Queen’s Speech
Lord Bates Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Bates
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:
“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament”.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Wolfson of Tredegar) (Con)
My Lords, it is a privilege and pleasure to open this fifth day of debate on Her Majesty’s most gracious Speech. Today’s debate on justice, home affairs and cultural issues will allow us to explore some of the key themes that Her Majesty expounded in her Speech last week. Many of these matters are central to a well-functioning society, including the recovery of our justice system in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic; the prevention of violent crime and the delivery of justice for victims; the basis and operation of our constitutional settlement; the way that our immigration and asylum systems work in practice; and how the United Kingdom will respond to digital and technological developments, including online safety and the security of our communications. Given the wealth of experience on all sides of the House, my noble friend Lady Williams of Trafford and I look forward to hearing the contributions that will be made by noble Lords in today’s debate.
The last year was like none in recent memory and has been difficult for everyone. None the less, this Government have remained steadfast in responding to the Covid-19 crisis. The pandemic affected all areas of life, both private and public, and the justice system is no exception. The past year has been particularly challenging for our courts and tribunals, so I first, and importantly, want to express my gratitude to those working across the justice system, whose efforts over the last year meant that the wheels of justice never stopped turning. They are now turning faster: almost all jurisdictions are now completing cases at pre-pandemic levels.
However, we are aware that there is much further to go—so, as we begin a new Session and social distancing restrictions ease, one of our top priorities will be to accelerate the work already taking place to address the effects of the pandemic on courts and tribunals, and we will also use this opportunity to secure further improvements for our justice system. As such, we will implement measures to ensure that the Crown Courts are running to their maximum capacity, using every judge and courtroom available, with no limit on sitting days this year. We will learn from our experience with remote hearings and seek to retain them where appropriate. These measures will enable us to deliver swifter outcomes for victims who might otherwise see their cases delayed. We know the old adage: justice delayed is justice denied. We do not want to see justice denied to anyone, so we will work hard to speed up the justice system, as it emerges from the pandemic.
However, our commitment to delivering justice for victims does not end at trial, and it certainly does not begin there. We want to ensure that victims are supported and their rights recognised at every stage of the criminal justice system. During the last Session, we published a revised victims’ code, which set out the rights to which victims are entitled. We will now go further: we will work to ensure both the standard and the availability of victims’ rights, beginning with a consultation on a ground-breaking victims’ Bill that will enshrine the new code in legislation.
We are acutely aware that crimes such as domestic abuse, rape and sexual violence, which disproportionately affect women and girls, shatter not only the lives of the victims but also those of their families. The whole country was shaken earlier this year by the death of Sarah Everard, which was a harrowing reminder of the violence to which many—far too many—women and girls in our society are subjected. As such, in addition to the landmark Domestic Abuse Act passed last Session, we will continue to make supporting victims and survivors of these crimes a priority. We will publish the end-to-end rape review action plan, working to ensure that, at each stage of our justice system, from reporting and investigation to trial and sentence, rape cases are considered with the diligence and gravity that they deserve.
We will publish a new tackling violence against women and girls strategy and a domestic abuse strategy, which will work in tandem to drive real change in this area. We received 180,000 responses to our call for evidence to inform these strategies. The views of victims, survivors and the public will be at the heart of our approach. We will also review our national statement of expectations, to ensure that police and crime commissioners approach these crimes in a collaborative and robust way.
This approach reflects our wider strategy. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which has been held over from last Session, will further our commitment to being tough on crime and its perpetrators. We will give our police more powers to tackle crime, we will protect our emergency workers and increase sentences for those who would harm them, and we will establish a new, smarter approach to sentencing that sees our most dangerous criminals spend longer in prison.
I am aware that there has been a lot of discourse about the public order provisions in this Bill, much of which is based on a misunderstanding of what the provisions actually do and the genesis of the legislation. These measures have been portrayed by some as draconian and a dismantling of our civil liberties; this is both misinformed and wrong. The right to protest is a fundamental and important freedom—but so is the right to go about your business unhindered. These provisions allow police to take a more proactive approach in managing disproportionately disruptive protests, which place an unnecessary burden upon our citizens.
It is that sense of balance that permeates a lot of the work which this Government plan to deliver over the next Session, and nowhere is this more apparent than in relation to our work on the constitution and judicial review.
I am sure everyone will agree that our uncodified—I did not say unwritten— constitution is something to be both celebrated and preserved. That includes examining the fine and critical balance between the Executive, the judiciary and the legislature.
