevance, necessity and proportionality. Those are the tests that we are asking officers to apply, and we would have to apply them across the board.

There are situations within the framework whereby the power can be used without agreement, such as to locate a missing person where the police reasonably believe that the person’s life is at risk. Under clause 36, the police may have good reason to believe that a device has information that will help to locate the person. In such circumstances, clearly the person is not available to give their consent, so clause 36 ensures that officers can extract data, if it is necessary and proportionate, to protect the privacy of the user. That also applies in relation to children who need to be protected.

New clause 49 raises the bar for the exercise of the power in clause 36(1). The necessity test under new clause 49 is one of strict necessity. I am not persuaded that adopting the phrase, “strictly necessary and proportionate”, instead of “necessary and proportionate”, will make a material difference. This phrase is well used in the Bill. I note that article 8.2 of the European convention on human rights—the very article that people are relying on in relation to the framework—permits interference with the right to respect for private and family life. Such interference is permitted where it is necessary to achieve various specified objectives.

[Victoria Atkins]

On what the hon. Lady has described, I am not sure what difference it would make. I am trying to put myself in the boots of a police officer. Would a police officer ask for data if they read the words, “strictly necessary”, but not if they read the word, “necessary”? Actually, the problem that has been identified by the figure quoted by the hon. Lady is police officers’ understanding of the legislation, which comes back to training. Article 8, on which many rely in this context and in this part of the Bill, refers to “necessary” interference, and I am not clear what “strictly necessary” would add to that.

New clause 49 seeks to provide that information may be extracted only for the purpose of a criminal investigation

“where the information is relevant to a reasonable line of enquiry.”

There are safeguards within the clauses to ensure that information is not extracted as a matter of course, and they have been drafted with respect for victims’ privacy in mind. They include a requirement that the authorised person has a reasonable belief that the device contains information that is relevant to a purpose for which they may extract information, and that the exercise of the power is necessary and proportionate to achieve that purpose.

[Sarah Champion]

I hear everything the Minister is saying and it is very plausible, but I want to challenge her assertions on necessary, proportionate and clear lines of inquiry, based on the answer I received to a written question to the Home Office on 11 November. I asked about the process of extracting mobile phones. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Croydon South replied:

“Immigration Enforcement search all migrants”—

at this point, “all migrants”, so we do not know yet whether they are an asylum seeker, being trafficked or are here for nefarious purposes—

“upon arrival at the Tug Haven at Dover. In the event that a mobile phone is discovered it will be seized as part of an investigation into the organised crime group involved in the facilitation.”

Again, we do not know if they are a criminal or a victim at this point, but the phone will be seized regardless.

“The migrant will be informed verbally that the phone will be kept for evidential purpose for three to six months. They are provided with a receipt and contact details. Attempts will be made to communicate this in their first language, although this can be challenging due to external factors.”

So people arrive here, immediately their phone is taken away from them and they might not even know why. It is great that within “three to six months”, they are meant to have that response—

[Chris Philp]

Because they are here illegally.

[Sarah Champion]

Sorry, Minister? I do not think that the reality on the ground—the reality that the Home Office acknowledges—backs up what the other Minister is saying about reasonable, proportionate and lines of inquiry, because it is happening to every migrant coming into this country.

[The Chair]

I know this is important detail, but I remind the hon. Lady that interventions should not be too long.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Fifth sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th May 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Good morning. Before we begin line-by-line scrutiny sof the Bill, I have a few preliminary reminders. Please switch electronic devices to silent. No food or drink is permitted during sittings of the Committee except for the water provided. I remind Members to observe physical distancing. Members should sit only in the places that are clearly marked. It is important that Members find their seats and leave the room promptly to avoid delays for other Members and staff—although I do not think that will be a problem for us given that you are all coming back this afternoon. Members should wear face coverings in Committee unless they are speaking or medically exempt. Hansard colleagues would be grateful if Members emailed their speaking notes to hansardnotes@ parliament.uk.

We now begin line-by-line consideration of the Bill. The selection list for today’s sitting, which shows how selected amendments have been grouped together for debate, is available in the room. Amendments grouped together are generally on the same or a similar issue. Please note that decisions on amendments take place not in the order they are debated but in the order they appear on the amendment paper; the selection and grouping list shows order of debate. Decisions on each amendment are taken when we come to the clause to which an amendment relates. Decisions on new clauses will be taken once we have completed consideration of the existing clauses of the Bill. Members wishing to press a grouped amendment or new clause to a Division should indicate when speaking to it that they wish to do so. Here we go!

Clause 1

Police covenant report

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 2, in clause 1, page 2, line 2, after “workforce,”, insert

“including the impact of working with traumatised survivors on officers’ wellbeing and morale,”

This amendment aims to ensure the police covenant report, when addressing the health and well-being of members and formers members of the police workforce, also addresses the specific impact working with traumatised survivors, such as survivors of child sexual abuse, has on officers’ wellbeing and morale.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 77, in clause 1, page 2, line 34, at end insert—

“(8A) The Secretary of State may not lay the police covenant report before Parliament unless it has been reviewed by an oversight board.

(8B) The oversight board referred to in section (8A) must be made up of representatives of the following organisations, appointed in each case by the organisation itself—

(a) the Police Federation,

(b) the Police Superintendents’ Association,

(c) the Chief Police Officers Staff Association,

(d) UNISON,

(e) the National Police Chiefs Council,

(f) the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners,

(g) the Home Office, and

(h) the College of Policing,

and an independent chair appointed by the Secretary of State, and any other person the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”

Amendment 76, in clause 1, page 2, line 41, at end insert—

“(aa) members of the British Transport Police,

(ab) members of the Civil Nuclear Constabulary,

(ac) members of the Ministry of Defence police,”

Clause stand part.

New clause 44—Duty on health service bodies to have due regard to police covenant principles—

“(1) In exercising in relation to England a relevant healthcare function, a person or body specified in subsection (2) must have due regard to—

(a) the obligations of and sacrifices made by members of the police workforce,

(b) the principle that it is desirable to remove any disadvantage for members or former members of the police workforce arising from their membership or former membership, and

(c) the principle that special provision for members or former members of the police workforce may be justified by the effects on such people of membership, or former membership, of that workforce.

(2) The specified persons and bodies are—

(a) the National Health Service Commissioning Board;

(b) a clinical commissioning group;

(c) a National Health Service trust in England;

(d) an NHS foundation trust.”

[Sarah Champion]

It is a pleasure to speak here today and that the first amendment is on the police covenant, which has support across the House. The amendment would make the covenant as strong and useful as it possibly can be.

It is clear that officers and police staff across the country get variable levels of support. They put themselves at risk in the most extreme circumstances, and the horror and trauma they have had to deal with in the last year has been exceptional. I will speak specifically about trauma, and first let me give some examples. Child sex offences recorded by the police increased by 178% between March 2007 and March 2017 and there has been a 511% increase in the abuse of children through sexual exploitation. Unfortunately, in just that example, different police forces across the country give different levels of support to their officers and frontline staff. We should not be surprised that police officers are exposed to trauma, but I find it quite shocking that there is no standard training as soon as individuals join the force to help them identify what trauma is and how to deal with it. The fact that across police forces there is not a standard level of support to be accessed once an officer feels he has the need for it is really letting our forces down.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on tabling the amendment. Does she agree that one of the problems is that for too long there has been a culture in the police of making do, being tough and toughing through it? That is why it is unaddressed, and that can lead to people not raising the concerns they feel and to the absence of help that should be there.

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend knows the issues intimately and has tried to address them in the past. She speaks with a great deal of experience and she is absolutely right. I was speaking to my district commander about the clause on Friday. He said, “The biggest problem we have is that the culture in the force is basically to deal with it, and we are weak if we try to raise concerns.” My response to him was that in the armed forces, particularly in the last 10 years, they have completely turned that culture around because there was the will and impetus to do that. I am incredibly impressed by the level of self-awareness, recognition and support that the armed forces have when people start to feel the impact of trauma.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Further to what my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood said, the number of police officers who are off sick as a direct result of trauma and related activity demonstrates that the problem is huge. The evidence is there for the change that we propose.

[Sarah Champion]

This is what I do not understand: throughout my career in Parliament I have tried to focus on prevention, because it is cheaper. The bottom line shows that it is much better at the beginning to teach police officers or back room office staff how to identify trauma, how to deal with it and how to get help. That is why I say to the Minister that, within the covenant and with the opportunities she is given to follow through on her own’s party’s commitment to produce the covenant, we need trauma training and the necessary support in black and white in the police covenant.

Police forces have an organisational responsibility to support the wellbeing of their workforce. The College of Policing published a wellbeing framework, which outlines standards to benchmark their wellbeing services, but that is voluntary. The college has also issued specific guidance on responding to trauma in policing and psychological risk management. Let me offer some more facts and stats—people who know me know that I love a statistic. The 2019 police wellbeing survey identified some really worrying mental health data, finding that 67.1% of police officers responding reported post-traumatic stress symptoms that would warrant an evaluation for post-traumatic stress disorder. That is two thirds of the police. A Police Federation survey of 18,000 members found that

“Attending traumatic and/or distressing incidents”

was one of the top 10 reasons why respondents were having psychological difficulties at work.

Let me pick up on the phrase “psychological difficulties at work”. Such difficulties have an impact on the individual, their colleagues, and the public. I have done an awful lot of work with survivors, predominantly of child abuse but of abuse in general as well. The level of response and empathy that they get from that first police officer tends to dictate how the rest of that process goes and, ultimately, whether they are able to secure the conviction of the perpetrator. If that police officer has undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder and is unable to access support, what will that first interaction with the victim be? It will be poor. That is not the officer’s fault; it is our fault for not putting the support in place to enable them to identify the issue at the time.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

The hon. Lady certainly lives up to her name by standing up for the victims of abuse and those affected in other ways. The police could perhaps learn lessons in how to deal with some of those problems from GCHQ, many of whose officers, including those working in Scarborough, spend many hours looking at online images of child sexual abuse or terrorism. GCHQ is aware of those problems and is on top of them from the very start. Does she agree that the police could learn from GCHQ?

[Sarah Champion]

I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. GCHQ has a large footprint in his constituency, so he has seen at first hand that correct identification and the provision of early intervention and support prevent these issues arising. Unfortunately, in the police force that is a voluntary duty. The police covenant gives us the opportunity to put in the Bill that that needs to be addressed. It is simple, it is cheap, and it involves an hour’s training and signposting to existing resources.

Some 23% of respondents to the Police Federation survey had sought help for their feelings of stress, low mood, anxiety and other difficulties. Let us contrast that with the 67% who were recognised as having undiagnosed PTSD: just 23% of the nearly 70% who had those symptoms sought help.

[Alex Cunningham]

My hon. Friend will remember that when she was questioning Assistant Commissioner Hewitt about the availability of support, he said:

“An issue that we undoubtedly have around wellbeing and the occupational health service provision is the restricted amount of capacity… In all circumstances, where we want to refer officers or staff for support, one of our frustrations is that it often takes quite a while to access that support.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 6, Q3.]

