Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Amendment) Bill

House of Commons, 4 March 2005.

Paul Beresford (Conservative, Mole Valley)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I start by thanking the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins) and his considerable team of officials, who will be seen filing in at any moment. Perhaps it is some credit to me that I have managed to take those who normally occupy about a quarter of a floor of the Home Office from their desks, especially at lunchtime.

The second reason to thank the Minister is that the long title would have to be adjusted if the Bill proceeded to Committee, as he pointed out. The long title refers to section 67 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000, which has been repealed. That section, which previously made provision for the risk assessment of sexual and violent offenders, is repealed by the Criminal Justice Act 2003, with effect from April 2004. There is now a matching provision, involving a slightly broader range of organisations, in section 325 of the 2003 Act.

I shall read out a statement from the Metropolitan police practitioners—the men and ladies who have to carry the task out—that is included in the Library's research paper:

"This is an extremely important tool that will allow police and partners to assess and manage effectively those people on the sex offenders' register.

The majority of offenders comply with the registration requirements in terms of notifying police of their address (97 per cent.). There are however no real means of confirming that they physically reside at the address given, or assessing whether they are involved in offender behaviour without using extremely intrusive and resource intensive methods. A visit to the address at a reasonable time will allow us to perform some of the functions already incumbent on us through existing legislation.

The power will also allow us to police restriction orders imposed by courts and prevent the current problem of offenders refusing to speak to police during their period of registration.

In the main this will not affect those offenders who recognise the risk that they pose or have posed to the public. It will however provide us with legislative support to manage those that currently pose a risk and do not wish to stop."

To be fair, there follows a quotation from the Association of Chief Police Officers, which I shall address and on which I am sure the Minister will rely in replying.

It is worth pointing out that this is a fairly grim subject—indeed, I have yet to come across a subject that has cleared the House quite so quickly. When court cases involving such events are reported in the papers, one can watch people reading turn the page quickly, because the issue is unpleasant and the criminals are not particularly delectable individuals. So I need to explain my thinking and background.

One of the advantages of being a Back Bencher is that one can go on various schemes. I went on the police and parliamentary scheme with the Met police. Much of what I saw was intellectually testing and fascinating. I spent one day, however, with the Met's paedophile unit. At that stage the gentleman in charge was Detective Chief Inspector Dave Marshall, who was followed by Detective Chief Inspector Matt Sarti, with whom I have worked since, as well as their equivalents in some other police forces, particularly Surrey police.

I was shocked at what I saw. The public have no understanding of the individuals with whom policemen and women are dealing or of what they do to children. I am not talking about a few individuals. The police conservatively estimated that there were 230,000 active paedophiles in this country two or three years ago. One only has to look at the information on news broadcasts today to recognise that that is probably an underestimate. Even at that level, however, it is equivalent to one paedophile for every street in this country.

The other staggering statistic that I picked up from the police and the research that I have done is that 10 to 20 per cent. of those individuals are women. According to one or two other sources, the proportion is perhaps even higher than that. Rose West is an obvious example, but there are many others.

It was with that in mind that I decided to try to help the police to do the job that we expect of them. I am not alone in that. A Conservative Government started the activity, which has been followed up by other Governments. There has been considerable co-operation, and a few hon. Members on both sides of the House keep pushing the issue so that we can give the police the opportunity to carry out their task.

We need to understand the background of the individuals involved. Apart from the monstrous depravity of their crimes, one of the fascinating and horrifying things about paedophiles—those who commit sexual offences against children—is that not only do they frequently have a single-minded drive to have sex with children, but they have a number of other characteristics, which in some ways is helpful to the police. First, they have a need to collect data and memorabilia associated with their activities. In the early days, that would have been photographs on a box Brownie or some old 8 mm films. They keep clothes, especially of their victims, and records—perhaps written or verbal on tapes—of their grooming activities. Many of them collect vast amounts of literature, some of which is inexplicable until we listen and talk to them. For example, many collect Mothercare catalogues.

The video age came along, so they joined that. With great glee, they swap, spread and record their physical activities on videos. Latterly, with the digital age, they have moved into photographs stored on computers, including digital storage in the form of CD-ROMs, DVDs and storage pens. Even more worrying is the recent trend to use the internet to store remotely.

Any of those listening to the news today would have picked up concerns about the internet in particular. It is a fantastic instrument, and I would be lost without it, but equally, it is utilised by paedophiles, partly for their own stimulation, partly for stimulating others, partly to reassure themselves that they are not alone, and partly to stimulate their feeling that what they are doing is right and the rest of us are wrong.

It is a regular occurrence for them to sell photographs and information over the internet. Everyone is increasingly aware of that. By sale, I do not necessarily mean a financial transaction, but an exchange of photographs. For them to join a gang or ring that is circulating photographs, frequently the requirement is to provide a new as yet unseen photograph, which means yet another child abused to provide that. One of the advantages from the police point of view is that some of those activities leave traces that can now be detected on computers. Data, either actual or otherwise, is available even if it is encrypted. That gives the police the opportunity to follow those individuals.

