I beg to move amendment 23, in clause 11, page 8, line 23, after “conviction” insert “in England and Wales”.

This amendment and amendments 24 and 43 extend the offence under this clause to Northern Ireland.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Government amendments 24 and 43.

Clause stand part.

Clause 12 stand part.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. Government amendments 23, 24 and 43 amend the penalty provisions in clause 11 and the extant provisions in clause 77 extend the broader offence of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm to Northern Ireland.

Clause 11, together with clause 12, fulfils a commitment made by the Government during the passage of the Online Safety Act to broaden the offence of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm to cover all the means by which that may occur, including direct assistance such as giving somebody a substance or even a weapon with which to perform the act.

Unlike the offence in section 184 of the Online Safety Act, which it replaces in so far as that offence applies to England and Wales, the broader offence is not confined to verbal or electronic communications, publications or correspondence. In that respect, it implements the recommendation that the Law Commission made in 2021, in its important “Modernising Communications Offences” report.

There are two key points that I want to draw the Committee’s attention to today: capacity and intent. Clause 11(1) says that a person commits the offence if they do an act that is

“capable of encouraging or assisting the serious self-harm” and if their act was intended to elicit that response. In so far as those two threshold tests are met, it is then a strict liability offence.

Subsection (2) provides that the person committing the offence does not need to know or be able to identify the person to whom their conduct is directed; it is enough that the conduct takes place at all. Secondarily, the offence is committed irrespective of whether serious self-harm eventually materialises.

Subsection (5) sets out the maximum penalties for the offence. The offence is triable either way; in a magistrates court it is subject to a fine or, on conviction on indictment, to a custodial term, or both, and in the Crown Court it is subject to a fine or a custodial term not exceeding five years, or both.

Broadening the offence has allowed us to simplify the drafting in a way that is more consistent with the offence of encouraging or assisting suicide. Members of the Committee will recall that that was discussed extensively during the passage of the Online Safety Act 2023—that we should be bringing self-harm, in terms of the elements of the offence, to read more consistently with the law on suicide.

Some provisions that were necessary in the context of an offence under the Online Safety Act could be done only by means of communications, such as forwarding messages, but that is not necessary in the context of this broader offence. I want to reassure the House that although the drafting of the broader offence differs in some respects, it covers the same behaviour as the Online Safety Act offence, in addition to other forms of encouragement or assistance. Clause 12 should be read in a way that complements clause 11. It is essentially a facilitation offence.

I missed Clare Wade’s evidence because I was unwell when she gave evidence to this Committee. Are we to assume that the clause will be used in the prosecution of cases where self-harm is caused by incidents within domestic abuse relationships or as a result of grooming, sexual violence and broader violence against women? I think that it was clarified during the evidence session that that was the case.

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. It is quite clear that Parliament’s intention, in the way that we are framing the clause, and how the clause might actually play out when it comes before the courts, are probably quite different. I have been thinking about that myself. This is very much an extension of what I may call—I hope you will forgive me if I use this as a shorthand—the “Molly Russell” principle, which was established by that tragic case and led to all the new principles of the Online Safety Act—bringing them into line with the offline environment.

However, I think that you are quite correct; when we read clause 11, we see that it belongs in a range of different circumstances, all of which I have thought through. Yes, I think that you are right to say that it could very easily exist within a domestic—

Order. I remind the Minister to speak through the Chair and observe the usual conventions.

My apologies. I am sorry for being too informal; I am not familiar with this. I think that it is the case that the issue is readily identifiable within certain forms of domestic abuse scenario, and that the clause would apply in those circumstances. It is obvious in the statutory language.

I will speak more broadly about the issue in a moment, and I am pleased to hear what the Minister has said; that is what we would all want to see. However, I am concerned about the each-way offences that the Minister outlined. Let us say that in a case of suicide a coroner found that domestic abuse had been involved—I mean, chance would be a fine thing in most cases—and a manslaughter charge was laid and then the perpetrator pled guilty. There has only been one case of this. I just wonder how these summary limits and these each-way offences would work in that situation.

I thank the hon. Lady again for her question. Actually, I think that we would have to concede immediately that it would be on the charge sheet. However, the hon. Lady has raised the topical, important and very difficult issue of whether or not a domestic abuse perpetrator has elicited suicide in circumstances where, as she will know, there are evidential difficulties. There is a discussion happening within Parliament, and more widely within the legal profession, about the offence of manslaughter and its ambit when it takes place in the context of suicide.

Perhaps I can reassure the hon. Lady, though, by saying this: if we stop short of suicide—very much mindful of the fact that that engages quite difficult legal issues—and we think about the offences created under clause 11, I think that it is almost inconceivable that there would be a circumstance in which a clause 11 offence existed and was not accompanied by an offence of coercive control under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. I just do not think that, in a domestic abuse context, those two things would not exist in parallel. Therefore I think that we would already be looking at a more serious form of sentencing if we were into an “eliciting self-harm” clause 11 offence. It would also be automatically brought under the ambit of the Domestic Abuse Act, and it is already a more serious offence in that context.

