Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, Amendment 149B, tabled by my noble friend Lord Avebury, seeks to remove immigration and nationality appeals from the provisions in Section 13(6) of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. Similarly, Amendment 149C seeks to remove a narrower class of appeals—those which relate to the refugee convention or the European Convention on Human Rights—from the provisions in that section. Section 13(6) of the 2007 Act enables the Lord Chancellor to set out, by order, the test which applications have to meet for permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal from the Upper Tribunal. That order-making power has been exercised so that where a party seeks permission to appeal on a point of law against a decision of the Upper Tribunal, the second-tier appeals test will be applied, as noble Lords have said. That test requires that in order to grant permission, the Upper Tribunal or Court of Appeal has to consider that the proposed appeal would raise an important point of principle or practice, or that there is some other compelling reason for the Court of Appeal to hear the appeal.

The Government, like the courts themselves, fully appreciate the gravity of the subject of these appeals. Amendment 149C is concerned with appeals of the most serious kind, where the claim may be that if the appellant is returned home they may face torture or even death. Such cases undoubtedly deserve what has been called anxious scrutiny. In the Government’s view, that is what the system currently provides. At present, if a person makes a claim to asylum in the United Kingdom, for example, and that claim is rejected, he or she can appeal to the First-tier Tribunal. If that tribunal dismisses the appeal, there is a right of appeal to the Upper Tribunal. Alternatively, if the appeal is allowed, the UK Border Agency may appeal to the Upper Tribunal.

Both the First-tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal are composed of judges who are experts in this most sensitive of subjects. Therefore, if the Upper Tribunal rejects the appeal, it seems right to the Government that the test to take the matter to a third judicial body should be high. The courts have been clear that there is no case for saying that the UK would be in breach of its international obligations if appeals from the Upper Tribunal are available only in these circumstances. At present, all appeals from the various jurisdictions of the Upper Tribunal to the Court of Appeal are considered under the second-tier appeals test. That same test, under the Access to Justice Act 1999, also applies where there is an appeal against a decision of the High Court and where the latter was acting in its appellate capacity.

The Government believe that the same level of consideration should be given to all types of appeals, even to the sorts of cases with which Amendment 149C is concerned. One reason for this is that not all claims which are made are substantiated when they are put to the test. The second-tier appeals test gives judges appropriate control over the cases that reach the Court of Appeal. Removing this test could cause the Court of Appeal to be inundated with cases that may not justify their consideration. This would cause delays in the provision of justice for the whole range of decisions that are brought to the Court of Appeal and put further pressure on the judicial resources available to that court.

The courts have made a number of important judgments recently that help to clarify the application of the test for cases seeking permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal in the immigration and asylum context. For instance, if a person maintains in their application for permission to appeal that they will be persecuted if they are returned home, that will be a matter which the Upper Tribunal can consider in determining whether the “some other compelling reason” limb of Section 13(6), is met in reference to the second-tier appeals test. If it refuses permission, it is open to the appellant to apply direct to the Court of Appeal for permission.

There is no doubt that the class of cases dealt with by Amendment 149C can be both complex and of the utmost importance. It is our belief that the current structure, including applying the second-tier appeals test in appeals from the Upper Tribunal to the Court of Appeal, is the right one. That was of course the position of those who are now the Opposition when they were in government, as they argued the case then. As we consider that the case is not made out to change the test for the most serious kinds of cases—and as we also heard the other day from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, in defence of the Upper Tribunal’s track record in what has happened since this was debated a few years back—it follows that we do not accept that that test should be removed for the wider category of cases covered by Amendment 149B. I therefore urge my noble friend to withdraw this amendment.

[Lord Avebury]

I cannot say that I am not disappointed by that reply, because, as I said initially, there have been cases where people at very serious risk of torture have not been allowed to appeal to the Court of Appeal. For example, in the case that I mentioned of PR (Sri Lanka), the individual had been tortured in Sri Lanka and that was acknowledged by the courts but not deemed to be sufficient reason for the second-tier appeal test to have been satisfied. There have been conflicting decisions by the courts on the second-tier appeal. The only safe thing would be to ensure that where considerations of human rights are involved, as they were in the case of PR, the right of appeal to the Upper Court should be retained and the second-tier appeal test should be modified in the manner that I suggested. However, since my noble friend has suggested that we defer this matter until Report—

[Baroness Northover]

Perhaps I might point out to my noble friend that it is not the case that the second-tier appeals test does not allow for materially wrong decisions to be challenged by the Court of Appeal and that in the JD (Congo) case, three of the four appellants seeking permission were granted it. The immigration and asylum chambers of the First-tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal have been set up specifically to deal with these kinds of matters. My noble friend mentioned the complexity and sensitivity of these kinds of cases, and I should have answered by addressing that point.

