Prisons: HM Young Offender Institution Feltham

Lord Bach Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

Most certainly, and one policy in place is that if a young offender arrives late and there is no opportunity to complete the full assessment that evening, the young offender is classified as a vulnerable prisoner and is treated with suitable support. In the circumstances, that underlines the duty of care with which we approach this matter.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, this is a Question about youth justice and I broaden it slightly. The Minister will know that the Government’s own impact assessment for the legal aid Bill, which is before this House at the moment, states that the proposals in Part 1 of the Bill—that is, the cutting of legal laid for social welfare law—generate a risk of increased criminality. It states:

“This may arise if unresolved civil or family disputes escalate, or if criminal means are used to resolve disputes in future”.

What is the Government’s estimate of the number of young people likely to be affected by these changes—specifically the likely number of young offenders—and how does that fit in with the Government’s policy of reducing youth crime?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, we will have a very thorough opportunity to discuss the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. Impact assessments are what they are—assessments. It may be that some of the concerns do not arise; other factors may come into play. Therefore, I do not think it is realistic for me to give an answer to that speculative question.

Community Justice Centre: North Liverpool

Lord Bach Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

No, my Lords, we will look at the impact of this centre before we would contemplate doing this in any other cities, but I take the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Liverpool that this is operating in an area of very high deprivation, which I hope will be part of the assessment which the inquiry is making, taking note that it is in a particular area.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, in answering a question by the right reverend Prelate on 21 June, the Minister told the House that the evaluation that the Ministry of Justice, I think, is doing internally, would be completed later in the summer. We have had very clement weather for the last few months, but no one could say that it was still summer. Has the evaluation been completed yet? If it has not, when will it be completed, and will the results be published?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, it is always dangerous to give even vague dates, like “summer”, in making commitments. The study is still going on. I am confident of the integrity of the research, which is being carried out by Ministry of Justice analysts under the Government social research code. The research will be published by the Ministry of Justice. I think the safest commitment I could make now would be “as soon as possible”

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Bach Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, I hope that I will have the tolerance of the House if I briefly ask the Minister a question about a somewhat tangential issue. The Lord Chancellor is quoted on page 8 of today's Times as saying:

“Everyone is agreed that the priority is raising the standards of coroners’ inquiries”.

I take it that he was referring to coroners’ inquiries of all sorts.

Following the Government’s extremely welcome acceptance of the need to appoint a chief coroner, will the Minister assure us that they will also accept the will of Parliament as expressed in the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 that an office of coroner for treasure should be established? Will he acknowledge that the appointment of a national coroner for treasure would lead to the elimination of lengthy delays, excessive bureaucracy and errors, as well as to savings in overall public expenditure as the activities of coroners in 45 local authority areas would be replaced by the streamlined, specialised work of a single national coroner, probably supported by a single staff member? If the noble Lord is unable to give that assurance, will he undertake to reconsider the matter urgently, and to correct the failure by the Ministry of Justice to include reference to the treasure process in the draft charter for the coroner service?

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, it does not seem like a year since this House decisively rejected the Government’s firm plan to abolish the position of chief coroner by a majority of 112. It was a vote in all parts of the Chamber of which the House could be proud then and can be even prouder today. Of course I join in congratulating the Government. However, in this instance the congratulations must be slightly modified. The Government have given in at the 59th minute of the 11th hour. They deserve credit, but as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, will recognise from his position at the Ministry of Justice, there is an analogy with someone in the dock who does not deserve the credit that someone who makes an early admission of guilt deserves. This is the equivalent of a change of plea at the moment when the jury is being sworn in. It is worthy of credit, and the judge will pass a lesser sentence, but he will not show as much leniency as if the Government had given way some time earlier. It is better late than never—but it is pretty late.

Of course, this is all immensely to the credit of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. She deserves huge congratulations on her success today. She will be the first to say that it is not just her success, but that of others as well. However, she deserves particular praise for her brave refusal to back down over this long period. So does the Royal British Legion—I declare my membership of a local branch—and other organisations that the noble Baroness mentioned such as INQUEST and Liberty, and those on all sides of the House and elsewhere who stayed firm and argued the case for the chief coroner.

