Prisons: Young Offenders

Debate between Earl of Onslow and Lord McNally

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

No, I do not think that I can do that. There are regular reports and there is a body that reviews these incidents. I share some of the concern, but we are talking about 3 per cent of young people who are put into custody. As I emphasised in response to a question the other day, this is very much a last resort. The number of people going into custody has fallen dramatically in recent years—I pay tribute to the Front Bench opposite for what it achieved—but we also have a duty of care, both to the staff who deal with these often very violent young people and to other inmates, who may themselves be the subject of attack. I have committed to visit two of the institutions, to look at them and to talk to the staff. As I said, a thorough review has taken place and a new manual will be published imminently.

[The Earl of Onslow]

My Lords, the Minister said “published”. The guidelines were not published; it took three years of freedom of information action to try to get them out. Is he really saying that,

“Application of severe pain to the thumb”,

and,

“Staff raking their shoe down a child’s shin onto their instep”,

is the behaviour of a civilised society? I was deeply shocked by this and I continue to be so. I sincerely hope that we go back to the old common-law doctrine of minimum force, as opposed to these actions, which sound like those of a pub brawl and nothing less.

[Lord McNally]

Minimum force is the guidance. The opportunity to treat young people in different ways is being explored. The institutions concerned have had the highest recommendations from Ofsted. Nobody is more enthusiastic about freedom of information than I am, but is it really in the public interest for a manual such as this to be available for distribution on the internet and for people to look at these techniques, which, as I said, are used in extremis by staff under threat of physical danger? We have approached this matter, as did the previous Administration, with due responsibility. We have taken note of what has happened since 2005 and acted on it.

House of Lords Reform

Debate between Earl of Onslow and Lord McNally

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I am not aware of that. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde said that the Labour Party must have had more money than sense if it was taking legal advice. Look; the fact is that the commitments made in our manifestos have been merged into the coalition agreement. If the Labour Party is saying that it is planning some kind of guerrilla warfare on that basis, while as far as I am concerned the Salisbury convention and the Cunningham conventions will still be operated in this House, we will have to wait and see.

[The Earl of Onslow]

What is slightly odd in this thing is that those on the two Front Benches and I, and the noble Lord, Lord Desai, agree. There is a sea of people from all over the place who do not agree, so those who are causing trouble will be led by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, who is a Labour Peer, and by my noble friend Lord Cope, and my noble and learned friend Lord Howe, who are Conservative Peers. I am sure that I can think of one here as well. It is not a party political issue of where the Parliament Act arises. It seems to me totally wrong for this House to throw out a Bill like that, which had been agreed by the Commons. That is why I could never, ever agree to that myself.

[Lord McNally]

It slightly chills the soul to think that my sole supporters are the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, and the noble Lord, Lord Desai, but I will take any help I can on this. However, the noble Earl makes a valid point. This is something else that this House has to think about, and it is why we want to take it gently through this. If the other place, on the basis of a substantial majority, brings a Bill to this House, this House will have to think very hard about what it does next. I think that has been understood over a long period.

I will give your Lordships two quotes to finish, and shall then sit down. The historian Janet Morgan, writing over a quarter of a century ago, wrote:

“On summer evenings and winter afternoons, when they have nothing else to do, people discuss how to reform the House of Lords. Schemes are taken out of cupboards and drawers and dusted off. Speeches are composed, pamphlets written, letters sent to the newspapers. From time to time the whole country becomes excited. Occasionally legislation is introduced; it generally fails”.

That is a very pessimistic view, so I finish with this. As something of an historian manqué, I subscribe to History Today. The latest edition has an article on the 1832 Act. We might find its opening useful as we go to the next stage of Lords reform. It says:

“There is a curious but almost entirely consistent feature of the history of constitutional change in Britain, a feature which could be said to typify the twin national characteristics of boldness and caution. It is that significant political alterations … are generally resisted for decades, but once adopted are almost immediately absorbed into the general pattern of stable political continuity”.

I believe that would happen if we faced up to the fact and reformed this House.

Prisoners: Voting

Debate between Earl of Onslow and Lord McNally

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

That comes from a Minister who did not even get “afresh” into any of his answers over a long period of time. He will be well aware that the court slightly moved the goalposts, in its decision of 8 April on Frodl v Austria, which narrowed even further the terms under which votes could be denied to prisoners. Given that and the fact that Ministers have just come into office, I think it perfectly reasonable that we be given some time to look at this. At the meeting of the Council of Europe in September, we intend to fully update the council on our thoughts on this matter.

[The Earl of Onslow]

My Lords, I was on the Joint Select Committee on Human Rights when this judgment was made, and I hoped at the time that grass would be heavily fertilised around this issue. It is the sort of judgment that does not really help to bring the general issue of human rights to the forefront of an Englishman’s mind. That is something that I regard as extremely important. We should be clear on human rights—and we should allow grass to grow in great dollops around issues such as this one.

[Lord McNally]

I think that the noble Lord’s Question was about whether the Government were committed to the basic, underlying human rights commitments in our membership of the council—and that is absolutely true and firm. But as at least two of the former Ministers now gazing at me know, there is a range of options. They were working on an option that might have been quite acceptable to a broad base of British public opinion, but the Frodl judgment has moved the goalposts again. That is why we are looking at the matter afresh.

Queen's Speech

Debate between Earl of Onslow and Lord McNally

Thursday 27th May 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I reply to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, as a once enthusiastic reformer—he will just have to wait and see. If he would like to send me the watertight commitments from both sides of the House to which he referred, I would be very interested to see them—they do not exist.

[The Earl of Onslow]

I speak as a long-time reformer—and as an elected Peer, I hasten to add. Would not my noble friend regard it as perfectly reasonable, if we are going to reform the House, to have a cull of life Peers in exactly the same way as there was a cull of hereditary Peers?

[Lord McNally]

I note what my noble friend said—or, as he told me yesterday he would prefer me to call him, “my noble acquaintance”. He is still coming to terms with the oiks that this coalition is bringing with it.

Let me say a few personal words. I know the esteem in which this House is currently held; I see every day the value and diligence of its work and the expertise noble Lords bring to scrutiny—that is now—but I am clear that this House as presently constituted is not sustainable. We could soon be a House of more than 800 Peers—