Criminal Justice Bill

Public Bill Committee, 16 January 2024.

Pauline Latham (Conservative, Mid Derbyshire)

Before we begin, I have a few preliminary announcements. Members should send their speaking notes by email to hansardnotes@parliament.uk and please switch your electronic devices to silent. As you know, tea and coffee are not allowed at these meetings.

Clause 15 - Testing of persons in police detention for presence of controlled drugs

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

I beg to move amendment 25, in clause 15, page 11, line 19, leave out lines 19 to 21.

The amendment and amendment 26 ensure that procedural provisions in respect of regulations made under new section 63CA of PACE 1984 operate as intended.

Pauline Latham (Conservative, Mid Derbyshire)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Government amendment 26.

Amendment 133, clause 15, page 11, line 27, at end insert—

“63CB Diversion services for persons testing positive for controlled drugs

Where a person has tested positive for the presence of controlled drugs in a sample taken under section 63B, that person must be directed to an appropriate drug diversion service.”

This amendment would require the police to refer individuals who test positive for a controlled drug to a drug diversion service.

Clause stand part.

Government amendments 27 to 31.

Clauses 16 and 17 stand part.

Government amendments 45 and 46.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

It is a great pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mrs Latham.

This series of Government amendments and associated clauses expands the police powers to drug test on arrest to include locations outside of custody. That includes introducing a new police power into part 3 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to drug test persons on arrest at a location outside of the custody suite when certain conditions have been met. It also amends part 3 of the Drugs Act 2005 to provide the police with a power to require people who test positive to attend an initial assessment—and, when appropriate, a follow-up assessment—in respect of their drug misuse.

The Government are keen to get more people into treatment: something that we have funded with £300 million of extra cash over two or three years, with the aim of creating 54,500 extra drug treatment places. I am sure that we can all agree that the best thing is to get people off drug addiction, to prevent criminal behaviour.

The assessments that I have just referred to will enable those people to be referred into treatment or support services, whose funding has just been increased, as I mentioned. The new power will operate alongside the existing power, as expanded in the Bill, to drug test people on arrest or charge in police detention under section 63B of PACE.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

During the evidence sessions it was made very clear, by both experts in the field and the police officers, that currently there is absolutely no possibility of this resource being available. Will the Minister please outline what resources the Home Office will put in place to ensure that the drug testing that he is rightly outlining will be able to take place?

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

I thank the hon. Lady for raising the point. It is important to have capacity to deliver the testing. As I mentioned a couple of moments ago, we are now in the second year of a three-year funding commitment, as part of the 10-year drug strategy, to fund 54,500 extra drug treatment places across the country, delivered in partnership with local public health bodies. Those places have been created. There are now also liaison and diversion officers, I think, in every—or almost every—custody setting and in many courts as well, to help identify people who have a drug addiction.

Just before Christmas, I visited the custody suite in Northampton, where I met liaison and diversion officers. They speak to people who have been brought into custody and, if there is a substance problem, get them referred as we are describing. I accept that there is a need for resources, but those investments are being made. The implementation is being tracked by a cross-Whitehall taskforce that meets on a regular basis and includes officials from lots of Departments.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

I thank the Minister for that and am fully in favour of more drug support services. What I was asking was whether the police have the resources to undertake the drug testing that the clause outlines. The police said no; this is not about whether somebody then gets referred on—the police, in the evidence session, said no. The Casey review into the Metropolitan police last year found that samples from rape cases were being kept next to packets of sandwiches in a police officer’s fridge. Yesterday, there was the story about the foetus in Rochdale. Also, if—

Pauline Latham (Conservative, Mid Derbyshire)

Order. This should be an intervention, not a speech.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

Okay. There are just not the clinical resources in police stations currently. Will the Minister outline how the testing will be funded?

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

I have talked about the liaison and diversion officers and the treatment capacity, but on police resources, which the hon. Lady was asking about, we have just completed a substantial police recruitment programme. We now have 20,951 more officers than we had four years ago and 3,500 more than we have ever had before. The training takes two to three years; as officers complete their training, more and more will be available for frontline deployment. In addition, we are also—

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

It is not officers—it’s forensics.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

Well, the actual tests often get administered by police officers, and the hon. Lady asked about police officer capacity.

We are also removing some of the administrative burdens on policing by reforming the Home Office counting rules—that has already saved half a million hours of police time per year. Furthermore, the NHS are in the process of picking back up mental health cases where there is no criminality or threat to public safety. That is right; people in a mental health crisis need medical treatment, not the police. Once that is fully implemented, and we are in the middle of doing it now, it will free up more than a million hours of police time. In addition to record police numbers, we are removing some of the burdens keeping them from frontline activity, including what we are discussing.

I am satisfied that both police resources and medical treatment resources are available. If anything, the challenge is actually that we are not using all the treatment places available. Some of the proposals in this legislation will help the police refer more people for that initial assessment, which we hope and expect will lead to treatment in the extra places that we funded.

I do not want to stray too far from the clause, Mrs Latham. Following the community safety partnerships review and antisocial behaviour powers consultation, we are, as I mentioned, expanding drug testing on arrest to locations outside of custody so that the tests can be done quickly and easily and take up less time, to answer the point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley. That expansion, in addition to the expansion of drug testing to class B and class C drugs, as the Bill already provides, will ensure that police have all the necessary powers to identify people with a drug problem and get them into treatment.

The Government amendments confer a power on the police to drug test when a person aged 18 or over has been arrested for an offence and the officer has requested that the person give a sample. The power is discretionary, to be used when the officer feels that it is an appropriate course of action. It is also worth being clear that when drug testing takes place outside of police detention—that is, not in a police station—only a non-intimate sample, such as a swab or saliva, may be taken, for obvious reasons.

As with the current powers to drug test in police detention, testing may take place only when a person has been arrested for a relevant trigger offence, or another offence where an officer of at least the rank of inspector has reasonable grounds to suspect that the misuse of a specified controlled drug has caused or contributed to the offence and expressly authorises the test. A refusal to provide a sample without good reason will be a criminal offence, as is currently the case with the existing regime for drug testing on arrest.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

In many domestic abuse cases—the fatal ones, sadly—the fact that the perpetrator was on drugs is used as a mitigating factor to get, for example, a manslaughter charge rather than a murder charge; I could cite many cases, but I will not stretch the Chair’s patience. Will drug testing be done in cases of domestic abuse, and has the Minister thought about how that might help the perpetrator?

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

As I just set out, drug testing might be done, particularly if the inspector thinks that drug abuse might have contributed to the offending. If someone is on drugs that are causing them to commit domestic abuse, I am sure we would all want that identified so that action can be taken.

On the hon. Lady’s point about homicide versus manslaughter, that is not in the scope of this Bill—we are not making any changes in that area. I do, however, share her concern about the cases of people who murder their partners. We should not be somehow excusing their behaviour or seeking to diminish their culpability by saying, “Oh, they’re on drugs,” and getting the charge dropped from homicide to manslaughter. Although that is not the topic of this Bill—the Bill makes no changes as far as that is concerned—I share the hon. Lady’s concern. I hope that the legal community have heard the point that she has just made, with which I have enormous sympathy. I think it sounds reasonable.

The safeguards for the new power include that it can be used only by approved constables; that the statutory PACE codes of practice must include provision about how the new drug testing power is to be exercised; and that the sample may be taken only for the purpose of a drug test. That is to ensure that the power is used proportionately and only by those with appropriate experience.

The individual being tested must also be given a notice setting out why, when and where they were tested, and the result of the test. Following a positive test, a person can be required to attend an assessment with a drug-support worker, as is the case with the current drug testing regime. Non-attendance without good reason will itself be an offence. We will probably debate Opposition amendment 133 later; that tries to go further on this issue.

The trigger offences and specified controlled drugs will be set out in secondary legislation. The Secretary of State will, in line with the regime for drug testing in police detention, have the power to specify in regulations those trigger offences within the scope of drug testing in locations outside of custody, and the controlled drugs to be tested for. Such regulations will be subject to the affirmative and negative procedures respectively. That will ensure appropriate parliamentary scrutiny and allow for the regime to be varied if circumstances require.

The amendments also make various—I hesitate to use this term after the comments from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Nottingham North, last time—technical and consequential amendments; I think we should excise the word “technical” from our discussions in future to avoid triggering the shadow Minister. The amendments make various important and consequential changes to ensure that the drug testing regime outside of custody has the same legal effects as drug testing in police detention.

In talking through the amendments, I have explained the intent behind clauses 15 to 17. I will rest my remarks there and reply later to any further points raised in the debate.

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

As we have heard, clauses 15 to 17 expand police powers to test for drugs in suspects who have been arrested and are in police detention. Drug testing on arrest was originally introduced as a police power under the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000, which inserted sections 63B and 63C into the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. That legislation gave the police the power to drug test those arrested if aged 18 and over, or charged if aged 14 and over, for the presence of specified class A drugs if arrested or charged either for a trigger offence or where a police officer of at least the rank of inspector has reasonable grounds to suspect that specified class A drug use has caused or contributed to the offence and authorises the test. Trigger offences include theft, handling stolen goods, going equipped for stealing and possession of a controlled drug if committed in respect of a specified class A drug. We know that such offences have a significant link to substance misuse. Clause 15 expands police powers to test not just specified class A drugs but any specified controlled drug.

We were very keen on such measures 23 years ago in relation to class A drugs, and we support their expansion to include any specified controlled drug; my anxiety stems from the fact that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley mentioned, we heard in the evidence session and we know from engagement with our local police forces that there is not likely to be the capacity to do this effectively.

The Minister said that there are record police numbers, but he knows that there are 10,000 fewer police in neighbourhood settings. His pushback to that in previous debates has been to classify response police as neighbourhood police, but they would certainly not be able to do this type of activity. The burden of proof is on the Minister and the Department to show where the capacity will come from. We have real doubts, although we hope the measure will work.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

Does my hon. Friend agree that the measure seems to be in contradiction to the position that many police forces are in? Because they lack resource capacity, they are withdrawing from dealing with issues relating to mental health and are saying, “We don’t have the capacity to do it.” Does my hon. Friend agree that this measure will put more pressure on police forces at a time when they are having to withdraw from some operational interventions?

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Routinely or in extremis, demand pressures can push officers to do just the basics—keeping people safe and putting people in detention—rather than dealing with the broader issues, as we want them to. That problem creates further issues, and that is a challenge for us all.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

On that point, it is important to clarify the reason we are introducing the national partnership agreement, which applies Right Care, Right Person across the whole of England and, we hope, Wales too. Following a successful pilot in Humberside, it was found that in many of the mental health cases that the police were dealing with there was no criminality and no threat to public safety, so a police response was not right for the person suffering the mental health crisis. Not only was that taking up lots of police time that should have been spent doing other things, such as dealing with drug offences, but the person suffering a health episode was not being properly treated. It was found in Humberside that it is better for everyone, including the patient, to get a medical response in those circumstances. That is the motivation for the national partnership agreement, which the hon. Gentleman just referred to.

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

The evidence from Humberside was strong and gave us encouragement to expand the scheme nationally; the challenge will be whether we see the same level of thought in its implementation across the country as we saw in Humberside. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle said, the risk is that forces will apply the scheme by simply not responding or turning their phone off, and displacing the activity. Humberside is a really good example of something done thoughtfully and well, but we should not assume that we will see that nationwide.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

On the point that the Minister made in his intervention, does my hon. Friend agree that the issue is circuitous? The reason why the police were involved in mental health interventions in the past, although they are pulling away from them, was that there were such strains and stresses on the health service and local government that they had to fill the gap. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is getting to the farcical stage, with gaps in resources left, right and centre?

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

Sadly, it has been a defining feature of the past nearly 14 years that we have been left dealing with significant issues such as substance misuse at the latest and most expensive stage, and that is particularly pertinent in policing. We deal with mental health issues, to the degree that we do deal with them—certainly for children and adolescents, that is definitely not the case universally—at the point of crisis. We do not have earlier interventions.

My amendment 133 seeks to add a little bit of that back in. It is a point of agreement across parties that, if individuals are in custody for crimes that they are alleged to have committed and they test positive for substances in their system, then that support is necessary—it is critical—to stop their drug use and hopefully change their life. My amendment refers to that, and I will get to that in a second. Currently, under the Drugs Act 2005, an individual who tests positive for a class A drug may be required to attend an individual assessment relating to their drug use and possibly a follow-up assessment. I think that we can go a little further than that, as my amendment does.

As my hon. Friends have said, there is a significant hole in the Government’s plan. Very little of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 remains; it was terrible legislation and the Government had to chuck it in the bin less than a decade after it was enacted. However, it transferred responsibility for drug treatment services—the ones that we are talking about in this context—to local authorities, and that is one thing that remains. I was once the health leader on my council—I know that there is a former council leader, as well as other councillors, among my colleagues—and I have a lot of time for local leadership of vital local services, but this has to be seen in the context of the subsequent destruction of local government finances, as a result of which the services that these clauses rely on have been under huge pressure.

The Minister talked about £300 million over three years. The reality is that, through the public health grant in 2013, we spent £828 million on addiction services, but last year we spent £608 million. Set against population changes and the growth in demand, that is a huge change. The Minister is in danger of borrowing a tenner from me, giving me a fiver back and then asking for a letter of thanks, which will not be forthcoming. That is the reality. As my colleagues have said, we are creating demand for policing services by failing to make earlier interventions, and we are costing ourselves more money. The Government are at risk of knowing the cost of everything but the value of nothing.

The cost in human terms is devastating. Again, this relates directly to what these clauses are supposed to do. We want drugs testing in custodial settings in order to reduce reoffending or help people not to offend at all, but we also do not want people to die; we do not want the logical furthest consequences of their drug use to be realised. However, drug deaths have doubled since 2021. That is twice as many people, and those are the very people that the clause relates to. Many of those people will have entered custody because of theft or violence, and we would have known them to be drug-addicted. The lack of those services remains a huge problem.

Our amendment 133 would amend the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 by inserting a new section 63CB, which would state:

“Where a person has tested positive for the presence of controlled drugs in a sample taken under section 63B, that person must be directed to an appropriate drug diversion service.”

It is vital that the right interventions and support are in place to help people out of the terrible cycles of addiction and criminality that drug addiction can cause.

It is important that people get support, not just to deal with their addiction, but to deal with what might sit underneath it, whether that relates to trauma or to other things that have happened in their life. Amendment 133 would make sure that that is the case for all individuals who test positive for substances under the expanded powers that the Government are seeking in relation to specified controlled drugs. The amendment would go further than the Drugs Act 2005 by making it an obligation to refer.

I am conscious that, at some point, all of us, through our constituency work, will deal with individuals— or with their families or neighbours—who, through their substance misuse, are exceptionally challenging. I understand that there are situations where that is really difficult, but I also think a lot about our experience during the pandemic, which was one of the most testing times for this country, certainly in my lifetime, and specifically about the work that we were able to do with people who were homeless and had substance abuse issues. Under the right conditions, those people made incredible progress, even though we were at one of our most difficult moments nationally.

Thoughtful interventions can work, and I believe that we have an obligation at least to try them. Getting even a single individual in a town to enter those services successfully can have a huge impact on theft and antisocial behaviour, because those individuals are often the most prolific offenders. That is the rationale for the amendment and I am interested in hearing the Minister’s views on it.

Turning to the Government amendments, I promise I will not labour any semantic arguments over technical or consequential language, but they are significant, and I hope that the Minister will at least accept that. I want particularly to look at Government amendments 25 and 26 and new clause 13.

The amendments delete subsection (4) of proposed new section 63CA of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and insert a new subsection (5A)—I do not blame those at home if they are not following. According to the explanatory notes, subsection (4) originally existed to provide for regulations made by the Secretary of State to make clause 15 operative, via the negative procedure in the case of controlled drugs, and via the affirmative procedure in the case of varying trigger offences. The new explanatory note says the effect of the amendments is to ensure that new regulations “operate as intended”. Whether that is technical or substantial, it is tautological. Of course the impact is to make them operate as intended, but there is a lack of clarity, and I hope the Minister will provide an explanation. Previously, for controlled drugs, a variation to the list was to be done via the negative procedure, and variations to trigger offences were to be done via the affirmative procedure. Which way will those variations be done now, and what is the motivation for the change?

Clause 16 expands the scope from class A drugs to controlled drugs. We are happy with that approach, but it is significantly added to by Government amendments 27, 28 and 29, and particularly Government new clause 13, which introduces an entirely new concept. That is in no way technical, consequential or necessary to make small changes; it is a huge and significant change to the purpose of this part of the Bill.

Clause 15 explicitly mentions testing in police detention in its title. The introduction of a new concept of testing outside police detention late in the day deserves our scrutiny and perhaps some more explanation from the Minister. Under proposed new section 32A(1) of PACE, a constable will be allowed to take

“a single non-intimate sample from a person”

provided that three rather basic conditions are met in relation to the nature of the arrest, the age of the person and some disclaimers relating to the nature of the request being made. The bars are very low and arguably would be cleared in virtually every type of arrest for someone over the age of 18 and definitely in every type of arrest for a public order or nuisance type offence.

I would have valued the opportunity to press witnesses on capacity and on what problem we are seeking to solve with the amendments, but I am afraid that the Minister must provide that clarity instead. Who has asked for the power? What problem is it in the service of solving? I do not think I am taking things to an extreme by saying that, as it stands, we could have constables being asked to take urine samples from individuals at football matches. That would clear the tests very easily. It could also happen in nightclubs; again, the desirability of that is questionable, but it would definitely clear the three tests. It could also happen in colleges or at universities, with 18-year-olds in those settings and arrests being made as a result of nuisance or disturbance.

That would happen in those rather public places, outside custodial settings—goodness knows where in the buildings; in the toilets, perhaps—and presumably it would be supervised so the nature of the urine sample could be trusted. What is so time-sensitive that it cannot wait for a return to a custody setting? I cannot help but feel that there is a risk of really broadly arranging the amount of urine being taken from the public and, frankly, I am not sure about the degree of public interest in that.

Again, this is particularly challenging, because not only has the new clause been added rather late in the process—we could not scrutinise the Home Secretary on Second Reading and we were unable to interrogate witnesses during oral evidence—but it relies on regulations. We have to jump into the dark and assume that a sensible regime will be established by the Home Secretary and then dealt with via an unamendable motion in a Committee Room. I do not think that is a particularly robust regime.

Finally, on clause 17, it seems wise to align current practice with the law. It is slightly concerning that the law has essentially been set aside by Home Office guidance, but, given that that seems to have been the case for a decade, we probably just are where we are, and tidying that up in law is probably wise.

In conclusion, we support the principle, which was introduced by the previous Labour Government, that it is important to establish the drug use of people who commit certain trigger offences, or may have committed offences as a result of their drug use in the eyes of the inspector. Expanding that beyond class A makes abundant sense, but quality treatment must follow as the default. If the Minister does not want to accept the language in my amendment 133, I hope to hear that he believes that that ought to be the default, unless there is a really good example, such as someone who is already in a treatment service. There are huge issues relating to capacity. I know the Government need to have a line on what they are doing on capacity, but I hope that is not their private view, because I do not think it matches up with reality, certainly in our communities. Again, the burden will be on the Government to demonstrate that.

Finally, new clause 13 is a really significant change. I have yet to hear from the Government what the real case for it is or what problem we are seeking to solve. That gives us pause. I will probably not press my amendment to a Division, but we may yet have to vote on new clause 13.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

I am not offended by the fundamentals of the clause—the idea that everybody is drug-tested. I can foresee possible abuses of the discretion that the Minister described, and I will not be surprised in a couple of years’ time if that discretion is used with black people more than it is with white people, for example, but time will tell. Let us have the triumph of hope over experience that this occasion will not be like every other one that came before.

But as somebody who deals with police forces and forensics and testing, I really do have to challenge the idea that the capacity currently exists to take even just a swab from someone. I do not understand this. What is the timeframe? How long will it take to get the results? I am currently working on a case that I started in May last year, and where are we now? Seven months in I am still waiting for lab results from my local police force. It is not some backwater, but the second largest force in the country.

In reality, I do not believe that this will happen for every person who comes into a custody suite. Let us say it takes a week for the results to come back. The Minister should feel free to intervene to say that the system will work like in an airport, where a bag can be tested to see if it has cocaine in it—not that I have any personal experience! He should feel free to say that every police force will get new machines to enable a result within the time that somebody is kept in custody, and that an intervention will be put in place sensitively. I would be delighted to hear that the world is completely not as I recognise it from being in custody suites just over this past year—not over many years, but just this year. This situation just does not stack up in reality.

The lag in getting a result could be a week—again, let us go for the triumph of hope over experience—but we are much more likely to be talking months. Will that slow down charging? I want to understand exactly how this is going to work in an already overstretched system. In the case from May that I talked about, a victim of multiple rapes, forced marriage and 10 years of abuse has waited seven months for anything. We just get, “Sorry, we’re waiting on forensics.”

Mark Garnier (Conservative, Wyre Forest)

The hon. Lady’s points are well made and important, but, at the end of the day, does she fundamentally agree with the principle behind the measures? Is it just the process that she is worried about?

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

I believe in so many principles that I know in reality cannot be realised. I believe in the principle that when someone is in crisis with suicide, there should be a telephone line that I can call that means that they get what we used to call—because it used to exist—a safe and well check. I have done that many times myself. I believe in principle that that should happen. If a Minister were to stand in front of me and tell me that that was the policy, it would be like them telling me that the sky is green. It may very well be the policy, but the reality is completely different. In the evidence sessions, all the experts in the field backed me up.

