Oral Answers to Questions
Sarah Champion Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
4. What assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of compensation paid by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority in child sex abuse cases.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Lidington)
Child sexual abuse is abhorrent. The taxpayer-funded criminal injuries compensation scheme provides an important avenue of redress for victims and is accessible to victims of violent crimes, including physical and sexual assaults. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority administers the scheme and decides all claims individually, independently of Ministers and Parliament.
Sarah Champion
Will the Secretary of State commit to updating the guidance in three specific areas? First, children cannot be complicit in their own abuse. Secondly, as part of a grooming process, children are coerced into carrying out criminal activities. Thirdly, will he look at compensation for victims of family abuse under the same roof before 1979? At the moment, CICA is denying compensation on those grounds.
Mr Lidington
I am happy to look further at all those three issues. Following some of the concerns expressed earlier this year, CICA decided to mount an urgent re-examination of its own internal guidelines—in particular, to make sure that there is no risk that a child could be disqualified from compensation because they had given consent when that consent had, in effect, been forced from them by a subtle process of grooming. The Department is also aware of concerns that have been raised about how the rules of the scheme work more generally in relation to cases of child sexual abuse. We are talking to organisations such as Barnardo’s and Victim Support in detail about those concerns and the reforms that they propose to deal with them.
Domestic Abuse Victims in Family Law Courts
Sarah Champion Excerpts(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) for securing this debate and putting on record that story and her campaigning on the issue. It is so necessary that Members understand what is going on. I thank Claire Throssell for bravely being here today and for having the courage to put forward her personal tragedy, which most of us could not endure, so that that can never, ever happen to anybody else. We would be letting her sons down if we did not do that. We will remember Jack and Paul.
It is a simple but awful fact that women bear the brunt of violent crime in England and Wales. Although violent crimes against men are falling, Office for National Statistics figures for England and Wales showed that between 2009 and 2014 violence against women, perpetrated by someone they know, increased rapidly. Alongside this dramatic rise in violence, the services that women rely on to escape violence and abuse are disappearing. Between 2010 and 2012, a third of local authority funding for domestic and sexual violence services was cut, and a third of all referrals to refuges were turned away. It is also true that domestic violence has a higher rate of repeat victimisation than any other crime.
On average, a woman will endure violence 35 times before making her first call to the police. Even once they have sought help and the case is going forward, women are often re-victimised and re-traumatised by the perpetrators during the prosecution process and in the family courts. One particular focus for that repeat victimisation are the fights that ensue between a victim and a perpetrator over contact with their children and the consequences of the decisions made. Sadly, this is something that women in my constituency have suffered first hand, and I am sure I am not alone in that. I shall give just one example out of the many that I could have picked.
A constituent came to me with various issues regarding custody and contact with her child. The father of her child had been extremely abusive, and these behaviours had been perpetuated by the father’s parents. Unfortunately, other legal issues on the part of the mother led to her losing custody of the child, who was placed in the care of the paternal grandparents. The mother was granted contact, but this was at the home of the paternal grandparents, who had both facilitated and taken part in abusive behaviour. The trauma experienced by the mother in order to maintain a relationship with her child was extreme. The judge in this case simply failed to understand or show any appreciation of the dynamics of domestic abuse.
This lack of understanding not only re-victimises survivors, but causes direct harm to the children. The NSPCC reports that 20% of children in the UK have witnessed domestic abuse—exposure that can cause anxiety, developmental delays and learning difficulties. Frequently, domestic abuse and child abuse co-exist. In 2015, SafeLives reported that 62% of children in households where domestic violence is perpetrated are also directly harmed. How can our family courts fail to see the inextricable link between coercive, violent and controlling behaviour perpetrated by men towards women and the threat posed to the safety of children in that family?
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that there are many cases of domestic violence where the woman, perhaps because she has hopes of the relationship continuing, or perhaps because of intimidation or factors, does not press charges? It is important that family courts nevertheless take those allegations into account. It is not just the cases that proceed to prosecution which should be taken seriously.
Sarah Champion
I agree. We need to give victims some of the responsibility for setting the way forward, whereas our court system seems to take everything away from them and to use evidence to penalise them, rather than to support them.
How can family courts knowingly place children directly in harm’s way? That is exactly what is happening. The 2015 Women’s Aid survey of women survivors of domestic abuse who had experience of the family courts found that 76% of respondents reported that the judge granted child contact to the father, even though they knew that the children had witnessed domestic abuse. Even more terrifying, more than 44% of the survivors surveyed reported that the judge granted child contact to the father, when they knew that the children had been directly abused by the father.
Will the Minister confirm to the House that there must not be an automatic assumption of shared parenting in child contact cases where domestic abuse is a feature, but that child contact should be decided on the basis of an informed judgment of what is in the best interests of that child? Furthermore, will the Minister support the Women’s Aid recommendation that judges, staff in the family courts and other front-line staff receive specialist training on the impact of domestic abuse on children?
Finally, it is important in this debate, as it is whenever this House debates violence and abuse, that we consider how to prevent these awful crimes from happening at all. Sadly, once a survivor is forced to seek safety and forced to face her abuser in court, the damage to her and to her children has already been done. Early intervention that supports a child from the earliest possible age to recognise and develop positive and respectful relationships will prevent children from growing up believing that abusive and violent relationships are normal. It will teach boys and girls to respect themselves and others, and teach them that their body is their own and that they must determine their own lives. Does the Minister agree that mandatory, age-appropriate resilience and relationships education in schools is a necessary way to prevent domestic abuse and violence? We ought to try to prevent this horrific crime from ever occurring.
