Prisons and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Garnier and David Hanson

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I shall focus on a number of points in the Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) said in his opening remarks, the Labour party will not oppose the Bill, but that does not mean that we cannot take steps to try to improve it and to get clarity from Ministers about what the Bill means in practice and what its impact will be.

Like the Minister, I support the aims of clause 1, which says that prisons are intended to

“protect the public…reform and rehabilitate offenders…prepare prisoners for life outside prison, and… maintain an environment that is safe and secure.”

Nobody can disagree with those objectives, but, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) said in her excellent speech, the prisons system faces a number of challenges. Those challenges have not come from nowhere; they have come from deliberate decisions—from Government policy—and the Bill provides an opportunity to at least look at them, and, potentially, to rectify them.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham covered some of the statistics, but they are worthy of repetition. It is now the case that 76 of the prisons in our estate—some 60%—are overcrowded, and have been deemed to be overcrowded by the prisons inspector. We have seen an increase of 39% in the number of deaths in prison custody over the last year, while there has been a 32% increase in self-inflicted deaths. There has also been a massive increase—22%—in the number of self-harm incidents reported. We have seen an increase in the number of assaults by prisoners on staff and on fellow prisoners. There has been an increase in the number of psychoactive substances found in prisons. There has been an increase in the number of mobile phones found in prisons, and, therefore, an increase in the number that are getting into prisons. Sadly, as we heard from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham, there has been a reduction of some 6,335—26%—in the number of prison officers in the past seven years.

I believe that those facts are linked. We have fewer prison officers and the same number of prisoners—prisoners who, for a range of reasons, are more difficult and more challenging and, in many cases, have been convicted of more violent offences. The reduction in prison officer numbers has a real impact on the other statistics. While I do not object to the aims of clause 1 —indeed, I support them—I think that we need to think about what they mean in practice, and about how the White Paper is linked to them.

In what was, as I have said, an excellent speech, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham made some positive suggestions about clause 1. The amount of time spent in cells is extremely important, and we should also think about how to establish mechanisms for the recognition and support of people with mental health problems. I would add two issues to her list: family links and distance from home.

In the past 12 months, I have dealt with two constituency cases—quite apart from my work as a member of the Justice Committee—involving people in prisons in the Isle of Wight and Norwich respectively. Let me explain to those who are not familiar with the geography that the Isle of Wight is 273 miles from my constituency—an 11-hour train journey—and that travelling to Norwich takes six hours by train or a four-and-a-half-hour drive. If one of the key purposes of the Bill is reform and rehabilitation, contact with family is surely critical to that achievement.

[Sir Edward Garnier]

Could not those two examples be replicated, but to an even worse degree, in the case of young offenders? Obviously there are fewer young offender institutions than prisons. Youngsters are bussed around in the back of sweatboxes for hours—for hours and hours after court hours—and often do not reach their destination until nearly midnight. That is not a good way to rehabilitate anyone.

[Mr Hanson]

I agree, but we both know that such problems are not easy to solve. Central to today’s debate is the question of what we can do in the context of the Bill. As I have said, I would add the question of family links to the list given by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham. I was prisons Minister for two years and one month. It is a difficult job, and it is difficult to change policy, but we have opportunities to consider these matters. I hope that the Minister will reflect on them in Committee, and will think about how clause 1 can be strengthened in order to achieve its objectives.

The Justice Committee welcomes the fact that clause 2 puts Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons on a statutory footing, and we consider the statutory recognition of the inspectorate’s role in visiting places of detention to be a positive development. We are pleased that the chief inspector of prisons will be required to have regard to the new statutory purposes of prisons. I am particularly glad that the Government will have to respond to the chief inspector’s recommendations within 28 days if the matter is urgent, or within 90 days in the case of a general inspection, and that there will be scrutiny of inspection powers. Clauses 4 to 20 put the prisons and probation ombudsman on a statutory footing, and we welcome that as well.

The Government accepted the Committee’s recommendation that the HMIP protocol should be finalised, and said that they would produce a final version before Second Reading. The Committee was consulted on the draft protocol in January, but as far as I know no final protocol has been agreed or published. I think it important for it to be published as soon as possible so that we can develop it accordingly. It was more than a year ago that we recommended a protocol on the relationship between the inspectorate and the Ministry, and we need to know what that relationship is.

