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Lady Olga Maitland: When the hon. Gentleman goes to Strasbourg, will he raise with his colleagues the issue of extra-territorial jurisdiction? Can the hon. Gentleman tell the House how other countries are working on that issue?
Mr. Cox: The hon. Lady makes an important point. Many of the points that she has made in her interventions have been raised by many other hon. Members. I did not table any amendments to the Bill, but I sympathised very much with the feelings of other hon. Members that what was proposed did not go far enough. I will come on to the points that the hon. Lady has raised. Next Friday, I will chair the congress's session and I will certainly seek to raise her points.
The Council of Europe and UNICEF regard the conference as very important. Senior politicians from European countries will attend, as will senior officers from Interpol. UNICEF officers will attend from the United States and a senior judge of the European Court of Human Rights will attend and speak. That shows the great importance that is attached to the conference.
Many of the subjects that the hon. Member for Hendon, South has raised on Second Reading, in Committee and today are connected to the issues that we will discuss next week. The sessions of the conference will cover
The Minister of State has an opportunity today to give the House some idea of the Government's involvement in the conference. I am sure that we are all pleased that the Bill is in no way a party issue. Sadly, we often destroy good private Members' Bills, irrespective of who has introduced them, because party politics come into play. Thankfully, that has not happened to the Bill so far, and I do not intend to do that today. The Bill is far too important for anyone to indulge in that kind of behaviour, but it is important that we learn what attitude the Government will take to the conference next week.
Hon. Members have spoken today about the ways in which information is now circulated. I remember the impressive speech made on Second Reading by the right hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Alison), who has made one or two interventions this morning. No doubt he will speak later if he catches your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman outlined the type of information and publicity that is sent out by companies, and I was delighted to learn from the hon. Member for Hendon, South that, after comments made on Second Reading, one company decided that enough was enough and that it could not continue to operate. I hope that we will hear about more such decisions by such companies.
We have also heard about the Internet. Many of us have some idea of how it works, but the extent of the power base now being established must concern all hon. Members.
In our previous debate, the Minister fairly answered interventions and outlined the real difficulties that face Britain and other countries trying to take action, but which are restricted by current laws. I hope that this Bill is but the first of many that will help to overcome that problem.
Item 10 on today's Order Paper is the Second Reading of the Sexual Offences against Children (Registers of Offenders) Bill, to be introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Ms Anderson). I hope that there will be some progress with that Bill because it ties in closely with this Bill and the efforts of the hon. Member for Hendon, South. When I speak to those who work with young children, such as probation officers, the police and UNICEF, they say that a register would provide them with a wide base from which to operate against offenders. Although that Bill will not be reached today, I hope that, when it comes before the House in the coming weeks, it will be given a fair chance of progress.
Madam Deputy Speaker:
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I must remind him of the rule that Third Reading debates deal with the contents of the Bill before the House.
Mr. Cox:
I fully accept your comments, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I will not pursue my point. I simply wished to draw the attention of the House to the fact that we will shortly discuss another Bill that is relevant to the Bill that we are discussing.
Mr. Michael:
Several times during the passage of the Bill, hon. Members have paid tribute to the work done by my hon. Friend, on our behalf, in the international arena. It is important to know what image we present on this Bill and wider. Is the United Kingdom seen as being active enough in the area in which my hon. Friend plays a leading role in debate?
Mr. Cox:
My hon. Friend's question is interesting. I have already referred to the two-day conference in Strasbourg next week. That has been in the making for a long time; it was not a thought that suddenly popped into someone's mind a month ago. I have the provisional agenda for the conference, and I regret to say that it appears that no British Minister will attend.
Mr. Maclean:
No Minister will attend the conference next week because it is a planning meeting for civil servants. The Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Kirkhope), will attend the conference proper at Stockholm in August, and he will play a leading role.
Mr. Cox:
I had intended to question the Minister on that point, so I am delighted to hear his assurance that a Minister will attend the Stockholm conference. I do not want to pursue the matter at great length, but I must point out that senior Ministers from other countries will attend the conference in Strasbourg next week. I referred to the Stockholm conference on Second Reading. I shall attend as the Council of Europe representative.