The second characteristic is that those monsters are not what many people think of as standard monsters. They are not old men in dirty macs. Many of them are extremely intelligent, and highly adept at grooming children, if not adults. Many of them, as part of their grooming of children, will keep toys, comics and sweets attractive to children. Those are significant details sitting in their homes for the police, if only they could get in.

Nowadays, much of the grooming takes place on the internet. When the police managed to get access, after conviction, to the computer of an individual who has recently been convicted and who I understand is now in jail, he was discovered to have been simultaneously grooming 58 British children with the ultimate intention of sexually abusing them.

The third characteristic worth mentioning is that almost without exception, paedophiles are the most adept liars. A senior defence barrister, whom I will not name, who was part of the team defending Rose West and has defended a number of paedophiles, said to me—I was surprised how vehemently upset she was—that paedophiles were the most untrustworthy, two-faced, lying, slippery individuals that she had ever had to deal with. She said that they made the worst fraudster whom she has ever had to defend look comparatively straight. That surprised me, because she was supposed to be on their side—at least in court.

The previous Conservative Government and this Government, aided and abetted by a number of Members on both sides of the House, have over the past few years greatly strengthened the law on sentencing paedophiles. Part 1 of the Sex Offenders Act 1997 imposed a requirement for convicted sexual offenders to notify the police of their names and addresses and any change of details, to ensure that the information on the sexual offenders list on the national computer was up to date.

The Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 amended the law in relation to sexual offenders by placing a duty on chief officers of police and probation officers to establish arrangements for assessing and managing the risks posed by sexual and violent offenders. That is key to what I am asking for today. When this subject comes up in the consideration of various Bills in Committee, there is very close agreement between the Opposition and the Government; there are fine points around the edges, and I guess that I am pushing one of those, but it was the Government's intention, as well as that of just about everybody else in the House, that there be an effective and consistent public protection arrangement in every police and probation area, following national guidance but implemented locally, to suit local conditions and needs. I have certainly found that arrangements throughout the country have varied. The problems that I am trying to address apply more to the Met than they do to, say, Surrey police, although they tell me that the difficulties that I am trying to address are beginning to arise there, too.

Linked to the police and the probation service are a number of statutory and voluntary agents that have a role to play. The Conservative Government recognised that many of the offenders, particularly predatory paedophiles, had a long history that clearly indicated their propensity to reoffend. That meant that if society, represented by the courts, was prepared to allow those individuals to be released, placing them on the sexual offenders list and putting on the police a duty to risk-assess would in effect be an extension of the original sentence.

The annual requirement that offenders should confirm the details with the police and that the police should be able to check from prints and take photographs at all notifications is important, but at the moment, that is done in person at the police station by the individual on the list. It is left to the police to check. The statement from ACPO that I mentioned says that some 97 per cent. of those on the list co-operate—but they co-operate to the limited degree required, which if they are difficult, does not allow for the police to risk-assess. That 97 per cent. is a proportion of the whole sex offenders list, and of course, not all the offenders on that list are paedophiles.

Paul Goggins (Labour, Wythenshawe and Sale East)

The hon. Gentleman is demonstrating two things: first, his considerable personal knowledge of the area, which I freely acknowledge and from which I have gained a great deal during the two years in which I have had my present responsibilities; and, secondly, the fact that there is little difference between the political parties in this respect. We seek consensus. He has mentioned the improvements made to the sex offender registration arrangements following the passage of the Sexual Offences Act 2003; he was a member of the Standing Committee on that legislation, as was I. I hope that he will tell the House how successful he thinks our attempts to improve the arrangements have been. They are far more stringent now.

Paul Beresford (Conservative, Mole Valley)

I thank the Minister—I think. A reputation for having considerable knowledge of paedophile activity is something I would rather keep behind closed doors. He is right to say that the Standing Committee as a whole felt that we were making progress. Today, however, I am pressing a point on which I think we need to go a little further. We have landed the police with a duty that is extremely difficult for them to undertake because many paedophiles are intelligent and have learned that they do not have to co-operate. I want them to co-operate, as do the police; it would save us all a lot of effort and a lot of taxpayers' money if they co-operated—if they could be made to co-operate—but to an increasing extent they do not.

One of the reasons why, in my tiny Bill, I am specifically targeting paedophiles on the list is their strong propensity to reoffend. Some—very few—can accept and receive treatment that, while it does not cure them, enables them to resist the tendencies that they have come to understand society as a whole will not accept. From talking with the police, I suspect, but cannot prove, that the vast majority of the 3 per cent. of offenders on the list who in 2003 were reported not to have co-operated were convicted of sexual offences against children.

In the Standing Committee on the Sexual Offences Bill, the Minister correctly identified the 3 per cent. figure and pointed out that the police have a general power to apply for a search warrant when investigating whether the requirements are being met. What makes the police deeply worried is that the 3 per cent. includes the offenders whom the police feel are most likely to reoffend and who appear to the police constructively to be blocking risk assessment. The Minister said that a search warrant could be sought, but he will recognise that the police need good grounds on which to base an application, and that suspicion alone is not enough to secure a warrant. The mere suspicion that an individual is not living at the address at which he is registered is not enough.

In Committee, the Minister said that the multi-agency protection arrangements would assist the police in carrying out the risk assessment. Sex offenders leaving prison are required to attend appointments with probation officers, but those appointments do not take place at the offender's home or registered address, and there is no opportunity for probation officers to check whether there are clear signs—there often are—that the offender is likely to reoffend.

Paul Goggins (Labour, Wythenshawe and Sale East)

It might help the House if the hon. Gentleman confirmed that the 3 per cent. who do not comply with the registration requirements are committing a criminal offence, which carries the considerable maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment. By not complying, the people about whom he and I are deeply concerned are committing an offence for which they can be investigated.

Paul Beresford (Conservative, Mole Valley)

I accept that, and I am using that 3 per cent. to demonstrate the difficulties that are on the record. There are a dozen or two dozen individuals who comply with the regulations, but it has proved impossible for the police to risk-assess them.

Discussing my Bill, the Library research document says:

"ACPO and the Home Office feel that these amendments are a step too far and there is a very real risk that this new power will make notification requirements onerous, that they may become disproportionate in the terms of article 8 of the Human Rights Act."

That astonished police on the ground who have to do this work—I am referring to officers of the rank of detective chief inspector downwards and, in the case of the Metropolitan police, commanders above that rank. It is a risk given my Antipodean background, but I will tone down their comments, which were unprintable, let alone suitable for the House. The general feeling was that the ACPO suggestion was made by a desk clerk who had never arrested anyone and had never worked in the field. It was thought that he had fed the information to a poor ACPO member who had to pass it on. The police wished that that individual would come and try to do the job that he was making more difficult for them.

Like ACPO, I believe that that article 8 of the notorious Human Rights Act 1998 results in a disproportionate imposition. The Minister would expect me to ask him to look at the legislation that is going through Parliament at the moment. There is an argument in the other place about the Prevention of Terrorism Bill, but the Lords are also considering the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill, which will permit investigation, perhaps detention, and entry into individuals' homes. If that Bill is enacted, a disclosure notice will give authorities the power to enter premises and seize documents relating to the investigation of drug trafficking, money laundering, intellectual property theft, pimps and brothels as well as tax and excise fraud offences. Third parties who may be quite innocent of links to the individuals under investigation will be forced to co-operate with the investigation, answer questions and provide papers. That will apply even if there is no likelihood or suspicion that the third party is involved in a crime or an alleged crime and is not under investigation.

The individuals I am targeting are convicted criminals—they are on the sexual offenders register because they have been convicted of an illegal act. They are, in effect, out on licence, and the police have a duty to risk-assess them, because we need to protect society, particularly children. The Metropolitan police, as I said, have given me a list of more than a dozen paedophiles who are on the register of sex offenders, and from whom they have failed to receive any co-operation.

Paul Goggins (Labour, Wythenshawe and Sale East)

rose—

Paul Beresford (Conservative, Mole Valley)

Before the Minister has another go at me, while those people are strictly within the law, the police find it impossible to risk-assess them.

Paul Goggins (Labour, Wythenshawe and Sale East)

It is kind of the hon. Gentleman to give way to me a third time. He is focusing on a couple of dozen individuals, and I am trying to clarify whether they are part of the 97 per cent. who are complying with the registration, but about whom the police have further suspicions, or part of the 3 per cent. who are not complying.

Paul Beresford (Conservative, Mole Valley)

Looking quickly at the summary that the police gave me, I judge that many of them would come within the 97 per cent. That is worrying, and I hope that the Minister is worried. However, I will check that information and write to him because it may help us when we debate the matter after the election. With the prospect of an election, I recognise that the Bill will not get far, but it is worthy of consideration.

The people whom the Bill targets are convicted criminals on licence whom the courts and the police believe to be a risk—sometimes a considerable risk. I shall refer briefly to two. The first is Mr. P, who was convicted some time ago of indecent assault on an eight-year-old boy—his stepson—and received a prison sentence. I will not go into the details of the assault, because they are grim. It is worth mentioning that it is not uncommon for predatory paedophiles to marry or become involved with single mothers, because they are interested not in the mother, but in the children. In an area such as London, which has so many blocks of flats, that is seriously worrying.

Mr. P is extremely aggressive towards the police. He refuses to open the door to them and responds through an intercom. The police believe that he has a live-in girlfriend and that she may have children there. He may also have links with other flats in the same block to which the police cannot get access. Whenever the police visit Mr. P, he, or his solicitor, writes a letter of complaint. The police visit him not just to check whether he is living at the stated address—when he responds, it is clear that he has an association with the address—but to carry out a risk assessment. He seems to comply with the letter of the law, apart from the risk assessment.

The second individual has been visited on a number of occasions and access to his address is generally not available because he has a locked internal door. Attempts to visit him have usually received little or no response, although persistent requests are made for appointments through correspondence and so on. When he is finally contacted at the address, or what he claims is his address, the police meet him at the front door and he will not let them past that front door, or a second locked door.

I could bore or horrify the House by going through the other dozen or so cases, but I will not, because the point has been made. What must be emphasised is that it is the risk assessment requirement and duty of the police that enables them to protect our children.

