Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill

Debate between Sarah Champion and Maria Eagle

2nd reading
Friday 15th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle]

I am very glad to hear that, because it certainly gives her a better chance of making sure the Government do not go soft or slack when it comes to doing the necessary things to ensure the Bill ends up on the statute book. She would be congratulated by many from across the House if she managed that. Obviously, the regulations will have to be written and consulted on. The Bill has to go through the Committee and Report stages in this House. There is a concertina effect on when private Members’ Bill Fridays are coming up, so she will have to get the Bill through Committee fast. That would be my other little bit of advice: there is a queue of Bills ahead of her that have passed Second Reading, so she needs to keep pushing in the right direction.

The Bill takes up some of the provisions that were in the more comprehensive Bill that, as I recall, the Government withdrew in 2023. They have been trying to legislate on this issue since the 2019 election, when it was in their manifesto, so I think it is a good thing that the hon. Lady is bringing forward these provisions. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (James Murray) said, there is a little extra detail in this Bill than was apparent in the original legislation. That is also a good thing. It is not correct, as is the modern fashion in legislative drafting, to leave everything to the regulations; sometimes it is a good idea to have the provisions in primary legislation. That might make me a bit old fashioned, but I do think that there is something to be said for it. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Devon on getting a few more details on precisely what is going to be done into primary legislation. That holds to the feet of whatever Government are then trying to implement the legislation to the fire, and there is something to be said for that.

The change in the law that the hon. Lady is seeking to make is good in respect of dogs and cats, as has been mentioned by a number of hon. Members. Currently, the lower age limit to import a dog or cat is 15 weeks. Pregnant dogs and cats may be imported—as the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson), who has extra knowledge of these things, mentioned— until the last 10% of their pregnancy. Up to five dogs or cats can be imported per person, and the owner can authorise somebody else to travel for them. The changes that are being made to those limits can only be entirely good, for the reasons that have been made by other Members during the course of this debate and that I will not repeat.

Ferrets are included in the short title of the Bill. The hon. Member for North Devon was kind enough to respond to me when I intervened on her, saying that the reason that ferrets had been included is that they can get rabies, so there is something desirable to be said about controlling the import of ferrets. That, for me, is a good enough reason to include them in the short title of the Bill, but I have noticed that we do not seem to have had a lot of representations about ferrets, or examples of the abuse of ferrets in the way that we have in respect of dogs and cats. Perhaps the Minister, when he comes to reply, can let us know whether ferrets are there purely as a rabies control measure, or whether there is evidence that there is abuse in the importation of ferrets? I do not have a wide knowledge of that, so I would be interested to know whether the issues facing ferrets are similar to those of dogs and cats, or whether the fact that they are in the short title of the Bill is simply to do with disease control. To my mind, that is a good enough reason, but I wonder whether there should be further provisions on the safety of ferrets that are not set out in the regulations so far. I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say.

[Sarah Champion]

I am interested that my right hon. Friend is keenly mentioning ferrets at every opportunity that she can in this debate, so let me just put it on record that my brother had a ferret called Oscar.

[Maria Eagle]

My hon. Friend now has that on the record. I do not really know what else to say about that, except that I am sure that Oscar brought her brother great joy. That is what pets do. I am sure there are many other ferret owners who might attest to the same thing. My interest in ferrets is purely because they are in the short title of the Bill, yet there does not seem to be any evidence that there is abuse. That is why I keep raising the issue of ferrets. I am sure the Minister will be able to enlighten us when he comes to reply.

The other issue that I particularly wanted to raise—I have raised it a number of times in my interventions—is that this legislation has been taken in part from the old, comprehensive legislation, but there are no provisions in the Bill about penalties. It is all very well for us all to object to the cruel and appalling way in which animals have been abused and treated in great numbers by those seeking to make profit out of their misery, but the only way we can make sure that that ceases is by having good, effective enforcement and by ensuring that those who seek to profit in this way are made an example of through the courts.

