Change of Name by Registered Sex Offenders

Tonia Antoniazzi Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

My huge thanks go to my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for bringing this important subject to the Chamber and to national prominence—her role in this has been extraordinary. I also thank women such as Della who have waived their anonymity to expose the serious failures in the DBS system, and to ensure that the law is changed to keep people safe.

As colleagues will no doubt have seen in their constituencies, most people’s reaction to hearing about this loophole is one of utter disbelief—disbelief that simple changes, such as the deed poll asking if the applicant has a criminal record, have not been made; disbelief that a system that so many of them have encountered—anywhere from their children’s school to local sports clubs—features such a fundamental flaw; and disbelief that, despite years of warning from campaigners, the name change loophole still exists and is treated as an administrative headache, not a serious risk.

I take this opportunity to highlight a concern that the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) and the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) have already mentioned. Good intentions have not been balanced with the risk of leaving another avenue to be exploited and that is so dangerous. The DBS grants enhanced privacy rights to individuals who change their gender when changing their identity. Those are exceptional rights that are granted only to individuals from that group. The result is that identity verification is compromised, meaning that there is no guarantee that the information returned during the check and displayed on the certificate will be accurate or complete.

Those exceptional privacy rights also allow an applicant who has changed gender to request that all their previous names are withheld from the DBS certificate that is issued. That right to conceal previous identities is not given to anyone else: disclosing previous identities is a key component of safeguarding, and DBS certificates issued to all other individuals display all other names that the applicant has used.

Applicants who change their gender are also permitted to conceal their sex, and the DBS certificate issued will display their acquired gender instead. That right is not granted to any other individual: the importance of sex to safeguarding means that the sex of all other applicants is always displayed. There cannot be any exceptions in safeguarding. For the system to work, it must apply the same standards to everyone. Sadly, it is simply naive to think that loopholes in the system will not be exploited.

The system relies on the honesty of sex offenders to ensure that it functions as it should, but as the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) said, they are not to be trusted; they are not honest. Data obtained by the BBC from police forces highlights just how flawed this approach is. Between 2019 and 2021, more than 5,500 offences were committed by sex offenders of failing to comply with notification requirements: offences such as not telling the police they were living in a household with a child. The Disclosure and Barring Service found that 2,190 applicants for checks had criminal records and had supplied incorrect or missed out personal details such as past names or aliases. A total of 6,740 prosecutions began over the past three financial years for offences by sex offenders of breaches of a sexual harm prevention order or interim order. The system is broken and we must fix it. We have plenty of damning evidence as to why we should.

After being released from prison only three years into his six-year sentence for indecent assault, following a string of sexual assault convictions against children, Timothy Cuffy changed his name to Timothy Barnett. His new name allowed him to hide his criminal past, including from his new partner and three children. As Timothy Barnett, he answered the door to 13-year-old Sandy Hadfield, who knocked looking for her friend. After giving her vodka, he lured her to a quiet area of the woods, where he attempted to have sex with her before slitting her throat. Owing to his name change, his background went undetected, even after two encounters with Lincolnshire police and one encounter with social services. A system that means a convicted child sex offender is not identified, despite encounters with the police and social services, is one that is fundamentally broken and that led to the most tragic of outcomes in that case.

Sex offenders are not just changing their name post trial to hide their convictions; they are also changing their name at trial, or just before, to protect their name on their birth certificate. That has been highlighted in the high-profile case of Department for International Development worker Peter Davis, who became James Robert Harris before trial, allowing him to keep all records of his birth name clean should he decide to use it again.

This loophole gives sex offenders and abusers, many of whom rely on their ability to manipulate in order to carry out their crimes, an opportunity to hide their criminal history and pass the very checks that are meant to keep the most vulnerable safe. This loophole renders not only the DBS redundant but the domestic violence disclosure scheme, the sex offenders register and the child sex offender disclosure scheme. It seems absurd that we are discussing this 20 years on from the Bichard inquiry, which identified that the ability of serial predator Ian Huntley to change his name by deed poll to Ian Nixon, successfully severing the link with his existing police records, meant that no alarms were raised, and he was employed as a school caretaker. That this loophole still exists, allowing—indeed, enabling—serial predators to create new identities, is a scandal.

We are in this place to be legislators. We are in this place to make decisions and to ask the questions, “What if?” and “How?” We have to safeguard the most vulnerable people in society from these bad actors in all legislation. I pay tribute to everybody in the Gallery today and my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham for her outstanding work on this issue.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call the SNP spokesperson to wind up the debate.

Immigration Fees for Healthcare Workers

Tonia Antoniazzi Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 604472, relating to immigration fees for healthcare workers.

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Sharma. It is a privilege to introduce this petition and give voice to the thousands of healthcare workers for whom this discussion is an opportunity to raise an issue that has not only a significant detrimental impact on their lives and careers, but a huge impact on the availability and quality of healthcare in the United Kingdom. Although the petition is focused on changes that are within the remit of the Home Office, to understand the reasons behind it and why this is such an important issues for the petitioner, Mictin, and tens of thousands of his NHS colleagues, we have to understand that the most British of institutions, the national health service, would collapse without staff who are not British nationals.

According to the House of Commons Library, about 16.5% of NHS England staff are not British nationals. Of those 220,000 staff, more than half—just under 120,000—are from outside the European Union. Let me break that down a bit. Figures from the General Medical Council tell us that in 2021, more than half of new doctors working in the NHS came from overseas. There are 146,664 internationally trained professionals on the Nursing and Midwifery Council register—almost one in five of the nursing workforce. The Royal College of Radiologists’ recent workforce census found that in England, 27% of the clinical radiology consultant workforce and 20% of clinical oncology consultant workforce gained their primary medical degree in non-European economic area countries.

The list goes on across roles and specialisms, and that is before we even get to the healthcare workers who work in social care and provide support as home carers or in nursing homes.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

Although it is welcome that the scheme has been extended to care workers under a 12-month trial, they are some of the lowest paid in the sector. The at-home care area of healthcare is facing some of the biggest difficulties of any across the UK. Does the hon. Lady share my concern that the costs are completely unaffordable for care workers?

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I agree with the hon. Lady. The scheme has been extended by 12 months, but care workers are the lowest paid, and these are some of the biggest costs.