[Lord Avebury]

I mentioned the case of JD (Congo) in my first speech—I have it in front of me—and I accept that in that case, the second-tier appeals test was found to have been met. However, there are other cases in which the circumstances were equally compelling and where that test has not been met. It was in the hope that we would clear up that ambiguity in how the second-tier appeals test is interpreted that I tabled my amendment. As I was about to say, we will have to reflect on this and perhaps come back to it on Report. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

International Women’s Day

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, for opening the debate. I am looking forward to the contributions of many noble Lords who are speaking today.

I wondered whether I could find a phrase other than “my Lords” to address the House collectively in an International Women’s Day debate. There is, of course, the term “noble sisters”, which we can take to embrace the men who are going to speak today, just as we have to accept that the words “my Lords” cover women too. Perhaps today they might do the reverse and accept that the term “noble Baronesses” covers them also—if the term “noble sisters” is too radically feminist for them.

The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, has asked us to celebrate the contribution of women to economic growth. That is a good thing to do in our women’s day debate and, of course, it does not just concern women’s role in the workforce, as the noble Baroness, said, but the whole of women’s lives in society. Where the noble Baroness and I may part company is on the question of whether this Government deserve that much credit for their contribution to the position of women in our economy today. Expecting to be congratulated on now supporting policies which any enlightened person or organisation might do, and some of us did decades ago, is perhaps going too far.

It would be churlish of me to remind the noble Baroness, for example, that her party branded me and the London Labour Party as “loonies” because we embraced workplace nurseries, the expansion of childcare and employers supporting their employees with childcare and job sharing as positive measures to support women in the workplace. We heard from all quarters of the Conservative Party that this would be the end of civilisation as we know it and would undermine the family, but I rejoice at a sinner repenting.

Of course, I congratulate Conservative women on their achievements in increasing the number of women representatives in Parliament, for example. However, it is worth saying that, come the next general election, it is possible that unless both of the parties in the coalition take positive action to address the gender imbalance of MPs and prospective candidates, when Labour makes its gains—which I think it will—this may be disastrous for the representation of Liberal Democrat women MPs in particular, because they are in marginal seats. It will also not be good for women Conservative MPs. That is a matter of great concern for our democracy. I think the parties opposite need to address that issue very seriously indeed. Perhaps they might look at the examples that we continue to set in the Labour Party about how one increases the number of women representatives in Parliament and other places.

In the few moments left to me I should like to reflect on the lessons from the struggles that women have had. As we used say in my women’s group at the LSE in the 1970s, the personal is political. So I am going to look at a struggle that took place where I grew up, in Manningham, which is in my title. Samuel Cunliffe Lister, the first Baron Masham—not related to our dear noble Baroness, Lady Masham—is celebrated in Bradford as a former industrial giant and a benefactor to the city. There is a statue of him in Lister Park, the local park. Many may be aware of his great monument: the Italianate splendour of the towering chimney of Lister’s Mill, Manningham, which still dominates the city skyline more than 100 years after he breathed his last. He may have been the head of a dynasty of worker-bashing mill owners, but a closer look reveals that he could have been responsible for helping to create the Conservative Party’s deadliest rival, the Labour Party. I am referring to the Manningham Mills strike, lasting from 16 December 1890 until 27 April 1891—nearly 19 weeks. This was a war of attrition that was symbolic, in all aspects, of the clash of interests between capital and labour, particularly among the textile workers in the West Riding. The dispute was initially around pay but escalated into a dispute about solidarity, freedom of speech and how the Poor Law criminalised the poor. Unfortunately, the workers in that strike were starved back to work and returned after 19 weeks with the reduced wages that they had been offered.

However, the lesson for us today is that the unintended consequence was that tens of thousands of workers in the mill industry—the strike was led by women, which is why it is important—joined trade unions. Two years later, the Independent Labour Party was founded in Bradford. I claim for the women of Bradford the fact that we helped to found the Labour Party and all the consequences that have led from that. The lesson we might take from that today is that we need to pay tribute to the brave working women who have improved working conditions throughout the past 100 years or so—the women of the match girls’ strike, the Asian women in Grunwick and the women of Dagenham. We should pay tribute to those women in this debate and be grateful to them.

This Government and their policies for women, particularly working women, are an example of where the reality does not match the rhetoric. We know that women are suffering hugely from redundancies and that unemployment among women aged between 50 and 64 has rocketed by almost 20 per cent in the past year. According to Netmums, in February 2012, 70 per cent of families were financially on the edge, women were missing meals to feed their children—a survey of 2,000 mothers found that one in five was missing meals so that her children could eat—and a quarter of families were living on credit cards. It is the women who bear the brunt of this. Of course, I congratulate this Government where they have helped women at work—I have worked with the noble Baroness on that—but we need to address the very real issue that this economic downturn and this Government’s policies are having a very detrimental effect on women’s lives in this country.

