Learning Disabilities: Child Trust Funds

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I can certainly commit to that: I have arranged meetings later this afternoon to that end, and I will take a personal involvement to ensure that all that can be done is done. I will also liaise with the President of the Family Division but I emphasise that, ultimately, court rules are a matter for the court, and there is a constitutional propriety that I have to maintain.

[Baroness Browning (Con) [V]]

I ask my noble friend about capacity. Under the Mental Capacity Act, this is not a generalised presumption; it is specific to the issue at hand. Who exactly determines whether the individual has capacity? If a professional assessment of capacity is needed, who exactly is expected to pay? It can cost several hundred pounds.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, there are a number of ways in which the requisite capacity, or lack thereof, can be established and assessed by the court, and those issues probably take me outside the bounds of an answer here. I will write to the noble Baroness to give more detail.

Mental Capacity Act 2005 (Select Committee Report)

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, I refer the House to my declarations in the register. I join the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, in his thanks to all those who supported the committee. I take this opportunity to thank the noble and learned Lord for his wise chairmanship of this committee. The members of the committee very much benefited from him sitting in that chair and giving us the benefit of his opinion as our deliberations progressed.

I shall focus on recommendation 13 and the deprivation of liberty for people who are particularly vulnerable. The Government’s initial response to the committee’s recommendations was:

“We do not believe that there is a fundamental flaw in the legislative framework underpinning the current deprivation of liberty system”.

I sat on the pre-legislative scrutiny committee for the Mental Capacity Act; that seems like a lifetime ago now. I was also on the committee that took the Bill through the House of Commons and had the privilege of sitting on the post-legislative committee. I think the Government were somewhat cavalier in that comment because right the way through from start to finish there has always been debate and concern about this aspect of the legislation, not least about the Bournewood judgment. There was much debate about whether it should go into the Mental Capacity Act or the Mental Health Act, and nobody could quite make up their mind, so the idea that there is not a fundamental flaw is something the Government should have considered in a lot more depth than they did when they sent their response to the committee. However, I move on because the Minister has circulated more information about what the Government now intend to do and, like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, I welcome the fact that they will make changes following the Law Commission report. None the less, I hope the Government will understand just how complex this is. The Winterbourne View report was shared with Members of the House in a meeting convened by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins. The Mental Capacity Act was not mentioned or used at all at Winterbourne View, yet the patients there were a very mixed group of people. I contend that not only should those people not have been detained there, but many of them should not have been in Winterbourne View at all. It was quite inappropriate.

Only last week I attended an autism conference in Harrogate, where 39 Essex Chambers gave an interesting and profound presentation on the code of practice for the Mental Health Act. It is extremely relevant to the work that the Law Commission now intends to undertake, and I shall share a little of it with the House. Looking at the Mental Health Act code of practice as it now stands, on the question of avoiding detention at all, as 39 Essex Chambers advised us:

“Learning disabilities and autism share few features with the serious mental illnesses that are the most common reason for using the Act, and so consideration should be given to whether detention of a person with learning disability or autism is appropriate.

Hospitals are not homes, and most support for people with a learning disability or autism should be provided in a local community setting.

Detaining a person with learning disabilities or autism under the Act because there is no treatment available for them in the community is not a substitute for appropriate commissioning of care”.

One of the shocking features of Winterbourne View and other institutions—it was not unique—is that not only are people placed in them for the wrong clinical reason, but they are a long way away from their relatives or carers, who do not have access to them and are very often rebuffed. As a Member of Parliament for 18 years, with an interest in autism and dealing with many cases around the country of people on the autism spectrum being inappropriately detained, I cannot count the number of mothers—it seemed to be mothers in particular—who spoke to me about going to a hospital or home where their adult children were detained, only to be told, “We don’t think it appropriate for you to visit them, because it upsets them whenever you come”. Of course it does. If one of us were detained, clearly for the wrong reasons, and somebody close to us came to visit, I think that we would all be pretty emotional and upset. Yet that is used as an excuse to keep family and carers away, when they have an insight into that how that person functions, and could easily contribute to making the right decisions—the best interest decisions—on what the next steps for that person should be.

