It is a great pleasure to follow my good friend the Chair of the Justice Committee. I had the honour of serving on that Committee when we prepared our report on Brexit’s impact on the justice system, to which the Government provided their response earlier this week. May I say to Ministers that new clause 31, which is about the best interests of children and safeguarding those interests, has a particular relevance to some of the issues that the Committee uncovered? Those relate to family law, which has not been the subject of much debate in Committee but is, none the less, an extremely complicated and important issue for the wellbeing of children. Our EU membership gives us access to institutions that protect and safeguard children as potential victims of crime.
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I am particularly pleased to have tabled new clause 31, which would support the Government in their intention of maintaining continuing close co-operation with the EU on policing and criminal justice, and putting in place new arrangements across a wide range of structures to ensure the protections for children provided by our engagement in those criminal justice mechanisms. It is uncertain what that future relationship will look like, and there has been little clarification of how we will replace or adapt to mechanisms such as Europol, Eurojust and the European arrest warrant, but they are important in a context in which children are increasingly the victims of complex cross-border crime, including child sex abuse, online abuse, abduction and trafficking. Those crimes are committed across EU borders. It is extremely important that we have mechanisms both to protect children and to hunt down the perpetrators of such
crimes. We must also be able to foster, on a pan-European basis, crucial educational and support mechanisms and measures that help to build children’s resilience in the face of such terrible crimes.
New clause 31 is particularly important in relation to fostering and adoption processes. Potential carers may be non-UK EU nationals. Rightly, they have to undergo rigorous criminal, medical and social services background checks in the UK, and that information has to come from another country if they have lived abroad. It is extremely important that we can make such checks on EU nationals working in our education, healthcare or care systems, and we must ensure that we can carry them out expeditiously and effectively. We must have the same kind of access as at present to full information about individuals who may be working with our children.
The European arrest warrant has been extremely important for the protection of children. Its use resulted in 110 arrests for child sexual offences in the UK between 2010 and 2016. In return, EU countries made 831 requests to the UK in relation to child sexual offences. Of those cases, 108 arrests were made in the UK. In 2016, the EU made 33 requests to the UK in relation to cases involving child sexual exploitation. Such cases are really important, so we need to ensure that the mechanisms that we put in place if we exit the EU are at least as strong and resilient as those we have now.
In 2015-16, some 60,000 children were reported missing in the UK. Last night, we had an important debate in the Chamber on the Schengen information system and SIS II, which is about to be enhanced under a proposed regulation that will ensure that there is a more proactive system of alerts if a child might be vulnerable to abduction or going missing. It would be extremely regrettable if we were not able to take advantage of the continuing development of legislation and practice on the protection of children who might be at risk of going missing or of abduction, including parental abduction. In that regard, I underline how important it is that we have really good reciprocal family law arrangements so that it is clear that parents must abide by their responsibilities to their children. Wherever the responsibilities are determined and wherever the parent lives, we must know that those responsibilities and obligations can be enforced.
I am concerned that at the point of exit we may lose much of the existing advantage of having a seamless system of information sharing and enforcement that can bring back perpetrators to face justice. I know that Ministers do not want that to be the outcome of our departure from the EU, but unless children are put absolutely front and centre in the negotiations, there is a real risk that children will be harmed. Nobody in the House would want that.
New clauses 32 and 33 are about the socioeconomic wellbeing of children in this country who currently benefit, for example, from European structural and investment funds. We can already see the damaging effect that Brexit is having on family incomes and budgets. We need to be proactive in protecting children, particularly our poorest children, from some of the potentially negative economic consequences that exit from the EU would bring.
New clause 32 would ensure the Government’s continued funding of projects currently funded by the European social fund that tackle disadvantage and regional
inequalities. I recognise that Ministers have said that they wish to guarantee that funds currently provided through these mechanisms by the European Union will be replaced or underwritten by the UK Government in the event of our leaving the EU. I want to see that written as an obligation in the Bill, which is what new clause 32 would do, so that following our withdrawal there is a commitment to a continuity of funding for projects that work to help disadvantaged children and young people.
New clause 33 would require the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a strategy for mitigating the risk that withdrawal from the EU might present to low-income families with children by ensuring that benefit rates would be reviewed annually, with any inflationary risks addressed. There is a major risk that the economic uncertainty caused by our withdrawal from the European Union will affect low-income families. Addressing any risks that Brexit poses to low-income families and disadvantaged young people would be a clear way to ensure that Brexit works for everyone.
As Members will know, poverty is not spread evenly, and some communities face particularly high levels of poverty and disadvantage. We know that child poverty in the UK is projected to rise, and that Brexit will present additional risks on top of what has already been modelled as a consequence of some of the Government’s austerity cuts to welfare benefits. If our trade relations result in a reduction of economic activity, with a knock-on effect on jobs and wages, that would clearly also be very damaging for low-income families.
The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) has said:
“British business will have to learn to get by in a different world.”
That is all very well, but what is absolutely clear is that disadvantaged families, and certainly children, cannot and should not be expected to do so.
There is a great risk that our withdrawal could compound child poverty due to the loss of European funding and inflationary pressures on our economy. I urge Ministers to look carefully at my new clauses 32 and 33, which would require them to think proactively about how to address those risks. So far, we have had no firm guarantees that they are even on the Ministers’ radar, but I hope that the Committee will unite around these important measures and stress their importance. I commend new clauses 31 to 33 to the House.
May I add my support to a couple of other new clauses? I strongly support and will vote in favour of new clause 13, which proposes keeping our continuing membership of the customs union on the table. I am absolutely convinced that that is a prerequisite for financial success for low-income families. I am also very pleased to support new clause 61, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), in relation to regulation around the chemical sector. This is an issue of huge concern to businesses in my constituency, which have been happy to sign up to REACH and have seen its benefits. They are extremely worried that they will now have to go through a new and potentially expensive replica process, which is quite unnecessary. They feel they should not be disadvantaged compared with other competitors, or indeed with laxer standards than at present.
The Minister, who is no longer in the Chamber, asked us to accept a number of assurances from him about the Government’s intentions in the debates that have been held in this House, particularly in relation to amendment 7. I think that the will of the House was expressed very clearly on amendment 7—we had a vote and it was carried. The Government should respect the spirit and terms of that amendment, and I hope that Ministers will take that message on board. That is the way Parliament takes back control and expresses its will. I do not expect Ministers to seek to amend or weaken the provision on Report.