That is why we plan to introduce a judicial review and courts Bill, which will not only introduce many of the court recovery measures I mentioned earlier, but will work to restore the balance between our institutions of state. We want to protect the judiciary from being unnecessarily pulled into political matters. Let me be clear and unambiguous: this is not about abolishing judicial review. We will ensure the integrity of the judicial review process. But the idea, put about by some who should know better, that the judicial review process cannot be improved or that it must remain a no-go area for government is false. Public law is too important to be left only to public lawyers.
We are still considering the submissions made to the recent consultation, which itself built on the work by the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, and his team, and considered further areas for reform. We expect to increase the flexibility provided to judges by ensuring, among other things, that more flexible and effective remedies are available, and to review the merits of the Supreme Court’s decision in Cart.
Our desire to ensure that our society’s vital systems function as fairly and as effectively as possible extends to our plans for the borders Bill that we will introduce. This will implement the most significant overhaul of our immigration and asylum systems for decades.
At the heart of this Bill is a simple principle: fairness. Presently, we have a generous asylum system that offers protection to the most vulnerable people around the world through defined safe and legal routes. But this system is collapsing under the pressure of parallel, often extremely dangerous, illegal routes to asylum, facilitated by criminals smuggling people into the UK.
We believe that access to our asylum system should be based on need and not on the ability to pay people smugglers. When people are dying, as they are, we have a duty to act. The Border Force already has a range of powers and capabilities to deal with maritime threats, but we will use this legislative opportunity to strengthen them further. We will introduce new powers to target the increasing use of vessels by criminal gangs to facilitate illegal entry to the UK.
Over and above that, our ability to enforce immigration laws, passed by and with the authority of Parliament, is being impeded, contributing to a downward trend in the number of people, including foreign national offenders, being removed from the UK. Our Bill will enable us to remove more easily those with no right to be here. Our time and resources should be directed to protecting and supporting those in genuine need of asylum, and to reclaim control of our borders.
Cicero’s maxim, “Salus populi suprema lex esto”—your Lordships will of course require no translation—remains absolutely true. The safety and security of the people of this country must be, and will be, the primary concern of this Government. We live increasingly in an online world, as the television screens above me show, so we also want to ensure that the United Kingdom is the safest place to be online as well as offline.
That is why we will deliver on our manifesto commitment to introduce an online safety Bill to set a global standard for safety online. It will include the most comprehensive approach yet to online regulation, requiring platforms and search engines contained within its scope to tackle illegal content and protect our young people from harmful material.
Major platforms will also be required to set out, with clarity, their own terms and conditions about legal but harmful content for adults, and to enforce these rules consistently and transparently.
The Bill will also enshrine in law safeguards for free speech. We will use this opportunity to defend freedom of expression and promote the valuable role of a free press that now exists online as much as it does in newsprint. This will allow us to usher in a new era of accountability for technology giants, and to protect our children, ensuring that future generations have a healthy relationship with the internet.
We are also aware of the importance of ensuring the long-term security and resilience of our telecommunications network. The Telecommunications (Security) Bill will create one of the most rigorous telecommunication security regimes in the world. It will protect and future-proof our networks as technologies grow and evolve, shielding our critical national infrastructure both now and in the future. It will allow us to manage the risks posed by high-risk vendors.
We will also ensure that the national telecommunications system flourishes. We will introduce a second Bill, the product security and telecommunications infrastructure Bill, to allow us to deliver on our connectivity ambitions by making sure that telecommunications equipment can be installed, shared and upgraded as quickly and efficiently as possible, and by assuring consumers that the smart devices that we all now bring into our homes—the so-called the internet of things—are secure. This legislation will underline the UK’s continued global leadership on cybersecurity and allow consumer-connected technology to continue to grow.
We also have to look at the threat posed to us by hostile activities from other states—a threat that is ever-growing, diversifying and evolving. Unlike terrorists, who rely on grabbing the public’s attention, this sort of hostile activity operates in the shadows and remains hidden. Although these acts fall short of open conflict, the consequences for our democracy, economic security and prosperity are real. To address this threat, we will introduce a counter state threats Bill, which will modernise our existing counter-espionage laws to reflect the modern threat and introduce modern legislative standards. It will create new offences, tools and powers to detect, disrupt and deter hostile activity in and targeted at the United Kingdom. We will do this through reform of the Official Secrets Acts 1911, 1920 and 1939, as well as the Official Secrets Act 1989, and the creation of a foreign influence registration scheme. The Home Secretary has published a public consultation on our proposals in this area, and the response to that consultation will help us shape the tools and powers at our disposal to make sure that they balance the protection of national security with the important rights and values that we all enjoy in the United Kingdom.
