Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Second sitting)

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th May 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Philp]

Thank you. I was going to ask about problem-solving courts, but I think that was covered adequately in earlier questions. I think Minister Atkins has some questions.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

Q This is a quick question for Mr Crossley. The CSJ has obviously done a lot of work over the years on gang crime and on the many levers we can try to use to address it. What is the CSJ’s view of serious violence reduction orders, namely the piloting of stop-and-search orders for known—in other words, convicted—knife offenders aged over 18?

Adrian Crossley: This policy actually has its origins in the CSJ. We are obviously very supportive of the serious violence reduction order. Just for clarity, and so I can answer that more fully, this is a post-conviction order. We regard it as being part of the wider system. We do not regard it as a stand-alone solution to knife crime in our country.

We see a very significant increase, not just in possession of weapon offences, but of violent offences perpetrated with the use of a weapon. What is clear to us is that we need to do something about that which is robust enough to challenge the mindset of someone leaving their home with a weapon. We draw from the group violence intervention models piloted in Boston in the US under Operation Ceasefire, which create a sort of pull-push effect. We really want to deter people from being able to leave the home feeling that they are safe walking around with a weapon. They should know that they are much more likely to attract police attention if they are on these orders. At the same time, in the sentencing court, we would hope that the order would be able to include other, positive provisions—perhaps even a knife crime behaviour order. Real intervention, engaging young people and pulling them away from that sort of offending can also have a pull effect away from that kind of offence.

I should say that currently, as it is being piloted, it is only for adults. Our view is that knife possession is pervasive across a number of age groups: it is particularly concerning when young people are carrying knives. We would like to see this scheme really being rolled out, so that we can intervene early when people are younger, to see that we do everything we can to take knives off the street and keep people safer.

[The Chair]

As it is 2.45 pm, we had better call this session to an end. I thank the witnesses for the evidence they have given to the Committee.

Examination of Witnesses 

Jonathan Hall QC and Matt Parr gave evidence.

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[The Chair]

I am going to have to stop you there. I will switch to the Government side and Victoria Atkins.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Thank you. First, Mr Hall, I would like to understand how the measures relating to MAPPA in clause 162 will improve public protection and the management of terrorist offenders.

Jonathan Hall QC: First of all, it means that anyone who is a risky offender—whatever they were put inside for, whether they were sentenced for a terrorist offence or were sentenced for a non-terrorist one but are in fact a risk—can be managed under MAPPA. The law as it stands states that someone must be a risk based on their offending.

To take the example of a fraudster who went to prison and was then dangerously radicalised and became a terrorist risk, their risk would not in fact flow from their offending. Clause 162 cures that, so that anyone who is identified as a terrorist risk may be manged under MAPPA. That is a good thing, because the authorities found it quite hard to deal with that cohort of people.

The other thing that clause 162 does is to make it very clear that people can provide information to MAPPA without having to do what they used to do when I carried out my review, which was to look for information gateways in, for example, the Children Act 1989 or the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, because they did not feel that there was a clear basis for them to share information with MAPPA. As you will understand, the key thing about managing terrorist risk is that all the right information should be receivable. Clause 162 cures that point as well.

[Victoria Atkins]

In other words, dealing with the reality presented by a very small number of the most dangerous offenders—dealing with that reality, rather than being constrained by the fact that they committed a fraud offence in the past, rather than a terrorist offence.

Jonathan Hall QC: Exactly.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Thank you. May I clarify something, Mr Parr? Please forgive me if this was my mishearing or misunderstanding. You asked a series of questions in relation to the public order measures and at one point, I think, used “significant”, rather than “serious”. You said that HMIC had looked at the risk of serious disruption and so on. Is that correct? Did I understand you correctly?

Matt Parr: There were four tests in the law as it stands, one of which is “serious disruption”. Clause 55, I think, changes that to “significant disruption”, among some others. It is a general lowering of the bar.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q I must confess that I cannot see that wording—perhaps we can take this up afterwards. Clause 55(6) talks about

“serious disruption to the activities of an organisation”,

or,

“serious disruption to the life of the community.”

That is the wording in clause 54 as well. As you will understand, clauses 54 and 55 are about ensuring consistency between moving protest and static protest. We heard from police witnesses this morning that one can flow into the other very easily, and back again.

May I also ask about clause 59? That places the common law offence of public nuisance on the statute book. Does the inspectorate have any views on that, or has it made any recommendations on it previously?

Matt Parr: Not previously, but we did in the report we put out in March. That was one of the five proposals that the Home Secretary asked us to comment on in particular. Our view was that we agreed with what the Law Commission recommended back in 2015, I think. We concluded, for much the same reasons as they did, that that was a sensible thing to do. In summary, we thought that protesters deserve to know where they stand, and that there was no harm in making the rules clearer than they are. It was supporting the Law Commission’s proposal.

[Victoria Atkins]

Thank you very much indeed.

[Chris Philp]

Q May I start by asking Matt Parr if you have any views on the proposals for out-of-court disposals, in particular to simplify the current number of out-of-court disposals, cautions and so on from six down to two, following the pilot that took place in three force areas?

Matt Parr: I am really sorry. I have not looked at that. I cannot give you an answer, I am afraid.

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[The Chair]

I think we will switch to the ministerial side of the Committee.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q On the subject of unauthorised encampments, can you give us any insight about the harms and costs caused by unauthorised encampments in your local areas?

Alison Hernandez: I want to be really clear what we are all talking about. We are not talking about all Gypsies and Travellers.

[Victoria Atkins]

Exactly.

Alison Hernandez: We are not talking about the travelling community. We are talking about a minority of people. I have examples in Exeter city where the local authority created a very nice site so that we could admit them quicker from where they were. It had everything that they needed and the facilities that they wanted, and it was in a nice, secluded spot. When the police went in to evict them, they decided not to go to that site that was available to them. They wanted to go to the next game that they wanted to play. Let’s be really clear about this: we are talking about a minority of people who do not want to abide by the law of this country. I believe we need this offence to support our communities and to send a very strong message: you do not do this type of behaviour.

I mentioned the £18,500 metal fencing created at Drumbridges roundabout to stop them accessing that land. They broke into that land. I have communities who will tell me that they have spotters who go ahead to break open the gates, so they will use the excuse that the gates were already open. All these sorts of things are happening. I have asked about CCTV—can we put it on the main sites where we have these things happening? It cannot be done, because of human rights—because it is where someone is living. Every place you turn to as a community to try to solve this problem is not available.

For me, harms are being caused. On Dartmoor alone, when they had an unauthorised encampment, it became absolutely huge. When these things get so huge, no one can move them on, because the amount of resource required to do so is immense. The bailiffs were going to cost £50,000 a day, and they would still need police back-up in order to do it. The cost is absolutely huge. There is something about sending a message through this Bill which tells the public that we are on their side and that we do not support people who do not want to abide by the law.

David Lloyd: I entirely agree with that. In Welwyn Garden City, we have a person who has almost been driven to the verge of bankruptcy because there was an unauthorised encampment which decided, at the same time, to take on industrial-level fly-tipping. It would cost about £150,000 to move those materials. That originally happened 18 months or two years ago. It is still there among all the woodland.

These people are at the end of their tether. The cost is not just monetary. I have people calling me who really are frightened because they have had large numbers of people on their own land and they feel intimidated and personally threatened. We need to do something about it. Much of it is about sending a message.

While I recognise that it is not helped, as I said earlier, by the fact that local authorities do not provide sufficient spots for Travellers to move on to—I recognise that is something we need to do—we also need to send a message that these people can be moved on if they are in an unauthorised place. We need to send that message out again, as Alison has said far more ably than me, so that the public recognise that we are on their side and we are on the side of the underdog.

Councillor Caliskan: All I would add is that I recognise that there are strongly held views, and we have councils who articulate exactly what colleagues on this panel have spoken about. It can be a huge cost to a local authority.

The best way to deal with these issues is through a collaborative approach, not just through agencies in a particular area, but also with the communities themselves who may be occupying the space. Something has got to give at some point, and an obvious solution is trying to identify space. Local authorities absolutely do not want to be encouraging criminality and disruption, not least because it costs a lot of money, but we could be going round and round in circles unless we find a long-term solution. I recognise that the Bill is an attempt to do that. All I would say is that in order for there to be a collaborative approach, alongside that there needs to be an approach that is about dialogue with communities, too. I do not think that contradicts anything that other panel members have said.

[Victoria Atkins]

Just to assist the Committee, clause 61 focuses on the conditions whereby this offence can be committed. The phrases “significant damage”, “significant disruption” and “significant distress” appear to cover the descriptions given by Commissioner Hernandez and Commissioner Lloyd.

On the serious violence duty, where the Government are requiring local agencies to work together to draw together plans to tackle serious violence in their local areas, I am happy to reassure Commissioner Lloyd that clause 13 very much views police and crime commissioners and mayors with policing powers as having a convening role in that. What value do you think will be gained in your local areas from requiring these organisations—vital as they are, in their many ways, in tackling the serious violence that we hope to prevent—to get around a table and work together with schools and educational establishments, in particular, to ensure that we prevent serious violence?

[The Chair]

Very briefly, please, because we are almost out of time.

David Lloyd: Things that are asked for specifically and are required of us get done. This measure strengthens what many of us are already putting into our own police and crime plans. It is always better to place a duty on us, because that ensures that it gets done. We really do need to ensure that the scourge of serious violence is reduced. There are many parts of the country—thankfully not Hertfordshire—where this is out of control, and this measure will help.

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[The Chair]

We had better move to the Government side.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q I should declare that I am a door tenant at Red Lion Chambers. Mr Wagner, I will first deal with the issues you raised. Presumably you accept that freedom of speech and freedom to assemble are qualified rights.

Adam Wagner: Yes, of course.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q And presumably you accept—well, you tell me. Do you accept that the Public Order Act 1986 is a piece of legislation that has stood the test of time and should remain in law?

Adam Wagner: I think I would be neutral on that. It is a very wide piece of legislation. Every time I read it, I am pretty surprised at how wide it is already. What I am pretty clear about is that section 12 does not need to be widened.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q So the Public Order Act 1986 goes too far for your liking in some instances in section 12.

Adam Wagner: Well, potentially. The proof is often in the pudding. It depends on how the police use it and whether they are using it effectively. I have read the report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services. I speak to a lot of police, and my experience is that they know they have a wide suite of powers when it comes to protest. What they struggle with, if you look at what has happened over the covid regulations, is deciding when to use them and what is proportionate. These are very difficult policing situations, and they are not necessarily solved by imposing widespread conditions that may lead to legal challenges, which may be successful. Successful policing of protests ultimately comes down to working with the protesters and civil society—hearts and minds stuff from the police. You saw that with the Sarah Everard vigil, and you see that with Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter. I do not think you can really enforce your way out of some of the disruption caused by protest. It is really about allowing voices to be heard and being careful.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q And yet the 1986 Act, which you have described as very wide ranging, has permitted the protests that you have described by some of the organisations you have described—yes?

