Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

Is the Minister worried about the increasing criminalisation of young people? I notice that the Ministry of Justice published statistics last week that say one in four people of working age in the UK had criminal convictions. Should we not look at the current disclosure framework, so that people with criminal records for minor offences from years ago are not prevented from finding work, moving on and contributing to society?

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

My hon. Friend, the Chair of the Justice Committee, identifies a subject that might well be useful for his Committee to examine.

--- Later in debate ---

[Shabana Mahmood]

Drugs getting into prison is a huge issue, and I am very aware of the issues at Garth. The Minister with responsibility for prisons will meet the governors and think about how to deal with those problems in the medium and long term.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

There was welcome news for the Ministry of Justice in the Budget last week, but I did not hear any mention of legal aid funding. When will the criminal legal aid advisory board recommendations and the civil legal aid review be published, and when can we expect to see some reversal of the catastrophic cuts made to legal aid and advice since 2010?

[Heidi Alexander]

We will publish our response to the “Crime Lower” consultation in a matter of weeks. I anticipate being able to publish the CLAAB report at that stage, and some of the documents relating to the review of civil legal aid before the end of this year.

Sentencing Review and Prison Capacity

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

I welcome the approach the Lord Chancellor is taking to the management of the prison system, and the appointment of David Gauke to head the sentencing review. Given that the initiatives she has announced today to relieve pressure on prisons will create additional work for already overstretched probation officers, will she make a further statement when she has decided what operational changes she is going to make to the Probation Service? The additional 14,000 prison places she has promised to build will take prison capacity to above 100,000. Is that desirable in the long term? Given her intention to expand punishment outside prison, will she make it her aim in time to close some of the worst of our existing prisons, built two or three centuries ago, which warehouse crime and, despite the best efforts of prison staff, do little or nothing to reform or rehabilitate their inmates?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for his questions. On probation, I recognise the very high workloads that probation officers are working under. We committed in our manifesto to a strategic review of probation governance. I have made sure that we have brought forward the recruitment of an extra 1,000 probation officers by March next year. We are working closely with probation unions and probation staff on the frontline to manage the situation. I am very conscious that we do not want to take the pressure out of the prisons and just leave it with the Probation Service instead. This is a whole-system response, and the whole system needs to be stabilised and able to face the pressures we see in it.

On the prison population, make no mistake: the number of prison places will increase in this country. We will deliver the 14,000 the previous Government did not deliver, and the prison population will therefore rise. However, as I have said, we cannot build our way out of this crisis, and we do have to do things differently. We are a very long way away from any of the changes the Chair of the Select Committee may want to see, but fundamentally we must make sure, and the review must make sure, that we never ever run out of prison places in this country again.

Criminal Justice System: Capacity

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

As someone who spent a decade shadowing and scrutinising the previous Government’s justice policies, I sympathise with the Lord Chancellor over the chaos she has inherited, but the proposed changes to magistrates’ sentencing powers may have mixed results. They should ease the backlog in the Crown court, but they may put additional pressure on our overcrowded prisons. My concern is that we do not have robust data on the Crown court backlog or on the effects of varying sentencing. The Government are about to embark on a quick but thorough review of sentencing. Will they use that opportunity to get the policy and the figures lined up?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I think this is my first chance in the House to welcome my hon. Friend to his new position as Chair of the Justice Committee. Let me deal with Crown court data first. In fairness to the previous Government, they discovered this error prior to the conclusion of their term in office. When I came in, I was made aware of the issue with Crown court data. I ordered further investigation and examination of the issues. It is clear that a number of problems with the data—a number of errors and other issues—need to be resolved. We will make sure that it is published when we can be sure that it is accurate and that all those errors have been finally resolved.

