Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, on the excellent way in which he has presented the amendment in place of his noble friend Lord Ponsonby. He has been able to use the great experience of his noble friend in family proceedings in illustration of the amendment.

I strongly support the amendment because I feel certain that, while cross-examination is important, contact between the parties in a family proceedings, although much more spread out, is of critical importance. Things such as the arrangements for children to be with one parent or the other are often extremely difficult to work out. It requires personal and direct contact between the parties, because it is next to impossible to accommodate the needs of the parties without it. It is therefore extremely important that this is done with a fair amount of detail to allow representation to be made.

That is, in principle, already part of the government Bill, but the Magistrates’ Association—of which the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, is a good example—has great experience of how it should work, and the amendment seeks to work that out in some detail. I warmly support it because it is very well done. As I said on a previous occasion, the fact that the Magistrates’ Association supports it is a powerful reason for us to support it too.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Marks will speak to most of the amendments regarding court proceedings, but I am glad to be able to say a word on this one. I acknowledge that the Government recognise the need for measures to support victims of domestic abuse in various proceedings. Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, I think the very fact that Amendment 121 was tabled by a practitioner who has already shared with the Committee a lot of extremely useful experience, as he does on all occasions, and from the Magistrates’ Association, whose briefings I have always found very useful, pretty much makes the point. It is certainly very persuasive.

As I read it, the amendment would address what is meant by “engagement” in a particular context. As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, explained—his explanation was clear—in family cases the proceedings are generally not a single event but comprise a series of hearings. They are quite unlike proceedings in the criminal court or the civil court, where a discrete claim is dealt with. To use a bit of current jargon, I read this as enabling the court to be agile in applying, as it goes along, appropriate measures and making directions as it becomes clear that they are needed.

In an attempt not to oppose the amendment but to develop it, I have been wondering how it would—or maybe will—operate in practice. One assumes that there will be a need to find a lawyer for whatever reason, probably financial, and that the parties will have already considered that. Who will pay the lawyer, and pay enough for them to do a complete job, not just coming in at the last minute but understanding the whole background to the proceedings and taking full instructions? If the lawyer is appointed by the court, to whom is he responsible? Is the person he represents a client for all purposes? I absolutely take the point about the difficulty that litigants in person have, so finding ways to assist can only be to the good. I hope that these proposals can be taken forward.

Extradition (Provisional Arrest) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 5th March 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I did not expect it to go in this direction, but I thank the noble Lord for his explanation. I am left a bit thrown and not entirely satisfied. I decided that I would not bring my iPad into Committee to scroll up and down through the 2003 Act; I reckoned it could wait until later, but clearly I should do so.

If this provision is to mirror the 2003 Act, which talks about bringing someone before a court as soon as practicable and in any event within 48 hours, that still does not meet the provisions of new Section 74A(4) because, as I said, if someone is picked up on a Friday afternoon, 48 hours lands them on a Sunday. There is an important point of principle in this: the way it operates—the noble Lord used the term “workability”—in terms of the position of the Executive and the work it has to do with the police and the rights of the individual who is the subject of this. That is why the judiciary is involved: to ensure that that person’s rights are properly protected. It looks as if the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, wants to intervene.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

I shall wait until the noble Baroness has finished.

[Baroness Hamwee]

I think I pretty much have finished.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

I think the position is that, as times have changed and we are more modern than we once were, a judge is now available at all times to deal with this matter. Therefore, it is not necessary to leave out weekends or bank holidays because the reason that was put in was that the judge might not be there. Now, under the rules of the system, the person can have his case before the judge in the holidays because a judge is always there. Therefore, it needs to be changed to take account of that. That is my understanding. I hope the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, agrees with me.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, I will say a word on Amendment 9. I obviously agree with what has been said by a number of noble Lords about it. The views of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, suggest that a Minister putting forward a list would have to be mightily careful that the list was of all good, or at least equally good, countries. If there was a doubtful one it would have to be separate. That lesson should be taken to heart. It is very unwise to have a great big list where we are not sure about two or three countries, because we would just lose the whole lot. I suspect that we may be faced in due course with a fair group about which we have some knowledge already. I do not think that that has anything to do with the Bill, but it might be a consequence of granting this power. I imagine that any Minister contemplating this who wished to be successful would be very careful to leave a country out of a list of very good countries and have it in a separate list if he thought that it would risk the others.

