Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
My Lords, I am making a guest appearance on the Front Bench and am in the unenviable position of making a speech that is far more moderate than the tremendous speech made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.
It is common ground between all political parties that reoffending rates are far too high. This problem is particularly severe for prisoners who serve sentences of less than a year. It is also common ground that if reoffending can be reduced, this will reduce the number of victims and the overall cost to the criminal justice system. It is worth recording that the probation service is not responsible for those leaving prison who have served sentences of less than a year, so it would be wrong to blame it for the current high reoffending rates, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said. The figures we have heard this afternoon are stark. The most prolific group among those committing some 600,000 crimes are the 60,000 or so people who receive sentences of a year or less, as we have heard from a number of speakers today. Some 60% of this group are reoffenders and many go on to reoffend multiple times. Certainly in my experience as a magistrate, the vast majority of people I have sent to prison have offended multiple times while serving community sentences. It is comparatively unusual to send somebody to prison who has never offended while serving a community sentence.
The Government’s stated objective is to drive down reoffending. They will use the Offender Management Act 2007 to privatise large elements of the probation service. That measure and this Bill will provide private supervision in the community for the majority of offenders. The Government’s objectives can be divided into two parts. The first is the privatisation itself with payment by results, about which we have heard, which comes across as little short of an article of faith on the part of the party opposite. The second part is the administrative mechanism by which this is to be achieved. Under the Bill, there is to be a welcome expansion of support for offenders who leave prison having been sentenced to a year or less in custody.
On the first objective, the Government intend through this privatisation to make sufficient savings to fund the expansion of support for those leaving prison. On the Secretary of State’s figures, some 45,000 offenders will gain support financed through these savings. The Government cite the example of Peterborough Prison, where additional support has been provided to leavers financed by social impact bonds. I have read the independent assessment of the project and agree that there is good reason to be encouraged by it, although the project it is in its early days. Surely, the central point is the additional money provided for the project. That is the main reason why it is successful. As we heard from my noble friend, the Secretary of State himself is a repeat offender when it comes to the Work Programme, and he is unsurprisingly very cagey about the commercial arrangements likely to be entered into with the service providers. Surely it is appropriate for the House to know the scope of the payment-by-results contracts, their likely structure or even the Government’s definition of payment by results in this context. I know very well from my own experience that drawing up large complex contracts where both parties are breaking new ground is an unnerving experience. There is every reason to believe that things could go wrong, so it is reasonable for the House to be given reassurance on the structure of the contracts to be entered into.
It is, of course, regrettable that the pilot schemes initiated by the previous Secretary of State were abandoned by the current incumbent. I also believe that commissioning should be managed to maintain a diversity of providers. This point has been made and I know that it is addressed in the strategy document issued by the Government last week. I make the simple point that the greater the number of contract packages, the greater the scope for smaller service providers.
I return to the Bill and the Government’s second objective, as I have characterised it. This raises a whole raft of practical questions about the competences and qualifications of those who will support the offenders in the community, their payment and responsibilities in the event of breach. Indeed, as we have heard, 25% of offenders move between different case offender levels. What happens if, for example, an offender starts drinking? Would that be reported to the court? It is of central importance that the courts have faith in the probation service providers to bring to court in a timely manner offenders who have breached their conditions. I am not sure that any member of the public will distinguish between people being supervised in the community who have served a short prison sentence and those being supervised in the community who are on community sentences. There is a risk that the project could be undermined if there is inadequate supervision of those who are released from prison sentences.
It is worth reflecting that the Government are proposing to transfer many thousands of probation staff to different employers. A number of noble Lords have mentioned the invaluable work done by the probation service. It has to be said that under the new arrangements members of the probation profession will get a narrower range of experience as there will be a binary system, as referred to by my noble friend Lord Beecham. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, referred to the possibility of a probation officer charter. I do not know whether he proposes to take the idea forward in the Bill but it is an interesting one. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle spoke about the dissipation of expertise through the new arrangement. The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, wants an assurance from the Minister about the future prospects of the probation service. I was interested to hear him ask for that. However, I think it would be very difficult for the Minister to give that assurance given that those staff will be employed by the private sector.
It is also worth saying that co-operation on the ground between the various providers is key to the success of this venture. Nothing must be done which undermines this. A number of noble Lords have said that this is really centred around the local authorities working with a number of providers. It is the day-to-day management of these different providers of housing, YOT, social services and so forth, which is key to making any community sentence successful. I also note that the noble Lord has made positive comments about restorative justice, and it is said that he will be giving new comments about that in due course.
