Crime and Courts Bill [HL]
Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord McNally
My Lords, these amendments all relate to the provisions on the deployment of the judiciary. Of particular note is Amendment 140, which introduces an emergency procedure regarding the appointment of deputy judges of the High Court when there is an urgent need to do so. The Bill introduces a Judicial Appointments Commission process for appointing deputy High Court judges and authorising circuit judges and recorders to sit in the High Court. This is an important reform to increase transparency regarding these appointments.
Amendment 140 would deal with situations where there is an urgent and unforeseen demand for a deputy High Court judge and it is not practicable to draw on any judges of the High Court or any of those who have been selected previously by the Judicial Appointments Commission, or to deploy any other judge who is authorised to sit in the High Court or Crown Court in the time available.
The amendment inserts new Section 94AA into the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. The purpose of this new section is to specify clearly circumstances in which the normal Judicial Appointments Commission selection exercise may not be applied in the appointment of a deputy judge of the High Court for a definite period. This may be needed in exceptional circumstances, such as a number of judges being unwell or suffering some other unexpected misfortune, meaning that a particular area of expertise is required at short notice. The amendment specifies what criteria must be applied if the Judicial Appointments Commission is not to select deputy judges of the High Court. It also clearly limits the duration of the appointment to the disposal of the particular business that gave rise to the use of the power.
Amendment 145 inserts a new Part 3A into Schedule 13 of the Bill. The new part deals with the deployment of judges to the Court of Protection. Our new deployment policy has been applied in this jurisdiction and all judicial officeholders are now able to be nominated to sit in the Court of Protection, including deputies and temporary appointees. Of course, in this and all jurisdictions, judges may be deployed only if the Lord Chief Justice determines that the judge possesses the necessary expertise and experience and deems in all other circumstances that it is appropriate for that particular judge to be deployed to that specific jurisdiction. In this jurisdiction, there has been a particular difficulty in ensuring that the court is fully resourced with judges that have the necessary skills and ability to hear these complex and often difficult matters. The amendment enables the Lord Chief Justice to provide appropriate judicial resources from a broader pool of candidates; it also widens the group of judges who can be appointed to act as the senior judge of the Court of Protection, handling certain administrative functions to that court.
The other amendments in this group on judicial deployment are either consequential or drafting amendments to ensure that we have made all the necessary changes and adjustments to Schedule 13 of the Bill. I will not detain the Committee further with this group of amendments, but I can provide further details of these amendments if needed. I beg to move.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
Perhaps I could ask the Minister what may be a rather stupid question. Unfortunately, I do not have the Mental Capacity Act in front of me, but I assume that the President of the Family Division and the judges of the Family Division and the Chancery Division are still on the list of those who will be trying these cases, as they are usually the judges who do it.
Lord McNally
I tread on very thin ice, but I think that I can assure the noble and learned Baroness that that is the case. If not, I shall make sure as soon as possible that the Committee knows that I am wrong.
Crime and Courts Bill [HL]
Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble and learned Lord in the constitutional points that he and others have made in supporting this amendment. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, summed it up very well in his Second Reading speech when he said that if this provision in the Government’s Bill went through, the Lord Chancellor would be in a position of giving advice to himself, which in itself is anomalous, if nothing more.
As other noble Lords have made the constitutional points most effectively, I wonder whether I could raise just an administrative question with the Minister. It seems to me surprising that the Government should propose such a potentially flexibly arrangement for the Lord Chancellor in relation to these very senior appointments as it seems to be the Lord Chancellor’s personal choice whether he takes part in a selection panel or not. As far as I can make out from reading the Bill, this may mean that he decides to sit on appointment body “A” but not on appointment body “B”. A question arises about the consistency of the appointing panel’s approach. There is also the rather bizarre question about what happens if the Lord Chancellor decides that he will not be a member of that panel and the panel has been constituted, as we understand it, in the legislation. Who replaces him, how is that replacement chosen, and to whom is he responsible? For all the reasons that noble Lords have given, I suggest that this is both constitutionally and administratively inappropriate. That is why I would be very happy to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, should he ask the Committee to give an opinion on it today.
I make one further point to reinforce the point which the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, was making about the change in the Lord Chancellor’s position. This was confirmed in the hearings that the Constitution Committee held on this matter by the present office-holder himself, the right honourable Kenneth Clarke, when he said:
“I think that we will have a Lord Chancellor who is not a lawyer. The lawyers that we have, including me, will not be as senior and distinguished as they used to be ... A better understanding of my role would be to describe me as Secretary of State for Justice”.
That seems to underline the points about potential politicisation, which other noble Lords have made.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I agree entirely with what has already been said but I wonder whether I might add another point. I refer to a situation where a Lord Chancellor is not a lawyer or a very senior person but perhaps wants to make his mark in the political world and is much more overtly political than the present Lord Chancellor, who is very distinguished in his own right in the law. I ask the Minister to visualise the meeting of the commission. The Lord Chancellor is a member of the commission. He has a role as the Secretary of State for Justice, but he is only a single member among a number of people. Either he is going to be very powerful and he is going to override what everybody else wants, or he is not going to be very powerful, and he is going to be very dissatisfied with not being able to carry the commission with him. Either way would be extraordinarily unsatisfactory for someone who is head of the administration of justice in running the courts and has some responsibility for the judiciary. It is yet another point that leads me to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws
My Lords, I too wish to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I see this part of the Bill as being one of those ideas which starts with good intent but has risks attached to it: it is the law of unintended consequences. I can understand that those who have looked at the appointment of senior judiciary and have seen the absence of women, for example, have thought that perhaps if somebody—the Lord Chancellor—were sitting on that panel, he would be able to represent more vociferously public concerns about the way in which appointments are recreating the same people. I can see that that was the intention of giving a role to the Lord Chancellor in the current appointment procedures.
However, we must be very conscious of the risks. We should be concerned about the way in which this could be detrimental to our constitutional arrangements and could be the beginning of a much more politicised role for the Secretary of State as Lord Chancellor sitting on such committees. I say this because, regarding the slide to such things, we always say, “Oh, it could not happen here”. I have just heard the decision made in Europe today that the new judge to be appointed to the European Court of Human Rights will not be the preferred candidate coming forward from Britain. The person appointed was pushed by the Conservatives in Europe and supported by Russia and Serbia. The best candidate, Ben Emmerson, one of our most distinguished human rights lawyers, did not get that role because of politicking of the ugliest kind. He was considered to be too protective of human rights.
We should be ashamed of what has happened in that appointment process and we should be aware of what happens when politics enters the fray in judicial appointments and how it can often lead to unsatisfactory outcomes. I raise this as a warning because it happens all too easily. The best candidate has been lost to the European Court of Human Rights and it has happened because of an ugly form of politicking.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
I am afraid that, unusually, I have to disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar. It is widely referred to as a nuclear option—we could call it the veto, perhaps, but it is very well known that it is a veto and a very final kind of veto, in that not only does one exercise the veto—if one chooses to do so—but one has to give reasons in writing for arriving at that decision. It is a very tough position to take. The pool from which the candidate would be drawn is so small and so intimately known to one another—the judges of the Supreme Court, for example—that a rejection would be known and would, indeed, indicate a significant level of political interference. It would inevitably get out that a veto had been exercised and people would draw their own inferences as to what had happened. I suggest that that would indicate a huge level of political interference. It would probably leak to the media; there would be wide speculation in and around the legal profession. It would truly be seen, I am afraid, as a nuclear option.
The reality of this provision is that it gives power to several other entities, but not to the individual who is, in the words of the Constitution Committee report, at paragraph 26, responsible and,
“accountable to Parliament for the overall appointments process”.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
Taking up what the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, said, as I understand it this is not just a question of a name going to a Lord Chancellor who has no idea what has gone on before. If there was to be the slightest doubt that this candidate was not suitable, there would have been enormous discussions at a much earlier stage. It is almost inconceivable that somebody would go forward who was known to have reasons for not being acceptable and unless those reasons are such that the Lord Chancellor felt that he could say that, they ought to have been known already.
This does not work in isolation; the judges and the Lord Chancellor discuss a large number of matters extremely carefully over quite a long time. There is no isolation of the Lord Chancellor and his team from the senior judiciary and the appointments commission which is discussing this. I think that the noble Baroness is assuming that the Lord Chancellor is in an ivory tower, not knowing anything until the name comes to him. That is not the position.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
I say to the noble and learned Baroness that if that non-transparent process that she describes, which sounds like the old game of clubbing together to fix it all up, is indeed accurate, there should be no reason for the amendment. In that case, if it is all so chummy, why not have the Lord Chancellor sit on the panel?
