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

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Alex Cunningham]

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

The new clause makes a very simple amendment to the current discharging regime from the prison, which the Opposition believe would ensure that those leaving prison have the support that they need as they transition into the community.

May I begin by thanking Nacro for its invaluable help in drafting the clause and its essential work to support people leaving prison? The new clause would give prisons the option to release people who need community support and are due for release on a Friday or the day before a bank holiday period on an earlier day in that same week, to ensure that support is put in place ahead of the weekend. That would support rehabilitation and resettlement. It would allow release to be spread from the Monday to the Thursday to prevent a significant increase in releases on the Thursday, which could be difficult for prisons to manage. Similar legislation has already been passed in Scotland in the Prisoners (Control of Release) (Scotland) Act 2015, and we think that it is time to introduce similar provisions for prisoners in England and Wales.

Many people released from prison on a Friday face an almost impossible race against the clock to get all the support that they need in place before the weekend. Getting all the correct support in place can prove a challenge on any day of the week, but it is especially difficult on a Friday because many community services have reduced service on Fridays, and reduced or no service exists over the weekend. Prison leavers have a very limited time window in which to make all the necessary arrangements that are vital to their resettlement before services close up shop for the weekend. If the prison leaver is unable to access those services, the likelihood of their reoffending is significantly increased.

Another issue is that there is actually a spike in releases on Friday. The national data show that more than a third of custody leavers are released on a Friday, and that includes releases that were scheduled for the Friday as well as those who have release dates over the weekend or on a public holiday. This peak in releases adds significant pressure to service staff and can consequently lead to late releases and pressure on services in the community.

Our new clause addresses that by giving the governor of the prison discretion to spread releases over the previous five days so that we do not simply end up shifting the Friday spike into a Thursday spike. We know that the release day is critical for putting in place the foundation blocks for life outside prison. As well as needing to attend mandatory appointments with probation, prison leavers may need to attend the local housing office to secure somewhere to live.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my experience as a Member of Parliament, which is that many people have come to my door on a Friday afternoon who have been made homeless for a particular reason or are in some kind of crisis, because they have found it almost impossible to get through to any services because people go home on a Friday? It is a very real thing. A question I always ask when I interview somebody to be a case worker is: “What would you do if someone comes to you on a Friday afternoon at half-past 4 and has nowhere to go?”. Although this seems such a simple new clause, it is incredibly important and could be the difference between someone slipping back into old ways or getting a bit of support that they need to rehabilitate themselves.

[Alex Cunningham]

That is most certainly the case. I may not have encountered as many as my hon. Friend, but I have had people in that situation who have nowhere to go. We find ourselves turning to local charities, but when it gets to 4.30 or 5 o’clock and somebody shows up, it is far too late to access even those sorts of support services.

Of course, the person may need to visit the jobcentre to make a universal credit claim or other benefits claims. They may need to see their GP or to attend community mental health or substance misuse services. No doubt there are many individuals who would have to do a number of things on that list. If they are unable to find somewhere to live, or to sort out necessary medication or financial support on the day, they may be left homeless over the weekend without vital medication and with only £46 to last until Monday when they can try to access services again. That can sadly lead to them falling back into old networks or habits just to get by.

It is therefore entirely in the Government’s interest to make resettlement as seamless as possible, to minimise any possible lapse into reoffending. There is a window of opportunity when people are released from prison, when they are most motivated to move forward in their lives. That can pass by if the barriers to resettlement and rehabilitation are too high. Nacro has said that it often hears from staff and professionals in other agencies working with people on release from prison how Friday releases have a huge impact on levels of hope and motivation. It has provided me with a few case studies that well illustrate the problems that Friday prison releases can cause.

The first is the case of M:

“M was released on a Friday before a bank holiday weekend after serving a year in custody. He has an addiction to heroin but, when released, was not given the prescription charts from the prison which were needed to determine the dose of methadone he needed. He was also not given a bridging prescription.

As it was late afternoon on a Friday, the GP from the substance misuse service had left and M and his resettlement broker were unable to get his medication.

M was vulnerable and entitled to priority housing. However, the local authority did not deem him to be priority need and, as it was a Friday afternoon, M didn’t have time to gather the further evidence needed to prove this before the weekend.

