Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

The right hon. Lady knows that we are not giving a running commentary on numbers, but I can assure her that the work is taking place and that any unaccompanied asylum-seeking child in France should claim asylum there with the support of the NGOs, and if they have family in the UK, we will reunite them.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

In view of the clear link between trafficking and forced prostitution, and following the French Government’s change last week to their prostitution laws, criminalising sex buyers but not the vulnerable women involved, and similar changes in Sweden and Norway years ago which reduced trafficking substantially, do Ministers agree that that should be considered in this country?

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The Government’s position on this issue is very clear. As I have just indicated in answer to the first question the right hon. Gentleman asked me, I am very clear that there are many areas in which co-operation with other member states in the European Union is to our benefit in terms of the national security of this country and dealing with criminal matters. As I indicated in response to earlier questions, we do of course take security at our border very seriously, and that is why we have the checks we do at our border.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

T3. The Government have agreed to work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to create a new initiative to help resettle unaccompanied children from conflict regions. Will the Minister confirm when the initiative will begin and say which organisations the Government will work with to help identify those children?

[The Minister for Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

Yes, we are working with the UNHCR on the development of a new initiative to settle unaccompanied children from conflict regions outside the EU. Discussions are ongoing with the UNHCR—we have had a roundtable meeting already with a number of non-governmental organisations—and we will obviously come back to the House shortly, when our consideration has concluded.

Preventing Violence Against Women: Role of Men

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I want to speak about one specific issue: the need for this country to have a sex buyer law. Sex buyers are a key reason why vulnerable young women are lured by traffickers into Britain to be brutally exploited in the sex trade. They are a key reason why sexual slavery is worth at least £130 million annually in the UK. They are a key reason why in 2016 we must continue our fight against human trafficking. One way to do that would be to criminalise paying for sex. At this stage, I pay tribute to the Minister for all the work she has done in the fight against human trafficking, and I know she continues to work on that and that she will be listening carefully to what I have to say.

Even if they do not agree on many other issues—the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and I have smiled about such disagreements on more than one occasion—no one of fair mind could fail to be moved by the heartrending accounts of young girls lured to the country by the promise of work in a nail bar or a hairdresser, only to have their passport confiscated by the person who accompanied them through passport control. Often that person is an apparently charming young man who suddenly changes once they reach this country. He takes her to a place where she is effectively imprisoned, and then she is repeatedly, horrendously abused. She is often fed with drugs and often raped by several men until she is broken down. She is then told that to repay the debt she owes for having entered this country, and effectively to gain her freedom, she must service countless other men for an interminable time. I say countless; one anti-trafficking organisation that I know well and does excellent work supporting such victims told me of one girl who decided that she would count the number of men she was forced to service with sex in one day. It was more than 100.

Most men do not pay for sex, but most of those who do pay for sex are men. Many men recognise that transaction—paid-for sex—for what it is: sexual exploitation. Sex buyers are the critical link in the human trafficking chain, so far as these women who are exploited are concerned. If we can break that link, we can do so much to change their situation and the lives of countless other young women who otherwise will continue to be exploited and brought into this country in that way.

Right now, paying for sex in this country is legal. As Alan Caton, a former detective superintendent of Suffolk constabulary, said:

“Sex buyers feel the current law gives them licence to exploit vulnerable women—and they are right.”

We have to remove that licence to exploit. The legality of paying for sex is a crucial factor in whether a country is an appealing destination for sex traffickers. An analysis of up to 150 countries found that reported human trafficking inflows were bigger—much bigger in some cases—in countries where prostitution is legal. Countries such as the Netherlands and Germany which have legalised paid-for prostitution now face the challenge of continued exploitation and high rates of trafficking. A retired police detective from Germany has described the country as a traffickers’ magnet and a

“centre for the sexual exploitation of young women from Eastern Europe, as well as a sphere of activity for organised crime groups from around the world.”

In a moment, I will explain why there is such a contrast between such countries and countries where paid-for prostitution has been criminalised.

Britain needs a sex buyer law: a three-pronged legal framework that criminalises paying for sex, decriminalises selling sex—we have to recognise that these women are victims—and supports those who are exploited through the sex trade to exit. When Stephen Harper’s Government introduced that approach in 2014, Peter MacKay, Canada’s former Justice Minister, explained that those who are paid for sex are decriminalised

“not because it authorizes or allows selling it, but rather because it treats sellers as victims of sexual exploitation, victims who need assistance in leaving prostitution and not punishment for the exploitation they’ve endured”.

