Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Meyer Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Monday 1st November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, like the noble and learned Lord, I shall attempt to be very brief indeed. My understanding of the law is that it should bring about a degree of certainty in society and a degree of reconciliation. I fear that the Bill as it stands does neither: in fact, it does the opposite. It has the perverse impact of making division and intolerance more likely because it points the finger of accusation at people who have done no wrong. As such, it seems to me to be an intrusion too far. The perverse consequence of trying to stamp out hate plays into the hands of the oversensitive and the intolerant, and actually gives strength to those who want to damage others by making outlandish or, indeed, even malicious accusations.

Two weeks ago, we stood in this House paying tribute to Sir David Amess. The Chamber was filled with voices of alarm that social media and everything else had fuelled intolerance and injustice. These provisions might well be misused to pour petrol on those flames. The test of innocent until proven guilty is turned on its head: that is unacceptable. When officialdom is given the power to police the thoughts of the people, it crosses a dangerous line. I have said enough; I said I would be brief, but I am following in the footsteps of some very powerful speeches. I wholeheartedly support these amendments, and I hope that the Government and the Minister are in listening mode.

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I want to make a point about something that is not directly related, but which I found quite odd. A few weeks ago, I was arrested for speeding. It was the first time in 40 years that I had actually done anything wrong while driving. Interestingly, the notice I received clearly said that the fact that I had no other points on my licence was irrelevant because that would be unfair to others. I do not understand how, if you have been a good guy and have never done anything wrong, that cannot be a positive factor, yet in this Bill we are accusing people and putting them immediately in the negative, even though there is no serious proof. I therefore support the amendment.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, on behalf of these Benches, I too support these amendments, for all the reasons given by the noble Lords who tabled them. Of course, the principal amendment seeks regulations and lacks specificity. It does not seek to define all the circumstances for retaining, recording, using or disclosing personal data relating to hate crimes or non-criminal hate incidents or otherwise. That is sensible, and it is now for the Government to accept the principles that underly this amendment and come forward with proposals. Of course, I accept the caution which the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, brings to the question of regulations that are unamendable; nevertheless, this is a complex area that needs a complex response.

The principles engaged are important. As the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, pointed out, this amendment is not concerned with established hate crime or in any sense with defending hate crime. It starts from the principle that personal data deserves protection from the arbitrary retention, use and disclosure by the police, enforcement agencies and authorities generally, and the converse principle that disclosure should be subject to the rule of law and to principles of accountability—points made by many in this debate, and briefly but eloquently by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, a few moments ago.

The conduct with which these amendments are concerned is not provably, still less proved, criminal—a point made by many. They seek to control the arbitrary retention, use and disclosure of personal information, based on a subjective perception of a citizen’s motivation, in the absence of solid evidence or proof. It is subjective, one notes, because it is often based on the subjective view of another citizen—no better informed, necessarily, than the citizen about whom the information is then held.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, spoke on the basis that subsection (7) was in a different category from the rest of the clause. I prefer the way that the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, put it, when he set out the principles that underlay the whole of this amendment. It is not often that I find myself agreeing with almost everybody in the House, including, at one and the same time, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti—but I do. Even on this occasion, although I understand the hesitations voiced by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, she and the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, accepted the need for regulation in this area.

The amendment is directed at achieving sensible limitations on the retention, use and disclosure of data to others. This is an area where the Government ought to act and that has become controversial, with the emergence of guidelines that are, frankly, offensive to justice and parliamentary democracy. I therefore invite the Minister—I believe that I speak for the House in doing so—to return to the House with proposals that accept the principles that we have enunciated and will give rise to amendment of the Bill, to its vast improvement.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Meyer Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Monday 15th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, this evening. I do so not just because I have attached my name to it, but because I emphatically agree with what it seeks to achieve. Anyone who knows me is aware that I am an advocate for a strong law-and-order approach to crime; for those who break the law, the punishment must fit the crime—which often includes imprisonment. This amendment, however, is trying to protect the dignity of female prisoners.

The female prison estate is currently run as a mixed-sex institution. This is because the Ministry of Justice’s policies permit prisoners of the male sex who identify as transgender and fulfil certain criteria, resulting in them being held alongside vulnerable female prisoners. Some of these prisoners have been convicted of the most serious violent and sexual offences and are biologically male.

It surely follows that women’s prisons should be separate-sex facilities to preserve, as far as reasonably possible, the safety, dignity and privacy of women in prison. Since the Corston report in 2007 it has been acknowledged throughout the criminal justice system that women in prison exhibit patterns of vulnerability that distinguish them both from women in the wider community and from male offenders. It is also worth noting that female offenders report disproportionately high rates of previous experience of violent and sexual abuse, and experience high rates of mental health problems.

