Victims and Prisoners Bill

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Berkeley of Knighton

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I am not a lawyer but I do have some experience of visiting prisons, thanks to the Koestler Trust, which takes art into prisons. I was quite a close friend of the late, much- lamented and learned Lord Brown, so I feel quite strongly about what I have heard. I have been very moved by this discussion and the toing and froing between quite considerable legal minds.

What I took from my time visiting prisons was that essential ingredient of hope. The arts sometimes gave hope but, of course, there were instances, which we have been hearing about with IPP, where hope had been vanquished. I want to make only one simple point. No greater tribute could be paid to the late Lord Brown than that the Government acknowledge the point he made, and that other noble Lords are making, and come to some arrangement to bring to a close this system, which is not only iniquitous but almost cruel. People need to know at the end of the day that there is some chance of once again leading a normal life.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, on the first group of amendments my noble and learned friend the Minister said that there was a cohort of IPP prisoners who had never been released and he suggested that it was because they did not meet the tests of the Parole Board. My concern is that the prison system has not been able to offer the rehabilitation necessary for these prisoners to demonstrate that they could safely be released. That is why I strongly support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Moylan.

I also have strong support for the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, particularly because it refers to prisoners whom the Secretary of State would release if he was able to but cannot. There must be a great cost to keeping those prisoners in prison who are there because the Secretary of State does not have the power to release them.

Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Berkeley of Knighton

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I have been listening with great interest to this debate and been persuaded by what has been said on all sides of the Chamber, but one thing occurred to me when we were debating Amendment 2. The Minister said he was not really aware of a lack of confidence in the system but I have to say that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, is right. It is not just in the Daily Mail. Whenever you read about Deepcut or any of these scandals, the people whose families are affected do not have total confidence in the system. They think there are cover-ups. Only on the radio on the way here, I heard the families of people who were at Hillsborough saying they were let down and a chief constable has been sacked because there was a cover-up. It really is not good enough to say that the public have trust and the Minister is not aware of mistrust. I can assure noble Lords that there is mistrust among the general public, who feel that organisations that inspect themselves when there is a problem are deeply suspicious. I am not saying that the military does not often do things very well—or the police or any other organisation—but the general public are concerned about this issue.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, just mentioned Deepcut. I urge anyone who has the slightest worry about Deepcut to read the Blake report, which explains what happened.

I agree with the general thrust of these amendments, particularly the sensible approach from the noble Lord, Lord Touhig. In Committee, the Minister was sympathetic to our concerns but he has rather too much faith in the commanding officer. Yes, commanding officers are extremely experienced and they are specially trained to be commanding officers. There is a course for commanding officers-designate. My experience is that with every level you go up in terms of promotion, you get more information about what your responsibilities are and what the difficulties are.

Nevertheless, the power of the commanding officer can be delegated to more junior officers, so quite often—in terms of discipline, for instance—minor offences can be dealt with by a major or a lieutenant-commander. These cases are exceptionally difficult for the commanding officer to investigate. Clearly he will not be able to investigate them personally. He may even be out of the country when the allegation arises. The commanding officer or the acting or delegated commanding officer will have to appoint someone else in the unit to carry out the investigation, and that person will not be any better trained. Furthermore, the fact that someone else in the unit may have to be appointed to carry out the investigation may deter someone from making an allegation in the first place.

Amendment 5 covers only sexual assault; it does not cover inappropriate contact, by which I mean touching. However, this can also be a problem and it can be a precursor to more serious problems. As I said in Committee, my belief is that the service police should keep records of allegations of sexual assault and inappropriate contact. They would then know whether a person had made this type of complaint before and could ask whether they could be a serial complainant, and they would also have records of someone who had had a similar allegation made against them before and they might even know the MO, so they would understand whether the allegation was likely to be true or malicious. If the service police keep records, investigations can be facilitated, and it is better to achieve this through a policy change rather than through the amendment, which, as I said, has the defect of not covering inappropriate contact.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, referred to the culture in the Armed Forces as a reason for publishing the statistics. She will be aware that the Armed Forces carry out continuous attitude surveys that measure changes. She made the important point, from her own background and experience, about measuring changes. In Committee, the Minister explained what information is already released and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, told us how difficult it is to access it. However, my concern is that the media—particularly the print media—will use these statistics to produce an easy story. It is easy to quote a horrendous number of incidents without comparing them with the number of such incidents in civil society.

In conclusion, I feel very strongly about the need for record-keeping by service police to facilitate investigations. These are very difficult matters for officers and warrant officers in a unit to investigate. Frankly, I do not think they relish it; they would rather hand it over to the service police, who have the relevant experience.

I hope the Minister can say something helpful to us, but I am also happy to join noble Lords later in keeping up the pressure on my noble friend the Minister, because I know that he enjoys getting pressure from me.