Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

Public Bill Committee, 15 January 2015.

Clause 50 - Injunctions to prevent gang-related violence and drug-dealing activity

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I beg to move amendment 37, in clause 50, page 43, line 35, leave out “on the balance of probabilities” and insert “beyond reasonable doubt”.

Katy Clark (Labour, North Ayrshire and Arran)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 38, in clause 50, page 44, line 5, leave out “doing anything described in the injunction” and insert “engaging in, or encouraging or assisting, gang-related violence or gang-related drug-dealing activity;”.

Amendment 39, in clause 50, page 44, line 7, leave out “described in the injunction” and insert “which will protect the respondent from gang-related violence or gang-related drug dealing activity”.

New clause 20—Dissuasion Panels to prevent gang-related violence and drug-dealing activity—

‘(1) The Secretary of State may, by orders, establish Dissuasion Panels in a Police Force area.

(2) A police officer may refer a person aged 14 or over to a Dissuasion Panel under this section if the following three conditions are met.

(3) The first condition is that the officer is satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the person has engaged in or has encouraged or assisted—

(a) gang-related violence; or

(b) gang-related drug-dealing activity.

(4) The second condition is that the officer thinks it is necessary to make the referral for any of the following purposes—

(a) to prevent the person from engaging in, or encouraging or assisting, gang-related violence or gang-related drug-dealing activity;

(b) to protect the person from gang-related violence or gang-related drug-dealing activity.

(5) The third condition is that the conduct that the person has engaged in or has encouraged or assisted—

(a) would not be eligible for criminal prosecution where the police officer believes that a custodial sentence of more than six months would be the most likely outcome of any such criminal prosecution; or

(b) is an offence listed in orders by the Secretary of State.

(6) A Dissuasion Panel must be comprised of at least three people from the following backgrounds, with preference given to persons or professionals with prior knowledge of the individual—

(a) medical, including mental health;

(b) social work;

(c) legal;

(d) any other person or profession that the court believes will be useful and as it directs.

(7) The Dissuasion Panel will—

(a) assess the individual’s personal circumstances,

(b) consider whether these have impacted on the activities at subsection (2), and,

(c) determine whether interventions are needed to—

(i) prevent the person from engaging in, or encouraging or assisting, gang-related violence or gang-related drug-dealing activity;

(ii) protect the person from gang-related violence or gang-related drug-dealing activity.

(8) Following assessment of a person by a Dissuasion Panel under this section, the Panel may—

(a) make no further intervention; or

(b) require the respondent to do something which they reasonably believe will—

(i) prevent the person from engaging in, or encouraging or assisting, gang-related violence or gang-related drug dealing activity;

(ii) protect the person from gang-related violence or gang-related drug-dealing activity.

(9) Requirements may include, but are not limited to—

(a) treatment for those who are drug dependent;

(b) counselling;

(c) education;

(d) training;

(e) reporting to the Panel for review.

(10) If the person does not agree to the proposed requirements they will be referred to court for alternative action under section 34 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009, as introduced by section 47 of the Serious Crime Act 2014.

(11) At any review by the Dissuasion Panel, the Panel may—

(a) permit the contract to continue with its current terms;

(b) vary the contract by—

(i) adding a requirement;

(ii) removing an existing requirement;

(iii) amending an existing requirement;

(c) cancel the contract and refer the person to court for alternative action under section 34 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009, as introduced by section 47 of the Serious Crime Act 2014.

(12) If the person breaches the contract, he or she will initially be referred back to the Dissuasion Panel who may—

(a) permit the contract to continue with its current terms;

(b) vary the contract by—

(i) adding a requirement;

(ii) removing an existing requirement;

(iii) amending an existing requirement;

(c) cancel the contract and refer the individual to court for alternative action under section 34 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009 as introduced by section 47 of the Serious Crime Act 2014.

(13) For the purposes of this section, something is “gang-related” if it occurs in the course of, or is otherwise related to, the activities of a group that—

(a) consists of at least three people, and

(b) has one or more characteristics that enable its members to be identified by others as a group.

(14) In this section “violence” includes a threat of violence.

(15) In this Part “drug-dealing activity” means the unlawful production, supply, importation or exportation of a controlled drug.

(16) “Production”, “supply” and “controlled drug” have the meanings given by section 37(1) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.’

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

It is a great pleasure to serve under your able chairmanship, Ms Clark.

The amendments aim to strengthen the clause, which introduces changes to the circumstances in which injunctions can be handed out to prevent gang-related violence. No one would object to that particular aspect. However, the new provisions make it clear that such injunctions can be given to offenders as young as 14 years of age; no age specification existed previously. The new provisions also allow courts to impose an injunction on individuals if they consider that the individuals involved have engaged in drug-dealing activity.

The amendments were first discussed in the other place—they were tabled by Baroness Meacher—but they were never pressed to a Division. They were originally tabled as supplementary amendments to a new clause that she hoped to add to the Bill. I have retabled the amendments, as I believe that they would improve the clause immensely.

Amendment 37 would increase the burden of proof on authorities so that they must be satisfied “beyond reasonable doubt”—the criminal burden of proof—that the respondent, or the youngster, has engaged in gang-related violence or drug-dealing activity. That would be in place of the weaker standard, “on the balance of probabilities”—the civil burden of proof. I am aware that the latter wording is in part 4 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009, but I maintain that it should be changed. When all is said and done, a young person can be criminalised by a single police officer deciding on the balance of probability—the civil burden of proof—that some criminal activity is being engaged in or might be engaged in, and an injunction could last a very long time.

I will give an example. I am indebted to Frances Crook of the Howard League for Penal Reform, and I declare an interest as a subscriber to that organisation. The example concerns a young person who was handed an injunction. I quote Frances Crook:

“Sam was 20 when he contacted one of our solicitors. He had never been convicted of a gang related offence. He had been shot. The police imposed an interim gang-injunction on Sam without warning and without representation, claiming it was a ‘protective measure’. The sheer scope of the restrictions on his life were astonishing: he could not enter his home town—meaning he was effectively made homeless as he lived with his Mum there; he could not see, contact or even ring his partner, so he couldn’t see his son unless the child was in the care of someone else; and he was banned from contacting the majority of his friends. During this time Sam had the constant threat that even though he had done nothing wrong, if he breached any of these requirements he could be sent to prison.

“As the police can impose interim gang injunctions without the authority of the court, it was a year before it was finally decided that the interim injunction on Sam was not appropriate or lawful. This was a year of a young man’s life.”

Perhaps more importantly, it was a year of his son’s and his family’s life. That is just one example.

I stress that I am not anti-police. I come from a police family and I am the first to defend police officers at any time. I know that the vast majority—99%-plus—do a very good job on our behalf. Thank heaven they do. However, I am concerned about the way in which this injunction is proposed. There is a danger that the clause could spell stop-and-search all over again, with all the same ill effects as we saw with that tool. There is also a danger that these injunctions would be used disproportionately against young black men, as gangs tend to be more common in black communities, although they are not exclusive to them, I hasten to add.

That is especially problematic considering that the new provisions are open to the authorities in cases in which drug-related activity is suspected. I firmly believe that offenders who become mixed up in the drugs world should be signposted to intervention and treatment wherever possible. That is particularly true of young people. I recognise that the clause specifies that the measure relates to drug-dealing activity, but in many cases individuals will be dependent on drugs themselves. I agree with Baroness Meacher and other members of the other place, including Lord Howarth of Newport, who, during a debate there, argued:

“It is better with these young people to treat their predicament not as a criminal but as a health issue.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 8 July 2014; Vol. 755, c. 161.]

On that point, I am concerned that clause 50 will create a criminal offence by the back door. I dare say that that is not intended, but I think that that is a consequence. Individuals will be required to go to court, where the injunction will be issued, however many months or even a year later. Breaching an injunction will always result in contempt of court, resulting in a high risk of imprisonment. I do not believe that that is always the correct way to tackle gang-related activity, particularly when the individual can be as young as 14. I repeat that these provisions may well have a disproportionate effect on young black men.

I make this point in passing. The Select Committee on Justice, of which I am a member, recently looked at joint enterprise. We found stark evidence that too often police decide to throw a net over everyone on a street corner regardless. People are then charged with offences merely because they were standing there and were perceived to have had some knowledge of what was going on. That is equally true in relation to this set of injunctions. We can imagine 14-year-olds standing on a street corner. Perhaps one of them has drugs in his or her possession or is even dealing to another, and then it is imputed to everyone that they have some knowledge of what is going on.

That is unfair, risky and disproportionate, because there are already a number of criminal offences on the statute book that can be used for gang-related violence and drug dealing. There is also the common-law offence of conspiracy. If individuals have taken part in a criminal activity, there are sanctions that can be brought against them.

I believe that, if courts are given the power to use these provisions, we will be standing on the edge of a rather slippery slope. Again, we are legislating in haste. We do that whenever there is a perceived problem. I am not making a political point against any particular Government, but there is a tendency to rush to legislation, especially in the criminal field. The number of criminal Bills that we have had in the last 15 years is phenomenal. These offences are coming out almost monthly.

Andy McDonald (Labour, Middlesbrough)

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we seem to be running the risk of criminalising young people unnecessarily, which will add to our ever-rising prison population, especially among the age groups and ethnicities to which he is referring?

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. As a member of the Justice Committee, he has studied these things closely and he has expertise in these matters. I am very concerned about criminalising young people early in their lives and especially on such specious terms as we are talking about with this set of injunctions.

Two years ago, I was in Italy and I saw the youth courts at work there. In statute in Italy, a young person has one chance. In other words, a young person is allowed to make one mistake without being criminalised. That is a useful way of dealing with things. All the authorities come together. The matter is dealt with without imposing a criminal sanction. I think that is not an unhappy situation to be in, and I commend to the members of the Committee the way in which youth courts work in Italy. I know there is a more benign way of dealing with things in Scotland, as well.

Coming back to where we are now, I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. We are in danger of criminalising youngsters and creating a more disjointed society. We already complain that youngsters do not take part in the political process. Sometimes they find it difficult to get jobs, and so on. The measure before the Committee is not going to help with those and many other things.

For related reasons, amendments 38 and 39 are an attempt to curtail the powers that the authorities can have by way of the injunctions. I do not see any reason why the injunctions should relate to anything other than

“engaging in, or encouraging or assisting, gang-related violence or gang-related drug-dealing activity”.

If that is what they are for, that is what they should relate to—and nothing else.

I have tabled the amendments as probing amendments. The Government should carefully consider the impact that such injunctions have on young offenders—on people who have been made young offenders—and whether other interventions could be more beneficial in the end and less harmful to such individuals’ lives.

I recognise the need for some form of injunction, and that there is a problem in many areas, but we must be careful not to rush in with suggestions that might create further problems. I also recognise that, under the guidance issued when gang injunctions were implemented in 2011, the body proposing to apply for an injunction has a duty to consult the youth offending team. However, I have doubts about whether the injunctions are the right instrument in the first place.

I referred earlier to the Howard League for Penal Reform and to Frances Crook. The Howard League is of the opinion, in any event, that imposing the injunctions on children as young as 14 could well be a breach of article 15 of the UN convention on the rights of the child.

It is a serious matter, and I know that the Solicitor-General will deal with it in a serious manner—I know him well and have great respect for him—but I make my comments because I sincerely feel that there should be a proper debate about the injunctions. Otherwise we might rush headlong towards answers that we think will fit the bill, but which in the cold light of day might well not, and might indeed be detrimental.

Steve Reed (Labour, Croydon North)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Clark. Thank you for your helpful advice on procedure before the sitting. I am still relatively new to such affairs.

New clause 20 introduces the option of referring a person who has been involved in low-level gang violence or drug dealing to a panel that would help them to turn away from gang life before their offending escalated to more serious levels. A similar proposal was made by Baroness Meacher in another place.

The Government’s response was that gang injunctions are enough on their own, but they are not. A gang injunction, even as amended, is not clear enough about placing an offender on a programme designed to stop them reoffending and to get their life back on track. Given that 70% of young offenders reoffend within 12 months, we desperately need a new approach. The new clause has the potential not only to save people from becoming victims of crime, but to save public money.

Gang injunctions are a useful tool in tackling gang violence. They were introduced by the previous Government in the Policing and Crime Act 2009 and we welcome the provisions in the Bill to strengthen their use. Early intervention and community dissuasion are powerful tools in preventing gang involvement by young people. They have proved their worth in other countries—notably in parts of the United States. Communities in the UK should have the same options available to them.

There is growing understanding of why a tiny minority of young people get involved with violent gangs. I was leader of Lambeth council—just across the river—before being elected to Parliament. The council asked Professor John Pitts, who is a recognised expert on youth gangs, to undertake research into the issue. It was important to gain a better understanding of it, because three young people in the borough had been killed over a six-month period as a result of youth gang violence. Professor Pitts made the insightful observation that, for some young people, joining a gang was, perversely, a rational choice, because better and safer options were not as easily available to them. That is a counter-intuitive thing to say, but I will try to explain.

The Myatts Field estate is about two miles from where we are holding this debate. A large percentage of the young people living on that estate, and on others like it, are members of gangs. Those gangs get involved in drug dealing, fighting and street robberies, and they have been known, far too frequently, to use guns and knives against each other and against innocent bystanders.

I was interviewed by the BBC about gang crime on that estate. That same day, a few hours later, two boys—members of a gang—chased another boy across the estate and plunged a bread knife through his heart, killing him there and then. On another occasion, on a different estate, in Brixton, two teenage boys cornered another boy in a cul-de-sac and ferociously stabbed him to death as he struggled in desperation to clamber over the garden fence of a nearby property. He had no involvement in gangs; his killers had mistaken him for a member of a rival gang. I met the devastated parents, who were left to mourn the loss of their son and of his bright future.

Those killers deserved the harsh punishment they received, but what more should and can we do to stop young people growing up thinking that it is acceptable to commit such horrific acts of violence? Mercifully, knife crime is falling, but gang violence is still far too prevalent in some neighbourhoods across our country.

Communities such as the ones I have described are very poor. On the two estates I mentioned, upwards of 70% of households live in poverty on benefits, most children grow up in single-parent households, knowing almost no adults in secure or long-term employment. Those parents who have jobs often have to work long hours for low pay, and they are left with precious little time to safely parent their children. Many had children while they themselves were no more than teenagers, and they often had little personal experience of good parenting to fall back on or to learn from.

Too often, the only people youngsters growing up in such circumstances see making any money are gang leaders. In that terrible context, it is far too easy for an impressionable young person to aspire to the wrong things. Professor Pitts pointed out that for a young person growing up in such a community, where the majority of other young people are members of one violent gang or another, their choices are to join gang A and gain some protection from gang B, to join gang B and gain some protection from gang A, or to join neither and be subject to assault and attack by both. The tragedy is that the rational choice for that young person is to join one of the gangs to gain some degree of safety. Their choice may be driven by fear, by a failure to recognise positive alternatives or even, to some extent, by a desire to be involved and included by their peers. Many young people in that situation, especially if they lack the structure of a secure family at home, have even been known to refer to the gang as their family.

