Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration etc.) (Amendment) Regulations 2015

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on moving this Regret Motion. I sit as a magistrate in London in the family courts, the youth courts and adult criminal courts and I frequently hear cases where the defendant or applicant is a litigant in person. From the court’s perspective, some litigants in person represent themselves very well. They understand the advice that they receive from the clerks and manage both the legal process and the practical aspects of navigating the court system through to a conclusion that they believe is satisfactory. However, some—I would say many—litigants in person have difficulty understanding the guidance that they are given when in court. They struggle with the whole procedure and, at the end, do not feel that they have been treated justly by the system that they have grappled with.

I want to tell noble Lords an anecdote from about a year ago. It concerns a woman who turned up in court charged with fraud against her employer. She was a litigant in person. She came into court and was correctly identified. The clerk then asked her whether she was guilty or not guilty. Her reply was, “I am guilty but I want to plead not guilty”. When asked to explain herself, she did indeed have a rationale for saying that. She was imminently due to have a medical operation. If she had pleaded guilty she would lose her employment and not be able to have the operation, so she was going to delay the finding of guilt until a trial.

It could be argued that the defendant had told us that she was guilty and that she was planning to commit a further fraud on her employer. But as a court we were limited in the advice that we could give to her other than to advise her of the benefits of a guilty plea. We had 30 other cases to deal with that day. We filled in the necessary forms and the matter was indeed put off for trial. If that lady had had some robust defence advice, she may have decided to plead guilty as she had indeed told us she was guilty. But her right to plead not guilty trumped everything else, resulting in the additional cost of the trial.

The overwhelming point that I want to make is that we see many vulnerable people in courts—people who are not able to represent themselves. There is a concern. The Magistrates’ Association, together with other interested bodies, has tried to judge whether the justice system is functioning properly with this increase in litigants in person. I draw the House’s attention to a survey of magistrates published on 13 January this year. Views were taken before costs came in in February 2014 and again in November 2014 after the increase in litigants in person. The survey shows a noticeable increase in the dissatisfaction expressed by magistrates because they felt that the system was not being as just as it should be.

I understand that there are a lot of surveys, but the current chair of the Magistrates’ Association, Richard Monkhouse, was a statistician in a former life and this is a robust piece of work. I have looked at it myself and I have a scientific background. I hope that the Government will look at these figures carefully because they raise a worrying growth in uncertainty and dissatisfaction with the increase in the number of litigants in person.

A wider point should be made. Other aspects of the legal and court system also feed into the general sense of dissatisfaction and the feeling that the court system as a whole is not properly offering justice to people. We have heard from my noble friend about the imposition of the criminal courts charge. In the family courts, we have had cuts to legal aid and an increase in the costs of drug and alcohol testing, which reduces access to fairness for people. We have had the increase in tribunal fees and cuts to CABs. These are off-topic for the purposes of this debate, but they add to the sense of many vulnerable people feeling that the court system as a whole is not open to them as it should be.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (LD)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, who brings a rich vein of evidence from his experience as a lay magistrate to your Lordships’ deliberations. I declare the interests of having been a barrister practising criminal law for 45 years and having spent 28 years, until I retired from these roles at the end of last year, as a part-time judge at various levels and, particularly for this debate, as a former president of the Howard League for Penal Reform.

In a few moments, I shall talk about prison law specifically, but I wanted to address some issues about the generality of this debate, if I may. I agree with the broad thrust of what has been said about the effect of the regulations. However, I want to commend the Lord Chancellor for his willingness to engage with the legal profession, both the Bar and the solicitors, during recent weeks and months. This has been appreciated. Other things could be done than cutting criminal legal aid in the way which has been described.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Friday 16th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (LD)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Carlisle, not least because he and I have a greater insight than most into each other’s parliamentary lives, as we receive a great deal of each other’s post on a mostly daily basis.

I hesitate to disagree with words used so firmly by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I do so particularly because, not so long ago, he appeared as my counsel in a public law case with his customary brilliance. However, the emphasis of his assertion, that this Bill is perfectly clear, is in my view just plain wrong, mainly for the reason given so clearly by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth. As he was speaking, I was thinking back to the death two years ago of my then 98-and-a-half year-old mother. The family took enormous steps to assist her death. We put her in the place that we thought was most comfortable for her death—she did not agree, but that was characteristic of our robust and loving relationship. We took steps to ensure that all her grandchildren and great-grandchildren went to see her. We brought her her favourite alcoholic beverage, something rather eccentric called Wiszniowka. We did everything we possibly could to make her as comfortable as was possible. But we did not assist her to commit suicide. She died a natural death as a result of, unfortunately, rampant disease which she experienced in old age.

We debated earlier this week part of another Bill, the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, in which something was described as the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, which was anything but a privacy and civil liberties board—it was a perfectly legitimate suggestion, but it was not what it said on the tin. This Bill empowers people who would otherwise be committing a serious crime to be excused from the criminal consequences of their action. It enables people—apparently doctors under its provisions as they stand—to kill other people deliberately, after consideration, with purpose. Anyone who believes that that is not the case is not taking a realistic look at the Bill. It is a matter for Parliament whether that is a proper thing for Parliament to do—I am not commenting on that at the moment, although I am opposed to it—but it is misleading to the public not to say what the Bill does, both in a provision such as that proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and in the Title, which we will debate at a later stage, if we get to it.

When we include in the Bill words like those proposed by the noble Baroness and others, we are providing clarity which tells us two things about impact: first, it tells us about the impact on the person who is giving the assistance—as I said, they are committing a serious act which would otherwise be a breach of the law which might well land them in prison; secondly, we are describing the impact on the person who is wishing to die. We are saying that this is not a normal death, even if it is a death which is assisted by what is sometimes called, very clearly, the doctrine of double effect. We are making it clear that that person is dying because they wish to do so.

I am surprised to hear so much opposition from supporters of the Bill to giving within it a clear description of what they intend. If they do not accept this kind of amendment, then others, including some journalists who have been commenting favourably on the narrow scope of the Bill, may well come to the conclusion that it is indeed just a stalking horse for euthanasia.

[Lord Warner (Lab)]

My Lords, I have been sitting through these debates for 12 years—

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Moved by

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

13: Clause 2, page 1, line 13, leave out “a registered medical practitioner” and insert “at least two registered medical practitioners, with one of whom the person has been registered for medical care for at least six months immediately prior to making the declaration at section 1(2)(b) and at least one of whom has diagnosed the terminal illness and treated the person in relation to that terminal illness,”

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My Lords, I beg to move the amendment standing in my name and in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth. In relation to pre-emption, Amendment 13A is part of this group, and will be moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. It has the effect of amending the term “registered medical practitioners” to “licensed medical practitioners”. I make it clear at the outset that I have no objection whatever to that amendment being made. Indeed, I regard it as a helpful amendment to my amendment, for a reason that I shall now give.

As I understand the situation, a registered medical practitioner could be any medical practitioner who is on the register. I suppose that that is stating the obvious, but that could include, for example, a medical practitioner who is retired but who has chosen for one reason or another to remain on the register. It could include a registered practitioner who has not laid hands on a patient for a very long time. A licensed medical practitioner is one who is shown in the General Medical Council’s relevant documents to hold a particular expertise or expertises that are current. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, will explain that more expertly than me in a little time.

I regard this group of amendments as extremely important, because they come at the gateway to assistance with suicide and assistance with dying that is provided for in this Bill. The gateway is diagnosis; nobody can go through that gateway unless they have been diagnosed as terminally ill—and what terminally ill means is defined.

I cite table 1 on page 7 of the Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act Annual Report for 2013. Its figures show that the median patient-physician relationship prior to assisted suicide in Oregon in 2013 was 12 weeks. That means that for the 752 people in Oregon recorded as dying using the Death with Dignity Act, half knew their doctor for 12 weeks or less.

I make no complaint about these issues if we are to have this Bill as an Act, but what are the issues that the diagnosing doctor or doctors are to certify themselves as satisfied about? First, it is that the person concerned has an inevitably progressive condition. That is quite a serious medical diagnosis, as is plain, to be determined at the date of the diagnosis. Secondly, it is that it cannot be reversed by treatment. In Clause 2(2), it is stated:

“Treatment which only relieves the symptoms of an inevitably progressive condition temporarily is not to be regarded as treatment which can reverse that condition”.

That is a very complex provision. The medical determination of whether medication or other treatment “only relieves the symptoms” is far from simple. How is one to judge whether it “only relieves the symptoms” or whether it provides some form of remission which goes rather further than only relieving the symptoms?

Then there is the provision in Clause 2(1)(b) that the person,

“is reasonably expected to die within six months”.

There was a discussion on Radio 4 this morning about the meaning of an expectation that someone will die within six months. This to a great extent is not science in the sense that no doctor, save in the most extreme circumstances, can predict when a person will die. Whether a person is potentially on the cusp of being expected to die within or around six months is certainly not something that I understand has ever been scientifically researched in full. Indeed, I recall in a debate some years ago a most compelling and memorable speech given by the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, in which she described exactly a circumstance in which it was predicted that someone extremely close to her would die within a very short time, and the person is still alive today. So this is very inexact medical science, and it is asking a great deal of doctors to make that kind of diagnosis.

What are the characteristics that might make that kind of diagnosis reliable and reasonable? I am sorry; I referred to my mother earlier and I am now going to refer to my father, who was a general practitioner in Burnley, Lancashire. One of my treasured possessions, which sits by my desk at home, is his last visiting book for the last year he was in medical practice. I spent much of my very happy childhood being given sweets by dear old ladies whom he visited on his rounds; it was one of the things that made me go on his rounds with him in his Austin A30. I reminded myself of what he used to do by looking at the book this morning. First, he used to visit his patients. I do not believe that anyone in my family has had a house call from their general practitioner in the 21st century, but it used to be very common. As I refreshed my memory this morning, I saw that he used to place his rounds in two columns: one was the calls that had been taken by the surgery—people who were ill and wanted the doctor to call—and the other was what he used to call, perhaps slightly unattractively, his “chronics”. His “chronics” were patients he visited on a periodic or regular basis. Some of them became friends to him and he knew all about their lives. He knew about the progress of their illness and about their domestic circumstances. He knew whether their children cared for them or took any interest in them. He knew whether they were poor or affluent and was able to ensure in the terms of those days that whatever statutory care was available was provided. In other words, he and doctors like him had a relatively intimate knowledge of their patients. When he met them in the streets of that great east Lancashire town, he could never remember who they were but he could always remember exactly what was wrong with them and members of their families. It is a bit like we lawyers remembering cases without necessarily being able to remember the names of those cases.

