Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Judd and Lord McNally

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I will certainly take note of that. I realise the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, in these areas. When we asked the NGOs for hard facts and figures on costs, they were not forthcoming but perhaps there is time between now and Third Reading to re-engage. I also think that part of the problem is that whatever we have in civil law, conditional fee agreements or anything else, some of the problems raised by the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, in illustration will not be solved in British law courts or by changes in the British legal system. We are trying to reform what everyone who comes to the Dispatch Box acknowledges is a defect in our civil legal system and for which Lord Justice Jackson has produced a reform package that we are trying to put into law. Everyone agrees that we are right to do so, but for this, that and the other exception. Again, I am willing to discuss this further, but I do not think the case has been made—

[Lord Judd]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McNally]

I am sorry, the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins. I am happy to re-engage between now and Third Reading, but at this point we are not convinced.

[Lord Judd]

So the earth is flat.

[Lord McNally]

No.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Judd and Lord McNally

Thursday 9th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

Some future Government may well bring forward a proposal along those lines. The judgment of the Government at the moment is that on a law that is safely in judges’ hands for determination, and that applies to a specific number of the most serious crimes, the position as it is now is best in retaining public confidence. It is a matter of political judgment, and the political judgment is that to move on this point, at this point, would not retain public confidence in a package in which we are trying to make moves in certain directions and carry colleagues who are not as enthusiastic as this House on some of these matters.

[Lord Judd]

In the last few minutes the Minister has encouraged me, because he has said that at some point it may be appropriate to introduce legislation that meets the arguments that are being put. It is not the first time that I have heard the noble Lord refer to the importance of holding public confidence, and we all understand that point, but it is not a matter of accepting as inevitable the existing state of public opinion. We have to be very careful that we are not, in effect, running scared of the sensationalist media. We really should be not only respecting public opinion and public confidence but helping to shape public confidence by putting forward the positive argument for change. That is essential to successful democracy. If we have become convinced that this is the right thing to do, we have to speak up for it.

[Lord McNally]

I entirely agree. That is why I said in my opening remarks that I am proud that this House has been the platform for penal reformers to argue their case over centuries, but I also say to this House that we have to carry another place and public opinion with us in these matters. One of the things I am most proud of is that this Government, and the Ministry of Justice under this Lord Chancellor, have been willing to try to educate public opinion. Some of the measures in this Bill will, I hope, move that forward, but no matter how much courage is used in expounding these views, if the result is for the public to lose confidence in the criminal justice system, those are Pyrrhic victories indeed.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Judd and Lord McNally

Thursday 9th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, if the noble Lord was the head of a department of state he would not be advising me to accept the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, with such alacrity. However, I take the point. At the beginning of my remarks I made the point that we are now in close discussions with the Department for Work and Pensions in what we hope will be a genuine exercise in joined-up government. I remember one of the first experiences I had when I took over this office—and I should say that I am not the prisons Minister; my honourable friend Crispin Blunt is the Minister, and he has addressed these problems with great energy and commitment, but because of my responsibilities in this House I take an interest in this area. At any rate, I was reading in what was the strangest of all places, the Daily Telegraph, an article about a young man being released from prison with £46 in his pocket, but with a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. The article went through the 48 hours after his release, by which time he was using that money to buy drugs and was back with the gang he had been associated with and which had sent him to prison in the first place. So we are not unaware of the problem.

I have said before that there is a revolving door of crime which sometimes our treatment of prisoners only exacerbates. What we are doing, in what I hope is a non-ideological way—I know about the fierce debates on the welfare Bill, but the noble Baroness was kind enough to comment that there are aspects of the reforms that are genuinely useful—is to see if we can stitch those reforms into our prisons. That will go a long way towards addressing the problems raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. As I have already indicated, I do listen to what he says and I will take back his ideas to see where they can mesh in with what we are trying to do with the DWP and the various initiatives that NOMS has taken.

[Lord Judd]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. He has been talking with a great deal of sensitivity and imagination in response to this amendment and I am encouraged and reassured by that. He seems to have a real grasp of the realities. I hope that he will be able to deal with a couple of points. He talked about a young man with a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. I have encountered too many conversations of exactly that character. I remember something that I think I may have mentioned in the House before. A former chief constable was doing great work as a volunteer in a young offender institution, but he was bowled over when a youngster who was about to be released started to weep in his presence. He asked him, “Why are you weeping? You are about to be released”. The youngster said, “Because I am absolutely scared of what I am going to encounter outside”.

There are two things that we must bear in mind: first, that for some people—not, of course, the majority, but some—perhaps the very last thing they need is to go straight into a job. They need a great deal of support and counselling to prepare them. Front-line staff in prisons working with these youngsters often make that point. Secondly, agencies, advice and everything else are tremendous—what the Minister has been saying is terrific; the more of it that is available, the better—but it is not just that. What so often is needed in the context of the cold hole in the stomach is stable relationships and friendship. I hope that the Minister can give us reassurance that, in all the work that the Government are doing with the voluntary sector, they will give every encouragement to those voluntary organisations that are moving into this sphere and trying to provide a stable relationship—as it were, walking with the individual back into full rehabilitation into society.

[Lord McNally]

Part of the problem with this debate is that we cover two areas, which we were discussing earlier. First, there are dangerous people from whom society needs protection, and we have to deal with them within our criminal justice system. Secondly, you do not need to be in this job very long, or to visit very many prisons, to realise that there are people in our prisons who have no place there and who, with a proper policy of rehabilitation in its broadest sense, can be stopped from reoffending. We are really fighting on those two fronts.

On whether there should be a glide path into work, perhaps that is where we can get the work-in-prison regimes working properly. That in itself can help in that direction. The other thing that I am also very enthusiastic about and would like to see developed, and where the voluntary sector is superbly equipped to help, is mentoring schemes, and finding people who are willing to act as mentors. That could have a powerful effect. I do not think that there is division in the Committee on that. We are trying the perhaps revolutionary idea of joined-up government in making sure that the move from prison to a proper, productive, law-abiding life is not aborted at those first steps through the prison gates because of lack of basic support.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Judd and Lord McNally

Monday 30th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way and I would not question at all his personal sensitivity to the issues that have been raised. Over a lifetime, I have known that he cares deeply about these things. However, can he assure the House that in their considerations the Government have taken fully into account one of the complexities that have arisen since 2009, when the Rome II regulations were introduced? They mean that the damages are related to what normally prevails in the country in which the harm occurred, whereas the costs may well be related to what applies within the United Kingdom. This means that there is a huge obstacle to taking on a case of this kind because of the risks involved and what the bill might be if the costs had to be met by those endeavouring to make the claim.

[Lord McNally]

I am aware of that. As the noble Lord said, that issue was to a certain extent present in the Trafigura case, where 30,000 people each received £1,000 and the lawyer got—or tried to get— £100 million.