I am delighted to speak in this debate and to speak in favour of new clause 17, which is tabled in my name. I am delighted that many hon. Members on both sides have expressed their support for it.
I will not move the new clause this evening, because I am lucky to have had conversations with the Lord Chancellor, who I am delighted to see is in his place, about the nature of this particular crime. This crime is, I would argue, almost unique in that it is a complete betrayal. It is a complete betrayal because it is not just by a person, but by the parent of a child at its most vulnerable stage. It is a complete betrayal because it is a failure—yes, of those parents, but actually of our entire society—to protect the most vulnerable. It is a complete betrayal because it allows a crime to continue when it should have stopped days before, and in this case days are lifetimes.
I am talking, of course, about the terrible abuse of children like Tony Hudgell—children who, like Tony, are in the early stages of life. They are not able to give evidence to a court, because they are in their 40th or 50th day of life. They could not possibly stand up in a
court and give testimony, and they could not possibly point the finger at their abuser, so they find themselves in the invidious position of not being able to get the full weight of the law brought against their aggressor, because they are too young, too innocent, too silent to be able to bring that action.
The Lord Chancellor has spoken to me privately—I hope that he will not mind my raising it publicly—about how we share the same horror of these crimes and these offences, but at the moment the law does not allow the same sentencing. I only ask that in the next few months, before the Bill gets to the Lords and the change comes that we all hope for, he looks at this legislation and realises that there is a small lacuna—a gap—in which the sentencing could be corrected. It does not require a complete redrafting of the law, but a small swish of his pen, as his quill hits the vellum to change the sentences and match them appropriately to the crimes—crimes that would have reached the same sentence had the child been able to point the finger and identify the criminal.