Criminal Justice Bill

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak about this very important Bill, and it is of course a pleasure to follow Scottish National party spokesman the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens).

There are some very positive aspects to the Bill that are welcome. Tackling violence against women and girls, giving powers to law enforcement agencies to respond to technological change, and strengthening the law to protect the public from violence and intimidation are much-needed measures that will certainly reassure my constituents. There are communities across my constituency that have been the victims of appalling antisocial behaviour in recent years. The police and local councils are doing what they can to protect these communities with the application and implementation of community protection notices and then public spaces protection orders, but one challenge that the police have faced is that many of the perpetrators of antisocial behaviour are under 16. Lowering the age of a CPN to 10 will help the police in tackling antisocial behaviour and is much appreciated.

However, I am not comfortable with parts of this Bill—the last Criminal Justice Bill before the next election—and there are also things that are missing from it. I shall be as brief as possible. I apologise to those who have provided some excellent information, and I will probably do them a disservice as a consequence. I will also be blunt, as there is no other way of saying this, and I find myself being slightly firmer on this than the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper): I did not work as a Minister and as a Back Bencher on the repeal of the Vagrancy Act, only to see rough sleeping criminalised again via a different piece of legislation.

I get that there is an issue with aggressive begging. We on the ministerial taskforce, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) was very much a part of, were always aware of that. There was always a view that other pieces of legislation, such as the existing antisocial behaviour legislation, could cope with aggressive begging being transferred in. At no point did we, either as a taskforce or as part of the Vagrancy Act repeal, hear evidence about aggressive rough sleeping.

Rough sleepers require holistic support. They often have extremely complex needs, including significant mental health needs. Visibility may be uncomfortable for many, but it also enables support workers from the many brilliant charities and local authorities to reach out to them. Issuing prevention notices does nothing to solve the problem, but pushes them further away from the solution. Sentencing them to prison creates nothing more than extra problems for the person and the creaking prison estate.

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

What the hon. Lady is saying is incredibly powerful, and I wholeheartedly agree with her. Does she agree that one challenge we face is that we have a homelessness crisis? In my local area, our brilliant night shelters are already full, and the people working with the homeless would find it harder to help them if they had a criminal record. It would be counter-productive to the very good work we all know needs to happen to prevent homelessness so that it is one night only.

[Tracey Crouch]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady. People who find themselves sleeping rough on the streets are in a desperate situation, and the provisions in the Bill will do nothing to help them. Our local authorities, which often get a bad rap for the consequences of rough sleeping, have many officers doing brilliant work in trying to support rough sleepers. We need a holistic approach to tackling that issue. We do not need to criminalise them through these provisions, some of which, by the way, are laughable, respectfully. We have the idea that a prevention notice can be served to a rough sleeper at their last known address in writing. I am not entirely sure why that provision is even in there.

The point is that we need to be supporting people who are rough sleeping. I get that there is an issue with aggressive begging. In fact, various mayors across our metropolitan cities have said that, but rough sleeping does not need to be criminalised. We got rid of that as part of the Vagrancy Act repeal, which was supported by the Government. All we are doing is bringing that criminalisation in by the back door.

I will support the Bill on Second Reading because of the other measures, but I strongly urge the Government to remove the clauses on nuisance rough sleeping from the Bill. If not, I will certainly lend my name to amendments to remove those clauses from the Bill, on which I hope I would get cross-party support as a consequence. There are other ways of dealing with rough sleeping, rather than criminalising people.

The Bill also contains welcome measures to improve public confidence in policing after significant failings within forces to identify and investigate criminal behaviours. Those are welcome, given the shocking high-profile cases of recent years, but I suggest we reflect on how we protect good officers who do their job in challenging and fast-moving situations from prosecution. The Times on Saturday reported on the prosecution of PC Paul Fisher, who crashed en route to south London, where Sudesh Amman, a convicted terrorist, had stabbed two members of the public. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said that it

“undermines the confidence of all officers using their powers to keep the public safe.”

He is spot on.

A constituent of mine—a frontline Metropolitan police dog handler—was sentenced today having been found guilty of actual bodily harm after apprehending a dangerous criminal, who was subsequently sentenced to 14 months in prison. At the time, he was hailed “brave” and a “hero”. A complaint made from prison was dismissed by every level of the internal standards process, and it was only when the prisoner appealed again that it ended up in court, with the shocking guilty verdict. My constituent’s 21 years of exemplary service are in tatters due to a system that actively works against frontline officers and instead advocates for passive policing. We do need to improve standards of policing across our forces, but, at the same time, we need to protect those officers who are doing their jobs.

