Policing and Crime Bill

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Miller]

I rise to speak particularly on new clauses 3, 5, 44, 46 and 47, and note the advisement of the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) that her amendments are set out as probing amendments. Those five amendments tabled by both Liberal Democrat Members and Plaid Cymru Members all have a common theme: to call for reform in connection with the internet and the digital online world.

We all need to get our Government and Governments around the world to wake up to the extent to which crime and criminal activity has now moved online. Our laws are not giving victims the protection they need and our police forces face a revolution if they are to tackle the crime that they face now effectively in the future.

There has been a significant shift in the way people experience harm in this world. New clause 44, as the hon. Lady has set out, calls for the police to have special digital units to deal particularly with child abuse images. Many police forces in this country, including my own in Hampshire, have gone a long way to building up this sort of specialist expertise, but the new clause is an interesting piece of advice on which I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response, as well as the response on police training.

There are serious questions to ask as to whether the providers of online space are doing what they need to do to keep their communities safe. They have not only a corporate social responsibility to do that, but I also think an economic imperative, because it is their brand names that are tarnished, and rightly so, when their products are used for illegal purposes.

Another aspect is not particularly brought up in the amendments today, but I will mention it: the importance of the international implications of all these things. If we are to get a solution to the sorts of crimes that are being committed online in this new digital world that does not respect country boundaries, we need to have some buy-in from international Governments, too. I myself have met companies in the US, but we need to go further than that and see whether we can actually get the sort of action that we need on an international basis by perhaps looking to the United Nations, or indeed the youth part of the UN, to explore how we can get more effective laws in the future that are not constricted by international boundaries.

Our law is struggling to cope. These amendments recognise that. The real need to recognise that online crime is different is a battle that was won when this Government put in place the revenge pornography law a year or so ago. We have already seen 1,000 reports to the police and thousands more people using the revenge pornography helpline, yet two-thirds of those cases that have been reported to the police have seen no action because of problems of the evidence that victims have been able to give or indeed because the victims have withdrawn it. Again, the new clauses are picking up those issues and calling on the Government to consider again. New clause 46 calls for anonymity of victims. That was considered at the time the law was put in place, but the advice then was to wait to see how things progressed. The statistics suggest that now is a time to think again, as new clause 41, which also deals with compensation, also seeks to do.

The myriad amendments before us today show the level of complexity involved and the level of concern among hon. Members from at least three parties represented in the Chamber tonight—I am sure Labour Front Benchers would share in this, too—but I worry that they offer a piecemeal set of solutions. The hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd picked up on that. Surely what is needed is a wholesale review of the law, police training and the development of international support for digital providers to take seriously the importance of keeping their communities safe online. I support the spirit of these amendments, but I am struck by the need for a more comprehensive review, perhaps in the form of the digital economy Bill, which Her Gracious Majesty announced in the Gracious Speech only last month.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is articulating a very serious problem, with which many of us have been involved for some time. Does she acknowledge that with some 70,000 cases of historical child abuse likely to be investigated by the police this year alone and with up to half of cases coming to the courts involving sexual exploitation, many of them historical, the police are overwhelmed in their capacity to be able to deal with this new wave of digital crime against some of the most vulnerable children? Her suggestion for a more holistic overview of this is therefore essential.

[Mrs Miller]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He of course has an impeccable record of campaigning in this area. Perhaps the very scale of this problem is an indication that our regulatory framework within which these organisations work is not quite as good as it needs to be for the future. We cannot expect our police force simply to put down the work it is doing in every other area to focus solely on online crime, but at the moment he is right to say that the scale of what is being seen is, in the words of some police chiefs, “frightening”. We do not yet seem to be seeing a response to that. I hope that the digital economy Bill will provide the Ministers sitting on the Front Bench today, and perhaps their colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, with the opportunity to look carefully at this. It is no longer something that we can simply say is the by-product of a new industry that will settle down over time. Those Ministers will have heard a good deal of evidence this evening to suggest that more action needs to be taken, and I ask them to do what one of them, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), agreed to do today in departmental questions: sit down with me and other hon. Members who might be interested to set out how the digital economy Bill can be used as a vehicle to achieve the objective of making our internet safer, both at home and abroad.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

I would have liked to have added my name to my hon. Friend’s amendment if I had got my act together in time. I was out with a group of people working for a tobacco company recently. We went on stings to local newsagents and other such places buying illegal, counterfeit and discounted cigarettes. In many cases, those cigarettes were advertised by a phone number, which we then rang up. Very clearly, it could only have resulted in criminal activity. Just as my hon. Friend is very much making the point about prostitution, which clearly is only going to lead to illegal activity, it is so easy for us to be able to use those phone numbers, and those telephone companies should be taking a greater responsibility.

