Criminal Legal Aid Reforms

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be here under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) for his outstanding speech—a tour de force—demolishing the Government proposals. I also thank all hon. Members who have made very fine speeches on a range of issues—and, indeed, all 20 Members who have turned up, not one of whom have I heard give unqualified support to the Government proposals; there has been much for the Minister to think about and reply to. In its way, it is almost as impressive as the 31 Members who attended the Backbench Business Committee debate. There has also been a debate in the other place.

As my hon. Friend said, it remains a scandal that the Government have not provided any of their own time to debate these issues. We had a year going through the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill—now an Act—but these measures are equally controversial and should have been the subject of primary legislation or, if not, certainly given ample Government time. We will no doubt return to the issues in other debates, but such debates all seem to be up to Back-Benchers and the Opposition to supply. I remind the Minister that the Government’s own lawyer said about the consultation document:

“We consider that the proposals in the consultation paper will undermine the accountability of public bodies to the detriment of society as a whole and the vulnerable in particular.”

More than 100,000 people have so far signed the petition opposing the proposals.

In the few moments that I have this morning, I want to look at where we are. A two-month consultation process earlier this year yielded 15,000 responses. We had the climbdown on choice, which was welcome as far as it went. The Joint Committee on Human Rights then intervened, asking the Government to pause, partly because some of the proposals might be unlawful. That was rejected out of hand by the Lord Chancellor, who said that he had to get on and make the cuts.

The areas of particular concern that the Joint Committee identified for review were the proposals on judicial review, residency and prisoner rights that, on the Government’s own estimation, make savings of no more than £6 million. The Government still cannot say—the Minister may want to correct me—what the savings will be from introducing the residency test. Some have pointed out the appalling consequences of such a test for the relatives abroad of those who have died in custody, the Gurkhas or other groups for whom justice should be done. The Government say that those proposals will save £6 million.

I hope the Minister has read the excellent paper by Dr Nick Armstrong at Matrix Chambers. It has been endorsed by the probation service, which says that, cumulatively, the proposals will cost about £30 million. The Lord Chancellor is simply wrong to say that it is on the grounds of cost that we must proceed in a hurry to make those fundamental constitutional changes.

We are told by the usual channels—a leak to the Law Society Gazette—that tomorrow there will be an oral statement and the publication of the Government’s response. I am not sure whether the Minister is in a position to confirm that today. He might as well, because we do not know whether the Lord Chancellor will even turn up to the statement tomorrow; someone might be rude to him on the way there or he might have to go and do a bit of canvassing in a marginal seat.

Let us hear what the Minister can tell us this morning. Will he answer my questions? First, given that choice is back in, what is the savings target now? Is it still £220 million or has it changed? What effect will the second consultation, which we are told will take place shortly, have on the timetable for implementation of the changes? What will the new tendering regime look like? Is the decline in the number of firms by 75%—1,600 to 400—still on the table?

Will anything be done on the issue of specialism? A lot has been said about that in relation to, say, black and minority ethnic firms and small rural firms, but these measures go across the board. One submission that has already been mentioned was from Thompsons Solicitors, which represents a lot of public sector workers such as paramedics, nurses and care workers, who are often accused of serious offences that have implications for not just their liberty but their continued career and employment. They need specialist representation, and it is very unlikely that they will obtain that under the proposals.

On average, what will be the costs of a bid? We are told in the consultation paper that they need to be digitally prepared and done in a certain way. The process will be extremely expensive for small firms, which may not be able to make the investment with any certainty that they will be successful at the end of the day. Will the Government’s proposals still discriminate against small, rural or specialist firms?

The Government have said nothing so far on the issue of the perverse incentives. It is nonsense to suggest that the same fee should be payable for an early plea, a cracked trial or a short trial of up to three days. Given his background, the Minister should know that and that it must be addressed at some stage. Retaining choice is a step forward, but it is not the magic bullet that will sort out all the problems.

The Government have been asked to pause. They are bringing forward a second consultation, but they have not addressed the main reason for the pause. They have not addressed the issue of legality that the Joint Committee has raised, and the timetable thus far has shown the confusion and inadequacy of the proposals.

The other matter I want to raise with the Minister is the cumulative effect that this avalanche of proposals is having on the criminal justice system as a whole. We saw in the research from the shadow Home Secretary this morning that the number of domestic violence cases being handed by the police to the Crown Prosecution Service has fallen by 13%—primarily due, it appears, to a lack of police numbers and time.

Reference has been made to the crisis in the CPS. Again, a leading defence firm that responded to the consultation estimated that in 85% of cases, disclosure is not supplied timeously by the CPS. The consequence is more applications in court and more wasted costs orders against the CPS.

The court amalgamations—we are told that there may be more closures coming forward—are also causing great problems of management for magistrates, court staff and the CPS. The continuing interpreters fiasco is not only a problem in itself but an indication of where we might be in relation to the proposals. Having a system in which the lowest common denominator drives down prices to the lowest possible level means that we just cannot get the people to do the work. There will be solicitors who either cannot or will not work for those rates, because the costs are just too low.

We have not seen the full impact of the cuts enshrined in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, which were introduced in April. We have not seen the effect of other savings such as the defence costs orders, which were introduced at the end of last year. They effectively mean that if a person is paying privately for their defence and is acquitted, they may now recover only 25% of their actual costs.

There seems to be an issue of justice there; people should be put back into the position where they should have been had they not been falsely accused of offences. None the less, there will be a saving there. Will the Minister say what that will be? Equally, what additional costs will we increasingly see to litigants in person, and what are the additional costs that will come about because of some of the so-called cuts that Dr Armstrong has identified in his papers?

The Government are hardwiring inefficiency and injustice into the criminal justice system. There are inefficiencies in the system and they should be taken out. Several hon. Members have alluded to possible ways of making savings in a way that would improve the efficiency of the courts and the administration of justice. The Government’s proposals offer the worst of both worlds. They are increasing inefficiency, making things more uncertain and putting delay into the system. At the same time, they are unlikely to achieve many of the savings that the Government have outlined.

