Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Earl of Sandwich

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 3rd December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, we also have Amendments 13, 14 and 17 in this group as amendments to the government amendment. We welcome the indicative non-exclusive list that the Minister has put before your Lordships. At the last stage the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, made the point that we should not rely on guidance or some other executive action in this connection, and that must be right. However, we must also be confident in the list. The more examples are given, the less easy it may be to argue for additions which are not spelled out. I was going to refer to the array of lawyers opposite me, but their numbers have been reduced by half in the last few minutes. Nevertheless, I am sure they can tell me whether I am wrong to be worrying about the sui generis rule, because I am.

The Government’s amendment refers to,

“internationally recognised principles and standards”.

Will the Minister give an explanation or example of those? Alternatively, what might contravene that criterion—in other words, not meet the standard? Humanitarian aid is referred to. Peacebuilding was talked about in Committee. We are not confident that humanitarian work includes peacebuilding and would like an assurance or acceptance of our amendment on that. Humanitarian work probably covers development and cultural purposes, which were also referred to during the last stage. Will the Minister comment on that?

We have added “for connected purposes”, which is a little wider than “in connection with”, which is limited to the stated purposes—we would be adding a purpose. It is appropriate to mention concerns expressed before these amendments were tabled, not just about the “reasonable excuse” defence which the House has been debating. There are also concerns on the part of banks and other companies which provide services to organisations which provide aid, such as insurance—I am amazed that insurance might be available in some of these connections—and travel companies. Apparently they are concerned that the measure will exacerbate the diminishing of their appetite to support humanitarian activity, due to the increased legal ambiguity around travel to designated areas. They are also concerned about a possible chilling effect on humanitarian aid surrounding those areas. The list which the Government propose includes visiting a terminally ill relative. It is not always clear when an illness is terminal. In this context, it might be particularly difficult to get medical support for that proposition. We suggest adding “very seriously ill”, as a matter of common sense.

Amendment 14 was an excess of zeal on my part. I shall not be pursuing it, as I realise that the point is already there. On Amendment 17, the House has heard the assurances about the designations being kept under review. We welcome the sunset provision in Amendment 18 and support Amendment 19, which would shorten it. However, this does not mean that reporting to Parliament is not necessary. The noble Earl has just referred to a “meaningful and ongoing review”, but we must be aware that when a finite period is referred to there comes a temptation to address the point thoroughly only every three or two years, depending on that period. The proposal to report formally to Parliament is a matter of transparency and accountability. I hesitate to say so, but it might give the independent reviewer something to bite on. That amendment is certainly not a backstop.

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, I offer my support for Amendment 15. I will speak on behalf of humanitarian aid workers following the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and I do so because it seems to me profoundly wrong that aid workers should potentially come under suspicion and be bracketed with potential criminals simply because they are travelling to and from a sensitive area. Of course, I realise that the Government understand in principle they are not in that category, so they have put down their own amendment with an indicative list, which the JCHR acknowledges is a step forward. Nevertheless, the Bill still potentially subjects aid workers and journalists to every sort of interference, which can only mean that aid will inevitably be held up and that people living in distressed conditions will suffer more. If aid workers in government programmes, including those of Governments in the designated areas, are protected, why on earth should non-governmental organisations and their beneficiaries suffer? What is the logic of that?

This clause has to be amended. Imagine what would happen in a country like the DRC today if people monitoring the Ebola virus had to consider the prospect of being arrested for having dealings with the Mai Mai or the Interahamwe militia. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, have already mentioned peacebuilding, which often involves the Red Cross and the Churches. What would be the climate of suspicion surrounding not only them but the whole aid programme? The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, quite rightly mentioned the “deterrent effect”.

I speak with feeling, having worked with several aid agencies over the years, and knowing the conditions in which they already have to work. No wonder that 21 organisations are protesting. These are in many cases the front line of our aid programme, whether they work with government or not. I will repeat two sentences of what they said in a signed letter:

“Unless urgently amended, the bill … will make it impossible for civil society organisations to deliver much needed humanitarian, development and peacebuilding support to people desperately in need … it is vital that the government and peers amend the bill so that it exempts aid workers and others with a legitimate reason to travel to designated areas”.


Let us not forget the cost of this exercise. We do not of course know the parameters of the designated regions, but we know that, for obvious reasons, many aid workers tend to be in sensitive areas of the world, so the overlap between political sensitivity and humanitarian commitment will be vast.

