Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

I am absolutely persuaded that costs mount as people go to court, and I want to see the pressures and costs on our court system, as well as on individuals, reduced. We have taken steps over the past year to increase the use of mediation in the family courts, which has been successful. That should be applied to other disputes, including over property boundaries, and experts should also be used, but whether it is right to go down a mandatory route is the difficult question. I will work with my hon. Friend to see if we can reach agreement on how to move forward.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

rose—

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I would have called the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), but she “boinged” too late. I call Kate Green.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

13. What steps his Department is taking to encourage people to become magistrates and to train new magistrates.

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Mike Penning)]

I will just “boing” again, Mr Speaker. The role of a magistrate is already a sought-after role in our communities and competition for vacancies is very strong.

[Kate Green]

I declare an interest as a life member of the Magistrates’ Association, which has expressed concern to me about the new provisions of the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014, which came into force this week in relation to the new activity requirements. The association says that it has been inundated with queries from magistrates about these new provisions. Will the Minister tell us what detailed training has been given to magistrates?

[Mike Penning]

There is a substantial and comprehensive training programme, which is under the overall supervision of the Judicial College. I will write to the hon. Lady giving a full and detailed answer—or, rather, the Minister responsible will.

Probation Service

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to have secured this debate and to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby.

If the Minister has looked at my many previous interventions on this subject, he will know that I have had concerns about the Government’s Transforming Rehabilitation plans right from the start. Those concerns have been borne out by my recent conversations with probation officers and offenders in my constituency and reinforced by the recent report from the chief inspector of probation into the early implementation of Transforming Rehabilitation.

Today I will talk about those implementation issues, but I will also question the Minister about the underlying rationale for, and risks associated with, Transforming Rehabilitation. The Probation Service was a well-performing service. Every single probation trust in the country was assessed as being “good” or “excellent” under the Ministry of Justice’s own measures—indeed, my own probation service in Greater Manchester had a reputation for innovative and effective work. It makes no sense at all to tear all that up and arbitrarily divide up the work of the probation service without there being any evidence of the effectiveness of the new model. That places public safety at risk.

Ministers said that change was needed to address the high level of reoffending among those serving short custodial sentences, and they proposed introducing supervision, for the first time, of those offenders on their release from prison. Everyone agrees that that is entirely right and welcome. However, the probation service never had responsibility for supervising those offenders, so high rates of reoffending among them cannot be characterised as a probation service failure. Indeed, probation trusts, such as my own local trust, were keen to have the chance to work with this challenging group.

Yet in June last year the Government embarked on a radical restructuring, abolishing all probation trusts and replacing them with 21 privately owned community rehabilitation companies and a diminished National Probation Service, which has responsibility for high-risk offenders. Contracts were signed just before Christmas, on 18 December. This massive restructuring has been rushed through by the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice without any piloting or testing of the new approach. The Government were warned by experts, probation staff and the Opposition, as well as in the House of Lords, that their timetable was reckless. In 2013, the chairs of probation trusts wrote to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, describing the plans as risky, unreasonable and unrealistic.

As soon as the changeover began last summer, problems began to emerge. There have been reports of staff shortages, IT problems, records going missing, staff supervising offenders “blind”—with no information about offenders’ offending history or personal circumstances, because staff lack access to records—and administration staff being unable to access records to manage supervision appointments.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend paints quite a dire picture as things are developing under this new-look service. Does she agree that it is rather sad that those high-performing probation trusts never got the opportunity to consider taking on an expanded work load? They were, after all, the experts and they, too, could have delivered this expanded service.

[Kate Green]

My hon. Friend is right. It is highly regrettable that the expertise and commitment that we all see in our probation service was not taken advantage of and that probation staff were not given the opportunity to deliver these new programmes of post-release supervision.

Indeed, in Greater Manchester we had piloted such a programme—the Choose Change programme—and learned many valuable lessons about the challenges of working with this particular group. Since Greater Manchester Probation Trust obviously no longer exists, and so cannot take forward the lessons from Choose Change, perhaps the Minister will say how that learning will be transferred across to the new structures, so that what we now know after that experiment is not lost.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. I hope that she agrees that we had a perfectly good service before the Government tinkered with it. For ideological reasons, the Government made changes and used a private sector model. However, everyone knows that in the private sector—I know, because I worked in it—before any changes are made, a pilot scheme is introduced so that companies learn from their mistakes. Does she agree?

[Kate Green]

I agree with every word that my hon. Friend said. Indeed, it is surprising to me that one of the first acts of the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice was to cancel some of the pilots in relation to these new structures, rather than adopting the sensible approach of continuing with them and evaluating the lessons learned before proceeding with the new model—if there was evidence that it was the right model to follow.

In the aftermath of the changeover, probation officers have talked to me about an overwhelming work load, about IT systems that do not speak to each other and require the same information to be inputted over and over, and about random allocation of staff to the new community rehabilitation companies or the new NPS. Morale has suffered, staff are stressed and the human resources support in the new NPS in particular has been inadequate throughout this period of major change, given that the MoJ closed down the shared support service and that communication to staff has been haphazard and often delayed.

Offenders have also noticed problems. I met offenders in my constituency late last summer and they told me that they were constantly finding themselves seeing different offender managers who did not know anything about them or their circumstances. Now the chief inspector of probation has produced a highly critical report of the early implementation of the changes and the problems that have been experienced, and it bears out much of what I and other MPs have been told.

The report specifically recognises that the speed of the implementation caused problems that could have been avoided or mitigated. It makes a number of suggestions about how those problems can be addressed. The Minister may argue that these problems are teething problems and that the recommendations in the report will be followed, but in fact the problems run deeper. They are a reflection of a model that fragments the management of offenders, adding bureaucracy, damaging effective communication and increasing risk. I have genuine concerns about the implications of Transforming Rehabilitation for public safety, and indeed for the safety of officers supervising offenders.

My first concern is that there are clearly issues about access to the full and timely information necessary for the initial risk assessment to be made. It was worrying to read in the chief inspector’s report of delays in obtaining information about an offender after they had been sentenced, because that information is needed to enable a full risk assessment to be carried out.

The MoJ claims that that situation is not different from what happened previously, when an offender could be allocated to an offender manager who would not necessarily have the full information at the first appointment. I appreciate that Ministers want the allocation process to be speedier, with an expectation that cases will be assessed on the Offender Assessment System, or OASys, within two working days of sentencing, rather than five weeks, as can be the case now. However, that would represent a huge step change in service standards. How confident is the Minister that such an improvement can be achieved?

Moreover, even if the assessment can be done speedily, there is increased risk from the fragmentation that arises from having two entirely separate services. If the initial risk assessment and allocation are wrong, there will inevitably be a delay in getting the offender to the right place and therefore a delay in the offender’s building a relationship with his or her supervisor, as well as in beginning the appropriate programme of support to address their offending behaviour.

It also seems that the information for forming an assessment, even if timely, may not be sufficient. I was pretty shocked that the inspector identified a failure to address diversity issues in the assessment and allocation process. Ethnic, religious and cultural background may have a bearing, for example, on the language needs of an offender or on appropriate sentence planning, such as what unpaid work might be suitable.

There is a high prevalence of mental health problems and learning disability among offenders, and those need to be identified at the outset; the offender manager must be made aware, so that tailor-made sentence planning and effective communication with the offender takes place. Understanding the offender’s family circumstances is relevant. Child care responsibilities may impact on sentence planning and information about family members and relationships is especially important in relation to risk and safeguarding.

Clearly, these all-important matters go to the heart of successful intervention to address offending behaviours and to protect the public. What steps will the Minister take to address the concerns raised by the inspector in relation to reflecting diverse circumstances in reports and in the allocation process?

The Minister may not be surprised to hear that I am particularly concerned about the need for specific, tailor-made approaches for women offenders. The weaknesses in preparing assessment reports, identified by the inspector, are of real concern in this context, but there is also concern about the nature of the interventions that women will receive. As far as I can see, none of the community rehabilitation companies or the organisations that they are working with appear to be specialists in managing women offenders.

In recent years, there has been some good learning and recognition of the specific needs of women offenders and of what works. Specialist women’s centres are effective and positively regarded by offenders. I recently met a group of female offenders in Manchester—Women Moving Forward—who told me how important the support they received from the women’s centre was and who expressed anxiety about future provision, as well they might when women’s centres lack any certainty about their funding after March.

[Alex Cunningham]

This morning, I met some people from Barnardo’s, who told me about their concerns for children affected by people who may be in prison or on some probation regime, or something of that nature. Does my hon. Friend agree that more must be done by the Minister and others to ensure that we get the correct approach from Government, so that offenders with children are identified and these factors are properly taken into consideration, so that the whole family can be looked at properly, rather than a prisoner or offender being looked at entirely in isolation?

[Kate Green]

My hon. Friend is right on many levels. First, it is important that family circumstances—particularly the presence of children and other vulnerable family members—are properly understood, so that safeguarding issues can be addressed properly. Secondly, what he said relates to my point about the need to understand particularly the circumstances of women offenders. Many women offenders are mothers: that impacts on the kind of responses and programmes that will work for them and what sentence planning will be appropriate. Mothers in particular will have to balance child care responsibilities with the demands of the sentencing plan.

Thirdly, my hon. Friend makes a good point about the whole-family approach. A stable, comfortable and happy family life helps an offender to overcome offending behaviour, so the ability to take that holistic view of family circumstances would be a real opportunity to address the offending behaviour of many offenders who could be supervised in the community. Indeed, the Minister may want to say how this might be taken forward in the context of his expectation that the community rehabilitation companies will be more innovative than the old probation service. I have not yet seen any evidence of that, but he and the CRCs might like to turn their attention to that area.

I am concerned about specialist provision through women’s centres for women offenders and women at risk from offending. The Prison Reform Trust points out that CRCs will be “expected to fund” ongoing provision after March. Can the Minister therefore assure us that specialist provision will be guaranteed? Given the concerns about this small, often highly vulnerable group of offenders, will he undertake to carry out an annual audit under section 10 of the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014, to confirm that Transforming Rehabilitation is meeting the needs of women offenders?

As I have said, one important change in Transforming Rehabilitation is that, for the first time, offenders who have served short custodial sentences of less than 12 months will receive supervision on release. That has been universally welcomed, although there is little sign yet of when it will actually happen. Of course, it is vital that the CRCs and the National Probation Service have the resources to do the job. Again, there are some serious worries. The report from the inspector specifically raises concerns about staffing in the new NPS. Can the Minister say what expectation there is about the proportion of those leaving custody who will be deemed to be high risk and under NPS supervision? The inspector recommends a full evaluation of staff resources and this surely must be undertaken as a matter of urgency, so that we can be sure there is adequate provision for the supervision of high-risk offenders. Will the Minister say how he intends to respond to that recommendation?

Of course, the NPS needs adequate contingent resource to address the fact that risk is not static. Categorising offenders as low, medium or high risk is massively to oversimplify. Transforming Rehabilitation recognises this: if there is a concern that an offender who has been categorised as low or medium risk becomes high risk, a fresh assessment will be carried out and he or she will transfer from the community rehabilitation company to the NPS. That is hardly likely to be an infrequent situation.

