Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I remember the interventions from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, in the debates on that Act, in which I took part as well. I am going to give the noble Lord the same answer as I have just given. We want to see how the changes to the rules will change the actions of the courts. SLAPPs are covert and they need to be identified. We want to enable the judges to identify them appropriately.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I too am concerned that this is slipping down the legislative agenda, because this issue is serious. Whistleblowers in the Post Office scandal, for example, were silenced early on when they wanted to go public and received letters telling them that they would be sued for defamation if they pursued their claims. We have seen many journalists being silenced and intimidated with expensive lawsuits by the rich and the powerful. It is identifying those cases and having specific legislation that is effective.

I remind the Minister that a lot of these cases are directed against women, often exposing things to do with powerful men misbehaving and their conduct towards women being highly concerning. Those women are silenced. Given that the Government have committed to protecting women and girls, are they going to do something to protect those who are most vulnerable in this area?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I absolutely recognise all the points my noble friend made in her question. We do not believe that this issue is slipping down the legislative agenda. We want to see how the 2023 Act will work in practice. That will be happening imminently. The new rules will become active later this spring. The point my noble friend makes about intimidation through this procedure is absolutely right. Women, journalists and women journalists are all victims of this, and it is something we will certainly keep an eagle eye on.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

3rd reading
Wednesday 5th February 2025 Lords Chamber

If the Minister will not think again and will not accept the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, on these three important issues, I hope that the noble Baroness will divide the House. If she does, she will certainly have my support.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I support everything that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has just said. Any of us who have ever acted as lawyers for women who have been exposed to this kind of conduct will know the suffering that ensues from it. The arguments placed before the House by the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, are absolutely right. The court has to have wider discretion on sentencing, because sometimes it will be, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has said, that multiples of this will have been done and to many different women. It will be there on the internet for all to see, causing incredible mental anguish and pain.

I have just come from a Select Committee where we have been hearing evidence about transnational repression. We have just heard from a woman working for BBC Persian, who had the experience of photographs being turned into deepfake pornography and sent to her daughter’s school. I ask you to imagine the implications of that being circulated, to your own child’s detriment. That is the way in which these things work. I emphasise that there is no example of reasonable cause that could be imagined that could justify it—there really is not. It is very important that we all recognise that.

There will be people—let us imagine Mr Andrew Tate appearing in court for an offence of this kind, were he to do it—who will say that the world should see the beauty of women’s genitalia and admire the great beauty of women as they submit themselves to men. Do we really want the time of the courts to be taken up with that kind of nonsense—because it will be? It will be said to be about trying to inform and educate people about sexual intimacy and sexual matters. All manner of nonsense, presented as reasonable excuse, will be put before the courts—that is what will happen. I urge the court—sorry, I am going into lawyer mode. I urge the House, rather, to see the seriousness of this and that this is a moment where we should be taking a stand and saying no.

The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, raised three issues: sentencing and the options available to judges; the issue of reasonable excuse; and recognising that the prosecution authorities will not pursue a case against a child who has somehow stumbled upon a way of doing this. Very careful decisions will be made about people who have not got mental capacity. If we do not take a firm stance on this now, it will be used and abused in terrible ways, to the detriment particularly of women.

[Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers (CB)]

I simply want to endorse, but not repeat, the propositions of law advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

Any legislation that might improve the position of victims is to be welcomed. As someone who has practised at the English Bar for five decades now, I can say that I have seen huge changes taking place—I see jaws are dropping at the idea of my having practised for so long, but it is true; I was very young when I qualified. When I started, the idea of us considering the position of victims did not exist at all. We have seen incrementally changes being made, but unfortunately the Bill will need some amendment to make it do what we all hope for, which is a serious updating on the rights of victims.

I sit on the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which is a wonderful committee, combining Members of both Houses of this Parliament. We have made notes on a number of issues that still concern us after this matter has gone through the Commons. We are delighted at the introduction of the role of the independent public advocate—something that we really endorse. Bishop Jones of Liverpool and others gave evidence in front of us in relation to the Hillsborough disaster, and they convinced us all of the need for an independent advocate to support victims of major incidents. However, we want that person to be fully independent of government. I emphasise the need for independence and for immediate action in the aftermath of major incidents.

