These important amendments deal with the attempts to make this Bill a reset as far as violence against women and girls is concerned. They create a number of new offences and indicate that there should be reviews in certain areas in relation to harassment and other related things. I will go through each one in turn.
Amendment 284, in my name, would create a specific offence of street harassment. It is not limited to sexual harassment because the experience of men and women on the street is not restricted to sexual harassment. In July 2021, the Home Secretary indicated that she was thinking of introducing a crime of sexual harassment. There are a whole range of studies about the effect, particularly on women, of harassment in the street. A United Nations study, not restricted to the United Kingdom, said that 70% of women had been affected by street harassment, 4% said that it was worth complaining about it and 45% said that it was not. The sort of harassment that one has in mind in relation to this offence is wolf-whistling, people being called out to, people being the victim of people treating them with a total lack of respect in a way that might cause alarm or distress. As I say, it is not restricted to women; other groups are affected as well. Members of the LGBTQ community speak of harassment that they suffer in particular places. It would be wrong to restrict the terms of this offence to a particular type of harassment or a particular group of people, but this proposed new clause makes it an offence to subject somebody to what a reasonable person would regard as harassment, and harassment includes causing that person alarm or distress.
I very much hope that the Government will take up the opportunity that the Home Secretary herself indicated was worth taking up. That would indicate that the sorts of behaviour that in many cases occur throughout
the length and breadth of the country would no longer be acceptable, and if people behave better and do not commit acts of harassment, that will have an affect right up the scale. In terms of the drafting, the proposed new clause sets it out very clearly, but we are open to any suggestions about how it may be drafted better.
Amendment 285 makes it an offence to kerb-crawl. We define it as
“an offence for a person, from a motor vehicle while it is in a street or public place … to engage in conduct which amounts to harassment in such manner or in such circumstances as to be likely to cause annoyance, alarm, distress or nuisance to any other person.”
That seeks to deal with people in their cars winding down their windows and shouting, barracking and making life difficult, often with a sexual undertone or more than an undertone. Again, that should be a crime, and something that we very much hope that the Government will treat as a serious matter. We hope that they will take up the suggestion that has been made. Again, if there are better ways of drafting it, we are more than open to hearing them, but Amendment 285 provides the basis for such a crime.
Amendments 292A and 292B are about sex for rent, which should be a crime. This is where an individual offers accommodation at a reduced cost or free in exchange for sex. This arrangement can be either at the beginning of a tenancy or enforced during a tenancy, often when tenants are experiencing difficulties in finding somewhere to live or in paying the rent. Sex for rent arrangements force people, especially women, into the most vulnerable of situations, often in enclosed private spaces to which a perpetrator has constant and unrestricted access. This has been a matter of campaign for a considerable period, particularly from groups such as Generation Rent. Politicians from all parties have picked it up and investigative journalists have too.
This Bill provides an opportunity to do something about it. A 2016 Shelter survey found that 8% of women had been offered a sex-for-rent arrangement at some point in their lives. In 2018, YouGov and Shelter estimated that 250,000 women had been asked for sexual favours by their landlords in exchange for free or discounted accommodation at some point between 2013 and 2018. More recent research by Shelter, which regards this as a serious issue, suggested that 30,000 women in the United Kingdom were propositioned with such arrangements between the start of the pandemic in March 2020 and January 2021. It is not difficult to imagine that the question of how one affords accommodation became more and more difficult for certain people during the pandemic.
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An investigation by the Daily Mail published on 1 January 2021 found lists of sex-for-rent advertisements open on the website Craigslist with landlords’ telephone numbers included. Anyone can be a victim of sex for rent, but overwhelmingly this is a crime enacted by men against women. According to the Women’s Budget Group, in no region in England is it affordable to rent privately on women’s median earnings, meaning that many women are vulnerable to this sort of disgraceful behaviour. There are some indications that race, gender
identity and personal circumstances play a role. Very little research has been conducted on those most vulnerable to sex-for-rent crimes, but a number of experts have commented on this and have pointed out that very often it is minority-ethnic groups, sex trafficking survivors and ex-prisoners who are the most vulnerable to this sort of offence.
As I have already indicated, the pandemic has made women more economically unstable and therefore more vulnerable to sex-for-rent crimes. One in four women in the UK saw a drop in her income last year due to the pandemic, according to research from Fidelity International. Mothers were especially hard hit by the drop in income and were 47% more likely to lose their job than fathers, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Mothers were also more likely to be furloughed and to have their hours cut back by 50% or more. This means that as a result of the pandemic women are now facing even greater instability in an already insecure market.
Sex for rent should be an offence. Under the current legislation an individual can be prosecuted for such a crime only under Section 52 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 for causing or inciting prostitution for gain. Only one person has ever been charged in a sex-for-rent case, as recently as January this year. It is wholly wrong that, in order for it to be prosecuted, the victim has to be characterised as being engaged in prostitution. The law has made it extremely difficult for victims in sex-for-rent cases to seek justice. As I have indicated, the form of the current offence is wholly inappropriate to make it an offence.
This Bill gives us a chance to take action in relation to this matter. I very much hope that the Government will take this up. If they have a better suggestion about the drafting, we are willing to listen, but the thing to do in a Bill such as this, because these opportunities do not come along very often, is to do something about it. Here is an opportunity. This House will co-operate and there will not be opposition from people to this amendment, so I very much hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, will be able to give a favourable answer in relation to this.
Amendment 292B is contingent on Amendment 292A. It creates an offence of arranging or facilitating an offence of requiring or accepting sexual relations as a condition of accommodation. This is intended to capture, for example, publishers or hosts of advertisements for such arrangements. The penalty for this facilitation offence would be a fine of up to £50,000.
Next, Amendment 292M calls for a review of the offence of exposure, under Section 66 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, to be set up within a very short period after this Act is passed. A review under this section must consider, among other things: the incidence of it; the adequacy of the sentencing guidelines; charging rates and prosecution rates; the adequacy of police investigations into reports of exposure; what sorts of sentences are effective; what the reoffending rates are; and, crucially, whether people who commit the offence of exposure go on to commit more serious offences. Everybody in this Chamber will have in mind that the killer of Miss Everard had committed two offences of exposure prior to the offence that has caused so much
public distress. We want the Government to look into whether or not the offence of exposure has been properly treated.
Amendment 292R calls for a review in relation to the prevalence of, and the response of the criminal justice system to, the offence of administering a substance with intent, under Section 61 of the Sexual Offences Act. Again, this is to look into the question of spiking. Is spiking becoming a prevalent offence? If it is, what should we be doing about it? It is something that needs to be looked into.
Finally, Amendment 292T proposes that where somebody, A, kills another person, B, in the course of, or with the motive of, sexual gratification, if A intended the action that led to the death of B, that should be an offence that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. This is to ensure that the “rough sex” defence cannot be deployed. It means that where that does happen there is an offence, punishable up to life, available to the prosecutors to prosecute and for the jury to find the person guilty of. I would be very interested to hear the Government’s reaction to that. I beg to move.