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7.22 pm

Ms Janet Anderson (Rossendale and Darwen): I wish to start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), the Home Secretary and everyone who has contributed to the debate for their gracious comments about my attempts earlier this year to try to do something about the important issue of stalking. I also wish to place on record the fact that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn made clear, we support the Bill and are anxious to see it on the statute book as quickly as possible.

The hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Griffiths), who is not in his place, referred to men being stalked. He is right; and I have corresponded with a number of men who have been stalked. The problem is predominantly faced by women, but I notice that, in The Independent the other day, there was a letter from a woman who was being stalked by another woman. Clearly the crime is no respecter of gender.

My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) spoke about the extent of agreement on the Bill, and I endorse his comments. It is welcome when we

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are able to co-operate across the Floor of the House, and I am sure that the public would welcome it if we did it a bit more often. My hon. Friend is well known for his long interest in the private security industry. He has continued to press for regulation of that industry, as recommended by the Home Affairs Select Committee, which is chaired by the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence). We hope that, one day, the Government will introduce such regulation.

The hon. and learned Member for Burton gave me much encouragement in my efforts, and I am grateful. I learned much from him when I was a member of the Select Committee that he chairs so expertly, but he referred disingenuously to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn as causing mischief. I can assure him that that was not the intention of my hon. Friend. There is still some concern that the Bill will cause problems for journalists. I have a copy of a letter from the Guild of Editors, which states:

"The Guild remains concerned at the ease with which the Bill's provisions could be used to curb the media rather than protect the victims of stalking."

May I say to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mrs. Maddock)--who has temporarily left her place--how much I welcome her party's support for action to tackle stalking, which seemed to appear at its recent annual conference. The hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Allason) mentioned the problem of neighbours. He might like to read the proposals of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn in our "Quiet Life" document, which would tackle the neighbour problems of which he spoke.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) spoke, rightly, of the need for greater detail and stricter definition. None of us could have failed to be moved by his horrific tale about the case in his constituency. Like him, I hope that women will be encouraged to go to the police and to complain as a result of this and, I hope, future legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) spoke about private Members' Bills and how they have sometimes managed to reach the statute book with the right spirit of cross-party co-operation. I could not agree more with what he said.

It is unusual, but welcome, that, in a Chamber so dominated by men, we should debate an issue of serious concern to women. The Police Federation estimates that 3,000 people fall victim to stalkers every year and that the overwhelming majority of them are women. As with domestic violence--also largely a crime committed by men against women--there has perhaps been a reluctance for too long to address the menace of stalking.

I am sure that those witnessing the debate today, especially the victims of stalkers, wonder why it has taken so long to get round to doing anything about a problem that causes such misery to thousands of women. Women have seen their relationships torn apart and their children taken into care because they have suffered such enormous psychological damage that they can no longer cope. Women have been made afraid to venture out alone and too frightened to pick up the telephone. Women's lives have been left in tatters by the torment they have suffered at the hands of stalkers.

Each year, the women on the Opposition Benches try to mark International Women's Day by highlighting issues of concern to women. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ms Coffey) secured a slot for a ten-minute

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Bill in March. In a spirit that I suspect is more common among Labour Members than Conservative, she asked me to use it to introduce a Bill to combat stalking. That Bill, as we know, was blocked by the Government on 10 May. I recently asked the Home Secretary why the Government felt that any differences between us about the contents of my Bill could not have been resolved in Committee. He replied that

"there was no time and there would not have been full and proper consultation."--[Official Report, 28 October 1996; Vol. 284, c. 336.]

However, it has taken the Government a full nine months to come forward with their proposals.

If a week is a long time in politics, nine months must have seemed like an eternity for the victims of stalkers. As for consultation, the Home Secretary and his colleagues know that we consulted widely on my Bill before it was published. We took advice from the police, from lawyers who had been involved in stalking cases, from the Home Secretary's officials at the Home Office--at the express invitation of the Minister of State--from the Lord Chancellor, from the Suzy Lamplugh Trust and from the national anti-stalking and harassment campaign. Most important, we consulted the victims of stalkers. We even consulted Conservative Members, and I have their replies in front of me. The hon. and learned Member for Burton made a number of suggestions that we were careful to include in the final draft.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) wrote to me on 2 May, commenting on the draft Bill that I had sent her. She said:

"Dear Janet, Thank you for your note re: Stalking. It looks fine to me!"

In his letter to me of 4 May, the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Sir M. Shersby) said :

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your draft Bill on stalking. I think this is a very good effort and provides a very good basis for discussion with the Minister at the Home Office."

