Court Proceedings: Written Transcripts

Debate between Lord Elton and Lord Faulks

Tuesday 28th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

An accurate transcript involves expense, and expense is incurred by those who provide an accurate—and it must be absolutely accurate—transcript. A transcript is available, but it is not automatically available. It requires transcription from a recording. Depending on how quickly you need it and how much you need, it will be more expensive.

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, does not a hard-copy record of all proceedings have to reside in the court? If that is the case, why is it so expensive to print another copy, as is done with Hansard?

[Lord Faulks]

There is not, in fact, a printed record of proceedings. There is a recording, which is then transcribed. It is the cost of transcription that we are concerned with.

Restorative Justice

Debate between Lord Elton and Lord Faulks

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

The Government are well aware of the advantages of restorative justice and in fact they have contributed to it very considerably, with £30 million having been made available to RJ services for victims over the last three years. Of course, the noble Lord is right to draw attention to the Howard League’s contribution. There have been contributions from all sorts of providers in different fields.

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, as I recall, the initial pioneering effort was made by the Thames Valley Police Authority, which deserved great credit for that. Do any police authorities not provide restorative justice services at present?

[Lord Faulks]

My noble friend is right to single out the Thames Valley Probation Service, and the noble Lord, Lord Blair, is intimately concerned with that. All police and crime commissioners have been provided with funds, although the take-up has varied between authorities. As I indicated in answer to an earlier question, it is important that best practice is shared among the various areas.

Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Elton and Lord Faulks

Friday 23rd October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

In this country, at the moment at least, we do not have jury panels questioned by lawyers to find out what their views and prejudices are. I would be reluctant to embark on that exercise. However, I understand my noble friend’s concerns. They are matters on which opinions can reasonably differ.

There is one Muslim arbitration council, established in 2007, which operates in five English towns and cities and which applies a form of sharia law. We do not know exactly how many sharia councils or similar bodies are in operation or have the full picture of their activities and outcomes. I would like to assure the noble Baroness that the Government take the concerns raised about some of these councils very seriously and are committed to understanding more about the problems identified.

That is why, as part of the Counter-Extremism Strategy announced earlier this week, the Home Secretary has said that she intends to commission a full, independent investigation into the application of sharia law in England and Wales. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Blencathra for reading out paragraphs 17 and 18 of that document, which show conclusively that the Government have taken on board many of the factors which have been featuring in this debate and that they intend to commission an independent report. Of course, the announcement was made only this week. I am acutely conscious of the tendencies referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, along with all the Chilcot-ian observations made by my noble friend Lord Blencathra about the necessity to consider widely and not simply to provide a preliminary view of these matters. On the question of legislation, I do not want to prejudge anything the inquiry may find, although certainly legislation may be an option. But that is a matter which will be considered in due course. The investigation will enhance our understanding of any ongoing misuse of sharia law and the extent of the problem where it exists.

The Government are also facilitating a range of initiatives and working with others to promote integration in our society and the equality of all women. However, the Government do have reservations as to whether the measures in this Bill are the best way forward in tackling the undoubted problems identified. But first let me make it clear that, regardless of religious belief, every citizen is equal before the law. Decisions taken as part of an alternative dispute resolution are not binding in law, save in limited circumstances in civil matters which are carried out under the Arbitration Act 1996, and which are subject to the safeguards of the Act and recourse to the courts. In addition, criminal matters and certain types of family disputes, such as those over the custody or welfare of children, cannot be arbitrated and can be decided only by the courts. Many couples choose to resolve their difficulties between themselves, sometimes with the assistance of lawyers, mediators and other third parties. People may wish to apply their religious principles to the resolution of disputes, and it is right that they have that choice. The Government are keen to promote the continued use of non-court dispute resolution services to resolve family disputes.

While we agree entirely with the noble Baroness that the necessary standards and safeguards must be in place, at the moment we do not agree that the law needs changing to facilitate this, because relevant and specific protections are already in place in common law and in existing legislation.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, the concern is not that the law is in place but that it is not understood and therefore is not working. If it is not understood and known, it is no use whatever. My noble friend’s intention is to bring this to public attention. I am sure that he has this in mind, but I would like to hear that he has.

[Lord Faulks]

Let me reassure my noble friend that of course it is well understood that one of the main burdens of the debate has been the lack of awareness of the law. There is a rather strange legal maxim that every citizen is deemed to know the law, but that is often not the case in the sort of communities that we are concerned with. I accept entirely that increasing awareness is vital to avoid some of the difficulties which have been highlighted in this debate.

