Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, many of us have been brought up to believe in the sanctity of life. The matter of death is very seldom discussed. We have been privileged to listen to some remarkable speeches and in many cases that has helped to shape our approach to this important Bill. For that reason, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, for promoting the Bill and he has my support.

Some years ago, I was called out to a hospital following a near-fatal accident my younger brother had suffered. He was on a life-support machine and brain dead. After advice from those who looked after him, I agreed that the life-support machine should be switched off—a decision I never thought that I would have to make. I had all my happy recollections of him but, in that single moment, I was aware that he would never enjoy the quality of life which we often take for granted. That memory has stayed with me all my life. Do I feel any guilt? No. I wanted to remember him as I knew him and not as being in a vegetative state. He did not have a choice, but I, together with assistance from the medical staff, took the decision which alleviated much of his suffering.

This Assisted Dying Bill reflects not only compassion and care, but also makes a fundamental point of recognising choice, with those strict, upfront safeguards defined within it. This gives us a unique opportunity to be able further to improve the Bill in Committee. The current prohibition on medical assistance to die causes some terminally ill people to take matters into their own hands. We repeatedly read about such cases. Some relatives also face the risk of prosecution for helping a loved one to die. The Bill would bring clarity to the law, and provide greater safety for terminally ill people and their loved ones. The Bill has strict safeguards and eligibility criteria—which were often omitted from some of the speeches we heard today. People who are not mentally competent and terminally ill, such as the disabled or older people who do not have a terminal illness, would not be eligible.

A number of noble Lords have cited the decision of the Supreme Court a few weeks ago. If we fail to make a decision, we will ultimately have to do so on the instruction of the Supreme Court. As a law-making body, we cannot ignore this challenge.

Comments have been made repeatedly about religious support. A YouGov poll in 2013 found that, of 1,200 people who identified as belonging to a religion, 62% were supportive of assisted dying for terminally ill people, with only 18% opposed. Examination of the results revealed that 78% of those who attended a place of worship once a month supported assisted dying, 59% of those who attended several times a month support assisted dying and this fell slightly to half of those who attended once a week. I make no comments about how often you should visit your place of worship, but there are a range of views on assisted dying from religious leaders. Those who are opposed have tended to dominate the debate, in direct contrast to the religious public’s support—a point well made by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone.

I will quote some of these religious bodies. In March 2013, the Hindu Council UK stated that it supported assisted dying with safeguards:

“Compassion ought always over-ride the argument for the sacredness of life”.

Just this last weekend, the former Archbishop of Canterbury the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Carey—we are delighted with his presence in your Lordships’ House—very publicly stated that he had moved away from his long-standing opposition to assisted dying, declaring that it would not be “anti-Christian” to support a change in the law:

“Personally, I find it a shameful blot on our country’s great reputation for caring for others that we have not come up with a better alternative than the Zurich clinic ... Today we face a central paradox. In strictly observing the sanctity of life, the Church could now actually be promoting anguish and pain, the very opposite of a Christian message of hope”.

I hope that I quoted the noble and right reverend Lord correctly; I have taken that quote from the Daily Mail.

[Noble Lords]

Ha!

[Lord Dholakia]

Similarly, my Lords, Desmond Tutu has openly backed the right of the terminally ill to end their lives with dignity:

“I revere the sanctity of life—but not at any cost ... why exit in the fog of sedation when there’s the alternative of being alert and truly present with loved ones?”

There are also many Jewish clergy who have come to view assisted dying as a religiously valid choice for those who so wish. Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain writes:

“There is nothing holy about agony. If a terminally-ill person does not wish to live out his/her last few months in pain, for what purpose should they be forced to do so, and in whose interest is that life being prolonged?”.

Over the years, Parliament has faced many serious issues: the abolition of slavery, the reform of abortion laws, the reform of laws on homosexuality, the abolition of capital punishment and, as recently as last year, the promotion of same-sex marriages. These issues do not sit comfortably with many in our community, but your Lordships’ House is well equipped to deal with this particular matter in Committee.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the gracious Speech and the opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Faulks.

Time constraints have obliged the coalition Government to propose fewer legislative measures than has been the case in the past. This is a good example for future Governments. We have learnt that knee-jerk reactions or chasing headlines are not sensible ways in which to run the country. Just look at the plethora of criminal justice legislation promoted by political parties in the past. Many of the measures have become irrelevant to the changing situation in the country. Some of these measures have still to be implemented.