Adam Wagner: Well, in part. The Public Order Act was used quite extensively over the course of the Extinction Rebellion protests, and Black Lives Matter was under the covid regulations last summer. That was the power that was used, and those are much more extensive. The covid regulations are far too extensive. We saw there the problems when the police are given too much power, because then they have to make what are not really public order decisions but substantive political decisions about which protests they do and do not allow. That is the danger. I do not think it is a right-wing or left-wing issue; any Government should be worried about protests being limited by political decisions, rather than public order decisions.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Mr Wagner, just to be clear, you are the only person thus far in this Committee who has used the phrases “right wing” or “left wing”. Presumably you are pleased that in clause 54(3) the Government have introduced the objective test of a person of reasonable firmness in order to assist police officers making the very difficult decisions—as you yourself have said—under this part of the Bill. In other words, it is an objective test, rather than a subjective test.

Adam Wagner: I think the objective test would assist the courts; I do not think it would assist police officers. Anything that limits these powers is better than not, but I just think the powers themselves are too wide for the reasons I have set out. I do not think that helps anything. From a policing perspective, applying all those tests is not going to be easy anyway. Really, this is about the width of the powers overall as a package, rather than the reasonable firmness test or anything like that.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Chair, I am conscious of time. Mr Willers, I want to draw to your attention the drafting of clause 61. I hope that you would accept that it is very focused on Travellers or people in unauthorised encampments. In other words, they are seeking to reside or are residing on private land without the consent of the occupier. Proposed new section 60C(4) of the 1994 Act lays out conditions that have to be fulfilled in order for this particular offence to be satisfied, including “significant damage”, “significant disruption” and “significant distress”—yes?

Marc Willers QC: I do not think it would just be related to private lands—

[Victoria Atkins]

I accept that. There are provisions on common lands as well—you are quite right.

[The Chair]

I think we had better let Mr Willers answer as we are going to run completely out of time.

Marc Willers QC: It covers private and public land, and common land, and you are right that the conditions are “significant damage”, “significant disruption” and “significant distress”. My comments earlier were about the fact that significant damage and disruption can be covered by other legislation. The “significant distress” point was one I made in the context of the fact that the occupier may have their own impression of “significant distress”, or may suffer significant distress because of an inherent prejudice towards Gypsies and Travellers.

[Victoria Atkins]

So what is appropriate distress—

[The Chair]

I am really sorry Minister, but we are going to have to stop there because we are out of time allotted for this session. I thank you both for your evidence.

Examination of witness

Stephanie Roberts-Bibby gave evidence.

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[Alex Cunningham]

Q Finally, what safeguards could the Government place in the Bill to ensure that clause 168 does not detrimentally impact fair trial rights?

Derek Sweeting QC: In the end, it will have to be managed judicially. I am not sure that we need to hem in the exercise of discretion in relation to that. There are already provisions in relation to what the judge must take into account when considering whether there should be remote participation. They are very difficult to apply to juries, by the way, but if they are followed, we will find that they involve a significant number of safeguards for the fair conduct of proceedings.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q A quick point of clarification. Mr Sweeting, in relation to clause 59, which is the statutory offence of public nuisance, you made reference to wishing there was a defence of reasonable excuse. I wanted to reassure you that it is in there, in subsection (3).

Derek Sweeting QC: Yes, I think my point was really about the suggestion that the statutory offence—these are the words—is to cover the same conduct as the existing common law offence of public nuisance but, yes, you are right that there is an offence of that sort in there.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (First sitting)

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th May 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Before we begin, I have a few preliminary announcements. First, let me ask you to switch any electronic devices off or to silent mode. I remind you that Mr Speaker does not allow tea or coffee to be consumed during sittings of this Committee. This is really difficult, but you have to try to observe the social distancing arrangements and sit only in the places that are marked. I ask you to wear a face mask when you are not speaking, unless you are medically exempt. Space is a bit tight in this room, so people just have to observe social distancing and try to make it as easy for people as possible as they are moving around.

Today we will consider, first, the programme motion on the amendment paper. We will then consider a motion to enable the reporting of written evidence for publication and then a motion to allow us to deliberate in private about our questions, before the oral evidence session. In view of the time available, I hope that we can take all those matters without debate. Before we hear evidence from our first panel, we will have a short briefing from the Parliamentary Digital Service on cyber-security, which is of particular concern to members of this Committee because we are dealing with matters relating to the police and criminal law. The programme motion was discussed on Monday by the Programming Sub-Committee for this Bill.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

I beg to move,

That—

(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 9.25 am on Tuesday 18 May) meet—

(a) at 2.00 pm on Tuesday 18 May;

(b) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 20 May;

(c) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 25 May;

(d) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 27 May;

(e) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 8 June;

(f) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 10 June;

(g) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 15 June;

(h) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 17 June;

(i) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 22 June;

(j) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 24 June;

(2) the Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following Table:

[The Chair]

Copies of written evidence that the Committee receives will be circulated to members by email and made available in the Committee Room.

Resolved,

That, at this and any subsequent meeting at which oral evidence is to be heard, the Committee shall sit in private until the witnesses are admitted.—(Victoria Atkins.)

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[The Chair]

Thank you. I have got to switch to the Minister, Victoria Atkins. If there is time, I will come back to Sarah Jones.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Thank you. Like Sarah, I will try to ask quick questions and I would welcome quick answers. First, on the police covenant, I would like to clarify that the covenant applies to officers, staff and volunteers in the police service, and to those who have left as well as those currently serving. Is that correct?

Assistant Commissioner Hewitt: That is right.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q In relation to the serious violence duty, we all acknowledge that we cannot arrest our way out of the problem, particularly with the emergence of county lines. Do you welcome the efforts under the duty to get all the relevant local agencies, including local councils, health services and educational services, to work together to draw up a plan to prevent serious violence in their local areas?

Assistant Commissioner Hewitt: Yes, I welcome that very much. In some senses, that was previously there. When you look, in particular, at the work that has been done by violence reduction units in the past year to 18 months—a couple of years, in fact—getting all the relevant agencies in the local area to focus on and prioritise reducing violence, and play their part, is the way to reduce levels successfully. We can never do that purely by enforcement. This is a really important opportunity to bring all those groups together and focus on violence in their local area.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Importantly, that also brings transparency to collective efforts to tackle serious violence, because the plans and processes will be transparent, and the public will be aware of what is happening locally.

Assistant Commissioner Hewitt: The fact that it is a partnership is really important as well.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q On public order, we heard mention earlier of the phrase “serious annoyance” in clause 59. That brings the common law offence of public nuisance on to the statute book. Chief Constable, could you help us understand why the police want us to put that common law offence on to the statute book? Could you also explain the derivation of the wording, particularly that phrase “serious annoyance”? In other words, the history of the common law offence of public nuisance over many centuries has included that phrase. It may not mean the same in legal terms as it does in common parlance.

Chief Constable Harrington: We did ask for public nuisance to be made statutory. A Law Commission report from 2015 clearly set out more broadly some of the benefits of doing that. The report refers to:

“serious distress, annoyance, inconvenience or loss of amenity; or is put at risk of suffering any of these things”.

The measure would be for more unusual kinds of protest activity that are not a march. Historically, people have hung off gantries of cranes, where there is serious inconvenience and loss of amenity.

Importantly, making it statutory establishes two things. First, the rules are very clear to those who have to use and understand the legislation. The common law is good, but it is steeped in decided cases and judgments that are often difficult to extract for non-lawyers. It allows Parliament to be clear about what the phrases mean, and to give guidance to policing and the public on what is intended. From a policing perspective, where we have intelligence or information, it allows us to act in advance to prevent some of those issues, where proportionate and necessary. That is the difference that it makes. We are working from the Law Commission report in 2015, which states a number of benefits. We see those as very important for those reasons.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q To clarify, that phrasing has derived not from Home Office officials or Ministers dreaming it up on the back of an envelope; it follows many centuries of legal development, culminating in the 2015 report by the Law Commission.

Chief Constable Harrington: Yes, that is the Law Commission’s summary of what that should be. That is where that phrase appears. We welcome the clarity; making it part of statute allows for phrases such as that and others to be clearly defined for us and for the public.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q My final question is on the extraction of information from digital devices. Particularly in the context of sexual offences, we have an understanding of the impact that searching and seizing digital devices, sometimes for very long periods of time, can have on complainants and their willingness to start and support the police in an investigation and on the attrition rate, where complainants withdraw from cases as they progress. What is your understanding of the framework and code of practice set out in the Bill? What will that do to help complainants in future, particularly in relation to sexual offences, although it will apply across the board?

Assistant Commissioner Hewitt: As I alluded to, it is critical to have a clear code of practice and framework to ensure the extraction to be proportionate and necessary for that investigation, and to be very clear about timelines, how that will be done and how the victim—or the complainant—will be treated throughout. This has been a very challenging area for us. Having that certainty and clarity of the guidelines will help to ensure that everybody understands the process. As I said, the ability for us to do that as quickly as we can, to deliver the evidence we need, is really important to maintain confidence, as you say, for people to come forward, and to maintain those complainants throughout the process, to reduce the attrition levels.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)]

Q As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I join other members of the Committee in thanking the police for their service in the difficult circumstances over the past year.

I have two brief questions. The first relates to the proposed increase in the penalty for assaulting an emergency worker from 12 months to two years. Does the police service welcome that change? Do they think that it will potentially deter people from attempting to assault officers in the discharge of their duties?

Assistant Commissioner Hewitt: Yes, we welcome that change very much. It is sad to report that we have seen a steady increase in assaults on emergency workers, primarily police officers. In the month up to 14 March this year, there was a 19% increase on the previous year in assaults on emergency workers, predominantly police officers.

We have done an enormous amount of work in the service; we did an officer and staff safety review process, which is working to improve the safety of our officers and staff. We have worked closely with the Crown Prosecution Service, which has been supportive in achieving charges where officers or staff are assaulted in the course of their duties. I think the increase in the sentence is positive, provided, of course, that those sentences are handed down when people are found guilty at court. We are supportive of that, because it demonstrates the seriousness and the importance of the fact that, although our officers and staff protect the public and do dangerous things, they should not expect routinely to be assaulted.

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[The Chair]

Okay; that is fine.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Thank you to you both for all the work that your organisations have done in the past 12 months and, in particular, in relation to the police covenant in the Bill, which I think is welcomed by everybody. Mr Apter, how do you propose to support chief constables to ensure that the outcomes of the covenant are felt by all officers, former officers and staff, and their families?

John Apter: I think we are pushing on an open door. Policing has changed significantly over the past decade or so, and it is the same with chief constables, who may previously have been reluctant to get certain wellbeing initiatives into place. There is wholesale agreement that the covenant will be a positive thing for policing.

The issue we have at the moment is that although we know the principles of the covenant, we do not really know what exactly will be in it. Chief constables know me very well, and I, on behalf of the organisation, will be holding them to account, but I genuinely think that it will be a partnership. Perhaps that is naive, but if, as expected, the legislation allows the covenant to be enshrined in law, I will be saying to chief constables very clearly, “This is not something you can cherry-pick. This is in legislation. This is to benefit our colleagues, staff, volunteers and so on. It is not a nice-to-have; it is an essential.” So they will be held to account, but in fairness I think it will be a productive partnership.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Thank you. Let me move on to protests, because Parliament is particularly interested in scrutinising those measures. Mr Griffiths, you mentioned gold and silver commanders, who are in charge of the police reaction to some protests. Could you give us a little more understanding of what those roles mean, the responsibilities they have, and the training and experience that those officers will have had before they are able to become gold and silver commanders?

