Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Wednesday 15th February 2012 Lords Chamber

Debate on whether Clause 121 should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, this is a probing suggestion that the clause should not stand part of the Bill. It relates to penalty notices for disorderly behaviour. The notices were introduced under the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001. They allow a police officer who has reason to believe that somebody has committed a particular kind of offence—described and listed in the Act as a penalty offence—to issue them with a notice that gives them the option, within 21 days, of either paying a fixed penalty or electing to be tried for the offence. If they do neither, they become liable to a higher penalty. The notices are designed to deal with offences of disorder. The Act includes references to drunk and disorderly behaviour, possession of cannabis, petty retail theft—I am not sure how that is defined—and causing criminal damage.

Noble Lords might think that this is somewhat reminiscent of one of Tony Blair's less successful inspirations, by which offenders might be marched to the nearest cashpoint and compelled to force it to disgorge a certain amount of money at the behest of a police officer. That is not quite the way in which the system works. The current analogy of what Tony Blair suggested might be bankers who treat their banks' assets as something like a cashpoint and come away with considerable sums of money without any penalty being imposed—but that is by the way.

Clause 121 and Schedule 20, with which it is linked, contain some interesting changes to the original scheme. They confer power on chief officers of police to set up a scheme in their area which would allow police officers to issue penalty notices not just, on this occasion, with a fine, but with an education option under which the offender—or the person suspected of having committed an offence because an offence does not have to be proved—would have the chance of avoiding the fixed penalty or court proceedings by undergoing an educational course for which he then pays the appropriate fee. This is somewhat reminiscent of the debate we had around the proposed scheme in London in relation to alcohol, but it is discrete. It is an analogous proposal. It is an interesting idea that such a course might be a suitable alternative to a financial penalty or court proceedings. Perhaps the noble Baroness will be able to say tonight or subsequently quite how far this concept has gone and whether indeed there are such educational courses available, whether this has been trialled anywhere, and so on. It would be helpful to have an understanding of where we are on this.

I have a slight reservation that this is left to chief officers of police, so we can presumably have the same situation, the same set of circumstances, in two adjoining force areas and an entirely different way of dealing with matters. I do not know whether the Minister will indicate whether she is content that this matter should be left entirely to the discretion of chief officers or whether it might be government policy eventually, perhaps having trialled the thing, to see whether it might be rolled out in a more systematic way.

Certainly, it is a welcome innovation to look at more constructive ways of steering people away from, in this case, disorderly and relatively minor criminal behaviour without the more drastic consequences of punishment through the courts. Nevertheless, there are some issues that arise with this proposal. First, I should welcome the fact that the notice cannot be given to a person under the age of 18, so we are dealing with adults only. However, there are some reservations about other aspects of the proposals. The first is the requirement that the police officer issuing a notice to an individual other than at a police station must be in uniform. In other words, a police officer out of uniform will still have that power to give a notice. I think that that is not good practice. It is something that I invite the Government to explain. It might be regarded as a matter of convenience, but if we are talking about disorder, if somebody who says he is a police officer and is not in uniform hands out a notice, one can envisage circumstances developing in a way that is not intended. In other words, there might be resistance to an approach of that kind from somebody not in uniform. Obviously, there might be some other evidence of the officer’s status, but I do not see that that suggestion is likely to assist in dealing with the matter. The other requirement, and I am less concerned about this, is that police officers currently have to be authorised constables when they are delivering notices in a police station. That would no longer be the case. Perhaps that is less obvious because people are then in police custody and the situation would be clearer.

However, there are some other reservations about these matters. When this was debated in the House of Commons, an amendment was moved by Helen Goodman MP for the Opposition maintaining the obligation of a police officer issuing a penalty notice for disorder to be in uniform and for the actual act of delivering that notice to take place within a police station. That was not accepted, but I would be interested in hearing the rationale for turning down that suggestion.

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[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, this clause gives effect to Schedule 20, which amends the PND—penalty notice for disorderly behaviour—scheme by giving the police the power to issue adult penalty notices with an education option, to abolish PNDs for under 18s and to remove some unnecessary constraints on a police officer’s ability to issue a PND.

PNDs were introduced by the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001, under the previous Government, to provide the police with a swift financial sanction to deal on the spot with low-level offending. PNDs may be issued for a specified range of offences listed in Section 1 of the 2001 Act. They include being drunk and disorderly, as we have heard, in a public place, low-level retail theft, behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress, and cannabis possession. I would reiterate that, in relation to the concerns mentioned by the noble Lord, PNDs were introduced by the previous Government.

At present the recipient of a PND has 21 days either to pay the penalty amount or to request a court hearing. By paying the penalty amount—currently £80 or £50 depending on the type of offence—the suspect discharges all liability to be prosecuted for and convicted of the offence, and no admission of guilt is required. If the recipient fails to take any action during the 21-day suspended enforcement period, a fine of one and a half times the penalty amount may be registered against them by the magistrates’ court.

Some 76 per cent of adults who received a PND in 2008 did not reoffend within one year. However, we believe that some individuals receiving PNDs would benefit from an educational intervention to reduce the likelihood of them reoffending. That is why we are responding to police requests for suitable PND recipients to be given the option to discharge their liability to conviction of the offence by paying to attend an educational course—where a police force has set up such a scheme—rather than simply paying the penalty amount in full. The noble Lord asked about examples. A number of schemes are operating in various forces, including Hertfordshire where courses are run by a charity called Druglink. It is self-sustaining as offenders pay to attend the courses.