An offender who is identified as low or medium risk can quickly become high risk if circumstances change. Many offenders are volatile or vulnerable and prone to erratic and potentially dangerous behaviours in response to difficult or unexpected life experiences, such as loss of a job or the ending of a relationship, bereavement or the arrival of a new member of the household. Many come from relatively chaotic backgrounds, where such changes in their circumstances happen fairly frequently. We may see a substantial proportion of offenders move at some time in their sentence from medium or low to high risk, which will necessitate their transfer to the NPS. Has the Minister an assessment of the likelihood of a transition and can he assure us that the NPS will have the resources it needs to deal with it?

[Alex Cunningham]

I wonder who will be carrying out the assessments at different levels, when people are allocated to various parts of this new-look probation service, and how confident we can feel. Probation officers tell me that they are not perfectly sure yet who is going to do what in the system. Yet here we are, hurtling along on this great change programme that is under way.

[Kate Green]

It is worrying that those working in the system are still not clear about who is doing what. This is symptomatic of an approach that seems both unnecessarily complicated and fraught with difficulty.

I understand that the system depends on the CRC identifying and escalating a case where there is a perception that risk is increasing—someone in the CRC will have to make that judgment—and then the determination of the risk level will be made by an officer in the NPS. Will the Minister say how the NPS will carry out effective risk assessments of offenders with whom it has not previously had any contact because they have hitherto been managed entirely in the CRC? How can those assessments be objective, given that the NPS has a stake in the outcome, as it will become responsible for any offender that it assesses as high risk? Equally, how will we know whether the CRCs are escalating risk appropriately when they, too, have a stake in the outcome of the risk assessment? I understand—perhaps the Minister can confirm this—that the CRCs will continue to collect outcome payments, even after offenders transfer to the NPS, if the reoffending targets are met.

How will the payment-by-results element work, and what incentives will the NPS and the CRCs have to ensure that we get the crucial risk identification assessment and identification process absolutely right? Although low and medium-risk offenders can become high risk, conversely high-risk offenders can become lower risk over time. I would have thought that we hope rehabilitation programmes have that outcome, but the system does not seem to make provision for it. Once an offender is with the NPS, they stay there, even if their risk subsequently reduces. Will the Minister tell us why high-risk offenders who are subsequently reassessed as low or medium risk will not be transferred back to the CRCs? What are the resource implications of that structure?

What monitoring will be undertaken of when cases are escalated? For example, if there is a pattern of cases escalated very soon after the initial allocation, that might suggest delays in the provision of information or poor data at the time of sentence. A pattern of escalation later in the sentence might offer an early warning of weak intervention in the CRC.

[Alex Cunningham]

Might it not also reveal that the personnel in the new organisations do not have the appropriate range of skills and understanding and that they are washing their hands of difficult problems as quickly as possible and dealing with only the easy ones?

[Kate Green]

We have seen that kind of parking approach in other privatised programmes. In the Work programme, for example, the most difficult clients, for whom it was difficult to produce effective outcomes, were parked by the providers. My hon. Friend is right to highlight that risk.

What will happen if an offender is wrongly allocated to the NPS? Can he or she challenge the assessment of the risk if they think it is wrong? That is important, given that it appears that once an offender is allocated to the NPS, they are stuck there. It is important that we know whether the Minister has thought about the effect that that will have on the relevance of the interventions that the NPS receives and the expectations and preconceptions surrounding the offender, which might feed into their chances of resettlement.

Finally, I want to say something about transparency. The public has a right to know whether an upheaval on this scale has been worth it. They must be able to find out whether the contracts are working effectively, whether we are being more effectively protected, whether reoffending has been reduced as a result of the changes and whether public money has been well spent. A Labour Government would extend freedom of information legislation to ensure that the community rehabilitation companies are covered, but the Government opposed that during the passage of the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014. Shamefully, they made it impossible for a future Government to reverse the contracts, except at great cost to the taxpayer. Can the Minister assure us that the contracts include strong break clauses to ensure that the public does not end up paying for failure if they do not deliver the reduction in reoffending, which we are told is the goal of Transforming Rehabilitation?

All the concerns I have highlighted today should have been addressed before this wholesale, high-risk, evidence-free reorganisation of the probation service went ahead. It seems that ideology, not evidence, characterised the Government’s approach. Perhaps the Minister will reassure us with his answers today. I look forward to his response.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to his post; I felt that he should have been appointed to a job much earlier. I caution him, however, that he has been given a bed of nails and predecessors who have raised issues about the development of this policy have been short-lived in post. I hope that today we can at least take some of the issues raised by the inspector’s report and, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, by NAPO—from the front line—on what is happening at the moment and see how they can be addressed. For an initial report on such a change, the inspector’s report is damning.

As an aside, with regard to the inspector’s post, we have seen coverage in the press about potential conflicts of interest. I welcome the report, which I think demonstrates that the inspector has gone about his job well. I must say, however—the Select Committee on Justice has been in correspondence with the Secretary of State on this—that justice needs not only to be done, but to be seen to be done. The same can be said for probity, transparency and governance.

The Secretary of State needs to give a clear response at some stage on how an appointment has been made without a full, wider declaration of interests that covers potential conflicts of interest. In no way do I question or impugn the independence of the inspector, but that process issue must be addressed.

I identified about 29 or 30 worrying points in the inspector’s report about how the process has operated over the past few months. My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) mentioned the allocation of cases, which was fundamental to the restructuring process. The report makes clear in its first paragraphs that the key issue in allocation is the associated assessment and documentation. It says not only that the processes were time-consuming with regard to allocation, but that the documentary evidence did not support a full and clear reading of all the factors. That is surprising. It says:

“our view is that the new processes linked to allocation should be completed by the member of staff preparing any report for court.”

At this first stage in establishing how a case is allocated, there is a lack of clarity about who undertakes the process. Not even the documentation is clear or appropriate.

On timeliness, the inspector argues:

“The majority of cases were allocated…within one working day”.

However, he then demonstrates that a number of cases were allocated wrongly: they went to the NPS instead of the CRC. He says:

“These cases had to be reallocated from the Community Rehabilitation Company back to the National Probation Service with all the work and disruption that this involved.”

More than work and disruption is involved; there is anxiety about the safety and security of prisoner supervision.

The report is even more worrying on the risk of serious harm screenings. Proper screenings for risk of serious harm are fundamental, but, what do we find? It says:

“Staff were not clear about whether the new risk of serious harm screening replaced the previous one or was additional to it.”

One element of that was deportation—this is an issue that Government Members have raised recently—but there is nowhere in the new form and paperwork to record those issues. That is quite remarkable, because deportation is usually associated with criminals who have undertaken serious acts.

The inspector argued for a fuller serious harm analysis than provided at the moment. He says:

“We found that in many cases a full risk of serious harm analysis had not been completed by the National Probation Service, or if it had been done, the Community Rehabilitation Company had not received it.”

Therefore, the analysis is often not being done properly, the paperwork does not cover all the critical aspects and, even if it is done, the CRC does not receive it in sufficient time. He says that, as a result, offenders

“could be assigned to the wrong grade of staff and subsequently need to be reassigned.”

A junior member of staff could therefore supervise a serious offender and be out of their depth. That puts not just the general public, but that member of staff at risk.

[Kate Green]

On that point, my hon. Friend will be as concerned as I am—the Minister will be, too—to hear about a report passed to me by a member of staff who had heard of a colleague who had not been informed that she was supervising a sex offender. During that supervision, she was subject to a sexual assault. Had that information been provided, first, she might not have supervised that offender, given her grade, and secondly, she certainly would not have seen him on her own.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Simon Kirby. Not here.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

16. What steps he is taking to rehabilitate women offenders.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Simon Hughes)]

The coalition Government are clear that reducing reoffending through effective rehabilitation of previous offenders is the most effective way to cut crime and reduce the victims of crime. As the hon. Lady knows, female offenders disproportionately have short sentences. The new reforms will for the first time mean that all those leaving will have targeted support on release. We are reconfiguring the women’s estate so that women spend the bulk of their time, if they are in prison, near where they will be released so that they have the best links with the community.

[Kate Green]

The Minister will be aware that maintaining good relationships with one’s family while in custody is a particularly important factor in rehabilitation, and for women in particular maintaining relationships with their children. But Women Moving Forward, a group of women offenders in Manchester has told me that a tightening of release on temporary licence provisions is making it more difficult for them to have time with their children. Will the Minister take a look at this situation, which is not just important for reducing reoffending among those women, but is in the interests of their children?

[Simon Hughes]

I am completely persuaded by the argument that women need more time with their children. We are expanding the capacity for that in all prisons. I will be up in Greater Manchester next month meeting colleagues and I am happy to meet the hon. Lady in Manchester with colleagues. We are clear that women in prison need to have maximum time with their children, and that children need to be protected as much as possible from the adverse effects of having their mother away from them.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Kate Green Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

As the hon. Gentleman has rightly pointed out, we have lamentably failed to reduce reoffending over a very long period. In addition, we spend a huge amount of taxpayers’ money per place to achieve very poor results. I have seen good education in our current establishments, but I believe we can do better. The time is ripe for us to try something different, based on sound principles, putting education and health at the heart of what we are doing, and making appropriate interventions, all of which will be in place. We are confident that secure colleges can not only meet the needs of girls and younger children in custody, but improve on the education and reoffending outcomes that current facilities achieve.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I agree with the Minister that we should put education at the heart of the rehabilitation agenda for young people. Will he say what educational qualifications the staff at the secure college will have?

[Andrew Selous]

As the hon. Lady may know, we are going to run a competition, which I will describe shortly, to find an education provider. But we are committed to increasing the amount of time in education and we want innovative responses to raise standards further because, as she will know, the results at the moment are simply not good enough.

As I have said, at this stage the Government have plans only for a single secure college pathfinder that will open in 2017, and it has been designed so that it is capable of housing about 300 young offenders aged 12 to 17. It is true that the majority of the young people in this first secure college will be boys aged 15 to 17, but that does not mean that girls and under-15s could not be safely accommodated on the same site and provided with the tailored services required to rehabilitate and educate them. Girls and boys aged 12 to 17 are already safely accommodated together in secure training centres, as well as in secure children’s homes.

Our designs for the secure college pathfinder have been specifically developed to ensure that if girls and under-15s were to be placed there, they would be accommodated in separate and smaller living units, entirely distinct from the accommodation for the majority of older boys. In our consultation on our plans for secure college rules, we also proposed a rule that girls must be separately accommodated from boys.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

My hon. Friend is rightly proud of her constituent, and the objective of the Ministry of Justice is to make sure that people do turn their lives around, as her constituent has done. All credit to him, and we believe our transforming rehabilitation reforms will do that for many more people.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

T7. There have been reports that a number of offenders remain unallocated to supervising officers following the division of the probation service into probation and community rehabilitation companies, with obvious concerns for public safety. The Secretary of State has said that he will only proceed with the transforming rehabilitation programme if he is confident it is safe to do so. Will he now undertake to publish the findings of the test gates, including the upcoming test gate 4, so that the public can have that reassurance?

