Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 1, page 1, line 4, at end insert—

“( ) Nothing in this Act confers on any person immunity from civil liability, nor does it change the relevant standard of care in negligence or breach of statutory duty”.

With all due respect to you, Mr Speaker, and to the House, I do not think the House will dignify the Bill with much by way of a debate. It has been comprehensively trashed even by its supporters. I think that of 24 witnesses originally asked by the Government to give evidence in Committee, only five turned up. Most of those, even if they supported the principle of the Bill, said how poorly it was drafted. Even the Forum of Insurance Lawyers, which represents the interests of defendants and insurers in whose interests the Bill is drafted, did not have a kind word to say about it. It was buried on Second Reading by the shadow Lord Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) and, not least, by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier). It was dug up and reburied in Committee, and there are only so many times that its corpse can be paraded around Parliament. Indeed, the only thing the hon. and learned Member for Harborough was wrong about was to say that when the Bill becomes an Act it

“will be the subject of derision and confusion”.—[Official Report, 21 July 2014; Vol. 584, c. 1204.]

It is already the subject of derision and confusion.

Amendment 1, and the other amendments we have tabled, reiterates some of what was put forward in Committee. I make no apology for that. We are simply trying to get an answer from the Minister on the points on which he was either vague or contradictory, and, in the last chance before the Bill leaves this House, to see what exact purpose lies behind it.

Amendment 1 states:

“Nothing in this Act confers on any person immunity from civil liability, nor does it change the relevant standard of care in negligence or breach of statutory duty.”

It might seem surprising to need a clarification of that order, but that is exactly what is necessary because the Government have not been clear from day one on whether the Bill seeks to change the law or not. In the pre-publicity, if one can put it that way, the Lord Chancellor said:

“It does not rewrite the law in detail or take away discretion from the courts, but it sends a signal to our judges and a signal to those thinking about trying it on”.—[Official Report, 21 July 2014; Vol. 584, c. 1187.]

Whether the proper purpose of legislation is to send a signal to those thinking about trying it on, I leave it to other Members to comment on.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I know that my hon. Friend is a very good forensic lawyer. I have the same dilemma as he does: it is hard to be in favour of the Bill, but it is hard to be against it. Where does it come from and what was its purpose? Using his forensic skills, can he tell us who was behind its inclusion in the Queen’s Speech?

[Mr Slaughter]

As I would expect, my hon. Friend asks a very good question. It comes from the media grid in the Ministry of Justice. There was a vacant slot in The Mail on Sunday and something had to be pushed forward for the weekend. I see the Minister was in charge of spin this weekend. He has obviously been promoted to Lord Chancellor. Not only can the Lord Chancellor not be bothered to come to the House any more, but he cannot even be bothered to do The Mail on Sunday. How extraordinary! However, I admired the Minister’s performance over the weekend, particularly dealing with questions about whether he had been the subject of abuse himself. I was glad he was surprised by the question. Someone as emollient as him would never be the subject of abuse by his constituents or anybody else’s.

My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) makes the crucial point. What is the purpose of the Bill, other than as a piece of spin? If we say, “The Bill promotes volunteering and encourages people to intervene where they can be of assistance”, who would not be against sin in that way? But of course that is not the whole purpose, and when we come to the second set of amendments, I will explain that there is an insidious part of the Bill, in clause 3.

Returning to amendment 1, will the Minister clarify—he has tried several times already in Committee—whether the Bill changes the law? This is a key point. After some consideration and umming and ahhing, he said that clause 3, unlike clauses 2 and 4, would change the law. He said:

“We consider that clause 3 represents a change in that it ensures that the court takes into account a defendant’s general approach towards protecting the safety and interests of others when carrying out an activity. It is the general issue that is relevant there.”––[Official Report, Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Public Bill Committee, 9 September 2014; c. 75.]

I cannot see how that is any different from what is in clauses 2 and 4, which he concedes do not change the law.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

It might help the House if I quote from the House of Common research paper:

“The Bill would not change the existing overarching legal framework, or leave victims without protection, and the courts would still be able to find that a person had been negligent or in breach of a statutory duty in relevant circumstances.”

Why are we here? What is this about? What is the point of the Bill?

[Mr Slaughter]

Indeed. In responding to this amendment in Committee, in flat contradiction to what I have just quoted, the Minister said:

“Nothing in the Bill suggests that it gives immunity from civil liability. It also does not change the standard of care that is generally applicable… The Bill simply requires the court to have regard to certain factors in deciding what steps should have been taken to meet that standard of care in a particular case.” —[Official Report, Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Public Bill Committee, 9 September 2014; c. 63.]

As was pointed out ad nauseam to the Minister, the doctrine of negligence in common law has been developed not over years but over centuries. Furthermore, there is already guidance in legislation—the Compensation Act 2006 being the obvious example—insofar as it is needed, but generally the courts do not need guidance in considering all the relevant factors. As I said, however, when we come to clause 3, we will perhaps see what the Government’s ulterior motive is.

I do not wish to labour the point; I simply wish to have an answer from the Minister. Will the Bill—clause 3 or any other part—make any difference to how the law of negligence works in the courts? If so, will he indicate how and explain the motivation? If it does not, what is the purpose of the Bill? I await his response.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

The introductory comments by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) are typical of his form. When he was talking about my interviews yesterday in the media about abuse, I thought for a moment that he might be referring to some abuse that he had hurled at me during a debate, but he did not go that far.

I appreciate that the purpose of amendment 1 is to clarify that the Bill does not confer immunity from civil liability on any individual or change the standard of care that is relevant in claims involving negligence or breach of statutory duty. I explained to the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues in Committee why I thought such an amendment was not needed, but I am happy to explain our position on this again. As for whether the law has been changed, I will deal with that substantially when we debate clause 3, which is in the second group of amendments for this debate on Report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vara]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but I shall do as guided by Mr Speaker, as self-defence is not an issue I am dealing with in connection with this amendment.

The Bill does not change the relevant standard of care that applies when a court is considering whether somebody has been negligent or has breached a relevant statutory duty. The court will continue to look at what an ordinary and reasonable person should have done in all the circumstances of the case. The Bill simply requires the court to have regard to the factors in the Bill before reaching a decision on liability. It does not tell the court what conclusions to draw or prevent a person from being found negligent if the facts of the case warrant it.

As I said in Committee, if in a finely balanced case the court considers the factors in the Bill and decides that this should tip the balance in favour of a defendant who had been acting for the benefit of society, demonstrating a generally responsible approach towards the safety of others during an activity or intervening to help someone in an emergency, we would welcome that outcome. It will be for the courts to decide how much weight to give these factors on a case-by-case basis, but we do not consider that there is any risk of the clause being misinterpreted by the courts as somehow granting individuals immunity from civil liability or changing the standard of care that is generally applicable. In that light, the amendment is unnecessary, and I hope that the hon. Member for Hammersmith will withdraw it.

[Mr Slaughter]

I shall not press the amendment to the vote; we can continue our discussion in connection with the second group of amendments. Let me tell the Minister, however, that his explanation has continued to go around in ever-decreasing circles. The two points at the heart of the Bill, raised in a number of interventions, are these. First, is the Minister attempting to change the law or not; and, secondly, is he attempting to fetter the discretion of the judiciary? What he said in respect of the distinction he wishes to make between the Compensation Act 2006 and this Bill suggests that he does wish to do that. Section 1 of that Act says “may”, while this Bill says “must”. If the Minister wants to make that distinction, the only explanation must be that he wants to fetter the hands of the judiciary in dealing with these matters, giving rise to the suspicion that it is entirely inappropriate. However, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 3

Responsibility

[Mr Slaughter]

I beg to move amendment 2, page 1, line 12, leave out “generally”.

[Mr Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 3, page 1, line 13, leave out

“or other interests of others”

and insert “of employees or bystanders”.

Amendment 4, page 1, line 13, at end insert

“in relation to the circumstances leading up to the alleged negligence”.

Amendment 5, page 1, line 9, leave out clause 3.

Amendment 6, in clause 4, page 1, line 17, leave out from “danger” to end of line 18.

[Mr Slaughter]

I will deal briefly at the end with the amendment relating to clause 4. It raises the issue posed by the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) about St John Ambulance and its concerns about the Bill. Amendments 2 to 5 deal with what is effectively the Bill’s only operative clause, clause 3. Again, I make no apology for saying that these amendments were put in Committee.

Amendments 2 to 4 propose ways of improving the drafting of what everyone from the Law Society to legal practitioners and commentators has described as one of the worst-drafted pieces of legislation they have ever seen. Our concern is that clause 3 is drawn very widely. It states:

“The court must have regard to whether the person, in carrying out the activity in the course of which the alleged negligence or breach of statutory duty occurred, demonstrated a generally responsible approach towards protecting the safety or other interests of others.”

That is hedged around with many generalities. What is a “generally responsible approach”? What does the “safety or other interests” of others mean? Our amendment 4 attempts to clarify the clause by adding the words

“in relation to the circumstances leading up to the alleged negligence”.

The Minister was made aware of this point in Committee so I shall not explain it at length, but the purpose of our amendments is to ensure that if material other than that specifically relating to a particular incident is taken into consideration, it should have a direct causal link—through time, location or type—to the incident being complained of. Otherwise, we risk opening up many cans of worms. In relation to an accident at work, for example, the entire conduct of an employer or employee over a long period could be taken into account, as could working practices and conditions, as well as “other interests”, whatever they might be. I suspect that, in trying to keep the ministerial team happy, the parliamentary draftsmen have been scratching their heads and trying to come up with something. Our amendments are meant to be genuinely constructive in trying to improve the drafting of the Bill—if that is possible. But I shall say no more about that.

[Andy McDonald]

Amendment 2 proposes leaving out the word “generally”, in the context of the person who might have difficulty showing that they have demonstrated a “generally responsible approach” towards protecting the safety of others. My hon. Friend has rightly focused on the word “generally”. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) has said that he suspects the Bill will be the subject of derision and confusion if it is enacted as drafted, but is that not already the case?

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[Mr Slaughter]

At best, the word “generally” adds nothing to clause 3. At worst, it could mean that everything including the kitchen sink is thrown into litigation by defendants who are desperate to show that they are not liable for a particular tort. That could lead to additional costs and complexity, red herrings, satellite litigation and who knows what? I hope that the Minister will at least go so far as to say that the drafting of the clause could be improved. Having said that, I do not think its drafting could be improved; it simply needs to go. I therefore hope that he will agree to amendment 5 and sacrifice the clause. He would be losing only one clause out of the five. I am sure the Bill would be just as good with four clauses as with five.

I will not repeat what I have said in previous debates on the Bill, but the Minister has said at some stages that this is an attempt to change the law. In more candid moments elsewhere, he and the Lord Chancellor have indeed suggested that this is an attempt to skew the balance in personal injury litigation, particularly between employers and employees. An article in The Daily Telegraph has described the proposals as sending a

“blunt message to the trade union officials who bring thousands of negligence cases against employers every year”.

I do not know whether the Minister has ever been a member of a trade union or whether he is familiar with their work, but much of the unsung detailed work that they do on behalf of their members is exactly in this area of assisting with litigation against employers in meritorious cases, just as any other solicitor might do. Personal injury cases are not brought for fun or to make a political point. They are brought because there has been an injury and there is substantial evidence of negligence. We fear that the clause is designed to weaken the ability of those who have suffered injury at work—or elsewhere, but I suspect that it is primarily directed at injury at work—to take their cases to court, and that they will either not be able to bring those cases or will not succeed with them, despite their merit.

[Sir Bob Russell]

Will the shadow Minister join me in congratulating all those involved in producing the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this year? An estimated 40,000 lives have been saved in the workplace, and there was not a single fatality during the construction of the Olympic stadium.

[Mr Slaughter]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. The Act was a landmark piece of legislation—one of those seminal pieces of legislation—and it could not be more different from this Bill. It has made a cultural change, and has indeed been responsible for saving many hundreds, if not thousands, of lives.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

I am sure my hon. Friend has noticed that a Labour Government introduced the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. Does he agree that this Bill confuses issues of health and safety with issues of negligence? There does not seem to be any real difference that warrants the definition.

[Mr Slaughter]

This Government have already been responsible for full-frontal, across-the board assaults on health and safety in the workplace, from the changes in part 2 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 to the changes in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 in relation to strict liability in breach-of-statutory-duty cases. This is just another of those assaults, but I believe that it is an ineffective attempt. I have confidence in our courts, and I am sure that even if the Bill is passed unamended, the judiciary will treat it with the contempt that it deserves. They will consider the matters that are dealt with in the Bill, as they would have anyway, but they will not give those matters undue consideration because of what is in the Bill, and they will continue to find for meritorious claims and against unmeritorious ones. Of course, it remains the case that if an employee is on a frolic of his own—if he is, as the Lord Chancellor would say, trying it on—the courts will find that out, because that is exactly what the trial process is about. The Bill does nothing but add confusion.

If clause 3 is intended to change the law—no doubt the Minister will clarify that—for whose benefit is it intended to change the law? It seems to me that the Government can only be seeking to bring in extraneous factors which will allow a defendant to deflect from or evade responsibility in negligence and breach-of-statutory-duty cases. The cards are stacked very much in favour of the employer in such cases. The employer controls the accident site, and the employer, directly or through his insurer, has the weight of finance and advice. The employee is often restricted, first, by nervousness about suing his employer; secondly, possibly by his injury; and thirdly, possibly by a lack of income as a result of the incident.

Why would a Government wish to set out to hobble a claimant in that respect other than because some blind prejudice causes them to consider all claims by employees against employers to be unmeritorious? The same motivation led to the 80% decline in employment tribunal cases that has followed the introduction of fees, and the Government have shown the same attitude to health and safety generally in their cuts to the Health and Safety Executive, as a result of which inspection regimes are not what they were, despite the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. Unless the Minister either agrees to amendment 5 or can, very persuasively, show us that it would not have any material effect, I suspect that we will press the amendment to a vote.

Let me briefly deal with clause 4, about which a number of issues were raised in Committee. We have not sought to bring those up again, but one or two of the interventions were about the definitions of “heroic act” and “hero”, and about other poor drafting. I will not address those points this afternoon but, given the criticism from Members on both sides of the House, it is worth asking the Minister whether he will consider withdrawing the final words from clause 4:

“without regard to the person’s own safety or other interests.”

St John Ambulance has clearly made the point that that is an irresponsible provision. It does not add anything; all it encourages is reckless behaviour likely to put either the putative hero or others engaged in such action at some risk. It is a loose and careless piece of drafting, and the Minister would do himself credit if he simply withdrew it. The brief that St John Ambulance prepared for us not only made that point clearly, but made the point raised by the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell).

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

The one thing the person will not think about when he or she sees something that they could help with is any Bill or legislation. They will think, “I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to help this person.” Whatever we legislate on, we have to make sure that someone who really cares is not inhibited from taking such action.

[Mr Slaughter]

I could not agree more. The hon. Gentleman’s comments undermine the whole purpose of this Bill, which is, supposedly, to exhort the public to do things that they would almost certainly do anyway. I do not think the public need this Bill to be encouraged to volunteer or to be told that they should intervene when situations demand. The practical point, which St John Ambulance makes, is that if there was a much greater emphasis on first aid training and on people being competent to intervene, not only would the outcome of interventions be better, but people would feel more confident about intervening. The evidence shows that the principal reason for non-intervention is that people lack the confidence to know what to do and fear that they may make the situation worse. I do not believe for a moment that people do not intervene because of concerns for their own safety.

[Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that we have to make sure that this is pushed through under Sewel, because although this is English and Welsh legislation, its effects will cover the whole of the United Kingdom?

[Mr Slaughter]

Indeed. The Minister must be picking up, if not from this debate, but from the Bill’s previous stages, that at best there is weariness with more soundbite legislation and littering the statute books—[Interruption.] I believe that the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) has the brief within the Justice team to stop unnecessary legislation across government. He has taken his eye off the ball, because he cannot stop unnecessary legislation in his own Department.

The Under-Secretary must appreciate that criticisms are not coming just from Opposition Members. Although I do not expect him at this stage to abandon the Bill in its entirety, although he might as well put it out of its misery, he could at least take on board some of these sensible and constructive points. I appreciate that they are coming from me and so he might not want to do that, but other Members on both sides of the House have made the point about the wording of

“person’s own safety or other interests”

and about the poor drafting of clause 3.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman on amendment 6, and I would happily vote with him if he put that to a Division. There is support from Government Members, although I fear that as it is coming from me it may fall on the same deaf ears.

[Mr Slaughter]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that I listen carefully to everything he says and give it exactly the due weight it should be given. I am very tempted by the thought that we might push our numbers up by one, but I hope that the Minister may give way on this measure and by the time it emerges from the other place the Bill will be improved at least to that extent.

Clause 3 is quite a dangerous provision. We have not voted against the Bill as a whole, because the Bill on the whole does nothing. Clause 3 will be ineffective if it is passed, but its intention is malevolent. It is harmful to good industrial relations and harmful to health and safety in the workplace, and it is a piece of prejudice that this Government and this Minister should know better than to pursue.

[Mr Vara]

As the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) said, the issues were debated at length in Committee; indeed, notwithstanding our very thorough debate on the Bill, three sittings were left spare. Given the track record of the Labour Government, the Opposition’s claim that the Bill is unnecessary is extraordinary.

The hon. Members for Hammersmith and for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) have tabled several amendments in relation to clauses 3 and 4. Let me respond first in relation to amendment 5, which would remove clause 3 from the Bill, and explain why it is important for the clause as a whole to be retained. I will then deal with the other amendments.

Clause 3 provides that a court, when considering a claim for negligence or breach of a relevant statutory duty, must have regard to whether the defendant, in carrying out the activity in which the alleged negligence or breach occurred, demonstrated a generally responsible approach towards protecting the safety or other interests of others.

The core aim of the clause is to provide reassurance to ordinary hard-working people who have adopted a generally responsible approach towards the safety or other interests of others during the course of an activity that the courts will always take that into account in the event of something going wrong and their being sued. We also hope that, by showing them that the law is on their side, the clause will give them greater confidence in standing up to opportunistic and speculative claims.

The need for that measure is amply illustrated by the evidence provided to the Committee by, for example, voluntary organisations and the emergency services. The damaging effects of the fear of litigation on people’s willingness to volunteer, and the propensity of some involved in accidents to bring opportunistic and spurious claims, were emphasised.

I am sure that the House will be surprised and indeed appalled by the example given by the Cheshire fire and rescue service, which has been sued by passers-by who have tripped over hoses being unwound by firemen to extinguish a fire. Those rescue workers were clearly acting in an emergency and their priority was to reach anybody who might be inside a burning building—[Interruption.] Opposition Members may smile and laugh, but that case is absolutely true.

The Government believe that it must be right in such cases to require the courts to take into account the general approach of the defendant towards safety during the course of the activity in question.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vara]

It is not for me or this place to dictate to the courts the decisions that they should come to. It is for us to make the law, and for the courts to take account of all the facts that may apply to that case and come to their decision. That is how the constitution of this country has operated for centuries, and will continue to, as far as we are concerned. The clause says that if a person carries out an activity in a way that demonstrates

“a generally responsible approach towards protecting the safety…of others”,

and, despite their best efforts, something goes wrong and somebody is injured, the court should take full account of the circumstances. That represents a change, in that case law does not currently oblige a court to consider whether a person took a generally responsible approach to safety during the activity in question. I believe that it is a desirable and beneficial change that is both fair and proportionate.

Amendment 3 seeks to limit the effect of the clause to people who have been taking a generally responsible approach to the safety of “employees or bystanders”. The hon. Member for Hammersmith indicated that that was intended to prevent the provision from being interpreted as extending to entirely non-safety-related matters, such as protecting shareholders’ profits.

[Mr Slaughter]

On a point of clarification, if the Minister is saying that there is a change of law in clause 3 because the “generally responsible approach” is not in case law or statute, is he saying that the provisions in clauses 2 and 4 relating to acting for the benefit of society and acting heroically are in case law or statute?

[Mr Vara]

As I said in Committee, where we debated this at length, clause 3 does make a change, for the reasons that I just gave. The purpose of the Bill is twofold. First and foremost, it directs the court to take into account certain factors that, at present, it has discretion to take into account under the Compensation Act 2006. Secondly, it sends the powerful message to members of the public who otherwise may not act in certain circumstances that the law is on their side.

On Second Reading, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) gave the example of a time when she stepped off a bus and saw someone lying on the ground, and was told by people who were standing by that they were worried that they might be sued, and so did not want to do anything, or words to that effect. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) also gave an example: when he, as a first responder, went to places to give people medical attention, others were standing by, saying that they were afraid of legal consequences and were therefore not taking any risks. The legislation sends out a powerful message to the public that the law will be on their side.

We have deliberately drafted the clause broadly so that it focuses on whether the defendant demonstrated a generally responsible approach towards protecting the safety or other interests of others. This ensures that it will be relevant in a wide range of situations and will enable the courts to take account of all relevant circumstances and apply the provisions as flexibly as possible to achieve a just outcome. The clause is not restricted to personal injury claims and could in principle be applicable in relation to other instances of negligence, such as damage to property or economic loss, where issues of safety may not necessarily be relevant. That is why a broad definition has been used.

Narrowing the clause, as the amendment would, would mean that many bodies such as voluntary organisations, religious groups or social clubs which demonstrate a generally responsible approach towards protecting the safety or other interests of their clients or members would not be able to benefit from its provisions. That cannot be right.

Amendment 6 would remove part of the wording in clause 4 which clarifies what is meant by “acting heroically”. Specifically, it would remove the final words of the clause, which refer to acting

“without regard to the person’s own safety or other interests.”

I am grateful to hon. Members for tabling the amendment, as we have been considering the issue carefully in the light of similar representations made by St John Ambulance and the Fire Brigades Union during the Committee stage. St John Ambulance indicated that the wording conflicted with first aid practice that discourages first aiders from putting themselves at risk, and the Fire Brigades Union warned that the clause more generally might conflict with advice to the public not to intervene.

After giving this matter further thought, we remain of the view that the courts will interpret the words

“without regard to the person’s own safety”

in accordance with our intended meaning—that a person acts heroically by intervening to assist someone in danger, regardless of the fact that doing so might risk his or her own safety. The example I used in Committee was of a person who sees somebody struggling to stay afloat in a fast-moving current. That person might jump in to help on the spur of the moment, without first deliberating whether he might be putting his own life at risk.

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[Sir Edward Garnier]

Not quite that.

Between now and the Bill’s arrival in the other place, I urge Ministers and the very bright lawyers and policy assistants at the Ministry of Justice to have another think about it. At the moment, it is a silly Bill, and I do not like being party to the passing of silly legislation, no matter how well motivated it is. Having said all that, I apologise to my hon. Friend the Minister because he is a decent, honest and great Justice Minister; it is just his bad luck that he was holding the parcel when the music stopped.

[Mr Slaughter]

I will take one of the hints from Government Members—I am not going to encourage more than one vote in relation to these matters. I do not think I can improve on what the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) has said, very gently, but very persuasively and firmly, about this Bill. I can see from the Minister’s demeanour that he is as embarrassed by the Bill as, is almost everybody else in the House.

I do not know whether the Minister has had an opportunity to look at the Law Society’s briefing, and neither do I know whether that briefing is a retaliation for his slightly ill-tempered treatment of the Law Society witnesses in Committee, but it puts the icing on the cake of what we have heard from the hon. and learned Gentleman. It points out that the Bill will impact not only on the matters that we have been discussing but

“on the selling of financial products, on the rights of children in care, on property transactions, on insurance transactions; indeed, an endless list that will include every sector of industry, every area of public activity and every kind of personal interaction outside marriage and criminality.”

It raises the issue of

“how evidence of heroic state of mind will be demonstrated.”

It says that the Bill

“seeks to influence judicial decision-making which the Society believes is inherently wrong.”

Those are very trenchant and well-made criticisms of the Bill.

I am afraid that the more one examines the Bill, the more it seems, notwithstanding the amendments we have tabled, that it is almost irreparable—that it is, as the hon. and learned Member for Harborough said, a silly Bill that it would be better to strangle before it gets on to the statute book.

[Karl Turner]

Is not this shambles of a silly Bill a good example of why the person holding the office of Lord Chancellor should be legally trained?

[Mr Slaughter]

I am not going to go down that route today. The Lord Chancellor does not often grace the House with his presence on Justice Bills any more, or take part in these debates, so it is almost as though he has absented himself from the legal world entirely. We wish him good luck with his future career, whatever discipline he chooses next to address.

I take comfort from the Law Society’s belief that

“the Bill has been poorly drafted and will not prevent meritorious claims being made and won where, in any scenario, negligence and/or breach of statutory duty has been proved.”

The Opposition and, I think, the hon. and learned Member for Harborough are of the view that the Bill will be treated with disdain and polite ignorance by the courts and therefore we do not need to fret too much about it.

I do not intend to press amendments 2, 3, 4 or 6 to a vote. However, because we believe that clause 3—in its intent, if not in its execution—is a harmful, misleading and rather spiteful little clause designed to further attack provisions for health and safety at work, we will press amendment 5 to a vote. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw amendment 2.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed: 5, page 1, line 9, leave out Clause 3.—(Mr Slaughter.)

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

There has been a consultation of which the local MP is aware, and he, like anyone else, is entitled to give his view in that. We are constantly reviewing the courts estate to ensure that it meets operational needs. If any decisions are to be taken on the hon. Gentleman’s particular court, I hope that he will have been active in making his views heard.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Yesterday, leading counsel told the High Court that the Lord Chancellor was causing

“very serious harm to the…criminal justice system”

and described his modus operandi as

“a caricature of fairness: empty abuses, bluff and bully, divide and rule”.

Beyond the closure of hundreds of courts and law firms and the destruction of legal aid, what else does the Lord Chancellor have in mind to undermine the rule of law, which his oath of office requires him to uphold?

Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). He is right that I will not find the same value in the Bill that he does, but none the less I felt that his speech showed his usual good grace and spirit. He is the archetypal good Samaritan in this respect.

It is all change in the engine room at the Ministry of Justice, though the captain is still there steering manfully for the rocks as ever. [Hon. Members: “Where is he?”] He is rather more like Captain Oates today. I think it showed some disrespect for this House that he did not stay for any speeches, including that of the former Solicitor-General, the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier).

May I, in true bipartisan spirit, congratulate the hon. Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), who is not in his place, on his promotion to the role of senior Law Officer? He will no doubt discharge it with the same calm and rational demeanour that was his hallmark at the Ministry of Justice. Let us hope that he also adopts the robust independence that the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) showed in that post.

I also welcome the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) to the justice team—it is a shame he is not in his place either. I understand that we are getting only a part of him as, along with being an unpaid Prisons Minister and an afterthought in the reshuffle, he will spend part of his time in the Whips Office. Of course it is an unalloyed pleasure to see the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), still in his place.

This Bill has been described as “a turkey”, “a complete waste of time,”

“a solution in search of a problem”

and

“an unnecessary and wholesale interference with the rights of injured people.”

It has been accused of

“shifting the blame to workers when they are injured.”

It is said to be, “an erosion of workers’ rights”, “nonsense” and “gobbledygook”. It is said to cause confusion about

“who is protected from the law and to what degree.”

Surely it has some supporters. Well, no, it does not—not really. The Government pray in aid the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, but the NCVO says it is

“not expected to significantly alter the current law.”

It says it is “classic nudge tactics”. At best, it sends a message and is

“unlikely to be able to do any harm.”

But then that is the Government’s view as well. The explanatory notes say that the Bill would not change the overarching legal framework. The Lord Chancellor himself says it is

“a signpost from Parliament to the Courts.”

Do we really need legislation for that? It is only two stops on the tube to the Royal Courts of Justice. Where are the other representatives of civil society, defendant lawyers and even political allies speaking up for this Bill?

We heard a thoughtful speech from the hon. and learned Member for Harborough, who quietly but effectively proved there is no justification for the Bill. As we have heard, ConservativeHome described it as a Bill that should not be in the Queen’s Speech. The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), is now charged, on behalf of the Lord Chancellor, with weeding out unnecessary laws that clog up the statute book. He could start with this one.

There are only three short operative clauses in the Bill. They instruct a court considering negligence or statutory duty claims to have regard to whether a defendant was acting for the benefit of society, demonstrating a generally responsible approach or acting heroically. The Lord Chancellor claims the Bill will not fetter judicial discretion, but that is all it sets out to do. Fortunately, it is so poorly drafted that it will probably fail in that aim, but it will undoubtedly spark quantities of satellite litigation as the parties seek to define “benefit of society”, “a generally responsible approach” and “acting heroically”.

First, insofar as it is necessary at all, the purpose of the Bill has already been fulfilled by section 1 of the Compensation Act 2006, which states:

“A court considering a claim in negligence or breach of statutory duty may, in determining whether the defendant should have taken particular steps to meet a standard of care (whether by taking precautions against a risk or otherwise), have regard to whether a requirement to take those steps might—

(a) Prevent a desirable activity from being undertaken at all, to a particular extent or in a particular way, or

(b) Discourage persons from undertaking functions in connection with a desirable activity.”

This gives guidance to the court in less ambiguous and florid language than the instant Bill, while retaining discretion. If the Secretary of State disapproves of the Compensation Act, why is he leaving it on the statute book? If he thinks it ineffective, why is he repeating the mistake of legislating in much the same terms? If he thinks it is working, his own Bill must be otiose.

Secondly, the Lord Chancellor has, as usual, adduced no evidence that a new law is necessary. He relies on a survey of 300 people from almost 10 years ago to say that some people are deterred from volunteering by fear of being sued. But the National Council for Voluntary Organisations says only 1% of volunteers stopped because they feared opening themselves up to litigation. Last year, the former Minister for Civil Society, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), issued a press release trumpeting that volunteering was at an all-time high.

Let us look at the problems the Lord Chancellor purports to address in the Bill. The first is:

“the person who holds back from sweeping snow off the pavement outside their house because they are afraid that someone will then slip on the ice and sue them”.

No one, up to and including the Lord Chief Justice, can point to a case of this kind being brought, let alone succeeding. Indeed, the Government’s own website, Direct.Gov.uk, used to host a section debunking the snow and ice myth. It said:

“Don’t be put off clearing paths because you’re afraid someone will get injured. Remember, people walking on snow and ice have a responsibility to be careful themselves. Follow the advice below to make sure you clear the pathway safely and effectively. And don’t believe the myths—it’s unlikely you’ll be sued or held legally responsible for any injuries if you have cleared the path carefully.”

Curiously, this page was recently removed from the site, but we still have the words of the new Attorney-General, who in 2010 said that

“the courts are very unlikely to find the public-spirited domestic snow shoveller negligently liable for any injuries, in the absence of spectacular incompetence.”—[Official Report, 2 February 2010; Vol. 505, c. 171.]

More seriously, the signal that the Government are sending to volunteers in clause 2 is misleading. It implies a lower standard of care is needed by those engaged in altruistic pursuits. Parents may face the fear that if their child is injured on a school trip due to fault with the organisers, they will struggle to get compensation. Parents may well take a dim view that because the negligent organiser failed to use the right safety equipment, they will not receive compensation to help them support their newly injured child. Alternatively, they may boycott the activities the school has arranged. How does that help the school, the parent or the child?

Secondly, the Lord Chancellor bemoans the

“member of the emergency services who feels they can’t come to the rescue of someone in difficulty because of the fear they will end up in trouble for breaching health and safety rules”.

If this is intended to give the green light to anyone, trained emergency service worker or public-spirited bystander, to act with less care and a feeling of impunity, it is dangerous. The emergency services have vast experience of how and when to intervene. As the TUC has said:

“There is not a shred of evidence that there is a problem. The police, fire and ambulance unions have worked closely with their employers and the HSE to develop guidance which ensures health and safety protection is compatible with emergency situations...There is not a case of anyone being prosecuted for trying to save someone in an emergency situation”.

The few, but widely reported, cases of systems breaking down require better training and communication, not legislation. The everyday hero is not put off from helping out in a crisis by fears for his or her own safety, so why would they be by fear of litigation? Yet the Bill will give no more legal protection—so much for clause 4.

Clause 3, while equally vacuous, has a more malign intent. The Lord Chancellor told The Sunday Telegraph yesterday:

“This is a Bill that’s out to…slay the health and safety culture. It is about trying to restore common sense to the kind of situations which happen all too often and very seldom get to court - where somebody has an accident at work, it’s entirely their own fault, they have got a perfectly responsible employer who has the normal health and safety procedures in place but that person does something dumb, hurts themselves and sues the employer anyway.”

In that situation, the court would find against the claimant on liability or quantum. This is a further, though probably ineffectual, attack on the rights of employees, and an attempt to give the whip hand to employers, even in this sensitive area, and to please the Association of British Insurers, whose members are such generous donors to Tory party funds. They hope that claims will be suppressed and individuals driven to self-insure.

Once again, where is the evidence? The number of workplace claims has halved in the past 10 years; more than half of claims are for less than £5,000; and 75% are for less than £10,000. It is a myth that negligence cases are easy to bring, and now that the Government have all but abolished strict liability, who is the stronger party in workplace disputes—the employer, insured and in control of the accident site, or the injured employee, unable to earn their salary and plucking up the courage to sue their boss?

The case for the Bill is not made out. The Lord Chancellor said he did not need a Bill to dismantle criminal aid or embark upon his disastrous privatisation of the probation service, so why does he need one to tackle what has been overwhelmingly proven to be a matter of education, rather than enforcement? The Bill does nothing to tackle the growing crisis in British prisons or the hundreds of thousands of people going unrepresented in the family courts or lacking the most basic advice where social welfare legal aid has been taken out of scope. The Bill addresses none of the damage the Government have done to the criminal justice system.

Rather than stoking unjustified fears, the Government should be tackling the real crisis in our legal system: the steady erosion of our civil liberties and access to justice, which protects the strong and leaves the ordinary citizen without justice or redress.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to this debate, whether with speeches or interventions.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice indicated in his opening speech, the core aim of the Bill is to ensure that people, especially employers, who generally take a responsible approach towards the safety of others during an activity, feel confident that the courts will take full account of this in the event that they are sued. Employers should not be prevented from growing their businesses by irresponsible employees who seek to harm them financially by bringing unfounded negligence claims. The fear of litigation can force businesses to go further than they need to when planning and managing for health and safety risks, which in turn can have a damaging effect on growth. The Bill should reassure employers who adopt a generally responsible approach towards the safety of others during the course of an activity that the courts will always take full account of the circumstances prior to making a decision on liability.

The social action clause is part of a wider package to fulfil a coalition agreement commitment. Figures published last year showed that the proportion of people volunteering at least once a year increased from 65% in 2010 to 73% in 2013. This is due partly to the initiatives that we have been backing to support people getting involved in their local communities. For example, the National Citizen Service programme for 16 and 17-year-olds saw 40,000 young people give more than 1 million hours in 2013 to socially useful activities. The Step Up to Serve initiative, launched last November by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, aims to double the number of young people aged between 10 and 20 participating in social action by 2020. Earlier this year, in April, the Prime Minister launched a new volunteering award called “Points of Light”, which recognises outstanding individual volunteers who are making changes in their community and inspiring others.

Those are only a few of the initiatives that are happening on a local basis all around the country. The commitment that people show to volunteering is something that they and we can be proud of, but we also know that volunteering rates could be increased further if barriers that deter people from getting involved are removed. That is where the Bill has another important role to play. We want people to feel confident about participating in activities that benefit others without worrying about what might happen if something goes wrong and they find themselves defending a negligence claim in the civil court.

The same goes for good Samaritans who might be deterred from intervening to help somebody in an emergency in case they are sued for making the position worse. The perception of legal risk can be a bar to positive action. As the Secretary of State said in his opening remarks, the Bill should provide a valuable reassurance to people who are acting for the benefit of society or intervening in emergencies: that the court will take the context of the person’s actions into account when reaching a decision on liability.

As I have said, I am grateful to those who have contributed to this debate, although I must say that I am somewhat disappointed, but not surprised, by the tone adopted by the Front-Bench spokesmen for Her Majesty’s official Opposition. They ask for examples; I suggest that they need only refer to Hansard to see an example given by their colleague, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), who said in a debate:

“I once stepped off a bus and found a lady lying on the pavement in front of me. There was a group of people around her, but none of them had done anything. Some of them said, ‘I don’t want to be sued.’”—[Official Report, 10 June 2014; Vol. 582, c. 489.]

That is an example from one of their own colleagues, and of course—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) chunters away from a sedentary position, as always. He says that that is the only example, but if he had taken the trouble to read Hansard, he would know that my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) also gave an example from his experience as a first responder.

[Mr Slaughter]

rose—

[Mr Vara]

The hon. Gentleman seeks to come back, having been put in his place. I am happy to give way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Slaughter]

There were two such hon. Members—who have now been mentioned three times—but there were a couple today who took the opposite view, including my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), the former Chairman of the Select Committee on Education. I believe there were 50 Members of the other place who spoke in the debate and not one of them mentioned that issue. This is a turkey of a Bill; the hon. Gentleman ought to admit it.

[Mr Vara]

The hon. Gentleman says I have given two examples. That is two more than the number of times he has repeated the same question, over and over again. I am sorry that he does not like the answer, but he will have to live with it.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) was quite candid in his comments. I have to say that while I respect his distinguished career in the law and his legal brain power, on this issue I will respectfully disagree with him. What we are trying to do is consolidate the measures elsewhere in the statute book in one Bill. Also, as my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary made clear, we are seeking to send out a powerful message to public: that when they do the right thing, the law will take them into account.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who spoke in support of the Bill. As he rightly put it, we should judge the Bill by its content, not by the number of clauses. He asked whether it would be extended to Northern Ireland. That is a matter for the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly, as it is a devolved matter, but I will certainly be following with interest to see what progress is made by the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is comforting that he has put on the record his support for the measure.

We need to be clear that there is nothing in the Bill to stop an employee bringing a negligence claim against an employer. [Interruption.] Clearly the paymasters of the Labour party, the trade unions, have been lobbying it hard, as was abundantly clear from the way Labour Members spoke about their friends in the trade unions. The Bill is not designed to reduce standards of health and safety in the workplace or to leave workers without a remedy where they have been injured by the negligent actions of an irresponsible employer. It will, however, provide valuable reassurance to employers who have taken a responsible approach to safety, but end up in court when, for example, an employee suffers an injury that simply could not have been foreseen by any reasonable person. The Bill will send the powerful message that the courts will always consider the employer’s general approach to safety in the course of the activity in question before reaching a decision on liability.

The courts will, of course, need to consider in every case whether someone was acting for the benefit of society or adopting a generally responsible approach to the safety of others in the course of a particular activity. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) chunters away from a sedentary position. All I will say to him is “Where are your Back Benchers?”

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The contract was awarded through the Cabinet Office as a result of a proper procurement process, and appropriate legal advice was taken.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

A total of £56 million has been wasted by this Government, rewarding failure, as my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said, by one of the Secretary of State’s pet foreign private providers while offshoring hundreds of jobs to India. Why does he not face up to his responsibilities? He is right about one thing: as recently as February he told my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark):

“I have a track record of saying that I do not believe in offshoring UK jobs”.—[Official Report, 4 February 2014; Vol. 575, c. 131.]

He is saying one thing and doing another.

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Gentleman clearly wrote that question before I answered the previous ones. Let me be clear again: the difficult decision that we had to take about the write-off was taken about a project launched by the previous Labour Government. As I said a moment ago, my position on offshoring has not changed.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I will address all the Government and Opposition new clauses and amendments, but I will spend more time on the provisions dealing with judicial review than the new clauses on planning, partly because the latter are relatively uncontroversial.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister held a party for the 799th birthday of Magna Carta. He said that it was the foundation of all “our laws and liberties”, and made us citizens not subjects, with “rights, protections and security”. He is right about that. Later this afternoon, we will debate new clauses on sentencing for a second offence of possessing a knife. The Deputy Prime Minister objects to that proposal, partly because it includes minimum sentencing, which carries

“a serious risk it could undermine the role of the judges”.

He is wrong about that in relation to the new clauses, and he and his party have supported minimum sentencing when it has suited them to do so. Right or wrong, however, one has to applaud the sentiment that the rule of law and the importance of a strong and independent judiciary are the most important protections against the arbitrary or incorrect use of Executive power, especially in a country with no written constitution.

Sadly, such sentiments and lip service are all we can expect from a coalition Government who, in no less a person than the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, have done more to undermine the rule of law and the operation of the legal system than any Government in modern times. They have presided over the dismantling of civil legal aid and now of criminal legal aid, the privatisation of the probation service, chaos in those courtrooms that are still open, an overcrowding crisis in our prisons, the expansion of secret courts, attacks on human rights, and restrictions on access to justice for victims and those of limited means. Yesterday, to mark Magna Carta day, protests took place outside courts across the country.

In part 4 of the Bill comes the coup de grace—a frontal assault on the key legal remedy of judicial review. Alongside new fees, cuts in legal aid and shorter time limits, the cumulative effect of the proposals in the Bill is to hobble the principal method by which the administrative court can prevent unlawful conduct by the state in the way in which it, in all its manifestations, makes decisions.

One of the 17 experts who gave evidence to the Public Bill Committee memorably described the Government’s proposals for judicial review as a “constitutional provocation”; 16 of the 17 opposed them outright. The seventeenth, the head of planning for Taylor Wimpey UK, did support them, but slightly undermined his case by confessing:

“I have only had sight of the Bill…and I am attending at late notice”.––[Official Report, Criminal Justice and Courts Public Bill Committee, 13 March 2014; c. 151, Q341.]

It is not surprising that the Secretary of State could find no one qualified to support his position, which, as usual, is based on his gut instinct that judicial review is used to defeat Government policy for political reasons and that, as he confided to the Daily Mail, it is

“a promotional tool for countless Left-wing campaigners.”

The truth is that it is inconvenient for the Government when, for example, the High Court and the Appeal Court rule that they acted unlawfully in trying to close Lewisham hospital A and E. No doubt some doughty left-wing campaigners supported that judicial review—not least my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) and for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock)—but they won because the Secretary of State for Health acted outside the law.

Clauses 55 to 60 will give protection to such unlawful acts in the future. That is why Labour wholly opposes the proposals for judicial review, and wishes judicial review to be preserved as an essential check on Executive power, as does every serious judicial and professional body that has spoken on the matter. Lord Dyson, the Master of the Rolls, has said that

“there is no principle more basic to our system of law than the maintenance of the rule of law itself and the constitutional protection afforded by judicial review”.

The former Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf has said:

“In our system, without its written constitution embedded in our law so it can’t be changed, judicial review is critical.”

He added that the Ministry of Justice is showing a

“remarkable lack of concern for the precision of the facts”.

Lord Pannick has said:

“It is ironic that judicial review now needs protection from a politician whose reforms would neuter its force by the use of political slogans that have no factual basis and are ignorant of legal and constitutional principle.”

Most recently, the Joint Committee on Human Rights—I am pleased that its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis), is in the Chamber to take part in the debate—found no merit in any of the Government’s arguments. Its report stated:

“We…do not consider the Government to have demonstrated by clear evidence that…judicial review has ‘expanded massively’ in recent years as the Lord Chancellor claims, that there are real abuses of the process taking place, or that the current powers of the courts to deal with such abuse are inadequate.”

The truth is that any problems in the administrative court that were caused by the growth in the number of judicial reviews in the area of immigration were resolved by transferring such cases to the immigration tribunal. The process of rationalising the tribunals system, which we started in government, is continuing with the setting up of the planning court.

The first group of new clauses and amendments complement that approach by bringing planning challenges in line with the processes for judicial review in respect of leave and time limits. First, certain decisions may be challenged only by a statutory review, but leave is not required to bring a challenge. The leave of the High Court will now be required in such cases. Secondly, challenges to costs awards will be dealt with as part of the statutory review of a decision. Thirdly, the six-week challenge period will be calculated from the day after the decision is taken. Those practices are more restrictive than the current ones, but we do not oppose them, on the basis that they are tidying proposals that are consistent with other processes that are in place.

I will move on to the amendments that appear in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). We do not support any of the Government’s proposed restrictions in clauses 55 to 60, which we seek to leave out of the Bill. As there will not be time to vote on every amendment, however, we will seek to divide the House on removing the two most immediately damaging proposals. Amendment 23 would delete clause 55, which is known as the highly likely test, and amendment 35 would delete clause 58, which imposes costs on interveners. It seems to us that that is the clearest and most thorough way to improve the Bill, but, for completeness, we also support the other amendments in the group that have been tabled by the Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and others to amend the existing clauses to similar effect.

Clause 55 requires that, where a respondent asks, the court should consider whether, had the relevant authority acted lawfully, it would be

“highly likely that the outcome for the applicant would not have been substantially different if the conduct complained of had not occurred.”

Our belief, which is shared by the Joint Committee, is that that reveals a significant lack of understanding about the purpose of administrative law and the function of judicial review. It confuses unlawfulness with remedy and will encourage bad decision making by the Executive. We want the status quo to prevail. That is, the test should be whether the same outcome would be inevitable. Amendment 23 would leave out clause 55 entirely. The alternative amendments, amendments 24 to 32, would restore the status quo. All those amendments have the support of the Joint Committee in its report.

Amendments 33 and 34 would leave out clauses 56 and 57. Those clauses require the court to consider whether to make an order for costs against any organisation or individual beyond the applicant. Justice, the civil liberties group, gave troubling examples of how those proposals may have a chilling effect. If a charity obtains a donation for the purposes of pursuing litigation, will the court be capable of enforcing a costs order against the donor for any sum? What will happen if a solicitor or law centre acts pro bono when a claimant is unable to secure legal aid? Will family members who support litigation brought by a vulnerable or disabled relative who is seeking to challenge the withdrawal of services be affected? Those questions have not been satisfactorily answered and the changes that are proposed in clauses 56 and 57 should be better defined before Parliament approves them.

Clause 58 states that third parties such as non-governmental organisations, charities and human rights organisations—all those who regularly intervene in judicial reviews—will face orders for costs against them on an application by any party, except in exceptional circumstances. That the Government would target interveners in that way is both chilling and counter-productive. The role of interveners is most often to assist the court, and the most frequent interveners are organisations such as Liberty and Justice, whose expertise has proven invaluable in many cases. Often, in an adversarial system, it is only the intervener who identifies the core issue for the court to decide.

Opposition amendment 35 would leave out clause 58. Amendments 36 and 37 would have much the same effect by restoring judicial discretion as to costs. The hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and others have tabled amendments on this subject. I hope that they will see the force of the argument for voting out clause 58, which would have much the same effect as their amendments. I do not think that we need to split hairs over this matter.

Clauses 59 and 60 place the making of protective costs orders on a statutory footing. Opposition amendments 38 to 40 and 42 agree with the views of the JCHR, which concluded that restricting PCOs to cases where permission for judicial review had already been approved was

“too great a restriction and will undermine effective access to justice.”

It also rejected the

“need for the Lord Chancellor also to have the power to change the matters to which the court must have regard when deciding whether proceedings are public interest proceedings.”

Clause 61 purports to give protection in costs in environmental cases, as required by the Aarhus convention. Although we do not oppose that, we believe that the proposal is flawed because it is not comprehensive and because the precise effect of this important issue is left to the Secretary of State by way of regulations. Opposition new clause 53 would remedy those defects.

Taken as a whole, these changes are designed to hobble judicial review to such an extent that its true purpose—to hold the state to account—may be severely weakened, if not lost. That is an extraordinary position for a Lord Chancellor to take. We know that he is the first non-lawyer to hold the post of Lord Chancellor in more than 300 years, but he must brush up on his British constitutional history. Now that the Secretary of State for Education has stopped the circulation of the Prime Minister’s copies of Magna Carta to schools, there must be a lot of copies lying around in Downing street. The next time the Lord Chancellor is there—unless it is for the reshuffle—perhaps he should read a copy. He will find the memorable words:

“We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right.”

Upholding the rule of law and allowing the citizen to challenge the state and other powerful interests are at the heart of our constitution. Judicial review became, in the 20th century, an effective tool for effecting those rights. It is that which the Government now seek to fetter.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

I will speak in particular about clause 58 on interveners, about which the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) has just spoken, and about amendment 51, which I tabled. I spoke about this issue in some detail in Committee and my view has not changed. In the interests of other Members, I will not go through every single argument that was made in Committee.

There is no doubt that interveners are a positive thing. We should welcome them in our legal system. Baroness Hale of the Supreme Court said:

“interventions are enormously helpful... They usually supply arguments and authorities, rather than factual information, which the parties may not have supplied.”

We should be grateful for that work and for the benefits that we receive.

The status quo does not allow just anybody to intervene. No organisation has a free right to intervene whenever it wants. It is up to a judge who intervenes. The judge can say, “Yes, I would like to hear from you. I don’t want to hear from you about this point. I would like to hear about that issue.” The judge has complete control. They can take lots of interventions or a small number. They can say how much information people are allowed to provide. The judge also has the right to invite somebody to intervene who has not even applied. A court can say, “We would very much like to hear from this person.” Judges therefore have huge discretion. Where there are abusive cases, judges already have the ability to say that they do not wish to hear from somebody.

We made some progress in Committee. We clarified that when a judge invites somebody to intervene, clause 58 will not apply to them. That is very important and it was not clear previously. It certainly was not clear to me and I do not think that it was clear to others. It would obviously be unreasonable to say, “The court has asked you to do something and now you must pay not only your costs, but everyone else’s costs for the privilege.”

I am yet to meet an organisation that intervenes that particularly wants its costs to be covered. That is not the way it usually works. Such organisations accept that they should pay their own costs. What they are concerned about—quite rightly—is the idea that they should have to pay the unenumerated costs of other people. They will have no idea at the beginning of a case how much those costs are likely to be. There could be a very high bill and that will have a chilling effect.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Neill]

My right hon. Friend takes a particular interest in these matters, and we are ad idem—as lawyers would say—on the subject. I think we can achieve a significant saving in time. For example, it will no longer be necessary to bring parallel applications for judicial review and costs, and that will save time and costs, because it is clearly a disincentive to have to bring two separate sets of legal proceedings. Even if they are later consolidated for the purpose of the hearing, costs are involved.

My right hon. Friend makes the important point that there will be a saving in terms of costs to the litigants—the potential proponent of a scheme and those who might have cause to object—and a hidden opportunity-cost saving to the Courts and Tribunals Service. Even if the hearings are ultimately consolidated, there is an administrative burden on the courts in processing the parallel matters. Significant sums—reckoned to be in the millions of pounds—can be saved. That may not seem like a massive amount in the overall scheme of things, but it will be valuable.

I also hope that the proposals will help to change the culture. That is an important point that my right hon. Friend and I have talked about in the past. Litigants in planning matters will be encouraged to resolve matters at the earliest possible opportunity and bring forward cases that have been sensibly brought together.

The setting up of the planning court has been warmly welcomed by the profession, but it has one concern that my hon. Friend the Minister might take back to the Lord Chancellor—and, through him, to the Lord Chief Justice—about the supply of judicial material, if I may put it that way, for the courts. There are a limited number of experienced judges and deputy judges in planning work. Now that we have this new, improved and streamlined structure, it is important that we have sufficient judicial personnel to man the court to carry out the process adequately. It is a rarefied and specialist sphere, although I regret to say that it is not one that I practised at the Bar—probably to my disbenefit, and certainly to the disbenefit of my bank manager. The pupillage in criminal chambers came through before the pupillage in planning chambers that I had also applied for, so I ended up in the same boat as the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright)—as a criminal practitioner.

One further point on planning may be a deliberate or passing omission. I wish to check with the Minister whether he intends to look, in due course, at the time frame for proceedings under section 113 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. It would seem logical to try to deal with those matters at the same time, and I hope that it will be possible. That does not appear in the new clause and schedule, which encompass most of the other matters, but perhaps it can be considered in the other place. It relates generally to development plan challenges, which we have not discussed, and I accept that it would raise broader issues, but it may be appropriate to return to the subject at a future point.

The unanimity across the House on planning matters may end when we come to the issue of judicial review. I am afraid that I cannot accept the overblown and overstated arguments made by the Opposition spokesman on that issue. Of course judicial review is important, but it is worth putting it into context. Before I unwisely took the criminal pupillage instead of the planning pupillage, I was a young law student at the London School of Economics in the days of the great John Griffith, who was professor of public law. Judicial review was a virtually unheard-of concept. Although the prerogative orders of mandamus and certiorari go back to the common law, judicial review was scarcely ever used.

It is interesting, and ironic given the stance taken by the Labour party, that the growth of judicial review in its modern form is sometimes dated to the judicial activism of the late Lord Denning at the tail end of the Wilson Government in the ’70s. It was a Labour Attorney-General, the late Sam Silkin, to whom Lord Denning addressed the famous words:

“Be you never so high, the law is above you.”

There were legitimate grounds for extending the jurisdiction. It is ironic, therefore, that the Labour party now seeks to pose itself as the proponent and supporter of unrestricted judicial review. That was certainly not the view of the Labour Government in the 1970s.

None the less, things have moved on. Judicial review is essentially an issue of proportion. I very much doubt that Lord Denning envisaged the concept of judicial review developing from the way he had in mind in that very famous case. There is a real concern—I have seen it as a lawyer, in my time as local government Minister and, before that, as a local councillor—that the growth of judicial review has become an inhibitor to good decision making, rather than, as suggested by the hon. Member for Hammersmith, being a tool to ensure good decision making. I suggest that the reverse has been the case. A number of examples of that can be given.

Let me start at the decision-making level within Government and local authorities. The growth of judicial review has encouraged a culture of risk-aversion in decision taking. All too often, good and honest civil servants and local government officers are restricted in taking what can sometimes be bold courses of action. Ministers can sometimes be counselled against taking bold and radical action because of the risk of judicial review. That harms the governmental process, rather than improving it.

[Mr Slaughter]

I am enjoying all the autobiographical stuff, but I would love to hear why the hon. Gentleman thinks that a remedy that promotes good decision making and careful consideration by civil servants is a bad thing. Should we be having civil servants taking risky and outlandish decisions because they know that they can no longer be challenged? That seems to be what the Bill proposes.

[Robert Neill]

I am sorry to say—perhaps not for the first time—gently, and with the affection of one legal professional to another, that the hon. Gentleman rather misses the point. We all want good decision making and nobody is saying that there is not a role for judicial review. When I listen to some of the rhetoric from the Labour Benches, I am tempted to think that my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor is proposing to abolish judicial review. No such thing is proposed and it is nonsense to say so. But there has been a significant degree of mission creep, to use a popular term, in judicial review. It is reasonable to say that that now needs to be rolled back. That is what the Bill seeks to do.

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[Mr Redwood]

I support the Government’s aim to tame, but not to undermine, judicial review. As I understand the Minister’s wish, it is that judicial review should remain as a necessary way of challenging bad decisions, but that there needs to be some control over the large number of inappropriate or frivolous applications that can now be made thanks to cost control and to the way our lobbying system seems to work.

I start from the proposition that the main way people should still get redress for bad government is through their Members of Parliament, as their representatives, and through this House of Commons putting pressure on Ministers; or through their elected local councillors doing the same thing to change or get redress for mistakes and errors by local councils. Resort to the courts is not open to many people; they have to be either very rich or very poor to gain access to the courts. It is difficult for people on modest means to do so. Largely, it is lobby groups and institutions that have the access that many of our individual constituents do not have, because of the fear of the costs of the legal process, and we need to bear that in mind.

I am quite happy with part 4, which is the subject of this group of amendments, because I think it seeks to make that balance. If anything, it is really quite cautious. The main thing it does, just to remind the House, is to say that, when considering whether to grant leave to make an application for judicial review, the High Court has to look into it. If it appears to be highly likely that the outcome for the applicant of that judicial review would not be substantially different if the conduct complained of had not occurred, it should not proceed. That is a very cautious amendment to our right of judicial review. It makes the common sense point that there are certain cases where even if the process or the way the decision was taken was not strictly correct, if none the less it had been done properly and the outcome would have been the same, there is no real point in proceeding with the judicial review. It is just a lot of cost for lawyers. Were the court to find eventually that the judicial review was correct, the decision would remain the same, so the litigant would not succeed.

[Mr Slaughter]

There are two major differences. First, bad decision making is bad decision making, whatever the outcome, and we would like to see better decision making. Secondly, this will invoke a trial process on the issue—not on the decision making, but on the issue—probably at the permission stage. It will front-load judicial review and change the whole nature of it. This is the most obnoxious clause of all. Far from being mild, it would be extremely radical in its effect.

[Mr Redwood]

I beg to disagree. I entirely understand what the Government are trying to do. They are trying to warn certain potential users of judicial review that it is a fatuous process if it turns out that the original decision was perfectly reasonable, although there may have been some difficulties with the process. If too many decisions are subject to too much court examination continuously, it is often possible for a clever and well-paid lawyer to find something slightly inappropriate or questionable in the way in which a council or Government Department made a decision, although the decision itself was correct. It might be better if the money were not spent, and if the courts’ time were not taken up with applications when the position cannot be improved for a litigant who remains in dispute with the council or the Government, and who will not secure a reversal of the original agreement.

The bulk of the work to which the new clauses and amendment relate lies in the intricate and sometimes opaque drafting of new schedule 3, with which we non-lawyers are perhaps struggling a little. It is a complex piece of work, because it amends various pieces of underlying legislation. I have one or two queries with which the Minister may be able to help me, knowing as he does that I approve of what he is trying to do, and am merely trying to clarify some of the ways in which it would operate. For instance, I do not quite understand the logic of paragraph 4(7) of new schedule 3, which provides for new subsection (6) of section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to state:

“The High Court may not suspend a tree preservation order under subsection (4C) or (5)(a).”

That is not entirely similar to some of the other proceedings.

I am also interested in the timings. The period during which due consideration must take place seems generally to be specified as six weeks, but I wonder what the overall period will be when the High Court finds that the judicial review process should proceed. In the case of planning issues in particular, delay can impose complexity, blight and difficulty in the area involved, and if the end result is that the development goes ahead anyway, it becomes a real issue. I am sure that questions of timing and delay lie behind some of the work that the Government have been doing.

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[Mr Slaughter]

There has been no growth in judicial review. If one exempts immigration cases, for the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), the number of judicial reviews against local authorities and others has remained stable for the last 10 years.

[James Morris]

Whatever the statistics, the essence of the point is that the threat of and culture created by judicial review has had a distinct impact. Before becoming a Member of Parliament, in my previous life as chief executive of Localis, the local government think-tank, I spoke to many local authority leaders and chief executives about the way the judicial review culture that now surrounds local authorities was impacting on their decision making. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst pointed out, it has created to some degree a culture of risk-aversion in local authorities. A bureaucratic layer has been added to the taking of often very important decisions that have big impacts on local communities, resulting in long delays. One example is the politically controversial decisions taken on the potential closure of care homes in many different local authorities. The impact of the threat of judicial review is now being perceived as part of the decision-making process, and that has had a detrimental impact on the quality of some community services.

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[James Morris]

There is a balance to be struck, and direct accountability is an issue. We want a culture in which local authorities and Government can be held to account democratically. That is how decisions should be taken. We should not be developing and enhancing a culture—

[Mr Slaughter]

rose—

[James Morris]

I will not give way again. I am drawing my remarks to a conclusion.

We should not create an environment in which people have the expectation that going for a judicial review will somehow impact on a decision. I welcome the changes in the Bill. We need to improve the balance between judicial review and local democratic accountability to enable public bodies to make long-term decisions on behalf of communities and constituents.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 23 would delete the clause and maintain the current position. Taken together, amendments 24 to 28, 31 and 32 would also maintain the current position by replacing the duty on the court with a power and by replacing the “highly likely” test with one of “inevitable”. I have already set out our basis for the clause, and I trust that I have assured hon. Members of the high threshold that the clause maintains. Replacing “may” with “must” would significantly weaken the utility of the clause for dealing with minor technicalities in a proportionate manner, and it would continue the recipe for judicial reviews brought on minor technicalities to hinder progress.

[Mr Slaughter]

I hope that the Minister will not read a prepared speech but address a subject that was raised in the debate, which the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) rather gave away, namely that the clauses remove the existing balance in the system and weight it in favour of the stronger party. Rather than talking to the chief executive of the local authority, why does the Minister not talk to the care home resident, the small business that is being pulled down because of planning regulations or the homeless person who is not being taken in? Those are the people who are disadvantaged. They are not meritless cases, but people who do not have the necessary resources.

[Mr Vara]

I am addressing the issues concerned. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman does not like them, but that does not mean that I will not address them. As for making proper speeches, given the personal attacks that he made when he spoke, perhaps he should have better regard for the etiquette of the House. I will not take any lectures from him.

Amendments 29 and 30 probe the scope of clause 55. In practice, the clause will bite on minor procedural defects, because more significant defects will not be highly unlikely to have made a difference to the outcome for the applicant. There is no accepted definition of “procedural defects”, and it would be virtually impossible to arrive at a definition that would stand the test of time because judicial review evolves with each new decision.

Clauses 56 to 61 will rebalance the financial aspects of judicial review. Those involved in bringing judicial reviews should not be able to hide behind a claimant of limited means or an off-the-shelf company to avoid appropriate liability at the taxpayer’s expense. I do not accept that clauses 56 and 57 will prevent meritorious judicial reviews from being brought. As now, non-party funders will be liable only where they also seek to drive or control the litigation in some way.

Clause 58 establishes two presumptions concerning persons who voluntarily intervene in a judicial review: first, that the court must order an intervener in judicial review proceedings to pay their own costs; and, secondly, that the court must order the intervener to pay the reasonable costs that their intervention has caused a party to incur. Where there are exceptional circumstances, the court need not make an order. Amendment 35 would remove the clause in its entirety, and amendments 36 and 37 would remove the second presumption. Amendment 51, which draws from the Supreme Court rules, would allow the court to award costs against an intervener only in exceptional circumstances.

The first presumption—that an intervener will pay their own costs—represents the current position. Interveners already almost invariably cover their own costs. On the second presumption—that an intervener will pay costs they cause a party to incur—it is right that all interventions should be carried out appropriately and reasonably. The Government share the view that interveners add value to proceedings, and clause 58 is not intended to prevent interventions. However, those who intervene should properly consider the cost implications of doing so.

I know that the clause has caused some disquiet and I agreed in Committee to consider further the second presumption, having listened carefully to the points made, particularly those by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert). I wish to record my gratitude to him for his assistance, and I believe his proposed amendment reflects, in part, what we want to achieve. Although we are not in a position to accept the amendments, we are looking seriously at how to ensure that interveners consider carefully the cost implications of intervening, without deterring those who intervene in appropriate cases and add value. I am happy to commit to continuing discussions to consider further whether the clause needs to be redrafted to target the specific behaviours that we want to address.

Clauses 59 to 61 establish a codified costs capping regime in judicial review proceedings, building on the regime that has been developed by the courts through case law. The usual costs position should be circumvented only in exceptional, meritorious cases involving serious issues of the highest public interest that otherwise would not be taken forward. We are concerned that costs capping orders can currently be made at any stage of a case. If an order is made at an early stage and a judge later decides that the case has no merit and does not grant permission for it to go any further, the claimant will be protected from having to pay the defendant’s costs of defending that unmeritorious claim.

A number of points have been raised by colleagues. I simply say that with judicial review, we are trying to ensure that meritorious claims go ahead. It is unmeritorious claims that we are trying to deal with, such as those where people hide behind a shelf company, or where people front an application for other individuals who are actually behind it and driving it. We want to maintain judicial reviews for meritorious cases, but we want to ensure that unmeritorious claims are dealt with appropriately. We also want to ensure proportionality by making those who wish to intervene take account of the costs, particularly when some of those costs are to be borne by others.

Question put and agreed to.

New clause 52 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.



New Clause 13

Periods of time for certain legal challenges

‘(1) In section 61N of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (legal challenges relating to neighbourhood development orders)—

(a) in subsections (1)(b) and (2)(b), after “beginning with” insert “the day after”;

(b) in subsection (3)(b)—

(i) for “during” substitute “before the end of”;

(ii) after “beginning with” insert “the day after”.

(2) In section 106C of that Act (legal challenges relating to development consent obligations)—

(a) in subsection (1)(b)—

(i) for “during” substitute” “before the end of”;

(ii) after “beginning with” insert “the day after”;

(b) in subsection (1A), after “begins with” insert “the day after”;

(c) in subsections (2)(b) and (3)(b)—

(i) for “during” substitute” “before the end of”;

(ii) after “beginning with” insert “the day after”.

(3) In section 13 of the Planning Act 2008 (legal challenges relating to national policy statements), in subsections (1)(b), (2)(b), (3)(b), (4)(b), (5)(b) and (6)(b)—

(a) for “during” substitute “before the end of”;

(b) after “beginning with” insert “the day after”.

(4) In section 118 of that Act (legal challenges relating to applications for orders granting development consent)—

(a) in subsections (1)(b), (2)(b) and (3)(b)—

(i) for “during” substitute “before the end of”;

(ii) after “beginning with” insert “the day after”;

(b) in subsections (4)(b), (5)(b) and (6)(b)—

(i) for “during” substitute “before the end of”;

(ii) after “day”, wherever occurring, insert “after the day”;

(c) in subsection (7)(b)—

(i) for “during” substitute “before the end of”;

(ii) after “beginning with” insert “the day after”.” —(Mr Vara.)

The provisions amended by the clause allow for legal challenges to certain planning-related decisions and other actions. They stipulate that a challenge may be made during a period of six weeks beginning with the day on which the decision or action challenged occurs. The amendments secure that the six-week period does not start to run until the following day

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Wright]

I am not sure that this is the appropriate time. There are some minor and technical flaws, but my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North has made his case and the House will have to consider what he has said and decide what it wishes to do. Regardless of the fate of my hon. Friend’s new clauses, I hope that the Government’s new clauses, new schedule and amendments will find favour with the House.

[Mr Slaughter]

I will take a different approach from the Minister’s and address the majority of my remarks to new clauses 6 and 7; I shall discuss the Government’s clauses at the end of my speech. I welcome this debate and the chance to discuss a subject important to all hon. Members—perhaps particularly to those with constituencies in London, where almost half of knife-related offences take place. Knife crime is one of the most serious and intractable criminal justice issues, and one that often leaves irrevocable damage in its wake.

In my own borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, we have seen more than 800 knife crime incidents since 2010, with tragic consequences for the victims and their families. In London as a whole, that figure is closer to 40,000. In 2013-14, more than 50% of all murders in London were committed with a knife. Knife crime is not just an issue for London and other major cities: it is a national menace. Nearly a third of adult offenders currently receive an immediate custodial sentence. New clauses 6 and 7 would impose what has been referred to as a mandatory minimum custodial sentence on those convicted of a second knife possession offence. For those aged 18 and over, it would be six months; for those aged 16 to 18, it would be a four-month detention and training order.

Contrary to press reports, and statements made by the Deputy Prime Minister, the new clauses would permit judicial discretion, and that is key to our support. Subsection (2B) of new clause 6 states that

“the court must impose an appropriate custodial sentence…unless…there are particular circumstances”—

those are the words, rather than “exceptional circumstances”—

“which…relate to the offence or to the offender and…would make it unjust…in all the circumstances.”

It would also be a defence to the new offences if possession were with lawful authority or reasonable excuse. This measure should not be seen as a catch-all solution.

In light of the current overcrowding crisis in the prison system, The Guardian reported today that the Lord Chancellor will be unable to implement his legislation, if passed, for at least a year; his reverse King Midas touch extends, it seems, to all areas of the criminal justice system.

[Sir Bob Russell]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the policies of the last Government to deal with knife crime failed?

[Mr Slaughter]

That is a peculiar conclusion to reach from the comments I have just made. The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that I am just coming to the previous legislation on knife crime. In the meantime—this point may be of interest to Liberal Democrats—I should say that the issue is not just about increasing sentencing powers. In the next year, for example, the Home Affairs Committee will have concluded its inquiry into gangs and youth crime, with a remit including the effectiveness of current law enforcement and legislation, including gang injunctions and knife and gun crime legislation.

There are many other ways in which young people in particular can be discouraged from carrying knives. Prevention is better than cure. Education, tackling gang culture and deterrence all have a part to play, but it is important that the message should go out from this House that carrying a knife without good reason is unacceptable.

[Sir Alan Beith]

Over my many years in the House, I have heard the expression “A message must go out from this House” so many times. If there is one group of the population that seems unable ever to hear these messages, it is those who commit crimes. Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise that many of those who do either foolish or evil things tend not to think that they will get caught and not to think that, if they are caught, they will get whatever sentence the House has decided on?

[Mr Slaughter]

The right hon. Gentleman has been here for a very long time and perhaps cynicism has entered his soul about the ability of the legislature to have any influence on the population at large. As a newer Member, I retain some hope that somebody out there might be listening to us at some point.

This is a serious debate, and I commend the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) on the measured way in which he moved the new clause. However, I regret that both sides of the coalition have used an issue of such seriousness for what I can only call a bit of crude political brand management. The new clauses prescribe mandatory sentencing only if a second offence is committed, if there is no lawful authority or reasonable excuse and if the court does not find particular circumstances of the offender or the offence that make that unjust.

We will not hear either the movers of the clauses or the Liberal Democrats highlighting any of those factors—the movers, because they want to show how tough the Tory party can be, and the Deputy Prime Minister, to buff his tarnished liberal credentials. The leaking of the original letter highlighting the coalition dispute over this incredibly sensitive issue was cynically timed just before the local elections—elections that nevertheless saw both parties significantly stumble. Where was this new, improved brave and defiant version of the Deputy Prime Minister when the Tories came to carve up the NHS, slash legal aid or treble tuition fees? He was in the Lobby with them, ensuring their policies went through. I am glad he is taking a keen interest in justice policy, but his timing is noted for what it clearly is—a cheap political stunt to throw a bone to his increasingly malnourished base.

The hon. Member for Enfield North has already alluded to this point, but I led for the Opposition in the very lengthy Committee stage of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, the last attempt to honour the Tory manifesto promise that

“anyone convicted of a knife crime can expect to face a prison sentence.”

A new offence was created in that Act, of threatening with an offensive weapon in public. It was a serious offence, triable either way with a maximum term of four years on conviction on indictment. It imposed mandatory minimum sentences, as in the clauses under discussion. What was the Liberal Democrats’ response? It is there in Hansard, in the words of the then Justice Minister—he was here until a few moments ago—the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt). He was asked what the view of the coalition was, and he said:

“Of course, we enjoy the full support of our Liberal Democrat colleagues on this.”––[Official Report, Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Public Bill Committee, 13 October 2011; c. 808.]

The new clause, with exactly the same provisions in respect of mandatory minimum sentences with judicial discretion—I have set out other caveats—was agreed without a Division. I ask Liberal Democrat Members in their places today: “What has changed since?” We will support the new clauses in the knowledge that they are not enough in themselves to tackle the problem and that they are a proportionate, not a draconian, response.

I shall speak briefly to the other provisions. We have at least had some time to consider new clauses 6 and 7, but the rest of the new clauses and amendments in the group were tabled by the Government so late as to make our scrutiny farcical. The fact that the intention behind them is laudable does not mitigate the appalling management of business, and they hardly have the excuse of being overloaded with legislation. It remains important to ensure that legislation, however consensual, does the job it purports to do.

We support new clause 44, as well as amendments 45 and 46. It creates the offence of police corruption. Alone, that is not the answer. We have called for a bolder and more radical way of tackling police corruption so that the good work of the vast majority of officers is not blighted by the actions of a few.

We have already called for the abolition of the Independent Police Complaints Commission and for its replacement with a stronger and more robust police standards authority. Notwithstanding the Minister’s comments about special responsibilities and a higher standard of police officers, I observe that if the Government are introducing this new offence because they believe that the offence of misconduct in a public office is in some way obsolete or arcane, they might at some stage need to address the other public professions covered by the same provisions. As I say, we do not oppose the Government’s proposals here.

Similarly, we support the new clauses and amendments dealing with wilful neglect in care homes by care providers. As they relate to care homes, almost identical amendments to these were proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) during the passage of the Care Bill. I am pleased to see in her place my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), who led the opposition to that Bill. She will no doubt confirm the similarity; we tabled amendments in Committee to make directors of care providers face jail if their management of services led to abuse or neglect. The Government voted that down on Report. I see no reason for that other than that they wanted to bring it up in their own time. There it is, however—better late than never. I often think that it is better for them to follow up and make their own way in the world.

I am afraid that a number of new clauses will not get proper scrutiny this afternoon if they do not cover the main issues for which most Members have attended the debate. It is to be hoped that the other place will give proper attention to the detail; a restricted debate on Report cannot do so here. The situation is to be regretted even more if we do not manage to reach the final group of amendments, which propose brand-new provisions that have never been scrutinised here. The Government should desist from this policy, which is simply disrespectful to this House and all its Members.

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[Mr Burrowes]

It is clear that they are different offences, but my point is that the Deputy Prime Minister thinks that we should have nothing to do with a mandatory minimum sentence, as a matter of principle. I do not understand the difference between the examples given by the hon. Gentleman when it comes to the principle of mandatory sentencing. He said that people might carry knives for their own protection, but the issue is the same whether a person threatens someone else or whether that person is carrying a knife for the second time. In both cases, a mandatory sentence is applied. It would be necessary to go a considerable way to show exceptional circumstances to avoid a prison sentence.

[Mr Slaughter]

I am puzzling over this as well. The Deputy Prime Minister said this in his article in The Guardian, which is in front of me:

“While minimum sentencing might sound attractive in media headlines there is a serious risk it could undermine the role of the judges, who are best placed to decide on sentencing.”

I cannot see how that differentiates between different offences, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman can.

[Mr Burrowes]

The hon. Gentleman may have put his finger on it. Perhaps the issue is the media, and the difference between the headlines of 2011 and those of 2014. Perhaps a differentiation strategy is now more important than an anti-crime strategy. Perhaps a political party is now more concerned about their own interests than about the interests of victims and the public.

Others wish to speak, so I shall not continue for too long, but the fact is that this is not something that has been cooked up on the back of a media issue to make a point. It follows a long campaign, on which I have fought hard with my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North for a number of years. Last year, Joshua Folkes was killed in an awful knife attack in Bowes road in my constituency. The circumstances are still not clear, despite a judicial determination. We do not know what happened, but we do know that knives were present, and that they caused a young person to die. That was unacceptable then, and we must be intolerant of such cases now.

Last year I asked the Prime Minister whether we could please be intolerant towards knife crime, and we have the answer to that today. Yes, we will be intolerant, following a long campaign that has been fought by many. The Mayor joined us in that campaign: in February he organised a meeting bringing together representatives of the Metropolitan police and others, and on 23 April he wrote to the Home Secretary calling for a measure such as this. We certainly have not come to this recently, therefore; we have been there for many years and, on behalf of the victims—the tragic cases of those, like Godwin, who have lost their lives—we must do more. We cannot rest when more people are losing their lives—being cut down in their prime—unnecessarily.

We must do it also because we, certainly on the Conservative Benches, want to stick to our promises. We made a manifesto commitment to ensure there is an expectation that people go to prison for carrying a knife, and we want to continue to honour that, which is what we are doing today. That is why I call on all Members of the House to support new clauses 6 and 7.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huppert]

I will happily give way, but I should highlight the fact that Commissioner Hitchcock was talking about a first offence, and I accept—if this is the point the hon. Gentleman is about to make—that he did not comment on a second offence. I will still give way if the hon. Gentleman likes, but I suspect he was going to make the point I was about to make myself.

[Mr Slaughter]

rose—

[Dr Huppert]

I will happily give way to the hon. Gentleman. It is always a pleasure to hear him try to stand up for liberalism, given the legislation that he and his party supported.

[Mr Slaughter]

Whatever.

Yes, there is the question of the second offence, but more importantly, all the examples the Liberal Democrats give—be it the one the hon. Gentleman has just given, or the Deputy Prime Minister’s example of a vulnerable young girl hanging around with a gang—are exactly what judicial discretion, which remains in these clauses, is there to support: particular circumstances relating to the offender.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huppert]

The hon. Gentleman normally listens carefully. What I said, very clearly, was that if anybody listened, that would be the effect. I am sceptical about how many people will listen to the message being sent out, but even if they do, the new clause would simply drive that strong and unintended consequence. I am sure that some people listen to the messages that come out of this place, and I am sure that some of them read the Hansard transcripts of our debates, but I am sure that not everybody does.

I believe that there is a risk of serious, unplanned harm resulting from this well-intentioned new clause. If it works in the way in which some hon. Members would like, by putting more people in jail, there will be another problem: there is not room in our prisons, which are already overcrowded. Perhaps I should not be surprised that the Labour party could yesterday complain about how full the prisons are and how awful it is that there is no space, but today try to fit more people into them. I am sure that there is a logic in there somewhere.

[Mr Slaughter]

Turning that around, the hon. Gentleman is part of a coalition that says that there is plenty of space in the prison system and more coming on stream. He might want to ask the Government he supports why they have closed 18 prisons.

[Dr Huppert]

We may be going down a sidetrack, but I am delighted that under this Government there are fewer women and children in prison than the previous Labour Government ever managed. I am satisfied with that achievement. However, I realise that the Labour party is still in a space of wanting to lock up as many people as possible to show how tough on crime it can be.

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[Philip Davies]

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) and commend him on his new clause, which I will be supporting enthusiastically.

I will concentrate my remarks on the three new clauses that I have tabled in this group, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) for adding his name to them. I was disappointed that the shadow Minister, who usually has plenty to say about lots of things, had nothing to say about any of my new clauses. The Labour party having nothing to say on the economy appears to have transferred to justice, as they have nothing to say on these matters either.

[Mr Slaughter]

rose—

[Philip Davies]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman if he now has something to say.

[Mr Slaughter]

It was not that I forgot; it is simply that I did not think the new clauses were worth commenting on.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that. We have commented on whether people take notice of what Members say, but when I come to discuss the three new clauses, I think he may regret that he thought they were not worthy of any debate. Lots of people up and down the country, such as victims’ groups and owners of commercial properties, will be very interested to know that.

[Mr Slaughter]

rose—

[Philip Davies]

It is no good the hon. Gentleman coming back; he does not care about any of these issues, and lots of people will be grateful to him for letting that cat out of the bag.

Before I come to the three new clauses, in fairness I should also refer to the Minister. On new clause 34 he trotted out the normal sort of Sir Humphrey guff about how it is an important area and we will keep it under review and all that kind of jazz, but I am not entirely sure—I shall have to look through the Sir Humphrey handbook later to find a translation. It may be that the Minister agrees with what I am saying but cannot be seen to be agreeing with that troublemaker Davies on the Back Benches, or perhaps he does not agree, but knows it is popular and does not want to be seen to disagree. Whichever way it is, we deserve a bit more clarity. He says that he will start to look at the issue: he is the Minister, for goodness’ sake. What has he been doing? He should be looking at these things. I know that he must spend a lot of time arranging for murderers and other dangerous criminals to walk out of our prisons, but in the time that he is not doing that perhaps he might want to look at some of the issues that I am talking about.

I am grateful for the support of my hon. Friend’s predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), on these matters. If the current Minister wants to go even more left wing than his predecessor, we are in big trouble on this side of the House on criminal justice matters.

New clause 34, to which the Minister gave his Sir Humphrey blurb, is actually about squatting. This activity was criminalised in residential buildings in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012—it was one of the rare triumphs of that Act—and my new clause would extend the criminalisation from residential buildings to non-residential buildings and land. I was delighted to support the criminalisation of squatting, but because it applies only to residential properties, the problem has simply moved on to commercial property, by which I mean any property that is non-residential, including pubs, shops, restaurants and even schools—although the shadow Minister thinks that that is not important.

The now established principle that it is a criminal act to break into someone’s property and take it over without permission should apply whatever the property. It should make no difference whether it is a flat or a community centre. No one should have the right to enter someone else’s property without permission and stay there until evicted. At the time of the criminalisation of squatting in residential property, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate said:

“For too long squatters have had the justice system on the run and have caused homeowners untold misery in eviction, repair and clean-up costs. Not any more. Hard working homeowners need and deserve a justice system where their rights come first— this new offence will ensure the police and other agencies can take quick and decisive action to deal with the misery of squatting.”

I believe that should apply to everyone, not just home owners.

Squatters are using the fact that the law does not apply to commercial premises to take over pubs, for example. The door may have been slammed shut for squatters in residential properties, but it is wide open for non-residential premises and land. One example was the Duchy Arms in Kennington. Squatters realised that it had not been trading for a while and swooped in. They took over last summer and that small, friendly local pub was turned into the London Queer Social Centre overnight. It was overrun by those who cared nothing for what they damaged or how much upset and inconvenience they caused to others. They locked all the doors and put a sign on the front, delighting in the fact that the new law did not apply to them or the pub. It also said that if anyone entered the pub without their permission, they would be the ones guilty of a criminal offence. You really could not make it up. As they had not committed the offence of squatting in a residential building, they were not arrested by the police immediately and the pub was occupied for some time by people who had no regard for anyone or anything around them. When they were eventually evicted, the police had to go in and the premises were guarded for months by dogs to ensure there was no invasion by squatters. The clean-up costs for the owners will have been considerable and could have been avoided had the police been able to arrest the squatters on day one.

Another example that has come to my attention involves an office building owned by Kewal Investments Ltd. Having forced their way into the property, the squatters initially invited the director to agree to them staying there, saying that they would provide free security. The squatters were there from before Christmas until their eventual eviction, with bailiffs and police in attendance, months later. During their occupation, the squatters sought to try to gain entry to adjacent buildings owned by the same firm and the business had to spend money to protect its other properties as well as to seek an order of eviction through the courts.

When the business owners eventually gained entry, the property was in a state with waste everywhere. The squatters had used the back window as a rubbish chute and toilet, left graffiti all over the walls, put paint in a fire extinguisher and blocked the toilet. Those entering could barely get into the basement because of the smell. The director, who often used to give money to the homeless, has now been totally put off the idea. He feels let down by the system and has incurred substantial costs to gain access to his own building. On top of the considerable legal costs, he faces the cost and waste of time of simply restoring the building to its original state and ensuring that the squatters do not take it over again. I would have hoped that the Government—a party that should believe in people who own property—would want to do something about this instead of the Sir Humphrey words of the Minister. I suppose that that is better than the shadow Minister saying that he does not even care about the issue at all.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

We hope to conduct the review over the next few months and I hope that will give my hon. Friend and others the opportunity to contribute to it, but let me just finish what I am saying in relation to the specific proposals in new clause 14. I hope the House will agree that there is a need for these proposals. First and foremost the measures should give families of victims a greater sense that justice has been done. More generally, tougher sentences for convicted offenders should improve public confidence in the justice system. Amendment 7 changes the long title of the Bill to include driving. I commend these provisions to the House.

I know that Members might like to see reform of other aspects of the road offence framework. Some have already been mentioned in the course of this debate. Indeed, new clause 22 seeks to make the offence of driving while disqualified an either-way offence and increase its maximum penalty; and we have, as I have indicated, been giving serious consideration to all representations made on this subject, not least from my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham, who has a ten-minute rule Bill on repeat offences of driving while disqualified. He and others rightly hold strong views and we are committed to ensuring that maximum penalties reflect the seriousness and culpability of offending behaviour. That is why, as we have already mentioned today and as the Justice Secretary made clear in his announcement on 6 May, the Government are committed to carrying out a wider review of the road traffic sentencing framework over the next few months. We are in discussion with the Department for Transport and other interested Departments about the details. We will make a further announcement about the scope of the review in due course.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Could the Minister give us a sense of how this would fit with the legislative timetable? If primary changes are needed as a result of the review, will there definitely be a Bill to do that?

[Jeremy Wright]

Unless the hon. Gentleman is going to contradict me and vote accordingly, there is broad support for what we have set out in new clause 14, which is a self-contained measure that we do not think will have ramifications across the rest of the sentencing system. That is not true of some of the other changes that Members on both sides of the House may wish to make. As I have said, we have reached no pre-conclusions as to what should or should not be included in a review. However, we think it sensible to make sure that if we are to have a wholesale look at driving offences—which, unless the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) is going to contradict me, there is considerable support for across the House—we should do it in a considered way. We are not talking about years for that to happen, but months.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Lady has just made a wider point than would apply simply to the single justice procedure. The point we are addressing in relation to her amendment is that there should be no significant disadvantage for those who are dealt with under the single justice procedure; nor should there be any disadvantage to the court under that procedure in ascertaining the facts of the case. If someone were wanting to assert particular hardship, which might exclude the possibility of disqualification, they would need to come to court and do it themselves. The court should then do the necessary investigations. However, I take her point and will consider carefully whether there are improvements that we can make to more general procedures.

Amendment 9 is also related to the single justice procedure. It would introduce a new requirement that the documents sent to the defendant with the single justice procedure notice should include a submission from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to the court informing the court of any penalty points on the defendant’s driver record. I agree that up-to-date DVLA information is important when deciding the sentence for such offences. The House is aware that that very issue was raised in Committee, and as the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), made clear, our intention then was to consider the point further.

Under the existing procedure, when dealing with an offender in their absence, courts are able to check the DVLA position when sentencing for certain road traffic offences—we have discussed that point and, as I said, I accept that it is important that they are able to do the same under the new procedure. We need to ensure that the legislation allows for that in cases dealt with under the new single justice procedure as well. As I said, we have undertaken to look at the matter, and it is still under consideration. We will ensure the necessary consideration. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Member for Bolton West and her colleague the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), whom I do not see here, will be satisfied.

New clause 10 makes an amendment to schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which provides guidance to the courts in assessing the seriousness of all cases of murder in order to determine the appropriate minimum term to be imposed under the mandatory life sentence. The amendment would raise the starting point for offenders aged 21 and over from 30 years to a whole life order for the murder of a police or prison officer in the course of his or her duty.

I do not need to remind the House of the vital role that those officers play every day in keeping our communities safe and in managing difficult and dangerous offenders. Tragically, some officers have paid the ultimate price while carrying out these duties on our behalf. The Government consider it essential that those officers feel the full weight of the state behind them in the execution of their duties. Changing the starting point to a whole life order for those who murder police and prison officers will send a powerful message of support for the work that those vital public servants do. It will show that we place the highest value on their safety and that we recognise the dangerous job they perform on a daily basis.

Those officers can be distinguished from other public servants by the role they perform in terms of routine contact with dangerous offenders. Their daily duties and risks mean that they stand apart from others. That unique and important status should be recognised, and those who murder police or prison officers on duty should know that they face the most severe sentence possible under the law. I should make it clear that the change in the law does not necessarily mean that a whole life order will be imposed in every case involving the murder of a police or prison officer in the course of duty. The court must always have the discretion to impose the appropriate sentence based on all the facts of each case, but offenders should be in no doubt that they face the severest consequences for such murders. I therefore hope that the House will support the new clause.

Finally, new clause 11 is designed to close a gap in the sentencing power of criminal courts that could prevent an adequate sentence being imposed where it turns out that the offending is more serious than it appeared when the case was initially accepted by the youth court. We believe the gap might tend to undermine efforts to encourage youth courts to try grave crimes in suitable cases and might restrict sentencing powers unduly. The category of offences that includes cases such as those that involve allegations of serious sexual offending against under-18s, for example—also known as grave crimes—are serious enough to be capable of being sent to the Crown court for trial, but not all of them necessarily require the highest sentencing powers of the Crown court. It might be possible to deal with some of them satisfactorily using sentencing options available in the youth court, and if so there is an advantage in retaining them in the youth court. The youth court is particularly attuned to inquiries into the alleged activities of children, and serious sexual offences can be tried there by authorised district judges who have been specially trained to deal with them.

A defendant under 18 charged with such an offence is invited to indicate a plea, and when a guilty plea is indicated the youth court may commit him or her to the Crown court for sentence where appropriate. On the other hand, if the indication is not guilty and the youth court decides to retain the case and tries and convicts the defendant, there is no general power to commit the offender to the Crown court for sentence. That means that if information emerges during the trial that suggests that a more severe sentence is appropriate, the youth court will simply have to make do with its own sentencing powers. The only exception is when the conditions for imposing an extended determinate sentence are met, but they are stringent. That is at odds with the position for adults, where there is a general power to commit cases to the Crown court for sentence, not merely after a guilty plea.

It is possible that the absence of a safety net allowing for committal for sentence leads youth courts to be unnecessarily cautious in deciding whether to retain grave sexual crimes. A provision permitting committal to the Crown court for sentence whenever a defendant is convicted of a grave crime in the youth court, as is already possible after a guilty plea indication, might encourage the youth court to retain more cases and ensure adequate sentencing powers are available in every case. I hope that the House will therefore support new clause 11.

[Mr Slaughter]

We are grateful to the Government for accommodating the topics we want to discuss today and for the overall allocation of time on Report. We do not hear that very often, but it is in part a result of Report running over two days—or at least a day and a half—as a consequence of this being a carry-over Bill.

We anticipate that there will be about 10 hours of debate, including Third Reading, and curiously only half the time will be spent on the Bill as it left Committee. Today, we have three hours on parts 1 to 3 and on day two we will have two hours on the important and controversial part 4, which attacks the legal and financial basis of judicial review claims. The rest of the time is for new projects proposed by the Lord Chancellor or by his Back Benchers with his support. He has a common but unwelcome habit of shoehorning new laws into Bills at every stage of their progress through both Houses. A cynic would say that he does so simply to provide another hit with the tabloids or to introduce a stick to beat his coalition partners with. It is certainly a poor way to legislate, and he has surpassed himself by tabling new clauses on driving offences that require him to amend the long title of the Bill through Government amendment 7—I do not think the Minister mentioned that amendment, but I apologise if he did.

Neither the new clauses on driving in the first group for discussion today nor those on offences of possessing offensive weapons have taken the Government by surprise. There was a full debate in the Chamber on the subject of dangerous driving in Back-Bench time on 27 January and, famously, the issue of carrying knives featured in the Tory manifesto.

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Gentleman knows that I hold him in high regard and affection, but he has accused me of rushing into new clause 14. Now he is telling me that it did not catch me by surprise and I should have done it earlier.

[Mr Slaughter]

If the Minister waits, all will become clear.

We do not quarrel with the seriousness of any of the matters under discussion on Report. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) will raise our concerns about offences against armed forces personnel—matters that we, unlike the Government, flagged up in Committee. This is a sloppy way of making law and nowhere was that more clear than with last week’s announcement that new offences and new sentences for existing offences on some driving matters would be tabled today. At the same time, as the Minister has conceded, the Secretary of State announced that a full review of all driving offences and penalties would be carried out over the next few months.

Let us pause there for a moment. If the Government are reviewing all offences over the next few months, why do they need to change the law for one offence and introduce a brand-new offence in the Bill? I suspect that my curiosity is shared by the Minister, who replied to the debate on 27 January. We heard nine compelling and moving speeches on that day from Members on both sides of the House explaining how their constituents had been victims of dangerous, careless, drunken or disqualified drivers but how the culprits had escaped with what appeared to be lenient penalties. He carefully and courteously, as is his wont, lowered expectations, saying:

“Having emerged blinking into the daylight from the usual channels into my current job, I know better than to commit parliamentary time for any purpose”.

He added sagely:

“It is important for us to consider these matters in the round, and to do so in a way that does not create discrepancies in the sentencing system.”—[Official Report, 27 January 2014; Vol. 574, c. 731.]

Four months later, time has been found to do exactly what the Minister warned against.

The Minister might ask whether that matters if we are moving in the right direction. The groundswell of opinion expressed in that debate and outside the House is that the two-year maximum sentence for causing death by disqualified driving is inadequate, as it leads to an average sentence of about nine months in custody. We agree and we will not oppose the new clause, but is 10 years the correct figure? It is double the maximum for causing death by careless driving, arguably a more serious offence as the quality of driving is an issue. Equally, it seems anomalous to create an offence of causing serious injury by disqualified driving when no equivalent is proposed of causing serious injury by careless driving or even causing serious injury by careless driving while under the influence of drink and drugs—an offence with a maximum sentence of 14 years when it causes death.

Why has causing death by disqualified driving been singled out? As the Minister said, the current offence brackets causing disqualified driving with driving without insurance and driving without a licence. Will causing death by driving in those two circumstances remain punishable with a two-year maximum sentence? I am afraid that this bears all the hallmarks of the Secretary of State’s penchant for plucking new offences out of the air and pushing them forward to show what a tough guy he is. There were only 13 convictions in the last year for which figures are available for all offences of causing death while disqualified, uninsured or without a licence. How many cases will the change in the law affect?

Perhaps the Secretary of State will say that the change is intended as a deterrent to others, but how many disqualified drivers will be put off by the thought that they might kill or cause serious injury? There is no evidence of careless or dangerous driving in their cases, because they would then be charged with those offences. That brings me to new clause 22, tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central, which we believe is a more effective way of tackling the problem that the Secretary of State and the Minister have rightly identified.

More than 7,000 people were convicted of driving while disqualified in 2012, a substantial reduction since 10 years previously but still a great number of people who wilfully defied an order of the court and carried on driving while banned. Our answer is to make the offence of driving while disqualified triable either way, with a maximum penalty of two years’ imprisonment for conviction on indictment, which the Magistrates Association has been calling for for some time. Currently, the maximum penalty for driving while disqualified is six months and it is a summary only offence. Although that might be sufficient for a first or even second-time offender, it does not address the minority of recidivist offenders who have multiple disqualifications on their record and carry on driving oblivious to the courts.

[Robert Neill]

I understand the point the hon. Gentleman is making, although I do not totally agree with it. Limiting the penalty to two years might reflect some aggravation that arises in instances of disqualified driving which give rise to injury. Does he not concede, however, that even if we allow for aggravation in respect of sentencing, a two-year sentence probably would not be enough to reflect justice for an injury that might be life-changing but which stops short of involving the offence of causing death by dangerous driving? The person’s life would be ruined for keeps, which would not be captured adequately by a two-year sentence, as under his proposal—four years might be nearer the mark.

[Mr Slaughter]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s comments, but he is misunderstanding me slightly. We do not oppose new clause 14. I would wish to have seen it remain part of the review, because of the arguments I have put forward about the substantial overlap with a number of other offences, most of which were introduced by the previous Labour Government in a previous review—I think we are all agreed that that was necessary. We do not disagree that a review is needed now, but our new offence is of a different type and serves a different and, we say, a more effective purpose in discouraging drivers who are tempted to drive while disqualified. What the Government are doing—it may be right, but let us see it “in the round”, as the Minister would say—is looking at the more serious offences, where there has to be a balance between the nature of the offence and the maximum penalty.

[Rehman Chishti]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman that the six-month sentence for repeat offenders who drive while disqualified is completely wrong, and I put that view forward in a private Member’s Bill in December. There was a reason why driving while disqualified was moved away from being an “either way” offence to being a summary offence: these cases may have taken up a lot of court time. Does he agree that a way to overcome that is to have the matter tried and dealt with at the magistrates court, and for the magistrate to have the discretion to refer repeat offences to the Crown court for a sentence of up to two years? That would deal with the problem. If those repeat offenders are not dealt with at an early stage, we should not then say, “Tough sentence at the end”; they can be dealt with at the lower end.

[Mr Slaughter]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman needs to make a speech now. I do not disagree with him—there is a strong measure of agreement here—but he is proposing a complicated resolution whereas we are proposing something more straightforward. It will certainly be a help if the Government get their act together and implement the part of the 2003 Act which will allow magistrates to sentence for 12 months for a single offence, although we still think that that is insufficient for this offence. If repeat offenders plead guilty and are released at the halfway point of sentence, they are likely to serve no more than eight weeks, however many times they have previously been disqualified. Tougher sentences for this offence will act as a deterrent, warning others that driving while disqualified is unacceptable; stamping out driving while disqualified before death or serious injury is caused is Labour’s priority.

A two-year maximum sentence for those serial offenders means that they can expect to spend up to four times longer in prison than is the case now—and of course they would be off the road for all that time. There should not be much difference between the parties on these issues. As I say, we do not oppose the Secretary of State’s new clause 14, despite our reservations, but we would like the Government to support our new clause 22. If they do not, we will put it to a vote of the House; unless the Secretary of State can give me some assurance that they will either support that or at least push those views forward in the review he is doing, we would wish to vote on that matter.

[Rehman Chishti]

I am listening to what the hon. Gentleman is saying. He said that what I put forward in a private Member’s Bill is complicated. How is it complicated, given that we both agree about repeat offenders? In 2012, 42% of the 7,000 who were sentenced were repeat offenders, with 23% having offended more than three times. It is repeat offenders who pose the risk and who are likely to get two years. Why can we not trust the magistrates to deal with this and then send it to the Crown court? That would stop the Crown court being clogged up. Let us trust the magistrates.

[Mr Slaughter]

With respect, I do not think the Crown court is going to be clogged up. We are talking about different ways of skinning the same cat, so if we do go to a vote, I look forward to the hon. Gentleman joining us in the Lobby.

Let me briefly deal with the other matters in this group. I commend the amendments standing in the names of my hon. Friends the Members for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) and for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane). They were discussed in Committee—the Opposition are very disciplined about these matters—and I remain hopeful that the Government will see fit to accept them at some stage. They deal with the egregious issue of multiple offenders escaping “totting up” bans because the courts either do not have the requisite information from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in front of them or are, unknown to them, being told the same sob story for the fourth or fifth time. As a result, there are still people driving with two or three times the 12 points that should have seen them banned. There is no connection between those matters and new clauses 10 and 11. Both deal with serious matters, but it is puzzling that, once again, they have been shoehorned into the Bill at this stage. However, let me deal with them briefly.

The murder of a police officer is a heinous crime, and 13 police officers have been killed in the line of duty since 2000. The courts already take their sentencing powers very seriously, and the starting point for this is 30 years. The killers of Sharon Beshenivsky received 35 years each, the murderer of PC Ian Broadhurst received 37 years and the murderer of PCs Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes received a whole life sentence. The courts are already effectively exerting these powers, but we have no objection to the clarification, if I may put it that way, that the Government wish to introduce, particularly, as the Minister has said, as judicial discretion will remain in these cases. Thankfully, this proposal is not going to affect many cases, but it deals with the most serious crimes that are committed.

Finally, new clause 11 is a sensible tidying measure. As the Minister says, it already applies to adult offences, so, although I am always puzzled to read the headlines in The Daily Telegraph, I was particularly puzzled to see a headline where the Secretary of State was saying, “We will toughen sentences for youth crime”. The new clause is sensible and we support it, but it is about giving more discretion to magistrates. It is about empowering magistrates courts to try cases where they might previously have felt that they had to second-guess the decision and commit the case to the Crown court; it is not about inflicting additional burdens on the Crown court, and I just wish the Government would not spin at every opportunity.

We have a good degree of consensus on this part of the debate and it would perhaps be complete consensus if the Government see reason and adopt our new clause 22. I know that the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) will agree with us, because his private Member’s Bill proposes much the same thing, but so would the Secretary of State, were he to grace us with his presence, because he has said:

“I want to make our roads safer and ensure people who cause harm face tough penalties. Disqualified drivers should not be on our roads for good reason. Those who chose to defy a ban imposed by a court and go on to destroy innocent lives must face serious consequences for the terrible impact of their actions.”

