Justice
David Lammy Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Lammy
A decade of cuts, court closures and mishandling of the pandemic has created a backlog in the Crown courts of nearly 50,000 cases. It could reach 195,000 by 2024. The Courts Service says we need at least an extra 200 venues to fill the gap, but on 19 October 2020, the Judicial Office confirmed only five Nightingale courts were hearing jury trials. That is a failure of epic proportions, leading to thousands of victims of serious crime being denied justice. Has the Lord Chancellor failed to ask for enough resources to get justice moving, or has he been denied it by the Treasury?
Robert Buckland
The right hon. Gentleman is wrong on all fronts. First, we secured an extra £80 million of funding from the Treasury to deal specifically with covid court recovery. That came on top of the largest investment and increase in court maintenance in 20 years, including during his stewardship. That has resulted in the scaling up of courts, so that today we have 255 courtrooms hearing jury trials, which is ahead of the target I had set for the end of October. We will go further. We have already opened 19 courtrooms under the Nightingale court scheme. This is not a story of failure. This is a story of success and hard work on the part of everybody in the court service. The projections that he mentioned are based upon some pretty inaccurate predictions that do not bear the closest scrutiny.
[Official Report, 3 November 2020, Vol. 683, c. 155.]
Letter of correction from the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice:
An error has been identified in the response I gave to the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy).
The correct response should have been:
Oral Answers to Questions
David Lammy Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Robert Buckland
The Chair of the Justice Committee puts the matter into its fullest context. Sadly, from Shakespeare onwards, and probably before, lawyers have come in for criticism. The question is how far that goes. We live in a lively democracy and none of us is above criticism, but I say to him that in all my years in practice, I did precisely what he did, which was to leave my politics at home whenever I went into chambers or into the courtroom.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
Our country is a country that prides itself on the rule of law. Without lawyers, the rule of law would collapse. In recent weeks, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister have launched repeated attacks on lawyers representing asylum seekers. Even after a man launched a knife attack on an immigration solicitor days after the Home Secretary condemned “activist lawyers”, the Government continue to pour petrol on the fire. Does the Lord Chancellor agree with his colleagues’ characterisation of legal professionals as “activist lawyers”, or does he have the courage to publicly condemn that vile rhetoric?
Robert Buckland
The right hon. Gentleman will know that on two occasions in public forums, I have made my defence of lawyers very clear and made it clear that physical and verbal attacks and the other types of threat that we might see are entirely unacceptable. He talks rightly about a very serious case that is ongoing—I do not think it would be right for me to comment directly upon it—but we all know the context within which we operate. I can assure him that I will continue in my resolute defence of lawyers. I will say this: I think there are times when there is a legitimate debate to be had, and I firmly believe that lawyers who are passionate about politics are best advised, if they wish to pursue politics, to do as he and I did, which is to get elected and pursue politics here or in other democratic forums.
Robert Buckland
I take it that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the Bill that will be debated this afternoon, which contains important provisions to get the balance right between the need to make sure that our armed services are supported properly and their contribution is valued and the need to make sure that, like everybody else, no one is above the law. There have at times in years gone by been a number of examples where members of our gallant armed services have been unfairly exposed to the potential of legal action, which has caused real hurt, disquiet and genuine concern among the general public. It is right that in the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill we take corrective action to get that balance more finely adjusted.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
A decade of cuts, court closures and mishandling of the pandemic has created a backlog in the Crown courts of nearly 50,000 cases. It could reach 195,000 by 2024. The Courts Service says we need at least an extra 200 venues to fill the gap, but on 19 October 2020, the Judicial Office confirmed only five Nightingale courts were hearing jury trials. That is a failure of epic proportions, leading to thousands of victims of serious crime being denied justice. Has the Lord Chancellor failed to ask for enough resources to get justice moving, or has he been denied it by the Treasury?
Robert Buckland
The right hon. Gentleman is wrong on all fronts. First, we secured an extra £80 million of funding from the Treasury to deal specifically with covid court recovery. That came on top of the largest investment and increase in court maintenance in 20 years, including during his stewardship. That has resulted in the scaling up of courts, so that today we have 255 courtrooms hearing jury trials, which is ahead of the target I had set for the end of October. We will go further. We have already opened 19 courtrooms under the Nightingale court scheme. This is not a story of failure. This is a story of success and hard work on the part of everybody in the court service. The projections that he mentioned are based upon some pretty inaccurate predictions that do not bear the closest scrutiny.[Official Report, 9 November 2020, Vol. 683, c. 8MC.]
Ministry of Justice: Legal Aid Spending
David Lammy Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I congratulate the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), on securing the debate, and I associate myself with the remarks of my hon. Friends the Members for Westminster North (Ms Buck), for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) and for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), and those of the hon. Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), in particular, to whom I am very grateful. I declare an interest as an associate tenant at Doughty Street Chambers, which uses legal aid.
The right to a fair hearing is a human right guaranteed by the Human Rights Act 1998 under article 6. Just like the right to no punishment without law, the right to freedom of expression and the right to participate in free elections, it is a fundamental part of our democracy. A legal verdict is not fair if one side is able to pay a team of expensive lawyers to fight on their behalf while the other is left to make their case on their own. That is why paragraph 3(c) of article 6 states that if a party
“has not sufficient means to pay for legal assistance”,
they should get
“it free when the interests of justice”
require it, and they do require it. In this country we have legal aid, which gives assistance to people who are unable to afford representation.
Too often, legal aid is not given to those who deserve it. Consider the case of Zane Gbangbola. On the evening of 7 February 2014, seven-year-old Zane and his mother and father went to bed in their Surrey home. Due to circumstances that remain unexplained, Zane tragically died in his sleep and his father was left paralysed for life. The 2016 inquest into Zane’s death found that he died as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by the use of the petrol pump used to remove water from their flooded home. However, numerous doubts have been expressed regarding the verdict reached by the coroner from both sides of the political spectrum, including the local Conservative council.
Over the course of the past seven years, Zane’s mother and father, Kye and Nicole Lawler, have fought tirelessly for answers to what caused his death. One of the reasons justice does not appear to have been reached in this case is that Zane’s family were denied legal aid after the case was deemed not to be in the public interest. It is completely unjust that the family, at the time of their greatest need, were left to present their case with just one crowdfunded lawyer against a team of six QCs. Extraordinarily, the coroner was also given his own legal team. Of all those present at the inquest, Zane’s parents were the only ones not to have a barrister in some way funded by the public purse.
Access to the justice system and the ability to enforce our rights should be open to every person, regardless of their wealth, social class or background. Legal aid has long provided this for many of us, and for many of the most vulnerable people in society at their most vulnerable moments, but legal aid spending and access to justice has reduced significantly since the passage of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. A review of the Act published in February 2019 moved in the right direction, but there is still so much more to do.
Two years since the post-implementation review, recommendations on early advice, legal aid, means tests and support for litigants have not been implemented in full. The impact of LASPO, combined with the 8.7% cut to criminal legal aid providers in 2014, as well as inflation and small profit margins, have resulted in the contraction of the market for both criminal and civil legal aid.
The criminal legal aid review is designed to look at the sustainability of the profession, but we do not have time to wait for action. The report is not likely to be published until 2022. By then it will be too late to save money, or to save many firms that are going out of business. Already in June 2020 there were 124 fewer criminal legal aid firms than the 1,271 there were in 2019, a drop of almost 10% in the past year and far fewer than the 1,861 firms that existed in 2010. How many more firms are the Government prepared to lose? Without urgent steps there is a genuine risk of the system collapsing on itself.
Between 2010 and 2016, net spending on legal aid fell by an eye-watering 38% in real terms, from £2.6 billion to £1.6 billion. It has since increased slightly, to £1.7 billion, out of the Ministry of Justice total budget of just more than £10 billion. As the Chair of the Select Committee put it, it is just a fraction of a fraction.
To put that £1.7 billion into perspective, last night Serco CEO Rupert Soames revealed to UK taxpayers that his outsourcing company had £1.2 billion per year of Government funding. That is even before its failed £12 billion experiment with track and trace. Labour has repeatedly called for access to legal aid to be a priority for this Government, especially during a time when people are so vulnerable.
As a result of LASPO, large areas of civil legal aid are deemed out of scope. This leaves thousands of people each year without the representation they need. When legal aid was first introduced by Clement Attlee’s Government after the second world war, around 80% of people were eligible for it. By the 1990s, that figure had dropped to 45%. Today it is a miserly 20%.
In 2020, most housing, employment and family disputes do not get legal aid. This causes real injustice. In 92% of domestic violence cases in the family courts in 2019, one or more parties was left without legal representation. But it is not just for adversarial cases that we need legal aid. It is a crying scandal that those who were deported and detained as a result of the Windrush scandal could not access legal aid.
At a time when the court backlog is approaching 50,000, we cannot expect legal aid practitioners to weather the coronavirus storm with warm words alone. Even before the pandemic, there was a 45% reduction in prosecutions over the past decade, but since the crisis began, many areas of legal aid work have been nearly cut in half. There has been a 41% decrease in police station attendances, a 45% decrease in applications received for representation in the Crown courts, and a 42% decrease in applications received and representations made in the magistrates court.
When asked what support this Government would offer to keep the professions functioning, the Minister responsible pointed to unbilled work. He stated that legal aid providers were sitting on hundreds of millions of pounds for unbilled work, interim payments and hardship payments. This, he explained, was why legal aid providers were being hung out to dry. Legal aid providers were essentially told to pull themselves up by their bootstraps in the worst crisis since the second world war. The implication behind that was that they were not working hard enough to claim unbilled work.
Even if we accepted the dodgy maths, is the total that the Minister pointed to enough to keep a vital part of our democracy functioning? The Minister’s statement was made back in May, when the Government pretended that they had a grip on the crisis. Now we know that the crisis will go on right through 2021, what will happen when the unbilled payments are billed? Will the Government finally rethink? The breaking point is likely to arrive early in 2021, especially when the volume of completions in the Crown court remains so low. The legal aid profession has received little support, if any, during the covid-19 crisis, and that must change.
Much of this debate has been financial. It is about CLAR 2—the second criminal legal aid review—LASPO, court backlogs, funding cuts and legal aid, but if we zoom out of the detail, this is a debate about the type of society that we want to build. There are two paths we can go down. The first is to continue on the route that the Government have set, letting legal aid collapse and allowing advice deserts to grow. A new legal wild west would result, and how someone does in legal disputes will depend not on their right to a fair trial but on how deep their pockets are compared with the person against them. The vast majority of the public will be unable to pay for representation in any serious legal matter. The wealthy 1% will be able to bully and buy their way to the verdict that they desire. That is a vision not of a democracy but a plutocracy—a society controlled by people of great wealth or income. It is a step back to pre-enlightenment, a period we should have long left behind.
However, there is room for hope. The second option is to give legal aid the support it needs, restoring it to where it was as a public service back in 2010. By doing so, we can build a better society at the heart of a real democracy founded on justice, fairness, equality and opportunity for all. I know that is a society worth fighting for.
Lord Chancellor’s Oath and the Rule of Law
David Lammy Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) on securing this important debate. I declare an interest as an associate tenant at Doughty Street chambers, a non-practising member of the Bar, and a visiting professor in practice in the department of law at the London School of Economics
Magna Carta, the Charter of the Forest, habeas corpus, the Petition of Right, the Bill of Rights, the system of common law—for centuries, the United Kingdom has led not only in the creation of the rule of law, but in spreading that around the world. That simple but revolutionary idea was born out of two others: first, that there should be no power beyond or above the law and, secondly, that the law applies equally to all people—women and men, rich and poor, black and white.
Today, it is too easy to assume these principles always existed; they did not. For many parts of the world, they still do not. Ask the people of the Congo, China, Russia or Venezuela how life is without the rule of law. It was won in this country only as a result of human ingenuity, struggle and tremendous sacrifice.
I am shocked to be standing here today debating the importance of the rule of law with a Conservative Government. I have never been shy about my disagreements with Tories, but this is an issue on which I have previously respected the party now in government. The rule of law used to be fundamental to capital “C” Conservative thinking. It was the basis for all that Tories once valued—the ownership of property, security, the right to personal liberty, the freedom to live in a society without anarchy, fairness in business, law and order. From Edmund Burke to Margaret Thatcher, and even up to the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), the rule of law has been just as valued on both sides of the House.
So bipartisan was the British devotion to this idea that we became the global home of the law. The UK has the second largest legal sector in the world, second only to the United States of America. It contributes £60 billion to the UK economy and is one of our strongest global exports. Businesses and individuals from all parts of the globe flocked to this country to write contracts in English law and settle disputes in our courts. They did that because they trusted us. Whichever party was in government, the rule of law would be respected. That is no longer the case.
There are previous political decisions that were made by Governments when the law was not entirely clear and when it was arguable either way whether an action was lawful. That is not what we are talking about today. Last month, a Cabinet Minister stood up in the House of Commons and stated openly that the Government will deliberately break the law. That did not force the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to resign. It was a decision plotted in No. 10 and supported by the whole Cabinet. Most shamefully, it was backed by the so-called Attorney General and the so-called Lord Chancellor. Both ignored the special obligations of their offices in order to keep the keys to them.
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland’s comments were not an aberration. They were a statement of intent from a Government who appear to believe in lawlessness and disorder. The country will not forget the Government closing down Parliament unlawfully. The public will always remember the arrogance with which Dominic Cummings broke the law after months of national sacrifice—we will not forget the shamelessness and mendacity with which he explained away the breaking of a law that he helped to create.
Under this Government, the public are all thinking the same: one rule for us, another rule for them. One fool for us, and another for them. The law must be the same for everyone. If it is not, respect for the rule of law ends. That should be self-evident. It is a great shame that a principle this fundamental now has to be fought for once again.
It is not only the law that is to be targeted by this Government, but the lawyers and judges who spend their time dedicated to upholding it. When Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán rammed a law through Parliament undermining the independence of the country’s judiciary, we all condemned the regime’s shift towards authoritarianism. When the Polish Government passed a law to make it possible for judges to face disciplinary measures when they make rulings that the Government do not like, Labour and Conservative supporters were equally appalled. Brits from all political traditions should be just as outraged by the UK Government’s attack on judicial review, because it is from the same authoritarian playbook.
On 3 September, the Home Secretary said that deportations were being “frustrated by activist lawyers”. In saying this, she was not attacking activists, but inciting anger against immigration lawyers for representing some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Words have consequences. On 7 September, a man with a large knife entered a London law firm and threatened to kill an immigration solicitor—cause and effect. The Law Society was forced to write to the Government to say:
“It must be ensured that no further lives are endangered as a result of her untruthful and deliberately inflammatory rhetoric. Put simply, this must stop now, before innocent lives are taken and other irreparable damage is done to those who work in this field.”
Who will stand for the law? Not the Prime Minister. At the Conservative party conference, he launched his own attack on “lefty lawyers”. This debate is not about partisan politics; it is about the future of our democracy. It is about the safety of our communities and the freedom that order can bring. Respect for the rule of law is for the benefit of every person in this country, whatever their political views. Without it, we descend into barbarism: the rule of the jungle, anarchy, lawlessness, disorder and mob rule. Attacks on the rule of law undermine the very basis of our civilisation. Enough is enough. This Conservative Government must remember their principles before they are lost for ever. As Margaret Thatcher once said:
“Being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law”.
Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Bill [Lords]
David Lammy ExcerptsTuesday 6th October 2020
(5 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Act 2020 View all Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 6 October 2020 - (large print) - (6 Oct 2020)
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
I rise to speak in support of the amendments in the name of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) and myself. As other Members have said, there is a degree of consistency across a number of the amendments on the selection paper.
I welcome the action to enhance transnational co-operation. For once, instead of measures that seek to breach international agreements or upset international partners, this is a step in the right direction and a move that I hope we will see reflected in other bits of legislation that the Government bring forward.
I wish that this Bill was not necessary, but, having left the European framework, it is essential that we make alternative arrangements to ensure that the three Hague conventions still apply, to prevent Scottish businesses and families from being disadvantaged. The conventions add legal certainty for parties to cross-border commercial contracts, and they help with family maintenance decisions across borders and the protection of children in disputes where parents have separated but live in different countries. These conventions may be technical, but they are very practical for those caught in difficult and tangled situations. There is therefore a clear need to replace the previous mechanisms whereby the EU reached agreements on these types of cross-border disputes on behalf of member states.
Aspects of this legislation fall within the devolved competencies, forming parts of Scots private law relating to choice of jurisdiction, recognition of judgments and enforcement of decisions. The Bill, if passed, will provide reassurances, in particular, to those affected by cross-border family support and custodial mechanisms, so we are keen to see that move forward. The Scottish Government have considered the aspects that require a legislative consent motion under section 28 of the Scotland Act 1998 and will seek consent from the Scottish Parliament to allow agreement to the Bill. The Bill has been drafted with great respect for devolution and, again, I very much welcome that. It is the proper and democratic way to proceed. It is a great pity that that is not always the case with this Government, but certainly it is very much to be welcomed in this case.
I speak in favour of the amendments proposed by myself and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West. I pay tribute and give thanks to the Law Society of Scotland, which has supported us in the drafting of them. Amendment 10 has a particular focus on the Lugano convention, and the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) has already told us of the significance of the need to put the mechanism in place and of having it on the face of the Bill. Given the Government’s confirmation that they are intent on continuing with the convention, putting it on the face of the Bill would be a proper and appropriate way of doing that. The convention created common rules across the EU and EFTA, avoiding multiple court cases taking place on the same subject and saving the costs of all those involved. I welcome the steps taken.
The regrettable decision not to be part of the single market may yet come back to hit us. However, we are where we are, and if the UK joining the convention in its own right is accepted by 31 December, we will need to work quickly to introduce a simple mechanism to implement the convention. That is what the amendment from me and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West seeks to achieve, and I argue that the Government should amend the Bill to provide for a regulation-making power focused specifically on the implementation of the Lugano convention. That point is not being made just by Scottish National party Members; it is reflected on all sides of the House. That, in itself, speaks volumes.
It is important to note that that move would not preclude us from reinstating the previous regulation-making powers under clause 2 that were removed from the Bill during its passage in the other place. As was said earlier, that debate raised legitimate concerns about the lack of parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation, and I strongly suggest that the Government strongly reflect on that when seeking to reintroduce those powers.
The Bill fulfils a commitment in the political declaration between the UK and the EU, and I recognise that. I certainly welcome the fact that in this situation at least the Government appear to be looking to keep their promise and to keep private international law clear after the transition. As a proud internationalist, I welcome any measures that will continue to help to support and facilitate cross-border co-operation.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
On Second Reading, the official Opposition made it clear that they would oppose any attempts by the Government to reintroduce clause 2, which was removed by a majority in the other place. On Second Reading, numerous Members on both the Opposition and Government Benches made very sensible suggestions on how the Government could modify clause 2 and harness cross-party support. Sunset clauses, placing Lugano on the face of the Bill, as has been suggested by Members across the House this afternoon, and limiting the power of clause 2 were all among the suggestions discussed. Very sadly, the Government did not listen. That is surprising, particularly for this Minister, who is known to be attentive and a very able lawyer indeed.
