Offensive Weapons Bill

Baroness Newlove Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 7th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I first pay my respects to the family of Mr Pomeroy and to his young son, who witnessed his father’s murder. I welcome the Government’s commitment to tackling violent crime, both legislatively, via the Offensive Weapons Bill, and with the preventive measures outlined in the Serious Violence Strategy published in June last year. None the less, while its provisions are to be applauded, I fear that the Bill may be a missed opportunity in focusing so narrowly on the weapons themselves, rather than on the symptoms of why individuals are drawn to carry them in the very first place. For instance, surely this legislation would be an apt vehicle for introducing a specific offence of inducing a child or vulnerable person to carry out such a criminal activity.

I have spoken previously about the scourge of vulnerable children being groomed to carry drugs around the country—“county lines”, as it is known in police language. Sadly, we know all too well that violent gangs’ funds are capitalised by these acts, and the gangs really like the vulnerability of these young people. Children are certainly not doing this off their own bat, yet their vulnerabilities are the enablers for these violent gangs, who use a promise of money beyond their wildest dreams to induce young people to deal these drugs and carry offensive, lethal weapons, in the sadly mistaken belief that this will shield them from any harm. Other than the high bar of evidence set by the Modern Slavery Act, this coercion and intimidation will be considered as an aggravating factor only at the point of sentencing. In my many conversations with police and agencies working in communities up and down our country to divert children from criminal activity, this is pointed to as a very real gap in our statutory provisions. We should surely use the opportunity presented by the Bill to plug that vital gap.

I am also troubled by the lack of action against those who turn a blind eye to the glamorising of serious violence and criminal lifestyles. I include in this the tech companies behind social media, as well as the radio stations that host and play tracks, aimed at teenagers, which speak carelessly about the carrying of these lethal weapons as a status symbol or badge of honour. I have worked with agencies that inform me that their intelligence has to keep constantly on top of this. The weapons are cool and essential accessories; before leaving the house the teenager thinks, “Phone, wallet ... oh, blade”. Yet their weapon may be the one that takes away their life or that of somebody else where they live. It is hard not to think that we are fighting a losing battle if we are trying to ban the carrying of ninja stars on our streets, yet any self-respecting six year-old knows that a ninja star is the weapon of choice of their favourite Lego Ninjago character, Zane. Have we not just had family celebrations for Christmas?

As a mother myself, I know full well what gang violence looks and feels like. I ask noble Lords to type “gravity knife” into Google. The second YouTube video that comes up is entitled “Cool Gravity Knives”. This is not an Xbox or PlayStation game; this is the everyday reality that we face. Offensive weapons are in our homes. Worse, I fear, is that they are being normalised and people are becoming desensitised; they are nothing to be feared. I hold my hands up and am the first to admit that such weapons are not my area of expertise. Yet, sadly, they have an impact on many families up and down the country. As noble Lords would expect, as Victims’ Commissioner it is for me to remind your Lordships that behind the rising numbers in homicides, knife crime, robbery and gun crime are individual people and families, left bereft and taken to the edge by their grief and unbearable loss. This loss also causes rival gangs to go out and get revenge. The reality is that going through our criminal justice system becomes as traumatic as the crime itself.

My noble friend the Minister can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe there was an attempt in the other place to introduce an amendment creating an independent advocate for victims of incidents involving offensive weapons. Such a person would be professionally trained and could explain the process, as well as the true meaning of sentencing. The advocate could refer victims to those able to provide practical support and make sure that they have the assistance they need and, what is more, are entitled to expect. More importantly, they could prevent these victims feeling as though they are on a criminal justice conveyor belt, being passed from one agency to another, having to repeat their traumatic story as they meet another usually well-meaning but unacquainted face. Independent advocates can provide a victim-centric service, providing support that will pay vast dividends in helping those bereaved families to rebuild their lives and move forward—to cope and recover.

