Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woolf]

I have the advantage of moving this amendment with the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. It deals with provision for female offenders, which is another area in which the criminal justice system has slowly—painfully so in this case—moved forward to recognising that female offenders have particular needs. The recognition of those needs, which are very great and cannot be disputed, is of the greatest importance if we are to achieve the purposes of the Bill with regard to avoiding reoffending.

There will always be a greater risk of females committing offences if their particular needs have not been taken into account. Of late, great strides have been made—I pay credit to the Government for this—in trying to give positive attention to this problem. There is now a Minister who has particular responsibilities here. Those in the criminal justice system who know her have great confidence in her, and I apprehend that what the amendment seeks to do is something the spirit of which both the department and the Government as a whole would support.

It is something that was considered very ably by the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, in her well known report dealing with female offenders, which has not been given sufficient attention until now. I hope that one result of the new approach indicated by the Offender Rehabilitation Bill will be to enable the Government to acknowledge the importance of that report and give effect to its provisions, as suggested in these clauses. They require that the Offender Management Act 2007 should be amended to require providers of probation services to make provision for the delivery of services for female offenders that take account of particular needs of women with regard to Section 3(2) and (5) of the 2007 Act.

It would be a huge encouragement to those who have been involved in trying to improve the facilities and arrangements for female offenders if this amendment were to be accepted. I hope the Minister will give it careful consideration in due course. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and, in particular, the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, drew attention to the importance of this at Second Reading. I mentioned the matter as well. I hope that enough has been said on this subject in recent times to enable the Minister to respond positively to these proposals. I beg to move.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to support the noble and learned Lord Woolf’s amendment, which is an important one. The best thing about this whole Bill is the emphasis on keeping people out of prison if you possibly can, dealing with their problems and the rehabilitation required to get them back into society, where they can play a useful role. It is very much at the heart of what we are trying to achieve.

However, I have to say that we are all puzzled about why women and their special needs are not part of the original Bill. They have been rather brushed to one side. The document, Transforming Rehabilitation: A Strategy for Reform, notes that quite a high proportion of the consultees themselves specifically wanted the special needs of women to be delivered on. The more one thinks about it, the more surprising it is that women have been put to one side, at least for the moment, despite the fact that the strategy makes the point also made by the Prison Reform Trust, with all its expertise, that,

“the review of the women’s custodial estate … will also strengthen services for women released from prison”.

However, it does not go on to explain how that will be done.

I want to emphasise several points before I sit down. Although I accept entirely the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, that carers come from both sexes, the vast majority of those caring for the children in a family and the heads of single-parent households are women. We know that many women prisoners themselves come from chaotic backgrounds and are likely to be have been abused in their own childhoods. As regards drug trafficking, quite a number of them—certainly the ones I have met in women’s prisons—have been used as mules for the purpose of transporting drugs at the request of their partners. All this shows that the one thing that must not happen, if it is humanly possible—of course there are exceptions where prison must play its part—is to send women to prison. It should be the last resort because it is the children who suffer. Often in such circumstances, the children have to be taken into care because the family home is broken up or the landlord can no longer accept the household.

I hope that we will be given an explanation of why specific attention has not been paid to women’s needs in this Bill. I know that we have been told that we will be given something later, but not taking these issues into account as the various plans unfold is something that I and others find puzzling and rather worrying. I shall give an example. A women’s prison is to be closed down because it is to be used to provide for the special needs of young offenders. That is fair enough, because those young offenders may well have special needs, but yet again one more place will no longer be available for women. No doubt it means that if they have to be sent to prison, they will be located even further away from their families.

I hope that all this will be taken into account and that we will be given an explanation of why women have been left to one side. I think that we need this more than anything else. I do not believe for a moment that the Government are thinking of women as second-class citizens, and yet that is very much the impression given by the fact that at this point, when we are looking at an important and valuable Bill, their needs are not being taken into account.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

I support Amendment 4 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, with the suggestion that “18” should be substituted by “21” in order to bring in this vital group. I thoroughly agree with her about the work being done by the Transition to Adulthood Alliance. Further than that, the probation service was the first to admit that it has not been very good at dealing with the 18-to-21 age group in the recent past, with the exception of three very good programmes: the intensive alternative custody programmes in Manchester, South Yorkshire and London, which have been mentioned before in this House. I am not sure that the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales, which was very happy to take on the responsibility for 18-to-21s in custody is quite so happy having them under the youth offending teams, which are very much geared to the under-18s. On the other hand, I know that the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales is more than happy to work closely with the probation service in developing these adult services. I therefore hope that, in considering the rehabilitation of this vulnerable and impressionable group, the Minister will agree that the probation service experience in Manchester should be exploited and spread further. I know that it is poised to make an advance on where it had already reached.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, may I add one thing to what my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham has said, as well as supporting both the amendments? Very many of the young people who will be in custody or will have gone through this process will also have been in care with the local authorities. It is therefore even more important that special attention is given to them above the age of 18. I particularly support that aspect of the proposals.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, in supporting the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater. She has a strong point in Amendment 2 on the need to avoid rigidity in the system, to look at particular individuals’ needs and to ensure that supervision is proportionate and flexible according to the circumstances of the case. There is some danger, under the Bill’s present formulation, that that will be rather more difficult than it should be.

I am also particularly enthusiastic about Amendment 4. It seems that continuity is critical here, particularly as the people we are looking at are themselves in a state of transition. It does not seem helpful that those who supervise and assist such people should change in the course of that transition. Of course, there has to be some cut-off point, and the age of 21 is reasonable. I hope that the Minister will look sympathetically at that. It also strikes me that it may be a more cost-effective way of dealing with offenders in that category, because you do not have the process of handing over and entering into separate contractual arrangements with a different organisation and all the rest of it when you have already got a provider with a budget and contract which should be capable of being extended if required under the circumstances of the case.

I hope that the noble Lord will undertake to have a look at this and come back on Report. It seems sensible and quite consistent with the approach that the Government seek to pursue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Judd]

I hope noble Lords will forgive me but, to make a clean breast of it, I came in when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, was in mid-stream. I just feel I cannot sit here without saying that I think this group of amendments is crucial. It puts into perspective what we are doing. Are we primarily about finding alternative means of punishment or are we primarily about rehabilitation? If we are about rehabilitation, it must be tailored to the individual concerned. If this in any way makes the rehabilitation to full, productive membership of society more difficult—and we all know that in many cases it is because people’s lives are in chaos that they end up in these situations—then we are not helping at all. These amendments are there to strengthen the intention of the Bill, if it really is about rehabilitation.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

I added my name to one of the amendments tabled by my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf, rather thinking that they would be grouped together. That was perhaps the result of not being allowed the time to get our act together, but I suppose I must apologise. I hope my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf will be happy if I speak to this amendment and associate it with the other amendment. As well as supporting everything that has been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and by my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf on this issue, my particular concern is for the effect on the families of female offenders. I am concerned about their special needs because, as we all know, these women often have mental health problems and, I am sad to say, they have often been abused as young women. There is a lot of history of that. Drink and drugs also figure quite highly. But above all, the actual offences committed are often of a very minor nature. I can remember a visit to a women’s prison on one occasion and being asked by the women concerned why they had such harsh sentences compared with what a man would get for a similar offence.

Going back to the effect on the family, we need to know how many homes are broken up as a result of women being given a prison sentence, because that is a huge cost. If we are thinking, as we must, of financial costs as well as emotional and family costs, and of the long-term effect on the children of that family and their need to be taken into care, this should rate very highly on the list of considerations when sentences are being passed. I back what has been said by other Members, and I hope the Minister will be able to address these points and reassure us that by the time we come to Report there will be a much more satisfactory framework for what is intended for women offenders.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I support my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf on Amendment 7. I understand that at this moment the Justice Select Committee in the other place is conducting an inquiry into women offenders. One of the areas on which it has had a lot of evidence of concern is payment by results. With reference to what we were told yesterday about cohorts, I presume that women offenders will be separate cohorts as far as payment by results is concerned and that the results that have to be achieved will be tailored to women and very carefully considered.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

My Lords, I will speak also to Amendments 16 and 17 in this group. All the amendments are in my name and in the names of my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lord Dholakia. Our amendments concern sanctions for the breach of supervision requirements. Clause 3 deals with such sanctions. Noble Lords will have seen that failure to comply with supervision requirements may lead to information being laid before a justice and to the issue of a summons, with or without an arrest warrant, as appropriate. On proof of a breach of supervision requirements without reasonable excuse, it is proposed by new Section 256AC(4) that the court may do one of four things. First, it may impose a sentence of 14 days in prison or in a young offender institution, as appropriate. Secondly, it may impose a fine. Thirdly, it may impose an unpaid work requirement. Fourthly, it may impose a curfew requirement. The clause is permissive, so it would be open to a court also to take no action. However, as drafted, the clause establishes no test for when action is or is not appropriate.

As has been pointed out, the Secretary of State very helpfully attended a meeting of all Peers yesterday and explained the purposes of new Section 256AC(4). The first purpose was, effectively, punishment. He explained that because this section is concerned with offenders who have been sentenced to prison and who then on release are subject to supervision requirements, it should be made clear that if the offender does not comply with those requirements, there will be a penal sanction. That effectively is why the four sanctions that I listed—imprisonment, a fine, unpaid work or a curfew requirement—are penal in nature.