[Chris Grayling]

I have expressly asked the chief inspector of probation to come to my office and talk to me if, in the course of the work he and his team do, he identifies any part of the reforms that are jeopardising public safety. He has not done so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

As my hon. Friend knows, we do not decide what the future use of the site will be as that will be a matter for the local authority. I am always keen, however, to keep parliamentary colleagues updated at key points in the process, such as when a site goes on the market and when we have reached the point of negotiating successfully with a preferred bidder. I will of course do the same for him, and if I can give him any more information I will seek to do so.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

T4. In a written answer on 6 May, the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) listed several domestic violence programmes for women in prison. His answer included some programmes that I am told do not actually exist. Can he tell me how many women are waiting, or being transferred to other prisons, to get the programmes they need? If he does not know now, will he write to me with the answer?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Simon Hughes)]

I do not have the figures with me and I will of course write to the hon. Lady with the answer. From my visits to women’s prisons, I know that that is an issue that is on the agenda of every single governor, is regularly discussed with the prisoners themselves and is regarded as an extremely high priority. I will supply the facts she needs and would be happy to meet her to discuss the matter.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Kate Green Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I share all the concerns about secure training centres that have been expressed this evening by Members of all parties. I want briefly to ask the Minister about the position of young women and girls in particular. Frankly, it is baffling that young women could be in the same secure training centre as young men when we have taken such steps to differentiate the needs of adult women in the custody system. It is also baffling that, when we have ruled out Titan prisons for adults, we think they are appropriate for young people. We seem to be going in an utterly perverse direction.

We know that girls’ needs in the penal system are different from those of boys and young men. We know that girls are more likely to self-harm and to be placed in restraint and in segregation. We also know that their emotional and well-being needs are different. They have often been victims of terrible trauma and abuse prior to their entry into the penal system. Therefore, if girls and young women are to be placed in these centres, I want the Minister to address some specific issues with clear and direct responses.

First, will the Minister tell us whether any young woman who might be pregnant or who might be a young mother will be placed in one of the secure training centres? In my view, it would be utterly unacceptable for such young women to be confined in the centres. Secondly, will any young women or girls who have themselves been a victim of sexual or domestic abuse or violence be placed in such institutions? Again, it would be utterly inappropriate to put such young women where they would see themselves close to the risk of bullying, aggression and potentially harm from young men. Thirdly, will dedicated staff working only with girls and young women be employed in the secure training centres, or will the whole staff team be shared across the centres, with no specialist and dedicated provision for girls and young women? Finally, what assessment, if any, has his Department made of the impact on reoffending rates among girls and young women of being placed in such institutions? I am not aware of any evidence that such a goal would in any way be effectively achieved, but perhaps he will share such evidence as he has.

[Mike Kane]

Ministers in the Government who abandoned the Building Schools for the Future programme are now effectively asking Parliament to write a blank cheque for the introduction of the secure college. During my first Public Bill Committee, I was mightily impressed by the contributions of Members and Front Benchers on both sides and by how they comported themselves. There was unanimity on many items in the Bill, but this was a particular area of division. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), I do not think that even Ministers believe in this proposal. Yet the Government’s objective is laudable. The Minister has said that 69% of young offenders go on to reoffend. We should all share the ambition to do better, because that figure is too high.

I have many objections to the secure college. My first objection is to its size and cost, as my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) pointed out. With 320 beds and at a cost of £85 million, it can only be described—as it has been—as a Titan. The up-front cost for each place is more than £250,000, which is more than places in secure homes, secure training centres or young offenders institutions. What position will they find themselves in once this college has been built? How will it distort the market for our other provision up and down the nation?

Liberty has stated that the proposal will work against the Government’s objective of reducing young offending. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) said so eloquently, the position of young female offenders within the provision is completely unclear at the moment. The Youth Justice Board has advised against any accommodation for girls in such a secure college.

My second objection to the secure college is that the Government are not clear about its objectives. Is it supposed to be educational, or to have a custodial function? They have not worked that out. If the purpose is educational, my worry is how any educator in such an establishment can create the necessary relationships between themselves and those they educate. As a school teacher, I had 190 days—based on the old agrarian timetable—to teach a child, to build a relationship with them and their parents, and to pass that on through a sophisticated mechanism for the handover that involved reports and strategy. When he spoke so eloquently about SEN measures, the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) was exactly right to ask how such a process will happen. The average custodial sentence for a young person is less than 80 days, so how can an educator begin to establish such relationships in an educational environment that will bring the young person on? I do not think that there is any chance whatsoever of building such a relationship between educators and the young person. Young people with special educational needs also have complex social and emotional needs.

In conclusion, I could not agree more that large institutions are wrong for children, and they are particularly damaging for the most vulnerable children. Without clear objectives, the leaders we hope to employ in any such institution will find it an almost impossible task to navigate the mission that the Government have failed to clarify in Committee and in the House tonight. The Government should think again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend is right that the scheme operates from more than one Government Department. It is important that we work together with our colleagues in the Health Department to deliver what he is describing. We will monitor that progress, as will the Health Department. It will be monitored across Government because we want people with mental health problems to be diverted from the criminal justice system.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Under the transforming rehabilitation reform programme, there will be 21 contract package areas but 12 reducing to 10 women’s prisons, so not every area will have a women’s prison, but every area will receive women when they are released from prison. What arrangements will be in place to ensure continuity of support through the gate when a woman returns to a different area from the prison in which she has been incarcerated?

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Lady is of course right that there are fewer female prisons than there are contract package areas, but that is in many ways a good thing because it means that we have fewer women to incarcerate. She is right that we need to think about how the new system will work. The way we will do that is to ensure that rehabilitation providers have the opportunity to be located in a prison. It may not be a prison located within their own contract package area, but they will have a presence so that everyone coming through the custodial system and being released out of it will have the opportunity to speak to a rehabilitation provider and to make the necessary connections while in custody.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Kate Green Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

It comes from my Department’s capital budget and it will lead to a reduction in the annual running costs of institutions. We are creating an institution that provides both high-quality education and better value than we get from the current system, which underperforms and is excessively expensive because of the nature of the provision out there. I believe this institution will be a major step forward and deliver high-quality education in a modern environment and campus setting, with the focus on education rather than simply detention. That is a key difference.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

If this model is considered to be as successful as the Lord Chancellor obviously believes it will be, can he say whether it will be extended to young women as well as young men, and whether they will be co-located in the college?

[Chris Grayling]

On co-location, there are a number of places in our current system where men and women, or indeed different age groups, are located near each other without being mixed together. I expect the secure college to have a range of age groups, but for them to be separated so that 12-year-olds are not mixed with 17-year-olds. Living on the same site, using the same facilities at different times, and maximising the effectiveness of the resource we put into creating those facilities must be a sensible way forward. If the secure college model works, I do not rule out having women’s units on site as well, but that does not mean we mix them. At Peterborough prison, a women’s prison and a male prison adjoin and share many of the same facilities, although the two sides do not mix. It is about making the best use of our resources to deliver the highest quality educational skills outcomes to a group of young people who will not get on in life unless we help them develop those skills. That is the whole purpose of what we are trying to do.

This is a different kind of institution. A few people are saying, “This is just the biggest children’s prison in Europe”, but that is complete nonsense. This is much more akin to a school or college with a fence around it on a site that can deliver quality education and a mix of skills development, in a way that will genuinely help take young people—while we have them under our control—through a period of skill building of the kind they desperately need. That will be a whole lot better than having young offenders institutions with big iron bars and 12 hours in the classroom. This is a new approach that I think can make a real difference.

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[Chris Grayling]

The collection rate of fines and other charges levelled in the courts is in excess of 80%. There is a large block of historical debt, much of which is owed by people who, for reasons that include that they have simply died, for accounting reasons have to stay on the books. I accept that that is daft and it is a matter of debate among accounting figures in government. The figure my hon. Friend cites is not a sum of money that could ever realistically be recouped by the taxpayer, but, of the money that is levied in courts every year, we currently collect about 80%. I have no reason to believe that we will not continue to do that, and I have no reason to believe that these reforms will not lead to the collection of the many tens of millions of pounds we seek to collect to make a contribution to the running of the court system.

[Kate Green]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is being very generous with his time. When funds are being recovered, will he say in what order they will be disbursed? In particular, will priority be given to payments to the victims compensation fund, ahead of reimbursing court costs?

[Chris Grayling]

We will not change the order of the collection of fines and victims’ charges. The collection of court costs will come after that. It is worth saying that the repayment of the charge will, as is normally the case in the courts in relation to fines and victim surcharges, be set at a rate that offenders can afford, so there will always be an incentive for them to find a job and to work hard. Offenders will be able to earn their way out of the charge if they do not reoffend. We will make provision for the charge, or any outstanding sums of money, to be written off if the offender does not reoffend. There will, therefore, be an incentive to go back into work, get on with it and make regular payments. Then, when they do not reoffend, an amount of money will be written off. That is a fair and balanced way to ensure that we secure a contribution from those who can afford it—there are people in our courts who will be able to afford this money on the spot—and create a system whereby if people do the right thing, we will do the right thing by them and write off any outstanding money.

I reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) that we take the enforcement of such payments extremely seriously. We continue to work hard to improve enforcement levels and we will address some of the historical debt by outsourcing the collection of criminal financial impositions in a more effective way. I hope that that will enable us to recover some of that debt. I want to ensure that those who have the means to pay but refuse to do so, do not escape without consequences. The reality is that many people work very hard to avoid paying money to the courts and we need to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that they pay.

We must continue to look at ways to make the court system more efficient and proportionate to crimes committed. Too much of magistrates’ time and court time is currently spent simply going through the motions of hearing a case where the defendant has pleaded guilty by post or has not responded. We currently have the absurd situation of valuable court time being spent on hearings where paperwork is simply read aloud by lawyers. The Bill allows a single magistrate to deal with such cases away from the traditional magistrates courtroom. It will free up valuable court time to focus on cases where they make a real difference to victims and their communities, while preserving a defendant’s right to request a hearing in open court.

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[Chris Grayling]

That is a very good point, which we should certainly take on board.

[Kate Green]

In the context of this part of the Bill, I should place on record my interest as a life member of the Magistrates Association.

When decisions are made outside open court and entirely on paper, with no public pronouncement being made, how can the public be made aware of sentencing practices in relation to the offences that we are discussing?

[Chris Grayling]

I have made it very clear that we must not lose transparency as a result of our reforms. In today’s world, the local paper reporter obviously will not sit through cases of this kind, because there are not the necessary resources. However, it is vital for the local media, for example, to have access to information about what happens in the courts, and we cannot allow the new process to take place behind closed doors. I am a strong believer in transparency in the courts, and we will provide mechanisms to ensure that the public have access to court decisions. That is only right and proper: we cannot have secret judgments.

Part 3 also deals with the important issue of jury misconduct. Trial by jury is a fundamental feature of our justice system, and juror misconduct can have a devastating effect, causing delays, cost, and damage to public confidence. I am clear about the fact that people should be tried by the courts, not by the internet. When an individual is before the court, the jury must decide on the basis of the evidence presented and principles of justice, not the results of a Google search. The Bill introduces a number of criminal offences in order to tackle such behaviour, based on recommendations by the Law Commission. It also deals with the publication of potentially prejudicial materials during court proceedings, on which the current law is outdated and in need of reform. I think that these provisions represent a careful balance between the right to report and publish freely, and the right to be judged only on the facts before the court, and I thank the Law Commission for its work in this regard.