A number of organisations have contacted me about the centralisation of the commissioning process. First, I welcome that the police and crime commissioners will be part of the selection process of new providers. However, I want to mention one organisation in particular, and that is London Councils. It is particularly concerned that this would not be an appropriate arrangement for it. In London the PCC is the mayor, there are 33 local authorities, and there is an existing structure which could be used for the commissioning process. The Government often state their commitment to local services, local decision making, and local accountability. This is a question which I intend to explore at a later stage of this Bill.
I want to say, in brief, a word about the perspective of the courts on this. They are of course the sentencing body. Clearly, the recently introduced LASPO arrangements, whereby prisoners on sentences of less than one year are unconditionally released at the halfway point in their sentence, are to be reversed. Now there will be requirements on release. The standard requirement, as we have heard, will be a rehabilitation activity requirement, and the courts will have new breach powers. I make a number of comments on this. First, when the sentencer announces the sentence in court, it should be very clear what actually is to be said, because it is not always clear to magistrates and judges what one should actually say about the length of the period in custody, the period on licence and the period on supervision. I know from the comments of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that his ministry will be working with the Judicial College and working out suitable arrangements for this.
We had a number of very interesting comments in this Second Reading debate, and I want to address a few of them. First, the noble Lord, Lord Bates, quite rightly talked about the huge importance of education. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, set out how important it is. I used to be a trustee of the Wandsworth prison visitors’ centre and we provided to all the prison visitors education facilities at some cost—computers and the like. I have to say, very depressingly, that they were almost completely unused by the visitors to Wandsworth prison. While I wholeheartedly agree with the objectives, I note that the group of people we work with can be resistant when we are trying to introduce education programmes.
A number of noble Lords spoke about other matters which could be introduced to this Bill. We heard from the noble Baronesses, Lady Howe and Lady Healy, about women offenders not being specifically discussed. We also heard a very interesting idea from my noble friend Lord Beecham about a court for veterans, which I hope he will take forward.
I want to raise a point that was mentioned by a number of Peers. That is the possibility of an increase in the overall custody levels because magistrates or sentencers would be using a custodial sentence for people who breach these sentences. In my experience, magistrates use custodial sentences as an absolute last resort. This is not a new problem. It is a very real dilemma when one has a repeat breacher of a community order, for example, for perhaps a relatively minor matter, but they just do not comply with the provisions of the community order. I believe that magistrates should, as a very last resort, have the possibility of enforcing custody, otherwise there will be even less incentive for certain people to comply with their community order.
Finally, I want to pursue the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, about the transition from youth to adult, and the work from the YOTs to the probation service. This was not addressed by any other Peer. It is a very important and practical point, and as the noble Baroness very rightly said, the YOTs—the ones I have worked with—have a more nurturing role, if you like, in trying to help young people. When they move to the probation service, it is quite often an unpleasant surprise for them. I hope we may explore that more fully.
In conclusion, we have the introduction of a payment system which is untested anywhere in the criminal justice world, the abandonment of the pilot schemes, and the removal of the 35 probation trusts and their replacement with a centralised commissioning service. We will judge this Bill in the wider context of the Government's rehabilitation strategy. We agree with many of the specific provisions of this Bill itself. Reducing reoffending while maintaining public safety must be any Government's objective, but ill-thought-out policies based on an unproven ideologically driven funding policy risks the very services which this Bill seeks to enhance.
Crime and Courts Bill [HL]
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
My Lords, I support the gist of the amendments as they have been spoken to. I apologise to the Committee for turning up a bit late for this important debate. I emphasise the point made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, that the sentence itself is the punishment, if one wants to use that word, rather than necessarily the elements within the sentence.
We recently dealt with the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill and the relevant training for magistrates and sentencers up and down the country is under way right now. In that training sentencers are told that suspended sentences could have no requirements at all, so that the suspended sentence is itself the punishment for the offence rather than any requirements that may be added by the sentencing Bench. In my view this clearly shows that the Government also agree that the sentence itself is the punishment and that there is no requirement at all in certain, admittedly rather unusual, circumstances for there to be any particular elements to that sentence. Therefore, I do not see what the need is for “punitive” in the first place. I agree with previous speakers that it is a piece of political grandstanding and does not add anything to the Government’s objectives as they are already being rolled out in the training of magistrates in relation to the previous criminal justice Bill.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, my Amendment 2 is designed to find out rather more about the reasons behind the Government’s thinking and how paragraph 2 of Schedule 16 is to be interpreted. The schedule clearly states that where a court makes a community order that must include,
“at least one requirement imposed for the purpose of punishment, or … a fine”
unless there are exceptional circumstances. The Government have decided that there will be exceptional circumstances in around 5% of cases. It is not clear why the Government are going down this road. Their own impact assessment refers to research that has been undertaken by the Ministry of Justice, as I understand it. The impact assessment states:
“Offenders who receive supervision, punitive requirement (unpaid work or curfew) and a programme requirement were less likely to re-offend and committed fewer re-offences within a 2 year period of the community order, compared to those who receive supervision and a punitive requirement”.
