Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that legal aid is a vital pillar of support to many people, which is why we have taken steps to ensure that the evidence requirements for those who want access to legal aid have been relaxed. We have also gone further; we have supported organisations such as RCJ Advice through its Finding Legal Options for Women Survivors service, which is a fantastic digital portal to assist people in the agony of that moment—as they may be in their home circumstances—to receive the kind of support that they require so that they are best placed to get a non-molestation order or an occupation order. We are determined to stand up for victims of domestic abuse.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

What recent progress has been made on the independent Human Rights Act review.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Robert Buckland)]

Since January this year, the review has conducted a public call for evidence, which has received more than 150 submissions, and has engaged with a wide range of interested parties at roundtable meetings and online public roadshow events. The evidence-gathering period has now concluded. The panel is now considering the evidence and will draft its report over the summer. The report will then be published, as will the Government’s response.

[Mr Carmichael]

What does the Secretary of State want to achieve with his review? He will be aware that as long as we remain a party to the European convention on human rights, the rights that are available to citizens as a consequence cannot be altered. Any changes to the Human Rights Act would just return us to the situation that we had before the Act, when we could only enforce the remedies for these rights by going to Strasbourg. Is that what the Government want to achieve here?

[Robert Buckland]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman will read the review’s findings with great care. I have been clear that this is not about changing the fundamental rights themselves, as he has quite rightly observed; it is about the way in which the domestic courts implement and interpret those rights. It is about the mechanism, if you like. It is now 20 years since the Act came into force and I think it is right at this juncture to give it a careful examination. That is what the independent review is all about. As he would expect, it will be followed up by the fullest consultation, in which I know he will play a vigorous part.

Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Bill (Business of the House)

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I beg to move a manuscript amendment, in paragraph (6), after sub-paragraph (b) insert—

“(ba) the question on any amendment, new clause or new schedule selected by the chairman or Speaker for separate decision;”.

The Secretary of State will be aware that the business motion that he has just moved, without any explanation whatsoever, replicates the provisions of Standing Order 83D faithfully in every respect bar one, which is that it omits the contents of Standing Order 83D(2)(c), which provides that at the conclusion of proceedings the Question may be put on

“any amendment, new clause or new schedule selected by the chair for separate decision”.

The effect of the omission of that provision from the business motion before the House is that if the debate continues until the conclusion of the time allowed in the business motion, there will be no Division on any amendments moved in Committee.

At the very least, the House is entitled to hear an explanation from those on the Treasury Bench as to why we should see your power restricted in that way, Mr Speaker. It may be that ultimately this is all academic—it may be that we conclude proceedings before the expiry of time, or it may be that there will simply be no amendment that anybody wishes to move at the conclusion of proceedings—but there remains an important point of principle at stake, which is that surely we should hear the debate first before we make decisions of that sort, and that if it is the will of the House at the conclusion of the time allowed, then you, Mr Speaker, should have the power to put any Question from the Chair. It is entirely regrettable that the Secretary of State, in moving the motion, did not offer any explanation to the House as to why the Government, through us, should seek to fetter your power in this way.

It is worth bearing in mind that although what the Government are doing today in bringing forward a Bill and going through all its stages in one day is not by any means unusual, it is still quite extraordinary. The Government rely on co-operation from all parts of the House in order to do that. They have had that co-operation, so why do they now seek to restrict the power that you, Mr Speaker, have to call Divisions at the end of the Committee stage?

Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Heald]

My right hon. Friend makes the important point that justice delayed is justice denied, and it is important that cases are brought on quickly. We monitor them very carefully and provide extra days to tribunals as required, so he can be assured that we are not complacent about this.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

6. What steps she is taking to ensure that prisoners receive appropriate treatment for mental health problems.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Dr Phillip Lee)]

Prisoners are far more likely to suffer from mental health issues than the general population. From April, we will introduce a co-commissioning approach into prisons in England, with governors making decisions about prison healthcare alongside local NHS commissioners. As I am sure the right hon. Gentleman knows, these matters are devolved in Scotland.