Does she agree that if we had proper training up front, so that people were trained almost to expect traumatic experiences, the pressure on the system when they undergo them would be all the less?

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is what I mean when I talk about recognition, a change of culture and early intervention. Members probably do not know that I trained and qualified as a psychodynamic counsellor. My very first client was a miner who had been buried alive—he was stuck underground. I was in my early 20s and he was in his mid-50s, and we looked at one another and both went, “Oh my God. This is what I have to deal with,” but as it was a post-traumatic stress disorder and he had come very soon after the event had happened, we managed to resolve the issue within four sessions.

With post-traumatic stress disorder, early intervention is key. If it is left for years—decades, in some cases—it becomes so embedded and ingrained in someone’s psychological make-up that it becomes a really big issue that affects every single aspect of life. It is important to recognise the early signs, which could be covered at the very beginning of training; it could even be an hour-long online training course. We need the police to be able to recognise it themselves. That is where we need to get to, and that is what the police covenant could do.

Returning to the survey, of those police officers who sought help 34% reported that they were poorly or very poorly supported by the police service. Of those with line management responsibility, only 21.8% could remember being given any training on how to support the staff in health and wellbeing.

Members of the National Association of Retired Police Officers have supplied me with examples of the sorts of incidents that they have to deal with. I apologise as they are shocking, but not unnecessarily so, I hope. This is the first case study:

“I served as a traffic sergeant. Part of the role was as a road death scene manager. I attended the scene of many deaths on the roads. I then went to a child abuse investigation, where I got promoted to DI. Whilst a temporary DI, my wife’s best friend and our neighbour hanged herself and I cut the body down. I got symptoms in relation to this straight away and things didn’t get better.

Now 11 years down the line, I have chronic PTSD, the side effects of which are severe depression, anxiety attacks and extreme mood swings. Now, it’s always at the back of my mind that if I’d had early intervention when I asked for it, maybe things would have been different.”

The following is case study 2:

“Operational experiences include attending suicides. For example, within my first few weeks of returning from training school, I attended a suicide where the victim lay on the railway tracks and was hit by a train. I assisted in the recovery of the remains of the victim.

Also, a man jumped off a tall office building and landed headfirst. I was the first on the scene to see the massive head trauma he had suffered.

They were all extremely distressing sights and I have difficulty getting them out of my head, even now.

These are just a few examples where I wasn’t offered any psychological support. I wasn’t even asked if I was okay. It was just seen by everybody as part of the job: suck it up and get on to the next thing.

I retired medically in 1999 as a result of injuries received on duty. I have suffered with complex PTSD and health issues ever since. I am currently waiting to receive further treatment from the NHS. I have received nothing from the police by way of support, even at the time of my retirement.”

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

I can confirm the efficacy of having support immediately after a traumatic event. In my own experience as a social worker when I was a young man, I discovered someone who had unfortunately committed suicide. The support that I got from my senior colleagues allowed me to resolve the difficulties I had with the experience. It also convinced me that quick intervention can work very effectively and that, conversely, no intervention at all can lead to problems for many decades.

[Sarah Champion]

I thank the hon. Member for sharing that experience, which reiterates the two points of early intervention and creating a culture in which it is automatic for a manager to ask, “Are you okay?” and to offer support, and to have support in place.

[Alex Cunningham]

Another example comes from my personal experience. When I worked for the gas industry, I went to a gas explosion to handle the associated public relations. As went towards the building where the explosion had taken place, a fireman coming out the door said to me, “It’s not very pleasant in there.” I went in—I had to find out exactly what had happened—and there was the torso of a woman. That was 30-odd years ago, and it lives with me to this day. I got no support whatsoever—I did not even think about it. Perhaps that is all the more reason why we need to ensure that at least our emergency workers are getting the support they need as soon as possible.

[Sarah Champion]

Exactly. My hon. Friend used the phrase, “I did not even think about it” and that is what we have to change. The police covenant gives us the opportunity to turn that around and have a culture in which, if someone sees something traumatic, it will be automatic to check in on them to see if they are okay. If they are okay, that is good, and they can move on. Our police are suffering the most extreme trauma day in, day out. They do not know it when they get up in the morning but they have no idea what they will face when they open that door. Think of the stress that puts on their bodies—stress that can be alleviated.

[Maria Eagle]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not enough just to ask, “How are you?” in the context of a culture that expects people to be okay, and that, consequently, the Minister can give a lead in how she implements her welcome proposal for the police covenant by emphasising that mental health is as important as physical health? Does my hon. Friend also agree that just having wellbeing in there is not quite enough to change a culture and that the expectation that support is given needs to be clear?

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend puts it far more elegantly than I could; I absolutely agree. The police covenant talks about wellbeing. We need the word “trauma” in there, because that is what we are dealing with. The Minister has the opportunity to put that in black and white and show the leadership that we need. The whole House would support her in that. I really hope that she can take that forward.

In our evidence sessions, Assistant Commissioner Hewitt said that we have an issue with

“the restricted amount of capacity. That is one of our challenges…one of our frustrations is that it often takes quite a while to access that support.”—[Official Report, Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 6, Q3.]

As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North, early intervention prevents escalation. John Apter, the chair of the Police Federation, spoke about dealing with trauma, saying:

“We have come an awful long way, but we have not gone far enough. One of the frustrations that my colleagues have is the inconsistency within forces…part of that is the lack of ability or willingness to mandate particular aspects of training and support. The covenant gives us a great opportunity to put in place mandated levels of psychological support and training”.—[Official Report, Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 20, Q30.]

Chief Superintendent Griffiths said:

“There has been a 36% increase in inquiries to the police charities compared with the previous year, the vast majority of which are mental health concerns.”

He added that, on trauma,

the exposure for police officers…is quite significant.”—[Official Report, Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 29, Q43.]

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[Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)]

As I have previously declared, I am a former detective inspector in the Metropolitan police, where I served for 17 years in operational roles. I absolutely relate to the hon. Lady’s description of the lack of support at that time, but chief constables are required, as part of the police retirement process, to write to retiring officers to offer them such support.

[Sarah Champion]

Yes, but the case study from NARPO shows that that does not always happen. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point, but we ought to extend that support to retired officers. That will not have a massive cost implication, but it is our duty to them for all they have done. We have a fantastic veterans covenant in place. The police covenant provides the opportunity to deliver something similar, in recognition of that incredible service that the police have given us. We should do something when they are serving as an officer and once they have left. The fact that it is voluntary and sometimes it happens and is piecemeal is just not good enough. That is not acceptable. We have the opportunity to change that.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful point. We are looking to introduce the covenant now. Now is the perfect time in many ways, because we lost many police—21,000—over the past 10 years, but there is now a period of significant recruitment, so a lot of officers are coming into the force. Does she agree that now is the perfect time to make sure that we do that early intervention and training, so that those thousands of new officers do not go through the same experience as many others in the past?

[Sarah Champion]

I completely agree. Now is the perfect time for those reasons, and also because hopefully we are coming out of the pandemic. The service that the police gave during the pandemic was exceptional. We should recognise the personal trauma that caused to them, by ensuring that the need for trauma support is recognised in the police covenant. That would be the greatest respect we can show.

[Alex Cunningham]

When my hon. Friend questioned John Apter, the national chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, she asked whether he supported this measure. He said:

“Absolutely, it needs to be meaningful and tangible, and it needs to have a benefit for those it is there to support—not only officers, but staff, volunteers and retired colleagues.”

He went on to say about training:

“I have had this conversation with the College of Policing, and part of that is the lack of ability or willingness to mandate particular aspects of training and support.”

The most important part of his evidence was:

“The covenant gives us a great opportunity to put in place mandated levels of psychological support and training from the start of somebody’s service to its conclusion and beyond.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 20, Q30.]

I am sure my hon. Friend will welcome the fact that the Police Federation is fully behind the amendment.

[Sarah Champion]

I do welcome it, but it is not just the Police Federation, NARPO or the College of Policing that are saying that; it is what I hear when I speak to serving officers. I had a long conversation with my district commander about this on Friday, and he cited case after case of officers entering a building, having a traumatic experience, and then him trying to give them support. However, what tends to happen is that the support is not in place, the waiting list is too long and they then go off on long-term sick leave. While off on long-term sick leave, the issue is compounded so it becomes even more of an issue. I paraphrase, but basically he said to me: “When we are able to offer early intervention, the officer comes back and carries on serving. When we are not, we know that they are going to be off for a very long time, if indeed they come back at all.”

I say to the Minister that this amendment is a common-sense courtesy. It is a way for the House and the Minister to make a clear commitment to recognising mental health and trauma, and showing the respect and duty that we have to our police force.

[Maria Eagle]

I want to make a short contribution based upon my experience before I came into the House, which was a shocking length of time ago. It was 24 years ago, in fact, and now I have put that on the record—oh dear.

Before that time, I was a solicitor practising in civil litigation. I frequently tried to help people who had been traumatised at work and were suing their employer, normally because they had lost their employment. Some of the people I sought to assist in that capacity were serving and former police officers, and others who had encountered traumatic situations in the workplace.

At the time, I thought of myself as a relatively sympathetic ear, and I think I was regarded as such too—Members might be startled to hear that, given the adversarial nature of proceedings in this House over the past 24 years. However, it was tremendously difficult for me to get a good statement out of the people who had been traumatised, because they had put up barriers. I would ask them, “What effect did this have on you?” and they would say, “I’m fine. I’m okay.” Often that was a few years after the incident that led them to the path out of employment, whether they had to retire or they were medically dismissed. They were clearly not okay, yet even when I, as their solicitor, was seeking to take a statement to assist them in getting some support ex post facto, and usually after they had had to leave their employment, they were still almost incapable of telling me how they really felt about what had happened and the impact it had had on them.

I know that if those people had been in a culture that said, “It’s okay to be not okay; we are going to provide you with help; you might not think you need it, but it is here in case you do, and it is perfectly fine to go along to the counsellor and break down in tears; that does not mean you are not a man”—they generally were men, but not only—then my role as a solicitor, trying to get them some compensation for their trauma over the years and their loss of employment, might have been a lot easier.

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend reminds me of another constituent who is no longer a police officer, unfortunately. He went to what he was told was a domestic incident, was let in and found someone on the floor, convulsing—they had taken a large amount of cocaine when they knew he was entering the building. He tried to resuscitate the person, which led to PTSD. He left the force, but this is where the double nub that my hon. Friend spoke about relating to compensation needs to be considered. The police force did not recognise his PTSD, which was the reason he resigned from the force—he could not cope because he could not get the support from them—but the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority did not acknowledge that he was a victim of a crime because of the incident that led to the trauma, so he got no support, no compensation and no job. He actually went to a solicitor three times and challenged it. I am glad to say that he is now an incredible campaigner for police veterans with PTSD and is getting them the recognition that they deserve, but it should not have to be a fight all the time; it should be automatic.

