Tackling Stalking

13:58:00

First and foremost, Madam Deputy Speaker, I must apologise, for myself and on behalf of the Government, and I am sure that your words, spoken on behalf of Mr Speaker, have been heard by all. With permission, I will make a statement on the action that this Government will take to improve the response to stalking. Depression, anxiety, fear, trouble sleeping and loss of confidence. These are just some of the ways that stalking can ruin lives. Victims are subjected to an onslaught of psychological and emotional terror that can go on for months or years. And even if the perpetrator is caught and the stalking comes to an end, the impact of being tormented day after day and night after night persists. For many victims, it never leaves them. I am sure the whole House will agree that it is unacceptable for anyone to suffer in this way. This is a serious threat, and one that affects a substantial proportion of the population. According to the latest statistics, in England and Wales, one in seven people over 16 has been a victim of stalking at least once in their lifetime. Alas, I think that the statistics would be even higher in this House. Given the scale and impact of these crimes, it is right that we ask ourselves whether enough is being done to stop them and, when they occur, whether we are responding effectively. I am afraid that the answer on both counts is no. In September, following a joint investigation, His Majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary, the Independent Office for Police Conduct and the College of Policing published a report in response to a super-complaint on stalking made by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust. The report found “significant changes are needed to improve the police response”. I have heard first-hand accounts of stalking victims who have not been listened to, or who have even been told that they should be “flattered” by their stalker’s actions. This is totally unacceptable, and it has to change. The report on the super-complaint made nine recommendations to the Government, and today I will update the House on the actions we intend to take in response. We will introduce a power to issue multi-agency statutory guidance on stalking, which will set out for the first time a robust framework for how frontline professionals should define stalking and better work together. We will review stalking legislation to determine whether and how the law can be changed. And we will improve our understanding of the operation of the current law by publishing more data on stalking offences. We will also make good on our manifesto commitment to give victims the right to know who their online stalker is. The House may be surprised to hear that victims do not already have this right. The broadcaster and activist Nicola Thorp told me about how she was stalked and abused online by a stranger whose identity she did not know. Her stalker set up almost 30 social media accounts to send her a constant stream of violent and misogynistic messages. Her ordeal was made worse when she was told by the police that, although they knew who her stalker was, they could not tell her, even after he was arrested. Nicola had to continue living with that fear, looking over her shoulder and not knowing whether the person near her was her stalker, until she finally saw him in court. That is not right, and she is not the only victim to have endured this. Nicola is with us today, and I pay tribute to her activism for change. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) who, unfortunately, is busy chairing the Foreign Affairs Committee. She heard about Nicola’s story when we were in opposition, and she worked with her to develop a new policy that is coming to fruition today. Inspired by Nicola, and with thanks to my right hon. Friend, the Government will introduce statutory “right to know” guidance that will set out the process by which the police should release identifying information about anonymous stalking perpetrators to victims. We are also acting to ensure that the risk posed by perpetrators is managed, and that the causes of their behaviour are addressed. We will legislate to enable the courts to impose stalking protection orders, of their own volition, which can impose restrictions and positive requirements on those who pose a risk, on conviction and on acquittal. These orders are currently available only where the police make an application to the magistrates court. And we will publish national standards for stalking perpetrator programmes that seek to engage with perpetrators to address the behaviours that are leading to stalking offences. This will help to ensure these programmes are evidence-based and consistent. Taken together, our package will strengthen the system so that victims have the protection they need and the support they deserve. I have seen at first hand the good work being done in some forces. I recently visited Cheshire constabulary, which has a multidisciplinary team of police, psychologists and probation officers working effectively together. We need to see all forces taking this sort of action. We will ensure that stalkers are robustly targeted, with effective arrangements in place to address the root causes of their behaviour, like in Cheshire. And we will respond to concerns that frontline professionals’ understanding of stalking is still not where it needs to be, and that stalking legislation may not be working as intended. These are important first steps, but I emphasise to the House that we are in this for the duration, because only through a sustained effort will we achieve the change that is so badly needed. Before I finish, I pay tribute to organisations such as the Suzy Lamplugh Trust and the wider National Stalking Consortium, and to brave victims like Nicola who have spoken out and campaigned for change. Their tenacity and persistence have been instrumental in getting us to this point, and I am grateful to them for all that they have done and continue to do. We will work closely with them and other key partners as we progress our mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. Through that mission, we will show stalkers and other offenders that they have nowhere to hide. We will stand with victims and survivors so that they know that they are not alone. We will work relentlessly to give everyone the peace of mind they deserve as they go about their lives, whether they are at home, online or anywhere else. Our streets belong to the law-abiding majority, and under this Government they always will. I commend this statement to the House.

