Psychoactive Substances Bill [Lords]

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Lyn Brown]

I do so agree with the hon. Gentleman about that. Unfortunately, I have not been lucky enough to become a parent, but I have nieces and I know that what their parents tell them and the information available to their parents is crucial in their making the right decisions.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

There are a lot of very responsible parents out there who will of course talk to their children about legal highs, and about building resilience and self-confidence so that they make the right decisions in their lives. We have to accept, however, that unfortunately many children do not have the advantages we would like them to have, so it is incumbent on us all to recognise that education within the school setting is another way of getting important messages across.

[Lyn Brown]

My hon. Friend is right indeed about that.

These life skills can be taught only by helping children think about the challenges and dangers they face. They need to understand that bullying is often a tool of the drug pusher, and that a consequence for people taking drugs from pushers is often that they will get into debt or be open to exploitation. When these messages are introduced in the classroom, they can result in conversations between young people and a real learning process rather than it all being a bit hit and miss, as my hon. Friend says, if this occurs out of school. We need information, values and context in order to deliver a quality drugs education. That is why drugs education belongs in the sort of comprehensive personal and social education that can be provided by PSHE, and not solely, as is happening so often, in science lessons. Unfortunately, the Government have consistently opposed making PSHE a foundation subject whenever the issue has been raised in this House.

There is reason to believe that education about new psychoactive substances is particularly bad. Research by the Royal Society for Public Health found that a quarter of young people aged between 16 and 24 believed that so-called “legal highs” were safer than illegal drugs. As we all know, that is a dangerous misunderstanding because some new psychoactive substances have been classified as class A drugs. It is little wonder that young people, and indeed older people, are confused when they are being bombarded with marketing tricks from drug pushers who tell them that these are safe and legal alternatives. Given the ingrained and damaging myths around new psychoactive substances, I find it astonishing that as of 2 June just £180,556 has been spent over three years on education programmes about these drugs.

New psychoactive substances education and awareness is not just about schools. That is why I have tabled amendment 4, which would place a statutory duty on the Home Secretary to include an update on progress in improving new psychoactive substances education and awareness in her statutory review. The amendment would focus minds at the Home Office and compel it to put in place the most effective and comprehensive awareness campaign possible.

The Welsh Assembly found that 57% of new psychoactive substances users used the media as their main source of information about these substances. Public relations and advertising campaigns therefore have a key role to play, particularly among adult groups where the Government cannot act as a direct provider of education as they do in schools. The Government’s own public awareness campaigns are limited to the FRANK website, which, regrettably, has almost no social media presence. In the absence of any Government action, the Angelus Foundation has been forced to run its own advertising campaigns, using fundraising and corporate donations in kind. I want to praise its work again, but I am sure it would acknowledge that these campaigns should be nationwide and comprehensive, and it simply cannot afford to do this itself. The job it is doing is the job that Government should be doing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Poulter]

My right hon. Friend speaks wisely. On that subject, looking at the scheduling, steroids come under schedule 4 to the misuse of drugs regulations. They are often a drug misused by body builders and other athletes whereas, in the example I just gave, diamorphine, or heroin, is a schedule 2 drug. There is now a clear and compelling case, because of the growing medical evidence and the barriers to research, to consider the scheduling of cannabis. More broadly, before we even get to that point, I know that there is more we can do to make it easier to research the links between cannabis and mental health and to support that very important research so that, hopefully, we can move towards a better position through this Bill, not just in protecting the public from psychoactive substances but in improving the care of a number of the most vulnerable patients looked after by our health service.

I intend the amendment as a probing amendment and do not wish to press it to a vote, but I look forward to hearing my right hon. Friend the Minister’s response.

[Diana Johnson]

I rise in support of new clause 1 and amendment 4. I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), who sits on the Front Bench, on the excellent way she set out why new clause 1 and amendment 4 need to be incorporated in the Bill.