One advantage of my having been with the police during that short period and subsequently is that I now recognise the huge task facing them. The figure of 230,000 that I referred to comes from three or four years ago; it is not one of the figures in today's press releases. We must understand that the duty of the police is to protect children and to give them their human rights. That should be the drive of the House throughout, but particularly in the case of people whose abuse of children is horrific.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

The House owes a debt of gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), both for introducing this Bill and—as the Minister has already generously acknowledged—for the undoubted body of expertise that he has developed in this area. It is for most of us, certainly for me, an area of which we have a passing knowledge. However, much of what we read is in somewhat tetchy constituency correspondence or in the pages of tabloid newspapers, and that does not always make for the most rounded of debates. It is important for us to take issues that arouse anger and fear, and provoke the universal wish to protect children, and put them into a manageable and acceptable body of legislation. We should not respond to the demands of the moment, but try to produce something that works.

I have four brief comments on my hon. Friend's speech. First, I wish to thank him for the reasonable point that he made about risk assessment. I am comparatively unfamiliar with the legal machinery in that regard, although in my days on my party's home affairs team I recall subbing for a colleague on an order connected with the sexual offences legislation. I had assumed that the main function of the sex offenders register was the passive one of satisfying the general public that the police knew where offenders were. As the Minister will know, that answers to a widespread public demand. My hon. Friend has informed the House of a more active element to that risk management. If that is to take place in any reasonable way, it has to do so on the basis of facts. As he told the House, the majority of convicted offenders comply with the rules. That is reassuring, and I have no difficulty with the assurances given by the Minister and in the briefing that is available to Members on this Bill about tightening matters up. Nevertheless, in some situations—graphically described by my hon. Friend—sex offenders do the very minimum required under the law or flout the law in relation to allowing the police to carry out a risk assessment. That is unacceptable, because we are asking the police to do a job without giving them the tools to do it.

My second point relates to article 8 of the human rights convention. For the avoidance of doubt, I can tell the Minister that I am one of the founder members of the new Conservative human rights group. I am pleased that we have got round to setting that up, and it is a reflection partly of a growing interest in such matters on this side of the House, for reasons that I need not expand on, and partly of the need not to see such matters as subject to party political controversy, left or right. My membership is reinforced by the fact that one of my daughters works for the Government legal service as a specialist in human rights. If I feel the need to say that that is not a contradiction in terms, the Minister will understand why. Issues of human rights matter terribly to us, as they have mattered in this House for many centuries. We need to get the balance right, but we now have a conflict between, on the one hand, the evidence that my hon. Friend has brought to the House on the Met and, on the other, ACPO. I should point out that I know well the chief executive of ACPO, Chris Fox, because he was the chief constable in Northamptonshire before his welcome appointment to ACPO.

I shall not go into the genesis of ACPO's view, at which level the decision was taken and whether it was well advised. There is a clear clash of views. However, as my hon. Friend pointed out, the Government have taken other powers—for reasons that may or may not be defensible, but which we need not debate today—that are far more sweeping in their threat to the traditional liberties of the subject than the question of the right of access to the premises of convicted sex offenders who have registered their presence.

To the impressive list given by my hon. Friend, I add my personal experience, which I have shared with the House before. About six weeks ago, while driving my car, I was pulled over by a group of uniformed police officers who said that they were from the Ministry of Defence and wished to search my car under the provisions of the Terrorism Act 2000. They did so perfectly correctly and gave me a chit for doing so. There was no question of a prior moving traffic offence, suspicion or anything else. It was a peremptory challenge. If that is justified in relation to, I hope, an innocent citizen, equally the sort of intervention proposed in the Bill is as well.

It would be desirable, although it may or may not be possible in practice, on this occasion or perhaps at a later stage, for these issues to be examined again in Committee, and in detail, and for the difference between the Metropolitan police and ACPO to be bottomed out. We could then ascertain whether there were any other constraints in the interest of human rights that should be imposed within the proposals. For example, the use of the evidence obtained needs to be more tightly conditioned, that it should be for a limited period, or whatever. These are essentially Committee points.

If we ask the Met or any other police force to carry out this work, we need to give them the tools to do it in relation to risk assessment. There are occasions when it is proper—I use the word carefully—to derogate the human rights of the individual. We should never do that lightly. We should not do it beyond what is proportionate. It seems to me, however, that such an approach may be appropriate in this instance.

I conclude my remarks by setting out two other considerations. First, much of this, but not all of it, for the reasons that my hon. Friend and I have given, is about public reassurance. There is a feeling that someone is keeping tabs on these extremely undesirable, unpleasant and sometimes devious individuals. I think that that is what the general public want. They would take it ill if they were to become conscious—I do not say that this is the case, I am saying that if it became the case or, arguably, one or two causes célèbres might lead people to think that it was the case—that the sex offenders register was not working. As I have said, I am not suggesting that that is happening and I do not wish to alarm people. Clearly, it is no good—although it is a thing that successive Governments have done—just to do something and then say, "We have done it." The process must be continued to make sure that it remains viable and fit for purpose. My hon. Friend is entirely right in bringing forward the consideration.

There is another element that is the point on which I wish to close. There is no doubt that there is a strong sense of public anger and concern about paedophiles. That, in a sense, needs to be managed. The last thing that any of us in the Chamber would want is irregular action, vigilantes and violence—I record the point in the interest of their civil liberties, too—in relation to those whose convictions have been spent. Indeed, these people may even have undergone successful remedial treatment for their condition. We do not want such violence to arise.

