Security of Elected Representatives

Caroline Nokes Excerpts
Thursday 29th February 2024

(4 weeks, 1 day ago)

Commons Chamber
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Tom Tugendhat Portrait Tom Tugendhat
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May I likewise thank the hon. Lady for the approach that she and many Members of her party have taken? She is right about Police Scotland funding. Any extra requirements, and the Op Bridger network, which applies, as she knows, across the whole United Kingdom, will be funded centrally to ensure that Members of this House get the same support. Police Scotland will have access to the same funding as other forces across the United Kingdom.

The hon. Lady is absolutely right about candidates. The message has to be clear from us. We have seen a level of threats of violence towards Members of this House and elected individuals, including various Mayors, across the United Kingdom in recent years, but this job is still a huge privilege. We need to put it clearly: many of us realise the privilege of serving our constituents, and having our voices heard here and, as a result, around the world. That is a huge privilege and a rare honour for anyone to achieve, and it is worth striving for. It is one of the best ways that any of us, whatever our opinions, can serve our communities and help to make this country and, I hope, our world a better place. It is true that there are threats, and we are organising, as the hon. Lady recognises, extremely carefully to mitigate and reduce them, so that anybody can stand for election free from fear. I urge people who feel that they have something to offer our country to put themselves forward, to test their ideas in debate and at election, and to come and serve our country here on the green Benches.

On the hon. Lady’s question about balance, if she will forgive me, I will not go into the details, but I can assure her that I am not particularly bothered whether someone’s fascism comes from some weird form of nationalist extremism, or religious extremism, or political extremism of any kind—I don’t really care. If you threaten Members of this House, threaten democracy and threaten the British people, we will go after you. We will get you, and you will be detained.

Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
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My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that this is about defending democracy, but I am very concerned when we start talking about risk. The shadow spokesman, the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) spoke about having to have the right protections in the right place at the right time. We know that women, people of colour and LGBTQ Members will be at most risk, but none of us could have predicted that a man who was most famous for campaigning to make Southend a city, and Jo Cox, who spoke in her maiden speech about our having more in common, would be the individuals targeted. I urge some caution, particularly when it comes to hustings and to the involvement of weird conspiracy theorists in politics who openly incite division, whether out on the street, in our constituency surgeries or in this House. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] We need to make sure that we have protections against them as well. There is the question.

Tom Tugendhat Portrait Tom Tugendhat
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My right hon. Friend has made her point extremely clear, and it is one I would support.

Angiolini Inquiry Report

Caroline Nokes Excerpts
Thursday 29th February 2024

(4 weeks, 1 day ago)

Commons Chamber
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Eleanor Laing Portrait Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
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I call the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee.

Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
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I would like to associate myself with the remarks of others—my thoughts are also with the Everard family.

This report tells us that the environment did nothing—nothing—to discourage Couzens’ misogynistic view of women. We know that not every flasher becomes a rapist, but we also know that every rapist starts somewhere. I respectfully say to my right hon. Friend that, of course, there have been good changes with regard to criminal justice and longer sentences for the most violent and the most serious offences, but that is too late. We have to intervene in the offending journey.

Last week, my Committee heard from Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy, a man who has taken on a really difficult job, overturning those stones in the Metropolitan police and turning up at 1,600 instances of officers with at least one allegation of a sexual offence or domestic violence—1,600. Can my right hon. Friend give us an assurance today that he will give more power to Stuart Cundy’s elbow, so that we get rid of these individuals from our police service?

James Cleverly Portrait James Cleverly
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My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. When I talk about that cycle of confidence, women need to see that when these crimes are reported, they are investigated and the perpetrators are brought to justice. Only then will they feel confident in coming forward. These are serious offences; they are not trivial. She is right to say that not everyone who is a flasher, not everyone who has made unwanted and inappropriate sexual advances to women, goes on to become a rapist or a murderer. None the less, the more people who are dissuaded from that behaviour because of swift and professional criminal justice, the more people we can prevent from getting to those later stages. That is why this is so important. That is why that cultural change needs to be driven through the whole system. A number of the Angiolini recommendations are for Departments other than the Home Office and for public bodies outside Government—all of us have to take this incredibly seriously. This is a whole of society approach, and that will remain the fundamental philosophy that I use to underpin the work of the Home Office in this area.

Tackling Spiking

Caroline Nokes Excerpts
Monday 18th December 2023

(3 months, 1 week ago)

Commons Chamber
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Laura Farris Portrait Laura Farris
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I will come back on two or three of the hon. Lady’s points.

First, on the hon. Lady’s observation that few such cases result in a charge, if I may correctly her gently, the principal reasons the police have given for that are: too few people coming forward in the first place, which we hope this legislative change will address; the narrow window of time in which a urine sample can be accurately tested, which is one reason why we are funding further research into rapid, on-site testing; and the difficulty in establishing who is doing the spiking. Simply, the difficulties that we have identified and spoken to the police about come at every level in the process. We are changing the law to make spiking crystal clear so that public confidence is improved and victims feel encouraged to come forward, because that is the first bit of the jigsaw.

Secondly, on the scale of our response, from the bouncer on the door of the club in the small town to the statute book, we want to change the response to spiking at every level. Whether it is a question of a friend reporting an incident, a victim coming forward, a test being done more rapidly, or the police having any doubt about which of the provisions under statute apply, it will be crystal clear.

Thirdly, the hon. Lady talked about developing an accurate picture of where spiking takes place and how we develop the response accordingly. That is the focus of the reporting tool, which a member of the public can use to report an incident of spiking even if they are not affected and it appears to have happened to someone at a table on the other side of the room. The tool will enable the police to develop an accurate picture—some of which we already know, some we are less clear about—to see the extent of it, where it happens and how we can focus resources.

Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
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My hon. Friend will know that last week there was a debate in Westminster Hall on this subject. Afterwards, I spoke to Dawn Dines at Stamp Out Spiking and had an email from Colin Mackie of Spike Aware, who made the point that none of us had mentioned vape spiking. That was our omission, and I am pleased that this afternoon it has not been the Minister’s, as she included it. We need a 21st century solution to 21st century crime.

Could the Minister expand a little about perpetrators? We know that spiking is done for a variety of reasons: perhaps to effect a sexual assault, physical assault or robbery; or just for entertainment, particularly to humiliate individuals. What other steps are the Government taking alongside this legislative clarity—which I welcome—to ensure that those people who still think it is okay to humiliate, embarrass and assault women get a clear message that it is culturally unacceptable?

Laura Farris Portrait Laura Farris
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I thank my right hon. Friend for her typically wise question. She is right to mention the vape issue, which I was not previously aware of. That proves the point that whatever legislative changes we make will have to be fit for the future and envisage how the crime might evolve and develop over time. She makes a good point about perpetrators. That was exactly what Thames Valley police told the Home Secretary and me on Friday: a critical part of the VAWG strategy that it and the police nationally focus on is perpetrator behaviour. As part of licensing conditions, the police increasingly work with bar staff, who make a note to establish who is behaving in a certain way in the bar, and who is often on their own or looking to isolate people. Using CCTV can be a critical first step in the police identifying the perpetrators, where they are working, which locations they frequent and who poses the greatest risk to women in a local community.

Spiking

Caroline Nokes Excerpts
Thursday 14th December 2023

(3 months, 2 weeks ago)

Westminster Hall
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.

Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

Judith Cummins Portrait Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)
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I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of spiking.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I wish to extend my gratitude to the Backbench Business Committee for granting this important debate. It is a timely debate, given that we are in the season of Christmas when, sadly, we would expect to see an increase in spiking incidents and the subsequent sexual violence primarily against women and girls. I thank my co-sponsor and Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who is so ably chairing here today. I know she shares my passions and concerns about the subject and it has been a pleasure to work with her on the issue. I also thank hon. Members across the House who have given their support for today’s debate. I particularly want to thank the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who has worked relentlessly on the issue.

I want to highlight my support for the e-petition on making it a legal requirement for nightclubs to thoroughly search guests on entry, with a particular view to preventing date-rape drugs from entering nightclubs, and also the e-petition on funding free drink-spiking tests for all bars. Over 190,000 signed those two petitions, including many in my constituency of Bradford South. That reflects how strongly people feel about the subject across this country.

I will begin by briefly speaking to the enormity of the issue. Spiking is not new or rare in this country. In a YouGov poll of 2,000 people commissioned by The Independent, 11% of women and 6% of men said that they had been spiked. The National Police Chiefs’ Council told the Home Affairs Committee that

“the true figure of spiking occurrences are likely to be much higher”,

with estimates showing that 97% of spiking victims will never report the incident to the police. To protect innocent people across this country, the Government need to act urgently and Parliament must afford the victims of spiking the attention that they deserve.

A year has passed since the last time the issue received a full debate in this place—I see some familiar faces here today—but there has been little progress. We might have even gone backwards. At that time I stood in this very room and called for immediate action and I spoke of the need for a specific criminal offence for spiking. Last week the Prime Minister responded to a question that I posed in the Chamber about a specific offence on spiking by saying he remains satisfied that

“existing laws…cover the offence of spiking”.—[Official Report, 6 December 2023; Vol. 742, c. 335.]

The National Police Chiefs’ Council told the Home Affairs Committee that the absence of a clear criminal offence presented a challenge in policing spiking. It also said that a stand-alone offence would help police to

“understand the scale of the problem…enable a far more accurate picture to be realised”

and allow

“enhanced support for victims”.

I am sure that hon. Members across this place will agree that there can be no more dither and delay. A new stand-alone criminal offence of spiking is needed now. The absence of a specific offence for spiking is causing untold damage to innocent people across this country, particularly women and girls.

