Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, as treasurer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children, I hope that I can say a brief word in support of the consensus across the House in favour of allowing parents flexibility. That is very heartening to me. At the early years conference hosted by the Daycare Trust earlier today, a practitioner complained that many children are now put into school at eight o’clock in the morning and are not collected until five or six in the evening. In my experience of caring for children, when some young people have to stay on past the end of the school day, they are very tired and unhappy because they have been left behind. It is encouraging to hear the whole House agree that, whatever the detail may be, we need to allow parents flexibility in their employment for the benefit of their children. I hope that the Government will continue to make more opportunities for flexible employment available to parents and increase parental leave.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, I am in the position which is often that of dissenting judges in the Court of Appeal who say that they have the misfortune to disagree with their judicial colleagues. Eminent though the previous speakers are, I cannot support these amendments. Your Lordships’ Constitution Committee, of which I am a member, reported on judicial appointments in March this year. We set out the scale of the problem. The problem is that about 16% of High Court judges and only 11% of Court of Appeal judges are women. Only one member of the Supreme Court’s 12 justices is female. We found that one of the reasons why there are so few women on the Bench at High Court level and above is the inflexibility of the working arrangements. We observed that there are increasing proportions of women at senior levels in all other professions and that this has occurred in recent years, in part, because of the increasing use of flexible working hours. We concluded that, for the number of women within the judiciary at the highest levels to increase significantly, there needs to be a firm commitment to flexible working and a recognition that many women will want to work part time for family care reasons.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, was concerned to emphasise in his remarks at the beginning of this debate that he is in favour, of course, of flexible working: it is part-time working to which he objects. However, I say to the noble and learned Lord that a part-time worker is simply one who needs to work flexibly on a regular basis because of continuing family care commitments that arise every week of the year.

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As I said in Committee and repeat now, I do not oppose the principle behind this clause. I firmly believe that people must face up to their financial responsibilities by meeting the fines in full and on time. However, in cases where they fail to do so, for whatever reason, there must be protections against additional costs recovery cutting into the minimum income required for their most basic needs—a roof over their heads and a means to feed themselves and their children. Before giving contractors the power to impose new penalties we should, as a minimum, ensure that some options of downward adjustment are available for the most severe cases. By simply extending the current means-testing system that is already successfully applied to fines, we can avoid pushing people into poverty, increase the likelihood of full payment and prevent expensive appeals. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I support the amendment and—

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, because I have three amendments in this group it may be helpful if I intervene now. I will, of course, respond at the end of the debate to the points that are made.

I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, who has a personal commitment to and involvement in this area. I found our recent meeting extremely useful. On fee levels, I am advised that it is normal practice at this stage of the legislative process not to set fee levels. It is certainly not unprecedented. Perhaps I may also take up the point the noble Lord made in closing. We are talking about fines imposed by the court. There is a responsibility on the offender to pay those fines and a responsibility on the Government to put in place a means of collecting them. It is also important that we look at making affordable financial penalties so that they do not produce the devastating impact that the noble Lord referred to.

The Government take the view that the recovery of collection costs provided for in Clause 21 differs greatly from means-tested fines. A fine is a financial penalty imposed by the court as punishment for a criminal offence. The level of fine is based on the seriousness of the offence and the offender’s ability to pay. On the other hand, collection costs are administrative charges which would apply only as a means of recovering the costs of collecting a fine following a default. They are not intended as a further punishment. The collection costs will be proportionate and have a direct correlation to the actual costs of collecting the unpaid fine. To introduce a means-tested charge, as the noble Lord suggests, would create a complex and resource-intensive administrative system which would increase the operational costs, thus leading to increased collection costs overall.

The Government are doing everything they can to ensure that individuals avoid defaulting in the first place and that fines are not set at a level that is inappropriate and unaffordable. We all agree that fines set at the wrong level are to no one’s benefit. The House should be aware that fines officers have the powers to determine payment plans to help individuals manage their fine payments. Furthermore, we introduced amendments to the Bill in Committee which enable the sharing of data between government departments—primarily Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service, the Department for Work and Pensions and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs—for the specific purpose of ensuring that fines and other financial penalties are set at the right level in the first place.

The additional charge to meet collection costs is avoidable. If a person maintains contact with the court and is complying with the payment plan or pays on time as ordered, they will face no extra costs. I re-emphasise the importance of offenders engaging with the justice system from the onset, particularly if they may have difficulty in paying the fine immediately. It must be remembered that should an individual suffer hardship, they can have their case referred back to the court, which can remit all or part of the collection charges. This provides a strong safeguard. However, it must not be forgotten that ultimately it is the offender’s obligation and responsibility to comply with a court order.

The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, questioned whether it was right to bring forward legislation without setting out the proposed collection costs structure. It is perfectly correct for Parliament to agree the principle of collection costs before the exact costs are finalised. As I said earlier, the collection costs will relate to the direct costs of enforcing an unpaid fine. Therefore, until we commence the procurement tender for fine collection services and see the proposals and costs of the bids, we are unable to give an indication of what the exact collection costs will be. However, I can assure noble Lords that companies will not be able to charge disproportionate fees in order to make a profit and we will publish a revised impact assessment before commencing these provisions.

