G7 Summit

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I recall being in Japan as Foreign Secretary and discussing that deal, and I was pleased to see the signing of the £18 billion deal, which incidentally will create 11,000 jobs. I will ask the Defence Secretary to update the hon. Gentleman in the usual way.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

After decades of Conservative Governments who preached isolation on the international stage, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister have shown through their work the value of being in the room to get agreements that make positive changes for our national interests. He will therefore understand the concern of many of us that the EU-UK summit planned for 22 July, to make progress on repairing the damage done by Brexit to our economy and agreeing sanitary and phytosanitary and youth mobility deals, has been delayed. Every month of delay in the summit is a month of delay in implementing any deal, so will he assure those of us who recognise the need for a salvage operation to address the damage that Brexit has done to our economy, that this is a pause, not a stop, in that process?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her leadership on these issues. I assure her that the summit will take place as soon as possible. We are having ongoing discussions with the European Union on SPS, youth mobility, steel and a range of issues on a day-to-day basis.

Reproductive Coercion

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Natalie Fleet]

We have all heard the narrative—the one where the devious woman gets pregnant to trap the man: “She’s only after his money. She just wants to trap him.” That was what I heard on loop when I was impregnated as a child. If anyone questioned why he, an older man in a position of power, got a 15-year-old girl pregnant, I did not hear them.

I have also never heard any woman saying, “He did this to trap me.” It is not something that we say or acknowledge, even when it is really clear that that is what is happening. That is why it is so important—in the public interest, even—that the story of Olivia Nervo is heard.

Liv’s story exposes a form of domestic abuse that our legal system in the UK still struggles to recognise. Liv and her twin sister, Mim, are incredibly successful. They are Grammy-award-winning DJs who come from Australia, but they have made their home here when they are not touring the nightclubs of the world. Liv’s ex-partner is a very wealthy and prominent New Zealand businessman. They were in love and living their best lives, and they decided to start a family. He flew around the world to ensure that they were together when she was most fertile. They wanted a baby and were not leaving it to chance.

Six months into what Liv believed was a planned pregnancy with the man she wanted to build a family with, she discovered that her partner, Matthew Pringle, had multiple parallel lives. Their fairytale was a sham. As well as being in a relationship with Liv, Pringle was involved in a relationship with another woman, with whom he already had a child. The other woman was also pregnant. There was another woman with whom Pringle was in a serious relationship. In fact, there were multiple women and children in deliberately created overlapping family structures, each woman without knowledge of the others.

Pringle admitted that he had deceived Liv because he knew that she would leave if he told her the truth and he wanted a baby with her. He said that he would have considered telling her about the other women and children only after their child was born. Liv had no opportunity to give informed consent to the pregnancy, because she was lied to and deceived for years. His confession to her that he knew that she would leave is significant. It demonstrates that he understood that knowing the truth would have affected Liv’s decision to have a baby with him. That is reproductive coercion. It is about control over a woman’s body, her choices and her future.

Pringle refused to confirm with Liv any details about his life when she confronted him. He has instead used the court and legal system to silence, intimidate and isolate her and their child. He used non-disclosure agreements, legal threats and the family court to keep Liv’s silence about him being the father of their child. She could not have any contact with his family without prior consent and she was forbidden to make any public reference to him.

The restrictions were tied to a financial payment that could be withdrawn, and that she would have to repay, if she breached the terms. Every action that Pringle took was a power play. He continually demonstrated that their child’s welfare was of little importance to him. He did not even meet their daughter until she was four. He played games with the legal system without repercussions. His control over Liv’s life via the courts went on and on.

During legal proceedings, Liv raised the ongoing pattern of Pringle’s manipulative, controlling behaviour, but she always felt that the courts treated her as the problem. His patterns of behaviour included concealing other children, or siblings, from the court and its professionals; promising involvement, but failing to attend more than half of court-ordered contact; refusing to sign passport paperwork, obstructing their child’s identity; failing to contribute to education costs despite claiming that he would; refusing to complete court-directed life-story work for his child; linking backdated child support to an estrangement contract and conditions of confidentiality for him; and finally withdrawing from proceedings at the eleventh hour, leaving Liv with overwhelming legal costs. His behaviour was all about having control over Liv’s life. It was always about power—it was never about parenthood.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is telling an incredibly powerful story about reproductive coercion and, in particular, the role of family courts. Does she agree that this issue, this case and all the matters that it brings to light would be perfect for the review of family courts that Baroness Levitt has just announced? Baroness Levitt has stated that she feels women have been victimised by the ways family courts operate, so does my hon. Friend agree that this is exactly the sort of issue that the review ought to be looking at?

[Natalie Fleet]

Absolutely; I think that this is something that we need to shine a light on however we can. Far too many women are traumatised by family courts in this way—the situation is absolutely ripe for intervention.

Courts and Tribunals Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 10th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

We have, of course, accepted the thrust of Sir Brian’s recommendations, but there are areas in which we have chosen to go further—the right hon. and learned Gentleman is right about that—because of the modelling, and what it says the effect on the backlog will be. He will recognise, when presented with the evidence, that the backlog would be heading to 200,000 by 2035—notwithstanding all that has been said about investment, which we are putting in, and notwithstanding all that has been said about modernisation and the efficiencies about which Sir Brian went into such detail in part 2 of his review—because, with all good will, the reform proposed in the Bill will not get through this Parliament until towards the end of the year, we felt that there were some areas in which we wanted to go further.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Lammy]

I will, and then I will make some progress.

[Ms Creasy]

I think we all share my right hon. Friend’s passionate desire to support the victims who are waiting too long to get to court, but that means that we also owe them a debt of truth. The concern highlighted in the Institute for Government report is that magistrates courts will struggle to absorb such a large increase in demand, so we may not see the faster justice that he is promising under these proposals. Will he recognise that those of us who cannot support the Bill as it currently stands think that the way forward is to look at the data and consider whether juries are actually a red herring when it comes to the investment that we so sorely need because of the damage done by the previous Government?

[Mr Lammy]

That is why we have uncapped sitting days for the Crown Court, and that is why I am proposing further investment in our magistrates. I want to get the number of magistrates back to more or less where it was when the Labour party was last in government. It was 29,000 then, and it dropped to 21,000 under the previous Government. My hon. Friend is right—we will have to invest, and increase the number of magistrates—but I hope that, given her long-standing record of working with victims in particular, she will look hard at the Bill as it continues its passage, and will ultimately feel able to support it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Creasy]

I know at first hand the strength that my hon. Friend is showing in making this speech, and I know why it matters for us to be confident that what we bring forward actually will change this situation—that we will not go down rabbit holes and be distracted by changing juries, but will focus ruthlessly on the victim’s experience. I want to speak on behalf of everyone in the Chamber in saying that we are with my hon. Friend every step of the way, and we are so damn proud of her today.

[Charlotte Nichols]

I thank my hon. Friend.

The third thing to say is that, for me, closure began after a successful civil process following the acquittal. My rapist may not be considered to have met the criminal threshold for guilt beyond all reasonable doubt, and is out there on the streets as a free man while I live with the life sentence of what he did to me, but what has been established, at a civil standard of proof, is what happened. It found that I had been raped, and a compensation order was made that recognises me as the blameless victim of a violent crime.

Despite the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, we are still nowhere on civil remedy, including movement on the criminal injuries compensation scheme reform. Shamefully, the tariffs have not been uprated in line with inflation since 2012 and have no eligibility for non-contact sexual offences, which can cause significant and lasting harm.

Finally, the VAWG sector has been under-invested in for such a significant period that the best things that we can do to drive down waiting times and improve the experience of victims require money, and the Treasury remains unwilling to adequately cough up. I welcome the announcement of independent legal advisers, but the £6 million that sits alongside this is woefully inadequate. I could not have made it all the way to trial without my independent sexual violence adviser, Jaz, whose support saved my life, but I had to wait seven months to be allocated one, given how under-resourced the system is. That is not good enough.