I want to see the Bill providing for victims. They are not just a crime statistic; they are human beings and families suffering unbearable pain and loss. They must be given better emotional support and guidance to steer them through every step of the justice system so that they can recover from the crime and live their normal lives. Victims constantly tell me that they feel their status in the criminal justice system is not comparable to that of the offender. I look forward to working with the Minister as the Bill progresses. I will continue to push the Government to ensure that victims, whose lives may be devastatingly transformed by the crime committed against them, are afforded the rights they so justly deserve. It saddens me to stand here today knowing that it is 12 years since I lost my husband to gang crime. They had no weapons but hands and feet, yet we are discussing the corrupt and vicious goings-on in communities and it saddens me that we are not helping young people aspire to better things. Money is one thing. Respect is one thing. But taking a life and a family losing a child is hard to bear every day and into the future.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Baroness Newlove Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 28th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Ramsbotham]

I am sorry. I mentioned at Second Reading that I was astonished that the Bill should bring forward the Home Secretary’s apparent desire to increase the number of mandatory short sentences while the Ministry of Justice and its Secretary of State, followed by the Prisons Minister last Saturday in the Daily Telegraph, oppose the mandatory short sentences because they were so ineffective. I would have thought that that ought to have been sorted out between the two Cabinet Ministers before the Bill was brought to the House.

When I was Chief Inspector of Prisons, I learned of the Scandinavian system, which gave to the sentencer prospectuses of what could be done with and for a prisoner. The sentencer took that into account in awarding the length of sentence and ordered that certain courses or programmes were to be completed by the prisoner so as they could rehabilitate him or herself. If the prisoner completed the mandatory parts of the sentence laid down by the sentencer, the governor of the prison could take the prisoner back to the sentencer and, because the prisoner has jumped through all the hoops that were set, ask that they please be released. That was a factor in reducing overcrowding in Scandinavian prisons.

What worries me is that our overcrowded and understaffed prisons are finding difficulty enough in producing programmes for longer-term prisoners. But they can do nothing whatever for short-sentence prisoners and therefore there is no purpose in people going to those prisons, because they will get absolutely nothing. If you expect that the purpose of the sentence is to rehabilitate, that will not happen in our present prison system. Staff shortages, for example, mean that there are not enough staff to escort people to programmes that they are meant to be attend. So even if a programme was laid down, it is unlikely that it would be completed.

I admit that community sentences need to be improved. In preparation for this debate, last week I visited the Wandsworth probation programme and asked staff what they could do with and for people accused of violent offences. They said that, at the moment, they could do absolutely nothing because they did not have the wherewithal. However, there is no doubt that, if they were given the wherewithal, they could devise a meaningful sentence that would gather credibility in the community.

I also spoke to the Justice Secretary last Thursday and mentioned that there was apparent disagreement between him and the Home Secretary. Personally, I am on his side, because I saw the effect of short sentencing in prisons and saw people coming out having got nothing. That does little to increase the reputation of the justice system in the community, and it can ill afford to lose any more of its reputation in the country.

I notice that, in her foreword to the Serious Violence Strategy, the then Home Secretary said two things. The first is this:

“The … Strategy represents a very significant programme of work involving a range of Government Departments and partners, in the public, voluntary and private sectors”.


That may be, but we have not as yet seen any evidence of this partnership working. At Second Reading, we talked a lot about a public health approach. I do not think that that approach has had time to bed in. The second thing she said was that:

“The strategy supports a new balance between prevention and effective law enforcement”.


Prevention has not yet been tried, and to lay down mandatory short sentences is imposing law enforcement on prevention and damaging the hopes that prevention may bed in and achieve something.

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, listening to the debate on this amendment makes me feel very nervous. As someone who has been a victim of crime by a gang of youths, and as the community champion when I came to this place, my worry is that there is an argument about short-term sentences, because of the process a prisoner goes through. I have gone into prisons and youth offender schemes, so I have done my homework and have worked with them a lot. My nervousness is because, while this is about short imprisonment, imprisonment is effective for people for whom a community sentence does not carry that weight.

Going around the country and speaking to communities, I find they do not feel that their voice is being listened to when someone is given a community sentence. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, quite rightly said that we need to have quality community sentences. At the moment, we have painting fences and gardening while wearing visors. I am conscious about how we shift this pattern of our community sentences and what they are worth.