Policing and Crime Bill
Sarah Champion Excerpts(7 years, 11 months ago)
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Kit Malthouse
Exactly right. My hon. Friend brings me neatly on to new clause 16, which deals with that matter.
I know that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, have been an aficionado of my political career, so you will know that, 15 years ago I was charged with getting rid of prostitutes’ cards in telephone boxes. It was costing Westminster council about a quarter of a million pounds a year to remove these things, and so I was given the job of getting rid of them. We tried clearing them out and putting up false cards so that people were misdirected. We tried all sorts of things. In the end, the only solution that we came up with that we and BT felt would work was barring the numbers. I visited all the mobile companies and, as people had landlines in those days, all the landline companies as well—NTL, BT and all the rest. I said to them, “When we notify you of this number, we would like you to bar it.” They said, “We will not do that, but we will if you manage to make placing the cards an offence.” They thought that I would give up at that stage, as there would be too much of a mountain to climb. None the less, we decided to have a go, and so ensued a two-year campaign to get that offence on the statute book.
During those two years, I learned the truth about prostitutes’ cards and, indeed, the advertising of prostitution generally. Effectively, being allowed to advertise for free and in an unrestricted way on our streets, in the back of our newspapers and online is organised crime. When someone gets one of these numbers, they are ringing not a prostitute who is a victim, but a switchboard. When they ring the number and say what they want, they will get a menu of women—mostly it is women—trafficked or otherwise, of all ages, creeds and races. They can pick from the menu. Those numbers then gather a bit of value. Once someone is a punter and they have used the number and got what they wanted, they will use it again and again and again.
I started to learn that understanding the economics behind these telephone numbers is key to how we can eradicate them. Once we realise that these numbers carry a value and that there is a stream of income attached to them, it becomes even more pressing that we should bar them. When we add to that the fact that the printing of the cards, the advertising, and the websites also cost money—prostitutes’ cards are printed in the hundreds of thousands to make them incredibly cheap—we can see why making it dangerous to advertise a telephone number could become an extremely effective deterrent. If they advertise a number that is gathering income, and it is barred within 24 hours, they lose all of that income. Hitting them in the pocket is the most effective way to do it.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
Just for clarity, behind every one of those numbers is a woman who very, very often might have been abused as a child or trafficked into the country. They might have an incredibly violent pimp who is working her. Is the hon. Gentleman looking to prosecute the woman who, in my experience, is usually the victim and not the belle de jour that is often presented, or is he going after the pimps, the manipulators and the gang leaders that are behind it all?
Kit Malthouse
I am absolutely not targeting the women at all. This is about the organised crime that is creating the number, printing the card, placing the card, and victimising the woman. It is about cutting off their access to cash, and therefore restricting their ability to build a business off the back of this free advertising.
Eventually, after a two-year campaign, we got the offence made illegal. I was helped by friends in the House of Lords. The night that it was enacted by Her Majesty the Queen, we arrested the first carder—an Italian law student. I remember it well. He was bailed and disappeared back to Italy. The very next week, I had a meeting with the mobile phone companies and they completely welched on the deal. They did not realise that we would get it done, and that by campaigning for two years and by having a bit of gumption, we would manage to achieve our goal.
Kit Malthouse
I do unreservedly withdraw it. It was an unfortunate use of the word. I think that the spelling is different, but the hon. Gentleman is quite right. Let me say that the phone companies reneged on the deal—I ask him to forgive me. It is a word in common parlance, but I should not have used it.
The phone companies completely reneged on the deal. As a result, I have been waiting for the opportunity to try to put to the Government the idea that there is this solution to the problem. I present here a simple solution, which is, effectively, if the chief officer of police finds a number being advertised in their area for the purposes of prostitution, they can apply to a magistrate to have the number barred. That means that both the police officer and the magistrate have to judge whether that is a measured thing to do; it is not automatic. It is for the police to decide. I would advise the police officers to warn the owner of the number that this is about to happen before they do it. It is a relatively simple solution, and I guarantee that it will result in the disappearance of these cards from Liverpool, Manchester, the west end or wherever they may be.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is right that the scheme could be extended. There could be numbers used for dealing drugs and for selling cigarettes. Numbers for prostitution and drugs could be on the internet. People can access such numbers quite freely at the moment. We need to cut the numbers. If we do it swiftly, we will certainly go a huge way towards suppressing the activity and making it difficult for criminal and customer to connect. I do not intend to press my amendment to a vote, but I ask the Government to look at it—the Minister has promised to do so—and hopefully it will come back in the Lords.
I have tabled another two new clauses. You will have noticed, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I have had a theme during my time in this House, which is the protection of children. It has alarmed me for some time that the legislation protecting children is elderly, out of date and very patchy. The offence of child cruelty, which I am seeking to raise the tariff for tonight, dates back to the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. It still includes things such as allowing a child to be burned, which used to arise when we sent them up chimneys. The legislation is very elderly and is really not fit for purpose. The last time the sentence for child cruelty was looked at was in 1988. We have not looked at it for nearly 30 years, and yet the number of offences is rising quite significantly. Clearly, the deterrent effect is not working. I am given to understand that the Sentencing Council will review child cruelty over the coming summer. If it does so, we are duty bound to try to give it a bit of headroom and move the tariff up from 10 years to 14 years for the most severe offences.
New clause 15 is about reviewing all child offences. We have been very good in the House in seeking to protect vulnerable groups by legislation generally. If someone commits a crime against someone who is gay because they are gay, they will get an aggravated sentence. Similarly, if they commit a crime against someone who is black because they are black, they will get an aggravated sentence. If they commit an offence against someone on the grounds of their religion, they will get an aggravated sentence. Yet if they commit an offence against a child because they are a child, they will not necessarily get an aggravated sentence.
Children are not a protected group in law, unlike other minority and vulnerable groups, and they should be. I am grateful to Public Bill Office for helping me try to draft an amendment that would allow me to do that. The best way that we could find to do it was to require the Sentencing Council to review all offences for children within 12 months, to allow us all to have our say about aggravating the sentences when offences are committed against children.
I have attempted to insert this principle in previous Bills—principally, in the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. Sadly, the Government would not accept my amendment, which would have ensured that anyone who sold a psychoactive substance to a child would get a stiffer sentence than if they sold it to a 55-year-old man. It seems crazy to me that that would not happen, but the Government would not accept the amendment, so this is my attempt to do something similar.
All my amendments are probing. I am willing to give the Government time, in consultation, to look at them again. I hope that they will come back in the Lords, but if they do not, I gather that, pleasingly, we get a policing and crime Bill along in the House once every six months, so I will get another chance. On that basis, I hope that my hon. Friends will look at the amendments at least and give them a thumbs-up for future consideration.
Sarah Champion
I rise to speak predominantly to new clauses 6, 10, 41 and 60, which have been tabled by Opposition Front Benchers. The intention behind the new clauses is to provide stronger safeguards against the sexual exploitation and abuse of children and to disrupt the perpetrators of those heinous crimes before they have the opportunity to destroy a child’s life.
I start with new clause 6, which relates to the extension of child abduction warning notices, known as CAWNs, which are a vital tool for the police in the prevention of the abuse and exploitation of children. CAWNs are issued by the police at the request of a parent or legal guardian. They disrupt contact between a child and an adult believed to be in the process of grooming that child for sex. Currently, the police can issue a CAWN in relation to any child under the age of 16, but only a tiny minority of 16 and 17-year-olds, including children who have been taken into care under section 31 of the Children Act 1989, those who are subject to an emergency protection order and those in police protection. All other 16 and 17-year-olds are left unprotected.
By definition, children in care are vulnerable. The last available annual statistics show that 4,320 16 and 17-year-olds who became looked after by the local authority would not be eligible for the protection of a child abduction warning notice. The Minister has previously expressed some scepticism about the proposals to extend the use of those notices to all children in care. I recognise the sensitivities about the law in this area, given that 16 and 17-year-olds are legally able to marry and consent to sexual activity, but that group of children—yes, they are legally children—are living unstable and risky lives. They face a significantly greater risk of sexual exploitation than others and are targeted by adults who exploit their vulnerability, yet the police are denied access to a critical intervention tool that would help to keep them safe.
I agree with the Minister that CAWNs are an imperfect tool, but we agree that children of any age, including those who are 16 and 17, must be able to rely on the state for protection. For three years, I have been pushing successive Ministers to find a solution. The way to deal with complex issues is not to avoid them altogether. We need to persevere and collaborate so that we can find the best possible solutions. It is vital that we get legislation to protect all children up to the age of 18 from abuse, and it is important that we get that legislation right. I know that the Minister is not minded to support new clause 6, so what assurances can she give us that the Government plan to ensure that children up to the age of 18 are protected from the early stages of sexual grooming?
Next, I turn my attention to new clause 60, which, unlike new clause 6, relates to the existing use of child abduction warning notices by the police. CAWNs are not legally enforceable. Breaching a notice is not a criminal offence but does form an evidence base for future action. That further action, according to Government guidance, is meant to take the form of a sexual harm prevention order or a sexual risk order, both of which require a higher threshold to use. They are legally enforceable and punishable with criminal sanctions.
In theory, that is a good system. It allows the police to intervene formally to prevent harm at the earliest possible stage when concerns have been expressed about an adult’s behaviour towards a child. Even when demonstrable evidence is sparse, the police have the ability to take further action, using the breach of a CAWN as evidence. The police currently have the tools to escalate their response to keep, and continue to keep, a child safe. The problem is that police forces in England and Wales are failing to record the breach of a child abduction warning notice. Indeed, they are failing to record the issuing of a notice in the first place and the actions that follow from that breach.
Andrew Gwynne
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this important issue. On 4 May I held an Adjournment debate on taxi licensing, because we in Greater Manchester have the problem that a neighbouring local authority in Lancashire is effectively handing out taxi licences like sweeties. They are often given to people who have been legitimately refused them by the 10 Greater Manchester authorities, yet they are operating private hire cabs on the streets of Greater Manchester. Not only should that worry the public, but the law needs strengthening to prevent it from happening.