I have enormous respect for many of my Front-Bench colleagues, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) and for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), but from where I am sitting it feels that, despite their best efforts and the publication of our groundbreaking VAWG strategy, we could do so much for rape victims that does not involve the Lord Chancellor using them as a cudgel to drive through reforms that are not directly relevant to them. As a starting point, Rape Crisis England & Wales has called for five key demands in its “Living in Limbo” report. Do not say that this Bill helps deliver justice for rape victims until it actually, materially does.

Criminal Court Reform

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Any of us who has supported a constituent in a rape trial will take no lectures from the Conservatives about how they managed our courts. There is clearly a challenge here. The worry for many of us is whether the Justice Secretary’s prescription is the solution; as he points out, juries are involved in less than 3% of all criminal cases. It is difficult to see how this measure, with all the challenges it may bring for justice and fairness, particularly for some of our minority communities, will address the backlog. Lord Leveson himself pointed out that increasing sitting days would not be a solution unless we had the barristers and solicitors. Can the Secretary of State give a guarantee that there will be funding for the legal aid required to ensure that every defendant has decent representation?

[Mr Lammy]

I remind my hon. Friend that we are increasing the uplift for barristers and their fees by £34 million. We have also increased legal aid, with £92 million for our solicitors. Because we need a pipeline of criminal lawyers, we have a match-funded scheme for pupillages so that we see the next generation of young people from all backgrounds becoming our criminal legal aid lawyers.

Decriminalising Abortion

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Tony Vaughan]

I note the hon. Member’s point.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is also worth noting that the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has explicitly called for telemedicine to be made available to women in Northern Ireland. Given that we have a human rights framework in Northern Ireland, the Government have to respond to that or risk being taken to court again by the chief commissioner for failing to uphold the human rights of women in Northern Ireland to access a safe and legal abortion. We have no such protections here in England and Wales as yet. Is that not the case?

[Tony Vaughan]

My hon. Friend is right, and of course it was a 2018 Supreme Court decision that showed that the rules that were then in force in Northern Ireland violated the human rights of women. That has to be at the centre of our considerations.

Let me finish listing the exceptions so that I can get to the point. Risk of grave or permanent injury, risk to the mother’s life and substantial foetal abnormality are exceptions without any gestational time limit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I understand the point that she makes. I mentioned earlier that in every abortion two lives are involved. There is the life of the mum and the life of the baby—two lives that have to be considered. We also have to be concerned about backstreet abortions and where they can sometimes lead.

Laws, as I said, send messages and shape culture. More broadly, they are a reflection of our core values as a society. Although calls for abortion decriminalisation are repeated and vocal, I truly think—I say this with great respect—that many people do not understand the implications of decriminalising abortion. The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) has her opinion and I have mine—I certainly have a different interpretation of what she refers to.

[Ms Creasy]

I hope the hon. Member knows that, although I disagree with him on this matter, I have always done so respectfully, and fought for his right to be heard. However, I want to challenge him on the idea that we can have only an opinion on what actual decriminalisation and the human rights framework would look like. We have seen what it looks like in Northern Ireland since 2019, and we now have a body of work by a commissioner at the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, including court cases in which she has intervened to uphold that human right, to see the implications of decriminalisation. We may differ on whether the impact is one we would like to see in this society, but we cannot deny that there is now a body of evidence about what a human rights framework and approach to abortion access would look like.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for that. She and I have debated this at some length over the years from two different points of view. I think that decriminalisation leads to deregulation, and I have concerns about where we will end up. As I said, I aim to represent the views of my constituents, as well as the views of other Members’ constituents. Another three hon. Members from Northern Ireland who have similar views to my own have been driven by their constituents to respectfully give their point of view in the Chamber today.

Decriminalising abortion by disapplying the provisions of existing penalties under sections 58 to 60 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, or the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, or by repealing these provisions altogether, would be a seismic change. I use the word “seismic” on purpose, because I believe it reflects the size and magnitude of what has been proposed. To be clear, regardless of whether the specific provisions of the Abortion Act 1967 are touched on by amendments to other legislation, gutting the laws that underpin that Act would have the same effect. Depending on the model of decriminalisation, the effect could be wide enough to include de facto access to abortion for woman up to the point of birth for any reason. There would, for example, be no enforceable prohibition on abortion on the basis of the sex of the unborn baby that would have criminal repercussions.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. Many moons ago, we were friends in the Northern Ireland Assembly, as well as the council, and we are still friends at Westminster. I am aware of the Savanta ComRes polls, which were taken over a period of time. They cannot be ignored, because they provide focus for where we are.

Without criminal repercussions, or new restrictions on abortions that are carried out by a woman or a malignant professional up to birth, are we truly ready to take such a radical step? I do not want to belabour the point, but I find it deeply worrying that a child born prematurely, for example at 22 or 24 weeks, would be treated as a legal person with full rights, while decriminalisation would permit abortion at the same gestational age with no legal recourse.

I said earlier that there are two people in this: the mother and the baby.

[Ms Creasy]

Under our current criminal legislation, there are exemptions from prosecution for abortions that take place up to 24 weeks, and in some instances further, if there is a threat of death to the mother or the child. What the hon. Member is talking about are the 3,000 abortions that happen every year after someone has had the worst news possible—when they are told after their 20-week anomaly scan that the baby they really wanted will not make it past birth. I do not think the hon. Member is a cruel man, and I do not think he wishes to advocate that women should be forced to carry children they know will die to term, but that is not affected by our current regulations. He is putting at risk women’s access in that moment by advocating a reduction in the time limit.

[Jim Shannon]

Obviously, the hon. Lady and I have slightly different opinions about decriminalisation. I have been concerned over a period of time, and still am, about examples of cases involving Down’s syndrome children, including one in Northern Ireland—a lovely, young Down’s syndrome child who would not be here today had her parents not decided to ensure that she had the opportunity to have a life. We are talking about those things. Ultimately, we are talking not solely about what is ethically or morally good or bad, or right or wrong, but about what would be permissible under the law without criminal sanction. That is what I and other hon. Members are talking about: the reality in law, and an increase in late-term unsafe abortions.

Decriminalisation sounds innocuous but, as the hon. Member for North Down (Alex Easton) referred to, when the public is polled on its effect, the results are plain: only 1% of the public support abortion being permitted up to birth, which is what decriminalisation of abortion would permit without legal consequence, against the views of the majority—99% of people. Hon. Members may be interested to learn that following the decriminalisation of abortion in New Zealand in March 2020, which my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) referred to, late-term abortions—those occurring after 20 weeks gestation—increased by 43% compared to the previous year. That is not scaremongering; it is evidential fact. We are asking that all hon. Members take on board that information.

As the evidence from overseas shows, the risk of decriminalising abortion is not only that more abortions may take place but that the dangerous, unsafe abortions that supposedly prompted the introduction of the Abortion Act 1967 in England and Wales will occur. To date, none of the legislative proposals for decriminalisation, including the proposed new clauses of the Crime and Policing Bill, contains safeguards that would effectively guard against women seeking abortions while subject to coercion or abuse. Given the operation of the pills-by-post system, it is also not clear to me or to some hon. Members in this Chamber that there can be any guarantee that a woman’s gestational age or her general health would be effectively ascertained under a decriminalisation regime.

Whatever view we take on the principle of abortion, there is a general public consensus that fewer abortions taking place is a good thing, so I am concerned that the decriminalisation of abortion would lead to the normalisation of late-term—or at least later-term—abortions, and have a chilling effect on the broader discussions about the viability and value of life.

I am coming to the end of my speech—we have three hours for the debate, but I am conscious that other hon. Members want to speak. Given the ready availability of pills by post without the requirement for an in-person consultation—which I believe is critical—the bitter irony of the decriminalisation of abortion is that it would place women at greater risk of harm. Not all choices should be entirely free or unfettered. We accept limits to our choice in many areas of law, and this one should be no exception. The criminal law on abortion safeguards women by providing clarity and a regulatory framework. Decriminalisation does the opposite, and in a way that is much more damaging and much more critical to the debate. Decriminalisation is not a simple matter of choice and autonomy. If we reduce the debate to that, we will fail in our duty to protect women and the babies.