M spent the weekend sleeping in a known drug house and ended up using heroin. As part of his licence conditions, he was required to give blood samples and tested positive for drug use.

Releasing M earlier in the week would have meant faster access to the medical services and the medication he needed and increased his chances of finding a housing a solution more quickly.”

Something as seemingly small as the discharge day being a Friday had seriously disastrous consequences for M and put his rehabilitation and resettlement in serious jeopardy.

Nacro also shared the story of C:

“C was released from prison after serving a three-week sentence. On release, his Through the Gate mentor met him and went with him to present himself to probation, a train ride away.

On presenting to the local housing authority to make a homeless application, C was told to make an online application to receive an appointment with a housing officer for the next week.

C’s mentor contacted a local charity to which he could also make a homeless application and they asked him to come down on the following Monday. C also had to wait until the following Monday to go to the Jobcentre Plus to enquire about getting a deposit for a flat.

C slept rough that weekend. Had C been released earlier in the week, he would have been able to access these services faster without a three-night gap in which he had to sleep rough, which increased his chances of reoffending.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

It is a complicated answer to a complicated question. We know, for example, that some forms of crime are increasing, and there is ongoing academic research into some of those, but we have reason to believe that more women are reporting facing violent acts within sexual relationships. That encompasses a range of relationships, from intimate, long-term relationships to first dates. That is precisely why, on the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, we worked across the House with colleagues to clarify the law on the so-called rough sex defence, because we knew that women in intimate, long-term relationships and in shorter relationships were experiencing that. Through that Act, we also brought in the prohibition on non-fatal strangulation, and again we worked on a cross-party basis. There is emerging evidence, particularly on the latter, that more and more victims of domestic abuse, but also those in other types of relationships, are facing these acts within—to use shorthand—the bedroom. We very much wanted to put a marker in the sand to say, “This sort of behaviour is not healthy, and it is now not lawful.”

The thinking is that those sorts of behaviours have increased over recent years. The thinking behind that is that online pornography has had an impact. However, I refer the hon. Lady to the research that I commissioned when I was Minister for Women and Equalities on the impact of online pornography and attitudes towards women and girls. The Government published that a few months ago. It is fair to say that there are not quite the clear lines that some would expect, but there are common themes there, if I can put it as broadly as that. Online pornography is a factor with some crimes, but sadly violence against women and girls is—dare I say it?—as old as time. The ways in which a minority of men—I make that absolutely clear—see fit to behave towards women and girls is part of the Gordian knot that we must try to untie. It will be a longer-term process than this Bill or the next Bill that comes along when legislation is appropriate. It will require a cultural education journey, as well as shorter-term fixes.

I am very pleased that the hon. Member for Stockton North raised the Law Commission research. As part of our work on ensuring that the law is keeping up to date with modern practices, we have commissioned a lot of work from the Law Commission recently. I do not apologise for that. In fact, it gives me the opportunity to thank the Law Commission for the work it conducts, often looking into very complex areas of law and trying to find ways through in order to assist this place and the other place in updating the law.

The current investigation into hate crime illustrates that point very well. In 2018, we asked the Law Commission to consider the current range of offences and aggravating factors in sentencing and to make recommendations on the most appropriate models to ensure that the criminal law provides consistent and effective protection from conduct motivated by hatred towards protected groups or characteristics. The Law Commission published its consultation document in September. It was an enormous document—more than 500 pages and 62 separate questions. The Law Commission has been very clear that the consultation document was exactly that; it was not a report or a set of conclusions. It does not represent the Law Commission’s final position on any of the issues raised.

I make that point because the new clause invites Parliament to adopt those recommendations wholesale, and I think we are all duty bound to acknowledge that what we have had so far from the Law Commission is a consultation document. It is not its final report. Indeed, the Law Commission hopes to report in October, and of course the Government will give that report very, very careful consideration. I do not believe, however, that it would be appropriate for this Government, or indeed any Government, or any Parliament, to sign what is effectively a blank piece of legislation without seeing what the Law Commission is going to recommend.

We do not know what the consequences may be of the recommendations, nor what would be required to enact and enable them. It may be, for example, that changes to primary legislation would be required. I have to say that I feel uncomfortable at the prospect of the Bill permitting other parts of primary legislation to be overwritten—overruled—by virtue of the super-affirmative procedure. We must surely ensure that significant changes to the law should be properly debated by both Houses of Parliament in the normal way, with any Bill going through all the normal processes and stages.

