Protection of Freedoms Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 49A, I wish also to speak to Amendments 49B and 49C, and to do so with humility and determination. I speak with humility because since our useful, and in many ways moving, debate in Committee, when we heard the courageous testament of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I, like other noble Lords, have had the opportunity to learn more about stalking and to meet other victims. These are extraordinary people—usually women—who live in fear for themselves and their children, and who have been completely and utterly failed by the criminal justice system at all levels. I speak with determination because with this Bill we have an opportunity both to introduce a specific offence of stalking in England and Wales and to change the culture of our criminal justice system from top to bottom by requiring, among other things, mandatory training, risk assessment for victims, psychiatric assessment and treatment for perpetrators and a victims’ advocacy scheme. Naturally, such changes would have to be accompanied by an awareness campaign to ensure that the issue was taken seriously.

In a time of unprecedented cuts, women’s safety must be a priority. Only today, the Daily Mail reported that half a million street lights are being switched off by local authorities forced to find savings, meaning that women working shifts or returning late from an evening out will be forced to walk the streets in darkness. Similarly, cuts to backroom police services will inevitably hit specialised units such as those concerned with domestic violence. This amendment is an opportunity to provide real protection for victims of stalking and serious sustained harassment, 80 per cent of whom are women.

As we heard in Committee, lives are destroyed by devious manipulators. Sometimes lives are tragically ended by this murder in slow motion. We are not talking of a small number of people; nearly one in five women over the age of 16 has been a victim of stalking. The number of lives affected is staggering, yet we know that stalking is grossly underreported. Of the estimated 120,000 cases of stalking each year, just 53,000 are recorded as crimes by the police and only one in 50 leads to an offender being jailed. The overwhelming majority of sentences are for less than 12 months and some are for a matter of days. Where restraining orders are given, they are constantly breached and the victims live in constant fear.

By recognising stalking as a specific offence in law, as it has been in Scotland, we would ensure that the courts looked at an entire course of conduct when it comes to stalking rather than just one specific incident of harassment, as currently happens in so many cases. It is estimated that victims tend not to report stalking until around the 100th incident—yes, the 100th—because it often begins with individually minor incidents, such as nuisance phone calls, and it is invariably only when the perpetrator’s actions finally escalate to serious and violent offences, sometimes after many years of sustained terror, that the police will step in.

Two weeks ago after eight years of sustained suffering, Claire Waxman’s stalker was finally jailed for 16 weeks for a second breach of his restraining order, after being given a suspended sentence and ordered to pay compensation. The introduction of a specific offence will train the police and the courts to focus on the pattern of behaviour reported and enable early intervention to protect women like Claire—and indeed men—whose lives are stolen from them by their stalkers. The change in Scottish law, which this amendment was modelled on, has led to an increase from an average of seven prosecutions for stalking a year to 140 prosecutions in the first four months in Strathclyde alone. Last year, only 565 offenders found guilty of serious harassment received a custodial sentence, the vast majority of which were for less than 12 months, and many for just days. The increase from six months to a five-year maximum custodial sentence that the amendment would make would enable these cases to be heard in a Crown Court and ensure adequate protection for victims.

Thanks to charities such as Protection against Stalking and the Network for Surviving Stalking, and the work of Laura Richards and Harry Fletcher, there is now a vast body of evidence about stalking, its impact and the gaps in data, legal provision, training, awareness, assessment and treatment for offenders. More people are beginning to understand the need for murder prevention. This week will see more evidence with the publication of the report by the independent people’s inquiry into stalking—an inquiry that has given a voice to victims who have suffered too long in silence and at the hands of the criminal justice system. I pay tribute to all members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group, and especially to Elfyn Llwyd MP, its chairman, for their tremendous work. Many of its members are from this House, from all Benches. I have not yet seen the report but I know that it will recommend a draft Bill on stalking.

From detailed conversations that I have had I am confident that the most important elements of this Bill are covered in my amendments. Amendments 49B and 49C would place a duty on the Secretary of State to introduce such a regulation as is necessary to effect the comprehensive reform to training, victim support, risk assessment and other such measures that the people’s inquiry is calling for. Some of these measures can be done through regulation and secondary legislation. Others no doubt will need primary legislation, but by tabling these amendments—one of which lists the measures to be included in any further regulation, and the other a less prescriptive duty on the Secretary of State—the opportunity is here for the Government to furnish the Bill with further measures at a later stage.

As noble Lords will know, the Government have undertaken a consultation on stalking, which ended yesterday, and I have no doubt that it will conclude that the actions that I am proposing here today are necessary. Indeed, the Prime Minister himself has said that there is a gap to be filled, and both the Home Secretary and Lynne Featherstone are understood to be sympathetic. When the Minister responded to the amendment that I moved in Committee, he suggested that while there might be a case for strengthening the law on stalking to raise its profile, he felt that the Protection from Harassment Act was adequate to cover this criminal behaviour. Indeed, speaking of the new offence, he said:

“We do not consider that to be proportionate where the conduct does not cause a person to fear that violence would be used against them on each occasion”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/12/11; col. 661.]