I turn to issues that would be helpful inclusions in the Bill. This morning, the first part of the inquiry into the depraved acts of David Fuller in the mortuaries of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust was published. The families of the victims of Fuller are always at the front of our minds when we, the MPs whose constituencies are covered by the trust and where many of them live, are informed about the inquiry. We collectively agree that the Government, the NHS and the trust should accept and act on the recommendations of Sir Jonathan’s report without delay.

Fuller will rightly serve the rest of his life in prison for the heinous crimes he committed, but there are two additional aspects of his crimes that the Government must also act on. First, the woefully short maximum sentence of two years for anyone found guilty of the sexual assault of a dead body needs to be substantially increased to at least 10 years, as per Baroness Noakes’s amendment to the previous Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Secondly, the current legislation applies only to the sexual assault of a dead body that involves penetration. Given the sensitivity of this matter, and on this day when coincidently the inquiry published its report and we are debating the Bill, I do not want to go into further details, but, in short, non-penetrative sexual assault of a dead body is not included under existing legislation, and that needs to be changed. I and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who is currently abroad on Government business, will table an amendment to the Bill to that end. I truly hope that we will never see such depravity again, but in memory of those who were victims of Fuller’s crimes, we must ensure that the offence covers all acts of assault and that sentences are increased significantly.

I turn to an entirely different point. I am surprised not to see in the Bill a specific offence of tailgating at football matches. The House will have seen Baroness Casey’s report following the violence at the Euro 2020 finals. Tailgating causes significant operational, safety and security problems for major events at Wembley stadium as well as other football matches across the country—I witnessed that as I experienced the surge of those illegally attempting entry to Wembley as I queued to get into the final. I understand that the Home Office agrees with the recommendation for a specific offence and that King’s counsel has recommended to the FA that that can be done through either an update to the Football (Offences) Act 1991 via statutory instrument, or adding it to the Bill. Given that the Bill is in front of us, it feels like a missed opportunity not to include that offence in it, so I will happily table an amendment to ensure that it is in place long before we host Euro 2028.

Finally, there is one other point that I was surprised not to see in the Bill. There are many reasons for us to be disappointed that the Government dropped the kept animals Bill, but one particular reason, which is relevant to this Bill, is that it would have introduced a specific pet abduction offence. Given that there is no debate about the harm and impact of pet theft, I was surprised not to see the offence included in this already wide-ranging bill. There has been an increase in pet theft, and the Government’s pet theft taskforce believes that pet owners should not live in fear of this cruel crime. Since this was in our manifesto, I hope the Government will either table an amendment or support a Back Benchers’ amendment that creates a stand-alone offence and bring reassurance to the millions of pet owners across the country.

I appreciate that I have raised a varied list of points, and that others wish to speak and I am running out of time. In summary, this is an important Bill—our last Criminal Justice Bill before the election. There are things in it that we need to do. There are things in it that we do not need to do. There are still things that we need to put into it. Fortunately, we have an excellent ministerial team responsible for the Bill. I look forward to working with them as it progresses through Parliament.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson). She knows that I very much agree with the sentiment that she has just expressed around the criminalisation of women who are in one of the most difficult situations. In years gone by, people who took their own lives were subject to the criminal law. We have seen the error of our ways and changed the law on that, and I hope that we will on this too.

There are many good things in this Bill, and we have heard from the Home Secretary that there are more good things to follow, particularly the legal duty to report child sexual abuse and the prohibiting of sex offenders from changing their names. The hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) has had a great deal to do with those measures and she certainly has my fulsome thanks for all the work she has done on them. These are important changes, and the fact that the Government have listened demonstrates not only the strength of her arguments but the strength of our ministerial team.

There is nothing more corrosive than the fear of crime, and we therefore have to be careful in how we use language to frame this debate. At the beginning of today’s debate, there were way too many statistics being bandied around for my liking, so I am going to start my comments with one fact. I was going to quote Mark Twain, but I am not sure that the word “lie” is acceptable parliamentary language, so I will not talk about lies and statistics; I will just talk about facts.

One of the most important facts, and one that will help to stop an unnecessary fear of crime, is that this Government have put in place 20,000 more police officers. We now have over 149,000 police officers in England and Wales and the fact is that that is the highest number on record. That is unequivocal. I would like to pay tribute to my local constabulary, Hampshire police, and particularly to my police and crime commissioner, Donna Jones, because they have gone above and beyond what the Government asked for, which was around 500 new officers in Hampshire. More than 600 new officers have been recruited to Hampshire. Those are facts, not statistics, so hopefully we can all agree on them.

