Community and Suspended Sentences (Notification of Details) Bill

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to move my very first private Member’s Bill through the House—although it may well be my last! It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell, as we debate this important Bill. It is good to see the Minister in his place—and the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green. I thank the Minister for the proactive approach that he took to ensure that we could be here today.

I am grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Hornsey and Wood Green, for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins), for Neath (Christina Rees), for Rotherham, for Gower, and for Cynon Valley for their support. I also acknowledge the hon. Members for Westmorland and Lonsdale and for Ceredigion for their support. I thank my colleagues on the Government Benches, too: the hon. Members for Eastbourne, for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith), for Dudley North, for Congleton, for South Derbyshire—who I am delighted to see in her place—as well as my very good friend the hon. Member for South West Devon, and other fellow Welsh Members, the hon. Members for Aberconwy and the right hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan.

This is an important Bill with cross-party support, and I am very pleased to be able to bring it back to the House today. Indeed, there is no greater responsibility on us, as Members of Parliament, than to keep our people and communities safe. That goes for Newport West and for our colleagues right across the country. This Bill will do a great deal to make that objective of keeping our people safe more likely and more durable.

The Bill will amend the Sentencing Act 2020 to create a duty on offenders to notify the responsible officer of any change of name or contact details if they are sentenced to a community order, suspended sentence order, youth rehabilitation order or referral order. It will place a new duty on offenders serving a sentence in the community who are being supervised by probation or a youth offending team. The change of name or contact details could be for any reason, and the Bill captures not just formal legal changes of name, but, for example, the use of an online alias. Offenders will need to notify their responsible officer of any change as soon as practicable.

With that in mind, I now turn to the clauses themselves. Clause 1 sets out that the Sentencing Act 2020 sentencing code will be amended to create a new duty on offenders serving a sentence in the community and who are supervised by probation or a youth offending team, requiring them to inform the responsible officer if they change their name, use a different name—for example, an alias—or change their contact information. That will improve the ability of probation and youth offending teams to monitor offenders in the community.

At the end of December 2023, there were 64,800 offenders under probation supervision on a community order and 44,300 on a suspended sentence order. In the year to June 2023, 2,100 children were sentenced to youth rehabilitation orders and 6,200 were sentenced to referral orders. The Bill will ensure that the public are protected so that, while this significant number of offenders are serving sentences in the community, the responsible officers have the information they need to keep tabs on those individuals, including if they change their name or contact information.

The provisions in the Bill are robust. While the name or contact details change could be for any reason, any difference from what is kept on file must be reported by the offender. It captures not just formal legal changes of name by deed poll but also, for instance, the use of an online alias. Although we have a separate youth justice system, it is of equal importance that services can keep tabs on children and have the right information about them in order to do their job. This policy therefore applies equally to offenders of all ages and will create consistency across offenders on licence and offenders serving sentences in the community overseen by probation services or youth offending teams.

Clause 1 establishes that the requirement will apply to offenders under the age of 18 where a referral order has been made by inserting proposed new section 97A, which provides that the section applies to offenders who have been sentenced to a referral order and where a youth offender contract has not been revoked or discharged. It establishes the requirement for youth offenders sentenced to a referral order to notify, as soon as is practically possible, the relevant member of the youth offender panel if they begin using a name or contact detail that is not specified in the referral order while the terms of the contract are active. It also establishes that the duty of an offender to notify details is to be treated as a term of the youth offender contract in order to ensure that enforcement of the measure is effective.

Proposed new section 97A also establishes the relevant member of the youth offender panel that the offender should notify of any change of name and contact details, and it states that this should be done in writing. The requirement to notify the responsible officer of any change of name will also apply to offenders under the age of 18 who are sentenced to youth rehabilitation orders. As regards those sentenced to a referral order, clause 1(3) creates the duty for the offender to comply with the duty as soon as reasonably practicable and states that any offender who breaches the obligation will be dealt with by the court, in the same way as someone who breaches a youth rehabilitation order.

The Bill applies to both adult offenders and offenders under the age of 18 equally. Subsections (4) and (5) of clause 1 provide that the duty on adult offenders to notify their responsible officer if they change their name or contact details as soon as practicable applies to those sentenced to suspended sentence orders or community orders. Probation and youth offending teams will have discretion as to whether an offender is returned to court if they fail to comply with the requirements set out in the Bill. It is right that the Bill’s enforcement provisions are robust and reflect the seriousness of non-compliance, and it is right that probation officers and youth offending teams have the same powers to deal with non-compliance with this duty as they do in any other case of non-compliance with a sentence requirement.

Clause 2 addresses the territorial extent of the Bill, commencement and short title. Subsection (1) states that the territorial extent of the Bill is England and Wales only, as colleagues will have read in the explanatory notes. Subsection (2) sets out that the Bill will come into force at the end of the period of two months following Royal Assent. Subsection (3) provides that short title may be the Community and Suspended Sentences (Notification of Details) Act 2024. It is important for all of us, irrespective of party or background, that the Bill comes to fruition. I urge colleagues to give it their full support.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your guidance, Mr Rosindell. Huge congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West on bringing forward this much-needed piece of legislation. I am not rising to block its passage in any way, but I am hoping to get the Minister and those in the other place to consider some of the flaws of the Bill as it stands.

This Committee, especially the Minister, is aware that I am obsessed—that is the only word I can use—with sex offenders changing their name to avoid detection. The reason I went for sex offenders was because they are a very defined cohort of people that I could prove were using the loophole of changing their names and breaching the conditions of their existing orders to do so. However, the same principle applies to all offenders, so I rather assumed that the same conditions applied to offenders in this category and was quite shocked to realise that they did not.

I am really grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West for trying to close that loophole. The problem is this: at the moment, both this legislation and the current legislation for sex offenders rely on the offender notifying. That is my problem with this Bill as it stands. By their very nature, the people who come under the Bill will be people who have committed violence, fraud, deception, coercive control, cuckooing—all the things that involve someone presenting a false representation to vulnerable people. And presenting themselves with a different name is a very good way to do that, because now most people, when they meet someone new, will go on Google and put the name in, see who it is and make a decision based on that. That is just where we are in the world at the moment; if a different name—one that is clean—comes up, we would not have any worries. We would invite that person into our home. We would go on a date with that person. Therefore I am concerned that, under the Bill, it is still the offender who is required to report a name change. It is still reliant on an offender doing the right thing when it would actually benefit them, if they wanted to continue their criminal activity, not to do the right thing.

One of the problems if offenders change their name —other than the ones that I have outlined—is that they can disappear. I discovered that when I spoke to my local police chief about it many years ago, when I first became aware of the problem. He said, “To be quite honest, Sarah, if they change their name, they literally drop off the radar. How am I meant to find someone if I don’t know who they are?” That is my concern with this Bill as well.

The next issue is that the offender has to report to their responsible officer or their youth offending team. That is great, but they are incredibly hard-pressed, and the explanatory notes say that they will be meeting the offender perhaps once a month, so I am very concerned about the other 29-ish days when the offender is not reporting and when that eye is not on them, and about what they are getting up to at that point. I am also concerned about this issue: if they are referring just to the probationary team, who do an incredibly good job but in very stressed circumstances, how does that information get to the police? How does it actually feed into systems? That becomes very important. If there is a breach, how do we enforce against that?

Under this legislation, an offender “could” be taken back to court. When an order is returned to court, the court “could” make a requirement of the order more onerous, impose a fine or even sentence the offender to custody. “Could” is not good enough; it needs to be stronger than that. If an offender is breaching their terms, there needs to be a sanction; otherwise, where is the deterrent? I urge the Minister, during the passage of the Bill—to which I hope he gives safe passage—to look at actually enforcing against that.

Let me give an example, because this isn’t just Sarah being obsessed. Well, it is, but I can actually back it up with data. Between 2015 and 2020—this data is from my written parliamentary questions to the Government —16,000 offenders were charged for failing to tell the authorities details such as a name change and address change. They are only the ones who got caught—the ones we found out about. There were 16,000 in five years. The Safeguarding Alliance, which I am very proud to have worked with for many years, found that more than 11,500 registered sex offenders were then prosecuted for failing to notify changes of information between 2019 and 2022. That is only the registered sex offenders who were found out and then prosecuted, so this is a big problem and something that the Minister needs to take seriously.

Let me end on the example that is Clare’s law. Probably many of us have encouraged our friends to use Clare’s law, whereby someone who has a new partner and wants to check that they do not have a background of domestic violence can call up the police and they will check the name against the register. Of course, if the person has changed their name, it will not show up on that register. It is also required that the police know that they have changed their name, and at the moment, there is no statutory requirement for the responsible officer or the youth offending team to refer that to the police, so there is a big gaping hole within this system.

The Bill is a fantastic first step. It has highlighted to me another area of concern, and I am grateful that the Government are recognising that. But let us get it right, because at the moment it is not right. There will be time to make amendments in the other place, or for the Minister to tighten the Bill up. With those caveats, I will be pleased to give the Bill safe passage, but I do hope that it is worked on as it progresses.

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[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Rosindell. I will endeavour not to detain the Committee too long, but I want to add my wholehearted support for this Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Newport West. I will turn to some of the points that the hon. Member for Rotherham made in a moment, although I am conscious that, while I can answer some of them, others may be for the hon. Member for Newport West to respond to. However, I will of course continue working closely and collaboratively with the hon. Member for Rotherham as the Bill continues its progress.

As has been set out, the Bill will place a new duty on offenders who are serving a sentence in the community and being supervised by a probation or youth offending team. It will require them to inform the responsible officer if they begin using a different name or change their contact information, including their telephone number or email address. The name change could be for any reason; the Bill captures not just formal legal changes of name by deed poll but, for example, the use of an online alias.

Rigorous community offender management is important in building confidence in community orders and delivering effective rehabilitation while keeping the public safe. With that in mind, we have increased funding for the probation service by an additional £155 million a year to recruit record levels of staff—around 4,000 are currently in training at different stages—so that we can bring down case loads and deliver better and more consistent supervision of offenders in the community.

Let me turn to a few points linked to that that the hon. Member for Rotherham raised. I think that the implication of one of the things she mentioned is almost daily monitoring, which would be impractical given the sheer volume of people on probation in this country, but the police and probation work closely and collaboratively where any breach or potential breach is identified.

The hon. Lady raised concerns about the use of the word “could”. That word is used because probation officers have to employ a degree of professional judgment, rather than being instructed that a particular outcome must follow, because each case is separate. Similarly, because we cannot instruct a sentencer in the courts what penalty to impose, the Bill specifies that the court “could” impose particular penalties for breach, including recall, but that would be at the discretion of the court. The reason that word is used is to highlight that, but without straying into the territory of judicial discretion in the sentences or penalties that sentencers choose to impose.

[Sarah Champion]

My problem with the word “could” is that it becomes subjective. Is there anything that the Minister thinks could be included in guidance alongside the Bill when it passes—as I hope it does—to give examples of when it should be enforced or applied?

[Edward Argar]

I think there are two points there. There is an opportunity to work with probation to give clarity, but I would hesitate to stray into the territory of “should” for a sentencer, be that a judge or a magistrate, because ultimately the courts have discretion to apply the most appropriate penalty on the facts before them. There is a slight distinction there.

As announced in the spring Budget, we are also improving our digital capability so that information on individuals’ risks will be better shared across prisons and probation, to inform key decisions and better protect the public. The effectiveness of community sentences relies on probation and youth offending teams having the ability to manage offenders in the community successfully, and that means having the right information about an offender. The Bill will help to ensure that responsible officers are given the necessary tools to keep tabs on offenders in the community so they are better able to manage them effectively.

The Criminal Justice (Sentencing) (Licence Conditions) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2022 requires offenders on licence to inform their responsible officer if they change their name and/or contact details. The Government welcome the Bill, which will build on the 2022 order by ensuring that the same duty applies to offenders serving sentences in the community. The hon. Member for Rotherham will recall that we debated a number of these issues in the Victims and Prisoners Bill Committee, possibly even in this room, recognising the challenges in the nature of individuals who commit various crimes and the question of whether they will be compliant and notify, versus the practical challenges of creating another mechanism by which they could be monitored. I am very conscious of the points that she made then—she made them forcefully and eloquently, and I suspect she will return to the issue until it is resolved to her satisfaction. I reassure her that I am conscious of those discussions and I will continue to look at that.

It is also right that swift and clear action can be taken when an offender does not comply. The enforcement provisions for the Bill are tough and reflect the seriousness of non-compliance by giving responsible officers the same powers they have in respect of any failure to comply with the requirement of a court order. If an offender fails to comply with the duty, that will constitute a breach of the order and, as we have discussed, this could result in the order being returned to court. The court could impose additional penalties, but, as I have set out, a degree of discretion is needed.

It is likely that probation would be notified about non-compliance by an external agency, such as the police, in the event the offender was arrested again. To answer the point made by the hon. Member for Rotherham, if that were the case, the default approach would be to treat the failure to notify as a breach. Practitioners will then use their professional judgment and the Probation Service enforcement policy framework to decide how best to approach that, including whether they are going to hand it to the court. As I have set out, the court would then have discretion over what penalty to impose for the breach.

In closing, I thank the hon. Member for Newport West for introducing this important Bill and I confirm the Government’s full and continuing support for it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris]

It is specifically to address that issue that we commissioned our harms panel, which conducted excellent work, as a result of which the Ministry of Justice has conducted a pilot of pathfinder courts in Dorset and north Wales focused on preventing exactly this issue. Those courts have focused on creating a less adversarial system where domestic abuse allegations are investigated and resolved at an early stage without being intensified through the court. My hon. Friend will be glad to hear that so successful has the pilot been that it will now be rolled out on a national basis, starting next month with courts in south-east Wales and in Birmingham.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

In 2023, 67,938 rapes were recorded by the police, but there were just 2,008 rape convictions. It is well documented that there is not enough support for rape victims through the court process. The use of counselling notes has a chilling effect, and the long waits for their case to go to trial have an intense impact on survivors, often causing them to withdraw. What will the Minister do to ensure that victims and survivors are supported throughout the court process?

[Laura Farris]

It is not in dispute that rape is the most serious offence a person can experience that is not homicide. It is as a result of the implementation of the end-to-end rape review that we started Operation Soteria through the police forces. That has not just improved rape prosecutions; some forces are referring quadruple the volume of cases to the Crown Prosecution Service that they were once before, and overall prosecutions have more than doubled. We have close to 1,000 independent sexual violence advisers working in the system, holding a victim’s hand from the minute they go to the police to the conclusion of the process. I met some in Hatfield last month, who told me that victims had told them they had only stayed in the process because of that support. It is night and day from where it was in 2010. We review the outcome of the rape review every quarter, and the curve is going upwards, so of course it is a crucial issue, but one on which significant improvement is being made on every single matrix.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

The Home Office, as the lead Department, recently relaunched its antisocial behaviour case review, formerly known as the community trigger, and raised awareness of the tool throughout ASB Awareness Week 2023. Additionally, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is working on a one-stop shop reporting system for ASB, which will ensure that victims of ASB have easy and flexible ways of reporting antisocial behaviour and will receive an update on what has happened as a result. It is also important to remember that a large amount of antisocial behaviour is in fact criminal. While it may not be categorised as antisocial behaviour, the individual offences that are criminal often apply to many of these cases.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

The Minister is aware of the debate we had around child criminal exploitation. Does he believe that that part of the Criminal Justice Bill could cover that definition?

[Edward Argar]

The point that the hon. Lady raises does not directly relate to antisocial behaviour, because often what she is talking about is criminal in many ways. As I set out in Committee, we believe that where ASB is criminal, it would already be captured under this legislation. I suspect that she may develop that point in her remarks later.

Another area that has been raised, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) will speak to, is non-disclosure agreements and how they may prevent victims from being able to seek the support they need. I particularly thank her for her constructive engagement on this important topic. I also thank the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), although she is not her place. I recognise that non-disclosure agreements are misused if they prevent someone from speaking about what they have experienced, whether it is criminality or equivalent. While this Government recognise that NDAs, also known as confidentiality clauses, can and do serve a valid purpose to protect commercially sensitive information and deliver finality, they should never be used to stop victims of crime getting the support they need. I also note changes in this respect in higher education, if memory serves. I reassure the hon. Lady and my right hon. Friend that we continue to work closely with the Department for Business and Trade, which holds overall policy responsibility for NDAs, to carefully consider how best to address the issues they have raised, including, where appropriate, through legislative options as this legislation progresses.

I will touch on some of the concerns raised by Members that do not require legislation, which we will address by bringing forward non-legislative measures. On code compliance, we will set out a non-legislative notification process that shows clear consequences for non-compliance in guidance. We will publish more detail on that shortly. We will also make updates to the victims code, including adding further information on how victims can access pre-trial therapy and get more timely information about, for example, restorative justice and how victims of crime overseas can access support.

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

I have a bit of a poorly chest, so if my voice goes, that is the reason. I thank the Minister for the tone in which he introduced the debate and the changes that he has tabled around domestic homicide reviews regardless of the reason why somebody died, whether that be suicide, sudden accidental falling or substance misuse and overdose. Those are things that we see all the time that could be put down to domestic abuse. I pay tribute to Jhiselle from the Killed Women network, who has fought tirelessly for some justice for her sister Bianca, who fell from a tower block in Birmingham. Nobody has ever paid the price for what happened to her. Certainly she has not been, to date, allowed a domestic homicide review; we hope that that will change.

Obviously I am pleased to see the changes on Jade’s law. My right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) has worked so hard, as has my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), who tabled the amendment on the need to carve out parental responsibility from those who are convicted of child abuse. All children in this country are protected from being near a child abuser—a paedophile—apart from the abuser’s own children. The other parent has to go through the family court process in order to keep their children safe.

While I agree with both amendments, and fought very hard for Jade’s law, the reality is that we cannot keep carving out little bits where parental responsibility is gifted. It is not just gifted, actually; currently the family courts in our country collude with perpetrators of violence and abuse to a degree that is frightening to anyone who has sat in on those proceedings, as I do regularly.

The Government have had the outcome of the harms review for three years, and have been working towards another review. The presumption of contact for violent parents should not be on our statute book any more. We should not call for victims to fight again and again to keep their children and themselves safe, yet we do.

I am afraid that I will point to another delay that the Minister has referred to: the delay on non-disclosure agreements. I know that he has to sit there and say that the Department for Business and Trade is working on it. Well, I am sorry to say, “Read it and weep,” because that is the answer we have been given for five years. For five years, since the recommendation to end the use of non-disclosure agreements in cases of sexual harassment, the Government have repeatedly said, “We’re looking at it.” Have they lost it? Where are they looking? Look harder!

I want to make it clear that, while I welcome the Bill, there are gaps in it around adult sexual exploitation. If you are a child who is sexually exploited—you might have been repeatedly raped from the age of 10—from the day you turn 18, suddenly the Government have no definition of you and no policy to do anything about you. That is problematic.

This week, the Home Office has announced that it will bring forward emergency legislation on the Rwanda situation. Where is our emergency legislation for the things that we have waited years for, the things that people have died waiting for—including those in the infected blood inquiry? If only we were the emergency.

[Sarah Champion]

I start by thanking the Minister. He has worked cross party, particularly with me, to turn what was a good, well-intended Bill into something much better, although there is still a lot further to go. I am delighted that the Government have accepted my argument that a victim does not have to report a crime to access support through the victims code, and therefore I will not press amendment 8.

There are victims who are not explicitly listed, but who need recognition. That would be provided through my amendments 5, 6, 157 and 158. When the definition of child sexual exploitation was introduced in 2009, it genuinely transformed services and people’s understanding. We now need the same for both adult sexual exploitation and child criminal exploitation. It is bizarre to me that, as soon as someone turns 18, sexual exploitation is seen as their making poor lifestyle choices, rather than as grooming, coercion and abuse. Likewise, child criminal exploitation is often unrecognised and the child is seen as a perpetrator. At the very least, I hope the Minister will ensure that there are statutory definitions of those crimes in guidance.

Amendment 7 relates to children whose parents are paedophiles. We need to ensure that those children are treated as secondary victims, in the same way that children born of rape will be once the Bill passes. I urge the Minister to consider rolling out a specialist type of IDVA, as Lincolnshire police are doing so brilliantly. Amendments 19 to 23 would ensure that there is also guidance for all specialist community-based services.

Elder abuse is often under-reported. Hourglass states that the elderly require specialist support due to the nature of the abuse, which often targets their finances, and because they are often digitally excluded. My new clause 6 would require the Government to carry out an assessment of specialist support services across the country to end the postcode lottery.

Amendments 4, 17 and 18 would include stalking in the Bill. Given that there were 1.5 million stalking victims in 2021, it is imperative that they have advocates. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust has shown that victims not supported by advocates have a one in 1,000 chance of their perpetrator being convicted, compared with one in four if they have a stalking advocate.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case for stalking advocates. Does she also agree that now is the time for a stalking register, to stop this crime in its tracks?

[Sarah Champion]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who I know has tabled amendments on that point. We need to do much more about stalking.

One in five referrals through the national referral mechanism in 2022 were for a British child. It is essential that we get the support for that group of victims right and that we improve support for all victims of modern slavery, which is why I have tabled amendment 16, supported by the Centre for Social Justice. Clause 12 is positive, but as drafted it will fail to fully meet the needs of victims and survivors. Amendment 149 seeks to address that.

Another concern is that the Bill will not fully support all migrant victims, especially those facing domestic abuse. Many victims and survivors with insecure immigration status do not report to the police for fear that their information will be passed to immigration enforcement. And that fear is not unfounded: the Domestic Abuse Commissioner recently published Home Office data showing that every single police force in England and Wales had shared data of a victim of domestic abuse with immigration enforcement over a three-year period. To protect migrant victims and survivors, as well as the general public, we need to implement a data-sharing firewall that bans statutory services from sharing the data of a victim with the Home Office. My new clause 36 seeks to do that.

I have worked with Southall Black Sisters to develop new clause 8 so that all those with no recourse to public funds can be guaranteed access to support. The Government must extend the domestic violence indefinite leave to remain and the destitution domestic violence concession model for those on partner and spousal visas to all migrant victims of domestic abuse, regardless of their immigration status.

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[Stella Creasy]

I associate myself with the amendments in the names of the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller), my right hon. Friends the Members for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) and for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) and, of course, my incomparable hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). In the time available to me, I will focus on the three amendments that I have tabled to flag issues with the Government.

Amendment 147 is about vicarious trauma. We are in a perverse situation right now—the Minister knows this—where we have to hope that a victim dies if we are to access support for our communities when traumatic things such as stabbings happen. I hope that the Minister will change that so that every child can be supported.

Amendment 148 is about overseas victims. It would simply restore the right that our constituents had when we were members of the European Union to have their rights as a victim upheld if they or a family member were a victim of crime overseas. I hope that the Minister will look at the victims’ rights directive, because so many people experience that.

New clause 32 is about a victim’s rights in relation to data. I was not sure that I would be able to table the new clause, because the court case that it refers was heard last Thursday. A year ago, a man started emailing my office with his concerns about my politics and the issues that I was working on. Like all Members when we get correspondence from non-constituents, I read the emails and filed them but did not respond. I was then called by my local social services because that man had decided that, because he disagreed with my views, I was not a fit mother for my children. He had reported me, an investigation had taken place, and while it cleared me, my children and I now have a social services record. When I went to the police about the matter, they said that he had a right to express his opinions in that way. I challenged it because, due to my work on stalking, I understood that somebody who could use a malicious report to harm someone was clearly dangerous. When I came forward, further reports came out revealing that this man had continued his campaign of harassment.

I am deeply grateful for the cross-party support for new clause 32, because although that man has now been convicted of harassment, his ability to target my family continues because the record continues. At present, there is no way of removing from someone’s record a clearly malicious and false accusation made to a third-party organisation. In tabling the new clause, I recognised that it is not just those of us in the public eye who may be targeted in this way; in many cases of stalking, we see people who fixate and use reporting mechanisms to damage their victims.

I have had no support or help from Parliament or anybody within the parliamentary process for my welfare or that of my children, but now I want to stand up for everybody who has been through this process. I ask the Minister to look at this, because victims of clearly malicious reports must have the opportunity to have the record corrected. Too often, people will say, “There is no smoke without fire.” I want to stand up for safeguarding —it is clearly a very important process—but if a court recognises that a report is malicious and a victim is being targeted but we cannot act to remove that report, the harassment will continue.

[Sarah Champion]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for using a personal case to speak so powerfully. I know that she does so from a position of wanting to change things for people who do not have the platform that she has. I commend her for that.

[Stella Creasy]

I thank my hon. Friend for that, and yes, the new clause would go much further than tackling the abuse of people in the public eye. I hope that, in other legislation, we will look seriously at what we can do about those who target our families and staff members as a way of intimidating us, because that is not free speech; it is a way of silencing people.

In tabling the new clause, I hoped also to speak up for those who have been targeted through third-party organisations. I know that there are colleagues in the other place who wish to take up that matter up. I hope that cross-party support continues and that the Minister will consider the proposals, which have already secured the support of London’s Victims’ Commissioner. I apologise to the House for not being able to bring them forward before, but I hope that Members can understand why.

I hope that we send a message today. Many of us do not block people, and many of us engage in robust parliamentary debate, but surely there is a line not to be crossed. That line is our children, our family and our staff, who do not ask to be put in harm’s way but will be if we do not act to protect our democracy and protect ourselves from those who would seek to use third-party mechanisms to abuse.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 120, in clause 47, page 43, line 6, leave out from “office” to end of line 9 and insert

“only on grounds of proven misconduct or incapacity”.

This amendment would allow the Secretary of State to remove the Chair of the Parole Board only on the grounds of misconduct or incapacity.

I want to begin by providing some context about the justification for removing the Parole Board chair from office. The Parole Board is rightly independent from the Executive. That independence is well established in several court rulings and is crucial to how the board functions. There are elements of the Bill that would undermine that independence. The Minister will know that I am not alone in voicing those concerns, given that Members of his own party also did so on Second Reading.

The Minister has been open to hearing and taking on board the concerns of Members throughout our time in Committee, and I know that that has been much appreciated. Therefore, I hope that he will reflect on the concerns raised on protecting the independence of the Parole Board. A balance needs to be struck. Although Members on both sides of the Committee will recognise the need for the Secretary of State to have the power to remove the chair, what matters is how that is done. I do not wish to recount too much the circumstances of the removal of Nick Hardwick as chair of the Parole Board—Members will likely already be familiar with those—but it is important to recognise the challenge that placed on the independence of the Parole Board. The powers of the Executive must be appropriate. I consider the termination protocol devised after Nick Hardwick’s time as chair to have the better level of that appropriateness.

The current grounds on which the chair may be removed are set out in a clear way, and the criteria that must be satisfied are reasonable and measurable. There is a procedural fairness in how a recommendation for removal can be made. That is not to say that it is a perfect mechanism. It does not, for example, consider misconduct as a criterion for the chair’s removal, nor does it fully address the concerns raised by the High Court regarding recourse and appeal in the removal of the chair. Furthermore, it does not recognise the potential impact of removing the chair on the independence of the Parole Board. All these merit further consideration in determining how a removal mechanism should operate.

As it stands, I do not believe that the power being given to the Secretary of State to remove the chair addresses those points adequately. Its current wording is narrowly focused and too broadly interpreted. Maintaining the public’s confidence in the parole process is a perfectly reasonable aim, but it should not be the sole consideration in whether the chair is fit to perform the functions of the role.

If the clause ends up on the statute book, how will the Secretary of State measure public confidence? Will it be on the basis of a decision made on an individual case? Clause 47 goes on to say that the chair must not “play any part” or “influence the recommendations” in relation to an individual case. That would clearly make it unfair to dismiss the chair because of a decision taken on a single case.

The Parole Board’s job is to take decisions on complex and occasionally controversial cases. In a small number of examples, that may result in a certain level of unease, but unfettered ministerial power to remove the chair on fairly broadly interpreted grounds is not the proper way to resolve that unease.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I am very supportive of the argument that my hon. Friend is making, because there needs to be absolute confidence that the Parole Board is acting for the right reasons. Any indication of political influence would undermine public confidence in the system. That is why I support her amendment.

[Janet Daby]

I thank my hon. Friend for everything she just said, and I absolutely agree. Those are absolutely the points that I am making as well. I fear that the power is too subjective and, with respect to the Secretary of State, may be misapplied if not handled carefully. In evidence to this Committee, the chief executive officer of the Parole Board himself said that this risked the Parole Board’s independence, and the measure fails to note that the chair may need to be removed on grounds of proven misconduct or incapacity.

Although I do not intend to take amendment 120 to a vote, I hope that it will encourage the Minister to rethink how this clause is drafted, tighten up the removal mechanism, give greater consideration to protecting the Parole Board’s independence and privilege misconduct or incapacity as reasons for removing the chair.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ellie Reeves]

I rise to support clauses 48, 49 and 50. At present, 66 prisoners are serving whole-life sentences in England and Wales. Those sentences reflect some of the most despicable crimes imaginable—ones so serious that the prisoner will never be released from prison. For families trying to rebuild their lives after the devastation of a crime caused by that group of offenders, hearing news that they have been able to conduct a relationship in prison is unimaginable.

There is also often a safeguarding issue. Given the history of the prisoner, it is right that their motivation in pursuing a marriage is examined, as we know that such people often have great capacity for coercion and exploitation. I note the recent case of serial killer Levi Bellfield, who is serving a whole-life sentence for the murders of Marsha McDonnell, Amelie Delagrange and Millie Dowler, as well as the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy. He also had a long history of domestic violence and remains a suspect in other crimes. News that he has met someone, and has been able to marry her behind bars, has rightly been met with public outrage.

I can only imagine how the news has impacted Bellfield’s victims and their families, and it is concerning that he was introduced to his now wife by a fellow serial killer and was able to propose marriage in the prison visitors’ centre. Under current legislation there are no sufficient powers to prevent that from happening. I therefore welcome these clauses, which will put appropriate legislation in place to ensure that something like it does not happen again.

[Sarah Champion]

It is a pleasure to serve under your wise counsel, Mrs Murray. I am standing against clauses 48, 49 and 50, and against my Front-Bench team in doing so. I do not think that they should be in the Bill, and I would like to explain why.

First, fundamentally, everything I have done in this place is to support victims and survivors and their rights. At my very core, human rights and equality is what motivates me and gets me out of bed every day. It is because of that that I am challenged by these three clauses. Sometimes, we see legislation coming through that is, to quote the Minister, “common-sense legislation”, but it is brought forward for an emotional—or indeed a headline—reason. That does not make it good legislation, and I am concerned that that could be happening in this case.

I also seek to understand how the Government maintain that these measures are compliant with their obligations under the European convention on human rights. For me, the Secretary of State is coming over as God-like, to put it simply. I do not think that we have the right to take away someone’s right to get married or to have a civil partnership, and I question what the benefits of that will be.

I want to believe that there is a restorative purpose for people going to prison. I want to know that by maintaining one relationship, they are able to change and improve. The fact that someone may be seeking marriage gives me hope that there is potential within some of the most wicked and deplorable people whom I have ever had the misfortune to come across. There is hope that they might be able to maintain a meaningful relationship.

[Jess Phillips]

I truly appreciate my hon. Friend’s fundamental point: everybody hopes for rehabilitation. With this, the only case we have to debate is that of Levi Bellfield, as mentioned. Having worked with some of his direct victims and the families of those victims, while I do not disagree that we sometimes chase headlines and make bad legislation in doing so, with his case I am not sure, from previous behaviour, that I would categorise it as rehabilitation. I would categorise it as behaviour to get headlines. The desire in Levi Bellfield’s case, as has been put to me by many of his victims, is that these schemes keep him constantly in the media, and that is incredibly painful for them. There is a bit from both sides of the argument in this debate: trying to stop the headlines and allowing rehabilitation.

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend makes a strong argument that I agree with on many levels. It also confirms my suspicion that the provisions could be around an individual, and responding to the horror of that individual. Therefore, I want the Minister to explain to me all the consideration of unintended consequences on this. There are two subsections that allow a prisoner to get married if they have written permission from the Secretary of State. There are also conditions as to why the Secretary of State may be unable to give that permission. Can the Minister tell us again what the exceptions for giving permission, or being unable to give permission, are? Those are not clear in the Bill or in what he has said in Committee.

The Prison Reform Trust was deeply concerned in its written evidence, stating:

“The introduction of specific carve-outs from human rights for people given custodial sentences contradicts one of the fundamental principles underlying human rights—their universality and application to each and every person on the simple basis of their being human.”

Despite the actions of certain offenders, we should not prevent people from having their human rights.

The Prisoners’ Advice Service also stated in its written evidence that the practice will have very little impact:

“A whole life tariffed prisoner will die in prison, and the nature of their crimes renders them unlikely to ‘progress’ to open conditions or to access resettlement facilities such as unescorted release on temporary licence from prison into the community. Thus any marriages or civil partnerships contracted by such prisoners, before or after their conviction leading to the whole life tariff, will in practice have little or no impact on the conditions of imprisonment—and would have no significant impact on victims or their families. It is a point of principle only, ostensibly to show the public that the Executive is not ‘soft’ on those who commit the worst crimes. Behind this flashy headline, is another attempt by the Executive to remove a basic human right from a group of people who are unpopular with sections of the population and the press, for political advantage.”

Given the arguments that those organisations have put forward, I do not think the Minister has made a clear enough argument for why the provisions need to be in the Bill. I ask the Minister to explain the logic, the exceptions and whether the provisions apply retrospectively to people already married. Fundamentally, people have a right to practice their religion, and marriage is part of their religion. I am very concerned that the Minister is looking to take that right away.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Rotherham for their comments.