It then goes on to say:
“There was no impact on re-offending of adding a punitive requirement to certain other specified combinations of requirements”.
Finally it says:
“Adding supervision to a standalone punitive requirement reduces re-offending”.
Most people would regard those statements as not exactly a ringing endorsement of the value of a punitive requirement. Further on in their own impact assessment, the Government come out with this statement:
“The Government considers that community orders are currently not sufficiently demanding for offenders”.
Is that all of them? All community orders are not sufficiently demanding? If that is the case, then what do the Government intend to do to make all community orders more demanding, since that does not seem to be referred to in any documentation? I hope the Minister will tell us whether that statement in the impact assessment represents the Government’s view when they say:
“The Government considers that community orders are currently not sufficiently demanding for offenders”.
It does not say some of them. It does not say the third that do not include the punitive element. It just says they are not sufficiently demanding for offenders. The Minister will, no doubt, respond to that point and tell us how the Government intend to make the community orders sufficiently demanding in their view.
It says further on—in paragraph 37 if the Minister is interested—in the impact assessment, which is, as I understand it, the Government’s own document:
“Given the need for community orders to remain proportionate to the offence committed, delivering a clear punitive element to every community order may, in some cases, cause certain requirements to be substituted by punitive ones. The research that we have undertaken does not tell us about the impact on re-offending of replacing requirements with more punitive ones”.
In other words, the Government do not know what the implications of their proposal will be for rehabilitation. Yet they are still proceeding. There is no other interpretation that can be put on that extract from the Government’s own impact assessment.
We have previously raised the issue of the victim surcharge and I would like to talk a little about that. The victim surcharge is for offences committed on or after 1 October this year—the beginning of last month. It will be, with no apparent exceptions, £60 where a community order is given as a sentence to an adult offender. Since for offences committed before 1 October this year there was no requirement to include a victim surcharge where the sentence was a community order, will the victim surcharge of £60—which I believe is now mandatory with a community order—be regarded as the equivalent of a fine, as referred to in proposed new subsection (2A) in paragraph 2 of Schedule 16? If it is, we need not concern ourselves much more with this part of Schedule 16, since every community order will automatically include what is, in effect, a fine, albeit called a victim surcharge, and meet the requirement to include at least one requirement imposed for the purpose of punishment or the imposition of a fine.
If the new £60 victim surcharge for an adult offender, and £15 for a youth offender, which has, I think, just been made mandatory where a community order is imposed, is not to be regarded as a fine under proposed new subsection (2A) in paragraph 2 of Schedule 16, then why not? From the point of view of the offender, the effect is still the same whether it is a £60 fine or a £60 victim surcharge. They still have to pay the money or run the distinct risk of more severe action being taken, including the possible loss of liberty. This £60 victim surcharge is a new penalty to be paid by the offender, since it applies only to offences committed since the beginning of last month. It was not in existence at the time the Bill was being drafted. Has the victim surcharge of £60 to be imposed where there is a community order changed the situation and if not why, why not?
We have a situation at the moment under the Bill where presumably the court, with a so-called non-punishment community order, could levy a very small fine of, say, £15, because of the financial circumstances of the offender. That fine would be deemed to be the equivalent of a punishment under proposed new subsection (2A). The court would then have to impose a victim surcharge of £60—some four times higher than the £15 fine, which could cause the offender much greater difficulty in terms of payment. However, that would not be deemed a punishment under the terms of the proposed new subsection. That does not appear to make a lot of sense or have much logic behind it.
The wording of our amendment, which substitutes “may” for “must” would, among other things, enable the court to decide that the £60 victim surcharge, which is payable when a community order is handed down as the sentence, was sufficient as a punishment element, and the court would not also be required to include either a fine or a further requirement imposed for the purpose of punishment, as currently appears to be the case under proposed new subsection (2A).
I do not intend to go over other points. They have been eloquently made, and repetition would achieve nothing. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to all the points raised and questions asked in this debate.