Sarah Champion
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing up that issue. My deep frustration is that we in Rotherham work really hard to get the legislation right. We have really robust legislation to protect children, but within six weeks of its being implemented, the Government’s Deregulation Act 2015 meant that it was not worth the paper that it was written on. He is right that people from other areas could then be subcontracted and come in and pick up fares, and none of the safeguards that our local authority tried to put in place had any effect whatever. I thank him for raising the issue, which the Government need to look at.
To create the system in Rotherham, there was much consultation not only with taxi drivers but with the survivors of child abuse. Rotherham Borough Council has now implemented a new licensing system, which is one of the points covered in new clause 10. Two years after the horror that we discovered in Rotherham, the Government have failed to take action to make the taxi profession safer across the UK for all vulnerable people in our society. They must learn lessons when such things go catastrophically wrong. In Committee, Labour pushed the Government to place taxi and private vehicle licensing authorities under a statutory obligation to prevent child sexual exploitation.
Taxi drivers are in a position of considerable trust. The overwhelming majority of taxi drivers live up to the responsibility that their role creates for them, but unfortunately a minority do not. Better regulation is needed urgently to improve the training and awareness of drivers, so that they can play a part in keeping vulnerable children safe from harm and so that they know how to report abuse if they see it. All local authorities must ensure that checks are carried out to prevent perpetrators or potential perpetrators from being licensed. Monitoring must be in place, complaints must be investigated and passengers must feel confident.
I am delighted to see that the Government have listened to Labour and have responded to our new clause by tabling one of their own, which would empower the Secretary of State to issue statutory guidance to licensing authorities. However, can the Minister give us an assurance that Government new clause 56 would have the same effect as our new clause 10? I notice that the Government’s new clause will empower but not require the Secretary of State to issue statutory guidance. Can the Minister confirm that the Secretary of State does intend to issue guidance, and to do so without delay? I would appreciate an indication of the timeline involved, both on the roll-out of the consultation and on when the guidance will take effect.
Andrew Gwynne
Although I support much of what my hon. Friend says may be included in the Government’s new clause, is not part of the problem that the local authority that issues the licence receives the funding for that licence to be processed, but if the taxi driver is operating in another part of the country, a local authority very distant from the issuing authority might have the cost of enforcing and investigating them? Do we not need parity of funding according to where a taxi driver is operating?
Sarah Champion
Once again, my hon. Friend is right. That is why there needs to be a national licensing scheme for which the Government have responsibility.
The Government have been good at making promises about tackling child sexual exploitation, but not so good at following them up with action. Will the Minister make some commitments on taxi licensing? I would appreciate a steer on the contents of the guidance, although I realise that they will be the subject of consultation. The Minister may want to write to me on that point.
Councils continue to report a lack of intelligence sharing by the police on issues crucial to deciding the suitability of applicants for taxi licences. Although the new common-law disclosure policy should allow for information sharing, the interpretation varies and many police forces do not share data. Guidance to councils alone will not resolve the problem. Will the Home Office take steps to ensure that the police co-operate fully with councils so that applicants for taxi licences can be screened effectively?
Finally, will the Minister confirm the status of the guidance? Government new clause 56 states that licensing authorities “must have regard” to it. I hope the Minister will clarify that the guidance must be followed, not just looked at and put in a drawer. If the Minister can provide confirmation on those questions, we are minded to withdraw our new clause and support the Government’s.
New clause 41 would make it explicit in the law that local safeguarding children boards have an obligation to prevent child sexual exploitation and other forms of child abuse. Such boards should bring together professionals in education, law enforcement, social care and the voluntary sector to help protect children. They are collaborative bodies, established by the Labour Government, which have the potential to ensure that the focus of every organisation on the board is the protection and welfare of children. Local safeguarding children boards have the potential to act as the canary to child sexual exploitation and abuse, bringing together professionals who can develop a full picture of the harm being perpetrated against a child. But far more emphasis must be given to the prevention of child sexual exploitation and child abuse.
Chief Constable Simon Bailey has said that in 2015 more than £1 billion was spent on investigating child abuse allegations. Sadly, by the time the police are involved, it is likely that children have already been harmed and will be living with the trauma for the rest of their lives. The Prime Minister has given child sexual exploitation the status of a “national threat” in the strategic policing requirement. I therefore hope that the Minister will support our new clause to explicitly broaden the objectives of local safeguarding children boards to include a focus on the prevention of sexual exploitation.
Tim Loughton
The hon. Lady is making some good points, but it was my understanding when I was responsible for the child sexual exploitation action plan introduced nationally in 2011 that each local safeguarding children board was responsible for developing its own localised version of that CSE plan. The problem is not so much the plan as the unwillingness of some partners within an LSCB to pull their weight. Does the hon. Lady agree that the recent review undertaken for the Department for Education may need to lead to the introduction of some statutory duties on those partners to do their bit, in partnership with everybody else?
Sarah Champion
As ever, the hon. Gentleman is superb on this subject, and he is ahead of me by a line of my speech. I completely agree. The problem with the safeguarding boards as they stand at present is that they are very dependent on the skill, determination and bloody-mindedness of the chair. The hon. Gentleman is right. I do not want things to come down to the luck of whether there is a good chair who can implement a good plan. What I want is for every child across the country to be safe and safeguarded in the same way, so I look to the Government to move on that.
I support new clauses 13 and 14. I praise my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey), who works tirelessly for the protection of children in her constituency and across the country. She has been a role model and a mentor to me, and I want to put on record my gratitude to her for all the help she has given to me and to all the children in this country. She has been tireless, and I am very grateful for that.
