Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Avebury and Lord McNally

Tuesday 23rd April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Avebury]

Before my noble friend sits down, perhaps he could help me on material that is published in the cloud. He went into very helpful detail on blogs, but material can be aggregated in the cloud in specific folders. Can the Minister say whether that is exempt in the same way that blogs are?

[Lord McNally]

I am not as au fait as the noble Lord and I have only just come to terms with clouds and things like that. What exactly is his concern?

[Lord Avebury]

Would material which is aggregated in a cloud folder with something such as Dropbox, where you can put a number of different items which may be news or other kinds of material, be exempt in the same way that blogs are?

[Lord McNally]

I am reliably informed, post haste, that such aggregates in clouds are not covered. If by any chance that is not true I will write to the noble Lord and make sure the letter is circulated to the House. I cannot see over my shoulder but I sincerely hope that the Box is currently nodding firmly.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Avebury and Lord McNally

Monday 2nd July 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, this amendment will remove restrictions contained in Section 31A of the Senior Courts Act 1981. It will enable applications for or permission to seek judicial review in immigration, asylum and nationality cases to be transferred from the High Court in England and Wales to the Upper Tribunal.

As noble Lords will be aware, this House has considered this issue before. In 2009, the House thought it appropriate to allow the High Court to transfer fresh claim judicial reviews to the Upper Tribunal. These are judicial reviews that relate to a refusal by the Home Secretary to treat further submissions as fresh asylum or human rights claims on the basis that they are not significantly different from the material previously considered. These cases have been heard in the Upper Tribunal since October 2011 and the process is working well. This amendment would potentially enable any class of immigration, asylum or nationality judicial review to be heard in the Upper Tribunal.

The further categories of cases that would be transferred to the Upper Tribunal would have to be set out in a direction, or directions, made by the Lord Chief Justice with the agreement of the Lord Chancellor under the provisions in the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. We envisage that the transfers will take place in a staged fashion to increase slowly the types of judicial review dealt with by the Upper Tribunal. The ability to transfer such cases would play an important role in improving access to justice. Immigration and asylum judicial review cases currently form a high proportion—around 70%—of the caseload in the administrative court. The total number of these cases has doubled in the past five years, with around 8,800 being received in 2011. Many of these cases are relatively straightforward. This volume of cases is unsustainable for the administrative court. It keeps High Court judges from other complex civil and criminal cases that they should be hearing. It has created a backlog and has added to waiting times for all public law cases heard by the administrative court.

I recently met the president of the Queen’s Bench Division and the president of the Upper Tribunal immigration and asylum chamber to discuss the progress that has been made in the Upper Tribunal since it was created in 2010. I am persuaded that it now represents the most appropriate venue for the majority of judicial reviews of this type. As the avenue for appeals against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal, the Upper Tribunal deals with thousands of appeals each year. Since acquiring this jurisdiction it has received nearly 200 fresh claim judicial reviews, which have been dealt with more quickly. Fresh claim cases are on average dealt with in seven weeks, compared to an average of 11 weeks for the administrative court. This has not been at the expense of quality. The judges who sit in the Upper Tribunal have a high level of expertise, particularly in relation to in-country conditions and human rights implications, and are regularly joined by judges of the administrative court.

The Upper Tribunal’s expertise in the field of asylum and country guidance cases has been recognised by the higher courts in the UK and the European Court of Human Rights. It is able to make well informed decisions that will deliver justice in these types of judicial review cases, in the same way as the High Court has done in the past. I beg to move.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, this amendment would allow judicial reviews of immigration and asylum cases and nationality matters to be transferred from the High Court, where judicial review is currently heard, to the Upper Tribunal, as my noble friend has explained. To many of your Lordships, this must feel like Groundhog Day. Parliament made clear its views on whether JRs should be transferred from the High Court into the tribunals once in 2007, during debate on what is now the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, and again in 2009, during debates on what is now Section 53 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009. It has said no and has said so powerfully. The arguments against the Upper Tribunal being entrusted with this responsibility still hold good.