I know that it is dangerous to be nostalgic about medicine although, if we look at the state of the health service today, perhaps nostalgia is decent evidence, but when we look at the relationships that such doctors have with their patients, it is undoubtedly the case that they have, and had, a body of knowledge on which to base their diagnosis. We are not talking about diagnosing measles. We are not even talking about diagnosing some extremely unpleasant diseases; we are talking about diagnosing if and when someone is going to die.

My view, and that of the noble Lords who have also signed this amendment, and, I hope, of many others, is that nobody should go through the gateway of this Bill unless they have been seen by medical practitioners—I respectfully suggest to your Lordships that it should be no fewer than two—with at least one of them having had relevant care of that patient for at least six months, so that they have been able to build up a knowledge of that patient. It is difficult to imagine somebody with a terminal illness who has not had a relationship of six months with a doctor unless they have been involved in a trauma that has happened very recently.

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

Would my noble friend consider the case of patients with mesothelioma—perhaps we might hear also from my noble friend Lord Alton on that issue later—a disease that develops rapidly and which is normally fatal in a period of less than 12 months? Is it not probable that a patient who suddenly develops mesothelioma will not have been seen by a doctor for the period that the noble Lord requests?

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My noble friend, for whom I have the utmost admiration and with whom I have worked on many issues, I am afraid misses the point of what I am saying. I know the work that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who was referred to, has done on mesothelioma. I absolutely applaud that work and I will give way to him in just a second when I have finished this paragraph. What I have in mind is that in a situation like that there will be not only the specialist who may be treating an issue that has arisen recently but a general practitioner who has had that patient on their books for a considerable time, who will have records that they can look at which give them that knowledge, and who will have seen the patient in the past. What I am seeking is exactly the combination between a licensed medical practitioner—I accept that they should be licensed—who has had some experience of dealing with the patient and a specialist who may be treating the symptoms of the particular illness.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

The noble Lord has entirely answered the remark of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, about mesothelioma. It is indeed predicted that some 60,000 more British people will die of that terrible disease over the next 20 to 30 years. However, the point is that they have general practitioners who care for them, and of course they have specialists who they then go to see as well. In many ways, it reinforces the noble Lord’s point—that having two doctors to examine a patient and be with them—to go through the gateway, as he put it earlier—is the right thing to do, as expressed in the amendment.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton. I see that I have spoken for 12 minutes and want to bring my remarks to a close.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords—

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

Well, I would bring my remarks to a close, but my admiration for the noble Lord who has just stood up is almost unallayed, and I shall therefore give way.

[Lord Pannick]

I am grateful. I just want to ask for clarification. The noble Lord’s Amendment 13, as I understand it, would specify the identity of the doctors who may make the relevant declaration for Clause 2 purposes. However, what if those doctors, for whatever reason, are opposed to the Bill, or Act of Parliament, and do not wish to participate? Should the patient then be prevented from taking advantage of this legislation?

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

Uncharacteristically, the noble Lord makes an entirely false point. The first response is that my amendment does not specify any doctor. The second response is that for those who are registered with general practitioners—I guess, the vast majority of the population—there are almost no single-handed practitioners left in this country. Therefore, within the group of general practitioners with whom the patient is registered—the right word is “registered”—for this purpose, there will be a choice of doctors. In any event, the noble Lord knows well that it is intended that there should be a conscience clause placed in this legislation, and there will be doctors who will simply, out of conscience, not certify that patients have the diagnosis required for the gateway.

[Lord Warner]

My Lords—

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

No, I am not going to give way to the noble Lord; he can speak in a moment. I do not mean to be discourteous, but I know that he is well able to make his own points, and he will be able to make them in as contentious a way as he wishes, and as is sometimes habitual.

[Lord Warner]

My Lords—

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[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I am not giving way to the noble Lord, I am afraid—not on this occasion. He has opportunity to speak and I have now been on my feet for 15 minutes. In closing, my suggestion to your Lordships is that if we are to have this legislation and if the system is to be safe, we must have one in which the gateway is a strong gateway and not merely a flimsy wicket. I beg to move.

Amendment 13A (to Amendment 13)

Moved by

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, like the Government, the Opposition are not expressing a view on the Bill, and we have a free vote on this side of the House. I ask the Minister to help me with an interpretation of the meaning of Amendment 13, particularly in relation to the meaning of the provision that one of the registered medical practitioners has to have had the person registered with them for at least six months. Does he take that to mean that a patient has to be registered with a general practitioner for the provisions of the Bill to apply? I am assuming that when patients are under the treatment of other doctors, such as hospital doctors, they are not registered with them. This is important. If I am right—and I am expressing no view on the merits of the amendment—it would be helpful to the Committee to know from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, what would happen in circumstances where, for reasons which have been set out by other noble Lords, a person is not registered or has been removed, sometimes forcibly removed, from the list by the GP under the arrangements that apply. It would be helpful if he could clear up that point.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I am happy to clear it up. My understanding—and I am happy to be corrected by the Minister if I am wrong—is that if I am nominally registered with Dr A, who is in a practice with Drs B, C and D, and I go for treatment and am seen and treated by Dr D, I am being treated by a doctor with whom I am registered. That is because my registration with a doctor in a practice includes registration and treatment by any other doctor in that practice.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

That is a very helpful response. Can the noble Lord explain the circumstances in which a patient is not so registered? At any one time there are thousands of patients who are not registered.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

If a patient is not registered, they are not registered. If a patient goes as a temporary resident—as I think the term used to be; I am not sure if it still is—to see a particular doctor, a general practitioner, they are then registered for the period of the temporary residence, which from memory is, or at least used to be, one month, and which may be renewable for the purposes of that treatment.

To deal with the broader aspects of the noble Lord’s question it might be worth making the further point, while I am on my feet, that it is very difficult to imagine that a patient would be in the situation described in the Bill but had not been treated for at least six months by a practitioner, such as the practitioner who was treating their cancer. That is the general experience that people have.

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, I do not have anything to add on that particular point.

This has been an excellent debate which has gone to the heart of some of the most difficult parts of the Bill. Why is six months the right period? Of course, we have heard plenty of informed opinion about how difficult it is to make a prognosis of any accuracy. In Amendment 21, a period of six weeks is suggested as a better period. It may be that that enables a clearer prognosis to be given, but it seems extremely short for the various practicalities and safeguards to give the Bill any real meaning. Inevitably, six months is something of a compromise; the question is whether it is a satisfactory compromise. It will not, of course, suit everybody.

It is something of an irony that one of the spurs behind this Bill and our debates is the Supreme Court’s decision in Nicklinson, which was concerned with the desire of two men with locked-in syndrome—an almost totally paralysing but not terminal condition—to request assistance to die. The Committee might like to be reminded that the President, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, commenting in the judgment on the Falconer commission and the six-month period, said:

“That would not assist the applicants”.

I am sure that that is not in dispute. He went on:

“Further, I find it a somewhat unsatisfactory suggestion. Quite apart from the notorious difficulty in assessing life expectancy even for the terminally ill, there seems to me to be significantly more justification in assisting people to die if they have the prospect of living for many years a life that they regarded as valueless, miserable and often painful, than if they have only a few months left to live”.

These are very difficult questions and I look forward to hearing the answer from the noble and learned Lord.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I am again grateful for a very good debate. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, as ever, that this goes to important issues in the debate. I accept the definition given by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, of these issues, which go to the safeguards.

In looking at the safeguards, it is important to put into context the safeguards in the current draft of the Bill: two doctors, independent of each other, certifying that the patient has a terminal illness which they reasonably expect will end their life within the next six months; the two doctors, independent of each other, certifying that the person has made a voluntary decision, that they have the capacity to make that decision and that it is their firm and settled intention that they wish to take their own life in those circumstances; and that decision is not to be given effect without the consent of the Family Division of the High Court of Justice. Those are the safeguards.

Let us look at the proposals in the light of those existing safeguards. First, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, proposes, in effect, that a person must have as one of the doctors a general practitioner with whom he or she has been registered for the last six months—I understand that registration is a concept that only has relevance to a general practitioner. That proposal, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has pointed out, appears not to deal with people in the following circumstances: somebody who, for example, moves to live near their relatives, then gets ill and is not registered for six months; somebody whose general practice, for example one run by a sole practitioner, packs up; or somebody who, for example, has a general practitioner who has a conscientious objection to the use of the provisions of the Bill.

If Parliament were to pass a Bill giving people the right to an assisted death, I venture to suggest that it would be a very odd conclusion that your ability to access that right would depend on the adventitious circumstance of whether, for example, you had moved one month before to be near your son and daughter, as my own stepmother did. That does not seem a sensible basis. However, a very powerful thread in this—which has been mentioned in particular by the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Empey—is the idea of a doctor who does not, as it were, properly consider the merits of an individual case but is, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, available for hire. That is something that I would wish to avoid as much as possible. I venture to suggest that there may be three ways to deal with it.

First, I would expect the medical bodies to produce guidance. That can be given effect to, because a High Court judge would have to be satisfied that an appropriate process had been gone through. In addition to that, I note that, according to Clause 3(7), the independent doctor has to be “suitably qualified” in that he,

“holds such qualification or has such experience in respect of the diagnosis and management of terminal illness as the Secretary of State may specify in regulations”.

I would anticipate that the Secretary of State would be able to make in regulations provisions that make it clear that the independent doctor could not be the sort of doctor that the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Empey, and others referred to. If there are better ways of dealing with the doctor for hire situation, I am very willing to hear and discuss them and bring them forward at the next stage, but I am absolutely clear that the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, is suggesting it be dealt with is unworkable and unfair and cuts at the heart of the Bill.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I have a serious question for the noble and learned Lord, which I am sure he will answer seriously. The thrust of what I am saying in my amendment, with my noble colleagues who have signed it, is that the gateway that is provided in Clause 2 should be subject to two doctors—doctors who can be shown to have some considerable knowledge of the person’s case. Is he willing to accept that principle?

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I do not accept it in the way that the noble Lord has formulated it. I say that there should be two doctors who have properly, on good evidence, considered the case. It may well be that neither of those doctors has been engaged in the long-term or even short-term care of the person. But I would be satisfied with the gateway involving two doctors who have gone through a proper and rigorous process, and I disagree with the noble Lord when he says that they have to have known the person for six months. Indeed, I do not think he is even saying that because registration over a six-month period would not necessarily involve any contact whatever with the general practitioner.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, who has made a helpful response, up to a point. If the Bill were to go further, would he be prepared to enter into discussions on the clear basis that Clause 2 would have to be amended to ensure, first, that there were two doctors involved in that gateway—whatever the gateway is, because we are going to consider another group shortly that is relevant—and, secondly, that it should be shown that at least one of those doctors has had detailed past consideration of the patient’s case? It seems to me that that sort of measure is the only way of ensuring that we do not have a Shipman-type situation.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

The first point about the two doctors is dealt with in Clause 3, because the second doctor has to certify that he is content. The noble Lord is getting frightfully agitated. If he looks at Clause 3, he will see that it requires certification by a second, independent doctor.