Schedule 20 therefore gives the chief officer of a police force the power to establish an educational course scheme in his or her area and, where such a scheme has been set up, for officers in that area where appropriate to issue penalty notices with an education option. A recipient of a PND with an education option would be able to discharge their liability to be prosecuted for and convicted of the penalty offence in one of two ways. They could either pay the penalty amount in full or pay for and complete an educational course. Of course—I think that this is the key point in answer to the noble Lord—it remains an option to contest their responsibility for the offence by requesting a court hearing. A suspect’s failure to exercise any of these options, including paying for a course but then not attending or completing it, would result in a fine being registered against them at court of one and a half times the amount of the penalty.

PNDs with an education option will be offered only if a course has been set up in that area for the specific offence for which the PND was issued and where the police officer considers it to be appropriate. It is intended that courses will highlight the implications of the suspect’s behaviour, both for him or herself, or for the victim and the community, with the aim of reducing the likelihood of reoffending. For example, an individual suspected of being drunk and disorderly may be offered a PND with an option to attend an alcohol awareness course.

The schedule confers a number of new powers on the Secretary of State to make regulations prescribing the detail of educational course schemes, including the fees that may be set for a course and arrangements for dealing with non-attendance. In addition, and as part of work to develop a clearer national framework for dealing with adult and youth offending out of court, the schedule abolishes PNDs for under 18s. This will simplify youth out-of-court disposals and enable the police to focus on offering disposals that allow rehabilitative and reparative activities to take place. The aim is to prevent further offending and provide greater redress to victims and communities.

Finally, we are also cutting red tape and simplifying frontline police processes by removing the existing requirements that a police officer issuing a PND outside a police station must be in uniform and an officer issuing a PND inside a station must be formally authorised to do so. Both of these requirements are unnecessary. The uniform provision is particularly problematic in plain clothes operations—for example, test purchasing to tackle underage alcohol sales where officers are forced to bring suspects back to the police station to issue a PND. They would still need to demonstrate that they are indeed police officers. I hope that that reassures the noble Lord that there is a protection.

I think that I have covered most of what the noble Lord raised and I hope that Members of the Committee will welcome these improvements to the PND scheme. I would ask that Clause 121 and Schedule 20 stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Beecham]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her response and the information that she has given. I still think there is potentially something of a problem with dispensing with the uniform requirement, although I do not know what evidence there is that it has caused actual problems. Will the Minister say whether there will be a review of how the system is working in two or three years’ time to see if it is operating as intended? What stage are we at in terms of the regulations being drawn up that she referred to? Presumably they will come through under the normal procedure for approval.

[Baroness Northover]

In terms of review, the Government’s position is always to keep legislation under review and to take steps to deal with issues that arise, so obviously if the kind of concerns flagged up by the noble Lord are seen to develop, that would be picked up in any kind of review. I am sure that the regulations coming through will follow the normal procedures and that we will have all sorts of things to consider, but if I am not right about that, I shall write to the noble Lord.

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Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

185A: Clause 124, page 106, line 12, at end insert—
“(6A) Within three years of the commencement of this section, the Secretary of State must review and report to Parliament on the operation of youth cautions, in particular, the use of appropriate adults in the cautionary processes and whether it should be extended to 18 year olds.
(6B) At any point following a report being made under subsection (6A), the Secretary of State may by order extend the appropriate adult provisions in this section to a person given a youth caution, where that person is under the age of 18.”

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, given the time, happily this is a short amendment. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 established that people under the age of 17 years are to be treated as children and therefore have to be questioned or interviewed in the presence of an appropriate adult, but people of 17 years of age and up to 18 are not treated in the same way. The Government have dealt with what has been an anomaly about treating 17 year-olds as adults for the purposes of bail, and that has now been changed to lift the age to 18. It would seem to be consonant with that approach if the appropriate adult provision was also extended from 17 years of age to 18. This is a straightforward matter and I should say that the Prison Reform Trust, in which I declare an interest as a member of its advisory group on youth offending, strongly urges that this should be dealt with in the same way as the bail situation. Incidentally, the trust extends its thanks and praise to the Government, so if they want another round of thanks and praise, they merely have to accept this amendment. I beg to move.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, how very kind of the noble Lord. Youth cautions are specifically designed for young offenders and the provisions in Clause 124 underline our approach to the prevention of offending by children and young people by providing assessment and rehabilitative programmes through specialised youth offending teams. The noble Lord has flagged up the suggestion that appropriate adult provisions should be extended to offenders above the age of 17.

Work is under way in the Home Office, the Youth Justice Board and the Ministry of Justice to look at the possibility of extending the appropriate adult scheme for all under-18s in the criminal justice system. However, we will need to consider fully the resource implications before any change can be made. At the moment, we feel that the scheme needs to remain as it is, but we keep it under review. For the reasons I have set out, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I am not going to divide a thinly attended House at this hour of the night on this issue. What the Minister said is again consonant with the first amendment, which, after all, suggests a three-year period. That should be long enough even for the Home Office to come to some conclusions. However, in the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 185A withdrawn.