It is important that we do not use inflammatory language when it comes to crime, because people become unnecessarily concerned. I see that on the doorstep when people start talking about their fear of burglary, whereas the Home Secretary has rightly said that burglary rates have fallen dramatically. There are many other sorts of crime that we should be concerned about, so let us not make our residents concerned about things that have fallen dramatically.

As my right hon. Friend said, this Bill demonstrates the constantly changing shape of crime. People find new unacceptable ways to benefit from others, and we have to make sure they become illegal. Following some very high-profile cases, of which we are all aware, I very much welcome the introduction of a broader offence of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm. I also welcome the new aggravating factors that increase the seriousness of child sex offences where there is grooming, and of murder connected with the end of a relationship. There are important changes to be made.

There will be a duty on the College of Policing to issue a code of practice on ethical policing, which is particularly important for those of us who are proximate to the Met police—my constituency almost neighbours the Met.

There are powers for the courts to order the attendance of offenders at sentencing hearings, and to punish them if they do not attend—again, this follows some very high-profile cases. Obviously, refusing to attend a sentencing hearing can cause huge distress to families.

The Bill also has measures on knife crime. Basingstoke is a county-lines town, as we are a gateway to Hampshire. We have seen some horrific knife crimes involving young people, often from south London, and I am not surprised to see that knives account for more than 40% of homicides in the last year. The Government have introduced measures to increase the maximum penalty and to criminalise the intent to cause fear of violence, and these are all things that need to be better dealt with in law.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) spoke about the antisocial behaviour provisions, which will introduce new powers to lower the age limit of community protection notices to cover younger perpetrators aged 10 or above. It is sad that I recognise the measure’s importance, because my local police have talked to me about people under the age of 16 who are creating appalling nuisance and antisocial behaviour in my community. Extending community protection notices to that younger age group, and increasing the upper limit of fixed penalty notices, will help to give the police the tools they need to deal with the real crime in our community.

I will now comment on two particular elements of the Bill, before suggesting a couple more that the Minister may want to think about. Although I understand the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford, I think the measures on nuisance begging and rough sleeping will be more warmly received in my community than she suggests, because organised begging in our town centre, often by criminal gangs, and begging that causes a nuisance around shops and cash machines is a concern not only to residents but to retailers and business owners. It is important that we have measures in place to deal with these issues as robustly as possible, but—and this is an important but—they need to go hand in hand with effective measures to make sure we do not simply move the problem of rough sleeping either into our prisons or into other communities.

We ran a very effective programme in Basingstoke under the then Conservative administration that I hope the current independent administration will continue. It was started by then Councillor Terri Reid, who worked with Julian House, a well-known charity that, through its outreach work, supports rough sleepers into accommodation and into the help they need. If the Minister’s intention with this Bill is to marry together these provisions with effective support, I can see how it might work. This measure worked in my constituency because the money that was given by the Government to the upper tier authority was passported down to the lower tier one, and it could then work much closer to the community and to the problem, making sure that we have effective plans in place. The number of people now homeless in my community is extremely small indeed.

[Tracey Crouch]

I want to put on the record, for clarity, that the Bill contains separate provisions to deal with nuisance begging and with nuisance rough sleeping. Nuisance begging is absolutely an issue that blights communities, and people from across the House will agree that the provisions from clause 38 to clause 50 are definitely necessary—the question is whether that needs to be done in this Bill. Nuisance rough sleeping is addressed from clause 51 and it is entirely separate. The criminalisation of the rough sleepers is the issue here, not the nuisance begging, which is dealt with under entirely separate provisions.

[Dame Maria Miller]

Let me confirm that I was talking about rough sleeping. The antisocial behaviour action plan, which is cited in the explanatory notes, to provide the support that is needed is vague, and I hope that the Minister will reassure us that far more support will be given to local authorities if these measures come through, to make sure that they have effective provisions in place.

I will speed up, Mr Speaker. The provisions in the Bill on intimate image abuse relate directly to the Law Commission’s work in this area. Again, I pay tribute to it for bringing forward those provisions and to the Government for taking them up. They will start to complete the necessary legislation to protect individuals from intimate image abuse online. To have an intimate image published online without one’s consent is akin to rape and it is now being dealt with in the criminal law, for which the Government are to be applauded. I also thank Professor Clare McGlynn, at Durham University, who has done so much work in making sure that these provisions are as they should be.

