House of Commons Hansard Debates for 30 Apr 1993

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Michael Jack) : I endorse the wise advice from the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) to the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen).

My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes) gave a correct interpretation of the way in which the Bill is drafted when he referred to section 44 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956. All pieces of legislation borrow from previous legislation to ensure consistency. The Bill has done the same in order that the legal world is in no doubt, according to current definitions, as to its exact intent. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) spoke at length about the problem of definition. All of us who are not lawyers understand his argument about the need for clarity. The abolition of the presumption that young men under 14 are incapable of intercourse, however, was considered as part of the final report of the Criminal Law Revision Committee, which reported in 1984 on this matter.

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Although that committee felt that the issue of presumption was a key part of its recommendations, the question of definition did not form part of its substantive decision to recommend that the abolition of presumption should be subject to a parallel change. My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow has followed the committee's recommendations carefully when drafting the Bill. As a result, I urge the hon. Member for Leyton to withdraw his amendment.

Mr. Wells : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his explanation of the curious wording in the Bill. Does he agree that accepting recommendations from the Criminal Law Revision Committee is a hazardous business, especially when we consider the effect of the amendments introduced under the Criminal Justice Act 1991 in magistrates courts and others? It is unwise simply to accept recommendations from such a committee. I urge my hon. Friend to reconsider his acceptance of its recommendations.

Mr. Jack : I shall not trespass into issues connected with the Criminal Justice Act 1991, much as many hon. Members may want me to do so. No one disagreed with the recommendations of that particular report, which were widely considered. That committee would be the first to admit that not all its recommendations meet with such approval. With that in mind, I urge the hon. Member for Leyton, as other hon. Members have done, to withdraw his amendment.

Mr. Cohen : I note what has been said, but I have great sympathy with the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) who said that we should legislate clearly and mean what we say and say what we mean. We should amend section 44 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956. I note what my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) said about the possibility of this matter being considered in another place. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Cohen : I beg to move amendment No. 2, in page 1, leave out lines 9 and 10 and insert--

(2) This Act shall come into force on such date as the Secretary of State may by order made by statutory instrument appoint.'.

Madam Deputy Speaker : With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments : No. 3 in page 1, clause 2, leave out lines 9 and 10.

No. 4, in page 1, clause 2, leave out line 11.

Mr. Cohen : The amendment would give the Home Office time to consider the implications of the Bill and whether any follow-up measures are necessary.

The hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) was right to ask whether the criminal law was the right means to deal with this matter and spoke about the need for counselling. We should remember that we are dealing with children between the ages of 10 and 14 and that counselling is needed for the victim and the perpetrator. The Home Office should consider such implications rather than just let the Bill go through.

We must consider whether the Bill will tilt power more towards the police as opposed to youth agencies, social services and social workers. Is the Bill more about punishment than reform and help? Branding young people as criminals has a disproportionate effect on them, as we

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know from the high rate of suicide among young people in prison. Such a label will affect children in later life. There is a lot of hysteria about youth crime but we should not be caught up in it. We should consider the matter seriously.

The Bill will come into force two months after its enactment, but time should be given to consider its implications and definitions. We must consider whether other changes can sensibly be made to this part of the law.

Lady Olga Maitland : Once the Bill is enacted, it should come into force right away. I do not believe that there is any necessity to wait two months. The public will expect us to get on with it. Why should young offenders be allowed to get away with such awful crimes? They are awful and serious crimes. Why should the perpetrators be allowed to get away with them for another two months?

There is growing public awareness of the scale of the crimes among young people. Parliament would open itself to ridicule if it were not seen to deal with the problem straight away. If it were seen to hesitate, it could make the public wonder how serious Parliament was about the issue. A difficult position could arise. What would happen if there were a horrible attack within the two months period which received saturation press coverage--such as the tragic case of little James Bulger? Would not Parliament look stupid if it were crippled by its own Act and could not take action immediately?

There is much concern about tackling the issues in the public domain. There is a feeling that young people are too precocious and believe that they can get away with their actions because society has created a climate in which all forms of violent sex are permitted. The Bill is an excellent way for the Government to be seen to take direct action and respond immediately.