I had a recent conversation with a consultant forensic psychiatrist who expressed concern about the fact that although the Government are trying hard to move people out of institutions where they have been detained inappropriately, some of the decisions on moving them, and where to move them to, are not personally focused on the individual patient. “Best interests” are about the individual and the particular decision being made, yet that consultant said that in the present haste to get people out of institutions and into the community—something that we would all support—the methodology being employed means that decisions are often taken by people who have never even met the person concerned. One cannot say that such decisions will be best interest decisions.

I ask the Minister: can we have a parallel system running between now and when the Law Commission report comes in? For existing patients who need appropriate packages of care—people who need to be moved and have their liberty restored—much more attention would be paid to the way in which they are assessed, who does the assessment and, in particular, what the services and care packages are like where they are being moved to. It is not enough simply to tick a box and move them out. Many people who have been inappropriately detained have been medicated in detention—again, I would say, inappropriately—so there is a need for a great deal of expertise in the community in relation to the packages provided for those people.

I welcome what my noble friend and the rest of the Government are going to do, and I welcome the Law Commission report. But I say to my noble friend that they cannot afford to be complacent in this area. This has gone on for far too long.

Offenders: Rehabilitation

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

The number of offenders who are in prison depends, of course, on what judges decide is appropriate and on the number of offences committed. I accept that the prison population is high at the moment; I do not accept that there is overcrowding within conventional definitions. However, I entirely accept what the noble Lord—who has great experience in this field—says: we should be looking, in so far as possible, for alternatives to prison, particularly to combat difficulties with drugs, alcohol or other matters that predispose people towards offending.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

More broadly, what are the Government doing to encourage employers to employ ex-offenders, even if it is not the original occupation that they held before they entered prison?

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, we have an employers’ forum for reducing reoffending, which is there to recruit employers who are willing to take on offenders. This is a success story; 200 offenders have been employed in the last 12 months. The story that we receive from employers is that, on the whole, ex-offenders are extremely good employees. They are grateful for the job and have a very high retention rate in employment.

Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, I am most grateful, particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, for coming to my rescue. Having done that, I hope he will not be disappointed by what I am about to say.

I support the Bill, and certainly the way in which my noble friend on the Front Bench brought it forward. The final remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, about dividing on the Second Reading of a Bill need careful reflection and I concur with his reservations over having to do so. There are times when the House recognises the importance of a Bill by perhaps stepping away from our usual procedures. I am not saying that this is an unimportant Bill; I have some issues with it on which I should like reassurance from my noble friend— none the less, I support it.

We are a litigious society, which I know is a generalisation. But the more litigious that we have become as a society, the more risk-averse we have become. Which is the chicken and which is the egg? Have we become more risk-averse because we have become more litigious, or vice versa? I have no polls, studies or focus groups to back up the generalisation, but I served for nearly 20 years in another place and dealt with 84,000 constituents. Since the Boy’s Own Annual—which I thoroughly enjoyed when my brothers received copies for Christmas—was published, I have seen a fundamental shift in the casework and issues brought to me by those running voluntary organisations and in our uniformed services. We are not in that era. Things have changed. If anyone wants a snapshot, to be reminded of just how things have changed, in this country a game of conkers is regarded as a dangerous sport. Conkers requires risk assessments. Some local authorities have chopped down chestnut trees to prevent conkers falling on people’s heads. That is the backdrop against which we look at the reasons why the general public have real concerns.

I shall look at this from the perspectives of two different groups of people. The first is that of the general public, people who do things on a genuinely voluntary basis—that is, supporting voluntary groups and organisations. Over the years, I have known a huge number of people who run these voluntary organisations, including the Brownies, the Girl Guides and the sea scouts. These are organisations for which people give up their time to promote within young people a sense not just of well-being but of purpose and of things that will fashion how they develop into mature, responsible adults. I take my hat off to people—often the busiest people—who give up their time to do that. Over the years, however, they have become more and more concerned when they take young people away.

I was a Devon MP, and it is quite common for the whole area of Dartmoor to be seen as one of those areas where you take young people to test the parameters of how they work as a group and what they do in an outward bound environment. Yet the people responsible for taking them have become more and more nervous of the responsibility because of the compensation culture, the risk-averse society and the need for risk assessments, which are important but have, perhaps, gone well beyond what a previous generation would have regarded as proportionate.