The second purpose he outlined was personal deterrence. He explained that offenders should not think that the supervision requirements are in any sense voluntary, and that if they choose to ignore them or fail to comply with them, nothing will happen. He might have added that there should also be an element of public deterrence, so that the world will know that if offenders disobey supervision requirements, they will be liable to penal sanctions.

Those propositions may be sound; I do not dissent from them. However, they do not advance rehabilitation, which is the purpose of the Bill. Furthermore, offenders on release from short sentences are, as the Government and many noble Lords have pointed out, particularly fallible. It may be that in many cases a court would take the view that instead of imposing one of the four penal sanctions, it would be better in the interests of rehabilitation for the supervision requirements previously imposed by the Secretary of State to be varied. It may be that they should be varied to stronger requirements or to requirements that are better targeted to the particular needs of the offender, which may have been revealed by the breach of the requirements that had been imposed earlier—or by the proceedings taken after the breach and the investigation before the magistrates in court when the breach was looked at.

The possible requirements that can be imposed are to be found in Schedule 1. They cover a broad range and are very flexible. It is right that an offender may start with a very relaxed regime but a court may take the view on investigation that although the breach of those requirements justifies the imposition of a much tighter regime, it does not require one of the four penal sanctions. Amendment 16 would allow the court to recommend to the Secretary of State that the requirements be varied. Why should they be varied on the Secretary of State’s recommendation? It is because the notice imposing requirements comes from the Secretary of State by virtue of new Section 256AA. I accept that it is therefore right that the court’s power should be to make a recommendation for the Secretary of State to vary the requirements rather than to make an order imposing such a variation. The proposed scheme allows the court much more flexibility than it has under the Bill as drafted. That flexibility would both be useful and advance the cause of rehabilitation.

Amendments 13 and 17 are designed to ensure that the courts have some guidance about the proper response to a breach. Noble Lords will remember that at Second Reading, concerns were rightly expressed by a number of Peers, including the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle, that the purpose of the Bill, which is rehabilitation, might be frustrated by the excessive imposition of sanctions for breach. As the Bill is presently drafted, the court has no indication as to when it ought or ought not to impose a sanction. Amendment 13 would give a clear direction as to what should be the court’s approach to a breach of supervision requirements. It would impose a threshold test so that the power to impose sanctions would be exercisable where the court was satisfied that the interests of justice require a sanction to be imposed. While I accept that it may be said that that can be inferred from the permissive nature of the power, it seems to me that the purpose and the test should be expressed on the face of the Bill. Amendment 17 would help to secure some policy consistency and uniformity in the imposition of sanctions by requiring that the Sentencing Council should publish guidelines in respect of the imposition of sanctions for breach of supervision requirements.

These amendments introduce flexibility to allow for the appropriate treatment of individual offenders and individual cases of breach. They are in the interests of rehabilitation which the Bill is designed to promote. They do not undermine the policies which the Secretary of State outlined yesterday and which he rightly wishes to implement in pursuit of that policy. I therefore invite my noble friend the Minister and his department to consider them on that basis. I beg to move.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, my Amendment 14, which is very similar in many ways to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, would help to ensure that the purpose of the new supervision period is primarily rehabilitative by removing custody as a sanction for technical breach of requirements. It would retain the sanctions available to the courts of imposing a fine or a supervision default order imposing either an unpaid work requirement or a curfew requirement. The option of recall to custody for breach of conditions during the licence period is unaffected.

The Prison Reform Trust—it is good to see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, in his place—has had many tributes paid to it to which I add my own for the invaluable work it does in the whole of this area. It is particularly concerned that, without additional safeguards, the proposals will result in an increase in breach and recall to custody, which will drive up the short sentenced prison population. As the Transforming Rehabilitation consultation acknowledges, many people serving short prison sentences have complex and multiple problems, including homelessness, unemployment, drug and alcohol addictions, mental health needs and learning disabilities. This in turn increases the likelihood of breach and recall to custody if sanctions imposed for non-compliance are too onerous or the period of licence or supervision is too long.

By limiting custody as an option for breach, the amendment should help to reduce the costs of extending statutory supervision to short sentenced prisoners. The risk of breach and recall to custody is acknowledged but not quantified in the impact assessment. It states:

“There will be court costs associated with breaches of this provision and costs of providing sanctions for these breaches. These will include additional pressure on the prison population arising out of offenders being recalled to custody and further electronic monitoring starts. Initial estimates of these costs are of the order of £25 million per year”.

In addition, the impact assessment states:

“There may be an additional burden to the police from extending supervision in the community to offenders released from custodial sentences of less than 12 months, as police time will be needed to deal with offenders who fail to comply with the conditions of supervision. Our initial estimate is that this could cost up to £5 million per year”.

The rise in the number of recalls has been identified by the Ministry of Justice as a key driver of the growth in the prison population over the past two decades. The recall population has grown rapidly since 1993, increasing by more than 55 times. The recall population increased by 5,300 between 1993 and 2012. Growth in the recall population began in 1999, reflecting the change to the law in 1998 which extended executive recall to medium-term sentences—12 months to less than four years.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, we should all be grateful for two aspects of the Bill before us: first, that it has come directly to your Lordships’ House, with the experience and strong expertise of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, in charge of it—albeit with many material government facts and figures by which to judge it still remaining to be disclosed—and, secondly, that in the Secretary of State for Justice’s strategy for reform he has accepted that short sentences serve little, if any, useful purpose, and cost the taxpayer huge sums. As he said on 9 May, and we have heard again from the noble Lord, almost half of all offenders released from our prisons offend again with a year, and the 58% of those with the most prolific reoffending rates are those sentenced to prison for less than 12 months.

So, all have accepted that change is essential and that to continue with the status quo is not the right way to go, as what existed before was valueless for both taxpayers and victims of crime alike. The Criminal Justice Alliance, among others, welcomes this focus on short-term prisoners, who currently get no support on release yet have very high reoffending rates. The concept of resettlement, which was mentioned, is an attractive idea, with appointed mentors to help offenders to get back constructively into their community and find employment or training and, at least as important, somewhere to live. If it is begun a few months before the offender is released, it is even more likely to succeed.

Although, as has been said, many questions remain to be answered, the Government’s plans for dealing with low-level crime make sense, especially the one calling for rehabilitation to be provided to all 50,000 of the most prolific reoffenders—those who are sentenced to less than 12 months in prison. However, the biggest question mark remains over just how this is to be financed.

Importantly, too, the Secretary of State has also acknowledged, as has the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that although serious offenders must be imprisoned, many come from chaotic backgrounds, have complex problems and addictions and have lived much of their life within the care system, and more must be done to help them get their lives back on track—not, as now, just releasing them from prison on to the streets with that famous £46 in their pockets. I hope that the Minister will share more of his plans, including the likely financial cost for this group of offenders, when he responds to the debate. Will the Government consider commissioning research to see how many generations back similar offending patterns have existed in the families of this group of offenders?

There are obviously many essential questions about the Bill that I hope will be answered by the Minister in his reply or during later stages. However, for me and many others, the most important question of all is the glaring omission of any specific policies for dealing with women offenders. That is despite the Government’s acknowledgement in their Transforming Rehabilitation strategy of the widespread support among those consulted that services specifically tailored to women offenders’ needs should be delivered by those chosen as the commissioned providers. The highly worrying assertion that opening up the probation service to market forces will strengthen services for women released from prison, as the Prison Reform Trust says, lacks an explanation of how this will be achieved via an untested payment by results scheme. It will probably mean, as the Magistrates’ Association also points out, that only large corporations can take the financial risk involved, not the small voluntary organisations which have experience in this area of work already. As I said in my comments on the humble Address, this continues the destruction of the probation service which the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Coles, began under the previous Government with his suggested probation reforms, and continues to ignore the damage this approach would be doing to our highly trained, really invaluable probation service and the vital service it provides for the community, the courts and individual offenders.

While on the subject of women offenders and their special needs, do we have any accurate figures of how many members of a woman’s immediate family are affected if she is given a prison sentence? We all know that the vast majority of those looking after these children are women—mothers rather than fathers—and that therefore a highly likely result of a prison sentence for a female offender is for her children to be taken into care, resulting in considerable extra public cost as well as inevitable long-term emotional damage for the children concerned. How much better to ensure, as the Prison Reform Trust points out, that the majority of low-level offences—and most offences committed by women are just that—are dealt with by cost-effective, robust community sentence penalties made available to courts in all areas of England and Wales.

Noble Lords will have heard some details of this again from the introduction of the noble Lord, Lord McNally. Can the Minister tell us what action and incentives are planned to ensure that a range of community services is uniformly available across the country to help prevent at least the unnecessary break-up of families?

I have not yet mentioned the generally welcome news for women offenders—indeed, for us all—of the creation of a women’s ministerial advisory board, led by Justice Minister Helen Grant. Returning to the issue of offending patterns continuing over generations within the same family, can the Minister also consider commissioning research here to see if the breakup of families by a mother’s unnecessary imprisonment leads to a repeat pattern of offending over generations? I put this idea forward because such evidence would help to make the already strong money-saving case even stronger for a full implementation of Frank Field and Graham Allen’s early-intervention strategy.

