Part of Criminal Justice Bill – in a Public Bill Committee am 2:45 pm ar 11 Ionawr 2024.
I understand exactly where the Minister is coming from. I understand not wishing to over-criminalise anybody for something accidental. I will just say that chance would be an absolutely fine thing. In the case that I was talking about, the police laughed at the woman when she went to them about it. Sometimes we on these Committees say, “Well, there’s already an offence for that,” and I think, “Is there?” In real life, there is not, when the rubber hits the road. I am not sure how many times people in this room have tried to get these criminal cases across the line. I do it every single week. In my life, I have done thousands and thousands.
The argument is the same for this legislation: what is the point of having it? Take Georgia Harrison’s case—let me give her a shout out. Good luck to her on “Love Island: All Stars”. I will definitely be supporting her; she is a friend of mine. There are probably all sorts of bits of legislation around posting an image of an ex partner. We say about spiking, “Well, there is already legislation for that,” but it does not work. Our job is to try to make laws that work in real life. I am afraid to say that there will be lots of cases of the kind that I am talking about. There just will, and the women involved will not be able to rely on this legislation.
The Minister said, “We try to make laws for all people in our country.” It does not always feel like that. We leave loads of people out. I will not press the new clause to a Division, because my point has been made. I am drawing a line in the sand when it comes to people in this Committee telling me, “There is another law for that,” when I know fine well that those other laws do not work.