I urge hon. Members, irrespective of their views on the principle—which, as I said, may be very different from my own—to consider the full ramifications of decriminalisation of abortion. It will harm more than help, and those who suffer will be women who endanger their own safety and that of the unborn children, who are equally important. We must protect both equally. Decriminalisation of abortion would fail to accomplish that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. This is an important debate for the many of us who have been campaigning on this issue for many years, because we feel passionately that the equal ability to control what happens to our bodies is the foundation of equality within society. I thank Gemma for her petition and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for setting out the law so well.

I want us to be honest with the British public about what we are talking about and, therefore, what we need to see happen if we want decriminalisation. I was the architect of the Northern Ireland legislation, and I want to be clear about what we did there and about the difference between the two proposals that will come before Parliament in the coming weeks. In Northern Ireland, we did not do what new clause 1 to the Crime and Policing Bill seeks to do. The new clause would not decriminalise abortion; it would disapply the law on abortion for some people, but would retain the abortion legislation. Those of us who support decriminalisation need to be clear that decriminalisation must mean repeal. We did that in Northern Ireland, and that is why we have been able to protect women who previously had no access to any abortion provision.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady mentioned Northern Ireland, and I accept that there are fundamental differences between our positions. She introduced the Northern Ireland legislation, but does she accept that the views there—among both the general public and their representatives—are quite different from those in Walthamstow?

[Ms Creasy]

The hon. Gentleman asks me about the view of people in Northern Ireland. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe pointed out, in the six years since that law was passed there has been no call to reverse it. I believe that human rights are universal, which is why I thought it was right for us in the United Kingdom Parliament to act for all those women in Northern Ireland whose rights were being denied by the previous status quo. There has been resistance, and we can learn from it; that is why we tabled new clause 20 to the Crime and Policing Bill.

I want to be very clear: anybody who claims that they are supporting decriminalisation by supporting new clause 1 is not telling us what decriminalisation really looks like. Decriminalisation must involve repeal, and that is why new clause 20 would repeal the legislation around abortion. That matters because, under the existing framework here, the police have already issued guidance that talks about prosecuting women. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) that we do not want to see prosecutions. Many of us have been concerned for some years about the increase in investigations and prosecutions of women for abortion. We have not been able to get to the bottom of why there has been such a surge or why the police felt the need to produce that guidance.

New clause 1 would not stop subsequent guidance targeting the partners of people who had an abortion or the medics who provided the abortions, and it would not prevent demands for women to give evidence as part of that process. If we are to finally put to bed the notion that abortion is treated in the same way in this country as endangering the safety of railway workers or the possession of explosives—which it is under the Offences against the Person Act 1861—we must remove these offences from legislation. New clause 20 would do that: it explicitly says that there can be no investigation or prosecution under those offences. Therefore, it offers protection to all those involved in ensuring that women can access safe and legal abortions. That is why we took the approach that we did in Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland, there was no abortion service at all, but we wanted to fight for what an abortion service should be.

Those of us who consider ourselves pro-choice absolutely want to stop the investigations and prosecutions. Opposition Members have set out many of the arguments that are made to attack abortion access in this country, and that is where the human rights legislation came in. It is not true that when we passed the Northern Ireland legislation in 2019, there was immediately access to abortion. We had to fight tooth and nail against those who used their positions to thwart that legislation. The reason we were able to do that was that we had written into law a human rights lock, which meant that whenever people in the civil service, the police or the healthcare service did not approve of abortion and sought to resist the legislation, the Secretary of State had to stand up for the right of women in Northern Ireland to access a safe and legal abortion. I sat with the Secretaries of State at that point, who were not themselves particularly supportive of abortion access, as they admitted to me that they had to push through that legislation and ensure that provision.

I have read the judgments from the cases where the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission intervened directly and used the powers that we wrote into law to defend access to abortion. Why does that matter? It matters because we know that abortion is already under attack in this country. I know that many are concerned about the Americanisation of our debate here—I want to come on to that—but we have already seen millions of pounds being spent on anti-abortion activism in this country. We do not need to import those people from America; we already have people like Lord Michael Hintze and Lord Michael Farmer, who are more than happy to fund anti-abortion activism.

I pay tribute to the work of Dr Pam Lowe in identifying and tracking that. We can see from that work that there has been better co-ordination of anti-abortion campaigning, against decriminalisation, as well as the arguments made about the time limit and telemedicine—and, ultimately, in favour of the argument that we should be demanding to know why women wish to have an abortion. For no other healthcare provision do we demand that women explain and justify themselves before we provide it. Whether it is the March for Life, the activities on our campuses or indeed the lobbying of MPs, anybody who was complacent about access to abortion in this country before we saw the Trump playbook being brought into British politics needs to look more closely at what has been happening.

When we legislate on abortion, we do not just need to properly decriminalise; we need to properly protect. That is why we tabled new clause 20, which has cross-party support. The anti-abortion movement never asks for abolition; it asks for more safeguards. It asks for more visits to doctors to delay the process of accessing an abortion. It makes a claim about medical technology. Of course, it is amazing when doctors are able to do wonderful things to save the lives of children born prematurely, but this is apples and pears. The people who have to make that horrible choice to have a late-term abortion are not doing so with the best of news in their hearts, but with hearts that are broken, because they have been told that their child will not live past birth. Who are we as a society, here in England and Wales, to compel those women to keep carrying a child to term that they know will die in a way that we do not do in Northern Ireland?

[Carla Lockhart]

I think the mask is slipping today. This is an attack on those who seek to lobby for the protection of life in this United Kingdom, and I for one want to stand up for those people in this debate. That is such an insult towards the many groups and organisations who value life, and who value both lives in every pregnancy. It is outrageous that those people have been demonised.

[Ms Creasy]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady feels like that. I hope she heard my words to her colleague, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I have always—it is on the record—defended the right of people who disagree with abortion to make their argument. I have always—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady is chuntering from a sedentary position. I have always defended the right of people to disagree. What I do not do is defend the right of people who disagree to harass.

Let me talk about another example of where abortion access is under threat. We fought tooth and nail in the previous Parliament to put safe access zones to abortion clinics in place. We absolutely uphold people’s religious liberties, but no one has a religious right to pray anywhere they like that trumps the human right of privacy that a woman has when she has made the choice to have an abortion to go to a clinic. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) set out the consequences of that.

Nothing in new clause 1 would protect buffer zones. New clause 20 would explicitly protect buffer zones, because the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has intervened to protect buffer zones as part of human rights legislation. Some may argue, “Don’t worry: because she made that ruling and fought that case for us in Northern Ireland, we can apply it to England and Wales.” New clause 20 would put that beyond doubt. It is therefore not some untried and untested mechanism for defending abortion; it is about recognising that, if we want to protect abortion access, we have to repeal the relevant legislation and then say what happens next.

[Jim Shannon]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Creasy]

I will of course give way—the hon. Gentleman gave way to me.

[Jim Shannon]

I cannot let the occasion pass without putting it on the record that silent prayer is very much just that: a silent prayer between the individual and their God. Nothing is ever said. With respect to the hon. Lady, it is totally erroneous for her to say that a silent prayer is wrong.

[Ms Creasy]

I understand the position that the hon. Member is taking. Many of us believe that somebody standing at an abortion clinic and feeling the need to pray there, rather than in a church or 150 metres away from the abortion clinic, is not silently praying but intervening on the privacy of the person accessing an abortion zone. That is why this Parliament—[Interruption.] I can hear the hon. Gentleman chuntering. I want to make some progress, but let me be very clear: those of us who recognise that safe access zones balance rights in the best way recognise that the hon. Gentleman is not alone in continuing to attack them. The vice-president of the United States has sought to attack our nation’s ability to protect women’s access to abortion clinics via safe access zones. The threat that we are facing is therefore not theoretical.

[Emily Darlington]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, as have all hon. Members who have spoken today. I am lucky never to have had an abortion, but I have had two miscarriages, and I cannot tell you how vulnerable I was at that time. Anybody coming up to me at that point would have made me feel even more terrible than I already did. I have friends who have had abortions, and it is a terrible choice to make, for whatever reason anybody makes it. Whether the child would not survive or was a child of rape—for whatever reason that choice gets made, nobody makes it happily. Does my hon. Friend agree that the reason there are exclusion zones is that the human rights of that woman, who is going through one of the worst times of her life, must be protected at such a horrible time?