The 2007 Act established a new regime, bringing together several tribunal jurisdictions into one structure comprising the First-tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal, or UT for short. The Act allowed for the transfer of certain JR applications from the High Court to the UT but, as a result of amendments made during its passage, excluded immigration and nationality JRs from the cases that could be transferred. Parliament returned to this matter, as my noble friend has reminded us, in 2009 during debates on the then Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill and again rejected a proposal that would permit the wholesale transfer of immigration and nationality JRs.

The compromise reached was that a JR concerned with a decision on a fresh claim for asylum—that is, one made after an earlier claim and any appeals against its refusal had finally been rejected—was made transferable. Since 2009, the once separate Asylum and Immigration Tribunal has been transferred into the two-tier structure, with an immigration and asylum chamber in the First-tier Tribunal and in the UT. Meanwhile, on a case-by-case basis, the High Court has transferred a few JRs against local authorities concerning the age of separated children seeking asylum to the UT where they have ended up in the immigration and asylum chamber. However, age-dispute JRs can be transferred because they are not decisions about immigration or nationality and are therefore not affected by the 2007 Act. These cases start in the administrative court, but can be transferred to the UT on a case-by-case basis. There have been only four reported cases to date.

Fresh-claim JRs are transferred as a class. There are no reported cases yet and only one case that the tribunal was to hear. The UT has no experience of hearing JR cases so there is no way of assessing whether it is likely to cope well or badly with them. Meanwhile, although there is power to transfer fresh-claim judicial reviews from the Outer House of the Court of Session in Scotland to the UT, that power has never been exercised. I can do no better than cite the comments of the late Lord Kingsland on Report on the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill. He said,

“first, the Government have broken their promise to your Lordships’ House not to introduce primary legislation permitting the transfer of judicial review matters in asylum and immigration cases until we have sufficient evidence that the system for judicial transfers in other classes of case are working well. Secondly, the Opposition and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, would be extremely unhappy to permit such transfers unless we were satisfied that the transferred AIT single-tier regime to the Upper and Lower Tribunals did indeed have the effect of leading to much fairer and more timely decisions, thus reducing substantially the overall number of judicial review cases … Thirdly, as I have indicated, judicial review is a crucial component in the struggle to protect the individual. Many of these cases raise issues, at best, of the freedom of the individual and, at worst, of torture and death. It is vital that it remains open to someone in such cases to have the application heard by a High Court judge”.—[Official Report, 1/4/09; cols. 1126-27.]

There is no such evidence yet. Powers to transfer JRs into the UT are being sought when it has done only a handful of age assessment cases and has not built up any track record whatever in dealing with fresh-claim JRs. High Court judges have sat in the UT, but there are also judges in that chamber who were adjudicators and special adjudicators of the former Immigration Appellate Authority and its successors. They have never heard cases outside the immigration and asylum tribunal jurisdiction, but the amendment would allow them to deal with JRs on which they have zero experience.

Speaking for the then Government in 2007, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, accepted that JRs in immigration cases were particularly sensitive. The point was underlined by a forceful observation from the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, in Grand Committee in 2006. She said:

“I support my noble and learned friend Lord Lloyd of Berwick in relation to the requirement to have someone of the level of a High Court judge to hear a judicial review in the tribunal. It would be invidious for there not to be a judge of that rank dealing with it. I support my noble and learned friend very strongly”.—[Official Report, 13/12/06; col. GC 68.]

Then there was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, who said at Second Reading of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill:

“If the effect ... is that the administrative court would be bound to transfer judicial review applications in all immigration cases, I would be strongly opposed to it”.—[Official Report, 11/2/09; col. 1142.]

The then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord West, winding up that debate, said that,

“the senior judiciary are very supportive of the clause”—[Official Report, 11/2/09; col. 1211.]

that is, the clause providing for the transfer—which he said was shown by the responses of the President of the Queen’s Bench Division, the Master of the Rolls and the Senior President of Tribunals to the consultation on immigration appeals. However, the Master of the Rolls had merely indicated that he supported the views of the President of the Queen’s Bench, who in turn stated that proposals for transfer of JRs in general were welcome, but emphasised that:

“Some of them are plainly suited to the Administrative Court and should remain there”.

