King’s Speech
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, I too express my sorrow at hearing of the death of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. He was a great lawyer, a wonderful judge, a brilliant parliamentarian and defender of liberty, and, quite simply, the kindest of men.
I will address the Government’s justice proposals in the King’s Speech and the lack of other proposals for which we see a crying need, and which are unaddressed in the Government’s programme. Others among my noble friends will address the Government’s home affairs and devolution proposals later in this debate.
I will start positively by welcoming the arbitration Bill. I declare an interest as a barrister who often appears as an advocate in arbitrations; although not sitting as an arbitrator, I am qualified to do so. England, particularly London, holds a pre-eminent position as an arbitration seat for heavy international commercial arbitrations, and it is a tribute to our arbitrators that our arbitration services are so widely respected.
London is a top choice for arbitrations, and English law is the governing law for many international contracts. Substantial foreign earnings and the enhancement of our commercial reputation follow. But our arbitration law must be kept up to date, and these targeted reforms follow extensive consultation and careful consideration by the Law Commission over the last two years. We will support that Bill’s speedy passage. However, it is a shame that other proposals from the Law Commission are not implemented as quickly. The Government often quail at the slightest prospect of controversy. I mention my Cohabitation Rights Bill, which would implement the Law Commission’s reports from 2007 and 2011, on which the Government have long deferred any action. However, now that the Labour Party is committed to such reforms, I hope for its support and have resubmitted the Bill.
The Victims and Prisoners Bill, expected from the Commons soon, could have been so much better. Giving the victims’ code the force of law would be excellent if the proposal had teeth. My noble friend Lady Brinton has been at the forefront of a long campaign for such a measure. But the Bill is insufficiently robust. There are, for example, no protections for victims of stalkers. The victims’ code is liable to be revised by the Secretary of State, and there is no redress for victims in the event of non-compliance with the code.
On Part 2, it is right that we should have independent public advocates for victims of major incidents but, again, this proposal is not tough enough. Truly independent advocates must be able to hold the Government to account. That may be uncomfortable for government, but it is all the more misguided then that the appointment of advocates by the Secretary of State is purely voluntary—and how can it be right that the Secretary of State can dismiss independent advocates at will?
Part 3 of the Bill weakens the role of the Parole Board in releasing offenders serving life and longer-term sentences and gives powers to the Secretary of State to overrule Parole Board decisions. Strangely, it also permits the board itself to refer decisions to the Secretary of State. Then there is a right of appeal from the Secretary of State to the Upper Tribunal, which is hardly a body suitably equipped to take this kind of decision. Indeed, that right of appeal appears to have been inserted to avoid the decision-making power of the Secretary of State being found in breach of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights—the right to liberty and security, and in particular the right to have the lawfulness of detention determined by a court and not by a Minister. Then, disgracefully, it is proposed to disapply Section 3 of the Human Rights Act in respect of release on licence, so that there would no requirement to construe the legislation compatibly with the convention where possible. That would undermine one of the fundamental protections of the convention in our domestic law.
I turn to the centrepieces of the proposed legislation—the criminal justice Bill and the sentencing Bill, which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, called sentencing and offender management. In both Bills, we have what Christopher Grayling, when Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor, used to call “throwing red meat” to the Conservative Party conference. The Prime Minister’s introduction to the briefing for the King’s Speech said:
“We are keeping people safe by making sure the police and security services have the powers they need and that criminals receive proper punishment”.
Frankly, that is just the Grayling formula in slightly more restrained language.
The briefing on the sentencing Bill puts it more starkly:
“This Government will make sure that the prison estate is used to lock up dangerous criminals for longer”.
But there is no evidence that longer sentences keep people safe, beyond the limited point that keeping offenders in prison keeps them out of the community while they are still in custody.
There are some redeeming features of the proposals. We have long called for a presumption against short immediate sentences, so we welcome the proposal for such a presumption. All the evidence demonstrates that short sentences are useless at preventing reoffending, proved by appallingly high reconviction rates, as mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy. Such sentences disrupt family and community ties, wreck chances of re-employment, leave no time for rehabilitation, education and training, or for addressing mental health issues or addiction, while they create damaging opportunities for low-level offenders to make criminal contacts to support a future life of crime.
Also welcome is the commitment to increase the use of home detention curfews, and technology makes that an achievable ambition, but the overwhelming direction of travel is to lock people up for longer, in many cases without hope of release, blind to the facts that hopelessness, by definition, leads to despair and that redemption then ceases altogether to be a purpose of punishment. The proposals for imprisonment without remission completely ignore the needs for recognition and reward for good behaviour in prison and for sanction for bad behaviour. Remission and the threat of its loss fill those needs.
The criminal justice Bill continues the theme. True, there are some welcome proposals. These include: compulsory reporting of sexual abuse concerns; multi-agency management of offenders convicted of coercive control; criminalising the sharing of intimate images—cruel and humiliating behaviour. But the general trend is just for tougher punishment, fortified by measures that are, frankly, purely symbolic, such as forced attendance of offenders at sentencing hearings.
This programme fails lamentably to address the crisis in our penal system. Our prisons are overflowing, even into police cells. The building programme, as the Minister acknowledged, is stalled. The Government rely on sticking-plaster pre-fab extra cells, without additional services, so that these are no more than prisoner containers. They double up cells, increasing overcrowding and violence. They bring back into service squalid cells that were supposed to have been taken out of service for the maintenance required to relieve dire conditions. The pitifully small number of available spaces are scattered around the prison estate, so prisoners are sent to where they fit and not to where they need to be, disrupting training and education, continuity of care and links with families and communities, particularly approaching release. We have desperate staff shortages, low retention rates and insufficient recruitment, all caused by low morale. The continuing plight of IPP prisoners is a stain on our penal system.