On the way to the Chamber, I was reading an article by Stephen Sedley, one of our most eminent judges, in the London Review of Books. He says:

“The decision in 2012 to put a political enforcer, Chris Grayling, in charge of the legal system carried a calculated message: the rule of law was from now on, like everything else, going to be negotiable.”

He adds that

“departmental housekeeping is being used not to rebalance but to unbalance a central element of the constitution.”

We have to make cuts in legal aid and elsewhere in the public finances. However, putting in jeopardy the justice system of which this country is so proud and on which so many people rely is not the way to do it.

Magistrates' Courts: Salford

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2013 Ministerial Corrections

[Mr Slaughter]

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how the theft of a network server from Salford magistrates' court in January 2012 took place; who stole the server; what the value of the server was; how it was recovered; what action has been taken against the thief; what documents were on the server; whether such documents (a) related to court staff, defendants, victims or witnesses and (b) included personal or confidential matters or matters related to evidence; what steps have been taken to inform those affected; for what reasons he believes that the information has not been accessed; for what reasons the theft was not reported to the police and the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) until June 2012; when he expects the ICO to report; and if he will make a statement.

[Official Report, 18 July 2013, Vol. 566, c. 829W.]

Letter of correction from Helen Grant:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) on 18 July 2013.

The full answer given was as follows:

[Mrs Grant]

The theft of a network server from Salford magistrates court occurred during the IT decommissioning process undertaken by contractors during the closure of the court. Following a police investigation, there was insufficient evidence to identify who stole the server and secure a conviction and no charges were brought. The estimated value of the server was £1,200.

The theft came to light on 3 May 2012 when the server was put up for sale on eBay still bearing the contractor's logo/asset tag. Arrangements were made by the contractor to recover the server on 9 May 2012. Once the facts were established, the incident was reported to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) on 14 June 2013.

Files recovered from non user-accessible areas of the server contained personal and sensitive data, including court documents and e mails, but a detailed forensic analysis and audit did not identify any access to the files during the time the server was not under the control of MOJ and therefore no action has been taken to inform those affected.

The matter is still under investigation by the ICO and we await their report.

The correct answer should have been:

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am very concerned to pursue that. I am aware of the issues that my hon. Friend mentions. It may well be down to the fact that there was a surge in cases prior to the legal aid changes that came into effect in April, but I can give him an assurance that this is very much on my radar, and I intend to pursue it.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Last week, the Lord Chancellor was telling some of the 16,000 respondents to his legal aid consultation that their responses had been automatically deleted, but he must have read some of them, as they provoked his embarrassing U-turn on choice of solicitor yesterday. Will he now also U-turn on forcing small firms out of business and on giving cash incentives for guilty pleas, and will he abandon the further cuts in civil legal aid that will, according to the Parole Board among others, cost several times the £6 million he claims they will save?

[Chris Grayling]

Labour Members really do not get it, do they? Government Minister consults on proposals, listens, makes some modifications, and gives an early decision to help people, so they are not attacking proposals that have changed. Labour Members never listened to anybody when they were in government; they just ploughed ahead regardless.

The hon. Gentleman is the person who said, in 2011, that the Government should look for

“efficiencies in the criminal legal aid system,”

to

“save…money”.—[Official Report, 2 November 2011; Vol. 534, c. 958-9.]

We are now doing that; they have changed their minds. It is shambolic.

Interpreting and Translation Services

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

You have ruined the round of applause at the end of my speech, Mr Pritchard. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon.

If the Minister did not know at the beginning of the debate how important this issue was, she will now, from the quality of the debate and from the contributions from Members on both sides of the House, including from very senior Members of the House; and whereas it is right to say that she did not preside over the inauguration of what the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), has called a shambles, she has been defending that shambles since she was appointed, so she does need to give some clear and full answers today.

Included in the contribution from the Chair of the Select Committee was the worrying information, which is in the report, that there was interference with the inquiry by the Ministry of Justice to prevent the fullest account of what has happened coming to light. Perhaps the Minister would like to address that and say whether she wishes to see that there is no repetition of it in the future. It is difficult not to conclude that the reason for it was that the Ministry did not want the full facts of the contract to emerge. I am delighted to hear that this is not the end of the matter for the Select Committee, because it not only has severe implications, as many hon. Members have said, for the quality and the standard of justice in our courts, but it has implications for the Ministry of Justice’s generally shambolic tendering processes.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) said that in his experience, and looking at the three substantial reports from the NAO, the Justice Committee and the PAC, he had rarely seen such an indictment. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) quoted some, but only some, of the examples of failure. The dossier from which he was reading is only one of several dossiers about hundreds of individual cases that have been prepared. I was grateful for those contributions, and grateful also for the contributions from the hon. Members for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech), and for Redcar (Ian Swales), and my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who brought to the debate their own experience, either from their private life or from the Committees on which they have served.

A number of Members wanted to take part in the debate, and what their contributions come to, in summation, is the anatomy of a disaster. The Ministry set out to save relatively small amounts of money; I shall explain why I use that phrase. Some Members—certainly Members on the PAC—will have seen the interrogation by the Chair of the PAC, my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), of the senior responsible officer, who had not read the report and was not aware of the fact that when a £42 million contract was let to ALS, it was subject to a £1 million limit. He had not read that because he thought that it was de minimis and below his estimable gaze, and things went from bad to worse in that interrogation.

There appears to have been no assessment of the risk in this case. There has been contempt for the way in which professional interpreters should be dealt with. I am very grateful for the way in which professional interpreters have assisted us. I particularly mention Geoffrey Buckingham of the Association of Police and Court Interpreters, but I am also referring to many of the organisations that make up Professional Interpreters for Justice. They have been prepared to brief hon. Members at length on what is going wrong in our courts every day. The only party that appears not to wish to listen to that is the Ministry of Justice, which is why we have had the meltdown in our courts during the past 18 months.

