Crime and Policing Bill

Cameron Thomas Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 17th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)]

I begin by once again welcoming the Bill. It will deliver so much for my constituents by protecting people from crime and enabling tough action on antisocial behaviour, including in areas that have too long been labelled “low level” and ignored, such as the illegal off-road bikes that constituents so often raise with me.

The Bill will introduce mandatory reporting for child sexual abuse—one of the key recommendations of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, or IICSA. This is a long-overdue measure, which has long been called for by our Labour Home Secretary and Prime Minister personally. However, I remain concerned that the Government are not going far enough on the issue of mandatory reporting. I have therefore tabled three amendments to the Bill on that subject—amendments 10, 11 and 22—on which I will focus my speech today.

Amendments 10, 11 and 22 are not intended to change Government policy—quite the opposite. They are intended to deliver the Government’s stated policy to implement the IICSA recommendations relevant to the Home Office in full. The Home Secretary stated in January that that was the Government’s intention, and reaffirmed that just yesterday, responding with a firm “yes” to my question after her statement on whether it remained Government policy to implement the recommendations in full.

However, there are three significant gaps in our plans to implement recommendation 13 on mandatory reporting, where the Bill does not deliver what IICSA recommended. With these gaps, I am concerned that the duty to report will be ineffective in some of the settings where it is most needed. My concern applies to religious groups in particular. I will use the example of the Jehovah’s Witnesses—the religious group I grew up in—to illustrate how and why.

Jehovah’s Witnesses have a deep cultural distrust of secular authorities, which, as happens in a lot of religious groups, leads to a culture of dealing with everything internally, including child sexual abuse, and reporting nothing to the police. Their internal processes for doing so are atrocious. Jehovah’s Witnesses have something called the “two witness rule”, which means that no action is taken on any report of wrongdoing unless there are two witnesses to it. There are never two witnesses to child sexual abuse. I give that context to highlight why the mandatory duty to report must be absolutely watertight, as IICSA recommended, to prevent people in the leadership of organisations like the Jehovah’s Witnesses from avoiding it.

I will cover the three gaps in turn. First, there are no criminal sanctions if someone does not comply with the duty. I understand that the Government are proposing professional sanctions, such as a referral to the Disclosure and Barring Service and to relevant professional regulators, but that is not set out in the Bill and would apply to only a fraction of people under the duty. It would not, for example, do much in religious settings, where so many of the failings are happening, and where the duty would, if constructed properly, help immensely to protect children.

IICSA was clear that failure to comply should be a criminal offence, and amendment 10 would make that the case. It proposes a fine as the appropriate sanction, which is in line with best practice overseas. Many other countries—France, Australia, parts of Canada and so on—have introduced mandatory reporting, and many have done so with criminal sanctions of this kind. While the Government will likely say that criminal sanctions could have a chilling effect that would stop people going into professions that work with children, the international evidence clearly shows that this does not happen—in the Australian state of Victoria, for instance. Professor Ben Mathews has done extensive research on mandatory reporting laws and their efficacy, which I thoroughly encourage the Minister to ask officials to examine.

The second gap relates to those who come under the duty to report. IICSA recommended that the duty should apply first to anyone working in regulated activities with children under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, and the Bill uses that criterion—tick. However, IICSA also recommended that it should apply to anyone in a position of trust over a child, as defined by the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which the Bill does not include. Amendment 22 would make it so.

The Bill sets out a list of relevant activities in part 2 of schedule 8, which replicates about 90% of what is in the Sexual Offences Act. However, that missing 10% is critical; for a start, it includes sports coaches and teachers, which schedule 8 does not. Going back to my earlier example, section 22A of the Sexual Offences Act includes a very effective definition of religious leaders. Schedule 8 does include a definition of religious leaders, but requires such people to have “regular unsupervised contact” with children to be subject to the duty. That qualification will allow virtually any religious leader—be they paid clergy or a volunteer elder, like in the Jehovah’s Witnesses—to escape the duty, as very few have regular unsupervised contact with children, despite being in a significant position of power and influence.

I personally know at least one person who was sexually abused as a child in that organisation. When they went to speak to religious leaders about it, in the presence of their parents—not unsupervised—they were advised that going to the police would mean bringing reproach on God’s name. So no report was made, by either the victim or their family, or by those religious elders. That is commonplace.

Under the Bill as drafted, there is no sanction for that. Those elders are not mandated reporters; even if they were, the proposed offence in clause 73 of stopping someone else from making a report—an offence I very much welcome, for the record—applies only to other mandated reporters. If, therefore, someone pressures a victim or their parents not to make a report, that will not be illegal. That offence needs to be broadened, too.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is calling for the Government to consider a broader offence of concealing child sexual abuse, to which I urge the Government to give serious consideration. I will give more detail on that later, if there is time.

[Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is making very important points, in particular on the Jehovah’s Witnesses cult. One of the methods Jehovah’s Witnesses use to ensure that issues like this do not escape from the organisation is threatening individuals with the act of disfellowshipping—being cut off from all communication with their own family. I wonder whether he will go a little further in recognising that, too.

[Sam Carling]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. I am very pleased that other hon. Members in the House are aware of that issue, which is something I am trying to do some work on separately. It is certainly relevant to what I am discussing. To give the House a little more context on that, through the act of disfellowshipping, when the organisation decides that someone has committed a serious sin, it can essentially tell all their family and friends to cut them off permanently; the same applies if an individual chooses simply to leave the religion. Disfellowshipping is very rarely applied to perpetrators of crimes, and is more often applied to the victims who report them. It is an enormous problem that has to be dealt with, and I look forward to engaging with the hon. Member further on that.

As I highlighted on Second Reading, the Australian royal commission that investigated the organisation’s handling of abuse cases found that while allegations had been documented by religious elders against 1,006 individuals in Australia alone, not a single one was reported to the police. We must tighten up this definition and ensure that it includes religious leaders. The Government could do so by amending the definition in paragraph 17 of part 2 of schedule 8, and by adding a further item to the list in relation to sports professionals to deal with that point as well. However, the much neater and stronger legislative solution would be to just do what IICSA said, and refer to the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and the definition therein, which amendment 22 seeks to do.

The third problem relates to what triggers the duty to report. IICSA recommended that the duty should apply in three cases: first, when a mandated reporter is told by a child or perpetrator that abuse has taken place; secondly, when they see it happening; and thirdly, when they observe recognised indicators of child sexual abuse, which can range from things like a child being pregnant or having a sexually transmitted infection to other, more subjective indicators. Our Bill scores two out of three, as it does not include the third point on recognised indicators, which are also referred to as reasonable suspicion.

Overwhelmingly, children do not report abuse that is being done to them at the time that the abuse is happening. Those who do report tend to do so years after it happens, when it is far too late to protect them and far too late, in many cases, to catch the perpetrator and stop them harming other children.

The Australian royal commission in 2015 found that the average time for someone to disclose child sexual abuse was 22 years after it happened, so including reasonable suspicion is critical, and that is what my amendment 11 would do. Given the potentially subjective judgments needed in that case, amendment 11 would exempt the case of recognised indicators from criminal sanctions for non-compliance, which is also what IICSA recommended.

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[Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Lawlessness, antisocial behaviour, street crime and shoplifting have dragged our communities down. When people believe that they can act with impunity, without fear of apprehension or respect for others, we need Parliament to come down hard to restore law and order and give the police the resources that they need to make our streets safe again. I therefore take this opportunity to welcome the Crime and Policing Bill, which put right the years of damage and disregard caused by the previous Government.

My focus today is on street racing, a problem that stretches across the country but has become a curse in Bassetlaw, where cars speed along a stretch of the A57, the by-pass that runs through Worksop and then into the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Jake Richards). Those unofficial road-racing events are organised via social media. People meet up in an edge-of-town car park and then stage races up and down the A57, attracting huge crowds who come to witness the speeds and the flashy souped-up cars with booming exhausts.

Residents living close to the A57 hear the noise, including the screeching of tyres, but they are terrified that they or a family member will get caught up with the racers as they drive home or go about their daily business. The fear of a nasty accident is all pervasive. Across the country, people who have turned up to watch the racing have died, such as 19-year-old Ben Corfield and 16-year-old Liberty Charris from Dudley, and 19-year-old Sophie Smith from Radcliffe—young lives needlessly lost.

[Cameron Thomas]

Let me say, in the spirit of openness, that as a young man I perhaps did not always drive as responsibly as I do now. Although the hon. Lady is making an important point, there is an educational component to this. Will she join me in commending the work of the Under 17 Car Club and its Pathfinder initiative, which teaches young drivers about the dangers of driving in that fashion?

[Jo White]

My concern is that such unorganised racing events are held to show off how fast and noisy cars can be—there needs to be much stronger action to control that. I worry that there will be further deaths and accidents if the police are not given the powers to deal with it.

In Bassetlaw, I visited residents who told me that their lives are a living hell, with their nerves on edge every weekend. Not only do they hear the noise, but the fronts of their houses have become viewing platforms for the crowds.

Immigration

Cameron Thomas Excerpts

Wednesday 21st May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Pinkerton]

We must also recognise that safe and legal routes are one mechanism that needs to be pursued —so too is international aid, which allows people to stay broadly in the regions from which they may otherwise be displaced. We often forget that Jordan has the highest number of refugees of any country in the world.

