Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

William Cash Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

May I make a little more progress?

In July, we announced a range of other measures, including the creation of a new cross-Government FGM unit to work with criminal justice agencies, children’s services, health care professionals and affected communities. I hope that, together, these measures, including the changes to criminal and civil law, will help to tackle this appalling practice.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Mrs May]

I have been very generous in accepting interventions. If I am going to accept my hon. Friend’s intervention, I should first accept that of the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart).

[Mrs May]

The hon. Lady makes a point not just about FGM but more generally about refuges. Before Christmas, the Government announced the availability of a further £10 million for refuges as a recognition of the valuable work they do, particularly in relation to women who are leaving a domestic environment where they have been subject to domestic abuse. On female genital mutilation, it is important to ensure that the young people involved are aware of what they are able to do in order to escape this danger. It is also important that we send out very strong messages from this place, and generally, about the fact that it is a criminal act that we are not willing to accept in this country, and that we will make every effort we can to ensure that we eradicate the practice.

[Sir William Cash]

I commend my right hon. Friend and the Government for this incredibly important provision and the manner in which it has been handled in the House of Lords. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), who is away at the moment, is chairman of the all-party group on FGM, of which I am also a member. We wonder whether it will be possible to insert in Committee arrangements ensuring that where the court makes an order it should protect a girl against not only the commission of but the risk of commission of a genital mutilation offence. I will deal with that when, I hope, I speak subsequently in this debate. Will my right hon. Friend be interested in listening to those arguments?

[Mrs May]

I look forward to hearing what my hon. Friend says about this later and the detail that I am sure he will fill in. We are addressing the whole question of the risk that an individual may face from female genital mutilation in the new offence of failing to protect a girl from the risk of FGM. It is important that those who have responsibility for these young girls and are aware of what might be happening recognise that they need to do something to ensure that the individual is not at risk and is not put through FGM. I look forward to hearing the arguments that my hon. Friend will advance later in relation to his point.

Part 5 of the Bill includes another child protection measure in making it an offence to possess so-called paedophile manuals—material that contains practical advice on how to commit a sexual offence against a child. It beggars belief that such things actually exist, but regrettably the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, a command of the National Crime Agency, has seen a number of examples. That being the case, it is right that we act to outlaw the possession of such material. In doing so, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), who has campaigned assiduously on the issue.

If there are other gaps in child protection legislation, we are determined to take the necessary action to safeguard those at risk of harm. That is why last month my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced that we will amend the Bill to make it an offence for an adult to communicate sexually with a child. Many hon. Members have supported the campaign by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and I pay tribute to them for highlighting this gap in the law.

Before leaving this part of the Bill, I confirm that we will table amendments in Committee to strengthen the protection afforded to the victims of domestic abuse. As the House knows, over the summer the Home Office ran a consultation seeking views on whether a specific offence was needed to criminalise coercive or controlling behaviour in intimate personal and family relationships, and 85% of respondents agreed that the law in this area needed to be strengthened. With over 1 million calls for assistance to the police each year for domestic abuse-related incidents, but only 78,000 prosecutions, it is clear that the criminal justice response to domestic abuse is woefully inadequate. The new offence will provide an additional charging option where there is a pattern of non-violent controlling conduct, the cumulative impact of which can be no less traumatic for the victim.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. It is a matter not just of the legal framework, but of making sure that the law is enforced. We must ensure that the law is strong enough and that prosecution authorities, the police and authorities at every level, including schools and other organisations, are properly aware of the seriousness of the crime and of the risks to young girls in this country, and are prepared and ready to take action to tackle this awful crime.

[Sir William Cash]

Is the right hon. Lady aware that one of the problems has been that front-line workers are uncertain when they may report matters? That is the objective with which I will deal in my remarks later. Will she give a sympathetic hearing to that approach?

[Yvette Cooper]

We will certainly do so. I am happy to talk further to the hon. Gentleman about the matter. We, too, have spoken about the issues surrounding mandatory reporting not only of female genital mutilation, but of child abuse more widely. There is a strong case for making sure that professionals across the board are aware of the serious damage being done to young people as a result of these awful crimes.