[Mr Carmichael]

Indeed, although the Howard League tells us that 2016 was the worst year ever recorded for suicides in prison, with one prisoner every three days across the UK taking his or her life. Does the Minister accept that the earliest diagnosis— and the best diagnosis—will not make much difference if we continue to house prisoners in overcrowded prisons, with the most vulnerable being locked up 23 hours a day?

[Dr Lee]

Each of those cases is a tragedy and my condolences go to the family concerned. The right hon. Gentleman is right that it is important to hold prisoners in appropriate circumstances. We are working hard to improve the mental health training of staff, and we are in lengthy discussions with the Department of Health about the broader provision of mental health care.

Domestic Violence Victims: Cross-Examination

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Heald]

We all have examples—I am glad that my hon. Friend was able to get her example on the record—of cases where some form of abuse has occurred in the courts. That is unconscionable and it needs to stop. We are going to tackle this issue very urgently.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

On who should be involved and consulted in the review, will the Minister bear in mind that party litigants cross-examining their victims is just one species of the controlling behaviour that lies at the heart of domestic abuse and that, for that reason, there is a real and important role for organisations such as Women’s Aid to have their voices heard in this process?

[Sir Oliver Heald]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and the Department does, of course, listen to what is said by Women’s Aid. It does seem to me that this is a fairly discrete issue—an issue about banning cross-examination by alleged perpetrators and making arrangements to ensure that cross-examination can take place in a suitable way. I would not want to sacrifice speed in tackling that for anything.

Prison Officers Association: Protest Action

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend clearly has much experience in this area and what he says is absolutely right. The prisons and probation ombudsman described psychoactive substances a game changer in our prison estate, and they are one of the reasons why we face the current situation. We rolled out testing in September, and we have trained 300 sniffer dogs to detect those substances. That will have an impact, and we are already beginning to see it in some of our prisons.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The Lord Chancellor should perhaps bear in mind that questions of what is and is not legal are to be determined by the courts, not by Ministers and not by this House. I say to her gently that she cannot praise prison officers in one breath and then condemn them for being reckless in the next without trying to achieve some understanding of how things have reached this point. If she really wants the POA to come back to the negotiating table, might she think about the tone she adopts in dealing with this dispute, so that it might have some confidence that if it does return, it will be listened to?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I respectfully say to the right hon. Gentleman that I have had a number of meetings with the POA and discussed issues of safety, on which I share its concerns. I am absolutely not attacking the hard-working prison officers on our frontline, but it is a mistake for the POA to call for unlawful industrial action in the middle of talks. I urge it instead to come back to the negotiating table, because that is how we will get a safer environment for our prison officers to work in; we will not get that through unlawful industrial action.

Prison Safety and Reform

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

Today’s White Paper is about the standards we expect of prisons, in both the private and public sector. I have been to some very good public sector prisons and I have been to some very good private sector prisons, and what I care about is getting the best possible outcomes so that we reduce reoffending and crime.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

There is a lot to welcome in this statement, but the Secretary of State would do well to listen to the sage counsel of her right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke). The root cause of prison violence is overcrowding, and the root cause of overcrowding is that we still send too many people to prison for short sentences, which will not achieve the purpose the Secretary of State now says she is going to enshrine in statute. Will she not consider a presumption against short sentences?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for welcoming elements of the White Paper, in contrast to some of the other comments from the Opposition. We face immediate issues in our prison system, and increasing staffing is part of the solution to that, as is having a much clearer purpose to the prison system. As the number of first-time offenders goes down, we need to address the rump of reoffending in order to address the problems of crime in society. That is why I am focusing on that. We have enough staff in our plans to be able to deliver safe prisons that reform offenders, and we also have a building programme creating 10,000 new spaces so we are able to house those offenders.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is absolutely the reason we want to pursue a British Bill of Rights to put that in place.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

If we are to have the Supreme Court as the ultimate arbiter, does that mean that the Lord Chancellor wants to withdraw from the European convention?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The Prime Minister has been very clear that leaving the European convention on human rights is not something that we are going to pursue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

1. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the prison population.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Michael Gove)]

By making our prisons places of rehabilitation, we hope to reduce reoffending and thus, in due course, reduce the prison population.

