Policing and Crime

Debate between Sarah Champion and Seema Malhotra

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I rise today not so much to deliver a speech, but to ask the Minister for help because I do not know what else I can do as an MP to get justice, to get prosecutions and to get accountability when it comes specifically to grooming gangs exploiting children.

I am incredibly grateful for the hard work of South Yorkshire police. The frontline officers have been exemplary in both listening to and supporting victims, survivors, parents and the broader community. However, we must also accept that there is reputational damage to South Yorkshire police from past failings. They have yet to be recognised in full, and they have yet to be resolved. I want a line drawn under this so that our police force can have both the respect and the trust that it needs, and I need the Government’s help to be able to do that.

Five years ago, almost to the day, on 4 February 2015, I had a meeting with the then Prime Minister, David Cameron. I presented him with a five-point plan for tackling this scourge, and I will read my introduction to that:

“From my experience in Rotherham I am convinced that we need a national strategy to tackle organised child abuse. Criminals do not observe local authority or police force boundaries. Locally, there are neither the resources, or expertise, to tackle organised child abuse, by which I mean gang-related child sexual exploitation, institutional abuse, paedophile rings and prolific abusers.”

Sadly, I could be reading that today—indeed, I am—because the situation has changed very little. I am incredibly glad and grateful that the Government have introduced relationship education—one of the things I am proudest to have campaigned on.

[Seema Malhotra]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful speech. I pay tribute to her work in her constituency on these difficult, complex and devastating issues, and in seeking justice for those who have been groomed. Paedophile rings behave in ways that we cannot imagine, and people continue to pursue those who are victims in their rings, even once they have gone to jail. Resources must be made available to deal with that issue far more comprehensively than is currently the case.

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend is right, but the difference between paedophile rings and grooming gangs is that for the former, the police have the research and understanding to know what the motivators are. A police force can look at patterns of behaviour or get ahead of the abuse because they see those patterns, and then they can disrupt it. Sadly, for all the promises that the Government made, we still do not have that research about grooming gangs. That is something I asked for, and something I would like the Minister to reassure me about.

I sent a letter to the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid)—I have been working on this for a while—and on 6 December I received a reply:

“Thank you for your letter of 3 September to the Home Secretary seeking an update on Home Office activity to understand the characteristics of group-based child sexual exploitation…In your letter you emphasise the need for research and the importance of sharing relevant findings with agencies tasked with protecting vulnerable children and young people and disrupting offenders…I recognise that the Home Office is uniquely placed to provide some of this insight, protecting operationally sensitive information where it is appropriate and necessary. Officials will consider the most appropriate approach in sharing this work and will advise Ministers, including the Home Secretary, in due course.”

I hope that officials have now advised the Home Secretary about a matter that is pressing, up and down our country.

The Government have committed to publishing a national child sexual abuse strategy that will look at all forms of abuse, but I am talking specifically about research that is used to disrupt grooming gangs, which should be published imminently. Will the Government make a commitment on timing, and say how that information will be shared nationally? How will police forces, local authorities and the voluntary sector be resourced so that they can use that data to disrupt such behaviour?

I turn now to the historical failings of our police forces. Two weeks ago, the Mayor of Greater Manchester published a report into Operation Augusta, which was about trying to disrupt a grooming gang and seek justice. The headlines from that report are shocking. It found that police and social services failed the girls, and that police resources were insufficient to deal with the issue. The girls were seen as prostitutes and as somehow complicit in their own abuse. Greater Manchester police dropped an operation that identified up to 97 potential suspects, and at least 57 potential victims. Eight of those men went on to rape girls. As recently as 2018, the chief constable refused to reopen the dropped operation.

The following week, the Independent Office for Police Conduct released a report into one strand of its investigation into the handling of past child abuse cases by South Yorkshire police. I wrote to our chief constable, and stated:

“The report’s conclusions make profoundly disturbing reading. South Yorkshire police failed the child multiple times, and by doing so, led her to be exposed to long-term horrific abuse. It is particularly concerning that the report upholds a complaint against a senior officer and that it has not been possible for this officer to be identified.

As I am sure you would agree, I do not believe it is possible for Rotherham to have confidence in its police force whilst officers found to have failed so badly, and with such catastrophic consequences, are not held to account for their actions. I would therefore welcome your assurances that every effort will be made to identify officers involved, and that any possible misconduct will be both investigated and action taken, including where appropriate, disciplinary action.”

I have still not received a satisfactory response to that, although I hope I will receive one. This not a witch hunt; this is about restoring confidence in our local police force. This is about victims and survivors feeling that they have had closure, and that what they went through will never happen to anybody else. I ask the Minister: please, let us look at transparency and accountability in our police forces.

I ask all hon. Members present, including the Minister, to ask their police forces for information about the caseloads of officers who are dealing with child sexual exploitation, compared with those dealing with other crimes. How many dedicated child sexual exploitation officers are qualified in the professionalising investigation programme—PIP2—and what is the ratio of uniformed police officers to detectives assigned to CSE investigations? What is the retention rate of investigating officers on CSE cases, and what is the average level of experience among officers assigned to CSE investigations? I say to all of you: if you think you do not have child exploitation in your patch, you have. Ask those questions and make sure that your force is properly resourced to protect everyone in your constituency.

Palestinian Children and Israeli Military Detention

Debate between Sarah Champion and Seema Malhotra

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Champion]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman of making that point. I too have spoken to retired Israeli soldiers and have, sadly, heard similar tales.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful case. I have witnessed the military courts in process. At the end of November 2017, 313 Palestinian minors were being held, so given the scale of the problem, not addressing it is likely to have longer term consequences for getting a proper and peaceful solution to the Israel-Palestine issue. Does she agree that it would be helpful if the Minister gave an update on commitments the Israeli Government have made?