Apart from today’s speeches, I shall look forward to the debates on the Bill during all its stages. With the considerable expertise in your Lordships’ House, it is certain to arrive in the other place in very much improved shape—if the Government listen.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

My Lords, I too support this amendment. Those who work at the front line with women who come before the courts share the frustration voiced by my noble friend Lady Corston. So much time has passed since her report that it is a serious failure for us as a nation that we have not dealt with this issue of women offenders and the best way of responding to it. I know that the Minister is well aware of the statistics. About 80% of the women who come before the courts are victims, brought up in homes where domestic violence was part of the round or where they were sexually abused. They are more victims than many who readily bear that title. Over 60% of them suffer from mental illness and 66% are mothers with children. When we send them to prison, we actually visit the effects on whole families, bringing the care system into play. Housing is often lost and the consequences are dire.

Real speed is needed to respond to this. I attended a conference only a week ago chaired by the previous Chief Inspector of Prisons, Dame Anne Owers. The room was full of people who work on the front line in the probation service. All said that they hoped the Government would take urgent action. I support the amendment but I also want us to say that my noble friend Lady Corston did an absolutely vital piece of work. It reiterated what many people had said before, recently in Scotland by Dame Elish Angiolini. I hope that the Government will see that this is a story that has been told over and over again. Somehow we have to respond with greater speed than has happened so far.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, as someone who has put her name to amendment after amendment on this issue of why on earth we did not include women in a Bill on crime and courts, I hope that the Government will do something about it. The Corston report is totally brilliant. We have all agreed that. It set out the areas that needed attention and not just that: we all know that there were many reports before it. It is not just a question of five years, but of report after report making special recommendations about the needs of women offenders. We all know the degree of mental health problems and sexual and other forms of abuse that these women have had over the years. Equally, we know of the terrible damage to children when families are broken up and children taken into care.

Returning to what my noble friend said about young offenders, I was looking at a report by the probation inspectorate. Ofsted and, I think, Estyn did a sample looking at the support that these young people had. Many of them have, no doubt, come from homes such as this, and have been in care for goodness knows how long. More than a third of these children examined by the inspectorate were placed more than 100 miles from home, and a lot of them were found in situations where they were almost next door to offenders. One was found having sex with a 15 year-old boy in a children’s home. It is not exactly a pretty picture.

Although we did not manage to reach these amendments on the days that we were promised they would be reached, and therefore could not vote on them and cannot vote on them now, will the Government please think very hard about making these changes? I have waited a long time this afternoon and have not taken up time on other amendments. We should not wait just because we have a brilliant Minister; I am sure that she is brilliant. Above all, I hope that we can now ensure that mention is made in the Bill of the needs of women, who are a very important group.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I hope I will be forgiven if I contribute briefly to this debate because I have taken little part in it hitherto. However, I cannot resist rising to speak strongly in favour of Amendment 10.

I started my life in the legal profession traipsing around the magistrates’ courts of eastern England. For several years, I said to myself at the end of every day that there but for the grace of God would I have gone. We are an extraordinary race. We are so intelligent and forward-thinking in many ways, yet when it comes to penal affairs, we have an extraordinary ability to fail to see our own best interests. Today, we would all agree that community life is at a low ebb, and the weaker that the communities of this country are, the greater the likelihood of certain groups of young adults casting themselves adrift and offending against the mores of society, which, unfortunately, they often do.

We are in a society obsessed with money, celebrity and sex. There is a group of young men and women who think nothing of themselves and are thought nothing of. They have succeeded at nothing and failed at everything. Educationally, they are a failure. They have little prospects, little ambition, little self-esteem and no respect. It is this group who Amendment 10 seeks to help. Again and again, we allow our distaste for the behaviour of many of these young people to stand in the way of intelligent redress. It is in our self-interest to ensure that this amendment, or something like it, is passed and that Governments of all persuasions are required to do something specific about it. It is for those reasons that I strongly support Amendment 10.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers]

My Lords, I endorse everything that has been said thus far in criticism. In my time, I have acted as a sentencer and done a touch of community service. As I understand it, the requirements referred to in the amendment are the requirements under Section 177 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 that can be made when a community order is imposed. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has said, they all require the offender to do something which he or she would otherwise probably not choose to do, so they all have an element of punishment or sanction.

How is this amendment to work? Is the sentencer to be bound to impose one of the requirements by way of a community order exclusively by way of punishment or does the sentencer merely have to say, “I am imposing this not merely for the purpose of rehabilitation but also to punish you”? If it is the latter, the effect is purely cosmetic. If it is the former, the effect, I would submit, is even less desirable.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I support the approach of my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham to the whole of this schedule. We have been over this ground before. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has pointed out, punishment is in the sentence. The important scenario is how that sentence is to be worked out for the rehabilitation of the offender, with the effort being to see that that offender does not return to the court. As we all know, all too often that is not the case.

My other concern is that we have had no result—again, this was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham —from the Government on the probation consultation. For us to be asked to make judgments at this stage without having in front of us all the facts about who will do a lot of this very necessary, specialised work, is not acceptable. Frankly, I do not want any of the alternatives that have been suggested but, if others are prepared to keep this whole section in and I had to choose, I would go for that suggested by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. Then it would be left to the judges to make the decision, which is the way in which we have in the past treated, and should continue to treat, the judicial system.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, alongside those who have already spoken, I humbly subscribe my support for this amendment. If ever there was an argument on the part of government that has been shot through and shattered, this is it. If ever there was a piece of legislation where there was an overwhelming and unanswerable case against it, this, in my respectful submission, is it. I appreciate the argument put forward on 30 October by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, when he mildly, with considerable charm, chastised me. He said that it is wrong to argue that a Government should take a view which is different from the policy that has been established by judges over a long period of time. I think I do him fairness in summarising it in that way. He must be right. Parliament is sovereign and supreme. Judges do their best within the limits set down by law, but they can—and should, on occasion—be overruled by Parliament. That is what Parliament is about.

However, I believe that there should be a qualification to that rule: Parliament should never do that, and certainly should never circumscribe the discretion of judges, properly and justly used, unless a case had been made for that, and that case would rest on facts. In my submission, this case does not rest on facts at all. It rests much more on some form of political prejudice. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, on 30 October, quoted a speech made by the Prime Minister on 22 October dealing with this particular matter. These were the words used by the Prime Minister on that occasion:

“‘At every single level of sentence this Government is getting tougher ... we are toughening up community sentences too. If you are on a community sentence you will be supervised-you will be properly punished-you will be forced to complete that sentence’.”.—[Official Report, 30/10/12; col. 523.]

It seems to me—and I made the point in a general way on the previous occasion—that essentially the Prime Minister was talking about including some element of hurt in a sentence. That is not the same thing as punishment.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has already made the point that the fact that a person, with the sanction of the law, is enjoined to do something that he may not wish to do, is of itself a punishment. He is subjected to the sovereignty of the court in that respect. I would argue further that the very fact that a person is convicted of a criminal offence, and that stain will be on his escutcheon for ever, even with all the ameliorations of the 1974 Act, is of itself a punishment. However, what is asked for here is something that society regards as hurting the offender. The rationale behind it seems to be that society in some way, through the courts, has failed to recognise that essential element of hurt. In other words, it is saying, “You are namby-pamby. You are soft. You are far too liberal in your attitude in this matter. You are not tough enough”. There is no evidence whatever to support that contention.

As far as the probation service is concerned, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has shown quite clearly that it is tough, it is not soft and it is succeeding. The vast majority of cases are dealt with satisfactorily up to level 3; indeed, some of them up to level 4. No professional body could be expected to do better than that. Where is the evidence of the failure to exercise the element of harshness and pain—for that is what the Prime Minister was talking about?

It is entirely proper for a Government, where they are justified in doing so, to circumscribe the discretion that lies with any judge. I think that both Governments have been doing it a little too liberally over the past 20 years. Be that as it may, where they genuinely believe that there is such a case, they are entitled and indeed, one might say, obliged to do so. The case has not been made. If the Government cannot come forward with any hard evidence at all, they will, in effect, be relying on what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, described really as a cosmetic and rather vulgar attitude, where they will be seeking a populist commendation for something that is utterly unworthy.

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[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, in supporting Amendment 14, to which I have added my name, I shall speak also to Amendment 20, which noble Lords will note has virtually the same wording as Amendment 14 and for the same reasons. As the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, has made abundantly clear, the needs of women as regards community sentences in particular are currently not being satisfied. Indeed, we are still waiting for the Government’s paper on strategic priorities for women, which we have been expecting for some time.

In his answers to the debate we had on 30 October, the Minister mentioned that there had been success with young offenders. In fact, for young offenders, one has to read “children” because the success has been with the under-18s, led by the Youth Justice Board. There is then a gap, which is variously described as being those between 18 and 21 or 18 and 25. That debate has been raging for ages. It means that there is a gap in the provision for people of a very vulnerable age who are in transition to adulthood. I must commend to the House the remarkable work done by the alliance which has the name Transition to Adulthood. I shall mention in particular two documents published by the alliance. One is called Pathways from Crime: Ten steps to a more effective approach for young adults in the criminal justice process. The other is Going for Gold, which was published last week. It has a bronze, silver and gold approach to community sentencing, which I commend to the Government.