I know that the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021 increased the sentences for animal cruelty from a maximum of six months to five years, but it is not totally apparent to me—the Minister might be able to enlighten us, if he is listening—whether that Act provides the enforcement and penalty regime for this Bill. Will breaches of this legislation be punished through the provision of that Act, or is that to be done by some other regime of punishment and penalty somewhere else? Obviously, in a comprehensive Bill the penalties would probably be included with all the provisions. Given that the Government, with the help of the hon. Member for North Devon, have chosen to slice and dice their approach to animal welfare legislation and bring forward separate Bills, I hope the Minister will be able to explain where the penalties are written and what they will be. Are they being increased? Can they be increased by regulation? What penalties and punishments might he expect those who fall foul of this improved legislation to meet if they continue in their nefarious activities?

That brings me to the other point I wish to raise, which is about enforcement. I have raised this in a number of interventions during the debate, and the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border had something to say about it too. Having the law on the statute book is a good first step, but it does not stop abuse of the law—it is enforcement that does that. So will the hon. Member for North Devon or the Minister say something about enforcement? Since the 2021 Act increased the maximum penalties for animal abuse, has the number of prosecutions increased? Have people gone to jail? Have they gone to jail for more than six months, which was the previous maximum term? This is a lucrative trade and those who smuggle puppies can make hundreds of thousands of pounds, so the enforcement, penalty and punishment regime needs to match the scale of that potential profit. If it does not, the law will sit there and not work in the way in which its supporters in this House, who come from across the Chamber, wish it to work.

I welcome the Bill very much. I congratulate the hon. Lady on choosing it, when she fortuitously came up in the ballot in the way in which she did. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure its supporters from around the Chamber—very many of us have spoken in support today—about precisely what will happen on enforcement and what the penalty and punishment regime will be. It is all very well getting the law right, but if we do not then enforce it by catching the perpetrators and pursuing them through the law to the maximum available opportunity, these lucrative trades will continue and we will still have problems with animal welfare in this country.

That having been said, let me finish by congratulating the hon. Lady on bringing forward this piece of legislation. She said she is tenacious and she will have to be to get all this done before the Prime Minister calls a general election. I know that she will stick at it, and let us hope that we will then be able to get this Bill on to the statute book and do some of the good that it purports to want to do. This will work only if the Government can reassure us that they are going to get on with the regulations and get this working as soon as possible. They have spent the whole of this Parliament saying that they are going to do this without managing to do it yet. Perhaps, at the end of this Parliament, the Minister will be able to stand up and say that he actually managed to do this and got it right to where it needs to be, and perhaps he will be able to reassure us about enforcement and punishment.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Sarah Champion and Maria Eagle

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th July 2023 Public Bill Committees

[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.

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[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.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Sarah Champion and Maria Eagle

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Champion]

I beg to move amendment 44, in clause 2, page 2, line 18, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—

“(a) should be provided with information from all state agencies with responsibilities under the victims’ code, including the NHS, to help them understand the criminal justice process and beyond, including grant of leave or discharge.”

This amendment would extend the principle that victims should be given information about the criminal justice process to explicitly include the NHS, in order to bring mental health tribunal decisions in line with the rest of the criminal justice system.

I tabled amendment 44—and amendment 45, which we will come to later—because victims of serious crime committed by mentally disordered offenders currently do not get the same rights and entitlements as victims of offenders who are not mentally disordered. I apologise for the clunky terminology. Amendment 44 is vital, as critical information is often withheld from victims when the offender is mentally disordered.

In diminished responsibility cases, the psychiatric evidence is often considered and agreed in private by the Crown Prosecution Service without any meaningful disclosure to the victims. In those cases, there is often no trial, just a brief sentencing hearing where the evidence is not examined or tested in open court, which leaves victims completely in the dark. Often, offenders in such cases will have been patients of local NHS mental health trusts, which will have conducted their own investigations into the care and treatment of the offender. Many of those investigations are not shared with the families as they should be, with NHS trusts often ignoring official national NHS guidance without sanction. NHS trusts seem unaware of their responsibilities and duties to victims under the victims code.

