The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Tuesday 3 December.
“With permission, I will make a Statement on the action that this Government will take to improve the response to stalking. Depression, anxiety, fear, trouble sleeping and loss of confidence, these are just some of the ways that stalking can ruin lives. Victims are subjected to an onslaught of psychological and emotional terror that can go on for months or years. Even if the perpetrator is caught and the stalking comes to an end, the impact of being tormented day after day and night after night persists. For many victims, it never leaves them.
I am sure the whole House will agree that it is unacceptable for anyone to suffer in this way. This is a serious threat, and one that affects a substantial proportion of the population. According to the latest statistics, in England and Wales, one in seven people over 16 has been a victim of stalking at least once in their lifetime. Alas, I think that the statistics would be even higher in this House. Given the scale and impact of these crimes, it is right that we ask ourselves whether enough is being done to stop them and, when they occur, whether we are responding effectively. I am afraid that the answer on both counts is no.
In September, following a joint investigation, His Majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary, the Independent Office for Police Conduct and the College of Policing published a report in response to a super-complaint on stalking made by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust. The report found
‘significant changes are needed to improve the police response’.
I have heard first-hand accounts of stalking victims who have not been listened to, or who have even been told that they should be ‘flattered’ by their stalker’s actions. This is totally unacceptable, and it has to change.
The report on the super-complaint made nine recommendations to the Government, and today I will update the House on the actions we intend to take in response. We will introduce a power to issue multi-agency statutory guidance on stalking, which will set out for the first time a robust framework for how front-line professionals should define stalking and better work together. We will review stalking legislation to determine whether and how the law can be changed, and we will improve our understanding of the operation of the current law by publishing more data on stalking offences.
We will also make good on our manifesto commitment to give victims the right to know who their online stalker is. The House may be surprised to hear that victims do not already have this right. The broadcaster and activist Nicola Thorp told me about how she was stalked and abused online by a stranger whose identity she did not know. Her stalker set up almost 30 social media accounts to send her a constant stream of violent and misogynistic messages. Her ordeal was made worse when she was told by the police that, although they knew who her stalker was, they could not tell her, even after he was arrested. Nicola had to continue living with that fear, looking over her shoulder and not knowing whether the person near her was her stalker, until she finally saw him in court. That is not right, and she is not the only victim to have endured this. Nicola is with us today, and I pay tribute to her activism for change.
I take this opportunity to pay tribute to my right honourable friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) who, unfortunately, is busy chairing the Foreign Affairs Committee. She heard about Nicola’s story when we were in opposition, and she worked with her to develop a new policy that is coming to fruition today. Inspired by Nicola, and with thanks to my right honourable friend, the Government will introduce statutory ‘right to know’ guidance that will set out the process by which the police should release identifying information about anonymous stalking perpetrators to victims.
We are also acting to ensure that the risk posed by perpetrators is managed, and that the causes of their behaviour are addressed. We will legislate to enable the courts to impose stalking protection orders of their own volition, which can impose restrictions and positive requirements on those who pose a risk, on conviction and on acquittal. These orders are currently available only where the police make an application to the magistrates’ court. We will publish national standards for stalking perpetrator programmes that seek to engage with perpetrators to address the behaviours that are leading to stalking offences. This will help to ensure these programmes are evidence-based and consistent.
Taken together, our package will strengthen the system so that victims have the protection they need and the support they deserve. I have seen at first hand the good work being done in some forces. I recently visited Cheshire constabulary, which has a multidisciplinary team of police, psychologists and probation officers working effectively together. We need to see all forces taking this sort of action. We will ensure that stalkers are robustly targeted, with effective arrangements in place to address the root causes of their behaviour, as in Cheshire, and we will respond to concerns that front-line professionals’ understanding of stalking is still not where it needs to be and that stalking legislation may not be working as intended. These are important first steps, but I emphasise to the House that we are in this for the duration, because only through a sustained effort will we achieve the change that is so badly needed.