In commenting on community sentences, Pathways from Crime recommends:

“The few existing examples of young adult specific community interventions that exist across the country should be replicated nationally, and similar effective interventions should be available to all sentencers when sentencing a young adult”.

I say “hear, hear” to that. I admit that I was slightly, I hope, confused when in an answer on 30 May the Minister hinted that instead of young adult community sentences being handed to the probation service to administer, they were going to be handed to local authorities. I am worried about that because one of the recent successes in this neglected area, as the House has heard many times, is the intensive alternatives to custody programme. It has been piloted in Manchester, South Yorkshire, London and other places, and was very valuably evaluated by Matrix Knowledge, which proved the value that the programme presented in terms of preventing reoffending.

The probation service has neglected this group for too long, although now, having tasted success with these programmes, it is very anxious to get into the game. I believe it is very important that, instead of leaving provision for this group up to individual local authorities, it should be made clearly the responsibility of the probation service so that intensive alternatives to custody and other programmes can be developed nationally and, therefore, have some hope of consistency.

I am very glad that the subject has been studied with such assiduity by Transition to Adulthood because, in its work, it is filling in a great gap which has existed for too long. On 25 July, the Minister told me that there was going to be a commissioning strategy for young adults from the Ministry of Justice, which we still await. However, I hope that by raising the issue at this stage two very important gaps—women and young adults—can be properly looked after in the community sentencing arrangements, which the Government say in Schedule 16 they intend to introduce.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I will be very brief. I support both the amendments. They are vital and I hope that they will be adopted fully by the Government. As the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater of Butterstone, has said, it is an extraordinary situation, after all the reports that there have been over the years, that still no special arrangements have been made for women offenders. We know that so many of them have suffered. Around half the women in prison have suffered domestic violence and one in three has been sexually abused. Most of them entering custody have committed non-violent offences. I remember going around a women’s unit some time ago where a radio and television station had been set up and they were being trained to be interviewers as well as the technicians on it. I was asked quite deliberately why I thought it was that women got more severe sentences than men who had committed equivalent crimes. I did not have much of an answer at that stage, but when I checked on it I found that what they said was very accurate. They were being penalised much more strongly.

The noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, made a very important point about the children affected by this. It is absurd to break up families, particularly those that consist of just mothers and children. Quite often the fathers fall by the wayside when the mother goes in to prison. It is not just the break-up of the home that is traumatic—the home is often repossessed—but there is also the effect on the children of suddenly losing their mother and perhaps having to go into care. That is quite unnecessary if working together with the mother and the family can produce the best answer. I am quite certain that in the right circumstances it can.

I believe that Amendment 20, spoken to so effectively by my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham, is also crucial. We know that the cycle of deprivation concentrates on that particular group that comes in and out of prison, and so many of them are in that young age group. We are told that some of the reasons for this may well be that a lot of facilities available for children begin to fade away—the Prison Reform Trust has done an excellent briefing on all of this—and yet these children still have time to mature into adults and do not go through that transition until full adulthood which is reached at the age of about 22.

I hope that some of the experiments that have been reported on will be taken to heart. You have to have both the experienced and the expert there to help the young. Finding jobs or training is crucial if they are to be given an alternative to going back into the cycle. As well as the help of professionals, back-up with things such as HomeStart and people who know how to be supportive within a family are crucial for getting the young offender back on the right path. As we have heard already, there are experiments that have worked. Let us please ask the Government to back them. I am sure that they have exactly the same interests as we all have in this direction, so it is just a question of making certain that we get the right facilities and the right framework to enable this to happen.

[Lord Rosser]

I will be very brief and say that we support the thrust of what has been said. We will listen carefully to the Minister’s reply, particularly if the Minister feels unable to accept the amendments.

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[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, Amendment 17 is a small but significant amendment and I am going to be told that the word “wants” is defined somewhere else. We now go into provisions about the disclosure of information. The amendment is to the paragraph allowing for further disclosure, once it has been disclosed through the first few parts of paragraph 27, to another relevant person, which is of course defined,

“who wants social security information or finances information”.

I suggest that “wants” is a very wide term. I can want something but I do not need it. We all know children who “need” sweeties or whatever, but they do not really: they want them. An official could want information because it makes life that much easier. “Requires” would be the proper term here. There should be an appropriate, underlying—I am struggling for a synonym —need, underlying requirement, necessity or something very close to necessity. It should not just make life a bit easier for the person who is asking for it. One might almost have referred, “to another relevant person who asks for it”. That would certainly have been too wide and “wants” is quite close to that. I beg to move.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, when I read the amendment I thought it absolutely appropriate to use the word that has been supplied. I very much hope that the Government will accept “requires” instead of “wants”.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

My Lords, I speak to Amendments 18 and 19 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hamwee.

Amendment 18 concerns information disclosed to a court, under the same paragraph—paragraph 27 of Schedule 16—as my noble friend’s earlier amendment; it relates to social security information and information to be disclosed by HMRC relating to a defendant’s finances. In both cases, the information is disclosed to assist the court in inquiring into the defendant’s financial circumstances. Sub-paragraphs (3) and (5) of paragraph 27 limit the purposes for which the disclosure is to be made and used—broadly for the purpose of assisting the court in dealing with the offender, with a general prohibition on further and wider disclosure. So far, that all seems entirely appropriate, but sub-paragraph (7)(b) appears to allow such information to be disclosed much more widely and outside the ambit of the proceedings before the court concerning the defendant, provided only that the information is summarised—what is sometimes called “gisted”—and anonymised by framing it in such a way that the defendant is not identified. That allows disclosure of social security and HMRC information relating to the finances of the offender for purposes other than his sentencing which was the purpose for which the information was originally obtained from the government bodies concerned.

What is the point of sub-paragraph (7)(b)? If there is a point to this collection of information, is this Bill and is this Schedule the place for its introduction? If we are to widen powers to obtain and use information in this gisted and anonymised form, then provisions authorising that should form part of a Bill concerning the collection of such information and not be added by a side wind in this way to a schedule which concerns sentencing and information required to assist the court with that sentencing.

Amendment 19 would ensure that, where social security or financial information about a defendant is obtained from the relevant government departments, the defendant must be shown that information and be told to whom it has been disclosed. It is fundamental that a defendant, about whom confidential financial information is obtained from government in connection with proceedings against him, should be entitled, as of right, to see that information to enable him to challenge and explain it, to know the information upon which the court is asked to act and also to know the identity of anyone to whom it has been disclosed. The paragraph, as drafted, permits such disclosure to him, or at least it does not prohibit it, by sub-paragraph (7)(a), but it does not require it and it should.

Will the Minister consider accepting the amendments or at least take them away and come back with amendments to the same effect?

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[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham has asked me to say that he will of course carefully read Hansard and the Minister’s reply but, at this stage, he does not wish to move the amendment.

Amendment 20 not moved.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak, but I strongly support the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. I add my congratulations on restorative justice, although the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, were such that I hope that the Government will listen carefully to them.

Punishment needs to fit the crime, there is no doubt about that, but I share alarm—alarm really is the word—about the use of the words “punitive element” and the requirement for punishment, because it is only in exceptional circumstances that one would not go down that path. There will be many circumstances which are not exceptional where it would be unjust or inappropriate to make an order that was seen as a requirement of punishment. I urgently ask the Minister to rethink that part of the proposals.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, at last I rise. I will try to be relatively brief.

Like other noble Lords who have spoken, I remain puzzled and more than a little exasperated as to why the Government feel that they need to write the word punishment into everything to do with sentencing. Surely, we all know that a court sentence is indeed a considered punishment for the crime. I share to some extent the view of my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham that what has been appearing recently has been playing to the two Galleries.

The other concern that I share with my noble friend is that the whole position of the probation service has not been made clear at this time, so that the two issues could be considered together. Like other Members who have spoken, I have huge regard for the probation service and the work that it has done over many years, going back to my time as chairman of a juvenile court many years ago. Every report on what it is doing, the levels that it has achieved and the prizes that it has been getting indicates what a good job it is doing. The idea that that vital role is to be outsourced to people who are less well trained worries me a lot.

On restorative justice, I must admit that I am a little concerned about the cost which the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, told us will be necessary before it can be introduced. I very much welcome the idea of it being available, especially at that important moment between conviction and sentencing. I hope that there will be improvements there.

As others have said, we know that community sentences are increasingly being used for lesser crimes. Of greater importance is the fact that they are 8.3% more successful than short prison sentences in reducing reoffending. One has only to think of the number of contacts that you make once in prison that will encourage you to get further involved in crime at a later stage to realise the sheer common sense of that.