The numbers tell only part of the story. Although it is essential that we know the facts and figures, I would like hon. Members to think about what those numbers translate to for patients. Those clinical oncologists are helping to reduce the backlog of patients awaiting checks, scans and treatment, and are delivering life-saving care to cancer patients. Those midwives are guiding mothers through pregnancy and helping to bring their children into the world. Those doctors and nurses gave so much during the covid pandemic, worked all hours, did not see their own families, saved lives and comforted those who could not be with their families in their final hours.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

During the pandemic, I was involved with GMB’s campaign for NHS cleaners and carers to be granted indefinite leave to remain after the sacrifices they made. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to lower the cost of indefinite leave to remain and show the same level of gratitude to health workers who had to work during one of the most severe crises that our NHS has experienced?

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

It is true that these have been the most challenging of times, and indefinite leave to remain is one way of addressing that.

As we discuss the petition, I urge hon. Members to remember that when we talk about health and care workers, we are not talking in the abstract. We must remember the very real impact that Government decisions have on people’s health and wellbeing. There is little argument that workers from overseas are not essential to the running of our healthcare system. In fact, NHS trusts actively recruit from around the globe.

The health and care worker visa we are discussing was introduced to speed up processes to ensure that much-needed health and care staff could work in the United Kingdom. Despite broad agreement that there is obvious need in our overstretched health and care sector for overseas professionals, the current system is failing to retain these key workers. The expensive, drawn-out indefinite leave to remain process is pushing many key workers away, creating financial and bureaucratic barriers for those who wish to stay and to continue working in this country.

A greater number of healthcare workers settling in the UK would only benefit the health system. Not only does better access to ILR make the UK more attractive to the international workforce; better staff retention provides employers with greater long-term security for workforce planning, which I know at first hand is a key issue. Indefinite leave to remain allows for greater mobility between sectors and employers, as well as greater flexibility to deploy internationally recruited workers where need is greatest, rather than being hamstrung by restrictive visa requirements.

The financial barrier is high. The Migration Advisory Committee has highlighted the general high cost of these fees compared with other countries. The cost to apply for ILR sits at £2,404 per person. However, the latest visa and transparency fees data suggests that the estimated cost of an ILR application is just £491. In the context of a decade of pay erosion and the cost of living crisis, ILR fees may simply be unaffordable for many healthcare workers.

In the online survey of petitioners run by the Petitions Committee, respondents said they found it difficult to save up for indefinite leave to remain fees because of low salaries and a high cost of living, especially where they would need to pay ILR fees for multiple family members. One nurse who answered the survey said,

“I work as a deputy sister. I’m a single mum and my 2 kids have recently joined me in the UK. I cannot afford the ILR fees for me and my 2 children. With the salary of nurses and the cost of living here, a single mum like myself cannot afford it.”

A medical practitioner who responded said,

“As with current pay and cost of living crisis, it’s impossible to save this much. I am forced to buy used and second hand items only. I buy the cheapest groceries. Try and only use heating when absolutely required…I am forced to work weekends to save. I am hardly spending time with family. My mental health is affected. It feels like I’m a slave forced to labor…I don’t understand why the government would keep a fee that would force workers to leave NHS and UK…I survived through all waves of covid and staffing pressure. Had multiple illnesses because of my work. I don’t think I’ll survive this one. I believe these fees will break me.”

The fee is not the only cost; it is in addition to other substantial visa fees paid in the years prior to eligibility.

Workers without ILR are also subject to the no recourse to public funds policy. The cost of living crisis brings into sharp focus the potential financial hardship that internationally educated workers who are unable to access public funds could face. Members of the Royal College of Nursing consistently report the negative impact that the policy has had on their lives and the lives of their families. The covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the challenges that individuals with no recourse to public funds were already facing, with these families identified as being at high risk of living in insecure and crowded housing.

Making the ILR process more accessible would bring significant benefits to individual workers who report that their mental health is suffering as a result of the financial pressures they are facing to try to meet the costs of ILR. A healthcare assistant who responded to the Committee survey said

“With the ever rising cost of living, [saving for ILR] becomes mentally draining for an already overwhelmed health worker. Reducing the cost shows the government care about the wellbeing of health workers and promotes work life balance because families have to work odd hours to meet up with the fees.”

The RCN also reports that nurses sponsored under the health and care visa often have difficulty reducing their working hours because of the minimum salary threshold —£20,480 per annum—that is applied to their visa. Given that there is no provision for that to be applied pro rata for part-time staff, the RCN understands that the policy often conflicts with nurses’ caring responsibilities.

Better settlement pathways can help to tackle abusive labour practices, reducing the ability of predatory employers to use immigration status to tie staff into exploitative situations. This is particularly relevant in the care sector, where the director of labour market enforcement has identified workers as being at high risk of exploitation. The RCN is aware from member reports that employers will, on occasion, use threats of deportation to coerce staff into paying extortionate repayment fees should they choose to leave employment early.

The current policy means that the UK is already losing overseas healthcare staff to other countries.

“I couldn’t raise the money [for ILR] for the last 2 years to apply, so I’ve gotten a better salary offer in New Zealand…so I’ll be leaving the UK.”

Those are the words of one nurse who responded to the petition. A trainee doctor told us:

“With paying for exams and training, I don’t have enough money to apply for an ILR, which makes me think to leave the UK and work in Australia after I qualify as a GP.”

The petition is not simply asking for a reduced fee for those health and care workers seeking ILR; it is asking for a joined-up approach from Government, and for a better system that will improve the lives of those using it and enable us to provide a strong and sustainable health sector.

Earlier, I told hon. Members that it was essential to remember that behind the figures, statistics and costings, we are talking about people, so I will finish by telling hon. Members about the person who kicked this all off—the petitioner, Mictin, who is here today with his family—and why he started the petition. Mictin was actively recruited to the NHS from India, as NHS trusts use local agents to recruit for them. Of the 23 other overseas workers who started with him when he came to Leicester, only six are still working in the trust. The costs of pursuing ILR were too much for many of them and some have found new work abroad—skilled workers who have left the United Kingdom because we have made it too difficult to stay.

We ask people to make the choice to come to the United Kingdom, but we have not ensured that we have a system that makes that choice an easy one. We force difficult choices on the workers we need. Mictin and his wife have made the choice to stay, but we have not made it easy for them. Mictin’s parents-in-law have never seen their grandchild, because the cost of taking him to India would mean greater delays in applying to ILR. Mictin started the petition because he knows he is not the only one making these difficult choices. While our health sector desperately needs more Mictins, we have to ask why we are making the choice to stay so difficult.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I thank the Minister for his remarks, but they are disappointing. I share the concerns of the hon. Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts)—this is probably the only time that I have shared his views—about the cross-subsidisation of the cost. I understand the theory behind it, but I do not think it makes Mictin and his family, and others like them, feel any better. I know the Minister cannot respond now, but the fact that £140 million has been spent on the Rwanda scheme, which is not even up and running, sticks a bit. When people learn that that money is cross-subsidised, it hurts—I know it will hurt those listening to the debate.