Whiplash poses a challenge for the Minister and the Government. The Committee heard evidence from the Association of British Insurers and from the association of legal professionals who deal with whiplash cases. Because we have not been convinced by the Government’s case to date, we have established a follow-up inquiry—as the Minister is doubtless aware, it was announced last Friday—to call for evidence on whiplash. The terms of reference for our fuller inquiry include the definition of whiplash and the prevalence of road traffic accident-related whiplash claims, considering whether fraudulent whiplash claims stack up and whether the provisions in part 5 introduce an effective tariff to regulate damages for RTA-related whiplash claims. In particular, they include consideration of the impact of raising the small claims limit to £5,000 for RTA-related whiplash claims, and—this is not in the Bill, but it is directly linked to it—raising the small claims limit to £2,000 for personal injury claims more generally. They also include consideration of the role of claims management companies, which have not been touched on to date.

The challenge for the Minister, in Committee and on Report—and I hope that the Justice Committee will influence those debates—is to convince us that his policies, established on a cross-party basis with the Committee, will meet our objectives. The claims that the Government have made about savings being passed on to motorists and about the level of fraud in the system have not yet been tested to my satisfaction or that of the Justice Committee, which, it should be remembered, has a Conservative majority.

The Government’s consultation paper sets out no rationale for including employment injuries in what is billed as a reform of whiplash claims. I wrote to the Lord Chancellor last week, and was told that the employment injury aspects would be dealt with by a statutory instrument following completion of the whiplash measures in the Bill.

Debate on the Address

Debate between Lord Garnier and David Hanson

Wednesday 18th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to the Gracious Speech debate. Like the right hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier), I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) and the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) for their contributions. It is a tough gig to undertake, but they did so with aplomb.

Today’s debate is very general, so I want to make some general comments before focusing on the same issues that the right hon. and learned Member for Harborough raised about prisons. As ever with a Gracious Speech, there are things on which we can agree. I look forward to the measures on tackling radicalisation in prison and generally. I think that they will contribute to putting in place a framework to reduce radicalisation and to stop young people from all communities turning to warped views of the Muslim faith, or indeed, as happened in Mold in my constituency, radical activity based on a national socialist view of the world. It is important to consider those measures in detail and to support them.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), I have a lot of time for the Investigatory Powers Bill, not least because I have spent three months considering the draft Bill in detail with several hon. Members and putting in place measures to ensure that the state can have access to the information that it needs to stop paedophilia, terrorism, money laundering and other criminal activities, but also building in protections. The Bill was before the House in the previous Session and I look forward to its progressing with some amendments in this Session.

I cannot argue—nobody could—with measures to support and honour the military covenant. As a former Northern Ireland Minister, I look forward to further progress on the Stormont House agreement. The Prime Minister’s activities on anti-corruption and money laundering are welcome. We will see the proof of the pudding in due course, but there is broad support in the House for tackling tax evasion and corruption.

Although I am an Opposition Member, I will not dismiss all aspects of the Gracious Speech, because there are things in it that we should examine. However, some issues leap out about which we have real concerns. The right hon. and learned Member for Harborough coined a phrase, which will become welcome across the House: the current British Bill of Rights is “a demented moth” banging its head against a light.

[Sir Edward Garnier]

Lampshade.

[Mr Hanson]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman corrects me. I want to ensure that the facts are correct, so I take his point. I share his concern that we will throw away the Human Rights Act, which a Labour Government passed in the 1997-2001 Parliament, and replace it with a British Bill of Rights, which throws away our commitments to the European Court in Strasbourg. That does not just throw away our commitment to being part of the wider European Union; the European Court of Human Rights covers countries that are currently not in the European Union, such as Russia, where we face potential challenges. We are sending the wrong signal by ditching the Human Rights Act.

Business of the House (Today)

Debate between Lord Garnier and David Hanson

Monday 10th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

It looks like it, Mr Speaker.

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am very grateful to you for the suggestion that you have just made. Would it not be even more convenient to the House if the Home Secretary did that now? We could then curtail this debate, and get on with it.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords]

Debate between Lord Garnier and David Hanson

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Garnier]

rose—

[Mr Hanson]

I give way to my former shadow, the hon. and learned Member for Harborough.

[Sir Edward Garnier]

I think my shadow is rather bigger than it used to be. I want to encourage the right hon. Gentleman with the tedious little point that at least he and I have remained consistent over the past seven years, so why not comfort himself with that and then we can put this to a vote?

[Mr Hanson]

The point I am trying to make is that I support new clause 1 because the Government are trying to use the 2007 Act to take an approach that the then Ministers, in both Houses, rejected. I accept that the Minister believes that he has a legal basis to do this. I simply ask him to publish it, so that we can test it in due course. I am happy for the Minister to intervene, but he will have a chance to respond later. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington and other hon. Members who have spoken, I remain concerned about the proposal, because I believe it is a gamble.