I have my own view on how judges are appointed in the United States and am rather anxious that nothing of the sort should appear here. On the other hand, judges in the United States, although they may be appointed for various reasons, have responsibility as judges. The point about this matter is that extradition to the United States or any other country will be decided by a judge, though ultimately subject to the discretion of the Home Secretary. The judiciary here will be in charge of that and obviously the degree to which the explanation given by the United States carries weight will be quite important.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, this is an interesting group. With regard to the United States and one of the Five Eyes seeing things a bit differently, if this matter comes back on Report, as it may, it would be helpful if the Minister could explain to the House how the human rights criteria that will be applied at the judicial stage would apply in any given situation without using specific cases. That is part of the whole picture.

On Amendment 6 and my suggestion that the word “vary” be deleted, we are told that this is to future-proof the arrangements in case one part of a territory secedes. I find it difficult to envisage all this and I do not see why the Government would not in that situation just delete the original but add the substituted territory. On Amendment 7, I confess I need to read properly what the Minister said. On the criteria listed in Amendment 10, the Minister said that Parliament would have to reject a territory if the criteria were not met. Actually, that is not the way round the amendment is written. Parliament would not be required to reject it but a reference to a territory could be added “only if”. I think those are different; these are on minima.

However, I see absolutely no down side to agreeing the amendment which at the start I said was the most important of this group with respect to the position of the United States. The justification proposing it is that it is not common practice. That does not mean that it is good practice in every situation. I am absolutely with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who said that it is entirely consistent with support for the Bill. I will not follow his cricketing analogies because I will probably get them wrong again. As I said at Second Reading, we should not be in the business of bulk orders, if I may put it that way.

The Minister said that the affirmative resolution procedure gave Parliament the opportunity to scrutinise. Scrutiny means different things to different people, but it does not mean that you go straight from scrutiny to the remedy you are seeking. I do not think that it is an adequate response to an amendment which I really do not think would cause, as has been said, much more than a few more pieces of paper—a little more typing and standing up and sitting down. We will come back to this at the next stage. It ought to be such an easy one for the Government to concede to divert us from other amendments. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 6.

Criminal Finances Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 25th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, we want to see the Bill as strong as possible. I have a few questions on the noble Lord’s amendments but I am grateful to him for bringing these matters back to the House. Amendment 1 would require questions to be answered on oath. Like the noble Lord, I felt that the answer from the Dispatch Box at the previous stage did not take us a great deal further. The Minister said:

“It would already be a criminal offence for the respondent to knowingly or recklessly provide false or misleading information”.—[Official Report, 28/3/17; col. 496.]


Unexplained wealth orders are court orders, so my question—I am not sure whether it is to the noble Lord or the Minister—is: does contempt of court arise here? That is not to support the amendment or otherwise, but to flesh out understanding of the procedure.

On Amendment 2, has the noble Lord been more timid than necessary by referring to the respondent or others having taken the step of registration as a beneficial owner, rather than using the criterion that he is such an owner? I agree on compliance: one either complies or one does not. Surely purported compliance is not compliance. This is quite a difficult area in legislation and it should be clear, and not raise more questions about whether the criteria are fulfilled.

My final question is on government Amendment 6. Will the Minister explain why, unusually, “a person” does not include a body corporate? I was interested to see that it is apparently necessary to include a definition. The definition itself is interesting: if it is read literally, references include bodies corporate and so on, regardless of whether they hold or obtain property. Does that restrict which bodies corporate are the subject of this new provision? I gave the Minister notice of my question so I hope she will be in a position to assist the House. I reiterate our strong support for getting this Bill through. I have spoken as briefly as I can because I know the House wants to get on with it and do just that.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I support these amendments. I first came across unexplained wealth orders in Inland Revenue fraud proceedings where people had been accused of not paying their income tax. One of the methods of revealing that is by demonstrating that they suddenly have more wealth than their Revenue account suggests. Therefore, there is a question about whether the assets came from taxable income. That was the presumption at that time. That was before the terrific expansion of other forms of unexplained wealth that could arise. The explanation that someone had done something unlawful would not be a particularly good answer to a tax inquiry but perhaps that was not thought of. Certainly, that was a very useful tool in the armoury of the Inland Revenue in days past and is still so today. It is a very valuable method of dealing with this trouble. I find it very hard, however, to understand what is meant by purported compliance. As has just been said, it seems to me that you either comply or you do not. I must say that the explanation given in the draft practice system does not enlighten me any further. It suggests, indeed, that purported compliance covers certain aspects of non-compliance. It is a difficult definition to put in. I would have thought the measure would be better without it.