Lord McNally
If the noble Lord is going to help me, I will certainly sit down.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
Yes, I was going to help the noble Lord. There are nine listed in that list whereas there are 12 possible as part of the community order. Maybe that is what the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, meant: the additional three that are not listed.
Lord McNally
I will take that lifeline gratefully, but if there are other matters I will write to the noble Lord. I still cannot find the exact line.
It was requirements other than unpaid work, curfews or exclusions. I am now back on track. That takes us back to the point—we are now going full circle. Obviously, the concept of punishment is more likely to mean curfews, unpaid work, exclusions et cetera but, as we discussed earlier, it may be that there are other impositions which, for that particular offender, would be seen as a punishment. The court would have that flexibility to so define them. I hope that helps and I am sorry that I lost the thread. I am assured that I am on page 8. These notes are extremely useful.
I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, for implying that he had not been an assiduous attendee. That was cheap. He asked a good question and I hope that I have now clarified it.
The point was that I was referring to the research that we had done. The consensus was that for the majority of offenders certain requirements are likely to be more punitive than others. As I said, the requirements they most commonly mentioned were curfews, other restrictions on liberty such as exclusion or prohibited activities, and unpaid work. That is why the Government expect to see an increase in those measures.
Finally, on Amendment 11, I am happy to reassure noble Lords that it is not the Government’s intention to detract from the court’s existing obligation to have regard to the five purposes of sentencing currently set out in Section 142(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. If these provisions are agreed by both Houses, courts will continue to be required to have regard to all five purposes, whether that is punishment, rehabilitation, reparation, and so on. It will continue to be a matter for courts as to what weight they place on each requirement when sentencing a particular offender.
I remind noble Lords, though, that some purposes are likely to be more relevant than others for particular sentencing powers. For example, courts’ powers to discharge offenders absolutely or conditionally are predicated on the assumption that, in the circumstances of the case, it is inexpedient to inflict punishment. Similarly, while a fine can punish and deter an offender, it may do little towards the purpose of public protection. At the other end of the scale, I am sure that noble Lords will agree that for any offender, the deprivation of liberty that results from an immediate custodial sentence remains and represents a punishment.
In these examples, the nature of the sentence being considered may draw courts’ attention to some purposes of sentencing over others, but courts are still bound to weigh the relevance of all five purposes of sentencing. The same is true of these provisions. While courts will be required to determine whether the circumstances of the offence and the offender justify imposing a requirement for the purpose of punishment, they will still have to weigh this against the relevance of other purposes when determining the overall sentence. Nothing in this requirement prevents a court imposing a single requirement that fulfils multiple purposes of sentencing or imposing multiple requirements to meet multiple purposes.
I hope I have been able to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. I will of course read these debates carefully. I hope that noble Lords will read them, too, because they will find a recurring theme of flexibility and trust in the judiciary and its judgment which should deflect some of the worst fears that have been expressed about our intentions. Our intention is to carry forward a rehabilitation revolution and put effective community sentencing at the heart of that. I fully appreciate that this House, particularly in these two debates, has done its proper job of fine-toothed combing what we propose and seeking assurances about our intentions. I hope that, on reflection, noble Lords will feel that, as it will work and with the flexibility we are building in, some of their concerns are not justified. I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Crime and Courts Bill [HL]
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
My Lords, it is clear from the Government’s response to the community sentencing consultation held last summer that there is substantial consensus among the consultees, and the Minister was right to point that out in his opening comments. The Government have accepted most of the advice given and the current proposals seem to be largely evidence-based and practical. However, there is one glaring exception, which has been raised by every noble Lord who has spoken so far in the debate, and that is the introduction of a mandatory punitive element into every community sentence. The Government’s original impact assessment of the proposals, which was published in March with the consultation, acknowledged that they would have an adverse impact on reoffending rates by causing primarily rehabilitative requirements to be replaced by primarily punitive requirements:
“Given a limit on the overall resources available for probation services, delivering a clear punitive element to every community order may cause the primarily rehabilitative requirements to be substituted for primarily punitive ones. Evidence is unclear on the effectiveness of different community order requirements in reducing re-offending i.e. some requirements may be more effective at reducing re-offending than others. There is a risk that some of the rehabilitative benefits of current Community Orders could be lost with adverse implications for the re-offending rate of those offenders subject to community orders”.