Once in a gang, the young person is slowly encouraged to commit, or even coerced into committing, more and more serious offences. They are on a crime escalator, and as they get involved in more serious offending, they leave a growing trail of victims in their wake. We have to give these young people better options.

The Howard League for Penal Reform published research in 2011 showing that 71% of violent young offenders have been involved with, or in the care of, social services. One in four were the victim of violence at home. One in 20 of both sexes were sexually abused. A 2013 study led by Queen Mary university of London provided, for the first time, shocking evidence of the prominence of mental health problems among gang members. It surveyed 108 gang members and found that 85% had an antisocial personality disorder, a third had attempted suicide, a quarter screened positive for psychosis, more than half were drug-dependent, two thirds were alcohol-dependent and more than half suffered from anxiety.

Those figures confirm what MAC-UK, a charity working with gang members, and the Centre for Mental Health both told the Home Affairs Committee inquiry on gangs. Mental health issues are a significant cause of extremely aggressive behaviour, and yet most of the children affected by those issues do not receive the help they need.

The Committee may also be aware of the work done by charities such as Redthread, which places youth workers in hospitals to act as a single point of contact for young people looking for a way out of gang life when they end up in hospital as a result of violence. These single contacts are crucial for signposting support, which is often provided by multiple agencies. The system is fragmented, but a single point of contact allows for a relationship to be built between the individual and the community supporting them, and increases the likelihood that the individual will see their course of treatment or counselling through to completion.

Dissuasion panels, which are also being proposed, would operate on a similar principle of making help and support available through a single point of contact, with the purpose of preventing reoffending and, by doing so, preventing other innocent people from becoming victims of crime. Where a police officer sees fit—and it would be entirely the decision of front-line officers who know their community best—a person over the age of 14 may be referred to a panel made up of

“professionals with prior knowledge of the individual”.

These professionals would include people in the following fields:

“(a) medical, including mental health;

(b) social work;

(c) legal”,

and

“(d) any other person or profession that the court believes will be useful”.

I emphasise the importance of including someone whose authority the individual respects or trusts. It is important that the individual sees this process as something that is done with them, not to them, if they are to accept and understand the need to change their behaviour. The panel would then assess the individual’s circumstances and decide on a course of action that is designed to keep them out of gang life and gang-related crime. This may include treatment for drug dependency, counselling, education or training.

This proposal is not a soft option and the proposed new power would not be without teeth. There are important provisions in the proposed new clause to ensure that dissuasion panels would be used alongside gang injunctions and other custodial measures where necessary, rather than replacing them. Failure to attend the panel or to agree to its requirements would lead to the individual being sent back to court for alternative action, including being locked up.

There are also conditions that must be met to ensure that referrals to panels are not used for the most serious violent crimes. Referrals would not be available to individuals who would otherwise face a custodial sentence of more than six months, ruling out their use for crimes where it is in the public interest to prosecute. The Home Secretary would also have the power to decide for which offences referrals to panels could and could not be used, the most obvious example of the latter being violent crimes that cause serious injury.

The proposed new clause also states:

“The Secretary of State may, by orders, establish Dissuasion Panels in a Police Force area.”

That would give the Home Office the power to set up a pilot to test how the panels would operate in practice alongside other measures such as the strengthened gang injunction. The intention is to persuade those on the fringes of gang life to turn away from a life of violent crime and drug use before it is too late.

The principle underpinning the proposed new clause is that prevention is always the best approach to cutting crime. There is a clear public interest here—both making the streets safer and saving money. Seven in 10 young offenders reoffend within 12 months. Cutting youth reoffending rates by just 10% would save £1 billion of public money annually. Preventing a single murder, leaving aside the life that would be saved, would save on average £1.7 million.

Early intervention, delivered through a dissuasion panel, could prevent at-risk young people from troubled backgrounds from being drawn further into the world of violent crime and prevent innocent people from ever becoming their victims.

The Government have taken bold and positive steps forward with their work on troubled families. This proposal is in the same vein. I hope the Minister will recognise the important opportunity it represents, and will at the very least consider running a pilot.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

The shadow Minister is absolutely right to say that prevention is the best way of dealing with crime, rather than picking up the pieces afterwards. I am also interested in his dissuasion panels proposal. Would he be interested in considering the dissuasion commissions that, as the Minister with responsibility for drugs, I proposed as a way of dealing with drug use? They would work along the same lines as his panels.

Although I support the Government’s provisions on injunctions, it is also important to recognise the work it has done and continues to do to provide alternatives. It is important that we continue that work. The shadow Minister mentioned Redthread; one of the last things that I did as a Minister was to increase funding for Redthread, as the Home Office recognised that it performs a valuable function in getting to injured young people in hospital, at the point when they are perhaps most willing to listen to their peers and move away from involvement in gang life. Redthread is an extremely good organisation that I was happy to support.

I was also pleased during my time in office to visit MAC-UK, which does a fantastic job of providing role models for young people to help them understand that there is an alternative to the gang lifestyle into which so many of them get drawn. The shadow Minister did not mention Fight for Peace, a fantastic organisation in Newham, east London, which provides an alternative family. He is right that gangs are sometimes seen as a surrogate family. We must break that view, and perhaps we can do so by providing an alternative family. Fight for Peace provides kickboxing and other activities, and I was astonished to discover how successful it has been. People with a criminal past—sometimes for serious offences involving guns and so on—have found themselves at home in that organisation. Many of those I spoke to told me with some pride that they had secured a certificate for an activity they had taken part in. It was humbling to find that that was an effective way to deal with such issues.

It is right that we deal with serious crime properly. It is right that when someone commits an offence involving a knife or similar, they are dealt with properly, and that such offences are recognised as serious; but it is also right that we do everything we can—as we have been doing, to a large extent—to ensure that such offences do not occur in the first place. I make a plea to the next Government, whoever it is—whether a continuation of this one, or another one. We must recognise that money spent on organisations such as Redthread, MAC-UK and Fight for Peace is money well spent on preventing gang-related problems from occurring in the first place.

Lastly, let us not forget that gangs include not only boys but girls. We must watch out for the appalling sexual violence visited on girls in gangs. The deputy Children’s Commissioner has done excellent work to draw attention to that issue. Girls are now being used, for example, to carry guns and drugs in order to prevent the males who require them from being caught and prosecuted. Let us ensure that we also take care of girls in gangs, which is a serious problem in our society.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

I welcome you to the Chair Ms Clark. I have some general observations to make on injunctions, the limitations of prosecution and the introduction of legislation to deal with difficult social problems. Nobody in this Committee doubts that prevention is the best way forward; the question is, how to build that into the system as a whole.

Many excellent projects have showed the way forward on good practice. The problem sometimes is embedding those projects into the attitudes and culture of the agencies tasked with crime prevention. I cannot help thinking about the antisocial behaviour orders introduced by the previous Labour Government, of which I had a lot of experience in Stockport and whose limitations I understand.

One thing that was effective, though, was the introduction by the Stockport community safety team of antisocial behaviour contracts, which were a step before prosecuting a young person. As part of those contracts, young people were given positive activities, attention and support in return for making their behaviour more acceptable. That has to be a way forward, and I would be interested if the Minister told us how it can be built into injunctions, whatever the range of injunctions may be, particularly when they are taken against quite young children—I regard 14-year-olds as quite young children—because we must be very careful about introducing children into the criminal justice system. It is true that their offending behaviour has an impact on their victims, but it also has an impact on themselves. When young people get into the institutionalised criminal justice system, it is difficult to get them out because, unfortunately, they meet other young people who may support attitudes that we would not wish them to have. We must try to see injunctions as the last resort. Where injunctions are served, the courts must ensure that there are positive programmes for the young people on whom they are served.

Of course, the magistrates courts became very reluctant to impose antisocial behaviour orders because lawyers successfully argued that the court was granting an order that, if broken, would result in severe penalties. The effectiveness of such orders became limited, and I suspect that will eventually be the outcome for some of these injunctions as they make their way through the court system.

We should also remember that we cannot divide the world and young people into victims and offenders. In one sexual exploitation case in Greater Manchester, a girl was one of the groomers. She enticed other young girls to become the victims of the gang of which she was a member, but she had originally been groomed herself, so was she a victim or an offender? The category does not matter because, underneath everything, the girl had serious mental health and emotional issues that needed to be addressed. My concern is that an injunction, in its generality, will not at that point be able to identify which young people are the victims and which are the offenders. I suspect that, for each of those young people, it is a mixture of both.

We also have to remember that we are asking the police to do a difficult job with young people. We tell them that their job is to protect vulnerable people, and traditionally, the police’s approach has been to do so through criminal investigations and prosecutions, but now we are asking them to go out and seek children who have been sexually exploited, for example, rather than waiting until a victim reports a crime. We understand that victims of sexual exploitation do not report the crimes that happen to them because they feel complicit, and perhaps because they are offenders themselves. The relationship between the police and young people is therefore very difficult.

I talked to some young people in preparing my report for the police and crime commissioner, and the difficulty of that relationship was evident. For example, young schoolgirls attending a school in Greater Manchester would not report to the police that they were routinely approached, touched and sexually assaulted by men on the streets. When I asked them why, they said, “The police don’t like us.” Their experience was of the police approaching them in groups in a particular way and questioning them in a particular way. Again, we have to be conscious that, if we are asking the court to serve injunctions on young people, the police also need to be able to offer something to those young people. Police and crime commissioners have a great role to play in that regard, because they have access to much of the finance for supporting victims. It would be helpful if the Minister told us how the police might be supported in offering alternatives to the young people whose offending behaviour they are asked to police, but who may also be victims.

One successful approach in my constituency is the use of detached youth workers, who form a bridge between the police and young people on an estate where they would not dream of divulging anything that happened in their lives to children’s services, health, police or anybody else. Detached youth workers can provide useful information to the police, telling them what is actually going on in that neighbourhood and enabling them to intervene and prevent harm coming to people. That innovative approach should underpin the serving of injunctions, which I think we all accept is not enough.

The limitations of injunctions are apparent in the Home Office’s briefing, which provides case studies of gang injunctions:

“Whilst some of the gang members have complied with the injunction and used it as an opportunity to start a new life, others have left the city and have been encountered by the police in other areas”,

which is a wonderful phrase. Clearly, often, a problem in one area is just moved on to somewhere else. Unless young people’s underlying issues can be dealt with, the problem is just being moved on. I welcome the Home Office briefing’s allowing

“gang injunctions to be used to prevent individuals from engaging in illegal drug dealing”—

that could be applied to any crime—

“with positive requirements available to divert people away from the gang and protect them from being further drawn into drug dealing”.

According to that view, such measures have to be part and parcel of the process.

In addition to detached youth workers, peer-mentoring schemes also work well. When I talk to young people, it is clear that there is widespread distrust of authority and of what those in authority tell them. We cannot wag a finger at young people and say, “You’ve done wrong. Sort yourself out. Get your life on track.” However, they will listen to that message from people of their own age, particularly those who have been through similar experiences themselves, because they trust them and feel they understand their life and the limited options they sometimes have. Sadly, they think that most of us just do not understand, so they do not listen to us.

I welcome the use of injunctions, for which there is of course a place, but to be effective they have to be accompanied by positive interventions. Every time a child or young person appears in court, before an injunction is made, the magistrate or whoever is hearing the application should ask what measures are in place to address their problems. An injunction should not be made unless there is such a programme in place, because without it the legislation will not be as effective as it could and should be.

Andy McDonald (Labour, Middlesbrough)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Clark. I support my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North in proposing the new clause and congratulate him on a thorough, expert speech. It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, who is clearly expert and well-informed about the wider issues. I want to focus mainly on early intervention.

The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd said that we recently had the pleasure of visiting some criminal justice facilities in Texas. One might think, “What on earth can the Texans tell us about the criminal justice system?” Texas has a population of 25 million, 175,000 of whom are incarcerated. It is a state the size of Europe and, of course, the Texans have retained capital punishment, so perhaps they cannot tell us a lot. However, we had the privilege of seeing some interesting and challenging projects. Hon. Members will be aware that the state of Texas is run by a Republican Administration. It is considerably to the right in its attitude to criminal justice, and it prides itself on being incredibly tough on crime. However, those who govern Texas—I heard this straight from the horse’s mouth—have come to the conclusion that that approach simply does not work. They have poured a huge amount of money into building prisons and locking more and more people up, only to discover that to do so does not work and costs them a fortune. Purely from a fiscal perspective, they have come to the conclusion that they should stop doing that and instead knock some prisons down, lock fewer people up and focus better on early intervention.

We saw some impressive projects, not least the nurse-family partnership, which mirrored a programme in New York state. In a community that has its challenges, the one professional who is welcome in people’s homes is a nurse, not a social worker, a police officer or anybody else. A nurse can imbue a teenage mum-to-be with parenting skills, including breastfeeding. Those parenting skills cascade upwards and outwards in the community to sisters, colleagues and the teenagers’ own mothers, who are probably also of childbearing years.

Empirical evidence from New York state, where the programme has been run for 35 years, demonstrates a differential of some 57% in the numbers of young men who enter the criminal justice system, compared with a community where there is no such programme. That is pretty impressive evidence that such long-term commitment to policy works. We hear from many people—the former head of the civil service, Sir Gus O'Donnell, said this yesterday in the context of a mindfulness session—that the biggest offence in this place is the absence of long-term commitment to, and the constant interruption of, policies. Hon. Members across the House probably agree with that observation.

The nurse-family partnership was only one of many programmes that we saw. I want to mention the attitude to drug rehabilitation, which was echoed in the dissuasion panel that we heard about this morning. Texas runs the Success Through Addiction Recovery programme, through which people who have been involved in drug-related activity are brought before the courts and a conviction is settled, but they are not imprisoned. Instead, they are subject to intensive case management involving the sort of expertise that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North has outlined. One judge manages the same cohort of convicted drug offenders over a lengthy period, with the sanction available to her to send someone back to jail if they are found to be in breach of the management programme to which they were subject. That is a terribly powerful weapon, but it is used only in the context of case management. A case manager is attached to each offender, who has the benefit of all the therapies and other inputs that might be necessary.

When we visited, the progress was there for all to see. Offenders were rewarded and applauded openly in court when they reached milestones of sobriety over three, six, nine and 12 months. Watching people in a courtroom applaud criminals may have been anathema to British politicians, but that was the culture. Interestingly, the judge was able to monitor individuals, and knew who they and their children were. One incredibly articulate and intelligent young man, who had been involved in drugs, gangs and knife crime, told the judge about the progress he was making. He said that he was developing his relationship with his daughter again, that he was making progress to stay out of jail and that he was putting his life on the right tracks. However, the judge said, “You didn’t turn up on the 4th”, and threatened him with jail. One of his fellow criminals, from the back of the court, said to the judge, “You can’t send him to jail; it was 4 July and nothing was open”, so he escaped going to jail by the skin of his teeth.

