Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2015.

Schedule 4 - Minor and consequential amendments

Karen Bradley (Conservative, Staffordshire Moorlands)

I beg to move amendment 24, in schedule 4, page 114, line 18, at beginning insert “Part 1 of”.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments 25 and 26.

Seema Malhotra (Labour, Feltham and Heston)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Davies. I have a question, of which I have given notice to the Minister. I simply ask for a point of clarification on Government amendment 26 on the provision of legal aid, which we welcome. Will the legal aid proposals cover advocacy as well civil legal services—that is, will they include both solicitor and barrister services if need be, depending on the case?

Karen Bradley (Conservative, Staffordshire Moorlands)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, albeit I hope quite briefly this morning. I will respond to the shadow Minister’s question directly. Part 3 of schedule 1 to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 provides that the civil legal services listed in part 1 of schedule 1 to that Act do not generally include advocacy, subject to exceptions. Advocacy in the relevant civil courts, including the family court, is already caught by those exceptions, but amendment 26 ensures that advocacy in proceedings to vary or discharge female genital mutilation protection orders in the Crown court and magistrates court is also included in the exceptions. Legal aid for advocacy will therefore be available in such cases. Given that reassurance, I hope the hon. Lady will be happy to accept the amendment.

Seema Malhotra (Labour, Feltham and Heston)

I thank the Minister for her response and very much appreciate what she has told the Committee. On that basis we will support the amendments.

Clause 75 - Transitional and saving provisions

Clause 76 - Extent

Clause 77 - Commencement

Clause 78 - Short title

Title

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

Before we move to the important question of reporting the Bill, as amended, to the House, I am prepared to entertain brief, pithy and witty points of order from either side thanking all and sundry for the work that has been put in from all quarters to make this process effective.

Karen Bradley (Conservative, Staffordshire Moorlands)

On a point of order, Mr Davies. I will endeavour to be as brief as we have been in our deliberations today.

As we reach the end of our deliberations on the Bill, I would like to say a few words to mark the occasion. The Bill has had the benefit of a broad measure of cross-party support, but the Committee has none the less ensured that its provisions have received proper scrutiny.

I am grateful, as indeed is my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, for the courteous and constructive way in which the hon. Members for Birmingham, Erdington, for Croydon North and for Feltham and Heston have approached their task on the Opposition Front Bench.

I am also grateful to the Whips, my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire and the hon. Member for Sedgefield, for the way they ensured that the Committee kept to good time.

I must also record my thanks to you, Mr Davies, and your co-Chair, Ms Clark, for the way you have not only ensured that our deliberations have been conducted in an orderly manner, but kept us from straying too widely from the issues at hand.

I also extend my thanks, and I am sure the whole Committee will join me in this, to the Clerks, the Hansard writers and the doorkeepers.

Finally, on behalf of my hon. and learned Friend, the Solicitor-General, and myself, I extend my thanks to all the officials and lawyers from the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Solicitor-General’s office who have supported us in Committee.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

Thank you, Chair; it is a pleasure to have served under your chairmanship.

Brevity is not normally my greatest strength. I remember being told, when I was about to address a conference, “You’ve got five minutes.” I said, “Five minutes? Normally, it takes me five minutes to introduce myself.”—[Laughter.]

This is an important Bill, ranging from—on the one hand—tackling the obscenity of child sex exploitation to—on the other hand—the grotesque and growing threat to our country of terrorism.

On dealing with the proceeds of crime, welcome progress has been made; the law has been strengthened. We also welcome the fact that a very important barrier, by way of a disincentive to the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute, has been removed. In the future, Rolls-Royce lawyers may be hired but the costs will be capped at legal aid costs.

On computer misuse, we rightly argued for much greater responsibility to be placed on internet service providers. The Internet Watch Foundation is right when it says that there is a high degree of co-operation with providers in this country, but there are still big question marks about some providers, for example some of those based in the United States of America. Therefore, we regret that further progress was not made. Nevertheless, there was progress.

