Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Judd and Baroness Stern

Wednesday 15th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stern]

My Lords, I rise briefly to speak in support of the amendment which has been moved so ably by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. I recall how encouraging it was to see the coalition Government, when they came into office, making it clear that new laws were not the answer. Speaking at the Liberal Democrat annual conference in September 2010, the Minister said:

“Labour created thousands of new offences and used a steady stream of criminal justice and anti-terrorism laws to ratchet up the powers of the state and to diminish the rights of the citizen. This coalition comes into office to reverse that tidal flow of laws …Which is why my department, the Ministry of Justice, will now check each new criminal offence. And if we don’t need it, it will be blocked”.

In the light of that admirable sentiment, I wonder if I could ask the Minister why, having heard the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, he still feels that this would be a good new offence to introduce.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on having put this issue before the Committee. I am not sure that I see some of the points she made as quite as clear-cut as she suggests they are. There can be tremendous complexities and very real, painful stories behind houses that stand empty for longer than six months. There may indeed be social issues that in themselves need to be addressed. But what I think she is absolutely right about is that if a high percentage of the people who are squatting in the way described are particularly vulnerable with a disproportionate number of problems, for the life of me I cannot see how adding criminalisation to all the other complexities that they face so inadequately will help them to sort out their lives. It seems to be a cynical and cold-blooded approach. I have moments, when listening to the Minister, when I fear that he has got embarrassed about liberal principles and feels he must distance himself over and over again. I certainly do not recognise any liberal principles in this piece of legislation.