Secondly, the noble Lord asked whether I would enter into discussions in relation to putting in the Bill that one of the doctors has had to be involved in the care of the patient. No, I would not because I think it is satisfactorily dealt with in the Bill as it stands, for the reasons I have indicated. I will answer the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, first, and then go to the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis.

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[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My Lords—

[Baroness Masham of Ilton]

Can the noble and learned Lord say if he thinks that pressure might be put on some vulnerable people from family members who want to save money?

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Amendment 13A withdrawn.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My Lords, perhaps the Minister or the Chief Whip will correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that the position is that I should now wind up on my amendment after the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has dealt with her amendment to my amendment. I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Masham; I simply did not see her trying to intervene. I did not intend to be discourteous.

This debate has taken—it just disappeared from the screen—something like two and three-quarter hours, which is a clear indication of the importance of the issues we have been discussing in this group of amendments. I express my gratitude to noble Lords who have taken part, including of course to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, who has responded to this debate and intervened at various times in a helpful and constructive way. He suggested at one moment that I was agitated. Agitated—no; frustrated—yes. I will explain my frustration.

The noble and learned Lord, as far I can see throughout the latter half of this debate, has addressed Clause 3. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, who is a distinguished and talented lawyer, saw straight through that and made it clear that we are dealing with Clause 2. That clause is about the gateway. Clause 3 is about the certification. There is a very serious point of principle about the standards that there should be at the gateway. I make no apology for re-emphasising that it is my view—otherwise I and others would not have tabled these amendments—that the gateway to this whole process must have medical, intellectual, empirical and objective integrity. None of those words are tautologies. It is the sum of them that we need for this gateway.

I do not know how many of your Lordships have read Dame Janet Smith’s three reports on the Shipman case. It was one of the biggest compendious inquiries that there has ever been. This issue was not really adequately addressed, in my respectful view, in this debate. In a quiet and beautiful valley in the same part of Lancashire and Yorkshire that I was dealing with earlier—in fact, in Todmorden, which is just over the border, in that county that Lancastrians rarely name—Dr Shipman probably killed a couple of hundred people. He was regarded as a kindly, gentle general practitioner to whom you gave a cup of tea and whom you could invite into your house with confidence. I want to be sure—and I know that others in this House want to be sure—that the gateway is safeguarded against people like Dr Shipman, for the reasons illustrated so well in her reports by Dame Janet Smith.

Furthermore, I reject the arguments that have been mentioned that there are real, practical difficulties with this amendment. There may be a few cases—and when we have dealt with the principle, we can look at the detail—in which people move away either from the general practitioner’s practice that has been dealing with them or from the specialist who has been treating the illness that has been determined as terminal. However, in my view those cases are going to be very few in number, far fewer than has been suggested by some of your Lordships, and that should not be an inhibition at this stage to the establishment of a clear safeguard and principle of safety.

The point was made by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, that we are talking here about safety. We should hearken very carefully to the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, in her first intervention. She happens to represent in an informal way in our House that very important constituency of disabled people. She has told your Lordships that many disabled people outside this House do not have reassurance that this Bill provides in its gateway sufficient safeguards. In itself, that seems to be a sufficient reason to determine whether we wish to have the principle in this amendment. Furthermore the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord McColl, highlighted the fact that the Royal College of Pathologists has shown in many cases that the cause of death given was just plain wrong. That shows how important it is to have robust safeguards.

We had some references to forms that I must admit I am fortunate enough never to have read, relating to benefit rules. To me, referring to those forms is a complete absurdity in the context of this debate. Those forms are about whether people are going to be paid sums of money by the state for their maintenance. That is no doubt an important issue, but it pales into insignificance on the issue of principle that relates to one person helping another person to commit suicide with a huge and lethal dose of barbiturates.

I could make many more comments, but I note that it is now 2.50 pm. In my judgment, there is a real principle and there are a lot of people waiting for your Lordships’ determination of that principle. To me it is as simple as this: do we want the gateway to be safe or are we prepared to take risks with people’s lives? With that in mind, I believe that the opinion of the House should be tested.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, largely because since this House last discussed secure training colleges, two secure training centres have been given notice of closure by the Youth Justice Board. One of those, Hassockfield, was in my constituency. What lessons have the Government learnt from the introduction of secure training centres? My recollection is that I opposed them when we were in opposition when the legislation went through in, I think, 1996. My Government said that they had to carry that through because the contracts had been signed. When Hassockfield opened, I was contacted virtually daily by the police who said, “The children in here are too young. They do not understand what it means to be in a secure establishment. We are being called every day and they’re ending up in police cells”. Indeed, they wrecked the place. So the initial contract, which was given to an American company, then went to Serco. Someone from the Youth Justice Board had to be in there full-time to sort out the regime, and since then Hassockfield and, I understand, the other secure training centres have not taken many children under 15 because the regime in a secure centre, even with what Ofsted says is now very good education, is not suitable for young children.

The other issue is about being near home. There was a tragedy at Hassockfield. I discussed it at great length with a whole range of people, and one of the reasons for that young boy taking his life, although by no means the only one, was his distance from home and his contact with home and his own community.

The Government are taking enormous risks with the safety—and the ability to change and handle their lives—of children in incredibly complex difficulties. In relation both to having one centre in the middle, to which children have to travel a long way, and to the issues of the age group and including girls, the Government need to learn the lessons of their own history in setting up secure training colleges. They should think about this again and look at the language used when the colleges were introduced. It was very similar to the language that Ministers used in this House today and in the Commons last week. If they do so they will recognise that they are making a mistake and that they really do need to rethink this policy.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (LD)]

I will ask the Minister three short questions, but before I do, perhaps I may give a little reassurance to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who moved the amendment. He encouraged Members of your Lordships’ House not to vote according to party diktat. As a Liberal Democrat, I can assure him that although we are given advice—sometimes strong advice—we do not deliver party diktat in my party. I am happy to be able to say as a Liberal Democrat that nobody in this party expects us to vote for a proposition to which we conscientiously object. That is why I shall be voting for the noble Lord’s amendment unless we hear a meaningful concession from my noble friend the Minister in the course of the minutes to come.

My three questions are these. First, the Government have said that they do not intend in the foreseeable future to use powers to allow the secure college estate to be used for under-15 year-old boys and girls. What does “the foreseeable future” mean? Does it end at the time of the next general election, thereby meaning that in the unlikely event of a Conservative Government being elected, the foreseeable future will be over and they will immediately decide to allow these facilities to be used for girls and young boys? If the foreseeable future does not end at the time of the forthcoming general election, why are the Government in such a hurry to allow these facilities potentially to be used for girls and young boys?

My second substantive question is about the secure college at Glen Parva itself. My noble friend the Minister and other Ministers have been kind enough to allow Members of your Lordships’ House to attend repeated meetings in which we have pored over the plans of this establishment. As the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said, those plans are entirely unsuitable for girls and young boys. The whole design of the place is founded upon the availability of the land, not upon starting with a designer’s brief to produce a secure college. That being the case, and that being the overwhelming opinion of all experts who have looked at this proposal—other than those who are within, as far as I can see, the Conservative part of this coalition Government—why do the Government not wait to obtain permission to send girls and very young boys to a secure college until there is a plan that has been properly consulted upon on a wider basis and fulfils empirical need?

Thirdly, why do we need this now at all? We know that the Glen Parva secure college will not open until, at the earliest, 2018. I do not think that I can remember a single year in my 30 years in one or other House of Parliament in which there has not been a criminal justice or sentencing Bill—or two, or three. Why can we not wait and have primary legislation based on proper evidence in the next Parliament? I doubt whether anybody from any Front Bench in this House would deny that there will be a criminal justice Bill in the first Queen’s Speech at the end of May. What is the hurry now? It is because of what I suspect will be the answer to those questions that I shall be supporting the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.

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[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, it is a measure of the importance of the matters that we are now debating, and upon which we will have to vote, that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, made special arrangements to fly back this morning from Moscow at 5.45 am, Russian time. I do not know whether the Lord Chancellor has ever been to Moscow, but I suspect that Mr Putin’s views about holding government and other public bodies to account for the lawfulness of their decision-making would be closer to the Lord Chancellor’s than to the noble Lord’s.

After all, Mr Grayling has proclaimed that judicial review is,

“not a promotional tool for countless Left-wing campaigners”,

or, as he put it in the course of the 58 minutes that the House of Commons devoted to debating the amendments passed by your Lordships’ House:

“Judicial review was never intended to be a tool for pressure groups to seek to disrupt perfectly lawful decision making in Government and Parliament, it was never designed to be used as a political campaigning tool, and it was never intended to put the courts above the elected Government in taking decisions over the essential interests of this country”.

He went on to claim that,

“in far too many examples, that is precisely what it has become”.—[Official Report, Commons, 1/12/14; col. 70.]

Oddly enough, the Lord Chancellor failed to provide any examples of these malign abuses of the system, the essential interests of the country that he felt were under threat or indeed the identity of the so-called abusers. On Report, the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, at least condescended to cite an example. Members may recall shuddering with horror at the revelation that the building of a supermarket in Yorkshire was delayed by all of six months due to an application for judicial review—brought, incidentally, not by a left-wing or other pressure group but by a commercial rival of the developer. I do not blame the Minister at all for relying on this underwhelmingly persuasive case. He was struggling with a grossly inadequate brief—something that I suspect from time to time he has had to deal with over the years, though perhaps in less important contexts.

The Secretary of State for Justice, moreover, whose title looks increasingly like one coined by George Orwell, gives the game away in presuming that, “perfectly lawful decision making” is what is at stake. The implication is clear: what the Government legislate is ipso facto lawful. In the fantasy world in which the courts are besieged by meddlesome litigants pursuing left-wing causes—litigants such as the Countryside Alliance and the Daily Mail—the courts are deemed to be wholly incapable of sorting out the legal wheat from the campaigning chaff. Typically, though, Mr Grayling, in the amendments that he has produced, which were never spelled out or indeed debated in the Commons, ignores the basic requirements, already enshrined in law and practice, that permission from the courts is required both to bring a case to hearing and for third parties to intervene. The Government, themselves a possible defendant in these cases, seek to restrict the exercise of judicial discretion in their own interests, and on the basis of the flimsiest evidence of the abuses that they affect to detect in the working of the system and the decisions of the courts. In the unlikely event of Mr Putin becoming aware of the Government’s approach, he would be lost in admiration.

The Opposition support the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, Motion B1 and Amendment 102B to Clause 64, which would preserve the court’s discretion to grant judicial review where the court considers it in the public interest to do so. I invite my colleagues and others to join the noble Lord in the Content Lobby.

