Criminal Justice System

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

I would like to pick up on some of the comments made by the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). Let us be clear—when people are behind the wheel of a vehicle, they are in charge of a lethal weapon. If somebody is killed or seriously maimed because of careless or dangerous driving, that is no different from killing or seriously injuring someone through any other kind of negligent or dangerous behaviour.

According to figures given to me in parliamentary answers, more than 500 killer drivers have avoided jail in the past five years. While the number of people convicted of causing death by careless or dangerous driving in England and Wales between 2007 and last year rose, there was a dramatic fall in the proportion of those convicted receiving a custodial sentence.

In 2008, there were 271 such convictions; in 2011, there were 383. However, in 2008, 90% of drivers who were convicted went to jail, while in 2011 only 50% of them did. That is totally unacceptable for the families and loved ones of the victims. They feel a deep sense of injustice and unfairness when they see somebody who has killed their loved one get off with little more than a rap on the knuckles. It brings the whole of our criminal justice system into disrepute.

I welcome the relatively new Minister, the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), to her post. I have not had the opportunity to congratulate her personally because I do not see her anymore around our neighbouring offices. I hope this will not damage her career, but I was delighted at her well deserved promotion. I have a number of questions for her; if she cannot answer them now, I would be grateful if she wrote to me.

Has there been any change in the sentencing guidance issued to courts in relation to these offences? If the guidance has not changed, how does she explain the huge drop, which is way beyond the possibility of statistical fluctuation based on the individual circumstances of the cases? Will she agree to the request from CTC and other cycling and road safety groups for a review of how the criminal justice system is working in these cases?

We have a good record in Britain, going back over many years, of improving our road safety and reducing death and injury on the roads. That has not happened by accident; it has happened through joined-up Government policies that have boosted safety and changed our whole culture and attitudes towards road crime. I am sure that the Minister, who is a reasonable woman, would not wish to see the recent worrying reversal of that progress as part of her legacy. To avoid that, she needs to ensure that we can restore the confidence of the victims of road crime in the justice system.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mrs Helen Grant)]

I am grateful, Mrs Riordan. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today. I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Tony Lloyd) on securing the debate. I am conscious that this may be one of the final times we hear from him. I want quickly to convey that he will be missed right across the House. I wish I had time to say more. There is so much to say and so little time.

I am delighted to be responsible for representing the needs of victims and witnesses in Government. I am committed to ensuring that they are high on the Government’s agenda, which is exactly where they belong.

At the beginning of the year, we launched a consultation that sought views on a far-reaching package of proposals. We called it “Getting it right for victims and witnesses”, because that is what we need to do. Victims too often feel themselves to be at best an afterthought and at worst forgotten in the process of justice. Despite improvements over the past two decades, the system has continued to fall short, whether in relation to helping victims recover from the aftermath of a crime, supporting them through the inevitable stresses of investigation and trial, or providing the right services in the right place, funded as far as possible by offenders rather than the taxpayer. The urgent need to remedy the current weaknesses is why we are implementing the package of proposals that we committed to in our response to the consultation.

The Government have a responsibility to ensure that practical and emotional support is provided to help victims cope with the initial impact of crime and, in the longer term and as far as possible, recover from the consequences of crime. We are proceeding with plans to make improvements to the support available, raising up to an additional £50 million from the perpetrators of crime. On 1 October, the victim surcharge payable by an adult on a fine was increased. More than that, it has been extended to other disposals such as conditional discharges, community sentences and custodial sentences. Similar provision has also been made in respect of juveniles. The increase in revenue will increase the help that we can give to victims.

However, there is little point in ensuring that decent funding is available if we do not use it in the best way possible. That means prioritising support to those who truly need it: victims of the most serious crimes, victims who are persistently targeted and victims who are the most vulnerable in our society, and who may be isolated because of lack of support or family. That prioritisation of support underpins a second, related reform. For too long most funding decisions about victims’ services have been made in Whitehall. Past Governments have tested to destruction the virtues of monopoly purchasing of services, which I do not believe are in the interests of victims or taxpayers. We will take a more intelligent approach to victims and witnesses.

Under our plans, the Ministry of Justice will retain responsibility for commissioning services where either proven economies of scale exist or they are genuinely of a specialist nature. In our judgment, that means continued support from the Ministry of Justice for those bereaved through homicide, for victims of trafficking, and for rape support centres. We are also continuing to consider where else this approach would make sense.

Our coalition agreement also promised much needed stability for rape support services across the country, and we have given them long-term funding. We have also opened new support centres in areas lacking such provision.

For the bulk of victims’ services, however, funding will be devolved to democratically accountable police and crime commissioners. It is a plain fact that the needs of victims vary locally, and PCCs, much more than officials and Ministers in Whitehall, will be best placed to decide what their communities want and what they need. Hon. Members have raised the issue of national budgets and how much money will go to PCCs. I envisage that the majority of the budget will go to PCCs.

For many victims of crime, of course, their contact with the criminal justice system involves neither drawing on services to help them recover, nor—I shall come to this policy in a moment—seeking compensation. Rather, their priority is that the system treats them decently during the investigation and trial. It is unacceptable that victims still frequently feel that too little is being done. They have been given too little information and they are expected to sit next to the families of offenders. The Government are undertaking a review of the victims’ code and the witness charter to consider in detail how they can be made more effective and robust.

I am sure that the hon. Member for Manchester Central will be pleased to know that we are taking a careful look at the operation of victim personal statements, which can be invaluable to victims in court, making sure that the impact of the crime upon them is really understood. We are committed to ensuring that offenders take greater responsibility for their crimes and do more to repair the harm that they have caused. I have already talked about the additional money that will be provided to victims through the surcharge. Restorative justice is something that could transform lives, and I will certainly be pursuing that.

The Government believe that the role of the victims’ commissioner is vital to making sure that victims’ needs are championed and their voices heard across Government. The announcement of our intention to fill the post of victims’ commissioner is another clear signal that the Government’s commitment to criminal justice reform is real.

There have been numerous contributions made today by hon. Members. I will quickly list them: the hon. Member for Manchester Central; my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel); the right hon. Members for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) and for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw); my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes); the hon. Members for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) and for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran); my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston); and the hon. Members for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), for Dudley North (Ian Austin), for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) and for Llanelli (Nia Griffith). Unfortunately, I do not have time to go into detail and comment as I would like on the issues that they raised, but I assure them that I have listened very carefully indeed to everything that they said, and I may have to write to them to clarify issues.

[Mr Bradshaw]

I am sorry that the Minister has not been able to respond to the points made by three hon. Members about road traffic victims. Would she at least agree to meet a delegation led by British Cycling to discuss the issue?

[Mrs Grant]

I will write to the right hon. Gentleman and I agree to meet a delegation.

I am right out of time, so I will just say that our package of reforms is designed to ensure that victims’ services are put on a more intelligent and sustainable footing. It is designed, in particular, to ensure that those in greatest need of help and support get what they actually need when they need it. It is not about one size fitting all. I am committed to these reforms.