The Bill is not an attempt to be hostile ; we are not trying to pick on naughty or mischievous children. There is no danger of such children being brought to court by mistake. We must ensure that the prosecution has to prove that the accused boy clearly understands that what he did was seriously wrong. There is no excuse for any sexual offence. Such offences are not caused by material deprivation ; tragically, the perpetrators of such crimes seem to come from broken homes where there has been a moral breakdown rather than a material breakdown. Society would now support the idea of taking a stiffer approach.

Mr. Wells : Can my hon. Friend give any evidence to support her assertion that such activity is particularly prevalent among children who come from broken homes? I believe that it takes place at all levels of society and is carried out by those from all sorts of homes.

Lady Olga Maitland : Yes, the activity happens at all levels of society, but there is evidence--I cannot cite examples now as I do not have the sources to hand--to show that those from broken homes, where there are no benchmarks of social and sexual behaviour and a sort of "anything goes" attitude, display a prevalence for a violent approach to sex because the children do not receive parental guidance. Tragically, the perpetrators of violent sex are often young people who have themselves been sexually abused.

Mr. Merchant : I can assist my hon. Friend by assuring her that all the recent studies on sexual abuse of children have shown that it is much more prevalent when the

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parents have been abused. That fact cross feeds into sexual offences. There is a clear, identifiable current running through the cases. I am not denying that it happens elsewhere, but the majority of cases display those characteristics. I hope that my hon. Friend agrees that the Bill will help to identify those involved in the problem at an earlier age, which must be in the interests of all those concerned-- victims and offenders.

Lady Olga Maitland rose --

Madam Deputy Speaker : Before the hon. Lady continues, I should remind her that this is not a Third Reading debate. We are considering specific amendments, and the discussion must relate to them more closely.

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Lady Olga Maitland : I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for that guidance. The comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant) are appropriate because we are trying to analyse why it is crucial to legislate now. My hon. Friend rightly said that it was important to analyse why the cases occur. I totally support his view that the children who have been abused often have parents who have been abused. I remember another tragic case that came before me in which the mother had been abused and her parents had been abused. It was a family of abuse in which a culture of violence had grown up which the children took on.

It is important that the Bill should be given a swift passage, not merely through its parliamentary procedure, but into law. The cases that have come to light are worrying. In 1989, 287 boys were cautioned for indecent assault on females--rape, which means penetrative sex. Proceedings went ahead in another 37 cases ; 25 of the defendants were found guilty.

Earlier in the debate there was discussion about indecent assault on males- -homosexual acts. The related figures are that in 1989 proceedings went ahead in three cases and all the defendants were found guilty. Some 29 males were cautioned. I agree with the school of thought that such offences are not on the same scale as those involving heterosexual sex, but they must be taken into account. I am not straying wide of the mark, Madam Deputy Speaker, but trying to emphasise the urgency of the matter. The figures rose in 1990. There were 47 proceedings involving sexual assaults-- which we should now call rape--on females, and 26 of the defendants were found guilty. However, a much higher number were cautioned : 245. There were four proceedings which went ahead involving males assaulting males, and two defendants were found guilty. It is important to note that there was a considerable increase in the number of those cautioned, which rose to 44.

The latest figures for 1991 show the urgency of the issue. In 1991, 46 young men faced proceedings for indecent assault on

females--rape--of which 23 were found guilty ; and, overall, 225 were cautioned. There were three proceedings which went ahead involving indecent assaults on males--male rape--and two defendants were found guilty. There were 43 cautions. Therefore, the figures are going up, not down. We cannot afford to allow any time to elapse.

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When we consider some of the cases that have come to light, we realise how urgent the matter is. In 1990, Sir William Shelton, a former very respected Member of the House, introduced a private Member's Bill which included a clause to abolish the presumption, but the Bill was talked out at its Report stage because hon. Members opposed another clause referring to kerb crawling. That was a pity, because important issues were at stake.