[Ms Creasy]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for giving that personal testimony. What she touches on is what we have seen in the debate in this country for several years now: the expectation that women should give a reason why they want to have an abortion or seek that kind of medical care. That is why the Trump playbook being brought into British politics—as we now see it is—is so dangerous in this context. When the leader of Reform, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage)—I note that he is not here to defend his views—talks about the “ludicrous” nature of our laws and calls for a reduction in the time limit, he is not thinking of all those people who get that horrific diagnosis. He is sending a bat signal to his colleagues and fellow travellers in America: that under his watch it would be open season in this country—

[Martin Vickers (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind the hon. Lady that if she refers to another Member, she should have given that Member advance warning.

[Ms Creasy]

I do apologise, Mr Vickers. I just thought that, given his recent pronouncement and the interest that he has shown in this matter, the hon. Member for Clacton would be here.

Let me talk, then, about the vice-president of the United States—I hope you will understand, Mr Vickers, that I could not have asked him to be here today. He is one of those fellow travellers who believes that there are votes to be gained by using women’s bodies as a battlefield; that is what the debate about abortion in America has become. We are seeing American ideas—the concept of abortion until birth and the idea that women should be expected to explain themselves—being brought into our debates. I know that many of us will fight tooth and nail against those narratives and for equality, so I ask colleagues across the House: when people come for our abortion rights or propose further restrictions or “safeguards” for abortion, do we want the power of a human rights commissioner to back us up in those fights? This is our chance to have that: new clause 20 learns from a body of law and of practice in Northern Ireland about how we protect abortion properly. We do not just decriminalise it; the new clause would properly protect abortion.

I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Gower, and I urge her to reread new clause 20, because from what she said, I do not think she has read it properly. Rather than concentrating power in the hands of Ministers —precisely because of the risk that comes from any future Government that may seek to use secondary legislation powers—the new clause would actively restrict them. It has a triple lock and states, first, that regulations can be made only to uphold that human rights approach and, secondly, that they cannot be used to reduce access to abortion, or to amend section 1 of the 1967 Act—which new clause 20 keeps in play as a list for regulation rather than prosecution, so it does not touch the time limits either. The new clause then states that any attempt to undermine that human rights lock can be done only with the support of the entire Parliament.

Any new Member of Parliament here today has probably had the pleasure of sitting on a Delegated Legislation Committee in the last year and wondered quite what they are doing in a small Committee Room. The answer is that they are making law, but doing so in a Committee where the balance of power has been determined by the Whips and where the Government get to decide who sits on that Committee. Those are secondary legislation powers. It is entirely conceivable that new clause 1, if passed, would give those secondary legislation powers—they are in the policing Bill—to a future Government without any restriction.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

This is not a competition between my hon. Friend and me—we both have the same aim—but it is interesting that more than 115 MPs have signed new clause 1, and it has been endorsed by the whole industry. Everyone has signed up to it. Has my hon. Friend had conversations with them about why they have not signed up to her new clause?

[Ms Creasy]

I am sorry that my hon. Friend feels the need to ask that question. She knows full well that despite me asking repeatedly to meet her and to talk to the campaigners she has been working with, that meeting has not yet been forthcoming. I am still open to meeting people, but we need to be very clear on the record: new clause 20 has in it a lock on the activity of Ministers, deliberately so, because this is a human rights issue. It should be a matter that is subject to the entire Parliament, and it should be clear that Ministers may only ever use the powers in this legislation to make human rights-compliant legislation. If they did not, the human rights commissioner could challenge them on it and take the Secretary of State to court, just as was done in Northern Ireland.

Conversely, new clause 1 would allow Ministers to have secondary legislation powers without any restrictions. Again, I ask Members who are concerned about Ministers being involved in writing legislation to look at the difference in that constitutional role. I recognise that only those who have had the repeated pleasure of serving on secondary legislation Committees will understand the powers they can have. Certainly, I encourage people to look at how George Osborne used secondary legislation powers to change the student tuition fee rates and benefit rights. The previous Government used them under the retained EU law legislation. The scope of those powers has been broadening. Many of us respect the role of Government, but obviously we recognise that, should there be a Government with a more extreme agenda in the future, they will also have those powers. New clause 20 would lock those powers down.

I do not wish to detain the House any longer, because others wish to speak. What matters is that we are clear about why proper decriminalisation matters. Restricting access to abortion does not stop abortion; it stops safe abortion. Failing to protect access to abortion does not make it easier for people to have children; it simply means more pain, misery and heartache to be had. There is no right amount of abortions to happen in our society, but a basic human right is at stake here. Members of this House who are alive to the politics and the policy debates on abortion and in politics would do well to think about how they will feel in five years’ time if what we see at the moment is the start, not the end, of assaults on abortion. I urge Members who care about decriminalisation to back new clause 20 and make sure that our constituents in England and Wales have the same human right that they do in France and Northern Ireland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Mullan]

Although my right hon. Friend and I might not agree on where we draw the line on each of those very complex issues in different circumstances, I absolutely sympathise with the view that individuals sit within society and we have a wider obligation. Sometimes, laws and our customs are not there just for the benefit of individuals; they are there because of wider considerations.

[Ms Creasy]

I thank the shadow Minister for giving way and I recognise the points he is making. However, he says that criminal law is the way in which we give effect to the framework that he is talking about. Obviously, as we have discussed in this debate, there is no criminal underpinning to abortion in Northern Ireland, where abortion is a healthcare matter and is regulated as healthcare. For the avoidance of doubt, can I clarify that he would also accept that if we were to do as new clause 20 requires and introduce healthcare regulations that are human rights-compliant to replace the criminal regulation, there would be regulation and guidance about health services? It would not create a gap; it would be a replacement.

[Dr Mullan]

What I said was that traditionally in this country the nature of how we oversee and protect sanctity of life questions and those who might extinguish life is through the criminal law. Of course, the hon. Member is right to point out that in other jurisdictions, including in Northern Ireland, they might do it differently, but that is the tradition, certainly in England and Wales and, in most regards, in Northern Ireland, too. I do not think that it is fair for her to use an example of doing things differently to suggest that arguments different from that are not valid. In fact, generally speaking I found her remarks during this debate to be quite insensitive to the complexities of the issues at hand. She was tempted to focus more of her time on talking about Trump than on the very delicate balancing act that many people bring to debates about this morally complex issue. I will now continue with my speech.

We must also remember that ultimately any prosecution undertaken by the CPS must meet the test for being in the public interest. We must not confuse questions about the appropriateness of sentencing and the appropriateness of an individual decision to prosecute with an overall question about whether the criminal law itself is the right or wrong mechanism through which we regulate this activity.

Proponents of decriminalisation often cite the World Health Organisation’s recommendation from 2022, which advocates removing barriers such as criminalisation. Although such recommendations should, of course, carry weight with many, it is essential to view them through the lens of our unique societal context here in the UK. The bulk of the World Health Organisation’s recommendations are very much focused on countries that have a much lower rate of access to abortion, in all sorts of different ways, and so they sit within a different context. Our abortion laws have evolved over time to reflect the delicate balance between the rights of pregnant women and the ethical considerations surrounding unborn life. I would caution against taking a universal recommendation from a global organisation as a litmus test for whether we are or are not doing things correctly.

When prosecutions occur, they are no doubt distressing for those involved. However, we also should be wary of changing the law in response to individual cases without looking at the operation of the law as a whole and, as I have said, without considering other elements, such as the operation of the law by the CPS, that have a bigger role to play than the law in itself.

Accountability is a cornerstone of ethical practice and criminal law serves as a mechanism through which accountability is ensured in many spaces. Without such safeguards, society is potentially less able to properly address situations where procedures are conducted wrongly. These are questions that demand careful consideration and proper parliamentary debate before any changes to existing laws are made. As I and others have already mentioned, debates about the new clauses tabled by the hon. Member for Gower and others will provide the opportunity for that.

