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Mr. Hilton Dawson (Lancaster and Wyre): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and I commend him for introducing this important legislation. Can he confirm that we have now reached the moment when it is possible to say that children who have been involved in prostitution or pornography are removed from any criminal liability whatever?
Mr. Blunkett: Children are, and the intent behind the clauses is to get round the difficulty that in the past it had to be proved that the person exploiting the child did so for material gain. That was much more difficult to prove than the suspicion itself. We are now removing that difficulty and we are also for the first time criminalising the payer for sex with a child. Amazingly, that was not in itself a criminal offence. As I made clear earlier, the penalty where children under 13 are concerned will be life, and it will be 14 years for similar offences with older children. That sends out a clear signal.
Mr. George Osborne (Tatton): The clauses on trafficking are welcome, but they are the only clauses in the Bill where no distinction is made in recognition of the fact that the victim could be a child. UNICEF raised the issue with me and, no doubt, other hon. Members. What is the Home Secretary's logic for failing to make
a distinction for where the victim is a child? Surely the seriousness of cases involving children should be reflected in the Bill.
Mr. Blunkett: As I argued earlier, it is possible for someone to be charged with more than one offence. The penalties levied would be commensurate with the combined offence. I am sure that my hon. Friends would be happy to consider in Committee whether, when trafficking offences that apply to adults as well as children are combined with offences involving children—to which certain penalties would apply independently—the penalties are sufficient to reflect the heinousness of the offence of trafficking in young people. In other words, if we determine that combining the offences is not enough, we need to decide whether the aggravation of the offence should carry additional penalties. My ministerial colleagues will take a look at that matter in Standing Committee.
In fact, the Standing Committee process will ensure that an improved Bill comes back to the House. The Government will listen and respond, as we do not pretend to have the handle on everything or to be the fount of all wisdom. We do on some occasions, but not on this matter. For the information of the House, and of Hansard, that last remark was an example of irony.
Clauses 62 to 64 deal with drug rape. I think that the House agrees on this matter. The Bill raises the penalty to 10 years. It is an outrage that people should be abused in that way.
Clauses 65 and 66 are about adult incest, which is another very difficult area.
Clauses 67 to 72 are about sex in public. Now, I want to make it clear that the coverage that has been given to this issue would be impossible to make up. The then Parliamentary Under-Secretary, now the Minister of State, Department for International Development, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Hilary Benn), gave a perfectly reasonable explanation at a press briefing of what was intended. An interesting debate was initiated, which led people to believe that the Bill would reduce rather than strengthen the law in relation to matters such as sex in toilets.
I want to make it absolutely clear that sex in toilets is illegal. It will remain so. The offence will be enforceable under existing public order legislation, but there will be additional protection as well. Given the confusion, I do not intend to remove the amendment passed in the House of Lords. Instead, I shall seek to ensure that it is operable and that it makes sense. I invite Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members to ensure that we get the matter right, as no one wants any form of sex to be taking place around them in a toilet, whether in or out of a cubicle. That goes for petting as much as for more unacceptable forms of behaviour. I doubt whether any hon. Member would disagree with that.
Mr. Grieve: What the Home Secretary has just said is extremely welcome. There are a number of ways in which to tackle the problem. The right hon. Gentleman has plainly taken on board the concerns expressed in another place and I am sure that we can arrive at a satisfactory formula on which we can all agree.
Mr. Blunkett: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. That indicates that common sense will be applied in common cause.
Simon Hughes: I have spoken to the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) about this matter. Like Conservative Members, the Liberal Democrats are very keen to sort this matter out once and for all. The wording of clause 67 is not right yet, so will the Home Secretary look at the proposal from the Home Affairs Committee that the public order legislation should be amended and clarified? I am very tempted by the idea of making the activity a public order offence. I share the Home Secretary's objective absolutely, but there may be a way to achieve it by means of the Criminal Justice Bill rather than this Bill.
Mr. Blunkett: The point about the interplay between the Criminal Justice Bill and this Bill is important. I have spoken in strong terms about the potential for incorporating the common law in statute law. I am very happy to continue to explore that. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary has spent more hours than he cares to reveal looking for a way forward on this matter to which hon. Members of all parties can agree. We all want a lasting rather than a temporary solution.
The Bill contains a number of clauses dealing with bestiality. I do not intend to go into them this afternoon. The House of Lords did so at considerable depth, so I shall spare hon. Members details of the activities involved.
Before concluding, I want to say that the spirit in which the proposals have been received shows that every hon. Member wants there to be lasting legislation in this area. Over the past century, securing change in respect of some matters has taken a long time. We want the legislation to last, but we also know that the law is not sufficient. Changing the law is important, as are the penalties set down and the signals given out, but we must also change the way people live their lives. We are dealing with matters such as how young people are brought up, how they are educated in schools, and how they come to understand what is acceptable and what is not.
It is also a matter of trying to spot mental health problems at an early age. Some of the activities covered by the Bill can only be carried out by people who are severely mentally ill. They need help at an early stage in their lives, and I hope that we will be able to set the law and carry out those other functions.
Dr. Evan Harris: During debates on the Bill that became the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000, I raised the question of offences that had been decriminalised but in respect of which people were still subject to sex offenders registration and orders. My proposal was rejected at the time by Ministers, but Lord Falconer said in the House of Lords that he was confident that the Government might be able to table an amendment during the Commons stages of this Bill to ensure that work could be done to identify people subject to the sex offenders regime in respect of acts that
had effectively been decriminalised by the 2000 Act. Those acts included gross indecency offences and age-of-consent offences. Will the Home Secretary give the House an update on his thinking on whether such an amendment will be forthcoming as this Bill goes through the House?
Mr. Blunkett: We are minded to introduce such an amendment, as long as we can find a way around the difficulties associated with consensual sex in terms of the position in which people find themselves historically. That is the really difficult challenge, as the hon. Gentleman will know from his work on this matter. We have to trawl back and ensure that an act was consensual. We have given an undertaking to those who have approached us that we will try and find a way forward on this matter. The change in the law means that it would be quite wrong for people to be registered as guilty for an act that is no longer a crime.
The cross-party and no-party task force to which I referred earlier has been very helpful. We intend to set up a new, cross-Government ministerial committee to monitor the implementation of the legislation and associated measures. It will also look at prevention, early intervention and support, so that we can get the matter right across the piece. That would apply to issues to do with rape, for instance. We intend to set up a rape helpline as quickly as possible, as we promised in an earlier debate.
Given the discussion this afternoon, and the content of the Bill, I hope that we can all go forward—
Mr. Dawson: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Blunkett: My goodness! I will give way, but only because my hon. Friend has a privileged position on the all-party committee.
Mr. Dawson: I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I welcome the new ministerial group on sexual offending. Will he confirm that it will look at the treatment of sex offenders? Well-developed models now exist for addressing the dangerous and abusive offending behaviour of adults. If we provide the means for people to be treated, we can protect children.
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