Clearly, the situation is unacceptable. I am in discussion with the Lady Chief Justice about the need for a full external audit of Crown court data, because I think we can all agree that that data must be accurate. We clearly must do more to restore confidence in the reporting process, and I will update the House further in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

My hon. Friend is exactly right: literacy and numeracy are crucial. I was pleased to visit HMP Humber recently, where I saw excellent best practice. It is important that those programmes are in place, that we learn from best practice and that we continue to do our best in that area.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

A key driver of rehabilitation and the prevention of reoffending is sentencing policy. In our manifesto, we promised a review of sentencing policy—quite properly. When is that likely to take place, and will it take account of the very interesting recent paper by former Lord Chief Justices on sentencing inflation?

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

The paper to which my hon. Friend refers is a significant one, and I urge all Members to look at it. The Government are committed to a review of sentencing policy, and it will commence as soon as it can. We will report in due time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am not aware of the correspondence to which the hon. Lady has referred, but I will chase it up and ensure that she receives a comprehensive response.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

The coronial system is a mess, with substantial backlogs, a lack of representation for bereaved families, and erratic use of prevention of future deaths reports. Will the Secretary of State consider reforms to deal with these problems? If she needs ideas, there is a very good report from the Justice Committee.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I concur: there is an excellent report from the Committee, to which the Government will respond in due course. I am well aware of some of the issues with the coroners and reporting deaths for bereaved families and I should be delighted to discuss them further with my hon. Friend.

Criminal Law

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

I am sure that the whole House will be pleased to hear of the safeguards that the Lord Chancellor is putting in place. Is she confident that, by the time the changes to the scheme come into effect, both victim notification and probation—and, indeed, police and accommodation services—will be in a position to pick up those being released?

[Shabana Mahmood]

That is precisely why we have ensured that we have an implementation period for this policy change. That work will continue at pace over the summer, so that the Probation Service has the time to prepare proper release plans for offenders who will be released as a result of the changes and to ensure that all our obligations to victims and the wider public are fulfilled.

Let me also be clear that this change is not permanent. We will review this measure within 18 months of implementation—at the very latest, in March 2026. At that point, we believe that the situation in our prisons will have stabilised and that we will be able to reverse the measure, returning the automatic point of release to 50% of a sentence.

I want to directly address a question raised during the oral statement in the House last week. We have not included a specific sunset clause within the legislation that would end it automatically. We have pledged to be honest about the challenges in our prisons and the changes that we put in place to rise to them; that is a marked difference from the previous Administration’s approach. Given the scale of the crisis that we have inherited, placing an artificial time limit on this measure would be nothing more than an irresponsible gimmick. We have taken the very deliberate decision not to reverse this measure until we are certain that prison capacity has stabilised. The last Government allowed our prisons to fall into crisis. We will not introduce legislation that could force us back there again.

Finally, we will introduce a new, higher standard of transparency. Every quarter, we will publish data on the number of offenders released, and we will make it a statutory requirement for a prison capacity statement to be published annually, introducing that legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows. We are clear that this is the only safe way forward. The House does not have to take my word for it: we have heard senior figures in the police, prisons and probation all warning of what will happen if these measures are not taken. We have even heard my predecessor as Lord Chancellor come out in support of this measure.

Thanks to the action—or rather, inaction—of the last Prime Minister, our predecessors ran the prison estate to within days of disaster. As a result, they were forced to introduce a series of emergency measures, such as Operation Safeguard, which turned police cells into prison overflow, and Operation Early Dawn, a daily triage system that managed the flow of prisoners from police cells to the courts. They even came perilously close to triggering Operation Brinker, which is effectively a one-in, one-out measure in our prisons. It is the very last, desperate act available to forestall, by a matter of days, the total collapse of law and order in this country.

The last Government also introduced the flawed end of custody supervised licence scheme. When this new legislation takes effect, it will be my pleasure to end ECSL. With next to no implementation period, ECSL released offenders with only a few days of warning, and sometimes none at all. That gave the Probation Service no time to assess the risk of offenders, and next to no time to plan how they would be managed safely in the community. This new legislation, with its longer, eight-week implementation period, gives the Probation Service the time that it needs to prepare. The last Government’s early release scheme did not have the same exclusions that this new legislation has. Most notably, it provided no exclusions for offences linked to domestic abuse. That meant no exclusions for stalking, for strangulation, for controlling or coercive behaviour, or for breaches of restraining orders, non-molestation orders and domestic abuse orders, all of which are excluded in the legislation presented to the House today.