The past four years have seen some important changes for the better in the criminal justice system. The iniquitous IPP sentence has been abolished. Legislation has restricted the unnecessary use of remand in custody. The prison population has increased at a significantly slower rate than under the previous Government, and estimates of the future prison population have been scaled down.

It is particularly encouraging that there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of juveniles in custody, falling by 55% in the past five years. The number of women in prison has also fallen, from 4,200 in 2010 to 3,800 now. The Government have continued to commit to funding for a national network of liaison and diversion services at police stations and courts to divert mentally disordered offenders to treatment and care. We have passed legislation which, for the first time, will provide prisoners serving sentences of less than 12 months with supervision and support on release.

The Government are taking steps to reduce the indefensible racial disproportionality in the use of stop and search. They have passed legislation to promote the use of restorative justice in the criminal justice process—here thanks are due to the initiative taken by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. They have implemented reforms to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act which will reduce the scope for unfair discrimination against former offenders in the job market and, because employment reduces reoffending, will also increase public safety. The Queen’s Speech announced two further welcome pieces of legislation in the modern slavery Bill and the Serious Crime Bill, which will contain measures to combat slavery, organised crime and child neglect. So far, so good. Regrettably, however, there are some clouds on the criminal justice horizon.

With a general election approaching, the past few months have seen signs of a heightened temptation for politicians to indulge in knee-jerk reactions which do nothing to promote justice or public safety. For example, the Secretary of State for Justice has recently banned the transfer of anyone who has previously absconded from an open prison. This means that an inadequate offender who absconds after receiving distressing news from his family, then thinks better of it a few hours later and hands himself in cannot be transferred back to an open prison later in his sentence. It is true that a small number of prisoners have gone out from an open prison and committed serious offences. However, in 2012 there were 485,000 releases on temporary licence and only 26 prisoners were arrested on suspicion of committing an offence—a rate of five failures in every 100,000 releases. It makes sense to be as rigorous as possible in assessing prisoners’ risk before transferring them to open conditions. However, it is not sensible to introduce sweeping restrictions on the use of open establishments, which greatly reduce overall reoffending by enabling prisoners to be released into the community on a gradual basis rather than suddenly after a period in completely closed conditions.

Over the past few weeks, we have seen the prison population start to rise sharply—by more than 500 in the second half of May—and this may well be in response to the tough rhetoric which is beginning to emerge as a general election approaches. During the next year, we would like to see the Government resist the temptation to engage in knee-jerk reactions or punitive rhetoric. Instead, they should use the next year to promote a series of further measures to improve our criminal justice system, either by implementing them during this Session or by preparing the ground for their implementation in a future Parliament.

First, we need to take further steps to reduce the unnecessary use of imprisonment. This country still uses imprisonment at a higher rate than any other western European country. We have 149 prisoners per 100,000 of the population compared with 100 in France and 77 in Germany. Why is there such an anomaly? Many prisons remain seriously overcrowded and more than 19,000 prisoners are held two to a cell designed for one person. At the same time, the need for public expenditure restrictions has led to a reduction in the number of prison officers relative to the number of prisoners: from 2.9 prisoners per officer in 2000 to 4.8 prisoners per officer last September. This reinforces the case for using prison more sparingly, particularly as community sentences have lower reconviction rates than prison sentences for comparable offenders. We should prohibit courts from using prison, except for dangerous offenders, unless they have first tried an intensive community supervision programme. We should also convert the sentences of existing IPP prisoners into determinate sentences once they have served a period equivalent to double their tariff.

Secondly, the Government should implement the recommendation of the draft Voting Eligibility (Prisoners) Bill Committee by enabling prisoners to vote if they are serving sentences of 12 months or less or are in the last six months of their sentence. It is now 10 years since the European Court of Human Rights judged that our blanket ban on voting by convicted prisoners violates the European Convention on Human Rights. The longer we continue to ignore our obligations under international law, the longer we are adopting a position which sits badly with our insistence that prisoners and other offenders should respect the rule of law. Respect for the rule of law involves an obligation for nation states as well as individuals to abide by binding legal rulings and not to pick and choose by abiding only by decisions that they choose to accept. We should waste no further time in making this relatively limited change, for which there are strong arguments based on considerations of citizenship and rehabilitation.