I say to the Minister in all seriousness—I think that this is entirely consistent with the case put forward by my hon. Friend—that if public worry boils over, that will have consequences that we do not wish to see. It is extremely important, of course, that Ministers are cautious in assuming powers beyond those that they feel comfortable with or that they consider are justified, let alone powers that merely look good in a press release. However, it is essential that they have the powers that they need and that the sex offenders register can do the job that it is intended to do.

I believe that my hon. Friend, with his undoubted expertise, has made a constructive suggestion. It is worth consideration now, in Committee or on a subsequent occasion. I hope and feel that the Minister will not wish to dismiss it lightly.

Paul Goggins (Labour, Wythenshawe and Sale East)

I assure the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) that I would never dismiss this issue lightly, and I believe that the whole House shares a deep concern to ensure that our laws, and the practices of our law enforcement agencies and other agencies, are effective in this area.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford). He and I have had a number of discussions in this Chamber, in Committee and elsewhere on the issues that he raised today, and it is perhaps typical of him that, having won a prominent position in the ballot for private Members' business, he chose this subject above any other to bring to the attention of the House in an attempt, in his view, to strengthen the law, although I hope that in my remarks today he will be reassured that we believe that the law is sufficient to provide effective action against the concerns that he highlights. Of course, it is right that the House rigorously and regularly reviews legislation in this area.

As the hon. Gentleman explained, the Bill would provide the police with a specific new power to enter and search the homes of registered sex offenders who have been convicted of sexual offices against children under 16, and he specifically highlighted that that was the group on which he wanted to focus. I freely acknowledge that he has so focused the Bill.

The hon. Gentleman made a similar proposal during our consideration of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and, more recently, he tabled amendments to the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill. He is certainly a persistent offender in this House, and he continues to pursue these issues with great vigour. I fully appreciate that he has given considerable thought to these issues and gone to considerable lengths, not least outside the House, to listen to those who operate on the front line of public protection in this area, so that whenever he speaks it is with great authority. It is clear from the way in which he has drafted the Bill that he continues to review and refine his views in this area.

Paul Beresford (Conservative, Mole Valley)

I thank the Minister for his kind comments, which cause me to think that he intends to talk out the Bill by filling the last 33 minutes with sweetness and light. However, I understand that he accepts the difficulties, and for that I thank him. Let me help him a little to fill those remaining minutes by asking him to obtain some help from the many officials who have been dragooned into coming along on an alternative means of achieving the same objective. I mentioned the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill, drawing particular attention to the explanatory notes on clauses 57 to 60, which describe how the opportunity for regulation changes according to what is applied. If there are relatively few specific cases, it may be possible for that Bill, along with the regulations that will be introduced by secondary legislation, to be amended, allowing the objectives contained in my Bill to be quietly achieved but in a more closely targeted way. I wait for the scripts to come rushing across the Chamber.

Paul Goggins (Labour, Wythenshawe and Sale East)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for underlining the fact that I am well advised in this area by officials from the Home Office, who share his and my commitment to improving legislation and effective law enforcement in this area, and I know that he freely pays tribute to them.

I cannot give the hon. Gentleman too much satisfaction on his intervention, although his speech today caused me to redouble my commitment to home in on those few people who may be particularly difficult to police. If they are part of the 3 per cent., we know that the law enforcement agencies will be doing everything possible to make sure that they comply with the law, and that if they do not, that they face the penalties. If he is raising issues about a small number of people in the 97 per cent. who do comply with registration requirements, I will listen carefully to the law enforcement agencies and their concerns about that. I certainly commit myself and the Government to for ever being vigilant about those few people who might seek to manipulate and flout the requirements of the law in the way that he suggests, although I cannot give him any comfort in relation to legislation going through the House.

In the spirit of further warm words, let me tell the House that the hon. Gentleman has been a member of the taskforce on child protection on the internet. It has been my privilege to chair that taskforce during the almost two years that I have carried my current responsibilities. In addition to being an active member of that taskforce, he was personally involved in helping to frame the grooming offence that we were able to initiate through the Sexual Offences Act 2003. That was a major step forward, which is now enshrined in legislation. From 1 May last year, it has been a new offence for which people can be taken to court, convicted and face imprisonment for up to 10 years. It is perhaps rare in the House that Government are seen to be too meek and mild in this area. Our initial proposal for punishment for the grooming offence was up to seven years' imprisonment, but after urgings from all sides of the House in Committee and on the Floor, we increased that penalty to a maximum of 10 years and we felt on the whole that that reflected the seriousness of the new offence.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that it is a grim issue, but we cannot ignore it. It is an issue that we have to stare in the face and deal with, and I believe that, because of the work of the taskforce on child protection on the internet, we have become a world leader in being able to deal with it. Indeed, on 26 January 2005 the Virtual Global Taskforce was launched. This is a new form of global co-operation between law enforcement in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada and Australia, where law enforcement is beginning to work together on a global stage to ensure that those who seek abusive images of children, and to make direct contact with individual children through the internet, will be policed, found and brought to justice.