Before I finish, I pay tribute to organisations such as the Suzy Lamplugh Trust and the wider National Stalking Consortium, and to brave victims like Nicola who have spoken out and campaigned for change. Their tenacity and persistence have been instrumental in getting us to this point, and I am grateful to them for all that they have done and continue to do. We will work closely with them and other key partners as we progress our mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. Through that mission, we will show stalkers and other offenders that they have nowhere to hide. We will stand with victims and survivors so that they know that they are not alone. We will work relentlessly to give everyone the peace of mind they deserve as they go about their lives, whether they are at home, online or anywhere else. Our streets belong to the law-abiding majority, and under this Government they always will.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing this Statement to your Lordships’ House. On this side, we welcome the Government’s announcement on stalking. I am sure that all noble Lords will wish to do everything that we possibly can to tackle violence against women and girls. There have been many tributes paid to Nicola Thorp for sharing her experiences, and I wish to echo those. It takes courage to speak up, and I cannot thank her enough for raising this situation.
The previous Conservative Government made real progress on this issue. I can put it no better than the shadow Minister in the House of Commons, who said:
“We launched our tackling violence against women and girls strategy to increase support for victims. We elevated violence against women and girls to a crime type that police leaders must treat as a national threat. We ensured that victims can always access professional support. We doubled the maximum sentence for stalkers from five to 10 years, keeping behind bars for longer those who devastate their victims’ lives. We also made stalking a specific offence, to ensure that women and girls are protected and to show beyond doubt that stalking is a crime”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/12/24; col. 184.]
The number of people who have been stalked dropped 0.5% from 2010 to 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics. We on this side of the House very much welcome the Government’s actions on stalking, and we want to work with them to eradicate this crime once and for all. I wish to ask the Minister just a couple questions around this. Can he confirm that, in continuing the excellent work of the previous Government, conversations are happening with relevant Ministers in the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure that there is a truly cross-departmental focus on eradicating stalking? Also has the Minister had conversations with officials in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to ensure that cyberstalking is being clamped down on? What resources is the Minister providing to police forces to ensure that this heinous crime is being tackled in all cases?
My Lords, it is a very old declaration of interest, but I was a member of the independent parliamentary inquiry on stalking, led by Elfyn Llwyd MP, which published its results in 2012 and led to the first change of legislation that identified stalking as a separate criminal offence, as opposed to it just being gathered in under harassment, as had happened before. I was also a victim of sustained stalking before the days of online stalking, over a period of two and a half years. Indeed, my noble friend Lady Thornhill was also in receipt of some of the very unpleasant attentions of this person.
The independent inquiry found that victims of stalking, whether domestic or not, had little confidence in the criminal justice system, from the way that police handled cases and helped victims and how the CPS frequently plea-bargained with perpetrators, resulting in a distinct lack of justice for egregious cases of stalking. I wish that I could say that this was history, but it is not. Nothing has changed in the cultural way that the entire criminal justice system deals with stalking. The law may have changed, but far too many stalking victims are still told that they should welcome the attention. Far too many find that their cases are plea-bargained away to harassment or some other minor offence and, as a result, that gives encouragement to the perpetrators. The reason that I mention this is that one of the things that was recognised was that many stalking cases involve perpetrators with fixated threats; they are manipulative people who have coercive-control behaviour, very deceitful behaviour and—most worryingly—with some perpetrators, a ratcheting-up of their illegal behaviour. Not enough is done to support victims of stalking.
In my particular case, it did not start with violence at all, but the reason why the police moved quickly at the end of a two and a half year period was because the perpetrator was using kitchen knives to slash tyres and their adviser said that, having done this to houses and damaged houses of the people he wanted to target, the next thing he would do after using these knives on inanimate objects would be to move to people. He was then swiftly arrested. Helpfully, he pleaded guilty and there has been nothing else since, but it was a pretty awful two and a half years.
I am grateful to His Majesty’s Opposition for their support for the measures and for the work that was done by the previous Government in highlighting and putting in place legislation that had Opposition support at the time to at least start to address this problem. I say to the noble Lord and to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that I think the Government’s pledge, our manifesto commitment, to halve the level of violence against women and girls over a 10-year period will send a clear signal to both central government and external agencies that relate to government on this issue and many others that this is a really important issue that has to be addressed by the state and by other bodies involved in dealing with the state. I hope that will assure the noble Baroness that this issue is being raised in importance. With a target being set of halving of violence against women and girls, of which stalking forms part, that is a measurable impact that agencies, the police and others will need to respond to government on, and I hope that raises it as a whole.
I particularly welcome the mention by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, of Nicola Thorp and her work. It takes a great deal of bravery to come forward, and she has done that. He mentioned the co-operation between government departments. Certainly, the Ministry of Justice, the department of the Home Office that I represent, and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology have a stake in improving the performance of the Government and agencies in this area.
