Criminal Justice Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak about this very important Bill, and it is of course a pleasure to follow Scottish National party spokesman the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens).

There are some very positive aspects to the Bill that are welcome. Tackling violence against women and girls, giving powers to law enforcement agencies to respond to technological change, and strengthening the law to protect the public from violence and intimidation are much-needed measures that will certainly reassure my constituents. There are communities across my constituency that have been the victims of appalling antisocial behaviour in recent years. The police and local councils are doing what they can to protect these communities with the application and implementation of community protection notices and then public spaces protection orders, but one challenge that the police have faced is that many of the perpetrators of antisocial behaviour are under 16. Lowering the age of a CPN to 10 will help the police in tackling antisocial behaviour and is much appreciated.

However, I am not comfortable with parts of this Bill—the last Criminal Justice Bill before the next election—and there are also things that are missing from it. I shall be as brief as possible. I apologise to those who have provided some excellent information, and I will probably do them a disservice as a consequence. I will also be blunt, as there is no other way of saying this, and I find myself being slightly firmer on this than the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper): I did not work as a Minister and as a Back Bencher on the repeal of the Vagrancy Act, only to see rough sleeping criminalised again via a different piece of legislation.

I get that there is an issue with aggressive begging. We on the ministerial taskforce, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) was very much a part of, were always aware of that. There was always a view that other pieces of legislation, such as the existing antisocial behaviour legislation, could cope with aggressive begging being transferred in. At no point did we, either as a taskforce or as part of the Vagrancy Act repeal, hear evidence about aggressive rough sleeping.

Rough sleepers require holistic support. They often have extremely complex needs, including significant mental health needs. Visibility may be uncomfortable for many, but it also enables support workers from the many brilliant charities and local authorities to reach out to them. Issuing prevention notices does nothing to solve the problem, but pushes them further away from the solution. Sentencing them to prison creates nothing more than extra problems for the person and the creaking prison estate.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

What the hon. Lady is saying is incredibly powerful, and I wholeheartedly agree with her. Does she agree that one challenge we face is that we have a homelessness crisis? In my local area, our brilliant night shelters are already full, and the people working with the homeless would find it harder to help them if they had a criminal record. It would be counter-productive to the very good work we all know needs to happen to prevent homelessness so that it is one night only.

[Tracey Crouch]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady. People who find themselves sleeping rough on the streets are in a desperate situation, and the provisions in the Bill will do nothing to help them. Our local authorities, which often get a bad rap for the consequences of rough sleeping, have many officers doing brilliant work in trying to support rough sleepers. We need a holistic approach to tackling that issue. We do not need to criminalise them through these provisions, some of which, by the way, are laughable, respectfully. We have the idea that a prevention notice can be served to a rough sleeper at their last known address in writing. I am not entirely sure why that provision is even in there.

The point is that we need to be supporting people who are rough sleeping. I get that there is an issue with aggressive begging. In fact, various mayors across our metropolitan cities have said that, but rough sleeping does not need to be criminalised. We got rid of that as part of the Vagrancy Act repeal, which was supported by the Government. All we are doing is bringing that criminalisation in by the back door.

I will support the Bill on Second Reading because of the other measures, but I strongly urge the Government to remove the clauses on nuisance rough sleeping from the Bill. If not, I will certainly lend my name to amendments to remove those clauses from the Bill, on which I hope I would get cross-party support as a consequence. There are other ways of dealing with rough sleeping, rather than criminalising people.

The Bill also contains welcome measures to improve public confidence in policing after significant failings within forces to identify and investigate criminal behaviours. Those are welcome, given the shocking high-profile cases of recent years, but I suggest we reflect on how we protect good officers who do their job in challenging and fast-moving situations from prosecution. The Times on Saturday reported on the prosecution of PC Paul Fisher, who crashed en route to south London, where Sudesh Amman, a convicted terrorist, had stabbed two members of the public. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said that it

“undermines the confidence of all officers using their powers to keep the public safe.”