In their response to the petition, the Government have stated that they have no current plans to change the law on abortion and I am sure the Minister will say more about that in her closing remarks. Although discussions about potential refinements to current laws are valid and deserve proper consideration, I suspect that a number of MPs would argue that the removal of criminal penalties must be approached with caution.

As I have said already, the hon. Member for Gower has tabled new clause 1 to the Crime and Policing Bill, and Members will know that debate on amendments tabled to the previous Government’s Criminal Justice Bill did not happen because of the timing of last year’s general election. Successive Governments have adopted a neutral stance on abortion and treated it as a free vote issue. However, I understand that the Minister for Policing and Crime Prevention was unable to clearly restate that assurance on Second Reading of the Crime and Policing Bill. I would welcome it if the Minister who is here today confirmed in her remarks that the Government will continue to be neutral on abortion.

Amnesty International has framed abortion as a human rights issue, advocating for its decriminalisation. However, all measures must be applied in a manner that respects the rights of all affected parties, including the unborn. The ethical and moral considerations surrounding abortion are multifaceted and these complexities cannot be overlooked.

Before I conclude my remarks, I will say something about the tone of this debate. As we engage with this issue over the next few weeks and months, it is imperative that we consider the diverse perspectives and experiences that shape opinions on abortion law. I hope that we will all strive to find solutions that uphold dignity, fairness and justice for all. The legal framework governing abortion must maintain an emphasis on protecting both individual rights and societal values. As I said earlier, abortion is an issue that transcends simplistic policy analysis. It is a matter of ethics, justice and the principles that define who we are as a society. The Opposition believe that abortion law should remain robust, balanced and capable of addressing the complexities of these issues. It will be for individual MPs to decide how that balance is best struck.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for opening this debate. I echo the comments of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan), on the tone of the debate on this topic, as we move forward into the coming weeks. I thank all those who signed and supported the petition, and the petitioner, Gemma Clark, for raising this vital issue.

The petition calls on the UK Government to

“remove abortion from criminal law so that no pregnant person”—

woman—

“can be criminalised for procuring their own abortion.”

I recognise and respect that there are strongly held views on this highly sensitive issue not only in Parliament but across the country. I thank the more than 200 people in my constituency of Pontypridd who signed this petition.

I will make it clear at the outset that the Government maintain a neutral stance on changing the criminal law on abortion in England and Wales. I recognise that the Government’s position of strict neutrality on this issue can be frustrating for all involved, and for none more so than me. If I were speaking in this debate as the Member for Pontypridd, my contribution would be very different, but thankfully my views on abortion are well known, and already proudly on the record. It is for Parliament to decide the circumstances under which abortion should take place, allowing Members to vote according to their moral, ethical or religious beliefs.

I emphasise that the Government are wholly committed to ensuring access to safe, regulated abortions. All women in England and Wales can have access to safe, regulated abortions on the NHS under our current laws. In England and Wales, that access is provided through legislation set by Parliament: the Abortion Act 1967. Hon. Members have already stated the facts of the criminal law on abortion in England and Wales, but it might be helpful if I also do so, and set out the three main offences that apply. When I refer to matters concerning the law on abortion, any reference is to its application in England and Wales. The law on abortion in Scotland and Northern Ireland is a matter for the devolved Administrations.

The Offences against the Person Act 1861 provides two criminal offences that apply specifically to cases of abortion. Section 58 makes it a criminal offence for a pregnant woman to intentionally

“procure her own miscarriage”

by unlawfully taking drugs or using instruments. It is also an offence for another person to unlawfully administer drugs or use instruments with the intention

“to procure the miscarriage of any woman”,

whether or not she is in fact pregnant. Section 59 makes it an offence for a person to supply or procure a drug, poison or instrument with the intention for it to be used to procure a miscarriage.

The Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 deals with late-term abortions in England and Wales. Under section 1 of that Act, it is an offence for any person to intentionally

“destroy the life of a child capable of being born alive”

before it is born, unless it can be proven that the act was done in good faith and only to preserve the life of the woman. Decisions to bring a prosecution under those provisions are for the independent Crown Prosecution Service. In deciding whether to bring a prosecution, the CPS will apply the two-stage test in the code for Crown prosecutors. The first stage asks whether

“there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction”;

the second asks whether a prosecution is needed in the public interest.

The criminal provisions should be read in conjunction with the Abortion Act 1967, which provides exemptions to the criminal offences. Under the 1967 Act and accompanying regulations, women in England and Wales have access to safe, legal and regulated abortion services, which can be provided in an NHS facility or a place provided by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, such as an independent sector or clinic. In effect, lawful abortions can be provided in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, where two doctors agree that the continuation of the pregnancy would involve risk of

“injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family”.

Abortions beyond 24 weeks are permitted, if necessary, to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman, where there is risk to the life of the pregnant woman, or if there is a substantial risk that the child would be seriously handicapped due to physical or mental abnormalities.

To reiterate, the Government maintain a neutral stance on changing the law on decriminalising abortion. It is for Parliament to decide the circumstances under which abortions should take place, allowing Members to vote according to their moral, ethical or religious beliefs. Hon. Members are aware that new clauses tabled to the Crime and Policing Bill would decriminalise abortion. Should they be selected, those new clauses will provide the House with a further opportunity for a full debate on this issue.

In answer to the questions from my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), I cannot and will not comment on the policy behind the proposed new clauses, but I may draw to the attention of the House any practical or legal issues with them. New clause 1, which was tabled by my hon. Friend, seeks to disapply criminal offences related to an abortion from a woman in relation to her own pregnancy at any stage of gestation. That would mean that it would never be a criminal offence for a pregnant woman to terminate her own pregnancy at any stage.

My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) has tabled a separate new clause that would introduce a human rights framework for future regulations related to abortion and protect existing abortion rights. New clause 20 would repeal several criminal offences in their entirety, meaning that it would never be a criminal offence for a pregnant woman or anyone else to terminate a pregnancy. While the stated intention is clear, the practical effect of the new clause is more limited and the powers are unclear, which could give rise to unintended consequences. Should these new clauses be selected, the House will have a further opportunity for a full debate on this issue, and if the will of Parliament is that the law in England and Wales should change, then the Government would not stand in the way of such change but would seek to ensure that the law is workable and enforced in the way that Parliament intended.

[Ms Creasy]

New clause 20 would introduce in England and Wales what we have done in Northern Ireland, and I know from the Minister’s previous comments on the record that she has been very supportive of that legal and moral duty to act. For the avoidance of doubt, can she clarify whether her officials have met the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission to understand how this operates in practice in Northern Ireland?

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I will come back to my hon. Friend with that information once I have spoken to officials to find out the exact details. The Government remain neutral on the policy, but we are looking at the workability and practicality of the new clauses. I will discuss that with her at a later date.

Wherever one stands on the issue of legislative change, I commend colleagues for engaging in this debate. While the Government are neutral on this issue, I want to close by thanking all hon. Members for their careful consideration of these issues and thanking the campaigners who share different perspectives, as well as by recognising the many people who have written to their MPs to share their personal experiences.

Criminal Justice System: Capacity

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank the hon. Member for his questions. I am very aware of the number of places in our prison estate, and we had a particularly difficult moment before the last bank holiday, in August, when we came down to fewer than 100. However, as a result of the measures we have taken on SDS40, there is now some space and some capacity in our prison system. It is important that we use this opportunity also to bear down on the remand population and to deal with the Crown court backlog.

This is a delicate balancing exercise, and it is one that I will personally be keeping a close eye on and keeping under review. However, I think that the measure we have announced is ultimately the right one, because it helps us with our prison capacity challenges. As a result, we will have the prison places where we need them—in the reception prisons—and we can start moving people out to other parts of the estate, which is not possible until cases are heard. I am confident that we have the capacity in the magistrates courts to deal with the additional workload. Again, I will be keeping that under review.

