Queen’s Speech

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is of course an honour to speak in the debate on the gracious Speech. I rise to speak about women and equalities, and the effects this Speech will have in that area. I fear that the Queen’s Speech, unfortunately, will do nothing to make Britain a more equal place. By failing to deliver for women and disabled people, making no mention of LBGT+ people and having no plan to break down the barriers that black, Asian and minority ethnic people face, it holds our whole country back.

More immediately, the Government are breaking the promise to ban all forms of conversion therapy. Ignoring the advice of experts from the BMA, the mental health charity Mind and many others, they are ploughing ahead with an absurd consent loophole that will make a mockery of any ban and discriminate against trans people. And disabled people barely get a mention anywhere, even though they are far more likely to bear the brunt of the cost of living crisis.

Turning to the record of the Home Office and the Department of Justice on women and equalities, the brief to which I am turning my attention as a member of the Opposition’s women and equalities team, I want to raise the rights Bill, as other noble Lords have, and the long-awaited victims Bill that were in the gracious Speech. These changes seem to me—I speak, of course, as a non-lawyer and not part of the club—to have an adverse effect, and possibly adverse impacts, on victims of crime, particularly of crimes of violence against women and girls and similar offences against men. That seems contrary to the Government’s policy of ending violence against women and girls—the latest strategy is very welcome —and having a justice system that works for victims.

What the Government propose at present seems to remove the ability of victims to assert their rights. Can the Minister assure the House that this is not an unintended consequence, since surely the Government intend to enhance victims’ rights, not reduce and damage them? The draft rights Bill contains the potential loss of positive obligations, which is a most serious issue for victims of crime, as my noble friend Lady Kennedy said in her speech. Positive obligations require the state not to breach human rights and also impose an obligation on the state to be active in protecting people’s human rights.

I thank the Victims’ Commissioner’s website for this example of positive obligations, because it seems obvious. One of the best-known instances of the use of violence against women victims, and the obligation to protect them, was the claim brought against the Metropolitan Police concerning the taxi driver rapist John Worboys’ victims. The Supreme Court held that the police’s significant failure properly to investigate Worboys’ actions had breached the state’s obligation to protect the women from inhuman and degrading treatment—that is, rape—within Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The question I have to ask the Minister is: would the Worboys case be possible under the Government’s proposals as they stand?

That becomes even more pertinent when one reflects on the Government’s abject failure to protect women and girls from sexual assault. We know that 20% of women have been raped or sexually assaulted as an adult, yet rape convictions continue to decrease. There were 1,917 fewer rapists convicted in the year December 2019 to December 2020 than in 2016-17—a decline of 64%—although the percentage of victims dropping out of increasingly lengthy investigations and trial processes has rocketed from 25% five years ago to 43% in 2020. The murders of Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa and many others have reignited the national conversation about the safety of women and girls in Britain. That begs the question of the Minister: does this Queen’s Speech seriously address those concerns?

Let us look at women in prison. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, who spoke about the imprisonment of women with children for non-violent offences, was absolutely correct to say that it is costly, counterproductive and cruel to them and their families. The Ministry of Justice’s 2018 Female Offender Strategy has been critiqued by the National Audit Office, and more recently the Public Accounts Committee, for its lack of value for money, lack of effectiveness and lack of durable change. Given the shortfalls of implementation to date, what steps will the MoJ take to respond to ensure that its strategy is successful in meeting its aims in the future?

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons yesterday published a report on HMP Bronzefield, Europe’s largest female prison, finding that 65% of inmates released from there did not have sustainable accommodation when they were released, thereby increasing the likelihood that they would end up back in prison.

Black, Asian and other ethnic minority young women face greater barriers in accessing safety and support, and overlapping forms of stigma and discrimination put them at greater risk of criminalisation. Can the Minister say when Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service will release its new young women’s strategy, and what resources will be dedicated to its implementation and delivery? What steps will the Government take to reduce the risk of increasing levels of racial inequality and disproportionality in future, as part of their current and future legislative programme?

Finally, in this proposed legislation, will there be a scrutiny that can depend on equality impact assessments that we can see in advance? Across this House we will certainly be looking for that.