Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

Yes, very much so. I am delighted that local councils are responding as well as they are, but I very much encourage all councils to play their part in resettlements across the United Kingdom.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Can we get a bit more clarity, because many of us have large numbers of outstanding cases that are with various Government Departments? One problem has been all the various different schemes, and these are being pulled together. Will we get replies telling us where our constituents are in the system so that we can advise them, because many of those who provided services to the British forces, or indeed to the Afghan security services and the Afghan judiciary, even if they were not judges, seem to be being left out in the cold?

[Victoria Atkins]

The right hon. Gentleman will no doubt recall my “Dear colleague” letter of around 13 September in which I set out that I cannot provide detailed casework answers for people who are still in Afghanistan. There are now two schemes—ARAP and the ACRS. We have set out the eligibility criteria, as I explained in my statement. I encourage him to look at that statement as well as the statement that will come after this debate to see the details that we will be setting out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

What plans he has to tackle the backlog of court and tribunal cases.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

What plans he has to tackle the backlog of court and tribunal cases.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to reduce the backlog of court cases.

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[Chris Philp]

In common with so many other areas of the justice system employment tribunals were profoundly affected by coronavirus, but we have taken decisive action. The number of employment tribunal sitting days is being increased dramatically, and the tribunal is benefiting from the 1,600 extra staff hired across Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service and from the enormous investment in technology, which is enabling across the court system, including the tribunal, 20,000 remote hearings a week. Those are the actions we are taking to address the issue the hon. Lady raises.

[John Spellar]

The Minister is being remarkably complacent, because he must know that much of the backlog was actually caused by massive cuts by the Conservative Government. That was a huge error, impacting not only on very serious criminal cases in the Crown court, but on dealing with the petty crime and antisocial behaviour that is blighting our communities. He also knows that cases are taking years to get to court, with the impact that that has on the availability or willingness of witnesses. When he will he stop putting out this complacent line and get a grip of the problem?

[Chris Philp]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about the situation prior to coronavirus. The outstanding case load in the Crown court prior to coronavirus was 39,000 cases—low by historical standards and substantially lower than the 47,000 cases left behind by the last Labour Government. Moreover, under this Government, crime, as reported by the crime survey, has dropped by 41%. There is no complacency. A quarter of a billion pounds has been spent, 1,600 extra staff have been hired and 23,000 extra police are being recruited. There is no complacency here.

Lammy Review

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

My hon. Friend has hit on probably the single most important principle that emerged from the Lammy report—I think that was recommendation 4. “Explain or change” is intended to ensure that unless we can demonstrate the reason behind the figures that we are seeing—if there is a discrepancy that calls for answers and we cannot answer them as a society—we need to change the system. That is a golden thread that runs through the report and it informs many of our policy responses.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Frankly, while we certainly need data, we also need decisions and action. Page 62 onwards of the Lammy report takes on the discredited Disclosure and Barring Service. That was in 2017, and the Supreme Court added its criticisms in January 2019, yet the pathetic response emanating from the Home Office is that it is “considering” the Supreme Court judgment and will set out a response in due course. Meanwhile, now, as we face mass unemployment, the unacceptable burden of disadvantage and discrimination will get worse. The Ministry of Justice know that this is wrong. What is it going to do about that?

[Alex Chalk]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that point. He is right that in January 2019 there was the Gallagher judgment from the Supreme Court. Judgments of the Supreme Court have to be implemented by this place—that is how it works in our society—and we will do that without delay. May I make a wider point? There is of course a balance that we have to strike: those who commit crime need to be held accountable for their actions, and that sometimes means in their records, but we also need to make sure that people can be rehabilitated and get on and build a brighter future.

