Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 5th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for his support.

I have 16 new clauses in this group that deal with issues such as extending the time limits for appealing unduly lenient sentences, including for assaulting an emergency worker, under the unduly lenient sentence scheme; limiting the use of fixed-term recalls, ensuring that there is no difference in sentencing between using a knife in a murder in a home compared with taking a knife to murder someone elsewhere; and a sentencing escalator ensuring that people who repeatedly commit the same offence must get a more severe penalty each time they do so, which has a huge amount of support from the public. I hope that the Secretary of State will write to me with his response to each of my new clauses.

In the limited time available, I want to focus on new clause 75, which would ensure that there was no automatic early release of prisoners who assault prison staff while in jail. I would like to see an end to all automatic early release, as alluded to by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings. However, as it seems that the Government are not quite with us on that just yet, my new clause would send a clear message to those who assault hard-working and dedicated prison officers and other staff in our prisons that they would have to serve the whole of their sentence in prison if they indulged in that kind of activity rather than, as at the moment, so many people being automatically released halfway through. If jailed criminals attack a prison officer, surely they should lose their right to automatic early release and serve their sentence in full.

Far too many prison officers are being assaulted. They do a very difficult job and we are not giving them sufficient support. We should be doing our bit to prevent these assaults from happening. Clearly, if people knew that they would have to serve the entirety of their sentence in prison, that would be a good deterrent. At the moment, they can assault prison officers and prison staff with near impunity because they know they are still going to be released halfway through their sentence. The number of extra days—I repeat, days—that are given to people when they commit the offence of assaulting a prison officer is derisory. We owe a duty of care to prison officers and should make sure that they are as well protected as possible when they are doing their public service.

That also ties in with the spirit of what the Government have been trying to achieve on attacks on emergency workers. I certainly agree with what the Government are doing in this Bill and I look forward to the Secretary of State bringing forward his proposals to deal with attacks on shopworkers when the Bill goes to another place. I think that showing we are on the side of prison officers, hard-working public servants, in this way would be a very welcome step forward. I imagine that most common-sense members of the public would be surprised to know that this is not the case already, to be perfectly honest.

I have not had any indication from the Government that they are planning to accept my new clause 75. I would love to hear from the Secretary of State why he thinks it is perfectly reasonable for criminals who assault a prison officer not to have their automatic early release stopped and why he thinks it is absolutely fine for them still be released early from their prison sentences. I am pretty sure that lots of prison officers would like to know the same, too. I would like to hear from him on that when he winds up, but I would prefer to hear that he was accepting my new clause 75, which I think the vast majority of people in this House would like to see, prison officers would like to see and the public would like to see.

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

This is a Bill that shows us that the Government have yet to understand the value of debate and discussion. As a result, they are missing out on some key amendments, many tabled for discussion in this debate and many for the earlier debate, that could have made the Bill a moment of progress on issues that many of us agree on. Instead, by the way in which the Attorney General, the Lord Chancellor and the Government are approaching the Bill, we see exactly where their priorities lie. Every single time proposals have been put forward to keep women safe, they get kicked into the long grass, with the suggestion that they go to the Law Commission. Yet the Government think it is simple and easy to define what is “annoying” when we all know that is a very difficult one. In the last few weeks alone, we have seen the value of deciding what the difference between protest and harassment is. Surely that should be something that went to the Law Commission.

Instead, in my short time this evening, I want to challenge the way in which the Government are approaching amendments that have come from across the House and which bring us many ideas on how we can improve confidence in our criminal justice system. I want to put on record my support for the amendments tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), who has been a diligent activist for human rights all her life and whose ideas about rape should not be let go again. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) spoke courageously to identify an anomaly in our law, where the women in Northern Ireland now enjoy better reproductive rights than women in England, Wales and Scotland. The amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) to help to support our children and keep our children safe are vital. There is cross-party support for action against assault on retail workers and for action to address pet offences, which have been coming up in the pandemic.

I urge the Government to listen to the message coming so clearly from women across the country about new clause 30, which has been tabled in my name but has been part of the work I have been doing with my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith). I pay tribute to his constituent, Julia Cooper, a valiant woman who was simply feeding her baby in a park when a man decided it was acceptable to take photos of her breastfeeding without her consent. When she sought the support of the law, the law said it was perfectly legal for the man to do what he was doing. Take a moment to think about that. We can simply and easily decide that we want to protect statues, but on that most natural and beautiful thing for a mother to do to feed her child the Government are saying no to protecting those women. Again, they are kicking the issue into the long grass.

I served on the upskirting Bill. At the time, we raised concerns that, frankly, it only went below the knee, but we now need to make sure that the law ensures full coverage. I urge Ministers tonight: whether it is in the other place or now, please do not leave the women of this country feeling that you do not understand the lives they lead. We have the lowest rates of breastfeeding in Europe and it is not hard to understand why, if women feel they are going to be shamed or attacked in public.

As someone that this has happened to myself, I ask the Minister to think about what he would feel if it was happening to a member of his family: if somebody was taking photos or a video for their own gratification and he could not stop them. By resisting new clause 30 and saying that this has to go back to the Law Commission, when it is clear what could be done to make it a criminal offence, he is sending a very clear message to women, as he has done on rape, as he has done on domestic homicide reviews, as he has done on child protection, that their concerns are complicated and difficult, but statues and protests are not. I ask him to think again about the message that he is sending and to say, “We will make laws in this place that will support everyone to lead their lives without fear”, because it is fear that someone will feel if they think that somebody is following them with a camera when they just want to feed their baby. Minister, let us not just stick up for the unborn children; let us stick up for those who are newly born, too.