There are a couple of issues where the Government might consider adding provisions into the Bill. I have already raised the first of those with the Home Secretary in my intervention: non-consensual intimate images not being removed online, even though they may have been part of a criminal case where somebody is now in jail. There are mechanisms for us to be able to remove these images, but it sounds as though some people are not removing them and that the law may need to be tightened further. Finally, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North has suggested that this Bill may be a place to decriminalise abortion for women. We will come later on, perhaps in the remaining stages, to whether this Bill is the right place to do that, when there is perhaps not sufficient time to go through all the details. If that were to be the case, I gently suggest that perhaps the Government will want to look again at my sentencing guidelines Bill so that we make sure we continue to take incremental steps to modernise the way women are treated in the law on abortion. We have had provisions on buffer zones and telemedicine, and sentencing could well be a way in which we could make sure that women are starting to be treated in the way they should be: as patients and not as criminals when it comes to abortion.

Rape and Sexual Violence: Criminal Justice Response

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Miss Dines]

The Government do not agree at this stage that that is the right way forward. The crux of the matter lies with specialism of the investigation—with sensitive policing, listening to victims and letting them know, for example, that they can have their digital equipment and their telephones back in 24 hours, rather than having them taken by the police and on some occasions left for weeks or months without being returned. It is all about confidence, but it is also about specialism of the investigating officers and of the prosecutors.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

I have a constituent who was brutally raped in the ’80s. Despite presenting the evidence then and again more recently, she never got the support or the justice she deserved, due to failings within the Met. Can the Minister spell out what precise support historical victims of rape will receive following the review? Will it mean that, for my constituent and other victims of rape, justice will finally be secured?

[Miss Dines]

As far as I am aware, through the Ministry of Justice’s new Victims and Prisoners Bill, all victims will receive further assistance. These are heinous crimes, and whether the crime happened a day, a year, a decade or 50 years ago, all victims deserve support. I congratulate my hon. Friend on the amount of work that she does in this area and I will be happy to write to her, or to get the relevant Minister in the Ministry of Justice to write to her, with more particulars.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Monday 22nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be very happy to look into that. I remember that the hon. and learned Lady has campaigned on this issue for some time, since the fall of Kabul, so perhaps a useful way forward would be for she and I to meet to discuss this further.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

As part of the Government’s resettlement scheme for Afghan citizens facing threats of persecution from the Taliban, the Home Office granted visas to the Afghan women’s junior development football team. The women’s parliamentary football team played a match against them and, despite the studded tackle that left me wincing in agony, I was struck by their gratitude for and appreciation of our generous and lifesaving hospitality. However, there are many sportswomen left in Afghanistan, banned from participating in their sport by the Taliban and under threat of severe recriminations if they even dare to kick a ball, ride a bike or wield a cricket bat. What is the Minister doing to support those women and girls, particularly if they wish to come to the UK to play their sports?

[Robert Jenrick]

As my hon. Friend has said, the Taliban have banned Afghan women and girls from competing in sports and exercising in gyms. Afghan women who competed in sports, ranging from football to cycling, are now forced to stay home, amid the kind of intimidation to which she refers. I think particularly of the bravery of those Afghan women who recently posed for photos with the Associated Press, alongside the equipment that they used to be able to use, now covering their faces with burqas. These are the reasons why we have made our important and generous offer through the ACRS, which is a scheme we want to take forward to help more women and girls out of Afghanistan to a place of safety and a new life in the UK.

Antisocial Behaviour Action Plan

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I gently remind the hon. Member that her party has royally failed to properly cost its so-called plan on antisocial behaviour, as evidenced by the shadow Policing Minister’s failure to explain how it would be paid for. Once it gets the basics right, we can have a proper conversation about what Labour’s proposal is. On taking the action that we are proposing, we are delivering £12 million of additional funding this year to police and crime commissioners to support an increased police presence alongside other uniformed authority figures such as wardens in problem areas for antisocial behaviour. Raising the visibility and increasing the resourcing of policing will be an effective way to deter and take the right action.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

Over the past year, residents across Chatham and Aylesford have suffered repetitive instances of antisocial behaviour involving noise nuisance from cars and bikes and unauthorised access to private lakes by large groups of children. The local councils have had to go through lengthy processes to establish public spaces protection orders to tackle these issues, which have left residents at their wits’ end while the bureaucracy slowly cranks away. Can the Home Secretary confirm that the announcement today will make it a lot simpler for the authorities to clamp down on this type of antisocial behaviour, so that it can be dealt with there and then, rather than waiting for months for consultations and paperwork to be completed?