[Kit Malthouse]

Exactly right. My hon. Friend brings me neatly on to new clause 16, which deals with that matter.

I know that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, have been an aficionado of my political career, so you will know that, 15 years ago I was charged with getting rid of prostitutes’ cards in telephone boxes. It was costing Westminster council about a quarter of a million pounds a year to remove these things, and so I was given the job of getting rid of them. We tried clearing them out and putting up false cards so that people were misdirected. We tried all sorts of things. In the end, the only solution that we came up with that we and BT felt would work was barring the numbers. I visited all the mobile companies and, as people had landlines in those days, all the landline companies as well—NTL, BT and all the rest. I said to them, “When we notify you of this number, we would like you to bar it.” They said, “We will not do that, but we will if you manage to make placing the cards an offence.” They thought that I would give up at that stage, as there would be too much of a mountain to climb. None the less, we decided to have a go, and so ensued a two-year campaign to get that offence on the statute book.

During those two years, I learned the truth about prostitutes’ cards and, indeed, the advertising of prostitution generally. Effectively, being allowed to advertise for free and in an unrestricted way on our streets, in the back of our newspapers and online is organised crime. When someone gets one of these numbers, they are ringing not a prostitute who is a victim, but a switchboard. When they ring the number and say what they want, they will get a menu of women—mostly it is women—trafficked or otherwise, of all ages, creeds and races. They can pick from the menu. Those numbers then gather a bit of value. Once someone is a punter and they have used the number and got what they wanted, they will use it again and again and again.

I started to learn that understanding the economics behind these telephone numbers is key to how we can eradicate them. Once we realise that these numbers carry a value and that there is a stream of income attached to them, it becomes even more pressing that we should bar them. When we add to that the fact that the printing of the cards, the advertising, and the websites also cost money—prostitutes’ cards are printed in the hundreds of thousands to make them incredibly cheap—we can see why making it dangerous to advertise a telephone number could become an extremely effective deterrent. If they advertise a number that is gathering income, and it is barred within 24 hours, they lose all of that income. Hitting them in the pocket is the most effective way to do it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

Once again, my hon. Friend is right. That is why there needs to be a national licensing scheme for which the Government have responsibility.

The Government have been good at making promises about tackling child sexual exploitation, but not so good at following them up with action. Will the Minister make some commitments on taxi licensing? I would appreciate a steer on the contents of the guidance, although I realise that they will be the subject of consultation. The Minister may want to write to me on that point.

Councils continue to report a lack of intelligence sharing by the police on issues crucial to deciding the suitability of applicants for taxi licences. Although the new common-law disclosure policy should allow for information sharing, the interpretation varies and many police forces do not share data. Guidance to councils alone will not resolve the problem. Will the Home Office take steps to ensure that the police co-operate fully with councils so that applicants for taxi licences can be screened effectively?

Finally, will the Minister confirm the status of the guidance? Government new clause 56 states that licensing authorities “must have regard” to it. I hope the Minister will clarify that the guidance must be followed, not just looked at and put in a drawer. If the Minister can provide confirmation on those questions, we are minded to withdraw our new clause and support the Government’s.

New clause 41 would make it explicit in the law that local safeguarding children boards have an obligation to prevent child sexual exploitation and other forms of child abuse. Such boards should bring together professionals in education, law enforcement, social care and the voluntary sector to help protect children. They are collaborative bodies, established by the Labour Government, which have the potential to ensure that the focus of every organisation on the board is the protection and welfare of children. Local safeguarding children boards have the potential to act as the canary to child sexual exploitation and abuse, bringing together professionals who can develop a full picture of the harm being perpetrated against a child. But far more emphasis must be given to the prevention of child sexual exploitation and child abuse.

