Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Beecham and Baroness Kennedy of Shaws

Wednesday 30th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

I too feel very concerned about this capping of costs. I see it as being part of a pattern of seeking to reduce the discretion of judges. Of course government Ministers do not say, “We don’t have confidence in the judiciary”, but that essentially is what this is about. It is about saying, “We have to use law to do this because the discretion of the court cannot be trusted to do what we seek to effect”. This amendment is about insulating the Government against challenge. All the clauses that we have been discussing today are essentially about seeking to limit judicial discretion, judges being the people who can weigh up carefully the merits in order to reach just decisions. That is being interfered with to protect the Government from challenge. That is what it ends up being about.

I too, therefore, support the amendment. The Government should think again about how this is perceived. The sitting judges cannot stand up and speak on their own behalf, as we know, so it falls on those who have been judges or who are active in the courts to alert the general public to what is happening. What we are doing is fettering the power of judges to do that which is right in a given case.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, it might be convenient to consider this group and the following group as one. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, has addressed his amendments in that group. I strongly support the amendments tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Marks, to which I have added my name, together with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. I speak therefore briefly to the amendments in my name. Amendment 75 is particularly important in that it addresses the problems facing applicants for permission in the absence of legal aid for that stage. Amendment 75A provides that the court may make an order at any stage of the proceedings, in connection with Clause 68(3), and Amendment 75B would extend this potential protection to interveners whose position we have debated in a somewhat different context earlier today. Amendment 75E removes the reference to the court considering information of a financial nature if such is only “likely to be available”—a phrase that we have already debated —in respect of Clause 68(5).

Without the protection of the amendments in the group, not least from the Government’s proposals about a public interest test, which the Lord Chancellor conveniently empowered to define the terms of such a test, the protection offered to parties by this clause would be diluted to homeopathic proportions.

In the next group, Amendment 80B would apply to Clause 69(2) and provide that a costs capping order limiting or removing the liability of the applicant to pay another party’s costs where an order is not granted should “normally” rather than mandatorily limit or remove the other party’s liability to pay the applicant’s costs if that is the case. That introduces an element of reciprocity. Amendment 80C alternatively would allow discretion by substituting “may” for “must” in the subsection; again the issue of judicial discretion raises its head.

We have heard powerful speeches from non-lawyers—the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, and my noble friends Lady Lister and Lord Davies—and, if I may say so, a magisterial rebuke to the Government from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf; that was not for the purposes of delivering an admonition but to persuade them of the error of their ways, which I hope the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, will convey to the Lord Chancellor with some effect. These provisions thoroughly dilute what ought to be a sensible measure to protect claimants in this particularly important area of jurisdiction.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Beecham and Baroness Kennedy of Shaws

Monday 14th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, tagging—or electronic monitoring, to give it its official title—is potentially a useful tool in cases where it is necessary to protect the public by, for example, prohibiting contact with named individuals, imposing a curfew or restricting access to particular places. Even so, we are all conscious of the appalling experience with the Government’s favoured all-purpose contractors, G4S and Serco, which resulted in the repayment by those companies in the end of £214 million, roughly equivalent to the total of a year’s savings engendered by cuts to legal aid. Clause 7 takes us, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, into new territory with the extension of the use of this system to prisoners on licence, and that on a mandatory basis. The Chief Inspector of Prisons has been highly critical of this proposal, since in the absence of evidence of absconding or committing offences while on licence this is not, in fact, a significant problem. What is the evidence on which this proposal is based and what is the cost of the equipment and the necessary monitoring? The impact assessment states:

“Though benefits likely to arise from the increased use of ELM have been identified, we are not able to quantify these benefits at this stage … As such, we are unable to calculate impact”.

That is an extraordinary basis on which to import into this legislation a mandatory requirement. It seems, as an approach to legislation, to be matched only by the Home Office’s approach to record keeping.

Dan Jarvis MP, my honourable friend in the Commons, has identified some significant risks. They include the possibility that the technology might not be capable of delivering the service at an economic cost. The use of tagging might not have the anticipated deterrent effect. The new licence conditions might lead to an increase in breaches, such as not wearing the tag, which could lead to more prison places being required. On the latter point, the impact assessment rather weakly admits that the number of additional prison places required, “cannot be accurately estimated”. If ever the Government’s own impact assessment has made the case for properly piloting a provision, this is clearly such a case. Moreover, there is widespread concern about making this a mandatory condition, something that is at odds with the whole purpose of release on licence, which is to help offenders reintegrate into society. One has to ask whether making it mandatory is a provision dictated by the potential contractors’ need for an assured case load and associated financial returns rather than any substantive merits of the procedure.

