|
Column Number: 1069
Standing Committee B
Tuesday 25 February 2003
(Morning)
[Mr. James Cran in the Chair]
Clause 262
Arrangements for assessing etc risks posed by certain offenders
9.10 am
Mr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North): I beg to move amendment No. 746, in
clause 262, page 145, line 28, leave out 'and'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:
No. 747, in
clause 262, page 145, line 31, at end insert—
'(i) every Local Education Authority any part of whose area falls within the relevant area, and
(j) the leisure department of every local authority whose area falls within the relevant area.'
No. 979, in
clause 262, page 145, leave out lines 32 and 33.
No. 999, in
clause 262, page 145, line 32, leave out 'or removing'.
Mr. Allen: It is a great joy, as always, Mr. Cran, to see you in the Chair.
Amendments Nos. 746 and 747 were suggested to me by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. I hope that the Minister will respond to them sympathetically. Although the proposal to place an obligation on a range of authorities to co-operate in the assessment and management of sex offenders is welcome, the amendments seek to ensure that the duty to co-operate is extended to include the education and leisure departments of every local authority. Those departments are ideally placed to safeguard children and assist in the management of sex offenders in the community, and they should not be excluded from the multi-agency public protection arrangements.
I hope that the Minister will consider these two minor amendments in the spirit in which they are put. If he cannot accept them today, perhaps he will give an undertaking to consider them and come up with something suitable for all parties.
Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield): I should like to speak to amendment No. 979, which would leave out subsection (7). Subsection (6) lists the authorities and persons referred to in subsections (3) to (5) whose job is to establish arrangements for the purpose of assessing and managing the risks posed in their areas by released offenders.
Subsection (7) provides that the Secretary of State can amend subsection (6) at will by
''adding or removing any person or description of person''.
Column Number: 1070
If the Secretary of State can do that, why do we need subsection (6)? Frankly, if he can produce a list at any time and without any sort of approval process, why bother to set out in subsection (6) a list of those who have to establish such arrangements? On the other hand, if the Government propose that the list should be substantially fixed, the Minister needs to justify providing the Secretary of State with that power. The Committee could at least be confident that the power would not be used in a way that could lead to names or institutions being added to the list unjustifiably. It is a simple point.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Hilary Benn): The two sets of amendments fit together rather well, because my response to amendment No. 746 will illustrate that the power given under subsection (7), which the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) wants removed, is a sensible power to have.
First, the multi-agency public protection arrangements represent a step forward. The more that I have learned in the last nine months about the work that the agencies undertake, the more I have been impressed by the care and consideration that they give to the task of managing the risks presented to the public by violent and sexual offenders. It has been a sensible step forward. The co-operation between the police and the probation service has been outstanding in some cases. I recommend Committee members to meet those involved in their local MAPPAs, and to talk to them about the way in which they undertake the work. I have been very impressed by what I have seen.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) has suggested two other possible organisations to which the duty to incorporate might be extended. Although the Bill already includes some scope for involving education authorities, through the duty to incorporate on youth offending teams—of which, my hon. Friend will be only too well aware, education departments form part—there is merit in extending the scope to include education authorities in their own right. While they will not be routinely involved in the assessment and management of the risks posed by sexual and violent defenders, their professional contribution could occasionally be significant. If my hon. Friend will withdraw his amendment, I shall undertake to return to the matter on Report.
I am not, however, convinced in the same way about local authority leisure departments. If my hon. Friend is thinking of the requirement placed on some offenders not to go near a swimming pool or leisure centre, the powers already exist to ensure that that can form part of appropriate licence conditions. There is already close co-operation between the police and the probation service and those managing leisure facilities to ensure that they are made aware of such licence conditions and can exchange information; there does not need to be a statutory requirement. That brings me to the point made by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield. The order-making power is subject to the affirmative resolution process; the Secretary of
Column Number: 1071
State cannot wake up one morning and decide to add a few people to the list.
Having seen the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend and agreed that there is a case in relation to education departments, I accept that, as we learn from the operation of MAPPAs, we might wish to add to the list. There might be structural or organisational changes to the names or functions of the bodies listed in subsection (6) that would make it sensible, in the interests of public protection, to have the power to amend the list or to add to it, other than by primary legislation. That is the reason for subsection (7). I hope that, given the safeguard of the affirmative order procedure, my hon. Friend will understand the need for it and will not press the amendment.
Mr. Allen: Last Thursday, I took my daughter to the Mansfield water park, not far from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann). Families who were taking young children out to the pool were being warned by the lifeguards not to take photographs of their children swimming with mums and dads. It is sad that, with photographs now able to be taken by telephone as well as by camera, we are in that situation. That is one of the things that the NSPCC had in mind when it suggested the amendments. I know that the Minister feels strongly about the issue. He has given a full and helpful explanation as to where the Government are coming from, and I hope that he will continue a correspondence with the NSPCC to ensure that any loopholes are closed.
