Victims and Prisoners Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion]

I start by thanking the Minister. He has worked cross party, particularly with me, to turn what was a good, well-intended Bill into something much better, although there is still a lot further to go. I am delighted that the Government have accepted my argument that a victim does not have to report a crime to access support through the victims code, and therefore I will not press amendment 8.

There are victims who are not explicitly listed, but who need recognition. That would be provided through my amendments 5, 6, 157 and 158. When the definition of child sexual exploitation was introduced in 2009, it genuinely transformed services and people’s understanding. We now need the same for both adult sexual exploitation and child criminal exploitation. It is bizarre to me that, as soon as someone turns 18, sexual exploitation is seen as their making poor lifestyle choices, rather than as grooming, coercion and abuse. Likewise, child criminal exploitation is often unrecognised and the child is seen as a perpetrator. At the very least, I hope the Minister will ensure that there are statutory definitions of those crimes in guidance.

Amendment 7 relates to children whose parents are paedophiles. We need to ensure that those children are treated as secondary victims, in the same way that children born of rape will be once the Bill passes. I urge the Minister to consider rolling out a specialist type of IDVA, as Lincolnshire police are doing so brilliantly. Amendments 19 to 23 would ensure that there is also guidance for all specialist community-based services.

Elder abuse is often under-reported. Hourglass states that the elderly require specialist support due to the nature of the abuse, which often targets their finances, and because they are often digitally excluded. My new clause 6 would require the Government to carry out an assessment of specialist support services across the country to end the postcode lottery.

Amendments 4, 17 and 18 would include stalking in the Bill. Given that there were 1.5 million stalking victims in 2021, it is imperative that they have advocates. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust has shown that victims not supported by advocates have a one in 1,000 chance of their perpetrator being convicted, compared with one in four if they have a stalking advocate.

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

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case for stalking advocates. Does she also agree that now is the time for a stalking register, to stop this crime in its tracks?

[Sarah Champion]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who I know has tabled amendments on that point. We need to do much more about stalking.

One in five referrals through the national referral mechanism in 2022 were for a British child. It is essential that we get the support for that group of victims right and that we improve support for all victims of modern slavery, which is why I have tabled amendment 16, supported by the Centre for Social Justice. Clause 12 is positive, but as drafted it will fail to fully meet the needs of victims and survivors. Amendment 149 seeks to address that.

Another concern is that the Bill will not fully support all migrant victims, especially those facing domestic abuse. Many victims and survivors with insecure immigration status do not report to the police for fear that their information will be passed to immigration enforcement. And that fear is not unfounded: the Domestic Abuse Commissioner recently published Home Office data showing that every single police force in England and Wales had shared data of a victim of domestic abuse with immigration enforcement over a three-year period. To protect migrant victims and survivors, as well as the general public, we need to implement a data-sharing firewall that bans statutory services from sharing the data of a victim with the Home Office. My new clause 36 seeks to do that.

I have worked with Southall Black Sisters to develop new clause 8 so that all those with no recourse to public funds can be guaranteed access to support. The Government must extend the domestic violence indefinite leave to remain and the destitution domestic violence concession model for those on partner and spousal visas to all migrant victims of domestic abuse, regardless of their immigration status.

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[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. I am afraid that after the next speaker there will still be 10 people waiting to speak. We have to finish this section of proceedings at 8.50 pm in order to allow for the wind-up, so, after the next speech, the limit will be three minutes.

[Stella Creasy]

I associate myself with the amendments in the names of the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller), my right hon. Friends the Members for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) and for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) and, of course, my incomparable hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). In the time available to me, I will focus on the three amendments that I have tabled to flag issues with the Government.

Amendment 147 is about vicarious trauma. We are in a perverse situation right now—the Minister knows this—where we have to hope that a victim dies if we are to access support for our communities when traumatic things such as stabbings happen. I hope that the Minister will change that so that every child can be supported.

Amendment 148 is about overseas victims. It would simply restore the right that our constituents had when we were members of the European Union to have their rights as a victim upheld if they or a family member were a victim of crime overseas. I hope that the Minister will look at the victims’ rights directive, because so many people experience that.

New clause 32 is about a victim’s rights in relation to data. I was not sure that I would be able to table the new clause, because the court case that it refers was heard last Thursday. A year ago, a man started emailing my office with his concerns about my politics and the issues that I was working on. Like all Members when we get correspondence from non-constituents, I read the emails and filed them but did not respond. I was then called by my local social services because that man had decided that, because he disagreed with my views, I was not a fit mother for my children. He had reported me, an investigation had taken place, and while it cleared me, my children and I now have a social services record. When I went to the police about the matter, they said that he had a right to express his opinions in that way. I challenged it because, due to my work on stalking, I understood that somebody who could use a malicious report to harm someone was clearly dangerous. When I came forward, further reports came out revealing that this man had continued his campaign of harassment.

I am deeply grateful for the cross-party support for new clause 32, because although that man has now been convicted of harassment, his ability to target my family continues because the record continues. At present, there is no way of removing from someone’s record a clearly malicious and false accusation made to a third-party organisation. In tabling the new clause, I recognised that it is not just those of us in the public eye who may be targeted in this way; in many cases of stalking, we see people who fixate and use reporting mechanisms to damage their victims.

I have had no support or help from Parliament or anybody within the parliamentary process for my welfare or that of my children, but now I want to stand up for everybody who has been through this process. I ask the Minister to look at this, because victims of clearly malicious reports must have the opportunity to have the record corrected. Too often, people will say, “There is no smoke without fire.” I want to stand up for safeguarding —it is clearly a very important process—but if a court recognises that a report is malicious and a victim is being targeted but we cannot act to remove that report, the harassment will continue.

[Sarah Champion]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for using a personal case to speak so powerfully. I know that she does so from a position of wanting to change things for people who do not have the platform that she has. I commend her for that.

[Stella Creasy]

I thank my hon. Friend for that, and yes, the new clause would go much further than tackling the abuse of people in the public eye. I hope that, in other legislation, we will look seriously at what we can do about those who target our families and staff members as a way of intimidating us, because that is not free speech; it is a way of silencing people.

In tabling the new clause, I hoped also to speak up for those who have been targeted through third-party organisations. I know that there are colleagues in the other place who wish to take up that matter up. I hope that cross-party support continues and that the Minister will consider the proposals, which have already secured the support of London’s Victims’ Commissioner. I apologise to the House for not being able to bring them forward before, but I hope that Members can understand why.

I hope that we send a message today. Many of us do not block people, and many of us engage in robust parliamentary debate, but surely there is a line not to be crossed. That line is our children, our family and our staff, who do not ask to be put in harm’s way but will be if we do not act to protect our democracy and protect ourselves from those who would seek to use third-party mechanisms to abuse.