Let us take action against disqualified drivers at an early stage. I urge the Government to support new clause 22.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Wright]

With the leave of the House, I shall try to respond to some of the points made in the debate which, as we came to expect in the course of Committee, was instructive and well balanced. I start with the remarks of the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), who made his case for new clause 22. He kindly indicated that he has no objection to new clause 14, which I welcome, and he made it clear that he has little objection to some of the other measures in this group, and I am grateful for that.

As I said in my earlier remarks, we intend to consider a number of aspects of the criminal law in connection with driving offences in the course of the review that I described. I can certainly undertake to the hon. Gentleman that the issue of driving while disqualified, particularly where it involves repeat offending, which is the type of offending highly likely to lead to sentencing at the top end of the scale, whatever that scale may look like in the future, is something that we are highly likely to want to consider as part of the review. I am sure he will maintain his case for the inclusion of that.

The difference between the circumstances we are considering in relation to new clause 14 and the circumstances we are considering in relation to new clause 22 was conveyed very movingly, as we have heard before, by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore). New clause 14 is designed to address what we perceive to be some egregious cases in which sentencing powers were not adequate. It was clear to us from those cases that we should plug that gap in the sentencing regime. There are other questions that we have to ask about driving offences and how those offences are punished, which are about whether we have pitched properly the sentencing powers of the judiciary. But we have not yet had the opportunity to consider in detail the implications of the change set out in new clause 22, and I doubt very much that the hon. Gentleman has, either.

[Mr Slaughter]

With all due respect to the Minister and to the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), the tragic case of Clare and Ross Simons that he described was a very serious case of causing death by dangerous driving. Even though the driver was disqualified, it was not a case of disqualified driving. It would not in any way be affected by new clause 14. The Minister has made the case against himself. It is clear why new clause 22 has been canvassed over a long period by practitioners, the Magistrates Association and others. There is an overwhelming case for increasing that nugatory summary only sentence. The position is far more complicated, as shown by some of the tensions that have come out in the debate, which is why new clause 14 is a little precipitate, even if it is going in the right direction. Will the Minister give a clear undertaking that there will be an increase in the sentence for driving while disqualified? If not, we will press the new clause to the vote this evening.

[Jeremy Wright]

I will come back to the point about how much we know about the implications of new clause 22. To deal with the case of specific examples, the point that I am making in relation to what my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood said is that where it is brought to our attention that there are particular gaps in the sentencing regime, it is appropriate that we look very carefully at those. The case that precipitated the decision to table new clause 14 was the case of Mr Stock, who was killed in precisely the circumstances that new clause 14 would address.

It is important that when such cases are brought to our attention, we look carefully at whether there is a gap in the law, and we then look at how that gap might best be remedied and what the consequences of doing so might be. The reason that we did not respond immediately to such cases, and the reason that I did not respond to the Back-Bench debate to which the hon. Gentleman referred by saying straight away, “Yes, of course, we will change the law immediately and we will do so in the following way,” is that it is important to consider all the ramifications of making changes.

We have had the opportunity to do that in relation to what we now propose as new clause 14. We have a good idea, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, of how many cases might be affected, and what effect that would have on the work load of the Crown court and of the Prison Service. I wonder whether he has any idea what the ramifications for the Court Service or for the Prison Service would be of the change that would be made by new clause 22. That does not mean to say that after we have considered those ramifications properly and carefully, we would not come to the conclusion that it is the right thing to do, but we are not going to do so today, for the reasons that I have set out.

If the hon. Gentleman reflects, and given that he hopes to be in government himself in less than a year—[Interruption.] I am not saying that he will, just that he hopes to. If that eventuality ever came to pass, I do not think he would wish to make policy any differently from the way I am suggesting we should do so. If that is right, I cannot, as he would understand, accept new clause 22 today. I have gone as far as I think I sensibly can, which is to say that it will certainly form part of the review that we intend to undertake, and if we conclude as a result of the review that it is the right thing to do, we shall do it.

[Mr Slaughter]

I think the Minister is playing with me a little. I have used the best evidence I can and as I said, I have spoken to practitioners and to the Magistrates Association about the matter. I am advised that the clause is likely to affect only a small minority of cases, which are the recidivist cases. The Minister has access to that degree of detail and that information. Perhaps he could tell us how many cases he thinks would be affected.

[Jeremy Wright]

As I have tried to indicate to the hon. Gentleman, I would want to look at all those things. He is right—I do not know. We have to look at the matter carefully and I am sure he would want us to do that. Between the point at which he decided to table new clause 22 and this debate taking place, there has not been an opportunity to do that work, which we would want to do. He is welcome to continue looking a gift horse in the mouth if he so wishes, but what I am saying to him, I hope very clearly, is that we are certainly not shutting the door on what he is proposing, but neither are we going to accept it today without doing the proper work. No responsible Government could do otherwise. He may or may not want to be part of a responsible Government, and if it is not a responsible Government, he may want to do things differently, but that is the way we do things for as long as we are in government.

Let me move on to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood. Again, he spoke movingly, as he has before, of justice for Ross and Clare Simons. He also made the case for including in the review the issues of death by dangerous driving by those who are disqualified, and we will certainly consider that matter also.

The hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) made, as she has done before, a good case in relation to those who have multiple points on their licence and are somehow not yet disqualified. She is right to be concerned about that, as are we. We would want to consider that matter, too, at greater length. There is, as she knows and as I have said to her before, an issue in relation to how much we can sensibly trespass on judicial discretion. In each and every case a bench of magistrates would have to have concluded that the exceptional hardship case was made out, such that they thought it appropriate not to disqualify in those cases. There will always be exceptional cases, but her argument is that those cases should, indeed, be exceptional; they should not be regular, and I have a good deal of sympathy for that view. The specific point around exceptional hardship claims—

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I have indeed discussed legal aid funding pressures with my counterpart in Northern Ireland, who said to me that he faces similar challenges in balancing a tough budget. The reality is that we all face difficult financial challenges and we sometimes have to take difficult decisions to meet them.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is taking legal aid from vulnerable people and imposing a residence test that would not have been met by the women at Yarl’s Wood detention centre sexually assaulted by guards, the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Gurkhas refused entry to the UK, or care home residents such as those in Winterbourne View or on the recent “Panorama” programme. Which of those would he be most proud to leave without help or representation?

[Chris Grayling]

Of course, these changes do not affect the support we provide at inquests. My challenge to the Opposition is this: they have yet to give us any clear answers on how they would bring down the cost of legal aid. They campaigned at the previous general election for reductions in legal aid costs. They continue to oppose the difficult changes we have made, but offer no alternative suggestions.

Criminal Procedural Rights (Opt-in Decision)

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I can be fairly brief in addressing these three draft directives. That is not to say that they are unimportant both in themselves and in the context of European legislation, but the Government’s approach to them has been so casual and tardy that the ground has not been laid for sensible debate. I pray in aid the article in tonight’s Evening Standard entitled “EU law change ‘could help drivers escape speed fines’, says Chris Grayling”. That is how the Lord Chancellor sums up these three important draft directives for the public at large. If one were cynical, it would be tempting to assume that when the Secretary of State hears that European legislation is to be debated he first ignores it and then decides to oppose it not because of its merits but because it is European.

It is good to see the Secretary of State proposing the motion. The previous Lord Chancellor used to leave it to his junior Ministers; I wonder why? The current Lord Chancellor’s appearances in the House are rare compared with those in the Evening Standard, but I think that he has come for the approbation of the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) and others rather than to give a reasoned opinion on the matter in hand. His opening speech has sadly confirmed that. The Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee is too wise a man to play the Secretary of State’s game, as the Committee’s reports in the bundle make clear.

Let me first set out the Opposition’s position on the draft directives and then have a little moan about how they have come before us. The presumption of innocence is speedily dealt with. We debated it in the Chamber a month ago and my opinion has not changed since then. I gave two reasons why we would agree with the Government and not support the opt-in. They were:

“First, it is not the difference in standards or the falling short per se that provokes the draft directive, but the alleged effect that has on confidence in the judicial systems in states that are failing. There is anecdotal evidence to support that; indeed, much of the debate about the European arrest warrant focused on worries about the criminal justice system in the extraditing state. However, as the Commission itself concedes, there is ‘limited statistical quantifiable evidence’, and that is not a good basis for such a radical restructuring of European criminal law”—

and—

“Radical though the draft directive may be—this is the second problem—it goes beyond what the ECHR demands.”

That is the point made by the Committee Chairman. I went on:

“For example, under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and subsequent legislation, it is permitted in English criminal courts to draw inferences from the silence of the accused. The burden of proof does not always lie on the prosecution, and the right to representation, interpretation and translation varies at different stages of the criminal process. I do not seek to defend the law in its current form by saying that, but I do say that the directive is not the means by which to open a wholesale review of those and other provisions of the criminal law.”—[Official Report, 10 February 2014; Vol. 575, c. 671.]

Interestingly, in Committee on the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, we are about to debate further provisions that would allow for more speedy and, the Government would say, effective trial of cases in absence on minor offences. That partly organic and partly operational process of the courts is a good example of why it is wrong that we adopt that particular draft directive.

The two other draft directives are more compelling. They go to the practice and procedure in the law, rather than its fundamentals. They sit more comfortably with the three measures previously debated and decided on by the Government.

[Geraint Davies]

My hon. Friend will be aware that we already practise the assumption of innocence unless proven guilty and people’s right to be present in court. Is it not part of this partnership to promote best practice to others, rather than to abstain completely in the way the Government have, in particular by not providing the data to the EU Commission on the effectiveness of the justice system? We are the only country not to do that. It is ridiculous.

[Mr Slaughter]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Where that is possible we should do it, and I will refer to a draft directive where we took exactly that line. I simply say in relation to the draft directive on the presumption of innocence that it was proving too difficult to accommodate the principally Roman law system of the other EU countries with our developed system of common law. It was just impossible. However, it does not stop us advocating within the EU on those matters, which we do very well; I just do not think that they are entirely compatible.

The Government opted in to the directives on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings and on the right to information in criminal proceedings. I do not know whether that was because they were prior to regime change at the MOJ—a regime change so dramatic it makes the regime change in Crimea look positively evolutionary by comparison. We disagreed with the Government on the directive on the right to access a lawyer in criminal and European arrest warrant proceedings and voted against them because their arguments were poorly structured and articulated.

I have re-read the debate from 7 September 2011 and I am more than persuaded by the arguments that I put forward on that occasion, even though it did put me at odds with the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee, something that I am loth to do, given his reservoir of knowledge on these matters. The Law Society Gazette, an esteemed publication, reported me as saying that

“the government’s reasons for opting out of that directive were ‘at best unconvincing and at worst spurious’.”

It went on:

“He said the directive’s requirements are ‘broadly in line’ with current UK legislation and by not opting into it the government would ‘appear to be throwing away an advantage to British citizens’. Opting out at this stage, he said would ‘fatally’ undermine the UK’s authority and leverage during the negotiations. He added”–

presciently—

“‘it looks as though the government are looking for reasons to opt out at this stage’”—

something that has now become commonplace.

I mention that first, because I think that that directive had more in common with the other two draft directives that we have before us today, and secondly, because we do not resile from voting against the Government when we think that it is appropriate. Interestingly, one of the reasons for not opting in to the draft directive on safeguarding children’s rights is because part of that refers back to the directive on access to a lawyer. We clearly do not adopt that point. There are good reasons for supporting the draft directive on children’s rights, even on the Government’s case, as there are for favouring the right to an appropriate level of legal aid across the EU. The difficulty with supporting those draft directives is that the position is still far from clear.

[Mr Clappison]

The House will have been relieved to hear that the hon. Gentleman is persuaded by his own arguments—he is at least clear about that. Can he just tell us, in short, whether his position is that we should opt in to all these measures, or indeed any of them?

[Mr Slaughter]

That is the purpose of this speech, if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me. In relation to the draft directives on children’s rights and legal aid, the insurmountable hurdles that apply to the presumption of innocence directive do not apply. The difficulty we have tonight relates to some important questions, such as what will the cost be; what are the implications for UK legislation, meaning what would have to change; how far are they necessary harmonising measures; and how far do they fall into the same trap as the presumption of innocence draft directive, meaning how far do they exhort us to do something, rather than actually harmonising. It is quite difficult to say.

Let me explain what I mean. If we look at the very belated letter from the Government on the cost of these measures, we see that, in relation to the draft directive on safeguarding children’s rights, it is estimated that transporting 17-year-olds after being charged to local authority accommodation for overnight detention would cost £2.1 million. A breakdown of that figure shows that an estimated additional 5,200 places in local authority accommodation would be required each year in England and Wales, at a cost of approximately £395 a day for each 17-year-old suspect. With all due respect to the Lord Chancellor, those figures look as though they have been drawn up on the back of a fag packet. They were dreamt up at the last minute because the Committee was quite rightly pressing the Department to come up with a decision and some reason for it.

With regard to legal aid, as my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) pointed out, we are told that the net monetised discounted cost impact of the article over a 10-year appraisal period, if we opt in to the directive, is estimated to be between £1.5 million and £5 million, with a main estimate of around £2 million. That would equate to an undiscounted cost of approximately £200,000 per annum. Again, it looks as though—I think the Lord Chancellor effectively admitted this—we comply with those proposals. There would not be a great cost in opting in, but it is best to “big it up” and make it look worse than it is. I am afraid that I just do not trust what is in those documents.

[Chris Grayling]

My main concern about these measures, as I have said, is the fact that opting in to them would mean passing over jurisdiction to the European Court of Justice. Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House whether his party thinks that it is appropriate for the European Court of Justice to have sway in areas such as legal aid? He seems to be saying that it is not a big deal. Does he accept that the European Court of Justice should not have sway, or does he think that it should?

[Mr Slaughter]

I do not accept the argument that everything that comes out of Brussels is necessarily evil or inimical to the interests of this country, which appears to be the bizarre position that the Lord Chancellor has painted himself into. Uncharacteristically, we will sit on our hands tonight in relation to two of the draft directives. To answer his question directly, I do not rule out any future opt-in, as of course the Government do not in relation to the directive on access to a lawyer, because I understand that their position is that they still might opt in. Even with the spin that he has put on it, I understand that for at least one of the draft directives there is a possibility that negotiations will lead to an opt-in. I welcome that pragmatic approach. It is a conservative approach, but it keeps the door open, rather than taking the radical approach that the Lord Chancellor would like to be seen to be taking.

[Geraint Davies]

Surely the point on legal aid is that this is to protect British citizens who might be wrongly accused and languishing in an unfit foreign prison, and to provide them with some legal support, at a total estimated cost of £200,000—a fraction of the value of the Home Secretary’s house.

[Mr Slaughter]

My hon. Friend makes a good point which is exactly the one I made in relation to access to a lawyer: it is primarily British citizens abroad who would benefit. Yes, there is a moral purpose in our trying to get other EU countries to adopt the high standards that we have in this country, but there is also a practical purpose in trying to ensure that when British citizens get into trouble abroad they get the best assistance that they can in those countries. That is why it is sensible, where possible—as in two but perhaps not in the third of these draft directives—at least to keep the door open.

I wish that the Government would address these proposals seriously and not in a rhetorical and political way, and that they would respond to the Committee’s requests more timeously. The pertinent quote from the Committee is this:

“We repeat again our disappointment at the poor quality of the Government’s”—

explanatory memorandums—

“on the three proposals forming the Commission’s procedural rights package, particularly in the light of the time taken to draft and deposit them.”

I am afraid that this is becoming typical of the way in which the Ministry of Justice operates. It is to a low standard and it shows a certain degree of, if not contempt, then at least disregard for this House and its Committees. If the hon. Member for Stone cannot elicit discipline and compliance from the Secretary of State, then it is beyond me, but I feel that the debate is poorer for it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

My hon. Friend raises an important point, and I will happily look into the matter.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree with his colleague the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), that the Government’s cuts to legal aid are “unarguably harsh”? Will the Minister correct his own overestimate of the earnings of legal aid lawyers, which the UK Statistics Authority yesterday called “potentially misleading”? Is it not time that the Ministry of Justice ministerial team put themselves in order?

[Mr Vara]

It is rather rich of the hon. Gentleman to speak about legal aid. The Opposition’s manifesto made it abundantly clear that they would cut legal aid. He and his colleagues lack any credibility unless they put on the record what cuts they would make and, more importantly, whether they would reverse the cuts that we are making.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I doubt whether the Bill will be opposed today, but I hope that there will be time to consider amendments that might improve it at a later stage. I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker, for coming so late to the debate. I heard the opening speeches and then had to chair a meeting elsewhere, but I will be brief.