In the Second Reading debate on the Bill, the then Home Office Minister, now the Secretary of State for Education, made some observations. He pointed out the importance of realising the serious nature of what is going on, citing the case of a four-year-old victim who was handicapped and epileptic--raped by a boy next door aged 13. Another case concerned a victim who was only five ; and in another, the victim, aged 10, was gang raped while visiting friends. Some 13-year-old boys dragged her upstairs and raped her. Finally, there was the sickening case of a multiple attack on a married women in her late 20s, a mother of three, by schoolboy rapists, all of whom were under 14 years old. And let us not forget the recent case of the schoolteacher who was violently attacked by a schoolboy.

For all those reasons, I do not think that there is any time to waste.

Mr. Anthony Coombs (Wyre Forest) : I hear what my hon. Friend says, but she tends to miss the point about what is missing from the Bill. If this Bill were passed, many of the 225 cases of indecent assault on females dealt with in 1991-92 would have been re-categorised in the courts as rape, and no additional penalties would have been available as a result. I would expect that none of the 46 people who were proceeded against in the courts as a result of those acts of rape would have been given a custodial sentence--and most people in Britain would find that horrendous.

Lady Olga Maitland : I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. Unfortunately, the courts dealing with children in these cases often pass the responsibility for them back to the social services and local authorities. The latter can decide whether to put a child into a children's home or whether to recommend that the child goes to a secure unit. Local authorities should make far greater use of secure units, the more so since I know that they have enormous facilities in those units. That would help the child, who is clearly the victim of his own illness, and society, because people would then know that something was being done.

Mr. Nigel Evans : We are talking about rape, which is an horrendous act. Does my hon. Friend agree that, when the legislation covering juvenile offences comes before this Chamber, it should take account of children aged 14 and below who commit rape and who may therefore be properly punished? As has been pointed out, the law does not allow for that at present.

Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. We must be careful ; we are going wide of the amendments, which relate mainly to the timing of the operation.

Lady Olga Maitland : The timing of the operation is what my hon. Friend is talking about--hence the urgency of his remarks. He is quite right to say that much more attention should be given to the sentences that children serve.

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I believe that it is urgent that we implement this measure. Society will support it ; indeed, society believes that we have been too lax for too long. Now is the time to put that right.

Mr. Wells : The more I hear about the Bill, the less I like it. It is clear to me that we need time for reflection before it is put into effect. In particular, we need to think about the Bill's ramifications and its effect on other laws relating to juvenile sentencing of the children who, if the Bill is passed, will be accused of criminal acts and then "punished" for them. That is a serious thing to do to children.

The point that I have been trying to make has not yet been answered. In my layman's reading of the Bill, it seems to apply to all sexual offences, not just to rape. Lawyers may be able to interpret it as applying only to rape, but it says that it is about sexual offences : to a layman, that means all sexual offences. I am sure that lawyers, using medieval and arcane arguments, will be able to claim that the Bill covers only rape, even though that is not what it says. If they say that, I shall have to accept it. The fact remains, however, that none of the horrific cases or the increase in the number of such cases adduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) would have been affected by the enactment of the Bill. The only result will be the criminalisation of under -age sex, and there will be no proper provision for the children involved and no attempt to correct their behaviour so that they can grow into well- balanced adults who are unlikely to undertake such activities again. The Home Office will have to think these matters through carefully and sensitively.

In recent years, the Home Office has all too often taken precipitate action on recommendations made to it by the great and the good. We have not benefited from that, and at times the law has been made to look an ass.

Mr. Couchman : I share my hon. Friend's concern that we should not take precipitate action on the Bill or enact it without due care and attention. We have indeed passed some dreadful laws on the spur of the moment, such as those affecting dangerous dogs and football supporters, among others. I am, however, worried about my hon. Friend's thinking about whether it is right to punish people under 14 years of age. My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes) has said time and again that the Bill is about the crime of rape--penetrative sex--not about minor experimentation. It is about serious crime, and serious crime must be seen to be punished. One of the great weaknesses of the Bill--I hope to say more about this in a lengthy contribution on Third Reading--is that it provides no more deterrence or punishment than current law already provides for.

Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. Before the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) continues, I must caution the House that we are getting off the point again. This group of amendments concerns when the Act shall come into force, but the arguments that I hear are more about whether we should pass the Bill at all.