I appreciate the Minister saying that he and his officials will listen to what has been said today, but good governance would be to reflect and amend, if possible, the current legislation. I appreciate what has been done, but more can be done. I have listened and spoken to Mictin and his family, so I know it is about the cumulative cost of everything. It is about the ongoing financial pressure that those people face when their families are settled here. The United Kingdom is a great place to live and grow up, and it is where we want people to live their best lives. Those who have served in the NHS—I use the word “served”, because to work in the NHS as a healthcare worker, especially given what we have been through in the past few years, is a duty—deserve better.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 604472, relating to immigration fees for healthcare workers.

Migration and Economic Development

Tonia Antoniazzi Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

What is essential is that we introduce, consider and pass legislation that will be robust and resilient and actually deliver on our stated political objectives. That will require an exhaustive analysis of the legal methods but, simply put, we are in the process, we are in the sausage machine, as they would put it, so it is not a pretty sight, but nothing is off the table.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary said over the weekend that she is considering leaving the European convention on human rights in order to prevent people from claiming asylum. Is it possible to do that without breaking our commitments in the Belfast/Good Friday agreement?

[Suella Braverman]

What I think is clear is that there are evident challenges with the way in which international conventions and agreements relating to migration are working in the 21st century. I think there are legitimate questions that, at an international level, all nation states are grappling with; I have seen that at first hand when I have spoken to my counterparts in the Calais group or other international partners. There is an unprecedented scale of illegal migration and there is unprecedented pressure on domestic resources. I think that looking at how we can forge a new set of agreements to work better together is definitely a reasonable approach.

Police Service: HMI Report

Tonia Antoniazzi Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

The report states that hundreds, if not thousands, of officers who should have failed vetting are now working in police forces across the country, including mine. What measures will he take to identify those individuals and take action?

[Chris Philp]

There is already a process of periodic re-vetting of serving police officers. One of the 43 recommendations in the report published yesterday is to do that re-vetting more frequently, and that is with police chiefs as we speak.

HM Passport Office Backlog

Tonia Antoniazzi Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, because Newport West is proudly home to one of the largest passport offices in the United Kingdom, with nearly 300 essential workers staffing the application process, many of whom are my constituents. They perform a vital public service. Many colleagues across the House have rightly pointed out that the backlog has caused immense distress and difficulty for their constituents. That has been described eloquently by many Opposition colleagues. Many of my constituents have also experienced these difficulties. It is worth noting where the root of the problem lies, and it is not with the workers of the Newport passport office, or indeed any of the passport offices up and down the country.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend talks about the staff at Newport passport office. I would like to pay tribute not only to the many constituents who have patiently queued outside the passport office, but to the staff, who have been very kind and co-operative. They deserve recognition for the hard work that they are having to do because of the Government’s failures.

[Ruth Jones]

My hon. Friend makes an important point perfectly, and I will of course take that message back to the Newport passport office.

Interestingly, until now, like my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy), I have been unable to meet the staff of the Newport passport office, and I am still not sure why management are blocking that meeting.

It was clear from the moment the country began to reopen that passport applications would not only return to pre-pandemic levels but exceed them, as many people understandably had not renewed their passport while international travel was difficult or impossible—it did not take Mystic Meg to see that backlog coming down the tracks. The pandemic presented novel issues, but the problems it revealed were not new. The Government were given ample warning, and opportunities to recruit and train staff and improve systems. However, as during previous periods of application surges, such as 2014, the Government yet again dropped the ball.

Over the past six years, civil service staffing levels in HMPO have been consistently cut, including by over 5% in some years, so the staffing increase trumpeted by the Minister today does not cut it, because we are not yet back to 2016 levels. The Home Office was warned as early as November 2021 about the impact that a likely surge in passport applications would have. PCS—the union for Passport Office workers—stated that the Home Office’s own original estimate for dealing with the backlog was that 1,700 additional staff would be required. Alas, we know that fewer than 1,000 staff have been brought in—with many of them not receiving adequate training to process passports in a timely manner—and at least a quarter of them are agency staff.

My inbox is full of emails from anxious constituents who followed the rules but still do not have their passports. There is a human cost to this for those people who desperately need their passports after two years of enduring immense hardship away from family members and friends abroad, or even just those seeking the brief respite of a long weekend in the sun. People right across the country have been failed yet again by this Government and their inability to plan properly. More than that, in my constituency office we have been dealing with cases where people have been unable to visit dying relatives, and where the backlog has meant people are unable to mourn with family abroad.

One case that came into my constituency office was that of Sandie. Sandie contacted us because her father had passed away overseas. My staff had to go back to the Passport Office twice to ensure that Sandie could get her passport in order to get over to Canada to sort out her father’s funeral arrangements. In Sandie’s own words, she

“cannot imagine the stress that other people who have sick relatives overseas and who’ve been trying to get to see them have been going through”.

Fortunately, we were able to intervene and get the Passport Office to expedite this case and others, as have many other Members across the House, but far too many people have not been so fortunate.

There is another human element to this backlog that we need to remember. The staff in passport offices across the country, including in Newport West, are bearing the brunt of this Government’s incompetence. Hard-working staff who worked through the pandemic, many of them now on insecure, poorly paid contracts, face abuse in the media as a result of this Government’s shirking their responsibilities and laying the blame at the door of the staff. Reports now state that as a result of dilapidated IT systems, rock-bottom wages and a lack of proper support from the Government, morale among the workforce is at an all-time low. We are told that in the Newport passport office there is a particularly high rate of staff attrition as a result of conditions that the Government have impressed on it.

I completely agree with the motion before the House today. I call on the Minister to apologise for his handling of the passport crisis and to work with all those in relevant areas and Departments to get things back on track, so that constituents in Newport West and across the UK can resume their travel plans and get on with their lives.