Through the work of a number of agencies, perhaps notably the Internet Watch Foundation, which has been established and funded by the industry as a mark of its sense of social responsibility and commitment to self-regulation in this area, we have been able since 1997 to reduce the percentage of websites based in this country that host abusive images of children from some 17 per cent. of sites to less than 1 per cent. That is a remarkable achievement in a relatively short time, and shows that, by working together with the industry, with law enforcement, with academics and with children's charities, we can really make a difference in this very difficult area.

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that not only did we give this matter consideration—at his prompting, of course—during the passage of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, but the issue of police powers in relation to the entry and search of registered sex offenders' homes was considered by the original review of the Sex Offenders Act 1997 in 2001, and that review concluded that such a power was not necessary. The Government continue to agree with that conclusion. These are not one-off, ad hoc assessments. The original review of the 1997 Act formed that conclusion. We reaffirmed that conclusion during the passage of the 2003 Act. We have continued to look, but our assessment remains the same—that the powers proposed by the hon. Gentleman in his Bill are not necessary, and we can be vigilant in our policing of this area without them.

I am simply not yet convinced that effective enforcement of the sex offenders register requires additional police powers over and above those already available. The hon. Gentleman paid tribute to the staff, particularly the front-line police officers, who have to deal with this area, especially those who staff the paedophile unit and those who have to investigate and police the use of the internet and the use of child pornography. That is a heinous area for any human being to have to work in, so I am sure that the whole House will want to record its deep gratitude to the staff who investigate such cases. The public do not have a full picture of such work or an understanding of it—perhaps that is a good thing, in many ways—but the police do a fine job in that area and I pay tribute to them.

The Association of Chief Police Officers continues to agree with our assessment that such a Bill is unnecessary. The hon. Gentleman suggested that there might be tension in the ranks between those who lead and those who do the hard slog on our streets and in our local communities. I have no doubt that the police will debate such tension among their own ranks. I am content with ACPO's strong and consistent advice that such legislation is unnecessary.

Let us be clear about what the Bill would achieve. It would introduce a police power that would apply to offenders who were subject to the notification requirements—registered sex offenders—and had received a conviction for a sexual offence against a child under 16. As I said earlier, I acknowledge that he is focusing on that specific group of offenders. Those offenders would have notified their address in compliance with the notification requirements and would be living in the community. The Bill thus does not address people who have not complied with the notification requirements.

All registered sex offenders must notify the police of their home address and inform them of any change to that. Such notification must now take place within three days under the more stringent regime introduced under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. The hon. Member for Daventry alluded to the fact that there is sometimes a misunderstanding about the registration requirements for sex offenders. They are not in themselves an extension of an offender's punishment. An offender who commits a sexual offence against a child or adult is punished for that in the courts. If people commit serious sexual crimes, they rightly spend a long time in prison. However, the registration does not form part of that punishment. It is an administrative procedure to help our law enforcement agencies to manage the risk that those individuals might pose. It is important to make that distinction, because unhelpful confusion can sometimes arise.

Paul Beresford (Conservative, Mole Valley)

I do not agree with the Minister. Individuals have to confirm their address at a police station, where they can be fingerprinted and photographed. However, the police often wish to check whether they are actually at that address, which is where the difficulty arises.

Paul Goggins (Labour, Wythenshawe and Sale East)

I shall address that matter later. People who are subject to multi-agency public protection arrangements, many of whom are registered sex offenders, are visited regularly by the police and the probation service because that is an aspect of the way in which the risk that they pose is managed. People who are on the sex offenders register are not ignored by our law enforcement agencies and others—quite the reverse is the case. The hon. Gentleman presses us to give the police the power, as part of their normal procedures, to enter the home of every single person who is subject to the registration requirements, but that would be a step too far. If there are grounds to believe that a person has committed further offences or that a person who should have registered has not done so, the police have sufficient powers to act. Making powers available to the police regarding those who are complying with the requirements and committing no further offences is a step too far.

In addition to the requirement for offenders to register or change their address within three days, they must notify the police of any address at which they spend seven days or more in any 12-month period, if the police had not already been notified of that address. The seven-day period does not have to be consecutive; for example, if an offender spent every Saturday night at their parents' home they would have to notify that address. They might do that only once a week, but if it was 52 times a year it would exceed seven nights away, so they would have to notify the address to the police. There is a requirement to register not only their home address but any address at which they spend a significant period.

Under the Bill, a police officer could enter any such notified address—not only the home address but other addresses that might have been notified because the individual was spending more than seven nights there. The police officer could enter any of the notified addresses to ascertain whether the sex offender was there and could search the premises for information to assist the police, probation and prison services in managing the offender. The proposed section 129B makes it an offence with a maximum punishment of five years' imprisonment for the sex offender to obstruct the police officer in the exercise of those powers.

There are two difficulties with that proposal. First, it would not be an offence under the Bill for another person to obstruct the police officer in the exercise of those powers. Obviously, if the Bill were to go into Committee, we could begin to get our heads around that type of detail. We shall have to see whether we get that far. Such details are important, however, because we need to get our legislation right.