It has been six years since we seriously started to discuss in Parliament why personal, social, health and economic education should be made compulsory. I greatly regret that we did not manage to do it when we were in power. At the very end of the 2010 Labour Government, PSHE was going to be made a statutory part of the national curriculum. There was a very good case made for that, based on building life skills, confidence and resilience in young people, which we all accept needs to happen. To me, the challenges that young people face in the modern world include how to deal with drugs and these new psychoactive substances. It was a great regret that in the wash-up, during those final months leading up to the 2010 election, we were not able to secure the support of the Conservatives to get that change to the law.

The UK Drug Policy Commission spent six years researching what our drugs policies should be, and found that the best drugs education is delivered in an evidence-based life skills programme. That is why making PSHE compulsory is important. Why does it need to be statutory? The Select Committee on Education, in its report last year, said:

“There is a lack of clarity on the status of the subject. This must change, and we accept the argument that statutory status is needed for PSHE”.

We know that it varies all around the country. In some schools, it is taught very well, but in many schools it is not taught well at all, and that is because it is not statutory. It is not measured and we know that headteachers will always have an eye on ensuring that their schools and pupils do best in what is measured. That is the compelling argument for me: we should ensure that we have a level playing field across all schools, so we have to provide statutory PSHE. Another important reason to make it statutory is that schools have to ensure that teachers are properly trained. One of the big problems with how PSHE is delivered in this country is that the teacher with a little more time in their timetable—perhaps the PE teacher—takes responsibility, not a teacher with the level and depth of training required to teach the subject properly.

We know, as my hon. Friend said from the Front Bench, that many students say that they have only one hour of drugs education in school. At the moment we are relying on good will, charities and other organisations to provide information to our young people. I think that that is wrong. However, I want to pay tribute to the Angelus Foundation for the work it has done. It was set up in very sad circumstances by Maryon Stewart, who lost her daughter, Hester, who took GBL without knowing what it was and sadly died. Maryon has fought hard for this legislation to be put on the statute book, but I am sure she would be the first to say that we need to ensure that our young people are educated. It is not just about changing the law, but about making sure that young people make good decisions for themselves.

I also want to refer to an organisation in my constituency called REAL— Recovery Enabling Abstinent Lifestyle—run by Mike Tong and Su Baker, who are also trying to get information out to young people in Hull to explain about legal highs. We have already debated how we should describe legal highs, and I think it right to refer to them as new psychoactive substances, rather than legal highs. Those provisions all rely on good will and charity, which is why it is vital that the amendments are accepted today.

Before the Minister responds, I wish to mention the FRANK campaign—I think my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham also mentioned that. “Talk to Frank” is not good enough, and if the Government are serious about ensuring that young people have information to make good choices in their lives, FRANK is not the delivery mechanism for that.

We know that young people have called for PSHE to be made statutory, and the Youth Parliament supported and ran with that campaign a few years ago. Parents support PSHE and want it brought into schools, as does the cross-party Education Committee. We need to equip our young people with life skills to make good decisions, and to equip the police with the powers that they need to enforce the law against those who exploit, harm and damage people, particularly young people. The Minister is a sensible man who often relies on his good common sense, and I hope he will think hard about whether rejecting these amendments is in the long-term interests of this country and the young people whom we in this House wish to ensure are protected and able to make good and healthy decisions about their lives.

Prisons and Secure Training Centres: Safety

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I know just how closely my hon. Friend has taken this case to heart. Both the conversations he has had with me and the correspondence he has had with the Department are testament to the fact that he has been moved by the case and is determined to see reform as a result. I can only say that I will do everything I can to ensure that families do not have to live with the tragedy with which the family he so ably represents have had to live.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Does the Justice Secretary think that it is time for a review of the vetting and barring scheme that the Government introduced in the previous Parliament, to see whether it is actually providing the most suitable people to work with young people?