I raise questions with regard to the register. It is required to be done within six months of the passing of the Act. However, the commencement provisions of the Act allow the Act to come into force in accordance with regulations or orders made by the Secretary of State. I assume that the passing of the Act in this amendment is intended to refer to its getting Royal Assent. Strictly speaking, however, the Act comes into force only in accordance with orders made by the Secretary of State under the commencement provisions except in relation to certain aspects of that.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

The Minister said during the previous stage that the amendment that would insert “without reasonable excuse” would introduce considerable ambiguity and risk successful prosecutions. The amendment is down again today. We should consider it. The courts, the CPS and the police often have to assess whether something is reasonable so, as I read it, the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, is a matter not of ambiguity but of judgment, although I concede that if it was strict liability there would be no need of judgment.

For the reasons that the noble Lord gave, the reasonable cause—I accept that that is a more normal formula—in the government amendment is welcome, but I do not believe it goes far enough to provide a defence to someone who knows that he is illegal but who has been abused and exploited, perhaps at a lower level than is covered by the Modern Slavery Act. If it is within the Modern Slavery Act, the defence kicks in only after there has been a charge. I do not think I am alone in preferring to see a charge not even getting off the starting block.

Our Amendments 49 and 50 are in response to the Minister’s explanation in Committee that the clause is largely driven by the wish to bring it within the Proceeds of Crime Act. He assured the Committee that the Proceeds of Crime Act would not be applied to inappropriate targets:

“We are talking here about people who have on their person a significant amount of cash in excess of £1,000”.—[Official Report, 18/1/16; col 626.].

I took those words literally and our amendments are an attempt to reflect them because, if that is the policy, the legislation should say so. I accept that the CPS guidance is to prioritise the recovery of the proceeds of serious organised crime and serious economic crime and that the confiscation order must be proportionate, but to create an offence with the risks which have been referred to and which I will come to in a moment seems an inappropriate direction in which to go if there is such a clear view on the part of the Government about when it will be used.

We remain extremely concerned about Clause 32 as a whole, and my noble friend Lord Paddick and I have our names to Amendment 52 to leave it out because of the danger of an increase, not a reduction, in exploitation. As we discussed on the previous group, the Bill is about more than immigration. If you fear prosecution and imprisonment, is that not a greater deterrent to standing up for your rights? Someone working without the right to do so should not be exploited any more than someone with the right, but we think that the new offence may carry far more risks than it solves problems.

I suspect that the new offence, or at least casting it in this way, is probably quite totemic for the Government but, given the risks of applying the Proceeds of Crime Act, surely there are other ways to deal with the issue, such as the existing offences that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has referred to, rather than by giving abusers and exploiters even more ammunition and ways that they can say to workers, “We can really cause trouble for you. You are in a situation that you can’t get out of, and you are in terrible trouble if you try to go to the police, squeal on us or whatever”. Given that existing offences could be used to prosecute everyone who would fall within the new section, we remain unpersuaded that it is appropriate to include the clause in the Bill.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, in relation to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, as against the clause as introduced, the virtue of the clause as amended by the government amendment is that the prosecutor would have to prove that the person in question knew or had reasonable cause to believe that he was disqualified, whereas in Amendment 46, which was proposed by the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Kennedy of Southwark, the onus would be the other way: in other words, the defence would have to prove that the matter was done without reasonable cause. I think that that is the nature of the law in this matter. So in a sense the government amendment has greater protection for the person alleged to have committed the offence than Amendment 46 would have done.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I will speak also to Amendments 31, 32, 33 and 34. In view of the debate on the previous amendment, I should declare that some of my friends say that, when doctors ask the question, “Does anyone ever comment on your drinking?”, I should say yes because I drink so little. On the other hand, coffee and chocolate—now, there you are talking.

I am concerned about the definitions in Schedule 1. For example,

“‘caffeine products’ means any product which … contains caffeine, and … does not contain any psychoactive substance”.

I am bemused by this. It must mean “does not contain any other psychoactive substance”, in which case we should say so. We have heard that the Government will be responding to the Constitution Committee. I will not say that the committee was also bemused—that would be very disrespectful—but it pointed out some issues with the relationships between exemptions and so on. We await the response.

The first three amendments are all the same and the fourth one is, in essence, the same as the first three. The last amendment in this group refers to instruments relating to food. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, talked about the amount of EU regulation on this issue. I am interested in the words,

“the use of which in or on food is not authorised by an EU instrument”.

Should it not be “an EU or other applicable instrument”, which is what I am suggesting?

Even if there is no secondary legislation or any ruling which applies to this, perhaps we should future-proof it in case there is. I beg to move.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, the “other” must be implied and I see no reason why it should not be expressed. I think the amendment carries itself fairly easily.

