Stalking

Debate between Stella Creasy and John McDonnell

Thursday 21st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman and he will have heard the voices of other victims. People have said to me, “The only reason there is police interest in your case is that you are a high-profile person.” I think that is an honest assessment, and I have said that that should not be why there is interest in any case.

We heard from the family of Clare Bernal and the Clough family during the inquiry, and Sam Taylor, who was a victim of stalking, is an amazingly inspiring woman for her fortitude in dealing with this. The police need to understand the range of behaviours and identify the different types of risk people face.

I will talk about online activity shortly, but first I want to point out that victims must also be asked about what they think should happen. When people are under this sort of pressure, we should not flinch from saying that the impact on the victim is paramount. Therefore, if someone is distressed, that is reason enough for the police to act and the CPS to be involved.

We also recognise that insufficient resources are put into this. There is a fear that we might open the floodgates, but if there are floodgates to be opened, we need to address that. That is one of the challenges we face.

I feel I can add a little insight in terms of online forms of behaviour, and I am very mindful of the fact that 50% of stalking cases involve both online and offline behaviour. That is part and parcel of modern life because we now spend our lives both online and offline. Our freedoms are involved in that, too, and, as I have said, stalking and harassment is about curtailing people’s freedoms and inciting distress in them, and therefore making it impossible for them to lead their lives as before. I direct the Minister to the work of Claire Hardaker, at Lancaster university, who is trying to understand online harassment and stalking. She was recently commissioned to do such research, and it would send an incredibly powerful message if the Home Office looked at it.

In my own case, the difficulties the current legislation has in dealing with the world online became powerfully obvious. The legislation refers to a “course of conduct” or a consistent type of behaviour, and the question is whether the same metrics for that course of conduct can be applied to the online and offline environments. When the Opposition were scrutinising the legislation, we tried to get the Government to think about a list of types of behaviour that we, the CPS and the police might be looking out for, because we recognised that as life evolves and people have a life online and a life offline it is important to ensure that we are not missing particular types of behaviour.

Although the legislation refers to sending e-mails, it does not even begin to deal with the very different types of behaviour that occur in the social media that are now so much part of the modern world, such as the ways in which and ease with which people can be contacted, and the ways a victim can express concern and displeasure about the messages they are receiving and behaviour they are experiencing. My concern is that the attempt is being made to apply the “course of conduct” test to the online and offline worlds in a similar way. There is the sense that if someone is experiencing serious alarm or distress online, it is somehow less serious. Instead, we need to understand that, if that person is experiencing such pressure, and if it is coming from someone whom they have told—whether online or offline—they do not want to have contact with, we should not see it as being any different.

The course of conduct deadlines need to be updated for both the CPS and the police, so that the different ways in which the online world works are recognised. One example is the different time periods relating to a course of conduct. Offline, we might be talking about a contact period of days or even weeks; online, an hour is a long time. Both Caroline and I experienced people setting up accounts in order to send us rape and death threats, causing us harassment and severe distress. We publicly said that this was causing us severe distress, and they had their accounts suspended, although they started new ones. However, the question whether each incident is seen as a separate course of conduct, or something that took place over the course of an hour, cannot be dealt with under the current legislation. That example makes a powerful case, which my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary has also made, for cyber-awareness within the police force—for understanding that these are the ways in which online behaviour works.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

May I amplify the point? It is not just about the individuals concerned and the continuous nature of such behaviour over a limited period, but the prompting of others to participate in what almost becomes a conspiracy of attack.

[Stella Creasy]

My hon. Friend has literally taken the words out of my mouth; he is absolutely right. As I was about to say, we think of a course of conduct in terms of person-to-person contact. It is vital to understand that with social media, the ability to have an audience, to have spectators, is crucial to the level of stress that can be caused. Even if a perpetrator is not directly contacting somebody, by using that public forum they are using the way in which the internet and social media work to get a message to somebody. We need the police and the CPS to understand that, to understand just how dangerous these new forms of behaviour can be, so that they can act to protect people.

I encourage the Minister to revisit the debates we had a year ago on the importance of having a more extensive list, in order to give a flavour of the range of behaviours. Nobody is suggesting that there can be an exhaustive list of behaviours for stalking, but we need to recognise that there are sections of our society, and of our lives, that the training has not begun to touch, and that people are being abused as a result.

I am hopeful that the police and the CPS will take note of what has happened not just to me and Caroline Criado-Perez, but to a number of women in the public eye, and use it to develop guidelines. Many people have been affected by these issues. I have been contacted by people from across the country since the summer, and each of those stories shares some of the characteristics concerning how we deal with online behaviour. The fear is very real.

I am sad to see that there is no one here from the Ministry of Justice today, but I urge the Minister for Immigration, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), to work with the CPS not only to get the training in place but to get a commitment about test cases. It must be made clear that, as the world evolves, we will not falter in our determination to change the way in which the legislation is being used. We must ensure that the police, the CPS and the judiciary as a whole are what I would call cyber-sensitive. Just as we would not say to a woman, “Don’t walk down those streets at night”, we must ensure that we do not say, “Just come off Twitter and Facebook. Don’t put yourself in a position of risk. You must curtail your freedoms and rights so that we don’t need to deal with the risk that you are facing.” We need to send a strong message that these behaviours must be addressed and changed offline and online, throughout all the areas that I have described.

I am sure that we have all heard Laura Richards say that we need to change the culture so that we recognise stalkers as predators. These cases are not about a spurned loved one. I imagine that all of us who are in the public eye are fairly robust. We have all dealt with words, messages and debates that have been close to the bone, but this legislation was designed to deal with something very different—predatory behaviour. It was designed to deal with the person who will send 50 rape threats in an hour, not just on one night but over the course of two weeks. I have received another threat this week, which is terribly bad timing for this debate, as it is now months since it all happened.

Those people will not stop unless we change the culture and recognise that we are talking about predators in our society who will use a range of means to control and distress people. This is a matter for the law, and it is about how the law is applied. It is also about how we make good on the promise we made in this House a year ago that we would change this offence, that we would finally deal with this and that we would bring justice to the victims and find a form of prevention.

I hope that the Minister will listen to the genuine pleas from a range of sources about the difference that that would make. I would be happy to talk to him further about my personal experience, and the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) and I would also be happy to introduce him to other people who are dealing with these worries. We have to get this right. We cannot have another year of not getting the levels of prosecutions that we should be getting, given the number of cases that are coming forward. Our frustration is growing, not diminishing. This is not justice; it is not fair and this is not the kind of Britain that we want it to be.

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Stella Creasy and John McDonnell

Tuesday 16th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

I do not see how it can be interpreted any differently. The argument has been made that this provision has been included in the Bill for a purpose and that it is all to do with removing restrictions on businesses so that they can be encouraged to be more enterprising and create better profits, which might somehow contribute to tackling the recession. The argument is almost that we cannot afford equality, but our argument is that we cannot afford inequality. That is exactly why we enacted that legislation in 2006. There were strong arguments about not just fairness but efficiency. If there is discrimination against people, sections and groups in society, they cannot make their contribution. That was why we made a strong economic argument for the 2006 Act.

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

I note that the Minister talked about value for money. Does my hon. Friend agree that the value-for-money argument for dismantling the commission is a very bad one, because of its impact on our economy through the added cost to businesses of failing to tap into the potential of people against whom there is discrimination in our society?

[John McDonnell]

Exactly. In 2006 we had a lengthy debate on all sides when we identified groups in society that had not been given a fair crack of the whip and which, if they had, could contribute so much to our economy. Clause 52(1)(a), which removes section 3 from the Equality Act 2006, removes that statement.

It is interesting that only a few months ago the European Commission, in its recent report on equality, recommended to other Governments that they follow the example of the UK and embody in legislation a vision of an organisation that can contribute towards developing a society based on equality. Here we are, taking a step backwards from what is happening elsewhere across Europe. This is not just a tidying-up exercise. It is not about creating unrealistic expectations. It undermines the legislative basis of the organisation.

