My Lords, I am grateful to all who have spoken in this important and fascinating debate about some terrible behaviour. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, explained, the principle of this amendment has a long history of parliamentary support. It would rightly criminalise quack counsellors, who, as all have said,
suborn vulnerable young people and exploit their weaknesses, in a way that amounts to a classic demonstration of how clearly abusive coercive and controlling behaviour is.
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The noble and learned Lord, with all his experience as Solicitor-General, set out the tests that, he explained, are appropriate to determine whether a new offence should be introduced. My noble friend Lady Jolly gave a further account of the appalling effect of the behaviour of these charlatans on young people’s lives. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, a member of the GMC, lent powerful support to this amendment. He warned us of a lack of any regulation and the danger of unregulated practitioners claiming respectability and abusing the confidence of innocent clients. He also made the important point that, in the absence of regulation, the offence that I have called for is urgently needed to fill the gap. He spoke of the importance of using this legislation to do it, if we can, in the absence of other legislation coming forward.
The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, powerfully demonstrated that this type of abuse is intimate. It is intimate in a way that clearly makes it domestic abuse, so the offence belongs in the Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, supported much of the intent behind the amendment. In her question after the Minister, she gave an interesting insight into false memory implantation, yet she suggested that this amendment shifted the focus of the Bill away from the domestic context. I do not think that is right, for the reasons given by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn. If the kind of quackery that amounts to coercive control, which destroys families in the way that this type of abuse does, cannot be outlawed by the criminal law in the context of domestic abuse, the criminal law is failing in its duty.
The noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, also saw the Bill as the proper context for this amendment, showing just how unscrupulous these so-called therapists are in exploiting vulnerable people within family contexts, often for substantial sums of money. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, with her wide professional experience of vulnerability and exploitation, as well as of mental capacity, showed clearly how far these bogus therapists are from genuinely motivated therapists and counsellors. I am grateful for her suggestions on how the defence to the offence in the amendment, modelled on the Serious Crime Act, might be better defined. As she said of this kind of behaviour, enough is enough.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, helpfully supported the intent behind the amendment and was clear that he wanted to know what the Government were going to do, even though he had some doubts as to whether this was the Bill for it. In his careful response, for which I am grateful, the Minister correctly described the amendment as extending the ambit of Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act. I accept that that applies to coercive and controlling behaviour in a domestic context, but it is difficult to see how this is not a domestic context, if one is prepared to allow that that context is not always within a family. I join the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in asking what the Government are going to do.
The Minister talked of the necessary study of this issue. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, talked about the difficulty of securing evidence in this area; that was his justification for saying that we need an offence in the meantime. The Minister talked of voluntary registration, but this is not dealt with by a question of registration. More importantly, this type of behaviour is not dealt with by the law at all, at the moment. The Minister talked about legislation in futu-re.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, suggested a meeting between the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Bethell. I believe that other noble Lords would be grateful for a meeting between now and Report to discuss how we go forward. With the indication that the Minister gave in response to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, I hope that he is amenable to such a meeting. We need to know how we will secure this legislation, and quickly. On the basis that we will talk about how to do that, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment, but I hope to get some progress.