Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2012 Lords Chamber

This is a very important time for restorative justice and all those likely to benefit from it. I look forward to hearing confirmation from the Government that they, too, are confident in their commitment to taking this new way of working forward. I beg to move.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, briefly, we await with interest the Government’s response. Certainly, the amendment would appear to fill in a gap in this part of the Bill, since one’s understanding of restorative justice was that it was at least as important, if not more important, for the victim as it was for the offender. Yet while the relevant clause provides for participating,

“in an activity … where the participants consist of … the offender and one or more of the victims”,

it then goes on to say,

“which aims to maximise the offender’s awareness of the impact of the offending concerned on the victims”.

It would appear as though the view in this part of the Bill is that the offender’s needs and awareness are regarded as rather more important than those of the victim or victims. I conclude by saying that my understanding of restorative justice is that it is there for the benefit of the victims at least as much as, if not more than, that of offenders.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I welcome the enthusiasm and support for restorative justice from across the House. Indeed, at the recommital stage of the Bill my noble friend Lady Linklater moved an amendment in relation to pre-sentence restorative justice. That amendment added an explicit reference to restorative justice meeting the needs of the victim.

Her Majesty’s Government entirely agree that RJ, when used appropriately, can be an extremely positive experience for victims. For example, our own research has shown that 85% of victims participating in direct RJ conferencing with their offenders were satisfied. We therefore gave an undertaking to consider the amendment in advance of Report. I assure the House that we are fully supportive of the intention behind the amendment. We consider that the phrase,

“meet the needs of the victim”,

needs more explicitly to reflect the benefits provided by restorative justice. Victims may have many needs as a result of a crime, and we should be clear about which of them RJ may meet.

I am sure that noble Lords will agree that one of the most important benefits of RJ is to give victims a voice in the criminal justice system. The amendment therefore seeks to reflect this. It puts an equal emphasis on victims and offenders in defining RJ requirements by focusing on victims’ need to have their voice heard. It also seeks to cover the different ways in which victims might want to express themselves. The phrase, “talk about” seems to us a direct and simple way of describing what might happen in the majority of cases—victims talking at a face-to-face meeting or mediation about the impact of the offending. The words,

“or by other means express experience of”,

is intended to cover other ways of sharing experience, thoughts and feelings.

In short, we appreciate that some victims may be too traumatised, or otherwise unable or unwilling, to talk about their experience. Instead, they may want to express their feelings in writing or drawing, or through other means. We therefore believe that the amendment will strengthen the role of victims in the restorative justice process. In the light of this, the Government propose to accept the amendment.

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[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, as treasurer of the Parliamentary Group for Children, I feel particularly concerned about this Question. I am also particularly grateful for, and pleased to learn about, the investment that the Government are making in these centres—prisons without walls, as the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, called them in her report. I feel, with her, that if we are going to make a difference in this area, we need to put the position of women on a statutory basis. It may be helpful if I quote some statistics about women and families from the Corston report. It reveals that 34% of women in prison are lone parents. Around two-thirds of women were living with their children before they came to prison. One-third had a child under five. Only 9% of children whose mothers are in prison are cared for by their fathers. Around 18,000 children each year are separated from their mothers by imprisonment. Only 5% of women prisoners’ children remain in their home when their mother has been sentenced to custody. As many as 25% are cared for by grandmothers, 29% by other family members or friends, and 12% are in care, with foster parents or adopted.

The noble Baroness, Lady Corston, goes on to say:

“One of the most alarming statistics that I have seen reported appears in the Revolving Doors Agency’s survey in which 1,400 women serving their first sentence in Holloway were interviewed. 42 women had no idea who was looking after their children. Quite apart from the dreadful possibility that these children might not be in a safe environment, this must cause mothers great distress and have deleterious consequences for their mental health”.

I am very grateful to the previous Government for their response to the Corston report and for the current Government’s work in this area, but I hope the Minister responds to the request for a statutory basis for women in the probation area.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, in her report a few years ago my noble friend Lady Corston drew attention to the reality that existing provisions, both in prison and in the community, are largely geared to male offenders and the needs of male offenders. The Corston report called for separate services, locally available, geared to the needs of women offenders in order to reduce as far as possible the disruption to family life and the impact on children The needs of their children and families have a considerable bearing on the ability of women offenders to attend programmes and avoid breaches of the order, and on the effectiveness of those programmes in having a positive impact on reducing reoffending. My noble friend’s report also drew attention to the number of female offenders in prison who had been, or were, the victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse, which are not normally issues that have to be taken into account by providers of services, or addressed by the skills they have to provide for male offenders.

