Offensive Weapons Bill
Baroness Williams of Trafford ExcerptsMonday 28th January 2019
(5 years, 3 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Offensive Weapons Act 2019 View all Offensive Weapons Act 2019 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 149-II Second marshalled list for Grand Committee (PDF) - (28 Jan 2019)
Lord Tunnicliffe
My Lords, the Opposition are generally in favour of this Bill, but I find the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, somewhat persuasive. I particularly like the way the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, put things in the general perspective of law. Even little deviations from sound general principles are a bad thing, so I hope the Minister will not reject this out of hand but will ponder this set of amendments. The only area I am slightly unsure about—the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, or the Minister may want to address this—is the argument that the defence has to be proved beyond reasonable doubt. My understanding was that there was a general piece of law that said that defences have to be proved only on balance of probability. It is important to know which of those tests the defence has to meet.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their points and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for tabling these amendments. As he explained, they address the construction of the new offences relating to the sale of corrosive products to under-18s, the prohibition on sending corrosive products to residential premises when bought online and the possession of a corrosive substance in a public place. The noble Lord’s basic premise is that it is unjust that a person who took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the sale or delivery should be guilty of the offence, rather than having to rely on the permitted defence to establish his or her innocence. The same principled objection applies to the possession offence and the person who has a reasonable excuse for having a corrosive substance with them in a public place.
As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, this has echoes of the recent debates we had on the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill. However, as my noble friend Lord Howe indicated in that context, we are not persuaded that whichever way these offences are constructed will make much material difference to a suspect or how the police go about an investigation.
In relation to the sale offence and the offence of sending corrosive products to a residential premises, I think it is quite right that it should be for the seller to prove that they took reasonable precautions to avoid the commission of these offences. The seller will clearly know what checks they carried out to stop a sale to a person under the age of 18. In the shop context, they will know whether they asked the buyer in appropriate cases to verify their age, which will normally consist of asking them to produce a passport, a driving licence or an age proof card. In the online case, it is important that the seller has put in place some arrangement for checking the buyer’s age. Clearly where a seller has shown that they have verified age, no prosecution will take place.
In answer to the question asked by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, about the normal principles of criminal law, the Bill reflects knife crime legalisation going back at least to the Criminal Justice Act 1988. His point about consistency is important, but I can point to other examples in other areas of law.
Going back to sellers, it is important that they take responsibility in this area and it is right that they have to prove what checks they have made rather than placing the burden on the prosecution. That is what happens in relation to other age-related sales, such as knives, alcohol and tobacco, and the approach is well understood by retailers, trading standards and the police.
Similarly, with the offence on arranging delivery to a residential premises or locker when a corrosive product is bought online, it should be for the seller to ensure that they are not sending the product to a residential address and to make sure they have the appropriate checks in place to stop this happening. The seller should be able to do this easily, and I can see no benefit in placing the burden on the prosecution to prove that the seller made the appropriate checks.
In the possession offence, as I have said before—for example, on the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill—the police on the ground will use intelligence to decide whether someone may be in possession of a corrosive substance without good reason. They will not stop people coming out of B&Q with their cleaning products and question them, just as they do not stop people coming out of B&Q with garden shears and scissors. The police will use this power only where they have reasonable grounds for suspecting the person has a corrosive substance on them in a public place without good reason—for example, where a group of young people may be carrying a corrosive that has been decanted into another container. Establishing good reason on the street should be relatively easy. If a person can show they have just bought the cleaner and are taking it home to unblock their drains or that they are a plumber and need the substance as part of their work, good reason will have been established and no further action would be taken. It is only where a person cannot provide a good reason—for example, for why they have decanted the substance into another container that will make it more easily squirtable, or where they cannot say where they bought the substance or what they intend to use it for—that further action may be taken, and in this case it is quite right that the person should have to set out any good reason why they had the substance in a public place.
That aside, and returning to the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, it is important that we have consistency across similar offences. I have just explained the sale and possession of knives. We think that corrosives have the potential to be used as a weapon just as much as knives and that wherever possible the legislation dealing with the two should be consistent. Both corrosives and knives are widely available and have legitimate uses—they are not in and of themselves weapons—and to have a different approach for corrosives would suggest that they are somehow less of a threat as a weapon.
Retailers are familiar with the existing law relating to the sale of other age-related products and know what measures they need to put in place to ensure they comply with the law. It could be confusing to retailers if we now constructed these offences differently. The police are also familiar with the approach relating to possession and we are not aware that the good reason defence has caused any issues regarding possession of a bladed article in a public place.
On the question from the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, on the standard of proof, I can confirm that if a defence is raised, the defendant has only to prove that the defence is made out on the balance of probabilities. There was a question on Scotland: obviously it has a separate legal jurisdiction with its own sentencing framework. The Bill’s provisions work with the grain of the existing sentencing provisions. For example, the maximum penalty on summary conviction is 12 months in Scotland, but only six months in England and Wales. The same is true for the burden of proof, where the Bill reflects existing Scots law.
I appreciate noble Lords’ concerns but, as I said, the approach we have taken is to follow a well-precedented form for offences relating to other age-restricted goods. If we reconstructed the sales and delivery offences for corrosive products we would be creating a different legislative regime from other age-restricted products, such as for knives. I am therefore not persuaded that we need to change the construction of the new offences. With those words, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, will be content to withdraw his amendment.
The Earl of Erroll (CB)
This might have been dealt with before and I apologise if it has, but is a farmhouse a residential address? Farmers would certainly receive all sorts of corrosive products.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of the amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is right that we are in the hands of sellers and delivery drivers, who have quite a lot of responsibility. If they get this wrong, they could be convicted, go to prison and have a criminal record. I am not against the Bill—in general I support it—but it is reasonable for it to set out what people need to do to protect themselves. One way of going forward may be a police guidance scheme. Another would be requiring the delivery driver to take photographic evidence. This would be a very good thing to do, because it is important to protect the people who are doing this work. People do make unintentional mistakes. They need to know that the person at the door is the right age and can hand over documents as evidence, or that they have abided by a police-approved scheme to which their company has signed up. These amendments go a long way to ensure protection for the seller, as well as making sure that the items are handed to the right people who are entitled to buy them.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I am grateful to my noble friend for explaining these amendments, which deal with the evidence required to satisfy the defence if a seller is charged with selling or delivering a corrosive product to someone who is under the age of 18. As regards Amendment 3 to Clause 1, I understand my noble friend’s intention but I am doubtful that it is necessary or appropriate to require the police to certify a seller’s processes as adequate. There are already well-established and widely recognised age-restricted policies in place for retailers and sellers through Challenge 21 and Challenge 25. These policies are used day in and day out by retailers to deal with situations where an individual may appear to be under 18, particularly in relation to the sale of alcohol or tobacco. I have concerns about the value of asking the police to certify a seller’s processes and about the burden this would place on police forces. I am also concerned about whether this approach would undermine these established policies. Arguably this amendment would necessitate the police certifying the specific age-restriction policies of every individual seller of a corrosive product, whether a high-street store or an online marketplace. This not a valuable use of police time when we want them to be focused on preventing and tackling violence in our communities.
In any event, I am not persuaded that the police would be the appropriate agency to discharge this function. We must not forget the important role that trading standards plays and its expertise in this area. That said, I would have the same concerns about the resource implications for local authorities if they, rather than the police, were to be made responsible for certifying the systems put in place by all retailers of corrosive substances caught by the Bill.
The defence we have put in place for the Clause 1 offence is similar to that for the sale of knives to under-18s, and it seems right to have a seller prove that they took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence of selling to an under-18. Similar considerations apply to Amendment 13, which would again require the police to certify as adequate a seller’s system in preventing, in this case, the remote sale of a corrosive product to someone under 18. We have not specified an age-verification system in the legislation as there are various types of systems available and, as the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, pointed out, the technology behind such systems is continuing to develop at a fast pace. As a result, we did not want to prescribe a specific method or set a minimum standard for what these systems need to do, first, because we need to ensure that we future-proof the legislation, and secondly, because it is for sellers to determine the most appropriate system for their businesses to be able to demonstrate that they took all reasonable precautions and exercised due diligence to prevent the sale of a corrosive product to an under-18.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I see the point the Minister is making. She referred to various age-verification systems. I do not know whether we are going to have any guidance from the Government when this Bill becomes law. I want to ensure that these products are not sold to young people, but equally I want a system whereby I am confident that the person selling these items has had to reach quite a high bar to get this wrong so I am more confident that they have sold them deliberately. Will there be some sort of guidance saying that the Government would expect a seller to be in a scheme for age verification, so that if you are a courier company delivering products we would expect you to be in a scheme that does this and your driver would have professional training to know that, when he knocks on the door, he has to have done such and such? We need to make sure that we give the maximum amount of direction to people so we avoid these things getting into the wrong hands.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord makes a perfectly practical point. We are aiming to produce guidance. We talked about shopkeepers the other day and the abuse of shopkeepers who are trying to abide by the law. I think some of the conversation we had with USDAW will prove very fruitful in developing our thinking on that.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
Will you produce guidance along the lines of what I have suggested? Or are you not sure yet? Will you get to it later on?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
We will produce guidance and I will of course take the noble Lord’s points into account. I cannot say whether supermarkets are currently part of the Challenge 21 or Challenge 25 scheme; I do not know the answer to that. However, in the production of guidance, you consult the various interested stakeholders to make sure that the guidance is as clear as it possibly can be.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
With the greatest respect, you would expect some of the bigger companies to have systems in place. I am more concerned about smaller couriers and shops—one-man-band operations—which may not have anything in place. Being directed to sign up to a scheme would be good for everybody concerned.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
In fact, I was thinking precisely of the small shop owner, who may not have the resource. If they could sign up or reference some sort of guidance that would be ideal. I was thinking along the same lines as the noble Lord.
Baroness Hamwee
I mentioned that, not long before coming into this debate, I—and no doubt other noble Lords—had a note from the British Retail Consortium. It also makes the point about how helpful it would be to have guidance—“possibly through guidance”, it says. Different situations may be different, but we are all concerned about not just protecting the seller but making sure that purchasers are able to purchase when it is reasonable to do so. I think it was my noble friend who mentioned John Lewis’s current policy on sending cutlery through the post.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, essentially come back to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, made. Sellers want to make sure they are abiding by the law but, as the noble Baroness said, buyers want to make sure they are abiding by the law as well. On the systems that the noble Earl raised, I hope I did not suggest that he was trying to imply a specific system. I made the point that it would be wrong to specify a system in the legislation, given that systems are developing all the time.
To answer the point from the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, about age-restricted products, I have already mentioned knives, alcohol and tobacco, but lottery tickets are age-restricted as well, of course. Retailers are very used to operating in these systems, without a specific approved system in place.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
This is a different type of retailer—hardware shops. You usually buy your lottery ticket from a different sort of place. I think we need to deal with these like for like.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord is both right and wrong. A shop might sell a range of products that includes all these things—I am thinking of Tesco, for example—whereas a corner shop might be entirely different.
The amendments would place additional burdens on sellers and delivery firms or couriers beyond the conditions proposed in Clause 2 that would need to be met by any remote seller who is charged with an offence of selling a corrosive product to someone under 18 and wants to rely on the defence for remote sales. We have already prescribed a tight set of conditions on remote sellers if they want to rely on the defence in Clause 2. There is clearly a balance to be struck, but I am not sure that we want to go further and be more prescriptive by imposing a requirement for photographic evidence, albeit that some firms may well want to adopt such an approach.
