Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Monday 28th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on Parts 2 and 3 of the Bill. I start by acknowledging that it is not particularly party politically sensitive but is largely about the administration of justice, and I will address the matters in that spirit and in clause order.

Clause 17 proposes a single family court with a single point of entry. As far as I am aware, the proposal has been generally welcomed. I have the privilege of having just been appointed to sit on the Family Proceedings Court. As a new appointee to this jurisdiction, I will be very interested to see how it progresses. Colleagues generally welcome the change, although, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, lay magistrates are looking for reassurance that their role in the Family Proceedings Court, which is vital, will be protected. They have expressed this concern.

Clause 18 concerns the diversity of the judicial appointments process. As far as I am aware, the magistracy as a group is more diverse than more senior members of the judiciary. Nevertheless, it may be worth exploring whether some ideas about senior members might appropriately be applied to the appointment of magistrates as well.

Clause 20 concerns the payment of court fines. As the noble Lord, Lord Henley, said in his introduction, some two-thirds of all sentences are fines. I will make many of the same points as the noble Lord, Lord Touhig. Clause 20 concerns the role and powers of fines officers. The Bill allows for the recovery of charges incurred in the recovery of fines where offenders have defaulted on their payments. Fines officers are to be treated as not making judicial decisions, which will enable their functions to be carried out by contracted-out staff. While I am not against the proposal, it fails to address a shortcoming in the current system; sentencers, namely magistrates and judges, often do not know the level of unpaid fines when they impose new fines on an offender. Therefore, they can make the situation of unpaid fines worse rather than exploring other sentencing options where possible.

One possible remedy for this is to make it a requirement for sentencers to know the level of unpaid fines before imposing new ones. I canvassed this possibility with magistrate colleagues over the past week or so and there was relatively little enthusiasm, as it would impose a large administrative burden on the existing system. Nevertheless, I put it to the Minister that this administrative change would do more to combat the level of unpaid fines than the proposals that the Government advance in the Bill.

We have heard a lot this evening about Clause 23, which concerns the community and non-custodial sentencing of adults. It acts as a placeholder for the Government to bring forward proposals on community sentences at a later stage. In her intervention, the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, mentioned the White Paper that was published last week. There are two consultations in progress. The first is a Ministry of Justice consultation entitled Punishment and Reform: Effective Community Sentences. The second is the Home Office White Paper on anti-social behaviour orders. My understanding, unlike the noble Baroness’s, is that the amendments that are going to be proposed by the Government are to do with the Ministry of Justice consultation and not the Home Office White Paper. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, is nodding his head.

I have two general points to make about Clause 23. The first is similar to the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, that whatever the proposals are, it is of huge importance that magistrates and the judiciary have confidence in community sentences. This issue has been brought up on previous criminal justice boards. It should be a statutory requirement for probation trusts and magistrates’ Benches to liaise and to be properly informed about the availability of community sentences. I know the Government’s standard response to this point is that nothing prevents that and it is a desirable outcome, but my point is that it is an uneven outcome in different parts of the country if it is not a judicial requirement. This point was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and I strongly support their view that it should be made a statutory requirement for this liaison to happen.

My second point about Clause 23 anticipates the amendments the Government will bring forward on Report. These are likely to include increased options for more sentencing in the community. It is inevitable that some of the options which the probation trusts offer will be more available in big cities than in rural areas or small towns. I readily acknowledge that this is a practical problem, but you could end up with sentencers knowing an offender’s address before they know the details of the sentence being passed. You could have an extreme situation in which a sentencing Bench on the same day will allow one vulnerable offender to escape prison while another offender will be sent to custody purely on the basis of their address. This is a slightly extreme example, but it is entirely possible as there is a lack of consistency across probation trust areas. This is perhaps an inevitable consequence of localism, but it is clearly inequitable and not proper justice. The answer to this conundrum is for proper national guidance to ensure that, broadly speaking, the same options are available to sentencing Benches all over the country.

Finally, I turn to Clause 27 on drug-driving. I know my noble friend Lord Simon is going to say something about this, and I read with interest the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, in the debate on the gracious Speech. I am aware of the complexity of this issue by reading some of Sir Peter North’s report. I have sat on a number of drink-driving appeals over the past few years and I have listened to expert witnesses giving their testimony about the unreliability of the equipment involved in drink-drive tests. It so happens that in an earlier career of mine as a junior technician I dealt with similar equipment, so I know how complex it is. Without wanting to be too prejudicial, I will say that it is very easy for expert witnesses to come up with extremely complex reasons why the equipment is not to be relied on. That will only be much exaggerated when you are dealing with a multitude of drugs rather than just alcohol. It is very important to get this element of the Bill correct, otherwise there will be a lot of opportunities for expert witnesses and lawyers to create mischief in this situation.

I look forward to taking part in debates on this Bill. It is an important Bill and there are many details to address.