I hope that as a result of the many briefings and representations that the noble Lord must have received, he will now change his mind. In our debate on 6 December, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said that we should not accept any amendment on that occasion because we had to get it right but that we should do it early next year. That time has come. This Bill provides us with a huge opportunity to change the law, to change the culture of the criminal justice system, to diminish the fear of victims and provide them with support and assess, and to treat the perpetrators. If we wait for a new Bill, I fear that the best could be the enemy of the good. The victims of this insidious crime need these changes to be made now. They are suffering day after day and they do not have the luxury of time to debate.

Perhaps the noble Lord will again say that we should wait until the results of consultation have been considered before deciding whether to accept my amendments. I respectfully suggest that the Government should accept my amendments, which I believe to be comprehensive but also provide them with an opportunity to furnish the Bill with further measures that may be suggested by the results of their consultation if there continue to be gaps. I understand that Third Reading will not be until March, so there would be adequate time for further amendment if necessary. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, I rise to speak to all three amendments in the group. Stalking is a heinous crime that currently goes much unrecognised, except for the few exceptional cases that hit the tabloid headlines. The headlines are not exceptional because of the stalking, the behaviour of the perpetrators or the suffering of victims, but usually because of the murder of the victim or, finally, the conviction of a perpetrator after many years of stalking.

I spoke in Committee about my personal experience. It was interesting that following that a number of noble Lords spoke to me privately to say that they had also experienced stalking—some from many years ago. It was evident that it was as vivid to them as my account to your Lordships’ House. My perpetrator was convicted more than three years ago. I think that many of us take many years to recover from the impact of the offence.

I thank the Minister for the discussions that I have had with him in the past few days. I hope that he will be able to reassure the House about some of the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon. The harassment legislation was put in place by the previous Government, who decided that stalking could be included within the broader scope of harassment. However, the breadth of the definition means that a stalker, who may have hundreds of incidents on his record, is conflated with a neighbourhood dispute over hedges. As a result, sentencing for stalking is limited to a handful of months, whereas the whole nature of stalking is, as stated by one of the victims giving evidence to the inquiry, “a rape of the mind”. It also curtails the victim’s life as they cannot take up a normal life again while the perpetrator is able to attempt to continue to control their lives.

Amendment 49A broadly copies the Scottish legislation, and rightly proposes an offence of stalking. It outlines the increased penalty for being convicted of the offence. It does not, however, as I outlined in my speech in Committee, tackle the core and underlying problem of training for everyone involved in the criminal justice system. Stalkers are usually bright, manipulative and obsessed with their victim. Many convicted of stalking behaviour have been assessed by psychiatrists as suffering from personality disorders. They are frequently charming and able to convince professionals, neighbours and even, as in my case, random members of the public that they are hard done by and misunderstood, and it is all the victim’s fault for taking things a bit too seriously.

Amendment 49B attempts to put some flesh on the items that the Scottish legislation fails to mention, but from discussions with the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, there is some detail here. However, I fear that it is incomplete, and it would benefit from the detail of the inquiry’s report and probably from the responses to the Government’s own consultation on stalking, which has just closed. Let me give two illustrations. The first is the general principle behind both this amendment and Amendment 49C that all the other details are settled in regulation. This is very worrying. Proposed subsection (1)(a) refers to how to,

“prevent and treat stalking behaviour”.

This would involve a sea change in the approach to this type of crime, and I believe requires more than a passing reference to regulations. It has not been common in our criminal justice system to insist that perpetrators have treatment, and it is right that both this House and another place would want to have the chance to discuss this in some detail. Do not get me wrong; I believe that it is absolutely right that perpetrators have treatment. My issue is about the time left in Parliament to discuss that matter, which is an important change in the way in which our legislation operates at present.

It is important also because perpetrators must have a real chance to begin to understand and change their behaviour. This happened in my case; my perpetrator voluntarily agreed to have treatment, and it gave both me and the others affected confidence that he would finally stop. Too often, prison or restraining orders have not sufficed, and as soon as the perpetrator is back in society, or without constraint if the restraining order is lifted, the behaviour starts again. Insisting on treatment for perpetrators is a matter of freedoms and liberties. We need to have an open debate about the legislation, and I am afraid therefore that the amendment needs to be more specific.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Brinton]

151: Clause 100, page 89, line 27, at end insert—
“( ) In section 22 (information intended for future publication) after subsection (1) insert—
“(1A) Information obtained in the course of, or derived from, a programme of research or research project is exempt information if—
(a) the programme or project is continuing with a view to a report of the research (whether or not including a statement of that information) being published by—(i) a public authority as defined by section 3 of this Act; or(ii) any other person; and(b) disclosure of the information before the date of publication would, or would be likely to, prejudice substantially—(i) the programme or project;(ii) peer review of the programme or project;(iii) the interests of any individual participating in the programme or project;(iv) the interests of the authority which holds the information or the interests of any party collaborating with the authority in connection with the programme or project; or(v) the physical or mental health of any individual.””

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, as has already been mentioned, Amendment 151 seeks to insert an entirely new clause designed to correct an anomaly within the Bill. As a matter of principle—and as a former university administrator—I welcome the opportunity to help people get more information from the public sector, as is absolutely their right. However—I am sure it is inadvertent—there is a gaping hole in the Bill regarding universities and their research, research councils and other public research bodies. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bengarve, for her previous amendments, which are most helpful and with which I agree, and I shall not talk specifically about the detail of data sets as a result.

