Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 27th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Bennett of Manor Castle signed the amendment and has asked me to speak in her place as she is unable to be here.

This is obviously a 50 year-old injustice, inflicted by the UK—by the Foreign Office, as the noble Lord, Lord Horam, suggests, so it might have been good to have a Minister from the Foreign Office here to answer our points. What was done to the Chagos Islanders—deprivation of their lands, dispossession of their community, chaos brought to individual lives—was not limited to one or two generations; it has gone on and on. True reparations would involve the right of return. This is not special circumstances or special treatment. This is justice that we can deliver, albeit very, very late. Simple justice ensures that we take responsibility for people whose lives we took control of without their consent. I hope the Minister can take this back and ensure that it becomes part of the Bill.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a founder member and, like the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, a vice-chairman of the Chagos Islands All Party Parliamentary Group. Having once had the pleasure of meeting the Chagos Islanders based in Mauritius, I rise to strongly support this amendment. As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the noble Lord, Lord Horam, have explained, this issue is an international scandal for which the Government are entirely responsible.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Report stage
Wednesday 12th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Hodgson, and to agree with what they say. I support this amendment very strongly and I regret that we will not vote on it, because this is so important for justice. At the moment, justice just means taking something away from everyone instead of trying to add things back, both to all the people involved but also to society. Crime has to be seen partly as the result of a broken society; this is what it indicates. It cannot only be addressed—and it certainly cannot be fixed—by policing and punishment. There has to be something more that adds back and enriches us.

Effective restorative justice deals constructively with both the victim and the offender. The primary aim has to be to restore and improve the position of the victim and the community by the offender making amends. It recognises that a person convicted of a crime has the ability to improve the community. We do not at the moment employ restorative justice; we focus instead on punishing the offender, which means more prisons, more stress and more degradation in our society. Therefore, I regret that we will not vote on this, because it is a very important move.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to strongly support this amendment, which was so ably introduced by my noble friend Lady Meacher, particularly if it is matched by a strong commitment to restorative justice among all sections of Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, particularly prison governors. I have witnessed an unfortunate case in which a governor admitted to me that none of the recommendations of the very good police officer who was chairing the conference could be provided by the prison concerned, to the detriment of the whole process.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Wednesday 17th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 240A and 259C, so comprehensively introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames. Ever since the formation of the Youth Justice Board, I have been keen on the idea of a women’s justice board, with the accompanying offender management teams, particularly if it was matched by a Prison Service appointment of a director of women’s prisons—a change to the operational management structure of the Prison Service that the MoJ should consider, as I advocated to the Minister when debating an earlier amendment.

The Minister for Prisons and Probation could chair an executive board, consisting of the directors-general of the prison and probation services and the chairmen of the Youth Justice Board and the women’s justice board, obviating any need for Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, which merely inserts a layer of bureaucracy into the executive board—in other words, between the Secretary of State for Justice and individual prison governors.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I absolutely love this amendment—that is probably the kiss of death for it, so I am sorry about that. The noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, has a superb idea in seeking to establishing a women’s justice board. Importantly, it would not just look at prisons, courts and policing but would advise on the steps that should be taken to prevent offending by women in the first place. That is crucial. Obviously, the women’s prison population is very different from the men’s: far fewer are convicted of violence, sex offences and drugs offences, with the majority being sentenced for low-level offences such as theft, and trivial things such as non-payment of the TV licence or council tax debt. As has been said, women in prison are also very likely to be victims as well as offenders, with more than half of women reporting suffering domestic violence and more than half reporting childhood trauma.

I know the Government have a whole thing about being tough on crime, but actually, you have to be fair as well. At the moment, the Government are being totally unfair to all kinds of groups and populations within our society: this would be a good way to start rebalancing.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Monday 15th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, both these amendments are really sensible. I very much hope that the proposers can work together before Report so that we have something quite powerful that we can all back and take forward. I realise that it is not easy for Ministers in your Lordships’ House. They hear all the expertise and sensible arguments, yet they have to go back to their Ministry and try to convey these arguments at the same time as being totally crushed and told, “Go back and just defend the status quo.” Still, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, could be quite tough with the Ministry about this and I very much hope that he will be.

When you hear about what happens to prisoners—a third being released on a Friday when, of course, housing benefits, healthcare, banking and all essential services are basically closed—you cannot believe that anybody would do it. It just does not make sense for those people who are being released. They have paid their debt to society; now we have to support them to make sure that they do not go back inside where they cost society a huge amount of money and contribute very little.

The other issue, of course, is that many people in prisons are miles from home and cannot easily travel home on a Friday; they may not have the money, the trains may not be running over the weekend, and so on. It seems that the Government and prisons are punishing ex-prisoners more and more. Can the Minister tell us why Friday is so popular a day to be mean to released prisoners? Why not give them the best start to reintegration?

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendments 210 and 211, and congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, on their introductions.

I am at one with the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on this issue. When he was Prisons Minister, Rory Stewart once attended a conference on the issue, organised by Nacro, which as the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said, has led on this for a long time. Some brave prison governors risk censure by using release on temporary licence to avoid release on Fridays. I have never understood why the Department for Work and Pensions does not make staff from jobcentres go into prisons to work out a prisoner’s entitlement to benefits, including universal credit, so that they do not leave prison with a discharge grant, but with the first payment of whatever benefit they are entitled to. In that way, they can pick up the next benefit the next week rather than having to wait six weeks following release before they can apply.

In many ways, the Government are setting people up to fail by, first, releasing prisoners on Fridays and, secondly, insisting on a six-week delay; I defy anyone to exist all that time even on an increased discharge grant.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued) & Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 5th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, who spoke very eloquently. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was also very eloquent, in spite of her brevity. This Government are famous for their hostile environment. This is really the most inhumane immigration system, and Britain deserves better. We do not even have parliamentary oversight of this system, which is an appalling lack of democracy. I have signed three amendments in this group, all of which are valid and should be taken seriously by the Government and put into the Bill. Amendment 20 is particularly valuable, and my noble friend Lady Bennett and I will be voting for it.

Moving on from the concept of parliamentary oversight, we need a few things in the Bill. We need time limits on detention and a test of necessity and proportionality. People should be detained only when necessary. As we have clearly heard, detention is often unnecessary. We need a right to bail, with a process in place to facilitate it, and a ban on solitary confinement unless absolutely necessary—and I do mean absolutely necessary. These measures should be applied to all immigration detention, and I call on the Government to bring a Bill to reform the whole system. They have already said that they will do that, but I think the reform I have in mind is not what the Government have in mind. I just repeat that the system we have is inhumane; we need one we can feel proud of.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 23, which I described in Committee, and in support of Amendment 20—so ably moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—and Amendments 21, 22 and 31. When I was Chief Inspector of Prisons, with responsibility for inspecting what were then called immigration detention centres, because the Prison Service at that time was still part of the Home Office, I found that the majority of the management of the immigration system came from there. Most worrying was that there appeared no difference between immigration centre and prison rules, which my inspectorate corrected by rewriting them to better reflect UN and European immigration rules.