Freedom of information requests submitted by Channel 4 recently revealed that drug-spiking incidents reported to police have increased fivefold in five years, but the proportion of investigations leading to a criminal charge has fallen. The number of reports that were investigated by police and resulted in a criminal charge have dropped from an appalling 4% in 2018 to a shocking 0.23% last year. That is just one in every 400 spiking crimes reported to police resulting in a criminal charge.

The Home Affairs Committee report concluded that the absence of a specific offence for spiking, along with

“limited reporting, investigation and prosecution, means there are few deterrents for offenders.”

Indeed, with a charging rate that rounds down to 0% it is no surprise that victims do not have confidence in our current laws when it comes to spiking. There are currently seven separate criminal offences under which the crime of spiking can be prosecuted and, importantly, recorded. Five of those date back to the 1800s. It is time that Parliament took a stand against this injustice and created a stand-alone law on spiking that is fit for the 21st century. Throughout my time in Parliament, I have been active in highlighting the dangers of spiking at music festivals, and I have given evidence to the Home Affairs Committee on this issue.

Festivals are a big business, with some directly marketing towards 16 to 17-year-olds—so much so that they are now seen as a rite of passage on completion of GCSEs. Those who attend events can camp overnight, with festivals attracting populations equivalent to a small town; for reference, Leeds festival is attended by around 100,000 people. The police presence is minimal, and the lack of safeguarding training for members of staff can subsequently lead to severe issues with the non-reporting of spiking, sexual assault and rape. Indeed, a female survey respondent was quoted in the Home Affairs Committee report as saying:

“I got the impression that event staff…thought that I had taken drugs willingly as opposed to being spiked”.

That is a clear example of a victim not being believed or understood due to a combination of ignorance and a lack of safeguarding training.

It seemed an obvious and positive step forward when the Home Affairs Committee report recommended that all staff working at music festivals, including vendors, be given compulsory safeguarding training, and it was disheartening to hear that the Government do not intend to mandate training for all staff at events such as festivals. I urge the Government to reconsider that position, because this terrifying lack of safeguarding at music festivals is a clear blind spot and it cannot continue. Many hon. Members will share my view, and my experience, that what should happen to tackle violence against women and girls does not happen unless specific legislation is put in place to make it happen.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council told the Home Affairs Committee of its difficulties in getting a true picture of how widespread spiking is. To highlight the dangers at music festivals, I made a freedom of information request to nine different police forces regarding 11 of the most popular music festivals over the past 10 years. The findings were shocking. They included nearly 200 cases of reported rapes and sexual offences against children as young as 12, and 32% of the cases reported were against children under the age of 18. However, in the 10-year period to 2019, the data that I received recorded just 10 instances of spiking. Devon and Cornwall police gave examples of two spiking offences at Boardmasters festival recorded under the offence of administering a poison or noxious substance. At Reading festival, Thames Valley police noted a case of spiking, but it was recorded as sexual assault.

With cases of spiking reported under different offences in that manner, it makes understanding the scale and nature of this issue difficult. The opportunity to identify patterns in the crime is being missed, and the ability of our legal system and laws to detect, prosecute and prevent this crime—to seek justice for the victims—is undermined as trust is eroded, therefore feeding the cycle of under-reporting.

I therefore welcomed the news that, under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, the Government were legally required to publish a report outlining the nature and prevalence of spiking in this country by April 2023. We are nearly eight months past that deadline and the report is still not forthcoming. The Government have failed in their legal duty to publish that report. In giving reasons for their delay, the Government argued that they had cause to consider with colleagues across Government whether their rationale for not introducing a specific offence for spiking was sound.

I suspect that, in being forced to gather data on spiking, the Government have now become aware of the difficulties in collecting and understanding that data, which is a direct result of the absence of a specific law on spiking. By failing to create a stand-alone law, the Government have been left blind in the face of even an issue so prevalent and widespread as spiking. The Government must publish their report on spiking, and I call on them here today to clarify if and when they will now publish that report.

In 2022 the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), rightly stated that the Government were looking into

“a specific criminal offence to target spiking directly”.

However, in January 2023, a Home Office Minister carried out a policy U-turn by saying that a new law on spiking was unnecessary. Then, in a letter in July 2023, the Home Office said that it was reconsidering whether a specific offence was required. Last week, in response to my question, the Prime Minister suggested that he did not believe that a specific offence of spiking was necessary. On an issue that demands certainty and clarity, we have a Government who are uncertain and unclear on their position. In April 2023, in relation to spiking, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), the leader of the Opposition, clarified that

“an incoming Labour Government would make it a specific offence.”

There were 34 signatories to this debate across five political parties, so I know that there is broad support across the House to create a stand-alone law. This situation demands determined action. Will the Government stay true to their legal obligations and publish their report on spiking? And please, Minister, do not give me the kicking-it-into-the-long-grass response of, “Yes, but shortly”—just tell me when. Will the Government finally do the right thing and recognise spiking as a criminal offence in its own right? There can be no ambiguity here. Now is the time to act to defend the innocent victims of spiking and ensure that these vile perpetrators face the consequences of their serious crimes and feel the full force of the law.

Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)
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I remind Members that if they wish to contribute they should bob.

Vicky Ford Portrait Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)
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I am pleased with the promotion.

Vicky Ford Portrait Vicky Ford
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Thank you, Ms Nokes; it is an honour to serve under your chairmanship. I thank the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) for giving us the opportunity to discuss spiking again. My constituency of Chelmsford is home to a vibrant and much-enjoyed night-time economy. We have many bars, clubs and restaurants. People come up to Chelmsford to enjoy a night out, not only from Essex, but even from London. We are very proud of our safety record. Chelmsford holds a Purple Flag for safety in the night-time economy, and we did not just get that Purple Flag this year or last year; we have had it every year for the past 10 years. We have a wonderful reputation for keeping people safe, and we want to keep it that way.

From time to time, however, some dreadful stories come to light even in Chelmsford. In February, a very brave woman shared the story of what happened to her when she was out in Chelmsford with a group of girlfriends. She had only had one cocktail when she started to feel dizzy and sick, and then she suddenly started to have spasms. Fortunately, her friends acted quickly. He mum came and collected her and brought her straight to A&E at the local hospital. A video was then shared of her when she was at A&E. Her body was contorting and she was groaning, “I want to die.” She had a complete lack of control of her own body. That went on for six hours. When she came round, she noticed a small mark on her arm and that her arm was painful. She believes that she was stabbed and spiked. Goodness knows what would have happened to her if she had left the bar, left her friends and been all alone in the dark when that occurred. How vulnerable would that young woman have been?

I would like to thank my local police, who treat this problem very seriously. They have been working very actively on hotspot policing in Chelmsford city centre for the last few weekends, including last Saturday and Sunday night, when they were doing spiking awareness campaigns in the bars, clubs and restaurants. I would also like to thank the owners of the many bars, clubs and restaurants, who I know also treat women’s safety seriously. I have been in with many of them to discuss the CCTV arrangements that they have in place to monitor safety, and the fact that many of them make available stoppers or covers for your drinks bottle or glass. But why should a woman have to put a stopper in her drink? Why should she have to put a cover on her glass? Why should she not feel safe just to lift up her own drink that she has bought to enjoy with her friends, and take a little sip from it? Spiking is abhorrent, it is intolerable, and it is unlawful. It must not be allowed to continue. Perpetrators must not get away with this.

Spiking is illegal, but the law against it is incredibly outdated. It goes back to the Offences against the Person Act 1861. I happen to be one of the small number of Members of this House who is currently serving on the Public Bill Committee for the Criminal Justice Bill that is going through Parliament right now. On Tuesday this week, we took evidence from real experts. I asked some of them whether they felt there was a need to modernise this legislation and make the language absolutely crystal clear—in terms that people will understand today—and they agreed. They agreed that spiking is unlawful, but that the language needs updating.

I know I am joined by colleagues in this place today who also agree that updating the language of the law will help to lead to more prosecutions and make it absolutely clear to those who want to commit this type of offence that it will not be tolerated, and therefore it will act as a deterrent.

--- Later in debate ---
Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
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Thank you, Mr Efford, not just for calling me to speak but for stepping in after I stepped in earlier. This debate is an object lesson in multitasking.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate and, of course, my co-sponsor, the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins). It is always a privilege, particularly on this issue, to follow the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who has campaigned tirelessly for two long years, as he so ably highlighted. It does not seem nearly a year since we were last in this place discussing this issue, but I like to think that we are on the edge of a breakthrough. I look to my right hon. Friend the Minister for support, encouragement and enthusiasm on the issue.

The last debate was well attended. I think it is fair to say that this debate has fewer contributions, but obviously of an exceptionally high quality. It shows that we still care and are still concerned about the numerous stories that our constituents bring to us. I am still shocked by the incidents that are highlighted to me in my role as Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee.

Just over 11 months ago, we were calling for specific legislation to address this issue. My right hon. Friend the Minister will know that the Home Affairs Committee has done a great deal of excellent work on spiking. Its report of April 2022 is tagged to this debate, and the hon. Member for Bradford South gave evidence to that Committee on the very specific issue of spiking at festivals.

I wish to touch on that issue briefly, because I went to Glastonbury—I think it was 18 months ago. This was a departure from normal behaviour for me, but I spent an entire day with the Avon and Somerset Police and with some of the stewards at that festival. What I saw was really heartening and encouraging. I saw stewards going out of their way to ask festival-goers whether they were okay. I vividly remember seeing a young girl huddled almost in a foetal position on the floor—it was bitterly cold—and a steward stopping, checking that she was okay and putting his hi-viz jacket around her. It was really encouraging to hear at first hand from the police about the efforts that they were making.