The amendment seeks to amend the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to create a new qualified exemption for pre-publication research. It is modelled on an amendment to the FOI Act in Scotland which was accepted by the Scottish Government during the passage of that legislation. Exemptions with similar effect also exist in Irish and US freedom of information legislation.

The amendment makes clear that it has to be shown that disclosure would result in substantial prejudice to the research, those conducting it or the university, and I believe also—perhaps more seriously—that it threatens the international competitiveness of UK research. This is necessary because at present, taking it at its most simplistic—I hope those with considerable experience of academic research will allow me this hypothetical exemplar—it would be possible for individuals, organisations or, worse, industrial spies to get access to confidential data which may be pre-patent or copyright, part of a commercial research contract, or raw research which may be part of a long project over a number of years, which is not unusual for leading edge research in this country.

I have spoken to the deputy vice chancellor at Cranfield University to make sure that I can give the Committee this hypothetical example. As noble Lords will know, Cranfield has a global reputation for its inspirational teaching and research; 85 per cent of its research submitted for assessment is internationally recognised as original, significant and rigorous, 15 per cent is world leading, and it has won the Queen’s Award on three separate occasions since 2003 for its ground-breaking work. It would argue very strongly that it is that strength that brings commercial businesses to it to contract on very specific work.

Cranfield has a specific expertise in aero and motor research and houses specialist research beds for grand prix racing—not many people know that. Highly confidential and sensitive research is carried out for a number of the world’s top grand prix companies. Under the Bill as proposed at the moment, it would be possible for a competitor to demand data sets which may form part of the meta set of an academic’s broader work from commercial research contracted with one company. This cannot be right.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, I particularly thank Universities UK for its helpful and extensive briefing. The guidance for the higher education sector from the Information Commissioner on the FOI Act, to which I will refer in some detail, makes it clear throughout that the legislation is not designed for pure research and the way in which the data are used in universities. Interestingly, there are frequent references in that guidance to the lack of case law in this area for university research.

I am grateful to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for his letter of 23 November in which he set out how he believed the current exemptions under the Bill and in the FOI Act would work for university research. I believe that there is enough evidence from the guidance, as well as experience of universities, to question the points that he has made. The letter of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, refers to the key areas where he believes the current exemptions work. The first is information which is intended for future publication. In section 4.2—Information intended for future publication —the guidance for universities states:

“To be covered by the exemption, the information must be held with the intention of publication at the time the request was made. It will not be permissible to argue an intention to publish the information when that decision was only made after the request was made. It is not, however, necessary to have set a publication date. Publication will often be publication in accordance with the publication scheme of the public authority”.

The FOI guidance goes on to say:

“You may be able to reduce the number of requests for information and the number of times upon which you may need to rely on section 22 by providing the public with a clear description of planned publications, including a publication timetable. … It may also be helpful within publication schemes to indicate the likely date of publication within the description of the class of information. For instance, many public authorities include minutes of management board meetings as a class of information within their publication schemes. It may be helpful to indicate that the minutes will be published within a week, a month etc of the meetings. It may also assist if drafts of documents include intended publication dates and an indication of whether any or all of the information could be released prior to publication”.

It is absolutely clear, especially from that last sentence, that the commissioner is applying what I would describe as an administrative and secretarial approach to publication. It is not common for those engaged in pure research, especially highly confidential leading-edge research, to detail the research for management board meetings, nor is it common to have publication schemes for elements of the work at an early stage. This guidance is much more for the effective conduct of public affairs—for example, Ministers, councillors or civil servants—in collecting data.

The guidance shows absolutely no understanding of the way in which research is carried out. For example, the advice says that you must state at the time—and each time—when you want to use the exemption for future publication and you must prove it. You must then quote each of those instances back when you have received an FOI request. For a longitudinal research project that might last decades, this is a complete nonsense and certainly provides real problems for retrospection. Even for a more standard research project of three to five years, it is not always obvious when collecting data that the data may be something that you want to declare as exempt. I suspect that the commissioner would not be happy if all university research projects developed a policy of exempt declaration at every step of the way just in case they fell foul of the need to prove at the research stage why the information is exempt.

Frankly, there is also a disruption to the work of researchers who have to deal with some of the detailed FOI requests for data. The University of Oxford gave the example of a request for research data from a large nationwide health study submitted by a company with a significant commercial interest in the data.

“The university released some background information but attempted to refuse the bulk of the request by using existing exemptions relating to the cost of compliance, personal data, future publication and prejudice to commercial interest. These were not accepted by the requester. After a drawn out process the company finally wrote to the University saying that it had decided not to pursue the request further at that time (this may have been related to a take-over situation.) Had this not been the case it is understood that it had been strongly implied the requester would have sought a decision from the Information Commissioner. Had the university been ordered to release the data, it is believed that this would have undermined the credibility and sustainability of the research programme and affected future research. The research group had one year of research time disrupted in attempting to rebut the request and the institution incurred significant legal costs”.

