Human Rights Legislation

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I pass on our best wishes to the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). I hope that she is back up and running and well soon.

I say to the hon. Gentleman that we think that it is elected lawmakers who should have the last word on the laws of the land—that includes the devolved competencies. What he is saying, logic would suggest, is that he wants Strasbourg to be able to overrule not just Westminster but the Scottish Parliament. We are supporting democracy in all the nations of the UK and in this House.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

This is the third or fourth attempt by successive Tory Governments to fillet the Human Rights Act, and it is no more coherent than the ones that were abandoned. We know that it is intended to pick on what are perceived as the easier or unpopular targets, but it will mainly disadvantage ordinary citizens of this country who are victims of unlawful decisions by the state. It purports to repatriate powers from Europe, but we are rightly staying in the European convention on human rights, so more decisions will go to Strasbourg. Judges will no longer be bound by the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, but they are not now. Will he take the opportunity of the consultation to look at that again and see whether the measures are coherent in any way?

[Dominic Raab]

I think this is the first time that a consultation document has been put forward to the House of Commons. The hon. Gentleman is right that it has been much debated; we are now taking action. I am afraid that I disagree with him: we are very much focused on protecting and strengthening our tradition of freedom, of which I have given freedom of speech as an example.

Frankly, the hon. Gentleman has a choice to make. He can sit back and bask in the generalities of what he has said, or he can recognise, as the former Home Secretary and architect of the Human Rights Act does, that there has been abuse of the system and that if we reform and take our responsibilities in this House seriously, we can make a change for the better and introduce some much-needed common sense.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

We have been debating these matters at length. The Bill is a very good one. It strengthens judicial review in relation to quashing orders with the new remedies. Far from what the hon. Lady said, those new remedies—for example, being able to suspend a quashing order—will bring great benefit to our constituents and support better public administration.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Bill has a whole chapter on coroners yet entirely neglects the key issue of giving bereaved families a fair hearing at inquests. Victims’ families have no right to legal aid, even when many state institutions are represented at public expense. At one inquest, 18 public bodies were represented but families had to fight to be heard. Will the Minister commit, now, to non-means-tested funding for bereaved families when the state is represented, and table amendments to the Bill to achieve that?

[James Cartlidge]

I am pleased to confirm to the House that we are currently drafting the measures that will ensure that we remove the means test on exceptional case funding for such matters. Furthermore, I can confirm that the changes should be implemented early next year.

Judicial Review and Courts Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) to his place and wish him well on his first outing for the Ministry of Justice. He might be tempted to reciprocate when he speaks, but as this is my third time in the job, that would be unnecessary, just like significant parts of this Bill.

I am sorry to be leaving the Justice Committee after a number of years, not least because of the able and consensual chairing of the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). I need not feel neglected, however, as so many members of the Committee have followed me to the Chamber today. This is almost like a meeting of the Justice Committee. With the hon. Members for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley), for Newbury (Laura Farris), for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) and for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) here, we almost have a full house. I commend all their contributions, and indeed the contributions of all other Members this evening. This has been an intelligent and considered debate that I hope will set a good precedent for the exchanges across the Dispatch Box.

Parts of the Bill are functional and unexceptional, and we will not make points for the sake of it. Indeed, much of part 2 has been revived from previous Bills that fell in the political mêlées of the past few years. The debate has shown, however, that there are serious concerns around part 1, as the shadow Lord Chancellor, the Scottish National party and Lib Dem spokespersons and others have indicated. I particularly want to mention the contribution from the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), who, with his usual thoughtfulness, went through some of the problems in clauses 1 and 2 in forensic detail. Despite having had the benefit of some very learned briefings from organisations working in the field, I heard him make some points that had not occurred to me or to them. I hope that he will be joining us on the Public Bill Committee in order to pursue those matters further.

I thank all Members for their contributions, and even though the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) did not speak in the debate other than to intervene, we felt his presence in the room. His articles in The Guardian and elsewhere really have hit the nail on the head and shown that, despite what some Members have said, there are very real concerns about the Bill. It always needs to be said when talking about the Lord Chancellor that he was a protégé of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden, which we do not see very often these days. I am reminded of King Lear, rather than Edward Lear:

“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!”

Our primary concern with this Bill is that the proposals for judicial review are regressive and uncalled for, more especially when, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) set out, many aspects of the justice system are in a state of profound crisis—aspects that these measures do nothing to address and much to distract from.

The Ministry of Justice should be devoting all its efforts to tackling the record court backlog and working to restore women’s faith in the criminal justice system. We have heard several times today of the more than 60,000 outstanding Crown court cases, due in part to the shortage of practitioners, with proceedings delayed because barristers cannot be found to prosecute or defend, and the shortage of judges and recorders. The Lord Chancellor recently admitted that he cannot say when the backlog will get back to pre-pandemic levels, but last week’s National Audit Office report enlightened him by suggesting that the backlog could still be 25% above pre-pandemic levels three years from now.

That is an important point. We often had this debate on the Justice Committee, and the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich said that backlogs have risen and fallen under different Governments. I concede that point, but the important point is that when the backlogs were high under a Labour Government they were quickly addressed and quickly fell back to low levels. There is little sign at the moment that the Crown court backlog is coming under control or is likely to reduce to acceptable levels.

Rape prosecutions and convictions are at record lows, even as reports to the police rise steadily. The Government’s own review said that Ministers are deeply ashamed of this dire situation and pledge to get prosecutions and convictions back up to 2016 levels by the end of the Parliament, but the Prime Minister said during his party conference speech that he cannot guarantee the target will be met.

We have recently seen two excellent reports on legal aid by the Justice Committee and the all-party parliamentary group on legal aid, and the Minister and I attended the launch of the latter last week. The reports document the collapse in access to justice since the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. In the face of this unprecedented crisis, what is the Government’s legislative priority? Why are we here today? This is another political attack on the judiciary.

Weakening judicial review and attacks on human rights legislation have formed predictable purple passages in the last few Tory manifestos. The previous Lord Chancellor was a half-hearted cheerleader. To his credit he was half-hearted, so he had to go. The noble Lord Faulks proved to be too much of a lawyer and too little of a politician, so his review was set aside and a second consultation staged, and now we have this Bill.

Although it is correct to say that some of the threatened intrusions on the judicial role have not yet materialised, although we have yet to see the new Lord Chancellor at full stretch, there is plenty of mischief in this Bill, with the hobbling of judicial review by prospective-only orders, the fettering of judicial discretion by presumptions in favour of prospective and suspended orders and the ousting of judicial intervention in Cart and perhaps other cases.

The false dichotomy that the Government wish to argue, as in the recent speech by the Attorney General, is that democracy and the rule of law are two opposing forces that need to be brought more into balance by weakening the latter. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are two sides of the same coin, or rather one provides the tracks on which the other can smoothly run.

This Government’s true motive is to escape accountability for malpractice. It is one of the defining features of this Government that they simply do not believe the same rules should apply to them as apply to everyone else, and that starts with the Prime Minister and works its way down. An unbiased observer—I offer myself for this role—might say that the Government want to mute every avenue of accountability, from the BBC to the Freedom of Information Act and now the courts.

Specifically, the removal of the retrospective effect of a quashing order will have a chilling effect on judicial review. What is the point of the seeking of a remedy without redress? Victims of past unlawful state actions might not be compensated. Litigants who are similarly impacted before and after a judgment will be treated differently. Legal aid may be refused on the grounds that a remedy for past loss is not available. All in all, the Bill goes much further than the dry terminology of the statute suggests. It also goes further than the independent panel recommended: it saw no need for prospective-only orders and dismissed the idea of presumptions in favour of them.

As we have heard, the Bill will also abolish Cart judicial reviews, which are most often used in serious asylum and human rights cases but have also been used in welfare cases when someone was on the brink of being made destitute or homeless. That is the answer to the point about the fact that the success rate may not be among the highest—albeit it is still higher than the Government previously said it was—and the reason why there is a special reason for retaining such reviews. Those points have been made but they are, with respect, not good points, because Cart reviews are a last-gasp defence for some of the most vulnerable people in the most desperate situations. The Bill’s impact assessment concedes that, saying:

“The majority of Cart cases relate to Immigration and Asylum, therefore those who lose out…are more likely to have particular protected characteristics, for example in respect of race and/or religion or belief.”

Cart reviews are an important safeguard and there is already a high threshold for bringing them. Moreover, the original proposal was based on wrong data, as I have said. I agree that the estimate of the percentage varied from the clearly wrong 0.22%, to the 3% that the Government now maintain, to the nearly 6%—30 times the originally cited figure—on which a number of learned and informed sources have made submissions to us.

Let me give just one example—there will be time in Committee to give a lot more—of the type of case affected. G was trafficked into the UK from her home country of Nigeria. Traffickers in both countries had brutally mistreated her and subjected her to serious physical and sexual abuse. While she was in the UK, she gave birth to a child, whom she looked after alone. The Government did not dispute that G was a victim of trafficking, but a tribunal convened to decide what support and protection she ought to receive went beyond the statements of the parties and decided that she was not, in fact, a victim of any trafficking or exploitation. This meant that she could be removed from the UK and would have resulted in her falling back into her trafficker’s hands.

The Cart procedure was used to re-evaluate the decision before the High Court. The Court found that the tribunal had made a series of errors leading to

“elementary and serious breaches of the principles of procedural fairness”

and that, as such, its decision could not stand. The High Court ruled that G’s case was not only arguable and should have proceeded, but that it was “bound to succeed” based on the strength of her claim. Without that ruling, the tribunal’s original “fundamentally flawed” ruling would have been put into effect, putting G and her child in the greatest danger imaginable. It is difficult to see why such a case should be refused the opportunity of legal remedy. That is certainly the opinion that the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law and others have impressed on us in briefings, right up to and including today.

The Government’s statements on matters going beyond Cart suggest that the use of an ouster cause will serve as a template to abolish other types of judicial review in future.

The press release announcing the Bill stated that

“the legal text that removes the Cart judgment will serve as a framework that can be replicated in other legislation.”

That is quite chilling in itself. The Government would do better to heed the words of Lord Neuberger, former president of the Supreme Court, who said last week:

“Ouster clauses…which are intended to ensure a particular class of decision cannot be judicially reviewed, carry with them the inevitable implication that whoever has the protection of the ouster clause has the right to break the law with impunity”.

Perhaps with an eye on this latest legislative attempt to rein in our independent judiciary, he added that judicial review

“is what ensures that the executive arm of government keeps to the law and that individual rights are protected.”

Perhaps also the Conservative party is no longer a party of individual rights.

Part 2 contains a number of measures to increase the use of technology and online justice procedures, some of which, as I have said, have been rehashed from earlier legislation. The justice system has to adapt to new technologies, just as the rest of us do—some with more success than others—but technological change does not affect everyone in society equally. We cannot have a justice system where people are locked out because they do not have the means or the knowhow to navigate the digital frontier. We must make sure that this drive to digitisation leaves no one behind. Justice must never be sacrificed for efficiency.

If there is sufficient opportunity, for example, for taking advice on pleas to be heard before a tribunal for open justice, are corners being cut in the interests of rapid and economical disposal of cases? All those questions arise in revisions currently in part 2 of the Bill. We also have concerns around plans to set up an online procedure rules Committee. The Committee itself makes sense, but why, given that it is supposed to be a practical aid to practitioners, is it a creature of the Lord Chancellor, who merely has a duty to consult the Lord Chief Justice and the senior president of tribunals before making amendments to the rules?

The last major area of concern we have is in the provisions relating to coroners’ courts. Again, there is a danger that, in a rush to reduce unnecessary procedures and facilitate greater online participation, people who are less capable of navigating the new system will be excluded. There is nothing to address existing problems with the coroners’ service and, on Thursday, we be will debating the Justice Committee’s excellent report—I was a member of the Committee at the time—which raises a number of serious issues, including, in particular, the inequality of arms, as we have heard from many Members today, faced by many bereaved families who are not entitled to legal aid at inquests where the state is representing. We can discuss that in Committee and we can discuss it on Thursday.

The peremptory response and dismissal of many of the Committee’s major recommendations is something that the Government should look at again. It is another example of why this Bill is not fit for purpose. There is too much focus on areas where the law works well, and too little where it is failing. Above all, it is an unforgiveable distraction at a time when all focus should be on getting the justice system back on an even keel. The Bill seeks to undermine the rights of the individual against the state and it looks like another attempt by this Government to stoke a political war with the judiciary—something that would be more recognisable in Hungary or Poland.

We can try to salvage the administrative good from the political bad as the Bill progresses through both Houses, but there is no way that any Member of this House who cares about the rule of law or the checks and balances of our constitution should be supporting this Bill on Second Reading tonight.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Commons Chamber

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 14 July.

[The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)]

While Sunday’s result may not have been the one we were all hoping for, I know that the whole House will want to congratulate Gareth Southgate and the England squad on their fantastic achievements over the last month. The nation is proud of each and every one of them.

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Andy Slaughter]

I second the Prime Minister’s support for our outstanding England team and players, but it is perhaps a pity that it did not come sooner from him and the Home Secretary. We all know the importance of double vaccination, especially against the delta or Johnson variant of the virus, but in Hammersmith and Fulham, despite the hard work of our local NHS, council and volunteers, only 36% of adults have been double-jabbed, so will the Prime Minister think again before recklessly removing all barriers to infection and transmission on 19 January? Will he keep the regulations on mask wearing and, like the Mayor of London, keep fighting the virus until it is beat?