Lastly, we will introduce two new Bills to support the voluntary sector by reducing unnecessary bureaucracy for charities, and to unlock additional funds for good causes. The first is a charities Bill. Charities occupy a special place in our society, and the law should both protect and regulate them. The reforms that we introduce will remove or replace inappropriate and unnecessary burdens while safeguarding the public interest in ensuring that charities are properly run, so that charities will have more time and more resources to spend on their charitable objectives.
The second of these Bills is the Dormant Assets Bill. The dormant assets scheme has already released £745 million, including £150 million for Covid relief last year. Expanding the scheme using this Bill has the potential to unlock a further £880 million over the coming years.
These measures, as outlined in Her Majesty’s gracious Speech, will set a clear direction for the future of our country. By implementing them, we will ensure that we are a country where swift justice is delivered to victims and meted out to perpetrators of crime, and that victims’ rights are respected and enshrined in the law of the land. We will ensure that our police, judges and border officials have the powers necessary to secure our society and protect our citizens. We will ensure that when they are online, as well as offline, our citizens are protected, and that our systems are robust and secure. In the wake of a life-altering pandemic, and a year of prolonged difficulty and disruption, we will ensure that our country has all the resources needed to build back better, stronger and safer. Over the coming weeks and months, I look forward to discussion, discourse and debate, with your Lordships and with others outside this House, about the many measures which it has been my privilege to outline today.
Criminal Justice and Data Protection (Protocol No. 36) Regulations 2014
Lord Bates Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Lord Bates
That the draft regulations laid before the House on 3 November be approved, and to move to resolve that this House thereby endorses the Government’s formal application to rejoin 35 European Union Justice and Home Affairs measures.
Relevant documents: 13th Report (Session 2012-13) and 5th Report (Session 2013-14) from the European Union Committee, 12th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments (special attention drawn to the instrument), 13th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, 1st Report from the Extradition Law Committee
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bates)
My Lords, we return to a detailed European matter that, over the last 18 months, has become very familiar to many in this House. Indeed, this is the third time the House has debated this matter on a government Motion this year alone. I remind noble Lords of the background to this matter. Protocol 36 is the part of the Lisbon treaty which relates to the United Kingdom’s opt-out from those policing and criminal justice measures which were adopted before the Lisbon treaty came into force. The opt-out provisions are unique to the United Kingdom and were negotiated by the previous Administration.
Under the terms of Protocol 36, the United Kingdom had to decide before the end of May 2014 whether we wished to opt out of all those police and criminal justice measures, around 135 in all, which predate the Lisbon treaty. This opt-out had to be exercised en masse: we could not simply leave the measures that we did not like. In July last year this House endorsed the Government’s decision to exercise this opt-out and we have until 1 December to notify the Council which measures we would like to remain party to. However, this process must be completed well in advance of December. As a result of the final member state, Spain, not lifting its reserve on the deal we negotiated until 10 days ago, we are running short of time.
The Government have always been clear that, in exercising the UK’s opt-out, we wanted to remain part of a smaller number of measures which give our police and law enforcement agencies vital and practical help in the fight against crime. In July last year, this House endorsed 35 measures, set out in Command Paper 8671, which help our law enforcement agencies to tackle serious crime and keep this country safe. That package was the product of careful deliberation in this House and beyond. It follows consultation with the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, our security and intelligence agencies, the devolved Administrations, the Lord Advocate in Scotland, the Government of Gibraltar, victims’ groups and many more. It has been scrutinised by parliamentary committees in both Houses.
I pay tribute to the work carried out by the EU Committee of this House in scrutinising these matters and thank the Committee for its well considered and very detailed reports. I express my thanks to the noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Boswell, and to the noble Baronesses, Lady Corston and Lady Prashar, for their leadership on this matter and for the guidance that they have provided to the House.
In July this year my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach addressed this House with an update on the Government’s negotiations. He informed the House that good progress had been made in negotiations with the European Commission and other member states, and that we were close to reaching an in-principle agreement. My noble friend also informed the House that this matter had been discussed at the General Affairs Council in June but that some member states—Austria, Poland and Spain—had expressed technical reservations.