It would be convenient if at this stage I indicated the Opposition’s position in relation to the other amendments. We support the noble Lord’s amendment to Motion C, dealing with Clauses 65 and 66, and his amendment to Motion D, which sets out in Amendments 107A to 107E what purport to be the Government’s concession in relation to the financial position of interveners. I remind the House again that interveners must obtain permission before taking part in any application. The Government’s amendments would oblige the court to order an intervener who has been granted permission to pay costs to any other party in any one or more of four instances. The instances are: under subsection (4A)(a) of Amendment 107B, where they act as a party, although the court already has a discretion in such a case; under subsection (4A)(b), where the intervention has not provided significant assistance taken as a whole, whatever that is supposed to mean; under subsection (4A)(c), where the intervention relates to matters not necessary to resolve the issue—although, again, if they did not, permission would presumably not be granted in the first place; and under subsection (4A)(d), where the intervener has behaved “unreasonably”, whatever that means in a context in which the court already has a discretion.

The potential for mandatory awards of large costs against interveners is self-evident and self-evidently chilling. In addition, I understand that the question of financial resources and the extent of any liability would be left to the Rule Committee to determine, subject only to a negative resolution. In this context, it might be thought that this is a highly debatable procedure for dealing with such an important issue in such an important area.

I do not need to enlarge on the weight of opinion opposed to these measures in the senior judiciary, past and present, or the wide range of opinion, including that of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, not to mention such subversive organisations as Age UK—I declare my interest as honorary president of Newcastle Age UK —Mencap, Mind, the National Autistic Society and many other highly esteemed and reputable organisations in the voluntary sector.

I conclude with a particular appeal to Liberal Democrat Members of this House, several of whom voted for the amendments in your Lordships’ House when we last debated this matter on Report, and several of whom joined some of us—from the Cross Benches and these Benches—in the Division Lobby in the vote just taken. Sadly, very few of their colleagues voted in support of this House’s amendments in the House of Commons. If anything has distinguished the Liberal Democrats—and particularly the former Liberal Party—it has been a sincere attachment to civil liberties and the rule of law. They have been vigilant in questioning, and, from time to time, opposing, policies of different Governments that were perceived to be in conflict with those legitimate concerns. I believe that many are troubled by what this part of the Bill seeks to achieve and by the Government’s amendments. There is nothing, of course, in the coalition agreement that refers to the measures we are now debating. If ever there was a case—with a general election only six months away—for this House to exercise its role in scrutinising and amending important legislation, and in making a judgment on the merits rather than according to political calculation, this is such an example. My appeal to Liberal Democrat Members—

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, and I know that what he is saying is being said in a constructive spirit, but he might like to bear in mind that lectures from the Labour Party on civil liberties are not popular in the Liberal Democrats. He might possibly just leave it to our own consciences to determine how we vote on this matter.

[Lord Beecham]

It is, of course, entirely a matter of conscience for the noble Lord and others, and I would not defend everything that Labour Governments have done in this area either. That is why I referred to the stance that Members of the noble Lord’s party took on proposals made by more than one Government. It is a perfectly fair point.

I hope that, in addition to Members of those Benches, there may be other Members—from the Conservative Benches, perhaps—who will follow the example not only of some Conservative Members of Parliament who voted for this House’s amendments in the Commons, but even, much to my surprise, of the two UKIP MPs. I would not normally be encouraging people to follow where UKIP has led, but in this particular case, they were for once on the side of the angels. I hope, therefore, that this House can support the noble Lord’s amendments and, in so doing, encourage the Government to rethink their direction of travel in this very sensitive area of the rule of law and of the way in which government in this country—not just central government, but local government and other executive agencies—carries out its important responsibilities.

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[Lord Horam]

Indeed, but the point about judicial review is that it is a technical discussion about the process of law-making. Have the Government behaved illegally? Have they consulted properly? That is what judicial review is about. If you want to have an argument about HS2 it should take place in the Chamber quite openly. There are quite clearly profound differences of opinion about the process of HS2 but it is not judicial review that should be encompassing that. There should be an open debate about the merits and demerits of a particular project.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

Is the noble Lord really suggesting that the whole planning appeals procedure should be abandoned for government schemes? That is the clear implication behind what he said. As he said there are—I forget the adjective he used—many abuses anyway of judicial review, would he like to give us perhaps three examples of cases that have been an abuse of the process so we can have an evidence-based discussion.

[Lord Horam]

I am personally aware from my experience in this House and as the former Member of Parliament for Orpington of cases affecting Travellers and the green belt. My constituents were concerned about Travellers camping on green belt land. Ultimately, Bromley Council, which was the council in question—

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I want to challenge the noble Lord. Is he saying in this House that Travellers do not have the right to challenge the Government by judicial review? If so, we might as well throw away all our democratic values.

[Lord Horam]

No. What I am saying is that the judicial reviews raised by Travellers in Bromley were ultimately found to be completely meritless. They were meritless because Bromley Council, which has more Travellers than any other council in the country, had plans on how to deal with Traveller sites. Therefore, it was an argument about the nature of the problem of dealing with Travellers. It was not something that could be dealt with by judicial review. That is my point. The abuse of judicial review arises from the fact that questions of merit are being subject to judicial review simply because lobbyists and others are using judicial review as a route to object to proposals they do not like.

If I can complete the list of examples, it was not only green belt and Travellers—

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[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, I had understood the Government’s proposed amendment as conferring power on the rule committee to determine what the rules should be. There is, of course, an ultimate power but I would expect the rules to be fixed by the rule committee, after appropriate consultation and with a fair amount of knowledge of how the whole system works. This kind of amendment would deal with the sort of problem that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and I referred to in Committee. The Government’s amendment would be a sensible one to make and the Minister has explained the principle under which it would work. I am perfectly happy to leave that to the rule committee to determine, in the light of its great experience and knowledge of the situation.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My Lords, I have listened, of course with enormous respect, to the noble and learned Lord who has just spoken but I do not agree with him. As my noble friend Lord Marks said a few moments ago, rules already exist to deal with the problems that are legitimately identified. What I want to say, in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and my noble friend Lord Marks, is about who the people are who sometimes contribute to group actions and would be chilled out of them as a result of the proposed changes.

I have to go back to my period as a Member of another place, representing a geographically large but population-small rural Welsh community. From time to time in that community, issues arose relating to judicial review. For example, many people wanted to challenge the closure of small primary schools or the changes made by the Conservative Government of the time to the structure under which primary schools could be governed. There were challenges to new roads and planning decisions, which had been made on faulty procedure by the local authority.

Who are the people who contribute to these group actions? They include people with small businesses who decide that the issue matters more to them than might at first sight be apparent. They do not, however, want to open up their private business to the courts—not because there is anything wrong with their private business, but because they think it might be made public and their neighbours might know that business. Some small farmers are much more affluent than their neighbours know; others quite the opposite. The affluent ones may want to make a disproportionate contribution to a group action, because it matters to them and because their families have been central to the community in which they live for several generations. Elderly people may not want to leave quite as much as their unworthy relatives would like to receive from their estates; they may feel that there are community issues that justify their descendants perhaps paying a small price by a contribution being made to a community group action of judicial review in the public interest.

Those are just three illustrations of the types of people who will feel that they are simply not prepared to give more than a few pounds to a group action, whereas in the past they may have given several thousand. So I agree with the point that has been made eloquently by others. Before we go down this road, we need some indication from the Government—they must have some idea—at least of the proportion of costs that would fall within these provisions. Until we have that, we could not conceivably be responsible in agreeing to a proposal that would have such a serious chilling effect, not only on judicial review but on the spirits of small communities such as the one I represented.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I am a complete outsider on this, but I am now confused. The examples that the noble Lord has given I can recall from my own experience, not of judicial review but of group activities—the community. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, however, said that he would buy 15% to 20%. Now, 15% is six or seven people. That is not a group or a community. Twenty per cent would be five people funding. I am now at a loss. I realise that the Government should put something forward about the level, but I am confused by the idea of lots of people contributing for the community. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, said, “I could buy 15% or 20%”. That is not a group and it is not a community. That is a small tightly knit group of motivated people. So I am confused about which way we are going on this debate.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has, extremely uncharacteristically, if I may say so, missed the point. I am sure that it is my fault. We are talking about group actions that may involve a significant number of people—hundreds or thousands, maybe—to which a few individuals make a large contribution. They are making that contribution, often anonymously, to ensure that the matter is capable of going to judicial review for the reasons I gave earlier. We are not talking about 20% meaning that there are only five people involved in the action. We are talking about 20% of the funding that is collected, although there may be hundreds of people involved in the action.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton]

My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right. In my experience—which I am sorry to say is rather larger than I would like—of local communities in mid-Wales fighting, for example, wind farms, a lot of households give a few pounds, but a judicial review becomes possible because one or two people who really do wish to remain anonymous give significantly more. Many of these people have been terrified by threats of being sued for costs. So I would implore the Minister to give as much clarity as possible on this point.

Legal Aid

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

Litigants in person have always been a feature of the legal system. Clearly, any judge—I speak as someone who has sat as a judge—would much rather have a case in which both parties were represented by highly competent lawyers. Unfortunately, we have had to make certain cuts. The cuts, when fully implemented, will reduce the amount that we spend from £2 billion per year to £1 billion. This still makes us one of the most generous countries in the world. We are of course listening carefully to any anxieties that people have about there being injustices. We have committed to review LASPO on a period of three to five years.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (LD)]

My Lords, reverting to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, does the Minister agree that there will be cases in which parents will be unable to be represented on financial grounds in cases in which their children will be removed from them? Does he bear in mind that there was severe criticism in one court last week of the activities of a local authority in relation to just such an issue? Does he think that it is conscionable that there should be a single case in this country in which, because of financial indigence, parents cannot be represented in such cases?

[Lord Faulks]

I am not in a position to comment on the individual case but, in a number of cases, as the noble Lord will know, the legal aid scope remains. In cases of abuse, for example, it was retained. After careful scrutiny of the provisions by this House among others, we have tried to ensure that in all sorts of cases where it is most necessary there will still be legal aid.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, wish to add my support to these amendments for the reasons so clearly explained by my noble friend Lord Pannick and others. As noble Lords are aware, I have contributed to the debate on this part of the Bill throughout its passage through the House. Let me explain why. I have supported the amendments because I want to show how these government reforms will affect disadvantaged citizens, especially the 10 million disabled people in this country who seek legal justice. Sometimes I think that we forget about the disadvantaged, the poor and the disabled who have no means or recourse to abuse. They simply want access to justice.