Let me deal first with the issue of costs. I do not expect to get an answer from the Minister on costs, although many hon. Members have asked her about them. I have been trying to get answers to these questions for months through parliamentary questions and Freedom of Information Act inquiries. Let me tell Members what my latest inquiries have gained me. I asked the Ministry to provide the information on wasted costs in courts, and it said that it would not do that, although it could, because it was too expensive. I am appealing that decision, because it seems to me that the Ministry could simply contact each court and ask it to supply that information as raw data, and my office could collate that. Failing that, I asked whether the Ministry would provide me with the e-mail addresses of the country’s courts, so that I could undertake the exercise myself, and it said, wrongly, that that information was available publicly. It is not available publicly, so I am appealing that as well. The fact that the response to one of those inquiries was addressed to Mr Safranov and the other one was unopenable and caused my computer to crash only confirms that the Ministry is either unable or unwilling to provide the information because it knows how devastating it is likely to be.

What we do know—these are in part estimates but also in part statistics—is that about 50% of the requirement for interpreters is being fulfilled through the Capita contract. We know that after 500 days, the alternative system—courts finding their own interpreters—is still in effect. We know that whereas the Ministry claims that from a 58% starting point, Capita’s performance has got better, which is not much of a claim, in fact it got worse again from the middle of last year—it does not acknowledge that. I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton, gave the figures for the trials that have been aborted—more than 600 in the magistrates court and more than 30 in the Crown court over that period.

Those are appalling figures, but it should not be up to any Member of the House to go away and find out that information. That information should be made available, and if the Minister does not have it available, perhaps she could undertake today to give a clear answer about the costs of the failure of the ALS-Capita contract. They include, of course, not only the costs from wasted court time, but the costs from unnecessary remand, the costs to the Crown Prosecution Service and the costs to the Prison Service.

In relation to the impact, I will not read out a great swathe of examples from the dossiers that have been prepared, but they range from the hugely serious to the almost comic. Examples include interpreters who cannot translate the word “guilty”; an attempted murder case in which the interpreter had received no training and did not appreciate the need to translate everything; an interpreter who chatted to witnesses about the case, causing a mistrial after 12 days; and a Crown court trial that was postponed because there was no rare language interpreter, the rare language being Polish—the second most commonly spoken language in the UK. This is going on now.

There was the very serious quadruple murder case at Nottingham Crown court last month. The BBC report stated:

“The failure of an interpreter to show up for a murder suspect’s court appearance has been described as a ‘complete disgrace’ by a judge…No Mandarin interpreter was available, and Nottingham Crown Court heard it was ‘not worthwhile’ for one to turn up”—

according to Capita—

“as they would ‘not make enough money’.”

That was described by the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) as the service being “out of control”. I wonder whether the Minister agrees with her colleague’s view on that matter. A murder case is going on today at Birmingham Crown court for which no Capita interpreter—certainly at the time when I was briefed, early this morning—had turned up, and that case is therefore also in jeopardy.

I do not think that I have to elucidate for Members at this debate how serious these matters are, not just in terms of cost but in terms of the administration and execution of justice. I am not being pompous in saying that these matters go not just to the heart of the Administration, but to the heart of justice itself.

I have with me the translation of an article from Lithuanian, and because it was done by someone on the National Register of Public Service Interpreters, it is certified and I trust it as a translation. It is from a Lithuanian website and is telling people about the interpreting service in this country. It quotes a Lithuanian interpreter in the UK as saying this about dealing with clients:

“We just advise them to tell the truth about how everything happened. For example, how and where they went to steal”.

The most fundamental part of an interpreter’s job is not to interfere in the process of justice—not to do the solicitor’s or the barrister’s job and certainly not to give the client legal advice or advice on how to conduct themselves, yet that appears to be the way in which these matters are routinely conducted.

In the few moments left to me, I would like to deal with where we go next. I do not think that the case against this contract has to be made any further; I think that we have to say, “Where do we go now?”

The MOJ is in a parlous state, in terms of letting contracts; its complete reliance on payment by results; what it is doing with the probation service; and what it is threatening to do with the privatisation of the entire Courts Service. I read in the technical press this week that a £300 million MOJ desktop and laptop support contract has been postponed, reportedly after the four most serious contenders had already spent millions bidding. That is the computer contract for the entire court, prison and probation system, which has been in planning for some years and which has now simply been pulled. We do not know why; perhaps the Minister will tell us. The point is that there is no coherence to the contract letting process in the MOJ and the contract is perhaps the clearest example of it. It is also one of the smallest contracts that it has let, and I fear for what may now happen.

So what should now happen? First, the Government need to stop being in denial about the failure of the contract. They need to stop saying that there has been a dramatic improvement when the situation is getting worse. They need to stop misrepresenting what they say about the view of professional interpreters. In their response to the Select Committee, they claimed that the slight amelioration of conditions was something that had been welcomed. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it is clear in the minutes of the meetings between the Minister, officials and interpreters that the terms being offered do nothing to meet the concerns of the professional interpreters or to adequately compensate them. Until the Minister realises that and begins to address that matter, the contract will continue to fail.

What interpreters want is the reinstatement of the national agreement; proper—not excessive, but fair—remuneration and conditions of service; legislation to protect the title of registered public service interpreter, so that there will no longer be the types of extraordinary cases that we have heard examples of this afternoon; and to work with the Government to establish a regulatory professional body that is robust and rigorous in its approach, enabling interpreters to provide quality interpreting services to public bodies. They do not seem extreme or unreasonable claims or ambitions.

There is a break clause in the contract. The Government could—and should—act now to suspend while they determine how they can properly address the concerns raised. In my opinion, there is now sufficient evidence that the contract with Capita should not continue.