As for obtaining and retaining photographic evidence that the corrosive product was only delivered into the hands of someone aged over 18, I would have concerns about the storage for an appropriate period of such photographs under the general data protection regulation. The person who received the package would of course need to give their consent to any photograph being taken. We also need to bear in mind that it might not necessarily be the seller making the delivery; it could be a third-party delivery firm or a courier. That would raise the question of how the photographic evidence was transferred to the seller for retention. There is also a concern that the seller would not be able to fulfil the conditions set out for condition C in Clause 2 if the delivery firm or courier delivering the package failed to take and send the photographic evidence to the seller. The seller would not be able to demonstrate that they had taken all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to ensure that, when finally delivered, the package was handed over to someone over 18. I accept that these difficulties are not insurmountable, but they demonstrate the drawback of imposing a level of regulation beyond what is arguably necessary.
I reassure noble Lords that we will work with retailers, the police and trading standards on implementation of the measures relating to the sale and delivery of corrosive products to ensure that those measures are adequate. As I said, we will want to produce guidance to ensure that retailers and sellers know what steps they can take to ensure that they comply with the law. I hope that, with those explanations, the noble Lord will be happy to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
Could I just come back to the issue of getting people to provide information? I understand the point that the noble Baroness makes about the GDPR, but we want the person who is knocking on the door to take all reasonable steps to know who the person answering the door is. Age can be quite deceptive. I had to go to the Co-op last night to get a package. I had my passport and my driving licence and I had to put in a PIN, just to pick up a jacket. These days, people often buy things that come in the post or have to be picked up from the post office or elsewhere, so giving identification is not a big issue now. If you are not doing anything wrong, why would you not provide that information anyway?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I think that the noble Lord was referring to the taking and retention of photographs, which is slightly different, and we need to acknowledge the distinction.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for saying that there will be guidance. Perhaps we might drop that into the Bill on Report, just to make sure. I think that guidance would be enough, but we should recognise that we have chosen to put into the Bill the words “all due diligence” and “all reasonable precautions”. That is a very high test. If we had meant the current systems to apply, we should have left out the word “all”. Nobody gets killed by being sold a lottery ticket—or at least not just one—but we are looking here at things that might quite quickly turn into serious criminal incidents. If in court someone says, “I looked at his passport”, but the police prove that the person in question has no passport, the poor delivery driver or shop worker is sunk. Noble Lords might remember a rather amusing TV ad from when we watched such things, “We’re with the Woolwich”, where somebody showed their Woolwich passbook to get out of East Germany. This passport or driving licence can presumably be of any nationality. How is a relatively untrained shop worker or delivery driver supposed to know that this is a Polish passport, not a Polish bankbook? We are asking people for whom there is no structured training to act as if they are trained. Under such circumstances we have to—
Lord Paddick
Would it help the Committee to suggest that the Government have put in Clause 4 exactly the sort of things the delivery courier should be looking at to take reasonable precautions?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, that is where the guidance comes in. All roads are leading back to the guidance. I hope I can leave it there.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, it was those sorts of concerns that led to me think of taking photographs, because taking a photograph of a document is a reasonable precaution. If you have not done it, you have not taken all reasonable precautions. Yet if you take a photograph you get into all sorts of complications because it is not required, so you are into GDPR in all sorts of interesting ways. Guidance therefore becomes very important and we ought to drop the requirement for guidance into the Bill. I am very grateful to my noble friend for her help on this and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, I have added my name to Amendments 4 and 5, and I will also speak to the other amendments in this group. I looked in vain for Amendment 19 on the Marshalled List and the order of groupings today but I noticed that it is not there. As 19 comes before 20 and 21, I would like to speak to that as well because it also mentions custodial sentences—
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.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, as you heard, Amendments 4, 5, 20 and 21 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, seek to replace the punishment that a person is liable to get on conviction, as set out in the Bill, with a community sentence. Amendments 6 and 7 allow conditions to be added to prohibit offenders from selling corrosive substances.
I am very sympathetic to these amendments. We have heard about the debate that is going on in Government at the moment between the justice department and the Home Office on sentencing policy. Generally, as we have heard, short-term sentences are not the right thing to do; they can be expensive and counterproductive, and they are not long enough to deal with a person’s issues. They can actually do more harm than good: the person can lose their job, home and family and then of course they have to go back out into the community. These amendments concern the delivery driver and the owner of the corner shop—the person who sold the products—not the young person who may want to commit other offences.
I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. Magistrates have the ability to look at the case in detail and decide on the best punishment. It could be that, for a second or third offence, prison might be the right place to put this person, because they will not listen. Equally, I want to make sure that the magistrates deciding these cases have that ability because they will know whether the offence merits a community sentence. I want to hear that a suite of punishments is available to the court and not have it driven down that they must impose a mandatory sentence. On that basis, although I have some sympathy with the amendments as they are, I want a much broader suite that enables the court to look at the evidence before it and make a sentence that it believes is appropriate.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for tabling these amendments and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for speaking to them, as it provides us with the opportunity to debate the appropriateness of the penalties we are proposing for anyone found guilty of selling a corrosive product to someone aged under 18 or for arranging the delivery of a corrosive product to residential premises or a locker. I am not persuaded of the case for replacing custodial sentences of up to six months for the sale and delivery offences with community sentences. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, very articulately outlined why they might be necessary for some, but not all, offences. Let me explain my reasons for this.
We need to consider the significant harm corrosive products can cause if they are misused as a weapon to attack someone. My noble friend Lady Eaton pointed out one such circumstance in which this might happen: domestic abuse settings. The effects can be significant and life-changing for a victim, leaving them with permanent injuries, not to mention causing serious psychological harm. But it is important to be clear that in providing this maximum custodial penalty we are providing the courts with a range of penalties, from custody through to a fine or both. That gives the courts the option to impose a community sentence if that is most suitable, taking into account all the circumstances of the offence and, of course, of the offender.
There is also the requirement under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 that the court has to be satisfied that the offence is so serious that only a custodial sentence can be justified, so we can have every confidence that our courts will be sentencing offenders appropriately. Where a custodial sentence is justified they will impose it, but where a community order would be better for punishment and rehabilitation while protecting the public nothing in our provisions prevents it. There is also the broader legal framework to consider and the novel problems of a maximum penalty being a community order.
I must point out to noble Lords that, under Section 150A of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, a community sentence can be imposed only where the offence is punishable by a prison sentence. That is an important point to note. Even if it were possible to change the maximum penalties we are proposing, it would raise the problem that if someone wilfully breached their community order, then, as the law stands, it would not be possible to sentence them to custody. The courts would be able only to re-impose another community sentence. As a result, it is important that custodial sentences are available to the courts as one of the penalties available for anyone convicted of the sales offence. Such an approach is also consistent with the range of penalties available to the courts for anyone who has been convicted of selling a knife or bladed article to a person under the age of 18.
It was very clear from the debates in the House of Commons that we should treat the threat of violence from corrosives as seriously as that from knives. We have therefore tried to ensure that the offences relating to corrosives mirror those for knives wherever possible, as we discussed. I note that this approach was strongly supported by the Opposition during the detailed consideration of the Bill in Commons Committee. These amendments would undermine that approach, and would in effect be saying that selling a corrosive product to someone under the age of 18 was less serious than selling a bladed article to a person under the age 18.
I add that, as with other age-restricted products, in many cases it is the company selling the product or arranging for its delivery that would be prosecuted. Although the person at the checkout desk is sometimes prosecuted, it is more likely the case that it will be the company operating the store, because it will be responsible for ensuring that procedures and training are in place to avoid commission of the offence. This goes back to the guidance point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. Where it is a company that is being prosecuted, the sentence is likely to be a fine rather than a custodial or community sentence, but if an individual is prosecuted, the full range of penalties should be available.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her helpful, informative and careful reply. I particularly welcome what she said about the need to think about placing women in prison, given the stubbornly high level of female imprisonment over many years now. I was thinking about the fact that one in 10 lone-parent families is headed by the man. Is there any advice to the courts on whether, when deciding on sentencing, they should take into account whether a man is looking after the children in the family? The Minister will not have it to hand, but I imagine that there is some guidance on that. Perhaps we can look at it at some point.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I am happy to look at that point. Of course, every case is different, so I cannot give a pronouncement here in Committee this afternoon. I have visited Styal prison, an all-female prison near to where I live. I would imagine that Styal is an example of best in class, as it tries to support the family as opposed to just dealing with the woman in custody. I recommend any noble Lords who get the chance to visit that prison, which is an example of a very supportive environment.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, we have ranged widely and it is tempting to respond to some of the points that have been made, continuing that wider debate, as opposed to focusing on Clauses 1 and 3, but I will try to resist that.
I think that we all agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, that this is about the quality of sentences. I would regard it as rather despairing to accept that there should be imprisonment because community sentences are inadequate—not fit for purpose, in the jargon. I referred to comments made in April last year, I think, by the Secretary of State for Justice, David Gauke, in response to evidence published by the MoJ showing that, for people with matched offending backgrounds, community orders were more effective than a short prison sentence at reducing offending.
I should make it clear that we are not in favour of selling corrosives that may be misused—I do not want that to come out of this debate. Clause 6 includes the offence of possession, and it is this clause that prompts me to ask whether the Minister can confirm that the offences under Clauses 1 and 3 are summary only offences. Clause 6 refers to conviction on indictment, which would allow imprisonment for up to four years. One always learns something, and I did not expect to learn about the 2003 Act. There are two ways of looking at that: either our amendments are fatally flawed or we have material to come back to at Report. That is neither a threat nor a promise, but perhaps the Minister can answer my question about summary only offences.
Baroness Hamwee
We have all shared a lot more of our views on this Bill than I thought likely to be the case when I tabled these two amendments. I beg leave to withdraw.
Lord Tunnicliffe
My Lords, if I can give some comfort to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I did not understand it either.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I am sure that the noble Baroness is very much comforted. I hope I can clarify the meaning.
Amendment 12 seeks to test why it is necessary to include in Clause 2(6)(a) the words,
“by the same or a similar method of purchase to that used by the buyer”.
There are many different ways to make purchases online or in response to an advertisement by post or telephone. The simple purpose of the condition set out in Clause 2(6)(a) is to ensure that, at the time of making the sale, the seller had the required arrangements in place to verify the age of the buyer. This would assist in proving that an offence had been committed.
Amendment 16 seeks to clarify why Clause 2(10) uses the term “supply” instead of “delivery”, given the terms of the Clause 1 offence. The use of “supply” is correct in this context because it is about the actual handing over of the product to a person or their representative at the collection point, rather than its delivery to the address from where the buyer ordered the product. I hope that provides clarification, although the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is looking even more puzzled than she initially was.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I am afraid I remain a bit puzzled. I do not find all of this Bill entirely easy. My prejudice was confirmed this morning when, ironically, I got a rather painful paper cut from the Offensive Weapons Bill. On the second point, “supply” has all sorts of other connotations, particularly with the drug trade. That perhaps diverted me, but “delivery to a person” is not the same as delivery to premises. I remain puzzled by that. I will have to read what the Minister said about Amendment 12, but I thought she more or less said what I said I thought it should mean without the rather difficult words. I will go back and read that.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I am confused as well, so I am in good company. Maybe an example would help the Committee. I am certainly confused about what the words mean.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
Would it be helpful if I wrote to noble Lords giving examples?