Alex Chalk
But ultimately, my hon. Friend cannot have it both ways. If we accept that it is not contentious, it is important that the mechanisms that are in place are proportionate to that. Indeed, the Opposition knew this when they were in government, because of course all these rule-making powers were on the statute book and they did not repeal them. There was the Administration of Justice Act 1920, the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933, the Maintenance Orders (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1972—I could go on. They stayed on the statute book because they are not really offensive to the constitutional balance that we enjoy, but not only were they not repealed; they were used.
The right hon. Member for Tottenham knows that because he was the Minister at the time. He was Minister at the Department for Constitutional Affairs when the British Government used the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933 to bring into force an international agreement with who? With Israel. He knows that because he was the Minister at the time. Who was the Lord Chancellor at the time? Lord Falconer. The right hon. Gentleman cannot very well say that these are a monstrous and egregious affront to our constitution when they were used, because they were used a second time in 2007. They created a power to give effect to bilateral agreements with the United States on reciprocal enforcement of family maintenance orders.
Just to complete that point, not only were those powers used; the right hon. Gentleman, for whom I have enormous respect, created new ones of his own. In 2005—[Interruption.] He is laughing, but he knows it is true. He was the Bill Minister on the Mental Capacity Act 2005, which, incidentally, on this very rainy weekend I had a chance to re-read. That Act created a wide delegated power to introduce international agreements in that area.
I do not want to labour this point too much, but I had a chance to look at proceedings in Committee on that Bill, during which a Conservative hon. Member talked about that specific power and effectively asked the right hon. Gentleman, “Is he sure that he wants to do this?” He added:
“Those in another place get very excited about any sort of Henry VIII clause.”
The right hon. Gentleman responded, effectively, “Don’t worry,” saying that
“they are technical and necessary provisions.”––[Official Report, Mental Capacity Public Bill Committee, 4 November 2004; c. 406-407.]
Is not that precisely the point? What was technical and necessary when he was in government has now become an egregious affront to our constitution.
Alex Chalk
But the point is that when we were in the European Union and the European Union had competence to enter into PIL agreements, those would be brought into effect in the United Kingdom via the doctrine of direct effect. What role did this Parliament have? None. We are seeking to introduce much more by way of parliamentary scrutiny—the points, respectfully, that the right hon. Gentleman did not advert to. First, there is the CRaG procedure, and secondly there is the affirmative procedure.
I am at pains to mention that because I talked just a few moments ago about the Israeli agreement and the United States agreement. How did those come into force? Not through the affirmative procedure, not even through the negative procedure, but through an Order in Council. In other words, normal hon. Members—mere mortals like most of the people in the Chamber—had no say at all; just Privy Counsellors. We therefore respectfully say that it does not lie in the mouth of the Opposition to raise these concerns.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) made the point powerfully that this precedent, which the Opposition understood when they were in government, recognises that there is an opportunity cost. If we start filling up the parliamentary timetable with such legislation, which everyone accepts is not controversial, there is less time and less space for schools, hospitals and transport, etc.
On the point about criminal offences, which was made powerfully by the Chairman of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), this is an area where it is important to move cautiously. We will continue to reflect on the range of views expressed. I agree with him that an awful lot of offences are created by statutory instruments, but we need to take care, none the less.
Mr Lammy
I join the Minister in thanking colleagues from all parties for their thoughtful contributions to this important debate. I especially thank the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), and the hon. Members for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) and for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) for their eminently reasonable suggestions on how the Bill could secure cross-party support.
On Second Reading, Labour made it clear that we supported the fundamental principle behind the Bill. The Opposition fully accept that as we leave the largest network of private international law agreements in the world, we must have a legislative framework in place to replace it. As we leave the European Union, we must protect our country’s proud reputation as the international forum of choice for the resolution of commercial and legal disputes.
We should also remember the human aspects of private international law. Helping parents separated by borders to come to custody agreements in the interests of their children is very important, as is allowing the safe return of a child who has been abducted. That is why the Opposition have always been fully supportive of the Government’s desire to implement the international treaties listed in clause 1, each of which has been fully scrutinised by this House and is being brought into domestic law by primary legislation. That is how the implementation of international agreements has always been done, and how we would like to see it done in future.
Unfortunately, we have seen during the Bill’s passage the Government’s desire to prise parliamentary scrutiny away from this House and these Benches. That is something we regret and something to which the other place will no doubt return in the debate ahead. Once again, we see a Government keen to do all they can to avoid proper democratic scrutiny—a Government more at ease with ruling by decree than daring to test the will of this House.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Lammy Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Robert Buckland
My hon. Friend is right to talk about the scourge of county lines. Like me, he will welcome the investment of £25 million by the Home Office to boost law enforcement efforts by not only local police forces but the British Transport police, who are doing incredible work across our railway network, which I have seen at first hand. The Sentencing Council for England and Wales is currently revising its guidelines for drug offences. It is important to note that, among the plethora of county lines is the exploitation of vulnerable children and young people, and that needs to be fully reflected by the investigating and prosecuting authorities.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
May I, too, wish the Secretary of State a happy 52nd birthday?
Sentencing reform is needed, but on its own it is not enough. The truth is that most criminals will be released from prison at some point, and if they are not rehabilitated when they are released, they will commit further crimes and create new victims. This Government’s prisons simply are not working. Six out of every 10 offenders who serve less than 12 months in prison reoffend. A recent Public Accounts Committee report accused the Government of a “staggering” failure on the prison estate. Does the Secretary of State plan to publish a cross-departmental plan to reduce reoffending within the next three months, as the PAC recommended last week?
Robert Buckland
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind comments.
The right hon. Gentleman can be reassured that in response to the Committee’s findings, the Government are working across Departments. I think that is vital, because he will share my belief and understanding that the Ministry of Justice alone cannot solve these issues; it takes the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care working together. That is why the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Committee, the crime taskforce, meets regularly. Indeed, on its agenda are our ambitious targets to improve offender employment and resettle offenders in a more co-ordinated way to reduce reoffending. He will see the results of that work very shortly.
Robert Buckland
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend. He is right to remind us that personal attacks are no substitute for real debate. What he has done, and what I have sought to do, is, at all times, to make sure that we find a way through these problems. Brexit has thrown up unprecedented challenges to a Government in peacetime. I never pretended that it was going to be anything other than a difficult road. He shares that view and, through his constructive work and the work that I and others have done, this House has a lock on these matters, and, indeed, I think the way is much clearer and much more satisfactory.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
On 30 July 2019, in the Royal Courts of Justice, the Lord Chancellor made an oath that no other member of the Cabinet is required to make. He said:
“I do swear that in the office of Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain I will respect the rule of law”.
Lord Keen, the Advocate General for Scotland, and Jonathan Jones, head of the Government’s Legal Department, resigned because the Government’s internal markets Bill does not respect the rule of law. May I ask the Lord Chancellor whether he thinks that Lord Keen and Jonathan Jones got it wrong and, if so, how? If not, may I ask him how he can turn up in this House with a straight face after voting to betray his oath and break the law?
Robert Buckland
That is a very serious allegation to make. I took that oath in English and Welsh—I took it twice—and I believe in it in both languages, indeed in any language. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman takes that view. As he has just heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), I have done everything that I possibly can consistent with that oath to make sure that this Government act in a way that is consistent with the rule of law. That is what is happening. This House is directly involved, quite properly, in these serious deliberations. Amendments are being made to this Bill as we speak, and the contingency in which these exceptional provisions are to be used has been clearly set out. These are unprecedented times. We do not want to see a breach in any obligations either by us or by the EU, but it would be irresponsible if we did not make those necessary preparations. That is why I am here, and that is why I will continue to be here as long as I feel able to discharge my oath, and I can tell him that, thus far, I feel very able to discharge my oath.
Mr Lammy
It is not me who takes that view. Every living Prime Minister takes that view. The Bar Council and the Law Society take that view. The Lord Chancellor previously said that the Government can indeed break the law if it can be fudged, but there is no fudging this—not only does the Bill breach the international law, it is also a flagrant attack on the rule of law at domestic level, and he knows it. As the Bingham Centre states, clauses 42, 43 and 45 authorise a breach of any relevant international or domestic law, including any order, judgment or decision of any international or domestic court. I say to the Lord Chancellor that he is an esteemed barrister and he swears to a code of conduct. Does he not now risk bringing the profession into disrepute by breaching that code of conduct, which states:
“You must not behave in a way which is likely to diminish the trust and confidence which the public places in you or in the profession”?
Robert Buckland
I really find it extraordinary that the right hon. Gentleman brings the code of conduct into these matters. Like him, I am acting as a Member of Parliament. I am acting as a Minister in the Government—[Interruption.] I am not a Law Officer; I am the Lord Chancellor. The Law Officers of this country are the Attorney General, the Solicitor General and the Advocate General for Scotland. I do not give legal advice to the Government. I am not a Law Officer.
However, every member of the Government is obliged to follow the rule of law. It is very clear. I take a particular oath to uphold that and to defend the judiciary. As I have explained, I have absolutely no qualms about what has been happening. I have worked extremely hard to make sure that this House is fully involved. I say to the right hon. Gentleman that the idea that the passage of this Bill is a breach of UK domestic law is just plain wrong, and to misquote me is unhelpful, misleading and damaging, frankly.
Sentencing White Paper
David Lammy Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Robert Buckland)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the Government’s plans to reform the system of sentencing in England and Wales. This morning, I laid before Parliament a White Paper entitled “A Smarter Approach to Sentencing” and I wanted to come to the House to outline the measures contained within it.
The first duty of any Government is to protect their people, but the complex system of sentencing in England and Wales does not always command the confidence of the public. At one end of the spectrum of offending, there are serious sexual and violent criminals who, by automatic operation of the law, leave prison halfway through their sentence. We are going to ensure that more of these serious offenders stay in custody for longer.
There are also criminals who, while serving time for their offence, may become a danger to the public but who currently would be eligible for automatic release. We are acting to prevent fewer of these offenders from leaving prison without being assessed as safe by Parole Board experts. These measures will keep offenders who pose a risk to the public off the streets for longer and help to restore public confidence that robust sentences are executed in a way that better reflects the gravity of the crimes committed.
At the other end of the spectrum, protecting the public from the effects of lower-level offending means finding new ways to break cycles of crime—to prevent a revolving door of short custodial sentences that we know offer little rehabilitative value. Criminals in that category often have chaotic lifestyles and their offending can be driven by substance misuse, poor mental health or learning difficulties. They often have limited education, few job prospects and experience generational patterns of offending.
Rather than continuing to send them back and forth to prison—doing the same thing but expecting a different result—we instead want to empower the sentencing system to use more effective community sentencing to get them off drugs and into the jobs that we know can lead them to a better life. We will do that by better identifying individual needs, providing treatment options where appropriate and utilising technology, such as sobriety tags, to drive compliance. These measures will support offenders to change their lifestyles for good and, in the process, protect the public from the ongoing effects of their crimes.
The reforms will not work unless they are underpinned by a world-class probation system that can understand and implement sentencing properly, backed up by a high-quality probation workforce. I pay tribute to the probation service and everyone who works within it to supervise offenders. We have set ourselves an ambitious target to recruit 1,000 new trainee probation officers in 2020-21, and over the next few years we are determined to invest in the skills, capability and ways of working that probation officers need to do their job to the best standard.
Within the new probation arrangements, we will unify sentence management under the National Probation Service to further grow confidence between probation and the courts, with which there is a much closer relationship than under the old model. The 12 new probation regions will have a new dynamic framework, making it easier to deliver rehabilitation services through voluntary and specialist organisations. We will legislate to give probation practitioners greater flexibility to take action where offenders’ rehabilitative needs are not being met or where they pose a risk to the public. These measures will empower probation services to be more effective at every juncture of the criminal justice system.
The White Paper also contains measures to reduce stubbornly high reoffending rates by utilising GPS technology to drive further compliance, and to make it easier for offenders to get jobs by reducing the period after which some sentences can be considered spent for the purposes of criminal records checks for non-sensitive roles. In the youth system, it puts flexibility into the hands of judges to keep violent young offenders in custody for longer, while at the same time allowing courts to pass sentences that are tailored to the rehabilitative needs of each young person.
The White Paper builds on the current sentencing framework to create a system that will be much better equipped to do its job effectively, and throughout this document there are contributions from other ministerial colleagues right across Whitehall. That is an acknowledgement of the cross-Government approach that will be required if we are going to make a success of these reforms. We have got to come together to fulfil our manifesto commitments, to bring in tougher sentences, to tackle drug-related crime, to treat addictions, to improve employment opportunities for offenders, to review the parole system and much more.
A smarter approach to sentencing will grow confidence in the criminal justice system’s ability to deal robustly with the worst offenders and reduce the risk of harm to the public. It will also be smart enough to do the things that will really bring down crime in the longer term. I look forward to bringing its various measures through Parliament. I commend the White Paper and this statement to the House.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. We need to scrutinise the changes the Secretary of State has announced today in detail, but I will start by saying that Labour’s priority is always to keep the British public safe. The Secretary of State will remember that it was a Labour Government in 2003 which introduced compulsory life sentences and minimum sentences for over 150 offences. It was a Labour Government in 2010 which raised the minimum prison sentence for knife killers from 15 to 25 years in the wake of the death of Ben Kinsella, and it was a Labour Government which obliged judges to hand down 30-year minimum sentences for murders involving firearms and explosives. There is no doubt that Ellie Gould’s killer got too short a sentence for the horrific crime that he committed. I praise Carole Gould’s fortitude and dignity amid such a horrendous loss. Her campaigners commanded cross-party support and the Labour party stands with her today.