I will stop now, because I want to give the Minister sufficient time to reply to all the points that have been raised. She is a courteous Minister, but she tends to read from her civil servants’ brief, rather than answering the points raised in debate. As we have a full house today and interpreters are present who have come to hear the Government’s current stance, I hope we will hear about some progress and movement towards a fair deal for interpreters, which is important, because they are professional people whose livelihoods are at stake, and that we can have within the courts of England and Wales what we used to take for granted. Certainly when I was in practice, I would take it for granted that interpreters would be competent, efficient, present, and able to discharge their duties.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Minister, as is convention, I intend to call the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) to make some concluding remarks for two or three minutes, if he wishes to do so, before the end of this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Slaughter]

I was not greatly shocked to be told that recovering the figures that I asked for would involve a disproportionate cost. If the Minister is going to persist with that line, she cannot give a figure for savings, because, if it is accurate, it is clearly a gross figure. The collapse of any of the serious Crown court trials that I mentioned will cost tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of pounds. The Government must be able to make some estimate of the costs. It is not good enough just to say, “We’re not going to collect that information from the courts.” Although it may not be 100% accurate, we need some idea of the cost to the public purse of this contract going ahead.

[Mrs Grant]

I am afraid that I cannot honestly say any more than I have already said; I do not want to be disingenuous. I take on board what the hon. Gentleman says, and if we can do any more—if we can give him any further and better particulars—I will be happy to try to do so.

The system has been operating well in the National Offender Management Service. The senior presiding judge told the NAO that the system had improved since initial roll-out through the Ministry’s actions. I am pleased to confirm that complaints are declining. I have outlined the improvements in our success rate. Just 0.4% of magistrates court listings were delayed because of interpreter problems in the first and second quarters of 2012, which was the difficult period. We will continue to work closely with our partners and to bring about changes that deliver improved performance in the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

It certainly brings competition to bear. We are trying to take tough decisions on legal aid in a way that, where possible, impacts on the top end, not the bottom end, of the income scale. That is what we believe in, and I am surprised that Labour Members appear to disagree with us.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Has the Secretary of State read his interview with the Law Society Gazette this week? I would not blame him if he had not, because it is a bit of a car crash. Does he stand by the passages where he says that he has no evidence of a lack of public support for legal aid but has received “lots of letters”, where he is “unsure” where £160 million of Department spending has gone, and where he defends taking away a choice of solicitor because

“people in our prisons and…courts come from the most difficult and challenged backgrounds”

and are not

“great connoisseurs of legal skills”?

[Chris Grayling]

Not surprisingly, I do stand by interviews I give. We are now three years into this Government and Labour Members have no answers to any of the challenges we face. We have big financial issues to deal with and we need to create a system that is affordable. They have no alternative suggestions about how to do that.

[Mr Slaughter]

The Justice Secretary has one answer: payment by results.

Last Friday, the Justice Secretary was forced to investigate alleged overpayment to G4S and Serco on the tagging contracts. Today the Financial Times is reporting that he has suspended outsourcing prison contracts to Serco, Sodexo and Amec. Should not he review all current contracts with the chumocracy of private firms who get the MOJ’s shilling, including Capita’s disastrous running of the interpreters contract, and should not he suspend plans to hand out another £500 million of probation contracts to more of the cosy cartel?

[Chris Grayling]

Sometimes Labour Members are breathtaking. I am not going to say much to the House today about the investigation that we are carrying out into the tagging contracts; I will provide that information in due course. I simply say to Opposition Front Benchers that the contracts we are investigating date back to 2005 and were signed and put together by the previous Government.

Rehabilitation of Offenders

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement—it is generous of him to share his thoughts with the House on this important subject so soon after briefing the national media. He is right that one of the best ways to cut crime, the number of victims and the cost of our criminal justice system is by tackling reoffending. It is disappointing that it has taken the Government three wasted years to reach that conclusion, but we welcome the intent of today’s announcement.

Reoffending rates are too high. We started to reduce them when we were in government—especially the rate of youth offending, which breaks the cycle of reoffending at an early point—but much more needs to be done. This is an ambitious programme. Unfortunately, it is based on fewer resources, on untried and untested methods and on putting faith in exactly those private sector organisations that have failed to deliver other major public sector contracts.

Let us take the proposal for support for everyone leaving prison—an extra 45,000 offenders on the Secretary of State’s figures. Can he explain to the House whether that is an uncosted demand for more resource or whether existing moneys will be spread much more thinly to deliver it? Resettlement prisons, as he said, represent a major restructuring of the prison system. What is the cost of that restructuring and what additional resources will go into preparing offenders for release? He knows that the prison estate is still chronically overcrowded and understaffed, so does he seriously think that a reorganisation can take place against such a backdrop? In London there is a major shortage of prison places, which means that offenders from London often end up housed hundreds of miles away from home and family, so how is resettlement to work here?

On release, even those who have served the shortest sentences are promised a year’s supervision and support with addiction, housing and employment. Who will pay for that at a time when drug treatment centres are closing? Housing is perhaps the most expensive item for newly released prisoners. On the “Today” programme, the Secretary of State speculated that housing associations would help out, so during the worst housing shortage for a generation are ex-offenders to get priority for social housing?

Who will fund the army of mentors, and who will vet them to ensure that the right people mentor offenders? The probation service has been cut by almost 10% so far and those cuts will continue. The service, which received an award for excellence two years ago, is by definition not to blame for rising reoffending by short-sentence prisoners, because they are currently unsupervised. However, it is not probation officers who will now undertake 70% of the supervision. The Justice Secretary places a great deal of faith in reformed old lags helping out, but he admitted on the “Today” programme that they will have to be paid. Professional probation officers sacked and replaced with ex-offenders: is this the Justice Secretary’s brave new world?