[Michael Gove]

I know that the hon. Lady has a number of concerns about changes to the vetting and barring scheme. If she has specific concerns about how it might have failed in that area, I would be interested to hear them. More broadly, I absolutely take her point, and it will be the subject of the conversations I have with the Youth Justice Board and others.

Police Funding Formula

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I would like to have thought that we would have a better question from the hon. Gentleman, but clearly not. I was not passing the blame to anybody; I was simply saying that I am being criticised for not doing something that did not happen in the 13 years of the previous Administration. Gwent has not lost anything; no force has lost anything. These are indicative figures. We need to make sure that we get the figures right as we go forward.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

With the background of the lowest levels of police officers since 1979 and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary describing the force’s funding as inadequate, Humberside would have been set to get an additional £5.7 million under the right data. Can the Minister assure me and my constituents that under any new formula Humberside will still get that additional sum of money?

[Mike Penning]

No, of course I cannot do that, but I do understand exactly where the hon. Lady is coming from. We are going to pause, look carefully at the funding formula, and make sure we get it right. I am sure she would agree that it has to be fair across the 43 authorities, not just fair for Humberside, although I understand that she wants to push buttons for that region.

Arrests of Chinese Protesters

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I am sure that the Metropolitan police are listening to this discussion, but I will also make sure that I mention that in the discussions I have with them. The fact that peaceful demonstrations by thousands of people took place in this country is an example to the world that we can have demonstrations like that. I am not going to go into the issue of what happened with the arrests, but we are a democracy where peace-loving people can demonstrate, and thank goodness they can.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Does the Minister know whether formal complaints have been made to the Metropolitan police? If they have, does he think it is appropriate that rather than being dealt with through an internal investigative measure they should be referred automatically to the Independent Police Complaints Commission because of their sensitivity?

[Mike Penning]

I am not aware of whether a formal complaint has been made. It is the normal procedure for the matter to go to the Metropolitan police and then the Met themselves can either refer it or it can be referred later on once it has gone through the due process of the complaints procedure. I will find out whether the Metropolitan police have done this and arrange for the commissioner to write to the hon. Lady.

Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Temporary Class Drug) (NO. 2) order 2015

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 General Committees

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.

Let me start by thanking the Minister for setting out so clearly the purpose of the order before us. I have been coming along to Committees considering orders like this for five years now, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank him and his colleagues for the courtesy they have shown me over those five years by providing information and for the support that officials have given me when I have sought further information. As we live in uncertain times, I am not sure whether I will be speaking from this exact position again, so I wanted to put on record my thanks for that support from the Minister.

[Mike Penning]

I do not want to delay the Committee, but I thank the shadow Minister very much for her comments. I hope she will remain in place, because this issue is something she is passionate about, and that passion is something that all of us who come to this House should have. If she does not remain in place, I am sure that, whether from the Back Benches or wherever else she is, she will continue to get that support from my Department on the work she does in this area.

[Diana Johnson]

I am grateful to the Minister. I will certainly be taking an enormous amount of interest, in whatever capacity, to the Bill that said he would be introducing before Christmas.

The Opposition welcome the order before us. I do not wish to delay the Committee too long, but I want to ask some questions. This is the latest in a long line of statutory instruments that I have debated over the past five years, as the Government have struggled to keep pace with the explosion of new psychoactive substances. As with previous orders, we are today discussing a ban for a group of related compounds. What is unusual about today’s order is that it introduces only a temporary ban. The Government promised that the introduction of temporary bans would transform the UK’s response to new psychoactive substances. In fact, the power has been used only four times, while hundreds of new psychoactive substances have emerged on the UK market.

I want to emphasise, as the Minister did, the dangers of these drugs. I thoroughly support what he said about the result of taking these particular substances. It is important to highlight the review that was conducted by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. I am grateful for the work it does to assist us in making our decisions.

