King’s Speech

Lord Patten Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, I hope that during this debate, and indeed all the days of debate that we face on the King’s Speech, we will not hear too much of what we are endlessly told about new legislation and new measures: “This is the biggest and most important new measure in a generation”. We simply have not got enough generations to fulfil that pledge. It is bunkum and I think the Amalgamated Association of Speechwriters and Special Advisers should just cut that out of the lingo that they put in front of innocent Ministers.

The second point I will make is the perfectly obvious one that laws do not necessarily change everything and that when there are new laws, they are not necessarily effective. In some cases, new laws are not going to be effective at all. I take as my best—or worst—example the fact that we have a vanishingly small Jewish population in this country. We have 270,000 Jews in England and Wales out of 58.6 million. Their number is vanishingly small, they are easily identified and they are having a horrible time in what should be a liberal and tolerant country. They are concentrated in a small number of easily targeted urban areas. If there was any other racial group—and they are a racial group—of such a vanishing size, there would be national uproar: in particular, thought leaders from the progressive part of the world would be right there, arguing their case. Where are they? At the moment, the sound of silence is deafening, which I find very hard to take.

What is the use of all that expensive Holocaust education in GCSEs and the rest of it? It is money not well spent, I think. What good, in the end, will expensive new Holocaust museums do, wherever they are put, to right the wrongs that the Jewish community in this country face? I am told that poor whites are often to blame for this. I actually sometimes think that posh whites are, too: dinner-party casual anti-Semitism, the tap on the nose over the second or third course. None of this is going to be stopped by any law; it is going to be stopped by a national will that we no longer wish to have this sort of casual anti-Semitism in our country. We need a new body, or bodies, which I cannot invent, whose job it is to concentrate on re-education and deep education on this point—there are people who should be thinking about this—to remove the stain on the nation and make our vanishingly tiny Jewish minority feel safer, more secure, more welcome and much less inclined to up sticks and leave a country where they are very badly needed.

Lastly, I will look at where laws are not needed because we have lots of laws on the statute book which are not used or should be used more effectively, such as on rough sleepers. I pass rough sleepers all the time around Victoria station and on Victoria Street. Remarkably, we also now see small but increasing numbers of women rough sleepers and clearly battered women on the streets around here. It is on our very doorstep, but we have no effective co-ordination to deal with it—except that, even more shockingly, there is no rough sleeping around the Palace of Westminster or Buckingham Palace. The police, the city council and others dealing with this somehow manage to stop it in these sensitive areas, but a couple of hundred yards down the road it is simply ignored.

I only wish we had someone like Andy Street, magically transferred from the West Midlands to Westminster, because he would be co-ordinating and trying to deal with all this stuff now. Instead, Westminster City Council seems to ignore the subject, and the police are engaged with it around here and Buckingham Palace but not elsewhere. We certainly do not have a mayor of the city of London who seems capable of doing anything to deal with rough sleeping on the streets—he is too busy grandstanding and giving his views on international affairs and not getting down to this issue. We do not need any new laws to deal with it. It is a matter of willpower and organisation, exactly as the Dangerous Dogs Act, which we have forgotten about since 1991, will do so much now that it has been brought back in to deal with attacks on people. That Act was forgotten but it has been there for a generation.

Parole Board (Amendment) Rules 2022

Lord Patten Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak extremely briefly. I declare my interest as a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust. I fully support the views expressed in the excellent speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, in introducing this regret Motion.

I want to ask the Minister one question. Has guidance now been issued on the interpretation of the public confidence test and if not, when will it be issued? Who will be consulted on it, so that there is absolute clarity as to what public confidence means?

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, I rise somewhat nervously to speak, because I am not an expert in this field. I am not a lawyer. There are clearly many noble Lords in your Lordships’ Chamber tonight who are experts. Unlike some of my dafter colleagues in another place, I rather value experts. I listen carefully to what they have to say.

Whatever disagreements there may be tonight, I think we can all agree that public service on the Parole Board is one of the most challenging tasks imaginable: balancing the paramount need for public safety with the hopes of eventual reform and re-entry into society for some offenders.

It is often said that nothing seems to work in the UK criminal justice system. I do not think this is right. It is a mistake. An awful lot works pretty well. The record shows that this most specialised part of the criminal justice system, in respect of which I am an amateur—a layman is perhaps a better way of putting it—generally works quite well. But because of human nature, it does not work all the time, alas; sometimes it fails, whatever the statistics show.