A recent joint inspection report on alternatives to custody for women offenders highlighted the lack of women-specific provision for unpaid work and offending behaviour programmes, though it also said that women-only provision where available was often very successful. Investment in credible and appropriate alternatives to custody for women is essential. Programmes should be specifically designed for female offenders and address their needs. As well as reducing reoffending, community sentences designed specifically for women should help reduce the rate of breach as they should be capable of better fitting with women’s needs and responsibilities.

Schedule 16, dealing non-custodially with offenders, actually makes no specific provision or reference to women. The amendments seek to address these concerns by ensuring that probation trusts are required to make appropriate provision for the delivery of services to female offenders that will include provision for women to carry out unpaid work and participate in programmes designed to change offending behaviour with the particular needs of women in mind. I hope the Minister will accept this group of amendments and recognise the significant gap created by the absence of specially tailored arrangements for dealing with women offenders, most of whom, as has already been said, have committed non-violent offences, and whose sentences if they end up in prison can lead to the break-up of families, with potentially disastrous consequences for all concerned, not least the children who can end up having to go into care.

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

My Lords, we are fully aware of the point that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, made in closing. One of the special factors about women in the criminal justice system and in prison is that the impact of their incarceration is an impact not only on themselves but also on their children and their families. For that reason, the Government have taken the Corston report of 2007 very much as the template of their approach to women. I have benefited from having a number of conversations with the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, over the past couple of years about the implementation and carrying forward of the report. I know that my colleague Helen Grant has also met the noble Baroness to discuss these issues.

It is interesting to note that the Government accepted 40 out of the 43 recommendations in the Corston report and made a range of commitments across government departments to take them forward. There have been real improvements in the past five years under successive Governments, including significant investment in women’s community centres to address holistically the underlying causes of women’s offending such as drug and alcohol addiction, mental health issues and histories of abuse.

The female prison estate was reduced by 400 places with the closure last year of HM Prison Morton Hall. We have about 4,000 women still in prison. However, the cross-government strategy includes: piloting and, subject to business case approval, rolling out liaison and diversion services in police custody and the courts by 2014; the piloting of drug recovery wings for drug and alcohol-misusing prisoners at three women’s prisons—New Hall, Askham Grange and Styal—and the development of intensive treatment-based alternatives to custody for offenders with drug or mental health problems, including four women-only services at Wirral, Bristol, Birmingham and Tyneside. In addition, there is the implementation of particular provisions in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 with regard to remand and breach, which are expected to reduce the number of women in custody, and the delivery of the Home Office-led Call to End Violence Against Women and Girls, which will address the high levels of abuse experienced by female offenders. The commissioning of women’s services, including women’s community services, has been devolved to local probation trusts to ensure that provision is integrated into local services. This year’s £3.78 million of funding is now embedded in NOMS’ community budget baselines to allow for continued support of provision for women.

As I indicated in Committee when we last considered the issue, I fully agree with noble Lords that it is important that the criminal justice system is properly responsive to the needs of female offenders. I share the view that it is also essential that we take account of women’s experiences and needs. That is why I am pleased that the National Offender Management Service is still rolling out the Women Awareness Staff Programme, currently with a focus on training the trainers, so that they can provide support to staff and voluntary and community sector partners working with female offenders. This covers issues such as self-harm, relationships and abuse, and is complementary to the Women’s Aid best practice framework, Supporting Women Offenders Who Have Experienced Domestic and Sexual Violence.

I am also pleased to confirm that the National Offender Management Service has been working to develop the evidence base around what works with female offenders. Over the coming year, this work will support the strategic approach to female offenders as set out in the National Offender Management Service’s Commissioning Intentions discussion document, published in October of this year. All probation trusts are required by the National Offender Management Service’s Commissioning Intentions document to make appropriate provision for women in the community to address factors associated with their reoffending, using third sector and private sector services, where appropriate.

The National Offender Management Service has also published information on the specific needs of women to support the commissioning of relevant offender services for this group as part of the commissioning round for 2012-13. Already probation trusts across the country are coming up with innovative, new approaches to working with women that reflect the local situation. There are many good examples of women-only provision in the community. For example, Nelson Probation Office in Lancashire has a women-only reporting day. In Durham in the Tees Valley, the trust provides women-only reporting centres in each of the six local delivery units, with community based support and childcare provision located at these points. In Derby, there is a women-specific programme addressing violent behaviour.