The hon. Member is right: 80% of offenders are actually reoffenders. This country has a real problem with failing to rehabilitate offenders, and our record on reducing reoffending is not as strong as it should be. Prison has a place, and it is really important that people who break our laws are properly punished. That is necessary for the public to maintain confidence in our system and for law-abiding citizens to feel that there are consequences when our laws are broken. There is no doubt in my mind that punishment and prison are important, but they go hand in hand with rehabilitation. I do not think there is a choice to be made between punishment and rehabilitation—they are two sides of the same coin, and we have to have both. This Government are determined to have a better track record on both punishment and rehabilitation compared with anything that has gone on in the previous 14 years.

Let me gently say that it is not the case that magistrates courts send more people to prison. Following the previous change the courts were able to run through cases faster, and because the previous Government had not created capacity in the prison estate, the pressure on prison places became acute and the measure had to be dropped back to six months—the shadow Lord Chancellor might wish to offer further comments on that. That is what happened and what I expect to happen again.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is fascinating and powerful to hear the plans to deal with the backlog in the courts. I know that all our constituents will be grateful for the Lord Chancellor’s work. I have a constituent who was the victim of an aggravated burglary that involved multiple men coming to her house with machetes in 2021. Finally, last week at Snaresbrook Crown court, a date for the trial of the gentlemen accused of this crime was set for October 2026. The Lord Chancellor will recognise and share the concern of my constituent. As she says, justice delayed is justice denied. What comfort can she give my constituent that such matters will be expedited as a result of her work?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am very sorry to hear about the experience of my hon. Friend’s constituent. I have many such instances of unacceptable delays for hearing cases in my own constituency caseload. I hope that the measures that I have announced today will begin to ease some of that pressure, because making this change will free up around 2,000 sitting days in the Crown court. This Government have funded an additional 500 beyond the concordat process agreement that was reached by the previous Government in June. I am determined to make more progress in dealing with the Crown court backlog so that constituents such as my hon. Friend’s do not have to wait so many years for their cases to be heard and, ultimately, for justice to be done.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Friday 24th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I absolutely agree with everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West has said about the questions that still need to be answered. One point that I want to raise concerns Sir Robert Francis and the engagement that will take place in the next few weeks. Legal representation is needed so that people can engage fully with that process and ensure that they are feeding in the issues about tariffs, which have caused a great deal of concern and worry. We also need to get on with providing psychological services in England. We have them in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but we now need them in England, and I hope the Minister will take that message back. The other key issue is that of support payments.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I want to associate myself with everything that has been said about infected blood. I also want to call to the attention of this House the cross-party working on Lords amendment 45, particularly by Baroness Morgan, Baroness Finn, Baroness Brinton, Baroness Thornton, Lord Ponsonby and Lord Russell, to protect victims of malicious harassment.

I thank the Minister and his team; he knows that this has been an issue that many of us have been vexed about because we have been victims of it ourselves. He has been patient, and he recognised that we could not simply say, “This won’t happen again,” and that we needed to put something into law. In that sense, I pay tribute to all the lawyers and experts on stalking who have assisted us, and we cannot let the Bill go through this place without acknowledging the work of the victims’ commissioner for London, Claire Waxman, who is sat in the Gallery this afternoon and who has tirelessly fought for victims legislation.

I have a few questions about Lords amendment 45— I would not be taking part in the debate if I did not. The amendment is about stopping harassment. At the moment, even if somebody who makes malicious complaints is convicted, it is not clear to many data controllers that because the records have been created by a process of malice, they should be deleted. As a consequence, victims find themselves being pursued based on those records, and the amendment would give people a direct right to request a deletion.

The Minister will know there is a concern that some of the exemptions could be broad. Will he commit to giving clarity on when those exemptions cannot be used for malicious complaints, as was done in the other House, and to giving protection to victims who are targeted in this way? Many of us in the public realm will be targeted; we have an election coming up, and we know that this will happen. Many of us want to face public scrutiny, but our families should not have to pay for the price for it, which is what so often happens with these records. Could the Minister commit to providing formal guidance?

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion]

I start by thanking the Minister. He has worked cross party, particularly with me, to turn what was a good, well-intended Bill into something much better, although there is still a lot further to go. I am delighted that the Government have accepted my argument that a victim does not have to report a crime to access support through the victims code, and therefore I will not press amendment 8.

There are victims who are not explicitly listed, but who need recognition. That would be provided through my amendments 5, 6, 157 and 158. When the definition of child sexual exploitation was introduced in 2009, it genuinely transformed services and people’s understanding. We now need the same for both adult sexual exploitation and child criminal exploitation. It is bizarre to me that, as soon as someone turns 18, sexual exploitation is seen as their making poor lifestyle choices, rather than as grooming, coercion and abuse. Likewise, child criminal exploitation is often unrecognised and the child is seen as a perpetrator. At the very least, I hope the Minister will ensure that there are statutory definitions of those crimes in guidance.

Amendment 7 relates to children whose parents are paedophiles. We need to ensure that those children are treated as secondary victims, in the same way that children born of rape will be once the Bill passes. I urge the Minister to consider rolling out a specialist type of IDVA, as Lincolnshire police are doing so brilliantly. Amendments 19 to 23 would ensure that there is also guidance for all specialist community-based services.

Elder abuse is often under-reported. Hourglass states that the elderly require specialist support due to the nature of the abuse, which often targets their finances, and because they are often digitally excluded. My new clause 6 would require the Government to carry out an assessment of specialist support services across the country to end the postcode lottery.

Amendments 4, 17 and 18 would include stalking in the Bill. Given that there were 1.5 million stalking victims in 2021, it is imperative that they have advocates. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust has shown that victims not supported by advocates have a one in 1,000 chance of their perpetrator being convicted, compared with one in four if they have a stalking advocate.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case for stalking advocates. Does she also agree that now is the time for a stalking register, to stop this crime in its tracks?

[Sarah Champion]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who I know has tabled amendments on that point. We need to do much more about stalking.

One in five referrals through the national referral mechanism in 2022 were for a British child. It is essential that we get the support for that group of victims right and that we improve support for all victims of modern slavery, which is why I have tabled amendment 16, supported by the Centre for Social Justice. Clause 12 is positive, but as drafted it will fail to fully meet the needs of victims and survivors. Amendment 149 seeks to address that.

Another concern is that the Bill will not fully support all migrant victims, especially those facing domestic abuse. Many victims and survivors with insecure immigration status do not report to the police for fear that their information will be passed to immigration enforcement. And that fear is not unfounded: the Domestic Abuse Commissioner recently published Home Office data showing that every single police force in England and Wales had shared data of a victim of domestic abuse with immigration enforcement over a three-year period. To protect migrant victims and survivors, as well as the general public, we need to implement a data-sharing firewall that bans statutory services from sharing the data of a victim with the Home Office. My new clause 36 seeks to do that.

I have worked with Southall Black Sisters to develop new clause 8 so that all those with no recourse to public funds can be guaranteed access to support. The Government must extend the domestic violence indefinite leave to remain and the destitution domestic violence concession model for those on partner and spousal visas to all migrant victims of domestic abuse, regardless of their immigration status.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. I am afraid that after the next speaker there will still be 10 people waiting to speak. We have to finish this section of proceedings at 8.50 pm in order to allow for the wind-up, so, after the next speech, the limit will be three minutes.

[Stella Creasy]

I associate myself with the amendments in the names of the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller), my right hon. Friends the Members for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) and for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) and, of course, my incomparable hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). In the time available to me, I will focus on the three amendments that I have tabled to flag issues with the Government.

Amendment 147 is about vicarious trauma. We are in a perverse situation right now—the Minister knows this—where we have to hope that a victim dies if we are to access support for our communities when traumatic things such as stabbings happen. I hope that the Minister will change that so that every child can be supported.

Amendment 148 is about overseas victims. It would simply restore the right that our constituents had when we were members of the European Union to have their rights as a victim upheld if they or a family member were a victim of crime overseas. I hope that the Minister will look at the victims’ rights directive, because so many people experience that.