Equally welcome would be rather more definition of the exceptional circumstances that can be brought into play. I hope that we are going to get more of a response from the Government about that because it will always be relevant when sentencing vulnerable disabled offenders, younger adults and, even more importantly in many ways, not least with regard to cost, women. It is logical that every effort should be made to keep that group out of prison, not least as their offences are usually minor and they themselves have often been the victims of sexual or other kinds of violent crime. We must also remember—hopefully, all courts do—that any imprisonment may well mean that the children have to be taken into care. Think of the cost, both financial and in terms of the upbringing and disruption of that child’s life. Again, if the accommodation is repossessed by the landlord, who knows? The whole family could be broken up. That, again, is a real concern.

I shall touch on another important issue that has been mentioned: the punitive elements could mean that the rehabilitative elements are unable to be proceeded with. We need proper reassurance that there will not be any nonsense about an imposed curfew or unpaid work, meaning that an offender cannot get the mental health treatment that they need or indeed go to the drug rehabilitation centre. That is such an obvious point that I hope it can be dealt with quickly.

On the issue of tagging, I know that a great deal is going on regarding improvements in these techniques. I am particularly concerned about this because of the use that this can be put to when dealing with not just violent offenders but ones who might have been involved in stalking, whose victims have already suffered huge amounts of sexual and other forms of violence. I would like to hear much more about that. I shall leave it at that—speakers at the end should be as brief as possible.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

My Lords, in my contribution I cannot lay claim to the same expertise that other noble Lords have brought from acting on the Bench as judges and magistrates, but I am familiar with some of these aspects. It may surprise the Minister to know that I am not riding to his rescue this evening; in fact, I find a lot of the contributions that have been made up to this point extremely persuasive.

For my part, I make it plain that I support the appropriate use of community sentencing, and in that sense I support the move by the Government. I may be remembered, along with my colleague Mr Blunkett, for introducing indeterminate sentences, which was for the element of protection, not punishment. In their wisdom, the present Government have taken a different view, which they are entitled to.

The one time when I got into real trouble was when I reminded the judiciary that the introduction of indeterminate sentences for those from whom the public needed protection, in our view, was supposed to be balanced by the ending of custodial sentences for those who should not have been in prison—in other words, for exhorting the appropriate use of community sentencing. I did so at the invitation of the Lord Chief Justice, but I was attacked by every judge in Britain except the Lord Chief Justice for reminding them of the original thinking behind the balance of indeterminate and community sentences. I am for community sentences. I am also very supportive of restorative justice, if for no other reason than that it appears to work from the point of view of the victim and for the rehabilitation of offenders.

On community sentencing, I am puzzled about why it is felt necessary to introduce the requirement that the purpose of punishment be explicitly recorded—I am careful not to use the word “mandated”—as one of a range of requirements upon the judiciary. I am therefore left to work on the basis of formal and informal press briefings. I recognise from my experience that the press do not always reflect accurately the reality of a Minister’s thinking, so I do not want to assume they are 100% accurate, but we are led to believe that it is necessary because this is what the public demand. I am not sure that that is the main concern of the public about community sentences. I think the main concern of the public is that they do not quite know what they involve or that people are being required to do things that they would not normally do.

We put in a lot of effort to highlight the nature of community sentences. Some of the manners in which we did that were not popular or acceptable. We had among a range of practical suggestions one which included the people involved wearing particular coloured vests. At the level of operations, some people may have objected to that, but noble Lords will understand that the reason behind it was that we recognised the appropriateness of community sentencing, but we also recognised that there was unawareness among the public of what good was coming from it and what those who were thus sentenced were actually doing to recompense the community and victims for the effects of their crime.

If the Government wish to reassure the public about the nature of community sentencing, this clause is a pretty blunt and crude way of doing it. The problem is that this will backfire. I have no problem with Governments who take a strong line on law and order. They are always accused of playing to the Gallery, but when the Bill uses this particular expression and requires this particular reaction in community sentencing—which would be taken into account anyway by the judiciary because of the criteria that inform our sentencing policy, as the noble Baroness pointed out earlier, which derive from 2005, I think from memory—it is seen as a gratuitous attempt to play to the Gallery and, however sincere the Government are, they are weakened.

I support community sentencing where it is appropriate. There are many people in prison who should never be there and who will not be mended in their ways, rehabilitated or make recompense to society. In supporting restorative justice, I hope that the Government will look again at this clause and rely on the wisdom of the judiciary. In community sentencing, that has not been the problem; the real problem has been that we need to do more to illustrate to local communities the effect of what is being done for their good as recompense and as part of rehabilitation.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to the amendment which stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Eaton and the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. Before doing so, I would like to add my tribute to those that have already been made to the late Lord Newton of Braintree—Tony Newton, as I knew him for almost 40 years. I was in the House of Commons when he joined us. He immediately made his mark as a man of calm determination who was never, even when he was in high office, tied to a particular political line. He always sought to follow his own conscience. I shall have great cause always to be grateful to him because when I was a lone voice on the Conservative Benches in speaking out at the time of Bosnia, he was Leader of the House yet he made sure that every week I was able to make my points, and he always responded with a degree of care, concern and empathy which endeared him to me then.

When I came into your Lordships’ House, we immediately became allies on a number of issues, not least those which concern us this afternoon. Lord Newton was tenacious and determined, and nobody in this House will ever forget the courage of that man, standing with his oxygen machine either by the Throne or at the Bar of the House, then leaving the machine to come and speak—most recently from near the Cross Benches—on subjects which concerned him. His name was on both the amendments that I am talking about, so in tribute to him I want to say a few words about Amendment 4. In doing so, I in no way dissent from what the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, has said but my amendment is more narrowly focused. I had an opportunity, along with colleagues from all parties, to discuss some of these issues with my noble friend Lord McNally last week. I thank him for the care and concern that he displayed when we discussed these extremely sensitive and important issues. What I said to him then in private I say now in this Chamber: I do not for a moment question his commitment or his concern, and I know that he is as anxious to do right as we all are. However, he is a member of the Executive.

The Government have decided to make a number of cuts in all departments. One understands why, and I am not going to cheapen this speech or this House today by trying to score points about the deficit. I say to my noble friend that of course the Government have to cut, but that does not mean that they have to cut in every department when in some departments, as in his, the sums are relatively small. Those small sums, though, can make such a difference to a great many extremely vulnerable people.

My amendment concentrates on the subject of clinical negligence and children. I stress one point in particular: those who are damaged by an agency of the state have a right to expect the assistance of the state, and the National Health Service is precisely that. If, in the care of the NHS, someone is damaged through clinical negligence then there should be an automatic right of redress. That is more particularly the case when we come to children, and that is what the amendment focuses on.

We had a debate a fortnight ago about those who had suffered brain damage from clinical negligence. They were to be treated differently from those who had been damaged physically in other ways. That is wrong. One should not discriminate in that manner between those who suffer physical damage, which may be with them for the whole of the rest of their lives, and those who suffer brain damage. I am not suggesting for a minute that there should not be assistance for all—indeed, that is the substance of the amendment—but it could be argued that those who suffer physical damage, be it paralysis or whatever, and who are conscious of that are in more personal need than those who suffer brain damage and may not be personally conscious of that.

It is wrong that we in this House should be passing any legislation without pointing that out and asking another place to think again, unless of course my noble friend can accept the amendment today, which would give us all great pleasure. If he cannot, although I hope very much that he will, then this amendment should be pressed to a vote in the event of the noble Baroness’s amendment not being approved. It may well be—I certainly shall not oppose it—but, if it is not, I will then wish to press my amendment unless my noble friend has accepted its form and substance. If this House has any truly lasting point and purpose, and I believe as strongly as any Member of it that it has, then we have a duty to say, “You haven’t got this quite right. You have got to rethink”.

I suppose that I cannot be too greedy and expect the same sort of majority that we achieved yesterday, but I hope that if it is necessary to put this amendment to the vote then it will carry. Here, we are concerned with those least able to help themselves. This really is a case of, “Suffer the little children”, and I very much hope that your Lordships’ House will ask the Government to insert an amendment along these lines in the Bill before it finally becomes law.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I, too, should like to add to the laments that we all feel at the death of Lord Newton. On both sides of the Chamber, we all picture him standing stalwart, despite his obvious disability and discomfort—determined, as always, to give a fair view of the legislation.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for the concessions that he made, particularly his government amendment regarding the victims of trafficking. It is most welcome. I also thank him as I was one of those at the meeting—of all parties and none—at which we all put our views to him. However, there remains a need to provide greater protection for vulnerable children and young people. My Third Reading amendment, Amendment 5, is very similar—almost identical—to that of my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson. The difference is mainly that it raises the upper age from 18 to 24 for this very vulnerable group. It would protect only the most vulnerable people—around 12,000 out of 69,000 18 to 24 year-olds who will lose access to legal aid, specifically those with a disability and those who have been in care.

It is hard to think of groups of people who are more vulnerable than those covered by this amendment. Generally, young people are rarely equipped with the knowledge, skills and legal capacity to resolve their problems without expert advice. This particularly applies to these vulnerable young people, who are far more prone to experiencing multiple and severe problems and are therefore far more likely to require this specialist legal intervention to prevent their situation escalating and spiralling out of control. How are these young people expected to cope when they have problems if they cannot obtain legal aid?

The House will not need reminding, particularly in this economic climate, that the country is experiencing record levels of youth unemployment, rising youth homelessness and increasing levels of adolescent mental health problems. These young people need special help to get them through to a more fulfilled adult life at less cost to the community. It cannot make any sense to deny them this access to the legal advice that they desperately need to help them resolve their problems and turn their lives around.

The Government have said in their new cross-departmental youth policy that they believe in providing additional and early help to disadvantaged and vulnerable young people, including those in care and those with disabilities. Our amendment would help the Government to meet this commitment. It would protect young people who have a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities, according to the definition of disability that is used in the Equality Act 2010. Many of this group’s problems are in the area of social welfare law, being to do with housing, debt and welfare benefits. The considerable changes that many of your Lordships in this Chamber debated during the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill will undoubtedly mean that more young people with disabilities will face social welfare problems and will need that help to understand and gain from the new benefits regime. It simply cannot be right to leave disabled young people without the support they need to enforce payment of their entitlements.

As I have said, the amendment would also protect care leavers under the age of 25. This group is also highly vulnerable. Care leavers are far more likely to end up unemployed, homeless or in prison—alas, this will happen to too many of them—and to experience high levels of common social welfare problems. They will need good legal advice to avoid poor outcomes. The amendment would cost around £4 million, a figure far lower than the cost of not providing access to legal aid for these young people.

Research by Youth Access shows that legal advice which is targeted at vulnerable groups is particularly cost-effective and that this group is more likely to experience stress, violence and homelessness if they do not manage to get good legal advice at an early stage. Each year, 750,000 young people aged between 16 and 24 become mentally or physically ill as a result of their unresolved social welfare problems. That is costing the NHS at least £250 million a year. Much of that cost could be avoided if those young people received better and earlier support. Research by JustRights shows that any savings made through denying young people civil legal aid are likely to be outweighed by increased costs in the criminal legal aid budget alone. The Local Government Association has said that it has concerns about the extra costs for local authorities arising from the withdrawal of legal aid from care leavers.

This amendment not only makes economic sense but is the right and fair thing to do if we are serious about protecting these most vulnerable members of society. I very much hope that, when the time comes, everyone, including the Minister, will support it.

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Moved by

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

5: Schedule 1, page 140, line 32, at end insert—
“Vulnerable young people(1) Civil legal services provided in relation to advice and proceedings under this paragraph where the applicant or respondent is aged twenty four or under, and—
(a) has a disability under section 6 of the Equality Act 2010;(b) is a former relevant child (care leaver) by reference to the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000;(c) is a vulnerable person as specified by regulations; or(d) otherwise falls within the categories of vulnerable young people which the Secretary of State may prescribe in regulations.(2) Civil legal services provided in relation to advice and proceedings relating to any benefit, allowance, payment, credit or pension under—
(a) the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992;(b) the Jobseekers Act 1995;(c) the State Pension Credit Act 2002;(d) the Tax Credits act 2002;(e) the Welfare Reform Act 2007;(f) the Welfare Reform Act 2012; or(g) any other enactment relating to social security.(3) Civil legal services provided in relation to advice and proceedings relating to all areas of employment law not otherwise covered in this Schedule.
(4) Civil legal services provided in relation to advice and proceedings relating to all areas of housing law not otherwise covered in this Schedule.
(5) Civil legal services provided in relation to advice and proceedings relating to all areas of law related to personal debt not otherwise covered in this Schedule.
(6) Civil legal services provided in relation to advice and proceedings relating to all areas of immigration and asylum law not otherwise covered in this Schedule.
(7) Civil legal services provided in relation to advice and proceedings relating to all areas of clinical negligence law not otherwise covered in this Schedule.
(8) Civil legal services provided in relation to advice and proceedings relating to all areas of consumer law not otherwise covered in this Schedule.
(9) Civil legal services provided in relation to advice and proceedings relating to appeals to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.
(10) Civil legal services provided in relation to advice and proceedings relating a review or appeal under section 11 or 13 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007.
(11) Civil legal services provided in relation to advice and proceedings relating to an appeal to the Supreme Court.”

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I, too, wish to test the opinion of the House. We are talking about a small group who, as my noble friend Lord Listowel put it so well, are highly likely to come from very deprived, disrupted backgrounds and are clearly in need of help. Over and above the success of the previous amendment—I am delighted with the result—I want to test the opinion of the House, and I hope that noble Lords will support my small amendment.

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[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, I have not spoken on the whole of this Bill and I only do so now because I have seen the good effects of restorative justice in Belfast, in London and at home in Somerset. It is right that it should be one of the things that are taken into consideration in sentencing, and I hope that the Government will accept the amendment.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I very much support my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf’s amendment because his amendment seems absolutely right. I have twice attended such meetings, with quite a long distance in between, where both the victim and the offender were present and able to exchange their views. Both meetings were extremely impressive in the effect which the victim and offender had on one another and in terms of the satisfaction they felt. As we have heard from my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham, the very fact that this process has produced something like a 27 per cent drop in reoffending rates speaks for itself. I make that point because I entirely agree that there can be no real, logical reason for not accepting the amendment—linked, as it is, superbly in this way. A great deal of research by my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf has gone into it. I therefore hope that, on this occasion, the Minister can accept the amendment.

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[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, I shall add only a few sentences to what the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said about the undesirability of creating new criminal offences unless there is a substantial reason to do so. Surely that argument is doubly important when the offence carries a term of imprisonment, in this case of up to 51 weeks. We all know—I thought that there was general agreement on this—that short sentences are harmful, leading to greater recidivism on the part of those so imprisoned.

If we are to create these new offences, there have to be extremely powerful arguments in their favour, whereas here the exact opposite is true. I will not rehearse all the reasons that have already been given by noble Lords as to why these provisions are unnecessary and harmful. However, keeping houses empty for more than a year is to be discouraged. People whose homes are occupied by squatters already have effective remedies. In the consultation, not only were 96 per cent of respondents against the clause, but that included the substantial opinions of such organisations as the Law Society, ACPO, the Criminal Bar Association, Liberty, Shelter and Crisis. There is also the fact that homelessness is increasing rapidly. For all these reasons, I hope that the Government will see reason and accept my noble friend’s amendment.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, on her persistence in pursuing this issue. Over time, she has opened our eyes to just what is involved.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, raised the question of homelessness and housing supply. One of the things that worries me a lot is the number of blocks of flats that are blocked up over huge areas and have been, I should have thought, for a good 12 months. They are areas of housing that could have been redeveloped much earlier if there had been any sense of urgency about getting on with that sort of building. We all know that there is a great deal of replacement of existing buildings in this country; it goes on the whole time. We know that we are in a financial crisis and that there are many people out of work who do not have the money to pay rent. I commend noble Lords to remember that just outside our own door, at the entrance to the Underground, one can find signs of people sleeping there at night. They sleep on the cold stone with their tiny bits of property literally outside the entrance to the Underground and cover themselves up with cardboard boxes as best they can. It is hardly a good advertisement for what we are doing to help those who are genuinely homeless.

I would like the noble Baroness who is responding to the amendment to concentrate on how many premises remain empty when they could be inhabited by families. That is no doubt a factor that increases rents. I will leave it at that. However, I have certainly begun to think rather more seriously about the issue than I did when the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, first raised it.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stern]

My Lords, this amendment does not ask for much. It is indeed modesty itself. It asks for a focus, a group of people in the Ministry of Justice whose job should be to carry forward the excellent policies that the Minister told the House about in Committee. It makes it clear that the Ministry of Justice cannot do this on its own and calls for the Ministry of Health, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Home Office to be involved—a point that has just been ably made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. It makes it clear that they should report to a ministerial group and that there should be an annual report.

This amendment is not a criticism of the Government’s work so far, nor of that of the previous Government. It is recognition that this is a particularly intractable problem. Efforts are made by many people, and the situation gets a little better, but then it reverts. The Minister will know, because he has just kindly answered a Written Question that I asked, that the Chief Inspector of Prisons said of the Keller unit at Styal prison that it constitutes,

“a wholly unsuitable place to safely hold and manage very seriously damaged and mentally ill women”.

The conditions in which such women are held in Styal prison have been criticised on and off for many years. On 15 February, in Committee, the Minister said that,

“one does not need to visit many women’s prisons to see that far too many prisoners should not be there”.—[Official Report, 15/2/12; col. 876.]

Ministers have said that before. This is not politically contentious. There is wide agreement about what should happen but sadly it does not change or it changes at the margins—one aspect improves while another deteriorates.

That is why there is wide support among those who are concerned with this issue for a statutory framework, a strategy, a focal point and an annual report that will allow Parliament to see if at last we are moving forwards and seeing improvements that last. I very much hope that the Minister will support this modest proposal.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I, too, welcome this proposal. All of us have been talking about this area for so long, it is not true. The point about action now, which was made by various speakers, is entirely right. My noble friend Lord Wigley has quoted a number of horrendous figures, which I will not quote again, but the fact that 5 per cent of women’s children stay in the family home should be enough to indicate just how disastrous the effect of imprisoning women is on family life and on the futures of those children.