The power to veto seems to contradict Section 3(6)(a) of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, which places a statutory duty on the Lord Chancellor to defend the independence of the judiciary. Not for the first time, one part of an Act—the duty to defend the independence of the judiciary—sits uneasily with the process as defined. Moreover, the process requires the Lord Chancellor to put his reasons in writing. I have already commented on that. It would be far better in increasing transparency and enhancing accountability for the Lord Chancellor to be a member of the selection commission —listening, participating and evaluating the candidate being questioned, without a veto over the appointment—than, after the fact, disagreeing with the selection commission.
In conclusion, I touch on the point made that either a very powerful Lord Chancellor would sit on the commission panel and influence it to go in the direction that he wanted; or, if the Government got their way, that the Lord Chancellor, having sat on the selection panel, could not persuade the panel of his views on an individual candidate and would be deeply dissatisfied because he did not carry the selection panel with him.
I argue that his potential for dissatisfaction would be greater if he had not exercised the veto and was therefore stuck with someone he found it difficult to work with. In fact, it could be said that he would take greater responsibility for working with a candidate with whom he did not entirely agree if he were on the selection panel and had been overruled. He would have been part of the decision-making, he would have been there and heard the argument why the majority of the commission wanted to go in a certain direction and would therefore have to suck it and see. On that basis, I have a lot of sympathy with the Government on the amendment.
Lord McNally
This is my problem as a simple lad dealing with these Silks. I have never used the word “cosy” about the relationship. I have had a chance look at the relationship in the last two years; the last way I would describe the relationship between the Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips, is “cosy”. It is businesslike; it is working; but it has an interrelationship which I think is important.
Giving the Lord Chancellor a role in these appointments is not new. As has been said, he already has a role in deciding whether to accept or reject the recommendation of a selection panel. The question is, therefore, how should that input be realised? I understand the different views put forward in the debate, but the Government’s view is that, for these two most senior appointments, given their significant role in the administration of justice, the most appropriate way of achieving this input is to allow the Lord Chancellor to sit on the panels. He can then consider the views of other panel members, submit his own views and engage with the panel members in a meaningful discussion about candidates.
The current system allows the Lord Chancellor to veto a selection panel’s recommendations. This is in itself a major role, but may be viewed as something of a nuclear option—that is what it says in my briefing notes. I think that that option is the one that could only be used in exceptional circumstances and with potentially a heavy price for the relationship with the judiciary and perception of political interference. I do not necessarily agree that these perceptions would be justified, but they are certainly factors which would inhibit the use of the veto. In place of the veto, Schedule 12 provides for a more effective engagement.
A fear has been expressed that this would give the Lord Chancellor disproportionate influence and that the present Lord Chancellor would dominate the proceedings. Perish the thought. Being on the panel, or even having that Lord Chancellor on the panel, would not necessarily mean that the Lord Chancellor would ultimately get his way on the individual appointed, but it would mean that he would have the opportunity to be engaged in the process and make his views known to the other panel members. We are talking about a panel of heavy hitters—a lay chair, plus senior members of the judiciary and appointment commissioners who are strong and independent-minded individuals. They will not simply fall into line with the Lord Chancellor of the day. The Lord Chancellor would have an opportunity to make his case but could also be persuaded of a contrary case by other panel members. However, where the Lord Chancellor does make a persuasive case of the merits of a particular candidate, this could be weighed in the balance in the same way by other panel members.
There are, of course, other possible ways of securing the input of the Lord Chancellor, but we do not consider that any are as effective as our proposal. We could, for example, allow the Lord Chancellor to select a candidate from a shortlist, or through some form of parliamentary hearing. However, we consider that the risk of politicisation of the process from these options is far more acute.
Another option would be to consult the Lord Chancellor at the start of the process. There is nothing wrong with that, but we consider that this is not as effective as having the Lord Chancellor be a member of the panel and be able to put forward his views, listen to the views of others and engage with them in a meaningful way.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
I wonder whether the Minister could answer a point that he has not yet answered, which has been made by several people. There is a perception that if the Lord Chancellor is on the panel, the appointment will be politicised. For those who do not know the process but see that the Lord Chancellor has been one of those who has appointed the Lord Chief Justice, there will be a perception, certainly among lawyers and much more widely, that the Lord Chancellor has had a very large part to play in making that person the Lord Chief Justice and that it would be the sort of person who would suit him.
Lord McNally
I was about to come to the interventions of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar. I do not think that my noble friend Lady Falkner got it wrong at all, despite her being bullied by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
I am sorry—this is only my second intervention but it is my last one. Something as important as this should not be put in a regulation. Why can there not be a government amendment on Report so that we know where the Government stand?
Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, I do not accept my noble friend’s comments. As the noble Lords, Lord Hart of Chilton and Lord Pannick, said, we went into this in some detail in the Constitution Committee. For all the reasons advanced very eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I support the amendment, particularly because of the potential for increasing diversity both in the Supreme Court and, indeed, further down. Both noble Lords have expressed the potential for opening up more opportunities for people who have come through what is described as the non-conventional career path to reach the top of the profession. I—and many members of the Committee —have a personal interest in the concept that 70 is the new 50, so 75 should be the new 55.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, if 70 had been the retirement age for Supreme Court judges, particularly the judges in the House of Lords, we would have lost Lord Bingham before he even got to the House of Lords. We would have lost the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips, the present president of the Supreme Court, who goes at 75. He is almost the last of those who are entitled to stay until 75. The first solicitor to get to the Supreme Court, who was of enormous value to it, left after 18 months because he was caught by being aged 70. He was as valuable as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips, but he went at 70.
The Supreme Court is losing people who cannot even get there, or who get there for 18 months if, as has already been said, we allow time for people to get through the High Court and the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court. I think only two judges have gone straight through and one judge came straight from the Bar. Normal process means that we are losing people who are extremely valuable. This has been brought up in Question Time on a number of occasions and the Government really should be looking at it. The previous Government were asked to look at it but, if I may say so, they pushed it to one side. It would be very good if this Government would take it up.
Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone
This has been a most exhilarating debate. I hope that the Minister will be able to use this experience to talk to other colleagues in government about why, for example, a non-executive director on a board has to have annual re-election once over 70. Recently, an Oxbridge college appointed a principal who is 72 and the articles of association had to be changed. I declare an interest because the late Lord Bingham’s son is the best person who works for me in my professional activity so I am, of course, brainwashed in this regard. I never thought of the Lords as pioneers of radical equality measures but I feel that this debate has great potential for professional groups across the economy and society, and certainly across government.
Baroness Neuberger
My Lords, perhaps I may add to the debate as another non-lawyer. Indeed, I totally agree with the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and I very much hope that the Government will take this on board. I know that the Minister has himself been involved in the judicial diversity task force, of which the Lord Chief Justice and the Lord Chancellor are in fact members. One of the criticisms that the Advisory Panel on Judicial Diversity has made since it reported two years ago is that progress by that task force has in fact been remarkably slow. Although it has met, not a great deal has happened. I know that the Minister feels much the same. It therefore seems to me all the more important that there be a statutory duty on the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice, as well as on the Judicial Appointments Commission, to promote diversity. I really hope that the Government will take that on board.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
As a former judge I very strongly support the amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I would particularly like to endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said, with which I entirely agree. It is a very good thing when we get some non-lawyers reminding us, but he can be assured that former senior judges support him on this.
Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, I rise really for the sake of the record and because my name is on this amendment. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said in introducing the amendment, this was one of the very strong recommendations that the Constitution Committee made in its report on judicial appointments. The Minister has referred to his kindness in coming once again to speak to the Constitution Committee between Second Reading and Committee. He gave a very strong indication —and I do not think I say anything inappropriate—that he was favourably disposed to matters which we suggested counted as leadership matters in the question of diversity. He will remember the remarks he made on Monday when we spoke again about gesture politics in relation to another amendment, where he said that this was not about gesture politics, but about leadership and political leadership. I hope he will be consistent in his reply on this amendment.
Baroness Prashar
I, too, support the amendment. The JAC wrote to the then Lord Chancellor about this in 2008. If we are committed to promoting diversity, it is vital that some movement takes place. There has been no progress on this over the past few years. If the responsibility was taken seriously by the Lord Chancellor, there would have been some movement.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I, too, support the amendment. There is an overlooked pool of potential future judges—or of what used to be called chairmen of tribunals, who are now judges. It is time that that group in government service of one form or another was seen as a potential. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, about the numbers of both women and ethnic minorities is significant. I support the amendment.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I am very grateful for the amendment, because it allows me to clarify an important area: those who work in government legal services, the Crown Prosecution Service and other government legal offices. The intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is extremely helpful, because it puts on record what a rich seam there is to be mined in those public appointments, and counterpoints the point that I have made several times from this Dispatch Box: that the public service has managed to make far more progress in promoting diversity over the past decades than has the private. We may learn lessons from that.
