Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the world now knows about the technology used by your Lordships and their Saturday night viewing habits. I associate myself with the remarks that have been made. I was not able to be in the House while the Bill was in Committee. However, I was a bit surprised that, rather than a quite simple but perhaps simplistic amendment which restored what everyone had thought of as the status quo, instead the amendment is around 10 lines in length. Those among your Lordships and from the Government who carried out the drafting have come up with very many lines, which can sometimes prove more difficult than a more straightforward and prescribed amendment.

Having said that, I want to mention the position of defendants. I agree very much with what has been said, and I simply add that not to provide anonymity or reporting restrictions—whatever term you apply, although of course they are not necessarily the same thing—seems to me to undermine the whole purpose of the youth justice system, which is rehabilitation, reintegration, and so on. An enormously important principle is at stake here. The same really applies to the amendment of my noble friend Lord Marks. One cannot separate out the stages. I am sure that there is a sporting analogy for this. Having lost anonymity at that early point before being charged, there is really nothing more that one can sensibly do afterwards to fulfil the spirit of what the Government themselves seem to consider important, even if we would like to have more than the Government’s amendment.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, my Amendment 123 is largely superfluous in the light of the government amendments. The Standing Committee for Youth Justice has sent to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, I suspect, a briefing which was largely laid out by the noble Earl. He made the point very well about the high threshold test proposed by the Government in their amendments. He summarised that by saying that the new threshold test would be a diminishment of co-operation or evidence through fear on behalf of the witnesses or the victims. The Standing Committee for Youth Justice briefing makes the point that this higher threshold is even higher than that in the Children and Young Persons Act. This is an important point, which I hope that the noble Lord will be able to address.

This is a very difficult area of legislation. In my brief time in the courts, although the law has not changed in the adult courts, in practice what magistrates view as appropriate use of media within a courtroom has changed quite a lot. This is largely at the discretion of the magistrates and district judges involved. I very much hope that the noble Lord will agree that whichever amendments are agreed tonight will be kept under review, because this is such a delicate and difficult matter.

Where I diverge from the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, is whether lifetime anonymity should be given to child offenders. The briefing was rather less nuanced than the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. To put it in stark terms, I do not think it reasonable that a young person of 17 and a half should get a lifetime of anonymity, whereas someone who is 18 gets no anonymity if they have committed largely the same offence. If one were to rely on the briefing alone, that is the burden of the argument which is being made. I know that that is not the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile; he presented his case in a more nuanced way. However, I find it troubling that there is potentially a very stark difference in the way that people are treated on either side of the 18 years of age barrier.

I would like to make a further point, which may be a technical one. I noticed that the briefing continually refers to child defendants and not to child offenders, whereas of course all the children about whom we are talking have either pleaded guilty or been found guilty in a court. They are not, in my understanding, child defendants. Having said all that, it is a real issue about the availability of the internet and how that might affect the rehabilitation and reintegration of young offenders into the community.

I conclude with an anecdote, which is not to do with youth. Recently, my wife employed a female offender who was still in prison but on release when she was employed by my wife. It was a wholly positive experience in that the offender worked well and the organisation benefited. However, when my wife searched the internet for the offences that the woman had committed, the information she got was not what she had been told by the offender or the organisation which facilitated the work placement. Nevertheless, I support the Government in their objectives.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

Monday 18th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Flight. I remind the Committee that I sit as a magistrate in central London, and in my time I have certainly given many ASBOs for persistent and aggressive begging. When I sit, it is relatively commonplace to have an ASBO application from Westminster City Council, and it is something that magistrates are experienced at dealing with. As I said at Second Reading, in my experience, magistrates are more sceptical about granting ASBOs than they were when they were first introduced, and certainly not all ASBOs that are applied for are given.

The noble Lord, Lord Flight, has set out the case very well. I have been lobbied by Westminster City Council and the central point is that, if the existing mechanisms within local authorities are used to dealing with a particular administrative structure, there will inevitably be a cost if one changes that structure. Therefore, I think that it is incumbent on the Minister to explain why he thinks that the new measures he proposes to introduce will work more effectively and potentially reduce those costs. As I said, certainly from the point of view of magistrates administering this, it is a relatively well oiled machine, and we take a sceptical view when we put them in place in the first instance.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord knows that I have concerns about this amendment. I hear what he says about other cities. I have obviously not been able to undertake a scientific assessment but there seems to be quite a variation in views—in London, at any rate—about whether this is the right way to go about the matter.

The language in the amendment seems to be very general;

“intentional or deliberate anti-social behaviour”,

could mean pretty much anything, as we heard earlier. I would have thought almost all anti-social behaviour could potentially be persistent; most conduct would be potentially persistent, but that is not really my concern. The begging that we have heard about troubles me a lot for a variety of reasons; one of them is the criminal gangs behind the beggars. I am not immediately convinced that this measure, dealing with those who are forced into the activity, will actually solve the problem or deter the activity. I am also concerned—though I accept this might be the position with the current arrangements—about the revolving door of arrests. Some are in the cells overnight and then they are out again.

There is other legislation as well; I am sorry that the Minister has apparently not responded at length. I had understood that quite a long letter giving the Government’s views had gone out. That is a matter for my noble friend. I have not seen the letter; I just heard that there was one. It dealt with the other legislation, which might be quite old. That does not mean to say that it is necessarily bad.

I went to the noble Lord’s briefing with Westminster City Council. I heard Councillor Aiken’s views very powerfully expressed. I did not gain the impression that everything was okay now, so I was a bit confused as to the argument against scrapping the current system. I may have been wrong, but I picked up the feeling that there were problems now.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

Tuesday 25th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede]

My Lords, Amendment 16 would put a duty on all providers of probation services to,

“participate in, and be accountable to, community safety partnerships and to co-operate with crime and disorder reduction partnerships and local integrated offender management schemes”.

Following Second Reading, I entered into correspondence with the office of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, on this question and was referred to Section 6 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which places duties on various responsible authorities to formulate crime reduction strategies, which in practice is done through community safety partnerships. In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, argued that there does not need to be further legislation on this matter and stated:

“Integration at local level works best when it is not mandated centrally”.—[Official Report, 5/6/2013; col. 1217.]

London Councils, which has briefed me on this amendment, argues that there is clear evidence from the Work Programme that commissioning services from the market, when applied on a large scale and managed on a national scale, can lead to low levels of engagement with local partners and therefore low levels of effectiveness. Therefore, the purpose of this amendment is to ensure that community safety partnerships have a role in performance managing the future delivery of contracts. There should be accountability measures within the contracting process and action should be taken where providers fail adequately to work in partnership at a local level. Community safety partnerships should have access to performance data from prime and subcontractor providers in order to have a local oversight of delivery. Although I was very grateful for the advice that I received from the noble Lord’s office, the purpose of these amendments is to put meat on the bone so that local authorities can properly play an influential and well informed role in managing local provision of services. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I declare an interest as one of the three joint presidents of London Councils. I have seen the briefing from that body and support the points that have been made. I entirely agree with my noble friend that “bottom-up” is best, but sometimes structure is needed to allow these things to function well. I am not sure whether the example I am going to give is appropriate, but I will give it anyway.

In the London borough of Sutton, where this issue is “bottom-up” but structured, there is a very interesting partnership between the local authority and the police. The structure is such that there is joint management of certain services provided by those two parts of the public sector. Sutton tends not to go in for strident self-publicity so it does not seem to have made very much of this, but what it has done is extremely interesting. The joint management whereby the two arms are brought together works well as there is joint accountability. Whether or not that is a good example, I take the point about the need sometimes to have a framework. It is much better if that can happen locally but facilitation through legislation does not go amiss. If the Government still maintain that there is no need for this, are they considering issuing any guidance? I would rather not have central government guidance on what should happen locally, but sometimes a little prompting is helpful.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I will speak also to Amendment 32. I suspect that on Amendment 31 I am in for a little more teasing from my noble friend Lord McNally. The noble Lord shakes his head; that is a shame. In that case I am in for more teasing from the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad.

Clause 16 would insert a new section into the Criminal Justice Act 2003, with regard to the permission that is required before an offender who is the subject of a relevant order may change residence. In new Section 220A(4) we are told that there are two grounds available to either the officer or the court, which in effect is the appeal body here from a responsible officer’s decision. I would like to be completely sure that these are the only grounds. I am sure that they are, but I wanted to make the point.

We also wanted to add another provision which would, in effect, alter the presumption in these circumstances. When refusal was given, there would not simply have to be an opinion that a change of residence would be likely to prevent compliance with a requirement or hinder rehabilitation; it would go further. The purpose of the requirement or the rehabilitation would have to be significantly less likely to be achieved if the offender were to change residence. The reason is that a restriction on moving one’s home or one’s household—possibly having to move because of family problems such as the offender and partner splitting up, or because there are job prospects somewhere easier to reach from a new home—are all extremely important and part of rehabilitation. I am not convinced that every possible circumstance is covered by subsection (4)(a) and (b) of new Section 220A. I beg to move.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, raised some interesting points about the role of the responsible officer when an offender applies to change their residence. When considering this amendment, I immediately thought of all the potential problems that might arise. There is also the general point about the level of independence of judgment of the responsible officer when considering these applications. Two questions came to my mind. What would be the position if somebody with a series of convictions for domestic violence wanted to move into a house with a new girlfriend? That might hinder rehabilitation; it would be a judgment that would have to be made by the responsible officer. I do not know what the result might be. I am not sure that the responsible officer would necessarily be told that that was the situation.

Conversely, what would happen if the girlfriend wanted to move into the offender’s current address? If told about it, the responsible officer may have a responsibility to the new girlfriend to ensure that she is informed of the offender’s previous convictions. These are difficult matters which need a lot of expertise to be able to deal with them and there needs to be guidance—maybe non-statutory guidance—for the officers. In general, I am sympathetic to the amendments which the noble Baroness has moved, but I am conscious that there may well be many problems with making those decisions.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

Monday 12th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede]

My Lords, I wish to raise a new issue, which came to my attention at the end of last week. I was advised by the Public Bill Office that I should take the slightly unusual step of raising this new issue on this Motion. I also informed the Minister’s office that I intended to do this.

It is the intention of the Bill to adopt the Scottish model for protections for the DNA database, and therefore to find an equivalent to the Scottish sheriff courts in England and Wales. As currently worded, the Bill requires the hearings to be before a district judge from the magistrates’ court. This is too restrictive; all that is necessary is for the application to be made to a magistrates’ court. Whether to put the matter before a district judge or a lay bench of magistrates can then be decided locally. This may be a small point but it is one of principle and practicality.

The point of principle is that lay benches have exactly the same powers as district judges. There is only one exception to that, which is in the matter of extradition. Beyond that, it is a point of principle in magistrates’ courts in England and Wales that lay benches have exactly the same powers as district judges.

The point of practicality is that limiting applications to district judges will mean unnecessary inconvenience to citizens. There will be delay and there may be extra costs. The reason for that is that district judges tend to sit in large cities and may be less readily available than lay benches.

I realise that this matter is being raised at a very late stage. I have given the noble Lord notice of it and I look forward to his response.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I shall speak for a moment in the hope that my noble friend Lord Dholakia will get here. I know that he has raised this matter with the Government as well. It is welcome to have unusual procedures available to make sure that we get the final product right. Someone is telling me that my noble friend is not here. I merely wanted to record that he has raised the same matter. I am sure he will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for raising it now.