Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

Debate between Steve Barclay and Yvette Cooper

Monday 5th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

We welcome many of the measures in the Bill and we will support it tonight, but as a policy to tackle serious crime in Britain, it is still too weak. Rightly, it has been improved in the other place as a result of strong campaigning for amendments to be added, but more still needs to be done. As a final Bill for this Parliament, it is not ambitious enough to deal with the serious crime challenges that face Britain today.

Crime is changing and the criminal justice system is still not keeping up. The challenge from serious crime is increasing, not falling, and more needs to be done. Violent crime is increasing, yet fewer violent crimes are being prosecuted or convicted. More sexual offences are being reported, but fewer are reaching conviction. Reported rapes and domestic violence are increasing, yet fewer are reaching conviction. Far fewer drugs are being seized on their way into this country, and online crime is escalating exponentially and the police are not equipped to keep up. The problem is getting worse, not better, and the criminal justice system under the Home Secretary is not keeping up.

The measures are welcome, but they do not address the scale of the problem that we face. Let me deal with the measures in turn and highlight the areas in which the Government need to go further. The Government must stop the clock turning backwards. We have supported from the start the extension of extraterritorial jurisdiction for the two offences under the Terrorism Act 2006, preparation of terrorist acts and training for terrorism. We argued from the start, however, that the Home Secretary would need to go further, restore the relocation powers that she abolished in terrorism prevention and investigation measures, and strengthen Prevent. We will discuss those further measures later this week in the context of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, in which she has had to do exactly that.

We support the measures on accessing child pornography but believe that much more needs to be done to tackle this growing crime. I will come on to that in a moment. We support the measures to tighten the law on hacking and to address the international challenge that online crime poses. We welcome in particular more action to stop criminals benefiting from the proceeds of their crimes—something for which we have been calling for some time. Members in all parts of the House will agree, I think, that we should recover the proceeds of crime. Ill-gotten gains should not furnish the lifestyle of a criminal, in some cases long after their sentence has concluded. Wherever possible, there should be recompense to victims of crime, who have often lost so much.

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady clarify whether the Opposition would support in Committee or on Report measures relating to the disclosure of beneficial ownership of UK property owned by offshore companies, which is one of the ways that assets are held, and unexplained wealth orders, along the lines of those used in Guernsey, to allow law enforcement officers more time than they currently have? Those two measures are excluded from the Bill.

[Yvette Cooper]

We support a series of measures where we think the Government should go further. We will table amendments in Committees and we will probe the detail of the Government’s legislation. I am happy to talk further to the hon. Gentleman about the details of those issues, as they are immensely important.

There are areas where we should do more to take back from criminals the assets that they have stolen from victims of crime right across the country. The aspects that we highlighted in the past related to preventing criminals from switching their assets to family and friends and getting away with it, and toughening sentences to deal with the problem of people serving only short sentences, even though they were continuing to squirrel away huge illegal gains. We support the measures to give more powers to the courts to tackle so-called designer divorces and third parties keeping hold of assets, and we support plans to require offenders to pay swiftly. The Government accept that more can still be done and we will probe this further in Committee.

Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Steve Barclay and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I will do that and I agree with my hon. Friend. We would like the law and the Bill to be strengthened on child guardians and child offences. Let me make a few points about that.

My hon. Friend is right that the situation for children can be complex, and often the adult who is abusing them is the only adult they know: the only adult with whom they have contact and who speaks their language, if they have been trafficked across borders.

Charities describe finding children who do not even know which country they are in. Some are sexually exploited in brothels or tend cannabis factories, like Deng, who was trafficked from Vietnam to work as a gardener in a cannabis factory. When police raided the house, Deng was arrested and spent almost a year in prison. On release, he fell back into the hands of traffickers, who regularly beat him so badly that he was hospitalised. Passed from local authority to local authority, his case was eventually assessed and an independent age assessment concluded that he was only 16 or 17. He had already experienced years of abuse, including a year of imprisonment at the hands of the British authorities. Children like Deng have their childhood taken by the traffickers. By 17, they have often been held by the traffickers for several years, moved through several countries and forced to grow up very fast, but they are still children in desperate need of care.