The noble Earl mentioned the possibility of the terrorist who intends to assume the disguise of an aid worker and become a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Obviously, that is quite different; he or she must be stopped on the grounds laid down in the Bill, and will not ultimately pass the test of reasonable excuse. I realise the difficulty the Government are in here, having to act on behalf of society. But it is quite irresponsible to risk the professional lives of all aid workers leaving those areas, with all the consequences for the programmes concerned, as a means towards that end.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Earl of Sandwich

Monday 1st February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend in these two amendments. They have been described as modest; I think they are remarkably modest in the light of the descriptions that we have heard. I would say to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that I would think twice about £640.

We are told that immigration fees are charged on the basis largely of cost recovery. Does this administration charge reflect the cost of administration? I find it quite interesting. It makes me wonder not only about the efficiency of it but that so much more is being paid for the administration than for the health service. When the proposals for a health surcharge were first mooted, there was a lot of debate about the dangers of either driving people underground or deterring people who have a right to a service from seeking it because they do not quite understand how it all works and fear that they might be prejudicing their own immigration status by seeking health advice and health treatment. My noble friend has raised immensely important points.

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness just said what I would have said, so I add only one plea to the Minister: would he please explain the point of the regulations? We have discussed them before on previous immigration Bills and they keep coming back because they are so obviously unfair. We have to know whether they are intended as a deterrent, because if they are they will not have the slightest effect.

Modern Slavery Act 2015 (Transparency in Supply Chains) Regulations 2015

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Earl of Sandwich

Monday 19th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, I supported my noble friend’s original amendment on the question of monitoring, and I will return to that in a moment. Whether we should go as far as the website and central information, I still am not certain in my own mind.

Having looked through the original consultation and the Government’s response, I am very impressed by the detailed work that has been done on this issue. It is rather a contrast with the Energy Bill, where the Government were castigated for bringing everything in at the last minute. I think that the whole process of pre-legislative scrutiny and consultation on the Modern Slavery Bill has been a model. I believe that the Government are genuinely behind this legislation, especially the Minister, who has shown commitment over many years, including his Nike research in China, his links with Gateshead and Traidcraft and his promise to consult widely following the Bill. This is where my noble friend’s amendment is very relevant. We are delighted that he has come up with the regulation, and I warmly welcome the decision to go for the lower threshold. This was the clear view of the respondents and I am glad to see also that companies will be given some flexibility on the form of the statement. So we are proceeding gradually in the right direction.

This does not mean that I have no misgivings. The first one is about monitoring. I notice that under section J of the impact assessment, the Government undertake to engage with businesses for a further 12 months after commencement. However, it seems that this will be only a limited assessment about reporting requirements and whether organisations have any difficulty in providing information. What about the monitoring of performance by the companies themselves after 12 months? Who is going to assess whether the companies have adequately researched their own supply chains to the point where they can revise earlier statements? I suspect that much of the monitoring will fall to civil society.

I remember the discussion under Section 54 on 10 December, when the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, questioned the Minister very closely on the amount of information that would be required from a company to enable civil society, for example, to make a judgment. This is an important point because it might be easy for a company to make very brief statements with so little content that the Government and NGOs would hardly be able to question them.

Presumably the Government will be involved after the 12-month period. Will they create a forum involving the NGOs, or will the anti-slavery commissioner, Mr Hyland, be involved in the process? I see that he has just published his impressive strategic plan: his workload is formidable. I know that he works with the NGOs a lot but surely he will have to stick primarily to policing and law enforcement and will not have the extra time that is required.

If the aim of the regulations and the Act is to,

“ensure there is no modern slavery in … supply chains”,

and to,

“aid the detection and elimination of modern slavery”,

surely a lot more needs to be done in the direction that my noble friend has mentioned than publishing what could be very limited information.

Finally, I ask the Minister whether charities are covered by the regulations. Section 54 of the Act refers to a “commercial organisation”, but the Explanatory Memorandum to the regulations says at paragraph 10.1:

“The impact on ... charities or voluntary bodies is small”.

Perhaps he could clarify this point, because there are charities with substantial overseas trading interests.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, this is indeed a significant statutory instrument. Whether it will fulfil its potential depends on its implementation and the practice that is adopted by organisations, as well as the response by the public. Like other speakers, I think that the content of the statements is more important than the process, and inevitably the statutory instrument is focused on the process.