Such a law here in the UK would send out a strong message, backed by legislative sanctions, that to exploit a person by trafficking them for sex is totally unacceptable and that those who do so will face consequences.

Sweden was the first country to adopt the sex buyer law in 1999. Under that law, by which it is an offence to buy sex, there have been approximately 3,000 convictions. The message has gone out loud and clear that there is no point trafficking people to Sweden to sell sex. Conversations between traffickers have been intercepted in which they have said, “Don’t bother sex trafficking to Sweden.” An official evaluation of its impact noted in 2010 that,

“according to the National Criminal Police, it is clear that the ban on the purchase of sexual services acts as a barrier to human traffickers and procurers considering establishing themselves in Sweden.”

Norway followed suit by adopting the sex buyer law in 2009. Again, an assessment of the law’s impact, which was commissioned by the Norwegian Government, concluded:

“A reduced market and increased law enforcement posit larger risks for human traffickers. The profit from human trafficking is...reduced due to these factors. The law has thus affected important pull factors and reduced the extent of human trafficking in Norway in comparison to a situation without a law.”

The nation to most recently adopt the sex buyer law was Northern Ireland. Proposed by Lord Morrow in his Human Trafficking and Exploitation Bill, it entered into force in June 2015. At a parliamentary event that I chaired to mark its introduction, I had the privilege of listening to the powerful testimony of prostitution survivor Mia de Faoite, who had testified before Northern Ireland’s Committee for Justice during their deliberations on the legislation. She very movingly told us that

“prostitution is the systematic stripping of one’s human dignity, and I know that because I have lived and witnessed it.”

Mia spent six years in prostitution on the streets of Dublin. The sex buyer law, she said,

“is about the protection of human dignity”

and

“the protection of freedom”.

As a member of the Modern Slavery Bill Committee in 2014, it was clear to me that to end sexual slavery we must end the demand driving it. That requires adopting a sex buyer law. Although the Modern Slavery Bill did not offer the legislative vehicle for this reform—the Committee did discuss it—it is crucial that we now move quickly to provide one. As I said in Parliament when speaking on that Committee,

“the majority of people who sell themselves for sex are incredibly vulnerable and subject to real exploitation.”

Whether or not they have been trafficked, they are

“often homeless, living in care and suffering from debt, substance abuse or violence. They have often experienced some form of coercion either through trafficking or from a partner, pimp or relative.”––[Official Report, Modern Slavery Public Bill Committee, 4 September 2014; c. 203.]

In adopting this reform, we would bust a business model for pimps and stop Britain being a lucrative destination for sex traffickers.

I welcome the Home Affairs Committee’s current inquiry into prostitution laws. It is possible to obtain a consensus across parties on this issue, and I hope that MPs of all parties will support the proposed sex buyer law and take this opportunity to stand up for vulnerable women from across the UK and, indeed, the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

All those things are important, and I do not see that it is necessary to draw a distinction between them.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

7. What steps the Government are taking to tackle hate speech.

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

17. What steps the Government are taking to tackle hate speech.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

No one in this country should live in fear because of who they are. We have made progress in tackling hate crime, but we are determined to do more, including challenging those who spread extremist messages and seek to divide our society. We will therefore develop a new hate crime action plan, working in partnership with communities and across Government to ensure that we have strong measures to stop these deplorable crimes.

[Fiona Bruce]

Can my right hon. Friend reassure me that in tackling hate speech, the Government will continue to protect and cherish freedom of speech in this country, and, in particular, that Christian Ministers need have nothing to fear when preaching biblical principles in their own pulpits, as their predecessors have done for more than 1,000 years?

[Karen Bradley]

I assure my hon. Friend, who campaigns so much for the protection of religious freedoms, that we value the role of faith in society, and will protect everyone’s right to practise their faith. Freedom of speech is a fundamental value that binds our society together, and we will always protect that right. Nothing that we are doing, or planning to do, to tackle hate crime and extremism will stop the United Kingdom’s long tradition of preaching.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

Cyber-crime is a crime that we are getting to grips with, and we are learning about the parameters of cyber-crime. Action Fraud is doing excellent work, but I agree that it needs to do more to make sure that people who report fraud get full information. I am working closely with Action Fraud to make sure that they do.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

Will Ministers make it a priority to introduce mandatory reporting of female genital mutilation and to strengthen policies and procedures to provide victims of FGM with much needed appropriate support?