Noble Lords should make no mistake—sometimes these things ought to be said—that the Government over the past 12 months used every means and blandishment, and a few extra, to persuade, if I may put it gently, those who dared stand out of the error of their ways. Individual meetings with the Lord Chancellor were not the worst of it. Seductive compromises were offered one day and a hard line taken the next. There were meetings and letters galore. I hate even to contemplate the pressure that the brave Conservative Member Andrew Percy, who dared to challenge the Government in another place, must have come under at a certain stage. I do not want to sound churlish—I hope that that is not my style—but I do not think the congratulations are quite as deserved in this case as perhaps they were earlier this afternoon.

I have no doubt that our Justice Minister, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, played an important role in this. I also am in no doubt that the Sun, which I know many noble Lords read regularly, also played a pretty important role at the last moment. For anyone who has forgotten what they read in the Sun yesterday: they will have seen a story and then an editorial that condemned the Government in no uncertain terms for the stance that they were then taking. No. 10 reacted extraordinarily quickly. The Prime Minister’s spokesman spoke early yesterday afternoon and the change was announced yesterday evening—perhaps coincidence; probably not.

Whatever the result, the Government have done the right thing. They have accepted the chief coroner. That was argued for on all sides of this House during the passing of the Act, which was only two years ago. It is a great pleasure to be able to congratulate the Government on what they have done, but I ask the Minister who will answer this debate why Section 40 on appeals is being removed. If I remember rightly, many noble Lords took part in those debates, so why is it being removed? Among the strong and powerful arguments in report after report in the past decade, and eventually during the debate on the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 for the setting up of this post of chief coroner, the possibility of appeal on a number of issues, which is not huge, was set out in Section 40(2), as it was well nigh impossible to appeal under the present system. The only remedy, as we have heard, is judicial review, which is time consuming. As the Public Law Project argued:

“The cost of bringing a judicial review claim is considerable: in the region of £10,000 to £20,000 for a straightforward case, higher for a more complex matter. If a claimant is unsuccessful, they are likely to be liable for the defendant’s costs as well as their own. They are therefore looking at a legal bill of upwards of £30,000 if they lose, and they must be prepared for this eventuality, bearing in mind the unpredictability of judicial review proceedings and costs orders”.

We believe that it would be preferable for the chief coroner to have the power that Parliament gave him or her during the passage of that Bill, which was agreed on an all-party basis. That sensible step which we all agreed should not be implemented straight away—that is perhaps the answer to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury—and that there should be a delay between the time the Bill was enacted and this section was implemented. There was no intention from any party that the appeals process would begin at once. If it remained in the Act it would be there if some time in the future a Lord Chancellor felt able to bring it in under the guidance of the chief coroner at the time. To abolish Section 40, which is what the Government propose, is the wrong thing to do.

If the noble Baroness were to put the matter to a vote—I can understand if she does not wish to do so—we on this side would support her. We regret that Section 40 is being taken out. However, I do not want to end on a depressing note. We are grateful to the Government for the action that they have taken.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for that non-churlish response. He must have been thinking of some earlier Administration when he talked about the main drive of government policy being an attempt to please the Sun.

This has been a very useful debate and I hope that I can give some reassurances. I cannot give reassurances on the question of appeals. As my right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor said in his letter, to extend,

“the appeals system was by far the most expensive element of the original Chief Coroner role proposal”.

The noble Lord, Lord Bach, as with most of the proposals, including that in the Division we had today, is rather cavalier about costs. I am afraid that the Government cannot be. I also think that enough doubts about the idea of appeals were expressed in the responses to make it prudent not to proceed with that at the moment. We have all been in politics long enough to know that simply to leave the appeals system hanging there would almost certainly invite the next campaign on this issue to commence straight away.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Lord Bach Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, no one could have listened to the speeches made in your Lordships' House today without recognising that the Bill we are debating is of very great importance. All three parts of the Bill could be major Bills in their own right, and all three touch on fundamental issues of justice and the rule of law in our society, whether it be the new proposed offences, the replacement for IPP provisions in Part 3, or the radical changes to the conditional fee system in civil cases and the resulting shift in the balance of power between claimants and defendants in Part 2. Other issues include the fact that there is no replication in Part 1 of the duty of the Lord Chancellor in the Access to Justice Act, and Clause 12 and police stations, which the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, just spoke about.