Stalking Advocates

Tonia Antoniazzi Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 593769, relating to funding for stalking advocates.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Mark. As you say, this case is sub judice, so I will not go into details in my contribution. However, I pay heartfelt tribute to the parents of Gracie Spinks, who are here. I spoke to Richard and Alison last week, and was very moved by their story, but also angered. The trauma that they have gone through is unimaginable, and I hope that I am able to do them and Gracie proud today.

I also put on record my thanks to Jackie Barnett-Wheatcroft for starting this important petition, and for taking the time to speak to me last week. The petition, which has more than 105,000 signatures, states:

“The Government should provide more funding for stalking advocates for victims of stalking. This would help support victims, and should also help the police to investigate cases more thoroughly, potentially helping prevent threats to life.”

That seems a wholly appropriate way to deal with this issue, and there must be best practice that can be shared between police forces to make sure that the tragedy we are talking about cannot happen again. When I spoke to Richard and Alison, and to Jackie last week, one thing that struck me was their determination to find a solution to this issue.

Gracie’s case is a tragic reminder of what seems to be the ever-rising problem of violence against women and girls. Gracie had reported her stalker to the police, which, as we know, takes a huge amount of courage. What I am about to outline is not specifically about Gracie’s case, but there may be some similarities with it. Many women are dismissed by the police when they report violence perpetrated by men. Time and again, we have seen cases of women murdered by men who they have recently or previously complained about. Just this week, Yasmin Chkaifi was killed by her ex-husband. He had an interim stalking protection order against him, and was wanted by the police for breaking it, but despite this, he still found the opportunity to kill Yasmin in the street, just yards from her home—her safe place. In Swansea, we have seen the smirking face of Stephen Hill, who beat his girlfriend so badly that she needed a metal plate put in her head. He was given a sentence of just over two years—two years for life-changing injuries.

This is not the first time that I have spoken about violence against women. Just a few months ago, we were in this Chamber debating the rise in drink spiking, and over the past 12 months, we have been inundated with stories of serious attacks on, and murders of, women across the country. We have rightly been appalled by the murder of Sarah Everard at the hands of a policeman; the police’s taking photographs of sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman after they were murdered in a park; and the killing of Sabina Nessa as she walked through her local park. It cannot go on like this. The Government must recognise that we have an epidemic on our hands.

When women approach the police for support, they are often turned away and made to feel as though they are wasting police time. If someone is mugged or burgled, they are not asked to provide evidence, but a victim of stalking is. The onus is put on the victim. Many stalkers are also guilty of other crimes against their victims. Affray, criminal damage, voyeurism and other offences are often recorded in stalking cases. If a stalking advocate were on a police force, a link between those offences could be established, and we could avoid such cases as those that we are talking about today.

Much is made of postcode lotteries, but we have a police force lottery when it comes to imposing stalking protection orders. It appears that some forces are using them to much better effect than others. We need to ensure that their use to good effect is replicated. A BBC investigation in March 2021 found that only two full orders had been granted in the whole of Wales since the introduction of stalking protection orders in January 2020, despite more than 3,000 stalking offences being reported to the four police forces. It is paramount that we find out how some forces are protecting women; that information then needs to be shared across the board. Much of this comes down to the training that officers receive. How are police forces learning from their mistakes and improving outcomes for all victims of stalking?

There are also issues with trivialising the crime of stalking. I know that I have used the verb to describe having a nose at somebody on social media, and that is not acceptable. It makes it a bit of a joke, when we know that it is not, and we must all recognise that. The dangers that social media can pose cannot continue to go unchecked. We have become so much more connected. That is great for staying in touch with family and friends, but it exposes us to the dangers of having our details available to the world. Posting photos, checking into places and keeping location services on are tools that can be used to find people. Where there are no checks on people setting up accounts, stalkers can create numerous accounts and use them to bombard victims with messages.

Just last week, stories were emerging about the new threat of people using Apple AirTags to follow women without their consent. Tracking devices such as AirTags and Tile are designed to be attached to things that we may lose, such as ours keys or bag, so that we can locate them from our phone, but in the wrong hands they are the ideal tools for stalking and locating someone. Stories emerged last week of that happening in America, and of women having to rely on a beep from the offending device. Even more worryingly, only 100,000 Android users out of a potential 3 million have downloaded an app that Android users are being asked to install that identifies such tracking devices.

Safety concerns about devices and technologies used in the home, such as smart speakers giving away someone’s location, or smart devices getting hacked and compromising home security, have not yet been addressed properly by the tech giants. They need to step up and take action. They have a duty of care to everyone using their products and services. I am not sure whether the Minister has had conversations with any of them, but I would welcome their engagement on the issue, and would be interested in hearing more about how she will approach that. I thank her for her engagement on the subject after I sent over questions earlier. We want and need a constructive discussion. I know that she has met the petitioner, Jackie, but I hope that she will agree to meet the family, and other families, to discuss the best way forward.

In the meantime, very simply there are a number of questions that I, and I am sure the family and friends of Gracie and many others, would appreciate the answers to. How many stalking prevention orders have been given out since they were introduced? Are they uniformly spread across all police forces, or are some doing better than others? What assessment has been made of the pilot scheme being run by West Midlands police? Has the Minister discussed with Government colleagues and police representatives the introduction of stalking advocates to police forces in order to deal with the issue? We would also like to know whether there has been an audit of other offences recorded against perpetrators who are later convicted of stalking. It is those red flags that could stop women such as Gracie being murdered.

The themes running through my research on this subject were that police forces need to share best practice in a much more structured and regulated way, and that training across all forces needs to be massively improved—although “massively” does not go far enough. The Minister needs to take a strong lead on these issues, and shadow Front-Bench Members and I are willing to help in any way we can. I echo the calls in the petition for an advocate on each police force to be made available to victims of stalking. Patterns of behaviour can be identified if someone is looking for them, but many police forces simply do not have the time to do that.

Women want to feel safe, but we do not. Just look at this case, and look at the number of women killed in the last 12 months. Every year, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) on the Front Bench reads out the number and names of the women killed at the hands of men that year. It is a stark reminder to all of us that we are not getting any better on this, and that we need to address the issue. Look at the conviction rates for rape that have just been released. Look at the Met’s response to the Sarah Everard vigil. As a country, we must do better, and I want to work with the Minister across the House to make sure that happens. Gracie’s parents have made it clear that they will not let this go; I will not let it go, either. Things must change. I will continue to fight for women everywhere who are suffering at the hands of men.

[Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. It is an absolute pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), who already knows that she is one of my favourite Members of the House. She gave an exceptional and incredibly powerful speech. I fully endorse her comments on best practice and advocates in police forces, and, indeed, the questions she raised. She opened the debate in a really suitable and fitting way.

This debate comes after a horrible event took place in the constituency of my neighbour, the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), who is present. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) is in the Gallery; I know that this issue is very close to his heart, and that he wishes he could speak in the debate, although his role on the Front Bench prevents him from doing so. Hopefully, I will do him justice as well.

Victim support is important, and fostering an open and honest culture around stalking, domestic abuse and sexual violence, so that victims feel safe to come forward, is a massive challenge, particularly in areas that are a bit more rural and where education levels are perhaps not quite where we would like them to be. We need well-resourced, locally engaged police forces to protect communities such as those in Bolsover.

I offer my sincerest thanks to Jackie Barnett-Wheatcroft for setting up this petition. I know it must have been very difficult to speak so publicly, and it really demonstrates her courage and strength of character that she has brought about this debate with her activism. I should also say that I have met the Minister to discuss these issues, and I know that she takes them incredibly seriously. I know that she will be able to go only so far in her response, and that there is a big cultural issue that we need to address. She is incredibly committed to ensuring that we make progress in this field. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), is perhaps the most vocal and passionate Member of the House on a matter that we all care about very much.

The fact that Gracie Spinks’s death took place in a neighbouring constituency is reflected in the number of signatures—nearly 6,000—from my Bolsover constituency. That shows the strength of local feeling. I have been a Member of this House for two years and one month. The Petitions Committee has been functioning in various iterations during the covid pandemic, and every week I have watched on with envy as all the emails come through for different petitions, because Bolsover has never appeared in the list of most supportive constituencies. That number of signatures really shows how important this issue is to my constituents, so I thank the petitioners.

We are here to talk about the lessons learned and the need for further action. It is an incredibly difficult thing to talk about, and I appreciate that matters being sub judice means that we are unable to go into detail, but Gracie Spinks’s case is not the only high-profile case to have impacted my constituency. In another serious incident, in Tibshelf, the police were able to enforce a restraining order in a robust and effective response. Such incidents are harrowing ordeals for all involved, and effective intervention can and will save lives and protect our families, friends, neighbours and daughters.

I am a Conservative Back Bencher, so I want to make some defence of the Government, who are trying to take action on this matter. It is staggering, however, that 1.5 million people have suffered stalking in the past year; the number is almost unfathomable. I appreciate that it is not just men who engage in stalking—that is a perfectly fine caveat—but there is a challenge around masculinity and malehood, and a culture around being a man that can be deeply corrosive and that needs to be challenged. It is not a bad thing to be a man and sometimes not know the answers. I appreciate that I am a man, albeit a gay one, and some people will not like that, but hey.

There is challenge in being a man in a culture in which we are exposed to things on the internet that we were perhaps not exposed to before; in which we are challenged by culture from different sources; and in which we may not be as educated as we need to be. There is often a lack of role models, and a lack of people who can say, “No, that is not right.” There is a challenge around that. It is not impossible to overcome, but we must undoubtedly focus on and acknowledge it, and we must present pathways to ensure that it does not escalate to a point where women and girls are threatened.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that education in our schools on consent and relationships is key? The best time to get the message across about good, healthy relationships and how to deal with everybody is the time between a person’s being a small child and their becoming an adult.

[Mark Fletcher]

I agree wholeheartedly. Indeed, until not long ago, my husband worked for an organisation that used to go into schools to help spread tolerance and understanding—albeit in a slightly different field—to ensure that people were comfortable from a young age with those conversations, their rights, and people who may be a bit different. That is incredibly important.

This is an aside that I did not intend to make, but I visited Bolsover School only a couple of weeks ago, and I was absolutely blown away by the tolerance and understanding that I saw there. It was a sign of progress from when I was at school, and a sign that things were being challenged that I did not think would be in my adult life. The subject that we are discussing inevitably leads us to focus on the bad, but it is important that we highlight and praise progress, because that encourages other schools and people to step forward and learn.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I thank the hon. Member for being generous with his time. It is great to see progress in schools, and that progress should be celebrated. But is he concerned about the online harm to which children are being exposed—about what the web is offering them and the problems that that causes? And does he agree that that is why the online harms Bill will have to deal with those issues robustly?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I thank the Chair for his correction; I had been elevated quickly.

[Mark Fletcher]

Deservedly.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman.

I thank the Minister for her response, and all Members who have spoken. It was disappointing, as we have all said, that other Members were not able to join us in for what has been an important debate. I thank the petition maker, Jackie, Gracie’s family—it has been an absolute pleasure to meet you today—and everybody who signed the petition. The Minister spoke about the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, and my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) spoke about charities such as Paladin that have given a lot of support. The Minister cannot respond now, but I really hope she will hold police forces’ feet to the fire, because we need to know that what she outlined as having been done since 2017 is being done. It cannot be, otherwise we would not be where we are today. It is integral that her role incorporates holding them to account and making them act on what they should act on.

In 1986, Suzy Lamplugh went missing. I was 15 years old at the time, and it really sticks in the memory, as a teenager, knowing that women are going missing. It is great to hear about the conference, and about National Stalking Awareness Week, from 25 to 29 April, but we have to do so much more.

The petition is so important, and speaking today has been an absolute honour. I also hope that Gracie’s sister, Abi, who I met today, will follow her dream, go on to study politics and join myself and other female Members in this place to fight for the memory of her sister, Gracie. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) said, stalking is an identifiable precursor to murder. Minister, we cannot allow this not to be changed; we have to change it. She made the comparison to terrorism. We know where our terrorists are. We tag them. We look for them. We need to do the same as for terrorism.

I will end on this note—it is a nice note. The strength of the feeling of the family and the petitioners must be noted. Having two brothers myself, I was so pleased to hear Abi tell me earlier that her brothers are great, and what a great strength they are, because they look after her. Families are wonderful things, and theirs has been through hell. So many families have been through hell that it is our responsibility in the House to ensure that we do our best so that this is never repeated. I thank the Minister and everyone who has spoken, and I thank you, Chair.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 593769, relating to funding for stalking advocates.