Mr. Wells : My argument is that we should be careful about implementing the Bill within two months of enactment. I agree with the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen), who wants some time to elapse in which Ministers can reflect and take advice before implementation, to

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make sure that the Bill has no unexpected side effects on other laws or other ways of treating people who will be considered to offend under the Act.

Mr Hayes : My hon. Friend has asked a question, and although I am a member of the Bar and have practised as such for many years, I will give him an answer in simple, laymen's terms. Crime is like baking a cake ; before we can make a cake one has to have the necessary ingredients. The ingredients for the crime of rape are that there has to be sexual intercourse. The definition of sexual intercourse is full penetrative sex. The Bill therefore tidies up the anomaly surrounding one of the ingredients of the offence--sexual intercourse. Without the one, the other cannot exist.

Mr. Wells : All hon. Members are capable of reading clause 1 which states :

"The presumption of criminal law that a boy under the age of fourteen is incapable of sexual intercourse (whether natural or unnatural) is hereby abolished."

Sexual intercourse is not rape ; it is an enjoyable affair between two consenting people, usually male and female. If it were rape, we should be guilty of it every hour of the day and night. [Interruption.] That is what the Bill says and the lawyers who abound among us have not refuted that.

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I am trying to speak exactly in line with the amendment which I commend to the House because it gives time for reflection. This is over-hasty legislation which we shall regret. My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman) spoke about punishment and the intent of the Bill. Punishment for sexual offences, especially those involving young people, deserves careful investigation and thought. If offenders are placed in social services homes, their predilection to engage in violent sex or sex of all kinds will be encouraged. Criminalising such activities by the young would enhance and reinforce their attraction. The House must decide what to do with such people so that they will grow into well-balanced, non-violent people who will make a constructive contribution to the life of the country.

Mr. Michael : There was some disgraceful trivialisation in parts of the speech by the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells). The Bill is so simple and contains such common-sense improvements that I am surprised that we are taking so long over it. I am tempted to the unworthy thought that the sudden interest by Conservative Members in the minutiae of the likely effect of the Bill might have something to do with their opposition to the Medicines Information Bill, which seeks to protect ordinary people and end secrecy in the pharmaceutical industry about the development and sale of drugs. That Bill should be debated this morning.

Mr. Couchman : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman to impugn the integrity of Conservative Members who are interested in an important if brief Bill? It is the very brevity of the Bill which worries some of us.

Madam Deputy Speaker : It would be unduly sensitive to pay too much attention to such remarks. I hope that hon. Members will keep to the point.

note the embarrassment of Conservative Members.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) called for a sense of urgency. I agree, because it is wrong that the anomaly in the law was not put right by the Government years ago. Now that we have the opportunity to put it right, thanks to the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes), we should take it seriously and make sure that we get the legislation right.

We should not rush. I am opposed to retrospective legislation and have opposed it when it has been introduced by the Government. That bad practice is contained in one of the amendments in the group, and we should not go down that road. The issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) are important. There is a need for counselling and preventive work and we must recognise the serious problems and tackle the type of cases about which the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam spoke. However, the problems are not triggered by the Bill ; nor is the need for counselling and prevention, because that exists now. The problem is that the task is given to voluntary organisations in the social work sector and statutory bodies which are stretched past sensible limits, bearing in mind the seriousness of the issues.

My hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), who is with me on the Front Bench this morning, and other colleagues in Labour's health and social services team are very concerned about these issues, which we take seriously. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge the nature of the problem that my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton has highlighted. I also hope that the Minister will undertake to speak to his right hon. Friends in the Health Department and in Departments dealing with social services and local government to try to ensure an improvement in the help and counselling that are available for victims and offenders, so that they may be prevented from further ruining their lives and creating more victims. We should not try to do too much with the Bill and I hope that there is no suggestion of delaying its implementation until all the facilities are in place, because I suspect that we would have to wait rather longer than we would be happy about. I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton not to press his amendment because it would place in the hands of the Minister the power to delay the implementation of the legislation. That is what makes me uneasy about the amendment.

