Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey]

My Lords, I wish to focus on the impact that the proposed changes to legal aid provision will have on people claiming disability benefits. The welfare benefits system is complex and, despite the best efforts of all involved in a claimant's initial application, mistakes are frequently made. More than half of all welfare benefits funded through legal aid relate to disabled people, and the legal aid system enables them to challenge decisions made about their lives and their income.

To pursue an appeal, a claimant must have at the very least a working knowledge of the rules for benefit eligibility, which are set out in a range of different regulations. The complexity of the extensive legal precedents determining the criteria for being,

“virtually unable to walk”,

is just one example where professional legal advice is invaluable to anyone appealing against a welfare benefit decision.

The recent report published by the disability charity Scope, Legal Aid in Welfare: The Tool We Can’t Afford to Lose, explains the challenges for claimants negotiating the complex appeal process unaided. The report notes that, between October 2008 and February 2010, of the 60 per cent of appeals in which disabled people were eventually successful in receiving employment and support allowance, the claimants initially had been deemed to have no factors affecting their ability to work. This underlines the importance of disabled people being able to have the tools necessary to appeal benefit decisions and get the right level of support.

Quite apart from the difficulties that the Government’s proposals would create for disabled people, I fear that the Government are making a rod for their own back. Central to the welfare reform programme is the desire to get more decisions right the first time round, reducing the necessity for a large number of appeals. Currently, 40 per cent of cases taken to appeal in relation to employment and support allowance decisions are upheld, so the Government's aim is laudable. However, the benefits system will remain complicated for large numbers of disabled people as well as for Department for Work and Pensions decision-makers; and incorrect decisions are likely to continue to be made relating to the benefits and support received by disabled people. Indeed, in the words of the Employment Minister overseeing the Welfare Reform Bill:

“There will always be decisions that we get wrong the first time round, however hard we try to perfect the system”.

It is worth noting the ambitious scale of the Government’s welfare reforms. The replacement of disability living allowance with the new personal independence payment will affect 3.2 million disabled people. The migration of disabled people from incapacity benefit to employment support allowance or jobseeker’s allowance will affect 1.8 million people, and the transition to universal credit during 2013-17 will affect a reported 12 million people.

When employment support allowance was introduced in 2008, there was a fourfold increase in appeals in the first year and nearly 200,000 appeals in the second year. So with a reform on this scale it is almost inevitable that there will be an increase in the number of inaccurate benefit decisions and that disabled people will need legal advice to challenge these. I share the Government’s desire to reduce the number of appeals against welfare decisions. However, this reduction must not happen because the loss of legal aid prevents disabled people challenging decisions.

I also have serious concerns about the impact that withdrawing welfare benefits from the scope of legal aid will have on the tribunal system. It is almost inevitable that the number of litigants who appear in front of a tribunal without receiving proper legal advice will increase, as will the backlog of cases facing the system itself. Legal aid undoubtedly helps individuals to navigate the tribunal system. Relating medical evidence to conditions of entitlement can be technical and beyond the understanding of most people without legal advice. I would also suggest that legal aid provides excellent value for money when compared with the cost of a tribunal panel, which is nearly twice as much as the fixed fee per case for legal aid.

The Government want to get more disabled people into the workplace so that they can lead increasingly independent lives. It is therefore essential for disabled people to receive tailored, appropriate support in order to help those who can get into employment. If disabled people are placed on incorrect benefits as a result of an incorrect decision that they cannot effectively challenge, they will not be able to access this support. I will give an example. An individual who is wrongly placed on jobseeker’s allowance, who should be receiving employment support allowance, will not have access to the specialised work programme or work choice that would support them into employment. Without this support, it is likely that such an individual would be unable to find work and would remain on jobseeker’s allowance for a longer period of time, perhaps even incurring sanctions. Indeed, the Government’s own research shows that many disabled people find the support provided by disability living allowance vital in ensuring that they can stay in employment and close to the labour market.

Without legal aid to allow disabled people to challenge incorrect decisions effectively, it is inevitable that more disabled people will find themselves further from the workplace, receiving incorrect benefit awards or lacking support to find employment, and therefore the Government’s intention to get more disabled people into employment will be undermined. It is my intention to return to this issue when we reach the Committee stage.

Youth Crime and Anti-social Behaviour

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Doocey]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority. I endorse the comments of my noble friend Lord Dholakia and agree wholeheartedly with the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Imbert, about the importance of family. It is crucial. Sadly, however, the only family that many of our young people have ever known is the gang culture. We need to understand that it is very unusual for a lot of children, strange as it seems, to have even one parent who is looking out for them. They have no choice but to live by the rules of the gang, and in my work for the Metropolitan Police Authority, I have seen some of the most horrendous things, such as children being made to hide guns because they were not currently on a police list. It is easy to get into a situation whereby you have almost no way out. I very much welcome the fact that this report sets out a clear and rational strategy for dealing with youth crime and anti-social behaviour.

The commission has built its central recommendations on reform of the three pillars, which are prevention, restoration and integration. Like the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, I shall highlight the prevention and integration elements. The key principle is that prevention is better than cure. I think that everyone agrees with that. Keeping people in prison is expensive but we must recognise that we do not live in a perfect world and there will always be a need for prisons. We need to reduce the likelihood of reoffending and re-imprisonment. A key element of rehabilitation and rehabilitating offenders is to get them into work so that they can earn a living and integrate into mainstream society. Earlier this year, I drew your Lordships’ attention to the successful reforms introduced at Feltham Young Offender Institution in west London. The prisons regime includes education, workshops and vocational training, and in 2009 a pilot scheme called Project Daedalus was launched. The project aims to break the cycle of youth reoffending through intensive support. It really is intensive support—it begins inside custody and continues for the whole time the person is in prison, and during their release in the community.