We were concerned also about the Parole Board process and giving the Secretary of State the power to direct the referral of decisions to the Parole Board to himself, and to be retaken. This is again an issue of independence—how will you secure the services of independent-minded people if they feel that their carefully considered opinions are going to be abandoned at the whims of a populist Home Secretary?

The fact that there are 3,000 prisoners still serving sentences of imprisonment for public protection is a matter that has concerned the Joint Committee for quite a long time. Despite our having raised serious concerns about all that, we feel that Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right not to be subjected to inhumane and degrading treatment, and Article 5, the right in respect of arbitrary detention, and even the right to life, are all interfered with by imprisonment for public protection. We are urging that the amendment that Sir Robert Neill put forward to the Commons might be considered by this House.

We are also concerned about the disapplication of Section 3 of the Human Rights Act in respect of the full legislative framework in England and Wales relating to the release, licences, supervision and recall of indeterminate and determinate sentenced offenders. It is a shocking business that a section of vulnerable people—because they are out of sight and therefore often out of mind—will not have the protections of the Human Rights Act. Again, I urge this House not to listen to the siren voices of those who have never liked the Human Rights Act and to recognise it as a wonderful addition to our legislative framework. I am a big believer in the common-law tradition, but it has been enriched by the Human Rights Act.

In keeping with previous recommendations, we would also like better data collection. A particular matter of concern to all of us, and something I have written about over the years, is the publication of the number of people in prison who have responsibility for the care of a child. Do we take enough care about that? I am not sure that we do, and I would like to have better data collection of the information.

I want to mention Sarah Everard, because my friend the Minister mentioned that that was a pivotal moment. It gave us a sense of something I have written about extensively: the lack of confidence that women and girls have in the justice system around sexual matters, meaning that so many would never turn to the law and feel that they are not listened to and cannot be confident of positive outcomes. To recover—though I do not know whether we ever had it—or secure the confidence of women and girls in our society, we must have reform. I urge that we take positive steps around the whole issue of rape and sexual assault, and perhaps look at the New South Wales model, or the Canadian model that was mentioned by one of the noble Lords on the Government Benches. We should be looking at better ways of supporting those who are victims.

There should also be the protection of survivors’ counselling and therapy records. I have seen it myself: there was a time when women were encouraged not to take counselling or see a therapist after they had been sexually violated because it would in some way call into question the credibility of what they were telling a court because they had talked about it too much and might have had ideas introduced into their heads. Now they are allowed to see counsellors, but misuse is often made of the records. Where women have said that they feel a sense of shame, that is used to question why they would feel shame if they were the victim. This has got to stop. I urge that we provide proper protections of women around the misuse of their records and that they have legal advice, funded by the state, around what is going to be involved in a trial.

When the then Domestic Abuse Bill came before this House, I made the argument for there being changes to the law in relation to the current defences that exist in certain areas of crime. Many of the women who are in prison—and they are a tiny part of the prison population—almost invariably are themselves people who have been victimised. Something like 78% of women in prison have themselves been abused, either as children or as adults, at the hands of partners and husbands. Many of the offences that women are in prison for have been committed at the behest of men—they have been coerced by men to commit them. What I am calling for—I will again raise the issues that I raised and had support for during the passage of the Domestic Abuse Bill in this House—is that there should be statutory defences for women who commit crimes, such as handling stolen goods or carrying drugs, for their coercive partner because they know that not to do it will bring down serious punishment and they have become so coerced and controlled that the ability to say no or go to the authorities is out of their reach. There has to be something better in the way of defences for women who are forced into crime and end up imprisoned for those reasons. For women who end up killing their abusers after years of abuse, there has to be a proper way of considering defences that might be available. Many of those currently available are failing women because of the way they are constructed.

I have always argued, and have written books on the subject, that law was historically created by men, and it has been only in the process of women being involved in our parliamentary processes and on our senior judiciary that law has been changed. We have to change the law so that it delivers for women too. I will be putting amendments to this Bill that I hope this House will accept and return to the Commons to improve it for women and girls who continue to be abused.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, and I congratulate my noble friend Lord Carter of Haslemere on his excellent maiden speech. I shall treat it as a template for how to make a speech from now on. It was also an honour to listen to the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, and I congratulate her on her reappointment as Victims’ Commissioner.