The Government intend to cut legal aid by in effect decimating a system of social welfare law that over the past 40 years or so has cheaply and successfully helped many of the poorest people in our society to have access to justice and to resolve their legal problems. The Bill’s definition of domestic violence has been described by many noble Lords as absurdly narrow and one that will lead to many victims being deprived of vital assistance. Whether it relates to any of these concerns or all of them, the Bill goes directly to the issue of what kind of society we want to live in. The stakes could not be higher.

I of course congratulate all noble Lords who have spoken in today’s debate. This has been in many ways an astonishing debate, with a depth of knowledge and experience in this field that perhaps very few legislatures anywhere could match. However, it is surely no surprise that the vast majority of those who have spoken from all around the House are highly critical of the Bill and many of its proposals. Her Majesty’s Government must take note of this widespread sense that they have not got it right. They should be prepared to listen and, more importantly, to act on what has been argued so trenchantly and so often in the House today. We will listen with even more attention than usual to the Minister when he sums up to see whether real compromise is in the air. I hope that it is. If it is, the House will welcome it, but if it is not the House may well have to do its duty on some future occasion.

I forecast, perhaps unwisely, that there will be less disagreement around Part 3 than is usual when we discuss sentencing in this House. Of course, there will have to be considerable debate and close scrutiny as so much of Part 3 has been added so ridiculously late. Even now it is not clear that it has been sufficiently thought through. Clause 114, for example, with its mandatory indeterminate life sentence for a second listed offence, does not seem to be very different from the IPP system it is there to replace. A prisoner will still not know when he is to be released. It will still depend on the Parole Board, which will have the same information as it does for IPP prisoners now. An indeterminate sentence is an indeterminate sentence, whatever it is called, or does the clause find itself in the Bill solely to appease hard-line elements of the coalition, even though the numbers caught will be absolutely minimal? We will also want to look at bail provisions in the context of the tragic Jane Clough case and at the new Clause 130 offence of squatting in a residential building. That certainly deserves some discussion. The House will have taken special note of the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, speaking as she did on behalf of victims.

On Part 2, my noble and learned friend Lord Davidson has told the House in clear terms what our position is. Whatever view we may take of Lord Justice Jackson's report, it is clearly a prodigious personal achievement. It reminds me of a kind of magisterial work of art, large and grand, produced by eminent Victorians. However, it is no use Her Majesty’s Government hiding behind Jackson because the whole world knows that they picked and mixed his conclusions as though they were choosing sweets. If there is one thing that Jackson was clear about—he was clear about a lot—it was that his proposals were a package to be taken as a whole or not at all. To many of us, as we have heard today, one of the key findings of Jackson was that there should be no reduction in civil legal aid. Noble Lords have quoted him, but my quotation is this:

“Legal aid is still available for some key areas of litigation, in particular clinical negligence, housing cases and judicial review. It is vital that legal aid remains in these areas”.

He goes on to talk about eligibility. That is pretty straightforward but it is actually rejected by the Government. I ask the Minister why the Government have rejected what Lord Justice Jackson said so clearly about clinical negligence and legal aid.

This is a critical point because the Government intend, as part of their £280 million cut in civil legal aid, to save £11 million or £10 million—I have a figure of £17 million but that may be out of date—by taking clinical negligence out of scope. The idea that conditional fee agreements alone are satisfactory for this type of law has been ridiculed by everyone in the House and outside. Many commentators believe that a number of victims, including children, will never be able to get access to justice. Is that the sort of society in which we want to live?

That brings me to what many—and, I must be honest, I—consider the meanest and most wretched proposal of all: the decimation of social welfare law. The rest of my speech will be devoted to that part of Part 1. Whether you call it social welfare law or poverty law or the law of everyday life does not matter very much, but what matters hugely is that the Government are proposing that it should no longer be possible for a citizen who cannot afford it to get legal advice to deal with a legal problem, however complex, involving welfare benefit law. The same goes for employment law, which is completely out of scope. Much housing law will come out of scope, as will practically all debt law and some education law too. As the Bill stands today, that means that there will be no legal advice or representation, even at the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court. Just to state that proposition shows how absurd it is.

