Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Haskel and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I expect this will be another brief debate. There are two matters to which I want to draw attention in this amendment, and they relate to Schedule 1, which seeks to introduce a new provision, again into the Criminal Justice Act 2003. One relates to the requirements that the Secretary of State may specify must be adhered to by an offender on supervision. That is in relation to the,

“requirement to reside permanently at an address approved by the supervisor and to obtain the prior permission of the supervisor for any stay of one or more nights at a different address”.

While one can well see the importance of residence, particularly in cases where it is undesirable for an offender to reside in a particular location—for example, if there has been an incident of domestic violence and that is the subject of his or her conviction. Equally, however, there are very vulnerable people in the system. If they were, for example, to return to the family home—particularly in the case of a young person, but not necessarily in only those cases—where there are already problems, one can envisage circumstances in which they may be unable to continue to reside there and it may be almost an emergency situation.

I hope it would be clear that, in those circumstances, as long as the offender takes the first opportunity to notify that he or she has not been able to return to that place of residence, that would not lead to a breach. I assume that would be the case, but some words on the record from the noble Lord would perhaps be helpful.

My other question is a simple one in relation to new Clause 256AB(4), which relates to the fact that the Secretary of State may, by order, specify additional requirements, or “remove or amend” the requirements that have already been set out in new subsection (1). The order will presumably have to take the form of something laid before the House. The question is whether that would be an order subject to negative or affirmative resolution. It is as simple as that. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel)]

I have to inform your Lordships that if this amendment is agreed, I cannot call Amendments 9 to 12 because of pre-emption.

Public Bodies (Abolition of Courts Boards) Order 2012

Debate between Lord Haskel and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, again I thank the Minister and congratulate him on his very clear exposition of this order. I indicate at the outset that, as in the House of Commons, the Opposition do not in any sense oppose the proposals.

However, although the Minister has rightly referred to issues raised by the Merits Committee, it should be noted that, as well as raising individual issues, the committee expressed some concerns about how the whole process had taken place. In particular, in relation to the explanatory document, paragraph 13 of the Merits Committee report points out that both the Magistrates’ Association and the Law Society thought that the current system was better than nothing. The Government have made a judgment on that and I do not necessarily quibble with it. The Merits Committee came to this conclusion:

“On balance the low number of consultation responses would seem to support the Government’s view, that Courts Boards are not operating particularly effectively”.

However, it also pointed out that while the,

“Explanatory Document suggests that other existing avenues may perform the same function better”,

that would need to be articulated “more fully in debate”. Up to a point that has happened in another place and here today, but it did not happen unprompted. Similarly, on the impact assessment, the committee pointed out that,

“in order to demonstrate compliance with the statutory tests”—

departments—

“should, as a minimum, include in the ED a clear statement of the factors that have been included in their calculation of net savings”.

They have subsequently done that and, again, there is no issue over that. However, as the Merits Committee indicated, it would be better to have had that in place in the first instance.

The committee made a point about the reassurances over provision to monitor and influence how court services are tailored. Its conclusion was a modest rebuke to the Government, which said:

“In our consideration of future draft Public Bodies Orders, we will expect the Government to present a properly argued case that the tests in the 2011 Act have been satisfied, supported by objective evidence”.

I am sure that the Minister will wish to ensure that that is carried through in the event of any further orders coming from his department. I hope that the Government as a whole will take that point.

One or two issues remain outstanding, which relate partly to the answers that were given by the Minister, Mr Djanogly, in Monday’s debate in the House of Commons and those given by the noble Lord today. These refer to the other structures that are in place, such as justices’ issues groups and the Magistrates’ Association. As the Minister said on Monday, there are other bodies, which mean that,

“court users … can have their views heard through structures such as justices’ issues groups, area judicial forums, local criminal justice boards, victims and witnesses sub-groups, and court user groups”.—[Official Report, Commons, Delegated Legislation Committee, 23/4/12; col. 4.]

That raises the question of the number of bodies that might be involved and suggests rather a more fragmented approach to looking at the issues that arise in an individual area. It is striking that there is no mention of local authorities among those groups. I invite the Minister to consider whether it would be appropriate to encourage HMCTS to promote the involvement of local authorities, which are important partners in community safety and can make a significant contribution to dealing with the problems of crime and disorder, which manifest themselves locally and end up in the courts.

Useful experiments are taking place in different parts of the country in relation to some of these matters. For example, I am currently chairing a scrutiny panel in my own authority dealing with the mental health of offenders. In the course of that we have discovered that there are experiments about providing professionals at court who can assist those who might have mental health problems at a very early stage in proceedings. It is also something that the young offender teams are involved in, closely linked to the local authority services.

The point is that it will not be sufficient simply to have different groups of people relating to the HMCTS.

[Lord Haskel]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but a Division has been called and so the Committee stands adjourned for 10 minutes.