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Defendant Anonymity

I beg to move,"That this House has considered the matter of defendant anonymity." I welcome the opportunity to speak on this subject for a second time. On this occasion, I am a little less inhibited by time pressure, but I am conscious of the number of people seeking to catch your eye, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I will not delay the House too much. Since I last addressed the House, in the 7 June Adjournment debate, the Government have reviewed the arguments more fully and our thinking has advanced, and I look forward to the opportunity to explain where matters now stand. I also look forward to dispelling some common myths and misconceptions about our policy. I emphasise again that the question of anonymity for rape defendants is wholly consistent with our fundamental commitment to supporting victims of crime. Violence against women, girls and vulnerable people is totally unacceptable, whatever the context or circumstances. We know that victims of sexual violence often find it very difficult to report a rape to the police, and of course for those who have felt able to come forward, going through the criminal justice process can be an incredibly difficult and painful experience. Our focus is on the rights and welfare of the victim, and we are committed to ensuring that every victim of rape has access to appropriate support. In particular, we are looking at putting funding for rape crisis services on a more sustainable basis and at establishing new rape crisis centres where there are gaps in provision. The Government Equalities Office is currently carrying out a consultation on a strategic action plan, including Government action on working with a more sustainable violence-against-women voluntary sector, based on cash, commissioning and capacity building. It closes on 23 July. The action plan suggests a capacity-building project to be carried out in partnership with the relevant umbrella bodies, to support their ability to represent Members and work together to influence the Government. The Home Secretary will be chairing a meeting of Ministers across government later this month to discuss how we tackle violence against women more widely. We will not conflate myths and stereotypes about false allegations with our detailed work on the proposals for defendant anonymity. This debate is not about doubting victims' reports or repeating uninformed arguments about false allegations. Baroness Stern has stated in her independent and impressive review that this is an area on which we need further research, and the Government are looking into this. I want to make it clear that Baroness Stern's review of the evidence found that only a very few rape allegations are false:""It is not possible to establish an exact figure and the research that is available gives a wide range of suggested percentages. Some research suggests that a figure of eight to ten per cent of reported rapes could well be false reports. However, those we spoke to in the system felt that there were very few.""