Herein lies the nub of the problem. The whole nature of academic research is how widely the information is used, which frequently does not follow a simplistic linear progression of project specification, grant award, research, patents, peer assessment and publication. Even a PhD student working on a project may include some of the data relating to work on their PhD as yet unpublished. Some data sets may be used repeatedly by different academics assessing the information in different ways over a period of many years. A leading academic said to Universities UK,

“If I'm forced to simply hand over work that has taken me decades to produce so that someone else can interpret it without understanding the full background, then I'll refrain from doing it”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I start by saying that whatever arguments I put forward will not be based on those of the drafting point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott. However, I take his point that new section (1A)(a)(i) and (ii) are possibly unnecessary as they seem to include everyone. It would therefore be possible to delete the words from “by” onwards and just talk about what is published.

I make it clear to the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and others that the Scottish, Irish and United States legislation have not been my bedside reading for some time. I am not completely and utterly familiar with them but I will no doubt make sure that I am made totally familiar with them and look at the consequences of what they do. An important point to remember in all the arguments put to me is the remark of the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, that, if it does no harm, the amendment ought to be accepted. I am not sure that one should accept amendments merely because they do no harm. I want to make it clear that we are committed to transparency in this area. We will not introduce new exemptions from disclosure unless the necessity of doing so has been clearly demonstrated.

I recognise that a number of noble Lords have expressed considerable concern. We have devoted almost three-quarters of an hour to this matter. I commend my noble friend Lady Brinton for the admirable brevity with which she set out her case and expressed her concerns. I am aware that there are major concerns in the whole sector about the potential for the disclosure of information under the FOI Act which could undermine the United Kingdom’s academic research. We all accept that the UK is at the very forefront of international research and that it is vital that that position should be maintained. We wish to do that. I am more than happy to see noble Lords between now and Report if they want to make the case for needing to go further and to explain why they believe that the existing exemptions, properly applied, do not provide the appropriate protection.

I am aware that only in January of last year the Science and Technology Committee recommended in its report in relation to events at the University of East Anglia’s climate research unit that the application of the Freedom of Information Act to research material required clarification. There is in fact little evidence to demonstrate that existing provisions within the Freedom of Information Act do not provide adequate protection for research-related information. The circumstances provided for in this amendment are already provided for in existing exemptions. For example, exemptions exist which may be used, subject to a public interest test, to protect information the disclosure of which would at least be likely to prejudice commercial interests, health and safety, and the effective conduct of public affairs, as well as information intended for future publication. There is a clear public interest in protecting research information from disclosure in appropriate circumstances, and the Act passed by the previous Government—and I do not know why the Opposition now wish to amend it when there is no evidence that it needs amendment—is designed to ensure that public interest factors are given proper weight when exemptions are applied. Furthermore, the Act contains provisions protecting information provided in confidence and in relation to personal data.

Any new exemption within the Freedom of Information Act would also have no relevance to research on environmental matters. Requests for environmental information are considered not under the Freedom of Information Act but under the Environmental Information Regulations, and this amendment would not affect those. All information held by the higher education sector, including that relating to research programmes, has been subject to the Freedom of Information Act for seven years. The noble Baroness will remember, as she was probably a member of the Government at the time when it was passed in 2000 and came into effect in 2005. The Freedom of Information provisions within the Bill, in Clauses 100 to 102, build on a regime that is already firmly in place. I know that my noble friend Lady Brinton will be aware that the Information Commissioner has recently issued guidance for the higher education sector in response to the Science and Technology Committee’s recommendations. This is one reason why it is possible that it will not be necessary for me to study the provisions of the Scottish Act, as well as what they are doing in Ireland and America. The guidance will assist higher education establishments in dealing appropriately with requests for research-related information, and withholding it when it would not be in the public interest to disclose.

As a coalition Government, we are committed to greater transparency. I want to make it clear that we will not introduce exemptions into the Freedom of Information Act unless we can have that clearly demonstrated. I do not believe that it has been clearly demonstrated, but I am more than happy to see my noble friend and others if she feels that she can put a further case. I repeat to the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and others, that I will study what is happening in Scotland—it is near to my heart. But what goes on in a devolved Administration does not necessarily have to be copied in this country. There are times when we can learn from them and times when we find that what they are doing is not necessarily appropriate. I am more than happy to look at it, but I do not think that a case has been made on this occasion. But my door is always open and I am always prepared to see my noble friend and others to discuss this matter, if they feel that I have not got the message appropriately.

[Baroness Brinton]

I thank the Minister for his comments and for his offer of a meeting, which I think myself and others will be very grateful to accept. I start by saying that in addition to the comments that I made, the comments from everybody else who spoke started to provide the evidence that the Minister was looking for in showing how there are problems with the current arrangements. In defence of the Information Commissioner, can I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, that I have no issue with his guidance, which is based on the FOI Act? One of the key points that I was trying to make was that the FOI Act did not envisage the complexities of university research, which is where the issues have arisen. I know that the UUK briefing, which the Minister mentioned that he had just received, will provide some evidence, and I am sure that UUK and RCUK would be delighted to provide more information on specific cases for the Minister to look at.

I want to pick up the point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott, about paragraphs (a)(i) and (a)(ii) of the proposed subsection (1A) of the amendment. As I understand it—and I may be wrong—the key point about the Freedom of Information Act is that the only authorities affected by it are public authorities. That is why it is so specific. Thereafter it refers to individuals because there are individuals who work within those authorities. I would be delighted to be proved wrong but that is the basis on which I understand it. If others with more expertise in drafting want to correct that I would be delighted to concede that point.