[Sarah Champion [V]]

In my time as an MP, I have worked with too many victims and survivors who have been utterly let down by the criminal justice system. Their cases compel me to use this Bill as a vehicle to deliver long overdue changes for them. In the past year alone, I have had two survivors from Rotherham contact me to say that their abuser has been moved to an open prison and is therefore eligible for day release without their notification. That is despite the fact that both victims were signed up to the victim contact scheme and should have been able to provide evidence to the Parole Board in advance of the decisions being made.

Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I hope that, given his obvious conviction and commitment to this issue, my hon. Friend will volunteer to be on the Committee that considers the victims’ Bill when it enters the House. It will be a critical part of the architecture of ensuring that we build confidence in the system among victims, and I look forward to its passage through the House.

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

The Minister says that justice is being dispensed in our courts. Well, in April this year a convicted rapist who named and blamed his victim on Facebook got a paltry £120 fine. We rightly give victims of rape anonymity for life. What message does he think it sends to victims when this important protection is being abused and the penalty for it is less than someone would get for fly-tipping? And if he agrees that it is not acceptable, what is he doing about it?

[Kit Malthouse]

As you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, victims of these kinds of offences do have a right to lifetime anonymity. Although I have to admit that that penalty standing alone does seem derisory, the hon. Lady will know that the particular individual—I think we are talking about the same case—received a very significant sentence for the substantive offence. This is an issue that we will be keeping under review, but for the purposes of the rape review my job is to get more cases into court, and that is what I will be focusing on.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

We now go to Stella Creasy, and the four-minute time limit starts.

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

I recognise the progress that has been made on these issues through the process with the other House. But as somebody who has been in the House for 11 years seeking to amend legislation to effect change, I gently say to the Minister that every Minister has told us that a Bill is at threat because of the parliamentary process and every Bill seeks to be a landmark Bill, so we are asking her to go the extra mile on these final issues in this Domestic Abuse Bill. In my short contribution, I want to look at the counterfactual: what happens if we do not include these amendments?

Will the Minister tell us the conditions under which she would want somebody’s immigration status to be a factor in whether they can access help? Like others, I welcome the pilot scheme, but, like the bishops, I am concerned that it can run out and we will be back at square one, where women are frightened to come forward, or are pushed back into the hands of perpetrators because of their immigration status. We will therefore not meet our conditions under the Council of Europe requirements for the Istanbul convention, and we will see women living with their perpetrators as a direct result of our failure to include them in this legislation.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 15th April 2021 Commons Chamber

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

May I associate myself with the comments today about the Duke of Edinburgh and Dame Cheryl Gillan?

If we want to tackle violence against women, we need to change the conversation. We need to stop asking how we keep women safe and start asking how we stop the violence. I pay tribute to the many organisations and many Members across the House who have devoted time, effort and energy to the Bill and to that conversation—SafeLives, Refuge, Women’s Aid, Southall Black Sisters, Laura Richards, to name but a few of the many. The bitter reality is that whatever political perspective we come from, we have all known, in the many years that we have worked on this legislation, that it is a once- in-a-lifetime opportunity, because the conversation has all too often been about how women should keep themselves safe, rather than our responsibility to free them from harm.

I welcome the Government’s agreement to many changes to this legislation along its journey—just today, we are discussing their acceptance of Lord Kennedy’s amendment to stop doctors charging domestic abuse victims for medical evidence, for example. This also includes the changes on revenge porn, treating crimes that are motivated by misogyny as hate crime and ensuring that the police act to record how hostility towards someone’s sex or gender means that women are targeted for assault, abuse and harassment. However, in the time I have today, I want to urge the Minister to go further and drop the Government’s opposition to amendments where we ask a victim to fit a particular box rather than recognising that they all need our assistance to stop the violence.

Lords amendments 1 to 3 recognise the abuse of disabled people by paid or unpaid carers. Disabled women are twice as likely as their non-disabled counterparts to experience abuse, so we seek to support our disabled sisters from those who are their intimate contacts—people we trust to undertake some of the most sensitive acts, whether that is personal care, or emotional or financial matters. The Minister says that she cannot accept these amendments because giving those who are abused by their carers the protection of the Bill would change the common law understanding of domestic abuse and somehow dilute the purpose of the legislation, but the amendment is exactly about changing our understanding of abuse, where it happens and who suffers from it. This abuse takes place in a domestic setting and it is the result of an intimate relationship. For too long, those affected have been telling us about reviewing their evidence, how somehow they have to prove their case and why they cannot keep themselves safe through existing legislation. If we want to stop violence and abuse, we need to act and change how we think about domestic abuse accordingly. That is what Lords amendments 1 to 3 do.

Many have already spoken about Lords amendment 41, because that ensures that we give migrant victims of abuse the help that they need to leave abusive relationships, whatever their status. Without it, the Government are asking us to make a decision on whether to keep a victim of violence safe not on whether she is at risk, but on whether she has the right stamp in her passport. There is a speech for another day about the dysfunctionalities of the UK Border Agency and its ability to manage our immigration service, but it is a simple matter of fact that many victims of domestic abuse cover the cost of getting support, help and access to a refuge through their ability to access public assistance. When we deny women access to that assistance due to their immigration status, we consign them to having no way out of harm. Indeed, as Refuge pointed out, the number of survivors of abuse with no recourse to public funds is likely to increase post-Brexit under our new immigration proposals, so the need to address this will become even more pressing.

The Minister said that migrant victims should be seen as victims first, yet as she can see from the super-complaint and the evidence that it reveals, the reality is that they are all too often treated as potential criminals first and foremost when they come forward. We need to not only safeguard them from having their data shared but give them protection from being exploited full stop, and that is what Lords amendment 41 does. There are contradictions already exposed in this debate. The Minister says in one breath that the key consideration for migrant victims is not their immigration status and then says that victims of domestic violence should not have an automatic right to status in the UK. She says she needs more information and claims that the amendments are unnecessary as a result because she is reviewing the matter. I tell her, as somebody who has had to deal with these cases in my constituency and who is a big fan of the work that Southall Black Sisters does, that we do not need more reviews and more evidence, because the evidence is painfully already there.

The Minister says there is support, but we know that in 2019, for example, four in five migrant women were turned away from refuges due to their “no recourse to public funds” status. We have seen at first hand the women kept in violent relationships because of their immigration status. We have given testimony of the culture of fear they experience—fear of not only their abuser but the officials who are supposedly there to help them.

I also say, as a former member of the Council of Europe who had the privilege to serve on it alongside Dame Cheryl Gillan and learn from her in that institution, that we cannot ratify the Istanbul convention while we try to draw a distinction between women in the help they can access. Ministers told us that women in Northern Ireland were not treated differently when it came to their reproductive rights, and quite rightly, the Council of Europe told them otherwise. It is the same when it comes to drawing a distinction between migrant women and whether they can access support for being victims of domestic abuse. It is long overdue that we ratify the Istanbul convention. We cannot let this prevent us from being able to do that. We are one of the few countries left in Europe that has yet to ratify the convention, and I ask the Minister to talk to her counterparts in Europe, and to recognise how this will be a barrier to doing that and will leave women at risk in our communities.

Finally, I turn to Lords amendment 42, another matter on which there is much agreement in the House that we need to act. It is the best example among the amendments of how we can change the conversation and stop the violence caused by serial perpetrators and stalkers. The Minister tells us that the amendment is not needed, that it is not about the category of an offender but how MAPPA processes work, and that her proposals for reform will address that. I understand the point that she is making, and I can see that there is some truth in her argument about how services need to work together, because the evidence shows time and again that serial offenders and serial stalkers were left to target women without intervention. For years, women have lived in fear and begged for help from the police to protect them, only to be told that they were being overdramatic. That is not me being overdramatic. Research shows how the constant dismissing and downplaying of stalking’s serious nature means that, on average, victims of the crime do not report to the police until the 100th incident.

Shana Grice was fined for wasting police time before she was murdered by her stalker—a man who had been reported by 13 other women for stalking. Alice Ruggles was murdered by her ex-partner in 2016. The court heard how a restraining order had been taken out by an ex-girlfriend of his just three years earlier, but at the point at which Alice was begging the police for help, Northumbria police had no knowledge of that. Janet Scott, Pearl Black, Linah Keza, Maria Stubbings, Kerri McAuley, Molly McLaren, Hollie Gazzard, Justene Reece, Kirsty Treloar, Jane Clough, Linzi Ashton—all those cases involved serial perpetrators who had been violent and abusive to other women before they were attacked. No one joined the dots. No one asked whether they were at risk and acted. These women were sitting ducks. That is the system that the Minister is defending today.

The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) says that putting someone’s name on a list does not make a difference. Frankly, I disagree. It means that we can finally hold the police, not the victims, to account, because they would have direct accountability for the management of their behaviour. It makes stalking something that the police have to recognise in its own right as something they need to stop, rather than something that women have to prove and manage. I pay tribute to the work that Laura Richards has done tirelessly to expose the situation and fight for these changes and to Baroness Royall, Baroness Newlove and Lord Russell for their work in the other place on this issue.

We know that this Bill has been a marathon, but we are asking the Minister to keep going that extra mile, to use this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to stop trying to defend the indefensible and the status quo, to change the conversation so that we can stop the violence and not allow perpetrators of these crimes to use the loopholes—those that the amendments would close—to continue the abuse. The evidence base is already there. It just needs the political will to act. I say to the House that if the Minister will not listen, we must, and we must vote for the amendments.

[Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

I join colleagues in their tributes to Dame Cheryl Gillan. I knew her for 20 years, from her role as shadow Secretary of State and later as Secretary of State for Wales. I am so very sorry she has gone; she would have made a fantastic speech today.

It was an honour to sit on the Domestic Abuse Bill Committee last year. I am extremely proud that we have managed to prioritise this vital piece of legislation at this time. It will empower victims, communities and professionals to confront and challenge domestic abuse, and above all to provide victims with the support they deserve.

I commend the Minister for her efforts in this area and the shadow Minister, who talked about the spirit with which this Bill was forged. She is absolutely right that it has been made stronger all the way along by Members on both sides of the House, and I very much welcome that. I welcome the Government’s support for some of the amendments that were laid in the other place. They will create a standalone offence of non-fatal strangulation, extend the coercive and controlling behaviour offence to post-separation abuse and criminalise threats to share intimate images.

I also support the Government in opposing Lords amendment 41. I believe that, as worded, it could risk further exploitation of vulnerable individuals, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) pointed out. The Government have taken a significant step in supporting migrant victims today by announcing the scheme to be delivered by Southall Black Sisters. I met them when they gave evidence to the Bill Committee, and I am confident that they will be successful.

Much of what we will discuss this afternoon will be addressed later this year as the Government look at the violence against women and girls consultation. I commend the Government for acting fast and reopening that consultation in the wake of the horrific murder of Sarah Everard. It is extremely positive that so many more contributions were made to that consultation.

While I have the Minister’s ear, I want to press again the need to do something about cyber-flashing—spreading indecent images using mobile devices on an unsolicited basis. That happens often on public transport. I was once flashed by a man on a night out in Cardiff. I could have had him arrested, because doing it in person is a criminal offence, but if a person digitally exposes themselves unsolicited, it is currently not the same offence. That needs to change. No one should be made to feel alarmed, distressed or intimidated as a result of being sent an unsolicited explicit photo. With so many more of our young people living their lives online with their own mobile phones, we need to put a stop to cyber-flashing.

I briefly want to mention the case of Ruth Dodsworth. For those of us in Wales, she is a very familiar face. She is a TV and weather presenter on ITV Wales. Yesterday, her ex-husband was jailed for three years after making her life a misery for nine long years. He was verbally abusive and physically violent. He followed her to work, put a tracker on her car, and even used her fingerprints to open her phone while she was sleeping to read its contents. Every day, Ruth went to work and read the weather forecast in a sunny, positive manner, completely concealing the horror that she was facing at home. I raise that point not only to praise Ruth’s bravery and incredible courage but to remind victims everywhere that they do not have to put a smile on their face, pretend they are okay and get on with it. The police and the criminal justice system are there to support them when they come forward. Ruth’s case shows that this is not something that is happening in the shadows to women we do not know. We all know a victim of domestic abuse, whether we know it or not. This Bill is landmark legislation that will go a significant way to protecting the estimated 2.4 million victims of domestic abuse each year. I wish it swift passage through these Houses.

Before I close, I want to single out the work that has been going on in my local area in Powys. I particularly applaud Powys County Council’s children’s services. Recently, I met its head of service, Jan Coles, and she talked me through the outstanding work it has been doing to support children victims of domestic abuse. That work has obviously been made so much more difficult during the recent pandemic, and I want to put on the record my thanks for what it has done. Powys was one of the first local authorities to quickly get vulnerable children into school hubs at the same time as key worker children, and I commend the council for that effort.

Finally, I thank all the brave survivors and tireless organisations who have given evidence during the passage of the Bill. This Bill is stronger because of them. I give it my full support, and I am proud to have played a very small part in it.

Policing and Prevention of Violence against Women

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I refer the hon. Lady to the comments I made earlier, including the fact that I disagree with the points that she has just made.

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

A quarter of all police forces are either already actively recording or trialling recording where crimes are motivated by a hatred of somebody’s sex or gender. Where they do this, the police have better intelligence to track and prevent violence against women and women report more confidence in coming forward to report assaults and harassment. Will the Home Secretary and her Government drop their opposition to amendment 87B to the Domestic Abuse Bill tonight in the House of Lords in order to require that all police forces follow this best practice in England and Wales? That will finally put us on the road to equalising misogyny as a hate crime, as it should be.

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady will have to follow the debate in the other place later on. As she will well know, there is extensive debate and discussion on this issue.

Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Thursday 15th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

Well, they have changed a bit. One of the things that the Intelligence Services Act 1994 created was the Intelligence and Security Committee. The Committee tried to look into rendition and torture just recently, under its previous Chairman, and it was refused access to 15 cases, so I am now suing the Government on exactly this matter, to force them to have to have a proper judge-led tribunal. So even now, it is not good enough; after 20 years, it is still not good enough.

The trouble is that others do it better. America and Canada learned the hard way about the need to include specific limits on the crimes that agents can commit. In those countries, informers and their handlers were involved in carrying out numerous cases of racketeering and murder, and they were found out. Since then, both countries have set clear limits. Just as an aside on the overall public interest, we all want our agencies to be able to work, but the FBI investigation found that the lack of limits and the wooliness of the controls led to more crimes, not fewer, so the so-called Soprano effect worked in reverse in terms of protecting the public interest.

The Bill puts no express limits on the crimes that the agencies can authorise—not on murder, not on torture and not on rape—and it claims that the Human Rights Act provides a safeguard. However, their own submissions in court, which have already been referred to by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, showed that their own lawyers do not believe that. If Members have a bit of quiet time travelling back to their constituencies, they should read the Investigatory Powers Tribunal’s findings on the behaviour of the agencies. It is almost a James Bond novel in its own right. The scathing descriptions of the operations are worth reading.

Amendment 13, tabled in my name, addresses the most egregious elements of the Bill. It puts hard limits on the extent of criminal conduct that can be authorised by officers, and it specifically prohibits murder, torture, serious bodily harm, sexual assault and other heinous crimes. Crucially, it explicitly permits prosecutors to drop a case in a situation where an agent is truly forced to participate in a serious crime and where a decision not to prosecute is in the public interest. There is a real need for legislation in this area, but the Bill as it stands carries real risks of serious injustice. My amendments would give the intelligence services the protections they need, but stop short of giving them carte blanche authorisation to carry out the heinous crimes in the name of the state that have happened too often in the past.

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

It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), and I agree with much of what he has said. I think there is agreement in this Chamber that we need this legislation, because the hallmark of a grown-up democracy is that it does not shy away from taking the necessary actions to keep a country safe, and nor does it say, “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” This legislation puts on a statutory footing those practices that are part and parcel of security in this country. The question for all of us is whether it also provides the necessary accountability and oversight to ensure that they are just. I recognise that covid and the speed with which this legislation has been brought through militate against our doing our job properly on this, because we are doing it so quickly, but today I want to flag up one particular issue of concern. I suspect that it will be in the other place that we will see progress on these issues.