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome): This business about photographs is becoming a mania across the country. Public authorities are behaving in an extraordinary way. Someone has to get a grip and give clear guidance about what is appropriate in terms of regulation.
Mr. Allen: It is indeed a sad state of affairs, but such attitudes are none the less prevalent at the moment. People are being cautious, sadly for good reason.
Mr. Grieve: This is not an issue over which guidance is required: it is an issue of common sense. There has been a tendency to stir up a climate of fear so much that rational thought processes have been thrown out of the window.
Mr. Allen: Even down to any one of us now being loth to comfort a child who is in obvious distress, because of how that might be interpreted. We must all be extremely careful in those situations. With those remarks, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Humfrey Malins (Woking): Welcome back to the Chair, Mr. Cran.
The Minister owes us a duty to say a little bit more about the background to the clause and how it will operate. I wish to pose questions on a number of issues
Column Number: 1072
that I hope he will deal with when he winds up the debate on this important clause.
As I understand it, the clause says that the responsible authority for an area, which consists of the police, the probation service and the Minister, must set up a team of people to assess and manage the risks that certain offenders in their area pose. Life is full of teams: everywhere one looks in the criminal justice system there is a team involved, and the proposed team is one more. My immediate reaction is that there is potential for an increase in bureaucracy. Getting together no fewer than eight or 10 different groupings might be a bureaucratic nightmare.
Has the Minister given any thought to the likely cost involved to each of the services concerned? In Surrey and in the south-east, the probation service and the police are heavily punished by the Government's movement of money away from the south-east grant towards the north of the country, to help their friends there. We are suffering desperately in the south. Has the Minister assessed the impact on, for example, the Surrey police grant? What extra money is likely to be needed to pursue the exercise? Similarly, what extra costs and work will be involved for the probation service, the primary care trusts, and so on? Could the Minister comment on the important issues of extra bureaucracy, work and cost?
Could the Minister also tell us what will happen in practice? Even after First and Second Reading, I am still not entirely clear on what will happen, and I am not sure what an area is. Subsection (2) refers to ''each area'', but in subsection (5) there is reference to a ''relevant area''. For the purpose of setting up the groups, is an area a county, a borough or a district? In my constituency, will the area covered be by reference to Woking borough council or to the county of Surrey? If the answer is the latter, the chief constable is presumably the officer responsible. However, if the relevant area is a borough, will that person be the commander of the borough?
Could the Minister also tell us what will happen in practice? A lot of people, from the ''youth offending team'' in subsection (6)(a) to everyone else
''who is designated by the Secretary of State''—
that is to say, anybody in the whole world—will presumably have to get together. However, the clause does not tell us much more. What will those people do when they get together? I searched diligently to find out, and a later clause tells us that they will have to prepare an annual report. Well, I'll be damned—an annual report. But what does that mean? I assume that the Minister will show me a report. Will those people draw up a list of offenders? Will they have executive power over them? What powers and duties will lie on them?
As you will have spotted, Mr. Cran, a later clause makes it clear that those deemed to be violent offenders will include persons who are convicted of an offence under schedule 11, which we debated some weeks ago, and those who are sentenced to more than 12 months' imprisonment. We shall come later to an amendment that I have tabled on the issue, but does the Minister have any concept of how many people in
Column Number: 1073
Surrey, for example, have been given a sentence of more than 12 months? That is the standard sentence for the least serious violent offences nowadays. Someone who thumps their partner and goes before Guildford Crown court will be inside for 12 months. Similarly, someone who is involved in a minor brawl outside a pub in Surrey might well get 12 months. That is the bottom end of the market.
Will there be a register of such people? A huge number of people, including anyone who gets more than 12 months, may have to be monitored, taken care of and, in other ways, cajoled by the groups specified in the clause. I therefore have a series of specific questions for the Minister, and I should be grateful if he would write to me about them. How many people received a 12-month sentence from any court in each of the Surrey boroughs last year? How many received such a sentence in the county of Surrey? How many people received one nationally?
I am concerned about the volume of people who commit one-off, downmarket offences and who should not be on a register, but who find themselves being monitored by a large number of people because they are assessed as being violent offenders. The general public's understanding is that such people are not a danger to them, and the clause is, surely to goodness, meant to cover those who are a serious danger, such as serial violent offenders. They constitute a much smaller group than that envisaged in the clause, which includes everyone who is sentenced to more than 12 months. What will the bodies specified in the clause actually do? What will their powers be? What benefits will they bring to the community that they serve?
I notice that the Secretary of State can specify anyone he likes. Has the Minister thought about whether to include people from the world of education, such as county education group or officers? There are people in education departments who are familiar with the incidence of violence among young people. I suppose that the Minister thinks that the clause is a brilliant one, which will make a difference to the world, and I should like to hear why he thinks so.
9.30 am
|