However, moving on from the 2022 report, the assurances given to the Home Affairs Select Committee and the welcoming of its recommendations by Government, we still do not have specific legislation on spiking. I want to highlight why that is important, and why it is a great pity that the Home Affairs Committee is still waiting and police forces, police and crime commissioners and, indeed, victims and potential victims, are still waiting. It is because, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) highlighted, the legislation to which we tend to revert when talking about spiking is from 1861. That is not even the last century: it is the one before that. It is really remiss of the Government. In many instances, we can rely on very old legislation for good purpose, but the offence of spiking had not been dreamt up in 1861. I did a bit of research on how one might spend one’s leisure time in 1861. We had not heard of nightclubs at that point; the steam-powered carousel had just been invented; young people were certainly not going anywhere near bars and nightclubs, and they were not being forced to put plastic stoppers in the top of their bottles or covers on their glasses.

Richard Graham Portrait Richard Graham
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My right hon. Friend is making an excellent point about the 1861 Act. The Minister will know that section 22 of that Act refers to the use of chloroform and laudanum. Those were popular instruments at the time that Act was created, and they also feature in Sherlock Holmes’s exploits quite a lot, but does my right hon. Friend agree that that sort of language needs to be modernised?

--- Later in debate ---
Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes
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That is exactly the point. The Act talks about chloroform and laudanum, not Rohypnol, GHB or the various other date-rape drugs that are either dropped into glasses or injected into people’s arms or legs—other body parts are available. That is the stark reality and why the legislation has to be modernised. We have a 21st century problem and we need a 21st century solution to it. We know that the Government are committed to producing and publishing a report on this issue. I believe it was the hon. Member for Bradford South who highlighted how long we have been waiting for that.

I spoke earlier this week to the safeguarding Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), and asked her to continue to think positively, but speedily. What matters is that we need a solution. The only reason she is not here today is because she is doing great work in the Criminal Justice Bill Committee. I gently point out to my good friend the Minister—I believe he is a good Minister—that he is the Security Minister and we are talking about the security and safety of our young people. I promise him that I am not going to get shouty with him, but I gently ask: the Home Office’s Sir Matthew Rycroft said in his response only two days ago to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee that news would be forthcoming “shortly, so how short is “shortly”? I ask because the epidemic of spiking does not abate.

Last time we were here, we all raised the horrendous case of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), who has experienced spiking. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester also alluded to an experience. I do not think I have ever mentioned this explicitly in this Chamber, but I asked my daughter whether she had ever been spiked. She highlighted two occasions, one when she was collapsed in a toilet of a nightclub and was picked up by the security staff from the floor, carted through the entire nightclub and dumped on the pavement. That is what happens to teenage girls: they get ejected from nightclubs because the assumption is that they are drunk—she was not drunk. She may well have been drinking, but she assured her mother that she had had only one drink. It was only because her friends saw her being carted out through the nightclub and went to the rescue that she was safe. She told me of another occasion when she had had only one drink and firmly believed that she had been spiked. She and her friends regard this as commonplace—that is the horror here. They do not report spiking to the police or to any authorities; they just accept that this is a risk they will run in order to go out and have a good time. That is absolutely horrific. I always point out that my daughter is a lot smaller than me, and I questioned whether this was something that happened only to petite people. A constituent of mine told me about the case of his wife who had been spiked in a nightclub, and she is tiny. I thought, “Is this happening only to small people? Am I therefore safe?”. No, apparently, I am not.

I wish to mention, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester did, the work done by Spike Aware UK, because we regard spiking very much as a gendered crime, but Greg Mackie died because he was spiked. His parents Colin and Mandy—Colin has been in touch me with ahead of this debate—have done great work since 2017, highlighting the scale of the problem, the importance of educating young people, and the importance of educating venues and making sure that they are putting protections in place. But we do need to better understand the scale of the problem; we need better data. With spiking crimes being recorded more often alongside rapes, sexual assaults and robberies, we need to have data that shows us exactly how many people are being spiked. We also need better reactions to this; we need blood tests and tests in hospitals quickly to identify the victims, because the challenge is that many of these substances are processed in the body very quickly. We need evidence to drive good law, and I have no doubt that the Home Office is going to drive good law.

I have mentioned Spike Aware UK, but I also wish to pay tribute to Dawn Dines, of Stamp Out Spiking, whom I have spoken to as part of the work that my Select Committee has done. I want to touch briefly on why people might seek to spike other individuals, which others have referenced. I believe that it is by and large a gendered crime, but it can happen to men; it can happen to boys. We think of it as being driven by sexual gratification, but it can be driven merely by wanting to be entertained by watching someone’s reaction. More and more cases are now being driven by a desire to perpetrate robberies. We are hearing of cases of people being frogmarched to cashpoints and forced to withdraw cash while they are incapable of making rational, sensible decisions about what they are doing because of the substances they have been given. However, as Spike Aware UK would point out, it is not good enough for us to have legislation in this place and it is not good enough for us to be aware: we all have to be actively anti-spiking. The Home Office has done some work in recent years on being an active bystander—the British Transport Police also does that brilliantly. It is about looking out for other people’s drinks and observing the behaviours of others in nightclubs and bars.

I absolutely endorse the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford however: why should we have to do that? I have never forgotten the experience of Emily, a young girl from Southampton who was a student at the University of Southampton when she was spiked. As a result of that, she came to my office, and her father told me her story very eloquently. She came and did a period of work experience in my office. While she was there, there were two other teenage girls doing work experience, and we had someone from a company come to us with female protection kits, as I will call them loosely. He had a range of kits. There was a kit for dogwalkers, to protect them from being attacked while out walking the dog. There was a kit for students specifically, which contained plastic stoppers for bottles, lids for glasses, their own straw, and so on. It had some of the tests for testing drinks. I let Emily loose on him, because her instant response was, “Why should I have to? Why should I have to have a 20-point checklist to keep myself safe when I go out at night?” Emily is right: we should not have to. But in the current climate, tragically, we do.

Richard Graham Portrait Richard Graham
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My right hon. Friend is making such a good point about the experiences of Emily and others. Does she agree with me that the evidence collected by the Home Affairs Committee was very powerful and very helpful? I want to pay tribute to the Chair, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), who cannot be here today, but who led on that and helped to provide evidence that I hope the Home Office will consider carefully. As my right hon. Friend has mentioned, the work of Stamp Out Spiking is also crucial in collecting this anecdotal evidence from so many people. Without that base of research and knowledge, it would be much harder to make the case, which I hope Ministers are finding more compelling.

Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes
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Of course I agree with my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right. That brings me to the Home Office’s own campaign, Enough, which, people will be relieved to hear, is my closing point. A message I would like to give the Minister very clearly, which is driven by the comments I have gleaned from Spike Aware UK, is that it is not enough for the Enough campaign to focus its activities around universities. By the time a young person has reached the grand old age of 18, that horse may already have bolted. We know from the excellent work of the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) and her Select Committee, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester rightly paid tribute, that many spiking incidents happen at house parties. We like to think that when we are surrounded by our friends, we will be okay. Sadly, the truth is that young people under the age of 18 will attend house parties and young people under the age of 18 will be spiked at house parties. They are vulnerable when they are at school and college.

Vicky Ford Portrait Vicky Ford
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent point. I recently met a group of sixth-formers from one of my Chelmsford schools. The point they made to me was that, while it is all very well to give awareness to young women when they start university about how to stay safe, they turn 18 before they leave school and would quite like to go and celebrate their 18th birthday parties together. Does she agree with me that more could be done through the school curriculum and at school age to prepare people for turning 18?

Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes
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My right hon. Friend anticipates where my speech was going. On the Enough campaign, I think it is right to focus on freshers’ week, which is a particular area of vulnerability, but by the time young people are 18 it is too late in some instances. Many will turn 18 while they are still at school and college. The Government’s statutory requirement for relationships, sex and health education finishes at 16, so when someone becomes a practitioner between the ages of 16 and 18, they are not supported.

I gently say to the Security Minister—in the same way that I would have said and, indeed, have said to the current safeguarding Minister, the previous safeguarding Minister and the one before—that RSHE needs to be inclusive up to the age of 18. My Select Committee has called for that in one of our reports, and it is crucial. The RSHE review needs to focus not on gender issues, but on the everyday problems that our young people face on their journey to adulthood, which include drugs, spiking, normal adult sexual relationships and trying not to learn about them from pornography. We have to be bolder when we are talking about what is and is not age appropriate. We have to equip young people to be cognisant of the risks, challenges and difficulties they will face, whether financial or anything else, through a programme of RSHE that is effective and preferably taught by experts, rather than the maths teacher on a Friday afternoon.

I commend the Enough programme. I celebrate it: I have a sticker on my office door—what a shame that I feel the need to say “Enough” here. The stark reality is that we have to ensure that we are taking the lead of brilliant organisations such as Stamp Out Spiking and Spike Aware UK, so that young people have all the tools in their armoury to be protected as they move into adulthood.

I have a final message for the Minister. I have absolutely no doubt that he will be encouraging and positive about this issue, because he is a good Minister and understands how important it is. He will have heard the strength of feeling across the Chamber on the need for specific legislation. I look forward, with my fingers crossed and my hopes high, to exactly that. My final plea, which I have made to a number of Home Office Ministers over many years, is that we must look at RSHE as an opportunity to equip young people with better skills to lead their adult lives. I know that the Minister will pass on this message to the safeguarding Minister: please play an active role, by working with the Department for Education and the myriad other Departments that touch the lives of young people, in ensuring that the RSHE review is fit for the 21st century, in the same way that we should have a piece of legislation on spiking that is fit for the 21st century.