The supposed savings are as follows: including immigration, £81 million; excluding immigration, £61 million. That means that in the social welfare area alone more than 350,000 people a year—it is much wider if you take the other parts of Part 1—will not be given the sort of legal advice that they receive today. Even where the law is still in scope, fixed fees, which are far from generous, have already been cut by 10 per cent. Anything left in scope, of course, will have to go through a mandatory phone gateway, including community care cases. One can hardly think of a sillier area of law to put through a mandatory phone gateway than community care.

Despite many progressive reforms by different Governments to simplify the legal system to make it easier for participants to access and understand, the reality remains that law and enforcement of the law is an often complex and stressful experience for many in our society. The legal aid system was created to address evident inequality in the legal system. We give legal aid contracts to law centres and CABs because they help those most in need. What is the point of legal rights if there is no ability to enforce them?

The value of the advice that is currently available is unchallenged. The respected academic Professor Dame Hazel Genn, in her seminal work Paths to Justice, pointed out that legal problems are not single ones, but come in clusters: it is not debt on its own, for example, but welfare benefits, debt and housing. If legal advice is given early and well, it can and does change lives. If that advice is not given, problems grow, become more difficult to resolve, and can end up in loss of job, loss of home, loss of family, social exclusion, of course, and sometimes descent into crime. All this costs everybody: the individual involved, the Government, and society too.

How can the Government justify this change to a system which—and I want to stress this point—up to now has been supported by all three main political parties in this country? The Conservative Party has a proud tradition of supporting law centres. The Liberal Democrat Party clearly does too, and I hope we do as well. This system has always been supported by the political parties. It has not worked faultlessly—of course not—but it has worked pretty well for many years.

This proposal is the exact opposite of any concept of the big society that one might want to consider. Who are the people who will lose out? We have heard about them throughout the afternoon. If there is no legal aid for welfare benefit advice, some of the biggest losers will be people with disabilities. These people often need legal advice to obtain the benefits they have a right to. The figure of 78,000 disabled people who will be denied specialist legal help for complicated welfare benefit problems is staggering. But the Government say, at the moment, “No, these people do not need legal advice. They can do it themselves. It is all general stuff. It is all comparatively easy”. Actually, the DWP guidance now runs to, as I understand it, 9,000 pages: a good deal more than the CPAG guidance that my noble friend first wrote. As the president of the Social Entitlement Chamber, Judge Robert Martin has said that where people have not had legal advice, about 10 per cent of hearing time at welfare benefit tribunals is spent just explaining what is going on. No wonder that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, said in her Henry Hodge Memorial Lecture:

“The idea that the law in some of these areas is simple and easy to understand is laughable”.

This is an example of judicial understatement if ever there was one. And yet her Majesty’s Government seem set on this course, all for an alleged saving in welfare benefits of £25 million per year. This is a Government who are prepared to pay out £250 million in order that people can have weekly rather than fortnightly bin collections and £125,000 per year to—is it 40 plus?—police commissioners around the country. This is not a sensible priority at all.

Children and young people will be losers too. As we have heard, they have civil justice problems that require advice. There is academic research to show that there is a relationship between civil legal problems not being solved and crime. This seems incredible in the year of the riots. To cut legal help for the young age group is absolutely crazy—perhaps as crazy as abolishing the successful Youth Justice Board. Both legal aid and the Youth Justice Board work as early-intervention measures to ensure that our young people have a future.

Of course we know that lawyers who work in this field are not fat cats. Many sacrifice a career in high-paid private practice because they consider that the work is so important. Their fees have been cut by 10 per cent. Further legal aid cuts will rip apart law centres, CABs and solicitors’ firms, which will have to close. I ask the noble Lord: where will people go then?

The honourable Member for Bradford East, the Liberal Democrat David Ward, made a brilliant speech on Report in another place on 2 November. I was privileged to see and hear it; I watched from our seats in the other place. He attacked these proposals with passion and good sense—and, with nine Liberal Democrat colleagues, including his Deputy Leader, voted against the Government. He made two important points. In the first, he stated:

“It is a very dangerous thing if we are going to use deficit reduction as a justification for almost everything we might do”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/11/11; col. 976.]

