| Sexual Offences Bill [Lords]
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Mr. Bryant: I, too, have sympathy with the direction in which the hon. Member for Romsey is trying to pull us. However, I do not have much sympathy with the amendment for a similar reason to that advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, namely that the phrase
is problematic. As we have gone from clauses 6 and 7 to clause 8, the problems inherent in the Bill have increased. We already know that the age at which many boys and girls have sexual experiences is 13 and 14—[Interruption.] The average age. We can be certain that many boys and girls have had sex at a younger age and we can be even more certain that sexual touching Column Number: 114 of some sort or another had been happening for a considerable period before the age of 13.I recognise that the Minister is trying to do everything in his power to make sure that the law does not criminalise what we consider to be the normal process of growing up, but unless we find a clearer solution to the conundrum, we will be doing precisely that. I am nervous about the Romeo and Juliet possibility. If my knowledge of English literature is correct, Juliet was coming up to her 13th birthday. The Capulets and the Montagues certainly hated each other enough to bring forward a private prosecution, if they had wanted to. Many families in my constituency hate each other just as much as the Montagues and the Capulets did. If, at any time, they thought that one of their children had been touched in a sexual manner by another child from a family that they did not like, they would be only too happy to use the law in a way that would do no favours for either of the children involved. While I heard the extremely sensible arguments advanced by my hon. Friend the Minister on the ''Today'' programme— Mr. Malins rose—
Mr. Bryant: If the hon. Gentleman will let me finish my sentence, I shall give way. I listened to everything that my hon. Friend said this morning on the ''Today'' programme and I am sympathetic to the conundrum that he faces, but without having clear CPS guidelines, it would be difficult for us to go forward with full confidence in the clause. Mr. Malins: The hon. Gentleman reminds me of the school play in which one of my children was involved at the age of 12—I will not say which child, in case they are prosecuted. The play was ''Romeo and Juliet''. Many 12-year-olds were involved on stage, and to say that there was some sexual touching would be an understatement. I assume that the Minister or the hon. Gentleman will confirm that, guidelines apart, there would be an absolute defence if such behaviour were part of a play. Mr. Bryant: I fear that the hon. Gentleman has enticed me into a terribly difficult area. I remember playing Robin—not Christopher Robin—in ''Time and the Conways'', a play by J.B. Priestley. In one of the major scenes in the play, Robin kisses his girlfriend, whom I think is called Joan. The scene ends with the terrible line, ''Oh, Robin! Oh Joan!'' The local girls' school was invited to watch the play one night, and there were titters from the beginning to the end of the show. I was only 12 at the time. However, this is not really the moment for confessions. I want to make another important point: the process of deciding whether there should be a prosecution may do infinitely more harm than the event itself may have done. I am sure that there have been many thousands of occasions on which boys and girls—or, for that matter, boys and boys or girls and girls—may have touched each other with sexual intent, entirely innocently. We must ensure that they will not be put through the mill of unnecessary legislative processes, or criminalised for the rest of their lives. Column Number: 115 That was intended to be a peroration, but I shall give way to the hon. Lady.Sandra Gidley: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that amendment No. 173 decriminalises such behaviour, so the chance of there being a prosecution would diminish greatly? Such a prosecution would therefore only occur in the sort of Romeo and Juliet situation that he described earlier, and would happen extremely rarely. At least the act is being decriminalised, so that young people will not be afraid to access sexual health services, or to ask for advice. Mr. Bryant: I accept the thrust of the hon. Lady's argument, but I do not believe that the phrase
in paragraph (a) is sufficiently robust to stand the test of legal drafting. I am therefore happy to sympathise with the arguments that the hon. Lady advances, but I do not agree with her solution. I hope that the Minister will provide us with a better solution. Miss Kirkbride: The hon. Gentleman's comments remind me of an incident that happened in my constituency, of which I hope the Minister will take account when he gives further thought to our discussions today. The incident occurred in the playground of a middle school and the child concerned was under the age of 12. I am not sure what sort of touching took place, or whether it was a flashing incident. The police talked to the young boy concerned, the social services got involved, and a great hoo-hah was made about the incident. In the circumstances, it did not help that the young boy was black, in a predominantly white village. The involvement of all