Chief Superintendent Griffiths: Most of them have probably worked their way through the hierarchy of public order command systems, from right at the frontline, following through to supervisory and management roles, but not necessarily in all cases. There is a detailed training command course for public order leads, which embodies everything that you would expect: to understand the tactics necessary when utilising public order, seeking the appropriate advice and guidance, understanding the law and the community, and all the different aspects of decision making that are so important to understand how best to corral a crowd or deal with a peaceful protest.

They will learn how to deal with everything from small, minor protests with just some shouting, to some of the challenges that, sadly, we have seen in the past 12 months, where they have faced attacks by missiles, etc. The training is detailed. I have absolute confidence in some of the public order commanders. We have to understand that they are called to make really difficult judgment calls, balancing human rights of individuals and the recognition of their own staff and the public. They make difficult decisions in a short space of time. It is a credit to them as individuals and to the training processes that allow them to do that.

[Victoria Atkins]

Thank you.

[The Chair]

Minister Philp?

Online Scams: Consumer Protection

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani, and a real pleasure to respond to the debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) on securing a debate on this important subject. I am delighted that the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) was able to contribute as well. First, may I say that our sympathies are with Mr and Mrs Biggs? My hon. Friend articulated all too well the losses that they have suffered. They have had to endure a terrible experience that, sadly, is experienced by many people, and we heard from the right hon. Gentleman the scale of some of these frauds.

The Government absolutely recognise not only the scale and the impact that fraud can have and is having on victims, but the impact of bringing perpetrators to justice. According to the latest figures, fraud accounted for over a third of all estimated crime in the year ending September 2020 and, as my hon. Friend articulated all too well, behind the statistics there is the trail of misery that these losses can encompass. Victims suffer both financial loss and emotional harm. There can be consequences for their livelihoods, their homes and their families’ futures. We also know that the money that has been stolen from them can often go on to fund other serious and organised crimes.

As this year has demonstrated, more and more people are online at home, and we are acutely aware of the importance of staying safe in the virtual world. We are focusing the Government’s efforts on tackling fraud and online scams in three key areas: prevention; catching the criminals responsible; and supporting the victims of these despicable crimes.

Prevention involves not just victims, the industry and tech companies, but all of us. That is how we will be able to tackle these crimes. We must ensure the private and public sectors prioritise preventing these types of frauds. That is critical to preventing the harms that we have heard about and the economic damage to our businesses, and disrupting the organised criminals who perpetrate these crimes. To do that, the Government are taking steps to ensure that fewer people fall foul of these scams.

The National Cyber Security Centre has been at the forefront of that effort. Last year, it launched a new suspicious email reporting service, which makes it easier for the public to highlight suspicious emails and websites. The service has already led to more than 5.5 million reports, and more than 41,000 scams and 81,000 websites have been taken down.

Importantly, we also need to help the public spot these scams. We are working with banks and many other organisations to help people spot when a scam appears, a dodgy text message appears on their phone or an email appears in their inbox so that they can protect themselves. That is in addition to the wider work with the public and private sectors.

Last year, we launched a new gov.uk page to help keep the public safe online. I recommend it to colleagues, who can perhaps disseminate it through their constituencies. We know that, sadly, in the midst of the pandemic, with the enormous human cost that it has had for so many people, fraudsters are seeking to take advantage of even that. We have been working with partners from across law enforcement and health to track and mitigate the threat of fraud around the pandemic. That has included a series of public messaging campaigns to inform the public of fraudsters who are seeking to exploit the vaccine roll-out and tell them how we can all remain vigilant against such attempts.

We are working with industry to try to cut off these scams before they bear fruit on the internet. We have been leading work to develop bilateral fraud charters with our banking, telecommunications and accountancy partners. They will bring greater clarity, transparency and accountability to the actions that each sector will take to target harden their systems and protect their customers from fraud. An example of that is the specialist Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit, which is a police unit that targets and disrupts credit card fraud and demonstrates the collaboration between UK Finance, the City of London police, the Metropolitan police and the Home Office. It is also working to help online companies take advantage of its services, in particular on the pernicious ways fraudsters are opening up their fraud—for example, through the recruitment of young people to become money mules. There is another great piece of work with the telecoms companies, whereby if somebody receives a suspicious text, they can forward it to 7726, which will enable the telecoms companies to look at it and see whether it should be removed.

The response to online scams and all fraud demands a collaborative, innovative response to keep pace with the changing threat and new technologies. We continue to work closely with industry to drive progress.

My hon. Friend and the right hon. Gentleman understandably raised the landmark online safety Bill, and they asked whether fraud will be included in its scope. The new law will impose a duty of care on tech companies. Although some companies have taken positive steps already, the Government are clear that more needs to be done. In relation to the specificity of the online safety Bill, there are ongoing discussions.

Of course, what has been said in this debate will be listened to, and the concerns that have been raised will be reflected upon. However, in the more immediate term, my hon. Friend has chosen a timely moment in which to have this debate, because only tomorrow, my noble Friend Baroness Williams of Trafford, along with other ministerial colleagues, will meet with tech companies to discuss a voluntary set of principles for preventing fraud and protecting the public on their platforms. The Government are having productive—we hope—but also insistent conversations with the tech industry as to what it should be doing in order to protect members of the public. I listened to my hon. Friend’s deconstruction—I think that is a fair word—of Google’s policy with great interest, and I will commend it to my noble Friend the Baroness before she goes into tomorrow’s meeting.

We are committed to tackling the problem of online fraud, and are considering every possible approach, including legislative and non-legislative means. As has already been mentioned, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is leading work on the online advertising programme, which will consider, among other things, the role of online advertising in perpetrating fraud. DCMS is also carrying out broader and longer-term efforts on digital identity and data protection, and as my hon. Friend has mentioned, in February this year, the Home Secretary chaired a meeting of the Economic Crime Strategic Board, which brought together people from across the public sector and industry. At that meeting, an ambitious new framework for a fraud action plan was agreed to drive forward and improve our collective response to these crimes. The full plan will be published later this year and will consider, among other things, how we can include all sectors to protect the public from fraud.

Law enforcement colleagues clearly play a crucial role in this subject, as do intelligence colleagues. We are considering all routes, including legislation, to give them the tools they need to go after fraudsters and protect those who are vulnerable to these harmful crimes. We have asked the Law Commission to review the existing corporate criminal liability laws for economic crime, including fraud, money laundering and false accounting, and we are hoping to hear from them next year. We will, of course, consider any findings that will benefit counter-fraud efforts, and we continue to work with regulators and industry to consider what more can be done.

However, as my hon. Friend has set out, this is about not just the financial impact on victims, but the emotional and other experiences that people have. We understand that reimbursement can be a key part of helping people deal with those experiences, and are working with the financial sector to ensure that as many victims as possible are either able to claim their money back, or are reimbursed. We are working particularly closely with the Treasury to explore what can be done to promote greater consistency across the sector. We are also working with national and local policing leads to support victims of these terrible crimes. The National Economic Crime Victim Care Unit, based within Action Fraud, is also supporting victims, helping them to recover and protect themselves against becoming victims again.

As this debate draws to a close, let me again thank my hon. Friend for having raised these important points in a timely manner. I very much appreciate the points that she and the right hon. Gentleman have made, both about tackling fraudsters and about supporting victims of these crimes. They have my assurance that the Government take these threats very seriously, and it is through working together and taking a collaborative approach—helping the public to understand where there may be a scam, but also working with tech companies to ensure that these adverts and other things that have been described are cut off at source—that we will help to stop these frauds from happening in the first place.

Question put and agreed to.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 9B.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

With this it will be convenient to consider the following:

Government amendments (a) to (c) in lieu.

Lords amendments 40B and 40C, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) to (g) in lieu.

Lords amendment 41B, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 42D, 42E and 42F, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (d) to (f) in lieu.

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank right hon. and hon. Members of this House and noble Lords who have worked tirelessly to make this a truly transformational Bill. It will make a significant difference to the lives of many women, men and children by better protecting them from their abusers and providing them with the support they so very much need. However, before the Bill can have any impact, we need to pass it, and we are fast running out of road to get us to that point. In the course of our deliberations, we should all be clear, therefore, about the risk of the Bill being timed out this week. None of us wants that—I hope I can take that as read. In the collegiate spirit of many of the debates on the Bill, we reflected carefully on the debates that took place in the Lords last Wednesday and we have tabled further amendments in the hope, and indeed expectation, that both Houses can now agree to submit this landmark Bill to Her Majesty for Royal Assent.

On child contact centres, there is no dispute that they need to be subject to appropriate regulation. It remains our contention that, on the evidence currently available, that is already achieved through accreditation by the National Association of Child Contact Centres, the agreements in place between the NACCC, the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service and the judiciary, and the comprehensive statutory provisions already in place that determine how local authorities should discharge their duties in public law family cases.

We listened carefully to the debate last week and recognise that there is an issue that needs to be examined further, but we cannot legislate on the basis of anecdotal—albeit pertinent—evidence. That is why the Government tabled Amendments 9C and 9D, which will require the Secretary of State to prepare and publish a report about the extent to which individuals, when they are using contact centres in England, are protected from the risk of domestic abuse or, in the case of children, other harm. The report will need to be laid before Parliament within two years of Royal Assent. We will engage closely with the NACCC and others in carrying out the work, which will provide a firm evidence base on which to introduce further regulation, including in the area of vetting, should that be necessary.

I turn to Lords amendments 40B and 40C. We remain concerned that the revised Lords amendments regarding data firewalls still pre-empt the outcome of the review recommended by the independent policing inspectorate in response to the super-complaint. We need to undertake that review without any preconceptions as to its outcome. To provide further reassurance on that point, Government amendments 40D to 40J introduce two new clauses. The first new clause will put the review of the current data-sharing arrangements on to a statutory footing and enshrine in law our commitment to report on the outcome of the review by the end of June. The second new clause will provide for a statutory code of practice relating to the processing of domestic abuse data for immigration purposes. Persons to whom the code is issued—notably the police and Home Office immigration staff—will be under a duty to have regard to the code, which will also be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. Although the clause is framed in terms of a permissive power to issue a code, I assure the House that we fully intend to exercise that power.

On Lords amendment 41B, I welcome the fact that this revised amendment attempts to separate the issue of leave to remain from the provision of support for migrant victims of domestic abuse. As I previously indicated, we need to focus on ensuring that victims with insecure immigration status can access the support they need. That is the priority. Unfortunately, despite the best intentions, the amendment would not achieve the outcome it seeks. The question of leave to remain is inextricably linked to the conditions attached to that leave, so it is impossible to waive the “no recourse to public funds” condition in isolation from consideration being given to a person’s immigration status.