I gently suggest to the Opposition that perhaps they should be careful what they wish for, because in this very Bill clause 59 gives effect to the Law Commission’s recommendation relating to the common law offence of public nuisance. It made that recommendation in 2015 and recommended that it be put into statute. If I recall our deliberations correctly, the Opposition opposed that very clause. I cannot imagine what the reaction would have been had we attempted to have this super-affirmative procedure imposed in relation to clause 59.

[Sarah Jones]

The Minister points to the risks of legislation being passed that defines something that is as yet undefined, and that being a blank cheque. Does she agree that our concerns about the protest element of the Bill, which gives the Home Secretary the right to define vast sections of the Bill after the legislation has been passed, relate to the same principle?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham]

The record will show that the Conservative members of this Committee voted against a minimum sentence of seven years for rape. The Minister pointed out some of our votes, and I am happy to put that on the record, too.

I again thank my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham, my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham and my right Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) for their support on this new clause. New clause 24 would require the Lord Chancellor, within 18 months of the commencement of this Act, to commission a review of the effectiveness of current legislation and sentencing policy surrounding domestic abuse. The review, conducted by a senior member of the judiciary, would have a particular view to increasing sentences for domestic homicide, and reducing the gap in sentence length between domestic homicide and other homicides. The review would also examine the effectiveness of sentencing more broadly for domestic abuse.

It is a stain on our society that the number of female victims of murder in England and Wales is the highest that it has been since 2006, some 15 years ago. Rather than things getting better, things are getting dramatically worse. Staggeringly, almost half of female homicides––48%––take place in the family home. This flies in the face of the commonly held myth that murders take place away from the safety of the family home and are predominately committed by strangers.

As I set out earlier, while the Opposition fully support the Government’s introduction of clause 103, which increases the custodial sentence for murder committed by a person under the age of 18, we feel there is much more that could be done in this area. This is particularly the case when it comes to the staggering difference in sentence lengths between those who murder within the home and those who murder a stranger in the street. Once again, I will repeat Carole Gould’s words which I feel really ring true on this point:

“Why should a life taken in the home by someone you know be valued less than a life taken by a stranger in the streets?”

Even under the proposals set out in the Bill, a child aged 10 to 14 who commits murder after taking a weapon to the scene, say a public place, would be liable to a minimum of 13 years imprisonment. For a child of the same age who committed murder using a weapon in the family home, the minimum sentence would be eight years.

That gap exists not only for children, but for adults. As I have told the Committee before, Joe Atkinson was 25 when he murdered his 24-year-old ex-girlfriend in a jealous rage. For those who take a knife or weapon to the scene, such as those who stab someone to death on the street, the normal starting point for sentencing is 25 years, but Joe Atkinson was sentenced to just 16 years and two months, partly because the murder was committed using a weapon found in the victim’s home. But that is just one piece of legislation that new clause 24 would seek to review. The review would also examine the effectiveness of sentencing more broadly for domestic abuse in general.

As Committee members will no doubt be aware, we have seen a staggering increase in appeals for help during the pandemic from those suffering domestic abuse. Between April 2020 and February 2021, Refuge recorded an average of more than 13,000 calls and messages to its national abuse helpline each month, a truly horrifying number. This is an increase of more than 60% on the average number of monthly contacts at the start of 2020. The crime survey for England and Wales showed that 1.6 million women and 757,000 men had experienced domestic abuse between March 2019 and March 2020, with a 7% growth in police-recorded domestic abuse crimes. Each of those figures suggests that the current measures the Government are taking to address domestic violence and domestic homicide simply are not working.

In order to truly tackle these issues, we need a root-and-branch independent review of how our criminal justice system responds to domestic abuse and domestic homicide. This is too important a point to ignore, and I hope the Minister will support new clause 24 today.