We have taken some considerable time on this amendment and the only point I want to consider before we finish is to say that the evidence is clearly there. It is also evident from Scotland, the USA and Ireland that these arrangements are working and working well and I hope the Minister will be able to satisfy himself on those accounts. The key point I want to keep returning to is a very selfish one about the commercial viability of English and Welsh universities. They are now on the back foot compared with Scottish universities. I believe that that is inappropriate. We believe very strongly across the House that we want our universities to be able to succeed in the commercial market that is academic research today. Providing a clearer framework for academics through this clause would do that. It would not endanger transparency and access to freedom of information for people who genuinely need it. This is purely protecting a number of areas where there is a complete muddle at the moment that is beginning to affect how our universities can work effectively in the research market. On that basis, and thanking the Minister for his offer of a meeting, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 151 withdrawn.

Marriages and Civil Partnerships (Approved Premises) (Amendment) Regulations 2011

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I have some sympathy with the points just made by the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, but I should like to focus the House’s attention on one specific point: the particular and peculiar—and I use that word properly—position of the Church of England.

The Church of England is the established church of this land. There is not a town or a village in England that does not have a Church of England parish church. The people in that parish are entitled to the services of the parish priest and of the church. Let us be in no doubt that, if this regulation is passed as it stands, great pressure will be put upon incumbents of parish churches throughout the land, and that pressure will be very difficult for them to withstand, even though, for them, whatever it may be for the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, or others, it will be a supreme issue of conscience.

[Baroness Brinton]

Does my noble friend therefore disagree with the advice from Church House, which states quite categorically that a church,

“would not be doing anything that even prima facie amounted to unlawful discrimination”?

The advice reassures both priests and the church as a whole that this would not happen.

[Lord Cormack]

I am not concerned with that legal opinion; I am trying to make a different point, which it is clear I did not do effectively enough. What I am saying is that pressure will be put upon incumbents throughout the Church of England, notwithstanding that legal opinion, which may or not be correct—and there is an element of doubt.

We have a specific provision in this country for the established Church of England, as has been referred to by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn. With the agreement of Parliament, we do not legislate over and above, or directly at, the Church of England; rather, we receive the measures that the church—initially through the Church Assembly but in more recent years through the General Synod—has thought fit to pass. Those measures come before the Ecclesiastical Committee, on which I had the privilege to sit for some 40 years—indeed, I was for 10 years on the General Synod as well—which is one of the few committees comprised of Members of both Houses of Parliament. That committee has one duty and one duty alone: it has to deem the measure expedient or not. If it deems the measure expedient, the measure then comes before the two Houses of Parliament separately, either on the Floors of the Chambers or in Committee, where it can be voted upon. It is very unusual for a measure to be rejected—in my 40 years on the Ecclesiastical Committee I can think of only one such measure, which concerned provisions for churchwardens. I can think of others, such as the prayer book measure and the ordination of women measure, which engendered very real debate in both Houses, but at the end of the day those measures were passed.

It seems to me that there ought to be proper recognition of the position of the Church of England. I am in no sense seeking to make comments about civil partnerships. I listened to the moving speech of the noble Lord, Lord Collins. We all have many friends who have gone through civil partnerships, whatever our views on marriage might be. As the noble Baroness made plain when she introduced this debate today, that is not what we are discussing. It is important that the Church of England should have its special position recognised and there should be exemption for it, so that it is up to the synod to decide whether it wishes to pass a measure.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I fully support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, which aims to incorporate the same law against stalking in English and Welsh law that already exists in Scotland. The campaign to establish a law against stalking in Scotland was launched in March 2009 by Ann Moulds, who was herself a victim of stalking, and other supporters. These efforts led to two clauses being inserted in the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010.

It is particularly significant that the Scottish campaigners decided not to press for a version of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997—the current law in England and Wales. As we have already heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, a similar position was taken in September 2011 by the Swedish Government. Their decision was taken on the grounds that the 1997 Act does not in practice contain sufficient powers to deal with the increasingly complex crime of stalking. In their view, harassment covers everything from rows between neighbours to domestic disputes but omits to recognise stalking behaviour per se. Stalking, they argued, is quantifiably different from harassment in law, not least in its increasing use of modern technology, particularly the internet, for what is now known as cyberstalking. It is all too easy for a stalker to reinvent himself as somebody else making inquiries about his victim. That has opened up a whole new area.

The campaign in Scotland was launched at a meeting in Ayrshire. It gathered momentum during that year and involved lobbying MSPs, officials, pressure groups, government departments and third-sector organisations over a 12-month period. During the 10 years to 2010, Ann Moulds estimated that no more than 70 cases of stalking were successfully prosecuted under British legislation. However, since the introduction of the new Act in Scotland, there has already been a number of prosecutions in Strathclyde alone in the first four months, as we have heard.

The campaign to establish a stalking law and offences of causing fear and alarm was achieved in a remarkably short period. The campaign ran for roughly a year and led to all-party agreement on legislation. The legislation has the support of the police, who have adopted operational guidelines to ensure that police are aware of stalking and harassment behaviour and take appropriate action. Again, as has been stressed, much more training will be needed.