Thirdly, we should build on the welcome recent legislation which provides for restorative justice when sentences are deferred by making restorative justice one of the statutory purposes of sentencing and by enabling courts to include specific restorative justice requirements in community orders and youth rehabilitation orders.

Fourthly, the Government should reinforce the steps they are taking to reform stop and search by placing a clear statutory duty on all criminal justice agencies to adopt numerical targets for reducing racial disproportionality in their operations.

Finally, the Government should grasp the nettle and raise this country’s unusually low age of criminal responsibility—currently the lowest in Europe—from 10 to 12. The current position is incompatible with our obligations under international standards of juvenile justice and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Dealing with children of this age through non-criminal processes would hold out more hope of diverting them from offending than subjecting them to punishments in a criminal court. A short criminal justice Bill containing these measures would provide a legacy of which the coalition Government could be proud.

I know that noble Lords from all parties with an interest in the criminal justice and penal system will continue to press for changes along these lines, not only during the current Session but throughout future Parliaments. Let me conclude with a word of caution. We have yet to study detailed provisions of legislative measures proposed by the Government. We are also aware that we have a short parliamentary timetable available to get these measures through both Houses of Parliament. I trust that the Government will accept these sensible amendments. Let us work together so that sensible amendments form part of effective legislation.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Taylor of Holbeach) (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I can interrupt at this stage of the proceedings in the absence of a Whip to say that we have an advisory time of five minutes. I am most grateful for the contribution made by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, but I know that other noble Lords will wish to move on, and I hope that they do not mind being reminded of that.

Prisons: Education and Training

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

Purposeful activity covers a number of different areas: work, training, education, PE and programmes designed to tackle the causes of prisoners’ offending. Quite a lot of the emphasis on purposeful activity is to try to allow prisoners to engage in activities where they will have some prospects of work outside, particularly in the catering business. With great respect to the noble Baroness, who I know has great knowledge of these issues, that is in fact not out of step with where they might be able to find employment afterwards.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister accept that prisons are overcrowded, and that controls and discipline are difficult to maintain? In fact, there has been an increase of 72% in calls on riot squads, and we have reached a high point in the level of deaths in custody. Under these circumstances, in order to ensure that prison’s objectives of education, training and jobs are not affected by cuts in government expenditure, would the Minister not agree that it is time for automatic inspections by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons?

[Lord Faulks]

Any violence or instability in prisons is clearly to be regretted. However, the noble Lord will be aware that assaults in prisons are at their lowest level since 2008, and the number of cases of escaping or absconding has reduced by more than 85% of what it was 10 years ago. I am afraid that I cannot accept that there are problems as a result of overcrowding. At the moment, although there is no room for complacency, matters are stable in the Prison Service.

Prisoners: Indeterminate Sentences

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for this debate. I also thank a number of noble Lords who have been drawing attention to the injustice suffered by IPP prisoners. These prisoners have passed their tariff expiry date but their release has been delayed, often for years after their tariff has expired, by a combination of delays. These delays include the time that prisoners spend on waiting lists before they can start offending behaviour programmes such as sex offender treatment programmes, healthy relationships programmes for domestic violence offenders, self-change and resolve programmes for violent offenders, thinking skills programmes for impulsive offenders, victim awareness programmes, and drug and alcohol rehabilitation programmes.

We welcome such programmes but the prisons’ capacity to deliver in time is questionable. The delays are unacceptable. These delays also include the time spent waiting for psychological and psychiatric assessments to assess what work or treatment prisoners need to undertake to address their mental health problems or cognitive deficits. Then there are delays in getting a transfer to another prison when a prisoner’s current establishment does not run a programme considered necessary to reduce his or her risk and waiting for parole hearings to be listed.

Until recently the Parole Board was making commendable progress in reducing the backlog of cases awaiting a parole hearing. However, the backlog is now rising again as a result of last year’s Supreme Court decision in the case of Osborn, Booth and Reilly—mentioned earlier—which has required more cases of recalled prisoners to be referred to oral hearings. The combination of all these delays means that prisoners who were given short tariffs by sentencing courts can end up spending many years in custody after the tariff period the sentencing judge considered appropriate to punish the offender for his or her crime.

