Offences Against the Person Act 1861

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank the hon. Lady for making those points. If the House will forgive me, I am mindful that many Members wish to speak, so I will not take further interventions.

There is a further point about the impact of medical terminations of pregnancy using two medicines. Because of the restrictions of the Act, the second of those medicines currently has to be administered in the clinic, which means that women sometimes have to face the extreme indignity of travelling home with heavy bleeding and in considerable pain. It is time for the House to review the whole way in which this operates, and to shift to a medical model. We know that there is an opportunity to put this right with an amendment to the domestic violence Bill, and I say to Ministers that now is the time to plan ahead for that, rather than looking the other way and saying that this is purely a devolved matter. We know that a cross-party amendment will be tabled, and now is the time to be planning ahead and making the thoughtful, careful preparations that we need to make about the kind of medical regulations we wish to see in place.

Of course, there are those who say that repealing sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 will lead to us being thrown into some kind of vacuum, but that is not the case. The hon. Member for Walthamstow pointed out that the term limit of 24 weeks would remain in place, and there are other protections. For example, it is already an offence to supply abortion pills under the Human Medicines Regulations 2012, and individuals can face up to two years in prison and a considerable fine for supplying such medications illegally. Equally, some say that there might be a free for all in people turning to back-street abortionists, with unqualified people carrying out surgical procedures—it has happened in the past—but that is not the case. That would still constitute actual bodily harm or grievous bodily harm, and unqualified people would not be able to rely on the victim’s consent to the procedure as a defence under sections 47 and 20 of the 1861 Act, which would remain in place. Such offences would carry a penalty of up to five years in a prison and a fine.

The point here is that it is highly unlikely that anyone would want to visit a back-street abortionist if free, safe, confidential and non-stigmatising help was available free of charge on the NHS. As many colleagues have pointed out, we do not stop abortions happening by criminalising them and making an abortion difficult to access; we just make them happen in a less safe context.

I ask Ministers to start preparing for the inevitable cross-party amendments. I hope that the Minister in summing up will be clear that there will be no delay in the domestic violence Bill for fear of a controversial amendment, because an amendment will be tabled, and now is the time to ensure that all the regulations we need are carefully and thoughtfully consulted upon. As someone mentioned earlier, this process would allow the devolved Assemblies to decide what is right for their areas. The time is right for us to move from a situation in which women are criminalised to one where women are treated with respect and dignity.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

rose—

[Dr Wollaston]

I will take one further intervention from the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome the speech that the Chair of the Health Committee is making and her point that this is an opportunity to prepare and to consider such things in detail in anticipation of future legislation. Does she agree that the moving thing about the “Home to Vote” movement in the Republic of Ireland’s referendum campaign was that so many women said that they were returning home to vote so that other women did not have to travel in future? They were making journeys so that other women would not have to do so.

[Dr Wollaston]

I absolutely agree. We were all deeply moved by the “Home to Vote” campaign.

Although the change happened in the Republic of Ireland, there are implications across the entire United Kingdom, because it has given us the opportunity to review what is wrong with the existing legislation. It is now time for the Government to plan ahead and to have a thoughtful process of ensuring that the regulations are right. I hope that this House will decide collectively to protect and respect the rights of women, wherever they live in this United Kingdom.

Data Protection Bill [Lords]

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Yvette Cooper

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank the Minister for that reassurance. There is much more that I could say, but I know that there are very many other colleagues who wish to speak. With that reassurance, I am happy not to press my amendment to a vote.

I would like to make one further comment on protecting patients. At a time when confidence in data sharing is so important, especially around issues such as research, we all rely on the role of NHS Digital. Set up under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 as a non-departmental public body at arm’s length from Government, NHS Digital has the specific duty robustly to stand up for the interests of patients and for the principles of confidentiality. As a Committee, we were deeply disappointed that, despite the clear concern set out from a range of bodies, including Public Health England, all the medical royal colleges, very many voluntary agencies, the National Data Guardian and others, the organisation seemed to have just the dimmest grasp of the principles of underpinning confidentiality. I wish to put it on the record that we expect the leadership of NHS Digital to take its responsibilities seriously, to understand the ethical underpinnings and to stand up for patients. With that, I will close my remarks. I thank the Minister for the time that she has taken to listen to our concerns and for her response.