I am speaking about the issue from personal experience. I have worked with the brilliant charity Hundred Families on this amendment, as well as amendment 45, because it has been supporting a bereaved family in my constituency that has been affected by this type of case. In February 2022, my constituent’s son, Paul Reed, was murdered on a ward in Rotherham Hospital by a fellow patient. Although there is clear NHS guidance requiring the trusts to investigate serious incidents, the hospital did not even consider Paul’s murder a serious incident. Initially, the hospital claimed that it had done a full investigation but would not share it with the family; then it turned out that it had not done an investigation at all. It required many letters, and finally my direct involvement, to get it to start a proper investigation.

That case, like others, shows that the Bill needs specifically to include the NHS to get it to take its duties to victims seriously. This is, sadly, a widespread issue; I know that Committee members have direct experience of it with their constituents. There are around 100 to 120 mental health-related homicides in the UK each year. In December 2022, there were 4,580 restricted patients —mentally disordered offenders who have committed serious crimes and are considered dangerous—in psychiatric hospitals in England and Wales. Around 2,979 restricted patients are discharged every year, although 268 were recalled to hospital according to the latest figures from 2020.

There is a very high rate of reoffending by such patients on their release. A recent long-term academic study found that 44% of offenders discharged from a medium-secure psychiatric unit were reconvicted following release, mostly for assault. Nearly 30% were convicted of a grave offence such as robbery, arson, wounding, attempted murder or rape. Another study of patients released from high-secure psychiatric wards found that 38% were reconvicted, 26% of them for serious offences. These are very sensitive cases that may raise broader concerns about processes, but victims and families deserve access to information, just as they would if the case went through the criminal justice system.

The amendment would ensure that the NHS is explicitly included among agencies that have a duty to inform victims of decisions made about an offender. I genuinely cannot understand why that is not happening now, and I really hope that the Minister will address that serious oversight. These families have already experienced immense grief and shock. They must be able to remain informed about the case, just as they would if the offender did not have any mental health issues.

[Maria Eagle]

I rise briefly to support my hon. Friend’s amendment. She has touched on an important point: the difference in treatment between offenders who end up in jail and those who end up in some form of secure hospital or mental health unit. That is something that struck me when I was a Minister at the MOJ, in what now seems like the dim and distant past—in fact, it is.

The main reason for the difference is that the offender in the mental health hospital or secure unit is treated by clinicians, who have that person’s clinical recovery at the core of what they do. They are very much focused on that and not so much on the broader issues of public safety, as would be the case in the criminal justice system, in the prison and at the Parole Board. I am not saying that clinicians do not consider those issues at all; I am saying that the focus is different.

Therein lies one of the reasons for the difference that my hon. Friend’s amendment highlights: the focus is on getting the individual who is in mental health provision up on their feet and back out operating in society, rather than on the broader public safety issues that may arise from that person’s being back out and about. Putting such an obligation on health service organisations is the kind of prompt that would make clinicians—and treating clinicians in particular—think a little more about the broader issues, instead of focusing entirely on the recovery of their patient.

One can understand why a clinician focuses on the recovery of their patient. I am not criticising that, but often there is not the overview of the broader public safety implication of any decision. I hope that the Minister, with his very open mind, which he has already demonstrated today, will consider that there is an issue here, and that there has been for many years. Depending on the kind of offence, it is easy to end up in either mental health provision or jail; some offenders could end up in either, yet the way they are treated can be very different, as can the reasons that decisions are made.

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[Sarah Champion]

I beg to move amendment 49, in clause 2, page 2, line 19, at end insert

“in a language or format that they can understand;”.

As the Minister predicted, this amendment dovetails nicely into his remarks. The prominence of right to understand and be understood in the code is genuinely welcome and has the potential to significantly improve the experiences of victims who speak English as a second or additional language—EAL. However, for these basic rights to be upheld and to make meaningful change, they must be enforceable. It is therefore vital that they are enshrined in more detail in primary legislation. In particular, the entitlements underpinning the right to understand and be understood must be enshrined more directly in the Bill.