Since the Scottish Act took effect, the number of prosecutions has visibly increased, with the vast majority of those prosecuted pleading guilty. The experience of Ann Moulds and other victims prior to the introduction of the legislation was the same as in England and Wales: namely, a feeling by victims—the vast majority of whom, as we have heard, are women—that the crimes were not taken seriously and that there was underreporting and underrecording, a lack of confidence in the justice system and a failure of the state to provide proper victim advocacy.

The seeds of the English and Welsh campaign are already being sown. We owe a tremendous amount to Harry Fletcher of Napo and Laura Richards of Protection Against Stalking. Among other things, they have encouraged the setting up of a cross-party group of parliamentarians who have taken evidence for the past few months. We hope that a report will be produced in the new year that will speed up decision-making on the legislation that we need in this country.

Stalking is a dangerous and often vicious crime that causes not just immense concern but a huge amount of damage to the individuals involved and all their family. Violence plays an inevitable part, particularly if early action is not taken. Other forms of psychological harm are used the whole time. I hope that if not today then on Report we can debate the issue in much greater depth and, I hope, reach the same conclusions as in Scotland that such a law is certainly needed urgently in England and Wales, too.

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, it is frequently said that one of the strengths of this House is its expertise and experience. However, I am afraid that I have some unwelcome experience in this area that colours my views about the effectiveness, or otherwise, of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and the stalking Act in Scotland on which Amendment 70 is based. I had the misfortune to be the target of a sustained, three-year criminal campaign that included a number of stalking and harassment incidents, as well as criminal damage, which was waged by my Conservative political opponent Ian Oakley when I stood for Watford at the 2005 and 2010 general elections.

It started in the run-up to the general election of 2005 when posters with my name had very unpleasant swear words painted on them in large letters. To spare noble Lords' blushes, I will refer to the C-word, the WH-word and the B-word. They were so graphic that at the sentencing of the perpetrator they were not read out in court. Although it was unpleasant, the police and my team felt that it would stop when the 2005 election was over—at this point we did not know who was doing it.

Sadly, that was not the case. Over the next three years, the individual's campaign escalated to include repeatedly sending me and mainly six other individuals gay and lesbian literature, including very unpleasant and increasingly hard-core pornographic material, making repeated silent telephone calls, particularly late at night after I had gone to bed, and sending a large number of untrue and very unpleasant letters first to party supporters and then increasingly to neighbours and random members of the public. I often felt that we were being watched, and I certainly did not like being on my own.

The perpetrator continued the campaign of minor criminal damage, which also escalated from breaking car wing mirrors and fence-posts to repeatedly slashing tyres on people’s driveways—not just one tyre but three or four on each car on a driveway, and done with, the police told us, a large nine-inch knife. The nature of the letters, notes and fake leaflets became more offensive and sexually explicit, which was very distressing.

Here I want to raise the issue of stalking of men. Well over 80 per cent of victims are women and the public are often unaware that men are targeted too. My close friend and colleague, a local councillor who became the second principal target in Watford, was at the receiving end of really vicious treatment in the same campaign. He was targeted simply because the perpetrator did not like the idea of a Liberal Democrat councillor in what had previously been an exclusively Conservative ward. His neighbours received anonymous letters saying that he had not paid his ex-wife’s maintenance—he is still happily married to his lovely first wife. A few months later his neighbours and some random members of the public received letters saying that the councillor was a convicted sex offender. A letter a few weeks later “named” the little girl and the effect this was having on her family. The whole thing was pure fiction. But those who did not know him said to me, “There’s no smoke without fire”, even when told it was not true. It affected him, his wife and his adult children. This was typical of the power that stalkers try to gain over their victims through using other people near and dear to them and, sometimes, complete strangers.

As the main target, and because I was the parliamentary candidate, I co-ordinated the reporting of all these events, because in the early stages we could not get the police to take them seriously. Surveys of stalking victims show that often they suffer 100 incidents before they go to the police or can get the police to take it seriously. So it was in our case. Only when I collated all these so-called minor incidents and put them in a spreadsheet with dates, times and locations—and often one incident covered actually eight incidents of criminal damage—did the police recognise that this was more than, in their description, occasional interparty political games but was a determined and sustained campaign by an individual.

When the tyre slashing started, the police attitude changed completely. Their profiler said that the next step would be danger to people and we were warned and trained how to deal with any future events. This included saying a code word—“Operation Tuition”—when ringing about an incident so that anyone taking our call in the police control room would alert detectives immediately. This worked for a bit, but as personnel changed so the vigilance dropped, and on at least two occasions the perpetrator could have been caught if control had responded as originally intended.

My husband installed around a dozen CCTVs at the homes of the main targets, including ours, at his own personal cost and time, in an attempt to get the perpetrator's fingerprints. The targets and our families, including my teenage children, already alarmed at what was going on, were taught to use police-issue gloves to pick up anything posted through our doors.

Following an incident where my husband took a photo of the perpetrator when he was being very aggressive to me and two councillors one day, the police were able to use the photo and subsequent CCTV of a graffiti incident to link him to the vandalism, and at last, in July 2008, he was caught. Thankfully, given the weight of the evidence, he pleaded guilty to seven specimen charges: five of criminal damage and two of harassment. He asked for a further 68 to be taken into account. Another 80 or so incidents—including a large number stalking/harassment ones—were not even included.

