Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Conditional Cautions: Code of Practice) Order 2013

Lord McNally Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Grand Committee

Moved By

[Lord McNally]

That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Conditional Cautions: Code of Practice) Order 2013

Relevant documents: 16th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments

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

My Lords, the order implements the revised Code of Practice on Adult Conditional Cautions, which provides the framework in which conditional cautions operate and will come into force the day after the order comes into force.

Conditional cautioning for adults currently operates under a code of practice approved by Parliament in 2009. Amendments have been made to the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which requires the code to be updated by this order. Part 3 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 as amended allows an authorised person, usually a police officer, or a relevant prosecutor, usually the Crown Prosecution Service, to offer a conditional caution to an adult offender aged 18 or over. Before the conditional caution can be offered to an offender, he or she must admit to committing the offence and agree to accept the conditional caution and the conditions attached. The police or prosecutor must be satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to prosecute and that it is in the public interest to offer a conditional caution. If, once the conditional caution has been administered, the offender fails to comply with the conditions, he or she may be prosecuted for the original offence. Conditional cautions cannot be imposed on an offender, and the code of practice makes this clear. In every case, the offender must agree to accept the conditional caution and the conditions that are proposed. He or she may, for any reason, choose to decline the offer of a conditional caution and opt instead to be prosecuted.

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 made two amendments to the conditional caution framework as set out in the Criminal Justice Act 2003. First, it enabled the police to offer a conditional caution and to set and vary conditions by removing the requirement for a prosecutor to authorise such decisions. Secondly, the 2012 Act introduced two new conditions that can be attached to a conditional caution and offered to relevant foreign offenders—that is, those offenders who do not have permission to be in the UK. These new conditions have the objectives of bringing about the departure of foreign offenders from the United Kingdom and ensuring that they do not return to the UK for a period of time.

Alongside these amendments to the code of practice arising from the legislative changes, we took the opportunity to look at the existing guidance within the code and made further amendments to clarify and strengthen it. We have, for example, strengthened what is said on selecting appropriate conditions and on offering a conditional caution to offenders with mental health issues and making sure that they understand the implications of accepting it.

The Criminal Justice Act 2003 sets out the procedure for revising the code of practice. First, the Justice Secretary must agree a draft for publication with the Attorney-General. The Justice Secretary is then required to publish that draft code of practice and consider any representations made by respondents. A public consultation took place on the draft code from 4 October 2012 to 1 November 2012. The consultation was sent to criminal justice practitioners, such as police and prosecutors, as well as to stakeholder groups, such as the Magistrates’ Association and the Law Society, and third-sector groups, such as Mencap. In total, 37 responses were received—on the whole positive responses which welcomed the guidance—which we considered, and some further revisions to the draft code were then made. The revised code has been approved by the Attorney-General and the Justice Secretary and a copy of it and the Government’s response to the consultation were placed in the Library of this House as well as on the Ministry of Justice website. The draft order and the code of practice were laid before Parliament in January this year.

In addition to the code of practice, the Director of Public Prosecutions issues operational guidance on the approach for police and prosecutors to take when considering whether a conditional caution may be an appropriate response to an individual offence. The DPP is revising his guidance following the legislative changes and the changes made to this code of practice. This order brings into force the code of practice which will provide the framework in which police and prosecutors make decisions on whether a conditional caution is an appropriate response to a criminal offence. It will allow conditional cautions to be used to provide the opportunity for offenders to make swift reparation to victims and communities and for offenders to be directed into rehabilitative services to tackle the causes of their offending behaviour. Conditional cautions will also allow the removal from the UK at the earliest opportunity of those foreign offenders with no permission to be here who have committed a crime. We believe that this is a useful tool and are working with the UK Border Agency to ensure that the conditions are implemented and enforced robustly to ensure that public protection is maintained.

If the order implementing the revised code of practice is approved by Parliament, it will be implemented across England and Wales from 8 April 2013 alongside the commencement of the amendments to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 made by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. I commend the draft order to the Committee, and I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I will. I was making the point that this case exemplified the arguments that are being made about the Government’s defective consultation procedure, but that is a preliminary point and does not go to the substance of the matter, and I do not expect the Minister to accept any responsibility for what seems a flawed process. I suspect that it is not a matter to which he would have given any material consideration.

On the other hand, the Minister will be aware that there is considerable concern about the number of cautions now being offered in lieu of possible prosecution and a feeling that this is to some extent being used by some police forces as a device to, shall we say, depress the level of recorded crime. There is at least that concern. Whether it is justified is another matter, and I would not for a moment suggest that all police forces are succumbing to that temptation, but there is a feeling that there is an issue, and one has to bear that in mind as we look at extending the system in the way that these proposals do. A cynic might indeed wonder whether this might be another way of reducing the criminal legal aid bill, about which the Minister and his colleagues are so exercised, but heaven forfend that I should be susceptible to such a cynical standpoint.

However, there are a number of points to be raised about these proposals. In terms of conditional cautions, they shift the responsibility entirely on to police officers, at least if they chose to exercise the power given to them. Will the Minister indicate what follow up there will be in terms of consultation about the way the new system is working? Now that we have elected police commissioners—which is not something that I or my party have ever favoured—presumably they will be involved in any consultations, as chief constables would be. Will the Minister indicate whether it is intended to set up a process to monitor the way the new powers are being used and how frequently those consultations will be carried out?

There is also a question about the guidance which the Director of Public Prosecutions is to issue. Once again, we have secondary legislation without the accompanying guidance on how matters are to be used. That is a most unfortunate defect in the procedure. The potential problem is that this new system will be carried out in different ways in different areas. Surely there ought to be a degree of consistency, which, no doubt, the guidance would seek to promote, between what happens in different police authority areas. Again, the question arises of what steps the Government will take to ensure as far as possible that there is a degree of consistency.