He is spot on.

A constituent of mine—a frontline Metropolitan police dog handler—was sentenced today having been found guilty of actual bodily harm after apprehending a dangerous criminal, who was subsequently sentenced to 14 months in prison. At the time, he was hailed “brave” and a “hero”. A complaint made from prison was dismissed by every level of the internal standards process, and it was only when the prisoner appealed again that it ended up in court, with the shocking guilty verdict. My constituent’s 21 years of exemplary service are in tatters due to a system that actively works against frontline officers and instead advocates for passive policing. We do need to improve standards of policing across our forces, but, at the same time, we need to protect those officers who are doing their jobs.

I turn to issues that would be helpful inclusions in the Bill. This morning, the first part of the inquiry into the depraved acts of David Fuller in the mortuaries of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust was published. The families of the victims of Fuller are always at the front of our minds when we, the MPs whose constituencies are covered by the trust and where many of them live, are informed about the inquiry. We collectively agree that the Government, the NHS and the trust should accept and act on the recommendations of Sir Jonathan’s report without delay.

Fuller will rightly serve the rest of his life in prison for the heinous crimes he committed, but there are two additional aspects of his crimes that the Government must also act on. First, the woefully short maximum sentence of two years for anyone found guilty of the sexual assault of a dead body needs to be substantially increased to at least 10 years, as per Baroness Noakes’s amendment to the previous Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Secondly, the current legislation applies only to the sexual assault of a dead body that involves penetration. Given the sensitivity of this matter, and on this day when coincidently the inquiry published its report and we are debating the Bill, I do not want to go into further details, but, in short, non-penetrative sexual assault of a dead body is not included under existing legislation, and that needs to be changed. I and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who is currently abroad on Government business, will table an amendment to the Bill to that end. I truly hope that we will never see such depravity again, but in memory of those who were victims of Fuller’s crimes, we must ensure that the offence covers all acts of assault and that sentences are increased significantly.

I turn to an entirely different point. I am surprised not to see in the Bill a specific offence of tailgating at football matches. The House will have seen Baroness Casey’s report following the violence at the Euro 2020 finals. Tailgating causes significant operational, safety and security problems for major events at Wembley stadium as well as other football matches across the country—I witnessed that as I experienced the surge of those illegally attempting entry to Wembley as I queued to get into the final. I understand that the Home Office agrees with the recommendation for a specific offence and that King’s counsel has recommended to the FA that that can be done through either an update to the Football (Offences) Act 1991 via statutory instrument, or adding it to the Bill. Given that the Bill is in front of us, it feels like a missed opportunity not to include that offence in it, so I will happily table an amendment to ensure that it is in place long before we host Euro 2028.

Finally, there is one other point that I was surprised not to see in the Bill. There are many reasons for us to be disappointed that the Government dropped the kept animals Bill, but one particular reason, which is relevant to this Bill, is that it would have introduced a specific pet abduction offence. Given that there is no debate about the harm and impact of pet theft, I was surprised not to see the offence included in this already wide-ranging bill. There has been an increase in pet theft, and the Government’s pet theft taskforce believes that pet owners should not live in fear of this cruel crime. Since this was in our manifesto, I hope the Government will either table an amendment or support a Back Benchers’ amendment that creates a stand-alone offence and bring reassurance to the millions of pet owners across the country.

I appreciate that I have raised a varied list of points, and that others wish to speak and I am running out of time. In summary, this is an important Bill—our last Criminal Justice Bill before the election. There are things in it that we need to do. There are things in it that we do not need to do. There are still things that we need to put into it. Fortunately, we have an excellent ministerial team responsible for the Bill. I look forward to working with them as it progresses through Parliament.

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[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

There are a number of measures in the Bill that we can all agree are very welcome, and I want to recognise that. However, there is a wider challenge for us all when we see such a deconstruction of our criminal justice system, given that parliamentary time is so rare and precious. Are we doing everything we can do through this Bill to tackle the challenges in our constituencies?

