Clause 5 - The offence
Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill [Lords]
4:45 pm
Mr Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General, Home, Constitutional & Legal Affairs; Beaconsfield, Conservative)
We hope that the natural instincts that parents have for their children will give them an extra duty of care. However, as the hon. and learned Lady knows, the reality in dysfunctional households is that there will be extremely young parents below the age of consent for sexual relations who have brought babies into the world and there will be a wider household that is responsible for care. There are many inadequacies involved, and I find that the distinction starts to get fairly fuzzy.
If I am working in any direction, it is of not removing the reference to the age of 16—the age of consent—and lumping everybody together, but putting a sensible bottom age limit on the offence. We should not prosecute children just because they happen to be parents. The interesting question is: what should the limit be? I assume that a household will contain adults. I seem to recollect—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that to leave a child in the care of another child under the age of 14 is already prohibited. Or at least, I recollect that it is generally held that people should not have babysitters under that age. I cannot remember exactly, or quote chapter and verse. I see heads shaking, but that age impinges on my consciousness. The Minister might like to go away and check it. Perhaps it is a guideline. Somebody may scribble a note to him and correct me. What is the age? Can we take that as a starting point?
The duty on the adults in the household may be other than that on the children. I simply put that point forward for discussion. However, I find it odd that, for carer defendants who are suspected of intimate involvement in an offence and are charged with negligence, there is a bottom age of 16, but defendants who happen to be the mother or father can be charged at any age above the age of criminal responsibility, which is now extremely low. The Committee must take that matter into account. I cannot get away from the view that the distinction is largely artificial.
Some very odd anomalies spring to mind. Some of the amendments relate to subsection (6), which states:
''For the purposes of this section an ''unlawful'' act is one that—
(a) constitutes an offence, or
(b) would constitute an offence but for being the act of—
(i) a person under the age of ten''.
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
On resuming—