The Senior President of the Tribunals agreed with him. The Court of Session judges did not welcome the proposal. They said that,

“any decision as to a more general transfer of judicial review jurisdiction in this area—

immigration—

“should be made only once the Upper Tribunal has gained extensive experience of implementing its proposed remit”.

No such extensive experience has been gained. Others, including the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, the Constitutional and Administrative Law Bar Association, the Glasgow Immigration Practitioners’ Group, the Law Society, the Refugee Legal Centre, the Refugee Council and individual lawyers, have expressed views similar to those of the judges of the Court of Session.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for that indication of the Opposition’s support for this amendment. I gladly give him, and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, an assurance that what we are doing will be kept under review in close consultation with the judiciary.

It is true that this matter was discussed in 2009, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, but we have now had three years’ experience of the workings of the Upper Tribunal in these areas and we have also had representations from the senior judiciary about how the present system is clogging up the High Court and bringing some of the pressures to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, referred.

I have not taken lightly the decision to bring this back to the House. In a meeting, the president of the Queen’s Bench Division and the president of the Upper Tribunal convinced me of two things: first, that we would be taking some pressure off the High Court and High Court judges by doing this; and, secondly, that by moving these cases to the Upper Tribunal we would in no way diminish the quality of justice available. On the contrary, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, indicated, a great deal of the expertise for judging these cases is in the Upper Tribunal.

I take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, made about the UK Border Agency’s withdrawals. There are varied reasons for cases being withdrawn but, coupled with other government reforms, we are getting a better system for dealing with these cases from the UKBA. The senior judiciary is broadly in favour of the amendment as a sensible solution to the backlogs in the High Court and an opportunity to transfer cases to the most appropriate part of the justice system. There has been strong judicial involvement in the discussions preparing for this amendment, and the judiciary is keen to ensure that it is successfully introduced. As the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said, the Lord Chief Justice will be closely involved with the Lord Chancellor in gauging the pace of movement on this so that we get the twin benefits of faster, efficient, high-quality justice in immigration cases and some elbow room in the High Court to deal with the important cases that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, mentioned.

I hope the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, will be content to take those assurances and to accept that this decision has been taken on the basis of the experience of the past three years, which we believe is entirely favourable to the move that we are making. That is coupled with the assurance that we will keep the matter under review and will be in close contact and consultation with the senior judiciary to ensure that the move is completely in keeping with the access to good justice that is the aim of this amendment.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, can my noble friend answer the question I put to him about how many cases were withdrawn by the UKBA—to correspond with the figures I gave for 2006 and 2007? If a very large number are being withdrawn, and thus the UKBA is conceding that the original decision was wrong, surely that proves that there are other methods of reducing the pressure on the High Court rather than transferring all these cases to the tribunal.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Avebury and Lord McNally

Wednesday 7th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Avebury]

Will my noble friend allow me—

[Lord McNally]

No. I have been here for two hours—

[Lord Avebury]

So have I.

[Lord McNally]

And I have heard a lot. The House has to move on. We want to get through Schedule 1.

This is not a debate about who cares most; it is about whether this House is willing to take the tough decisions that our economic situation requires, or whether it is simply going to push the problem down the corridor for the other place to take those decisions. That is it, because the other place will have to take those decisions whether we do so or not.

I believe that these amendments dismantle the central architecture of the Bill and our reform programme. As a result, as I have said many times, it will come as no surprise to the House that we have had to make these difficult choices about legal aid, as we have done with every aspect of MoJ expenditure. I know that we are debating issues about which noble Lords care deeply; I do not think there is any monopoly on that. There will be noble Lords who will follow me into the Lobby tonight who have just the same—if I may use the words of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile—“determinations of principle and conscience” as those who will not.