I have a clear question for the Minister, and in asking it I remind the noble Lord of the wise words of the great Jimmy Maxton, who said that you should not be in the circus unless you can ride two horses at the same time. My question is this: will it be open for sentencers to deem any element of a community order to be punitive? It is clear that a curfew, community payback or an exclusion order are, but can a court decide that, for example, an alcohol treatment programme taken alone as part of a community order has a sufficient punitive element to satisfy the requirements of this Bill? Here I should make it crystal clear that I am not talking about exceptional circumstances, but what the sentencing Bench deems to be punitive. It is important that sentencers retain their flexibility since every case is different. Can sentencers deem the rehabilitative requirements of community orders to be punitive as well, so as to satisfy the requirements of this legislation?
I want to give an example of how excessive restrictions on sentencers’ flexibility can lead to perverse consequences, which are clearly against the Government’s intention. My example is from the victim surcharge, a separate matter, but one which I think illustrates my point. On 1 October, the new extended victim surcharge provisions came into force, where offenders are charged money—cash—for the sentence they receive. Under the new arrangements, sentencers are obliged to charge a victim surcharge of £60 to those who receive a community order.
Last week, while sitting as a magistrate, I came across something that I am sure would not be the intention of the Government. I had a beggar in front of me who had a number of convictions for begging both this year and last, a Romanian lady in her mid-40s. The new element in her life was that she now had an address in north London. As a sentencing Bench, we wanted to give the beggar an exclusion order from central London—the City of Westminster. However, if we had gone ahead with that sentence we would have been obliged to charge the beggar £60, because the exclusion order is part of the community order. Clearly, this was not a practical way to proceed, so we dropped that idea on the advice of our clerk and sentenced in the usual way of one day deemed served, so the beggar effectively walked free. I am sure that that is not the intention. It would be much better if sentencing Benches had discretion in that matter. However, it illustrates the point that if sentencers do not have discretion, you can and do have perverse consequences.
My next point has, I believe, been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I was contacted by the Magistrates’ Association regarding the status of people who are working a number of hours in one week and the prospective conflict of their receiving jobseeker’s allowance. I got the same letter as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and will not repeat the point she has made, but am sure that that is a point that should be resolved between the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Work and Pensions.
The Government’s response document contains statements about restorative justice, victim personal statements, separate provisions for women offenders and a number of elements for people who breach their community orders, all of which, taken in isolation, are to be welcomed. However, one group of offenders was not concentrated on in the Government’s response, which I think is regrettable—younger adult offenders or 18 to 24 year-olds. The Minister will know that this is a particularly prolific and vulnerable group of offenders. There has been a number of initiatives over recent years and months, some of which have been very successful, as the Government acknowledge. However, there is no provision in this legislation to take any of those pilot studies forward. There have been initiatives in Manchester and Yorkshire, and it is disappointing that none of those has been taken forward. I would be interested to hear from the Minister how he proposes to address this group, which is often regarded as a forgotten group.
Crime and Courts Bill [HL]
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
My Lords, I rise to support this group of amendments. Essentially, they are about monitoring the outcome of what has been the largest overhaul of the courts system for a long time. Many courts have closed and some have opened. Last Thursday, I went to the opening of the new Westminster Magistrates’ Court by the Lord Chancellor. It is a magnificent building and I hope that it will be a centrepiece of London justice for the next 100 years. While this is set for London, over the whole country—including London—there have been many closures of smaller courts, which mean we are moving away from the principle of local justice which is administered locally. The reasons for these sweeping changes should be monitored and that is the main purpose of this group of amendments.
I will now move to the idea of a single family court with a single point of entry. I understand that this change is generally welcomed by all those involved in the family court system. I will repeat a point that has been made before, that lay magistrates are looking for reassurance that they will continue to play an important part in the family proceedings courts. When I have raised this issue before, that reassurance has always been forthcoming from Ministers. I repeat that request today, although it will be in the details of the proceedings of the courts themselves—which I understand will be a separate Bill at a later stage—where the lay magistrates’ concerns will be most likely to get their reassurance.
Amendment 68A states:
“There shall be no restriction on the number of days that a family magistrate may sit in the family proceedings court”.
That is to meet the recommendation of the Norgrove report, as my noble friend Lord Beecham said. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, the main purpose is to increase flexibility and case continuity for repeat hearings. It is my understanding that it is for the Lord Chief Justice and Lord Chancellor to determine both the maximum and minimum amount of sittings by magistrates, and it is not a matter for primary legislation. I would argue that it is important that lay magistrates maintain their activities outside court and are not professionalised through excessive sitting. It is right that the route to appointment as a lay family magistrate is through the adult criminal lay Bench, as it is today. That should continue. I acknowledge that it is a conundrum to meet the needs which the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss said, while at the same time maintaining a lay Bench which is genuinely lay.