Actions beyond the legislation—the statute and the statutory instrument—will be important. Like other noble Lords, the first point that I wrote down related to monitoring and whether there would be a central repository and a website to cover what may be, according to the impact assessment, 17,000 or 11,000 companies—a number of figures are given. It seems to me that the demand for that was reflected in the responses to the consultation, as reported on the Home Office website. This is not just for citizens, NGOs, civil society or indeed government to check and to hold companies to account; surely the repository, or depository, also has a function in spreading good practice and disseminating information about methodologies. The responses to the consultation seemed to show a need on the part of companies for assistance in how to identify slavery. The section on supply chains in the commissioner’s strategy, to which the noble Earl has just referred, under the heading “How will we know that the response is improving?”, says:

“Best-practice models of business and supply chain transparency to be established and widely adopted”.

Clearly there is a lot of work to be done in this area, so the guidance on how to do it is important. We are told that this is to be,

“published to coincide with the duty coming into force”,

which, I understand, will be in October. Can the Minister help the House as to whether the guidance will be published before then? Surely if a duty is in effect, one needs to know beforehand how to comply with that duty in the way that, I hope, the guidance will cover.

I note, too, that transitional provisions are to be developed, and I wonder whether the Minister can explain what that means. The first point that occurred to me on this was that the duty comes into effect in October, but how does that relate to any given company’s financial year? Presumably that will be a basis for making a statement and an assessment. The Government must have thought through whether, for instance, the duty will apply to a report only after there has been a full financial year of experience. I may be barking up the wrong tree here but if the Minister can help the House on what is anticipated in the transitional arrangements, it would be useful.

The responses asked whether the provisions could apply to companies below the threshold. I assume that there is no reason why not. In our debates on the Bill, we talked about the reputational benefits of providing statements.

More widely—I do not know whether the Minister can answer this—what sense does the Home Office have of a buy-in of enthusiasm for this process, for instance among institutional investors? During the progress of the Bill, we talked about the position that shareholders have and the influence that they may have on companies, so the institutions, as the biggest shareholders generally, will be in an important position. I used a search engine to see what was being said about this subject and found that a number of City lawyers and accountants are including advice on the subject in their newsletters, but it will be the shareholders—and the concern not to upset shareholders—that will be central to the operation of this measure.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred to the effectiveness of these arrangements. In that connection, I noted that the impact assessment seems to deal with the regulatory burden, not with the costs of the investigation leading to the content of the statement. Checking that there is no slavery in the chain is the objective, despite the get-out of the “no statement”, so it seemed to me that there was a danger that the impact assessment might be sending an inappropriate message.

I was interested, too, that quite a lot of respondents disagreed with providing key performance indicators—not a majority by any means, but the indicators are referred to in the legislation and they are important because they will show trends. We are talking here about not just snapshots but trends. I do not know whether the Minister can say anything about that.

Almost finally, we have heard about the requirements on the Home Secretary to report. Is there an intention to report more frequently than the statutory minimum? And finally—this matter was raised by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, during the passage of the Bill—can the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to check on their own procurement?

Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Earl of Sandwich

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I certainly took from the Minister’s long and careful response to the amendments on this clause at the previous stage that he entirely took the points that are being made today. He said that all of us are willing and keen to accept the principle that the statements ought to be put in one place and made easily searchable and identifiable. I take it from that and from other comments that this is something that the Government are working on.

The Minister then mentioned a two-day tech-camp. Frankly, that sounds terrifying, but I wonder whether he has any news of that. He issued a generous invitation to Members of the House to attend it. I am not sure whether I would be up to it myself, but it sounds as though it holds the seeds for taking this matter forward and I hope that he can give us a little more news.

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, Third Reading is an occasion for tributes and I hope that the Minister is not too embarrassed to receive all these tributes. He has worked very passionately on the Bill and I congratulate him. We are asking a very small step of the Minister today. I mentioned this before. It was a small step then and remains small, although, even so, it may be the biggest step that he takes today.

My noble friend has put all the arguments so succinctly that I will not rehearse them. I add only one particular point, which is that I personally would not like to see the voluntary sector carrying the load of this responsibility. The way that the amendment is worded is very gentle. It states:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations appoint”.

It does not actually say that it has to be a government agency. That is the interesting thing about the amendment—it takes us just a very small step further.