New clause 32 is about a victim’s rights in relation to data. I was not sure that I would be able to table the new clause, because the court case that it refers was heard last Thursday. A year ago, a man started emailing my office with his concerns about my politics and the issues that I was working on. Like all Members when we get correspondence from non-constituents, I read the emails and filed them but did not respond. I was then called by my local social services because that man had decided that, because he disagreed with my views, I was not a fit mother for my children. He had reported me, an investigation had taken place, and while it cleared me, my children and I now have a social services record. When I went to the police about the matter, they said that he had a right to express his opinions in that way. I challenged it because, due to my work on stalking, I understood that somebody who could use a malicious report to harm someone was clearly dangerous. When I came forward, further reports came out revealing that this man had continued his campaign of harassment.

I am deeply grateful for the cross-party support for new clause 32, because although that man has now been convicted of harassment, his ability to target my family continues because the record continues. At present, there is no way of removing from someone’s record a clearly malicious and false accusation made to a third-party organisation. In tabling the new clause, I recognised that it is not just those of us in the public eye who may be targeted in this way; in many cases of stalking, we see people who fixate and use reporting mechanisms to damage their victims.

I have had no support or help from Parliament or anybody within the parliamentary process for my welfare or that of my children, but now I want to stand up for everybody who has been through this process. I ask the Minister to look at this, because victims of clearly malicious reports must have the opportunity to have the record corrected. Too often, people will say, “There is no smoke without fire.” I want to stand up for safeguarding —it is clearly a very important process—but if a court recognises that a report is malicious and a victim is being targeted but we cannot act to remove that report, the harassment will continue.

[Sarah Champion]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for using a personal case to speak so powerfully. I know that she does so from a position of wanting to change things for people who do not have the platform that she has. I commend her for that.

[Stella Creasy]

I thank my hon. Friend for that, and yes, the new clause would go much further than tackling the abuse of people in the public eye. I hope that, in other legislation, we will look seriously at what we can do about those who target our families and staff members as a way of intimidating us, because that is not free speech; it is a way of silencing people.

In tabling the new clause, I hoped also to speak up for those who have been targeted through third-party organisations. I know that there are colleagues in the other place who wish to take up that matter up. I hope that cross-party support continues and that the Minister will consider the proposals, which have already secured the support of London’s Victims’ Commissioner. I apologise to the House for not being able to bring them forward before, but I hope that Members can understand why.

I hope that we send a message today. Many of us do not block people, and many of us engage in robust parliamentary debate, but surely there is a line not to be crossed. That line is our children, our family and our staff, who do not ask to be put in harm’s way but will be if we do not act to protect our democracy and protect ourselves from those who would seek to use third-party mechanisms to abuse.

Abortion: Offences against the Person Act

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Thursday 15th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

My right hon. Friend will appreciate that I am not going to comment directly on this case and the judgment involved, but I refer him to the answer I gave some moments ago in respect of that decision: this was debated and the House expressed its view.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I start by joining the Minister in expressing our condolences to the people of Nottingham. I had the honour of meeting Grace O’Malley-Kumar when she and her father were part of the vaccination effort in my local community. She was a wonderful young woman who clearly had a very bright future ahead of her.

The 67 prosecutions in the last 10 years under this legislation and the conviction that we have seen in England and Wales show that it is not a theoretical issue to consider whether women in England and Wales have a legal right to an abortion. They do not have a situation where they are exempted from prosecution. The situation is completely different in Northern Ireland, where this House voted to implement a human rights approach and give women in Northern Ireland a human right—something the Minister himself did not oppose when it came before this House. Has he had any legal advice on the inequality in the ability of women within the UK to exercise their human right to choose what happens to their bodies?

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 15th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

There is real and clear merit in what my right hon. Friend says. Plainly, we cannot have a situation in which people can, at the stroke of a pen, evade liability for their abhorrent crimes. I look forward to discussing that important matter with him and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) in due course.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State is making a powerful case on the role of a public advocate, which many of us support. We recognise that there may be more than one victim when traumatic events happen, so does he accept that it is right that the Bill also deals with strengthening support? In my community, a 16-year-old boy was murdered 10 days ago. The entire school community is traumatised. Getting them support, and recognising that his friends, as well as his family, are victims in this instance, is critical. Will he meet me and other campaigners to discuss that issue?

[Alex Chalk]

How could I not? I would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady on that important issue.

Let me turn now to the measures on prisoners and parole—part 3 of the Bill. The first duty of any Government is to protect the public, including from those who have betrayed trust, robbed innocence and shattered lives. Victims want to know that the person who has harmed them, their families and friends will not inflict that pain on anyone else. Indeed, I heard that strong message from Denise Fergus when I spoke with her recently. One thing that I found profoundly moving is that, notwithstanding her own private grief, one of her principal motivations is to ensure that others do not suffer in the same way.

Overwhelmingly, the Parole Board does its difficult job well, taking care to scrutinise the cases coming before it for release decisions. Over 99% of prisoners authorised for release by the Parole Board do not go on to commit a so-called serious further offence, but occasionally things go wrong, and when they do, the implications for public confidence can be very grave. John Worboys, the black cab rapist, and Colin Pitchfork, who raped two schoolgirls, were both assessed as being safe to leave prison, only for Colin Pitchfork to have to be recalled shortly afterwards and the Worboys decision to be overturned on appeal. Such cases are rare, but they are unacceptable. The public must have confidence that murderers, rapists and terrorists will be kept behind bars for as long as necessary to keep the public safe.

We have already made changes to improve safety and increase transparency. The most serious offenders now face robust tests to prove they are safe to move into open prisons, and some parole hearings can now take place in public so that victims and the public can see with their own eyes how decisions are made and why.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a genuine pleasure to take part in the debate, which is increasingly becoming an example of this place at its best. We are all sharing our own experiences and concerns. I pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Burton (Kate Kniveton); to the esteemed expert, my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion); to my hon. Friends the Members for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) and for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), who are no longer in their places; and to the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher), who spoke before me.

We all bring with us a determination because, having waited so long for a piece of legislation that was explicitly about victims and their experiences, we really want to get it right. After all, for many of us, that is our day-to-day work as MPs. We all remember the first time that we read those emails, had that phone call or met that resident, and the meetings in which you feel a burning sense of injustice by the end of the conversation—tears flow, and you and your team need to take some time out to recover from what you have heard. It is privilege to meet the people we meet as MPs, because we cannot understand how they have been able to carry on, let alone champion such causes.

I have to say I was a little frustrated by some of the earlier conversation. It felt so much—I hesitate to use this phrase—like victim blaming, because we talk about wanting victims to fit our systems. The victims I have had the privilege to work with as an MP for 13 years are no wallflowers; they are people who have been wronged, and they need to be recognised as people who have none the less done their damnedest to speak up for themselves or for somebody they love who has had a traumatic experience. I agree with the hon. Member for Bolsover about the Casey report, and I fear there are issues within the CPS too. Therefore, when we look at this legislation, we are looking not to find ways to make more victims come forward, but to recognise that, for too long, the systems and institutions we had set up supposedly to speak for these people have been found wanting, and they need to change.

Let me try to add something different to the Minister’s inbox, although I agree with many of the points that have been raised cross-party. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham that this is absolutely a cross-party thing. I want to raise five points—I know that a list of five might seem frightening, but I promise to be quick—about what it is to be a victim; when something happens to a family member overseas; third-party harassment; the legal rights of victims; and the issue of IDVAs, ISVAs and advocates more generally.

Let me start with the concept of what a victim is. The Minister is hearing loud and clear from many of us our concern that setting out that a victim is only somebody who engages with the justice system might make sense in a process way, but it does not make sense in a person way—it does not make sense for the people we deal with. It would preclude people who experience antisocial behaviour, which is a blight on the lives of everybody in our communities. That often fills up a huge amount of our inboxes, and understandably so, as people tear their hair out over the fact that behaviour that stops them living their lives is not being addressed.

Another area where we need to be clearer about victims and victimisation is what happens when traumatic events happen to communities, and I note that we are recognising that now in the concept of a public advocate. We are long overdue a public advocate, and I pay tribute again to my right hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), who is not here, for what she said; it was incredibly powerful, and it is absolutely right that we have public advocates. If we recognise that the trauma that comes from a severe crime can ripple through somewhere, it is right that we do not say that it is only when people speak up that we recognise that impact.

