HC Deb 14 November 2000 vol 356 cc838-43

Lords amendment: No. 11, in page 3, leave out line 5 and insert ("in respect of its area for the purposes mentioned in section 1 and for ensuring the performance of any other functions conferred by virtue of this Act or any other enactment on the board,")

Mr. Boateng

I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 13, 95, 99 and 102 to 105.

Mr. Boateng

With the leave of the House, I shall take a little time to explain the background to the measures that we propose, which build on existing arrangements to protect the public.

In introducing these measures relatively late in the day, we acknowledge the important public debate that took place following the tragic murder of Sarah Payne. All of us would want to pay tribute to Sarah's parents. Through this amendment and amendments Nos. 101 and 154, we have an opportunity to create a memorial for Sarah. This is a package of measures that can properly bear the name "Sarah's law".

The amendments build on and strengthen arrangements for risk assessment and management of sexual and violent offenders by putting those arrangements on a statutory footing. They require the relevant agencies to inform the public about their arrangements and they provide for the Secretary of State to issue guidance about the exercise of the new statutory duty, including the content of information to the public. They also put on a statutory footing and extend a duty to consult and inform victims, where it is their wish, about the release arrangements for the relevant offender.

We seek to build on the arrangements put in place by police, probation and other services. I pay tribute to the work that they do to protect the public against such offenders, who might be some of the most dangerous in the community.

In proposing the measures today, we seek to act as quickly as possible to improve the range of measures available to the police and other services to deal with serious sexual offences. Earlier in the summer we set up a major review of the Sex Offenders Act 1997; it is in progress and it should be completed at the end of the year. Some of the aspects of the Act under consideration are complex and need proper consideration, but we believe that we should deal now with those measures that can be tightened quickly and effectively without waiting for the full review to be completed.

The harm that sex offenders cause victims is at the heart of the new measures. As further evidence of our intention to extend provision for victims, we are placing a new duty on the local probation board that builds on existing good practice and extends it to a greater number of victims. It will be a requirement that the victims of sex and violent offenders be consulted about whether they want to comment on the terms of the offender's release and, if so, whether they wish to be informed of or propose themselves any conditions that relate specifically to them.

Other measures, such as the proposed sex offender restraining order, will, although new, build on concepts in existing legislation. We ask the House to amend the Bill to include those new measures in memory of Sarah Payne, whose tragic death moved so many of us throughout Britain. It is important that we take this opportunity today to improve the protections available to the public, and we have done so. I commend the amendments to the House.

Mr. Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath)

I associate the official Opposition with the tributes that the Minister has rightly paid. The Minister will know that the Payne family's home is in a neighbouring constituency to mine and in my county. Everyone in the area and, as the Minister said, throughout Britain, was appalled by the crime, and it is only right that the Government should take the opportunity to make certain changes.

The Minister will appreciate that many later groups of amendments deal with related matters, so it might be more appropriate for me to deal in detail with the Opposition's response when we reach them. We recognise, however, that the Government see this group of amendments as part of a complementary series of amendments to address the issues raised by the Sarah Payne case and other earlier tragedies. The Opposition hope to build on the work done in Committee and in the other place.

In dealing with such serious issues, both Houses of Parliament are often at their best. I am sure that when the Minister replies he will recognise that the matters were addressed seriously by all members of the Committee and by their Lordships.

I do not wish to detain the House on this group of amendments because it would be more appropriate to discuss at length later amendments that deal in detail with sex offenders. There might be points of detail on which we disagree, particularly in the next group of amendments and in some later groups, but we hope that there will be a workable regime that will help to prevent any similar appalling crimes.

We recognise that this is a matter that no Parliament can ever get completely right. Sadly, there are wicked and evil offenders out there. We must do our best to try to create a framework in which the innocent, particularly children, are protected. I hope that the Bill, as amended, will go some way to doing that.

The Minister and his colleagues on the Treasury Bench were right to recognise the way in which the Bill could be used to make some helpful changes. We reserve judgment on whether more will be needed in this difficult area, on which I will say more later.

Jackie Ballard

We, too, welcome the amendments. As the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) said, the Government are right to take the opportunity to amend the law. However, they were also right to wait for an appropriate opportunity instead of making the wrong decision by overreacting in a knee-jerk response to a heated newspaper campaign and obvious public anxiety earlier this year.