I mentioned to the Minister at a private meeting that the situation of the groceries adjudicator may be a parallel to look at, but I would not want to wait for consultation. I do not agree with my noble and learned friend that we have to wait longer for that. I think that the House will decide today in favour of the amendment unless the Minister has something else.

Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Earl of Sandwich

Monday 1st December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, one of the things that has struck me in our discussions about the rights of overseas domestic workers is the importance of enabling them to enforce their rights. That is what the amendment aims to do. This should not need saying, but it has come through to me very strongly that we need to give people the tools and make sure that they are available.

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, I have been trying to think of the adjectives that would best describe my noble friend’s amendment, and I have come up with “reasonable”, “ingenious” and “brave”. It is reasonable because we all feel indignation about this issue; there is no question about that. It is ingenious because I think my noble friend is anticipating the result of Amendment 94. We must not be drawn into that today, but it will be interesting to see whether this presents a way out for the Minister in relation to Amendment 94; I hope it does not. The amendment is brave because my noble friend is trying to tackle the question of diplomatic immunity. I think that the Government would like to do that on many fronts at the moment. My noble friend is to be commended.

Finally, I have to say that the Bill does nothing to release domestic servants from their bondage. They are, fundamentally, in this Bill, so I do not know—the Minister may like to reflect on this—why this category has somehow been left out or gone unnoticed. We will wait and see how the Bill can correct the situation at a later stage—but this amendment is a very clever alternative.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Earl of Sandwich

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I am particularly pleased to follow a reference to my right honourable friend Vince Cable, who has been very energetic in spelling out the value, if I can put it this way, as an import and as an export, of overseas students. I have been worried, and have said so publicly, about the use of the phrase “the brightest and the best” in immigration policy, but I have to say that I did not read my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby as wanting to cream off the brightest and the best; I do not think that was where she was going.

As has been said, we have a very good story to tell. We are curiously inept in some parts of the system at telling it. The word “perception” has been used, rightly, by a number of noble Lords. We should not get stuck on the overall immigration numbers without disaggregation, but I do not want to repeat all the arguments that I and other noble Lords have made.

I have just a couple of comments on this. I doubt that many people, even in this building, know that the Budget added to the funding of the Education is GREAT campaign, which seeks to attract international students to the UK, and that the number of Chevening scholarships supporting students from developing countries who come here to study is being tripled. I will let those two facts speak for themselves, and I hope they will add a little to the perception.

On tenancies I am very much with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and others. I want to make use of this Report stage to come back to some rather focused questions on those amendments.

As I understand it, the health levy or surcharge really is an integral part of the Bill. As the Minister will remind us, in absolute terms it is competitive, and I say that it is very good value insurance. Some anomalies and issues need to be followed up, and others have drawn attention to these. I am reassured by the fact that secondary legislation will, I hope, deal with the detail.

I welcome the student tenancy amendments which my noble friend the Minister proposes but, if I may, I will seek a little more assurance. I was concerned about the numbers and types of properties that students use as accommodation. Given the time, I will try to summarise on the hoof the understanding I have gained from Universities UK. I hope that noble Lords will forgive me. It is important to say that about a quarter of international students are likely to still be living in accommodation which is not within the categories specifically defined so far. The Minister has been very generous with his time in meetings and in correspondence, and he foreshadowed the amendment to the halls of residence test at the previous stage. I would have liked to have seen an exemption which focused on the people—the students—rather than on the property.

I am concerned about the term “nominated”, as are other noble Lords. I hope that my noble friend might be able to say that, although this term is used rather differently in other contexts, here it really amounts to “accredited”. I am sure that the Minister will spell out in his reply that there will be guidance, and there will be consultation on the guidance. Perhaps he might also state that, as well as the accommodation owned by a relevant institution, the halls of residence and the nomination for what we might understand to be a private tenancy, where a landlord is approached by a student and none of those three situations is in place, the landlord can in effect obtain the nomination from the university and come within that exemption.

I, too, am concerned about postgraduates and doctoral students, and I looked at the definitions brought into the Bill from the Local Government Finance Act 2012. I hope that my noble friend will be able to confirm that postgraduates and doctoral students fall within the definitions in that legislation. I hope he may also be able to set out the balance between studying and teaching within the work done by, let us say, a postgraduate student, many of whom also teach, that the Government will expect to see in order for the exemption to apply. I assume that research is regarded as study.