Nightclub Safety

Tonia Antoniazzi Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 598986, relating to safety at nightclubs.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Gray, to discuss petition 598986 on making it a legal requirement for nightclubs to search guests thoroughly on entry. We have all seen the stories from around the UK, mainly about women having their drinks spiked and even being jabbed with drugs in some nightclubs. In Swansea, the police are investigating a number of incidents of drink spiking, and as of last week the police in Nottinghamshire were dealing with 15 separate incidents of spiking with something sharp. We now see nightclubs such as Sin City in Swansea taking action by ordering 12,500 StopTopps—anti-spiking lids—as well as implementing a policy that allows those who think their drink might have been spiked to get a replacement for free. In the absence of comprehensive drinks testing, that makes sense.

While those steps from some nightclubs are welcome, what will happen after the media interest has died down? It is not good enough for this issue to be in the hands of some nightclub owners. The Government must realise that something has to be done. A number of clubs have extra security staff on the floors of their nightclubs, so surely it is not beyond the owners’ financial capabilities to invest in making security checks a permanent feature across all clubs in the UK. I understand that this has been a financially difficult 18 months for many venues, but does the Minister agree that some investment in keeping people safe on a night out will make going out a much more attractive proposition and therefore worth it in the long run for club owners?

Many colleagues will have seen the Big Night In initiative, where cities across the UK boycotted pubs and nightclubs in a show of defiance against the increase in spiking. Many town centres were much quieter than normal. With 51% of the population being women, and other groups also being vulnerable to spiking, that is big spending power not out in the clubs; they have made their voices and concerns heard. I thank the many groups who have supported the campaign, including student unions, bars and clubs across the country that closed early, and the Swansea University men’s rugby team, who were among the first to show their solidarity.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing forward the debate. We have had 21 incidents of spiking in the last month in Northern Ireland. Does she agree that all Administrations in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland must agree a policy that protects women? We could do it here centrally and feed it out to the Administrations.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I welcome the hon. Member’s comments. That is what the UK Government need to do, working hand in hand with the devolved countries. I thank him for that.

The petition has now been signed by more than 172,000 people, including 180 people in Gower and 224 in the Minister’s constituency, which demonstrates the strength of feeling on the issue. The aim of the petition is for

“the UK Government to make it law that nightclubs must search guests on arrival to prevent harmful weapons and other items entering the establishment. This could be a pat down search or metal detector, but must involve measures being put in place to ensure the safety of the public.”

That seems wholly acceptable to me and many others. The Government can take the lead. Working with local authorities to put in place clear and definitive guidelines to protect the safety of people using licensed premises seems a very sensible thing to do. It would protect not just customers but club owners and workers.

Perhaps the Minister can answer these questions. How many people have to be spiked before the Government will do anything? Do we have to wait until something terrible happens for the Government to act? Local authorities will be key in making these changes. Under their licensing powers, they should take measures to make clubs and pubs safe places to go. What discussions has the Minister had with local government to address this?

I thank Hannah Thomson, who started the petition, for her hard work in promoting it and for speaking to me last week. Hannah was a student in Edinburgh for four years, and though she graduated last year, she still has friends based there. A friend showed her the story about spiking with needles in Edinburgh, and they both questioned how needles were getting into clubs undetected. Hannah realised that in her entire time as a student, she had never been searched when entering a club. That prompted her to do some more research. She found that there is no law on this, and she felt that she could change that.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend mentioned very good work by Swansea police, but she may not be aware of a case that I had where a person was spiked with a needle, and the day after, their arm came up with a massive swelling. They went to the police, who said that the person was just drunk and they refused to look at the CCTV evidence. Does my hon. Friend agree that, while that may be an isolated case, it is important that the police take these incidents very seriously? Any CCTV evidence should be examined, and we should consider testing drinks, which has been piloted in Cornwall.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I do not think his case is an isolated incident. These incidents are becoming increasingly visible and are happening in nightclubs across the country. My evidence is anecdotal, but A&E departments have seen a rise in cases specifically as a result of university terms starting. That needs to be reported. That is why it is important that the Government take responsibility and find out what the data is. They must raise awareness, working with local authorities and the police to ensure that these are not seen as drunken incidents.

[Geraint Davies]

My point is that it is imperative that the police take these issues very seriously on all occasions and do not, as I understand they sometimes do, dismiss them as, “Oh, she was drunk.” Sometimes these people have been spiked or drugged.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I agree with my hon. Friend. He is right––there can be no excuses. The police need to investigate every incident.

Hannah also explained that when she went to a festival in Manchester, she was thoroughly searched and her bag swabbed to ensure that she was not carrying any drugs. She was then given a stamp that required her to be searched again a couple of days later. There is no reason why that could not be introduced in clubs. Safety should never be about cost. What would the cost of serious injury, rape or even death be for a club owner? It would be much, much worse.

When I spoke to Hannah about her petition last week, she outlined some of the comments that she had received. I have looked at her Instagram account and even though she has deleted many of the worst comments, there is a real misunderstanding of what the petition is trying to achieve. She sent me some screen shots. While she did not call them abuse herself, they clearly constitute aggressive and sometimes threatening behaviour, mainly men saying that she was a feminist––I do not see that as an insult––and a racist. This requirement would cover everyone entering a nightclub and is for everyone’s safety.

One theme of the comments was that men were saying that women should not be on a night out if they cannot protect themselves. Now, some people are not fortunate enough to have played rugby for Wales, like me, and be able to look after themselves. But that is not the point; that is not what this is about. Those comments are not welcome. How about men stop attacking women when we are just going about, and carrying on, our lives? How about men start calling out other men on their behaviour? As the Duchess of Cornwall said the week before last,

“rapists are not born, they are constructed.”

Toxic masculinity, extreme porn and the normalisation of violence against women in all areas of popular culture drive this level of violence against women. That is what the Government need to address.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a real need for a systemic approach to capturing data on the number of incidents from across universities, the police, and health services? Does she also agree that some universities are falling way short and not taking responsibility by providing healthcare in clinics 24/7? After facing an incident, young people, particularly women, do not want to go to accident and emergency or to the police straightaway; they need on site, on-campus support that they know how to access, but that is not the case in many universities across the country.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

My hon. Friend has made absolutely wonderful and excellent points. This should be data driven, and the universities must be working in concert. There has to be consistency across the whole United Kingdom. There need to be guidelines. That is why this petition calls on the Government to take control of the situation.