While I agree with noble Lords that a bit more consultation in drawing up these regulations would not be a bad thing, I must respectfully disagree with the regret Motion, for two reasons. First, the Secretary of State, like Parole Boards, has a very challenging task regarding public safety. On reflection—again, I stress, I speak as a layman—it is surely right that he or she should be able to produce a single view in a small number of the most serious cases. In all other cases, whole dossiers of reports can be obtained from those who are experts—psychologists, psychiatrists and, of course, lawyers. I am content with that, and I want my noble friend the Minister to know that I strongly support it.

Secondly and lastly, I strongly support our manifesto commitment to have more public hearings, where possible, at the request of victims and their families, the media and the general public. This is to the public good. As a layman, I feel strongly that the parole system must be as open and transparent as possible—not some experts’ secret garden where the generality of the public should not go. As I said before, I do greatly value expertise.

It is interesting to see what happens in other jurisdictions, which are not often spoken of well in this country, such as the United States. In some states, though not all, the system is very open indeed. Some have parole boards on which ex-convicts, as they call them, serve as full members. We must not shut our eyes to trying to make our system as transparent as possible. This is a second reason why I strongly support our manifesto commitment being followed up.

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I am here listening because I may shortly be on the Woolsack—although hopefully not—after my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes. However, I declare an interest. I am a victim, and so are my daughters, of the murder of my late husband, Garry Newlove. Having listened to Members, and with no disrespect, I cannot agree with this regret Motion.

For the last 15 years, I have attended every parole hearing and tariff review hearing and, in my role as Victims Commissioner, I have shadowed parole hearings. I also worked on the review of the Worboys case. Although an appeal system is in place, the bar is so high that it feels like a waste of time. I have been through an appeal. I have been through exactly what anybody else would have to go through, with no favours. That appeal route is not easy. You must explain why you want to do this and why you disagree with the result of the parole hearing. My appeal was sent to the then Secretary of State, Robert Buckland. His team looked at it and worked on it without knowing any of my views, except for what I had written through my victim liaison officer. His office then recommended that it be reviewed.

I want to draw the Chamber’s attention to the information victims receive. In bold letters, the Parole Board says that no matter what goes through, it does not change its mind. For a victim, it is absolutely appalling to see that in bold, even though there is a process for victims to go through. This is not to be disrespectful to the qualified people in this room, but I am speaking up for the many victims who go through a system that says one thing and delivers another. I speak as the mother of three daughters, who witnessed every kick and punch to their father, when I say that the system is broken. I totally agree that the public has no confidence in the criminal justice system where victims are concerned. I am very grateful that the media pick up these stories, because that means that I find out more information about my case than I would have been told personally by the system.

I disagree with this regret Motion. The system needs a good overhaul, and we need transparency. I hear from Parole Board members that it is a courtroom. Well, if it is a courtroom then there should be transparency, so that victims can fully understand why the decision was made. In one of the parole hearings, the Parole Board disagreed with a psychologist from the prison, a representative who knew the situation and went against that decision.

I welcome that we are discussing this, but I cannot agree with the regret Motion. We need transparency and we need public confidence. Victims have a right to know, to understand and to be treated with dignity, as I have for 15 years. They have a right to understand, to be there, to listen. More importantly, this is an opportunity to ask my noble friend the Minister: when will a draft victims Bill be presented, so that our voices can be listened to?

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Patten Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to make three points. First, I am totally opposed to this Bill because of my belief in the sanctity of human life and because of its unsafe contents; I respectfully agree with the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury in what he said earlier about its basically unsafe nature. Secondly, while it is an easy phrase to use, slippery slopes really do exist. At the time of the Abortion Act 1967, it was argued that there was not much to see here: it would all be very limited with few cases likely. Since then, however, there have been well over 9 million cases. Put in stark statistical terms, with no value judgments, were it not for this, our population today could have been 76 million and not 67 million people.

Similar sorts of arguments were being adduced in good faith in the introduction to this Bill today: not many cases are likely to happen; there will be lots of protections—High Court judges galore and the rest. The same arguments have been made over the last few years in other jurisdictions where assisted suicide has been introduced but then quickly followed by the lowering of age limits, people requesting access to this treatment because of feeling depressed, and so on. That is exactly what some promoters of this Bill outside your Lordships’ House wish to see as next steps, and what they would wish to promote.