One thing that came out of this Statement, which both noble Lords mentioned, is the multiagency guidance and the guidance to various agencies dealing with this, including government agencies that are responsible as arm’s-length bodies or agencies delivering for central government departments. I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said “again”, but I say to her that there has not been any guidance given to date by government on a multiagency basis that is effective. This is the first time this has happened and, in the Statement, we have agreed to do that.
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In closing, let me say that the Government can be assured that we on this side of the House will continue to fully support efforts to combat this abhorrent behaviour.
This Statement focuses on the police response, where the Minister talks about those who have not been listened to or have even been told that they should have been flattered by the stalking actions. I welcome the fact that the Government recognise this, but the three issues that the Government are responding on—multi-agency statutory guidance on stalking, again; a review of stalking legislation, again; and publishing more data, again—are all welcome, but will not change things.
I pay particular tribute to Nicola Thorp. She is a brave woman, and we salute her, but she is one of many women who repeatedly have to tell their stories. Why, therefore, are false claims to families, friends and workplace victims able to be ignored when it comes to plea bargaining? I ask that, because these really manipulative stalkers do that. London’s victims’ commissioner, Claire Waxman, is herself a victim of stalking. Her perpetrator, whom she did not know, has been jailed seven times, and the behaviour continues. Once known, police can advise victims on how to protect themselves—for example, by installing alarms in their homes. If the individual who is being stalked recognises them, they can go to the police and say, “I’ve seen them in the vicinity of my house”. If they do not know who they are, how can they report when they are in danger?
I briefly mention one particular case where an ex-partner, who had continuously stalked his ex and her son, was given her new secret address by the children’s social worker, because he said he was so distraught at not being able to see his son. As a result of that action a handful of years ago, he broke into her new flat, threw his son against the wall and then raped the mother in front of the child. That is because the agencies did not know. It is fine to have victims informed, but can the Minister say whether other agencies involved in these cases will also know, so that that sort of mistake cannot be repeated?
Can the Minister also confirm, as has already been mentioned, that he will commit to requiring social media companies to publish reports setting out the actions that they have taken to address online abuse and stalking against women and girls? Will they be informed about these perpetrators who are repeat offenders? Social media companies will not pick it up on their own but, once they have a name and an IP address, which the police will have, it would be easy to do so.
I end by saying that I broadly welcome this Statement, as I think all victims of stalking do, but the biggest issue is how we can change the culture in the police and the criminal justice system. It is apparent that, 12 years since the new laws were introduced, it is the culture on the front line of the criminal justice system that needs to be changed.
Cyberstalking is important and will be part of the assessment of the government response downstream. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned resources. We are in a very strange time, as the House will recognise, when we have not yet announced the police settlement for next year until December, we have not yet allocated resources for 2025-26 and we have not yet determined, with the Treasury, resources for 2026-29. These matters will come in due course, but we have not done that yet.
The issue of culture change, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is extremely important, as is putting victims at the heart of the response, which is why we refer not just to Nicola Thorp but to the work of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust and the way it has responded. The noble Baroness raised a number of issues relating to social media. That is equally important, but I say to all Members of this House that if they look at the Statement, the work on multiagency guidance will be brand-new and important. The review of legislation to see how we can improve many of the areas which both Front Bench spokespeople mentioned is important. The collection and publishing of data for the first time is important. The victim’s right to know, which the noble Baroness focused on, is extremely important, because once the victim knows, then steps can be taken and action monitored and individuals can respond to the agencies that I mentioned. That is in this proposed legislation the first time. The management of behaviour to tackle some of the long-term issues of low-level offenders, initially, who may raise the level of their game is equally important and is in for the first time. The stalking protection orders that we will put in place when parliamentary time allows are extremely important and will help prevent further engagement by stalkers when those are legislated. The national standards for examining how we can deal with individuals will raise the level of this issue and improve the performance of our agencies, which are all equally important.
Many of these matters that were announced in another place this week and are being repeated here today will require legislation in this or a later Session of Parliament, but I hope the Government’s intention is clear: we will not stand for stalking; we want to give victims protection; we want to improve the performance of the Government and their agencies in this area; and we want to ensure that there is a legal basis to give the type of protection that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, both suggested. This will be an ongoing discussion as legislation comes before the House, and I look forward to both noble Lords contributing to helping improve the performance for victims and the prevention of this activity in the first place.