Let me go back to think about how Hannah felt. This young woman, a year out of university, feels so motivated to make a difference, and she is in Edinburgh, just going about her everyday life. We have to take notice. This issue is happening everywhere. I will go back to talk about Hannah’s social media posts. What happened when she reported some of the comments? What support was she getting from Instagram? Absolutely nothing. It said that it would not take action against those posting the comments, so in the end she had to delete them. It became a really difficult thing for one person, one young woman, to have to deal with. I say to those social media platforms that are unwilling to act: get your house in order; you may be able to change your company name, but we still know who you are, and we will be taking action to make sure that you clean up the cesspit that social media can be.

Clubs themselves also have to take responsibility. When Hannah went on one radio show to talk about this issue, a nightclub owner was arguing that the rise in reported drink-spiking incidents was because students going out were not used to drinking so much after being stuck indoors because of covid and were reporting it as spiking. Fortunately, that attitude seems to be limited to a few uncaring club owners. In fact, Mike Kill, chairman of the Night Time Industries Association, has called on the Government to hold an inquiry into spiking. The association would like a review of the way in which spiking is classified and recorded, meaning that it could look at solutions based on the full facts. It has also highlighted a scheme put in place by Devon and Cornwall police that provided on-site testing as soon as there was a report of spiking. That meant a uniform approach to reporting, assessment and evidence gathering, which increased confidence and reduced fear of crime among customers. Will the Minister today agree to meet me and the Night Time Industries Association to discuss the scheme trialled in Devon and Cornwall and see how we can roll this out across the country? Where there are patterns of this behaviour that can be identified, it is much easier for effective policies to be put in place, and this could be put in place quickly.

I thank Hannah for talking to me about how she and her friends felt. I really appreciate her efforts on this issue and hope that we can get some concrete commitments from the Minister today.

The last 18 months have been particularly hard on women. I am thinking of Sarah Everard, Nicole Smallman, Bibaa Henry and Sabina Nessa and of those women who were locked down with their abusers. The subject of today’s debate is just part of a wider picture for women all over the United Kingdom. Violence towards women and girls is an epidemic of epic proportions, and the Government must act now to stem it.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

The issue that we are addressing today was raised with me, before the recent media attention, by school students at King Edward VII School in Sheffield. The prevalence that they describe, in terms of their experience, is distressing. I have also had reports of incidents at house parties. Does my hon. Friend agree that the issue does not simply end with nightclubs but is about a wider spectrum of behaviour? There have been some good campaigns. My own student union in Sheffield has a good initiative and some nightclubs are working well, but, as she has said, but there has not been a comprehensive approach, which is what we need to address this.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to work with the police and other authorities to treat the issue more seriously and view it in the wider context of violence against women and girls? Does she also agree that the strategy needs to challenge the whole spectrum of behaviour, which starts with casual harassment and ends with sexual violence?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. It is really shocking to find out that school students in his constituency were raising this issue with him before it even came to the public eye. That shows that they know about it through social media platforms and have an understanding of this danger. I am concerned that this is happening not only in nightclubs, but in the wider community, in house parties. It is becoming a craze and a trend. It has to be taken seriously by everybody. That is why education is key. We have issues in this country around access. More young people are online now and they have access to all sorts of very dangerous pornography and materials. That needs to be addressed as a cultural issue.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Tomorrow, North Yorkshire police will have a multi-agency meeting, including with universities and higher education institutions, to discuss the issue of spiking. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to talk about the availability of trauma services, which are seriously underfunded and understaffed?

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comments about trauma services. As we have seen, those services are needed 24/7 at universities. They are needed at police stations. They are needed everywhere and the issue needs to be addressed.

We cannot go on like this. Radical action needs to be taken. Misogyny should be a hate crime. Support for women facing domestic abuse needs to be restored. Education for boys and men needs to be put in place. This is a specific debate, but it speaks to a much wider issue—one which needs action, not words, today.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I welcome today’s extremely important debate. I agree overwhelmingly with what other Members have said.

I came to speak in this debate because I was contacted this morning by a concerned parent about what was, to me, a new horror: spiking by injection. It is fair to say that when I was young enough to go to nightclubs—a very long time ago—we may have feared that people would spike our drinks with spirits. The idea that today, people—overwhelmingly young women, I understand—might be spiked by injection is a grave horror. I want to use the word “grave” a few times.

To inject a person against their will should be regarded as a grave assault—one of the most serious assaults. They are injected not only against their will, but with a substance unknown, with the purpose of intoxicating them and, presumably, with a view towards raping them. That is the most extraordinary horror. Yet, as we heard earlier, the police do not always take it as seriously as they might. I want to know what my hon. Friend the Minister is going to do to make sure that what is the most exceptionally serious assault is treated as such. This kind of crime should attract the most serious penalties, and no one should be in any doubt about how serious it is. That includes security staff at nightclubs and police officers, though I do not wish to assign blame to any of those groups. Ambulance crews should also be aware that while somebody they pick up may seem to be intoxicated, they might in fact have been injected with a drug.

This morning, after hearing such an alarming account, I called Michael Kill, the chief executive of the Night Time Industries Association, and asked him about it. I will not repeat the remarks that the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) made about his comments, but I will add an extra quote:

“Our industry has been deeply concerned by the rise in reported spiking incidents across the country, and have been extremely proactive in our reaction so that everyone can enjoy a night out free from fear of being spiked, as it should be.”

He goes on to refer to the Home Office inquiry sought by the association and to which the hon. Lady has referred.

I strongly endorse the call for action on spiking by injection. Of course, I care about spiking through drinks as well, but we should draw the distinction that injecting somebody with a substance unknown ought to be treated as among the most grievous assaults that could be carried out, partly because of its motivation, which is probably that of rape. I am so horrified that I find it difficult to put it in words, so I do not wish to labour the point.

My final point is a difficult one to make. It is about the hon. Lady’s point about men as a class. I do not doubt for a moment that men as a class conduct most of the violence that is conducted against others and against women. I am very much inclined to take the position that she set out that men should do this or that. However, one of the women in my team, who has worked in the past with abused men, asked me not to do that, because the vast majority of men are decent, civilised and law-abiding people who want women to be treated with respect and do not perpetrate violence. I have been asked, despite a mistaken chivalry on my part, not to blame men as a class.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I totally respect the hon. Member’s comments about men. It is just that the victims in this case tend to be women and the perpetrators tend to be men, but I completely respect that my comments may have come across like that. We do have an issue that we need to address—let us work together and not make it an issue of sex, but of how we can keep people safe.

