Justice Committee

Debate between John Howell and Robert Neill

Thursday 20th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

That issue has been raised in evidence, and there are differing views on the impact of larger or smaller units. I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for her work and support, and for her immense knowledge in this area. Whatever the size and nature of an establishment, it is critical that there should be a proper relationship between staff and prisoners. One of the biggest problems is that there is often an insufficient sense of such a personal interface, and that can breed a sense of alienation. I personally do not have a hard and fast rule about size. The important thing is that however a prison is organised, it must be possible to build long-term relationships between staff and prisoners. That is why staff retention and morale are critical in creating the climate and atmosphere that enable people to be constructive in their time in prison, rather than falling into some of the other diversions, which can create difficulties.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I too want to raise the question of governor empowerment. I had the opportunity to discuss this with the governor of HMP Huntercombe in my constituency when I visited it recently. Does my hon. Friend agree that dealing with the risk of increased prisoner complaints which the Committee identified is actually within the control of the prison, as is happening at Huntercombe?

[Robert Neill]

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution and for his work on the Committee, which has been tireless. Huntercombe is a good example of a prison where the governor is managing within the existing arrangements. We need to see more of that. We should not assume that everything has to be driven from the centre, although minimum standards must be adhered to in a system of complaints management that everyone, including prisoners, can have confidence in. Good governors can and do make a difference, but they must be confident that they have the support of the system and the management of the service in doing that.

Prison Safety

Debate between John Howell and Robert Neill

Thursday 15th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Robert Neill]

Indeed. I was referring to the immediate former prisons Minister with whom the Committee worked. The right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) graces us on the Select Committee and we have had the benefit of his input.

Let us be blunt. Prison safety is terrible. Those are not my words, but those of the former Secretary of State, my Friend the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), in a prompt and frank response to our inquiry. He is entitled to credit for that.

The difficulty, which the current Minister will recognise and accept, is that prison safety was terrible when our report came out and it has got worse. I have hesitated until now to talk about a crisis in prison safety, but I think we are now at that stage. I say that because on every measure, safety has deteriorated and has continued to do so over a long time. That cannot be regarded as a one-off blip and we see no sign yet, despite considerable Government endeavour and intervention—which I do not dispute—of the situation or the underlying reasons being turned around. The situation has become grave and our report is particularly timely. That is important for two reasons.

First, whatever one’s view about the purpose of prison and how much emphasis we place on rehabilitation on the one hand and retribution or prevention of danger to the public on the other—all legitimate considerations to put in the mix—when the state legitimately takes it upon itself through proper process to incarcerate someone for their wrongs against society, there is an element of punishment in doing that properly, but we also take on board responsibility for ensuring that they are treated not only humanely, but safely. If the state fails in that, it fails in one of its primary obligations.

Secondly, in respect of broader policy, the current Secretary of State, like her predecessor, and the Minister, like his predecessor, are committed to a policy of prison reform. I hope that all of us in Westminster Hall today are committed to a policy of prison reform. The reality is that the less safe the prisons are, the harder it is to achieve reform. If we want real rehabilitation, real change and to reduce reoffending, a raft of interventions in prison is required, which can be properly delivered only if prisons are safe to start with.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

In the context of what my hon. Friend is saying, does he share my disappointment with the Government response? It seems to paraphrase what we said in our report without giving any substance to our recommendations or to what we want to achieve.

[Robert Neill]

I agree. Although the response runs to several pages, the substance is not yet there. As I will say to the Minister in due course, I am glad that the Secretary of State has talked in terms of a prison reform and safety plan. That is good. There is movement on publishing statistics, but what are absent are the matrices that we said are critical to any proper monitoring. There is also a disconnect in the timeframe of those statistics being available and being made available to the House for scrutiny.

Those were important parts of our report—I will develop the point—because, for a number of reasons, many of us are increasingly questioning the sustained ability and capacity of the National Offender Management Service, as currently constituted, to bear down on this issue. Frankly, NOMS needs a continuing light of scrutiny on it and I know the Secretary of State is keen to achieve clear delivery markers against which progress can be measured. She is right to want that and it is disappointing that we have so little detail so far. I will return to that issue in more detail. My hon. Friend is entirely right.