I call the shadow Minister.

14:05:00

I thank the Minister for her statement, and for advance sight of it. We welcome the Government’s announcement on stalking and remain committed to working with Members across the House to do everything we can to tackle violence against women and girls. I pay tribute to Nicola Thorp for sharing her experiences, which are harrowing to hear. I cannot even imagine the fear and worry that she will have gone through during this ordeal. Speaking up takes a great deal of courage, and I cannot thank her enough for bringing this situation to light. I also thank the Minister for all she has done throughout her career to ensure that women and girls who have encountered violence of all kinds receive the support and care they need. I also pay tribute to her for speaking up about her own experiences as a victim of stalking. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) said in a previous debate, we must also discuss the role of men in these incidents, as the evidence shows that men are more likely to be the perpetrators of violence against women and girls. Furthermore, we must not forget the large number of male victims, who overwhelmingly experience violence at the hands of other men too. The previous Government made real progress on this issue. We launched our tackling violence against women and girls strategy to increase support for victims. We elevated violence against women and girls to a crime type that police leaders must treat as a national threat. We ensured that victims can always access professional support. We doubled the maximum sentence for stalkers from five to 10 years, keeping behind bars for longer those who devastate their victims’ lives. We also made stalking a specific offence, to ensure that women and girls are protected and to show beyond doubt that stalking is a crime. We know that the most harmful illegal online content disproportionately affects women and girls, and that is why the Online Safety Act 2023 requires platforms to proactively tackle illegal content such as harassment, stalking, controlling or coercive behaviour, extreme pornography and revenge pornography. It is not right that victims have to live in fear because they are not allowed to know who their stalker is, so I welcome the Government’s announcement that the police will be able to reveal the identity of online stalkers under the new “right to know” powers. I am pleased that the courts will be able to impose stalking protection orders directly at conviction or on acquittal, if there is enough evidence to suggest that there is still a risk to the victim. We also welcome the announcement that multi-agency statutory guidance on stalking will be introduced so that professionals know how better to work together to tackle this issue. We know, however, that there is still much more to do to tackle not only the crime of stalking but violence against women and girls. I welcome the Government’s pledge to halve the rate of violence against women and girls in a decade, as it is a significant target. The Minister has confirmed that the Government are still working towards this target, but will she confirm that the target has not disappeared from the Government’s priorities? Could she also set out what metrics will be used for measuring the rate of violence against women and girls and, therefore, the Government’s success against the target? Members across the House, and people across society, must work together to stop violence against women and girls. We welcome the Government’s actions on stalking, and we want to work with them to eradicate this crime once and for all.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support and the tone in which he has approached the issue. I do not know where the idea that the Government have dropped their mission to halve violence against women and girls has come from, so I will say as clearly as I can: it is still the mission of the Government to halve violence against women and girls within a decade. That mission is not something that only the Home Secretary and I fought for, with people rolling their eyes at us; it comes right from the top, from the Prime Minister. The subject is an obsession of his, so the mission has not gone away and the hon. Gentleman need not worry. On how we will measure the success of our mission, the prevalence of violence against women and girls is currently measured by the crime survey for England and Wales. That will be our key headline metric for measuring the ambition to halve VAWG. The Office for National Statistics is producing a combined violence against women and girls prevalence measure that will include domestic abuse, sexual assault and stalking, because the data is not necessarily collected like that at the moment. There will be not just a headline metric but many metrics and tests sitting underneath it, such as for female homicide, femicide, repeat domestic abuse victims and the prevalence of sexual harassment, which will inform a suite of measures. The hon. Gentleman is right that the previous Government’s efforts in the House and on the statute book were not without care or attention to violence against women and girls, but the difference that that made on the streets is questionable. We need robust measures to ensure that the nice words that we write on goatskin actually mean something.