Some of the most important words in the clause are "risk assessment". Nothing can be risk free. We cannot give anyone a guarantee that there is no risk, but it is important to assess and manage the risk properly, monitor it and ensure that lessons are learned if anything sadly goes wrong.

It is unfortunate that a long debate between the parties about the amendments now would hit the headlines, but because they have cross-party support and our debate has been brief, the press will not notice what we have done today.

Mr. Boateng

The contributions of the hon. Members for Taunton and for Surrey Heath are characteristic of the calm and appropriately serious approach of the House and of the other place to the matter.

It is vital that difficult and complex decisions about the nature of the information to be disclosed on sex offenders be considered on a case-by-case basis by the police and the probation service. It is equally true that parents and the public have the right to more information. We are providing information about the way in which sex offenders are managed in the community, the safeguards that are in place to protect them and the part that they can play in enforcing those safeguards. That is why we are creating a statutory duty for the police and probation services to establish arrangements for assessing and managing the risks that sex and violent offenders present.

I welcome the fact that, in the contributions that we have heard, the House has expressed its approval of our approach.

Lords amendment agreed to.

Lords amendments Nos. 12 and 13 agreed to.

Lords amendment: No. 14, in page 3, line 24, leave out ("accommodation") and insert ("supervision")

Mr. Boateng

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendment No. 15 and the Government motion to disagree thereto, and Lords amendments Nos. 29, 53 and 54.

Mr. Boateng

The Government amendments would create a generic category of approved accommodation, which include those hostels that are currently designated approved bail and probation hostels. That would remove distinctions between categories of hostels and enable all approved hostels to accommodate, when appropriate, offenders who are subject to drug treatment and testing orders, or licensed conditions, or offenders who, while not subject to statutory supervision, require enhanced supervision in residential accommodation to assist their rehabilitation.

The Opposition amendments, would—doubtless inadvertently but nevertheless certainly—wreck the ability of the service to provide accommodation in hostels. They would prevent accommodation of a smaller number of dangerous offenders, who are no longer on licence, but whose accommodation in approved hostels is clearly in the interests of public protection.

Greater flexibility, which the Government amendments would provide, is necessary in accommodating those on DTTOs by enabling them to be housed in any approved accommodation while undergoing treatment directed by the courts. The supportive regime in approved hostels increases the likelihood of such unstable offenders completing the treatment element of their orders. That increases the effectiveness of sentencing and improves public protection.

The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald and I have debated hostels late at night. I appreciate the seriousness with which she takes their contribution to public protection. They have an excellent record of dealing with difficult and dangerous offenders. We want to build on that success by increasing the flexibility and usage of approved hostels. We thus aim to provide for increased public protection and a reduction in reoffending, especially among those on whom the court has imposed DTTOs or who are on licence.

The amendments to clause 24 are consequential on the creation, in clause 9 as amended, of a generic category of hostel. However, the Opposition amendments would destroy the ability of the service to undertake such work. Amendment No. 14 would remove the word "accommodation". That would call into question the ability of the service to provide accommodation in hostels. That cannot have been their intention, but that is the effect of their amendment.

Amendment No. 15 would restrict the use of hostels to those currently on bail, on licence or serving a community sentence. The vast majority of residents will be in one of those categories, but a small number of dangerous offenders, who have been released from prison but not on licence, are currently accommodated in hostels, and rightly so. The supervision provided in hostels, including the operation of a curfew, is such that the public are much better protected than they would be if offenders were left to their own devices in the community. It is essential that we retain the ability to put dangerous offenders in such accommodation.

I urge the House to accept the Government amendments made in the other place, and to reject amendments Nos. 14 and 15.

5.45 pm
Mr. Hawkins

I make no apology for spending a little time on this matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) have made it clear that on a number of occasions during the consideration of the Bill in the other place the Government suffered what can only be described as humiliating defeats, and this matter was one such occasion. When the other place divided, 180 noble Lords and noble Ladies voted for the Opposition amendment, which was ably moved by my noble Friend Baroness Blatch, and only 126 of their Lordships were prepared to support the Government. That was but one of a series of substantial defeats on the Bill in the other place.

Their Lordships felt so strongly about the Bill because they believed that the Government had not paid sufficient attention to the serious concerns about supervision in hostels. I hear what the Minister says about the unintended consequences of the amendment of my noble Friend Baroness Blatch, but we feel strongly that their Lordships were right to press this matter. The Minister's noble Friend the Lord Bassam of Brighton got very confused—to put it at its best—in his attempt to respond to the serious concerns of my noble Friend. He talked about resolving practical matters in a practical way, and said: That should be done in a fair-handed way. I am not sure whether he intended to say "fair-minded" or "even-handed", but it showed how confused he was in response to these serious matters. He has sadly been nicknamed Lord Climbdown.