Disclosure of Youth Criminal Records

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Robert Neill]

Yes it is, and the evidence, as I will perhaps demonstrate if I make a bit more progress, shows exactly that. That is entirely the problem that we find. The particular difficulty is that the system is not only mechanistic but is in practice arbitrary—there is no real discretion—and has no right of appeal to speak of. None of those can be just.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) and others pointed out, certain things can be filtered out, but that is arbitrary. A single conviction can be filtered out, provided it did not result in a custodial sentence, was not for a listed offence—broadly, a serious offence, although that is probably not the issue most of us would take, as other bits come into it later—and that more than 11 years have elapsed since the date of the convictions. All the evidence suggests that, nowadays, for young men in particular, maturity and desisting from criminal behaviour kick in around the age of 25. Eleven years back from that, they could have been convicted as a teenager for exactly the sort of stupid incident that my hon. Friend referred to, which would then not be filterable at a time when they sought to move into education and work. That is an obstacle, as the evidence clearly shows, and it is no longer realistic, in our submission.

Single offences can be filtered provided that the sentence was non-custodial and was not a listed offence, as well as that more than 11 years have elapsed since the date of the conviction, or more than five and a half years if the person was under 18. That could still be within a key time when they were moving into their mid-20s and getting jobs.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Are there not two further problems? First, the Government’s response seems to be that employers should exercise discretion, but many small employers play safety first, do not exercise discretion and just treat any disclosure as a bar to employment. A second area that causes considerable problems for many people is that if they move between police areas, that can cause considerable delays as their case moves between those areas, and again they lose out on those opportunities. That is economically inefficient, and it is also devastating on their lives in the way that the hon. Gentleman describes.

[Robert Neill]

That is absolutely right, and it tallies with some of the examples given to us directly by people who have been through the system. I agree entirely that it does not make sense.

Let us look at the remaining bits of the system. We have filtering for single convictions. Single or multiple cautions for lesser offences can be filtered out once six years have elapsed, or two years if the person was under 18 at the time. That structure is complicated enough, frankly, but we then get to what we cannot filter, including convictions and cautions for listed offences and multiple convictions for lesser offences, no matter how long ago they happened and regardless of the circumstances.

Those of us who have practised criminal law can think of many instances in which it is perfectly possible to charge more than one offence arising out of the same set of facts. For example, actual bodily harm and a theft, both of which ended up in a conditional discharge or a fine; two offences of theft; or two assaults, because more than one person was involved in a stupid fight. Those are multiple and cannot be filtered, however much time has gone by. That, to us, seems to be nonsense. The view of many witnesses to our inquiry is that the system is complex and arbitrary. It is a blunt instrument, it is restrictive and it is disproportionate. It has exactly the problems that the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) mentioned.

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[Robert Neill]

That, too, is a fair point. Certainly my experience as a lawyer representing people coming through the system was that there were instances of serious behaviour that had to be punished, but very often—this was particularly the case with younger offenders—offenders are also victims of other offending and there are underlying causes that too blunt an approach, such as that which we have, does not help.

We made a number of recommendations. Rehabilitation periods under the 1974 Act should be reduced. There should be an urgent review of the filtering regime, for the reasons we have set out. There should be a presumption against disclosure of so-called non-conviction intelligence, which is held on the police national database. That is legitimate for intelligence purposes, but there should not be arbitrary disclosure of it in the way that happens at the moment, particularly where the allegations on the database were made during someone’s childhood. Individuals should have a right to apply for a review prior to disclosure of their criminal record. That exists in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but not in England and Wales, and we see no reason for that distinction.

The Ban the Box approach, which has been pioneered under recent Governments and is used by some employers, delays the point at which a job applicant discloses criminal records to a prospective employer. That is sensible because it allows the employer, first, to look at the application on its merits and then, if disclosure is appropriate, to see whether the conviction makes any difference to the person’s employability.

[John Spellar]

The hon. Gentleman is rightly and very ably identifying all the issues that the current system causes for individuals and their families and therefore the impact on society if they fail to be rehabilitated. Is not there also an overall, macroeconomic issue, particularly as a number of employers are expressing concerns about shortfalls in labour either leading up to or following Brexit? Artificially restricting people from working and, indeed, from advancing is not just bad for those individuals, shocking though that is, but very bad for society and the economy.

[Robert Neill]

That is an unanswerable point, because we can see that people who are kept unwillingly in economic inactivity—

[John Spellar]

Or low-paid jobs.

