Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I apologise for not being here for the earlier part of the debate. Would my noble friend agree that one should insert an additional factor into the argument—that the vast majority of people who are sentenced to short terms of imprisonment have mental health issues? If we had a stronger community mental health sector, they should not be in custody; they should be in residential or community mental health care.

[Baroness Linklater of Butterstone]

I thank my noble friend for that, and regard it as very remiss of me for not having mentioned it earlier.

I have listened to what my noble friend Lord McNally said, and am delighted to hear that further investigations into certain things on the justice front, such as community sentences, are being taken forward. That will be very important. I will ponder what he has said until we return at Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My noble friend will recall that it was part of the vaunt of the coalition that the statute book would be tidied up so that there were far fewer redundant statutes. There are in fact hundreds and hundreds, possibly thousands, of redundant statutory provisions—I have a book of them upstairs by my desk. Given that this has not been brought into force now for nine years, in the spirit of clear statute-making would it not be better simply to repeal the original provision and, if the Government wished to have something like it in the future, to introduce that in a proper way in a Bill?

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, that is exactly what I asked and I was assured that in fact the Government wanted to keep the possibility of this being implemented. We therefore need to make sure that it is, as it were, complete.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My noble friend clearly did not understand what I was suggesting: that it is, to put it plainly, senseless to have something on the statute book nine years after it was enacted, with absolutely no intention of bringing it into force.

[Lord Avebury]

This is from 2008.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

No, this provision is from 2003 and it has not been brought into force for nine years. Is the right answer to this not to repeal the 2003 provision in question? If the Government then have some constructive suggestions for imposing imprisonment, if it be merited, on people who have been given a community sentence, why do we not start again with those provisions? In reality, my noble friend is not going to suggest for one moment that the Government will bring this redundant provision into force.

[Baroness Northover]

I assure my noble friend that in fact I understood him very clearly the first time. I asked, as this was introduced in 2003, changed in 2008 but not complete, why we would not seek to repeal it. However, I was told that the Government wish to retain this, in the possibility that it might be implemented—although with no intention of doing that at the moment. I fully support what he says about trying to rationalise legislation in all areas, and I worked very hard on the companies legislation, the first elements of which were finally rationalised relatively recently, after 100 years. I realise that these things can take a long time, but I take very much the point that legislation needs clarity. However, I hope that in this instance the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, will understand what I am arguing here and be willing to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment, which was moved so ably by the noble Baroness, who has done a great deal of work in bringing it to the attention of your Lordships. I shall make four points briefly.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said that this is an epidemic affecting the nation. She is of course right, but it is not a new epidemic. It is absolutely shameful that this epidemic has been affecting the nation to a greater and greater extent for, perhaps, the past 150 years. My noble friend Lord McNally got into a little difficulty earlier when he mentioned Dickens to the Committee, and probably rather wished that he had not. I think I will not be controverted if I say that Dickens describes the effect of drink on young and, in many cases, very poor people in London very graphically in a way which has developed over the years. It is absolutely shameful that this epidemic has been allowed to continue for so long and it is about time that we did something about it. This proposal promises a great deal.

My second point is about the experience of the courts. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Mr Hogan-Howe, who supports the amendment at least in principle, came to London after a gap following a period when he was the chief constable of Merseyside. On every Monday morning—I do not wish to be Liverpoolist about this; I am merely using a city I love as an example—in the magistrates’ court in Dale Street, there is a procession of young men and some young women who have been in custody over the weekend because of mostly, but not always, relatively low-level offences committed because of uncontrolled drinking. Bridewells such as the Liverpool Bridewell on a Friday and Saturday night are a sad piece of evidence as to the effects of drink taken to excess by young people.

I do not want to sound sanctimonious about this. Teaching people responsible drinking is a very good idea. We want families to teach their children responsible drinking, which you will have seen in fairly large measure after Wales’s victory over Ireland at the last gasp of the match last weekend—I knew that that would provoke my noble friend Lord Thomas from his slumber in front of me.

My point is that in every magistrates’ court and every Crown Court—this goes to serious levels of offending —although we tend to talk a great deal about the effect of drugs, believe me, the effect of drink is ubiquitous. Any of us who has practised or has sat in those courts knows that it attracts every kind of crime and affects every class in society and every age group, but particularly the young.