What we needed was a new approach: lower prisoner numbers; statutory minimum prison standards; a fully resourced Probation Service for prisoners, pre and post release, and to make community sentences work; a comprehensive, multi-agency approach, co-ordinating efforts to promote rehabilitation, involving prison and probation services, local authorities’ housing and social services, training providers, health and addiction services and potential employers. We must replace the mantra, “Lock them up for longer”, with a new and constructive emphasis on supporting rehabilitation and reform. I fear we will not see that change while this Government survive.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, if the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, will permit me a brief moment, I was completely unaware when I made the opening speech of the sad death of Lord Judge. He was a personal friend, a colleague and a mentor over many years, and I associate the Government entirely with the tributes already made and say what a wonderful leader of our legal community he was while Lord Chief Justice and what an amazing job he did as Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers. I am sure that there will be suitable tributes in due course and on behalf of the Government, we express our deep regret at his very sad passing.
European Court of Human Rights
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, respectfully I do not accept that the Government are flouting the law. The United Kingdom has the lowest per capita number of cases in front of the court of human rights. We represent 0.1% of the court’s caseload. As the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said a moment ago, it is very important to encourage other countries to obey the law. We continue to play a very large part in the convention and in the Council of Europe, and we support its work across the board. I just add that the situation has changed very significantly since the aftermath of the Second World War, when Sir Winston led that particular initiative. One has to bear in mind that institutions must respond to international changes and developments.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, now that we have thankfully seen the back of the Bill of Rights Bill, do the Government accept that the UK’s commitment to the binding undertaking in Article 46 of the convention to abide by final decisions of the Strasbourg court was in fact unquestionably threatened by that Bill? Does the noble and learned Lord also agree that that commitment is a vital safeguard for people in the UK, despite the small number of cases in the Strasbourg court affecting the UK today, against the abuse of human rights by Governments of whatever political persuasion in the future?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, as long as the Government are party to the convention, of course we respect Article 46. I do not accept that the Bill of Rights Bill, subsequently withdrawn, in any way undermined our commitment to the convention; it merely rebalanced the various rights and duties as set out in the UK Human Rights Act.
Joint Enterprise: Young Black Men
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Lord Bellamy (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that question. The national pilot is part of much wider work by the CPS to understand the high number of charges against persons from ethnic minorities. This includes the publication of the CPS Inclusion and Community Engagement Strategy 2025 and the document CPS Defendants: Fairness for All Strategy 2025. But that is combined with statistical research being conducted by the University of Leeds, with an independent disproportionality advisory group established to advise the CPS. The first stage of the Leeds research is published on the CPS website.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, the pilot study sample was too small to draw any strong conclusions, as the report and the Minister accepted. However, it is clear that we need a new, wider study and we welcome the announcement of that study. Does the Minister also agree that great care needs to be taken on the evidence so far compiled with the use of the word “gang”, which may be prejudicial? Does he also agree that young black men appear to be disproportionately charged with these offences, particularly in London? Finally, does he agree that to draw meaningful conclusions, the broader study will need to gather data comparing joint enterprise cases with other cases, which was not done in the pilot study?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, as I have just said, I do not accept that the study so far reveals disproportionality. I accept that this is a very sensitive subject, and we must avoid anything that could be described as inflammatory language. I take on board the noble Lord’s point that we need a proper data study bringing in relevant comparables.
Prison Capacity
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Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
I thank the noble and learned Lord for repeating yesterday’s Statement. In broad terms, the Government aspire to increase the time spent in prison for some serious offenders and to reduce the chances of a prison sentence for less serious offenders. The Lord Chancellor put forward this package of proposals to address the immediate and entirely predicted crisis in our prison estate; it is full because of the mismanagement of the current Government over their whole period in office.
The Government’s mismanagement goes beyond the prison estate to the Probation Service. There has been a substantial decline in courts sentencing with community and suspended sentence orders over the past 10 years: they have halved in 10 years, and that is because of sentencers’ lack of trust in the robustness of community orders. We in the Labour Party support an increased use of community orders, but they require experienced probation staff in post, properly organised, with challenging community work and genuine community rehabilitation initiatives for them to work effectively.
The Government’s approach to the Probation Service has had a direct impact on the crisis and the overcrowding in the prison estate. We support the use of more sophisticated tagging, GPS and other more specialised tags, but they are no better than the experience and professionalism of the people and organisations that manage and monitor them. Can the Minister assure me that the Probation Service will form an integral partner in the monitoring and assessment of the effectiveness of tags?
Talking as a magistrate and sentencer, I can tell the noble and learned Lord that I very rarely sentence an offender of previous good character to prison. Far more often, the offender has a history of community sentences that have failed for one reason or another; therefore, the sentencer feels that there is no choice but to give a custodial sentence, sometimes a relatively short one, to mark both the seriousness of the offence and the lack of impact of previous community orders. Therefore, I fear the changes proposed by the Lord Chancellor will have relatively little impact.
On Thursday, I will be speaking at the conference of the National Association of Probation Officers, which represents the profession which has been under siege by the current Government. Will the Minister explain how the proposals in this Statement will rebuild the Probation Service so that pressure can be taken off the prison estate?
There has been much comment in the press in recent days about the advice to judges to delay sentences to mitigate prison overcrowding. My understanding is that this applies to Crown Court cases where an offender has been found guilty or pleaded guilty and has been given bail by the judge pending a sentencing report from probation. My question to the Minister is how long this delay is going to be. Will it be weeks or months? The Lord Chancellor has said it will apply only to less serious offenders, but we are dealing with Crown Court matters and these, by their very nature, are more serious. What guarantee can the Minister give that no sexual offenders or violent offenders will be walking our streets as a result of this delay? Will victims of these offenders be informed of the delay to sentencing?
I now turn to the Government’s programme to build new prisons. HMP Five Wells came on stream last year, and a second new prison is expected to come on stream relatively soon. When might we expect it to be active? A further three new prisons are stuck in the planning process: when might these other three prisons expect to come on stream? Multiple timetables have been published: where are we in this process?
On top of this, HMPPS is adding portakabins to the existing prison estate. I understand these are actually quite popular with prisoners because they have en suite facilities, but they add complexity and manpower requirements to the prison officers required to run the prison. How much will these portakabins mitigate the capacity issue in our prison estate?
We are also being told that the Lord Chancellor is looking at renting overseas prison capacity to mitigate the current crisis. How much will this cost, and how will this contribute to offender rehabilitation, where contact with family and friends is seen as being of primary importance to reduce the chances of reoffending on release?