There are four main reasons why the Government should take prompt action to end this indefensible state of affairs. First, the coalition Government have commendably acted to end this injustice for offenders being sentenced now and in the future. Noble Lords on all sides of the House welcome this initiative. They have done so by abolishing the IPP sentence, for which they deserve great credit.

However, it is surely illogical to recognise the need to avoid the injustice of IPP sentences for current and future offenders but to refuse to remedy the same injustice which is being suffered by IPP prisoners who are already in the system. What is the justification for this course? We have had a number of meetings with the Minister of Justice, but to date no acceptable reasons have been advanced.

The second reason is that the failure to release these prisoners on licence is storing up serious problems for the prison system. The IPP sentence has been the main contributory factor to the astonishing increase in the proportion of prisoners serving indeterminate sentences, which rose from 9% of the prison population in 1993 to 19% in 2012. This is simply unacceptable. The longer that existing IPP prisoners remain in prison, the greater the pressure of numbers in the prison system and the worse the delays in the system are likely to become.

The third reason is that there is no tenable principled objection, either legal or moral, to retrospective legislation in this situation. I am aware that the Government have argued that it is wrong to interfere with sentences which have been passed by the courts, but Governments of all persuasions have repeatedly done so over the years, for example, by altering the rules on eligibility for parole, by increasing or reducing remission, by introducing early release with electronic monitoring and in a range of other ways, so why not in the case of IPP prisoners? Retrospective legislation is objectionable when it interferes with existing sentences in a way which puts prisoners in a worse position than the sentencing court intended. However, I can see no objection to retrospective legislation which puts existing prisoners in a better position in order to avoid the anomaly of treating them worse than more recent offenders who have committed identical crimes but are now being given determinate sentences.

The fourth reason is that the necessary changes can be introduced in a way which does not unacceptably increase risk to the public, a point which is often stated by the Minister. Most offenders who would previously have received IPP sentences are now given extended sentences. These sentences include a determinate custodial term followed by an extended period of supervision. If the Government are not attracted by the idea of substituting simple determinate sentences for existing short-tariff IPP sentences, they could legislate to replace them with a form of extended sentence. This could provide for the prisoner to be released after a period equal to double the tariff followed by an extended licence period. This licence period could last for 10 years or even for an indefinite period. During the licence period, the offender could be recalled to prison if he or she breached licence conditions, reverted to drug or alcohol misuse, failed to engage with offending behaviour programmes or engaged in risky behaviour which indicated that his or her risk was increasing. If they wanted, the Government could provide for exceptions to be made. For example, IPP prisoners could be released on licence after double their tariff period, unless the Parole Board identified exceptional circumstances indicating that the offender presented a particularly high risk to the public.

For all these reasons, I hope that the Government, who have acted so courageously to prevent the injustice of IPP sentences being imposed on offenders sentenced in the future, will not close their mind to the need to end the identical injustice being undergone by IPP prisoners who are already in the system. It brings the criminal justice system into disrepute if different standards are adopted for those who can benefit now as against those who were previously sentenced and fell into the IPP category. I hope that the Minister will be more positive on this than the previous Minister.

Justice: Non-custodial Sentences

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, this Government take the view that the sentencing of a particular offence is best left to the individual judge, who has knowledge and appreciation of the particular facts surrounding the commission of an offence. There are guidelines and, as the noble Lord will be aware, recent sentencing guidelines on sexual offences provided by the Sentencing Council, an independent body. If he cares to read those sentencing offences guidelines, he will realise how lengthy the suggested sentences are. If, in a particular circumstance, a judge passes a sentence which is unduly lenient, of course the Attorney-General can take that unduly lenient sentence to the Court of Appeal for review.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, while there is concern that those sentenced to a non-custodial alternative may reoffend, is it not right that the courts should send to prison those whose reoffending makes any other course unacceptable, and that those who are sent to prison should stay there no longer than is strictly necessary?

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, I speak as someone who sat as a recorder—a part-time judge—throughout the period of the previous Government, and deciding whether or not to send someone to prison is the most difficult task that we perform. Sometimes people have to be sent to prison; on other occasions, it is considered possible and sensible, in the long term, to provide them with the opportunity of rehabilitation within the community. This Government are committed to providing constructive things for people to do while they are being rehabilitated in the community, and I agree with my noble friend.