The types of dangers we are discussing today are not dissimilar to those associated with other new psychoactive substances that we have been discussing over the previous few years: a lack of control, a danger of overdosing, chest pain, paranoia and hypertension. However, it is particularly worrying to see reports that this drug is highly addictive, as the Minister said, with users frequently needing to re-dose, often with needles. Clearly this suggests that it poses a particular public health threat. It is of course tragic that the drug has been linked with a death, as set out in the accompanying documents.

I want to make three short points. First, I want to highlight the delays in taking action against these drugs. According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, ethylphenidate was first identified in the UK in 2011. The EMCDDA’s partner organisation in the UK is the National Poisons Information Service. That suggests that the drug was detected in hospital admissions as far back in 2011. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs report said that ethylphenidate was identified by surveys of online new psychoactive substances stores back in 2011, and it was first linked with a drugs death in the UK in 2013. I know that the Minister apologised for the delay in getting the order before us, but I wonder why it has taken so long to get to this point. Even if we take it from 2013, that is still two years.

There appear to have been delays at every stage of the process. Although the drug was first identified in the UK in 2011, it was not until 2014 that it was included in the UK’s forensic early warning system report. It then took a further year for the ACMD to assess the evidence and six months from the ACMD making a recommendation to Parliament discussing a temporary ban. Denmark, Austria, Germany, Hungary, the US, Australia, Sweden, Turkey, Portugal and even Jersey have already acted to ban the drug. Given that the UK has the world’s second largest legal highs market, can the Minister explain why he thinks it has taken so long to get to this point and why we appear to be so far behind those other countries?

The Minister referred to the new Psychoactive Substances Bill, which the Opposition fully support and have called for over a long period. It is coming to the House of Commons shortly. The Bill should address the issue of the supply of these drugs while their dangers are being evaluated. However, it will not address the serious shortage of capacity in the evaluation process. The Government need to consider that urgently. I would welcome the Minister’s view on the capacity of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to carry out its functions.

Secondly, I want to ask the Minister about analogue bans—a change in the drugs laws introduced in the last five years, supposedly to address the spread of new psychoactive substances. I would like to know why an analogue ban, covering all the derivatives of methylphenidate, was not introduced in 2012 when the Government did ban other substances, most notably desoxypipradrol. All the other substances that we are discussing today are linked to methylphenidate. Why was an analogue ban that would have stopped the spread of these new substances not pursued in 2012?

Finally, I turn to education and public awareness. The Government’s efforts to control the supply of these drugs have been slow and I am concerned about the need to inform the public about the harms of legal highs. Sadly, people taking these drugs still think “legal” means safe. They are often taken in by heavy and misleading advertising from online and high-street head shops. Take, for example, the drugs we are discussing today. They are sold under generic street names such as “Gogaine” and “Burst”. Previously, those names referred to other substances; as those were banned, the component substances were changed. The unsuspecting user does not know that. We have to address that huge lack of understanding among young people, who are often tempted to take these drugs.

In its report on drugs, the Home Affairs Committee said that prevention and education were given the least attention within the Government’s drugs strategy. The expert panel on legal highs assembled by the Government last year, or early this year, called for a comprehensive strategy to increase public understanding. We need a clear national campaign and to consider again the issue of drugs education in schools. Public Health England should also put forward its views about how to tackle the issue.

There has not really been a proper attempt to engage with young people through social media, which are so important these days. In his response, the Minister will no doubt talk to me about the “Frank” website—all Ministers over the past five years have. Although that has its place, I do not think it is providing the full answer to how we educate young people on these issues. The Labour-led Welsh Government are going for a broader and more inclusive response to new psychoactive substances, looking at health and education messaging. I hope the Minister will be willing to consider the Welsh model and what can be learned from it. Finally, what work is being done to co-ordinate cross-departmental work on NPS as well as work with the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish Governments?

I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say on those three points. As I said at the beginning, the Opposition fully support the order.