On the deportation of foreign national offenders, last year the Government managed to deport 2,958 foreign national offenders. This is less than a third of the total number in our prisons and around half the annual number before the Covid pandemic. Why should the public believe the Government when they claim they can get a grip on the number of foreign national offenders in our prisons, when they have failed to do so until now? What difference will bringing forward deportation of foreign national offenders by six months make to the prison population, and by when?
I now turn to extradition. Earlier this year, I asked a Written Question about some German courts refusing to extradite prisoners to the UK because of concerns about the state of British prisons. On 30 May, the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, answered my Question and wrote that while HMG does not comment on extradition requests, they do respond to requests for assurances from foreign states in relation to the matters I raised in my Question. Since then, there have been a number of further articles in the press where both German and Irish courts have refused extradition requests on the basis of the state of British prisons. This is a quality issue, not a capacity issue. Can the Minister comment on the assurances which his department gives to foreign states that our prisons are indeed fit, decent and suitable to receive extradited prisoners?
There is a lot of detail in the Statement. I have commented on some but not all elements of it. The necessity for this Statement is a culmination of systemic long-term underinvestment over many years. I cannot help thinking that the recently appointed Lord Chancellor has received something of a hospital pass in taking on his new role. The noble Lord opposite is in the same situation too. Can I ask the noble Lord about any consultation on their proposals and the timetable for bringing them in?
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, I welcome this Statement, in part at least, and I thank the Minister for making the time to discuss it with me yesterday. However, we profoundly regret the circumstances in which it came to be made.
At last, the Government recognise the disgraceful state of our prisons—with a current population of 88,000 and only 500-odd places unfilled across the estate and with serious overcrowding within that population. It is not all down to Covid, more remand and recall prisoners and industrial action. Indeed, the Statement itself points out that the prison population in England and Wales has nearly doubled over three decades. That is made worse by serious understaffing, dismal morale and, in consequence, a failure to recruit and retain enough prison staff.
Some of these measures we have long been calling for. We welcome the presumption against damaging short sentences, which are shown to be hopelessly ineffective, with sky-high reconviction rates and no chance of addressing mental health and addiction issues or training or preparation for employment. We welcome recognition of the need to concentrate on rehabilitation and reform and greater use of community and suspended sentences, but these must be supported, as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, said, by probation and community services that are fully resourced and in overall operation.
However, much of this Statement just sets out panic measures from a panicked Government who have simply run out of prison space, despite all the warnings: doubling up in already overcrowded cells; the so-called “rapid deployment cells”, which the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, called portakabins—read “makeshift prefab temporary cells” with, importantly, no extra supporting services; cancelling maintenance projects that are essential to improve squalid conditions; and indiscriminate 18-day early release determined by the location where the prisoner is serving, not the prisoner’s suitability. Even worse, we are still resorting to using police cells, which are totally unsuitable for housing prisoners.
This Statement talks of giving the least serious, low- risk offenders a
“path away from a life of crime”.
However, all prison sentences should offer that—and to extend the metaphor, such a path needs to be properly planned, well supported and fully paid for, not just hurriedly hacked out of the undergrowth, to find a way out of a mess.
The long-term prison building plan is now way behind schedule, so I ask the Minister some questions about the Government’s plans for the medium term. Given that sentence inflation is in part fuelled by government policy, do they have other plans to reverse the inexorable rise in the prison population? What proposals do they have to cut the backlog in the courts to reduce the overload from remand prisoners? What exactly is proposed for an urgent end to the disgraceful extended incarceration of IPP prisoners? What changes are proposed to target recall—to moderate its use, which is often unmerited and should be specific and only used when needed? How do the Government propose to avoid shuffling prisoners around the prison estate to fill every available space, without regard for prisoner needs and welfare—in particular, the need for contact with their families and communities before release?
More importantly, what greater resources are proposed for the probation services so that community sentences work? The Statement claims credit for a past increase in funding but says nothing about the extra funding that will be needed to meet the increased demand resulting from these measures.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, I will deal as best I can with the points made. Hospital pass or not, the Government have to deal with the situation in which they find themselves. On the question of how we got here, the Government have embarked on the largest prison-building programme since Victorian times. To answer the specific questions, I say that Five Wells is open, Fosse Way has recently been opened, Millsike is under construction and I think three other prisons are currently embroiled in the planning process. However, we have spent £1.3 billion on prison construction and at some point the society in which we live has to ask itself, “How much money? Where is the balance to be struck between prison building and other approaches?”
In addition to the various measures I mentioned, including the so-called portakabins or rapid deployment cells, which have proved an important means of ameliorating conditions in some prisons, the Government have taken quite a number of actions and we have done our utmost to keep the available capacity to meet the need, despite the unprecedented pressure arising mainly from the remand population, without which I do not think we would have the problem that we have. Therefore I respectfully defend the Government’s record in this regard.
As regards the very important question of the Probation Service, which both noble Lords raised, it has needed additional resources and, frankly, a degree of rebuilding in the last years, which the Government have been doing their best to do. We are expending an additional £155 million a year on the Probation Service, and I am told that we have exceeded the recruitment target in each of the last three years and recruited 4,000 trainee probation officers over the last three years. Of course, recruiting a trainee probation officer does not mean you immediately have a fully fledged, experienced probation officer at hand to take on very difficult tasks. I accept that from this House, which very much knows what it is talking about, but the Government are in the process of strengthening and rebuilding the Probation Service, which—to answer the question I think from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby —will indeed be, and has to be, an integral partner in the new programme.
As the noble Lord pointed out, there will still be cases where there is no alternative to a short sentence of less than 12 months, in which case the presumption is rebutted. Let us hope that, in recalibrating and reorientating the culture, that really is the last resort and that the number of short sentences declines dramatically. The figures speak for themselves, with 55% reoffending on short sentences but only 22% reoffending on suspended sentences with proper conditions that are properly enforced and calibrated to that particular offender. Those are striking facts. The Government’s hope and intention is that we move towards the latter from the former. I venture to suggest that noble Lords would not disagree with the general direction of travel that I have tried to convey.