What did the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean), say about the Bill, for he too was sent a draft of it on 22 April, two weeks before it was published? He declined to comment until the eve of the Second Reading--no doubt he was consulting. He said that he regretted that the scope of my Bill was "too wide". He continued:

"It could mean that innocent people going about their lawful business would find themselves branded as criminals."

He also said:

"I do not think there is a political difference between us."

Is he not aware that it is widely believed that a political difference prevented the Government from working with us nine months ago to provide relief for the victims of stalking?

It is also widely believed that the Home Secretary could not stomach the idea of backing a Labour Bill. The hon. Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Bates), the duty Government Whip, was moved to shout, "Object," on 10 May to block our Stalking Bill. He has now received his reward and stepped neatly into the ministerial shoes of the dissembling hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts).

Mr. Peter Luff (Worcester): That is not worthy of the hon. Lady.

Ms Anderson: If the hon. Gentleman listens, he might learn something. The hon. Member for Havant truly learned the lesson: "Never put in writing what you would not wish to see reprinted on the front page of The Sun."

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We cannot know how many victims could have been helped sooner. In the absence of a specific anti-stalking law, it has been difficult for victims to seek redress other than through charges such as grievous bodily harm. That has inevitably taken up hours of the courts' time while lawyers argued that the charge covered psychological harm. It worked in the case of Peri Southall, who was stalked by Clarence Morris; he was found guilty. It worked also for Tracy Sant, who had endured three years of mental torture during a campaign of harassment and intimidation by Anthony Burstow, but it took five days of tortuous legal wrangling to get a conviction.

It did not work for Margaret Bent, who was allegedly stalked by Dennis Chambers during an unrelenting four-year campaign that began simply after he saw her in the street. Dennis Chambers, who offered no defence to the charge of causing Miss Bent grievous bodily harm, walked free and Margaret Bent faced the added ordeal of being cross-examined by Chambers, who chose to defend himself. It is no wonder that Margaret's mother was moved to say:

"I hope the judge and the jury some day experience what I have experienced with my daughter. He made her life a hell for four years, not only hers but everyone in her family and her friends".

Margaret Bent is one woman who might have been sleeping easier in her bed tonight if something had been done sooner to help the victims of stalking. However, the stalking menace was ideal for the kind of action that the Home Secretary likes to unveil at Conservative party conferences--and that is what he did.

Mr. Maclean: This is unnecessary and stupid.

Ms Anderson: If the Minister will be more patient, he will understand my reasons for repeating the Home Secretary's words. At the party conference, the right hon. and learned Gentleman said:

"There is one group of offenders from whom the public needs special protection. Stalkers. They can make a woman's life a misery . . . Terrified prisoners of someone else's obsession. We need quick and effective remedies for the less serious cases. And tough sanctions for the most serious. And today I can announce that we shall have them. Women deserve that protection . . . And I will make sure they get it."

The explanatory note for editors, appended to the Home Secretary's speech, clearly stated:

"The Government proposes to deal with the menace of stalking through a combination of civil and criminal remedies".

We could have been forgiven for believing that the much-trumpeted commitment would be included in the Queen's Speech--that the Government might keep their promise and bring forward their own legislation--but no, the measure was consigned to a private Member's Bill.

How strange it is that what could not be achieved by a private Member's Bill many months before would now be tackled in precisely that manner. Only when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition showed his readiness to put party politics aside, was the Prime Minister forced to concede that the Government would introduce their own legislation. I suspect that that was as much a surprise for the Home Secretary as it was for us.

At last we have the Bill before us today. In May, the Home Secretary said:

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"the Government had been preparing its own legislation to counter the menace of stalking for some time".

He described my Bill as, "rushed, botched and unworkable" but, in the end, he has brought forward a Bill that is remarkably similar. In May, the Home Secretary said:

"as soon as we are satisfied that we have a workable definition of the crime, we will legislate".

Surprisingly, he has now introduced a Bill with practically no definition at all. Seemingly any activity that a court "reasonably" decides is harassment is just that, and if a court thinks that certain activities were causing fear of violence, they were. Ministers claimed that our definition was unworkable, but theirs is virtually non-existent.

There can be no clearer example of the Opposition leading where the Government have failed to act. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition famously said, he leads his party--in contrast to the Prime Minister, who follows his. On guns, knives, paedophiles, criminally anti-social neighbours and stalking, Labour has led the way. I am sure that the lesson is not lost on a country that looks increasingly to the Opposition for constructive law and order solutions.

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