Our case was typical of this kind. Having got some evidence, the police and the CPS wanted to close it down quickly, for which I have some sympathy. This meant that they used the incidents with forensic evidence for the charges, but stalking and harassment is harder to prove. In fact, in law, an “index” crime such as GBH or ABH will at present cancel out the need for the harassment even to be logged. This must be changed as it is making stalking and harassment invisible. We also need a higher sentencing tariff than is currently available under the harassment Act.

It may be peculiar to say this, but I was lucky—lucky because I was not on my own. With six other colleagues—five councillors and a candidate—who were also targeted by this man, and dozens of supporters having criminal damage to their properties or receiving extremely unpleasant literature about me or my colleagues, we were able to band together as a little team and support one another. Most victims of stalking are on their own. They do not have the benefit of knowing how to explain to the police or of having local newspapers, such as the Watford Observer, taking them seriously and refusing to publish the repeatedly really offensive letters about me. It is therefore essential that more support and advocacy is available to victims of stalking, especially those struggling on their own.

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I appreciate that some campaigners believe that, simply because stalking is not specifically mentioned in the 1997 Act, practitioners do not always realise that the Act can be used to tackle stalking and fail to take the appropriate action to deal with it. This amendment would undoubtedly help to put a definition of stalking into statute. I can see that it has that advantage, and arguably that might assist in raising the profile of the legislation in relation to this very serious criminal behaviour. That is obviously a factor that we should take into account. However, I reassure the House that legislation does currently exist to cover this criminal behaviour and that, as I made clear earlier, the work that we are doing with the police and the CPS means that they have guidance on the 1997 Act, which sets out that stalking and cyberstalking are covered by the Act.

[Baroness Brinton]

Would my noble friend not accept that the increase in reported cases and convictions in Scotland since the introduction of the 2010 Act shows that the present guidance under the Protection from Harassment Act is insufficient?

Immigration: Students

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we have tightened up on dependants coming in, but only dependants wishing to study for first degrees. Dependants will still be able to come in for postgraduate courses. I will look at the point that the noble Lord makes in relation to medical students but I am not aware of a fall in the number of medical applications. As I said in answer to the first supplementary question, we seem to have seen a rise over the past year.

[Baroness Brinton]

The UK Border Agency has recently decided that it will no longer accept guarantees from UK higher education institutions for UK-based packages, including part-time work and bursaries. We do not understand the reason for this. Can the Minister explain why the rules have changed, especially given the soundness of most universities in this country?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we accept that most of our universities are proper, reputable institutions, and that is why we have given universities additional flexibility in some matters. However, I will look at the specific point that my noble friend has raised. In the main, UK universities are fine on this; the abuse occurs elsewhere.

Education Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 4th October 2011 Grand Committee

What is proposed in this clause simply does not seem to help those students who take part-time courses for career development, or as compensation for having missed out earlier in life. I hope it is not too late for the Government to think again. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton]

I speak to Amendment 148, which is very different in approach to Amendment 145G, but I believe there are some similarities, as it is essential that we truly believe that part-time students have access to loans to cover fees, and should be on a par with full-time students, pro rated of course to give them the same opportunities that full-time students have had for years. I am delighted that the coalition Government are offering loans for fees for part-time undergraduates for the first time.

After fees were introduced for the first time in 1997, it was always iniquitous that the previous Government did not provide any access to loans for fees for part-time students, many of whom came from backgrounds where they were often the first person in their family to go to university, and came from a low-income background; exactly the sort of group that we should be encouraging. With over 40 per cent of undergraduate students in the UK studying part-time, this is not just a small group of students being disenfranchised from the previous system; it is close to half of them.

The current BIS adverts are rightly trying to set out the real financial arrangements for the new student finance system. They have the snappy phrase, “Start to repay when you graduate”, which is a very important message about the new system that many do not understand. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, who wrote to me on 3 September setting out the details of the thinking behind the two issues that we raise in our amendment.

First, it does seem extraordinary that part-time students might be charged a different rate of interest from full-time students, and therefore I am grateful to the noble Lord for making it clear in his letter that it is the present Government’s intention that rates of interest for part-time and full-time students will be the same. This is good news. My amendment would make this plain in the Bill, and I am happy with the Minister’s assurance.

The second part of the amendment, though, addresses an anomaly which remains. The proposal to implement part-time fee loans risks undermining the principle of equity which I thought the coalition Government agreement had aimed to achieve. It should be noted, however, as has already been raised, that this equity is only on fee loans, because part-time students are still not eligible for means-tested maintenance loans and grants. The real difficulty with the Government’s proposals is that part-time students should start to repay their loans from the April three years after they commence studying, if their earnings reach £21,000.

While I think this is probably a fairly small group of students, I do know from my experience in higher education that mature students often make the decision to study while working either part-time or full-time, and while an income of £21,000 sounds like a good deal for a 21 year-old, it is not necessarily a high salary for someone in their thirties or forties with home and family responsibilities to juggle alongside their study. In particular for single parents, often but not always mothers, it can be a very fine decision about whether they can afford to study alongside work.