--- Later in debate ---
Tom Tugendhat Portrait Tom Tugendhat
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My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, which I know will have been heard by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury. As he knows, she will be looking at the many comments made this afternoon and indeed over recent months before publication of the report, which is due out very soon.

Officers can also carry out licensed checks on taxis, bars and clubs and can work closely with welfare organisations and help venues to step up their own security efforts, such as increasing searches. The story that my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North told us about her daughter, who would have been left on the street had her friends not intervened, demonstrates that extra training is necessary, because the idea of dealing with a situation like that by abandoning a young woman outside strikes me as extremely unwise, to put it politely, positively dangerous and—I should be cautious of my words.

Many venues have given extra training to staff to ensure that all reports of spiking are logged and reported immediately. This is not an exhaustive list of the activity that is being mounted to tackle the threat, but as the examples I have mentioned demonstrate, there is a real focus across the system on gathering intelligence, identifying perpetrators and protecting people around our communities. The Home Office continues to manage cross-Government work on spiking with an emphasis on practical action that can deliver real and lasting improvements. Some of the interventions targeted at tackling spiking include bystander training programmes, taxi monitors, CCTV, street lighting, drink protectors and educational training for the night-time economy staff.

In April 2022, following expert advice from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the Government reclassified the so-called date-rape drug GHB and two related substances from class C to class B under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Through “Enough”, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North has mentioned, the Government’s national behaviour change campaign for tackling violence against women and girls, we have rolled out spiking-specific communications and campaign activity at summer music festivals and universities across the United Kingdom. I am very glad to hear that it is being picked up and used appropriately.

Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes
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I thank the Minister for giving way on that specific point. Music festivals—great. University freshers week—great. Will he work with his wonderful colleague at the Home Office to see whether we can have a roll-out to younger age groups, too?

Tom Tugendhat Portrait Tom Tugendhat
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

My right hon. Friend pre-empts me. I was just about to say that this is not a crime that begins at the age of 18, a point that she made so powerfully. I am sure that our hon. Friend the Member for Newbury will be extremely interested in hearing about this and will no doubt take it up with the Department for Education to make sure that we co-ordinate action in the best possible way and get the right response in order to protect young people.

Rape and Sexual Violence: Criminal Justice Response

Caroline Nokes Excerpts
Monday 10th July 2023

(8 months, 3 weeks ago)

Commons Chamber
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Lindsay Hoyle Portrait Mr Speaker
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I call the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee.

Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
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I gently say to my hon. Friend the Minister that some kinds of offences can and should be singled out. Actually, that is exactly what we have done with the strategy on violence against women and girls, with the landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021, because we have to recognise that sexual offences against women have a particular personal, traumatic impact, and we need to do more.

However, I was pleased to hear her single out Avon and Somerset police, and I pay tribute to Chief Constable Sarah Crew, who is the most amazing woman and has spearheaded efforts in that police force to ensure victims are treated sensitively, appropriately and swiftly. The same cannot be said about every police force.

We are now some four months or so on from the Casey review into the Metropolitan police, and too many women still say to me that they do not want to report a crime against them to the Met because they have no confidence that it will be treated fairly and properly, and that they will not end up being the ones on trial. What more can my hon. Friend the Minister do to instil, as she put it, “confidence to report crimes”, when it comes to our capital’s police force?

Sarah Dines Portrait Miss Dines
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I am grateful to my right hon. Friend; I know she does great work in this area. I too have been thoroughly impressed at my many meetings with Sarah Crew. She really is a breath of fresh air and I put a lot of hope in the way that she has managed to roll out new ideas about how to police this area. Of course these are heinous crimes and very special offences.

In relation to the Metropolitan police, I have met the commissioner and the deputy commissioner, and I sense there is a change. The oil tanker is moving. At the moment, it is moving too slowly; it needs to move faster. I am optimistic about the new training that new officers are receiving. The emphasis on specialist trained officers is encouraging and I am sure we will see progress.

Ethnic Minority and Migrant Victims of Violence Against Women and Girls

Caroline Nokes Excerpts
Wednesday 5th July 2023

(8 months, 4 weeks ago)

Westminster Hall
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.

Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.

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Jess Phillips Portrait Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
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I believe this is the first time I have had the pleasure of serving under your chairship, Ms Nokes. I want to say a massive congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) for bringing forward this important debate, and to all the agencies that compiled the report. I am hopeful that the Minister will want to arrange a meeting with them to look at the findings, which, from my experience, are clear and accurate.

The nub of the issue, as my hon. Friend identified, comes from Refuge data, which found that black women are 14% less likely to be referred to its services for support by the police than white survivors. I have worked in the field for a long time, and people often say these are—I hate this language—“hard to reach” groups. In actual fact, black women are 3% more likely to report abuse to the police and 14% less likely to be referred by police services to specialist services. This is not a hard-to-reach cohort of people; this is a group of people asking for help and not being provided with it. There is something fundamental in that statistic about where we are going wrong, before we even get to the idea of people being criminalised.

To my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum): maybe I just have not slept very well this week, but the statistic about Calpol being the thing that was most stolen in her constituency, based on police data, made me want to cry. That is unbelievable, yet so believable. That was before she went on to speak about her experience, where criminalisation was undoubtedly used as a weapon by her abusers. That is not uncommon. I first read about the charges against my hon. Friend in The Sun, when she had only just been elected. It was not a very detailed piece but as a professional in this area, on reading it, I did not see a woman being criminalised; despite having never spoken to her, I instantly knew that she was a victim of domestic abuse. I contacted her immediately to say as much. Why on earth could the first criminal justice agency to interact with her in that case not see that from the evidence in front of it? It is a disgrace.

What I am seeing at the moment, specifically in domestic abuse cases where children are involved, is that the new game in town for those accused of domestic abuse who want to attack their accuser is claim and counterclaim, and I have recently encountered counterclaims against known victims of domestic abuse that have led to their arrest. In one case I am handling, the health visitor of a woman who had been to the multi-agency risk assessment conference eight times, such was the high-risk nature of the threat to her life—two attempts had been made on her life, and on the lives of her child and parents—turned up at my office in a desperate panic because the woman had been put in a prison cell owing to counterclaims by her ex-husband.

Every single claim and counterclaim case I have been involved with in which the police have made an arrest has involved an Asian woman—and that is not just because of the demographics of the area that I represent. I am watching black and minoritised women being criminalised literally for being victims of domestic abuse. As I say, that interacts very badly with our failing family court system, where the game in town for a long time was parent alienation. Now that has been widely rebuked, there is a new game: every single domestic abuse claim a woman makes in family court—bar rape, one notices—gets turned around and put back on her. In every case where I have seen claim and counterclaim lead to either criminalisation or poor decisions in family court—this is totally anecdotal, based on my personal experience; I would love to show some data, but neither the Home Office nor the family courts collect any, so everyone gathered here will have to take my word for it—it has involved a black or Asian woman. There is definitely a problem in the system; I am seeing it live with my own eyes. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse is incredibly brave to talk about her experiences again, and I am proud to know her.

To the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), again, missing data is part of the problem, but the brutal exploitation of girls in gangs, both criminally and through sexual exploitation, only for them to go on and be criminalised, is absolutely woeful. Some 63% of girls and young women serving sentences in the community have experienced rape or domestic abuse in intimate partner relationships. I have absolutely no doubt that a large number of those will be linked to the gang and sexual exploitation activity that is going on.

We in the Labour party are seeking to amend the Victims and Prisoners Bill so that child criminal exploitation is defined in law. So far, the Government have pushed back against that, but hope springs eternal that by the time the Bill comes back in its next iteration they will have decided that defining child criminal exploitation in law is important. I know my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall has lent her voice to that. Moreover, on the push for data, I cannot express enough how we need better data on all of these things. The situation is woeful.

This is not new news. At the moment, I sometimes feel like I am in a meeting that I was in 20 years ago. We must be 20 years on from Baroness Corston’s report, which roundly proved that criminalising women was costly to society, dangerous for our criminal justice agencies and bore no results. I used to run a female offenders’ centre in the west midlands that came about because of what was in the Corston report and we had a 97% non-reoffending rate. Sadly, I think the state has the opposite: a 97% reoffending rate. We know that women’s centres and services that divert people from prison work. It is not soft touch; it stops criminal activity. Do I think for a second that somebody who has stolen some Calpol should go to prison? That is phenomenal, yet it happens up and down our country. We know the data.

Unfortunately, the Government have a policy of building new women’s prisons, which they will fill overnight at great cost to the taxpayer. The reoffending rate achieved will be nowhere near as good as investing that money in women’s centre services. I set up a women’s centre because I watched victims of domestic abuse from my refuge being criminalised as part of the pattern of the abuse they had suffered, for things such as their children not going to school—that is the point of a women’s centre. Women move miles away from their home, where they have been living in horrendous situations in which they have basically been enslaved, and their children are frightened to leave them to go to a new school. Then they are criminalised because their children will not go to school. That is just unbelievable bad practice, all over the country.

I am not entirely sure why the Government, in the small bit of data they bother to collect, would look at the reoffending rates from prisons and women’s centres and think, “Prisons: that is the one for us.” It is absolute madness and does not make any sense. The failed and now returned to the state privatisation of probation—a dreadful and failed experiment over the past 10 years—has largely decimated our women’s criminal justice centres, which were doing brilliant and amazing work. I cannot stress enough the need for better data and understanding in this space.