In reality, it is the Secretary of State’s old friends Serco, G4S and the rest of the cartel who will profit from today’s announcements. The 21 contracts are too large for smaller providers. An extra £500 million of public contracts are going to the people who gave us the Work programme and security at the Olympics. Now he is to impose his untested and untried payment-by-results methods on probation. Perhaps most seriously, a dangerous chasm will open up between public and private providers on the basis of an offender’s risk level, taking no account of the fact that in 25% of all cases offenders move between risk levels. Therefore, contrary to his assurance, private firms will be in charge of the most serious criminals, and we genuinely fear that that will put the public at risk. Failures in delivering probation services even to medium-risk offenders will mean that those guilty of domestic violence, burglary, robbery, sexual offences and gang activity will walk our streets unsupervised. Regardless of whether private sector providers deliver, they will still get paid at least 90% of the money. Do they have the incentive or the skills to supervise dangerous and violent people in the community?

Reducing reoffending while maintaining public safety should be our twin priorities. A focus on reoffending is to be welcomed, but the Government’s ill-thought-out policies and total reliance on payment by results are putting at risk the safety of communities up and down the country.

[Chris Grayling]

I plead guilty to having done a couple of media interviews this morning, but I am at least in the House right now. My opposite number, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), also gave some media interviews this morning but has not made it to the House, which is rather a surprise to me.

We learned an important lesson in opposition, which is that sometimes when one aspires to be a Government it is necessary to accept that something is the right thing to do. That is a lesson that today’s Opposition have not learned. I do not understand why they are coming out with this faux anger about what we are doing when the legislative foundations that enable us to push through these reforms were passed by the previous Labour Government. If they supported the concept then, why do they not support it now?

The hon. Gentleman asked about costs. That highlights an important difference between us and the previous Government. They believed that a problem would be solved by throwing money at it, and they ended up with an over-bureaucratic, over-complex system which simply did not deliver. Thanks to the work done by the Select Committee, we know that probation officers spend only about a quarter of their time at work on supervising offenders, while about 40% of their time is spent on providing support services. Are the Opposition really saying that it is not possible to run that system more efficiently and deliver support where it is needed to the offenders who are most likely to reoffend when they leave prison? Again, there is a divide between us and them. They think it is a question of spending more taxpayers’ money and having higher taxes; we want to get better value from the taxes that we already raise.

On resettlement prisons, again, it is about making our system work more effectively. At the moment, we move far too many prisoners all over the country in a fairly haphazard way. Over the past few months we have worked with prison governors and prison officer teams to work out a better way so that short-sentence offenders will almost always stay in one place and longer-sentence offenders will go to a prison close to where they will be released to ensure that when they are released we can deliver continuity of support through the prison gate. The Opposition should welcome that. It is the right thing to do and it should have been done years ago.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the past three years. It is only a few months since the Opposition were attacking me for not undertaking pilots on this issue. In fact, for the past few years we have been looking at how such a system would work, in Peterborough prison and in Doncaster prison. The work that has been done there is first-rate. It has also shown how effective older prisoners who are turning their lives around can be in supporting and mentoring younger offenders who have yet to do so. The hon. Gentleman needs to go out and look at what is happening, not in the world of big businesses, which his party’s Government contracted with regularly, but in the voluntary sector with some of our first-rate charities, where there are living examples of former offenders who have gone straight and who are now helping to turn around the lives of the next generation of offenders. I want to capture those skills in helping to bring down reoffending.



The hon. Gentleman questioned payment by results, but why is it such a bad thing in the eyes of the Opposition? They want to pay a whole-contract fee, but I believe that we should pay part of a fee based on whether the taxpayer gets a good deal or not. We should pay not unconditionally, but conditionally, and that is what we will do under these contracts. I want to pay for real results that bring down reoffending and crime.

Under the previous Government, reoffending barely changed. We ended up with a situation in which people were going round and round the system. We finally have a set of proposals that will start to change that. It is shame that this did not happen, not three years ago, but 13 years ago, when the Labour party was in power.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the things that I have found most surprising about the system that we currently operate is that we do not currently provide all-round support for those who get sentences of less than 12 months. A central part of our reforms is to change that. It is this group who have the highest propensity to reoffend. It is simply not acceptable that we continue not to provide them with the same level of support as longer-sentenced prisoners when they leave jail.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I do not know whether the Secretary of State has looked at the National Audit Office’s response to his consultation. It says that, in the Work programme, the majority of providers were big private companies. It also says that it is likely that the most difficult, prolific offenders will not be picked and that there will be cherry-picking. So despite his warm words, does he not think that this is going the same way as his failed Work programme? Is he intending to have moved on before this fails as well?

[Chris Grayling]

I hate to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but the Work programme is succeeding in getting very large numbers of people into work, and is delivering much better value for the taxpayer than the programmes that we inherited from the previous Government. The truth is that the National Audit Office has contributed some valuable thoughts to our preparations for this exercise. I have listened to its contributions, as I will listen to all contributions, and we will deliver the most sensible, rounded package, particularly one that ensures that no one is left at the fringes of the system and that we provide rehabilitation and support to all offenders.

Human Rights Act 1998 (Repeal and Substitution) Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Friday 1st March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is one of the key reasons why the majority of people in this country would support the Bill.

We have not heard from the Opposition or our friends in the Liberal Democrat party. Perhaps they have been convinced by the strength of the arguments this morning, but they may well oppose the Bill. However, I find that supporters of all political parties support what my hon. Friend’s Bill seeks to do. It is not a party political issue among ordinary voters. They are all equally outraged at some of the cases that have hit the headlines in recent years. I agree with my hon. Friend that people see the Human Rights Act as something that diverts their hard-earned taxpayers’ funds away from the things that they should be spent on, such as providing more doctors and nurses, to paying lawyers to bring forward spurious cases.

Perhaps I could refer the House to one such case. Samuel Betteridge was a young man who raped a 14-year-old girl after luring her to his flat and forcing her to drink alcohol. In 2005 he admitted at Lincoln Crown court two counts of rape and one of attempted rape. His minimum jail term of five years was later reduced on appeal to three and a half years. His parole hearing was fixed for May 2009 but later postponed until January 2010.