Thirdly, I mention legal aid. We have spent a lot of time in this Committee trying to find ways to save money without removing legal aid. If there is one sure way to save money on legal aid, it is by reducing the incidence of serious crime by the introduction of this kind of measure. I confess my interest as president of the Howard League and feel that I can put my hand on what passes for my heart and say to my noble friends on the Front Bench: if there is one guaranteed way of saving a great deal of money on legal aid in the very serious and middling sectors of crime, it is by adopting this kind of measure.

My fourth point is about the revolving door of imprisonment. In one connection we heard earlier from the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about 3,000 people who found themselves in prison because they were in breach of an order made in respect of a non-imprisonable offence. That is just one example of a huge cohort of people who find themselves in prison for breaking the law, although not terribly badly, relatively speaking. There is no cause of that door revolving at high speed greater than the misuse of alcohol. I believe that it would be completely irresponsible if we were not to seize this opportunity provided by the noble Baroness and have some serious pilot projects of the kind described in the amendment. I respectfully suggest to my noble friend on the Front Bench that in fact Liverpool would be a very good place to have a pilot because it has the community court, which was introduced by the previous Government. It is working extremely well and has won plaudits all around the world. In partnership with the community court, this kind of system could offer something towards reducing crime.

There is an analogy here. Drug treatment and testing orders—DTTOs—administered by judges, have been extremely effective in reducing drug-taking at a relatively low level. I have spoken to a number of circuit judges who have had to administer these orders and to a man and woman they believe that this kind of measure, which seeks to reduce the level of substance misuse gradually, works really well, mainly because it ceases to be authoritarian and engages the partnership of the person concerned. It works because most people who commit violent offences when they are, for example, under the influence of drink regret it afterwards and do not want to appear before a court in the future.

On those grounds, I support the amendment as strongly as I can and I hope that we will hear a positive response from the Front Bench.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I start by giving the apologies of my noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, whose name appears on the amendment. Unfortunately, he had to leave for another engagement.

I very strongly support the initiative set out by the noble Baroness. As has been said by others, it is a real recognition of the role that alcohol plays in crime, especially in domestic violence. The link between alcohol and domestic abuse is well known, as is the link between alcohol and cases of child protection. Alcohol Concern has demonstrated how often the criminal behaviour is repeated if the alcohol abuse is not tackled. As more than one of its clients has said, “He only hits me when he’s been drinking”. But as the alcohol support worker would reply, “If you knew you were going to hit the person you most loved once you were drunk, do you think you’d have that first drink?”.

The fact that so many men continue to take that first drink shows how valuable an intervention aimed at offenders could be. The sobriety scheme could play a role in this. I do not think that it is enough on its own, as I think that there needs to be some alcohol referral work to go alongside it. People who fail to tackle their misuse themselves are likely to need some assistance to work in parallel with breath-testing. That may involve some fairly brief intervention by experienced staff, and I believe that this scheme, working in parallel with the provision of such help, could make a real difference. The running of a pilot scheme, as suggested, is just the way to see whether this would work and whether, together with some brief interventions, it could help to deal with people who have a drink problem but who, by themselves, simply cannot get it under control. It could make a difference to the continued problem drinking of those who have broken the law.

I am no longer a magistrate, unlike my noble friend, but when I was a magistrate I would have loved the possibility of a rehabilitation order to monitor alcohol consumption. I believe that we should place victims centre-stage when we assess these amendments. Not only is most domestic abuse—that is the phrase used, although we used to call it “wife battering”—alcohol-fuelled but so, as we have already heard, is violence on the streets and against property, and there would be considerably less of that without the addition of drunkenness. When are we going to take action, as this House could do tonight, and do what ordinary, decent people want, which is to reduce the alcohol-related disruption to their lives?

This is an enabling measure. It does not require courts to impose it. It is an opportunity for someone with a propensity to misuse alcohol in a way that damages others, not themselves, to have a period of sobriety with, it is hoped, help, thus improving their family life as well as the well-being of others. The amendment would allow a magistrate to do this only if alcohol caused or contributed to the offence and the offender had a propensity to misuse alcohol and was willing to comply with the requirement.

My noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe was very anxious to make the point that a sunset clause could be added to a provision for such pilots so that, if they had not taken place after a year, the provision would not be needed on the statute book. Might that help the Government to accept the proposal? I very much hope that they will grasp with both hands this excellent idea of a pilot.