[Mr Baker]

I absolutely welcome what the hon. Lady says, and I am grateful to her for it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I welcome the comments that the Minister has made in response to the petition and I thank everybody who has participated from the Back Benches for their comments. One thing that comes across is the need for consistency, for people to work together, and for all organisations to ensure that this behaviour does not continue but is addressed by the Government. I welcome the comments made by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker): he says that we need to have a campaign that raises the profile of the issue. The Minister spoke about the public information and the communication plan; I hope to see this at the forefront, especially now, with young people in university and more active—going out—in the night-time economy.

I will just refer to some of my notes. My hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) talked about pulling the local authorities together with young people to discuss what is happening in his constituency. I will be suggesting with my Swansea colleagues some of the things talked about today—meeting the local night-time industry and also working with the licensing agencies. It is important that people who set up campaigns in the UK know the situation with the licensing laws and the local authorities and where those responsibilities lie, so that they can take this further.

I thank Hannah Thomson, because what she set up has brought about a debate in this House, which is important. This is not about chivalry; it is about working together. It is not about calling out any particular people, but we do need to raise the fact that the way we treat women and girls in this country is, frankly, a disgrace. I am fed up of hearing about how we are just putting them aside. I hate the word “banter”. I have a 17-year-old son who thinks banter is hilarious. It is not hilarious, because it has consequences. We have to change our mindset and our culture. We have to deal with the online harms Bill. We have to ensure that our young people, our women and girls, are safe and that we have a respectful culture in this country whereby we can all go about our lives and live our best lives. I thank the Minister; I thank those on our Benches; and thank you, Mr Gray.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 598986, relating to safety at nightclubs.

Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape

Tonia Antoniazzi Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

While my primary objective will be to get more cases into court—that, fundamentally, is the problem we are trying to address—my hon. Friend is quite right that, alongside that, it is completely critical that we build confidence among victims in the criminal justice system. We have seen an increase in reported rape over the last few years, and it is quite a significant increase, so more people are confident to come forward. However, given the performance figures so far, that could easily slip away, so making sure they are at the heart of decision making—that they know when they come forward that they can access the support they need, and can get the guidance and indeed the advocacy they need; that they will be received by police officers and prosecutors who are invested properly in and are looking dispassionately at the investigation; and that the natural inquiries required as part of this sort of offence investigation are proportionate and do not invade privacy in a disproportionate way—will be critical to the mission, and I hope that that is what she will find in the report.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

The Minister has rightly highlighted the importance of data and transparency in the rape review. With some police forces reporting a rapid rise in sexual offending by women, what steps is he taking to ensure that all police forces accurately record and collect data on the sex of both the victims and the perpetrators in all cases of rape and sexual violence? Does he agree with me that, when it comes to recording crime, sex does matter?

[Kit Malthouse]

I agree with the hon. Lady that demographics of all types matter. Indeed, I forget who it was, but someone said, “If you can’t measure something, you don’t know how to change it”. One of the first questions I have asked in my initial meetings in this job, when officials come in with a particular area of policy to deal with, is: do we actually know what is happening—do we have a clear picture of what is happening out there on the streets and communities we serve? I am more than happy to go back and have a look at the particular issue she has raised to make sure that we are getting the recording right.

Safe Streets for All

Tonia Antoniazzi Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

I mostly welcome the Government’s commitments to tackling crime and to addressing violence, particularly violence against women and girls. The review of the criminal justice response to rape is long overdue, and some say that rape has effectively been decriminalised.

To find effective solutions we must fully understand the problem, and accurate data is key in tackling the causes of crime, protecting the public, providing justice to victims, and rehabilitating offenders. Data must be accurately sex-disaggregated in order to fully understand the impact of all crimes on women and girls. In order to combat sexism, we need to count sex, and in order to combat discrimination against other groups, there is a need to record separate and additional data. The offending patterns of men and of women show the highest differential of all, so we need to monitor the sex of victims and of perpetrators of all crimes. For example, the proportion of women among those prosecuted in 2019 was 2% for sexual offences, 8% for robbery, and 7% for possession of a weapon.

We all want to live in a society that is respectful and tolerant and strives for equality. Gender reassignment is rightly a protected characteristic and we must respect the privacy of transgender people, but in order to protect everyone when it comes to official records of offences, particularly against women and girls, we need accurate records of the biological sex of the victims and the perpetrators of crime, in addition to data on the gender identity of victims and perpetrators. Why then are police forces recording the self-identified gender of victims of suspected offenders and not their biological sex? I understand that at least 16 regional police forces now record suspects’ sex on the basis of gender identity, following the advice of the National Police Chiefs’ Council. Data based only on self-identified gender does not give accurate data on which to build a violence against women and girls strategy, nor to effectively plan services that support all victims and target all perpetrators whatever their sex or however they identify.

If police records are not robust and correctly disaggregated by sex, we end up with unreliable and potentially misleading data in reporting. For example, the BBC asked 45 regional police forces in the UK for data on reported cases of female perpetrators’ child sex abuse from 2015 to 2019. The data received indicated that there was an increase of 84%. Data corruption means that we cannot tell whether this large increase is due to an increase in female offenders or those identifying as women, and that detail matters.

Women make up 3% of the arrests for all sexual offences. The number of women convicted for these crimes is so low that the misrecording of the sex of the perpetrator skews the data very quickly. Where offence categories are very rarely committed by women, the addition of just one or two people can have a significant impact on data. For example, a biological man convicted of attempted murder and other offences at Birmingham Crown court in 2017 was recorded as female, thus falsely elevating the number of females convicted of attempted murder that year in England and Wales by around 20%. We need to know what action the Government will take to ensure correct police record keeping and prevent the potential corruption of data on crimes and their impact on women and girls.

Policing and Prevention of Violence against Women

Tonia Antoniazzi Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend sums it up perfectly. I completely agree with the sentiment she has just expressed.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab) [V]]

Last week on the Armed Forces Committee we heard about prosecuting crimes, including rape, through the military courts. One statement stood out for me. It was:

“our servicepeople are thoroughly good people, but they drink too much, something goes wrong and they end up in court.”

What discussions has the Home Secretary’s Department had about that attitude towards victims of male violence, and does it reflect a general attitude to women that we saw on Saturday on Clapham Common?

[Priti Patel]

First, no it does not reflect a general attitude to women, and no one should pre-judge or make assumptions of that nature. The hon. Lady makes a very important point, though, in terms of the armed forces work and the work that has taken place across both Departments. Our Minister with responsibility for safeguarding has done extensive work on this particular issue with our colleagues in the Ministry of Defence and that will of course continue.