On chasing flashy headlines, I have to confess that in my eight and a half years in this place, five of them as a Minister, I have sought to do everything I possibly can to avoid them—I was not overjoyed, then, that I found myself appointed as a Health Minister three months before a pandemic—but the hon. Member for Rotherham raises important points. I do not think anyone could ever question or call into doubt the decency, sincerity and integrity with which she makes points in this Committee and more broadly throughout the House in championing the causes that she does.

On the question of whether the measures make law based on an individual case, I do not think that is the case. On occasion, an individual case may shine a light on something, which then reflects a broader concern or issue. We in this House should always seek to legislate for the general, rather than for the specific individual, and I think we are doing that in this case. It just so happens that an individual case has thrown a light on the matter.

I do not always disagree with the hon. Lady—I possibly agree with her rather more often than not—but I do disagree with her on this issue. I find it challenging to accept that those whose actions have robbed others of any opportunity of happiness believe that they should be able to pursue it irrespective of what they have done in the past. To address a point that the hon. Lady raised, my understanding is that the change is not retrospective. I take her point that tough cases can make bad law, if we look at them individually, which is why we are looking at the matter more broadly.

The shadow Home Office Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, spoke about individual cases and alluded to something that I want to develop a little more. Although I take at face value what the hon. Member for Rotherham said about redemption and people wishing to reform, I do not underestimate the cynicism of some of these offenders, their manipulative and exploitative behaviour or the potential that, in pursuing marriage, they seek to exploit an opportunity that, in effect, could create another victim further down the line. I believe that the Bill strikes a proportionate balance.

The hon. Member for Rotherham asked about possible exemptions—I think I saw the shadow Minister mouthing it and she was absolutely right—and those would be, for example, deathbed marriages if someone has a long-term partner but they are not married, in the case of a terminal illness or similar, at the end of life. It would, though, be exceptionally rare in those circumstances.

[Sarah Champion]

Why is it all right for someone who is dying but not for someone who is not? I do not understand that distinction, and I am a woman who used to run a hospice.

[Edward Argar]

The point is that the only circumstance in which I could envisage the provision being used is where the long-term partner is also a whole-life prisoner and both are in prison at the end of life. Even then, I am not necessarily anticipating that the Secretary of State would give permission, but the hon. Lady asked for a hypothetical example of how it might work, given the concerns expressed by the shadow Home Office Minister, by myself and by others. That is an illustrative example for her. She knows that I have huge respect for her and her integrity and sincerity, but we approach this issue from slightly different perspectives. I am afraid that on this occasion I must resist her entreaties to either withdraw or change the clause, but I am grateful to her for airing her views.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 48 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 49 and 50 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 51

Financial provision

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

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for expanding on new clause 4 and I welcome the Government proposals to protect third-party materials. However, new clause 4 does not go far enough, as it just reinforces what is already in law. It does not offer new protections for therapy notes, which is a critical issue for many stakeholders and survivors.

Take my own constituent Sarah, who was sexually assaulted. After a three-year wait, she finally had her day in court. During the trial, the defence barrister used therapy notes from bereavement counselling that Sarah had received when she was a child to illustrate an apparently damaged mental state. The defence barrister then went on to use counselling notes from Sarah’s therapy following a near-fatal car accident. Sarah said of her trial:

“I felt like I was being publicly beaten and humiliated. I wouldn’t advise anyone to go through it. They destroy you.”

In fact, Sarah was cross-examined for two days, with those therapy notes being used to weaken and discredit her case.

Additional safeguards specific to therapeutic records are essential because such records are uniquely private. If such safeguards are not introduced, survivors will continue to be harmed and retraumatised by the system, just as Sarah was. There are some serious concerns about new clause 4 that need to be addressed; I hope that the Minister will listen and acknowledge the severity of what could happen if the new clause passes unamended.

The Centre for Women’s Justice has also expressed concerns about this matter and the Government’s new clause should correctly reflect existing UK law. However, the wording of the new clause is not based on the consent of the survivor; the survivor is only given notice rather than being asked for their consent. If in sexual violence cases the basis is not consent, the data is usually sensitive data. According to the Data Protection Act 2018, there is a higher threshold of “strictly necessary” for sensitive data.

However, the new clause does not accurately reflect the correct Data Protection Act test; it applies a lower threshold of only “necessary and proportionate”. I understand that the new clause applies to all offences, and not just sexual and violent offences against women and girls. However, the failure to include the higher threshold for sensitive personal data will particularly adversely impact sexual offence investigations.

The new clause is not only insufficient but incredibly damaging. I hope that the Minister will agree that it should be amended to add provision for sensitive personal data.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I really welcome the Minister’s attempt to tackle the misuse of information relating to victims as set out in the Government’s new clause 4; I thank him for making this happen.

I have called for action on this issue for years, as have most of my colleagues. It is simply unacceptable that victims and survivors who have been subjected to the trauma of sexual violence or abuse have had some of their most private and personal material requested via their counselling service. That is then trawled through by all manner of unknown people, in order for that material to be used to undermine, discredit and even humiliate victims and survivors through the court process. We know that when survivors refuse to hand over the material, cases have been dropped and discontinued. While I appreciate that rape convictions are at an all-time low, justice for rape and abuse survivors cannot be contingent on the violation of their privacy.

Even when victims willingly give notes, the impact is still traumatic. I will give the example of someone who I will call Alex. Alex is a survivor of sexual violence and emotional abuse by an ex-partner. After a lengthy police investigation, during which blanket requests were made for Alex’s counselling notes, the suspect was eventually charged. When describing the impact that accessing her personal records had on her, Alex said:

“I’d given my phone, my therapy records, my social care records, my everything to this case. I feel like I am the one being investigated whilst he roams the streets. This has been horrific for my mental health…I spent a long time with him being traumatised yet even longer by the police and CPS being re-traumatised.”

Sadly, Alex’s experience is not uncommon. Although pre-trial therapy guidance encourages victims and survivors to access the support that they need, and does that to prioritise wellbeing, if someone fears that their notes from sessions can still be routinely accessed and misused, that will undermine the safe healing space that I know the Minister is trying to create. We hear day in, day out, how many victims feel that they have to choose between accessing therapy or accessing justice.

When justice agencies request counselling notes, that fundamentally compromises the central role of counsellors, which is to create a safe and confidential space to explore issues in. One Rape Crisis counsellor explained the difficulty of having to monitor what the victims share. She said:

“it seems to go against the foundation of therapy—that it is an open and non-judgemental space—when your notes could be taken literally to judge you.”

We must also ensure that the police fully understand guidance and laws. Police professionals receive little-to-no training in the new CPS guidelines, and are continually telling survivors that they cannot or should not access pre-trial therapy sessions. There is also currently no monitoring in place around the advice that police are giving to survivors about pre-trial therapy, or follow-up on actions when therapy is accessed.

The Bluestar Project states that the previous CPS guidance, from 2002, has led to the mistaken belief that accessing therapy before the criminal justice process has finished will cause the criminal case to fall. That belief persists even though new guidelines were published in 2022. The CPS has conducted little dissemination of the new guidelines and limited training, and there is no formal evaluation of the impact on survivors’ access to services or multi-agency awareness of the new changes. We currently have no way of knowing any difference that the guidelines are or are not having.

The Bluestar Project understands that staff in the CPS have received some training about trauma-informed care, but most lack an understanding of how survivors access therapy, the benefits of it and how therapy sessions actually work with clients. That continues to contribute to inappropriate and blanket requests for notes as a form of evidence. Multi-agency training is the fastest way to reduce fear and misconception around pre-trial therapy. Will the Minister say what steps he will take to counter that lack of awareness and understanding, both within the CPS and the police?

On how Government new clause 4 is worded, there is still some concern that the survivor is only given notice rather than being asked for consent. What is more, according to the Data Protection Act 2018, in sexual violence cases the data is usually deemed “sensitive data”. As the Minister will be aware, there is a higher threshold of “strictly necessary” for sensitive data. That language is used in the Information Commissioner’s Office guide to law enforcement processing. However, the Government new clause does not accurately reflect the correct test from the 1998 Act, as it applies a lower threshold of only “necessary and proportionate”. I would like the Minister to consider and speak on that.

Furthermore, Government new clause 4 applies to all offences, not just sexual offences. While the protection of the information of all victims is welcome, it is crucial that the Government recognise the particular problems faced by victims of sexual offences—not least that they are much more likely to face this practice than other victims of crime. Additionally, the failure to include the higher threshold for sensitive personal data will particularly adversely affect sexual offences investigations. I urge the Minister to strengthen this wording if at all possible when the Bill returns.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, who knows whereof she speaks, having worked extensively in this area. We believe that this is the appropriate approach. Our code of practice will ensure that victims are made aware of their rights and that the police are aware of their responsibilities under the new duty, including the responsibility to inform victims. We will publish the wording of the draft code of practice during the Bill’s passage, prior to its conclusion in this House and the other place, to enable colleagues to comment.

I turn to the specific points made by the hon. Member for Rotherham. I reassure her that new clause 4 will in no way replace the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018, which will continue to apply for lawful processing once the police receive the material from a third party. The code makes it clear that the Act imposes additional legal requirements, over and above those in the code, and that when police make a request they are required to take those requirements into account to ensure that the processing of the data is compliant with the Act.

More broadly, may I gently push back on the argument that this is routinely asked for? The whole purpose of the clause is to ensure that it is asked for not routinely, but in specific circumstances.

[Sarah Champion]

I can speak only as a constituency MP, but it routinely comes across my desk, so I must challenge the Minister on that point.

[Edward Argar]

The reason I push back on the hon. Lady is that this is the purpose of the new clause: to highlight the limited circumstances in which it should be happening.

The hon. Lady raised a number of broader points about the appropriate mechanism. She raised the New South Wales model and a range of others. I know that there are lots of campaigns around this. I will make only two points. First, as we have made clear throughout, we must strike the appropriate balance between a fair trial and confidentiality, and its impact. Secondly—this is the key point—it would be wrong to prejudge, in making an important step forward, the broader work being undertaken by the Law Commission and Professor Penney Lewis in this space, the scope of which I know will range more widely.

This is an important step forward in the context of the vehicle that we have before us. I put on the record my gratitude to the Home Office officials who have done so much work to get us to this point.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause accordingly read a Second time.

[The Chair]

Does the hon. Member for Rotherham wish to move either amendment in the group?

[Sarah Champion]

On the basis of what the Minister says, I will not move my amendments (a) and (b).

New clause 4 added to the Bill.

New Clause 6

Duty to develop a single core data set of victims of child sexual abuse

“(1) The responsible authority must make arrangements to develop a shared, single core data set concerning victims of child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation in England and Wales.

(2) In accordance with subsection (1) the responsible authority must direct children’s social care and criminal justice agencies to collect consistent and compatible data which includes—

(a) the characteristics of victims and alleged perpetrators of child sexual abuse, including—

(i) age,

(ii) sex, and

(iii) ethnicity,

(b) the factors that make victims more vulnerable to child sexual abuse or exploitation, and

(c) the settings and contexts in which victims have experienced child sexual abuse or exploitation.

(3) The responsible authority must ensure that the data is published each month.

(4) For the purposes of this section, the responsible authority is—

(a) in England, the Secretary of State; and

(b) in Wales, the Welsh Ministers”.—(Sarah Champion.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Sarah Champion]

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

The new clause embodies the first of the key final recommendations of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. It is worth remembering that IICSA was paid for by the taxpayer and commissioned by the Government, so for me it carries a lot of weight. The Government have now responded to the inquiry, but despite accepting the recommendation that forms the basis of the new clause, they have not gone far enough in acting on the recommendation. The Government response stated:

“We accept that robust data collection on the scale and nature of child sexual abuse is critical to underpin and drive a more effective response to child sexual abuse. We have made a number of improvements in data collection and will additionally be driving further improvements to police performance data.”

The Government go on to list the data that they are using: the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse report, “Child Sexual Abuse in 2021/22: Trends in Official Data”; data collected by the tackling organised exploitation programme to catch perpetrators; Office for National Statistics data on child sexual abuse, which was last published in 2020; and work by the Department for Education to improve the use of data in safeguarding and children’s social care.

I say to the Minister, with respect, that that is not a single core dataset, as the inquiry suggested; it is a list. Most of that data was already being published when the inquiry made its recommendation. Clearly that list is not what IICSA intended. Its report states:

“Even where abuse is reported and recorded, the data may not reveal the complete scale of abuse. In respect of understanding patterns and trends in child sexual abuse over time, the Inquiry has not been helped by the inadequacies of the existing data collection systems”—

the same data that the Government list as covering that requirement. The report continues:

“Different organisations have developed their own approaches to categorising and recording data. As a result, operational data from different organisations cannot be brought together and consolidated in a way which aids an overall understanding of the problem and the institutional response.”

For example, some forms of data do not distinguish between child sexual abuse within the family setting and that which is committed outside the family setting—very different crimes. They also do not distinguish child sexual abuse committed outside the family in institutional settings, as opposed to child sexual exploitation, so there are no official estimates of the serious criminal activity taking place in those two key areas.

There are many more examples. The inquiry stated:

“Local authority data relating to child protection plans present only a partial picture of the scale of child sexual abuse.”

Research by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England suggests that

“among children who had been sexually abused according to police data, more were recorded by children’s services under the categories of neglect (32%) or emotional abuse (29%) than under sexual abuse”,

showing the real problem that we have trying to understand the scale. IICSA stated that the lack of consistent data requires urgent action from the Government to make

“improvements to the data collected about child sexual abuse and the regular publication of that improved data.”

Instead of providing an adequate response, the Government’s reply simply points out all the data that agencies are already asked to collect.

Hundreds of millions of pounds were spent on the inquiry, yet the Government still do not fully accept even the most basic recommendation to collect data in one place on child abuse in this country. Will the Minister discuss that point with his colleagues in the Home Office and push for one single core dataset on child sexual abuse and exploitation, so that we know exactly who the victims of that crime are and therefore how many people need support under the legislation?

[Jess Phillips]

I cannot stress enough how disappointing it is that somebody has to stand up in this place every single time and say that there is not the data to tell us about these sorts of abuses. There is almost no proper data. In every inquiry, every domestic homicide review, every serious case review and every child sex abuse inquiry where we have all been through the wringer, the same thing gets said every single time, whether it is about Telford, about Rotherham or about the whole nation: “We don’t know the scale of the problem, because there isn’t a single data source.” That is no longer acceptable.

I don’t know how to say this without swearing—don’t worry, I will find a way. In my experience, the reason these things go wrong is usually a mess-up rather than a conspiracy: the lack of ability to collate data, or the problem being too big, difficult or complicated. But I have to say that on this point, I am starting to believe that there is actually a conspiracy not to collect the data. Knowing the full scale of child abuse would be terrifying for the country; Members of Parliament like my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham and I are certainly only too aware that there is child sexual abuse on every single street in this land. That is the reality of situation. I am starting to believe that the lack of a single solid data source is to try to hide that.

I cannot understand why the Government would not address IICSA’s most basic ask. The Government claim to have undertaken 19 of the 20 recommendations, but the advisory board run by survivors who gave evidence has counted three. The Government have agreed to three of the 20 recommendations made by IICSA, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, at a huge cost to the nation. A previous Prime Minister was really kind about the amount of money that was spent on it.

We count what we care about. Throughout the passage of the Bill, we have debated the difference between criminal child exploitation and child sexual exploitation. At the moment I am afraid to say that foggy data is kept by the Home Office: all children who are being exploited get talked about as one big anomaly. The result is that when we do Redthread interventions in police stations around knife crime because of criminal exploitation in places such as Birmingham and London, we do not have any specialised policy for the girls involved in gang activity who are sexually exploited, because we not demark the data. There are all sorts of practical reasons why that is harming children who are being sexually abused, because we do not have a proper response in those circumstances.

[Sarah Champion]

It is about the victims and survivors, but it is also about preventing crime. To do that, we need to know who the perpetrators are.

[Jess Phillips]

I absolutely agree. So much attention is given in our country to who exactly the perpetrators of sexual abuse are, but it is often not based on data. We need to know where our children are safe. I want to know where my children are safe. I just want to know where the best places are for me to allow them to go— institutions, for example. No one is asking for it to be historical; we are all asking for today to be the point at which we say, “This is the standardised form, like we all have an NI number. If you see child abuse, this is the form you fill in and the information goes into a national data source.” It would not be that onerous.

I commend all my hon. Friend’s work and support her new clause 6.

[Edward Argar]

It is important at the outset to highlight IICSA’s hugely important work on this issue. When any large inquiry conducts its work, it remains for the Government, whatever their complexion, to be the arbiter and decide which recommendations to accept, rather than automatically accepting all the inquiry’s recommendations.

I know that a lot of thought has gone into the Government response. That is evidenced not least by the nudges from the hon. Member for Rotherham at various points to say, “So when is it coming?” Although I appreciate her frustration, the length of time reflects the amount of thought and consultation across Government because it goes to the point made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, about the breadth of the organisations and Departments involved.

New clause 6 reflects recommendation 1 in the final report of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. In the Government response to the report and its recommendations, as the hon. Member for Rotherham said, we set out an extensive programme of work, including our response to the recommendation of a single dataset on child sexual abuse.

As set out in our formal response, we accept that robust data collection on the scale and nature of child sexual abuse is critical to underpinning and driving a more effective response to child sexual abuse. We have made a number of improvements on data collection. Crucially, we will make further improvements to performance data.

The Department for Education is driving forward an ambitious agenda to improve the use of data in safeguarding and children’s social care and will deliver a report to Parliament in the summer. It will set out ways to improve information sharing between safeguarding partners—as required by the Health and Care Act 2022, which I had the pleasure of taking through this Committee Room, among others, at length—and, crucially, how that data will be better brought together. It may not go all the way to what the hon. Member for Rotherham would want, but I hope that it will give her a degree of reassurance. I know that she will interrogate the report carefully when it is published.

The Department for Education will also publish the first part of its children’s social care data strategy at the end of the year. It is working to develop it with the sector and experts to deliver a statement of strategic intent and, crucially, a road map that sets out the departmental vision for children’s social care datasets and how they can be brought together. The Department is also learning best practice from local authorities and others on how they are using existing child exploitation data to inform future practice through predictive analytics.

The Home Office is another key element of the picture. It funds the independent Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, with which I know the hon. Member for Rotherham is familiar. The centre produces a report on the scale and nature of child sexual abuse and trends in official data. The Home Office is also working with the Office for National Statistics to improve data collection and granularity on child sexual abuse.

At the policing end of the lens, we are working with the police to drive improvements in the collection, analysis and use of data on child sexual abuse and exploitation, including factors such as ethnicity data and how forces record data for the annual data requirement consistently. The Home Office is funding dedicated child sexual abuse analysts in every policing region to help to bring this data together; funding the tackling organised exploitation programme to bring together local, national and regional data so that it can be shared and interrogated to help police uncover exploitation; and a national policing vulnerability knowledge and practice programme to improve policing’s overall response to vulnerability and to identify and promote best practice between forces.

In addition, the Home Office works with police forces to improve the consistency with which, and the way in which, they record data for the annual data requirement. For example, through the national data quality improvement service computer-assisted classification programme—now there’s a mouthful—we are working to improve and refine the identification of child sexual abuse crimes in police-recorded crime data consistently across police forces and datasets.

The Government continually add to and develop a suite of analytical outputs according to guidance from the code of practice for statistics. As part of that effort, we added additional variables into the criminal court outcomes by offences data tools in 2017, to include identifiers such as the ethnicity of defendants, and subsequently updated age variables to provide greater detail. The Government remain committed to bringing child sexual abuse further out of the shadows. We know that, as the shadow Minister said and the hon. Member for Rotherham has campaigned on since she was first elected in 2010, child sexual abuse is under-identified and under-reported, and in the past was under-recorded and under-reacted to by the police, if I can put it that way. That is why one of our core objectives is to see year-on-year increases in the volume of police-recorded crime for such offences and in the volume of successful charges.

The Government are also determined to provide proper support to all victims and survivors and to deliver real and enduring change. That is why we are working to strengthen the collection of data and how it is used, the consistency in that respect and the ability to pool or share data to increase awareness of child sexual abuse. Crucially, we need to understand what is working to respond to and address it and—to the hon. Member for Rotherham’s point—seek to prevent it where possible.

The Government’s position is that we are meeting the spirit of the inquiry’s recommendation through the numerous improvements that I have set out and enunciated for the Committee, and we will continue to drive further improvements to police performance data. We will endeavour to continue to engage with victims and survivors, child protection organisations, the hon. Member for Rotherham, I suspect, and Professor Alexis Jay in her work.

[Sarah Champion]

I listened to what the Minister said and I give him some grace, because I know that a lot of this work falls under the Home Office, but the spirit of improvement is not enough: I want actual improvement. Given that £186 million of taxpayers’ money was spent and the inquiry came up with one primary recommendation of a single dataset on child abuse, for the Government to really not shift much on that is poor. If the Minister was minded to say that there would be a drop-down for local authorities and police to tick to record where child abuse was occurring, we could change this. They have that facility at the reporting desk. I will not push the new clause to a vote, but I am aware of the support of my Front-Bench colleagues and the support the measure has in the Lords. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 10

Review into provision of support for children

“(1) The Secretary of State must, within 3 months of this Act being passed, conduct a review into the current state of support for children who are victims.

(2) The review must consider, in particular—

(a) the current volume of provision,

(b) the current volume of unmet need, and

(c) the current level of investment in these services.

(3) Upon completion of the review, the Secretary of State must publish and lay before Parliament a report setting out—

(a) the findings of the review, and

(b) the action that the Secretary of State proposes to take in response to the review.”—(Sarah Champion.)

This new clause would require the Secretary of State to publish a report on the current volume, need and investment in support services for children who are victims.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Sarah Champion]

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

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 13—Duty to commission support for children and young people—

“(1) It is the duty of relevant local authorities to commission specialist children and young people’s support services for victims in accordance with need.

(2) The services provided under subsection (1) must include, but are not limited to—

(a) services for victims of child criminal exploitation, and

(b) services for victims of child abuse.”

This new clause would require local authorities to commission sufficient and specific support for children and young people who are victims.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

New clause 13 aims to ensure that commissioners provide specific and sufficient support for children who have experienced or are experiencing crime, by placing on them a duty to commission support rather than simply having regard for children in their commissioning plans. The duty would be further strengthened by new clause 10, which would require the Secretary of State to commission a review of the current volume of, need for, provision of and investment into support services for children who are victims of crime. That will ensure full transparency in how the appropriate bodies respond to the needs of children.

Although current legislation states that commissioners should have due regard to the needs of children while creating their commissioning plans, there is no actual duty on them to do so. That could leave child victims subject to a postcode lottery, caught between commissioners who choose to provide for children and those who do not or do not understand the need to.

A freedom of information request submitted by the NSPCC to local authorities in England and Wales found that 77% of them offer no specialist support for children who have experienced child sexual abuse. Young victims and witnesses require a specific response that is well resourced to respond to their individual needs; however, research has shown that mental health services available to child victims of crime tend to be generic rather than specific. The same study found that almost three quarters of respondents reported not having accessed any support services, while just over a quarter of participants had received some sort of support, advice or treatment.

[Jess Phillips]

Has my hon. Friend, like me, found that when councils and sometimes health authorities are dealing with adult victims of domestic abuse, they feel they should commission specific services, yet when children are victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse or other crimes, the authorities feel that responsibility should immediately fall to children’s safeguarding, which provides absolutely no service unless the threshold of imminent risk of death is met?

[Sarah Champion]

Sadly, I completely agree. I have deep sympathy for the local authorities that are trying to provide these services without the resources and with ever-increasing need placed on them. I really welcome the fact that children are now regarded as victims under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, but support services need to be rolled out on that basis.

Sexual abuse has a far-reaching impact on society. It is estimated to cost more than £3.2 billion per year. In 2021, calls to the NSPCC helpline about child sexual abuse and exploitation reached a record high. The victims code of practice already enshrines

“the Right to be referred to services that support victims…and to have…services and support…tailored to meet your needs”.

Those responsible for upholding the code include police and crime commissioners, the Crown Prosecution Service and police witness care units, so ideally we should already be seeing sufficient and specific support being commissioned across England and Wales. In reality, however, provision is patchy and victims are being left with no support. A legal duty to commission sufficient and specific support for children and young people would push responsible parties to act in the best interests of all children.

It is concerning that the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse found that some statutory agencies responsible for commissioning support services

“have conflated the concepts of actual harm and risk of harm”,

leading to a failure to identify and support children who have been victimised or are at risk of being victimised. In conflating the two, commissioners improperly resource and fund support services, minimising the likelihood that victims will be able to process their trauma and recover from their experience. A duty must be placed on the Secretary of State to commission a review of the current volume, need, provision and investment in special services for children who have been victims of crime.

Currently, data on the provision of services is collected by police and crime commissioners. However, PCCs do not have the authority to mandate that other commissioners share that data with them. As a result, the understanding of the national picture on support for children who are experiencing harm is unclear. The Secretary of State could require all commissioners to share that data and thereby improve the national understanding of the volume of, need for, provision of and investment in special services for children.

New clause 10 would also require the Secretary of State to lay the review’s findings before Parliament and outline the steps he would take in response. That is vital to ensuring that all children receive the support they need, and to ending the postcode lottery that they currently face.

[Anna McMorrin]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham for her commitment to ensuring that child victims remain at the forefront of this debate. She has done an enormous amount of work on the issue. I echo her concern that child victims can be subject to a postcode lottery in respect of those commissioners who choose to provide for children and those who do not.

Children experience crime differently, as we have heard so many times in this Committee, so the support that they receive needs to adequately reflect that. If it does not, we will be leaving some of the most vulnerable victims in our society to just fend for themselves. I agree with my hon. Friend’s intention to ensure that all child victims throughout the country receive the support that they not only deserve but are entitled to.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for speaking to new clauses 10 and 13. New clause 10 would require the Secretary of State to publish a report on the current volume of, need for and investment in support services for child victims, and new clause 13 would require local authorities to commission sufficient and specific support for child victims. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this issue and reassure her that the Government are absolutely committed to ensuring that there is adequate provision of support for children who are victims.

The Bill aims to improve the support offered to children and young people. We have made several key changes to the victims measures in the Bill since it was published in draft, based on feedback received during pre-legislative scrutiny by the Justice Committee and its members. In order to better consider the needs of child victims of crime, we have clarified who is covered by part 1 of the Bill to align with the Domestic Abuse Act’s definition of a child victim of domestic abuse.

The Bill also sets out, under the duty to collaborate, that commissioners must consider any assessment of the needs of children when developing their joint commissioning strategy in respect of victim support services for victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and serious violent crimes. Statutory guidance will support commissioners in doing that. The publication of the joint commissioning strategies will then give insight into the levels of service that children are receiving in each police area across England and an assessment of how areas are making improvements against local objectives or key performance indicators.

We are committed to understanding the current needs and provision of support for children who are victims. As needs will vary locally, we provide police and crime commissioners with grant funding to commission practical, emotional and therapeutic support services for victims of all types of crime at a local level. PCCs are expected to carry out needs assessments, which will allow them to ascertain the level of need and demand in their area, including in relation to support for children. This process informs local commissioning decisions. I gently remind the Committee of my comments in previous sittings on the joint strategic needs assessment approach put forward by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, which I have said I am happy to reflect on more broadly in considering the picture of support.

We recognise that across the commissioning landscape we need a more co-ordinated and strategic approach to funding services for victims, including child victims, so that they receive the support they need. That is why we published the victims funding strategy in May 2022, setting out our approach. The strategy introduced national commissioning standards, which will encourage an expected level of service for victims. It also introduced core metrics and outcomes to be collected on all Government funding, to ensure that we are building a comprehensive evidence base that will allow us to generate a much clearer picture of the needs and experiences of victims using support services.

Overall, the Ministry of Justice is more than quadrupling funding for victim and witness support services by 2024-25 compared with 2009-10, and that includes support for child victims. We have committed £154 million of that budget per annum on a multi-year basis until 2024-25, to allow victim support services and those commissioning them to provide consistency to victims receiving support. In addition, in June last year the Home Office also launched its support for the victims and survivors of child sexual abuse fund—or SVSCSA fund—for 2022 to 2025, providing grant funding of up to £4.5 million to voluntary sector organisations in England and Wales who work in this specific area.

We accept that child victims of sexual abuse must be able to access effective systems for the provision of therapeutic support. In response to a recommendation of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, we have committed to elicit views on the future of therapeutic support, including possible systemic changes to provision, through extensive engagement and consultation.

We remain of the view that the Bill’s current wording is the appropriate wording, as opposed to compelling a duty, as in the wording of the new clause. Equally, in respect of the broader engagement around the IICSA recommendation, I invite the hon. Lady to engage with me and others—including Home Office colleagues, probably more specifically—on that. With that, I encourage the hon. Lady not to press the new clauses to a Division at this point.

[Sarah Champion]

I am content at this point with the movement that the Minister has offered. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 14

Independent legal advice for victims of rape

“The Secretary of State must develop proposals for a scheme to give victims of rape access to free, independent legal advice.”—(Ellie Reeves.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

New clause 14 seeks to introduce independent legal advocates for rape victims. Although it is always awful to be a victim of any crime, seeking justice after a rape is particularly traumatic, not just because of the desperately low chance of the offender being charged—it is currently just 1.6%—or because rape cases take the longest of all crimes to get to court, but because rape and other sexual offences are the only criminal offences in which the victim’s credibility can become the focal point of the police investigation and the trial.

In no other crime would the complainant’s lifestyle, online presence or sexual history be considered relevant to a jury. Coupled with the fact that victims have no right to their own legal support, that can mean that they find themselves trying to navigate a complex and opaque system on their own. That is why one of the things that survivors tell me time and again is that they feel the criminal justice system is working against them, compounding the trauma they have already suffered.

Given the pressures, it is no wonder that nearly 70% of survivors who report a rape drop out of the justice system. I recognise that the Minister has outlined the fact that he is looking at independent legal advice for rape victims, specifically in relation to disclosure. Although I welcome that, the remit needs to be much wider. Too often, the interests of rape victims are not properly protected in the criminal justice process. When that happens, rape survivors need somewhere to turn to get expert legal help, and that is where legal advocates come in.

The alleged offender has a defence lawyer acting and advocating in their interests, but the rape victim has no such support, and that causes many survivors to drop their cases. An independent scheme of legal advocates would help to tackle that. This proposal would not give victim survivors party status in legal proceedings, and would not conflict with fair trial rights and the duty of the Crown to act in the public interest.

It is important to note that independent legal advice schemes for victims already exist in many other jurisdictions, including many European countries, Australia, Japan, California and Ireland. The UK is an outlier in that respect. As it stands, the only specialist independent legal advice for rape survivors in the UK comes from the groups Centre for Women’s Justice and Rights of Women. They do brilliant work, but can assist only a very limited number of survivors. They cannot deliver the full service that survivors often require, so there is a significant level of unmet need.

A pilot scheme of legal advocates was trialled in Northumbria between 2018 and 2020. The survivors who took part gave positive feedback, as did most of the police and prosecutors directly involved with the lawyers in the scheme. One survivor, Susan, said that

“100% in all of this the saving grace has been”

the lawyer,

“without a doubt, without a doubt my saving grace”.

Police and prosecutors were also clear that the accused’s right to a fair trial was not affected. Overall, the pilot found that the legal advocates substantially improved best practice in the police and CPS, and led to an improved victim experience.

Academic research by Dr Olivia Smith of Loughborough University shows that expanding the roll-out of the pilot to every police force in England and Wales would cost just over £4 million a year. The Home Office estimates that the emotional and wellbeing consequences alone of sexual offences, and the inadequate responses to those crimes, cost £9.8 billion. Given that, and the bulk of research showing that legal advocacy improves criminal justice satisfaction, health and employment outcomes, the cost of an independent legal advocate scheme is far from prohibitive, and would likely make huge savings elsewhere across the economy.

I turn to the remit of legal advocates. It is important to outline that, given the complexity and range of the legal issues that survivors encounter, legal advocates need to be trained lawyers, as opposed to independent sexual violence advocates. They need to be able to properly advise survivors on the issues they encounter, as well as conduct legal casework, such as reading police and CPS documents and preparing written representations. They have to be in an organisation entirely separate from any criminal justice bodies, to uphold their independence and, if necessary, liaise directly with the police and the CPS on the survivors’ behalf. However, we are not proposing that legal advocates assist victims at trial or represent them before the court. We are also not proposing that they play a role in the day-to-day communications between police and survivors. Rather, they would support the victim on specific issues that arise where legal expertise is required, from the moment they report their case to the police right through to trial. Importantly, they would be available free of charge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister for the new clause, which would require the Secretary of State to develop proposals for a scheme to give victims of rape access to free and independent legal advice. I know that we agree on the importance of ensuring that victims have confidence that they will be treated with sensitivity and dignity they deserve when reporting crimes such as rape. Integral to building that confidence is ensuring that victims are adequately supported, their credibility is not questioned without good reason, they are informed of their rights and that those are protected.

The proposed new clause would mean the development of proposals for a scheme that would enable victims of rape to access free and independent legal advice. We have some drafting concerns, and I am grateful that some of those were clarified in the hon. Lady’s speech. She did not specify what the legal advice would relate to: my understanding is that it could cover a range of matters, including advice for victims to help them understand requests for personal information and, where needed, to question those requests. She elaborated more broadly on that point and approach in her remarks, which was helpful.

The Government continue to take action to improve the criminal justice system response to rape, through the rape review action plan, and through this Bill we are taking broader action to support victims of all crime. It is critical that we allow for those changes to take effect. For that reason, and one I will come to, we do not support the amendment as drafted at this time, but I will elaborate further on that in a moment. [Interruption.] It is an amendment introducing a new clause; I was seeking to be dextrous, but was quite rightly called out by the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood on a point of terminology.