We have seen a period of decline, not just in the view of the House and the Committee, but independently. Report after report from Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons, the prisons and probation ombudsman and a raft of criminal justice non-governmental organisations have all spoken of the real difficulties and decline. We have had debates in the House and urgent questions. NOMS has put in place various measures, but the truth is that it does not seem to be delivering on some of the key issues. That is why I say we have reached a crisis point. We need urgent action to identify those difficulties.

My other concern about the Government response is that there is no sense of urgency that, if I may be blunt, we did get from the initial response of the previous Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath, in his swift reply to us. I am not insinuating that good will and good intentions have gone away. It is classically said that there are no votes in prison reform, and one of the tasks of a Justice Department is to keep it at the top of the agenda, to make the case publicly and perhaps to challenge some long-entrenched practices. A sense of urgency must be engendered, not least because the deliverability of the whole broader prison agenda depends on getting safety right so that there is a stable environment in which to deliver it.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Howell]

My hon. Friend may recall that at a recent Justice Committee meeting, I asked the Secretary of State how she would deal with the legacy of the previous Secretary of State’s reforms and the actions that he had taken to deal with prison safety. The response that she gave caused the press to argue that she was going back on the commitments that he had made. Does my hon. Friend share that view?

[Robert Neill]

When I was a Minister, I was sometimes portrayed unfairly in the press, so I shall adopt a practical approach: let us see what happens. But I do think it important that we do not, any of us, send any signals that reform is less pressing or less important. Were that to be the case, it would be disappointing and, I think, an error. I am conscious of the clarification that the Secretary of State issued after her appearance before the Justice Committee, and I will take her at her word on that, but we need the measures that we talked about to be brought forward swiftly. If Brexit means Brexit, to adopt a phrase, pace means pace, but pace requires detail in order for there to be credibility in how things are delivered. That is the approach that I take—we want to be constructive and assist the Government on what I think is the right path, provided that it is followed through consistently.

I shall touch on just a few more matters before I finish so that other hon. Members can speak—this is a well-attended debate. First, I have referred to the matrices showing that everything is going in the wrong direction at the moment, such as on assaults, self-harming and deaths in custody. All those figures are going the wrong way. The data are set out well in a report that is readily available in the public domain, so I shall not cite a raft of figures, because I suspect that that would not add a great deal, but the trend is clear.

Secondly, despite genuine efforts by NOMS to recruit staff, the number of new staff coming in is significantly offset by the lack of retention. The problem is that we are very often losing some of the most experienced officers—some of the coolest heads. When there are difficulties to do with safety, such as dangerous situations arising on a wing, one wants to have experienced prison officers around to deal with it.

The fewer there are, the greater the risk that things will escalate rather than being brought back under control, so there is a direct link between retention and safety, which we highlight in our report. That is one thing that the Government need to do more to address. We are not convinced that NOMS has a deep-seated understanding of what causes that lack of retention, why recruitment is increasingly difficult and what underpins both those factors, so we need more flesh on the bones of that.

Let me deal briefly with some other matters. Steps have been taken—again, let us recognise that—on the possession of knives and new psychoactive substances in prison, but I am not sure that we are fully on top of that issue, either, particularly in relation to those new substances. The issue is one of technology: the ability to fly in substances and a raft of other things with drones is enormous.

Of course, that brings us back to the circular issue referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham. If, as we have seen on our visits, people are locked up in their cells for 23 hours a day, and if there are illegal substances in prisons, prisoners’ ability to make use of them is all the greater given their close confinement and the growth of gang culture and peer pressure. The more that people are out of their cells and doing something purposeful, the better it is to combat the misuse of substances. That cannot be done sustainably with the current prison population, which is a very important issue.