I believe that there is that feeling and that those people and society need reassurance. When I used to employ staff down at the other end, I would occasionally take someone in for the last weeks of term, when they were about to leave school at the age of 18, to give them a couple of weeks’ experience of what life was like here before they went on a gap year or to university. I always had to fill in a risk-assessment form. I remember the first time I had to do it and writing to the authorities in the House of Commons to ask, “What should I say is the biggest risk in having a young person of 18 in my office for two weeks?”. I was told that it was the risk of a terrorist attack.

Those are the realities of life that a lot of people have to deal with. It makes you think—there is a risk of a terrorist attack while having an 18 year-old working in an office down the Corridor. These are not just trivial things; they are things that responsible employers, caring parents, teachers and volunteers have to address every day of their lives if they are to pursue their wish to enable young people to take the opportunity of these types of activities. From that perspective, I believe it is very important for the Bill to give some clarity to what can be expected in terms of the legislation that goes with such activities.

There is another group of people for whom I should like some reassurance from my noble friend. Every year, I have the great privilege to host the ambulance service awards in this House. Each year, we see the most wonderful examples of heroism within a range of ambulance services—the NHS, private, third sector and, of course, those very important people who provide the Medevac relief in our armed services. We have heard testimony in this House from former chief constables about the dilemmas they have faced when, for example, a uniformed officer has gone beyond the call of duty and has disobeyed force orders to go into a pond or a lake to pull out someone who might be drowning. The problem for chief constables, as I believe the record of the House shows, is that if that person going in on their own, without back-up or support, gets into difficulties and is injured or even dies, the relatives or next of kin can come to the police force for compensation for the injury and damage that the police officer received while on duty. That would apply to just about all our uniformed services.

The debate has been small and amusing so far, but I hope that my noble friend will reassure me when he winds up that this piece of legislation will ensure that chief constables and those who lead and have to set out the day-to-day rules for our uniformed services will no longer have to feel that they must keep the people they employ on a string when they are faced with an emergency or something that puts the life of a person in danger. I see that the noble Lord is looking rather perplexed at this, but we have seen examples of it and have discussed exactly that in a Home Office debate during this Parliament, with former chief constables explaining what the difficulties are for them. I hope that my noble friend will be able to clarify that.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, in his opening remarks, said that he had come to bury my noble friend. Shakespeare, in all his glory, did not manage to save the Roman Empire, so I live in hope.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Browning]

61: Clause 27, page 24, line 36, leave out from “had” to end of line 43 and insert “at least one relevant conviction (see section 1ZA)”

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, first, I apologise to the House that I was not present when your Lordships discussed this clause in Committee, but my interest in this part of the Bill stems from the fact that during this Parliament I was a Minister at the Home Office with responsibility within my portfolio for both knife crime and gang crime.

The amendments tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Berridge seek to tidy up the clause that was passed not just by this House but—as we have heard—came from the Commons with an overwhelming majority when it was tabled and proposed by my honourable friend the Member for Enfield North. So at its third reading I do not propose to rehearse again the arguments, particularly that about the deterrent effect of what is before the House in this Bill tonight. That was eloquently debated by Members on all sides of the House in Committee and the clause passed accordingly. However, quite a few things in the clause as it stands need correction and alteration. I hope some of those corrections and alterations will pick up on some of the points that have been raised tonight because clearly it is very important that this proposed legislation—whatever the difference of opinion on the substance—none the less needs to be compatible with existing legislation. There is more than one Act of Parliament already on the statute book to which this legislation needs to be tied without there being any anomalies, and I would like to flag some of them up.

First, to ensure compatibility with Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights the clause must provide the court with the necessary discretion to take account of particular circumstances when deciding whether to impose the minimum sentence or mitigate against arguments that any deprivation of liberty is arbitrary, contrary to Article 5. However, with the current drafting, the court may take account of only particular circumstances relating to the current offence and the offender, not those relating to the previous offence or offences, when for example the date of the previous offence—perhaps committed very many years ago—could be relevant.