Failing to address and respond to communication barriers could risk the police having incomplete information and evidence from victims due to a lack of support to ensure that they are understood. SignHealth has highlighted a case where a deaf victim did not want their family to be involved and requested to make her disclosure outside of the home. Instead of having the conversation at the station, the officer took a statement from a British Sign Language user in their car, using a pen, paper and gestures. She was left vulnerable and unable to fluently express herself. When she attended a meeting with the police, no support or interpretation services were provided. She was handed a “no further action” letter that provided no rationale. She had no understanding of what the letter meant and had to struggle to use Google Translate to understand the decision. Such examples highlight how failing to respond to communication barriers can also result in cases not being adequately investigated, and subsequently closed.

It is deeply concerning that statutory bodies are enabling perpetrators to exploit these vulnerabilities and to keep controlling victims while remaining unpunished themselves. Amendment 49 is essential to ensure that all victims can access information in a language or format they can understand. It is crucial that this is explicitly on the face of the Bill, because if a victim cannot understand the information provided, their rights have not been met.

Currently, spoken language is not recorded systematically within the criminal justice system. There is no accurate data available on the number of victims who speak EAL. There is also evidence that criminal justice practitioners often make do with alternative forms of support, such as the use of Google Translate, which victims report to be much less helpful than professional language support. The absence of interpretation provision has been linked to a number of adverse outcomes, ranging from inaccurate statements being taken to a negative effect on victims’ wellbeing and trust in the police. This is not acting in the best interests of the victim and does not enable us to achieve justice, so I hope the Minister will focus on these issues.

[Maria Eagle]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham for tabling the amendment. It is very easy to forget about disabled people in our public services, and there is an obligation under the Equality Act 2010 to provide access to public services in a way that works for disabled people, which can often involve proper translations or formats. Given that disabled people are disproportionately victims of crime, it is particularly incumbent on us, when considering the victims code, to make sure that it is accessible to those who are likely to benefit from it or who could benefit from it. The more vulnerable a victim is, the more likely they are to benefit from proper access to the rights in the code and the support it provides. It would be an omission if we did not make it clear.

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[Sarah Champion]

There is also a common misunderstanding that deaf people will be able to understand information in written form, but English is not their first language—British Sign Language is—and we have now rightly recognised it as a language in its own right. They are being asked to read something in a second language that they may or may not be competent in.

[Maria Eagle]

Absolutely: prelingually deaf people in particular do not have English as a first language. British Sign Language is their first language and we cannot just assume that they will be able to read written English in the same way in which they could understand proper sign language interpretation. That is a misunderstanding and a lack of awareness on the part of those who provide services. If we do not make it clear that access has to be provided, with reasonable adjustments to ensure that deaf people can understand what is being said and can exercise their rights, we will not be doing a proper job.

It is all too easy to think about this as an added extra—that it would be good if we had enough money in the budget to translate the victims code into different languages—but translating the code is an essential part of ensuring that it is implemented and usable by many victims. If we do not do this, we will not have the success that we all hope for from putting the principles underlying the code into legislation. We can have as much flexibility as we like by not putting the draft code into primary legislation, but we need to make sure it is accessible to those who need it. The amendment is important. It is not a nice added extra: it is an essential part of ensuring proper awareness and that the victims code is usable and benefits those who need it to access their rights and to be able to deal with the criminal justice system as victims.

[Edward Argar]

Amendment 49 would amend the first principle of the victims code, which says that victims should be provided with information to help them to understand the criminal justice process, to state that the code should be provided in a format or language required for a victim to understand.

The victims code includes an entitlement—indeed, it is the very first entitlement—for victims to be able to understand and to be understood. The right states:

“You have the Right to be given information in a way that is easy to understand and to be provided with help to be understood, including, where necessary, access to interpretation and translation services.”