I do agree that victims being aware of their rights is an extremely important issue, particularly when supporting victims who are interacting with personal information requests, and preparing for trial. For rape victims in particular, I recognise that requests for personal information, and the trial itself, can be daunting and retraumatising experiences. That is why improving victim support, the court experience and requests for third-party material make up three of our eight key levers in the rape review action plan.

Yesterday, we published our fourth progress update, outlining the significant progress we have made in improving the criminal justice system response to rape, and better support for victims. It was only yesterday, though it feels longer. The sustained progress we are making to rebuild victims’ confidence in the criminal justice system should not be understated. We have already exceeded our initial ambition to return the volumes of adult rape cases reaching court to 2016 levels, but as everyone here would agree, although that is progress, it is not sufficient in and of itself.

Just before turning specifically to the new clause, she highlighted letter quality in this context, as an illustrative point. That is true of CICA as well. She was right to highlight the two years, but it can be extended in exceptional circumstances or for particular reasons. On quality of communication, I think it was 2018 when the hon. Member for Rotherham and I sat down with copies of the standard letters that CICA used to write to people, and basically rewrote them ourselves, suggesting there might be a better way to communicate. To the best of my knowledge, they still use our letters, but I might check that.

[Sarah Champion]

They do.

[Edward Argar]

In the latest progress update, we also recognised that there is more to do. I want to be very clear on the record that I am not unsupportive of what the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge seeks to achieve with her amendment. Indeed, to better understand whether independent legal advice and representation is required, and how it could work in practice alongside our wider reforms and in broader interactions with the system, we have asked the Law Commission to explore the merits of independent legal advice and representation, and how that would work in practice, recognising among other things the specific challenges in cases of rape and serious sexual offences, in terms of third-party material and similar. We also hope that the Law Commission will consider in the round why one particular set of cases should attract it while others would not, and whether that would be an equitable approach. There are very specific reasons in the case of RASSO cases, but we have asked the Law Commission to look at it carefully.

The Law Commission’s consultation on the use of evidence in sexual prosecutions was published on 23 May and will run until the end of September. I suspect that it will cover this matter and a wide range of other matters that we have discussed. I look forward to closely reviewing the Law Commission’s findings and, through gathering that additional evidence, arriving at a well-informed position on this important issue, and how it might be practical to deliver on such a commitment, subject to what the Law Commission says, and to decisions by the Lord Chancellor. To continue our improvements to third-party material requests through the Bill, we are also introducing duties on policing, which we debated when considering new clause 4. In addition, the victims code will introduce an entitlement for adult victims of rape and serious sexual offences to be offered a meeting with the prosecution team once they have been notified that the case is proceeding to trial. That will give victims the opportunity to discuss what happens next and to ask any questions that they have about the process.

On supporting victims to access the right to review process, the CPS notifies victims by letter of decisions not to charge or to stop a case, and offers eligible victims the right to request a review and gives details on how to do that. I will suggest to my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General that she and the Director of Public Prosecutions undertake an exercise akin to the one that the hon. Member for Rotherham and I did to look at how—often standard—letters are worded and framed, to ensure that they are sensitive and communicate clearly. That would be a matter for the Attorney General’s office.

In our view, it is slightly premature at this stage to propose a specific approach to free legal advice without taking into account the findings, and the expert advice, of the Law Commission’s important work on these issues. In the light of that work, we will probably return to these questions when it reports.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ellie Reeves]

I would very much welcome that, and I am grateful for the offer. I will not press the new clause to a vote in the light of what the Minister has said. He acknowledges on the rape review that came out yesterday that there is more to do. I gently suggest that this is one of the key things that could be done so that we start to see some real progress. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 20

Data-sharing for immigration purposes: exemption for victims

“(1) The Secretary of State must make arrangements to ensure that personal data of a victim, as defined by section 1 of this Act, that is processed for the purpose of that person requesting or receiving support or assistance under the Victims Code is not used for the maintenance of immigration control.

(2) Paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 to the Data Protection Act 2018 shall not apply to the personal data to which subsection (1) applies.

(3) For the purposes of this section, the Secretary of State must issue guidance to—

(a) persons providing relevant victim support services, as defined by section 12 of this Act;

(b) persons exercising any function of the Secretary of State in relation to immigration, asylum or nationality; and

(c) persons exercising any function conferred by or by virtue of the Immigration Acts on an immigration officer.

(4) In this section “immigration control” means United Kingdom immigration control and includes any United Kingdom immigration control operated in a prescribed control zone outside the United Kingdom.”—(Sarah Champion.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Sarah Champion]

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

I wonder if it will help to start by saying that the Deputy Speaker has said that the debate in the Chamber will go all the way to 5 pm—I will preface my quite long speech with that, but I will keep it moving.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

I completely agree. People talk, and that sends out a chilling message to the whole community, keeping people with their abusers. I urge the Minister to consider this new clause, because unless we get the firewall in place, we allow perpetrators of violence and abuse to continue their unique and specific reign of terror.

[Jess Phillips]

I do not really need any notes, because I am about to make a briefer than normal speech that I have made what feels like a hundred times. One day, what we are asking for will happen.

I cannot stress enough the importance of the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham about the need for a firewall between immigration services and the police. At the moment, we say, largely to women, “If somebody tries to kill you, tries to rape you or does rape you and you call the police, we are going to call enforcement on you,” so what happens is that they do not call the police and I read out their names in March.

My brilliant constituent was part of the super-complaint. She faced a very real and credible threat to her life by a man who had abused her horrendously to the point that she had to be moved into a safe house because he was such a danger to her. She does not speak very good English. The police came round to her house; I had called them to go there because her husband had sent violent and threatening letters to both me and her, saying what he was going to do to her and to her family in Pakistan. The next thing I knew, I got a phone call from her and she kept telling me she was in Bradford. I did not understand because she did not speak very good English. She was in Bedford, because she had been put in Yarl’s Wood detention centre.

My constituent had not said anything about her immigration status, which, by the way, was completely legal. She had every right to be in our country. She now has indefinite leave to remain and is working towards British citizenship. The man who attempted to kill her was a British citizen. She had not said anything about her status, but the police had seen the papers on the side from the Home Office and thought, “I know, let’s detain this woman.” The next time her husband tries to kill her, she will not bother calling the police, will she? And neither would I—and it was me who called them in that instance.

The way we behave in this country is a disgrace. The idea that someone could come in and say they had been raped, and we would ring immigration enforcement—that the first thought is “We’ve got another one!”—is unbelievable, yet it happens. But there is a perfectly good, well practised and well measured way of stopping it happening. The Government’s response on this particular issue—which, unfortunately, I have also heard a hundred times—is that sometimes we have to speak to immigration for the benefit of the victim. Now, I speak to immigration on behalf of victims all the time. It is par for the course that I might help a victim with their immigration status. In fact, I helped the woman in the constituency case I just described. She now has indefinite leave to remain and is working towards becoming a British citizen.

It is not that I do not speak to immigration; what I do not do is ring immigration enforcement to cart these people away. There is this idea that the police are helpfully getting in touch with immigration. Well, they do not do that in other cases. When I call the police, nobody asks me, “What’s your immigration status.” Nobody asks me whether I am a British citizen when they come to my house when there has been a crime against me. Why on earth are we doing this? I am afraid that it is part of the very hostile environment towards migrants in our country. How low must we have to be to get our low-hanging fruit from a rape victim or a domestic abuse victim who has every right to live in our country?

The Government’s mealy-mouthed response is no longer acceptable. I hate to change the tone of our debates, but I am so cross about the slow progress when every expert—the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, everybody—has said again and again why the policy is dangerous. The Home Office response is weak, woeful and immoral. I support the new clause.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I take the hon. Lady’s point, but I would say “or removed” as a result of that referral. Support is provided to migrant victims of domestic abuse in the UK through our destitution domestic violence concession, which enables victims who have entered the UK on a partner or spousal visa to access public funds for three months, which can be used to fund safe accommodation.

[Sarah Champion]

May I take the Minister back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley? The freedom of information request shows that between May 2020 and September 2022 the details of 600 victims of VAWG were shared with immigration enforcement. The Minister has said that no one was detained or deported on the basis of that, which makes me think that it was not only wrong but incorrect of the officers to collect and share that data because it came to no material outcome. Has the Minister had conversations about that, or can he reassure us that he will look at the College of Policing’s guidance for officers regarding when, how and for what purpose they share such information? Clearly, something is going very wrong in the system.

[Edward Argar]

I will make two points. First, the data that the hon. Lady was talking about in the FOI covers a different period than the data I was referring to. She is not comparing apples to apples, but I take her underlying point. Officers will follow the guidance and make referrals, but it is not necessarily for them to make fine judgments about the ultimate immigration status or appropriate action. They may make a referral, but it is ultimately not for police officers to make that decision on whether there are grounds for no further action to be taken; that would be for the immigration service.

[Sarah Champion]

This is a really serious topic. Something is going wrong with the guidance that police officers are, or are not, following. Will the Minister commit to looking into the guidance that officers are being given to see whether it is appropriate to safeguard victims, and to ensure that all the changes he has been working to put in place in the victims code can be operated?

[Edward Argar]

I will make two points again. First, the data sharing and what is required of the officers is clear. If an action is not taken subsequently to detain or remove someone, that does not mean that the officer was wrong in sharing the information; it is not necessarily for them to make that judgment. Secondly, on the hon. Lady’s request, I am happy to ensure that the Immigration Minister, who is probably on his feet in the House at the minute, is made aware of her point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I suspect that he might be. Migrant victims can also apply for settlement—indefinite leave to remain—under the domestic violence indefinite leave to remain rules. The intention is to safeguard victims of domestic abuse by offering them secure status and financial support, independent of their abusive partner. We know that victims of domestic abuse with insecure immigration status can face additional barriers in seeking support from agencies, professionals and others. That is why in April 2021 the Government launched the support for migrant victims scheme, which is being run by Southall Black Sisters and their delivery partners. The scheme provides wraparound support for migrant victims, including accommodation, subsistence and counselling, and is backed by £1.4 million in funding. More than 950 victims have been supported through the scheme since its introduction.

Supporting victims regardless of immigration status, especially victims of domestic abuse, is a key commitment of the Government, but I am afraid that my colleagues in the Home Office and I do not see the hon. Lady’s new clause as the right way to further that work. The victims code touches on every aspect of our criminal justice system, so the new clause’s inclusion of personal data that is processed for the purpose of requesting or receiving support or assistance under the victims code is extremely broad. It would apply a blanket approach to a complex and vast amount of data, regardless of what the data is, where it has been sourced from and why it was originally collected.

Retaining operational discretion so that each case is considered individually, plus ensuring that support is available to those who need it, is the right approach. Knowing the hon. Lady well, I understand the sentiment and intent behind the new clause. It is important that we look at what more can be done to make clearer to victims what is available to them and the processes that they can expect. That is why the Government are committed to introducing an immigration enforcement migrant victims protocol for migrant victims of crime. The protocol will give greater transparency to migrant victims and their dependants on how their data will be shared, and will set out that no immigration enforcement action should be taken against that victim while investigation and prosecution proceedings are ongoing, and while the victim is receiving support and advice to make an application to regularise their stay. As I say, I understand the sentiment behind the new clause, but I regret that we will have to resist it on this occasion.

[Sarah Champion]

The situation that we are in pains me, and it pains me that the Minister is unable to move forward on this. It is not enough to inform those vulnerable victims; I need to see the police being informed of what they ought, and ought not, to be doing. I will withdraw the new clause, but I assure the Minister that it will come back. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 21

Prisoners: suspension of parental responsibility

“(1) After section 2 (parental responsibility for children) of the Children Act 1989, insert—

‘2A Prisoners: suspension of parental responsibility

(1) This section applies where—

(a) a person (“A”) is convicted of the murder or voluntary manslaughter of another person (“B”); and

(b) A and B had parental responsibility for the same child (“C”) at the time at which the offence was committed.

(2) Subject to the exceptions in subsection (3), A ceases to have parental responsibility for C while A is serving a custodial sentence in a prison or other place of detention in respect of the murder or voluntary manslaughter of B.

(3) The exceptions are where a conviction for manslaughter was made—

(a) as a result of the partial defences provided for in section 54 (partial defence to murder: loss of control) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, or

(b) on the grounds of diminished responsibility

in circumstances in which, on the balance of probability, A was a victim of coercive and controlling behaviour by B at the time of the killing or at a time reasonably proximate to it.’

(2) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision that is consequential on this section.

(3) The power to make regulations under subsection (2) may (among other things) be exercised by modifying any provision made by or under an enactment.

(4) Regulations under this section—

(a) may make transitional and saving provision;

(b) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”—(Ellie Reeves.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Ellie Reeves]

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

Under the law, if a father is found guilty of killing his children’s mother, he retains parental responsibility over the children. That means that after ending their mother’s life and destroying the children’s lives, such killers still have power over their children—power to be involved in decisions affecting their lives and power to continue controlling and abusive behaviour over the family of their victim. The new clause would end that dreadful situation.

The new clause would reverse the situation in which the onus is on the victim’s family to prove, often through protracted legal proceedings, why the perpetrator’s parental responsibility should be revoked. Instead, the killer’s parental responsibility would be automatically removed for the period they were in prison, and the onus placed on them to go through the legal hoops to prove that they deserve that responsibility. That would apply to all those found guilty of the murder or voluntary manslaughter of the other parent.

The loss of a parent to violence creates deep trauma. We have no official figures for how many children lose their mothers in that way, but we know that two women are killed by their partner or former partner each week. One trauma specialist I spoke with, who has worked with hundreds of children whose mothers were killed by their fathers, estimates that about 50 mothers are killed by the father per year. In those cases, the children are dealing not just with grief, but with the loss of their parent—the mother is almost always the victim in such cases—and with the feelings of anger, shame and confusion that accompany having a father who has committed such an abhorrent act.

Retaining parental responsibility, however, allows those men to continue to exercise control over the children and surviving family from their prison cells. That results in an indefensible situation—his permission must be sought for things such as schooling or medical treatment, or before the children can be taken abroad. That forces the children’s carers, who are often the only stability the children have left, to engage with the killer and his wishes. That can be hugely distressing and, in turn, can potentially destabilise the children’s recovery.

Some abusive fathers even try to block maternal family members from gaining custody of the children they love, leaving the children to grow up in the care system instead. That has left some families unable to see their loved nieces, nephews or grandchildren—for months on end, as legal battles go through the courts—at the exact time when they are needed most to support the children.

The fact that a convicted killer’s parental responsibility cannot be suspended without protracted legal battles is a huge injustice. What greater dereliction of duty towards a child can there be than to rob them of their mother and burden them with a lifetime of trauma? Many are raised knowing that the perpetrator retains intimate knowledge of and access to their lives, which undermines their recovery. For some, that results in fear—they might themselves be in danger—and for others, in decisions made not in their best interest but rather to deprive them of opportunities out of sheer spite.

Children Heard and Seen, a charity that supports children impacted by parental imprisonment, reports that the retention of the father’s rights is a significant traumatising factor in those children’s lives. Children need stability, and their guardians having to fight in the family courts runs counter to that. As I have outlined, our new clause would end that.

I now turn to the case that helped shape the new clause: that of Jade Ward. Jade was 27. She had recently left her former partner when she was murdered by him in her home. Her four young sons were all in the house at the time. Jade’s killer was given a life sentence last year, with the judge calling the attack “merciless”. However, Jade’s family were horrified to find that their daughter’s killer retained rights over the children.

Jade’s parents said that her killer started to cause ripples not long after being sentenced, asking to see the boys’ school reports and attendance notes. They were then informed by social workers that, if they wanted to take the children on holiday, he would have to be consulted, and that he still had the power to take decisions on medical treatment. Jade’s mother said:

“He had lost control of Jade so he did what he did, and now he has still got control because he is controlling the boys and controlling us and it is horrific…He is in prison, but his presence is still looming. Any rights should have been taken away from him the moment he took away their mother…You cannot put into words the added worry and the stress because of him. It means we still can’t move on.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Janet Daby]

I reassure the Minister that I will be following through on this point: I am sure he will experience me asking him further questions and pressing him on it. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 26

Access to services for victims with no recourse to public funds

“(1) Notwithstanding the provisions of any other enactment, a victim of domestic abuse who—

(a) has leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom which is subject to a condition that they do not have recourse to public funds,

(b) requires leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom but does not have it,

(c) has leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom given as a result of a maintenance undertaking,

is entitled to be provided with services in accordance with the victims’ code.

(2) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision that is consequential on this section.

(3) For the purposes of this section—

‘domestic abuse’ has the same meaning as in section 1 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2020;

‘victim’ has the meaning given by section 1 of this Act.” —(Sarah Champion.)

This new clause would ensure victims of domestic abuse who do not have recourse to public funds are still entitled to be provided with services in accordance with the victims’ code.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Sarah Champion]

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

In effect, I am trying to help the Minister to reach out to all victims, because some are currently unable to access his excellent new code. Evidence suggests that migrant victims are more vulnerable to experiencing serious crime and, at the same time, less likely to receive redress. Migrant victims encounter multiple barriers to protection and safety. The immigration system and the hostile environment policy create structural obstacles to justice. Migrant victims of domestic abuse often face a stark choice: staying in a violent relationship, or deportation and destitution if they leave. Because of their own or their parents’ insecure immigration status and the no recourse to public funds condition, children may also be trapped in those situations.

Improved legal rights are therefore crucial to enabling migrant victims to access lifesaving services and support to escape abuse and rebuild their lives. Southall Black Sisters have been leading a 30-year campaign, to which I pay tribute, to ensure that migrant victims and their children are able to access safety and support. The campaign is calling for the no recourse to public funds condition to be lifted and for victims of domestic abuse to have the right to stay in the UK. That is critical, so that they can obtain welfare benefits and housing from the local authority to escape abuse on the same basis as those with secure immigration status.

I acknowledge that the new clause does not go that far, but it would ensure that, at the very least, migrant victims can access support services under the Minister’s victims code. The current situation is untenable. Many cannot even enter a women’s refuge if they cannot pay their rent or living costs. Many cannot seek help without the fear of being removed from the UK. Many women risk being sent to countries where women face particular ostracism, harassment and honour-based abuse due to the stigma of being separated, divorced or unmarried.

Over the years, Southall Black Sisters have achieved some major reform to immigration policy and rules for those on spousal or partner visas. The introduction of the domestic violence indefinite leave to remain scheme in 2002 and of the destitution domestic violence concession in 2021 has benefited over 1,000 victims every year. However, the provisions do not cover those on other types of visa or those without documents who may be subjected to domestic abuse by partners or family members: they remain unprotected and vulnerable to domestic abuse within the home or to economic and sexual exploitation outside it, as they become destitute and homeless as a consequence. Undocumented victims are particularly vulnerable to the weaponisation of their status by the perpetrator; they can become overstayers through no fault of their own, because they have few rights in this country.

In April 2021, the Home Office introduced the support for migrant victims pilot scheme to provide support for victims of domestic abuse who have no recourse to public funds. The scheme, which is being delivered in a UK-wide partnership led by Southall Black Sisters, has now been extended for another two years to March 2025, pending a longer-term solution. The extension clearly indicates that the Home Office recognises the vital importance of providing financial support to migrant women with no recourse to public funds. The pilot assisted about 400 victims in the first year and 560 in the second.

The first year of the pilot scheme has been externally evaluated by the Home Office, but the results have not yet been published. However, Southall Black Sisters commissioned the child and woman abuse studies unit at London Metropolitan University to evaluate the pilot for the same period. The unit’s report “Living at the Edge” shows that although providing assistance under the scheme is essential, victims need more money for longer, as the current rates are below those for universal credit, despite a recent rise to deal with the cost of living crisis.

Many victims are still unable to access a refuge in areas where there are high rents. Instead, they are housed with their children in unsuitable accommodation such as bed and breakfasts or hotels. Also, some refuges are reluctant to accept referrals if funding is available for only a short period, particularly in complex spousal/partner visa cases, non-spousal/partner visa cases and undocumented cases.

The evaluation recommends an extension of the destitution domestic violence concession and the domestic violence indefinite leave to remain scheme to protect all migrant victims of domestic abuse. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner also recommends the simple extension of those two schemes, which should be available for six months for all migrant victims, pending longer-term solutions. The commissioner’s report estimates that the social gains of supporting migrant victims in that way would be about £2 billion over 10 years, with about 7,700 victims likely to need refuge or other accommodation. That small amount would not place a significant burden on the public purse. More importantly, it would provide crucial safety and support to vulnerable victims and their children.

Based on all the evidence, an extension to the current provision for those on a spousal or partner visa to all victims, irrespective of their immigration status, would be the most simple and effective way of improving access to vital lifesaving services and support for migrant victims. The new clause would help to end the discrimination and the two-tier system that currently exists between migrant and non-migrant victims. I also ask the Minister to commit to ensuring that all migrant victims can access support services under the victims code and that tailored services for migrant victims are funded and resourced.

[Jess Phillips]

Again: please see other debates from the past eight years about how important this issue is. At least my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham and I do not have to keep redrafting the amendments. I thank the people in the drafting office for all their help over the years with drafting the same amendment over and over again to put into Bills.

The Government’s response to this amendment, based on previous experience, has been to carve out parts of the Istanbul convention, which they claim to have proudly signed up to, because it will not allow them to renege on helping migrant victims. I recognise the Minister’s point about the previous firewall amendments; I also heavily recognise that he is from the Ministry of Justice, not the Home Office. It is a bit like I am having an argument with a cloud, because the person I am actually cross at is not here to represent themselves. I feel they know I am cross.

I am afraid to say that one of the things that is problematic about the scheme run by Southall Black Sisters in partnership with Birmingham and Solihull Women’s Aid, where I live, is that the Government have never released the documents assessing it. They repeatedly said that they would, but we have yet to see them—another piece of paper that we are waiting for from the Home Office.

I absolutely support new clause 26. I know that the Minister has already quoted The Sun today, and I will simply say that this is not some sort of woke, woolly liberal concern: it was The Sun that backed the campaign to ensure that when a victim of domestic abuse comes forward, we ask not what stamp is on their passport, but what we can do to help. That is the standard we should set, and not keep on having a pilot that is now in its fourth year of existence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

Of all the amendments that I have tabled, I have to say that new clause 26 was the one that, from the start, I thought the Minister would not support—not because it is a poor provision, but because of the hostile environment towards people from overseas that we now find ourselves in. It pains me that I seem to have been correct about that, even though the Home Office knows that there is a need because it is funding the pilots, for which I am very grateful.

[Edward Argar]

May I very gently say two things to the hon. Lady? First, my recollection is that the phrase “hostile environment” was first used by a Labour Home Secretary. Secondly, the no recourse to public funds constraint came about in a piece of legislation passed in 1999, when the Labour party was in power.

[Sarah Champion]

I hear what the Minister is saying. I will say again that Southall Black Sisters have been pushing for this for 30 years, so it has been an issue across multiple Governments. The Minister also has to recognise that in the current climate, my hopes that the right thing will be done towards migrant women are about as low as they have ever been in these past 30 years.

There is an awful lot of support for these measures. We will not give up, but at this point, as I am a realist, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 27

Victim Contact Scheme: annual report

“(1) The Secretary of State must prepare an annual report on the operation of the Victim Contact Scheme and an assessment of its effectiveness.

(2) A report under subsection (1) must set out—

(a) an assessment of how many victims eligible for the VCS—

(i) became engaged with the scheme in the last year;

(ii) are engaged with the scheme overall;

(iii) made a victim statement of any kind;

(iv) challenged a Parole Board decision;

(v) applied for a licence condition;

(vi) chose not to join the scheme;

(vii) chose to join the scheme at a later date than initially invited to join;

(viii) chose to leave the scheme;

(ix) reported not being invited to join the scheme; and

(x) reported that their contact stopped during the scheme;

(b) how many staff were working in the VCS in the last financial year; and

(c) the ratio between staff and those engaged with the scheme overall.

(3) The first such report must be laid before Parliament before the end of 2024.

(4) A further such report must be laid before Parliament in each subsequent calendar year.”—(Janet Daby.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Janet Daby]

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

New clause 27 arose from a conversation with the Parole Board about how information can be accessed regarding the parole process. I was concerned to hear that, on an alarming number of occasions, there are reports of those eligible for the victim contact scheme getting lost in the system, not receiving the contact that they have opted into and to which they are entitled, and subsequently being left unable to exercise their rights under the victims code. That should not be the experience of victims, and this probing measure seeks to address those concerns and to ensure that the victim contact scheme operates as fully and effectively as possible.

The victim contact scheme gives the victims or bereaved families of serious violent or sexual offences, where an offender receives a custodial sentence of 12 months or more, the right to be kept updated at key points during the offender’s sentence and parole process. Victims are assigned a victim liaison officer and can determine themselves the extent of information that they wish to receive and how they receive it. That can facilitate victims providing a statement during the parole process, or request a licence condition be applied where a prisoner is released. It is a valuable tool in providing reassurance to victims and ensuring that they can exercise their rights. It is vital that it operates as it is intended to, so that victims and bereaved families do not fall through the cracks.

New clause 27 would require an assessment be made of how many victims report not being invited to join the VCS as they should be, and how many report their contact from the VCS stopping when it should not have done so. It would also require that an assessment be made of how many victims are choosing to opt into the VCS or not, and how many of those who do opt in then go on to make a victim statement or apply for a licence condition.

Essentially, the new clause assesses how victims of the most serious crimes are choosing to access information that they are entitled to and to exercise their rights under the victims code. It is the Secretary of State’s responsibility to ensure that victims can access the information to which they are entitled and that they can exercise their rights. The VCS clearly plays an important role in doing that. That is why it is crucial that it operates effectively and does not see victims falling out of the system. I hope the Minister and other Members share that goal. Through this probing amendment, I hope that the Minister will hear the concerns that are being raised and will consider how remedies to those concerns can be included in the Bill.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Ninth sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th July 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Anna McMorrin]

There have been calls for some years to remove the MP filter so that victims who want to complain do not have to go through their MP. I met the ombudsman in July last year, and they made it clear how essential it was for the MP filter to be removed, so I am glad the Minister has outlined this proposal and finally conceded the point.

This move has widespread approval both inside and outside Parliament, but it is long overdue. The Government introduced a draft Bill back in December 2016 to remove the MP filter. How many victims could have sought support directly from the ombudsman in the last six years had the Government followed through with that Bill? That is not to mention the fact that the MP filter was intended as a temporary measure to be phased out after five years when first introduced in 1967. Yet here we are in 2023.

I also echo the ombudsman’s further request to allow victims to make a complaint in formats other than in writing. The Government’s response to the Justice Committee was that complainants can nominate someone else, such as a family member, to submit the complaint for them. However, there is a consensus that that does not go far enough in ensuring that everyone has adequate access to this vital public body.

The ombudsman’s consultation response on the Bill outlined the issue using a case in which the complainant stated they found the system difficult to navigate because they could not read or write. There is no guarantee that this individual would be able to nominate someone close to them to handle this incredibly sensitive and very personal issue for them, so I wonder whether the Minister might consider conceding on this point. Finally, it is worth noting that the ombudsman service is not well known among victims of crime, so how will the Government increase its visibility?

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance for, I think, the first time, Mr Hosie. It is not so much that I want to make a speech; it is just that I feel compelled to say thank you to the Minister for moving on this issue.

In the 10 years I have been an MP, I have always felt quite compromised by being another level of the bureaucracy slowing down my constituents in getting through to an ombudsman-type person. That has always felt odd and inappropriate, and it gives false hope and a false understanding that MPs have some involvement in this process. It also took away another tool, but now we can act as lobbyists, as well as having the commissioner in place.

It is good to hear that the individual will have responsibility in terms of the victims code, because we keep asking about accountability and how to make sure the code is applied in an even-handed way geographically. I warmly welcome this change, which is well overdue, and I am glad the Bill is bringing it forwards.

[Maria Eagle]

I also approve of the fact that the MP filter is going, but it has had some advantages. They have, perhaps, paled in comparison with the disadvantages, but I have always found when assisting constituents that the filter makes it possible to ensure that the application is in a fit state. It is not always easy these days to get separate advice—a lot of the advice agencies are not operating in the way they were—and I have frequently seen constituents’ applications that could be better set out and, perhaps, that could make the points that I know about, because I know the case, more persuasively. I think there is an issue about quality in that sense.

I know that the ombudsman is set up to find out what has really gone on and treat the person making the application fairly, but it is constrained by what is written in the application and the documents that have been sent. Many people who want to complain are very involved in their case and do not necessarily put it in the strongest possible manner.

In the past, I have not referred cases to the ombudsman when it has been absolutely clear to me that they will not succeed. In part, that is because, in a way, I am in a better position to explain to my constituent why they will not succeed and to make sure that they do not have false hope. I am clear with them that I am not going to send a case forward to the ombudsman if I absolutely know that it will not succeed, because that will not do them any favours. One can imagine that more cases may come to the ombudsman that are not going to succeed.

[Sarah Champion]

I hear my right hon. Friend’s point about being that first filter, but does she think it is fair that we are put in that position? I understand what she says about cases going forward that might not be appropriate, but I have never felt easy about that being my role.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I also met Rob Behrens, the ombudsman, and I pay tribute to him and his team for their work. I am pleased by the broad consensus in the Committee. I note what the shadow Minister said; all I will say is that I am bringing this measure forward and that I am grateful for her support.

I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for her kind words. It is always a pleasure to do political business with her, if I may put it that way. I sometimes wish that some of what happens in Committee Rooms was rather better publicised. People watch Prime Minister’s questions and think that is everything that happens, whereas in fact there is quite a lot of constructive to and fro in rooms such as this when we are seeking to improve legislation.

As ever, the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood makes a very important point. When we seek to change or influence something in this place, there is rarely a simple, binary choice between an unadulterated good, without any downsides, and an unadulterated bad, without any upsides. On balance, I believe that we are taking the right approach and that the positives significantly outweigh the negatives, but she is right to highlight the challenges. Not only can a Member of Parliament sometimes help to strengthen an application before it is made, but it can be useful to an MP to see applications so that they know if there is an issue. If there are suddenly two or three about the same organisation and the same issue, that aids Member of Parliament in standing up in the House to challenge a Minister, or to hold an agency to account about what may be a more systemic problem.

That said, I do not think that the approach that we are adopting would preclude someone from seeking advice from a Member of Parliament if they so wished as they prepared their form. Some of my constituents have found the ombudsman service quite helpful, not in prejudging a case but in giving some pretty good advice when they ask, “What do I need to submit with it?” There is also some pretty good advice on the service’s website.

Ultimately, the clause should make it easier for people to complain, but I agree with the right hon. Lady that we need to provide support to ensure that they can make their best complaint, if that makes sense, to the ombudsman, in order to give them the best chance of having it looked at in the best possible light. I will take away the point that she makes, and reflect on whether we can do more as Government, and as parliamentarians, to promote awareness of the PHSO route, and how we might better support people in going through it.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 21 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 12

Duty to collaborate in exercise of victim support functions

[Sarah Champion]

I beg to move amendment 89, in clause 12, page 10, line 5, at end insert——

“(1A) For the purposes of this section, the relevant authorities for a police area in England must together conduct a joint strategic needs assessment.

(1B) The Secretary of State must, drawing on assessments prepared under subsection (1A), provide a statement every three years on current support for victims of domestic abuse, including—

(a) volume of current provision,

(b) levels of need, and

(c) investment.”

Amendment 89 requires the relevant authority for a police area in England to conduct a join strategic needs assessment. The amendment is supported by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner Nicole Jacobs, and I thank her and her team for both the evidence that she submitted and her help with the amendment. Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 made great strides by placing a duty to plan and provide accommodation-based support for survivors of domestic abuse, including their children. However, there is no such duty for other essential community-based services, such as counselling, therapeutic support and advocacy, which are vital for survivors to find safety and recover from abuse.

In November last year, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner released the findings from her mapping of domestic abuse services across England and Wales, titled “A Patchwork of Provision”. She found that most victims and survivors wanted some form of community-based support. For example, 83% wanted counselling and therapeutic support, 74% wanted one-to-one support, such as a caseworker, and 65% wanted mental health care. There is a clear need for a range of community-based services, and a duty to collaborate would be a step forward in helping to co-ordinate the response.

However, victims and survivors are diverse, and so are their needs, which all too often are not being met. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s report found a huge discrepancy in the provision of services across England and Wales, and an acute lack of funding, particularly among “by and for” services. Fewer than half of survivors were able to access the community-based support that they wanted. Only 35% said that accessing help was easy or straightforward. Over 70% of survivors who wanted support for their children were unable to access it, and only 7% of survivors who wanted their perpetrator to receive support to change their behaviour was able to get it.

Only 23% of survivors who wanted help to stay in work were able to get it, and just 27% who wanted help with money problems or debt received it. The mapping highlighted how effective and critical such services are in supporting victims and survivors of domestic abuse, but over a quarter of domestic abuse services were forced to cease some services altogether due to a lack of funding. Among “by and for” organisations, that rose to 45%. For children, who are recognised as victims in their own right for the first time in the Domestic Abuse Act, the Bill becomes empty legislation unless there is funding to provide services for them, or structures in place to understand their needs and provision.

The duty to collaborate will make some progress in responding to that need. However, I am unsure how a local strategy can have any material and substantial impact without a joint strategic needs assessment, which I will refer to as a JSNA from this point forwards. JSNAs draw from data to create a description of the place and population, taking into account the social, demographic and economic characteristics of the population in that area. They identify risk and protective factors to ensure effective commissioning. They provide the multi-agency partnership with important information to inform local initiatives, including data and typologies of domestic abuse, trends, volume, extent and distribution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her amendment, which, as she set out, would require relevant authorities for a police area to conduct a joint strategic needs assessment—I may adopt the same shorthand as she did in order to save words—as part of their obligations under the duty to collaborate to inform the strategy for commissioning victim support services. The amendment would also require the Secretary of State to use the assessments to publish a statement every three years on the current support for victims of domestic abuse, using the needs assessments to assess whether provision is in line with need.

