Criminal Justice System: Capacity

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend Lady Mallalieu for her question. I very much remember the noble Lord regularly asking for a royal commission. The reality is that we feel that we have a big job of work to do on reviewing sentencing and then managing the whole prison population and estate, so that it stops increasing. That is where our focus is right now. I will take back the question of a royal commission to my right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor, but, to be frank, I have not heard it spoken about in the time I have been in government.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I support a smaller prison population, not just because there are not enough places for the people who have been sentenced but because there are too many people in prison. However, one of the consequences of releasing people early, at a quicker pace than one might have planned for, is that it will put more pressure on the police service. This Government made a manifesto pledge to increase the size of the police by around 4,000 officers, but we have not heard an awful lot about that since the Government took office.

Secondly, as has been mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and by the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, in passing, one of the measures for mitigating the recidivism of those who are released is tagging—normal tagging to determine where the person is and sobriety tagging, where alcohol is an aggravating factor, and now there is also drug tagging. Finally, the response to those tags when they are breached should go straight to the police, not to a private company to be emailed to the police to be dealt with some time later. Is the Minister able to respond to those points about resourcing?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I have just consulted with my noble friend Lord Timpson and I can reassure the noble Lord that we do have enough tags for the process which we are embarking on. I should also mention that both my noble friend Lord Timpson and I were fitted with a sobriety tag for a while to see whether it worked, and I can assure the noble Lord that it does work.

The noble Lord’s opening point was about more pressure on the police. That is right; there will be some more pressure on the police and also on the Probation Service and some social services such as housing. The philosophy underlying the Government’s SDS40 approach rather than the previous approach is planning down the whole pipeline, including people who will regrettably reoffend and how to deal with them. By managing this with a more planned approach, we hope and expect that we will reduce the chances of reoffending.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendments 60 and 64 in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, to which I have added my name. I declare my interests as set out in the register. The charity that I run operates a specialist domestic abuse service. I want to use my charity as an example of why these amendments are needed.

Muslim Women’s Network operates a national specialist helpline. It runs other projects in addition, but because it is not solely a domestic abuse service it has been excluded from stakeholder meetings by decision-makers, and also excluded from funding. For this reason, it is important to define the full breadth of specialist community-based domestic abuse services, which can then be used to hold decision-makers to account if they are excluded from being consulted, or when it comes to applying for funding. It can be quite short-sighted if organisations have that intersectional experience of cases. They also hold important data.

There is a huge funding gap, which has been mentioned. Barriers are put in the way particularly of small, specialist minority-ethnic organisations. We have seen this more in recent years under the current Government. As an example, there are very high thresholds to make grant applications. Thresholds can be so high that they exclude minority groups from putting in funding applications unless they form a coalition, which can be burdensome for a small organisation. The other problem this poses is that, if they form a coalition and there is a lead partner that gets a large chunk of money, most of that money goes out to the other partners in the coalition. That organisation then goes to, say, the charitable foundation sector to try to obtain funding and is told, “You’ve gone over the income threshold; you can’t apply for the funding because you have plenty of money coming in”. It is not considered that most of that money is going back out—this poses another barrier for small, specialist organisations.

These types of issues need to be considered to effectively commission relevant victim support services. I support the other amendments in this group, of course.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 19 from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, principally because it is a good idea in principle that victims should have the reasons why the sentence has been decided. You could argue that the summing up can be a very long process and has to account for all the evidence that is offered; I can therefore understand why the costs might mount for the summing up, but I cannot understand why the costs would mount for the sentencing.

It seems vital for the victim to understand why a sentence was given. There has not always been a reasoned decision as to why a sentence was given, but they are provided more often now, not least because the suspect has the right to appeal their sentence, and they need to understand—as does any appellate court—the reason why a sentence was awarded.

I would have thought, although I have been quietly informed otherwise by a noble and learned neighbour, that all judgments, and the reasons for the sentence, would be written down. Apparently, they are more often ex tempore. That seems a little dangerous to me, but I am not in a position to argue. Apparently, there are times when sentences, and the reasons for them, are written down and published—and there must be times when they are transcribed for appeals et cetera—so, if they are available, that is not an extra cost.