Through his lawyers, Mr Betteridge appealed to the European Court of Human Rights on the grounds that the delay in his parole hearing violated article 5 of the European convention on human rights—the right to a speedy hearing. The Strasbourg judges, needless to say, agreed with Mr Betteridge’s submission and found in his favour. They said that

“the delay in reviewing Mr Betteridge’s case was the direct result of the failure of the authorities to anticipate the demand which would be placed on the prison system following the introduction of IPP sentencing”.

Those are indeterminate public protection sentences which, as the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) and other hon. Members know, are now being abolished—[Interruption.] Yes, changed; effectively abolished, perhaps.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I will address the hon. Gentleman’s request for the Opposition’s views on the issue under discussion, but IPPs are being abolished, which Opposition Members think is something of a shame. The issues of public protection that the hon. Gentleman mentions, and the balance between the offender and the victim, are being changed not for better but for worse.

[Mr Nuttall]

If my memory serves me rightly, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) I took a similar view on that matter and— I think—went into the Division Lobby to try to avoid it happening. There is a place for such sentences but I do not want to be drawn down that avenue. This debate is not about sentencing policy, but that was the subject of the case I mentioned and it is therefore right at least to touch on how it came about.

The High Court in London originally dismissed the case, but the European Court of Human Rights backed Mr Betteridge and awarded the rapist £640 in damages plus £1,710 in legal fees—I bet that did not go far towards paying those fees. According to my information, Mr Betteridge was apparently not alone in receiving payments for delayed parole hearings and was one of 100 prisoners who has received in total more than £313,000 over the past three years as a result of an alleged breach, found to be an actual breach, of their human rights. Most of our constituents would agree with Robert Oxley of the TaxPayers Alliance who said:

“It’s disgusting that taxpayers are being made to pay for an award to a rapist thanks to European Court meddling.”

Of course, he was referring to the European Court of Human Rights, not the European Court of Justice.

As the House is aware, that was not the only case to hit the headlines. A case with an even more substantial effect, certainly on proceedings in this place, was that of Hirst, which was, in effect, the leading case on prisoner voting rights. In 1979, John Hirst used an axe to kill his landlady in her own home. In the following year he was convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and sentenced to life imprisonment with a tariff of 15 years, after which he could be released on licence. In fact, he was not released until May 2004 because of concerns that he might present a danger to the public; for example, he was found guilty of an offence under prison rules when, in 1998, he slammed a van door against a female prisoner officer.

Mr Hirst used his time in prison to teach himself law. He became a student of human rights legislation and a serial litigant against the authorities. There is no time this morning to go into his various cases, but suffice it to say that in one of them the court ordered that the Government pay Hirst £1,000 in damages and a further £7,500 in costs. That was before what we might call his cause célèbre—Hirst v. United Kingdom (No. 2)—which was to prove far more controversial, and related to whether his human rights had been violated because he was not able to vote while he was in prison.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and to agree with him on the matter of IPPs—but not, I suspect, much else. We seem to be in the one-hour club, as we are averaging about an hour for each contribution. As someone who regularly exceeds that time in Committee—I get some criticism from the Whips on both sides when I do—it is nice to be among friends in that respect at least on a Friday morning. I am not, however, going to speak for more than an hour today, as I want to leave time for the Minister to respond and perhaps for us to move on to other business.

I do not think that, even if I wanted to, I could match the eloquence of some of the speeches that we have heard, particularly that of the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) and his exchanges with the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). The hon. Member for Penrith and The Border made a compelling case on many issues, not least on minority rights. Human rights legislation is about individual rights, and it is often about minority rights and unpopular minority rights. That issue has not been much addressed in contributions today other than by the hon. Gentleman.

I hope that the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who has produced a very impressive Bill, will forgive me, or will not misunderstand me, when I say that during his speech I thought that my article 3 rights might be affected—not, of course, because of his argument or his oratory, but because I felt that we had been here before. We have, in fact, been here before, as recently as last December, when the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) presented a ten-minute rule Bill that proposed the abolition, or repeal, of the Human Rights Act. It was defeated by, I believe, 196 votes to 72. Although the debate was short, the arguments that were advanced were very similar to those that have been advanced today.

I mention that occasion—it was not the only occasion on which the House has discussed these matters—because I suspect that, notwithstanding the considerable effort that has gone into this Bill, it was born of frustration rather than a belief that it would ever reach the statute book. Under the coalition Government, there have been two consultations and a commission report. I think it is accepted on all sides that the resolution of the issue that the commission was set to consider is going nowhere, certainly during the current Parliament. That is clearly frustrating for some Conservative Members, but perhaps it is not surprising, given that in their respective manifestos one of the coalition parties promised to replace the Human Rights Act and the other promised to protect it. That is one of the clearest contradictions between the two parties. I am sorry if we are not going to hear from the Liberal Democrats today, perhaps for reasons connected with hangovers.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I want to correct that statement, and also to reassure the hon. Gentleman of the Liberal Democrats’ support for the Human Rights Act. Let me point out to him that there is not a contradiction, but simply a disagreement between the coalition parties. That happens sometimes in coalitions, and he ought to welcome it.

[Mr Slaughter]

It may be a distinction without a difference; I do not know. The point is that, as was made pretty clear by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke)—the former Lord Chancellor and now Minister without Portfolio—when he was asked to pronounce on the subject, nothing will happen during the current Parliament. He is a supporter of the Human Rights Act. Indeed, as we have heard today, as we have heard from the Attorney-General and, for all I know, as we shall hear from the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, there are some fairly strong supporters of the Act in the Conservative party.

I believe—this may account for the rather sparse attendance of members of all parties today, apart from the four who have spoken so eloquently—that the issue will not be resolved by any method other than the continuation of the current Act, perhaps with additions or amendments. Nothing is perfect, particularly in this field. I do not think this will be resolved unless we have a majority Conservative Government, and, judging by the declaration of the returning officer in Eastleigh at 2.45 this morning, I think that that is an increasingly remote possibility in the foreseeable future.