The hon. Lady is quite right to highlight the importance of service provision for such victims and survivors. It is something that she has championed, and that with passion and experience the shadow Home Office Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, has raised on every occasion in this House when she has had the opportunity since we were both elected together in 2015; I pay tribute to her for her work in this space.

It is vital that we have the relevant support services to fit the local needs of victims and that a bespoke approach is taken, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach set at a national level. That is why the funding system for victim support services operates as it does. I sometimes fear that some of the debate around duties to fund specific individual services slightly risks over-constraining individual local commissioners in their ability to meet the needs of their particular communities and to ensure that there is an appropriate blend of services, be they general services, “by and for” services or very specific services, so I sound a slight note of caution there. Of course, when it comes to overall funding—I suspect we may touch on this in subsequent debates—in the Government’s view the spending review, rather than individual legislation, is the right place to set such funding limits.

Grants and funding are supplied to PCCs to allow them to use their knowledge of local need and provision to choose what they fund. As part of the process, relevant local needs assessments that indicate the needs of victims already take place regularly as part of good commissioning practice. The grant funding is provided to commission practical, emotional and therapeutic support services for victims of all types of crime in their local areas. PCCs are expected to carry out needs assessments, which will allow them to target the funding and ascertain the level of need and demand in their area.

[Sarah Champion]

I am listening intently to what the Minister is saying. For clarification, I am not asking for a prescription like, “Five per cent. of support goes to people with dogs.” What I am saying is that authorities need a robust understanding of their demographics so that they are able to justify that they are supporting the needs in their areas. As the Minister has moved on to PCCs, will he comment on whether he believes that system is working? PCCs are individuals—political appointments—and I wonder whether that is leading to some of the subjective delivery we are seeing nationally, which I know he seeks to address.

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady makes a couple of points. First, my remarks a moment ago were made in the context of the broader debate that can often happen around the funding of services. To her specific point, I fear I may detain the Committee a little while, but I suspect I will address her points within that context.

Police and crime commissioners are directly elected and therefore accountable to their communities, but there is always—I suspect that, under any Government of any political complexion, there will always be—the perennial debate of how to strike the appropriate balance: local flexibility and tailoring to meet local needs, versus the challenge of how to achieve a degree of consistency and avoid the so-called—this is a dreadful phrase— postcode lottery. That is always going to be a tension within the system. The challenge for us all, whichever side of the House we sit on, is how to strike the appropriate balance between those two approaches: the national and consistent approach, versus a degree of local tailoring, which reflects not only local need but political decision making by police and crime commissioners.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

As the Minister knows, I am trying to help. Would it not help the Secretary of State and the Government if an agreed baseline of data was collected? A region may push back on it, but it gives the Government a guide to see whether an area is succeeding or failing, and whether they need to be asking questions. For example, we do the same thing with ambulance times—we have that baseline. There will be local variations that can be discussed with the Secretary of State, but the baseline gives the Minister the opportunity to make investigations.

[Edward Argar]

I reassure the hon. Lady that if she allows me to develop my point a little, I will address her specific JSNA point before I conclude.

As the hon. Lady will be aware, we published our victims funding strategy last May. I am pleased that that was published, not least because I set it in train back in 2018 when I was last a Minister in the Department. I am pleased that it has seen sunlight. The strategy provides a framework for how agencies should work together to best resource the victim support sector. Within it, there is a clear expectation that commissioners carry out regular needs assessments, using all the data required to commission appropriate services for victims in their areas, including victims with tailored needs. The duty to collaborate in the Bill, which the hon. Lady touched on, is clear that relevant agencies must work together to ensure that services that meet local needs are commissioned and provided for.

Clause 13(3) requires relevant authorities to have regard to any assessment of the needs of victims that they have already carried out when preparing their joint strategy. We will be issuing statutory guidance to accompany that duty. That will set out clear expectations for how the duty should be carried out, as well as good practice, including around data and consistency of data. The guidance will set out that relevant authorities are expected to explain in their joint commissioning strategy how they have had regard to the relevant needs assessments, and how commissioning decisions meet those needs.

I understand the points made by the hon. Lady, both in her opening remarks and in her interventions. I share her view that support services have to be commissioned in line with, and reflect, genuine need. That is why we have created the duty. To a degree, it reflects the duty created under the Health and Care Act 2022 for integrated care boards and integrated care systems in that context. We should allow local flexibility in the services that are offered but seek to avoid duplication and gaps where multiple agencies commission the same service in some spaces and nothing is commissioned in others. It is a cornerstone of the duty that local needs must be assessed and considered. For those reasons, we do not believe that the amendment is required to clearly state that a joint needs assessment must be considered, but I have a few more remarks to reassure the hon. Lady.

Subsection (1B) of amendment 89 would require the Secretary of State to provide a statement every three years on the current support available for victims of domestic abuse, including the volume of provision, levels of need and investment. The Department receives regular monitoring returns from PCCs and the support services that we commission. The returns include data that indicates how many victims are seeking support, and provide insight into demand and levels of need across England and Wales, which informs national commissioning decisions.

We are committed to improving our understanding of need and the impact of funding at a national level. To do that, we have introduced core metrics and outcomes to be collected from all victim support services that are commissioned through Government funding streams as part of the victims funding strategy. We will also establish an oversight board to monitor them.

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[Edward Argar]

I take the hon. Lady’s point. I am no longer a Health Minister, but I suspect that were I ever to be so lucky as to be reshuffled back into that role, she would gently, or perhaps less gently, lobby me on that point. Of course, there is also the provision of services that are not funded by a statutory body but are voluntarily supported and funded. That is not to say that that is a reason not to fund services statutorily; equally, in regard to understanding the provision locally, it is important to understand all aspects of that provision.

I will turn to the JSNA—

[Sarah Champion]

rose—

[Edward Argar]

How can I say no to the hon. Lady?

[Sarah Champion]

You probably will in an hour or so. [Laughter.] I do not want to push the amendment to a vote, but I would like the clarity that will prevent me from doing so. Is the Minister saying that in the statutory guidance he will require or ask for data not only from the PCCs but from the local authority, the NHS and—one hopes—community services?

[Edward Argar]

I suspect that I have but two or three minutes more, and I hope that in that time I will be able to address adequately the hon. Lady’s concerns. The funding strategy’s oversight board will review collected data returns to establish where there are obvious gaps in current funding, where we may be duplicating funding across Government and where we could improve collaboration at national level to improve services for victims. The duty to collaborate will further improve our—

[Sarah Champion]

Minister, I think you have an hour, not two minutes, so please take your time.

[The Chair]

Order.

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[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady did not quite succeed in dissuading me from what I was about to say, which is that although I am unable to accept the hon. Member for Rotherham’s JSNA amendment at this time, I will reflect very carefully on its import and what she said, and particularly on the words of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner in the oral evidence we heard, and in the context of the points made by the hon. Members for Birmingham, Yardley and for Rotherham about the challenges in understanding service provision when that is not funded through a national or a public funding stream.

I cannot commit further than that, but I will commit to reflecting very carefully, between Committee stage—as this is a carry-over Bill, we will have a few months—and before it returns to the House on Report, on the points that the hon. Members and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner have made very eloquently.

[Sarah Champion]

I apologise for testing your kind patience, Mr Hosie. While the Minister is in a reflective mood, I hope he will also reflect on the financial and time commitments that might be placed on organisations, and try to ensure that we get the data we need with the lightest of touches. I am grateful for his movement on the issue, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Jess Phillips]

I beg to move amendment 80, in clause 12, page 10, line 16, at end insert—

“(3A) In discharging their duty under this section, relevant authorities must collaborate with specialist women’s community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support services within the police area, as commissioned under section [Commissioning of specialist women’s community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support services].”

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[Jess Phillips]

I absolutely agree. In my local area, we have had to shut down waiting lists, and not just because of their length: there have been cases of domestic homicide, where women have been murdered while on a waiting list for services. Those agencies that were not able to provide specialist services then feel the hand of blame coming from the state: because people were dwindling on waiting lists, the agencies get a level of blame for the murder of those women. In the worst possible circumstances, we cannot even operate waiting lists any more. They just shut them.

The care and support that victims and survivors need are specialised and wide-ranging. In new clause 19, we have laid out some of the key services that need to be provided. The mental health impacts of domestic abuse and sexual violence cannot be overestimated, so counselling and other psychological support is central. In Women’s Aid research, almost half of women in refuge reported feeling depressed or having suicidal thoughts as a direct result of the domestic abuse that they experienced. Throughout the journey of the Bill, we have heard the heartbreaking case of Katie, who took her own life following sexual abuse. Katie was a childhood friend of the journalist Charlie Webster, who wrote:

“The thing about the trauma of sexual abuse, it doesn’t just go away. What happened to Katie made her feel worthless like she wasn’t enough, and it impacted her mental health, as is common for all survivors, me including.”

We must ensure that victims can get the help they need.

The organisation Surviving Economic Abuse has done extraordinary work on raising the profile of economic abuse and the devastating, complex impact on domestic abuse victims’ lives. Some 95% of domestic abuse victim-survivors experience economic abuse, and the lack of access to economic resources post separation is the primary reason why women return to an abusive partner. It is crucial that survivors have access to specialist experts who understand economic abuse, as well as advocacy support in relation to welfare benefits and debt and access to financial support to rebuild their lives.

The impact of domestic abuse on children is a shamefully underdeveloped area of policy. Colleagues and I were successful in securing the recognition of children as victims in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, but what does that actually mean in practice? One in seven children and young people under the age of 18 will have lived with domestic violence at some point in their childhood, but the provision of children’s support services nationally is patchy, piecemeal and precarious. I am one of the nation’s leading experts in this, but if a child in my constituency came to me today and said, “I’m not a direct victim of domestic abuse, but my mum is being beaten up by my dad every day,” I would not know where to send them. I would not know where to refer that child.

[Sarah Champion]

Will the Minister give way? Sorry, I mean the shadow Minister.

[Jess Phillips]

Not long, Sarah!

[Sarah Champion]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend heard the “Woman’s Hour” piece last week. Olivia Colman is a trustee of a theatre group that goes into primary schools specifically to raise issues that are uncomfortable, but also to try to give some support to those hidden children who will be seeing domestic abuse and to try to prevent perpetrators in future.

[Jess Phillips]

Absolutely. That organisation is called Tender; I am also a patron, along with Olivia Colman. Again, that support is only provided through having good headteachers or good local commissioners. There is nothing from this building or nationally that says there must be specialists going into every school, because if in every single school there is a class of 30 kids, and one in seven—my gosh, I am so dizzy that my maths will not work it out, but we will have a huge number of children in every class who suffer this in silence. They need specialist support available to them. We are failing to reach and save children in dire domestic abuse circumstances.

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[Edward Argar]

It is good to see the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, in her seat. I hope she is feeling a bit better, although I am pleased that neither her eloquence nor her passion for the subject has been impaired. I am grateful for her amendments to place a duty on relevant local authorities to create specialist women’s community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support services for victims, in accordance with need. Her new clause 19 would also require the Secretary of State to define in regulations “specialist community based services”, after agreeing that definition in collaboration with the violence against women and girls sector, and to set out in regulations how providers are to be regulated.

Supporting victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence is an absolute priority for the Government. As I said in responding to an earlier group of amendments, I recognise the hon. Lady’s expertise and commitment to the issue. I hope that one thing we can both agree on is the importance of getting the right support for victims of these crimes. She is absolutely right: there is a place for broadly based general support services for victims of crime, but equally I have seen at first hand, both in my current incarnation in this role and previously, the importance of specialist services, particularly “by and for” services and trauma-informed services, if we are to succeed in reaching out to and being able to help victims and survivors of those horrendous crimes and give them the confidence to engage and be supported.

Amendment 80 calls for collaboration with the providers of community-based specialist services for female victims of domestic abuse and sexual abuse. The duty to collaborate set out in clauses 12 and 13 is specifically and purposely placed on the commissioners of services only—that is, police and crime commissioners, local authorities and integrated care boards in England—as it is a duty to collaborate when commissioning services. To expand collaboration beyond commissioners would risk changing the objectives of that duty, which are to encourage more strategic and joined-up commissioning of services, rather than to dictate or fix which types of services the commissioners, who understand the needs of their area best, should focus on and should aim to commission.

I appreciate the hon. Lady’s ambition to ensure that specialist women’s support services are properly considered as part of that commissioning process. As needs will vary locally, the Department provides police and crime commissioners with grant funding to commission practical, emotional and therapeutic support services for victims of all crime types in their local areas. PCCs are expected to carry out needs assessments to inform their local commissioning decisions, as I mentioned in discussing a previous amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Rotherham.

[Sarah Champion]

This point builds on my previous amendment. Budgets are tight and PCCs are trying to get the most support from their limited budgets. Can the Minister point to anything in the Bill that will make sure that the specialist services get a look-in? My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley touched on generic services, which we were seeing a lot. Brexit was meant to eliminate having to go to the lowest bidder, the European regulations and that sort of stuff. My fear is that unless there is something the Minister can point to in the Bill that embeds that need for both demographic and specialist support services, the PCCs will go for the cheapest, most common provider.

[Edward Argar]

I slightly differ from the hon. Lady’s perspective; I do not believe that it is necessary to have that provision in the Bill. There are other mechanisms, be they through statutory guidance or through commissioning guidance and the work that is done together. We have touched on this point before, but the challenge is the extent to which we think mandating—and thereby, to a degree, being prescriptive—is appropriate, versus being permissive, for example by setting out guidance and expectations, but saying that it is for a directly elected and accountable police and crime commissioner to make decisions and be accountable to their electorate and their public for what they are doing and whether they are making the right decisions.

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[Edward Argar]

I will see whether I can get that data. On the hon. Lady’s point about the figure of 19%, she is right to highlight the horrifying prevalence of that crime, which often goes unnoticed because of the nature of reporting and the nature of the crime. Moreover, there are particular groups within the figure and within the cohort of victims, for example minorities. A PCC might take the view that in a locality a particular group might need specific trauma-informed services, which, given their choice of resource allocation, might not have been catered for. That is why we seek at national level to try to address such issues with direct funding grants and with agreements that we reach, for example through the RASAF.

Our role as Government is to set the expected standards for the approach to commissioning of victim support services. At a macro level, we have done that through the victims funding strategy, which clearly sets out the expectation for commissioners to put victims at the centre of commissioning. We wholeheartedly agree that commissioners should consider a range of different services, including specialist women’s community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support, and that they should choose to commission services that best fit the needs of their population.

Let me turn to the specifics of the amendment. I am in agreement on the importance of commissioners drawing on the expertise of providers of victim support services when preparing and revising their joint strategies. That is why clause 13(2) specifically requires relevant authorities to consult with persons who represent the interests of victims, providers and other expert organisations. We would expect them to consult with providers of specialist services for female victims of domestic abuse and sexual abuse, as well as “by and for” services in the children’s sector, to name but a few more. However, we do not consider it proportionate to list in legislation organisations with which commissioners must consult, which would risk resulting in a hierarchy of services or unintentionally omitting organisations providing valuable and important services.

In addition, we intend the accompanying statutory guidance to set out that local commissioners should consider engaging with a range of providers that reflect the types of service required in their area, such as women-only services, when considering their statutory duty to consult persons appearing to them to provide relevant victim support services and other appropriate persons. Guidance will also support commissioners by recommending standards and processes for that consultation. We are engaging with both providers and local commissioners as we develop that guidance so that we can reflect best practice, and I would be very happy to work with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley to explore how guidance may further support commissioners in fulfilling their obligations to reflect the views of providers, and those who support victims, in their joint-commissioning strategies.

I reassure the hon. Lady that the Government are fully aware that domestic abuse and sexual violence disproportionately impact women and girls. Beyond the Bill, in February 2023 we published a revised strategic policing requirement, which includes violence against women and girls as a national threat for policing to respond to. In 2021, the Government published a new and ambitious cross-Government tackling violence against women and girls strategy to help to ensure that women and girls are safe everywhere. That includes a new full-time national policing lead on violence against women and girls, DCC Maggie Blyth, who I have had the privilege of meeting; I know that the shadow Minister meets her regularly as well. She is now in post and is doing an excellent job in the role.

We have awarded £125 million through the safer streets fund and the safety of women at night fund to make our streets safer for women and girls. We have contributed up to £3.3 million to fund the roll-out of Domestic Abuse Matters training to police forces. That includes funding the development of a new module to improve charge rates. The Government are also taking targeted action against sexual violence, including through the 24/7 rape and sexual abuse support line, which offers free, confidential emotional support for victims and survivors.

I therefore encourage the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley—I do not know whether she is persuadable—not to press her amendment to a Division. The duty to collaborate focuses only on commissioning bodies, as they are best placed to meet the objectives of our duty. In the Government’s view, the Bill already includes provision for engagement with providers, such as providers of specialist women’s services for domestic abuse and sexual violence, underpinned by the statutory guidance that will be produced.

New clause 19 would place a duty on relevant local authorities to commission specialist women’s community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support services for victims in accordance with need. It would also require the Secretary of State to define in regulations “specialist community based services”, after agreeing that definition in collaboration with the violence against women and girls sector, and to set out in regulations how providers will be regulated.

We do not fully share the hon. Lady’s view about the extent to which local authorities should be required to fund particular types of community-based services; again, that goes to the point underpinning my earlier remarks about it being a local decision for which local authorities would be accountable. In our view, it is for local commissioners to determine what services to fund, noting the additional national strand of direct funding alongside that. That determination will be based on their assessments of the needs of their local populations, knowledge of available services and their understanding of those services and their provision. Our concern is that the approach set out in the new clause risks excluding or minimising the importance of some of the other service types that commissioners could consider for victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence. As drafted, the new clause could risk creating a hierarchy.

On overall funding, we believe that the right approach to setting funding levels continues to be through the spending review process, rather than individual pieces of legislation. That allows Government and individual Departments to outline priorities and respond to changing circumstances; allows the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider a range of funding requests and pressures, recognising the finite amount of taxpayer money available to any Government; and allows those priorities to be considered in the round.

I hasten to add that I am not in any way questioning the importance of these vital services. I have had the privilege of visiting a number of them, both as Under-Secretary of State and in my present role. I have seen at first hand the amazing work that they do. They often go above and beyond the resources that they have available, in their own time and with their own resources, so passionate are those who work in this part of the sector to assist to the best of their ability those who need their help. That is one of the reasons that we have included ringfenced funding in our grants to PCCs for community-based services for victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence.

In allocating money to PCCs, there is always a balance to be struck. Many PCCs, I know, would prefer a greater proportion of their funding to be unringfenced and to be used entirely at their discretion within those broad parameters. We think that we have struck the appropriate balance, with them having a degree of discretion, but with some ringfenced funding to address particular needs.

[Sarah Champion]

I am listening intently to what the Minister is saying. He says that he is concerned that the list of services put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley has the potential to create a hierarchy of services, but he has only detailed IDVAs and ISVAs further on in the Bill. How does the Minister hold both those thoughts?

[Edward Argar]

I suspect that when we reach that clause, we will debate that exact point. However, to pre-empt what I will say about that clause—I shall say this briefly before you call me to order, Mr Hosie—the reason is that ISVAs and IDVAs have a particular, evolving and developed professionalism that gives them a particular locus within the criminal justice system. It is quite right that we cannot issue guidance to judges, because they are the independent judiciary, but through this approach to ISVAs and IDVAs we can seek to give the judiciary greater confidence in the professionalism of those roles. We thereby hope to see the judiciary being more willing to utilise them in the court process. That is my rationale, but we may debate that point when we come to the relevant clause.

New clause 19 also highlights the importance of legal advice for victims. The Government asked the Law Commission, as part of its work on the use of evidence in sexual offence prosecutions, carefully to review the law, guidance and practice relating to the trial process in prosecutions of sexual offences, an issue in which I know the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley takes a close interest. That will include consideration of whether independent legal advice and representation would be beneficial where personal records are sought, or more widely for the trial process.

On setting out how providers are to be regulated, we do not want to take a prescriptive approach in legislation. Local commissioners regularly review the services they commission to ensure high standards of victim services and will set relevant and tailored quality standards in their agreements with local providers. I suspect that a degree of the debate here is around where the line lies between prescription and a permissive approach.

As I have said in response to similar amendments, we have allocated a substantial amount of funding for domestic abuse and sexual violence victims and survivors, demonstrating the Government’s commitment to victims of these crimes. We are making it clear to commissioners and funders that they should consider the value and role of specialist-based support services when assessing local need to inform the distribution of funding, but ultimately local commissioners are best placed to determine how those services should be provided locally. On that basis, I gently encourage the shadow Minister not to press her amendment to a Division.

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[Anna McMorrin]

Absolutely, and that just goes to emphasise the importance of the amendment. The cost to the mental health and wellbeing of victims of fraud is significant. In the year ending December 2022, 3.7 million offences were reported to the crime survey for England and Wales—a huge number, equating to 41% of the total offences experienced in that period. I am sure that the Minister has not had a chance to look yet, but our amendment has received coverage in The Times today, which reports that fewer than one in 3,000 fraud offences committed last year resulted in a prison sentence.

Far too often, The Government have treated fraud as a second-tier type of crime, and if Government Committee members reject that characterisation, I need only quote their own Ministers’ words back to them. In February last year, when he was the Business Secretary, the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) told the BBC that fraud was not the sort of crime that people experience in their daily life. Shortly afterwards, the Government’s counter-fraud Minister, Lord Agnew, resigned that post in protest at the

“combination of arrogance, indolence and ignorance”

that he had observed in the Government’s response to fraud. The Treasury, he said,

“appears to have no knowledge of, or little interest in, the consequences of fraud to our economy or society.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 January 2022; Vol. 818, c. 20-21.]

Bear in mind that that was when the current Prime Minister was in charge at the Treasury.

Is it any surprise, then, that a year after a previous Prime Minister and Home Secretary were chastised by the Office for National Statistics for leaving out fraud when they talked about the overall rates of crime in our country, the current Prime Minister and Home Secretary repeatedly did exactly the same in the House? Minister after Minister has tried to play down or simply ignore the most frequently experienced crime in our country, and I fear that by not having it in the Bill the Government are seeking to do the same. All of us whose constituents have fallen prey to scammers know that it is anything but a victimless crime. I am sure that every Committee member is dealing with constituents who have become victims to fraud. We are talking about thousands upon thousands of lives being ruined in our communities—retired people losing all their savings, and mums and dads losing the money that they had set aside for when their children went to university, or to help them to put a deposit on a house.

According to the Government’s fraud strategy, published in May, 300 people who contacted Action Fraud last year to report their losses were considered by the call handlers to be at risk of suicide. Just last week, we heard that two elderly pensioners lost £27,000 because criminals posing as police officers had persuaded them to withdraw large sums of cash. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham pointed out, last year alone over £1.2 billion was stolen through fraud. It is the most commonly experienced crime in the country, ruining the lives of millions, yet the Government did not see fit to include victims of it in the duty to collaborate. I am sure that the Minister will agree that they would benefit from a multi-agency approach. I am keen to hear his response before deciding whether to push the amendment to a vote.

[Sarah Champion]

The amendment is supported by the Centre for Social Justice, which identified that the duty to collaborate must cover support services for victims of modern slavery. Local authorities, the police and the NHS are all key agencies that come into contact with victims of modern slavery, and have a role to play in supporting them, alongside specialist programmes such as the national referral mechanism. That can range from immediate emergency support and protection to providing longer-term social care support or housing. There is a particular gap for victims before and after their contact with the NRM, and the lack of support often means that they have to choose between being destitute and going back to their exploiter.

Local authorities are the primary agency providing care and support for children, and only some children receive the additional support of independent child trafficking guardians. However, there is often confusion among local authorities about their responsibilities for supporting modern slavery victims. There is also often a lack of co-ordination with specialist support providers under the Home Office modern slavery victim care contract. Victims are passed from pillar to post, unable to access the support they need.

Police often find modern slavery victims out of hours, when access to other services is limited. Clear, joined-up strategies for supporting victims of modern slavery would help prevent those victims being placed in unsuitable and unsafe accommodation after being identified by the police—that is, of course, if the police identify them as a victim of modern slavery. A lack of clear and joined-up referral pathways can mean that victims of criminal exploitation, especially young people exploited in county lines drug dealing, find themselves arrested, rather than safeguarded and therefore given support.

The gaps in support provision particularly impact British victims of modern slavery. In 2022, the highest number of British “possible victims” were identified since the NRM began. One in five NRM referrals in 2022 was for a British child. It is essential that we get the support for that group of victims right. Research suggests that many British victims in particular are not accessing specialist support available under the NRM, either because they are not identified as victims of modern slavery as they or the professionals have misunderstood their entitlement to support, or because they choose not to be referred. That leaves them without access to specialist support, and their particular needs may not be recognised by mainstream providers.

The definition of victims in clause 12 lacks clarity in respect of modern slavery victims. Some modern slavery victims are victims of other offences listed in clause 12(4), such as sexual offences or serious violence. However, modern slavery can also result from threats, deception, and financial control and coercion, which may not meet the threshold of serious violence. The particular needs and experiences of modern slavery victims need to be considered in strategies, assessments and the exercise of support functions. That is best accomplished by listing those victims in the duty to collaborate.

Explicitly including modern slavery victims in the duty to collaborate would address local authorities’ confusion and lack of awareness of their responsibilities to support victims of modern slavery. It would strengthen the implementation of the modern slavery statutory guidance. It would lead to stronger local co-ordination by the police, the NHS and councils when it comes to identifying support needs, providing support and monitoring the recovery of modern slavery victims. It would also help ensure that British victims who do not enter the NRM receive appropriate support that recognises and responds to their needs and experience of exploitation.

We cannot let more vulnerable people slip through the gaps in local service provision. A joined-up approach to tackling modern slavery is needed, and I truly believe that amendment 82 will facilitate that.

[Maria Eagle]

I rise to support all the amendments, but I will briefly say something about amendment 19. We have all come across extremely distressing cases of fraud in our constituency. In 2012—10 years ago—2,629 people were jailed for fraud, but last year the figure was 1,177. However, the number of offences rose from 441,000 in 2012 to 3.7 million last year.

There has been an absolute explosion in that type of offence, and there are consequently many more victims, who often lose their life savings and their future security. Almost nothing is done for them. They are simply left to feel as though they have been duped and are stupid, and nobody seeks to help them. Normally, they do not even get any kind of response from Action Fraud, which is like a black hole; once a report is made to Action Fraud, the person who made it never hears from Action Fraud again. It is hard enough for a Member of Parliament to get a letter out of Action Fraud about a particular case.

Given the explosion in the number of fraud cases, it is surely important for the Government to take this issue seriously, and to recognise that the people involved are victims, who need support, just as any other victims do. I hope that the Minister, when he replies, will give an assurance that much more will be done to recognise that victims of fraud need the support that this Bill seeks to give to victims.

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[Sarah Champion]

I hear what the Minister is saying. I also heard the word “should” rather than “must”. Will the Minister clarify that in the guidance, there will be an explanation of how modern slavery presents? A lot of modern slavery—I am thinking particularly about prostituted women—involves coercion and intimidation. Those people will probably not present themselves as victims in the usual sense; they will probably argue about that. There needs to be a bit more understanding, rather than us just saying “modern slavery”.

[Edward Argar]

I will try to answer quickly, before we get cut off by the end of the sitting. I take the hon. Lady’s point. Recently I attended a Select Committee sitting in which we looked at so-called honour-based violence and abuse. One of the key points that came out of that was that a multiplicity of offences constituted so-called honour-based abuse, and the same is true of modern slavery. It is important that we reflect those multiple indicators in the guidance.

The definition of serious violence in the duty mirrors the approach taken to the serious violence duty derived from the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022; that provision does not list specific offences, but instead defines serious violence based on the impact on the victim, and the maximum penalty for the crime committed. A more prescriptive approach of specifying types of serious violent crime would risk excluding offences that commissioners may want to consider, and would not allow for the necessary flexibility.

More widely, the Government are committed to supporting victims of modern slavery and ensuring that they get the support that they need. For example, children’s services work in close co-operation with the police and other statutory agencies to offer potentially trafficked children the protection and support that they require as part of the local needs assessment. “Working together to safeguard children 2018” sets out the system of multi-agency safeguarding arrangements established by the Children and Social Work Act 2017.

The Government have rolled out independent child trafficking guardians to two thirds of local authorities in England and Wales. Those roles are delivered by Barnardo’s until March 2024. They provide additional advocacy and support to child victims of modern slavery. Adult victims of modern slavery in England and Wales can access support through the national referral mechanism, under the Government-funded modern slavery victim care contract.

Every year, we support thousands of adult victims, so that they can begin rebuilding their life, engage with the criminal justice system and transition back into the community following their traumatic experiences. The current contract is delivered by the Salvation Army. I would be more than happy to work with hon. Members going forward, as we monitor the success of these initiatives in helping victims of modern slavery.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Tenth sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th July 2023 Public Bill Committees

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

That is absolutely fine. The amendment seems fairly minor, so knock yourselves out!

Amendment 29 agreed to.

Amendment made: 30, in clause 12, page 10, line 37, at end insert

“within the meaning given by section 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018”.—(Edward Argar.)

This amendment and Amendment 29 give “processing” of information the same meaning as in the Data Protection Act 2018. Processing includes disclosure and other uses of information, so there is no need to refer separately to disclosure.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 43, in clause 12, page 10, line 37, at end insert—

“(8A) Collaboration under this section may include the co-location of services in accordance with the Child House model, as defined by the Home Office guidance entitled “Child House: local partnerships guidance”, published 6 September 2021.”

This amendment would include within the duty to collaborate the use of the Child House model, described by the Home Office guidance as “a multi-agency service model supporting children, young people and non-abusing parents, carers and family members following child sexual abuse”.

The purpose of the amendment is to promote the establishment of child houses as part of the relevant authority’s duty to collaborate in the exercise of its victim support function. Although the Bill seeks to collaborate between commissioners, it does not provide the firm direction needed to enable the joint multi-disciplinary service provision that makes such a difference to child victims. By rolling out the child house model, we can ensure that children are provided with both therapeutic support and support to navigate the criminal justice process all under one roof.

Too many children face a lack of support after experiencing sexual abuse. Young victims seeking justice are faced with extremely distressing delays in the justice system, as waiting times for child sexual abuse cases have surged in the past few years. Ministry of Justice data shows that the average number of days between a defendant in child sexual abuse cases in England and Wales being charged and the criminal trial starting rose by 43% in four years. That is from 276 days in 2017 to 395 days in 2021—a lot of time in a young life. For children already suffering with depression or post-traumatic stress disorder as a consequence of the abuse, the drawn-out process of waiting for a trial to start and end can be extremely distressing and compound the significant mental health impacts of the abuse.

In 2020, the Office for National Statistics found that around half of child sexual abuse cases did not proceed further through the criminal justice system, citing one of the reasons as being that victims worried that the process would be too distressing. Going through a police investigation and prosecution as a victim is often described as inherently traumatic—think of that for a young child. That is because during the process of a police investigation and trial, a child or young person often has to retell the experience of abuse multiple times, usually in an environment that is unfamiliar, intimidating and confusing.

NSPCC research found that support for child witnesses varied depending on location and that only a small minority were ever offered communication support through a registered intermediary. NSPCC analysis of freedom of information data revealed that in 2020-21, only 23% of the 119 local authorities that responded across England and Wales said they provided dedicated support for young victims in the form of independent and specially trained advisers. Research shows that children face an inconsistent network of agencies and services after experiencing sexual abuse. Instead, we could use the approach of a child house.

A child house provides a child-centred model in which the agencies involved in supporting young victims, including healthcare, social care, children’s independent sexual violence advisers—CHISVAs—the third sector and police, all provide co-ordinated services in an integrated, child-friendly environment. It is literally under one roof, and that supports children to give their best evidence. Currently, there is only one child house in England and Wales: the Lighthouse in London. They would love Members to go and visit them. It is a fantastic place and just a tube ride away—do go and see it.

In 2021, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime was commissioned to evaluate the Lighthouse. As part of its research, children were consulted on their experiences. MOPAC found that the model addresses concerns that children who reported sexual abuse often face—that is, multiple interviews with social workers, the police and other professionals. Children who had used the Lighthouse complimented the care and respect they received from the staff. Being able to go at their own pace with choice and control was described as valuable. Children emphasised the positive impact that the homely atmosphere had and said that the environment was created by the little things, such as being offered a hot drink and police officers not wearing uniforms.

One child spoke about their experience to the NSPCC, saying—I slightly paraphrase: “Looking back on the Lighthouse, even though obviously I wish I hadn’t had to go there, I think they just made the experience of having to go there a lot less harder than it had to be…And yeah, I did feel like almost loved there. I guess looking back I didn’t realise at the time how easier things were made for me with the Lighthouse being there.”

The child house model has been recommended by the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, the Home Office, NHS England, the Children’s Commissioner for England and the Government’s own tackling child sexual abuse strategy, as well as the British Medical Association. Despite those endorsements and a wealth of evidence that supports the effectiveness of the model, the Bill does not address the fragmented support landscape currently faced by children. I ask the Minister to listen to all the evidence, use the opportunity in the Bill and commit to rolling out the brilliant model of child houses across the country. We really can demonstrate what a difference that would make to all child victims.

[Jess Phillips]

I rise to agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham and remind the Committee that the Children’s Commissioner mentioned the Lighthouse what might be a record number of times; I am sure that Hansard would tell me one way or the other. The experts are telling us that the approach works and I have some experience of the alternative—when cases fall apart and children are completely unsupported. That still happens in the vast majority of cases, I am afraid, so I support the amendment.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful, as ever, to the hon. Member for Rotherham for the amendment, which would include within the duty to collaborate the use of the child house model. Co-located, child-centred support services, including those delivered in accordance with the child house model, do excellent work in supporting child victims of crime. Like other Committee members, I recognise the work done by the Lighthouse. I also take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work done by Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner, and her deputy Ellie Lyons, in campaigning for and highlighting the rights and needs of children.