In any case, I would have thought that judgments need to be recorded. If they are recorded, why can they not be shared, certainly for the victims’ reasons? I understand that there might have to be a cut-off point—perhaps for the seriousness of the sentence given, which may be imprisonment compared with a more summary offence—but I cannot quite understand why the sentencing decisions cannot be shared with the victims. It might well be that they do not want to be in court when the sentence is announced, or that they are not available to be in court. Quite often, nobody knows the time at which the sentencing decision will be made: nobody knows exactly when the hearing will finish, when the jury will decide its findings or when the judge will be available to deliver the sentencing judgment.

I support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and if she decides to divide the House I will certainly support it. I realise that the Opposition have decided not to, but I am a little surprised.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 31st January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I shall not be attempting to answer the email that has not yet come through until it does, but my general answer to the noble Baroness is that the whole thrust of the Bill is that each criminal justice body must take reasonable steps to promote awareness of the victims’ code among users of those services and other members of the public, et cetera. I cannot conceive how you could discharge that duty of raising awareness without informing people how to access or go to whatever services they need, so it is implicit in the operation that that sort of information will have to be provided. The way in which it is provided and the detail of it is not for the Bill but for the code and the guidance.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I am sorry to delay things, but there is one thing I am not clear about. Restorative justice at the moment is available for the suspect as an alternate to going to court, with the agreement of the victim. If the right is to be given to the victim to insist on restorative justice, is that an addition to a potential court appearance or an alternate? If the Crown Prosecution Service has decided that there will be a prosecution but the victim insists on their right to restorative justice, does that change that decision? I am not quite clear from the amendments, nor the Minister’s response, how that dilemma is resolved. It may be that I have just misunderstood, in which case I apologise, but I do not quite understand how that gets resolved.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I may be as underinformed as anyone but my understanding is that the classic case of restorative justice is that once there has been a prosecution and a conviction, there is a process for some kind of reconciliatory interaction between the victim and the offender—for example, of the kind that my noble friend Lord Hodgson so eloquently described—in a way which enables both parties to process and come to terms with what has happened. It is not typically an alternative to having a prosecution in the first place, as I understand it, although that might arise.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I support of all four of the amendments and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, for a thorough explanation. We are talking about victims in the criminal justice system understanding their rights and entitlements in so many languages. We are talking about understanding the legality of words in the English language, and it is no wonder we find these barriers as we go through the system.

The first right under the victims’ code is:

“To be able to understand and to be understood”.


That seems fairly basic, but for many it is not their experience. I have met many victims of other nationalities who have said the same. I am grateful to the VAWG sector communication barriers working group for its guidance, and in particular to the late Ruth Bashall, who was the CEO of Stay Safe East and a tireless advocate for deaf and disabled survivors. They have consistently raised how disabled victims and other victims of crime—for example, those with English as a second language—are severely disadvantaged in accessing justice by the lack of accessible information, communication support and physical access to buildings or facilities. In this context, disabled victims and other victims have fewer rights than suspects, who have some basic rights under PACE—for example, the right to an interpreter.

Though some adjustments, such as the right to an intermediary, are contained in the victims’ code, they are rarely used. I am disappointed that, six years on from my report looking at the availability of intermediaries, A Voice for the Voiceless, I am still hearing that there are far too few intermediaries to meet the demand, and that this is causing significant delays, with the victim sometimes simply withdrawing.

I often hear that information provided to victims is inaccessible. Both my predecessor, Dame Vera Baird, and I have directly asked the criminal justice agencies to provide victim information in clear, accessible language, as well as in Easyread, BSL and other language versions. All too often, communication with victims is lacking, and there is still a great deal of work to be done by agencies to ensure that victims understand and are understood. It is vital that the criminal justice system is accessible to all victims of crime and that they receive the communication support they need. As a first step, the code itself must be accessible. Although, commendably, the Government took steps to make most recent iteration of the code easier to understand, as well as publishing Easyread, translated and children’s versions, it is still not accessible for a large number of victims. The Government must ensure that the code is accessible to all victims of crime.

I want to end on a personal story from a victim who was raped and trafficked from Albania. She was disabled. In Albania, if you are born disabled, your body parts are very valuable, so a baby tends to be hidden if he or she is disabled. She reported the rape when she was in this country and rehoused. She went to a police station. The police looked for an interpreter. They found one who had the same dialect but who was actually from the trafficking gang. She was mortified. She simply could not believe that she had gone to the police station and that that interpreter was taking over her complaint. She withdrew it.