Early intervention and methods of dissuading people away from the life that they have fallen into have been successful in certain jurisdictions. The reason why that approach was embraced in the first place is because, ultimately, it is cheaper. It is important to make that point. However, when we talk about early intervention, we cannot escape the fact that many of our communities are blighted by grinding poverty, and we must address that huge issue.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Clark, and to respond to a debate that has encapsulated the merits of clause 50. I will also address the amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd and the hon. Member for Croydon North.

I thank hon. Members for their contributions to the debate. It is always a pleasure to hear from my former colleagues on the Justice Committee, with whom I worked fairly well, I think, over a number of years. This debate will be a reflection of our common work.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Lewes, the former Minister, rightly highlighted the work that he did in government and that the Government continue to do. The Government are alive to the powerful points that the hon. Member for Middlesbrough made about drugs intervention, which is why diversion techniques are being piloted in custody suites and why the police use a range of approaches, rather than simply resorting to prosecution for simple possession on every occasion.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about the Texas model. The Hawaiian model is another good example of what we call big judges getting involved in the process. Those interesting models can stimulate debate. In England and Wales, drug rehabilitation requirements, which courts can apply to offenders, have had a marked effect over the years. I welcome the comments of the hon. Gentleman and others about drug misuse, which is responsible for part, if not all, of the underlying behaviour that drives many people into gangs.

The hon. Member for Croydon North made some excellent points from his own experience about why young people often feel safer in gangs and why they think of them as their families. They have to make a choice in their communities; staying on the sidelines is not an option. In acknowledgment of the stark realities that the hon. Gentleman portrayed, the Government decided to enhance the legislation that the previous Government passed in 2009 to take into account the developing realities of life in gangs.

One of the most important changes that we are making to the 2009 legislation is to remove the requirement that a gang must be associated with a particular area. We all know that gangs are highly mobile and that young people are procured to perform criminal offences elsewhere. For example, young people from London are often made to travel long distances to commit serious offences involving drugs. The current legislation was inadequate to deal with that recent phenomenon. The Bill will deal decisively with a point made by the hon. Member for Stockport and others about moving the problem on. The change to the definition goes to the heart of the Government’s approach. We are following the trends to ensure that the legislation is fit for purpose and up to date.

We all know from our own experiences as constituency MPs about the devastating impact that gang and youth violence can have on our communities. We have heard about knife crime and the dangers that the carrying of knives involve when it comes to young people. There is not one agency or Department that can tackle this issue alone. It requires many people working together and using the right kind of interventions and tools. The measure is very much a part of that equipment. It is by no means the only part; in fact, it is one of a number of options that the police find extremely useful when trying not only to act after the event, but to prevent the growth and spread of gangs in particular communities. The preventative point is one that is very much understood.

Gang injunctions are a valuable power, which can only be imposed by a court. I know that the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd referred to a particular example about a police imposition, but he might have fallen into error because they are court injunctions. They cannot be imposed by a police officer alone; they have to go to a court.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

Far be it from me to argue with the hon. and learned Gentleman, but I was talking about an interim injunction. I believe that I am right in saying that an interim injunction can be imposed on the street by a police officer. If I am wrong, I am quite prepared to say so.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I never like correcting the right hon. Gentleman, but I have to do so on this occasion. An interim injunction has to be imposed by a court as well, so we have that important safeguard of judicial oversight that both he and I hold very highly indeed as upholders, as we like to think of ourselves, of the rule of law. Therefore, it is preventative work here that allows the injunction to be a useful tool.

Naturally, hon. Members have talked about young people coming into the criminal justice system, but let us remind ourselves that these are civil injunctions. We are talking about injunctive relief here, not criminal sanction. There is an important difference there. I entirely accept the point about the dangers of stigmatising very young people as criminals early in their lives. The injunctions do not do that, but help to save young people from getting involved in danger to life and limb. They are protective measures.

The example the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd gave from the Howard League, which, of course, I know well, was interesting, However, I have to turn it around and say that there will be cases in which young people need that protection. We all know of them and I have represented, in my previous professional life, many young people who get in with the wrong crowd and who, if only they had the right influences and the positive stimuli, would not be in the criminal justice system. That is what the injunctive system allows us to do. Therefore, when we talk about a civil remedy, it is right that the civil standard should apply.

I have talked about the general changes and I have also talked about changing the definition of gangs, but I want to deal with the particular amendments that the right hon. Gentleman has tabled. As I have already mentioned, amendment 37 seeks to change the standard of proof away from the balance of probability—the civil standard—to the criminal standard, but there is a problem with that. The police view the value of these types of injunction as coming into play where criminal prosecution might not be appropriate or practicable. Again, I refer to the excellent speech of the hon. Member for Croydon North about the culture of fear that exists in the gang environment and how it is often difficult to encourage young people, who themselves are vulnerable, to co-operate with the police in order to provide evidence that can be admissible to a criminal standard.

With the civil standard, of course, a whole different set of rules will apply. The civil procedure rules will apply, as will the rules of civil hearsay, which the right hon. Gentleman knows are somewhat different, to say the least, from criminal hearsay. In other words, it is a question of not so much admissibility when it comes to hearsay, but the weight that is given to the evidence. All such material could therefore be admissible before the civil court, and that will allow the wider community to have their input so that the sort of evidence that needs to be aired can be tested according to the civil standard. We trust the courts to impose injunctions only when necessary and only when they are satisfied.

I think members have seen the evidence from the former chief constable of West Mercia, Paul West—

Andy McDonald (Labour, Middlesbrough)

Before the Minister moves on from discussing the civil rather than criminal arena, will he tell us what happens when somebody is in breach of an injunction?

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I will come to that, but I want to quote Paul West. In his evidence, he said that

“three years’ experience of the law shows that the police and local authorities (correctly, in our view) are using Gang Injunctions as a weapon of last resort, often when they are unable to bring criminal prosecutions, usually because witnesses refuse to co-operate out of fear, or because they also are involved in criminal activity. Gang Injunctions have proved effective in these situations because the civil burden of proof and rules of evidence permit the applicant to use police reports of serious incidents and, to a lesser extent, police intelligence as the basis for applications. This obviates the need to call witnesses who are vulnerable to intimidation.”

He went on to say:

“An appellate court has previously ruled that Gang Injunctions are compliant with the Human Rights Act, although further challenge should be anticipated. We urge Parliament to take the opportunity of the debate on Clause 50 to re-iterate the need for the civil burden of proof, which overcomes the very real problems encountered in proving gang-related criminal cases caused by the reluctance of witnesses to engage with the police.”

Given that very powerful statement, I respectfully urge the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider his proposal to raise the standard of proof as set out in his amendment.

Amendment 38 seeks to provide that an injunction should prohibit a respondent from

“engaging in, or encouraging or assisting, gang-related violence or gang-related drug-dealing activity”.

Although we understand the aim of the amendment, we simply do not think it is needed. New section 34(3)(a) the Policing and Crime Act 2009 already provides that a court must be satisfied that it is necessary for a gang injunction to be granted for that purpose. Importantly, making provision for a court to prohibit a respondent from doing anything described in the injunction affords it significant flexibility to set out appropriate conditions to prevent the respondent from engaging in gang-related violence or drug dealing.

Moreover, attaching clear conditions to an injunction allows all parties a definitive understanding of what the respondent will be prohibited from doing. That is essential if the injunctions are to be enforced properly. The bitter experience of those of us who are legal practitioners will reinforce that important point.

Similarly, amendment 39 is not required, because new section 34(3)(a) also provides that a court must be satisfied that it is necessary for a gang injunction to be granted for the purpose of protecting a respondent from gang-related violence or drug dealing. Likewise, making provision for a court to require the respondent to do things described in the injunction allows it the necessary flexibility to set out the most suitable activities that the respondent should get involved in to help them leave the gang and turn their lives around. That was the point made eloquently by the hon. Member for Stockport: this should be about not just saying no, but saying what we want to do not so much for someone, but with them. She made excellent points about peer mentoring and ex-gang members, who speak with such authority and who are believable to the young person. I know from my long-standing interest in this issue that that approach has a real effect on turning people away from life in gangs.

Proposed new section 34(4) of the 2009 Act is identical to the provision in the existing section, which, as I said, affords the court the flexibility to specify the prohibitions and requirements that would be appropriate to a particular person. That provision has worked well since the introduction of gang injunctions, and it is perhaps axiomatic that, again, I am not persuaded to change it.

In the period from January 2011 to January last year, 108 gang injunctions were put in place, and two were against people under 18. That puts very much in context the concerns hon. Members have raised about the criminalisation or stigmatisation of young people. Clearly, the measure in the Bill properly targets adults. Yes, there will be cases in which young people might be covered by an injunction, but the figures speak for themselves, and they allow us great confidence when considering the way in which young people are dealt with by the authorities.

Let me deal now with the point raised by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough. Breach of an injunction will be dealt with as a contempt of court. There are no provisions, unlike in some other areas of the criminal law—for example, breach of antisocial behaviour orders—for a separate criminal offence. The standard of proof used to prove a contempt will be higher; it will be akin to the criminal standard of proof for breach proceedings. The maximum sentence under the contempt provisions is two years’ imprisonment. That is akin to the case law that developed under the antisocial behaviour regime, where the courts said that the more significant the sanction, the higher the standard of proof. I hope that gives hon. Members quite a degree of reassurance that we are not seeking to jump to criminalisation on breach. Yes, a breach of an injunction is a serious matter, but the courts, with their years of experience of dealing with breaches of civil orders, can be trusted to apply the law as it stands.

Let me turn now to new clause 20, which was moved by the hon. Member for Croydon North.

Steve Reed (Labour, Croydon North)

I apologise for interrupting the Minister. What he has to say is incredibly interesting, and I look forward to his comments on the new clause. However, on gang injunctions, he proposes widening their use, and that is the right thing to do, but it will inevitably have an impact on youth offending teams. Over recent years, those in London have seen their funding cut by 23%; in other parts of the country, resources have been cut by 50%. Case loads on individual workers in YO teams are extremely high, and people are struggling to cope. Has the Minister made an assessment of the implications for YOTs of widening and increasing their work load? If so, can he share with us what it showed?

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I will endeavour to answer that point in greater detail as I develop my remarks. Let me turn, however, to new clause 20, which is, in fact, linked.

I entirely accept the motivation for proposing dissuasion panels, but I venture to suggest that the very problem the hon. Gentleman has just mentioned—more administrative burdens and more burdens on youth offending teams—might well be exacerbated by the creation of such a mechanism. In his proposal, dissuasion panels would put in place a contract to help to divert an individual referred to the panel from engaging in gang-related violence or drug-dealing activity, subject to the qualifications to which I listened carefully and which are set out in the amendment.

Crucially, the intention behind the new clause appears to be to prevent applications for gang injunctions from being considered by the court until the case has first been referred to the panel. Furthermore, the panel would have the power to determine in most cases whether the case should be considered by a court. Even if a person breached the conditions agreed with the panel, a referral to a court would not be automatic. Our concern is that the new clause could mean that only a small number of cases would ever be referred to the court. I worry that rather than being the step forward that I know the hon. Gentleman wants, the new clause could add another inefficient and costly layer to the existing regime.

Steve Reed (Labour, Croydon North)

The decision to refer an offender to a panel or to the court would be entirely at the discretion of the police officer, who understands the locality and hopefully the community affected. It would be entirely at that police officer’s discretion, and they would take an informed view based on that.

The Minister mentioned the issue of costs. It is our intention that the proposal should save, not cost, public money. It costs more to send a young offender into custody than to send a young person to Eton for a year, yet on release, 70% of those young people will reoffend within 12 months. We are hurling money at a problem without any success whatever. Surely that money would be better targeted at measures that will prevent reoffending to a much greater extent rather than wasting it as we are currently doing.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Although I do not disagree with the points that he makes, let us return to the point that I think we all understand: a lot of that work is already going on. The youth offending teams, to which I talk regularly, need flexibility in the system. I worry that this is a rather inflexible mechanism that will only serve to complicate things. As he knows and has outlined, we are dealing with young people whose lives are chaotic and unstable. They move often; many of them do not have a stable home. They are challenging to deal with. Creating more regimes and apparatuses of this nature will not deal with the heart of the problems that he outlined.

Steve Reed (Labour, Croydon North)

I am grateful for the opportunity to push the point, as it is important. I will draw again on my own experience from Lambeth. The community on the Myatt’s Field estate, including young people themselves, started to take direct action by offering informal peer mentoring, running sports activities and making contacts with local businesses. Over the course of three years, they got 80 young people out of gangs and offending and got their lives back on track with almost no funding, whereas the council, spending several million pounds a year on targeted interventions across the entire borough, got fewer young people out of gangs than that single community could. So we know that giving communities more power and control and using models of prevention and dissuasion are massively more effective at preventing that kind of crime than the sorts of intervention on which the Minister is relying.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

Again, I find it hard to disagree with the hon. Gentleman. There is nothing I like better than to see community-inspired projects that, as he said, come from people who know what they are talking about, know the nature of the problem and can deal with it. He makes my point very well for me: when we obsess about formal structures, we miss the point, and we miss the flexibility that the sort of community-inspired interventions he talked about have delivered. I am not sure whether the point he is making actually supports new clause 20. I say that in the spirit of friendly persuasion rather than trenchant criticism, because it is not that sort of debate. We all agree about what we want to achieve; we are debating the way we go about it. I have considerable reservations about the mechanism in question.

I am not going to nit-pick about drafting infelicities; I know there is often time pressure. The composition of the dissuasion panel set out in subsection (6) is a little confused. Paragraph (d) specifies

“any other person or profession that the court believes will be useful”.

I am a little unclear about the involvement of a court. I thought the whole point was, as the hon. Gentleman said, that the police should be allowed to make decisions, and that there would be a locally focused panel. I am not here to make legalistic criticisms, but in the context of that point it is important to say that such provisions need to be thought out carefully, lest unintended consequences mean that young people are dissuaded from dissuasion panels.

I am concerned about new clause 20 also because an advantage of the gang injunction regime is judicial oversight. The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd placed quite heavy emphasis on that. We are talking about a court being satisfied that tests have been met; and there is an important separation of functions. There would be difficulty about the new clause putting everything in the hands of a police officer. Important safeguards would be missed if we adopted that line.

I have already alluded to the fact that, as to remedy, the panel does not have powers to compel a person to abide by the contract, and it has no powers of sanction. We must ask how it will dissuade. I say that in a spirit of constructive criticism. Such things must have consequences if they are going to work.

In determining the prohibitions or requirements that will be attached to an injunction, the court will take a decision on the basis of the evidence presented to it. That will include medical evidence, where appropriate, and evidence from social workers. In applying for injunctions against young people—to return to points made by other hon. Members—applicants must consider their duties towards young people in general.

That means, of course, the Children Act 2004, which contains duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. That must be part of the consideration, and it must involve any child protection issues, as well. I hope that reassures the hon. Member for Stockport. It means that the applicant would have to—would be expected to—seek the views of any social services or children’s services department that was engaged with the child. That is set out in the statutory guidance. I think that within the framework the court will be mindful of everyone’s duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Of course, an injunction has proper teeth. As I have already explained to the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, there will be sanctions.

I want to return to the point made by the hon. Member for Croydon North about youth offending teams. The cost of the measure is set out in the explanatory notes, and as I have said we are aware of only two gang injunctions imposed against under-18s. We estimate that the provisions in the Bill will lead to an additional 26 injunctions a year against under-18s in the entirety of England and Wales. Therefore, I do not agree that there will be a sudden increase in the burden on youth offending teams. I make no apology for repeating the point that early interventions save costs in the long term. The question is how we go about that.

In conclusion, although we are united in what we want to achieve, there are dangers to adding the sort of layer envisaged in new clause 20. I want to see a flexible regime that properly takes into account the individual before it, whether a young person or an adult, and balances the prohibition provisions of injunctions with their positive aspects.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

How will the Minister monitor the effectiveness of the orders? No doubt, in the next Parliament there will be more Home Office legislation, and it will be helpful to know what has proved to be effective and what has not. How will the Department monitor not just how many orders have been issued and what breaches there have been, but how effective the requirements to find positive alternatives for young people have been?

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I am happy to say that we have a wealth of information relating to the period from 2011, when the regime was introduced, which is qualitative as well as quantitative, and I expect that process to continue. We have the input of people such as Paul West, who has great experience in such matters and has been able to consider the effectiveness thus far of the regime. I expect that that input will help us to address the points the hon. Lady raises. I, for one, am very interested to see whether the positive aspects of injunctions will lead people away from gangs. I take the hon. Lady’s point entirely, and if she requires more detail I will be more than happy to provide it to her after the debate.

This has been a valuable debate about the reality of life in gangs in our society. I hope I have given sufficient reassurances to the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd about his amendments. I respectfully disagree with the hon. Member for Croydon North about the thrust of his new clause. I urge the right hon. Member for Dwyfor to withdraw his amendment.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

The purpose of my amendments was to have a good debate, and we have had one. Matters have been explained to me that I should perhaps have understood previously, and I am indebted to the Solicitor-General for that. He avoided using the time-honoured word “otiose”, which is used only in Parliament—it is not used anywhere else in the western world—but he may have the opportunity to use it this afternoon or on Tuesday.

I am grateful to the Solicitor-General for responding in full to the debate. We have learned a lot during the past hour or so. We heard powerful speeches from the hon. Members for Croydon North, for Stockport and for Middlesbrough. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough was evidently wide awake during the tour of Texas, unlike some—I will not go there. This has been a very good debate and it has improved my knowledge of this part of the Bill. I am grateful for that. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 51 - Applications for search and seizure warrants

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I intend to address the Committee briefly, bearing in mind that a number of clauses—51 to 64—address the question of how the police are to deal with the increasing use of drug-cutting agents.

The trade in drug-cutting agents enables organised criminals to increase the volume of illegal drugs on our streets. Illegal drugs—particularly cocaine—are frequently adulterated with chemical substances that are not, of themselves, illegal to increase the volume of the drugs and, therefore, the profits of drug dealers. In addition to the health risks caused by illegal drugs, these drug-cutting agents themselves may be far from harmless.

As we announced in our 2010 drug strategy, we are committed to stopping criminals profiting from the trade in drug-cutting agents. Giving our law enforcement agencies the powers they need is of the utmost importance. That is why part 4 of the Bill confers bespoke powers on UK law enforcement officers to enter and search premises for substances the suspected intended use of which is as drug-cutting agents, and to seize and detain those substances. Officers will then be able to make an application to the court for the seized substances to be forfeited and destroyed.

By tackling the supply of drug-cutting agents, we can reduce the availability of illegal drugs on our streets, which will in turn drive up the street price of illegal drugs and help to reduce drug use, as part of our wider approach on drugs. I can speak from professional experience about the use of cutting agents and the sheer simplicity of bulking up expensive illegal drugs with other substances to make more money. We have powers under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to seize cutting agents, but there are no explicit powers to tackle the domestic trade in these substances. That means that loopholes exist that can prevent law enforcement from seizing suspected cutting agents.

The proposals will ensure that law enforcement officers do not have to return seized cutting agents to a dealer, in circumstances where they would most likely be used to facilitate the supply of future illegal drugs. In developing the provisions, we have taken particular care to minimise any impact on legitimate businesses. In addition to judicial oversight of the powers, part 4 includes a compensation provision to deal with the unlikely event of a legitimate company having its property seized.

Clause 51 introduces prior judicial authorisation for powers to search premises for substances suspected of being intended to be used as drug-cutting agents and to seize any such substances found on those premises. It enables a justice of the peace or, in Scotland, a sheriff, following an application by a police or customs officer, including a National Crime Agency officer, to issue a search and seizure warrant. The justice of the peace will need to be satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that a substance intended for use as a drug-cutting agent is on the premises. In making that decision, the civil standard of proof, which we have debated this morning, will be applied. Using the civil, rather than criminal, standard is appropriate for these powers, because we are talking about targeting the substances themselves, rather than criminalising individuals.

The process broadly follows that used in the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 in relation to seized cash. It is an established and well-used process, which is familiar to law enforcement agencies and, indeed, to me, because I conducted many cash forfeiture applications on behalf of South Wales police when the Act was brought into force in 2003.

To ensure the most effective use of the powers, there will be no requirement to inform someone likely to be affected by the warrant about the application. That is good sense, because it will prevent suspect substances from being removed in anticipation of a search.

The provision is in keeping with existing powers and safeguards in relation to search warrants under PACE whereby, in some cases, the warrant applied for may allow for all the premises owned by an individual to be searched—in other words, it is an all-premises warrant. That may be necessary where an individual owns a number of properties but it is not clear which might contain the drug-cutting agents. The warrant might also permit multiple entries to a single property, which might be necessary if, for instance, the property is a large warehouse that cannot be fully searched on a single occasion. To ensure that all-premises and multiple-entry warrants are used only when necessary, the applying officer must provide specific justification for either form of warrant on application to the court.

Having a bespoke search and seizure warrant is essential for the execution of such powers. Law enforcement officers must be able to enter and search premises if they are to tackle effectively the trade in drug-cutting agents. I hope that clause 51 will stand part of the Bill.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Clark.

I have two preliminary comments. First, we had a wide-ranging and intelligent debate earlier about gangs covering the factors that bring people into gangs in the first place; how one can educate; prevention; dissuasion; and, in that context, drug rehabilitation. During that excellent debate, emphasis was rightly put on the importance of a prevention strategy, as well as the effective enforcement of the law where appropriate.

Secondly, the Solicitor-General is absolutely right that this is about criminals who profit from the drug trade and make a great deal of money out of human misery. It is absolutely right, in line with the now long-standing approach on proceeds of crime, that we deprive them of their ill-gotten gains.

We have not tabled an amendment to the clause as we support the Government in their efforts to close the loopholes surrounding the acquisition of products for their use in bulking illegal drugs. Even if the people involved in the sourcing and supply of cutting agents do not themselves sell drugs, their actions can have a huge impact on the drugs trade. There was a particularly horrific case recently of two brothers in London who set up a company purporting to be part of the pharmaceutical industry but were found with up to a tonne of cutting agents in their possession. According to the Metropolitan police, that amount of cutting agent, mixed at a conservative ratio, could have assisted in the production of 1,800 kg of street-level cocaine with a value of at least £90 million. In some cases, drug-cutting agents can increase the quantity of drugs by up to 50%, increasing not only illicit profits, but the availability of drugs and thus the damage that they can do.

Although there have been prosecutions of people who have been in possession of large quantities of such products, we welcome the Government’s moves on a number of fronts to strengthen the law and close any loopholes in the existing legislation. However, it is vital that any legislation that is introduced can make a difference. It is not only about what we say; it is what we do, what we legislate for, and then, crucially, the enforcement of the law.

Under this Government, the record on drug seizures is not inspiring. There has been a 14% overall reduction in drug seizures by the police in England and Wales. This has been particularly pronounced for some of the most dangerous class A drugs, such as heroin and methadone. Between 2009-10 and 2013-14, there has been more than a 60% drop in the quantity of heroin seized by the police. In 2009-10, 687 kg was seized compared with only 256 kg in 2013-14. Between 2009-10 and 2013-14, there has been a 50% drop in the quantity of methadone seized by the police.

Yet, at the same time, the crime statistics for England and Wales suggest that the use of heroin and methadone, as well as many other drugs, has either increased or stayed constant. Furthermore, in the last year alone, Border Force figures show a 96% drop in seizures of cannabis resin and an 81% drop in seizures of ecstasy, with that overall failure letting more than £36 million of illegal drugs—a conservative calculation—flow into the country last year.

The Solicitor-General spoke about the importance of legislation being fit for purpose, of which there is absolutely no doubt, but it is crucial that the legislation is effectively enforced. The statistics on the growing failure to tackle hard drugs speak for themselves. Sadly, they sit alongside the fact that 16,000 police officers have already gone, the 27% reduction in the budget of the Crown Prosecution Service and the cutting of the budgets of other agencies that play a crucial role in this area. While I support the Government’s proposals, I would be grateful if the Solicitor-General addressed how they will go about ensuring the effective enforcement of the new law. I stress again that this is about not just what we say and legislate for, but how we enforce what is rightly a stronger law.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I shall respond briefly, given the time. I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but this year there has been an increase of large seizures of illicit drugs at the UK borders. That is an important point, because when it comes to drugs being seized in what I would call the wholesale quantity, we are dealing with the problem more or less at source. What often happens is that the police—it is no fault of theirs and I make no criticism of the work they do—make smaller seizures and then deal with the retailers of drugs, rather than being able to get, and I will use the phrase, Messrs Big.

Drug seizures, although important, are only part of a complex picture. We have talked a lot about prevention and drug misuse. It is right to say that there has been a downward trend in drug misuse, which is encouraging. That is a result of a number of factors: not just being tough in dealing with offenders, but offering a range of different mechanisms to help drug users themselves. As somebody who has prosecuted and defended hundreds—probably thousands—of drugs cases over 20 years, I know that the situation is always evolving, in terms of both the types of drug used and the profile of drug users. The police are making good progress in seizing significant quantities off our streets.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I am sure that my hon. and learned Friend has seen the evidence submitted by the British Transport police, which raises some concerns about clauses 60 and 63. I am not sure whether we will be taking those clauses in a group or if there will be an opportunity for him to respond to these important points further, because they suggest that further ministerial input would be welcome.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising those points. Strictly speaking, we are debating clause 51, but I hear what he says. I have read the evidence from the British Transport Police myself and will return to it, if I may, in writing to him. I want to consider it carefully because there are some practical issues that it raises that need to be considered.

In conclusion, the proposals contained in clauses 51 to 64 represent a practical, sensible and bespoke solution to some of the problems that our police are encountering when dealing with cutting agents. Those are no longer just benign substances such as glucose, but sometimes complex ex-prescription drugs that are no longer safe for human consumption. They are being cut into, and combined with, illegal drugs. This is a question of not just crime enforcement, but public safety, which is why I commend clause 51 to the Committee.

Clause 65 - Child cruelty offence

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I beg to move amendment 40, in clause 65, page 53, line 6, at end insert—

“( ) In that subsection, for “under that age” substitute “under 18”.”

From one brief look, it is clear what the amendment would do: it would extend or change the definition of a child, or at least the age. On Second Reading, I explained my concern that the Government had not taken the opportunity offered by the Bill to alter the definition of a child to include all those under the age of 18.

I welcome the fact that the clause introduces a child cruelty offence, which acknowledges that cruelty can be both physical and psychological. Before his elevation, the Solicitor-General worked hard on that issue and is to be praised for that. I know that this matter is close to his heart, as it is for everyone on the Committee.

I cannot understand why, in making that welcome move, the Government did not decide to go further and acknowledge that not all victims of child cruelty are under the age of 16. The idea that children stop being children when they reach their 16th birthday is patently untrue.

The hon. Member for Stockport made a powerful speech on Second Reading that impressed me and informed us all. I hope she will speak about this matter in Committee, because she has a wealth of experience to bring to the table. I do not pretend to have her detailed knowledge, but I welcome her being on the Committee and have no doubt that she will contribute in due course.

To back up to the point that a child does not stop being a child at the age of 16, we parents know that while some children at 16 are fairly mature, others who are much older are less mature. When I saw how much my son had spent on things at university that he should not have done, I thought he was highly immature at that time. I am glad he does not read Hansard.

Damian Hinds (Conservative, East Hampshire)

To the best of your knowledge.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

Indeed. I shall try to prevent him from reading Hansard, but he is a BBC journalist so I am probably in trouble. The point I am making is that children do not become mature adults overnight. That is obvious and we need not dwell on it, but it goes to the core of why we are discussing the amendment.

Legal provisions already in place recognise that 16 and 17-year-olds are still vulnerable. For example, they are banned from purchasing alcohol and tobacco and their national minimum wage is £3.72 an hour, which is lower than that for older workers. Equally, a person must be 18 to qualify for universal credit, although some exceptions apply. Sixteen or 17-year-olds need to get the permission of their parent or guardian before getting married. Finally, regulations have been laid before Parliament that would allow parents to be prosecuted when they smoke in a car with a 16 or 17-year-old. Those are some examples—there are, I am sure, many others—that I thought I might remind the Committee of.

On Second Reading, I reminded the House that the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, as well as the Children Act 1989, define a child as a person under 18, hence noting that 17 and 18-year-olds are every bit as vulnerable as those younger than them. It is something of an anomaly, therefore, that the Children and Young Persons Act 1933—the legislation that provides for the legal protection of children from abuse and neglect—defines a child as anyone under 16. As a result of that inconsistency, 16 and 17-year-olds are not granted the same protection as those younger than them.

In light of that fact and others, I was approached by the Children’s Society and asked to table amendment 40. In an e-mail to me, it said:

“Last year in Wales 2,330 children aged 16-17 became ‘children in need’; whilst…In England around 16,000 young people aged 16-17 experienced a risk of homelessness as a result of conflict or relationship breakdown with their families…This age group is also the most likely to be reported as going missing with 35% of all those reported missing aged 15-17; furthermore…The Office of the Children’s Commissioner report into sexual exploitation by groups and gangs estimates that 7,260 16 and 17 year olds are at risk of child sexual exploitation.”

To add to that, last year 1,110 16 and 17-year-olds were recognised as being children at risk of significant harm and so were placed on child protection plans. Furthermore, in 2014, Ofsted reported 40 serious incident notifications from local authorities relating to 16 and 17-year-olds. More worrying still, 25% of victims of forced marriages also fall into the same age bracket. Children at this age are still dependent on their families. In the UK in 2014, 85% of 16 and 17-year-olds were in full-time education or training and in 2012, 90% of the age group lived with their families. Children living at home are more vulnerable, and to recognise that, it would stand to reason to raise the age limit in the definition of a child to those under 18.

