argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Nigel Martin Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): Now I know what an umpire at Wimbledon feels like. I think we will leave it there and move on Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill: Carry-over Extension Ordered, That the period on the expiry of which proceedings on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill shall lapse in pursuance of paragraph (13) of Standing Order No. 80A shall be extended by 51 days until 28 April 2022.—(Kit Malthouse.) Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill: Programme (No. 3) Ordered, That the following provisions shall apply to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill for the purpose of supplementing the Order of 16 March 2021 in the last Session of Parliament (Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill: Programme), as varied by the Order of 5 July 2021 in this Session (Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill: Programme (No. 2)): Consideration of Lords Amendments (1) Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion six hours after their commencement The proceedings— (a) shall be taken in the order shown in the first column of the following Table, and (b) shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the times specified in the second column of the Table Lords Amendments Time for conclusion of proceedings Nos. 2, 70, 72, 114 to 116, 141, 142, 3 to 57, 59, 60, 108 to 113, 117, 147, 153 and 154 Two hours after the commencement of proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments Nos. 1, 58, 107, 61 to 69, 94 to 106, 121 to 140, 144, 145, 149 to 152 and 155 to 161 Four hours after the commencement of those proceedings Nos. 71, 74, 88, 73, 80 to 82, 87, 89, 146, 143, 75 to 79, 83 to 86, 90 to 93, 118 to 120 and 148 Six hours after the commencement of those proceedings Subsequent stages (3) Any further Message from the Lords may be considered forthwith without any Question being put (4) The proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.—(Kit Malthouse.)
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Nigel Martin Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): I must draw the House’s attention to the fact that financial privilege is engaged in Lords amendments 59 and 60. If Lords amendments 59 and 60 are agreed to, I will cause the customary entry waiving Commons financial privilege to be entered in the Journal Clause 7 Duties to collaborate and plan to prevent and reduce serious violence
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I acknowledge some of the problems with the amendment that the hon. and learned Lady sets out. I think it is Women’s Aid that rejected the amendment and said that it would do more harm than good on the basis that she outlined: it is not specific about targeting crimes against women in particular.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I had hoped to avoid the approach that the hon. Lady takes. Of course we believe that women deserve strong protection—we absolutely do—but all I can say to the hon. Lady is that the Law Commission, in looking at the evidence over a three-year period and consulting widely across the sector and society more generally, found that the additional complexity was likely to make it harder to prosecute these crimes. I ask her to reflect on the fact that in proceedings in this House, she put her name to an amendment compelling the Government to adopt the Law Commission’s proposals in full. I am not sure why she has now reversed that position, but I hope she appreciates that we are as dedicated to and interested in the safety of women as she is.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend and I worked hard on the issues underpinning the Bill and on the Bill itself. May I press him on Lords amendment 72? I accept that the amendment is defective. It does not create a new offence, however, but is about aggravating factors in sentencing. I commend to him the positive findings of the Law Commission, namely its proposal to develop an offence of street harassment, albeit with a sexual motive. I take issue with that—I think it needs to be a wider offence of street harassment, because we need to deal with wider issues than sexual motive—but I press the Minister to commit the Government to getting on with work on the Law Commission’s important recommendation to create a new offence based not just on racial hatred, but on hatred motivated against gender or sex.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. and learned Friend is right that we need to have a serious look at the suite of offences used in this area. He will know that many street harassment offences are classified as some kind of public order offence. That causes a number of problems, not least the lack of transparency with the police’s analysis of what is going on out there in our streets There are three further areas of work that we want to turn to, as we sadly reject this amendment, well motivated though it absolutely is, on the basis of the Law Commission’s evidence. Those three areas are first, as my right hon. and learned Friend says, to adopt the Law Commission’s other proposal of looking at a specific offence of public sexual harassment, as my neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), asked for today. Personally speaking, I think it could be a new offence, but it could be some amendment to public order offences to allow us to deal with this particular issue The second area is police recording. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon has raised the issue a number of times with me outside the Chamber, and he is right that we need to look carefully at the forces recording data at the moment, what they are learning from it and what impact it has, because the Law Commission was equivocal about the value of that recording. I am not convinced personally, and I would like to understand what impact it is having from a policing point of view The third area of work I would like to see is encouragement of reporting. One of the key things, whatever the offence type, is that we know a lot of women, particularly in the public realm, who are harassed do not have the confidence to come forward or do not think anything will happen if they do. I am pleased that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), is today launching an extensive communications campaign called "Enough", encouraging bystanders and peers to report this kind of behaviour to the police.