I want to know how this will actually work. I absolutely want it to work, but, to the hon. Gentleman’s point, I am very concerned about some of the safeguards. One of the things that people who work in the criminal justice system notice is the trends in how wrong ’uns, essentially, start to get away with things—there is always some new defence coming down the line. In the days when we did not believe victims of domestic abuse and they could just be ignored—see yesterday’s report on Rochdale—people did not need a response. The current favourite of a domestic abuse perpetrator on a summary or more serious offence is a counterclaim against the victim—“Well, she’s abusing me”—and my God, does it work! The amount of women who are victims of domestic abuse currently being accused by police forces across the country of being perpetrators, not victims, of domestic abuse is plentiful.

We also know that if we look at our female prison population, or at the roll of women in any substance misuse service, we would go a long way before we found one who had not been a victim of domestic abuse or sexual violence—in childhood and adulthood—and exploitation. There is a reason why women end up substance-dependent. Incidentally, there is a reason why men do too, but the main reason why women end up substance-dependent is abuses they have suffered. It is very likely that a counterclaim that brings a woman into a custody suite will find that she smoked a few spliffs the day before. That will go against her not just in the criminal court, where she is much more likely to be convicted of those crimes than her partner, if we look at all the data on female convictions, but in the family court, where she will lose her children as a result of that evidence.

If a woman is distressed because she has just been attacked or has lived with fear and she is behaving erratically—who wouldn’t?—and somebody says, “I think she might be on drugs,” it will be used against her. On the defences I talked about, if a person commits domestic abuse and is on drugs, that will be considered a mitigating factor. I have seen it lots of times; in the most serious cases, it is the difference between manslaughter and murder. Let us flip it around: if a person murders or harms someone who is themselves on drugs, it is seen as an aggravation on their part, and they get manslaughter again. If a person kills a woman who is behaving erratically because she is on drugs, jackpot—manslaughter! If a woman takes drugs and is killed, it is a reason to give a man manslaughter. If a man takes drugs and kills someone, it is a reason to give him manslaughter. Frankly, the cards are stacked against us.

I agree with the principle of the clause, but what happens if there is a counterclaim and the woman is drug-tested and found to be on drugs and the man is not, or the other way round? Either way, there is a possibility—well, it is not a possibility, because every other law we have tried to change has been used by perpetrators; they are better than us in this regard and know their way around the system, as do their lawyers—that he will get a lighter sentence.

I wish the police were trained well enough, but only 50% are trained on coercive control, for example. We have to make sure that there is guidance so that, in cases of domestic abuse, where the woman has a potential counterclaim, these things are not taken into account; otherwise, they will be used to take her children off her—they will be used against her. I can already see it in my future. I ask that that is given some really serious thought, because I am a bit frightened about how this is going to play out.

As somebody with decades-long experience of living side by side with a heroin, crack and cocaine addict, who I am pleased to say is well now and has dedicated his life to the service of other people in that situation, I have to say that the idea that a person “has to” go to one session—it is about the compulsion—means that they are just going to go and tick a box. My mum sent my brother halfway round the world to have different interventions. They did not work. Thousands of pounds were spent trying to get somebody off drugs.

I hear what the Minister says about more money being put into this, and my brother was and continues to be part of Dame Carol Black’s review. However, there is this idea that just one interview will do the job. In reality, it is a tick-box exercise, and it will not work unless people’s initial trauma is dealt with. You would have to go a long way to see somebody with problematic substance misuse who has not suffered some form of trauma. Loads of people take drugs recreationally, and it does not harm them; they are not allergic to it and do not become problematic addicts. The reason why that happens to some people and they go on to commit crimes is that something else is wrong. One meeting will not a problem solve. If one meeting had been what it took, my mother would have died in a happier position than she did.

This proposal is not a panacea, unless we work with things such as the 12-step programme—I declare that I am on the all-party parliamentary group for 12 step recovery. The programme is completely free, so commissioners do not understand it; they do not know how to behave when no one is asking them for any money. I cannot stress enough that if this proposal is just to make a nice headline—“We are going to drug-test everybody”—rather than something that will work in reality, it is a massive waste of police time; it is pointless. I will leave my comments there.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

I will try to respond to some of the points made on this group of amendments and clauses. On mental health, as the national partnership agreement is rolled out, we are asking the NHS to do more to treat people when it is just a medical condition, and that is what the NHS should do, because a medical crisis requires a medical response.

To respond to the point about resources, the NHS is this year receiving an extra £3.3 billion above and beyond what was planned. A lot of extra money is going into mental health specifically, and things such as mental health ambulances and mental health places of safety are being invested in to create the capacity required for the NHS and the ambulance service to take on people who have, in the last few years, wrongly been picked up by the police.

On making sure that the roll-out is done as thoughtfully elsewhere in the country as it has been in Humberside, we are not taking a “big bang” approach; we have not just flicked a switch and said that it is going to happen nationally from tomorrow. Implementation is happening on a force-by-force basis. In each area, the police are working with the local hospital trust, the mental health trust and the ambulance trust to make sure that the capacity is in place before things get switched over.

The roll-out has already happened in some areas. In London, I think it went live on 1 October or 1 November, but it may not be implemented until the end of this year in other areas, because they are going through the process of making sure that the NHS side of the equation has the capacity and is ready. Things are being done in a thoughtful and measured way around the country to replicate the success in Humberside, to which the shadow Minister referred.

I will try to address one or two of the other questions.

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

I did not intend to intervene in this debate, but will the Minister address one issue before he moves on? In my area, the mental health trust is under considerable stress, and there have been various patient deaths and things like that. The mental health services tell me that they are struggling to get professionals to join them so that they can provide what is needed. How can the Minister be confident in what he is saying if we do not have professionals joining the service and are more likely to see them leaving?

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

We are getting a little way off topic. Briefly, since the shadow Minister has raised the question, the roll-out is happening in a thoughtful way, rather than immediately, to make sure that such issues are addressed. As I said a moment ago, extra money is being put in. The NHS workforce plan, which is now in place, is designed to make sure that the people needed are there to meet the challenges, not just in mental health, but across the whole NHS spectrum.

Fundamentally, we all want to see people who have a mental health condition treated medically. Where there is no criminality and no threat to public safety, it is completely inappropriate to get a police response, which has been happening in recent years. Those people need to be treated, not put in a police custody cell, for example. That is the right thing to do, not just for the police, whose capacity is freed up to protect us and our constituents and to catch criminals, but for patients, who need and deserve a medical response. We are now working to ensure that that happens across the country, building on the successful trailblazer in Humberside, which shows that this can work.

On the question from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Nottingham North, about using the negative versus the affirmative procedure in Government amendments 25 and 26, no substantive change is being made. Essentially, changing the list of specified controlled drugs is subject to the negative procedure, the trigger offences are subject to the affirmative procedure and, if the changes are some mix of the two, that is subject to the affirmative procedure. That does not substantively change the current position.

Let me turn to the questions that arose on drug testing outside of a custodial setting. To be clear, we are conferring a discretionary power on the police. We are not compelling them to test; we are leaving it up to the police officer. There may be occasions when, for operational reasons and to test more people, they find it more operationally appropriate to test on the spot outside of a custodial setting. It may be that they do not plan to take the person back to a custodial setting. That will save police time. This is a discretionary power, not an obligation; the police can use it where they judge it to be helpful.

The shadow Minister also asked about time. These tests are not sent away to the laboratory. I accept that we need laboratory tests to be a lot faster, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley highlighted in her remarks. However, these are on-the-spot tests, similar to those that might be seen in an airport—by the way, I think those are testing for explosives.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

I didn’t have those either.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

I am relieved, but not surprised, to hear that. The result of these on-the-spot tests takes between 13 and 35 minutes to come back, so it is pretty quick.

I said these were so-called non-intrusive tests, and the shadow Minister asked, “What about urine samples?” To be clear, non-intrusive tests are defined in section 65 of the PACE code. That does not include urine samples but does include hair—excluding pubic hair—saliva and a swab taken from a non-intimate place, such as under the armpit. We are talking about pretty non-intrusive stuff.

On the concerns about how this information might be used, it is important to say, given the point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, that these drug tests are done on the spot, as I have just described, so they do not meet the threshold required for use as evidence in criminal prosecutions. They are used when making decisions about a referral into treatment, about granting bail or about a diversionary caution. However, because they are done on the spot, not in a laboratory, they do not meet the evidentiary threshold to be used for prosecutions.

Amendment 133 would introduce a duty on the police to refer individuals who test positive to a drug diversion service. We agree with the principle that it is important that referrals are made where someone would benefit. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley said that an assessment alone does not solve the problem, and she is obviously right to say that. However, the assessment is supposed to be a starting point; it is a necessary first step. It is not sufficient or the end of the process, and it is not in itself going to cure someone, if I can use that phrase, but it is a starting point and a necessary first step. It is difficult to mandate anything further until the assessment has happened, because we do not know what the individual’s needs might be. In legislation it is quite hard to mandate, or to give the police a power to mandate, anything beyond the assessment.

In terms of why we have constructed the clause in the way we have, there are clearly circumstances where even the initial assessment is not appropriate—a person might, for example, already be in treatment. Therefore, we have constructed the clause so that there is a power for the police rather than an obligation. Legislating to compel the police to do something in all circumstances is quite difficult. We in this Committee cannot foresee all the circumstances police officers may encounter operationally.

However, I absolutely agree with the shadow Minister’s policy intent, and we would expect these powers to be used widely. I would like more people to be referred into assessment and then into treatment than is currently happening. As I mentioned, the Government have invested in a lot of extra treatment capacity, spending hundreds of millions of pounds extra over a three-year period and creating 55,000 extra places.

I assure the shadow Minister that I am continually pressing the police to do more in this area—to test more, refer more and encourage more pre-sentence reports to be compiled where someone going before the court has a suspected drug addiction, so that the magistrate or judge can hand down a treatment order when passing sentence. Not enough drug or alcohol treatment requirement orders and mental health treatment requirement orders are being made. I have expressly engaged with the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on this area, Chief Constable Richard Lewis of Dyfed-Powys, to make exactly those points. He has an operational plan to make sure that drug testing on arrest, referral to treatment, engagement with liaison diversion and more pre-sentence reports are all implemented operationally.

In summary, I agree with the shadow Minister’s intent, but the way we have set out the legislation is probably as far as we can go in statute. On that basis, I ask the Committee to support the Government amendments and clauses 15 to 17 stand part.

Clause 16 - Assessment of misuse of controlled drugs

Clause 18 - Power to seize bladed articles etcClause 18

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

I beg to move amendment 32, in clause 18, page 14, line 13, after “application” insert “(including any appeal)”.

This amendment clarifies that for the purposes of clause 18(8)(b), the final determination of an application includes the determination of any appeal.

Pauline Latham (Conservative, Mid Derbyshire)

With this it will be convenient to discuss clause stand part.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

The clause provides a new power for the police to seize, retain and destroy any bladed article—a knife, for example—held in private when they are on the private premises lawfully, but where they have reasonable grounds to suspect that the item is likely to be used for unlawful violence. Such knives are legal and held privately, but the police are concerned they might be used for unlawful violence.

Data shows that incidents with a knife or sharp instrument have fallen by 26% since December 2019, but it is still disturbing to see the number of cases admitted to the NHS every year—we look at NHS hospital admissions data because that is the most reliable measure of knife crime. As I say, hospital admissions for injuries with a bladed item have fallen by 26% in the last four years.

Currently, the police have no power to remove potential weapons from individuals unless those are to be used as evidence in an investigation or are subject to a ban. Even if the police come across several potentially dangerous knives while they are in a property with a search warrant for an unrelated matter—for example, a drugs charge—the only way they can legally remove those knives, even if they have reason to suspect they will be used unlawfully, would be if they were to be used as evidence in the investigation. These knives do not fall foul of the definition of knives that are inherently illegal, which we discussed in our previous Committee proceedings. We will widen the definition of illegal knives shortly via a statutory instrument, and such knives are always illegal, even if possessed in private. We are talking here about knives—a kitchen knife, for example—that will remain legal. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West for her campaigning on the issue of banning a much wider range of knives completely.

It might assist the Committee if I share a case study to illustrate the need for this measure. A police officer might be conducting a search in the residence of a male arrested for murder involving a firearm. The person might have multiple links to local gangs. A quantity of drugs might be recovered from the premises, along with a number of knives. Although there were drugs offences, if the knives found were not related to those offences, the police would have no power to seize them, even though they were found in the possession of a known criminal.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

I seek clarity. There is a load of big kitchen knives on the wall in my house, and I can see them when I walk in. I deal with the issue of violence in a domestic setting all the time, but would that count?

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

No, it would not count. For the police to exercise the proposed power, they must have reasonable grounds to suspect that the item is likely to be used for an unlawful purpose. I do not think there would be any reasonable grounds to suspect that kitchen knives hanging on the wall of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley would be used for an unlawful purpose. By contrast, if the police were in the residence of a known prolific drug dealer and gang member, drugs had been recovered from the premises and they had been arrested or convicted for previous violent offences, that would be an instance where a quantity of knives—perhaps different knives beyond kitchen knives—would meet the threshold that I just set out. I hope that sets out the rationale.

In his evidence to the Committee on 12 December, Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said that giving the police this power is

“a very important preventive measure.”––[Official Report, Criminal Justice Public Bill Committee, 12 December 2023; c. 11, Q18.]

That is why are seeking to introduce the provision, justified in the way that I have set out. If somebody believes that their property—their knife—has been seized in error, they will be able to make a complaint to the police, as with any other police matter. In addition, we are providing a right of appeal in court to have the item returned, if the court agrees. If somebody did unreasonably seize the kitchen knives of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, she would be able to complain to the police in the first instance. If they did not address her complaint and return the knives, she would then be able to go to the court and get them returned.

It is also important to say that there is no additional power of entry associated with the new power. The police would need to be in the property lawfully, which, presumably, would also not be the case in the hon. Member’s house. For example, they would need to be there as part of an investigation into an unrelated matter or invited into the property. We will amend code B of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to ensure that the codes of conduct reflect the new power, so that it is used in a fair and reasonable way.

Finally, amendment 32 is a minor technical amendment —we must not forget that—which clarifies that for the purposes of clause 18(8)(b), the final determination of an application includes the determination of any appeal. This provision will help the police to take dangerous knives off the street, or out of people’s houses, even if they are legal, where they are suspected of being used for unlawful violence. It is a useful additional power. The police asked for it in their evidence to the Committee, and I hope that it will command cross-party support.

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

This provision is to some degree the less controversial—though not unimportant—counterpart to clause 19, so I will keep some of my arguments for the next debate. The Minister wants cross-party support and he will secure it on this matter. The consequences of the clause will be that if a constable is lawfully on a premises and they find a bladed or sharply pointed item that they think might be connected to unlawful violence, they can seize the article. It passes an important test, which I think about quite a lot: if I had to explain to my constituents that the reverse were true, would they think I am an idiot? In this case, I think that the test is passed. If bladed or pointed weapons that might be used for unlawful violence are found during a lawful visit relating to another purpose, they absolutely should be seized. It is in the public interest.

We will discuss this point in the next debate, but it is important that the principle of search warrants is upheld, and that they have a definition; they cannot be used for fishing trips or exploratory trips. Nevertheless, when these sorts of items are found, we must be able to take them out of use. I am interested in whether the Minister thinks there is a need for training or awareness among officers. We could apply a Phillips test quite easily: if someone has a knife but they do not have any food or a kitchen, that is probably a bad sign. That in itself is possibly not the quality of regulations a Secretary of State might wish to set, so I would be interested to hear how the Minister thinks that might work.

I am grateful for the clarity that clause 18(1)(a), which states,

“is lawfully on the premises”,

means that the power applies on any visit, for whatever purpose, whether that is a search warrant or a response call. I do not disagree with that, but it is important that we state that. It is important that it is understood. It must be demoralising for staff to visit for a certain purpose—say, on a search warrant—and then to have people there laughing at them because they cannot withdraw from circulation some dangerous weapons. I think, therefore, that the provision will be welcomed by officers as well.

However, it is important and reasonable that there are safeguards. We should and would not want private property to be routinely seized and destroyed. I think the balance is about right, actually. It is important that the constable must leave a de facto receipt, as is set out in subsections (3)(a) and (b), with a person or, if no one is there, must leave one for whoever returns to the premises. Will the Minister say a little about what form that receipt ought to take? I wonder whether there will be a standardisation of that approach to ensure a degree of consistency—particularly because these records may be tested by court order or application to a magistrates court. Again, some consistency is desirable there.

Clause 18(5) allows for a constable to either retain or destroy the weapon, subject to subsections (6) and (8). Subsection (8) matters because it prevents disposal within six months, which is probably right: property should not just be taken and chucked in the bin without any ability for the owner to explain or perhaps recover it. Subsection (6) matters because it gives the individual a route to apply for its return, and we ought to allow that there can be mistakes.

Subsection (7) governs the regime whereby the court can make an order for the return of an item. Two tests must be passed for such an order. First, the person making the application must be the owner, which seems reasonable, although it might be tricky in some cases; however, I dare say the magistrates court will be able to pick its way through ownership. I want a little clarity from the Minister on the second test, which is set out in subsection (7)(b)—namely, that

“it would be just to make the order”.

I wonder what is meant by “just” in this context. Labour Members want clarity that justness includes a reasonable prevention of future violence. I cannot actually imagine that this provision is going to be used significantly, but I do think that is a potential gap in the regime, because “just” could mean an awful lot of things to an awful lot of people. It may well be a term of art; I would be interested to know if that is the case. Otherwise, I am interested to know what the Minister and the Department’s definition of justness is in this context.

Finally—I honestly promise that I am not doing this deliberately—Government amendment 32 is not a minor technical amendment in any sense. As I understand it, the amendment clarifies that the final judgment of the court is, essentially, the final judgment and there is no further appeal process. That is significant. We support that approach, but it is not technical in any way. It is a point of substance. I am sure the Minister will explain to me if I have misunderstood that. I think it is important to say that it is a point of substance, though one we are happy to support in this context.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

I will briefly reply to a couple of the questions. We propose to use the same processes already in place for property that is seized. There is a very standard form and process that the police routinely use, and the same would apply here. The hon. Gentleman asks about subsection (7), on the basis on which a court might hear an appeal, and about paragraph (b) in particular, which appears towards the top of page 14. The subsection states that the court may make an order if it appears to it that the person is the owner and that

“it would be just to make the order”.

The hon. Gentleman askes what that means. I think the meaning is that the test set out in subsection (1)(c) is met—that is to say, there are

“reasonable grounds for suspecting that the relevant article would be likely to be used in connection with unlawful violence”

were it not seized. I think the test of whether the decision to seize and retain the blade is “just” essentially refers back to the test set out in clause 18(1)(c). It would seem reasonable that if that is the statutory test that the police officer applies when deciding whether to seize the knife, one would expect the court to apply precisely the same test, and that is how, therefore, I would expect the court to apply the term “just”. I hope, should there be any ambiguity, the transcript of this answer will assist the court in interpreting the use of the word “just” in what will be section 18(7)(b).

Clause 19 - Stolen goods on premises: entry, search and seizure without warrant

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

I beg to move amendment 61, in clause 19, page 15, line 17, at end insert—

“(8) A constable may search a specified premises for specified items without obtaining authorisation under subsection (1) if the constable believes that the search is necessary for the effective identification of stolen goods.

(9) If a constable conducts a search by virtue of subsection (8), they shall inform an officer of at least the rank of inspector that they have made the search as soon as practicable after the completion of the search.

(10) An officer who is informed of a search under subsection (9) shall make a record in writing—

(a) of the grounds for the search;

(b) of the nature of the items sought;

(c) confirming that the officer would have given their authorisation under subsection (2) had the constable sought it.”

This amendment aligns the power given under Clause 19 with that in section 18 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, and enables a police constable to undertake a search for stolen goods without a warrant without obtaining authorisation from a superior officer.

Clause 19 is one of the more significant clauses. It introduces very significant new powers of entry, search and seizure without a warrant. That is not without controversy, as I think we will cover in the next three debates. Amendment 2, which proposed to leave out clause 19, has not been selected for debate, but it is worth noting that it received quite a lot of signatures spanning a very broad range of parliamentarians across the Conservatives, the Lib Dems and the Democratic Unionist party. Clearly, a significant range of colleagues with significantly different world views are discomforted by these provisions. That is always an interesting and important sign that we should get something right.

Again, I subject this to what my constituents think and the conversations that I have had with them in the past. So many items are now fitted with a GPS or geolocation tracker, but it is a matter of considerable frustration and no little confusion that the fact that we know where an item is does not provide appropriate grounds for a constable to retrieve it. That is deeply frustrating and, as we have seen in the explanatory notes and heard in the evidence sessions, is a problem that the clause seeks to solve.

The clause inserts into the Theft Act 1968 proposed new section 26A, which confers power on a police officer to enter and search any premises for stolen goods without a warrant. Under the current provisions in the Theft Act, a warrant would have to be issued by a magistrate before such a search could take place. Given the nature of the enterprises that pinch digital technology or expensive bikes, or that may even be stealing cars to order, we know that that delay involved could mean that our response is far too late and that the moment for retrieval, for detection and perhaps for breaking up an organised group of criminals has been missed.

