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Vera Baird: May I press slightly further the point that I sought to make when discussing the previous amendment?
The Chairman: Order. No. The amendment has been discussed. If the hon. and learned Lady wishes to raise a separate issue arising from the clause, she may do so, but she cannot reopen our previous debate.
Vera Baird: I used my words too loosely—of course I want to raise a separate issue.
My concern is that clause 92 punishes—there is a debate about whether it does so too severely—a parent for not making a young person who needs to and should be registered do so. The penalty is against the parent. If the young person is not willing to register, the parent might get into the difficulty discussed under the previous amendment, with no penalty following and no apparent means of rectifying the position if a young person wilfully refuses to comply with the court's requirement to be registered. There seems to be no penalty, solution or means of enforcing the court's order, and that troubles me because it is an indication of a young person committing a sexual offence and not complying with what society deems are conditions that ought to be imposed on such a person. That is why it was appropriate to raise the matter as a separate issue from the question of the penalty on a parent and to wonder whether I am missing something in clause 92.
The Chairman: It is unfortunate for the hon. and learned Lady that I listen to debates. She did, in fact, raise precisely that point. She may feel that the Minister did not answer it. Were I in any way partial, I might even agree with her, but the fact is that she raised the point before. However, if the Minister wishes to respond to the specific point, I am prepared to let him do so.
Paul Goggins: I will reflect on my hon. and learned Friend's comment. I reiterate the point that I made before: in such a case there would be consequences for the young person, although there might not be any consequences in law. For example, the young person might be taken into care as a result of the breakdown. There might be welfare consequences, although there would be no legal consequences.
Mr. Grieve: I have great sympathy with what the hon. and learned Member for Redcar said. It makes much more sense to impose a penalty on the young person for a failure to register, possibly in tandem with a penalty on the parent. However, simply to leave the young person with no penalty strikes me as surprising. After all, if a 15-year-old can commit serious offences, it seems odd that he cannot also have criminal sanctions brought against him for failure to register.
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Paul Goggins: I am prepared to consider the matter further. Clearly, if the parents of a young person who has committed an offence so grave that he has to register cannot exercise sufficient discipline to get him to the police station, something even worse has happened.
There would clearly be consequences for the welfare of the child and a need for supervision and support. Those would be issues taken up practically on the ground by the relevant agencies. Whether there should be consequences on the face of the Bill is a separate question, quite rightly raised by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar.
Vera Baird: I was envisaging a situation in which the parent was brought to court. They might put forward the reasonable excuse that they could not compel the child to come and register because of a breakdown in the relationship. That might mean that the parent was acquitted, so there would be no prison sentence and no need for welfare intervention to protect the young person. Yet the young person who refused to go and register would be left with the parent who could not compel them to do so. How does society protect itself against that young person's sexual tendencies thereafter?
Paul Goggins: In the situation in which the parent has lost control, they can apply for that order to be discharged. None the less, the question remains: what happens to that young person? My hon. and learned Friend asks a compelling question. I say again that in terms of welfare and other considerations, the local agencies will no doubt try to sort out the appropriate form of supervision and support. Whether there should be a consequence in law, in the Bill, is a separate question, which I will consider more deeply.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 92 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 93
Certificates for purposes of Part 2
The Solicitor-General (Ms Harriet Harman): I beg to move amendment No. 311, in
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to take Government amendments Nos. 312, 314, 322 to 326 and 372.
The Solicitor-General: The amendments in this group are minor amendments designed to improve the clarity and accuracy of the wording of some of the clauses and to make a number of minor changes.
Amendments Nos. 311 and 312 would replace, in relation to the offences for which a certificate may be issued under clause 93, the words:
''to which this Part applies''
with ''listed in Schedule 3''. That is needed to ensure that the offences in question are only those listed in schedule 3 and do not include those listed in schedule 4.
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Amendment No. 314 adds, in respect of Northern Ireland, the offences of causing or inciting prostitution for gain and controlling prostitution for gain. These offences are introduced in part 1 of the Bill and already appear in the England and Wales list of offences in schedule 4. However, these offences also apply to Northern Ireland and they should also be listed in the Northern Ireland part of schedule 4.
Clause 130 provides that where an offence in schedule 3 has a sentence threshold, the offender is to be regarded as having a conviction for the offence only when the threshold is met. Amendments Nos. 322, 323, 324 and 325 clarify the ''condition'' must be a ''sentencing condition'' and not, for example, a condition relating to the age of the victim.
12.45 pm
Amendment No. 326 removes from clause 131 reference to a ''conviction'' including a finding of guilt by a court martial as this is unnecessary—it is already included in the definition as the hon. Member for Woking will know—and amendment No. 372 removes reference to clause 57 from clause 139(2) as it does not apply to Northern Ireland.
