Protection of Freedoms Bill

My Lords, it might be convenient if I intervene at this stage, partly because I have government amendments in this group—Amendments 6, 13, 16, 18, 29 and 32—partly so that I can explain what we are intending and partly to deal with some of the concerns raised by the noble Baroness and to pre-empt some of the debate, particularly as we are at Third Reading. I shall also speak at the end of the debate to deal with any points that have been made. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness not only for her explanation of four of the amendments but because she has raised this issue throughout the passage of the Bill, as she was quite right to do. She was also right to pay tribute to Elfyn Llwyd, to his inquiry in another place and for all that that has done, for which we are grateful. The noble Baroness referred to the comments from my right honourable friend the Prime Minister last Thursday on International Women's Day. The Government made the point that: "““Stalking is an issue which affects many lives, often in devastating ways. That is why we are taking it seriously and introducing these new offences””—" my right honourable friend made it clear that we would bring forward amendments to the Bill— "““Offenders need to know that they will be brought to justice for making others' lives a misery. We will do all we can to protect victims of stalking more effectively and to end this appalling crime””." He said: "““we've got to make sure that as a separate criminal offence, it's combined with: better training for the police; better training for the probation service; better training for our courts; better action by technology, telephone and digital companies, so we stamp out this evil””." Throughout the House we agree that tough action needs to be taken, that new offences need to be introduced and that sentences must reflect the severity of the crime. The only thing that we disagree on is the drafting on how to achieve this aim. Perhaps I may go through the government amendments. The new offence set out in government Amendment 6 will introduce two new, free-standing offences of ““stalking”” and ““stalking involving fear of violence”” that will sit alongside the existing harassment offences in the Act and will attract the same maximum penalties. The new offence of stalking under new Section 2A will be tried in the magistrates' court, with a maximum penalty of six months' imprisonment or a fine of up to level 5 on the standard scale—currently £5,000—or both. The new offence of stalking involving fear of violence under new Section 4A may be tried either way, in the magistrates' court or the Crown Court. If tried in the Crown Court it will have a penalty of up to five years' imprisonment or an unlimited fine, or both. The noble Baroness tabled a number of amendments to Amendment 6. I will deal briefly with each of them. Amendments 7 and 8 relate to the list of examples of acts or omissions that may be associated with stalking. The list of behaviours is designed to provide examples of the core behaviours associated with stalking. This is a non-exhaustive list and will therefore cover forms of behaviour not yet developed. That is why it states, ““for example””. For this reason there is nothing to be gained from adding the words ““inter alia”” as proposed by Amendment 7. The relevant subsection is already explicit that the list of acts or omissions provides examples only. Moreover, the use of the word ““examples”” has the advantage of being in English and so will be clear to police and prosecutors, who might not understand ““inter alia””—although I imagine that they normally do. Amendment 8 seeks to add a catch-all of, "““acting in any other way that would cause a reasonable person to suffer fear or alarm””," as well as a power to add to the list of behaviours by order. As I indicated, the list provided is designed to be a non-exhaustive list of core behaviours associated with stalking. As such, it is not a definitive list of behaviours and so would cover other stalking behaviour that would cause a reasonable person to suffer fear or alarm. Moreover, given that the list is indicative, it is not necessary to take a power to add to it. Should it prove necessary to do so, we can issue guidance to the police to inform them of other behaviours that might be equally applicable. We want to ensure that we do not give stalkers an excuse to try to circumvent this legislation. Amendment 9 seeks to make the new Section 2A offence an either-way offence with the same maximum penalty—five years' imprisonment—as the new Section 4A offence. We need to take into account the behaviours criminalised by the new offence of stalking. Given that such behaviours fall short of putting someone in fear of violence, we believe that it is appropriate that this should be a summary-only offence attracting the usual maximum penalties for such offences. The new Section 4A offence will be an either-way offence that may be tried in either court, and will attract higher penalties when tried on indictment. In this regard, it is worth pointing to the government amendment to Schedule 9, which adds the new offence of stalking involving fear of violence to the list of violent offences in Schedule 15 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The effect of this is that a conviction for such an offence can attract a public protection sentence which, under proposals in the LASPO Bill, will be an extended sentence. Such a sentence will see offenders serve at least two-thirds of their sentence in prison and be subject to longer periods of supervision on licence. We can therefore make a real distinction between lesser and more serious cases. We will accompany these offences with guidance and training for the police and prosecutors so that they understand this too. I believe it would be wrong to muddy the water between these two offences. If the concern is that the existing Section 2 offence is not being properly dealt with at present, and, together with the new Section 2A offence, will not be in future, then it is the practice on the ground that we must tackle, not the offence itself. Amendments 10, 11 and 12 seek to extend the new Section 4A offence of stalking involving fear of violence. The suggestion appears to be that this offence will be difficult to prove because of the requirement to show that the alleged victim was in fear of violence. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, has suggested that her Amendment 2 is preferable as the test there is whether the alleged victim suffered fear, alarm, distress or anxiety. Our approach with these two new offences, as with the existing harassment offences and many other areas of the criminal law, is to have a tiered approach which reflects the seriousness of the offending behaviours. Alarming a person or causing them distress would be caught by the summary offence of stalking. As such, an individual who stalked a person so as to cause them alarm or distress would be rightly charged with that offence. If more serious behaviours were present, and those behaviours made the victim fear that violence would be used against them, then that would rightly attract the more severe penalties available for the Section 4A offence. I recognise that fear of violence may not of itself fully cover the trauma suffered by victims in the more serious cases of stalking. Such victims may not always be in fear of physical violence but they none the less suffer serious psychological harm. I recognise that we need to include this concept in our new Section 4A offence. Having put down this amendment only late on Thursday last week, I accept that it is rather difficult to make manuscript amendments at Third Reading, but I ask the noble Baroness not to press her Amendments 10 and 12 on the understanding that the Government will bring forward amendments to the new Section 4A offence to import a reference when the Bill returns to the House of Commons next Monday. One could take any form of words: ““severe alarm””, ““severe distress””, ““serious psychological harm”” or similar wording. I do not want to get bogged down on the precise wording at this stage. We are still considering the precise formula, but it is important that I make an assurance that we are very keen to make sure that serious psychological harm gets included within that amendment. I have asked my officials to meet Napo, which has played a key role in the independent inquiry conducted by Elfyn Llwyd on stalking, later this week to discuss the appropriate wording. I know that it has been speaking to a number of your Lordships—including, no doubt, the noble Baroness—and that it shares the concerns about the psychological impact that stalking has on victims. I also undertake to share the wording of the further amendment that we would bring forward in another place with the noble Baroness, and others, in advance of tabling it. Obviously, we will have to move fast later this week but, as she is aware, we have been capable of nimble footwork in the past. Government Amendment 13 will introduce a new search power—I appreciate that search powers are somewhat controversial on occasions—exercisable by warrant for the lower-level stalking offence to allow the police to search for equipment used to stalk and to gather the evidence necessary to secure convictions and prevent stalking behaviour escalating. There is already a power of entry for the Sections 4 and 4A offences. Amendment 14 to government Amendment 13 seeks to add a further power of entry exercisable by a constable without a warrant or the consent of the occupier. This further power would apply to both the new stalking offence and the existing harassment offence. We take the view that only those offences serious enough to be tried on indictment, such as our new Section 4A offence, should attract entry and search powers exercisable without a warrant following arrest. The new Section 2A offence, as a summary-only offence, is by definition less serious, and we consider that requiring a warrant for a search under new Section 2B represents an appropriate balance between protecting people from stalkers and respecting the rights of those who, at the point of the search, are unconvicted and therefore innocent in the eyes of the law. Amendment 3, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, introduces a requirement on the Secretary of State to ensure that serial stalking offenders are flagged on the police national database. I assure her that whenever someone has been convicted or cautioned for a stalking offence, as with any other recordable offence, that conviction or caution will be so recorded. If a local police force has information that a person may be a stalker but there is insufficient evidence to charge them, that information would be recorded on local police systems and reflected on the police national database, which can be accessed by all UK forces. The police national database is an important new development, allowing greater visibility of all local records for investigative and policing purposes, and should be fully operational within the next 12 months. The management of all police information, national and local, is obviously a matter for chief officers, including whether information is or should be flagged up on the PNC. None the less, any such information held on local systems may, if relevant, be disclosable on an enhanced criminal record certificate. The second part of Amendment 3 requires the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament an annual report on the implementation of an offence of stalking. Again, I am not persuaded that there is a need to impose a statutory duty to this effect. However, I can assure the noble Baroness that we will keep the new offences under review, and I am confident that the Government will face pretty thorough scrutiny on this issue as time goes on—as they should—and will, as a result, report to Parliament on these matters from time to time. We hope that creating specific offences of stalking, along with a new search power, will raise the profile of this crime and ensure that more stalkers are brought to justice. However, we recognise that a change in the law alone is not enough. The Government's revised action plan, Call to End Violence against Women and Girls, published only last Thursday, includes several actions to raise awareness of stalking and improve the training and guidance given to both police and prosecutors. We believe that the government amendments deliver the outcomes sought by campaigners on this issue. They strengthen the law by providing for two new offences of stalking. We take this issue very seriously. If we did not, the Prime Minister would not have focused his speech on International Women's Day on this subject. On this basis, I hope that after we have had a debate the noble Baroness will feel able not to press her amendments, on the understanding that we will bring forward changes to the government amendments in another place to address her point about the psychological harm suffered by the victims of stalking. If she insists in pressing her amendments, I invite the House to reject them and support the Government's alternative proposals.