Where women in prison have been victims of violent and sexual assault, prison is often the very first time they can be confident that they will be away from their abusers, who are usually men. I strongly contend that, where women in prison have been victims of sexual and violent abuse at the hands of males, the presence of any offender of the male sex may have an inherently traumatising effect, regardless of the nature of the offence committed.

It is the Ministry of Justice policy—namely, The Care and Management of Individuals who are Transgender —that permits prisoners of the male sex to be housed in the female estate. The policy states that all male prisoners who identify as transgender and who are in possession of a gender recognition certificate must be allocated to the female estate. This is irrespective of any conviction, offending history, risk profile or anatomy, including those who are high-risk prisoners and those convicted of violent and sexual offences against women.

I too was going to refer to the judicial review that was brought in March 2021, but the mover of the amendment has adequately covered that, so I will refrain. However, I shall again emphasise one line: while the policies were found not to be unlawful, it should be said again that the judgment acknowledged the negative impact of the policies on women in prison.

Furthermore, there is no requirement under the Gender Recognition Act 2004, if people fulfil certain criteria, for them to have surgery or medical treatment to obtain a GRC. It is a fact, as has already been referred to, that GRCs have been obtained in prison by males convicted of violent and sexual offences who have been transferred to the female prison estate. The latest data available on the number of male-sex prisoners who identify as transgender dates back to 2019, but back then it was 11 in number. I understand that new data will be available to be released, or at least is expected to be released, this month. Forcing women to share accommodation with prisoners of the male sex, particularly where those prisoners have been convicted of violent or sexual offences, arguably engages Article 3 on the right not to be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

I urge your Lordships’ House to support this reasoned and sensible amendment, which is clearly intended to respect female prisoners, including their rights and dignity. Not to do so could be interpreted as not caring how female prisoners end up. Indeed, the conditions that they are subjected to could be construed as part of their prison sentence—which of course they are not, and never should be.

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 214 seeks to eliminate the risks and dangers to women in prison by the muddled use in legislation of the terms “sex” and “gender”. They are not interchangeable. They have come to mean very different things. Matters have reached such a pitch that I am tempted to paraphrase the 18th-century man of letters Dr Samuel Johnson and say that “Allowing a person with a full set of male genitals the legal right to serve a sentence in a women’s prison is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all”. It is, not to put a too fine a point on it, barking mad.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I am afraid it is not just the Government who are split on this. With two notable exceptions, rarely have so many noble Barons spoken with such passion and at such length for the dignity of women—and there is nothing wrong with late-flowering feminism. I say that quite sincerely to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, who I had the privilege of advising as a young lawyer in the Home Office some years ago now. There is nothing wrong with late-flowering feminism and, indeed, nothing wrong with speaking up for the dignity of all people. I say that as a self-identifying feminist and human rights campaigner.

The debate has ranged widely, which may be fine even at this late hour, but it has ranged beyond the specific issue. Noble Lords have brought up various issues to do with the lexicon and whether people feel that their dignity is lost, or that somehow their femaleness, or their womanhood, is challenged by newcomers, migrants to their sex, et cetera. To get back to the actual issue, life is complicated, prisons are vulnerable spaces and everybody in prison is inherently potentially threatening but also potentially vulnerable. I want to get back to the actual substance of this amendment and what it is trying to address. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, that, if he and I were trapped in a lift with a third person—this is just a hypothetical, not an invitation, I promise—and the third person was a cis woman, born a woman, still a woman, always a woman, but none the less a white supremacist with previous convictions as long as your arm for violence against non-white women, I would feel much more threatened by the presence of that offender than by the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. He is looking quizzical, but my point is that the Secretary of State has responsibilities to people in custody, in particular, and to people in vulnerable spaces that cannot be dealt with using the blunt instrument of an amendment like this.

I am not making nit-picking points. I am trying to address points that I think the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, tried to make early on. Forgive me—it is no criticism, but some noble Lords responded subsequently with speeches which were understandably carefully prepared in advance, without the opportunity to hear her rather sensitive and thoughtful setting out of the way in which the Government to date are trying to address their administrative and serious human rights responsibilities to deal with all vulnerable people in prison.

I suggest to the noble Lord that in the hypothetical lift I would be at far greater risk from the white supremacist with previous convictions. This is not a total hypothetical, because this has happened in male prisons where non-white offenders have been murdered by fellow cis males—that being the term for people born and always a man—because of a lack of diligence about the offending and attitudinal profile of a person.

If we really care about people being safe in custody, which we must, this will not be resolved by a blunt instrument. This is not a drafting point or a nit-picking point. In my view, we have too many people—and I suggest too many women—in prison anyway, and we need to pay more attention to who is with whom and how we are taking care of them.

Something like this amendment, which says that your birth sex is always your sex for the purposes of imprisonment and incarceration, would mean that someone born a woman who then went through hormone therapy, possibly more interventionist therapies and even surgery would always be in a women’s prison. That would not necessarily always be the right outcome.

What I am trying to suggest is that, yes, I care about being a woman and, yes, I care about being a feminist, but I am a human first and foremost. I do not hate men. I do not fear all men. I am not a self-loathing cis woman. I believe that in this Committee, perhaps more than anywhere, we should be capable of taking some of the heat out of these sensitive issues, as I think we tried to do in an earlier—I called it historic—debate. Debates about the lexicon and wider dignity, important and heated though they are, will not make women safer and they will not make prisoners safer.

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

We are talking about men who feel they are women but who have male genitalia being in a women’s prison. We are not talking about men who had operations. We are talking about men who, after being in a prison for several months, might have needs and could attack women. Some of those men are paedophiles and are violent.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I hear the noble Baroness, and I do not call her a late-flowering human rights spokesperson or feminist. I know that when she spoke on another Bill about parental alienation, she very clearly identified and recognised that people of both sexes were capable of this behaviour. Perhaps if she had had the opportunity to listen to the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, before she prepared hers—I make no criticism of that, because we all do it—she would recognise that the Government are already moving quite a long way to deal with these difficult administrative duties of care.

I believe that people of good will and good faith, as I consider this Committee to be, can deal with this without using some of the language that—forgive me— some noble Lords have used repeatedly. Repeatedly calling people one sex even though it is very important to them to be another does not help. This place—this Committee and your Lordships’ House—should not be a place of culture war. This should be a place where we make difficult things a little bit easier because of rational thought and the respect that we pay each other and therefore everyone else.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Meyer Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Lords Hansard - part one & Report stage
Monday 10th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I rise to speak against this amendment. We should remind ourselves that when we talk about trans women and trans men, we are talking about men and women who have faced very difficult choices about their identity and whom they believe themselves to be. Once they face that choice and make the decision, the transition is a very lengthy process and, again, it is not undertaken lightly because, as we have heard, so often it leads to gender reassignment.

I occasionally go on Twitter. I have read the tweets and received messages from people who, in relation to what we are discussing tonight, have said that if they thought that they were going to prison as a trans woman or a trans man, they would rather commit suicide than face what they believe would be inhumane treatment within the United Kingdom Prison Service. We have to deal with these fears. We are being asked to deal with fears on both sides of this argument, and I want us to deal with both equally. The balancing of rights always poses for us the greatest problem, but I believe that the Ministry of Justice, in its policy on assessing trans prisoners, has got it absolutely right.

It is late and we have other important work to do, so I will begin to wind up. But I wish to associate myself wholeheartedly with the comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I could go through the policy section by section stating why I believe it is right. I am not going to do that, but if your Lordships wished to return to it, I would do so.

I will finish with these reflections. This amendment, even though it has been placed in good faith and, as the mover said, with good intention, deeply concerns me because it perpetrates the stereotype of trans women and trans men as sexual predators—as a threat to other women, and trans men as a threat to the wider society. It also, as was said in debate on the previous amendment, creates further inequalities; it does not reduce them.

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I support this amendment, and the first thing I want to say is that we are talking only about men who have not transitioned to women, which is quite different.

Although we have come a long way since the 2007 Corston report to improve conditions for women in prisons, we are now failing them. Indeed, something has recently gone badly wrong. Women prisoners have a right to the security of a single-sex space. By definition, women are deprived of this security if men are admitted to their prison, including trans women prisoners of male sex, whether or not they have the benefit of a GRC. By the same token, a women’s prison is no place for vulnerable at-risk males. Prison policy must provide for the protection of everybody, and this amendment makes that clear.

How then have we allowed prison policy to be captured by a concern for the protection of trans prisoners at the cost of imprisoned women’s most fundamental rights? There is no balance or fairness in that. The answer of course is that government departments have allowed themselves to be influenced, even intimidated, by noisy and modish pressure groups, whose wilful ignorance of basic science has all the features of a cult.

I have never visited or been to a prison, but as a woman I can imagine how it must be to be incarcerated and threatened. On this note, I very much support this amendment and thank my noble friends Lord Blencathra, Lord Farmer and Lord Cormack for tabling it.

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have visited a number of prisons, both women’s prisons and male prisons. I have also sat where the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, sits and answered a number of difficult questions about where you house those who have transitioned, or purport to transition, usually from the male gender to the female gender. It is an incredibly difficult task that the Ministry has to perform, and it requires assessment and nuance. As a young barrister, I had the privilege of representing April Ashley, a pioneer in this field who died about three weeks ago. She changed from a man to a woman after pioneering surgery in north Africa and had lived successfully as a woman for 30 years when she was arrested by the police and thrown into a male jail. She was philosophical about the unfair charge, but less philosophical about the desperately inconsiderate approach that was shown by the police.