[Robert Neill]

Low-paid and unsatisfactory jobs create burdens at every level, so the point is entirely true.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. Care proceedings are incredibly important, and when a child is taken away from their parent, it is a tragic matter that affects them for a long time. My right hon. Friend should be aware that legal aid is available for public law cases. I am very happy to discuss that particular matter with her.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

T8. The Minister of State said earlier that the best help for rehabilitation is to have a job. Do we not urgently need to reform the Disclosure and Barring Service system, so we still protect the public from dangerous criminals and dangerous people, but stop blighting the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens who are trying to turn their lives around?

[Mr Gauke]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that question. There has obviously been a recent case on this. We need to look very carefully at this to ensure we get the balance right between protecting the public and ensuring that those who have committed a crime in the past are given a second chance and have the ability to turn their lives around. I am keen to look further at this in the light of the recent judgment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

17. Whether he has plans to change the contracts of private sector probation companies; and if he will make a statement.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

21. Whether he plans to review the future provision of probation services; and if he will make a statement.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Ind)]

22. Whether he plans to review the future provision of probation services; and if he will make a statement.

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[Mr Gauke]

We should be clear about what happened. Last year, we amended contracts to ensure that payments made to community rehabilitation companies were more in line with the costs that they incur to deliver core services. We are paying CRCs less than we originally intended when the contracts were let: they are receiving less than their costs, a consequence of over-optimistic bidding on their part. When we talk about bail-outs, we should be clear that those companies are receiving income that is less than it costs them to provide the services.

[John Spellar]

Why will the Secretary of State not accept the conclusion of the Conservative-led Justice Committee that this is, in its words, “a mess” and may never work? Why does he not stop throwing good money after bad, cut his losses, blame his predecessor and be applauded for bringing this vital service back in-house?

[Mr Gauke]

As I said in my earlier answer, we are engaging with the CRCs, which do need to improve their service. The model that we have has opened up the delivery of probation services to a range of new providers. It has extended support and supervision to an additional 40,000 offenders leaving prison. First-generation contracts can be difficult to get right—I acknowledge that—but we are taking all necessary steps to get the performance that we require.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)]

This is a hugely important issue. It is not about identifying people who are in prison for terrorism-related offences but people such as that individual who have been put in prison for other offences and have been radicalised in prison. The challenge is first to identify those individuals, then to work with the security services and the police to really investigate them, then to put the measures in place either to change their behaviour or to separate them from the general population.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

T4. My local council and police have raised concerns about the impact of court closures on their costs and on their effectiveness, especially with regard to the detrimental effect on good management of housing and reducing crime, so will the Minister undertake a proper evaluation of whether, across Government, this has been a case of penny wise and pound foolish?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Lucy Frazer)]

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, with any sale of a court, the money is reinvested in the justice system. We have a £1 billion court reform programme, and the sale of any court will go into that investment.

West Midlands Police (Funding)

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burden]

The right hon. Gentleman is quite right—that is what I touched on earlier. The fact that we start with a lower council tax base means that we are more reliant on the central Government grant, so it is much harder to mitigate or to compensate for the effect of flat-rate cuts. I will come to crime levels, particularly the levels for different kinds of crimes, in a minute.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

The issue is not only the level of income, but the huge additional burdens. For example, after the Metropolitan police, West Midlands police bears far and away the biggest share of the successful campaign against terrorism.

[Richard Burden]

My right hon. Friend is quite right about that. I will mention some of the specific demands on West Midlands police in a little while, but he is absolutely right to draw attention to counter-terrorism work.

In addition to the issue of council tax, the west midlands is also hit doubly hard by how formula damping works. In brutal terms, such damping prevents the region from receiving the funding allocation that the national formula says we need. This year, West Midlands police will receive £43 million less than the Government’s own formula says is required.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill: Carry-over Extension

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Thank you for the opportunity to speak, Mr Deputy Speaker. I do not intend to engage in the same badinage that I did with Madam Deputy Speaker last night.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Yes, you have not been to Washington with me.