The Government are keen that members of the employed legal professions should take up judicial roles for which they are eligible, as like noble Lords, we are of the view that this could be a useful route to increasing diversity as well as ensuring that the Government can attract the best lawyers.
However, it has been the policy of successive Lord Chancellors that Crown Prosecution Service and other government lawyers when holding judicial office do not sit on cases involving their department. For CPS lawyers, this means that they cannot sit as recorders in the criminal courts, as the overwhelming majority of cases are prosecuted by the CPS.
Under the previous Administration, in 2003 the restrictions on applications by government lawyers were relaxed partially, and CPS lawyers became eligible for appointment as deputy district judges in magistrates’ courts. However, this was still on the basis that they did not sit on CPS-prosecuted cases, and therefore few roles are available.
The policy is based on the need to comply with Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides that litigants are entitled to be heard in front of an independent and impartial tribunal. Given those constraints, we need to think more creatively around the concept of a judicial career and how experience in one area can support subsequent appointment to judicial office in another area.
Opportunities are available for government lawyers to apply for judicial office. The published Judicial Appointments Commission programme for 2012-13 includes more than 300 vacancies for fee-paid office, which would be open to government lawyers to apply for. It is therefore important to communicate those opportunities available to government lawyers and to encourage them to take up judicial roles for which they are eligible—not least as this could be another useful route to increase diversity in the judiciary.
I am personally committed to playing a part in raising awareness of these opportunities. I recently met the Treasury Solicitor to discuss the best way to communicate them. I am also happy to consider any suggestions for changes to the current restrictions that apply to government lawyers to see whether we can go any further than the current practice—without, of course, infringing the rights to an independent and fair trial. When I met the Treasury Solicitor, I said that I was willing to write articles, go to seminars, or whatever, to raise the profile and awareness of those opportunities. As this is a probing amendment, I hope that the noble and learned Lord will believe that we are responding in this area and withdraw it.
Crime and Courts Bill [HL]
Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I am very relieved that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, does not oppose the government proposal for a single family court. I agree to a considerable extent with what he said.
To take Amendment 68A, the single family court will implode the family proceedings court at the magistrates’ level. The family proceedings court already takes a considerable burden of difficult family cases, both care cases and private law cases. The magistrates find that sometimes in the family proceedings court they have to sit for several consecutive days. In private law cases, families at odds with each other find it almost impossible to have their case dealt with to their satisfaction at one hearing. As a former president of the Family Division, my experience was that cases returned with monotonous regularity. I would be astonished if they returned with any less regularity to the magistrates’ court, as they deal with a lot of quite difficult private law cases.
Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, the Minister will undoubtedly reply to the broad-brush criticisms that the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, has raised. I will just say, on one of his points, that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and the Secretary of State, Mr Clarke, have been very kind in attending to the Constitution Committee since Second Reading. We have specifically discussed Clause 18 and Schedule 12 with them both, and I must put on record that their dialogue with the Constitution Committee at least has been productive.
I briefly return to the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd. Of course, I defer to him, his judicial colleagues and other noble Lords in their experience in the courts, but I would pick up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, about them addressing the issue of part-time working—or as I would more easily describe it, flexible working—in a perhaps somewhat narrow and therefore slightly more difficult way. The noble and learned Lords, Lord Woolf and Lord Carswell, gave evidence to the Constitution Committee during our inquiry into this matter. They said many of the things that they have said tonight and many more things as well. I hear precisely the issues that have been raised about the practical problems. As the debate has widened slightly into the general issue of diversity and appointments generally to the judiciary—which was why I asked my earlier questions to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, about which particular aspect he was concerned with—it may be of interest to the Committee if I quote from the Lord Chief Justice. In evidence to us, he said that,
“we should be able to organise the sitting patterns for female High Court judges or male High Court judges who have caring responsibilities, so that during, for example, half term”—
which was just one example they gave—
“they can be at home ... I think those sorts of very small changes … will help”.
I want the Committee to understand that there is not a uniformity of views among the senior judiciary, both past and present, about the absolute impossibility of trying to be more flexible in this way.
I also say, with some deference and temerity, that I wonder whether noble Lords and senior judges are perhaps looking exclusively at their profession and not looking more broadly at the ways in which other professions have adapted to flexible working over the past decade. I raised very briefly at Second Reading the example of the medical profession, which has had very entrenched working practices at the senior level, particularly in the surgical specialty, and has now adopted flexible working in a way that met with many of the same problems in theory as have been raised this evening and on other occasions about flexible working within the judiciary. The situation is, of course, different but some of the issues in principle were the same. The adaptation has worked, so that senior members of the medical profession are now much more broadly spread between the genders and there is a much greater sense of genuine diversity.
In this instance, perhaps I may refer the Committee to the evidence of the chairman of the Judicial Appointments Commission, who said to the Constitution Committee:
“This is the first profession that I have touched in my working life where there is not easy access to flexible working arrangements for senior positions. Having salaried part-time working in the High Court would be transformational”.
As I say, I speak with some deference on these matters, but it is worth the Committee hearing the views both of the chairman of the Judicial Appointments Commission and the Lord Chief Justice.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I am sorry that yet another former senior judge is speaking. I recognise entirely the advantages of flexibility, but in this area there is a limit, and I want to say a few words about it. As a woman, I strongly support diversity on the Bench, particularly having been one of the earliest women judges. I also support encouraging those who leave either side of the legal profession in their thirties and forties for family reasons, very often to bring up young children, so that they can come back and sit on the Bench at a suitable level. To sit part time as a district judge or the judge of a tribunal is an excellent way of wooing back those who we would otherwise lose, to the detriment of the administration of justice. They are an obvious pool for promotion to more senior judicial posts. However, the point comes on the ladder to senior positions when a part-time judge inevitably will be less useful, and there would be some serious objections and disadvantages to part-time sitting.
I can see that it could be difficult for many centres where circuit judges try long and difficult cases, but it would be even more difficult for High Court judges and above. Perhaps I may give two examples. High Court judges, of which I was one for several years, often try—as one would expect—long and complicated cases that last for weeks, months or, occasionally, years. Listing officers would have real difficulties in listing cases if there were part-time judges. Further, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, has already pointed out, High Court judges go out on circuit for six weeks or sometimes longer. They are a long way from home and return only at the weekends. As a High Court judge I went out on circuit and I can tell noble Lords that, as the mother of a teenager and two younger children, doing so was not easy. However, it is manageable. I felt that otherwise I could not be a High Court judge.
This leads to the second disadvantage. If there are part-time judges at the highest levels, the full-time judges in heavy cases would be likely to bear the heavier burdens. They would try the longer cases. That is because if there is to be any flexibility at all, and a case is going to last for six to nine months, it is unlikely that someone who wants to sit part time would actually be able to take it. That is particularly the case when going on circuit and there is a long case that may take the whole term. How on earth is someone who would prefer to work part time going to leave the family to take a long case? That would be certain to produce a certain degree of resentment among colleagues, who would be expected to take those cases because the part-time judge really could not take on the burden.
In the Court of Appeal, where I also sat, and in particular the Supreme Court, where I did not sit—and they are the purpose of these amendments—the idea of part-time sitting seems very difficult to achieve. How would it work in practice? However, most judges in the Court of Appeal and, perhaps I may say, even more so in the Supreme Court, are older. If candidates wanted the job at that stage of their lives, they would be able to give a full-time commitment, having given a part-time commitment when they were younger and had children to care for. I have to say that by the time I was in the Court of Appeal my children could manage on their own and I had to go home and worry less often about what they were doing—slightly less often since, as a mother, one does not ever stop worrying about one’s children. I cannot understand, therefore, why those who start out as part-time judges at a lower level and who are clearly high performers and ought to rise up the ladder, as I went up having started as a district judge, cannot, when they are older, take on the full-time commitment that they were unable to bear when they were younger and had responsibilities for children.
I have to say also that if these clauses are intended as a gesture to underline the undoubted importance of diversity, and are not intended to be reapplied in the higher courts, I would not be too worried. If, however, as I fear, the Judicial Appointments Commission feels that it is its duty to try to apply these clauses when and if they become law, feeling that it will be criticised if it does not do so, that will be very difficult to achieve. If it is achieved by the commission, I believe that it would create major problems. We have to think again about this. I really do not understand why older women, having got over the problems that required them to work part time, could not take on a full-time commitment in the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.