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[Kate Green]

I suppose I should declare an interest in this context as well, given that I used to run a pressure group that brought judicial reviews—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] Against the previous Government, I must say. Those judicial reviews always addressed matters of significant public interest. How does the Justice Secretary intend to deal with complex cases whose costs are likely to be high, but in which it would be helpful to the court to have the matters properly argued, analysed and brought to the court’s attention, as the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) described? Does the Secretary of State have a means of ensuring that his proposal will not shut people out from bringing such complex cases?

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Lady certainly did bring cases against the previous Government, but the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and I discovered to our surprise when we went into that Department in 2010 that the practice of the previous Government was to guarantee to pay the costs of the pressure group from day one. We got a call from one pressure group saying, “We are going to bring a judicial review. Can we assume that the usual arrangements will apply and you will pay the costs?”, to which the answer was, “Well, actually, no.” It was a strange way for the previous Government to do business.

As I said, protective costs orders will still be available for cases of genuine public interest, but my fear is, and my experience has been all too often, that cases are brought for public relations and campaigning reasons in a way that leaves the taxpayer guaranteed to pick up the bill. I do not think that is fair on the taxpayer.

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[Sadiq Khan]

My right hon. Friend will know that the number of foreign prisoners in our prisons is just a bit above 10,000. That has been the figure for the past four years, and the Government have done nothing to get it down. They would do better to pay attention to getting it down, rather than to getting headlines in the Daily Mail or The Daily Telegraph. That would free up places and lead to a huge improvement.

We broadly welcome the direction of travel on electronic monitoring, subject to clarification on costs and technical developments; the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) raised some of the concerns that we have that need to be addressed. We will closely scrutinise the ability of the Ministry of Justice properly to monitor the private companies awarded the contracts, to ensure that the public get value for money and the Ministry is no longer taken for a ride.

We do not oppose the plans relating to automatic release and recall, and we welcome clause 16, which bans the possession of extreme pornographic images depicting rape. A number of victim groups and experts have called for that change, and the Government and the Justice Secretary should be commended for listening to the evidence.

I turn to the second part of the Bill, on youth justice. It is worth pausing to reflect on the dramatic fall over the past 10 years or so in the number of young people held in custody. The most recent figures show a drop of more than 60%. I pay tribute to the hard work of the Youth Justice Board and youth offending teams up and down the country. I am proud of Labour’s record in setting up the YJB, which led to these falls. I wish the outgoing chair well and the new chair the best of luck in his endeavours. The YJB’s innovative ways of working have delivered enormous economic and social benefits to society, and I for one am delighted that we were successful in keeping it doing its important job, rather than it being abolished two weeks ago, as the Government had wanted.

We have reached a hard core of young offenders in our youth justice system, and that brings a different set of challenges. As has been said, reoffending rates for this hard core remain stubbornly high. The Government’s preferred solution is secure colleges, and the Bill paves the way for their introduction. Ministers have announced only one so far, in Leicestershire. Construction will not start until 2015. There is no clear idea of where the £85 million that it will cost will come from, or what will be cut to find the money. It smacks of another commitment made by this Justice Secretary for which the next Government will be left to pick up the tab. In Committee, we will need to get down to the details, but already a number of groups have expressed concerns about the plans. There will be just one secure college; either it will be a huge college for the whole country—a teenage Titan prison, with all the problems that will entail—or only those in the east midlands will benefit.

There are also concerns about how restraint is planned to be used in the new secure college, and how the college will address the problems underlying offending, such as mental health problems, drug and alcohol addiction—mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs—and histories of abuse, trauma and violence. It is also unclear, despite the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), what provision is planned for young females. There is a concern, to be frank, that this is a return to the discredited borstal system.

Nor have the Government made clear their intentions for the network of secure children’s homes. Granted, those are expensive, but I have visited them and seen at first hand the range of severe problems that young people there have to deal with. Extreme caution is needed before this group of highly vulnerable people is lumped in with the wider youth justice system.

We will want convincing that forking out £85 million on bricks and mortar is better than spending the money on improving the amount of education and rehabilitative work in the existing secure training centre network. I see that the Chair of the Select Committee on Justice is here; the Justice Committee recently argued for a “fundamental shift” of resources from custody to early intervention with young people at risk of reoffending. It also made the point that most young offenders would not be in custody long enough—the average is 79 days—for the secure college to do any good in improving basic skills and addressing offending behaviour. A number of experts have also raised concerns, which we shall explore in Committee.

The third part of the Bill proposes changes in our courts. On the face of it, efforts to speed up court proceedings and make them more efficient—for example, by ensuring easier and quicker appeals to the Supreme Court, and by having magistrates courts deal with lower-level offenders faster—are to be welcomed, but this should not be to the detriment of proper open justice or due process. The Civil Justice Council, the Magistrates Association and others have expressed concerns that we should explore in Committee. Similarly, no one opposes convicted criminals being made to make amends for their crimes. The Government now wish to tack a charge on to those found guilty towards the cost of their trial. There have been difficulties collecting fines and the victim surcharge from guilty criminals, sometimes as a result of organisational problems, but sometimes because criminals simply do not have enough money. There are between £1.4 billion and £2 billion in uncollected fines, and only this weekend it was reported that £13 million in victim surcharge had failed to be collected by the Government. I am sure that the Justice Secretary did not mean it when he said that that was because they are all dead, or that outsourcing all of this will solve all the problems. We will seek guarantees that this will not be yet another trumpeted announcement that ends in failure down the years as non-payments rack up and are written off.

It is right that the law on jurors and the use of the internet keeps up to date with the march of technology. I, too, am pleased that the Government have listened to the recommendations of the Law Commission in that respect. However, as Members will recall from the high-profile trial of Vicky Pryce, there are problems with juries not understanding their role sufficiently, and we shall explore what steps can be taken to educate and inform the public and jurors about the important civic function of jury service so that it is less of an alien process to them. I welcome proposals to raise the juror age limit to 75.

The fourth part of the Bill deals with changes to judicial review. In a country without a written constitution, we tinker at our peril with important checks and balances such as judicial review without proper thought. We know the Lord Chancellor’s view on judicial review from a piece for the newspaper that he and his SpAds prefer to brief—the Daily Mail. He said that

“judicial review…is not a promotional tool for countless Left-wing campaigners. So that is why we are publishing our proposals for change…Britain cannot afford to allow a culture of Left-wing-dominated, single-issue activism to hold back our country from investing in infrastructure and new sources of energy”—

news, I am sure, to Conservative Back Benchers and local authorities that have been involved in JRs against Heathrow expansion, High Speed 2 and, no doubt in future, wind farms and fracking.

Let me explain the position to the Justice Secretary in plain English without any long legal words or gobbledegook. MPs, individual citizens, community groups, organisations and local authorities are not

“part of a culture of Left-wing dominated”

campaigners when they legitimately ask the judiciary to review decisions made by public authorities, including Ministers.

To be frank, delays in HS2 or Crossrail 2, the lack of houses being built or of big infrastructure are more to do with the incompetence and policies of this Government than with judicial review. It is hardly surprising that people believe that the Justice Secretary’s true intentions are to insulate his Government’s bad decision making from any kind of challenge. The Government have also sought to rein in legal aid and no win, no fee cases; to gag campaign groups with their shoddy Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014; and constantly to attack human rights laws—there is a pattern. These are the tools by which our citizens hold Governments to account, and the Government are weakening them.

[Kate Green]

I am glad that my right hon. Friend makes that point, because the Justice Secretary is quite wrong to suggest that the majority of judicial review cases are about campaigners making campaign points. They are about individuals who have suffered personal injustice at the hands of an over-powerful state, and we ought to maintain that ultimate protection for those individuals, many of whom are disabled, many of whom are vulnerable, and many of whom are poorly educated. Does my right hon. Friend not agree that, whatever the Justice Secretary presents as the effect of these changes, the reality is that it is vulnerable individuals who lose out the most?

[Sadiq Khan]

Absolutely. The concerns are that as a consequence of the changes decisions made by Ministers and other public authorities will be put above the rule of law. Those authorities will almost be free to do as they please, to the ludicrous extent that breaking the law appears to be of no concern to the Justice Secretary.

It is clear the Justice Secretary’s measures are underpinned by a majoritarian view of the world in which democracy is only about elections, and those who win can do as they please in between. I would be more sympathetic if the Conservatives had actually won the last general election. The Justice Secretary’s policies are dangerous. Democracy is more than elections: I am not alone in that view, and neither is my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston. Lord Dyson, the Master of the Rolls, said that

“there is no principle more basic to our system of law than the maintenance of the rule of law itself and the constitutional protection afforded by judicial review.”

The former Lord Chief Justice, the esteemed Lord Woolf, said:

“In our system, without its written constitution embedded in our law so it can't be changed, judicial review is critical.”

He also said that the Ministry of Justice has shown a

“remarkable lack of concern for the precision of the facts”.

Joe Rukin, co-ordinator of the Stop HS2 campaign—that infamous left-wing dominated campaign group—said:

“The government seem to be making out that they believe any of their infrastructure plans should be above the law and do not realise that it is essential in a democratic society to be able to hold the government to account”.

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[Karl Turner]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for making those remarks. He rightly said that I raised the issue when I was briefly a member of his Committee, and I wrote to him formally after I had left the Committee to ask for an inquiry, which he kindly agreed to have. This issue has been a problem for a relatively long time. Government Members said that it has become a particular problem since 2007, and that is probably right, but in my experience, from my constituency, it has increased dramatically since 2010. That is a point of debate and hon. Members may wish to disagree with me on it, but I am glad that the Government have finally accepted that this is a definite issue and that they are going to deal with cautions for indictable-only offences and for repeat offenders.

I have some concerns about single magistrates sitting for summary only, non-imprisonable offences. If someone pleads guilty by post for a road traffic offence, I have no problem with their being dealt with by a single magistrate. However, the Bill does not state that this approach will be confined just to road traffic offences, and I have concerns about that. Justice must be done and be seen to be done, and this approach also completely undermines the notion of collective decision making.

Let me now deal with the sentencing provisions. I was a criminal law practitioner before I was elected to this House, and I am on record as saying that I was never a fan of indeterminate sentences for public protection. However, the provisions in the Bill are undoubtedly a knee-jerk reaction by this Lord Chancellor to the fact that his extended sentences in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 simply have not worked—the Government are reacting to that.

I do not wish to speak for too long on my next issue, as other Members have made the point well, but part 4 of the Bill is of particular concern to me because it seems to undermine the possibility of challenging Executive decisions in a judicial review. The Lord Chancellor is on the record, commenting to his favourite newspaper, the Daily Mail, describing judicial review as

“a promotional tool for countless Left-wing campaigners”.

With respect, that type of comment could be made only by this Lord Chancellor, who simply does not appreciate the importance of the rule of law.

[Kate Green]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Lord Chancellor is completely missing the point, as the majority of judicial review cases involve individuals—disabled people, people with learning difficulties, children and other vulnerable people—who are having to challenge inappropriate state decisions, in a situation where there is huge inequality of bargaining power? Portraying judicial review as being about campaign groups prosecuting an agenda is simply a misrepresentation of what it is predominantly about.