[Baroness Northover]

I remind noble Lords—I should have done this at the very beginning of the debate—that this is a time-limited debate, and when the clock hits six minutes noble Lords have had their time. Could we be as disciplined as possible, because there is another major debate and a Third Reading following on after this?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Benjamin]

My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lady Verma for securing this debate, as it celebrates International Women’s Day, a very important time of the year when all of us can focus on the value of women in the world. It is also a time when women can pause from their multitasking for a few deserved moments to give each other a virtual hug of encouragement.

I am a proud woman who has played her part in contributing towards our country’s economy, but I would not have been able to do that if my parents, especially my mother, had not made so many sacrifices, which enabled their six children to benefit from their efforts. My beloved mother was born the same year as Her Majesty the Queen, and I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Her Majesty on reaching the great milestone of her Diamond Jubilee—what an achievement, and she is still going strong.

My mother, who sadly is no longer with us, was an incredible woman. She worked so hard to get money to make it possible for her children to have a better life. My father, who always encouraged us, was a jazz musician in the 1960s so he did not earn much money. To bring in extra cash for the family to live a comfortable life, my mother took on three jobs. She cleaned offices early in the morning, at the crack of dawn. I used to help her during the school holidays and thought it was a great adventure to do so at the time. That is why I believe we must never look down on anyone, especially those who clean—you never know their circumstances. She was also a childminder during the day while we were at school, looking after other women’s children while they went out to work. In the evenings she did the laundry for the boys at a public school.

Years after that, my son, who is now a lawyer, went to that same school, and I became a governor of the school for 10 years—who would have thought? Later my mother gave up her evening job to stay at home because my eldest sister had got low marks for her school exams. My mother felt she owed it to us to be there for us, to push and motivate us. She taught her children to have a strong work ethic, which would be to our advantage. She used to say, “Keep at it, because the harder you work the bigger the rewards, not just financially but for that great sense of achievement, which is priceless”.

She reminded us every day that being from a culturally diverse background meant that you had to work twice as hard to be acknowledged, to achieve equality or to reach your goal. For us and many like us from minority backgrounds, sometimes the glass ceiling seems to be made of toughened glass. Even now, it is often almost impossible to break through. But you just have to keep on going. Nothing comes easy.

Women across the country have fought for equality in all aspects of life for centuries. They stormed Parliament, they chained themselves to railings; they even died for their cause—to play their part in making our country a more prosperous place. All women need are opportunities in order to progress.

I was chair of the Women of the Year Lunch for five years from 1995 to 2000, and the subject of equality and fairness was always top of the agenda. The lunch was co-founded in 1955 by the legendary, late Tony Lothian, who pushed the boundaries to get the recognition women justly deserved. I would like to take this opportunity to recognise and praise the work of Marie Colvin, killed a week ago in Homs. She won the Women of the Year Window to the World Award in 2001 for her bravery and work in journalism. She often said, “I go into places by choice but the people I am covering have no choice”. She will be truly missed.

Even though women have made huge inroads into almost every area of business and careers, there are still places that are like citadels, surrounded by impenetrable walls, which are barred to them. But I believe that, given a chance, women of all cultures could make an even bigger difference to our economy, bringing with them rich qualities that are sometimes lacking in boardrooms across the land.

It is not just the women in the workplace who make a huge contribution to our economy. There are also the women I call the unsung heroines of our economy. Yes, we must celebrate the contribution of the women who make a conscious decision to stay at home and care for their children. I have often heard women say, “I am only a housewife”. I say to those women they should be proud of themselves because they are just as worthy as anyone else in the workplace and the contribution they make in their own special way to the country is long term.

My mother did just that and her contribution has turned out to be worthwhile through her children, who all went on to have successful careers. So let us not forget the women who stay at home and undertake the very difficult task of childcare, managing the household, nurturing, guiding and motivating their children. They can be the best inspirational role models to their children. Even though it is a job that is not always celebrated or acknowledged, it is invaluable and serves as the backbone of our society, giving children the confidence to take up their place in society and contribute in a positive way. I applaud them for choosing to forgo their careers and become some of the country’s biggest economic assets—

[Baroness Northover]

I apologise for interrupting my noble friend, but I remind noble colleagues that when the clock hits six, you have had six minutes. I apologise.

[Baroness Benjamin]

Thank you very much but I just want to get that last phrase in. Thank you.

[Baroness Northover]

I point out that it will eat in to the Minister’s reply at the end if noble Lords overrun. This is a time-limited debate. I would appreciate my colleague’s understanding in this instance.

[Baroness Benjamin]

Let us congratulate all women on International Women’s Day and use it with pride. Our country needs you now more than ever. Thank you so much for being patient with me.