My hon. Friend’s new clauses, which deal with the grooming of children for criminal behaviour, raise an important issue that the House must tackle. Children are not just at risk of grooming for sex. They face exploitation by criminals for terrorism, trafficking and drug-related offences, for instance—we have heard other examples. The Government must take the issue seriously and offer a holistic approach to tackling child grooming and exploitation. Will the Minister work closely with my hon. Friend to turn her new clauses 13 and 14 into legislation?
New clauses 46, 47, 61 and 62 were tabled by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). Through my campaigning work to prevent violence, exploitation and harm against children, I have seen the most dramatic and shocking increase in the proliferation of sexual images, often taken and shared by children. The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the current legislation has been in effect for only a year. I hope he will support my call on the Government to conduct a thorough review of the effectiveness of the legislation, the number of prosecutions and convictions, and the suitability of the sentences given.
I welcome Government new clause 55, which will create lifetime anonymity for victims of forced marriage. The crime of forced marriage is another form of domestic violence. The victims, mostly women, suffer violence, threats of violence, coercion, manipulation, psychological trauma and economic control. As with every other form of domestic violence, victims have their right to determine their own lives forcibly removed from them by their abusers. Anonymity will encourage victims to come forward and seek help from the police. It will give a survivor of this form of domestic violence a chance to regain control and rebuild their life. Now that the Government recognise the benefit of anonymity for victims of forced marriage, female genital mutilation and sexual abuse, I hope they will consider extending anonymity to victims of other forms of domestic and sexual violence and do more to raise awareness of these awful crimes.
I would like briefly to comment on a number of the provisions tabled by the shadow Home Office team, led by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). It is unfortunate but true that our criminal justice system does not always place support for the victim at its core. I know from my work with victims of domestic and sexual violence that they often feel totally unsupported when reporting a crime or after a prosecution. Many victims face the most horrendous ordeal in court, where they are forced to relive their trauma over and over again. Yet there is no statutory framework in the criminal justice system for the provision of services for victims—there is no legal regime promoting and protecting victims’ rights from the beginning to the end of their engagement with the criminal justice system. Similarly, the role of the Victim’s Commissioner has great potential, but the position is under-resourced and exists without significant powers. Victims’ rights will be taken seriously only if and when they are enshrined in law. I hope the Government will hear our calls today and make that a reality.
I wish to end by commenting on new clause 2, which would devolve responsibility for policing to the Welsh Assembly. I have had the pleasure of working with the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) on other clauses in the Bill relating to child protection, so I have no doubt that the convictions she has expressed in this new clause are heartfelt and sincere and need to be taken seriously. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) has outlined, Labour believes that the people of Wales should have a greater say over the policing of Wales, and that should be pursued through the Wales Bill.
Police Funding Formula
Sarah Champion Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I thank all those who have spoken in the debate. My hon. Friends have detailed the impact of cuts to police funding on their constituents and their police forces. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) and the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) for reminding us that the police are trying to do an incredibly difficult job despite the cuts and pressures that they face. The whole House thanks them for that.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) was extremely helpful in setting the broader context for the debate, which could not take place at a more important time. Any debate about police funding must be put in the context of the crucial role that the police play, protecting children and vulnerable groups, getting justice for victims and keeping communities safe. As the Home Affairs Committee report says,
“The demands on the police are many and various”.
To give just one example, through my own campaigning work I have found out more and more about the scale of child abuse in the UK. It is truly shocking. The most recent data from the NSPCC estimate that half a million children are being abused. Reports of domestic and sexual violence are increasing across the country.
Mr Kevan Jones
I commend my hon. Friend for her work in that area. Does she agree that that puts pressure on regional forces such as Durham’s, which is involved in Operation Seabrook, investigating abuse at the Medomsley detention centre—an operation that has cost more than £2 million?
Sarah Champion
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that issue, which I have tried to raise in this Chamber. Such cases are incredibly expensive and incredibly important, and that work needs to be done, but there is no additional money, so the money is coming from the existing pot. The Government really need to look seriously at funding those cases.
The numbers of serious and violent crimes are soaring. In the last year alone there has been a major increase in knife crime, which is up 9%, and a 27% rise in violent crime, including a 14% rise in murder. Devastatingly, 50% of those cases close without a single suspect ever being identified.
Central Government funding for police forces was cut by a quarter in the last Parliament, resulting in the loss of 18,000 police officers—12,000 of them operational front-line officers. Thousands of PCSOs and civilian staff have also been cut. We have ever fewer police officers trying to do ever more.
The value of local neighbourhood policing, with officers working in partnership with local authorities and other agencies to tackle the challenges we face, cannot be overestimated. However, neighbourhood policing teams—a proud legacy of the Labour Government—are being eroded. Serious crimes are up, but victims are being let down.
Despite all that, and after cutting the police by 25% in the last Parliament, the Government were threatening to cut at least a further 22% right up until the night before the comprehensive spending review. We were on the brink of catastrophe, but the Chancellor U-turned under pressure from Labour, the public and the police [Interruption.] And London MPs.
The Chancellor then made a promise:
“I am today announcing that there will be no cuts in the police budget at all. There will be real-terms protection for police funding. The police protect us, and we are going to protect the police.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1373.]