[Maria Eagle]

I saw that kind of situation many times in my practice as a solicitor. I always felt that it would have been better to have prevented these things from happening. I believe that amendment 2, by making it clear that the covenant can and should seek to address trauma, could be the key to opening up and changing that culture, facets of which we have all, in our various ways, given examples of today.

One thing that is common to all the examples that Members have recalled from their own experience is that they involve an emergency worker—someone who is there to help and benefit society—who in the course of their employment sees the kinds of things that the rest of us in society are shielded from, thankfully, and then they are not supported to overcome that trauma. That is the common thread.

The Government should accept the amendment, because wellbeing equates to mental wellbeing. It is not just about someone making sure they are physically strong enough to be a police officer; mental support is just as important. If inserting “trauma” could be a key to unlocking that kind of support, I believe that the Government could be responsible for leading and promoting a change in culture across our emergency services.

That has already happened in the armed forces, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham said. Much progress has been made in what was a very macho workplace, where there was an equal lack of understanding that mental ill health and trauma could lead to serious disability, a lack of operational effectiveness and a requirement to retire far earlier than society would have wished, having invested a lot of money, time and effort into training such specialists. That is also true of our emergency services on the civilian side.

This is an opportunity for the Government to lead what will be a tremendously important change in culture—a signal to those organisations that this is the way forward and this is what matters. This has been missing in our civilian forces and civilian emergency services, and it needs to be there. This could be a really important way of leading that change.

I hope that the Minister will see the importance of that and will ignore what she may have in front of her, which will be from civil servants—who are doing their job absolutely adequately and well, I have no doubt—setting out to try to resist any change to the perfect wording that they have devised. It is not always perfect; it can sometimes be improved. I am not criticising the civil servants—I spent nine years as a Minister, so I know how hard they work—but sometimes a Minister can apply her own common sense to what is in front of her. She is there to do just that. She is there to say to her officials, “That’s all very interesting, but I am applying my political common sense and we are going to accept it.”

If the Minister does that—I hope she will—it could be the beginning of a real change in culture that in future will impact on the nameless people who otherwise might have fallen into the kinds of problems that my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham so eloquently set out. All of us who have spoken in this short debate have some experience of coming across aspects of this issue. In the future there might be unnamed people whose health benefits and who do not lose their employment and livelihoods because the Minister was brave enough to lead the change by accepting the amendments. I hope she will think very seriously about doing so.

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[Sarah Jones]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairman- ship, Sir Charles. As we are debating amendments 2, 77 and 76, clause 1 stand part and new clause 44, I will speak to all the issues in the round. I will start by thanking Sarah Thatcher and Huw Yardley from the Public Bill Office, who have given so much guidance to us all in preparation for the Committee. We start this debate at the end of a difficult and turbulent year, but one in which people across the country have come together and there are many lessons that we can learn. I hope we can apply those lessons to the progress of the Bill. It is a year today since George Floyd was murdered, and I know that the lessons from that will also guide much of what we talk about today.

It is a pleasure to begin our line-by-line consideration of the Bill by debating the introduction of the police covenant, which we all agree with and support. We all probably believe it is long overdue. The tone set by my hon. Friends the Members for Rotherham and for Garston and Halewood shows the nature of our approach and how we want to try to support the changes, but we also want to work to improve them as much as we can.

The Bill creates a statutory duty for forces to support police officers and places a requirement on the Home Secretary to report annually to Parliament. It focuses on protection, health and wellbeing and support for families. It applies—correctly—to serving and former police personnel. It is an appropriate acknowledgement of the sacrifices made by the police service and the need to provide better support. The Police Federation has campaigned for the introduction of a covenant for several years, and I salute it for the campaigning work that it has done. I am pleased that the Government are taking action.

It is appropriate to take a moment to thank, on behalf of the Opposition, the police and all those who have given incredible service working on the frontline through the covid crisis: our police officers, firefighters and other emergency services, health and social care workers, shopworkers and transport workers, who have all shown incredible bravery and dedication. Those who put themselves in harm’s way to keep us safe are the very best of us, and we thank them for their service.

We support clause 1. We are pleased that the covenant will focus on

“the health and well-being of members and former members of the police workforce”—

their “physical protection”, and—

“the support required by members of their families”.

Amendment 2, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, is extremely important. I congratulate her on tabling it and agree with everything she and others have said this morning. It helps to expand on what is an absolutely crucial element of the covenant.

We heard today that a Member of this place has had to take several weeks off because they are suffering from PTSD. The surprise with which we hear that reflects how we do not talk about these issues enough. We do not support people enough who have these conditions, and we are not enabling a lot of different professions to tackle these issues.

In preparation for this debate, I talked to the National Police Chiefs Council, the Police Federation, the Police Superintendents’ Association, and many police across the country who have talked about mental health and how it is a significant and growing issue. Some forces deal with it extremely well and some do not, which is the premise of where we are starting from. Some support out there is absolutely first rate and some really is not. There is no consistency across the country.

Working with traumatised survivors, as my hon. Friend set out, has a huge impact on the wellbeing and morale of police officers and staff, but the impact of running into danger and serving the public goes beyond that. I recall when I first became an MP talking to a police officer who had to stem the blood of a young boy who had been stabbed as he waited for the ambulance to arrive. The trauma of that cannot be underplayed.

I have talked to officers in the custody suite in Croydon where, only last year, Sergeant Matt Ratana, a police officer approaching his retirement after 30 years’ service in the police force, was shot dead in front of his colleagues by somebody who had been brought in for questioning. The impact of that on the entire community of police officers cannot be underplayed. The officers who were there had to intervene and try to help their colleague before the emergency services arrived. All the other people who worked in that area who were his friends and colleagues were also affected. Think also of colleagues in the Independent Office for Police Conduct who did the investigation and had to watch repeatedly the CCTV footage of what happened and see a police officer in that situation again and again. That is real, brutal trauma.

[Sarah Champion]

I support everything my hon. Friend is saying. The examples that she and I and Members here have given are the big trauma incidents that we recognise as likely to have an impact, but I also think it is important to recognise it might involve going to a domestic abuse case and seeing a child who is the same age as your child. A seemingly small case could have the most profound impact. Putting the provision for support in the police covenant, regardless of the incident, is the key to the amendment. It should be up to the individual to know and recognise when something has an impact and is starting to unravel—to see the early signs, whatever the trigger.

[Sarah Jones]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We do not always know what is going to trigger those kinds of responses. I met recently with Sam Smith, who some people will know. He is an ex-police officer who served on the frontline for three years. He said:

“You’re thrown into a job where, within weeks of starting, you’re spat at, fighting people, rolling over dead bodies—your adrenaline levels are so high”.

The job quickly became his life. A chronic shortage of staff meant that Smith did a lot of overtime, spending his time-off sleeping and barely seeing his friends. He started having nightmares. He said:

“I probably wasn’t the nicest to my girlfriend—I became irrational and unreasonable. When I look back now, I’m surprised she stayed with me.”

After two and a half years of service, Sam realised he was suffering from PTSD and did not feel he had the support he needed to stay in the job.

Since leaving the force, Sam has been running a campaign calling for better mental health support for police officers, as he is concerned about inconsistencies in support across the 43 different police forces. He says that at the moment the main mental health welfare service for police officers is a programme called Oscar Kilo. Many would argue that the money provided is not well spent, the provisions are entirely optional and nothing is mandatory for any forces. Because of that, and ever-tightening budgets within the police, the service can be underused, and many officers had never even heard of it.

Sam is calling for us to go further than the Bill and the amendment. He is calling for a national standard of wellbeing support for police officers and hopes that the Government will back his Green Ribbon Policing campaign. I know he would appreciate it if the Minister would look at the campaign for a national standard of wellbeing support, and perhaps she might consider meeting Sam and talking about how those proposals could be taken forward.

There are some aspects of the Bill on which we will inevitably disagree, but I think we can all, across the House, agree on the importance of the mental health of members and former members of the police workforce. In that spirit, I hope the Minister will support amendment 2 and potentially pledge to go further and consider wider reform to wellbeing standards for police officers.

I will move on to amendments 76 and 77 and new clause 44. As I mentioned, the Police Federation has been campaigning for many years for a covenant, through its “Protect the Protectors” campaign. All the police bodies are in favour. It is a good thing. To be the best it can be, we need to make some improvements and make sure that we do not miss this opportunity.

The covenant comes after a year where the police have had to carry out the enormous challenge of policing the draconian emergency covid legislation, with limited guidance, in some cases, or notice when laws would be changed. The police absolutely rose to that challenge and got the balance right overall. The covenant also comes within the context of significant cuts to the police, as well as the nature of crime changing, with violent crime high, terrorism and historic child abuse cases taking up more of police time, and a high proportion of crimes now online. The number of assaults on police officers has rocketed to more than 35,000 assaults in the last year, a subject we will return to in our debate on clause 2.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham mentioned, the number of police officers leaving the service with mental health problems is too high. Research from a team of sociologists at Cambridge University showed that nearly one in five police officers have symptoms consistent with PTSD. It is widely recognised that mental health issues are widespread and under-detected, and a proper response is patchy across police force areas.

Morale is at an all-time low. The Police Federation’s 2020 survey revealed that 86% of respondents said that they did not feel fairly paid in relation to the stresses and strains of the job. Some 65% of respondents reported that the covid-19 crisis has had a negative impact on their morale and 76% felt unfairly paid for the risks and responsibilities of their job during the pandemic.

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“Non-Home Office forces are not going to be included in the main primary legislation itself. Instead, like some last-minute afterthought, the CNC, BTP and MDP officers are to be covered under an MOU…a lazy and belittling way which fails to understand that our police forces, whether Home Office or specialist, should be equally valued and protected by an all-encompassing Police Covenant.”

[Sarah Champion]

I support the amendment. To be quite honest, if I am on a train and something kicks off, I do not really care what police force the officer comes from. If they are a member of the British Transport police and can sort the incident out, I am just incredibly grateful. They ought to get the same recognition and levels of support as any other police officer.

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend is completely right. The fact that those police are the responsibility of another Department is neither here nor there. They should absolutely be front and centre as part of the covenant. We want to ensure that all the wider police family is covered by the police covenant. The amendment would extend the covenant to the British Transport police, the Civil Nuclear Police Federation and the Ministry of Defence police.

The British Transport police are the specialist police force for Britain’s railways, providing a service to rail operators, their staff, and passengers across the country. They respond to and investigate all crimes committed on or related to the railway network, including the most serious. They also have a significant role to play in protecting the many vulnerable people who use the railway network and stations as refuge when in crisis.

The nature of the work of the British Transport police means that officers regularly deal with the most traumatic incidents, and I would like us to reflect on that. Around 300 people take their own lives on the railways every year. British Transport police are the ones who attend and manage all those scenes, so every year, 40% of British Transport police are affected by people taking their own lives on the railways. More than 1,000 staff are affected by two or more cases.

The British Transport police often do incredible work on county lines. The criminals are savvy to that and are increasingly using taxis and recruiting young people in the towns themselves, rather than putting them on trains, as the British Transport police are so good at spotting those vulnerable young people on trains carrying drugs to other towns. There is a lot of knife crime on the transport system because people might be moving from place to place and through transport hubs. Last year, at East Croydon station, which is a major transport hub in my constituency, there was a murder when two lads from different gang networks bumped into one another and one murdered the other, and the British Transport police were there to respond.

