Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Linklater of Butterstone]

My Lords, I support my noble friend—he is my noble friend although he is on the other side of the Chamber—in what he said about intermediaries. I spoke about this issue on Report. I believe that the underlying problem is the lack of even-handedness and fairness between what witnesses with a whole range of special needs can have and what defendants with similar special needs can have. Witnesses are entitled to qualified, registered, accredited, paid and trained intermediaries to represent them. Defendants do not have that entitlement; nor do they have the same rights. When they need it, they tend to have this kind of support at the discretion of the court. They do not get registered or regulated people and they get people who are paid a lower fee.

My question to my noble friend is: what is the justification for this discrepancy when, surely, everyone is entitled to a fair hearing and to proper justice in court? I thank the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for his letter in which he referred to Section 104 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 and stated that “certain vulnerable defendants” can receive assistance from an intermediary. At the end of that paragraph, he stated that the Government had decided to defer the implementation until full consideration could be given to the practical arrangements and resource implications. He stated that the Government were still looking at the practical and resource issues, and had no immediate plans to bring Section 104 into force. That seems clear to me and I find it astonishing, distressing and wrong that this kind of discrimination should be taking place between groups of people—witnesses and defendants—with similar needs. I hope that my noble friend can reassure me and give me an answer on that.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

My Lords, it comes as a sort of alarm to hear the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, indicate that there may be vulnerable people who, because they are unrepresented and do not have adequate support, may be agreeing out of court to cautions or to certain kinds of settlement of charges against them without proper legal advice. That should be a serious source of concern. In responding, I hope that the Minister will have something positive to say. Undoubtedly, the removal of legal aid is having that kind of outcome. I await with interest what the Minister will say. I support any protection that there can be for the vulnerable in the courts.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I take the Government’s point about resources, but as my noble friend rightly points out, there are two sides to that equation. One is the cost to the system, which can flow from inadequate representation of defendants, adjournments and the rest of it, as well as the cost of providing it. Of course, there are defendants who get assistance in the form of interpretation. As it turns out, recent developments in interpreting services have been, to put it mildly, controversial. Contracts have been given to organisations that apparently have not performed very well, at considerable cost in terms of the fees paid to them. Equally, as might be the case in connection with people who are unable to understand proceedings and follow them unassisted, some of the interpreters who turned up to the courts were simply not up to the job. It has been something of a disaster.

This is an analogy for the Government to look at in terms of providing services for people who, for different reasons, are unable perhaps to follow a case properly, to understand it properly, or to give proper instructions to their legal advisers. I hope that the Government will look at that and look at this position in the round. The noble Baroness has already identified the discrepancy between witnesses and defendants. Here, we potentially have two classes of defendants, some of whom may not speak English adequately and for whom interpretation will be provided, and others who may not be able to follow because of learning disabilities or other aspects, and for whom nothing would be provided.

Looking at the whole situation surely is sensible. I hope that the Government will acknowledge that there is a disjunction here between what is provided for different classes of defendants, and will not simply put this on the back shelf but will look at it with a degree of urgency. Miscarriages of justice can flow at any time from failure to provide adequate assistance, whether that is legal aid or, as in this case at least, the kind of support that can be offered by those described in my noble friend’s amendment. I hope that the Government will acknowledge that there is an issue here and that, at the very least, if they are not able to respond firmly and conclusively tonight, that they will give it more urgent attention than was indicated in the letter which was recently sent out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I echo everything that my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf has said. That is why I have added my name in support of the amendment. I also note what the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, said about the strategy. This is not the first time that we have had a champion to take forward women’s issues. I am interested that most recently the shadow Minister of Justice in the other place supported the cries which many of us have made over many years for a women’s justice board rather than just a champion. However, that is not the point of the discussion today.

I shall speak for a short time to my Amendment 10, which mirrors the suggestion for women but points out the need for special treatment of young adult offenders. I do this with a slightly heavy heart because six months ago, during earlier consideration of the Bill, we were promised a government response to the probation consultation. I had hoped that we would have had that by now setting out how probation trusts would be enabled to deliver appropriate support and rehabilitation arrangements for young adult offenders. It has not happened. I warmly agreed with the noble Lord, Lord McNally, in Committee when he said that if only we could extend some of the lessons that we have learnt from the treatment of young offenders under the age of 18, we might be able to have a similar impact on those aged 18 to 21 or 18 to 25. That has not happened. I note with wry amusement that the Minister castigates those of us who question current plans to commission justice services on a payment by results basis by saying we are looking a gift horse in the mouth because of the Prime Minister’s involvement in the rehabilitation process. I have to say that I have been looking for gift horses in this field for the past 17 years and they have all turned out to be chimeras and flown away.

Several times when discussing this issue I have suggested that instead of the clocks around this House saying 0:10, they should say PANT—standing for “people are not things”. We have had too much about things and not enough about people in this particular group. I shall quote four reasons. Young adults have many complex needs. They come on top of the physical and mental maturing that is taking place. When you add homelessness, poverty, unemployment, educational failure, substance misuse, mental health problems and victimisation, exacerbated by all child support services ceasing at the age of 18, you have an unhappy group. Although the age group makes up only 4% of the population, 15% of those starting community sentences come from it, as do 14% of those starting custody. When no one is responsible for looking after them in the criminal justice system, then you have a group which clearly needs attention.

It is interesting that the Barrow Cadbury Trust’s Transition to Adulthood Alliance has proved that imposing additional requirements without the necessary support to help these people understand what a sense of responsibility means and to address the underlying causes of offending and their chaotic lifestyles is likely to set them up to fail. This all boils down to the fact that people are at the heart of looking after the needs of these young adult offenders. In particular, there needs to be long-term contact with a responsible adult. That is worth all the programmes, initiatives, commissioning and payment by results that you can think of. Somebody is going to make that difference. If I make an impassioned appeal yet again for this amendment, it is because people are at the heart of what this country is all about. As I have said many times, if we as a nation continue to make inappropriate support and rehabilitation arrangements for this vulnerable group, then we fail them and deserve to be castigated for doing that.

[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.