I am sad that the Home Secretary is not here. His approach to talking about knife crime will not go down well in my constituency. We are facing an epidemic of knife crime in our community. For many of my residents it is a sign of real concern that they see a lack not only of the police they want, but of the social fabric that we need, both to tackle knife crime and to prevent it in the first place. I am also sorry that our SNP colleague, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), is not in his place. He talked about the Glasgow model. I would go further than a public health model; I would go for an education model to try to prevent these issues in the first place.

I ask Ministers to look again at what more we can do to tackle knife crime. It has risen substantially and I am afraid that my local police consistently seem stretched to the point where they cannot do the work I know they want to do. I put on record my gratitude to the police for the work they are attempting to do, but we all know it is not enough.

The same is true for antisocial behaviour. My office has taken to mapping out the many areas where we know there is persistent drug dealing, in the hope that at some point we might be able to use that information to effect change and progress. We hear from residents that, even when they report things and try to do everything we tell them to do to stop those problems, nothing changes. I look at the Bill but do not see the measures that will help them with antisocial behaviour.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) is not in her seat because I absolutely agree with what she said about rough sleeping. There is a rough-sleeping epidemic in my local community. Criminalising it—separately from begging—will not help us to deal with it, and, indeed, could be counter-productive. I hope that, as the Bill progresses, we recognise the overwhelming cries from those in our brilliant night shelters, who work on the ground to tackle rough sleeping, about how counter-productive that would be.

I put on record my gratitude for the work of Daniel Johnson, a Labour/Co-op MSP, on tackling violence against shopworkers. My Front-Bench colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), has done brilliant work on that in this Parliament. We have a model for what works. We know that our shopworkers deserve better; they are trying to help us. I hope that we can finally agree that such legislation is needed.

In an outpouring of collegiality, let me also agree with everything that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) said, as well as with my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who is a powerhouse of changes in this place, as she has proved yet again. I agree with the case made by my right hon. Friend about the decriminalisation of abortion. I will focus on that in my speech because I will also table an amendment on that matter. I will set out why I believe we can take that way forward. I think there is growing agreement that the issue needs to be addressed.

Indeed, on 15 June, when faced again with the evidence of the continued prosecution, criminalisation and incarceration of women for having abortions, the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), challenged us by saying that it was up to this place to do something about that if it had a problem with it, particularly the difference now between the experience of women in Northern Ireland and women in England and Wales. He tried to argue that the House made a decision knowing that it would create a different regime for access to abortion in Northern Ireland. I disagree. As somebody who was heavily involved, I do not think that, when we voted, we deliberately wanted to give second-class status to our constituents in England and Wales as to their rights. But I also recognise the challenge that the Minister set us that day: to test the will of the House through a free vote on an amendment to a piece of legislation.

Let me clear: I intend to table an amendment to begin that process of testing whether an Englishwoman’s right to choose should be confined by a piece of legislation from the 1600s. We know that abortion is a routine health procedure. One in three women in this country will have one in their lifetime. This Bill is the right place to act, because even if we see abortion as a healthcare matter, it is first and foremost a criminal offence that every one of those women is enacting before seeking exemption from prosecution.

When Roe v. Wade was repealed in America last year, many were quick to dismiss the idea that such attacks on women’s basic rights were possible in this country—access to abortion was secure and reflected the settled will of the people—but in the last few months alone, we have seen what the Government have done on buffer zones, for which the House voted overwhelmingly. Those same voices are silent as the Government drag their heels on the implementation of buffer zones, which are the will of Parliament.

In the meantime, multiple women are awaiting trial, under a law that is older than Germany, for the offence of just having an abortion. Last year, six women were charged with having an abortion. Each of them could, in theory, spend the rest of their lives behind bars. It is not just about the high-profile cases that have gone to court and been in the press, and the prison sentences that the legislation drives; investigations into women have rocketed in the last few years, too. Police data shows that, since 2015, 52 women have been reported for having an abortion.