Mr. Nigel Evans : I have never been accused of being overly sensitive, but the accusation by the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) that hon. Members are debating this issue only because they wish to delay another Bill is scandalous. We are debating the Bill because we are deeply interested in it. It has been said that the Bill is over-hasty, but that cannot be the case, because a similar Bill was introduced in 1990 and was talked out by the hon. Member for Brent East (Mr. Livingstone). I agree that the legislation is important and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) said, it should be introduced as soon as possible. If there needs to be a delay

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of two months to ensure that everything is in its place and that the legislation is properly enacted, so be it, but there should be as little delay as possible.

No doubt other Bills will need to follow this one. As soon as it is enacted, we should look carefully at the Bill on juvenile offences that has been mentioned by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary. He has said that he wishes to introduce such a Bill as soon as parliamentary time allows. I hope that Opposition Members will ensure that time is made available so that that Bill can be debated as soon as possible.

Mr. Michael : The hon. Gentleman should not be so naive as to think that a statement by the Home Secretary that he wishes to bring Bills to the House quickly is as simple as meets the eye. There is a Criminal Justice Bill before the House this Session and there was one two years ago and they both missed all sorts of important matters that should have been considered by the House. A wish to present a Bill is not enough. The hon. Gentleman should not be so naive as to think that we have missed the fact that the Bill that we are considering took 20 minutes in Committee and so far has been debated here for one hour and 38 minutes.

Mr. Evans : I am neither naive nor sensitive. I look forward to the support of Opposition Members when a juvenile offences Bill comes before the House. It seems that we are considered guilty whatever we do. If we do not debate legislation, we are said to be over-hasty and failing to give it due consideration. If we do debate it, we are accused of being ponderous and attempting to talk the Bill out.

Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. There is a third point--the offence of being irrelevant.

Mr. Evans : I am not sure, Madam Deputy Speaker, who you are accusing of being irrelevant. If it is me, I stand before you guilty on that count.

As soon as the Bill can be enacted, the better--but I hope that there will be all-party support for ensuring that the right legislation is put on the statute book, so that those found guilty of rape--which is deemed an extremely serious offence in this country--are dealt with properly.

Mr. Hayes : I have known the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) far too long to be the slightest bit upset by him. As one of the few people--apart from you, Madam Deputy Speaker--who regularly sees the hon. Gentleman with hardly any clothes on, nothing surprises me. In case there is any misunderstanding, I shall explain that that happens in the gymnasium.

In case my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) has not decided to withdraw her amendment, perhaps I may persuade her to do so. It is a general principle that a statute--particularly one dealing with criminal offences--affects only factual situations arising during the period of its operation. My hon. Friend's amendment goes against that principle by allowing the statute to be retrospective.

The fact that the Bill would not be retrospective does not mean that young boys who commit sexual offences covered by it would not be brought before the courts--although it is true that most of the offences of which they could be convicted would be indecent assault. I am not

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persuaded that it would be in the best interests of justice to do as my hon. Friend suggests, and I ask her to withdraw her amendment at the appropriate time.

Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. An amendment that has not been moved cannot be withdrawn. Only one amendment is moved at a time.

Mr. Hayes : I sympathise with the amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam and of the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen). The hon. Gentleman is saying, "Hang on for a moment. We do not want to rush things. There are many other matters to be considered. Sentencing is not being dealt with at this stage and other legislation must be taken into account." My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam is saying, "This is a very serious offence and those guilty of it should be dealt with straight away." I understand both points of view, but the matter must be put into perspective.

The offences in question are most serious. Figures for the five years from 1987 to 1991 show that nearly 215 boys aged between 10 and 13 were prosecuted for indecent assault on a female, and 1,260 were cautioned. Over the same period, 21 offenders were proceeded against for an indecent assault on a male and 187 were cautioned. In some of those cases--one cannot say precisely how many--there will have been penetration, and a charge of indecent assault would have been viewed by the victims as something of a euphemism.

Mr. Wells : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Will you clarify which amendment is under consideration? My understanding is that we are debating only amendment No. 2, in the name of the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen), which states :

"This Act shall come into force on such date as the Secretary of State may by order made by statutory instrument appoint." Is that correct?