Probation Services: Privatisation

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

As for the idea that this is a rush, we are using 2007 legislation brought in by the last Administration and basing much our approach on the pilots in Peterborough and Doncaster which were brought in by the last Administration, so the idea that involving the private, charitable and voluntary sectors in probation work was thought up on the back of an envelope and is being pushed through in a few weeks is simply not true. We are moving in a direction that the previous Administration had already set in line. Admittedly we are making some radical changes, including bringing in a National Probation Service, which will give probation an authority and status which it has long lacked under previous schemes.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, does my noble friend accept that in the short term there will be a considerable impact on the employment and retention prospects of probation officers? In the light of that, will he ensure that probation services are informed about job opportunities in the private sector and that the private sector gives priority to the employment of people from the probation service so that their experience is not lost to the criminal justice system?

[Lord McNally]

I have great confidence in the human resources work that is being done to make sure that, where work is transferred across to the private and voluntary sector, existing probation officers get good opportunities for employment. My view is that many of the new entrants into this market will want to grab the experience of existing probation officers. I also hope that we can push forward with the idea of a chartered institute of probation, which again would give probation and probation officers the status that they previously lacked in our system.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Williamson of Horton]

My Lords, I have a favourable approach to this amendment, which would be a substantial change in practice. However, it is important that we do not present the question of short custodial sentences and community sentences simply in terms of hard or soft sentencing, although that is what actually happens in the media comment on some of these issues. For me, the real question is what arrangement is more likely to protect the public against continuing crime. That is the issue that we face in this amendment. At present, we have short custodial sentences, which do of course protect the public for a short period, but because the reoffending rate is high we also have periods when the public are not protected because we get a continuation of crime. The question is: can we do better?

The amendment does not take away the power of a court to impose a short custodial sentence where there are special reasons for doing so. Like the noble Lord who presented the amendment, I think that part of it is well drafted and correct and that we should concentrate on the special reasons. Furthermore, it requires the court to explain its decision in such cases. Over a period, such explanations will provide a good basis for assessing the effectiveness of the proposals. It is certainly possible—in my view, probable—that the proposal in the amendment, with a presumption for community sentences, will reduce crime and thus benefit law-abiding citizens. Therefore, I have a favourable presumption for the presumption.

[Lord Dholakia]

I am delighted to support this amendment, which sets out a new clause before Clause 12 and deals with the presumption in favour of community sentence orders, as has been rightly pointed out. This is very much a probing amendment to see how the Minister will react. I will be brief. My noble friend Lord McNally, the Minister, is aware that every time we have discussed legislation on sentencing, particularly lower-level sentencing, I have advocated a cautious approach in favour of community sentence orders in place of custody.

Prison sentences of less than 12 months are the argument that we are putting forward. We all know that under the present provisions, custodial sentences of less than 12 months achieve very little corrective behaviour. On the contrary, we have seen that the impact on an individual without supervision can be very damaging indeed. We want to avoid this risk. Our amendment would help guard against the risk that the welcome provisions of the Bill for post-release supervision for short-term prisoners could lead to the courts imprisoning more people. At present, courts may decide in borderline cases not to imprison an offender because supervision in the form of a community sentence is more likely to divert him or her away from offending. However, with the new supervision arrangements, the court might feel that by imprisoning the offender for a short period it can get the best of both worlds—both the punitive impact of imprisonment and supervision of the offender when he or she is released.

We have discussed similar provisions in previous legislation. The custody plus provision that we introduced at one stage is history now, but we know what happened to it. This would be a short-sighted view as even a short period of custody can lead to an offender losing accommodation and a job and fracturing family links, all of which make it more likely that he or she will reoffend, which is contrary to the provisions that we will discuss in our debate on rehabilitating offenders. Sentences of less than 12 months are too short for a sustained attempt at rehabilitation in custody but are long enough to damage the community ties which those supervising offenders can build on in trying to prevent them reoffending.