Not only is it implicit in that that the issues raised by the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood and the hon. Member for Rotherham are addressed, but in the revised draft of the victims code that we have published, footnote 28 on page 15, which sets out right 1 in more detail, explicitly says that the right

“includes both spoken and non-spoken interpreting, for example if a victim is deaf or hard of hearing.”

It is there in the code not only implicitly, but explicitly, particularly in respect of the circumstances alluded to by the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood.

We appreciate that the criminal justice process is complex and on occasion can appear impenetrable. The code is absolutely clear in right 1, which is “To be able to understand and to be understood”—

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Sarah Champion and Maria Eagle

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[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.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Debate between Sarah Champion and Maria Eagle

2nd reading
Monday 15th May 2023 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Chair of the Justice Committee, on which I also sit. I agreed with much of what he said, particularly in respect of part 3 and some of the weaknesses in part 1, but I will begin with part 2. I suppose people would expect me to do that, given that it is about the independent public advocate, which I have been campaigning on and have had views about in this House for many years.

I welcome, again, the new Secretary of State to his place, despite the fact that having a whirlwind of appointments and eight Justice Secretaries in eight years does sometimes leave certain potential issues with continuity and ensuring that things happen in a sensible way, apart from the differences in approach and personality that one might come across. I know he cares about this particular issue. He responded to the Backbench Business debate—he made reference to it in his remarks—that I managed to secure following the final collapse of the Hillsborough criminal trials. That is some time ago now. There has been no reason since then—apart from perhaps turbulence in the Government, I say gently—for not dealing with this. The final collapse of the criminal trials was the last impediment to dealing with the recommendations in Bishop James Jones’s 2017 report, “The Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power” in which he was asked to come up with—and did come up with—recommendations to learn the lessons of Hillsborough.

Bishop Jones was asked and commissioned to do that by the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), whom I am pleased to commend for the work and effort she put in over the years when she had responsibility for dealing with the aftermath of Hillsborough. She developed a real understanding of some of these issues. The Secretary of State will be talking to various predecessors—people who have done his job and others who relate to it—and he could do a lot worse than sit down with the right hon. Lady. I am not trying to organise his diary—or hers, which would probably be more difficult—but she has a real insight from his side of the House into some of these issues. I recommend, if he gets the chance, that he sits down with her.

When the right hon. and learned Gentleman replied to the debate after the collapse of the last of the criminal trials arising out of the circumstances of Hillsborough, which is over 18 months ago now, he did promise, after being asked by me, to get out the response to Bishop James’s 2017 report by last Christmas; that was his hope. That has slipped for various reasons. The latest we have been told by Ministers on the Floor of the House is that it will be published in its full glory by this spring. I just say to him that we are nearly into summer and we still have not seen sight or sound of the response. I have read the Government’s response to the Justice Committee’s report into coroners. We were told that many of its recommendations would be dealt with in the overarching response to Bishop James’s report into the lessons to be learnt from Hillsborough. There are some outstanding recommendations, on which the Select Committee had what I would call a straight bat response from the Government. Perhaps they too can be dealt with when that response is completed.

I welcome very much the Government’s intent to legislate and the fact that part 2 is in the Bill. I would have preferred a stand-alone Bill, but that is neither here nor there. The fact that there are clauses in the Bill that relate to establishing an independent public advocate is very welcome; better late than never. The whole purpose of the independent public advocate is not to just add a further hoop for families to jump through, or a further stage that families need to go through at the beginning of the process. It is to stop the aftermath of public disasters going so badly wrong, as the aftermath of Hillsborough did.