In addition, Article 5 must be read in the light of Articles 3 and 37(b) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which means particular care must be taken in detaining children. If the necessary consequential amendment is made to disapply the requirement on the court to have regard to sentencing guidelines, there will be no requirement on the court to have regard to the welfare of the offender when sentencing those under the age of 18. Therefore, we consider that a provision requiring the court to have regard to its duty under Section 44 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 when considering particular circumstances in relation to 16 and 17 year-olds should be inserted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Faulks]

I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and the House but I am unable to respond in detail because, as I said in response to the earlier amendment, the clause has been added by a Back-Bench amendment and the principle has been agreed by your Lordships’ House. However, agreement has not been reached within the Government on the policy underlying this clause. Therefore, I am unable to speak as to the detail of these clauses.

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, I am most grateful—that is, I think I am grateful. This is a serious subject and it is incumbent on all of us, when legislation is passed, regardless of whatever view we have taken, to make sure that it is as legally sound as possible. I have sought advice to try to do that and I hope that that is helpful to the House. I am grateful to all Members who have contributed to the debate.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

Is it your Lordships’ pleasure that this amendment be withdrawn?

[Baroness Browning]

I am not withdrawing the amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The amendment has already been moved and the Minister has responded, so it is for the noble Baroness now to decide what she wishes to do with the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Speaker]

Does the noble Baroness wish to withdraw her amendment or seek the opinion of the House?

[Baroness Browning]

I do not wish to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 61 agreed.

Moved by

[Baroness Browning]

62: Clause 27, page 25, line 1, leave out from beginning to “the” in line 2 and insert “Where this subsection applies,”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Browning]

65: Clause 27, page 25, line 5, after “offence” insert “, to the previous offence”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Browning]

69: Clause 27, page 25, line 11, at end insert-—
“(2CA) In considering whether it is of the opinion mentioned in subsection (2B) in the case of a person aged 16 or 17, the court must have regard to its duty under section 44 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 (general considerations).
(2CB) Where—
(a) an appropriate custodial sentence has been imposed on a person under subsection (2B), and(b) a relevant conviction without which subsection (2B) would not have applied has been subsequently set aside on appeal,notice of appeal against the sentence may be given at any time within 28 days from the date on which the conviction was set aside (despite anything in section 18 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 (initiating procedure)).”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Browning]

73: Clause 27, page 25, line 29, leave out from “had” to end of line 35 and insert “at least one relevant conviction (see section 139AZA)”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Browning]

77: Clause 27, page 25, line 40, after “offence” insert “, to the previous offence”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Browning]

81: Clause 27, page 25, line 47, at end insert-—
“(6CA) In considering whether it is of the opinion mentioned in subsection (6B) in the case of a person aged 16 or 17, the court must have regard to its duty under section 44 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 (general considerations).
(6CB) Where—
(a) an appropriate custodial sentence has been imposed on a person under subsection (6B), and(b) a relevant conviction without which subsection (6B) would not have applied has been subsequently set aside on appeal,notice of appeal against the sentence may be given at any time within 28 days from the date on which the conviction was set aside (despite anything in section 18 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 (initiating procedure)).”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Browning]

85: Clause 27, page 26, line 16, leave out from “had” to end of line 22 and insert “at least one relevant conviction (see section 139AZA)”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Browning]

89: Clause 27, page 26, line 27, after “offence” insert “, to the previous offence”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Browning]

93: Clause 27, page 26, line 34, at end insert—
“(5CA) In considering whether it is of the opinion mentioned in subsection (5B) in the case of a person aged 16 or 17, the court must have regard to its duty under section 44 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 (general considerations).
(5CB) Where—
(a) an appropriate custodial sentence has been imposed on a person under subsection (5B), and(b) a relevant conviction without which subsection (5B) would not have applied has been subsequently set aside on appeal,notice of appeal against the sentence may be given at any time within 28 days from the date on which the conviction was set aside (despite anything in section 18 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 (initiating procedure)).”

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, I will begin where the right reverend Prelate finished, with the modern slavery Bill, which I welcome. Like him, I think it is broad in scope and we need to ensure that as it passes through the House the detail encompasses all the aspects he has mentioned. I welcome the increased maximum sentence of life imprisonment for this crime and the enhancement to confiscate criminals’ assets. I also welcome the anti-slavery commissioner. It is not very often that I would say that because I have a rather cynical view sometimes of these job titles that are attached to people. But I think that in this case it is a very important role and one that could make a big contribution. Of course, children’s need for child trafficking advocates will be very important.