I know—I really know—what disabled people experience on a daily basis. I do not need to remind the House that when public authorities get it wrong, my God, they get it wrong and it has devastating effects on the individual. It hits disabled people particularly hard because they are the most in need of taking public authorities to court to get justice for their services—the services that they rely on to survive and live. They are absolutely, disproportionately dependent on public services and judicial review. As I said before, I have never known judicial review to be abused by disabled people or the charities that support them.

Claude 70 will effectively allow public authorities to ignore due process. That cuts across the public sector equality duty, which is so crucial in holding public authorities to account. Coupled with the cuts to legal aid, Clause 70 will effectively deny access to justice to those who most need it—not the big companies or multinationals, but just the people who need it, those at the margins of society. That is not the kind of justice we want in our democracy for vulnerable citizens. This clause has absolutely no place on the statute book in these terms.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (LD)]

My Lords, my name is added to a number of these amendments, and I will not repeat everything that has already been said, most especially by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and my noble friend Lord Marks. However, I cannot let this debate pass without making three comments about the unusual speech made by my noble friend Lord Horam.

First, his speech was inaccurate. He blamed judicial review for delays in infrastructure development and for making infrastructure development more expensive. Had my noble friend taken the trouble to read the successful judicial reviews of infrastructure development, he would have found that in 95% of the cases—and I may be underestimating that—the judicial review was granted because of the incompetence and sloppiness of officialdom ranging from government departments through to local authorities and other statutory organisations. The answer to that is for those public authorities to prepare their cases properly, to make their planning applications in due form and for Ministers, in appropriate cases, to call in major planning issues so that they can be decided more quickly.

Secondly, my noble friend’s speech was unusually statist. In his career he has, in a very distinguished way, exercised his principles repeatedly, having been a member of three political parties. As I understand it, he left his first party—the old Labour Party—because he regarded it as too statist, yet nothing could sound more statist than what he said just a few minutes ago. I am personally in favour of HS2, fracking and the Severn barrage.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

Hear, hear.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas. However, I would be the last person to deny those who are opposed to those sometimes controversial schemes the opportunity to question them, if appropriate, by way of judicial review. Taking the contrary view is statism of the most extraordinary kind.

Thirdly, my noble friend’s speech was unjust because it seemed to remove the notion that there should be issues of principle about which people can take dramatic action. He has done it himself twice by changing parties as he moved from old Labour towards the party which he now represents with distinction in your Lordships’ House. However, that is the sort of exercise of principle, on more than one occasion, which the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, was talking about in moving the amendment. These are not pragmatic actions over small sums of damages; they are actions over great issues of principle. Even if some claimants would not actually win their personal actions for judicial review, we know, from the cases which we have all read and in which some in your Lordships’ House have appeared, that enormously important issues of principle for the future arise from them.

I will stray into future amendments, as others have done. Some of those points of principle have been made extremely successfully by interveners—NGOs that have chosen to put in submissions. Some have done so so effectively that their written submissions have changed the course of a case. Surely we should not inhibit justice by these rather mean provisions, which, in my view, my party—the Liberal Democrats—should never have given a single piece of powder or a single piece of shot to support.

[Lord Irvine of Lairg (Lab)]

My Lords, I will make a few remarks in support of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, my noble friend Lord Beecham and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. In their consultation paper, which preceded the proposed changes, the Government acknowledged:

“Judicial review is a critical check on the power of the State, providing an effective mechanism for challenging the decisions, acts or omissions of public bodies to ensure that they are lawful. The Government will ensure that judicial review continues to retain its crucial role.”

So far, so good. Unhappily, however, to my mind the Bill fails to deliver on that pledge. I shall confine my remarks to Clause 70 but, as other noble Lords have demonstrated, it is only one example of many.

The judiciary is a vital component in our separation of the powers. Judicial review is indispensible in a democracy proud to be governed by the rule of law. It ensures that public bodies act according to law. They cannot be above the law. Ministers, who are politicians, often will be frustrated if their decisions are challenged or quashed, but that is an intrinsic aspect of government subject to the rule of law, as is the need for Ministers to be aware of their duty to comply with the law. A Government who are confident that their decisions cannot be readily challenged risk becoming a Government who no longer have to respect the rule of law. That is a risk that no Secretary of State for Justice, who also bears the title of Lord Chancellor and is under a duty to uphold the rule of law, should be prepared to countenance.

Clause 70 would enable the Government to escape the consequences of unlawful action if they could persuade the courts that it was “highly likely” that they would have taken the same action had they acted lawfully. The current legal position is that where a public body has acted unlawfully the court may in the exercise of its discretion refuse to grant relief if it is satisfied that the decision would inevitably have been the same had the public body acted lawfully. That discretion is very rarely exercised, for good reason.

Procedural failures are more than “mere technicalities”. It is important that decisions are made properly by those entrusted with them by Parliament or Ministers. Procedural protections are built into Acts of Parliament or statutory instruments because of the importance of participation in decision-making by those affected by decisions or by the public at large. If a decision is unlawful because a defendant has acted unfairly, failed to observe a consultation obligation imposed by Parliament or failed to follow a procedure prescribed by Parliament, the rule of law requires that a claimant should have a remedy. To hold otherwise runs the risk of unlawful administrative action going unremedied. To my mind, the current law gets it right. The only exception should be those exceptional cases where a defendant can persuade the court that the same decision would have been inevitable.

Clause 70 is likely to encourage decision-makers to ignore participation rights. Yet the failure to comply with procedural obligations results in worse decisions as the decision-maker will not have taken into account the full range of relevant material before making the decision. It also undermines public confidence in the decision-making process. Those who have had the right to be heard before a decision is made will feel a justified sense of grievance about the fairness and quality of these decisions.

Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, lowering the threshold to “highly likely” will require the court to second-guess government decisions. The court will be required to substitute for the decision that has actually been made the decision it thinks the Secretary of State would make if the evidence that the court has looked at had been looked at by him. That is entirely inappropriate because the role of the judiciary in judicial review is to examine the lawfulness of public decision-making, not to substitute its own decision for that of the original decision-maker.

Finally, law reports are littered with cut-and-dried cases that turned out to be nothing of the sort. The best known expression of this came from that distinguished judge, Mr Justice Megarry, in John v Rees in 1970. He said that,

“experience shows that that which is confidently expected is by no means always that which happens … the path of the law is strewn with examples of open and shut cases which, somehow, were not; of unanswerable charges which, in the event, were”,

completely “answered”.

The effect of Clause 70 is best summed up in the words of the senior judiciary of England and Wales in response to the Government’s consultation:

“A lower threshold than inevitability for the application of the ‘no difference’ principle envisages judges refusing relief where there has been a proved error of law and the decision under challenge might have been different absent that error”.

I agree. The threshold defined in Clause 70 would immunise unlawful decisions from challenge before the courts, and I say that it should be rejected.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 122A and 139. Amendment 122A and government Amendment 139 both aim to address the problem of what happens to the anonymity granted to children in court proceedings when these children turn 18. This is obviously a pressing issue thanks to the case of JC & RT, as we have already heard, in which Lord Justice Leveson ruled that Section 39 reporting restrictions expire when a child reaches 18. I gather that that case is subject to appeal.

The government amendment seeks to create a new lifelong anonymity order, but this cannot be granted to defendants: so these new orders allow a court to provide child victims and witnesses with anonymity post-18, but not child defendants. As far as I am aware, this means that the only way for a child defendant to be granted post-18 anonymity would be for them to seek a civil injunction. Unless they have such an injunction, the press, or individuals on social media, will automatically have the right to identify any child defendant as soon as they reach 18.

I understand that the Government’s position is that they do not want all child defendants automatically to be granted post-18 anonymity, but will there not be some cases in which the court should have the ability to impose lasting reporting restrictions? What about cases where a child is found not guilty of an offence? What about cases where vigilantism is a real possibility? Amendment 122A would allow defendants to be subject to the new lifelong anonymity orders and would provide courts with the means to impose restrictions if they choose. This may be the most sensible way forward.

Under Amendment 139, child victims and witnesses will have to show that their evidence or co-operation would be diminished if they were to be granted post-18 anonymity. Under the current law, victims and witnesses do not have to meet any tests to be granted the same anonymity. Like my noble friend Lord Listowel, I am concerned that this test may deter victims and witnesses. I am also concerned about what will happen when proceedings have already concluded and the child victim or witness has now reached 18 years of age. Presumably, anyone over the age of 18 who has ever been a child victim or witness and who does not want to be identified will have to go back to court and apply for one of the new orders that the Government propose. Surely it is unlikely that most people will know that they can do this. Even if they did, would legal aid be available to assist them?

This is a serious issue if victims and witnesses in historic cases start to be named in the press without their prior knowledge. This is likely to deter potential victims and witnesses from coming forward, as well as being potentially harmful to those identified. Like my noble friend Lord Listowel, I hope that the Government will take these concerns into consideration and, in particular, come back with a rather more acceptable amendment at Third Reading.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a rather intimidating debate so far, in the sense that I notice that two of the three noble Lords who have spoken did so from their tablets. To the public mind, tablets in your Lordships’ House are probably seen to be what most of us take at some point during the day. Anybody who thinks that we are not a modern House should take account of what has just happened.

I support the speeches of all three noble Lords—in particular, that of the noble Earl, who opened cogently the debate on the amendment, which also has my name upon it. I am concerned that there should be a discretion vested in the court to allow anonymity for defendants. One could think of hundreds of examples where this would be just. I shall give the House one, which involves a situation in which parents have been instrumental in the child committing a crime. It may be the father who is a thief and has given the child the stolen goods to look after; or it may be a mother who is involved in some other offence in which she relies upon her child to protect her and, for example, warn her if the police are appearing.

For any of your Lordships are devotees of film noir, in a recent episode of that splendid drama, “The Bridge”, an animal rights terrorist involved his brother in a terrorist act and the brother undoubtedly committed criminal offences—we will have to wait and see whether he is prosecuted in the next episode—for his brother’s protection. It is self-evident that there will be cases such as the more real examples that I mentioned earlier, in which there should be a discretion in the court to protect the child from being named.

We are not saying in this amendment that it should happen. We are saying that surely it could happen. I hope that the Minister will tell me that I am wrong— I would be delighted if he did—and say that powers either exist or will shortly exist that will leave this discretion within the criminal court. There are, as the noble Earl said, civil powers that could be used, but these are complex and difficult to access, and we have the problem that legal aid is not necessarily available for such cases. We therefore need to ensure that children who have committed crime and may be only marginally to blame for their involvement have this protection.

We know that historically there are some cases of great notoriety in which, after the child’s release from custody, lifelong anonymity has been granted. It would be right to at least give the criminal court the power to grant such anonymity for a period, so that the notoriety of the child is protected, even if the merits indicate that this matter should be dealt with by a civil court at a much later stage.