[Suella Braverman]

I thank my hon. Friend for all the work that she and her local team and councillors have led in challenging and stopping antisocial behaviour locally. She is absolutely right; what we have identified is that it has become onerous, inefficient and too time-consuming to secure these really effective orders, and this is exactly what the consultation will do. It will aim to streamline and speed up the acquisition of a PSPO, which can really make the difference between an area blighted by antisocial behaviour and an area that is free, safe and pleasant to frequent.

Cross-Channel Migrants: Manston Facility

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

We do not want these individuals to make the channel crossing in the first place. They are coming from a safe country and most have travelled through multiple safe countries before making the crossing. They have chosen to make a highly dangerous crossing. When they arrive, we should, of course, treat them humanely. That is exactly what we intend to do, but the Manston site is only meant to be there as a temporary facility to handle people in the instant of their arrival, before they are transferred to other accommodation. We could and will put on more hotel accommodation, but that cannot be our long-term solution. Is the hon. Lady suggesting that we just spend millions of pounds more on hotels and that we build more five-star hotels in which to put people who have crossed the channel? No, that is not the answer. The answer is to try to deter people from crossing the channel, and then to process their claims as quickly as possible and send back those who should not be in the UK.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) has asked me to say that he would have been here but he is at a meeting in Manston as we speak. In order to improve his mood, I am sure he would welcome a telephone call later on from the Minister. My constituents may be extremely concerned about the sheer volume of small boat crossings, but they are also compassionate people and they will welcome the Minister’s comments this morning about improving wellbeing. However, all of this is putting extreme pressure on the resources in Kent, including on the lifeboat crews, the health services and of course Kent police. So will the Minister outline what is being done to support the police and other resources across the country, in dealing both with the landings and with the security at Manston?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that and I will be speaking to her friend and neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale). I know that the Home Secretary is meeting him later today to speak to him as well. I completely understand my hon. Friend’s concern and that of Members of Parliament throughout Kent; this intolerable situation is placing great strain on members of the public and on the emergency services and local authorities within the area. I know that only too well from my previous experience as Local Government Secretary. The Department is determined to support those local authorities as best as we can. Yesterday, I met the leadership of Border Force to discuss the resources we have in the area and I will be visiting Dover next week.

Metropolitan Police Service

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I have to confess that I am not entirely sure what the arrangements are between them, but I am sure that the Home Secretary and the Mayor will discuss the final choice of commissioner at some point.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

May I place on the record my thanks to the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), who, as victims Minister, recently met a constituent of mine regarding a historical rape case where no justice for my constituent has been secured? We may think that the police dramas of the ’80s are fictional, but for many, historical corruption and cover-up is a reality, leaving victims such as my constituent severely traumatised. Will the Minister reassure the House that lessons will be learned from the victims, who in the past have been so let down by the police, and that their voice will be central to reform of the Metropolitan police?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am very sorry to hear about my hon. Friend’s constituent. One of the failings that is reportedly identified is the lack of support and information required to be given to victims. As I hope she knows, the victims Bill, which is in pre-legislative scrutiny, will bring into statute the support and information that victims should get, and I hope in future will get.

Ukraine: Urgent Refugee Applications

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

We look forward to hearing the President later, and we reflect on how he has inspired his people in resisting the invasion, including with the arms we have supplied. We are, as we have outlined, surging decision makers, upping the capacity of VAC and considering whether under-18s should continue submitting biometrics, which would not only speed up their applications but free up appointments for others. We are moving caseworking resource from across UKVI to get through the applications, and we will continue to take further action to speed up the process. I hear what the House is saying.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

I thank the officials in the Portcullis House hub who are providing helpful advice to constituents.

We have been advised to get people to Rzeszów in Poland for biometric testing to support their application, but the word on the ground is that there are no biometric appointments in Rzeszów until the end of next month. When constituents’ families are sent to these posts for biometric testing, can the Minister confirm that the testing will actually be available?

[Kevin Foster]

I am concerned about that example. We will continue to look to increase biometric capacity. As I said, we are actively considering removing the need for biometric testing for under-18s and whether we can adapt the technology we used for Hong Kong BNOs who do not need to go to a VAC as part of their application, which would innately create further capacity for people to come through the system. We will continue to look at how we can surge and increase the capacity of our application centres across the region, not just the one that has been cited.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I would like to make some progress, if I may.