I remind noble Lords that the reform programme is specifically aimed at protecting the most vulnerable. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, talked about the social welfare programme being “decimated”. We will still be spending an estimated £120 million a year on funding for private family law; £50 million on categories of social welfare law; an extra £10 million a year on mediation; £6 million on clinical negligence; and £2 million on education.

We are keeping legal aid for child parties in family proceedings. We have retained legal aid for child protection cases, civil cases concerning the abuse of a child, and for cases concerning special educational needs assistance. We are keeping legal aid for people with mental health problems or who lack capacity for cases that determine their vital interests, and for advocacy in front of mental health tribunals. Legal aid will be retained for judicial review of welfare benefit decisions, and for claims about welfare benefits relating to contraventions of the Equality Act 2010. We will agree to extend funding to victims of human trafficking and domestic child abduction—something I know that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, is interested in.

Our reforms have been deliberately designed with these cases in mind. Crucially, as I said in the House on Monday, we will amend the Bill to enable the Lord Chancellor to bring areas of law back into the scope of legal aid. When the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, rose, everyone groaned that there was nothing more that could be said. But I congratulate him on being the first to mention what was a very significant concession by the Government, in that what was a ratchet in the Bill is now a regulator. If some of the doom and gloom is proved to be true, the scope is there to respond to those facts.

While we are clear that our reforms are the right ones, we believe that this is an important amendment. As has also been said, the Treasury has announced that additional funding in this spending period will be available for the not-for-profit sector. As noble Lords know, we believe that in many social welfare cases it is not legal advice that people want; it is simply advice. We will support the advice sector to do just that. While we appreciate that many people rely on welfare benefits, these decisions are made in a tribunal, which is a court especially designed to ensure that claimants do not require legal representation. They are also primarily about financial entitlement and do not raise such fundamental issues as cases concerning liberty or safety.

As I have mentioned, the Government are committed to ensuring that not-for-profit advice, as well as other forms of welfare benefit advice, remains to ensure that claimants are clear about what they are entitled to claim and how they can seek redress. However, as those colleagues who have sat in another place and have advised constituents in these areas can testify, legal advice is not required in all these cases. That said, legal aid will be retained for the judicial review of welfare benefit decisions and for claims about welfare benefits relating to a contravention of the Equality Act 2010.

Amendments 21 and 46 concern legal aid for children and vulnerable young people but, as I have already said, it is simply not true to suggest that there will be no funding for cases involving children and young people. These amendments seek to bring into scope certain civil legal services for any person aged 24 or under who has a disability, is a former care leaver or a victim of trafficking, or has other vulnerabilities as prescribed in regulation. I should at this point tell the House that the Government intend to table an amendment at Third Reading on legal aid for victims of trafficking and claims for compensation.

The Bill also has important safeguards for children and adults who lack capacity or require treatment for mental health issues. Paragraph 5 provides for advocacy before the Court of Protection where there is to be an oral hearing and the case will determine the vital interests of the individual: that is, medical treatment including psychological treatment, life, liberty, physical safety, the capacity to marry or enter into a civil partnership, the capacity to enter into sexual relations or the right to family life.

Paragraph 5 of Part 1 of Schedule 1 provides that legal aid may be made available for cases arising under the Mental Health Act 1983 and the Mental Capacity Act 2005, including cases concerning the medical treatment of patients or those who lack capacity. Paragraphs 9 and 15 of Part 3 of Schedule 1 provide for legal aid for advocacy for mental health cases before the mental health tribunal. Paragraphs 1 and 2 of Part 3 of Schedule 1 provide legal aid for advocacy for any onward appeals to the Court of Appeal or Supreme Court on a mental health or capacity issue that is within scope. The exceptional funding scheme will ensure the protection of an individual’s rights to legal aid under the European Convention on Human Rights as well as rights to legal aid that are directly enforceable under European Union law.

On Amendment 46, about children, we are already keeping legal aid for child parties in family proceedings. Therefore, part of this amendment is superfluous. The rest of the amendment seeks to keep funding across the board for children in all civil disputes without regard to their relative priority or alternative methods of resolving them. I have already mentioned that the Government recognise the importance of funding in a range of cases where children’s interests are key. That is evidenced in how we have proposed to allocate legal aid funding by protecting funding in those areas that specifically involve children.

