Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill

Lord Hurd of Westwell Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hurd of Westwell (Con)]

My Lords, I was brought up on a fundamental principle about legislation, which I sometimes feel your Lordships would do well to memorise. It is the following: if it is not necessary to legislate, it is necessary not to legislate. Of course, it is a sweeping statement, and everyone in this House will have occasion to disagree with it, but it is not a bad working principle—and it is a principle that is entirely neglected in this Bill.

Several of my noble friends—my noble friend Lady Hodgson in particular—made general speeches about the importance of volunteering and of not being frightened by the threat of prosecution. I entirely understood and agreed with all that, but where their analysis began to crumble seemed to be on the relevance of their concerns to the Bill in front of us.

The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, speaking for the Opposition, made an admirably cutting, caustic speech, and as he approached the crucial fence, I thought that he was going to take it in style—but, having glared fiercely at it, he turned resolutely away and did not take it. Several noble Lords, no doubt obeying some vestige of party solidarity, agreed with him, the argument being that the Bill is a tiddler, there is no particular harm and no particular good in passing it and we should preserve our nuclear explosives for some great cause—unspecified—which deserves it. I think that is a rather feeble way of running an Opposition, if I may say so: to make a very acute and shrewd, sometimes unfair, analysis of the Lord Chancellor’s proposals and then not take the obvious course of supporting the amendment.

I support the amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, partly because I want to protect, so far as is possible, the principle I mentioned at the beginning, but partly because of the point he made about this business of sending messages. It is very common now to defend a Bill—a change in the law—on the grounds that it sends out a powerful message to some group in the population whom we wish to reach. We have all fallen victim to this at one time or another. I very rarely meet members of the population who have been bowled over or entirely convinced by the speeches made, or even by votes taken in this House. It does not work like that.

If you are going to encourage people to volunteer, you have to do what my son in the other place has been trying to do until recently—to persuade them to volunteer; to deal with their doubts and fears. It is a public relations exercise. That is not to say that it is useless or to be critical of it; it is necessary to persuade. Passing laws in this House or in the other place is not an adequate way of doing this, particularly when the differences between one text and another—for example between “shall” and “might”—are minimal, as has been analysed in this debate.

If you are contemplating a brave action which may carry some risk, such as diving into a pool or rescuing somebody from a dangerous situation, you are almost certainly taking a quick decision on the spur of the moment. You are not going to creep away and find a book to memorise the course of a debate in your Lordships’ House. So this is a bad way of sending a message. The message is good and well meaning, but we should not clutter the law book of this Parliament with such messages. If one were starting again and had plenty of time and no precedent, one could make a more glorious Bill than Section 1 of the Compensation Act. Nevertheless, we do not have that time and that luxury, and it is a mistake to think that we should gild the lily by passing this Bill.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Hurd of Westwell Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble and leaned friend, Lord Lloyd, for his tireless pursuit of this particular issue, which amounts to nothing less than a stain on our national reputation for observing the rule of law. More than that, as a former Chief Inspector of Prisons, I am most surprised that the Secretary of State, who is faced with enormous financial problems in the management of his prisons, should not be seeking every possible way of getting out of the prisons the people who should not be there. That is an avoidable expense, and I have said this over and over again.

Furthermore, as the Minister knows, the prisons do not have sufficient resources to provide the means by which these people can prove their right to be released to the Parole Board. Only last year, I reported to the House a most tragic case of an IPP prisoner who had already been in prison for more than three years after his tariff and was sent to a prison where he would receive the course that he required in order to satisfy the Parole Board, only to be told that not only did that prison not have the course, but it was not intending to do so for two years; so he committed suicide. He is not the only IPP prisoner to have taken his own life because of his despair of the Government exercising their obligations, which have been so clearly deployed by the noble and learned Lord, and observing this country’s reputation for observation of the rule of law.

[Lord Hurd of Westwell (Con)]

My Lords, this House is quite accustomed to criminal justice legislation and in debates of this kind looks inevitably to those who have genuine experience of the legal profession to take the lead. Every now and then, however, an issue comes up that requires some contribution from people like the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and myself who, although we are not trained lawyers and have never practised law, nevertheless in the course of our careers have come across, and have been made to come across, cases where injustice appears to have been done. This is turning into such a debate.

It is hard to unpick the excellent demonstration of the facts produced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick. We are left with those facts, but we have to find a remedy. The noble and learned Lord has set out in his amendment the only remedy that he thinks is to hand: to take back into Parliament, into our own hands, the permission—the discretion— which is given in the legislation to the Lord Chancellor, but which he repeatedly refuses to exercise, although the arguments for exercising that discretion have been made over and over again and are very strong indeed.

Therefore, I simply come in to say, as someone who is not a lawyer but who has been forced by his career to take an active interest in the effect of the law on individuals, that I see in this an example—I would say a flagrant one—of injustice being permitted, indeed committed, by those who do not intend it. Nevertheless, the law as proposed would have that effect. I therefore very much support the noble and learned Lord’s amendment and the arguments which have been put in its favour from all sides of the House.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (LD)]

My Lords, we have heard three very powerful speeches from noble Lords—and noble and learned Lords in two cases—on the Cross Benches, and I anticipate that we are about to hear another one in a moment. We also heard a powerful intervention from a former Home Secretary, who is one of the most admired figures in British politics in the last 40 years. I cannot improve on what they have said, and will not try to do so. All I want to say, speaking as I do from one of the political Benches in this House, is that this is an issue upon which those of us who sit on political Benches are entitled to, and should, exercise our consciences. If we engage our consciences, the extraordinary speech from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, completely wins the day. I therefore hope that noble friends, as well as those elsewhere in the House, will see that if this matter divides the House, the only course they can take is to support this amendment.

Prisons: HMP Wandsworth

Lord Hurd of Westwell Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Hurd of Westwell]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they propose to implement the recommendations identified in HM Chief Inspector of Prisons’ report of 10 August 2011 on HM Prison Wandsworth.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, since the inspection was undertaken in February and March, Wandsworth prison has strengthened its management team and improved access to purposeful activity. The issues of showering provision and access to telephones have been tackled and first-night provision is better. In addition, the primary care trust has commissioned a health needs assessment to identify better the requirements of the prison population.

[Lord Hurd of Westwell]

What were my noble friend’s feelings on first reading this very disappointing report? It details several ways in which Wandsworth prison has fallen backwards since the earlier report and is now holding people in conditions that are unsafe and fall well below the level of human decency. He has listed some things that have happened since the report was published. Can he add to that list and is he satisfied that when those things are carried out, they will solve the problems that the chief inspector reported?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, my noble friend asked me what my reaction was. I was appalled. It is a disgraceful and shaming report that lists many failings. I can say only that the National Offender Management Service has reacted to the faults with proper determination. Wandsworth is a very difficult prison. It is one of our Victorian prisons, with over 1,600 prisoners, which puts a great strain on the staff, but there is no doubt that the inspection revealed many weaknesses. All I can assure my noble friend is that the strengthening of the management team signals a determination that the things that were identified will be put right.