Rape and Sexual Violence

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Victoria Atkins)]

I have had the privilege of debating International Women’s Day for several years, but never has one been set in such an atmosphere or against such an international backdrop as the horrific invasion of Ukraine. We are incredibly honoured to have heard moments ago from President Zelensky, who is facing enormous threats to his personal safety and that of his country and fellow citizens. I will address the debate in the same spirit of international unity on this great day when we celebrate and mark our hopes and aspirations for women around the world.

The last 13 days have shown how precious democracy is across the world. We in the United Kingdom have a long and proud history of democracy, but it is something that we must protect, cherish and nurture. We in this Chamber are the personification of the importance of democracy in our country. It is through contributions made here, and through the work of Back-Bench MPs and Ministers, that we deliver change through democratic processes in our great country.

We are already hearing of terrifying incidents of violence against women and girls in Ukraine. Of course, we have seen the absolutely heart-rending experiences of women and girls fleeing their home and their country to seek safety and sanctuary elsewhere in Europe. We stand with them and with all women and girls who are living through conflict in this terrible time. I take in genuine spirit the tone in which the debate has been raised and I invite, as we have as a Government, scrutiny of the measures that we are taking to address violence against women and girls.

We have taken a hard and honest look at how the entire criminal justice system deals with rape and serious sexual violence. We have acknowledged that in too many instances, it has simply not been good enough. Since the publication of the rape review last year, however, we have learned lessons and we have brought and are bringing measures into place to build change.

When these devastating crimes happen, we want victims to come forward and feel confident to report them and to seek justice. That involves many stages of the criminal justice process from the moment a report is made to the police to the conclusion of the case. On the global stage and on British streets, we are working tirelessly every day to ensure that women and girls feel safe and that they know that they can trust the criminal justice system to punish perpetrators. We are breaking biases, supporting victims and making the changes that the public expect.

[Emma Hardy]

As I raised with my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves), when rape convictions are completed and somebody is found guilty, the victim is sometimes unable to get criminal injuries compensation because she may have prior convictions that are unrelated to sexual assault, as happened to my constituent. I have raised that in Parliament before and I was promised a meeting with a Minister, which has not yet been forthcoming. In the spirit of co-operation, I hope that on the issue of sexual violence, the Minister will look again at eligibility for criminal injuries compensation.

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Lady has raised an important point and I undertake myself to meet her to discuss this—very much so.

This Government have taken decisive and measurable action in the last 12 months to make our system stronger. I stress the word “measurable” because this is how we are going to drive change across agencies over the coming months and years to address the issues highlighted in today’s debate. We are focusing on preventing these horrendous crimes from taking place in the first place. We published the tackling violence against women and girls strategy last year very much in response to the 180,000 accounts that we received from women and girls, and men, who wanted to share their thoughts and experiences of violence against women and girls.

We have already put a range of practical steps in place, including, only last week, the public communications campaign “Enough”, which I encourage all Members across the House to share on their social media channels and networks to get the message out about the unacceptable attitudes that we do not want to see in our country in the 2020s.

We have also funded local projects and initiatives across England and Wales to the tune of more than £27 million to improve the safety of women in public spaces through the safer streets fund. I know this is a matter of interest to various colleagues. We, of course, have the roll-out of statutory relationships, sex and health education in schools, because we understand that we need to ensure that children and young people are taught at the earliest age possible and in an age-appropriate way what healthy and respectful love looks like.

In the last year, we have also published the end-to-end rape review report and action plan and we have looked at every stage of the criminal justice system. The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves), understandably, says it took a long time. It did, because this is such a complex area, and everybody in the House will appreciate that we do not want to suffer unintended consequences, no matter how well meaning measures may be in the first place. With that approach, we outlined in the action plan a robust and ambitious programme of work.

In December, precisely because we are determined to have an attitude of non-defensive transparency about what is happening at various stages across the criminal justice system, we published our first six-monthly progress report and quarterly scorecard for adult rape cases. I am never very sure about that precise word, but it is the word we have come up with for the time being. It is about increasing public transparency of performance across the criminal justice system at every stage by grabbing data from the system from the moment a crime is recorded by the police to the completion of a case in court. The metrics have been selected to cover priority areas such as victim engagement, timeliness and the volume of cases reaching court.

The hon. Lady raised the point about equalities. Believe you me, this is something we are very conscious of. She will, I hope, understand—I do not say this by way of complaint; it is just a fact—that, because different parts of the CJS collect their data in different ways and measure different things, we have had to group together. She will have seen from the scorecards how carefully we have had to use the measures in various parts, because there is not a single line of measurement that runs through every stage of the CJS. We will get there, but at the moment it is taking a bit of time to collect that data. On the point about equalities, it is one of those measurements that we do not have yet. That is not for want of attention or effort, but it is taking a bit of time to try to address some of the very real equalities measurements. She will know, I hope, that, as part of the scorecard process, I personally not just chair meetings with leaders across the CJS, but listen to survivors groups, because they are the people who can very much guide us on some of this work.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

Could the Minister explain whether there are any plans with any of the scorecards or process of monitoring to look at the data around constant and repeat offenders? One of the main problems in the system is that nobody is monitoring repeat offenders or doing any real offender management. What we see again and again is the same people committing the same crimes. Will anything be found in the data to deal with that particular issue?