This is a welcome Bill and I agree that it is overdue, but, as I was reading it, something was nagging at me. It was not until I went to the Children’s Commissioner’s very useful briefing that I realised what it was: children are hardly mentioned at all, and nor as the victims of crime, as the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Gohir and Lady Benjamin, so aptly described. At this point, as ever, I declare my interest as a state secondary school teacher in Hackney. It is true that Clause 16 is entirely about the relationship between a parent and a child, but even that relationship is seen from an adult standpoint. As far as I can see, the issues of children then cease to be considered in the rest of the Bill, as several noble Lords have noted.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, said most powerfully, the children’s coalition suggests introducing a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation in Clause 1 so that a victim can be described as a victim of child criminal exploitation and the crime itself is defined. This seems an opportunity to protect children and ensure that children who have been forced into committing crimes are recognised as victims, not perpetrators. I, among others, would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on that.

As my noble friend Lord Meston said, when a child is the victim of a crime they should be treated very differently from an adult. Clause 15 talks about independent domestic violence advisers and independent sexual violence advisers, but again, there is no mention of a child victim adviser. We all know that it can be extraordinarily bewildering and challenging for a child to go through the justice system, whether as a victim or witness. According to data from Safelives, already cited by the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, only 1% of clients accessing independent domestic violence adviser services were under the age of 18, despite the high prevalence of domestic abuse in this age group.

The solution is that we need a specialist for every child victim. The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, quoted the Children’s Commissioner as saying:

“The Victims and Prisoners Bill should mandate that every child victim of the most serious crimes be offered a specialist advocate … This advocate must have the training and qualifications needed to work with vulnerable children. As well as specialism in the specific harm children have experienced, these advocates should also have the skillset of a Registered Intermediary, to ensure language and communication is appropriate to the child’s development level”,


as my noble friend Lady Coussins admirably described. As the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Gohir, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, have all quoted, Claire Waxman, the London Victims’ Commissioner, agrees:

“Clause 15 provides guidance about ISVAs and IDVAs, but does not recognise other victim advocates—including Stalking Advocates and Child Domestic Violence Advocates—who operate in the justice system and are crucial to victims. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust, for example, has shown that victims NOT supported by an Independent Stalking Advocate had a one-in-1,000 chance of their perpetrator being convicted, compared with one in four if they HAD this advocate”.


Surely this alone would make the idea worth while and repay any further investment tenfold. It would also fulfil the Government’s wish to avoid silos. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on this.

Another issue that has been flagged is that the Bill treats all under-18s as children. There is obviously a risk of adultifying them, but as the Children’s Commissioner also states, we need to deal with young people on a case-by-case basis to ensure that the criminal justice process is not disempowering for them.

We have to increase the profile of children and young people in this Bill. I will leave your Lordships with a quote from a 15 year-old rape victim: “I think if I could do it again, I wouldn’t report it, because I’d get over it much faster”.

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, it is a question of judgment. The Government’s judgment is that this legislation will go a long way towards reducing the terrible risks that people and unaccompanied children are facing in crossing the channel in difficult circumstances, and will destabilise the business model of the people smugglers. Those are surely legitimate objects for any Government to pursue.

The noble Baroness’s analysis is essentially correct: if I am a national of a particular state and I make an asylum claim or human rights claim then I cannot be sent back to that country; I could be sent back to a country with which—she puts it somewhat colloquially, and I would not quite use these words—we have a deal. The country with which we have a migration partnership at the moment is Rwanda, so that is still a possibility, subject to the individual in that case being able to make an application for either a factual suspensive application or an application based on imminent and foreseeable and serious harm. That is how it works, and that is how the Government see it.

While I am on my feet, I will address the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, about whether the threat of deterrents supersedes individual human rights. For the reasons I have given, our answer is that there is no question of superseding individual human rights due to the protections I have just explained. Refoulement is covered by the existing agreement with Rwanda, and I am sure it will be covered in future agreements.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I wonder if an answer could be given to the question from the Minister’s colleague on the Benches behind him, who asked about Commonwealth countries. Would the Minister agree that many of the Commonwealth countries have laws which criminalise homosexuality? Indeed, Uganda has just passed legislation which says that the death penalty can be used in relation to homosexuality, and in India there are currently a lot of issues and questions about the treatment of Muslims there. There might be very real issues even when it comes to Commonwealth countries.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness says, there might indeed be issues. Their legislation is a matter for them. The fact that they are members of the Commonwealth which upholds, or seeks to uphold, barest basic standards is a relevant background consideration, as the noble Lord pointed out.

For the reasons I have given, as best I can, the protections in the Bill are adequate to deal with the problems that have been raised. I respectfully say that Clauses 5 and 6 and Schedule 1 should stand part of the Bill.

European Court of Human Rights: Rule 39

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Wolfson, particularly where the interim measures order, in the circumstances that he relates, overrides three reasoned judgments by the domestic court at first instance, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. None the less, the Prime Minister is fully engaged and discussed this very question in Reykjavík recently with the president of the Strasbourg court.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I have asked the Minister about the difficulty that we lose credibility if we do not engage with the use of this particular interim measure order. It has been so useful, for example in relation to Russia, because interim measures have already got in under the wire and now, of course, Russia has been expelled from the Council of Europe. Does the Minister agree that, eventually, when people are brought before the International Criminal Court, the fact that Russia has failed to abide by those interim measures will be evidence of their culpability in war crimes?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I have already agreed on Russia. I emphasise that the Government’s approach to this is to engage very closely, respectfully and constructively with the Strasbourg authorities and the court’s working party, which is considering this very question.

Jurors: Mental Health Impact

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, as I say, the Government are exploring options. Sometimes a judge will warn jurors in advance that it is distressing and ask whether any of them wish to be discharged. There is a post-trial leaflet and an interesting video, which I watched yesterday, for jurors after the trial, which suggests what they should do if they feel stressed. Some courts of their own volition make references to local charities, and we are providing further guidance to courts on what to do in those circumstances.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I will come to the assistance of the Minister because he has been a practitioner in the courts, as I have. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is not someone who practises in front of juries—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

—but it is commonplace now for judges to say to a jury that a case is of a sexual nature or involves homicide or murder where the facts are particularly troubling and gruesome, and to ask: “If any of you have any reason why you feel could not sit on such a case, then please come forward and tell me”. You can have a juror say, “I have had an experience in my past which will make this particularly difficult”. Judges will take the opportunity to say that the juror does not have to sit. That is commonplace in serious cases now. I ask the Minister: should it not be an obligation on the Crown to inform a court and the judge who is sitting that a case may be very disturbing for jurors, so that they can step forward and withdraw from sitting as a juror on that particular case?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I am entirely in agreement with the noble Baroness that in most cases of this kind judges will warn jurors in advance. That should generally be done, and I think it is for the judge to decide.

Domestic Abuse: Defence for Victims who Commit an Offence

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I do not wish to pre-empt the contents of the Wade report or the Government’s response. The broad position is that the Government are not yet persuaded that a change in the law is needed in relation to homicide or other offences, but are very much open to further consideration of these very difficult issues.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, it is right to say that the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, made the commitment that has been referred to as a result of amendments which I had put forward, with the assistance of the right reverend Prelate and others in this House. The concern is that there has been evidence that women are disproportionately convicted of murder, because the way in which defences to homicide have been designed has not taken account of their experiences. Provocation and diminished responsibility are measured in ways that do not take account of that experience. We want to hear urgency from the Front Bench: will it be done with speed?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, these are difficult issues and I completely understand the concern of the noble Baroness and others who have raised them. Taking the law into one’s own hands is a very big step and there should be a very high bar to taking life, whatever the circumstances. The question of whether one should change the law on the defence of homicide is complicated and the Government will continue to consider it.

Human Rights Act 1998

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I start with a warning. This Government do not want scrutiny. It will not matter who becomes the new leader of the Conservative Party and, on the vote of only 160,000 people, our new Prime Minister—the Government do not want scrutiny. That is why they want to repeal the Human Rights Act, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, for introducing this debate and for her humanity over the years in promoting human rights.

I remind everyone—I see here the noble Lords, Lord Thomas and Lord Carlile, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, and my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, people who have been involved in these issues over a long period—that it used to take us six years to get a case to the European Court of Human Rights. When we took a case about the cruel and inhumane treatment being used in interrogation practices in Northern Ireland, it took six years to get the case to the European court. The business of bringing rights home in 1998 was to say, “Look, this is ridiculous; we ought to be able to make some of these decisions in our own courts”. What is being said now is that we want to constrain these terrible foreign judges, but let us be very clear that this is about constraining our judges even more. Do not be taken in by the rhetoric.

Human rights, as we know, are about respect for the humanity of another, irrespective of whether that person is male or female, whether they are a person of colour, whether they have one religion or another or no religion, whether they are gay or straight or trans, whether they are an asylum seeker or an economic migrant, whether they are a prisoner who has forfeited their liberty because of bad things they have done: they are still human beings who deserve to have their humanity respected. A person’s status should not reduce their humanity in our eyes; their human rights should not be contingent on their conduct or have to be earned. Those things, we have to hold on to.

I reinforce what has just been said by my noble friend Lord Parekh: decision-making by public bodies that undermine human rights should not be above challenge. Unfortunately, this business of repealing the Human Rights Act is precisely as he said. This is about a grab of power to the Executive, so we should be very clear about what is underpinning this. It really is about saying that members of the public will not be able to say, “These decisions being made by public bodies or by government policy are going to take away some of my human rights”. They do not want that, and that is what will mean significant inroads into the powers, not just of an international court but of domestic courts, to review the legality of what the Government do.

It must be remembered that the law develops by bringing test cases. To reinforce something said by my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, at the heart of this assault on rights is the division between lawyers who believe in the “living instrument” doctrine—the idea that law has to live and breathe through generous interpretation of rights because society changes and becomes different, so we want our judges to do likewise—and lawyers who want to cling to the original meaning of a text. They insist that common law is the great tradition and does not need any additional elements from outside, or the outside eyes that can often help us look at our system and see where it might need bettering. This idea of the original text comes from the US Justice Scalia school of lawyering, which insists on what the drafters of law had in mind and takes no account of changing norms or culture. It maroons society in a romance with the past, which is one of the things that we have to guard conservatives against, instead of moving into contemporary times and respecting the humanity of all.

We should be very clear about what the Government have in mind. This is why they are so dismissive of consultation or bringing in experts, as we had with the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, on judicial review and my noble friend Lord Murphy’s friend reviewing the Human Rights Act. They were dismissed by the Government because they do not want external reviews; basically, they just want to stick to an ideological position—to attack human rights. The objective of this Bill is not to restore parliamentary sovereignty or bolster rights, but the very opposite: to reduce rights, consolidate executive power and resist scrutiny.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

3rd reading
Tuesday 25th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I came into the debate late on the day we voted. I was really quite shocked to find what was being debated, and I listened very carefully to the contributions. Because I had not heard the Minister speak from the Dispatch Box, I did not take part in the debate; I felt that I would be criticised for coming in without having heard the full discussion. But I have practised in the criminal courts for 50 years—I was called to the Bar 50 years ago—so I can tell noble Lords that I was very alarmed at the content, and I echo what has just been said by one of our distinguished judges.

I really was concerned at the absence of discretion here. You could have such a range with this kind of manslaughter charge, and it is a shocking idea that a mandatory life sentence might be passed on someone very youthful in circumstances such as were described—you can never completely cover every possibility—by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, where the consequence of a tragedy could also lead to the double tragedy of somebody spending their life in prison because the sentence is mandatory. So I really do think we have to think twice here. Of course, we have to protect our public servants, but it is vital that we keep true to the idea that different cases require different responses, and that there have to be some exceptions.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, relatively new as I am to this House, I try to follow procedure and often fail to do so, and I am rightly reprimanded by fellow Peers when that happens and when mistakes are made. I am also very conscious of the democratic deficit of this House as unelected legislators. But, in relation to this issue, I was shocked by what I saw as an abuse of procedure by the introduction of this very important Harper’s law at such a late stage. I felt that that was bending the stick, to say the least, in terms of taking this House and its procedures seriously.