Prisons: Secure Colleges

Debate between Lord Elton and Lord Faulks

Thursday 18th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

The difficulties that exist with youth custody are well known, such as reoffending. Of course, as the House will be aware, the good news is that the number of those in youth custody has reduced from 3,000 to 1,000. This means that those in various forms of youth custody present real problems and real challenges. The secure college pathfinder was a solution favoured by the last Government. We have not ruled out using a secure college. It has not yet received approval at Treasury level, but all of the ideas which it incorporated have not been abandoned. They contain many sound approaches to providing the right answer to this difficult problem.

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, when my noble friend makes his recommendations to his Secretary of State, will he emphasise the importance of treating young prisoners as human beings and not as statistics? By that I mean that after they come out of education they have to go back into education seamlessly, which means very close correlation between the local education authority and the prison. Therefore, if you have only one gigantic one you hugely increase the distances to be dealt with, which in itself is a handicap in delivering a good programme.

[Lord Faulks]

My noble friend makes an important point about the continuity in respect of educational gains which can be attained by secure colleges. He will of course be aware that one of the difficulties with this particular cohort is that they very rarely had any continuity in their education before they went into a youth custody institution. One hopes that not only the habits they will acquire in youth custody but the appetite to learn can be consolidated by the sorts of links he describes.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Elton and Lord Faulks

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

It is a marginally lower hurdle, but as I understand it—and the Minister will confirm—the choice of words was not an arbitrary matter but the result of a very wide consultation among the professionals concerned in order to reach a test that was sufficient to establish gravity but not so high that the scourge of anti-social behaviour could not be prevented.

In its briefing on this part of the Bill, the Law Society made the point that if injunctions are used in the case of noise nuisance, as an alternative to possession proceedings, they can result in the person or family staying in their home but with restrictions on their conduct, rather than the much more drastic step of eviction. Although an IPNA can be obtained on the balance of probabilities, with or without the amendment, the criminal standard must be satisfied before any breach can be established: that is, beyond reasonable doubt. I respectfully suggest that this provides an extra safeguard, so that this will not result in people being deprived of their liberty inappropriately.

I am also concerned about how coherent Amendment 1 is. It requires “harassment, alarm or distress”—a quasi-criminal test—with the exception, which was not in the original amendment in Committee, of a housing provider or local authority in a similar housing management position. In the case of social housing, the hurdle to be surmounted appears to be lower, so there is a two-tier test for anti-social behaviour, depending on whether you are a private tenant or are in social housing, where an injunction is much more easily obtained. That is hardly a satisfactory distinction, and I wonder how enthusiastic the party is about such a classification.

I do not know, of course, how the party opposite—or at least its Front Bench—regards this amendment. It will be borne in mind that MPs on all sides in the House of Commons were at pains to stress what a scourge anti-social behaviour is to their constituents, and that there ought to be substantial and sensible powers to prevent it. Indeed, the shadow Home Secretary said generally of the powers in the Bill that she thought they were too weak.

We are all passionately in favour of freedom of speech, freedom of association—

[Lord Elton (Con)]

Will my noble friend forgive me? He has just said that he cannot understand why there should be a lower test in social housing. Surely the answer is that if you are in social housing you cannot move out of the way, people are free to do what they like to you and you are trapped. Therefore, a lower standard of unsociability has a much greater effect on the person affected. It is exactly the right proportion.

[Lord Faulks]

Of course I entirely accept the noble Lord’s point that those in social housing may not have options and therefore certainly need the protection at a lower level. My point was that it is rather inelegant to have a different test where there might theoretically be greater room for manoeuvre if there is a private tenant. The test ought to be the same.

I was repeating the fact that I sympathise with all those who have spoken in favour of the various freedoms that we value so much in this country. If we vote in favour of the amendment—if it is put to a vote—we will of course be able to congratulate ourselves and say that we have acted in the finest traditions of freedom. I will have the good fortune of going back to my house where, at least at the moment, there is no great history of anti-social behaviour in the area. Other noble Lords will perhaps be in a similar position. But let us not forget those who are in less fortunate circumstances, who do not have room for manoeuvre and whose lives are made totally miserable by this anti-social behaviour. I fear that if we accede to this argument, we will fail to take them sufficiently into consideration and will make bad law.