[Victoria Atkins]

May I correct the hon. Lady on that point about repeat offenders? People are managing it and monitoring it, albeit not through the scorecard. She will know of the offender management systems in place and the ViSOR—violent and sex offender register—system. She will also know, because we discussed it at great length during the passage of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, of our programme to revolutionise the way the current system, MAPPA—the multi-agency public protection arrangements—works into MAPPS—the multi-agency public protection system—which will be able to track the most dangerous offenders in the ways both she and I want. We are offering these metrics precisely so that there can be scrutiny of the stages at which things are going right, or indeed wrong. Having produced national scorecards, we will soon produce local scorecards so we can look locally to see where good practice is happening and where other areas need to follow suit.

On the criminal justice system, we have recruited, as I hope the House knows, more than 11,000 police officers as part of our commitment to recruit 20,000 officers, and more than 100 prosecutors in the Crown Prosecution Service have already undertaken induction training on rape and serious sexual offences. On the point raised about mobile phones and the data strip search, again, having listened to victims, charities that support survivors and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and the Victims’ Commissioner, we have in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill set out the legal framework for digital data downloads. We understand how that can be so terribly difficult for victims and their willingness, frankly, to go along with a case.

The issue of specialism has been raised. That is why we are supporting Operation Soteria, a joint police and CPS programme of work whereby they turn the investigation on its head, from looking at the victim to looking at the suspect. That is clearly the way forward and we have committed to expanding the initial work from five areas to, in the next tranche, 14. We will be rolling this out nationally, but we have to do it through the staged approach because one can imagine, I hope, the differences between a huge metropolitan force and a much smaller, more rural force in terms of economies of scale and ways of working. We are doing it in an iterative, careful way so that when we make change we make effective change that has meaningful and positive consequences for victims.

We are focusing even more on victim support, too. We are putting victims at the heart of the system so that they get the support they need to continue with such cases. We are providing an unprecedented £150 million to victims support services this year, an increase of over £100 million on the budget in 2010-11, and we have committed to increasing funding for all victims support services to £185 million by 2024-25, including increasing the number of independent sexual and domestic violence advisers, because we know that victims who have access to IDVAs and ISVAs are nearly 50% more likely to stay engaged with the criminal justice process.

We are also commissioning a new national helpline and online services for victims of rape and sexual violence, which will be available 24/7. This is a real step forward. We want victims to be able to get help when they need it. We have seen the huge successes of the national domestic abuse helpline and I want to replicate that for victims of sexual violence.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that many police forces no longer have RASSO—rape and serious sexual offences—units? Does she think they should have them?

[Victoria Atkins]

We have different agencies involved in the criminal justice system. Sometimes, there is an understandable wish in the Chamber for us to be able to control everything from the Dispatch Box, but we have a strong tradition of chief constables directing their personnel, training and so on. I have to say that the reaction of the police to Operation Soteria has been truly committed. They want to make the sort of changes we are already beginning to see with Op Soteria. I genuinely believe that, through Soteria, we will begin to see real change in policing. With the roll-out of that in the pilot areas, national learning is already being shared and that will roll through forces—even those not in the next tranche of 14.

I am conscious about giving Back Benchers time, so I will pick up just a couple more points. I hope that the House supports our decision to include violence against women and girls in the strategic policing requirement, which means that it must be prioritised as other serious crimes such as homicide, serious and organised crime and terrorism are prioritised. Of course, through the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and previous measures, this place has strengthened the law on things such as the so-called rough sex defence and the new offence of non-fatal strangulation. Indeed, the police Bill, which is in the other place, will increase the time that sexual offenders serving sentences for offences of particular concern must spend in prison from half their custodial term to two thirds.

We have heard about the roll-out of section 28, which, in fairness, I think the Opposition welcome. That is one of the levers by which we will really make progress on the timing of cases. If we can persuade the CPS and judges to permit victims to give their pre-recorded evidence at a very early stage in a case after investigation, that will help with timeliness. There is hope and expectation that that will increase guilty pleas, but also it will help victims to give their best evidence in a timely fashion, and juries will, in due course, be able to consider it. We will roll that out as soon as is practicable.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) highlighted the issue of cases being knocked off the list, floaters and so on. Again, we expect that section 28 will be able to deal with some of listing issues that she rightly raised..

[Laura Farris]

I of course endorse and support everything the Minister said on section 28. Everyone who has given evidence to the Home Affairs Committee’s review on rape has spoken about how important that is. There have been one or two dissenting voices, but the power of section 28 procedures has basically been advocated across the board. The one thing that was said to the Justice Committee this afternoon that I must make the Minister aware of is that at the moment it is very patchy whether police forces across the country are even aware of section 28, or whether they are making victims aware of it. With the national roll-out, will she pledge to ensure that the police are applying it?

[Victoria Atkins]

Of course, that communication programme is part of our work in rolling it out. That is why we are working as fast as we can, but we do need to take the police and others with us.

In terms of minimum and maximum sentences, the average sentence for an offence of rape in 2020 was more than 10 years. We very much respect the right of courts to retain all available sentencing options in these cases, but we understand from the figures that we see that the courts are mindful of the enormous impact that these terrible offences can have on victims and the wider community.

I gently remind the Opposition that they called for a single Minister. Well, we have two for the price of one here on the Government Benches. We all understand that the criminal justice system has many facets. We have two Ministers solely focused on violence against women and girls. Finally, I thank every single woman—and every person—working across the criminal justice system to help support victims of rape and sexual violence. That includes those offering a hand to hold in a sexual assault referral centre, independent sexual violence advisers as well as our team of officers and Crown court and other litigators. Every single one of them is helping us to deliver justice and I thank them sincerely for it.