Cremation of Infants (England)

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) on securing the debate today and on setting out so clearly the background to this very distressing matter. I pay tribute to all the families affected, who have to come to terms with and perhaps relive some painful and distressing circumstances. We should also pay tribute to the Action for Ashes group, led by Glen Perkins, who led the delegation to Downing Street with the hon. Gentleman last week. I wholeheartedly agree that we should thank the investigative journalist Nick Southall; he should be commended for ensuring that there has been a lot of attention on the issue. It is important that the media have played a very responsible part in this.

My contribution today will be about my constituents, Tina and Michael Trowhill. They contacted me earlier this year, and I commend them for their bravery and persistence in trying to find out what happened to their baby son William. William Michael Brian Trowhill was born on July 5 1994 at Beverley Westwood maternity hospital; very sadly, he was stillborn. He was cremated on July 12 1994 at Chanterlands Avenue crematorium in Hull. Tina and Mike were told that there would be no ashes from the cremation. They also told me that they were not required to sign any forms. It appears that the forms that were required at the time were signed by an administrator at the hospital. That the parents did not sign, and were not given written information about what was to happen, is one of the shocking things about the situation.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) for securing this important debate. Does the hon. Lady agree that the report’s authors were struck by the lack of authoritative national guidance or policy outside environmental protection? In other words, we are more bothered by emissions than the feelings of parents who have sadly lost children.

[Diana Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. It is shocking that there was no nationally applied guidance on how parents should be involved, treated and made to feel part of the process at an obviously very distressing time. It should have been there.

Moving forward many years, my constituents were alerted to possible concerns about what had happened to baby William when the Mortonhall inquiry in Scotland started. That report was published in April 2014. In October 2014, Mike and Tina contacted the bereavement service in Hull and asked it to see what it could find. It took until 3 November for the service to return the call, and the parents were told that an investigation was under way.

On 4 November, they were told that William’s ashes had been scattered in a children’s garden of remembrance near the crematorium. On 5 November, the parents were told by the funeral director at Frank Stephenson & Son that it was not normal to receive ashes from a child’s cremation. On 6 November, they were told that the funeral directors had a document that stated “cremate and strew”; it appears that at that time the funeral directors had a blanket contract with Beverley Westwood maternity hospital to undertake cremations of babies and were given that instruction. On 6 November, my constituents called the NHS complaints line, but given the many NHS reorganisations, copies of the procedures or policies in use at the time were not available.

The family then came to see me. We wrote to the chief executive of the Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust to find out what current policies are being used. We also wrote to and had a meeting with Councillor Stephen Brady, leader of Hull City Council, and asked for a local inquiry to be held in Hull. Tina particularly wants that to happen because she knows of several other families who have had similar experiences, and they also want to know what happened to their babies’ ashes.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) for calling the debate and I apologise that I have yet to be so involved in the campaign. Does my hon. Friend agree that families have been left heartbroken and ignored in their bereavement for far too long? The Turnock family, who are constituents of mine, have sought answers about their son’s cremation at Bradwell crematorium for 22 years. That shows the scale of the issue, which is geographically disparate, as well as heartbreaking.

[Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes the very important point that this has happened all over the country. In a few moments, I will say a few words about local inquiries and how they might fit into a broader national inquiry. However, these families deserve to know what happened. I know that many of these cases happened a long time ago, but local authorities and the Government should do whatever they can to find out what happened.

The Trowhills and I met Councillor Brady. At the time, we were waiting for the outcome of the Shrewsbury report, and Councillor Brady said that although he was sympathetic to the request for an inquiry, he wanted to see what the Shrewsbury report said.

Obviously, a few weeks ago we had the Shrewsbury report, and since then I have written again to Councillor Brady. Yesterday, I received a response from him and I will just read briefly from his letter. It says:

“As Mr & Mrs Trowhill reflected at our meeting in March, they believe that there can be no resolution for them in relation to William’s ashes and therefore, given that the information given to Mr & Mrs Trowhill at the hospital was that there would be no ashes and that the Council acted in accordance with the instructions received from the funeral director, I do not intend to hold a local independent inquiry.