The Government published another Command Paper, 8897, which included the full list of measures included in the in-principle agreement discussed at the General Affairs Council, and impact assessments on each of those measures. The Government had hoped to be able to provide a further opportunity for Parliament to consider this matter before the Summer Recess, but the reservations expressed by other member states meant that it was not possible to do so. In September two of those member states lifted their reserves, and I am pleased to be able to inform the House that Spain, the remaining member state blocking the deal, formally lifted its reservation in Brussels 10 days ago.
The deal that the Government have negotiated in Europe is a very good one for the UK. The package of 35 measures that we would like to remain part of includes Europol, which does excellent work under its British director, Rob Wainwright, to tackle cross-border crimes. It includes Eurojust, which facilitates co-operation between our police and prosecutors and their European counterparts, and has proved instrumental in the prosecution of animal rights extremists here in the UK.
The package includes the second generation Schengen Information System or SIS II, which will further strengthen our ability to detect foreign criminals at the border, including individuals wanted in their own countries for serious crimes such as rape and murder. It also includes the Council decision on child pornography, which ensures that international co-operation to tackle this abhorrent crime is prioritised and that collective pressure is put on internet companies to tackle the disgusting crime of online child sex abuse wherever it takes place.
I shall say a little about the timing and format of the decision before the House today, as I know that it is a matter of interest to many. Now that the final reservation has been lifted on our deal, we must allow for discussion at the Council in Brussels before the month is out. That means that we do not have long to complete our domestic processes. This means we must be ready to ensure that we can transpose those measures that are not yet fully transposed in our domestic law on 1 December. It is therefore very important that this House completes the necessary legislative steps as soon as possible. The other place has already voted by a substantial majority to do so.
The Government propose to transpose the measures in the regulations using Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972, but we do not have the vires to do so until 1 December. That is why we have chosen to bring forward an affirmative instrument to enable the House to see the regulations and debate the whole package of 35 measures that we will seek to rejoin. Many of those measures are inextricably bound together, and all of them are the result of a successful negotiation. That is why we are asking the House to consider them as a package and take a single decision on a single Motion.
The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, questions the Government’s approach to this matter. I reassure him and other noble Lords that there is nothing nefarious about this approach. Noble Lords will of course be aware that almost all these measures, including the European arrest warrant, have already been endorsed by this House in the vote of July 2013. Unlike in the other place, it is open to us in this House to amend the normal Motion for approving affirmative instruments to make reference to the package of 35 measures that the Government will seek to rejoin. That is why the Government have amended the Motion to put beyond doubt that we see tonight’s debate and decision, just as we saw the debate and decision in the other place last week, as on the whole package of 35 measures that the Government will seek to rejoin in the national interest.
The decision before the House today is no different from the decision that was before the other place last week. The Home Secretary made clear throughout that debate that a vote to approve the Motion would be a vote in favour of the wider package of 35 measures. The House of Commons approved that Motion, and it remains the Government’s intention to rejoin the whole package of police and criminal justice measures, as it is in the national interest so to do. It is now time for this House to make the same decision.
I acknowledge the amendment to the Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Boswell. I have explained why the Government have proceeded in the way that we have, and I believe that the Government have gone out of our way to provide opportunities for this House to consider this matter over the past year. I urge noble Lords to ensure that, when they consider the amendment, they focus on the proceedings in this House today. As I have explained, only a certain number of the 35 measures require transposing through the regulations before the House today.
Before I go further, I say how grateful I am for the work done in short order by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee of this House, led admirably and skilfully by the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad. It would be remiss of me not to mention the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and the helpful work that it has undertaken to assist the Government with their preparation of the SI that we are debating.
The regulations include the measures which provide for the freezing and confiscation of criminal assets and which will simplify the current processes significantly. The regulations also make provision to give effect to the European supervision order in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland. This allows British subjects to be bailed back to the UK, rather than spend months abroad awaiting trial.
Another measure covered by the regulations is the European Criminal Record Information System, or ECRIS. It also includes the Swedish initiative which simplifies the exchange of information and intelligence between law enforcement agencies, and the data protection measure protecting personal data transferred in the fight against crime. These all require transposing, and are covered in the regulations.
Another measure covered by the regulations provides for joint investigation teams between our police and their European counterparts. These allow our police to participate in cross-border operations such as Operation Birkhill, which saw five criminals sentenced to a total of 36 years’ imprisonment this summer for their involvement in the degrading trafficking of over 120 women from Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland into the UK, or Operation Rico, which resulted in 110 arrests, mostly in the UK and Spain. We are also seeking to remain part of the prisoner transfer framework decision, which helps us to remove foreign criminals from British jails.
