Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-15
Topic: Law and Crime
Simon Russell (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I support this amendment to which I have added my name, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, whose statement was typically eloquent. I will not say that I rise "briefly", since earlier today almost every noble Lord who said that went on to speak at length This amendment is essentially a continuation of a discussion that the Minister will remember extremely well from springtime, when we were talking about the Domestic Abuse Bill and misogyny in particular. That was probably the first time in this House that we had ever really had discussions about misogyny. Eight months is a very long time when it comes to domestic abuse. Now every noble Lord is aware of misogyny and of how pervasive it is. To some extent, those eight months have helped the case for an amendment such as this On 17 March, as the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, mentioned, the Minister announced that the Home Office will require all police forces in England and Wales to record crimes, primarily against women, that they regard as misogynistic in intent. We were told that this would happen by autumn. I have checked on a search engine when autumn officially ends and, much to my surprise, it ends on 21 December, which seems rather late. Therefore, the Government have a little more time to deliver, but if the Minister cannot tell us this evening, can she please come back and tell us when the guidance that will be given to police forces to collect this data—systematically and consistently, which is the most important thing—will be available? This morning I asked a very senior police officer, a lady who is on the National Police Chiefs’ Council, if she knew when it was coming. She did not but basically said, "Please get a move on, we are all dying for this to arrive." Her own police force, one of the largest in the country, has systematically rolled out domestic abuse training for the vast majority of its officers, which has been extremely well received. They are absolutely primed to receive this guidance when it arrives, so please can we get a move on and please can we have a commitment, either at the Dispatch Box later or in writing, on exactly when we can expect this? If this very senior police did not know, I certainly hope that the Minister does This amendment has the virtue, above all, of brevity and great simplicity. It will probably not surprise noble Lords that the person behind the brevity and clarity, of which he is very much in favour, is the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. He is unable to be with us this evening. I think he hoped that brevity would mean just that when noble Lords said that they would be brief. Unfortunately, he was disappointed and so cannot be here, but we can assume that the thrust and nature of this amendment has a great deal to do with his guidance and his input. To use his phrase when we were talking about this, "Let’s just go for the jugular". That is what this is about As other noble Lords have mentioned, the Equality Act 2010 defined nine different protected characteristics. This amendment specifically would equalise sex and gender with the other key innate characteristics: sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, race, disability and religion or belief. As noble Lords have said, it is designed to protect anybody and everybody; it is totally inclusive. It is not defining people by what gender they have, they chose to have, they think they have or were born with; it is designed to protect everybody.