As I announced last week, we have now appointed Southall Black Sisters to oversee the support for migrant victims scheme. The scheme will provide access to safe accommodation and the associated support to migrant victims of domestic abuse who are not eligible for the destitute domestic violence concession or other existing support mechanisms. The scheme will be independently evaluated, and will provide us with the necessary evidence of the gap in current support arrangements, so that we can put in place sustainable long-term provision. That is the direction of travel we are on. Since the scheme will provide support to victims, Lords amendment 41B is not necessary, and waiving the no recourse to public funds condition for a full year will again have significant new resource implications. The support for migrant victims scheme will be up and running shortly. We should see it through to its proper conclusion and settle on a sustainable programme of support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Will the Minister clarify what she just said? At the moment, repeat domestic abuse cases and stalkers will often not be included in categories 1 or 2 because the offences are not treated as serious enough in the way those categories are listed. Category 3 currently involves a tiny number of people. Will the Minister include all repeat domestic abusers and high-harm stalkers—all of them—under MAPPA in future?

[Victoria Atkins]

As the right hon. Lady will know, category 1 perpetrators have to have committed a specified sexual offence under the legislation, and for category 2 they have to have been convicted of a violent offence and received a sentence of imprisonment for at least 12 months. If they are domestic abuse perpetrators, they will be included in the threshold guidance. This is very much about drawing out in the guidance the factors that local agencies should be concentrating on.

Although domestic abuse is already mentioned in section 6 of the guidance, we have listened to concerns that at local level the preponderance and patterns of behaviour are not necessarily being picked up in offenders in categories 1 and 2, as well as category 3. That is why, in discussions with Baroness Royall, we have been clear that we want to better capture those people under the existing framework. We will consult MAPPA responsible authorities on the draft revised guidance by the summer recess, and we will inform Parliament when the updated guidance is promulgated. Today, Baroness Williams of Trafford has written to Baroness Royall to confirm that past patterns of behaviours will be explicitly referred to in the guidance.

[Yvette Cooper]

There are countless serious repeat domestic abuse cases that are not sexual offences. There are also countless very serious repeat domestic abuse offences that do not pass the 12-month threshold. All the Minister is saying is that she is going to try to include little bits of lines about domestic abuse in categories 1 and 2, which we know will not include huge numbers of repeat domestic cases, so she has actually gone backwards on some of the things that Baroness Williams was saying.

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[Victoria Atkins]

I do not accept that. The point is that category 3, as we have always said, is the flexible category. It is meant precisely to fit those cases that the hon. Lady has described. These offenders do not fit in category 1 or 2, but because they are considered to be dangerous offenders—they may, for example, have received a sentence of imprisonment of less than 12 months—they are in category 3. We want to join up that understanding in the guidance across all three categories.

We will consult with MAPPA authorities and will also invite views from across the House, but we have been working closely with Baroness Royall to try to address some of the issues that were rightly raised in the other place about past patterns of behaviour and so on. We give that undertaking today: we will look at that phrasing within the statutory guidance that is being drafted to help address some of the concerns in both Houses.

[Yvette Cooper]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Atkins]

One more time, then I have to make progress.

[Yvette Cooper]

I am very grateful to the Minister, who is being very generous with her time. May I specifically ask about category 3? There are only around 300 offenders in that category, compared with the thousands or nearly tens of thousands of people that we are talking about. Will she undertake to include all convicted serial domestic abusers in category 3?

[Victoria Atkins]

The flexibility of category 3 means that that is already possible, if there has been a conviction. I gave the example on 15 April of criminal damage, such as if somebody kicks down a door. On the face of it, a criminal damage offence would not fit into category 1 or category 2. That is where the professional curiosity of professionals on the ground—police, probation and prison officers and so on—comes in. If someone has been convicted of that offence, he or she may not be in category 1 or category 2, but if those professionals believe that it is part of a pattern of past behaviour, on which Baroness Royall has rightly focused, that is how they will be put on to the system under MAPPA. We very much want the concerns that have been raised to be reflected in the guidance as well as the national framework.

I have already announced that we need to be sure that action is taken when there are indicators of escalating harm for those who are managed under the least intensive level of MAPPA—so, level 1. To that end, Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service will issue a new policy framework setting out clear expectations for the management of all cases at MAPPA level 1 by the National Probation Service. This includes domestic abuse perpetrators. That will further help improve the quality of information sharing, the consistency and regularity of reviews, and the identification of cases where risk is increasing and additional risk management activity is required.

Thirdly, as I announced on 15 April, we are bringing in the new multi-agency public protection system, or MAPPS, which will be piloted from next year. All category 3 offenders will be on MAPPS, which will have much greater functionality than the violent offender and sex offender register, or ViSOR, which is the existing database. That will enable criminal justice agencies to share information in real time and improve their risk assessments and the management of MAPPA nominals, including domestic abuse perpetrators.

Fourthly, we are legislating in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill to clarify the information sharing powers under MAPPA. For example, GPs and domestic abuse charities can very much be part of that data sharing. That is the intention of the clauses in the Bill, and I hope we will be able to persuade Opposition Members to support us on that.

Fifthly, we are committed to bringing forward a new statutory domestic abuse perpetrator strategy as part of our holistic domestic abuse strategy to be published later this year. Our revised amendment makes it clear that the strategy will address the risks associated with stalking. We will also include a perpetrator strand in our complementary violence against women and girls strategy, which will cover stalking that does not take place in a domestic abuse context.

Sixthly, we are investing new resources, with an additional £25 million committed this year, to tackle perpetrators’ behaviour and to stop the cycle of abuse. Finally, more broadly, I can assure right hon. and hon. Members that this Government are committed to supporting vulnerable victims. Having published a new victims code to guarantee victims’ rights and the level of support they can expect, we will consult over the summer on the victims’ law, which will enshrine those rights in law.

The other place has asked the Government to consider again these four issues. We will do so in the next hour. We have listened carefully to their lordships’ concerns and responded with a substantial new package of commitments, both to strengthen this groundbreaking Bill and to further our wider programme to protect and support victims of domestic abuse and their children and bring perpetrators to justice. It is time for the Bill to be enacted and implemented, for the sake of the 2.3 million adults and their children who are victims of domestic abuse each year. Let us agree to the Government amendments in lieu, let us pass this Bill, and let us help victims.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Minister, Jess Phillips.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank hon. and right hon. Members across the House for the constructive tone they have maintained not just tonight but throughout. I am particularly moved by the comments the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has just made. He speaks of the constituents he meets in his office. He knows they are sitting next to their perpetrators and he tries to distract them. I am sure many of us can understand and sympathise with that. It is precisely those people we are trying to help with the Bill.

I will try to deal with some of the issues raised but I am very conscious of time, so forgive me if I am not able to. My noble Friend in the other place will have more time tomorrow and will try to deal with some of the points that will no doubt be raised then.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) asked questions about the code in respect of the firewall review. We are very much in listening mode. We have not yet drafted the code and will consider the consequences she raised. I draw her attention to the fact that in the new clause we have said we will consult the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and the Information Commissioner’s Office. I very much hope that the fact that we have thought about the point she makes about accountability and so on, and included it in the new clause, gives her some comfort.

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) for raising Clare’s law. We have not talked about it in the context of recent debates. The right to ask and the right to know is an incredibly important tool for victims and the police. We can spread the message across our constituencies that if someone is worried about a new relationship they can ask the police whether there is something they should know about their new relationship, or if the police are worried about a serial perpetrator and want to warn the new partner, then this facility exists. Again, this is why it is so important that the Bill is passed.

The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) rightly and understandably raised questions about our approach to the point on MAPPA. I know this is an issue to which she has given a great deal of attention and consideration during the passage of the Bill and previously. If I may, I just want to clarify something. I do not know whether there has been a misunderstanding in translation, but I am aware of my duties at the Dispatch Box. I think she said that I had said that category 3 will include all serial perpetrators in future. I hope I have not misquoted her. To clarify, categories 1 and 2 will include domestic abuse perpetrators by definition of the qualifying offences under categories 1 and 2.

We very much hope and expect that the updated guidance we are issuing as a result of the discussions on the Bill and the improvements we will make to data sharing, not just in terms of guidance and framework but also, importantly, through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, will see an increase in category 3 offenders. We want local agencies to be applying the system in the improved way we all want. Of course, domestic abuse protection orders will also include notification requirements. I just wanted to clarify that. Perhaps there has been a misunderstanding in translation, as it were, or in debate.

[Yvette Cooper]

I think the confusion is that I was asking whether it would be possible to include all repeat domestic abusers and high-harm stalkers in category 3. That is what we were trying to achieve. Can the Minister include all of them through the change to guidance to include them on category 3?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Lady for clarifying that. This is the nub of it: through the framework that already exists—improved guidance, the national framework that I described, and the wording in guidance and so on that has been discussed recently—we want those offenders whom local agencies judge to pose a risk to be assessed as such. They will either already have been automatically included in category 1 or 2, or assessed under category 3. That is the point of this—it is the professional curiosity that I talked about. We want this framework to work better, in addition to the work in MAPPS, which is being piloted next year.

I know that this is incredibly technical. I have spent the past three years trying to de-jargon—if that is a word—some of this very technical language so that we may all communicate with the victims whom we are desperately trying to help in our constituencies. This is one of those instances that is very technical. I have tried to de-jargon it as much as I can, but it is incredibly technical. We have to look to local agencies and professionals using their best endeavours to protect our constituents across the country.

The hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) asked the question—which I might have just answered—how we reassure women in her constituency that we are, first, acting with the best of intentions and, secondly, being held to account. I make this point, not just to us but to Members of another place: this is not the end of the road for our work on domestic abuse. We have been very clear that the Bill is a landmark one, but it is setting up a whole programme of work, locally through things such as our specialist services for people in safe accommodation, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and all the measures we have put into local family courts.

This programme of work will, I hope, outlast many of us and our time in this place. By virtue of that, I point the hon. Lady to things such as our announcement that we want to publish a VAWG—violence against women and girls—strategy later this summer, looking at some of the behaviours that we have discussed during the passage of the Bill. Later this year, we will publish a domestic abuse dedicated specialist national strategy to tackle abuse. The momentum that the Bill has created will be continued through both those strategies. This is very much the start of the journey as far as I and this Government are concerned. We very much look forward to listening to ideas and suggestions from across the House as we take through those strategies and other pieces of legislation.

To return to the people to whom the hon. Member for Strangford referred, those constituents whom he faces in his office to help—as we all do—I have talked before about my commitment to helping victims of domestic abuse. This is not just about those victims whom we are trying to help today, or in the future; for me, this is about the women, the victims, I could not help when I was working in the criminal courts at the very beginning of my career. In that day and age, it was all too inevitable that the victim would hand in her withdrawal statement, because the abuser had got to her before she had been able to give her evidence and to put her case forward. It is for those victims, as well as victims now and in the future, that this Bill is so critical. I very much hope that the Lords will help us to pass this piece of legislation as quickly as possible this week, so that we can start to help those victims as soon as possible.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 9B.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 15th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Lords amendment 2, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 3, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 4 to 8.

Lords amendment 9, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 10 to 32.

Lords amendment 33, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 34 to 36.

Lords amendment 37, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 38, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 39.

Lords amendment 40, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 41, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 42, and Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) to (c) in lieu.

Lords amendment 43, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 44 to 82.

Lords amendment 83, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 84 to 86.

[Victoria Atkins]

Before I start my speech, may I beg your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, and place on the record not only my condolences to Her Majesty the Queen but my and my constituents’ heartfelt thanks to His Royal Highness Prince Philip? He was the personification of public service, dedicating his life to Her Majesty and to serving our country for more than 70 years, and he did so with great style and often a twinkle in his eye.