We welcome this Government’s attempt to address the wreckage left by the previous Government, but let us be clear: any new immigration policy must come with a credible action plan for filling vital jobs without harming the economy. Let us start with a higher carer’s minimum wage. Right now, our social care sector is in crisis: there are simply not enough workers and millions of people are missing out on essential care. Instead of properly investing in the British workforce, the Conservatives chose the short-term fix: underpaid overseas workers propping up an underfunded system. With those workers being squeezed from all sides, many care homes are at breaking point, and families are being left to pick up the pieces.

It is disappointing that Labour’s national insurance increases are only adding to the pressures in that sector. The Government’s recent immigration announcements look set to disproportionately hit the care sector. Let me be absolutely clear: the people who come to Britain to care for our elderly and disabled are not the problem. They are vital to this country and to the wellbeing of some of the most vulnerable people in our society, and they deserve our thanks and respect, not to be demonised by those who failed to pay British workers properly in the first place.

[Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is making an interesting point about those who help us. Following a complicated pregnancy, my wonderful daughter was birthed at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford by a team comprising English, Spanish, Indian, Italian and South African experts. Will he join me in thanking those immigrants who bring so much to our country and help us when we need it?

[Dr Pinkerton]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I was recently also in my local hospital where I had an extraordinary care experience from a multinational care team. I celebrate all those NHS workers who have come from overseas to serve us all.

Finally, let me turn to one of our greatest national assets: our universities. As a recovering academic who spent more than 20 years in higher education, I have seen at first hand how international students enrich our campuses, strengthen our soft power and boost our economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes]

I of course agree with my right hon. Friend, who as usual has brought a particular insight based on his long experience to our considerations, and let us just take one example of that. Some 647,000 migrants received health and care visas from 2021 to June 2024; 270,000 of them were workers and an extraordinary, outrageous 377,000 were dependants. Even—[Interruption.] Even, I say to those on the Liberal Democrats Benches, those remaining members of the liberal elite who still perpetuate the conspiracy of silence about these matters must understand that everyone who comes to the country brings an economic value and an economic cost, and many of those dependants will not have brought economic value. That is not to disparage them in any way—they are perfectly nice people, I am sure—but they are not adding to the economy and certainly not adding to the per capita productivity or growth in the economy. In fact, they are detracting from it.

[Cameron Thomas]

The right hon. Gentleman speaks of the liberal elite but he is being generous there to me, a guy who was state-educated; I am very much just a bloke, but I thank him. One thing the Liberals were elite at was pointing out the fact that Brexit was not going to work. The promise of Brexit was of course to take back control of our borders; what does the right hon. Gentleman make of the fact that immigration is now four times higher than in 2019, following his own party being in government?

[Sir John Hayes]

Of course Brexit and particularly free movement led to a massive influx of people. When David Blunkett, now Lord Blunkett in the other place, was Home Secretary, he estimated that as a result of free movement 13,000 people would arrive in this country. In fact, the figure was in the hundreds of thousands and when settled status was granted it turned out to be millions. So the hon. Gentleman is quite wrong about the effects of Brexit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

That was not like me, Madam Deputy Speaker. It was very lax, and I apologise.

The Conservatives are currently languishing in fourth place in the opinion polls, and it is a well-deserved position.

[Cameron Thomas]

I am making this intervention from the Reform Bench, in the absence, apparently, of their own interest in immigration.

Another thing that I think the Conservative party might answer for is the fact that Vladimir Putin weaponised immigration in 2015 through his terrorist tactics in Syria. I wonder whether the Conservatives have given much thought to how the Conservative Friends of Russia group continued to operate for nearly a decade thereafter.

[Pete Wishart]

I do not think the Conservatives give much thought to anything in this particular field, so I would not even venture to give an opinion on that.

As I was saying, the Conservatives are in fourth place in the polls, and their entire vote has practically gone wholesale to Reform. This scrappy, desperate motion represents a vain attempt to stop that leakage and get some of their vote back. Let me also say to the hon. Gentleman that it does not matter how hard they try—and they are trying—because they will never outperform Reform, who are the masters of nasty rhetoric. The Conservatives are mere amateurs compared with the hon. Gentlemen of Reform who just so happen not to be in their places again.

The whole debate about immigration is descending into an ugly place which seems to fire the obnoxious and the unpleasant. I am talking not only about those two parties but about the Government too, and I am now going to direct my blame at some of the things they are doing. A new consensus is emerging in the House. For all the faux arguments and fabricated disagreements, the three parties are now more or less united in a new anti-immigrant landscape in the House. The only thing that seems to separate them is the question of who can be the hardest and the toughest in this grotesque race to the bottom on asylum, refugees and immigration.