If those children know no other life and nothing of the UK, they can often return voluntarily to their traffickers because they feel that they have no choice. There is a real problem with the idea that a child could ever consent to their exploitation. That is why we believe that we should pursue a separate offence of child exploitation. I listened carefully to the Home Secretary’s points and, clearly, we do not want to make it more difficult to prosecute. I think that we have the same objectives, but I did not find her answers very convincing or clear on why creating such an offence would make it harder to prosecute. Of course, there will be cases where the age may be difficult to identify at the margins, but surely it is possible to draw up the law in a way that allows the prosecutor to decide whether the case is clear cut and can be prosecuted as a child offence or whether it is not clear cut and therefore should be prosecuted under the wider legislation on the basis that somebody is vulnerable.

If the Home Secretary has any overwhelming objections to that, she needs to explain them much more clearly. The Opposition simply cannot see why we should not pursue the Joint Committee’s proposals for a separate offence of child exploitation and why that would not help us all in our objective of tackling slavery, particularly the awful and extreme abuse of children.

We would also like a system of independent guardians to be introduced. They are a requirement of the EU directive that the Government eventually signed up to, and the system has been implemented elsewhere in Europe and shown to work well. After three years of campaigning, we welcome the Government’s pilots for child advocates and the enabling provisions, but we do not believe that they go far enough. The position is unclear, but the advocates do not appear to be the same as the child guardians for which a huge coalition of charities, including Barnardo’s, UNICEF and the Children’s Society, have called. During the Bill’s passage, we will seek to strengthen the powers given to child advocates, thereby establishing guardians who can act independently of local authorities and in the best interests of the child.

I raised those who are in domestic work conditions and are particularly at risk in an intervention on the Home Secretary. I urge her to look again at the domestic worker visa and the risks to those forced into domestic slavery, unable to escape. Earlier, I cited the evidence from the charity Kalayaan. The Home Secretary knows that when the tied visa was introduced, many, including Kalayaan, warned her that it would increase the risk of servitude and domestic abuse.

In addition to the figures that I cited earlier, Kalayaan also found that 92% of those on the new visa were unable to leave the House unaccompanied. That is slavery. The Home Secretary seemed to suggest that that was just a small number of people, but that is not the point. One of the examples that Kalayaan gave was the case of Rupa, who arrived in the UK with her employers. She had worked for them in India and had little choice about coming to the UK. Once here, she worked long hours and got no proper breaks. Looking after a baby, she was on call all the time. Like 85% of those interviewed by Kalayaan, Rupa did not have her own room, so she slept on the floor, next to the cot. For all that, she was paid just £26 a week and had her passport confiscated. Eventually, Rupa ran away and a stranger helped her find her way to Kalayaan.

However, because of the changes that the Home Secretary introduced to the visas, Kalayaan could do nothing. Under the old system, the charity would have contacted the police, had Rupa’s passport returned to her and helped her find other work. Now Rupa’s options were limited: to return to her employer or be deported. With a sick family to support in India, Rupa decided to return to her employer and a life of servitude. That is slavery. It is what the Bill should abolish. The Opposition will table amendments on the matter, but I hope that, if the Home Secretary has an alternative remedy, she will come forward with it during the Bill’s passage. We cannot have a situation whereby all the work that the House is trying to do to tackle modern slavery is undermined by visa changes elsewhere in the system.

We also need more action in the world of work. The Home Secretary talked about the importance of tackling the supply chain, and we agree, but again, we would like to go further. The Bill provides a great opportunity to build on the work of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. We would like to consider how that can be extended to cover exploitation in hospitality, care and construction, and also how the law on exploitation in the workplace can be strengthened.

Slavery in the UK is only a small part of the problem. The Joint Committee was clear in its recommendations for stronger action on supply chains. Other countries are legislating on that, and there is a growing consensus that legislation that requires large companies to report on their actions to eradicate slavery in their supply chains will make a difference.

In the past few months, all hon. Members will have been shocked by, for example, the details of the investigation by The Guardian into the fishing industry. There were stories of men trafficked from Burma and Cambodia, forced to work 20 hours a day for no pay fishing for prawns for shops in the US and Europe, and also for British supermarkets. One rescued worker, Vuthy, a former Cambodian monk, said:

“I thought I was going to die. They kept me chained up, they didn’t care about me or give me any food… They sold us like animals, but we are not animals—we are human beings.”

Another said that he had seen as many as 20 fellow slaves killed in front of him, one of whom was tied limb by limb to the bows of four boats and pulled apart at sea. All Members will be horrified by such stories, but it is even more horrifying if that slavery, abuse and murder could be linked in any way with the goods that end up on shelves in our supermarkets. That is why we believe that the Bill should go further.