Baroness Hamwee
I think that would be an excellent idea. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Earl of Erroll
I apologise for my earlier intervention that should have come under this clause. I can see that it is dealt with in Clause 3(6) about farmhouses, and so my earlier intervention was irrelevant. However, the noble Lord has a very good point about why we are banning delivery to residential premises if there is someone there who can prove that they are over 18. The ban is actually not about whether the substance goes to residential premises. There are many reasons why you might want something delivered. For instance, if you are cooking and things like that—I know that is a later section. There are cleaning products and stuff like that. I cannot see the purpose of the ban if the delivery is being accepted by someone who is over 18. As I said in my earlier intervention, it is easy to do now with modern technology; we can now age-verify people extremely accurately.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, as we have discussed, Clause 3 makes it an offence, where a sale is carried out remotely, for a seller to deliver, or arrange for the delivery of, a corrosive product to residential premises or to a locker. Given the concerns over the use of corrosive substances in violent attacks and other criminal acts, to restrict access effectively we believe that it is necessary to stop delivery to private residential addresses. This does not mean that corrosive products cannot be purchased online in the future, merely that individuals will be expected to collect the product from a collection point where their age can be verified before the product is handed over to them. This provision is important as it will ensure that checks are made and that the purchaser will need to prove that they are 18 or over in order to be able to purchase and collect a corrosive product. If the purchaser cannot collect the corrosive product in person, they would have to be able to send a representative who is also over the age of 18.
We have also included an exemption within the provision to ensure that deliveries to businesses that are run from home—such as a farm—would not be affected by the prohibition on delivery to a residential address, for example, where corrosive products are ordered by small family-run businesses, such as metal working, soap making or even farms, in the case of the noble Earl, Lord Erroll. We have also provided defences that are available in cases where the individual has taken all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence.
The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, questioned why both Clause 3 and Clause 4 are needed. Clause 3 relates to the dispatch of corrosive products bought online in the UK to a residential premises or locker in the UK. We cannot apply the same restrictions on sellers who are based overseas without taking extraterritorial jurisdiction for this offence. Such a step would be inappropriate for a sales offence such as this and, in any event, there would be practical difficulties mounting a prosecution given that an overseas seller would not be within the jurisdiction of the UK courts. Clause 3 is therefore supported by Clause 4, which makes it a criminal offence for a delivery company in the UK to deliver a corrosive product to a person under the age of 18 where that corrosive product has been bought from a seller overseas and where the delivery company knows what it is delivering. The purpose of Clause 4 is to try to stop overseas sellers selling corrosives to under-18s in the UK and having them delivered to a person under the age of 18. There is no overlap between Clauses 3 and 4; we think that both are needed. Clause 3 deals with UK online sales and Clause 4 deals with online sales from overseas sellers.
The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, again brought up the use of home as a business, which he has mentioned to me before. It will be a matter for the seller under Clause 3 to satisfy themselves that the delivery address is being used for a purpose other than residential purposes. If they cannot satisfy themselves, they should not deliver to that address. Again, it is something that we can deal with in the planned guidance. He also mentioned to me previously his concerns about Amazon’s terms of trade in relation to the sale of alcohol. We are clear from evidence of test purchases of knives that we cannot rely on such terms of business to ensure that the law on age-related restrictions is properly adhered to in the case of online sales.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, I have to confess to being even more confused than I was before. Is the Minister saying that you can purchase corrosive substances from a seller overseas and have them delivered to your residential premises, but you cannot get corrosive substances delivered to your residential address if you order them from a UK seller? That appears to be the effect of Clauses 3 and 4.
Lord Lucas
That seems a bit odd. If you can get the corrosive stuff only from overseas sellers, you will get the rest of your stuff from an overseas seller too because it is that much more convenient. If there is no positive effect—because people can still get the corrosive substances from an overseas seller—why ban getting them from a UK seller? It is really very easy. A lot of sellers that you think are in the UK are overseas.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
Can I be absolutely clear? Are we saying that you cannot buy it from a UK seller but you can buy it from an overseas seller?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
You can buy it from either, but the mechanisms for age verification are slightly different.
Baroness Hamwee
We have referred quite a lot to Amazon. I do not use it very much, but the few times I have, I have ordered from Amazon but got my items from the producer or seller, which was often in the UK. Is the seller overseas or in the UK in that situation?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
If the seller is in the UK, the seller is in the UK. If the seller is overseas there is a slightly different mechanism. As I said, that is because of our ability to enforce sales in the UK as opposed to online sales abroad. The two are very different, but we are banning the delivery of corrosive substances to under-18s when ordered from an overseas seller, just as we are banning that here.
Baroness Hamwee
But if I order from Amazon, am I buying from Amazon or from the manufacturer in the UK?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
That depends entirely on whether the seller is a UK seller or an overseas seller.
The Earl of Erroll
I think the contract is with Amazon, because you pay Amazon for the product. I therefore think Amazon is technically the seller. The website could well be hosted abroad and Amazon has its headquarters abroad. Therefore, your contract is with someone in a foreign country, but the delivery agent may be someone in the UK who happens to have the product and is remunerated by Amazon for it. I am not at all clear. Because this is so obscure, it seems that aligning the two clauses would be sensible—remove the residential bit from Clause 3 and insist on proper age verification of the person receiving the goods, whether the address is residential or business.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, if you buy from Amazon, you are buying from Amazon UK.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I think it is because there is an unwillingness to do that with UK sales. We have made provision for this arrangement to apply where the product is picked up, but we cannot impose extraterritorial jurisdiction on overseas sellers and therefore we are putting the onus on the courier to ensure that the product is labelled as a corrosive substance. That is why the two schemes are slightly different.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
It seems that in this debate we have highlighted a massive hole in this legislation. Obviously when legislating on matters such as this, you are legislating not for the law-abiding people but for those—villains, crooks and suchlike—who want to do harm to others. It now seems that if you are a person who wants to use these products to attack somebody, you can go to a bad company abroad that will very happily sell them to you. You can make the transaction and the product will come in the post. You think, “Thanks very much”, and off you go to commit your crime with no problem at all. That is a very bad place for us to be in. It might be useful if the noble Baroness could write to those taking part in the Committee to explain where we are, because a big coach and horses could be driven through the Bill in this area. Unfortunately, we will find companies abroad that will sell to bad people in this country, making a mockery of the law that we are trying to pass here.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, obviously in a perfect world the overseas arrangements would mirror the home arrangements, but the rigour of the age-verification procedures applied to the arrangements for pick-up points cannot be relied on or effectively enforced for home deliveries. It would be great if we could do the same for both situations but we cannot, although I shall be very happy to talk about these issues further before Report.
Lord Tunnicliffe
Given the lack of clarity, if a letter could be sent to us before any discussion takes place, that would be good.
Lord Tunnicliffe
May I join the noble Baroness and say that I too am confused?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I fear that I am about to confuse people further—I hope not—because the noble Baroness is effectively asking why Clause 4 is drafted on the basis that the delivery arrangements for an online sale made to a vendor based overseas will have been made at the point of contract and not subsequently. It therefore might be helpful if I explain how we have drafted the clause in this way.
The purpose of Clause 4(1)(c) is to avoid criminalising a delivery company in instances where an overseas seller has simply placed a package containing a corrosive product in the international mail. By doing this, it then places an obligation on the delivery company, and potentially the Royal Mail, to deliver the item without having entered into a contract or necessarily knowing that the package contains a corrosive product. If we did not have the provision in place and in combination with the provisions of Clause 4(1)(d), which makes it clear that the company was aware that the delivery arrangements with the overseas seller covered the delivery of the corrosive product, then delivery companies such as the Royal Mail would be committing an offence.
We want to mitigate this, which is why we have constructed the offence in this way so that it requires the delivery company to have entered into specific arrangements to deliver corrosive products on behalf of an overseas seller.
The noble Baroness looks far less confused than she did in my previous explanation and I hope I have provided the explanation she seeks.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, that is perfectly clear and I am grateful. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Paddick
My Lord, if I may have a second go, until very recently I did not support particular protections for shop workers. Being from a policing background, I know we have taken the steps in the law to protect law enforcers, and recently there has been a Bill to protect all emergency workers in this way. But here we are talking about people who are intent on violence; they are looking to get their hands on knives or corrosive substances to commit violence. That is the sort of person that these shop workers are likely to confront, and that is why I am now convinced that this is the right thing to do.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said I would say that there is no problem. I am not going to say that, but I am very grateful to him for explaining his amendment. He attaches particular importance to affording greater protection for retail staff, and his noble kinsman, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, raised this question last week. It was a very good opportunity to discuss the issue, which is of great concern. I understand the concerns of retailers and their staff about being threatened or attacked in the course of their duties, including as part of verifying a person’s age when selling a corrosive product. As my noble friend Lord Deben said, it may be those very people who want to buy these things who will be those who mete out the abuse on retail workers. Nobody should have to experience this sort of behaviour at their place of work, especially when providing a service to members of the public.
As I said at Second Reading, the Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability held a roundtable on 11 December with David Hanson MP, Richard Graham MP and representatives from the retail sector, including USDAW and the British Retail Consortium, to discuss what more we can do ensure greater protection for shop workers. Last week, I met USDAW to see what more we can do to ensure these greater protections. Following the discussion at the roundtable I am very happy to update the Committee. We will be taking forward the following actions: first, the call for evidence, which I spoke about last week and is intended to help us ensure that we fully understand this issue and look at all the options for addressing it; secondly, that we provide funding to the sector to run targeted communications activity to raise awareness of the existing legislation that is in place to protect shop workers; and thirdly, we are refreshing the work of the National Retail Crime Steering Group, co-chaired by the Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability and the British Retail Consortium. An extraordinary meeting of the group, focused exclusively on violence and abuse towards shop workers, will take place on 7 February. That discussion will help to shape the call for evidence.
In addition, the Sentencing Council is reviewing its guidelines on assault. A consultation on a revised guideline is anticipated to commence this summer. These measures are intended to complement existing work under way to tackle this issue. For example, the Home Office is providing funding of £1 million for the National Business Crime Centre over three years between 2016 and 2019. The centre was launched by the National Police Chiefs’ Council in October 2017 to improve communication between police forces on business crime, promote training and advice, and help to identify national and local trends.
In addition, through the national retail crime steering group, which includes representatives from across the retail sector, the police and others, we are taking forward a range of work to strengthen the collective response to these crimes, including: the creation of a “crib sheet” for retailers to use when reporting violent incidents to the police so that they get the information they need to support a timely and appropriate response; exploring options for improving consistency in the recording of business crime by the police, which will include a short pilot analysis of forces applying business crime flags; and the development of guidance on impact statements for businesses to increase their use. These statements give businesses the opportunity to set out the impact a crime has had and are taken into account by courts when determining sentences.
I know that there are concerns about the adequacy of the existing legislation for protecting those selling age-restricted products. The call for evidence is intended to help us understand better how the existing law is being applied and whether there is a case for reform, including in the context of the sale of age-restricted products. However, I want to provide some reassurance about the legislation we have in place, without dismissing noble Lords’ points. A wide range of offences may be used to address unacceptable behaviour towards shop staff—including those who sell age-restricted items—covering the full spectrum of unacceptable behaviour, from using abusive language to the most serious and violent crimes.
Some of the existing offences available include behaviour that causes another to fear the immediate infliction of unlawful violence, which is already an offence of common assault under Section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. Where shop workers are threatened or experience abusive language, this may be captured by the offences under the Public Order Act 1986. There is also the Offences against the Person Act 1861, which means that assaults against shop workers could be considered as assault occasioning actual bodily harm under Section 47 of that Act. In addition, courts have a statutory duty to follow sentencing guidelines when considering any penalty to be imposed further to criminal conviction, unless it is not in the interests of justice to do so. In all cases, the fact that an offence has been committed against a person serving the public may be considered an aggravating factor for the purpose of passing sentence.
In answer to my noble friend Lord Deben and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, the specific offence in Amendment 3 could be counterproductive and encourage prosecutions for the new obstruction offence with a maximum penalty of a fine—I think that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, made that point as well—rather than a more serious offence, such as assault, which carries a higher penalty. That said, and going through the list of offences that this may capture, we understand retailers’ concerns about the risk of their staff being threatened or attacked—particularly, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, for smaller retailers, such as corner shops. The call for evidence is intended to improve our understanding of the issue and identify potential solutions. We will seek to issue the call for evidence as soon as is practically possible.
The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, asked whether shop workers were law enforcers. It is a moot point on which I think we will agree to differ. I was trying to make the point that they are not policemen but they have to uphold the law. With that, I hope that I have given the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, enough to help him to withdraw his amendment.
Offensive Weapons Bill
Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
That it be an instruction to the Grand Committee to which the Offensive Weapons Bill has been committed that they consider the bill in the following order:
Clause 1, Schedule 1, Clauses 2 to 34, Schedule 2, Clauses 35 to 44, Title.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)
In the absence of my noble friend, I wish to move the Motion standing her name on the Order Paper—I have been wrong-footed by all that is going on.
Brexit: Foreign Language Teaching and Public Service Interpreting
Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, on securing this debate and thank all noble Lords who have spoken in what has been my second non-fractious debate of the week. It seems that your Lordships have again taken a very measured and thoughtful approach.
First, the Government are in no doubt of the extremely valuable and positive contribution that our close European neighbours and other international workers have made—and, I hope, will continue to make—to support and contribute to the well-being of this country. International workers have enriched communities, brought new perspectives, expertise and knowledge, stimulated growth and made us the tolerant, outward-looking nation that we are today. Of course, teachers play a very important role in this by inspiring our young people and preparing them for the future—as do public service interpreters, as noble Lords mentioned, who ensure that otherwise vulnerable members of this society are able to access services. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, mentioned the courts, which are a very good example of that.
In the post-Brexit landscape, we recognise that the focus on languages will naturally increase rather than lessen. We are clear that all children, regardless of background, should have a broad and balanced education that prepares them for adult life and success in the modern economy. Noble Lords have shared their examples of the various deficiencies in their multilingual abilities. My language skills amount to poor French and poor Italian, whereas my brother’s children, at the age of two, speak several languages and can change between them depending on who they are speaking to. I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Dykes and Lord Hannay, that we fall behind our European neighbours in our multilingual abilities. As they said, it is no good just shouting louder and hoping that they will understand us.
The Government are committed to ensuring that schools can recruit appropriately to fill their vacancies and that key front-line public services are supported by interpreters for all our diverse communities. We support organisations accessing the international talent they need through the immigration system, and we make special provision for certain occupations recognised as being in national shortage by the independent Migration Advisory Committee. In 2016, as noble Lords will know, the Government commissioned the MAC to undertake a review of the shortage occupation list to assess all teaching professionals in primary and secondary education, with a view to concluding whether they ought to be recognised on the list.
In 2017 the MAC published its findings. It identified that there was a case for modern foreign language teachers to be recognised as a shortage. However, it found no evidence to indicate that most foreign language teachers were recruited from outside the EU. Given that the immigration system currently applies only to non-EU nationals, the MAC considered, and the Government agreed, that it would not be sensible for most modern foreign language teaching occupations to be included on the shortage occupation list. However, the MAC considered that there was a clear case for Mandarin teachers to be added to the list, given the upward pressure on demand for Mandarin in schools—and they were duly added. Mandarin teachers also receive an exemption from the usual salary thresholds for tier 2, meaning that experienced Mandarin teachers can be recruited earning a salary of £20,800 instead of the usual £30,000.
The Government recognise that two years have gone by since that last review. We want to make sure that our immigration system keeps pace with the rate and scale of changes in the labour market. That is why last June we commissioned the MAC to undertake a review of the shortage occupation list. This time we asked it to look at the entire composition of the list, which comprises occupations across the economy; noble Lords mentioned various occupations, which I will include. The review is currently under way. The call for evidence, which I understand has elicited many responses, closed only last week. It is right that the Government await the outcome of that review before making any changes to the list. The review, which is intended to report in the spring, will include full consideration of modern foreign language teaching occupations within its scope. I am sure that the MAC will take due account of the fact that we are considerably closer to the UK’s departure from the EU and will be moving to a single immigration system in which EU citizens no longer receive automatic preference.
As noble Lords pointed out, on 19 December 2018 the Government published a White Paper setting out our proposals for the United Kingdom’s future skills-based immigration system, which will be implemented after the UK’s exit from the EU, following the planned implementation period. As part of those proposals, we proposed a new route for skilled workers. In line with the MAC recommendations, we will lower the current skills threshold to medium-skilled occupations at A-level and above; we will not cap this route and there will be no requirement for employers to carry out a resident labour market test for highly skilled roles. Teachers and public service interpreters, like other skilled occupations, will naturally benefit from these changes. To answer the question of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and a similar question from the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, although the MAC recommended a minimum salary threshold of £30,000 for skilled workers to enter via this route, the Government have been clear that we want to engage with business before taking final decisions on that.
As my right honourable friend the Immigration Minister said recently, this is the start of the conversation as opposed to the end. We have also been clear that businesses and organisations will need time to digest the proposals, which is why we have launched a year-long programme of engagement with a wide range of stakeholders across the UK. We are clear, however, that immigration must be considered alongside investment to improve the productivity and skills of the UK workforce, including innovation, automation and technology. Accordingly, we are working to grow a strong domestic pipeline of teachers and have a package of measures in place to support both the recruitment of trainees and retention. We have set aside funding to develop our domestic pipeline of modern foreign languages teachers, including offering scholarships and tax-free bursaries typically worth up to £26,000 for trainees in modern foreign language initial teacher training. We are complementing national initiatives by working in partnership with the Spanish Government to recruit visiting teachers from Spain through Spain’s visiting teachers programme to teach modern foreign languages in England.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Coussins and Lady Garden of Frognal, and the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, talked about wanting the Government to confirm that teachers, interpreters, et cetera, will not be screened out of the future immigration system through skill level or salary. I can confirm that language teachers, nurses and interpreters will meet the skills definition within the future immigration system. Posts on the shortage occupation list can benefit from this lower salary threshold, as I have said, and we will await the advice of the MAC on the composition of the list.
The noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, asked what plans the Government had to simplify the visa system and what advice we could give to EU citizens in the UK who had not previously needed visas. The immigration White Paper makes absolutely clear our intention to speed up and simplify the visa system through the greater use of technology. We have made it clear that we want EU citizens who are here already to stay. We have put in place a simple-to-operate settlement scheme, not a visa requirement, and this week we announced that they could use the scheme free of charge.
The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, asked about the operation of the EU directive on access to interpreters. I do not know the answer to that and I will have to write to her, because I am not sure whether that has been transposed into UK law. I shall respond to noble Lords in writing on any questions that I have not answered. I again thank all noble Lords for their commitment to this, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, and everyone who contributes to our world-leading institutions, whether they are schools, universities or the workplace.
Shop Workers: Protection
Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Kennedy of Cradley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the protections in place to prevent shop workers from being verbally abused, threatened with violence, or attacked.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, everyone has the right to feel safe at work. I have enormous sympathy for shop workers, who can face intimidation, threats and in some cases violence. I can confirm that, to understand this issue in more detail, the Government will take forward a call for evidence on violence and abuse towards shop workers. This is intended to help us fully understand the problem and look at all options for addressing it.
Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Lab)
My Lords, it is a depressing fact that too many shop workers suffer physical assault. USDAW, the shop workers’ union, says that shop workers are on the receiving end of 230 assaults each day. The recent measures announced by the honourable Member for Louth and Horncastle, such as the call for evidence, are a step in the right direction. However, they fall short in failing to recognise the need for specific legislation to make it an offence to assault a worker enforcing the new age-related restrictions on acid and knives, which are set to come into force as a result of the Offensive Weapons Bill. Will the Minister explain why the Government will not accept that new legislation is needed, in spite of the concerns expressed by many organisations and on all sides of this House? Will she agree to meet USDAW and other organisations representing the retail sector, ahead of Report on the Offensive Weapons Bill in this House, to discuss the issue in detail?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I am very happy to meet USDAW, which I fully expected might be one of the things I would do during the passage of the Offensive Weapons Bill. The noble Baroness will know that attacking a person serving the public is already an aggravating factor in sentencing guidelines. The Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability will be discussing the way forward on the call for evidence with the national retail crime steering group. We do not have a closed mind on a way forward and I look forward to meeting USDAW and hearing its concerns about this serious matter.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, when shop workers enforce the law—for example, on the sale of age-restricted items—they are acting as law-enforcement officers. Does the Minister think that when shop workers perform these duties, they should have similar legal protections to those afforded to other law enforcers?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I do not agree that they are acting as law-enforcement officers. One could take that to its ultimate conclusion and say that everyone who upholds the law is acting as a law-enforcement officer. They are simply saying that, for example, the sale of alcohol, tobacco and, in future, corrosive substances, to underage people is against the law. As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, the call for evidence will bottom out exactly what is needed in the future. Nobody wants to see shop workers or any workers who deal with the public being abused in any way. I look forward to a constructive way forward on this.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, the Offensive Weapons Bill would rightly ban the sale of knives, bladed items and acids to under-18s, with penalties for those who break the law and sell those items. In addition to USDAW, the British Retail Consortium, the Co-op, the Association of Convenience Stores and others are supporting calls to protect shop workers who uphold the law via a specific offence for those who threaten shop workers who are doing their job and upholding the law by not selling the items in question. Why is it too much to ask the Government to protect shop workers at the same time as creating new laws and offences for selling such items?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I fully support what the noble Lord says about protecting shop workers. A number of laws to protect them are already in place; we need to explore this issue more to see what we can add to that. We are funding targeted communications going forward and refreshing the national retail crime steering group, which the Minister got up and running in December. As I said, there is no excuse for shop workers or anyone working with and serving the public being abused in any way.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, while I recognise the very real concerns of shop workers and their calls for stronger sanctions against those who attack them, does the Minister recognise that placing more children and young people in prison is not an effective response? If there must be a strengthening of sanctions, community sentences will protect more shop workers in the long run because they are much more effective in preventing reoffending.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I agree with the noble Earl that putting young people in custody is not the answer every time. Obviously, magistrates have a range of sentencing powers open to them but I believe that our current work on prevention and early intervention—all the things the noble Earl talks about—is the most effective way to tackle this problem.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend will be aware that under the Licensing Act, the Home Office is consulting on a call for evidence to stop abuse against coffee shop workers and those working in other outlets at airports. Can she give a date on which the Licensing Act will apply in order to stop such abuse and disruptive passengers boarding planes, sometimes causing huge economic expense through diversions? This is a very serious matter, and we want that law to come into force before the summer season.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
As my noble friend said, the call for evidence is open; therefore, we must go through that process. I do not disagree with her about the behaviour that goes on in airports when people are intoxicated. I look forward to the results of the call for evidence.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I recall the outcry from certain parts of the community about the attack on civil liberties when street cameras were introduced a few years ago. Does this Question not prove the value of using modern technology in the prevention and detection of crime?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord is absolutely right. As legislators, we must be consistent in protecting the public from the harms of crime and other things that take place on our streets. There is a balance to be struck between civil liberties, and protecting the public and keeping criminals off our streets.
Homophobic Hate Crime
Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Scriven
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they plan to take in response to the BBC investigation of homophobic hate crimes.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, the Government take seriously all forms of hate crime, including homophobic, biphobic and transphobic hate crime, as highlighted by the recent BBC report. The Government recently published the LGBT Action Plan and a refresh of the 2016 hate crime action plan, in which we committed to measures including a public awareness campaign, improved police training, and reviewing the adequacy of current hate crime legislation.
Lord Scriven (LD)
I thank the Minister for that reply. She will be aware that hate crimes based on sexual orientation or gender identity are not considered to be aggravated offences, which means that they carry a lower maximum sentence than other hate crimes committed on the basis of either race or faith. This sends an extremely hurtful and damaging message that anti-LGBT attacks are less serious than those based on other factors. The Government committed to address this in their 2017 manifesto, so when and how will they bring forward legislation to end this form of judicial discrimination?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, in fact, local police forces can disaggregate gender identity hate crime if they wish to do so; it is entirely up to local forces. Of course, when a case gets brought to court, the sentence given is entirely up to the court, depending on the severity of the crime.
Lord Lexden (Con)
Roughly how large a proportion of these offences, having been recorded by the police, result in charges? If the proportion is low, what can be done to increase it?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My noble friend raises a valid point. The police and the CPS are looking into whether the charge rates differ from the reporting rates.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, fewer homophobic and other crimes based on gender identity are being solved. Does the Minister agree that anonymous social media accounts are playing an increasing role in this type of crime, and does she think that that could be one of the reasons why fewer crimes are being solved? If she does, what is she doing about it?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord raises one of the most important things: a trend in hate crime that we are seeing is the perceived anonymity of online hate crime. Particularly for children who are bullied, which the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, was about, that is carried with them all day because they bring their phones home, and that can produce some dark thoughts in their minds. The online harms White Paper is due shortly, and I very much look forward to working with the noble Lord on the legislation.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, can the Minister explain why 23% of recorded homophobic hate crimes resulted in a charge in 2014, but only 13% resulted in a charge in 2017? What impact does the Minister think these statistics will have on the confidence of the perpetrators of homophobic hate crime and the fear felt by victims?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
Like the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, the noble Lord raises an important question. In general, the changes in the charge rates are likely to be the result of improved crime recording by the police, and of forces taking on more complex crimes, such as sexual offences, which of course take longer. We welcome the fact that more victims are coming forward and reporting crimes to the police. However, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, the CPS and the police are working together to look at this disparity.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl)
My Lords, do the Government have any plans to extend the criminal law to cover people with disabilities, particularly online?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord raises another trend of hate crime online—that meted out against people with disabilities—which is particularly cruel. I have met with disability groups, such as Changing Faces, which noble Lords may have seen in the Telegraph campaign over Christmas. All the efforts we are making with regard to the online harms White Paper and the subsequent legislation will address that cohort of people as well.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
In her opening Answer, the Minister mentioned several categories of hate crime. When will misogyny be included as a hate crime?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
As the noble Baroness will know, we commissioned the Law Commission to look into other types of hate crime to see whether there are current gaps in the law, and we expect it to report back in the next 12 to 18 months. That will include things such as misogyny.
Lord Scriven
My Lords, the Minister answered very well a question I did not quite put. My question was about it not being an aggravated crime. That takes legislation so that a different maximum sentence can be laid. In the 2017 manifesto, the Conservatives committed to making it an aggravated crime, so when and how will legislation be brought forward?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord is absolutely right that those types of hate crime do not constitute aggravated offences. There are other types of hate crime that do not carry the aggravated uplift either. I said that the courts can pass the sentence that fits the severity of the crime that has been meted out.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, that was a hugely interesting answer but, again, it was not to the question. Could the Minister possibly answer my noble friend’s question?
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, is it a crime or a misdemeanour not to wear a tie on the Floor of the House?
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, are the Government still committed to making homophobic hate crime an aggravated offence or not?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, there are certain aggravated offences in the hate crime area. We absolutely accept that the things the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, was talking about are hate crimes, but they do not currently carry the aggravated offence.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, there was a commitment in the Conservative Party manifesto to make homophobic hate crime an aggravated offence. Are the Government going to fulfil the promise they made in their manifesto or not?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
Yes, my Lords, but the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, was talking about a different type of aggravated offence.
Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill
Baroness Williams of Trafford ExcerptsFriday 18th January 2019
(5 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Act 2019 View all Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Act 2019 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 26 October 2018 - (26 Oct 2018)
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend Lady Hodgson for bringing her first Private Member’s Bill forward so eloquently. It includes many important issues that the Government fully support.
Clause 1 seeks to bring forward changes to the way marriages are registered in the future. Under present legislation, the marriage register entry provides space for the name of the father of each person in the couple to be recorded, but of course not that of the mother and this, unbelievably, has been the case since 1837. As my noble friend said, this topic was the subject of a debate in this House last year—I was the Minister who responded to it—when the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans brought forward a Bill containing identical marriage provisions. I would also like to acknowledge the long-standing work of my right honourable friend Dame Caroline Spelman, who has been tireless in her efforts to address this anomaly and introduced identical private provisions on more than one occasion in another place to ensure that the marriage certificate reflects the important role of both parents.
Moving to a schedule system is the most efficient and economical way to introduce these changes and bring forward the biggest reform of how marriages are registered since 1837, moving away from the outdated legislation currently in place. It would remove the requirement for paper registers, currently held in over 30,000 register offices and religious buildings, to registration in an electronic register. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, asked about the savings that would be incurred. I suspect there would be an initial cost, but ultimately, the digitised system would probably bring savings. The basis of a schedule system is that the couple and their witnesses sign a marriage schedule instead of signing the marriage register book. It is worth mentioning here that couples will still be able to have that all-important traditional photo, but instead of signing the marriage register book, they will sign the marriage schedule with their witnesses. My noble friend Lady Anelay rightly asked me to confirm the ministerial commitment to the “Mother/Father/Parent” intention, and I can confirm that when the content is prescribed by the Registrar-General in secondary legislation, it will allow for the different family circumstances in society today. I think noble Lords would agree that this future-proofs any other changes that might occur as society changes.
The noble Lord, Lord Cashman, asked about lessons from New Zealand on the GRA, acknowledging that the GRA is not a subject for discussion here. We have been looking at Google to see exactly what the situation in New Zealand is like, compared to what it might look like here. I will take that away; his advice is always so welcome. I slightly hang my head in shame to think that it was two and a half years ago that we worked on the other Bill together and some of the changes to it that we both so much want to see have not been made. I want to place that on the record.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, talked about humanist marriages. Of course, Clause 1 affects only how marriages are registered; it does not enable wider changes to who can marry or where marriages can take place. The Marriage Act 1949 provides for a premises-based marriage system, as noble Lords will know. The Government consider that legislating in this way would create an anomaly for most couples, who cannot marry outdoors and are restricted to marrying in a register office, or approved premises such as hotels. That is all I will say about humanist marriages for the moment. I know the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, made the point that Private Members’ Bills can be amended, but I think the less a Bill is amended, the more likely it is to secure a passage. I think all noble Lords would agree that all the provisions of the Bill should be taken forward.
Turning to Clause 2, the House will be aware that the introduction of same-sex marriage in 2013 resulted in a situation by which same-sex couples could choose between a marriage or a civil partnership, but opposite-sex couples had only the option of marriage to formalise their relationships. Since then, the Government have carefully considered how to ensure equality of access to civil partnerships for same-sex and opposite-sex couples, and on 2 October, the Prime Minister announced that the Government would extend civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples. I am pleased to say that this firmly remains the intention of the Government, and we look forward to opposite-sex couples being able to form civil partnerships as soon as possible.
As my noble friend stated, while we highly value marriage, we know that for many reasons this is not an arrangement which suits everyone. Many opposite-sex couples have told us that they feel very strongly that marriage is not for them, but they would very much like a civil partnership to formalise their relationship. There are around 3.3 million cohabiting couples in the UK, almost half of them with children and all without the protections and security that a formalised relationship can bring. Extending civil partnerships will ensure that opposite-sex couples will be able to benefit from the protections and security that a civil partnership provides. The Bill gives us the opportunity to carry forward this objective of the delivery of a comprehensive and effective opposite-sex civil partnerships regime at the earliest possible opportunity. I am very optimistic that the Bill may provide scope as a vehicle for extending civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples.
Following its amendment at Third Reading in the other place, Clause 2 now seeks to create a power intended to enable the Government to legislate to equalise access to civil partnership between same-sex couples and other couples in their future ability, or otherwise, to form a civil partnership. The clause also contains a duty on the Government to make the necessary regulations within six months of the Bill reaching Royal Assent, and attempts to define what is meant by “other couples”.
As highlighted by the Minister of State for Immigration at Third Reading, the Government have doubts about the clause’s ability in its current form to deliver an effective and comprehensive opposite-sex civil partnership regime in the time it provides for. In particular, we have some concerns about the lack of detail in the regulation-making power as drafted. We are pleased to be working closely with my noble friend and the Bill’s sponsor in the other place, Tim Loughton, to draft a new amendment to the Bill, which we hope to lay before the House in Committee. This will hopefully address the concerns about the current shape of the clause and ensure that the Bill can deliver a comprehensive and robust opposite-sex civil partnership regime as soon as possible.
The noble Lords, Lord Collins and Lord Cashman, my noble friends Lord Hayward and Lord Lexden, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, all talked about same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland. We all support the aim that it should happen, but it is a devolved issue. I am sure noble Lords will feel like groaning at that comment, but it would be for a democratically elected Assembly to decide whether to introduce same-sex marriage. I note very much my noble friend Lord Hayward’s comments about the DUP’s position on this, but it is why restoring the Northern Ireland Executive remains a top priority. Northern Ireland needs its elected representatives back in government to take these important decisions on the issues that matter most to the people of Northern Ireland.
The noble Lord, Lord Collins, talked about blessings in, for example, the Church of England, which was also mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. We quickly referred to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans to provide expert advice on this. It would be a matter for a minister in the individual church. As a divorced Catholic, I was not able to get remarried in a Catholic Church, but my local priest absolutely understood my desire to have a blessing in my local church and absolutely beautifully obliged in that instance.
On sibling civil partnerships, we do not have any plans to extend civil partnerships to siblings—to brothers and sisters. We will ensure that the extension is restricted to opposite-sex couples in intimate relationships. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, talked about the fiscal consideration that a lot of the lobbying has come from. We have had previous debates on it. We do not intend to move from this position at the moment.
Lord Lexden
Could my noble friend give an indication of the scope of the consultation that the Government have announced, which she confirmed in a Written Answer to me and I raised in the course of my remarks?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I was just coming to that. At this point, officials are working through all the policy issues before the content of any consultation is determined. Therefore, I have to tell my noble friend that I cannot say any more at this stage.
Turning to Clause 3, the Government are committed to ensuring that the NHS provides the safest and highest-quality care possible. This is particularly true for pregnant women. It can be achieved by instilling in the NHS a culture of patient safety, but also by making sure that, when things go so sadly and tragically wrong, we can provide empathetic care and support to bereaved parents and their families to cope with the tragedy of pregnancy loss. I was totally moved by the stories of the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Benjamin. No parent ever wants to go through what they had to go through.
Registration and certification can be an important part of acknowledging a pregnancy loss for some bereaved parents. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, talked particularly about a twin who survives. That can be the only acknowledgement that their bereaved twin ever existed. I thought that was so pertinent. We fully support Clause 3, which provides for a report on whether the law should be changed to require or permit the registration of pre-24-week pregnancy losses. This clause requires the Secretary of State to publish the report.
The Government have already begun work to produce a report on this issue. The pregnancy loss review, commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care, has engaged with many key stakeholders, including parents with lived experience of pregnancy loss, health practitioners, registrars, charities and academic experts with knowledge and experience of pre-24-week pregnancy loss. It is vital that the Government look into this sensitive and timely issue. I encourage Members across the House to support this important clause.
On Clause 4, under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, coroners currently do not have jurisdiction to investigate when a baby has not shown signs of life independently of its mother. Coroners can investigate if there is doubt as to whether a baby was stillborn but must stop if inquiries reveal that the baby was in fact stillborn. There have been calls for coroners to do more than this and to be able to investigate stillbirths, providing a transparent and independent assessment that will contribute to learning and improvements in maternity care. Clause 4 places a duty on the Secretary of State to prepare and publish a report on whether and, if so, how the law ought to be changed to enable or require coroners to investigate stillbirths.
The Government support the clause. We have already committed to look into extending coronial jurisdiction to stillbirths and to see whether there is a role for coroners that could support what is already happening in the NHS. Much work has been done to improve the ways that stillbirths are independently investigated, with learning fed back into practice. Recently, for example, the remit of the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch has been extended to enable investigations of some stillbirths, neonatal and maternal deaths and birth-related brain injuries. But the Government agree that we should look at what coroners can add and produce a report on whether and how they should be involved in investigations.
To that end, officials in the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health and Social Care have been exploring the issues and engaging with stakeholders. These include coroners and the Chief Coroner, medical professionals and academic experts, as well as bereaved parents and representatives from third sector and voluntary sector organisations. It has been invaluable and I add my thanks to those who have contributed. We are making good progress in developing our proposals and we will publish them soon. The sensitive issues and range of views means it is important that we fully consider everything that people have told us. It is also clear that we need to engage with the wider public to hear their views to make sure that any actions we take are the right ones. This clause is a very important step towards that.
This has been an excellent debate and I know that noble Lords recognise the importance of taking forward these changes in some very key and sensitive areas. The Bill will modernise how marriages are registered, introduce the provision for opposite-sex couples to enter into a civil partnership and provide for reports to be produced on whether there should be provision to register pregnancy losses and whether stillbirths should be referred to the coroner. These are key areas of people’s lives.
Stalking Protection Bill
Baroness Williams of Trafford ExcerptsFriday 18th January 2019
(5 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Stalking Protection Act 2019 View all Stalking Protection Act 2019 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 23 November 2018 - (23 Nov 2018)
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, I again thank noble Lords for their contribution to this debate on a much-needed Private Member’s Bill. I thank my noble friend Lady Bertin for bringing it before the House and for her powerful speech, but that is not to take away from the powerful speeches of other noble Lords today. I echo the tribute by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, to John Clough and the families of other victims who cannot lend their own voices to the debate today. I also pay tribute to Dr Wollaston for introducing the Bill and successfully steering it through the other place, and to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Crime, who spoke on behalf of the Government in that Chamber. Their commitment to this has helped garner the cross-party support needed for this Bill to successfully conclude its passage, which—I am pleased to say—has been reflected in today’s debate. It has been very valuable to hear today from so many colleagues who have real-life experience and expertise in this subject.
Speakers today have described very well just what a terrible crime stalking is and the truly devastating effects it can have not only on the victims but, as I have just mentioned, on their families. It is a crime whose individual manifestations can sometimes seem harmless, but where the pattern of behaviour is anything but. It can encompass a large range of behaviours—not only the physical pursuit of a person, which people might tend to think of first, but interference in every aspect of that person’s life. The figures released by the ONS last November on calls to the National Stalking Helpline by people stalked by a family member or former partner make chilling reading. Some 48% of callers had been stalked by text, 41% by letter and a third on social media. Cyberstalking is a particularly unpleasant and uniquely modern manifestation of this crime, and it does not require sophisticated IT skills. In answer to my noble friend Lady Brady, who asked if the Bill is future-proofed to capture just this type of stalking: yes, it is.
The Bill will give society an essential extra tool in tackling stalking. Victims will be spared the pressure of having to apply for an order themselves and the risk of perpetrators threatening them if they do. Orders can be tailored very precisely to the defendant, targeting the particular ways in which they damage their victim’s life and the particular motivations that drive their actions. To answer my noble friend’s question about tagging or other electronic monitoring, I can say that the SPO issued will be particular to the individual. It is not in the Bill because it has a financial implication, but that is not to say that an SPO cannot reflect that a person might have to be monitored.
Those who suffer from mental health problems—many do—may be required to attend a mental health assessment, which should not just help the victim but prevent the stalker’s own behaviour becoming entrenched. The duration and geographical scope of the order may vary, depending on the particular risk the stalker poses. Immediate protection may be provided by an interim order while a case for a longer-term order is assembled. If a person, without good reason, breaches their order or fails to notify their details to the police, they are likely to be prosecuted.
Most importantly, these orders are preventive. Left unchecked, stalking behaviour can become chronic or worsen—as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and I talked about yesterday—in the worst cases leading to terrible results, the sort we have heard about today. Stalking protection orders will allow the courts to intervene early to stop this behaviour at the outset. The regime will be fair and proportionate. Wherever possible, the conditions of an order will not interfere with a person’s work, study or faith. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, made an important point about which is trump—the perpetrator’s ability to work or the victim’s ability to be protected and safeguarded against the stalker? It is clear that the victim’s safety and well-being comes first. I can confirm that today.
Defendants may challenge their orders, seek to vary their conditions and appeal against them. The Government will publish statutory guidance which will help to ensure consistency in their use. It will be a balanced system.
Some specific points were raised when this Bill was most recently debated in the House of Commons. A couple of Members considered that the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, which protects civil nuclear sites and material, should be able to apply for stalking protection orders and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Crime undertook to look at this. Having done so and having consulted with one of the assistant chief constables of that constabulary, we do not consider that there is a need for it to be able to apply for these orders. I know this issue was not mentioned this morning but I thought noble Lords would like an update on it. The CNC does not deal with routine reporting of crime or with criminal investigations. If when on counterterrorist patrol its officers encounter an ordinary criminal incident, they will deal with it only until the local territorial force is able to do so. That force would be able to apply for a stalking protection order should the need arise.
The Minister also undertook to examine the drafting of Clause 1(3), in particular its reference to a person in respect of whom the police may apply for a stalking protection order. Having considered the matter we believe that the drafting is consistent with other provisions in the Bill and does not need amendment. In the statutory guidance on the Bill, which we will publish as mandated by Clause 12, we will provide further clarity on this, as well as making clear the need to share information with the police area where the victim lives if that is different to the area whose force applied for the order.
On the points made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Gale and Lady Royall, about a register of stalkers, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, for her commitment to tackling stalking and for bringing to me people whose lives have been so horrifically affected by it. I again pay tribute to the work of the Cloughs and others to this end. I know that Paladin has been campaigning for a register. The irony of this argument is that the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady Gale, and myself all seek the same end—that stalkers are captured and their activities minimised—and that is the basis of this Bill. Where we differ is that I do not think we need a bespoke register to achieve that. It would be a unique development.
I agree that there is not, for example, a national register solely for sex offenders but there is the dangerous persons database, otherwise known as ViSOR, for offenders who are convicted of specific sexual offences, those convicted of other serious offences for a year or more and those otherwise assessed by the police as potentially dangerous. I have always argued that ViSOR would capture such people. The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, commented in a Question on this subject at the end of last year that it is likely to be impractical to create more registers and he questioned whether a new register would help. The focus should be on making better use of existing systems—which I am committed to doing—rather than creating new ones.
The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, asked about the domestic abuse Bill. I can guarantee that the draft domestic abuse Bill and the domestic abuse White Paper will be published in this Session and that the White Paper will mention the issue of a register. I hope that gives her some hope. We will beg to differ about the method, but not the eventual intent of capturing these dreadful perpetrators.
Almost every noble Lord brought up training. This goes to what some noble Lords mentioned today and something that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and I talked about yesterday, which is cultural shift. Five, 10 or 15 years ago, the police were ill equipped to deal with this type of activity. My noble friend Lady Brady talked about legislation being only part of the solution. She is right. This requires all sorts of interventions, and police training is one of them. To ensure that the front-line response is as good as it can be, the College of Policing will shortly publish refreshed guidance for the police on investigating stalking and harassment, which, as noble Lords have mentioned, are two entirely different things. Training might help police awareness of that.
We will use statutory guidance on the order to increase police understanding of stalking, what stalking behaviour looks like and how it differs from harassment. The recent inspection of HMICFRS and the CPS Inspectorate of the response of the police and the CPS to stalking and harassment showed that there is more to do to ensure that the criminal justice system’s response is as robust as it can be. We are working closely with the police, the CPS and others to address the findings of the report, including through a Home Secretary-chaired national oversight group. We will continue to work with the police and others in the criminal justice system to raise awareness of stalking and to ensure that the appropriate guidance, training and responses are in place.
One or two noble Lords mentioned the importance of a multiagency response. I absolutely agree. My noble friend Lady Couttie is not in her place, but the approach that Westminster has taken to this is not only ground-breaking but is seen as best practice, and I commend the way it operates.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, talked about the orders covering friends and family and mentioned the way in which, having started on an individual, a perpetrator can then intensify the stalking behaviour to affect friends and family. That could be covered, if the court was satisfied that there was a stalking-related risk to those people, which in the example the noble Baroness gave me yesterday there absolutely would be. She talked also about work, and I have addressed that.
The noble Baroness asked me yesterday about the use of DNA as well as fingerprints and photos. I am afraid the answer is no, because the only purpose of this provision is identification. I know exactly the point she was making about future-proofing and future information, but photos and fingerprints enable swift identification and DNA would take some days. The identification requirement in the Bill mirrors those in other notification regimes, such as for sex offenders and people covered by the CT Act 2008, which do not include provision for DNA to be used for identification with notification requirements.
The noble Lord, Lord Low, asked about the reasonableness test and whether the defendant should know that their actions are unwelcome. It is the same test as in stalking criminal legislation and the Protection from Harassment Act. The court must consider necessity, proportionality and Article 8 rights, and the defendant has a right of appeal.
