Finance Bill
Debate between Stella Creasy and Mark Harper(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Harper
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. By the way, Madam Deputy Speaker, I did not think that it would be out of order for me to make some brief remarks about something other than the Finance Bill, given that the Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson spent 10 minutes talking about yesterday and the hon. Member for Aberdeen North spent quite some time doing the same.
Let me move on to finance and the essential capability of the Bill, which is, of course, to raise revenue. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) talked about that, and of course the central point is about balancing the public finances. I shall not talk about that at length because I was fortunate enough to secure a Westminster Hall debate on the subject which, much like today’s, was well attended, with more than 20 Conservative colleagues and only one Opposition Back Bencher, the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans). To be fair to him, he spoke extremely well, but he was the only Opposition Back-Bench Member to speak in that debate, which demonstrated that when it comes to balancing the public finances, Opposition MPs are very good at spending money, but not so good at thinking of ways of balancing the books and ensuring that we have sound public finances. That is important because the sound public finances that the Bill helps to put in place will ensure that the country continues to grow and that we can continue to deliver pay rises for people across the country.
Stella Creasy
I want to take up the right hon. Gentleman’s challenge. I am sure that he is proud that the previous Government, of which he was part, extended capital gains tax to residential property sales for non-domiciles, so will he join me in suggesting that we close the loophole on commercial property sales? There is one idea that could raise some money for investment in this country.
Mr Harper
I am very pleased that the measures in this Bill, which Opposition Front Benchers seem so unwilling to support, raise something like £1.6 billion—I am sure that the Financial Secretary will correct me if I am wrong—on top of the £1 billion we have raised from non-doms. Put together, that is £2.6 billion, which is more than the Labour party raised in all the time it was in government. If the hon. Lady compares Labour’s record in government with ours, she will see that we have been much more effective in raising taxes from non-doms to spend on our public services than her Government ever was.
Stalking
Debate between Stella Creasy and Mark Harper(11 years ago)
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Mr Harper
I defer to the right hon. Gentleman’s detailed knowledge of this area. One purpose of the College of Policing is to have consistency in training and to share best practice. To be fair, this is about ensuring that police officers, as well as the CPS, have the necessary knowledge and understand what works and is successful. The College of Policing can help share best practice, which is one advantage of having set it up. The Government will keep that under close scrutiny—the Home Secretary takes this area very seriously—and we will take steps if it does not succeed.
It is important to talk about victims and their experience of the criminal justice system. We have consulted on a revised victims code to give victims clearer entitlements. It was published at the end of October, and will be implemented next month. It includes information on the victim personal statement, which lets victims explain the impact of the crime on them. That will be of particular benefit in stalking cases, where much of the issue relates to the emotional and psychological impact of the offence on the victim.
The hon. Member for Walthamstow made that point strongly. She spoke about seeing the powerful effect on victims of advocates’ listening to them explain their cases. Enabling the voices of victims to be heard is clearly very beneficial. My hon. Friend the Member for Witham, who is in her place, made exactly that point. I know that she has worked on and published this year a report called, “Rebalancing the Scales”. She edited it, and the foreword was by the Lord Chancellor. The chapter on stalking, which was prepared by the ubiquitous Harry Fletcher and Laura Richards, highlighted the voices of victims and their experience in the criminal justice system, an area on which I know my hon. Friend has campaigned.
Stella Creasy
My concern, and that of other people who have experienced this problem, is that the victim’s voice has traditionally been heard when there is a prosecution, but that should happen during the investigation of the offence. The police, like the criminal justice system, need to develop a different culture in which the offence is not seen as an issue of harassment, but in relation to the impact of particular forms of behaviour on the victim, because that opens up a different investigative process. The training is so important because too often the presumption is still that a victim comes in after the offence has been determined, rather than as part of the process of determining the offence.
Mr Harper
The hon. Lady makes a very good point. When the impact on the victim is part of the importance of the offence, the matter is more complex. She is right that that should form part of the investigative process in terms of the work that needs to be done to provide the evidence and to ensure that the right charge is brought. I will draw her point to the attention of the College of Policing for its consideration when rolling out the training.