We know that this is a narrow Bill with a specific role around criminal conduct. I also recognise and understand the concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) raised—I am sorry that she is no longer in her place—about the ongoing inquiries and the timing of this legislation. I hope the Minister will address those points in his comments and tell us what the Government would do, should those inquiries come back with further requirements for support. I also want to put on record my support for amendment 13 and for the Front-Bench amendments from my own party.

We recognise that there are genuine concerns about the Human Rights Act. In other debates in this place, people have talked about rewriting the Act, and I hope the Minister will deal with that issue. Also, it is a circular argument to suggest that the practices set out in amendment 13 and the amendments from my own Front Bench are already covered, if the Government will not accept amendments to ensure that they are part of how this legislation is dealt with.

I also hope that the Minister will talk about the equalities impact of the legislation. I represent a community that has, at best, a tangled relationship with many of the agencies that will have these powers. We are in a position of privilege in this House, so it is right and proper that we have oversight of those who do not share those same benefits.

I rise to speak in particular to new clause 8—especially the issue at the heart of this legislation, which for me is about the people who can consent to be a covert human intelligence source. It is worth looking at the definition:

“Someone who maintains a relationship for the covert purpose of providing information to another person”—

that is, not just someone who has a one-off conversation with our security services or police about something, but someone who is asked to maintain what is potentially a position of harm to support an investigation.

The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden talked about the James Bond code. In most of our discussions about CHIS, we have envisaged those James Bond figures—the people from our security services or police conducting covert investigations. But I want to talk about those who are not the James Bonds: the children and vulnerable people who become covert human intelligence sources and who need us to make sure in this legislation that they are properly protected.

For the last year, there has been a legal challenge to the Government about how children have been used as covert human intelligence sources. It was settled last week in the High Court, when the Government agreed to update their guidance and code of practice on how children could be involved in this legislation. It is worth taking a step back at this point to reflect on that: we are talking about young people—children being asked to do what we previously envisaged James Bond doing. I hope that I am pushing at an open door with the Minister with the new clause because that code of practice and the recognition at the High Court that there was a case to answer reflect the fact that we need to get this right.

Our first instinct may be that no child should ever be involved in intelligence work in this way, and I sympathise with that. But when we look into the cases where it has happened, we see that there may be exceptional circumstances in which a child may become an informant. It is right, therefore, that we should have incredibly strict guidelines that have the interests of that child at heart when that happens. I am open to the idea that understanding what constitutes those exceptional circumstances is very difficult, but the new clause comes from the belief that the child’s primary interests should be, as a matter of fact, at the heart of any engagement with state services.

Let us talk for a minute about the children we are discussing. For many of us who represent communities where issues such as county lines are a real problem, they are the children in the gangs and those who have been part of child sexual exploitation, who may know valuable information and have relationships with those exploiting them. For the police and the security services, they become incredibly valuable sources of information.

Those are important investigations—nobody is suggesting otherwise. But the new clause recognises that there may be a conflict of interest between the investigation and the best interests of an incredibly vulnerable person. A young child drawn into county lines who knows the people organising things and has been given a gun—I can think of such cases—is still a child. We have a duty to that child to ensure that they are not exploited, even if people feel that the investigation is merited.

The Minister will say that that happens very rarely. The Government’s own figures show that 17 children in 11 jurisdictions were used in this way in the past couple of years. One of them was just 15—a 15-year-old child being asked to continue a relationship that puts them at harm because that helps an investigation. What troubled me was that one of the other Ministers told the court that we should actually make more use of children in such circumstances—that they could be valuable because they were getting involved in criminal activity themselves.

Again, take a step back and think that through. In other parts of our legislation, we recognise that when children engage in harmful practices it is our duty to stop that. Yet in that court case and this process with CHIS, Ministers are saying, “Actually, we might want to maintain that because it will help with an investigation”—the children would have “unique access” as “juvenile undercover agents”. They are children, Minister, and it is absolutely right that we act to protect them and see them as children first. That is what new clause 8 seeks to do.

[James Brokenshire]

I will respond to the hon. Lady formally in my winding-up speech, but I would like to stress that all public authorities that task juvenile CHIS must have regard to their safety, welfare and wellbeing, as required under sections 10 and 11 of the Children Act 2004 and the United Nations convention on the rights of the child. It is important that I state that. The hon. Lady is making some important points, which I am listening to intently, but I think it is right that I put that on the record.

[Stella Creasy]

I recognise what the Minister says. The challenge is that we already know of children and vulnerable young people who have been in this position under that legislation, but the paramount needs of the child or vulnerable person have not always been at the forefront of the minds of those involved in these investigations.

What am I talking about? I am talking, for example, about a 17-year-old girl who was in a relationship where she was sexually exploited, but she continued in that relationship because it was beneficial to the police investigating the person she was in a relationship with. She ended up witnessing a murder and being party to destroying evidence about that murder. We would be responsible for the situation that she was in.

New clause 8 does not say that there will never be a circumstance in which we might work with children, but it does say that it is right to see them as children first and to have a second pair of eyes to uphold that principle. The Minister will tell me that that is written into the guidance, but the new clause puts it in the Bill so that it is beyond doubt that somebody would take responsibility for a vulnerable person’s welfare. It also extends to vulnerable people who might have been trafficked, for example—people who may not see themselves as vulnerable but who, we would recognise, could be exploited. It is right that we have that check and balance of the appropriate adult—somebody who looks at that vulnerable person and gives an alternative perspective on what is happening to them, independent of the investigation.