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Moved by

[Lord Rosser]

115B: Schedule 16, page 260, line 24, at end insert—
“Part 8Reorganisation of the National Probation Service1 The Offender Management Act 2007 is amended as follows.
2 After section 15 insert—
“15A Power to reorganise the National Probation Service
(1) Any plans to reorganise the Probation Service for England and Wales must be instituted by regulations.
(2) Regulations under subsection (1) shall be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure of each House of Parliament.””

[Lord Rosser]

This amendment is similar to one that I tabled in Committee in order to give the Minister the opportunity to say more about the Government’s intentions for the future of the probation service. The amendment states that:

“Any plans to reorganise the Probation Service for England and Wales must be instituted by regulations”.

It adds that those regulations,

“shall be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure of each House of Parliament”.

Bearing in mind that in this Bill we are asked to agree to significant changes in community sentencing, which will be dependent on an effective and properly resourced probation service, the Government still cannot tell us what their intentions are for the probation service. It therefore does not seem unreasonable to agree to this amendment, which will enable both Houses to satisfy themselves that whatever changes the Government want to make to our probation service, they would not be in conflict with their objectives and changes on community sentencing contained in the Bill.

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[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I am not sure I shall be able to help the noble Lord, Lord Rosser; he asks lots of questions, most of which do not have a great deal to do with the Bill but have a lot to do with the Government’s declared intention to reform the probation service. We have certainly made no secret of that; indeed, he will be familiar with our consultation paper, Punishment and Reform: Effective Probation Services. He will be aware that this was the first step in determining our approach to how reform is delivered. Further consideration is under way to determine how best to meet the requirements of a probation service that delivers rehabilitation outcomes. We are in the process of carefully considering the way forward and will announce further details of our plans shortly. As I indicated previously, we will be keen to engage with probation staff, representative groups and all those who can make a contribution to the success of this important area of work.

It is interesting—I think I have explained this before to the noble Lord—that the reason why the powers to do all this are not in this or any future Bill is because they are within the powers of the Offender Management Act 2007. During the passage of that Act, there was a debate on the merits of parliamentary scrutiny when establishing, amending and dissolving probation trusts. In the Bill as originally published, no parliamentary procedure applied to the power in Clause 5(1) to establish, alter the name or purpose of, or dissolve a probation trust. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee noted that precedents existed for that, but felt that it lacked sufficient information about how trusts were to be established to make a recommendation about its appropriateness in this context. The committee therefore drew the matter to the attention of the House. In light of the debates on this subject, the previous Administration accepted on the floor of the House that this important power should be subject to parliamentary procedure. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland of Asthal, asserted that the affirmative procedure would be excessive but tabled a government amendment introducing a negative procedure, which was accepted by this House. On that basis, the Government believe that the parliamentary scrutiny set out in the Offender Management Act 2007 is adequate and we share the view taken by the previous Administration that the affirmative procedure would be excessive. I therefore ask the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Rosser]

I thank the Minister for that reply. He started off seeking to suggest that the issue raised in the amendment is not really relevant to this Bill, but it certainly is. The Bill seeks to make significant changes to community sentencing and the delivery of those services will be dependent on an effective and properly resourced probation service. It will not be particularly easy to deliver those changes in relation to community sentencing—of course the changes also cover restorative justice and the role of rehabilitation in reducing reoffending—if at the same time it is the Government’s intention to, metaphorically speaking, turn the probation service upside down. That must clearly be a relevant issue in the Bill. Is the probation service geared, both at the present time and in future, to delivering the objectives and changes that the Government wish to make in community sentencing?

The Minister made reference to the 2007 Act. I appreciate that it is his prerogative if he wishes to express an alternative view, but I do not think that the kind of transfer or apparent transfer of responsibilities away from the probation service that seems to be envisaged at the moment was envisaged at the time of the 2007 Act. Obviously, it is the potential implications of what the Government may be putting forward that have led to this amendment calling for the affirmative procedure to be used. I am sorry that the Minister has not been able to give any assurances at all about the extent to which the existing probation service will continue in being. He has not been able to give any assurances about what responsibilities may or will not be transferred away from the existing probation service. Indeed, put bluntly, he has not really been prepared to say anything at all, which will certainly do nothing to damp down some of the concerns over what the Government’s real intentions are. I appreciate that the Minister is not going to say any more so I have little alternative but to leave it at that. I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 115B withdrawn.