I very much hope that the actions already begun by this Government, and those started under the previous Government, to do much more to keep women out of prison will continue, which is entirely the right way to work. There needs to be intensive work and support at differing levels, both at professional and volunteer levels, to see the women out of these crises. Women prisoners outnumber men who self-harm, have mental health problems and so on. The situation is horrendous.

Without overemphasising absolutely everything about this issue, I hope that all departments will come together. I want to see good examples of what can happen in a women’s prison, but I also want to see it as an example of what would be effective for a number of men as well, particularly young offenders. I hope that the Minister and all those involved in this issue will treat it with urgency.

[Baroness Linklater of Butterstone]

My Lords, I add my wholehearted support to what the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, and everyone else around the House, has said. There has been no dissent. How could there be? It struck me that the proportion of women in the prison system is roughly similar to the proportion of children. Those are our two most vulnerable groups and the groups for whom we do least well by and least well for. They are the most vulnerable and the most needy.

It is very nice to see the noble Lord, Lord Warner, in his place, because the previous time we worked together—I imagine that we are together on this—we were fighting to save the YJB. I remember saying then that we must not allow ourselves to think for one minute that children are small versions of adults. Their needs are so different. Women are not other versions of men. Their needs are also extremely different. When the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, was quoted as saying that these prisons were all designed for men, she was quite right; women were in no one’s mind. They suited, and that was where they were coming from. To imagine for one minute that we could stick women into similar institutions and do them any good was absolutely insane.

If we ever get to what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, suggested and have someone who is in charge of and leads the way in policy, organisation, delivery and practice for women, I hope that that person will be a woman.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede]

I support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater. I agree with everything she said. I remind the House that I currently serve on one of these committees in central London. It is not a statutory committee, but it is a very important committee from which I certainly benefit in my work as a magistrate, as I know all my colleagues do. Nevertheless, I want to make the point that there are other statutory committees. I am thinking of the bench training and development committees which are required to sit under statute. With the best will in the world, the officials administer those committees more thoroughly than they do the probation liaison committees, precisely because they are not statutory committees. For that reason alone, I recommend to the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, that the statutory provision would add weight to what is, after all, one of the Government’s primary objectives, which is to make sure that the magistracy has confidence in community sentences.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I support the amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, knows so much about the probation service and the magistracy. She draws attention to very little of which we should not take a great deal of notice. What my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham has just said about what is happening in the probation service is alarming. I hope that someone will be able to explain what has happened in a way that makes sense. I go back a long way within the areas of the magistracy and probation and the tremendous work that they do with offenders over very many years. I was a juvenile court chairman. I was horrified when I read the report by the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Coles. At that moment, I said to myself that if I were a probation officer, I would leave the service because I knew it had no future. It is, therefore, even more worrying to me that the whole of the very effective work that it still carries out is under this kind of threat. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us that this is not the way forward.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, as a signatory to the amendment, I am pleased to say that the Opposition is more than happy to support it and should the noble Baroness not receive a satisfactory answer from the Minister—we live in hope—and wish to press the amendment, we will certainly endorse it. I was particularly impressed by the remarks of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, who speaks from direct and daily experience of these matters in a busy court in the capital. We are already 25 minutes into this debate and there is much more to come, so I am content to rest the Opposition’s case at this point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, in supporting this amendment, briefly, I very much agree with what the noble Lord has just said: that it is a halfway step. Yet better a halfway step than no step at all. I shall make two observations. I had the privilege for nine years of being the president of YMCA in England. I was particularly impressed by the work that it was doing with young people in prisons and detention centres. During that period, I became very concerned about exactly what preoccupies the noble Lord. It is almost as though we were deliberately building the foundations for a wasted and inadequate life, with future social costs and disruption, reoffending and the rest.

We know that society is becoming increasingly competitive and that it has huge pressures for the young. I say not simply on moral grounds, which I feel strongly about, but on the economic grounds that make absolute sense for the future of the country’s economy. To avoid the future expense of things going wrong repeatedly, and if we have any sense at all about rehabilitation and any commitment to it, these years are crucial. It is the very time that people are on the threshold of life, and they need to be equipped to face it. I make a personal plea to your Lordships: just think of our own families and of our own children and grandchildren in this age group. Think of the turmoil that they are faced with and the support that they need to sort out their lives for the future. Why are we ready to abandon these inadequate, neglected people to a system in which they are not getting any kind of support of that sort? I thank the noble Lord for having introduced the amendment, and I am glad to support it.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has outlined as a beginning is a very important thought for the Minister. I hope that he will be able to adopt it. We all know what goes on in prisons with young people. We all know, and now all pretty well agree, that, early intervention, even in a prison situation, but preferably even earlier so that that does not happen, will in the long run save money. The flexible way in which what is proposed has been outlined allows the Minister to organise it in such a way that it can take account of the actual age of the individual. That will be a very good step in the right direction, whether or not it can be written into law. We have plenty of things to try to add to the law in addition to the ones on the agenda. I hope that it will be taken very seriously and that practical steps will be taken.

[Baroness Linklater of Butterstone]

My Lords, I rise very briefly to endorse every word that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has said. How much it resonated with me. The older end of YOIs are famously inadequate and have been so for some time, no doubt partly because they are also a famously difficult group. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, highlighted the fact that these are very often young people in transition. Transitions are difficult and absolutely awful to go through. I have always said that I am never off my knees in gratitude that I will never have to be a teenager again. There is merit in the idea that they could be, as it were, somehow incorporated—that, if the arms of the YJB became wide enough, they could encompass them in some way. I am not entirely sure how much the YJB is in favour of such a proposition, but maybe there are ways of choreographing that. However, I have simply risen to say that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has put his finger on a very real and challenging problem.

The other day, I was visiting Merseyside Probation Trust, which is doing an incredible range of first-class work. Its IACs—intensive alternatives to custody—are particularly impressive. I spent some time with one girl who had been through it. She had form like you had never seen and she came singing the praises of the person from the probation service who had been working with her through this process. It was truly worth while in that case. Maybe it is very expensive—it is certainly very time intensive—but it is something that I, along with what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, want to endorse.

--- Later in debate ---

I and others have often quoted the words of Winston Churchill about the way any country treats its crime and punishment being the true test of its civilisation. I do not want to lose that soubriquet, and I want those responsible for the management of offenders to be rightly motivated. I was brought up to believe that there is no such word as “can’t”, in which spirit—and accepting the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, in Committee—I ask the Minister to ask his political masters to think again, and restore some of our lost faith by adding the words “and Rehabilitation” to the Title of the Bill that returns from this House to the other place. I beg to move.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I very much support this amendment and have put my name to it. It is a great shame that we could not find a way to debate this issue right at the beginning, before we started work on the detailed and different parts of this hybrid Bill. Indeed, many of the debates on today’s amendments—I am not talking about the last two or three, which seem quite beyond the Bill in many ways—illustrate exactly why this amendment is so relevant and important to the Bill. For example, plans to meet women prisoners’ different needs, the debate on restorative justice, better training and rehabilitation plans and post-prison support for young offenders: all of these were about rehabilitation. Indeed, the background to all the work that the Minister has so often talked about is about rehabilitation.

It is quite absurd to be debating what the Title of the Bill should be as we reach the very last pages of the Bill and the very early hour of the following day. If the Minister could accept the amendment, even at this stage, success would have been achieved, giving those who will use the Bill a much better understanding of what it is really about. Above all, it would not have cost the Government one single penny and, over and above that, I am quite certain that the Minister believes—as we certainly do—that in the long run it will save a great deal. I very much hope that he is in a giving mood on this amendment.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I have been wondering whether I dare quote poetry at this hour, but I think noble Lords deserve it. Whenever I hear the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, who I am sure is with us spiritually, I am reminded of these lines from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:

“Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire

To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,

Would not we shatter it to bits—and then

Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!”

Certainly, as I have said before, there is no lack of sympathy with the promotion of the concept of rehabilitation. Indeed, as I have also said before, I believe that those who argue the case for rehabilitation are doing more for victims and more to reduce crime than those to whom the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, referred earlier today as the “throw away the key brigade”. There is no argument between us. The Ministry of Justice believes in rehabilitation, and a large range of our policies are geared to rehabilitation. However, I think most people will look beyond the Short Title of the Bill and judge the Government by their intentions and performance. As many noble Lords have recognised, the Bill contains key measures for the youth and adult criminal justice systems that will contribute to the rehabilitation of offenders. Therefore, although I would very much like to accept this amendment in many ways, I am afraid that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is right—I must simply salute, get on with the job and urge him to withdraw the amendment.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Newcastle]

My Lords, I too support this amendment, which I think is really important. It is about the impact this Bill will have on access to judicial remedies for victims in host countries who are harmed by the activities of multinationals. Under the existing regime, it is already difficult for these kinds of cases to be brought in the UK. This Bill will change that system to make it virtually impossible for such cases to be brought in the future.

The cases in question are typically brought by poor victims who have had their livelihoods destroyed, their homes despoiled or their health gravely damaged by the UK or a UK-based company. As it stands, the Bill makes it economically unviable for both claimants and law firms to bring such cases due to the high financial risks. Provisions on success fees and insurance premiums mean that even if they were successful, claimants would have to pay such fees and costs out of their own damages.