Often in legislation—I have seen this before—we express concern about this age group, but nothing seems to be done. I do not know why we cannot change the law. Child protection is vital, and I recognise that the Bill has some good provisions in that regard. I do not demur from that, but we have an opportunity to review the definition and bring it in line with the UN convention on the rights of the child and other legislation. Now is the time to revisit the definition. I know the Minister will give a reasoned response in due course, but I would welcome any explanation as to why we cannot do that in the Bill.

Maria Miller (Conservative, Basingstoke)

If amendment 40 were accepted, the new provisions in the Bill would cover any child up to the age of 18. Few people would think it not a good idea for us to amend the law in that way. The way forward has to be to ensure that the law fully captures all the ways in which children can be abused, for example through domestic offences, including those that cause non-physical suffering or injury.

I thank the Solicitor-General for his letter today explaining the Government’s position. It was helpful and it was generous of him to do that in advance of today’s sittings.

Children do not stop being children at 16 or at 17; indeed, I think that most of us probably think that our children do not stop being children for the rest of their lives. However, as I said on Second Reading, I know from first-hand experience the challenges Ministers face in making sure that there are no inconsistencies in the law. We know that most of these young people will be in full-time education or training and living at home with their families, which, as the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd said, puts them in a particularly vulnerable situation. I understand the complex set of legal considerations that the Solicitor-General has to go through.

The abuse of a 16 or 17-year-old by a parent, a guardian or any other family member who has responsibility for them has to be captured in the law. As the Solicitor-General says in his letter, there are many reasons why we need to ensure that there are protections. He highlighted the issue of honour-based violence and I understand why. I do not want there to be inconsistencies in the law. In his letter, he suggested that he might be able to clarify today how the new domestic abuse offence of coercive behaviour might offer protection to 16 and 17-year-olds. I will be listening carefully to what he says about his way forward.

Paul Beresford (Conservative, Mole Valley)

I am listening to my right hon. Friend with some interest. I recognise the point she makes: my child of 36 still returns home with great difficulties, looking in particular at my hip pocket. I remember in my local government, social services days that the boot was sometimes on the other foot: I had to intervene on families where the child was abusing the parent, especially where the parent was a single mother. We had some appallingly difficult cases. So the position can be reversed.

Maria Miller (Conservative, Basingstoke)

My hon. Friend, given his extensive experience in this area, speaks with some authority. Although some family situations may be as he described, that does not detract from the need for Members of Parliament to ensure that the law offers protection to those in a different situation who are on the receiving end of abuse. However, he makes a powerful point.

I will listen carefully to the Solicitor-General’s response. I think the ministerial team has understood the point made not only by Committee members but by those outside, and is responding positively.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

I support amendment 40. What the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd said was logical and sensible and reflected the situation of 16 to 17-year-olds.

The use of language in this regard is interesting. We are conflicted in our attitudes towards children. For example, a 14-year-old girl who is the subject of sexual exploitation can be described as a child and as a young person, but the way we describe her influences the way we respond to her. If she is described as a child, we immediately have a sympathetic response, because it indicates to us her relationship to adults. If she is described as a young person, our response is more ambivalent, because she is seen as a mini-adult—in some way as having some equality with adults. The language used is a key factor.

Language is also a key factor in how a child is described in law, because that sets what the wider public and the systems in place to protect children regard as their responsibilities, but sadly their responsibilities towards 16 and 17-year-olds have been somewhat neglected. One of the great issues for me is that if a 16-year-old becomes homeless, the local authority has a duty to provide care and accommodation, but the accommodation they are placed in is not inspected. So its responsibility goes as far as providing that accommodation, but not as far as ensuring it is of a quality that keeps them safe and protects them. That reflects our ambivalence about our responsibilities towards this age group.

It is not only a question of how we describe a child, because when we say that somebody is a child, that indicates that we need to protect that child, and it also points to the responsibilities that adults have to the child. The word describes not only childhood, and the vulnerability of being a child, but the fact that adults have a responsibility for their actions towards that child. They are our responsibility, and that cannot be compromised by the behaviour of the child themselves.

It is important that we have consistency. I hope that the Minister will reply positively about recognising the vulnerability of children and young people aged 16 to 17. However, so that another inconsistency is not created, I suggest that he also recognises the vulnerability in the wider area of child cruelty. Personally, I do not mind inconsistencies—I am quite happy to live with them. We are all totally committed to ensuring that vulnerable children get the protection they need, and the law must be subservient to making sure that that happens.

As a legislature, we make laws, and while that does not mean that things happen, it sets a tone and creates an understanding out in the wider community. It would be really good if the Minister could indicate that the Government will move in the direction of recognising that 16 and 17-year-olds need protection in law.

Seema Malhotra (Labour, Feltham and Heston)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Ms Clark.

I want to speak in favour of the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd and to support the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke and my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport. At the heart of today’s debate is a huge issue that has emerged on our social and political agenda over the past few years: the child sexual exploitation that has been happening in this country on a scale that we have underestimated. We are still grappling to deal with that huge challenge. That has also shown that young people are vulnerable and that we cannot simply have a threshold of 16 that we say is the transition to adulthood in all circumstances. That should be reflected through the protection that we give to children under the law.

The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd highlighted various issues. I do not need to go over the different ages for being able to drive, vote, buy alcohol and so on, but I want to echo one point that he made. In the past year, there have been 40 serious incident notifications from local authorities to Ofsted in relation to 16 to 17-year-olds, which highlights the vulnerability that exists for so many of those people.

The Children’s Society provides a stark example that is a good illustration of how the law is failing children who are in difficult and vulnerable situations:

“Billie died after overdosing when her family had left her with no medical help for three days. The police were unable to prosecute members of the family under the laws set out under Children and Young Persons Act...because the child was 16 not 15. The police were unsuccessful in attempts prosecute her family under other laws.”

I understand—this was the case when the matter was discussed in the House of Lords—that much of the argument revolves around independence for 16 and 17-year-olds. However, if we consider the impact that being vulnerable has on someone younger than 16, or perhaps under the age of maturity, and the threats and challenges that vulnerable people find themselves facing, I think we have to look again at this issue. We know, for example, that about 50% of women in prostitution experienced child sexual exploitation when they were under the age of 18. Many I have talked to have raised their life story to show the impact of someone falling into a cycle of abuse that they cannot get out of. The key question is whether it would not be better to have an expansive threshold in legislation that could include those 16 and 17-year-olds who are at risk, rather than having an unexpansive threshold that leaves a cohort of children without protection. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Lady, who was the last speaker in what has been a short but stimulating debate that has attempted to get to the heart of the inevitable anomalies that exist in how we attempt to classify children, young people and adults in law.

The situation was encapsulated very well by the hon. Member for Stockport, who said that she understood that there have to be inconsistencies because we are dealing with the complex development of individual people. Although there might be a certain consistency as to people’s physical development, we all know that emotional development is a much more complex thing. I hope that we have moved away from some of the cosy shibboleths of generations past that either refused to acknowledge that childhood existed in the first place—there was a time in English society when that was the case and children were treated as young adults—or considered physical development to be the sole arbiter of how we treat young people. The term “vulnerability” has been used. Sometimes that word itself is inadequate to deal with the gamut of experiences and individual characteristics that children and young people possess, but it is a good way to summarise where we have come to as a society in understanding our duties and obligations to the younger members of our community.

It is right, of course, that children and young people have different relationships according to where they might be. The relationships and obligations of individuals to children and young people at home are sometimes replicated in the school environment but, in other environments, there will be a different set of obligations and responsibilities. That is why the law contains the inconsistencies that we all acknowledge.

As the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd outlined, his amendment would increase the maximum age of those against whom the child cruelty offence in section 1 of the 1933 Act can be committed from 15 to 17. It would remain the case, however, that such an offence could be committed only by someone aged 16 or over who “has responsibility for” a child under 18. I believe that that is the phrase that we need to return to.

When we are dealing with amendments to Acts of Parliament, it is sometimes important to remember what we are amending. In this case, it is section 1 of the 1933 Act which, in itself, was a replication of an Act from 1868. One of the main reasons why I and other parliamentary colleagues called for a change in the law was that we thought that the language in the existing legislation was archaic, and in many respects did not reflect the realities of life for children and young people today. However, the phrase “has responsibility for” was not one of the parts of the legislation that caused me concern because there has to be a definition of the class of person with whom we were dealing. Let us not forget that the Bill is about offenders and how we tackle those who commit the terrible offences of neglect, abandonment, ill treatment and assault.

As the governing phrase is “has responsibility for”, the right hon. Gentleman’s amendment would have unintended consequences. For example, a 16-year-old might be prosecuted for child cruelty to a 17-year-old because the class of person against whom the offence had been committed would have been extended. It would be unfortunate, to say the least, if we created such inconsistency as a result of trying to rectify one that we perceive to exist.

It is absolutely right to recognise that young people of 16 and 17 often require protection by statutory services and the law. In many respects, the law provides that protection. For example, the law of assault, depending on the circumstances, applies to cruelty committed against 16 or 17-year-olds. The law already specifically protects 16 or 17-year-olds from sexual exploitation by those who hold a position of trust in their lives, or from exploitation through child sex or pornography. To force anyone over 16 into non-consensual sexual activity is already a serious sexual offence.

We must recognise that the various ages at which young people acquire rights and responsibilities, and at which the law protects or ceases to protect them from particular types of conduct, is a complex issue. Reference has already been made to the age of consent and the ages at which young people can buy various products, marry, drive a car or join the armed forces. Those and other age limits depend on the various contexts of the young person’s life and reflect the complexities of their development. They are not based on some overarching principle.

I come to the nub of my argument. It would be nice to rationalise away the inconsistencies and to create an ideal, overarching principle, but we are dealing with people’s lives, and the complex and varied development of young people. To develop further the point made by the hon. Member for Stockport, we must not only accept the inconsistencies, but extol them as the right approach as we acknowledge the complexity of growing up and becoming an adult.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

I do not want the Minister to misunderstand what I meant when I was talking about inconsistencies. I was saying that if protecting 16 or 17-year-olds by redefining them as children created an inconsistency, I would happily live with it.

We understand that no law that we enact or social policy that we develop can reflect the myriad personal situations in someone’s life. In setting the age of consent at 16, we are not making a judgment about what is happening in a person’s life, but saying that children under 16 are especially vulnerable, and that people must take note of that. Their degree of vulnerability is tested in court after court—I admire the Minister’s skill in that respect—but that does not lessen our obligation to send a clear message. We understand that all 16 or 17-year-olds are different, but we want to send a message to adults that children under 18 are vulnerable and that special account must be taken of them.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

The hon. Lady puts her case powerfully. We are often confronted with the call for the law to send a message. Sometimes that is the right thing to do, but the danger of sending a message through the amendment would be that we would end up creating the sort of confusion that would be unhelpful when applying the criminal law.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke mentioned, in a succinct and helpful speech for which I was very grateful, the potential interrelationship with the proposed coercive control provisions, which we will come to later in our proceedings. All I will say at this point is that there is indeed a family context to those proposals that could be relevant when it comes to adults, either in an intimate relationship or in a family relationship. To say more at this stage would perhaps be to stray beyond the amendment, however, so I shall return to my point about the definitions.

The hon. Member for Stockport helpfully set out the importance of language. It is right to say—I readily acknowledge this—that in some statutory contexts, all people up to the age of 18 are regarded as children. However, as I have already said, the law uses different maximum ages in different contexts.

I will give the Committee two further examples of offences. For one of them, the maximum age of victims is 15—that is under section 2(1) of the Child Abduction Act 1984. I know that that will be subject to another debate, however, which I welcome. Secondly, there is the offence of causing or allowing a child or vulnerable adult to die or suffer serious physical harm under section 5 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004. That offence can be committed against a person aged 16 or over, but only if that person’s ability to protect themselves from violence, abuse or neglect is significantly impaired through physical or mental disability or illness. In other words, for the purposes of that criminal legislation, the age of 16 is when someone becomes a vulnerable adult. That is an example of when, of necessity, the law has been drafted in a bespoke way to fit the particular offence with which it deals.

Let me also deal with what I might generally term the age of responsibility. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 provides that it is an offence to engage in sexual activity with a child below the age of 16. That is to reflect the fact that, generally, children aged 16 and above are deemed to be able to give free and informed consent to sexual acts. As we know—this has already been alluded to—16-year-olds can marry with parental consent in England and Wales. Indeed, some may already be parents or carers of a person under the age of 16. Therefore, raising the maximum age of those against whom the offence under section 1 of the 1933 Act could be committed would risk introducing inconsistencies with other aspects of the law.

In short, children over 16 are generally deemed to be capable of living independently of their parents, while those under the age of 16 are generally more vulnerable and dependent on those who care for them. I use the word “generally” advisedly to take into account the points on which I think we all agree about individuals and their complexities.

We are concerned about the unintended consequences of bringing 16 and 17-year-olds within the scope of this criminal offence. In the case of neglect, doing so could create uncertainty as to where a parent’s caring responsibility ends and a young person’s free choice begins. The problem would be particularly acute if the 16 or 17-year-old had left home and was no longer under the care of their parents. For those reasons, the Government do not consider that it would be acceptable to introduce such uncertainty into this area of the law, so I invite the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd to withdraw the amendment.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

The Solicitor-General has dealt with the points that I raised but I am a little disappointed, because it is not beyond Parliament to put right the fact that there may be some inconsistency here and there. If there were an intention to go for this amendment, Parliament would have a raft of consequential amendments on various other legislation. I know that the Solicitor-General has had a brief to speak from and I understand why he puts these matters in that respectful way, but I am disappointed. I come back to the point that, when a person reaches 16, they do not suddenly become capable of doing everything themselves. They are not a mature person, by and large, so we need to protect them.

I am, however, encouraged. I will not try to draw the Solicitor-General out, because he mentioned the possibility of an interaction with a debate we will have on coercive controls, which I am very interested in. Perhaps we can leave this debate where it is at the moment and come back to the generality of it in the other debate, which I anticipate will be next week. If that is ruled in order, I am sure we will be able to do that. Although I am not very encouraged, I am not absolutely despondent. There is much still to play for and we will bat again on another day. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Katy Clark (Labour, North Ayrshire and Arran)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 18—Child cruelty: duty on police officers to liaise—

‘(1) Where an officer is investigating a potential offence under section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 (cruelty to persons under 16), as amended by section 62 of this Act, he or she must notify the Safeguarding Children and Adults Board of the relevant local authority.

(2) A notification must include details of the child or children who are considered to be the victims of the offence.

(3) The Secretary of State may produce further guidance on the form a notification under this section may take.’

New clause 19—Child cruelty: duty on local authorities to liaise—

‘(1) Where a local authority’s Safeguarding Children and Adults Board (“the Board”) is notified of the investigation of an offence under section (Child cruelty: duty on police officers to liaise) the Board must—

(a) facilitate liaison between relevant officials with an interest in the child or children’s well-being, and

(b) refer the case to Children and Adolescents Mental Health Services.