The Minister may say that he cannot accept the new clause in this format, but I ask him to look seriously at this issue and to ensure that when we pass necessary legislation to formalise such powers, we take a step back and see the person we might be drawing into criminality. These people are not all James Bond and can consent freely to being involved in criminal activity and then be held accountable by RIPA. Some of them will be very vulnerable people who need us in this place to stand beside them and ensure that their interests are protected and that they have an appropriate adult to act for them.

I hope the Minister will listen to the concern that has been expressed across the House—the new clause is signed by Members from across the House—and introduce that protection into the Bill so that we put it beyond doubt. The reality is that if it is just in a code of guidance, it will not always be followed. Let us send the message that children should be children, not child spies.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

I am grateful to be called so early in this key debate, having been unable to speak on Second Reading. I therefore wish, if I may, to speak in general terms.

The first duty of any Government is to protect their people from harm. It is called defence of the realm. Given that that overrides all other considerations, we need to see the Bill in the context of the many existential threats that we face on a daily basis, many of which are hidden in the shadows and may never reveal themselves until it is too late. We also need to consider those we trust to keep us safe by empowering, not inhibiting, what they do. Our security services are only ever as good as the tools that their operators are given and the legal framework in which they work. Not only is the Bill a necessary piece of legislation in its own right; it provides a further insurance policy against those who seek to destroy the freedoms and the democracy that we take for granted.

Having personally served in uniform, I am comfortable that the Government continue to do what they must to give our intelligence services what they need to do their job. By allowing criminal conduct authorisations in the pursuit of covert human intelligence sources, the Bill rightly maintains the services’ operating freedoms, allowing them to close on those who threaten us and bring them to justice. But let us be clear: these powers are to be used only in extremis, when the operational circumstances necessitate, when quick decisions are needed or when there is no other way to avoid compromise.

To think that our operators are naturally predisposed to committing murder, torture or sex crimes, or that the Bill somehow encourages them to do so, is just wrong. The need to exercise discretion and judgment lies at the heart of what we ask our services to perform. Not only are these people good at what they do, they intuitively know the difference between right and wrong, so it is right that a CCA may be granted where necessary for one of three purposes: national security, the prevention or detection of crime, and in the interests of the economic wellbeing of the UK. I am happy, too, that under clause 2 only responsible bodies, such as the police, the National Crime Agency, the Serious Fraud Office or the security services, will be entrusted to do so, albeit with further work needed beyond the scope of the Bill on appropriate operating procedures.

I also agree with my friends on the Opposition Benches that, for example, rules of engagement might be provided in each particular case, and that there is further work to do. Under clause 4, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner will exercise oversight of all authorising bodies, not least to ensure that unlimited powers to commit any crimes are never granted and to rightly prosecute where criminality occurs.

I noted on Second Reading that the Secretary of State was continually pressed on which practices might be exempt or otherwise. His stance that it would not be appropriate to draw up a list of specific crimes is right, for to do so would place in the hands of criminals, terrorists and hostile states a means of identifying our agents and sources, creating a potential checklist for suspected operators to be tested against. The Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee also recognised how easy it would be for groups to flush out agents if they were aware of human intelligence being prohibited from certain acts, calling it “ dangerously counterproductive”. Although my own knowledge of covert operations is limited, I can tell Members that the work is difficult and dangerous.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

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

If she will relocate a number of unaccompanied refugee children affected by the recent fire at Moria refugee camp on Lesvos from Greece to the UK.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)]

As another Croydon MP, I would like to add my words to those of my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), and pay tribute to Sergeant Ratana and his long track record of service to our local community. Everybody in the borough, from north to south, feels it deeply. Our sympathy and condolences go to his family at what must be an agonising and heartbreaking time.

On the question of resettlement, we are continuing to welcome family reunion cases, as we are obliged to do under the Dublin regulations, including from Greece—in fact, particularly from Greece. Already this summer, three flights have brought in refugees to reunite them with family members in the United Kingdom, so we are continuing to discharge our obligations.

[Chris Philp]

We are investigating ways that the United Kingdom Government can help our colleagues in Greece. That includes the possibility of using overseas aid money to assist them, as well as looking at people who are entitled to be relocated to the UK under the Dublin regulations, and at what we can do to assist and expedite that process.

[Stella Creasy [V]]

I have some numbers to put this issue in context. Some 13,000 refugees are without any shelter as a result of the recent fires in Greece, 3,800 of whom are children. There are 21 confirmed cases of covid in the camp, which has a quarantine capacity of just 30. Ten countries, including France, Germany, Croatia and Portugal, have already agreed to take some of the hundreds of unaccompanied young minors in the camp. At present, we have taken just 16, but this place promised to take 3,000 under the Dubs scheme. Will the Minister give me and others who are concerned about this issue just one meeting to discuss what more we can do on our obligations to those vulnerable young children?

[Chris Philp]

We have fulfilled our Dubs obligation in full: 380 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have been brought to the UK from European countries, in addition to 3,500 who came here last year. That is higher than any other country in Europe. In addition to that, we are honouring our Dublin obligations to Greece. It is not 16; well over 100 people have been taken from Greece directly back here. Where we have further obligations, we will do everything we can to make sure we meet them. In addition to that, as I said in response to an earlier question, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is looking at ways that we can help to provide the kind of shelter that the hon. Lady referred to. There is a lot that the Government have done and will continue to do. If she would like to meet me to discuss that, I would be delighted to do so.

Intelligence and Security Committee: Russia Report

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

There is strong join-up between our security and intelligence agencies as well as our police. Indeed, when looking at the work that I do each week, I see that join up and see that work, so she can absolutely have my assurance in that regard.

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

The Minister has told us today that he is confident that there is no need for an investigation into any potential Russian interference in the EU referendum, because if there had been, it would have been detected by existing processes. Given that this report sets out that there was Russian interference in other referendums and that the Russians continue to be involved in British politics, why does he think that the Russians chose to sit that one out?

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 18th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)]

I rise to warmly welcome the Bill, which ends free movement, eliminates the unfairness between EU and non-EU migration, paves the way for a points-based immigration system and, most importantly, delivers on our pledge at last year’s election.

I need no convincing that immigration is and has been a good thing for Britain. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, it is woven into our nation’s fabric, and we need to continue to attract the brightest and the best around the world. Uncontrolled immigration, however, has placed a great strain on many communities. We simply abandoned any expectation along the way of those who came here to integrate, to speak English and to commit to working and living by the same rules as everyone else. As Tony Blair relaxed the rules, the Labour party simply forgot about working-class communities across the country. It did not listen as those communities struggled for jobs, experienced the difficulties of getting school places and doctor’s appointments, and lived with the consequences of divided communities, which were left to suffer in silence and, should they speak out, risked the wrath of the north London chattering classes who, for the third time in a row, are once again running the Labour party.

Today, the Government are proposing to right those wrongs, and are proposing a pathway to a fair immigration system. What do we hear from the Opposition? We heard the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) talk once again about austerity cuts. We heard a disingenuous blurring of the lines between those who are here already and those who may come here in future. We heard from the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) that now is not the time, without any indication of when the time might be for a policy such as this. He spoke about lessons learned and the need for the Government to learn lessons, but the Opposition seem to have learned no lessons at all. A lot has been written about how Labour voters abandoned the party in the general election, but the truth is that the Labour party abandoned those voters and those communities many years ago. It is the Conservative one-nation Government who are righting those wrongs and standing up for those communities. I commend the Bill, and I welcome the Home Secretary’s leadership on this matter.

6.54 pm

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

Ending freedom of movement has become the loudest answer to everything we hear on the doorstep. No jobs? End freedom of movement. No housing, no doctor’s appointment, no parking? Blame freedom of movement. In that noise, it is hard to talk about this issue without being called either a racist or a bleeding heart liberal, but the truth is that EU migration has benefited our economy. EU migrants contribute £2,300 more to the public purse each year than the average adult—and that is including the cost of their children being here, too. They are also less likely to use our public services, although they work in them. We are more likely to meet an EU migrant helping us in our hospitals than standing in front of us in a queue.

Over the past 20 years, immigration has been on a much larger scale than we have had in the previous 200 years, but, truthfully, however many people have come, this country has never been good at making it work. With every new wave of people, the UK has always been unwelcoming and always regretted it. Indeed, it was the same with the Huguenots, the wave of refugees that brought both my family and Nigel Farage’s family here. When the Windrush generation came, they were met with “no blacks, no Irish, no dogs”. Now we rightly honour their contribution to our communities. We have demonised those who have come from Europe for years. Now, as we clap for those who are saving our lives with one set of hands, this proposed legislation asks us to abandon them with another.

The problem here is not immigration; it is politicians talking about what we do not want, rather than what we need. This Bill is that problem written down: bringing to an end freedom of movement without providing for what comes next, because in our toxic political culture ending freedom of movement has been sold as a solution in itself. The only answer the Government are offering us about what replaces it is to expose everyone to the dysfunction that is the current immigration system—the same system that gave us the hostile environment, the Windrush scandal and the legacy system.

The former Home Secretary and former Member for Blackburn once told me there are two divides in Parliament: left and right; and those who have to deal with the UK Border Agency and those who do not. The truth is that the UKBA has been a fiasco for Governments of all colours. It makes us all hypocrites: locking up victims of torture and rape in Yarl’s Wood, while claiming to be defenders of human rights. It is a system where, unlike in other countries in Europe, when we see refugee children, we do not seek to reunite them with their family members or provide them with safe passage to stop them being targeted by traffickers. Above all, it is a system that is just not very good at making decisions. Of the 25,000 people we locked in detention without any limit for how long, only 37% were eventually deported and yet we expect them to deal with this mess without any legal support. The only people who would be helped by this Bill will be us, because it absolves us of dealing with the problems it creates. It gives the Government Henry VIII powers to write immigration legislation without having to bring them back to this place and force us to address the damage that has been done. We already have a points-based system, so the question Ministers should be answering is: what do we award points for? We know that skilled or valued worker does not necessarily mean well-paid worker.

We know 3 million of our EU citizens, who are our friends, our family and our neighbours, are now struggling with the paperwork that pre-settled status entails. There are 1 million Brits in Europe who need a good deal, too. So ask yourselves if you want your children to be able to work for companies who have offices in Berlin or Rome without them being penalised because they cannot travel there, or one that gives points out so that if you fall in love with your French exchange partner you can move to Paris or they can come to you in Barnsley. The benefits that came with freedom of movement mean that when you do not have it, you will end up wanting to invent it. Such freedoms will become more important, not less, in the coming years.

If we are to have a better quality of legislation, we need a better quality of debate about who is coming in and why. Take, for example, the immigrant who came to us having failed his exams with a patchy work history and no ties to the UK. His name was Albert Einstein. Even then, in the 1930s, the UK border authorities misplaced his papers. His landing card was only found in a trawl of old paperwork in Heathrow in 2011. Back then, the Daily Mail urged readers to avoid him and boycott his lectures raising money for other refugees from Nazi Europe. Back then, another MP, Oliver Locker-Lampson, tried to sponsor his British citizenship and help Jews fleeing the Nazis. Back then, we said no and we lost Einstein to America.