I want to make three simple points. With regard to secure colleges, sometimes if we stand still long enough, things come round again. They will smack very much of the old approved schools if we are not careful. The proposed £85 million project seems to involve a 320-bed institution. All the evidence in recent years has demonstrated that tackling young offenders and rehabilitating youngsters to ensure that they do not offend in the future is better done in smaller units, rather than large ones. That is why we moved away from the old approved schools, so that more intensive work could be done with young offenders and young potential offenders in smaller units. The proposal flies in the face of all that evidence and seems to take us back, rather than forward. However, if the Government are to experiment in this way, it is important that at least some provision remains in smaller units, particularly for those young people who are vulnerable. We have had briefings from the Children’s Rights Alliance and others, and they have interpreted the Government’s commitment to maintain small secure children’s homes as somewhat ambiguous. It would be useful to hear from the Minister tonight about what the future is for small secure children’s homes under the proposed new structure. The vulnerable youngsters who are cared for in those units would be lost within the bigger establishments proposed by the Government today. There would be anxiety if we were to lose that element of specialism in the system in the future.

The second issue relates to the proposal for magistrates to sit alone when taking decisions. I read the Magistrates Association briefing, and I share some of its concerns that there is a need to ensure that justice is seen to be done. Removing cases from the courts into a side room in a police station or elsewhere with a magistrate sitting solely with a clerk may not be as open and transparent as in the past. I would welcome hearing the Government’s view on the magistrates’ recommendation about at least ensuring that lists of cases are published. Perhaps that should be incorporated into the Bill, so that we can give the assurance that openness and transparency will continue for two reasons: first, it is important that people know that justice is being done and that it is visible; and secondly, some people want to know that the perpetrators have been prosecuted appropriately and have received the appropriate sentences. Therefore, listing cases would at least maintain an element of openness and transparency in the system. I hope that the Government can take on board the Magistrates Association recommendation and build it into the Bill.

The third issue, which I am anxious about, is judicial review. In my own experience, judicial review has largely been used by an individual or small organisation to challenge decisions by state bodies; in my own area, those have largely been decisions made by local councils. At the moment, judicial review is incredibly hard to undertake, largely because of the costs involved. It takes about £10,000 to £15,000 just to get into court in any form to have a judicial review heard, which is beyond the means of most individual and many organisations, but at least there is the opportunity to challenge a decision.

In my area, a judicial review took place recently when the local authority closed down special needs centres, or undertook the exercise of closing them down. That decision was challenged by the parents of the centres’ clients. They won at judicial review, forcing the local authority to reconsider its decision and to consult properly. That is the appropriate mechanism for judicial review. The Government’s current proposals will bear heavily on those individuals or organisations that are challenging decisions by bodies such as local councils.

I refer back to the debates that we had during the passage of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014, when evidence was brought forward by Transparency International about the problems with local government decision making: its closed nature and the use of commercial interests to drive decisions into part 2 of the cabinet decision-making processes. In other words, it revealed the secretive nature of decision making by some local authorities. Again, judicial review becomes the last resort for many organisations and individuals—certainly in my community—to try to get some form of appropriate and reasonable decision making, or at least some form of supervision of that decision making by the courts themselves.

I fear that these proposals will restrict the opportunity of the most vulnerable in our society to hold the powerful to account. I welcome the Government’s reassurances that there will perhaps be an opportunity to consider some amendments to the current proposals, which would allow the current process to be maintained and improved.

The Government have included a commitment to cost orders within the process itself. I agree that we should try to ensure a limit on costs overall. The problem is that the cost orders come too late in the process, The decision-making process will be more at the permissive stage, so a lot more work will be required of representatives before a cost order can even be applied for, which would provide protection from the heavy burden of costs during the process.

I would like the Government to look again at where the cost orders can be implemented. Under the Government’s proposals, just to get to the permissive stage an individual will either have to fund a considerable amount of work or it will have to be done at risk by an individual lawyer, before there is even a discussion about the cost order and cost-sharing.

This is largely about individuals fighting institutions that are well-resourced. Again, I will give an example from my own area. Many times, individual councillors have been protected by the council’s insurance against any legal action that is taken about their own decision making. So the individual is at risk, but the individual councillor or the council body is protected, bizarrely using—most probably—part of that individual’s council tax payment to enable that protection to be given. The problem in these proposals is that the cost burden, or the cost deterrent, will fall more greatly on the individuals concerned. I would welcome the Government considering, perhaps during the progress of this Bill, a more effective way of ensuring that the cost burden is limited—overall, of course, but also as it falls on the individual concerned.

The issue of interveners was referred to earlier. Every time I have been involved in a judicial review process in my area, interveners have played an invaluable role in bringing their expertise to the table and to the discussions within court itself. I would be wary of restricting the ability of specialist organisations to intervene in a particular case. I could give example after example of what is happening with my own local authority not only of individual housing cases but of individual health cases, where interveners have helped by bringing their health expertise to a case, because it then merits a wider debate about a particular aspect of that case that has a wider public interest.

I am glad that the environmental issues have been separated from this process—largely as a result of European conventions, I see—because in my own area judicial review has been one of the mechanisms by which we have at least been able to seek to protect ourselves against adverse planning decisions that have had an environmental impact on my community. That may well be an issue that we will want to come back to when we debate the proposals for a third runway at Heathrow, because we will be looking for a judicial review of the Government’s decisions at every possible opportunity if they wish to proceed with those proposals. Therefore, it is good that environmental matters are excluded from the heavy burden of costs, as far as I can see.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

indicated dissent.

[John McDonnell]

I see that my hon. Friend on the Front Bench is shaking his head. I am happy for him to correct me on that matter.

[Mr Slaughter]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his excellent speech. However, I think that some matters under the Aarhus convention are protected but other environmental matters may well not be.

[John McDonnell]

I see. Again, we may well table amendments to broaden that protection, because we will rely on judicial review powers to challenge Government decisions—we will certainly do so in the case of the third runway at Heathrow and we might do so in the case of High Speed 2 as well—if we feel that the Government have not acted appropriately or reasonably in their decision-making process.

Having made those three points, I will finish. They are about critical issues that the Government need to address. There is no opposition to the overall legislation tonight, but I hope that there will be opportunities in this process for the Government to consider amendments to improve the legislation, so that certain rights can be protected, particularly those of the individual taking on the powerful within our society.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is curious that a Government who did not think that they needed a Bill to dismantle criminal legal aid or to privatise the probation service should decide that they do need one to encourage courts to report wasted costs orders to the Bar Standards Board. It is also curious that a Lord Chancellor who is reluctant to debate the restriction of access to justice, or risks to public safety, can find plenty of parliamentary time in which to discuss age limits for jurors.

The Government have a curious sense of priorities; but the clue is in the phrase “find time”. We heard earlier that the Lord Chancellor was the only Cabinet Minister to volunteer to conjure up a Bill to fill the yawning void that is the last 15 months of the current Parliament—a carry-over Bill intended to mark time while the coalition parties manufacture disagreements to keep their own core voters happy. His reward—and I am pleased to see him in his place—was to miss the Cabinet’s day out in Aberdeen. There is no justice for the Justice Secretary.

However, I do not want to denigrate the Bill; I merely wish to set it in context. Although there are parts of it that we strongly oppose, much of it is unobjectionable, and some of it is even laudable. It makes sensible administrative changes, and introduces new offences that clarify or reinforce important parts of the law such as contempt, or address failings in the Government’s own legislation or practice. We are not going to find reasons to oppose such measures and, on balance, we will not oppose the Bill tonight, in the hope that improvements can be made before Third Reading.

I can do nothing but praise the quality of the debate today. We are fortunate to have heard from some of the most experienced and thoughtful Members on both sides, and I hope that the Minister will take on board their observations not only when he responds to the debate tonight but when he reviews the Bill in Committee. We have heard former Justice Ministers, including the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) and the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), and from Select Committee Chairs including my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith). We have also heard from eminent practitioners such as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) and the hon. Members for Dewsbury (Simon Reevell) and for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill).

I hope, however, that none of those Members will be offended if I say that the most perceptive comments often came from those who show a lay interest in these matters. The hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) talked about exercising caution over the use of cautions and about education on the secure estate, and I agreed with much that my neighbour, the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray), said in her tour d’horizon of the Bill. I was slightly confused, however, by the contributions of the hon. Members for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and for Shipley (Philip Davies). Both seemed to love the Bill, but one of them thought it was about restorative justice and reducing the prison population by 30,000 while the other thought it was about punishment and increasing the prison population by that number.

[Sadiq Khan]

They can’t both be right.

[Mr Slaughter]

Indeed, but the Lord Chancellor has at least managed to make both of them happy, and he should be praised for that, if for nothing else.

I want to make specific mention of the contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), who made robust defences of judicial review and of open justice. They correctly echoed the view expressed in the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s briefing that judicial review is

“used rarely by community groups in relation to planning decisions because it is costly and a significant and daunting undertaking.”

No one would imagine that, from what the Government have said today.

I shall take my cue from my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd in dealing first with the most contentious and objectionable part of the Bill—part 4, which covers judicial review. What is it about this Lord Chancellor and judicial review that the mention of it makes him behave in an irrational and unreasonable way? He has taken to the columns of the Daily Mail to denounce one of our most important constitutional safeguards as

“a promotional tool for countless Left-wing campaigners.”

It is unclear whether those left-wing campaigners include the Countryside Alliance, the Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, UKIP’s Stuart Wheeler and numerous Conservative councils, all of whom have initiated judicial reviews in recent times. However, the senior judiciary’s response to the Lord Chancellor’s consultation shot that particular fox when it stated that it had seen no

“evidence of inappropriate use of judicial review as a campaigning tool, and it is not the experience of the senior judiciary that this is a common problem.”

The Lord Chancellor has already taken bites out of judicial review by imposing additional fees and limiting the time for bringing a claim, in some cases to six weeks. He is also going to restrict the use of legal aid by statutory instrument, rather than through primary legislation. He would wish to hobble applicants more by restricting the recovery of costs until beyond the permission stage and allowing defendants to intervene at that stage with the prospect of recovering their costs. The Bill contains a variety of additional ways to discourage judicial review by increasing applicants’ costs or putting them at risk of paying defendants’ costs. Protective costs orders will not be abolished, but they will be available only in narrow circumstances and once permission is granted.

The worst aspects are in clauses 50 and 53, attacking both the raison d’être of judicial review to correct Executive error in decision making and the ability of third parties to intervene in the public interest and to assist the court. Already heavily criticised, the new test in clause 50 refuses permission where it is “highly likely” the outcome for the applicant

“would not have been substantially different if the conduct complained of had not occurred”.

This confuses unlawfulness with remedy. It will encourage bad decision making and it is likely to lead to a full trial of the issues at permission stage. Lord Pannick, in an article that has already been quoted today, has said that the clause will give the Government a

“get out of jail free card”,

and allow public bodies to

“avoid a hearing and judgment on the legality of their conduct.”

Under clause 53, third parties—often non-governmental organisations, charities and human rights organisations—that intervene in judicial reviews to clarify issues that often assist the court will now be severely discouraged from doing so by cost penalties. Yet Lady Justice Hale of the Supreme Court has said that

“interventions are enormously helpful…The most frequent are NGOs such as Liberty and Justice, whose commitment is usually to a principle rather than a person. They usually supply arguments and authorities, rather than factual information, which the parties may not have supplied.”

In aggregate, these proposals mean that only applicants of substantial means will be able to bring a claim or risk the costs of losing it. In a country without a written constitution, judicial review is one important way of holding the Executive to account. This Government want to insulate their bad decision making from legal challenge and place themselves outside the rule of law. They are strengthening Executive power and weakening a critical check on the power of the state. This Lord Chancellor, for misguided party political motives and as part of a sustained attack on access to justice, is undermining our civil liberties, and these changes should be against everything the Liberal Democrats stand for. Under this Government, seeking justice is getting harder and these proposals show them on the side of their corporate friends, not of individual citizens and communities. Politicians in power might find judicial review an awkward irritant, but that is precisely what it is intended to be. Combined with the cuts to legal aid, limitations on no win, no fee cases, and threats to the Human Rights Act and European convention, this proposal amounts to a sustained attack on the rights of individual citizens to hold those in power to account. As the President of the Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger puts it,

“one must be very careful about any proposals whose aim is to cut down the right to judicial review”.

He has also said:

“The courts have no more important function than that of protecting citizens from the abuses and excesses of the executive.”

We have serious concerns about other parts of the Bill. As they stand, the plans for secure colleges may prove damaging to thousands of young offenders in our criminal justice system. The Bill leaves a question mark over the future of secure children’s homes, which cater for the most vulnerable young people. Such homes typically house small numbers of children, provide intensive support and are staffed by highly qualified specialists in social care. The homes have good educational outcomes and are recognised as the preferred model of youth custody, but they look set to lose out to the Lord Chancellor’s new and untested pet project. It is untested according to the Government’s own impact assessment, but still £85 million is needed to build just one secure college.

The Justice Committee pointed out in its report last March that the average time in youth custody is only 79 days, so most young offenders would not be in a college long enough to improve their basic skills. What levels of training or qualification would the college staff have? Why will college custody officers be empowered to use “reasonable force” for the maintenance of “good order and discipline”? That may well be unlawful under the European convention on human rights, according to a Court of Appeal 2008 ruling and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which stated in 2007:

“Restraint or force can be used only when the child poses an imminent threat of injury to him or herself or others, and only when all other means of control have been exhausted. The use of restraint or force, including physical, mechanical and medical restraints, should be under close and direct control of a medical and/or psychological professional. It must never be used as a means of punishment.”

As regards part 3 of the Bill, we support the use of single justices, given that their jurisdiction will apply only to summary, non-imprisonable offences where an adult defendant pleads guilty. However, we object strongly to taking these cases out of the courtroom and into offices away from public view. Such an approach damages the principle of British justice that cases are heard and the results made known in public. This Government are too fond of secret courts, and even in minor cases the principle of open justice should be rarely departed from. We agree in principle that convicted criminals could contribute to the costs of trial, but the substantial amount of uncollected fines from criminals already totals more than £1 billion and it is likely that this proposal will just add to the total of uncollected moneys from criminals. We have no objection in principle to leapfrog appeals, for example, on issues of national importance, though they are most likely to be used by government trying to hurry the process up. The danger is that this simply overloads the Supreme Court and that the issues it has to deal with are insufficiently refined by earlier hearings.

It is a good idea to update the jury room process and the rules on reporting cases to accommodate the social media age. The Attorney-General is to be commended for taking a personal interest in the limitations on reporting and in discouraging jurors from using social media to research or publicise details of trials. However, the Government fail to provide any support to juries in explaining their roles and remit as part of any new offences, and it is not clear whether they have considered the full implications of the numbers of people using social media and the variety of methods available. We have no objection to raising the age of jury service to 75.

There are two glaring problems with part 1 of the Bill. It does not do what it says on the tin, which is to protect the public adequately from violent and dangerous offenders, but it does incur costs and prison resources that the Government do not have in place. I fear that the hon. Member for Shipley may have been slightly taken in by the rhetoric rather the actuality of what is in part 1. The changes to sentences for the most serious and violent criminals are a poor substitute for indeterminate sentences for public protection, which this Government abolished in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012—[Interruption.] I do like to mention that, because it is the one thing that we both agree on.

[Philip Davies]

Absolutely.

[Mr Slaughter]

I am afraid that the Government have been playing catch-up ever since IPPs were abolished, but none of what is proposed offers the same level of public protection. The Government’s own impact assessment states that the sentencing changes will require 1,050 additional prison places, but there are fewer than half that currently available. It also states that the costs of additional custody are not quantified. We noted with concern the Lord Chancellor’s inability to answer any of the questions about his Department’s budgets. Proposals in part 1 will also see a greater work load for the Parole Board, with an additional 1,100 Parole Board hearings a year, according to the Government’s impact assessment. However, no additional resources are being made available, at a time when Parole Board staff numbers have already been cut by nearly one in five.

We support the ban on the possession of extreme pornographic images depicting rape and other non-consensual sexual penetration. That is a welcome victory for campaign groups such as Rape Crisis South London and the End Violence Against Women Coalition. We support the restrictions on the use of simple cautions.

Criminal justice Bills have a reputation for being Christmas tree Bills, and this one is no different. It is a mixture of the minor and non-contentious with some major, damaging and poorly thought-out measures, such as those in part 4, which, if they survive here, will be butchered in the other place.

This is also quite a mean little Bill, reflecting the character of its author. It further limits the rights of the citizen against the state, and it scratches around to find some more savings because the Treasury has been overpromised. Desperate to impress the Prime Minister, this is the best that the Secretary of State could come up with. Much of it is unexceptional or unobjectionable. It is legislation for legislation’s sake, and is designed to fill an intellectual and actual void in the Government’s programme. It is irrelevant to the big issues being played out in our justice system. It reinforces the growing view in the country that it is time for this failing Lord Chancellor and this Government to move on.