Liaison Committee Report

Debate between Lord Beith and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 12th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Beith]

The hon. Gentleman is a much-valued member of my Justice Committee and himself provides evidence of the valuable work that can be done in Select Committees. The extent to which services should be either carried out directly by Government or contracted out to the private sector is a matter of legitimate political argument, although Governments of quite different political persuasions have extended the role of the private sector in that regard. One thing that united Select Committee Chairs from different political backgrounds was the point that the civil service must have the necessary equipment for effective contracting when those processes are engaged in and that at every stage it should tell Ministers what they need to hear, not just what they want them to hear.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Last, but certainly not least, Paul Flynn.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Has the Chair of the Committee observed that this Government, possibly more than any other, have followed the traditional practice of blaming all problems on their predecessors, then on the European Union and then on the civil service? The civil service’s overriding weakness is the great ethos of the unimportance of being right, because those who spoke truth to power are the ones whose careers have withered, and those who spoke comforting untruths to power are the ones whose careers have prospered and who have got to the top. Can he give us an assurance that the Committee, in the splendid work it is doing, will follow what other Committees, such as the Public Accounts Committee, have done by saying that we need to respect, value and continue the great contribution that the independence of the civil service has made to this country over many years?

Justice Committee Report: Youth Justice

Debate between Lord Beith and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 14th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I thank the Chairman, the Committee and the staff for the work they have done in producing what is a weighty tome. Further to that point, we say in the report, based on the evidence that the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists gave us, that 10% of children in the general population have speech, communication and language difficulties, but the proportion of young offenders with such difficulties is 65% or just over. I am sure he remembers that we heard in evidence how this over-representation is part of a compounding risk model that begins at an early age. Does he therefore agree that, as well as ensuring that our youth justice system has access to speech and language therapists to help young people when they get into trouble and are in the system, we would be smart as a country to widen access—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Sir Alan was very generous and I allowed you to intervene, Mr Brine, but you cannot make a speech. You are meant to be making an intervention on Sir Alan, because he wants to reply and we need to get on to other business.

[Sir Alan Beith]

I think I get my hon. Friend’s point. He is absolutely right, and he and the Committee have regularly reminded us of that problem. There are so many young people in the criminal justice system who might not be there if they had not been so lacking in communication and language skills. We have to put significant effort into dealing with that part of the problem.

There will always be a need to detain a small number of young people who pose a risk of serious harm to the public, but youth custody is expensive. The Youth Justice Board spends £246 million on the secure estate, which is 65% of its total spending. Three quarters of those who leave youth custody reoffend, as opposed to a much smaller, but still too large, proportion of young offenders generally. That indicates that a lot of resource is going into a problem that we could better have prevented at an earlier stage.

Select Committee Effectiveness, Resources and Powers

Debate between Lord Beith and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 31st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. May I just remind the right hon. Gentleman that we said that speeches should last between 10 and 15 minutes? He has now had 19 minutes, and other Members wish to speak. We also do not have as much time as usual.

[Sir Alan Beith]

Mr Deputy Speaker, I hope that you will bear it in mind that several hon. Members, having looked at the clock, have decided to get their point across by intervening on me.

I should like to answer the hon. Lady’s question. She makes an important point. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have both taken the view that once they started going to Select Committees, they would end up being asked to go to all of them. Our response to both of them was that if that was their position, we would bring them to the Liaison Committee so that they could be questioned on matters in which they had played an important part.

I referred to the Osmotherly rules at some length because they are an important point of contention between the Committee and Ministers. We deal more fully with that in our report. We are saying to the Government that they need to engage with us on the way in which the Government relate to Parliament, rather than simply talking about consulting us on revising the rules.

The world has changed significantly. The election of Committees, and the way in which Members now see them as the main means of holding the Government to account, means that the Government must recognise that things are clearly different. Many Departments co-operate very well with the Committees, and quite a few Ministers find it helpful to have Committees looking at issues over which they—the Ministers—are involved in internal battles, either within their Department or with the Government. Many a Minister has had cause to thank a Select Committee for its support on such issues. There must be a recognition right across Government that Select Committees have a role to play in one of the most important functions of Parliament. There must be a clear understanding that Select Committees are entitled to information and that they should have the full co-operation of the Government.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Beith and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 31st October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Beith]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I call Sir Alan Beith.

[Stephen Phillips]

With the leave of the House, I was about to make my final few remarks.