So, from my point of view, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, has explained very well that this is a modest amendment that does not try to overturn the spirit of what was passed earlier on but is trying to deal with what I think are unintended consequences that the Government themselves do not want to see—that is not their intention. But Harper’s law is not a minor matter. Since that bit of a mess by which it was passed last time, I have had some sleepless nights imagining that I might in any way be responsible for the unintended consequences that I really do not think the Minister wants to happen, but which could happen unless the Bill is unamended—which is why I support this amendment in these unusual circumstances.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Fullbrook. As a woman of Glasgow heritage, that alone should undoubtedly make her a great asset to this House.

It is hard to select which pieces of the Government’s legislative programme are the most dispiriting, but let me start with the Lord Chancellor’s plan to ratchet up sentences of imprisonment. This is mere populist posturing. It has already been mentioned—I mention it again because it is about wider Europe—that we have the highest prison population in Europe, surpassed only by Russia and Turkey. We are not talking just about western Europe but about the wider Europe of members of the Council of Europe. We are up there at the top of the league table, and it should be no source of pride to us.

I was rather saddened by the Minister’s woeful slogan, “Tough on crime, tough on the perpetrators of crime”. I know that he seemed proud of it. However, while it may be a little jibe at the Labour aphorism, “Tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime”, the difference between a slogan and an aphorism, which is why I choose the word “aphorism”, is that there is a nugget of truth in an aphorism. The truth in that aphorism about having to deal with and look to the causes of crime is because there one has a real sophisticated project on trying to drive down crime.

At the moment, our prisons are crammed full, with there being virtually no skills training, rehabilitation or education. Yet the level of illiteracy is high among our prison population. It means, therefore, that their ability to survive in society is harder. There are no anger management courses. It is truly abysmal that there is such an absence of courses to address drug addiction, alcohol addiction and misogyny, which is the backdrop to so much crime against women. We also have a depleted probation service, as was described by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. Probation officers are so hard-pressed that they have no capacity to carry out the risk assessments that are key to the prevention of reoffending.

My great friend, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, spoke of women in the criminal justice system, about which I, too, am concerned. In 2018, 62% of women in prison were serving sentences of less than six months. Since then, it is believed that that figure has increased. We have the extraordinary business of women being in prison, the vast majority of whom are serving sentences of under six months. Think about the consequences of that. A woman’s children are taken away from her and put into care; she loses her accommodation because the contract is terminated and she is evicted; and of course in prison, as I have mentioned, she is not able to avail herself of much in the way of support. Women in prison have usually been the victims of domestic violence, child abuse and all those things that we know often lead to people committing offences at the behest of controlling men.

It saddened me that, when the Attorney-General was asked on “Woman’s Hour” why we were creating 500 new places for women when the majority of women do not commit violent or serious offences, the response was that 50,000 new police officers were being created so that there would be many more arrests and therefore there was a need for many more prison places. That does not seem like a very imaginative way of dealing with criminal justice or preventing crime.

I turn to the other Bill that is an absolute travesty, the asylum reforms, which my noble friend Lord Blunkett made the arguments about very clearly. It is a shameful rejection of our obligations in international law. It should be remembered by everyone in this House—we are the last generation that really remembers this stuff; I remember my father, having coming back from the Second World War, telling us stories of the horrors—that the reason why the 1951 refugee convention was created was the problems that many had in getting out of Nazi Germany and away from persecution. The drafters of the convention made it very clear—

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I remind the noble Baroness of the time.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

Sorry. They made it clear that we have to treat a person as a refugee, not simply according to the way in which they made their way to another country.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Smith: we cannot delay the business of dealing with the persecution and misery faced by homosexual people in conversion therapy. That is a promise that was made, and I hope the Government stick to it. This is not about a failure to protect religion; it is about preventing people from being treated horribly—exorcised and so on—in ways that are inhumane and do not recognise their essential sexuality and humanity. Please proceed with that Bill.