[Lynne Featherstone]

My hon. Friend will be aware that at the Girl Summit in July the Prime Minister announced our intention to introduce mandatory reporting of this unacceptable practice. We are consulting on how best to introduce the new duty. Alerting the police to cases of FGM will allow them to investigate the facts and increase the number of perpetrators apprehended. The NHS will support anyone affected by FGM and will offer appropriate advice and procedures when needed.

Modern-day Slavery

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for scheduling this important debate, and I congratulate the Government on proposing a modern day slavery Bill. I will focus many of my comments on young girls who are enslaved for sexual exploitation, both in the UK and globally, and emphasise that, as many Members have said, this is a global trend, just as slavery was in Wilberforce’s day.

Young girls are brought to the UK from other countries, often under duplicitous arrangements and in the belief that they are coming to be a hairdresser or a beautician. They are then imprisoned in rooms and suffer terrible atrocities, brutally abused by several men until they are basically broken down. Often they are abused for many years. In addition, there are people, mainly men, who travel from this country for so-called sex tourism—a terrible phrase. Who would go on holiday specifically to abuse and rape a child? Indeed, many of the victims are children; according to UNICEF, 20% of the victims of sex tourism are children who effectively are not consenting at all.

About 2 million children a year are exploited in the global sex trade. As we have heard, a drug can be sold only once, but a woman can be sold many times and a child even more. There are the most appalling stories—I will refer in a little more detail to the child sex trade in Mumbai—even of babies being sold. One baby was rescued just as she was about to be sold into the Mumbai prostitute area for £150. She is now in safekeeping.

Shamefully, while many sex tourists are from the UK, and despite the fact that we already have legislation in place to investigate and prosecute British nationals committing sexual offences against children abroad, including extraterritorial legislation, we are—according to the International Justice Mission’s most recent campaign—yet to see meaningful prosecutions. That should serve as a real lesson, because it is critical that any new modern slavery Bill is not just passed into law but has the capacity to be enforced afterwards. Without that capacity, the Bill will be meaningless.

[Andrew Selous]

I support what my hon. Friend says. The House has done the right thing in passing the relevant legislation, but we have not seen the follow-up prosecutions. Many of us are aware of British citizens, sometimes in Asia, running horrendous establishments where children are regularly mistreated. I strongly support her point and join her in asking the Minister for more action in this area.

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I commend him for his excellent speech and his work in this area.

Just as we have realised in this country that we need to have more joined-up thinking between different authorities—the border forces, the police, local authorities, social services and education services—to combat this terrible trade, we also need considerably more joined-up work internationally if we are to combat it effectively. We need to work with law enforcement agencies, other Governments, the private sector, the voluntary sector, front-line professionals and members of the public if we are to support victims and see a diminution in what is an increasing trade, not a decreasing trade. We need to expand prevention efforts in source countries to alert victims and disrupt the work of the traffickers. We need to work with foreign Governments to strengthen their knowledge and understanding of this issue.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Was the hon. Lady as concerned as I was to learn that after the 2004 tsunami a number of children and young girls were trafficked into slavery and the concern is that the same may happen to children orphaned as a result of the typhoon in the Philippines? I agree with her that an international effort is needed.

[Fiona Bruce]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point and I hope that the Department for International Development will take note of it.

Tragically, behind the global sexualisation of young children lies increasing demand. One of the reasons for this is online pornography. A brothel owner in South Africa explained how men visiting from across the globe increasingly demand younger girls. The men want to re-enact fantasies developed by watching online pornography and are making ever more violent and sadistic requests of girls. I ask the Minister to encourage the National Crime Agency to be vigilant and do what it can to stop this illegal pornographic content. I realise how difficult that is, but we need to be aware of it as a root cause of some of the increasing sex tourism and abuse of young children globally.

Another possible answer is to look at the mainstream media’s attitude to prostitution. On the surface many, if not most, people would say that a man visiting a prostitute is socially unacceptable, but under the surface films such as “Pretty Woman” and television programmes suggest an inexplicable social acceptability of such actions. Society’s attitude needs to shift on this issue.

Grooming can lead to terrible abuse and for those at risk education is key. Education is also important for the general public both here and abroad, as my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) said. If people travel abroad and are aware of abuse, they have as much a duty to report it to the authorities there as they do here. If people, particularly UK nationals, are guilty of this offence here, they are equally guilty abroad.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

People should report such matters in this country, as well as to the authorities abroad.

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that excellent point—I fully agree.