I am very proud to respond to this Second Reading today and proud of some of the actions that the Government have taken to date. We introduced the first specific stalking offences in 2012. We are working with the police and the CPS to ensure that their response to stalking continues to improve, and are overseeing that response through an oversight group led by the Home Secretary. We are also funding a number of really good projects—for example, the national stalking helpline and the Suzy Lamplugh Trust. They are a real lifeline for people who may feel that they have literally no one else to turn to. Through the tampon tax fund, we have given funding to three projects that address stalking, including Black Country Women’s Aid, which is piloting the first specialist support service for victims of stalking in that part of the country and doing research.
I hope that everyone will feel able to support this Bill. The signs so far today are very good. Coupled with the continued improvements in the criminal justice response, it provides an opportunity for us to transform our approach to safeguarding these victims at the earliest possible opportunity. I hope that the Bill will make steady and speedy progress through the House.
Brexit: Proposed UK–EU Security Treaty (European Union Committee Report)
Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, as many noble Lords have alluded to this evening, a week is a long time in politics—and it is only Wednesday. As the noble Lord, Lord Jay, rightly pointed out, we are the calm and thoughtful end of Parliament, and the debate has absolutely reflected that this evening. I am grateful to all those who have spoken. I also take the opportunity to thank the EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee for producing this very good report, Brexit: the Proposed UK-EU Security Treaty. I am grateful for the variety of comments that were made and I echo the point made by the noble Lords, Lord Browne of Ladyton and Lord Kennedy of Southwark: we do not debate this topic nearly enough. It is the most important aspect of our exit from the EU and I totally agree with the noble Lords on that point.
The noble Lords, Lord West and Lord Kennedy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, commented on the fantastic arrangements we have in our co-operation with the EU. I would go further and say that we have led the way in many of the arrangements that we now have. They are absolutely right to be concerned about what that change will mean. It is, in my job, the biggest concern that I have. It is our duty to deliver on the instruction from the British people to leave the European Union, and the best way to do that is obviously with a good deal.
One thing that we should note at the outset is that we are in the happy position of having a good degree of consensus across the political parties and across the two Houses, if not about anything else at least as to what we are looking to achieve from any exit deal from the EU. We all want to protect the operational capabilities that help the police, law enforcement and prosecutors to do their job of protecting the public and bringing criminals to justice. We believe that the UK and the EU have a mutual interest in that outcome. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, talked about the Costa del Crime and clearly there is a mutual interest there, given the number of UK nationals who found—and indeed find—themselves there. We also have a good degree of consensus around what the most important operational capabilities are.
Notwithstanding the week’s events, the report of the noble Lord’s committee stands the test of time—I agree with his point on that—and it raises issues that we will inevitably have to answer as part of our exit. The Government of course agree with the committee’s observation that protecting the safety of millions of UK and EU citizens must be the overriding objective. The committee has highlighted the importance of current security, law enforcement and criminal justice co-operation between the UK and the EU. We recognise that, and have said explicitly that the shared tools, measures and capabilities that have been developed over the last 40 years have been proven to save lives. While we accept that our relationship will change as a result of leaving the EU, the firm view of this Government is that working together through different structures should not be at the expense of protecting the public.
On the question of security co-operation during the implementation period, should we enter an implementation or transition period as provided for in the withdrawal agreement, the UK would continue to participate in the existing EU justice and home affairs tools and would also be able to choose to take part in any measures amending or updating them. The UK would no longer be an EU member state during the implementation period, as the noble Lord, Lord Jay, said. In response to one of the points made by the committee, we absolutely do not underestimate the impact of leaving the EU on the UK’s role in EU institutions. Of course we recognise that relinquishing our membership will carry consequences. However, as set out in the withdrawal agreement, common rules would remain in place and representatives or experts from the UK would continue to participate in the meetings of EU agencies and bodies such as Europol, where the presence of the UK is necessary and in the interest of the Union, or where the discussion concerns Acts addressed to the UK and its citizens.
In the political declaration that was published alongside the withdrawal agreement, the UK reached a deal with the EU that would deliver the broadest and most comprehensive security relationship that the EU has ever had with another country. That would include a framework for our future internal security co-operation. All the operational capabilities on which we would wish to co-operate with the EU in future are within scope of that framework. The future relationship envisaged in the framework would enable us to continue to work closely together on law enforcement and criminal justice; keep people safe in the UK, across Europe and around the world by exchanging information on criminals and tackling terrorism, as noble Lords have said; ensure that we can investigate and prosecute those suspected of serious crime and terrorism; support international efforts to prevent money laundering and counterterrorist financing; and allow us to work together to combat new and evolving threats such as cybercrime.
The text agreed by the UK and the EU also references specific capabilities that we had already agreed should form part of that future relationship, including: the exchange of passenger name records so that we can continue disrupting criminal networks involved in terrorism, serious crime and modern slavery; the exchange of DNA, fingerprint and vehicle registration data, ensuring that law enforcement agencies can quickly investigate and prosecute criminals and terrorists; fast-track extradition to bring criminals to justice quickly wherever they have committed a crime; and continued co-operation with Europol and Eurojust. There is also a commitment to examine further areas of co-operation such as the exchange of information on missing and wanted persons and objects and on criminal records.
Overall, the text of the political declaration reflects a shared commitment on the part of the UK and the EU to a high level of future co-operation in relation to internal security. It is a positive first step that we must build on during the next phase of negotiations, turning those commitments into detailed legal text. When it comes to what that detailed legal text should look like, the noble Lord’s committee took the view with regard to the form of our future agreement that the Government needed to show realism about what could be achieved in the timescale available—and he made that point this evening. The committee concluded that time is short, and that it would be preferable for the Government to seek a number of ad hoc security agreements rather than a single, comprehensive one. In their response, as he knows, the Government disagreed with that conclusion.
In our view, the capabilities developed by the EU and its member states are mutually reinforcing, from the initial stages of identification and investigation of a suspect through to arrest, prosecution and prisoner management. As the committee highlighted, there are synergies between different EU tools, with many working together to provide an integrated system to identify, pursue and prosecute criminals and terrorists. That is one reason why the Government consider that a piecemeal approach based on ad hoc agreements would have a more limited value than an overarching, comprehensive agreement on internal security. We also expect a comprehensive agreement of the kind that the Government have proposed to help ensure that we maintain a dynamic relationship in this area that can meet the evolving threats faced by the UK and the EU. In contrast, ad hoc agreements on individual capabilities would likely be static and frozen in time, even as technologies and threats change.
We are very clear on what will make for an efficient negotiation in the time available. The UK’s proposals that were set out in last year’s White Paper would allow co-operation to take place on the basis of existing EU measures, with negotiations focusing principally on the overarching provisions and safeguards in a comprehensive agreement. In our view, this would lead to a faster and more efficient negotiation than having to tackle the same issues over and again in a collection of agreements on individual capabilities.
Lord West of Spithead
I am slightly confused. The Minister mentioned that this would be done in a piecemeal way and that that was slightly better. Now she is talking about an overarching agreement. What are we actually going for, piecemeal or overarching?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
We are going for overarching. I think the point I made was that we disagreed over an ad hoc approach, and that moreover we wanted an overarching approach. I will just look at my notes to make sure that I am not contradicting myself; I hope I am not.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, I am reluctant to intervene on the Minister—I think we are all conscious of the time—but I have been listening carefully to what she has said, and she seems to have represented the provisions of the political declaration as being agreed. I am not going to go through all its paragraphs but I have copied down three active verbs from three of them, and they are very important. One of them is “consider further”, one is,
“work together to identify the terms for the United Kingdom’s cooperation”,
and the third is “consider how”, and whether,
“the United Kingdom could contribute”.
To me, that does not imply or state agreement on anything; it just says, “We can talk about these things”. They are all aspirational. Nothing is agreed and, set against Michel Barnier’s clear and specific speech in Vienna in June last year, it cannot be agreed. Some of the issues that the Minister has suggested can be agreed cannot legally be agreed by the EU because we are not part of the ecosystem.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I hope noble Lords will forgive me; I talked about the political agreement as it stands. I am talking about this at a certain point in time—with cognisance of what is happening in another place—so I am talking about the Government’s hopes and aspirations. We have conducted the debate so far in an utterly civilised manner, which is refreshing, so I hope that the noble Lord will accept this in that context.
Lord Soley
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but she needs to follow up on the “ad hoc” bit. In her answer to the point from the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, I originally understood her to say that the Government were looking at an ad-hoc arrangement on the European arrest warrant, yet she now seems to be saying something different. Maybe she needs to take this away and come back on it. This is very important because the European arrest warrant is not something we can do quickly.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
If the noble Lord will indulge me, I will talk about the European arrest warrant when I answer points raised by noble Lords. Perhaps that will clarify it; if it does not, I will come back to noble Lords in writing.
The noble Lords, Lord Jay and Lord West, and my noble friend Lord Kirkhope all talked about data. I made the point earlier about the huge data flows that come from the UK across to the EU. I absolutely accept the point and share their view on the importance of continued data sharing following our withdrawal from the EU. The EU, with the UK and its member states, has established unrivalled mechanisms for the exchange of law enforcement data on a daily basis, as the noble Lord, Lord West, pointed out. Our operational partners have made clear to this and other Select Committees how crucial this data is in our efforts to fight cross-border crime and prevent terrorism.
On the UK securing an agreement on data protection with the EU, we start from a position of trust in each other’s standards and regulatory alignment on data protection. The Data Protection Act 2018—which the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and I were involved in—and the adoption of the general data protection regulation strengthened UK data protection standards. I can quite safely say that we often surpass what is required of EU states. We were also one of the first countries to successfully implement the law enforcement directive. This provides a unique starting point for an extensive agreement on the exchange of personal data that builds on the existing adequacy framework. We believe that the EU’s adequacy framework provides the right starting point for the arrangements that the UK and the EU should agree on data protection, and the political declaration notes that the adequacy decision will form the basis of future data transfers between the UK and the EU. It also outlines that the Commission is committed to starting this assessment as soon as possible after exit day, with the intention to have a decision in place by the end of 2020; that commitment is relevant to the committee’s concerns about the sequencing of negotiations on data and security.
The committee and the noble Lord, Lord Jay, also reiterated the concern about the cliff edge and there being no mechanism in the draft withdrawal agreement for extending the implementation period. Both the UK and the EU agree that the implementation period has to be time limited, and the legal text sets an end date of 31 December 2020. However, the withdrawal agreement now also includes the possibility to extend the implementation period by mutual agreement of the parties. The committee highlighted the possibility of a security cliff edge, whether at the end of March or at the end of the implementation period. As the House would expect, the continued safety and security of both UK and EU citizens remains our top priority. This is why we are preparing for all eventualities, including the no-deal scenario that we are all seeking to avoid.
As part of our planning for such a scenario, we are preparing to move co-operation to alternative, non-EU mechanisms which we already use for co-operating with many non-EU countries. Broadly speaking, this would mean more use of Interpol, Council of Europe conventions and other forms of co-operation with European partners, such as bilateral channels. They are tried and tested avenues, so we are in a slightly different position in this area compared to those areas in which we are having to put in place new and unprecedented arrangements. We are none the less clear that these contingency arrangements will not be like-for-like replacements of the EU tools and would result in a reduction of mutual capability.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
Will the noble Lord indulge me, as I am really running out of time? I have not said half of what I wanted to say. If the House will allow me to have a few additional minutes, I will write to noble Lords on any outstanding points.