Amendment agreed to.
Amendment made: No. 312, in
Clause 93, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 94 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 95
Notification orders: applications and grounds
Mrs. Brooke: I beg to move amendment No. 253, in
clause 95, page 49, line 7, leave out 'must' and insert 'may'.
This is a probing amendment, but it has a logical argument to it that relates to clauses 95 to 98. Taken together, those clauses contain an extension of the sex offenders obligation to those convicted of sex offences abroad. Under clause 95, a chief police officer may make an application to a magistrates court where it appears to him that a person was convicted abroad of an offence that would constitute a domestic sex offence as listed in schedule 3. A range of conditions are set out, and I understand those, but the concern is that while a complex judgment is being made on the nature of criminal law in another country—we are talking about a range of countries with very different criminal justice systems—clause 98 allows the individual concerned to be subject to an interim order.
The Chairman: Order. The Solicitor-General cannot hold discussions with civil servants while a debate is taking place.
Mrs. Brooke: Thank you, Mr. Gale. While an investigation is going on, an interim order can be applied.
I ought to make it clear that the amendment was proposed by Liberty. Where all the conditions are met, clause 95(5) provides that the court must make a
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notification order. Therefore, there is police discretion at the beginning of the clause, but no judicial discretion at the end of the clause. Hence, we have tabled this—on the face of it—simple amendment that would remove ''must'' and replace it with ''may''. At no stage, during all the conditions and steps that must be gone through, are there any comments on the system of law in particular countries leading to tests before an order might be applied. I would like to hear the Minister's comments on the amendment.
Paul Goggins: I hope that my explanation in relation to the amendment will be as comprehensive as possible. The notification order is intended to be made against offenders who have been convicted overseas for a sex offence that, if committed in the UK, would have constituted an offence under schedule 3. It is important for public protection that all convicted sex offenders in the UK are subject to the notification requirements.
The hon. Lady referred to the powers of the chief officer of police. A chief officer of police may apply to a court for a notification order against a person in a number of circumstances: where that person has been convicted or cautioned of an offence abroad; where the offence abroad would have constituted a schedule 3 offence had it been committed in any part of the United Kingdom; where the conviction, caution or relevant finding was made on or after 1 September 1997; where the conviction was before 1 September 1997 but on that date the offender was waiting to be sentenced or was serving his sentence; and, finally, where the conviction had been received in the United Kingdom, and the notification period for that offence and associated disposal would not have expired. Currently, where the court is satisfied that these conditions are met, it must grant a notification order. Under amendment No. 253, even where these conditions are met, the court would have discretion on whether an order should be made. I cannot support it.
We return to the familiar territory of earlier discussions about whether the notification requirements and registration are part of the penalty—the view the hon. Lady keeps pushing us towards—or whether that they are part of the administrative arrangements, which is actually the case. The notification requirements are, for offenders convicted in the United Kingdom, an automatic requirement arising from a conviction, caution and so forth for a sexual offence. The court has no discretion on whether an offender should be placed on the register. The Government have long argued that that is correct in order to ensure that the register remains a public protection procedure, and does not become confused with a penalty or a punishment for a sexual offence.
I fail to appreciate why, when a court is satisfied that an offender has received a conviction for a sexual offence abroad and that he meets the other conditions necessary for a notification order, the court should have the option of not granting an order. If the notification requirements are an automatic requirement following conviction for a relevant offence in the United Kingdom, why should it not be the case where the courts are satisfied that an offender
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has been convicted for sexual offences abroad? We are also concerned that, if we allow courts to have discretion over which overseas offenders should be subject to the notification requirements, the position of the register as a public protection requirement and not a punishment or penalty handed down by the court will be undermined.
It may be that the amendments reflect concerns about convictions abroad being made under judicial systems that are less just or independent than our own: the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole alluded to that. Amendment No. 253 is intended to allow the court to refuse to make a notification order because it is concerned that a conviction or sentence received abroad was unjust. However, the offence committed abroad must equate to an offence in schedule 3. If that is disputed, the court may permit the defendant to require the police to prove that that is the case. That means that activity that may be a sexual offence abroad but which in the United Kingdom is not considered to be illegal—such as adult male homosexual activity, which remains an offence in some states—cannot lead to a notification order.
A notification order can only be made following an application from the police. Where the police do not believe that the conviction for an offence overseas would have constituted a schedule 3 offence if it had been committed in the United Kingdom, they would not proceed with an application for a notification order: the police must be convinced of the appropriateness of that.
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