I will give one other example. Please forgive me for talking about Croydon—I know I am a Front Bencher, but it is hard not to bring my own examples. Last week was the start of the inquest into the tram crash in Croydon, when seven people died and many more were injured as a tram toppled over after going too fast around a steep corner. The nature of that horrific incident—the windows shattered and people came out of the tram—meant that many bodies could not be identified. Again, it was the British Transport police who were there as the first responders to that crisis.

[Sarah Champion]

I did not realise until I started working on child abuse that there is an amazing charity called the Railway Children based in Liverpool and in India. The train network is often the first point at which runaway children are identified, and it is the British Transport police who are there to offer them support. My concern is that if an officer is experiencing trauma themselves, it is much more difficult for them to give the necessary sensitivity to a runaway. I agree that it seems bonkers therefore to separate British Transport police and tag it on as an afterthought.

[Sarah Jones]

I agree. When we consider the severe and significant impact of such crashes and traumas, as well as the day-to-day experience, as my hon. Friend said, of trying to deal with people fleeing county lines or fleeing crisis, we need to ensure that the British Transport police are as strong as they can be in response.

British Transport police officers are often victims of assault when carrying out their duties. On average, 21.5% of British Transport officers and police community support officers—about one in five—are assaulted each year. In the previous year to date, there were 470 assaults on British Transport police officers and community support officers. In the last year, during covid, even though the number of people using the trains went right down, assaults increased marginally. I guess that is understandable given the nature of what those officers are trying to enforce: disputes over wearing face masks or coverings on a train. There have been several incidents resulting in spitting or coughing as a method of aggravation towards either the victim on the train or the British Transport police. The Opposition’s key argument is that the British Transport police’s service is no lesser just because it happens to sit with the Department for Transport. Surely we could bring them in as part of the covenant and give them the same status as those in other police forces.

In the initial conversations about why the British Transport police, the Civil Nuclear constabulary and the Ministry of Defence police were not included, we were told that it was not feasible to put them in the Bill because they sit in different Departments: the Department for Transport, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. However, they are included in other parts of the Bill such as the clauses that refer to police driving standards. If we can include them there, presumably we could include them here.

The key point about the police covenant, which we heard in our evidence last week, is that we do not want it to be just warm words; we want it to make a tangible difference to the experience of those in the police service. It is possible to include all police forces in the Bill, and it is surely the right thing to do. I would be grateful for the Minister to confirm that she has heard and understands that and perhaps will take steps to address it.

I turn to new clause 44. We want our police to have proper mental health support, as we have heard, but we want local health bodies to have due regard to the principles of the covenant, instead of the Secretary of State reporting on these issues and presenting back to police forces. New clause 44 emulates part of what the Government have provided for the military in the Armed Forces Bill, which puts a legal duty on local healthcare bodies. The words, “due regard”, have previously been used in other legislation, such as the public sector equality duty contained in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, which requires public authorities to have due regard to several equality considerations when exercising their functions.

We think it would be good to enshrine these measures into the police covenant and in law, particularly on an issue as crucial as health. By emulating the wording of the relevant section of the Armed Forces Bill, new clause 44 does not specify the outcomes but simply ensures that the principles of the police covenant are followed and that police officers, staff and relevant family members are not at a disadvantage. I am aware that this is one of many issues, but the stark figures that we have all been talking about this morning mean there is not really a reason why adequate healthcare support for police and retired police would not be included in the covenant.

Clause 1(7) says:

“A police covenant report must state whether, in the Secretary of State’s opinion”.

I want to pick up on that, because it is important to remember that the covenant should be about providing the police with support that has a meaningful impact on their situation. Chief Superintendent Griffiths put it well when he said at the evidence session last week that

“a police covenant is almost the sector asking the Government for additional support or assistance, or to rule out any adverse impact on police officers, and for the Government to play their role across all other public agencies to try to level the ground and make sure everything is fair and supportive for policing.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 29, Q44.]

I hope the Minister will consider supporting new clause 44, which I am sure would have the full backing of the House.

Finally, I turn to amendment 77, which is absolutely crucial and goes to the heart of how the covenant should work going forward. The amendment would set up an oversight board for the covenant, with an independent chair and membership of police organisations that would review the annual report before it is laid before Parliament. The amendment would also allow the Secretary of State to appoint other people to the oversight board as they deem appropriate. In essence, the amendment would ensure that the covenant does not have Ministers marking their own homework. The point of the covenant is not for the Home Secretary to decide whether the police are doing what they should be doing; the point is that the police should be working with the Home Secretary to make sure the police are getting the support that they need.

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We are trying to make the amendments better. We are very supportive of them. We want to help the Government to make them the best they can be. It would be good if the Minister could respond to the points that we are trying to make and perhaps also confirm when she anticipates the covenant will be introduced and whether she has any sense of a timescale for the start, because I know that the police community is keen that it be as soon as possible.

[Sarah Champion]

rose—

[The Chair]

I am going to call the Minister.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

Thank you, Sir Charles. It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

First, I thank Opposition Members for the constructive tone of the debate so far. I very much take the point that this covenant meets with the approval of all the parties represented here today and, I am sure, others as well. We are all conscious of the terrible incidents that members of the police force and the wider policing family have to endure on a daily basis, but we are also particularly mindful—reference has been made to this—of what they have had to endure and the services that they have had to provide in the past 12 months. It has been a very difficult time for the whole of society, and it is, I hope, no surprise to anyone that members of our policing family have been at the forefront of that and have been protecting us through these very difficult 12 months. I am therefore really pleased by the constructive tone of the debate thus far.

I am particularly grateful to the hon. Members for Rotherham and for Croydon Central for tabling these amendments and explaining their reasons for doing so. As I hope will become clear, we very much understand the motivations behind the amendments and, indeed, we have great sympathy with what they seek to achieve. We may just have different ideas of how to achieve them.

Let me put the clause in context. I am pleased that parliamentary counsel decided to put this clause at the very start of the Bill, because it is a significant Bill—the largest criminal justice Bill that Parliament has considered for some time—and I think it right that the police covenant is at the very start. It sets the tone for the rest of the legislation.

This clause will enshrine in law a duty on the Secretary of State to report annually to Parliament on the police covenant, which has been introduced with a view to enhancing support for the police workforce and their families—a very significant point. Even in this Committee Room, there are members of the policing family—they are not direct members themselves, but their fathers, mothers and so on have served in the service—and it is right that we include them in our consideration.

[Sarah Champion]

I appreciate the Minister giving way. She says, “and their families.” She has just done some exemplary work on the Bill that has become the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and knows that a disproportionately high number of cases of domestic violence and abuse happen within the police world. One would hope that, were we able to tackle the root cause of that by addressing the trauma at the very beginning and putting support in place, the knock-on repercussions would be prevented, which I am sure she and I both really want.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady. She is right: in the course of proceedings on that Bill, we examined the impact that domestic abuse has on members of the wider policing family. She is absolutely right, and I will come on to that point about the trauma, if I may. I do very much acknowledge it.

I will just explain the thinking behind the clause as currently drafted. The covenant takes the form of a declaration and is not set out in the Bill. In particular, the report must address the health and wellbeing of members and former members of the police workforce in England and Wales, their physical protections and support for their families. Over time, the report may deal with other matters addressed under the banner of the police covenant.

The clause is in the Bill because our police put themselves at risk on a daily basis, dealing with some of the most challenging, toughest and most heartbreaking situations—hon. Members have given examples of that during this debate. I will explain how the covenant came into being. We set out a frontline review, inviting police officers, staff and community support officers to share ideas, in order to change and improve policing. The results of that review identified the fact that more must be done to support the wellbeing of those across the policing community. We have therefore announced plans to establish a police covenant, to recognise the bravery, sacrifices and commitment of those who work, or who have worked, in policing. No member of the police workforce should suffer any disadvantage as a result of their role in policing, and the covenant will support that aim.

The examples that hon. Members have provided show, first, the challenges, difficulties and—actually—terror that officers must face on occasion. However, I also hope—I am grasping for silver linings—that some of the stories show the improvements in our collective understanding of the impact of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder on mental health.

The example that the hon. Member for Rotherham gave of the officer who—I think she said that they were not even asked if they were okay, which, as the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood quite rightly said, should be only the beginning of the conversation; of course, much more must flow from that first question. However, the officer to whom the hon. Member for Rotherham referred had to leave the force in 1999. I hope that we all, as a society, have gained a better understanding of the impacts of trauma and so on on mental health since then.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am developing my argument, if I may. The reason I referred to that particular officer, although other examples were given, is that under the covenant, as it is drafted, that officer—as a former member of the police force—is covered by the covenant, and we very much want it to support not just serving members but those who have served and have since retired, or had to leave.

We now come to the nub of the issue—the inclusion of words in the legal framework, as set out in the Bill. We believe very strongly that the consideration of the impact of working with traumatised survivors on the morale and wellbeing of members and former members of the police force is already within scope of the clause, as currently drafted. It falls within the broad categories of health and wellbeing, as set out in clause 1.

Again, just to give the Committee some comfort and, indeed, I hope confidence in what we intend to do, our initial priorities for year one, which will be overseen and monitored by the police covenant oversight board and the police covenant delivery group, will include working towards ensuring that occupational health standards, including for mental health, are embedded in all forces; holding chiefs to account for providing the right quality and investment in their workforce; further consideration of a new chief medical officer for policing in England and Wales; working on a review to establish what is a good support model for families, drawing on established good practice and research from other sectors and international partners; and once that is agreed forces will be required to implement locally bespoke schemes in their local infrastructure. It will include development training for GPs around the role of the police, similar to the military veterans’ GP training, and development of pre-deployment mental health support provided to the police workforce, particularly in the light of the pandemic and the effect that it will have had on the police workforce.

Rather like the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, whereby in the definition we set out the very broad legal framework, and there were many examples of domestic abuse behaviour in those categories, which were then put into the statutory guidance. The wording, “health and wellbeing”, provides the legal framework. Within that, it is for the board, the delivery group and, ultimately, the Secretary of State, to include those matters in the report.

[Sarah Champion]

The Minister’s words are giving me a lot of comfort, but could she clarify a little more? What she is talking about is retrospective support once the incident has happened. Is it her intent that there will be preventive action at the very beginning of police training, so people are aware what the trauma is in advance, rather than just focusing on once it has happened?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am sure that I will give further clarification in due course if it is needed, but I draw comfort from the fact that the wording I have here is the development of “pre-deployment” mental health support. If that requires further explanation, I am sure that I will provide that explanation in due course.

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[Sarah Champion]

rose—

[Victoria Atkins]

I will give way, but then I must make some progress.