It is more than 34 years since that disaster happened. We all remember that it was televised—there are hours and hours of film of that disaster. It is not as if it happened in secret and that what had really gone on had to be winkled out; it was televised live at the time. It cannot be right that it should have taken such a long time for those families to have properly acknowledged what happened to their loved ones, and for the very many thousands of traumatised survivors who witnessed that horror—they were not just from Liverpool, because there were two teams playing in that semi-final—to have properly acknowledged what happened. For that to have gone on for so long, with any controversy at all about what happened, when Lord Justice Taylor, within three months of the original disaster, set out in his interim report substantially correctly, although not totally correctly, the full causes and reasons, shows how badly things can go wrong in public disasters when there are interested parties who try to deflect the blame, and when state organisations, whether it be the police or others, try to make sure that their reputation is not trashed by responsibility being pinned on them and are willing to do anything and use any amount of resource to blame somebody else. That is what happened. So it is no surprise that things can go badly awry.

One could just say that Hillsborough was a terrible example, and it was. The circumstances of every disaster are different, but there are common elements. One common element is that, where state-funded organisations —the arms of the state—are involved, they appear to think that their reputation matters more than the truth. They appear to think that any amount of budget that they have over the years can and ought to be used to defend that reputation, and they often appear to think that it is perfectly alright to blame the victims, to blame others—to blame anybody but themselves. That is what we have to stop.

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend has been an amazing campaigner on this, but does she agree that one of the commonalities between Hillsborough, Orgreave and child sexual exploitation in Rotherham was South Yorkshire police, so when these patterns are formed, the Government need to do something to step in?

[Maria Eagle]

My hon. Friend is correct. Where that does happen, if there is no accountability for what goes wrong, especially where there is venality—which there was at Orgreave and which was shown again at Hillsborough by South Yorkshire police— and if there is no reckoning, that kind of behaviour will not be corrected. One value of making sure that the aftermath of disasters does not go so terribly wrong is that one can keep organisations that may be tempted to behave in that way on the straight and narrow. I remember that, after the King’s Cross fire, the person responsible for London Regional Transport, who was found to be responsible for the cover-up that happened, was sacked. That then makes a big difference to the way in which the organisations involved deal with the aftermath of a disaster.

The whole purpose of having an independent public advocate is to try to ensure that, in the aftermath of such disasters, things do not go wrong. I am glad to see that the Secretary of State has re-read my Public Advocate (No. 2) Bill, because I know he will have read it before. I have been introducing the Bill in this House since 2016, and it has been introduced in the House of Lords by my friend the noble Lord Wills. My Bill proposes what finally worked for Hillsborough—the Hillsborough independent panel. It was a non-legal process, because almost all the legal processes and cases failed, but it was used to shine a light of transparency on what actually happened and to stop cover-ups. If the cover-up at Hillsborough could have been stopped from the beginning, we would not be 34 years down the line trying to untangle all of the intervening processes. The Hillsborough independent panel would not have had to look at millions of documents; it could have looked at far fewer if it had been doing its work within, say, two or three years.

In addition, any organisation seeking to use its powers and its people to organise cover-ups would know that the rock was going to be lifted up, that a torch was going to be shone upon what was under it and that it would not get away with the kind of cover-ups openly organised by South Yorkshire Police after Hillsborough to subvert the findings of the public inquiry, the Taylor Interim Report, which clearly blamed the police, made remarks about the way the police have behaved and said that they should not have behaved like that.

The police then set about simply using the inquests to change the impression of the interim report—and didn’t they succeed in that? From then on, no legal process worked until the Hillsborough independent panel, 23 years later, was able to get a full acceptance of the truth by close examination of documents. If we had the power to do that effectively at an early stage in the aftermath of disasters, it would save millions of pounds and prevent things from going wrong for years and budgets from being reduced and diverted into looking at legal proceedings.

We see some of the same things happening elsewhere. Grenfell has already been going on for too long without a proper understanding of precisely what happened, who was to blame and what went wrong. I have constituents who lost a child in the Manchester Arena bombing; even with the inquests and the inquiry put together to run concurrently, it has still been over five years since the bombing. These processes can extend for many years.

There will unfortunately be more disasters. Although we can try to minimise their occurrence, they are by their nature events that go wrong in combination, in a way that means terrible things happen. However, if we have a way to stop their aftermath going as wrong as those of some of the disasters over the years, we will not only be doing a real service to the victims and survivors of those disasters, who have got quite enough to be dealing with having lost their loved ones, but saving a lot of money in the end for the state.