I am not going to recite our reasons for enacting the human rights legislation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) said two months ago in response to the hon. Member for South Norfolk, we were and remain very proud of it, but, as several Members have pointed out today, it came about as a result of an historical process, and one which had support from all parties.

I think it fair to say that it was under Labour Governments that the principal advances were made, albeit with the support and encouragement of senior members of the Conservative party—none more senior than Winston Churchill, who, as early as 1943, proposed the foundation of the Council of Europe, and none more so than David Maxwell Fyfe, who was in large part the drafter of the convention. Although it came into effect in 1950, it was not until the late 1960s that British citizens had the right to go to the European Court, and not until the enactment of the Human Rights Act that human rights issues could be adjudicated in the British courts. All of that seems to me to be sensible progress, undertaken in a considered way that even, perhaps, the hon. Member for North East Somerset would approve of, as it took us some 40 or 50 years to decide how to address human rights. This has not been rushed into; it has been considered over a long period.

The whole purpose of the convention’s incorporation into English law is to give direct access to British judges and British courts, rather than matters having to be dealt with in Strasbourg. In fact, only about 10 judgments a year now come from Strasbourg. We intended that British citizens should be able to bring human rights cases to British courts in front of British judges, and I think we achieved that in the Human Rights Act. The Act enshrined in domestic law most of the rights contained in the convention, and it also included two additional clauses to underline the importance of freedom of conscience and religion and a free press.

The Act was deliberately crafted to ensure British courts were not merely an echo chamber of the European Court of Human Rights. It took the rights of the convention but allowed our judges to interpret them as they saw fit, meaning that while UK courts have to take account of Strasbourg case law on cases relating to a convention right, they do not have to incorporate it and can depart from it where appropriate. That was made explicit by the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, when he said domestic courts must be allowed “flexibility and discretion” in developing human rights law, which is precisely what the Human Rights Act gives.

It is for those reasons that we find it perplexing that Government Members find incorporation of the convention and having a British Human Rights Act to be less acceptable than the previous situation. As has been said, there are absolute rights, limited rights and qualified rights. Crucially, the Human Rights Act maintains parliamentary sovereignty and the supremacy of Parliament as the only law-making authority. If a British court finds that our legislation does not comply with the Human Rights Act, it cannot use the Act to force Parliament to change the law. Instead it will issue what is known as a declaration of incompatibility, and it will then be up to Parliament and Parliament alone to decide the best way to respond. It may choose not to respond at all. There are sufficient safeguards in respect of the margin of appreciation and other measures to permit the Act to function in the organic way intended.

It is true that there are problems with the exercise of jurisdiction by the European Court of Human Rights, and that it is an unwieldy body with a huge backlog of cases. Those matters can be addressed, however, but none of them is sufficient of itself for us to choose to opt out, which no other country apart from Belarus would contemplate. It would be damaging to both UK jurisdiction and our reputation abroad.

We hear many stories—often apocryphal, exaggerated or only partly told—about the deleterious effects of the Human Rights Act. In reality, however, it has empowered many individual citizens and vulnerable people in respect of domestic violence, disability, mental health, age discrimination, sexual orientation, religious discrimination, maintaining a private life and maintaining the right to protest. There have been landmark cases in all those areas. I will not go through them case by case, as they are a matter of public record. It remains the fact that this is a valuable addition to English law. It is not an alien creature. It is an important check on Executive and state power in the interests of the individual, and, frankly, it is worrying that this Government wish to attack the Human Rights Act, especially when considered alongside other steps they are taking to restrict legal aid and access to justice.

On Monday, the House will debate the Justice and Security Bill, which is another attempt to hide away, in an excessive way, public scrutiny and the right to fair and equal access to justice in this country. We should be looking for ways to expand and extend the rights of individual citizens, and that is exactly what the Human Rights Act did. As I said, Labour Members are extremely proud of that legislation. We do not say that it cannot be improved, but we do say it is wrong-headed and misconceived to think that by repealing the Act and trying to invent something in a unique way, separate from that which has been established, primarily through the agency of British lawyers and British politicians, over a period of 60 years, we are going to get a better deal. That is a fantasy on the part of some Government Members. They are not going to get their way in this Parliament and I hope that they will not get their way in any future Parliament. I hope that the Minister will confirm that it is the Government’s intention not to legislate in this Parliament in the way that has been indicated, be it through a private Member’s Bill or in any other way.

Metropolitan Police Service

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Last night, Hammersmith had an unwelcome visitor—the deputy Mayor for policing and crime, Stephen Greenhalgh, who is of course also remembered in the borough as the previous leader of the council. During his time there, he cut most of the things that are needed for civil society to be harmonious and law abiding, including youth clubs, Sure Start, housing and social services. He was a hugely divisive figure and his signature policy, of course, was the social engineering of the borough through the demolition of social housing and its replacement with luxury housing.

Since Stephen Greenhalgh was elevated to the post of deputy Mayor, he has been a controversial figure. He held the Greater London assembly in contempt by, at the first meeting, standing down the police commissioner. The tawdry incident before Christmas of inappropriate touching in a lift makes him unsuitable for his post, in my view; and for the past three weeks, the Independent Police Complaints Commission has been deciding whether to investigate him for possible criminal activity. I want the Mayor to come to the borough to talk to us—not someone who is highly discredited and unfit to hold his position.

I was not able to attend the event as I was here for last night’s important vote, but my staff who attended told me that there was the usual bombast and platitudes; but that could not disguise what is happening in Hammersmith and Fulham, which is that Shepherd’s Bush police station, in the poorest area with the highest crime, will close, and Fulham police station will go on to reduced hours. Despite that, the hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands) and the Conservative council support the strategy adopted by the Mayor and Stephen Greenhalgh. I do not accept that supermarket counters and post offices are an alternative to police stations for the reporting of sensitive and important matters. People want a police station.