[Karl Turner]

My hon. Friend made the point better than I was about to and has hit the nail entirely on the head. This measure is populist stuff; it is the Lord Chancellor trying to be popular. Judicial review is not the only thing he attacks—he attacks human rights. As a lawyer, I find it frustrating to listen to him when he debates in this House because he seems not to understand the relationship between the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act 1998: he confuses the two. He is attacking the system. He has attacked human rights, judicial review, legal aid and no win, no fee arrangements. He has attacked any opportunity for people to challenge the Government or organisations the Lord Chancellor seems not to be terribly impressed by.

My main concern is clause 50, which seeks to change the threshold for bringing judicial review. People who bring reviews often have legitimate claims; these reviews are not some spurious attempt to challenge the Government, and these people often have lawyers advising them. Solicitors and members of the Bar will discuss the possibility of success in these cases and will give advice. I respectfully submit that judges do not just let spurious cases go through, so I think the Lord Chancellor could do with a lesson in the entire system.

I know that other Members wish to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will leave it there.

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[Simon Reevell]

My recollection is that the hon. Gentleman was a member of my circuit, but I will have a think about that. Cautioning has been utterly corrosive, and even when people have been prosecuted the sentencing procedures that have been put in place have been difficult for lawyers, and impossible for non-lawyers, to understand. The point has been well made that the idea of someone serving no more than half a sentence is difficult for people to take on board, but when somebody reappears after a few days or a few weeks the public simply cannot comprehend it. A good start is linking the release of serious offenders to the scrutiny of the Parole Board. It is an important link and I am glad that it is being reintroduced. I say “reintroduced” because it worked very well in the 1990s, but since then we have had indeterminate sentences for public protection, and judging by some of the comments today it is clear that the party that introduced them still does not understand the problems they caused.

The Bill has the advantage of introducing a system that imposes a period of imprisonment that will be served unless, after a substantial time, the Parole Board approves early release. The Bill retains the incentive for the prisoner and provides a valuable safeguard for the rest of us—that is a good piece of legislation. What a pity that we had to have those years of messing around with alternatives before going back to something that worked well in the 1990s.

When someone is released, is it wrong to use technology to monitor them? I understand that some people will be uncomfortable with the idea of tracking humans with a global positioning system, but is it any different from putting a tag on someone and using different technology to monitor whether or not they enter or leave a building? Surely when people are precluded by court order from going to certain locations, there is nothing wrong in monitoring that with technology. There is always a line with technology that we should not cross, but this Bill falls far short of it.

If someone on licence breaches the terms of that licence and will do so again, why should they not have to serve the remainder of their sentence? Most people probably assume that that is what happens anyway, and would be surprised to learn that the system provided for anything else. People have the licence terms explained to them: if they breach the licence and it looks as though they will do it again, they should serve their sentence, and there cannot be anything wrong with that.

One aspect of the Bill that has received media attention relates to proceedings for judicial review. Is it really controversial that those who wish to be involved in someone else’s case may have to pay towards the cost of those proceedings? Those who appear as interveners are free to provide their assistance, knowledge and experience to any party in any case, but if they want to appear themselves, why should it be assumed that one of the parties will automatically pick up their costs or that they will have no responsibility for the costs that they incur on behalf of others? They are free to pass on their expertise and knowledge, but if they want to take part in the litigation, some responsibility may come with that.

[Kate Green]

The hon. Gentleman’s point sounds reasonable, but the reality is that one of the parties is the state, with all the resources and the power that the state can bring to bear, and the other parties are simply not in the same position. They are trying to challenge an exercise of state power in a situation where there is a gross inequality of bargaining power. At times, that means that positions and points that are important for public policy will not otherwise be considered. That would be a price worth paying if it actually meant that public policy was improved.

[Simon Reevell]

I do not disagree, and that is why the Bill provides for circumstances in which that can happen. However, in a large number of cases, expertise can be provided without intervention and representation being needed. As an aside, organisations that oppose this measure and that frequently appear as interveners should make it clear in their lobbying that they stand to be affected by the changes that they oppose.

The leapfrogging provisions of judicial review are not controversial and are a good idea. Only last week, the Supreme Court exerted its authority. As confidence grows that it will be, as it should be, the final court in this jurisdiction and that that is where issues will ultimately be determined, why incur cost and delay calling in at the Court of Appeal if a matter will automatically be referred to the Supreme Court?

Is it really controversial to suggest that a case that offers the prospect of nothing more than a pyrrhic victory should not take up days of court time? I find the opposition to clause 50 surprising. It seems to come from the left, yet the argument that has been advanced recently in the High Court, especially in relation to ballots by trade unions on industrial activity, is that if we have thousands of members and we only have the addresses wrong for half a dozen or so, why should we rerun the ballot when it will not affect the outcome? Is that not precisely the sort of point that should be dealt with at a preliminary hearing? If it is quite clear that there was no mischief in the error and that changing the error would not affect the outcome, is there any need for full judicial review proceedings? Something that is argued on behalf of the trade unions as perfectly sensible in the High Court seems, when it appears in a Government Bill, to be worthy only of criticism from the Opposition Benches.

For all the focus on judicial review, I agree with the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) and others that the clause on which people should reflect concerns the magistrates court, which deals with 95% of all criminal cases. Clause 50 creates a system for trial, not for guilty plea, so the idea of guilty plea by post is not what the clause is about. It creates a system for trial, the determination of proceedings that are not admitted. These proceedings could involve criminal damage, assault and public order. They are not matters that will attract sentences of custody, but they could have implications that affect people’s livelihoods. They could be determined behind closed doors, and in a process that involves nobody who has any legal qualification whatever. It could be a single lay magistrate in a private room with papers provided by a police officer. I hope the Government will reflect on that.

One solution is to have at least two if not three magistrates. Another is to say that if it is a single justice, they should be a district judge. The idea that a file can be submitted, that there is no intervention from a prosecutor and that a lay justice in private can decide whether someone has committed a criminal offence is quite a significant step. It may well be that some of these people have not bothered to reply or that some know they are guilty, but there is some significance to that step and it is something on which we should reflect.

The Bill also makes provision in relation to wasted cost. I will tease the Minister a little by reminding him that there is one party to criminal proceedings that often causes trials to be adjourned owing to lack of court time or lack of jurors, and there are no cost implications for them, and that is of course the Court Service.

It is impossible to speak in a debate on criminal justice and courts without making mention of the current problems over proposals regarding remuneration. My recollection is that it was the previous Labour Government who first saw industrial action by the Bar. It was in relation to remuneration for very high cost cases and proceeds of crime cases some six or seven years ago. My view now is the same as it was then. I know as well as anyone the talents and strengths of those who practise at the independent Bar, but there must be a balance between those who practise in the courts and those whom the courts are there to serve. Pursuit of remuneration should never tip the balance away from timely remedy for those seeking justice, whether it is because they are complainants or victims or because they are awaiting trial.

Finally, those who would never reverse these proposals if ever the opportunity arose should be slow in hinting that they might.

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[Philip Davies]

I certainly will not give way to the hon. Gentleman again. We have wasted enough time on his nonsense; we will not waste any more on it. I have learned a lesson tonight: not to give way to him. Many people learned that lesson a long time ago, but in my naivety I had yet to learn it. I have learned it now.

I was making a point about single magistrates. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) expressed a reservation about the provision being extended to cover more than just the most basic and simple crimes. I share that concern. A system of single magistrates will never be appropriate for cases such as shoplifting, because magistrates have very different ideas about what should happen to offenders, particularly persistent offenders, in those types of cases. I hope that the power will not be extended. I sometimes worry that when a power is granted, it will be the thin end of the wedge and the power will be rapidly extended to other areas. I hope that will not be the case for this power. It will be introduced for very basic offences, and I hope it will stop there, and not be extended.

On clauses 37 to 39 and 40 to 48, I understand the concerns that have perhaps influenced the introduction of the new offences relating to jurors, especially given changes in technology. We already have the Contempt of Court Act 1981, so I am not entirely sure how necessary some of the measures are, but they may well be necessary.

I note the reasons given for increasing the maximum age of jurors from 70 to 75. I could not agree more with the rationale for that change, but I am tempted to table an amendment—my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) mentioned this—to extend the change to magistrates and judges. I cannot see any difference between a juror of that age being able to determine the guilt or innocence of somebody in a serious criminal trial, and a member of a bench of magistrates or a judge of that age passing sentence. I do not really see why a person is capable of doing one of those things between the ages of 70 and 75, but not the others.

As the Ministry of Justice helpfully explained,

“According to the latest figures published by the Office for National Statistics, the healthy life expectancy of both men and women at age 65 is at least 10 years in England and Wales.

The existing age limit for jury service, which was set in 1988, does not reflect the current health of older people. Official figures show that healthy life expectancy of 65 year olds in England and Wales has risen since 2000.

We believe the selection of jurors should reflect that fact.”

If that is the case for jurors, presumably the case is exactly the same for magistrates and judges. There would be a cost saving if we extended the measure to magistrates, as they can claim for loss of earnings when they sit, and clearly magistrates who are aged 70 to 75 are less likely to be earning, or concerned with covering their loss of earnings, than those who are younger. Magistrates would still be subject to appraisals, so their competence would not be an issue. I have raised the issue of increasing the age limit before in this place. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) once pointed out, it was ironic that the then Lord Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), was past the retirement age for the magistrates of whom he was in charge. The amendment that I would like to see would rectify that anomaly.

I very much welcome the changes relating to judicial review. I hope that they mean that we will have less interference with decisions by judges who hear such cases. Parliament should set the law. Very often, as people will know, I do not particularly agree with Parliament’s decisions, but that is the price of democracy: sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. Parliament should set the laws of the land, and judges should implement the law as it stands. I do not like—we have seen this far too often in recent years—judges thinking that they should determine the law. If judges want to decide what the law is, they should give up being judges and put themselves up for election like everybody else. If they are not prepared to do that, they should accept the will of Parliament, whether they—or I—like it or not.

On clauses 29 to 31, I certainly understand the principle in the Bill that criminals should contribute to the costs of running courts. I note that the proposed criminal courts charge means that in future, somebody could be ordered in court to pay the following financial penalties: a fine; a victim surcharge; compensation; prosecution costs; and now this extra courts charge. The victim surcharge, which is basically a tax on offenders, has been a rather unhelpful development, particularly when it applies to people who are being sent to prison for long periods of time. When it was first introduced, for most offences, it was levied in cases where there was no victim. It seems bizarre that the victim surcharge was paid by offenders solely in cases where there was no victim. If the courts charge replaced the victim surcharge, that might make more sense. I certainly agree with the principle of making offenders pay; I just have reservations about how these things tend to work in practice.

[Kate Green]

I am slightly puzzled by what the hon. Gentleman says. My understanding was that the victim surcharge was applied on a case-by-case basis—

[Philip Davies]

indicated dissent.

[Kate Green]

I advise the hon. Gentleman that when I was a magistrate sitting on the bench, we applied the surcharge, as part of our sentencing decision, with regard to individual cases. Does he agree that there should be a pecking order when it comes to how payments are applied? We should put the victim surcharge and compensation payments to particular victims ahead of recompense for the cost of the court.