[Sarah Champion]

For clarity—I am sorry to labour the point, but it is important—will the board be on a formal setting? Is it an actual thing? Is it the same group of organisations that make up the report at present? If the board is an actual thing, my concern is this. To take the Minister’s hypothetical example, a new Home Secretary might not have any interest in mental health and wellbeing, but if the board is on a statutory footing, it still has a duty to push whoever is chairing it in the right direction. Could the Minister clarify whether the board is a formal body?

[Victoria Atkins]

Of course, and as with other boards, as I have said, the terms are set out and agreed. We want to be open and transparent on that. Its membership will include all the key policing representatives that one would imagine and, what is more, we have tried to go further by giving the Secretary of State the freedom to consult others. If there is a particular charity or organisation that is addressing a particular issue that the board feels is important that year, the Secretary of State has the power to consult that organisation. Again, to provide comfort, we will review the governance arrangements six months after the board is constituted, and we will consider the independence of the board’s chair as part of that.

Amendment 76 is an important amendment. We are exploring how the police covenant, as currently drafted, can apply to police forces and law enforcement organisations that do not fall within the remit of the Home Office, in particular the British Transport police, the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, the Ministry of Defence police and the National Crime Agency. We are very much alive to the points made both by organisations and in this debate. With that work ongoing, I trust that the hon. Member for Croydon Central will not press the amendment to a vote.

Finally, new clause 44 would place a duty on specified health service bodies to have due regard to the police covenant principles. I recognise that, in advancing this new clause, the hon. Member for Croydon Central has drawn on the provisions of the Armed Forces Bill 2021 in respect of the armed forces covenant. The difficulty is that the two covenants are at a different stage in their development. The armed forces covenant has been around for some years, and in that context it is right that it should now develop, with the new duty provided for in clause 8 of the Armed Forces Bill. In contrast, we are just getting started with the police covenant. At the moment, we do not think it appropriate to place a requirement on specific public bodies to have due regard to the police covenant. We must gather robust evidence and have careful consideration of the needs and consultation with the relevant health service bodies.

I want to reassure the hon. Lady that, through the reporting requirement that we have set out in the legislation and the governance process, we will be looking at the best way to ensure that our police can access the right care when they need it. In the light of my explanation and my assurance that we are continuing to consider how best to address the report requirement for non-Home Office forces, I hope that the hon. Member for Rotherham will be content to withdraw her amendment.

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[Sarah Jones]

indicated dissent.

[Sarah Champion]

The Minister is clearly in listening mode, and it is deeply appreciated how much time and consideration she has clearly given to the amendment. I am reassured by what she has said. If possible, I would like to have some more of the detail that she was talking about. At this point, I will not push the amendment to a vote, because of the chance to do so at a later date.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the Minister for her responses. On amendments 76 and 77, I stress again how keen the police world is that we make some progress on those two issues. I noted that she said on clause 77 that there will be a review in six months that will consider the independence of the chair. I think it makes sense to have an independent chair and believe it is appropriate, given that we are suggesting that the board should review the annual report before it is published. It cannot say what it is—it cannot control that—so having an independent chair would give comfort. However, I heard what she said on that, so I will not push that amendment to a Division. On amendment 76, which she briefly responded to after she got the note that we should hurry up, she said that work is ongoing. I cannot stress enough how strongly the different organisations feel about that. Again, I will not test the view of the Committee on that.

On new clause 44, however, there is a complete difference of view. The Minister’s view that we are just getting started on this and therefore should not provide as wide provisions as possible is the opposite of our view, which is that the point at which we start is exactly the point that we should do so. We cannot be in a position in which the police get more support for their health needs but there is no duty on local health authorities to respond to those needs; both are needed. I will test the view of the Committee on new clause 44.

[Sarah Champion]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[The Chair]

Nobody wants to press any other amendments to a vote, and new clause 44 will be dealt with later, so we come to the decision on clause 1.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

Increase in penalty for assault on emergency worker

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

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[Sarah Jones]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. It would be good to hear the Minister’s view on that in his response.

To finish my remarks on clause 2, which recognises the bravery of emergency workers and appreciates that there should be increased sentences for those who assault them, the Government could take many other actions that may also reduce the number of assaults against emergency workers. We should not lose sight of them. Being alone on a patrol increases the risk of assault, and that tends to be down to resources. The Government need to tackle that issue. We also have a woefully small amount of evidence as to why assaults are increasing. What is the evidence around what is happening, and why it is happening? What analysis has been done by the Home Office on where these assaults are taking place, and why?

Linked to that is the issue of protective equipment. There has been a big increase in body-worn cameras and spit guards in policing, but what lessons are actually being learned from covid, and from the experience suffered by our police officers and other emergency workers during this time, to ensure that we are doing everything we can to protect them in the future? In conclusion, clause 2 is a welcome step in the right direction.

[Sarah Champion]

Covid has obviously changed everything, including our definition of “emergency worker”. Several MPs have pointed out that emergency workers are not the only group suffering from frequent violent attacks, and provisions should be extended to all staff in the NHS and social care, as well as to shopworkers. In 2020, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers found that the vast majority of shopworkers—88%—were victims of verbal abuse in 2020. They were largely trying to implement the covid restrictions. Nearly two thirds were threatened, and nearly one in 10 were assaulted. Can the Minister explain what the Government are doing for those workers? They were on the frontline of the pandemic and should be given the same level of protection as emergency workers.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Sixth sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th May 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Jones]

The right hon. Gentleman is right; there are many other processes in place for when an accident occurs. As soon as an accident occurred, the IOPC would investigate why it happened. Measures are in place to ensure that the police do not do things that we would not expect of them. The amendment aims to make sure that it is very clear what is expected of them and what is not. When I spoke to the National Police Chiefs Council lead on those issues, it was clear to me that we have to enable the police to do what they need to do without fearing that they will be taken to court. There also need to be checks and balances to ensure that they do not overstep the mark.

The Government review was welcome. The IOPC concluded:

“Any change to legislation must not have the unintended consequence of reducing public safety or undermining the ability to hold the police to account effectively”.

That is very important. The change is welcome; it is not about the police driving without fear of scrutiny, but it is important that police are not prosecuted for doing what they have been trained to do.

It is also important to discuss an issue related to clause 4, which a number of police officers have raised with me. We tried to craft some amendments around this, but it was problematic, so I am just raising the issue. There was a concern that the number of officers who have undertaken the full level of driver training varies between forces, because there are various different levels of driving training, and what officers have will depend on where they are. Officers who do not receive the full training worry that they will be hesitant to do what may be required of them in the circumstances. For instance, if they were on a motorway and needed to ram a vehicle in order to save someone’s life on the road, would an officer take that risk if they could end up subject to a criminal investigation?

The police clearly have to strike a fine balance in the circumstances they are presented with. I have no doubt that, in the main, they will do what is expected of them. Subsection (3) states that

“the designated person is to be regarded as driving dangerously… only if)—

(a) the way the person drives falls far below what would be expected of a competent and careful constable who has undertaken the same prescribed training, and

(b) it would be obvious to such a competent and careful constable that driving in that way would be dangerous.”

Can the Minister provide some assurance? If a police officer who has done the basic level of police driver training finds themselves in a situation where they have to respond to an emergency incident that would require higher levels of training, how would they be protected?

On a matter related to clauses 4 to 6, the College of Policing has said that it would be “highly desirable” for police vehicles involved in pursuits always to be fitted with black boxes, which monitor the performance of drivers. Some forces, such as the Metropolitan police, fit all vehicles with those devices, but that is not the case everywhere. Could the Minister look into that? The cost might be prohibitive, but what would it take for all vehicles used in police pursuits to have those black boxes? What safeguards will be in place to protect drivers who have not had the highest level of driver training? Will that lead to more IOPC and court referrals, or can we be comfortable that the clauses as drafted will provide that protection?

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I am broadly supportive of the measures. When I go out with South Yorkshire police, I am always incredibly impressed by the amount of planning and expertise in the force, but I need to raise concerns made by the IOPC, which I hope the Minister will respond to. It, too, is broadly supportive, but it has raised a couple of reservations, including the fact that the lack of detailed information on the number and outcomes of investigations involving police road traffic incidents made it difficult to understand the full context of the proposed legislative change, and therefore how big the current problem is. It also says that any change to legislation must not have the unintended consequence of reducing public safety or undermining the ability to hold the police to account effectively. I wonder whether the Minister could comment on those points.

[Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)]

On an almost minute-by-minute basis, highly trained police drivers respond to emergency calls on all our behalf. They rush to incidents of danger when others run away. They are highly trained and they deserve the protection afforded by the Bill, and to be judged by the standard of the training they have received, rather than the standard of a normal driver. This may seem a relatively unimportant feature of the Bill, but it is extremely important to the police officers who undertake these dangerous duties. It is a matter of great interest and concern that they should not be treated as criminals when all they are actually doing is performing their duties to the best of their abilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

This is a really important part of the Bill. The Minister knows that I came into this House in 2017 absolutely determined to tackle the scourge of rising levels of serious violence, particularly youth violence, and she knows that I set up and chaired the all-party parliamentary group on knife crime and violence reduction, which relentlessly champions the need to prevent violence through strong policing, of course, but also through prevention. We have been in many debates together, and she has kindly met constituents of mine who have lost family members to knife crime, and she has also spoken to the APPG.

There has been a long conversation in Parliament about bringing organisations together to look at the stories behind the headlines, and to look at the evidence of what causes violence, in order to understand that it is not inevitable and that it is something we can affect. There is plenty of evidence from many places on how to reduce violence. Many other hon. Members across the House have campaigned on this, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft), who has done so much cross-party work on the issue.

Clauses 7 to 22, which place a duty on local authorities to plan, prevent and reduce serious violence, are welcome. At their core is the new duty on specified authorities to identify the kinds of serious violence that occur in a relevant place; to identify the causes of serious violence in the area; and to prepare and implement a strategy for exercising their functions to prevent and reduce serious violence in an area. That is significant. Although there are many “buts”, which we will come to as we go through the amendments, it is important to recognise that that is a good thing and will make authorities work better together and make them look to prevent as well as reduce violent crime.

Of course prison is absolutely crucial in terms of justice and punishing those who have wronged, but we know that it does not stop overall levels of crime increasing. Although policing is absolutely vital, at the heart of everything we are talking about, we know that an increase in resources and focus leads to a reduction in violent crime, but it goes up again over a couple of years. We can look at how knife crime goes up and down. It goes up, there is a significant intervention from the police, there are more resources, and it goes down. People are locked up, but then a few years later it starts rising again. We know that the real long-term solution is prevention, as evidenced in many parts of Scotland—the example often given—and in other parts of the world as well.

We have talked about this before, but we know that the approach to prevention and tackling violence is more effective when it is tackled in the way that the last Labour Government tackled teenage pregnancies. We had the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Europe. It was a massive problem and everyone was very concerned about it. There was a moral panic about why so many were getting pregnant. There was a 10-year intervention that looked at the causes of why these things were happening, so it was not just about trying to stop girls having sex; it looked at why on earth their aspirations were so low. Their education and ambitions were not what they could have been. A broad approach, targeted from the centre and delivered locally over a 10-year period, reduced teenage pregnancy by 50%—a huge, long-term reduction that has remained pretty static. It has delivered a societal change because of the nature of the approach.