There has been a dramatic increase in the number of options available to the courts when dealing with offenders. We know about simple things, such as matters of conditional discharge and fines. There are also community service orders, probation orders and attendance orders. These are just a few of the alternatives, yet prison remains at the heart of our criminal justice system, with other penalties often referred to as alternatives to custody. I believe that my noble friend Lord McNally is on the right track in the way in which this Bill deals with rehabilitation. He is right in putting the emphasis on society to try and deal with more offenders in the community rather than in prisons. That is not in doubt. We are now seeing the impact, which is less use of prison and a drop in the crime rate—a remarkable achievement by the coalition Government. No longer does the argument apply that prison works.

We are not suggesting that grave offences should in general attract other than long sentences, but past experience has led us to believe in two important principles of sentencing. This is not original, radical or revolutionary. In essence, it fits in with many Court of Appeal judgments over the years. First, the court should send to prison only those whose offending behaviour makes any other course unacceptable. Secondly, those who are sent to prison should stay there no longer than is strictly necessary. The amendment is designed to meet the Government’s objective on matters of rehabilitation. We should do this by avoiding the unintended increase in prison sentences. This would be an important discipline that would help against that unintended consequence. This probing amendment would make it possible for my noble friend the Minister to discuss the merit of our proposal with the Sentencing Council and to examine the possibility of setting up some indicators so that the process is adequately monitored.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede]

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Marks. As he said, the current position is that an offence has to be so serious that a custodial sentence is imposed, but his amendment would put in place a presumption in favour of a community sentence. The additional part of his amendment is that special reasons have to be given in open court. My question to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, if it is appropriate to ask him, is: what might those reasons be? Would a breach of previous community orders be a special reason for it to be announced in open court that a custodial sentence will be passed? While I am sympathetic to the objectives of the amendment, I am open-minded about how it will be applied in court.

The Government’s impact statement highlighted the potential risk of increasing custodial sentences of less than 12 months because the sentencers themselves know that there will be a licence followed by a supervision period, which might be attractive to them. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, referred to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, making that same point in an earlier debate. My experience is that magistrates and district judges are always reluctant to commit an offender to prison and understand very well the current wording of the guidelines that an offence has to be so serious that only custody will do.

Nevertheless, it is an interesting amendment, which, as I said, I support. It will be for the practicalities of the Government to see whether there is a change in sentencing behaviour if the Bill goes through unamended. I am doubtful whether sentencers will change their behaviour; there will not be more custodial sentences because of the additional supervision period. Can the noble Lord, Lord Marks, give an example of the special reasons, to which he alluded, that might be appropriate for a custodial sentence?

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, this morning I visited the offices of NACRO, the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders—I declare an interest as its president—to listen to a speech by the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on victims, the rehabilitation of offenders, and crime. I am delighted that the rehabilitation of prisoners remains at the heart of the coalition Government. I welcome the Bill and the Government’s clear recognition of rehabilitation in any strategy to reduce crime. The Bill will transform the way offenders are rehabilitated by ensuring supervision for all offenders leaving prison.

One of the advantages of being deputy to my noble friend Lord McNally is that I can knock on his door to talk about party business. Inevitably, most of the time we end up talking about criminal justice matters. I am well aware that he has recognised that the current system of rehabilitation is just not working. This is just not good enough for offenders, victims of crime, or the community, which has invested so much in our criminal justice system.

I welcome in particular the proposal to introduce post-release supervision for short-term prisoners. These prisoners constitute the majority of those we send to prison each year, and they have higher reconviction rates than any other group of prisoners. Although their crimes, taken individually, are not the most serious, many short-term prisoners are prolific offenders who are responsible for much of the high-volume offending that makes life a misery for so many people living in high-crime areas. It is indefensible that for so many years we have been prepared to imprison so many more people than other European countries, only to put them back on the streets with no supervision and little if any support.

There is, however, a need for caution when we talk about rehabilitation strategy. Providing post-release supervision for short-term prisoners creates the risk that it could also lead to the courts imprisoning more people. I will explain. At present in borderline cases, courts might decide not to imprison offenders because supervision in the form of a community sentence is more likely to divert them away from offending.

Under the new arrangements, the courts might feel that by imprisoning the offender, they can get the best of both worlds: both the punitive impact of imprisonment and supervision of the offender when he or she is released. This is where we need to be absolutely clear: this would be a very short-sighted view, as even a short period of custody can lead to an offender losing accommodation, losing a job and fracturing family links, all of which make it more likely that he or she will reoffend. To guard against this risk, perhaps I may ask my noble friend Lord McNally to examine whether it is possible to provide by law that no one should be sentenced to custody, except for very serious offences, if they have not previously been subject to an intensive community sentence.