[Mr Spellar]

We wait ages for a carry-over extension and then three of them come along at once. The questions we need to ask ourselves were asked last night by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and by me. However, I do not intend to detain the House for as long tonight because Members can read our contributions in yesterday’s Hansard.

I have been chided for being a little charitable to the Government Chief Whip in the litany of those who are responsible for this. Basically, there are two driving forces behind these carry-overs. One is that the Government will not accept the sensible, reasonable and just amendments made in the other place. We saw that last night when they sided with the ticket touts against the fans of sport and music. The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) looks up. He will be accountable to the football and music fans in his constituency in May for siding with their exploiters rather then with them. The Government did not accept those amendments and that again seems to be the case tonight. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) said, we hope that they finally see reason in the intervening period.

The second reason is that we have an almost unique collection of people who do not understand the business of this House and the other place. Therefore, we see a series of difficulties resulting from the failure to deal properly with procedure. For example, I understand that the next carry-over resolution that is due was passed some 10 months ago in the House, and one has to ask what the Government have been doing since then. It has been patently obvious during the last few months that there is very little serious Government business, but they do not seem to be able to pull it together. It may be the result of all the internal tensions and difficulties of this ill-starred coalition coming together as the election approaches, or perhaps they do not have much of a programme and do not know what to do about it. But it is clear to the House, and it will become increasingly clear to the public, that they do not have a clue, and these carry-over motions are part of that. They have not run the business properly up to now, but it is probably as well to let them through because at least we will have something to do during the next couple of months.

Question put and agreed to.

Police Cautions (Young People)

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

You will be happy to know that I have prepared for this debate, Mr Gray. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time and I am pleased to have secured the debate. I am still wearing a black tie after the events of this morning, but I think that this debate involves good news. I look forward to the Minister’s winding-up speech. The debate provides an opportunity for me to discuss an issue that can blight the lives of many hard-working young people in our constituencies and seek clarification from the Minister on recent developments in Government policy.

Police cautions can have a detrimental impact on the lives and employment prospects of young people. An e-mail from one of my constituents led me to initiate the debate, and I know that many other Members have received similar correspondence. My constituent, who is now in her final year at university, received a police caution in early 2007, when she was 15 years old, for a minor shoplifting offence while part of a dominant group of girls. Her e-mail explained to me that the huge peer pressure that she felt so as to be accepted as part of that group and coercion by her then friends were key reasons for her behaviour, which she admits was poor. I am sure that many of us have some sympathy with that.

Looking back, my constituent admits that she feels utterly embarrassed by and ashamed of her actions, which were completely unrepresentative of her character. She has not acted similarly before or since. She is not a dishonest person—I have seen several character references from employers and former teachers that she has provided to back that up—and in the years since the offence she has not kept in contact with any of the people involved and has gone on to achieve success in her exams and at university.

My constituent’s ambition is to pursue a career in law, and her academic success and involvement in voluntary and extracurricular activities make such a career possible, but that dream has been jeopardised by the police caution that she received more than six years ago. The Solicitors Regulation Authority has informed her that it is more likely than not that her application will be rejected due to her caution. She is understandably devastated that she may not be able to pursue her chosen career.

As the Minister will be aware, the Justice Committee, of which I am a member—I am pleased to see our Chairman, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), here today—published a wide-ranging report on youth justice on 14 March. Among our many recommendations, one is particularly relevant to this debate. Paragraph 21 of the conclusions and recommendations reads:

“We support the reduction in rehabilitation periods introduced via the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, which means that many young offenders’ convictions will become spent sooner. We also agree with the Minister that employers, as well as schools, colleges and universities, should consider taking young people on despite their previous offences, as many do. Nevertheless, while we recognise that for very serious offending, disclosure of convictions will continue to be in the public interest, we consider there is potential to go further in relation to more minor convictions. We therefore recommend that, in addition to keeping the youth rehabilitation periods under review, the Government considers legislating to erase out-of-court disposals and convictions from the records of very early, minor and non-persistent offenders at the age of 18, so that they cannot be disclosed to employers under the Exceptions Order to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.”