His second point came in his final words. He said:

“Someone once told me that the world is divided into two groups of people. There are those who, when they see somebody walking down the street with a walking stick, believe in kicking the stick away because it will make that person stronger, and there are those who believe that if they kick away the stick, the person will just fall over. We are in grave danger of making some of those who are, by definition, the most vulnerable in our society fall over, and we will still have to be there to pick them up, at even greater cost to the public purse. It does not make sense; we should not do it”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/11/11; col. 977.]

Then he sat down.

That is one way of putting it. Another way was expressed in the quote by the late Lord Bingham, which I will not repeat now. Both quotes, in different ways, make the point that equal access to justice is at the heart of our democracy, and that Governments should be very wary of tampering with that principle.

The Government’s proposals are deeply wrong in three distinct ways. First, they are—I choose the word carefully—immoral. They deliberately look only at the impact assessments that the Government themselves produced; and they deliberately pick on the poor and the vulnerable. Secondly, they represent a serious denial of access to justice, as the Constitution Committee powerfully argued. Thirdly, far from saving money, they will cost much, much more.

The Minister often uses the phrase, “To govern is to choose”. He is quite right. When in government we put forward proposals that would have saved much more than the cut in social welfare law that this Government propose. Our intention to cut back on the number of criminal solicitors with LSC contracts would have been very controversial—much too controversial for this Government, who chose instead to take on not powerful interests that might give them a hard time but the poor, the vulnerable and those who cannot represent themselves in court, let alone begin to fight the power of government.

I end by saying that noble Lords—I hope in a non-partisan spirit and across the House as a whole—should say that in this case the Government have made the wrong choice. If necessary the House must take up the fight and stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. The House has a tradition of looking after the interests of those in our society who have little power. In this of all cases, we must not let them down.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I hope that the House will understand that in a debate of 54 contributions, I am not going to be able to answer them all in detail this evening. Indeed, many of the questions will be better raised at Committee, with specific details of the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Rix, and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, asked whether I would meet them on the specific issues they raised. Of course I would be delighted to do so. If they will contact me I shall fix something up. The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, asked whether the letter from Professor Ruggie could be put in the Library of the House. I will certainly arrange that. It is already on the internet. It might be interesting to the House to know that Professor Ruggie is no longer the UN special representative for business and human rights; he has joined a Boston law firm. Whether that is promotion, I do not know, but that is the fact.

The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, came with his proposal about amendments to deal with metal theft and the dangers it poses. I cannot give him a definitive answer at the moment, other than that there is an inter-ministerial group looking at this issue as a matter of priority, and we will look at any proposals appropriate to the Bill. I have lost sight of him again—oh my God! Thank God we did not give the Speaker more powers; he would have named me by now.

It has been a very interesting and well-informed debate. Let me take to start—because he was quoted—my colleague from the other place, Mr Ward, who said that we must not let deficit reduction dominate everything that we do. Of course, unless we address the issue of deficit reduction, many of the things that we subsequently do—

[Lord Bach]

The noble Lord is quoting Mr Ward wrongly. Mr Ward said:

“It is a very dangerous thing if we are going to use deficit reduction as a justification for almost anything that we might do”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/11/11; col. 976.]

[Lord McNally]

I stand by that quote, then. If we are going to take that attitude, and if we are going to avoid taking tough decisions, we will face far greater economic problems. This idea that somehow we can put things off until tomorrow is perhaps why we are where we are today, and why we have to take the decisions that we will take today.

I heard closely what the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, was saying. Of course, it was a wonderful speech. A number of the speeches made today were wonderful speeches, if we believe that there is no limit to the amount of money that we can spend on legal aid; that there was somehow a golden age when this was all available. However, we know well—

Supreme Court: President

Lord Bach Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

There will indeed be urgency and, as the noble Lord knows, we have had some very good advice on the matter from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips, himself.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, perhaps I may say how much we on the opposition side welcome the Minister’s response to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. If the Government will act urgently on the point that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips, has spoken about, we will do everything that we can on our side to make sure that such a matter goes through Parliament as quickly as possible. Perhaps I may ask briefly about judicial diversity, in which I know the Minister has a particular role. Are the Government satisfied that they are doing enough to make sure that our judiciary is diverse enough? Many judges at all levels have spoken about this in recent weeks and it is a matter of considerable concern.