Like the right reverend Prelate, I am concerned about people who enter this country as employees through a legitimate route but are domestic servants and very often can be identified as slaves. I hope that my noble friends on the Front Bench will ensure that in those circumstances diplomatic immunity of the employer will not allow people to slip through the net and find that they are not subject to the law of this land if they are treating people as slaves within their households.

I also welcome the Serious Crime Bill, in particular the emphasis on the National Crime Agency and other law enforcement agencies, which, as the Bill recognises, need the tools to effectively tackle serious and organised crime, including cybercrime and the illegal drug trade. At First Reading last week my noble friend read out all the Bills that need amending in order for this Bill to proceed. That tells us very clearly, particularly in those areas of cybercrime and the illegal drug trade, how fast technology and information move. We need to change our legislation to keep up with them and to ensure that we are putting on the statute book laws that will allow us to bring people to justice and ensure that in those areas we have a system that is both effective and a deterrent.

I would like to briefly mention something that, to my mind, covers most of the big issues that this debate focuses on: crime, education, health and justice. It seems to me that over the years we have rather lost our way when it comes to how we view the ways in which these big public bodies are organised. Therefore I take this opportunity again to say to my noble friends on the Front Bench that, in any reforms in which we seek to improve the services and the way in which we execute those policies in this country, I hope we will have learnt the lesson that there is a difference between management and leadership. There has been far too much focus on management in previous years.

I put my hand up as somebody who worked as a manager in many ways in a previous existence. I am very happy to accept the term “manager”. But management in our public services has rather led to a culture of tick-boxes, centrally set targets and people who start to lose the authority, initiative and creativity needed to progress in any organisation, whether commercial or public sector. Therefore, in reforming our public services, let us encourage and train people to lead so that our public services are exemplars around the world. I fear that in all the subjects we are discussing today we have tended to slip behind—I am not talking about the people who work in them but the way in which we run them. It is a responsibility of government to set that framework and make sure that that happens.

Finally, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Patel, about the care industry. I am not asking for a Bill on health—I think my noble friend Lord Howe could do with a bit of a rest, as could, perhaps more so, the people who work in the health service. However, we must address the care industry and the need to make sure that vulnerable people are no longer subject to being cared for by people whose accountability can sometimes seem somewhat questionable.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2014 Lords Chamber

Hear, hear to that. However, because public protection is as stake, not only would it be sensible, but it is essential that the Government’s proposed changes to the structure and provision of probation services are united with confirmation of their achievability by allowing them to be scrutinised and approved by both Houses. I accept that that will entail delay, which could have been avoided had the agenda been debated at the start. However, surely measured evolution is a more responsible approach to a duty to protect the public than the avoidable upheaval of an enforced unproven revolution. I beg to move.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, at this stage in the Bill, I shall be brief. I feel strongly about the probation reforms being proposed by my noble friend, but particularly those for offenders who have served less than 12 months. I say this having served in the Home Office and having spent some time looking at some of the rehabilitation programmes needed for problems such as drugs and alcohol. Many people suffering from these problems had been in custody and—particularly those with drug addictions—had contributed to the figures that we cite in this House. I quote only one: 58% of adult offenders released from sentences of less than 12 months reoffend. Governments in the past have not addressed this. There is rightly a lot of focus on those who have served longer sentences for more serious crimes. However, if my noble friend now wants to address reoffending after shorter sentences, we have learnt in both the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office that if you can find the methodology to address something at the beginning, when it is low level, you can prevent it becoming something much worse. Although in this House we often talk in terms of statistics, we are talking about lives. We are talking about the lives of victims, and in this case about the life of someone after discharge from prison. Finding a way in which we can bring people from short prison sentences to taking their place in society and reducing the recidivism that often goes with such offenders is worth while.

I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, whose experience we all respect. It seemed from what he said that a lot of information unavailable when this legislation was introduced is now available. However, he has concerns about government contracts. He particularly mentioned those issued by the Ministry of Justice, but I think that over many years people in both Houses would put a question mark over their confidence in government contracts of many kinds. We have all seen that they do not always deliver as promised. As somebody who has served on the Public Accounts Committee for six years, I am only too well aware, having dug into many government contracts, just how badly some of them have turned out. That applies to Governments of all political persuasions.