It is not simply about producing someone who can speak a language; it is about understanding a dialect. We need professional people who can help victims through our criminal justice system.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, particularly on the collection of evidence in criminal cases. She is arguing for precision, accuracy and consistency. At the moment, the system suffers in respect of all those three criteria.

The establishing of truth relies on the establishing of accurate evidence. It usually looks for accuracy, precision and consistency, but if we have any doubt about interpretation of another language, all those three things suffer. There is a concern that where the standard of interpreters is not established to a high and consistent level, there is a risk that the obtaining of evidence is damaged. This matters particularly for the police in the initial obtaining of evidence—which is usually an oral account. Eventually, the oral accounts have to be reduced to writing and the written evidence then fed back to the witness or victim to establish whether it relates to what they have told the police officer. If there is a difference in how those are interpreted, the person may not have a proper, accurate account of how they described their experience.

A secondary issue is that if there is not a consistent standard, different interpreters may help the police and the victim during different parts of the process. They may help the victim with the initial account; then there may be a written statement. After an interview with the suspect, the evidence may be checked. It is important that the interpreter is the same person or, if not, that there is a common standard of interpretation. Otherwise, there is a risk that the truth is not established.

Precision matters in obtaining the victim’s or witness’s account. It also matters in interviews to establish the suspect’s account. It matters generally in evidence collection because the person who holds the evidence may not be the person who is going to give it. You need to establish whether the CCTV and all the other digital evidence that is available now is what you want, and to make sure that it is accurate.

Finally, precision matters for juries. They will not only want to hear what is said in court; they will want to compare it with the first account as well. If there is inconsistency, they will want to understand it. If we are not careful, they may judge the victim or the witnesses harshly. In turn, that may impact on the suspect. It is vital that consistency and precision are there. As the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, said, it matters also for the care of victims and witnesses. If we do not understand how people are living, the challenges they face and the nature of their lives, it is very hard to do what this Bill is trying to establish, which is consistency in care for victims in a way which supports them beyond the event and beyond any criminal prosecution.

The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, brought out well that this is not only about the interpretation of language—that is, what happened, who said what or who did what—it is also about the legal process. An interpreter may be well qualified to interpret language but may not always understand the legal process. Of course, the victim relies on them to understand both. They need good advice to understand how the process will affect them and its impact; for example, in a court case. The evidence may be challenged in a court case to establish its accuracy, but the victim may take this as an attack. In particular, somebody who has a second language may have an experience of another criminal justice system which may not be like ours. It may be more adversarial—sorry, it could not be any more adversarial than ours, could it? It may search for the truth in a different way. They certainly need to understand how our system works if they happen not to have experienced it before.

For all those reasons to do with evidence collection, precision and accuracy, I support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins. She has been pushing this point for a while. It has not been established; it is time it should be, and this is a great opportunity to do it.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, I also support Amendment 18, which would require the code to provide for interpreting and translation services and, more importantly, for the standards to be expected of the professionals supplying those services.

Good and reliable interpreting and translation is an increasingly necessary part of the justice system in all areas. It is also an expensive part of the system, for which value for money should be important. Most interpreters are good and efficient, but others, regrettably, are less so. A long time ago when in practice, I recall a particularly impatient interpreter helping me and my client who pulled me aside and urged me to get my client to plead guilty, which I politely declined to do. That completely undermined the confidence that either of us could have in that particular interpreter.

At present, as I understand it, court interpreting services are obtained through agencies used by the Courts & Tribunals Service. If this amendment or something like it is enacted, I would assume that the same agencies would be used. In any event, I would hope that care is taken to stipulate, ensure and review the efficiency of the agencies used and the quality of the work they do.

Finally, I would also hope and expect that this amendment, if approved, would be understood to be wide enough to help those requiring sign language and lip-reading assistance. If not, will those requirements be expressly covered by the code?

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. Unfortunately, the House will hear two Sheffield accents within a short time, so I apologise that we always end our sentences on a down note. I will do my best.

I support this Bill. It is time that victims receive statutory support for their rights in a way that suspects have for quite a long time. To get a balancing Bill is a good thing. Despite that, I still have some questions, mainly because I wonder whether all that the Bill intends to achieve will be achieved by some of the remedies that are suggested. I am not sure that they are all entirely effective, and they may, at times, have a counterproductive effect.

