Domestic Violence Victims: Cross-Examination

Anna Soubry Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Heald]

On the hon. Lady’s final point, as she knows, the LASPO review has to be concluded by April 2018. It is not overdue, but it is something that the Government have very much in mind, and that we will have to start fairly shortly.

On the hon. Lady’s other points, legal aid is available in cases of domestic abuse. That is why the Government concentrated efforts in legal aid on situations where life or liberty are at stake, and on domestic abuse and housing when homes are at risk. That is not an issue, but I accept that the evidence criteria are important. That is why the Government have allowed a longer period and a wider range of evidence to be used, which has been welcomed.

Cross-examination by litigants in person takes place too much. The hon. Lady asked what the exact number is. It is not clear, but it is certainly a considerable number, which is why the Government consider this to be an important issue to tackle.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister and welcome everything he has said on the Government’s attitude to this long-standing problem. May I urge him please to look at the rules on legal aid? There is certainly strong anecdotal evidence from former colleagues of mine at the family bar and the judiciary that there is a direct consequence and link between the rise in litigants in person and the changes to legal aid, which was begun under the Labour Government. That link between litigants in person and legal aid is causing so much of the problem. If he at least looks at it, he could provide some of the solution.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

As my right hon. Friend rightly says, this is a long-standing issue but one that has now become urgent—the cries for help from judges and others have become more urgent—and that is why the Government are tackling it. It is necessary to find a way to prevent litigants in person from using proceedings to continue the abuse, and that is what we aim to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anna Soubry Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

The Secretary of State could be forgiven for not knowing that 72 years ago yesterday, he was born in the same ward of the same Nottingham hospital as my constituent Mr Roy Plumb. Unfortunately, Mr Plumb had to retire as a magistrate on his 70th birthday. I do not expect the Secretary of State to refer to his own age and I would not want him to retire, but does he agree that the time has come to allow magistrates to serve beyond their 70th birthday?

[Mr Speaker]

Let us hear about the case of Mr Plumb.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anna Soubry Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. I want to make it absolutely clear that the anonymity of rape victims is there for life. When it is breached, the full force of the law must be brought to bear. My understanding of the case that she mentions is that, as at 10 May, 13 people had been arrested. It is right that the law should be enforced, but it is also noteworthy that we clearly need to monitor the internet and ensure that we supervise it a lot better than we perhaps have in times past.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend could help, as there is growing concern about the use of Twitter in the ways described, but for other criminal offences. What actions are the Government taking to make sure that people are not allowed to hide behind their own anonymity when they tweet or use the internet in this way, which is to commit a criminal offence?

[Mr Speaker]

It is most interesting to hear the hon. Lady’s thoughts, but they are relevant in this context only in relation to victims in rape cases, not more widely. That is what the question is about. We are immensely grateful for the hon. Lady’s musings, but I am not sure that they entirely pertinent to the matter under discussion.

[Anna Soubry]

I am sorry.

[Mr Vara]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

David Parfitt killed my constituent Ged Walker, who was a serving police officer. Parfitt was released from custody a few months ago after a long sentence. We understand that he appeared in Lincoln magistrates court charged with a new offence, but my constituent’s widow has not been given the details of that offence. Does the Minister agree that as a victim of crime, she is entitled to know if he has reoffended, and if he has, in what way?

[Mr Blunt]

I will want to examine the precise duties that the House and the Government have placed on the victim liaison services, both in the probation service and in the police, with respect to that case. The duties of the system to victims have improved, are improving and must continue to do so. They must feel very central to the exercise and administration of criminal justice.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Anna Soubry Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

When the Lord Chancellor introduced the statement to the House which preceded this Bill, I asked him about the provisions in relation to domestic violence. He thought that I would be pleased with the answer, because the Government had recognised that domestic violence was, to some degree, a special case. I was not pleased with the answer, because at that point the definition of “domestic violence” was unique to this Bill, it did not cover all cases and it was, in my view, fundamentally flawed. So the first thing I wish to say is how glad I am that the Government have now decided to use the Association of Chief Police Officers definition of “domestic violence”.

I need to push one point further, however. The failure of the Government to understand the reality of the lives of victims of domestic violence is reflected in how they have constructed this Bill. I will never forget the moment when I talked to two local police officers in my constituency who dealt regularly with victims of domestic violence and who told me about a case that they had just dealt with of a woman who had been beaten up by her husband 12 years earlier but did not report it until he started biting pieces out of her body. That case, although it made me tremble with horror, is shockingly not that exceptional. We should not forget that, in this country, two women are murdered every week following a history of domestic violence. We should not forget how few women ever report it. Why do they not report it? Overwhelmingly, the victims of domestic violence think, “It was my fault.” That is how they feel, so they do not go to the police or to social workers. They conceal it, as they think it is caused by something that they did.

Such women often report because of someone else. When women are pregnant, they will report their victimisation by their partner because they want to protect the child in their womb. The problem with the distance travelled by the Government is that they have not yet gone far enough. I hope to be able to persuade the Minister to take that last step and to accept wider forms of evidence. We know that women do not necessarily go to a refuge; they go to a place of refuge. They might go to their sister, to their school friend or to their mum, and they are the people who women will tell first about their experience of victimisation.

Some very perturbing evidence from Welsh Women’s Aid suggests that the average time—the average, not the extreme—that a victim might take before reporting a domestic violence incident and getting to the stage of resolving the private family law issues is five and a half years. That average time would be excluded by the route that the Minister is pursuing. I beg him to recognise that the House of Lords got this one right and to say that he will take the last step and ensure that the other victims are properly protected. That is important because by allowing these women to use private family law to protect themselves and their families, we will prevent future domestic violence homicides. The Minister could do that by changing his position on the amendments.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) and I pay tribute to the work done by her and other Opposition Members when they were in Government. They undoubtedly made huge advances in the prosecution of people who had committed offences of domestic violence and put protection in place to enable victims of domestic violence to come forward in both the criminal jurisdiction and the family and civil jurisdiction. That protected not only those women but their children. We part company, however, on this matter as I believe that the Government have gone as far as they should in their acceptance of the definition of domestic violence and what should support any allegation of domestic violence.

I do not think that it is fair simply to criticise those on the Front Bench for not understanding domestic violence, especially if it were suggested that they did not do so by virtue of the sex of the ministerial team or the Secretary of State. I am not suggesting that the hon. Member for Slough said that herself, but others have. It was interesting that in her speech she told us that the peculiarity and horror of domestic violence, which is demonstrated in the fact that women will often suffer for year after year without making any formal complaint or any complaint at all and that they suffer in silence, came as a surprise and a shock to her when she first learned of it in a conversation with two police officers.

Many Members on both sides of the House have experience by virtue of their work in the health service, the criminal justice system or—I am thinking in particular of my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant)—as a solicitor in the family division. Unless one has had that first-hand experience, some of the appalling stories one hears beggar belief. It is difficult to accept the fact that appalling abuse can go on, year after year, unreported.

It has been generally accepted across the House that we still have a long way to go. Members of this House conducted an admirable investigation into the inadequacy of our stalking laws, notwithstanding the efforts made by the previous Administration. We know that more legislation is needed to protect from stalking which is, in my opinion, not only an offence of abuse but, in effect, an offence of violence because of the psychological damage it causes. Recent events in Nottingham, which my Broxtowe constituency touches on, show that we still have police officers who, when it comes to domestic violence, simply do not get it. A woman was murdered who had repeatedly complained to the police.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Anna Soubry Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I wish to support the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) and remind the House that there is a high level of decision-making error. In a recent Westminster Hall debate, we were told that the delay in tribunals is more than one year because of the number of people who—let us remember this—have been unlawfully denied benefit. They have been unlawfully denied their rights. When people go to a tribunal and are represented, they are 78% more likely to win. This is not just about the representation; it is about the preparation of written statements, for which they can receive legal help. They do not receive any legal help for representation, but legal help is provided for a written statement, which will help them go themselves to the tribunal. May I remind the Secretary of State that these written statements and the representation, in the main, are not provided by lawyers or generalist advisers, and they are certainly not provided by MPs? I find it really insulting to the dedicated and knowledgeable band of specialists with whom I have worked over the years for him to say, “Anyone can do this. We MPs will do it for them because we can do it better.” That is simply not the case.