(2) The Secretary of State may, by regulations, define the meaning of “relevant officials” in subsection (1).

(3) Regulations under subsection (2) must include within the meaning of “relevant officials”—

(a) the child’s school,

(b) social services, and

(c) the police.’

New clause 23—Mandatory reporting of abuse of children and vulnerable adults—

‘(1) The Secretary of State must initiate a consultation on the introduction of regulations mandating those working in regulated activities to report evidence of potential abuse of children or vulnerable adults to a relevant authority.

(2) The consultation in subsection (1) must seek to ascertain the degree to which the introduction of such regulations would—

(a) improve best practice in safeguarding children and vulnerable adults;

(b) increase information sharing between key agencies;

(c) enable earlier safeguarding interventions; and

(d) prevent deliberate attempts to cover-up abuse undertaken to safeguard the reputation of an individual or institution.

(3) For the purpose of this section “relevant authority” means—

(a) the local authority with safeguarding responsibilities;

(b) the local police force; and

(c) the Disclosure and Barring Service.

(4) The consultation undertaken under subsection (1) must be completed and a summary of the results laid before Parliament within 18 months of the date of Royal Assent.

(5) Following the completion of the consultation in subsection (1), the Secretary of State may under this section bring forward regulations to amend the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 to introduce regulations mandating regulated activity providers to report suspicious activity to a relevant authority.’

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I have some brief remarks about new clauses 18 and 19. Similar provisions were discussed in the other place and, with the permission of Baroness Brinton, I have tabled the new clauses, with a couple of slight changes, to allow a discussion today.

The new clauses work in tandem to ensure that there would be a duty on police officers to liaise with the safeguarding children and adults board of the relevant local authority in cases where an officer is investigating a potential offence under section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933: that is, an offence of cruelty to persons under 16. Under the terms of new clause 19, in cases where a local authority’s safeguarding children and adults board has been notified that such an investigation is being undertaken, it would have a duty to facilitate liaison between officials who have an interest in the child and refer the case to the children and adolescents mental health services. Under the new clauses, relevant officials could mean, for example, the child’s school, social services and the police.

I hope that the purpose of the new clauses is self-explanatory. As soon as an investigation into a potential case of child cruelty has been reported, tools should be put in place that ensure that the police and local authorities work in tandem to safeguard the best interests of the child and ensure that the child’s welfare is not sidelined in the course of the investigation. To illustrate that point, Baroness Brinton pointed out in the other place:

“In the past year, the NSPCC helpline dealt with 8,000 contacts about emotional neglect and abuse, and 5,500 cases were so serious that they were referred to local authorities for further action.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 July 2014; Vol. 755, c. 525.]

That represented a substantial increase on previous years.

Baroness Brinton also drew attention to the fact that, according to an online survey carried out by the NSPCC, only 7% of social work professionals believed that timely action was taken in response to neglect, while only 4% thought that such action would be taken in response to emotional abuse. By contrast, 75% of respondents said that they felt confident that such action would be taken in response to physical and sexual abuse, which shows a realisation within the profession that the law is not being applied consistently. We referred to inconsistencies in the previous debate; here is a call for consistency.

It is a welcome fact that clause 65 acknowledges that child cruelty can be emotional as well as physical. I obviously applaud that acknowledgement, but we must ensure that criminal justice and child protection professionals have the tools that they need to ensure that all children get the same level of care—the care that they richly deserve—whoever they may be and wherever they may reside. It is essential that children have access to child and adolescents mental health services, which is why they form part of new clause 19.

In essence, the new clauses would ensure that different bodies must work in a joined-up way to ensure best practice. It is vital that new clause 19 puts a duty on the safeguarding children and adults board to facilitate liaison between officials with an interest in a child’s well-being. However, having those tools in place is only the first step to achieving better results for child victims. As Baroness Brinton said when presenting the amendments in the other place, relevant professionals must receive training in how to recognise and deal with emotional and psychological abuse. The fact that only 4% of respondents to the NSPCC’s survey felt confident that victims of such abuse would receive adequate care is shocking.

It is clear that something significant must be done to address social workers’ concerns about the care received by emotionally abused and neglected children. Those who undertake social work perform a tremendously important public service for little reward, often under strict time pressures. Often, if anything goes wrong, they are the first to be criticised, however hard the job they are presented with. We clearly owe children more support, but we also owe the professionals more support, which is why I thought it pertinent to re-table the provisions. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on the new clauses.

Seema Malhotra (Labour, Feltham and Heston)

I welcome clause 65 as a whole. I think children’s charities and Members from all parties will acknowledge that the move to recognise children’s emotional suffering is long overdue. I am glad that the Government have moved to make those changes in the Bill.

I have a few comments to make generally in support of the new clauses tabled by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, recognising the importance of the principle of strengthening child safeguarding procedures, of ensuring that different agencies that might be involved in children’s welfare understand their roles and of creating a stronger duty to communicate and liaise. Too often, we find that children’s welfare can fall through the cracks when agencies are not joined up, particularly local authorities and the police. When I speak to new clause 23, on mandatory reporting, I hope to show why it goes further than the other new clauses. I will explain why we think it would be a better solution.

First, however, on clause 65, I want to raise a broader question, which has also been raised by children’s charities. To what extent will guidance and directions be updated in line with the new offence to ensure that criminal justice and social care professionals, as well as juries, are fully aware of their responsibilities under the new law?

New clause 23 deals with the mandatory reporting of abuse of children and vulnerable adults. We call for the Secretary of State to initiate a consultation on introducing regulations mandating those working in regulated activities to report evidence of the potential abuse of children or vulnerable adults to a relevant authority.

In our debates on these issues, we can see the need for much more of a strategy on early intervention and prevention in relation to child sexual exploitation and other areas where children may be at risk. Anything we can do to strengthen safeguarding at an early stage should be considered by the House. We would like a consultation to ascertain the degree to which the introduction of regulations of the kind I mentioned would improve best practice, increase information sharing between key agencies, enable earlier safeguarding interventions and prevent deliberate attempts to cover up abuse.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

The hon. Lady is making a powerful case. I have read the new clause. She is right that it is better than those I drafted because it is more encompassing. It is a good new clause. If there were a Division in Committee or elsewhere, I would be happy to support it.

Seema Malhotra (Labour, Feltham and Heston)

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. I will consider the Minister’s response when deciding what to do following the debate.

The historic under-reporting—indeed, ignoring—of the abuse exposed by recent scandals shows the significant gap in the protection of children and in the reporting of abuse. Mandatory reporting by anyone with a duty of care for a child or vulnerable adult could be a significant tool in the fight that we need to lead as a nation.

A litany of cases in recent years has brought into sharp focus the need for a change of culture in the way we tackle the abuse of children and vulnerable adults, as well as in the reporting of that abuse—Jimmy Savile, the cases that have arisen from Operation Yewtree, and the systematic abuse of girls in Oxford, Rochdale and Rotherham, through to the exposure of abuse in institutions, including many schools, and the cover-ups that went on in those institutions. Many years later, adults are still dealing with the physical and emotional effects of abuse on their well-being.

The NSPCC has given stark and disturbing examples of institutional cover-ups of child sexual abuse. In August 2013, a fresh police investigation was launched to consider allegations of abuse at a detention centre in Durham. A total of 143 victims came forward initially, but after a BBC programme about abuse at the centre, more than 200 further victims came forward, bringing the total number to approximately 375. Thinking about what the reality must have been like for those young people, we have to ask whether it is true that no one would have known. If they did know, what was their obligation to act?

That type of institutional cover-up is one of the key practices that a mandatory duty to report should target. The intention is not to put additional burdens on overworked employees of institutions that care for children across the country, or indeed on our public services, so many of which, as we know, are overstretched, but to create a level of certainty about what should be reported and by whom.

Some people with suspicions may have wondered what they should do about them. The clarity that would come from a mandatory duty would ensure that people with suspicions felt confident that they could come forward, as they would know where the accusations would be investigated. It is also important to make it clear to those institutions that cover up abuse and put their institutional reputation above the welfare of children or vulnerable adults in their care that they could be criminally liable for doing so.

The implementation of any such duty would understandably be complex, but there could be a consultation on what the relevant duty would be. There could also be an order of priority for approaching relevant bodies such as the local authority or the police. For example, professionals could go first to the local authority. There are concerns that going straight to the criminal justice system, without going through the child safeguarding processes, might deter some people from coming forward.

In debates on the matter in the other place in July, the Government’s reasoning for rejecting amendments on mandatory reporting was that the historical child abuse inquiry was taking place and we should await its outcome. Yet, as Baroness Walmsley pointed out in October, the inquiry was still not under way three months later, and issues with it remain. It is unfortunate that the process has been in disarray, as all the while the issues of how to prevent child sexual exploitation and protect vulnerable children are not being addressed in the strategic way that we know is needed.

The new clause therefore calls for a consultation. We believe that would be a crucial step forward, enabling us to learn from the experience of mandatory reporting in other countries. Mandatory reporting has been introduced in the USA, Canada, Australia and several European states. In those countries, discretion has been removed and certainty has been put in its place. Indeed, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Keir Starmer QC, has expressed his support for mandatory reporting to close the gap in the law. He made that position clear after the report by Alexis Jay following the inquiry in Rotherham. The all-party group on child protection has also called on the Government to consider certain institutional duties that

“require people in leadership positions in institutions…to report allegations of criminal abuse committed against children by people working on behalf of the institution.”

We recognise that there are issues that would need to be addressed in any consultation, to make sure that the legislation could work without unintended consequences. One issue is the potential work load for children’s services. Children and adult services are massively overstretched and are currently responding only to some of the referrals they receive. To cope with their work loads, many children’s services are providing training to other front-line agencies to enable them to triage referrals more effectively. We have to make sure that there is the capacity to respond to what could be a growing volume of referrals.

We also have to recognise existing professional obligations and work. Front-line professionals, including social workers, doctors, nurses and teachers, are under various professional duties in their fields with regard to child protection. We would want to ensure that we did not criminalise someone who was following existing professional best practice. We would not want to see that existing best practice undermined. We would want to be clear about the level of safeguarding referral, and what level of indicators would warrant a referral, in the understanding that that may vary depending on the context. Schools and hospitals might have a lower referral threshold, depending on the situation. Legitimate relationships between a teacher and pupil, for example, must not be misunderstood. We would also have a question about where the referral would go and whether the order of services would be an important consideration.

It is understandable that evidence from abroad has raised other concerns, but there has been no indication that additional reports of potential abuse have not been extensively unsubstantiated. It will be important to look at that evidence as we move forward.

This is not about creating an extra burden: it is about asking how we strengthen the important child safeguarding measures that we have under the law. How can we add to the tools that professionals have to combat abuse and how can we promote a greater understanding of their responsibilities in reporting incidents? The shadow Home Secretary pointed out in August that it is now time for the UK to consider a mandatory duty to report, to make it clear that cultural change has to take place in every institution and to challenge any professional who is tempted to think that such serious issues can be solved quietly by brushing them under the carpet. A clear signal needs to be sent that people should not put institutional reputation before protecting children.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

Another debate is another chance for serious discussion of issues close to the hearts of many members of the Committee. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd for his words. He is right to say that reform of the law on child cruelty has long been a matter of interest to me.

I wish to put on record my thanks to Action for Children for the work it did to marshal support in both Houses to persuade the Government of the merits of the case. The Government have acted after consultation and a ministerial round table. After looking carefully at the evidence, the Government have made sensible proposals that reflect the balance that needs to be maintained, so that acts that anybody would regard as criminal are criminalised and acknowledging the point that abuse is not always purely physical. The more we learn about what goes on in the minds of children, the more we understand that the scars they bear are often internal, and that their mental well-being is as important as their physical well-being. I therefore commend clause 65 to the Committee.

I need not go into full detail about what the clause does, but I will say that, where necessary, the language of the 1933 Act has been modernised and specific provision is made under the “ill treatment” limb of the offence to make it clear that that can be non-physical, which deals with the points that have been made by many of us in the past few years.

It is also right to say that the section of the 1933 Act relating to the suffocation of children under three in bed has been amended to deal with other types of furniture used for sleeping to acknowledge that sadly in some households arrangements are irregular when it comes to the care of very young children. It would be a shame to miss this opportunity and not update the law to ensure that children are protected wherever they might sleep and in whatever circumstances.

It is worth emphasising that the 1933 Act—as I hope it will be amended—is only a part of the comprehensive legislative framework for protecting children. Other relevant legislation includes the Children Act 1989, which obliges local authorities to provide services for children in need for the purposes of safeguarding and promoting their welfare. In addition, the revised Government statutory guidance, “Working together to safeguard children”, which was published in 2013, sets out the roles and responsibilities that all professionals, including teachers, health visitors and the police, must carry out to keep children safe.

The “Working together” guidance sets out the case for having clear criteria for taking action and providing help, from early intervention to a child protection concern where there is reasonable cause to suspect that a child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. The guidance emphasises the need for locally agreed protocols, so that professionals know what to do when they have concerns for a child’s welfare. Where a referral is made to social care services, the local authority has a range of options at its disposal and the action it takes depends on the needs of the child.

The latest data show that as at 31 March 2014, more than 48,000 children were the subject of a child protection plan. Neglect was recorded as the most common initial category of abuse, with 42.1% of children categorised as the subject of a plan because of neglect, but here is the rub: the second most common category was emotional abuse, which affected 33% of such children. Criminal law has to keep pace with that reality, and I am delighted that we are ensuring that today.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

May I place on record one or two points that Lord Taylor raised in his concluding remarks when this matter was debated in the other place on 15 July? I do not expect the Minister to give me an immediate response, but I hope he will address them at a later point, whether by letter or during our consideration of the Bill next week.

First, Lord Taylor said

“as I informed the House on Monday last week, the Government are establishing an independent inquiry panel of experts in the law and child protection to consider whether public bodies and other non-state institutions have taken seriously their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse. It will begin its work as soon as possible after the appointment of all the members of the panel. I hope to be able to report back to the House with details of those members and the terms of reference for the inquiry panel very soon.”

What has happened to that inquiry? The Minister might not be able to answer that now; I am not trying to put him on the spot.

Secondly, Lord Taylor continued

“the work of the national group continues apace. As part of this work, the group has considered the issue of mandatory reporting and whether there is a need for some form of more targeted statutory reporting regime to deliver better protection for children and vulnerable adults.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 July 2014; Vol. 755, c. 528.]

That is bang on the debate we are having now. What is happening on the national group? I am not putting the Minister on the spot—he might not have the answer today—but can we have the answer to that in our later consideration of the Bill?

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. In responding to the new clauses, I will deal with some of the more detailed points on mandatory reporting, but I will deal now with the point on the understanding of the inquiry at the time. As we know, the Home Secretary is determined to ensure that those appalling cases of child sexual abuse are exposed, so that we can not only protect people, but bring people to justice.

We must ensure—the Home Secretary has been working hard on this issue—that the survivors of abuse have confidence in the process. She has worked hard to meet representatives, and she will be making an announcement shortly. She is clear that we must get the balance of the criteria right so people have confidence in the process.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

Evidently, I have not understood the Minister. The first panel inquiry was, to put it in the vernacular, the Woolf inquiry. I understand that, and I am grateful to the Minister. If, at some point, he could respond to the second limb of my question, I would be much obliged.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

As I have said, I am trying to deal with both matters. The announcement will be made shortly. We know that the process has not been easy, but the Home Secretary is determined that after the widespread consultation that she has carried out, we will end up with a process that will command confidence and will have the fullest integrity. I have no doubt that that will be the case. Everybody in the Government wants that to happen.

Seema Malhotra (Labour, Feltham and Heston)

Will the Minister give way?

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I will give way to the hon. Lady.

Katy Clark (Labour, North Ayrshire and Arran)

Order. We are straying from the terms of the Bill. I will allow the hon. Lady’s intervention, but she must bear that in mind.

Seema Malhotra (Labour, Feltham and Heston)

Thank you, Ms Clark. I want to press the Minister on one point. He said that the Home Secretary will make an announcement soon. Does he have any idea how soon it will be? Will it be during Committee stage, or afterwards?

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

It will be shortly. That is all I can say. I cannot give the hon. Lady any more detail.

We all share the objectives of the three new clauses. New clauses 18 and 19 seek to place a requirement on the police, when investigating a child cruelty offence, to inform the local safeguarding board of the investigation. That board would be placed under a duty to facilitate liaison between relevant local officials.

As a point of detail, rather than a criticism—as the right hon. Gentleman knows, I like to see as much legislative facility as possible—local safeguarding children boards and safeguarding adult boards are separate entities with different functions and objectives. As offences under the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 relate only to children under the age of 16, there is no clear role for safeguarding adult boards. I will therefore deal with the new clauses as though they referred to safeguarding children boards. The position in Wales is subject to some reform, and I understand that there will be six children boards and six adult boards to cover the whole of Wales.

I understand and share the right hon. Gentleman’s desire to promote information sharing and ensure effective co-ordination among the relevant agencies, but the question is whether the two new clauses will help in securing that objective. I am reluctant to agree that there should be a new duty on the police to notify the local safeguarding children board about child cruelty incidents. The statutory role of the board is to co-ordinate what is done by board partners, which includes the police, to safeguard and promote the welfare of children within the authority’s area and to ensure that what each partner does is effective. In other words, they do not have a role in dealing with individual cases in the way that the new clauses envisage. That is rightly the role of local authority children’s services themselves. Placing a duty on the police to notify the board of specific cases would be out of kilter with the duties of other board partners.

The board has a much more strategic role of overview, rather than operational functionality. For that reason, new clause 19 is also unnecessary, and does not fit with the statutory functions of local safeguarding children boards. As I said, it relates to policy and strategy, not individual cases. As I think I have made clear, I fully understand and appreciate the vital importance of information sharing.

Let me turn to where the statutory duties already fall. Local authorities are already subject to duties under the Children Act 1989. In practice, if an individual is being investigated over allegations of child cruelty, there may well be an overlap with a local authority duty under sections 17 and 47 of the 1989 Act. Under those provisions, local authorities should in any event assess what help, if any, they should provide to a child in need, or undertake inquiries to establish whether they should take any action to safeguard or promote a particular child’s welfare, where that child is at risk of significant harm. I know that many members of the Committee are familiar with the significant harm threshold test.

As part of what I have described, local authorities will consider whether it is appropriate to engage other partners, including child and adolescent mental health services. In more serious cases, the police may take the view that the child is at such risk that they could be removed to police protective custody, with a view to the seeking of an emergency protection order and with the potential for the local authority to start section 47 inquiries into the child’s welfare. In such cases, the police must inform the local authority of steps being taken with regard to the child. I have already referred to the “Working Together to Safeguard Children” revised guidance and practice advice of 2013, which includes heavy provision for information sharing. For those reasons, while I agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s aims, I am not persuaded that new clauses 18 and 19 are the right approach. I hope that in the spirit of this debate he will be content not to press them.

New clause 23 would put on to a statutory footing our commitment to consult on whether there should be a mandatory duty on those in regulated activity to report known or suspected abuse of children or vulnerable adults. Hon. Members will no doubt be pleased to hear that the Government are sympathetic to the spirit of the new clause. I can do no better than to echo the words of my ministerial colleague Lord Bates, who on Report in the other place said that the Government would

“now hold a full public consultation on the issue of mandatory reporting. We will consult broadly on the advisability, risk, nature and scope of any reporting duty, including questions on which forms of abuse it should apply to, and to whom it should attach. I should emphasise that the Government will look at all the responses they receive with an open mind. It will be a thorough, open and transparent consultation with a rigorous evaluation of the responses.”

He added:

“Given the significance of the issue, it will run for the full 12 weeks. We will undertake to report back to Parliament on the results.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 28 October 2014; Vol. 756, c. 1083-84.]

I am happy to reiterate that commitment today.

I hope that, in the light of that clear commitment to consult, all members of the Committee will be reassured about the Government’s resolve to examine that serious issue. The Government recognise concerns about our current safeguarding system and we understand public anxiety about the potential under-reporting of abuse.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

I want to ask, for clarification, when the consultation is due to start and finish.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I want to come to that and put it into context, and explain why it is a complex issue, which we want to get right before we start the process. I will just elaborate on what I was saying.

We understand public anxiety and it is right that we should continue to look carefully at the matter before coming to a decision. We should also take further time to listen to the views of all those who have an interest. I hope that the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston will be reassured that we share her objective of enhancing the protection of children and vulnerable adults; but we must be certain that we get things right. I think we would all agree that the consequences of not doing so would be serious.

Seema Malhotra (Labour, Feltham and Heston)

I acknowledge that there is shared concern across the House; and, indeed, in other contexts, such as female genital mutilation, mandatory reporting has been the subject of separate consultation. I am sure that that will be part of our debate next week. However, I want to press the Minister on the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport: is he saying that the consultation may be started before the election, or is he talking about deferring it? If it takes 12 weeks, there is not much time between now and April.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention, because I am coming to the current state of play on the consultation. The aim is to do it as soon as possible. Mandatory reporting is a complex issue. We want to be absolutely certain that the interested organisations and the public have the appropriate information and the options available to them so that they can make a proper response to the consultation. We also want to display the evidence on reporting regimes in overseas jurisdictions. It is important that we get the international comparisons right, and we want to make sure that the questions in the consultation are right.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I am interested in this point. When the consultation is concluded, and if, as we all hope, it is positive and there is a change, will this good new clause that we are discussing be in subordinate legislation to the Bill? In other words, would it be in an SI?

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I do not think there is a need to enshrine a duty to consult in primary legislation. There is no need for any form of primary or secondary legislation when the Government make a decision to consult. The commitment is clear—

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

The Minister may have misunderstood. I apologise: I did not make myself clear. If the consultation concludes that we need a change in the law, would that be by statutory instrument?

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I think it would probably need primary legislation. If I am wrong about that, we can clarify that in due course.

I acknowledge the role that Baroness Walmsley has played. She has made huge strides on this matter. Her tireless work has helped to forward the agenda and the work of third sector organisations such as the NSPCC, plus the victims and survivors of abuse whose input cannot be underestimated.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

Will the Minister give way?

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

If the hon. Lady wants to intervene on the point about timing, I am about to deal with that. The Government have publicly committed to the 18-month timetable as provided for in new clause 23, but we have to be absolutely clear about the terms of reference of the consultation and the nature of the questions that will be asked.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

The Minister is dealing with the new clauses thoroughly, and I appreciate that. I commend him for what he said about Baroness Walmsley in the other place, because she has done a lot of work on this and I know she will value his recognition. Nevertheless, in my report back to Baroness Walmsley I would like to be able to completely assure her that we are on the right track. He just mentioned the commitment to the 18-month timetable. Can he underline that, and perhaps share with the Committee how he sees the primary legislation finding its way into a Queen’s Speech or on to the statute book?

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

As my right hon. Friend has said, we have been engaging positively with Baroness Walmsley about the way in which the consultation document can be framed. As I have said—I think I am right—primary legislation would be needed, and that would have to take its place in any new Parliament and be part of a new programme of legislative reform. The 18-month timetable that the Government have publicly committed to today is a clear indication that we want to get on with this as soon as possible. We want to adhere to the spirit of the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston. I commend her for bringing this forward and I thank her for allowing the debate to be held so that the Government can reaffirm their commitment.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

I am just trying to understand that. Many phrases are used: “as soon as possible” and “shortly”, but “imminently” has not been used. As my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston said, we are close to the dissolution of Parliament. I cannot see how the consultation can be completed before Parliament is dissolved, unless the Minister uses the phrase “very imminently”.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. She speaks wisely, as ever. The 18-month period is realistic, and something that everybody can support. It shows that there is an acknowledgement that because we are at a particular stage in the parliamentary cycle, we want not only to get the terms of reference right, but to ensure that this happens at a time when minds can be focused on the task in hand. This is an important, serious process, which was why my noble Friend Lord Bates committed to the full 12-week process, which was significant it itself. I hope that there are many responses to the consultation so that it is as full as possible and that legislation might subsequently be introduced in the new Parliament.

I hope that on reflection, and given my commitment, the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston agrees that we do not need the proposal in her new clause to be enshrined in legislation. I invite her to indicate whether she will press the new clause to a Division.

Seema Malhotra (Labour, Feltham and Heston)

I thank the Minister his positive response to our new clause. We will not press it to a Division, but we hope for clarification before Report about whether he believes that primary legislation will be necessary if a consultation concludes that there should be a duty for mandatory reporting in our legislative framework.

I am keen to understand the process by which the Government will ensure that the questions in the consultation are right and that there is agreement that they are right. If we look at the history of a number of inquiries on child abuse and related matters, the consultation and agreement on how to move forward have created their own problems. I should be grateful if the Minister dealt with that and, indeed, if he provided further indication, even during the course of the Committee’s proceedings, about how quickly such a consultation could begin.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I thank the hon. Lady for her helpful intervention. As I thought—I have received confirmation—primary legislation would be required to implement a mandatory reporting regime because such a regime would place legal duties on front-line professionals and would have clear sanctions attached to it. That would need to be enshrined in statute, so secondary legislation would not be an adequate vehicle to achieve that.

The hon. Lady’s point about the process by which we need to get the questions right echoes exactly what I said earlier, amid a number of understandable interventions, as that is what is happening now. We want to make sure that we frame the questions properly and that those who are directly concerned, especially survivors, feel that they have confidence in the process. I assure her that that process is ongoing and is at the necessary preparatory stage to get ready for the consultation.

Seema Malhotra (Labour, Feltham and Heston)

In recognition that the issue has cross-party support, will the Minister consider involving the Opposition and other hon. Members who may be interested in making sure that their concerns are adequately reflected in the emerging consultation questions?

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I should thank the hon. Lady for agreeing not to press her new clause to a Division. Our debate has shown how input from all parties in the House can improve the process by which we achieve a desired outcome. It would be wholly wrong of me to pre-judge any consultation. It has to be meaningful and we must be guided by what I hope will be a weighty and useful process. I will be happy to reflect on any input that she or other colleagues wish to provide and to think about what she said about formulating the consultation. She is, of course, free to write to us—I am sure that she does so anyway as an Opposition spokesman—and we will consider the points that she makes. I ask the hon. Lady and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd not to press their new clauses to a Division.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

In the light of the Solicitor-General’s response to the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston—

Katy Clark (Labour, North Ayrshire and Arran)

Order. This is not the point at which any new clauses would be withdrawn, but you are very welcome to—

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I was about to ask the Committee’s permission to withdraw, in the light of the response to new clause 23.

Katy Clark (Labour, North Ayrshire and Arran)

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, but this is not the point at which to do that, because this is a clause stand part debate. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to make some general points about the new clauses or clause stand part, I am happy to allow him to do so, but there is no need for him to seek leave to withdraw, because this is not the appropriate stage at which to do that.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I am grateful, Ms Clark. I will just sit it out.

Clause 66 - Possession of paedophile manual

Katy Clark (Labour, North Ayrshire and Arran)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Government new clause 8—Sexual communication with a child.

Government amendments 19 to 23, 2, 5 and 27.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

Before I speak to new clause 8, let me put on record my thanks for the work of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, because it is largely as a result of its efforts and those of its supporters that we are debating this new clause, which will create a new criminal offence prohibiting sexual communications with children. Right hon. and hon. Members will be aware of the “Flaw in the law” campaign that was launched last year by the NSPCC. The society targeted its campaign at what it felt was a gap in the law whereby an adult could, for a sexual purpose, communicate a sexual message to a child, or elicit a sexual communication in response from a child, without prosecution. Committee members will, I trust, have seen the NSPCC’s written evidence, which sets out its well-argued case for a new offence. Lord Harris of Haringey tabled amendments to the Bill on Report in the House of Lords and again on Third Reading to create a new criminal offence aimed at prohibiting the behaviour that I have described. He withdrew his amendment as a result of the Government’s commitment to reviewing and considering the matter further.

Right hon. and hon. Members can be reassured that we have some of the most robust and respected laws in the world when it comes to dealing with those who would commit sexual offences against children. My hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley has been at the forefront of efforts to address this area of offending. Indeed, the new offence of possession of paedophile manuals for which clause 66 provides is a direct result of his assiduous campaign.

I am sure that the Committee agrees that it is vital that we ensure that our laws in this area are kept up to date. The Government have effected several important changes to the existing law so that it is as strong as possible. Amendments to the offence of child sexual grooming under section 15 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which reduce the number of prior contacts that an adult has to have with a child before the offence of grooming can be committed from two to one, have already been taken forward in the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill. That Bill also amends the offence in section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 to increase the maximum custodial penalty from six months to two years. I spoke in support of that measure when I was a member of that Bill Committee. Those measures, alongside the reforms in this Bill, demonstrate the Government’s commitment to tackling the sexual abuse of children.

In many circumstances, it may already be possible to prosecute individuals under the current law in relation to sexual messaging to children or similar behaviour, depending on the circumstances. During the debates in the other place, my ministerial colleague, Lord Bates, set out in detail the current offences that could apply, and I will not repeat them now. The NSPCC was concerned that some offenders could fall between a gap in the law, or that a conviction for their behaviour would not automatically attract the sex offender notification requirements and the vital supervision and monitoring that those requirements entail. We have decided to act in response to that concern. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced the Government’s intention to create this new offence at the We Protect Children Online summit at Lancaster house in December.