The Government recognise the importance of the co-located child-centred support service, which is why we provided £7.5 million towards a pilot of the UK’s first child house, in Camden. Following that, we have published guidance for local partnerships that wish to introduce similar models for child victims in their area. The duty to collaborate aims to facilitate a more strategic and co-ordinated approach to commissioning and to improve the strategic co-ordination of services, so that all victims get the timely and quality support that they need.

The legislation requires commissioners to collaborate when commissioning services for victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violent offences. As we discussed this morning, it allows for flexibility for local commissioners to decide what services will best meet the needs of their population; that could include commissioning co-located services, exactly as the amendment suggests.

Listing in legislation the sorts of services that commissioners may or must consider is, I fear, slightly over-prescriptive—this goes back to the debates we have had about a number of amendments. I repeat what I said in those debates: it would risk excluding some of the other excellent service models that local areas may also want to commission, although I do not in any way diminish the huge impact that the child house model clearly has.

The duty also requires commissioners to consider any assessment of the needs of children when preparing their joint commissioning strategy. Statutory guidance will support commissioners in doing this, encouraging the co-production of services where appropriate and linking to the “Child House: local partnerships guidance” document. As the original draft Bill already allows local commissioners to adopt the approach where appropriate, we believe that it strikes an appropriate balance. I hope that the hon. Member for Rotherham might be persuaded to agree.

[Sarah Champion]

I thank the Minister for his warm words in support of the child house model. This was always a probing amendment. I hope that the commissioners listen to the Minister’s support for the model and act accordingly. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Sarah Champion]

I beg to move amendment 83, in clause 12, page 10, line 40, at end insert—

“(10) The Secretary of State for Justice must ensure the relevant authorities have sufficient funding to exercise their functions in relation to relevant victim support services.”

This is not a probing amendment. For me, this is the nub of the gap in the Bill. Amendment 83 would make the Secretary of State for Justice ensure that the relevant authorities have sufficient funding to exercise their functions in relation to victim support services. I put on the record that the amendment is supported by Refuge. Its recent report, entitled “Local Lifelines”, highlights that

“Due to inconsistent funding of support services across the country, survivors face a postcode lottery”.

Collaboration between relevant public authorities is part of the solution. However, without funding, the duty to collaborate will not result in a meaningful change for survivors.

The Minister has talked about the duty to collaborate helping to identify duplications and gaps, but there are no duplications in this threadbare sector—only gaps, which cannot be filled without additional funding. Community-based domestic abuse services provide holistic, specialist support to women and children experiencing domestic abuse in local settings. Some 95% of survivors supported by Refuge, the UK’s largest provider of gender-based violence services, rely on some form of community-based service, yet far too often, through no fault of their own, survivors are unable to access community-based services due to the postcode lottery in service provision across the country.

In 2022, the report published by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, “A Patchwork of Provision”, estimated that fewer than half of survivors who wanted to access community-based services were able to. Minoritised women seeking support from specialist “by and for” organisations face even greater barriers to accessing support. It is therefore vital that the Victims and Prisoners Bill introduces strong measures to safeguard these services.

Although the Ministry of Justice has committed to increasing funding for victims and witness support services to £147 million per year until 2024-25, that funding is not ringfenced to domestic abuse services. Existing commitments are simply insufficient to meet the demand for specialist domestic abuse community-based services across the UK. In the witness sessions, the Minister asked how much was needed for that; I can confirm that Women’s Aid put the cost at £238 million per year. I know that seems like a lot of money, but when we look at other schemes and how casually we now talk about billions and trillions, £238 million to provide the services we need to make this Bill as effective as the Minister wants it to be seems somewhat slender.

Amendment 83 would strengthen the duty to collaborate to require the Secretary of State to provide sufficient funding for relevant authorities to exercise their functions in relation to relevant victim support services. Refuge’s report demonstrates the extent of funding challenges facing frontline domestic abuse community-based services. More than four in five, or 85%, of frontline workers surveyed by Refuge said that their service is impacted by insufficient funding. Funding gaps are particularly acute for mental health support, early intervention and support for children and young people.

In many cases, funding contracts are simply insufficient to cover the costs of running a safe and effective service. That leaves organisations reliant on insecure and fundraised income, which is fundamentally unsustainable. For the financial year 2021-22, more than half of Refuge’s income was generated from fundraising sources. In this cost of living crisis, many charities are seeing their fundraising income falling dramatically.

In addition to insufficient fundraising, short-term contracts and recruitment challenges are exacerbating the insecurity facing many community-based services and contributing to rising caseloads. More than three quarters, or 76%, of frontline workers surveyed by Refuge said that their caseload had increased over the past 12 months. That comes at a time when victims and survivors need our support more than ever. The cost of living crisis is exacerbating the financial hardship victims and survivors face when fleeing abuse. Survivors typically flee with few possessions and often have to give up their jobs for their own safety. According to Refuge, as a result of this crisis more women are going to community-based services with financial support needs, such as food bank referrals and debt advice. Community-based services are not only transformational for victims and survivors; they are critical to managing the cost of domestic abuse to society.

According to Government estimates, domestic abuse costs society a staggering £78 billion a year. Economic analysis published by Women’s Aid early this year shows that every £1 invested in domestic abuse services will result in at least £9 of savings to the public purse. The case for investing in community-based services is therefore clear. Sustainably funding specialist support services, which reduce the need for victims and survivors to use statutory services, will save money in the long term while transforming the lives of victims, survivors and their children.

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[Sarah Champion]

I always have respect for the Minister and he is right: I understand the analysis he puts forward but I do not agree with it, because there are other examples where money is attached to a Bill. Although I think the Minister will have a fight on his hands with this, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn,

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

[Edward Argar]

Clause 12 introduces a joint statutory duty on police and crime commissioners, integrated care boards and local authorities to collaborate on relevant victim support services. As a result of the clause, we have for the first time a framework for collaboration when commissioning support services for victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violence that amounts to criminal conduct.

The duty focuses on child and adult victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violent crime, as they are particularly traumatic crimes for the worryingly high number of victims each year. It does not include accommodation-based services, which are covered by separate legislation under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, as was alluded to by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley. Victim support services are crucial for victims to be able to cope with and recover from the impact of crime. Across the three crime types, victims typically access a range of services from health, local authority services and policing bodies. At present, services are not always co-ordinated and victims can find them to be disjointed when moving between them. As a result of the clause, we expect the relevant authorities to consider the entirety of the victim support service pathway and strategically co-ordinate and target services where victims need them most.

Clause 12 should be considered alongside clause 13, which we are shortly to debate and which requires the authorities to prepare, implement and publish a local commissioning strategy. We expect this activity to lead to increased join-up between services, a common understanding of local need and systematic sharing of information, leading to more informed decision making in commissioning. The clause also enables the sharing of relevant information to support that duty. With that, I commend the clause to the Committee.

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[Edward Argar]

I commend the clause to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 12, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 13

Strategy for collaboration in exercise of victim support functions

[Sarah Champion]

I beg to move amendment 87 in clause 13, page 11, line 3, at end insert—

‘(aa) prepare an assessment of the needs of victims (including victims who are children or have other protected characteristics) in the area,’.

This amendment would require the relevant authorities in a police area in England to assess the needs of victims in their area.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 88 in clause 13, page 11, leave out lines 16 to 18 and insert—

‘(a) the assessment of the needs of victims (including victims who are children or have other protected characteristics) carried out under subsection (1),’.

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 87 and would require the relevant authorities to have regard to their assessment of the needs of victims when preparing the strategy.

[Sarah Champion]

Both amendments seek to ensure that the strategy for collaboration takes into account victims’ needs. Amendment 87 would require the relevant authorities to begin the strategy of preparing an assessment of victims’ needs. That must include a specific requirement to assess the need of child victims and those with other protected characteristics, who are particularly vulnerable and must be subject to additional considerations by the relevant authorities. It is a logical place to begin and, as I stated when arguing for the joint strategic needs assessment, it would fail to be an effective collaboration if needs were not evaluated to begin with.

Amendment 88 would require the relevant authorities to consider the needs assessment when putting together the strategy to collaborate. Some partnerships may do that once the Bill is passed, but we must ensure that every region has the same standards and processes so that the needs of all victims, and particularly child victims, are met across the country. The amendment would enable the strategy to collaborate and be more cost-effective and ambitious when fulfilling the duty the Minister wants it to achieve.

[Jess Phillips]

I do not have much to say other than that I entirely support the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful, as ever, to the hon. Member for Rotherham for her amendment, which would require the relevant authorities in a police area in England to assess the needs of victims in their area and then take that assessment into account when devising strategies under the duty to collaborate. I already touched on that when debating an earlier amendment, so I will seek not to repeat myself—at least not too much—although, I am afraid that some of the arguments will be the same.

The Government agree that needs assessments are vital in informing local commissioning decisions, and relevant local needs assessments that indicate the needs of victims already happen regularly as part of good practice. The Ministry of Justice provides police and crime commissioners with grant funding to commission practical, emotional and therapeutic support services for victims of all types of crime in their local areas. In order to achieve that and to know which services are required, PCCs are expected to carry out needs assessments that will allow them to target the funding and ascertain the level of need and demand in their area.

There are also several other needs assessments that local commissioners carry out, which give an assessment of the needs of victims. They include, but are not limited to: the serious violence joint strategic needs assessment, which indicates levels of serious violence and the volume of victims in an area; the public health joint strategic needs assessment, carried out by local authorities and health and wellbeing boards, which sets out social care and public health needs; and safe accommodation needs assessments, which give an indication of the number of domestic abuse victims requiring safe accommodation in an area.

We have been clear with commissioners in the victims funding strategy that needs assessments are a central pillar of commissioning victim support services. To do that, the victims funding strategy sets out a clear expectation that commissioners carry out regular needs assessments using all the data required to commission appropriate services for victims in their areas, including victims with tailored needs.

[Sarah Champion]

The amendment is very specific about children, so would the Minister touch on that, please?

[Edward Argar]

I reassure the hon. Lady that I will turn to that. I have a little more to say, though not too much. To ensure that the victims funding strategy is improving commissioning practices and outcomes for victims—all victims, including adults and children—we will set up a cross-Government oversight board, which I have mentioned, to monitor delivery against the strategy. I am encouraged by the engagement with commissioners and providers to date, which indicates that the standards set within the victims funding strategy are being upheld, but we will of course continue to monitor adherence to those standards.

The duty to collaborate aims to ensure that the relevant authorities come together to utilise all the relevant needs assessments that I have set out when commissioning services for adults or children, as well as any other relevant data or information. Clause 13(3) requires the relevant authorities to have regard to any needs assessments that they have already carried out in respect of the needs of particular groups of victims when preparing their joint strategy. Statutory guidance for the duty will clarify that, when commissioning, the relevant authorities are expected to set out in their joint commissioning strategy how they have had regard to the relevant needs assessments, and how commissioning decisions aim to meet the identified needs of different groups.

We fear that placing that in legislation would be duplicative of existing practices that currently work effectively, and which our duty to collaborate will only enhance. Indeed, by virtue of the relevant commissioners under the duty working together, assessing existing needs and publishing their commissioning strategies, they will build up a clear picture of the local landscape of victims services and the local populations. The strategies will then clearly set out how they will, over the coming period, deliver a more joined-up and effective service for victims, including child victims.

I am happy to work with the hon. Member for Rotherham to identify the benefits and drawbacks of the current system. As I set out earlier, I continue to reflect on the points that she and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner made about joint strategic needs assessments, which shades into what I believe the hon. Lady is seeking to get at with the amendment.

[Sarah Champion]

I thank the Minister for his offer to collaborate on this. I have been working with the NSPCC, which has much more experience than I do, so we would gratefully accept the offer, and on that basis I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Sarah Champion]

I beg to move amendment 84, in clause 13, page 11, line 8, at end insert—

“(d) ensure that services commissioned as part of the strategy are given contracts or grants for a minimum of three years, unless it would not be justifiable and proportionate to do so.”.

I present this as a probing amendment because I sadly know the Minister’s position. He was right to highlight earlier the eternal misery of short-term contracts as a result of short-term funding, and just how much the community invests in funding bids, some of which are successful and some of which are not. I am sure that we both agree that that money would be better spent on the services themselves.

Longer-term contracts are essential to help ease the insecure funding landscape facing the specialist domestic abuse sector. Amendment 84 would introduce a requirement that services commissioned under the duty to collaborate be delivered through sustainable contract terms of three years or more. That would enable community-based services to take root in a local area, recruit to permanent contracts, and provide women and children with the security and stability that they desperately need when fleeing domestic abuse. Some 64% of frontline workers surveyed for Refuge’s report, “Local Lifelines”, said that their services were impacted by short-term contracts. Frontline workers highlighted the challenges of delivering a service under short-term contracts due to the time and resources that it takes to implement a new service and embed the idea.

If a contract is for two years or less, it often takes the length of the contract for the service to become established within a local area. Then it stops, or the whole process starts all over again, at which point survivors must find new sources of ongoing help, which can be incredibly unsettling and traumatic for those victims. Short-term contracts force charities to spend resources rebidding for contracts rather than supporting their clients. It also presents significant recruitment challenges, as services can only offer short fixed-term, rather than permanent, posts. Given the transformative impact of community-based services on a survivor’s journey towards safety and independence, ensuring services are properly staffed and well established in their local area is vital. I know that the Minister understands that. Through an adequate, sustainable funding offer for community-based services delivered via long-term contracts, these services can take root in the community and provide the stability that women and children need.

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However, most funding that the Ministry of Justice provides to PCCs to commission local victim support has been awarded on a multi-year basis for this spending review period, with the PCC grant agreements including a requirement to commit to multi-year funding for the providers of the local services that they commission, where possible, unless there is a good reason otherwise. On that basis, although I acknowledge the import of what the hon. Members for Rotherham and for Birmingham, Yardley have said, I encourage them not to press the amendment to a Division.

[Sarah Champion]

The amendment was probing and provided a good opportunity for me to remember how hard you fought the last time you were in this role to get multi-year funding agreements in place. It helps enormously to have you in post and to get you on the record. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[The Chair]

May I gently remind all colleagues, who are all very experienced, that I did not promise anything or deliver anything? The Minister did.

[Sarah Champion]

Sorry!

[The Chair]

It is the last time I will say it today.

[Sarah Champion]

I beg to move amendment 85, in clause 13, page 11, line 13, at end insert—

“(ba) persons appearing to the relevant authorities to represent persons providing relevant victim support services for children,

(bb) victims,”.

This amendment would require the relevant authorities to consult victims and organisations providing support to child victims in preparing their strategy.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 81, in clause 13, page 11, line 14, at end insert—

“(d) victims to whom relevant victim support services are being, or may be, provided.”.

This amendment would require the relevant authorities to consult victims who are, or may be, receiving support services when preparing their strategy.

[Sarah Champion]

Apologies for getting overexcited, Mr Hosie.

Amendment 81 is supported by London’s Victims’ Commissioner, Claire Waxman, and it is worth reminding the Committee that Claire started campaigning for a victims Bill in 2014 or 2015. I pay huge tribute to her for never giving up. The fact that we are here debating it is in no small part due to her campaigning. Amendment 85 is supported by the NSPCC, to which I am grateful.

Amendment 81 would simply require that the relevant victims are engaged and consulted when authorities prepare the strategy for collaboration. We must ensure that victims themselves are engaged in the strategic planning for victim support services, because they know best. Amendment 85 seeks to make it clear that we must ensure that organisations that provide support to child victims are similarly consulted. As I have already made clear, children have very specific needs as victims. There must be a link between recognising children as victims and the duty to deliver a strategy for collaboration in the exercise of victim support functions, to ensure that commissioners include support services for children when preparing their joint commissioning strategies.

Considering children’s support needs as distinct from those of adults is vital. It is crucial for commissioners to reflect children’s needs effectively when they prepare their joint commissioning strategies. It is especially key at a time when child abuse continues to rise. At least 500,000 children a year are estimated to suffer abuse in the UK, one in 20 children in the UK have been sexually abused, and an estimated one in five children have experienced severe maltreatment. Last year, for the first time more than 100,000 cases of child sexual abuse were reported. NSPCC freedom of information data found that police in England and Wales made nearly 700 referrals a day to children’s social services about domestic abuse in 2021, totalling 245,000 cases that year.

Recognition of children in the relevant authorities’ victims’ needs analysis is welcome, and I welcome what the Minister has previously said, but the relevant authorities must have a duty to consult the providers of children’s services to ensure that those services are included in commissioning strategies. Simply including children in the victims’ needs analysis is not enough to ensure that support is in place. NSPCC freedom of information figures demonstrate that many local authorities are not accessing readily available information about child victims of domestic and sexual abuse. When asked, 50% of local authorities did not have any records of the number of child victims who had experienced either sexual or domestic abuse in their area, despite their statutory obligations to undertake a joint strategic needs assessment to improve the health and wellbeing of their communities.

It concerns me that the Bill risks undermining the important recognition that child victims must come within scope of the Bill if the duty to deliver a strategy for collaboration in exercise of victim support functions—I would love it if it could be called something snappier —does not include a duty to consult the providers of children’s services. I hope the Minister recognises that risk and therefore accepts the amendment.

[Jess Phillips]

I completely support the amendment and just wish to say that although I and others will talk about the lack of available support services for victims of domestic and sexual violence more broadly, there is no group more populous and more poorly served than children. The idea that children’s services would not be included seems bizarre, and the argument has been eloquently put.

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[Sarah Champion]

I wonder whether the Minister will give a bit of clarity. A lot of the solutions he is setting out are based on the statutory guidance; will we get draft statutory guidance before the Bill receives Royal Assent, or will it only come afterwards?

[Edward Argar]

As with other elements, such as the draft victims code, or the draft draft victims code, and the guidance, my intention—I suspect we will come to that when we discuss independent domestic violence advisers and independent sexual violence advisers—is that where possible we will publish as much statutory guidance in draft while the Bill is going through the House. That is facilitated by the fact that this is a carry-over Bill, so there is more time for right hon. and hon. Members to engage with the guidance. It will also inform the latter stages of the Bill’s passage through this House and the other place.

[Sarah Champion]

The Minister referred to the draft draft victims code consultation, but we have been unable to find that, so will he share it with the Committee?

[Edward Argar]

Through the Chair and if appropriate, I will ask my officials to communicate via the Clerk where that can be found, so that it can be circulated to Committee members for their information as we continue our deliberations. On that basis, I ask the hon. Lady to consider withdrawing her amendment.

[Sarah Champion]

I take the Minister’s comments at face value and am glad that we have them on the record. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Anna McMorrin]

I beg to move amendment 15, in clause 13, page 11, line 14, at end insert—

“(d) the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses.”.

This amendment would require the relevant authorities to consult the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses when preparing their strategy for collaboration.

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[Anna McMorrin]

I thank the Minister for that. I will not push the amendment to a vote, but hopefully we will work together on the statutory guidance. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Sarah Champion]

I beg to move amendment 90, in clause 13, page 11, line 19, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—

“(b) any assessment of the victim support services consulted in carrying out their duty under section (12).”

This amendment would ensure that when preparing the strategy for collaboration, relevant authorities must have regard to any assessment of the victim support services consulted under section 12.

This is a probing amendment, which seeks to strengthen the strategy for collaboration by requiring relevant authorities to consider any assessments made under the duty to collaborate. Currently, clause 13 (3)(b) says that when preparing the strategy, relevant authorities must have regard to

“the relevant victim support services which are available in the police area (whether or not provided by the relevant authorities).”

As we have discussed, it is vital for victims’ needs to be considered, and that will take place under subsection (3)(a). However, the strategy must also take into account any review of support services that the relevant authorities may undertake under the duty to collaborate. That is key in preparing the strategy as it will help them to identify gaps in services and where local need for services is stronger.

We cannot simply suggest that authorities consider the support services available; we must ask them to be more ambitious than that. By requiring them to consider any evaluations of services, we can enable them to strengthen the options available for victims and ultimately improve the outcomes of the Bill. Wherever possible, we must ensure that the services available to victims are as strong as they can be. The best way to make that happen is by local partners taking into account local need. However, for that to take place consistently across the country, we must improve the wording of the clause so that all assessments of services are always taken into account.

[Jess Phillips]

I do not have anything to add to what has already been said. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for her amendment, which, somewhat like amendments 87, 88 and 89, would require relevant authorities for a police area to conduct a joint strategic needs assessment to inform the strategy for commissioning victim support services as part of the duty to collaborate. I am also grateful to her for highlighting that she has approached this as a probing amendment. I will respond to it in that vein, noting again the context of my previous comments about her broader calls for a JSNA.

The Government agree it is vital that relevant support services fit the local needs of victims, and that victims’ needs form the centre of any commissioning decision. Current systems are created so that commissioners place the victim at the heart of commissioning, enabling a bespoke approach rather than a one-size-fits-all approach set nationally.

PCCs are able to allocate the grants and funding supplied by my Department based on relevant needs assessments, which already happen as part of good commissioning processes. Those assessments enable PCCs to target funding into practical, emotional and therapeutic support services for victims of crime, where it is most needed in their area. PCCs, local authorities and integrated care boards are also required to carry out a joint strategic needs assessment under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which should indicate the level of serious violence and the number of victims affected.

Both domestic abuse and sexual abuse are now considered forms of serious violence—and in my view, rightly so. Local authorities and integrated care boards also already carry out separate assessments that indicate the needs of victims, including the needs assessment under part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which sets out the needs of victims in accommodation-based services, and the JSNA that informs the public health and wellbeing strategy.

Clause 13(3) requires PCCs, local authorities and integrated care boards to have regard, when preparing their joint strategy, to any needs assessments that they have already carried out and that reflect the needs of victims. Statutory guidance will state that relevant authorities should then set out in their joint commissioning strategy how they have had regard to the relevant needs assessments and how commissioning decisions aim to reflect and to meet the identified need.

[Sarah Champion]

I pause the Minister at the point of the black hole that he may well be about to backfill. If, in doing the assessment, the authorities found a big gap in provision in, say, Muslim women’s support services, would they then have to fill that gap and provide those services or would they just say, “Oh, that’s awful; we have a big gap in those services”?

[Edward Argar]

As I have said in previous responses, the funding is finite. There is a degree of flexibility—not total flexibility, because there are, as she will be aware, some ringfenced pots for police and crime commissioners to address specific needs. They also have their core funding. It is down to them to determine how they spend that funding and that finite pot of money, but having regard to the work that they have done in terms of needs assessments. To be blunt, they cannot spend what they do not have. They have a finite pot, so they will have to determine how that is most effectively used to meet the needs that they have identified.

The victims funding strategy, which we published in May last year, also sets a clear expectation that commissioners should carry out regular needs assessments using all the data required to commission appropriate services for victims in their area, including victims with tailored or specific needs. Due to the recent publication of the victims funding strategy—notwithstanding its genesis back when the hon. Lady and I talked about it in 2018, pre pandemic—we are still in the relatively early stages of assessing its impact and the pull-through into what happens on the ground.

For those reasons, I am not convinced that the amendment is required to clearly state that joint needs assessments must be considered at this stage. However, I understand the points that the hon. Lady made and, as always and as I have said more broadly in the context of needs assessments, I am happy to converse with her and look to work with her as we go forward.

[Sarah Champion]

For me, this amendment comes back to the idea that “you only know what you know”. My concern is that if the Minister, the Secretary of State, is clear that this assessment needs to be done and if gaps are found, there is the need to fill those gaps; I still do not have the assurances.

I am thinking of situations where, for example, English is not someone’s first language or they need British Sign Language, or where there are cultural issues and someone wants a culturally sensitive service. I would welcome the opportunity to work with the Minister. The amendment layers on to others that have come previously, which may well be put to a vote at a later point, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Sarah Champion]

I beg to move amendment 86, in clause 13, page 11, line 27, at end insert—

“(5A) The relevant authorities must publish an annual report containing—

(a) information about the action they have taken to implement the strategy prepared under this section, and

(b) information about their compliance with the duty to collaborate under section 12 of this Act.”

This amendment would require the relevant authorities to publish an annual report about the implementation of the strategy and their compliance with the duty to collaborate in the exercise of victim support functions.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 9—Reviewing compliance: duty to collaborate—

“(1) A police and crime panel which oversees services in a police area must keep under review how the relevant authorities which provide services in the police area provide those services in accordance with their duties under section (12) and (13) of this Act.

(2) In this section, the reference to a “police and crime panel” is to be read in accordance with Schedule 6 to the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011.

(3) In this section, “relevant authorities” has the meaning given by section 12(2).

(4) For the purposes of subsection (1), police and crime panels must prepare and publish an annual report setting out how the relevant authorities are fulfilling their duties under section (12) and (13).

(5) A report under subsection (4) must set out, in particular—

(a) how the relevant authorities are assessing the needs of victims;

(b) how the relevant authorities are meeting the needs of victims; and

(c) how the relevant authorities are collaborating to represent the interests of victims.

(6) The police and crime panel must send a copy of any report published under subsection (4) to the Secretary of State.

(7) The Secretary of State must then publish an annual statement on the state of victim support.”

This new clause aims to establish a review of compliance with the duty to collaborate and add in a layer of accountability to oversee this new duty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

I apologise for taking up so much of the Committee’s time; I am very grateful for everyone’s indulgence. I do it just to try to get the best Bill, one that we can all be proud of.

Amendment 86 would require the relevant authorities to publish an annual report about the implementation of the strategy and their compliance with the duty to collaborate in the exercise of victim support functions, and new clause 9 aims to establish a review of compliance with the duty to collaborate and add in a layer of accountability to oversee the new duty. This is very much building on the debate that we have been having.

The duty placed on local authorities, integrated care boards and the police and crime commissioners to collaborate in their exercise of victim support functions is an important step towards ensuring that victims receive necessary support. However, although the duty to collaborate is important at the moment, there is no way of measuring the effectiveness of this model.

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[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham, as ever, for her amendments. Amendment 86 would require the relevant authorities to publish an annual report about the implementation of the strategy and their compliance with the duty to collaborate in the exercise of victim support functions. New clause 9 would establish a review of compliance with the collaboration duties in clauses 12 and 13 and add a layer of accountability to oversee the new duty by requiring police and crime panels to keep under review how the relevant authorities that provide services in their area are doing so in accordance with their collaboration duties under clauses 12 and 13.

I seek to reassure the hon. Lady that the existing requirements of the duty to collaborate will achieve a high level of transparency and the Government have a plan for an effective system of oversight for this duty, which I will set out. The relevant authorities—police and crime commissioners, integrated care boards and local authorities in England—will already be under an obligation to publish, review and revise their commissioning strategies, including publishing any revised versions or revisions. This is to ensure transparency, as the strategies must contain information on how they consider they are fulfilling or intend to fulfil their duty under clause 12. We intend these strategies to be assessed by the national oversight forum, about which we have spoken previously in Committee and which was announced in our consultation response in 2022. This ministerial-led group will scrutinise the local strategies, assess the effectiveness of collaboration and how well the duty is executed. It will have an ongoing role in monitoring the performance and outputs of local strategies against the objectives that local areas have set.

Under clause 13, local areas must review and revise strategies from time to time so that they reflect the changing commissioning landscape and emerging local need. We expect strategies to be reviewed annually and revised fully approximately every four years. That is an expectation we will test in practice when we consult formally on the statutory guidance in due course. At the point of review and revision, the oversight group will have oversight responsibility to consider whether the next set of objectives set by local areas are ambitious and deliverable. I therefore contend that requiring an additional annual report as intended by amendment 86 is to a degree duplicative of the extant intentions under the clauses.

[Sarah Champion]

At this point, does the Minister have details of who will be on the oversight board?

[Edward Argar]

It is something that we continue to work through. I have alluded in previous comments to some of those whom we hope will be engaged—the Victims’ Commissioner and others—but if it is helpful, in the spirit of sharing what we have, even as a working document as we work our way through the Bill, I am open to considering sharing that as well with members of the Committee.

[Sarah Champion]

Yeah, I’ll do it.

[Jess Phillips]

We’ll do it.

--- Later in debate ---

I refer to my earlier comments on setting out plans outside legislation for that oversight group. This group is intended to consist of a senior membership with the ability to challenge, question and hold performance to account. I am still of the view that this is the most effective way to ensure the fulfilment of the relevant duties. On that basis, I encourage the hon. Lady to consider not pressing her amendments to a Division.

[Sarah Champion]

The Minister has put forward a persuasive argument. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

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

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to consider clause 14 stand part.

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[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister, particularly for her comments on data. I may not quite be Mystic Meg, but I sense some possible future amendments or at least a debate on this matter when we reach Report stage. I am happy to engage with her on this in the interim, and I am grateful for her support for the clauses.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 13 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 15

Guidance about independent domestic violence and sexual violence advisors

[Sarah Champion]

I beg to move amendment 57, in clause 15, page 12, line 5, at end insert—

“(c) independent stalking advocacy caseworkers”.

This amendment would ensure the Secretary of State must also provide guidance around stalking advocates, rather than limiting to ISVAs and IDVAs.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 56, in clause 15, page 12, line 12, at end insert—

“(c) ‘independent stalking advocacy caseworker’ means a person who provides a relevant service to individuals who are victims of criminal conduct which constitutes stalking”.

This amendment would ensure that the Secretary of State must also provide guidance around any relevant specialist community-based services, rather than limiting to ISVAs and IDVAs.

Sarah Champion, before you speak to your amendments, let me say this: you never need to apologise to this Committee or anyone else for trying to make legislation better.

[Sarah Champion]

That is very decent of you, Mr Hosie. Thank you very much.

Amendments 57 and 56 attempt to ensure that the Secretary of State must also provide guidance around stalking advocates, rather than just limiting it to ISVAs and IDVAs. I hope that I will be able to make my argument to the Minister using his own words from earlier.

The Bill as it currently stands, in my opinion and that of many others, does not go far enough to ensure that victims of stalking will be supported, as it makes no specific reference to this very specific crime. Stalking is a highly complex offence, requiring criminal justice agencies to understand the patterns of obsessive controlling behaviour, which, when seen as individual occurrences, may not appear to constitute criminal practice. Victims of stalking often experience prolonged periods of victimisation, often not reporting stalking behaviour until after they have experienced more than 100 instances. Sadly, criminal justice agencies and inspectorates lack training and expert understanding of the complexities of this crime, and the specific trauma that victims of stalking experience. Furthermore, justice on stalking is not currently being delivered. In 2019-20 there were more than 1.5 million estimated victims of stalking, but just 3,506 stalkers were charged. Only 304 of those charged received custodial sentences.

The Government must prioritise raising awareness and understanding of stalking in criminal justice agencies, because victims are currently falling through the gaps. The Bill represents an opportunity for the understanding of stalking to be improved. By explicitly acknowledging the specific characteristics of stalking, services will ensure victims are not excluded from the right to safety and support.

The Suzy Lamplugh Trust says it welcomes the decision to elevate the importance and understanding of ISVA and IDVA roles under clause 15. I echo that, and it is very welcome. But while IDVAs and ISVAs do vitally important work for their specific victim groups, they are not necessarily stalking specialists, nor are they expected to be. Stalking is a complex crime, and victims must be supported by specialist advocates who have expertise in the area.

At present, the Bill neglects to include a definition for independent stalking advocates. Given that stalking is often misunderstood by criminal justice agencies, victims of stalking will once again fall through gaps in support if explicit reference to their needs is not made. It is well documented that stalking advocates have a huge impact on improving the experience of victims. Some 90% of respondents to the Suzy Lamplugh Trust’s research “Bridging the Gap” stated that their stalking advocate helped them to navigate the criminal justice system. I thank the Suzy Lamplugh Trust for its help with this amendment.

Stalking advocates support victims in a holistic way to help them to manage and cope with their situation and to recover from abuse. They carry out risk assessments and ensure that safety plans are put in place to protect victims and those around them, including any dependants, from further harm. Unfortunately, stalking advocates are underused. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust research demonstrates that 77% of stalking victims did not access a stalking advocate; 69% accessed no advocacy at all; only 4% accessed support from a non-specialist service such as an IDVA or ISVA; and just 15% of victims were referred to a stalking advocate by the police, further demonstrating low levels of understanding of stalking in criminal justice agencies.

If clause 15 made specific reference to independent stalking advocates, the guidance that the Secretary of State has committed to issue should include a definition of stalking advocates and clarity on the services they provide. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust has shown that victims not supported by an advocate had a one-in-1,000 chance of their perpetrator being convicted, compared with one in four if they had a stalking advocate. The amendment would not only provide much needed support for victims, but help enable justice to be secured.

This morning, in response to new clause 19, the Minister said:

“Our concern is that the approach set out in the new clause risks excluding or minimising the importance of some of the other service types that commissioners could consider for victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence. As drafted, the new clause could risk creating a hierarchy.”

That exact argument applies here. I completely understand his response to me that ISVAs and IDVAs need specific training for judges to recognise their judgments and advice in courts. Independent stalking advocates receive training and qualifications such as the level 4 ISAS—independent stalking advocacy specialist—course, which is accredited by the University of Hertfordshire.

These are vital professionals who must be included in the Bill. We cannot limit clause 15 solely to ISVAs and IDVAs when so much abuse begins with stalking. We must enable victims of this preventable crime to access support at an early stage that has statutory guidance, just as those who have experienced sexual or domestic violence will be able to.

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[Jess Phillips]

Absolutely. For any hon. Member who has experienced stalking themselves—unfortunately, we are a prime category for some of this stalking behaviour—it will not come as a surprise that, from my experience, the first threat place that people go to is to antagonise me about my sons, where they go to school and that sort of information. Children are undoubtedly used, often completely unawares, as part of a pattern of stalking, creating further stress and multiple victims in that instance. Children are often targeted and used in circumstances to attack an adult. As somebody who has run IDVA and ISVA services—in fact, the organisation I used to work for now has specific stalking advocates—I know that stalking is distinct, specific and different. The element of post-separation domestic abuse, as well as the important fact that it is a stranger-based issue, makes the argument for the need for that specialism.

[Sarah Champion]

The Minister argued that IDVAs and ISVAs both engage with the criminal justice sector and therefore need to be recognised as such in the Bill. In my hon. Friend’s experience, is it the same for stalking advocates?

[Jess Phillips]

Absolutely. A case that I handled very recently was a post-separation issue, but was not at the relevant risk level. As I said earlier today, a person has to be at incredibly high risk of harm to be allocated an IDVA who will take them through the criminal justice system, or they have to be going through the criminal justice system.

In the case that I handled, a person broke up with somebody who, six months later, started turning up at her place of work. The victim then went to the police station and said, “This is my ex-partner,” but she could not point to any particular history of abuse or anything that had been criminal at the time. She said, “He’s now turning up at my place of work and sending me messages on Facebook,” but that is not at the level that will get anyone access to an independent domestic violence adviser. I immediately said, “Do you have a stalking protection order in place?” She said, “What’s a stalking protection order?” She had been to the police, but she did not have a specialist advocate with her, or even just somebody telling her what question to ask. She now has a stalking protection order in place, because she knows what one is.

There is a need for specialist advocacy in cases that will never breach the criminal space of domestic abuse or the risk level that would allow for an IDVA. That is very important, because those cases can still be criminal without ever touching the desk of one of those agencies. I therefore totally support my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, and I imagine that the Secretary of State for Justice may agree with us.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for amendments 56 and 57 and grateful to her and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, for this debate. The amendments would expand the Bill’s requirement for the Secretary of State to issue guidance on ISVAs and IDVAs so that it also included independent stalking advocacy caseworkers. Specialist stalking services, including independent stalking advocacy caseworkers, do vital work to identify risk and provide practical guidance and safety advice for victims. They can help victims to navigate the criminal justice system. The hon. Member for Lewisham East was right to highlight that this crime can affect children as well as adults, and we should not forget that.

The Government are committed to protecting and supporting victims of stalking. The hon. Member for Rotherham was right to highlight the huge impact that stalking can have and the trauma that can result, and the shadow Minister was adroit at gently reminding me of my boss’s views and work on this subject in the past. For example, the Government introduced stalking protection orders in 2020, and almost 1,000 were issued in the first 23 months. The Home Office also continues to part-fund the national stalking helpline, which is run by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, to which I pay tribute, and provided £160,430 between April 2022 and March 2023. We have also provided funding for police-led projects to tackle the behaviour of stalkers and thereby provide greater protection to victims. In May, we announced awards to 10 police and crime commissioners to fund perpetrator interventions, wholly or partly, between April 2023 and March 2025.

In the Bill, we have chosen to focus on guidance for ISVAs and IDVAs because the consultation highlighted that greater consistency and awareness of ISVAs and IDVAs was particularly needed, especially given the number now working across the sector. We believe that that can best be addressed through statutory guidance. I agree that independent stalking advocacy caseworkers, or ISACs—I may just stick to the full wording—are important and can be just as effective, but we are not yet convinced that Government intervention by way of statutory guidance is necessary on the basis of the evidence that we have seen thus far. We do not feel that there is the same pressing need to drive further awareness and consistency of the roles, given the degree of consistency that exists.

I am, however, open to working with the hon. Member for Rotherham—and with the shadow Minister if she wishes to join, as I suspect she might—to continue to reflect on and consider how and whether Government support to independent stalking advocacy caseworkers can be improved. But I also believe that it will be important to assess the impact and effectiveness of the guidance on ISVAs and IDVAs, subject to the passage of the Bill, before considering whether to extend it to other groups in the same format. As I say, I am happy to engage with the hon. Member for Rotherham in that respect.

On the point about hierarchy or the lack thereof, I reassure the hon. Lady that guidance for ISVAs and IDVAs should not be taken to indicate any sort of funding or other hierarchy of them over independent stalking advocacy caseworkers or any other type of specialist support. Funding decisions for different types of support are made by local commissioners based on their assessment of the local need, and the guidance on ISVAs and IDVAs will be explicit that there should be no presumption of a hierarchy when it comes to those funding decisions.

[Sarah Champion]

I just want to re-read the statistic that victims not supported by an advocate had a one-in-1,000 chance of their perpetrator getting convicted, compared with a one-in-four chance for those who had a stalking advocate. The Minister knows that pretty much all my time in Parliament has been spent trying to prevent abuse. This seems a very worthy investment and a very worthy amendment to the Bill. I will grab with both hands the opportunity to meet him and understand why he does not, at this point, agree.

[Edward Argar]

We may be spending a lot of time together.

[Sarah Champion]

I am happy to go to a beach somewhere. At this point, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Sarah Champion]

I beg to move amendment 62, in clause 15, page 12, line 5, at end insert—

“(c) any other specialist community-based services relevant to the criminal conduct.”

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 61, in clause 15, page 12, line 12, at end insert—

“(c) ‘specialist community-based service’ means a person who provides a relevant service to individuals based on a protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 or the specific nature of the crime faced by the victim.”

Amendment 58, in clause 15, page 12, line 13, leave out “or (b)” and insert “, (b) or (c)”.

Amendment 59, in clause 15, page 12, line 16, leave out subsection (4) and insert—

“(4) Guidance under this section about service providers under subsection (1) must include provision about—

(a) the role of such providers;

(b) the services they provide to—

(i) victims, including (where relevant) victims who are children or have other protected characteristics, or

(ii) persons who are not victims, where that service is provided in connection with a service provided to a victim;

(c) how such providers and other persons who have functions relating to victims, or any aspect of the criminal justice system, should work together;

(d) appropriate training and qualifications for such providers.”

Amendment 60, in clause 15, page 12, line 28, leave out from beginning to “must” and insert

“The service providers listed in subsection (1)”.

New clause 18—Guidance about community-based specialist domestic abuse services—

“(1) The Secretary of State must issue guidance about community-based specialist domestic abuse services.

(2) Guidance under this section must include provision about—

(a) the definition and role of community-based specialist domestic abuse services;

(b) the support that such services provide to—

(i) victims, including (where relevant) victims who are children or have other protected characteristics, or

(ii) persons who are not victims, where that service is provided in connection with a service provided to a victim;

(c) how such services and other persons who have functions relating to victims, or any aspect of the criminal justice system, should work together;

(d) appropriate training and qualifications for providers of such services.

(3) Providers of community-based specialist domestic abuse services must have regard to guidance under this section when exercising their functions.

(4) Any other person who has functions relating to victims, or any aspect of the criminal justice system, must have regard to guidance under this section where—

(a) the person is exercising such a function, and

(b) the guidance is relevant to the exercise of that function.

(5) Subsection (4) does not apply to anything done by any person acting in a judicial capacity, or on the instructions of or on behalf of such a person.

(6) In this section, ‘domestic abuse’ has the same meaning as in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 (see section 1 of that Act).”

[Sarah Champion]

The amendments are all on specialist community-based support, which I have a great deal of time and respect for. I know that the Minister is very aware of its value, so I hope that I am pushing at an open door in support of it, even if he might have different opinions about where that support should land.

Going back to amendment 57, I repeat that the inclusion of guidance and IDVAs and ISVAs in the Bill is genuinely very welcome. I commend the Minister for that, and I mean no disrespect to him in what I will say next: there are concerns that defining only those roles will direct victims to support based in the criminal justice system rather than whichever form suits them best. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner has stressed that most victims and survivors do not go into the criminal justice system, so we must ensure that support and investment beyond IDVAs and ISVAs is easily accessible.

I appreciate that the Minister has made it clear that a victim does not need to report a crime to access support. I am therefore concerned that it is a serious oversight by him not to make it clearer that specialist support that does not go through a criminal footing is equally regarded in the Bill. My amendment 62 complements and reflects the intention behind new clause 19 in ensuring that all forms of specialist support are seen as just as crucial as that provided by ISVAs and IDVAs. It also aligns with amendment 26, tabled by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, which I very much support. I am glad that he has brought referring victims to restorative justice services into the debate.

It must be the victim’s choice which route they pursue to cope with and recover from the crimes that have been committed against them. Since the duty on local authorities to provide accommodation-based support was enacted in the Domestic Abuse Act, providing that form of support is now an overwhelming focus within the majority of local authority commissioning strategies, at the expense of other forms. However, the vast majority of victims also want to access support in the community, with 83% wanting counselling or therapeutic support. For victims of domestic abuse accessing support, 70% would do so via community-based services. According to SafeLives, the vast majority of victims never spend time in refuge accommodation. Women’s Aid’s annual survey reported that, in a single year, 187,000 children and 156,000 women were supported by community-based services. Thank goodness they were there. I commend them. Refuge’s recent report “Local Lifelines” found that 95% of survivors supported by Refuge use community-based services.

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[Jess Phillips]

In his remarks, the Minister said that consultation highlighted the need to define IDVAs and ISVAs, and that may well be true in the purest sense of what they were initially intended to be—certainly much more with IDVAs than ISVAs—which was about specific guidance. We had court-based IDVAs when we used to have specialist domestic abuse courts everywhere, and it is absolutely right that it becomes about the criminal justice system.

I have to say that ISVAs were not about the criminal justice system originally, and their services took a much more holistic approach. The term became what we called anyone who supports someone who comes forward about sexual violence and abuse. In domestic abuse services, of course, there were both; we had floating support, housing support and refuge support workers, as well as people who may be going through the courts, so it made sense to have a different name. That is just a potted history of IDVAs and ISVAs.

The consultation may have said that it was important to identify and define IDVAs and ISVAs and to ensure that criminal justice agencies—specifically judges and the courts—take them seriously. Who could disagree with that? However, if we were to consult any agency that runs IDVA or ISVA services, or domestic abuse and sexual violence services, not one of them would think that it should be exclusively about IDVAs and ISVAs. If we are going to lean on consultation in one regard, then the evidence here is that the sector is not against the definitions, but rather the narrowness of the definitions. Throughout the day, the Minister has talked about the danger of narrow definitions—I just point out that irony.

New clause 18 follows on from the previous debate about community-based, specialist domestic abuse services, which come in a variety of forms. Women and children seek support and help in different ways, including outreach support, floating support, formal counselling and support groups—the list goes on. By only formalising the IDVA models, we risk creating a tiered hierarchy and adversely affecting other models of community-based specialist provision. Once again, that then poses the risk of more generic services, or services that are run in-house.

What is to stop Birmingham City Council saying, “We have a load of ISVAs that work in our service. We are going to train a load of ISVAs and we will take any funding in-house”? I have great respect to Birmingham City Council—I was a member of the council for some years—but it is not a specialist domestic abuse service, and nor should it ever be trusted to be one. It is not independent; they are the people who run the housing; they are the people an ISVA will sometimes have to help a victim take to court—that happens quite regularly. Regarding Victim Support, with the greatest respect to it as an organisation, it is not a specialist sexual violence service, and yet, across the country, it does have ISVA services.

I find the creep towards the generic a worry. Actually, it is not a worry; it is a fact. I have seen it; it is happening, and it has been happening in a new commissioning environment for some time. I have outlined the evidence of the trend already, and the same warnings apply here. Crucially, victims with protected characteristics value and need access to holistic support and intersectional advocacy from organisations led by and for black and minoritised women and those providing specialist advocacy for LGBT+ and for deaf and disabled victims, and I also mentioned specialist services for victims of forces-based violence. Those organisations commonly sit outside the IDVA model but are crucial to the provision of support for such groups.

Another thing that worries me concerns allowing somebody to go into court, be that a family court or another civil court environment for non-molestation orders or other domestic abuse protection orders—there are various different orders, which are currently not worth the paper they are written on, but they exist, so let us pretend they are a solution. If someone does not have an IDVA qualification and is a floating community-based support worker from the local LGBT specialist support service, a judge will not allow that person into the court, because of the idea of that qualification. Also, how do we know that people do not call themselves IDVAs and ISVAs without the qualification? It is not like having a degree; it is a different thing. So there are some real dangers in this. I have seen these things happen. Even though I am qualified in this space, I was not allowed to sit with a rape victim in court recently, because I was not an ISVA. That seems like a—

[Sarah Champion]

Hierarchy.

[Jess Phillips]

It does seem like a hierarchy. Obviously, I won the argument on that, but that was what I was initially told. There are many examples of why this is a problem.

Studies have shown that disabled women are twice as likely to experience domestic abuse. They are also twice as likely to suffer rape and sexual assault. Yet, the charity SafeLives’s multi-agency risk assessment conference data shows that, nationally, only 3.9% of referrals are disabled victims. Disabled women are four times more likely to report abuse by multiple perpetrators and to experience abuse for longer. Disabled women are more likely to experience abuse by a family member than non-disabled women. Stay Safe East is a user-led specialist organisation supporting disabled victims, and its experience with clients mirrors those harrowing statistics.

Disabled victims may also face specific forms of domestic abuse or their circumstances or impairment being weaponised against them—for example, control of food or drink or medication, withdrawal of care, restricting access to disability equipment, restricting access to other professional advice or help, theft of benefits, and the threat that they will be put into care or have their children taken away from them. Those specific experiences and intersecting discriminations mean that organisations that can provide tailored and holistic care are crucial and wanted by victims. Likewise, in research by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, it was found that people wanted specialist services. Those services, such as Stay Safe East, are small—I do not want to speak out of turn, but I think four people work there, so it is not a big organisation. However, it is one of the only specialist domestic abuse organisations; those people are not all IDVAs, yet this is absolutely the specialist agency.

The new clause and the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham are to try to ensure that judges and police forces—judges more so, but police forces too—will understand. They are quite rigid about who is allowed in, who is not and who they can take advice from. I really worry that we are about to undermine vast swathes of very professional and learned specialists just on the basis of a qualification they do or do not have.

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[Edward Argar]

I will refrain from biting—I almost did.

To help ensure that women and girls are safe everywhere, in July 2021, we published our cross-Government tackling violence against women and girls strategy. That was followed by a cross-Government tackling domestic abuse plan in March 2022, investing more than £230 million of cross-Government funding into tackling this hideous crime, including more than £140 million for supporting victims and more than £81 million for tackling perpetrators.

Through the commitments set out in those strategies, the Government aim to transform how systems and society respond to violence against women and girls. That is in addition to the increased funding for support services and the increased numbers of ISVAs and IDVAs that I have already referenced. I hope that that demonstrates, to some extent, how we are taking action to further support the sector.

We have chosen a narrower focus for the Bill’s measures to issue guidance than new clause 18 would. IDVAs are a particular type of community-based specialist support service for victims of domestic abuse; our focus on them is in response to the victims Bill consultation. I know that, as the hon. Members for Rotherham and for Birmingham, Yardley set out, IDVAs are only one part of the domestic abuse support landscape, as they predominantly support high-risk victims. However, as I have said in relation to similar amendments, we do not believe that Government intervention through guidance issued about all community-based specialist domestic abuse services is the right approach.

The hon. Member for Rotherham said in our debate on new clause 19 that these services offer a vast range of support, including counselling, advice, advocacy and helplines. We want to get the balance right: we want Government intervention only when it is needed and will yield a positive benefit to support services. Our general approach is to set national commissioning standards and then allow local decision making by local commissioners. National guidance, such as the victims funding strategy and the national statement of expectations, sets standards but empowers commissioners to fund services of a quality and type that meet their local needs.

Our view is that additional guidance for ISVAs and IDVAs is necessary, given the growing number of roles and the lack of consistency. However, given the wide variety of roles within all community-based services, it is less clear what guidance about their roles, training and qualifications would bring, except possibly additional complexity and work for them. The key point is that ISVAs and IDVAs are particularly involved with the criminal justice process.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley highlighted the judicial discretion in this space and the approaches adopted by judges in their courts. I will not stray into that. Although we cannot direct or guide judges because they are quite rightly independent, we can improve their confidence in the professionalism and the work of ISVAs and IDVAs through this guidance, because of that particular intersection with the criminal justice process.

I always welcome further discussion with the hon. Member for Rotherham, as I hope I have made clear in the past few days, but I encourage her not to press the amendment to a Division.

[Sarah Champion]

I thank the Minister for his comments. I understand but disagree with his argument, but I will not press the amendment to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

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

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to consider new clause 8—Assessment of numbers of independent domestic violence and sexual violence advisors, stalking advocates and specialist support services—

“Within six months of the passing of this Act, and annually thereafter, the Secretary of State must—

(a) make an assessment of the adequacy of the number of independent domestic violence and sexual violence advisors, stalking advocates, and specialist support services in each region of England and Wales, having regard to the population in each region, and

(b) publish that assessment.”

This new clause would require the SoS to make an assessment of the adequacy of the number of ISVAs, IDVAs, stalking advocates and specialist support services in each region of England and Wales.

[Edward Argar]

With your permission, Mr Hosie, I will address clause 15 and then, once I have heard Opposition Members’ arguments, speak to new clause 8 at the end.

Clause 15 introduces a measure that seeks to improve consistency and awareness of the roles of independent sexual violence advisers and independent domestic violence advisers, who play a crucial role in supporting the needs of victims. We heard during the victims Bill consultation about the need for improved information, awareness and consistency in relation to the ISVA and IDVA roles. In particular, we were told that their remit is not sufficiently clear, which could hamper effective collaboration; that their service provision is not always consistent; and that the existing guidance is outdated and unclear in some places. However, we know that there is a crucial need to allow flexibility and innovation in how ISVAs and IDVAs support victims as an independent sector.

Clause 15 seeks to address that issue by placing a duty on the Secretary of State to issue guidance about ISVAs and IDVAs and placing a duty on ISVAs, IDVAs and other relevant persons to have regard to the guidance. We believe that statutory guidance can strike the right balance by raising awareness and improving consistency without stifling independence and flexibility. It will cover minimum expectations and best practice for ISVAs and IDVAs working with victims and other agencies and services, and will seek to support practical improvements in how agencies work with ISVAs and IDVAs.

We have focused on ISVAs and IDVAs, as they are some of the most common and well-known support roles for victims of sexual and domestic abuse. We recognise the value they add in reducing the attrition of victims who have engaged with the criminal justice process, and preventing them from feeling that they have to drop out at any point. That reflects their crucial role in the criminal justice system in particular. We know that those who received their support are nearly 50% less likely to withdraw from the process. It is also important, as we increase the number of ISVAs and IDVAs to over 1,000 by 2024-25, that the roles achieve greater awareness and consistency to provide the quality service victims deserve.

However, we absolutely do not intend this measure to detract from the important diversity of the wider support sector, or inadvertently to create a hierarchy of support services in which only ISVAs and IDVAs are commissioned or favoured. We are carefully working with the sector to develop the guidance to make sure we get this right. We will ensure that the guidance clearly recognises the wider support sector and makes clear to commissioners their responsibility to consider all victims. That guidance, which will be required by the clause, will therefore meet an evidenced need for a growing part of the support sector. It will be one part of the ongoing and wider work that the Government are focused on to improve support for victims.

[Sarah Champion]

I rise to speak to new clause 8, which is a slender amendment and my last, so I hope the Minister will look favourably on it.

For years, as we know from our debates in Committee, victims and survivors have faced a postcode lottery in support services, but access to sexual violence advocates, domestic violence advocates and stalking advocates varies hugely around the country. For the Bill to be successful, we need an accurate picture of what such services look like now. If we do not know where the gaps are, how will we fill them sufficiently?

The Domestic Abuse Commissioner has done excellent mapping work across the country and shown where the gaps are in provision for domestic abuse victims, but victims of all crime face patchy services. Support services differ greatly, depending on where in the country victims access them. As my hon. Friends and I have outlined, stalking advocates are crucial for women all over the country but are rarely accessible for most victims, even though they dramatically increase the chance of prosecution.

ISVAs and IDVAs provide crucial services, but if not all victims can access them, not all victims can have their rights met. The criminal justice system is incredibly difficult to navigate. An advocate is crucial for justice to be achieved and support to be received. I urge the Minister to accept that there are huge gaps in the provision available and, by accepting new clause 8, to require the Secretary of State to carry out a review.

[Jess Phillips]

It would be lovely to know how many ISVAs and IDVAs there are across the country, and what that means, because we also have hospital IDVAs who do not necessarily interact with the criminal justice system at all, but are responsive in accident and emergency. It would be lovely to know that, so I agree with new clause 8—I had ticked it off eagerly and could not see the number for a moment.

I have some real concerns about the clause standing part of the Bill, in particular about the hierarchy. I will not push the clause to a vote today, as I imagine that this is an area that will evolve. I want to see the professionalism of the sector that I worked for, but perhaps the professionalism of the job that I once had should include something about the levels of pay. I guarantee that writing the level of professionalism into a particular job title will not mean that anyone who does it breaches being paid more than £30,000 a year, if they are lucky. On one side, we want professionalism, but on the other side we are happy to allow a group of, frankly, quite low-paid women to do this very difficult work that we respect enough to write into our law. I have concerns about the clause as a whole, but I will agree that it can stand part for now.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Eighth sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 29th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

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

rose—

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

rose—

[Edward Argar]

I will give way first to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister. I will come on to how this will work in practice, but I suspect hon. Members may wish to return to it in their contributions to their amendments. I give way to the hon. Member for Rotherham.

[Sarah Champion]

What she said.

[Edward Argar]

I suspected that might be the case.

The requirement to share compliance information and to report to the Secretary of State on the joint review of this information will enable a clear national picture to be formed of how the criminal justice system is delivering for victims. It is important to remember that police and crime commissioners are directly elected and directly accountable to their local communities.

The requirement provides a means to escalate issues that cannot be solved locally and will enable Government to establish a new national governance system to pinpoint and intervene to address any systemic problems. The Victims’ Commissioner and inspectorates will be asked to participate in the new national governance system to ensure that victims’ needs and their perspectives are reflected. This will, of course, be covered in the relevant statutory guidance that will set out the operational detail across these clauses and the wider oversight framework.

Clauses 8 and 9 put two duties on the British Transport police and Ministry of Defence police respectively that mirror those placed on criminal justice bodies in clause 6. The duties are to promote awareness of the victims’ code and keep their compliance with the code under review. This ensures parity between local, national and non-territorial police forces. British Transport police meet victims of crime every day, including those mentioned by the hon. Member for Rotherham who are involved in child criminal exploitation, such as through county lines.

Instead of jointly reviewing information with police and crime commissioners, the British Transport police will be required to jointly review information with the British Transport police authority, which is the appropriate oversight body for them. Similarly, the Ministry of Defence police will do so with the Secretary of State, which in practice will mean that the Secretary of State for Defence is the appropriate oversight body for them. It is important that all police forces that have contact with victims, and therefore have responsibilities under the code, are responsible for promoting awareness of and complying with the code to help support victims. If I may, Ms Elliott, I will address amendments 47 and 13 and new clause 2 in my wind-up remarks. I commend clauses 6 to 9 to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

I have tabled what I hope is a straightforward amendment that would place a stronger duty on criminal justice bodies to promote awareness of the victims code, rather than just asking them to take reasonable steps. Clause 6(1) states that,

“Each criminal justice body which provides services in a police area must…take reasonable steps to promote awareness of the victims’ code among users of those services and other members of the public”.

The amendment would remove the words “take reasonable steps” and make the clause stronger. For example, a reasonable step could be a poster in a police office reception, so that when asked about this during the compliance process, they could say, “Yes, we have taken a reasonable step. Everyone that comes into the police office can see that. It is a reasonable step.”

As other Members and I have already pointed out, compliance and awareness of the existing victims code is worryingly low. I look to the Minister to do something more robust to get that awareness into the public domain. Victim Support’s “Victim of the system” report found that as many as six in 10 victims do not receive their rights under the victims code; 20% of victims are not referred to support services, 46% do not receive a written acknowledgement of the crime, and 60% do not receive a needs assessment. The status quo is not working. For victims to access their rights, they must first be aware of them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to hon. Members for their contributions. I will respond on amendments 47 and 13 in turn, and will then touch on new clause 2.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for amendment 47. I understand that she seeks to require relevant bodies to raise awareness of the code, rather than taking “reasonable steps” to do so. I reassure her that our intention is, of course, that victims will be made aware of the victims code. The “reasonable steps” term is commonly used and well understood in legislation. The use of it here seeks to replicate section 24 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which states that a senior police officer must “take reasonable steps” to discover the victim’s opinion before giving a domestic abuse protection notice. It appears similarly in the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017.

[Sarah Champion]

I am feeling the way the Minister is going with this. Might I make an on-the-hoof addition of the phrase “all reasonable steps”?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Does Sarah Champion wish to move amendment 47 formally?

[Sarah Champion]

The Minister is a reasonable man and I am a reasonable woman, so I will not press amendment 47.

[The Chair]

We now come to amendment 13, which has just been debated. Does Anna McMorrin wish to move the amendment formally?

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I will speak to clause 11 stand part, and in my concluding remarks address the speech that the hon. Member for Rotherham will make when she speaks to her new clauses.

Our approach through the Bill is to provide a framework to drive improvement and to use statutory guidance to set out how to operationalise that framework. That is why clause 11 requires the Secretary of State to issue guidance that will support the bodies subject to the code awareness and code compliance duties in clauses 6 to 10 to discharge those duties. It also requires those bodies to have regard to the guidance, which I hope provides reassurance to the hon. Member for Rotherham that there are sufficient provisions in place to ensure agencies take the statutory guidance on board.

We intend for the guidance to cover topics raised by hon. Members: how relevant bodies can promote awareness of the code, including how to make the code accessible and how to provide training to staff so they can confidently engage with victims; how police and crime commissioners will be required to report to the Secretary of State on their local reviews of code compliance information; and what good or poor performance looks like. It will also cover information on how local and national oversight structures will work, including routes for escalating on issues between them and on how data sharing and publication will work. The frequency of information collection will be set out in regulations and reflected in the guidance as appropriate.

Getting the guidance right is crucial to ensure that the policy works on the ground, so that it is clear what those subject to the duties are expected to do, and to encourage good practice and consistency across England and Wales. We intend to publish details of the guidance during the passage of the Bill to enable parliamentarians to have it to hand as they debate the Bill in its subsequent stages, and we are currently working with bodies subject to those duties and those who represent victims to develop it so that we can be sure it will work operationally. Underlining the importance of considering the views of those affected by the guidance, the clause also requires the Secretary of State to consult relevant stakeholders before issuing the guidance, which will ensure that it is useful and reflects the operational context.

Our approach to setting out the framework for code awareness and code compliance in the Bill, and the detail in statutory guidance and regulations, is the right way to drive improvement in the victim experience. I hope that clause 11 will stand part of the Bill.

[Sarah Champion]

Clause 11 is a welcome part of the Bill that requires the Secretary of State to issue guidance regarding the code awareness and reviewing code compliance. We know that the guidance may include provision about ways of promoting awareness of the code; how information is collected, shared and reviewed; and the steps that an elected local police body must take to make the public aware of how to access compliance information. That is all vital for ensuring accountability and awareness of these issues, but alone it does not go far enough. It must be on the face of the Bill that the code is accessible to all victims, particularly those who have disabilities or whose first language is not English. The Secretary of State must ensure that code awareness is raised among those groups too.

It is also not enough to publish code compliance and draw public attention to how to access that information. If we want to ensure that victims’ rights are met, we need to actively monitor their enforcement. New clause 5 seeks to ensure that the victims code is accessible to all victims and associated services. The new clause is supported by Women’s Aid and addresses issues raised by charities such as Victim Support, which I thank for helping to draft it.

As we know, the victims code sets out the minimum standards that organisations must provide to victims of crime. However, specialist violence against women and girls organisations have an abundance of evidence that indicates the needs of deaf, disabled and blind victims, as well as victims whose first language is not English, are being overlooked, neglected or at best addressed inadequately. It is truly concerning to hear from Women’s Aid that public bodies, including the police, often fail to comply with their obligations under the Equality Act 2010 to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation when interacting with victims facing communication barriers. Their right under the victims code—

“To be able to understand and to be understood”—

is also not being upheld. We know from specialist “by and for” led organisations that this is having a direct impact on marginalised victims not coming forward. This failure to respond to their communication needs is preventing victims from coming forward. As a result, victims are left with no choice but to stay longer with an abusive perpetrator and are at risk of increased harm while being denied justice.

Rising Sun, a specialist service, highlighted a case whereby a victim’s disability was not factored into the support plan and she was not provided information in Braille. Not only did this impact on her ability to make an application for a non-molestation order; she could not even read the resources provided on domestic abuse. She was left feeling humiliated and embarrassed, and stayed with her abusive partner for a further four weeks before fleeing to emergency accommodation with her children.

As discussed on earlier amendments, by failing to address and respond to communication barriers, there is a risk of the police having incomplete information and evidence from victims due to the lack of support to ensure they were understood. A survivor working with Women’s Aid urged for there to be more training to support those with accessibility needs, such as deaf people. She highlighted that we have a BSL Act but this it is not having any impact on survivors of domestic abuse.

The Government state that one of the first objectives of the Victims and Prisoners Bill is to introduce measures

“to help victims have confidence that the right support is available and that, if they report crime, the criminal justice system will treat them in the way they should rightly expect.”

It is clear, therefore, that new clause 5 is vital to ensure that all practical steps are taken to ensure that the code is fully accessible to all victims, particularly deaf, disabled and blind victims, as well as victims whose first language is not English.

Victim Support has also raised concerns about the need to implement the right to be understood. One woman, Angela—both her name and the languages have been changed—was wrongly arrested when she attempted to seek help from the police after experiencing domestic abuse. Despite taking regular English classes, Angela struggles with language skills in pressured or stressful situations. When she contacted the police to report the abuse, her partner at the time, who was fluent in English, managed to convince the police officers that he was the victim. Angela said:

“They cuffed me, put me in a police car, so I said, why? I was being treated like a criminal, so I was in great shock.”

At no point did the police ask Angela if she understood what was happening or if she needed a translator, even when she started speaking in Romanian. She said:

“They were just saying, ‘speak English, speak English!’”

Angela was arrested and held in police custody. She only got an interpreter at 8 pm, despite asking for one at 2 pm. After explaining what had happened through the interpreter, Angela was, thankfully, released and her partner was later charged. Eventually, the case went to court and the perpetrator was found guilty and issued with a restraining order. However, a copy of the court ruling was only sent in English, and Angela had to pay to have it translated.

It must be on the face of the Bill that the Secretary of State must take all practical steps to ensure that victims who are deaf, disabled or visually impaired, or who do not speak English as their first language are able to understand their entitlements under the code. We cannot allow anyone, in particular vulnerable women such as Angela, to be wrongfully treated and unaware of their rights do to these language barriers.

New clause 5 would also require the Justice Secretary to ensure that criminal justice bodies signpost victims to appropriate support services, and to ensure that appropriate training is delivered to staff in criminal justice bodies, including by specialist domestic abuse services. This is desperately needed, as we know from the examples we have heard over the past few days. I urge the Minister to consider adopting the new clause, or to please give assurances that he will include guidance on not only accessibility and awareness of the code, but on providing training to criminal justice agencies.

I now turn to new clauses 11 and 12. New clause 11 would place a duty on the Secretary of State to make an annual statement on compliance with the victims code, and new clause 12 would require the Secretary of State to set minimum threshold levels of compliance with each right of the victims code. The new clauses aim to strengthen the accountability of the victims code of practice by placing a duty on the Secretary of State to oversee them. They also aim to remove the core responsibility of overseeing enforcement of the code from the police and crime commissioners, who currently do not have sufficient powers and, in many cases, resources to either ensure compliance or hold contributors to the local criminal justice board to account.

New clause 12 would also ensure that the information on regulations covers every right in the victims code so that genuine improvements for victims will be achieved. In 2019, the independent Victims’ Commissioner carried out a review of delivery of the victims code. Sadly, the review found that the code is failing to deliver the improvements and sense of change required, because of fundamental problems that require systemic changes to be fixed. The needs of victims are not being met, and agencies are still struggling to deliver the code. The review called for an urgent reform—and that was in 2019. Wider victims code compliance data is not readily available, but aspects of it, such as being informed of the option to write a victim’s statement, are tested by the Office for National Statistics. That is reflected in the Ministry of Justice’s “Delivering justice for victims” consultation document, which sadly offers no detailed look at code compliance from other data sources.

The new clauses seek to tackle the lack of compliance by addressing the accountability issues denying victims and witnesses their rights and entitlements. The current set-up relies on the local criminal justice boards, the majority of which are chaired by the PCCs. LCJBs were introduced to bring together criminal justice partners to identify priorities, improve the experiences of victims and witnesses and deliver agreed objectives to improve the effectiveness of the local criminal justice system. They are aligned to the police force areas and operate as voluntary partnerships. However, when looking at right 4, for example, regarding support services for victims, the third sector, integrated care boards and sometimes local authorities are missing from this core conversation on the victims code.

In 2016, the Local Government Association undertook a high-level review of the council’s role in providing community safety services. Part of that review scrutinised PCCs and their role in chairing LCJBs. The review found that relationships between local councils and the PCCs were, not surprisingly, varied. It was clear that in some areas relationships are well established, with close work taking place; in others, relationships have proved more difficult to establish and there is very little contact, particularly where local priorities differ between the leading PCCs and the community safety partnerships. The review also found that similar variations were reported regarding the strength of local authority relationships with other statutory partners. In some areas excellent relationships are in place; however, it is clear that that is not universal. In other places, there continue to be concerns about siloed working and core issues such as data sharing. Stronger mechanisms must be in place to ensure that code compliance is on a national scale. We cannot have another postcode lottery being exacerbated due to the lack of accountability.