May I also pay tribute to my friend, the right hon. Dame Cheryl Gillan, who passed away very recently? She would have loved to take part in today’s debate. She was a huge advocate for the vulnerable, including those who live with autism. She was a wonderful, wonderful friend and colleague to us all, and she will be very, very sorely missed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for all that she has done with regard to recognising the problems around threats to publish intimate images. Will she join me in saying that we need to make sure that the law is all-encompassing in this area? It is important to improve the law on revenge pornography as it stands now, introduced by this Government, but it is even more important that we have a wholesale review of this area, such as that which is part of the Law Commission’s review.

[Victoria Atkins]

I agree completely with my right hon. Friend. I thank her for the work she has done over many years to address this and other issues particularly affecting women and girls. We very much take that point. We have worked on the amendment with Baroness Morgan to have an immediate impact, but in addition we look forward to receiving the Law Commission’s report and recommendations later this year—it is looking at the whole of the law on the use of intimate images and other types of malicious communications on the internet. If the law needs to be changed to reflect recommendations, we can address those in subsequent legislation. These clauses apply to all relationships and all encounters of a sexual nature, from a Tinder hook-up to a marriage of many decades. Those protections will be enshrined in this Bill.

I turn to another amendment that I know has been welcomed warmly by survivors and campaigners: the extension of the coercive and controlling behaviour offence to include post-separation abuse. We listened very carefully to debates in this place, as well as to charities such as Surviving Economic Abuse and, of course, to survivors themselves. We reviewed the offence to see how it is working after five years of being in force and we published that review in March.

We acknowledge that coercive and controlling behaviour continues and indeed may escalate following separation, so amendment 34 will extend the offence to cover post-separation abuse between former intimate partners and interfamilial abuse, regardless of whether the family members are living together or not. The amendment will send a strong message to perpetrators that controlling or coercive behaviours, irrespective of the living arrangements, are forms of domestic abuse and that the criminal law is there to protect victims.

The Bill also revolutionises the help that is available to victims who need to flee relationships to refuge or other safe accommodation. It is revolutionary in that it helps to ensure that they are helped to recover from their experiences. Part 4 introduces a duty on tier 1 local authorities to provide specialist services to such victims and we have announced £125 million of funding to support that provision in the Bill.

There is a cross-party desire to see those measures matched by equivalent provision in respect of community-based support. This Government are alive to such calls. Police and crime commissioners, and others, already provide significant community-based support to victims of crime, but we need better evidence of the gaps in current provision and how they might best be addressed. That is why the Government have now committed to consult on the provision of community-based support as part of this summer’s consultation on the new victims’ law. That commitment to consult is backed up by Lords amendments 5, 8 and 10 to 16. Lords amendment 5 will place a duty on the domestic abuse commissioner to publish a report, under her new powers in the Bill, on the provision of and need for community-based services. Lords amendments 8 and 10 to 16 will place a duty on tier 1 local authorities, with the support of their domestic abuse local partnership boards, to monitor and report on the impact of the safe accommodation duty on the provision of community-based support in their area. Taken together with the responses to our victims’ law consultation, those amendments will ensure that the Government have all the information they need to build on the strong foundations of existing community-based services.

Some of the most upsetting and torturous experiences that victims can experience happen after a relationship has ended, in the family and civil courts. Lords amendments 17 and 24 to 31 relate to special measures and the ban on cross-examination in person in civil proceedings. In short, those amendments more closely align the position in the civil courts to that in the family courts, so that victims of domestic abuse have the benefit of automatic eligibility for special measures to enable them to give their best evidence and to ensure that they are protected from being cross-examined in person by their abuser. Our justice system should not be used as another form of abuse. This Bill will help to protect victims and secure justice.

In the case of the family courts, perpetrators can continue abuse through repeated unmeritorious proceedings. Lords amendment 33 amends the Children Act 1989 to prevent such vexatious claims. The amendment makes it clear that a court may make a barring order in circumstances where it is satisfied that a further application made by the named person would put the child or another, for example the parent victim, at risk of harm. For all the victims and survivors I have met, and whose stories we have heard in the Chamber: these measures are to help you all to secure justice, as you deserve.

Lords amendment 39 would ensure that a health professional working in a general practice that holds an NHS contract cannot charge for evidence to show that a patient has been the victim of domestic abuse for the purpose of obtaining legal aid. We recognise that it is already the case that most GPs do not charge for such evidence, but the amendment will ensure that no victim faces that barrier to obtaining legal aid.

The Bill also reaches beyond these shores. Lords amendments 70 to 82 amend the extraterritorial jurisdiction provisions in the Bill to remove the dual criminality requirement for relevant sexual offences, including rape, committed outside the UK by UK nationals. That will enable UK nationals who commit marital rape in countries where such behaviour is not criminal to be prosecuted in UK courts. This is also a significant step forward towards ratifying the Istanbul convention, as it addresses one of the three outstanding matters set out in the statement to the House in October last year.

I turn to the 12 sets of Lords amendments to which we have tabled motions to disagree. I emphasise that, in line with our approach throughout the Bill, where we do not agree with the amendments, and where possible, we have sought to address the concerns raised through practical measures instead. The first set of amendments relates to the definition of domestic abuse. Lords amendments 1 to 3 would bring abuse by all carers of disabled persons, paid and unpaid, within the definition of domestic abuse in the Bill. I hope it is clear—it perhaps does not need saying—that the Government abhor all abuse, and we have every sympathy for the spirit of these amendments. Abuse of disabled people by their carers must be called out and acted upon. The issue before us today is whether this is the right Bill to strengthen the protection for disabled people.

The focus of this Bill is on domestic abuse as it is commonly understood—that is, abuse by a current or former intimate partner, or by a family member. That is the approach taken in the Istanbul convention, which I know many hon. Members are keen for the UK to ratify. Where a disabled person is abused by a partner or family member, the abuse will be covered by the definition as already agreed by this House. However, Lords amendments 1 to 3 would bring in a much wider range of relationships, outside a domestic abuse setting. We should steer away from diluting the purpose of the Bill.

As I have said, however, in inviting the House to disagree with these Lords amendments, we do not wish to downplay or deny for one moment the experience of disabled people who are abused by their paid or volunteer carers. There are protections in place, including the offences in the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 relating to ill treatment and wilful neglect. However, we have listened carefully to the experiences and concerns raised in this House and the other place. We want to find practical ways in which to address those concerns. That is why the Government intend to carry out a review of the protections for people at risk of carer abuse. We will engage with the noble Baroness Campbell of Surbiton and the disabled sector on the scope of the review, but it would broadly seek to examine the protections offered against carer abuse and the support available to victims. We have listened and we will act.

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[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

Like the Minister, I wish to place on record my own and my party’s sadness on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen. I suppose all your life you get used to the existence of the royal family as if they are always going to be there. In the passing of Prince Philip, we realised how lucky we are as a nation to have a sort of backbone that is always there—a family who are not always perfect, like anyone’s family, but who we can look to. I and we all feel very keenly in light of the pandemic the loss to the royal family specifically and to us as a nation.

We also share in the Minister’s sadness at the loss of Dame Cheryl Gillan. Regardless of political party, she was a friend especially to every woman in this House. To every woman from every party who came, she offered words of advice and words of exasperation in the lady Members’ rooms. She was one of a kind, and she will be missed genuinely and keenly across the House. She would definitely have been here today, without question. She spoke in almost every single one of these debates. We will miss her further, and no doubt we will all seek to take on her work.

Following the death of Sarah Everard, heartbreak, fear and anger ripped through the country—a response to the endemic violence that women and girls suffer. People felt it in their bones. Responding to such an outpouring of grief is our job. It is our duty and a privilege as parliamentarians to take that emotion, that fear, that rage, that passion and that injustice and to turn it into policy and law. It is our job to do something meaningful.

The question for the House today, as we consider the amendments inserted into the Bill by the other place in the heat of those moments, is: who do we decide to save? I will briefly talk through which amendments we are supporting and why, as the Minister has done.

I welcome very much, as I have throughout its passage, the immense changes to the Bill. It is unrecognisable from the day it started, which I do not know if anyone can remember; it seems so long ago. The spirit in which the Bill has been forged—that is how it feels—has always been to seek amendments and to work to improve it, and my comments will continue in that exact same spirit as we seek to continue to amend it.

Amendments 40, 41 and 43—I am sure nobody will be surprised to hear my views on migrant victims of domestic abuse—would allow migrant victims to access support and protection just like everybody else and just like I could. Without the amendments, victims will be left trapped in abusive households. It is as simple as that. The Government will seek to tell us that they have proposed a pilot project, which we have heard about today. I am pleased to hear that the pilot has gone to Southall Black Sisters, I believe in partnership with Birmingham and Solihull Women’s Aid—a place very close to my heart—but the specialist organisations and independent commissioners have all been very clear that the pilot is inadequate, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) alluded to.

Analysis by the domestic abuse sector suggests that thousands of victims could be left unprotected and unsupported under the pilot scheme. Students here studying, for example, might be raped, battered and abused by their partners. Thousands of students have this week talked on the Everyone’s Invited site about sexual assaults on campus. Foreign students would not be able to seek refuge in the same way that I can under the current rules in this country if they needed to escape.

This pilot is not good enough. It will only provide minimal, short-term support for 300 to 500 women. There is no money, for instance, for counselling, therapeutic intervention, interpretation costs, children’s costs and medical or travel costs. What happens, then, when the 501st victim visits? I can tell you what happens to the 501st victim, because it is what happens now. It is happening to Farah, who was routinely tormented and assaulted with a belt by her father and trapped in that abuse without access to public funds or support and protection. She said:

“I made many calls to the council and even the national domestic violence helpline and many other organisations for people who suffer domestic violence. They all said the same thing: I had no recourse to public funds, so they couldn’t and wouldn’t help me. Some of them even said it was the law not to help me. I guess that no recourse to public funds means that it’s okay for me to be violated physically and mentally abused by my father. I guess the Government approves of that.”

Lords amendment 40 establishes safe reporting mechanisms which ensure that all victims of domestic abuse feel able to come forward to the police. Perpetrators know at the moment that they can use immigration status as a weapon against vulnerable, frightened victims—“If you tell the police, you’ll get deported and you’ll never see the kids again. If you go to the police, they’ll lock you up in a detention centre.” I have seen this thousands of times.

At the end of last year, three police oversight bodies said that the data sharing with immigration enforcement was causing “significant harm” to the public interest. If victims cannot report, those perpetrators remain out there. We are leaving violent rapists and dangerous, violent men in our community, able to hurt people again and again. I listened to the Minister’s comments on this, and obviously I welcome the idea of a review. In terms of the idea that it is premature to ask for the law to be amended to protect these victims, I have stood in the House asking for this for at least four years. It does not feel premature for my constituents who had threats to kill and ended up in detention. It does not feel premature when I had to go to Yarl’s Wood to collect them.

I have to disagree with what the Minister said. These amendments do not ensure indefinite leave to remain for all victims of domestic abuse or allow some mythical path to dodge immigration processes. They are about getting victims out of an abusive and dangerous situation, on an equal footing to what any one of us in this House would expect for ourselves and our daughters. I also expect it for all my constituents.