Clause 12 is the facilitation element of the offence, and subsection (1) provides that anyone who arranges for somebody else to do an act capable of amounting to inducing self-harm is also committing an equivalent offence. Subsection (2) provides that an act can be capable of encouraging or assisting self-harm even when done in circumstances where it was impossible for the final act to be performed. For example, if pills were provided to a person and they ended up not to be the pills that were intended, it is exactly the same offence. Equally, if something harmful was sent by post but never arrived, the offence and sentence are the same irrespective.

Subsection (3) provides that an internet service provider does not commit the offence merely by providing a means through which others can send, transmit or publish content capable of encouraging or assisting serious self- harm. Subsection (5) provides that section 184 of the Online Safety Act 2023 is repealed in consequence of these provisions, which create a much broader basis, bringing the online and offline environments into parity.

The Minister and I have had some back and forth on this. I rise really to hammer home the point regarding the good intentions of the clause, but the need to think about it in the context of a domestic abuse, grooming or sexual violence situation. It is undoubted in any professional’s mind that one of the consequences of violence, abuse and coercion against an individual, specifically in young women, is self-harm and suicide.

As the Minister rightly says, it is important that we recognise that in the vast majority of cases self-harm falls short of suicide. There is a huge amount of self-harm going on across the country, genuinely encouraged as a pattern of domestic abuse, and we need to ensure that this piece of perfectly reasonable legislation, which was designed for those on the internet trying to get people to be anorexic and all of that heinous stuff, which we are all very glad to have not had to put up with in our childhood—I look around to make sure that we are all of a relatively similar age—also covers that.

There is one particular risk: how does the clause interact with institutions? Perhaps the Minister could assist me with that. The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, a Home Office Minister, is sat in front of me. I was a few minutes late for the sitting this morning because I was in court with one of my constituents in a case—I am afraid to say—where we were on the other side from the Home Office. My constituent literally had to take medication during the court proceedings, such is the mental health trauma that has been caused to her by the Home Office. I wonder how this piece of legislation might be used. I suppose I worry that there is too much opportunity for it to become useful, in that there are so many ways in which institutions and individuals cause people to end up in a self-harm and suicidal situation. I seek clarity on that, unless Ministers wish to be found wanting by the Bill.

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley for offering a powerful dose of reality about what is happening and the risks. We know that abusers will find every possible gap and try to use them to perpetrate their abuse and these heinous crimes. We must follow them and close those gaps the best we can—or, even better, get ahead.

Clauses 11 and 12 make good the recommendations of the Law Commission in its 2021 “Modernising Communications Offences” report. The Minister described that as important and I echo her comments. The clauses also finish what was started during consideration of the Online Safety Bill. We supported it at that point, and the Bill was well scrutinised, so I will not rehash that debate.

The Government amendments extend the provisions to Northern Ireland. I wonder whether there is a different story about Scotland, because most of the Government amendments expand provisions to Scotland as well as to Northern Ireland. I would be interested in the Minister’s comments on that.

I will finish on the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley made about institutions. Throughout my time in Parliament, the issue of conversion therapies has been at the forefront. We wish that we were getting on with banning them today—goodness knows how much longer we will have to wait—but we know that very harmful self-harm practices can be part of those therapies. Will the Minister say, in responding to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley, how accountability will fall in cases like that? That is important; if there is a gap for a certain organisation, perhaps we need to return to this. It might be that we will be assisted by the provision in clause 14 that, where a significant senior person in an organisation commits a crime, the organisation can be held accountable. Perhaps that is the way to close the gap—I do not know. I will be interested in the Minister’s view.

My hon. Friends the Member for Birmingham, Yardley and the shadow Minister have made excellent points. Once we go into this, we start to find that there are areas we need to think out a bit more clearly. We may have to come back to this in due course, potentially in future legislation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley prompted me to think about the headteacher who committed suicide following an Ofsted inspection. The coroner’s court directly attributed that—partly, at the very least—to the institutional impact that that organisation had on her. Does my hon. Friend the shadow Minister agree that these are very important matters that we have to think through? Once we have let this issue out of the bag, so to speak, we have to very carefully consider the implications further down the line in terms of institutional abuse, because that is what it amounts to.

I am really grateful for my hon. Friend’s contribution. I think that is exactly right. We will hear from the Minister in her reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley where the Government settle on that point. Certainly on the face of the Bill, institutions are left out. I do wonder whether clause 14 would give us the opportunity to reconnect institutions. I suspect that is not the motivation behind that clause, but it may work in that way. Those are pertinent questions that I am sure the Minister is about to address.