[The Prime Minister]

If we had followed the hon. Gentleman’s precepts—he campaigned vehemently to stay in the European Union—we would not have achieved the fastest vaccine roll-out of any European country or vaccinated a higher proportion than any European population. That is the reality. As for his criticism of the road map, I respectfully point out to the hon. Gentleman that the month is July, not January.

Ministerial Code

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Governments of all stripes can always do better, but I think it is fair to say that, over generations and across parties, there has been a determined effort by our Prime Ministers to do everything they can to make sure that our democracy stays healthy. Of course, Prime Ministers in the past have made mistakes, but I think it is important that we recognise that, overall, we can have confidence in institutions like this House of Commons to hold them to account.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab) [V]]

The Minister has a specific duty to ensure transparency in Government through the Freedom of Information Act. Is he concerned that Transparency International last year identified nine unremedied breaches of the ministerial code? Why is information withheld in Government FOI responses more often than not? And is he still running his FOI clearing house to delay and filter FOI responses?

[Michael Gove]

The freedom of information clearing house, sadly, is not mine. It was set up under a Labour Government, so it is a Blairite inheritance. What it exists to do is make sure that freedom of information responses are effectively co-ordinated and that we do everything we can in order to make sure that we comply with the terms of that legislation. But of course one point about the freedom of information legislation is that it needs to be a safe space for frank advice to be offered by officials to Ministers, and it is important for the good conduct of government that that safe space remains.

Covid-19: Road Map

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

These “not before” dates are not arbitrary; they are crucial. They are determined by the time we need to evaluate the impact on the pandemic of the openings-up that we are doing. For instance, we will need four weeks to see whether the opening of schools has caused an uncontrollable surge in the pandemic, and then a week to give advice and so on. So they are not arbitrary; they are dictated by the science, and that is the right way forward. But if we look at the overall road map, it is beyond what many other countries are currently able to achieve, and that, as my hon. Friend rightly says, is thanks to the roll-out of the vaccination programme.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab) [V]]

Five local NHS areas in England, including Hammersmith and Fulham, have vaccinated 73% or less of the over-70s, despite the best efforts of NHS and public health staff and volunteers. This falls to a 60% take-up for the most deprived tenth of residents and below 50% for some ethnic minority groups. As the country moves on to vaccinate younger and less at-risk groups, what comfort can the Prime Minister give to the quarter of my elderly and vulnerable constituents that his Government have left behind?

[The Prime Minister]

Take-up is accelerating among all those groups, but the hon. Member is right to say that it has been slower in some groups than in others. That is why we have rolled out the network of community champions. However, it is also important for him and for all of us to champion the uptake of vaccines across all our communities in our constituencies.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

For many years now I have been listening to my right hon. Friend making her points with the passion and knowledge that she does, and I know she is right. I look forward very much to her review, and to her submitting her findings, and I look forward to working together with her to achieve the change that we want for early years children.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab) [V]]

This week, I got an email from Elena Hough, the deputy head of Wendell Park Primary School in my constituency. She says that lack of Government guidance means that her staff will soon be teaching over 100 children in school—10 times the number in the first lockdown. Having a lockdown in name only may suit the Prime Minister. He can feign tackling the virus while tipping the wink to his anti-lockdown Back Benchers and bending the rules himself, but as Miss Hough says, her pupils and staff, who, like all Hammersmith schools, are doing a fantastic job under the most difficult of circumstances, deserve better. Why are they being hung out to dry by the Prime Minister and his Education Secretary?

Transport Infrastructure

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, which is indeed the point of the investment in buses. Everyone knows from talking to their constituents that a decent, reliable bus route can be absolutely transformative of their lives and of their kids’ prospects, so we will do that across the country.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

With Birmingham airport 30 minutes from Old Oak we will not need a third runway at Heathrow, I am sure the Prime Minister agrees. However, will HS2 terminate at Old Oak for three years while Euston is under construction, as the press are reporting and, if so, what will he do about the disruption and overcrowding at Old Oak? It is already the biggest development and an interchange site, and is very happy with its historic name, by the way.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support for the name of Old Oak Common. We will make sure that we take control properly of the management of that fantastic project. There is huge potential for success at Old Oak. Indeed, it presents a potential link between the great west line and HS2. We will also ensure that we take proper control of what is happening at Euston which, he would agree, has been a shambles. We have a special purpose vehicle established to get the maximum value for the taxpayer from that project.