We are a party that welcomes strengthening sentencing when it is necessary to protect the British public. It is in that spirit that Labour accepts that there are some exceptional cases in which a whole-life sentence might be deemed appropriate for a young person over the age of 18. The murderer who helped to plan the senseless terrorist attack on Manchester Arena is one such case. We will need to carefully scrutinise exactly how the Government’s proposed changes are written into law, of course, and it is important to remember that, even without the changes the Secretary of State is announcing today, no one leaves prison for crimes as serious as these if the Parole Board is not satisfied that they are no longer a danger to society. It is also the case that the general presumption in criminal law is that when someone is younger there is more opportunity for them to reform, and removing the opportunity for parole can also remove incentives for offenders to rehabilitate and behave well in prison. We will come back to that, I am sure, when he comes forward with the legislation. I hope the Secretary of State will confirm that these changes, while appropriate for the most extreme cases, will not be applied gratuitously, and that it would be wrong to abandon the general presumption in criminal law that when people are younger there is more opportunity for redemption and to turn their life around.
There are other announcements today that we welcome. We welcome the reforming of criminal records disclosure to reduce the time in which offenders must declare offences to employers, and that is sorely needed. It is something that I called for in my review, and may I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar), who is in his place and who has campaigned on these issues for many years?
I also welcome the Secretary of State’s new pilots for problem-solving courts. He will recall that problem-solving courts were introduced by a Labour Government and cut back by a Conservative Government. I am glad to see them back, but why are they just pilots? Can we not go further? We know they work for people with serious addictions and problems who come back into the system again and again. It is also very good to see the Ministry of Justice hearing our calls—again, I raised this in the Lammy review—for offenders who need greater support because they have neurodivergent conditions such as autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia. I am sure the whole House welcomes that we have finally arrived at that place.
We welcome the Government’s announcement that they will recruit more probation officers after their U-turn on the failed experiment with privatisation by the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling). It missed targets and cost taxpayers an extra £460 million. We will continue to hold the Government to account as we get back to having a fully national probation service.
Labour also welcomes the Government using this White Paper as an opportunity to increase the maximum penalty for causing death by dangerous driving, as well as the maximum penalty for causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drink and drugs.
Sentencing reform is needed, but on its own it is not enough. Ministry of Justice data show that between 9 June and 31 July this year, nearly a third of prisoners—2,400 people—were released homeless or to an unknown circumstance. How will longer sentences protect the public, if people continue to be released homeless and without the chance to turn their lives around?
The announcement around GPS tagging in the community is welcome, but what steps are the Government taking to ensure that services exist to support former offenders into work? Why is there still no cross-departmental plan to reduce reoffending and enable the reintegration of prison leavers? Does the Secretary of State plan to publish one within the next three months, as recommended by the Public Accounts Committee last week? Does he share the concerns of the Victims’ Commissioner that recent changes to the Crown Prosecution Service guidance could lead to the CPS having the freedom to drop difficult cases, leaving victims feeling cheated if the current system is overstretched?
This statement has come in a week where a Secretary of State who took an oath to uphold the rule of law has let his office and the system down. The whole country has watched him squirm in his seat as he has stood with the Prime Minister. I hope he recognises the importance of the days ahead, as he brings this White Paper back to the Chamber.
Robert Buckland
It was all going so well, and then the right hon. Gentleman had to spoil it with an ill-judged, ill-timed and wholly inappropriate intervention. May I remind him that as a practitioner, for years I had to endure a Labour Government that passed with incontinence criminal justice Act after criminal justice Act, creating the chaos with sentencing reform that I am now having to deal with? With the greatest respect to him, I will take no lectures about a Labour Government who made automatic early release at the halfway term the norm for so many sentences. That is the wrong that we are righting now as a result of the reforms that we will introduce.
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for how he has sensibly engaged with the important issues about the rehabilitation of offenders. I am particularly pleased by the warm welcome for the work we will do on neurodivergent conditions and disorders. That has been a long-standing passion and commitment of mine. Autism and ADHD are real conditions that affect thousands of people in our country. I have had personal experience in the criminal justice system of representing people with those conditions, and I think we can do better. That is why we will take action on that.
I can reassure the right hon. Gentleman about the cross-Government work on offender employment. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who is deeply committed to increasing the number of offenders in work. We are working on plans and a cross-Government strategy. The committee is chaired by the Prime Minister, which exemplifies the Government’s deep and fundamental dedication to this bold agenda.
I welcome the other comments that the right hon. Gentleman has made, and it is in that spirit of constructive engagement that I am sure we will work together to make sense of criminal justice after years of failure, mainly by the Government of which he was a member.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Lammy Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
As we have heard, recommendation 34 of the Lammy review said that the criminal justice system
“should learn from the system for sealing criminal records employed in many US states.”
I welcome the Government’s finally responding last week, after 18 months, with plans to comply with the major Supreme Court decision on filtering youth cautions, and the indication that I think the Secretary of State has given on meeting recommendation 34. Will he undertake to consult with Unlock and other groups who have campaigned long on this issue and speak to me in preparation for bringing forward those planned guidelines?
Robert Buckland
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who has always come to this matter with great responsibility and constructive engagement. In that spirit, I am more than happy to continue engaging with him. I will, of course, speak to the charities he mentioned, whom I know well, and other major stakeholders such as Lord Ramsbotham, in pursuance of preparation of a policy that I very much hope will command the support of all corners of the Chamber.
Lucy Frazer
As my right hon. Friend highlights, as restrictions are lifted in the community, so we need to lift restrictions in prisons, too, but we need to do so cautiously to ensure that we do not increase the risk of infection. Where prisons are starting to open up—for example, to introduce visits—adaptations are being made to ensure that the risk of infection to staff and prisoners is minimised.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
On 5 May, the shadow Minister for Prisons and Probation, my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown), wrote to the Department regarding concerns about the treatment of cleaners at Petty France during the pandemic. The Secretary of State’s reply on 29 May made it clear that he thought there was no issue in terms of management, access to personal protective equipment, social distancing or sick pay. However, hours of interviews and leaked emails and text messages confirmed that cleaners were forced into the Department during the lockdown period, denied PPE, offered no support and had medical issues consistent with coronavirus symptoms. Seven outsourced staff on the site have had those consistent symptoms; two are now dead. The Department had to be guilt-tripped into backdating sick pay. Will the Minister live up to the Ministry of Justice’s name by committing to a full independent review as to what happened to those cleaners working in the Ministry of Justice?