As to the question of the delay in sentencing that was reported last week, this announcement came from the judiciary. It is indeed up to the judiciary to deal with sentencing, but I anticipate that the need for any delay in sentencing will diminish fairly rapidly after our intermediate step relating to the early release from custody subject to licence, so that we can get back to normal management and the courts no longer have to worry about whether there is sufficient prison capacity. I hope that becomes a temporary problem and is no longer of concern.
As regards foreign national offenders, I cannot give the noble Lord an exact estimate of what difference the change in the period from six months to 18 months will make. We also need to uprate the Home Office team that deals with this and reorganise the relevant procedures, but it should result in at least some numbers, which I am not able to clarify. I can do further research and write to him if that would be useful. If you can imagine 10,000 out of 88,000, that is a very substantial number of foreign national offenders in our system. We should be able to do something effective to reduce that pressure, not least with agreements such as that with Albania for prisoners to serve their sentences in their home jails.
As far as the extradition cases are concerned, I am obviously not able to comment on any specific cases, whether from Germany, Ireland or elsewhere. I respectfully disagree with the idea that there is a difference between a quality issue and a capacity issue because I think capacity and quality are intertwined, especially if there is a problem with overcrowding et cetera, but the Government’s position is that our prisons are fit and decent from the point of view of our request to extradite persons to this country, and I anticipate that these reforms will enable us further to reinforce the fitness and decency of the prison estate in this country.
As far as the noble Lord, Lord Marks, is concerned, again no Government would have wished to be in this position, but we have to deal with it as it is. The measures that the Government have taken on employment and rehabilitation, which include, as I think I have said on previous occasions, employment boards in each prison with local employers—there is more or less a jobcentre in Berwyn prison in Wales—the provision of 12 weeks’ accommodation and the digital passport with a bank account, a national insurance number and so forth, have led to a substantial improvement in rehabilitation and a drop in the reoffending rate from about 32% a few years ago to just under 25% now, which is some progress in very difficult circumstances bearing in mind the kinds of prisoners one is dealing with.
We will come back to IPP. In the medium term let us progress with these reforms and keep them under review. We will now be reporting to Parliament annually, so that will give a new and more transparent opportunity to develop and share the problems, which I venture to suggest are problems that we ought to share rather than problems that are of—shall I say?—a party-political nature.
Jurors: Mental Health Impact
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Excerpts(1 year, 8 months ago)
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Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, I am entirely in agreement with the noble Baroness that in most cases of this kind judges will warn jurors in advance. That should generally be done, and I think it is for the judge to decide.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, raises a very important issue. We ask citizens to perform this important public service and increasingly, as she said, it can be harrowing and traumatic. At present, as the Minister said, HM Courts & Tribunals Service tells jurors only that they can consult their GP or the Samaritans, who counsel potential suicides. The noble Baroness is right that professional counselling must be available where necessary. Will the Minister arrange such counselling and ensure that its availability is known to potential jurors at the time they are summoned so that they can see what the potential dangers are and consider their position, and have the information available throughout?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, I do not think that I can add to my earlier Answer that the Government are currently considering all options. Roughly 100,000 people serve on a jury every year; most, as I have just said, find the experience interesting and informative, and the Government will keep this under close review.
Prisoners: Imprisonment for Public Protection
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Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, I can give that assurance. The problem is acute; it gets more difficult as time passes. The need for specialised training and proper attention to these matters is growing. The action plan will include a special supervisory board with specific responsibility for IPP prisoners, with a view to tackling this very difficult problem.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, in concert with all who have spoken, I suggest that the continued detention of so many IPP prisoners beyond their tariffs shames the criminal justice system. We have been around this course so many times, but do not the Government now appreciate that their lack of progress on this betrays a complete inconsistency? On the one hand, they agree that the abolition of IPP sentences under LASPO should have happened because continued preventive detention for prisoners who had served their time could not be justified, yet on the other they maintain and defend such a system in failing to release almost 3,000 of those prisoners—including those who have been released once—who were sentenced before LASPO but 10 years after those sentences were abolished.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, the then Government decided that the abolition of the IPP sentence should not be retrospective. The existing IPP action plan has had a certain degree of success, and the revised IPP action plan will, we hope, fully address the problem.
Domestic Abuse: Defence for Victims who Commit an Offence
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Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, the Government are making progress on the whole issue of domestic abuse; we have the 2021 Act and the 2022 Home Office plan for tackling domestic abuse. There is also greater awareness among the police, the CPS and the judiciary of these issues. I cannot commit to introducing a domestic violence register but that is certainly one matter to be considered.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, the Domestic Abuse Act was landmark legislation; it improved national understanding of domestic abuse and its appalling consequences. However, the rejection of amendments proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, the right reverend Prelate and others, which were the context of the commitment from the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, left serious unfinished business. Successive lockdowns and the cost of living crisis have taught us more about the terror of victims trapped in homes with their abusers. Of course we will await Clare Wade’s report, but surely now the Government can recognise that victims should be convicted of offences of violence against their abusers only if they use force that is grossly disproportionate.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, I do not wish to pre-empt the contents of the Wade report or the Government’s response. The broad position is that the Government are not yet persuaded that a change in the law is needed in relation to homicide or other offences, but are very much open to further consideration of these very difficult issues.
Probation Service: Chief Inspector’s Reviews into Serious Further Offences
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Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, last Tuesday, the Minister Damian Hinds gave a Statement commenting on the Chief Inspector of Probation’s independent review of the probation service’s management of particular cases. In that, he referred to murders in the most distressing of circumstances. While the report rightly draws attention to probation failures in process and practice which led to these deaths, I want to ask the Government how we got to this position.