When it comes to immigration, our policies all too often meet Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. I will not be voting for the Bill, because it is another example of that phenomenon and my constituents —former, current and future—deserve better from us all. All the while, we as politicians continue to behave like this and debate like this. The problem is not immigrants, it is us.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I suspend the House for 15 minutes until 7.14 pm precisely.

Points of Order

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

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

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. If I may, I should like to seek your advice. For the last six days, an organisation calling itself the Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform UK has been waging a campaign of intimidation and harassment against me and, by extension, my constituents in Walthamstow—from turning up in our town centre with a 20-foot banner of my head next to an image of a dead baby of about the age of the baby I am currently carrying myself, proclaiming that I am working hard to achieve such an outcome; to buying from Clear Channel billboards advertising in my constituency, displaying near schools graphic and scientifically incorrect pictures of foetuses; to libelling me on national radio as someone who wishes to see abortion up to birth; to its Stop Stella campaign, which explicitly encourages people to target me as a hypocrite for being pregnant and advocating the right of all women to choose when to be.

Walthamstow residents have made clear their distress at this behaviour, and so have I. The organisation has made its point. It disagrees with me; I understand that and have asked it not to continue. Despite that, it has already stated that it will keep returning and targeting me until I stop campaigning. Already, I have received numerous threats and abusive messages that directly quote its material.

As you would expect, Mr Speaker, I have sought police assistance against this harassment. I am sad to report that, as yet, none has been given, including from the parliamentary authorities, although Sadiq Khan and Clare Coghill, the leader of my council, have been fantastic allies. I also have proposals for the Domestic Abuse Bill, which I hope Ministers will look on kindly, to recognise this form of abuse. As I have always said to bullies, “It’s not my time you’re going to waste.”

One of the troubling things about importing this kind of campaigning into our politics—the organisation has said that it will extend its protest to other MPs, and it is clearly influencing debate in this place, as some even in this Chamber have said that I wish to kill babies—is how it is funded. This organisation claims, in its constitution and accounts and in a statement it made to the BBC last October, to be a charity, yet the Charity Commission has refused to register it. Nor is it clear whether it has repaid the gift aid it has previously claimed under the auspices of this charity status. If not, given that it knew that it was not registered with the Charity Commission, this group has facilitated tax evasion, which of course is a criminal offence. Nor is it clear whether it is complying with the rules for third-party campaigners in the run-up to an election, or whether it is accepting illegal foreign donations, given that it is part of a network of such organisations across the world.

Sadly, I understand that the organisation has also threatened to sue journalists who ask about these matters, so we cannot have clarity about who is funding this sustained campaign of intimidation from an organisation whose counterparts in other countries have picketed maternity hospitals with baby coffins and incited such hatred and radicalisation that it has resulted in violence, including a mass shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado.

Given the calls for a general election, the Charity Commission, the Electoral Commission and, indeed, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs must prioritise investigating such organisations and tackling the potential consequences for our public debates. I am sure we would all want to know whether all taxes are paid, all donations declared and all donors legal.

I am not sure, however, where we as parliamentarians can start in holding such a company to account for its toxic culture and approach, and in the absence of police action. We cannot uphold free speech on any issue if we do not also hold to account those who seek to abuse it and the laws on campaigning. Perhaps, Mr Speaker, you will have some suggestions for me so that we can ensure that no MP and, indeed, no other woman has to go through what I have been going through in the past few days.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. At the outset, I know she will understand if I say that in respect of some of the other matters to do with tax treatment and funding that she mentioned, I cannot comment. It is perfectly reasonable for the hon. Lady to set out those matters, but they do not require a response from me and it would not in any way be authoritative.

However, as far as what I regard as her major point is concerned, I will be absolutely explicit in my response. I believe that campaigning of that kind, with the intensity involved and the explicit public threat, to its apparently endless continuation, is vile, unconscionable and despicable. There is a major difference—it is important that we should be clear about this—between putting a point of view with considerable force and insistence on the matter of abortion or any other matter of public dispute and putting it in extreme and provocative terms, and in doing so saying, “We will go on doing so until you stop exercising your right as a Member of Parliament to campaign for what you want. Give in to our intimidation, our threats and our bullying, or it will be the worse for you.” That to me, colleagues—I hope that I carry the support of the majority of the House in saying this—is rank, unacceptable and displays, if I may say so, and I will, an absence of any moral compass. Anybody who thinks seriously about these matters cannot seriously think that that is right. It would be wrong in any case, but for the hon. Lady to be subject to that treatment when she herself is pregnant, and those intimidating and harassing her, ultimately unsuccessfully, know that to be so, is double appalling.

With reference to what the hon. Lady said—and it is a challenge, which I take in good part—about thus far an absence of support from the House authorities, I am very disappointed to learn of that. I cannot comment on the particulars. What I do undertake to do is to meet the hon. Lady within 24 hours, if she wishes to meet me, and I will, as appropriate, be accompanied by people in this House who are best placed to advise. I am delighted that the Mayor of London and his team are supporting her, but she is entitled to proper and unstinting support from the House authorities. If she feels that that is not the case and there is more that we can do, or there are things that we have not done at all that we should be doing, I am determined that she should get that help.

The hon. Lady is respected across this House as an extremely dedicated, articulate and principled campaigner for her causes. Nothing on earth can be allowed to prevent her from continuing in that vein. Although it is not a matter of order within the Chamber, it is right that she should seek the support of Parliament’s spokesperson, as she wants to reinforce her right to go about her business in a legitimate way. She has that right, and I stand absolutely with her in insisting on the continued exercise of that right.