But there is also the fundamental question of equity. A full-time student undergraduate on a four-year course, whether an engineer or a linguist, for example, will not start to repay until they finish their course—four and a half years. Part-time students, though, are asked to start repaying at three and a half years, regardless of the number of modules they are taking, and over what period. Simply by virtue of being part-time students, none of them will have concluded their course by three and a half years.

The noble Lord, Lord Henley, expressed some concern to me about an open-ended commitment if we change the arrangements to ensure that no part-time students start to repay until they finish their course, which might be 10 or even 15 years on, which is unlikely. I accept the point that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara made about six years, but that is also unusual. I understand that the vast majority of part-time students have completed their course by the fifth year.

I am not arguing for a complete deferral, but a move to defer the repayment starting at four and a half years has the merit of including the majority of part-time students concluding by that time, with only a very few going on beyond five years of study.

Additionally, this arrangement may also impact on those adults taking Level 3 courses part time, who are now eligible for loans for fees. These part-time students are 84 per cent of the total currently taking Level 3 courses. I ask the Minister for reassurance that these students would also not start repaying before they complete in the same way that I am arguing for part-time undergraduates.

I have recently received a copy of a letter that the Minister for Universities and Skills has written to million+, responding to another problem in the arrangements for regulating fees for part-time students in universities. Because it is so recent, and because it is highly technical, I am not asking the Minister to respond today, but would be grateful for a written response in due course. Because it is a highly technical one, my view is that it is not appropriate to have it on the face of the Bill, but it does need to be aired, because it is in the regulations, and may cause some chaos.

The proposal aims to restrict part-time fee loans on 75 per cent of a £9,000 fee in an academic year. This is a completely arbitrary cap, and I worry that to have drafted it shows little understanding of the academic framework, or that part-time and full-time study alike is based on the 120 credits required for a full-time course, rather than on a percentage of intensity.

In practice, there is a good deal of flexibility, which reflects the differing circumstances of part-time students, for instance in terms of work and family commitments and the number of modules that students have been able to study in previous years. It is not 25 per cent, 25 per cent, 25 per cent, 25 per cent; it can often be 20 per cent, 50 per cent, 20 per cent, 10 per cent. Students simply do not study in modules which are nicely linked with percentage intensity, and the proposal will create unnecessary and avoidable administrative complexity in universities, with the potential for part-time students to be levied different charges, part of which the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, referred to earlier.

The BIS proposal is not even linked with the 75 per cent of the full-time fee charged, but with 75 per cent of a £9,000 fee—the higher fee cap. This has the effect of undermining the principle of equity of treatment for full-time and part-time students, and allows part-time students to be charged proportionally more that their full-time peers, according to the full-time fee levied in the university. It will also undoubtedly restrict the potential to incentivise more flexible learning opportunities in the context of part-time study.

This is not only a Government aspiration, but is also in the Exchequer’s interest, because part-time students, unlike their full-time counterparts, are not eligible to claim means-tested maintenance grants or loans.

In the letter to million+ from the Minister, David Willetts, he talks about regulation, but there is no reason to regulate part-time fees, other than to ensure that fee loans are available on a basis which does not exceed pro rata of the full-time fee. I fear that the real reason why this system is being proposed is made clear in the last paragraph, which reveals that officials have already given a brief to the Student Loans Company to design a system that fits within the 75 per cent proposal set out by BIS. The letter says,

“The Student Loans Company is also now sufficiently advanced in its systems design that a change of this size could not be implemented without putting the launch of the service at risk. We will though, of course, monitor the rollout of this new system, and respond as necessary if clear evidence of needs emerges”.

These proposals are perpetuating policies and funding regimes which treat flexible and part-time learning as a percentage of full-time, missing the opportunity to align flexible learning with the credit system and the needs of students—all before the legislation has been passed or the debate on the primary legislation has concluded in Parliament. I repeat: given the short notice and the technical nature of this issue, I do not expect the Minister to reply today, but I hope that she can help with a written reply in due course.

Let us give a cheer that at last the Government propose equity of experience for part-time students, but the interest rate, the time when students start to repay or the financial arrangements for taking modules are all at risk because of some of the detailed small print that sits behind the Bill. I hope that the Minister will be able to help us provide that equality of access that the coalition Government seek and which those of us on these Benches wholeheartedly support.

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[Baroness Brinton]

Before the noble Baroness concludes, I thank her very much for the response and for taking the matter back to the Minister for Universities and Skills. We would be very grateful if we could participate in that meeting, particularly on the two technical points that I raised, that I said I did not need answers to today, because obviously it will take a lot of time to write back on them.

[Baroness Verma]

Absolutely, and I would encourage any other noble Lord who would wish to be at that meeting to indicate that they would like to be present, so that we can offer an invitation to whoever wishes to be there.

Prostitution

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

She is certainly entitled to protection from the police in cases of violence. We still have the legal situation, but she is certainly entitled to protection against violence.

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the considerable work done in Ipswich after the dreadful murders of five prostitutes in 2006? Does she agree that the Ipswich prostitution strategy, which brings together all partners such as health, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, referred, local authorities, police and probation, is an excellent example that should be implemented nationally?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

Schemes of that kind are examples of best practice that the Government wish to foster. We must tackle prostitution at a local level if we are ever to be effective in any of the measures that we take against it.