I wonder if there is some way, in responding to the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and to the House, in which my noble friend can make sure that a light shines on those contracts that can be followed by Members of this House after the legislation is passed. Clearly, payment by results is built into these reforms, which in itself will give a very factual account of how successful they are. However, if I have understood the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, correctly, he is looking for something that happens earlier than that, before we get to the end of the process. He is looking for reassurance that the process itself is as robust as it can be.

I say respectfully to the noble Lord that preventing the legislation progressing as it should is not perhaps the only option that the Minister could consider in making sure that those in this House who are interested in not only the outcome but the process have an opportunity to have much more information available to them. That is not to say that any process will be perfect from start to finish, but I think the noble Lord is trying to say to the Minister that we should pick up any problems earlier rather than later. If that is what he is saying, it is a very valid point to make. Could my noble friend find a way to look at this so that, if the legislation progresses as my noble friend has outlined, we could be particularly careful that the process that is followed is transparent, notwithstanding the fact that, as we all understand, commercial confidentiality is in place when contracts are initially awarded?

I hope that my noble friend will accept from me that I believe that this is a very worthwhile reform for the probation service. Many years ago, long before I came into politics, I undertook a course with the probation service and worked with it in a voluntary capacity. As a Member of Parliament, I had a great respect for, and often had to call on, the probation service on behalf of constituents. So I am somebody who values its work greatly, and I would hate to see the proposals for reform that my noble friend is bringing to the House today in any way undermined by a delay in their implementation. I am sure that he will have heard what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said, and I hope that he will find a way through this so that the House can proceed. I believe that these reforms are much needed and that the sooner they can start, the better.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, wanted to concentrate, like the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, on what has changed since a very similar amendment was debated on 25 June last year, having been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. It is worth recalling that, as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, pointed out, on that vote not a single Cross-Bencher supported the Government’s position. Since then, the Bill has been through the House of Commons, the vote has been reversed and the Government have done a lot of work, as I acknowledge.

In the debate on 25 June, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, concentrated his remarks on a leaked government risk register. Since then, a second risk register has been published by the probation service in November 2013, which spoke of the likelihood that the government programme would fail to be,

“delivered either in scope or within the timescale set by ministers”.

It should be noted by noble Lords that, if it were not for the work of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and my noble friend Lord Beecham, there would be no debate at all on the timetable for the privatisation of the probation service. It is through their initiative that we are having this series of debates in the first place.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, quoted the Justice Committee chairman, Sir Alan Beith, so I shall not repeat that. We have also seen the Government slit the timetable, which was alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.

What I really want to say is that, although we have heard about the changes that the Government have made and about some reports, what we have seen is a sense of increasing alarm in the probation service and among probation officers themselves. The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, is shaking his head, but I, like many noble Lords, have an 18-page document from the National Association of Probation Officers which goes through the concerns that it has in detail. These concerns are now more specific than they were, as it has been able to respond to the Government putting more flesh on the bones. There is no doubting the sense of alarm among probation officers.

I believe, as I am sure do all noble Lords, that the probation service deals with some of the most dangerous people in our country and some of the most vulnerable people in our society, and that everyone who joins the probation service does so with the best of motives. We have heard about the concerns that they have about their careers changing course and being asked to take on responsibilities that they did not expect. This House owes it to the probation service to review the timetable and to follow the recommendations of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, so that we can be satisfied that we are not wrecking a probation service that has served us so well over many years.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, I, too, warmly welcome the alcohol abstinence and monitoring requirement that the Government have introduced, and I thank my noble friend Lady Northover for the hard work that she has put into bringing together all the parties in order to get an agreement. That is why we have this measure before us tonight. Perhaps I may also say that my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and my noble friend Lady Jenkin have worked over the past few weeks not only to bring this to the attention of the Government but to find a solution that will enable us to see this provision on the statute book before, we hope, too long.

