Victims and Prisoners Bill (First sitting)

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Janet Daby]

Thank you. Ms Elliott, I should have declared that I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on children in police custody, and I sit on the Justice Committee.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

Q One of the worst parts of making changes in this place is the unintended consequences. Sometimes we do not scrutinise things enough and think them through. I am really interested in your comment, Dr Siddiqui, about having a complete firewall for migrant victims between the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. What would be the potential unintended consequences of that policy? Where would you see potential abuses of it? I want to hear from the Minister on that as well, because it is important that we think it through.

Dr Siddiqui: I do not know how the firewall could be abused. It is important that, if there were a firewall, it would give victims the trust and confidence to come forward and seek help, and would ensure that the perpetrator was held accountable. At the moment, a lot of the victims—because they have insecure status—are told by the perpetrator that they have no rights in this country. Usually, that means that if they go to the police and are arrested for being an offender, or are reported to the Home Office, what the perpetrator has said is reinforced by the system. Basically, the perpetrator is able to weaponise victims’ status to control and trap them. David Carrick is a high-profile example: he trapped a woman with an insecure status. He told her that if she went to the police, no one would help her. That is true for many cases we deal with.

Some of the evidence for how many people are being caught out by that is from The Guardian, which did some FOI research with the police. It found that in a period of two years, about 2,500 people facing serious crimes including domestic and sexual abuse, as well as trafficking, were being reported to the Home Office. A lot of women were in that: in one quarter, about 130 women who were victims of domestic abuse were served with an enforcement order. We are talking about a hostile environment for migrants, and we must remove all barriers to victims of abuse being able to access their rights to protection, safeguarding and justice by giving them the whole toolkit that they need to access those rights.

The firewall—where there is complete separation from sharing of data between the police and statutory agencies, and immigration enforcement—is one way of increasing trust and confidence among migrant victims. I do not see a problem. If they are referred to agencies like ourselves, usually we will help them to report the abuse, but we do it by being their support and being able to advise them, and dealing with any issues that might arise with the police when they report it.

After getting legal advice on their immigration status, migrant victims are able to think more clearly along the lines of, “Yes, I should report it, because I want safeguarding and some justice. I want to hold this perpetrator to account.” At the moment, perpetrators have impunity, because they know that the women will not get any help from the police, even if they turn to them.

[Siobhan Baillie]

Q How do you think removing the interaction with the Home Office would work if the victim has also committed a crime? We all know that there are a lot of chaotic lives and that there have been lots of problems—victims can be criminals, too. How do you see that working?

Dr Siddiqui: If the migrant victims have done a crime, the police do their normal duties to investigate crime. It depends what that crime is. If they are seen as immigration offenders first and foremost, rather than victims first and foremost, they will not get any of the help and support they need. They do not even have a chance to get legal advice on their immigration status before they are reported. They do not have a chance to go to a “by and for” organisation to get any support or advocacy, so it is essential that they have the chance to do that before there are any kinds of communication with the Home Office. Usually, that communication should be done through their legal representatives, rather than by the police.

A lot of police officers say to us that they do not agree with the fact that there is no firewall. A lot do not even realise that there could be negative consequences if they report migrants. There is some international work, and even some in the UK, on having good guidance or a firewall. For example, there has been work in Amsterdam and in Quebec showing that a firewall works. The potential for abuse is minimised. In Northumbria and Surrey, the police are all looking at ways for how to improve responses to migrant victims without reporting them to the Home Office as their first response.

[Sarah Champion]

Q May I push a little more on the siloing? You are not saying it is either/or: so if they were criminal, a criminal case could be going on for this person, but when looking at their domestic abuse, that would be protected. You could have the two things happening at the same time.

Dr Siddiqui: If they have committed a crime, of course they need to be investigated like anyone else.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

Q Children of paedophiles really suffer adversely. Should they be regarded as victims in terms of the definition in the Bill, so that they can get the information and support services they need?

Dame Rachel de Souza: Yes. I was so delighted during the passage of the Bill that Daisy’s law was taken seriously; we worked with Daisy. I think that is a really important step forward, and I feel similarly about children of paedophiles, because it will be the same argument.

[Siobhan Baillie]

Q I did some work on reducing parental conflict programmes. We know that even when there is simmering resentment and low-level arguing around children, it is problematic. What does the Bill do to improve services and checking in with children even when there is no direct harm? The child may not have been in the room when a parent was harmed, but we know it will still have an impact on them. How does the Bill improve those services—checking in, going through and making sure schools are involved?

Dame Rachel de Souza: We have good intentions, but what will be important is that that is in the VCOP and that we operationalise it properly, because I absolutely agree with you that when these situations arise, the earliest possible intervention to deal with parental conflict is what needs to happen.

I think we have—

[The Chair]

Order. I am afraid that brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions. On behalf of the Committee, I thank Rachel de Souza for her evidence this morning.

Examination of Witnesses

Dame Vera Baird and Claire Waxman gave evidence.