The direction is right, but we need to be more vigorous and radical in tackling some of those important issues. That brings me back to a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell): we are disappointed about some of the detail in the Government response. We called for the Ministry and NOMS jointly to produce an action plan on prison safety, addressing the underlying factors behind violence, self-harm and suicide. We said that that plan should include preventive and punitive measures, because those two things have to be in the toolbox of any prison governor. We also wanted objectives and indices. The Secretary of State is right to commit to a prison safety and reform plan—that is good—but it is the missing detail that people need to see urgently.

We asked for quarterly reports on progress on the plan, rather than the six-monthly reports suggested in the Government response, not as a matter of caprice but because we wanted the reports to coincide with the publication of the quarterly safety in custody statistics. Otherwise, frankly, they are pretty meaningless. The whole point of transparency and scrutiny is to have the two sets of figures together so that we can compare and contrast. That is why I urge the Government to rethink their response on that matter. The information is collated, and there is no doubt that it is available—I am sure it is available to Ministers on a regular basis. There is no practical reason at all why it cannot be made available in the way we suggest in our report. It is not an expensive or a difficult ask, in other words.

We are also looking for specific information on incidents of disorder in prisons, including the deployment of the national tactical response group; a more comprehensive set of data about staffing; and performance ratings for individual prisons. We do not know yet whether the previous Secretary of State’s league table initiative will continue, but certainly we want performance ratings for prisons. I accept that it is not always easy to make complete comparisons, but on safety it is, actually. We can compare data on safety even if we cannot do so for rehabilitation in a particular prison, so there is no reason why those data cannot be available.

The same goes for data on the average number of hours each day that prisoners spend locked in their cells—I stress that in particular. I mentioned this earlier, but the amount of time that people spend locked up is entirely linked to safety levels. Boredom, the abuse of substances, the internet and a raft of other things, and the peer pressure of groups of people locked up together in a confined space for long periods all contribute directly to a deteriorating safety environment.

Courts and Tribunals Fees

Debate between John Howell and Robert Neill

Monday 4th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the spirit in which he made his contribution. I am a friend of the current and the former Secretary of State, and giving credit to those who responded to the evidence is perhaps the appropriate and balanced way to deal with the issue.

It is worth looking at a little of the chronology of one of the matters I am going to turn to. As well as having significant witnesses from the judiciary, we heard evidence from the trade unions, the business community, the Bar Council, the Law Society and a number of individuals and interest groups. We had four oral evidence sessions between November 2015 and February 2016, the last of which was on 9 February, when we heard from the legal profession and then from the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara).

We then waited, because we were anticipating the promised post-implementation review of the impact of employment tribunal fees, which had formed an important part of the evidence that was put before us. We knew that the review had been commissioned some time back, so we waited—and nothing came forward. In the end, on 25 April, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), who is on the Front Bench and who had taken over responsibility, courteously responded, but he was unable to give any indication of a publication date. I have to say that we do not regard that as satisfactory.

It was against that background that, rather than waiting for the two months the Government normally have to reply to a Select Committee report to lapse, we thought it right to bring our report to the House today in this estimates day debate.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend tell us whether we have yet received that report?

[Robert Neill]

No, we have not, and I have to say that we used quite strong language about that in our report, because we were, frankly, disappointed. What happened does actually go against the spirit of courtesy, openness and co-operation I have seen from the Ministry of Justice team throughout the year or so I have chaired the Select Committee, and I hope it is an outlier. I hope the Minister will give us an indication of why the review report has taken so long and when we will get it. I know it is sometimes not easy to agree these things across Government, but it is pretty clear that the data required for the analysis were collected a long time ago, and, as we say in our report, there can be no reason why at least that factual material cannot be published forthwith, even if the Government are not yet in a position to respond, because the more informed the House and the public are, the better. That is an area of regret, and that is why today’s debate is important and timely.