In addition, there is kudos in this in the gangs that we deal with. When there were ASBOs, it was cool to have an ASBO. I am conscious that we need to look at short sentences and at the messages we are sending to the community and to the gangs, who can hold one sentence against the other. If the Government are going to go that way, I would like quality community services.

I have been out with youth offender trainers. They are short-staffed and underresourced. The intelligence I had from young people who were going into gangs was that they were not bothered whether they were going to prison or doing community service. They had no idea of what they were in trouble for. That is where the serious violence strategy needs to be better—it is about the two together. I am very nervous about community sentences. Can we have further discussions about them? They are part of the essential message we are sending to youngsters and to communities that are suffering and are scared to come forward because their lives are being threatened.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I support these amendments. I recognise how important it is for the Government to make a robust response to public concerns about knife crime and the use of corrosive substances—the Victims’ Commissioner has just reiterated that. One must bear in mind the huge cost of sending people to prison. I would be very grateful if, in her reply, the Minister could give some idea of how much a short prison sentence costs compared to community provision. We have just heard that there is insufficient investment in high-quality community provision. The difficulty is that, when one starts ramping up the prison population, one has to spend more and more on an expensive provision which is ineffective. It is perhaps a difficult communications job for the Government, but the best way of protecting the public from these kinds of crimes is to invest in high-quality community provision, community support officers and police on the ground so that people can see them in their communities.

We are facing an uncertain future as a country. We recognise the limitations on our resources. If we start increasing the number of people being placed in prison, as we have done in the past, we perhaps do not have the money to do both, and we will not be able to make the most effective provision. For instance, we are not talking about children in this amendment, but I think I am right in saying that 68% of children who serve a short prison sentence will commit a crime within a year of being in prison, whereas 58% of those placed in community intervention will do so. That statistic takes into account the gravity of the crime.

There is scientific evidence that community interventions are more effective than prison sentences, at least for children. In seeking to reassure the public, we risk spending a lot more money on something which is relatively ineffective and not putting resources in an area where they are demonstrated to be effective. It is a difficult job, because the Government also have a role to reassure the public. If the public really believe that prison sentences are the only way to respond to this, we are in a difficult position. I think the public can be persuaded that we should not put money into expensive things which are not effective.

I would also like to talk about prison officers. Last year, I visited a prison for young men: a prison officer had been attacked the previous night. Prison officers’ morale is at a great low; it has been challenging for them for many years. The more burden we put on them through increased numbers, the more difficult it is for them to recover. When I visited, the governor and the prison officers saw a chink of light. They saw increased investment in the prison service and, particularly, the possibility of officers returning to the key person role. If you want to manage behaviour in prisons and turn young adults’ lives around, prison officers need to make a relationship with them.

[Baroness Newlove]

I have an issue with the cost of putting extra money into prisons. The communities that I am involved in, and see on a daily basis, are not nice rural villages. On a daily basis, they are being told the absolute opposite of what the noble Earl is saying. Investing more in communities—to get their trust in services—will give them confidence and will nurture our society.

I have been in prisons and I am not saying they are not horrendous. One young offender who had been in a riot said to me: “It’s minging in here”, but he still could not grasp what he had done. He was a first-time offender and his solicitor had said: “Don’t worry, son, it’s your first offence”. I have an issue with giving this line to young people. I also have an issue with governors. I have seen good services, such as training young prisoners in the skills to get involved in optician work for children abroad. But when another governor comes in, he completely whitewashes everything and wants his own blueprint. That happens everywhere.

If it is about money, we need to look further at what we can do. We also need to look at what we are trying to achieve by not sending people to prison. I have an issue with money because our prisons would not be full if you invested it well. Communities need to feel safe and, at the moment, they do not. They feel that what they hear and say are worthless.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention. I think we are saying the same thing: we need to put the money where it can be effective. We can put money into the community in many different ways, including increasing the number of community support officers or police officers on the beat. In particular, young men—so many of whom are growing up without fathers in the home—need to find mentors they can identify with and so begin to turn their lives around, as I have seen so often myself. Those services are effective, but they are easily cut. I am concerned that, in progressing with short prison sentences, we are actually throwing money down the drain. However, I see that the Government are in a difficult position. They need to be seen to be making a robust response to something that so many people are afraid of.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Newlove]

My Lords, I support both amendments. I totally agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, not just on the question of having a specific offence but on support within the community. In my previous role and going around the country, I saw women workers on their own selling alcohol and other quite serious items—corrosives and knives—where the employer put their staff in a predicament by not supporting them fully. When they go out of the shops, they are under further threat in their local communities from these groups of gangs, both girls and boys. So I support a specific offence to put that message right through, because workers do not feel that they are getting the right support. Even from the bigger businesses, I am concerned for workers who are scared to lose their jobs as well.