Lord Deben
My Lords, it always surprises people that non-lawyers such as me sit through long periods of Bills such as this one. It is mainly because some of us think that no profession should be left to make its own decisions about its own set-up. Therefore, I hope the Committee will allow me to say just two things.
First, I entirely agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. It is necessary for the protection of judges that someone should make an interjection of this sort. Secondly, the noble and learned Lord who argued against the question of equal merit ought to learn a lesson from the rest of his life. I know perfectly well what I have to do when I choose people to work for me in my businesses. I often get a large number of people of similar merit. Then I get it down to people of equal merit. What do I say to myself? I say, “I can’t run a business in which I have too many women and too few men. I can’t run a business in which I have no gays. I can’t run a business if I don’t have some kind of different ethnic minority representation when I could”. It is a very simple thing and I am a bit tired, if I may say so, of the legal profession talking as though it was a unique operation—as though it somehow has nothing to do with how the rest of us work.
That is why I sit through these debates from time to time—to say occasionally, “For goodness’ sake, realise that you are in a world that operates in a particular way. When you talk about representation, it is about being sensible of and sensitive to the way the world works”. I found the previous discussion bewildering. It is manifestly true that you often find people who are of equal but different merit. The issue then is about what mix works, given that you have 25 other people of equal but different merit. How do you fit that person in? Anybody who has chosen people for a team or run anything finds that to be true. I cannot understand why judges are supposed to be different or, in particular, why they become more different the more senior they become. I find that extremely odd.
Therefore, I ask the Committee to learn a lesson from those of us who are not lawyers. The nature of our legal system is accepted partly because people feel that, in general, the way in which it operates has some parallels with how everything else operates. If it operates in a totally different way, frankly, we have got it wrong. Let us try, in those areas where parallels are obvious, to make the system parallel. Where it is not parallel, we should be able to defend why it is unique. In neither of the cases that we have talked about in this curious group of amendments is it possible to claim uniqueness. In both cases, it is better to do what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, suggested, and to disagree with the well argued but fallacious point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I do not dare to follow what the noble Lord has just said. I want to make a slightly different point, which is to agree very much with the noble and learned Lords, Lord Falconer and Lord Woolf. There needs to be somebody in Parliament who speaks for the judges. That is probably the most important point that is being made and the major reason why the Lord Chief Justice should not have the final say.
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Lord Howarth of Newport
That may be the view of the noble Lord and his noble friend. It is not the view of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and those of us who supported him on two occasions in inviting the other place to think again about this matter.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I strongly support the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. It is manifestly absurd—to me, at least, and it may be to other Members of this House—that this particular amendment should be treated as having anything to do with financial privilege. I have always been very hesitant to vote against the Government at the ping-pong stage, as I have always thought that they should get their business through. I voted with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on Monday because of the financial privilege point, and for that reason I say today that, whatever else has been said, I find it inconceivable that the Minister in the other place should again have called it financial privilege.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern
Perhaps it is worth pointing out that when this amendment was called, the Speaker of the House of Commons intimated that financial privilege was involved in the amendment. The reason for that is not explained as part of House of Commons procedure. Your Lordships know that I have had some difficulty in the past with references to this feature in relation to other Bills. The fact is that it is not for the Government, at the beginning, to mention this point. It is taken by the Speaker on behalf of Parliament and on behalf of the House of Commons. I have no doubt that, as Speaker Martin told us the last time, he does so on advice from the Clerk of the House of Commons. The Government then proceed from there. They could, if they wished, ask the House of Commons to support the amendment, notwithstanding that it involved financial privilege, but the basic ruling that financial privilege is involved seems to come from the Clerks of the House of Commons. I confess that their way of dealing with the matter is not something that I fully understand.
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Lord Thomas of Gresford
It says in terms that it must be in accordance with this part. As the Minister has explained, the Bill as drafted says what is in scope. The Access to Justice Act 1999 set out what was not in scope.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
I am no expert in administrative law. However, my recollection is that that requires leave of the judge. If it is as spurious a case as the noble Lord has suggested, I would have thought that it would be likely to be rejected and that very little legal aid, if any, would be involved.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
Why should one run that risk? Why should one have applications for judicial review being made based on the amendment as currently drafted? This adds nothing to the Bill. All it does is open an avenue for satellite litigation which should not be permitted.
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Lord Bach
I thank the Minister for the concession that the Government have made today. The clause as it stands before we pass the Government’s amendments should never have been in that form when the Bill was published and was always crying out for amendment. Indeed, members of my party in the Commons did their best to ensure that that happened. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, and other noble Lords for persuading the Government that the clause needed changing. I shall not, of course, press my amendment; I will not move it.
I know the Minister and all other noble Lords will agree that the House seems somewhat empty today because our noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree is not with us in our deliberations. He took an active part in all the debates on the Bill for many months and, even though we could all see that he was not in good health, insisted on coming here, speaking his mind and voting in the way his conscience told him to vote. He took a real interest in the Bill and—I know all noble Lords will agree—it was a delight and privilege to work with him. It does not seem right or just that he is not here listening and speaking his mind. Having said that, I thank the noble Lord for the concession.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, as a Cross-Bencher, I add to what the noble Lord, Lord Bach, has just said about the death of a man who was a great friend to many of us. Lord Newton was an adornment to this House, who stood, as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, has already said, for his conscience rather than for what his party, or any party, might wish. It is easy for me as a Cross-Bencher to examine my conscience, and I am well aware it is not so easy for members of political parties. He will be enormously missed. His name is on a number of today’s amendments, and I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for saying something about this before I move to Amendment 1.
I congratulate the Government. I do not do it terribly often but am going to do it three times today. This amendment, as the noble Lords, Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord Bach, have said, is overdue. It is splendid that the Government have recognised the importance of having the ability to increase legal aid. I also very much support the fact that they are putting in “vary or omit”. All of us who have had anything to do with legislation know that from time to time it becomes redundant and has to be got rid of or needs a tweak here and there, and therefore needs a variation. I support this amendment as it is.
However, if the Minister will forgive me, I will make one or two points about what has happened as a result of this Bill so far as family cases are concerned. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, has already mentioned this but I will add to it. I strongly urge the Government to review the impact of the legal aid changes no later than a year from now, to see what happens to the family courts in the light of the removal of nearly all private law cases from legal aid. I am not sure the Government really quite accept what a number of us have been saying, to the Ministers in this House and the other place, about the impact on the courts. There will be longer lists. I know the Ministry of Justice is already aware that the lists in the courts are too long, and they will be increased substantially.
There will be longer hearings. As the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, said—entirely accurately—without lawyers to keep a case under control, two litigants in person will spend an absolute age. The sort of case that takes a day, or possibly a day and a half to two, will take not less than a week. I have a vivid recollection of one litigant in person who took a week to give evidence and cross-examine. Every time I asked him to hurry up, it added another hour or two to the case. I am afraid I sat scribbling nonsense, because nothing he said was of any value to the conduct of the case.
It is going to be very difficult for district judges and magistrates to manage people totally caught up in the emotions of a failed relationship and fighting over money, a house or particularly children. They will have to do it but it will clog up the courts to an even more significant degree.
It will have an impact in children’s cases. One example in child protection issues is the fact that drink or drug abuse is sometimes detected only during the hearing of a private law case. It is crucial that the person who is drinking or taking drugs to excess is tested to see what should be done as to whether that parent is fit to have care of the child, or even to see the child. The Minister will be aware that in the Norgrove report that point was made about the very thin line between the private law cases and those that tip over into child protection issues. On Report, we discussed whether the mediator would identify cases where there might be abuse. There is a hard core of 5 per cent of cases that cannot be settled between the parties—and, of course, that 5 per cent of cases will carry on regardless and may not ever come to the attention of the mediator.
I ask the Minister, in congratulating him on proposing the amendment, to have a real look at the impact on the family courts within no later than a year to see what is actually happening.
Lord McNally
My Lords, of course I associate myself with the expressions of sympathy on the untimely death of Lord Newton.
On the matter raised by the noble and learned Baroness, we are committed to undertaking a post-implementation review of the specific policies set out in the Bill. As she acknowledged, we have just replaced a ratchet by a regulator, which should also help in seeing whether some of her predictions come true, and how we react to that.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I should like to congratulate the Government and also to express my very deep gratitude to the Ministers in this House and in the other House for achieving a very sensible solution. I am also particularly grateful to the government lawyers who have done an enormous amount of work both for me and for those behind me, and who took the trouble to deal directly with the former chairman of the Family Law Bar Association and the chairman of the ILPA in relation to a later amendment. I really am very grateful.