In the wing in Feltham where this pilot is taking place, the reoffending rate has dropped to just over 18 per cent compared with a national average for juvenile reoffending of 78 per cent—a substantial drop. In addition, security incidents in the unit are 90 per cent lower than in other units in Feltham. The project is such a success that it will be rolled out to other young offender institutions. There is no question that such projects cost money—a lot of money—to implement, and at a time when the Government have to make cuts in public expenditure there is a real temptation to say that we cannot afford it. That would be a serious false economy because programmes to reduce reoffending, although they cost money, represent money well spent. It is estimated that for every £1 that the Government spend, they will save at least £20 later. It is certainly a false economy not to spend the money now because it costs so much more to imprison young offenders, not to mention the costs imposed on society by crime, such as police time and court proceedings. The high rates of reoffending also impose costs that cannot easily be quantified—diminishing people’s quality of life and reducing public confidence in the police and the justice system.

Of course getting young offenders into the labour market is not the only way to reduce reoffending, nor is it the only means of rehabilitation, but it is an important way of tackling the problem. We are all subject, almost daily, to a relentless tabloid-driven campaign that focuses only on the punitive aspects of combating crime. It is natural for people who have suffered the effects of crime to have strong emotions but we must resist the temptation to reject the rational in favour of the emotional. It is the Government’s responsibility to act rationally and support programmes that are proven to reduce reoffending.



A debate a couple of days ago on the future of the Youth Justice Board suggested that there is strong cross-party support for measures that succeed in reducing youth crime. In conclusion, to what extent will the Government adopt and take forward the recommendations of the report of the independent commission, given the report’s self-evident wisdom?

Rehabilitation of Offenders (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Friday 21st January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey]

My Lords, I also begin by saying that it is such an honour and privilege to make my first speech in your Lordships’ House. I feel that I have been here months rather than just a couple of weeks, but that is perhaps to do with the hours that the House has been sitting. I would like to say a particular thank you to my dear friends and sponsors, my noble friends Lady Harris of Richmond and Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay. I also thank all the Members on every side of the House who have made me feel so very welcome since I arrived. I also thank all the wonderful, outstanding staff who could not have been more helpful.

I come to the House with a varied background. I have been a finance director. I have managed an international fashion company and have been a management consultant. My political experience includes eight years as a councillor in the London Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames, where I chaired the housing committee. Since 2004, I have been a Member of the London Assembly and I currently serve as its chair. My duties on the Assembly include membership of the Metropolitan Police Authority and serving as a member of the Home Office’s Olympic Security Board.

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Dholakia on introducing his Private Member's Bill to amend the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. The Bill recognises that getting ex-offenders back into the labour market is a key element of rehabilitation. Like other noble Lords who have already spoken I, too, would like to confine my remarks to juvenile offenders.

I shall always remember my first visit to Feltham young offender institution in west London. It is just a few yards from where I live. I was both shocked and deeply saddened by the acceptance of the offenders that they would never escape the cycle of crime. It was almost as if they thought that that was their lot in life. Many of them had really harrowing stories to tell about their upbringing. As someone who grew up in a deprived community in Ireland, I found it very easy to understand the issues. However, I was very lucky. I had the love and support of a close-knit family, something that most of these young men had never known.

Your Lordships may be aware that Feltham was the subject of controversy several years ago, with reports of violent assaults and allegations of racism; but significant progress has been made, and Feltham has been praised for its effective reception and induction facilities, the outreach team that deals with self-harm issues, and the measures in place to deal with race relations issues.

I should like to pay particular tribute to the innovative work that the Mayor of London and the London Metropolitan Police Authority have done in Feltham. In 2009, a pilot scheme called the London Reducing Reoffending Programme was launched, better known as Project Daedalus. This project aims to break the cycle of youth reoffending through intensive support which begins inside custody and continues beyond the prison gates after release into the community. The target group for the project is young men aged 17 to 19 who are subject to a detention and training order and who are from one of six London boroughs. These young offenders have also been assessed as motivated to address their offending behaviour, a crucial element in resettlement.

To date, 43 young people have been placed in the unit, with 24 of them subsequently released into the community. It is still early days but the initial signs have been very positive indeed. The rate of reoffending has been reduced to less than 20 per cent, which compares to a national average of juvenile reoffending of 78 per cent. In addition, security incidents in this unit are 90 per cent lower than in other units in Feltham. The success of this project is such that similar projects are being rolled out to other young offender institutions and I hope that the money will be found to continue this excellent scheme.

However, that is not the only good work being done in London. I should like to pay particular tribute to other schemes that help prevent young people offending in the first place, in particular the superb work being done by Decima Francis of the From Boyhood to Manhood Foundation and Camila Batmanghelidjh of Kids Company. Both of these truly remarkable women do extraordinary work providing help and support to some of the most vulnerable young people in our society.

However, the good work being done at Feltham and elsewhere in London will be undermined if unnecessary barriers to ex-offenders entering the labour market are not removed. Fortunately, government policy is moving in the right direction. The Green Paper on the criminal justice system published last month states:

“The … way to improve public safety and reduce the number of victims is to reform offenders to reduce reoffending”.

I am delighted that Project Daedalus is singled out for praise in the Green Paper.

It is essential that we do much more to rehabilitate young offenders, in particular by training and equipping them to enter the labour market and by removing discriminatory barriers to employment. Of course this is not the complete solution to the problem of crime and reoffending, but it is vital if we are to break the cycle of reoffending which a policy of imprisoning offenders without rehabilitation does absolutely nothing to address. Those and many other issues are some of the things that I look forward to pursuing in your Lordships’ House.