I welcome the Minister’s statement, but the simple act of blocking on social media can incentivise a determined stalker, creating huge levels of vulnerability, violation, fear and loss of control for their target, or even multiple targets. Social media provides the perfect disguise. Who knows if their stalker is sitting on their phone around the corner or tapping on a computer on the other side of the world? Will the Minister advise me on the work that she is doing with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology on that very important matter?

To be completely clear, what is illegal offline is also illegal online. Today, the Government are announcing how we will make stalking protection orders more robust. Such orders can be used to tackle online stalking as much as any other type of stalking. The Online Safety Act includes stalking offences in the list of specified priority offences. As my hon. Friend says, in Nicola Thorp’s case, her stalker thought the cloak of anonymity would protect him. The tech companies have the capability to identify such people, but we need to ensure that they are working with the police, and that the police are working with the victim, so that everybody can be kept safe.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement, which I welcome. Stalking is a horrific crime that impacts every aspect of the victim’s life, threatening their mental health, wellbeing and, all too often, their physical safety. Far too many people, in particular women and girls, face that pervasive threat, so I welcome the developments that the Minister has announced today, particularly around improving the police response to stalking. That will be vital for rebuilding women’s trust in policing. Sadly, I have first-hand experience of the topic. From my own knowledge, the police can find it easier to deal with such crimes via harassment legislation, rather than stalking legislation. Police often assume that the perpetrator is a former partner when the conditions of a restraining order are breached, for example, thereby failing to recognise the wide range of circumstances that can lead to these frightening situations. We should not take a one-size-fits-all approach to stalking, because that could leave a legal hole for victims when the stalking is not related to domestic abuse or a previous relationship. I would welcome some more detail from the Minister on whether the Government’s plan will include better training for police officers and 999 call handlers to ensure that when a stalking victim comes forward, the response is always sensitive, effective and personalised. It is right that the Minister is considering how best we can hold perpetrators to account, so I would welcome further details on how she is working with the Ministry of Justice to tackle the Conservatives’ legacy of criminal court backlogs, which will be the only way to truly ensure that stalking victims get the swift justice they deserve. No woman should face the fear of being targeted by a stalker, and it is absolutely right that we work across the House to make that a reality.

The hon. Lady is exactly right about a lack of faith in resources, which is exactly what led to the super-complaint being made. She is right that there is a 60:40 split between non-stranger stalking, including after previous domestic abuse or a relationship, and other stalking. We have to get it right for people who have experienced either type of stalking, because the experience is the same. The National Police Chiefs’ Council is engaging with 43 police forces to co-ordinate the response to the recommendations of the super-complaint. Police chiefs are required to publish an action plan setting out how they will respond; some have already done so. I pay massive tribute to Cheshire and to the Met, which has an amazing multi-agency system. I will be monitoring forces’ progress to ensure they respond. We will be reviewing the offences in sections 2A and 4A of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. As the hon. Lady rightly points out, those offences sit within harassment legislation. As somebody who has brought a number of harassment charges, I know that sometimes the charge that appears on the sheet does not feel like the one of which I have been the victim.

