House of Commons Hansard Debates for 27 Jan 1997 (pt 8)

Mr. Maclean: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind words. He may be slightly confused about what I said or by my answer to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor).

27 Jan 1997 : Column 29

It is clear that those who are convicted in the United Kingdom of offences in schedule 1 will be required to register. Those who may be convicted of offences overseas would not be required to register. [Hon. Members: "Why not?"] That would be impossible. In most cases, we would not know whether people had been convicted overseas. In cases where someone had committed offences overseas that were tried in the UK under part II of the Bill, and the person was convicted in this country of offences committed overseas, the requirement to register would exist.

Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East): The Government are likely to be informed about offences committed overseas because, as the Minister well knows, most of the groundwork is performed by an international network of non-governmental organisations that would readily seek to protect children by providing the relevant evidence to the Government. Will the Government reconsider the matter, otherwise there will be a glaring loophole in the legislation?

Mr. Maclean: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman reconsiders the enormity of his suggestion. We operate--as does part II of the Bill--the dual criminality test. Everyone who is convicted by a British court of the relevant offences will be required to register. However, the hon. Gentleman suggests a haphazard registration system that would include those who might come to public attention because they had been convicted of an offence in a foreign country. I suspect that the vast bulk of such people would not have to register and that the British dual criminality test would not operate. People might be convicted in foreign countries of offences that are not recognised in British law and that are not compatible with our requirements. For instance, we all know that the age of consent differs between countries. It is a recipe for disaster.

Our prime duty at this stage is to deal with criminals who are convicted in this country of serious sexual offences--there are about 2,000 such cases a year. Once we get that system working correctly, I might be tempted to examine the radical extension that the hon. Gentleman proposes.

Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South): I appreciate the Minister's argument, but I press him to re-examine the matter even before we consider it in Committee. His proposal might send a signal to people who have such tendencies and who would be convicted in a British court to commit those offences abroad. I ask the Minister to reconsider his position.

Mr. Maclean: I am always happy to consider carefully the views expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House about an entirely non-political issue such as this. I shall examine carefully all the points that have been made. However, I think that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) focuses on only one narrow question. The Bill has two parts and the second part deals with sex tourists. We intend to introduce powers to prosecute people in this country for offences that they have committed overseas. I think that there will be few such prosecutions in this country, not because people will wish to be prosecuted overseas, but because of the difficulty in obtaining evidence. Britain has a very

27 Jan 1997 : Column 30

good record of extraditing those who have committed offences overseas, and we shall continue that practice provided that the normal rules are satisfied. Those involved then face tough penalties in the countries where the offences were committed.

Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley): I welcome the legislation because my first Adjournment debate in the House of Commons addressed the problem of sex tourism in Thailand. We must do all that we can to ensure that people do not escape the law in this country by perpetrating dreadful acts abroad. I urge my right hon. Friend to reconsider the case of someone who travels abroad and who is tried and convicted abroad of a serious sexual offence. Is it not better to catch some such paedophiles on the register in this country rather than saying, "Oh well, people will fall through the net, so we had better have none rather than some"?

Mr. Maclean: I am not sure how our obligations under the European Court of Human Rights would be affected by a provision that said, "We shall impose draconian conditions on those whom we know about but not upon those who have been convicted abroad but whose convictions have not come to our attention." That is not a sensible way to proceed legislatively.

If serious sexual criminals from this country are returned to foreign countries to stand trial, the National Criminal Intelligence Service will know about it. That organisation keeps tabs on such people, and it will notify the police if they return to this country after they have served their sentences. The National Criminal Intelligence Service performs a valuable liaison and intelligence role in keeping the police informed of the whereabouts of the most serious paedophiles and sexual offenders.

I am conscious of the fact that many hon. Members wish to speak in the debate, so I must make progress.

Clause 2 defines the nature of the notification requirement. Any change of name or address must be registered within 14 days, either by personal attendance at a police station or by written notice to the police. The Government intend to tighten the notification requirement in the light of further views put to us by the police, who have argued that in practice they will need fuller information, to ensure the proper identification of the offender furnishing the information.

We shall therefore be tabling an amendment to require a person to notify his name and address at the time of conviction, his last notified name and address, his date of birth and the information which he is notifying the police has changed. We shall also be requiring that notification be made to a police station in the police force area where the offender's address falls. That will remove unnecessary administrative burdens from the police and will be more effective in ensuring that the local force is the first to know.

Clause 3 makes failure to comply with the requirement, or false notification, a criminal offence. At present, the penalty is a fine of up to £1,000--that is level 3 on the standard scale--or up to one month's imprisonment, or both. Once again, we have reflected further in the light of views expressed since the Bill was published, from a number of bodies including those concerned with the protection of children, as well as the police. The penalty in the Bill was decided upon in the light of responses to the original consultation.

27 Jan 1997 : Column 31

We are now persuaded, however, that a more severe penalty would provide a more effective incentive in persuading offenders to comply with the registration requirement. We shall therefore be tabling an amendment to raise the maximum penalty to a period of imprisonment of up to six months or a fine of up to £5,000--that is level 5 on the standard scale--or both. We shall also table an amendment making it clear that the offence of failing to register, or false registration, is one that will continue to be triable beyond the normal six-month period for a summary offence.