That promise to the public and the police has been broken. The Chancellor said he would protect the police, but police budgets are still being cut. Police force funding for 2016-17 has not been protected in real terms. Budgets are being cut again—for the sixth year in a row—at a time when the country faces increased risks.
Figures from the House of Commons Library show that the overall Home Office grant to the police next year will not be protected in real terms or even in cash terms. The Library’s analysis shows that forces in England and Wales will receive £30 million less in cash—a cut worth £160 million in real terms. Even the extra council tax that Tories expect local people to pay to make up for the cuts will not compensate for that.
Richard Drax
I want to make a small point, which I hope the hon. Lady will be coming to. What would the Labour party do were it in government? We can all criticise various aspects of this issue, but what is the Labour party’s position on the formula? How would the Labour party help a constituency such as mine get a fairer amount of money?
Sarah Champion
I wait for that day four years from now. If the hon. Gentleman gives us four years to plan for it, we will come back to him with a proper answer.
Mr Shuker
I can assure my hon. Friend that that was not at the forefront of my mind. She talked about the need for fair funding from the Government and at a local level. One issue I am aware of in Bedfordshire is that when people seek to introduce a referendum to make sure we have better funding locally, the police and crime commissioner must apparently be completely neutral. We could compare and contrast that with the situation in the European referendum, where the Government certainly are not neutral.
Sarah Champion
My hon. Friend makes a very fair point. I am not going to get involved in the EU debate at this point, but parity across all our systems is something we should be trying for.
The police and crime commissioner for my force, South Yorkshire, has said:
“The Government recently announced that there would be no cuts to police funding next year. This was a little misleading. What has now become clear is that the police grant will be reduced by £1 million and there will be no provision for inflation—such as increases in salaries and additional demand on police services, which comes to about £7-8 million.”
The Tory police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall said:
“policing still faces considerable challenges and some tough decisions as we move forward. We estimate that, to break even, we will need to save £13million over the next four years; only then with further savings can we plan to invest in transformation to address the emerging threats with less resources.”
These cuts mean that thousands more officers, PCSOs and police staff will still go. The more serious and complex crimes seen in the 21st century are expensive and time-consuming to investigate, prosecute and prevent, such as child sexual exploitation, terrorism and cyber-crime. These 21st-century challenges demand a modernised, more responsive and better equipped police service, not a smaller one.
Equally crucial is co-operation with other agencies, yet as they too come under strain, the police yet again pick up the pieces. The Home Affairs Committee’s report emphasises that
“demands on the police were increasing due to cuts to other public services.”
As local authorities deal with relentless Government cuts, they are struggling to provide specialist support to victims, to engage in preventive work with communities, and to protect vulnerable groups, particularly out of hours. Sara Thornton of the NSPCC told the Committee that the police were being used
“more and more as society’s safety net”
and that
“after 4 o’clock on a Friday the police are around, but nobody is ever very clear about who else is around”.
In the face of these massive and growing challenges, not only are police budgets being cut, but cuts are being made with characteristic unfairness to less affluent regions. High-need, high-crime areas are shouldering the burden of cuts. West Midlands and Northumbria police forces, for example, have been hit twice as hard by cuts as Surrey. The current complex formula for funding the 42 police forces in England and Wales has been called
“unclear, unfair and out of date”
by Ministers. We therefore welcomed it when last year, under pressure from the police and from Labour, the Policing Minister finally agreed to change the formula. However, instead of improving the situation, what followed was a chaotic, opaque, unfair and ultimately completely discredited review of the existing formula. In the words of the Conservative police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall, as quoted in the report,
“given the fundamental importance of this policy to the safety and security of communities across the country we do not feel that consultation has been carried out in a proper manner”.
The review faced two unprecedented threats of legal action by forces. It was roundly criticised by police and crime commissioners from across the political spectrum. Unbelievably, the shambolic review ultimately had to be totally abandoned because the Home Office miscalculated funding for forces, using the wrong figures. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East for giving examples. The data error meant that funding for forces had been miscalculated by as much as £180 million for some areas. As the report says, the omnishambles
“would be amusing if it were not so serious”.
It goes on:
“It is deplorable that Home Office officials made errors in calculating the funding allocations for police force areas…As a result of the Home Office’s error, confidence in the process has been lost; time, effort, resources and energy have been wasted; and the reputation of the Home Office has been damaged with its principal stakeholders.”
The mistake meant not only that forces made budgets for the next financial year based on incorrect funding figures, but that they now only know their funding for just one year, unlike local government, which got a four-year settlement. As even Tory PCCs have pointed out, this makes it extremely difficult for forces to make long-term financial plans and innovate on the basis of an unusual single-year settlement, particularly in the context of further budget cuts. As the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee said, to call it a shambles would be charitable.
What have the Government done to rectify the situation? They have secretly consulted their own Tory PCCs, promising to channel funding to those PCCs, who get disproportionately more. Conservative police and crime commissioner Adam Simmons writes in his budget:
“The new funding formula proposals have been deferred to 2017-18…it is not clear at this stage how this will affect the government funding. However, it is expected that this will transfer funding from the urban areas to the more rural, and Northamptonshire may benefit”.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) for pointing that out. Will the Policing Minister confirm whether this will be the case? In addition, what commitments will he give to this House, and to the police, that they will never again be insulted with a sham consultation like that seen last year on something so important and so crucial to the safety of communities as police funding? Our police service needs a fair funding formula and a fair funding settlement. This Government have offered them nothing of the sort.