I thank the Minister for her statement, which will be welcome news to any victim of stalking. I thank her for her relentless work on the issue, which I know has personally affected her. I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) for all her work on the matter. My local police force will welcome the news in the statement. I will be out with my local police on Monday evening, on a walk with women and girls, with the aim of reducing violence and enabling women to talk about their experiences of violence and stalking. The measures set out by the Minister will be welcome news to everybody in my constituency of North Warwickshire and Bedworth.

Speaking as someone who is local to North Warwickshire and Bedworth—well, local by the standards of the House—it is very pleasant to hear my hon. Friend’s accent, which is not too dissimilar to mine. I look forward to working with police forces across the country to ensure that the right service is available to all victims of stalking the first time they come forward, whether they are male or female, as the shadow Minister pointed out. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend and any Member of the House who also wishes to take part.

I congratulate the Minister on taking office. Will she elaborate on what the root of the problem is when it comes to not knowing who is doing electronic stalking or harassment? Does the main problem lie with the internet companies, or does it lie with the police, who sometimes think that privacy is such an absolute right that misbehaviour does not vitiate it?

I suspect the truth lies somewhere in between. In Nicola’s case, the police were able to find out information about the stalker from a series of anonymous accounts, some of which were pretending to be women, but the problem arose because of privacy, as the right hon. Gentleman suggests. Police forces are worried about being bogged down in red tape, so what we will put on the statute book, in statutory guidance, is essentially a power flowing from the Home Secretary to tell police forces that they can provide information, because in such circumstances safeguarding is a perfectly legitimate reason to override privacy.

The victims of stalking will know that intense, unsettling feeling, whether that is as they pass through a dimly lit underpass and feel someone following them or when they are being followed online. I thank the Minister for highlighting the importance of tackling stalking wherever it takes place. Will she outline how the new “right to know” guidance will reassure and empower victims and help protect them from further abuse?

From speaking to many victims, I know that stalking causes a lack of peace of mind. Other forms of violence against women and girls are all equally bad, but there is something deeply psychological about being stalked and feeling as if you have to change your behaviour and go to different places. The right to know who a stalker is, first and foremost, is about being able to rule out people a victim knows. Most women in our country know that they are more likely to be abused by somebody they know, so they would be second-guessing all the time and being driven further mad by the anonymity of that stalker. Even without any justice outcome, therefore, empowering those women and giving them back power and control over the situation is a gift of something that has been taken from them.

I thank the Minister for bringing the statement to the House today. I am sure she will join me in thanking a local charity, My Sisters’ House, which supports women in Chichester and Bognor specifically with relationship breakdown stalking, among other things. As its staff said to me when I spoke to them, anything that puts the rights of victims above the rights of abusers is a positive step in the right direction. The Minister cites the great example of Cheshire constabulary, which is setting a leading standard in its approach to the protection and welfare of victims. She also recognised that we need to see all forces taking that sort of action. However, with each police force acting independently and priorities being set by police and crime commissioners, how will she ensure that victims do not experience a postcode lottery in the support they receive?

The hon. Lady points out something very pertinent. I often like dealing with Scotland because there is one police force. I am not suggesting that for England, and nor are the Government, just to be clear—I worry that civil servants might be writing down some of the things I say. The hon. Lady makes a very good point. Having really good police forces and really good sexual violence responses in Avon and Somerset is no good to the people of Birmingham, is it? It cannot carry on in that way. One thing that has to be done, as part of the Government’s mission to end violence against women and girls and halve it within a decade, is to look at how we deal with police standards and monitor exactly what police forces are doing. It feels a little bit like the centre has taken its eye off the ball on that in the past number of years. We will not solve the problem if we start having a great service in urban areas but people are still left wanting in Chichester and other places.

I welcome today’s statement. I think the House can agree that there is no better champion to deliver on this issue for those who desperately need it than my hon. Friend the Minister. A constituent of mine has raised a harrowing case of stalking, whereby the perpetrator, in order to avoid justice, has simply fled the country, yet the stalking continues. Does the Minister agree that borders cannot be a barrier to justice on this issue and will she meet me to discuss that specific case?