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[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, I support both sets of amendments, on prisons and vulnerable children. It strikes me that these are quite clearly aggravating factors and we should do everything we can to prevent these drugs being introduced to prisons and to vulnerable children.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, Clause 6, I believe, replicates almost exactly the provision in the Misuse of Drugs Act. Without commenting on either of the areas of concern, although I quite understand the concern, my question to the Minister is: have the Government had any advice about extending the list of aggravating factors generally? Right at the start of Committee we raised the issue of a review of the Misuse of Drugs Act. This is the sort of thing that could well come within the scope of a review.

The Minister will explain to the Committee in a moment the one word which would be different from Section 4A of the Misuse of Drugs Act and that is in his Amendment 43 to Clause 6(6). The MDA talks about delivering a controlled drug to a third person. Like the original drafter of this provision, I would have thought that referring to a psychoactive substance is logical and if we take out the word “psychoactive”—unless we are going to be told that that is what we have to read into it—it would seem to mean that if someone under 18 delivering anything to another person in connection with an offence falls within this. But I had better not further anticipate what we will be told about this.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, when we talk about “banning”, we mean the substance being used to commit an offence under the Bill. There are two ways of reaching that conclusion. If you see someone taking a tablet or a substance and suddenly his mental state has been altered, cause and effect is likely to be demonstrated. The second way is that if you know the nature and qualities of substances, when you analyse the substance you may be able to do it that way too.

The important thing, however, is that it is not a question of the substance not being banned until you discover it: the definition applies right from the beginning. As the Minister said, when the Bill becomes law, substances with that character become the possible ways of committing the offence. The question of whether a particular substance is of that character can, I think, be approached in these two different ways, according to what is convenient in the circumstances of the individual case.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, before the noble Baroness responds, may I ask a question? It will display the depths of my ignorance, which will gratify the noble Lord, Lord Harris, who can never resist teasing me. If one has a herbal product and it is genetically modified, does that make the outcome synthetic, or does it remain herbal?

Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 36 in this group, and I have put my name also to the amendment moved by the noble Baroness. I shall take the amendments in the group in reverse order. Amendment 36 would provide that a compensation order could be made to reflect injury and so on resulting not just from the principal offence, if that is the way that one should describe it, but from other relevant offences taken into consideration by the court when it determines the sentence.

The amendment comes from Section 130 of the 2000 Act, which is the subject of Clause 10(1). When I read that section, I saw the reference to offences taken into account in sentencing and wondered whether it needed to be made explicit in the Bill. If it is implicit, fine; if it is not covered, it should be.

My comment on the noble Lord’s amendment is that while obviously we are on the same page as him, I would hope that any provision that results from this debate will allow for claims not only in the county court but in the High Court. The county court is the court for lower claims and the High Court for higher claims, as is the case with all civil claims. I think that we agree that the damage to individuals can sometimes be very great.

One of many reasons why a civil claim would be appropriate is that those who have survived forced labour, slavery or exploitation have different levels of vulnerability, different reactions and different responses. Some are more resilient than others. Current civil remedies may not provide a remedy for those who are resilient enough not to suffer an injury, such as a diagnosable psychiatric condition.

There are, of course, recognised bases for bringing civil claims in tort, contract and employment, but often they do not adequately reflect the gravity of the situation. I add to the mix the possibility of exemplary damages and perhaps civil remedies being available to be pursued against not only those who committed the offence but those who knew or ought to have known—I am picking up language from elsewhere—of the offence and who have benefited from it.

I conclude by saying that I am aware that, for some, the experiences they have suffered are articulated in comments such as, “Twelve years and no money”. That is the way that some victims are able to put it, because they cannot necessarily express everything that they have undergone, but many years for no pay is something keenly felt, and the noble Baroness’s amendment would meet that.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I wonder whether anything covered under Clauses 1, 2 and 4, creating these criminal offences, is not already, under the ordinary law, a civil wrong. If it is, it would carry a claim of damages and other remedies for civil wrongs with it, such as injunction. If I am wrong about that, this is a good move. On the other hand, if I happen to be right about it, the people who are wronged before this becomes law would have a right of action which the Bill cannot confer on them until it is enacted. I also wonder whether there may be more scope in the civil remedies that exist now in respect of the people who are involved in the perpetration—not the actual perpetrators, but those who organise it and are behind it; they are sometimes called the brains. Whether that is appropriate, I shall not comment. We need to think about that question in relation to this group of amendments. I am all in favour of having people who damage others under conduct which is made criminal by Clauses 1, 2 and 4 being subject to civil action. What I am wondering is whether that is not true already.