Let me touch on some of the principles we are concerned with. The levels of various courts and tribunal fees have been politically controversial. We all need to bear it in mind that a balance must be struck between the cost to the public purse of administering a justice system, which is an integral part of any civilised society and of the rule of law, and how much can reasonably be recovered from litigants. We say that, in principle, we do not object to the idea that there should be some financial discipline on those who choose to go to law—those who choose to litigate—in deciding whether that is a wise decision for them to make. We do not have a problem with the principle of a certain level of a fees. Equally, however, we must bear in mind the comments that have been made consistently ever since Magna Carta but were recently elegantly captured by the late Lord Bingham of Cornhill in his book, “The Rule of Law”—which I always think should be compulsory reading for anyone in the political sphere—in which he says, in essence, that the accessibility of justice is as much a part of the fundamentals of the rule of law as clarity of the law itself. He says that justice is not a commodity—it cannot be commoditised in the way that, perhaps, other services can be. It is important to get the balance right. That is where we have some concerns that I will now turn to.

We accept that there is no problem, in principle, with fees for litigants. We know that there are financial pressures on the Ministry, which is not a protected Department. I understand the pressures that Ministers were under when these decisions were taken. We think it is entirely legitimate to find a number of means of reducing the number of vexatious claims. That could be done as part of the financial discipline we referred to, but it could also be done by changing the substantive law to raise the threshold or by making changes to court procedure. That is a legitimate part of the mix. But—we then have to say a number of “buts”, looking at the evidence —the answer to what is a reasonable charge in striking this balance will vary depending on a number of factors such as the effectiveness of fee remission, the vulnerability or otherwise of the claimants, and the degree of choice that they have. There is a distinction, for example, between someone who chooses to litigate over a commercial contract dispute and someone who is charged by the state with an offence, or someone whose marriage has broken down and has no other recourse, in order to have the marriage dissolved and move on with their life, than to go to the courts. The degree of choice is an important issue that must be considered carefully in each case.

There is an argument for trying to recover, as far as one can within that balance, some of the costs that fall on the public purse. In some cases, it may be possible to recover all the costs, but that cannot be an absolute. We were particularly struck by the fact that in some cases there are fees that exceed the full cost of the operation of the court; they are sometimes referred to as “enhanced fees”. We take the view, consistent with Lord Bingham’s formulation and with a public policy approach that we have had in this country for decades, that making a profit from the justice system, in effect, albeit one that is intended to be used elsewhere, requires particular care and a strong justification.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between John Howell and Robert Neill

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I hope that I can trespass on the House’s time for a little while to offer perhaps a starter and a bonus as far as the Bill is concerned. I am talking about the discrete issue of nationally significant infrastructure projects, and in particular about clause 116 and amendment 78, which stands in my name. The bonus is that it deals with fairness in relation to land compensation, which is something that we have talked about on a number of occasions.

The particular issue is that under clause 116, the development consent orders, which are part of the nationally significant infrastructure project regime, are extended beyond the infrastructure projects themselves to related housing development. It can be housing development that is adjacent or linked to the scheme. Equally, it can be housing development that is physically very close to the scheme. I do not have a problem with that, and there will be a number of instances where the creation of a piece of infrastructure either opens up land sensibly for access to development for housing or may sever land that might be farmland or similar from the rest of the agricultural holding. In that case, it is more sensible then to use it for housing as it is not viable as an agricultural unit or some other type of business unit. There is no problem there.

The unique feature of development consent orders is that they combine both the granting of planning permission and the making of a compulsory purchase order for the acquisition of the land. The issue that amendment 78 seeks to deal with is that under current compulsory purchase law, land acquired compulsorily—be it for this purpose or whatever—is compensated at current use value. In the majority of cases, that is likely to be agricultural value. Under certain circumstances, it might be a business value, but it is highly unlikely ever to be housing value. If the land had permission for housing, it would be dealt with by private treaty and there would not be the need to seek a compulsory purchase order anyway. What we are seeking to deal with is the anomaly that, for perhaps perfectly good reasons, an acquiring authority—it could be a public authority or it could equally be a private developer bringing forward a scheme either on their own or in partnership with a public agency—could, by getting a development consent order, acquire land from a small business at agricultural value and immediately get a significant uplift to housing value.