On statutory defences, as alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton, I tabled amendments to that effect in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. I continue to believe that statutory defences in cases of domestic abuse and sexual violence and exploitation should have a role in our law. Just as my hon. Friend pointed, it seems ridiculous that the same provisions for cases of force used in break-ins do not exist for victims of domestic abuse. It is as if the state is basically saying “We are not expecting zero violence. You should be able to take a bit of violence before you kick back.” That is pretty grim, and I urge the Government once again to look at statutory defences. Under the stewardship of the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), statutory defences were put into law in cases of modern slavery and human trafficking.

I am afraid to say that, although the law is written well, the practice is not so good, as my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall pointed out, so much more work needs to be done in that space. But there is nothing for victims of domestic and sexual violence. The right hon. Member for Maidenhead, the ex-Prime Minister and Home Secretary—back in the time when Home Secretaries stayed for a long time—acted with a spirit of fairness and had an understanding of what will work and what is right. I encourage the Government to take on that grit.

As for the firewall, I will briefly say that a woman in my constituency came to me because her husband was threatening to kill her. He continued to threaten to kill her after she called the police, as I told her to do, and she had a “sig” marker put on her house because her life was at risk. The police turned up, and the next thing I know she called me. Because she did not speak particularly good English, she said that she was in Bradford, but she was actually in Bedford, in Yarl’s Wood, because when she called the police to say that her husband was threatening to kill her and was coming round, she ended up in immigration detention. She has since, of course, been given indefinite leave to remain; I think she is actually a British citizen now. She should never have been detained, and she certainly should not have been detained when there was a threat to her life, because the next time her husband threatens to kill her, she will not call the police, and then I will read out her name on the next International Women’s Day.

We have case after case like that, and the Government’s response to our amendments on the firewall—the Domestic Abuse Commissioner has made clear that he supports that, and anybody who knows anything about anything thinks it is a good idea—is to act as if they are doing a kindness. What a kindness they did to my constituent when they put her in detention when her life was at risk. They act as if they are doing a kindness when they say, “Well, sometimes there is a need for the police to speak to immigration.” Of course there is. I speak to immigration all the time, but I do not do it as an enforcer; I do it to try to ensure that a victim’s immigration status can be sorted out and she can access the right services, and I do it at her request.

There is absolutely no reason why the police could not act in exactly the same way. No one is saying that we can never speak to immigration, but we should speak not to immigration enforcement, but to the Home Office at the point at which the victim needs her immigration sorted out. Caseworkers in violence against women and girls services do that all over the country, all the time, and nobody ends up in detention, so why do they when the police do it? It is a disgrace—it is part of the hostile environment—that the Government do not want to end the practice of detaining women who come forward to say that they have been raped or abused, that their lives are at risk, and that something should be done about it.

The Government agreed to the Istanbul convention, apart from the bit about migrant women. They literally carved out their rights, creating a two-tier system.

Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)
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Order. I remind the shadow Minister to leave time for the Minister.

Jess Phillips Portrait Jess Phillips
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I will sit down shortly.

There is literally no excuse. I really hope the Government look at the report I mentioned, take its recommendations incredibly seriously, and use facts and evidence, not ideology, to make decisions about what they do with my constituents’ tax money.

Sarah Dines Portrait The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Miss Sarah Dines)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) for securing such an important debate. I also thank everybody in the Public Gallery for taking the trouble to come along to listen to us. A lot of people work very hard in this area. I accept the letter with pleasure; I know a lot of work has gone into it. The recommendations will be separately and carefully looked at, and there will be meetings if meetings are sought. I thank them very much for that hard work.

As the hon. Lady and other hon. Members are aware, the Government take tackling violence against women and girls very seriously. We are determined to strengthen our response to those horrific crimes, which cause so much pain and suffering across society. We are working in that regard.

I will come to our approach in more detail, but I want to make the point at the outset that the needs of victims and survivors are central to all the work we do in this area. That means that when they encounter the criminal justice system, they should get effective and sensitive support, and should be treated with the utmost respect and compassion.

Let me turn to some of the specific issues raised by Members. In relation to female offenders, we know that many women who come into contact with the criminal justice system have experienced domestic abuse. Ethnic minority women in particular are over-represented at each stage of the criminal justice system, and they face disparities associated with their ethnicity, faith and culture. Since the publication of the female offender strategy in January, we have begun a programme of work aimed at improving criminal justice outcomes and disparities, and we have established the female offender minority ethnic working group, or FOME, to take that forward.

The programme of work includes cultural awareness raising for staff, commissioning an evidence review better to identify and understand the issues that lead to or underpin disparities for ethnic minority and foreign national women, and developing guidance for prison and probation staff better to understand the family relationship structures and support needs of ethnic minority and foreign women.

I thank the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) for sharing her experiences of the criminal justice system. As a new Minister, I responded on behalf of the Government to her Westminster Hall debate last November, and heard of her experiences. I thank her for participating in today’s debate.

Women in the criminal justice system have complex issues and vulnerabilities—for example, a history of abuse. There are some things on which I agree with the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips). Statistics show that 67% of women in custody or supervised in the community by the probation service with an assessment have experienced domestic abuse. Female prisoners are twice as likely to report the experience of abuse during childhood—53% of women against 27% of men—and female prisoners who report having experienced abuse as a child are more likely to report suffering sexual abuse than male prisoners. The figures are 67% for women and 24% for men. However, we need to remember that there are also vulnerable prisoners of the other sex.

Let me mention the Centre for Women’s Justice. The Ministry of Justice regularly works with the centre, and notably on the rape review, there is a high level of engagement, alongside the Home Office. A lot of work is being done. The centre will also work closely with the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), throughout the passage of the Victims and Prisoners Bill. Some of the issues we are discussing today are not directly in my portfolio, but I work closely with my right hon. Friend the Minister of State.

Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)
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Order. May I interrupt the Minister for a moment? Somebody in the Public Gallery is using a telephone. May I alert the Doorkeeper to that? Back to you, Minister.

Sarah Dines Portrait Miss Dines
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am grateful, Ms Nokes.

On the cost of living, the Government remain committed to supporting victims. We have launched a £300,000 flexible fund, which we are working closely with Women’s Aid to deliver. I was privileged to visit a refuge recently, and to speak to the women who will benefit and who have benefited from that money, which has been accepted. The fund was launched on 10 May, and it makes payments of between £250 and £500. More financial support goes to pregnant women or those with families. Further support—

--- Later in debate ---
Kate Osamor Portrait Kate Osamor
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

First, I want to say thank you to my hon. Friends the Members for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) and for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) for your powerful speeches.

Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)
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May I remind hon. Members that we have had lots of “you” and “yours” today?

Metropolitan Police: Casey Review

Caroline Nokes Excerpts
Tuesday 21st March 2023

(1 year ago)

Commons Chamber
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Suella Braverman Portrait Suella Braverman
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We are already working with the College of Policing to ensure that there is a statutory code setting out the standards for vetting and recruitment. However, as Baroness Casey makes clear, it is vital that the law-abiding public never face a threat from the police themselves. Those who are not fit to wear the badge should be rooted out, but they should never enter the force in the first place.

Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
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My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that every police officer has to be part of the solution, but when a female officer comments to Baroness Casey that she would have been better off suffering in silence, that does not engender confidence in women across the capital—including, importantly, women serving in the Metropolitan Police Service—that they will be empowered to speak out. What specific measures can my right hon. Friend reassure us will be put in place to ensure that those good officers, who we know make up the bulk of the Metropolitan Police Service, are supported when they speak out, and do not see their own careers suffer?

Suella Braverman Portrait Suella Braverman
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The turnaround plan deals specifically with how to institute a better framework so that people who are on the receiving end of unacceptable behaviour can report incidents in the knowledge that they will not be penalised for doing so, and ensuring that those who are perpetrators of, or responsible for, unacceptable behaviour receive meaningful sanction and are no longer permitted to wear the badge.

Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill

Caroline Nokes Excerpts
Stella Creasy Portrait Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary, and to continue to work on the Bill. I thank the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells for his diligence on this legislation. Many of us feel very passionately about the issue, and we are grateful for his commitment and the work he has done to bring so many people together around what has historically been quite a difficult issue to make progress on.

I was watching my three-year-old daughter gambolling down the street the other day. “Gambolling” is the right word; she was in a party dress, half dancing and half singing, and she was joyful. She was walking down the same street that I walk down when coming home from work, with my keys in my hand, looking around, nervous about who else might be on the street. It struck me how important it is that we do not give into those who say that this is too complicated an issue to make progress on.

The honest truth about being a woman is that you learn to live in fear. You learn in our society and our culture to be half aware of what is going on around you at all times, because you know that there is danger out there. When I look at my little daughter and think about what is to come, I know why this legislation is so important. I wager that everybody who has young children in their life thinks about these issues. In particular, tackling the public harassment that women face on a daily basis is long overdue, and many of us in this place have worked on it. That is why it is so important that we take the opportunity to get this right, because they come along so rarely. New clause 3 and amendment 5, which I tabled, and new clause 1, tabled by the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North but not selected for debate as it was not in scope, all get at the same point about ensuring we take this opportunity we finally have to recognise in law the fact that misogyny is driving crimes against women and to act on it.

I was thinking about some of the euphemisms we use and the things that are part of the culture we grow up in. We become so used to the fact that women are at risk and face harassment and abuse on a daily basis that we minimise it. I remember when I was younger being very concerned about somebody I was told had “deserts disease”, because I did not understand what it meant, until somebody explained to me that they meant wandering palms. We talk about people being handsy, and we talk about “creepy”, but all these behaviours are criminal.