The remaining measures from our package which require transposing are the mutual recognition of financial penalties, which increases the effectiveness of financial sanctions by providing that they can be enforced across the EU, and a measure ensuring consistency with regard to trials in absentia, providing safeguards for dependants.
I am aware that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee considered these regulations last week and felt that more information was required on the policy objectives of these instruments. I hope that today’s debate has helped to clarify some of these matters. This is a hugely complex matter and the Government are limited by the guidance on the length of these documents. There are many lengthy documents, including two Command Papers referred to in the Explanatory Memoranda, that sit alongside the substantial evidence provided to the committees of this House and the other place that set this out in full. The Government will respond to the committee and will support any further scrutiny that they undertake.
I turn to the European arrest warrant. Noble Lords will be aware that the Government have legislated to reform the operation of the arrest warrant and increase the protections offered to British people and others who are wanted for extradition. The changes that we have made through the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act mean that the arrest warrant which sits in our package of 35 measures is a better and safer arrest warrant than the one which operated over the last decade.
First, the Government have changed the law to ensure arrest warrants are refused for those suspected of minor offences. A British judge now considers whether the alleged offence and likely penalty are sufficient to make someone’s extradition proportionate. And a British judge considers whether there are measures less coercive than extradition that are available to foreign authorities.
Secondly, the Government have clarified the rules on dual criminality to ensure that an arrest warrant must be refused if all or part of the conduct for which a person is wanted took place in the UK and is not a criminal offence in this country. The National Crime Agency is now refusing arrest warrants where it is obvious that the dual criminality test has not been met. It has done so nearly 40 times since our reforms came into force in July.
Thirdly, the Government have changed the law to require that a decision to charge and a decision to try the person have been made by the requesting country before they can be extradited. That will help to prevent lengthy periods of pre-trial detention, which I know have been of concern to many noble Lords, as they have been to the Government. All these provisions have been made in UK law and came into effect earlier this year. All our reforms are based on existing law and practice in other member states and are already making an important difference to the operation of the arrest warrant.
The package of measures in which the arrest warrant sits is a set of vital tools for our police and law enforcement agencies. That package represents a good deal for the United Kingdom which will keep this country and its inhabitants safe, and bring criminals to justice. We must now vote to seal that deal and transpose those measures which require transposing. I beg to move.
Amendment to the Motion
Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]
Lord Bates Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Bates
My Lords, in following the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who must be foremost among all prison reformers of the present generation and who knows more about this subject than anyone, I fear that my only contribution for my friends on the Front Bench in speaking in support of the Bill might be to allow them a gentle eight minutes in which to receive messages from the Box to respond to the noble Lord. None the less, I hope that that might be a useful function.
I firmly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, on one thing: the value of our probation services. Sometimes it is very easy to cast aside their contribution to the criminal justice system. Yet the whole tenor of and reason for the Bill is an argument based simply on the fact that the reconviction rate beyond 12 months is substantially less than that under 12 months. The answer, of course, is the intervention of the probation services in cases where people have served a longer period, and their absence in the cases of those with short sentences. That is worth drawing attention to. It points to a fact, in Annexe C of the report that we are considering, Transforming Rehabilitation: A Strategy for Reform, that for those who have served a sentence of more than 12 months, the reconviction rate—or reoffending rate, in the report’s terms—is 35%, due in large part to the intervention of the probation service. For sentences under 12 months it is 58.2%. These are therefore significant sums, and at the outset it is worth paying tribute to the work of the probation services in bringing about that change.
There are many reasons why this Bill is necessary and should be welcomed. I would argue that chief among them are the crimes that are committed by those who reoffend upon leaving prison after a short sentence. Again, they are highlighted in Annexe C. In the year to September, there were 208,699 offences, including,
“35,000 violent crimes; 66,000 burglaries, robberies and thefts; and 6,600 sexual offences”.
Therefore, a reduction in that rate is undoubtedly the greatest prize on offer.
Second to that is undoubtedly the financial cost. The numbers have already been mentioned: the £10 billion cost of those crimes, the £3 billion spent on the prison system, and the £1 billion spent on community services. These sums are significant, and in a sense it is sad that we need an economic downturn, with economic constraints and fiscal reorganisation, to focus on this massive proportion of government spend and the need to reduce it.