Under current arrangements, there is no means for the landowner or the business person, who may have seen their holding or business disrupted, to acquire by way of compensation any of the uplift in that value that comes from the granting of housing permission. That seems to me and to many to be unfair, which is why it has been raised by the Country Land and Business Association. The amendment seeks to address that by requiring the guidance, which clause 116 already says must be put in place, to include specifically the payment of the proper land value compensation at housing value.

The Minister may say that there are other means of dealing with that matter other than by primary legislation, but I hope he will accept that this is a real issue. In fairness to many small businesses and landowners who are affected by these important proposals, which are broadly for the public good, there should be some means of enabling them not to lose out on the uplift in value, which will, in effect, be a windfall to the acquiring authority.

I would welcome it if the Minister looked favourably on this amendment. If he does not, I hope that he will at least be prepared to talk to those who are concerned about this matter and see whether there is some other way, short of primary legislation, to take it forward and seek to resolve it.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I understand completely where my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) are coming from, but I take a slightly different view. Let me start with finalised neighbourhood plans. I have some sympathy with their argument that there should be a community right of appeal in these circumstances, but when we looked at this in the context of the Localism Act 2015, we originally did not include it to avoid the situation where part of a community would appeal against something that the rest of the community had just voted on. I urge Ministers to look at the issue again in the context of the Bill to see whether that problem can be worked out.

On emerging plans, I take a completely different view. First, such plans already have protection. The closer they get to finalisation, the stronger that becomes. Secondly, if communities undertaking neighbourhood plans start off at the end point rather than at the beginning, they are likely to have lots of help along the way, including at appeals.

Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords]

Debate between John Howell and Robert Neill

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) on the sentiments of his speech, if not entirely on the detail, because many of us have some sympathy for the need for further fiscal devolution and will be interested to see what form that can eventually take. With no disrespect to those broader issues, I shall refer to new clause 38, which stands in my name and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd) and the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) and which relates specifically to enabling devolution to joint committees in London. That might sound technical, but it is actually important. I stress that new clause 38 is signed by the three of us on a cross-party basis. In fact, it is supported by the all-party parliamentary group for London, by London Councils on a cross-party basis and by the Mayor of London. So this is a London ask to the Government.

New clause 38 essentially relates to the fact that, as certainly I and a number of right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House said on Second Reading, it is sometimes thought that devolution in London is a job done. Well, it is not; more remains to be done on devolution in London. The Government recognise that fact—potential means of devolution to the Mayor and to London boroughs have already been discussed—but the purpose of new clause 38 is to probe the Government’s thinking a little, and I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s response on precisely what legislative framework is required to achieve devolution to the Mayor and to London boroughs, either for all of London in some cases or specifically, as would be allowed under these proposals, to parts of London.

We have been talking about the various devolution deals. I was delighted to hear two of them announced today. Of course, they are important and they rightly vary from place to place. Well, the same applies to London. By its very nature and size, London is infinitely bigger than any other city and any other potential devolution deal. For that reason and because of its nature and complexity—although with the directly elected Mayor and the Greater London Authority, it was the first to have a form of devolution of the kind that the Government envisage, which we welcome being rolled out elsewhere—it has different governance arrangements. In particular, we must recognise the role of the 32 London boroughs—far more than in any other proposed combined mayoral authority—as well as that of the London Assembly.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is talking specifically about London, but as the devolution deal goes through, will it not also need to be reflected in the broader picture—for example, if there were a mayor for Oxfordshire and a number of combined authorities?

[Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend makes an entirely fair point, and I recognise his long experience in local government and his interest in the matter throughout his time in the House. It is perfectly true that we must look at the situation in the shire counties, particularly where two-tier arrangements apply. I very much hope that we will see county devolution deals as well, because the strategic counties of England are potentially just as much economic drivers as our great cities, but we will need tailored governance arrangements to recognise the two-tier nature, which differs in its competence from that within the London boroughs or the metropolitan authorities.