I commend the work of Sandbach high school in my constituency, where a group of young students, led by an inspirational teacher, have for several years been encouraged to educate their peers in school about the dangers of grooming and what it can lead to. They have conducted a national campaign, which has been recognised by the Red Cross, to raise awareness of the terrible plight of trafficked and abused young women in enforced prostitution. I encourage Ministers to look at a Nordic model that seeks to educate young people through schools, and by other means, to understand better this terrible trade, and to understand that in paying for sex they may be paying to rape a victim of human trafficking who is enslaved.

Our police forces need more education, too. I was pleased to receive a reply to an inquiry I made a short time ago to the Cheshire constabulary, stating that it now has a specifically appointed member responsible for human trafficking. However, I understand that he has had no formal training. That again means that we have no teeth to enforce legislation in our county. As hon. Members have said, this trade can happen anywhere, anytime and in any part of our country. It is therefore vital that the Home Secretary, as part of the modern slavery Bill, ensures that training is given to our police forces, so they are fully aware of the new provisions and powers. It is no good having legislation if there is not the capacity to enforce it.

It is important that, within DFID funding programmes to educate girls in the countries that we support through our funding, there is an awareness of the dangers of trafficking. We have gone to enormous lengths in this country to promote the education of young girls. It is accepted that if we can give girls an education, we can transform a community. We need to ensure that this issue is part of that education programme. A few months ago, as a member of the Select Committee on International Development, I visited Ethiopia. We inspected excellent work to reduce child marriage. Traditionally, hundreds of thousands of young girls in many communities have been married at a very early age, often as young as six or a little older. Their families think that this will secure their future. In fact, it does the opposite, because they lose their education, often suffer terrible internal injuries through early sex, die in childbirth and so forth.

The Government have done an amazing amount of work to reduce the prevalence of child marriage in Ethiopia, but when we went into one school in Ethiopia and asked the head teacher, “What are your problems with child marriage?”, she said, “We have almost none, but we have a major problem with our young girls simply disappearing. We believe they are being taken to adjoining countries.” We must address that through our aid provision.

[Bob Stewart]

I am bound to speak because my wife saw such children being dragged across South Sudan when she was a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross. They were slave trains of people taking mainly Africans across towards the middle east. She told me it was quite dreadful.

[Fiona Bruce]

Again, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that example.

Sex tourism is also prevalent in Mumbai. I alert hon. Members to an excellent e-book campaign that, as vice-chair of the all-party group on human trafficking and modern day slavery, I had the privilege to launch. The campaign is called “Taken: Exposing Sex Trafficking and Slavery in India”. It is organised by a remarkable woman called Hazel Thompson, who spent 11 years in the red-light district of Mumbai. This e-book can be purchased for the price of a glass of wine through the website, takenebook.com. I commend it to hon. Members. Hazel tells of a girl who was 11 when she was trafficked from a poor village in India. Her trafficker was her mother’s friend, and she promised Guddi—the girl’s name—well-paid domestic service in Mumbai that would help feed her struggling family, but when Guddi arrived she was taken to a brothel and raped. The madam of the brothel and her daughter held her down by her arms and legs to restrain her. If Guddi and her family had known about domestic trafficking and where she was really going, her life today would be very different.

The book highlights the extensive prostitution in Mumbai, where women are kept enslaved in a tiny red-light district: 20,000 women and girls are believed to be forced to work as prostitutes in just one small network of streets, and many of them, when they first arrive, are kept in small cages, where they can barely stand up, to break them. Some of them are kept there for months. Many of these women, brought in when they are young women or girls, live there and have no hope of escape. There could be as many as 26 minders from the cage to the outside of this red-light community that they would have to get through before they could possibly escape. It is virtually impossible.

International hotels have a key role to play in addressing this terrible issue of sex tourism. Some hotels actually house brothels. They will say, “We have nothing to do with it”, but they will subcontract part of their buildings, which will then be classed perhaps as gyms or health clubs, but which will in fact be brothels. It is essential that we ensure that international hotels have nothing to do with this. I commend Hilton Worldwide for taking action, operating training programmes at both leadership and in-house levels, to teach hotel employees to identify illicit activities and better understand the issues surrounding child sex trafficking. Hotels, particularly the large international ones, must take a lead in demonstrating that they will take no part in this.