According to polls, 82% of the UK public want legislation on the matter. The charity sector is equally clear and the Joint Committee supported action. So, too, did the businesses that gave evidence to the Committee. Marks and Spencer said that legislation could play an important role. Amazon, IKEA, Primark, Tesco and Sainsbury all gave evidence and said that they could support legislation. Many businesses have said that they do not want to be undercut by unscrupulous employers.

That is why the idea of a voluntary agreement simply does not go far enough. The Ethical Trading Initiative and its 80 corporate members that are campaigning for legislative measures in the Bill are right to do so. Perhaps the Home Secretary will let the Prime Minister know that the Opposition will table amendments on that. I hope she can persuade him that the House should be able to support that action, which so many businesses support. It will allow them and all of us to be ethical, and to recognise how far the problem stretches—it stretches not just across this country, but across the world.

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

There will be support from Government Members for the supply chain proposal. Those of us who defend a free market do not want the competitive distortion of those who are undercutting legitimate businesses through the abuse of their employees.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman is exactly right on that. That is why so many businesses and major retailers are supporting that proposal. They recognise not only that it is morally right, but that it is very hard for them to identify abuse among their competitors, and to identify when they are being undercut by something that is so immoral and criminal throughout the world.

I believe we can build a consensus in the country and in Parliament. We have rarely seen a Bill that has such overwhelming support from Members on both sides of the House. Let us be clear that we will work with the Government to ensure that the Bill passes within the limited parliamentary time available, but we will also push for it to go further, so that we can make a real difference in wiping out the horrendous practice of trafficking and enslaving men, women and children in this country.

Almost 230 years ago, a milkmaid from Bristol, Ann Yearsley, had her poem on slavery published. It tells of the anguish and woe of a woman taken away from her home country and sold into slavery. It talks of debasement and degradation. Parliament was slow to respond, and it was another 45 years after Ann’s poem was published before Parliament introduced the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. The Home Secretary rightly spoke of the rare moment of consensus. We need to seize that. We have legislation before us, and we need to build on it. We need to seize the moment with the legislation and make it go as far as we possibly can. Let us push to get those further improvements and safeguards, because we know that, in the end, it is about stopping evil people committing terrible crimes; ending the enslavement, abuse and degradation of modern-day slavery; and giving everybody the liberty and freedom that they should have a right to.

Government Reductions in Policing

Debate between Steve Barclay and Yvette Cooper

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Lady chose not to comment on the more than 100 police officers being lost from the Wiltshire force, as well as the more than 100 support jobs being lost from that force. I look forward to seeing her put that in her leaflet for the next election. As I have already pointed out, at the time of the election borrowing was, in fact, lower than expected and unemployment was falling. By cutting too far, too fast, the hon. Lady’s party is going to make it harder to cut the deficit, with more people on the dole and more spent on unemployment benefit.

From Nottinghamshire, another officer writes:

“Since 2006 when I took this office road casualties have fallen by 33%...that’s saved over £90 million in costs...I haven’t achieved this by myself for sure but we’ve contributed massively to that effort and now they want to get rid of me.”

Hampshire police have been forced to cut their domestic violence units. In Lancashire, they are reducing air-support cover. In Dorset, they are cutting traffic policing by 33%. In north Wales, they have cut back on the handlers and sniffer dogs for explosives. In the west midlands, neighbourhood policing teams are being lost.

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman if he wants to comment on the policing cuts in his area.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Barclay]

I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way. Under the 12% cuts she proposes, what does she consider to be the right ratio between the numbers of senior management staff and bobbies on the beat, whose comments she is quoting in her speech? Cambridgeshire police has a sergeant for every four constables, an inspector for every three sergeants, and a chief inspector or officer of more senior grade for every one-and-a-half inspectors. Does she consider that to be the right ratio between the number of senior police figures and those on the beat?

[Yvette Cooper]

Of course we want to see more police officers out on the beat, and, in fact, that was the consequence of the policies of the Labour Government over many years. We also believe it is right for forces to do everything they can to improve their efficiency and to make sure they are supporting officers. However, in force after force and area after area we are seeing police officers, not just police staff, being lost: 12,500 officers to go. These are not our figures; they are figures from the Association of Chief Police Officers and individual police forces and police authorities across the country. There will be 12,500 fewer officers and 15,000 fewer support staff. That is the equivalent of the combined police strength of Yorkshire and Humberside, or the equivalent of the forces of Durham, Cumbria, North Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Surrey and Dorset combined.