I also wish to discuss the fact that many of the cases do not involve legal help. I can assure Government Members that, having been audited many times by the Legal Services Commission, I know that it does not pay its money out willy-nilly—even the £164 that is obtained for a legal aid case. If it felt that something did not fall within the scope of legal help, someone would not get the money for that case—indeed, it would possibly deduct from even more cases. It is really important to get the facts and the right sort of evidence for a tribunal, which is where specialists are important. Unfortunately, although I welcome the second tier being brought back into scope, it cannot look again at any evidence; it can look only at the point of law. So the fact that someone has not presented the right evidence and that the right facts have not been looked at cannot be considered any further.

Early advice saves money. Early advice is so important in all aspects of law in order to keep people out of the courts system, as the Secretary of State said. This measure is like telling somebody who has a chest infection, “When you get to the stage of intensive care, we will deal with you,” when a cheap course of antibiotics could help them in the first place.

The cost of reviews and appeals is 66% of the legal aid budget, or £16.5 million. That amount of money would bring these cases back into scope and it would save the country money that would otherwise go on complicated cases and on people falling on to the state in the long run. Every such case on welfare benefits saves the state £8.80 in other costs; it saves time and it saves money. To take these cases out of scope and simply leave a second-tier tribunal in scope is a false economy. It will not help the people who come to our surgeries and it will not help the people who are looking for advice from a citizens advice bureau, because, as has been said many times, the required number of specialists may not be in place. The cases left in scope will not be viable for many of the advice agencies.

I believe that keeping amendment 168 and providing help in lower-tier tribunals will in the end save money and, more importantly, will save misery for a lot of people who have been unlawfully denied benefits by the state.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

I agree with much of what has been said about the Government’s change of heart on the definition of domestic violence. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) and for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), and I congratulate the Secretary of State on changing the definition to include the ACPO definition, as was urged upon him by Opposition Members, one of whom is present now and who put her argument in Committee.

I also congratulate the Government on changing the evidence gateway for those who have been affected by domestic violence. We must remember that there was never a proposal to change the legal aid provisions for people who were in need of protection. The proposed changes were about other matters that might flow from such initial proceedings, and the disagreement was not about the principle of getting legal aid, but about the sort of evidence required in order to get it.

I do not often disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon, but I think we might disagree about social welfare legal aid. I agree with the Secretary of State: I do not see why a lawyer should always be required to sort out disputes about welfare benefit. I do not disagree with the argument that people might need somebody to represent them, however. As a former criminal barrister who defended far more than I prosecuted, I am familiar with the sort of people who will often end up needing somebody to represent them because, for whatever reason, they do not have the ability to advance their case themselves. There is no argument about that. I do not believe that a lawyer has to do that, however.

I pray in aid the situation in my constituency of Broxtowe. We have a citizens advice bureau but no law centre. My CAB has never received legal aid for any of the work it does. It is an outstanding organisation. It has faced substantial cuts in funding from Nottinghamshire county council, but it has gone out and got extra funds, and it is doing a remarkable job. In my constituency work, there has not been any benefit case that my team has not been able to sort out. I have yet to have such a case where I have said, “I think you need to go and see a specialist lawyer.” Many people do need good representation, however, and my CAB provides it.

I urge the Government to beware of the litigant in person. It is often said that only a fool has himself for a lawyer. Friends and former colleagues at the Bar have told me that there has been a rise in the number of people representing themselves in the civil courts, certainly in Nottingham and on the eastern circuit. The Government must look very carefully at that development. They must not take the simple view that when people represent themselves we will save money. Invariably, such people are a nightmare. [Interruption.] I do not say that in any way disrespectfully to most such people—although some litigants in person genuinely are a nightmare. Most of them need advice and support but feel that they cannot afford legal representation, and the consequence often is that the whole system grinds to a halt. Judges find that they have to intervene far more often and cases take longer, and costs therefore rise.

I welcome these proposals, and I will support the Government on them.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

Finally, there is the question of whether approving the exemption for mesothelioma sufferers would open the floodgates. Surely the fact that we cannot always do the right thing for every single group does not mean that we should never do the right thing for any group. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), these people face an agonising death, and they are never the cause of their circumstances but always the victims. At a time when the Government are proposing massive savings in justice bills, for us to make this small concession to one group of people who are suffering terribly would show the human side of the House. I urge all Members to support the amendment, which was backed by members of all parties and huge numbers of Cross-Benchers in the other place, and to show that the House of Commons has a heart.

[Anna Soubry]

As you have probably gathered, Madam Deputy Speaker, I did not plan to speak in this part of the debate. However, after I had listened to a couple of speeches—notably that of my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), and what I could hear of that of the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins)—I was struck by the fact that the issues do not sit comfortably together.

There is genuine concern about the possibility that people suffering from what is indeed a horrible condition will lose out in some way, but I have to say, quite bluntly, that I do not understand why on earth the Government are involved in this aspect of disputes between people and their employers. One of the real problems is employers who do not have the guts, decency and honesty to admit liability, stop messing about, sort out compensation, pay it as swiftly as possible, and let people die in dignity and security.

Many hon. Members are aware that I am a lawyer, and as such I say that we must be honest about the other problem. I will always defend my profession and the other profession involved, that of solicitors. The real problem is not just that employers are not doing the honourable thing; we have to make sure that we, as lawyers, also do the honourable thing. It cannot be right that we do not behave honourably when we are representing somebody. We must make sure that the fees we charge are the right ones.

I say bluntly that I have looked at solicitors’ websites, including only today, and been horrified by how they advertise themselves. They say, “This is the money we can get you.” I do not believe—I know that some Opposition Members are solicitors—that that is the way solicitors should work. I will always defend good, honourable lawyers, but what I have described cannot be the right approach when bringing an action on behalf of somebody in real need of our assistance—that is what lawyers often do. This idea that we are all heartless and just in it for money is simply not true. In my experience, most lawyers, certainly those at the criminal Bar, are, most of the time, social workers with wigs on, and we do a lot of hard work pro bono. However, I am sorry to say that there is a section of lawyers who see this as a way of making money out of other people’s pain and distress. So we want employers to do the decent thing and we want the Law Society to be far more honourable and to regulate its own members far harder. Perhaps if we could achieve that, we would not face this farce.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Given what the hon. Lady has said, does she think it is appropriate to leave it up to the victims of mesothelioma to be the people who police what lawyers are charging? What the Minister said earlier, in a shockingly insensitive remark, was that the victims can watch the lawyer’s clock; it will now be the job of people whose lives are running out to watch the lawyer’s clock.

[Anna Soubry]

That is a strong point, but I have sympathy with the Minister’s argument, because everyone who is engaged in litigation has a duty—some of us have been engaged in litigation in difficult emotional times, with divorce being a very good example—to ensure that things are being done on their behalf in the right way. Some hon. Members are muttering from a sedentary position. Of course when somebody is sick it does seem heartless and cruel to say that they should be watching the clock, but we hope that they would be taking an interest in the conduct of their case. I respectfully suggest that that would include the costs. Often these people have families, who would also want to ensure not only that the costs are being properly calculated, but that the case is being properly conducted. That is what I would say on that point. I just hope that somewhere along the line there will be some way of sorting this out, given all the various submissions that have been made.

[Ian Lucas]

I shall be brief, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have read an excellent letter from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) to the Lord Chancellor, which set out an unanswerable case against this proposal. It is wrong, in principle, that the Government are proposing this evening to reduce the damages of a successful mesothelioma claimant. I am a solicitor, and I did not go into the law to take damages away from a dying person, pending the outcome of a claim.

I have been very much strengthened in my conviction by the words of my constituent Marie Hughes, whose husband, Phil, a massively respected head teacher in Wrexham, died from mesothelioma, having worked for four years at the Brymbo steelworks in his youth. She has written to me explaining, in her own words, why she thinks this proposal is wrong, and I am going to read this out to the Minister, whom I respect. I hope that he will listen. She says:

“Had we had to undergo the further anxiety of financial implications we would not have attempted to claim. The thought of ‘shopping around’ for deals on success fees like other claimants as the Government suggests would be an unimaginable burden. Any monies available were needed to sustain our day to day costs, my inability to go to work while my husband was ill, and the need for travelling/sustenance funding when receiving treatment away from home, also supporting our family in further education. If there was a chance of treatment, we could not gamble with our savings as the stakes were too high. By the final 3 months of Phil’s life, tumours had also developed on his spine resulting in paralysis from the chest down—and all this while he was fighting to breathe.

My husband was not there to proudly escort his daughter down the aisle, though he had spoken of this dream several times during our precious time together. He never saw grandchildren. He bravely bore his condition and battled to the end but Mesothelioma takes no prisoners.”

I appeal to Government Members to reconsider their position. They should listen to the Lords and accept the amendment. To take damages away from these victims would be an appalling act of which the Government should be ashamed.

Transparency and Consistency of Sentencing

Anna Soubry Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Slaughter]

No, the Labour party does not disagree. As I said a moment ago, the Labour party set up the Sentencing Council and believes that thus far—we do not always necessarily agree with everything it does—it has done a good job. I do not see the point of the hon. Gentleman’s comment.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that, under the previous Administration, the Sentencing Guidelines Council said that a first-time dwelling-house burglar who was addicted to a drug, and who was susceptible to treatment for that addiction, should not go into custody?

[Mr Slaughter]

I do not know whether the hon. Lady is still practising—she was practising recently—but she has a slight advantage over me in relation to those issues. However, the point is that we cannot pick and choose. Where I do agree with her, and where I disagree with the Lord Chancellor, is that the public have a role. The idea that they, or indeed the media, do not have a role in expressing their view of sentencing policy is quite wrong; if they did not, we would have no change, be it a liberalisation or an intensification of sentencing policy over the years. It is arrogant to say that they should not have a role. Indeed, in giving evidence to the Select Committee, Lord Justice Leveson said as much. He sees one of his important roles as chair of the council as going in the media to explain things. Yes, he is in despair, as the Lord Chancellor is, when his comments or recommendations are taken out of context and bowdlerised, but he sees that it is important to have the confidence, support and advice of the public, and indeed the media, in these matters.

I was talking about drug mules. The Lord Chancellor has referred to this issue, but it is a good example of where a comment by the Sentencing Council has been taken out of context. The council noted that drug mules are often vulnerable people and victims of exploitation and violent coercion by organised gangs. Disproportionately, they are women, poor and poorly educated, and they are minor beneficiaries of the illegal trade, if they benefit at all. However, the guidelines retain the deterrent effect of a substantial prison sentence, while rejecting the current entry point of 10 years’ custody. They reduce that substantially, but the sentence is still six years.

There are changes in sentencing for the possession or supply of illegal drugs. However, if people make money from selling drugs, they will go to prison; if they deal heroin or cocaine, they will go to prison for a long time; if they deal drugs to children, they will go to prison for a longer period still; and those who take an industrial approach to drug manufacturing and supply can, under the guidelines, expect substantially longer jail sentences than is currently the case. That guidance and clarity is invaluable. By setting standards, it increases the likelihood of the deterrent effect working. It will increase public confidence and increase the confidence of victims in the justice system.

In government, Labour aimed to replace a patch-and-mend system of criminal justice with something more coherent and long term, whether it was a matter of prevention, detection, reassurance, due process—including sentencing—or punishment and rehabilitation. Now, we are going back to patch and mend. To get to the point of sentence, we need a well-resourced police force that can detect and solve crime, but we face 20% cuts to policing numbers. We need effective prosecutors, but we face 25% cuts to the Crown Prosecution Service.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

I share many of my hon. Friend’s concerns and I am certainly concerned that many people are anxious to get back into custody. There are an awful lot of reasons for that, one of which he has given. Some might argue that another reason why people are so keen to get back into prison is that their quality of life in prison is far better than their quality of life outside prison. When 4,070 prisoners enjoy the luxury of Sky TV in their cells—not even in a communal area—we know that something is fundamentally wrong with our criminal justice system.

[Anna Soubry]

Could it not be that the quality of their life outside prison is so utterly miserable that even life behind bars is preferable to the dreadful life that they live in the community?

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have this wretched organisation, HM inspectorate of prisons, the members of which come down from their nine-bedroom mansions in Oxfordshire, go around the prisons and say, “Oh, it’s jolly awful in here, isn’t it? Absolutely terrible.” If those same people came from the same crime-ridden estates that people in prison tend to come from, they would probably say, “It’s jolly nice in here.” There is rather a big disconnect between the backgrounds of the people in prison and of these do-gooders, the prison inspectors.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson). I agreed with many of the points that he so ably made based on his experience. It is easy to joke about the profusion of lawyers taking part in debates such as this, but in reality many of us stopped practising only within the past two years, before we came to this place. We therefore bring with us an abundance of experience and knowledge, especially those of us who were at the criminal Bar and both prosecuted and defended, which gave us an insight into cases from both perspectives. That is a great feature of the criminal Bar and, I hope Members will concur, adds to our ability to bring real experience and hopefully insight to this important debate.

I shall put my cards on the table. I practised at the criminal Bar for some 16 years until my election, and I am very proud of that. I should perhaps not put this too strongly, but it was one of the most rewarding and enjoyable jobs I have ever done, for all manner of reasons. As a member of the criminal Bar I defended far more than I prosecuted.

I should like to put it on record that I find it most peculiar that the Labour party, certainly in my constituency, seems to think it should criticise me for standing up in the House and talking about the law, particularly the criminal law. Often, I speak in defence of not only my own profession but solicitors, who are suffering in a way they have never suffered before due to the reduction in legal aid. I find it perverse that the Labour party attacks people such as me in those circumstances. It professes to be the party of the poor, the repressed, the deprived and some of the most needy in our society, but it is those very people whom so many at the criminal Bar and solicitors have represented for a long time, often with very little reward.

When I joined the criminal Bar, somebody said to me, “You are going to be a social worker wearing a wig.” Those of us who have been at the Bar or worked as solicitors and who have defended criminals will know from experience how often we go beyond the fee—and it is not a very great fee. We know how often we have given a fiver or £10 to clients who have no money in their pockets so that they can get home when they find themselves in the fortunate position—my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) will despair at this point—of not going into custody when they thought they might receive a prison sentence.

I once gave a client £10 so that he could catch the train back to Worksop. This perhaps shows my naivety. I took him to Nottingham railway station and assumed he would spend the money I had given him on his ticket. In fact, he went off and bought a large amount of heroin and was arrested by the police. Hon. Members can imagine my reaction when I found out what he had done with the money.

I digress from the subject of the debate, but I want to make the point that the criminal justice system could not operate without the Bar and solicitors who often go that extra mile, often at their own expense, to ensure that it works properly. I fully understand and appreciate that the legacy we have inherited means we have no option than to reduce the amount that goes into the legal aid pot, which means that members of the criminal Bar are seeing a reduction in their fees—that is in the context of having had no genuine increase since 1997. I know the Government can do nothing about that at the moment, but when the time comes we must ensure that those who do legal aid work are properly remunerated. It could be said that I have diverged from the subject of the debate, but I wanted to make that point.

Consistency in sentencing can be truly achieved only when the following occurs. It starts at the beginning. To achieve consistency in sentencing, we must ensure from the outset that there is a proper and full investigation of the allegation. That means that witness statements must be properly taken and that all relevant evidence must be properly gathered. A constituent who has come to me has quite properly complained following an assault allegation—she was the victim. She suffered cuts that required stitching to her face and a broken jaw, but the police did not collect her medical records despite the fact that she had signed the right form. She has now been told that the police are going to make the charge “common assault”. On the basis that what she told me is true, it is clear that the charge should be either for wounding or for a section 20 offence, or perhaps for an even greater offence. It was not a common assault, and it is clear that the police did not do a proper job in their investigation and in ensuring that all relevant evidence was available, which is important not just for the progression of the case, but so that the sentencing judge can pass the right sentence. In order to do that, we need to ensure that there is a full and proper investigation from the outset and that the right charge is reached. We also need to ensure that witness statements are properly taken, which includes, if appropriate, a victim impact statement.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford said that the previous Administration were overly prescriptive and mandatory—a long-standing complaint of many of us about their conduct of the criminal justice system. I do not want police officers to go out with a checklist of all the things they must do when they take a witness statement. I want them to be properly trained to be able to rely on their own plain common sense. I do not want them to be overly prescriptive and certainly not stereotypical.

In his statement the other day, the Secretary of State talked about the changes we intend to make to the compensation scheme. This might be difficult to understand, but he quite properly mentioned the fact that not all victims of crime look at the crime in the same way. I have been burgled more times than I care to remember; in some instances, that did not have a particularly upsetting effect on me, and I would be the first to say that, but on one occasion it upset me greatly because my grandmother’s engagement ring was stolen. I do not know the value of the ring, and it does not really matter; what mattered to me was my sentimental attachment to that piece of jewellery. On another occasion when my home was broken into, I found it distressing that somebody had been through items of a very personal nature in my study. On another occasion, nothing much was particularly disturbed, so the trauma, or the effect, was not as great. However, we cannot say everybody will be the same, because, as we all know, crimes come in all different shapes and sizes, and they affect each and every one of us differently.

[Sir Alan Beith]

Did the hon. Lady welcome, as we on the Select Committee did, the fact that the Sentencing Council was prepared to treat burglary as an offence against the person, as well as against property?

[Anna Soubry]

Absolutely. If I may say so, there was so much I agreed with in the right hon. Gentleman’s speech. From my short time on the Select Committee, I know he brings a huge weight of experience and plain, good common sense to his chairing of the Committee. I absolutely agree with what he says.

To be frank, I would never stand up and say we definitely want to keep the Sentencing Council. I know some of us disagree about this, but I always thought the Court of Appeal was a good place to determine the issues we are discussing, and I could see no good reason why that should not continue. However, we are where we are.

What we do know—this has already been mentioned—is that the sentencing judge will look at the aggravating and mitigating features in relation to every offence. It is therefore important that when the police go out and take witness statements, they make sure everything that should be in them is in them so the judge can pass the right sentence. If items of great sentimental value are stolen in dwelling-house burglaries, for example, that is an aggravating feature.

The same is true of trashing or ransacking the property, and of inducing fear in a particularly vulnerable person. One of the burglaries I suffered was at night-time, and my children were of an age where they were very frightened. They thought—this is common among children who have the misfortune to have their homes burgled at night—that the person would come back, and they were in fear of that. Such things must be in the witness statements so the judge can pass the right sentence. That will give us the consistency we want.

One of the things that is extremely annoying for somebody who has been the victim of a car crime is the fact that they lose their no claims bonus. There is also the huge inconvenience caused by the fact that their car has a broken window and that they will not be able to use it because it has to go off to the garage. Again, those are important aggravating features.

In offences of violence, there can be an assessment of the physical scarring that might remain, and of the pain and suffering the victim might have been caused, but their mental anguish must also be set out in detail so that the proper sentence can be passed.

I would go further and say that when police officers go out to get statements from witnesses, they should include in them the effect of a particular crime on the witness. The classic example is somebody who witnesses a fight in the street, which might be a particularly violent and unpleasant incident. That will have an effect on the witness, and if it does, it should be in the witness statement.

At the heart of good, consistent and transparent sentencing is an overriding and underlying belief in the fact that we should trust our judges. I say that with absolute certainty in one respect: if I had not come to this place, I would undoubtedly never have been made a judge. I am not, therefore, making these comments to curry favour with any judge. Hon. Members may not find this surprising, but the reason I would not have become a judge is that I fell out with so many judges.

[The Solicitor-General]

My hon. Friend never fell out with me.

[Anna Soubry]

The Solicitor-General makes an unfortunate intervention, because I did indeed have the great pleasure of appearing in front of him—I was going to reference him slightly later—and we certainly did not fall out. No doubt, though, some of his brother and sister judges would say that that was because I appeared in front of him only twice, and that had I done so several times, perhaps the outcome would have been different.

One of the problems that occurred under the previous Administration was that they began not to trust judges enough, which was a terrible mistake. My attitude is this: I would give the judges the powers that they need and then leave them to exercise their discretion. At the end of the day, most judges come to the bench after many years in practice—usually in the discipline in which they sit in judgment. I said that I was going to mention the Solicitor-General, and I know that he has sat as a recorder in the criminal division, even though that was not his area of practice. I am not trying to curry favour with him, but the fact is that many recorders do not come from the criminal Bar and did not work as criminal solicitors but nevertheless have the great ability and skills required to act in just as brilliant a way as any other judge who was at the Bar for 15 or 20 years. [Interruption.] I am glad to see him nodding in approval.

The point is that with few exceptions our judges are outstanding, having practised at the highest level and coming to the position after years of experience on the basis that they have the ability to exercise good and wise judgment. That is why, with few exceptions, I trust them, and those of us who have practised know that if a judge makes a mistake, the case can be referred to the Court of Appeal.

Our judges have training, and I give full credit to the previous Government for something that I noticed at the criminal Bar: a huge shift in judges’ attitude towards what we call domestic violence—an unfortunate term, because it is normally violence against women by somebody with whom they are either in a relationship or have been in a relationship. Undoubtedly, when I returned to the Bar about 18 or 19 years ago, some senior members of the Bar and judges just saw domestic violence as a bit of a domestic scuffle and not something to be dealt with or viewed as seriously as it is now. I give full credit to the work undertaken by the previous Government in that respect. I certainly saw a sea change among the judiciary, which was no longer going to tolerate any man even slapping his partner or previous partner. I saw that on a regular basis in the Crown courts in which I had the great pleasure to appear, and I give the previous Government full credit for that. That should give us confidence that our judges are properly trained and are more than able to pass the right sentences, as long as we trust them and enable them to use their discretion.

That, of course, was one of the great failings of IPPs. These sentences, introduced in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to deal with defendants deemed to be dangerous, sounded like, and were, a very good idea. What could be more sensible than providing that a paedophile who had sexually assaulted a child and who had done the same thing previously would not only be sentenced for the outrage that they had committed against a child but that there would be a report on him—invariably it was a “him” as opposed to a “her”—specifically looking at whether he would pose a danger even after completing the determinate part of his sentence? If the report revealed that he had delusions and fantasies of a particularly vile and alarming nature, it was thought only right and proper that he be in custody, in prison, not just for the offence that he had committed but for the protection of the public—in this case, children—at large, because he posed a clear and obvious danger to those children.

In theory, therefore, the idea was wonderful. Many of us approved and agreed with the theory; however, I do not think that the legislation was ever properly looked at—I fear I am criticising both sides of the House for that. Indeed, we talked about the idea in robing rooms at the criminal Bar, and as we thought about it more, and then as it was rolled out, we could see its profound shortcomings. Because it was overly prescriptive, judges effectively had no discretion, so people were sent to prison—quite properly, because they had committed a serious offence—but then found themselves in custody with no time limit on their sentences and no idea when they might be released, on the basis that they were supposedly dangerous. However, that was often because the judge had no alternative but to making that finding, when the offender was clearly not dangerous in the terms that they have should been, as the sort of offender that I have described. Not only did those in custody not know when they were going to be released, but there were no courses and no proper treatment available for them. None of the things that should have been done to drill down into their offending were done, so people were literally—and still are—languishing in prison. With great respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, I find it perverse that Opposition Front Benchers should agree with that aspect. For a party that has always prided itself on the liberty of the individual and the rights of the prisoner, it is absolutely wrong to support a system that has people languishing in prison, year after year, without the treatment that they need.

[Mr Slaughter]

I am pleased to agree with the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) when, on occasion, he is right, but I do not exactly follow the hon. Lady’s argument. Is she saying that she objects to IPPs in principle or only to how they are working? If it is the former, we have a disagreement; if it is that IPPs have not worked perfectly, I would say that we made omissions in that respect. I advise her to have a look at the Government’s response to the Joint Committee on Human Rights report on the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill yesterday—which dealt with the point in detail—where the Government assert that they have resolved most of the problems with the administration of IPPs. If that is the case—and if she supports her own Government—why is she not now supporting them?

[Anna Soubry]

I am grateful for the information, and I will go away and look at it, but IPPs have just not worked. The legislation was flawed. Indeed, it was so flawed that after its introduction in 2003 there was a huge growth in the prison population. What did the then Government do? Did they take an honest approach and revisit their legislation, or did they take a different, simplistic approach and say, “Goodness me! There are too many people in prison. How can we bring the numbers down?”? They effectively amended the 2003 Act with fresh legislation in 2008, which made the situation even more perverse and wrong. What the then Government introduced in 2008 was a system whereby a finding of dangerousness could not be reached for someone who would not have got four years for their offence. Let me set out what that meant. I know of a case, which I worked on myself, where the trigger offence that had brought the offender—a man who was clearly a paedophile—before the sentencing judge did not warrant more than nine months to one year. I will not bore hon. Members with the details, but the judge was able to the look at the various reports on that man, which clearly showed that he was a danger to children, and he rightly decided on an IPP. However, after the Government changed the law in 2008, somebody like that man would now serve four and a half to six months, when that is exactly the sort of person who should be behind bars for a very long time.

[Philip Davies]

I have some sympathy with the idea that people should not be languishing in prison, not doing anything for years and years and not knowing when they might be released. However, surely my hon. Friend would agree that it is far better to say to somebody, “You will be released only after you have done something to address your offending behaviour,” to give them an incentive to do so, as an IPP does, than just saying, “You’ll be released after a certain period halfway through your sentence, irrespective of whether you’ve done anything to address your offending behaviour or not.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Soubry]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and agree with him in this sense. It is not right for people for stay in prison without courses or the assistance that they need to address their offending, so that they can be released when they are no longer a danger. That is absolutely right. The problem is that those courses were certainly not provided by the previous Administration. As for release halfway through a sentence, I am very much with my hon. Friend on that for a number of reasons that other hon. Members have already discussed. I would like us to reach a situation whereby the judge can make it absolutely clear when sentencing how long somebody will spend in prison, which might involve changing the wording. If a judge says, “I am passing a sentence of two years; you will serve only one,” it immediately undermines confidence, particularly that of the victim, in the criminal justice system.

I accept the difficulties that we have with the budget, but I would like us to be in a position in which a person is given a sentence and serves that sentence. Perhaps the parole board might see fit to release them early if they make remarkable progress while serving their sentence, as happens with community sentences. In those cases, if someone is making good progress, the probation officer can go back to the court and ask for the sentence to be shortened. The person can then be released from the sentence, because the job has been done. I would like to see that happening. The present situation is a hangover from the previous Administration. Judges have been told, “You’ve got to say this. You must say that. This is the formula.” It is all too prescriptive. I want to see greater consistency and greater transparency; we need to trust our judges.

I hope that I have made it clear that I support the Government’s reforms, including the abolition of the IPP, and the new system that we want to introduce. I also want to make this point on transparency. I will be absolutely frank: I have always been deeply cynical about the introduction of television cameras into courts. However, I have been persuaded otherwise by the Stephen Lawrence trial, as it is called. The judge had allowed members of the press to tweet from the press gallery in the court, and that allowed people to be informed in a very positive way. I have also been surprised by the number of my constituents who have gone to the trouble to read not only the sentencing remarks in full but a further interlocutory matter that the judge had dealt with in relation to the evidence. Reading that material from beginning to end had a profound effect on the way in which they have perceived the case and on their understanding of the sentences.

On the basis that any televising would cover sentencing only, and that it would involve all the remarks, not just the edited highlights—with great respect to the popular press, that practice has, as the Lord Chancellor has said, led to much disenchantment with the system—I have come to the conclusion that it would be right to have cameras in court. It would be good for transparency, and I agree with the Lord Chancellor when he says that it would restore trust in the system.

The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), who is no longer in his place, talked about early intervention. Under this Government, we are bringing together different strands from various Departments, including the Department of Health, the Department for Education and the Ministry of Justice, to look at this matter. We finally have a Government who are being tough on crime and particularly tough on the causes of crime.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Buckland]

That is absolutely right. We are often told that guidelines are not tramlines, but my worry is that as we develop the system, that will increasingly become the case, which is a matter of legitimate concern to us all. My hon. Friend rightly reminded us earlier about the historic role of the jury. In fact, it is interesting to remind oneself that in addressing juries, counsel will be enjoined not to talk to them about the likely sentence that may be passed on the offender, because that is to trespass not only on the function of the judge, but on the function of the jury. My hon. Friend is quite right to introduce into the debate that element of realism, common sense and public experience that juries bring to the court system. That is why they are there, why the system works and why we as parliamentarians support it, and vigorously so.

Having criticised some of the Sentencing Council’s functions, let me commend its research work. One of the better things that it has done is to start the process of looking at the decisions that are made in our Crown courts up and down the land, and to commission research on the attitude of the general public to sentencing. There are two reports in particular that I think the House would be interested to hear about, one of which I referred to in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). The report commissioned by the Sentencing Council and published in May last year by Ipsos MORI conducted a survey of just under 1,000 members of the public and interviewed offenders and victims of crime. Perhaps inevitably—but for the first time based on empirical evidence—the report quite rightly pointed out a number of key things, including that the public perceive the system as being too lenient, but that some of their concerns are allayed once they have a greater knowledge of the workings of the sentencing system. The points that have been made about greater transparency and awareness, and about the televising of proceedings, are all founded on the research that has been carried out. It is plain and simple: if we give the public a greater understanding of the system, they will give the system greater support.

I was fascinated by the public’s view on the reduction of a sentence in return for a guilty plea. They feel that we, the lawyers, are getting it back to front. They would understand and appreciate the system better if, instead of reducing sentences and giving people credit for pleading guilty, the court were to give longer sentences to those who plead not guilty and string the process out, only to be convicted at the end of a trial. They do not like the notion that offenders are somehow being rewarded for having admitted their guilt. That was a fascinating insight that we, as legislators, should bear in mind. Indeed, the Sentencing Council should also take it into account when it reviews the system of credit being given for a guilty plea.

[Anna Soubry]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the public perhaps do not understand that the courts give credit for a guilty plea because it spares the cost, and the trauma to the witnesses and victims, of a trial? Furthermore, if someone has admitted to having committed a crime, they stand a much better chance of being rehabilitated and helped, so that they will not go on to commit more offences.

[Mr Buckland]

My hon. Friend is right. The report found that there was an appreciation of the economic and emotional benefits of early guilty pleas. However, the public preferred the argument that guilty pleas spare the victims trauma; they were somewhat resistant to the economic, pounds, shillings and pence argument. That is quite understandable, given that members of the public view sentencing and the other criminal justice procedures with the utmost seriousness. To them, public protection through the criminal justice system is second only to military matters such as the defence of the realm—my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) has arrived in the Chamber at just the right moment—and is a matter of the utmost seriousness.

Other work has been commissioned by the Sentencing Council, and it has caused a bit of angst among judges, because they have to fill in forms after every sentence—[Interruption.] I hear involuntary groans in the Chamber at that. For the first time, the courts in England and Wales are being asked to provide a wealth of evidence about what factors and influences are taken into account when those decisions are made. The first report was published in October 2011, and it covers the six-month period from October 2010 to the end of March 2011. The results bear close scrutiny.

The survey covered many hundreds of cases. When studying previous convictions, it found that 78% of offenders with 10 or more previous convictions taken into account by the court were sent to immediate custody. That is a significant and reassuring statistic. It also found that 59% of offenders with one to three previous convictions were also sent to immediate custody, and that 49% of offenders had no previous convictions taken into account when their sentence was determined. Those facts need to be stated. For the first time, there is an emerging body of evidence to show what influences judges and what is going on in our Crown courts.

On the subject of discount for guilty pleas, the survey found that 69% of those who pleaded guilty received a full discount; 12% received a discount of between 20% and 32%; 8% received a discount of between 11% and 20%; and 8% received a much lower discount. That shows, in my view, that judges are using their discretion within the guilty plea discount system and are not formulaically applying the guidelines as laid down by what I think was the Sentencing Advisory Council in a previous incarnation of the Sentencing Council. We have started to create a body of evidence, although we still have a long way to go in working out what decisions are made.

I finish where I started. This is a human system, and it will always be an imperfect system, but if we rob of the system of its humanity, we are doing a disservice to our fellow citizens.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

It is a real honour and a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), who gave a powerful speech.

I hesitated to rise to speak on a subject on which I know so little—a fact of which I am particularly conscious in the light of the extraordinarily powerful remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry); she talked about my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, who will wind up for the Government, and his appointment as a criminal recorder even though he had no knowledge of criminal law. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) thought that my hon. and learned Friend did so well that he subsequently gave me the same honour.

When my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor opened the debate for the Government, he referred to the critical importance of the independence of the judiciary, and precisely what it has delivered, in proper sentencing, proper trials in the criminal courts, and public confidence in the criminal justice system.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), who opened the debate for the Opposition. He, too, recognised the quality of this country’s judiciary and what it has meant for the United Kingdom and our citizens in the delivery of proper justice. However, such judicial independence inevitably means that from time to time we in this House, as we are entitled to do, have to consider the sentences handed down, because our constituents rightly raise concerns about them, just as they raise many other concerns about the criminal justice system and other matters.

When the House discusses sentencing, certain tensions manifest themselves as a result of the doctrine of the separation of powers that is rightly in place in this, as in all democratic countries. There are the public expectations—or perceptions, at least—of the sentences that courts hand down, fuelled from time to time, as a number of Members have said, by journalists picking up on sentences that appear not to reflect the severity of the crimes of which a jury has found a defendant guilty. Those public expectations need to be recognised and met, and it is the function of this House and the Government in part to do that in setting the guidelines and framework within which the sentencing operation must take place.

However, in tension with that is the role of the judges. My right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor rightly recognised that it is a judge in a criminal court who hears the entirety of the evidence against a defendant when presiding over a trial, and such a judge is therefore best placed to determine the appropriate sentence to pass on someone convicted of a crime by a jury of his peers. My right hon. and learned Friend did say, however, that in all such cases the judge will oversee the entire case, but that is not always so. In many instances, a conviction is obtained by the Crown and the case is adjourned for sentencing; indeed, that is the usual practice. As a result, the sentencing judge often has to be re-educated about the precise circumstances in which the offence took place, in order that an appropriate sentence can be imposed. I encourage my right hon. and learned Friend—as I would encourage any Minister—to consider whether it is appropriate in most cases, if not all, to reserve sentencing to the judge who actually heard all the evidence. That would engender better respect for, and greater public confidence in, sentencing.

[Anna Soubry]

It is very rare that the judge who conducted the trial in a given case does then not make sure that they pass sentence, for precisely the reasons that my hon. and learned Friend has identified. However, my hon. and learned Friend makes the powerful point that, if at all possible, it would be much better if they retained sentence, even where pleas have been taken by judges, which is usually because they have read the papers the night before. Actually, it just makes things a lot simpler and easier all round, which must be to the benefit of justice and is much more cost-efficient.

[Stephen Phillips]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about cost-effectiveness. If a different judge has to sentence, the papers have to be read and more work is done in court, thereby taking up court time, while the case is explained by the advocates for the Crown before the plea in mitigation is taken. Then, there is generally a further adjournment—certainly when I sentence, and no doubt when my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) sentences—when the judge retires to consider precisely what he is going to do. All of that could be avoided.

In my experience as a recorder—a role I continue to carry out for a few weeks a year—sentencing lists often include trials where there has been a conviction, and the case is not always reserved to the judge who heard the evidence. In my view, it certainly should be, and I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor and his Front-Bench colleagues will look at that issue.

The first tension for the House when it considers such matters, therefore, is that between public expectation or perception on the one hand and the necessity for judges who hear cases to deal with sentences and impose them appropriately on the other. There is another tension, however, between the discretion of the judiciary to impose the appropriate sentence and the expectations of the public that sentences will reflect the gravity of the crime. That, of course, is a tension that manifests itself most clearly in the discretion afforded to judges in passing the sentences they impose for which they are criticised, from time to time, both in this House and in the press.

Let me echo some of the comments of other Members about the wisdom of this House second-guessing the judiciary in sentencing exercises. If we are to stand behind the independence of the judiciary, as I know my right hon. and learned Friend and other Ministers do, and to insist that the judiciary are responsible for sentencing and not the court of public opinion—as we have seen from time to time—we must be robust and stand up and say here that which is right. That which is right is that there must always remain a certain element of discretion in the sentencing exercise, notwithstanding the frameworks that this House establishes, within which the exercise itself must take place, and the guidance laid down by the Sentencing Council.

The debate therefore takes place in the context of those tensions. Any Member who thought that the tensions were unreal and that the public did not have such perceptions or, indeed, criticise judges from time to time, will find when they return to their offices and read their e-mails an e-mail from our frequent correspondent—by which I mean that of all Members of the House—who goes by the name of UK Patriot. Many Members might delete his e-mails, but I read them. He has sent us all an e-mail today about the “Big Ben bomb gang” who are, he says, apparently out in six years. He says:

“The fact that this has happened is outrageous!”

He tells us that they appear to have been treated by the courts as though

“they were naughty boys owning up to scrumping apples.”

He goes on in the same vein.

There is a common public perception that the judiciary are not imposing proper sentences. It is therefore important, in the terms of the motion today, that we consider both consistency and transparency and that the Government push that agenda as they carry forward their work on sentencing and consider reform of the criminal justice system.

I openly acknowledge that the advent of the Sentencing Council, formerly the Sentencing Guidelines Council, has ensured greater consistency in sentencing. Like the hon. Member for Hammersmith, I am pleased that the Government have not decided that, because of the current financial crisis—we will not touch today on who is responsible for that, although the hon. Gentleman knows my views—this body should be abolished.

Victims and Witnesses Strategy

Anna Soubry Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

The right hon. Gentleman first touched on the arguments that we have been having on a wide range of other justice and sentencing issues, and on one or two subjects on which I was not aware that we had any differences on policy. The fact that he started on that basis rather led me to believe that he was not really very opposed to a great deal of what we have put forward in our consultation document.

I shall deal with the right hon. Gentleman’s specific questions. We are able to go ahead with terrorism compensation. I quite accept that it has taken some time since it was announced, and supported by us, during the time of the previous Government. We are putting it on exactly the same basis as the domestic CICS, and the time has been taken up getting the details of that scheme right. The domestic compensation scheme was left to us with an enormous financial deficit, and we are striving to make it sustainable and financeable, I hope without significant further change, in a way that it has never really been since it was first introduced back in the 1960s.

The right hon. Gentleman asked whether I could guarantee that there would be no further reductions in criminal injuries compensation. As I have just said, I very much hope there will not be. The scheme was set up in 1964 and ran into financial difficulties almost straight away. It was altered in 1996, and the last Government kept consulting on it but not doing very much. By one measure, when I took over from my predecessor there was an unfunded deficit of £750 million. We have had to find a lot of extra money from the Treasury to deal with unfunded pre-tariff liabilities, and we are trying to put the matter on a set footing for the future.

The victims surcharge will be raised in a fairer way, and I do not think there is any question of any cuts being made. At the moment the surcharge is levied only on those who pay fines. It is fair that it should be levied also on those who go to prison or serve community sentences, and that is how we are changing it. We hope to get a substantially bigger contribution from those who commit a crime, to compensate the people who have suffered from it.

As we move the detail of the current services to local responsibility and to the new police and crime commissioners, we will still provide specialist services for bereaved families nationally. We have put extra money into that, and into specialist groups, on Louise Casey’s recommendation, but we will not reduce the support for Victim Support. Support will be provided more locally and sensitively by the commissioners, who will have to build up partnerships with a lot of local agencies. We have of course done such things as putting extra money into rape support centres to open some new ones and give the current ones long-term funding security for the first time.

I concede that the last Government made considerable improvements on victims and witnesses during their term of office. Awareness of the inadequacies of how the criminal justice system dealt with victims and witnesses began to grow in the ’80s and ’90s, and it has been a fairly continuous process from the early 1990s onwards. However, we are making a significant step forward. As I said when I began my reply, I believe that the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends will find it quite difficult to find very much with which they disagree.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

I agree with and support today’s announcement of these reforms, but does the Lord Chancellor agree that nothing in them will stop the victims of crime receiving compensation directly from the offender when sentence is passed? Some would say that that is at the very heart of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which is currently going through the other place.

[Mr Clarke]

We are seeking to make it more of an obligation on the court to consider making a compensation order for the victim when they appear for a crime. We are also trying to address ways in which we can improve the collection of that compensation so it can be paid over. My hon. Friend touches on what ought to be a key feature of the justice system, and one that needs to be improved.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Anna Soubry Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I will address the extent to which we retain discretion, as determined under the bail Acts, according to which bail is granted or refused. In 2010, more than 16,000 people were in custody but were released when they appeared for trial and either pleaded guilty or were convicted. Continuing a system whereby people are refused bail when everyone knows that they will not be imprisoned if convicted is a very wasteful use of a very expensive place in our prison system.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

Someone who breaches bail commits a criminal offence and can therefore, and usually does, receive a custodial sentence, especially if they did not attend court when they should have.

[Mr Clarke]

I am grateful. My hon. Friend has been in practice much more recently than the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) or I have. We will doubtless continue to study this after the debate.

The sentencing reforms are balanced. Again, I shall quote the words of my shadow, the right hon. Member for Tooting, who when I first published them in the Green Paper described them as

“a perfectly sensible vision for a sentencing policy”,

and they will in my view achieve a very significant transformation.

That brings me to the rest of the Bill covering legal aid and provision on litigation and funding. No Government look to tackle legal aid lightly, but the system as it stands is obviously unaffordable. Labour had 30 goes at fixing it between 2006 and the end of their period in office and we have sought to go back and think about what the taxpayer should pay for by way of litigation from first principles. Our priority is cases where people’s life or liberty is at stake, where they are at risk of serious physical harm or immediate loss of their home or where their children may be taken into care. After our reforms, legal aid will routinely be available in 25 areas, including for criminal cases, for most judicial review proceedings, for private family law cases involving domestic violence, child abuse and child abduction, for community care, for debt where the home is at immediate risk, for mental health cases and for cases concerning special educational needs. We modified our original proposals in response to consultation, listening carefully to the thousands of responses that we received.

Legal aid will no longer be routinely available in 13 areas, including most private family law cases, clinical negligence cases, non-discrimination employment cases, immigration cases, some debt and housing issues, some education cases and welfare benefits cases.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

I take that, as they say in court, as an admission. At long last, the Secretary of State now accepts that the reoffending rate of those released under IPPs is low. Perhaps he will now reassess his ludicrous claim that that policy is not working.

[Anna Soubry]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Straw]

I am afraid that I have had my ration of interventions.

Let me move on to the proposals for civil litigation reform. I established the Jackson review and fully endorsed its conclusions in January 2010. I welcome the fact that this Government are implementing it, but they are doing so only in part.

I want to pick up on the points made by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) about referral fees and associated matters. As colleagues will know, on Monday I published the results of an investigation into what I can only describe as a racket in the motor insurance industry in which almost everyone in the chain, from recovery firms, claims companies, medical experts to insurers themselves, is paying between £200 and £1,000 in referral fees. Everybody in this chain is on the take, and the total is running into billions.

Since Monday, I have been overwhelmed by e-mails, which I am very happy to supply to the Lord Chancellor if he wishes, from members of the public and professionals with even more horrifying detail about the dodgy practices, frauds and near-frauds that are now endemic in this industry, including one from a lady who explained that she “had had an argument with her bicycle”. She was the only person present at the time, she went to hospital and ever since she has been pestered to make a claim.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

The Lord Chancellor’s statement last week bore the worst hallmarks of a Budget speech delivered by the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown): all the good stuff was announced but all the catastrophes were laid out in the small print.

In his statement last week the Justice Secretary proclaimed that the best way to reduce crime is to reduce reoffending—a point to which many can, I am sure, subscribe—but his stance on indeterminate sentences shows beyond all doubt that, despite what he says, reoffending is not his main priority for the Bill or the criminal justice system. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) kindly mentioned the question I put to the Secretary of State yesterday. The reoffending rates among those released from prison on indeterminate sentences are among the lowest in the criminal justice system. If the Lord Chancellor’s priority is reoffending, why on earth does he want to get rid of one of the parts of the criminal justice system with the lowest rate of reoffending?

[Anna Soubry]

Will my hon. Friend please understand this? When someone is subject to an IPP, they have no knowledge about when they will be released. Does he know that they can be released only when they are deemed no longer to be a risk to society? A relatively small number of people have been released and we can assume that they were released only because they were no longer deemed a risk to society. The reason for that is that they have been on the sort of courses that other people on IPPs have not had the benefit of. The lack of courses is the real problem.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. May I ask for shorter interventions, because many Members wish to speak and I want to try to get everyone in?

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

I would like to speak about the criminal justice system and our sentencing policy as reflected in the Bill. I declare my interest: I practised as a criminal barrister for some 16 years before being elected to the House.

If there was ever a man without a plan, it was the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan). He and the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and, indeed, many other Opposition Members really should hang their heads in shame. After 13 years of a Labour Government, we are faced with a legacy of complete failure in the criminal justice system. Yet again, rather like the deficit, it falls on this Government to clear up the mess left by Labour.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Lady not accept that crime fell by 43% under the previous Government? As a criminal barrister, she really ought to acknowledge that fact.

[Anna Soubry]

I am afraid that I do not accept that figure. I do not think that things are as simple as that. For example, as the Lord Chancellor explained, the theft statistics have fallen because of the protection that is now afforded to motor vehicles. Antisocial behaviour is not a recordable offence. I know from my own experiences in Nottinghamshire that the police are almost bending over backwards not to record criminal activities as recordable offences. So I cast real doubt on those statistics.

The hon. Gentleman talks about statistics, so let us listen to those on the legacy that we have inherited. Our prisons are full to bursting. Reoffending grew under Labour to 61.1% for offenders who serve short sentences. Half of adults leaving jail are reconvicted within a year, and 74% of young people sentenced to youth custody and 68% of young people on community sentences reoffend within a year. Those are the damning statistics. That is the legacy, and that is the reality.

We face other realities as we approach those difficulties. Prisons are awash with drugs. How many people are astounded to hear that there are things called drug-free wings? Hon. Members might suppose that all our jails should be free of drugs, but unfortunately they are not. Some people actually turn for the first time to class A drugs because they are in custody. I know from my experience of the people whom I represented that not only are drugs freely available in prisons, but they are often cheaper on the inside than out on the street. That is the legacy that we inherit.

Too many of our prisoners languish in 23-hour bang-up, because they cannot get on to courses and no work for them is available. The Bill specifically addresses such difficulties and issues, and I want to herald the proposals and want them to triumph. That will mean that people in prison will actually work. They will earn money that will go back to the people who are the victims of the crime. We are introducing good and right measures that will go a long way to ensure that prison works. At the moment, prison does not work. That is why we have those reoffending rates, why prisons are awash with drugs and why so many prisoners are on 23-hour bang-up.

We must not take a simplistic and broad-brush approach to sentencing. With great respect to many hon. Members, that is, unfortunately, what they do. The Bill achieves a difficult and delicate balance: it recognises the need to reform, but it does so within the financial restrictions and realities that this nation faces. Those who say simply, “Bang ’em all up and throw away the key,” fail then to say how much that would cost and how on earth we would pay for it.

The Bill recognises the failures of too many short-term sentences, as well as the fact that some people need to spend longer in prison. We are now considering the reform of indeterminate sentences for public protection. The last Government changed the distinction between short and long-term imprisonment, which fell at four years. Under their legislation, there was no such distinction. Those who got four years served three quarters of their sentence; those who got less than four years served half. Labour abolished that, so that all prisoners on determinate sentences were automatically released halfway through. We are now considering reforming imprisonment for public protection so that the most serious offenders return to serving three quarters of their sentence. We should welcome the measures, as I certainly do.

I am grateful that the Government have listened and consulted, especially among those of us who have only recently returned from the front line of the criminal justice system. I welcome the fact that we will not increase the amount of discount for a guilty plea to 50%. I spoke out against that without any difficulty. I urge the Government to go further and consider freeing our judges so that there is no mandatory figure. In some cases, a discount of more than 50% is needed and would be welcomed, while in other cases, there should be no discount however early a plea is entered. My message to the Government is to free our judges.

I know that many Government and Opposition Members have concerns about legal aid. I urge the Government to ensure that the poorest and most vulnerable in our society continue to have access to legal aid, especially women, who might be abandoned by feckless and adulterous husbands or partners who leave them penniless while themselves remaining in funds. Such women will not have access to legal aid to ensure that they are properly sorted out in the proceedings on divorce and ancillary relief for them and their children. We must protect them.

I am afraid that the clock is against me; I wanted to talk about IPPs. I welcome the Government’s proposals and I look forward to the consultation. I also put in a quick plug for the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), who is determined to increase sentences for dangerous driving, which is a thoroughly good idea. The Bill is a mixture of soft and hard. It is realistic, given the circumstances, and I commend it thoroughly to the House.

Dangerous Driving Offences (Sentences)

Anna Soubry Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Karl Turner]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I mitigated a case before a magistrate when I was representing a defendant, who was effectively a probationary driver, for a driving offence. I suggested to the bench that, instead of throwing the book at him, he should be banned for a short period, so that he did not have to start from scratch, taking his test and so on.

I am assisted to some extent by some recent publicity. The Sun ran a story last Saturday about the victim of a driving offence, who was tragically paralysed. I have had the opportunity to speak with her father, Dr Robert Carver. The offence was different—careless driving—but the victim’s injuries were dreadful. I am sure that the family feel outraged, but her father has asked me to make it clear that he makes no criticism of the district judge, Judge Stobart, who passed sentence in that case, saying that the judge was working within the constraints of the law.

I mention that case for two reasons. It is tragic for the victim—absolutely dreadful—but, for whatever reason, the offender was charged with careless driving, not dangerous driving. The sentence of 150 days in such circumstances was appropriate. However, an offence of dangerous driving, which is much worse in my view, must require a much harsher sentence.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and on his efforts to reform the law. He clearly has considerable support from all parties, and we wish him absolute success.

The two-year sentence means that judges cannot reflect the serious consequences that often flow from someone who has committed the offence of dangerous driving, notably if causing injury. For what it is worth, I remember prosecuting a similar case in Derbyshire. Someone had suffered permanent damage to the legs, but the judge’s hands were tied in the sentence he passed. We really need reform in this area, do we not?

[Karl Turner]

Absolutely. I agree entirely with the hon. Lady, and welcome her remarks, which are right.

Before the election, I was defending a case of dangerous driving before the Crown Court—I was a pupil barrister in my local chambers, the Wilberforce chambers, which I mention because I hope for extra support from my head of chambers. I was enthusiastic, preparing the mitigation the night before, because I was excited to be appearing before a Crown Court judge—I had spent some years before that working for a firm of solicitors. I remember standing up with all that enthusiasm, beginning the mitigation and then seeing the expression on the judge’s face. I had seen the CCTV, because it was played in court, but the judge was looking at me and saying, “Stop there, please, because the maximum sentence is two years. He pleaded, with good advice, in the magistrates court, so I must reduce the sentence to 16 months as a starting point. I then have to reduce it further because it is not the worst case of dangerous driving that I have judged.”

I decided to stand up and have another go but, with the clear expression on the judge’s face, I gave in pretty swiftly. The maximum sentence was indeed 16 months in such circumstances, and the offender received 11 months. When I went down to see him in the cell, I did the usual thing and told him how absolutely brilliant I was, but then I began thinking about the seriousness of the case. His driving had been truly horrendous. The offender had smashed into police cars to evade detection by the police. He was risking not only his own life but the lives of everyone on that road. This incident happened in broad daylight. He drove past a school at 70 miles per hour. The serious nature of that made me understand why the judge was looking at me as though I was the lunatic rather than the defendant.

Sentencing Reform/Legal Aid

Anna Soubry Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. In the interests of maximising the number of contributors, I appeal to hon. and right hon. Members for short questions and short answers.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

Does the Lord Chancellor agree that it was the last Labour Government who, having introduced IPPs, then changed the law for no other reason than to reduce the prison population? As for the thoroughly good idea that we now scrap IPPs, would we not thereby ensure that the public—the victims and, indeed, the offenders—were better protected and had greater justice?

[Mr Clarke]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I think that the reason the last Government introduced IPPs was that they were reducing the time of a sentence automatically served from three quarters to a half. They introduced what sounded like a tough measure, with these new indeterminate sentences. However, it immediately went wrong, and they introduced more legislation after two years to try to reduce the numbers. I regret to say that my first effort was to go in the same direction and reduce them even more. I hope that I have my hon. Friend’s support in saying that the best thing is to get rid of them and return to a sensible system of long, determinate sentencing.