[Philip Davies]

I am all for making sure that the victim is at the head of the queue when it comes to payments, but the victim surcharge was specifically targeted by the previous Government at offences in which there were no victims. That is the fact of the matter, whether the hon. Lady recalls it that way or not.

I welcome the sentiment behind the changes to release on licence. I am pleased to see any proposals that mean that more of the sentence given by the court is served by offenders. In fact, I have long argued that the sentence given by the court should be served in full by offenders, and that people should not be released early for good behaviour—they should be kept in longer for bad behaviour. At the very least, offenders should not be released automatically halfway through their sentence. That was an absolute scandal that was introduced by the previous Government. I would like to see the Bill go further to rectify that, but I appreciate the point made by the Secretary of State that even though he cannot rectify it in full, he wants to make a start in doing so, and I support him in that.

According to research carried out by Lord Ashcroft, more than 80% of the public think that sentences should be served in full. I cannot improve on the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), who spoke earlier today. On Second Reading of the Bill that became the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, he said, as shadow Secretary of State:

“We have said that there should be a policy of honesty in sentencing. The fight against crime depends on integrity in the criminal justice system and on courts that deliver swift, effective justice, with punishments appropriate to the crime and the criminal. In the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the Government introduced automatic release on licence halfway through the sentence for all determinate sentences of longer than 12 months…If this were our Bill, we would introduce provisions to restore honesty in sentencing, in order to reassure victims and leave criminals in no doubt that justice is done.”—[Official Report, 8 October 2007; Vol. 464, c. 79.]

I think that many people went out and voted Conservative at the last general election on the basis that we would restore that honesty to sentencing. The provision is a small step in that direction, but a welcome one. I should like the Government to make clear their intention to remove early release altogether. I appreciate that coalition restraints often do not make such things possible, but I am bound to say that this does not go far enough.

I am pleased that, under clause 6 offenders could be ordered to be subject to compulsory electronic monitoring. I am a big fan of electronic monitoring, particularly monitoring that uses tracking technology, which I hope will have an effect both as a deterrent against future crime and as a means of convicting and punishing those who reoffend while on licence. Similarly, I welcome the changes to the recall of prisoners released on licence, but with some reservations, as the changes do not go nearly far enough. The fixed-term recall, in which the offender is returned to prison for breaching their licence for just 28 days—not, as most people would expect, the rest of the period of their original sentence—is a very bad law. It means not only that offenders are released early but that they are released extremely early again if they fail to abide by their licence conditions both the first time round and if they reoffend. That is outrageous, and the Government need to clamp down on it.

For life sentences, the proposed changes could be going in the right direction, but I still believe that life should mean life. I have highlighted that many times: in my view and that of most of the constituents I speak to there should be no release of a prisoner sent to prison for life. We would not have to deal with the issue of release after the recall of a life prisoner if we did not release life prisoners in first place. The issue of prisoners absconding or not returning to custody is something I have been concerned about for a while. As I mentioned earlier, anything that increases sentencing or toughens up the current position is something I shall happily support. The new offence created by the Bill and the increased penalties for the existing offence are changes that certainly have my support. I only wish we were not releasing people who went on to reoffend or breach their conditions.

Figures I obtained from parliamentary questions show the alarmingly high number of absconds and people not returned to custody after recall. The most persistent are murderers and attempted murderers. Not only my constituents but people up and down the country are asking why on earth we release so many of these murderers on licence.

Cautions were mentioned by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), and I agree with him. For some time, I have highlighted, along with him, the use of cautions for very serious offences. I am pleased that the Bill seeks to address the issue. It is worth repeating that a caution is given only when an individual accepts responsibility for the crime—they admit that they are guilty—so their use for serious indictable offences has naturally concerned me and many others. I welcome the curbing of the use of repeat cautions, which has always seemed bizarre to me. A person is given a warning for doing something, they do it again, and instead of being sent to court to face the music, some people are given yet another warning, and yet another warning, and even another warning after that. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, recent Ministry of Justice figures apparently showed that 62,000 offenders given a caution in the 12 months to March 2013 had already received a caution previously. The figures also showed that 8,800 criminals who were handed a caution last year had accepted at least one caution for the same offence previously. Perhaps more staggering is the fact that an offender in Northumbria had been given cautions on 50 occasions, and over 50% of persistent offenders do not receive immediate custody. This is an absolute scandal and makes a mockery of the criminal justice system, so I welcome these changes.

I will not detain the House on the issue of young offenders, but I would like some clarification that the proposals will apply equally to boys as well as girls. I would not want to support any proposal that treats them differently, particularly when they have committed the same offence.

I will certainly be tabling an amendment to extend the time limit for an appeal by the Attorney-General against an unduly lenient sentence. I am concerned that the strict 28-day deadline has been, and could be in future, missed in some serious cases. Victims and the public in general need to have confidence in the judicial system, and in the case of an unduly lenient sentence, if the deadline is missed simply because the victim was not made aware of it in time and so did not ask for it to be referred, that confidence could be undermined. I understand the desire to have these things treated quickly, so I would not be looking for an extremely lengthy extension of time. I pay tribute to Jean Taylor and the campaign group Families Fighting for Justice, who have done a lot of work campaigning on this issue. I hope that the Government will be responsive to an extension, perhaps to 90 days, for the most serious offence where people are in custody for a long time, but perhaps not long enough given the seriousness of the offence. I hope that the Government will look favourably upon such an amendment.

I would also like the Bill to end the ludicrous position where time spent on a tagged curfew is credited as if it was time spent on remand in prison. In 2008, on the subject of allowing a curfew whilst on bail to count as credit towards a prison sentence, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier), speaking as the shadow Minister said:

“If someone has committed an offence that crosses the custody threshold—an offence that is serious enough to warrant a custodial sentence—it will cause a great deal of scepticism, undermine public confidence in the justice system and make the Government look increasingly ridiculous if the court is then required to say, ‘By the way, all the time that you have spent at home in bed is time that can be taken away from your custodial sentence.’”—[Official Report, 9 January 2008; Vol. 470, c. 369.]

I agreed with his comments then and I still agree with them now. He was absolutely right to say that when the last Government introduced this ridiculous rule. I hope that the Government, even if they will not do it in this Bill, will seek the earliest opportunity to scrap that ridiculous state of affairs.

I would also like to have seen magistrates allowed to sentence people to prison for up to 12 months for one offence, instead of the current six-month limit. The Conservative party was committed to that at the last election and it is something that I certainly still support. Magistrates have the power to sentence offenders to prison for 12 months for two or more either-way offences and nobody seems concerned about that. There is a possibility that this measure may also cut the cost of our judicial system by allowing more cases to be dealt with in the cheaper magistrates courts compared with the more expensive Crown courts.

I would also like to see consideration given in the Bill to making judges accountable for their decisions, particularly where they do not hand down custodial sentences that would be perfectly justifiable and possibly even expected, and where the offender then goes on to re-offend. I do not think I need to say now what the consequences of the collection of this information should be, but it should be quite clear to many that there should be consequences for a judge who consistently allows offenders to avoid prison, if those offenders go on to make others suffer as a result of their continuing crime sprees. At the very least there should be some assessment of their ability to perform their role.

I talked about boy and girl offenders earlier and I would also like to place on record my continued interest in seeing male and female offenders treated in the same way, particularly when they are convicted of the same offences. That should apply not just for sentencing purposes but for all aspects of the criminal justice system. I am pleased that it is becoming increasingly accepted that women are treated far more leniently than men in the criminal justice system, and that needs to be addressed.

I would like the Bill to have included the principle of a sentencing escalator. The principle was proposed in a private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friends the Members for Kettering and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall). It is extremely popular with the public. Thanks to polling carried out by Lord Ashcroft, we know that it has the support of at least 67% of the British public. The British public clearly think, as I do, that if someone commits an offence and then does it again, the punishment on the second occasion should be more severe than the punishment on the first, and that the punishment on a third occasion should be more severe than the punishment on the second. I would like the Government to make progress on that.

Despite those omissions, on which I would like to see the Government make progress, either in this Bill or in future, the Bill can still be seen as a substantial step forward for the criminal justice system in this country, and the Government and the Secretary of State should be commended for that. Even when the Bill reaches the statute book—hopefully with some of the amendments I propose—I will still be here on the Back Benches urging the Government to go much further.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vara]

My hon. Friend needs to appreciate that the time lag will be longer. This will be the last element to be claimed. It will be claimed after the others. There will be a priority element, and this will be the last bit. There is no reason to conclude that, if the other four criteria have been met with an 80% collection rate, the fifth one will not.

The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd)—I hope that I have pronounced the constituency name correctly, or close enough—had concerns about prison places. As the Justice Secretary said in his opening remarks, in the next 15 or so months, we expect that there will be some 2,000 more places, and Wrexham prison will have more than 2,000 places by 2017. He raised secure colleges. I emphasise that the aim is to reduce reoffending and have the expertise to provide for educational needs.

[Kate Green]

rose—

[Mr Vara]

I will give way, but this must be the last intervention because I want to cover a number of points.

[Kate Green]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. How does he think that the public will react to the concept of 350 fairly seriously offending young men living on a single site in their neighbourhood?

[Mr Vara]

There are institutions of a custodial nature in which the numbers of people are far more than that at the moment. They will not all live in one unit. There will be separate units and different age groups and categories of people. I see no reason why, at a more cost-effective rate, we cannot seek to do what is not happening at present: reduce reoffending rates.

The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd also spoke of the possible use of force, and that issue was also raised by a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House. I will just point out that the Bill sets up secure colleges but it does not speak of using force. That issue needs to be addressed later, when it comes to dealing with the rules for secure colleges. I recognise that it is an important issue, which needs to be dealt with sensitively, and I am sure that when those rules are drawn up, that is how it will be dealt with.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) gave a very supportive speech and spoke with experience of having been a Minister both in my Department and in the Home Office. His arguments were well reasoned and he spoke about early release, electronic tagging and a number of other issues. He pointed out to the House that the magistracy that we have been discussing has been with us for some 650 years.

The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) also raised the issue of magistrates sitting on their own and I hope that I have covered that. He also touched on the issue of judicial reviews, as did the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), in a number of interventions, and other hon. Members. Let me be clear about this point too. My right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor did not say that all claims were being made by left-wing campaign groups, but it is a fact that some claims have been or are made by such groups. The hon. Lady herself admitted, in one of her interventions, that before she entered the House, she ran a group and was regularly involved in judicial reviews. If people are going to throw ammunition at this side, it is important that they at least put things in context.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) spoke with experience and was right to put education at the heart of secure colleges. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston continues to mutter away, but I suggest that she looks at Hansard tomorrow morning. My hon. Friend was right to highlight the issue of education and I am grateful for his general approval for all that the Government are doing.

The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) also spoke of secure colleges. I emphasise to him that, as I said earlier, there will be separate units to cater for different categories of people in those colleges rather than everyone being in one structure.