However, the Council fully supports the call for a national code of practice to provide consistency in the way in which the cremated remains of babies and infants are dealt with across the UK and for a single government department to be responsible for the regulation of crematoria and their operations. The Council also supports many of the recommendations of the Bonomy and Mortonhall Inquiries and we will write in support of such recommendations to the Cabinet Office.”

He concludes:

“I therefore feel that a meeting with yourself and Mr and Mrs Trowhill could add nothing further at this time, but I can assure you that I will lend my support and that of the Council to lobbying for a national commission for England to be created.”

I am very disappointed that we have not had the opportunity to have another meeting with Councillor Brady to discuss this matter. Although that letter is very much about the Trowhills, many other families could be affected by these issues and local authorities must try to find out what has happened in these cases, and be as transparent as possible.

The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham talked about many of the very sensible recommendations made by the Shrewsbury report, and I particularly support the recommendation of a national inspector of crematoriums —that is an excellent idea—and national guidelines and training. Because more and more cases are coming to light around the country, there is a case for local inquiries to be held, so that families can find out what happened in their area, if possible. Nevertheless, the proposal from Action for Ashes for a national crematorium investigation team, which was also mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, is certainly worth considering.

Such a team could deal with the issue in two ways. First, it could investigate the historical cases that have been mentioned. Secondly, it could work alongside individual local inquiries to pull together the common themes and threads that I am sure will become apparent; the issue of training seems to be a key one. While my constituents and I fully support calls for a local inquiry in Hull, we also want to see a national inquiry.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her comments. When we had our own inquiry in Shrewsbury, it was very difficult and painful for the parents to relive their experiences, but it was also a very cathartic moment for many of them, and they really appreciated that, instead of a national inquiry, somebody in Shrewsbury was dedicated to their cases, spending time with them and hearing their experiences. I am very disappointed that in her area that has not been the case, and I reiterate that my constituents and other people concerned have really benefited from the independent local inquiry in our area.

[Diana Johnson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. It is very helpful to know that we have his support in that regard, and we will continue to see what we can do to change the mind of Hull City Council.

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

I am a Sussex MP, so, again, I am a long way away from the hon. Lady’s constituency, but I know of another case—that of baby Jordan—in which a family was treated very similarly to the way that she has described.

One of the other advantages of having a local inquiry, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) referred, is that it enables many other cases to be considered. I fear that we are seeing only the tip of the iceberg here and that, despite the wonderful work of Radio Shropshire, many other cases have not yet come to light. I suspect that local inquiries would enable a lot of other people to be helped in the way that my hon. Friend described.

--- Later in debate ---

[Diana Johnson]

That is absolutely correct.

I welcome the written ministerial statement that was published this morning. It suggests that the Government are looking at the recommendations from the Shrewsbury inquiry, and I hope that they will be able to act sooner rather than later. I also hope that the Minister might be able to give us some idea today of how long it will be before we have a final announcement from the Government on their intentions.

[Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)]

Order. I will start calling Front Benchers from about 5.10 pm. If the two Members who still wish to speak could be mindful of that time scale, I would be grateful.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Simon Hughes)]

The coalition Government are clearly committed to making sure that we reduce the reoffending and imprisonment of women. As my hon. Friend knows, at the moment I chair an advisory board on female offenders, which is very helpful and successful—indeed, it is meeting this afternoon—in making sure we have a good policy. The introduction of a women’s justice board has been put forward. As it happens, our party, the Liberal Democrats, supports the policy. It is not yet an agreed policy across government, but I am determined that we will do as much as we can with the present structure in the rest of this Parliament, even though we might be able to change it in the next Parliament.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

T9. Since the Government introduced employment tribunal fees, there has been a drop of 84% in the number of women who have been able to bring discrimination claims. Does the Minister accept that, because of the up-front fees of £1,200, many women are being denied justice under his Government?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

The situation is a lot more complex than the hon. Lady makes out. First and foremost, anyone who does not meet the financial criteria has a waiver and can go to court. Secondly, there have been a lot of pre-determinations by ACAS. Employment is going up and there are fewer applications. There are a lot of factors and she does herself no credit by simplifying matters.