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): I have listened with care to my right hon. Friend, and I accept what he says. I am encouraged by what he says about development of the law. May I press him on reporting and recording? As part of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 process, we undertook to ensure that recording was rolled out nationally. That was more than a year ago. For that to happen, there must be proper expedition on this. It is no good saying that there is not a particular offence on which the police can hang this recording. We need to get on with it, because the time is coming, sooner or later, when there will be a relevant offence, and I would rather that the Government were ahead of the pack rather than behind.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I completely agree with my right hon. and learned Friend, and I am as impatient as he is, not least because I am keen to kick off some analysis programmes looking at particular patterns of behaviour in particular postcodes. We men all know women who have been subject to this kind of abuse out in the public realm. My personal theory is that this sort of behaviour is not something a man does once. Much of this offending is repeated, and there are prolific offenders in particular neighbourhoods who could and should be identified, and they would be if we were better able to record it and had more transparency from a public order offence point of view. That is what we will be committing to do.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and he is absolutely right that we need to look carefully at the recording patterns and what they are telling forces such as Gloucestershire about how they can and should intervene in particular neighbourhoods. We then need to look to other forces exhibiting the same patterns of offending, but not necessarily recording it, so that we can act to spread this kind of practice more widely I am encouraged by my hon. Friend’s sense of cross-party enthusiasm for this issue. I know that some in the House—I am not sure necessarily anybody present here—would seek to make it a political issue, but as the person who devised and published the first ever violence against women and girls strategy in the entire country when I was deputy Mayor for policing at City Hall, I am proud of the work I have been able to do in this particular area over the past decade or so, and I hope I will do it for many years to come. This issue breaches all divides, because we are all sons, brothers, sisters, fathers—whatever it might be—and we all know people who have been subjected to this crime.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I completely sympathise with the hon. Gentleman’s sentiment. Having been in this House for nearly seven years, I have often realised that we mistake the introduction of legislation for actually doing something out there on the street. Although we can and should legislate to make things crimes and to better dispose of them, we actually need somebody to take off their bicycle clips, walk out of the office or station and do something different out there on the street to make those of us in society who feel unsafe—particularly, sadly, women and girls—feel safer We are trying to give concrete life to that through schemes such as the safer streets fund, where we are specifically spending money on public realm improvements, whether that is CCTV or better street lighting, in areas where women and girls feel unsafe. I hope that the huge increase in police numbers that we are seeing at the moment will see more uniforms out there on the street in those areas where women and girls feel unsafe. There are wider cultural issues that we also need to address. The hon. Gentleman is right to point out, however, that legislation will only take us so far and that what is required is action out there on the streets.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): The Law Commission report is unequivocal about the dangers that it may present. The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) is shaking her head, but the report’s conclusion says: "We recommend that sex or gender should not be added as a protected characteristic for the purposes of aggravated offences and enhanced sentencing." That is the specific recommendation in the report. The Law Commission has much greater and more skilled legal minds than mine, and other groups do not support the amendment I realise that the issue is of great importance to hon. Members, and we must all reflect on the feelings of insecurity that women and girls feel in the public realm, but we are being told by the experts—by the Law Commission—that the measure is likely to do more damage than good. That is not necessarily a substitute for us not doing anything and I have outlined what more we may do, but the point is that we have to listen to the experts. To be honest, I am quite surprised that a party led by a former Director of Public Prosecutions would seek to ignore the Law Commission.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I can appreciate the hon. Lady’s requirement for action. As I say, action is what we are trying to put in place. To be clear, again, we are not saying that the fact that we are declining to make this Lords amendment means that we should not do anything. As I said to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon, there are further offences that we need to consider In fact, the Law Commission’s report went further and said that if we were to introduce that offence, it would complement other work on offences that may be coming forward, such as cyber-flashing, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) has raised several times in the House; rape threats; and intimate image abuse. There are several areas where we need to consider interlocking offences, and that work will take time beyond this Bill to get right. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North urged us, we are committed to adopting both recommendations of the Law Commission, and that is exactly the work that we intend to do in the months to come.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Sara Alice Britcliffe (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the Minister agree that it is important for Opposition Members to understand what Rape Crisis England & Wales has said, which is that: "Rape prosecutions are already at an all-time low, and we believe adding sex/gender as a protected characteristic would further complicate the judicial process and make it even harder to secure convictions."?