Chief Constable Simon Bailey has said that in 2015 more than £1 billion was spent on investigating child abuse allegations. Sadly, by the time the police are involved, it is likely that children have already been harmed and will be living with the trauma for the rest of their lives. The Prime Minister has given child sexual exploitation the status of a “national threat” in the strategic policing requirement. I therefore hope that the Minister will support our new clause to explicitly broaden the objectives of local safeguarding children boards to include a focus on the prevention of sexual exploitation.

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady is making some good points, but it was my understanding when I was responsible for the child sexual exploitation action plan introduced nationally in 2011 that each local safeguarding children board was responsible for developing its own localised version of that CSE plan. The problem is not so much the plan as the unwillingness of some partners within an LSCB to pull their weight. Does the hon. Lady agree that the recent review undertaken for the Department for Education may need to lead to the introduction of some statutory duties on those partners to do their bit, in partnership with everybody else?

[Sarah Champion]

As ever, the hon. Gentleman is superb on this subject, and he is ahead of me by a line of my speech. I completely agree. The problem with the safeguarding boards as they stand at present is that they are very dependent on the skill, determination and bloody-mindedness of the chair. The hon. Gentleman is right. I do not want things to come down to the luck of whether there is a good chair who can implement a good plan. What I want is for every child across the country to be safe and safeguarded in the same way, so I look to the Government to move on that.

I support new clauses 13 and 14. I praise my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey), who works tirelessly for the protection of children in her constituency and across the country. She has been a role model and a mentor to me, and I want to put on record my gratitude to her for all the help she has given to me and to all the children in this country. She has been tireless, and I am very grateful for that.

My hon. Friend’s new clauses, which deal with the grooming of children for criminal behaviour, raise an important issue that the House must tackle. Children are not just at risk of grooming for sex. They face exploitation by criminals for terrorism, trafficking and drug-related offences, for instance—we have heard other examples. The Government must take the issue seriously and offer a holistic approach to tackling child grooming and exploitation. Will the Minister work closely with my hon. Friend to turn her new clauses 13 and 14 into legislation?

New clauses 46, 47, 61 and 62 were tabled by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). Through my campaigning work to prevent violence, exploitation and harm against children, I have seen the most dramatic and shocking increase in the proliferation of sexual images, often taken and shared by children. The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the current legislation has been in effect for only a year. I hope he will support my call on the Government to conduct a thorough review of the effectiveness of the legislation, the number of prosecutions and convictions, and the suitability of the sentences given.

I welcome Government new clause 55, which will create lifetime anonymity for victims of forced marriage. The crime of forced marriage is another form of domestic violence. The victims, mostly women, suffer violence, threats of violence, coercion, manipulation, psychological trauma and economic control. As with every other form of domestic violence, victims have their right to determine their own lives forcibly removed from them by their abusers. Anonymity will encourage victims to come forward and seek help from the police. It will give a survivor of this form of domestic violence a chance to regain control and rebuild their life. Now that the Government recognise the benefit of anonymity for victims of forced marriage, female genital mutilation and sexual abuse, I hope they will consider extending anonymity to victims of other forms of domestic and sexual violence and do more to raise awareness of these awful crimes.

I would like briefly to comment on a number of the provisions tabled by the shadow Home Office team, led by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). It is unfortunate but true that our criminal justice system does not always place support for the victim at its core. I know from my work with victims of domestic and sexual violence that they often feel totally unsupported when reporting a crime or after a prosecution. Many victims face the most horrendous ordeal in court, where they are forced to relive their trauma over and over again. Yet there is no statutory framework in the criminal justice system for the provision of services for victims—there is no legal regime promoting and protecting victims’ rights from the beginning to the end of their engagement with the criminal justice system. Similarly, the role of the Victim’s Commissioner has great potential, but the position is under-resourced and exists without significant powers. Victims’ rights will be taken seriously only if and when they are enshrined in law. I hope the Government will hear our calls today and make that a reality.

I wish to end by commenting on new clause 2, which would devolve responsibility for policing to the Welsh Assembly. I have had the pleasure of working with the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) on other clauses in the Bill relating to child protection, so I have no doubt that the convictions she has expressed in this new clause are heartfelt and sincere and need to be taken seriously. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) has outlined, Labour believes that the people of Wales should have a greater say over the policing of Wales, and that should be pursued through the Wales Bill.