What this legislation does is so powerful, because it says that the criminal offences that have been so much a part of women’s daily experience of public life should be acted on. For many of us who have campaigned on the issue for years, one of the biggest frustrations has been being told that we could not act on these things, because if we did, so many people would be prosecuted that the system could not cope, so it was up to women to take the abuse and find ways of minimising it and protecting themselves, carrying their keys in their hand and making sure they were alert at all times when they were in public, rather than us stopping it. What this legislation does that is so powerful is to say, “No, actually, it is not women’s job to protect themselves; it is society’s job to stop the people doing this.” The amendments I have tabled speak to that culture and the challenge we face in getting this right.

As the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells said, this is based on public order offences. There are other pieces of harassment legislation, which I am sure many people are familiar with. I had the fortune in a previous lifetime to work on some of them, which is why, on reading the Bill, I was concerned to identify some of the challenges with using the public order offence. I hope the Minister recognises that I want us to get the legislation right. My amendment are probing amendments, but I hope that by the time we get to Report, the questions they raise can be answered by the Government, because this is not a partisan issue; I think that Members across the House recognise the point I am making.

Public order offences are based on the concept of intent—did someone intend to harass somebody? They therefore give the person who is accused of it a defence that says, “Well, I thought my behaviour was reasonable.” The concept of reasonable behaviour is contained in other pieces of harassment legislation, but in that legislation it is also defined by whether someone ought to know it was reasonable. The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 refers to conduct that

“occurs in circumstances where it would appear to a reasonable person that it would amount to harassment of that person.”

In contrast, public order offences simply allow the perpetrator to define whether they thought their behaviour was reasonable. Every woman in this room will recognise the challenge that that presents, because I wager that all of them have probably experienced unwanted touching and unwanted behaviour. I pay tribute to the Clerks, who have been fantastic in working with me on how we address that challenge.

Let us put it in the simplest phrases: “Cheer up, love! I was just trying to chat you up.” “Can’t you take a joke, love?” “It’s a compliment.” “Don’t get your knickers in a twist!” We have all heard those phrases when we said to somebody, “Stop.” We have all had the experience of somebody feeling they are entitled to touch us and harass us because they think their behaviour is reasonable. These amendments speak to a simple point. Most men in this country know how to approach a woman if they find her attractive. They do not feel the need to touch her breasts or her bottom or to harass her and abuse her, but some do. If we do not close this legal loophole, a commonplace experience for women—being challenged when they speak up for themselves and say, “No, don’t touch me in this way. Don’t speak to me in this way. Don’t harass me. Don’t abuse me”—will become a legal defence, because in contrast with other pieces of harassment legislation, there is no provision that says someone ought to know their behaviour is unreasonable in the definition of intent in the Public Order Act.

My amendments will do something very simple. They will introduce the concept of “ought to know” that is contained in other pieces of harassment legislation. I hope the Minister recognises that that will help to create consistency in how we define harassment in law. More importantly, none of us wants to see those women who are brave enough to come forward under this legislation and say, “This person did this to me” be put on trial about whether they can take a joke. Nine times out of 10, that person will be a man. I recognise that the Bill does not specify gender, and that is important, but we know from the 11 police forces that are defining misogyny as a hate crime and recording the gender of victims that the victims are overwhelmingly—80% to 90%—women.

We do not want victims to be put on trial about whether their response—their statement that such behaviour was not acceptable—is reasonable, because that would bring into play the very simple concept of whether anybody else would think it is reasonable. That concept exists in other harassment legislation—not just the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, but the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. The Crown Prosecution Service guidance says:

“In determining whether the defendant ought to know that the course of conduct amounts to harassment, the question to be considered is whether a reasonable person in possession of the same information would think the course of conduct amounted to harassment of the other.”

It is important to clarify, in relation to the Bill, that in public order offences a judge can give what is called an oblique direction to a jury, so they can say: “This concept of reasonableness is not necessarily right.” That is there as a precedent, but reasonableness is not defined in every single case.

There is a risk that if we do not clarify that we want those same protections and the same questions in this Bill, that will create a legal loophole. My amendments are about that. I am sure the Minister will argue that they are not quite at the level they need to be. I completely understand that; this is a first attempt to flag the issue. If the Minister can suggest other ways to set out in law the fact that we need consistency and that we want to close the loophole, I would be very open to that, but the Bill will not do all the things we want unless we are clear that it does not matter that a person thinks it is reasonable to grab a woman by her breasts to express their sexual interest in her—most other people would not. This Bill is about those commonplace forms of public harassment—24,000 women every single day experience harassment—and it needs to be tightened up.

I hope Committee members understand where I am coming from with these amendments, and I hope they will find common cause across the House. I look forward to what the Minister has to say and to hearing how we might take the issue forward.

Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells, who has done an enormous amount of work to bring together a coalition of reasonable people—to use the word of the hon. Member for Walthamstow—who have sought over many years to find a way forward on this really serious issue.

We know it is a serious issue because each one of us has listened to tales from our constituents and organisations in our patches. I always highlight the incredible work of Plan International UK, Girlguiding, the Women’s Institute and Soroptimist International. I had the pleasure of speaking about this issue at the Soroptimists’ regional conference, probably at the start of last year, although I fear that it may have been 2021. I am sure they will not mind me saying this, but it was a group of mature ladies. They were very clever, very sharp and very determined to ensure that their daughters and granddaughters do not experience the same things they had, albeit some years before.

The hon. Member for Walthamstow painted a picture of her daughter. My message to the Committee is that they are all our daughters. Those of us who are blessed with daughters often cite our experiences, but it is about every woman and young girl out there who has been the victim of this sort of harassment. The tragedy is that they all have.

I will not speak to my new clause, which was deemed out of scope—you need not worry about that, Sir Gary —but I will speak to the broad theme of this Bill, which is a huge step forward. We have been looking for this progress. I know it has been considered over many years by the Home Office under successive Home Secretaries. I pay tribute to the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), my hon. Friends the Members for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) and for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), and the Minister. I know they want to find a way forward.

I regard the Bill as the first step—this should strike fear into everyone’s heart. I will be completely candid: this is not perfect legislation. It omits some of the things that I would like to have seen included. We must keep a weather eye on what has been done to improve it when it comes back on Report and how it works in practice, because that is what really matters. It does not matter that we get the wording right in a piece of legislation if it is not any use on the ground. It is the practical implications that will make a difference to all those women out there who walk home with their keys in their hand.

We cannot shy away, and the hon. Member for Walthamstow did not shy away, from the fact that this is about women protecting themselves from male perpetrators. My Committee, the Women and Equalities Committee, is doing an enormous piece of work on misogyny and violence against women and girls. We never shy away from saying that in the vast majority of cases—of course I acknowledge that it is not every case—the behaviour is perpetrated by men, and it is cultural.

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I respectfully suggest that the hon. Lady’s amendments do not work technically, but we understand what has been put forward and it will be considered very carefully. I know that my responses will raise the question why we are restricting the new offence to cases in which the defendant’s intention to cause harassment, alarm or distress must be proven. That is what I think lies behind the amendments.
Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes
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I apologise if I was not listening correctly, but the Minister mentioned intent. I am not sure that, in simply reiterating the question from the hon. Member for Walthamstow, the Minister gave us an answer. Is she going to give us an answer about intent?

Sarah Dines Portrait Miss Dines
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

To be able to get forward to the next step of the offence, the prosecution must always prove intent, so we would not get to the statutory defences until we have dealt with intent, and intent depends on the circumstances. I think we all know that it is all quite obvious, although I and the Government are willing to look at a better form of wording. I appreciate that my right hon. Friend feels passionately about this issue, and it is something that will be considered very carefully.

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Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes
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I thank the Minister for giving way again. I wish to follow up the example of the hon. Member for Walthamstow with a very different example, which I have used previously in the Chamber.

A young woman came to speak to me. Her job was pushing trolleys around a supermarket car park. She used to shelter by the security guards for all of lunchtime. I said, “Why? Surely lunchtime is the best part of the day?” She said, “No, because that’s when the builders come.”

Now, I recognise that we are now castigating an entire category of man, and I apologise for doing so, but they would turn up in their vans and harass her while she was pushing her trolleys. This was at the height of covid. She wore a beanie hat, a mask, a thick puffer jacket, leggings and boots; and a man walked up to her, put his hands either side of her face, and said, “You are too beautiful to be doing a job like this.” Can we discuss what the intent and the reasonableness is there? That is a clear case of harassment on the grounds of sex, but it is not as stark as the case that the hon. Member for Walthamstow shared.

Sarah Dines Portrait Miss Dines
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I thank my right hon. Friend for raising that example. I personally think that it is just as stark, and that it is just as easy to knock down the defence, because the intent is so obviously there. Intent is not a fanciful legal device. It is something that is pretty obviously stated, and a jury, judge or magistrate—whoever it is—would very easily be able to knock the defence away, but I do value the point that my right hon. Friend makes. The Government have accepted that they will look at that again, and I very much enjoy hearing these interventions.

The Government’s view is that even though these amendments would have the desired effect, they would not be necessary to criminalise the type of behaviour that concerns most of us here, but I do take seriously the concerns that lie behind them and I will give them further consideration. In the meantime, I suggest that the hon. Member for Walthamstow, having probed with quite a lot of debate, and made her point very forcefully, should perhaps not press the amendments.

Moving on to substantive matters more generally—I know that I have taken up a great amount of time—I speak in support of clause 1, which creates the new offence at the heart of the Bill by inserting a new criminal offence within the Public Order Act 1986 as a new section 4B. The offence will be dependent on the behaviour that falls within section 4A of the Act—namely, that of intentionally causing harassment, alarm or distress—and will provide that if someone committed behaviour under section 4A, and did so because of the victim’s sex, they could receive a longer sentence of up to two years, rather than the six months mentioned in section 4A.