Clause 19 goes on to state the parameters for the new power whereby the need for a warrant can be bypassed—namely, that a police officer of at least inspector level must authorise a constable to enter premises and search for the specified items, in this case stolen goods. It also sets out the conditions—namely, that the police officer of at least inspector level must be satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the items have been stolen, that they are on the premises and that it is not reasonably practicable to obtain a warrant without frustrating or prejudicing the search—and that authorisation can be oral or written. Again, this process seems reasonable, given that the crime that it is concerned with often involves the rightful owner having that degree of tracking information and being able to provide it to the police, showing the precise location of the stolen goods, but at present the police cannot do anything about it.

There are certain checks and oversights. A uniformed constable must conduct the search; it must happen within 24 hours of authorisation, although I suspect that such searches will take place much more quickly than that; and it must be done at a reasonable hour. Again, in principle we support these measures; without wanting to prejudge the stand part debate, I need to establish that context before I can turn to my amendment.

The current process for obtaining warrants to search properties for stolen goods with tracking information can be an inefficient use of police and magistrates’ time. It hampers investigations and allows criminal enterprises to benefit from their activities, using the slowness of the authorities to do things much more quickly, and obviously we know that that can have a knock-on effect for further crimes as well.

An interesting point was well made in the evidence session when we heard from Superintendent Nick Smart of the Police Superintendents’ Association. He challenged the Committee about why the Bill appeared to sit differently from existing powers set out in section 18 of PACE. Amendment 61, which I have tabled, sets out to probe that issue.

Section 18 of PACE allows entry and search without the prior authorisation of a more senior officer, provided that it is after an arrest and the officer has reasonable grounds to suspect that there is evidence on the premises being searched relating to the offence that has been committed, or to a connected offence. Therefore, there is precedent in current legislation for entry and search without a warrant or prior authorisation, and section 18 of PACE allows for consent to be sought afterwards, with a senior officer at the rank of inspector or above having to sign off on that, saying that they would have authorised the search if they had been there in that moment. That is also an important caveat.

Amendment 61 merely seeks to align the powers in clause 19 with similar powers in section 18 of PACE. The reason I think that would be quite helpful is that it would be more consistent from an officer’s point of view. I do not think that we would want officers to think, “Ah, am I using section 19 of the Criminal Justice Act or section 18 of PACE?” and therefore asking, “Can I, or can’t I?” The possibility for error is quite clear there.

More importantly, however, I think there would be some clarity for the public, too, because, once again, just as it would be challenging but not unreasonable to ask for officers to be very conscious of the different sections of the powers that they are using—of course they need to know that, although there are times in the heat of the moment when mistakes could happen—I do not think it is reasonable to expect members of the public to hold such things in their minds.

Therefore, consistency in the regime used is important; I think that was the point that Superintendent Smart was making, which is probably a good one. I want to press the Minister as to why that approach was not taken and why his approach is better.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

Amendments 61, 58 and 59 are linked, but I will speak first to amendment 61, a thoughtful amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North.

I want to address an issue relating to the Human Rights Act 1998, which incorporates the European convention on human rights into UK law, with particular reference to section 6, “Acts of public authorities”, which came into force in October 2000. I stand to be corrected, but as far as I am concerned, for the purposes of the amendment, the right to respect for private and family life informs the relevant police powers and sets them in context.

Article 8 of the convention states:

“1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”

As paragraph 2 above sets out, it is unlawful under the Act for a public authority to act in a way that is incompatible with the convention right, unless it is compelled or permitted by statute to do otherwise. There is an excellent lecture by Robert Walker entitled “The English Law of Privacy: an Evolving Human Right”, which is well worth a perusal. I am sure that everyone in this room agrees, notwithstanding the current debate among some Government Members in relation to the ECHR more broadly, that article 8 is pretty uncontentious. What is perhaps more contentious is where it is breached. It is important that we keep that in mind.

People going about their business, especially in their own home, are entitled to know that their rights are protected in law and that if those rights are breached unlawfully by any agency including the police, there are grounds for challenging that interference and ensuring if necessary that they are appropriately compensated and lessons are learned from the breach. Over the years, case law has developed in relation to the implementation of schedule 1 to the Human Rights Act, and no doubt that will continue. There have been numerous appeals over the years in relation to privacy.

After that preamble, let me say that I fully support the intention that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North expressed in his comments on amendment 61, to set out the process by which the identification of stolen goods, for example, may be undertaken. As always, his speech was thoughtful and considered. I am also really pleased that he tabled amendments 58 and 59, on which I hope I can tease out more detail as the Committee makes progress.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

I very much welcome the Opposition’s support for the principle behind clause 19. As the hon. Member for Nottingham North mentioned, some people—a small number, I would add—have expressed reservations, but I am glad that we agree on the principle that the clause will help police officers to retrieve stolen goods; our constituents will welcome that. Amendment 61 aims to fine-tune the detail of how that is done. In fact, it goes a little further in its drafting than the Government are proposing. The hon. Gentleman referred to section 18 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, noting that in some circumstances constables can enter premises without a warrant or prior authorisation from a more senior officer. He seeks to implement the same thing via his amendment.

The difference, however, is that under in the PACE provision the police must either suspect that a person is on the premises or be in pursuit of a particular person, whereas clause 19 is about stolen goods. Of course, individuals are a little more mobile than stolen goods: a stolen mobile phone, iPad or car can be moved, but that requires a person, whereas if the police think a person is in the premises, they can leg it pretty quickly. We do not need prior authorisation from an inspector under section 18 of PACE, because that relates to a person the police are after, whereas in this case we are talking about stolen goods. If the police think that there are both stolen goods and a person, the PACE provisions will apply and they can enter the premises without a warrant and without prior authorisation. The reason that we have built in the little extra step of prior authorisation by an inspector is that we are talking just about stolen goods, not about a person.

I can assure the shadow Minister that inspectors are used to authorising the use of various police powers—that is relatively routine—and inspectors are always available in each relevant area 24 hours a day, so there should not be any particular delay. We think that the clause is ECHR-compliant, and of course on the front page of the Bill there is a statement under section 19(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act that in the view of the Secretary of State, its provisions are consistent with our ECHR obligations—a topic that may be debated on the Floor of the House today and tomorrow.

It is very welcome that the Opposition support the clause in principle. I do not think that the calibration of the inspector’s prior authorisation will cause any delay practically. Because we are going after goods and not people here, I think the balance is right. While welcoming the Opposition’s support for the clause in principle, I therefore gently resist their amendment.

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

I am grateful for the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle. His points about human rights are really important. In this Committee, and during the Bill’s remaining stages in this place and down the other end of the building, we will have to fine-tune—I think that is the phrase he used—the balance of these provisions.

The Opposition certainly do not support routine warrantless searches, just on spec, of people’s lives, premises or property. We have to find a balance; that is why we have a warrants regime. If there are cases—I think that the clause provides us with one—in which it is reasonable to set that to one side, we must do so in a tightly defined and clearly understood way. I do not want to start the next debate prematurely, but that is very much my view, and I will be pressing the Minister further on it.

I am grateful for the Minister’s explanation, which is enough to give me comfort. It is slightly strange to hear conversation about the ECHR up here in Committee, given what we will hear downstairs on the Floor of the House this afternoon, but that is for others to debate. For the purposes of this debate, what the Minister said is a helpful caveat. What I offer perhaps would go further, and given that we are moving gently into this space, perhaps it is not wise to go the whole way. I suspect that this might have to be kept under review. The Minister talked about property not being fast-moving. Perhaps that will be tested by time, but at this point I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

I beg to move amendment 58, in clause 19, page 16, line 24, at end insert—

“(4) The Secretary of State must, as soon as is practicable after a period of two years from the date of Royal Assent to this Act, lay before Parliament a report on the implementation and utilisation of the police powers introduced by this section.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish a report on the police’s use of the new powers of entry, search and seizure.

Pauline Latham (Conservative, Mid Derbyshire)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 59, in clause 19, page 16, line 24, at end insert—

“(4) The College of Policing must exercise its powers under section 39A of the Police Act 1996 to issue a code of practice in relation to the use of powers introduced by this section.

(5) In drawing up the code of practice under subsection (4), the College of Policing must consult with such individuals or bodies as it sees fit.”

This amendment would require the College of Policing to publish a code of practice on the use of the new powers of entry, search and seizure.

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

There are considerable concerns about clause 19, as colleagues have demonstrated by tabling amendment 2. As far as amendments to Bills tabled by people who are not Committee members go, the range of signatories to amendment 2 is interesting. It shows that there is interest from a wide range of colleagues with a wide range of world views, so it is important that we take the time to look at the matter properly.

We should be honest that allowing warrantless searches is a significant change. Search warrants are a well-established and well-understood part of our law and policing processes. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North mentioned how all-pervading they are in media and on television. There is a widespread acceptance and understanding of “You’re not coming in if you don’t have your warrant,” and that sort of thing. It is important that we in this place provide clarity and leadership, and that if we want to set that regime aside we explain how we will do it and what it will mean. We have to balance that against the public’s very reasonable expectation that we should use new technologies to get their things back.

I hope to hear from the Minister that the Government’s view is that this is a very narrow power for a narrow set of circumstances, that it is not a significant change to the search warrant regime in this country, and that people should understand that warrants are the default, primary and most important way for law enforcement agencies to enter their property. I hope to hear that this is a de minimis power that will be utilised in a targeted way for a specific purpose. I believe that to be the case, and I think that that is what came out of the evidence sessions, but I hope that the Minister will put it on the record.

Amendments 58 and 59 are designed to give the powers some shape, assurance and guardrails so that members of the public and interest groups watching our debates know that we are not just signing off on the Bill and forgetting about it, and that Parliament takes an active interest in seeing how and whether it works.

Amendment 58 would require the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a report on the use of the powers within two years of the Bill’s Royal Assent. That would give us in this place a chance to have some oversight and scrutiny of what has happened. It would get the Government to state on the record, in an indisputable way, whether they feel that the powers have or have not worked, so that there can be an assurance of ongoing parliamentary interest. It would perhaps give us a jumping-off point to change direction if needed. Again, I would be interested to hear the Minister’s views. If he is not minded to accept the amendment, how will the Government keep track? How will Parliament get the chance to have its say about the effectiveness or otherwise of the new provision?

We will file amendment 59 under no good deed going unpunished. We heard typically excellent evidence in our session with Chief Constable Andy Marsh, the chief executive of the College of Policing. He said that there is an issue with the provisions in the Bill: the technology is not perfect. If someone has lost their phone or tablet and finds out that it is in their house, pinpointing it becomes quite the scavenger hunt, because the technology is not that accurate. Some of the inbuilt technology might be better than some of the trackers that are appended to an item, which can have varying ranges and be imprecise. There could also be challenges if someone is living in shared accommodation, because it might not be clear which room or dwelling an item is in or, if the building has multiple enterprises, which one is holding it. The technology is not so good that those concerns are removed.

My suggestion, which mirrors one of the Government’s ideas in clause 73, is that we ask Chief Constable Marsh and his College of Policing to issue a code of practice on the use of the new powers of entry, search and seizure. We should be very clear about what it is for and what it is not for, which would give confidence to colleagues and the wider public. This is primarily a conversation about technology, but not exclusively so. Again, there will be frustration if someone comes to us and says that their distinctively designed guitar is in the window of a pawn shop. It is deeply frustrating that the police have very little power to recover that item, so providing some shape through a code of practice would be helpful.

The code of practice ought to state—perhaps the Minister will say this himself in his response—that the purpose of the clause is not to change our warrant regime, but to ensure that a stolen item has some degree of locator or physical differentiator, so that it is known to be in a certain vicinity and it is not reasonable to think it could be anywhere else. That is the narrow circumstance under which the power should be used. That is certainly our view on how broad it should go. I think it is probably the Government’s view as well, and I hope to hear that from the Minister. Either way, my amendments seek to give the powers guardrails. I hope that they will be agreed to on that basis, but if not, I hope that the Minister will tell us what guardrails the Government have in lieu to ensure that the power is effective and retains public confidence.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North has laid out the context for amendments 58 and 59 with thoughtfulness and with consideration, as he did for amendment 61. I agree with him that seeking a review within two years or thereabouts of the application of the powers is really important. It is important to ensure that when we give additional powers to the police, we ensure that the operation, implementation and use of those powers are subject to review. I think we would all agree that it would be beneficial on various levels, including operationally and in policy terms, to step back after a period of time and take a look at the implementation of the powers.

Notwithstanding the fact that my hon. Friend has described the powers as narrow, people will not be used to them. Let us say that in the first five or six months of last year, there were about 50 or 60 bike thefts in my constituency and that half of those bikes had a locator on them. Although they may have a “stolen” bike in their home, people are not used to the police just turning up, going into the shed and getting the bike, so we must explain why we are doing that. It is important to have a review after a couple of years to ensure that my constituents know that they will not be on the receiving end of a disproportionate intervention by the authorities. I have no reason to believe that the powers will be used indiscriminately or outside the spirit of our discussions today, but we live in a democracy and we want to live in a cohesive society, so it is important that we have checks and balances. A review after a couple of years, to ensure consistency, is important.

I agree with amendment 59, which would require the College of Policing to produce a code of practice in relation to the use of the powers. The College of Policing often talks about using

“evidence-based knowledge in everything we develop”.

That is crucial, so I am sure that it would welcome my hon. Friend’s proposal. It is important that the modus operandi of the police officer or constable be guided by authorised professional practice guidelines, which the College of Policing has, to ensure that their interventions are as appropriate as possible. That is all the more important in the light of the challenging circumstances in which some powers will be used. As I have indicated, the College of Policing is already well versed in the production of codes of practice, including—to name just a couple—those on the use of the police national computer and the law enforcement data service and on armed policing and the use of less lethal weapons.

I hope that the Minister will give careful consideration to the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North and I have made about the amendments. As my hon. Friend says, if the Minister will not accept the amendments, we ask him for an assurance that the spirit of them, if not the letter, will be included in the Bill. I know that the Minister is always equitable in these matters, and I am sure he will give careful consideration to the well-thought-out and considered views expressed by my hon. Friend.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

Let me respond briefly on amendments 58 and 59. Amendment 58 asks for review. Members of the Committee will know that review and scrutiny of statutory powers happens on a regular basis. The Home Office collects and publishes more data on the use of police powers than it ever has before. There are plenty of opportunities for Members to scrutinise the use of powers both via written questions, oral questions, the Select Committee, and so on and so forth, but critically the normal post-legislative review of the Act will happen three to five years after Royal Assent, as is usual. The scrutiny of how this works in practice will happen through those mechanisms, particularly through the post-legislative review that always happens three to five years after Royal Assent. A range of scrutiny mechanisms exist beyond that. The police are not under-scrutinised.

On amendment 59, I am pleased to confirm to the Committee, particularly the shadow Minister, that we intend to update PACE code B, which covers police powers of entry, search and seizure, to give a clear statutory guide—even stronger than the College of Policing’s authorised professional practice—on how best these powers should be used. Under section 66 of PACE, there is a requirement for us to do that. We are of course happy to do it, but we do not actually have any choice; it is a statutory requirement under section 66. That will include the new powers covered in clause 19 of the Bill. We will work with the college to ensure that any supplementary guidance it issues on these new powers reflects the wording of updated code B, but updating code B is compulsory; we have to do it. It is statutory, and I can confirm that we will comply with our statutory obligations. I hope that addresses the issues raised by amendments 58 and 59.

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

I am grateful for colleagues’ contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Bootle raised a couple of points. We must always hold in our head how things will operate in practice. What is in the Bill is in the Bill but often what happens in that moment—perhaps a moment of challenge or conflict at 11.30 on a Friday night—can feel very different from what is in the Bill. We ought to hold practical operations in our head, which is what we have been seeking to do.

The Minister addressed my hon. Friend’s point about stepping back and scrutiny to some degree, which was very welcome. I feel a certain degree of risk saying in an election year—obviously, I aspire to swap places with the Minister by, say, this time next year—that this may come back with a degree of interest. In this place in general, we are getting better at pre-legislative scrutiny, but I do not think that has been the norm. Notwithstanding what the Minister said about post-legislative review, I do not think that we do that very well, certainly not in Parliament. In fact, it is largely something we do not do.

We are lawmakers, and the temptation to make law and fill the parliamentary time will always be there, but very rarely do we go back and ask of something we tried three to five years ago, “Did it work? And if it didn’t, why? Did we need to do more law? Was it right to have done this by regulation rather than primary legislation?” It could be that people like me, who by nature are perhaps more interventionist than other colleagues in the room, might think, “Perhaps that was the wrong time to intervene.” It is about all those things. I do think we do that process very well, because we basically do not do it at all.

I have a degree of confidence. I am grateful for what the Minister said about post-legislative review, but I suspect that will be more of a departmental and less of a public exercise. There is something about being willing to own our errors in our proceedings that is good for public confidence—when we are willing to do it. On that basis, I am happy to withdraw my amendment.

Similarly on amendment 59, what the Minister has offered in lieu on PACE code B is better than my proposal, so that is a very good deal indeed. On that basis, I am happy and willing not to press my amendment.

Perhaps the Minister, being a diligent student of Parliament, is saving his powder for the stand part debate, which is probably right given the gusto with which I entered the stand part debate during the debate on amendment 61. I really hope to hear in the stand part debate clarity from the Government that this is seen as a tightly-defined variation of the search warrant regime under a very tightly-defined set of circumstances. We have not yet heard that. We are about to debate the clause, and although I dare say we have covered most of it, so it may only be a short debate, we really need to hear that message.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

We have touched on many of these issues already, so I will not speak at great length on clause 19 stand part. Suffice to say, our constituents expect the police always to follow up leads where they exist, particularly to retrieve stolen goods, whether mobile phones, e-bikes, cars or whatever it may be. As members of the public and as parliamentarians, we expect the police to always follow those leads. Just a few months ago, the police made a national commitment to do precisely that. An important part of that is the ability to retrieve stolen goods where their location is known or reasonably suspected. With technology now, many items—mobile phones, cars, and so on—have tracking devices, and the public are rightly frustrated if the police do not always follow them up.

This power enables the police to respond quickly to retrieve stolen goods where they have reasonable grounds to believe they know the location. Quite often, those stolen goods move very quickly indeed. For example, the thief may take them off to sell them, and therefore there is often not enough time to go through the process of getting a warrant. The police may want to act in a manner of minutes or hours. In investigatory principles, there is the concept of the “golden hour”, talked about by Chief Constable Andy Marsh, now chief executive of the College of Policing. That first hour is really important. Even the best magistrates court in the world will not be able to respond in an hour to authorise a warrant, but a phone call to an inspector can be done within that golden hour. That is why we are making these changes.

This is only one part of the police commitment to always follow all reasonable lines of inquiry. For completeness, I will mention the use of facial recognition technology. Where there is a photograph of somebody committing a crime on CCTV, Ring doorbell, dash cam, or someone’s phone, we expect the police to always run that through the facial recognition database, but that is a separate element of their commitment.

It is important to ensure these stolen items are recovered. It is more than irritating to our constituents when the police do not always follow them up. This legislation will give them the power to act quickly and decisively where needed, and I think it is balanced and proportionate. Historically, we have required warrants—unless the police are in pursuit of a particular individual, as we debated previously—but we think this strikes the right balance.

On the commitment the shadow Minister asked for around the scope of this provision, the circumstances in which this power can be used are clearly set out on the face of the Bill. I draw the attention of the Committee to clause 19(2); subsection (2) of proposed new section 26A of the Theft Act 1968, sets out very clearly when this power can be used. The conditions are that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that, first,

“the specified items are stolen”,

secondly, that

“the specified items are on the specified premises”,

and thirdly, that

“it is not reasonably practicable to obtain a warrant…without frustrating or seriously prejudicing its purpose”

—that is, a concern that the goods may be moved on before a warrant can be obtained.

The scope of this power is very clearly defined on the face of the Bill, and I think strikes the right balance. The evidential test the police have to meet is that they have reasonable grounds to believe that those three things are met. The wording uses the formulation “and”, so it is not just that any one of them have to be met; all three have to cumulatively be met before the provisions of this clause are engaged. There is a very clear need for this provision, as it will help police to recover stolen goods. The public will welcome it, and it is very clearly defined in clause 19(2).

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

Just briefly, what the Minister has said is in the Bill is welcome. I still think that a stronger signal on tightness may yet need to be furnished. The rubber will meet the road at subsection (2)(b) of proposed new section 26A—that the specified items are on the specified premises. If that was seen to be done on an intelligence basis or possibly a word-of-mouth basis, that might discomfort colleagues. The compelling case for this generally is the new and novel technology element. Nevertheless, we support the principle.

I will not labour the point any further, not least because the colleagues listed under that amendment are an admirable group, who I know will pursue the Minister on it. Never mess with people from Derbyshire, I suspect you might say, Mrs Latham. There may yet need to be a little more comfort given on this, but we do not object to the principle. The provision is important, and the public demand for it is there. We think it can be used effectively, so I will not encumber us any further.

Clause 20 - Suspension of internet protocol addresses and internet domain names

Pauline Latham (Conservative, Mid Derbyshire)

With this it will be convenient to debate schedule 3.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

I will do my best to conclude prior to 11.25, when the Committee might consider adjourning.

