Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBaroness Finlay of Llandaff
Main Page: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Finlay of Llandaff's debates with the Department for International Development
(12 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, this set of amendments concerns an alcohol monitoring requirement and is modified from those tabled in Committee on the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill. The alcohol monitoring requirement requires an offender to abstain from alcohol and be regularly tested to ensure compliance as part of any community or custodial sentence. It would provide an additional option—a new tool—for the courts.
These amendments would not stop responsible social drinking. They aim to deal with irresponsible, anti-social alcohol abuse and its devastating consequences. When I tabled these amendments previously, the Government’s response was that they would pilot the idea in October, using existing legislation for low-level crimes. October has come and gone. Where is the pilot? Anyway, this is needed for middle and high-level crimes, not just low-level crimes.
I should explain why we need primary legislation to undertake a proper pilot. London wants to do a pilot and will fund that pilot. The proposal has wide support. London Councils, which represents all 32 London boroughs, has written to Ken Clarke supporting the scheme. The chair of London Councils is Mayor Jules Pipe, the Labour elected mayor of Hackney. The scheme’s project board has representatives from Her Majesty’s Courts Service, London Probation, Public Health and the Crown Prosecution Service involved in developing the pilot. Consultation has involved domestic violence victims, Refuge, Women’s Aid, domestic violence offenders, health leads and those with an interest in the night-time economy from transport to addiction support services.
Today, I spoke to Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who is “fully supportive” of the proposal. He commented that alcohol is a precursor to crime in about 80 per cent of crimes in London and that after six o’clock at night you can smell the problem in the police cells. Violence against the person offences account for 64 per cent of Metropolitan Police alcohol-flagged offences and criminal damage accounts for some 11 per cent of alcohol- flagged crime. We should remember that only about 10 per cent of offences get flagged as alcohol-related even though, in recent British Crime Surveys, victims believe offenders to be under the influence of alcohol in about half of all violent incidents. The commissioner wants this to be a mandatory scheme. Voluntary schemes do not work because you need to support those who most need it and who are unlikely to recognise that need without compulsion. He wants this measure to act as a driver for better health as youth binge drinking is now a common cause of end-stage alcohol-induced liver failure in those aged under 25. We have a major social and health problem.
The Metropolitan Police view this measure as an additional tool against drink-driving and domestic violence. The proposed alcohol monitoring requirement has the potential to reduce reoffending for alcohol-related crime, particularly drink-driving and domestic violence, and contribute to long-term behavioural change of offenders.
Data in the US, where the scheme has been in place for eight years, show that reoffending rates at three years after alcohol monitoring more than halved when compared with traditional sentences of fines or custody. There in the US, 99 per cent of tests are negative, and two-thirds of those on an alcohol monitoring scheme have perfect compliance throughout the whole period of the scheme.
My Lords, I must admit that when I started to listen to this short and interesting debate, I was somewhat puzzled by it and I certainly did not think that this proposal had much of a part to play. However, the more I listened, the more interested I became. Having heard the very good speeches of my noble friend Lady Finlay and the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, setting out the support that exists, and indeed the practical support from the mayor, I am now convinced that this is a possible area for action. However, I have a question. When an assessment of alcohol consumption was made, could a test also be carried out to see whether drugs were involved and, if they were, could drugs also come under the treatment required? We all know that, alas, the consumption of drugs, as with alcohol, is rife. Equally, I totally accept that the amount of alcohol consumed by the young today is huge compared with what young people drank in the past. I am talking about quantities, because one sees how much is drunk by the younger generations. Having heard the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, I also agree that it might be a good idea to have a sunset clause. Somewhat to my surprise, I am quite attracted to this idea and I shall be very interested to hear what the Government have to say.
It may be helpful if I respond briefly to the question about drugs. Drugs can be tested using this model, as has happened in Hawaii. However, this is about alcohol monitoring. The drug problem involves a much smaller number of people and there is not the same level of gratuitous violence as one gets with alcohol. Also, drug-testing usually requires a urine sample, whereas here we are talking about a breathalyser which will pick up alcohol levels. This is exactly why a pilot is important. One can find out the problems that can occur and the pilot could be rolled out further if it was successful. This is about alcohol monitoring, and we are dealing with alcohol because it is the biggest problem that we face. In conjunction with that, of course, there is lots of support on offer to people. The problem is that they do not take it up.
I will be grateful if the Minister will tell the Committee under exactly which parts of current legislation these pilots can be conducted. The legal advice that I have had is that it is only low-level offences. I have also been advised that breathalysers cannot be used under current legislation, so it would be helpful if she could specify which legislation they would be used under. Will she tell the Committee whether devices that detect alcohol in sweat are Home Office-approved and, if they are not, when she anticipates that approval will come through so that the pilots can start? Where will these pilots be conducted? When will they start? For how long will they be conducted? Who is funding them? Without that information, it is very difficult to accept at face value what sounds like a great idea, but we have heard it before, last summer, and I am afraid that no action has been seen since then.
I agree that alcohol does not cause domestic violence but I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us why alcohol-fuelled domestic violence is fundamentally different from other forms of domestic violence. Perhaps it is because it is witnessed by children in the family, who will bear those scars for their whole lives; at least if there is a drunken brawl out in the streets at midnight, it is not witnessed by children where their parent is being seriously injured. Therefore, I also ask for an explanation of why the Government have decided to downgrade the importance of domestic violence, which has extremely long-term effects.
I have to dispute what the noble Baroness says about downgrading the importance of domestic violence—we have not. It is because we recognise that it is a very complex and dangerous form of violence that we are separating it out from the assessment of the practicalities of this scheme in these pilots. It is something that has to be addressed across the board and in a much more complex way than whether or not you breathalyse or tag somebody and decide whether or not they have breached various conditions.
The noble Baroness has made her case extremely clear. We absolutely accept the principles. We are taking this forward in the pilots that I have mentioned. I realise there is another debate coming on. I am very happy to engage with her, as is my noble friend Lord McNally, and give her the answers to all the questions she has raised. I will not detain everybody at this point, and I hope that she will be prepared to work with us to take this further forward. As my noble friend Lord Carlile said, this is a very intractable, long-standing problem, but anything we can do to try to resolve the elements that we can, we should do; that comes overwhelmingly from people in this debate. We are taking forward these pilots—I give her that commitment—and let us discuss the details after the sitting.
I am grateful to the Minister for having responded in that way, for offering to meet me and work through all the details. I am also extremely grateful for the support that I have had from all sides of the House, unequivocally. I make it clear that I am not against the tagging process; I am not against anything that deals with this problem effectively. What I am worried about is that if these schemes are not approved this problem will be kicked into touch for yet longer, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said, and we just cannot do that. Like others, I also pay particular tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, who has spoken movingly and has committed her life to trying to bring some good out of the tragedy that she personally suffered.
With that, I will not press my amendment tonight, but I look forward to further discussions, and I must warn the Government that if I do not get satisfactory answers I intend to bring this back on Report.