Government Amendments 110 and 123 create new powers for Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service to access data held by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs for the purpose of enforcing outstanding financial penalties. These new powers will complement those that I have already described in relation to data sharing prior to sentencing. These measures will help Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service enforce unpaid fines and compensation orders by allowing the courts to obtain additional information on defaulters for more effective and targeted use of attachment of earnings orders.

Under the Courts Act 2003, courts are already able to access an offender’s social security information from the Department for Work and Pensions if the offender has defaulted on the payment of their fine or compensation order and the court is trying to enforce payment. The government amendment will extend these data-sharing arrangements to cover information held by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs—for example, earnings from employment.

Amendment 115 makes a technical amendment to Schedule 16 to ensure Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service can access the full range of information held by the Department for Work and Pensions for the purposes of sentencing an individual.

We treat data protection extremely seriously and, like all our other data-sharing provisions, these provisions are subject to rigorous safeguards. Accordingly, data will be shared only with authorised individuals in Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service, which may use the information only for the purpose of enforcing an unpaid financial penalty. If the information is supplied or disclosed for any other purpose, with certain specific exceptions, the person supplying the data will be guilty of a criminal offence punishable by up to six months’ imprisonment. The Information Commissioner’s Office has been consulted and has welcomed the proposals on the basis that access to shared data will be limited and will be used for specific purposes. I hope that enables a more rounded debate.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for intervening in that helpful way and for giving that information. I have put my name to the amendment because I share the concerns expressed so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig.

It is a naughty time, particularly for the most vulnerable and impoverished families. It is a very hard time and children need enduring and reliable relationships above all. We would want that for all children. The difficulty is that when families are pushed to the very edge it becomes more and more difficult for them to be in reliable and enduring relationships with their children. Pressures are put on the parental relationship and on the attention that parents can give to their children. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, about concerns that parents are so short of money that they cannot afford to heat the home and put food on the table. What sort of pressure does that put on the family when parents cannot look after their family in that way? I am aware of this from meeting parents, mostly mothers, of families in temporary accommodation provided by Barnardo’s and also from going out on visits with health visitors and speaking to mothers. It certainly helped me to understand how, in the past, parents have really struggled on the edge of society. Today, in these circumstances and in the financial conditions we are in, it is hard to conceive how difficult it must be for some families to care for their children as they need to.

I am worried about this and am very grateful for the care that the Minister has taken in taking this forward. I was pleased that he could meet the noble Lord and I was sorry I was not able to join that meeting. What he said is certainly helpful, although I am looking at my notes of what he said to see whether there is anything I can come back on now. I do not think there is. I will finish at this point and look forward perhaps to hearing a little more reassurance in his final comments.

I share the concern of noble Lords that we must do everything possible to protect the most vulnerable families at this very difficult financial time. Many of these families are quite chaotic. They may not open their letters and may be in all sorts of messes. There are also people who prey upon them. Just last week I was speaking to a care leaver in her second year at university. She came from an estate in Stockport where she said there were no expectations—she was expected to have children in her teenage years and that would be her life. However, she has gone on from care to university, where she is now in her second year reading law. She says that when she goes back home, there are three predatory loan sharks on her estate. They will lend money—£250 for Christmas but if you do not pay it back by June next year you have to pay £500. There are all sorts of people who prey on these vulnerable families so, as far as possible, we need to protect them as we legislate here today.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I also strongly sympathise with my noble friend’s amendment, in particular in connection with his reference to the cost of collection. I suspect we will return to that issue when the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, moves her amendment in relation to bailiffs, because, as was mentioned in Committee and no doubt will be mentioned again today, the cost of collection is often wholly disproportionate to the amount of the fines, particularly when it is in the hands of private firms contracted to either local authorities or the courts. It is quite a different matter when the courts have their own collection services run by their own staff.

There will be considerable concern about the potential direct costs, and the indirect costs, if families are driven further into poverty and we have the problems of homelessness, children being taken into care and the like. It seems that the Government’s intention to outsource this work is likely to aggravate what might be a difficult problem in any event. Clearly, the Government are not going to make any further move on this. That is a matter for regret and certainly something that we will have to keep a collective eye on in future, particularly the likely impact on local authorities if things go wrong and families are unable to maintain the costs.

It is perfectly true that those who receive a financial penalty are obliged to pay it, but the likelihood is that it will not just be them who suffer but their dependants. That has financial as well as social implications. I had hoped that the Government would react rather more positively to my noble friend’s amendment but it does not look as if that is likely to happen. That is a matter of regret and it will be for my noble friend to decide whether he tests the opinion of the House at this very late stage. I suspect he may well not do so, but the issue will not go away. We will undoubtedly want to probe whatever arrangements are ultimately made with those who will be responsible for making these collections.