Clause 20 and schedule 3 create a new power for UK law enforcement and other investigative agencies to suspend IP addresses and domain names that are being used in serious crime. Under the power, law enforcement will be able to apply for a court order requiring the organisation responsible for providing the IP address or domain name to prevent access. Sadly, we have all too often seen that criminal actors use domain names and/or IP addresses to carry out crime including fraud and malware dissemination, targeting the vulnerable. When IP addresses and domain names are being used to conduct criminal activities, law enforcement agencies need to be able to block access, preventing the crime occurring.

In the UK, the police and other law enforcement agencies currently use public and private partnerships, and industry will, in the majority of cases, voluntarily suspend domain and IP addresses used for criminal purposes. This has led to the UK being generally one of the safest jurisdictions in the world. However, voluntary suspension is not an option in all cases. In particular, the majority of cyber-crime emanates from outside the UK, where the same voluntary arrangements are not available. Quite often, internet infrastructure providers based overseas will only take action when a court order is handed down. This measure will provide for such a court order to be obtained. Overseas infrastructure providers are much more likely to comply with a court order than a simple request made by the police without a court order.

We reviewed the Computer Misuse Act 1990 in 2021. As part of that, we invited views from stakeholders. Responses indicated that although much of the 1990 Act remains effective, more could be done in cases where the UK wants to take action against offences committed from overseas. The main function of these provisions is to ensure that UK law enforcement and certain investigative agencies can act to suspend IP addresses and domain names where they are being used for criminal activity with a link to the UK. Schedule 3 enables UK law enforcement agencies listed in paragraph 12 of the schedule to apply for a court order, which they can serve on entities based outside the UK.

Carolyn Harris (Labour, Swansea East)

Will this apply to illegal gambling sites and crypto casinos? Will the Gambling Commission have the authority to have these addresses pulled down?

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

If illegal activity were taking place, which would include illegal gambling, then the provisions of the clause would apply. As to whether the Gambling Commission can make the application or whether it would have to be the police, to answer that question we will have to refer to schedule 3 on page 91 and look at the list of entities. The hon. Member will see that paragraph 12(2)(e) does include

“a member of staff of the Gambling Commission of at least the grade of executive director.”

Indeed, paragraph 12(1)(a)(v) also expressly references the Gambling Commission, so I hope that answers the question about the Gambling Commission’s powers. I obviously prepared that in advance, anticipating her question—as Members of the Committee could surely see!

That is very helpful and will strengthen our hand with overseas entities that might not respond to a polite request but are willing to act when there is a court order. I hope that is something that we can all get behind. It will help protect our constituents from online crime, particularly fraud, but other forms of illegal activity, including illegal gambling. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Swansea East for her work combating gambling harm, which I saw at first hand during my time as Minister for technology and gambling a couple of years ago.

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

Given the time left in this sitting, I thought there was a degree of optimism when the Minister stood up on a matter related to some degree to illegal gambling and thought it would be quick; I will try to bring my remarks in under the wire, but I may fail, when I assume I will be cut off in my prime.

Much of our discussions so far have had a digital and online dimension: the sale of knives and bladed articles, the posting of intimate images, the sale of stolen goods, and the digital online element of fraud. This is a very live, shape-shifting part of the debate. It was feature of the Online Safety Act 2023 discussions and is an important part of this Bill. Our basic principle is that we must give our police and broader enforcement agencies the best tools possible for them to stand half a chance of keeping up. This clause and schedule 3 fit with that approach and, as such, we support them.

For all the creative and direct uses that criminals can exploit modern technology with, there remains a basic staple: a website, a domain name and an IP address. That can be used in a variety of ways: selling illicit goods, selling stolen goods, pirating live events, pirating software or content, scamming or illegal gambling. It is right that enforcement agencies can close such sites down. Although this is a modern venture, I suspect it is today’s version of the 1975 classic Whac-A-Mole, as we chase scammers, fraudsters and thieves around the internet. I dare say that is frustrating but it is important for enforcement agencies to do.

The provisions in the schedule allow for the suspension of IP addresses and domain names for up to 12 months, following an application to a judge. In doing so, four criteria must be met. Three are relatively simple: condition 1 is that the address or domain name is being used for serious crime; condition 3 is that it is necessary and proportionate to shut the site down to prevent crime; and condition 4 is that the address or domain name would not be shut down by another route. The industry picture can be good, as the Minister says, but I do not think it is always good. That is the nature of the type of crime. We talked previously about pirating a premier league game—that would go pretty quickly. If the site is hosting an intimate image that was unlawfully obtained, that tends to take an awful lot longer, or indeed does not happen at all; that point has been debated.

Conditions 1, 3 and 4 seem clear to me, but I want to press the Minister on condition 2. That is met under four scenarios, although I believe the use of the word “or” means any one of the four scenarios, including,

“(a) that a UK person is using the IP address for purposes of serious crime”,

which is very similar, if not the same, as condition 1. The other scenarios are: (b)—that a UK person is a victim of the serious crime that the site or domain name is used for; (c)—that the IP address is being used for unlicensed gambling, which goes to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East; or (d) —the IP address is allocated to a device located in the UK. I think only one of those four tests needs to be met in order for condition 2 to be met. Given that (a) is essentially the same as condition 1, but with the proviso that the person is UK based, how does that operate in practice? Is that not a degree of duplication? The Minister can mull that one over while having his lunch.

I will move on to the heading

“Inclusion of non-disclosure requirements in suspension orders”.

As in the Bill, as part of a suspension order, a judge can require that the individual deprived of their domain name or IP address does not tell anyone that that has happened to them.

(Afternoon)

Clause 20 - Suspension of internet protocol addresses and internet domain names

Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party, Livingston)

I remind the Committee that with this we are considering schedule 3.

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

It is a pleasure to resume proceedings with you in the Chair, Ms Bardell. I shall resist the temptation to start again for your benefit; I am sure you can look in the Official Report should you want to see the first part of my contribution.

I was talking about the inclusion of non-disclosure requirements in suspension orders, and I want to understand what the Minister thinks their function is. Is it to stop individuals who have had their domain name, IP address or website suspended or taken off them using it as a marketing tool or tool of notoriety? That would be a restriction on liberty and free speech, so I would be interested in the Government’s evidence base for that. Presumably, that must not apply to them talking to, say, their legal counsel, so what are the factors? There is no test in the Bill that a judge must apply.

Moving on to co-operation, since the internet by its nature is a global venture, we are glad that this is a four-nations provision, but there is some irregularity across the four nations, and I want to probe that with the Minister. Under paragraph 12 of schedule 3, in England and Wales, the “appropriate officers” who can make an application for an order are

“a constable…a National Crime Agency officer…an officer of Revenue and Customs…a member of staff of the Financial Conduct Authority, or…a person designated or appointed as an enforcement officer by the Gambling Commission under section 303 of the Gambling Act 2005”.

That seems quite a comprehensive list.

For Northern Ireland, the list is the same, except that it does not include the designated person from the Gambling Commission. Given the scourge of black-market gambling and the challenge it presents, is there not concern that it might be displaced to Northern Ireland? I wonder if the Minister might explain where he is up to with that. For Scotland, the list is just “a procurator fiscal”. That is a different approach. Presumably, it is the one favoured by the Scottish Government, but I hope the Minister might detail some of his discussions in this regard.

We know that many, if not most, of the sort of sites we have been discussing will be based outside the UK. The clause and the schedule give us a handy tool for UK-based ventures, but what more can the Minister tell us—he mentioned this a little in his opening speech—about his attempts to have some degree of harmony of regimes with our partners abroad, and what conversations does he think UK agencies should be having with their overseas counterparts to make sure that the powers that they have can be used to protect the British people?

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Ms Bardell, and I hope that we get to do so many more times during the Committee’s remaining sittings. I thank the shadow Minister for his considered contribution on clause 20 and schedule 3. I will turn first to his questions regarding the conditions set out in schedule 3, in particular at paragraph 4.

Condition 1 sets the threshold for this power to be available to investigative agencies such as the National Crime Agency and the police, meaning that those agencies cannot apply for an order unless the IP address or domain name is being used in serious crime. Condition 2, which operates separately and additively, requires a connection to the UK jurisdiction, and any one of the four limbs listed at paragraph 4(3) can apply; as the hon. Gentleman correctly identified, the word “or” is used at the end of paragraph 4(3)(c), making it clear that only one of the limbs (a) to (d) in condition 2 have to be met. If one is met, that is sufficient for condition 2 as a whole to be met. Those four limbs specify different ways in which the domain name or IP address might link to serious crime in the UK’s jurisdiction. I hope that that makes it clear how those conditions operate.

The hon. Gentleman also asked why the non-disclosure power was needed. Its purpose is simply to prevent the criminal behind the IP address or domain name from being tipped off, inadvertently or otherwise, that a law enforcement agency is looking into them. We would not want the criminals to know they were being looked at. That is why the provision is constructed in that way.

The hon. Gentleman asked about territorial applicability. The Gambling Commission is principally an England and Wales body, and has only very limited functions in Northern Ireland. However, typically, if a gambling service is made available on the internet, it will be available in Northern Ireland as much as in England and Wales. If we go after a service provider in relation to a breach in England and Wales, shutting down the domain or IP address will also have the effect of preventing it from being accessed elsewhere.

For Scotland, the definition of “appropriate officer” is limited to a procurator fiscal. That reflects the different arrangements in Scotland and our discussions so far with the Scottish Government. Generally speaking, we respect the view of the Scottish Government when it comes to the application of the law in Scotland—I am sure Ms Bardell would impartially endorse that from the Chair. Where the Bill touches on devolved matters in relation to the Scottish jurisdiction, we correspond with the Scottish Government and proceed in general—I would not say always—by mutual consent.

For the reasons that we have already discussed, we can all welcome the purpose of clause 20 and the accompanying schedule 3. I therefore commend them to the Committee.

Clause 21 - Access to driver licence records

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

I beg to move amendment 33, in clause 21, page 17, line 33, after “subsection” insert

“, and may make consequential amendments of this section”.

This amendment will ensure that, in the event that the list of bodies to which the new provisions apply is amended by the regulations, any necessary consequential amendments may also be made by the regulations.

Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party, Livingston)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Government amendments 34 and 35.

Amendment 60, in clause 21, page 19, line 11, at end insert—

“(4) The Secretary of State must lay an annual report before Parliament providing information on the use of the powers introduced by this section.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish a report on the police’s use of the new powers giving them access to driver license records.

Clause stand part.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

Clause 21 will facilitate the ability of police and other law enforcement officers to access driver information from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency automatically at the point of need for all policing and law enforcement purposes. The clause contains provisions for regulations and a code of practice to enable changes to be made for the purposes of access to driver data.

Police and other law enforcement officers frequently need to deal with unpredictable circumstances while operating under time pressure, and the police have provided compelling operational examples in which they could deal better with threats and harms faced by the public if they had direct and automatic access to DVLA driving licence data. That is why the Bill contains this clause.

Currently, automatic access to the DVLA driving licence data is limited to matters concerned with enforcing road traffic offences and Road Traffic Act 1988 purposes, which means that the police do not have automatic access to driving licence data for other purposes, such as investigating wider types of crime. They do have manual access to the data, but that is quite laborious and takes a long time. The clause builds on an existing regulation-making power and requires the Secretary of State to make regulations specifying the purposes for which, and the circumstances in which, the police can automatically access the driving licence database, so that all policing and law enforcement purposes are included.

The clause essentially expands an existing manual process and makes it automatic. At the moment, the automatic access applies only to road traffic matters. Given that we hold this data, I am sure that members of the Committee would expect the police to be able to access it in pursuit of criminals. Through the clause, we are delivering on our commitment to support the police by providing them with the tools they need. Members will recall that in the oral evidence sessions back in December, we heard support for the provisions from the National Crime Agency, the College of Policing and His Majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary and fire and rescue services, Andy Cooke.

We are also taking the opportunity to make the legislation simpler and more transparent. Under the current system, some law enforcement staff have access to the DVLA driving licence database and others do not. The clause allows all police and law enforcement organisations listed in proposed new section 71(4) of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 to access DVLA driver information. It also changes the current legislative quirk whereby police staff are defined by law as police constables solely for the purpose of DVLA driver data, which is rather anomalous. It will define those permitted to access DVLA driver data as “authorised persons”, and regulations will set out the process for those individuals to become authorised.

We are conscious that police access to such personal data needs to be reasonable and proportionate, as set out in existing data protection legislation. That is why the clause will bolster the governance arrangements in this area by making them more transparent and straightforward, in preparation for the regulations that will broaden the access regime. In particular, the clause makes it clear which bodies can access DVLA driver data, which is necessary as the current legislation could be improved upon. There is a mechanism to amend the list of organisations that have access, while requiring the chief officer to be responsible for ensuring that appropriate training and oversight is provided by their organisation. That obviously includes the delivery of their data governance obligations.

Government amendment 33 ensures that if regulations amend the list of law enforcement bodies in subsection (4) of proposed new section 71 of the 2000 Act, such regulations may make consequential amendments to section 71—for example, to the definition of “chief officer”. Amendments 34 and 35 clarify the meaning of the term “chief officer” for each of the listed law enforcement agencies.

With your permission, Ms Bardell, I will speak to amendment 60 once I have heard the shadow Minister’s comments so I can respond to them. I hope I have set out why it is important that we put on a sounder and clearer footing the organisations and individuals who can access this data, and lay the groundwork to make automatic access possible for law enforcement purposes. I am sure we can all get behind that.

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

I want to speak to amendment 60 in my name. I do not know whether the Official Report can capture this, but my feeling is, “Hmm!” There are things I hoped the Minister would say, not least because it would have reduced my contribution by half, but he did not, so I will have to see whether I can get him to say them.

This is a very important clause. It is a long-standing, accepted principle that under certain circumstances police officers can use driver information held by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. At the moment, it is for purposes related to the enforcement of road traffic offences. It is a well-established and uncontroversial principle that officers can talk to the DVLA and get information. We have no quibble with the clause seeking to make that a smoother process, and we have no problem with subsection (4) of proposed new section 71 of the 2000 Act, which broadens and clarifies who can ask for that information, but the clause potentially contains a very broad extension of powers.

Paragraph 370 of the explanatory notes says:

“This clause replaces existing section 71 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 with a new section 71, and inserts a new section 71A into that Act. It provides for police and law enforcement bodies to have access to driving licence data held by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (“DVLA”) and provides powers for the Secretary of State to make regulations concerning the purposes for which such data may be used and any conditions which need to be met by any person accessing the data.”

That is a really significant change. The police had access to DVLA information in relation to a very narrow set of offences, but the clause is essentially saying that the information is fair play for enforcement agencies, subject to whatever regulations a Secretary of State may set in the future. That is an egregious use of Henry VIII powers. If the Government have a regime in mind, they should say what it is. Instead, we are possibly giving over the entire DVLA database to the Secretary of State, and it is currently not clear what it will be used for.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

First, for clarity, I should say that the purpose for which the information might be made automatically accessible is circumscribed by the words at the very end of the newly created section 71(2), which says the that Secretary of State

“may prescribe only such purposes and circumstances as are related to policing or law enforcement.”

It is not for any purpose; it has to be related to policing and law enforcement.

Secondly, I pointed out that the police already have the ability to access the data manually for police and law enforcement purposes. The clause simply paves the way for them to do what they currently do manually and instead do it automatically, provided that it is for a police or law enforcement purpose.

I hope those two points give some reassurance that the clause is not some gigantic land grab. It simply makes automatic what is currently manual and it is circumscribed in the way that I described.

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

The second point and the tone of the Minister’s contribution certainly give me a degree of comfort. The first point does not give me any comfort at all. The line that he quoted, which provides that the Secretary of State

“may prescribe only such purposes and circumstances as are related to policing or law enforcement”,

is a landing zone as wide as could possibly be needed to give police access to the DVLA database for all sorts of things. I will get on to that shortly. I would be delighted if the scenarios I am about to talk about are not what the Government intend, or even silly ones. I do not think that is the case, but I will be the gladdest person in the room if it is.

At the moment, I think the public would think there are sensible uses of the data, such as to double-check the last known addresses of a wanted person. Taken in extremis, however, the clause could mean that all the photos on the DVLA database become fair game for law enforcement. There are 41.2 million vehicles registered with the DVLA. We are talking about the data of tens of millions of people and, crucially, their photographs. The landing zone that I described under subsection (2) of proposed new section 71 means that someone’s photo could be used for a huge range of things.

Starting from where we think the public would be on this, the public expect and know that retrospective facial recognition is already used routinely. If a person commits a crime, they know that their custody photo will be held on file and that, if they are convicted, it could be held for six to 10 years, depending on the nature of the offence. It is a tale as old as the technology that the photo might subsequently be checked against footage relating to another crime and used for its detection. Similarly, if someone commits an act that means that their DNA is kept on file, that might be used in relation to unsolved crimes that happened in the past or to tackle offending in the future. All that is sensible.

On both fronts, we start in a sensible place, with the use of the DVLA database for cross-references to help detect crime, and the use of photos of offenders that lie on file to detect crime. The risk comes when we mix those two sensible principles.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

I have listened carefully to my hon. Friend. Does he agree that there is a danger that we will get mission creep and, more importantly, that the public will see it as such? As time moves on, we will get another bit, another bit and another bit.

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

I absolutely agree, and that is exactly the point I am about to make. It is a legitimate anxiety. If that is wrong and I am somehow being conspiratorial, albeit it is not my nature, the Minister can tell me and that would give me a degree of comfort, but I think, and it has been expressed to me by interest groups, that there is a legitimate anxiety that the clause could mean that the police will access tens of millions of driver photos to solve crimes.

There is a problem with that on two fronts. First, we have the question whether that is a fair balance between individual liberty and collective safety. If that is what the Government want, we need to have that debate much more clearly before we get to these specifics. Secondly, certainly for the photos that are on file today, probably each one of us in the room, Members and beyond, is on that database, but none of us will have given our photograph with informed consent, knowing they were going to be used for the proposed purpose. That is a huge problem, not least because it is a kind of coercion. I would still give my photo on that basis, because the ability to drive is fundamental to my needs—certainly for work, never mind family life. But, again, it is a form of state coercion, rather than something that would necessarily be the right thing to do. Many people—many of my constituents, I know—would not consent on that basis. We live in an age of high-profile conspiracy theories and those who make an industry of them, and we should not give grist to the mill of yet another one.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

rose—

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

I give way to the Minister; nothing would please me more than to be contradicted.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

Existing DVLA data, including photographs —I have a driving licence; I am sure that the hon. Member has one and everybody on the Committee probably does as well—can already be searched by the police; or rather they can request information on a manual basis. That can happen already, to each and every one of those 40-odd million records, for law enforcement purposes. That has a statutory basis, via schedule 2 to the Data Protection Act 2018, which allows access to that kind of data for police and law enforcement purposes. The principle of police access to that data for law enforcement purposes is already there.

I pose a brief example: if somebody was wanted for an offence such as rape, and the police could not track them down and they were not on the custody image database—let us say that they had never been into custody—would the Committee want the database to be searched to see whether a recognition match could be obtained to find that person? That can happen at the moment, and I think that is right. I would like to check whether the shadow Minister agrees.

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

There is a significant difference between what the Minister talks about, which is using, on an individual basis, information that is available to cross-reference—perhaps to deal with known aliases or known addresses—and where this could go. I mean a broad-scale use of surveillance, seemingly without any guardrails, that would essentially allow tens of millions—I think it is in the 40-something millions—of photos to be put on essentially the same footing as photos from the custody suite.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

I heard the Minister’s intervention, but I am increasingly concerned about the point I made about mission creep and proportionality. That is what we must bear in mind. Would my hon. Friend agree? This partly goes back to amendments 61, 58 and 59: let us be as precise and specific as we can—in fact, let us have some control rather than this mission creep, and always have human rights and the question of proportionality in the back of our minds.

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

“Proportionality” is the exact word here. It is about finding balance, as I say, between individual liberty and our collective safety. If we are saying that, in all instances where the police have a photo of a possible offender, we have complete comfort about their searching the entire DVLA database to try and identify that person—well, that is a very significant change. I would argue strongly that that is different from saying, “Well, we think we might know who it is; let’s apply for the driving licence of an individual.” I think that the public would see a big difference.

The issue becomes even more important given the pace of technological change; we have been talking about retrospective facial recognition technologies here, but live facial recognition technologies are developing at breakneck speed: cameras can scan huge crowds of people, check who they are and flag persons of concern. The Minister, I think, has a degree of enthusiasm for that technology; it is a plank of his plans around violence against retail workers, and shop theft more widely.

I recently visited South Wales police because I wanted to understand the use of this technology. With your indulgence, Ms Bardell, I will take this opportunity to put on the record my thanks to the police and crime commissioner for South Wales, Alun Michael, for his work. He is stepping down from public office at May’s elections after more than half a century in different posts. He has sat in the chair that I occupy; he has sat in the chair that the Minister occupies; he has sat in Cabinet, and he is one of the few PCCs to have served the entire 12 years of that post’s existence. His is a life of extraordinary public service to the UK and Wales, and to Cardiff, and we have been very lucky to have him.

As I was saying, South Wales police is very much in the vanguard of facial recognition technology. In a recent oral questions, the Minister graciously made reference to the work of South Wales police in this area, particularly the oversight that it is doing through the PCC’s office, which may well be a good model—in fact, it very much is. However, it is not without controversy, partly because it is in the vanguard and that sort of disruption is generating significant public interest.

There was quite a bit of public debate around one of the events in question: a Beyoncé concert at the Principality Stadium. That was a huge event. It had incredible hype; people really did everything to try to get tickets. Live facial recognition technology was used at that concert. The police advertised it, defined a public watch list, and said, “We are looking for anyone who is a known terrorist, in light of the Manchester bombing, and for paedophiles, in view of the likely attendees of the concert.” That probably finds the right balance: the public are informed and there is a defined watch list. There is a degree of common sense there.

As I said, what South Wales police have put in place, and what I think we are going to see across the country, is a model where we have civilian balance to the operational independence of the police and where the public’s representative, as we have in England and Wales in the form of police and crime commissioners, is able to know what is happening and to have public oversight. However, there is a real risk around how that sort of technology could be combined with the powers in this clause. The use of live facial recognition technologies could be combined with the entire DVLA photo database for the purposes of live blanket surveillance. I do not think that is what the Government want, but I do think that we have to hear that they do not. Relying on Henry VIII powers makes it even worse.

It is welcome that, according to proposed new section 71A of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000, a code of practice will be issued. That is really important, and speaks to my amendment 60, which is a pretty basic attempt to put some degree of parliamentary guardrail on to this new technology and its use in law enforcement. It states that once the Bill has received Royal Assent, a report on its usage must be published by the Secretary of State on an annual basis. I will be honest: I am not precious about the form that that should take, but I am precious about technology that has moved at great pace and with which there has been very little parliamentary engagement at all.

Stronger guardrails should be set. We have to be really cautious about other changes we might make, such as those in clause 21, that would mean that a significant database could be used for proactive surveillance of people who have never done anything other than apply for a provisional licence. That point could be held, but we would have to argue with the public and build public confidence around it. We would have to be shown the evidence for the effectiveness and the operational cases. I do not think the Government have done that.

My hope is that I am taking the issue far beyond what the Government intend. I will be very glad if that is the case. Part of the problem is that we are relying on regulations when we have no idea what their form will be. I stop at this point. I hope the Minister will be able to give the Committee some comfort.

Vicky Ford (Conservative, Chelmsford)

I have listened extremely carefully to the shadow Minister and the Minister. I take issues of data protection and privacy very seriously, but I also believe that members of the public expect us to try to keep them safe, and expect the police to be able to use technology to try to keep them safe.

I listened to what the hon. Member for Nottingham North said about the facial recognition technology used in south Wales. Those same south Wales cameras were used last half-term in my constituency of Chelmsford and in Southend in Essex. As a result, a number of individuals were arrested, including somebody who had come into Chelmsford from outside and was wanted for a very high-profile sexual offence. What the Minister has been saying about being able to use this technology to arrest rapists is not hypothetical; it has happened, and it happened in my constituency in Chelmsford.

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

I am sorry to ask the right hon. Member to give way, because I have said so much—but I guess the point I was making about the Beyoncé concert was about having a defined watch list of people known and suspected of having done significant crimes. Such measures feel like a proportionate tactic to apprehend them, but is that enough for us to say that therefore everybody’s faces ought to be in play, even though the vast majority have never done anything wrong?

Vicky Ford (Conservative, Chelmsford)

I was just coming to that point. I completely hear what the hon. Gentleman is saying about widening out the potential dataset of photographs that could be used. I suspect that most members of the public would say it is utterly reasonable to widen out the set of faces we could look at. For instance, we might have a picture of somebody who is a rapist and was never known before, but their photograph might have appeared on a wider database such as that from the DVLA, rather than on a known potential suspect list. If that helped to find really dangerous criminals, I suspect most members of the public would accept that.

I agree that there need to be very strong measures to make sure that we do not turn into a surveillance society, such as we have seen in some much more autocratic countries, where those pictures can then be used against innocent people. I believe the Minister is trying to say that the protection is there in the Bill. When these cameras have been used, there have been very strong rules about where they can be used. The cameras used in both Chelmsford and Southend were highly publicised, with signs and alerts that the technology was being used in that place on that day. Those sorts of measures are important.

I would be interested in a bit more clarity from the Minister about ensuring that we do not turn to inappropriate use, as we have seen in some autocratic countries, while also ensuring that we can help the public by making use of the best technology to identify those who have committed the most serious crimes.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

I would like to speak to a couple of matters concerning the clause, and then talk about the read-across into facial recognition. I think there is some conflation of two different kinds of facial recognition—live and retrospective—only one of which is relevant here. I will explain how that works and how it might be relevant.

Let me speak first to the to the substance of the clause. First, just to be precise, this is not a Henry VIII power, which is a piece of secondary legislation that can amend primary legislation. This does not create a regulation-making power to amend primary legislation; it simply creates a list. It is not technically a Henry VIII power, but it does specify the circumstances, or the policing and enforcement purposes, for which data can be used.

Secondly, we are not passing clause 21 expressly to authorise the use of DVLA data for facial recognition or indeed for any particular law enforcement purpose; we are simply creating a regulation-making power. Regulations might be brought forward using this power to do any number of law enforcement activities, including facial recognition, but that would, of course, have to be debated at the time and subject to the affirmative procedure. This is enabling legislation; we are not actually passing the substance of any particular power today.

Since members of the Committee have raised questions about facial recognition, I would like to address them. There are essentially two different kinds of facial recognition—separate concepts—one of which is relevant and one of which is not. Let me start with the one that would not be relevant here: live facial recognition. Live facial recognition would never need to use images from the DVLA database, the passport database or anything else. Live facial recognition takes a watch list of people wanted for criminal offences or wanted by the court.

Such technology was run recently in Croydon—my borough—where I think there are about 12,000 people wanted for criminal offences. The camera was set up, as it was in Southend and Chelmsford, in Wales, for the coronation and at the Silverstone Grand Prix. Everyone who walked past those cameras in Croydon town centre got scanned. There were public signs up; the authorised professional practice says that public signs have to be put up, which I would have thought would mean criminals would not walk past the cameras—but they do.

Over a couple of afternoons in Croydon, several thousand people walked past the cameras, despite the fact that there was a sign up saying, “The police are using live facial recognition” and in the course of those two afternoons, there were 17 alerts and all were accurate. The police would stop each person, have a conversation, ask for ID and so on, and all 17 had been accurately identified. Those 17 people were all arrested because they were wanted for offences. One of them was a wanted rapist who would otherwise not have been caught. It was just good fortune that that wanted rapist had to walk past the camera and was apprehended. Were it not for that, that wanted rapist would still be wandering around. There was another person who had been wanted for grievous bodily harm since 2015—for eight years—and they were arrested as well. In Croydon, the scheme was run in the first couple of weeks of December.

Concerns have been raised previously about accuracy and disproportionality: does the technology pick on members of certain ethnic communities, as it were? There was litigation that preceded South Wales using it, back in about 2020. I join the shadow Minister in commending Alun Michael for his work on live facial recognition, where he has shown real leadership, and for his long career in public life—in Parliament as a Secretary of State, as Welsh First Minister, and as a police and crime commissioner for the last 12 years or so.

The litigation happened, and the court set out certain conditions that had to be met, one of which was around accuracy—I think the false positive rate had to be one in 1,000—and disproportionality. The algorithm was improved and tested by the National Physical Laboratory at 0.6, which is the setting that the police use. At that setting, it found that the false positive rate was, I think—I am speaking from memory—one in 6,000, which is six times more accurate than the court specified, and that there was no disproportionality based on either gender or ethnicity.

For the one-in-6,000 false positive, what would happen—this has not happened in Croydon, because only 17 people were stopped—is that the police would say, “Excuse me, sir or madam, can you just identify yourself?” If they turn out not to be the person the police think they are, obviously the police will say, “Sorry to disturb you—off you go.” But that is one in 6,000, and it did not happen in Croydon, because the police did not stop 6,000 people.

So that is live facial recognition. The police do not need access to a DVLA database or password database, or even the custody database; they just need a list of people who are wanted. In the examples in Chelmsford, Southend and Croydon, they caught people who were wanted for offences or who had absconded from court, who would otherwise still be wandering around. It was used at the coronation. Three camera points were set up and, similarly to the Welsh example, the watch list included known terrorists, fixated people—people who are obsessed by the monarchy—and also wanted offenders. I think three wanted people were caught on the coronation day, including a wanted sex offender who happened to wander past the camera. The technology has also been used in Soho to try and catch robbers who were stealing mobile phones and so on.

I hope that illustrates to the Committee how live facial recognition is useful. It comes under the auspices of the Supreme Court judgment in the Bridges case, and authorised professional practice is published by the College of Policing. I think the Information Commissioner’s Office has also looked at it. Live facial recognition, which does not need DVLA data anyway, has a good basis, and it is catching people who would otherwise not get caught.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

We can all come up with our examples, whether they be of rapists or a missing person, for example—who would not want to find a missing person who might have been missing for years and who we are trying to find? That is not the issue. We have used DNA in the past, and we all think it is wonderful, but it is used within parameters. Yes, let us have CCTV and facial recognition, but they have to be used within a certain context.

Then there is body-worn video and the move towards using algorithms in the detection and prevention of crime —and, in some places, the deterrence of crime—and also the issues around AI. I do not think there is a problem with that at all, but it has to be set in a context. We should not take a piecemeal approach to the whole question of technology. We are dealing with a vast area, and this must be set in that wider context. Perhaps the Minister can go off and think this through, outside this Criminal Justice Bill, and set in process a review of the whole question of artificial intelligence and so on, as part of crime reduction, crime prevention and crime detection.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

The hon. Gentleman is making a very reasonable point. In fact, I was going to come on to it later, but I will address it now. As for the current deployments of live facial recognition in places such as Wales, Croydon, Southend, Chelmsford, Soho and elsewhere, a framework was set out by the case of Bridges v. South Wales Police. There is authorised professional practice from the College, but that framework is there. The hon. Gentleman is, however, making the valid point that it would be useful to set out—outside of this Committee, as he said—a broader strategy, framework or explanation of how the technology can be used. That is not just the case for live facial recognition, but also for the retrospective recognition, which I will come on to in a minute. It is all set out, and we could perhaps debate and discuss it in the round.

The hon. Gentleman is making a reasonable point about something that I had in mind to do in the relatively near future. That is something that I am working on in the Home Office, and his suggestion has spurred me on to expedite that. We want to have this set out transparently and comprehensively so that everybody can look at it and know where they stand. It has actually been done in relation to live facial recognition, but it would be helpful to set it out in a broader context.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) made is far more eloquent than mine. The Minister is clearly very enthusiastic and learned about this issue. When he was talking about how live facial recognition does not rely on DVLA data or any photographic data at all, the Minister said that we just need a list. What does that rely on, then? It must rely on some sort of photographic data.

My second point—I will try to be slightly more eloquent and not sound like I am asking my kids to turn the telly on for me because I do not understand it—is about my kids. I do not mind my DVLA data being used; I will tick the box or whatever. It strikes me, however, that my son has a driving licence, and I feel slightly anxious about the way that large groups of young boys get treated like they are a rabble. There are all the brilliant examples of this, such as finding missing people or catching rapists—“Great. Wahey! Let’s lock them all up”—but I feel slightly less comfortable about my son’s photo being used, funnily enough, in what might be a broad-brush police and crime approach.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

I thank the hon. Lady. On the first question, which was about how live facial recognition works, we first of all need a watchlist—the list of wanted people—and then the photographs. Maybe there will be someone who is wanted for rape, and we have that person’s photograph. Maybe it is someone the police have encountered before, but they just cannot find them. Maybe the police have gone to what they think is the person’s home address, and the person is not there, but they have their photograph. They have that data. Then, in the case of the Croydon deployment in early December, there were 12,000 photographs of people who were wanted for different offences—the police had those photographs.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

You shock me!

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

The officer will go over and say, “Excuse me, sir, what is your name?” When he has established that the match is accurate and that they are who the system thinks they are, it is a case of, “You are under arrest for X, Y or Z”.

That is how the live system works. There is no need to access any standing database such as that of DVLA; we just need the pictures of the 12,000 wanted persons. Depending on the deployment, we can choose who goes on that list. In the South Wales deployment, they were particularly concerned about terrorists who might try to cause an explosion in the arena or paedophiles who might seek to prey on the young girls going to the Beyoncé concert. The list can be varied depending on the location. I would hope, though, that any watchlist would always include people who are wanted for offences.

I will now come on to retrospective facial recognition. I repeat that we are not authorising this today by passing this clause; we are simply creating a power to make regulations in the future to do so. I just thought I would be clear about that. We are not creating this power; we are simply creating a legislative framework through which future regulations might be brought forward.

However, if they are brought forward, let me just explain how the retrospective facial recognition concept works. It is the other way round; it is where someone commits a crime and we have a picture of them. They might have been recorded on CCTV, somebody might have taken a photo of them on their mobile phone, there might be an image from a Ring doorbell, or it might be an image from a car dashcam. There is someone committing a crime and there is a photograph of them, where their face is visible, at least to some extent, but we do not know who they are. The police have a criminal—they have a photograph of them—but they do not know who they are.

What we want to do then is to search, using facial recognition, to find that person. Currently, we can search against the police custody database and we can see if that person appears on there, by matching the face. The algorithm has become a lot better in the last few months. I have seen some examples of that. I was at a meeting in Cambridge on Monday—two days ago—where some of the most recent algorithms were demonstrated to me.

There was a photograph that was about 15 years old, as in the reference photograph had been taken 15 years earlier, and the person had aged very considerably, but there was still a match. There were other examples where the person’s face was in shadow, or partially obscured, or the photograph had been taken at a funny angle. Looking at such images, we would think, “There’s no way that you’re going to match that. They look totally different,” and yet they got the match, because the algorithm now works so effectively.

I will give one or two other examples. There was a murder in a Coventry nightclub a couple of years ago and the only piece of evidence that was secured was that someone had got a photograph of the murderer in the nightclub. It was quite dark, as people can imagine, and the police did not know who it was, because they had run off; nobody knew the person’s name or address, or anything. The police ran that photograph through the database—the police national database—to get a facial recognition match. They got a name and address. The police attended the address and found the person there, with clothes that were stained with the victim’s blood. Obviously, that was the basis for making an arrest.

There was another example of someone who had committed a sexual assault while they were on a bus and the only piece of evidence—obviously, the victim gave a description, but it is quite hard to go off a description—came from the CCTV on the bus. There was video footage of the person committing the sexual offence, or sexual assault, while they were on the bus. It was run through the database and there was a match; the police found out who it was, went in and arrested them, and they are now in prison.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

On a technical point, could this technology also be used to find witnesses on the bus, for example? I do not expect the Minister to know the answer to that question, but just to add a bit more enthusiasm to his love of this technology, I can see that there might be such uses for it.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

That is a really good question and I do not know the answer to it. However, I can certainly find out and come back to the Committee. I know that this technology can be used to find missing persons. If someone has gone missing, the police can do a search and see if they pop up somewhere.

As for finding witnesses, of course the witness has not committed a crime, so one would have to be a little bit careful about infringing on their rights. However, I will take that question away and get an answer, and I will write to the hon. Lady and the shadow Minister, and indeed the rest of the Committee, because it is a very good question. I am afraid that, as I stand here today, I do not know the answer, but that could help to find witnesses.

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

The Minister is being very generous with his time. There is a degree of comfort with the point about regulation. If concerns continue to grow about the use of DVLA data in retrospective facial recognition, Parliament will have its day. And on that basis, I will not divide the Committee.

However, I want to press the Minister on something else. He is right to say that this clause is an enabling clause, but he must have an idea of what he wants it to enable. Why is it in the Bill? The Government must have something in mind for it; otherwise, there is no point in it standing part of the Bill.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

I think that I have just spent the last five minutes or so—

Alex Norris (Labour/Co-operative, Nottingham North)

So it is for that, then.

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

It could be; that is certainly a possibility that I have in mind. If those regulations were brought forward, and maybe there would be some further clarifying codes of practice and so on that will be needed as well, it would in theory be possible to bring forward regulations such that, if the person or the suspect—it might be the murderer in that Coventry nightclub, or the sex offender on that bus. Imagine if their image was not on the custody database; imagine that they had never been arrested, or convicted, or anything. The police did not have their picture; they would not have found them. It would obviously be useful, particularly for more serious offences, to be able automatically to search other facial image databases besides the custody one, in order to catch the rapist, the serious sex offender and so on.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley asked a question about her son. There is a question of proportionality here. For example, regarding this database, in these regulations one could—this is not for the Committee today, but I am just saying it—specify a threshold, and say that this would only be used for crimes over a certain level of seriousness. Obviously, rape and murder would meet that. GBH, drug supply, firearms, knives and so on, might also be specified, but a parking ticket would probably not be. In these regulations—this is one of the reasons why the wording is flexible—one could specify that threshold, and we would obviously then debate where that balance should lie. One does have to be cognisant of proportionality and privacy considerations, as indeed data protection law in any case requires us to do.

I hope I have given the Committee a bit of a flavour of how these regulation powers—

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

An education, Minister!

Chris Philp (Conservative, Croydon South)

It is not often that someone says that after I have been speaking. I hope I have given a bit of a flavour of how this could help catch serious criminals who might otherwise not be caught. We would debate the specifics when the time came. There would, of course, be a code of practice and everything else to set out those guard rails. I have already indicated in response to, I think, the hon. Member for Bootle, that there is a case for a wider policy statement setting out the strategy in this area, which we can discuss and debate.

I appreciate that we have strayed a little beyond the strict confines of this clause, Ms Bardell, but the Opposition raised some reasonable questions that I really wanted to try hard to answer. I will finish by saying that I spoke to my local police commanders, Superintendent Mitch Carr and Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain, encouraging the deployment of live facial recognition in Croydon. I know 17 people got arrested. We have heard how it was done in Essex: in Southend and in Chelmsford. I encourage members of this Committee to talk to their local police and say, “Try it out in your area,” and see who gets caught. At the moment, South Wales police and the Met have the necessary vans, but they will lend them. I think South Wales police lent the vans to Essex. If anyone wants to suggest it, they could ask their chief constable to borrow the van from South Wales police or the Met, try out in their constituency, and see who gets caught.

Clause 22 - Powers to compel attendance at sentencing hearing

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairwomanship, Ms Bardell. I am pleased to be able to speak to the provision contained in clause 22, which has had widespread support from Members across the House. In the past year or two, several high-profile murderers—Thomas Cashman, Jordan McSweeney, and most recently Lucy Letby—have refused to attend their sentencing hearings, causing the victims’ families significant further distress. This can be seen as the final insult, and it is also the coward’s approach, affronting the victims one last time by robbing their families of a chance to look them in the eye as the judge determines their fate. The worst offenders should be required to face the consequence of their actions, and hear society’s condemnation expressed through the sentencing remarks of the judge. Indeed, it is with those words ringing in their ears that they should hear the prison door clang shut.

Clause 22 inserts new sections 41A and 41B into a new chapter 2A within part 3 of the sentencing code. New section 41A creates an express statutory power for a Crown court judge to directly order the most serious offenders to attend their sentencing hearing. It applies to adults and children who are convicted of a sentence for which the maximum potential penalty is life. Any offender falling in that category who refuses to attend without a reasonable excuse commits a contempt of court. In the case of an adult offender they could face a maximum penalty of an additional two years in prison; in the case of a child offender who refuses to attend, the maximum penalty is a £2,500 fine.

New section 41B is intended to enshrine current common law practice in statute, making it absolutely clear that the Crown court has a power in law to direct a prison to produce any adult offender, not just those looking at a potential life sentence, to court for their sentencing hearing. It makes clear that prison officers and prisoner escort officers may use reasonable force to produce an adult offender to court for their sentencing hearing where it is necessary and proportionate. The final decision on reasonable force remains with the prison governor and the escorting staff working under his or her authority. Children will not be subject to reasonable force for that purpose, in line with existing policy. It will remain a matter for judges to decide whether to order an individual to attend court or to require a prison to produce them.

Alberto Costa (Conservative, South Leicestershire)

I thank my hon. Friend and the Government for bringing forward this clause, which I wholeheartedly support. It is a way of ensuring that there is an element of responsibility that the public can see in what is, after all, an open court forum.

On the use of reasonable force—if the Minister does not have an answer today, perhaps she can write to me—is there a way of ensuring that there is a mitigation against the possibility of the offenders raising civil proceedings against the state for alleged excessive force? Has any thought been given to that? If not, perhaps the Department could write to the Committee to explain how that would be dealt with. We would not want a situation where the public then say, “How is this individual able to make a claim against the state on the grounds that he or she had to attend court?”

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

I thank my hon. Friend for his sensible question; I will write to him. One of the points I have clarified is that prison officers understand the use of reasonable force, because they have to use it at other times, and it is well understood by the police. “Reasonable force” has a meaning in context—it is not just a judgment call to be made on the day. However, that is a good point, and it deserves a response.

Returning to my remarks, in exercising their discretion a judge may decide not to order an individual to attend if they may cause significant disruption in court or further distress to victims, or if there is a significant mental health complaint that may prevent their attendance. Courts will also be required to consult with young offending teams before any decision is made on a child offender. I recognise that the provisions may not guarantee that every offender will end up attending their sentencing hearing.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

I am unsure whether the Minister has considered the issue in relation to the victims charter. The victim’s family could be in court. Is there the potential, as part of the victims charter, to consult the family—

Carolyn Harris (Labour, Swansea East)

Or the victim.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

Yes—to consult the victim or the victim’s family on that issue? The victim or their family could be sat there, and the person could be brought in and be challenging, difficult and so on. As part of victims’ rights, would the Minister consider giving consideration to the consultation of the victim or their family in those situations?