I am very willing to meet my noble friends and others who have asked to meet me between now and Third Reading, but I cannot make promises or give guarantees. We have retained legal aid for child protection cases and civil cases concerning the abuse of a child, as well as for cases concerning special educational needs assistance. We have also made special provision so that legal aid is available for children who are made parties to private family proceedings. In civil cases, claims brought in the name of a child are usually conducted by their parents acting as the child’s “litigation friend” rather than the child themselves. This is a normal part of the rules on civil litigation; the civil justice system as a whole does not generally require children to act on their own behalf.

We have also made it clear that one of the key criteria for the exceptional funding scheme is the ability to represent yourself. This will obviously be relevant where a child is bringing an action without a litigation friend. We must also ensure that we do not create a loophole in the system through which lawyers might encourage parents to attempt to bring civil litigation in their children’s name purely to secure funding that is otherwise outside the scope of this area of the law.

Amendment 45 seeks to make legal aid available for private family law cases where, in the course of mediation, the mediator has identified issues pointing to potential child abuse, a point addressed by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. Legal aid will remain available on a means and merits free basis for public family law proceedings where a local authority seeks to take a child into care, at a cost of around £300 million a year. Legal aid would also be available in private family law proceedings where a child was at risk if those proceedings were an alternative to public law proceedings. An example of this would be legal aid for a special guardianship order for grandparents where the local authority had decided that this would be a preferable solution to taking a child into care. We have also expanded our original proposals on providing legal aid for private family cases where domestic violence is present to include evidence of child abuse.

The child-specific evidence here is the fact of a child protection plan as put in place by a local authority, although other types of evidence relevant in domestic violence cases would also apply. This is particularly relevant in respect of Amendment 45, which would use the evidence of a mediator to qualify someone for legal aid. It is of course important that a mediator reports any suspected child abuse to the local authority, and mediators are obliged to do so under their code of conduct. The local authority would then investigate, and if the mediator’s suspicions were confirmed, where relevant it would put a child protection plan in place. Alternatively, the authority may start immediate public law proceedings. Either way, legal aid would then be available either for private or public proceedings. Such a system ensures the well-being of the child, which must be the priority, but it would seem slightly strange to pre-empt the results of a local authority investigation by granting legal aid for a private family matter. Of course, if there was an emergency and the local authority for whatever reason was not taking action, legal aid would be available, with the benefit of a financial eligibility limit waiver, for someone to take out a protective injunction. Legal aid would also be available where a subsequent local authority investigation found that the issues were substantiated and a child protection plan put in place. The safeguards in the Bill are sufficient to secure the safety of children, and legal aid where it is needed.

Amendment 101—I see the humour in the number—seeks to include a power in the Bill to fund the not-for -profit sector to do work that is outside the proposed scope of the civil legal aid scheme. I can assure the House that we have been listening to the concerns raised about the sustainability of the not-for-profit sector, and we agree with many of them. As I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Newton, I recalled one of the advantages of a long life. One of the few successful things I did when I was in the House of Commons was something that I think cost the then Tory Minister, Gerard Vaughan, his job. He tried to cut CAB funding. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Newton, was a member of the Government who sought to cut CAB funding at the time, but it just goes to show that what goes around, comes around. The Ministry of Justice already has the power to provide grants to not-for-profit organisations. For example, we are already funding the Money Advice Trust, a not-for-profit sector organisation that is responsible for running National Debtline.

Legal Aid: Social Welfare Law

Debate between Lord Avebury and Lord McNally

Monday 5th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

That is why we have to take a holistic view of these matters. Much of what is being talked about here will be impacted by the reform and simplification of the welfare system that is being carried out, as well as a whole range of other measures, many of which we will be discussing in the next few hours, that will prevent the worst-case scenario from coming to pass.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, has my noble friend read The Spirit Level, which demonstrates that there is a close correlation between levels of serious criminality and inequalities in society? If so, will the Government put into practice the recommendations of the Equality Trust to secure greater equality in society and thereby diminish not only levels of criminality but many other social evils that follow from high levels of inequality?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, the Government get a wide range of advice, and The Spirit Level does make a strong case for the linkage between inequalities, poverty and criminality. Nevertheless, as I have said quite often from the Dispatch Box, poverty and criminality are not inevitable—people do have a choice. The range of measures that the Government are taking is aimed at dealing with some of the unfairnesses in our society and giving people a proper and rational choice in how they lead their lives.