There are also the lives of the 17,318 who reoffended during that period of one year. The question of why they did that needs to be addressed. Of course, as regards the answers, this area is not short of analysis. All the causes have been mentioned and are known to us. We know of the very high proportion of people who are subject to alcohol and drug addiction, and there are welcome things in the measures in this Bill that seem to address that for those who are released on licence. People also leave prison and have no home to go to, or were homeless before they came to prison. Housing is a critical element, so the joining up of the health services and local authorities with the criminal justice system, which this Bill provides for, seems very welcome.
I conclude my remarks simply by referring to an area that is absent: education. I know that there are good reasons for that, but they ought to be addressed none the less, because there might be further legislation coming down the tracks later in the year that seeks to respond to the consultation paper that is currently before us: Transforming Youth Custody: Putting Education at the Heart of Detention. We know the lack of education—of literacy, numeracy and IT skills—is the critical common denominator of those who find themselves in prison. It is also critical because however well meaning we are when we say that people need employment, if they do not have literacy, numeracy and IT skills it will be incredibly difficult to provide that. How we can miss that crucial element when we have a captive audience for education in our establishments and young offender institutions is beyond me. We have a requirement only for a statutory 15 hours of education, but the Centre for Social Justice, in its report, found that not even that is being provided. In most young offender institutions, the average is 11 hours. It should be 40 hours or more to make sure that people have the skills.
My honourable friend from another place, Guy Opperman from Hexham—to add to what the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, referred to as a north-east conspiracy, which I am happy to sign up to—wrote an excellent publication, which I commend to noble Lords, called Doing Time: Prisons in the 21st Century. In it, he came up with a number of innovative and progressive suggestions in education. One was the provision for what would in effect be academy prisons: boarding schools that would be secure detention areas but whose prime purpose would be not containment but education. That is an example of the type of thing that we should see. He quoted Victor Hugo, who said:
“He who opens a school door, closes a prison”.
That may not be strictly correct in numerical terms, but it argues for the centrality of education.
If the purpose of this is to join up provision across different departments and make sure that welfare, health and local authorities are all involved, we cannot exclude from that consideration the Department for Education. I know that legislation will be coming down, but it is crucial that we address the issue of education in this paving legislation. Whether in the supervisory arrangements mentioned in Schedule 1 or in some other way, we should recognise that education must be at the centre of reform and rehabilitation, particularly of the young.
Leveson Inquiry
Lord Bates Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Garden of Frognal
Yes, my Lords, what my noble friend says is probably right.
Lord Bates
Are we not missing something of the big picture here? The questions over News International have not appeared only in the past 18 months. They have run beneath the surface, at the core of public life in this country, for some 15 years. Now what we have is an inquiry that is tasked to look at this. I, too, looked at the terms set out for the Leveson inquiry. The case has been made that they are not relevant, but they are exactly relevant. What is being considered now is the relationship between press and politicians and, specifically, the extent of unlawful or improper conduct within News International and other media organisations. That is highly relevant. We now have an inquiry that is two-thirds of the way through its consideration, which should be allowed to consider this important issue in the round—and which this Government actually set up.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I agree with my noble friend that that is the position, and that a lot of lessons will come out of the Leveson inquiry that could range very much wider than the remit that was set for it. We certainly hope that the end of the inquiry will not be the end of the matter and that these various disturbing cases will be taken forward and we will reach a resolution.
Prisoners: Voting
Lord Bates Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Justice: Legal Fees
Lord Bates Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord McNally
Having spent some years treading the line between public relations clients and what I could say in the House, I am always very envious of how my learned friends manage to tread that line so well. This defamation area produces great scandals, and I think that the balance of Lord Justice Jackson’s report will point us in the direction of urgent action. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, who has made available to my department his not inconsiderable research and preparation for a Defamation Bill, which will, I hope, enable us to move forward very quickly on this. I do not think I will say any more about the Mirror Group case.
Lord Bates
Can the Minister confirm whether this change in success fees would apply to cases heard in the High Court? If so, is he aware of a ruling in the High Court this morning that the decision of the previous Government to impose unitary authorities on Norwich and Exeter was unlawful? Given that this is a victory for common sense, will he ensure that there is no maximum in the success fee available to counsel?
Lord McNally
I thank the noble Lord for bringing me up to date on that saga. I think there should be a limit on success fees or, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, suggested, that the success fee should be borne by the successful claimant.