On foreign defendants—of course, they will not be defendants because there will not be a prosecution, so let us call them foreign offenders for the purposes of the debate—I invite the Minister to respond to the possible doubt that this may be a convenient way of dealing with foreign offenders without the expense of a trial, but possibly at the expense of visible justice so far as victims are concerned. Will the guidance indicate the level of offence that it would not be deemed appropriate to be the subject of a conditional caution, with the condition of deportation attached to it? Deportation may well be desirable, but it may also be desirable for an offence to be dealt with through the courts in the normal way.

We do not oppose the principle of the order. It is certainly worth pursuing the option of conditional cautions but, as the Minister recognised, we have some reservations about how the system might work in practice. It is new, and I hope that we can have an assurance that there will be a proper review of progress, perhaps in a year or two, to see how the system is working in practice and, in particular—I repeat—whether there is consistency in practice across the country which one would think would be desirable, if only to retain public confidence in the new process. I reiterate the request that in future guidance that will be crucial to the operation should be available for consideration before the secondary legislation goes through your Lordships’ House and the other place.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. As usual, he is constructive in his questioning and I will try to be equally constructive in my responses. I am informed by my noble friend Lord Wallace that there was indeed a good and robust debate about consultation in this Room yesterday. Where I cannot follow the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, is in his description of consultation in this case as being either defective or flawed. It was short but effective. We were working against a pretty tight timetable to deliver the LASPO reforms in place and on time.

I take the point that there was not perfect synergy between the coming into office of the new police commissioners and our consultation, but it was interesting that more than half the responses to the consultation came from police forces or ACPO. As I indicated, the overwhelming response to the consultation was favourable to what we are trying to do. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, was right to raise the question of consistency in the application of these proposals. That is part of a broader approach that we are undertaking at the MoJ to try to make sure that statistics about policing and courts are more widely known so that we can see the effectiveness of any such measures and any variety in their implementation.

We are supporting the Association of Chief Police Officers in its work to develop local scrutiny arrangements for out-of-court disposals. These will consist of a retrospective look by a range of criminal justice professionals at how an area uses these disposals, and it will look at individual cases to see whether they raise any training needs. We are working with the senior judiciary to establish how we harness the unique knowledge and experience of magistrates in these arrangements.

The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, also asked whether there was a kind of inflation in the use of out-of-court disposals. It is true that there was a significant increase after 2007, but that was not at the expense of convictions, the figures for which have remained broadly stable. Part of the reason for the increase was targets imposed by the previous Government that created an incentive for criminal justice agencies to criminalise low-level offending by administering cautions where otherwise they may have taken no further action. After those targets were replaced, the number of out-of-court disposals since 2007 has declined by about 43%.

The noble Lord asked for which offences conditions for foreign offenders will be available. The foreign offender conditions will be available for the same offences as the other types of conditions. However, it is right to make these conditions available for more serious offenders—for example, where the likely sentence, if prosecuted, would be a period of imprisonment. We believe that for foreign offenders who have no right to remain in the UK and admit to committing certain offences, the public interest is better served by administering a caution and promptly removing the offenders from the UK, rather than prosecuting and potentially imprisoning them at the taxpayer’s expense, only to remove them from the country once the sentence is completed. Where the public interest requires it, serious offences committed by foreign nationals will, of course, continue to be prosecuted.

The noble Lord raised the question of the DPP guidance. This will set out the circumstances when the police can offer a conditional caution and when they should refer the matter to the CPS. The police will be able to offer a conditional caution for a summary-only or triable-either-way offence but the decision in an indictable-only offence should be authorised by a prosecutor. In a case of whatever seriousness, the police can seek advice from the CPS on the appropriate disposal decision. This brings conditional cautions into line with the current situation on simple cautions.

On the question of the timing of the DPP guidance, I agree with the noble Lord. It is unsatisfactory. If I was in his place, I would grumble. Parliament is right when it says that it has not been given the whole picture on these things. I am asked to assure him that one of the advantages of delaying is that we will be able to take this debate into account as we put the guidance forward. I can already see how convinced the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, is by that bit of sophistry; I sense waves of a feeling of treachery from behind me. As a parliamentary practitioner, I think that it is far better when Parliament gets the whole picture when making a decision. I also appreciate the pressure that we are putting our officials under.

Returning to the matter of foreign offenders, we will, of course, also take into account the views of victims. However, I think there is a general feeling that a sensible way of dealing with these offenders will be to get them out of the country and not put the taxpayer through the cost of prosecuting and possibly incarcerating them. We will keep these matters under review. The aim is to provide a consistent system, based on a clear framework of guidance, while giving flexibility to the police to make common-sense decisions. I hope that we will have an opportunity to gather together the results of the ACPO research, to which I referred, and perhaps at some stage publish it to promote further discussion. As the consultations indicated, there has been a broadly favourable approach to it. The points about ensuring consistency and proportionality, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, are well taken, but I still have no hesitation in recommending the order to the Committee.

[Lord Beecham]

Will the Minister confirm that the review will provide information not only on the number of orders made but on the number in respect of which breaches have occurred? In fact, it might be helpful to have a picture of what is happening in terms of breaches of the existing conditional order system, not, obviously, immediately but as part of that review process. Will he agree to ensure that that takes place?

[Lord McNally]

Yes, I readily agree to that. As I said before, one of the things that are very central to MoJ policy is the gathering of relevant statistics. The noble Lord talked about breaches. That is a very relevant statistic in terms of seeing how effective this measure is. We want to make use of the ACPO research and the information that the MoJ is gathering to analyse the measure’s effectiveness. As I say, I readily agree to that.

Motion agreed.