[Sarah Jones]

I will not try to remake my hon. Friend’s argument, which was compelling. I shall speak to new clauses 48 and 55, which have been grouped with new clause 24. I have spoken previously in Committee about the importance of learning the lessons of homicides. The relevant clauses would introduce offensive weapon homicide reviews, and we are debating the Bill at a time when serious violence is at record levels. Of all homicides in the latest year, 37% were knife-enabled crimes. A large proportion of homicides involved offensive weapons: in the year ending March 2020, 275 homicides involved a sharp instrument, 49 involved a blunt instrument and 30 involved shootings. We welcome this part of the Bill. It is important that lessons are learned.

It is incredibly important that the pathways that lead people to be involved in homicides can be understood and that the knowledge is shared with the bodies that can make preventive interventions and changes. Every homicide review that is carried out has a life behind it, and at the heart of every review is a person who has lost their life, each with a complex set of circumstances that can help to inform multi-agency bodies to prevent another death and provide better protections for those left behind. We owe it to the families of victims to ensure that any lessons are learned.

The domestic abuse charity Standing Together recently reviewed domestic homicide review processes in London boroughs, and its report highlighted that not enough knowledge sharing is happening. With new clause 48, we are seeking to put in the Bill a requirement on the Secretary of State to ensure that data is collected and reported on for all homicide reviews. The new clause requires the Secretary of State to collect and report annually to Parliament data on child death reviews involving homicide, on domestic homicide reviews, and on offensive-weapon homicide reviews. It would also require the Secretary of State to commission and lay before Parliament a lessons learned review of the data.

New clause 55, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), would modify the Domestic Violence Crime and Victims Act 2004 to force the Secretary of State to automatically direct a domestic homicide review in circumstances as outlined in section 9 of the Act. We also aim with the new clause to improve data collection methodologies around domestic homicide reviews.

New clause 55 would bring about a really important change. Section 9(4) of the 2004 Act states:

“The Secretary of State may in a particular case direct a specified person…to establish, or to participate in, a domestic homicide review.”

However, those should not just be particular cases at the Secretary of State’s discretion; it should be the norm that when a person aged 16 or over has died, and their death has or appears to have resulted from violence, abuse or neglect by a person who they were related to, in a relationship with, or in the same household, a domestic homicide review should be automatically directed.

There are some serious gaps in data that a more common application of domestic homicide reviews would help to bring to light. Unless I am wrong, in which case the Minister can correct me, the Home Office does not publish a record of the number of domestic homicide reviews taking place across the UK, the number of victims with a history of domestic abuse who have gone or remain missing, or the number of unexplained or sudden deaths of victims with a history of domestic abuse. In the UK, the Office for National Statistics provides an annual homicide report for England and Wales, while Scotland has its own similar dataset, but those figures only scratch the surface. The ONS finds that over the last decade in England and Wales, an average of 85 women a year are killed by a partner or ex-partner. That is 44% of all homicides against women, while in Scotland the proportion is 49%.

Although Government data tells us the number of victims, their gender and their relationship to the perpetrator, there is no further information around the crimes and their nature. Some cases may also be lost because the killer’s gender is not noted. Crucially, there is no information about the perpetrator’s history of domestic abuse. That makes it hard to understand the relationship between domestic abuse and homicide, even on the most basic level.

Eight women were killed in the first three days of 2012, and in the same year, Karen Ingala Smith, chief executive of the domestic violence charity Nia, began to name them on her WordPress page to count dead women. She trawled through articles, police reports and domestic homicides reviews to collect and memorialise the cases. In 2015, Ingala Smith and Clarrie O’Callaghan launched the Femicide Census following their work on the count. Their 10-year report, released in November 2020, paints a stark picture of homicide against women in the UK. According to their report, there has been no improvement: women are being killed by men at the same rate as a decade ago, averaging 143 deaths a year when including all killers, not just intimate partners.

The Femicide Census provides crucial context for each killing, providing data on everything from the location to the method of the killing to the perpetrator’s history of abuse. Femicide Census findings published in November 2020 show that over the past decade, 62% of cases encountered were of women who died at the hands of an intimate partner. Nearly two thirds of perpetrators were currently or had previously been in an intimate relationship with the victim, and 72% of female homicide victims died in their homes. The census also begins to link domestic abuse and femicide: 59% of cases involved a history of coercive control or violence, and almost half the perpetrators were known to have histories of abuse against women.

