Public Bodies Bill [Lords]

Debate between Alun Michael and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alun Michael]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 12—Youth Justice in Wales—

‘A joint committee shall be established to oversee the exercise of powers and responsibilities relating to youth justice jointly between the Secretary of State, or any body to which the duties of the Youth Justice Board have been transferred under an order made under section 1, and Ministers of the National Assembly for Wales.’.

Amendment 33, page 22, line 17, schedule 1, leave out

‘Youth Justice Board for England and Wales.’.

[Alun Michael]

I am very pleased to be able to defend the Youth Justice Board, which was established by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, for which I had responsibility as deputy Home Secretary. The Act is widely respected as a practical and effective piece of legislation, which also established the youth offending teams, the local crime and disorder reduction partnerships and antisocial behaviour orders, changes that have all been effective in cutting crime and reducing reoffending.

The success of the youth offending teams is due in large part to the insight, independence, creativity, leadership and clear focus on cutting youth crime that the Youth Justice Board has provided, and which a Government Department cannot provide. The facts of that success are clear. Around 90,000 young people under 18 were brought into the youth justice system for the first time in 2000, and there were about 50,000 first-time entrants in 2010, a reduction of 45%. Reoffending by young people was reduced by 27% between 2000 and 2009, the latest year for which figures are available. The number of young people under 18 held in custody is down by more than 25%. In August 2000, 2,968 young people under 18 were in custody, and in August 2011, 2,106 were in custody. The Audit Commission has confirmed that the system works well.

In 2010, the incoming Justice Ministers, including the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt), pledged to use the justice reinvestment report of the Justice Committee as their textbook for their time in office, but to do away with the Youth Justice Board signals that they have abandoned that promise. A wide range of organisations is appalled by the proposal to do away with the Youth Justice Board, but I will mention just two.

The Association of Chief Police Officers said:

“The recent disorder in London and indeed other areas of the country have shown that crime committed by young people should be carefully and seriously considered. The performance of the youth justice system under the leadership of the YJB has been considerable.”

It went on to warn that we would lose some of the successful joint initiatives that have been developed between the police and the Youth Justice Board. Finally, it makes the damning comment:

“There has been no evidence put forward to date that demonstrates the proposed transfer of the YJB’s functions to the Ministry of Justice will deliver better results.”

The fact is that it will not.

The Magistrates Association, speaking of the Youth Justice Board, said that

“the Magistrates Association from first-hand experience would say that it has a vital and continuing role to play in the justice system. Its very raison d’etre for magistrates is that it provides continuity of policy, strategy and implementation in a way that a general approach through the wider Ministry of Justice cannot deliver.”

It warns that

“the coherence that is now one of the successes of the system will be compromised and seriously damaged.”

By implication, the Government know that the Youth Justice Board has been a success, because they are not abolishing its role, but nationalising it. I did not know that Ministers were quite so left-wing or old-fashioned in their approach. I can only assume that No. 10 is demanding a tick in the box for abolishing a quango and does not care about the damage that will be done.

Over time, if the Youth Justice Board is taken into the Department for Justice, the Department will lose the expertise that has been drawn together within the board. If those who work in the board wanted to be civil servants, they would have applied to join the civil service. I hope that that attrition will be slow, but it will be inevitable. Government Departments are not good at running things, and the strength of the board is its focus on cutting youth crime, the independence and respect that it has earned and its capacity for working in partnership with others, which is why new clauses 11 and 12 are important. That point about partnership is demonstrated by the two organisations that I quoted and many others.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alun Michael]

The Minister has been seduced by office into bad decisions, but in the best interests of securing a vote on the retention of the Youth Justice Board, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 1

Power to abolish

Amendment made: 5, page 1, line 13, at end insert—

‘() a co-operative society,

() a community benefit society,

() a charitable incorporated organisation, or’.—(Mr Blunt.)

Schedule 1

Power to abolish: bodies and offices

Amendment proposed: 32, page 21, line 11, leave out

‘Agricultural Wages Board for England and Wales’.—(Mr Gareth Thomas.)