In 2014, the Government embarked on their disastrous privatisation of the probation service. In 2020, they abandoned this experiment and brought it back under state control. For 100 years, probation had benefited from local connections, a degree of local autonomy and professionalism. Unfortunately, in 2020, instead of reinstating local links, the probation functions were squeezed into the Civil Service. The independence and ability to speak out about local issues has gone. On-the-ground contacts with voluntary organisations and essential services such as housing have gone. The very things that are proven to prevent reoffending are gone. Heavy workloads, high vacancy rates and newly recruited, young and inexperienced staff who lack managers to guide their complex work are all factors that lead to mistakes. Ultimately, they endanger the public. This deterioration only makes more pointless deaths likelier. Does the Minister agree that we should reinstate the links to local government so that housing, health, the police and voluntary organisations can play their part?
I agree that strategic direction and inspection must be a central government responsibility, but local management is the best chance for reviving the probation service. Information sharing across services would improve if data about any individual offender were held in one place. This would allow better-informed risk assessment and supervision. Why have the Government still not introduced this centralised database?
The fact is that the Government knew about the problems highlighted in this report but failed to act on them, so they must shoulder their fair share of responsibility. It is right that the chief probation officer has apologised. Will the Minister accept responsibility and apologise not just for the service’s failure but for the Government’s failure to tackle the severe staff shortages and excessive case loads that contributed to what went so tragically wrong?
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, these two appalling cases have shocked and horrified us all. Our deepest sympathies go out to the families of the innocent victims. These reviews record a catalogue of mistakes, miscalculations and failures to act. In view of the Lord Speaker’s ruling, I shall not go into the detail of McSweeney’s case.
In Bendall’s case, against a background of domestic abuse dating back to 2016 and a clear risk of sexual abuse of girls dating back to March 2020, he was assessed in a pre-sentence report in June 2021 as a medium risk of serious harm to the public and, incredibly, as a low risk of harm to partners and children. The so-called fast delivery pre-sentence report was described in the review of his case as “inappropriate”—an understatement, I suggest. As a result, for an offence of arson Bendall was given a suspended sentence order with an electronically monitored curfew requirement that he reside with Terri Harris and her children. The probation service had made no contact with Ms Harris before Bendall’s sentencing and no assessment of the risk to her and her children. In September 2021, he murdered Ms Harris, who was pregnant, her two children and an 11 year-old friend of theirs, raping one of the children.
We can date the parlous state of the probation service to its disastrous privatisation in 2014 and the inevitably challenging attempt to reverse the damage in 2021. However, it is still plagued by a lack of resources and dismally low morale. Of course, we welcome the extra £5.5 million per year for more staff to access domestic abuse and child safeguarding information, but why is it so late? How will the Government ensure that this new investment addresses poor information sharing and the lack of consideration for the welfare of children?
The extra £155 million per year for more probation staff will help, particularly if it really does yield a net extra 4,000 probation officers over three years. However, Andy Slaughter MP pointed out in the House of Commons that more than 50% of probation officer posts in London are vacant. Does the Minister agree that filling the vacancies with suitable candidates is a huge challenge? Retention of experienced officers is also vital; as is high-quality training and building confidence that officers are fully informed and that their decisions are not impossibly pressured. In the other place, Sir Robert Neill, the chair of the Justice Committee, pointed out that these issues had all been highlighted by his committee in April 2021. Will the Minister explain how the Government now plan to tackle all these extremely difficult issues?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Bellamy) (Con)
My Lords, I am sure the whole House will join me in expressing once again our deep condolences and sorrow to the victims in these two cases. I will not, if your Lordships permit, go into details which have already been set out in the House of Commons and have been mentioned today. However, I repeat unreservedly on behalf of the Government the profound apology for serious failings in probation supervision in these two cases already made by my right honourable friend Damian Hinds MP, Minister for Prisons and Probation, in the House of Commons on Tuesday 24 January. The chief probation officer has also made that apology to the families concerned.
As the noble Lords, Lord Ponsonby and Lord Marks, have already said, the primary duty of the Government now is to do all we can to address these failings and ensure, as far as possible, that this kind of thing can never happen again. As the Chief Inspector of Probation found in his highly critical reports, the central problem in both these cases was that the level of risk was not assessed properly. Both criminals concerned were assessed as medium risk when they should have been assessed as high risk in light of their long and often dangerous criminal histories. However, the questions we have to address, which have rightly been raised, are: what are the Government doing about it and how we can move forward from here?
First, at a very high level, the probation service has been reunified with a view to raising standards. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, mentioned the history of this matter and mention has also been made of the privatisation of the service. The Government believed it right to bring that arrangement to an end, and are currently engaged in restoring, reinforcing and improving the service.
The Government recognise that the probation service needs more staff, and an additional £155 million has been invested in that endeavour. This has led to an increase of 2,500 trainee probation officers over the last two years, and a further 1,500 officers are to be recruited by the end of March 2023. I am advised that that is on track.
More specifically, in relation to the circumstances of these specific cases, the Chief Inspector of Probation has produced two detailed reports which in turn have engendered two action plans by HMPPS published on 17 and 24 January respectively.
In the case of Bendall, the report made 17 recommendations, all of which have been accepted, and most have already been actioned. I will briefly run through the steps that have been taken so that we can understand what is in progress.
First, domestic abuse inquiries must be routinely carried out in all cases where an electronically monitored curfew is being considered, with a detailed assessment of any risk of harm.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
I cannot confirm it at this moment. My understanding is that such information should be available if it is recorded in the police record, and not just if there was a consequence—so if a call-out had occurred, even if there was no further action. I ask the noble Lord to allow me to confirm that to be absolutely sure that I have understood the question and given the correct answer.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
I am terribly sorry to interrupt again but, to follow that up, because it is a very important point, the Statement talks about this money being spent
“to recruit more probation staff who are specifically responsible for accessing domestic abuse information held by the police,”—
with which the Minister has dealt—
“and children’s safeguarding information held by councils”.
When he goes back, it is important that he finds out whether information held by councils on domestic abuse would also be researched, because that can also be very valuable to the probation service.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My understanding is that that is the case but, again, I will confirm it to make absolutely sure that we have the right information for your Lordships. As the noble Lord rightly emphasised, one of the further recommendations is that a child safeguarding inquiry be carried out in all cases where the person concerned either lives with or is likely to have contact with any relevant child, and there are new training and procedures to achieve that.