This fundamental change is inappropriate, surely, because damages awarded would be typically too low to cover the costs involved. Damages in these particular cases are assessed according to developing country standards, whereas legal costs are incurred in the UK. As a result, as others have said, the Bill will create a practical barrier to justice and it is very unlikely that such cases will continue to be brought.

There would be no additional cost to the taxpayer if this amendment were accepted, but the benefits would be hugely significant in enabling poor communities to claim damages where they have been harmed and, just as importantly, in showing companies that they cannot act with impunity. I hope that the Government will reconsider this aspect of the Bill and move towards accepting this amendment.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, my name is not on this amendment but, having listened to the arguments, there seems to be absolutely no good reason why the Minister should not agree to it. It is not going to cost the taxpayer anything extra and it means that companies that have been the cause of this sort of damage should pay the proper price and the proper compensation. I certainly back the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Coussins.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I agree with other speakers that during the passage of the Bill we have heard many heart-warming speeches on the importance and the practical benefits of helping people with a disability. I very much support what the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and others said in this debate. The Bill will lead to something like 75,000 children and young people aged under 25—it is the raising of the age level that my amendment addresses—losing access to legal aid each year.

Research by JustRights shows that as many as 80 per cent of these young people, as well as being vulnerable on account of their age, fall into one or more additional categories of vulnerability, such as being a lone parent, a victim of crime, or having a disability or mental health problem. How are these young people expected to cope when they have problems if they cannot obtain legal aid? They will not have families to back them up and give them advice, which other youngsters at least may have.

Amendment 21 has modest aims. It seeks to protect legal aid only for the most vulnerable of these young people, including those with a disability, those who have been in care and those who have been victims of trafficking—which, alas, is a growing trade. It is hard to think of groups of people who are more vulnerable than they. Of course, I wish we could retain legal aid for all young people. Youngsters are rarely equipped with the knowledge, skills and legal capacity to resolve their problems without expert advice. Therefore, it will be important that we do our best for this group. This applies particularly to vulnerable young people who are more prone to experiencing multiple and severe problems and who are therefore far more likely to require specialist legal intervention to prevent their situation escalating and spiralling out of control.

It is vital that all vulnerable groups listed in the amendment are protected. However, I will say a few words about young people with a disability. Amendment 21 would protect young people with a physical or mental health impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. We know that disabled young people are more likely than other young people to experience very complex legal problems, and are also more likely than older people with disabilities to experience them. There are significant precedents for extending additional protection to this group, in recognition of the fact that they may need this help. For example, the Connexions service, which was set up to provide help and advice to young people aged 13 to 19, extended this help to young people up to the age of 24 who had a disability or learning difficulty. It did so because it saw that it was practically needed.

JustRights gave me a case study about which I will tell noble Lords. Chantelle was 18 when she came to a law centre for help. She had been born with cerebral palsy and had great difficulty walking. Her parents had to drive her to college. They were worried that they could not afford to buy her a car and that she would be unable to attend university. They had applied for disability living allowance for Chantelle, but that had been refused. The law centre helped Chantelle to appeal, gathering evidence from her school and her hospital specialist and representing her at the benefit tribunal hearing. Chantelle was successful in her appeal and was awarded lower rate care and higher rate mobility for DLA. She swapped her mobility payment for a Motability car and passed her driving test. She now has a place at university and will be able to drive herself there each day. That will make a huge difference to her independence and quality of life, but think also of the extra sum of money it will save the rest of us if she is able to qualify and earn her own living.

What will the consequences be for these young people if they cannot get advice? Research by Youth Access has shown that vulnerable youngsters are significantly more likely than the population as a whole to experience stress, violence and homelessness if they do not manage to get good legal advice at an early stage. It has calculated that each year 750,000 young people aged between 16 and 24 become mentally or physically ill as a result of their unresolved social welfare problems. That is costing the NHS at least £250 million a year, much of which could be avoided if they had received better support.

It cannot make any sense to deny vulnerable young people access to the legal advice they desperately need to resolve their problems and turn their lives around, so I very much hope that everyone will support my amendment, Amendment 21, when we come to it, and the other amendments in this group, all of which make very important points. Above all, I hope the Minister and the Government will have listened and will take action as a result.

[Baroness Benjamin]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 46, which would maintain legal aid for all children. I thank the other noble Lords on all sides of the House for putting their names to this amendment. I have also put my name to Amendment 21, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, who has spoken eloquently and passionately, as always.

To illustrate the reasons why I have put my name to these amendments, I shall give three stories, which are supported by the Children’s Society, that were told by young people about their experiences of attending court. They are about migrant children who had to go through immigration cases.

“I felt very scared, terrified in fact. It was such an official atmosphere, and I felt small and vulnerable. You know that decisions that affect the rest of your life are made in this one morning, and I just felt so scared knowing that”.

“I had a solicitor and she had explained what was going to happen before we went, but even that could not have really prepared me. I was lucky because I had a solicitor. I had a barrister at court who was able to argue for me. Without him I don’t know how I would have coped”.

“The Home Office person made me feel scared and the whole time kept on saying I was lying and that I should return home; this made me feel upset and angry as I knew that I was telling the truth. My barrister was great though and kept on arguing back about my case”.

This convinces me that a different approach is needed when it comes to children because children are fundamentally different from adults. They generally have a lesser capacity to make complex decisions that will affect their future and will not always be able to understand the full consequences of their decisions and actions. Equally they do not have the capacity to represent themselves effectively in legal proceedings or to engage in detailed evidence gathering to support their case.

The Children’s Commissioner for England, Dr Maggie Atkinson, has said:

“Children, by virtue of their age and capacity, will not be able to present their case effectively in the majority of proceedings. Failure to afford children effective access to justice in cases engaging their civil rights and obligations will be in violation of Article 6 ECHR. It will also—even in immigration cases that do not benefit from the protections of Article 6—prevent them from being afforded their substantive rights and an effective domestic remedy for breaches of those rights”.

The Government have recognised that children need special consideration. As my noble friend Lord McNally said in response to a Question on legal aid:

“As far as possible, our intention is that, where children are involved, legal aid will still be provided”.—[Official Report, 7/7/11; col. 343.]

However, in reality the Bill will remove legal aid from 6,000 civil justice cases in children’s names each year, compared with provision in 2009-10. In a letter to the Times, the top six UK children’s charities pleaded with the Government not to abandon these 6,000 children, who will have no other choice but to represent themselves in court, with no one to protect them and manoeuvre them through the legal system. The Government have not explained why legal aid is being kept for 35,000 children a year but is being withdrawn from the equivalent of 6,000 children a year.

While there is provision in the Bill for,

“Children who are parties to family proceedings”,

and cases involving the,

“Unlawful removal of children from the United Kingdom”,

by their parents and, most recently, for some clinical negligence cases, legal aid is not to be provided if they are party to legal proceedings generally: for example, in immigration, welfare, housing, education and the majority of clinical negligence cases. Surely in our society it is unacceptable that a child involved in legal proceedings, who will have no financial resources to pay for their legal advice and representation, will be expected to present their own case in an adult legal system as a litigant in person—something many adults would struggle to do effectively.

It is also worth highlighting that legal aid is already restricted to those who cannot pay for legal assistance by any other means and therefore provides a safety net to ensure protection and equality for the vulnerable and disadvantaged. Ending legal aid for whole areas of law will affect the poorest and most vulnerable and marginalised families. Many children are likely to suffer as a knock-on effect of limited access to justice for their parents and carers. This will be particularly important in areas such as housing, welfare, immigration and debt, where children are affected by their parents’ lack of financial resources and ability to navigate the legal system, which may be hindered by a number of factors, such as parental disability, language barriers, poverty and mental health issues.

The Justice Minister has stated that there will be a safety net in the form of the exceptional funding scheme. This would come into play; if not, giving legal aid would breach individual rights under the Human Rights Act 1998 or European Union law. However, the Government have not published details of the full scope of the new scheme or how it will function. I would be grateful if the Minister could enlighten us as to how this will work, to put our minds at rest.

The impact assessment states that the Government anticipate that only 5 per cent of excluded cases for education will gain exceptional funding, and no cases for immigration will. The Children’s Society has estimated that just over 4,000 cases involving under-18s will be excluded from scope and will not receive exceptional funding. If the Government intend to process significant numbers of cases through the exceptional funding route, new arrangements are urgently needed to ensure that this does not result in a slower or more costly process or, worse still, that these cases will simply not receive legal aid funding. This would be detrimental to children and young people.

The Minister stated very strongly that in civil cases claims brought in the name of a child are usually conducted by their parents acting as the child’s litigation friend rather than by the child themselves. He said:

“The civil justice system as a whole does not generally require children to act on their own behalf”.—[Official Report, 16/1/12; col. 447.]

However, here are some very clear illustrations of how that is not always the case. For example, a young person—let us call her B—was sent to the UK when she was 12 years old to stay with her uncle. Almost as soon as she had arrived, the uncle sexually abused her, which continued until she ran away from home when she was still a teenager. During this time she attended school and achieved good GCSE results. After running away, she reported her uncle to the police and he was arrested. He was convicted on several counts of rape and sentenced to five years.