Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Sarah Champion and Kit Malthouse

Monday 13th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

Exactly right. My hon. Friend brings me neatly on to new clause 16, which deals with that matter.

I know that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, have been an aficionado of my political career, so you will know that, 15 years ago I was charged with getting rid of prostitutes’ cards in telephone boxes. It was costing Westminster council about a quarter of a million pounds a year to remove these things, and so I was given the job of getting rid of them. We tried clearing them out and putting up false cards so that people were misdirected. We tried all sorts of things. In the end, the only solution that we came up with that we and BT felt would work was barring the numbers. I visited all the mobile companies and, as people had landlines in those days, all the landline companies as well—NTL, BT and all the rest. I said to them, “When we notify you of this number, we would like you to bar it.” They said, “We will not do that, but we will if you manage to make placing the cards an offence.” They thought that I would give up at that stage, as there would be too much of a mountain to climb. None the less, we decided to have a go, and so ensued a two-year campaign to get that offence on the statute book.

During those two years, I learned the truth about prostitutes’ cards and, indeed, the advertising of prostitution generally. Effectively, being allowed to advertise for free and in an unrestricted way on our streets, in the back of our newspapers and online is organised crime. When someone gets one of these numbers, they are ringing not a prostitute who is a victim, but a switchboard. When they ring the number and say what they want, they will get a menu of women—mostly it is women—trafficked or otherwise, of all ages, creeds and races. They can pick from the menu. Those numbers then gather a bit of value. Once someone is a punter and they have used the number and got what they wanted, they will use it again and again and again.

I started to learn that understanding the economics behind these telephone numbers is key to how we can eradicate them. Once we realise that these numbers carry a value and that there is a stream of income attached to them, it becomes even more pressing that we should bar them. When we add to that the fact that the printing of the cards, the advertising, and the websites also cost money—prostitutes’ cards are printed in the hundreds of thousands to make them incredibly cheap—we can see why making it dangerous to advertise a telephone number could become an extremely effective deterrent. If they advertise a number that is gathering income, and it is barred within 24 hours, they lose all of that income. Hitting them in the pocket is the most effective way to do it.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Just for clarity, behind every one of those numbers is a woman who very, very often might have been abused as a child or trafficked into the country. They might have an incredibly violent pimp who is working her. Is the hon. Gentleman looking to prosecute the woman who, in my experience, is usually the victim and not the belle de jour that is often presented, or is he going after the pimps, the manipulators and the gang leaders that are behind it all?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am absolutely not targeting the women at all. This is about the organised crime that is creating the number, printing the card, placing the card, and victimising the woman. It is about cutting off their access to cash, and therefore restricting their ability to build a business off the back of this free advertising.

Eventually, after a two-year campaign, we got the offence made illegal. I was helped by friends in the House of Lords. The night that it was enacted by Her Majesty the Queen, we arrested the first carder—an Italian law student. I remember it well. He was bailed and disappeared back to Italy. The very next week, I had a meeting with the mobile phone companies and they completely welched on the deal. They did not realise that we would get it done, and that by campaigning for two years and by having a bit of gumption, we would manage to achieve our goal.

[Kit Malthouse]

I do unreservedly withdraw it. It was an unfortunate use of the word. I think that the spelling is different, but the hon. Gentleman is quite right. Let me say that the phone companies reneged on the deal—I ask him to forgive me. It is a word in common parlance, but I should not have used it.

The phone companies completely reneged on the deal. As a result, I have been waiting for the opportunity to try to put to the Government the idea that there is this solution to the problem. I present here a simple solution, which is, effectively, if the chief officer of police finds a number being advertised in their area for the purposes of prostitution, they can apply to a magistrate to have the number barred. That means that both the police officer and the magistrate have to judge whether that is a measured thing to do; it is not automatic. It is for the police to decide. I would advise the police officers to warn the owner of the number that this is about to happen before they do it. It is a relatively simple solution, and I guarantee that it will result in the disappearance of these cards from Liverpool, Manchester, the west end or wherever they may be.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is right that the scheme could be extended. There could be numbers used for dealing drugs and for selling cigarettes. Numbers for prostitution and drugs could be on the internet. People can access such numbers quite freely at the moment. We need to cut the numbers. If we do it swiftly, we will certainly go a huge way towards suppressing the activity and making it difficult for criminal and customer to connect. I do not intend to press my amendment to a vote, but I ask the Government to look at it—the Minister has promised to do so—and hopefully it will come back in the Lords.

I have tabled another two new clauses. You will have noticed, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I have had a theme during my time in this House, which is the protection of children. It has alarmed me for some time that the legislation protecting children is elderly, out of date and very patchy. The offence of child cruelty, which I am seeking to raise the tariff for tonight, dates back to the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. It still includes things such as allowing a child to be burned, which used to arise when we sent them up chimneys. The legislation is very elderly and is really not fit for purpose. The last time the sentence for child cruelty was looked at was in 1988. We have not looked at it for nearly 30 years, and yet the number of offences is rising quite significantly. Clearly, the deterrent effect is not working. I am given to understand that the Sentencing Council will review child cruelty over the coming summer. If it does so, we are duty bound to try to give it a bit of headroom and move the tariff up from 10 years to 14 years for the most severe offences.