Lucy Frazer
As the right hon. shadow Secretary of State has mentioned, these matters have been looked at. I am happy to take on board any further points that he would like to make.
Robert Buckland
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. He can be reassured, first of all, that nitrous oxide is a psychoactive substance classified under the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, and it is an offence to supply it if someone knows, or is reckless as to whether, it will be used for its psychoactive effect. The most recent assessment of the drug was in 2015, when the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs concluded that there is evidence that the use of the drug can cause harm, but I would be more than happy to discuss the matter further with him.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
A decade of underinvestment and savage cuts to legal aid critically weakened the criminal justice system long before coronavirus. Time and again, month after month, the Bar Council, the Law Society and so many others have warned the Government about the dire predicament faced by legal aid practitioners up and down the country, but the Government’s much delayed review of criminal legal aid is nowhere in sight. Will the Secretary of State commit to expediting the criminal legal aid review and provide a deadline by which it will report?
Robert Buckland
I am surprised by the right hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of the criminal legal aid review. Indeed, we have completed part 1 and the consultation has been completed, and we are proceeding with all expedition to implement the accelerated requests of the Bar and the solicitors’ professions. We are moving into part 2 and I want to get on with it. The right hon. Gentleman knows that I had over 20 years as a legal aid criminal practitioner; and I saw, shall we say, a Government of which he was a member sometimes revelling in cuts to legal aid. We need to work constructively together on this now to help the professions that we both support.
Lammy Review
David Lammy Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab) (Urgent Question)
To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the Government’s implementation of the Lammy review.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)
Racism is an abomination. It is morally and intellectually bankrupt, and it strikes at the foundations of a fair and just society. It is particularly corrosive when found within the criminal justice system, because in that context the stakes are particularly high—guilt or innocence; freedom or incarceration.
That is why the Government, back in 2017, commissioned the Lammy review into the treatment of and outcomes for black, Asian and minority ethnic individuals in the criminal justice system. Although it was an independent review, it was heavily backed by Government resources. A team of six, headed by a senior civil servant, were devoted to the review, and it took evidence from across the world, with fact-finding trips as far away as the United States and New Zealand. We are profoundly grateful to the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) for the constructive and consensual way in which he led the review, and for the valuable 35 recommendations it produced. It is a good report and it has made a big difference.
Not uncommonly when reviews are commissioned, it was clear to Government that not every last recommendation could or indeed should be implemented precisely as requested. The Government made that clear, and they did so openly and publicly in their December 2017 response. Instead of flatly rejecting a large number of the recommendations, the Government were mindful of the importance of progressing the policy intent that lay behind them. That is why the Government undertook to take them forward to the fullest extent possible. They repeated that stance in the further lengthy progress updates they published in 2018 and most recently earlier this year, with the latest one running to more than 80 pages. The position now is that 16 recommendations have been completed, two have been rejected and 17 are in progress. Of those 17 in progress, 11 will be completed within 12 months and six thereafter.
Let me close by saying that enormous progress has been made, particularly in respect of the functioning and fairness of prisons. By way of one example, recommendation 3, which recommended the publication of datasets held on ethnicity, has been complied with, including in respect of home detention, curfew, release on temporary licence and prisons. All that data is set out in the official gov.uk updates on the “Ethnicity facts and figures” website, which is, by the way, arguably one of the most transparent sets of Government data in this field anywhere in the world. As a result, data on staff and prisoner ethnicity is significantly better than it used to be, allowing a spotlight to be more easily shone on disparities and action taken.
We have gone further, too, making progress in areas such as setting up the Race and Ethnicity Board to hold key partners across the criminal justice system responsible for improvement in their respective areas. Of course there is more to do, and I hope we can continue the constructive dialogue in taking forward the recommendations of this excellent report. I know things are different now. The consensual has necessarily, because of the right hon. Gentleman’s elevation, given way to a more adversarial approach. That is understandable, but great progress has been made. With common purpose and focus, we can finish the job.
Mr Lammy
In this country, we have two major political parties with different visions of our past and our future, but on some matters of political importance, it is right for us to work across the partisan divide to achieve lasting change. It was in that spirit of good faith that David Cameron asked me to complete an independent review into the disproportionality in the criminal justice system. It was with the same good faith and in the hope of forging political consensus that I completed it.
I was disappointed to hear the Prime Minister break that consensus last week when he claimed that 16 of the recommendations I made in the Lammy review had been, and I quote, “implemented”, when in fact the majority of them had not. Inadvertently, he misled the House, and it is a shame he is not answering this urgent question himself.
There is a huge difference between implementing my recommendations and, as the Minister has said at the Dispatch Box today, completing the actions the Government committed to following my recommendations. In fact, I think the Minister said that they have completed 11 of those recommendations. Last week, it was 16. I hope that he recognises it is important on a matter such as this to give the public clear information. When he returns to his feet, I hope he will correct the record properly.
Recommendation 13, for example, was that
“all sentencing remarks in the Crown Court should be published in audio and/or written form.”
As the Government admit, that has not happened. They have done all that they said they would do on that recommendation, but frankly, that is nothing. They have not implemented it. In fact, they have rejected it. It is the same story for recommendations 8, 18, 19 and 35. They committed to not implementing my recommendations, and it is wrong to pretend anything else. Language matters and, as the Black Lives Matter movement makes its voice heard about systemic injustice here and abroad, the very least the Government could do is be honest about their actions.
Last week, the Prime Minister broke the consensus around my review; now I am asking the Minister to correct the record so that we can win it back. History is littered with examples of what happens if we abandon good faith. Without good faith, people get angry. Without good faith, people take to the streets. Without good faith, people give up hope.
The truth is that many of the injustices that I highlighted in my review have since got worse. When I completed the review, 41% of children in prison came from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background—and now the proportion is 51%. The proportion of all stop and searches on black people has increased by 69% over five years. The average custodial sentence for a black person is almost 10 years longer than that for a white person. To recognise the pain of these injustices, the Government need to go further than my review went, not cover up for the recommendations they ignored. Change will happen only when we look in the mirror honestly. Change will happen only when we tell the truth. Change will happen only when we recognise that black lives matter. Do not take the community involved for fools.