First, it seems to me that providing some rights for the victim within the criminal justice system is a good idea, because it is often run for the benefit of the suspect. This is done for good reason: obviously anyone who is charged with an offence might reasonably expect that their defence is provided as a priority. However, at times it seems to result in the victim and the witnesses having to wait two to three years for a case to come to trial so that the defence can prepare their case. That is not a fair balance. There seems to be some balancing weight within the criminal justice system that says that the victim and the witnesses can expect to get to court reasonably quickly, and two to three years—which is not entirely down to the pandemic but is down to a backlog—is surely a condemnation of what the system should be doing.

The second benefit described in the Bill is that there will be cross-inspectorate inspections. This is a good thing. They already happen, to some extent, but this time they will be done from the perspective of the victim, not that of all the people who populate the system. My concern is that inspections take a long time. Reports are published a long time after the event and the victim is still waiting for their issue to be resolved—which I am afraid that the inspectorate reports do not do. The inspectorate publishes recommendations which, if you are lucky, might make a difference in two to three years. They are essential in a way, but I am afraid they do not always achieve what this Bill intends to achieve.

The criminal justice departments in our police services are well populated. There are probably around 10,000 people whose role is to make sure that, from charge through to court, the system goes smoothly. However, what the system actually does is ensure an exchange of documents between the prosecution and the defence. The victims and the witnesses are kept informed, but often not well enough, and often their needs are not considered. It is not about resources but about what priority is given. Again, where is the remedy? As the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said, how do you get something to change within the police service, the CPS and the courts when you have a complaint? I am not sure that the remedies are in place.

In its conclusion, the Bill talks about the costs that might be included in implementing this as an Act. I think it is a gross undercount of what might be needed. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, mentioned earlier that we will need to invest in this area. However, the numbers involved are very small—£2.5 million for the tribunal process beyond probation, and less than £1 million for each element of the policing, CPS and court settlements. That is quite a big underestimate. If you put this Bill into each of those services, it will be deprioritised. Asking people to do more with the same resources is always a difficult task.

I had hoped that the Bill would say more about what some people have referred to as simplifying sentencing. I still think it is a great dishonesty in sentencing that, when the court announces that someone will spend five years in prison, what they mean is that they will spend three years in prison unless they misbehave or the Parole Board finds that they will misbehave when they leave. Why can we not just say that they will spend three years in prison unless they misbehave? That way, we are not being dishonest with the victim. They do not understand the criminal justice system, and why should they? Some of them will be professionals who understand it well, but it is far better to be open and transparent that this is the process, and then people will not be disappointed. We set their expectations. I am surprised that this Bill has not done something about that. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, said, even the judges struggle to understand the complexity of the sentences that are passed down and the rules that surround them. Surely the public deserve a better or simpler system.

I support the higher test for top-tier offenders being considered by the Minister of State and then a referral to the Upper Tribunal. There have been cases where we have been surprised by the release of people who appeared to be dangerous. It is probably best that at least those cases are reviewed. I take this to be the case; it is applying the same test but by a different set of people. That seems a wise thing.

There is one part of the Bill I wonder about, in its breadth. The description of a victim includes those who are harmed or who have

“seen, heard, or otherwise directly experienced the crime”

in live time. Harm is defined quite extensively in the Bill—so I will not read it out—and does not have to be verified by a third party. I wonder about cases such as bombings and those involving roving terrorist gunmen. Should the Bill leave such a wide scope? The Government may want to consider some kind of conditionality being placed upon that, when you have mass events where there are large numbers of victims. My point is not that victims should not be helped but that, to ensure that you can help them, it is critical that you have defined them in a proper way. I think this is drawn rather widely.

I fully support the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, about interpreters. The police have made some progress in this area but, again, it is an area of cost. Particularly in cities such as London, where over 40% of the population often speak a second language and sometimes a first language that is not English, either victims or suspects—usually about 38% are foreign national offenders—will, on arrest, require some kind of translation. This is either by phone or in person, but it is expensive. Those costs have grown over time—for good reason, because the quality of interpreting has improved, but it imposes more costs on the system and I am not sure that has been considered, either in the Act or in general.

I said that I thought the Bill, well intended as it is—and I think it will make some good progress—might have to answer some acid tests from the public at the end. One or two people have mentioned things they think the system does not currently help with. These are my four or five things that I do not think the system does. Will the Bill make a difference?

Will the victim have a right for the police to attend the scene of a crime when the police say, “We’re not coming”? A shoplifter, for example, or a car theft, or all the other things we keep hearing about where the police do not seem to want to go to the scene of the crime. I find that confusing, and the victim certainly does. Whether you are a vulnerable victim or not, you ought to be able to expect the police to at least come, talk to you about it, have a look at the scene and see whether there is a chance of investigating it. On the telephone is convenient for the police, but I would argue it is not convenient for the victim.

The second area is about economic crime, for which most people seem to have no chance of having any investigation at all. Is this going to make a change in that area? I disagree with the present CPS rule which means there must be a 51% chance of success before it will take a case to court. The victim gets confused by that as well. Why can it not just be a prima facie case? That is one of the biggest disappointments they have. Another area is the time it takes to get to court.

Finally, we still have a very low success rate in terms of sexual offenders. When 70% of victims are vulnerable either through age, infirmity, alcohol, drugs or some other reason, they make not ideal witnesses for a system that demands perfection—they are not always consistent. How do we allow the law to support those victims, when the system itself does not seem very fair to them or their families?

King’s Speech

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome some of the measures in the King’s Speech relating to crime, particularly on RIPA and regulatory powers, and on the sentencing for serious offences. Although I stand by my position, which I stated the other day, that there is still space for having far fewer people in prison, I think we would all agree that, for serious offences, we need to take serious measures.

I will refer to two contemporary issues, which therefore may be a bit contentious. First, I welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement of a review of the law surrounding firearms officers. This brave and fearless few—who, on behalf of 66 million people, stand forward to take on people who are armed or otherwise so dangerous—deserve our support. They very rarely discharge their firearms, but, when they do, they are under inquiry for years—that cannot be right. It is right that they are held to account, but not for years. I hope that this review will have far more success that the review I instigated with the support of the Prime Minister at the time, David Cameron, which took two years to make absolutely no changes at all. I hope that this one will be bold and quick.

My second area of contemporary concern is around protest. We all know that there is a real challenge, for both politicians and the police, in deciding whether to ban a march—it is never easy and very rarely done. I was the commissioner when we did it twice, even though for 60 years it had never been done. It was to do with the EDL protesting outside mosques, and I remain convinced that it was the right thing for everybody involved.

However, these are difficult decisions trying to balance the right to protest against the problem of serious disorder. The discussions around this topic should take place privately, not publicly; otherwise, the concern of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, around the judiciary might transfer itself to the operational independence of the police, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, referred earlier. I worry that the pressures being placed on the police at the moment do not always form wise judgments in the end. So it is important that these important discussions take place privately and observe the process, which is that the police call for politicians to make the decision, not that politicians call on the police to make the request, even though there is an element of both in the private discussions. It is vital that those conventions are respected.

My final comments are around hoping that in the King’s Speech there would be more strategic alignment in some of the proposals. It could have been about repeat victims, repeat offenders or repeat locations. It could have been a way to prioritise resourcing. It could have been about targeting prevention. I have talked here before about having statutory duties, in the way that fire does. Things are designed not to burn. Why do we not design cars not to be stolen? A good point was made about devices but, unfortunately, I doubt that that would be entirely successful, given the fact that these devices are available online from abroad; a large number of them already exist. So it is a good start, but it is vital to get the design of things and places right. It is one element of prevention, including drugs, alcohol, young people and education, to which we do not have a strategic approach.

Secondly, I welcome the Home Secretary’s requirement for the police to attend burglaries. My only concern is that it does not go far enough. It would not be a bad idea for them to attend all crimes, because I can guarantee that, if you do not go to a crime scene, you will not detect it. To all those who say that it is not possible, I say this: even in London, there are on average four crimes per hour per borough. There are not 10,000 crimes an hour. Shoplifting is just one symptom of a deeper malaise, I am afraid, because it also affects car crime. People are not getting attendances. People are not gathering evidence that is there; they are trying to make a decision over the phone about whether any evidence will be collected. In my view, that is not wise, so I do think it is possible for that convention to be extended rather than restricted.

Noble Lords may think that my next point is tactical, and some may regard it as novel and unfair. Is it not about time that cyclists became more accountable for their bad behaviour? I do not know whether it is an age thing, but I find it really annoying, when you are using a zebra crossing or a pedestrian crossing of any type, or there is a red light, and all the vehicles stop and you are trying to make your way through the traffic but cyclists just ignore the law and go through. Think about the number of times we must all have seen or experienced this threat and, sadly, sometimes an injury.

One thing that has sparked my interest in this is a barrister who contacted me. I had never met the guy before, but he was having real trouble with a police investigation. He had a spiral fracture of a leg as a result of being hit on a crossing, when there was a green light for him, by a cyclist. The trouble he had trying to get some investigation or outcome was pretty awful. That is a symptom of a deeper malaise. It is not easy to put a long registration plate on a cycle—we all get that—but there has to be a clever way of holding cyclists to account, through either insurance or other things. The time has come for this to be placed on the agenda, so that people take seriously the safety of other people, particularly pedestrians.

My final point is around technology. I would have liked to have heard a little more about strategic intervention around crime involving technology. The noble Lord, Lord Borwick, may talk later about facial recognition; there is a fair debate to be had about how far that should go. There are great opportunities there, including, for example, body-worn video having more facial recognition, which would make stops and searches far more accurate. If I know that somebody is on bail for carrying a knife, it will make that intervention far more accurate than me asking, “What’s your name? Where do you live?”, which indicates that I do not know who the hell they are and why I am stopping them.

Finally, I will mention something that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, mentioned: tagging. To get it on an industrial scale would be good. The Government may not be aware that the product of that tagging goes to a commercial company and there is no live monitoring by the police. It takes an email 24 hours to get to the police indicating that somebody has breached a tag and was at the scene of a crime—not a very wise idea when it is capable of being far better than that.

Those are my points about the King’s Speech. As much as I think that there are some good points in it, it could have said more.

Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Removal of Prisoners for Deportation) Order 2023

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, we had an interesting discussion about this on Tuesday in the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, of which I am a member. As the Minister said, once again the Explanatory Memorandum was not all that we might have wished for. The committee now keeps a scorecard that shows which government departments are the most egregious in providing inadequate Explanatory Memoranda, so we will effectively have a league table, where some departments are up for promotion and some for relegation.

In this case, I am interested whether the Minister can tell us whether the nationalities of the prisoners involved are preponderant in two or three countries. I think that Romania and Albania were suggested as possibles during our discussion on Tuesday. If that is the case, what discussions have we had, if at all, with those countries and their judiciaries and police forces about the imminent arrival of some of their citizens? If another country were to do the same and had a large proportion of our citizens in prison who were about to be sent back to our shores, some sort of communication between the different national authorities would seem appropriate.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I support the Motion. However, people should not be confused that the removal of these foreign national offenders means that they will not return; it does not stop their re-entry into the country.

I am concerned by the small numbers relative to the size of the problem: there are 88,000 people, so to remove 300 at most is not an awful lot. What worries me most is that the biggest problem is the state of sentencing and the law around it. The drift is always upwards. I have yet to hear a political party of either persuasion argue for lower sentences.

That may sound odd coming from someone of my background, because I have always supported the fight for serious offences getting serious sentences. However, during my time in policing, we have seen a rise from well below 50,000 people in prison to 88,000. Surely at some point someone must do something about the major cause, which is the law saying that high sentences are OK and judicial sentencing councils being pressured to increase sentences to the maximum within that.

Prison Capacity

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure the evidence before and the conclusions of the committee will be borne well in mind.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, although I support the Government’s general bid, which is to reduce the prison population—it is too high, as the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, said, and we could probably be safer even if some people were let out of prison—I do not think that the Statement is entirely persuasive in a couple of areas. First, it did not give an impact assessment of the compound effect of the Government’s measures. What will the prison population be in 12 months if all these measures are implemented effectively? The second thing that worries me is about the group of people who will now have to serve the full term of their prison sentence, some of which we can entirely understand. If you extend that list, how do those in the Prison Service easily do their job? They have to have some hope that the people who they are trying to control could have a shorter sentence if they behave well. If that list grows, what happens is that people who are in prison have no incentive to behave well and the only people who can control them are the prison officers, which makes a difficult life even more difficult.

My final point is that I do not entirely agree with the Minister’s analysis of the growth in the prison population. Covid has certainly played a role, but the prison population was accelerating well before Covid. The two aggravating factors have been the sentencing guidelines—which are always inflated and never reduced, because there is no public clamour for less sentencing, even if it is not effective—and the parole conditions. Those are the two things that have caused the prison population to expand. I am afraid that, if we carry on at the rate we are, it can only get worse. Although the Sentencing Guidelines Council is not a government-backed issue, it is something that they can affect.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I will take the last point first. Clearly, sentencing guidelines ought to be kept under constant review. At some point, as I said earlier, the whole approach to prison and its alternatives needs to be rethought, and perhaps fairly fundamentally. The whole debate on how much we spend on building prison capacity and how much we spend on support in the community is one that we should have together; the Government do not disagree with that.

On the noble Lord’s question about what effect these measures will have, I cannot give him any immediate figures. The short-term measures should certainly manage the short-term problem; the longer-term measures will, over time, I hope, reduce the prison population. As to it making life more difficult for some because of an increase in the number of longer sentences, I think that is an operational matter that HMPPS will, I hope, be well-equipped to deal with.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 12th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, as I have from the beginning, as a layman who does not understand an awful lot about interpreting standards but does understand the importance of evidential matters going through tribunals needing to be of a high standard.

What has confused me from the beginning—as I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, suggested —is that the Government’s response is that they do not prefer the standard that the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, offers and that they therefore want to rely on the standards that are in the contract. However, it is not at all clear what that standard is, because the easiest response would be that the standard in the contract is far better than the standard she offers, but no one is saying that. There is clearly a differential standard for different acts; the Minister mentioned something of the order of a thousand different scenarios leading to different qualities of interpretation, but I am not sure that that would lead to a thousand different standards.

It is clear from the Metropolitan Police’s experience that, broadly, there is a split between face-to-face contact and other types, but the real split is whether the material interpreted is going to be evidential. Often, a person who is arrested needs to have a conversation with the charging sergeant about who they are and whether they need medical attention—all the common tactical things that people need to talk about—or the police may need to talk with a victim at the scene of a crime. That can be achieved by telephone. That immediate conversation has some value, of course, but not in the context of an evidential test. When it comes to an interview, a prosecution decision and, obviously, attendance in court, it is vital that that standard is of the highest level.

Therefore, I support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, but if it cannot be achieved in this Bill, I think the proposal for an independent inquiry is a reasonable next step.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I spoke at length on this amendment in Committee and attended the meeting with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds, who also signed the amendment. It has led to a full and thorough response from the Minister, and we expect him to announce a full and independent review. If that is right, that is extremely welcome news. I join the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, in saying that it would be extremely helpful to have an indication of the timescale of such a review—if that is to be announced—because of the imminence of the renewal of the contracts. It would also be extremely helpful for us to have an indication of how the independence of the review will be assured, because independence is a relatively flexible word, and it is an extremely important part of this.

For all the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, the standard of interpretation is incredibly important to the maintenance of justice where there are litigants, parties or witnesses for whom English is not their first language. We talked about the importance of having the undisguised and unchanged evidence of the witness before the court in an evidential case without the interpreter’s view of matters intervening. That calls for the very highest standards of quality and for any review to be completely independent.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Wednesday 17th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I should say briefly in the absence of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle—perhaps it is not my place to do so because it was her amendment that I signed—that I should thank the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst. We have been using various terms in Committee, but on this occasion he must be right. If one were considering children under 18 in the context of a review of the age of criminal responsibility, it would be a glaring omission to include “gender” instead of “sex” in the legislation.

Sometimes it may be appropriate to use both terms, and I supported that position on Monday in the particular context of a different amendment about hostility towards people. What I tried to suggest, and which Twitter does not reflect, is that hostility can be towards people in broader categories than those protected under the Equality Act. I would not want someone to be subjected to violent hostility, even on grounds that are not currently in the Equality Act, because they were non-binary or whatever. That is not really the point in this context. If I may say so, the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, put it very well.

What is more, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, will forgive me for making that concession, given that this is a probing amendment and her list of factors to be considered in any review was inclusive and not closed. I hope it is helpful to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, in this way.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I broadly support a rise in the age of criminal responsibility. I think the review is a good idea, and of course it should be science-based. The danger of going for 12 years, which is an improvement, is that it could be higher if only we thought about it well. I would be open-minded on whether it needs to be a matter of law or a government commitment to carry out a review.

There is just one area which I hope such a review might consider. The Bulger case is often referred to, for obvious reasons. Hard cases can make very bad law; we are aware of that. But I do think that that type of case imposes a duty on government to consider people’s concerns. There are two concerns that people might have if they lived in the area. One is where the child would live on return to society. That could be covered through care proceedings—you can control where someone lives and who they live with. The second is their occupation. If, at the age of 18, the murderers were released—as they were in the Bulger case—and wanted to go into childcare, or any of the care professions, would people be content with that? There would at least be a question about whether that would be wise. If they only have a care proceeding against them, they would be perfectly entitled not to declare what they were involved in at the age of 10. My point is not that they should be criminalised and therefore always carry that with them, but about how you manage their occupation, subsequent to their reaching an adult stage. It can be managed without criminalisation, but such a review might want to consider how that could be done most efficiently.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I am constantly amazed by the persistence of this generally civilised country in being willing to treat children of 10 and 11 as criminally responsible.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, my noble friend Lord German, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, and all other noble and noble and learned Lords who have spoken have made the argument persuasively and on the basis of the scientific, social and international evidence. I say no more about the strength of the evidence.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, also pointed out the degree to which government inaction on this issue has been based on public prejudice and the Government’s pandering to it. Bluntly, that is moral cowardice, not leadership. Many of us find it unbelievable that, uniquely in western Europe, our children of 10 and 11 can be treated as criminals, when it is entirely clear that they lack the psychological maturity that is appropriate for any legitimate view of criminal responsibility. Why did change come successfully to Scotland and yet the Government seem unprepared to make it here?

I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Dholakia, who has campaigned tirelessly on this issue for many years. I know he will have been most disappointed to have been unable to attend to speak today. But the House has fully recognised in this debate his commitment and his major contribution on this issue, and we will wish to send him our good wishes for a full and swift recovery.

Amendment 221A in my name and that of my noble friend Lord German has a different purpose. It is to pursue the worthwhile goal of diverting young offenders away from the criminal justice system and towards alternative methods of encouraging them to avoid offending. Youth offender teams have been established since 1998 and have as their function helping young offenders under 18 under supervision of the Youth Justice Board. Central to their function has been to establish services within their local communities to help prevent offending and reoffending. They have a wide remit that permits them to organise a range of activities in an effort to keep young people away from crime. Sometimes this involves involving young people in a form of restorative justice by bringing them into contact with their victims and helping them to organise reparation where it is thought that might help the offender and be accepted by the victims. Among their functions is to help supervise community sentences for young people. Our amendment is designed to help youth offender teams fulfil their function by diverting young people within their area away from the criminal justice system.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Monday 15th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I hope that when the Minister responds to this debate, he can put away the departmental brief and respond to two simple questions. The first is whether he accepts that the present system is unacceptable. The second, which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, posed, is: what will the Government do about it? This is not a new problem. The Government have had years to think about the options and to consider what to do. The noble Lord is already a very distinguished Minister of Justice. Can he say what the Government will now do to address a manifest injustice?

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I have met a few of the people who these sentences are designed to control, and quite often they are terrifying. Some of the things that they have done are awful. However, the present situation is indefensible. It is unfair because, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has said, they do not know how long they will be detained, and because many of them have been detained since before the law was changed. It is really trying to deal with the basic problem of dangerousness, which is very hard to define. Doctors cannot define the mental illness that they suffer from, as has been mentioned already. This should be addressed far more clearly.

There are only two ways forward. First, many of these amendments are talking about research in the future, but we need more research into the medical definition of the type of illness which we define as “dangerousness”, of people seeming likely to commit an offence in the future. This is not mentioned anywhere in the amendments. I recommend that there is good investment to be made there.

Secondly, what is presently indeterminate must be made determinate. I do not suppose that anyone has yet argued that all the people who are detained under these restrictions should immediately be emptied from the prisons on to the streets, but it is entirely possible to see a transfer of that risk either into the health element of prison control—Broadmoor or similar institutions—or a far better way of dealing with them within the community. To continue carrying the risk entirely within the prison estate in the numbers that are described is entirely wrong and I cannot see that it is defensible for this Government to continue doing so.