I greatly welcome the reorganisation of the prison system that will accompany these legislative changes. This will involve most prisoners spending at least the last three months of their sentences in a resettlement prison near their home area, making it easier to build up links with the local agencies responsible for providing support and supervision before and after release, and I do not think we should underestimate the role that local government can also play in this. This is an important step forward in the provision of resettlement and rehabilitation for released prisoners.

The Government are proposing a new system of service providers. As the Minister has explained, a new National Probation Service will supervise high-risk offenders and carry out risk assessments for the courts and the Parole Board. Low and medium-risk offenders will be supervised by providers from the private and voluntary sectors, or by consortia of private and voluntary organisations working together. We all know that this is a controversial proposal that is causing considerable anxiety among professionals, and we shall need to examine carefully in Committee how far the Government have got these proposals right. It is crucial to ensure that there is the rigorous monitoring of contracts to ensure that providers are delivering a high-quality service for the rehabilitation and supervision of offenders.

As president of NACRO, I am keen to see an extension of the valuable work of the voluntary organisations in the rehabilitation of offenders. Voluntary does not mean amateur. Many voluntary organisations have highly professional expertise in the key resettlement areas of accommodation, education, employment, drug and alcohol treatment, mentoring, family support and community engagement. All these factors can make a huge difference to an offender’s chances of avoiding reoffending. Some voluntary sector organisations have expressed fears that they could be squeezed out if contracts are given only to large private sector companies. It is important to make sure that any organisation given a contract to provide supervision and rehabilitation services works in partnership with voluntary organisations in arrangements that give the voluntary sector full cost recovery. This is vital if we are to make full use of the voluntary sector’s expertise in the resettlement of offenders. This is a once in a generation opportunity to fully involve the people and organisations who know how to unlock and mobilise local resources and shift the focus from isolated and disconnected pockets of service delivery to rebuilding the lives of victims, offenders and communities.

I have talked about NACRO, which knows from five decades of delivering community-based services to offenders, ex-offenders and those at risk of offending that the reform of the current system offers an opportunity to break new ground and deliver collaborative change across government and with the involvement of local communities. These reforms offer the opportunity to address the multiple and interdependent social outcomes of crime and reoffending: homelessness, unemployment, ill health and all the other factors that are responsible for crime and criminality in this country that we have talked about. Voluntary organisations are well equipped to deliver. They combine practical help with emotional support, training in social skills and problem solving, and attrition prevention activities. This balance of measures is designed to match the offender’s risks and needs upon release.

As has already been mentioned by many colleagues, one risk under the new arrangements is the loss of the expertise of probation officers who do not go into the new smaller National Probation Service. The Government envisage that many probation officers who do not enter the new service will transfer to work for other providers. I hope the Minister will be able to deliver a clear assurance that suitable jobs will be available to ensure that no probation officer need have any fear about their future career prospects under the new system. This will help to reduce the risk that uncertainty about the future will lead to probation officers leaving for other areas of work so that their expertise is lost to the field of offender supervision. I also hope that the contracts with providers will be of sufficient length to ensure the stability of service provision. As long as providers are providing a good quality service, it is important that the provision of services is not subject to constant uncertainty and instability because organisations have to compete too frequently to keep on providing the service.

It is important to make sure that everyone supervising offenders has the right kind of training and expertise in a number of key areas. These include knowledge of the criminal justice system and the operation of offending behaviour programmes, the protective factors that can prevent reoffending, the interpersonal skills necessary to supervise offenders effectively, and ways of monitoring the warning signs that can indicate that an offender’s risk is rising. Low and medium-risk offenders may not be the most serious offenders, but they are often difficult, intractable and prolific. Their risk can rapidly rise if they return to alcohol or drug abuse, start associating with old criminal associates, become homeless or unemployed or lose motivation to change their way of life. Most serious offenders have a previous history of minor offending. Those supervising them must have the skills and knowledge to recognise when that risk is increasing and to take appropriate action.