Madam Deputy Speaker : What the hon. Gentleman says is correct but not complete. Two other amendments which have a slightly different import are under consideration.

11.15 am

Mr. Hayes : I am dealing with all the amendments in the most even- handed way that I can. As you said, Madam Deputy Speaker, the three amendments are grouped.

My hon. Friends the Members for Sutton and Cheam and for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) argue that the offence must be placed on the statute book as quickly as possible because something must be done. Something is being done. It is not as though the young people who commit such offences cannot be dealt with by the police and the courts--they can. The argument behind the Bill is that those offenders are being dealt with in an absurd fashion- -that the crime of which they are convicted does not reflect the gravity of the actual offence.

I ask my hon. Friends to remember also that the police and the courts are under a tremendous burden in dealing with the legislation that the House pumps out like a sausage machine with great regularity. As Opposition Members pointed out, some of it is not as good and accurate as we would like. It would be only right and proper to give the authorities two months to understand precisely the purpose of the legislation. That is not a great

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length of time--particularly as the young people concerned, although mercifully there will not be many of them, must be dealt with by the police.

I acknowledge also the point made by the hon. Member for Leyton, which was similar to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest. The Bill does not address sentencing because we must wait for my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary to bring other legislation before the House. It would be wrong to delay clear and simple legislation such as the Bill on account of the sentencing aspect, when we know that will be appropriately dealt with at the correct time.

Mr. Anthony Coombs : We hope so.

Mr. Hayes : We all hope that will be so, and it will be for hon. Members on both sides of the House to rectify many of the mistakes for which we must all share responsibility. After all, we voted for the legislation.

Mr. Wells : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene during the middle of his peroration. He has not yet answered my point as to why he claims that the Bill refers only to rape and not to any other form of sexual intercourse.

Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. It would not be appropriate to deal with that point under this set of amendments.

Mr. Hayes : I am guided by you in these matters, Madam Deputy Speaker. I should love to debate that point with my hon. Friend. Given the number of interventions he made, perhaps he owes me a very large lunch today, and we could discuss the matter then.

I ask the hon. Member for Leyton to consider withdrawing his amendment in the interests of speed.

Mr. Cohen : I intend to withdraw my amendment, but I shall briefly make a couple of points. The hon. Members for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) and for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) attacked my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) for talking out a Bill in the last Parliament, but that Bill addressed a completely different issue. It sought to deal with kerb-crawling and to create more offences of prostitution, which my hon. Friend opposed. It did not concern itself with children, as does the Bill now before us. I share many of the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells), who made several genuine points. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam also made a good point when she said that children who abuse were often abused themselves, as were their parents. That makes the case for counselling and help, yet the hon. Lady did not argue that point. She spoke only of locking up young offenders in secure units. More attention should be given to providing counselling and other help.

Lady Olga Maitland : Of course children who come from families with a history of abuse and who themselves commit offences of abuse against others need counselling, but where children are accused of rape--we are trying to define that--they should receive the appropriate sentence. At that age, I hope that they will also receive counselling.

Mr. Cohen : I have made my point. The point has also been made that it will not be sufficient just to pass the Bill. Implications will automatically flow from it. The Minister

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cannot just wash his hands of it and say that after it is passed he will not have to worry about any of the implications. Having made my point, however, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Order for Third Reading read.

11.20 am

Mr. Hayes : I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) suggested, from a sedentary position, that these proceedings are a filibuster. May I say both to him and to the hon. Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice), who has introduced some very important legislation which I sincerely hope will be considered by the House today, that when the Sexual Offences Bill came before the House on Second Reading it went through on the nod, simply because of lack of time. Therefore, it is important to have a full debate now. This is not a trivial piece of legislation. It deals with juvenile crime.

Mr. Giles Radice (Durham, North) : I do not, of course, accuse the hon. Gentleman of anything, but he appears to have something of a guilty conscience. As far as I know, he broadly supports my Bill--but perhaps he wants virtue, though not just yet. It is true that there was no Second Reading debate, but I understand that in Committee the proceedings were so controversial that they went through in 20 minutes.

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