The fear of Reform percolates through every sinew in this House. It dominates every single debate, and everything that is going on. Reform is killing the Conservatives, but Labour seems to want a bit of the self-destruction action too. Everything the Government do on immigration is now looked at through the prism of Reform, and they have even started to get the Prime Minister to use Reform’s language. The hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) could not have been more generous in his tribute to the Prime Minister for his contribution to nasty rhetoric. The thing is, the “island of strangers” speech could have been made by any one of these three parties.

[Pete Wishart]

I know the right hon. Gentleman does not change his mind, and it is something that we all love him for in this place. Maybe we should look forward to what is on its way in a couple of decades. I think he knows that a spectacular population decline will start to kick in around the mid-part of this century. Spain and Italy are already doing something about it. All we are doing in this place is stifling population growth through the two-child benefit cap—something that works contrary to what we require.

All Labour is doing is climbing on the anti-immigrant bandwagon, and that is alienating its supporters. I am sure that everybody saw the Sky News report this morning on the intention of former Labour voters. Sky News found that only 6% of lost Labour voters have gone to Reform. Labour has mainly lost votes to the Liberal Democrats and the parties of the left. In fact, Labour has lost three times as many voters to the Liberal Democrats and the left as it has to Reform, and 70% of Labour voters are considering abandoning the Labour party to support the parties of the left.

[Cameron Thomas]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I cannot give way any more.

In chasing Reform voters by using its language and appeasing Reform, Labour is only further alienating its supporters. One can only wonder at the political genius that is Morgan McSweeney, who has managed to chase voters away in a search for voters who do not exist.

Foreign Influence Registration Scheme

Cameron Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

The right hon. Gentleman speaks with great experience and authority on these matters, and I know he will agree that the implementation of FIRS gives us a critical capability that we have not had previously. It also provides a very clear choice for those who are considering whether they want to engage in this kind of nefarious activity or not. They can declare their activities to the Government, and that is what we want them to do, but if they do not, they will face arrest and imprisonment over a protracted period. That will provide a significant deterrent that we do not currently possess, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and others will welcome it.

As for the right hon. Gentleman’s points about the embassy, I know he will understand that I am very limited in respect of what I can say. The shadow Home Secretary is shaking his head. I am very limited for legal reasons because a process is under way, and if I say anything to undermine that process there will be significant consequences. However, the right hon. Gentleman has made his point constructively, so let me think about whether there is some mechanism whereby, perhaps on a Privy Council basis, there can be a briefing in which we discuss these matters in a way that is not subject to the scrutiny that the House will rightly bring. As I have said, I am very limited in terms of what I can say, but I recognise the right hon. Gentleman’s concern, and will look into whether there is a way in which we can discuss it in another forum.

[Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)]

While aligning myself with the concerns expressed by the shadow Home Secretary, I am happy to take the Minister at his word. In the last decade, the previous Government badly misjudged Vladimir Putin’s aims regarding the United Kingdom, and his exploitation of our naivety. So that the current Government do not make the same mistake with the Communist party in China, will the Minister commit himself to releasing a full, unredacted Russia report, and an audit and report on the activities of the Conservative Friends of Russia—or, as they were more recently termed, the Westminster Russia Forum?

[Dan Jarvis]

I think I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question, although I would probably need to consider it for a while longer to make an authoritative judgment on whether I am grateful to him or not. The Government’s position—certainly on the publication of the report—is clear, but I am happy to discuss it with him further. Mindful of the comments that he made about previous Governments, I can give him an absolute assurance of how seriously we take these matters, with Russia and other countries. I understand why he mentioned China, and I understand why other Members have mentioned it as well. I hope he understands that the focus today is on Russia, as the focus last month was on Iran, but I am happy to discuss these matters further with him and his Liberal Democrat colleagues.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cameron Thomas Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. These criminals are cross-national, very sophisticated and operate across borders. In order to respond properly, we have to do the same, and that is what today’s summit is helping us to co-ordinate.

[Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)]

15. What steps her Department is taking to support police forces in Gloucestershire.

[The Minister for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention (Dame Diana Johnson)]

Total funding for Gloucestershire police for 2025-26 will be up to £169.3 million, which is an increase of up to £11.2 million on last year and includes £1.5 million to kick-start the recruitment of additional neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers in Gloucestershire—to get those bobbies back on the beat in our local communities.

[Cameron Thomas]

I thank the Minister for her response. In 2015, Baroness May of Maidenhead, the then Home Secretary, accused police forces of “crying wolf” over funding cuts. In the decade since, police services across the country, such as mine in Gloucestershire, have never truly recovered from her scandalous cuts to their numbers. Gloucestershire constabulary is one of the worst funded in the country—the victim of an unfit-for-purpose funding formula. Last week, the chief constable announced 60 staff cuts as she battles with a £12 million deficit. Will the Minister meet me and my chief constable to discuss those challenges?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

Yes, of course I will.