Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Wednesday 20th October 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Rosser]

21: Clause 7, page 8, line 16, after “violence” insert “and safeguard children involved in serious violence”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require specified authorities subject to the “serious violence duty” to safeguard children involved in serious violence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

We now move on to Part 2 of the Bill. The amendments in this group all relate to the issue of ensuring that safeguarding and tackling the criminal exploitation of children is a central part of the duty to reduce serious violence as set out in Part 2, with its duties on specified authorities to collaborate and plan to prevent and reduce serious violence.

There are a considerable number of amendments in this group. Amendments 21, 23, 36, 37, 42 and 43 would require specified authorities subject to the serious violence duty to safeguard children involved in serious violence.

Amendment 24 would require specified authorities to safeguard children involved in serious violence as part of the serious violence duty, including identifying and safeguarding children who are victims of modern slavery and trafficking.

Amendment 25 would require specified authorities subject to the duty to prepare and implement an early help strategy to prevent violence, support child victims of violence and prevent hidden harm. Early intervention is surely crucial to prevent violence before it occurs, and that needs to be in the Bill. Preventive safeguarding activity can be focused on offering support to a child and family through targeted or universal services at the first sign of issues in their lives becoming difficult to prevent them being coerced in activity associated with serious violence.

Amendment 27 would ensure that any children’s social care authority which was not already involved in the strategy would be consulted in the preparation of the strategy.

Amendment 49 would require specified authorities to collaborate and plan to prevent and reduce child criminal exploitation and safeguard affected children.

Amendment 50 introduces a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation. Children who are groomed and exploited by criminal gangs are the victims, not the criminals.

Amendment 52, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, is a probing amendment. It would require the Secretary of State to prepare and publish a strategy for providing specialist training on child criminal exploitation and serious youth violence.

While we support this part of the Bill, the statutory duty to reduce violence will not work in the way we need it to unless it includes the duty to safeguard children who have been pulled into that violence or are being impacted by it. These amendments would require authorities subject to the serious violence duty to safeguard children involved in serious violence, and would specifically add safeguarding children involved in violence and identifying and safeguarding children who are victims of modern slavery and trafficking as requirements of the serious violence duty. They would make preparing and implementing an early help strategy to prevent violence, support child victims of violence and prevent hidden harm a specific requirement of authorities as part of their serious violence duties and would ensure that any children’s social care authority that, as I said, was not already involved in the strategy to reduce serious violence, would be consulted in the preparation of this strategy.

The amendments on child criminal exploitation would require specified authorities to collaborate and plan to prevent and reduce child criminal exploitation and safeguard affected children, as well as introducing the statutory definition of child criminal exploitation to which I referred. The amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, to which I have already referred and which we support, would require the Secretary of State to prepare and publish a strategy for providing specialist training on child criminal exploitation and serious youth violence. I will say more about the amendments on child criminal exploitation shortly.

The Bill places a significant and welcome new duty on specified authorities to identify the kinds of serious violence that occur; to identify the causes of serious violence in the area; and to prepare and implement a strategy for exercising their functions to prevent and reduce serious violence in an area. While obviously prison and policing are crucial in terms of justice and bringing to book those who have committed offences, prevention of crime in the first place is the real long-term solution to reducing violent crime and creating a safer and better society. Case studies have shown that, if someone is in care, is vulnerable, has experienced domestic abuse in the home, has parents with addictions or has no parents at all, these are matters that make them more vulnerable to getting involved in violence later in life. If we can intervene at the earliest possible stages, we can have a significant impact not just on the lives of those young people but on society and on the costs to society of high levels of violence.

This part of the Bill is a step in the right direction towards doing that. However, while a public health approach to tackling serious violence that seeks to address the root causes is welcome, creating a statutory public health duty will not deliver if the desired result of reducing the number of children who are harmed by serious violence is not also achieved. An approach for tackling serious violence that does not also help to protect children from harm, does not include the full range of partners and interventions needed and does not consider some of the more structural factors that contribute to violence just will not deliver the desired outcome that surely we all want.

We need a strategy that equips the safeguarding system and the statutory and voluntary services to protect children from harm with the resources and guidance to do so. These amendments make the specified authorities involved in the serious violence duty safeguard children at risk of or experiencing harm and they refer in particular to children involved in serious violence in the area as a result of being a victim of modern slavery and trafficking offences under the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

I repeat that the statutory duty to reduce violence cannot be effective on its own without a statutory duty to safeguard children, as provided for in this group of amendments. Currently, the draft guidance on the serious violence reduction duty does not mention safeguarding. Can the Minister reassure the House that this will be revisited?

Amendments 49 and 50, and the amendment in the lead name of the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, deal specifically with the issue of child criminal exploitation and are supported by organisations including Barnardo’s and the Children’s Society. Amendment 50 would introduce a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation, putting a recognised definition in law for the first time. It provides that exploitation is where:

“Another person manipulates, deceives, coerces or controls the person to undertake activity which constitutes a criminal offence.”


At the heart of this group is the fact that children and vulnerable young people who are being pulled into violence require a bespoke response that recognises their particular risk factors. I think it is fair to say there is a growing awareness of child criminal exploitation, but it is also irrefutable that, for so many children being exploited, we are failing to identify them and provide support in time to quite literally save their lives. Not only do we need to improve that support, and action at the point of crisis, we need to look at the long-term support required by a child who is traumatised by what they have experienced.

--- Later in debate ---

In summary, I wholeheartedly support the sentiments of all noble Lords. I hope that I have persuaded noble Lords that we do not need these amendments, and that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, will withdraw Amendment 21.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, and the Minister for the Government’s response. I will, of course, be withdrawing the amendment at this stage and I certainly do not want, at this late hour, to detain the Committee for very long.

I think we are back to the usual issue. As I understand it, the Government do not seem to disagree with the points made in this debate or the concerns expressed. It is just that they do not think that adding things to the Bill, in the way provided for in this group of amendments, will contribute to making the situation better. That, I suppose, is where we have, at the moment, a fairly fundamental disagreement. I will read the Minister’s response on behalf on the Government very carefully in Hansard and reflect on what they have had to say. My feeling at present, which may turn out to be unfair, is that the existing arrangements for safeguarding children and preventing their exploitation by criminal gangs are, frankly, not working as effectively as we want. As I say, I may be being very unfair in saying this, so I will read very carefully what the Minister had to say in Hansard, but the impression I am left with is that the Government believe that the present arrangements are working effectively and no significant change is needed.

Once again, if that is a fair reflection of what the Minister has been saying, there is obviously a fundamental disagreement between us—between everybody who has spoken on this issue, apart from the Minister, and the Government. After all, organisations dealing with the exploitation and safeguarding of children clearly do not hold the view that the present practices and procedures are effective.

I do not want to spend my time reiterating the points I made—that is not the purpose of summing up or responding at the end of the debate—but I do think there are significant differences of view between those of us on this side of the Committee and the Government over the effectiveness of the present arrangements. The Government appear to think that no change is needed, but I simply come back to the point that a statutory duty to reduce violence cannot be effective on its own—and that is what is provided for in the Bill—without a statutory duty to safeguard children also being placed in the Bill. We will need to reflect further on what we do on Report but, in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 21 withdrawn.