However, I have a wish list—I might refer to it when the first government amendment that was accepted today enables a little more money to be provided—for two groups of left-behind parents. They are generally fathers, but sometimes they are mothers. The first situation concerns preventing a threatened abduction in a family where both parents are still living together because neither parent has yet applied for a court order. The left-behind parent may be warned by another member of the family that the mother, generally, will take off with the child and that the father will never see the child again. That would require a prohibited steps order. I understand the thinking of the Government on why they will not deal with the matter now. However, I would like them to put it on the waiting list because it needs to be done at some stage.
The second is where the mother—it is generally the mother, but sometimes the father—removes a child in a situation where there is not yet a residence or other order. That internal parental abduction case is not covered, either. I would like to put both those matters on the wish list and I hope that one of these days the Government will be sympathetic to them. However, the work that has been done, and the recognition by the Government that this should be dealt with, is splendid news, and we are all extremely grateful.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, it is only a few weeks since the noble Lord, Lord McNally, described Lord Newton as a national treasure except when he voted against the Government. I intervened somewhat mischievously to say that that was what made him a national treasure. In fact, of course, he was a national treasure for a long time before that. I have good memories of working with him when he was a very approachable Minister and I was the leader of my local authority. I also had the pleasure of serving under him as a member of the Local Services Honours Committee, which he chaired with great care, always exhibiting great thoughtfulness and fairness. He was a man of great conviction and great courage, as he demonstrated fully in your Lordships' House for so many months. We will all miss him, as other noble Lords rightly said.
I turn to the amendments in this group and join the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, in acknowledging that the Government have made significant improvements to the Bill and in congratulating the noble and learned Lord on doing that. I also congratulate the noble and learned Baroness on initiating these very welcome changes. I endorse what she said about further developments. Now, of course, the Government have the capacity to bring them about without primary legislation. The Opposition look forward to that in due course and certainly support the amendments in this group.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, Amendments 15 and 17 bring into the scope of legal aid cases in which the victims of human trafficking seek damages in either the civil courts or an employment tribunal. They would also provide legal aid to this group for immigration advice. The Government have always anticipated that legal aid would be available under the exceptional funding scheme for these damages claims, where such cases met the test for exceptional funding under what is now Clause 10 but which we came to know as Clause 9 during the earlier passage of the Bill. However, we listened to the concerns raised by noble Lords about whether in practice this would always be appropriate. I am pleased to say that we have responded positively to the concerns, and not least to the case made at Second Reading, in Committee and on Report by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss.
The House should be aware that paragraph 40 of Part 1 of Schedule 1 already provides for legal aid to be granted to victims of sexual offences to bring damages claims in relation to the offences. People who have been trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and who wish to claim damages through the civil courts will already be able to get legal aid.
As I indicated on Report, we also considered whether legal aid should be available for the immigration aspects of trafficking. We listened to and accepted the arguments on this, given the particular vulnerabilities of this group of people. We plan to set out in regulations further provision on when it is appropriate for a victim of human trafficking to qualify for civil legal aid for immigration matters. Our intention is not to restrict numbers, and we will ensure that all victims for whom it is appropriate to provide advice will receive it. However, we cannot have a completely open-ended commitment for all immigration matters; otherwise, it is conceivable that victims of trafficking who, for example, apply for a student visa 15 years down the line will continue to qualify for legal aid for no good reason. The regulations will limit eligibility to a period relevant to the experience of being trafficked. We are discussing the most appropriate period of time, but we intend that it will be no less than an individual’s discretionary leave to remain, which can be up to three years.
I am pleased that we have been able to have a constructive engagement and hope that these amendments address the concerns that have been raised. This amendment includes legal aid for immigration advice for victims of trafficking. I beg to move.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
As the co-chairman of the All-Party Group on the Trafficking of Women and Children, I again congratulate the Government and express my gratitude not only to Ministers in this House and in another place but to the government lawyers and officials. The people who were so helpful on the previous set of amendments have been equally helpful on this, and I and those behind me are enormously obliged to them for the care with which they have gone through this and their ability to recognise, listen to, take on board and accept the points that have been made which are now reflected in this excellent amendment.
I wonder whether I might again produce a wish list for consideration at some later stage. There are four points that I would like to make. First, there are those who have been trafficked who do not know that they have been trafficked and will need advice about whether they have been trafficked. Secondly, there are implications for referral to the national referral mechanism. That point was discussed with the government lawyers. I understand why Ministers do not want to help those who do not refer themselves, but there will be a group or groups of people who will fall through the net. Thirdly, there are those who do not know whether they may have an entitlement to leave to remain other than by an asylum claim, such as discretionary leave to remain. That group will also not be covered. The fourth group is rather different. It is those who would wish to challenge a decision by the Home Office that they do not come within the NRM. Those are perhaps matters for another day. At the moment, those behind me and I are enormously grateful for what we have already got.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I, too, welcome these amendments and add my thanks to the officials who have dealt with them. My file of print-outs of e-mails last week is quite large. I thank the Minister as well. I know that his experience in Scotland means that he was already alert to the issues surrounding trafficking. I think the whole House owes the noble and learned Baroness enormous thanks for keeping us at it and for keeping at it herself.
The Minister mentioned conditions, and I understand the concern about possible overuse—abuse would be the wrong term here—of the category of victim of trafficking for immigration applications far in the future. During the discussions last week about what has ended up as these two amendments, there was a suggestion that there might be a reference to prescribed conditions and then a decision that what is now Clause 11 could cover matters, as the Minister said. Will he tell the House whether there are any other concerns that the Ministry has in mind at the moment—it may find others—apart from the time limits?
The noble and learned Baroness mentioned concerns about the workings of the national referral mechanism and time limits. Like her, I hope that that will be kept under review. I have two other areas of concern around this. If legal aid is not available until there has been a reasonable-grounds decision, will the Border Agency put the immigration case on hold? In the mean time, what happens if the individual is in detention or is without housing and food? At the previous stage of the Bill, I referred to the complex needs of trafficked people and mentioned housing and benefits. Immigration is often the gateway to them. Article 12 of the convention refers specifically to accommodation and generally to subsistence, and I suspect the Government would prefer to be clear about this rather than find themselves with claims under what is now Clause 10. The importance of identifying victims of trafficking is a moral matter, but it is also important because of their role in detecting and prosecuting traffickers, and it may take some time for a victim to be identified or to self-identify, so I am adding to the list of considerations. The Government have said that they will keep matters under review and they now have a mechanism to do so. Therefore, I welcome the amendment, although there may still be work to be done.
Lord Cameron of Dillington
My Lords, I support the amendment. Restorative justice is an important tool to have in your kitbag when trying to prevent or mend the effects of crime. It is not a soft option; rather, it is an economic option with extremely good, tried-and-tested results.
In Somerset, where I come from, we had a scheme that ran for five years, from 2005 to 2010. The plan was that the scheme would expand and spread to other communities but, sadly, its funding was cut by around 90 per cent due to central and local authority cuts. In the five years that it operated and the 940 cases that it dealt with, the reoffending rate was less than 5 per cent compared with our more normal courts and probation service reoffending rate of 65 per cent to 70 per cent. Among the 940 cases there were 90 cases of first-time offenders who were thus diverted from the criminal justice system, the likely establishment of a criminal record and the inevitable ongoing costs and negative social impact of that. In terms of pure economics, 30 per cent of the cases referred would have gone to court and thus cost the Somerset taxpayer some £612 per case, compared with £139 per case for the restorative panel.
As everyone knows, restorative justice saves police time, has immeasurable social benefits and brings a new perception of crime and safety into the community, which is important, as well as the re-education of potential criminals. The object of restorative justice is to repair harm and thereby strengthen the community. The process treats the harm, not the individual who caused it. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, said, it allows the victim a voice and a part in the decision-making about the best way for the harm that they have suffered to be put right. It is not adversarial but rehabilitative.
Frequently the offender has never had the education, whether from life or from a parent, necessary to understand the effect of their actions. Invariably, when they hear, either from the victim or from the victim’s friends and family, about the detailed and personal effects on the victim of what they did, they feel intense remorse, which is very uncomfortable. The context of the discussion enables them also to realise that they themselves actually count, the people around them care and what they do matters and has an effect. They are given a choice that can change their lives and that of their community for the better. I strongly support the amendment.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I can be brief, having heard what the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has said, setting out the facts about what works well in the county next to the one where I live. It is very impressive.
It is right to say that restorative justice is not for everyone. There is a sort of case where it would be quite wrong: someone who has been a victim of serious domestic violence, for instance, would seldom find it possible to meet the offender, who is often another member of the family. In suitable cases, though, and there is no shortage of suitable cases, it is good for the victim—as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, has said, it gives them a voice—but it is extremely salutary for the offender, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has said.