As far as the magistrates courts are concerned, there was concern about openness and transparency—

Mesothelioma (Insurance Premiums)

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Andy McDonald]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. His intervention is apposite. There is only one respect in which I would slightly disagree with him: he says that the review is poppycock, although perhaps not in the legal sense, but we may find that there are legal consequences to it. I am of the view that it does not withstand scrutiny as a proper process. No doubt we will return to that.

Making these changes at this pace makes it abundantly clear that the Government had made their mind up way before April 2013 that these exemptions would not last any time at all. Thereafter, to try, in some tortured way, to create a link between the mesothelioma scheme as laid out in the Mesothelioma Bill and the provisions in LASPO is simply to conflate unconnected matters. If there was one American blues artist who epitomised the approach of the Government on this issue, it would be the inimitable Muddy Waters.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. He will be interested to know that on 13 December, while the Mesothelioma Bill was in Committee—I was a member of that Committee—the Minister wrote to me, saying that

“the Mesothelioma Bill is relevant to the timing of the application of sections 44 and 46 of the LASPO Act to diffuse mesothelioma claims, since we have always intended to implement any such decision in a synchronised manner with other reforms directed to improving the position of mesothelioma sufferers. This was made clear when parliament agreed the relevant provisions in the LASPO Act 2012.”

Has my hon. Friend found any indication of that being made clear to Parliament in 2012? I cannot recall that happening, and I have not been able to find anything that makes it clear to me.

[Andy McDonald]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention. Her point is absolutely valid: I have seen no evidence of that. We are trying to compare apples and pears, and it simply does not work. There should be no linkage between LASPO and the Mesothelioma Bill. We are dealing with wholly separate and distinct matters. On the one hand, we are talking about the conduct of cases where employers and insurers are known; those cases progress in the ordinary way. On the other, we are talking about a scheme to deal with cases where insurers are not traced. It is simply disingenuous and grossly insulting to sufferers to try somehow to make a link between the two, and to justify changes that will impact on the conduct of civil cases by saying that the “untraced” scheme is being progressed. If someone suffering from mesothelioma can trace an insurer, their case will proceed in the ordinary way. That others who cannot locate an insurer have recourse to a scheme has no bearing whatever on the conduct of ordinary civil cases. It would be refreshing if the Minister could make that abundantly clear when he responds to the debate, as in my view there is no integrity whatever in such an argument.

Without success fees, some cases that should run will not, as they will be too risky. Removal of the exception will result either in those cases not running, or in mesothelioma victims having to pay out of their compensation. That was clearly not the intention of Parliament, and I urge the Government to reconsider.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tracey Crouch]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. As a strong campaigner for justice for victims, I found myself in a bizarre situation last year, in that I felt sympathetic towards the pre-action protocols originally proposed in the Government review, because I felt that they might speed up access to justice and make the process simpler for victims. As it happens, the Government ditched the pre-action protocols and will introduce measures that may take away 25% of a victim’s damages to fund the conditional fee arrangements and after-the-event insurance. I want to get as much money as possible to the victim as quickly as possible. As the hon. Member for Middlesbrough has said, once people find out that they have mesothelioma, they have little time left in their lives to plan for the financial security of their dependants because, very sadly, they often die quickly and nastily within six to nine months of contracting the illness. They will not be thinking about shopping around for after-the-event insurance or the best-priced legal fees when they are trying to deal with their horrible disease.

There is a slight irony in the fact that I am speaking about mesothelioma from notes written on cards sent to me—and, I assume, all parliamentarians—by Macmillan. This debate gives me a good opportunity to thank those who support victims of mesothelioma, such as Macmillan nurses. They deal with lung cancers all the time, but mesothelioma is quite possibly the worst that they have to deal with. It is an opportune moment to congratulate those who help sufferers of mesothelioma.

I return to LASPO. When the Bill went through Parliament, section 48 granted a welcome exemption from sections 44 and 46. Parliament had its say, and the House of Lords defeated the Government on the issue. Paul Goggins, who worked closely with the then Minister on the matter, and I welcomed the measure, and we sought assurances that if there were to be any change, Parliament would be given a say on it. Lord McNally, the then Minister of Justice in the House of Lords, made it clear that although commencement orders would be introduced by statutory instrument in the usual way and did not require the approval of both Houses,

“The amendment means that the commencement cannot begin on mesothelioma claims until a review has been carried out and a report published on the likely effect of the provisions on mesothelioma claims.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 25 April 2012; Vol. 736, c. 1824.]

I argue that a proper review has not been conducted, and a report has definitely not been published. It is disrespectful to Parliament that a decision was made in a written statement that sections 44 and 46 would be applied in this way. If that assurance was not enough, I received a letter from my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), the Minister’s predecessor, which stated that the Lord Chancellor would review

“the likely impact of the reforms on mesothelioma cases and publish a report.”

We did our very best to secure the exemption for victims of mesothelioma during the passage of LASPO. We did so in good faith, believing that a proper review would take place and that we in Parliament—and those, including the victims, who have real concerns—would see the outcome of that review in a report. We have not yet seen such a report. That is unfair on parliamentarians and, more importantly, victims.

[Kate Green]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for all the work that she does on this issue, which I know is much appreciated by victims and their families. Does she agree that without such a report, it is impossible to make sense of any changes in circumstances that have occurred since the passing of LASPO? To observers from outside, there has been no reason for the Government’s complete change in direction.

[Tracey Crouch]

I agree with the hon. Lady. I understand that as part of the mechanism of government, reviews are often carried out, as a consequence of which changes may be made swiftly. When we have been promised a report so that we can assess whether the impact of the changes under LASPO will affect mesothelioma victims, I expect the victims, those who have contributed to the review, and parliamentarians who have spoken about the matter to have access to that report.

Although it might be too early to conduct a proper assessment of the effect of sections 44 and 46, we must be aware that the legal ombudsman has made it clear that the changes are causing considerable stress and excessive loss not only to mesothelioma victims but to other personal injury claimants. Mesothelioma victims are a special case, for reasons that have been outlined. The Government recognised that in their written ministerial statement, and the introduction of section 48 of LASPO indicated that mesothelioma should be considered differently from other personal injury cases.

I want to pick up on the written ministerial statement, which the hon. Member for Middlesbrough has mentioned. It referred to the Mesothelioma Bill, an important piece of legislation for those who cannot trace their insurer, which will be welcomed by the 300 or so victims every year who cannot get compensation through the civil claims process. LASPO is not relevant to the Mesothelioma Bill. LASPO deals with those who are going through the complex civil claims process, but the Mesothelioma Bill is there for entirely different reasons. If we continue to mix the two pieces of legislation—the Minister should listen carefully to this, because it would have a Treasury impact—we may end up providing a disincentive for people to trace their insurer because they find it too difficult to do so through the civil claims process. If they trace their insurer, they may lose 25% of their compensation as a result of sections 44 and 46 of LASPO. We want people to access the scheme for the right reasons, and those measures create a perverse incentive for people to access it for precisely the wrong reasons.

I was going to read the exact quote from the late Paul Goggins that the hon. Member for Middlesbrough used, in order to make the point that people find it repulsive that victims of mesothelioma could be asked to shop around to get the best deal from those who might represent them. However, the hon. Gentleman made that point perfectly adequately, and I hope that the Minister heard it the first time. We must acknowledge the fact that the report has not been published. We are not trying to be difficult with the Minister—I am certainly not. All I want is to put the victim at the centre of the process. To be perfectly honest, it does not feel like that is the case currently.

I am sure that the Minister is aware that over the past few years 15 people have died of mesothelioma in his own constituency. That is the 15 deaths that are registered; it is not necessarily the 15 people who have had secondary exposure, such as the women who washed overalls or the children who hugged their father when he came home from work. Of the 15 people who were registered, statistically two of them would not have bothered to go into the civil claims process because it is too complex. Those who have, I hope, have been adequately compensated for simply going to work and contracting a disease. The danger is that the legislative changes proposed on the Minister’s watch could mean that more people do not get the financial compensation they deserve, either because they do not go through the civil claims process, or because they do and are punished by losing 25% of what they should get to lawyers or insurers.

Our system should be simple, faster and better for victims. We know how many people have died of this disease so far; we do not know how many people will die of it in future. We do know, however, that they will die quickly. We also know that they will want to pass away leaving some sort of financial security for their dependents. I urge the Minister not only to publish the report—it is a moot point as to whether the process was conducted properly or whether the question asked was at all relevant to mesothelioma victims—but to halt the introduction of sections 44 and 46 until much further consideration has taken place.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

It is, as ever, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) on securing this important debate.

Before Christmas, I was a member of the Public Bill Committee that scrutinised the Mesothelioma Bill, and it really was informative. The Labour Opposition and I missed great opportunities to try to get the rightful compensation for people who have suffered greatly as a consequence of mesothelioma. As I look around the Chamber, I see people, including the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who clearly understand how this disease affects individuals. It is as vicious as any work-related condition that anyone could experience. We must never forget the impact it has had on families and friends.

Mesothelioma is one of those diseases where once someone has been diagnosed, the prognosis is basically death within—if they are lucky—18 months. As politicians of whatever party—red, blue, yellow or whatever— we have a duty to look after people whose only crime was going to work in unsafe conditions. At the time they were very much unaware of how unsafe the conditions were. We heard tales of people—young people; apprentices—making asbestos snowballs at work and throwing them at each other, not knowing that in future it could have a dramatic impact on their lives and those of their families. The issue is really, really serious.

I cannot continue without paying tribute, as has each Member who has spoken, to the late Paul Goggins. He made a fantastic contribution to the Mesothelioma Bill Committee and was for a long time a fantastic campaigner on similar issues, particularly those related to cancer. Of course, he was especially dedicated to mesothelioma, and throughout our consideration of the Bill he was at the front, together with the Labour Front-Bench team, fighting for what was right and for justice for these people.

The Mesothelioma Bill was a missed opportunity. Once enacted, it will underpay people who are suffering—the victims. As the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford said, we must at all times “put the victim at the centre of the process.” Too many others have been involved, such as the insurance company that has led things from the front. During scrutiny of the Bill, the Minister in the Committee, the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), said quite clearly that it was not a case of bringing the insurance companies to the table to discuss compensation; they had to be dragged there. The insurance companies have made fortunes—millions if not billions of pounds—from premiums. We must not forget that premiums were paid. It is not a case of insurance companies looking for finance that was not there: the premiums had been paid by the employers, and the insurance companies have paid out dividends to shareholders instead of keeping the money for compensating dying victims of mesothelioma.

We often forget the families. The cut-off date in the Mesothelioma Bill is July 2012. That means that millions—sorry, I am getting carried away with my figures—certainly hundreds if not thousands of people will miss out on any form of compensation. At best, the individuals affected will receive 75% of damages. It is beyond me why they have to accept that. If someone gets hurt and the employer accepts it, why should the insurance company demand that they get only 75% of what the injury is actually worth? That is absurd and should not be the case for this horrendous disease. At the same time as getting only 75% of damages, the benefits clawback is being pitched at 100%.