[Sarah Champion]

I agree, and I look to the Minister to respond.

Draft Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017

Debate between Sarah Champion and Seema Malhotra

Wednesday 25th January 2017 General Committees

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is indeed a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I think that this is the first time I have done so. This is a historic day. The Minister talked about taking bold steps. I agree, and am delighted that she has taken bold steps down a path that Labour laid before her.

It has been almost 50 years since the women sewing machinists at Ford’s Dagenham plant downed tools and demanded what was rightfully theirs: equal pay for a hard day’s work, equivalent to that of their male colleagues. It was a demand that their work be considered of equal value—in fact, that they be considered of equal value. Successive Parliaments have failed to deliver on that demand. As the Minister said, pay inequality—a woman being paid less for doing work that is of equal value and demands equal, or even higher, skills—is still a factor for women across the UK despite being illegal. Recent cases taken against Birmingham City Council, for example, and the ongoing case against Asda, demonstrate that clearly.

We know that the situation is more complicated, and even harder to tackle, than companies acting in breach of the Equal Pay Act 1970. Average pay for men remains greater than that for women. As the Minister said, the gender pay gap persists at 18.1%, and that simply is not good enough. That disparity is not due in the main to explicit gender discrimination by employers choosing actively to pay women less for the same work. Rather, it is far more ingrained. It is about the undervaluing of roles done by women, the dominance of men in the best-paid positions, unequal caring responsibilities and occupational segregation, for example. Those issues collide and compound to create the perfect storm. It is only through direct action that we have any hope of tackling the underlying causes of the gender pay gap and living up to Barbara Castle’s promise to the Dagenham machinists. That is why the last Labour Government included practical measures to tackle the gender pay gap in the groundbreaking Equality Act 2010, brought to reality by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman). We all owe her a great debt of thanks.

Section 78 of the 2010 Act introduced mandatory pay audits, under which companies employing more than 250 people will have to publish details of the pay of their male and female staff. Labour knew then, as we know now, that transparency will push companies to focus on the reasons why the pay gap still exists and highlight to the Government where changes are needed. It will highlight where women are being paid less than men despite doing work of equivalent skill and responsibility, where men are getting higher bonuses and where all the highest-paid roles in a company are held by men.

All of those things require changes, to allow equality in the workplace. That is why Labour continued to press the coalition Government to implement section 78 of the 2010 Act despite almost five years of refusals. It is why, in December 2014, as a Back Bencher, I presented a ten-minute rule Bill asking the Government to implement mandatory pay transparency, and it is why—under the stellar leadership of my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero), the then shadow Minister for Women and Equalities—Labour was able to pass the amendment to the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill in March 2015 that ensured the Government could no longer wriggle out of their duty to tackle the gender pay gap.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. We all recognise that, now that there is cross-party consensus on this issue, it is excellent that we have reached this point today, although obviously it is still sad that it has come seven years from when the Equality Act was passed.

My hon. Friend may be coming to this, but does she agree that it is one thing to introduce these regulations, but another to make sure that there are consequences for non-compliance so that we get the outcome we want, which is equal pay for men and women?

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is not about the regulations, which are sound. It is about how we implement, monitor and evaluate them and what we ultimately do when we see the disparities. She is right that I will come on to that.

We must congratulate the Government for bringing the regulations forward. I am grateful to them for doing so. I know that the Minister cares passionately about the issue and that, wherever blatant gender disparities exist, she will be there tackling them.

It is important, and to be welcomed, that the reports that will be produced will go into pay bands. That will help to demonstrate how the pay gap differs across an organisation and across levels of seniority. It is also really good news that the data will incorporate bonuses—both their amount and the proportion of men and women employees who receive them.

However, the regulations are bereft of some basic powers that would assure a benefit for women, so excuse me, Sir David, if I do not wholeheartedly celebrate them today. The Government have chosen to omit any enforcement provisions or sanctions for non-compliance, or for publishing inaccurate or misleading reports. This is especially disappointing as, in the “Closing the Gender Pay Gap” consultation paper, the Government correctly sought sectors’ views on whether a civil enforcement system would help ensure compliance with the regulations. The majority of responses—two thirds, in fact—agreed that such a system would help compliance.

Does the Minister actually believe that the regulations will be effective in getting data from employers without an enforcement regime or being backed up with civil sanctions? I take a guess that she will claim that the Equality and Human Rights Commission—another Labour creation—will be able to use its existing powers of enforcement in section 20 of the Equality Act 2006, as outlined in the explanatory memorandum. But of course, section 20 does not confer suitable powers on the EHRC to fulfil that enforcement duty. In its response to the “Closing the Gender Pay Gap” consultation, the Equality and Human Rights Commission said it would

“require additional powers, and resources, to enable it to enforce compliance with the regulations, because its current powers are not suitable for enforcing, in a proportionate manner, a failure to publish.”

[Sarah Champion]

Again, my hon. Friend hits on the nub of the problem. Unless we can first reliably gather the data and then have some form of enforcement, all we will have is statistics on a piece of paper.

[Seema Malhotra]

My hon. Friend is being generous in giving way. Does she agree that one reason why enforcement is so important, and why we have strong ongoing Government backing for this change, is the reality of good intentions not materialising into outcomes? Of the 300 organisations that signed up to the “Think, Act, Report” voluntary initiative introduced in 2011, only 11 voluntarily published gender pay information. We cannot rely on good intentions; it has to be backed up in law.

[Sarah Champion]

I thank both my hon. Friends for their interventions. That is the problem—even if section 20 of the 2006 Act could be interpreted as extending to a breach of the regulations, it appears that the EHRC does not believe it can enforce that.