The approach of building on the section 4A offence reflects the Government’s view that public sexual harassment behaviour is already covered by existing criminal offences, most commonly that section 4A offence. Had we instead sought to create a wholly new offence, that would have entailed overlap with existing ones, which would be not only unnecessary but actively harmful, as it would create confusion about the law—exactly the reverse of what we are trying to achieve here.

Spiking Incidents: Prevention

Caroline Nokes Excerpts
Wednesday 11th January 2023

(1 year, 2 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
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That leads on to the very important point. It is not just women; in an increasing number of instances, it is young men who are being spiked in order to gain access to their bank account. They are sometimes robbed of many thousands of pounds. Trying to link this offence to sexual offences only would provide even less clarity. The spiking could take place for the purposes of entertainment, robbery or some other reason, so we cannot link it to sexual offences only.

Richard Graham Portrait Richard Graham
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My right hon. Friend has made two correct points. First, it happens to men as well as women. When I promoted my ten-minute rule Bill, I highlighted the unfortunate case of a Christian Indonesian in Manchester, Mr Sinaga, whose videos later revealed to police 58 cases of men being sexually assaulted. Many of those men did not know they had been sexually assaulted until the police showed them the video evidence. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right on that point. Her second point, on spiking taking place for all sorts of reasons, including that of entertainment—“It’s cool, it’s fun, it’s a dare”—is absolutely valid. That is why we need to ensure that any attempt to spike, or any spiking act, is completely illegal, whatever the motive. She is right to highlight that point.

I will finish on the question of data collection, with a quote from the response of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners. It was given in response to the Home Affairs Committee report by the joint leads for the APPC’s addictions and substance misuse portfolio —one is from Durham and the other from Dorset—who said that

“we agree that the creation of a separate criminal offence for spiking would send a clear message to perpetrators that this behaviour is not acceptable and could encourage victims in coming forwards to report incidents.”

That is critical. I know from my constituent Maisy that a lot of young people who have been spiked do not, for various reasons, want to come forward to report the incident. They are frightened of the repercussions and do not believe it will necessarily get anywhere. I believe that the almost 5,000 reports that I mentioned earlier is almost certainly an underestimation of the volume of incidents.

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Jim Shannon Portrait Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
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I thank the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) for bringing this issue forward. He deserves credit for his perseverance, commitment and dogged determination to ensure that we get change, and we are all here to support him and ensure that he gets that—well done to him. Spiking is not an issue that applies to a certain location or region. This is a nationwide issue that has impacted the lives of many young people. It is important to be here today and I want to add a Northern Ireland perspective to the debate. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Spiking over the past couple of years in the UK has unfortunately become a common occurrence. A report in April 2022 showed that as many as 43,000 people have been spiked in the UK over the past year—more than double the figure for 2018. That underlines the point made by the hon. Member: this needs to be legislated for, and that needs to be done sooner rather than later. I have been in contact with constituents in relation to spiking incidents in Northern Ireland, especially in the nightclub scene. I am far too old for nightclubs, but my constituents have contacted me so I can refer to that with some credibility and honesty. The Police Service of Northern Ireland revealed that there have been up to 17 spiking incidents in one nightclub in Londonderry alone, which is frightening not only for young people, who want to go out and enjoy themselves, but for their parents, because families are affected by this issue as well.

There are evil people out there who will make irresponsible decisions to make committing crimes easier. If taken at a low dose, a spiking drug can disappear from someone’s system in 12 to 24 hours. With an increased dose, victims are induced into a coma-like state. Spiking has often been used in places like clubs and at raves to enable perpetrators to commit sexual assault. There was a story in the news today—I am not smarter than anybody else; it was on the news this morning—about a venue in London being closed because young males were being spiked with drugs and their money was being taken. The right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) spoke about that—I had it written down in my notes, but she beat me to it. I thank and support her in what she has put forward. I agree that there needs to be greater co-ordination between the Government and nightclub staff, owners and bouncers, so that this issue can be minimised and dealt with to the best of our ability.

Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes
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That is the first time I have heard anyone mention bouncers, and they have such a crucial role to play. A constituent of mine who was spiked was picked up in the ladies loo and dumped on the pavement because they thought she was drunk, not drugged. That is such a crucial thing, and we need training for bouncers as well.

Jim Shannon Portrait Jim Shannon
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right. It is important that we take a holistic approach that involves all those who have a role to play, including bouncers, and that it is done in a positive way. The spiking I mentioned earlier in Londonderry was in relation to Ulster University students. There is most certainly a spiking problem in universities, particularly for students. There has been an initiative by the Government, the Home Office and the Department for Education to help nightclubs tackle spiking. I understand that this issue is not directly the responsibility of the Minister, but perhaps he could ensure that the Minister responsible provides some clarity as to whether this strategy would apply to Northern Ireland or whether any scheme would have to go through the Department of Justice back home. Again, I want to ensure that what happens here happens in Northern Ireland.

I have two examples. Some nightclubs in Scotland have introduced paper dip tests that change colour if a suspicious substance is added to a drink. In addition, I have been made aware by some of my younger members of staff that there are cup covers that cover the top of a cup and only allow a hole for a straw. Those are some things that we can do. However, the most important thing is that today, in this Westminster Hall debate, through the office of the hon. Member for Gloucester, we start the process of change.

Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill

Caroline Nokes Excerpts
Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
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I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who has done such an incredible job to get the Bill to this point. I appreciate that it has a long way to go yet, but I welcome the cross-party support for it and the comments made by my hon. Friend the Minister.

I do not recall the first time that I spoke in this Chamber about public sexual harassment, but I vividly recall doing an interview with “Woman’s Hour” in 2019, when I was ridiculed for saying that public sexual harassment should be a specific crime. I remember the commentary on the website afterwards saying I did not know what I was talking about, and I remember the Daily Mail calling me mirthless because I did not think it was funny. The reality is that public sexual harassment is never funny: it is always scary and it dominates the lives of too many women.

There has been some focus this morning on the lives of young women, but the stark reality is that there is probably not a woman in this place who has not experienced public sexual harassment at some point. It can happen at any age to any person, and it does happen to men as well, particularly young gay men. They need our support every bit as much as women do.

I certainly remember why I first started talking about this issue: it was largely because of a coalition of really impressive women and women’s organisations—people who had come to see me and raised the issue with me. I am going to list them all, because I argue that, once we have on our side Our Streets Now, Plan International, the Girl Guides, the Soroptimists and the Women’s Institute, we have brought together a very impressive coalition of women of all ages and backgrounds who are prepared to speak up and determined to do so. When we read the statistics, they are absolutely terrifying. They show the sheer scale of the problem. When an issue dominates the Girlguiding girls’ attitude survey and dominates the experiences of young women at school, college and university, we have to reflect that it is well past time that we did something about it.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister, who will have the pleasure—I suggest—of responding to my right hon. Friend’s Bill, of taking it forward, and of seeing it eventually go on to the statute book. However, there is a long history of other committed female Ministers, many of whom, over the past few years, have sidled up to me and said, “Keep going: keep pushing at that door.”

Let me give some indication of the scale of support there has been. I remember my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), on many occasions in Westminster Hall, begging me to keep going—to keep on asking difficult questions, and to keep on ensuring that this issue remained uppermost in people’s minds—but, of course, she is not the only one. My right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) has held this brief, as have my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), who was in the Chamber earlier: she too has played a role in keeping this issue on the priority list. There is also, of course, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), not to mention the former Members of Parliament Amber Rudd and Sarah Newton, both of whom also held this brief at various points.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells said, back in December last year we saw the Law Commission’s review, which clearly stated that the Government should consider making public sexual harassment a specific crime, although, interestingly, at that time the commission rejected the idea of adding misogyny to the list of hate crimes. I was not particularly happy about that, but I was prepared to wear it on the grounds that we would see public sexual harassment made a crime. It was a shame that there was not enough time for the Government to do that, but I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for bringing the issue as far as this point.

I want to pay tribute to some of the brilliant women out there in the community who are working both for and alongside the police, whom I consider to be real champions in this regard. The Minister mentioned Maggie Blyth, the deputy chief constable of Hampshire constabulary—my home force—who is also the national police lead for violence against women and girls. I also pay tribute to our police and crime commissioner in Hampshire, Donna Jones. I have attended many events relating to violence against women and girls where she too has proved herself to be a real champion in sticking up for the 51% of the population who are affected by these matters. Another is Caroline Henry, whom I met the day before yesterday to talk about the issues affecting women and girls.

Let me give a specific example to show why I think the Bill is so important. I have heard successive Ministers say that such legislation is not necessary, because there is existing legislation to protect women and girls from sexual harassment. I am going to recount the story of a constituent who spoke to me about it, and my subsequent conversation with the then Minister about what had happened to that constituent. This was a 22-year-old working in the retail sector—a very glamorous job, pushing trolleys around the supermarket car park in the depths of February. I want Members to imagine her uniform: a puffer coat made of hi-viz material, a pair of leggings, heavy boots, a bobble hat, and, because this was at the height of covid, a mask. She said to me, “I hate lunchtime.” I thought that was bizarre: I thought most young people quite liked having a lunch break. She said, “I have to work from 12 pm until till 2 pm, because that is when the supermarket is busiest and I have to return all the trolleys to the front door, and I hate it.” I said, “Why? What is so difficult about lunchtime?”