The Government’s White Paper outlined that our future security relationship should be underpinned by appropriate safeguards, including respect for human rights—which the noble Lords, Lord Anderson and Lord Kennedy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, spoke about—comprehensive data protection arrangements and robust, appropriate governance arrangements. The UK is committed to membership of the European Convention on Human Rights and we believe that an agreement should include a mutual commitment to individuals’ rights. We are clear that we will remain party to the ECHR after leaving the EU. In line with this, the text of the political declaration recognises that appropriate reciprocal safeguards must be put in place to ensure that individual rights are protected and disputes can be effectively resolved. It is also clear that our future relationship must include an appropriate balance of rights and obligations; safeguards must be appropriate to the level of co-operation taking place.
I will now turn to some specific points raised; I will go over time. The noble Lord, Lord Jay, the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and others talked about there being no reference to SIS II or ECRIS in the political declaration. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, who talked about policing, raised concerns that the UK would be less safe without them. Under the terms of the withdrawal agreement, we will continue to use EU tools and data platforms, including SIS II and ECRIS, for the duration of the transition period. The political declaration text reflects that the UK and the EU have agreed to continue to exchange information on wanted or missing persons and objects and on criminal records, and that our future relationship should include capabilities which allow for that.
A number of noble Lords voiced their concerns about the European arrest warrant, and whether we will still be able to use it. Basically, the UK and the EU have agreed to establish arrangements enabling the UK and member states to surrender suspected and convicted persons efficiently and expeditiously. The political declaration also provides the basis for agreeing surrender arrangements, including streamlined procedures and time limits maximising the effectiveness of such arrangements. Both the UK and the EU recognise the importance of continued, close and effective operational co-operation on extradition. The legal vehicle through which co-operation in this and other areas will be delivered will be for the next phase of negotiations. I hope that answers the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and the noble Lords, Lord Anderson, Lord Kennedy and Lord Jay.
The noble Lords, Lord Jay and Lord Kennedy, talked about security co-operation in Ireland and Northern Ireland and its historical importance. I totally agree with them on the importance of that. The comprehensive security partnership we are seeking with the EU will include the Republic of Ireland, ensuring that this important co-operation can continue.
The noble Lord, Lord Jay, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, talked about the role of the CJEU after exit. The UK has said that, while it will be outside the direct jurisdiction of the CJEU, it is prepared to make commitments with respect to the CJEU as set out in the White Paper. This is reflected in the political declaration, in which we have made it clear that the closer and deeper the partnership, the stronger the accompanying obligations.
The noble Lords, Lord Ricketts, Lord Soley, Lord Browne of Ladyton and Lord Bach, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, talked about contingency planning. We are working intensively with operational partners to ensure we are ready and well placed to make best use of the alternative channels with EU member states. We are not complacent and will continue to work closely with them as we put those plans into action.
I am sorry to go back to the European arrest warrant, but the noble Lord, Lord Jay, asked about live cases. The requests we have made will be a matter for EU member states. The Home Office and our operational partners are engaging with our counterparts in EU member states to find out how they intend to handle live cases at the point we leave. Our overall objective in this area, shared by our counterparts in Europe, is to minimise disruption to operational work. The legislation is quite clear on incoming requests. Under the Extradition Act, if we make an arrest on an EAW the court proceedings have to continue under that part of the Extradition Act. In these cases as well, our overall aim will be to ensure that cases are handled without disruption.
I have run out of time. There are a number of questions that I have yet to address. This has been an excellent debate. I hope the other place has listened to the civilised way we have conducted ourselves. I will write to noble Lords fully on the questions I have not yet answered. I thank noble Lords for taking part in the debate.
Brexit: EU Citizens in the UK
Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Greaves
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what support they are giving to citizens of European Union countries who have been resident in the United Kingdom since before the United Kingdom joined the European Economic Community.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, European Union citizens make a huge contribution to our economy and society, and we want them to stay. The Government are making it as easy as possible for all EU citizens to secure their status after Brexit, and for long-term residents a number of simple options are available for them to do so.
Lord Greaves (LD)
My Lords, the purpose of asking this topical Question is to raise an issue highlighted by elderly Italian people living in Bradford. The BBC’s “Inside Out” programme in Yorkshire on Monday evening covered this admirably. I am talking about Italians, particularly ladies, who came to Bradford as mill girls 60 years ago and are now therefore mainly in their 80s. One of them said:
“We are foreigners in Italy, we are foreigners over here”.
They are old people; they are racked by dismay and anxiety. Many of them do not know what to do and are astonished that they have to apply for something which was granted to them—the right to live in this country—when they first came. On 15 January, the Bradford Telegraph & Argus had a headline: “Bradford Italians gripped by Brexit fear”. Do the Government understand that this group of people is in exactly the same position as the Windrush people? They are old and do not need the worry in their lives, which may put some of them into what a long time ago people called a decline. What are the Government doing to withdraw those threats from them and simply to leave them alone?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for advance notice of his concern about this. Like any EEA nationals who settled in the UK before 1973, the Italians in Bradford already have indefinite leave to remain and do not need to apply to the EU settlement scheme. They can if they want make a free application to the Windrush scheme for documentation to confirm that status. In any event, the Windrush scheme is open to a person of any nationality who arrived in the UK before 31 December 1988 and believes that they have settled status in the UK.
Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)
My Lords, is the noble Baroness saying that the Italians in Bradford have nothing to worry about?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the Minister may know that some of these Italian women were recruited directly by Salts Mill to work in Saltaire. When I first moved there with my family, we had Italian-born as well as Polish-born neighbours. There is real concern among these elderly people, who in most cases have British citizens as their children and grandchildren. Many of them have been in care homes for several years and do not find filling in forms easy. I heard a TUC representative from Yorkshire describe the settled status scheme as an absolute shambles in Yorkshire. Is there anything that the Government can do to ease the anxieties of those people by making it absolutely clear that they are guaranteed settled status for the rest of their lives?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the Government have made it abundantly clear that these people are welcome to stay. There are a number of routes open to them to confirm that status and the Government are doing everything we can to make this process as easy as possible. Of course, any party of government has a lesson to learn from the history of the Windrush generation, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, says, and we do not want a repeat of that.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, the noble Baroness’s Answer is partly reassuring, but how will we ensure that people in their 80s are aware of this? People just do not know. What are the Government doing to make sure that people are aware?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, there has been quite a lot of highlighting of this, both in the press and by the Government. The Government will open the public phase of the registration scheme on the 21st of this month and we hope that more people will sign up to it; thousands have done so already.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, is the Minister confident that nothing done by any government department or agency of government has contributed to provoking this anxiety? If she is confident of that, why?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, we have the lessons of history to learn and certainly the Windrush scandal—which happened, of course, over decades—helped in that endeavour. As time has gone on and identity assurance is much more important in the digital age, so these schemes will add to the confidence of both the public and the Government that we are assuring the right of people to be here and their identity.
The Lord Bishop of Leeds
My Lords, is it possible that the language could be changed? I spoke to a German woman who has been here for 67 years and finds the language of “You may be allowed to stay” quite difficult, as opposed to “You belong”, when she has children and grandchildren, she has been a taxpayer and all that. This goes deeper than simply being allowed to stay.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The right reverend Prelate is right, it goes deeper than the right to stay; it is “You are welcome to stay”. This country is most welcoming, hence the influx of immigration into this country, because it is such a great place to live.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, I was somewhat stunned yesterday evening to hear the first thing the Prime Minister said after the withdrawal agreement went down in the House of Commons: that EU citizens were most anxious to know what was going to happen and to have certainty. Surely the Government could have given certainty to EU nationals, whether they arrived before 1973 or afterwards, before now. What certainty are they able to give? It is vital to give it immediately.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I think it is clear that, deal or no deal, those people are welcome here.
Immigration: Removal Centres
Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Roberts of Llandudno
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how long the longest serving person currently detained in an immigration removal centre has been held in detention; and what is the longest time a person has been so detained since 2014.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, unpublished management information shows that the longest-serving person currently detained has been held for three years and that the longest period of detention since 2014 is six years and eight months. That individual was released in October 2017. In each case the detainees were foreign national offenders convicted of very serious offences, including serious violence and serious sexual offending. I am confident that our reforms will prevent such long periods of detention being necessary, while not lessening our determination to remove foreign national offenders.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister accept that only we and the Republic of Ireland have no maximum timeframe for detention? Does she also accept what the United Nations action group on arbitrary detention stated:
“Lack of knowledge about the end date of detention is seen as one of the most stressful aspects of immigration detention, in particular for stateless persons and migrants who cannot be removed for legal or practical reasons”?
Is this not only indefinite detention but indefinite hopelessness? Should not we in the United Kingdom agree with the remainder of Europe, apart from Ireland, that we will put an end to it so that everybody will know exactly what the prospects are for their release?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the law does not allow indefinite detention. It is our view that a fixed, arbitrary time limit on detention would actually serve only to encourage individuals to frustrate the removal procedures in order to reach a point at which they would have to be released.
Baroness Bryan of Partick
My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, for that rush of enthusiasm. I visited Dungavel detention centre in south Lanarkshire when it was a prison and as prisons go, it was not such a bad place. Since it became a detention centre, however, it has changed considerably. It is surrounded by barbed wire and looks much more like a prison for serious offenders than a place to house people who could be vulnerable and could be there without knowing how long they are to be detained. Why has it been necessary to make conditions worse for asylum seekers than they were for prisoners?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I refute the point that conditions for asylum seekers are worse than for prisoners. The detention estate has reduced by some 40% in recent years, so we are holding far fewer people in detention, and 95% of individuals who are asked to leave the country because they are not here legally do not actually find themselves in the detention estate.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, can the Minister say whether the welcome progress made in reducing the numbers of families in immigration removal centres during the coalition Government has been sustained? How many such families are still detained? Would she care to write to me on this point?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I will write to the noble Earl with exact figures, but I know that the number of families has definitely reduced in the detention estate and they are separate from individuals in the detention estate.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, once again the Minister insists that there is no indefinite detention in law. The dictionary definition of “indefinite” is “without fixed or specified limit”. Can she tell us what the fixed or specified limit is in law on general detention?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The other definition of indefinite is “unlimited” and I cannot find any examples of someone who has found themselves in detention for an unlimited period. For the reasons I outlined to the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, we do not want to put an arbitrary time limit on detention.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, Stonewall and the UK Lesbian & Gay Immigration Group brought out a report called No Safe Refuge, which shows that those claiming asylum based on their sexual identity or gender identity who are put in detention suffer from prejudice, physical and sometimes sexual abuse. What is the Minister doing to ensure that this does not happen? Will she follow best practice from across the world that uses non-detention approaches for such vulnerable people?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
Of course, that was something that Stephen Shaw recommended, and an R35 assessment is made before someone goes into the detention estate. I read that report, although unfortunately it was not attributed; I spoke to LGBT organisations about it and we worked through some of the issues. Also, as the noble Lord will know, we have worked with LGBT organisations extensively, including Stonewall, to ensure that conditions and training within the detention estate are sensitive to LGBT people who find themselves in detention.