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PROCEDURE (FUTURE TAXATION)
Resolved,
Queen's recommendation having been signified--
Resolved,
Dawn Primarolo accordingly presented a Bill to grant certain duties, to alter other duties, and to amend the law relating to the National Debt and the Public Revenue, and to make further provision in connection with Finance: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed [Bill 37].
Mr. Eddie O'Hara (Knowsley, South):
In this short debate--[Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin):
Order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could wait a few moments. Will hon. Members leave the Chamber quietly, because there is an Adjournment debate?
Mr. O'Hara:
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
In this short debate, I shall call for changes in the law relating to paedophilia to deal with an intolerable situation that occurred recently in my constituency. A person with a long history of convictions for offences against children, who had been detained under the Mental Health Act 1983, was about to be discharged back into the community. The local police announced that they were powerless to take action against him unless and until he committed another arrestable offence. The public reaction was one of outrage: there were public demonstrations and protests, petitions and direct action in the form of vigilante attacks against known and suspected child sex abusers.
I can understand such reactions. Few offences rouse such basic, even primitive, instincts of fear, revulsion, protectiveness and lust for vengeance as sexual abuse of children. Commonly, people respond to child sex abuse through their hearts and stomachs, whereas the legislature--and I as a Member of this legislative assembly and as protector of my constituents' interests--must respond with a cool head. If current law is inadequate to protect my constituents' interests, I must seek improvements to enable it to do so effectively and in a fitting manner for a civilised society.
I shall confine myself to examining the case that occurred in my constituency and to drawing lessons from it. I shall describe the incident in more detail. The paedophile in question has a case history dating back to 1979, when, at the age of 25, he was gaoled for three years for assaulting a nine-year-old girl in Leicester. In 1984, he was again gaoled for attacking a 14-year-old girl in a home in St. Helens, Lancashire. In 1990, he was sentenced yet again; this time to nine years for the rape of a 10-year-old girl in Manchester.
In December 1996, he was released from that sentence, and returned to live in Manchester. Initially, he maintained regular contact with probation officers. In April 1997, he arrived in Huyton in my constituency and took up residence in a hostel for homeless men. By that time, he had changed his name to the one by which he is now known.
The man gave false information about himself to the management of the hostel, but, fortunately, perhaps due to his limited intelligence, he was apparently unable to sustain the deceit, and thus very soon revealed to the management of the hostel some details of his case history. Contact was made with the probation service in Manchester, which confirmed that he was a predatory paedophile. The Knowsley social services and the local police were informed, schools were alerted and he was kept under surveillance.
News of the man's existence leaked out and there was growing concern in the community, but the police at that time had no justification to intervene on him. The justification came when the police were alerted to the fact that he was abroad in the community with a bag of colouring books and pens with which evidently he wanted to lure a child. He was arrested for a breach of the peace and, subsequently, under the Mental Health Act, detained in a psychiatric unit for the statutory 28 days. In that psychiatric unit, he was diagnosed as a psychopathic paedophile, and as such not amenable to treatment. He was thus free under mental health law to discharge himself into the community after the 28 days had elapsed. It was at that point that the local police made their public announcement that they were powerless to act until he committed another arrestable offence, which was, of course, when there was a public outcry from my constituents.
The public response has taken many forms. There has been direct action in the form of vigilante attacks. They cannot be condoned, but they have a bearing on another approach to the problem--one that attracts wide public sympathy. That is the demand for a United Kingdom version of Megan's law, which is adopted in a number of states in the United States of America. Where this law is in force, there is full disclosure to the public of the identity of any sex offender who has taken up residence in a locality.
A register of known sex offenders is to be compiled in the course of implementation of the Sex Offenders Act 1997, which received Royal Assent in March. My hon. Friend the Minister has, I understand, given full assurance that that register will be compiled without delay. Full disclosure is, however, not necessarily the best way to use such a register.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, speaking on behalf also of the Children's Charities Consortium, offers a number of arguments against full disclosure. First, it encourages vigilantism, and the presumption in a law-abiding society is that that should be discouraged. Secondly, it may discourage offenders from registering and drive them underground, thus making the task of the police and other agencies more difficult. It is worth noting that the Huyton paedophile, if I may call him such for ease of reference, changed his name and gave false information to the hostel in Huyton.
Thirdly, where the abuse is within a family, public notification will have an adverse effect on the welfare of the child and of other innocent family members. Fourthly, where the abuse is not within the family, public disclosure may undermine the struggle of the family to rebuild their lives at a time when what they most need is support.
On the other hand, the NSPCC and the Children's Charities Consortium believe that the police should have the discretion by law to make information about specific offenders available to social services departments, education departments, health authorities and other relevant agencies, but that only in exceptional circumstances should disclosure be made to the public.
It is interesting to note that the Police Superintendents Association of England and Wales is also against general disclosure of a paedophile's identity and whereabouts, because of the risk to public order, and that the Association of Chief Police Officers also feels that
wide-scale public notification would be fraught with dangers and should be considered only in very special and specific circumstances.
That, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the practice of the House relating to the matters which may be included in Finance Bills, any Finance Bill of the present Session may contain the following provisions taking effect in a future year--
(a) provision relating to income tax relief for interest payments;
(b) provision in relation to distributions received by charities and persons to whom section 507 or 508 of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 applies;
(c) provision relating to tax credits;
(d) provision relating to the taxation of dividends and other distributions of companies;
(e) provision for or in connection with varying the rate at which tax is charged under or by virtue of sections 249 and 421 of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988;
(f) provision for and in connection with the abolition of foreign income dividends;
(g) provision for interest on gilt-edged securities to be paid without deduction of income tax;
(h) provision for tax to be deducted on the payment of public revenue dividends mentioned in section 118G(3) or (7) of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988; and
(i) provision substituting "August" for "May" in section 246(2)(b) of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988.
That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session relating to finance, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of amounts which, by virtue of that Act, are payable to charities and persons to whom section 507 or 508 of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 applies in respect of distributions received by them.
Bill ordered to be brought in upon the foregoing resolutions: And that the Chairman of Ways and Means, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Secretary Prescott, Mr. Secretary Straw, Mr. Secretary Blunkett, Secretary Margaret Beckett, Mr. Secretary Dobson, Secretary Harriet Harman, Mr. Alistair Darling, Mr. Geoffrey Robinson, Mrs. Helen Liddell and Dawn Primarolo do prepare and bring it in.
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