The Bill aims to create a system that does more to tackle high levels of reoffending. However, once people have served their sentences and have turned their lives around, it is important that society recognises this and ensures that there are no unnecessary obstacles in their way. That is why I welcome the Government’s proposal to reform the system of criminal record checks so that people with a single conviction that did not lead to a prison sentence will no longer have it revealed when applying for a job except where the conviction was for certain offences. Evidence from Unlock, a charity for people with convictions, shows that the proposed filtering system will enable many people to compete for work on a level playing field.

However, I am keen to see the Government go much further so that genuinely reformed individuals are able to wipe the slate clean when it comes to finding employment. For example, the filtering proposals are limited to one conviction only. This fails to recognise how two identical cases may end up in court: one as one conviction only and the other as multiple charges. One sentencing event would seem to be a more sensible threshold. The one-conviction limit also ignores the reality of petty offending, particularly when committed by young people, whose offending is dealt with by way of a small number of minor convictions. The case of Bob Ashford, former prospective PCC candidate, is a perfect example of this discrepancy. Nevertheless, along with the forthcoming changes to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, which I hope the Government will shortly announce will be in force by the end of the year, the system is certainly moving in the right direction.

I hope we can explore these and other areas in the course of the Bill’s progress. I am keen to ensure that the new arrangements deliver a quantum leap in rehabilitation for offenders. I hope that the Government will be open to discussion and, where necessary, amendments to ensure that the risks of these proposals are minimised and the benefits are maximised. In conclusion, this is the best way to ensure that the Bill helps many more offenders to turn their lives around and reduces the damage which crime inflicts on our communities.

European Convention on Human Rights

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I find that a very helpful contribution. When the question, “Are you in favour of the European Convention on Human Rights?” is asked, certain people will see the word Europe and their eyes will start spinning round. As the noble Lord has pointed out, however, if you ask people, “Do you want built into law protection against the power of the state?”, in the way that he has just illustrated, they will invariably say, “Yes, please”.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his clear and concise Answer to the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis. Does he accept that Britain has an enviable record in promoting human rights and the rule of law throughout the world? What sort of response does he think he would get from people like Mugabe if we were to withdraw at this stage from the provisions of human rights legislation in this country?

[Lord McNally]

My noble friend asks a helpful question in putting this matter into perspective. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has quite rightly made human rights, and Britain’s championing of human rights, part of his soft diplomacy strategy. It has been greatly to his credit and to the credit of the United Kingdom. It is important that we have a record that we can be proud of when we look at other regimes and criticise them about their human rights record.

Prisoners: Voting Rights

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I would have to take advice on whether the 1870 law is the only one. I presume that there have been successor electoral laws since then. However, I agree with the noble Lord that we now have a framework. Whether the wrong questions have been asked or in the wrong order, the committee once set up will have considerable leeway to set its own terms of reference. My right honourable friend in the other place made it clear that although the draft Bill gave a number of options that was not the full scope of where the committee could go or what the committee could examine. The Lord is quite right that mention of cost is a bit of scaremongering. It would be handled, I suspect, as postal votes. On the point mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, I remember a newspaper suggesting that in the Isle of Wight the seat could be swung by the block vote from Parkhurst. It is a reductio ad absurdum of the debate.

I am told that the law disqualifying prisoners from voting is now contained in the Representation of the People Act 1983. We have moved on 100 years and it is interesting that the Act is now nearly 30 years old.

There have been many red herrings in regard to the methodology of prisoner voting. I suspect that it would be done by postal votes, which would not be a tremendous burden on the administration of any elections. However, that is another matter on which the committee can take expert advice.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, whether we like it or not—and if not now then at some time in the future—and whether it makes someone sick or not, the Government are under an international law obligation to implement the ECHR judgment. That being the case, is my noble friend able to identify the countries in the European Union that allow those convicted of crimes to have the right to vote? As the Minister responsible for providing the initiative for the rehabilitation of offenders, does he accept that by granting prisoners the right to vote, it will help in the rehabilitation of offenders?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, that illustrates the range of opinions on this matter. The Secretary of State set out his personal view and the personal view of the Prime Minister. I share the view of my noble friend that it could be possible to devise a system of enfranchisement for some prisoners that could play a useful part in a rehabilitation process. That may be something that he, or other bodies with which he is associated, may wish to put to the committee.

As regards the Council of Europe, some 41 members give prisoners the right to the vote to some degree or another and six continue with a blanket ban. Those six are: Armenia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Russia, San Marino and the United Kingdom.