These will be trials, of course, and I hope that they prove a valuable tool in addressing the issue of binge drinkers. During the working week many of these people, of whom there are increasing numbers, hold down responsible jobs; but at the weekend they decide that they have not had a good night out unless they get paralytically drunk, to the point where not only do they have to be helped home but—as the noble Baroness knows, having taken me to visit St Mary’s Hospital Paddington to see the work being done there—they take up huge National Health Service resources. I am sure that if we are going to tackle what in this Chamber we euphemistically refer to as binge drinking, these provisions will be valuable across a range of criminal activity and act as a deterrent for the particular group of binge drinkers who will find it difficult to comply with some of these measures during the working week. They may well start to take some responsibility for their behaviour.

The question of when alcohol dependency becomes a medical condition has already been mentioned. I would stress to my noble friend on the Front Bench that the Government should continue as they have started by ensuring that alcohol abuse does not remain the Cinderella of the drugs and alcohol scenario. It is important to ensure that people get appropriate treatment and that it is sustained so that they can recover. As we know, that takes a long time and it takes resources. It is not something that is easy to achieve, but it can be done. I hope that the Government will not take their foot off the pedal in terms of ensuring that proper treatment is available to those who become alcohol dependent.

Finally, these are trials, and as is the case with all trials, it may well be that some defects are identified by the end of the trial period. Some things may not work properly and could be different. If that is the case, I urge the Government not to abandon the trials and say, “Oh well, they didn’t work”—I am sure they will not do that—but to look for ways to modify the proposals, even if it means coming back to the House to make further changes to the legislation. I feel that this is one step on what will be a long journey to identify and address the systemic problems of alcohol abuse that we have in this country.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

I, too, welcome the Government’s statement. I am one of those who have been on this journey since we commenced it in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, I want to express my support for and gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. Her single-mindedness and determination have been extraordinary. She has been willing to accommodate the objections that come along, and on the route she has brought together a wide range of supporters for this change, not the least of which is the mayor’s office. Over the period people have quite significantly adjusted their responses.

The noble Baroness, Lady Browning, was also an important part of this process. I agree with what she has just said about how we should move forward with the Government. I also thank the Government for having shifted their position over the past few months. I believe that they have now presented to the House a workable set of propositions. They will be implemented on a trial basis, but they embark on an entirely new approach and are unlike anything we have tried before. It is probably the first time that the word “sobriety” has been used in legislation in this way. I may be wrong on that, but I certainly have not seen it while I have been here over the past decade. It gives us a platform on which we can try to build in the future.

I also congratulate the Government on bringing forward these proposals in advance of publishing their strategy on alcohol. How many times are we given papers and strategies, but not the teeth to accompany them? Yet in this instance the Government are taking action in advance of the words that no doubt will follow when the paper is produced. I think that people across the whole Chamber are very pleased indeed with the progress that has been made over the past months. We look forward to seeing how the trials pan out. They may need to be adjusted, but they will provide the Government and magistrates around the country with a new tool to help us tackle the pernicious problem of the abuse of alcohol.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, first, they are not going to be shoving it into a container. This is, as it were, the rag and bone man going around collecting metal in the street. If he wants to get money for it, he is going to have to take it to a scrap yard. He is not going to get money for it by any other means. At that point, the provisions we are debating come into effect. If the noble Lord feels that we are creating an exemption that will create a loophole and drive a coach and horses through what we are doing, just by this small means of exempting the itinerants going around, he has probably got it wrong. He obviously does not accept what I have to say, but I think that he has misunderstood where we are coming from.

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the explanation that he has given to the whole House, particularly in respect of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, about itinerant collectors. However, I was pleased to add my name to Amendment 156D because, as my noble friend will be aware, the overall increase in metal theft is very clearly parallel to the rising cost of metals around the world. It is a world market, and the theft of the more valuable metals, such as copper, has particularly increased as the world price has gone up.

However, I remind my noble friend—not least in the context of the welcome news that we have in the government amendments tonight and the proposal completely to reform and amend the existing scrap metal Act—that it is very clear from the evidence from ACPO and others that scrap-metal theft is part of organised crime in this country. It is very easy to think that these are just opportunistic thefts, when people happen to see something that they might take on a dark night, and that sort of thing, but that is far from the case. Given that it is part of organised crime, I hope that my noble friend, in looking to get to grips with the reform needed in this area, will bear in mind the fact that very often it is the criminals who organise the people who, in practice, carry out the theft who make the most money. They orchestrate others: sometimes people who, I am quite sure, are fully aware that they are carrying out a criminal act but who themselves are not necessarily the beneficiaries of the full amount of the value of that scrap.