[Mr Carmichael]

I am sure that that is an aspiration with which we can all agree.

The independent review established by the Prison Reform Trust and chaired by Lord Laming found that up to 50% of all young people in custody had been in care at some point in their lives. What plans has the Secretary of State to reduce the number of looked-after children who end up in custody?

[Michael Gove]

The right hon. Gentleman has made a characteristically acute point. A disproportionate number of those who find themselves in contact with the criminal justice system and subsequently in custody are children who have been in care. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education is introducing a series of reforms to enhance the quality of social work and ensure that looked-after children are better cared for, but we in the Ministry of Justice also have a responsibility. We will shortly be publishing our conclusions on the review of youth justice by Charlie Taylor, which will say more about how we can help some of our most troubled young people.

Policing and Crime Bill

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I wish to speak to new clauses 46, 47, 61 and 62, which stand in my name. Perhaps I can pick up where the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) left off, on new clause 2. My hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) would normally speak for the Liberal Democrat party on such matters, but he is, unfortunately, absent from the House today through illness. However, the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) indicated that she intends to push the new clause to a vote, and I should indicate that, in the event that she does, my party will support her and her colleagues. To devolve substantial portions of the criminal law in relation to Wales without devolving control of the police force that would then enforce that law seems at the very least to be a little illogical, so I wish the hon. Lady and her colleagues well.

I am grateful for the indications of support for my new clauses that I have had from members of different parties, including those not represented in the House. In particular, members of the Women’s Equality party are assiduous and effective campaigners on the issue of revenge pornography; indeed, they were the authors of new clauses 61 and 62.

The hon. Member for Rotherham, who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench, rightly said that it was only last year that we undertook the criminalisation of revenge pornography. That was a quite remarkable step, and none of us should underestimate its importance. However, to pick up a point that she made, the statistics already demonstrate that this is a stubborn problem, which will require more action if we are to bring about the changes in attitude that will ultimately see this behaviour reduced and, hopefully, eliminated.

[Mrs Miller]

I commend the right hon. Gentleman for bringing these provisions to the House. He reflected on the importance of the law the Government brought in on revenge pornography. At the time, we talked about the importance of recognising that the impact of online crimes is very different from that of offline crimes. Will he join me in saying that, although it can be easy to say that what is illegal offline is illegal online, that misses the point, because the impact online can be so much greater and so much more devastating to the people involved?

[Mr Carmichael]

Indeed. I will come to the distress that is caused by this conduct in my remarks on new clause 62. The right hon. Lady is absolutely right that, in relation to these offences, we should focus on the outcomes and effects endured by those who suffer the abuse—and when I say “abuse”, I use the term advisedly.

From April to December last year, 1,160 cases were reported, which is quite remarkable, given the period we are dealing with—indeed, those figures are from England and Wales alone. Only 11% of the cases that have been reported have led to charge, with 82 prosecutions and 74 cautions resulting from those charges. That suggests that with regard to the need to see a change in attitude and behaviour, we first need to see it among some of the criminal justice professionals dealing with this—the police officers, prosecutors, and judges.

This takes me back to my early career, when as a trainee and then a qualified solicitor, I worked for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in Edinburgh, where one of my first bosses—she was then a senior legal assistant—was Elish Angiolini, who became the first female Lord Advocate, and the first solicitor Lord Advocate, in Scotland. At that time, along with other colleagues, she did tremendous amounts to drive forward improvements in how the victims of sexual abuse in general, but child sexual abuse in particular, were treated by the court system. A lot of it seems very rudimentary and basic stuff now, but in the early and mid-1990s, when we were arranging for court visits ahead of trials so that victims of these sorts of offences could give their evidence from behind a screen or by live link, it seemed pretty revolutionary, and it met with substantial resistance from the police—not so much the police, in fairness, but certainly many within the legal profession. We were right to drive those changes, as has been demonstrated by the way in which the law and procedure in that area has developed ever since. A similar attitude and a similar drive is now required in relation to the offence of revenge pornography.