There are further specific measures to ensure the safety of children, involving a separate section in the OASys—the offender assessment system; a new child safeguarding policy framework; revision of training in producing pre-sentence reports to improve the quality; more support and mentoring for trainee probation officers, with new learning tools and opportunities; and a better framework to guide senior probation officers when allocating cases to more junior probation officers.
Those recommendations are complemented by the report relating to the case of McSweeney, which has 10 further recommendations. It proposes first a thorough review of the processes for assessing the risk of harm, because what went wrong in these two specific cases was that the risk was underassessed. As I understand it, that was partly because not all the information that was on the system was properly assessed or accessed by the relevant staff. It was also, particularly in one of the cases, partly because relevant information was not properly shared between the various elements, particularly the Prison and Probation Service in the community. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, rightly made the point about how important it is that we have a consolidated system in which all information is available to everyone, so that nothing falls through the cracks or is missed.
That is essentially part of the recommendations, particularly in the McSweeney case, for improved processes to ensure that all information on past behaviour and current risks while in prison is shared in a timely and effective manner, particularly between the prison offender manager—the probation officer looking after the prisoner in prison—and the community offender manager who will be responsible for managing the person concerned in the community. That includes better procedures and allocation of cases before a prisoner is released, so that there is proper communication between the relevant prison offender manager and the relevant community offender manager so that there is continuity and overall management when a prisoner is released. It also includes the tightening up of all recall decisions being signed off by a senior probation officer within 24 hours, which was one of the problems in one of the cases, and close monitoring of the licence conditions. So a range of steps are being taken.
I will briefly turn to the questions that your Lordships quite understandably posed. In his reports, the inspector does not make a link between the effect of the previous privatisation arrangements and these particular cases. I do not think I am revealing any secrets if I say that the Government came to the view that the earlier arrangements were not working properly and the situation had to be reformed, which is why the probation service was reunited.
On the local links question, I have every reason to suppose—but, again, I will clarify this with the service and write appropriately to your Lordships—that, although the emphasis has perhaps moved to more central management, as is probably inevitable in the present modern circumstances, one should not underestimate the importance of local links, particularly with the voluntary sector. I will ascertain and obtain further information on how that particular important aspect is being addressed, in answer to the question of how far the links to local government agencies are being reinstated or used—this is an important question, and your Lordships need to know the answer, so I will endeavour to give more detail on it.
I have addressed the importance of the information on an individual offender being held in one place and combined, which will improve information sharing. In the brief time available, I have done my best to explain how the information sharing will be improved. It is true that filling the relevant vacancies is a large challenge, and it is particularly so in London, where some areas have had particular difficulties—I am sure that noble Lords are broadly familiar with the situation. Some senior management has had to be replaced, and various remedial action plans are in force to address this; it is all taken extremely seriously. I hope and trust that we will see significant improvements as the increasing staff gradually gain experience and come through the system. There has been a remarkable increase in the number of recruits in the last two or three years.
All in all, the Government’s position is that a great number of positive actions are being taken. I have apologised deeply and sincerely for these particular incidents involving these victims, to whom our hearts of course go out. I do not think I am in a position to give a wider apology than that but I will put one matter in perspective. I am sure it is your Lordships’ experience that, within probation services and prison services, we have many dedicated professionals who go the extra mile to ensure our safety and look after their charges. When things go wrong, they are as devastated as the rest of us. I would not want it to be thought that the front-line staff, whom I personally salute, are under undue criticism in these cases. I hope I have explained the steps being taken to improve the system at all levels and to avert future tragedies of this kind.
National Security Bill
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames ExcerptsWednesday 18th January 2023
(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment restricts the definition of ‘national security proceedings’ to correspond with the ordinary meaning of that phrase, and not merely because some national security-related evidence has been adduced. It also prevents a public body from avoiding accountability by categorising proceedings as ‘national security proceedings’.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful for the explanation that these two groups have been combined. I spent some time today wondering why they could possibly have been separated, since they both concern the topics of a reduction in damages and freezing powers and damages. We are now dealing with all the amendments to Clauses 82 and 83 and the stand part objections to Clauses 82 to 86.
I have Amendment 105A in group two. It is what I might call an exemplar amendment, by which I mean that it is directed at one of the issues on which these provisions on the power to reduce damages under Clauses 82 to 86 are unacceptable. I say at the outset that I fully support the objections to any of these clauses standing part of the Bill, advanced by my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness, my noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I shall therefore speak at this stage on the amendments in group three as well, which relate to the reduction, freezing and forfeiture of damages proposed by Clauses 82 to 86.
I will make three points. First, these clauses are vindictive, because they are not clearly targeted towards achieving the end at which they are aimed but instead represent a far wider knee-jerk attack on the civil rights of those affected. Secondly, they are unnecessary, because existing statutory powers and legal principles are already in place to achieve that end. Thirdly, they would represent an insidious restriction of the rule of law and an unwarranted grant of effective immunity for government from legitimate action taken by citizens to recover damages for proven unlawful actions by government agencies.
I turn to my first point: that the provisions are not targeted at the end which they are intended to achieve. The aim of these provisions is described in the impact assessment. Based on the Conservative manifesto commitment to
“do all we can to ensure that extremists never receive public money”,
the impact assessment says that, to achieve this aim,
“civil damages reforms will address the risk of awards of large sums of damages paid out in civil court claims being used to fund and support acts of terror and whether damages are appropriate where a claim in a national security case concerns a claimant’s involvement with terrorism.”
The first of those aims concerns the use of damages awards, which we say can be addressed by freezing orders under existing legislation, to which I will turn in due course. But the second presupposes a link between the claimant’s conduct and the award of damages.
The Parliamentary Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Bellamy) (Con)
I thank noble Lords very warmly for their contributions, which were pertinent and challenging as ever. I shall make three introductory points. First, there is perhaps—and I put this as lowly as I can—a tension between those who say that this approach is wrong in principle and, on the other hand, those who say it is already covered by the general law. If it is covered by the general law, it cannot be wrong in principle. There seems to the Government to be an opposition in those two propositions.