I hope—well, I assume—that the relevant orders following from the Bill will be made by the Home Secretary, because many Secretaries of State come within this whole picture. I have probably taken enough time, and the Minister is aware of my concerns. He looked slightly puzzled at my last comment, but I was thinking of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who makes the order about who is a student. It is a bit of a jigsaw.

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, I sense that the House wishes to come to a decision, so I shall be extremely brief in making a couple of points. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, is always so reassuring and we think that he is going to bridge the gap which exists between the proponents of the amendment and the Government, but I fear that this is not the case. This is a serious disagreement.

I shall speak mainly about higher educational institutions in the widest sense. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said that she was concerned about the welcome that we are giving to students—the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, reiterated that. We used to talk about a climate of disbelief in the Home Office a few years ago; now, I think that there is a climate of frustration, interference with and even prejudice against what I might call the lower order of colleges of education and those which are capable of offering places to bogus students, who have rightly to be returned. I am very concerned about the climate in this society that we have.

That gives me, however, an opportunity to say that the Home Office recognises its mistakes. It can correct its mistakes. I had an example only last week where a college in south London with five years of trusted sponsor status, which I have visited, was quite unfairly threatened with the loss of its licence through an association with one of these lower orders of bogus college. It recognised the mistake in the end, but I want to put over that it is a tough environment out there at the moment if you are one of those colleges. Many immigration officers are being put in positions of making educational decisions. I support the amendment; I hope that my noble friend will move it to a Division. The remarks of my noble friend Lord Sutherland were very timely, because this is after all a disagreement within the coalition. It was very welcome to hear the voice of Vince Cable. I am sure that he agrees, as does the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, that the disaggregation of numbers, although it is not the subject of this amendment, has become almost a separate issue which we should come back to.

Criminal Legal Aid (General) (Amendment) Regulations 2013

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Earl of Sandwich

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, I am extremely honoured to be in this learned company and I will try not to take too much time because everything has been said.

We have been here before. I spoke in the debate of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, as did many other noble Lords. On that occasion, I mentioned the work of the CAB. But today, like others, I am much more concerned about the effect of these regulations on young people in difficulty, including asylum seekers in detention, unaccompanied minors and even young people released from prison and wishing to make a new life. These young people would normally benefit from professional legal advice at a critical stage in their lives when they are separated from their families or being made homeless at the moment of leaving prison. Specialised agencies such as the Howard League mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, have given hundreds of people not just hope but essential practical advice on restarting their lives. This kind of work, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said, characterises fairness in our society. It is not charity.

I notice that the Minister has been a member of the Select Committee looking at mental capacity, so he will be more aware than most of the special problems of the mentally ill already mentioned. Many of those people are in prison through no fault of their own. I said in the legal aid debate that those with mental health problems were especially vulnerable. There were no exceptions for children nor for prisoners accepted to have a disability. A detained child unable to identify legal issues will not have the financial resources, let alone the intellectual resources, to pay for lawyers or even to frame their complaint to the prison authority, as is suggested. That is a serious point that the Minister has to answer. It would be a serious personal crisis for young people.

A case of a 12 year-old boy was mentioned to me by the Howard League. He was an unaccompanied minor who had been detained in a secure children’s home. He had behaved well, earned himself early release and had sought help with resettlement. The lawyer concerned approached social services but only then discovered through an interpreter that he had been wrongly detained in the first place and had to appeal against his sentence. None of this will happen if cases are not referred in the future and legal aid is unavailable.

Last September, there were 1,789 immigration detainees spread across the UK in removal centres and short-term holding facilities simply waiting to be removed. Many are moved from place to place and I doubt if the Minister or anyone else can keep count of how many of them are young people. I heard from a Member of Parliament last week that one young detainee, originally from his constituency, had been moved eight times. Mental health problems loom large in these situations because no one knows when they can leave or even when they can receive a hearing. Detainees depend heavily on outside advice. This may be a subject for the Immigration Bill next month, but it is surely highly relevant to the present regulations. Is it fair to exact cuts that will impinge on young people in these conditions and restrict their lives even more than at present?

It is true that the Joint Committee on Human Rights accepted that it was legitimate for the Government to introduce a residence test, as the Minister may mention, and to restrict the scope of prison law funding. But it strongly recommended that there should be more and broader exemptions from these proposals to make it less likely that they will lead to breaches of the fundamental right of effective access to justice.