At the recent conference on discrimination law, Sir Bob Hepple QC made it clear what section 3 stands for. He said that it provides the link between the promotion of equality and good relationships between groups and society, and that without it we are rudderless. That was his statement. We included the measure in the original legislation to give direction.

It is extraordinary that in the Government’s own consultation, which has been cited time and again today and which was entitled “Building a fairer Britain”, there was overwhelming opposition to the abolition of section 3. The opposition was 6:1 against removing that visionary statement from the legislative basis of the commission.

Clause 52(1)(b) repeals the duty to promote good relations between members of different groups. MPs who have been working in their constituencies as MPs, councillors or community activists will recall that it is these sections that we have used to protect individual groups against racist attacks, attacks on Travellers and against undermining and stigmatising people with mental health problems. This is the legislative base that we have used time and again to ensure that the commission can play its full role.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham said, this is the measure that we used to tackle racism in football, so it has been used in campaigns and it has been effective. We have used it to undermine the development of extremist racism in our society and to ensure that we give advice to public authorities, particularly local authorities at elections, to set standards.

It has been argued that other organisations will be available to do this, such as the Runnymede Trust and the Fawcett Society, but both of them are reliant on public funds and some of the public funds that go to those organisations are from the EHRC. The EHRC is having its grant-making cut so those organisations will not be out there to fulfil that role.

On the removal of the duty in section 10, I want to raise an issue on behalf of organisations such as DPAC—Disabled People Against Cuts—and the group in Scotland, Black Triangle. Section 10(5) places a duty on the commission

“to promote or encourage the favourable treatment of disabled persons.”

Over the past year we have had debate after debate on hate crime against people with disabilities. We thought we had a breakthrough with the Paralympics in raising the profile of people with disabilities and extolling what they can do if given the chance. What message does it send out that we are scrapping that duty of the commission?

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Stella Creasy and John McDonnell

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy]

I apologise to the Chair if I am not being clear, but I see this in the context of paragraph (b) of the amendment on the wider regulation of the banking system, and the importance of trying to use the opportunity that the bank levy presents to effect a positive impact on the way in which money is lent to those on low incomes.

[John McDonnell]

My hon. Friend has campaigned on this issue for a considerable period. Is it not true that the bank levy could be used as a lever to prise these other reforms out of the overall system?

[Stella Creasy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. This is born out of my frustration at the fact that the Government have so far refused even to contemplate taking action. I hope that this time round the Treasury team will seriously consider how the bank levy could be used to effect such action. The concept of adequacy in the amendment offers us an opportunity to ask whether the bank levy is being levied in a way that deals with high-cost credit and its impact. This debate has been about the appropriate level of the levy and its impact on banks, and I would argue that it could be extended to an appropriate levy on high-cost credit industries. We could then look at the way in which such companies pass on their costs to consumers who are particularly struggling in the economic conditions that we face. As Debt on our Doorstep points out, the fixed costs of lending in the home credit industry represent about 15% of revenues, yet the cost of borrowing from such companies is £82 in collection charges for every £100 lent. It is therefore no surprise that their profits have gone up by 40% in the past year as the lack of regulation in the industry allows them to run riot in our local communities.

There is broad agreement on the need to act on the impact of these companies, and the clause could be amended and applied in such a way as to enable that to happen. Citizens Advice has argued that the Government should not use the need for regulation of the financial sector as a cover for failing to act in these markets, as has the Centre for Responsible Credit—and as have many Ministers. I urge Ministers to talk to colleagues who, prior to 2010, advocated caps on the cost of interest rates. The Minister with responsibility for consumer affairs was very supportive at that time, but he seems to have changed his mind. [Interruption.] I agree entirely with the suggestion that perhaps that is yet another broken promise. We are talking about the 5 million to 7 million people in our communities who are affected by not being able to access mainstream credit and who are forced to use such companies. The bank levy gives us the opportunity to send a strong message to those companies that the way in which they act is deleterious to our communities and to our economy as more people are stuck in debt.