It is argued that we can do the same thing with violence, as has been done in Scotland. Over a long period of time we can reduce violence, and those levels can become the societal norms. We can shift the norms and reduce violence. That is what many of us have campaigned for, and it is at the heart of this new part of the Bill.

I will give another example. In Croydon, there was a review of 60 cases of serious violence among young people, which involved people who were murdered, people who were imprisoned for murdering other people, and people who had been victims or perpetrators of the most serious cases. They looked at all those cases and where the similarities were, and it turned out that half of those young people were known to social services before they were five years old. That tells us everything we need to know about how the duties should operate. If someone is in care, is vulnerable, has experienced domestic abuse in the home, has parents with addiction or does not have parents at all, there are things that make them more vulnerable to getting involved in violence later in life. If we intervene at the earliest possible stages, we can have a significant impact not just on the lives of those young people, but on society and on the cost to society. Figures about the cost of a murder are bandied around, although I am sure they are now outdated. People used to say a murder costs about £1 million, but it probably now costs the public purse significantly more.

[Sarah Champion]

I just wanted to congratulate my hon. Friend on making such a powerful and relevant speech. I also wanted to give her a moment to get a glass of water

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to get a glass of water.

[Sarah Jones]

I completely agree.

When we talk about violent crime, there is often a moral panic about what is happening, and we often see very polarised responses. Either it is all about more policing and more resources, or it is about tougher sentencing—throwing people in prison and throwing away the key. Actually, we need to have a much more grown-up conversation about the causes of these issues and what the solutions are. I hope, and I think we all hope, that this part of the Bill is a step in the right direction towards doing that.

Moving on to the amendments that we have tabled, having held roundtable discussions and spoken to policing organisations, charities and others, I am concerned that, as currently drafted, the Bill will not deliver the results that we intend. There is a lot of talk of the need for a public-health approach to tackling serious violence that seeks to address the root causes, and we welcome the Government’s acknowledgement of the need to shift the focus towards that. However, we do not believe that, as currently drafted, the proposals amount to a public health approach. We, along with several agencies, are concerned that there could be a number of unintended consequences for both children and the agencies involved if the statutory public-health duty is created without achieving the desired result of reducing the number of children who are harmed by serious violence.

A vision for tackling serious violence that does not also help to protect children from harm, does not include the full range of partners and interventions needed, and does not consider some of the more structural factors that contribute to violence, will not deliver the outcome that we want. We need a broader strategy that equips the safeguarding system and the statutory and voluntary services to protect children from harm, with the resources and guidance to do so. It should embed a response that takes account of the context in which children are at risk and that is trauma-informed, as we were discussing this morning. A duty for serious violence that presents these issues as distinct from wider safeguarding duties could lead to a more punitive approach to those children, which evidence suggests is inadequate to reduce violence. Of course, implementation of a new duty without additional resources will be difficult for services that are already tasked with rising demand and crisis management options, and have low staff retention.

Amendment 78, and the amendments to other clauses, make the specified authorities involved in the serious violence duty safeguard children at risk of or experiencing harm. In particular, amendments 80 and 86 refer to children involved in serious violence in the area as a result of being a victim of modern slavery and trafficking offences under the Modern Slavery Act 2015. The point we are trying to make is that the statutory duty to reduce violence cannot be effective on its own, without a statutory duty to safeguard children.

As an example, I met police from Exeter because there is a county line from London to Exeter, and the police had been working to tackle that issue. A senior police officer told me that there had been a number of occasions on which they had picked up a child at the coach station because they can quite often tell if someone is bringing drugs to the area, as they will get off the coach on their own with just a rucksack—the police pick up young children who are doing that. On several occasions, that senior police officer had to sit with the child in his office for hours because nobody would come to collect them. Perhaps the child is in foster care, which is very often the case, and because they have been found with drugs, the foster parents will not have them back. The local authority might not have any emergency foster carers and so cannot take the child back, and nobody will come to look after them. That child is committing a crime, but they are also a child who ends up sitting there playing computer games in a senior police officer’s office in Exeter because nobody has worked out how to join things together and look after them.

[Sarah Champion]

Does my hon. Friend agree that those children are symptoms and casualties of crime, rather than the cause? We need some sensitivity in the Bill to recognise that.

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. We do not disagree with the premise of what is in the Bill, but we think those two things need to come together. I am sure we all have examples of cases where children are manipulated and groomed into committing criminal offences. They sometimes have no choice whatever, or they feel that they have no choice. Those things have to be looked at together or this will not work.

Amendment 92 would add a duty on the specified authorities to prepare and implement an early help strategy to prevent violence, support child victims of violence and prevent hidden harm. The Minister may say that that could be part of the wider duty, but we have tabled the amendment because that early intervention is crucial to prevent violence before it occurs, and that really ought to be in the Bill.

We in this place will all have spoken to and had presentations from people talking about ACEs—adverse childhood experiences—whether domestic abuse or a violent death, for example. Violent death in particular causes significant problems for young people and has not really been looked at enough. We know about all those ACEs, and we know that the systems and structures in place at the moment often intervene at the point of absolute crisis rather than intervening earlier and more effectively by trying to break the cycle of violence. Including an early help strategy in the Bill would ensure that that crucial element is not forgotten. That is part of a much wider issue that is out of scope of the Bill, including Sure Start, the importance of schools and intervention, and the funding of child social services, but we want the principle of early intervention to be included in the Bill. It is important that the Government, local authorities, the police and the voluntary sector have a joined-up approach to preventing, recognising and responding to violence. Central to that must be the need to prevent the criminalisation of children, as well as early intervention to prevent young people from becoming involved in violence in the first place.

--- Later in debate ---

“Prevention” and “intervention” are just words, but they might have completely different meanings in the context of policing or safeguarding. Police prevention tactics may include stop-and-search and issuing civil and criminal injunctions—orders that can result in the criminalisation of children. Sometimes that correct, but that is the approach taken. The police may also welcome diversionary activities, although those are likely to be offered only once a child is already known to them. Preventive safeguarding activity, on the other hand, can be focused on offering support to a child and family through targeted or universal services at the first sign of issues in their lives becoming difficult, to prevent them from being coerced in activity associated with serious violence.

[Sarah Champion]

This point is more to do with new clause 47, but it is appropriate now. Does my hon. Friend agree it is vital that the serious violence duty and accompanying strategy interact with local authority strategies to tackle child exploitation, the national violence against women and girls strategy and the national tackling child sexual abuse strategy as well as others?

[Sarah Jones]

Yes, my hon. Friend is right. They all need to join up, but some organisations have asked questions about how such things will join up effectively to ensure that offshoots of activity are pulled together as one whole.

New clause 47 would ensure that the bodies under the duty collaborate and plan to prevent and reduce child criminal exploitation and safeguard affected children. The new clause takes the definition of modern criminal exploitation from new clause 17, tabled by my hon. Friend, which would amend the Modern Slavery Act 2015 to introduce this statutory definition of child criminal exploitation:

“Another person manipulates, deceives, coerces or controls the person to undertake activity which constitutes a criminal offence and the person is under the age of 18.”

The definition would cover activities such as debt bondage and GPS tracking by gang leaders of those coerced into running county lines. When I was in Birmingham a few weeks ago, I heard about very young gang members. Yes, they were scared, but they were so invested in their criminal gang leaders, whom they saw as their family, that they were prepared to commit crimes that would put them in prison for very small amounts of money. They genuinely believed that was the most sensible choice available to them. They were clearly exploited, but there is not necessarily a definition in place to respond appropriately to that.

As my hon. Friend said, children who are groomed and exploited by criminal gangs are the victims, not the criminals. Many different organisations have flagged, as witnesses said last week, the fact that the absence of that statutory definition makes it harder for agencies to have a co-ordinated and effective response to vulnerable children.

The serious violence duty is a unique opportunity to bring together all the relevant authorities for training and action at a local level. In the past decade, county lines drug dealing has been a major driver of serious violence across the country. I am afraid that since the National Crime Agency’s first county lines assessment in 2015, the Government have been slow to respond, and cuts across the public sector have made things worse. Sadly, county lines drug networks rely on the grooming of vulnerable children to act as drug runners. They are badly exploited, then abandoned when they are no longer of use to the gang leaders. The Children’s Commissioner for England has estimated that 27,000 children are gang members. Modelling done by crime and justice specialists, Crest Advisory, identified 213,000 vulnerable children.

Children and vulnerable young people experiencing serious violence require a different response from that given to adults, and being involved in violence is often an indicator that children are experiencing other significant problems in their lives, such as being criminally exploited. Despite growing recognition of child criminal exploitation, there are still concerns that many children and young people involved in exploitation are not being identified or sufficiently supported by statutory services. Too often, these young people only come to the attention of the authorities when they are picked up by the police, caught in possession of drugs or weapons, or through involvement in a violent assault.

I should also mention the important issue of young girls who are involved in gang activity. I met a young girl who had been involved and had been injured as a result. She was in a hotel room with several gang members, who had money and drugs. The police had raided the hotel and arrested all the boys, but told the girl to be on her way because they did not know how to respond to her. She was in danger and was being exploited, but the police response was not there because they were not used to dealing with girls in that situation. Presumably they thought they were being kind, but they were actually leaving a girl who had been exploited to potentially still be in danger.

[Sarah Jones]

Sadly, that tale is probably not uncommon. I am sure that the response of agencies to girls is better than it was, but it is still not joined up in a way that provides the support that is needed.

Children and young people who are victims of child criminal exploitation and gang violence are not being identified in time to save their lives, literally, and to save other people’s lives, despite frequent opportunities to do so. Communications between agencies and the recording and sharing of data is often poor, and support for at-risk children is inconsistent. As the 2019 report on gangs and exploitation by the previous Children’s Commissioner found, only a fraction of children involved in gang violence are known to children’s services.

The experience of being criminally exploited is extremely traumatising to children, and it is unlikely they will be able to escape these abusive experiences and rehabilitate without significant professional support. The approach to tackling child criminal exploitation must combine effective enforcement with long-term safeguarding and support strategies that are focused on managing long-term risks as well as the immediate ones. Too often vulnerable children receive crisis-driven care, not the long-term trust that they need, which would be provided by preventative support.

As part of criminal exploitation, children may be threatened into carrying knives or perpetrating violence against rival groups. It is important to understand the underlying causes of why children might be involved in violence and for these underlying causes in a child’s life or in the lives of children within a certain area to be addressed. This would involve adopting a more universal understanding of how children are coerced, controlled and threatened into serious violence, taking disruption action against those who coerce and control children, and ensuring that the response to children is centred on addressing their needs, fears and experiences.

[Sarah Champion]

I was struck by and am still musing on the fact that, earlier, when the example of a child carrying out a crime was given, the word “choice” was used. Does my hon. Friend agree that, in the situation she describes, these children have no choice unless we add to the Bill the measures that she argues for?

