Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Report stage
Friday 24th March 2023 Commons Chamber

In conclusion, I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his thoughtful and apposite amendments. I hope he can tell that I have seriously considered their effects. In no case am I antipathetic to the quite reasonable questions he raises about them, but I do think they have answers in the current drafting of the Bill, with the new clause I am moving today, so I hope that at the end of the debate he will feel able not to press amendments and, should circumstances arrive, to join me in continuing a campaign for great dispatch on the part of the Government.

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

I rise as the person who tabled the original amendments in Committee that prefigured new clause 1, to recognise this as the best of Parliament. When we come together to write legislation we believe will make a positive and constructive difference to people, listening to each other’s concerns and recognising the positive pare that scrutiny can play in the process, it can bear fruits that we can all support. I welcome and support new clause 1 as a recognition that there was a concern and an issue with the concept of reasonableness being at the heart of public order offences. Let me clarify what I mean by that.

Let me clarify what I mean by that: this legislation is about harassment, and other forms of harassment legislation have always had within them a test that someone’s behaviour cannot be considered reasonable if general opinion would be that their behaviour was unreasonable. In layman’s terms, when it comes to the harassment that we are talking about, if someone were being followed down the street and shouted at—particularly about their sex or presumed sex—even if that person were to claim it was reasonable, a magistrate should be able to say that it was patently not. The person responsible should not be able to evade prosecution under this legislation. However, this Bill was originally based on public order offences legislation, which does not include that distinction about whether somebody ought to know that their behaviour was unreasonable.

It is very welcome that the Government have listened and agreed to put out guidance to consider that point. I hope that setting out what I believe that guidance should cover will be a helpful guide to the Government, and perhaps will answer the genuine queries from the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) about whether there can be involvement in it. For many of us, getting this issue right goes to the heart of how this legislation will deliver the effective freedom that we hope for particularly, but not exclusively, for women, as it is women who are overwhelmingly reporting the kind of incidents that we are talking about in this legislation.

One of the challenges will be the initial decision as to whether someone has committed an offence. Many of us are extremely used to the idea that the challenge is our reaction to someone’s provocation, rather than the provocation. I hope that new clause 1 will recognise that, consistent with other forms of harassment legislation, a defendant arguing that their behaviour is reasonable should not be a reason not to proceed with a charge. I want to be clear about that, because I understand why people would be concerned. No one is suggesting that the reasonableness defence should not remain; we are arguing that it should for the courts or the magistrates to decide whether the behaviour was reasonable, rather than the defendant. In setting out the guidance, I hope that the Government will give weight to the idea that the presentation of a reasonableness defence, which is quite frequent in harassment cases but not necessarily in public order offences, should not deter the CPS or the police from seeking to proceed with a prosecution. In that sense, it would be consistent with the guidance on the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 or the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

In reference to some of the amendments tabled, agree with the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) about the importance of consistency in the law. I add my support to his argument about retaining the provision on presumed sex within the Bill. The most important thing about this legislation is that it turns the lens from the behaviour of victims—women in particular, because although this legislation covers both men and women, and male and female perpetrators, women will particularly benefit from our clarifying that street-based harassment is unacceptable and is illegal already, and therefore carries a higher penalty if it is targeted in this way. Too often, the victim’s behaviour has been called into question in decisions whether to prosecute. It important that the legislation is written in such a way to turn our attention back to the perpetrator. Were we to have loopholes, whether around reasonableness or the status of the victim, we could inadvertently undermine the capacity of the police and the CPS to secure that outcome.

I recognise the attempts from the hon. Member for Christchurch to test the legislation. If he read the scrutiny of the legislation in Committee, he would appreciate that, because that is where new clause 1 has derived from. I hope he will understand that many of us feel that the changes he suggests would undermine the Bill, because it would not be as clear that our sole concern is the people who harass, intimidate and abuse other people in public because they are focused on the sex or presumed sex of the victim. The important message that we want to send by passing this legislation is that the existing crimes should not be diminished, ignored and seen as part of everyday life, and that we should address them.

That is what I wanted to say, as the person who originally drafted the amendment that has led to new clause 1. I also recognise the cross-party working to get this legislation right. I hope that those who had concerns about new clause 1 or other parts of the legislation will see the benefit of having had these discussions, and that the Bill will benefit many of our constituents as a result.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), who I know takes a great interest in this particular subject. I am delighted that she included in her remarks a reference to the fact that this legislation applies equally to men who are victims as it does to women who are victims.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

It is occasionally possible for the Government to come up with something perfect straight away, but I accept that that does not always occur. The process that my hon. Friend just set out, where the Government might publish a draft and invite comments on it, either informally or via a formal consultation, seems to me a sensible way of arranging matters.

[Stella Creasy]

One of the concerns behind much of this is about consistency in the law. With other forms of harassment legislation, how reasonableness is defined is already written in. I invite the Minister to consider whether the important thing is not to come up with a whole new set of guidelines, but simply to clarify and be consistent in how we expect courts and juries to consider that concept when somebody claims, “I thought my behaviour was reasonable,” and the law says, “Well, you ought to have known,” in other forms of harassment legislation. This is not about a new piece of guidance; it is about clarifying matters so that we do not inadvertently damage the ways in which our courts can work. For example, the CPS guidance on the Serious Crime Act 2015 talks about how defendants “ought to know” about the course of conduct—again, with oblique directions that judges can give. There is plenty of guidance out there; we really just need to compile it into one document, do we not?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy]

This Bill has been a long time in gestation. It reflects years of campaigning about a simple concept, clearly articulated by the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), and the surprise that those not affected by it feel when they realise and see it: that misogyny is driving crimes against women and girls. It is a simple statement but a clear recognition, for the first time ever in legislation, that women are being targeted simply because they are women; that young girls in our society walk holding their keys, get asked, “What were you wearing?”, are told not to get on buses at a certain time of night, and are made to feel frightened and to be wary in a way that young men are not.