I have had instances where offenders—young offenders in particular; those just grown up—have ended up in floods of tears because they had not appreciated the impact of the way in which they had behaved, particularly in something like burglary or theft when they took from someone elderly some not very valuable things that had enormous personal value for that victim. Being told, with the victim in tears, that a great-aunt’s cup that had been preserved through the family had been stolen and thrown on the ground can lead to the offender being in tears too, and this shows that there is a real value.
The figures from Somerset showing the high degree of non-reoffending, which is a great deal more than the noble and learned Lord said was the average of 27 per cent or 28 per cent, shows that restorative justice is a real tool. I find it utterly astonishing that this Government, who have been listening throughout so much of the Bill, have failed to listen on this issue.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
My Lords, briefly, I support the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. I have been involved in restorative justice through a charity called Why Me? for some years. I became involved because it offered a victim-oriented strategy, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. Restorative justice offers an opportunity for the person who has been offended against to address the trauma that they have suffered, to see how and why it came about and, in that way, to achieve some sort of closure. On the other side, it has had significant effects on reoffending. As the noble and learned Baroness has pointed out, offenders will say, “There was just a name on a charge sheet but when I see that it belongs to a person with a home and a family, which I have broken into or broken up, I begin to see some of the dreadful things that my actions have done”. Therefore, I am anxious that the Government should accept this amendment.
There are only two reasons why they might not accept it that I can see. First, there might be a need to restrain public spending. I accept that there is a need for this sort of activity to be carried out by well trained people to be effective. However, there will be a net benefit. If we can continue to achieve the reduction in reoffending rates that has been achieved in the past, there will be a reduction in costs as we avoid some of the costs of reoffending. Secondly, the Government have said that this amendment is overly prescriptive but I have some difficulty in understanding why. As the noble and learned Lord pointed out in his opening remarks, this just adds to the menu of options available. Therefore, it is not prescriptive in my reading of how the amendment has been drafted.
In conclusion, my concern is that if we are not careful, the idea of RJ will fall victim to what I call the Daily Mail effect. Restorative justice is not an easy thing to defend. It can appear a bit touchy-feely. One or two cases that led to difficult headlines in the newspapers could lead to the Ministry of Justice saying, “This is a bit difficult. We had better back off from this one”. Therefore, my reason for strongly supporting the noble and learned Lord’s amendment is that if we get it into the Bill, we will then have something that can be used in the future and cannot be brushed away by some unfortunate event that might lead to public opinion turning against it and putting temporary political pressure on the Government of the day.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, Amendment 31, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, returns to restorative justice. I thank him for bringing this important issue before the House and for his tenacious support for its principle.
The amendment is very timely as this morning we published our consultation on community sentences, Punishment and Reform: Effective Community Sentences, which includes a chapter on reparation and restoration. I am very pleased that the noble and learned Lord has welcomed this publication. The consultation offers us an important opportunity to seek the views of practitioners, sentencers, magistrates, probation officials, victims and victims’ groups about the use of restorative justice as part of our response to tackling more serious offending through the use of community sentences. It asks questions about the use of pre-sentence and post-sentence restorative justice, what more we can do to strengthen and support the role of victims in RJ and, crucially, what might be the right approaches to building capacity and capability and boosting a cultural change for RJ. We want to gather all views on how to do this, and through what means, so that we can develop the most effective approach. Noble Lords have emphasised their experiences of how restorative justice works and have cited research to back up those experiences.
We are anxious to ensure that innovative and effective restorative practices continue to be developed and are driven by local areas and tailored to local need. We certainly want to support initiatives by building capacity in the criminal justice system so that we can deliver the restorative process that this amendment champions. I believe, therefore, that we need to undertake the important consultation exercise that we have initiated today before we can give consideration to whether further specific legislation is necessary for restorative justice, taking into account all the options for how we intend to widen its application.
Noble Lords have made a very powerful case for the use of RJ. My honourable friend in the other place Crispin Blunt, my noble friend Lord McNally and I very much welcomed the meeting that took place earlier today, to which the noble and learned Lord has referred. I hope that it reassured him that we are making progress in this area to increase the use of restorative justice across the criminal justice system. We hope that he will contribute his enormous wisdom and experience to the consultation that we launched today. I assure noble Lords that everything that they have said will be fed into that consultation process and what emerges from it.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
I apologise for interrupting the noble Baroness but she has got to a point where I need to ask a question. Here is a vehicle of primary legislation into which something about restorative justice can be placed. If she and the Government wait for the results of the consultation, where on earth will they find the vehicle of primary legislation into which to slot restorative justice?
Baroness Northover
I think that I am being invited to comment on what might be in the Queen’s Speech, as was my noble friend. That is way above my pay grade.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
I merely wanted to say that here is a piece of legislation into which this measure can be placed. However, if it is not included in this legislation, there is a danger that it will not go in anywhere. In the absence of primary legislation, there is a danger that the Government will have difficulty in implementing the measure. That is the point I am making; I was not trying to get an idea of what is in the Queen’s Speech.
Baroness Northover
I understand what the noble and learned Baroness is saying. As we discussed in Committee and on Report, the use of restorative justice can already be taken forward under current legislation. The question is whether further legislation is required. The noble and learned Lord and other noble Lords have made the case that restorative justice is useful, as has the noble and learned Baroness. However, as I say, RJ can already be taken forward and is being developed. We hope—
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Lord Walton of Detchant
My Lords, I support the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Alton. I do so as a doctor. I was brought up in a mining village in Durham County where as a youth I saw some of the ravages of industrial injury and the effects of pneumoconiosis on those who worked in the mines. Later, when I moved to industrial Tyneside, I had considerable acquaintance with industrial injuries of all kinds and industrial diseases caused by a variety of different agents. At an earlier stage of this Bill, I commented that I was asked not infrequently to make reports on people who had suffered neurological damage as a result of these agents. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, responded by saying that when instructing me to give such reports he had been grateful for their nature and extent and also for the modest fees. Had I known that he took that view the fees might have not been quite so modest.
There is no doubt, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, has said, that industrial injuries of all kinds are prevalent in our society. Is there anything special about mesothelioma? There is indeed. It is a disease caused by exposure to asbestos. The cause is known. The clinical course is known. In this condition, the result of particles lodging in the lungs means that the pleura or membrane which covers the lungs becomes progressively thickened, causing compression of the lungs and respiratory failure. Unlike many other diseases, such as pneumoconiosis, this disease is inevitably fatal. It is a very special condition. It deserves special legal attention and for that reason I strongly support these amendments which I believe should be accepted by your Lordships’ House.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I apologise for not being present at the beginning of this debate. My name is on the letter and I want to underline my support for it. As a judge, I was involved with a number of these extremely sad cases, particularly at the Court of Appeal. The letter has been very helpful in setting out what is needed. I apologise to the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Avebury, for not having heard most of what they said, but I have a shrewd idea that it was said extremely well.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I support Amendment 132AA and wish to speak to the group which is associated with it, standing in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Bach. I do so enthusiastically as I indicated in Committee. Whereas the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, may well have arguments in certain cases in relation to the legal processes that he outlined, I come to this from the point of view that compensation should be available in full to people, reflecting their suffering and the condition they have had, and that any legal fees should be other than the sum allocated as a response to that suffering. If this group of amendments is not accepted, the House will no doubt hear the noble Lord’s proposals in a later group of amendments. The scope not only of Amendment 132AA but also Amendment 132AB, which goes wider and covers a number of other equally distressing and deserving conditions, means that they can be supported when it comes to a vote if it does indeed come to a vote.
These amendments would have the effect of exempting cases involving claims for damages for respiratory illnesses following exposure to harmful substances from the range of changes proposed in Clauses 43, 45 and 46 of the Bill. The case for doing so was covered extensively in Committee but, unfortunately, the Minister has not so far moved towards accepting the changes that we hoped he might accept at that stage. A couple of weeks ago, at a St David’s Day dinner, I found myself sitting opposite a widow from my home area of Caernarfon. She had lost her husband to asbestosis six years ago. She described what he and they, as a family, had suffered. She received a modest sum of compensation. However, she told me that she had been following our debates in Committee and doubted that she would have got that compensation under the changes that are coming through. My goodness, if that is the effect that they will have on people who have suffered in that way, we have to make sure that the Bill is watertight and looks after people who have suffered as a result of the work that they have undertaken.