Alex Chalk
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks. Let me be clear: we say that 16 recommendations have been implemented. The point I was making about 11 is that there is agreement between the parties, so to speak, that 11 of those 16 have been implemented, or partially implemented—that is in the right hon. Gentleman’s letter. There is a dispute about the other five, to which I shall come in a moment.
In 2017, after this excellent report was produced, the Government could have said in respect of recommendation 13—to which the right hon. Gentleman refers and which, by the way, requires that all transcripts of sentencing hearings should be printed and published—“Do you know what, Mr Lammy? That is simply not feasible. We are just going to turn our face against that.” But instead, the Government looked behind the intention of that recommendation, and the intention—as set out in the text of the report, by the way—was to increase transparency. I will explain in a moment what then happened, but I wish to deal with this point first. In December 2017, the Government said in their response that they would not be able to implement every last word—in fact, the expression used was “to the letter”, in paragraph 8, if the right hon. Gentleman wants to look at it.
In respect of recommendation 13, to which the right hon. Gentleman refers, what in fact have the Government said? The report from 2020—which, by the way, runs to some 80 pages, setting out what the Government have done in respect of each of the recommendations—talks about recommendation 13, and if he wants to find it, it is at page 60. I remind everyone of what recommendation 13 says:
“As part of the court modernisation programme, all sentencing remarks in the Crown Court should be published in audio and/or written form. This would build trust by making justice more transparent and comprehensible for victims, witnesses and offenders.”
We said that transcripts for everything would be a gargantuan expense, and that money would have to come out of the legal aid budget and so on. We said that
“the costs are prohibitive at this time”,
but that the
“Ministry of Justice has however produced a four-part guide to support defendants as they move through the Criminal Justice System from charge to case completion, available online and in Courts. MoJ want to ensure that people are given the help they need to understand the Court process and the consequences of their own decisions, as well as those made by the Court. The guide includes information on sentencing”.
In other words, we implemented the spirit of the recommendation.
Alex Chalk
In a moment; let me just finish the point.
The right hon. Gentleman also asked about going further. We have required police and crime commissioners, for example, to report on the number of BAME victims they are supporting through support services. We have set up the race and ethnicity board. We have committed to publish the victims strategy. We have done all these things, even though they were not in the Lammy review, because we recognise that when it comes to cracking down on racism in the criminal justice system, we have to go further still.
Probation Services
David Lammy Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. I, too, want to give my thanks to the National Probation Service and for the work of our CRCs, particularly at this challenging time. The Opposition welcome the U-turn that the Government are announcing. It is a U-turn that we have called for for many years. Anyone who looks at Hansard for debates in this Chamber and indeed looks at successive Select Committees will be aware that the Secretary of State has made an important announcement.
The playwright Alan Bennett wrote that the probation service is about the
“remedying of misfortune…which…has no more to do with profit than the remedying of disease”.
The probation service may seem abstract to many who have had lives of privilege. Unlike the health service, most of us will never come into direct contact with it, but every Member of Parliament knows that a properly run probation system is essential. At its best, it can be the national service of second chances: offenders rehabilitate, former criminals become good citizens and people are allowed to make up for their past mistakes.
Just as our national health service must be publicly run, so, too, must probation services, but the Conservative Government’s part-privatisation of the probation service was the deepest privatisation that the criminal justice system has ever experienced. The reforms led by the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling)—it is such a shame he has not made it to the Chamber—transferred 70% of the work done by the public probation service to private and voluntary sector providers. Coming in 2015, in the middle of a decade of austerity, these were, in essence, cost-cutting measures. The Government were warned, but, as we have seen with so many of their attempts to cut corners through underinvestment, ultimately these measures have cost much more in the long run. Since the reforms, reoffending rates have climbed up to 32%. Members of the public and victims of crime across the country would not have been subject to the trauma they were put through had this privatisation not been introduced in the first place. One service provider, Working Links, was found to be wrongly classifying offenders as low risk to meet Government targets. Profit was put before public safety, ethics were compromised and lives were lost. It does not matter what language the Secretary of State uses in this House, he should apologise for that mistake made by his party.
The Government cannot say that they were not warned about the devastation that their part-privatisation of the probation service would cause. Trade unions, including Napo and Unison, have been campaigning for probation services to be fully publicly run for seven years. The Labour party, too, has warned this House of the dangers of these reforms again and again. The chief inspector warned that the use of private firms to monitor offenders serving community sentences is irredeemably flawed. Lord Ramsbotham, the former chief inspector of prisons, even produced an interim report on how the Government can best return the services to public hands.
The Opposition welcome the Government’s U-turn today, but the obvious question is why the Government tried to make profit out of probation in the first place, and why it took so long for them to realise their mistake. More than a year ago, the Justice Secretary’s predecessor announced that the system was not working. He outlined that offender management would be renationalised, so why did the Government fail to renationalise the second pillar of the private probation service then? Why were unpaid work programmes and accredited programmes still put out for private tender? When the Government knew that their model was broken, why did they only go part of the way in fixing it?
As we move towards the return of the probation services into public hands, this Opposition will scrutinise every detail seriously. Probation services are too important to be messed around with again, so what is the timescale for reintegration of all probation services into the state? Can we be assured that this will not be used as an excuse for any more cuts? Will all the savings from not renewing private probation contracts go towards an improved, better staffed, trained and managed National Probation Service? Keeping expertise is vital. How will the Government ensure that private probation staff will be encouraged to continue their work? Local probation services must be able to draw on the voluntary sector and create connections with local employers, adult education colleges, health authority and jobcentres. How will the Government ensure that the National Probation Service is organised so that there are those strong local links?
Many prisoners are released without suitable accommodation, so the connection to local authorities is absolutely vital. Ex-offenders need to be helped to find a home from which they can start a better life. The Government want to frame these reforms as purely down to the coronavirus, but we all know the truth: the problems are much deeper than that. Let this momentous U-turn be the end of the assumption that the private sector always knows best. The Government outsourced school dinners and we ended up with obesity and turkey twizzlers. The Government outsourced the cleaning of hospital beds and we ended up with the highest rates of the superbug. The Government outsourced probation and we ended up with higher reoffending rates. The private sector is not the answer for everything.
However, probation is founded on the idea of second chances. It is in this spirit that we are open minded to the Government as they try to atone for their past sins. Will the Government commit to making these changes part of a broad, coherent strategy for investment in rehabilitation and greater safety for the public? The Government should not just try to put the clock back. They should work with the Opposition, work with our unions and work with our non-governmental organisations and other experts to build a better probation service than we have had before. This is how they can make up for their past mistakes.