Amendments 39, 40 to 43, 46 and 47 clarify the Government’s intention that appeals should remain in the expedited appeal process wherever possible. The revised text, which reflects wording in the primary legislation that sets the statutory framework for tribunal rules, specifies that judges should only remove an appeal from the accelerated or expedited process where there is no other way to secure that justice be done.

Amendments 48 to 50 are minor and technical amendments to clause 34 on internal relocation. They clarify the ambiguity in the current drafting that has the potential to be interpreted in an unintended way, where an individual could only be internally relocated within a country where they had previously been in that part of the country.

The purpose of amendments 51 to 59 is to increase the maximum penalty for the existing statutory offence of overstaying, which is currently six months’ imprisonment. That maximum penalty dates back to the original legislation—the Immigration Act 1971—and is no longer considered sufficient for the present day. Given how much the world has changed over the past 50 years, the existing penalty hinders our ability to deter overstayers, and we consider that raising it would encourage better compliance. Clause 39 introduces a new maximum penalty of four years to align with illegal entry and other similar offences that have already been amended during the passage of the Bill.

In Committee, I promised to bring forward amendments to protect Royal National Lifeboat Institution individuals rescuing persons at sea and those in charge of vessels who find stowaways on board. I am pleased to say that this is now set out in amendments 60 to 63. I am grateful to Members across the House who have raised concerns in relation to this matter, and I am delighted to be able to put it beyond doubt this afternoon.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

My constituency may be landlocked but I grew up on the Kent coast, where many of those who cross the channel land, and I continue to donate to the RNLI, as do many of my constituents. We all know that those who volunteer to serve do so selflessly and often leave their place of work in order to go to sea or to provide support from the land. Will my hon. Friend join me in thanking those who volunteer for the RNLI from the Dungeness, Littlestone, Dover, Walmer and Ramsgate stations?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes the case so eloquently for the RNLI, and sets out the incredible work that its volunteers and others do to protect life at sea, along with many other agencies, such as Her Majesty’s Coastguard, which works tirelessly around the clock, often in very difficult circumstances. I certainly join her in placing on record the Government’s thanks and appreciation for everything they do, and for the individuals in her area who do this tireless work, day in, day out, and week in, week out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, the rule of law applies to everybody. I particularly commend the work he has led, with his local council colleagues, on working with the chief constable to urge the police and crime commissioner to tackle this scourge. Any crime of this nature blights communities, and communities are disproportionately affected by this.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

While many people completely understood the impact of the strict global lockdown on their personal travel plans, things are beginning to change at destinations across the world. Many of our constituents are due to travel in the next few weeks but now face potential financial loss because of the lack of clarity over whether the quarantine policies are a refundable reason for cancellation under their insurance policies. What discussions has the Home Secretary had with the insurance industry about cancellations due to the impracticality of quarantine for those about to go abroad, and will she commit to giving her speedy support to travel corridors, so that our hard-working constituents can go on the holidays they have saved for?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend will be well aware of my comments last week about travel corridors, and specifically international travel corridors. I have been working across Government, with Transport but also the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The travel advice right now still clearly advises against non-essential travel. However, this is important, and my hon. Friend makes a valid point about insurance companies, refunds and some of the financial responsibilities and liabilities. We are working across Government, as I said to the House not only today but last week, to make sure that all those considerations are actively pursued and discussed. She will hear from other Government colleagues who lead on those policy areas.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the advice, issue reporting and eligibility service provided by Migrant Help was set up to help applicants with their applications and to provide guidance through a single, nationally operated, end-to-end service. I very much take on board his point and would be happy to meet him to discuss this issue. We want to ensure that applicants get the help they need while making their application so that the right decisions are made as promptly as possible.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

T5. The Vagrancy Act 1824 criminalises vulnerable people for simply having nowhere to go, and wastes valuable police time and resources with issues that could be far better managed by outreach workers and multi-agency support services. Local police officers tell me that they have plenty of other tools to deal with rough sleeping. With that in mind, will my right hon. Friend reassure me that she is engaging positively with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in its review of this outdated, unnecessary and damaging piece of legislation?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Seema Kennedy)]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that we are working with MHCLG colleagues. The Government believe that no one should be criminalised simply for sleeping rough. We committed to reviewing the Vagrancy Act in the cross-governmental rough sleeping strategy. Rough sleeping is obviously a complex issue, and we are looking closely at all the options, including retention, repeal, replacement and amendment of the Act.