[Sarah Jones]

I agree that they do not have a choice, but I have met young people who committed crimes as a child who believed that they did have a choice and that they were making the right choice because their parents had no money and they wanted to pay the bills. They believe that they are making sensible decisions, but they are children and they are vulnerable, and they are not. We need to provide support if we are going to stop them spiralling into a life of crime in the future.

New clause 58 was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), who now co-chairs the all-party parliamentary group on knife crime and violence reduction, and who worked with Barnardo’s on the new clause. It would require the Government to publish a strategy for providing specialist training on child criminal exploitation and serious youth violence for all specified authorities to which chapter 1 of part 2 of the Bill applies. It is really important that all bodies involved in safeguarding children and the prevention of serious violence receive proper training in looking out for and preventing child criminal exploitation. The training of professionals can make all the difference when identifying children who have been criminally exploited and in understanding the dual nature of a child being an offender and a victim.

I have had trauma training, as I am sure have several people in this room. I cannot tell hon. Members how useful it has been to understanding the issues children deal with and which levers might be used. I was in a meeting with police recently, talking about a 15-year-old boy who had just committed quite a serious crime. The police officers, who had had trauma training, had a relationship with this child because they had been playing football with them for several months before the crime occurred. They were able to appreciate that the child had an alcoholic mother who was abusive, and we were able to talk to some charities about getting some support for that child. The police understood what interventions were needed to try to pull the child out of criminal activity and pushed towards a life of non-criminal options. It was amazing to see. Having that training and understanding some of these underlying issues is really important. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall for tabling the new clause, which we will support.

[Sarah Champion]

I want to express my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central for the amendments and new clauses she has tabled. Effectively, my new clause 17 underpins and provides the impetus for the work that she detailed, and I am grateful to the Children’s Society for helping me to develop it.

I start from the position of being the MP for Rotherham, where 20 years ago it was not uncommon for girls to be raped, abused by gangs or forced into carrying out crime on behalf of those gangs. They would get a criminal record and would be told that they were child prostitutes, and their lives were destroyed accordingly. We now have a definition of child sexual exploitation. That completely changed the attitudes of all the agencies, including the police and the social services, and the general population to the fact that exploitation of those children was happening.

It is clear that child criminal exploitation is going on, whichever heading we put it under, but we are quite a long way behind in our understanding of what that actually means. New clause 17 would place a statutory definition of criminal child exploitation in law for the first time by amending the Modern Slavery Act 2015. For it to be truly effective, the Modern Slavery Act must adapt as new forms of exploitation are recognised. Child criminal exploitation is the grooming and exploitation of children into criminal activity. There is a strong association with county lines, but it can also include moving drugs—I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central for adding to my knowledge; I now know what “plugging” is, which children are forced to do—financial fraud and shoplifting. Obviously, that has been around for decades, but we are only just waking up and realising the harm and damage that those criminals are causing children. The true scale remains unknown, as many children fall through the cracks of statutory support.

The Children’s Commissioner estimated that 27,000 children are at high risk of gang exploitation. During 2020, 2,544 children were referred to the national referral mechanism due to concerns about child criminal exploitation, and 205 of those cases involved concerns about both criminal and sexual exploitation. My hon. Friend rightly highlighted that girls are criminally and sexually exploited by the same gang.

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[Alex Cunningham]

I am just reflecting on the attitude of the professionals who do not actually understand or do not have a clear enough definition with which to work. What changes do they want to ensure clarity and that they can better protect people?

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that. I am going off on a slight tangent, but The Times is tomorrow coming out with an article about child sexual exploitation. One of the key indicators of that is children going missing, and it cites the case of one girl who went missing 197 times, each time being reported to the police—this is recently—but the police still did not act. Just having the definition is not enough. This is about the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central described. It is about the training, public awareness, and all the agencies working together when they see that child. What I have found with the CSE definition is that having that hook does really sharpen and focus professionals’ minds around it. We have taken huge strides when it comes to child sexual exploitation, because we have that definition in place and because there is a level playing field when talking about it.

[Sarah Jones]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the very powerful case she is making. It reminds me of a conversation that I had recently with police officers, who were talking about the number of children who go missing but are not reported to the police as missing, because the family have other children, siblings of the missing child, and are nervous that if they report that one child has gone missing—who will probably come back, because he is doing county lines—the other children might be taken into care. That underlines the case for training and understanding of these issues beyond just policing. It is through education and terminology that everyone can understand that all the different organisations involved in trying to reduce this can understand some of the issues and intervene when they need to.

[Sarah Champion]

Exactly. Once people have the definition, they have a list of the indicators, and going missing would of course be one of those, so the first thing that would cross the social worker’s mind, rather than “Oh, this is bad parenting,” would be, “Could the child be being sexually exploited? Could the child be being criminally exploited?” It really shifts the mindset of the professionals. I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

There is another potential nervousness that the Minister may have. I know that a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation was explored when the Modern Slavery Act was reviewed in 2019. I note that the reviewers’ main concern was about a narrow definition of child criminal exploitation that would not be future proof as the exploitation adapted. That is why the definition that I am proposing is broad and simple, focusing on the coercive and controlling behaviour that perpetrators display in relation to their victims, not on the very specific criminal act itself.

I know that the Home Office has raised concerns with regard to use of the section 45 defence in the Modern Slavery Act and children being able to take advantage of that. I am aware that colleagues have also raised concerns about unintended consequences that this definition might have for the use of that defence, but I do not believe that there would be those unintended consequences. A clear definition of child criminal exploitation would guide a jury far better than is the case now, as jurors would need to weigh up the evidence and consider the defence but would be aided by a much clearer definition of what constitutes relevant exploitation. That would in fact reduce the risk of the section 45 defence being used spuriously, which is a concern that colleagues have raised with me. This definition would not change the provisions under section 45, but I hope that the awareness raising that would come with a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation would enable genuine victims of exploitation to use the defence more routinely.

[The Chair]

Before we move on, I remind colleagues that they are meant to address the Chair. I am seeing quite a lot of backs. I do not mind seeing backs occasionally, but it does help Hansard writers and everybody here if we have a little bit of fluidity and motion. I call the Minister.

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We are conscious of the problems posed by cross-border crossings involving county lines gangs and children who are in local authority care in one part of the country. That was set out in the example given by the hon. Member for Croydon Central of the child in Exeter. Although it is separate from the Bill, the NRM transformation programme is part of our work to address the issue and is exploring alternative models of decision making for child victims of modern slavery. A pilot programme will test whether decisions to refer a child through an NRM, and what happens to them thereafter, would be better made within existing local safeguarding structures.

[Sarah Champion]

When the national referral mechanism was introduced, I was struck that the responses to my freedom of information requests showed that it was not UK children who were being referred. There was a perception that it was international children, whereas the act of trafficking can mean literally taking a child from one side of the street to the other. Has the situation changed, and will anything in this work make that apparent to local authorities and other safeguarding organisations?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. Sadly, the situation has changed and now the most common nationality of potential child victims of modern slavery is British. As she knows, the NRM is more than a decade old. The criminal world has moved on and the needs of the children we are trying to help, as well as those of adult victims, have changed.

The transformation programme is looking at whether there are different ways in which we can help victims, depending on the safeguarding arrangements that may already be in place and whether children have any family or parental links with this country. Clearly, the needs of a child from Vietnam who has no family links in this country may be very different from those of a child who has been born and brought up here, with parents looking after them and with brothers and sisters. We are trying to find ways to address the needs of all victims, but particularly child victims in this context.

Local authorities are of course already responsible for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children in their area, including child victims of modern slavery. Children’s services must already work in close co-operation with the police and other statutory and non-statutory agencies to offer child victims of modern slavery the support they require. With the background and context that it is already mandatory, we therefore conclude that it is not necessary to include that as a further requirement in the Bill.

I turn to amendment 92 and an early help strategy. The hon. Member for Croydon Central is right to point to the need for a focus on prevention, which is a key part of what the duty seeks to achieve. Early intervention is an important part of prevention work and reducing serious youth violence. The duty already sets out the responsibilities of specified authorities and the work they are to undertake, which includes risk factors that occur before a young person has become involved in serious violence. The specified authorities, including the local authority that has responsibility for children’s social care, will be required to consult education authorities in preparing the strategy. They can also be required to collaborate on the strategy. As such, the provision should already ensure that a strategy to reduce and prevent serious violence would encapsulate early help for this cohort, so we do not believe that an additional strategy is required. Again, I refer to the draft statutory guidance that already has early intervention running throughout it. Indeed, we plan to add case studies before formal consultation, to help explain and guide multi-agency partners.

On amendment 93, children’s social care authorities have a crucial role to play and significant insights to share, particularly for those young people at risk of becoming involved in serious violence, child criminal exploitation or other harms. However, local authorities that are already named as a specified authority under the duty are responsible for children’s social care services. Therefore, for the reasons I have already outlined, we do not believe it necessary for the clause to contain the explicit requirement to consult such services, because they are within the definition of local authority. Again, we will make it clear, as part of our draft statutory guidance on the duty, that social care services, among other vital services for which local authorities hold responsibility, must be included.

We believe that amendment 82 is also unnecessary, given the functions conferred on local policing bodies by clause 13, which are intended to assist specified authorities in the exercise of their functions under the duty and to monitor the effectiveness of local strategies.

I turn to new clause 17 and the important issue of child criminal exploitation. I thank the hon. Member for Rotherham for setting out the case for providing in statute a definition of child criminal exploitation. Child criminal exploitation in all its forms is a heinous crime, with the perpetrators often targeting and exploiting the most vulnerable children in our society. We are determined to tackle it. There is already a formal definition of child criminal exploitation included in statutory guidance for frontline practitioners working with children, including “Keeping children safe in education” and “Working Together to Safeguard Children”. In addition, as the hon. Lady noted, the definition is also included in the serious violence strategy, published in 2018, the Home Office’s “Child exploitation disruption toolkit” for frontline practitioners, and the county lines guidance for prosecutors and youth offending teams.

We have discussed the introduction of a further statutory definition with a range of organisations and heard a range of views. On balance, the Government have concluded that there are risks with a statutory definition. Some partners highlighted the changing nature of child criminal exploitation. Inherent to such exploitation is that it evolves and responds to changes in the criminal landscape and the environment. As such, there are concerns that a statutory definition could prove inflexible as the nature of child criminal exploitation adapts.

In addition, as the hon. Lady has rightly noted, the independent review of the Modern Slavery Act, conducted by Frank Field—now Lord Field—and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and Baroness Butler-Sloss, considered the definition of child criminal exploitation under the Act and concluded that it should not be amended, as the definition currently in place is sufficiently flexible to meet a range of new and emerging forms of modern slavery.

We believe that our focus should be on improving local safeguarding arrangements to identify and support victims of child criminal exploitation, and on working to ensure that the right support is in place locally to protect these very vulnerable children.

[Sarah Champion]

I appreciate, foresaw and understand all the objections that the Minister raises. As she is a former barrister and someone who uses the law, does she agree that it would help to have a definition, as our witnesses said?