Mike Penning
Durham has done more with less, and it has done so excellently. I agree with the hon. Gentleman completely, as I have said at the Dispatch Box on more than one occasion, that we need a way of funding our police that is fairer than the existing formula. He has said on more than one occasion today how difficult things have been for Durham. He is quite right to say so, and things have been difficult for other forces as well. I believe in giving praise where praise is due, and Durham has done fantastically well. It has reduced crime with fewer police but a higher percentage of officers on the front line than in 2010, and that is great.
Mike Penning
I will not give way now, but I will do so in a minute. Most of the debate was not about the future funding formula; it was about the previous funding formula and previous austerity measures. There was a degree of concern—from, I accept, Members on both sides of the House—about how that was done and about how we should go forward.
Hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), have asked about the uplift in firearms capability. We have put £36 million out there, and there will be more to come. It is separately funded. Hon. Members have raised the issue of counter-terrorism, which is also funded separately from the formula.
I accept that in Bedfordshire, as the hon. Member for Luton South (Mr Shuker) said, there are some real issues with the funding formula, and I have met him and other Bedfordshire Members to talk about that. There is more that could be done. Bedfordshire was given counter-terrorism money but did not manage to spend all of it. That is really interesting, in view of the fact that it was given the funding for that specific use. The percentage of warranted officers who are off duty because they are not fit for operational duties is 10%. That percentage is high for such a small force, and it is, understandably, a concern. I accept that there is work that we can do together.
Mike Penning
No Minister would stand and give such categorical responses—I cannot, because that would be wrong. We are determined to ensure—the Met is crucial to this—that we have an understanding from the chiefs and the PCCs about where they are asking the capabilities to be delivered from, whether ROCUs, local collaboration or the NCA. Then we can come forward and get it right.
I have a great deal of time for the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and her response was very measured, but when in government the Labour party said that it would implement this measure but it did not, and that is part of the discussion that we are having. Crime has massively changed since then.
Sarah Champion
The Minister is right to say that crime has massively changed. Does he share my concern that when we get data for online crime—fraud, grooming or abuse—the crime figures will spike?
Mike Penning
The National Audit Office suggested that that would be the case, and we have to accept that. That does not mean tomorrow morning, next week or next month when those figures are produced, that suddenly from that night on there is a 5 million or 6 million increase, or whatever the figure is, because it is happening to us all in our constituencies now. The difference is that we are going to publish it—the only way we can do this is to be honest about it and publish it. I do not know why previous Ministers did not publish that information in previous Administrations—believe it or not, I am not allowed to see those figures, because we are not allowed to do due diligence on what went on in previous Governments, and we are not allowed to see that guidance. I think it is because initially this issue was not taken seriously enough, and then people started to realise that it is actually a very difficult figure to pull together.
Criminal Legal Aid
Sarah Champion Excerpts(8 years, 3 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Mr Vara
My hon. Friend is right to say that the Lord Chancellor should be commended. Mark Fenhalls, QC, the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, said yesterday:
“It takes courage to make such decisions.”
Perhaps the hon. Member for Hammersmith will reflect on that sentiment.
The Lord Chancellor has his advisory board, and he will be working with the profession to ensure that as we progress further, the public will benefit, and the taxpayer who funds the legal aid budget will gain the maximum possible value.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
Steve Hynes, director of the Legal Action group, has said:
“In its planning and execution the MoJ has demonstrated shocking incompetence with this tender exercise.”
Will the Minister now launch a review of his own Department’s competence?
Mr Vara
I appreciate that the announcement was made a relatively short time ago, and that the hon. Lady has probably not had an opportunity to hear what the profession has said. The profession has wholeheartedly welcomed the proposals, and I think she should note those comments, rather than individual comments.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sarah Champion Excerpts(8 years, 3 months ago)
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Andrew Selous
My hon. Friend will have heard the answer that the Secretary of State gave to a previous question on this issue. I will not repeat that, save to say that we take this issue extremely seriously. That is why the Secretary of State commissioned Charlie Taylor, the former chief executive of the National College for Teaching and Leadership, to conduct a review of youth justice and youth custody across the piece. That will have not only safety at its heart, but improved outcomes for young people in custody.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
The example of Medway shows that the use of restraint for good order and discipline can be exploited. Will the inquiry look into that issue across all prisons, because I do not think it is appropriate in this day and age?
Andrew Selous
There are occasions in custody when, for the safety of the young person and others, we have to use restraint. The chief inspector has acknowledged that the new process of minimising and managing physical restraint is an improvement, but that is the case only if it is used properly and appropriately, and not if it is abused. We are very mindful of that.
Prisons and Secure Training Centres: Safety
Sarah Champion Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Michael Gove
I will ask Charlie Taylor to reflect on the hon. Lady’s thoughtful recommendation.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I served on the Committee on the Bill that became the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, where we argued against the inclusion of the use of restraints to preserve good order and discipline for youth offending, and said that instead force should be used only where there is a danger to staff or the child. Unfortunately, the Minister in Committee ignored this, even though the UN Committee Against Torture had said of the UK:
“The Committee is concerned that the State party is still using techniques of restraint that aim to inflict deliberate pain on children in Young Offender Institutions”.