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. It is generally accepted—this is consistent with the thrust of what we have heard—that it is an affront to the victim’s family when the defendant, who is a ward of the court for the purposes of the criminal proceedings, elects not to attend their sentencing. It has always been presented in one way, but the hon. Gentleman is correct: there is an argument to be made, particularly if the defendant is difficult, disruptive or perhaps politically motivated—[Interruption.] I have been reminded that it is for judges to decide, but the point that the hon. Gentleman makes is that perhaps the victim’s family should be part of that decision-making exercise.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

Yes, I think it is important that families be consulted throughout the process and beyond it. The judge has discretion, but the victim should have the right to be consulted. What the judge does is a completely different matter, but the families or the victim should be consulted if appropriate.

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

Let me revert to the hon. Gentleman in writing on that point. I conceded that there is no guarantee that every single offender will attend their sentencing, but the Bill provides a power for a Crown court judge to order that to happen in certain circumstances. It will also ensure that serious offenders who fail to attend receive punishment. That sends the clear message that offenders are expected to attend their sentencing hearing, and that the wider public have the right to see that justice is done. I commend the clause to the Committee.

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. I assure the Minister that in the interests of a continuing atmosphere of co-operative working, I, like my hon. Friend the shadow Minister for policing, will be constructive in my comments, to enable the Government to justify their legislation by explaining how it will work. Where we have reservations or see the need to offer new ideas, we will do so to help them get it right. I am sure that they are as keen as we are to improve this Bill and ensure it is fit for purpose. Judging by the huge number of Government amendments, they have already recognised at least some of its weaknesses.

As outlined, the first part of clause 22 enables the Crown court to directly order an individual to attend their sentencing hearing by creating an express statutory power to make an attendance order. According to the Library research document, and as the Minister mentioned, any adult who refuses to attend without reasonable excuse will commit a contempt and therefore faces a maximum penalty of an additional custodial sentence of up to 24 months. Any child who refuses to attend faces a penalty of £2,500, but I wonder how a child will ever be in a position to pay such a penalty, particularly if they are given a custodial sentence.

The second part of the clause creates an express power for judges to require prisons to produce adults to court for sentencing hearings. It also makes it clear that prison officers and prisoner escort officers may use reasonable force to produce an adult to court for their sentencing hearing where that is necessary and proportionate. However, the final decision on whether to use reasonable force remains with the prison and escorting staff. Children will not be subject to use of reasonable force for this purpose, in line with domestic policy, guided by the Taylor review of 2020 and the UK’s commitments under the UN convention on the rights of the child. We can only welcome that.

There are many questions that the Minister needs to answer about how easy it will be to implement this policy. We will not oppose the clause, but would like her to spell out how practical it is, and what alternative provision she has in mind if it is impossible to compel a defendant to attend a sentencing hearing.

There is nothing in the Government’s explanatory notes about the resources needed to deliver the policy, and I hope that the Minister will address that. If it is not resourced, it simply will not happen, so we seek clarity there. Likewise, there is little if anything about how the staff who will be at the sharp end of delivering a defendant to court will be protected.

We would also like to understand what the new law would add to judges’ existing powers to compel people to attend their sentencing hearing. Above all, we would like to explore with the Minister whether this new law could actually work, and whether it is in the best interests of the victims. We do not want them to be further traumatised by the sentencing hearing.

We know why this proposal is being brought forward. The Minister talked about a number of high-profile cases in which the defendants refused to attend their sentencing hearing. There have been many: Zahid Younis, in September 2020, sentenced for the murder of Henriett Szucs and Mihrican Mustafa; Koci Selamaj, in April 2022, for the murder of Sabina Nessa; Jordan McSweeney, in December 2022, for the murder of Zara Aleena;Thomas Cashman, in July 2023, for the murder of Olivia Pratt-Korbel; and of course Lucy Letby, in August 2023, for the murder and attempted murder of 13 infants. In those cases, the families never had the chance to look the killer in the eye, or to spell out the effects of their loss.

Perhaps that is why the witnesses we questioned at the start of this Bill’s progress in Committee were supportive of the new law, though from the quotations I am about to use from their evidence, it is clear that many questions are still to be answered. Baljit Ubhey, director of strategy and policy at the Crown Prosecution Service—apologies if I mispronounce these names—described it as

“an important measure, given some of the high-profile cases we have seen and the impact they have had on victims.”

She went on:

“We will have to look very carefully at how we apply for that power—which allows the court or the prosecutor to apply for compulsory attendance—and seek victims’ views”.

Others have made that point this afternoon. She went on:

“The consideration to think about is whether that would cause extra violence. There is something in the Bill about the use of force, which prison custody officers would need to think about”.

I will address that in detail later. Baljit went on:

“I can see why it is in the Bill, but we will have to wait and see how it operates in practice.”––[Official Report, Criminal Justice Public Bill Committee, 12 December 2023; c. 20, Q46.]

Baroness Newlove, the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, expressed concerns about victims:

“In terms of victims and their families, both personally and professionally assumptions are made about them when people do not even understand the victim’s journey. I get annoyed at that. I think this is a very important point, because victims sit there for weeks…on end, listening to evidence and having no voice at all. Part of the victims code is to have the victim impact statement, and there is the ability to read it out if there is conviction. I think it should be respected that the family have that kind of relationship, because they have listened to that evidence about their loved ones.”

She went on:

“I also think that you do not know how to judge an offender. They could say that they are coming in the dock and then not play ball. I have seen for myself—evidence shows this—that even through the court trial they will turn their backs, goad you and do everything. If it is still to the judge’s discretion and direction, I would like—I have said this previously—for the judge to own the courtroom if the offender does play in the dock and does not respect the perimeters. Victims’ families are told to respect the perimeters of the courtroom, and the judiciary needs to have that respect. If it happens that they do not want to turn up in dock, a deadline should be put on what is going on. If not, put something in their cell if they are in the court building.”––[Official Report, Criminal Justice Public Bill Committee, 12 December 2023; c. 25, Q59.]

I ask the Minister to address Baroness Newlove’s concerns, which many of us in Committee share, and specifically the concern about how a defendant kicking off will be dealt with under this proposed new law.

Dame Vera Baird KC, the former Victims’ Commissioner, questioned the need for the clause at all:

“As I am sure the Ministers know very well, this adds absolutely nothing to the current law. A judge can order somebody to come into court. If they do not, it is a contempt of court.”

When I pointed out to her during the evidence session that the

“clause actually talks about using ‘reasonable force’”,

she responded:

“But you can already use reasonable force. As long as it is proportionate and necessary, the Prison Service is entitled to use reasonable force to fulfil the orders of the judge. If the judge says, ‘You must come’ and you do not come, it is, No. 1, a contempt of court”—

just as in the proposals before us—

“And guess what the maximum sentence is for a contempt of court? It is two years, exactly as it is in the Bill. If a person does not want to come and the officers regard it as necessary and proportionate to use force to bring them, they are entitled to do exactly that to fulfil the judge’s requirements. There is really no change here.

I well understand the sense from a victim that they want this moment—‘Right, he’s going to face what he’s done now and I’m going to get some benefit from that.’ But the reality is that you cannot capture somebody’s mind, can you? There are always risks that people who are dragged into court might be a nuisance.”

Later on, she said:

“I think it was the former Lord Chief Justice John Thomas who suggested that a better way was to make sure that if the person does not come out of the cell, he is in a cell to which the sentencing can be broadcast. He cannot get away and the victims know that he has, as it were, faced his moment.”––[Official Report, Criminal Justice Public Bill Committee, 12 December 2023; c. 59-60, Q156-157.]

I hope that the Minister will take the time to outline just what her proposal adds to the law, and what alternatives there are to forcing an angry, abusive and possibly violent defendant to sit in the dock.

I will now move on to proposed new section 41B(4) of the sentencing code, which refers to using “reasonable force” to ensure that a defendant attends court. We heard evidence from Mark Fairhurst, chairman of the Prison Officers Association, on the issue. Members will recollect that he told the Committee that he saw no problem for his members in delivering their role in the policy. He told us:

“It is quite easy for prison officers to force someone to attend court; we restrain them on to a cellular vehicle and then they are taken to court. The problem arises at the other end because the courts are run by private security firms now. Have they got the staffing levels needed to take someone who has been recalcitrant off a bus and into a cell in the court? Have they got the resources to drag them into the dock if they are still displaying violent tendencies? Will that disrupt proceedings in the court? Will they be abusive to victims? Will it be distressing for the victims of crime to witness that in the dock? There are a lot of issues we need to look at.”––[Official Report, Criminal Justice Public Bill Committee, 14 December 2023; c. 96, Q39.]

I have made some inquiries about how reasonable force is currently used by prison officers to deliver a defendant into the hands of the security company or court that receives them. It came as a surprise to learn that it involves three prison officers in full riot gear—including overalls, gloves, steel-toed boots, helmets and shields—approaching the prisoner, securing them and getting them into the transport vehicle. Their job is then complete, and responsibility passes to the private security firm staff to deliver the defendant to the court. Unlike the prison officers, neither private security staff nor receiving court staff are equipped with either the personal protective equipment or the training to transfer the defendant first into the court cell and then to the dock.

That level of restraint of a defendant, and risk to employees of the court or agency staff, may be required only occasionally, but what training and equipment will agency and court staff be provided with to ensure that they are as protected as our prison officers? Training is a real issue, and I would be obliged if the Minister would outline what training staff will receive to ensure their and the defendant’s safety. What financial provision has been or will be made to provide such support for staff? The Minister will be the first to recognise our duty of care to these people. If she wants the measure to succeed, she must outline to the Committee exactly how it can be implemented safely. What risk assessment of the whole policy has been conducted? Perhaps more relevantly, what risk assessments will be conducted each time the measure is applied?

I mentioned the case of Lucy Letby. She refused to attend her sentencing hearing and refused to attend via video link. She remained in the cells below Manchester Crown court as bereaved family members delivered victim personal statements, and the judge passed a whole life order in her absence. Like Letby, Thomas Cashman travelled to Manchester Crown court but declined to leave his cell for his sentencing hearing, claiming that he had been provoked by court officials.

Assuming that the Minister’s intention is that defendants such as Letby and Cashman would be forced into court, can she advise how that will be done, and whether she believes such an action is in the best interests of the victims? Perhaps she believes that sanctions can be placed on such people. However, in Letby’s case, the threat of a lengthier sentence would be entirely pointless, because the sentence of life without parole is the most severe penalty the law of England and Wales allows. What sanction can be placed on an offender who knows that the judge will pass a whole life order? Will they be refused visiting rights, or other rights enjoyed by prisoners? What are the Minister’s thoughts on Baroness Newlove’s view that, if defendants object to leaving their cell, a live link should be set up inside? That is also the view of the former Lord Chief Justice, as we heard. It is hard to see how that will be achieved when our justice system’s funding is already stretched to the limit. Perhaps the Minister can also address that.

The charity Justice is also cautious about the introduction of new powers to compel defendants’ attendance at sentencing heroes—hearings. Not heroes; there are no heroes in this business. The charity said that the new powers are unlikely to address the issue in a positive manner:

“A statutory power to require individuals facing a life sentence to attend sentencing hearings is at best unnecessary and at worst, when backed by force, dangerous.”

The briefing from Justice aligns with others in saying that this policy puts staff at risk. It goes on to say that it is questionable whether the discretion to use force in proposed new clause 41B(4) is real, or merely apparent in view of subsection (6). That subsection provides that a

“person is to be treated as having complied with an order under subsection (2) if they have done all that they reasonably can to secure that the offender is produced before the court for the sentencing hearing.”

Given that subsection (4) provides the authority to use reasonable force, failure to use such force when it is available arguably places those responsible for securing production at risk of being held in contempt themselves for failing to comply with a court order. Prison governors and custody officers are accordingly placed in an invidious position.

What practical things can be done to help in that situation? The hon. Member for South Leicestershire already raised the issue of what actions could be taken against staff for perhaps injuring a defendant, but the same issue applies to other parts of the policy. Moreover, established data on the disproportionate use of force shows that offenders from racialised minorities are at greater risk in the case of any excesses. There is no reason to believe that the outcomes would be any different when production at court is mandated. Ultimately, it is arguably more important to provide victims and families with greater support outside the criminal justice process than to expect that they will achieve closure via sentencing, particularly if the offender does not wish to be present and chooses to express that at court. I would welcome the Minister’s views on that.

Before concluding, I want to go back to the victim. For some, the presence of the offender in the dock as the sentence is handed down equates with a sense of natural justice. Victims’ views are central to how this is managed, and we share the view that, wherever possible, defendants ought to hear the victim impact statements setting out how victims and families have been affected by the crime. There are many barriers to making this policy work in practice, and it is important to make it clear to victims that these provisions will not guarantee—the Minister said this, describing it as a concession—that everyone will attend sentencing when so ordered; rather, the intention is to clarify the law and reinforce the expectation that people should attend their sentencing hearing. I suppose that takes us all the way back to the question of what the measure actually adds to the law. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks. I would like to clarify immediately that attendance by video link is attendance. If the judge deems that the person would be disruptive in the courtroom, they will still be deemed to have attended if there is a live video link to the cell.

I think the hon. Gentleman asked about methods of restraint, and I will deal with that through two points. It is, of course, within the power of the Prison Service to have the person restrained in the cell, so that they are compelled to listen to the judge’s sentencing remarks. Prison officers are familiar with exercising restraint, and with moving disruptive or reluctant prisoners around the estate, and out of the estate into court.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether court security staff would have sufficient training and would be able to carry out their role. That is a fair point, but they are protected at work under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992, which would cover something like this. It would be for the employer to ensure that staff are reasonably safe in carrying out roles. I would anticipate that a judge could take this issue into consideration in making their order in the first place. I remind him that there is more than one way that a person can be compelled to attend their sentencing hearing.

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

I gave the example of prison officers in full riot gear, and with shields, restraining a prisoner. Is the Minister really saying that the employer will be responsible for providing similar equipment to court staff, to ensure that they carry out this policy?

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

Just to be clear, that is not the statutory duty that would apply. If somebody was deemed to be that level of violent, threatening or difficult, one might assume that the judge consider that very carefully and exercise their discretion. I have said that there is more than one way that attendance is deemed to have taken place, and it does not involve being dragged kicking and screaming into the courtroom. I hope that answers some of the questions. The duty on the employer is to create a reasonably safe place of work, obviously within the parameters that some court staff are engaged in a security capacity and therefore a more robust form of engagement might be reasonably anticipated. I will leave that there.

The hon. Gentleman made a good point about the sanction. If somebody faces a whole-life tariff, why does adding a couple of years matter? It is true that with a whole-life tariff, a person probably has the greatest difficulty with an increased sentence, but I remind the hon. Gentleman very gently of Jordan McSweeney, who used that argument when he said he would not attend. This was reported. He said he did not want to go to court and did not care because he was going to get a long sentence anyway. He got 37 years. But shortly afterwards he was in the Court of Appeal, appealing against his sentence. He was successful and got it reduced by four years. So he did care about the length of his sentence. I think that rather negates that point, if I may say so.

A point was made by the former Victims’ Commissioner, Vera Baird, that I want to take forward. I tried to make this point in my speech, but perhaps I was not clear enough. We accept that the judge now has discretion to make such an order, but we have found that it is not evenly or always applied. It depends who the judge is and where they are sitting. By putting the measure in the Bill, we are creating a power in statute for a judge to make an order to compel a person to attend their sentencing for any serious offence where the maximum is a life sentence, as I have said. That is a change. In proposed new section 41B, the judges can direct a prison to produce any adult offender irrespective of the offence.

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, but I do not accept her explanation of how this adds to the law. Perhaps she would like to take it away and come back to the Committee to spell out exactly how it does. Her explanation, I am afraid, did not cut it.

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

Let me give the hon. Gentleman a practical illustration. Lucy Letby was not compelled to attend her sentencing hearing. She was a young woman in her early 30s and not obviously a massive danger to the victims’ families or somebody who was going to be disruptive, yet the judge did not compel her attendance. We think that the provisions in the Bill alter that and make it far more likely that somebody would be required to attend their hearing.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

With regard to that particular case, the Minister is absolutely right. It would seem that somebody could use reasonable force to get Lucy Letby there. The fact that she is a woman and the vast majority of the security staff in the court would be men would, I imagine, make them pause with concern as employers. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East just pointed out to me that these court security officers earn around £18,000 a year. If this piece of law is saying that it is still up to the judge, where is the compulsion? Currently, it is up to the judge. In Lucy Letby’s case, it was up to the judge. The measure still says that it is up to the judge. So why does it make a difference?

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

The difference it makes is that now we will not necessarily even see a judge consider exercising that discretion. By putting it into primary legislation—I appreciate the word “may” is used, and I am not going to pretend otherwise—you are essentially saying to the judge, “The time has come for you to exercise your discretion. Considering this defendant, in these circumstances in this case, are you going to compel attendance in the circumstances that are set out in the Bill?” There are other examples of where we put things on the statute book that existed somewhat loosely as a practice or in common law and were not been evenly applied, and it has ended up with a much more linear application of something that we think is socially desirable. That is the effect.

I want to make one other point. The hon. Member for Stockton North made some good points about people in riot gear, but I think one of the things he would perhaps gently concede, looking back particularly over the last two to three years of some of the most high-profile cases, is that it has developed into something of a trend. In some high-profile cases, people are aware that they have got away with not going. People say to their lawyer, “Do I have to go?” and the answer is no. The clause changes that. Actually, if you get back into a pattern where the defendant is in the dock for sentencing, you will see much less resistance. I am afraid to say that there has been a bit of contagion around this particularly pernicious conduct, and the clause is aiming to right that wrong. By embedding a practice where effectively they do have to go, or at least they will be video linked up, there will be no way in which the court will not be able to see their face as the remarks are read out to them. In some way or another, I hope that alters this ugly pattern of behaviour.

Carolyn Harris (Labour, Swansea East)

I totally agree that somebody should be held accountable and should appear in court. We have already established that prison officers will load the prisoner on to a van. Those prison officers, for no other reason, are on approximately £30,000 a year. They will have had appropriate Home Office training to do that job. However, at the other end, you are asking security officers, who may only have a Security Industry Authority licence and are on approximately £19,000 to £20,000 a year, to do the job that you have asked the prison officers to do. Why would they want to put their life on the line in dealing with these potentially dangerous people for that kind of money, without the appropriate training to allow them to do the job?

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

I think that warrants a further answer to Committee members. I think that the measure is feasible and could be considered by the judge. On most occasions, you will not be dealing with a necessity for three people in riot gear, but I accept that that might occur. You are entitled to an answer as to what it would look like at the court stage of the proceedings if the judge had decided that somebody who was deemed to be that dangerous on the way in was going to be transported to court. I accept that, so we will get back to you.

Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party, Livingston)

Order. Before the hon. Member for Stockton North intervenes, I have been very flexible, but I remind Members to adhere to the regular rules of the House and speak through the Chair rather than referring to each other as “you”. I know that it is difficult because you are all sitting opposite each other, but it would be helpful, particularly for Hansard colleagues.

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

The Minister’s point about the trend in high-profile criminals opting not to face the music in court was well made. That is why we certainly will not oppose, and in fact support, this provision. However, it is fair for us to ask and understand exactly how these things will happen. The Minister suggests that the provision is different from the existing powers. Does that mean that perhaps through the judiciary, the judges will be given some form of direction in relation to this piece of legislation that will say to them that if a defendant refuses to appear, they must consider whether they are going to compel them to do so? Or will we be in the same place as we are now, where it is just up to the judge whether it suits him or not?

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

The statutory intention is that judges will exercise this power. It is plainly recognised and has been well publicised that there is public opprobrium towards the idea that the defendant, particularly in very serious cases, somehow has any kind of control at the end of the process. To be completely honest, the video link would not have been a viable option for a judge until very recently—probably in the life of this Parliament since the general election—but now that that exists, we would reasonably expect judges to make that order as a minimum quite frequently.

Clause 23 - Child sex offences: grooming aggravating factor

Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party, Livingston)

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 25—Grooming as an aggravating factor—

“After section 72 of the Sentencing Code (supply of psychoactive substance in certain circumstances) insert—

‘

(1) This section applies where a court is considering the seriousness of an offence which is aggravated by grooming.

(2) The court—

(a) must treat the fact that the offence is aggravated by grooming as an aggravating factor, and

(b) must state in open court that the offence is so aggravated.’”

This new clause ensures grooming is to be seen as an aggravating factor in certain cases where the victim is an adult.

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

I am pleased to be able to speak to clause 23. We are all familiar with the range of high-profile cases involving so-called grooming—

Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party, Livingston)

Order. I do not want to single anybody out, but I just want to remind Members of the importance of our proceedings and the seriousness of what is being discussed. There has been some activity going on on the Back Benches in some areas that is interrupting me and my flow, and disrupting my attention. I ask Members to be as still as they can during proceedings and to pay attention—not just for the business of this Committee but for those who are watching, for whom this is a very serious matter.

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

I thank the Chair, and remember her direction to direct my own remarks towards her, which I will try to do on this occasion.

I am pleased to speak to the provisions contained in clause 23. In recent years, there have been a number of high-profile cases involving so-called grooming gangs—groups of offenders involved in child sexual exploitation—in Rochdale, Rotherham, Telford, Newcastle, Oxford and Reading, and those are just the ones we know about. The discovery of the network of those grooming gangs was a significant factor in this Government’s setting up the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, chaired by Professor Jay, who did the initial report into Rotherham. The Government believe that grooming gang members should face sentences that reflect the seriousness of their offending, which is why, last April, the Prime Minister made a commitment to introduce a new statutory aggravating factor to target grooming behaviour.