A number of very good points have been made and I will try to respond to all of them. On Scotland, the offence relates to devolved matters, but Scottish Ministers have decided that the broader offence should not extend to their jurisdiction. They are sticking with section 184 of the Online Safety Act for now. That is why the amendment does not extend the offence to Scotland.

Let me turn to the point that the shadow Minister and the hon. Members for Birmingham, Yardley and for Bootle all made about the ambit of clause 11(1). If I may recap what I said to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, I think it is absolutely possible that some forms of domestic abuse will fall under the provisions of clause 11. She gave a good illustration of where that might occur. As I have said already—I hope I satisfied her with my answer—I think there is almost no circumstance where the clause would not be read or even pleaded in tandem with the Domestic Abuse Act. It will be a compound offence, and the charge sheet will have more than a section 11 offence if it occurs in the context of an intimate relationship or a former relationship. Conversion therapy was raised, and I think it is possible that that could fall within the ambit of clause 11 too. It is quite obvious how that could be the case.

Let me make another couple of points. It is quite important to step back from this legislation. It is right that the offence was first conceived with some of the anorexia influencing sites on social media, and some of the other self-harm stuff—I have already mentioned a relevant previous case—in mind. That was the starting point, but it is possible to imagine a far broader range of contexts in which it will end up in court. I think that is fair, and all the observations are right. There is little doubt that it is going to be tempered by the common law as it goes through the court process.

I would like to come back on two points, though. The point was made about a person having a difficult experience of litigation against the Home Office, and we heard the example of the high-profile case related to the effect of an Ofsted inspection; there could be a number of other scenarios. I think we have to look at clause 11(1)(b) when we are thinking about those. We are not considering simply whether the perpetrator is said to have done an act that is capable of encouraging self-harm. By the way, I think that when that is considered by the court, it is not going to include something unpleasant that makes a person feel terrible and leads them to a bad place. That is not the purpose of the clause. In the context of this legislation, “encouraging” has to mean a direct incitement.[Official Report, 1 March 2024, Vol. 746, c. 5MC.] (Correction) So the relevant provision is subsection (1)(b), which refers to an act that “is intended” to have such an effect. I may be wrong, but—

In this case you are.

Well, okay, but I struggle to conceive of circumstances, other than very unusual and extreme ones, where it would be said that a statutory body was doing an act with the intention of eliciting the consequence of self-harm. Anyway, the point has been made and I have responded to it. I know the hon. Lady’s case is an emotive one.

I am not going to talk about my case, but with regard to the charge sheet, coercive control legislation does not currently cover adults who are sexually exploited in grooming situations. In the case of a woman who is sexually exploited by an adult, like the woman I was with this morning, coercive control legislation does not apply. However, self-harm—I mean, I am going to say that literally being forced to be raped by 20 men a day is self-harm—is absolutely part of the pattern of coercion and abuse that those people suffer, so we would assume that adult-groomers would be covered by the Bill.

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I think a very helpful fabric of possible scenarios has been identified this afternoon. I simply say that in the different circumstances that she has just outlined, there are different criminal offences that would also apply. My simple point is that a case of the nature that she has described would not be confined to a section 11 offence under the Criminal Justice Act 2024, as I hope it will become in due course; there would be a range of serious criminality connected to that.

There isn’t. I hope, as the Minister hopes, that there will be by the time we have got to the end of our scrutiny of the Bill, but there is no crime of grooming adults in sexual exploitation; that exists only for children as an aggravating factor in offences. I suppose pimping legislation would not count in the case I mentioned if self-harm was caused. I do not think there are other bits of legislation for adult victims of sexual exploitation.

Order. We are having a very important and thoughtful debate, but can we please try to observe the normal procedures so that Hansard colleagues, and those who are watching, can catch all of the proceedings?

I am sorry if I misunderstood the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley. I thought she was identifying a rape scenario, which would be caught by the Sexual Offences Act 2003. It is probably not particularly fruitful for us to talk about every instance of criminality, but I think there is a point of agreement between Members on both sides of the Committee. Opposition Members have quite rightly and properly identified that clause 11 is likely to go much wider—the way it will be interpreted or pleaded, or how it will end up in court, is probably a bit different from the way in which it was presented to the House during the progress of the Online Safety Bill, when we were confined to two or three particular instances of self-harm. The Opposition correctly identified that issue, as we did on the Government Benches. I am not trying to get out of responding, but I think the provision will be tempered by common law as it goes through the courts.

Amendment 23 agreed to.

Amendment made: 24, in clause 11, page 8, line 24, at end insert—

“(aa) on summary conviction in Northern Ireland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or both);”.—

See the statement to amendment 23.

Clause 11, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.