I agree also with the noble Earl’s comments in relation to victims and witnesses. Child witnesses are often very intimidated by the prospect of giving evidence. They know that they are going to be cross-examined and face what may be an unpleasant experience. They will be told that the experience is sometimes well controlled, which is true—but unfortunately it is far from always well controlled. If we are to value the need to obtain child witnesses, particularly in abuse cases and matters of that kind, we should have stronger provision than is contained in the Bill. With those views, I support the amendment and the amendment spoken to by my noble friend Lord Marks, and hope that the Government will say that they would like to take another look at these provisions.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the world now knows about the technology used by your Lordships and their Saturday night viewing habits. I associate myself with the remarks that have been made. I was not able to be in the House while the Bill was in Committee. However, I was a bit surprised that, rather than a quite simple but perhaps simplistic amendment which restored what everyone had thought of as the status quo, instead the amendment is around 10 lines in length. Those among your Lordships and from the Government who carried out the drafting have come up with very many lines, which can sometimes prove more difficult than a more straightforward and prescribed amendment.

Having said that, I want to mention the position of defendants. I agree very much with what has been said, and I simply add that not to provide anonymity or reporting restrictions—whatever term you apply, although of course they are not necessarily the same thing—seems to me to undermine the whole purpose of the youth justice system, which is rehabilitation, reintegration, and so on. An enormously important principle is at stake here. The same really applies to the amendment of my noble friend Lord Marks. One cannot separate out the stages. I am sure that there is a sporting analogy for this. Having lost anonymity at that early point before being charged, there is really nothing more that one can sensibly do afterwards to fulfil the spirit of what the Government themselves seem to consider important, even if we would like to have more than the Government’s amendment.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Lords Chamber

Can the Minister tell us where is the evidence showing the effectiveness of a short education programme that takes young people with severe trauma, brain injury, learning difficulties and so on away from their own environment? Where is the evidence showing the benefit of moving them away from the area that they have come from and to which they will return, rather than investing in the type of accommodation that has already been found to have improved outcomes for some of these young offenders, where they are in much smaller groupings with very personalised detention, and with a view to trying to reintegrate them into a society which has failed them many times before they started offending?

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I may start with a moment of generosity to my much admired noble friend the Minister. He has addressed the concerns which noble Lords expressed in the past by tabling Amendment 122, which provides for a statutory instrument, subject to the affirmative procedure, to be laid and passed before the rules could be brought into effect. I am sure that we are all grateful for that. However, there are problems with that proposal.

The first problem is that even the affirmative procedure gives limited opportunities to those parliamentarians—and there are many in your Lordships’ House with great relevant experience—who would wish to amend what is contained in the rules, because of course even affirmative resolution procedure instruments are not amendable. It therefore makes the affirmative resolution process a blunt instrument in dealing with these important issues.

I am very concerned about the timetable which has been placed upon us. There is a consultation—to which the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, in his eloquent moving of his amendments, referred—which is to end near the end of November, and the Government’s response will follow two months thereafter. That is way outside the timetable placed on us for this Bill, including today’s debates. It is illogical and quite unnecessary to press a timetable that attempts to force us to reach important decisions today when those decisions might be informed by the consultation and the Government’s response to it. It is not unknown—indeed, it is common in your Lordships’ House—for the consultation process on any important issue to lead to amendment of the primary draft legislation placed before your Lordships. I respectfully entreat my noble friend to look at the consultation as a genuine process, not merely as a symbolic process to confirm what the Government would wish to have decided here today.

It is absolutely essential for us to see at least the shape and flavour of the rules that the Government wish to introduce. On restraint, the consultation document which was published only a few days ago contains one “indicative rule”, as it is described—a sort of suggestion of what might be a relevant rule. That is not a sufficient basis for the provision that we are debating now. Many well informed NGOs—and I declare the interest of having been at one time president of the Howard League, which is one of them—have, with other organisations, declared real misgivings, not so much about what is provided but about what they do not know is being provided. Therefore, in my view, this is all very premature.

We heard earlier from my noble friend Lord Marks the names of Gareth Myatt and Adam Rickwood. Just before I became president of the Howard League I was asked by that organisation to produce a report on the use of restraint on children in custody. That arose following the death of Gareth Myatt. Organisations such as the Howard League, and people who have been fairly intimately involved, do not let a day go by, when we think about these issues, without reflecting on that death. It seems to me that to proceed in this unnecessarily hasty way on a matter of such importance, without reflecting on the rules provided and whether they take into account the events that led to the death of Gareth Myatt, is not the right thing for your Lordships to do.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham about delaying proceedings on this matter to give us more time to consider the detail before anything is put in place. I wish, as always, that I could support the Government because of their tremendous achievement, which must be repeated again and again, in taking 2,000 children out of custody in the past four or five years. Because of their humane achievement in bringing the number down from the all-time high of 3,000 children in custody—a number that was deplored by Members on all sides of your Lordships’ House—to, potentially, only 1,000 by this Christmas, I wish in my heart to support the Government as far as possible. I would also like to support them because the idea of basing an approach on education is, of course, immensely appealing.

There are, however, in these provisions shortcomings that have already been described. My concern is particularly about the risks that young people may experience in such a setting. On a recent visit to a young offender institution—I shall try not to repeat what I said in Committee, but I will repeat this point—I was given the example of 15 young people attacking two. When I first visited a YOI 15 years ago, there might have been three or four people attacking one or two, but with the gang culture now, it is normal—and a great source of worry and consideration to the governor and the prison officers—to have members of different gangs in prison, and to have to think about how to stop large numbers of boys beating up small numbers of boys. That is one aspect of risk.

Because the Government have been so successful in reducing the number of juveniles in the secure estate, we now have only the most troubled and challenging young people there. That may help to explain why it is difficult to reduce the reoffending rate further. It also means that those people are putting each other at greater risk than was the case in the past. Moreover, I learnt in an early experience of speaking to a prison officer that, contrary to expectation, people tend to be more challenging the younger they are, rather than it being the older ones who are most challenging. The older ones seem to have developed some sense of what one does and what one does not do, but the young ones just do not have that sense, so they can be very difficult to manage.

May I take your Lordships back to 1998, and the setting up of the first secure training centre at Medway? Some of your Lordships may remember Lord Williams of Mostyn coming to this House shamefacedly following the riot there, when in the space of just two hours eight or nine 12 to 14 year-olds caused hundreds of thousands of pounds-worth of damage and injured three of the staff. I think—perhaps the noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong—that the main issue was that the quality of staff was not appropriate to the needs of those young people. It had not been thought through beforehand what kind of staffing was necessary to meet their needs. So my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham has a very good point: we as parliamentarians should think extremely carefully about these vulnerable young people, who can be so damaged.

I am reminded of another example which, again, occurred under a previous Administration—namely, the setting up of Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre. It was established as a secure centre for children and their parents on the plan of a prison; indeed, it was identical to a prison. One could go into the reception area of Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre and have very much the same experience as going into a prison. A mother with an eight year-old child would have to walk through a barred gate. One has to ask oneself what the child thought of the experience of walking into a prison through a barred gate. Who gave any thought to what it would be like for children to be placed in that setting, run by a prison governor, if I remember correctly, and manned by prison officers? This caused outrage for 10 years.

The former Children’s Commissioner, Professor Aynsley-Green, repeatedly produced reports on this setting and very gradually the environment was ameliorated considerably over time. But how much better it would have been if consideration had been given well beforehand to what the needs of children and families kept in a secure setting would be—infants, eight year-olds, 16 year-olds with their mothers—and whether a prison would be suitable accommodation for them. This issue needs to be given the closest attention and most careful thought because we are talking about some of the most vulnerable young people in our society.

In conclusion, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, talked about the health and mental health needs of these young people. Many of them will have experienced the care system. In many cases, before they went into the care system, they experienced repeated trauma throughout their lives, had dysfunctional families and were betrayed by the people they most trusted. There was no help available from within their families and they were very damaged by the time they entered care. In those circumstances it is vital that the proposed setting has a very good team of mental health professionals to support young people and the staff who work with such vulnerable young people. I share others’ misgivings. I wish that I could be more generous towards the Government because I applaud them for what they have achieved elsewhere for these young people. I hope that the House will support my noble friend’s amendment to give us more thinking space.

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I think noble Lords might like to reflect on those words and some of the key facts about the Ian Mikardo High School. There are 10 teachers and 12 teaching assistants for the 40 boys, plus a parent engagement officer and two psychotherapists, one for the boys and one for the staff. Has the Secretary of State considered the strain on staff who would have to look after 320 difficult, challenged and vulnerable children in one confined space? Each place at the Ian Mikardo school costs about £38,000 a year; that is, of course, minus custody costs. I believe that the principal reason for its success is that the head teacher, armed with her experience of looking after similar children in the criminal justice system, planned, staffed and costed her reforms in great detail—including the banning of restraint, which she has pursued consistently—with the help of carefully selected and properly supported staff. I regret that I see no evidence that anything like that—which I think is absolutely essential—applies to the plans for the proposed secure college.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

Last Thursday, my noble friend Lord Faulks and his ministerial colleague from another place, Mr Selous, gave noble Lords the opportunity to hear from both Ministers and to look, not for the first time, at the physical plans for the secure college. Some changes had been made to the plans since the last time we had seen them. Those included carefully separated provision for girls and vulnerable boys in the younger age group.

When the plans were presented it became clear that what was being provided was the best one could manage on that site, in the view of the Government. What they have provided, in the plans that we saw depicted, is a way of transferring the girls and vulnerable young boys from their accommodation to health and education provision whereby part of the site is locked down from other students while the youngsters and the girls are being moved around. This is not a way in which any sane person or organisation would design a school or college. One only has to ask any teacher who has ever had to deal with the separation of boys and girls of the age that we are talking about—even, for example, when moving them to and from sports facilities—to know the kind of potential trouble that exists even in the best ordered institution. And we are not talking about an institution in which the students will in all cases be volunteering their co-operation for good order.

When we examine the situation further, we find the following. Unless my noble friend can point to something that we have not yet seen, no independent organisation assessing the merits of education provision has reported that this is a good design for such a college. Nobody has reported independently or empirically that this is a good way of dealing with girls and young vulnerable boys in such an institution. I repeat, as I did at the meeting, that I am grateful to the Government for finding another 2.5 acres on the site for some additional—though, I apprehend, still inadequate—sports provision. But the truth is that the Government are going to spend £80 million on this site for one reason alone—the fact that they already own it.

I wonder whether the local planning authority, which I believe is Blaby Council, will be as calm as the Government about the quality of the provision, its security and how satisfactory it is for this very young age group and for girls. I very much hope that it will not. It would not surprise me if the local planning authority raised some difficulties. As I said, the college is there simply because the Government own the site, and in order to fill that site they wish to shoehorn in girls and young vulnerable males as well. Those people should not be there at all, as the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Beecham, and others have made absolutely clear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate on these amendments, which are important, although they focus on two narrow but, I understand, critical aspects of these proposed secure colleges.

Dealing first with girls and those aged under 15, Amendments 109 and 117A seek to exclude girls and under-15s from secure colleges, or to prevent girls being accommodated on the same site as boys. I entirely recognise that there is understandable caution about the risks involved in allowing girls and under-15s to be placed in a new type of secure establishment, where the majority of young people will be boys between the ages of 15 and 17. I also recognise the importance of secure colleges being able to address the particular educational, health and emotional needs of these undoubtedly very vulnerable young people.

Let me assure noble Lords that we have gone to considerable lengths in our designs for the secure college to ensure that the younger and more vulnerable groups could be accommodated in separate small units. As my noble friend Lord Carlile told the House, following a meeting in July we made changes to the plans to enlarge the site by two acres, and to ensure that the younger and more vulnerable people have their own sports and recreational facilities. This is not merely tunnels—as he describes it—but separate facilities and separate access routes to the main education and healthcare building. In this way, it will be possible to deliver a distinct regime that caters to these more vulnerable boys and girls. In our consultation on our plans, we have also proposed a rule requiring girls to be accommodated separately from boys. I referred to that consultation earlier this afternoon.

However, I should make clear to the House that no final decisions have been taken on who will be accommodated in the secure college pathfinder. This will be determined in light of the analysis of the make-up of the youth custodial population ahead of the pathfinder opening in 2017. I also gave a commitment in Committee that girls and under-15s will not be placed in the pathfinder from its opening, and that any decision to introduce them would be carefully phased. While I entirely recognise the concerns that lie behind these amendments, I believe that the risks can be sensitively and safely managed. This already happens in secure training centres and secure children’s homes, where boys and girls of different ages are accommodated on the same site.

There have been references to the numbers in the youth custodial estate. I can assist the House by saying that at the moment there are 16 girls in secure children’s homes, and 20 girls in secure training centres. That is a total of 36. There are 25 under-15s in secure children’s homes, and 13 in secure training centres, giving a total of 38. In one of the secure children’s homes there are 24 boys and one girl, so we are not talking about a large number.

We are anxious not to preclude, as a matter of strict law, the possibility of admitting to the secure college girls or those aged under 15. However, the House will know that the Youth Justice Board takes the decisions on where young people who are sentenced or remanded into custody are to be placed. These decisions are taken by specially trained staff and informed by detailed advice from the youth offending teams who have been working with the young people. The Youth Justice Board’s placement decisions are based on the individual needs of a young person. They take into account the whole range of factors that you would expect, such as age, gender, vulnerability, location, offence and any previous history. There is a very nuanced assessment before children are even considered appropriate for the secure college. However, the amendment would absolutely prevent it.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. I accept everything he has said about it not being for the Government to determine who goes to which institution. However, surely he can tell us whether he expects or anticipates any girls being sent to this institution.

[Lord Faulks]

As I said a little earlier, we do not expect this to happen, certainly in the short term. However, we do not want to write into the legislation that it should never happen. This is because, as noble Lords will appreciate, not all 14-year old boys are the same, physically, mentally or in their needs. This is also so with girls. I do not anticipate that this is likely to happen in the short term, but this amendment would completely prevent it happening. Yet there are instances of girls and boys actually deriving benefit from each other’s company.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I apologise for intervening once more. I promise not to do so again, at least in this speech. Does this mean that, although my noble friend is not able to anticipate whether any girls will be placed in this pathfinder college, nevertheless the Government have decided to build a building to accommodate girls, which may lie empty for the next 25 years?

[Lord Faulks]

No, the answer is that by their secure college the Government are trying to provide a college which is sufficiently flexible to allow them to cope with whatever the demands are. Of course, it is impossible to predict precisely the age or the gender of those who will find themselves sent to a secure college, or to whatever the appropriate custodial institution may be. The answer is to set up a college which has the provision for a separate accommodation if that is appropriate.

It appears that we are somewhat damned if we do and damned if we do not. We were criticised for not having a separate accommodation for girls and young men, and we are now being criticised for having it and not using it. I hope that there will be some acknowledgment that we have made considerable efforts to try to find an appropriate way of housing them, should it be appropriate for them to be sent there.

Amendment 110 seeks to place a duty on the Secretary of State to make arrangements for adequate specialist provision to meet health and well-being needs in a secure college, and to make sufficient places available in a secure children’s home. Amendment 117B would impose a number of welfare requirements on secure colleges. These amendments go to the heart of which matters should be for primary legislation, which should be in secondary legislation and which are to be delivered through contractual arrangements. Some of the requirements in Amendment 117B relate to areas of fundamental importance—such as safeguarding, education, health and well-being, staff training and visits—and as such are matters that, rightly, we will address in the secure college rules.

Similarly, Amendment 110 would require the Secretary of State to make arrangements to ensure that secure colleges have adequate specialist provision in place to address young people’s health and well-being, and to ensure that sufficient places are available in a secure children’s home. The responsibility for commissioning health and well-being services, including specialist provision, for young people in a secure college will rest with NHS England. As noble Lords will be aware, this is in line with the arrangements currently in place for the existing secure estate.

Similarly, it is local authorities, not the Secretary of State, which are responsible for providing sufficient places in secure children’s homes. The Youth Justice Board recently agreed contracts with nine secure children’s homes. As I have previously indicated, we remain committed to ensuring that specialist separate accommodation will be available for the youngest and most vulnerable offenders. NHS England will assess the healthcare needs of all those detained in secure colleges, and commission services appropriate to meet their assessed needs. In doing so, NHS England applies the intercollegiate healthcare standards for children and young people in secure settings which were developed by the royal medical colleges at the invitation of the Youth Justice Board.

As we indicated in the recently published consultation on our plans for the rules, the role secure colleges play in healthcare is to provide the right environment where healthcare professionals can carry out their responsibilities for the care and well-being of young people. We therefore propose that the rules should include a requirement to ensure that a young person has safe and timely access to health services in a secure college. I hope that that goes some way towards reassuring the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, who is understandably concerned about the quite complex care needs that these young people will have.

As I said in answer to an earlier debate, the design of the healthcare facilities has been developed in collaboration with NHS England, which was consulted at that stage. Indeed, it was NHS England which advised us to amend our plans in order to bring the healthcare provision within the main educational block. NHS England assisted in the consultation and the way that the college is to be configured. Not only will this reduce the disruption to education when young people need to attend health appointments, but it will also help to normalise access to healthcare for a group of young people who, as I am sure that the noble Baroness and others will be aware, have not always had regular contact with a GP or with the specialist services they require. In some senses, it is hoped that they will be better off here than they might be in the community in terms of access to healthcare.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hurd of Westwell (Con)]

My Lords, this House is quite accustomed to criminal justice legislation and in debates of this kind looks inevitably to those who have genuine experience of the legal profession to take the lead. Every now and then, however, an issue comes up that requires some contribution from people like the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and myself who, although we are not trained lawyers and have never practised law, nevertheless in the course of our careers have come across, and have been made to come across, cases where injustice appears to have been done. This is turning into such a debate.

It is hard to unpick the excellent demonstration of the facts produced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick. We are left with those facts, but we have to find a remedy. The noble and learned Lord has set out in his amendment the only remedy that he thinks is to hand: to take back into Parliament, into our own hands, the permission—the discretion— which is given in the legislation to the Lord Chancellor, but which he repeatedly refuses to exercise, although the arguments for exercising that discretion have been made over and over again and are very strong indeed.

Therefore, I simply come in to say, as someone who is not a lawyer but who has been forced by his career to take an active interest in the effect of the law on individuals, that I see in this an example—I would say a flagrant one—of injustice being permitted, indeed committed, by those who do not intend it. Nevertheless, the law as proposed would have that effect. I therefore very much support the noble and learned Lord’s amendment and the arguments which have been put in its favour from all sides of the House.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (LD)]

My Lords, we have heard three very powerful speeches from noble Lords—and noble and learned Lords in two cases—on the Cross Benches, and I anticipate that we are about to hear another one in a moment. We also heard a powerful intervention from a former Home Secretary, who is one of the most admired figures in British politics in the last 40 years. I cannot improve on what they have said, and will not try to do so. All I want to say, speaking as I do from one of the political Benches in this House, is that this is an issue upon which those of us who sit on political Benches are entitled to, and should, exercise our consciences. If we engage our consciences, the extraordinary speech from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, completely wins the day. I therefore hope that noble friends, as well as those elsewhere in the House, will see that if this matter divides the House, the only course they can take is to support this amendment.

[Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers (CB)]

My Lords, the unhappy cohort of prisoners to which this amendment relates linger in prison years after they have completed terms of imprisonment that reflect their culpability. They linger because of a statutory presumption that they are dangerous, which is discredited, has been repealed, and is surely, in the cases of many of them, unjustified. I find it impossible to envisage any credible reason why the Secretary of State has not exercised the power that he has been given to procure their release. His inertia belies the title of Secretary of State for Justice. This amendment cries out for the support of the House.

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[Baroness Berridge]

No. In relation to the likely impact, my point was whether that is considered under the requirement in the Children and Young Persons Act to take into account the welfare of the child.

With regard to 16 and 17 year-olds, it is already the position that they are covered under the mandatory sentencing provisions if they are convicted twice of the offence of threatening with a knife, so it would be inconsistent not to include 16 and 17 year-olds under these provisions where there will be mandatory provisions when you are twice convicted of the offence of the possession of a knife.

I understand that there is not a clear age of majority in this country, but when you can marry and join the Army at age 16, if you have been found in possession of a knife and convicted of that offence and then been found in possession of a knife again by the time you are 17, I do not think it is unduly harsh to say to those young people that a prison sentence is to be imposed unless the provisions of proposed new Section (6B) are found to apply by the judge.

Finally, in relation to the disproportionality issue for black and ethnic minority young people which I have mentioned previously in your Lordships’ House, it is clear that it is also the case that those young people are disproportionately the victims of knife crime. If one is going to plead disproportionality, one has to look not only at offenders but also at victims. The use of knives on young black people—particularly men—is an issue of grave concern in that community, so one has to look at both sides of that issue and not just at the disproportionality of offenders.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My Lords, I speak in support of my noble friend Lord Marks and will make two points. First, over recent years, I have been involved in a lot of work and study about the treatment of young offenders, partly during the time I spent as president of the Howard League for Penal Reform and partly in preparing reports requested by others. One of the givens of studies of youth penalties—of youth sentencing—is that short sentences by and large are not beneficial: they are usually destructive. They destroy ties with education, they damage ties with family, and they remove ties with good friends as well as, of course, bad friends. This has been recognised by the Youth Justice Board. One of the reasons for the reduction in the number of children in custody, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Marks, is that it has been seen by the courts that non-custodial dispositions, on the whole, are far more constructive.