This new measure, introduced by clause 23, creates a statutory obligation to consider grooming an aggravating factor when sentencing specified child sex offences, including rape and sexual assault. In plain English, that means they will get a longer sentence. It will capture offenders whose offending is facilitated by, or involves, the grooming of a person under 18. The grooming itself need not be sexual.

It is already the case that both grooming behaviour against the victim and acting together with others to commit an offence are high-culpability sentencing guidelines for a number of sexual offences. However, this measure goes further by creating an obligation to aggravate the sentence in instances where the offence has been facilitated by grooming undertaken by a defendant who is a participant in a grooming gang, even if they did not personally groom the victim. That means the aggravating factor will, for the first time, capture models of exploitation not currently directly addressed elsewhere: for example, where an offender assaults a victim who has been previously groomed by another member of the same grooming gang.

The measure requires the courts to consider grooming an aggravating factor when sentencing in relation to any of the listed child sex offences. It will remain within the court’s discretion to consider grooming an aggravating factor irrespective of the offence being sentenced where it is deemed to be relevant to the offending.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship once again, Ms Bardell. I am pleased that the Minister leaned on it being a year on from the child abuse inquiry—not one of whose recommendations, I think it is fair to say, has yet come to fruition. Well, hope springs eternal for this year! There are plenty of recommendations for the Government to crack on with in this regard, and I look forward to seeing some sort of timeline from the Home Office of any progress in that particular area.

New clause 25, which I tabled, seeks to try to include adult grooming victims on the same footing as children. The grooming of adults is widely and wildly misunderstood, despite there being considerable overlaps of perpetrators and, in fact, perpetrator behaviours and tactics of those seen in cases of child sexual grooming.

At the moment, sexual grooming is a crime only when the victim is a child, but grooming can and does happen to adults as well. It is a technique used by perpetrators to ensure compliance on the part of the victim and to avoid detection, as the victim’s actions are more likely to appear consensual when they are being groomed. Grooming is a deliberate process of limiting the freedoms of a person by gaining control over them and creating a dependency.

New clause 25 would make an aggravating factor of grooming in certain adult cases, including around domestic and sexual abuse. That would both challenge the misconception that adults cannot be groomed and send a message to perpetrators of domestic and sexual abuse that the grooming of adults is being taken seriously and will not be tolerated.

The 2018 Spicer report acknowledged for the first time that not only children but women over 18 are being groomed and sexually exploited. Since 2019, STAGE, the partnership against adult sexual exploitation—I make a declaration that I am the chair—has supported over 700 adult women who have experienced grooming just in the north-east and Yorkshire. The issue is widespread and prevalent in every part of the UK, but is under-represented in UK legislation.

STAGE’s work has confirmed that grooming is a common technique used to manipulate people for sexual exploitation. It has a negative impact on people’s ability to consent and to make capacitated decisions. However, for adults who have experienced grooming, this is often reduced to making “poor life choices”, because of the belief that grooming can only happen to children.

Everything that we heard yesterday about what was said to the girls in Rochdale is being said today to somebody over the age of 18, or even to somebody of the age of 18. Adult victims of grooming are repeatedly asked victim-blaming questions such as “Why did you get back in the car?”, “Why did you stay with them?” and “Why didn’t you leave?” by professionals and services that are meant to be protecting them. This ignores the immense impact of grooming. Because of this, many victims and survivors feel unable to leave their perpetrator, or may not even recognise the abuse that they are experiencing. Until the grooming of adults is recognised in legislation, it will continue to be misunderstood by law enforcement and the criminal justice system, and victims will not be adequately protected. That is why I have tabled new clause 25.

Yesterday, in the light of the Rochdale report, I thought of a woman I had supported. I wanted to make sure, because of the media, that she was okay, because when these sorts of things happen it is pretty traumatic for women who have been exploited in childhood and adulthood. She is 27 years old, so the legislation we are debating would not include her. I needed to search through my email to find her phone number. I found among my emails a letter that I had forgotten, which she had written to the now ex-Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman). I will read it now:

“Following on from your statement on the 2nd of April 2023, I am writing this letter as a victim who has been let down by countless professionals and services, but worryingly the Home Office itself.

I will begin by providing a summary of my experiences. I was groomed at the age of 13 and this then led on to me experiencing sexual and criminal exploitation for over a decade, whereby I was trafficked all-round the country and sold from one gang to another. There were countless times where I was gang-raped, injected with heroin and left black and blue. I was exposed to serious and organised crime and my perpetrators would laugh at how they continued getting away with what they were doing to me and so many other girls. I did not see any of my family for years and my childhood and early adulthood was stolen away from me.

Whilst I acknowledge your statement that you vow to stamp out child grooming gangs, that is a very easy statement to make. Victims of this crime all around the country have heard it all before. Although you’ve announced new measures to tackle the issue, it makes me question how is this achievable when there are so many flaws in the systems already in place, such as The National Referral Mechanism (NRM).

The police did not refer me into the NRM, despite them full well knowing I had been trafficked. I have spoken with several police officers over the years who do not know what the NRM is, let alone know that they are first responders. It took 562 days for me to get my conclusive grounds decision and for most of that time I continued to be exploited. Nearly a year ago, I was sitting in a hotel paid for by the police, after I’d been physically and sexually assaulted. My accommodation was not safe, and I had requested a safe house. After a lot of back and forth, I was eventually told by…the Home Office’s contractor for NRM services, that a safe house was not an option as I was a British national and that there were no other appropriate housing options. I had to return to unsafe accommodation to then be raped and physically assaulted again.

As you have overseen a system that has routinely let vulnerable people down, I would like to know what action has or is going to be taken to improve this?

I spent days and days in police interviews going into as much detail as I possibly could, with the hope that I would get justice and the men who had tortured me would end up behind bars. The reality is so many victims like me must drop out of investigations because we are not safeguarded, resulting in thousands of perpetrators on the streets continuing to exploit and intimidate vulnerable children and adults. If possible, imagine you are at a police station as a victim of this crime and a stream of text messages come through your phone from your perpetrators saying that they know where you are and that if you do not leave, they will kill you and your family. That is just one example of a threat I have received.

This is not going to stop until appropriate measures are put in place to protect us. In the meantime, the trauma victims experience at the hands of their exploiters is exacerbated when we are routinely let down by the so-called systems in place to protect us. I haven’t even covered in this letter, the battles we face accessing support for our mental health and the legal challenges.

I do hope that you read this letter and that it provides you with an opportunity to reflect on an example of someone who has experienced failures from the Home Office.”

I just ask that we do not fail her again and that we recognise the abuses that she suffered. For women who have been sexually exploited in adulthood—by the way, the sexual exploitation of adults is not defined in law; it has no legislation around it, but believe you me, there are some new clauses coming down the line later—I ask that we recognise that the people who groom children go on to groom the same women as they turn into adults, when they do not have the same protections. I completely agree with everything that the Minister has said; I just want it for her as well. That is all that new clause 25 seeks.

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

As the Minister outlined, clause 23 creates a new aggravating factor to apply when a court is sentencing an adult for a specified child sex offence and that offence was facilitated by or involved the grooming of a children—that is, a person under 18. The court is required to treat the grooming as an aggravating factor, but that does not apply where the person who committed the offence was a child under 18 at the time of the offence.

Clause 23 requires the judge to state in open court that the offence had been aggravated by grooming. It could be undertaken by the offender, or a third party, and committed against the victim of the underlying offence, or a third party. Where the grooming is undertaken or facilitated by that third party, the offence will be considered to be aggravated if the offender knew or could be reasonably expected to have known about the grooming when the offence took place. The person groomed need not be the victim of the offence.

I understand from the Government’s explanatory notes that this is to allow for a case, for example, where child A is groomed to recruit child B and an offence is then committed against child B. Clause 23 also does not require that the grooming be undertaken as part of a gang.

We must not lose the context in which this clause operates, which is horrific cases of offenders preying on the most vulnerable. In recent years, there have been a number of high-profile prosecutions of grooming gangs, including in Rotherham, Telford, Newcastle, Rochdale and Oxford. In 2014, the independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013 identified that at least 1,400 children and young people in Rotherham had been sexually abused or exploited. Who knows how many children there are across the country if one area had as many as that?

Just yesterday, the report on child sexual exploitation in Rochdale was published, again illustrating and demonstrating the extent of the crime. I am sure everyone on the Committee will share my sadness in hearing my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) speaking in the media over the last 24 hours about how things have not got any better. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley also talked about how none of the recommendations has yet been implemented.

In our evidence session, Dame Vera Baird questioned the impact of the clause. She said:

“I am not sure what the grooming one adds; I think it just broadens it. If grooming is involved, it is already taken into account as an aggravating factor in sentencing. Perhaps we can do that with a person who might have abused a groomed child directly. Perhaps this provision broadens it so that if the person who fixes up the child is also groomed—perhaps become someone has gone through him, grooming is in the environment and so it will enhance the sentence.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Public Bill Committee, 12 December 2023; c. 58-59, Q154.]

I think the Minister alluded to that and acknowledged that it broadens the clause a little. Vera Baird agrees that it is a good flag because we all want to tackle grooming and make sure that it is taken into account, but she did not see this as a major change.

When I asked Clare Wade KC whether the clause goes far enough, she raised the important point that there is no legal definition of grooming. Does the Minister recognise that as a problem? Clare said:

“Even in the cases that I do, we all have an understanding of what it is, but I am not sure it is properly defined. I did not see anything”—

I think she was referring to not seeing anything in the Bill—

“but I might have missed it. When we ask victims, ‘What do you understand by grooming?’, for example in the cases that we do, they say, ‘Somebody pretending to be your friend, but not being your friend and using you for sex.’ It is not defined anywhere and it is such an important concept.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Public Bill Committee, 14 December 2023; c. 116, Q66.]

Can the Minister aid the Committee and share the Government’s definition of grooming? Perhaps she thinks this loose approach will suffice, so I welcome her view on how a judge could apply it as an additional aggravating factor. The Government state that the new aggravating factor will go further than the current sentencing guideline by creating an obligation to consider grooming undertaken or facilitated by a third party and grooming committed against a third party. Can the Minister set out clearly what addition clause 23 brings overall to the sentencing code?

That said, we will not oppose the clause, but I hope the Minister will consider how it could be improved, including any need for a clause such as new clause 25 in relation to adults, as tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley. I would struggle to add anything to what she said, and I certainly had a few hard swallows during the story she told because it was so traumatic. A person like her constituent certainly deserves some form of action. It is important that we also recognise that we need to look at these things in the round and ensure that every aspect is covered.

I also hope the Minister can outline the costs associated with the provision and the implications for prison capacity. Every time we take a decision to impose longer sentences—Governments of all colours have done so through the decades—it has an impact on prison places. The Minister knows full well that we already face a crisis in our prisons. With levels of offending returning to pre-pandemic levels and with courts attempting to catch up with the Government’s record-breaking backlogs, the prison population is at breaking point. We will discuss their novel ideas for helping to address that later.

The Government’s impact assessment states:

“It has not been possible to quantify any costs for this measure at this point due to the limited data available, such as on the prevalence of this factor within sexual offending or how grooming is already considered in cases where it is already identified and treated as an aggravating factor. It is expected that there will be additional investigative work and evidential gathering required by the police and CPS to evidence grooming behaviour in connection to sexual offences. There may also be additional CPS and LAA costs if cases take longer at court due to the additional evidence being presented. Whilst cases potentially taking longer at court is not expected to have direct additional costs for HMCTS, this may have a knock-on effect for other cases by delaying their start. It is expected that, on average, this measure will increase sentence lengths for relevant offences which will have prison place impacts.”

Surely we cannot have a list of different things, from greater investigative time to longer court cases, and then claim that it is not expected to have direct additional costs for HMCTS. There may be indirect costs to the taxpayer, but the Minister appears a bit shy about sharing the details. It is absolute nonsense that we do not have this information, so I seek a guarantee from the Minister that, if she cannot give us an estimate of the costs now, she will commit to providing at least some information on the extra bill the taxpayer will face after Report.

Let me be clear: we believe that sentencing should properly reflect the nature of the crime and the harm it has inflicted. A Labour Government would commission a review into the effectiveness of current legislation and sentencing policy, focused particularly on increasing sentences for domestic homicide and abuse, as well as examining other areas where there is concern about the current framework, including sexual violence and other violent crime, assaults on frontline and emergency workers, and offences against children. It is important to look holistically at sentencing, rather than attempting to amend the criminal justice system for victims based on piecemeal changes that may have unintended consequences.

Finally, we know that the Sentencing Bill is running in parallel to this one, so I invite the Minister to tell us why we have to deal with these matters here, which has resulted in open season for all manner of new clauses relating to sentencing and covering a wide range of issues that even I would not have expected. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

Let me start with the shadow Minister’s comments. He asked about the definition of grooming, the nature of the prosecution and the scope of a grooming gang. There is no definition of grooming because of the broad range of behaviour that it can encompass. Identifying a grooming gang is a task for the police working in conjunction with the CPS. One force told me recently about a grooming gang prosecution in which they had to identify the number of defendants. They were talking about tens of defendants and tens of victims, and some of the defendants in the grooming gang had never met each other and had no idea who the other people were. It was quite a difficult exercise for the CPS to judge how best to get a prosecution and a conviction. In that case, they succeeded, but that is why the definition is not set out in law. It is dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

The shadow Minister challenges me to explain what this provision adds, when grooming is already an aggravating factor and is often considered in child sex offences and taken seriously. I hope I have explained, but I will clarify again if he did not understand. We are simply adding that a member of a grooming gang, as defined within the parameters of that case, can be subject to the aggravation provision at sentencing, irrespective of the fact that they did not directly groom the victim of that child sexual offence. They could be a tangential member of the gang—perhaps one of the people who has never met one of the other defendants, such as in the case I just outlined—yet they could still be subject to the aggravation.

The shadow Minister asked about cost. That is a fair question, and I will have to come back to him in writing on that. We will add it to the list.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

I feel I know what grooming is, but, on the Minister’s earlier point about the Court of Appeal reducing the sentence, without a proper definition of grooming or at least a working definition in secondary legislation or regulation, are we not at risk of appeal? I do not know whether she or any of us has sat through a lot of court cases like this, but the idea that there is heavy knowledge in police forces, the CPS and the judges of our country about exactly what grooming or coercive control are, I have to say, is for the birds. I am a bit worried about the risk of appeal on a loosey-goosey case that could be grooming. Why would someone not just take it to appeal immediately, if their sentence was aggravated?

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

I will come back to that. For the purposes of this afternoon’s Public Bill Committee, the issue is not whether the courts have an adequate understanding of grooming.

I will give my experience. I was appointed as counsel to the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. I worked on that inquiry from 2016 to 2017, and it is on my Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I was also instructed by a Telford victim in a public law challenge—not a criminal law challenge in the High Court—against the local authority in relation to its breaches of various duties to her. So I have direct familiarity with cases of this nature.

There are many, many issues with this kind of offence. I think that the courts understand child sexual exploitation and grooming gangs and that it is left deliberately loose in law so that a range of behaviours can be encompassed. The one that the public are most familiar with is sexual exploitation, but there are other forms of grooming that go much wider and where there is no sexual element. It is right that that flexibility exists so that somebody is not outside the possibility of being a victim of a grooming offence.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

This is an incredibly complex, difficult, challenging and sensitive subject. A question arises, though, and I will put it to the Minister. There are many definitions of grooming. There are international definitions —legal definitions in other countries—of what grooming is. So while I accept the point the Minister makes about trying to keep it flexible, we have the capacity to easily —if not easily, then as clearly as we can—determine what exploitation or grooming actually is. The work has been done and we have to build upon it. Does the Minister not agree that it is not beyond the wit of this Parliament to try to determine or define what we consider grooming to be? I say that with all of the sensitivity that I can bring.

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I promise that I will give some thought to that, but I just wanted to come back to the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley. This is not about creating a new offence. The treatment that the victim the hon. Lady described was subjected to is already covered by criminal law. This amendment is simply about an aggravating element going into statute in relation to grooming.

As the hon. Lady is well aware, the difference is that we are confining our amendment to the grooming of children for sexual purposes. That is our amendment. We have focused our amendment on that because child sexual exploitation by grooming gangs has been so problematic and so serious.

I will go back to some of the examples that the hon. Lady gave, although it is very difficult to respond to an individual’s case in the context of a Public Bill Committee, because I do not know all the details. I think that the hon. Lady said that the person was 27 and had been groomed since the age of 13. The vast part of what she suffered in the early days would be captured by this provision, because she was a child. I appreciate what the hon. Lady said about the continuing grooming—I think she said that that person is still being groomed today.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

Continuously, yes.

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

But, in a case of this nature, the judge would still have the discretion to consider that treatment as an aggravating circumstance, so there is nothing precluding a judge—they would have to get to the end of the trial, get the conviction and get the offence—from treating it as aggravating. I have not been given an example, in the context of this particular clause, of somebody going to court about a case of this nature, getting the conviction and then getting a sentence that was not sufficiently serious.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

You would be lucky.

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

Well, grooming cases are brought to court, and convictions come from those cases.

Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party, Livingston)

Order. I remind Members how important their contributions are and to please intervene and put comments on the record, so that we can capture them.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

I will intervene.

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

What came out of yesterday's report was shocking, but it was also known. As I said, it informed IICSA. We looked at Rotherham extensively throughout. I did not read the report and say, “I’ve never heard any of this before.” I knew about it, and I had spent time on stuff like this. I am simply saying about the case that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley described—a horrific case—is that the clause would, first, cover a perpetrator being brought to justice who had abused her as a child. Secondly, if her case got to court and she got a conviction on the multiple offences that she seems to be describing, there is nothing to stop the judge from treating it as aggravating and enhancing the sentence.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

If there is nothing to stop a judge in a case where an adult has been sexually exploited as an adult because of multiple perpetrators over many years—different faces changing, some just in adulthood, some from childhood, but basically a pattern is set when someone abuses a child and that carries on for a lot of their life—is the Minister saying that as we can already aggravate on the basis of grooming an adult, what do we need this piece of legislation for children? Also, to push back heavily, I cited in my speech the 700 cases of adult sexual exploitation found in Yorkshire and Newcastle alone, so if her idea is that adult sexual exploitation is not a big issue in our country, on the same scale if not greater than child exploitation, I suggest that she has not been out to the country.

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

I will keep my remarks concise. Let us look at adult sexual exploitation—I accept, by the way, the breadth of the problem without reservation. First, the adult, simply by virtue of being an adult, has more ability to vocalise their experience than a child does. Secondly, there are more forms of exploitation—for example, forced labour or human trafficking, both of which overlapped with what the hon. Lady described. The case of children who are victims of grooming gangs is specific, and it is also a direct thing that we dealt with. The clause is directed just at children.

Peter Dowd (Labour, Bootle)

I hear the point that the Minister makes about the ability to vocalise. I gently challenge her on that one, however, because people who have been abused and exploited for many years, from childhood through, also find it incredibly difficult to vocalise. There is no question about that whatever. That is not to dismiss anything she says, but it is to recognise that vocalisation does not start at 18, 20 or 21; it might never, ever appear, given the nature of the exploitation and abuse that has happened to that particular person. I ask her just to think on that particular issue, not necessarily to respond now, but to put it into the mix.

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

I have to take this back to what it is. It is not about creating an offence. It is not about saying, “If you sexually exploit a child, you’ve committed a criminal offence, but if you sexually exploit an adult woman, you haven’t.” That is not what this is about, and I do not want to get lost in that. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley described a series of offences that, if they achieved convictions, would be category A offences. They are unbelievably serious offences. We are not denying that.

The clause, however, is directed at grooming gangs as they relate to children. The purpose of the clause is to capture the wider membership of the grooming gangs so that even if people did not directly groom the victim, they are on the hook for the same aggravation. It is to bring in the entirety of the grooming gang. As I said, that is usually defined by the CPS in terms of how it will choose to prosecute a case. That can be very wide indeed. It can bring hundreds to court, or certainly tens, but that is a decision for the CPS. The clause potentially brings all gang members within the scope of the aggravation, simply because they have been identified as part of the gang, if one of those victims has been groomed. That is the purpose of the clause.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

I did not for one second think that I was asking for a new offence. If I had been, I would have tried to write it into the clause. The Minister is suggesting that there are not wide-scale gangs grooming adults in our country that need targeting. It is exactly the same. There are grooming gangs. Perhaps we could all spend a bit of time at the National Crime Agency or watch any drama about organised crime, which always includes drugs, sexual exploitation and prostitution. There are grooming gangs grooming adults, both men and women. Especially when we are talking about men, it is very silenced. There is a trade in drug addict, down-and-out men in our country that would make people’s toes curl. I have rarely met a young heroin addict who was not traded for sex by powerful men.

I cannot believe the categorisation of it. I do not believe it, because I know the Minister well. For children it is, “grooming matters more”. For adults, we might as well say, from what I have heard today, “Why did you get back in the car?” I have to say, it is not characteristic and not what I was expecting. I find it very disappointing. There is no crime of adult sexual exploitation. It does not exist. It is as if we just do not care that adults get sexually exploited. It is as if we tolerate it in society.