The House proceeded to a Division.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Debate between Alun Michael and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alun Michael]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because he is dealing with important issues. He is right about scrutiny, but it cannot simply be the threat that leads to the power before us being brought in. That would apply to prevention of terrorism legislation, to the Emergency Powers Act 1964 and so on, but in relation to this power only the investigation and preparation of specific cases and the need for additional time can justify the use of such legislation. The House can be sensitive and, in some circumstances, speedy, but surely the Minister accepts that in the consideration of such matters there is a fault line which is problematic for the Government and for the House.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We need shorter interventions, as we still have a lot of business to go.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Alun Michael and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 12th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alun Michael]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is good that the Home Secretary has now spoken to the House, but before this debate, when the Chancellor was at the Dispatch Box, the new commissioner’s appointment was widely publicised on television. So, as my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee was suggesting, the appointment has not come to the attention of the House as quickly as it should have.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

The right hon. Gentleman has been in the House a long time and will recognise that that is not a point of order. He has put his point on the record.

Phone Hacking

Debate between Alun Michael and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alun Michael]

I do not have time to go into that adequately. What I would say is that we need a public inquiry with the capacity to get to the bottom of various issues. Therefore, it needs to be set up carefully and have appropriate powers, and not be the type of bureaucratic public inquiry that has sometimes got in the way of the truth emerging.

We have heard one of the investigators complaining about the relentless pressure of demands from the News of the World on investigators and journalists. I did not detect a great deal of sympathy in the House—I think I heard a bit of a groan, indicating a lack of sympathy—but pressure comes in two forms. One is the pressure to deliver—“You’re only as good as your next headline”—and the other is the general pressure of what is acceptable and expected in any profession, or the environment in which people do their work. It is important that both be addressed. At the heart of the matter are three issues. The first is the standard of journalism; and the second is the standard of governance in the press and the media. This could—indeed, should—be a watershed moment. In general, journalists want to be open and transparent and to do an honest job, but that is not easy all the time. I saw something of the power of the press pack as a young journalist in south Wales.

The Press Complaints Commission is well meaning but, frankly, it is a joke. The public and journalists deserve better. Its lack of influence and inability to change the environment or set standards lets down those who have earned a high reputation for themselves and for our better newspapers and media outlets. The Press Complaints Commission clearly has neither the will nor the capacity to change things, but we need to take care: statutory regulation of the press and media could endanger press independence, which would be a massive mistake. We need an independent body, but one that is robust and effective and has the powers to investigate and enforce. It would be a major step forward if such a body emerged from these events, as I hope will happen.

I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) told us that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner had referred the issue of possible payments to police officers to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, but the IPCC’s investigation needs to go a little wider. The Chair of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), pointed out that the information now coming into the public domain was in the possession of the police in 2006. I hope that the commissioner will refer that to the IPCC too. The Metropolitan police had also reported to Ministers. My right hon. Friends the Members for Delyn (Mr Hanson) and for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) had information on which they had to take their decisions, and so has the Select Committee on Home Affairs. Those issues relate to the conduct of the police and the activities of police officers and need to be looked at objectively. The IPCC should be asked to do that.

What the IPCC does should feed into the wider public inquiry; I do not think that the two are alternatives. The IPCC has the resources and the investigative capacities, and it has earned a reputation for being tough. It is therefore important that it should be able to ask the questions, “Did the police mislead Ministers and Parliament?”, “Did police receive money?”—that question has been referred to it already—and, “Did relationships distort investigations?” It is important that those questions should be forensically investigated as part of preparing the ground for the wider, transparent investigation that we need, as the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) said. I do not think that these are alternatives, but we need the forensic capacity of the IPPC to look into some of these issues.

The third issue is that we need clarity about the law. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, rightly said that the Committee had identified confusion about what the law says. That confusion should not exist. I refer specifically to the fact that John Yates told us that there were only a small number of victims, based on what he said was legal advice that the police would have to prove that messages had been intercepted and also listened to before being heard by the recipient. However, Kier Starmer QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, told us that that was not the advice given to detectives. Advice from prosecutors was at best provisional and did not limit the scope or extent of the criminal investigation—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I call Zac Goldsmith.

Policing and Crime

Debate between Alun Michael and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether the clock could be adjusted.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. The debate is now under way again.

[Alun Michael]

Further issues arise from cuts that are too deep and too sudden, and, in the case of the police, made even more painful by being front-ended. We also face an upheaval as the Government press on with their plan to establish police and crime commissioners for each force in England and Wales—apart from that in London, which strikes me as an odd omission.