New clause 15 is about reviewing all child offences. We have been very good in the House in seeking to protect vulnerable groups by legislation generally. If someone commits a crime against someone who is gay because they are gay, they will get an aggravated sentence. Similarly, if they commit a crime against someone who is black because they are black, they will get an aggravated sentence. If they commit an offence against someone on the grounds of their religion, they will get an aggravated sentence. Yet if they commit an offence against a child because they are a child, they will not necessarily get an aggravated sentence.

Children are not a protected group in law, unlike other minority and vulnerable groups, and they should be. I am grateful to Public Bill Office for helping me try to draft an amendment that would allow me to do that. The best way that we could find to do it was to require the Sentencing Council to review all offences for children within 12 months, to allow us all to have our say about aggravating the sentences when offences are committed against children.

I have attempted to insert this principle in previous Bills—principally, in the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. Sadly, the Government would not accept my amendment, which would have ensured that anyone who sold a psychoactive substance to a child would get a stiffer sentence than if they sold it to a 55-year-old man. It seems crazy to me that that would not happen, but the Government would not accept the amendment, so this is my attempt to do something similar.

All my amendments are probing. I am willing to give the Government time, in consultation, to look at them again. I hope that they will come back in the Lords, but if they do not, I gather that, pleasingly, we get a policing and crime Bill along in the House once every six months, so I will get another chance. On that basis, I hope that my hon. Friends will look at the amendments at least and give them a thumbs-up for future consideration.

[Sarah Champion]

I rise to speak predominantly to new clauses 6, 10, 41 and 60, which have been tabled by Opposition Front Benchers. The intention behind the new clauses is to provide stronger safeguards against the sexual exploitation and abuse of children and to disrupt the perpetrators of those heinous crimes before they have the opportunity to destroy a child’s life.

I start with new clause 6, which relates to the extension of child abduction warning notices, known as CAWNs, which are a vital tool for the police in the prevention of the abuse and exploitation of children. CAWNs are issued by the police at the request of a parent or legal guardian. They disrupt contact between a child and an adult believed to be in the process of grooming that child for sex. Currently, the police can issue a CAWN in relation to any child under the age of 16, but only a tiny minority of 16 and 17-year-olds, including children who have been taken into care under section 31 of the Children Act 1989, those who are subject to an emergency protection order and those in police protection. All other 16 and 17-year-olds are left unprotected.

By definition, children in care are vulnerable. The last available annual statistics show that 4,320 16 and 17-year-olds who became looked after by the local authority would not be eligible for the protection of a child abduction warning notice. The Minister has previously expressed some scepticism about the proposals to extend the use of those notices to all children in care. I recognise the sensitivities about the law in this area, given that 16 and 17-year-olds are legally able to marry and consent to sexual activity, but that group of children—yes, they are legally children—are living unstable and risky lives. They face a significantly greater risk of sexual exploitation than others and are targeted by adults who exploit their vulnerability, yet the police are denied access to a critical intervention tool that would help to keep them safe.

I agree with the Minister that CAWNs are an imperfect tool, but we agree that children of any age, including those who are 16 and 17, must be able to rely on the state for protection. For three years, I have been pushing successive Ministers to find a solution. The way to deal with complex issues is not to avoid them altogether. We need to persevere and collaborate so that we can find the best possible solutions. It is vital that we get legislation to protect all children up to the age of 18 from abuse, and it is important that we get that legislation right. I know that the Minister is not minded to support new clause 6, so what assurances can she give us that the Government plan to ensure that children up to the age of 18 are protected from the early stages of sexual grooming?

Next, I turn my attention to new clause 60, which, unlike new clause 6, relates to the existing use of child abduction warning notices by the police. CAWNs are not legally enforceable. Breaching a notice is not a criminal offence but does form an evidence base for future action. That further action, according to Government guidance, is meant to take the form of a sexual harm prevention order or a sexual risk order, both of which require a higher threshold to use. They are legally enforceable and punishable with criminal sanctions.

In theory, that is a good system. It allows the police to intervene formally to prevent harm at the earliest possible stage when concerns have been expressed about an adult’s behaviour towards a child. Even when demonstrable evidence is sparse, the police have the ability to take further action, using the breach of a CAWN as evidence. The police currently have the tools to escalate their response to keep, and continue to keep, a child safe. The problem is that police forces in England and Wales are failing to record the breach of a child abduction warning notice. Indeed, they are failing to record the issuing of a notice in the first place and the actions that follow from that breach.