Flick Drummond (Conservative, Meon Valley)

The hon. Lady is making an excellent point. There is a rise in cuckooing in particular, which is the exploitation of adults. It used to be for drug dealers and so on, but now it is being used for prostitution as well. I just want to add that to the hon. Lady’s excellent comments.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

I absolutely agree. There is undoubtedly a pattern with cuckooing. Funnily enough, one of the other things we do not define in law, which I am hoping goes through in the Victims and Prisoners Bill, is child criminal exploitation. Apparently the really important grooming gangs in those cases we do not consider important enough to define in law. Let us hope that that changes as these many Bills that all cross over each other pass through. I absolutely hope to see cuckooing in this Bill before the end of its passage.

I want to stand here and make a statement on this idea that it is any different. When adults are sexually exploited, for instance an 18-year-old being sold, raped, beaten, held at gunpoint and frightened, the idea that they could come and speak—it is just unrecognisable to me.

Clause 24 - Murder: end of relationship aggravating factor

Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party, Livingston)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

Clause 24 sets out the new statutory aggravating factor for murders that are connected with the end of a relationship. This provision is one of four that the Government are taking forward in response to the independent review of sentencing in cases of domestic homicide that was undertaken by Clare Wade KC. Together they will ensure that the seriousness of murder committed in a domestic context is reflected in our sentencing framework. Around a quarter of all homicides in England and Wales are classed as domestic. In other words, the perpetrator is a partner or former partner of the victim.[Official Report, 1 March 2024, Vol. 746, c. 6MC.] (Correction) The vast majority of these homicides are committed by men against women and usually follow a pattern of years of abuse prior to the homicide.

The legal framework for murder sentencing is contained in schedule 21 to the Sentencing Act 2020, a piece of legislation that was first introduced in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, 20 years ago. While every case of murder carries a mandatory life sentence, this framework sets out the principles to guide the court in determining the minimum custodial term. It is a non-exhaustive list. It is always open to judges to consider aggravating and mitigating factors not contained in schedule 21.

Until now, schedule 21 has contained no express recognition of the seriousness of domestic murders, but over the past 20 years—I would argue particularly in the past five—our understanding of offending committed in a domestic context has improved. As Clare Wade highlighted in her review, our sentencing framework needs to be updated to reflect that. On the overall measures, last year, a statutory instrument was laid before Parliament to introduce both a statutory aggravating factor and a statutory mitigating factor for murder in relation to controlling or coercive behaviour, in line with the recommendations. Where an abusive partner has killed their victim, in recognition of the seriousness of the preceding abuse of coercive control and the experience of the victim before death, the coercive control will constitute an aggravating factor for the purposes of sentencing.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

I will speak to new clauses 27 to 29. I do not disagree on the issue. I worked very closely with the families to get Clare Wade’s review up and running under the then Lord Chancellor, the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland)—who I believe was just speaking in the Chamber, making a nuisance of himself today as well. While we are making these changes, I think that Clare Wade has herself said, as have many of the families involved, that making these limited and piecemeal changes is not good enough. I will place some of my own thoughts on record for the sake of showing the many ways in which the aggravating factors for cases of domestic homicide need to be updated.

Even though I am about to speak to minor changes grouped under a clause that is itself a minor, piecemeal change, my actual view is that schedule 21, which, as the Minister outlined, is nearly 21 years old, needs an entire and wholescale review. In my view, schedule 21 is no longer fit for purpose under a number of grounds. That is not just my view: it is certainly the view of Clare Wade; it is the view of the Centre for Women’s Justice; and it is the view of the families that I work with.

However, failing that proper systematic review, which is not on offer to me—I imagine that there will be some more of this chatter in the Sentencing Bill, although not from me, unless I get on that Committee as well—

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

It can be arranged.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

A girl can dream! I will speak to a number of changes because, if we are going to make a point about the end of a relationship, we have to also think about some of the other aggravating factors to try and level the playing field regarding sentencing. I have a list of case studies here of murderers and how long they went away for: 15 years, twelve and a half years—brutally murdering women—16 years, 15 years for a man who then went on to murder somebody else on his release. So, the level of time that we give for this particular crime is woeful.

New clause 27 would make honour-based abuse an aggravating factor in murder cases. Banaz Mahmod was killed in a so-called honour killing in 2006 by her father—not somebody she was ending a relationship with—her uncle, and five other men. She was murdered for leaving her abusive husband, for desiring a divorce and for meeting a new boyfriend who those men disapproved of. She was murdered because she was accused of bringing dishonour and shame on her family and the community.

The men that killed Banaz had boasted and joked about the murder, and were supported by other members of the extended family, who made investigations and prosecution as difficult as possible. The police estimated that there were about 50 men involved in her murder and related crimes.

Before her death, Banaz suffered greatly, reporting rape and violence, threats to kill and an attempt on her life. She went to the police five times. She named the suspects who would eventually kill her. The police did not hear; they did not act. In 2008, a commissioner for the then Independent Police Complaints Commission found serious failings in the police handling of the case.

For many years, Banaz’s sister Bekhal, who I consider a friend, has campaigned alongside Southall Black Sisters for a law that recognises the horror of honour-based killing explicitly in sentencing. New clause 27 would do that. It would introduce honour-based abuse as an aggravating factor in murder cases.

Such a new clause will increase confidence in the criminal justice system, sending a strong message that this violence can never be accepted, excused or ignored. As the Women and Equalities Committee stated, an explicit reference “would strengthen the understanding that honour-based abuse is taken seriously by the criminal justice system and only ever as an aggravating factor.” That would have an impact upstream, too, ensuring that agencies do not misunderstand, ignore or turn a blind eye to honour-based abuse due to ignorance or to fear of being seen as culturally insensitive or racist.

Those women must be protected. We must reach them before it is too late. That is particularly important, as honour-based abuse is a high-risk crime that involves multiple perpetrators and colluders and sometimes multiple victims, because of shared codes of honour. Too many victims are at risk for us not to act.

New clause 28 argues that strangulation should be classified as an aggravating factor in sentencing murders. From previous times that I have worked on this issue with the Minister present, I know that she cares deeply about strangulation, and the arguments for the new clause seem unquestionable. First, the nature of the violence: strangulation is a gendered form of killing. That is how men brutally and callously kill women. The 10-year femicide census showed that strangulation was the second most common method for men who kill women, and Clare Wade’s review demonstrated its prevalence.

It is hard to find words to reflect the horror of killing someone by strangulation—the vulnerability of the victim, the intimacy of being eye to eye, the length of time that it would take to kill someone in that way, and the fear that the victim must experience in their final moments. Many bereaved families I work with speak to me about how that haunts them. That must be reflected in the sentencing framework.

Furthermore, new clause 28 follows new laws on non-fatal strangulation—the Minister may remember them her time on the Back Benches—which were introduced under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. How we understand the role of strangulation in domestic abuse is changing. It is now understood as a form of coercive control and an accurate red-flag predicter of homicide. If someone is strangled, they are much more likely to go on to be murdered. We must change how it is considered in sentencing.

A judge can recognise strangulation as serious or sadistic under schedule 21—I say again that that needs review—but strangulation is not being recognised. It is simply not being recognised for the horror that it is. In 59% of the strangulation cases looked at by Clare Wade’s review, the method of killing was not seen as an aggravating factor. Significantly, in 73% of the remaining cases where the offence was said to be aggravated by the nature of the killing, the strangulation was accompanied by either an assault or an attack with a weapon. That suggests that the seriousness of the violence denoted by strangulation in and of itself is not being acknowledged.

In law, we place a lot of emphasis on weapons, but as we see in many gendered murders, many male perpetrators do not need a weapon. Such a perpetrator carries his weapon everywhere he goes, and that is his strength, his arms, his physical power. He does not need a weapon, so his culpability should not be decreased because he did not use one; he did use one. That is not a point in law that has gone unrecognised in other crimes; our bodily differences are recognised. For example, for the crime of rape, the Sexual Offences Act 2003 explicitly states that it can be done only with a penis. That recognises that a man’s body can be a weapon. I am not asking for anything beyond what exists in current law.

A three-year study of 204 adult cases of non-fatal strangulation showed that one in six had been strangled to the point where the victim lost consciousness. Symptoms of such violence include strokes, depression, memory loss, seizures, motor and speech disorders, and paralysis. Studies have shown that victims of non-fatal strangulation are seven times more likely to be murdered by their partner. The true nature of strangulation must be understood, as must its relationship with misogyny. Strangulation is about silencing. It is about exerting power, fear and control. As the member of a focus group who attended for Clare Wade’s review explained:

“It is almost always about the perpetrators wanting the last word but if you work with the perpetrators, you hear this over and over again—like I wanted her to shut up I wanted her to be quiet but I wanted to win you have to have the last word. That is what the whole kind of attacking the throat and putting the hands over the mouth—it is all about silencing.”

I very much hope that the understanding of an aggravation in the use of strangulation in a killing can be considered.

On a slightly different note, new clause 29 would ensure that infidelity can never be used as a defence to murder. The Minister said earlier when commenting on perpetrators attending court that common law practice sometimes needs writing into primary legislation. I very much agree with her, which is why I am seeking for this amendment to be made. While it is still written in our legislation that someone can use infidelity as a defence for murder, it is not used in common law.

Currently, infidelity cannot be used as a defence or mitigation. However, the latter is common-law principle rather than in statute. Section 55(6)(c) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 provides that sexual infidelity cannot be relied upon in a defence of a loss of control. That was passed following the wrath about “crime of passion” defences going through the criminal justice system in response to domestic murders, and it revoked previous laws on provocation. The legislative change was brought about due to the incredible work of domestic abuse campaigners.

However, the legislation did not concurrently prevent sexual infidelity being a mitigating factor in sentencing in schedule 21 to the Sentencing Act 2020—I feel like I am really attacking schedule 21 today, but I am not keen on it if I am honest—thereby creating an inconsistency in the law. The law on provocation changed, but the sentencing principle that surrounded it did not. Common-law principles on the whole prevent this inconsistency from playing out. I will spend the entirety of the Committee stage saying, “In real life, that does not really happen.” Well, in real life this does not happen. It is not something that I am mortally frightened of. It no longer happens that someone is allowed to say that because their wife cheated on them it is fine that they killed her. A million other defences are made, but not that one anymore.

The defence still exists in law; however, it is not used, on the basis that precedent allows for factual scenarios to be disregarded in mitigation where they run contrary to the policy behind existing legislation, even where there may not be a statutory bar. Despite that, it is important to regularise common-law principles in statute for the avoidance of confusion and to fill lacunas in the law. New clause 29 ensures that no judge could ever stray and use it as a mitigating factor.

New clauses 27, 28 and 29 speak to the larger issue of how we see and respond to the killing of women. How we sentence crimes reflects how seriously we take them. At the heart of these debates is how seriously we take the violent deaths of women and the stealing of their lives. I am afraid to say that at the moment, and we do not take it as seriously as we take other crimes. Several years ago, two mothers walked into my office, Carole Gould and Julie Devey. Their relentless campaigning, at personal cost, has hugely elevated the issue of how we should hold the people who kill women to account. Their daughters were both murdered in brutal, violent attacks by their ex-partners. Ellie was 17 and Poppy was 24. They had their futures stolen from them by two men who had decided, as Julie once described, that

“if they couldn’t have them no one else could either”.

Their mothers began campaigning to challenge the discrepancy in the sentences given in cases where the victim, often a woman, is killed in the home and in other homicides where the victim is killed in public spaces. The distinction commonly turns on the fact that if a perpetrator brought a weapon to the scene of a crime, the starting point for sentencing is 25 years. If, however, the weapon is not brought but found, as with a kitchen knife—my kitchen knife comes back into play from earlier—the starting point is only 15 years. That is 10 years’ difference.

The example that is repeatedly given to demonstrate that inequality is that if someone brings a knife with them and kills their victim with a single stab, they will receive a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years; but if the victim is suffocated, strangled, beaten, or stabbed hundreds of times to the point of mutilation with a knife found at the scene, the starting point is 15 years. With the discretion of the judge and the mitigating and aggravating factors, Clare Wade’s research suggested that on average that resulted in a six-and-a-half-year difference between the two sorts of crimes. That cannot be right.

Carole and Julie are not alone in the anguish they feel at the current system. A recent report from the campaign group Killed Women found that 90% of relatives felt that the prison sentences given to the perpetrators that killed their loved ones were too short. The report goes on and on, citing terrible cases. These are crimes that are often committed in front of children, and there is no aggravating factor for that.

This is not only about justice; it is also about risk and safety. What about the risk that perpetrators would pose to society, and particularly to the women in their lives, if let out of prison after 12 years? Some of these dangerous men go on to kill again. I am in contact with one brave family member, Chiv Shannan, whose sister Cherylee was murdered in March 2014. The perpetrator had just been released after serving 15 years for killing another woman. Cherylee would be alive if this discrepancy had not existed and he had still been in prison. He attacked Cherylee with a hammer, as well as two police officers who were there. He chased her out on to the street, where he stabbed her to death.

I could stand for days listing the violent ways women are murdered and all the families who have their last moments playing on their minds forever. I know that the Government introduced several new laws to make “overkill” an aggravating factor, as the Minister described, but the then Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), said afterwards that that would only really add two years to a sentence. I do not think that two years seems an adequate response from the state to the 300 stab wounds inflicted on Paula Leather, who was killed in 2021. Three hundred.

The Clare Wade review highlights a litany of failures and an array of recommendations. So far, the Government have picked and chosen from them. All the voices in this debate are united in their criticism and their end goal. We all believe that laws that govern our sentencing currently are not working. They result in gross miscarriages of justice that diminish the lives of women killed and put the future lives of other women at risk. They do not reflect or respond to harms done by gendered violence. Frankly, the nation’s women deserve much more.

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

Follow that!

Clause 24 would insert a new aggravating factor into paragraph 9 of schedule 21 to the sentencing code, to be considered when determining the minimum term for a life sentence imposed for murder. It would apply where the offence was connected with the end of the offender’s intimate personal relationship with the victim; the victim intending to bring about the end of that intimate personal relationship; or a belief by the offender that the intimate personal relationship had ended or that the victim intended to bring about the end of the personal relationship. The new statutory aggravating factor would apply to offences committed on or after the date the relevant provision comes into force.

We do not oppose the clause, but I hope that the Minister will clearly define what is meant by “intimate personal relationship”. We will discuss clause 30 later, but it refers to

“controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship”.

Does clause 24, then, refer only to that of a partner or ex-partner?

We know the context surrounding this measure. Around a quarter of all homicides in England and Wales are classed as domestic—that is, they are committed by the partner, ex-partner or relative of the victim. They represent an average of nearly 160 homicides per year, with almost 90 being committed by a partner or ex-partner, over the last 10 years. I join others in commending the excellent work of Clare Wade KC, who utilised her expertise in this field to conduct the independent domestic homicide sentencing review, published on 17 March 2023.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley said, the review coincided with an ongoing campaign by the families of two women who were murdered by their male partners: Ellie Gould, who was 17 at the time of her murder by Thomas Griffiths, and Poppy Devey Waterhouse, who was 24 when she was murdered by Joe Atkinson. In her report, Clare makes the important argument that not only are women wronged by a breach of trust, which is an integral part of domestic abuse, but the harms to them often extend to further harm to secondary victims in the form of families, many of whom are the children—we have heard that before—and friends of the victim. There is also the harm to society in general, which, to date, may not have been sufficiently considered.

Clare made it clear to Committee members in her oral evidence session that the proposals in the Bill fall well short of what she set out in her report. In her evidence, Clare said, of clause 24:

“I have to say that it looks a little odd in the Bill because it is, as it were, stand-alone. The intent behind the policy is to have a coherent legislative policy that addresses all the harms, and addresses the particular harms in these cases. We now have in the secondary legislation the aggravating factor of coercive control as something that has happened in terms of the history of the relationship by a perpetrator towards a victim, and vice versa—it is a mitigating factor as well.”

Does the Minister understand why the clause looks a little odd? Perhaps she needs to do some work to make it fit for purpose and able to capture more of Clare’s recommendations.

I recognise that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley has tabled new clauses 27, 28 and 29 in respect of these matters, which we will come on to. I am pleased that the Government are accepting the recommendation to make a murder that takes place at the end of a relationship a statutory aggravating factor in sentencing for murder. In 48% of murder cases looked at in the Wade report, the sentencing remarks disclosed that there were reports of either jealousy or resentment on the part of the perpetrator at the breakdown of the relationship. In the majority of cases, that appeared to be the catalyst for the murder.

The perpetrator was male in all but one of those 43 cases. A history of controlling or coercive behaviour was identified within the case sample. Clare also said in her oral evidence that

“these killings nearly always happen within the context or confines of domestic abuse and, in the cases we looked at, we found that there was frequently an escalation in domestic abuse when the victim—in the majority of cases, a woman who is killed by her male partner—wants to leave the relationship. That particular recommendation was made because not only is that a real harm, and that represents the real danger, but the policy underlying the other recommendations is one that places the concept of controlling and coercive behaviour at the forefront of the thinking.

The real harm in terms of coercive control, which the law does not yet recognise, is entrapment. It is not fear, as in being continually afraid, and it is not necessarily physical injury. It is entrapment, which is what prevents people who are being abused from leaving relationships. Putting that into legislation as an aggravating factor that can be taken into account by the courts would make it clear that that is one of the harms, but it would also, I suppose, bring to our consciousness the real harm in domestic abuse.”––[Official Report, Criminal Justice Public Bill Committee, 14 December 2023; c. 114-115, Q64.]

In the Government’s response to the Wade report, they proposed four legislative measures to give domestic homicide specialist consideration in the sentencing framework for murder for the first time. Clause 24 is the final one of these measures, with three already laid before Parliament as draft statutory instruments. I will not rehearse again the issues around grooming, which have been covered previously, but does the Minister recognise that she may have lost an opportunity to bring forward more of the recommendations from Clare’s review?

Although we certainly do not oppose the clause, we must consider the practical implications at this stage. In the Government’s impact assessment, they state that the impacts of the clause

“fall beyond the 10-year period”

of measurement. However, in the longer term, the impact assessment states that the measure

“is estimated to require a further 42 additional prison places in steady state, reached around 2065, at a 40-year net present cost”

of £19.2 million. To reaffirm what I said in reference to clause 23, without the Government getting on with tackling the crisis in our prisons, any measures that impact on capacity are a cause for a degree of concern.

I turn briefly to the new clauses that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley spoke about so comprehensively. Again, I find it difficult to add value to what she had to say. New clauses 27 and 28 would introduce aggravating factors for honour-based abuse and strangulation respectively. New clause 29 would ensure that sexual infidelity can never be used as a defence for murder. I cannot add much to what my hon. Friend said in her well-illustrated speech, and I take this opportunity to thank and pay tribute to her. She has many years of working in this space. From what I have seen, heard and read, I know my hon. Friend has been not just a leading voice fighting for change, but a driving force in supporting both organisations and individuals.

We on the Opposition side recognise the importance of tightening up sentencing in this area. As outlined in my speech on clause 23, that will form a vital part of the wholesale review that Labour has committed to, so we can consider all the measures necessary to ensure that the criminal justice system works for victims. As always, I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

I align myself with the shadow Minister’s comments about the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley. I would like to pick up where the shadow Minister left off, in talking about sentencing more broadly. That will bring me on, quite naturally, to the new clause concerning strangulation.

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

I appreciate being able to make an intervention. During my contribution, I talked about Clare Wade and the clause being a little odd because it is a stand-alone one. I know that the Minister has addressed the new clauses of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley, but will she comment on that? Is there an opportunity to adopt more of the recommendations of the Clare Wade report?

Laura Farris (Conservative, Newbury)

I thank the shadow Minister for his intervention. We are thinking hard on that point.

I want to check that I have not missed anything from section 55, where anything

“done or said amounted to sexual infidelity is to be disregarded.”

That is still good law. I suggest that the issue of some defendants claiming as a defence that they had killed a victim because she had been unfaithful to them has now been resolved and it is excluded as a qualifying trigger for the loss of control defence.

Clare Wade recommended that sexual infidelity should also be prohibited from being considered as a mitigating factor when it came to sentencing. We published our response to her review in July last year, setting out why we will not take that forward. The domestic abuse sentencing guideline already expressly states that provocation is no mitigation to an offence in a domestic context, except in rare circumstances. No evidence was provided in the review that sexual infidelity was ever being taken into account inappropriately as mitigation. I am therefore satisfied—it is the only point on which I really disagree with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley—that the law already has sufficient protection in place. I urge the hon. Member not to move the new clauses.

Jess Phillips (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

I do not actually move them yet, as we do not do that for new clauses until the end. I was saying to myself, “I don’t think I have to do anything.”

I have, of course, already taken part in the consultation alongside the Killed Women network, which I work with incredibly closely. To the Minister’s final point, I started my remarks by saying that I do not agree with myself, having to do a piecemeal job. Schedule 21 needs an overhaul, but we will all start tinkering with it until it ends up in the place it already is, with bolt-ons and batons hanging off it, when something much more fundamental, in a modern world, needs doing.

On the final point about the defences, it may surprise the Minister to hear that that definitely came to me from some pretty eminent lawyers who work in the field—maybe even Clare Wade. I will take that back and speak to them about what exactly was concerning them with regard to that particular issue. I will bring it back to the Committee when we discuss new clauses at the end, of which there will be loads.

Written evidence reported to the House