Before closing, I commend the work of some airlines. The “It’s a Penalty” campaign aims to educate tourists about international legislation while they are on British Airways flights to Brazil. There is a film with the Brazilian ambassador, with Gary Lineker and with other prominent footballers. We need to see more of this kind of constructive, innovative campaigning so that we can alert people both in this country and abroad to the fact that this is an international trade and that we must play our part in stamping it out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

We have not introduced the scheme yet. I shall make an announcement in due course about what it will cover and how it will operate, but the aim is to concentrate on places that we believe present a significant risk of overstaying. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), it is important for the bond—where we do introduce it—to be set at a level that is high enough to constitute a disincentive, but is not disproportionate.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

9. What steps her Department is taking to reduce the use of legal highs.

[The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr Jeremy Browne)]

New psychoactive substances can present a significant risk to public health, and people should not assume that they are either legal or safe to consume. We are forensically monitoring the emergence of new drugs in the United Kingdom, and have banned many substances that have been proved to be harmful.

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank the Minister for his reply, and for the recent banning of khat, but what can be done about other legal highs which are being sold to young people in Cheshire? The police tell me that the moment the content of one packet is banned, a very similar substance, or the same one, is resold in a different wrapper.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

1. If she will bring forward legislative proposals to introduce a modern slavery act.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

The Government have a strong record on tackling the appalling crime of human trafficking. We have a clear strategy, robust legislation, good-quality support for victims, and strong enforcement against offenders, both in country and at the border. We are also working closely with our international partners to tackle the problem at source. Today is the 206th anniversary of the Act for the abolition of the slave trade, as well as the international day of remembrance for the victims of slavery, and it is entirely right that my hon. Friend reminds us of the issue today. We must continue our efforts to eradicate human trafficking, which can indeed be seen as a form of modern-day slavery.

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank the Home Secretary for that reply. She has stated that fighting human trafficking is a Government priority, but with the number of victims found increasing month on month, what consideration has been given to a new initiative such as an independent commissioner?

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue, which has also been raised by others. The Government are not convinced of the need to introduce an independent commissioner and we have, we believe, a very effective inter-departmental ministerial group, chaired by my hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration. Crucially, that group includes not just representatives from Departments across Whitehall, but also from the devolved Administrations, and we believe that that is working well. It is necessary, however, to consider continually our effectiveness in this area, and we will keep the work of the inter-departmental ministerial group under review to ensure that it is carrying out the effective work that we want it to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend will be aware that it is not for Ministers to tell judges and courts what decisions to come to. Clearly, it is an operational matter for individual police forces to determine how to police football matches. I part company with him in his description of football fans as yobs, as football is a much safer game to attend for spectators than it was 20 or 30 years ago, largely as a result of better policing and widespread revulsion by respectable football fans at the yobs who used to deface the game.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

My young constituent, James Harrold, aged 19, from Middlewich, lost both his legs after being hit by a police car travelling at speed. In 2011-12, police vehicles were the cause of 18 deaths and many serious injuries such as those sustained by James. What are the Government doing to ensure that the number of such tragic incidents is reduced?

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue, and certainly the case to which she referred is very distressing. While speed limits do not apply to vehicles used for emergency service purposes if observance of the limit is likely to hinder that purpose, I can assure her that emergency services drivers remain subject at all times to the law on careless and dangerous driving, of which exceeding the speed limit may be a component. The Department for Transport has recently consulted on the issue of extending the exemption to other emergency services, but it has also looked at amending road safety legislation so that emergency drivers will be required to complete high speed driving training before they are allowed to exceed the limit, and it proposes to base that training on the code drawn up by the emergency services.

Alcohol: Minimum Unit Price

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

My local authority, Cheshire East council, strongly supports MUP. It has calculated that in that one local authority area alone the cost to the public of alcohol harm is some £190 million across the NHS, local government, the criminal justice system, and loss to business. MUP is one of a number of tools, but if we extrapolate that figure across the country is it not clear that if it is not introduced the cost to the public will be far higher over time than a few extra pence on alcoholic drinks?

[Mr Browne]

My hon. Friend makes the case for a minimum unit price but, as I have said, it is not as straightforward as she implies. There are practical considerations. There are reasons to be concerned about people on moderate incomes who wish to buy alcohol at an affordable price and do not understand why the Government would wish to set an artificial floor that would make it more expensive for them to buy alcohol. There is a perfectly respectable libertarian argument that individuals should be free to decide how they live their lives without a prescriptive Government attending to the details for them.