The investigations into Hillsborough over the years have cost millions upon millions of pounds. The budget of any public advocate would be a lot lower than that and, if they were able to stop things going wrong, we would be doing ourselves a favour. I value very much the fact that provisions are now published and the Secretary of State is intent upon legislating, but there are two main reasons why the Government proposals will not work as my Bill intends.

The Government proposals deny agency to bereaved families in calling the advocate into action. One of the things anybody who is bereaved in a public disaster will say is that they stop being an ordinary person out of the public limelight and, at a time when they are having to cope with the grief of losing a loved one, suddenly the spotlight of the entire nation is upon them and their family as they try to grieve. Things are done to the family; things are set up outwith their capacity to arrange them, such as the inquest, to which they are often not party so they certainly do not get legal aid, and the inquiry, at which perhaps they might not necessarily get representation. All those things happen around them while they are in a fog of grief, wondering what is going on. They feel powerless; they feel “done-to”. They do not feel that they have any capacity to influence or be a part of what is happening, or to speak any kind of truth to any kind of power. They often feel like spare parts, third parties, not involved. Yet the families of a disaster are the most deeply involved, because they have lost the most, so it is tremendously important to give them collective agency to decide that the advocate should be involved, rather than saying, “Oh, and here is another thing we are going to do for you and give to you, whether you want it or not, and you will not have any part in deciding.” My Bill does that; the Secretary of State’s proposals do not.

There also has to be a power to be not just a sign-poster. I do not object to the provisions in the Bill enabling the advocate to help, signpost and do those kinds of things for bereaved families—that can be helpful—but it cannot be only that. I know that the Hillsborough families had people trying to signpost them to things, and that did not work with what was going on at that time in respect of that particular disaster. The point of the proposals in my Bill, which are not currently in the Government Bill, is to enable the advocate to establish a Hillsborough panel-type arrangement to guarantee transparency, ensuring that the advocate is therefore a data controller and has the documentation that they need. It should be an awful lot less than the Hillsborough independent panel had to collect, because not as much time will have passed and one would expect it to be done at an earlier stage in the aftermath of any disaster.

If amendments enabling the advocate to be a data controller and to establish an independent panel were accepted, giving the families agency to decide for themselves whether they want the involvement of the public advocate, that would enable the provision to do what I want it to do—prevent the aftermath of disasters from going so disastrously wrong for bereaved families. I have dealt with a number of these kinds of issues in my constituency over the 26 years that I have been a Member of this House—I feel old enough—and if we were able to do that, we could prevent things from going wrong and would not therefore have any instances whereby, 34 years later, we in this Chamber are still discussing what went on, as we do with what happened at Hillsborough in 1989. We should not have to do that. Those families should have peace, but they still do not have it.

I believe very strongly that, if we can prevent that kind of thing from happening to other families who are, through no fault of their own, caught up in disasters that they did not want to be caught up in, resulting in bereavement and pain, we would do the whole country a service. That would help a small number of people, it would not cost that much, and it would save a lot of public money over time, but the provisions, as currently drafted, will not be effective enough to do that.

I see the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) in his place. I also had meetings with him about these provisions, and he was very helpful. I hope that the Secretary of State will keep an open mind and will think that we are all on the same side. We want something effective to be done; we do not want to add some kind of process that will not make things better enough, thereby missing an opportunity to make things better than they are.

I do not care who legislates for that. If it is a Labour Government, I will nag them just as much as I have been discussing it with Conservative Ministers, of whom I have met an awful lot over the past few years—many of them are in the Chamber now, in fact. I hope that, between us all, we can take this forward, because it would be a cheap way of ensuring that we save a lot of public money over time, and would really help the families of those who are needlessly and through no fault of their own caught up in future public disasters—we hope that they will be few, but disasters happen. It would provide the Hillsborough families with the comfort of knowing that the horrendous experience they have gone through over 34-plus years will not be suffered by anyone else unlucky enough to be caught up in a public disaster.