What is especially unfortunate, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, mentioned, is that young people in prison had been receiving much better attention over a long period. For example, the Minister will know that in 2002 there was a court ruling that the welfare and child protection duties in the Children Act apply to children in prison just as they do to children in the community.

The amount and percentage of cuts has already been discussed. They are surely disproportionate. I shall lastly mention one piece of evidence given to the Select Committee last July. I was surprised to read that the Justice Secretary had changed his mind about equal shares in legal aid work. He told the committee he had been persuaded that competition among legal providers was more essential than advice shared equally. He said:

“That is something that the market has said to me: ‘Actually, the principle of choice is one that we regard as more important’”,

than equal shares. If the market is speaking in this way, many young people and their families are going to suffer from these regulations.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Earl mentioned the debate in this House last July. I looked back at that and reminded myself that the title of the Motion of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, was “Effect of Cuts in Legal Aid Funding on the Justice System of England and Wales”. I think that that was a very well chosen title because the effect of the cuts is not just on individuals but on our system of justice.

I was not going to talk about whether this was a matter of ideology on the part of the Justice Secretary. I had a look at the transcript and am not sure that that was quite the exchange about ideological differences, but I am tempted to wonder whether that was an admission or a boast.

I want to say very clearly—though noble and learned Lords, and noble Lords who are not technically learned, have put it much better than I can—that for those who are convicted and sentenced by the courts, the punishment is imprisonment. The punishment should not extend to the loss of rights, whether convention rights or at common law.

A number of threads seem to run through the Government’s approach. The first is a reference to and reliance on judicial review. I do not need to comment on the paradox in that given the policy regarding judicial review. I was not aware of the Daily Mail article quoted by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith. I do not think that I need to spend any time on saying how undesirable it is to rely on judicial review. But I will mention the skill that is needed, at what I shall describe as first instance, to ensure that the right points are raised and dealt with in order that there is a basis for an application for judicial review. I think that that is not a job for someone who is not trained.

Another theme which I picked up from the JCHR report is that the Justice Secretary thinks that the number of cases affected will be very small. If that is so, I do not understand why the Government do not give in gracefully. We know about the cost pressures on the MoJ. We know that the Government want to focus public resources on cases with sufficient priority to justify the use of public money and to get value for money for the taxpayer. But I know that I am not alone in this Chamber in setting justice high in my priorities as a taxpayer.

What seems to be a common theme in the responses to the Government from those who work in the sector is a mention of the “see-saw impact”—that is, cuts here meaning costs there. Concerns around mother and baby units and the cost of keeping a baby in care is one example, undermining the principles of rehabilitation and the costs associated with all that. We will all have seen and read particular cases. I shall mention one which I found very compelling—the story of a 17 year-old who was given a 36-month custodial sentence. He was studying for his A-levels at the time. With the work of solicitors, who engaged in both detailed representations and liaison with a clutch of agencies, he was granted release on temporary licence to attend college part-time and then home detention curfew, and so he lost only one year of education, not the further years which were in prospect.

Of course, there is also the cost of the loss of expertise among solicitors. I have seen, and heard about tonight, a large number of points relating to costs rather than savings. We really have not got any better, have we, at joining up and reading across budgets? I have actually been defeated—my level of energy depleted—in trying to understand the savings projected as against the knock-on costs. I hope that when the Minister—who has everyone’s sympathy in this—replies he will be able to unpack this for the House.

The third theme I picked up was the emphasis on the non-judicial complaints system. I do not see this as an either/or. There should be a good complaints system. That should then alleviate to some extent the necessity for lawyers to be involved. There should be an effective system that inspires confidence. However, there are limits to the system that we have—to the powers, to the remit, which does not extend to making recommendations to external agencies or investigating them. These concerns seem rightly to have been stressed.

We have heard, although not tonight, about ambulance chasing—if that is the right term—by some solicitors in prison, soliciting work and planting the idea in prisoners’ minds that they have real claims. However, that should not mean that proper advice, assistance and representation is not available.

I do not suppose that the MoJ has found much which it regarded as supportive or constructive in the responses to the proposed changes. The House has managed to cover quite a lot of ground, and I will end by citing a point made by the Council of Her Majesty’s Circuit Judges, which noted, according to the Howard League, that:

“The practice of prison law is so unique; its impact on the most vulnerable within society so profound; and the potential savings suggested by these reforms so limited at best, and so obscure in any event, prison law should be removed altogether from the scope of the legal aid reforms”.