Delegates' speeches, which give a clear outline of Governments' thinking on any issue, are important, but so are the informal discussions and meetings that take place. At Stockholm in August and, I hope, in Strasbourg next week, the important points raised by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) will be dealt with, not only in the papers presented by speakers but in informal discussions among colleagues from all countries.
Mr. Maclean:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. He has been kind and even-handed in
Mr. Cox:
I readily join the Minister in congratulating and appreciating the work of the NCIS. I am delighted that Britain is in the forefront of such work. However, other countries are also deeply involved. All countries need to put proper machinery into operation. That is why a senior official from Interpol will attend the conference at Strasbourg next week.
Mr. David Evans (Welwyn Hatfield):
I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) on bringing the Bill before the House.
I was tempted to make a modest contribution by what my right hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Alison) said on Second Reading:
The Bill deals with a disturbing aspect of late 20th century society--the increase in the sex trade, and in particular paedophilia, which I describe as child molesting.
Only recently, society has received a stark reminder of the behaviour of paedophiles. Although Thomas Hamilton, who was responsible for the Dunblane massacre, was not a convicted paedophile, he has been linked to a paedophile ring. Tightening the laws surrounding paedophiles is a must. Police superintendents in England and Wales want convicted paedophiles to be forced to notify the authorities when they change their name or address so that they cannot slip back into society under an assumed identity and subject other youngsters to abuse.
The House should support the Bill. It should certainly refrain from indulging in arguments about the rights of perverts. It is important that we view paedophilia and paedophiles in context, always remembering that the civil liberties of children must come before those of paedophiles. How often, to our extreme frustration and that of the general public, do judges and magistrates seem to favour the criminal, and victims feel that the punishment did not fit the crime? I very much hope that, when a paedophile is committed to prison for a life sentence, it is a life sentence.
People say to me, "He killed my daughter because he was drunk and driving his car. His sentence was to lose his licence for three years, and two years' probation." The sentence should have been 15 years in prison, because, in my book, he committed murder. Or I hear people say, "He raped my daughter, but the judge said, 'Send him on a holiday, the girl will soon get over it.'" Yes, we are now tackling the problem with longer prison sentences, but will the judges give the maximum sentence?
Why not castrate paedophiles and rapists straight away? Then the taxpayer would not have to foot the bill, and there would be more room in prisons for other offenders. In my view, convicted paedophiles should suffer the same fate as rapists.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South seeks to make it an offence to conspire to commit, or incite a person to commit, certain sexual acts with children abroad. The focus of the Bill is on stopping those who operate in the evil world of sexual exploitation of children, and limiting the opportunities of any would-be participants. As the country's lawmakers, we cannot simply turn a blind eye to the organisations which operate outside the United Kingdom, and arrange for financial benefit trips to third-world countries for men to violate children.
It is important that we as Members of Parliament send a strong signal to society that such behaviour will not be tolerated. That signal should not merely restrict the trade but end it completely.
To date, the Government have transformed the legal position in England and Wales with a series of tough new controls on videos, indecent displays, sex shops and child pornography. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary's Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which proved so controversial, introduced measures designed to tighten enforcement of the obscene publications legislation, including provisions to extend and clarify the law to cover simulated child pornography manufactured and stored on computer, ensure that improper transmissions were covered by the Obscene Publications Act 1959, and give the police new powers to arrest without warrant those who dealt in obscene material, and new powers of search and seizure.
"sexual exploitation, pornography and prostitution of, and trafficking in, children and young adults".
"You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, almost certainly agree that nearly every aspect of the sexual abuse and molestation of children is shocking, and often unimaginably shocking. It is sometimes too painful even to bear contemplation. I think of the picture of the child chained to a bed and burnt to death in a massage parlour that was incinerated, by accident or by design, in an Asian country. That is what the police found. There is an almost unimaginably horrific dimension to the abuse of children, but that is what we are dealing with. Our motivation for sitting on comfortable green Benches on a Friday, with spring approaching, in an advanced western country, is the thought of that child chained to a bed and burnt to death."--[Official Report, 2 February 1996; Vol. 270, c. 1238.]
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