Now is our chance to tackle this issue, so I ask the Secretary of State please not to defend every word of the current drafting and to have a more open mind about what we can achieve. There is a real opportunity for us, cross party, to make a big difference to the lives of a small number of people who will have enough to deal with when their family gets caught up in a disaster and they lose somebody. We can really make a difference, and I hope the Secretary of State will be open to doing so. I am perfectly happy to talk to him and to the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), about how best to do that. We need this legislation now. Let us make sure we are better prepared if another disaster happens.

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

Debate between Sarah Champion and Maria Eagle

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th May 2021 Public Bill Committees

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

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

[Sarah Champion]

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

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

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

[Maria Eagle]

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

[Sarah Champion]

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

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

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

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

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

Chief Superintendent Griffiths said:

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

He added that, on trauma,

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

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[Sarah Champion]

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

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

[Maria Eagle]

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

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

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

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

[Sarah Champion]

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

[Maria Eagle]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Debate between Sarah Champion and Maria Eagle

Committee stage
Thursday 20th May 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Maria Eagle]

Q Finally from me, do the changes in the Bill on custody for children and options for children make enough good provision to distinguish between the needs of boys and the needs of girls in the system?

Hazel Williamson: There has always been a disparity for our girls in the system. I am concerned overall that the numbers of children going into custody will increase with some proposed mandatory sentencing, and I am concerned that it will impact in particular on our girls and our black and minority ethnic children—particularly our black and mixed heritage boys. I am also concerned that it may impact on our children who are looked after. There are some particular groups in the youth justice system who I believe will be adversely affected by some of the recommendations in the Bill.

[Sarah Champion]

Q Thank you ever so much for this, Hazel. I have been around one of these secure children’s homes—it was a mixed-sex one—and I found it absolutely terrifying. I have visited places such as Strangeways that were nowhere near as horrifying as I found the secure unit. You said that you would rather they were small and located close to the child’s home. Can you define “small”? How many children? What would be the maximum?

Hazel Williamson: I am not going to put a figure on it, but we know that we get better outcomes for children and young people who are placed in secure children’s homes that are generally run by people who are social work and social care-trained, and that provides a much more nurturing environment. It is a children’s home with security rather than a custodial environment overseen by prison rules.

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[Maria Eagle]

Q Thank you. When I was the Minister for disabled people—a long time ago now—I led on recognising British Sign Language as a language. The Bill amends the 13th person rule by allowing a BSL interpreter into the jury room, with the aim of enabling deaf jurors to participate. Do you welcome that? If you do have concerns about it, what are they?

Ellie Cumbo: We certainly welcome it, yes. Many people might be surprised that it is not already the case that a British Sign Language interpreter can be present in those circumstances. Obviously, that is a reflection of the fact that the whole system takes the importance of an independent jury very seriously—it is perhaps the most important safeguard we have for the fundamental rights of those who are charged with criminal offences. That is probably why it has taken the length of time it has to get here.

Our view is that, given where the public consensus can be judged to be and the fact that BSL interpreters participate in other types of confidential proceedings, we do not think that at this point it would be sustainable not to move forward with these provisions. Obviously, we are pleased to see that the Government are taking seriously the risk that the jury might in some way be influenced unduly by the presence of a 13th person, but as long as those safeguards are in place, we are entirely supportive of those provisions.

[Sarah Champion]

Q Chair, I apologise for running late.

Ellie, I am reeling from something that our Front-Bench spokesperson said in the last session. In chapter 3, on the extraction of information from electronic devices, in clause 36(10), the Government redefine an adult away from the definition in the convention on the rights of a child, which defines a child as a human under the age of 18, to

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

Could you comment on that extraordinary change?

Ellie Cumbo: I have not had the benefit of hearing that, so I think it would be unwise and unhelpful for me to do so. Could I come back to you on that?