I want to address head-on the point made by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) because I agree with him that we have to stand up for our young men. We have to stand up for the bulk of young men who know when they see that and who realise what is happening to their sisters, mums, friends in school, aunties and cousins, and how awful it must be that 51% of our society does not have the same freedom to go about their daily business. Those young men deserve better than the idea that somehow this kind of behaviour is inevitable and that “boys will be boys.” In passing this legislation today, we are standing up not just for men and boys, because the legislation covers men and women equally, but for that quiet majority of young and older men who recognise that this behaviour is completely unacceptable, that it is criminal and that, for too long, nothing has been done about it.

I know that the hon. Member for Christchurch is somebody who very much cares about the evidence, so let me give him the detail. Where those police forces have been taking seriously crimes that are motivated by sex or presumed sex and are recording that data, the story they tell is compelling for why the legislation matters. Twelve of the 43 police forces in England and Wales now use this policy. The crime survey for England and Wales found there were 67,000 reports of hate crime based on gender between March 2015 and 2018, and 57,000 of those were targeted at women. This police policy started in Nottinghamshire, under the leadership of Sue Fish, and it showed a clear difference. I hope all of us in this House will pay tribute to Sue Fish and the tremendous work she has done in recognising the benefits to policing of taking this approach.

In that same time period, Nottinghamshire Police received 269 reports of misogyny, 125 of which were classed as hate crime and 144 were classed as non-crime incidents. Of the 265 misogyny hate crime victims, 243 were female. The same pattern emerges in Avon and Somerset, where just over 90% of the victims were female, but men did also come forward, so we know that men will be able to use this legislation.

My point in raising this is not to say that it somehow does not matter that young men might experience sex-based harassment; it is to recognise that at the moment in our society it is women who are paying the price for our failure to understand how misogyny has driven crime against them and to recognise that in law. What the law will do is correct that imbalance. It will bring us the opportunity not just to record that data, but finally to acknowledge it in the courts. In doing so, we stand up for all those young men who do not want to see this behaviour, who do recognise that it is abuse and harassment, and who do recognise that their sisters, their mothers, their aunts, their cousins and their friends at school deserve the same freedoms to go about their daily business as they do. This Bill, and the concept of recognising, as we do with other protected characteristics, that there are those out there who perpetrate crimes because of their hatred and anger towards somebody because of their sex or their presumed sex, is about equality of emancipation.

I say to the hon. Member for Christchurch, who I will know will be as deeply concerned as I was by the reports of sexual harassment among his own police force in Dorset, that one reason why many of us campaigned for this legislation and this recognition was the evidence from police forces about just how transformative it is. Let us be very clear: we are not talking about new forms of crime. We are talking about changing a culture in which women coming forward to report crime have been told, “Well, that’s just life. We couldn’t really find this person.” Not everybody who follows a woman down a road shouting abuse, suggesting that they might want to touch them in various sorts of ways and thinking that somehow that is an appropriate way to introduce themselves to somebody, becomes a rapist or a sexual abuser. But many of those who are rapists and sexual abusers start with that sort of behaviour. The kind of data the Bill will allow us to gather helps us to detect and prevent crimes. It helps us to change the culture within policing. In this week of all weeks, we know how important that will be for the safety of everybody in our constituencies.

I share with the hon. Member for Christchurch deep concern about the role models our young men have. I look on in horror at the material Andrew Tate promoted. I look on in horror at the things that can be found online that we know our young men are consuming. But I have great faith in the young men of this country. They do not need to be cosseted or nannied. They need us to stand up for their ability to be good allies, good brothers, good fathers, good friends and good work colleagues who are not likely to behave in those ways. Those who do behave in the ways we are discussing need to feel the force of the law. The law needs to be on the side of the victims, by recognising that behaviour in the way that we do other forms of hate crime.

By passing the Bill, we are sending a powerful message to our young men that they deserve better than the caricature of “boys will be boys” and the idea that they somehow cannot help themselves. We know they can. We know it is as much about our young men and the message we send them as it is our young women and their freedoms we are fighting for in this legislation. I welcome the fact that there has been cross-party work on the Bill. I pay tribute to Citizens UK, Our Streets Now and the Fawcett Society for the work they have done to make the argument that we should not minimise harassment in public. We should recognise it, treat it equally and prosecute those who behave in those ways.

I suspect that across the House there is a common agreement about how much this debate is changing. We are all of a certain age. We remember things that were on television when we were younger that we now know are not acceptable. The hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) is shaking his head. I am sure afterwards we can compare notes on just how awful our ’90s fashion was. We remember things that were on television, and cultural ideas about race and ethnicity, that we would now recognise are inappropriate, and indeed that created a culture in which racial hatred and abuse was encouraged. We hope, in time, that working against targeting people on the basis of their sex or presumed sex will have the same effect: that we can challenge myths, challenge expectations and challenge behaviour. But we cannot do that if the law is not on the side of women who have not come forward to date—the 80% of women who experience street-based harassment but do not report it. The Bill will change that. It will also support young men, and it will support our society to be a better version of itself.

I hope Members will support the Bill. This is the start of a process. I hope the Minister will talk about the training that will be given to the police and the CPS to ensure that the legislation is effective. But let us have no more minimisation, no more shaking our heads and saying, “It’s just the way of the world.” Let us have no more teaching young women to be frightened, to go on self-defence courses, to travel with their friends and to carry those keys, any more than we say to young men, “Well, try not to do it again.” Let us change that culture. Let us change the law. Let us make this a society where everybody is just free to live their lives in peace. I will wager, left or right, that is an ambition we can all get behind.