There is an answer. These matters could be determined locally by bench chairmen and I understand that experienced family magistrates can choose to give up their adult criminal work, with the approval of their bench chairman. There are ways round these problems which can be administered locally. The purpose of this group of amendments is to look at the many changes and be reassured that the Government want to review them, write reports about them and keep an open mind about what they are introducing. I wholly support this aim.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I am very grateful for the opportunity to discuss these proposals. I should put on the record that Manchester United is in the borough of Trafford. It is very dangerous for people such as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, to wander west of the Pennines with football knowledge: they are just not up to it.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Ramsbotham
I was very glad to put my name to this amendment. As always, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd. On this occasion, I do so because it provides an opportunity, which is not present in much of the rest of the Bill, to mention the problems faced by the probation service.
It was a great pity when the probation service was made subordinate to the Prison Service under the arrangements of the National Offender Management Service because for years they had worked closely together with the courts and the police in the local area. The amendment draws attention to that relationship. It also makes the point that magistrates must know what is capable of being done in prisons so that there is relevance between what is ordered to be done for the rehabilitation of someone and what is able to be delivered. That will be different all over the country, and rightly so because conditions will be different. Also, as I mentioned in Committee, if prisons and the probation service had to do the same thing everywhere, it would help sentencers enormously to know what was there and what was not there, and the Ministry of Justice would also know what there was and could make good any shortfalls.
The other day, I was very alarmed to hear that the governor of Lindholme, Moorland and Hatfield prisons in Yorkshire had ordered the probation service out of those prisons because the local probation service in that part of Yorkshire was having to work with G4S over the provision of probation services. Presumably, that must have been under the direction of the National Offender Management Service and under all the marketing strategies that it is following. I mention that because I am very disturbed about probation services being marketed when the service is concerned with the face-to-face probation officer and offender relationship, which is absolutely crucial to rehabilitation.
I do not know on what authority the governor ordered the probation service out, but it is alarming because, if he is able to do that, he is interrupting the whole rehabilitation process and drawing attention to the fragility of probation, which must work closely in the community, with police and probation being subordinate to prisons. Therefore, apart from supporting this amendment, which I think improves the Bill and draws attention to the rehabilitative element of all that is going on, I am also glad that it allows us to draw attention to the problems faced by the probation service without which we are not going to be able to reduce the vast numbers in prison who are choking that system.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
I support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater. I agree with everything she said. I remind the House that I currently serve on one of these committees in central London. It is not a statutory committee, but it is a very important committee from which I certainly benefit in my work as a magistrate, as I know all my colleagues do. Nevertheless, I want to make the point that there are other statutory committees. I am thinking of the bench training and development committees which are required to sit under statute. With the best will in the world, the officials administer those committees more thoroughly than they do the probation liaison committees, precisely because they are not statutory committees. For that reason alone, I recommend to the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, that the statutory provision would add weight to what is, after all, one of the Government’s primary objectives, which is to make sure that the magistracy has confidence in community sentences.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I support the amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, knows so much about the probation service and the magistracy. She draws attention to very little of which we should not take a great deal of notice. What my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham has just said about what is happening in the probation service is alarming. I hope that someone will be able to explain what has happened in a way that makes sense. I go back a long way within the areas of the magistracy and probation and the tremendous work that they do with offenders over very many years. I was a juvenile court chairman. I was horrified when I read the report by the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Coles. At that moment, I said to myself that if I were a probation officer, I would leave the service because I knew it had no future. It is, therefore, even more worrying to me that the whole of the very effective work that it still carries out is under this kind of threat. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us that this is not the way forward.
Baroness Linklater of Butterstone
My Lords, I rise very briefly to endorse every word that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has said. How much it resonated with me. The older end of YOIs are famously inadequate and have been so for some time, no doubt partly because they are also a famously difficult group. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, highlighted the fact that these are very often young people in transition. Transitions are difficult and absolutely awful to go through. I have always said that I am never off my knees in gratitude that I will never have to be a teenager again. There is merit in the idea that they could be, as it were, somehow incorporated—that, if the arms of the YJB became wide enough, they could encompass them in some way. I am not entirely sure how much the YJB is in favour of such a proposition, but maybe there are ways of choreographing that. However, I have simply risen to say that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has put his finger on a very real and challenging problem.