[Lord McNally]

I thank the noble Lord for his initial remarks about co-operation, which will again help with the sense of urgency. On the question of judicial diversity, one of the most encouraging things in recent days is the way in which members of the senior judiciary have been going public on the need for urgency on the matter. It is a fact that four members of our 161 judges in the High Court are of black, Asian and minority background. In England and Wales, four out of 42 members of the Court of Appeal are women and we have one woman on our Supreme Court.

Legal Services Act 2007 (Appeals from Licensing Authority Decisions) (No. 2) Order 2011

Lord Bach Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, I welcome both orders. The Minister will recollect that when the matter was first discussed here, we raised our concern and he was good enough to say that he would take the matter back, examine it and see what appropriate action was necessary. I endorse what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has said. The Minister and his staff have worked very hard to effect those changes, which are certainly welcome.

The order sets out an independent appeal mechanism against a range of ABS decisions, which is right; for example, refusing an application for a licence, imposing a conditional licence, disqualifying a person from working in the ABS or imposing a financial penalty. The most interesting part is that appeals on these matters are to go to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. I am told that this helps the SRA to license alternative business structures from the new year onwards. I am also told that the SRA has found significant interest from organisations seeking to become ABSs. It has received over 500 inquiries. Examples of such organisations include private equity investors, claims management companies, the expansion of in-house legal departments, major retailers, accountancy firms and partnerships between non-lawyers and insurers.

I particularly welcome the second order as I am involved in promoting a Private Member’s Bill on the rehabilitation of offenders. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, hit the nail on the head in regard to this. In the end this is about consumer protection and looking at what information is available. I am delighted to support the measure because it sets out an interesting aspect in simple terms. This is a significant step in that not only will the SRA be able to issue licences, but also the Government have agreed to include non-lawyer owners and, in certain circumstances, the managers of ABSs in the exclusions of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. That is right, and we very much appreciate the Minister’s support. Over a period of time this will ensure that all owners of ABSs will have to disclose all their previous convictions and cautions, which ultimately helps the consumer to understand what happens in this legal process.

Again, I thank the Minister for the action that he and his staff have taken on this, and we certainly support the orders.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I start by thanking the Minister very warmly for his clear and thorough opening remarks and description of these orders. I have little to say about them except to express the support of the Opposition for them both. There is no doubt that the Legal Services Act 2007 will have a major, if not profound, influence in the years to come on how legal services are delivered in this country. That was clear when the draft Bill was debated and discussed by a Joint Committee of both Houses under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, and when the Bill went through your Lordships’ House some time afterwards. I think we can see the importance of that Act in the orders before us. Alongside it there are many sensitivities that surround the bringing into force of various parts of this Act, whether large or small. I hope—indeed I am sure—that the Government and the ministry are aware of and alive to those sensitivities in deciding which way to go.

I shall say a word about the first order, which deals particularly with appeals bodies. On the face of it, it is a shame that there is not to be a single appeals body—I agree with my noble friend Lady Hayter on that—but I suppose that this is one of the sensitivities that I am talking about. It is interesting to see in the Explanatory Memorandum the consultation outcome in relation to this order. For a consultation outcome, this has a dramatic and rather more exciting history than is normally the case in such consultations and it is quite clear that there has been toing and froing before the Government came forward with this order allowing the Law Society its way in this instance. I do not for a moment suggest that that was the wrong decision. However, a single appeals body is an attractive proposition, and I wonder whether over a period of time events might lead to it.

As for the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, I start by wishing the Private Member’s Bill under the charge of the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, well. It is relevant because, with a senior government Minister present, maybe the Government themselves will have to play a role at some stage in making sure that his Bill, which is much delayed—this came up under the Government I was proud to serve in—gets on to the statute book in one way or another. It may be in the form of a Private Member’s Bill with all the difficulties that that involves both in this House and in another place, or with a little help from Her Majesty’s Government. Certainly, if the Government were to put their weight behind the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, we would support it too.