Prison Overcrowding

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

If I may, I will correct my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right that crime is falling. The number of first-time entrants into the criminal justice system is dropping as well. The challenge for us is that the level of reoffending has barely changed. That is the next frontier. That is why we are reforming the way we support and rehabilitate offenders, why there is a greater focus on education in the youth estate, and why there is mentoring and support for those who get short sentences. That is the way to take crime reduction to the next level.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

By exactly how many prison officers is the prison system short?

[Chris Grayling]

I expect to recruit about 80 to 100 temporary staff, and of course we have a recruitment process all the time. Like any big organisation with tens of thousands of employees, we have a constant process of people moving on and people being recruited and trained. As I outlined earlier, we need some 80 to 100 officers, but I want to build up a much larger reserve so that if we get fluctuations in future we have a pool of people we can draw on, in the same way as the health service and education system do.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2014 Commons Chamber

The Government are making progress in specific areas, substantially reducing the number of young people and of women in prison. I welcome that, although I think more could be done to reduce the total number of people in prison by reducing the number of crimes further and by ensuring that those who have committed crimes do not reoffend and do not go back into the cycle of crime. Work is being done on that, but I hope that we can make further progress and I hope that we will firmly reject the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Shipley. I hope that he will have the courage to put his proposals to a vote.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I add my tribute to that of others for the work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). She has been a Member only a short time, but she has made a huge impact. I very much hope that the Minister will have listened carefully to her contribution today.

I shall speak to my amendment 20, and I believe that there is genuine cross-party support for the House to take action against extreme forms of pornography. It is worth remembering the work done by Liz Longhurst after the death of her daughter Jane, who was murdered by a man obsessed with pornography involving asphyxiation. Out of that context came the Labour Government’s legislation of 2008, which made it a criminal offence to possess certain forms of pornography—depicting necrophilia and bestiality, for example. We know, however, that there is more to do, especially with online developments.

The Government’s proposal is to ban the possession of pornography deemed to be

“grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character”

or containing realistic depiction of

“rape and assault by penetration”.

Both elements of the test are complex and open to wide interpretation. I tabled amendment 20 because I thought we could do better than that, and I hope that the Minister will agree with what I am about to say.

The amendment leaves in place the first part of the provision because we accept and acknowledge that the standard for criminalising possession has to be very high. However, it would simplify the second part of the test by replacing the Government’s description of rape with the definition used by the British Board of Film Classification—namely, content depicting

“sexual activity which involves real or apparent lack of consent or any form of…restraint which prevents participants from indicating a withdrawal of consent.”

As my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) said, this simplifies the law in two respects. First, in respect of “realistic rape”, we know that the depiction of actual rapes is very rare, particularly on the internet, although we know that some “honour rapes” in the middle east can be found on the net. The portrayals currently on the internet tend to be very unrealistic and have high production values, so it is quite obvious that they are staged, but they are none the less very disturbing and concerning.

I would like to thank David Austin who works at the BBFC for showing me and other MPs an example of something that they are currently able to stop being distributed under their own classification guidelines, but that would fall foul of how this clause is drafted. What he showed us was an armed man who breaks into a residential home with two women in the house, who are then subjected to serious violence and sexual assault. It is quite clear that this is being staged, but it is incredibly violent and upsetting—and it would fall foul of the Minister’s definition.

The second reason for amending the clause is to ensure that content is banned if it shows sexual assault, including rape, but not limited to rape, including where the acts of penetration are not actually seen. As drafted, the clause will ban content only if it showed the act of penetration. This could mean videos of sexual assault or real rape avoiding censure if the camera positioning does not show the penetration. The BBFC showed me an example in a film that went on for several minutes of women who were gagged, tied up and were whimpering. These women were clearly in distress. It was upsetting to watch as the women being gagged, tied up and whimpering were in a dreadful state. As I say, the BBFC told me that they would currently be able to stop that being distributed, but not under this clause. It would fall foul of the provision because there were no acts of penetration.