The other day, I was visiting Merseyside Probation Trust, which is doing an incredible range of first-class work. Its IACs—intensive alternatives to custody—are particularly impressive. I spent some time with one girl who had been through it. She had form like you had never seen and she came singing the praises of the person from the probation service who had been working with her through this process. It was truly worth while in that case. Maybe it is very expensive—it is certainly very time intensive—but it is something that I, along with what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, want to endorse.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
My Lords, as I sit as a magistrate in both the youth and adult courts, I make one simple point. In the youth courts, we routinely say to youths, “You must behave. If you do not behave, you may come back to the adult court and of course that is a much more serious matter.” What we do not tell them is that the reason that it is a much more serious matter is because there is much less support for them in the adult court system. Everything that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said is absolutely right. We see a huge, disproportionate, number of young men from 18 to 24 years old. There are attendance centres, which do good work. I have been to a number. However, it is very minimal compared with the support that this group needs.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has identified very clearly the nature of the problem and has come forward with proposals to help deal with it. He made a number of points that are very telling. Perhaps a couple of other matters could be added to the issues he referred to. The first is perhaps implicit in what he was saying: the very high reoffending rates among this particular group. The second, and slightly different, point is that there is a disproportionate number of young offenders from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, which is an aspect that we have not much discussed in the course of the Bill. It is not a function of any greater criminality among that group. All the evidences suggest that, for whatever reason, the likelihood of a custodial sentence—or, for that matter, a refusal of bail at an earlier stage—is much greater for people from that group, compared to offenders with comparable offences. There seems to be an in-built bias against BME offenders, which is a matter that needs to be addressed. The other issue is what happens after certain custodial sentences are completed because, after short sentences there is, effectively, no follow-up. That is a significant contributor to the high reoffending rates.
I hope that this proposal—that there should be a requirement to produce a strategy for offenders in this group—commends itself to the Minister. The phrasing of the amendment is perhaps a little difficult in terms of what might be appropriate for statute. However, the principles that the noble Lord has advanced are surely ones that would commend themselves to the Minister. Again, I hope that he can either indicate policy acceptance of the thrust of the amendment or agree that he will consult further with the noble Lord, maybe with a view to bringing back at Third Reading something to meet the common objectives of the Government and Members of your Lordships’ House. Certainly, I would support the noble Lord’s aspirations in this respect.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
My Lords, this group of amendments would remove the Government’s proposed amendments to the Bail Act 1976. The Government’s amendments remove certain exceptions to the presumption that bail should be granted to a defendant. Currently, bail can be withheld if judges or magistrates believe that the defendant will commit offences on bail, not turn up for subsequent court hearings, or interfere with witnesses. The Government seek to replace that with a no real prospect of custody test to make it far more likely that low-level offenders will get bail. Of course, currently the vast majority of low-level offenders already get bail.
The Government’s proposed changes are poorly thought through and could, in some cases, have the reverse effect to the one they intend. I understand that they are motivated by looking at the statistics of those who have received community sentences after they had been remanded in custody and then convicted at trial. They believe, in my view wrongly, that they will reduce costs by reducing the number of people who were originally remanded in custody.
I have come up with three practical examples which I believe will undermine the object of the Government’s proposed changes and the premise on which they are based. My first example is that of a sentencing bench. A sentencing bench sits and decides to give a community sentence where a defendant has previously been remanded in custody before trial. The sentencing court will know that, if it gives a prison sentence for a low-level but imprisonable offence, it is very likely that the defendant will walk free on the day of the trial or very shortly afterwards.
However, if the sentencing bench gives a community sentence, there is an opportunity for ongoing intervention by the probation service either through a tailored programme for drug rehabilitation, unpaid work or any of a number of courses that they can make. Of course, it is true that a court will be much better informed when it is giving a sentence than when it is making a decision about bail. I believe that it is misleading—and the Government are misleading themselves when they do so—to look at the bald figures of those who have been remanded in custody and those given community sentences.
My second example is of interfering with witnesses. I acknowledge that in another place an exception has been made in the context of domestic violence. I also accept the point made by the noble Lord in Committee when he said that interfering with witnesses is an offence. However, what about this following scenario: a neighbourhood dispute in which a bailed defendant is accused of interfering with witnesses and pleads not guilty? Of course, there will need to be a trial on the matter, but in the mean time the question of bail arises again. Surely the Government cannot be saying that the court cannot take into account a previous conviction of interfering with witnesses. That absolutely undermines everything that they are saying about putting victims at the heart of the criminal justice system. I find it impossible to imagine that they really intend that very real scenario.