If Clause 43 is agreed unchecked, success fees under a conditional fee arrangement will no longer be recoverable from the losing party in all proceedings. Instead, in cases where claims are made against an organisation as a result of illness due to negligence, the fee will be recovered from damages awarded to the injured person, sometimes substantially eroding those damages. Likewise, if Clause 45 is agreed as it now stands, “after the event” insurance premiums will no longer be recoverable from the losing defendant and will also be taken out of the damages awarded to the injured party. Similar changes are proposed in Clause 46, which prevents organisations recovering their insurance premiums from a losing party. Unsuccessful cases involving more than one claimant can be highly expensive if there are multiple defendants whose costs need to be covered in the event of the case being lost. Without recoverable insurance premiums, these cases simply will not, in practice, be able to proceed.
Many organisations, including the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, have been at pains to make it clear that damages are awarded for the pain and suffering caused by prolonged and debilitating illnesses. As I said earlier, damages were never intended to pay towards legal costs. Making an insured person or their family suffer an erosion of the financial compensation to which they are entitled on top of the physical distress they have endured is neither just nor dignified. It is wrong that the Government are intent on ploughing ahead with these changes without making exceptions where they are due.
In Committee, the Minister spoke of the Government’s overarching aim as being,
“to create an architecture which squeezes inflationary costs out of the civil justice system”.—[Official Report, 30/1/12; col. 1433.]
Those are grand words indeed but they cover a multitude of sins. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, remarked, the only people who will be squeezed as a result of these changes are those who are already suffering from fatal diseases and their families. That does not sound like justice to me.
In Committee, the Minister also assured me that a number of possible routes of redress would be made available for individuals who had contracted diseases such as mesothelioma and asbestosis through schemes operated by the Department for Work and Pensions. We have heard reference to this but, as yet, I have seen no further detail on how these schemes may work. In the mean time, we should proceed on the basis that they are not there yet. However, I would welcome any clarification that the Minister might give and will listen carefully to what he has to say.
I support not only the group of amendments spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, but support very strongly Amendment 132AB in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bach. It is relevant to a group of industrial diseases such as pneumoconiosis, silicosis and associated lung diseases, which are certainly of considerable importance to me and the community from which I come.
If these clauses are agreed unchecked, individuals who have suffered harm and distress will be dealt a further blow and access to justice will be severely undermined. It is perhaps futile to press the Government to agree to changes that they have already so utterly dismissed out of hand. However, I urge noble colleagues to support these amendments and to argue the case that individuals already suffering due to negligence should not face further hardship.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, perhaps I may intervene briefly and almost reluctantly, because, having been rather rebellious last week on the Bill, I have been struggling to find good reasons for not being rebellious this week. I have to say that it is very uphill work. Certainly, when I read all the briefing on this debate from various quarters—the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, which in turn quoted the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council, to which I shall return in a moment, and a variety of other bodies—the Government’s case got thinner and thinner with every word I read. My view has been reinforced by the points made this afternoon.
The mantra is that all this is necessary because we have such a big debt. I have said several times, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, that I entirely understand the need to tackle the country’s financial problems. It does not necessarily follow that this of area of legal aid has to bear an equal share. Certainly, my recollection of the rhetoric of the coalition agreement was that we would tackle the debt problem while seeking to protect the poor, the weak and the vulnerable from the worst effects of the country’s difficulties. I am bound to say that I found it very difficult to square that rhetoric with some of the stuff in the Bill.
I shall say something even more uncomfortable to my noble friends on the Front Bench. The conclusion to which I am being forced, given some amendments, particularly those on welfare benefits and on this matter, is that—and this is not the first time in history—a department, in this case the Ministry of Justice, has either acquiesced in or been coerced into a settlement that is bordering on inconsistency with the fulfilment of its objectives in terms of the promotion of justice in this country. I find that very sad, particularly when I look at some of the things for which the Government have managed to find money like a rabbit out of a hat on one or two occasions that it might be tendentious for me to quote. There is therefore a tension with the overall position of the coalition on what we are doing here.
I shall refer only briefly to some other matters, because they have all been touched on. I think that the House is well aware from earlier discussions that for a decade I was chair of the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council and its predecessor, the Council on Tribunals, until I became time-expired. I had nothing to do with the council’s comments on this proposal, but it would not surprise anyone to know that I agree with it. Perhaps it is therefore even less surprising that the Government appear to be hell-bent on abolishing that council, because they do not really like anybody who—I am sorry, I should not say that. They are not very happy with people who make comments that they do not welcome. As the AJTC and the judges quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, have said—two or three of whom are senior judges—the whole thing is so impenetrable that they cannot, in effect, understand it and could reach different conclusions on any given case, and that the whole thing needs to be clarified and sorted out. What is the answer to that?
We have heard references to how advice workers can help, but we have also heard—and it is the situation—that under the regime of the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner, CAB people, for example, are largely prohibited from offering a good range of advice in this field. I think that I have got that right, and it is certainly what the briefing appears to say. Where do we stand on that? Again, if I have correctly read what I have been sent, there is a suggestion that social workers might advise people in certain circumstances. I doubt that they are qualified at the moment. I doubt that they feel qualified. Are they going to be trained as legal advisers in place of lawyers? A lot of further thought is needed before we go down this path. I will listen with interest to the Minister, but at the moment the case has not been made for the proposition that is opposed by the amendment.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I shall concentrate on the issue of trafficking, which noble Lords will have heard me mentioning from time to time. First, I congratulate the Government, as I have done on several occasions, on their strategy on human trafficking, but I remind the Minister that Article 12.1 of the Council of Europe trafficking convention, which I am delighted that the Government have signed, states that each party should provide assistance to trafficked persons that should include at least,
“counselling and information, in particular as regards their legal rights and the services available to them, in a language that they can understand”.
That is four square within what the noble Lord, Lord Bach, proposes. The Government will be allowing a dramatic gap in their strategy if they do not allow legal advice to trafficked victims.
I am extremely grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, for supporting, at least in principle, an amendment which I tabled on domestic servitude and women claiming in the employment tribunal legal advice until the door of the court. Of course, to know that they have a claim, they need to be able to stay in this country to make it, so they will need a residence permit. Unless they are seeking asylum—and a large number of domestic workers will not—they will not be able to claim a residence permit. They may or may not go through the national referral mechanism; but they will be deported and they will lose their legal rights and claims.
What I have had from the Government is only the second part. What is needed is the first part, to enable those people who are victims of trafficking, the most vulnerable, deprived and traumatised of all people, who have the misfortune to be brought to this country for reasons over which they have no control. They will need help. The only way that they can get that help is to seek help from NGOs or whoever. As the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, said, and as I am informed, immigration advice is regulated. Consequently, NGOs and other organisations will not be able to give immigration advice to trafficked people, so they will be completely stuck. They will not be allowed to get legal aid and they will not be allowed to have immigration advice, which would lead to being able to deal with their immigration problems. That means either that NGOs will break the law or that those vulnerable people will be stranded without any ability to cope and, almost certainly, not having much grasp of the English language.
Many domestic workers, in particular, but also other workers, have legitimate claims, such as an application to the employment tribunal, for which they require a residence permit at least for a certain period. I believe that residence permits last for up to about one year. I understand that the police are prepared to seek residence permits, but only if the trafficked victims are prepared to give evidence in the criminal court. There is a gap here which the Government must fill, or they will be in breach of the convention obligations which they have signed.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, like others, I have been aware of the paradox that some senior lawyers have commented on the complexity of immigration law, but that if those extraordinarily senior lawyers had attempted to give advice they would be committing a criminal offence.
I do not want to repeat all the powerful points made in this debate, but an obvious point to me is that so many of the not-for-profit organisations which are not approved to give advice in this field work on something less than a shoestring. We have seen some of them folding not so long ago. Those which are approved are very stretched. They may not survive if legal aid in this area does not remain available. I do not suppose that the financial criteria for being granted legal aid under any part of the scope will be that generous—one's means must be very low to qualify. Like the noble and learned Baroness, I very much welcome the announcement that victims of trafficking will be eligible to receive legal aid. I wait to see the detail on that.
I just wanted to make two points. First, not everyone who wants to stay either wants to or can apply for asylum—I recognise that that will remain in scope. Secondly, their very difficulty with immigration status restricts many trafficked victims from seeking help to escape from their traffickers. Their passports will have been taken away. To many of them, that amounts to their identity being taken away. That leaves such control with their traffickers that I find it a difficult notion that they will not be able to get advice under a legal aid scheme.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I invite the House's attention to Amendment 45, which is rather oddly placed in this group and which, I suggest, stands separate. It relates to family proceedings in which, I remind the House, the welfare of children is paramount under Section 1 of the Children Act. I have identified a very limited and specific issue, where the child has suffered or is at risk of suffering significant harm. The purpose of the phrase “significant harm” is that it relates to that part of legislation covering children which deals with care proceedings. There are circumstances where the serious risk to a child does not emerge with the social worker but in private law proceedings.