By placing a duty on the Secretary of State to both gather the data and publicly analyse it, there will be an emphasis for the relevant bodies to both return the data and work to improve it. Additionally, requiring criminal justice agencies to report annually on compliance provides the Secretary of State with a level of necessary oversight to ensure compliance and that victims’ rights and entitlements are upheld. The Secretary of State can then make an annual statement on the current state of code compliance and provide additional support and scrutiny wherever necessary to ensure that the code is working effectively for victims and witnesses. That also allows for more parliamentary scrutiny where necessary.

New clause 12 requires the Secretary of State to set a minimum threshold level of compliance for each right under the victims code. If the threshold for compliance is not met, the Secretary of State must commission an inspection and lay it before Parliament. Core accountabilities of the measures in the Bill must go back to the Secretary of State to ensure that we as parliamentarians can hold him or her to account, reporting the steps taken to correct any issues. That is a vital safeguard for Parliament. It should lead to urgent and tangible change where failures have taken place, and ultimately to a better experience for all victims.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for tabling the new clauses, and I hope that she will allow me to address them all together. Although they each address different aspects of victims code awareness and compliance, they are interrelated. I wholeheartedly agree with the aims of each new clause, but we believe that the issues are already addressed in the Bill and associated measures. What differs is how the new clauses would achieve what is essentially a shared aim.

Broadly, the new clauses would either place duties in legislation where we instead propose including provision in statutory guidance, or introduce duties that we feel are already provided for in the Bill; I will go through the specifics in a second. As I said, the approach that we have taken to drive up code awareness and compliance is to set up the key structures of the framework in the Bill but to allow for the regulations and statutory guidance that operationalise it to be where the detail is found. Where we have introduced new duties, we have carefully considered how to do so in the way that we believe will be most effective in delivering the improvements in victim experience that I think is a shared objective for everyone in the room.

New clause 5 is intended to improve accessibility and awareness of the victims code and associated services. I share the hon. Lady’s aim of ensuring that all victims have access to the information that they need to support them in engaging with the criminal justice process. The new clause would require the Secretary of State to

“take all practicable steps to ensure that the code is fully accessible…and to promote awareness of the code”.

As right hon. and hon. Members will have seen in clauses 6, 8 and 9, we are placing explicit duties on criminal justice agencies to promote awareness of the code among victims and the public. We have placed that duty on agencies rather than the Secretary of State. Because those agencies are the ones in contact with victims day in, day out, they are best placed to raise awareness directly with victims themselves and to shoulder that responsibility.

Outside the Bill, I agree that there is a role for the Government in promoting code awareness. This is why we have committed to raising awareness of the code among practitioners, victims and the general public. For example, we are looking at a Government communications campaign and similar measures to boost that broader reach.

[Sarah Champion]

What language is that campaign in? I am holding up my phone to make a point about access to smartphones and smart technology. Translating all the core documents, which could easily be downloaded on a phone or printed out by an officer or support service, does not seem a particularly complex thing to do, if there is the Government will to make it happen.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. As I say, I am looking at how we might do this, so I am not in a position to make firm commitments to her, other than that I will bear what she says in mind when we get to the point of being able to do something like this. She made a sensible point and, typically, in doing so she also suggested a possible solution.

Accessibility is hugely important. The code, however brilliant it may end up being, is of limited value if people cannot access it to understand it and know how it relates to them. We know that victims not only need to know about the code, but need to understand it. We recognise the importance of that. We are considering carefully how we can ensure that everyone who needs to understand it can do so. I am happy to work with the hon. Member for Rotherham. My meeting agenda over the summer and in September is getting longer and longer, but I am always happy to spend time with her to discuss such matters.

The hon. Lady’s new clause 5 would also give the Secretary of State the power to make regulations prescribing that criminal justice bodies must signpost victims to appropriate support services and must receive appropriate training, including from specialist domestic abuse services. It is absolutely right that victims should be signposted to appropriate support services. Right 4 under the code contains an entitlement for victims to be referred to support services and to have such services tailored to their needs. Through the new duty on criminal justice agencies to take reasonable steps to make victims aware of the code, more victims should be aware of their entitlements.

I turn to training. Agencies already deliver training on the code to their staff to ensure that they are confident and comfortable sharing it. For example, the national policing curriculum uses interactive and group training methods to deliver training in as impactful a way as possible. That is regularly reviewed and updated as necessary.

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady slightly pre-empts my answer. If that information is centrally held, I will endeavour to get it and write to her with it.

I am also pleased that the College of Policing has developed the Domestic Abuse Matters programme, which has already been delivered to the majority of forces. It was developed in conjunction with SafeLives and with input from Women’s Aid.

In addition, the CPS will work with specialist support organisations to develop bespoke trauma-informed training on domestic abuse to help prosecutors to understand the complexities that victims experience in those crimes. Information on domestic abuse and how to recognise the signs and provide support is also available to HMCTS staff. To increase the impact that the training agencies already deliver, we are using statutory guidance to set out advice regarding appropriate training so that staff working with victims are confident in how to share the code sensitively and effectively at the right time for the victim.

We are confident that for both training and accessibility, statutory guidance under the existing code awareness duty is the most flexible and effective approach. It can set standards while allowing agencies to tailor it for the different needs of agencies, staff and victims, and it can be kept up to date more easily, which enables us to take a continuous improvement approach. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley is right to make the point that we can have fantastic guidance and training, but the key thing is to ensure that it is engaged with and that practitioners take the training on board and—I have used this dreadful word a few times—“operationalise” it in their day-to-day work. It is right that independent agencies have the expertise to decide how best to design and deliver training, rather than the requirement sitting with the Secretary of State. We already have provisions in the Bill and additional measures to address the aims of new clause 5, so I encourage the hon. Member for Rotherham not to press it to a Division.

New clause 11 would place a duty on all agencies with victims code responsibilities to monitor and report on compliance, and a duty on the Secretary of State to report annually to Parliament. I am grateful for the debate we have had, and I absolutely agree that we must monitor and report code compliance information. That is vital to understanding whether victims are getting the service they should. As I mentioned in our debate on a previous group of amendments, in 2019-20 only 23% of victims and 22% of the public were aware of the code, and only 45% of victims felt that the police and other criminal justice agencies kept them informed. That is why the Bill already legislates for new duties on code awareness and compliance in clauses 6 to 11. We therefore consider that new clause 11 is already covered by the existing provisions.

[Sarah Champion]

I wonder whether the Minister plans to speak about what enforcement there is if things do not go as he anticipates in the Bill.

[Edward Argar]

Without testing the patience of the Committee, I have a few more points I intend to make before concluding. I hope that some of what I say may well reassure the hon. Lady. If it does not, I am sure she will return to it at some point.

Together, these clauses set out the new code compliance monitoring framework by requiring key criminal justice agencies to keep their compliance with the code under review through collecting, sharing and reviewing compliance information and by reporting to the Secretary of State—either through police and crime commissioners, for local area reporting across agencies, or via separate routes for the national police forces. As has been outlined, those reports will be fed into a national forum where the data is reviewed, and the Secretary of State will publish relevant information to create as much transparency as possible. We are actively considering how often compliance information and data will be shared, and we will include that in the statutory guidance.

Where the amendment differs is in covering all agencies that deliver services under the code. This is a long list and includes bodies for which direct working with victims of crime is not central to their work. We carefully considered which agencies should come under these important but potentially not un-onerous monitoring and reporting responsibilities. We sought to choose key agencies that work day in, day out with victims of crime and have most responsibilities under the code, for example the police, the CPS, the courts, prisons and probation, and youth offending teams. That is where we want to prioritise resourcing to deliver robust local and national oversight. I agree that the Secretary of State reporting annually to the House is a vital part of accountability. We will continue to test and develop proposals for the new national governance forum, and I am open to considering how the findings and outcomes of that forum can best be reported to Parliament to allow parliamentary scrutiny and debate of such measures.

New clause 12 would require the Secretary of State to set victims’ code compliance thresholds by regulations, trigger inspections if thresholds were breached and require inspection reports to be laid before Parliament. I agree that there should be clear standards for the service that victims should receive, and consequences if service falls below that threshold. Our approach to achieving that is related to, but slightly different from, the proposal of the hon. Member for Rotherham. Although we will use regulations to set out what information must be collected to monitor code compliance, we think statutory guidance should cover the important issues that the hon. Lady has raised, such as thresholds that may trigger escalation to address poor performance. That is particularly appropriate for considering performance thresholds, given how the victims’ code sets out entitlements: they are a mix of what victims should receive, or have the opportunity to receive, and how they should be treated. In this context, the quality of communication and delivery really matters.

We will better understand code compliance, including the quality of delivery, by gathering consistent information from a range of different sources, including victim feedback, quantitative data and process narratives to understand how agencies deliver less measurable entitlements. That basket of evidence will hopefully give us a broader picture of how well local areas are delivering the code. The information on code compliance will allow police and crime commissioners to assess where improvements are needed, what agencies’ plans are to drive these improvements and whether those plans are working. Measuring whether standards are improving in this way will be more effective than setting a potentially arbitrary threshold, against each code right, as to what triggers escalation.

Where local solutions fail or greater oversight is required, police and crime commissioners will be able to escalate systemic issues to the national governance forum. I agree that inspections will help to drive change, which is why the inspectorates will be invited to attend the national governance forum. When systemic issues and poor performance are identified at a national level, that will be an opportunity to use the powers that we have introduced in the Bill for Ministers to direct a joint victim-focused inspection in areas that are consistently not delivering or to examine a range of issues that are clearly challenging in a number of areas, rather than requiring an inspection for each individual breach. In cases where there are individual breaches, there are, of course, complaints processes, and the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman can take appropriate actions to identify the most appropriate route for redress.

Finally, with regard to laying a report in Parliament, inspection reports are already published. As I have said, I am open to considering how the national governance forum reports and work can be fed into Parliament, and I will work with the hon. Member for Rotherham and others across the House to ensure that we get this right. I hope that that gives the hon. Lady some reassurance.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 11 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Fay Jones.)

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Seventh sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 29th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Before we begin, I should say that it is still very warm in the room, so people are welcome to take jackets, cardigans or whatever off—I do not want people collapsing on me.

Clause 2

The victims’ code

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 4, in clause 2, page 2, line 25, at end insert—

“(3A) The victims’ code must—

(a) require criminal justice bodies to take all reasonable steps to identify and record any change of name by a perpetrator, and

(b) require criminal justice bodies to inform a relevant victim when a perpetrator changes their name.

(3B) For the purposes of subsection (3A)—

‘perpetrator’ means a person whose conduct or alleged conduct results in another person being a victim as defined by section 1 of this Act;

‘relevant victim’ means a person who becomes a victim as a result of the perpetrator’s conduct.”

This amendment would require criminal justice bodies to monitor name changes of perpetrators and inform victims of any name changes.

The amendment is about sex offenders who are changing their names to avoid detection. As of yesterday, it had been signed by 24 MPs from five different parties, including a former Home Secretary. I hope hon. Members, and particularly the Minister, will take on board the severity of the consequences of this practice, which is happening daily across the country.

For nearly three years, I have been raising this serious safeguarding loophole. Registered sex offenders are changing their names without the knowledge of the police, and I will evidence that as I go on. Unless that loophole is closed, it will continue to make complete nonsense of the schemes on which the public rely to detect offenders: the sex offenders register, the child sex offender disclosure scheme, the domestic violence disclosure scheme and the Disclosure and Barring Service. Of course, a number of these schemes are named for victims and survivors. The domestic violence disclosure scheme is also known as Clare’s law—it enables someone to check whether their new partner has a history of domestic violence offences—and the child sex offender disclosure scheme is also known as Sarah’s law. All these schemes become redundant if the offender changes their name.

It is breaking the law for registered sex offenders to change their name. They are meant to notify the police within three days of doing so. That is very clear, but it relies on a registered sex offender—someone who, by their very nature, looks for vulnerabilities in systems that they can exploit—to do the right, honourable and legal thing and to tell the police that they have changed their name. I say to hon. Members that that is as likely to happen as—well, I don’t know, but something that is very, very unlikely to happen. And the evidence backs that up.

For those three years, I have been raising this issue with Ministers in both the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. So far, as a consequence of that, there have been two reviews, but it has been decided that they should be internal. I understand the reasons for that—we do not want to give sex offenders a handbook on how to do these things—but nothing has been published about any changes that have happened as a consequence of those reviews, and we should all be deeply concerned about that. If the Minister can tell me today that changes have been put in place, and it is just that we have not been notified, I will be very comfortable with that and very reassured; I will say that the Minister is doing his job by ensuring that these things happen. So I look forward to his reply.

The issue is not just sex offenders changing their name; they are also meant to notify changes of address—changes of personal details. These are referred to as notification requirements. The issue currently is that, when they do not inform the police about changing their name, they literally disappear. I raised this loophole with my former district commander, and he did not even know about it. He said to me, “Sarah, how am I meant to catch someone who has breached their notification requirements, when I don’t know who they are?” That is a very good point. This is not “Luther”—or whatever other detective show it is that we watch—where there is this great, amazing database and all these CCTV images, and it is possible to track all these thousands of people. It just does not work like that. We rely on people doing the right thing, but unfortunately sex offenders rarely do.

In response to my written parliamentary questions, the Home Office confirmed that more than 16,000 offenders were charged with breach of their notification requirements between 2015 and 2020—in that five-year period, 16,000 were charged. But, again, we have to know who they are to be able to charge them, so the true scale will be much bigger. The Safeguarding Alliance freedom of information request to the Crown Prosecution Service found that over 11,500 registered sex offenders were prosecuted for failing to notify changes of information between 2019 and 2022. I need to say, for transparency, that the breach could have been for a change of name or other details—for example, a change of address—but it is still concerning that they are not notifying these things.

Although it is clear that offenders are changing their names and not disclosing their new name to the police, the exact scale remains impossible to capture. New data secured by the BBC a couple of months ago demonstrates the same ongoing pattern, allowing offenders to slip through the cracks. Over 700 registered sex offenders have gone missing in the last three years. It is highly likely that they breached their notification requirements without getting caught, making them an active risk to the public. I am sorry, but there is not the rehabilitation that we need for sex offenders, and they continue their pattern of behaviour. However, only 31 of the 45 police forces responded to the BBC FOIs, so the scale will be much bigger than we know.

Della Wright is an ambassador for the Safeguarding Alliance and a survivor of child sexual abuse. I have worked with Della and the Safeguarding Alliance throughout, on both this amendment and raising the risks, and I am incredibly grateful to them for all the help and support they have given. Della has bravely chosen to speak out and tell her story in support of so many other victims affected by this serious safeguarding loophole. I pay huge credit to her; her tenacious campaigning is what brought this issue to public attention and, initially, to me.

When Della was a child, a man came to live in her home, becoming one of her primary carers and repeatedly sexually abusing her. Years later, when Della reported the abuse, her abuser was already known to the police; he had committed many further sexual offences against many more children. During that time, Della was made aware that his name had changed. He changed his name at least five times, enabling him to relocate under the radar and to evade justice.

When Della’s case was finally brought to court, her abuser had once again changed his name—this was between being charged and appearing in court for the plea hearing. That is not uncommon, and it slows down the whole court process, because the court papers need to be issued in the new name. That places additional distress on the victim and makes a complete mockery of the court justice system. Just think how tightly packed the court system is; on the day, the court will have to pull the case and try to find another spot, which inevitably puts trauma on the victim. The victim will have been working for months with their independent domestic violence adviser or independent sexual violence adviser, friends and family to get them to a point where they can be a witness, and then, on the day, the case gets dropped because someone can change their name.

At this point, let me just pause and say that, by the time I finish this speech, any hon. Members here could have changed their name legally. It can be done online for free. There is an enrolled and an unenrolled deed poll. I think the enrolled is £45, and it then gets published. I completely understand why a victim of domestic violence or stalking might not want to go on that. There is also the unenrolled, where it costs on average about £10—but it can be done for free—to change a name.

Sadly, Della’s case is far from unique, and I imagine that a number of Members here will have had survivors in their constituency come to them. There are survivors who have discovered that their abusers have reoffended, but it is discovered that they are using a different name only once they have been caught. My amendment would require criminal justice agencies to actively monitor name changes by perpetrators, including before their trial, so that victims can remain informed. That could prevent a lot of trauma for victims, help to reduce the number of offenders going missing and help us to put in the associated safeguarding.

I thank the Clerks for their help in drafting this amendment. Up to this point, I have focused on the people who are already on the registered sex offenders list; they are a known risk to us. However, police forces around the country have alerted me to the common practice of offenders of changing their name at the point of, or just before, being charged. They do that to keep their birth name clean so that if they are charged or convicted under the new name, at the end of the process they can revert to their original name and have a clean record. I did not realise that that was a common thing. There is also the issue of people with dual nationality who do that. If they hand over their passport as a condition of pre-charge bail, they will still have their original passport in their original name. Such a practice is a real, live risk.

When someone is investigated before they are charged, we have pre-charge bail conditions. When someone is accused of such grievous offences, which they are likely to continue, I do not think it is in any way a violation of their human rights—or whatever the argument is that is going to be put—if one of those pre-charge bail conditions is that they cannot change their name. Obviously, if the investigation goes forward and the charges are dropped, those conditions would be dropped. Once that person is off the sex offenders register, that requirement would be dropped. Given the gravity of the offences that they are accused of and the likelihood of their perpetuating them, that is something we should take seriously to protect everyone.

I have spoken a lot about sex offenders, but the amendment could, at the Minister’s discretion, cover other offenders too. One notable example I am sure everybody is familiar with is Colin Pitchfork—a rapist and murderer who changed his name. I raise this example to show that, although we might be familiar with a case, we might not know about someone changing their name. When we look at local papers, it is quite common to see “aka” and that people are changing their names on a regular basis.

Families deserve to know if their relative’s murderer is living under a new name, because that at least guards against the trauma of relatives not knowing that that person has been released, for example. Sadly, in the cases I know, Facebook seems to be the most common way that people find out about this.

I think the reason that Ministers have not acted on this issue to date is not that they do not understand the risks—when I have raised it with them, they have all understood the risks—but because it goes into the “too difficult” drawer. I get that; this is messy, and there are likely to be some associated costs. So I have tried to find a solution for the Minister.

[Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech on an incredibly serious matter, which other hon. Members have raised. She supported the ten-minute rule Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher), and the matter was also raised on Second Reading by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), so I know that colleagues feel very strongly about it. The hon. Lady mentioned that it is put into the “too difficult” drawer”. May I urge the Minister through her to ensure that that is not the case? Although this issue might be difficult, that does not mean that we should not tackle it.

[Sarah Champion]

I very much hope that the Minister has heard that. This is an issue that, when we start looking for it, we start finding it. The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) came to it after a constituency case, and we have been working together to try to find a solution. I am sure that all of us will have examples; we just do not necessarily know what is going on at the time.

Experian and RELX believe that their business model uses enough data to track offenders if the police ask them to, and the police are currently asking them to on other areas of concern. For example, if the offender created a new mobile phone account or started registering bills to a new name, Experian and RELX could then inform the police of that pattern of behaviour. There are solutions to this problem if we have the will to implement them. More than that, we already have a solution in place: the College of Policing’s guidance states that police can take pre-emptive action where an offender is likely to change their identity or leave the country—and I suggest to the Minister that almost every sex offender is likely to change their name if they think they can get away with it.

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[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I really thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue, because she is highlighting things that I think many hon. Members are unaware of, as indeed are many organisations that work with vulnerable people and children. What she says is so serious that the Minister cannot fail to agree to take it on board.

[Sarah Champion]

I am a Back-Bench MP, yet I know just from my own digging that this is about tens of thousands of people. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: organisations that work with children and vulnerable people think that they are doing the right safeguarding things by getting a DBS check.

[Janet Daby]

They are being deceived.

[Sarah Champion]

They are being deceived, and we are all being deceived. The confidence that a DBS check should give us is not there: it does not exist while this loophole exists.

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a fantastic point. Does she agree that we should not restrict this to driving licences or passports? It should include citizenship cards—in fact, perhaps we should use the term “any form of identification that is used”.

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[Sarah Champion]

The hon. Lady makes a really good point. A number of people have come to me and said that the social security number is the way to go, because that number follows us through our life. It seems a really sensible way forward. I do not have the resources to look into it and check, but the Minister might be able to do some research. I genuinely do not know whether the Government’s internal reviews have flagged this as a logical way forward. It seems sensible to me, but they have not shared that information with us at all. That is what I am saying: we might already have those trackers on us if necessary, but the Home Office has not told us what it has done with the internal reviews. At the moment I am going on the knowledge that I have, and the gaps in that knowledge.

One thing I do know is that police guidance gives the police the right to put markers on file for passport and driving licence applications. However, it also states:

“To avoid unnecessary or high volumes of requests to these agencies, enquiries should be limited”.

I say to the Minister that the case of a registered sex offender is an example where the police should be given free rein to put those markers on and to follow up any cases in which files are flagged. I get it that there is a cost when a police officer looks into flagged cases, but where a registered sex offender applies for a passport or driving licence in a new name, enabling them to get a clean DBS check, the risk is so great that I think it deserves an hour or so of a police officer’s time and the associated costs.

[Janet Daby]

I am sitting here, listening intently to every word my hon. Friend is saying, and getting more annoyed. I would perceive not dealing with this as negligence.

[Sarah Champion]

I believe that is the right word. Surely a Government’s duty is to safeguard citizens; to know the scale of this problem and that there is a solution but not to act is to be negligent. I withhold that allegation from the Minister, because I know he is a good man who wants to do the right thing.

I was first contacted about this three years ago by a journalist. It is not that I thought they were having a laugh; I thought they were wrong—that this could not possibly be true. Then I looked into it. As my hon. Friend knows, I get obsessed about certain things, and I am obsessed about this because it worries me. While this loophole remains, every system we have in place to safeguard the vulnerable is undermined. I believe that this form of electronic marking must be mandatory for all registered sex offenders. That would help criminal justice bodies to keep track of offenders who were trying to change their name secretly, rather than having to rely on offenders doing the right thing and notifying them.

The hon. Member for Bolsover argued that registered sex offenders should be banned from changing their name. I have sympathy with that view and want the Minister to reflect long and hard on it. Sentencing allows other rights to be withdrawn, so that may well be something that the Minister should be looking into.

And that, Minister, is that. I hope that I have made a convincing argument. I know that the Minister is aware of this issue, and I hope he is able to find some way to work with me and others to close this loophole. It cannot go on any longer.

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On that basis, I hope the hon. Lady will not press her amendment to a Division at this point, but will accept the invitation to work with me and see if we can find a way to address the issue.

[Sarah Champion]

I know that the Minister takes his brief incredibly seriously and recognises the severity of the consequences as things currently stand. I think he has also heard the degree of support within this room—and, I am quite sure, within the House—to do something quite dramatic to close this loophole. I will therefore gladly accept his offer, but I really need to see something different on the face of the Bill at a later stage, because we have to do something.

[Edward Argar]

Because of the nature of the parliamentary Session and the carry-over, we will have a period between this Bill’s leaving Committee and its returning to the Floor of the House on Report, which I suspect will happen around Christmas time, given uncertainty over the timing of the King’s Speech. I am happy to use that period to work with the hon. Lady to see whether we can find a way forward ahead of Report stage.

[Sarah Champion]

I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley.

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

I feel certain that between the heads of the people in this Committee Room, some progress on this issue could no doubt be made. The area where I have concerns—not only because of my own brief—is that Home Office Ministers need to be brought on board, because this relates to Home Office policy. Will my hon. Friend seek from the Minister a commitment that the Home Office might take part in some of this work?

[Sarah Champion]

The Minister can address sentences and conditions, but we absolutely need the Home Office on board.

[Edward Argar]

indicated assent.

[Sarah Champion]

With the Minister’s nodded confirmation that that will happen, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Sarah Champion]

I beg to move amendment 53, in clause 2, page 2, line 25, at end insert—

“(3A) The victims’ code must make provision about pre-trial therapy for victims, including—

(a) a requirement that all criminal justice agencies inform victims of their right to pre-trial therapy, and

(b) a requirement that the Crown Prosecution Service annually review their pre-trial therapy guidance and its implementation.”

This amendment would include in the victims’ code a requirement to inform all victims of their right to access pre-trial therapy, and require the CPS to annually review the implementation of pre-trial therapy guidance.

The amendment is about access to pre-trial therapy, around which there are currently so many problems—particularly for victims and survivors of sexual offences. My former constituent contacted me a couple of years ago after she raised a complaint with the police regarding how she was treated throughout the criminal justice system. In 2011 to 2012, she reported her child abuse to South Yorkshire police. In her email to me, she wrote:

“After I had completed my video evidence, the officers told me it would complicate the trial if I sought any mental health support and to wait until it was over. That took 18 months, 18 of the most difficult months when I was emotionally abused and outcast by family for reporting the abuse. I had nowhere to turn, needed to see a psychologist for support and I was utterly traumatized. Today, I suffer from post-traumatic stress from that trial and feel that was related to being denied my human right of access to mental health support. If the police denied anyone cancer treatment during court proceedings, there would be uproar. We need to see mental health in the same way.”

She goes on:

“Despite it not being illegal to see a counsellor, it appears to be more convenient for the police if one is not seen. When someone in such an immense position of trust indicates it would be better not to see a counsellor, the victim is so vulnerable and so strongly lead by the police that I fear that it will continue, even if off record.”

[Jess Phillips]

I agree with everything my hon. Friend is saying. The week before last, I was in court with a victim of child sexual violence—she is no longer a child; she is now 22—who had waited seven years for her trial. As in the case that my hon. Friend has highlighted, she was not allowed to access mental health support for seven years, from the ages of 13 to 22.

[Sarah Champion]

Sadly, this is standard practice; systemic change is needed. Receiving counselling or mental health support should not be seen to make a victim an unreliable witness, which is what it feels as though the police believe. That culture within the criminal justice agencies perpetuates victim blaming. I hope that the threshold will be raised, so that there is a presumption against disclosure of mental health records as evidence in court. I think we will come to that in a later amendment.

I am relieved that the Minister is trying to tackle the use of counselling notes through new clause 4, which we will debate later in our proceedings, but it is vital that we also ensure that access to pre-trial therapy is also on the face of the Bill. My amendment is essential, as it would require the Crown Prosecution Service to review the implementation of its pre-trial therapy guidance. If the guidance is not effectively rolled out among prosecutors and officers, they should respond accordingly.

I think the current situation is a fundamental misunderstanding by the police, who are trying to do the right thing—get a prosecution—by trying to prevent victims’ counselling notes or victims being seen to be coached in any way before the trial, so that that cannot be used against them and unravel the case. The Minister is aware that that is not the case; people are able to access such provision. Former Secretaries of State and the CPS have confirmed to me that victims can access pre-trial therapy, but unless it is on the face of the Bill and in the victims code that that is their right, the myth perpetuates and it is having a very damaging effect on victims.

[Anna McMorrin]

I support and endorse much of what my hon. Friend has stated on access to mental health services. I speak to many victims and survivors each week who are so traumatised by the current process, given the state that the justice system is in and the delays that they are facing—week upon week, month upon month, year upon year, waiting for their day in court, but with no access to support, going through the trauma day after day after day. I add my support to the essence of the points made by my hon. Friend.

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[Edward Argar]

My right hon. and learned Friend is right to highlight the importance of this point. On the big picture of court backlogs, it is important to remember that 90% of cases are dealt with in magistrates courts swiftly. It is the serious cases, such as those we are discussing, that are sent to the Crown court, and that is where we do see delays. There has been investment in Nightingale courtrooms—a new sort of super-court, if I can put it that way—just up the road from my constituency, in Loughborough. We are implementing a range of measures to tackle the backlog. He is absolutely right that the timeliness of a case being heard is a key factor in a victim sticking with the process and being able to give their best evidence. He is also right that the longer the delay, the greater the temptation to seek more “evidence”, more documents, over that period. Timeliness is hugely important.

We will also continue to take action to ensure that victims are not put off from seeking support due to fear that their therapy notes may be unnecessarily accessed as part of a criminal investigation, including through the proposed Government amendment that was alluded to, which will place a duty on police to request third-party materials that may include pre-trial therapy notes only when necessary and proportionate to the investigation.

[Sarah Champion]

I want to explore the Minister’s phrase about victims giving their “best evidence” in court. I have tried to get to the bottom of what is going on in the minds of the police. I think they see victims of crime as witnesses, rather than victims in their own right. They are trying to protect the evidence, effectively, to get the conviction that they want. The police need to understand that a well-supported victim is able to give the best evidence, because they have confidence and clarity of mind, and the support of knowing that there is someone there who has got their back. The reason I am arguing for a provision in the Bill—perhaps under an expansion of what specialist services means; I am happy if it is in the guidance—is to make the police aware that there is no chilling effect from a victim having pre-trial therapy.

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. I think progress is being made. In saying that, I point to, for example, the work being done through Operation Soteria. I pay tribute to the work of Chief Constable Sarah Crew and her officers in Avon and Somerset, and there are others working on these issues around the country, trying to change that understanding. There is of course more to do, which is why the hon. Lady has brought forward the amendment, but I see some encouraging signs, particularly in the work that Sarah has been leading.

The second part of the amendment would place a requirement on the Crown Prosecution Service to annually review the implementation of pre-trial therapy guidance. I reassure the hon. Lady that the Crown Prosecution Service already has a robust compliance and assurance regime across all its areas, which includes specific questions on consideration of the privacy rights of victims. The CPS is also a key part of Operation Soteria. Next month, the CPS will relaunch its individual quality assessment guidance, which is its assurance tool to make sure it is delivering high-quality casework. That will include additional information on consideration of a victim’s privacy rights during an investigation, which I hope will help bring consistency across the CPS.

I urge the hon. Lady not to press the amendment to a Division, as I do not believe that including this measure in the Bill is necessarily the best approach. As I have said a number of times, I am happy to work with her in respect of the code, the consultation and how we might draw this out a bit more clearly, but also on an operational basis more broadly. I suspect that we may be spending a lot of time together over the summer and coming months, given the number of commitments I have made to work with her. There may be ways that we can also work with colleagues at the Home Office, the police and others to make sure that what is already there is fully understood and operationalised.

[Sarah Champion]

Given those assurances, I will withdraw the amendment. I agree with the Minister that it is about the first or second community officer someone speaks to—that seems to be where the misunderstanding is, so we have to find a way to filter the message down down. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Anna McMorrin]

I beg to move amendment 64, in clause 2, page 2, line 25, at end insert—

“(3A) The victims’ code must provide that victims must be informed of their rights under section 63 (Special measures in family proceedings: victims of domestic abuse) of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.”

I am incredibly grateful to be here today to discuss what I believe is a national scandal: what is going on in family courts across the country. Before speaking to the amendment, I want to set out the context. Cases of domestic abuse, rape and child sexual abuse are still routinely dismissed or minimised—so much so that support services are now dissuading victims from disclosing abuse or child sexual abuse for fear of accusations of parental alienation, which will result in children being removed from a safe parent.

What is clear is that family courts are continuing to breed a culture that promotes contact with those who have been accused of abuse. Survivors of domestic or coercive abuse are facing counter-allegations of parental alienation as a stock response to their own abuse allegations, which is shocking. Courts have continued to instruct unregulated experts who are connected with the parental alienation lobby and who are known for dismissing domestic abuse victims. As a result, unsafe decisions are being made, with sometimes catastrophic consequences for child contact. We are now hearing of more and more cases of protective parents—most commonly the mother—losing all access to their children, who are instead placed with the abusive parent. Just last week at the UN Human Rights Council, Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, said:

“The tendency of family courts to dismiss the history of domestic violence and abuse in custody cases, especially where mothers and/or children have brought forward credible allegations of domestic abuse, including coercive control, physical or sexual abuse, is unacceptable.”

The Government’s harm panel report in 2020 was meant to address many of these issues, but progress has been slow. It is three years this week since that report was published, and the situation is now critical. Many vulnerable victims and children are being dragged by their perpetrator through the family courts and a system that has no understanding of the abuse that a victim and their children have faced and continue to face.

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[Anna McMorrin]

I absolutely agree, and that gets to the core of the point I am making. Domestic abuse is the central issue in private law children’s proceedings in family courts, and evidence shows that allegations of domestic abuse are present in at least half of all such proceedings. A study by the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service published in 2021 found domestic abuse allegations in 62% of cases and that special measures in those cases were not being upheld.

Earlier this week, I met Dr Charlotte Proudman, a barrister who specialises in family law at Goldsmith Chambers. She has worked with many survivors and victims of domestic abuse, taking their cases to appeal and being successful when she does so, which shows that there is a problem. Her dedication to those mothers has brought hope to many women and survivors of domestic abuse, but it should not take going to appeal or having a barrister take a case to appeal, or overturning those cases, to expose the problems in the family courts.

The rights of victims of domestic abuse under section 63 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 are not implemented consistently or, even worse, they are not informed of those rights at any point in the process. Many of the survivors report suffering, revictimisation and retraumatisation caused by the family justice system. It is clear that the special measures introduced in the 2021 Act have made no difference whatsoever to victims’ experiences on the ground. There is an opportunity in this Bill to change that and to strengthen the victims code to place a duty on agencies to inform domestic abuse survivors of their rights under section 63, “Special measures in family proceedings: victims of domestic abuse” of the 2021 Act. I hope the Minister agrees that we should put this in the code to overturn what is happening now.

[Sarah Champion]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the nub of the problem is the total lack of transparency—I would go so far as to say the secrecy—around family courts? We are unable to do our job of scrutinising whether rights are offered or special measures are given, so it is only when an acute case gets into the public domain that we find out about these failings, so I support her amendment.

