Prisons: Violence

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. Given the long-standing concerns about overcrowding, self-harm, violence and suicides in prison, last week’s revelations about the use of synthetic cannabis and the damning reports on the misuse of force and restraint of young offenders in Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre last March and Medway Secure Training Centre last week, is it not time for a judge-led review of the management of custodial services and the Youth Justice Board along the lines of the report from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, published in 1991? Should that not include reconsideration of the outsourcing of provisions to overseas private companies and palpably overstretched organisations such as G4S?

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, of course, any outbreak of violence, wherever it takes place, is concerning. The noble Lord referred particularly to Medway and Rainsbrook. On Medway, I hope to be able to update the House shortly, following the inquiry into how Medway Secure Training Centre had been run in the wake of the “Panorama” programme.

In the Statement, I said that there was no single solution. It is significant that there is violence in all sorts and types of prisons, so one must beware of thinking that there is one particular solution. I take the noble Lord’s point about the very useful and seminal report prepared by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, following the Strangeways riots in Manchester, which provided a lot of guidance to prison management in future. We will learn from that and from all these events. As the noble Lord will be aware, reports are shortly to be published on education and mental health in prisons. All that will help to inform the substantial reform that I mentioned, and we hope that that will contribute to stamping out the violence.

EU: UK Opt-in Protocol (EUC Report)

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I thank the members of the committee for their excellent report, which should give much food for thought for the Government and for the Home Secretary in particular. I pay tribute to the mover of today’s debate, my noble friend Lady Quin, as the former chair of the EU sub-committee on justice. Her stewardship as chair shone brightly, if all too briefly. My noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws has a challenge to follow in her footsteps.

Unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, we on these Benches support the concept of an opt-in. Indeed, it first came about under a Labour Government. Opt-ins can offer important guarantees and safeguards on key measures. We believe in retaining our co-operation with Europe on policing and criminal justice. Indeed, we agree with the committee when it says:

“The Government’s annual opt-in reports demonstrate that the opt-in Protocol has provided the UK with a very effective safeguard against participating in legislation with a legal base in Title V, particularly internal EU legislation, when it does not consider it to be in the national interest to do so”.

It nevertheless seems that the opt-ins and their processes are being misused. We can only conclude that they are being misused deliberately.

We on these Benches and the Benches of my opposition colleagues in the other place have repeatedly criticised the Government for their approach and the way they have dealt with opt-ins, putting party interest above national interest and creating confusion. In many cases, the Government seem to try to tell their Back-Benchers and supporters that they are the awkward squad in EU negotiations, yet they know that they need the co-operation of other EU countries in pursuit of justice.

Perhaps the most obvious example of this was the Government’s handling of the European arrest warrant in the other place at the end of the last Session. This was quite spectacularly mishandled. The one issue that everybody wanted to talk about was not in the Motion before the House, but many rather anodyne measures were.

That brings me neatly on to the direct matter at hand—the report of the committee. It should make pretty uncomfortable reading for the Minister and his boss. It is pretty clear that the Government have a completely perverse approach to the whole process. At the heart of the issue is whether the opt-in protocol can be interpreted to mean that it is the content of an EU measure which determines the application of the protocol rather than a legal base under the JHA title of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union—Title V. In responding to this point, the committee said:

“All the evidence we received contradicted the Government’s approach to determining the legal base of a measure with JHA content”.

It went on to say:

“Its effect is to make a clearly established legal principle inordinately complex”.

It is clear that it is the latter principle that should be applied, but the Government’s mess with their party’s substantial anti-EU base means they are constantly trying to please the unpleasable. Yet we know on these Benches that there are good Ministers and officials who are trying to make sensible progress on negotiations. It really is a mess. I fear that the small majority the Government enjoy in the other place may make these matters worse rather than better. This muddle has direct consequences, as the committee’s report says, in that it gives rise to legal uncertainty and,

“risks breaching the EU legal duty of ‘sincere cooperation’”.

It appears that the Government have been trying to blame others, namely the Commission, for some of their woes. Yet this report makes it clear that there is no evidence of any underhand activity by the Commission; nor does it find evidence that the Court of Justice of the European Union has,

“sought deliberately to undermine the safeguards in the opt-in Protocol”.

The report then suggests the Government review their litigation strategy.

The tail continues to wag the dog. Only yesterday, I heard that the Minister’s colleague, the Europe Minister David Lidington MP, had dismissed claims that UK was seeking working rights opt-outs in the EU renegotiation as “rumour and chatter”. That is not much of a denial.

The way in which the Government have approached the protocol is a scandal. It does not seem that they have behaved much better in their relationship with the committee, and it is totally wrong that they have not yet responded to it formally. Can the Minister tell us when the Government plan formally to respond to the committee’s report? I look forward to the Minister giving some indication of their response to the stinging criticisms that have been made.

In summary, it seems a great shame that the Government are subverting and confusing a straightforward process for EU opt-ins. We see this as being only for reasons of political management within their own party—and for a group that will never be satisfied. Is it not time that they simply did the right thing, accepted the recommendations in this report and embraced the very real power that they have in respect of EU opt-ins to protect our national interests?