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[Victoria Atkins]

New clause 24 seeks to establish a review into sentencing in cases of domestic homicide, following many tragic cases, including those of Ellie Gould and Poppy Devey Waterhouse, among others, where there remain concerns about the sentences handed down by courts. The Government recognise those concerns, which is why my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor has already announced a review of sentencing in domestic homicide cases.

We are carrying out a targeted review of how such cases, focused on those that involve fatal attacks on intimate partners or ex-partners, are dealt with in our justice system, including how such cases are sentenced. It is the Lord Chancellor’s intention to make quick progress on this and to conduct the review while the Bill is making its way through the legislative process. The first phase of the review is under way to gather data and relevant information, following which the Lord Chancellor will consider the best form for the next phase of the review.

As for a review of domestic abuse legislation more generally, Parliament has just finished scrutinising, at length and in depth, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. The Act contains many important reforms and proposals for the future, and our focus must be on implementing those reforms before reviewing their impact.

Turning to new clauses 48 and 55, clause 27(7) requires the Secretary of State to publish or make arrangements to publish the report of an offensive weapons homicide review, unless publication is considered inappropriate, in which case the Secretary of State must publish as much of the report as is considered appropriate for publication. Beyond that statutory requirement, we want to ensure that the recommendations from offensive weapons homicide reviews are shared, considered, debated and, where appropriate, implemented locally and nationally in England and Wales. We will therefore set up a new Home Office homicide oversight board to oversee the introduction of offensive weapons homicide reviews to monitor implementation of any findings and to support dissemination of learnings locally and nationally. We will set out further details about the board and how it will operate in due course.

We have already undertaken to create a central repository to hold all reports from DHRs. Once introduced, all historical reports will be collected to ensure that there is a central database on domestic homicides. That is a significant move forward. We are working closely with the domestic abuse commissioner on the detailed arrangements for that central repository so that it can be effective in helping all relevant agencies to access and apply the lessons learned from DHRs.

Finally, in relation to child death reviews, the “Working together to safeguard children” guidance sets out the statutory requirements regarding child death reviews. Established processes are already in place to collate and share learning from such reviews, and it is a statutory requirement that child death review partners make arrangements for the analysis of information from all deaths reviewed and that learnings should be shared with the national child mortality database. The database analyses the patterns, causes and associated risk factors for child mortality in England and disseminates data and learning from the reviews via its annual and thematic reports.

We are not persuaded that new clause 55 is necessary. The statutory guidance for DHRs makes it clear that where the criteria for a review are met a review should be conducted. The power in section 9(2) of the 2004 Act to direct that a review be undertaken is a backstop and, in practice, is rarely needed. However, when it is needed, it is exercised. Indeed, the Home Secretary exercised it recently in the case of the death of Ruth Williams, because Torfaen Council had refused to progress a DHR. Furthermore, we have introduced a process whereby the DHR quality assurance panel reviews all cases where a decision has been made not to conduct a review. The quality assurance panel is made up of members representing statutory bodies and expert organisations, and they are well placed to consider whether a DHR is necessary and to offer appropriate feedback. That process ensures that DHRs can commence as soon as practicable, without needing the Home Secretary to intervene in every case.

In summary, we agree that the lessons for all the homicide reviews must be learned and applied locally and nationally. Mechanisms are already in place, or are indeed being put in place, to ensure that that happens, so we are not persuaded that the two new clauses are necessary at this stage.

[Sarah Jones]

I am interested in the homicide board to which the Minister referred. We would appreciate more details about how that would work, and it would be nice if we could get them before Report. I am reassured about the number of databases that there are, because we know that violence breeds violence, and I suspect that there are themes across all these areas from which we could learn more. I ask the Minister to keep pushing the issue.

[Alex Cunningham]

I am not sure how the dual thing in one set of clauses works in protocols, but we have managed anyway.

Sir Charles, you will be thinking that if you got a fiver for every time you heard the words “review”, “survey” or “commission”, you would be able to fund your fishing fees for a week on the River Tweed. Here we are, asking for a further review, so that is another fiver in the pot towards your fees.

We believe that the Government are doing well across the domestic abuse agenda, but we think that much more could be done, in a much more positive way. I suppose the report card would say, “Could do better,” and we think that the best way to do that is through a formal review, captured in the legislation. That would compel things to happen, and then we would get the information we need on which to act. For that reason, I want to vote on new clause 24.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.