Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, I wish to speak today on a couple of issues to which the Bill gives rise. Noble Lords have said that, on the face of it, this seems an eminently sensible Bill in many respects, and I think there will much support for elements of it across the House. However, it has caused significant concern among organisations and NGOs that operate in fields such as criminal justice and the protection of victims of domestic violence. I am thinking of organisations such as Amnesty, Justice and Inquest and, most recently, some of the families affected by the Hillsborough disaster, the Manchester bombing, the Grenfell Tower fire and the Daniel Morgan case.

In all these cases, those charged with inquiring into what happened experienced delays and even obstruction in getting access to material necessary to establish what had happened. The measures in this Bill and the Criminal Justice Bill do not go far enough in addressing the problems identified by victims during repeated criminal cases and inquiries over the years, not least the disproportionality of resources available to statutory agencies, which may be able to brief several leading counsel, and to victims, who find themselves struggling to afford the costs of one. All these matters increase the stress experienced by victims, and a code and a charter do to not equate to a statutory obligation on agencies. I attended the Minister’s briefing on his Government’s response to the Jones report on the Hillsborough case and the experience of victims, and there was universal sadness and concern about the Government’s response.

The Human Rights Act has been very significant in strengthening the rights of those who, for various reasons such as poverty, homelessness and marginalisation, are unable to engage as fully as they might with the criminal justice system, whether as victims, perpetrators, alleged perpetrators, or even ultimately as prisoners. These tend to be the people for whom life is hardest, very often for reasons outside their control. It has been observed on many occasions that people can end up in prison for less serious offences, while the perpetrators of serious crimes may not even be investigated because of the lack of the resources needed for serious criminal investigations.

It is important that, having reappointed the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, as Victims’ Commissioner—a recognition of her significant contribution in this area—the Government should listen carefully to the observations about the Bill which she expressed in a fine contribution this afternoon. She brings such experience and courage to this role. I particularly ask the noble and learned Lord the Minister to consider enhancing the provisions in the Bill on the care and support of victims of domestic violence.

Clauses 49 to 51 provide for the setting aside of the Human Rights Act, which requires public authorities and judges to interpret and apply legislation in accordance with human rights law in so far as is possible. Clause 52 weights judicial decisions on qualified human rights decisions against prisoners. Matters relating to release issues such as the right to family life, the right to liberty, and the right of access to the courts and a fair hearing, will be impacted by these clauses. Allowing judges to continue to take into account issues which are relevant in the light of Section 3 of the Human Rights Act is not a matter of going soft on prisoners. Reducing that judicial capacity is not justified by the evidence we have to date.

I had the privilege to serve under Lord Justice Sir Peter Gross in the review of the Human Rights Act a year or so ago. Despite taking extensive and varied evidence, we did not identify any grounds for the changes to the application of the Human Rights Act proposed in this Bill. It should be a matter of concern to all of us that we are progressively and incrementally dismantling the provisions of the Human Rights Act that have applied in this country under the ECHR, and now under the Human Rights Act, for the past 70 or so years. We were rightly proud of our contribution as a country to the creation of the convention, which followed the Second World War, with its appalling death toll, its genocide, and the attacks on homosexuals, Christians, the disabled and many others who were regarded as unnecessary or unwanted by the Nazis, and its devastation and destruction of the world.

The convention articulated very basic human rights, and Section 3 is a statement of the need for the judiciary to act in accordance with it, as part of the rule of law now. Over recent times, we have seen legislation which seems simply to ignore these obligations under domestic and European human rights law. I think of the Illegal Migration Act, so roundly condemned in your Lordships’ House. Then there is the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act, currently the subject of multiple judicial review applications challenging its legality—judicial reviews that were anticipated from the very beginning, at the First Reading of that Bill. The world anticipated those judicial reviews, and it is important that we do not get a reputation for setting aside our human rights obligations when they seem to become less than convenient.

Paragraph 100 of the Explanatory Memorandum explains:

“The purpose of this is to avoid courts adopting a strained section 3 interpretation, which ultimately disregards the policy intentions of the release regime. The measures also provide that, where a court is considering a challenge relating to a relevant Convention right, in relation to application of any of the release legislation, the court must give the greatest possible weight to the importance of reducing the risk to the public from the offender”.


There is very little evidence to support the existence of this hypothetical risk. These provisions have the effect of discriminating against one small sector of society by disapplying rights that others have. The parole and release systems have generally worked well. This intervention is not necessary or proportionate, and I urge government to think very carefully about the effects on the UK’s reputation and its global capacity of the way in which this legislation is formulated.

King’s Speech

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, keeping the public safe is undoubtedly a worthy, desirable and even necessary aspiration for Government, and the PM’s briefing on the gracious Speech gives us some rather interesting figures in relation to the proposed legislation. It is very good to see that there has been an increase of 5.1% in police numbers in the past year, giving us 147,430 full-time equivalent police officers—some 3,700 more than we had in 2010. However, the population has increased over the same period by some 7 million, crime has become more complex, and serious organised crime has grown exponentially. In addition to that, across England and Wales there are about 5,000 officers on long-term absence, and a further 7,500 are on adjusted duties, meaning they are not available for front-line policing. We need to bear this in mind as we contemplate how we should reform the law.

Key figures also indicate a significant reduction in reported crime, but the Crime Survey for England and Wales estimates that only 40% of crime is reported to the police. Crime reporting and methodologies have obviously been the subject of a lot of discussion, and it is widely reported that either police will not respond or that people have no faith that there is any purpose in reporting. There have been reports that police will not investigate shoplifting under £200, that judges have been told to delay the sentencing of criminals because the prisons are too full, and that police generally will not respond to domestic burglaries and vehicle crime. The issuing of a crime number for such crimes does not address the task of preventing future crime by the perpetrators. Add to that the factors such as intimidation and fear of reprisals and it would perhaps be unwise to conclude that crime levels are in fact diminishing.

The proposals in the sentencing Bill to increase the duration of prison sentences which must be served in certain cases are perhaps attractive until one starts to think about the fact that our prisons are grossly overcrowded. I welcome the proposal for a presumption that a sentence for custodial terms of 12 months or fewer will be suspended. It will be interesting to see the evidence that extending the proportion of a prison sentence which must be served will have the effect of reducing crime. The purpose of prison would surely be much better served if the resources available were used to provide rehabilitative schemes, educational services and adequate mental health services within our prisons, rather than keeping prisoners in custody for longer and longer periods of time, in situations in which they are provided with consoles to play games to keep them occupied, rather than doing anything which is going to equip them to play a purposeful, contributing role on their release.

As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said, there are reasons why it is important to have flexibility in how long the most serious offenders must serve. If they have some hope, in the form of an understanding that they may be released early if they behave themselves and that they may be detained for longer if they do not, they may be influenced in how they behave, thus making the job of those prison officers who have to look after them easier, and indeed safer.

The proposals to ensure that criminals face the consequences of their actions by forcing them to appear in court may seem attractive. However, perhaps a note of caution is merited. Even the logistics of forcing someone to appear for sentencing may be very challenging for those required to bring the individual into court. If someone does not wish to go, undoubtedly prison officers and police officers are trained in how to make them go. However, the logistics are difficult. Manhandling people into court is possible, but anyone who has witnessed the process of moving somebody who does not wish to move will know that it will be difficult and may actually cause further distress to the victims of the crime for which the sentence is being proposed.

A letter yesterday from the Home Secretary indicated that the Home Office will introduce new legislation to give effect to the recommendation made by Bishop James Jones on the Hillsborough issue for a statutory duty of candour. It will not be enough to introduce a statutory duty of candour on individual officers, welcome though that may be. The Daniel Morgan Independent Panel, which I had the privilege to chair, recommended the creation of a wider statutory duty of candour, to be owed by all law enforcement agencies to those whom they serve, subject to protection of national security and relevant data protection law.

For there to be confidence in policing, there has to be confidence that organisational failings, particularly the failing to address criminality within the ranks of police forces, will be dealt with, and that institutional defensiveness and lack of transparency will not result in a failure to admit and address institutional failings. Concern about the lack of transparency linked to institutional defensiveness led to the establishment of a statutory duty of candour in the National Health Service. There have long been calls for a similar duty in relation to police. As a panel we recognised the complex challenges of guaranteeing public accountability of an organisation such as the police, not least because of the requirement to protect information in accordance with the law. However, those challenges should not prevent frank and prompt accounts to the public about mistakes and wrongdoing. Such a duty of candour would not in any way compromise the necessary protection of information in accordance with the law.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

My Lords, as legislators, we surely have a duty to safeguard the public good as best we can. We must legislate in the public interest, taking into account the needs not only of the strong and eloquent but also the weak and vulnerable, who have come to believe, perhaps, that their lives have no value because that is what so much of society tells them if they are sick, or ageing—as so many of us are in your Lordships’ House—if their ongoing existence is eating up the money they have faithfully saved to leave something to those they love, or if they need care and are afraid of becoming a burden on those who care for them. We have a duty to all these people, and the Bill does not provide the safeguards and protections they need from those who would encourage them to make the required declaration.

Questions about safeguards and public safety are central to whether the Bill merits the support of Parliament. If it is not safe, it must be rejected. The Bill offers no real safeguards, only vague statements of intent with no detail of how they can or should be enforced. With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, these are not speculative concerns. Parliament is being asked to pass assisted suicide into law and let the Department of Health and Social Care develop a code of practice at a later date. There is an assumption that MPs and Peers should—and would—allow themselves to be bypassed, and that they would abdicate their responsibility, surrender their powers and fail in their duty of scrutiny.

The Bill is window-dressed, seductively, with deceptive assurances of safety. We have heard repeatedly just how difficult it is to make a prognosis of imminent death. How are a settled and informed wish for assisted suicide, mental capacity and freedom from pressure to be established? A 2020 report from Oregon revealed that 53% of patients requested lethal drugs because they feared becoming a burden on those they loved who cared for them. There is an assumption that doctors will do the dreadful work of facilitating and assisting suicides. Another 2020 survey showed that the majority of those licensed to practice who are closest to the terminally ill and dying patient, do not support legislation on assisted suicide and will not participate in it.

My postbag was unusually full on this occasion, not only with letters from people asking me to oppose the Bill, but also from a number of clinicians who set out, very articulately, why it was such a dangerous Bill. Some of those emails and letters have been quoted in your Lordships’ House today.

How are judges to assess the decisions of the doctors, who are the gatekeepers of death in this legislation? Fundamentally, as has been said, the Bill will change the role of medical professionals from caregivers into killers. I am afraid that when you terminate the life of somebody that is what happens.

We can do better than this. We can spend our money on improving palliative care. The current prohibitions against assisted suicide are effective safeguards that strike a delicate balance. Without them, the health service will become dangerous for the most vulnerable people in our society. There is nothing in the noble Baroness’s Bill to protect them, just an awful lot that may bring terrible harm.