Moving on to other serial offenders whom we currently leave on the streets and those victims who are at the highest risk of harm, Lords amendment 42 requires serial domestic abuse or stalking perpetrators to be registered on a database and accompanied by a comprehensive perpetrator strategy. The Labour party supports this amendment. Zoe Dronfield almost died when her ex-partner attacked her with a meat cleaver. Zoe spent weeks in hospital recovering from bleeding to the brain, a stab wound to her neck and a broken right arm inflicted during an eight-hour ordeal at the hands of Jason Smith. Zoe discovered after reporting her case to the police that Smith had abused 13 previous victims. There is a desperate need in this country to do something to identify, manage and monitor these high-harm perpetrators of stalking and domestic abuse. They would not have been met by current MAPPA. [Interruption.] The Minister claims that that is not true, but they were not in these instances.

[Victoria Atkins]

I just want to clarify this, because it is an important detail. Category 3 of MAPPA is defined as “other dangerous offenders”. It does not matter whether that offender has committed section 18 grievous bodily harm or criminal damage, which, as the hon. Lady will know, is a much lower offence. It is the risk assessment of that defendant in the circumstances of the offence that matters and puts them in category 3. That is the point—it already exists.

[Jess Phillips]

If it already exists, why was Jason Smith allowed to go on and abuse 13 other people? It is not just Jason Smith, of course—it is the person who killed Hollie Gazzard, the person who killed Jane Clough and the person who killed Helen. The reality is that this is not working, and the victims in these instances, like Zoe Dronfield, have spoken very clearly, and the agencies have spoken clearly. They have asked us to look again and help to protect them.

[Victoria Atkins]

Just to assist the House, as I hope I made clear in my speech, we know there have been horrific instances where, in the system itself, those risk assessments and the management have not been done properly. I think we are having a disagreement about whether putting in a new category will change that. We want to look, and we are doing so through the statutory guidance, at how these assessments are made on the ground. That is what will make a difference, not a statutory framework.

[Jess Phillips]

I can sympathise with what the Minister is saying, but I would ask the House and the Minister to sympathise with somebody on the frontline who has been watched again and again, through one multi-agency risk assessment conference after another, or a serious case review or a domestic homicide review. Again and again, the same thing is said—agencies do not speak to each other. The idea of amending the statutory guidance but not putting in place some legislative framework so that this has to occur is just more, “Oh, let’s see if we can get agencies speaking to each other again.” It just is not enough. It is not just me who thinks it is not enough. When I spoke to Zoe Dronfield herself this morning, she told me that she was devastated. In the heat of the Sarah Everard killing, she felt that the Government were listening, and today victims like her feel as though they have been let down.

The Government amendment in lieu is not enough. It is perfectly fine in its own right and the Labour party called for a perpetrator strategy in Committee, but it is not the same as what is proposed in Lords amendment 42. It is not even nearly answering the same question. Dangerous criminals are on our streets and in our homes, and repeating the same acts of violence and abuse over and over again, moving from victim to victim. Nothing in what the Government have proposed, I am afraid, has anywhere near enough teeth or will account for, identify and offer safety to the victims now dead at the hands of the most serial perpetrators. The amendments from the other place are strong, and I very much imagine that it will successfully push back. The Labour party stands ready to support it as it does so, and stands to support the victims.

Disabled victims are currently left out of the Bill. Lords amendments 1 to 3 change the definition of “personally connected” to reflect the lived experience of disabled victims of domestic abuse. Disabled people can be victims of domestic abuse by paid and unpaid carers, with whom they have close, intimate relationships. For victims, this abuse of trust and power is experienced in exactly the same way as that perpetrated by a mother, a father or a partner, so it should be recognised as such in the Bill. The expansion of the definition of “personally connected” will not dilute it, as has been suggested by the Government, but fortify it to protect those who right now are being domestically abused because they are dependent on another person in their lives. This is what disabled people have asked for, and I am sure we will see after today if the review proposed by the Government is satisfactory to those voices, who are the ones we must listen to in this.

Moving on to training of the judiciary and the accreditation of child contact centres, I want Members in this House to know that today they will be voting against making it mandatory for family court judges to be trained on domestic abuse. The Government are claiming that Lords amendment 33 threatens the independence of the judiciary. They have yet to elaborate, and the Minister did not elaborate on this point earlier. However, I shall assume—she can of course correct me if I am wrong—that she and those who sit behind her, both metaphorically and actually, are using the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, which gave the Lord Chief Justice responsibility for training. I am assured that those who tabled this amendment in the other place took legal advice on this exact thing, and they do not agree that it is unconstitutional, but think it fits very well with that Act.

The amendment was drafted by a peer who is a QC, and was accepted by the parliamentary Clerks. On Report, a number of significant legal minds voted in favour of the amendment, including QCs and the former Deputy President of the Supreme Court. I would very much welcome a copy of the Government’s legal advice. There is absolutely no desire on our parts to do anything that is unconstitutional. We are not even saying what the frame of the training has to be, just that it has to happen. The idea that the Lord Chief Justice would push back, saying it did not have to happen and was against the independence of the judiciary, is something, frankly, that we would want to push against.



The Government’s own harm review found that comments made by judges in the family court included, for example, that a woman could not be a victim of domestic abuse because she wore make-up to court. Judges also found that women were emotional and temperamental when they cried about their abuse in the court room. Who knew that we did not need the police, the courts or welfare for victims of domestic abuse? We should have just told women to pop on a bit of make-up, and that would have protected them from domestic abuse. That is essentially what is being said in our family courts: if a woman wears make-up, how can she be a victim of domestic abuse? That was not said by me but by a judge in our family courts, and that kind of attitude is not just insulting but dangerous, because terrible practice in our family courts leaves children alone with violent perpetrators. I am not offended by the sexism; I am frightened for people’s lives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

Home should be a place of love and safety, but for 2.3 million adult victims of domestic abuse, and for their children, it is not. We all want this abuse to stop, and we want victims to live peaceful, safe and happy lives, and as I have said many times at this Dispatch Box, that is why this Government are bringing forward the Domestic Abuse Bill. The continued passage of the Bill marks an important milestone in our shared endeavour across the House to provide better support and protection for the victims of domestic abuse and their children. It is the culmination of over three years of work, although I rather liked the slip of the tongue by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) when she said it felt like two generations. I pay tribute in particular to my right hon. Friend, who as chair of the Joint Committee, set in train much of the work that has happened in this place and the other place when the Bill was in draft form. I thank her sincerely.

I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) for championing the Bill, both as Home Secretary and as Prime Minister, and now—eminently, if I may say so—from the Back Benches. I also thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed today. The Bill has been improved during the course of debate in both Houses. It was scrutinised properly and thoroughly by their lordships, whom I thank for their vital contributions. I do not know whether many other Bills have had a mere 86 amendments to them when they came back to this place. This is a sign of their lordships’ commitment. The Bill includes real measures to help victims of domestic abuse and, as we have heard, even beyond those relationships. It expressly recognises the harm and distress caused to victims by so-called revenge porn and threats to disclose such images.

The Bill also creates a new offence of non-fatal strangulation. My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) did much in this place when the Bill was before us for scrutiny, along with the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), to campaign on the issues of rough sex and non-fatal strangulation. My hon. Friend asked me about consent in the amendment, and I want to try to clarify that in order to reassure people who may be watching. A valid defence of consent is available under the new offence only where the offence does not involve causing serious harm or where the perpetrator can show that they had not intended to cause serious harm or had not been reckless as to the serious harm caused. This provision reflects the current law as set out in R v. Brown and, indeed, in the rough sex clause that was passed earlier in the Bill’s progress. We have had to be, and tried to be, consistent with both of those provisions, and I hope that that reassures my hon. Friend.

I have listened carefully to colleagues who have raised the issue of the management of perpetrators. This is absolutely critical. I have talked in the past about the evolution of our understanding of domestic abuse. We look back on the days of the 1970s when brave campaigners for Refuge and other organisations started setting up refuges and talking about domestic violence. Our understanding and our efforts to deal with this have obviously moved absolute milestones in the decades since then, but one of the challenges that we will certainly be looking to address in the domestic abuse strategy is the management of perpetrators. I am delighted that we are now investing unprecedented amounts in perpetrator programmes, as announced in the Budget, because we have to prevent perpetrators from committing harm in the first place. Again, let me emphasise that the reason we find ourselves unable to accept that Lords amendment is that creating a separate category as envisaged in the Lords amendment does not get away from the need for the MAPPA authorities to make a judgment in individual cases as to whether a particular offender should be managed under the framework. I want to be clear that three categories exist in MAPPA. Category 1 covers registered sexual offenders. Category 2 covers any violent offender or other sexual offenders convicted of offences under schedule 15 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and sentenced to more than 12 months’ imprisonment. Category 3 covers any other dangerous offender. So on the sorts of horrific examples we have been hearing about, if there are convictions in the background of those offenders, these categories would cover some of the convictions that have been described. I say that, but I hope again that colleagues have appreciated that I have been very clear that there must be improvements in how the system works on the ground. That is why we have announced—we went into a little more detail in the “Dear colleague” letter—that we are going to revisit and refresh all relevant chapters of the MAPPA statutory guidance so as to include sections on domestic abuse, to ensure that agencies are taking steps to identify perpetrators whose risk requires active multi-agency management. We are ensuring that cases of domestic abuse perpetrators captured under categories 1 and 2 are included in the threshold guidance that is being developed. We will issue an HM Prison and Probation Service policy framework setting out clear expectations of the management of all cases at MAPPA level 1. This work on this new system, the multi-agency public protection system, will have a much greater functionality than existing systems, including ViSOR, enabling criminal justice agencies to share information efficiently and to improve risk assessment and management of MAPPA nominals. That is what will address the very understandable concerns that colleagues have raised in this debate.

I come to the final point I wish to touch upon, and I hope colleagues will understand why I am going to be quick. Hon. Members have raised questions and concerns about the issue of judicial training. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead and my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) set out the problems with the way in which Lords amendment 33 seeks to achieve that laudable aim, which we all agree with, of ensuring that the judiciary and magistrates must be trained well and, importantly, trained regularly. Referring back to the comments I was making earlier about the progress that has been made in the past few decades, let me say that, by definition, our understanding has grown, even, as some have said, during the passage of this Bill. Of course, that knowledge must continue to be deployed and trained. Domestic abuse is covered in all family law courses run by the Judicial College, and the debates held in the other place and in this place will I know—I have faith—have been watched and listened to very carefully by the President of the family court and others.

[Jess Phillips]

I admire the hon. Lady’s faith, but I would like something more than faith. The triumph of hope over experience will, I fear, leave us in the exact same position with the exact same problems. Faith is well and good—I have it in spades—but I would like to know about a monitoring process that will be done to review how well people are trained and how well this is working.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am happy to help the hon. Lady. As I said in my opening remarks, the President of the Family Division has indicated that he will consider making recommendations regarding training, taking into account this Bill, the harm panel report, which, as she knows, is critical to the Ministry of Justice’s concerns in this area and the four recent Court of Appeal judgments in domestic abuse cases. I would argue that there is a real understanding among our independent judiciary of the need to make sure that they are equipped to ensure that justice is delivered—and delivered well—in the courtrooms over which they preside.

In summing up, let me reflect on the course of the Bill. Progress on the Bill has been characterised by a determination on both sides of the House to work constructively and collegiately. At every stage, we have endeavoured to focus on what can be done to help victims of domestic abuse and to ensure that the abuse can stop. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke put it, these are not our issues—these are not party political issues—but the issues of our constituents who are victims and of their children, and I know that each and every one of us has had that very much in mind in all our deliberations on the Bill.

I therefore commend the Bill and the amendments that the Government support to the House. I very much hope that we will be able to make real and meaningful progress and pass the Bill, so that we can get on with the job of helping the victims we all feel so strongly about.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before I put the Question, just a reminder that, should there be more than one Division, the doors will be locked after eight minutes in the first Division and, after that, after five minutes.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

This Thursday— 15 April—the House of Commons will consider the Lords amendments to the Domestic Abuse Bill available on the following link https://publications.parliament.uk/ pa/bills/cbill/58-01/0281/200281.pdf. As we are approaching the end of the Session and further consideration of this Bill is likely to proceed at pace, I am issuing this written statement to set out for the benefit of MPs, peers and others the Government’s position on the various Lords amendments.

The Domestic Abuse Bill will be a groundbreaking piece of legislation. Building on the strong suite of measures already in the Bill as agreed by the House of Commons, the Government proudly welcome many of the Lords amendments (namely, amendments 4 to 8, 10 to 32, 34 to 36, 39 and 44 to 82 and 84 to 86) and worked closely with peers to achieve them. In particular, we support the Lords amendments:

creating a new offence of non-fatal strangulation (Lords amendment 36);

extending the offence of disclosing private sexual photographs and films with intent to cause distress (known as the “revenge porn” offence) to cover threats to disclose intimate images (Lords amendment 35);

extending the controlling or coercive behaviour offence to cover post-separation abuse (Lords amendment 34);

stopping vexatious family proceedings that can further traumatise victims by clarifying the circumstances in which a court may make a barring order under section 91(14) of the Children Act 1989 (Lords amendment 32); and

prohibiting GPs and other health professionals from charging a victim of domestic abuse for a letter to support an application for legal aid (Lords amendment 39).

In addition, as further evidence of our commitment to community-based services, the Government have committed to consult on the provision of community-based domestic abuse services in the upcoming victims’ law consultation to be launched this summer.

We have also listened closely to concerns about misogyny and attitudes towards women and girls, and will ask police forces in England and Wales to record, on an experimental basis, any crimes of violence against the person, including stalking and harassment, and sexual offences where the victim perceives it to have been motivated by a hostility based on their sex.

That being said, there are other amendments made in the House of Lords which the Government are unable to support (that is, amendments 1 to 3, 9, 33, 37, 38, 40 to 43 and 83). These amendments apply to England and Wales only.

Abuse by carers (Lords amendments 1 to 3)

We fully recognise that abuse of disabled people perpetrated by carers is wholly unacceptable and needs to be tackled along with all other forms of abuse. The Government’s definition includes husbands, wives, partners and relatives who act as “carer” for the victim whom they abuse.

These amendments, however, would bring the relationship between a disabled person and a paid or volunteer carer who is not a partner or relative within the meaning of “personally connected”. Extending the scope of the Bill in this way would undermine the common understanding of domestic abuse. Central to this understanding is the manipulation of the emotional bond between intimate partners or family members.

Further, the Government’s approach is consistent with international definitions. The explanatory report to the Istanbul convention declares that domestic abuse or violence covers “intimate-partner violence between current or former spouses or partners and inter-generational violence which typically occurs between parents and children”.

Nevertheless, we are determined to act on the concerns that have been raised in this debate. Accordingly, we are pleased to announce that as part of the Government’s ongoing commitment in this sphere, the Home Office and Department of Health and Social Care, with input from the Ministry of Justice and Cabinet Office, will undertake a review to examine the protections against carer abuse and the support available to victims. The review will apply to England.

Judicial training (Lords amendment 33)

The Government acknowledge the importance of effective domestic abuse training for judges and magistrates involved in family proceedings. Training in domestic abuse for the judiciary is a priority and is included in all family law courses run by the Judicial College both for newly appointed judges and magistrates and as part of their continuous professional development.

Judicial training on domestic abuse is kept under constant review and is updated to reflect key developments. The senior judiciary (including the president of the family division and chair of the Judicial College), have already made clear commitments to further develop domestic abuse training, taking into account this Bill, as well as the recommendations of the harm panel report, and findings from the four recent Court of Appeal judgments in domestic abuse cases (handed down on 30 March).

While the Lord Chancellor will continue to support the judiciary in this area, the provision of training is properly a matter for the Lord Chief Justice, as head of the judiciary, working through the Judicial College. By conferring functions on the Lord Chancellor in relation to judicial training this amendment is fundamentally at odds with the constitutional principle of judicial independence.

Reasonable force in domestic abuse cases and statutory defence of previous domestic abuse (Lords amendments 37,38 and 83)

The Government understand the motivation behind these amendments, but we are clear that the existing full and partial defences are sufficient.

Full defences, such as self-defence, are defences to any crime which, if pleaded successfully, result in acquittal. In the circumstances of domestic abuse, the partial defences relating to “loss of control” or diminished responsibility can also be argued. Additionally, the fact that an accused is also a victim of domestic abuse will be considered throughout the criminal justice system process from the police investigation through to any Crown Prosecution Service charging decision, to defences deployed at trial under the existing law and as a mitigating factor in sentencing.

Moreover, these amendments are open to abuse by those seeking to evade justice, including potentially by a perpetrator of domestic abuse.

Migrant victims (Lords amendments 40,41 and 43)

We agree that all victims of domestic abuse, regardless of their immigration status, should be treated first and foremost as victims and that they should not be deterred from seeking support. We have emphasised this throughout the passage of the Bill.

To recap, migrant victims of domestic abuse who live here on a spousal visa receive help and support through the destitute domestic violence concession scheme. For those victims who are on other types of visa, such as student, visitor or work visas, or who are here illegally, and who are not eligible for existing support schemes such as the national referral mechanism, we have announced a pilot support scheme. The game-changing £1.5 million support for migrant victims scheme will provide access to safe accommodation and specialist services for these victims, who have previously not been eligible for other support. As well as providing immediate support within safe accommodation for those who need it, our new scheme will also provide us with clearer evidence of the needs of victims, so that we can build a sustainable programme of support.

Migrant victims should not be treated as a homogeneous group with similar, if not identical, circumstances and needs. We want our longer-term work to recognise migrant victims as individuals with complex and diverse needs. The scheme for migrant victims will help achieve this.

In relation to data sharing, we are committed to considering existing data-sharing procedures following the publication, on 17 December 2020, of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services’ (HMICFRS) report in response to a super-complaint about the police sharing immigration data. HMICFRS recommended that the Home Office conduct a review of the legal and policy framework governing the sharing of information about vulnerable victims of crime, including domestic abuse, and to report on the outcome of the review within six months. We have accepted this recommendation and the review is now underway. This amendment pre-empts the completion of that review which we have commenced in good faith.

Accreditation of child contact centres (Lords amendment 9)

The Government recognise that provision of child contact centres is vital in supporting families and enabling parents to have contact with their children and that these must provide a safe environment for children and parents alike. The existing regulatory framework ensures that this is the case.

High level data provided by the National Association of Child Contact Centres indicates there are up to 400 contact centres, fewer than 15% of which may be unaccredited. However, this figure includes contact centres which may be commissioned by local authorities and which are already subject to extensive safeguarding provision and regulation.

In private law family cases, the judiciary and the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) have protocols in place to ensure that they only refer parties to child contact centres accredited by the National Association of Child Contact Centres.

In public law family cases, where children are in the care of the local authority, or under their supervision, comprehensive statutory provisions are already in place and emphasise that contact should not undermine the welfare and safeguarding of children. All plans and decisions regarding contact, including the use of contact centres or services, are made by social workers on a case-by-case basis, with detailed safeguarding risk assessments and taking full account of any child protection plan and/or contact order. All local authority activity in relation to child contact must be in the best interests of the child and subject to the relevant statutory provisions, including sections 22 and 34 of the Children Act 1989, the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010 and the Children and Families Act 2014.

We are also concerned that the definition of contact services would be so broad, that it may create duplicative burdens on a wide range of local authority services, which goes beyond child contact centres.

Management of perpetrators (Lords amendment 42)

The Government agree that high-harm domestic abuse perpetrators need to be effectively monitored and supervised. The current legislation in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 already provides for serial and high harm domestic abuse offenders to be managed under multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA) on either an automatic or discretionary basis. Adding a new category of offenders automatically eligible for MAPPA would add complexity to those arrangements without delivering clear benefits.

There is already significant work in train to improve the operation of MAPPA. As well as strengthening the statutory guidance that supports MAPPA, we are pleased to announce the envelopment of a new multi-agency public protection system (MAPPS). MAPPS, as a modern and efficient subject management system, will facilitate more effective and automated information sharing between MAPPA responsible authorities and their partner agencies, thereby improving the multi-agency risk management of all offenders managed under MAPPA, including those domestic abuse perpetrators whose risk is such that they need to be managed under the MAPPA frame- work. The target is for the new system to be piloted in 2022. Once MAPPS is deployed, it will allow ViSOR (the existing subject management system) to be decommissioned. In addition, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill includes provisions to further strengthen the legal framework governing information-sharing between MAPPA partners and others.

In relation to a domestic abuse perpetrator strategy, we have already committed to bringing forward such a strategy later this year as part of the domestic abuse strategy. We have tabled Government amendments to enshrine this commitment in law (Government amendments 42 (a) to (c).

Tackling domestic abuse is a key priority for the Prime Minister and this Government. Our landmark Domestic Abuse Bill will help to better protect and support victims and their children and bring perpetrators to justice.

[HCWS918]

Controlling or Coercive Behaviour Offence: Government Review

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

Today, I am pleased to announce the publication of the Government’s review into the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour (CCB) in an intimate or family relationship—as provided for in section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015. The review follows a commitment made in response to the 2018 consultation on domestic abuse.

The review considered the available data and research to understand how the CCB offence has been working since its introduction in 2015. It found that since the offence came into force in December 2015, police recorded CCB offences, as well as CCB prosecutions, have increased year on year. These increases demonstrate that the CCB offence is being used across the criminal justice system (CJS), indicating that the legislation has provided an improved legal framework to tackle CCB. However, the review recognises that there is still room for improvement, particularly with regard to raising awareness of what constitutes CCB among the public and across the CJS, and improving the ability of the CJS to record, evidence and prosecute these crimes. The review also considered views from a number of stakeholders who expressed concern that the cohabitation requirement within the offence is preventing some victims of this abuse from seeking justice, and poses challenges for police and prosecutors to evidence and charge abusive behaviours that are not captured by other legislation.

The review made a number of recommendations, including:

Building on the work of the Office for National Statistics in 2017, to develop robust estimates of the prevalence and characteristics of CCB;

In consultation with victims and support services, to develop suitable measures for victim outcomes;

Further work to assess the levels of awareness and understanding of the offence across the criminal justice system.