Reference was made just now to the Hepworth statue and how its melt-down value would not have been very much in comparison to its insurance value. The right reverend Prelate, on behalf of the churches, made very clear the overall cost to churches when they are robbed of the lead on their roofs, very often not just once, and the difficulty with insurance going up. The cost of these crimes is not just the melt-down value of the metals. It is also the consequential losses.

I would also respectfully remind my noble friend of the developing pattern in metal theft of what is referred to as rare earth. Very small quantities of these valuable metals can raise significantly more than copper and other more traditional metals. They are the sort of metals found in wind turbines and electricity generating stations. They are now starting to appear because yet again their value on the world market has gone up. Any reform to the scrap-metal act needs to take account of current trends, which are moving away from some of the more traditional metals to some of these more sophisticated metals.

I welcome the Government’s move to take out the question of this being a cash-based business—and one hesitates almost to use the word “business” in this context, but I suppose one must. They should bear in mind in any changes that they are bringing in to cover these wider issues that there is a sense of urgency about the need for more radical change. That change, if it is to address the increasing problems that we have, must look to those trends and to the future.

[The Lord Bishop of London]

My Lords, I am very grateful indeed for the way in which the Minister, in particular, and the Government have responded to the difficulties that have been raised. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, for his speech. I want to make one very simple point, as the hour is rather late. I seem to remember that Steptoe and Son was an itinerant operation that operated from a scrap-metal yard. Surely there is not a cordon sanitaire between the scrap-metal operation and the itinerant collector. Is it really the case that the only people that the Minister describes as having received these licences are people unconnected with scrap-metal yards? It seems a rather bizarre idea, which is why I am tempted to support the further amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner.

Legal Aid and Civil Costs Reform

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I think that I had better duck for cover in this case. I hear the point that the noble Lord makes. If we already have specific plans in this area, I shall write to him; if not, I shall make sure that that point is fed into the discussions that will be part of the review, which will go on for the next three months.

On investigating leaks, at the very beginning of my career I recall the Labour Party, under Harold Wilson, setting up a leaks inquiry and the first meeting of that inquiry being leaked to the Guardian. I was not dismissing the issue; I deplore it and, as I said at the beginning, I wish that we could get back to the rather old-fashioned idea that statements are made to Parliament and then the newspapers report them.

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, can my noble friend clarify the response that he gave the noble Lord, Lord Bach, just a few moments ago, when I believe I heard him say that welfare cases are to remain the same? The House will be aware that, with all-party support in both Houses during the previous Parliament, the Autism Act is now on the statute book. One thing that triggered the need for that Act was the fact that many adults and adolescents with autism find themselves in dispute with their local authority over not being able to access appropriate packages of support. That applies not just to those with autism but to people with a great many lifelong disabilities. One of the difficulties in challenging a local social services department is that often the key person who knows most about you is the social worker, who is an employee of the very department with which you have to negotiate. These disputes often become legal cases, although those in social services departments to whom I have spoken about this openly put up their hands and say that, once a legal challenge is made, they very often settle out of court before the case reaches that stage. However, I should be very concerned if vulnerable adults—and they are vulnerable—across the disability spectrum were denied the support of the courts.

[Lord McNally]

My noble friend’s question points to many of the problems that we face. If legal aid is automatically given in many of the areas that we are removing from scope, it becomes almost a first stop. We are actively trying to promote a different, cheaper and quicker mechanism for settling disputes. A dispute between someone suffering from autism and the local social services department almost automatically ends up as a battle between lawyers in court. We have got something wrong somewhere. We have taken tough decisions; we have taken people out of scope; and we shall look at different ways of getting advice. We propose that legal aid be retained for community care cases and for judicial review in community care cases. As I said before, we are not hiding the fact that this is a removal of legal aid from areas and cases that have previously been covered. We seek to encourage the alternative resolution of disputes, partly because, as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said, successive Governments have found that the creep of legal aid makes it very difficult to keep overall control of it.