Crime and Policing Bill

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 17th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

I rise to speak in support of new clause 106, which stands in my name, but first I will speak briefly to new clause 1, which we have been discussing so far. The hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) spoke about some pretty harrowing cases, and said how the first lady was utterly traumatised by having had her abortion at home, which she received via telemedicine. My new clause seeks to make women safer by ensuring that they are seen and given the opportunity for proper medical consultation before they get to the stage where they are given inappropriate medication because of a misunderstanding, and then end up traumatised, delivering a relatively mature foetus unexpectedly at home.

The hon. Lady did not say during her speech whether she believes that a baby should be terminated right up to term, but I want to put on the record that I do not. I work as an NHS consultant paediatrician, and I have cared for and personally held babies in my hands from 21 weeks and six days’ gestation right through to term. I am very aware that babies from, say, 30 weeks upwards have a more than 98% chance of survival, so although I am supportive of women’s right to choose early in pregnancy, I am not supportive of similar rights in relation to healthy babies right up to term.

Until the pandemic, women had to attend abortion clinics, where they would see a professional and talk through their desire for an abortion and the reasons for it. At the clinic, it would be checked that the woman was pregnant and how far pregnant she was. The hon. Lady raised cases of women who believed they were so far pregnant, but who turned out to be much further pregnant, which are well known; sometimes it goes the other way. One of the key reasons for this confusion is that women often bleed in early pregnancy, and they may believe that those bleeding episodes represent a period; when a woman thinks that she is 10 weeks pregnant, therefore, she may actually be 14 weeks pregnant.

That consideration is important in the context of accessing an abortion because at-home abortions via telemedicine are allowed only up until 10 weeks. The reason for that is not to be difficult or awkward, or to make it more difficult for women to access abortions; instead, it is a safety issue, because we know that complications are greater later in pregnancy. What happens in the early stages is that the procedure essentially causes the foetus to be born. If that happens to a baby much later in pregnancy, the procedure will cause it to be born when it has a chance of survival, which can lead to a traumatic experience for the mother as they deliver a much larger foetus than expected. It can lead to bleeding and, in one case I am aware of, has led to the death of a mother who was given pills to take at home when she was much further along in her pregnant than she had expected.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

If this is about safety, then we also have to think about the safety of the baby. In my constituency, a baby had a live birth at 30 weeks’ gestation. Tragically, that baby went on to live for just four days, struggling over that period, and then died. Must we not consider the baby’s safety as much as the woman’s safety?

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I think we need to consider both.

I remember a case involving a lady, Carla Foster, in June 2023. From my reading of the case, she admitted to lying about where she was in her gestation, saying that she was further back in pregnancy, at seven weeks, when she was actually much further along; she turned out to be around 33 weeks pregnant when her baby—her little girl, whom she called Lily—was born. In the papers I have read about the case, she described being traumatised by the face of that baby, which could have been prevented if she had been to a proper clinic and seen a health professional, as that health professional would have clearly seen that she was not seven weeks pregnant, and that taking abortion pills intended for early pregnancy was not a suitable or safe medical intervention.

If one has a termination later in pregnancy, it is done by foeticide. Essentially, an injection of potassium chloride is administered to kill the baby, and then the baby is born in the usual way, but deceased. That is why it is important to know what the gestation is—because the termination offered under the law is done by a different route, to make sure that it is done safely. We know that the later in pregnancy a termination happens, the more a woman is at risk of medical complications.

Crime and Policing Bill

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 18th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Luke Taylor]

My hon. Friend’s words have convinced me and hon. Members across the House about her new clause.

The Met police recently responded to a freedom of information request about tool theft, which revealed that nine in 10 tool thefts in the last five years in London went unsolved, which shows the scale of the problem and the importance of supporting new clause 130 today.

I would like quickly to draw attention to some other amendments. New clauses 87 and 88, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove, would hold water company executives to account properly for the first time, and that would mark a huge step forward in tackling the sewage crisis we face in this country. Those individuals should be held liable for their carelessness and fixation with raising bills, while running companies into the ground and ruining our rivers. I wish I had more time to outline my reasons for supporting the clauses, but I refer the House to my many prior contributions on the subject.

New clause 44, tabled by the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle), would mark a step forward in providing support to victims of honour-based violence and murder.