Thirdly, I am very concerned generally about age discrimination in this country. I think it remains a blot on our nation, and, more than that, I believe that there is considerable abuse of the elderly behind closed doors. This is denied by many, but then many people denied for many years that child abuse existed. It was hidden away until, as we know, it was flushed out; indeed, recompense has been made following investigations. In exactly the same way, as a result of this Bill, should it see the light of legal day, these changes will set coercion free in the hidden home where there are elderly and disabled people. We know how it is; in shorthand: “Do the decent thing, bit of a burden in the home, you know, our inheritance is costing us a lot—there’s an easy way out.” I have even heard on the wilder, more surreal shores of argument, some people suggesting that assisted suicide will help to protect the NHS by reducing pressure on it. As they say in the better sort of tabloid papers, “You couldn’t make it up.”

I end by saying that death must not become the new normal to replace compassion and the care of humanity, skewing the very meaning of medicine.

Elections: Voting Arrangements

Lord Patten Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten]

My Lords, the issue of the voting rights of those living abroad or serving their country abroad seems to me to have a clear constitutional quality or aspect but also presents equally clear and simple logistical challenges to ensure that votes are deliverable on time, in the right place and in an orderly way.

Tonight we must debate the issues raised so eloquently by my noble friend on the run within our present rather ad hoc arrangements for constitutional change and reform. Within that framework I shall concentrate on the rights of service men and women, important though the feelings of, for example, British civilians living abroad are. We should treat the constitutional and logistical issues of the service vote specifically within the framework of the military covenant, which is central to my remarks. The military covenant should embody, with everything else, the clear voting rights of men and women who serve us abroad. I regard it as ever more important as we necessarily ask in these difficult times fewer to do more when they serve us. This is an urgent task.

The absolute right to vote on time and in secret should be enshrined in the military covenant. A proxy vote is no substitute for being able to vote in secret. I remember the late Lord Garden making that point very strongly some years ago. Why should service personnel not be able to vote in exactly the same way as any other British subject wherever they are in the world? The issue begins with the life of service registration which is now five years. I welcome that. I also applaud the MoD’s efforts to get the service vote registered. Its efforts are excellent, as are those of some local councils, such as North Lincolnshire, which only last month publicised the issue in its area. In the end I would prefer to see registration lasting the life of service if that is the only certain way to ensure the continuing right to vote for service men and women wherever they are.

There are then the sheer logistical problems of getting votes back from bases in, say, Germany, which are compounded to the power in getting votes out of in-theatre areas such as Afghanistan. As the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, and my noble friend Lord Roberts of Llandudno, so rightly said, there is no reason why there should not be a longer period. Why cannot procedures for general and local elections be better aligned? At present the printing and posting of general election ballot papers can begin only after the final publication of those nominated—11 days. In local elections it is 16 days. For a start we could align the 11 days with the 16 days as those extra five days could make all the difference in the logistics of ensuring that those who are risking their lives do not also risk recording their vote when all that is required is a little neo-constitutional date alignment. I have heard the argument that someone should have the right to stand for Parliament at the last minute. I have never thought that that was a very good reason. Among the ranks of my new best friends in the Liberal Democrats, Mr Huhne, the Energy Secretary, took about three years before he tilted at the seat I represented, making it quite clear that he was going to stand. We should take the service vote as something that trumps the need for last-minute, monster loony applications to stand in general elections.

In short order, also, why do we not have special ballot box arrangements administered in theatre by forces with priority postal arrangements to get them back, and in the opposite direction, exactly the same expedited arrangements, as the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, said, to get messages of candidates across? What my noble friend Lord Astor and the noble Lord, Lord Wills, said about looking at internet voting is very important but we should not diminish or forget the possibility of cyber attack on internet voting or indeed on any other internet sphere.

I end by recognising the fact that life cannot be perfect. There are a few particularly difficult situations facing those of our excellent submariners on board our deterrent Vanguard class submarines when on patrol on continuous at-sea deterrence for 80 or 100 days submerged, with all the communications involved. It would be pretty difficult, I suspect, to get their votes back. In those cases, proxies by those they trust might be the only answer. They deserve our thanks, as do all our service men and women, which is my reason for stressing that the service vote and its safety is not some little issue for returning officers, constitution freaks and those interested in the wider shores of constitutional reform. It is absolutely central that the military covenant in future should embody the rights of servicemen to vote in exactly the same way as anyone within the kingdom.