I also really agree with the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, about knives. It sends a message within the communities and the bigger employers who do not know every individual who works for them. It shows loyalty, as well. I am concerned about people who work in local shops, in their local communities, especially where they have security guards to protect the staff but they do not get the support through the law to protect the jobs they so need to feed their families.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I hope my noble friend will listen carefully to what has been said, because there is an increase in the anger constantly found around the country. I do not want to get down to some of the reasons for that, but there is certainly an increase in anger. The sort of people who will be prevented from buying those products are, of course, those who are most likely to give way to anger. I have recently come from a meeting today in which a senior representative of one of our largest supermarkets said how much more there is now a problem with people who will not take the advice of the shop worker that this is not possible.

I really think the Government have to come to terms with the fact that we are a much less willing society. We are not a society that is prepared to go along with these things, as once was true. So although USDAW has had this campaign for a long time, it is more necessary now than it might have been 10, five or even two years ago. The circumstances we are facing at the moment are likely to make more people more angry, and therefore it will become more acceptable. Anger, and showing anger, on the roads or in shops is more accepted by society than it ever has been before—certainly in modern times.

I say to my noble friend that it may well be sensible to make the point specifically that we are asking, indeed insisting, that shop workers—I will not argue whether they are acting as law enforcement people or not—take a stand against people who, by their nature, are likely to be angry, to demand that the shop worker give way to them and to use intimidation for that purpose. I cannot think of a reason why you should not repeat it. I know what the Government often says—all Governments do—because I was a Minister for a very long time and I know I used to say it. I would say: “There is no need for this. We’ve got this and we’ve got that and we’ve got the other”. If it is not actually harmful, perhaps it is a good thing to put it in. I am not sure it is enough that other things cover it. If this reminds people that there is a specific protection for shop workers in this situation, where we asking them to take a stand, that is a valuable thing. I hope my noble friend will take it seriously.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Baroness Newlove Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 6th February 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments from the Government, because we have to send a message out there for young people. While I respect all noble Lords who talk about criminalising young people, I stand with several hats on here. I have worked with young people in prisons and with a YOT, and have gone around to find out evidence. The main thing that worries me in all this is that we can put prevention orders up—we have to send a message; we owe that to the rest of society, who do not feel safe—but I want to prevent the young people I have spoken about having to carry a knife to feel safe. We need to stop them early, saying that it is not really right for them. Some young people in gangs have said they do not want to do it but have no choice.

There are several messages here about young children. I have three young daughters who saw their father murdered by hands and feet; they have suffered and could have gone down the criminal route. It would have been justified to put them in that box and to say that there is a reason why they do it. It is the same for a knife. These young people will carry knives to protect themselves, but do not want to. So we have to have something there—a message for communities and young children to feel safe. I am very grateful for the Centre for Social Justice briefing on this. It welcomes the process of the order, but is concerned about the mechanisms of how it will be carried out.

The whole point here is protecting the child. We are hearing much about criminalising a child but not about looking after the child’s welfare. I ask my noble friend the Minister, as did the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, whether we could make it a weapon-neutral offence that sends a message to all those carrying blades, knives and everything. Making it specific to a knife or blade does not really have the effect we want. We need to send a generalised message to help protect young people. I am concerned that we are not standing up here and protecting young people in the first place. We are looking at criminalising young people when they have been caught with something on them. We have to protect the people I have been speaking to, because they are really scared to come out of the school grounds. They go home to protect themselves. We are not looking at that niche of young children.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I support many of the comments made by other noble Lords—the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham and in particular the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle. There are many problems with these prevention orders. We may need orders of some sort, but surely not these. I hope we have a really serious discussion about how to protect children. In subsection (5) of the proposed new clause in Amendment 73A, the reasons accepted as good reasons for carrying a knife do not include a fear of harm. Yet, as other noble Lords have said, this is probably the most common reason. I regard it as utterly right and proper; we do not want kids carrying knives, but if you are terrified of being attacked you should not be criminalised for carrying a knife in your pocket to protect yourself. I hope that before Report the Minister will give serious thought to including at least that—that is just one tiny bit—in the reasons accepted as good reasons.