New clause 46 goes right to the heart of this by seeking to extend the protection of anonymity to victims of revenge pornography. That would mean that we would not necessarily have to wait for a review to look further at where cases and procedures will develop in this area. As we have heard, the principle of anonymity is accepted by the Government in relation to victims of forced marriage. I welcome new clause 55, which extends that protection. However, it surely strikes at the heart of the offence that we introduced last year that we should seek to protect those women—they are nearly all women—who are, in essence, subject to an invasion of privacy. No really meaningful remedy is available to them if making complaints seeking to reinforce the criminal sanctions that come as a result of that invasion of privacy only makes them vulnerable to further invasions of privacy. That is why it is important that at some point, by whatever means—I will listen very carefully to the Minister’s response—we should look at extending the protection of anonymity to these victims.

New clause 47 would allow the court to make compensation orders to victims of revenge pornography. Many campaigning in this field would like a full civil remedy to be available, although that would have taken us somewhat beyond the scope of this Bill. However, we ought to be taking advantage of the quite remarkable degree of consensus that we have seen across the Chamber tonight. I hope the Government will recognise that and take full advantage of it, because that sort of consensus is rare enough, and when we see it we ought to make the most of it.

New clause 61 would extend the test from an intent to cause alarm, as in section 33 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, to include recklessness. This strikes at what is required evidentially to provide mens rea in relation to the commission of the offence. It would bring people in England and Wales into line with the protections that are already afforded to people in Scotland through the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016.

The offence would also be extended from one that required disclosure of the material to one that required a threat to disclose it. Research indicates that no fewer than one in 10 ex-partners make that threat. If the outcome is to provide meaningful protection, it would make sense to extend the ambit of the offence to include a threat to disclose. That is being pursued by the #CtrlAltDel campaign, which is being led by the Women’s Equality party and which I commend to the House.

The final new clause standing in my name is new clause 62, which brings me to the point made by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller).

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before the right hon. Gentleman turns to his next new clause, I am not suggesting for a moment that he has spoken for too long, because he has not—he has been quite brief—but this debate is time-limited. The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) has indicated that he wishes to speak and I trust that he will be brief, because I am sure that the House would be disappointed if the Minister did not have time to answer the many points that have been made to her this evening.

[Mr Carmichael]

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for saying that I have not spoken for long, because I have actually spoken for longer than I had intended.

I do not have a great deal to say about new clause 62, but it might assist the House if I explain that, by seeking to extend the definition of the offence, we are striking at the stress caused by, and the actual outcome of, the behaviour suffered by victims of this abuse. At the moment, the definition is drawn tightly, for reasons that I think are understood by all. Those experienced in the field, however, say that the harm and distress caused is the same for those who have suffered this wider disclosure and that it would make sense to ensure that they are equally covered by the criminal law.

Safety in Custody and Violence in Prisons

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

These issues are not easy. Our prisons are not like the Eden Project: they do not have a dome over the top of them. Unfortunately, it is all too easy to get things over a prison wall, as I saw when I went around HMP Rochester last Thursday morning. My hon. Friend raises an important issue. All of us, particularly as Members of Parliament, have a role in getting the message out in our communities that new psychoactive substances are lethal. They do terrible harm to the loved ones of families who inadvertently bring them into prisons. We need local communities to work with us and the police to try to stop the terrible flow of evil drugs over prison walls.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The Minister is absolutely right: prison officers do an exceptionally difficult job. They need and deserve our fullest possible support. That has to be more than a platitude. For that to be the case, staffing levels have to be addressed. The other issue that has to be addressed is prison overcrowding. The prison population is now in excess of 90,000 inmates. In the past 15 years, the length of sentences has gone up by 33%. Can the Minister assure me that, as he tackles this issue, he will look at it in the round; that he will look not just at prisons in isolation but at how they interact with police, prosecution and court authorities?

[Andrew Selous]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his praise for the work of our outstanding prison officers. We are consulting on sentencing issues, which have a bearing on overcrowding. We are also determined to bring down reoffending. Our success in reducing reoffending will help to reduce overcrowding.