I absolutely will meet my hon. Friend. I have dealt with many extraterritorial cases in the space of violence against women and girls in my time as a Member of Parliament, so I am more than happy to try to help in any way that I can on that case. On borders, under the Online Safety Act, if it is illegal here but is not happening here, it is still illegal. It does not matter where in the world it is happening.

I call Liz Saville Roberts.

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Dirprwy Lefarydd. I welcome the measures announced today. I also want to take the opportunity to pay tribute to Rhianon Bragg, who I understand the Minister has met. She has been a tireless campaigner, in spite of extraordinary and horrific experiences. I also pay tribute to the Suzy Lamplugh Trust and its work. I welcome what the Minister said about Cheshire constabulary; I visited the unit there. Specifically in Wales, for us to be able to establish multi-agency units within police forces, we will have to recognise that part of the membership, such as the psychologists, will be funded at a devolved level through health. Can she assure me that that will be possible for the four forces in Wales?

First of all, I must pay tribute to Rhianon. If Members of the House are not aware of her case, what she has been through is harrowing and she continues to campaign. We pay such tribute to all those who speak up to try to make things better for other women, even if in their cases that ship has sailed. That is an amazing thing. I want to assure the right hon. Lady that there should be nothing stopping the same multi-agency situations happening in Wales any more than anywhere else where local health authorities give out funding. We will never solve the issue of violence against women and girls unless every part of Government, including at delegated, local level, takes responsibility. That is certainly a postcode lottery at the moment.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her statement and for discussing the broader issues with hon. Members in a Westminster Hall debate last week. Women and girls will have seen from today and previous efforts that they have a dedicated champion in the Minister. There have been several important announcements by the Government in recent days to tackle violence against women and girls, which is obviously perpetrated mainly by men. Can the Minister set out any further details about how the Government are working across Departments to drive down those despicable crimes and embed a culture of taking action wherever we can?

I am mindful that sat here on the Front Bench with me now is the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Rushanara Ali). She has frequently attended meetings alongside us in the Home Office to discuss how local authorities and housing interact with the lives of victims of domestic abuse and those fleeing other forms of abuse and violence. Government Departments working together on this issue should no longer just be about a piece of paper that gets written. There has to be firm commitment, and it has to come from the very top. In the last urgent question today, we heard about a previous Prime Minister’s commitment to tackling modern slavery, which led to a world-leading change in that space. That was because it came from the centre. I can assure my hon. Friend that, from the very centre of this Government, there is a desire to make sure that we get this into the mainstream of every Government Department—although I am struggling to make this about fish and fisheries, but I will find a way.

I welcome the proposals. I was talking to a constituent earlier today who feels that the family courts are not only enabling her ex-partner to continue abusing her, including following and harassing her, but are undermining the criminal case against her former partner. Will the Minister commit to looking at the role of the family courts in cases where the perpetrator is a former partner so that we can build on the proposals to better support people in those situations?

I thank the hon. Member for her question. First, let me pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), who is my equivalent in the Ministry of Justice, which leads on the family courts. All I can say about the family courts, which came up in the very first mission board with regard to violence against women and girls, is that we will not solve the issues of domestic abuse or child abuse in our country—we will not go anywhere near to solving them—unless we look at those family courts.

I welcome the Minister’s statement. In 2021, a young woman was killed by her stalker in Derbyshire—I will not mention her by name in this House because, given the urgent nature of this statement, I have not had the opportunity to reach out to her family. It was found that she had reported the stalker to the police. The inquest found a number of missed opportunities to take action against that person. Is it is possible to have a means of capturing when things have gone wrong—in public bodies or in the police—and embedding that as a means of driving improvement elsewhere? Furthermore, online providers and social media companies are failing in this space. Will she use her weight to tell them to get their house in order, and if they do not, can we legislate for it?

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I give him credit for the sensitivity that he showed in dealing with that case in his constituency. It is very important that we always seek the consent of a victim or a victim’s family. That does not always happen in this place. On his first point, I am not sure about the case that he cites, but the I am happy to talk to him about it. In the case of a death of an intimate partner or a previous intimate partner, there would normally be a domestic homicide review, but that would not necessarily happen in the case of a murder by a stranger, where stalking was involved, although it could. This is about how we deal with the findings of a domestic homicide review or a serious case review. Like many people, I am a bit sick of hearing the words “lessons will be learned” over and again, and then find that the same lesson has to be learned by the same local area just three years later. How we use the findings of those reviews to change things is definitely something that we will focus on. I will use all of my weight—however diminished it might be—to ensure that our online tech companies are on board with the safeguarding that we require.

For far too long, stalking victims have been let down by a fragmented and inadequate legal framework. The current system, which separates stalking into multiple offences, places an unbearable burden on victims to gather and present their own evidence to secure the harsher penalties under section 4A of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. This creates the concept of a perfect victim—those forced to meticulously prove the devastating toll that stalking has taken on their lives before justice is served. Although I am encouraged by the review of stalking legislation that is being conducted, will the Minister confirm that this will also consider the pros and cons of creating a stand-alone stalking offence, which would help to ensure that victims are protected and that perpetrators are held accountable without forcing victims to prove their worthiness of justice?

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The thrust of the super-complaint was not dissimilar to what he suggests. He is absolutely right about the confusion between a 2A and 4A offence and the element of proof that a victim has to provide, often in front of the perpetrator, who can find it quite delicious to hear how awful things have been for the victim. We will work with all the stalking organisations and the brilliant Victims’ Commissioner in London to make sure that, when we look at the legislation, those things are all taken into account.

I welcome these tough new measures against stalkers and the protections for victims. Before I was elected to this place, I ran domestic abuse services, so I must confess to feeling a little irked by the shadow Minister, who tried to sow seeds of doubt about the Government’s commitment to tackling violence against women and girls, particularly as this new measure is being introduced in the House. I hope that it was a throwaway comment, rather than the start of a sustained campaign against the Government. I want to ask about the importance of bringing together public bodies. We know that there must be an integration of criminal justice services, third sector organisations and support services. Will the Minister outline how, at a local level, these measures will lead to the integration of those responses?

I thank my hon. Friend for the opportunity to once again say, “I am not sure where that has come from,” but I am always happy to dispel it—I love the idea that anybody could question our commitment, or certainly my commitment. Not that I think the shadow Minister was doing that. On the multi-agency statutory guidance, local areas will have a duty to bear it in mind. Some Members here today have visited the amazing services in Cheshire. What we need to do is to show the absolute benefits of that approach to local areas and to local health service providers specifically with regard to the psychological services that are required in the system. Properly run multi-agency services in this space always make a difference. But, as somebody who has sat on many multi-agency services over the past 14 years, as my hon. Friend has, I have seen many partners leave the table as a result of the years of austerity.

I call Tim Roca for the final question.

I was glad to hear the good work of Cheshire police being commended in my area. May I also put on record my admiration for Nicola Thorp? Her terrifying ordeal at the hands of a man who had created 30 online accounts to stalk and abuse her should shock all of us. As we come to the end of the statement, may I ask the Minister to join me in paying tribute to her?

I would be absolutely delighted to do so. I consider Nicola to be my friend now, but the first time that I had ever heard of her was on the Petitions Committee in this House. It was my late, dear friend, Jo Cox, who had called me up to say, “We all have to come to work wearing flat shoes,” not recognising that I always wear flat shoes. This was because Nicola had started a protest about being forced, as a woman, to wear high heels in her temporary job. This was not Nicola’s first endeavour in activism, and I am absolutely certain that it will not be her last. She inspired Jo Cox, who inspired many of us, and so I pay absolute tribute to her.