A letter from my borough commander said:

“At this stage we are not intending to close Fulham or Shepherds Bush Police Station”.

However, I believe that once counters have closed, it is likely that whole police stations will close in due course, as the police sell their estates around the borough. We are told that we are merging with Kensington and Chelsea and will lose our borough commander. We are also told that the boroughs will be split into three—north, middle and south. That looks to me like a three-tier service, because the two boroughs have a poor north and wealthy south. I am sure that I know where the resources will be put.

Our safer neighbourhood teams are universally popular. The idea that they will be based on one police constable and one PCSO is disgraceful. We have already lost 5% of officers and 45% of PCSOs. That will not have changed, according to the Met’s figures, by 2015. All we get is spin and false statistics. Crime has not materially changed; concern about crime has gone up in Hammersmith and Fulham. The council spends more than £1 million on publicity, mainly aimed at telling people what a good job it does on law and order. It is a disgrace; it is similar to the Mayor of London’s saying after the riots, before the election, that he opposed police cuts, although now he proposes horrific police cuts.

It is burned into my memory that the cabinet member for policing in Hammersmith said, when asked a question at a sensitive public meeting following a murder a couple of years ago in the borough, that his solution to crime was to increase owner-occupation. Greenhalgh said last night that he was thinking of using money from estates sales to invest in policing. That is not the solution to crime in London. The political leadership—not the police leadership—of policing in London is unfit, and the Minister would be well advised to consider that and think about how we are to get the leadership that we deserve.

--- Later in debate ---

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

Like many hon. Members, I was elected in 1997 and at that time I went out on the beat with police officers, as many of us did. Some may recall John Hannington, who used to work in the House of Commons. He was one of my beat officers and we went round Barnhill ward together. We had one beat officer per ward then.

I had one of the earliest safer neighbourhood teams. We got the sergeant, two PCs and the PCSOs and it was a major success. We set up the ward panels and mapped out the beats, in terms of crime problems in a particular area. I set up initiative meetings—I still have them every quarter in each ward—where I meet councillors, police and local residents, and we tackle the problems together. We have launched projects for the young people, including anti-drugs, domestic violence and safety for the elderly projects. It has been an overwhelming success in building confidence in policing in the local area. That process has been destabilised since 2010.

Sergeant vacancies are either not filled or there are delays in recruitment, PCs are not replaced for long periods and PCSOs are not replaced at all, in many instances. Premises on estates in my constituency, where we have relocated teams, are now under threat of closure. In addition, staff are withdrawn from the whole area—I do not know whether other hon. and right hon. Members have noticed this—to police demonstrations, and so on. I understand that there are priorities, but there was a commitment that there would be sufficient resources so that safer neighbourhood teams were not withdrawn in that way.

What has happened in my community? If hon. and right hon. Members read the newspapers this morning they may have missed it, but as a result of the changes Hayes is now in the top 10 in the country for burglaries. Drugs are becoming a real problem, particularly drug dealers preying on youngsters. We were working hard in the town centre to reduce the fear of crime and attract people back in at night. However, the town centre teams have been hit hardest since 2010. I fear that we are going backwards rather than forwards.

It is not just about numbers. Ben Bradford, the Oxford criminologist, made a valid point when speaking to the London assembly. He said that it is not just quantitative, but about the qualitative relationship: how police interact with constituents, to give them confidence, respect and reassurance. When experienced staff are lost, particularly sergeants with years of experience, and that level of supervision is lost for new, young officers coming in, it undermines the quality of the policing and the interaction between the police officer and members of the public, and it undermines an element of accountability upwards as well as downwards.

Right hon. and hon. Members may have talked to police officers. Morale is low in the Metropolitan police. Their pay and pensions have been hit and they have been hit with increased work loads and demands on their time. When the Police Federation ballots to see whether officers want the right to strike, that is a warning that morale is at rock bottom, and Ministers, mayors and others, should take heed. There now needs to be a halt to the cuts, proper investment in the police service and engagement with the community, rather than our being ridden roughshod over as we have been recently.

We have the consultative meeting in Hillingdon tonight at 6 o’clock, although I will be here objecting to one of the cuts in welfare benefits. I will communicate these views to the Mayor and others, but the view that I am getting back from the consultative meetings so far is that they are public relations exercises, simply set up to convince people that the numbers are going up when they know that the reality is that the number of police officers is falling and cuts are taking place. I hope that this debate will help.

[Mr Slaughter]

My hon. Friend’s constituents should not get too excited, because I am told that the meeting last night ended with the deputy mayor saying that he was on the home run. Clearly, he believes that the task has been done and they are going through the motions. I apologise to my colleagues who still have to go through this process, but it is purely cosmetic and a matter of dressing up unacceptable cuts in false statistics in a way that will make those palatable to the media.

[John McDonnell]

When MPs, members of the public, local councillors and the police themselves at street level are saying that the Mayor has got it wrong, someone needs to listen, and if the Mayor does not the Minister should.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I am happy to tell my hon. Friend that the queues, as he put it, in Crown courts in particular are coming down. We will consider the proposal from the Magistrates Association and others to increase the maximum sentencing length, but that has to be considered along with many other reforms that are needed to improve the process of justice throughout the criminal justice system.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I think that that sounded like a no to extending magistrates’ powers. In addition, a third of indictable offences of violence were dealt with by issuing cautions last year, rather than their coming to court. While the cautioning of violent and dangerous criminals is being dealt with outside court, minor offences are being sent to the Crown court. Does that not look incompetent, even by this Government’s standards? What does the Minister have against magistrates, and why is he treating them with contempt?

[Damian Green]

That is the most absurd interpretation of what I have just said—that I was considering the proposal originally made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone). May I tell the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), given his way with the facts, that the use of cautions has come down considerably since the Government of whom he was a supporter were in power?