Secondly, it is said that these provisions are intended to introduce a high level of impunity for the security services, generally reduce their accountability and effectively put them beyond the law. That is not the case, because in this legislation the decision is for the court—it is for the court to decide what to do. It does not give immunity to officials, the security services or the Government. It is a matter for the court. Essentially, this legislation is spelling out what the position is in relation to persons who have been involved in terrorist wrongdoing. It is saying in explicit terms that, where that situation arises, the court should consider—and I emphasise the word “consider”—whether damages should be reduced to reflect that wrongdoing. It is perfectly true that, at common law, such an argument could already be made, at least in theory; depending on which Latin tag you chose to use or whether you refer to the contributory negligence Act or other general principles, the argument can be made. But the point of these provisions is to spell that out in very clear terms so that the general public and potential claimants know what the position is, and one is not left to argue what can sometimes be obscure and difficult questions of common law in particular cases.
Thirdly, the overriding purpose—we can discuss the exact wording—is to convey a message. The message is that the United Kingdom is not a soft touch for those involved in terrorist wrongdoing when they come to claim civil damages. That is a message particularly directed to those beyond the seas who may be tempted to bring, and have in the past brought, proceedings in the UK courts when these kinds of situations have arisen. It is to make the civil position clear. By the same token, we have provisions relating to freezing and forfeiture which protect any damages that are awarded from subsequently being used for terrorist purposes. That is the overriding framework, as it were.
On behalf of the Government, I entirely reject the suggestion that these provisions are intended to introduce a high level of impunity for the security services or to avoid accountability, because it is ultimately for the court to decide. This is limited to national security proceedings, and the conduct of any public bodies will still be fully subject to scrutiny by the court.
With that general description, I shall try to deal with the various points which have been raised. I come first to Amendment 105A, put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, which seeks to introduce an exclusion in cases where the evidence or submissions to the court about national security are merely incidental to the civil claim in question. While completely understanding the objective behind the amendment, the Government believe that it is not necessary, for three reasons.
First, national security proceedings are very clearly defined in Clause 82(2), and it is very hard to construe that definition as including a case where national security was for some reason de minimis to the proceedings concerned. Secondly, it is, in the Government’s view, hard to imagine in practical terms a situation in which a person involved in terrorist wrongdoing brings a case against the Crown, and the Crown has presented evidence or made submissions about national security, but national security is merely incidental to the issues in the case. It seems to the Government that it is most unlikely that such a situation would arise. Thirdly—this is a fundamental point that I have already made—
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
The Minister simply has not answered the point that this provision in the Bill refers to “at any stage” of the proceedings, and any stage of the proceedings could be a disclosure stage, an interlocutory stage or an interim stage, where documents are sought to be withheld for reasons of national security that do not go to any major issue in the proceedings and are merely incidental. The Minister has simply not answered that. If he would like to do so, I would be grateful.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
I will further reflect on the question, but it seems to the Government that that specific example is unlikely to bite, as it were, on the duty of the court in the particular circumstances that we are considering, because ultimately it is up to the court to consider whether a reduction of damages is appropriate. If it were the case that, technically speaking, you could argue that national security proceedings on the face of the statute were in some way involved because there had been an earlier discovery application but it had no material impact on the remainder of the case, one could reasonably assume, and the Government do assume, that the court would not proceed to reduce damages on the basis of something that had nothing to do with the real issues.
We will always reflect and consider further, because it is very important to get the drafting right, but at the moment the Government are unconvinced that this amendment is necessary and believe that the protections, and in particular the role of the court, are sufficient to deal with the concern that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, has raised. That, I think, is the answer to Amendment 105A.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
I certainly undertake to reflect on what further guidance can be given on how the courts should go about this exercise.
I have taken up too much of your Lordships’ time and am conscious that I have not perhaps dealt with everything I should have. As I think I have said, the overall intention is not in any way to undermine mechanisms for holding the Government to account, or to allow Ministers and officials to evade scrutiny. I fully agree with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, that we absolutely have to tread carefully. I hope that this package is a balanced one, and I invite noble Lords not to press their amendments.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, we have had a worthwhile and detailed debate in which the Government have been pretty hard pressed on the detail of these clauses. I am bound to say that nothing I have heard suggests to me that these clauses are in fact defensible. They introduce a very important and, we say, objectionable new power. It is not merely a power but, because of their mandatory nature, a duty to consider reduction in damages—the power being to reduce damages where there is no connection required between the conduct of the claimant and the reduction in damages. That is entirely novel.
If I may go on from there to consider a point made by the Minister fairly early in his speech, he said that those of us who criticise these provisions must face the fact that there is a tension between that criticism and the reliance we place on existing law. The reason why his position falls and why there is a tension is precisely that, under the existing law—as in the point made a moment or two ago by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick—it is the claimant’s conduct that leads to the reduction in damages. The point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, was that there is express exclusion of the requirement for the claimant’s conduct to be responsible in these provisions before a reduction in damages is ordered. The security factors may be entirely irrelevant conduct, as far as the award of damages is concerned, but nevertheless lead to the requirement to consider reducing damages.
I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Bellamy, because of his being so conversant with the common law, got into some difficulty when answering my question on disclosure. He said it is unlikely that consideration of evidence that came to light in a disclosure application would have any bearing on the claimant’s conduct and therefore would lead a court to reduce damages. That is to fall into the trap of ignoring the effect of these provisions where no causal connection is required.
In answer to the other central point made by the Minister, that this is not about giving impunity or immunity to the Government because it is for the courts to decide, that leads the Government directly into the difficulty that these provisions are mandatory. As has been said a number of times, if a judge is faced with a mandatory provision that requires him to consider a number of factors and decide whether to reduce damages, he cannot blithely go on to say, “Well, I looked at the factors and I’m simply going to ignore the legislation”. He then either gets into the point the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, made—that he is giving no effect to the legislation at all and it is a cypher, because a Court of Appeal might agree with that—or he is simply falling into error because he is not applying the legislation. It is a very difficult conundrum to face.