I apologise for generalising, and I apologise to all those employed in the construction industry who will hate what I am going to say next. My constituent replied, “Because that is when the builders come for their lunch.” When I asked what happened when the builders came to the supermarket to get their lunch, she said, “They make comments about me, they follow me around the car park, they talk about how my bum looks, and this week one of them came up to me, put his hands on either side of my face, and told me that I was too beautiful to be pushing trolleys.” I looked at her in horror, and then I went to see the Minister at the time and said, “You’ve been telling me for months that there are crimes already being committed and that there is legislation to protect people like my constituent who tells me that she hates lunchtime and spends it pushing trolleys back to the entrance of the supermarket as quickly as she can, because that is where the security guards are—she spends her lunchtime trying to be within range of the security guards. What was the specific crime there? What legislation can we use to protect girls like her?” She looked at me and said, “I don’t know. I don’t think a crime has been committed there.” I entirely accept that we must not demonise all men and we must not demonise all builders, but that is the type of behaviour that this legislation is designed to counteract, so I welcome it wholeheartedly.

We know that 50% of young women have experienced sexual harassment in schools or colleges. We know that 37% have experienced it on public transport. I pay tribute to the amazing work done by the British Transport police, among other organisations, to highlight the unacceptability of it and the strategies and tactics that we can all use to stop being bystanders and to intervene and help women in situations where they are uncomfortable and are being harassed. We know that 33% of sexual harassment happens in public buildings and that 75%—three quarters—of all women have experienced sexual harassment at some point in their lives. All of us in this Chamber know a victim of it, which also means that all of us in this Chamber know a perpetrator. It is the perpetrators who we need to identify and we need to stamp out their behaviour.

I want briefly to talk about the cultures behind public sexual harassment. My Select Committee has done and continues to do significant work on this. I remember telling a colleague that we were doing some work on the cultures that underpin male violence against women, and she looked at me and said, “You’re trying to overturn 2,000 years of male behaviour, are you?” I said, “Yes! Absolutely—that is what we have to do.” We have to put a marker down somewhere. If we are not prepared to do it now, today, in this place, then do we wait another 10, 20 or 1,000 years? Are we prepared to do that? I am certainly not. I find that it is very liberating being a woman in your 50s; you suddenly find that you are in a terrible hurry to get stuff done now. Now is today, and the Bill is that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells.

My Committee is doing some great work looking at the experience of young women in education settings, and it is harrowing. I did a roundtable with the Agenda Alliance for women and girls at risk, which includes girls who have been through the care system and girls who have experienced all sorts of horrors in their lives. Many of them told me about their experiences in pupil inclusion units; we have to be careful about the terminology we use, in terms of whether it is exclusion or inclusion. Girls in those settings are heavily outnumbered. In some instances, it is 90% boys and 10% girls. One of the girls told me that there is a poster in her education setting talking about consent, and every day, that poster is slashed and torn off the walls. She said, “How do you think that makes me feel? It makes me feel that I am not worthy. It makes me feel that I am in danger and at risk in my education setting.” She was perfectly happy to accept that it was a suboptimal education setting, and that there were many reasons why she had ended up there, but she said, “I should be valued and protected as much as the boys in that place.”

The work that the Committee is doing is fascinating, important and worth while, but it is harrowing to hear the stories and the experiences, particularly of black women working in the music industry and of how they can be sexualised, victimised and harassed because of their skin colour, their sex and the fact that they want to get on in an industry that is incredibly male-dominated and competitive. They feel that if they make a fuss, their careers will be pushed to one side.

We heard a couple of weeks ago from Fern Whelan, the ex-England footballer, about the experiences she had as a footballer. We like to think that sport is a great leveller and that everybody is equal, but the harassment that women still face in football is significant, and it continues when they move on to careers in the media after they have finished their playing careers. She told a fantastic tale of how she had made a comment and was endlessly trolled for it, with hundreds of comments basically telling her to get back into the kitchen, while her male contemporary had made the same comment and not one single person had reacted to it in any way.

While these incidents may appear to be the less serious end of harassment, it is cultural, and it is embedded in all the places that women go, where women work and the activities they want to take part in. It is crucial that we pursue the culture. I absolutely accept that it is not all men; there are some brilliant men. I think in particular back to 2020, when women were feeling empowered and emboldened to speak up about their experiences walking home, and I shared the fact that, when I leave this place at night, I do so with my flat keys in my hand and wearing a pair of trainers. I know that they are not much beloved of Madam Deputy Speaker, who would prefer none of us to wear trainers in this place, but actually as a woman it is much easier to run home in flat shoes. I suspect that few of my male colleagues have ever reflected on their footwear before trotting home across Westminster bridge.

We must tackle the cultures. We must recognise this good Bill, which my excellent colleague has brought forward, as a first step. There will be a very long way to go yet for all of us to stand up for brilliant young women like Maya and Gemma Tutton, who have been such an inspiration to me and others in this place, and ensure that this is a first step and that we continue the work.

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Caroline Nokes Portrait Caroline Nokes
- Hansard - -

My hon. Friend is making the important and powerful point that we must never ever forget that there is, uncomfortable though we may find it, a pyramid of offending. Although not every flasher becomes a rapist, every rapist has started somewhere, and public sexual harassment can be the somewhere. Does she agree that that is one of the many reasons why we have to make sure that it is stamped out at source?

Siobhan Baillie Portrait Siobhan Baillie
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. That is why I get so frustrated when people dismiss this as unnecessary, going too far, or too heavy-handed. It is a very short hop, skip and jump from someone shouting obscenities or being rude to a woman on the street to being rude in their own home, if that is their mentality. We have to make that connection and we have to keep making it strongly.

When we had those rare horrendous incidents in Stroud, the advice that was immediately given was for women. They were told, “Change your behaviour. Change your clothes.” It was exactly as the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) said. It was also, “Don’t wear your headphones. Think a little bit more about where you’re going to walk”. Where do I want to walk in a beautiful Cotswolds market town? I want to walk everywhere. I do not want my thought processes to be about whether I will get attacked on any given day.

But Stroud fought back. This is a very spirited place, very politically bouncy, as anyone who follows politics will know, and my inbox is very bouncy, too. Anybody who thought that they would get away with attacking women and girls or being rude to them on the streets in my area was very, very wrong. We have all banded together to make changes, which is why I am so much in support of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells is doing. Our voices are being reinforced, although it is not just about our voices: in all of our constituencies, we have Government support for a very important Bill.

I have led a successful campaign, which the Government have now supported, to change the law and reduce anonymous online abuse, which, as I said, is completely connected to the real world. Hundreds of people in Stroud have marched, on a number of occasions now, specifically on these issues. Our police and crime commissioner, Chris Nelson, and our police have joined those marches. That is a really important step. Our PCC has made tackling violence against women and girls a focus of his work. The hon. Member for Walthamstow was talking about police forces that were ahead of the curve; Gloucestershire is one of them and I am very proud of it for that, although the police have a lot more work to do. We held a public meeting about these issues, and even though we have been reporting hate crimes and public harassment for much longer than other forces, women were standing up saying that they still did not feel comfortable going to the police. There is an awful lot of work to do, and I know that the Gloucestershire constabulary understand that.

Two fabulous constituents, Nikki Owen and Sydney-Anne McAllister—I met Sydney quite recently—have launched a pressure group called This Ends Now. They want to change the law and the media, and they are challenging both to do better, particularly on language. Where there is a rape, it should be reported in the media as a rape, not as a sexual assault, and it should not be played down in any way, shape or form. I believe that committed women in my patch will be pleased to see what we are trying to do today.

I encourage all Members of the House to look up the work of the Holly Gazzard Trust, which was set up by a family who were devastated by the loss of their daughter. They have gone on to campaign on domestic abuse and to really change the lives of many other families, and they are front and centre in supporting and fighting for women and girls in Gloucestershire.

We also have Chrissie Lowery, who is winning awards all over the place. Following the rapes and other incidents I have mentioned, and the rise of concern among our school girls about public sexual harassment, she took up the baton and created the Safe Space campaign, which Stagecoach, the police and lots of local businesses are now on board with. After an incident in a very dark, dingy, scary tunnel, Chrissie took the initiative of getting some amazing artists together, and we painted the tunnel, which sounds very simple. My daughter and I went down, and we put butterflies on the wall of this horrendously dark tunnel; it is now a beautiful open space that people are comfortable going down during the day, and we are looking at having lighting and CCTV at night. These efforts are small acts of kindness, but they will all join up to make a difference.

Gloucestershire police have created something called the Flare app, which is being rolled out to other forces. It allows people to put in the details of places they are worried about in the Stroud district and creates a heat map, so the police know to go to specific points of concern and the council can come in and do work on things such as CCTV. It is really innovative, and we can probably do more with it, but 3,000 people have downloaded it, so it is going pretty well for a new piece of kit.

Given that my community and constituents have done so much legwork—there are more examples, but I will not go on and on—it is right that we in this place constantly review the law. Following the advice from bodies such as the Law Commission—where very learned people have spent a lot of time investigating this issue—my right hon. Friend’s Bill assists us in doing that. We are creating a new law that deals with intentionally harassing or seeking to cause alarm, which is a gap in the legislation that we have in this place, so I welcome the Bill.

However, it is right that there is a balance in what we are trying to do and in what happens should somebody be pulled up for sexual harassment, so I welcome the explanation of what will and will not result in imprisonment. The headlines and challenges that we have seen—that someone will be sent to prison because they wolf-whistled—are immediately dismissive. It is therefore right that we are clear about what the Bill does and does not do and about how we have sought to strike a balance. The test is the intention to cause distress. Where somebody is being a plonker, that is a very different test—we could deal with plonkers in other ways. This intention to cause distress is a serious test, which will hopefully lead to prosecutions in the right places and then to deterrence, so that we can start to change society and culture.