These people, who have suffered, are suffering greatly and will suffer in future, are confused. They are confused by our debating LASPO. These people are ill, their families are looking ahead to a lifetime without their loved ones, and they are trying to understand what LASPO and CFA mean. As politicians we should be above that. We should have ensured that the families came first, as the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford said. The families are not aware of what section 44 and section 46 mean. They have not got a clue and, let us be honest, they are not even bothered what section 44, section 46 and section 48 of the LASPO Act mean. What they want is justice for their families and for the person who sadly will be leaving the family within 18 months at best. The review is totally flawed. As I said in an intervention, the Government should abandon the section 48 consultation.

One reason I say that the review is fatally flawed is that the Government abandoned the consultation reforms that were relevant to sections 44 and 46. They conceded that the Mesothelioma Bill really has nothing to do with the effects of sections 44 and 46, but they said that it was always their intention to “synchronise” the section 48 review and the Bill.

[Kate Green]

Does my hon. Friend agree that that must be at best a quite cynical statement? The argument about the Mesothelioma Bill was that a deal was being negotiated with the insurance industry, and that it would not be possible to introduce a scheme to have effect prior to the conclusion of that deal on 25 July 2012. It seems that at the beginning of 2012, when the LASPO Act was passed, Ministers were envisaging a deal that did not exist, as the present justification for saying that the two can be synchronised. They cannot possibly have been waiting to synchronise with a deal that might never have come to fruition.

[Ian Lavery]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head with that important point, which she raised during the progress of the Bill.

The second issue is the fact that the section 48 review did not ask respondents to make the case for the mesothelioma exemption. It asked if respondents agreed with the Government that the exemption should be lifted in the light of the consultation reforms, plus the CFA reforms and the Mesothelioma Bill. Had the Government asked for the case to be made, the recent legal ombudsman’s report on no win, no fee arrangements would have been most pertinent. The report states that the CFA agreements are not simple to understand and contain unclear terms and conditions, and that there is evidence of some lawyers failing to make clear the financial risks of CFA agreements and trying to pass on the risk to customers. That is precisely the situation that the Lords feared and would not tolerate for dying mesothelioma sufferers.

As it stands, the review is not based on the effects of sections 44 and 46 on mesothelioma claims. It is based on a reiteration of the Government’s intention to apply the CFA LASPO reforms to mesothelioma claims. That can hardly be described as a review. Members of Parliament should ask the Government to abandon the so-called review and seek a proper, fuller one.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I echo the words uttered about our former colleague, Paul Goggins. If Paul was with us, there is no doubt that he would have been in the Chamber with us today, expressing his views as passionately as he always did. Paul spoke with conviction and passion on a number of issues, and he will be sorely missed by all of us. He was a true parliamentarian, and a very decent parliamentarian at that. We will all miss him.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) on securing this important debate. I commend him on the passion with which he spoke. All Members from across the political divide have spoken on this important subject with conviction and passion.

A number of issues have been raised, and I hope to be able to address some of them in the time remaining. I refer colleagues to the last sentence of the written ministerial statement of 4 December 2013:

“The Government will publish their response to the consultation, and the report under section 48 of the LASPO Act, shortly.”—[Official Report, 4 December 2013; Vol. 571, c. 56WS.]

The report is not something that is not going to appear; it will appear. I hope that hon. Members appreciate that today’s debate is in response to a request by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough. That request was made before the report was published, but it will be forthcoming.

Other issues were raised. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) referred to comments by the Lord Chancellor. He rightly referred to consultation, and we hope to consult further with stakeholders to try to ensure that we improve the claims process. I will return to that.

[Kate Green]

I note the final sentence of the written ministerial statement. Presumably the report, which must be in the Minister’s hands by now, offered sufficient information and analysis to enable the Government to make their decision, so will he explain what has held up its publication for almost two months?

[Mr Vara]

I hope the hon. Lady will agree that, given the sensitivity and importance of the matter, it is right and proper that we should make known to the public our broad thrust of thought, rather than people having to wait a further few months before the report comes out. The hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) secured a debate when there was much agitation about the timing of the review, what it would say and so on. I am sorry if trying to be helpful is now being held against the Government.

Let me say at the outset that the Government recognise that mesothelioma is a terrible disease and has a devastating impact on the families of its sufferers. We take very seriously the plight of sufferers and their right to be able to claim compensation for negligently caused personal injury. The subject is, understandably, emotive, and that has been demonstrated in our heartfelt and thorough debate today, as well as during the passage through both Houses of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. Debates on LASPO included consideration of the Government’s reforms to no win, no fee conditional fee agreements, or CFAs, and led to the limited exception of mesothelioma cases, to which I will return shortly.

This debate has highlighted the importance of the issue, and the Government wholeheartedly agree that, given the short life expectancy after the disease has been diagnosed, it is imperative that there is early payment of compensation when necessary. That is why we announced on 4 December 2013 that we will explore whether more can be done to improve the compensation claims process.

I appreciate that today’s debate has been about the Government’s decision to remove the limited exception from no win, no fee reforms in relation to mesothelioma cases. I want to deal with three main issues. The first is why our reforms to CFAs are the right way forward, and the second is the limited exception to these rules in respect of mesothelioma claims and the circumstances in which that exception will end; thirdly, I want to clarify the position relating to the section 48 review and how it was carried out.

I will start by setting out briefly the rationale for our changes to CFAs. Many mesothelioma claims are funded under such agreements. Legal aid has not been available for some time. The previous Government’s Access to Justice Act 1999 removed legal aid for the majority of personal injury cases, including mesothelioma cases, when alternative forms of funding, such as CFAs, were available. As hon. Members will know, the Government have introduced reforms in England and Wales relating to the way that civil cases are funded, and the costs involved in bringing those cases. Those reforms are set out in part 2 of LASPO and took forward recommendations by Lord Justice Jackson, a distinguished Court of Appeal judge.

Hon. Members will be aware that Lord Justice Jackson had been asked to investigate the high costs of civil litigation, and to make recommendations for reform. He found that the arrangements for CFAs were

“the major contributor to disproportionate costs in civil litigation in England and Wales.”

He recommended that the recovery of success fees and after-the-event insurance from defendants be abolished, saying that that would lead to

“significant costs savings, whilst still enabling those who need access to justice to obtain it.”

The Government accepted the recommendations, and they were implemented in sections 44 and 46 of LASPO, with the reforms coming into effect in April 2013.

These important reforms will generally ensure that meritorious claims can still be pursued, but at a more proportionate cost. As part of our reforms, earlier settlement will be encouraged, and damages for non-pecuniary loss, such as pain, suffering and loss of amenity, will be increased by 10%. The Government agreed with Lord Justice Jackson that the level of such damages in England and Wales was generally low, and that a 10% increase could assist claimants in meeting the costs of the success fee and other funding changes. Lord Justice Jackson argued that in the majority of cases his proposals

“should leave successful claimants no worse off than they are under the current regime”.

Those words are relevant.

During LASPO’s passage through Parliament, the Government accepted that the reforms should not be brought into effect for mesothelioma claims until a review had been carried out of the likely effect of those reforms on such cases. That review provision is in section 48 of the Act. If Parliament had intended the LASPO provisions not to apply to such claims at all, it could have legislated to that effect. In the event, mesothelioma claims were exempted, and Parliament legislated to the effect that the provisions could be commenced for claims following the conduct of a review, as set out in section 48. Of course, we must recognise that a review could lead to a number of possible outcomes—to claims continuing to be exempted from the reforms, or alternatively to the exemption not continuing.

The Government carried out the section 48 review as part of the consultation on reforming mesothelioma cases, which concluded on 2 October 2013. That was a 10-week public consultation, and all interested parties had the opportunity to participate. Some 105 responses were received from interested parties and expert stakeholders on both sides of the debate; that is the specific advantage of a public consultation. The respondents included Thompsons, the personal injury solicitors firm to which the hon. Member for Middlesbrough referred when declaring an interest at the outset of the debate.

Some respondents to the consultation questioned the timing of the review and how it was carried out. However, the Government are satisfied that it meets our obligations under section 48. The Act makes it clear that in conducting the review under section 48, the Government are required to consider the likely effect of sections 44 and 46 on proceedings on a claim for damages in respect of diffuse mesothelioma. That is what we have done.

Comments have been made about the Mesothelioma Bill and the timing of the review. As Members will know, the Government introduced the Bill in May 2013. It creates a compulsory payment scheme for victims who are unable to trace a liable employer, or liable employer liability insurer, from which to claim the damages that are rightly due. The Bill has completed all stages in both Houses and is awaiting Royal Assent. It is an important milestone in ensuring that those who were previously unable to claim can do so when the scheme is up and running.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vara]

I am coming immediately to the point that I anticipated the hon. Gentleman would refer to. In conducting the review, the Government focused their consideration on matters relevant to claims for mesothelioma that are subject to litigation—in other words, where a solvent defendant is identified. The provisions of the Mesothelioma Bill, however, apply to sufferers who cannot trace a defendant to sue for compensation. If claimants are able to identify a defendant, the Mesothelioma Bill is not directly relevant to their claim, and the Government have carefully borne this in mind.

The Government have not therefore taken the Bill into account in relation to litigated cases in respect of the review. However, the Bill is relevant to the timing of the application of sections 44 and 46 of LASPO, since we have always intended to synchronise the implementation of any decision on this matter with other reforms directed at improving the position of mesothelioma sufferers. This was made clear when Parliament agreed the relevant provisions in LASPO. Much was made of that in earlier speeches, so I refer hon. Members to a debate on LASPO on 24 April 2012. The late Paul Goggins asked the then Justice Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly):

“Crucially, how will the commencement of the relevant provisions of the Bill be aligned with the proposals that the Department for Work and Pensions hopes to publish before the summer recess? I would be happy to take an intervention from the Minister if he wishes to make a clear commitment this afternoon that he will not seek to implement the relevant provisions in the Bill unless and until an improved system of compensation is in place.”

My hon. Friend the Justice Minister replied:

“I do not want to give any binding commitments about the process today, because things have not been finalised. However, I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that if the process is to be improved by the Department for Work and Pensions, which we hope it will be—he will have some insight into our proposals from the discussions he has had—that could well require DWP legislation, in which case”—

the relevant words—

“we would look to roll the ending of the provisions into the commencement of the DWP provisions. That is how I foresee the process now, but again, I am not making that a commitment.”—[Official Report, 24 April 2012; Vol. 543, c. 838-39.]

The following day, the noble Lord Alton questioned the Justice Minister in the upper House, the noble Lord McNally. Lord Alton asked:

“First, is the Minister able to assure us that there will be absolute synchronisation between the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that the mesothelioma provisions in the Bill will not be implemented in advance of the new regime coming into force?”

Later in the debate, Lord McNally responded:

“I can absolutely guarantee that we will work in a synchronised way with the DWP.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 25 April 2012; Vol. 736, c. 1818 and 1824.]

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) was present at the House of Commons debate. She made a contribution at Hansard column 834—

[Kate Green]

I accept everything that the Minister has said. Are we to conclude therefore that the connection is simply about synchronisation of timing, and not in any way about synchronisation of approach to treatment of victims, or am I misunderstanding what he is saying?

[Mr Vara]

I hope that I am clear when I say that it is important that we synchronise the timing, so that everyone affected by this terrible illness knows what the position is, whether or not they have a traceable employer or liable insurer. It is the timing that is at issue. That is what was referred to in the debates in both the upper and lower Houses.