The hon. Lady also made an important point, sadly illustrated by her own experiences this year, about the dark side that the internet brings out, alongside all its benefits. On the internet, it is easier for people to abuse their victims. Sometimes that happens wholly online and that has a tremendous impact. Sometimes, it happens offline as well. The Government are clear that if something is illegal offline, it is illegal online. There is no difference. She said that in her experience and in the experience of other people, police forces have not always recognised that.
When online abuse constitutes stalking, it must be dealt with. The Director of Public Prosecutions has published new guidelines on social media. They make it very clear that cases of stalking online should be prosecuted robustly. Those guidelines are relatively recent and we will have to see what impact they have on the Crown Prosecution Service. I looked at them carefully in preparing for this debate and I think that they are very robust. [Interruption.] I do not know whether the hon. Lady wants to intervene again, but she is pulling a face that suggests that she is not entirely enamoured of the said guidelines.
Stella Creasy
I press the Minister, as I did in my remarks, to consider the course of conduct and the disparities in relation to that. The police are doing some fantastic work. I pay tribute to the police who are dealing with my case at the moment. However, they are hampered by the disconnect between what we are told at a national level about guidance and how that guidance is interpreted, especially with regard to behaviour online. There is an issue with the understanding in our criminal justice system of behaviours online and of what constitutes a course of conduct. I am sorry to tell the Minister that I do not feel, as a victim myself, that that issue has been addressed. That will have an impact on our ability to move forward unless it is addressed.
Mr Harper
I listened carefully to the hon. Lady’s point on that issue. The inter-ministerial group on violence against women and girls, which is chaired by the Home Secretary, draws together the Government’s efforts on this matter and on the support for victims. I will draw the hon. Lady’s point to the attention of the Home Secretary.
There are some offences for online communications that do not require a course of conduct, some of which can result in custodial sentences. I think that the DPP’s guidelines are clear and robust. The hon. Lady is right that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Like us, she will want to see that the guidelines are taken seriously by Crown prosecutors.
As I said, police and crime commissioners should remember the “and crime” part of their job title. This matter is absolutely within their remit in their local areas. As well as looking at the police’s response to these offences, they should look at the response of the Crown Prosecution Service and the way in which it works with the police. One advantage of police and crime commissioners over the police authorities that we had previously is that they can pull those organisations together locally and get them to work more effectively together. Commissioners can draw to the attention of those organisations the guidelines that the DPP has issued and ensure that they are followed locally.
I will draw the specific concerns of the hon. Lady to the attention of the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary. I am sure that she will monitor the matter closely and come back to us if she does not see action on the ground.
My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) cited some good work that has been done by the university of Worcester and the Worcestershire forum against domestic violence. They have done some very practical work to raise awareness of the new law and to hear from victims. From his description, it was clear that that was part of a preventive strategy, which is something that has been raised by the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) and others.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham asked specifically about data, which we have spoken a little about. Convictions and sentencing data are collected by the Ministry of Justice and published on an annual basis. The data for 2012 were therefore published just a short period after the offences under sections 2A and 4A were inserted into the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Headline data on court proceedings have been published, but those are at a high level. Detailed data will be published for this calendar year in May next year—that is when properly robust and assured data will be published.
On policing information, we are working on a new method of data collection specifically to call out the offences from this legislation, but again that will not be available at national level until next year. More detailed information is available at police force level, and I know that Labour Members and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd have attempted to get those data from police forces under freedom of information legislation. The Home Office is working to publish those data on a consistent basis at national level, and will be able to do so next year.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham and others, including the hon. Member for Warrington North, mentioned sentencing guidelines. The Sentencing Council plans to start work on a new public order guideline in 2014, and it will consider guidance on stalking offences as part of that. Several Members, including the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, mentioned out-of-court disposals by police forces. The Justice Secretary has announced a review of those, and we will ensure that for both stalking and domestic violence, we look specifically at whether out-of-court disposals—cautioning, for example—are being used properly and appropriately for these serious issues.
I am conscious that I want to leave time for the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd to wind up this debate, which I have found very constructive. Members have raised a lot of serious issues, and I hope I have been able to demonstrate that the Government take the issue seriously and want to drive responses across a number of organisations.