New clause 122, tabled by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor), would strengthen the law on hate crimes directed at disabled, LGBT+ people, and rightly seeks to protect people who are victims of hate crime because of their association with individuals in those groups, and I wholeheartedly support it.

In contract, new clause 7, tabled by the official Opposition, would weaken hate crime legislation in this country, and I fear it is motivated by a complete lack of respect for the decades of progress we have made in recognising the types of discrimination faced by people the length and breadth of this country. For this Bill to push us forward, and not drag us backwards, that new clause must be rejected.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as a proud member of the trade union movement.

No one should go to work with the uncertainty each day that their safety might be put at risk. We as a Government clearly support that for emergency workers, and of course we are legislating for retail workers too. New clause 48, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Anneliese Midgley), addresses delivery workers, and today I stand to speak for my new clause 11, which would do the same for transport workers.

Every day, transport workers face verbal abuse, sexual harassment or physical assault, whether on bus, tram or ferry. Transport workers, alongside their trade union, the RMT, are calling for new measures to protect them at work: first, the introduction of a specific offence of assaulting or abusing a transport worker; and secondly, an extension in the maximum sentence, from six to 12 months—not least if sentences are now to be served in the community.

[Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)]

I had meant to speak to my amendment 120 today, but that intention was superseded by the Government’s movement on this, which I really welcome. It will close a loophole so that it will now be an offence to abuse an emergency worker on the grounds of race, religion or sexual orientation in somebody’s private dwelling. I congratulate the Government on that.

[Rachael Maskell]

I welcome the hon. Member’s intervention. This just goes to show the extent to which our public servants put themselves in harm’s way, often running towards danger on our behalf. When people are serving us—our constituents—day in, day out, they deserve the protections that we are aiming to introduce in this legislation.

Let us look at the scale of the abuse our transport workers are facing. Transport for London says that 10% of workers are physically assaulted, with 90% verbally abused and 60% experiencing violence at work, and that is just in the last 18 months. In fact, 10,493 TfL workers had incidents of violence or aggression perpetrated against them. More widely, the British Transport Police highlighted in 2024 that 7,027 offences were committed, and just in the last year there were 7,405 crimes, with 3,650 violent crimes. And there has been a 47% increase since 2021.

Out transport workers will not be safe unless more measures are included in this legislation. We are also hearing from other groups of workers, so we need to look holistically at the threats they are facing and how we can put those protections in place to ensure that specific measures are available to help keep them safe. That would also be better for the public.

We should also look at the work the RMT has done. It has surveyed its women workers, and 40% of transport workers who are women have been sexually harassed in the last year, and that, too, is on the rise. Two thirds of RMT members have experienced abuse, violence or antisocial behaviour, but 40% have not reported it as they are not confident that they will get the recourse they need. This is having an impact on their health and wellbeing. The level of post-traumatic stress disorder experienced by transport workers is double that of the general population. That is why they are calling for legal protection for all public transport workers—because of the scale and the prevalence. Moving forward with this will also deter perpetrators and support workers. It will improve action and response times and the support that is available.

We in this House need only think back to the covid pandemic. Belly Mujinga was spat at while working at Victoria station and, sadly, lost her life. She was there serving faithfully as a sales clerk during that period. Her union, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, has said:

“While we remember Belly today, our union continues to fight for safe and healthy workplaces for all of our members.”

That is why I am here today: to fight for them alongside the trade unions, the British Transport Police, the rail industry bodies, the Rail Delivery Group, Network Rail and all of the transport unions—standing together, saying they need more measures to keep workers safe on our transport systems.

We often hear about other safety risks that transport workers place themselves in, but today it is about their own personal safety, and I am sure this House will hear it. So I am asking for clear support for new clause 11, but of course I am willing to meet the Minister to discuss how we can advance the cause of transport workers and hope that, if we cannot make these amendments today, we will be able to do so in the other place.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

Before I turn to my new clause, I welcome in particular new clause 7, on non-crime hate incidents, and new clause 150, proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden), which would ban sexual relationships between first cousins.

This Bill presents an opportunity for the Government to support my new clause 108 to protect freedom of expression. That is urgently needed, because existing legislation has been manipulated to create a blasphemy law for the protection of Islam from criticism and protest. As I said in my speech last week, I am not a Muslim, and I reject any attempt to tell me that I cannot say what I think about any religion. No ideas or beliefs should be above criticism or scrutiny.