I am sorry to disagree with the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller), who is no longer in her place, but I genuinely feel that looking at sentencing guidelines alone will not do. It is having the offence in the first place that is driving those investigations and prosecutions. The cases that come to court are the tip of the iceberg of a culture in which we use a woman’s reproductive capacity against her at a time when she is most vulnerable. Many people agree that that is wrong, but we in this House have yet to address it because we have always put decriminalising abortion in the “too difficult” box.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Ind)]

I have been listening very carefully to the hon. Lady. Can I ask her to explain why there is a sudden rash of prosecutions of women? It seems extraordinary. What is the catalyst that has caused it?

[Stella Creasy]

I wish I could tell the hon. Gentleman what I think is the cause for sure. There are a number of pressures—perhaps the move towards telemedicine or a renewed interest in the issue—but I hope we can agree that in the 21st century the idea that having an abortion in and of itself is a criminal offence is outdated and unworkable with a commitment to equality between the sexes. Indeed, we are increasingly seeing—I know this will shock him—any woman who has had a miscarriage or stillbirth being at risk of being dragged into a criminal investigation.

A young teenager called Megan suffered a stillbirth at 28 weeks. The police investigated Megan’s involvement in her child’s death for a year before the post-mortem confirmed that the pregnancy loss was due to natural causes. She faced that ordeal while dealing with the trauma of stillbirth, and it resulted in her needing emergency psychiatric care. She is not the only one. Another young teenager, unaware she was pregnant, delivered a stillborn child. Once this was declared, her hospital room was flooded with police officers—the presumption of foul play assumed before a post-mortem or a doctor’s examination. Although sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 have become more widely known, it is section 60 that is most frequently used to charge an individual at initial stage, and that was originally written in 1643 to be used to prosecute where there was a suspicion of abortion. That is why senior obstetricians are now raising concerns that the provision, if it stays on the statute book, leaves bereaved parents exposed to intrusive questioning and investigation from the police.

For those who have suffered a stillbirth, the knock on the door that they need is from a counsellor, not a constable. If these cases were occurring in Northern Ireland, women would not face this pressure. That is why in 2019 MPs in this place voted to decriminalise abortion in Northern Ireland. It is also why women in Northern Ireland now have buffer zones; they are part of a decriminalised process and protected as such. Crucially, when we know people wish to attack a woman’s basic right to choose, in Northern Ireland the Secretary of State must uphold that human right to choose to have an abortion—safely, legally and locally. Those who seek to frustrate that access, whether through formal or informal ways, face a Government who know they will have to go to court if they do not overcome those barriers and protect the rights of women to choose. That is because that legislation is founded under the auspices of the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women—a treaty that we technically have yet to ratify fully, but which expressly states that states parties should remove criminalisation of abortion and

“withdraw punitive measures…on women who undergo abortion”.

The amendment that I will table this evening, which is open to all MPs to support—and which I hope I can convince my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North to co-sign—does not ask for something new or to set a new precedent. It is rooted in practice and evidence about what works when we are protecting the human right of women in the UK to choose. This is not untested because decriminalisation of abortion has already happened not just in Northern Ireland, but in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. We are simply asking for equality and for somebody in Government whose role it would be to uphold that right to access an abortion without the threat of punitive measures.

In tabling my amendment I want to be very clear, because I understand that there will be concerns, especially in the light of recent court cases: nothing in my proposal will change the time limits in the Abortion Act 1967. Indeed, my amendment would explicitly enshrine those limits in future regulations. We should all be clear that 90% of abortions in this country happen before 10 weeks and that those having late-term abortions often do so for the most heartbreaking of reasons—the fatal foetal abnormality that means that if we try to move the time limit, we force women to give birth to babies they know will die. After carrying a much wanted child, we would be criminalising them rather than medicalising this matter.