A second problem is that, according to subsection (1) of the proposed new clause in Amendment 73C:

“An application for a knife crime prevention order … may be made without the applicant giving notice to the defendant”.


The police can impose an interim knife crime prevention order, and the same requirements may be made under that interim order as under a full knife crime prevention order. Yet the defendant does not even know this is happening and has not put their side of the story or explained, for example, that they were carrying the knife only because they were petrified of the three boys who live down the road who were trying to get them involved in a gang. What is going on? I am terribly worried about that bit of it.

Others have mentioned the standard of proof— the balance of probability—when these kids go into criminality. Surely that cannot be right. However, there are many more general concerns about the imposition of yet more criminal deterrents on children as young as 12. I have read some briefings carefully and I want to refer to the one from the Children’s Society. According to its Good Childhood Report 2017, an estimated 950,000 children aged between 10 and 17 had experienced crime. No wonder crime is often cited as the reason children carry weapons. This problem is rife and of course we all want something done about it, but are we really tackling it in the right way here? I do not think so.

We know that for two decades the Government have attempted to deter violent crime and anti-social behaviour through the imposition of criminal and punitive civil deterrents. So far, such deterrents have not had a substantial impact on reducing the level of youth crime and youth violence, but that is what we all want—we certainly do not want knife crime. Of course we want violence to be reduced, but these approaches have been shown not to work. As we know, the level of knife crime has risen sharply. There is a body of evidence to show that criminalised interventions do not lower crime rates. I referred in an earlier debate to the meeting in which we listened to Neil Woods. After years of working as an undercover officer and catching people involved in criminal gangs and so on, he realised that he was making not a jot of difference to criminality and violence. He threw it all up and has now written books on the subject. He knows that he has not made any difference, having put his whole life on the line and having been in considerable danger for many years. We need to listen to people like him.

Does the Minister accept that the Home Office needs to make targeting the adults who coerce, control and threaten these kids a much greater priority? Surely Ministers should not target these children with these orders. It just does not feel right and, to be perfectly frank, I do not understand it. Therefore, can we amend these proposed new clauses before Report to ensure that, if we are to have prevention orders—and I think that we probably need them—they focus on positive inputs for children under the age of 18 with the provision of support, treatment in the case of kids addicted to alcohol or drugs, educational guidance and help to secure the safety of the child.

When a child is considered for an order, surely they should be referred to children’s social care for an assessment under the Children Act 1989 or to the national referral mechanism as appropriate. If the child is found to be at risk of exploitation, the police response surely needs to be entirely different from that envisaged in these amendments. I am not saying that there should not be a response but it should be different. As I said in relation to another amendment, we know that short-term prison sentences have very poor results in terms of reoffending. Why would we have more of them? In conclusion, I hope that the Minister will be willing to discuss how the emphasis of the amendments can be shifted from punitive, unsuccessful, short-term incarceration to something that will work. We have quite a lot of knowledge about what might work.

It is difficult to debate these proposals without reference to the huge cuts to youth services in this country. I know that it could be said that this is a political point but I do not mean it to be that at all. It is pretty desperate when £400 million is taken off those services at a time when we want these children to be referred to them for support, and £51 million has been put into the Serious Violence Strategy. That is one-eighth of the cuts—it is a peanut; it is nothing. Local authorities are facing a deficit in their budgets for children’s and young people’s services of £3 billion over the next five years. It seems that spending on police, courts and prisons is fine but spending on real prevention and turning young people around is something that we can dispense with. I say that because it is obvious that we should put money there rather than elsewhere. I look forward to the Minister’s response.