In my community, four people were raped—one of them was murdered—and I think about the impact that that had on the community. We fought for eight years for justice for Michelle Samaraweera. Her killer was not found until we fought and fought for him to be brought back from India. I think about the community at Kelmscott school, which lost one of its 16-year-old members 10 days ago. That community is grieving and traumatised, and we need to get it help and support. That is something we want to be able to build in from the start, because it helps the investigative process, but it also helps to address what has happened. That is absolutely critical.

It is absolutely welcome that we have talked about an advocate in major investigations, but there is a risk that we end up with a very narrow definition of a victim within a local community, which would be to the detriment of understanding how crimes affect people. I am pleased the Secretary of State said he would sit down with me and some of the campaigners and others working with the traumatised, victimised communities dealing with this epidemic of youth violence. There is merit, particularly when we are talking about serious harm, in taking a victim-led approach and in understanding that communities can be victims of crimes and how that might then influence the work we do.

The second area I would urge the Minister to think again about and that I would add to his inbox is when people are victims of crimes overseas and particularly when murders happen overseas. I have a phenomenal woman in my community called Sharon Matthews, whose beautiful son Tyrell was murdered brutally in Malia in 2013. We are still seeking to secure justice against the killers, and I can say “killers” because they were convicted in a Greek court, although they are here in the United Kingdom and have reoffended, so another family have lost a family member. Sharon faced a system that did not understand how to help her, and anybody who has ever dealt with a case involving someone who has been murdered or faced serious violence overseas, whether or not they were on holiday, will know how frustrating it is to deal with a different legal system and about the importance or otherwise of the victim in different jurisdictions. They will also know that that inconsistency is an injustice.

Let me be clear about some of the challenges that we have faced in supporting Sharon and her family through this. There was the idea that there would be a cap on the financial support available to the family. If someone is trying to get over to a foreign country to be at a trial, that is clearly a problem. There was no support for the witnesses to travel and give evidence. There was no support for us when we were trying to get video evidence involved to manage the costs. There was a horrific situation last year when, yet again in a retrial situation, the victim’s family and the witnesses were in the same hotel as the perpetrators’ families—clearly, a high-risk scenario. [Interruption.] I see that the hon. Member for Bolsover is shocked. Nobody was thinking about that family as victims, because this had all happened out of sight.

The victim in this instance was British, as are the perpetrators. A wider challenge for me in looking at the legislation is how we hold the police and the CPS to account when things to do with overseas violence lead to a possible risk here in the UK. Sharon’s case has been an absolute testament to her, as a mother, turning her grief into a determination to achieve justice for Tyrell, and she will always have my support in that fight.

I am absolutely shocked at how victims of crimes are treated. At one point Sharon was told she was not the victim, because the victim was Tyrell and therefore she was not entitled to any support. We have to change that because, sadly, this is an increasingly common experience. She got a letter—my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham touched on something similar—from the court saying that her son’s killer had been allowed to go on holiday, even though he had been convicted of a knife crime. Because they had decided to suspend his sentence for two weeks he could go on that lovely holiday, where he was then part of killing Tyrell. That is just one chink of the injustice that she has faced simply because the crime took place overseas. Again, the victims code and Victim’s Commissioner need to understand these issues.

The third issue I want to raise is third-party harassment —I have recently experienced this myself—and organisations using third-party organisations to harass victims of crime. We see this particularly in domestic abuse courts. We see this with the family courts. My hon. Friends the Members for Poplar and Limehouse and for Birmingham, Yardley powerfully set out the need to act. The idea that somebody would kill the mother of their children and then have access is incredible. It does not have to be about death. If we prove that someone is involved in domestic abuse, this does not have to go through other courts, so that they can be re-victimised time and time again through third-party organisations.

My own experience was with the use of social services to try to target and harass. Again, that is a loophole where there is no criminal offence that can be used to protect safeguarding and make sure that we stop those people who use these institutions to try and target people, or indeed to join up those experiences. When I challenged the police about my experience and the fact that they wanted to use a community resolution, I was told that it would be nice if, as a victim, I agreed with what they wanted to do, but it did not matter. There has to be a process whereby the victim’s voice is heard, and heard loudly, and that voice must be supported wherever a perpetrator might use a different institution to cause harm, particularly if they use third-party institutions for malice.

Fourthly, there is the issue of legal protections. It is a welcome win to recognise that asking for someone’s medical records should be allowed only in very exceptional, very specific circumstances. At this point, I would not be doing her justice if I did not call for Claire Waxman not only to be recognised as the Victims’ Commissioner but, frankly, to be knighted for the work she has done. She shows so clearly the power of having somebody to hold organisations to account, but she has found that extremely frustrating. Her own work on compliance showed that only 11% of victims were being made aware of their right to criminal injury compensation, and only 25% knew of the victims code at all. Claire’s work shows us powerfully why this cannot just be about the idea that, somehow, sunlight is a disinfectant—that, somehow, if we publish data about who is not supporting victims and who is not doing what we would ask of them—that will be enough to lead to change. The honest truth is that we have had the evidence—indeed, MPs’ casework provides the evidence.

We have all dealt with these challenges for years and years. So I join others in this place in asking Ministers to go further and to give teeth to this legislation, and not just to have publications. They should bring back the independent victims champions and make them a requirement for all police and crime commissioners, as Claire has so powerfully advocated, but also give those agencies real powers to hold people to account not just in a generic sense but in a specific sense. The sad truth is that we know how difficult that will be even if there are powers.

We have to give the Victims’ Commissioners the ability to do something. There have to be legally defined rights. There has to be a system to tackle non-compliance that goes further than just a spreadsheet and a dataset. We are all sick of seeing those letters of apology and of having those meetings where people say, “Let us try to learn the lessons”, when we can see those lessons happening time and time again.

Finally, I join everybody who is a fan of what IDVAs and ISVAs can do, and I have seen it in many cases. Sadly, she is not in her place, but I wish to draw something to the attention of the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller). I am pleased for her that she has such coverage of IDVAs and ISVAs, but the SafeLives survey shows that in only 74% of areas in this country do we have enough people doing those roles. I agree that we risk inadvertently restricting what they can cover. I pay tribute to and thank Laura Richards, who did huge amounts of work bringing forward the domestic abuse, stalking and harassment risk assessment and making the arguments around stalking and the stalking register. We need to go much further in understanding how that crime is being prosecuted.

IDVAs and ISVAs show the role of direct day-to-day advocacy, particularly when dealing with a crime where there are vulnerable people. I ask the Minister to think about this. When it comes to violence outside the home and people at risk of gang violence, we have seen how difficult it is to get people to be able to give evidence and to come forward. The lesson from IDVAs and ISVAs is that we should be rolling out systems of advocacy to help those vulnerable victims and to give people someone to guide them through that process on a range of crimes. We are dealing with an epidemic of youth crime. I can think of many cases in my local community where witnesses and victims have been terrified to come forward and terrified to go to court. They are often seen as potential perpetrators in their own right and not given that advocacy. I urge the Minister, rather than restricting what role an IDVA or ISVA plays, to think about independent advocates generally and how we might be able to use them to make sure that we get the prosecutions, the support for courts and the joining up of services that people need.

I also put on record my support for what was said by the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage). I note that the Corston review was in 2007. That gave us huge lessons about what we could do to reform prisons to support the very few women in prisons and to deal with the issues that might lead to women ending up in prisons. That review is long overdue implementation. I also support what the right hon. Member for Basingstoke said about NDAs.

There is so much here that could be done, because there is so much that needs to be done. I hope that the Minister will take in good spirit many of us adding to his inbox and wanting to see those things happen. We fear it may not be just another eight or nine years before we get a Bill to get it right; if we do not get this right, there may not be another one within our lifetimes. We have those conversations in our community with those people dealing with crime, those people who are survivors and those people who are grieving, and across this House we owe it to every one of them to do what it takes to get it right. The Minister will have my support if he does that, but he will also have my challenge if he does not.