| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mrs. Gillan: It is so good to see that the Minister has done her job properly on the first group of amendments on Report. The fact that, in order to do her job properly, she had to take more than two thirds of the entire time available for that group shows that she has been badly let down by her Whips Office. Again, we have lost valuable time for discussing this Bill. [Interruption.] I see that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Anniesland (John Robertson) is laughing away. I in no way blame the Minister. She did a proper job on the first group. It is just that the Whips Office should have allowed more time and the Government should not be so keen to cut off debate in the House.
Mr. Carmichael: Shame on the hon. Lady.
Mrs. Gillan: It is a shame on the hon. Gentleman because I hope to leave at least some time for him to say a few words on the off-chance, but forgive me if I do not manage it.
I welcome the Government amendments. We spent a lot of time on this clause in Committee because the Government made it a flagship clause. The Minister has admitted that there were some problems with its drafting. I find that extraordinary because the provision to make an aggravated offence for dealing around schools has been on the drawing board for some time. To have brought it to the House in such an imperfect form is extraordinary, but I admit that the amendments
22 Feb 2005 : Column 263
that she has tabled, which were stimulated by the debate on the Opposition Benches, will improve this part of the Bill no end.
I am particularly pleased that the Minister has caught up with the 21st century and realised that her original drafting, which included the exchange of bankers' drafts and bearer bonds and bearer shares by dealers in and around a school, is not today's reality. Her reality check has brought her to use the words "a drug related consideration". That is an excellent development that recognises that youngsters deal in and exchange many other things, from mobile phones and the new iPods, to cash or anything else that happens to be at hand. I must say that bearer bonds and bankers' drafts are used rarely.
Caroline Flint: I agree that their use is rare, but I remember that, in Committee, the hon. Lady thought that they were used at Cheltenham Ladies' College.
Mrs. Gillan: The Minister ought to ask her colleague, the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), about that. She was in my year at Cheltenham Ladies' College, and the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) was also at school with me. The Minister has two Cheltenham Ladies' College girls on her side of the House, whereas we have only one who has seen the light. We will exchange no further views on that.
I thank the Minister for her letter of 17 February dealing with some points raised in Committee, which I did not receive until yesterday morning. Despite those comments to me at that late stage and her comments at length just now, the clause is still imperfect and certainly not strong enough. I want to consider the amendments that I tabled, which would widen and strengthen the clause. I hope that I will be able to press the House to a Division when the time comes, particularly on amendment No. 5, if not also amendment No. 6, because nothing that the Minister has so far said has led me to believe that my amendments will do anything other than strengthen this part of the Bill, which is what we have been seeking to do.
Amendment No. 4 would widen the protection afforded to children where they congregate, or receive instruction or training. In her letter of 17 February concerning clause 1, the Minister said:
"I am advised that the clause does not include school premises which are in community use (eg a community church), even when the persons under the age of 18 are using the premises for such community purposes. This is because the term 'use' implies 'use as a school'. Children will be protected by this clause so long as they are using the school for some school-related purpose (eg., night class/drama rehearsal)."
That is not the comfort zone that I was seeking concerning the interpretation of this clause. It is my understanding that the Minister is actually saying that the aggravation factor will not apply if, for example, the children are at a school premises and attending a Sunday school.
Caroline Flint:
I thank the hon. Lady for allowing me to intervene. As I tried to explain earlier, I sought additional parliamentary counsel advice on this issue following that letter. I have subsequently made it clear that the provision would apply to the circumstances described earlier by one of her colleagues, but also to any activity taking place on school premises, whether or
22 Feb 2005 : Column 264
not it was organised by the school. Therefore, sports organised by other community-based clubs would be covered, as would a church service that is organised by a church, but which takes place within a school. I hope that that reassures the hon. Lady.