Secondly, it is likely that the offence of obstructing a police officer in section 89(2) of the Police Act 1996 would apply in such circumstances. For example, if a police officer needed to enter premises because he or she had grounds to believe that a registered sex offender was committing further offences or that somebody who should have registered had not done so, the officer would, quite properly, have the right to enter the property to investigate. If they were blocked in so doing, that would be an offence punishable under section 89(2). However, it would carry only up to one month's imprisonment or a level 3 fine, so there is a disconnection in the severity of punishment for the offence proposed by the hon. Gentleman and the existing offence of obstructing the police in the course of their duties. Those are two practical difficulties with the Bill as it stands, although I know that he would be generous enough to reflect further on them if we reached the point where we could discuss them in more detail.

The Bill would give the police powers to enter and search any premises in England or Wales, with no need for even the slightest suspicion that the notification requirements had been breached, that any offence, sexual or otherwise, had actually been committed or that there was any risk to the public. The provisions would apply for any address that had been notified by a child sex offender. That gives rise to the issue of disproportionality.

I was extremely interested to hear the hon. Member for Daventry announce to the House the creation of a new group in the Conservative party committed to the importance of human rights. He mentioned article 8. There was a challenge under article 8 to the effect that the sex offender registration requirements were disproportionate. However, when the case was brought and the test was made, the court agreed that the registration requirements were in fact proportionate to the type of risks that people pose. The Bill would, if successful, be subject to further challenge. It is arguable that it would add a disproportionate burden, in that people who might indeed have committed a serious offence but who were complying with the requirement to register, not committing further offences and trying to put their offence behind them and be law-abiding citizens, would still be subject to invasion of their home and private space, warranted only by the fact that they had been required to sign the register and give their details to the police. I am not saying that the hon. Gentleman's proposals would definitely lead to disproportionality, but we would run the risk of a claim to that effect.

Taking all those issues into consideration, the question that the House needs to ask, and indeed to answer, is not whether the hon. Gentleman is well intentioned—there is no question but that he is; he continues to pursue these issues with great knowledge and vigour—but whether his new powers would be justified and proportionate in every case. It is arguable that they would be disproportionate and might expose us to further challenge that undermined the registration system, which is working very effectively at the moment. As the hon. Gentleman said himself, we have around 97 per cent. compliance with the registration requirements. If we compare that with some of the states in the United States of America, the difference is compelling. In some states, registration is as low as 30 per cent.—more than two thirds of their registrable sex offenders do not comply with the registration requirements. It is very important to get the balance right, and with 97 per cent. compliance I would argue that we have.

Paul Beresford (Conservative, Mole Valley)

Does the Minister agree that part of the reason for the high compliance with registration requirements in this country is that we do not have what is commonly called Megan's law, and that if there is any incentive for an offender not to put their name on the list, or to disappear once on the list, it is a law like that?

Paul Goggins (Labour, Wythenshawe and Sale East)

The hon. Gentleman is right, and I commend him for making that point. My concern centres on the risk of being disproportionate. For example, if a compliant offender who seeks to put the past behind them feels that none the less the police will be knocking on their door to come into their home to interrogate them—in other words, not letting them put the past behind them—they may think at the outset, "The police are going to believe that I am an offender and cannot change, so what's the point in complying?" A compliance rate of 97 per cent. gives us something to be proud of and to build on.

Paul Beresford (Conservative, Mole Valley)

The Met police say that, in cases of clear compliance, they can make one check and then leave the person alone, but in the few cases where they have deep concern, they will need to check again, sometimes regularly.

Paul Goggins (Labour, Wythenshawe and Sale East)

I have already told the hon. Gentleman that I will pay close attention to his remarks about the two dozen or so people whom officers in the Met police suspect are complying on the face of it but not in reality. In the case of the compliant 97 per cent., the police are not required to go to check the offender—the offender is required to go to the police. It is no longer enough for them to write a little note saying, "My name is Joe Bloggs and I live at 3 Smith street"—registration now involves a photograph, fingerprinting, and much closer scrutiny of the individual. There are clear requirements on people immediately to tell the police if they move house or reside, even occasionally, at another address. If they intend to travel outside this country for a period of three days or more, they must tell the police seven days beforehand. Wherever they are going, they have to ensure that the police know about it.

Taking all those issues into consideration, we believe that the current system works, encourages close compliance, and is proportionate, and that it is therefore not challengeable under article 8.

Sexual offending against children is an absolutely despicable crime. Hon. Members on both sides continue to make that absolutely clear as we join together in various ways to try to combat it. We all want a rigorous response to such crimes. We have made considerable changes in recent years to protect children and, indeed, all members of society from the risk that sex offenders pose. The hon. Member for Mole Valley himself has played a commendable and considerable role in many developments.

In April, we will introduce a new sentence, arising from the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Where somebody has committed a serious sexual offence and has a history of that, or of violence, it will be open to the court to pass an indeterminate sentence for public protection, where a life sentence is not available. The individual will serve a certain tariff—perhaps seven or eight years—but will not be released until the parole board considers it safe for them to be released back into the community. Those sex offenders who currently receive determinate prison sentences and whom, in the end, we have to release even though we know that they still pose a danger to families and children in our communities will no longer have to be released until it is absolutely safe for us to do so. That is a huge strengthening of the law and of public protection, which I hope commands support on both sides of the House.