However, as far as this order is concerned I am most grateful—particularly to the Minister—for describing in detail why the universal opinion of the various groups that were consulted about this was not met in terms of a slightly wider group being subject to the exemption to the existing Act. He described it very adequately. Is there any concern that by leaving out that group of people there will be some difficulties down the road? It would be unfortunate if people who should be exempted from this Act were not exempted at this stage, and if the Government had to do it on a “first today and then tomorrow” basis.

These are important issues even though they are in orders that are going through this Committee pretty quickly. I have no doubt there will be others that involve the ABS and the other important results of the Legal Services Act 2007. Bearing in mind that the Act was passed under a different Government, we will do all we can to ensure that Act comes into fruition successfully.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for that response. He is always very kind about how clear and thorough I am in explaining statutory instruments. He knows as well as I do that it is only because of the hard work of the people who sit behind me. I am very pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and my noble friend Lord Dholakia thanked the Ministry of Justice and the LSB for their work on this. It is exciting. I pay tribute to the previous Government. The alternative business structures will produce changes which, I suspect, will be mainly to the benefit of the consumer in the provision of legal services. What we are trying to do with these orders is to put the last pieces in place to allow them to function.

The noble Lord, Lord Bach, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, both expressed the concerns that were reflected during the last debate—that we have not got a single route here, in that the solicitors have decided to have their separate body. Whether it will cause the problems of a lack of consistency, we will have to see. What I can assure noble Lords is that the LSB will be carrying out further work, and looking at appeal arrangements, and the MoJ will be working closely with the LSB in relation to this. I also understand the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Bach: have we gone too narrow in this extension? As I explained, I do not think we have. However, let us see. The concern expressed last time was that the alternative business structures may allow criminal elements in that would corrupt the new structures. We listened in this Committee and have brought forward extensions, and now think that we have got things right. Again, the LSB will follow the new structures as they go in. So far, only one new alternative business structure has been announced. The Co-op has beaten Tesco; perhaps it should now be called Co-op law rather than Tesco law.

This is an exciting development for which the previous Administration can take credit and which we have been pleased to help bring into being. We will discuss legal services in general in more detail when we get to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill in a short while. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, and I have discussed before, legal services in general are in flux. The ABSs will provide an exciting new dimension to them.

On the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Jones, I can only draw his attention to the fact that the consultations were carried out by the Legal Services Board for England and Wales and the Law Society of England and Wales. I am sure that both bodies carried out their consultations across the geographic areas of their responsibility. If he can draw to my attention the case for them not doing that, I will be happy to follow it up. However, since they are both bodies that have an England and Wales dimension and were both charged with wide consultation, my understanding is that they will have consulted in Wales.

Prisons: HMP Wandsworth

Lord Bach Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I am not quite sure whether the system that the noble Lord refers to is still in action, but I know that Amy Rees, the new governor, has the clear direction to move with all possible speed to implement the action plan. It would be inconceivable if the Secretary of State and Ministers in the Ministry of Justice did not pay the closest attention to making sure that the recommendations made by this report are implemented with all possible speed.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, this is obviously a significant and worrying report and I am sure that the House is grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, for raising the issue this afternoon. As I understand it, Wandsworth has a larger number of prisoners than any other prison in Europe—some 1,665 at the date of the report. Can the Minister either tell the House today or perhaps write to me telling us how many of those prisoners are doubled up in cells at present? Perhaps I might briefly broaden my question. Can he confirm that capital investment in the Prison Service is generally going down heavily, year on year, and that in fact there will be no capital investment by 2013-14? In the light of the fact that the largest number of prisoners ever is in prison today—the figure on 5 November was 87,749—and in the light of cuts to prison staff, and particularly to probation staff, can he tell the House how the rehabilitation revolution is going?

[Lord McNally]

We will return to the rehabilitation revolution on 21 November when we discuss the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. I hope that the noble Lord will help me then with the fact that the Ministry of Justice, as part of our deficit reduction programme, has to find £2 billion in cuts. In a department that spends money only on prisons, probation, court services and legal aid, tough decisions have been made. Today it is prison spending cuts that the noble Lord does not like; I suspect that, the next time he gets up, it will be legal aid cuts that he does not like. To govern is to choose, and we have had to make some very tough decisions.