Lord McNally
I wonder whether one reason why the Magistrates’ Association found itself alone on this is that most other penal reform organisations welcomed a proposal that will prevent people being sent to jail. One of the big arguments that we have had about the inexorable rise in our prison population over recent decades is over whether as a society we are too quick to send people to jail. The no real prospect of custody test simply asks, “If you are not going to imprison a defendant if he is convicted, why should you be able to do so before he has been tried?”.
The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, tabled amendments that would remove the no real prospect of custody test from some, although not all, of the places in Schedule 11 where it appears. Amendment 152JA would remove the amendment to Section 7 of the Bail Act, which applies to the test to bailed defendants who have been arrested for absconding or breaking their bail conditions. Amendment 152JD would remove the amendment that applies the test to defendants who have committed offences that merit summary imprisonment. However, for some reason the paragraph in Schedule 11 that introduces the no real prospect test for indictable offences is left undisturbed. Amendment 152DA removes the definition of custodial sentences that is relevant to the no real prospect test, but Amendment 152JB appears to remove a consequential amendment that is not directly related to the test.
The noble Lord spoke of the risks to the safety of the public, but how much of a risk is a defendant for whom it can be said that there is no real prospect of custody? We also heard about intimidation. However, as we mentioned, intimidating witnesses is an offence in its own right that is not only imprisonable but likely to result in a custodial sentence. A defendant who is not facing custody for their original offence would be foolish to put themselves at risk of receiving a far more serious sentence by trying to interfere with a witness.
We recognise that special considerations may apply where the circumstances of the offence suggest that there may be a risk of domestic violence. That is why we have included an exception designed to protect those who might be vulnerable in this way. This exception in new paragraph 15 of Schedule 11 would in fact be removed by Amendment 152JC. I do not understand why.
The noble Lord asked me a number of specific questions about the August riots, curfews and the need for sufficient information to be given. It would be fun for me to try to reel off answers from the Dispatch Box, but it would be better, and certainly safer for me, if I wrote to the noble Lord and made that reply available in the Library of the House. He can then contemplate what he will do at Third Reading.
I am not sure that the Magistrates’ Association is on the right path here. We think this is a sensible proposal for keeping people out of prison when it is not strictly necessary for them to be there. I will try to give the noble Lord answers to his questions, but in the mean time I ask him to withdraw his amendments.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
I thank the Minister for that response. I make the point that the Magistrates’ Association and every magistrate I have ever sat with do not want to put people in custody, and the whole purpose of my speech was to point out inconsistencies and a lack of clarity in these proposed changes. Nevertheless, I thank the Minister for offering to respond to my specific questions, and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
“(1A) The court may order that the prosecution should inform the victim of the court’s decision and the consequences thereof.”
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
My Lords, the amendment would give all victims the right to be told about sentences passed in the courts. Yesterday, the Government launched a consultation document called Getting it Right for Victims and Witnesses. In the opening sentence, the Lord Chancellor states:
“Proper protection and support for victims of crime is fundamental to my vision of a reformed criminal justice system”.
In paragraphs 72 and 73, he makes it clear that it is his intention to opt in to a new EU directive on rights and support for victims of crime. He states also that he believes that victims are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect, and, crucially, that victims should receive information. That is the crux of the amendment. I have no doubt about the Government’s good intentions in this matter.
At present, once a case has been concluded, either in the courts or in an out-of-court settlement, there is no guarantee—and certainly no formal mechanism—to ensure that that the victim of a crime, if they so wish, is informed of the outcome of the case. In the Crown Court, there is a duty on the probation service to contact victims and their families after someone has been imprisoned for 12 months or more for a sexual or violent crime, but there is no obligation for less serious offences. I felt that it would make sense to put this new duty on the prosecuting agency on behalf of the victim rather than on the Courts Service itself. I did that because the prosecuting agency will already have the contact details on its files, and of course it already informs victims of the progress of their cases as they come to court.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who supported my amendment, including my noble friend Lady Quin, my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith and the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia.
Regarding what my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith said, my understanding is that there are currently ad hoc arrangements post conviction about whether victims should be supported, and there are various organisations that do that. There is also the witness service and the code of practice for victims of crime. However, they are ad hoc and not a comprehensive system.
As usual, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, was more accommodating when he was extemporising than when he was reading from his notes. What he read out regarding my amendment was that I was seeking to avoid the obligation on the courts to explain sentences. That is not remotely the case, as I am sure he realises. Nevertheless, I take his extempore comments as a positive sign that he is willing to look at all these amendments to see what can be done. In that spirit, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.