Decriminalisation is about taking away the threat of prosecution. It does not take away the principle of viability in accessing services, so I state here and now—and for the purposes to be repeated online and offline as we move through the issue—that a vote for decriminalisation is explicitly a vote against abortion up to birth, though some have tried to scare otherwise. It is not the case in Northern Ireland, and it will not be the case here. Neither is it a vote for no regulation: the removal of the criminal underpinning of our legislation would mean its replacement with a medical one that puts the health of women first and ensures appropriate professional delivery of services as well as clinical safeguards.

I know there are some who will never want this progress. I respect their views: I respect the fact that they do not believe abortion should be an option, and will fight for their voices to be heard in this democracy. Surely we all want positive sex education in all our schools and support access to contraceptives, which will reduce the number of abortions required. However, many more of us disagree that a woman should be forced to give birth, and recognise that having bodily autonomy is a human rights issue.

The Northern Ireland experience shows that it is possible to make progress but also means that we currently have a two-tier system, with women in the UK being given different rights depending on where they live. Why should the women of Birmingham, Bangor, Bradford, Bury, Broadstairs, Bournemouth and Barking not enjoy the same protection of buffer zones as the women of Belfast? If colleagues voted for those buffer zones in Northern Ireland, why would they not extend them to their own constituents? If colleagues were not in this place to vote for them in Northern Ireland, why would they accept their own constituents being considered second-class citizens when it comes to their basic human rights?

Now is the time to recognise the damage being done because our criminal code does not allow a right to be accessed safely, legally, locally and equally across our nations. We know that this will be a long fight, that the wording may change and different variations may be put forward, but we also know that the time is now. Colleagues who agree—who do not want to see women prosecuted, obstetricians worried and stillbirths penalised in this way—should co-sign our amendment and say, “It is now an equal time to choose for all our constituents.”

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[Florence Eshalomi]

This is where we need clarity, not only for offenders but for prison officers who are going to be dealing with those people and making sure no harm comes to them. There must be a clear definition of the use of force, recognising that this is a very distressing time for the families and those in the dock but also recognising that there must be appropriate use of force.

Many Members have highlighted the second area I want to focus on: the new proposal on the power of nuisance begging and nuisance rough sleeping. The hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) and my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) are not in the Chamber at present, but I agree entirely with their comments. There is no mention in the proposals of any support to address rough sleeping, yet we have a number of punitive measures that will only end up criminalising people who are already facing a difficult and challenging time. Those measures will do nothing to end rough sleeping and homelessness. Specifically, the penalty for nuisance begging or nuisance rough sleeping is one month of imprisonment. The measure might not work, either, because the Government have been honest in saying that there is a lack of capacity in prisons—there is just no space. That is evident in the Government’s proposals in clauses 25 to 29 to transfer individuals to rented prisons abroad.

Short-term prison sentences are expensive, and studies show that they do not work in having a positive impact on re-offending. I am co-chair of the all-party group for ending homelessness, and our inquiry last year heard from many people who had experienced rough sleeping and homelessness. The key issues they highlighted were mental health problems, substance abuse, domestic abuse, alcohol and poverty. All of them are key drivers in forcing people to experience rough sleeping and homeless.

[Stella Creasy]

Given that this is a Home Office Bill, does my hon. Friend recognise that one of the challenges we are seeing is an increasing number of people who are refugees becoming homeless because they are given such short notice that they are no longer going to be housed in hotels? Perhaps if we had a little more notice and planning we might be able to avoid some of those people sleeping rough, because we could work with them to make sure they were able to find housing or other accommodation in their new country when they have the status they need to be here.

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that matter, because it is as if she is reading my mind. Our all-party group took evidence from a number of different organisations as well as London councils, refugees and people from the Homes for Ukraine scheme. We heard about people who had been housed and supported by various councils and host families, but who were now presenting to councils up and down the country as homeless with nowhere to go. The Government need a joined-up approach to addressing this.

We also have to recognise that people who are rough sleeping are also very vulnerable and are more likely to be victims of crime and antisocial behaviour, yet they will not report that to the police because of the stigma of being homeless.