That leads me to my second point, which is about judicial—or court—discretion. I do not want to dress this up too grandly, because most of the group we are talking about appear before a youth court in their own local areas, and there is much about youth courts that needs to be reformed. That said, whenever a case comes before a youth court, the court hears all the facts about the young person concerned. It hears the facts of the case; if the defence is properly prepared, it hears about the young person concerned and about everything that has happened in their past. Many of those children who appear before courts—there is no difference in this regard between 16 and 17 year-olds and the immediately younger age group—come from very deprived backgrounds. They usually have had very little attention paid to them and more than half of them have at least one mental health issue—some have multiple mental health issues—that needs to be addressed. To deprive an experienced court of the discretion to impose a non-custodial sentence when that might fly in the face of the merits as set out in the facts and reports before the court is really an astounding proposition. I challenge the Minister to produce any empirical evidence—any studies— showing that this is a proposal that is justified on the merits. I urge him to accept that it is an error of judgment to include 16 and 17 year-olds in this provision.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Wednesday 30th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (CB)]

My Lords, I wish to speak in support of all the amendments in this group and, in particular, Amendment 74, in the name of my noble friend Lord Pannick, and to oppose the Question that Clause 67 stand part of the Bill.

There is a very strong presumption that interveners will be liable for the other party’s costs arising from an intervention, as well as their own, unless there are exceptional circumstances. This, as I understand it, is regardless of the outcome of the case and of whether the intervention helped, so potentially they could be liable for the legal costs of the party who loses the case. As a lay person, I do not see the justice in that. At present, the court decides who pays the costs and, for me, this works perfectly well.

This provision appears to the lay person to be designed for one purpose only—to deter interventions from organisations with limited resources. Unlike government departments, they could not contemplate such a risk. That applies to many charities; I spoke about this at Second Reading. Many of them have very small budgets and are run by volunteers, who are only too aware—perhaps they are overcautious—of their responsibility to avoid any financial risks.

Judges have consistently acknowledged the value of interventions in helping them to come to the right decision. It is in the public interest that they hear relevant evidence on important issues. If fewer interventions are made, they will lose vital sources of expertise, especially in relation to those most in need of protecting. The intervention of the Equality and Human Rights Commission in the case of R (B) v DPP in 2009 is a really good example of this. In this case the Crown Prosecution Service stopped a prosecution because the victim had a mental illness. This led to valuable new guidance on dealing with vulnerable witnesses and defendants in the criminal justice system.

During my time at the Disability Rights Commission —I was on the legal committee at that time—the DRC’s intervention in Burke, a case concerning the GMC’s guidance on the withdrawal of food, hydration and treatment, was, unusually, singled out for praise by Mr Justice Munby. He referred to,

“a particular and highly relevant informed expertise which none of the other parties could bring to the task in hand”'.

I have to declare an interest here as I was closely involved as part of the intervention body. This landmark case has had a profoundly positive effect on the patient/doctor relationship in this country when it comes to planning end-of-life treatment.

Interventions have a long and distinguished history and we cannot allow that to be weakened for the sake of the one or two examples of the bad apple. Where would we be today without the Leslie Burke case?

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (LD)]

My Lords, I rise with an appeal to my noble friend the Minister, whom I know to be a very good lawyer and a very sensible person, to accept the view being expressed around this Committee that this clause should not appear in the Bill.

I added my name to those intending to oppose the clause because I believe that, if there is one clause in the Bill that does grievous bodily harm to judicial review in this country, it is this one. Judicial review, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said eloquently in his introduction—and as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, illustrated, too—has over the years benefited from numerous interventions, sometimes from surprising sources. We are familiar with interventions by Liberty. When I was the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, I disagreed strongly with some of those interventions, but I valued every single one because they enabled the issues of national security that were before the courts to be tested at all levels of judicial review and not merely in the House of Lords or the Supreme Court.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Monday 28th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (LD)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. I should declare the interest of having appeared for the juror in the case to which my noble friend referred a few moments ago. I make no comment on the case or the result, but the jury video and the instructions given to jurors were not perhaps quite as good as they might have been, particularly for a young juror under the age of 21 who used his social media almost as a part of his body. Can we be reassured that when these new provisions are brought into force a new jury video will be made available immediately, as well as revised instructions, so that jurors young and old, including those between the ages of 70 and 75 who also enthusiastically use their social media, really understand what they are not permitted to do? It can be very confusing.

[Lord Faulks]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that intervention. Clearly this matter should be taken very seriously. I do not think that these directions are frozen in time or form, and the debate as to precisely how best to communicate what there is agreement on over the use of electronic communications will go on. I entirely take my noble friend’s point about the degree of attachment to them that exists, depending on the individual and not necessarily depending on their age.

The new clause proposed would impose statutory obligations on the Department for Education, the Judicial College and HM Courts and Tribunals Service, and on jurors themselves, in connection with jury service. These obligations cover the same ground as some recommendations from the Law Commission, which we are still considering and to which we will respond shortly. The crucial point, however, is that if it were decided to implement them, or to make any further suggestions about improving directions to jurors or about jury management issues as opposed to trials of particular cases, legislation would not be required. It could be done administratively, and in our view that would be a better course than accepting the suggested amendment. I invite the noble Lord to withdraw it.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope that the Committee will look very critically at these provisions. They may not seem to be matters of very great substance, but there is a point of important principle here which has to be established and maintained.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My Lords, I wish to make three short points in support of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. I do not know how long this debate is going to continue. We heard that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is unable to be here at the moment. I hope I will be excused for being absent for about half an hour from 5 pm.

The three points I wish to make are these. First, it seems that there is a belief that it is very easy to obtain permission to move for judicial review. For those of your Lordships who are not lawyers—and happily there are many here—I want to lay that belief to rest. Like myself and, in a much more distinguished way, other noble and learned Lords, anybody who has faced the challenge of a list of cases requesting permission for judicial review will know that a vast percentage of those applications are refused at the paper application stage.

I shall give your Lordships what might be a useful insight. The typical High Court judge or deputy High Court judge—and it is in that latter capacity that I have sat and continue to sit—is faced on any given day with about a dozen paper and oral applications for judicial review. My estimate, based on my own experience and on talking to others—there may be more formal statistics—is that at most one or two of those applications move on to the next stage, and the other 10 or 11 are refused. Nobody should, therefore, get the idea that it is very easy to challenge the Government or public bodies by way of judicial review.

The second point is about the phrase “highly likely”, which appears in Clause 64. I think the use of this phrase confuses especially the lawyers on the standard of proof which is required in judicial review applications. Does “highly likely” mean “more probable than not” or less than “beyond reasonable doubt” or what? Why do we need to add this almost tautologous standard of proof to a well honed system in which judges—who are, believe it or not, trained in these matters, and many of whom have great experience—know exactly what to do without an artifice being added for reasons which are not clear?

The third point which is of real concern to me is that the test in new subsection (2A) that Clause 64(1) seeks to insert in Section 31 of the Senior Courts Act 1981, which refers to the outcome not being,

“substantially different if the conduct complained of had not occurred”,

is a licence for vestigial consultation. Many cases that come before the High Court on applications for judicial review are cases in which the Government and other public authorities that are devolved parts of government have failed to carry out proper consultation with the public. Sometimes the failure to carry out consultation is a very serious matter indeed, because it is a denial of the right of the public not only to be told that they are being consulted, but to express their views in that consultation and to have them considered in a full and proper way.

There have been many cases in which judicial review has been granted because of the failure of consultation, and in many of those cases the outcome is eventually exactly the same as that which the Government would have wished before the failure of consultation. Therefore it may be thought by the judge highly likely that the outcome would not have been substantially different if the conduct complained of had not occurred. Sometimes that failure of consultation is—or borders on—the contumelious by the public authority concerned. I suggest that we should not license that kind of failure by governmental authorities which would thereby deprive the public of the right to have proper consultation. I hope that those three points are useful to your Lordships. I do not want to add anything else, because the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, has given a very full exegesis of the concerns.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I apologise that I have not spoken on the Bill before, but I wanted to intervene on Part 4. At Second Reading, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, observed that Part 4 raises “citizens’ issues”. I hope that noble Lords will agree that it is therefore important that non-lawyers—who were referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile—add their voice in support of the highly expert advice from the great legal minds in your Lordships’ House. Not only are those citizens’ issues, but they affect in particular poor and marginalised citizens, including, in the words of the Bar Council,

“some of the weakest and most vulnerable in society”.

Here I declare an interest as an honorary president of the Child Poverty Action Group, and a former director and legal research officer—believe it or not, although I am not a lawyer—of that group back in the 1970s, when the group spear-headed what came to be known as the social security law test case strategy, under the late Sir Henry Hodge, or the plain Henry Hodge as he was then, as CPAG’s solicitor. According to an evaluation of that strategy, Henry Hodge saw it as having an,

“independent value in obtaining substantive improvements in the law and in producing a higher standard of behaviour from administrators”.

Those are still two important functions of judicial review that are now under threat.

I fear that CPAG may be one of the organisations that the Government had in their sights, given that Mr Iain Duncan Smith accused it of “ridiculous and irresponsible behaviour” and “an ill-judged PR stunt” when the High Court dismissed a challenge to the housing benefit cap, for which it had been granted a cost protection order and permission on the basis that the case was arguable and raised issues of public importance. In contrast, Sir Stephen Sedley, in oral evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member—I have a feeling that the Minister was himself a highly valued member at that point—said that,

“not all public interest litigation is hostile; it can be creatively used, and has been in the past. The Child Poverty Action Group was a pioneer in this respect, to elucidate the law to the benefit of everybody who is involved. Social security is a very good example, because it is an arcane and hideously complex area of law, where it is easy to get things wrong and a mistake can affect millions of people. It is very much to the advantage of everybody if the Government collaborates with challengers like the CPAG in getting the issue to the core”.

I speak today not so much as an honorary president of CPAG but as a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which recommended that this clause be deleted from the Bill. I therefore support the contention that it should not stand part of the Bill, as well as supporting those amendments that would revert to the status quo. I will not rehearse at any length the arguments of the JCHR, some of which were quoted on Second Reading; there are arguments of both principle and practice, including that we should not be condoning unlawful decision-making, and the danger that it would mean that the permission stage became a full dress rehearsal and therefore could be more rather than less costly. However I would like to emphasise what is perhaps a key human rights point, when we said that it may give rise to breaches of the right of access to court in ECHR Article 6(1),

“a right which, in order to be practical and effective rather than theoretical and illusory, includes the right of access to a legally enforceable remedy”.

On this argument alone I believe that the clause should not stand part of the Bill. But as we have heard today, and earlier at Second Reading, there are also other persuasive arguments.