Health: Mesothelioma

Debate between Lord Avebury and Lord McNally

Wednesday 29th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

The noble Lord keeps on picking these cases to support. The fact is that the previous Government removed legal aid from these cases, as was pointed out—not many cheers for that. As to the package that we have put together, as I said before there is no compulsion on solicitors to demand a 25 per cent success fee from these people. Solicitors still get their full fee; we are talking about the maximum success fee that they can get. We are putting in place a system that deals with a real abuse in the costs of these cases that crept in after the reforms that the noble Lord’s party introduced in 1999. We are simply returning to the system as originally brought in by the previous Government. We think that that worked well and will work well again.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, it is clear from their response to the Jackson committee report on civil litigation that the Government’s main objective is to save money. Does my noble friend acknowledge that in the case of mesothelioma sufferers, they do that by deterring people from making genuine claims? Does he also accept the estimate in the London Economics report on the fiscal impact of the Jackson proposals in the area of employers’ liability that the net loss to the Exchequer of the proposals is £70.2 million a year? If not, can he place a note in the Library of the figures that the Government would substitute for those in the Jackson committee report?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, we are in no way deterring people from making claims for this terrible disease. We fully acknowledge that a large number of people have been diagnosed as sufferers. Even more tragically, the estimate is that many more will be diagnosed over the next 30 years. That is the terrible nature of this affliction. We have been trying to lower the bar to litigation. As I said, most cases, certainly against government bodies, are settled before they get to court. The Department for Work and Pensions has undertaken various initiatives to make it easier for claimants to trace their employer's insurers. Discussions are being held with stakeholders to determine what more can be done for sufferers. The High Court is introducing a fast-track procedure so that these cases can be dealt with more easily.

I understand why noble Lords are campaigning on this, but I do not think that the charge that we are trying to victimise the sufferers in some way really sticks.

Gypsies and Travellers

Debate between Lord Avebury and Lord McNally

Thursday 16th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords—

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, shall we hear from the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, first?

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, can we now assume that there will be a further consultation on the revised national planning policy framework that incorporates a version of the Traveller document, as recommended by the CLG Select Committee? If so, will the new composite document include a revised and more inclusive definition of Gypsies and Travellers for the purposes of both housing and planning which is based on the Housing Act 2004?

Legal System: Translation and Interpreting Services

Debate between Lord Avebury and Lord McNally

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

No, we will not review the framework or the agreement that we have made. We have looked at the report—which, in any lobbying exercise, is quite legitimate—and examined the figures in it, but we do not believe that they stand up. We have always been clear that translation and interpretation services of the appropriate quality should be available, where they are required, for all those who come into contact with the justice system, while obtaining value for money for the public. Let us see how it settles. There are many threats and ideas that people are not going to sign up or that it will not work out. Obviously the noble Baroness is far more expert than me on this issue, but there is no doubt that the present system was not working, which is why the previous Administration initiated the inquiry, which has now culminated in this decision, as far back as 2009.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, in designing the new system, why was it decided to ignore existing professional qualifications and to sideline the National Register of Public Service Interpreters, with its established system of registration that requires not only an appropriate degree-level qualification but 400 hours of proven public service interpreting? Does my noble friend think that it is fair to make experienced and qualified interpreters and translators go through the hoops and pay for a new accreditation procedure that assumes that they have just come out of the sixth form?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, we are not doing this for fun. We are doing it because the present accreditation system was not working and there was a lot wrong with it. That is why we set up a new register. There were faults in the old register in the quality of assessment and we believe that, starting as we are with a new system, a new register is the most effective way of guaranteeing quality.