Perhaps worst of all, this quick fix was carried out under a veil of secrecy. A number of extensions were made to the scheme, which first released offenders up to 18 days early, then 35 to 60 days early, and finally up to 70 days early. That last extension was implemented without any announcement at all. Throughout, no data was ever published by the previous Government on the numbers released; it fell to this Administration to reveal the true scale of the ECSL scheme. Only now do we know that more than 10,000 offenders were rushed out under that veil of secrecy by the previous Administration.

Our approach will be different. Unlike under the previous Government, those sitting on the Opposition Benches will never have to chase me around this building to get hold of the numbers. The numbers will be put in the public domain for all to see and scrutinise, as they should have been all along. ECSL was one of a series of decisions that this Government believe must be examined more fully. That is why I have announced a review into how this capacity crisis was allowed to happen, which will look at why the necessary decisions were not taken at critical moments. We will shortly be appointing an independent chair for the review, which will conclude by the end of this year.

Let me be clear: the crisis in our prisons is not over. The prison population remains within a few hundred places of collapse. Last week, we temporarily closed HMP Dartmoor, taking around 200 places out of the prison estate. Although we were able to withstand that loss of capacity, any further changes—be they a further loss of supply or an unexpected increase in demand—could tip us into crisis. The measures that I have set out will take effect in September, giving probation officers the precious time they need to prepare. During that time, we will continue to monitor the prison population closely and we will be ready to introduce further emergency measures such as Operation Early Dawn or Operation Safeguard if required.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to see you in your new and much-deserved place.

I rise to support this difficult proposal from my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary. I made a speech in the King’s Speech debate two days ago on the subject of prison conditions, including overcrowding. I do not intend to repeat the whole of that speech, although it is tempting to do so, especially for the bits I had to leave out, but even by the standards of this place that would probably be pushing it. However, I would say that my right hon. Friend and her team—including the new Prisons Minister in the other place, Lord Timpson—have set out with a clear and serious intent to solve the problems left by the previous Government.

I am afraid we saw from the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers), exactly why the Conservatives got us into this mess. There was no attempt to be accountable—he did not allow one intervention during that speech, which I think is almost unknown—and we can understand why. It is because there are no answers to the questions that can be put to the Opposition. They have left our prisons in an absolutely disastrous state: at 99% capacity for the past 18 months. It is a complete dereliction of duty. There are acute capacity pressures, and the impact assessment says that if we continued without taking this action,

“prisons would shortly run out of places and the justice system would no longer be able to function as intended, e.g. the police would be unable to make arrests and the judiciary may not be able to impose immediate custodial sentences.”

What an indictment of any Government.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

If the hon. Member thinks that the Labour Government are now going to have to release 5,000 prisoners they would not want to release, how would he describe the fact that the previous Labour Government had to release 80,000 prisoners they did not want to release?

[Andy Slaughter]

If that is really the best the Opposition have got, I understand why the shadow Minister did not take any interventions. The Conservatives had plenty of money for the Rwanda scheme and other gimmicks over the past 18 months, but they had no money, no resources and no intent to deal with this, and we have heard the reason for that: they thought they would win votes by leaving prisons in a crisis situation. I am afraid that was another miscalculation.

It is true that this is not an easy decision. I was reassured by what my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary said and by the SI’s supporting documents, in that recall will continue as before, the length of sentences will not change, sexual and serious violent offences are excluded, and the intention, contrary to what the Opposition allege, is that this will run for no more than 18 months. Those are all important safeguards.

It is also true that, although there will of course be cost savings, this will put pressures on the Probation Service. The explanatory memorandum states:

“There is a package of measures to alleviate Probation pressures including limiting Post-Sentence Supervision to non-Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements…eligible offenders.”

So there are consequences here. There are consequences for post-custody accommodation services, as we have heard, which are not working terribly well at the moment. There are also consequences for the police if there are situations of reoffending or recall that need to be dealt with.

This will mean a reduction, from September onwards, of a minimum of 5,000 prison places for a period of time, and that is simply necessary. That is not really debatable, and I think that is probably why the Opposition have not debated it today. It is not possible for this to continue. I hope this short-term measure will be successful, and I think it will be. I hope the safeguards will be in place and will be secure. I am also encouraged by what my right hon. Friend said about the longer-term prospects. We have to address the prisons crisis over the longer term in this country. We have to reduce the number of people in custody by reducing reoffending.

It is good that we are building modern prisons to modern standards, but I would like to see those modern prisons not supplementing but replacing some of the disgusting and disgraceful Victorian prisons, such as Wormwood Scrubs, which until a few weeks ago was in my constituency. I advise all Members who do not have a prison in their constituency or who do not regularly visit prisons, irrespective of their interest—if they are attending this debate, they must have some interest—to go and look at the conditions that persist, because they are inhumane and intolerable. That is not just a matter for staff, inmates and others who work in prisons; it is a matter for all of us as citizens, because we are not rehabilitating prisoners, but letting them out on to the streets to reoffend without any support.

The need for today’s SI is an indication of just how low the previous Government have brought the system. This is a national crisis. I have no doubt that it was one of the reasons for the previous Prime Minister calling an early election, because they simply could not face the consequences of their own actions. Thank goodness we now have a Government who will grasp these nettles firmly and resolve the issues.

I say to my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary, who I know is passionate about this, that this is not about just a short-term fix; this is about a long-term change in how we use the criminal justice system in this country, all parts of which are in crisis at the moment. If we can get into a virtuous spiral, rather than the downward spiral we have been in for the last 14 years, there is hope to improve the courts system, access to justice, and the service provided, including for victims, and to deal with the crisis in our prisons.

Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Adam Afriyie]

I will not keep the Committee too long. I just want to say that I have sat on many Committees in my 19 years here, and I think that this Committee is a testament to the strength of Parliament in scrutinising legislation that clearly we all want to see. It highlights the nuances of differing views on constitution versus freedom of speech versus public interest, so I very much understand the reason for each one of these amendments.

There is a lot of debate around each amendment, but I suspect that actually the Government and pretty much every MP would agree with the intention of all of them. The question is about the precision of how they are delivered. I rise, to be honest, to speak in support of all the amendments in this grouping—not necessarily the precision of them, but the intention behind each and every one. In particular, I speak in favour of amendments 11 and 12, which stand in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden.

It does seem to me that as MPs, we see all sides of this issue. We see attacks on ourselves from people trying to suppress what we are about to say on the Floor of the House or elsewhere, but we also observe in our local media that the two little journalists stuck in a local regional newspaper are suddenly facing a massive court case if they write something that, to be honest, is in the public interest and fairly innocuous. We can see things from both sides, which is why, particularly in the debate about these amendments, we are all being very gentle in how we approach things: because we know that there are subtleties that we need to address.

However, I am very keen to see that those who have disproportionate power—whether that is financial power, or in business structures, or in access to lawyers—are kept in check when it comes to behaviours that are clearly designed to harass, intimidate, frustrate and frighten people on the receiving end, whether they are local journalists or media, or even, to be honest, mainstream newspapers that may have financial challenges as well, or individuals such as our former colleague Charlotte Leslie, whose life was made an absolute misery. Nobody in any party would want to see or witness that kind of behaviour, no matter which former MP was experiencing it.

This issue needs to be dealt with and I thank the Government for dealing with it. I also thank all hon. Members on this Committee for examining what needs to change. I am very keen on this group of amendments, because they aim to clarify and define more closely what it is we are trying to deal with. The worst kind of legislation is the kind that we have not scrutinised carefully to ensure that when a judge approaches a matter, they have clear directions and a clear understanding of the intention of this House in forming that legislation.

I hope that in Committee and on Report, we will finally get to a resolution on each of the issues that have been raised here, because it is really important that this piece of legislation gets on to the statute books. However, it is equally important that freedom of speech is defended and that the little guy or the little girl in our society—the small media outlets—are protected from deeply wealthy and deeply aggressive litigants.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Elliott. I can be fairly brief, as harmony appears to have broken out across the Committee. I would not want to disturb that harmony in any way.

[Sir David Davis]

Go on!

[Andy Slaughter]

Well, just a little, maybe.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly on his Bill and particularly on his amendments. They not only clarify the Bill but strengthen it a great deal, especially in relation to the objective test, which, as we discussed at some length on Second Reading, is a necessary change. Without the amendments, the danger is that one of the vices that the Bill seeks to prevent would become apparent in another way—through satellite or preliminary litigation—because we were trying to delve down into what was in the mind of a claimant in the process of bringing a suit. That is a good start.

The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden mentioned pre-litigation risks about actual harassment of defendants and other ways of manipulating the court processes. I find amendment 12, which he tabled, attractive from that point of view. It certainly is the case, and libel cases are the best example, that whole swathes of defendants’ lives can be taken up simply by the manipulation of the litigation process.

Above all, and most commonly, this is an issue about costs. We can all imagine what Tom Burgis, Catherine Belton and Charlotte Leslie felt when they received those letters. It is not just about the allegations or the possible reputational damage; it is about the real risk of bankruptcy, or at least having to pay out huge sums of money. It is just common sense that that is bound to suppress free expression and hobble investigative journalism. If the Bill goes some way towards preventing what is commonly described as the chilling effect of such litigation, it will be doing an extremely good job.

It is also true that the use of the justice system to pursue SLAPP claims undermines the rule of law and undermines confidence in the judiciary. There is a question as to whether courts have been manipulated. They have stuck to the rules and dealt with the law as it is, but have been unable to do much about claimants who bring cases for malicious and devious purposes. I often agree with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill and my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North; I do not agree as often with the Government or the Ministry of Justice, so that is a great pleasure.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mike Freer]

The challenges facing crematoriums, and in fact the whole funeral sector, are being reviewed by the Law Commission. This is about not just crematoriums, but burial space. There are challenges across the whole death management landscape, to use the technical term, which is why the Law Commission is investigating and bringing forward proposals.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The fees for civil legal aid are half what they were in 1996 and the number of providers has fallen by 40% in the past 10 years. If the Minister actually wants to do something about civil legal aid, why has he kicked the civil legal aid review into the long grass?

[Mike Freer]

Legal aid is always under constant review and I will always take advice from those closest to it. That is why I engage with, for example, the Bar Association, the Law Society and the judiciary on what we need to do. As for kicking things into the long grass, all I can say is that I want to get this right and if that takes time, it will take time.

Prisons and Probation: Foreign National Offenders

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

My hon. Friend makes an exceptional point. We have to proceed on the basis of evidence, not emotion. We choose to lock up the most dangerous offenders for longer, which is why those who murder in the context of sexual or sadistic behaviour should be in custody for the rest of their lives, because the threat to the population is so great. Where people can be reformed using technology, which was not available a long time ago, we should use that, not just because that works as a matter of common sense but because the data shows that it works.

On my hon. Friend’s specific point, anyone who looks at this issue calmly and in an adult way will see that there have been pressures in moments in history. There was one in 1997 and another in 2007, when Jack Straw had a terrible argument with Lord Falconer about the use of cells in Inner London Crown court. Those of us who have been in the system remember that. The key is whether to deal with that in a sensible, calibrated and proportionate way. We will take every step to look after the safety of the public, and we will not score political points in the process.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Last week, the Prisons Minister and I visited Wormwood Scrubs, where we found doubling up in single cells, with unshielded toilets, and overcrowding affecting people’s time out of cell and access to work. The education service was described as poor, and food budgets are £2.70 a day. Staff told us that assaults on officers are not being prosecuted. What is the Lord Chancellor doing to improve conditions in our Victorian prisons, as that is vital for the welfare of staff, the rehabilitation of prisoners and the protection of the public?

[Alex Chalk]

First, I commend the hon. Gentleman for visiting his local prison, as doing so is extremely valuable and I am grateful for his feedback. He raised a number of issues and I would be happy to write to him, but may I just deal with one thing in particular? We ask prison officers to do an extremely difficult job; they need to be robust, but sometimes they have to be sensitive. To assist them in doing so, we are ensuring, first, that they are paid properly, and so we accept every last penny of the Prison Service pay review body recommendation. Secondly, we are rolling out body-worn video, so that they know that if a situation looks like it is escalating, the evidence will be there—that provides a powerful deterrent effect. Thirdly, and finally, we are reducing attrition. I hope he will agree that experienced prison officers are the ones who can make those tough decisions on when to be tough and when, metaphorically speaking, to offer that hand of support.

Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 23rd February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to take part in the debate, particularly with you in the Chair, Mr Speaker. This is essentially a debate about free speech, which I know is of great concern to you not only in this Chamber but outside it. It is also of particular concern to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), and I congratulate him on bringing the Bill forward. He is quite busy with his other hat on, as the shadow Minister for the Middle East, so it is good that he has time to be here on a Friday to promote his Bill. I hope he has the Government’s support.

I would say that this became a live issue for the House when the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) held his January 2022 debate on lawfare and the UK court system; as with everything American, the terms “SLAPPs” has taken over the language here, but lawfare is effectively the same thing. On that day, which was really the issue’s first run-out, I replied for the Opposition. There were many strong contributions, and the debate put the issue on the map, including on the Government’s map.

Let us give the Government a little bit of credit, although not too much; there has been some progress. We have heard about what is in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, dealing with the issue of SLAPPs, but in a particular way and for a particular type of offence—that is, around economic crime—and the anti-SLAPPs taskforce also meets, but it is somewhat disappointing that the Government have not brought forward their own comprehensive legislation on the issue. I hope they will use the agency of my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly to get something on the books in the time available in this Parliament. Nevertheless, we have not done the entire job. That is no criticism at all of my hon. Friend, and I do not know whether that is an invitation for me to be on the Bill Committee as well.

I will deal with three points that need slightly further attention. The first, which my hon. Friend mentioned, is the issue of SLAPPs taking place in the dark—pre-issue, as it were. There has been some attention by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to that in issuing guidelines, but there is still quite a strong feeling that many SLAPPs were effective long before getting to the courtroom because of the intimidation—which we should not underemphasise—placed on individuals. They may be authors or journalists, but they may just be individual members of the public. The intimidation may even be of corporations, and yet they cannot take the risk because they are up against people with not just deep, but bottomless, pockets. We heard about the £1.5 million cost for Catherine Belton in relation to “Putin’s People”. That was pocket money for Abramovich, but for a publisher—let alone a journalist—it is a significant sum of money. A more comprehensive view of how SLAPPs act is important in relation to resources.

I do not want to disagree with my hon. Friend, but we need to look at the point that the Anti-SLAPP Coalition and the NUJ have raised—and the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord)—about a subjective or objective test. That is not easy. Obviously, there are subjective as well as objective tests throughout the legal system. Nevertheless, there is a real fear that the need for a defendant to show subjective elements will be a path for the claimant to tie proceedings up in knots, complicate things and drag them out. I do not know what the solution is, but we should at least explore that and listen to the expert organisations, particularly the National Union of Journalists and the Anti-SLAPP Coalition, which are urging us to take that course.

[Richard Foord]

Does the hon. Member think that a minor amendment could be introduced to add an objective test based on observable features of abuse, to help prevent litigation from being misused to suppress freedom of speech?

[Andy Slaughter]

It sounds like the hon. Member wants to be on the Bill Committee and is drafting his amendments in his head. I have never known a private Member’s Bill Committee to be so popular. I am not a legal draftsman and I do not know the answer to his question, but we need to bottom out this issue, because it seems to be attracting the most attention.

Other issues have been raised about overlaps with the Defamation Act, and costs. There are provisions on costs in the Bill, but it is about whether they are driving down costs as far as they can, and about public interest. A number of areas could be further explored, even in this short Bill. Costs are a vital but often neglected part of the legal process. This is a hobby-horse of mine. We have just discussed the Media Bill in the House, and the repeal of section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which in effect takes Leveson part 1 out of the equation with regard to having a level playing field for victims of press abuse—if I can put it that way.

On SLAPPs, the Government appear to support legislation such as this to prevent costs being used as a weapon to prevent people getting their just deserts and their day in court, but there is a different situation when it comes to the media itself—I cannot for the life of me see the difference. Of course, Leveson cuts both ways; Leveson also provided a formula for protecting small publishers against exactly the sort of people who take part in SLAPPs—indeed, he could have used the word “SLAPPs” in his report. It also protects the innocent victims of press abuse because the press magnates—not journalists and small publishers but major publishers—also have bottomless pockets.

In his response or during the passage of the Bill, could the Minister think again, at the very least, about how the Government will approach the issue of small publishers and journalists being sued in order to protect the so-called privacy—often the nefarious activities—of very wealthy individuals and corporations. This can affect anyone, including journalists like Tom Burgis, who won his case. The experience did not discourage him, because next week I am hoping to go to the launch of his latest book, “Cuckooland: Where the Rich Own the Truth”. Let me give him a little plug—it will soon be available from all good bookshops. It takes huge courage for someone to risk everything simply in the course of prosecuting their employment, when there is the risk of bankruptcy or being dropped by their publisher—although that was not at risk, I have to say, in Tom’s case.

We heard about the case of Charlotte Leslie, a former colleague of ours, who was effectively persecuted through the courts. We are lucky; we have the protection of privilege here. However, when we step outside this place, we can become a victim in that way, just like anybody else who is, with good intent, simply trying to tell the truth.

This even affects organisations such as the Serious Fraud Office, which is still being prosecuted through the courts by the Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation. The Serious Fraud Office launched the action in good faith, and there was what I would call retaliatory SLAPP action. Although the original action by the SFO has been discontinued, the SLAPP continues. It really does look like a topsy-turvy world when organisations that we should rely on to regulate society—in which I include investigative journalists, Members of Parliament, and certainly criminal investigation organisations—themselves become the victims of those they wish to call out.

That is why we urgently need a much more comprehensive approach to SLAPPs, and that is why I fully welcome the Bill and will support it today. However, I think we can do more work on this. In responding today, I hope the Government will express their strong support and their desire to go further.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his excellent work in successfully championing the limit on Friday prison releases. The changes for which he called came into force last November and are exceptionally helpful, and he deserves great credit for that. He is also right to point to the brilliant work of Switchback, which has supported our resettlement work. That work includes the roll-out of 12 weeks’ guaranteed accommodation and the introduction of resettlement passports, which contain precisely the basic information to which my hon. Friend referred, such as a prisoner’s name, date of birth, national insurance number and release date. They help prisoners to access essential services such as housing and healthcare, and contribute to the driving down of reoffending, which, as was recognised by the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), is significantly lower than it was in 2010.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The wife of a remand prisoner at Wormwood Scrubs wrote to me recently to say that the prison is so cold that prisoners are shaking, that they have to choose between work, social time and showering, and that the food is lacking in basic nutrition. I can explore these matters with the Prisons Minister in a couple of weeks’ time during our joint visit to the Scrubs, but does the Secretary of State agree that such conditions are not conducive to rehabilitation?

[Alex Chalk]

This is an important point. We do deprive people of liberty and sometimes we have to do so in the case of those on remand, but the conditions must be safe, decent and humane—austere, yes, but humane as well. I commend the hon. Gentleman for going to see the Scrubs with the Prisons Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), and I shall be very interested to hear his views thereafter.