Mrs. Gillan: I am grateful for that reassurance and I was anticipating that the Minister might intervene on me. That goes to show that even the information that the Minister and her office provided to the Opposition so late in the day was inaccurate and no attempt was made to correct it in the ensuing period. Information has been introduced at this late stage and the Opposition were not notified; in fact, the material provided to us was obviously inaccurate. I am pleased that she has explained the situation, which may lead me to withdraw amendment No. 4. Although the amendment is not perfectly drafted, its purpose is to widen the spirit of the clause.
Examples have been one of the Minister's strong points and I would like to discuss another example, which I hope that she will be able to tell me will definitely fall within the ambit of the Bill. For example, I want to be able to protect children when they are in a learning environment that is not necessarily on school premises. The Minister confirmed earlier that, if children from a school were playing sports at a private club, they would not be covered by the Bill. In my constituency, some children are taken out of school and put into a completely separate learning environment from which they can benefit.
7.15 pm
I shall provide one example of a project designed to help children who are having a tough time in school and who respond to learning in a different way. I refer particularly to the "Skids" project in Buckinghamshire. It takes place away from school and the kids get to work with cars and bikes. The kids get to do what they want to do and they respond very well. I want some reassurance that, if anyone enters those premises to deal to those children, who may not have responded so well to normal school practices, the Bill will protect them. The Minister is looking puzzled—
Caroline Flint indicated dissent.
Mrs. Gillan: The Minister could intervene to tell me that such children would be protected while attending such a project.
Caroline Flint: As I outlined in my earlier contribution, there are a whole host of places to which young people could be defined as going on a regular basis. We have tried to be practical about the matter and we acknowledge that a school is a known building in the community. In my constituency, projects are going on in all sorts of places and, from the outside, no one would be any the wiser that child-related or young persons' learning activities were taking place. The Bill would not apply in those circumstances, but it would apply to pupil referral units, for example.
Mrs. Gillan:
That disappoints me. It may apply to pupil referral units, but when a group of vulnerable youngsters are in another learning environment outside
22 Feb 2005 : Column 265
the school—and they have been taken outside of school by the school itself—they will not be covered. Once again, the issues have not been thought through.
I want the Minister to respond, if she has time, to amendments Nos. 5 and 6 because they are designed to strengthen clause 1. She says that she wants to protect children and that clause 1 is all about protecting children, yet she places a whole series of provisos on that protection by using the phrase "at a relevant time" at the end of subsection (3) and by including in subsection (5), the phrases
That effectively removes from the Bill's protection the very premises that attract children out of school hours.
Many of our youngsters feel safe and secure in the environments in and around school premises. The Minister must know that, because she must have seen, as I have, children congregating in and around school premises long after the school has closed. That is the very time—late at night—when these children are most vulnerable and when the dealer will have greatest access to them. Dealers well know that children can be found in and around a set of premises with which they are familiar.
Why on earth is the Minister cutting off her nose to spite her face over this matter? It would be simple to remove the term "at a relevant time" and remove subsection (5) so that the provisions would apply in, around or in the vicinity of school premises. I cannot understand why she is resisting and providing the dealers with a loophole. The dealers will find it easy to set up their places around schools at 11 o'clock at night, after they have shut down at 8 pm, yet they will not qualify for additional sentencing on grounds of aggravation under clause 1.
I sincerely ask the Minister to reconsider my amendments Nos. 5 and 6, on which I hope we will be able to vote. The common sense of the amendments has attracted some interest from Labour Members because they realise that they are proposed sincerely to protect children in and around schools. I hope that, if we vote on the amendments, Labour Members will join us in the Lobby.
Amendment No. 3 attempts to define the term "vicinity", and I listened to what the Minister had to say. She quoted a lot from her 17 February letter, but I am no longer sure which parts of that letter are accurate, and about which she has sought further advice from parliamentary counsel. One part of the letter refers specifically to the matter addressed by amendment No. 3. She wrote:
"Where a school has residential accommodation which is not on the site where teaching takes place, then this will also be caught so long as it is not occupied solely as a dwelling by a person employed at the school."
Why is that exemption made? If a school's caretaker were a drug dealer and lived in a nearby dwelling provided by the school, the drug deals are more than likely to happen at that dwelling.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |