Victims and Prisoners Bill

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Baroness Chakrabarti

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I have the privilege of rising on behalf of my noble friend Lord Blunkett, who is incredibly disappointed not to be here. He has a long-standing and unbreakable prior commitment. I know that he would want me to thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, for the kindness that he displayed and for his crystal-clear description of these amendments and of the injustices and technicalities that they address, which any lay person could understand. I am very grateful, as I know my noble friend would be. I share in the tribute to my noble friend. The fact that the former Home Secretary has asked the former director of Liberty to speak on his behalf is perhaps testament to the character of my noble friend.

My noble friend supports all the amendments in this group, most of which belong, at least in initiation, to the noble and learned Lord. He also signed Amendment 156 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, because of this concern that no period should be increased by the Secretary of State.

For my own part, speaking for myself at this moment and not for my noble friend, of the two approaches—taking the power to alter entirely or leaving it as one only to reduce—I rather agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. He has done so well in the explanation that I need say little more, other than that I also remember today our friend, his noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, for whom righting this wrong, this stain on our justice system, was also incredibly important. Too many people in public life are happy to forget and ignore the mistakes of last week, let alone of two decades ago, but, if this is the House of Elders in our parliamentary system, such as it is, this is exactly the Committee to be embracing the amendments put so brilliantly just now by the noble and learned Lord.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for his comments and endorse everything that he said, particularly about the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who we all wish was here today. I will address one or two of the pragmatic issues. The amendments in this group all relate to IPP licences, and I support them all. They are intended to affect the applications of licences to be fairer and speedier, so that we can release or re-release IPPs as fast and as safely as possible into the community.

Clause 48 currently removes the element of annual review in favour of one-off review every three years. However, if the Parole Board decides not to terminate the licence of this point, Amendments 149 and 150 restore the right—removed by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act—to an annual review by the Parole Board. The Prison Reform Trust comments that having a sunset clause of a further two years might just constitute a high bar for some prisoners, and that the Parole Board should be able to terminate the licence after one year, otherwise licences could drag on for years, as before.

The circumstances described in Amendment 152 are probably quite rare, but it is worth ensuring that a person would not have to suffer if they had been recalled but the Secretary of State had revoked the recall, presumably because there had been an error of some kind and they should not have been recalled. The prisoner should not be penalised because of an error not of their making.

Amendment 153 continues in a similar vein, but this time gives the Parole Board the ability to maintain the sunset clause. However, in this case, it is slightly more complicated. Firstly, the Secretary of State can recall if they conclude on reasonable grounds that the prisoner has deliberately revoked the terms of their licence and the safety of the public would be at risk. The Parole Board can overturn the Secretary of State’s decision to recall a prisoner if on subsequent review, and if it is privy to more information than the Secretary of State, it subsequently concludes that the prisoner is not putting the public at risk.

Amendment 157 ensures that the Government use their wide-ranging powers to change the qualifying period using only secondary legislation and that they can revise it only downwards. If they want to revise it upwards, it will have to be done with primary legislation. This is within the spirit of the Bill today. This amendment ensures that a future Government would not be tempted to use this power to make the situation worse for IPP prisoners, not better.

All in all, this suite of amendments is sensible and, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, said, pragmatic. It is offered in a spirit of helpfulness. I sincerely hope that the Minister will see this and maybe feel that it is appropriate to introduce government amendments to this effect.

Voyeurism (Offences) (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Baroness Chakrabarti

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 26th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I will add briefly to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss and my noble friend Lord Marks. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, will already have gathered, we welcome Amendment 1, which would widen the offence to include,

“invading the privacy of B, whether or not by”,

humiliating, alarming or distressing them, for the reasons he has given.

Amendment 2 would widen the motivations to include financial gain by the person who took the photo or whoever has distributed it. Upskirting images are freely and easily available on the internet; this amendment spells out that anyone profiting from their distribution is committing a criminal offence.

Amendment 3 cuts off the defence that a group of “lads”—however old they may be—were bonding, having a laugh and did not mean any harm. It is not okay, whatever the motivation of the perpetrator or perpetrators, if the person has not consented. I believe that it is worth spelling that out. These points deserve to be made even if they do not make it into the Bill.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, once more I rise in support of the Bill, and I know that it is rightly supported by Members on all sides of the House. After a lot of thought and some discussion, including with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I will stick to my Second Reading position that the Bill should pass through this House swiftly and completely unamended. I have two reasons for sticking to that position, the first pragmatic, but no worse for it, and the second a legal policy reason.

I will take the amendments in reverse order. I am very glad to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, has abandoned his earlier preference for strict liability sex offences, which would be a very illiberal innovation in our criminal law. I take his point about accidental occurrences and so on, but I do not find either Amendment 2 or Amendment 3 to be particularly attractive or to add anything to the Bill.