I hope that the Minister will think again about this issue. Many Members would view it as a reasonable step to allow what now happens with the BBFC’s offline classification to be transferred to how we treat the same things online. That would also sit well with what the Prime Minister said he was going to do when he wanted to have the same criteria for online and offline images. Let us see that happen by the Government’s acceptance of amendment 20.

[Jeremy Wright]

This has been a full debate, and I would like to respond to as much of it as I can, while still leaving my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) with a couple of minutes at the end if I possibly can—I know how he loves to have the last word.

Let me start with my hon. Friend’s new clause 29, which seeks to place statutory restrictions on certain categories of offender to prevent them being suitable for fixed- term recalls. I can assure him that it is already the case that no offender who is assessed as a risk to the public—assessed as being able to cause serious harm—can be given a fixed-term recall. Those serving a public protection sentence—the “extended sentence prisoners” referred to in the clause—are already excluded, so it is not necessary to amend the legislation in that respect.

In addition, as my hon. Friend knows, we are taking measures in clause 7 to introduce a new test for release following recall, which will mean that prolific offenders or those who are persistently non-compliant with their licence could also be deemed unsuitable for a fixed-term recall. I share my hon. Friend’s concern and, indeed, that expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), about those who cock a snook at the legal system by persistently failing to comply with their licence. In clause 7, we seek to do something about that.

We already have measures, either in place or pending, to prevent high-risk and prolific offenders from being subject to fixed-term recalls in cases in which it would not be appropriate for them to be automatically released after 28 days. The proposals in the new clause are either unnecessary—because they are already provided for elsewhere—or would go too far in placing a blanket statutory ban on certain categories of offender. We believe that decisions about the type of recall that is appropriate should be decided on a case-by-case basis, and I therefore invite my hon. Friend to withdraw his new clause.

New clause 31 would abolish section 240A of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which, as my hon. Friend explained, provides that when a defendant on bail is subject to an electronically monitored curfew, half the period spent on “tagged bail” may be credited as time served towards his sentence. Incidentally, my hon. Friend said that the same applied to time spent on remand, but in that instance the entire period may be credited, rather than half of it.

We want to ensure that only defendants who need to be detained are remanded in custody while awaiting trial. Tagging on bail helps to ensure that bail periods are completed successfully, and that remand prison places are taken up only by those who really need to be there. Tagging defendants and requiring them to comply with a curfew of at least nine hours each day is a useful tool that we want to continue to use. We consider that when people have had to comply with a daily curfew which restricts their liberty, that time should be taken into account.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

1. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of sentencing policy in tackling the problem of violent and extreme online pornography.

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)]

Offenders convicted of possession of extreme pornographic images, including violent pornographic images, face a custodial sentence of up to three years. Sentencing in individual cases is at the discretion of the courts. Although there are only a small number of convictions for that offence each year, I believe that it is effective in tackling the proliferation of these images.

[Diana Johnson]

Is not the problem that existing legislation on violent pornography has been too narrowly interpreted, with only 310 prosecutions in the past three years? Rape Crisis South London has said that there is evidence of the easy availability of serious sexual violence on rape porn sites. I know that the Government are about to ban realistic rape porn online, but not staged child rape scenes. Why not, as the Prime Minister promised, bring online and offline in line?

[Damian Green]

We agree with the hon. Lady’s underlying point that the current offence is too narrow. That is why we are legislating to extend the terms of the existing offence to criminalise the possession of images depicting rape and other non-consensual penetrative sexual activity. As she knows, we introduced provisions in the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill to criminalise the possession of such images, and those provisions received broad cross-party support at the Commons Committee stage. I hope that she and those on the Opposition Front Bench will continue to welcome that.