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend has put her finger on the button of the problem. It is not that we are unsympathetic to the issue—of course we are not. I just do not see how, given the views of large organisations and of the Law Commission, somebody could, with any conscience, vote for something that they are being told might be damaging. I understand that the hon. Member for Walthamstow is exercised by the issue—as are all hon. Members present—but we hope to address it in other ways and to look seriously at the further offence that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon has urged us to look at and bring it forward in future.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): There are a number of definitional issues within the Lords amendment that produce fatal flaws, but I absolutely commend the spirit behind it. It comes from a good place and from a concern that we share. Given that legal expertise advises us against it and advises us to pursue another course, that is our intention and that is what we will do I turn now to Lords amendments 114 to 116, which relate to the piloting and national roll-out of serious violence reduction orders. I assure the House that we want to pilot them robustly, which is why the assessment of the pilot will be conducted by an independent evaluator and the Government will thoroughly consider the report’s findings before any decision is made to roll them out across the whole of England and Wales The report of the pilot will be laid before Parliament, but commencement regulations are not generally subject to any parliamentary procedure and the Government do not agree that that approach should be changed for SVROs. To assuage the concerns that have been raised in relation to the pilot, amendments (a) and (b) in lieu of Lords amendments 114 to 116 will set out in the Bill a non-exhaustive list of matters that must be addressed in the report of the pilot Lords amendments 141 and 142 seek to create two new offences to tackle so-called sex for rent. We are clear that exploitation through sex for rent has no place in our society and is a revolting phenomenon. We therefore fully understand the motivation behind these amendments. There are existing offences in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 that can and have been used to prosecute this practice successfully, but we do recognise the need to do more to stamp out this abhorrent practice and to support those at risk of exploitation.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. I cannot give her a definition as it stands, but I am happy to write to her about the scope of the consultation. If she wishes to make representations about the scope, I am sure we will take them into account. However, we are very focused on the notion of a specific offence, so my assumption is that the consultation will be relatively specific.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): We do believe that the online harms Bill will cover the vast majority of the offending where this is advertised, and I have to say that the vast majority of that these days does seem to be online. However, the hon. Member raises a very good point, and I will make sure that the team putting the consultation together consider whether we should include that in the scope of the consultation and if a further offence is needed.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): As I say, there are already offences being committed in those circumstances, and we have had successful prosecutions in exactly the circumstances the hon. Member outlines. Anybody who has been subjected to that kind of criminality should, I hope, feel in a position to report it. However, we need to look at whether there is scope for a more specific offence in this area, because at the moment some of the offending is dealt with through the prostitution legislation, which may not be entirely appropriate. The consultation that we will undertake before the summer recess will run for the normal period, and I hope we will then bring forward expedited legislation, possibly in the same vehicle in which we bring forward the further offences on street harassment. Let us see how we get on The other place has proposed some welcome improvements to the Bill, but it has also put forward some amendments that, while often well meaning and extremely well motivated, I am afraid we cannot commend to the House for the various reasons I have set out. I hope that the House will join me, as we support these various amendments, in sorting out what works and what does not, so that we can all move forward in this important area of policy.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Craig Whittaker (Conservative, Centre-right): Would the hon. Lady agree with me that introducing this will require an extra burden of proof to be established through the court process, which as a result may actually make things worse for those reporting a crime?
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Ruth Rosamond Edwards (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady talks about the importance of symbolism, and I agree with her. Is she concerned that if we were to accept an amendment that exempts domestic abuse and sexual offences from the aggravating element of misogyny, that would be a terrible message to send? They are some of the most serious crimes against women, yet they would be exempt from that aggravating factor in sentencing.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): On a small point of clarification, my right hon. Friend quite rightly referred to how the vast majority of spiking cases are about men spiking women’s drinks, and there is no question about that, but I am sure she recognises that some cases—I think in particular of the heinous case of Reynhard Sinaga, who was found guilty in Manchester of spiking and raping at least 48 victims man on man—are the other way.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Maria Frances Lewis Miller (Conservative, Centre-right): I am listening very closely to what the hon. Lady is saying, but the Law Commission was very clear in saying that this would make matters so much more complex, and it worries about how that would affect securing the sort of convictions that I know the hon. Lady and I want to see.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sorry, but the hon. Lady seems determined to have a fight about this and I really do not want one. She keeps referring to street lighting, but that is one of a suite of things that we need to do generally in the public realm regarding safety. For clarity, I of course acknowledge that there are offences that are motivated by misogyny—I say that clearly, as I did in my opening speech—but this requires a number of approaches and solutions. We are merely saying that the evidence that the Law Commission and other groups put before us is that this particular approach is likely to cause more harm than good. We have committed to look at the other areas that it has highlighted, particularly the crimes that are motivated by misogyny, which I read out from its report. I reassure hon. Members that we are duty-bound to respond to the Law Commission’s report in six months, and we will do so.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-28
Topic: Law and Crime
Alicia Alexandra Martha Kearns (Conservative, Centre-right): I recently had a conversation with a constituent who has introduced reporting of misogyny as a crime in Nottinghamshire, where she is a senior police officer. She says that it has progressively changed the culture. Does my hon. Friend agree that the culture may change in police forces when acts of misogyny are recorded at an earlier stage?