Does the Secretary of State now regret this decision, and will he amend the legislation accordingly?
Michael Gove
The principles behind MMPR—minimising and managing physical restraint—are designed to ensure, exactly as the hon. Lady would hope, that physical restraint is used only when there is a danger to other prisoners or to the individual themselves, but of course there will be occasions when physical restraint is used inappropriately, and in those circumstances disciplinary or other action may need to be taken.
Transpeople (Prisons)
Sarah Champion Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Andrew Selous
I agree with my hon. Friend. I note that the Samaritans has said that the media should avoid speculation about “triggers” for suicide, and I think we should be guided by what they say. As for my hon. Friend’s main point, he is absolutely right: our duty in prisons is to give everyone a hope and a future in their rehabilitation, and that is what we are determined to do.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I find it shameful, and a bad reflection on the House, that in transgender awareness week, and on Transgender Day of Remembrance, we are here not to celebrate people’s right to self-determination, but to mourn the death of Vicky Thompson. I was reassured when the Minister said that the Government were conducting a review of gender detention policy to ensure that decision making would be uniform in future. May I suggest that he work closely with the Women and Equalities Committee, which is taking evidence on issues affecting transpeople in the criminal justice system?
Andrew Selous
I will draw the hon. Lady’s helpful suggestion to the attention of the officials who are conducting the review.
Assisted Dying (No. 2) Bill
Sarah Champion Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I know death. I understand death because before coming here I used to run a hospice, and I firmly believe that everybody deserves a good death. That is possible, and the bigger debate that we need to have and bring back to this Chamber is about ensuring that everybody in this country has access to 24/7 palliative care and more hospices that are better funded. In reality, most people do not have a good death.
I am very supportive of this Bill, and I am also mindful that it will apply only to a very small percentage of the population. That is not just because of how specific the safeguards are, but it is from looking at 18 years of experience and data from Oregon. In Oregon, 0.3% of deaths per year are under the assisted dying legislation. The most recent data are from 2013 when 22 per 10,000 deaths were under that legislation—0.22%. In 18 years in Oregon, 1,173 prescriptions were written, and only 752 were actually enacted. This Bill will enable people to have peace of mind. We do not know—we do it only once—what our death will be like, but I would like to give people the peace of mind that if the situation becomes intolerable, they can make an informed choice about their own life.
There seem to be five main counter-arguments to the Bill. The first is about someone being given a six-month terminal diagnosis when perhaps they will live for nine or 12 months. Perhaps they will recover—that is fantastic; I want to celebrate that—but some people die after two days. The Bill is not about marching someone to a darkened room the second the paperwork is signed; it gives them the choice so that if during the deterioration of their condition towards death they choose to end their life earlier, that is their choice and they have that right.
Another argument is about disabled people. I find that quite insulting because disabled people are living full, wonderful, happy lives. Why do people want to include them in the Bill as though their lives are not fulfilled? Of course, once someone reaches a terminal position, if they want to enact the legislation that is their choice, as it is for everybody else.
On coercion, I do not doubt that perhaps there are evil relatives out there who will seek to coerce their elderly mother. However, that elderly mother will then have to persuade two doctors and a judge that this is her choice. I do not think that someone who is vulnerable enough to be coerced by their evil relatives could persuade a judge that they are taking such action from their own choice.
We then come to the argument about the thin end of the wedge. I am sorry, but we legislate for a living here. We know that if anything was to happen, the issue would have to come back to the Chamber and we would have to agree it. I do not accept at all the argument that this is the thin end of the wedge.
There is the argument that it is God’s will that we should suffer, if necessary, and that it is God’s choice how we end our lives. I have 100% respect for that view. If that is someone’s position and choice, this Bill is not for them and I do not expect them to seek to make use of its provisions. I feel, however, that I should be able to make a different choice and that others should not be able to stop me.
I feel strongly that this Chamber does not have moral superiority over those who we serve and have elected us. Eighty per cent. of the population are in favour of this Bill.
Sarah Champion
I will not. I find it patronising that we think that our opinion should carry more weight than that of the general population we serve.
Finally, I say to hon. Members: let us make this personal; let us make this about you. If you are suffering, if you have a terminal diagnosis and cannot cope with the pain or situation any longer, would you want this legislation to be in place? I certainly would.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sarah Champion Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
Of course, this is predominantly a matter for the Home Office, but I can say that we are working closely with the Home Office. I stand second to no one in desiring to see foreign national offenders moved out of this country. I hope very much that the European prisoner transfer agreement, as it comes on stream and is completed by 2016, will make a real difference to ensuring that offenders in prisons in this country are able to be returned to their home country as quickly as possible.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
23. Given the amount of upheaval in probation caused by the Government’s reckless privatisation, I echo colleagues in saying that we need a strong, independent chief inspector in order to reduce reoffending by ex-prisoners. How can the current postholder possibly fulfil his duties, given his links to winning bidders? Why did the Justice Secretary appoint him, given that these links were known to him at the time?
Chris Grayling
Let us be clear: I regard the current chief inspector as a man of great integrity and great skill, who has been doing a very good job for the past few months. He was selected on merit by my Department and his appointment was approved by the Justice Committee. The fact that an issue has now arisen with the very recent appointment of a member of his family to a senior position in one of the providers clearly has to be addressed. It will be addressed sensitively and I will report to the House when it is appropriate to do so.