Police Accountability
Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, obviously brings great experience to this question and this discussion, and I appreciate the discussions I have had with him—not just in the Chamber of this House but also outside the Chamber.
The noble Lord will know, and understand, why I cannot comment in too much detail on what happened in relation to this case. He will also know, however, that the decision to charge was made within the Code for Crown Prosecutors and the DPP guidance to prosecutors, particularly in relation to death in custody guidance, which covers any deaths following contact with the police. That was the procedure; I am not the CPS and nor should I be. It made the determination to prosecute in this case and the result was a very speedy acquittal by the jury. There was a two-year hangover, which caused great distress to the family of both the victim and the police officer. I understand that, and we are trying to speed up as part of the response to that case.
The important thing, which I hope I can guide the noble Lord to focus on, is the issue of the future, because we are trying to rebalance the prosecution threshold, which is key for the future. I fully accept the noble Lord’s point that we ask a lot of officers to, on our behalf, arrive at a scene, make split-second judgments and put their lives at risk. One of the things we are trying to do in the review’s response is to more effectively balance that balance between the response of an officer and the individual they may face. That is part of the working through of the code of practice that will be developed by the DPP, the review by the Attorney-General of guidance on charging police officers and the review by his former colleague Tim Godwin and Sir Adrian Fulford.
We can revisit this again in a few months’ time, but I hope, when we finalise the reviews, that will refocus how we best support officers dealing with extremely difficult situations.
Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)
My Lords, 30 years ago, the House of Lords sitting judicially in the criminal appeal of Lee Clegg expressed concern that only a charge of murder was available in these cases, instead of an offence of, for example, using excessive force. The Law Lords pointed out—as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, has—that law enforcement officers do not go out intending to kill or cause grievous bodily harm: they go to protect the public. The two cases are very different.
Therefore, would the Government consider looking at the substantive law that applies in these cases and possibly introducing a change to strengthen the position of law enforcement officers? It would be not dissimilar to the way in which the position of householders was strengthened in 2013 by giving them additional defences when they used force to defend themselves and their property.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for that suggestion. We are in the process of reviewing the legislation and I do not want to pre-empt the reviews that are being undertaken by the Attorney-General and the individuals commissioned by the Home Secretary. It is clear, however, that we need to give clarity and support to officers. The key element that has come out of this case is that an officer found themselves prosecuted through the decision of the CPS, which rightly was its independent decision. However, in light of that decision, we have to review whether the threshold for the prosecution was right and whether we need to examine the issues the noble Lord has mentioned. Those are things we will do, but I cannot give a commitment today to finalise it.
King’s Speech
Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust, since I will focus yet further, I am afraid, on our failing prison system. My emphasis will be on the need for a new sentencing policy.
I congratulate the Minister on his outstanding maiden speech. He has had the ordeal of having to combine his maiden speech with a maiden Statement and a speech outlining the Government’s ambitious agenda for justice and home affairs—no mean feat, given that he was introduced only a couple of days ago. The Big Issue magazine of 29 April this year carried an article about the noble Lord, and it starts with the intriguing line:
“James Timpson wears Doc Martens”.
What many people may not know is that when customers go to his shops for theirs to be mended, they are apparently sent to a prison in Warrington—that is the shoes, not the customers—whose prisoners handle the expert yellow stitching required. This tells your Lordships everything about his commitment to give offenders the expertise they need to find a job after release. He comes to his new role with a deep understanding of why our prisons are failing and a burning desire to make things better. He is warmly welcome.
The gracious Speech referred to planning reform, and the Lord Chancellor has subsequently indicated that the Government will ensure that the planning system does not prevent more prisons being built. Prisons are apparently to be classified as being of national importance. My question is whether building more prisons is purely to deal with the capacity crisis or to continue a policy of sending more and more people to prison for longer and longer sentences.
Everyone knows that our prison population is the highest in western Europe; the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, made that point earlier. Ministers often justify longer and longer sentences by saying they maintain confidence in the criminal justice system, but are the public really more confident in a criminal justice system that costs £50,000 per prisoner per year and results in such huge levels of reoffending? As we have heard, nearly 80% of crime is reoffending—a staggering figure—so the truth is that long sentences do not help to prevent crime in society.
The Lord Chancellor’s Statement contained encouraging words about improving rehabilitation of offenders who are in prison, but many of these people should never have been sent to prison in the first place. Of course dangerous people should be locked up for as long as necessary, but 58% of those sent to prison in the year to June 2023 had committed a non-violent offence. They are there because they made bad choices, but the reality is that these were often the result of poor mental health, drug addiction and dysfunctional backgrounds.
If we are to address this prisons crisis, not just today but for years to come, we need to take a long, hard look at sentencing policy. The Government have encouragingly said that they will have a review; I hope it will look at bold and innovative alternatives to prison, with a wider range of disposals, which in appropriate cases can avoid the criminal justice system altogether. Radical reform of sentencing like this, with more non-custodial options, will work only if it is combined with a highly trained, properly resourced and effective Probation Service, not a Probation Service that is failing in 97% of areas.
In conclusion, the Labour manifesto correctly said that
“prisons are a breeding ground for more crime”.
Building more prisons may be necessary as a short-term measure to cope with a capacity crisis, but let us have a long-term strategy of gradually closing quite a lot of prisons. Sorting out sentencing policy would be an excellent start.