There is also the unacceptable position that the Secretary of State may impose a code of practice especially about the data acquired through the process without parliamentary approval. The Joint Committee on Human Rights regards safeguards in relation to the collection and storage of such data as crucial. Where are we in relation to the drafting of a code? Amendment 12 deals with this issue.

Amendment 13 calls for an early review of any scheme in order to assess its actual impact on individuals, on reoffending, and on cost. Amendment 11, which we seek to repeat in Amendment 44 applying to secure colleges, would make the contractors subject to freedom of information procedures. Last year, the Information Commissioner asked the Justice Committee, in this respect, if more and more services are delivered by alternative providers which are not public authorities, how do we get accountability? This is particularly relevant in the context of the justice and penal systems, where there have been too many worrying failures and instances of quite disgraceful treatment of prisoners and detainees by such contractors. If, as is quite right, state prisons are subject to the Freedom of Information Act, what possible reason could there be for excluding other providers, including those who are to provide the tagging mechanisms here?

I hope that the Minister can deal with some of these questions, as well as the points of substance raised by the noble Lord, Lord Marks. It is absolutely impermissible for these powers simply to be imposed by order, and on the basis of such flimsy evidence as the Minister produced, to support the extension in the way that the Bill prescribes.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I know that it is normal that the Front Bench on this side finishes any debate before the Minister answers, but I really have a bad feeling about the clause and I want to support the amendment. The provision smacks to me of the outcome of lobbying by those who will have highly remunerative contracts, if it comes to pass. We are not hearing any costings on this, and I would very much like the Minister to tell us what it is going to cost the public purse. As others have said, there are circumstances in which it is very useful to tag someone when there are concerns about whether they might not respond to the ordinary inhibitions on their liberty during a period of parole, but I am concerned about it being used in this wide way. Behind the provision is the lobbying by those private sector companies that now make a great deal of money out of this very kind of thing. Have any costings been done? How much will it cost the public purse?

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Beecham and Baroness Kennedy of Shaws

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

My Lords, it comes as a sort of alarm to hear the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, indicate that there may be vulnerable people who, because they are unrepresented and do not have adequate support, may be agreeing out of court to cautions or to certain kinds of settlement of charges against them without proper legal advice. That should be a serious source of concern. In responding, I hope that the Minister will have something positive to say. Undoubtedly, the removal of legal aid is having that kind of outcome. I await with interest what the Minister will say. I support any protection that there can be for the vulnerable in the courts.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I take the Government’s point about resources, but as my noble friend rightly points out, there are two sides to that equation. One is the cost to the system, which can flow from inadequate representation of defendants, adjournments and the rest of it, as well as the cost of providing it. Of course, there are defendants who get assistance in the form of interpretation. As it turns out, recent developments in interpreting services have been, to put it mildly, controversial. Contracts have been given to organisations that apparently have not performed very well, at considerable cost in terms of the fees paid to them. Equally, as might be the case in connection with people who are unable to understand proceedings and follow them unassisted, some of the interpreters who turned up to the courts were simply not up to the job. It has been something of a disaster.

This is an analogy for the Government to look at in terms of providing services for people who, for different reasons, are unable perhaps to follow a case properly, to understand it properly, or to give proper instructions to their legal advisers. I hope that the Government will look at that and look at this position in the round. The noble Baroness has already identified the discrepancy between witnesses and defendants. Here, we potentially have two classes of defendants, some of whom may not speak English adequately and for whom interpretation will be provided, and others who may not be able to follow because of learning disabilities or other aspects, and for whom nothing would be provided.

Looking at the whole situation surely is sensible. I hope that the Government will acknowledge that there is a disjunction here between what is provided for different classes of defendants, and will not simply put this on the back shelf but will look at it with a degree of urgency. Miscarriages of justice can flow at any time from failure to provide adequate assistance, whether that is legal aid or, as in this case at least, the kind of support that can be offered by those described in my noble friend’s amendment. I hope that the Government will acknowledge that there is an issue here and that, at the very least, if they are not able to respond firmly and conclusively tonight, that they will give it more urgent attention than was indicated in the letter which was recently sent out.