On the question of doubling up, again one of the problems for Wandsworth is that a prison built for just over 1,000 people has 1,600 prisoners. You can work out the number that are doubled up in cells. About the only good thing that I can think of in that circumstance is that they all have in-cell toilet facilities, but even that makes you squirm with horror when you think about sharing a cell containing those facilities.

Crime: Self-defence Homicide

Lord Bach Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, as always, there is a great deal of wisdom in what the noble Lord says—and a great deal of accuracy as well. We intend to provide greater clarity with this new guidance and through the clauses in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which will be coming before this House shortly. It is certainly true that, in so doing, we will be bringing into statute what is already a very fixed principle in our common law.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, Clause 131 of the Bill that the Minister just mentioned is the one clause that deals with this issue of self-defence. However, what is not clear about the law as it exists at present? That feeling is quite widespread across the House. Why does it need another clause in another long Bill?

[Lord McNally]

I think that the answer to that was indicated in the previous question and by the fact that the noble Lord has tabled this Question today. There are newspaper articles and general assertions made about what is right or wrong. Under our common law, home owners, small shopkeepers and householders can use reasonable force to defend themselves or their properties and will not be prosecuted. My right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor has made clear that he believes that the current law is broadly in the right place. However, we believe that it does no harm, in the light of a lot of these questions and articles, to make it clear in the forthcoming Bill. I think that it will do a lot of good in establishing where people, including the police, are positioned in this. It will also deter any thought that we are drifting towards any kind of endorsement of vigilantism or keeping a six o’clock special under the pillow. This is a consolidation measure to clarify the law.

Coroner Service

Lord Bach Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I do not have those figures, but I will write to the noble Baroness. Everything we have done in studying this process is aimed at improving the efficiency of the system. I do not think that the simple removal from the reforms of the single post of chief coroner removes the fact that we are implementing the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. We have reviewed very thoroughly. We have consulted very thoroughly, as the noble Baroness knows very well, and we believe that our reforms will bring the improvements that the original Act sought to do.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, just two years ago, the consensus in this House and in the other place was that the chief coroner was an essential part of a new coronial system. In spite of the views of this House, and of many outside, including the Royal British Legion, why are the Government still insistent on not appointing a chief coroner, who would be an important part of the reforms that Parliament agreed by consensus?

[Lord McNally]

A Government is allowed to look at an issue, examine widely, listen, consult, and then make a decision in the context of the financial circumstances it finds at the end. My right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor has decided that the immediate appointment of a chief coroner is not justified in the present circumstances. After listening to the various representations, we left the title of chief coroner in Schedule 5 to the Bill when it returned from the other place, and that will allow this House, the other place and the outside organisations to judge whether we are still able to carry through the bulk of the 2009 Act without the chief coroner. We believe we can, and by our deeds you can judge us.

Elections: Registration

Lord Bach Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Bach]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the reasons for their policy of making individual voter registration voluntary.

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

My Lords, the Government’s approach reflects the fact that it is not an offence not to be registered under the current system. This will not change under the new system. The offence of not providing information to an electoral registration officer—for example, when making a household enquiry—will be retained. It will not be extended to require an individual to apply to be registered.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer, as far as it goes. He will know that at least 3 million of our fellow citizens, and probably more, already are not registered to vote at all. The independent Electoral Commission is of the view that if registering to vote becomes a voluntary activity, as the White Paper proposes, the result could be that up to 10 million people will fall off the electoral register, and that rates could fall in some areas from 90 per cent down to 65 per cent. Up to 35 per cent of the adult population could be disenfranchised. Is such a consequence acceptable in a mature democracy? Does the Minister agree that if such an event were to happen, no longer could we claim to the world, as we can today, that in Britain we live in a democratic country?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, of course it is not acceptable; but neither is it acceptable for a mature political party to go round shroud-waving on a conclusion which involved joint deliberation by the parties that the old system had become increasingly distrusted and that voluntary registration—which would eliminate, or do a lot to eliminate, fraud, and create greater public confidence in the system—should be the way forward. The way forward proposed in the White Paper gives enough guarantees and assurances to show that the kind of language that the noble Lord has just used is, quite frankly, scare tactics which are not worthy of him or his party.