New clause 8 creates a new offence that criminalises a person aged 18 or over who communicates with a child under 16 who the adult does not reasonably believe to be 16 or over if the communication is sexual, or if it is intended to elicit from the child a communication that is sexual. Like the existing offence under section 10 of the 2003 Act—that of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity—the new offence will be committed whether or not the child communicates with the adult. It will apply if the defendant can be shown to have acted for the purposes of obtaining sexual gratification.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

We are probably returning to the issue of inconsistencies again, but the Minister will be aware of increasing concern about the sexual exploitation of young people by other young people. I notice that the new clause deals with an adult over 18 contacting a child under 16, but of course a 17-year-old contacting an 11 or 12-year-old girl can be a very serious case of child sexual exploitation.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. I will come back to it in a moment, if I may, because it will give us a useful opportunity again to address the understandable variances in the law.

Let me explain the point about communications between young people themselves. There is a choice to be made. We have to be careful that we avoid discouraging the discussion of sexual matters between young people. Such discussion is a fact in the context of everyday relationships and I am sure that she would not want an unintended consequence of this legislation to be the criminalisation of children and young people in such a way.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

I thank the Minister for that point, but I am referring not to conversations between young people, but somebody who may be 17 sending serious and overt sexual images to a much younger child of perhaps 11. This is about not communication, but things that are harmful. The material that is sent is sometimes quite shocking.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

In a nutshell, the answer is that existing offences cover that situation. Off the top of my head, I cannot remember the relevant sections of the 2003 Act, but I am pretty sure that that such behaviour is already covered. With the help of my officials, I might well be able to get chapter and verse about that for the hon. Lady before I conclude.

I want to convey to the Committee the important message that the new offence will apply equally online and offline. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary made that point very powerfully in another context during one of our previous sittings. This Government treat online behaviour as seriously as offline behaviour; there is no distinction in our mind between such categorisations.

The maximum term of imprisonment under the new offence would be two years. By virtue of Government amendment 5, the new offence will extend to England and Wales. Importantly, Government amendment 21 provides that the new offence will automatically attract the notification requirements for registered sex offenders under the 2003 Act. We are dealing with what some would classify as a gateway offence, but one that can involve prevention as much as prosecution.

The police and the Crown Prosecution Service have welcomed the Government’s proposals and agree that a new sexual offence will indeed help to ensure that young people are fully protected by the law. It will also allow the authorities to intervene earlier to prevent more serious offending, such as sexual grooming and contact offending against children.

I know that the whole Committee is united in its condemnation of the sexual abuse of children. The efforts of right hon. and hon. Members from all parties working together have ensured that our laws in this area remain strong and up to date. The new offences in clause 66 and new clause 8 are a further important addition to existing criminal sanctions to prevent the sexual abuse and exploitation of our children.

In direct response to the hon. Member for Stockport, I have chapter and verse. Section 12 of the 2003 Act makes it an offence to cause another person to look at an image of a person engaging in sexual activity if they act for the purposes of sexual gratification, so that provision would cover the scenario that she quite properly outlined. I commend the measures to the Committee.

Seema Malhotra (Labour, Feltham and Heston)

It is a pleasure to speak to this important clause and to recognise the NSPCC’s work on the new offence in new clause 8.

We welcome absolutely clause 66, which closes an important loophole in the law that could be exploited by paedophiles. Any move further to protect children is to be welcomed. Various provisions in law can be used to limit the sale, publication, production or dissemination of so-called paedophile manuals, but not the simple possession of such a manual. That seemed to have slipped through the net of the criminal law framework, so it is important to close that loophole.

On new clause 8, I note the work of Lord Harris of Haringey in the other place, as well as that of colleagues on both sides of the House, including my hon. Friends the Members for Rotherham and for Stockport. Stories of grooming, including by means such as text message, e-mail and Facebook, to which the next generation is so much more subject, show the changes in technology that have led to new channels through which children can be approached. That has led to the vital development of the new clause, which will mean that the law will effectively catch up with how communications operate in society.

An incredibly important aspect of the Government’s proposals is the fact that the law will operate online and offline. The change remedies a situation about which there has been an important campaign—even the phrase “Flaw in the law” has captured the imagination—which has made it much easier for Government and Opposition Members to get behind the reform.

We have acknowledged in the debate the difficulties that the police have faced in policing what effectively has been sexual messaging, which may start with the abuser aiming to flatter the child before they move on to create a trap, or cycle, that the child is caught in. In the written evidence the NSPCC gave to the Committee, it effectively highlighted the difficulty that the police face in bringing charges. We know that paedophiles and those engaged in grooming will understand the law, and how to work around it, so it is incredibly important that we close any loopholes we can, in order to protect children.

I have one question, which arises from my discussions with the NSPCC and others, about the use of the term “sexual gratification”. Perhaps the Minister can say a little more about it. In the original amendment tabled by Lord Harris of Haringey, the term used was “sexual purpose” rather than “sexual gratification”, and I understand from the NSPCC that it envisages possible problems with the words “sexual gratification”, which are perhaps not so clearly defined as “sexual purpose”. Indeed, the term “sexual gratification” may be too high a bar, which would make it difficult to bring prosecutions. The NSPCC’s feedback from the Scottish police is that the requirement to prove “sexual gratification” has sometimes been too high a threshold, and has blocked prosecutions.

I would be grateful if the Minister could give his response to this issue. My contribution has been intended to be a genuinely constructive criticism of a cause that I know we all welcome. Perhaps he can say whether he shares these concerns; what the Government’s reasoning behind the wording was; and whether he believes there is a deeper reason for it.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

The phrase “sexual gratification” already appears in sections 11 and 12 of the 2003 Act. It is not specifically defined and rightly so, because it is well understood by the courts. In fact, the courts have given it a wide meaning. The Court of Appeal has expressly held that the term might take many forms, and could either be immediate or extend to a longer-term plan.

It may well be that a term such as “sexual purpose” could convey our intended meaning, but we think that the right approach is to stick to a phrase that has already been widely interpreted by the courts. Therefore we believe that, well-intentioned though these concerns are, they are unfounded in the light of case law experience.

Seema Malhotra (Labour, Feltham and Heston)

I thank the Minister for that response, and I understand both the temptation and sometimes the ease of using terms that are already defined within the law and that there is perhaps case law about. However, I wish to press him further about how he will address the concerns that the term “sexual gratification” could set too high a bar for prosecutions and that therefore we might not have cases brought, even though prosecutions should be brought and the police would want them to be brought.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I note that the hon. Lady mentioned Scottish police. Obviously, the Court of Appeal will deal with the criminal law of England and Wales. We are satisfied that the way in which the word “gratification” is defined is wide enough to avoid the sort of concerns that she has expressed. We think that it does fit the bill, and that it will be a fit in terms of encompassing a wide range of conduct. The danger is that we start to redefine things in a way that has unintended consequences. “Purpose” is a different type of word; it might not achieve what the hon. Lady wants it to achieve. We think the use of the word “gratification” is working. Why change it?

Seema Malhotra (Labour, Feltham and Heston)

I thank the Minister for that comment. Perhaps we can approach things in a different way. Perhaps we can say that while “sexual purpose” may not be the perfect term, there still remains an issue and there could still be a justice gap. I wonder whether, between now and Report, I could write to him further on this issue, to see whether the police and charities can help to define further how big they think that gap could be and whether there is anything else that could be done to improve the Bill so that it achieves the intended outcomes that we all want.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I look forward to the hon. Lady’s letter.

Seema Malhotra (Labour, Feltham and Heston)

I thank the Minister for that comment.

In conclusion, we welcome clause 66, and we welcome the Government’s commitment to consider whether “sexual gratification” is the correct, or the most complete, wording for the new clause.

Maria Miller (Conservative, Basingstoke)

I rise to speak to new clause 8. The ways in which technology can now be used to prey on children are deeply concerning. The Government have moved swiftly to ensure that laws are kept up to date and that enforcement is robust, and I believe that they lead the world in their work in this area. Not only do they ensure that children are safe in the UK, but they work in partnership with many other Governments across the world to make children in other countries safer.

New clause 8 is important, and the NSPCC is to be applauded for its work on the measure and more broadly, particularly on the aspects of child exploitation that I dealt with when I was a Minister. The detection of that crime is incredibly important; will the Minister outline what the Government are doing to ensure that when the law is implemented, detection will be successful? In an earlier debate, we talked about the importance of training police on cybercrime, and in many ways, new clause 8 deals with another version of cybercrime. The proposed offence certainly involves technology, and it goes well beyond the training that policemen and women have historically received.

We must make sure that evidence is available. At present, if the communication covered by the offence outlined in new clause 8 is between schoolchildren or students, teachers have the legal power to delete it. Guidelines from the Department for Education make it clear that if teachers believe that a third party is involved in the communication, it should be reported to the police. I have asked for detailed information on the numbers of such reports that are made, and no such information is collated. Although it is entirely possible that schools are making such reports, it is difficult to track them down. I am concerned about how easy it is for teachers to make that sort of judgment for themselves. Perhaps the Minister would comment on that.

Although the proposed change in the law is very welcome, the Minister would do well to reassure the Committee that it will not lead to teachers inadvertently cutting across the law. Sexting has a foothold in the lives of many young people in this country, and that concerns me. If we are to ensure that young people are as safe as they can be, we must look at what I feel is an anomaly. Will the Minister explain how we can be vigilant and avoid any unintended consequences? How can we ensure that if adults—people over the age of 18—request that individuals under the age of 18 undertake the communications covered by new clause 8 in order to circumvent the law, teachers do not inadvertently delete the evidence so that police action cannot be taken? I hope that the Minister will share my view that it would be useful to use the Committee to shed more light on the matter, and to ensure that colleagues in other Departments take action.

Paul Beresford (Conservative, Mole Valley)

I am much in favour of clause 66 and also the new clause. I will not go on about it, because I have been going on about it since 2002 with various Governments and Ministers. I respect the comment made about being able to persuade Ministers, but not necessarily civil servants. I was at the wrong end of that, but I mean no disrespect to anyone else here.

As I was sitting quietly listening and reading, I noted amendment 20. Will the Minister look at that? Much of our legislation applies internationally and it has been very effective. We recently had the World cup. I take more interest in one of those peculiar balls that is pulled and tweaked at the end: they call it rugby. The Minister’s Welsh accent indicates he is probably in favour of that.

The World cup in Brazil attracted paedophiles from miles away—hundreds if not thousands of miles—and there was a huge campaign. An organisation called Happy Child—it is based in my constituency, but works in Brazil—had the “It’s a Penalty” campaign, which was extremely successful. Everybody flying in and out of this country and many others got a warning that any sexual activities with children in Brazil would mean being hit with a penalty.

The feeling of the police forces here was that with a bit of luck the Brazilian authorities would deal with any cases, because Brazilian jails and our jails are slightly different, and to spend a long period of time in a Brazilian jail would make spending any time in a British jail look like a comfort home. However, the key point in the campaign was that if anyone engaged in any activities with children in Brazil and they were not collected by the Brazilian police, but that became known here, they could be prosecuted in this country.

I am a little surprised, although I have possibly misunderstood amendment 20. Many of the gangs that organise the abuse of children, including the sorts of activities in both of the clauses we are considering now, are international. I touched on the Brazil case, and I could mention another one. A friend of mine arrested two English individuals who were on their way with their manuals and computers to France to utilise the opportunity to abuse children. It was felt that they were probably going for French children, although it was not clear. They could easily get round the legislation—as I read it, although I am not a lawyer—by using internet cafés in France, for example, to do exactly the things that we are legislating against here.

So I have a little difficulty: I am sure it is the way I read the amendment but, if it is not, can we quietly think again? The ingenuity of paedophiles and paedophile gangs and the international nature of their activities—one only needs to look at Europol for recent activities—indicate that to restrict this legislation, as I read it, to this country alone is a mistake, and I do not want to start another 10-year nag to get it changed.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

The debate has ranged widely, as was probably going to be the case, bearing in mind the issues raised and the number of new clauses that now accompany an important change to the law in clause 66. I hope that I have addressed the point raised by the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston about the phraseology of the words “sexual gratification”. I pay tribute, in passing, to my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley. He perhaps underplays the role that he has played in making sure that the possession of paedophilic materials and paedophile manuals becomes a criminal offence in its own right.

I did not do it justice in my opening remarks, but I will say this. For years, the possession of such material could have been used to assist the prosecution of paedophiles as incriminating material that would allow a jury to conclude that the individual concerned was somebody with those tendencies, but it was not easy. The admissibility of such evidence depended on various other factors that sometimes were not present, and it was galling to take the role of a prosecutor, as I did on occasions, and realise that this disgusting material was not admissible and the jury would not know anything about it at all.

Paul Beresford (Conservative, Mole Valley)

What is even more important is that—as the Minister set out at the beginning of this afternoon’s discussion—the legislation in this country, introduced by the previous Government and this one, has had a large proactive aspect to it. It is that aspect that really is the difference with the manual.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

Not only will the measure now allow that offence to appear as part of a series of charges, which is welcome, but it is the sort of offence that can deal, at an early stage, with people who have perhaps not committed fully completed offences of paedophilia, but who were quite clearly set upon that path. That is why giving the police and the courts the power to deal with possession of this type of material, subject to a number of defences that I think are entirely consistent with existing criminal law, is a real step forward. I thank my hon. Friend very much indeed for all his efforts.

On the particular point about extra-territorial jurisdiction that my hon. Friend raises, our starting point is that it would apply in the most serious cases. While it remains available in other cases, we have decided that it would not be available in this case, bearing in mind the type of offending that we are dealing with. That is not an easy decision to make, but we feel that as a policy, it is right to focus on what everybody would regard as that cohort of offending that would be extremely serious. That is obviously not to minimise the nature of the offending in this case.

Paul Beresford (Conservative, Mole Valley)

I gave, very deliberately, an example of two gentlemen—if I can call them gentlemen: they are paedophiles—much of whose activity actually took place in Franc although they were based in Dover. The legislation is going to go through and they will just hop across the border.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I take my hon. Friend’s point, but I have to also look globally at the way that ETJ—extra-territorial jurisdiction—applies. While it would be an easy get-out for me to make commitments today on that basis, it would not do a general service to the careful way in which we have to apply this important principle, bearing in mind the range of offending that we have to deal with as an enforcing authority.

Seema Malhotra (Labour, Feltham and Heston)

I thank the hon. Member for Mole Valley—I apologise, I meant to recognise his work earlier—for the point he has raised. It had been unclear to us exactly how Government amendment 20 applied to those who were perhaps resident in the UK, but were abroad and vice versa. That might be an issue that we will be keen to come back to on Report.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that indication.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke asked how to ensure that the way in which the offence is dealt with will be successful. We will work with the College of Policing and the CPS. They will provide and prepare appropriate guidance to make the necessary operational arrangements, which will coincide with the commencement of this offence, as happens when a new concept and new criminal offences are introduced in other scenarios. I give her that reassurance.

My right hon. Friend asked about the extent to which teachers might have a power to delete texts that they find. I shall have to write to her about that because I want to give her sufficient detail to answer what is an important point and one that she has pursued in the past. With that undertaking, I promise to furnish her with further information.

I commend clause 66 and the new Government clauses to the Committee. I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for taking part in what was a useful debate.