On organised, serious and gang-related crime, the hon. Member for Croydon North, using his considerable experience as leader of Lambeth borough council, rightly argued for a much greater emphasis on prevention, including the notion of dissuasion panels.

Part 4 of the Bill, which is about drug-cutting agents, strengthens the law, and rightly so; crucially, it is now about enforcement of the law. Part 5 of the Bill is about child protection and female genital mutilation. Understandably, consideration of this part of the Bill dominated the Committee’s time. There were important gaps in the law relating to child protection that were addressed; for example, the child cruelty offence was updated and the possession of a paedophile manual was criminalised. The progress that has been made is indeed welcome, and the same is true of the strengthening of the law on FGM. Important progress was made on that issue, sending unmistakable messages, including on extraterritorial liability. We regret that the Government would not go that one step further in relation to criminalising positive encouragement of FGM. Nevertheless, progress was made.

Finally, in the section relating to knives and mobile phones, but also terrorism, there was a high degree of consensus, and rightly so, because whatever differences there may be between political parties, there is an obligation on us all in this House to stand as one in opposition to the growing and grotesque threat of terrorism.

In conclusion, I thank both the Ministers who have led on behalf of the Government. We have agreed to disagree on occasion, but the open-mindedness of approach and flexibility of response have been welcome. We will continue to push them to go further, but the debate in Committee has been conducted in a manner that reflects well on this House.

I also thank my colleagues, the shadow Ministers; this is the first Bill they have considered as shadow Ministers. I am a veteran of the Localism Act 2011, which I will never forget—all 20 sittings. I thank them for their excellent contributions; both of them gave a tour de force.

I thank all our staff. We do not have the same battery of resources available to the Government. However, we are, as I think Private Eye once described it, “small but perfectly formed.” I thank all members of their Committee for their contributions. Again, there was a high degree of consensus across the Committee on some of the key issues that we were considering. I thank our Whips for their characteristic efficiency in taking us through a very important Bill in effectively seven sittings. They have done an excellent job. I thank the staff—those in the back room—without whom Parliament could not function and, in particular, the Clerks: Fergus, Oliver and Kate. Their work is deeply appreciated.

In conclusion, Mr Davies, I thank you and Ms Clark for chairing the Committee. I stress that we are disappointed that further progress was not made in some areas. However, a number of welcome changes have been made to strengthen the law without hesitation and we will continue to debate that further, including on Report.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

Further to that point of order, Mr Davies, I am grateful to you and Ms Clark for chairing the Committee so ably. The proceedings have been an example of Parliament at its best. We may have disagreed in several areas but the arguments were sensible, and based on fact and research; it has been an excellent Committee to be part of. I thought, when the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington rose, that we were going to have a reference to Joe and Josephine Soap from the Dog and Duck—[ Laughter. ] Evidently, they are elsewhere being dried out at the moment. We did not quite get there.

There are a number of important facets to the Bill, which I shall not go through because the hon. Gentleman listed them. It is an important Bill in many ways and I am delighted that it was the vehicle for my coercive control change to the law, which I have been worrying about for some time. I pay tribute to the Solicitor-General because he was involved in the early days of that campaign. Perhaps it is going too far to say it was a pleasure, but it has been a privilege to serve on the Committee. It will be my last before I stand down.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

On that point, it is right that we record that there are many champions on the Committee. For example, on the Opposition side sit my hon. Friends the Members for Stockport and for Rotherham, who have done great work, often in difficult circumstances, on the issue of child exploitation and abuse. However, one of the finest champions that the House has seen in a long time, of the causes that he has espoused and the progress made in the Bill, is the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

On that note, what can I say? It is time to saddle the horse.

Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)

It has been a pleasure to chair the Committee. I thank everybody for making it so agreeable, and the Clerks for making me look mildly competent because without them I would not. I particularly thank my co-Chair, Katy Clark, who did all the hard work.