[Anna McMorrin]

That is absolutely part of the problem: we cannot see what is going on here, and that is why it is important that we are here discussing this issue. This is a vital debate, and I know many survivors and victims will be looking on keenly at our debate and how the Minister responds. They will take hope from the fact that we can do something about this absolute tragedy and travesty happening in our family court system to survivors and children.

Provision for special measures in family proceedings is made in part 3A of the Family Procedure Rules 2010, supported by practice direction 3AA. Those rules provide that victims of domestic abuse and other parties or witnesses are eligible for special measures in their proceedings if the court is satisfied that the quality of their evidence or their ability to participate in the proceedings is likely to be diminished due to their vulnerability. The court needs to consider a wide range of matters to assess whether a victim is vulnerable before determining whether any special measures are necessary to assist them.

The Family Procedure Rules 2010 state there is a duty on the court to identify whether a party is vulnerable by virtue of being a complainant or victim and if so, what participation directions they need in order to ensure they can effectively participate in proceedings and give their best evidence. The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 assists by making it clear—in statute, which is important—that that is a requirement in the family courts. If the court fails to address the issue of special measures, the court has failed in its duties and the judgment is likely to be successfully appealed. It is a requirement under the rules to hold a ground rules hearing in each case to determine what special measures are required. That is simply not happening in family courts at all.

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[Anna McMorrin]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. Evidence from Women’s Aid still shows that survivors are disbelieved. Children have continued to be forced into unsafe contact arrangements with abusive parents, and perpetrators have continued to use child arrangement proceedings as a form of post-separation abuse. It is vital that the right support is signposted and that survivors are able to access that support. Parental alienation allegations in the family courts mean that many survivors of domestic abuse and coercive control are themselves made out to be the perpetrator. That has to stop.

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield raised a case where social services had parental responsibility for a baby whose parents were horrifically abusing it. The judge in the family court overruled the recommendation of the social services team to have a six-month integration period. The baby was put back with the family within six weeks, and it was dead in a couple of days. In his reply, will the Minister talk about access to the victims code for someone who is not themselves a victim but for someone with responsibility for a child?

[The Chair]

I remind Members to stick to the wording of the amendment.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Fifth sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We will now start line-by-line consideration of the Bill. Hansard would be grateful if you could email any speaking notes to [e-mail], or pass them to the Hansard colleague present. The selection list for today’s sitting is available in the room. It shows how the selected amendments have been grouped together for debate. 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 list shows the order of debates. Decisions on each amendment will be taken when we come to the clause to which it relates. Decisions on new clauses will be taken once we have completed consideration of the Bill’s existing clauses. 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.

Clause 1

Meaning of “victim”

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 2, in clause 1, page 1, line 16, at end insert—

“(e) where the person has experienced, or made allegations that they have experienced—

(i) sexual abuse, sexual harassment or sexual misconduct, or

(ii) bullying or harassment not falling within paragraph (i).”

This amendment would extend the definition of “victim” to include someone who has experienced, or made allegations that they have experienced, sexual abuse, sexual harassment or sexual misconduct, or other bullying or harassment.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 3, in clause 2, page 2, line 25, at end insert—

“(3A) The victims’ code must make provision in relation to people who have experienced, or made allegations that they have experienced—

(a) sexual abuse, sexual harassment or sexual misconduct, or

(b) bullying or harassment not falling within paragraph (a).

(3B) Provision under subsection (3A) must include—

(a) provision relating to the enforcement of non-disclosure agreements signed by such victims, and

(b) provision about legal advice and other support for such victims in cases where they are asked to sign, or have signed, a non-disclosure agreement.

(3C) In this section—

‘non-disclosure agreement’ means an agreement which purports to any extent to preclude a victim from—

(a) publishing information about a relevant complaint, or

(b) disclosing information about the relevant complaint to any one or more other persons;

‘misconduct’ means—

(a) sexual abuse, sexual harassment or sexual misconduct, and

(b) bullying or harassment not falling within paragraph (a); and

‘relevant complaint’ means a complaint relating to misconduct or alleged misconduct by any person.”

This amendment would require the victims’ code to include specific provision for people who have experienced, or made allegations that they have experienced, sexual abuse, sexual harassment or sexual misconduct, or other bullying or harassment.

[Sarah Champion]

I appreciate the opportunity to serve under your guidance once again, Sir Edward. I rise to speak in support of amendments 2 and 3, tabled by the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran). It is important that the Bill aims to improve end-to-end support for victims of crime and to amplify victims’ voices in the criminal justice system. The amendments focus on a widespread practice that disempowers victims and silences their voices: non-disclosure agreements. NDAs are contracts that were created to protect trade secrets, but when used incorrectly they become secret settlement contracts used to buy the silence of a victim or whistleblower. They have become the default solution for organisations, corporations and public bodies to settle cases of sexual misconduct, racism, pregnancy discrimination and other human rights violations.

In some cases, those in charge do not even realise that an NDA was used. NDAs have become boilerplate contractual language for so many organisations, and they are extremely harmful. They most often protect an employer’s reputation and the career of the perpetrator, not the victim, who could be protected by a simple one-sided confidentiality clause. They prevent a victim from speaking out and accessing the support they need by preventing them from reporting, speaking to family and friends about their experiences, or warning others. In one case of a university student who signed a gagging clause after she had been sexually assaulted, the agreement was so poorly explained that she took it to mean that she could not even speak to her own GP.

We have had this discussion many times before, specifically in relation to a different piece of legislation: the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, an amendment to which, tabled by Lord Collins of Highbury, sought to restrict universities from using NDAs in cases of harassment and bullying. The Government accepted that amendment. I and many others who have campaigned on this issue were delighted that students gained that protection in the 2023 Act. If students should be protected from NDAs and gagging clauses, why would the same not apply to other victims? Amendments 2 and 3, tabled by the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon, are intended to do ensure that it will.

Amendment 2 would expand the definition of a victim to expressly include victims of harassment, including sexual abuse, sexual harassment, sexual misconduct or other forms of bullying. Amendment 3 would then make provision in the victims code for those victims relating to non-disclosure agreements. The language of the amendments was drawn from the 2023 Act—language that the Government have already agreed to. As I said, the protection should not be limited to students; every victim deserves the right to speak out.

We have a golden opportunity with the Bill to enshrine in law the principle that no victim should be silenced, prevented from speaking out about their experiences and scared away from vital support services. There is support across the House for these changes—I refer to amendment 1, tabled by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller)—and I hope that the Minister will accept the amendments, seize the moment, take firm action and stamp out this practice once and for all.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir Edward. I hope the Minister will consider accepting these amendments. I can well see that he might have some concerns about what he may see as an open-ended extension of the definition of victims. I can see that, in the position he is in—deciding on policy—he may come to the view that a line has to be drawn somewhere when we define victims.

The Bill’s current definition does extend to a wide range of people, and there are other amendments and concerns that may extend that definition to an even wider range. As somebody who has been in the Minister’s position, making policy decisions about where a line ought to be drawn in the middle of a grey area, I understand that there is a natural tendency to resist. I hope he will resist that natural tendency in this particular instance, because my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham has made a compelling case and the amendments are important.

One of the worst aspects of being subjected to this kind of behaviour is not being able to talk about it afterwards. One understands why an employer would like to obtain a non-disclosure agreement. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham said, it has become a standard clause that anybody negotiating such a settlement on behalf of the employer would stick into every agreement in any instance; I imagine they are all drafted on computer systems ready to be simply splurged out at the drop of a hat. But the consequence for the individual who is signing up to the agreement—not always, as my hon. Friend has made clear, with the full information about what the legal implications are, and what they do and do not cover—can be extremely damaging, not only in the immediate aftermath of such an agreement, but possibly for years into the future.

Surely the Minister will accept, as I am sure you would, Sir Edward—although not in this Committee, of course—that the whole point of the victims code is to try to minimise the impact on victims by giving rights and access to provisions that enable them to recover swiftly from whatever it is that they have undergone that ends up causing them an issue. That is surely the very definition of what the victims code is meant to be doing. It would therefore be an omission if the amendments were not accepted.

Although I fully understand the concerns the Minister might have about extending the pool of people who may fall into the definition in the legislation, it would be remiss of the Government to exclude this particular group, who really do need such assistance. I hope that he will have something positive to say to us about these amendments when he gets to his feet.

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[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady. I do not want to test the Committee’s patience too much with the amount of notes that I have, but I will come to her point. I hope that I can give her a little succour in terms of her asks of me in her speech.

I reassure Members that if anybody suffers harm as a result of sexual abuse, bullying or harassment, where that behaviour amounts to criminal conduct it is already covered by the definition of a victim in part 1 of the Bill. Therefore amendment 1, which would include those individuals explicitly in the definition, could be deemed unnecessary, as they are already covered. However, I will turn to amendment 1 in my final remarks.

Amendments 2 and 3 seek to go further to include those who have experienced behaviour that may be covered by a non-disclosure agreement but which is not criminal. As the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood alluded to, that would expand the definition. We are clear that we have to strike the appropriate balance in drawing the definition in a way that is practical and functional but that does not exclude those who we feel should be included. Part 1 of the Bill seeks to restrict the definition to victims of crime, and we believe that that is the right approach. However, I suspect we will debate on the coming amendments and over the course of today whether that balance has been struck and whether that line has been drawn in the right place. We may disagree on some elements; I expect we will explore that further today.

The relevant definition of a victim is focused on improving support services for victims of crime and increasing oversight to drive up standards of criminal justice agencies working with victims of crime. That does not mean that individuals who have suffered as a result of behaviour that is not criminal, albeit harmful, are prevented from seeking support. Outside the provisions in the Bill, they can still access support services where those are available to them.

Amendment 3 would require the victims code to include provisions for those who have experienced or made allegations that they have experienced sexual abuse, sexual harassment or sexual misconduct, or other bullying or harassment. It would also require the code to include provisions for those who have signed NDAs for those incidents.

It is vital that the victims code works for different types of victims. The code covers a wide range of entitlements for victims of different crimes and with different needs. To give us the broadest flexibility to serve the changing needs of victims without having to amend primary legislation, we have not explicitly listed entitlements or specific provisions for particular types of victims in the Bill, as the amendment would do. Instead, we have placed the overarching principles of the victims code in primary legislation and specified that the code can provide different entitlements for different types of victims.

We believe that is the right approach to allow the flexibility to amend the code and to reduce the risk of inadvertently excluding some groups of victims or the relevant provision that the code should make for them. The Bill as presently drafted means that the code could include provision about the matters referenced in the amendment, where they relate to victims of behaviour that amounts to criminal conduct. We have committed to consult on an updated victims code after the passage of the Bill. As mentioned on Second Reading, I am open to working with Members on whether we can go further in that respect.

I appreciate the points made by the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood, by the shadow Minister the hon. Member for Cardiff North, and by the hon. Member for Rotherham and the sponsors of the amendments. Therefore, although I encourage the hon. Member for Rotherham not to press the amendments to a Division at the moment, I am happy to work with her and other hon. and right hon. Members, including those who support the amendments, to explore further before we reach Report stage whether there might be something we can do to help address their concerns.

As I say, I do not believe that amendments 2 and 3 as drafted are the right approach. I am looking carefully at the issues addressed by amendment 1. I am not in a position to make any firm commitments at this point, other than to work with the hon. Member for Rotherham and others to further explore this important issue. With that, I hope that she will consider not pressing this amendment to a Division.

[Sarah Champion]

I thank the Minister very much for his welcome words. I echo the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood about the chilling effect of NDAs, and the lack of awareness of victims. That is at the nub of what we are trying to address.

I know there is a lot of interest in this issue across the House, so I will withdraw the amendment so that we can debate it on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Anna McMorrin]

I beg to move amendment 10, in clause 1, page 1, line 16, at end insert—

“(e) where the person has experienced anti-social behaviour, as defined by section 2 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2014, and the conditions necessary for an ASB case review under section 104 of that Act have been met.”.

This amendment would include victims of anti-social behaviour in the definition of a victim.

As the Committee may be aware, our sessions in Committee will run over ASB Awareness Week, which is poignant. It is quite disappointing to be here today, fighting once again to have antisocial behaviour victims protected in the Bill.

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[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I am interested to hear what the Minister says in response, and I hope he will take on board what hon. Members said about the changes since the previous Lord Chancellor, who was quite outspoken about these issues, was in post. It is important to investigate whether the real issue is the implementation of the existing legislation and guidance, or whether it a lack of legislation, which we can fix here.

I have been sat here thinking about how slow and clunky this place is; it has taken so long to get to this Bill. I have had two children quicker than some Government projects have been completed. It takes forever. I have also been thinking about how creative antisocial behaviour has been getting recently, and about the TikTok videos showing youngsters storming into people’s houses, often with gangs of people. That would be a one-off incident, so presumably it would not reach the threshold of the community trigger, but it leaves a victim in its wake. I also understand—please correct me if I am wrong, Minister—that trespass is not criminal if someone storms into a house but it is pre-arranged. That it is very scary, but we possibly would not reach the threshold for the victims code.

I want to know that the Department is thinking through the rise of social media, the way that TikTok is being used and how gangs of people try to harass and attack people. If this legislation is a way to address this social media stuff, which the public are pretty outraged by, we need to think that through. I want to hear that the Department has gone through case studies and interrogated to see whether a change of legislation is appropriate, or whether the Department is still satisfied that what is available would deal with this latest nonsense, because this will not stop. There will be new ways of getting at people. People called Wizzy or Mizzy or something like that will try to get their ridiculous little videos, but there are victims in the wake of those videos, so I am interested to hear the Minister’s views.

[Sarah Champion]

I want to build on the points that have been made. I will start with those made by the right hon. and learned Member for North East Herefordshire—

[Sir Oliver Heald]

Hertfordshire.

[Sarah Champion]

I apologise—Google is not what it used to be.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

Google is not that broad.

[Sarah Champion]

We are off to a bad start now, aren’t we?

Some levels of antisocial behaviour are a crime, so they would immediately fall within the proposals, but many victims of antisocial behaviour are not covered by the victims code, which means that they do not have access to the support and information found in it. In particular, that means that they do not have the right to be referred to support services and that PCCs face spending restrictions on victims funding for antisocial behaviour support services as a consequence. The cumulative nature of what would be seen as low-level annoyances literally drive people insane, get them to move house and have them in a constant state of anxiety. In amendment 10, it is clear where that threshold is. On the points that my right hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood made, that needs to be recognised in black and white so that the services, particularly the police, recognise the significance to people’s lives of antisocial behaviour and view it as something that ought to be covered under the victims code.

I also say to the Minister that this issue was raised a lot on Second Reading and was highlighted by witnesses. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North said, the former Victims’ Commissioner, Dame Vera Baird, called for this specific thing in an evidence session. To be specific, she emphasised the fact that

“this Government legislated well to introduce something called the community trigger”,

so that

“when it escalates to a particular level, you have a series of remedies to get all the agencies together to put it right.”––[Official Report, Victims and Prisoners Public Bill Committee, 20 June 2023; c. 27, Q62.]

If the antisocial behaviour gets to that level—amendment 10 seeks to address this—those affected must be classed as victims under the legislation. I really think that the amendment would ensure that victims of persistent antisocial behaviour would be entitled to the rights as they are set out in the victims code and, hopefully, the victims Act, so I support the amendment.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Cardiff North for her amendment and for providing us with the opportunity to debate this issue. I suspect that we will return to it again, but this is a useful opportunity that allows us to get into more detail than is perhaps possible on Second Reading.

The amendment would include victims of antisocial behaviour in the definition of “victim” if they have suffered harm as a direct result of the conduct. As the hon. Lady sets out in the amendment, it would use the definitions in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 and would therefore cover

“conduct that has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to any person…conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to a person in relation to that person’s occupation of residential premises, or… conduct capable of causing housing-related nuisance or annoyance to any person.”

Therefore, that would also include non-criminal antisocial behaviour.

The Government agree with the hon. Lady that antisocial behaviour is a blight on our communities, and the impact on individuals cannot be overestimated. It is a national issue and it has a huge impact. Every Member of the House and of the Committee has probably dealt with casework on behalf of constituents relating to antisocial behaviour. As Dame Vera kindly acknowledged, that is why the Government took action on the community trigger, which helped to address the line between what is criminal conduct and what falls short of it.

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“Who decides what is criminal behaviour?”—[Official Report, Victims and Prisoners Public Bill Committee, 20 June 2023; c. 27-28, Q62.]

[Sarah Champion]

I might have cut the Minister off too soon—he might be about to answer my question—but this is about the persistent level of low-grade behaviour, which would not reach the criminal threshold. It is like a dripping tap or a mosquito buzzing in the room; that is what really drives people into frustration.

[Edward Argar]

I was about to come to that point, so the hon. Lady’s intervention is prescient.

All of the speeches that we have heard have acknowledged that the behaviour that is being referred to is often criminal, even the low-level behaviour. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff North said that if something is thrown in the direction of an individual or if plants are trampled, that would be criminal behaviour. It may not be charged as such, but it would still entitle people to those rights under the code.

Dame Vera’s key point was about who decides what criminal behaviour is, how we ensure that people know that those rights are available to them and that the service providers acknowledge that those individuals are entitled to those rights. The behaviour we have heard about is included, but we do not believe that including it in the Bill in this way is the right approach to address the issue, to raise that awareness and to ensure that people can access the rights that are already there. However, I will turn to that in just a second. The right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood again managed to pre-empt an element of what she thought I would say in my speech, and she is not inaccurate in her presumption.

A point was raised about the previous Lord Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton. My only reflection on that is that, first of all, in my recollection—the right hon. Lady is right that this is going back a while—the articles cited an unnamed source and Government sources. We on both sides of the House have experience of how that can work. That is not official policy, but I will mention, on official policy, that that Lord Chancellor confirmed the content of the draft Bill and the full Bill, so it is not accurate to suggest a U-turn. It was the same Lord Chancellor who confirmed what we are debating today as what he wished to see in legislation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud raised a number of points. We do not believe that a lack of legislation is the challenge here. We believe that there are key aspects, which the hon. Member for Cardiff North rightly highlighted, about raising awareness and the different public authorities and bodies engaging in a concerted manner to tackle the problem—treating it seriously and suchlike—but we do not believe that putting something in the Bill is the right way to raise awareness and to change those behaviours.

My hon. Friend raised some particularly distressing cases that have recently been on social media. I tread warily because I am not a lawyer—I am looking at one or two of the lawyers across the room—but she is right to say that trespass is a civil offence. I want to be careful, because I do not know the details of each of those incidents, but it is quite possible that a number of those incidents reported on social media may well have encompassed elements that were criminal in what was done. However, as a non-lawyer, I am cautious about saying that with any certainty, without knowing the details of the cases. Again, in those cases where there was an element of criminality, those individuals would be encompassed under the provisions for support under the victims code and in the legislation.

As Dame Vera alluded to, a significant number of individuals who have been harmed by antisocial behaviour are already defined as victims under the Bill. The definition as drafted covers a huge range of antisocial behaviour: where the behaviour itself is a criminal offence, such as criminal damage; where the behaviours, when taken together, constitute a criminal offence, such as harassment; or where a civil order has been breached, thereby incurring criminal penalties. In essence, where the antisocial behaviour amounts to criminal conduct, victims harmed by that behaviour can already benefit from measures in the Bill.

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[Anna McMorrin]

Absolutely. That illustrates yet more child criminal exploitation. The whole thing is just horrific and absurd, which is why this issue needs to be addressed.

Back to Robbie. As the drugs that he had been selling were confiscated by the police when he was picked up in the raid, there was debt bondage in Robbie’s case, as he now owed the groomer money for the drugs that had been lost. In turn, that resulted in threats to him and his family. The programme then worked with the police to complete intelligence forms and make sure that Robbie’s safety was paramount. It put markers on the home and made sure that the police were aware of the situation, so that they could respond quickly if anything happened. The programme supported Robbie to continue his education.

Amendments 17 and 18 are absolutely vital to make sure that we take the necessary steps to protect vulnerable children and to focus agencies’ attention on the adults who exploit them and are linked to the much, much more serious crimes that are taking place. Protecting children and bringing true criminals to justice—I do not see how anyone, least of all the Government, can object to such a notion. I will push the amendments to a vote later, but I hope the Minister will seek to include them in the Bill.

[Sarah Champion]

I start by apologising to the Committee. For each month that the Bill was delayed, I tabled another amendment, so I have quite a few today.

I will speak to amendments 51 and 52, which stand in my name, and then to those tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North. My amendments seek to provide a definition of adult sexual exploitation and are informed by my experiences of child sexual exploitation. I hope to make the argument that one very often blurs into the other, and the same arguments stand for both.

In 2009, the Department for Children, Schools and Families introduced a statutory definition of child sexual exploitation for the first time. I can honestly say that it has been transformational in ensuring that child abuse and exploitation are understood and that children receive the necessary support. We now need to accept in this Committee that adults can also be sexually exploited.

The STAGE group is supported by the National Lottery community fund and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley. It is a fantastic group that highlights the nature and extent of the sexual exploitation of adult women across our communities and seeks to change legislation to give them better support. STAGE brings together a number of charities to provide trauma-informed support for women who have been groomed for sexual exploitation across the north-east and Yorkshire—including, in my constituency, the amazing organisation GROW, which I say to the Minister is severely underfunded at the moment.

Adult sexual exploitation is a specific form of sexual abuse. It occurs where an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, manipulate or deceive a person aged 18 or over into sexual activity, usually in exchange for something that the victim needs or wants—often drugs, alcohol or indeed love. It is also usually for the financial advantage or increased status of the perpetrator or facilitator. The victim may have been sexually exploited even if the sexual activity appears to be consensual. It can happen online as well, of course. The victims cannot give informed consent if they see no reasonable alternative to engaging in the activity, or if they have a reasonable belief that non-engagement would result in negative consequences for themselves or others.

Adult sexual exploitation does not always involve physical contact; it can also occur through the use of technology. My amendment 52 reflects the wording used in the statutory definition of child sexual exploitation, which the Government already use. The Government need to accept that not just children are exploited: many women—it is usually women—are exploited as adults, too. They are victims and deserve support, and that begins with ensuring that their abuse is recognised through a statutory definition of this form of sexual abuse.

One case study from the STAGE group is N, whom I will keep anonymous. N is a 22-year-old first-generation British Pakistani woman, who grew up in Leeds in a devout Muslim household. From a young age, N began experiencing sexual abuse from a male in her extended family. N began to spend more and more time outside of the family home; she could not talk to her family about the abuse because she did not want to be seen to bring shame into the household. During her time spent out of the house, N was introduced to a “friend”, whom I will call H.

H began to groom N, supplying her with drugs and alcohol to the point where she developed a dependency. He used her fear about shame as a form of control—to ensure that she did not speak out about the abuse he would subject her to. N was 15 at the time. Between the ages of 15 and 18, N was seen as a victim of child sexual exploitation. She was trafficked around Yorkshire by H, being picked up in taxis and taken to properties to be raped repeatedly. Professionals did all they could to safeguard N, but the abuse continued. N experienced a breakdown in her mental health due to the repeated trauma that she was experiencing, and she began drinking heavily on a daily basis.

When she was 18, the exploitation continued on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis. However, since she moved into adult services, the police and adult social care brought into question whether N was making “unwise choices” in respect of whether she was getting something out of these exchanges. So N was seen as a victim of child exploitation while she was 17—364 days—but the following day, when she turned 18, this victim of adult sexual exploitation was making “unwise choices”.

A lot of work from STAGE partner Basis Yorkshire was put in place, including advocating for N—although she was not a child any more, by law she was experiencing sexual exploitation. Over the past few years STAGE has lobbied health, police and social care services to ensure that N is recognised as a victim of grooming and exploitation. Although she might seem to “choose” to get into a taxi or to meet H or one of his associates, that is in fact a result of the coercion and control that takes place in grooming and exploitation. In legislation we recognise coercive control.

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[Jess Phillips]

I should declare that I am chair of the STAGE group. Is my hon. Friend concerned, as I am, at the disparity when it comes to women who are British citizens? When sexual exploitation is considered as part of human trafficking, a foreign national is far, far more likely to be considered a victim than a British person. In many regards, British victims of sexual exploitation—adults and children—get lesser services.

[Sarah Champion]

Sadly, I am concerned and I absolutely agree. That is partly why we need a definition. The national referral mechanism was mentioned. By moving a person from one side of the street to the other they are trafficked, so they could fall under the national referral mechanism for modern slavery or just be prosecuted. But without a definition, services are not taking a joined-up approach and using the resources already in place.

The same arguments about choice and risky lifestyles in relation to adult victims of sexual exploitation were used in Rotherham. Having a definition would mean police forces being trained in what the definition means. Legal arguments would be put forward, and judges would receive training so that when they saw a young person in front of them they would understand that their behaviour was a symptom of being sexually exploited. There is a domino effect once a legal definition is in place. That is what happened with child sexual exploitation, so I hope that that will happen with adult sexual exploitation. I will come on to child criminal exploitation, but I have said to the Minister what needs to happen with adult sexual exploitation.

Manipulation by perpetrators, cultural expectations and family and community dynamics make it difficult for women to identify that they have experienced abuse. But sadly, sexual exploitation, as I have said, is not widely understood by professionals. It is vital that the Ministry of Justice use the Bill as an ideal opportunity to create a statutory definition of adult sexual exploitation to ensure a consistent understanding and recognition of the ways that sexual exploitation continues and presents itself in adulthood.

Amendments 51 and 52 would be a huge step in the right direction by recognising people who have experienced adult sexual exploitation as victims and entitling them to the crucial support available under the Bill. That must also come, of course, with support and funding for training to be given to police and justice staff to identify the signs of sexual exploitation.

I will now speak in support of amendments 17 and 18, which are about the definition of child criminal exploitation. The amendments would place a statutory definition of criminal child exploitation in law for the first time by ensuring that children who are being exploited are classed as victims under the Bill. 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 involve moving drugs, financial fraud and shoplifting on demand. That our laws catch up with our reality and realise the harm and damage that those criminals are causing children is long overdue. The true scale remains unknown, as many children fall through the cracks, but we have some evidence that indicates the scale of the abuse.

The former 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. The pandemic has only made the situation worse. Children in Need reported that during the pandemic children faced an increased risk of online grooming or exploitation due to time online, not being at school or college, and increased exposure to harmful online content such as inappropriately sexualised or hyper-violent content.

In the evidence sessions last week, the current Children’s Commissioner fully supported introducing a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation. She explained that the situations facing the children affected are very complex and that police make many feel like criminals rather than victims, as my Front-Bench colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North, highlighted.

It is clear that thousands of children are being criminally exploited every day and the response for those children must be immediate and properly resourced. Experts believe that a lack of understanding of child criminal exploitation prohibits an effective and joined-up response. The lack of a single definition means that local agencies respond differently to this form of exploitation across the country. The Children’s Society data shows that a third of local authorities had a policy in place to respond. That means that two thirds do not. Given the nature of this exploitation, a national shared understanding is imperative. That is what a definition would provide.

Let me for one moment contrast the situation with that of the response to child sexual exploitation, which I spoke to on a previous group of amendments. Police officers across the country say to me that, because the police and politicians understand CSE, the police get resources specifically to address CSE. That is great and I support that provision, but it takes away from the resources we need for CCE. They are treated as two separate issues, even though the same gangs often promote both forms of exploitation. They are using these children for criminal exploitation, whether that be sexual, drug running or shoplifting. Accepting the definition would mean that we see criminal exploitation of children and sexual exploitation of children just as “exploitation of children” and we can pool the resources and expertise to try to prevent this crime.

Many children who are criminally exploited receive punitive criminal justice responses, rather than being seen as victims. Again, I take colleagues back; that is what happened 25 or 15 years ago with child sexual exploitation victims.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making some incredibly powerful points and I have sympathy with a lot of them, but on several occasions, she has mentioned circumstances that would constitute criminal conduct. For example, she talked about victim N, who was raped. Rape is clearly criminal conduct. Does she accept that children in that situation would be covered by the provisions in the Bill?

Secondly, she is making a point about how young offenders are dealt with. I am a former youth magistrate and member of the Youth Justice Board. Does she accept that the judiciary dealing with young people are now trained and encouraged to find out whether the defendants in front of them have been subject to this kind of exploitation, and that that is therefore considered in the way that they are dealt with?

[Sarah Champion]

I will deal with those points in reverse order. My first reaction is to question why they were in front of a magistrate in the first place. How have those children gone all the way through the system to be in front of a magistrate, rather than it having been recognised at a very early point that there is something going on with the child? Why is a 15-year-old repeatedly running drugs across county lines? What is happening? What is behind that? The professional curiosity is not there.

That leads me to the hon. Gentleman’s opening point. Of course, raping a child or raping an adult is a crime. We all recognise that. First, there are very low levels of reporting, and—as I hope I made clear with the adult sexual exploitation argument—a lot of people do not recognise it. They just think, “I’m a drug addict. He’s my dealer. I have to do this in order to get my drugs.”

First there is the reporting situation, and secondly there is recognition. In the case of N, she was seen as putting herself in a risky situation, so she would not be seen as a credible witness. We are not seeing the overall picture and the patterns of behaviour—the fact that the same children might be in the same location day after day—and then going back upstream to see what the motivator is and who is controlling the situation. I hope that having the definition of both terms will enable the police forces, the judicial services and the support services to see the broader picture and place the victim in that broader context. That is where I am coming from with both amendments.

[Rob Butler]

The hon. Lady posed a direct question to me. In terms of those young people coming before the youth courts, will she acknowledge that there is now a far greater use of diversion at the very early stage by the police and youth offending services, which means in fact that far fewer young people are coming to court? I was directly addressing the situation she raised about what happens when they are in front of that judicial process. In fact, there has been a huge amount of progress in trying not to bring children in front of magistrates or judges if it can possibly be avoided. Does the hon. Lady accept that there will be occasions when the level of offending is so great that society rightly demands that those people must face justice, at which point judges and magistrates can consider all the factors in determining what action to take?

[Sarah Champion]

I fully accept the hon. Gentleman’s points. There was no criticism implied, but I will give one example. In 2013 I worked with Barnardo’s, and we did an inquiry to see whether the justice system was fit for purpose for child sexual exploitation cases. Something that we found, which I alluded to, was that when a victim was in front of a judge as a witness, they were often seen as chaotic, aggressive and unreliable. We identified that if the judges had training on what a victim of child sexual exploitation presented like or as, it would make a difference. Indeed, it has made a dramatic difference now that that training has been rolled out.

If we got the definition of child criminal exploitation, a judge would automatically get training on the identifiers, so one would hope that the outcome would be more informed on the basis of having understanding of the young person in front of them, rather than just looking at the crimes. That is not to say that there will not be young people who are bad ’uns, who will use this and exploit what they see as a “get out of jail free” pass—I fully accept that could happen—but if the judge has a proper understanding of criminal exploitation, one would hope that they would then be able to challenge that a little more from an informed position and make the right decision for the young individual in front of them.

I have now covered quite a lot of my points—happy days! Another thing that really frustrates me is that many children who experience child criminal exploitation come to the attention of services once they are arrested for crimes. Again, if we had the definition in place and the awareness in the services, one would hope that the child presenting would be seen as a warning sign, rather than as a criminal. Individuals who exploit children for criminal activity are not being held to account. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North said, only 30 charges under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 were flagged as child abuse in 2019-2020, against the 22,000—I think that was the figure—recognised by the Children’s Society in the same period.

Organised crime groups are aware of this situation and they are deliberately targeting children, because they know that by putting them on the frontline, it is much less likely that they themselves will be in the dock. The Government rightly adopted the statutory definitions of domestic abuse, coercive control and child sexual abuse, so I urge the Minister to do the same for vulnerable children experiencing criminal exploitation; they are victims, just as children of CSE are victims.

I will end with an example. I imagine that two thirds of Members, if not more, get here each week by train. I set those Members a challenge: speak to a train conductor, and I guarantee that they will be able to give daily examples of child criminal exploitation. They see the children going backwards and forwards, often without tickets but often with tickets paid for by the gang leaders. On my train, staff say that now they do not even bother looking for the children, because the common denominator is the bag that they carry either the drugs or the money in. It is different children going up and down, up and down, up and down—so conductors look for the bag and then report it to British Transport police.

British Transport police is funded by the railways. The service has a small budget and there are very few officers, so the likelihood of one being there when that train arrives is slender. Organisations like Railway Children try to support those children, but I guarantee that if Members speak to the conductor on their train, they will say, “Yes, that is happening on my train.”

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

We are all very concerned about the example given by the hon. Lady. Why are the conductors and British Transport police not reporting those children to the police? That does not seem to be to do with the Bill; it seems to have something to do with what is happening in our criminal reporting processes.

[Sarah Champion]

Sadly, they are reporting it to the police, but the scale of the issue is so enormous and the resources are so intensive that nothing happens. I suggest the hon. Lady speak to her conductor. Normally what happens is that the child will be offered some support, but will then be very up front with the conductor, saying, “No, no—it’s my bag!” and so on. The child then gets off and there are not the resources to have a member of the British Transport police there, and that genuinely is not a criticism of them; I think there are only 4,000 officers for the whole country.

[Lia Nici]

I mean the police—not the British Transport police.

[Sarah Champion]

British Transport police are the specific police for incidents that happen on the railways and transport networks. Even if we were looking at the Metropolitan police—I am going back and forth to London—the scale of the issue is so enormous that there is not the capacity to deal with it.

[Jess Phillips]

As somebody who has called the police in those circumstances, we are talking about a nine-day wait for anyone to come out. That is a problem.

[Sarah Champion]

Minister, it seems a ridiculously simple act to accept these two definitions, but the cascading of support and recognition within the victims code and our justice system would be enormous as a consequence. I have seen that at first hand with child sexual exploitation. I urge the Minister to look seriously into the two definitions.

Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Fay Jones.)