Everyone needs a good-quality home to live in. It is central to our wellbeing and our physical and mental health, and it should be a basic human right. I urge the Minister and the Government to remove the clause in question and instead to work with local authorities, charities, shelters and organisations including St Mungo’s, Crisis, Shelter, Homeless Link and a range of others, who are working hard to provide support to people so that everyone can find a decent home and keep it.

I also want to talk about the vetting, suspension and misconduct of police officers. This Bill presented a good opportunity to introduce reform in those areas. We have had various reports and studies on police conduct both in London and across the country, and the fact that seven of our police forces are still in special measures should alarm us. The duty of candour for police under clause 73 falls short of the wholesale review we need in policing. There is a requirement on the College of Policing to issue a code of practice to set out the actions to be taken by a chief officer. That essentially leaves the College of Policing to determine what

“acting in an open and transparent way”

means.

One of the key areas cited in Baroness Casey’s report was the defensiveness of organisations such as the Met police when faced with criticism. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) put forward a number of sensible proposals to look at reforming that, and they go way beyond what the Government are outlining in the Bill. They include automatic dismissal for a serving officer convicted of a serious criminal offence, automatic suspension of an officer charged with a serious criminal offence and automatic dismissal of a serving officer who fails their vetting. That would help restore some of the trust and confidence in our policing, because at the moment criminals see that those who are supposed to uphold the law are not within the law themselves and are facing criminal charges. That should not be happening.

We welcome some of the good measures in the Bill. Some of the measures on knife crime are good, but on their own will they not go far enough to address knife crime. One of the most difficult things I have had to do as a Member of Parliament is to meet bereaved families. I have sat in a family’s front room and looked over their shoulder and seen a picture of the loved one they have lost—that young smiling face. I held my constituent’s mum earlier this year after her daughter was brutally murdered at 4 pm on 1 May. She asked me, “Why?” She asked why she has to wait over a year to get justice for her daughter. There is nothing you can say.

Just introducing new measures and legislation on zombie knives and other knives will not address the chronic issue of knife crime that we see across the country. We need a full-scale, holistic public health approach. We need funding, education and a mental health approach to dealing with the root causes of knife crime. We cannot just lock people up to get out of this—that is not the solution. Those who have lost family members know that is not the solution, and they want to work with the Government to address this matter properly. I ask the Government again: instead of introducing yet another measure on knife crime, will they work with local authorities, youth services, councils and police forces up and down the country to have a wholesale public health approach to dealing with this pandemic of knife crime?

Hate crime has sadly risen, too. Earlier this year there was a horrific hate crime attack at the Two Brewers in Clapham in my constituency. We have seen a massive increase in LGBTQI+ hate crime. Someone being attacked simply for who they love is wrong. Again, the community feel that when they come forward to report such crimes to the police, their concerns are not taken seriously. Will the Government look at the inefficiencies in reporting and addressing those crimes?

A number of Members have mentioned retail crime and visits they have made to stores in their constituencies. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), I visited a Co-op store in my constituency. In the South Lambeth Road store, shopworkers mentioned a situation where the same offender had come to the shop 17 times. Shopworkers are going out to work every day knowing that they could be physically attacked and abused, and that is not right. I started my working life in Sainsbury’s on Clapham High Street. Yes, customers could sometimes be aggressive, especially when the focaccia bread was sold out by 11 am on Saturday morning—it was Clapham High Street—but no one should have to tolerate abuse and physical abuse just for going to work. Staff on the frontline in our retail shops are being attacked day in, day out, and that cannot go on. The Government are not recognising that, and are saying that thefts under £200 will not be looked at. We need to ensure that the police have the resources to address this issue, because low-level antisocial behaviour escalates. In some cases, that physical and verbal abuse, God forbid, turns into a stabbing and an innocent shop worker being killed. We should not have that happening to our frontline workers. There are sensible proposals in the Bill, but I urge the Government to think carefully about those that will not have an impact in addressing the key issues of crime and antisocial behaviour.