Crime and Courts Bill [Lords]

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I congratulate the Government on leaving in the Bill the Lords amendment in clause 38, as it is wholly in accordance with the proud heritage of upholding free speech in this country. I thank Ministers for listening to those of us in this House, and many outside it, about the detrimental impact of section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, as currently drafted. In this country, we have traditionally enjoyed great freedom of speech—we certainly have in this Chamber—but many people have felt that section 5 has curtailed it and undermined wider civil liberties, and that it needs addressing. As Liberty says in welcoming this amendment and discussing the need to remove “insulting” from section 5,

“the mere fact that this is a criminal offence is enough to stifle freedom of expression.”

It also states that

“section 5 can have a chilling effect on peaceful protest.”

In responding to the Secretary of State’s introduction to this debate, the shadow Secretary of State expressed reservations about the Government’s proposal to include clause 38 and invited examples of the detrimental impact of section 5 to be provided in Committee. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), to whom I pay tribute for his lengthy and persistent campaign on this issue, has cited some of the examples, and I wish to add a few more. I make mention of the couple who used to own a hotel but lost the business as a result of a prosecution under section 5, which arose from a conversation with a resident—a customer—who asked their views on a particular subject and then, when she did not like them, reported them.

[Mr Leigh]

The point is that this was not a threatening situation; it was simply a talk, over the breakfast table, in a bed and breakfast.

[Fiona Bruce]

That is absolutely right. Ultimately the case was thrown out by a judge, but the strain of enduring the prosecution process proved too much for that couple and they could not keep that business going.

I am particularly concerned about the arrests of individuals under section 5 for expressing views relating to their faith, because I am a committed Christian. Another case was that of Jamie Murray, who runs a café in Blackpool. He had displayed texts from the New Testament on his café wall but received a visit from two police officers who said that they had received a complaint and were investigating a possible offence under section 5. The complaint was simply about Bible texts. Bible texts can be found outside many churches across this land and inscribed on buildings. There are Bible verses on the floor of the Central Lobby in this place and I can even see scripture engraved on the door behind the Speaker’s Chair. However, section 5 is apparently so broad that police in Lancashire thought it banned the Bible. The obvious problem with section 5 is that the word “insulting” is too vague and too subjective; what one person might consider insulting may not trouble another at all.

Incidents such as those I have mentioned frighten people; even where the person does not end up with a criminal record, they create a chilling effect. I now know of church ministers who fear a knock on the door simply for preaching historic Christian truths at their own pulpits. That cannot be right, which is why clause 38 is so welcome. The wording of the current provision needs to be trimmed back; as the recent report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights said, it

“constitutes a disproportionate interference with freedom of expression.”

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, has said that

“the word ‘insulting’ could safely be removed without the risk of undermining the ability of the CPS to bring prosecutions.”

A gap will not be left in the law; the word “abusive” should cover the issue satisfactorily.

I could cite many other instances, not necessarily involving faith aspects: the concerning issue of the 16-year-old man threatened with prosecution for peacefully holding a placard that said, “Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult”; the animal rights activists who displayed models of red seals, with the red representing blood; the street-preaching pensioner with Asperger’s who was convicted and fined under section 5 for holding a religious placard—Peter Tatchell, while not agreeing with his opinions, has fully and publicly expressed his right to express them. All or any of those cases, or the views expressed within them, might be regarded as controversial, but what hope is there for free speech if someone can dial 999 every time they hear something controversial? What a colossal waste of police time.

Many groups, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough has already stated, have expressed concern about section 5 of the Public Order Act, and I am delighted to note the support received in the Lords from so many worthy Members, including a former chief inspector of constabulary, a former Lord Chancellor, a former DPP and the chair of Liberty.

I also pay tribute to those outside the House who have campaigned on the issue, particularly those who have spearheaded the “Reform Section 5” campaign, with which I have been associated since its launch last year. It is a joint initiative of the Christian Institute and the National Secular Society; how many other causes could unite such implacable foes?

We are all familiar with the statement attributed to Voltaire: “I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” I know that that sentiment resonates within this House, and that is what clause 38 is all about. history has shown that, if societies do not take opportunities such as the one presented by clause 38 to underline and reinforce the importance of free speech, other precious liberties can begin to slide away. Once we cross a Rubicon and allow infringements of free speech, how many other freedoms disappear? I am sure that we all support the campaign of the Chinese journalists for free speech in their press; we should equally support clause 38 and free speech in this country. The United Kingdom has been a beacon of free speech to the world. This is a chance to underscore that reputation.

The publicity it has generated means that the debate on section 5 has been followed not only by a wide cross-section of society in this country but by people around the world. I hope that, through clause 38, we can give them something to celebrate and that Opposition Members will join us when we come to vote on it.