If the Government are truly confident that theirs is the right approach, they would have been well advised to pilot the idea, because the devil will be in the detail of relationships. The wholesale implementation of the Government’s proposals in 41 forces at a time of massive cuts, wholesale retirements and the serious demoralisation that arises from pension changes can only be described as truly courageous.

I do not want to become bogged down in numbers, but newer Government Members may be unaware of the disastrous record of the last Conservative Government and the way in which the ground was recovered during the subsequent years of Labour administration. It is vital that the Government and the commissioners—if the other place allows their introduction—fully understand the importance of a partnership approach to cutting crime. When Robert Peel set up the first police force, he stated clearly that cutting crime and preventing offending was the key role of the police. I am pleased to acknowledge that both the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice and the Home Secretary underlined those words when they appeared before the Home Affairs Committee. That belief, however, needs to be supported in practice and in substance, through partnerships linked to a clear and objective analysis of why, when and where crime happens.

I am also pleased that the crime reduction partnerships which I introduced in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 are to continue, with some new titles and rebranding. That is fine: refreshing the model is an entirely appropriate move by Ministers in a new Government. However, this Government need to make sure that they build on the cuts in crime achieved under the last Labour Government and squeeze out the further gains in crime reduction that are there to be made. That requires a clinical approach and an engineering approach to crime. My favourite example in that regard is the violence reduction strategy in Cardiff, led, as it happens, by a medic—Professor Jonathan Shepherd—which has resulted in a cut of now well over 40% in the number of victims, as measured not by arrests or reports to the police but by the reduction in the number of people needing treatment at an accident and emergency unit following a violent incident. Such results do not happen by accident. Intelligent analysis, partnership and ambition are what drove that improvement, and we need that approach everywhere. The result is savings to courts, to prisons and to the NHS. There are therefore benefits for all those who are part of a partnership approach.

My second example relates to youth crime. The numbers in residential detention have come down as the youth offending teams have focused on the challenge of cutting youth crime. Police are involved in what is an inter-agency approach. Again, I have no objection to that approach being renewed and refreshed, but I urge Ministers not to abandon a strategy that is working. We need police engagement in the work of reducing youth crime, rather than having them always chasing after the offenders.

My third example is about police community support officers. I commend the Welsh Assembly Government who have just come to office for putting in place additional PCSOs to support the work of the police in Wales. That is essential for truly effective policing because we must connect with local communities if we are to be successful.

My final example is to do with internet-related crime. This is a growth area, but the police will never have the resources to keep on chasing around the whole of the internet. The work of the Internet Watch Foundation and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre show what can be done. They have succeeded in tackling child abuse over the last few years. It is important that business too is linked in and works in partnership on internet-related crime. I commend to Ministers the example of e-Crime Wales, driven by a partnership between the Welsh Assembly Government and the police in Wales.

We need the police to do all the heavy lifting of detective work, making arrests, being visible, engaging the public and policing our town and city centres. The Minister is well aware of the challenges that our success in building up Cardiff as a real capital has presented to the police in policing successive activities, but as the Justice Committee report on justice reinvestment showed, most of the services and resources that make a difference in cutting crime, and therefore in protecting victims, are outside the criminal justice system. Partnership is therefore not just an extra; it is not an option that can be dropped if time is short and the pressure is on. It is crucial and central to enabling the police to be successful in their work, and I hope Ministers will encourage the continuation and growth of partnership working.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Alun Michael and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move amendment 328, page 15, line 35, leave out ‘may’ and insert ‘must’.

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Hoyle)]

With this it will be convenient to take the following: amendment 329, page 15, line 37, at end insert—

‘(aa) directions about the discharge of their functions specifically in relation to voters with disabilities;’.

Amendment 330, page 17, line 5, at end insert—

‘Disabled voters

7A (3) The Electoral Commission must take steps to ensure that disabled voters are able to access information and support to facilitate understanding and participation in voting and elections.

(4) The Electoral Commission must issue guidance in relation to ensuring voters with disabilities have equality of access to the places and process of voting.’.

Amendment 331, in schedule 2, page 26, line 31, at end insert—

‘3A Any notices must—

(a) be published in a minimum 12 point font size, and

(b) include a prominent message in minimum 16 point font highlighting the availablility of accessible formats.’.

Amendment 333, page 27, line 3, at end insert—

‘Access to voting for disabled people

5A Each ballot paper—

(a) must be produced in a range of formats accessible to people with disabilities;

(b) must contain a tactile voting template to ensure participation by a blind or partially sighted voter.’.

Amendment 334, page 27, line 26, at end insert—

‘(za) ensure such rooms selected for polling are accessible to persons with disabilities in accordance with the requirements of the Equality Act 2010,’.

Amendment 335, page 28, line 29, leave out from beginning to ‘about’ and insert ‘information’.

Amendment 336, page 28, line 32, at end insert—

‘(ba) a transcription into large or giant print;’.

Amendment 337, page 28, line 32, at end insert—

‘(ba) a transcription into electronic format;’.

Amendment 339, page 31, line 39, at end insert—

‘(za) information on assistance available at every polling station to ensure access for voters with disabilities;

(zb) clear instructions to all presiding officers and polling clerks on the right of all registered voters with disabilities to vote;

(zc) clear guidance to presiding officers about the information and support specific groups of disabled people require.’.

Amendment 340, page 31, line 45, at end insert—

‘(4A) For the purposes of paragraph (4)(zc) specific groups may include (although not exclusively)—

(a) people with mobility difficulties;

(b) people with a visual impairment such as blindness or partial sight;

(c) people with a learning disability;

(d) people with social or cognitive disorders such as autism or Asperger’s syndrome;

(e) people with mental health problems.’.

[Alun Michael]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to this group of amendments. I am particularly pleased that it includes a number of amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), who will speak to them in this debate.

The amendments relate to the referendum process, but in the long term they ought to apply much more widely to electoral arrangements in general. After all, the ability and right to vote is the central element of citizenship. The extension of that right and of the franchise—the inclusion of people in the electorate—has been central to the UK’s development into a mature democracy over many years. However, if the individual voter is unable to exercise their right to vote because physical obstacles are placed in his or her way, or if he or she cannot make sense of the ballot paper, the right to vote is meaningless. That is what the amendments address. If an individual cannot understand the choices before them, they are denied their democratic right. At the centre of these proposals is the importance of the democratic rights of those affected.

I pay tribute to the work of the Royal National Institute of Blind People, which has done a terrific job over the years to help Government Departments to understand what it means to look after the interests of the blind or partially sighted, or those who have even slight difficulties with seeing, perhaps with the onset of old age. The organisation has done that work consistently over many years. Today’s debate goes further than that, because it has been stimulated not only by the RNIB’s comments and concerns, but those of Scope and Mencap. A range of citizens with a range of disabilities and obstacles in their way could be helped if the Committee accepts the amendments, and I urge all Members to support them.

To illustrate where things can be improved, RNIB did a number of presentations—a number of Members on both sides of the Committee attended them, including the Deputy Leader of the House. It highlighted the implications, for instance, of the obstructions to understanding television. Members were invited into Aunt Megan’s living room, which was set out in the Strangers Dining Room, to see what following a television programme is like for people who do not have full vision. Actually, the dining room was changed into a more attractive place in many ways—the fact that Megan is the name of one of my granddaughters is absolutely irrelevant. Nevertheless, that imaginative demonstration got across to us how the inability to see things can affect people. Indeed, I am tempted to suggest that in order to lend weight to the argument for these amendments, the RNIB’s next exercise should be to lay out in the Strangers Dining Room a polling booth, complete with frosted glass and the other things it has sometimes provided in order to enable us to understand the problems. If it were to do so, all Members could see the issues that arise when the ballot paper is not absolutely clear, and I am sure that that would lead to Members of all parties being not just supportive of the amendments, but enthusiastic for them.

Ballot papers are often more complex than necessary, usually because the i’s are being dotted and the t’s are being crossed and all sorts of possible challenges are being eliminated. Of course, that has a consequence for those who need to be able to see very precisely what they are doing. As I have said, these amendments refer to the referendum process, although I think they should apply more generally. However, the design of the referendum ballot forms will be different from that of the familiar election forms, which is why these amendments are so important on this occasion.