[Victoria Atkins]

Well, we do have the definition in the Modern Slavery Act. Modern slavery cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute because, as with other hidden harms, they require the involvement of often very vulnerable people, including adults as well as children. They include people who might not have English as a language at all, let alone as a first language, and people who might be targeted precisely because of their vulnerability. Although we are looking very much at the context of children, we know that vulnerable adults have their homes taken over by county lines gangs to cuckoo and sell their drugs from, with all the horrendous violence and exploitation that vulnerable adults have to endure as part of that.

We will continue to look at this. As evidence develops, we will be open to that, but, on balance, we have concluded that it is preferable at this stage to focus on the local multi-agency safeguarding arrangements, and to work on the serious violence duty to get a level of understanding of all the good practice taking place at the local level, which the hon. Lady and others have talked about.

One should not view the Bill as being the only thing that the Government or safeguarding partners are doing to address concerns. We have increased the dedicated support available to those at risk and involved in county lines exploitation, and have provided funding to provide one-to-one caseworker support from the St Giles Trust to support young people involved in county lines exploitation. We are funding the Children’s Society’s prevention programme, which works to tackle and prevent child criminal exploitation, child sexual abuse and exploitation, and modern-day slavery and human trafficking on a regional and national basis.

We are also working on a public awareness campaign, #LookCloser, which was rolled out nationally in September and focuses on increasing awareness of the signs and indicators of child exploitation so that the public and frontline services report concerns quickly to the police. As I say, on balance, at this point, we do not believe that a statutory definition is the correct approach, but we are focusing on practical responses to exploitation.

On new clause 47, I have great understanding as to why the hon. Member for Croydon Central tabled it. It would require specified authorities to prepare and implement a strategy to prevent and reduce child criminal exploitation and to safeguard affected children. We have, however, built flexibility into the duty to allow areas to decide which specific crime types are a priority locally. We have done that deliberately so that local areas can react to what is needed in their areas. Indeed, the draft statutory guidance sets that out. Under the duty as drafted, the specified authorities will already be able to include child criminal exploitation in their local serious violence strategies, should that be of particular concern to them. I very much understand the motivation behind the new clause, but we are not convinced that a separate strategy is necessary.

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[Sarah Jones]

Amendment 116 would create a duty to consult the voluntary sector and local businesses in preparing a strategy to prevent and reduce serious violence in an area. As part of the new duty, several public authorities are required to consult each other, but some agencies are missed out, including the voluntary sector and local businesses. The amendment was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi). It comes from the all-party group on knife crime, who worked with Barnardo’s on this amendment.

The voluntary sector holds crucial information and intelligence about what really happens in families and communities. The sector includes organisations that directly support victims and offenders and can help to bring their voices and experiences into policy making. They often know what works and what does not. Local areas will not be able to tackle serious violence without engaging with the voluntary sector’s knowledge and local intelligence.

Local businesses are also crucial in tackling serious youth violence. If we have learned anything from our work in child sexual exploitation, places are just as important to safeguarding as people—shopping centres, cafés, taxi ranks and gyms. Preventing violence cannot be done without their input.

[Sarah Champion]

I appreciate that my hon. Friend is making that point because, when it comes to Rotherham and what happened in child sexual exploitation, the community did know about it and did try to report it at the time, but to very little effect, unfortunately. Crucially, the voluntary sector stepped up, with much of the work done through charitable funds to try and support the young people. That needs recognition in the Bill, not least so that some resources will flow through afterwards, because the voluntary sector has its arms around the community. It is the eyes and ears of the community. We ought to embrace that, and the statutory bodies ought to have a duty to negotiate, engage and listen to and respond to the voluntary community’s wishes.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and for her points about Rotherham. It is absolutely clear that the voluntary sector and local businesses are part of the solution and should therefore be part of the conversation and strategy. Their kind of preventive work will make the serious violence partnerships effective. Local businesses and the voluntary sector are a crucial part of that type of safeguarding.

Amendments 81 and 87 are straightforward. We felt that the language in the Bill was rather loose. For instance, it states that the specified authorities for an area must “from time to time” implement a revised strategy. Quite a lot of the organisations that we spoke to felt that “from time to time” could mean “not really ever at all” if they do not fancy it. Although I appreciate that the Minister might say that she wants local organisations to do what is right for them, “from time to time” felt too loose, so we suggested that the strategies should be refined every two years.

New clause 59, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall, would require the Government to establish a national serious violence oversight board. The duties of the board would be to review local serious violence strategies, to share relevant data at a national level in relation to such strategies, and to share good practice in the preparation and implementation of those strategies. The board should be fed into by individual strategies for each local area to take into account the different patterns of risk, crime, vulnerability and exploitation found across the country. The oversight board could then feed in the relevant information across different Departments to achieve a joined-up approach to preventing serious violence.

[Sarah Champion]

The Minister has not said that the door is closed on the definition of child criminal exploitation. To take that one particular example: we would be looking at a range of definitions to which the local authority serious crime board could respond, meaning that we would again be in the dark days of a postcode lottery. Does my hon. Friend agree that, unless these definitions are in place, something like she is proposing makes absolute sense in order to get that uniformity of service? We are trying to prevent crime and support victims, so a simple measure would be to have an oversight body to make sure it happens.

[Sarah Jones]

I agree with my hon. Friend. It is always good to look back at what has worked in the past, and I go back to the example I cited earlier of the teenage pregnancy strategy. There was a defined strategy from central Government that was overseen centrally but delivered locally, so that there was room for local flexibility according to what was needed. However, there was also a clear set of parameters within which people should be operating, and an expectation of what they should be delivering with what was actually quite a targeted approach. The Prime Minister used to receive daily data on what was happening in each local area. I am quite a fan of gathering data centrally and trying to push change as much as possible, so I agree with my hon. Friend.

Similarly, a national serious violence oversight board would be able to analyse national trends and provide real scrutiny of what is and is not working across the country. Strategies need to feed into somewhere central so that the national landscape can be understood and that good and bad practice can be shared. The Minister talked earlier about that balance between what we allow local police authorities to do and what we set nationally. That conversation about how much we control from the centre and how much we allow people to feed in locally is always happening. The change suggested by new clause 59 is for a local and national mechanism in which at least the information can be gathered and analysed, so that we can see who is doing well and who is not doing well, and then respond appropriately.

Serious violence inevitably crosses boundaries. Effective responses to child exploitation, for example, are often hampered by the fact that it is a form of abuse that takes place across the boundaries of all the different police forces and local authorities in England and Wales. That creates inevitable fragmentation.

While the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre has helped to deliver a more joined-up approach to policing of child exploitation, the same joined-up approach is not found between the police and other agencies, or between different local authority areas. It would be impossible to tackle serious violence without some form of national oversight of the strategies. Learning and best practice can be shared at a national level. We see from the findings of the serious case reviews that sharing is still not effective, resulting in the same failings occurring again and again. We do not want that to happen with the serious violence partnerships as well.

Under the previous Prime Minister there was a serious violence taskforce, which was disbanded and replaced with the National Policing Board, but the National Policing Board looks at all parts of the policing system and has a different function altogether. We need some oversight that specifically addresses serious violence. When the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Theresa May) was Prime Minister, a unit to tackle violence was set up in the Cabinet Office, but I am unsure whether it still exists. Does the Minister know? Either way, she might consider the amendments suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and consider a kind of national co-ordination of the strategies to ensure that they are as effective as possible.

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[Victoria Atkins]

I hope that the Committee feels that, in my responses to the amendments, I have dealt with the substance of most of the clauses. I want to emphasise that clause 8 is included to reflect the fact that, particularly in the instance of county lines gangs, criminal gangs do not respect county boundaries, police force areas or local authority areas. They will reach their tentacles across the country, wherever they think there is a market and they can do their harm. The clause encourages and requires authorities to collaborate to address those concerns.

[Sarah Champion]

Does the Minister agree that they are keen to look at the legislation to see where it is weakest, and to target accordingly?

[Victoria Atkins]

Criminal gangs are keen?

[Sarah Champion]

Yes.

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so. Criminal gangs are very adept at spotting Government and local priorities and adjusting their behaviours. During the global pandemic, still some county lines were adjusting their methodology to evade detection when they were moving around the country. It is disgraceful, disgusting behaviour, and I hope that this duty and the requirement to collaborate will help to address that.

On the point that the hon. Member for Croydon Central made about housing priority need and the comparison with domestic abuse dealings in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, I will arrange for a letter to be written to her on that point. Unless there are any more interventions, I will sit down.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 7 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 8 to 10 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Clause 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Clause 12

Preventing and reducing serious violence

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[Sarah Jones]

Clause 12(4) states that the duty introduced in chapter 1 will predominantly be focused on the most serious forms of violence, which are marked by:

“(a) the maximum penalty which could be imposed for any offence involved in the violence,

(b) the impact of the violence on any victim,

(c) the prevalence of the violence in the area, and

(d) the impact of the violence on the community in the area.”

While those are all extremely important, we would like the Government to emphasise in the duty protection and support for women and girls. It should be in the Bill that violence against women and girls counts as serious violence. We know that women are more likely to be victims of hidden harm and domestic abuse, which does not conspicuously contribute to the prevalence of violence or the impact of violence on the community in an area. During covid, we saw an increase in domestic abuse. I spoke to a primary school head in my constituency who said that in a year they would usually deal with one or two cases of domestic violence affecting their pupils, but at that point they were dealing with seven family cases. Those issues are often hidden and so, as I say, do not necessarily impact on the community in an area in the same way as violent street crime would.

[Sarah Champion]

Does my hon. Friend agree that some violence is gendered, and that recognition of that in the Bill is a necessary inclusion?

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point, which is exactly the point I was about to make. She is completely right. This is in some senses an addition. Perhaps the Minister will say it is for local organisations and agencies to decide what to prioritise, but the reality—this is not a criticism—is that this duty was conceived at the height of concerns about street violence, violent crime and knife crime, and we may all be a little bit to blame for not focusing as well on the gendered violence and hidden violence that does not make the headlines in the same way, but is equally important. One feeds the other: if there is violence in the home, there is often more violent behaviour from children because they learn that behaviour. Gendered violence is just as important but is perhaps not as highlighted and talked about as it should be.

Women from all parts of the country, from all backgrounds, young and old, are killed every week. Last year, the number of female homicide victims in England and Wales reached its highest level since 2006, up 10% on the previous year. That is true of not only murder but all kinds of violence against women and girls. For the year ending March 2020, the crime survey for England and Wales estimated that 7.1% of adults aged 16 to 74 years had experienced sexual assault by rape or penetration. Domestic violence, already endemic across Britain, increased significantly during the covid pandemic, with 260,000 domestic abuse offences between March 2020 and June 2020 alone.

Amendment 91 would ensure that specified authorities have particular regard to reducing serious violence against women and girls, including street harassment, and reducing instances of hidden harm resulting from serious violence. I hope that the Minister will consider the amendment in the spirit in which it is presented. This would be a very useful thing for local agencies to do. It is incredibly important and is part of the wider violence picture and should therefore be included in the Bill.