Since 2008, more than 1 million child arrests have been made in England and Wales, about one third of which resulted in a police caution. Lest I am misunderstood —heaven forbid—by certain sections of the press or even the House, I want to be clear that I believe young people should be punished according to the rule of law, like anybody else, when they do wrong. How we respond to often low-level bad behaviour by youngsters, however, has the potential to blight the rest of their lives by further alienating them from society. Our country cannot afford and would not be right to put young people, in effect, on the scrap heap before they had ever had a chance. Those young people need support, not perpetual criminalisation, and this change would provide that.

The Justice Committee report’s recommendation aims to improve the prospects of young people who have received police cautions for minor offences and have not reoffended by wiping their records, thereby preventing cautions from being disclosed to certain potential employers during criminal record checks.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the problem can be hugely discriminatory against youngsters in inner cities, many of whom receive cautions at an early age, blighting their lives? We are in danger of creating a perpetual underclass of people who can never escape due to minor offences for which Parliament never legislated such a disproportionate penalty.

[Steve Brine]

I very much agree. We are often talking about people who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. As a country, we are crazy to hold them down, as we do in some cases. They need support, not perpetual criminalisation.

Although not entirely down to the actions of our Committee—it would have been a swift move by the Minister if so—I am pleased that the Government plan to lay before Parliament a statutory instrument to amend the exceptions to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, so that some spent convictions and cautions do not have to be disclosed and cannot be taken into account in employment decisions. Nevertheless, that development still leaves us with several questions.

On 29 January this year, the Court of Appeal ruled that the system of Criminal Records Bureau checks constituted a breach of article 8 of the European convention on human rights and of the Human Rights Act 1998, and that requiring the disclosure of all convictions and cautions relating to recordable offences is disproportionate to the aim of protecting children and vulnerable adults. Why, therefore, did the Government feel the need to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court?

The statutory instrument that the Government will lay before Parliament will help my constituent and many others, so I welcome it. It is proposed that cautions and equivalents administered to a young offender will not be subject to disclosure after two years, and that a conviction received as a young offender resulting in a non-custodial sentence will not be subject to disclosure after five and a half years. May I press the Minister, however, to implement the measure as quickly as possible? How long will it be before the order is laid before the House? Will he confirm that any changes will be applied retrospectively?

Finally, my constituent highlighted two other important issues, which concern other Members as well. First, on the role of local constabularies in removing or retaining a caution on a young person’s record, my constituent contacted Hampshire constabulary in the hope that it might be able to remove the caution from her record, but she was told that nothing could be done in that regard. However, in certain circumstances, do not chief constables have the discretion to prevent the disclosure of cautions? Where does the truth lie?

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[Damian Green]

The hon. Gentleman might be aware that we are conducting a cautions review at the moment, so feeding into that is important. As I am about to explain in detail, we are concerned to encourage the use of out-of-court disposals but to ensure that, first, the length of time for which they are active beyond the period of the commission of the offence is properly limited and that, at the same time, they provide confidence in the wider justice system and in particular a feeling among victims that appropriate reparation has been made. That is the balance to be struck.

[Mr Spellar]

The initiatives that the Minister is announcing are useful and heading in the right direction, but we might be getting away slightly from the core of the issue: misdemeanours or offences committed at a young age, whether leading to cautions or convictions and minor punishments, can blight people’s lives. We saw that, in particular, with the elections for police and crime commissioners, when a number of individuals of all political parties were prevented from standing 40 or 50 years after committing the offences. That should have highlighted the necessity of taking action, to prevent them from appearing on people’s records and their life being affected.

[Damian Green]

The right hon. Gentleman is right; that was certainly a vivid example of the long-lasting effect. I gently point out, however, that that legislation was passed by the House over the past couple of years entirely unopposed.

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[Mr Spellar]

All parties made a mistake.

[Damian Green]

However, the time for which an offence should hang over a young person or anyone else is contentious, and we must be careful to strike a balance. Ensuring appropriate punishment and particularly appropriate reparation for victims, so that they have confidence in the system, form the other half of the balance that I am sure all hon. Members want to strike.