King’s Speech

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, having been a family judge for some years, I welcome the opportunity to endorse what was just said about deprivation of liberty orders concerning children. I have had to make such orders myself, and they are very worrying. What is required is further inquiry into how that jurisdiction works.

I turn to the main topic of the debate. In the latter part of the last Parliament, useful work was done to produce what is now the Victims and Prisoners Act—the framework on which the new Government can build, and now have the time to do so. The greatest disservice to victims is caused by delays in getting their cases to and through the courts. There is no time now to analyse the reason for such delays—the backlogs, and what has become a chronic inability to catch up—but I welcome what the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, said, when he provided an impressive warm-up act for his own maiden speech. I urge the Government to take note of the Bar Council’s recent Manifesto for Justice, which proposes a requirement for Crown Court trials to start

“within six months of the first hearing”.

Surely that can and should be properly seen as an attainable target.

Avoidable delays cause most distress and strain in cases of sexual assault. Rape cases have a high rate of not-guilty pleas, requiring jury trials. The Government’s plan for designated rape courts is welcome, but it is unclear whether those specialist courts will be additional to, or simply part of, existing court capacity. Few court buildings have spare space suitable to the requirements of sensitive rape trials, in which defendants and witnesses have to be isolated and separated. Will these courts be confined to rape cases, or will other serious sexual offences be similarly dealt with there? This is an important part of the Government’s stated ambition to curtail violence against women and girls. Without a restoration of confidence in the processes facing victims, allegations will continue to be unreported. Ultimately, the measure of the success or failure of the Government’s plans will be how many victims of such offences would still say in future that they would not again participate in the criminal process.

The crisis of overcrowding in prisons that has prompted the need for early release, as well as a welcome promise to reinvigorate the probation service, has already been spoken to at some length. Therefore, I will not say more about it, other than to add that sentencing decisions, which can be difficult enough, should be governed by established and considered principles—with guidelines developed to ensure consistency and public confidence—rather than by the fluctuating size of the prison estate.

As is well known, and as the Lancet recently reported:

“People with mental health disorders are disproportionately represented in prison populations and are more likely to have poor physical health and social outcomes after prison”.


It is therefore crucial, to prevent reoffending and recidivism, that proper measures exist to prepare prisoners for release and to support them after release, at the very least in their first few weeks outside. It serves nobody if the first person to meet a newly released prisoner is his or her former drug dealer.

In that regard, we should commend and reinforce the work done by organisations such as the St Giles Trust and Unlock, which help those with criminal records lead stable lives; I was pleased to hear what the Minister said about that. On a separate note, I would inquire how the Government propose to revisit the problem of convicted criminals who resist, sometimes physically, attending court for sentencing. The last thing victims need or want is disruption of a sentencing hearing by a defiant defendant trying to attract attention. The imposition of an additional penalty for those facing long sentences will be no more than a token gesture; perhaps, therefore, the best answer for such conduct is to have some impact on parole.

I will not proceed to speak about family law, which I know most about, other than to say that I endorse most of what was said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy. However, I hope he would accept that the judiciary do their best to keep costs down.

I hope that the change in government will see an end to ill-considered attempts to curtail and disapply the Human Rights Act and the regard to be had for the European Convention on Human Rights. It has served us well in raising standards within the legal system and beyond, and should not be diluted.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

Well said.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, my congratulations go to all three noble maidens this evening—if I can describe them that way. It is a privilege to address the gracious Speech of a Government who must, if they are to restore faith in politics, foster a better understanding of and commitment to the rule of law, whose reach no one, including the most powerful, is above and whose protection no one, especially the most vulnerable, is below.

This was eloquently promised by my noble and learned friend the new Attorney-General yesterday, but history suggests that, in the practical reality of justice, home affairs and foreign affairs, our “rule of law” values are most seriously tested. I welcome the Bills and hope that they will include not just new laws but a great deal of repeal. I know that all noble Lords will want carefully to examine the devil and the virtue in the detail, as well as the resources that must follow for vital services that have been underfunded for so long, but, in a difficult fiscal landscape, I also look forward to a significant shift in vision, rhetoric and approach—especially in relation to our courts, police, lawyers and other relevant professionals, including parliamentarians and all those whom they must serve.

Let our judges, whether domestic or international, no longer be hobbled and hectored. When, inevitably, government loses occasional cases, as with matches, let us please respect the referees. The European Court of Human Rights is no more foreign for being situated in Strasbourg than is the United Nations for being in New York and Geneva—or, dare I say it, than is D-day for marking historic British and Allied landings in Normandy.

Let us restore discretions too often obliterated by an overcrowded statute book to the appropriate decision-makers, in compliance with both the international and domestic rule of law.

Notwithstanding the vital importance of dealing far more effectively with people smuggling, casework and responsibility sharing with our neighbours, let there be no more deliberate demonisation of asylum seekers and refugees. They, like other desperate people, are not “illegal”. The new Government would be wise to abandon dehumanising language and lengthy incarceration, alongside snake-oil statutes.

Police chiefs’ diagnosis of a “national emergency” in violence against women is both a scandal and a priority, as is ensuring that social media empires take more direct responsibility for incitement and indoctrination on the platforms they monetise. If chief constables continue to request new powers to discipline errant officers, surely these should finally be provided. The development and deployment of AI and facial recognition technology in policing must, like conventional police powers, be regulated by statute. Equally, let there be an end to seeking cheap political capital via ministerial interference in independent public order operations, with endless Home Office press releases and summonses to chiefs to hear the Riot Act read at No. 10.

Let the continuing injustices of IPP and joint enterprise be ended. Attention is needed in legal aid and crumbling court infrastructure after years of disastrous cuts. When most people lack timely access to justice when facing the loss of their liberty, home, child, livelihood or safe environment, the rule of law becomes mere fairy tale.

There is so much more, but I end with my best wishes to the new Ministers. May my noble and learned friend Lord Hermer, a highly distinguished attorney, reinspire the Government Legal Service, of which I am a proud alum. May my noble friend Lord Hanson and his colleagues ensure that the Home Office is no longer nicknamed “North Korea” by beleaguered public servants. May my new noble friend Lord Timpson bring the spirit of rehabilitation, with which his family name is so synonymous on the high street, to the darkest recesses of the prison system—a failing prison system unworthy of an ambitious, wealthy and compassionate United Kingdom.