I take the opportunity to thank those who have commented on the proposals set out in the Bill since it was published, enabling us to announce some sensible amendments even before the Bill is considered in Committee.

Clause 4 sets out certain provisions that relate to young offenders. The periods of registration that would otherwise be applicable, be they five, seven or 10 years, are halved for offenders under 18 years of age, and a custodial sentence cannot be imposed for non-compliance. In addition, the court has the power to direct that a parent or guardian should bear the responsibility for complying with the requirements if the offender is under 18, or under 16 in Scotland.

In some circumstances, the registration requirement will apply also to those convicted of relevant offences in the past. Those offenders still in contact with the criminal justice system--those in prison or on probation, for example--will be required to register. Those still in prison will be required to register after release if the period of registration from the date of their conviction for a qualifying offence still has time to run.

It would be a vast undertaking to track the many thousands who would be involved and then to calculate who should still be subject to registration having regard to the length of sentence originally imposed upon them. It would be a still greater exercise to subject all those persons to a fresh risk assessment, as some have suggested. We concluded that it would be impracticable to place such an obligation at large in that way.

Having examined the measures taken to protect children from sexual abuse in the United Kingdom, I come to the vile activities of British citizens and British residents who commit offences against children abroad.

Mr. Thurnham: Does the Minister agree that probably more than 50,000 previous offenders will not be within the terms of the Bill as constituted? It will be decades, therefore, before the register is of any use to anyone.

Mr. Maclean: I disagree with the last part of the hon. Gentleman's remarks. The register will be of immediate use when it is set up. It will contain over 2,000 names a year from England alone. The hon. Gentleman is right in the first part of his observations, however, in that there are likely to be about 50,000 people--that is, if we go back far enough--who have been convicted of a sexual offence. Some of those previously convicted may still be active paedophiles. Equally, many of them will no longer offend.

It would be impossible to track down those who have been convicted since 1956, when the Sexual Offences Act was introduced, or who were convicted before the war.

27 Jan 1997 : Column 32

Some people would be in their 60s or 70s. We would have to go way back in taking account of a 70-year-old, for example, who was convicted in the 1920s, 1930s or 1940s of certain offences that do not match current offences. Assuredly, some homosexual acts would be brought into consideration, committed with or without consent. We would have a dog's breakfast on our hands. We are talking of information that the police would find impossible to make sense of and to assimilate.

I am happy to listen to what the hon. Gentleman has to say if he wishes to explain in detail--that is, if he catches your eye, Madam Speaker--the report that appeared in the weekend press. On the basis of the information that he provided over the weekend, I do not think that it is practicable to try to track back every sex offender who passed through the United Kingdom's criminal justice system and then to subject those people to a new risk assessment.

It is of deep concern to the Government that people from this country are among those who travel to countries where child prostitution is rife and sexually abuse young children there. Parliament recently showed its commitment to addressing the particular problem of child sex tourism when it enacted the Sexual Offences (Conspiracy and Incitement) Act 1996. It recognised the importance of extending the jurisdiction of our courts over acts of conspiracy or incitement in the United Kingdom to commit sexual offences against children abroad.

The question of taking extra-territorial jurisdiction over the offences themselves presented the UK with some difficulties, and has required some pretty careful thought. The requirement of oral testimony and the right of the defence to cross-examine witnesses are central to criminal trials in this country, and it is, therefore, much more difficult for us than it is for many other countries to mount successful prosecutions for offences committed abroad. Nevertheless, it was right that the Government should have considered carefully the concerns expressed to us, and in the light of those concerns, we set up an interdepartmental review of extra-territorial jurisdiction to consider the general position.

That review, which reported in July last year, confirmed that considerable practical difficulties would be involved in obtaining sufficient evidence and witnesses from abroad, but concluded that some prosecutions could be successful in certain circumstances. In view of that, and the particularly serious and unpleasant nature of the offences concerned, the Government concluded that extra-territorial jurisdiction could be justified in this case.

Clause 7, therefore, makes it an offence in England and Wales or Northern Ireland to commit, in a country or territory outside the United Kingdom, the offences listed in schedule 2. For England and Wales and Northern Ireland, those will be the same as those covered by the Sexual Offences (Conspiracy and Incitement) Act 1996, which include rape, sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of 16, buggery, and indecent assault on a child. In addition, the major child pornography offences will be covered.

The clause applies to offences committed by British citizens and residents of the United Kingdom.

The jurisdiction of the courts would be extended in that way only where the conduct concerned was a criminal offence both in the United Kingdom jurisdiction and in the territory of the state where it was committed. That is

27 Jan 1997 : Column 33

the so-called dual criminality test, and it is an important safeguard. We in this Parliament rightly consider that it is our function to pass laws that apply in the territory of the United Kingdom. We would take great exception if the law-making body of another country attempted to pass laws that would apply here. Equally, therefore, we must not attempt to export our laws overseas. The dual criminality test avoids that trap. The Bill provides that the test is to be taken as satisfied unless the defence shows grounds for believing that it is not so satisfied; in which case, it is a matter for the courts to decide.