the services meant that everyone knew about what had happened, and the poor boy was even more stigmatised by an incident that, five years ago, I suspect would have been approached in a very different way. He would probably have been told, ''Well, young man, you really shouldn't do this.'', his mother and head teacher would have been informed, and nothing more would have been said about it. It is bad enough that so many services got involved that he and his family felt stigmatised. It would be even more dreadful if, perhaps because of racist intent, this law were used to criminalise that young person. I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind when he considers taking this provision further. Mr. Dawson: I am much more sanguine and less worried about this clause and other clauses than some colleagues who are moving and expressing support for amendments. There is an enormous protective purpose in making a distinction between children who are under 13 and children who are over 13. In all our discussions about school plays and doctors and nurses, we must acknowledge that as far as we know a very significant proportion of sexual assaults on children are carried out by children. It is important that we deal with that. Column Number: 116
10.45 amWe are also falling into a trap into which the Home Office has fallen. I am referring to the assumption that all these issues will necessarily be sorted out by this Bill and the criminal law. We must set the issues in the context of social policy. The children's Green Paper was published on Monday. I sincerely hope that we will move to better levels of support for parents and children, much more openness and honesty about issues that are often not discussed properly, and much more availability of education and support for children on matters of sexuality and health. I shall argue the same point on a slightly different tack later in respect of children over 13. I am much more sanguine than others that what we are deciding today will not lead to the dire consequences that people are predicting. I stress the importance of the distinction between under-13s and over-13s. The Chairman: We have had a pretty wide-ranging debate, so I am not minded to allow a stand part debate on the clause at the end. Mrs. Annette L. Brooke (Mid-Dorset and North Poole): I had a useful visit to Finland last week. It was about the treatment of children more generally, but I met an official from the Ministry of Justice to talk about the phrase from Finland that we have introduced. We have not applied it to sexual intercourse with a child younger than 16, which Finland does. We are talking about a 15-year-old kissing a 12-year-old. I asked the official how the terms work, because that is the question being asked here, and his answer was clear: ''We trust our judges.'' He said that there had been a case involving a 30-year-old and a 14-year-old. That age gap is clear. The point probably becomes much clearer when we talk about touching. For a 15-year-old and a 12-year-old, that is totally normal behaviour. Should it reach the situation in which a judge is involved, surely we should have some trust. This is about decriminalising normal behaviour. Unfortunately, I did not learn enough in Finland. I shall have to make follow-up visits. The age of criminal responsibility is higher in Finland, so under-15-year-olds are not dealt with in the courts. That is really why we are having this discussion. The Bill is in a tangle because the age of criminal responsibility is wrong. We clearly have to do our best within that constraint. Mr. Bryant: The hon. Lady makes an important point, which relates to that raised by the hon. Member for Woking about the different ages of consent in Europe. The age of consent in Spain may be 12, but it does not have the same effect on the way in which children in Spain are prosecuted. Mrs. Brooke: Yes. I might add that politicians in Finland voted to keep the age of consent at 16, even though officials recommended that it be lowered to 15. The background is not that of a free society; the parliamentarians apparently acted against the advice of officials. I am picking up on something said by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre. Given the handicap Column Number: 117 of a low age of criminal responsibility, the fundamental work has to be done in the pre-prosecution stage, should it be necessary. Come what may, we need to know a lot more about how the problem will be approached. We should realise that we have a big problem, which is stopping us from finding a solution in the Bill. We have to do the best we can.Amendment No. 173 tackles many of the issues about which we are concerned. It covers full consent to all aspects of the conduct, and as I said earlier it focuses on the touching issue. The touching aspect worries me: I would not have wanted one of my daughters to have felt guilty and besmirched at the age of 12 simply because she happened to be kissing someone or engaged in friendly touching. That is an awful thought. We have a big responsibility to get it right before we reach the end of the Bill. My main concern, however, is that we are operating with a huge handicap. I am pleased that the Minister is looking at the matter because those guidelines will be critical.
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