Under the Bill, all private law cases, other than domestic violence, are expected to go before a mediator to try to settle a very large number of them, as I sincerely hope will happen, but not all cases are susceptible of mediation. Among those not susceptible of mediation are cases where the mediator finds there is a serious risk to the child. That may be because issues have arisen more than 12 months ago, so that legal aid will not be available. Trained mediators may pick up a situation where one of the parents has a major personality problem or suffers from mental health issues. Unless there is a decision by a court, there will almost certainly not be legal aid. The amendment asks that the mediator can alert the appropriate authorities to grant legal aid where the child is at significant risk. Otherwise, there may be no opportunity for legal aid to be granted. The two parents will battle their way, floundering in the Family Court, while the child remains at significant risk until a judge or magistrates are able to pick up the case at a very much later stage. I must warn your Lordships that the courts will be utterly clogged by litigants in person. It will probably be many months before this sort of case is heard by a judge or magistrates as a private law case. It will not have been picked up by social workers at all, and the child will remain at risk.
I have had discussions with the Lord Chancellor about this matter and I know that his people have been looking at it. They do not see it as a serious a risk as I am afraid I do, and I very much hope that in due time your Lordships will support the amendment.
Lord Cormack
My Lords, I shall not detain your Lordships for long. I do not suppose that a single Member of this House would dissent from the proposition that the hallmark and guarantor of a free society is the rule of law. The theme that has run through this debate in many powerful and some exceptionally moving speeches has been simply that you cannot have the rule of law if access to the law is denied to some of the weakest in our society. That is the theme of this debate and it has come out time and time again. I was deeply moved by the very brave—I use that word deliberately—speech of my noble friend Lord Newton, but others have emphasised the point and added further to it.
If, when the Minister replies, he cannot give us a totally satisfactory answer, I very much hope that he will at least say that he will return to this matter at Third Reading, having had conversations with some of those who have made such valid and pertinent points. I do not include myself among them; I do not begin to compare in expertise with the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, or others. I hope that when it comes to Third Reading we shall have a measure that shows that the weakest have not been neglected or denied that access to the law which is their right as much as it is ours.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I encourage the Minister to accept the amendment. I do not think for one moment that it cuts across the Government’s own policies or—as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, continually tells us—deficit issues. Looking at this might improve those deficit issues. If we do not have good expert witnesses, the consequences could be very high costs in some cases.
I have to declare an interest as the vice-chair of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation. Lady Faithfull was of course an eminent Conservative in the House of Lords. She developed the foundation to work with abusers, and the foundation continues that work. One of the things that we do is make assessments in very complex cases so as to make recommendations to the courts on whether some individuals are safe to remain with their families. It is absolutely crucial that these experts are maintained. However, at £63 an hour, the foundation has to subsidise that work at the moment. We cannot do that for long. I use that as an example of one of many organisations that find themselves unable to produce these experts.
I also declare an interest as having been the chair and vice-chair of CAFCASS for some eight years. I absolutely agree that there are too many expert witnesses. Children’s cases have been held up in court over the years because reports have been commissioned by judges and have had numbers of witnesses. Many of these have been commissioned by people who, as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said, can afford to commission the reports themselves. That is a difficulty. We have a serious administrative muddle. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, gives the Government the opportunity to review and sort this out.
No one is saying that we want to maintain the high level of expert witnesses in the court. We want to ensure that, where expert witnesses are needed, they are available. If they are not available, that would be a really serious miscarriage of justice for children. Mistakes will be made and children will be put in danger. It is quality not quantity that really matters on this issue. If you talk to judges, social workers who work in the courts, or expert lawyers, they will always tell you that this will be the consequence.
My only other point is that the assessments being made by the Legal Services Commission are usually based on some sort of broad criteria that have little to do with expertise but have to do with qualification. If you are a poor social worker, you come very much at the bottom of the pile in terms of what you are worth, whatever your extra qualification might be. Lucy Faithfull Foundation social workers are experts in their field—psychologists and psychiatrists do not come near them, as anyone will tell you. Yet, in making their assessments, they are still paid at this sort of level. I encourage the Government to accept the amendment, not because it will mean that every expert is preserved but because it gives an opportunity to put the system on to a safe footing.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, this amendment is a timely reminder of a potential major problem which already exists but which will be much exacerbated in future. I have considerable, sometimes very uncomfortable, personal experience of large numbers of experts in the courts before me, so I should like to make three specific points. The first is on quality.
Quality, as the Norgrove report said, is variable, and I can tell you that it is variable. There are experts who are over-enthusiasts. There were two extreme examples, of brittle bones and salt, which reverberated about the medical consultant profession. The trouble is that they were not the only two. Other experts are giving evidence because they happen to have a line.
When I was president of the Family Division, I had very useful discussions with the Chief Medical Officer about how we could identify appropriate people who one might call middle of the road. They were not at one or the other end of the continuum; they were not people who said, “Nobody ever injures a baby”. I once had 13 doctors giving evidence in a shaken baby case, of which there probably needed to be about five. This was absolutely unnecessary. Half of those experts were giving evidence from a preconceived notion rather than from the evidence that they actually had, and it was extremely difficult to get them to do something sensible. It was an appalling case. It was not the only one—it was just the worst that I remember.
Quality is a real point. It is not the numbers but the people who can do it that matter. The Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, and I really struggled to see how we could identify for the benefit of the judiciary and the lawyers the doctors who would be middle of the road. It is unfinished business and, particularly in a time of financial stringency, it becomes all the more important. So quality is really very important.
Secondly, it is a problem of numbers—there are far too many. That ought to be dealt with in directions hearings, but they quite often get appointed before the case ever gets to the judge or the justices. Something must be done about numbers.
The third point is fees. There is no shortage of very distinguished doctors, particularly in the London area but right round the country, who will not put their heads above the parapet because they do not want to expend the time and trouble on going to court. On the fees that are now suggested—and I heard the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, talking about £90—I have heard the figure of £63 mentioned in the endless e-mails that I have had, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, was saying. Quite simply, if you cannot get the best experts now, what on earth is going to happen to the welfare of these very high-risk children if they do not have the doctors to help the judge or magistrates to decide whether they can safely go home or will for the rest of their lives be denied the real natural family? It is the most appalling decision. Shaken babies are an example. There is still no agreement on whether having hematomas on the outskirts of the brain within the skull or problems behind the retina is or is not an indication of a child having been shaken rather than suffering a natural trauma. How on earth does a judge try that—and these are High Court judges—if they do not have some help? What they need is good help; they need other people who will turn up and give sensible advice to the courts.
Social workers need more support. They are not having their evidence taken sufficiently seriously, and there is no shortage of cases where it would not be necessary to have several doctors if the sensible social workers’ advice was taken by the courts. Too many local authorities are pulling their social workers out of a case after six months. In a case that takes two years, there may be four social workers in charge, and the result is that no social worker is really on top of a case. If something could be done about that, you would need fewer doctors.
The amendment deals with the review and is a timely reminder of the real need to have a look at this and involve the Chief Medical Officer—if I may respectfully suggest it—to see what could be done to get the right doctors in the right place, and not too many of them.
Lord Faulks
We have heard a great deal, and very helpfully, about the role of experts in family proceedings. I defer to those with much greater knowledge than I have about the various inadequacies in the arrangements that exist there. But this amendment is not, in fact, peculiar to family experts but covers the whole range of experts that assist the court.
Although all is not perfect in the litigation system, it is worth recording that considerable steps have been taken by the courts in the approach to expert evidence, particularly the various changes brought about by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, that have resulted in the timely exchange of reports, experts’ meetings and even the exciting developments known as “hot-tubbing”, which your Lordships may not be familiar with, involving experts in court at the same time and exchanging views in order to provide a synthesis for the judge in an effective way.
So, the courts themselves are providing a great deal of control over the way that expert evidence is given. The judges and the consumers of experts are in a position to judge the quality of the product, which itself provides a certain discipline that is relevant in deciding which experts are retained and how much use they are. Those of us who practise in the courts are familiar with judges expressing the view that there is no need for expert evidence on this or that case, which helps considerably.
Early directions, timely interventions by judges and the proper application of expertise by the lawyers can result in the provision of expert evidence being satisfactory. The only caveat that I would give from my experience with experts’ evidence, which relates essentially to professional negligence, is that in legal aid cases there is a continuing concern, just as there is in the context of family proceedings, that the rates for expert witnesses is so low that the best experts may not be available.
Subject to that, I am slightly concerned that this is rather outside the province of the Lord Chancellor in terms of accessibility and the quality of expert advice. The courts are making progress and will continue to do so. Nevertheless, I defer to what has been said about the family courts by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss.