JUSTICE
Anna Soubry Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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John Hemming
Because it would not have been reported.
Anyway, the accountability of judicial processes depends not only on there being a public judgment, but on people having the ability externally to challenge the evidence that the courts are using. The problem with secrecy is that this all breaks down. Indeed, the report in The Guardian today about the secret committal of the sister-in-law is an example of exactly that situation, where there is no possibility of checking externally the evidence for whether the assumptions are correct. There are great questions about the reliability of much of the expert evidence provided in the family courts. If we cannot rely on the expert evidence, we will have difficulty relying on the conclusions.
There are many, many problems, and I will obviously be submitting a detailed report to the Joint Committee on the difficulties with the various injunctions. We also have a difficult day today, so I will not use up all my time. The issue of secret jailing is one that we cannot drop. Obviously we cannot do much more about it over the recess, but we cannot allow a process to continue whereby attempts are made to commit more and more people in secret proceedings. This all arises from the objective of protecting relatively trivial secrets, but it is not even close to open justice. The balancing act has completely failed when we are trying to balance somebody’s liberty on one side against something relatively trivial on the other.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I am exceptionally grateful to you for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I have perhaps rather better news—it is at least different news—than we heard in the previous speech. I would like to talk briefly about the outstanding work of magistrates and the invaluable role that they play in the criminal justice system.
Magistrates were created some 650 years ago—we are talking about a very long-standing office—and they are to be congratulated, as I am sure we would all agree. There are now 29,000 magistrates in England and Wales. Their minimum requirement is to sit for 26 half-days a year. Some 98% of all legal proceedings are conducted in magistrates courts, which perhaps puts into perspective the outstanding contribution that they regularly make to the justice system. Magistrates bring to bear their considerable experience, knowledge and wisdom to both criminal and family matters. It is perhaps a testament to their ability to dispense justice fairly and properly that they are so rarely challenged in any higher place. In the last 650 years, magistrates have faced many changes and challenges. Their outstanding chairman, Mr John Thornhill, whom I spoke to today, has told me that, notwithstanding all the changes, magistrates always bounce back.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
On the subject of magistrates bouncing back, is my hon. Friend aware that magistrates’ allowances and subsistence fees are under review for a possible reduction to bring them in line with the rest of the civil service? However, there is a crucial difference: our magistrates are volunteers, not salaried staff.
Anna Soubry
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks. I am sure that everyone in this place would join me in congratulating him and his wife, who is sitting up in the Gallery, on celebrating their 25th—their silver—wedding anniversary.
Moving swiftly on to the important point that my hon. Friend makes, our magistrates are indeed volunteers. They receive a small subsistence allowance. I am sure that, like my hon. Friend, many hon. Members will have received letters and e-mails from magistrates in their constituencies who are concerned about plans to reduce their daily allowance and cut their mileage allowance.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
It is important to emphasise that the lay magistracy already makes our judiciary in England and Wales one of the cheapest in any comparable Council of Europe country. We would be cutting back a system that is already very efficient.
Anna Soubry
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Lay magistrates normally sit in threes, as opposed to the stipendiary district judges who sit alone. Despite that fact, lay magistrates are considerably cheaper than stipendiary judges. I am not suggesting that they do a lesser job, however. Both are integral to our criminal justice system.
Another great challenge that our magistrates face is the cutting of 93 magistrates courts. That has been debated at length in this place and in Westminster Hall, and it is a matter of great concern. I do not have much difficulty with the reduction in the number of magistrates courts, but I accept that many people are concerned about the ability to deliver local justice and about the extra strain that this will put on our lay magistrates, who are volunteers, through the extra mileage and work that they will have to do.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
My hon. Friend is entirely right in what she says about magistrates. She has mentioned court closures, and we are losing our magistrates court in Goole. When that happens, it will be quicker for some of my constituents to get to King’s Cross than to the replacement magistrates services in Beverley.
Anna Soubry
I take my hon. Friend’s point, and I am grateful for it. I would counter it, however, by saying that those of us who are familiar with the Crown courts will know that defendants and witnesses who appear in them make the effort and appear there without too much difficulty. I struggle to see how there will be much difference when a defendant or witness has to travel to a magistrates court that is further away following the closure of a more local one.
There are many myths surrounding our lay magistrates. The days of the stereotype of the middle-aged lady—not that there is anything wrong with middle-aged ladies—are long gone. The days are gone when women of a certain age and from a certain social class dispensed justice, usually wearing a hat—not that there is anything wrong with hats, I must also swiftly add. We now see magistrates drawn from all walks of life, and rightly so. Their experience and knowledge is also often brought to bear in the Crown court, when they sit with a Crown court judge to decide appeals. They perform an invaluable role there.
I have only one complaint, and I am grateful to my constituent, Mr Roy Plumb, in this regard. He lives in Kimberley, and he served as a magistrate for many years. He performed the role admirably. However, at the age of 70, he was forced to retire. The irony of the situation is that he was born on the very same day in the very same ward of the very same hospital as our esteemed Lord Chancellor. It is somewhat ironic that, while our Lord Chancellor was being appointed to his role, in which I hope he serves for many years, Mr Plumb was being forced to retire, as are other magistrates who reach their 70th birthday.
I am against ageism—of course, I would say that as I get older. It is wrong to assume that, just because someone is of a certain age, they will perform in a certain way. Just because someone who is under 30 is appointed to serve as a lay magistrate, which Governments of all persuasions have sought to encourage, it does not mean that they will necessarily bring to the bench more youthful ideas or be able to identify more closely with young people. I subscribe to the notion that it does not matter what it says on someone’s birth certificate; the test is whether they are young at heart and fit in mind, and whether they have all the faculties to exercise sound judgment.
I know that the previous Government were questioned by people of all political persuasions—this is not an issue of party politics—on whether magistrates should have to retire at 70. Crown court judges can often sit until they are 73 and I believe High Court judges do not have to retire until they are 75, or at least they can sit in court until that age. I would suggest that this seems a little unfair to magistrates, especially, as I say, with our great Lord Chancellor being able to continue to serve for many years to come.
I am sure that all would agree with me in celebrating and thanking our lay magistrates. I urge the Government to view ageism as a thing of the past, so that our magistrates should not have to retire at 70. Mr Plumb might be able to return to the bench. We should certainly give great credit to his campaign and wish it well for the future.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I shall speak about the compensation scheme for the victims of overseas terrorism. Before I do so, I would like to pay tribute to a number of Members from different parties who have worked hard on this issue—not least the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Gregg McClymont), who would have spoken in this debate were it not for the fact that he thought he would have to be in the Finance Bill Committee. I thank him and his staff for the support they have given. I would also like to thank my Lincolnshire colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), who has secured meetings with Ministers, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood). I also thank the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell) and the former Member for Makerfield, Lord McCartney, who have both worked hard on this issue over the years. Above all, I pay tribute to the families of the victims of terrorism who have also worked incredibly hard over a number of years and continue to campaign vigorously on it; some of them are present today. Let me outline some of the issues and problems connected with this matter, before looking at the history and putting some questions to the Minister.
Since the Bali bombings in 2002, there have been 58 deaths and 37 serious injuries arising from terror attacks against our citizens overseas. It is my view, and that of many Members, that the British Government continue to have a responsibility for their citizens even when they leave these shores. British victims of terrorism in the UK are eligible for compensation under the criminal injuries compensation scheme, but that does not extend to victims of terrorism overseas. Travel insurers do not normally pay out for death, injury or costs associated with terror attacks, as they do for death, injury and some costs associated with other violent crimes suffered abroad. Similarly, many foreign Governments do not compensate foreign nationals who are attacked on their territory. This is particularly true in countries such as Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey and India, where there are many Western tourists, including our own people, and multiple terror threats.
The real issue is that this is not just about British citizens being caught up by accident in attacks while overseas, as many of them have been targeted precisely because they hold Her Majesty’s passport. In Mumbai, gunmen in the Taj Mahal hotel said, “We want US and British,” before inspecting passports, and they then targeted individuals. That is why it is not appropriate for Ministers back here in the UK to bracket terror attacks with other crimes in their correspondence with victims. Terrorism is of a totally different order to other violent crimes suffered abroad. Surely our Government should bear some responsibility for our citizens when they are attacked overseas for nothing more than being British.
Sentencing
Anna Soubry Excerpts(12 years, 12 months ago)
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Sadiq Khan
I know that the hon. Gentleman is not misleading the House intentionally or recklessly, but, as he knows, the maximum time off on end-of-custody licences was 18 days. We are not talking about an additional 17%.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
Is the right hon. Gentleman honestly telling the House that under the tenure of the last Government there was not a serious and profound problem of overcrowding in our prisons?
Sadiq Khan
I remember that the manifesto on which the hon. Lady stood for election and won her seat stated that the Conservatives would provide the same number of prison places we would.
The Department’s impact assessment gives the game away. The sentence discount plan provides the Lord Chancellor with the lion’s share of his reduction in prison places. The impact assessment shows that £3,400 of the overall savings from the 6,000 fewer prison places that will be needed as a result of the sentencing package will come from the planned increase in the maximum available discount to 50%. I accept that that equates to £130 million a year, but it demonstrates that the Government know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Philip Davies
The Secretary of State and I differ. He seems to think it perfectly reasonable for somebody to get eight years in prison and serve only two, but I think that it is unacceptable. [Hon. Members: “He didn’t say that.”] I am disappointed he thinks that somebody who is given an eight-year sentence should be given a 50% discount for an early plea, reducing the sentence to four years, and so be released after two. [Hon. Members: “No, he didn’t say that.”] That means two years for an eight-year sentence, which to me and most people is totally unacceptable.
Philip Davies
No, there is not time.
That is what the Secretary of State is proposing. That is what happened to Gabrielle Browne, who sparked the debate when she questioned the Secretary of State—[Interruption.]
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I have been a Member of Parliament for a year, but I do not think that I have ever smelt such rank political hypocrisy as that which is emanating from the Opposition Benches. I practised as a criminal barrister for 16 years, just a little longer than the tenure of the last Government. During those 16 years, and particularly during my 13 years at the criminal Bar, I saw almost daily the harsh reality of their sentencing policy, a policy which led to the present chaotic state of our prisons and which neither added up nor delivered all that they claimed it would do.
As Members may recall, Labour claimed to be tough on crime. They used to say that they were turning the key on the prison gates and bars in order to secure someone, but at the same time they could not push people out too quickly. That is why we saw the release schemes enjoyed by so many people during their time in office, and why I asked the shadow Secretary of State about overcrowding. That is the last Government’s legacy, and that is the reality of Britain’s prisons today.
What has the policy of the last Government meant in the real world in which some of us worked before we came to this place? I had clients aged 18 and 19 who were on remand, which meant that they were innocent, and in adult prisons because there were no places for them in young offenders’ institutions. I had clients who, when I asked them whether they been to see their drug worker, said that they had been unable to arrange an appointment because of the overcrowding. I had clients—as I now have constituents—who were willing to go on courses in order to be rehabilitated and educated, and who could not obtain places on those courses. That is the legacy of the Labour party. It is an absolute disgrace, and it is even more disgraceful that they are in denial about it.
Karl Turner
Does the hon. Lady agree with the policy of reducing sentences by 50%? If so, given all her professional experience during her 16 years of practice as a barrister, how does she think it can be justified, and does she think it will work?
Anna Soubry
I am happy to answer the hon. Gentleman’s questions. The reply to the first is yes. Being a lawyer himself, he will know two things. First, there is a good argument that in lengthy, tedious, multi-handed fraud cases, allowing a judge to give a 50% discount will do what everyone wants and crack heads together, and that it will work. Secondly, it is dishonest of Labour Members to criticise this Government for proposing a 50% increase when the present law allows it¸ as the hon. Gentleman well knows—or, at least, should know, as he is meant to be a lawyer. At present a judge has discretion, if he or she so chooses, to allow a discount of more than 50%, depending on the circumstances of the case.
My complaint, which I have expressed in public before, is about those who are excessively prescriptive and tie our judges’ hands. One of the big failings of the Labour party was that in all aspects of policy, it consistently failed to trust professionals: our teachers, our nurses and our doctors. It also failed to trust our judges. If we freed their hands and enabled them to decide the appropriate sentence given all the circumstances of a case, there would be greater honesty in our sentencing policy, and there would undoubtedly be better sentencing.
There are many issues that I would have liked to discuss, but I shall mention only two more. The first relates to events that took place last week. I say this as a woman: I find it offensive when the issue of rape is turned into a women’s issue, taken up by people and used as a political football. As I have said in this place before, some victims of rape are male, and a considerable number of victims of rape are children. It is not a women’s issue, and some of the hysteria that we heard last week did no one any favours.
Fiona Mactaggart
I suspect that the hon. Lady may be partly referring to me. Yes, there are male victims of rape—although there are fewer than one in 10—and of course there are child victims of rape. However, the issue affects women much more than men. That is the point I was making.
Anna Soubry
I was not referring to the hon. Lady, whom I congratulate on the work that she did in enabling not just women but children to come forward and give evidence, and indeed improving sentencing. On the issue of men, she gave the statistic of 1%. I am always a bit cynical about statistics. [Hon. Members: “It was 10%.”] Forgive me: it was 10%. I strongly suspect that, because of the stigma attached to rape, many more men are raped than come forward, but let us hope we can debate that on another occasion.
My next point highlights why many Members, certainly on the Government Benches, feel somewhat cynical when the issue of rape is raised. Can the shadow Justice Secretary explain why in this place last week the Leader of the Opposition was for the first time flanked by two women—the deputy leader of the Labour party and the shadow Home Secretary, but not the shadow Justice Secretary—when he questioned the Prime Minister about the various comments made by the Lord Chancellor? Was that a deliberate ploy? Did the Leader of the Opposition surround himself with women to make some point? I ask that question because rape is not a women’s issue; it concerns everybody, and many of us are particularly concerned about the effect it has on children.
I am greatly in favour of the Government’s sentencing proposals. Their document on the matter is radical and brave, and I agree with the many comments made by Government Members about short sentencing.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend think that the victims she has met during her career will be reassured to hear that we are proposing to cut sentences by, perhaps, a half? How will that go down with the victims my hon. Friend has met?
Anna Soubry
I hope my hon. Friend will forgive me for saying that one of the difficulties that arise in our discussions on sentencing is when we speak about issues with a lack of information and understanding. First, let me say that victims are not all the same. They come in different shapes and sizes, and with different experiences. Sometimes—although very rarely—victims want to give evidence in order to exorcise what has happened to them. I am not for one moment talking here about rape victims, but this point applies to certain other categories of victim, such as some victims of burglary. Other victims, however, are terrified about giving evidence and would do anything rather than go into the witness box. We must therefore stop taking a broad-brush approach to sentencing, victims and criminals. That is one reason why I so strongly support our proposals: they recognise that defendants and criminals must not be treated in this broad-brush way.
I especially commend community sentences for people who have not committed the most serious offences. Tough community sentences can and do work. When faced with the prospect of another six months in custody or a tough two-year community sentence, many of my clients wanted the community sentence—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Time is up. I call Karl Turner.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry). I have not got as much professional experience as her; she practised as a criminal barrister for 16 years, whereas before the general election I was a pupil barrister in my local chambers in Hull. I practised as a criminal solicitor for some time prior to that, however, and I have not met or spoken to anyone from the profession in recent days who has said the policy in question is a good one. Indeed, I have spoken to Members who sit on the hon. Lady’s side of the House, including practising barristers, who have said that this policy is simply wrong.
I have a great deal of respect for the Lord Chancellor; I think he is a very honourable man, and I am sure that the explanation for his remarks last week is that he did not choose his words very well. Indeed, to be honest, when I heard, and listened back to, his comments, I understood the point he was trying to make. The reality, however, is that some sentences that are currently on the statute book are too low. In an earlier intervention, I made a point about convictions and sentences for the offence of causing death by careless driving while over the limit—[Interruption.] I have done the maths; the hon. Member for Broxtowe might be able to correct me if she thinks she is more experienced than me. The figure for that offence is nine months. How can that possibly be fair to victims? Also, the maximum sentence for the offence of dangerous driving per se is two years’ imprisonment, but that offence often causes paralysis; it leaves people in wheelchairs, their lives ruined, yet the starting point is 12 months.
There is no evidence that the proposed policy will encourage people to plead guilty even earlier.
Karl Turner
No, I am sorry, but there is not sufficient time.
There is no evidence to support this proposal. I suspect that the Prime Minister will kick this bonkers idea into the long grass pretty soon. Drop it now.
Oral Answers to Questions
Anna Soubry Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
19. What progress has been made on proposed changes to the payment of fees to criminal law barristers through the Legal Services Commission.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)
The processing, validation and payment of claims under the advocates graduated fees scheme is being transferred from Her Majesty’s Courts Service to the Legal Services Commission. The transfer is taking place on a phased basis between 7 February and 18 April of this year.
Anna Soubry
I know that it is not proper to talk about lawyers and fees in the same sentence, but this is an overly bureaucratic system that does not pay out, as may be familiar to many Members of this House. There are criminal barristers who have not received fees for many, many months after they have completed their work. Does the Minister agree that that is plain unfair?
Mr Djanogly
If my hon. Friend would like to contact me with specifics, I would happily take them up. However, the responsibility for processing claims began to be passed to the LSC only on 7 February, so delays of six months are impossible. Properly completed claims are currently being processed within two weeks.
Anonymity (Arrested Persons) Bill
Anna Soubry Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I am grateful, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity, which arose as a result of my being drawn in the ballot for private Members’ Bills, to introduce the Bill in the House. It is important that I begin by explaining where the Bill comes from and what I seek to achieve, because I hope to cure a real mischief. Hon. Members will recall what happened last summer, and I am not keen to rekindle that debate. The coalition Government proposed that anonymity be given to people when they were arrested and subsequently charged with the offence of rape. There was much debate; many of us did not think that it was a good idea and, in various ways, we made it clear that such a change in law was not required.
We made representations both in private and in public, and it is very much to the credit of the Government and of the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt), that there was a change of heart. I say that, because I know that he had a long-held belief born quite properly out of a constituent’s case with which he had dealt many years ago, and which had stayed with him. I hope all hon. Members would wish to act when they come across something that they think is wrong, and we have the great benefit of having a place in the Chamber and a process that we can use to succeed in righting a wrong. I should like to play a part in righting what I believe is a serious wrong.
The Bill comes from that debate. Many of us, even though we did not necessarily support the coalition’s proposals, felt that we could all come together and agree that there was a serious problem that had evolved over the years and that needed to be solved. In the past, the press did not publish the name and address of someone when they were arrested, but waited until they were charged to do so. Over the past few years, that has all changed. The press not only publish the name and address of someone when they have been arrested but they give more details. As we have recently seen with events in Bristol, it has reached the stage where many of us believe it has got to stop. A great wrong is being done, and it is time that it was righted. That is what I seek to do—to stop this sort of reporting.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
The problem with publicity arrangements when someone has been arrested is that the media can refer to all kinds of detail that they are not allowed to refer to once a charge is brought. Is my hon. Friend trying to fill that gap?
Anna Soubry
My hon. Friend is quite right—that is exactly what I am trying to do. I do not want to turn this into a debate about press freedom, because it is not as simple as that.
I should like to explain where I am coming from—a dreadful modern expression, but it is an accurate description. About 30 years ago, I first became involved in student politics—you may remember those times, Mr Speaker. I was a student reading law—you were probably at kindergarten—and I became involved in student politics. I then trained to become a barrister. Student politics, rather bizarrely, took me to Scotland, because I won an election. I blame not just the good students of Stirling university for that but my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer)—we, too, go back many years. I ended up as the honorary president of Stirling university, and I was in need of a job.
It had always been my intention and ambition to work in the broadcast media, for reasons that I do not need to divulge to the House. The only good advice that I ever got about how to achieve my ambition was to start on a local newspaper and learn my trade as a journalist. I did that. I worked for a year on a newspaper called the Alloa and Hillfoots Advertiser and Journal. It was a great publication. It employed at least two reporters, and I was one of them. I covered everything, from the fortunes of Alloa Athletic right through to the editing of the pigeon club—one of my greatest moments in journalism. In all seriousness, I honed a trade there. I learned a great deal. At that time we never published the name and address of anybody who was arrested, because a convention existed.
In due course I was lucky enough to go into television. I worked in television for many, many years, not just as a presenter, but as a reporter. I have always been very proud of my membership of the National Union of Journalists. I was shop steward. That does not make me a good journalist, but I hope it explains where I am coming from, and I do not want my remarks to be seen as an attack on all the people with whom I had the great honour to work and whose skills I still admire.
If we look at what is happening in Egypt, we know that it is because of the courage of the media there that not just all of us know what is going on there, but most importantly, the people of that country, notwithstanding the oppression in place, know what is happening. We sometimes forget the invaluable work that the media do, and how brave and courageous many reporters are, especially in such situations. I am keen to emphasise that this is not an attack on the media, but it is a serious criticism of the antics that have prevailed for too long among certain sections of the media. That is what the Bill seeks to address.
I mentioned events in Bristol. Let me make it clear that I do not intend to name anybody, and I am sure that hon. Members will also be keen not to name anybody, save for this: I do not think there is anybody who is not aware of the publicity and media coverage that was given to the first man who was arrested following the murder of Joanna Yeates. It is right and fair to say that everybody with any sense of decency and sensibility has accepted that the coverage of that individual was, if not outrageous, as I believe it was, certainly unacceptable and plain wrong. It is as if we had forgotten that one is innocent in this land until proven guilty. Unfortunately, it is not the first time that that has happened, but it is the most extreme case that we have seen.
Everyone tends to forget that on being arrested, a person suffers the trauma of the arrest. It is difficult to imagine a worse accusation than to be accused of taking somebody’s life, raping someone or doing something horrible to a child. There is the trauma of the process and the nature of the allegation, and on top of that, the person’s name and address appear in the local paper. If it is a high-profile case, they appear in the national papers.
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
It is not just the naming of someone as a person of interest. If we recall the landlord in Bristol, it was the castigation, the crawling over of that gentleman’s background, the questioning of his looks, his eccentricity and his sexuality that were abhorrent and that will follow him around for ever. Does my hon. Friend agree that the problem is not just the naming, but the castigation that follows such people around afterwards?
Anna Soubry
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes exactly the point that is most pertinent. It is the vilification. I have used the expression and I do not hesitate to use it again. What we saw in Bristol was, in effect, a feeding frenzy and vilification. Much of the coverage was not only completely irrelevant, but there was a homophobic tone to it which I found deeply offensive. The slurs on the man were out of order. All good and decent people in this country accept that. I include in that number fellow journalists.
I am grateful to all the people who have contacted me by letter or e-mail. Among them have been journalists, some of whom wanted to speak privately. Among good, sensible journalists there is a desire now for clarity. I will deal in due course with the Contempt of Court Act 1981. It as if those journalists want us, as Parliament, to help them in a way that they cannot do themselves. They cannot self-regulate because of the financial pressure that is being placed especially on our newspapers and on our broadcast media. I shall deal with that point later.
Enough is enough. We must do something about the matter and stop it. It is not just ordinary members of the public and journalists who want clarity and who want the present practice to end; it is also the police. I shall touch on that as I go through my speech. The man who was first arrested in Bristol was not the first, but I want him to be the last. There are other examples. Again, I am grateful for the e-mails that I have received and the information that I have been given from various sources to remind me of other people who have found themselves in a similar position.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
Another aspect is that people will maliciously accuse someone of a crime in the hope they will do damage to that person. The person may be entirely innocent, but the fact that they are arrested and their name possibly publicised could have a hugely detrimental effect on their lives and future career. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for introducing the Bill.
Anna Soubry
I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. Of course I agree. There is a long-term effect. If we go on to the internet and put in a name, as I have done, or certain key words, we find that a host of people have been in a similar situation to that of the first man who was arrested in Bristol. It has been put to me by all sorts of people—I am grateful for the information and the comments—that once something like that has happened, because of the great power of the internet, it is there almost for ever more. If we google a name or an incident, the information that comes up might go back 10 or 20 years.
The slur on somebody will remain for a very long time, even though they have never been charged, even though they have been exonerated and even though it has been accepted that there was no substance to the allegation. That means that people who put themselves into public life—television personalities come to mind, as do soccer players, even councillors, and those who have chosen a certain profession or job, such as teachers or clergymen—are highly susceptible to false allegations. There are many examples of people who have had an allegation made against them and who have then found that their name and address, the charge and more have been published both locally and nationally.
We have to ask ourselves how all this came about. There is a growing acceptance that a cult of personality exists. The rise of the celebrity has gone into territory that none of us find acceptable any more. Somebody who might have been on television suddenly finds themselves plastered all over every newspaper and magazine. Sometimes their agent or others want that, in order to advance their career. The downside is that they then become almost a free hit—fair game—for anything salacious about them to be published at any time, particularly if they have the misfortune to be arrested for something.
As a society we increasingly have a desire to pick over the intimate and salacious details of too many people. Perhaps we have an unhealthy interest in other people’s private sex lives. We also have the declining fortunes of newspapers. Why do newspapers and magazines find themselves in a position whereby they have to print almost anything in order to keep up their circulation? One reason is the 24-hour rolling news with which all hon. Members will be familiar. The simple truth is that it is sometimes a struggle to fill 24-hour rolling news, and in the endless rolling round of that news, stories are repeated, so something new, something fresh— breaking news—is needed, and everything becomes highly sensationalised and great drama is created.
A recent example was when the congresswoman was shot in that unfortunate incident in Arizona and the BBC 24-hour news service reported that she had been killed. It was wrong on that, but it was working off two reports that it claimed to have verified. I watched with care some of the following analysis and, rightly, criticism of the coverage of the story and how that happened. The BBC said that it had checked it out and done everything that it should have done in following the various procedures. But, with respect, underlying that was a real desire to have a new headline, to break some news, to put something sensational into it, to increase its ratings and keep up with the opposition given the proliferation of channels that we have seen. In many respects it can be said that the old solid principles that I was taught when I trained as a journalist have been eroded in the endless search for higher ratings and greater circulation. I do not think that 24-hour rolling news has assisted us in making our press one of the finest in the world.
We have also seen a decline in advertising. All hon. Members in the Chamber will know their local newspaper, if they still have one. Many of them are suffering quite dramatically from declining sales, for which, as I say, there are many reasons. I have a great deal of sympathy for local and regional papers in these difficult times, but I urge them to be true to the good solid principles of journalism, including not to sensationalise.
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
My local newspaper, the Loughborough Echo, has started a new column of reports from the local magistrates court about those brought up and charged with offences. That is an old-fashioned style of reporting, but it is good to read about those who have been charged with committing an offence. However, that is the right time for the public to become aware of the fact that people have committed offences. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to ask for a period of anonymity earlier in the charging process.
Anna Soubry
My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. I am familiar with Loughborough Echo. For reasons that I shall not go into because they are completely irrelevant, I buy it and I read it. It is an example of a good local paper, but it is also an example of a paper that is struggling with its circulation. I am delighted that it has such a column. When I worked on the Alloa and Hillfoots Advertiser and Journal, one of the great sources of our stories was the sheriff court. As a trainee journalist, I was duly packed off to sit with my newly acquired shorthand skills, which were extremely limited, and report on what was happening there. One of the problems in our society is that because so many newspapers find themselves in a position where they cannot afford to employ the staff that they used to employ, they are not covering the magistrates courts or the Crown courts in the way that they did. I know that from my experiences at the Nottingham Evening Post, which had a reporter in almost every court.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
I am interested to hear about my hon. Friend’s experiences in Scotland. Can she explain whether the procedures in Scotland were the same as in England and Wales? The Bill affects only England and Wales, and perhaps she can enlighten us on whether the code was the same in Scotland.
Anna Soubry
I thank, I think, my hon. Friend for that intervention, although it is the sort of intervention that is not terrifically helpful, in that unfortunately I do not know the answer and I will not pretend that I do. But I do know that throughout the United Kingdom the convention used to be not to report the name and address of someone when they were arrested. When they were charged, it was completely different.
To return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), because people who committed offences, especially in their local community, were dealt with in the magistrates court where there was a reporter from the local press, upon conviction or a guilty plea, their name would be publicised locally. People would know that Bloggs down the road had had his hand in the till, or that Mrs Somebody had smashed the bus shelter. It was almost part of the punishment that people’s names would be in the local paper and that neighbours would know who had committed a criminal offence. It is a great shame that, for perfectly understandable reasons, so many of our newspapers now simply do not have the reporters to cover such cases. There is also a very good argument that they are missing a lot of good cases that they should be covering for reasons that I have explained, and also because they provide good copy.
The other reason why our newspapers and television networks are suffering a decline in circulation and are engaged in a war of ratings is the internet. All hon. Members, especially those of us who are new to this place and fought in marginal seats, are more than aware of the great power of the internet, Facebook, Twitter—truly not my bag; I leave that to people considerably younger than I am. But we are all urged to have our websites and update them regularly, and to send out our e-mail newsletters. We recognise the fantastic benefit that the internet has given to society, but there is a downside. With all good things, there is always a downside. The downside of the internet is that there is an abundance of information; as I have said, for false slurs can stay on the internet in perpetuity. The internet is a genuine alternative for sources of information, including news, to newspapers and television. I have a great deal of sympathy for newspapers that put a lot of their news on their website, which is free.
I have to make this point, because it is important. To their credit, by challenging effectively the financing of the BBC, the coalition Government are asking whether it is fair that its website is completely free to view. The BBC website is an outstanding source of news, but it means that newspapers in particular, as well as other broadcasting companies, operate their websites with one hand tied behind their back, because they do not have the advantages that the BBC has through the licence fee and the other freedoms that it enjoys which allow it to produce such an excellent website.
Sir Peter Bottomley
I clear my throat by saying that I do not agree with what appears to be a suggestion that the BBC should not be excellent in producing its website. Could the convention that my hon. Friend grew up with be reintroduced, and would it be possible for the Press Complaints Commission to agree to what she is going for, or do we really need this legislation?
Anna Soubry
I was going to deal with precisely that point. I would much prefer the profession that I was once a member of to self-regulate in the way that it used to. I am grateful that a member of the PCC contacted me to talk about the code of conduct. I think that in 2003 there was much consideration of a change to the code of conduct following the arrest, under the Terrorism Act 2000, of various people, I think in Birmingham. Unfortunately, that never resulted in anything. With respect to those whom I used to work with, and the profession that I am proud to have once been a member of, I am afraid that we have gone way beyond self-regulation.
I wish that the media would regulate themselves. To be blunt, I wish that people would not buy the newspapers or watch the television news programmes that they then condemn for the type of coverage given to the first man arrested in the Bristol case, but unfortunately that will not happen. We could just wait for common sense to prevail and for the previous convention to be returned to, but my fear is that other people will suffer in the meantime in the way that he has suffered. That is why I believe that it behoves this place to look at how we can improve the law to ensure that this mischief is cured once and for all.
I might have to explain, although perhaps not to everyone in this place, why it is wrong for people who are arrested to have their names published in the newspapers. A slur is placed on them, because the attitude that there is no smoke without fire always prevails. At this juncture, I should explain that the police must have reasonable suspicion before arresting someone, but there is a good argument that they are perhaps a little too keen to secure an arrest. Members may remember the expression, which was used in newspapers and on television and the radio, that a man of such and such an age was “assisting the police with their inquiries”. There now seems to be more of a tendency in those circumstances for the police to arrest someone to secure their attendance at the police station and ensure that the provisions of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 are abided by, because being an arrested person gives that individual certain rights once they are in the police station. The police need only a reasonable suspicion to arrest someone.
However, individuals are charged only when there is at least a prima facie case, and charging normally comes towards the end of an investigation when all the evidence has been gathered and considered. In serious cases, the charging decision is shared with the Crown Prosecution Service, sometimes with leading counsel brought in so that the right charge is decided upon. The CPS and the police will have gone through various tests to decide, for instance, whether it is in the public interest to charge an individual, whether there is a reasonable chance of conviction and so on. By the time they come to charge the individual, therefore, they are a long way down the track in an investigation, and hopefully closer to securing the right person to be placed in the dock, because once someone is charged, they are very swiftly in court.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I do not happen to agree with my hon. Friend on the Bill, but I certainly commend her for initiating the debate. Does she not accept that the ability of newspapers and the media to publish the names of people who have been arrested is a great control on potential abuse by the police? If the police can go around arresting people and the media are not allowed to report it, that could lead to the police in certain circumstances arresting more people than is necessary, and no one would ever find out about it.
Anna Soubry
My hon. Friend will have read the Bill and will know that it makes provision for the police, the arrested person and the press to be able to apply to a Crown court judge for leave to publish the name and address of an arrested person if it is believed that that would be in the interests of justice or in the public interest. I will move on to the detail later, but I want to make it clear now that there are exceptions in the Bill to ensure press freedom in the right circumstances and so that the police, or the arrested person, can have a name and address published if they so wish.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that explanation and think that this sort of debate is helpful. Would it not be better to have the presumption that those details can be reported, but that in exceptional circumstances they should not be? Surely, in the natural course of events, that is the more proportionate way around.
Anna Soubry
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I started by saying that I think we all agree that we have gone too far and that a great wrong needs to be righted. As I said from the outset, I am more interested in correcting that wrong by whatever device is best able to do that, rather than simply commending the Bill all the way through and urging Members to vote for it. Of course I want it to succeed, but my real aim is to ensure that what happened to the man in Bristol never happens again. I do not much mind by what device that is done. The Bill could perhaps be changed in Committee if we find that a presumption of publication with exceptions is the better way to do it, but my reservation is that by the time the name has been published and salacious details have been put into the press, there is not much time to go to a court to have that stopped. I want to stop it happening in the first place.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
There is a great deal of merit in the general thrust of my hon. Friend’s Bill, which is to protect people who have been arrested, but would not a better approach be to equalise the sub judice rules that apply post charge, which generally seem to work, with those that apply pre charge, so that individuals can be named, but without the sensationalist reporting that concerns her most of all?
Anna Soubry
I am again grateful, because that is a good point well made. There is a good argument that the way to cure this mischief is by amending the Contempt of Court Act 1981. I will in due course deal with why that Act is inadequate. If it were adequate, I have no doubt that the Attorney-General would have used it to stop the salacious and vilifying nature of the coverage of the man arrested in Bristol.
To return to why it is wrong for someone to be named and vilified after being arrested, we should also consider the distress caused to that person, which I touched on earlier. During the course of my research, I looked at the case of a much-loved television personality—I will not name him—who appealed to people of all ages and was a true family entertainer. I did not know, because it does not matter to me, that he is gay. He had been married and had children, but the reality is that he was a homosexual. In due course he came out, which was a matter for his private life, and got on with his life. Most importantly, he continued to be an extremely good television presenter and entertainer. One evening, he was arrested as he came off stage following an allegation of a misdemeanour some years earlier. As a result, his name and the details of the allegation were published.
What followed was not quite a media feeding frenzy, but the details of the man’s private life, his sexuality and such matters were written about extensively in the press. A few weeks later, when he returned to the police station, the police said that they would not be charging him and he was accordingly exonerated of the allegation. He always maintained his dignity, and issued a statement through his solicitor which said:
“I was always confident my name would be cleared in due course. However, it’s been a very anxious and upsetting time for me and my family, not least because of press coverage at the time of my arrest.”
I quote that statement because it is important to remember that we are talking about real people who somehow have to pick up the pieces of their lives. Knowing what has been published about the first man who was arrested in Bristol, we must ask how on earth he will pick up his life after what has been said and written about him.
Nicky Morgan
The issue affects not only the individual, but other people such as their family—particularly their children—and work colleagues. My hon. Friend talks about the media interest, and she will remember that in the Bristol case the media, rightly seeking to profile the initial person who was arrested, went to the school where he had taught. The head or deputy head teacher had to go on television to talk about the individual, and such experiences are distressing if one has never been in the glare of the media spotlight before. Does my hon. Friend agree?
Anna Soubry
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that, and I completely agree. That is the difficulty. In the newspapers we see the headlines and the story but never what is behind them or, most importantly, what happens in the wake of them.
I was describing how, by googling on the internet or doing any research through newspapers—although googling is the quickest and smoothest way—I came across several cases of football players who had been arrested on allegations of rape. One case is relevant to my hon. Friend, because it involved a Leicester football player. I did not recognise his name, but that matters not at all. He received extensive media coverage when he was arrested on an allegation of rape, and again, within a matter of weeks, when he went back to the police station on bail he was told that he would not be charged and that was the end of the matter. The newspapers and local television station covered the arrest extensively, but the fact that no charges were brought barely received a mention. I have not found any case, anywhere, in which somebody’s not being charged has received exactly the same amount of publicity as their arrest.
There are cases of councillors—some might be known to Members—who have been arrested on all manner of allegations, be they fraud, corruption or sexual assault. Again, I have looked at the newspapers and on the internet, and their arrest often makes the front page of the local newspaper. The fact that they are never charged, however, does not get on the front page; if they are lucky, it might be on page 2 or 3 and amount to half a column, but it is never the same as the initial coverage they receive when they are arrested. That is not right or fair.
Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)
There was the case of a taxi driver who attacked female passengers, and when he was arrested other victims came forward. The publicity surrounding the case assisted other victims in doing that. What does my hon. Friend say to people who cite such instances?
Anna Soubry
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, because he makes another important point. That is why the Bill, to cover exactly that situation, enables the prosecution to apply to a Crown court judge for leave to allow the media to publish the name and address of somebody if they believe it is in the interests of justice, which means a belief or a suspicion reasonably held that other people might come forward either to make a complaint or to assist the police in some way in their investigations.
The same exemption exists for the arrested person, because there are instances whereby somebody who is arrested might want their name published, especially in the local paper. For example, somebody might be arrested following an allegation by their employer that they have been stealing from work, and their defence might be not just, “I haven’t done it,” but, “I know my employer has made the same allegation against other workers and they haven’t done it. Somebody’s got their fingers in the till. It’s not me, but they’ve now pointed the finger at me because it suits them and is convenient, so I want my name in the newspaper and I am quite happy for my address and the fact that I work at such and such a place to be published, because I believe that x workers there or other people may come forward with information that will assist my preparation of my defence.” I have allowed for all that, because I do not like blanket bans on anything, and it is always important to recognise that there are exceptions to every rule.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) mentions police investigations, and we forget that in many instances the police are appalled by the sort of coverage that we all saw in relation to the first man’s arrest in Bristol. It is an injustice to the police to say that, in those instances where names and addresses have been leaked to the press, it is always their fault, because it is not. No doubt there are instances when the police give the name and address to a member of the media, and some cash might change hands. I do not have evidence of it, however; I am working only on what others tell me.
In a high-profile case such as the Bristol murder, however, with all the media attention it is almost inevitable that, if somebody is arrested, a neighbour, especially somebody in the proximity of either the deceased or the place where the crime occurred, will see or know that Bloggins has been arrested. The neighbour or somebody else will often just happen to know the person, as people do in any community, not just small ones, and they will give the name to the press. The police do not always do so, and it would be wrong to place all the blame on them.
I do not want to get into a blame game, but if anybody is to blame then responsibility lies with the media and, ultimately, all of us—everybody who buys newspapers, watches television and listens to the radio. If only we could gather together and say, “Enough is enough. I am not going to buy this newspaper, watch that television news programme, listen to that radio station or subscribe to that television channel,” we might make the progress that we all want and, as I have said, cure the mischief that we all oppose.
I very much want to deal with the Contempt of Court Act 1981, to which we have alluded. I shall tread carefully, because we do not want a debate about jurisdiction or to pick over the Act in detail, but, having read it, I and others take the view that in its current form it is not the device to cure the mischief that we all agree must be sorted out. Although the strict liability rule that it imposes—indeed, the whole nature of the Act—deals with people who have been arrested, the rule is clearly designed to deal with cases that, in effect, are in the court process. But if one is arrested, one might never go to court. That is the whole point: unless one is charged, one will not go to court. I hope I am explaining my point fully and in non-legal terms, because the Act does not cover the misdemeanours and wrongs that we all want righted.
Mr Nuttall
Does the Act not apply to active cases, and is it not therefore just a problem of interpretation? If we interpreted the Act more strictly, we would capture all those cases.
Anna Soubry
With great respect to my hon. Friend, I wish it were as simple as that. The Act certainly deals with people who have been arrested, but it states:
“The strict liability rule applies only to a publication which creates a substantial risk that the course of justice in the proceedings in question will be seriously impeded or prejudiced.”
That is a very high test, and my understanding of its interpretation is that there have to be court proceedings that are likely to be impeded or prejudiced. When somebody is charged, they will go into court very soon afterwards—court proceedings are almost inevitable. At the moment, as soon as somebody is charged the sort of coverage in the press that we see when somebody has been arrested ends completely. That is because the press knows that subsection (2) deals with cases once somebody has been charged because, in effect, proceedings will have begun. There are no proceedings when people are arrested because they have merely been arrested. They can be arrested, taken to a police station but not interviewed, and “bailed back” to another day. That is why the Contempt of Court Act, as it stands, is inadequate.
Whatever happens to this private Member’s Bill, I very much hope that as a result of the publicity surrounding this debate and, particularly, that surrounding the first man arrested in the Bristol case, will turn the Government’s attention to the Contempt of Court Act. If that Act were amended, then people who are arrested could have their name and address published, but all the highly prejudicial material that we saw in the Bristol case would not be published because, in effect, it would be in contempt. Contempt is probably not the right word to use: to put it in lay terms, it is plain unfair and wrong. It may well be that through the Contempt of Court Act, or some other instrument, we can make things better and cure the mischief.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
My hon. Friend makes her case very powerfully. Two things strike me about the Contempt of Court Act. First, it is 30 years since it was passed, and that is a long time in terms of criminal justice developments. The length of time between arrest and charge and trial has got longer and longer, so there is an issue about understanding what “active proceedings” means. Secondly, proceedings under the Act can be brought only with the leave of the Attorney-General, which is a time delay and a fetter on the discretion of individual trial judges.
Anna Soubry
I am grateful for that intervention by my hon. and learned Friend. I am sorry—he is not actually learned, although he is certainly an hon. Friend. He used to be learned, and is undoubtedly a far better lawyer than I am, as we have just heard. He makes the point far better than I have been making it.
The last thing that anyone wants—including Conservative Members—is more criminal offences. I do not want to make party political points, but there was an abundance of criminal justice legislation under the previous Government. I think that 44 such Acts were passed, and goodness knows how many thousands of new criminal offences were created. I am keen not to add to that burden. However, I am very keen that we sort out this problem. In yesterday’s debate about legal aid, my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) pointed out that in this country we prosecute 1 million more people than other comparable countries, so there is a good argument that we prosecute too much, perhaps because we have too many criminal offences—I know not. I am also keen to try to ensure that we, as a nation, spend less money, not more, and inevitably when we create new criminal offences there is a danger of spending more money.
I urge the House to support the Bill because I want this problem to be solved once and for all. I am getting to the stage where, frankly, it does not bother me so much how it is done, just as long as it is done. I would like the media to regulate themselves, but for reasons that I hope I have explained, that is unlikely.
I want to make a couple of points particularly to the Minister. This issue will not go away, whatever the outcome of the Bill. It is important that we remind ourselves that the Government are laying before this House the Education Bill, which will make it an offence for the name of a teacher to be published, following an allegation from a pupil, until such time as they are charged. It seems as though we have accepted that we have a problem that needs tackling and sorting out and the Government have already seized the nettle, so even if I am not successful today, I will have another opportunity when that Bill comes before the House. There is also the sentencing legislation that will inevitably follow. It is perhaps ironic that the Government, rightly, want to give anonymity to teachers in the circumstances I have described, and yet there is an ex-teacher in Bristol who has been afforded no protection from the vilification and feeding frenzy that we have all witnessed in recent months.
I thank everybody who has sent me an e-mail, written to me or supported me in other ways in introducing this Bill. In particular, I thank hon. Members for their advice and support. I commend the Bill to the House, and I hope that it can make progress today.
Mr Buckland
I am always attracted by arguments that lead to simplicity, and indeed, that could work. I believe that an interests of justice test should be construed widely, and that when we list particular circumstances, lawyers tend to take a prescriptive view. There is a highly attractive aspect to what my hon. Friend says, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe would consider such an amendment carefully.
Perhaps we are getting into legalese, and I apologise for that. I shall move on to highlight an interesting local debate in my constituency. My local daily newspaper, the Swindon Advertiser, quite properly has an interest in reporting local crime and antisocial behaviour, and it does so in a largely responsible way. Once or twice I have taken issue with the editor, perhaps when a photograph has been a little insensitive, but broadly speaking I am very much in support of my local newspaper’s work. An interesting debate recently occurred in the paper about whether the names of young people who have been made subject to interim antisocial behaviour orders should be published. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]
I thought that would arouse some interest. My view is that, whenever possible, the names of young people who are on full or interim ASBOs should be published. That goes back to my earlier point about the immediate local community and its clear interest in helping the police enforce ASBOs. As we know, enforcement of ASBOs has been one of the main criticisms of the mechanism, which has existed for the past 10 years. Far too often, ASBOs have failed because of poor implementation.
The problem arises with the interim ASBO. There is a legal halfway house between a full hearing, in which the evidence is set before the court, the court is satisfied to a high standard that the case has been proved, and an ASBO is issued—frankly, publicity should follow that because due process has occurred—and the interim stage, for which the test is whether the judge thinks that it is just to impose an interim ASBO. That is a wide test. In reality, a judge is faced with a wealth of documentary evidence, which the complaining authority in civil proceedings—usually the local authority—has amassed, and reached the view that there is a case to be made and that, in the circumstances, the interim ASBO is just. However, no formal findings of fact have been made at that stage. Again, it is a grey area, and I can see both sides of the argument. However, I believe that when we reach such a stage, the presumption should be in favour of publication. I hope that my analogy between civil proceedings and the criminal process after charge is clear.
I read with interest several leaders in national daily newspapers that either support or oppose the Bill. The Daily Telegraph’s leader struck me particularly as falling into the trap of eliding two issues. It brought together the Bill and celebrities such as footballers obtaining injunctions to prevent the publication of their names and details in relation to salacious stories about them. I see no correlation between that scenario and the purpose of the Bill. Why? In the celebrity scenario, we are dealing with behaviour that has not been denied. It is not a question of celebrity X saying, “Prove it. This never happened.” Instead, the celebrity is saying, “It’s my private life. I’m not getting into whether it happened; I’m not making a big fuss about that—I just want privacy.” That is different from the problem that the Bill addresses.
Anna Soubry
Did not, unfortunately, the article in The Daily Telegraph omit to mention that under the Bill, the press, the prosecution and the arrested person—notably, in this instance, the press—can apply to a judge for leave to publish a name and address if they believe it is in the public interest? The measure does not constitute a gagging order on the press.
Mr Buckland
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. It is not about gagging the press. The Bill tries to strike a proper balance between the interests of justice and the wider public’s right to know about what is going on in their community. It is a sensitive balance. None of us can pretend to have all the answers, but it is incumbent on us as legislators to do our best to meet the pressures of modern life and the dangers and abuses that can occur, as happened in Bristol, and try to be the guardians of essential liberties.
Mr Spencer
Unfortunately, as a 15-year-old boy, I could not get there on my scooter. Clearly publishing those names was interesting to the public, but was it in the public interest? The honest answer is: probably not. Did it add anything to the criminal justice system? Probably not.
Anna Soubry
I, too, recall that; indeed, I reported on a number of those cases. I can still remember some of the names of those people. One was quite a senior police officer in Lincolnshire, and there was another who was connected with the law. However, if my memory is right, was it not the case that those people had not just been arrested, but almost immediately charged? I am reasonably confident in saying that their names were published only because they were charged immediately after they had been arrested. That is why the press reported those names. If those people had merely been arrested with a bail back, I doubt whether the press would have reported their names.
Mr Spencer
I concede that my hon. Friend’s knowledge about this issue is superior to mine. I merely make the point about what is interesting to the public and what is in the public interest.
My hon. Friend has referred to celebrities and TV personalities. The recent case that comes to mind is that of the Sky football commentators. Although they were not charged with any crime, there was large furore around those individuals. As I understand it, she is proposing a complete separation of such cases from those that end with a criminal prosecution. That is an important distinction to make. It is also one that leads me to support the Bill and to allow it to progress through the House so that we can debate its merits further. Many other points have been made, and I do not want to prolong this debate any further than is necessary, so I shall commend the Bill to the House and will support it during its progress.
Anna Soubry
Does my hon. Friend accept that all I am asking for is that we revert to what used to happen? In the past, the name and address of an arrested person—not an accused person: an arrested person—was not published. All I seek to do is to revert to the old convention, which means that we would not have the sort of reporting that we have seen in Bristol.
Mr Nuttall
I think that that could be dealt with by the code of conduct for newspapers, which I understand already exists. There is no reason why that could not happen. In any event, the difficulty nowadays lies with the explosion of information on the internet. Therein lies the real problem. Everyone would agree that it is entirely laudable and sensible to ensure that the innocent accused should have their right to anonymity protected. The difficulty is whether we can achieve that in this day and age.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a good point. The Bill seeks to suggest that someone who was accused of a criminal offence and then arrested should be entitled to anonymity, but that that anonymity would be lost the moment that a charge was brought. Logically, if the reason for going down that road is the rule that someone is innocent until proven guilty, we ought to maintain the anonymity of the accused right up to the trial, although I can appreciate that there may be reasons why they may not want that.
Anna Soubry
Surely the distinction is that, as soon as someone is charged, the Contempt of Court Act 1981 comes into full force. The Act prohibits any publication that would prejudice the court proceedings. The point about the material published in the Bristol case was not only that it breached that man’s privacy but that it would undoubtedly have prejudiced any trial. We all want to ensure not only that justice is transparent but that it is not prejudiced.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I submit that the reporting in that case fell foul of the Contempt of Court Act. As I said earlier, this raises the question of whether these matters would be better dealt with by an amendment to that Act. Such an amendment, combined with a strengthened code of practice enforced by the Press Complaints Commission, could be the way to address what we all accept is a genuine problem.
Every year, thousands of cases would be affected by this proposed change in the law, and, as with any law that we pass, it is imperative that we should get it absolutely right for the sake of everyone who would be affected by it. The basic tenet of English law that everyone is presumed innocent until they either plead guilty or are found guilty in a court of law is one of the cornerstones of our criminal justice system. I suspect that few, if any, people would dispute the sense of that basic principle. It is perfectly sensible that the Bill should seek to protect any innocent individual who runs the risk of having their character blackened, possibly for the rest of their life, merely as a result of having been arrested by the police. That arrest could well have come about as a result of the malice of someone who was entirely ill-intentioned, and the arrested person could be entirely innocent of having committed any crime.
My concerns about the Bill lie not so much in the principle behind it or in the fact that it seeks to put right an area of the law that is clearly wrong; they lie in the problem of enforceability. My first question is: why should there be a change in the law now, when we have managed without one for centuries? The answer lies in the development of the media. I am not just talking about the printed media—sometimes rather unfairly referred to these days as the “dead wood” or “dead tree” media—or the radio and television; we are now in the age of the internet and the social media.
In the past, it was relatively easy to monitor the media, and I suspect that the media were rather more deferential in their reporting of the private lives of individuals. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe has said, in the past, the reporting simply of a name and address would have been sufficient for many newspapers. Nowadays, we have the 24-hour rolling news service on radio and television that we all enjoy, although I am not sure that many politicians would use the word “enjoy” in connection with the demands of those news media. There is now an insatiable desire for more facts, of even the smallest nature, that can be released to keep the whole show on the road.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a good point. That raises the question of whether the BBC and the other outlets would then have to release a story denying what was on that website. These issues would all arise from the operation of the Bill. I referred to the case of someone who tweets that their next-door neighbour was taken away in the early hours by the police. Would that be caught by the Bill? I am not sure. The Bill has been released without explanatory notes, so I apologise if I refer to matters that might have been clarified in them.
How far must publication go before an offence is committed? Does one tweet count as publication, or is it only published when a neighbour passes it on or when the tweet is picked up by mainstream media? It is a minefield.
Anna Soubry
With great respect to my hon. Friend, one tweet would not amount to publication. Many statutes prohibit the publication, notably, of a child’s name. There is no difficulty with somebody tweeting a name. However, there is profound difference in publication. Such details can be thrashed out in Committee, but should not impede the Bill’s progress.
Mr Nuttall
I raise such matters for the very reason that they could be considered in Committee, and I am sure that they will be.
As the House will be aware, before an individual can be charged with a criminal offence, the police must consider whether there is a reasonable prospect of securing a conviction. That is far less onerous than having to decide on the civil law standard of balance of probabilities, or having to apply the test of “beyond all reasonable doubt” that will ultimately be applied by the court and, in more serious cases, by a jury. That raises the question of whether the Bill goes far enough. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) referred to the fact that amending the Contempt of Court Act might be another way of dealing with the matter. In the case of persons who are arrested and subsequently charged, but for whatever reason the charges are dropped—whether because of new evidence coming to light, some other person confessing to the crime, or the prosecuting authorities changing their minds about the prospects of success—their identity would already have been revealed, so they would not benefit from the operation of the Bill.
We should ask ourselves this question: in this modern era, is it possible to afford any individual the protection that the Bill seeks to provide? Within minutes, any article published on an individual private website can spread to millions around the country and indeed the globe. I am conscious of the intervention made by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe, and if one tweet does not constitute publication, how many tweets would do so? As with the spreading of rumour, that is the problem. Such people will have no knowledge of any media code of conduct or concern about the concept of genuine public interest, which we are discussing. They will be concerned not about legality, but about simply passing on an interesting titbit of information that has come their way. It is the modern-day equivalent of a good gossip over the garden fence.
As all Members will be aware, a rumour that has started to circulate is very difficult to stop, and the damage is already done. An allegation might damage a person’s reputation for the rest of their life, especially if it relates to child abuse or a crime of a sexual nature. For anyone who wishes to protect the identity of an arrested person, the challenge is how to prevent an individual who is in possession of the information about the suspect’s identity from passing on that information. The Bill would deal with publication but not subsequent dissemination, especially by social networks. In essence, it is virtually impossible for the House to pass effective legislation against the spreading of rumour. I doubt that it would ever have been possible, even in the past when rumours would have spread mainly, if not exclusively, by word of mouth. With the prevalence of the internet and the almost universal use of mobile electronic communication devices, such legislation would be virtually unworkable.
Clause 1 states:
“Where a person is arrested for an offence then neither their name nor address, nor any still or moving picture, of that person shall—
(a) be published in England and Wales in any publication available to the public in written, electronic or any other form; or
(b) be included in a relevant programme for reception in England and Wales”.
Immediately, we see another of the potential pitfalls and problems with the Bill, which can extend only to England and Wales. Consequently, we could have the bizarre situation in which a newspaper can publish in its Scottish or Northern Irish edition the full details and photograph of the arrested person, but not in England and Wales.
Anna Soubry
That is because Scotland continues, rightly, to have its own system of justice. The provision has been lifted from all the other Acts that deal with such issues. Exactly the same argument could be made about the Contempt of Court Act, which works extremely well to ensure that once somebody is arrested there is no prejudicial reporting. With great respect to my hon. Friend, the issue that he understandably raises is a red herring.
Mr Nuttall
I am not sure whether my hon. Friend is saying that the law in Scotland would prevent such publication. Will she come back to me on that?
Anna Soubry
My point is that we have two co-existing systems of law that work well together. We have a Contempt of Court Act that prohibits prejudicial material being printed and published in this country, and it does not have an impact on Scotland in relation to any publications up there that prevent someone from having a fair trial. We already have laws that protect individuals after they have been charged, that ensure non-prejudicial trials and so on. All the Bill would do is extend that protection to people who are arrested.
Mr Nuttall
I accept that, but I still think that the Bill leaves open the possibility that media outlets will publish information outside England and Wales, although perhaps not in Scotland or Northern Ireland. There are international news agencies nowadays, and the Bill makes no reference to publication by foreign media outlets. It is fairly easy for anyone with access to the internet to access any foreign media publication. The identity of the person concerned might well be a secret to people in England and Wales, but billions of people around the planet would know exactly who that person was.
As well as the problem of how to control the worldwide media, another problem would almost certainly arise if the Bill were passed: that of piecemeal identification, which is apparently also known as “jigsaw identification”. Clause 1 would not prohibit the publication of any information at all about the arrested person; it merely prohibits the prohibition of the person’s name or address or
“any still or moving picture”.
So what will happen? One newspaper will publish, perfectly legally, the information that the suspect is a male, thus promptly halving the number of possible suspects. A radio station will then broadcast the fact that, although it cannot broadcast any information, it knows that the suspect owns a dog. Another newspaper will publish the fact that although it, too, cannot reveal any information, it does know that he is a prize-winning daffodil grower. We can see where this is going. It is clear that, taken together, those pieces of information will narrow the field of identification to a point at which it is possible to identify the person concerned. We will know everything about that person’s lifestyle, gender, age, hobbies and interests and even—possibly—workplace.
The whole of the protection afforded by clause 1 commences only when a person is arrested: in other words, when a police officer says to the suspect, “You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.” The clause provides no protection before that point.
My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe said earlier that nowadays, because of the use of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the old phrase “helping police with their inquiries” is used less frequently than it once was, but I think she would agree that in those circumstances the Bill would not cover people who were “helping police with their inquiries”, because they would not have been arrested. Anyone can, of course, choose to help the police with their inquiries, and if someone did so of his or her own free will, the Bill would offer no protection.
Clause 2 sets out the exceptions to the reporting restrictions specified in clause 1. As I said briefly earlier, my concern relates to paragraphs (c) and (d) of subsection (2), which refer to the ability of the person who has been arrested to make an application if
“it may lead to information that assists the arrested person”
or
“the conduct of the arrested person’s defence at trial is likely to be substantially prejudiced if the direction is not given.”
The direction referred to is that given by a Crown court judge under clause 2(1)
“that section 1 shall not apply to a person who has been arrested where satisfied that such a direction is—
(a) required to comply with the Human Rights Act 1998;
(b) in the interests of justice; or
(c) otherwise in the public interest.”
It seems to me that it would be easier and, perhaps, better for the accused person if, rather than going down that route, he could simply sign a written statement to the effect that he was happy for clause 1 not to apply in his particular case. He could be afforded protection from some over-zealous and over-keen media outlet that wanted simply to push the piece of paper in front of him by requiring it to be witnessed by an independent legal adviser, who would have to certify that he had advised the accused person of the effect of giving up his rights under the Bill.
Clause 3 states:
“If any matter is published or included in a relevant programme in contravention of section 1, the following persons shall be guilty of a summary offence—
(a) in the case of publication in a newspaper or periodical, any proprietor, any editor and any publisher of the newspaper or periodical;
(b) in the case of publication in any other form, the person publishing the matter”.
Therein lies a potential difficulty. Although “publication” is defined in clause 7, which deals with interpretation, “publisher” is not. I submit that there could be some difficulty in establishing the identity of the publisher involved, especially in the case of an internet publication. The question arises of whether an internet service provider or a domain host would be caught by the provisions. I accept that the answer to that question may well be found in clause 4, which states
“A defence is available to a person charged under section 3 where at the time of the alleged offence they were not aware, and neither suspected nor had reason to suspect, that the publication or programme in question was of, or included, the prohibited matter in question.”
In clause 5, the Bill goes on to provide for criminal penalties. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe said that she had a general aversion to creating new criminal offences, so I wonder whether she has considered whether the problem might have been addressed with a civil procedure and damages, rather than by creating another criminal offence.
Anna Soubry
It is right that the man in Bristol, for example, can use the civil courts in relation to what has been printed about him, should he believe—and I think that there is a good argument—that he has been defamed, and in due course he might receive damages. My argument, however, is that the damage has been done, so I am seeking to prevent publication in the first place. That is how we should cure the mischief, as we put it.
Mr Nuttall
According to clause 5, if someone is found guilty of an offence under clause 3, they are
“liable on conviction for a term not exceeding 6 months, or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum”.
I am not sure what the statutory maximum is.
Anna Soubry
I do not know off the top of my head the maximum fine in the magistrates court for a summary offence, but it will be in the range of thousands. I do not know what scale is used. We need the assistance of my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), who unfortunately is not in the Chamber at the moment.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend will agree that a fine of that nature would probably not deter most international media outlets, but the threat of prison might do so.
Anna Soubry
My hon. Friend will be aware that a breach of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 can result in a maximum sentence of two years. The corporate bodies identified in my Bill are merely copies of what exists in other pieces of legislation without any difficulty, to make sure that when it is right and proper, the anonymity of certain people is maintained. I am sure that he will agree that it is not the Government’s intention to release from prison people who have repeatedly committed violent offences or who have repeatedly committed offences of dwelling-house burglary.
Mr Nuttall
I do not want to stray from the debate into the general subject of the prison population. Suffice it to say that the Bill would, if enacted, create an additional offence—we can all agree on that. The basis of enforcement would rest on the threat of sending individuals to prison, so there is a theoretical possibility of the prison population increasing.
My argument so far has focused on the impact of the internet and its role in media coverage. The matter was considered by the Government last year, following the suggestion that anonymity should be provided in rape cases. The report issued in November 2010 stated that anonymity for those accused of rape has implications for media reporting. We know that under section 2(3) of the Contempt of Court Act, media coverage of active proceedings must not create a substantial risk of serious prejudice to the case by unduly influencing jurors.
Concerns are often raised about such influence in high profile cases, some of which have been mentioned, so I will not refer to them again. Legal judgments about whether media coverage amounts to such strict liability as contempt are usually based on what is called the fade factor—the idea that media reporting is less likely to affect the jurors, the further away it is from the trial. One of the ways that we could consider to right the perceived wrong is to reduce the fade factor, and give a definition in law to try to eliminate it as a factor to be taken into account in contempt cases.
The availability of rolling 24-hour news on demand presents new challenges to media coverage of criminal cases. When a jury is sworn in, the judge will often tell jurors not to look for information about their case on the internet, and will repeat at the end of each day that they are not to go on the internet and make inquiries into the case. Nevertheless, the internet exists, the explosion in its use is likely to continue, and therein lies the greatest difficulty in trying to enforce such a Bill. I shall now allow others to contribute to this important debate.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
It is always a pleasure to see the Chairman of Ways and Means in the Chair.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) on introducing the Bill. I know all too well the pressures involved in choosing a suitable topic, and this Bill is worthy of the opportunity brought by being drawn in the ballot. I appreciate how much thought the hon. Lady has given to the matter. I am sure her heart sank when certain hon. Members entered the Chamber. The hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) will forgive me for saying that seeing him walk in is always an interesting indication.
Many Members have mentioned or alluded to the tragic Joanna Yeates case, which happened over Christmas, and the media’s dreadful treatment of her landlord. The shameful way in which that man was portrayed in the press—from “weird-looking” to “strange”, and with questions raised about his sexuality, his teaching practices and even his hairstyle—should embarrass and shame our media.
The phenomenon is not new. Countless other examples spring immediately to mind—for example, the speculation, which I believe we heard again this morning, about a well-known actor and television presenter back in 2003, which has done untold damage to his career, despite the fact that no charges have ever been brought, or the American press treatment of Richard Jewell as a suspect in the 1996 Olympic park bombing, although in fact he was a hero on the day who saved countless lives through his actions.
As I think everyone listening to the debate will know, on 17 December 2010 Joanna Yeates left her place of work and joined her colleagues in a Bristol pub for a drink. On 20 December, Avon and Somerset police launched their first appeal for information about Joanna’s disappearance. It was around this time that the national media, perhaps because of the Christmas period, when there is generally considered to be little for the media to report, began to pay attention to the case. Over the next few days, it was given ever-increasing media attention, and more details emerged about Joanna’s final movements.
A key part of the case became a pizza that Joanna was seen buying in Tesco Express, but of which there was no trace in her flat, and the police used the media to ask the public whether they had seen anything relating to this. Joanna’s parents made a number of public appeals at this stage, believing that she had either gone missing or perhaps been abducted, and the media carried those appeals and contributed a huge amount to efforts to find Joanna safely. It is important to remember, as we discuss this Bill, that the media have traditionally played a huge role in such situations, and there are countless examples of missing people having been found as a result of information that has been obtained following appeals.
Tragically, on Christmas morning, a body was found in an area of north Somerset that was quickly confirmed to be that of Joanna. Over the next few days, the media concentrated on the reaction of the family and friends, before, on 29 December, the police interviewed Joanna’s landlord. He advised that he saw her leaving the flat with two people on the night that she was murdered. But the next day, Avon and Somerset police confirmed that a 65-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of murder, and it was rapidly reported that this was her landlord.
At this stage the media turned their attention to what can be described only as a detailed character assassination of this man. Papers revelled in the nickname used by students at the college where he formerly taught, and a particular tabloid—I will not mention which one, but I think it will become apparent—ran a story entitled “Weird, posh, lewd, creepy”, in which it described him as “weird-looking” and ran quotes from a number of former pupils in which the overriding comment seemed intent on painting a very negative picture of this man. This continued over the following few days as police obtained further time to question the gentleman in question, and more of his former acquaintances came forward with stories about his apparently odd behaviour.
On new year’s day, this man was released on bail, at which point the tone of the stories changed. He was no longer weird or strange, with the newspaper in question now preferring to describe him as “wild-haired eccentric”, and most attention in the article reporting this being paid to comments from his aunt and former colleagues who supported him, expressing their view that they would never think him capable of such a crime.
Anna Soubry
I am very grateful for the exceptionally helpful comments that have been made thus far by the hon. Gentleman. Does he agree that at the point when this gentleman was arrested and there was a media feeding frenzy attacking his character, it would be fair to say that there must have been women in Bristol who concluded that the police had him and that therefore they were safe? If events are proved right, women were effectively made more vulnerable in the mistaken belief that the attacker was no longer on the loose.
Robert Flello
I fully understand what the hon. Lady says, and I have a great deal of sympathy for her view. However, if the media had simply published the name and address of the individual concerned, some people might still have drawn that conclusion. The problem comes from the vilification rather than the simple reporting. There is a lot of merit in what she says, but there is also an alternative view on it.
It is safe to say that the now positive comments coming from the media had been mentioned in all but the briefest of ways in articles in the previous days, and the media’s fixation on the landlord did not lead to him becoming any less strange or weird in their eyes, but the tone of their reporting changed markedly once he was released on bail. It can be assumed only that the papers concerned considered such information to be important only while he was being treated as a murder suspect. This will become more relevant later in my speech when I refer to the fact that the media are required by the Contempt of Court Act 1981 to make no speculation about an individual’s guilt and avoid comments that might interfere with the course of justice.
The hon. Lady rightly made the point that the media cannot be relied upon to police themselves. The sad fact is that stories such as that of the man in Bristol sell papers and keep people tuned into 24-hour news channels. I appreciate what she has said about it being incumbent on all of us not to buy those newspapers or watch those TV programmes, but I suspect that, unfortunately, the vast majority of us have that failing in our character that makes us interested in such cases. It is hardly surprising that there is a race between news outlets to uncover the most outrageous and startling rumours about an individual, to the extent that having blue hair or looking slightly eccentric suddenly become an indication of criminal activity.
With the costs and difficulties of bringing a case of libel or defamation before the courts, which are often perceived as a barrier, there is little reason for media outlets to temper their vitriol and innuendo. The Bill has great benefit, therefore, because it at least explores a possible remedy. At face value, it could address precisely the problems raised and protect individuals such as the man in Bristol.
The problem is that it is unfair to portray the entire media as simply feeding on such cases. There are countless examples of the media helping the police hugely by providing details of an arrested individual. For example, after an individual has been brought to the attention of the public, other victims have been known to come forward and either reveal more details about the crime under investigation or show that the crimes were more extensive than first thought.
Perhaps the most high-profile recent case in which media coverage has had that effect is that of John Worboys, the serial rapist, as the true extent of his crimes was known only after the police made an appeal and encouraged the media’s involvement. The case is well known. Mr Worboys was a licensed London taxi driver who was given an indefinite sentence in April 2009 on 19 charges of drugging and sexually assaulting women. He would pick them up in the centre of London or Bournemouth in the early hours of the morning and targeted victims who looked as though they had been drinking. He would then rape or sexually assault them. On waking, many victims could not remember the events.
In the years leading up to Mr Worboys’s arrest, 14 women notified the police that they had been sexually assaulted in taxis, but no link was ever made. He had previously been arrested and released in July 2007, allowing him time to attack many more women. At the time of his conviction, detectives suspected Worboys of being responsible for 83 horrific crimes. Although it was not the coverage of his arrest in particular that led to huge numbers of women coming forward, it was the efforts of the police and media following his conviction that led to the number of women that police suspect were attacked by Worboys rising to more than 100. That would make Mr Worboys possibly the most prolific sex offender in British history.
The purpose of mentioning that case is to highlight the benefits to victims of identifying an individual who has been arrested. Women who had perhaps lost hope of ever getting justice following their experience at the hands of people such as Worboys were able to face their attacker and could at least achieve some closure. We must always have in mind the victims of crime when discussing measures such as this. We, as parliamentarians, cannot pass a law that would impact on those who commit crimes without giving a great deal of thought, indeed probably more thought, to those who are subject to those crimes.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, research suggests that victims of rape and sexual abuse require more support than victims of other crimes, and people arrested for such crimes seem particularly likely to be subject to the kind of media attention that we are discussing. Therefore, we need to be particularly careful during this debate. I fear that there is not enough mention of the victims during discussions of the Bill, both today and in discussions in the wider media. I would have liked to hear more reaction from victims groups, which are in a much stronger position to provide evidence on how the matter is viewed by the people who suffer the crimes.
Robert Flello
Yes, indeed. The widespread view is that the Bill is well intentioned, but, as I hope to tease out from the rest of my speech, as hon. Members have already said and as comments to come will show, either there are other ways of dealing with the matter or further work is needed.
I can see the arguments from both sides. I can see that for the victim of a crime, seeing their attacker or someone accused of being their attacker on the front page of a newspaper or in other news coverage would undoubtedly be painful. I can see also, as in the John Worboys case, that it would provide an opportunity for a victim to achieve some closure and make police fully aware of the extent of an individual’s crimes.
Anna Soubry
None of the women whom John Worboys assaulted and attacked knew his name. They came forward because there was publicity about his modus operandi, not because of his name. That is a big flaw in the argument, and it occurred last year in the debate about anonymity for people accused of rape. The victims came forward because they knew a taxi driver who operated in that criminal way had been arrested by the police, but it is a big mistake to put that argument forward as a reason for naming somebody who has been arrested.
Robert Flello
I understand where the hon. Lady is coming from, but I am trying to make the important point that the media have a significant role. The publication of an individual’s name or face, or a detailed description of the circumstances in which they operate, can lead to more people coming forward, but we do not want to see vitriol, innuendo and shameful behaviour. That is the nub of what I believe the hon. Lady’s Bill tries to address.
Equally, I can see that, for the family of someone who has been murdered or subjected to some other horrendous crime, seeing the suspect’s identity revealed and feeling that the police are making strides in bringing the killer to justice could come as a great relief. Some people, however, might find it painful to see details of a case spread across the papers.
In an ideal world, perhaps the victim or their family could play a greater role in deciding whether an individual’s identity is revealed. I suspect the hon. Lady suggests such a situation in the part of her Bill that deals with the grounds for revoking anonymity, but in practice it is likely to be far too complicated to provide for affording as much importance to the views of the victim or their family as many of us would want. Indeed, the circumstances would be so emotive and distressing that they would undoubtedly have an impact on the family.
Anna Soubry
With great respect, I think we are moving into really difficult territory, because Joanna Yeates’s family did not know whether the man who had been arrested was the person who had murdered their daughter or fiancée, so in those circumstances it would be fallacious to argue that the victim’s family should be involved, in any way, in the publication of an arrested person’s name.
Robert Flello
The point, however, is that we are looking at proposed legislation born of several high-profile cases, and trying to find a way of addressing how the victim and their family feel and the impact of any publication are important elements in the situation. It is an incredibly complicated situation, however, and that is the point.
Another example is that of Harold Shipman, because it was only when other cases and family members of other deceased individuals came forward with their experiences that the extent of the horrific crimes committed was truly known. As the promoter of the Bill has stated about her efforts, I, too, am not trying to bash the media out of hand or to lay the blame for the situation solely at their door. As I develop my speech, I shall try to deal with how the current situation has come about, but the point is that, without the media, public knowledge of the justice system would be much worse. As well as accepting that there are many unsatisfactory aspects, we should be thankful for their coverage of court proceedings. I am pleased, therefore, that the hon. Lady’s Bill addresses this matter in clause 2, where powers are in place for certain individuals to disapply the restriction on the naming of an individual if it were felt that the reporting would be
“in the interests of justice”
or “in the public interest”. The clause goes on to give some examples of where the former might be applied, such as when it
“may lead to additional complainants coming forward”
or to the provision of
“information that assists the investigation of the offence”.
My discomfort results from the fact that the provision arguably makes the system more complex and puts the decision in the hands of a judge, and therefore relies on the view of the judge being correct. It may not be immediately apparent that the publication of a name would lead to further complainants coming forward. There can be no tried and trusted method of knowing in precisely which cases further crimes are likely to have been committed, but rather only a suspicion on the part of the investigating officers.
There is therefore a discussion to be had about whether it is better that the names of all arrested persons are reported in the knowledge that, in some cases, further information or complainants would come forward, or better that the names of no arrested persons are reported and we have faith that opportunities will not be missed by judges. I think that the hon. Lady would agree—I am sure that she will leap to her feet if she does not—that this is not really about anonymity but about the vitriol and appalling behaviour of some parts of the media.
Robert Flello
The hon. Gentleman makes the point very well, and I will return to it shortly.
I should like to touch on other concerns that I have about the Bill, some of which relate to whether it is necessary and some to how it would work in practice. First, it is worth mentioning again the current legislation relating to contempt of court. The Contempt of Court Act 1981 is the most important piece of legislation in this field and, if used properly, it should be sufficient to deal with the problems that the Bill seeks to address. Section 2(2) of the Act states that the press are prohibited from the reporting of information which
“creates a substantial risk that the course of justice in the proceedings in question will be seriously impeded or prejudiced”.
In the Joanna Yeates case, the Bristol man would almost certainly not have had a fair trial if he had indeed been guilty of the offences. Therefore, use of the 1981 Act should have been looked at more closely.
Of course, the simple reporting of an individual’s arrest would not impede or prejudice an investigation. I suspect that few Members have a strong objection to the simple reporting of an arrested person’s name; we have pretty much heard agreement on that today. Indeed, this reporting is crucial to the rule that administration of justice should take place in the public eye. Simple reporting of a name ensures that speculation is avoided and protects other individuals. The problem has arisen from the fact that the simple reporting of a name has grown and mutated, in a ridiculous and appalling way, into in-depth investigations about an individual’s past jobs, hobbies and actions.
The media are expected to refrain from reporting on a suspected person’s previous convictions or making any sort of speculative comment about an individual’s guilt or otherwise. I would argue that in the Bristol case, and in others, a number of press outlets were indeed guilty of precisely that—effectively carrying out their own investigations into the case and speculating as to why the person would carry out this crime with only the merest of efforts to mention that no charges had been laid. This mutation has been allowed to happen because of the failure of various bodies, including Ministers, to ensure that the law is implemented properly.
In the Bristol case, I am afraid to say that the reaction of the Attorney-General was not what I would have expected of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. His so-called warning to newspaper editors consisted of little more than the gentlest of reminders of the law as it stands and the importance of nothing taking place that might prejudice a fair trial. Indeed, according to reports of this “warning”, the Attorney-General was very careful not to address precisely the coverage of the Joanna Yeates case. I dare say that had the Attorney-General taken a stronger view and warned media outlets that some of the reporting was at great risk of being in contempt—I think that hon. Members agree that it probably was in contempt—a slightly more measured approach might have been taken.
Anna Soubry
I would not criticise the Attorney-General. That is not just because I support him as a Government member, but because the Contempt of Court Act simply does not address this problem in the way we all want it to be addressed. I am grateful that hon. Members agree about the way it should be addressed. The fault is not with the Attorney-General but with the Act, whether because the test is too high or because it does not address the pre-charge situation.
Robert Flello
We might just have to disagree on that point. I think that a gentle warning was insufficient, and that the Contempt of Court Act could have applied. Perhaps we will discuss that on another occasion. I would feel some trepidation about enacting further legislation before we are sure whether the existing legislation could be made to work in the way we would like the Bill before us to work.
My second major concern is that although the Bill would address concerns with the print and TV media, it would not address the largest problem—the internet. Hon. Members have commented on this point at length. I appreciate that the hon. Lady has included the prohibition of electronic publishing and transmission in the Bill, but it is almost impossible to police these things in cyberspace. It is not impossible, but under current legislation it is all but impossible. It is all very well individuals’ identities being kept secret from the traditional media, but it would be almost impossible to stop rumour and speculation revealing those identities. Much comment has been made about Twitter, and I know that Mr Speaker has his own views on Twitter in this Chamber. However, many people believe that if something has been tweeted, it is fact. It is a very public method of disseminating information. It is not like a conversation over the garden fence, as has been said; it is more like a conversation over a garden fence in the middle of a football field on a crowded Saturday afternoon using megaphones.
In my view, that is the strongest argument against the Bill. Although the media may not have covered themselves in glory in reporting the arrest of the gentleman in Bristol, if an individual’s identity will be known anyway, I would much rather place my faith in traditional media than in the self-policed world of internet blogs and news sites, where there are countless examples of uninformed comment and speculation. To deny the traditional media the ability to report an arrest when the identity of the individual is well known on the internet would be deeply unfair and would risk even worse coverage than we have seen in the past few months. If we cannot find a way to make the Bill address the problems of the internet, it might be almost impossible to implement. No good comes from passing a Bill that solves one problem while creating an arguably more difficult one.
If we are to pass the Bill on the basis that we do not feel it is fair for someone to be identified when they are simply being questioned by police, should we not also consider the fundamental issue that someone is innocent until proven guilty? That point has been made by a couple of hon. Members. Just as much damage can be done to a person’s reputation if they are vilified when charged but subsequently found not guilty as if they are arrested and then not charged. If the Bill leads us down the road towards anonymity throughout the legal process, which would be almost impossible to achieve and which flies in the face of justice being seen to be done, that might be a dangerous move.
Finally, I am interested to know what discussions the hon. Lady has had about the Bill with Ministers in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. She may wish to intervene on that point.
Robert Flello
Although the Bill is mainly of concern to the Ministry of Justice, much of the day-to-day regulation of what we see on our screens and in our newspapers is done by the DCMS. There is a strong argument that were Ofcom or, heaven forbid, the Press Complaints Commission to take a more proactive approach to such issues, perhaps citing the Contempt of Court Act where necessary, we might not have to make a law such as this. That would warrant further investigation were the Bill to pass to Committee stage.
Although at face value it appears simple to change the law, a multitude of issues complicate the matter and turn it into a difficult question that affects a huge number of areas. We must balance the view that the most important thing is that justice is seen to be done with the view that we must ensure that everything possible is done to ensure that justice can be done. We must balance the idea that the press should be free to report as they see fit with the fact that an individual should be considered innocent until proven guilty and has a right to be able to continue with their life unmolested if police inquiries prove that they are not linked to the crime and no charges are made. We must also consider the fact that although we might not like the way in which the media have reported some of the more high-profile cases in recent years, there are also many examples of their having made a huge contribution to justice being done and criminals being brought to justice.
The Bill addresses a crucial problem and a particularly unsavoury aspect of the way in which crime is reported in our press. However, I feel that as it stands, it does not address the problem as thoroughly as I would like, and it would certainly need significantly more work to become a successful law. Ideally, I should like the themes of the Bill to be incorporated into a wider Bill that also addressed a number of other points on the subject. I say to the Minister that perhaps that should be considered as part of the forthcoming libel and defamation Bill.
If the Bill receives its Second Reading today, I hope it will receive more detailed scrutiny in Committee, and I hope that we will ultimately be left with a Bill that satisfies and respects the rights of the victim, the accused and our law enforcement bodies alike.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello), and I find myself in the unusual position—no doubt he will find it an uncomfortable position—of agreeing with an awful lot of what he said.
It is only fair that I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) on introducing the Bill. Although I do not particularly agree with it and take issue with many parts of it, I wish to make two points at the outset. First, she has touched on an issue of concern to a great number of people around the country. I am sure that a lot of people in both my constituency and hers accept that there is a problem and that something should be done. Secondly, I was incredibly impressed by her speech and thought that she made her case incredibly well. I am sure that many people listening to it who were neutral beforehand were persuaded of the merits of the Bill simply by the quality of her speech and argument. Unfortunately, I was not persuaded of its merits, but that probably reflects more on me than on her.
The main point on which I wish to focus is the importance of having a free press, free media and open justice. The hon. Gentleman touched on that by saying that although the Bill was considered a Ministry of Justice matter, many of the issues that it covered related to the DCMS. He was right, because an awful lot of the debate that we have heard today has been about the activities of the media as opposed to the activity of the law. As a member of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, I feel strongly about that, and I commend to every hon. Member who is here today the report that the Committee published only last February, “Press standards, privacy and libel”. We looked in great detail at people’s concerns about the standards of the press.
The press are clearly not flawless—none of us is. We all make mistakes. I probably make dozens every day, some of which I do not even know about. The press are no different, and we should not expect them never to make mistakes. They will acknowledge that from time to time they get things wrong. Given the vast number of matters that they report on each day, and the vast number of articles in every newspaper, it would be extraordinary if they did not make mistakes from time to time.
However, whatever flaws there may be in the media, and whatever inconveniences those flaws occasionally cause us in politics, the principle of a free press and media in this country, operated by self-regulation rather than statutory control, is good not just for us but for the country at large. We should be wary of any attempt to interfere with that free press and media. One of the media’s great roles is to act as an essential check and balance on the state and its power. We would be in a far worse position if the media were increasingly restricted.
I made the point, to which I hope to revert in more detail, that I foresee a dangerous situation of trying to go down a route whereby the police could go around arresting people, and nobody would know about it because the media would be unable to report it. I do not know what type of country has a system under which the police can go around arresting people and it cannot be reported by the media, but it is certainly not the sort of country I want to live in.
Anna Soubry
Nobody will stop the police reporting that people have been arrested. The Bill’s intention is to prevent people who have been arrested from being named. Does not my hon. Friend agree that that is a profound difference?
Philip Davies
No, I do not agree. I do not want the decision about whether to name people who have been arrested to be left in the hands of the police. I like the fact that the media are out there, investigating what the police are doing and holding them to account and in check to ensure that their power is not being abused. The media are an essential control on the state.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his suggestion. That would certainly make the Bill better than it is now, but I am not entirely sure that it would totally address my concerns. I shall certainly take his intervention in the spirit in which it was intended, however, because his suggestion would be a helpful step in the right direction.
I want to talk about the effect that a blanket restriction would have on local papers. National papers cover all sorts of gossip and showbiz, but local papers are all about providing information on issues of massive importance in the local area. If a massive event had taken place in an area, attracting a great deal of local interest, the local paper would be at a huge disadvantage, compared with the websites that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) mentioned, if it could not publish all the information that the public needed. Such a restriction would certainly not prevent all the rumour and innuendo from being published on the internet, perhaps on websites in other countries and all sorts of different backdrops. It would put local papers at a huge disadvantage if people in the local community could not find information in the paper that was readily available from other sources.
Not being able to name an arrested person would place a huge restriction on anything being reported about a case, because there could be a danger of inadvertently identifying the person by publishing other information. There could therefore be a danger of not reporting crimes that people ought to know about, and that would previously have attracted huge media interest. Such restrictions could have a “chilling” effect on local newspapers. They might not actually fall foul of the provisions in the Bill, but their fear of so doing could have a “chilling” effect that would prevent genuine informative reporting from taking place. That could force local communities to get their information from other sources. It would be incredibly sad if we were inadvertently to put another nail into the coffin of local newspapers, but I fear that that could happen.
I again commend to the House the Select Committee’s report on press standards, privacy and libel, and our other report on the future of local media, which will give hon. Members a feel for the dire straits that many of the regional and local media are now in. We should be very wary of doing anything that could have a negative impact on them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North made an important point about the rules applying only to England and Wales and the effect on media in other countries, especially in the United Kingdom, and I am not sure whether his exchange with my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe on the matter was resolved satisfactorily. How would reports in newspapers in Scotland and Scottish editions be tied in? As the laws apply only to England and Wales, The Scotsman might feel emboldened to print the name of somebody who had been arrested for a high-profile crime in England that was newsworthy in Scotland. That would be an extraordinary situation, given that we live in the United Kingdom.
The fact that many Scottish editions of papers are sold in England is an added complication. The Scotsman is also sold in London, as many people here want to buy it. Is the market for which that paper was intended the key factor? Would the law be breached by a newspaper that was intended for a Scottish market but that had somehow found its way into England? Would there be a due diligence defence? The Bill is unclear on that. We might end up with a strange anomaly whereby information that people are not allowed to know in England is available through print or broadcast media in Scotland. There is neither rhyme nor reason to such circulation being legitimate in Scotland, but not in England.
Anna Soubry
The Contempt of Court Act prohibits any publication that could prejudice a fair trial in current court proceedings. Therefore, the press in Scotland do not print anything that could fall foul of that Act, as the publication concerned might be sold or made available in England and Wales. With great respect to my hon. Friend, he is putting a red herring into the pond.
Philip Davies
The hon. Lady seems to be arguing for the Government to change the Contempt of Court Act. If so, she should say that. I do not know whether the Minister would be receptive. However, we are discussing not that, but whether to introduce a new piece of legislation, which is entitled to be seen in isolation. She might know how matters will be interpreted by the courts, in which case she is in a better position than I am: I never cease to be amazed by how the courts interpret certain pieces of legislation.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One need only visit any newsstand in London to see a huge number of foreign newspapers being sold. Because they are being sold in this country, those editions might well be covered by the Bill—
Philip Davies
But it is a question of how effectively that would be enforced. I do not know whether a claim that the paper that had been caught out had been intended for a foreign audience might serve as a “due diligence” defence. It is impossible to know that at this stage.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention. The Bill, of course, does not have that benefit, as it applies only to England and Wales.
As the vast majority of newspapers throughout the United Kingdom have signed up to the code of practice of the Press Complaints Commission, there is bound to be some uniformity in their behaviour, whether they happen to be in England, Scotland or Wales. There is no way that the press would sign up to the provisions in the Bill as part of their code of conduct, and the Scottish papers would therefore feel no need to observe those provisions. I still feel that there is a potential for anomalies. Indeed, such anomalies already appear frequently in the newspapers.
Barely a week goes by without the appearance of some salacious story about a celebrity—a footballer, a broadcaster or some wealthy individual—who has issued an injunction with the aim of preventing the publication of information that has been passed to the newspapers. More often than not, after a few days the identity of the person concerned comes to public recognition through the internet. The story is published in a foreign country, and then turns up in chat rooms and rumour mills.
I do not know a great deal about websites of that kind, being a fully paid-up member of the Luddites, but what I do know is that, by one means or another, the names of such individuals tend to come to the surface at some point. It has always struck me as extraordinary that when everyone in the pub—virtually everyone everywhere—knows the identity of some individual who is involved in one thing or another, the only place where no one can discover it is the newspaper, because of some bizarre injunction.
Anna Soubry
I struggle to believe that the hon. Gentleman can believe—and I am sure that he will correct me—that the coverage that we saw in the media of events in Bristol in relation to that first arrested man was right.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend made a very good point about the case in Bristol. As I said at the beginning of my speech, I am not claiming—and I do not believe that anyone is claiming—that the media are without flaw, and never make mistakes. The media have made some horrendous mistakes, as they themselves will accept. We need only consider the case of Madeleine McCann. The press made some horrific mistakes in their reporting of that case, and I think that they would be the first to acknowledge it.
No matter how hard my hon. Friend tries, we will never have a system in which the media are perfect, and everything that is reported is accurate and for the public good. There will always be instances in which the media make mistakes, and we make mistakes. We all make mistakes in life. The only people who do not make any mistakes in life are those who do not make any decisions. Anyone who makes decisions makes mistakes, and the press are just as liable to make them as the next person—as are politicians, I might add. The thrust of my argument is about the bigger picture: a free and open press and an open justice system are far more worth while than attempts to try to restrict them, no matter how good the motives behind that restriction.
Anna Soubry
I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate, even those who could not support the Bill.
I want to make it clear that the Bill was not born of the events in Bristol. It received its First Reading last summer. It was born of the debate on the anonymity of people accused of rape. I have heard all the arguments today, and I am not afraid to say when something does not fit the situation or circumstances. I accept that there are flaws in the Bill and that it therefore does not address the problem, which has been so accurately identified by Government and Opposition Members.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) and, obviously, to the Minister. It is clear from the debate that we want to ensure that what happened in Bristol does not happen again. I am happy to hear about the review of the Contempt of Court Act that the Government will undertake, and about the thoughts and feelings of the Attorney-General on this matter, which I know he takes seriously.
Mr Blunt
I want to make it quite clear that we are not proposing a formal review. The Attorney-General will examine this area and we will see what the fruits of that examination are. I am not undertaking to the House that there will be a formal process. I am quite sure that my hon. Friend shares my confidence that the matters will be considered properly by the Attorney-General.
Anna Soubry
I am exceptionally grateful to the Minister for making that clear. In the circumstances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Bill withdrawn.
Legal Aid Reform
Anna Soubry Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I declare an interest at the outset, because as you and others may know, Mr Speaker, until my election in May, I worked for 16 years as a criminal barrister in Nottingham and other places such as Leicester and Derby.
It is important to remember that there is a need to make cuts in public expenditure—that is common ground in the House. We have had many debates on where the blame for that lies, and we could continue them, but I suggest that that would not be helpful this afternoon. We are where we are. No Government Member welcomes having to make such cuts, but we have the largest deficit of any G20 country and, with considerable regret, the Government have been left in a position in which they have no alternative but to make severe cuts in public expenditure, including on legal aid.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Does the hon. Lady accept the Citizens Advice report that says that the Government’s proposals will not only limit access to justice but increase public expenditure?
Anna Soubry
I do not know about the latter point. I have been in contact with the citizens advice bureau in Broxtowe, and I have made it very clear to Nottinghamshire county council that it is imperative to exercise great care in cutting the budget of that CAB. The Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor have spoken about that and it is recognised that citizens advice bureaux do a magnificent job. Every Member of the House knows that, because their case loads would increase enormously without them. There is a danger that in these difficult times, they will have to deal with more cases, and it is imperative that they have the resources they need.
Stephen Lloyd
Does my hon. Friend agree that the role of citizens advice bureaux is preventive and enabling? They focus not on generating unnecessary litigation, but on preventing crisis. Therefore, properly resourced citizens advice bureaux will actually save money.
Anna Soubry
Good point, well made, if I may say so, Mr Deputy Speaker. [Interruption.] Sorry, did I say Mr Deputy Speaker? [Hon. Members: “Yes!”] That is outrageous. I apologise most sincerely, Mr Speaker.
I ask the Minister carefully to consider these cuts in legal aid. Many would agree with me that it is imperative that we ensure that the most vulnerable people in our society do not suffer when we make these sorts of cuts. It is also important to protect the interests of those citizens who cannot protect themselves, and I have two examples regarding the reduction in eligibility for legal aid in the family division.
A father who is denied contact with his children will no longer be eligible for legal aid. I submit that that cannot be right, not only because of the father’s rights to see his children but because of the rights of the children, who have no access to justice. Their interests must be protected by society—they need to see their father. Likewise, if a mother has separated from the father of her children and he then threatens to take them overseas, she too will no longer be eligible for legal aid. That is not only unfair on her as she will not want her children taken overseas, but not fair on her children who will want to have contact with both their parents.
Former colleagues of mine at the Bar have told me that they have many concerns, including in the area of housing. Somebody who is living in squalid housing conditions will more than likely have been eligible for legal aid in the past. That will continue to be the case in many circumstances. However, my concern is that legal aid will no longer be available so that people in that situation can force a landlord to make repairs—to begin to solve the problem before it becomes the sort of problem that would still be eligible for legal aid.
I am told—I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland)—that we are paying £24.7 million in legal aid for welfare claims. In my time in this House, it has struck me that one reason why so many people come to their MPs and to the CABs with their cases—and eventually have to go to the law—is the profound failings of the Department for Work and Pensions. One of the best things that we could do is ensure that that Department is working properly, efficiently and effectively, because that would save us considerable sums of money. As a new Member, I found it astonishing that we actually have MP-dedicated hotlines for our caseworkers to ring to sort out problems that should never have arisen but have done so because of the ineffectualness of the Department. I urge the Government to ensure that we sort that out.
Finally, I make a plea for the Bar, which has had no increase in fees for decades. Yet again the criminal Bar is being asked to reduce its fees by 10%. Prosecuting counsel who are prosecuting a rapist or a persistent dwelling house burglar will be paid a fixed fee of £60. Sometimes members of the criminal Bar work for less than the interpreter in court, and invariably they are paid considerably less than the medical expert who may be assisting them in their work.
I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I am sure that the Minister will have heard all these points and I look forward to the action that will result.
Sentencing (Green Paper)
Anna Soubry Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend not agree that there is a danger in just looking at statistics, in that we do not know or understand the level of criminality that lies behind them? If we look at the figures and then the length of sentences, we can see that they refer to prolific, but low-level offenders. The Green Paper seeks to address the situation of those criminals who are not the serious criminals—serious criminals will continue to be sent to prison for a long time. This is about short-term sentences of under 18 months. That is why I commend the Green Paper—or I will do in due course—to the House and to my hon. Friend.
Mr Hollobone
I disagree with my hon. Friend. I understand that we are not talking about serious offences. None the less, it is very serious to my constituents that someone can be convicted 75 times. That person is very nasty and is committing lots of very low-level crimes and they deserve to spend a long time in prison.
Anna Soubry
Let us take that example. That could be someone who is, for example, committing shop thefts on a regular basis. The maximum sentence for something such as that would be around 12 months at the most, or 18 months if they were very unfortunate. This is a persistent but very low-level offender. Clearly, in the example that my hon. Friend puts forward, prison is not working, because the person keeps on committing crimes and keeps on going back to prison. It is to end that revolving door that we are doing the things that have been laid out in the Green Paper. That person is not necessarily a nasty person; they are not violent otherwise they would go away for a lot longer. Those who steal from shops are exactly the sort of people we are addressing.
Police Funding
Anna Soubry Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Vernon Coaker
I am quoting the Green Book and the HMIC report. We will see over the next one, two, three and four years whether the hon. Gentleman is right in the statistics that he has quoted from this book—that saving and this saving. We will see whether what he says stands up in police forces in Kent, Nottinghamshire, the west midlands and elsewhere across England and Wales, or whether we will see massive losses of police officers, police community support officers and police staff. Then we will see who has understood the statistics and figures correctly, and who is actually right. I will have a side wager with the hon. Gentleman, and it will not be me who is out of pocket, but him.
I repeat the call that has been made to the Home Secretary and other Ministers to go back and say to the Treasury that the police spending settlement is not acceptable, that it must be reopened and improved. Will the Minister give us that commitment in discussing the estimates for 2011-12, or does he just intend to carry on with the settlement as it stands? As the hon. Member for Hexham said, choices are available to the Government. The Minister can try to argue for a better deal, like those for schools, hospitals and the Ministry of Defence. The big casualty in the comprehensive spending review was the Home Office, and therefore the police service and police forces of this country. I know that the Minister says that there is no link between levels of crime and police numbers, but that is not what the public say.
Let us look at some examples. The hon. Member for South Dorset is already getting cold feet about reductions in police officer numbers in his area, and he will not be the only one. Hon. Members will have to go back and say that things will be tough. There will be police officer cuts across the country: Greater Manchester police have announced a cut of 1,387 officers and 1,557 staff; North Wales police have announced that 440 posts will be cut, made up of 230 police officers and 210 staff; Northumbria police have announced a cut of 450 civilian staff; Thames Valley police have announced 800 staff cuts, but there is no breakdown between police officers and police staff; and West Midlands police have announced a cut of 2,200 posts, made up of 1,100 police officers and 1,100 staff.
Whatever the book says, and whatever Government Members say, I am willing to go to each and every one of their constituencies and ask the public whether they want fewer police officers or more police officers on their streets. I will ask them whether they believe that the Government should have prioritised police spending more in the Budget so that police officer posts, police staff and PCSOs could have been protected, or whether they were a price worth paying.
A few months into this new Tory-led Government, I believe that people will be astonished that police recruitment has been frozen, thousands of police officer posts are to be lost and experienced police officers will be forced to retire, including in my own area of Nottinghamshire.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
Could the hon. Gentleman help us by telling us what percentage of the budget his party would have cut had it been returned to government, and what the consequences would have been for police numbers? It is a fact, is it not, that Labour would have cut the budget by 20% and made as many reductions in police numbers?
Vernon Coaker
That is not the case. The hon. Lady will know, as I pointed out earlier, that we would have accepted what the HMIC report says. The previous Home Secretary made that clear. That report is clear that the level of savings set out in it can be made over four years without having an impact on the front line, but that if cuts go beyond that, they will have an impact on front-line and visible policing.
On top of what I have just mentioned, the number of police community support officers will go down and police staff numbers will fall dramatically. Coalition Members will have some explaining to do when they go back to their constituencies. The estimates for 2011-12 will be just the start, unless the Minister and his colleagues start to stand up for the police. They should stop defending the cuts and start defending the police and the communities that they serve.
Rehabilitation and Sentencing
Anna Soubry Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Clarke
I am grateful that the right hon. Gentleman does not differ in principle. I do not think that Opposition Front Benchers do either; they certainly do not have an alternative to put forward. Knife crime is a very serious matter. We are clear that the use of a knife in crime is serious. Anybody who stabs somebody else will go to prison—they usually do and they always should. Anybody who uses a knife in a threatening way in the course of a crime should go to prison. Anybody who carries a knife in circumstances in which its imminent use is likely should go to prison.
However, we have to avoid absolute tariffs that set in statute what the punishment should be for every particular offence. That was a mistake made by the previous Government. To fill up more than 20 criminal justice Acts, they produced ever more complicated and prescriptive rules, which judges sometimes find incomprehensible and which sometimes are in danger of flying in the face of the obvious justice of an individual case or the long-term interests of society.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
The majority of the people I represented who were burglars were addicted to drugs or alcohol. Does the Secretary of State agree that residential rehabilitation is usually far more effective at stopping such people reoffending than long custodial sentences?
Mr Clarke
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. She has long experience, and much more recent experience than I have, of dealing with such problems in the courts. What we must do through, among other things, the payment-by-results approach and bringing in more private, independent and not-for-profit providers, working in co-operation and partnership with statutory providers, is find better ways of achieving better results in drug rehabilitation, the ending of alcohol abuse and the treatment of mental illness.
Criminal Bar (Public Funding)
Anna Soubry Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) on securing an important debate, in which I must declare an interest. I have been a practising solicitor, albeit infrequently, for more than 16 years and for 11 years I was involved with instructing the criminal Bar. I therefore certainly have an interest in the debate.
There is obviously the risk of being accused of special pleading for the profession, but there is no risk of winning any votes in this debate—we all know that there are few votes to be won in standing up for lawyers. I also want to declare an interest in the rule of law, which I am sure all hon. Members who have contributed will share. That subject is of interest to my constituents and to this country. Clearly, a principle of the rule of law is that it cannot exist without there being access to justice for every citizen. An independent legal profession, of which the criminal Bar is clearly a crucial component, is the foundation of that principle.
We, in this country, can be proud of our record—of our principles, of upholding the rule of law and of our legal aid record. In any legal aid debate the statistic is always mentioned that we spend more per capita—per head—than almost any other country. However, at the same time—and rightly—one must consider public services and outcomes. So what is the outcome of this expenditure on legal aid? A recent report entitled “Effective Criminal Defence in Europe” considered which jurisdiction was best at providing an effective criminal defence. It will not surprise hon. Members to learn that the jurisdiction that came out best, along with Finland, was this country. That was largely due to the source of legal aid.
Why do we have this legal aid system? It was established some 60 years ago not because we were cajoled by an international agreement or because we felt we should be subject to any European convention; it was established because we wanted to apply the principle of the rule of law. That was summed up well by the US Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black in 1965, when he said:
“There can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has.”
An independent criminal Bar funded through the legal aid system helps—indeed, it is crucial—to uphold equal justice. What is that equal justice? It is equal justice for the innocent and the guilty, for the falsely accused who gain publicly sympathy, and for the evil criminals who command public contempt. Looking back over my 16 years in the profession, I can think of some clients for whom the public would not want a penny of public money spent, but legal aid provides it and the rule of law demands it.
It might be helpful to have some distance when making the case for the criminal defence service. The following words were written by a solicitor, Paul Booty of McCarthy Stewart Booty:
“As far as those outside the profession are concerned, we get little sympathy, as all we do is drain the public purse ‘getting off’ undeserving, unemployed, drug-taking individuals on technicalities. We twist the law to our own advantage and are thoroughly unscrupulous, with no sympathy for the victims of horrendous crime. It is not surprising, therefore, that we should endure pay cuts from the government year on year; and who cares anyway, because we all drive Bentleys.
The reality could not be further from the truth. We are called to the police station at any time of the day or night. Quite often we are faced with detainees who, if they are ‘regulars’, are extremely vulnerable individuals, often living on benefit with mental illness, depression and dependency. These people are human beings and deserve dignity and fair treatment.”
And so say all of us, both those with a direct professional interest and those outside in the country.
However, although we certainly want to ensure that the system upholds dignity and respect, we also recognise, particularly in these economic times, that it cannot be immune from cuts. When looking for cashable savings in the Ministry of Justice budget, it is obvious that the legal aid budget will have to shoulder a distinct burden when cuts are made. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) was too generous about the previous Government’s record, particularly their legacy for the economy and for the criminal defence service, which has been cut to the bone in many areas and left with great concerns for the future. We can certainly look at how cuts can be made and at high-cost cases, and means-testing is at last coming back to play a part. There will also be proper case management, particularly in preliminary hearings, where we can be much smarter and more cost-effective.
I want to look briefly at the relationship between barristers and solicitors. It is all too easy to play off barristers and solicitors. Historically, they are complementary professions, which is one of the reasons that we have such a proud record. There are enormous strengths in both professions. In comparison to international litigation, the relationship between barristers and solicitors in the UK makes us pre-eminent as a profession. Similarly, in criminal law there is, in the main, a good relationship. The contrast between High Court advocates and the Bar has often been characterised too starkly. In the main, the improvement is helpful, but it needs to be dealt with carefully, with proper training and quality, particularly for High Court advocates.
Obviously, we need to avoid the abuse of the referral fee arrangements that sadly seems to be emerging in various areas. However, we should not pit one against the other. That is not the real threat to the independence of the legal profession and the Bar. There are opportunities in the commissioning arrangements for smaller solicitors’ firms to be subcontracted by barristers and brought into the family of commissioning, where previously they could be excluded by large contracts. The big threat is in the commissioning field, where we are entering a brave new world, and in the contracting process presently applied by the LSC. I believe that the way in which the LSC has operated in the past provides the biggest threat.
There are warnings that must be taken into account and that are already clear in the field of practice, and there are warnings in procurement processes. What has happened to family legal aid is a legacy of how the previous Government oversaw the decimation of highly skilled and committed solicitors, often with great experience of dealing with key issues and vulnerable clients carefully. Existing experience has, in many ways, been excluded from the process. The rug has been pulled from under the feet of many providers. We have been left with legal aid deserts, as we prophesised when in opposition. Poole in Dorset, with a population of 138,299, has been left with one family law solicitor to provide publicly funded work.
Providing solicitors of choice for vulnerable defendants is a matter of concern. In mental health law, those who currently provide for the most vulnerable often have expertise in dealing with vulnerable clients, but now solicitors are effectively being imposed on those clients by the LSC. In the area of administration, there was an example in July of the duty solicitor rotas being reissued twice for a six-month period. Firms were missed off the rotas, areas were put in the wrong position and a simple process led to chaos. Is that the prospect for the commissioning process for the Bar and others?
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend aware that across England and Wales the number of solicitors’ firms is diminishing fast? In Stapleford, a town in my constituency, there is now no solicitor available to provide advice for people with real need in family circumstances. They must travel many miles into Nottingham for that advice, and they are often vulnerable, quite literally, faced with a violent partner.
Mr Burrowes
My hon. Friend makes her point well. In that context, the Minister is facing difficult decisions on funding restraints. That context is so important that I am sure he will take account of it. There is an impression that the Ministry is in chaos and that it is having to pick up the bill, but it is not the same the other way round; there is zero tolerance of any minor error when the LSC submits a bill and funding is not provided. As the Public Accounts Committee rightly concluded, the LSC lacks a grip of the basics and is ripe for reform, and I look forward to that reform being pursued by the Government.
Finally, we have to talk about money—something we do not like doing—because there is a concern about cash flow and payment. Solicitors often have to wait some time for payment, and now the goalposts have been moved by the LSC. Previously, it would step in to help if 5% of a bill was awaiting payment, but now it has moved that to 10%. That is a warning to the Bar about what happens when we get into bed with that area of commissioning.
In conclusion, it is important that we stand up for the important principles of the rule of law that underpin legal aid. We of course must cut waste and inefficiencies, which I am sure the Minister has been tasked with, look at high-cost cases and properly reform the LSC to ensure that it is fit for purpose, whatever form it takes, to deal with the new environment. Above all, we must ensure that we do not undermine the strengths of the criminal justice system and an independent legal profession accessible to all.
Oral Answers to Questions
Anna Soubry Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Nick Herbert
I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman should read anything into that omission. I said then—and I say now—that we are reviewing in full the arrangements to ensure that victims are treated properly by the criminal justice system. Perhaps he will have already seen the strong speech that is to be made by the victims commissioner on such issues this evening. We take those issues immensely seriously, as we do to ensuring that justice is done for victims.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
8. What plans he has for the future of the National Offender Management Service.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
The original objective of the National Offender Management Service was more effectively to deliver prison and probation services in a co-ordinated way. The current structure has not worked as well as predicted and will not best serve the objectives of coalition policy towards the rehabilitation of offenders and the involvement of social investors, and the private and voluntary sectors in this work. Therefore, the structure of the National Offender Management Service is being considered not only as part of the Department’s overall contribution to the spending review, but to ensure the effective delivery of prison and probation services in the light of this autumn’s Green Paper on the new approaches to rehabilitation and the review of sentencing policy. That work will also reflect the three strands of the big society agenda, which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced yesterday: social action, public service and community empowerment.
Anna Soubry
I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. Can he assist by saying what opportunities will exist for probation trusts when we consider our rehabilitation reforms?
Mr Blunt
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. Today’s probation trusts possess the nation’s professional expertise on offender management. We want to release all our capacity—public, private and voluntary—to effect a revolution in how we provide for rehabilitation of offenders. No organisations are better placed to deliver that than today’s probation trusts. I hope that they seize this chance, which is why I have asked the Probation Association and the Probation Chiefs Association to work urgently with my officials to help shape our Green Paper proposals. I am confident about what probation trusts will be able to achieve.