The hon. Gentleman was a member of the Standing Committee that considered the Sexual Offences Act 2003, in which we toughened the law in relation to rape and a number of other sexual crimes in order to make it absolutely clear that those who commit those types of offence will face ever increasing penalties as part of their rightful punishment for the wrong that they have done and to strengthen public protection arrangements. In that way, potential future victims will not become victims.

The multi-agency public protection arrangements that we have in place in the United Kingdom are a huge step forward from anything we ever had before. The police, the probation service and the prison service are the three leading agents within the development of multi-agency public protection arrangements at local level, and local authorities, housing providers, health authorities and trusts have a duty to co-operate with those arrangements. We can tightly manage all who pose a significant risk in our community so that we can protect our children and other vulnerable people.

The 2003 Act made considerable changes to the sex offenders register. For example, we reduced the time within which offenders must notify changes to their home address and other registered details. We provided that all notifications have to be made in person at police stations where the police can take fingerprints and photographs. We provided that every registered sex offender has to attend at least once every 12 months at a police station. Those are much more stringent requirements for sex offender registration than applied before.

Failure to comply with those requirements—this is an important point, and the hon. Gentleman and I discussed it briefly in an earlier exchange—is a criminal offence under section 91 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and under section 17(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Under those provisions, a constable already has a general power to enter any premises for the purposes of arresting a sex offender for such an offence. In other words, where a sex offender is contravening the registration requirements, a police constable already has the power to enter at that person's address to conduct an investigation and to arrest the individual if they believe that there are reasonable grounds for believing that any offence has been committed, as well as the offence of failing to register. I believe that for the group about whom we are most concerned—the 3 per cent. who are not compliant—there are already grounds to take considerable action. The penalty of up to five years' imprisonment is fitting and severe enough to send out the clear warning that those who do not comply will pay a considerable price for not doing so. Let us be clear: registered sex offenders commit a criminal offence if they do not comply with the notification requirements. Routine police powers of entry and search apply if there are reasonable suspicions that such an offence has been committed.

This amendment to the law would provide an additional power to enter and search premises when there is no suspicion that an offender poses any risk or that an offence has been committed. As I have said, I do not believe that that is justified. It is open to challenge as disproportionate. Those offenders who have committed an offence serious enough to warrant registration—and any sexual offence is a serious matter—and who are attempting to construct a new life and to put the offence behind them should not be subject to further intrusion when they are trying to move forward and there are no grounds to believe that any further offences have been committed.

I assure the House that we are always exploring new ways of managing the risks posed by serious sex offenders. I have already mentioned that we have taken through the multi-agency public protection arrangements to put them on to a statutory footing. Every year, each of the 42 MAPPA areas must produce a public report specifying the numbers of offenders for whom it is responsible and the ways in which local agencies are working together to manage the risk that those individuals pose and to make sure that those risks are reduced so that we avoid future and unnecessary victims of crime.

The hon. Member for Daventry was absolutely right.

David Ruffley (Conservative, Bury St Edmunds)

He normally is.

Paul Goggins (Labour, Wythenshawe and Sale East)

Indeed, I have found that to be the case on many occasions. Not only is this a question of public protection—we all support that—but it is also a matter of public confidence so that individuals and groups of people do not feel it necessary to set themselves up as vigilantes and try to take power into their own hands. They can have confidence that the authorities and agencies working together will manage the risk and deal with people appropriately. It is therefore a question of public confidence so that we avoid the behaviour of unruly elements that we have seen from time to time and which does no credit to the individuals involved.

I understand the points that the hon. Member for Mole Valley has made, and I understand the frustration of some police and probation officers who find that a particular offender refuses to communicate or allow his property to be entered. The police and probation service visit all registered sex offenders on a regular basis and the majority of them comply with the visits. I am not convinced that there is a problem of non-compliance that has to be addressed by any new police powers.

We should remember that there are other ways by which we can improve the management of the offenders, and we are constantly looking at new possibilities. For example, we are developing a new database, ViSOR—the violent offender and sex offender register—and the hon. Gentleman will know about that. It is a shared database between the police, the probation service and, in time, the Prison Service whereby the characteristics of an individual—photographs, other distinguishing features and so on—will be shared on a database that is accessible to all those agencies. That will help us effectively to manage those violent or sex offenders who would otherwise pose dangers.

We are also exploring how polygraphy may be able to help us. Indeed, there are provisions in the Management of Offenders and Sentencing Bill, which was published a short time ago, to allow us to have a compulsory element in a pilot project that is enabling us to see how well we can use polygraphy as another method of helping to manage sex offenders after they have been released from prison.

We are also looking at how we can develop satellite tracking. In Greater Manchester—I represent the constituency of Wythenshawe and Sale, East—we are undertaking a satellite tracking pilot scheme, whereby sex offenders can be followed. We know where they have been and what their movements are—again, another piece of active support for our agencies, so that we can keep tabs on offenders and ensure that they do not pose a substantial risk to the communities in which they live.

Compliance with the notification requirements is, as we have said throughout the debate, very high—

It being half-past Two o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed on Friday 18 March.