The central point made where the Government have got into such difficulty is that originally raised by the noble Lord, Lord Faulks. He said that there is no guidance whatever in Clause 83(5) as to how and on what principle the judge is to approach the question of whether damages should be reduced. Ultimately, the Minister was forced into the position of saying, “I’m not quite sure—I’ll take it under advisement and we may come to some conclusion about it”. Frankly, and with the greatest respect to the Minister, that is simply not good enough. This Committee needs to know what principles are to be applied to the exercise of an entirely new and, we say, entirely objectionable power.
The reality is that this point cannot be escaped from, as was said by the noble Lords, Lord Anderson, Lord Pannick and Lord Faulks, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. My noble friend Lord Purvis has again said that in an intervention. The problem is that this legislation is to be aimed at using damages to fund terrorism. That would be properly achieved, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, pointed out, by using the powers to freeze damages in a responsible way when there is an actual intention to use the damages to fund terrorism. It is exactly the point that the independent reviewer, Jonathan Hall KC, made: that it was dealt with by the existing legislation under the 2001 Act.
I cannot for the life of me therefore see why lowering the threshold achieves anything meaningful that is just, because it is unjust and the threshold under the existing legislation is the proper one to apply for something as serious as depriving somebody of damages or even freezing their damages. This legislation is weakening and altering other legislation in an unnecessary way, by introducing new powers that are objectionable, and therefore it ought to go.
The Minister has said that he is going to take this away and think about it. At this stage, therefore, I could not sensibly press my amendment and we would not ask for votes at this stage on clauses standing part. However, I really suggest that the Government are now under an obligation to consider whether any of these provisions are necessary at all or whether they wish to abandon them. In saying that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
My Lords, I have very little to add to the powerful speeches the Committee has already heard, but, as a supplement to what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has just said, I will remind the Minister of two other facts.
First, terrorist offences are by no means all at the top end of seriousness. Schedule A1 to the Sentencing Code includes offences such as
“inviting … support for a proscribed organisation”
which may no longer be concerned with violence, as a number are not, and
“failure to disclose professional belief or suspicion about”
the commission of terrorist offences by others. Those are offences on which the clauses bite.
Secondly, even for those offences which are serious enough to merit a period of imprisonment, recidivism rates for released prisoners are—I think in most developed countries, and certainly in this one—very much lower than the recidivism rates for ordinary crime. Professor Andrew Silke calculated in 2020 that the recidivism rate was around 3% for those who had committed terrorist offences and been released between 2013 and 2019.
I hope that the question the Minister will address is why that particular category of offence merits the removal of a right enjoyed by everybody else, including people convicted of murder, rape and the other most serious crimes that our law knows.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, there is one simple principle that everybody has referred to in the debate: access to justice. I will be brief.
If the principle still stands that cases that are still in scope of legal aid with sufficient merit ought not to be restricted by lack of means to bring them—that principle underlies the availability of legal aid—it should not be undermined by the removal of legal aid from cases that have merit and ought to be brought. What is particularly invidious about these clauses is that the restrictions on the grant of legal aid apply to all cases that might be brought by an individual to whom the clauses apply. As has been pointed out, that is entirely irrespective of whether the cases have any connection with any past terrorist activity or whether they are good or bad, and irrespective of who might be affected by them; for example, members of an individual’s family might lose their rights in a housing case brought against a defaulting landlord where housing conditions were making that tenant’s children ill. These are blanket restrictions that are entirely inappropriate.
As the Committee will know, eligibility for legal aid is governed by a merits test in every case. If a case does not stand a reasonable chance of success, legal aid is not available. There is a financial eligibility test, which means that legal aid will be available only if an applicant is unable to fund litigation. These provisions are positively designed to deprive of legal aid a claimant who might otherwise secure it. A claimant who, by definition, has a good case, would otherwise be eligible on the basis of the merits test, and who cannot afford a lawyer would be deprived, under these provisions, of any legal representation before the courts, even though, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, the claimant’s case may be utterly irrelevant to any present or past wrongdoing and vice versa. As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, pointed out, the gravity of the terrorist offence relied on may be low. That is a denial of access to justice which we simply should not countenance, and I suggest that the Minister should not countenance it either. It is, quite simply, wrong.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 115 in this group, where we call for an assessment of the impact of Clauses 87, 88 and 89 to be published before they come into force.
It has been a powerful but relatively short debate. I shall not repeat the points that have been made, mostly by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, with her four grounds for opposing the clauses standing part. I wanted to reinforce the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, when he said that the gravity of the offence may be low. I can talk directly to that because, as a sitting magistrate, I have dealt with terrorist incidents that involved graffiti. The defendant in the case pleaded guilty to graffiti but, because of the nature of the graffiti, was charged under the Terrorism Act. We went ahead and fined that offender, but it was an offence under the Terrorism Act.
We have been relooking at Clause 87. Would that sort of example of a terrorist conviction be caught under the provisions, and would that individual who pleaded guilty to a terrorism offence of graffiti lose his right to civil legal aid in the decades to come?
Probate: Waiting Times
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Lord Bellamy (Con)
I fully associate myself with the noble Baroness’s remarks. It is completely right that these issues should be raised, and I congratulate my noble friend Lady Meyer on raising them. I have already met her to discuss this problem. In fairness to the probate registry, I simply point out that we are still enmeshed in the aftermath of Covid. Excess deaths are currently running 13% above the five-year average. The first half of 2022 saw 16,000 extra applications above the same period in 2020. So there is a challenge here. I assure your Lordships that, as far as I am concerned, this issue is being monitored closely and everything is being done to correct it.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, has the sympathy of the whole House. The 10 days mentioned in her Question are a pipe dream, frankly. The Minister’s figures are hopelessly optimistic. My understanding is that eight weeks is generally the absolute minimum, and only if the form is flawless. The Government’s website says that you will usually have to wait 16 weeks from application to grant—that is from now to nearly Easter. Any queries add another month. If there is inheritance tax to pay, that adds another month. It often takes hours, not 10 minutes, for someone to answer the phone, and it often takes weeks for them to respond to emails. This is a wholesale failure of service at a desperately sad time in people’s lives—a time of loss, grief, stress and worry. Are not the Government and the Minister ashamed of this performance?