Prisoner Transfer Agreements

Debate between Lord Avebury and Lord McNally

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

In some cases we have agreements with the countries of origin. Where we do not have agreements, obviously we cannot send those prisoners back. We have recently concluded an agreement within the EU that will come into force on 5 December this year which will extend that two-way process to 27 countries. There is also a protocol with the Council of Europe which extends to 34 countries, so we are building this up. We are seeking other bilateral arrangements which will allow such exchanges.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, I appreciate that officials are now considering whether amendments to the Anglo-Thai prisoner transfer agreement might be drafted to bring the time British nationals spend in prison following transfer into line with that required by other European countries. What does my noble friend think of the suggestion that we should approach the Thai Government at ministerial level with a view to getting round a table and eliminating all the random variations among sentences served under the present arrangements? Better still, since my noble friend has explained that the US and some other countries refuse a prisoner a transfer when they think that it will result in an unacceptable reduction in the time actually served, could we propose an international conference of states that participate in PTAs to discuss ways of eliminating anomalies that may arise?

[Lord McNally]

I will certainly take back to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State the idea of an international conference, which I presume would also come within the bailiwick of the Foreign Secretary. The key thing to remember, however, is that the idea of the prisoner exchange is for prisoners to have the right to return—for most British prisoners, to return to Britain to serve their sentence is a considerable advantage in the first place—so the aim is not to second-guess the authorities in countries where they have committed offences. It is important that we keep that in mind.

Immigration: Refugee and Migrant Justice

Debate between Lord Avebury and Lord McNally

Monday 28th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Avebury]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their reaction to the probable closure of Refugee and Migrant Justice.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, since this Question was tabled, Refugee and Migrant Justice has been placed into administration. The Government’s immediate concern was that the clients of RMJ should continue to receive a good-quality service.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, as other practitioners specialising in asylum cases—particularly, although not exclusively, those who operate on a not-for-profit basis—have had similar cash-flow problems to those of the RMJ, what steps are the Government taking to ensure that the LSC may be able to find providers to take on the RMJ’s 10,000 cases? Will my noble friend acknowledge that there will be serious delays in looking after those cases, first, because the new providers will have to get to know what the cases are, and, secondly, because they do not know whether they will be funded in the spending round that begins on 1 October?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I will take the last point first. Yes, there is bound to be a certain amount of disruption if an organisation that covers 7 per cent of cases goes into administration. However, I can assure the House that the Government are giving high priority to minimise that disruption. On whether other non-profit-making practitioners are facing difficulty, it is true that there have been complaints about the change in funding and fees, which was made by the previous Administration with an eye to saving taxpayers’ money. The change is not popular but, as my right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor said in another place, the organisations are coping. Trying to balance the good work that these organisations are doing against the taxpayers’ not-bottomless pot is difficult.

Prostitution

Debate between Lord Avebury and Lord McNally

Thursday 3rd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Dholakia, and with his permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, we are studying closely how police forces are enforcing the law and how courts deal with the matters brought before them. We are also considering how to deal with the lessons learnt from the recent terrible events in Ipswich and Bradford. We are committed to tackling exploitation and harm caused to those involved in prostitution. All local agencies must work together to ensure the safety of the women involved.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, on the first occasion that my noble friend has appeared at the Dispatch Box to answer a Question, perhaps I may warmly congratulate him on his appointment. In the light of Miss Claire Finch being acquitted by Luton Crown Court at the end of April of running a brothel with three other women at her home in Bedfordshire, will the Government encourage the CPS to issue guidance to police forces on the undesirability of prosecuting the hundreds of other women in similar situations? Given that it is 10 times riskier for prostitutes to work on their own, will the Government invite stakeholders such as the English Collective of Prostitutes and the Safety First Coalition to a consultation on how women engaged in providing sex services can be safeguarded, including an examination of the law in New Zealand, where it is lawful for up to four people to work together in the same premises, as my noble friend Lady Miller has reminded your Lordships on frequent occasions?