Just before the vote in the other place, my noble Friend asked: What in my amendment would legally preclude the most dangerous people from being supervised in the accommodation? The noble Lord has not answered the question. I am pressing this point because the noble Lord's response has been based on that premise; namely, that my amendment would be dangerous … I am not satisfied with the response that I have received from the noble Lord.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 31 October 2000; Vol. 618, c. 828–30.] I am afraid that that was all too typical of the reasons why Members in the other place made so many changes to the Bill. As we said repeatedly in Committee—the hon. Member for Taunton (Jackie Ballard) joined us in making this point—this is a bad Bill drafted in much haste with many matters needing amendment.

We pressed amendments in Committee, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham and my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald have made clear, in the other place the Government were dragged kicking and screaming into conceding some of the sensible points that we had made, some of which were supported by the Liberal Democrats. The Government have finally accepted the importance of our points.

I remind the Minister that many hon. Members, including some Labour Members, expressed concerns in what was a detailed debate on issues to do with bail and probation hostels. Many hon. Members—some in Committee—raised constituency cases in which serious problems had arisen in relation to bail and probation service hostels. I especially remember powerful points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff), who spoke from experience of a hostel in his constituency. I have experience of a hostel in my own constituency that caused a number of problems, and similar concerns were raised in another place.

We think that Lady Blatch was right to press the issue of supervision, and we hope that the Government will address the point. We shall not ask the House to divide, because we do not want the Government even to seek to allege that we are doing any damage to the provision of accommodation; but we do think that the issue is serious. We want the Minister finally to concede, when he replies, that the Government recognise—and will place firmly in regulations, even if they are not prepared to include it in the Bill—the need for those who will run bail and probation hostels to be required to ensure that, at every stage, dangerous and potentially dangerous residents are supervised. It should not be simply a matter of accommodating them.

Labour Members who have had practical, sharp-end experience of such hostels—which they mentioned in Committee—know very well that supervision is a vital element in any hostel. All our law-abiding constituents want to be given the comfort of knowing that anyone sent to such a hostel will be supervised morning, noon and night. If the Minister is not prepared to say that the Government will find a way of ensuring that supervision is clearly written into the obligations of those running hostels, the next time an outrage, crime or tragedy is perpetrated by someone who is resident in a hostel but has not been properly supervised, the Government will have to take the blame.

I do not want to be a Cassandra crying in the wilderness, but these are serious issues. As the Minister said, they were addressed seriously in Committee, and we want to hear that the Government will address them seriously. As I have said, we shall not divide the House, but we hope that the Government will take what we have said, and what I expect the Minister to say shortly, in the spirit in which I have made these serious points.

Mr. Boateng

I did not think the spirit in which the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) presented his arguments did justice to the serious and important debate in which we engaged in Committee—to which the hon. Gentleman made a valuable contribution—and the attack on my noble Friend Lord Bassam was utterly unwarranted.

Miss Widdecombe

Oh no it wasn't.

Mr. Boateng

Oh yes it was.

"Even-handed" and "fair-minded" are not terms that spring to mind in characterisation of the hon. Gentleman's contributions, so he really ought to take care before casting aspersions on my noble Friend—who, as the hon. Gentleman will discover if he reads Hansard, valiantly tried to put Lady Blatch right when she was insisting on moving immediately to a vote on an amendment that included the phrase " any time", because it would have prevented the accommodation of dangerous offenders not on licence. All Opposition Members know the importance of ensuring that we can accommodate that small but dangerous group, regardless of whether they are on licence. The hon. Gentleman rightly does not push Lady Blatch's proposal to a vote, because to do so would undermine the purposes of public protection. He knows that, and he ought to have had the generosity of spirit to admit it.

Clause 9 ensures that all who are accommodated in hostels are there for supervision or rehabilitation. Supervision, in relation to dangerous offenders or ex-offenders, lies at the heart of all that the probation service does in such hostels. We need to do more to give more recognition to the important work that hostels do.

I am glad that the amendment will not be pressed to a Division, and urge our amendments on the House.

Lords amendment disagreed to.

Lords amendment No. 15 disagreed to.

Lords amendments Nos. 16 to 24 agreed to

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