[Yvette Cooper]

I wish to speak briefly to amendment 15 and to say to those on the Front Bench that this is their opportunity to actually do something as Ministers. I urge them to make a late change and not just to drift on with legislation that was drawn up before the Windrush scandal. They can go and talk to the Secretary of State—have a discussion with him—and decide now to accept amendment 15. I really urge Ministers to do that, because what the Bill is doing is immensely serious. The Bill is incredibly widely drawn. This exemption allows the Home Office to refuse subject access requests in immigration cases and to put in place data sharing without proper accountability in any case where it meets the maintenance of effective immigration control or the investigation or detection of activities that would undermine the maintenance of effective control, and yet, repeatedly, we have had no explanation from Ministers as to what effective immigration control means. That is because, in truth, it is immensely broad. It could mean meeting the net migration target, sustaining the hostile environment and enabling a deportation that the Home Office thinks is justified, even if in practice it has made a mistake. It could mean decisions being taken by immigration removal centres, G4S, Serco or any of the many private companies contracted by the Home Office to deliver its so-called effective immigration control.

The Home Office has made an objective of reducing the number of appeals and removing the right to appeal in immigration cases. If a subject access request makes an appeal more likely, why does preventing that SAR in order to prevent a potential appeal not count as immigration control under the Home Office’s definition? That would be unjustified and wrong, but it is made possible by the Bill. If the Government do not want that to be the case, they should change their proposed legislation and accept amendment 15.

Ministers do not have to go ahead with this right now. An immigration Bill is going to come down the track at some future point and it will give them and the Home Secretary the opportunity to reflect on the Windrush scandal. The Immigration Minister told the Home Affairs Committee yesterday that the culture of the Home Office, including that of casework and decision making, needs to change. The Home Secretary and the former Home Secretary recognise that substantial changes need to be made. We are told that huge lessons have been learned and we have been promised inquiries that will report back and have independent oversight. None of them have yet taken place, but the Windrush scandal has had shocking and devastating consequences for individual lives, as so many Members on both sides of the House acknowledge. I therefore ask Ministers to not make future Windrush scandals more likely and to not deny people the information they need about their case in order to prove their circumstances and ensure that a Home Office mistake or error can be overturned.

Michael Braithwaite came here from Barbados in 1961. He is a special needs teacher who has lived here for more than 50 years, and yet he was sacked from his job because the Home Office got it wrong. His lawyer’s application for a subject access request formed part of the process for clearing up and sorting out his case, but the Bill will make it much more difficult to make such a request. Subject access requests are already often resisted by the Home Office. Whether inadvertently or intentionally, the Home Office has a bad record in complying swiftly and fully with subject access requests, so why on earth does this Bill make that more likely and further allow the Home Office to simply not give people the information they need to make sure that justice is done?

There are huge concerns about the way in which targets have operated. The Home Secretary and other Ministers will have to look into that in depth. In the meantime, however, they should not allow a situation to develop whereby the operation of those targets could end up with subject access requests being denied because meeting those targets is seen as part of effective immigration control.

The Home Office does get things wrong. There are huge strengths and skills within the Home Office. There are people who work immensely hard to try to get things right, but we know that a Department that size gets things wrong and we have seen the evidence, to terrible effect, in the Windrush cases. There have been 60 cases of unlawful detention in the past few years, even before the Windrush cases. Nearly half of the cases that go to appeal go against the Home Office because it got those decisions wrong. Sampling by the immigration inspectorate found that 10% of the data that the Home Office gave to banks, telling them to close people’s accounts because they were here illegally, was in fact wrong and that those people should not have had their bank accounts closed. Given that level of errors and mistakes, why on earth would we prevent the kind of transparency that subject access requests deliver? Some 39,000 people were wrongly sent texts telling them that they were here unlawfully. The Home Office makes mistakes, and we need transparency and subject access requests to be able to challenge those mistakes.