We welcome the proposals to strengthen the law on domestic abuse. I pay tribute to Women’s Aid and Paladin, which have campaigned for the strengthening of the law so that it recognises the cumulative impact of different forms of psychological abuse, as well as physical abuse, and the way that that can trap women in particular and men in abusive relationships, causing huge harm to them, their families and the children. We look forward to discussing the clauses in detail.

On protection for children, I pay tribute to Action for Children for its campaign to strengthen the law on child cruelty, and to the campaign by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and by Lord Harris, who argued, with our support in the other place, that the Bill should include a new offence of sending a sexual message to a child.

As an overall response to the scale of serious crime, however, the Bill does not yet go far enough, because crime is changing and serious crime is a grave and growing problem. Over the decades there has been a welcome fall in the number of high-volume crimes, including most theft offences, domestic burglaries and car crimes, but the number of many of the most serious crimes is going up. Reported rapes continue to rise at about 30%, yet new figures show that the number of arrests has gone down by 8%. Arrests as a proportion of recorded rapes have dropped from 90% to 63% in the past few years. That is completely unacceptable. Violent crime is also increasing, but prosecutions and convictions are falling.

On sexual offences, the Home Secretary sometimes refers to a Yewtree effect and historical offences, but that is not the case, because the latest figures show that the majority of the increase in reported sexual offences has occurred in the previous 12 months. Reported child sex offences are perhaps one of the most troubling areas of all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I am aware of the time constraints, so let me simply say that I very much welcome the Bill, particularly the part that deals with female genital mutilation. I am intrigued, too, by the Bill’s provisions relating to the possession of paedophile manuals, which are to some extent based on the Protection of Children Act 1978. I was involved with that Bill between 1977 and 1978, and it was passed only because the Prime Minister’s wife—the Prime Minister at the time was Jim Callaghan—insisted that if he did not allow the Bill to go through, she would not speak to him for six months. In fact, he made sure on Report that it did go through.

I am glad to observe that we are building on that, but I am very concerned about the parts of the Bill that deal with female genital mutilation, although Members will have an opportunity to table amendments in Committee. At present, the court may make an order in relation to the commission, or the protection of a girl against the commission, of a genital mutilation offence. Some members of the all-party Committee—including my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), who will speak in the Committee—will be tabling amendments, because we strongly believe that there is a case for dealing with the circumstances in which the risk of the commission of a genital mutilation offence arises.

Because the order made by the court is aimed at prevention of the offending conduct, it must be prospective, and must be founded on an appropriate gauging of risk. None the less, the inclusion of the words “at risk” in the relevant paragraph would have the benefit of indicating to front-line workers—this is the practical aspect—that the provisions permit them to seek the court's intervention once a risk of commission has been identified. We need to consider that carefully, because, as was made clear by the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz)—the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee—only two successful prosecutions have been made since the 1980s. We are focusing on the prevention as well as the commission of the offence.

Many front-line workers have been reluctant to take safeguarding action or initiate alerts for fear of being accused of targeting minority communities or raising an alarm when some of the acts preparatory to the commission of the offence have not been completed, but there are indications that the putative victim has been placed “at risk” of commission of the offence. That reluctance has led to a decrease in the number of opportunities for prosecutions, and has left many young potential victims without the necessary protection. We believe that the addition of the words “at risk”, accompanied by non-exhaustive statutory guidance for front-line workers on the threshold for intervention—which could be introduced either by means of a statutory instrument or under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003—would increase effectiveness, and would give front-line workers the confidence that would enable them to take robust preventive action.

We are trying to anticipate the actual commission of the offence. The communities involved often come from parts of the world where it is a ritual that is part and parcel of their culture, so it is very important for us to act at the right time if we are to tackle the problem effectively. In that context, the “at risk” element is as important as the commission of the offence.

I will leave the other arguments to the Committee, but that is the essence of the argument that will be deployed by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire.