Caroline Johnson debates involving the Ministry of Justice during the 2019 Parliament

Tue 26th Apr 2022
Judicial Review and Courts Bill
Commons Chamber

Consideration of Lords amendments & Consideration of Lords amendments
Tue 16th Mar 2021
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill
Commons Chamber

2nd reading Day 2 & 2nd reading - Day 2

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Johnson Excerpts
Tuesday 5th July 2022

(1 year, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Simon Jupp Portrait Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)
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9. What plans he has to improve support for victims of crime.

Caroline Johnson Portrait Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
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12. What plans he has to improve support for victims of crime.

Mark Pawsey Portrait Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
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17. What plans he has to improve support for victims of crime.

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Tom Pursglove Portrait Tom Pursglove
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I hope that I can reassure my hon. Friend that the victims Bill focuses on delivering improvements to the quality and consistency of victim support services, backed up by more funding than ever before, with £192 million by 2024-25—a four times increase on 2009-10—as well as a multi-year commitment that gives victim support services confidence to plan for the future. That will benefit people in East Devon, and it is fair to say that this Government are committed to delivering on our promises.

Caroline Johnson Portrait Dr Johnson
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With the victims Bill, a quadrupling of money for support services and the lengthening of sentences, it is clear that this Government are on the side of victims. One key expectation of victims is that justice will be served and prisoners will not escape, yet twice this year violent sexual offenders have escaped from a Lincolnshire prison, causing anxiety and danger to my constituents. What is the Minister doing to ensure that that does not happen again?

Tom Pursglove Portrait Tom Pursglove
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I am hugely grateful to my hon. Friend for her support for the measures we are introducing through the victims Bill, and I know that the prisons Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) would be willing to speak to her about the specific issue of absconding. What I can say is that we are tightening the rules governing open prisons with a tough three-step test and greater ministerial oversight, which I hope will give her confidence on this issue.

Judicial Review and Courts Bill

Caroline Johnson Excerpts
Anne McLaughlin Portrait Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
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I will speak briefly about the parts that apply to Scotland, which are significant and potentially extremely damaging to people’s rights to access justice. Because Scotland is currently compelled to do as we are told as part of this Union—we do not have the normal powers of a normal independent country—even our own democratically elected Government can do nothing about that damage. If that is not an argument for voting yes in the 2023 independence referendum, I do not know what is.

It is also interesting that, on this Bill, as with the Nationality and Borders Bill and the policing Bill, it has been left to the House of Lords—the unelected House—to represent the views of the people and attempt to get rid of the most egregious parts of each horrible piece of legislation. As a big fan of democracy, that does not make me any more inclined to support an unelected Chamber, but I want to pay tribute to those Members who have worked so hard, often into the early hours of the morning, on all of the amendments to try to make an awful Bill a tiny bit more palatable.

Lords amendment 1 removes the power to include provision and quashing orders, removing or limiting their retrospective effect. Those on the Opposition Benches, and in particular those of us who were on the Bill Committee, tried hard to get the Government to understand that if quashing orders are not to be applied retrospectively, there will be a very chilling effect. Many of us talked about the landmark case of Employment Tribunal fees that Unison brought to the Supreme Court in 2017, where the Court found that Parliament was wrong to limit people’s access to justice by charging them to use the Employment Tribunal. It found in favour of the claimants, and the quashing order had immediate effect, so the fees were abolished immediately and the Government were required to refund anyone who had paid them in the past. Given that people were being charged up to £1,200, that was a great outcome that will have made a big difference to many.

However, if the Government get their way and Lords amendment 1 is not agreed to, should something similar happen in the future, anyone who had paid such fees would be unable to claim their money back. Who would put themselves through all that for no tangible outcome? There will be zero incentive to challenge the Government or other public bodies, so those public bodies and the Government will be able to proceed safe in the knowledge that they can do whatever they like. The Scottish National party therefore absolutely supports the very sensible Lords amendments 1, 2 and 3.

At last, the Government have seen sense and agreed to Lords amendment 4. There was something sinister about the Minister wanting the power to tell the judiciary how to do their jobs. Judges have a suite of remedies at their disposal, and they should decide which are the most appropriate, so I am relieved that they finally agreed to that amendment.

Caroline Johnson Portrait Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
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I wonder whether the hon. Lady is making an argument that contradicts her previous one. On the one hand, she said that she does not want retrospective quashing orders to be available to a judge to make a decision on, and the other hand, she argued that judges should be trusted to make their own decisions. Surely judges can be trusted to make decisions on whether a retrospective quashing order is or is not appropriate in an individual case.

Anne McLaughlin Portrait Anne McLaughlin
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We have had this discussion so many times before. The hon. Member needs to go and look up the meaning of the word “presumption”.

Lords amendment 5 is about Cart judicial review—in Scotland, it is Eba judicial review. The amendment would insert a new clause to enable appeals of an upper tribunal decision to refuse an appeal to the High Court and then to the Supreme Court if considering a point of law or if it is in the public interest. It is a compromise, and surely the Government can accept one further minuscule compromise. After all, as we have pointed out to Government Members on numerous occasions, the Government claim that their measures were motivated by a high number of attempts versus the low rate of success, but the evidence to support their position was so flawed that the Office for Statistics Regulation decided to launch an investigation, which found that the real success rate was at least 15 times higher than the Government were telling us. I do not think that we have had an apology for that obfuscation yet, but these days Government apologies tend to have something of a hollow ring to them. Therefore, instead of apologising, why do they not just accept that their stats were flawed and accept the compromise amendment?

Worse: the Government insist on thinking that a Cart judicial review is successful only if the appellant actually wins. The truth is that a successful Cart judicial review is one where the flawed decision of the upper tribunal is appealed and reversed. That has nothing to do with the final outcome of the case. If we base the figures on that, the stats show just how vital a safeguard Cart judicial reviews are. Using accurate figures, the Public Law Project calculated that 40 people every year would be otherwise incorrectly denied their right to appeal in cases where, as we heard from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), the stakes can be incredibly high. We are talking not about trivial cases, but sometimes life-and-death cases. The tribunal system considers access to vital benefits, and removing that layer risks leaving people with disabilities and those facing destitution and homelessness without a last line of defence.

The tribunal system also considers immigration cases, as we heard. If it is so flawless, how am I able to tell the story again of the Venezuelan man who fled to the UK after witnessing the violent murder of his friend by state actors who would most certainly have come after him, had he remained in Venezuela? The first-tier tribunal and the upper tribunal surmised that he had nothing to fear. Thankfully, he had that last line of defence, which the Government are trying to take away and the Lords are trying to save, and he was able to judicially review the decision. The upshot was that the man was allowed to appeal. He won and was saved from deportation and almost certain persecution and death.

Retaining the restricted supervisory jurisdiction, as proposed in Lords amendment 5, would help to avoid injustice. However, voting against the Lords amendment would be a clear demonstration that people such as the man I mentioned, people who are dependent on disability benefits, and people facing homelessness are irrelevant to the Government and to Conservative Members.

Lords amendment 7 is on the online procedure rule committee. We were disappointed that neither House accepted our very reasonable request to include just one representative on the committee with knowledge and experience of the Scottish legal system. When we proposed such amendments during previous stages, I said that accepting them would

“allow the Government to keep up their pretence about respect for Scotland”.—[Official Report, 25 January 2022; Vol. 707, c. 939.]

They have declined to do even that, as has the House of Lords. It is extremely disrespectful to Scotland and our distinct legal system.

The Bill is just one part of a broader programme of constitutional reform designed to allow the Government to restrict the rights of their citizens and, in particular, some of their most vulnerable people. The Bill needs to be seen as part of a whole alongside the independent Human Rights Act review, which is under way, a review of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, which is on its way, and a succession of relevant pieces of legislation that are currently before Parliament—very currently, in fact; some are being considered this week and even today—such as the Elections Bill, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill and the Nationality and Borders Bill.

Those proposals all have something else in common: they are decisions that should be taken by the countries affected. We should not have one country deciding for other, smaller nations. Why do the people of Scotland have to put up with what Liberty called

“a concerted attempt to shut down potential routes of accountability and exert the power of the executive over Parliament, the courts and the public”

when they have consistently voted for parties opposed to those things? I will tell hon. Members why: because a slim majority of people were frightened into voting against independence in 2014.

The people of Scotland will be far more afraid of all this legislation being imposed on us than any daft scare stories that the coalition of Unionist parties can come up with next time around. We will always show solidarity to people in the rest of the UK who are fighting these terrible wrongs, but next time, in 2023, I am confident that the people of Scotland will vote yes to independence and yes to making far better decisions for ourselves.

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Wera Hobhouse Portrait Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
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I rise to speak to Lords amendments 1, 2 and 3, all tabled by Lord Marks in the other place. I appreciate that the Government have made some concessions and I thank the Minister for his meeting with me.

Amendments 1, 2 and 3 would remove from the Bill the power to make prospective-only quashing orders. They are backed by the Law Society and Justice, and I urge Members across the House to back them too. Judicial review is one of the most powerful tools that an individual has to enforce their rights. Challenging the Government through the courts when they get things wrong is one of the core principles of our parliamentary democracy.

Caroline Johnson Portrait Dr Caroline Johnson
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Will the hon. Lady give way?

Wera Hobhouse Portrait Wera Hobhouse
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No; I am conscious of time and Madam Deputy Speaker is anxious that we proceed.

The principle should not be party political but one shared across the House. It is disappointing to see the Government pushing ahead with plans to restrict judicial review by opposing the amendments. Unamended, the Bill is described by the Law Society as “chilling”; clauses 1 and 2 undermine judicial review. Prospective-only quashing orders could be hugely harmful to those seeking justice: they would not only deny redress to someone who had been harmed by a public body’s unlawful action, but actively serve as a disincentive to those seeking justice through judicial review.

Let us imagine a person who had incorrectly been deemed ineligible for carer’s allowance by the Department for Work and Pensions. That person successfully challenges the decision through judicial review. Prospective-only quashing orders would mean that the person did not receive the back payments unlawfully denied to them. Those payments could mean the difference between a person heating their house or going cold, or between eating or going hungry.

To make matters worse, extensive delays in courts mean that decisions could be put off for even longer. Prospective-only quashing orders arbitrarily discriminate between those affected by an unlawful measure before a court judgment and those affected after one. There are numerous examples. In 2017, the High Court ruled that a Home Office policy to deport EU rough sleepers was unlawful and discriminatory. The policy was scrapped. If a prospective-only quashing order had applied, then potentially only those receiving a removal notice would be protected; all those who had already faced removal or had had a removal notice issued against them would still have faced deportation. That would not have been justice.

Important as they are, the damaging effects of prospective-only quashing orders go far beyond individual cases. They damage the basic principle that underpins our democracy: that individuals must have the power to challenge the powerful when the powerful get things wrong. If the Government or public bodies are spared the risk of retrospective legal consequences, the motivation for good decision making is lower. Public bodies will take their chances, particularly in issuing welfare benefits, because the cost of getting things wrong would still be lower than getting them right in the first place. That is bad not only for those seeking redress from the courts but for all of us. It should ring alarm bells for all of us.

The Bill is just another Government programme of constitutional reform that weakens the institutions and rights that hold them to account. We saw that in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the Nationality and Borders Bill and the Government’s voter ID proposals. We Liberal Democrats will continue to stand against any attempts to weaken the institutions and rights that hold the Government and the powerful to account. I urge Members across the House to do the same and vote in favour of Lords amendments 1, 2 and 3.

Ten-Year Drugs Strategy

Caroline Johnson Excerpts
Monday 6th December 2021

(2 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Kit Malthouse Portrait Kit Malthouse
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First, all those in the secure estate who have a drug dependency or drug problem will receive a treatment place. We have made the commitment that 100% will be covered, and that obviously includes female offenders. On top of that, we want to ensure that as they exit the secure estate and rejoin society, they can also access high-quality treatment places configured to their own requirements, demographics and geography. It will be down to local partners to design those services off the back of the funding that we are providing. Our only ask is for a rigorous evaluation and results framework in each area of the country to show that the money we are investing has the desired impact.

Caroline Johnson Portrait Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
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Sobriety tags—wearable devices that monitor alcohol consumption in offenders—were trialled first in Lincolnshire and have been rolled out due to their success in preventing 90% of people from consuming alcohol while wearing them. Could such an approach be useful for those taking drugs?

Kit Malthouse Portrait Kit Malthouse
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I congratulate my hon. Friend on an extremely good question, and a very topical one. She will be pleased to hear that this morning I met the Korean ambassador and that country’s superintendent of police, with whom we do an awful lot of work, not least on international money flows. I raised in particular my interest in the research and invention by a Korean research institute of a drugs tag—a wearable device that detects drug consumption in somebody’s sweat. We are very interested in the technology and have a fund that we can invest in such technological developments. She is right that, on sobriety ankle tags, we are seeing 97% compliance, and we think that there is a role for such checking in drugs.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Caroline Johnson Excerpts
2nd reading & 2nd reading - Day 2
Tuesday 16th March 2021

(3 years ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 View all Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Caroline Johnson Portrait Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con) [V]
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The first duty of any Government is to protect members of the public from harm, and I welcome the swift progress that the Government have made on that. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, the Government have beaten the target of recruiting 6,000 extra officers by March 2021 and are ahead of schedule to recruit, as promised, 20,000 more police officers by 2023. With a new cohort of police officers protecting our communities, we should give them the protection that they need to do the job to the best of their ability.

At a time when we are battling an invisible enemy—the coronavirus—our exceptional frontline workers should not be at risk of violence from the very people they are trying to protect. I am glad that the Government have shown that they will not tolerate such attacks and are legislating to double the maximum penalty for assaults on emergency workers from 12 months to two years in prison—the penalty that fits such an abhorrent and selfish crime.

At a time when we have been tragically reminded of the senseless violence perpetrated against women and girls, it is important that our communities are protected from the most serious offenders. A previous Labour Government introduced automatic early release at the halfway point; we are legislating to ensure that that stops and that those convicted of the most serious violent and sexual offences must serve at least two thirds of their sentence before parole is considered.

I welcome the fact that more robust sentences for the worst offenders will be combined with greater efforts to rehabilitate. For offenders stuck in the revolving door of crime there will be things such as electronic monitoring tags to ensure that long and restrictive curfews are adhered to. Sobriety tags, which were first piloted here in Lincolnshire, will ensure that individuals comply with alcohol abstinence orders. Such measures will ensure that once criminals have left custody, robust monitoring is still in place both to stop further harm and to break the cycle of reoffending.

I am pleased to see that those who use their car as a weapon will receive longer sentences, but as we increase sentences for careless driving I look to the Minister for reassurance that we will not criminalise those who have a momentary lapse in concentration—something most of us experience at some point.

Burglary is a particularly invasive crime that many of my constituents fear, and it leaves people feeling unsafe in their home. Will the Minister consider increasing sentences for those who commit this particularly invasive crime?

The Bill represents a significant strengthening of our judicial system, with the flexibility to tackle both serious crime and the causes of crime. I am proud to see this Government delivering on their manifesto commitment to empower our judicial system and make our country safer, and I will support the Bill today.

Courts and Tribunals: Recovery

Caroline Johnson Excerpts
Thursday 3rd December 2020

(3 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Robert Buckland Portrait Robert Buckland
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The hon. Lady is right to quote me, because I do believe in local initiative and I have seen it in action from HMCTS staff, who know the buildings, in which some of them have worked for many years, better than anybody. I take very much on board what she says. Of course, each court building is pretty different from the other; there is no set template and we all know they are pretty unique. The work that is done to make our courts safe is done in conjunction with Public Health England and Public Health Wales. I will consider the matter she raises further in more detail in order to satisfy myself that everything properly is being done.

Caroline Johnson Portrait Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
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I welcome the statement and the considerable investment, effort and energy that my right hon. and learned Friend has put into getting the courts up and running in a covid-safe environment. As a paediatrician, I am particularly concerned about the welfare of children, including in the justice system. Will he advise the House as to what he is doing to ensure that the youth justice system is prioritised and these cases are dealt with as quickly as possible?

Robert Buckland Portrait Robert Buckland
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I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her concern about children in the system. She will know that there are existing protocols applied by the courts to ensure that cases involving children are heard as early as possible, which is particularly important when it comes to the Crown court. The overall number of children in a secure setting, whether it is a young offenders institution or other secure accommodation, has continued to fall. It is now around 600. The numbers on remand remain about the same as they did before the pandemic but are proportionately higher because of the overall reduction in the sentenced population. We have been dealing as carefully as possible with the regime that is applied to ensure that young people are safe but that their frustrations when it comes to exercise and activity, which are natural, are dealt with. I am particularly interested in ensuring that education and skills training is improved during the pandemic, bearing in mind that in the first wave, apart from one institution, we were not able to run those programmes. I will keep her updated.

Sentencing White Paper

Caroline Johnson Excerpts
Wednesday 16th September 2020

(3 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Robert Buckland Portrait Robert Buckland
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I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising that. We have met to discuss this matter. It seems to me that existing types of order—for example, crime prevention orders and serious crime prevention orders—could potentially be used, particularly where somebody has completed their term of imprisonment and licence and therefore the probation service’s involvement has come to an end. I will welcome further engagement with him, because he not only speaks for past victims; he speaks for people whose voice has yet to be heard and whose voice must be heard if we are to effectively protect the victims of sexual abuse.

Caroline Johnson Portrait Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
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They say that an Englishman’s home is his castle, and it is certainly a place where all people should feel safe and secure. As a result, when someone burgles a home, they do not just take possessions; they violate a person’s safety in their own home. Can my right hon. and learned Friend assure me that his new sentencing guidelines will ensure that the people who commit these crimes are appropriately punished and appropriately rehabilitated and that the public will be protected from further occurrences?

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Johnson Excerpts
Tuesday 25th February 2020

(4 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Robert Buckland Portrait Robert Buckland
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The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue of veterans. It is important to remember that many of our veterans serve in our Prison Service as prison officers, probation officers and other dedicated public servants, and the learning they bring is often the best possible support that can be given to veterans who end up in the criminal justice system. I assure him that a lot of work goes into that issue, but yes more can be done—the identification of veterans is very important, although not the easiest thing to solve—and I take on board his comments and welcome his commitment.

Caroline Johnson Portrait Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
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5. What steps his Department is taking to increase prison capacity.

Lucy Frazer Portrait The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)
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We are investing £2.5 billion in an additional 10,000 prison places. This is on top of the 3,500 prison places already being built and in the pipeline.

Caroline Johnson Portrait Dr Johnson
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Which types of offenders will my hon. and learned Friend be prioritising for these new prison places, and what will she do to make sure they are given opportunities for reform and that they are places of rehabilitation, not just incarceration?