The review also recognised calls for legislative change, highlighting in particular the removal of the cohabitation requirement as well as some calls to extend the maximum sentence length and to remove the requirement to evidence a “serious effect” on the victim. As such, the review made the following research recommendations:

If legislative changes are implemented, the operation of the legislation should be monitored and reviewed closely to assess the impact and identify any unintended consequences;

If legislative changes are not made at this time, further research should be undertaken to ascertain the need for, and impact of, such changes to the legislation.

CCB is an insidious form of domestic abuse and this Government are committed to ensuring all victims are protected. We recognise that coercive or controlling behaviours may escalate following separation, and that members of a victim’s extended family may be involved in control or coercion. We have heard the calls from experts on this matter, and I am very pleased to say that the Government will be removing the cohabitation requirement contained within the offence through an amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill at Report stage in the House of Lords. This amendment will bring the controlling or coercive behaviour offence into line with the statutory definition of domestic abuse in clause 1 of the Bill and send a clear message to both victims and perpetrators that controlling or coercive behaviours, irrespective of living status, are a form of domestic abuse.

We recognise that the review also raised questions around the need for other legislative change, including reference to increasing the maximum penalty for the CCB offence in line with the current maximum penalty for stalking, and removing the evidence requirement to prove that the behaviour had a serious effect on the victim. Given the review acknowledged that evidence for these changes is currently limited, we will continue to monitor the offence and keep these other proposals for legislative change under review.

This summer we will be publishing a domestic abuse strategy which will build on work to date to help transform the response to domestic abuse, tackling perpetrators and placing the needs of victims at the heart of our response. We will consider the wider policy and data recommendations made in the review throughout the development and implementation of this strategy, and will of course continue to engage with domestic abuse organisations throughout this process. We will also update the statutory guidance for the controlling or coercive behaviour offence to reflect both the findings of the review and change to the legislation.

Domestic abuse is an abhorrent crime and this Government are committed to doing all that we can support victims and tackle offenders. I am delighted that, in removing the co-habitation requirement within the CCB offence, we are able to take another step in ensuring every victim has access to the protection that they need.

A copy of the review will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

[HCWS810]

Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to reduce knife crime.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins) [V]]

After a very difficult weekend in London, our thoughts are with the families, friends and neighbourhoods affected by those incidents of violent crime. Across England and Wales we are increasing police capacity in the forces most affected by violent crime, investing £176 million over two years. We have recently consulted on serious violence reduction orders, which will give the police stop-and-search powers to target individuals previously convicted of knife offences, and we are investing many millions of pounds in early intervention schemes to stop young people being drawn into violence in the first place.

[Edward Timpson [V]]

After the recent tragic knife-related murder of a young man in Winsford, Cheshire police have secured funding for 25 16 to 18-year-olds to take part in an employment mentoring programme led by We Mind The Gap, as well as identifying a former community centre to deliver youth and apprenticeship activities. Will my hon. Friend congratulate Cheshire police on a constructive and long-term problem-solving approach to this issue and ensure that they have the funding necessary to prevent knife crime from happening in the first place?

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend has a distinguished record of helping the most vulnerable children in our society, and I join him in welcoming the investment in this and other intervention projects in Cheshire to tackle the root causes of violent crime. I commend the work of Cheshire police in supporting such projects. In this financial year, Cheshire police will receive up to £219 million in funding, and it has already recruited 91 additional officers under the police uplift programme.

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

What progress her Department has made on the delivery of the emergency services network.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to help prevent unauthorised encampments.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins) [V]]

We will bring forward legislation this Session to give the police the powers they need to tackle unauthorised encampments by moving people on and seizing vehicles where necessary. Intentional trespass will become a criminal offence, and we will broaden the range of harms that can be considered by the police when directing trespassers away from land.

[Sarah Atherton [V]]

The Home Secretary will know that I wrote to her back in June regarding unauthorised encampments. I thank her for her response. Although the majority of Travellers stay on authorised sites, a disproportionate amount of council and police time is spent dealing with the effects of unauthorised encampments. Does the Minister agree that communities such as mine in Wrexham need more protection against trespass on sites where there is no right of access?

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head in standing up for her constituents on this issue. People want to see greater protection for local communities, and for the police to be given enhanced powers to crack down on trespassers. That is why we consulted on how we might strengthen police powers and why we will introduce legislation in this Session. We will act on these concerns, and I very much look forward to working with my hon. Friend in so doing.

[Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)]

What additional support her Department is providing to police officers during the covid-19 outbreak.

Grooming Gangs

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins) [V]]

I would like to start by thanking the members of the public who signed these petitions raising this very important issue and thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) and other hon. Members across the House for being their voices in this debate and representing them powerfully and thoughtfully.

This Government have made it our mission to protect the most vulnerable in our society, including by tackling child sexual abuse. In our work we have listened to victims and survivors about their horrifying experiences—how they were let down by the state and betrayed by those whose job it was to protect them. These injustices were set out eloquently by hon. Members including my hon. Friends the Members for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford), for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) and for Keighley (Robbie Moore), the hon. Members for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin) and others. This should never have happened and must not happen again.

Political or cultural sensitivities must not deter national and local agencies from investigating and preventing these devastating crimes. Victims of sexual violence deserve justice regardless of the background, the status, the race or any other characteristic of the perpetrator. Abuse is abuse, and everyone is equal under the law.

That is why in May last year the Home Secretary committed to publishing a paper looking at the characteristics of group-based child sexual exploitation, which was published in December. I want to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich, however, that this paper is by no means the end of our work on this issue; more must be done by Government, law enforcement and partners to better safeguard children and tackle perpetrators of this form of abuse and the many other forms of child sexual abuse that exist both offline and online. That is why we published the tackling child sexual abuse strategy last month to work on all forms of CSA. The strategy sets out how we will work across Government—a point made powerfully by the hon. Member for Rotherham—as well as with law enforcement, safeguarding partners and industry to root out offending, to protect victims and to help them rebuild their lives. It builds on the action plan described by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). The paper on group-based sexual exploitation plays an important role in the strategy and its implementation now and in the future.

I will go into a little detail about how the paper was developed, its findings and how we plan to build on this work in the future. The paper was informed by an analysis of published academic research, official statistics and work published by organisations that work with child sexual exploitation victims and survivors. In addition, police officers and safeguarding officers across the country with experience in investigating this type of offending were interviewed. The paper reflects the insights drawn from across all this work.

This is a complex and deeply sensitive issue. To ensure that the paper was robust and scrutinised, we convened an external reference group consisting of independent experts on child sexual exploitation, who reviewed and informed this work throughout. The group included survivors, leading academics and highly experienced professionals from the criminal justice system and the children’s sector, as well as the hon. Member for Rotherham, who has done so much in this area, and my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Imran Ahmad Khan), who is similarly determined to shine a light on this offending. The insight and expertise that the group provided was invaluable, and I thank them all for their diligence and contributions.

Taking all this work together, we saw, for example, that offender networks are often loosely interconnected and based around existing social connections. This means that they are often broadly homogeneous in ethnic background, socioeconomic status and age. Contact with potential victims may take place in locations often visited by offenders and where safeguards around victims are lower. Hon. Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), have raised the frequency with which taxis and takeaway restaurants have featured in the highest-profile cases. Studies indicate that motivations differ between offenders, but that a sexual interest is children is not always the predominant motive. Financial gain and a desire for sexual gratification are common motives, and offenders commonly demonstrate attitudes of misogyny and disdain for women and girls, as raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock and the shadow Minister.

Ethnicity has been raised by several Members. The paper refers to a number of studies that have indicated an over-representation of Asian and black offenders in committing this type of offending. It is difficult to draw conclusions about the ethnicity of offenders as existing research is limited and data collection is poor. This is disappointing, and it is something that we are determined to address through the national strategy, because accurate data is clearly vital in developing the right response in local areas.

We have therefore made a number of commitments in the tackling child sexual abuse strategy. The Home Office will work with criminal justice partners, charities, frontline professionals and others on improving the range and quality of data collected, including on the ethnicity of offenders. We will then use this data to help protect children by preventing and detecting offending. Hon. Members have asked whether we can count the defendants who have already been convicted. Officials have looked at this, but because there is no specific category of group-based sexual abuse, such offences cannot be isolated. But, as I say, we want to correct that in the future.

We are investing in the police-led tackling organised exploitation project, which is piloting new ways of investigating organised forms of exploitation through the innovative use of data. We will publish a new and enhanced child exploitation disruption toolkit that promotes the use of the full range of powers available to agencies, such as civil orders, licensing powers and safeguarding interventions, so that they can stop offending with every tool at their disposal.

I listened with great interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), who supports the work of the Children’s Society. Although I cannot answer all her requests tonight, we will continue to invest in the Children’s Society’s prevention programme, which works with local agencies to prevent exploitation and abuse. Recent examples of the programme’s work include working with the police in Yorkshire to deliver training to taxi drivers, and working with delivery drivers and couriers to support them in identifying CSA in the context of the pandemic. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) knows, the Ministry of Justice is looking into the issues in the family courts that have arisen out of the expert panel on harm’s review—in particular, contact with parents.

The second petition calls for an independent inquiry. I will touch on that briefly, because I want to give time for my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich to respond to the debate. The Government share the public’s concerns about failures and the need to ensure that they are not repeated in the future. In 2015, the Government established the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. The inquiry concluded its public hearings in December, after taking evidence from more than 600 witnesses over four years. It held 323 days of public hearings across 15 investigations and has published 14 reports so far, with more than 50 recommendations to better protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation. We expect to receive the final report of the inquiry in 2022.

The inquiry is independent of Government and decides for itself what to investigate and how. It has investigated the nature and extent of, and institutional responses to, the sexual exploitation of children by organised networks, and the public hearing into that strand concluded in October last year. Evidence was heard from a range of witnesses, including victims and survivors of child sexual exploitation, as well as representatives of police forces, local authorities, Government Departments and charities. The inquiry will publish a report of the investigation in autumn this year, setting out its conclusions, and we welcome this scrutiny.

Finally, I would like to thank again the signatories of both petitions, as well as the victims and survivors around the country who find somehow the wherewithal to work with us and the police to help prevent these terrible crimes and support other victims. As has been so well articulated in the debate, these crimes affect not only the immediate victims of the abuse but entire communities. My hon. Friends the Members for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) and for Keighley set out some of the impacts in their constituencies and the damage that can be done to trust in the processes, systems and authorities that are there to protect people.

We are determined to ensure that Government, law enforcement and other partners better understand that any community and cultural factors relevant to tackling offending must not and cannot get in the way. As the Home Secretary said:

“What happened to these children remains one of the biggest stains on our country’s conscience.”

That is why we must do everything in our power to safeguard children from abuse, deliver justice for victims and survivors and restore the public’s confidence in the criminal justice system’s ability to confront these devastating crimes.

Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority: Annual Report and Accounts 2019-20

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

The 2019-20 annual report and accounts for the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) is being laid before the House today and published on www.gov.uk. Copies will be available in the Vote Office. I am pleased to note that the GLAA continued to make progress with its important work in 2019-20 with a 26% increase in GLAA-led investigations and nearly 1,000 gangmasters licensed.

[HCWS731]