Draft Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2012 (Amendment) Instrument 2019
Edward Argar Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2012 (Amendment) Instrument 2019.
The purpose of the amended scheme is to remove what we consider to be a discriminatory eligibility rule, and to provide a potential remedy to some victims of violent crime who have been affected by its application. It is right that we are seeking to make these changes expeditiously. I am grateful for the strong support on both sides of the House for what we seek to do, in particular from the shadow Minister. I am sure she will wish to shade into broader issues in her remarks.
Our knowledge and understanding of domestic violence and sexual abuse of children is far greater today than it was when the rule was introduced. It is not acceptable that a rule originally intended to stop perpetrators from benefiting financially from causing harm to people they lived with has unfairly denied victims acknowledgment of that harm and access to compensation for their injuries. All cases of sexual and physical abuse by a family member in the family home involve a grave abuse of trust, but the rule has operated in a way that has denied eligibility for compensation on the basis of victims being in a situation over which they had no or limited control and could not necessarily change.
The circumstances that have given rise to the need for this instrument are exceptional. It is fitting that Parliament is breaking new ground in meeting that need. For the first time, Parliament is invited to approve an amendment to part of the existing statutory scheme. Hon. Members will be aware that we have committed to bring forward a consultation later this year on the overall scheme, offering them and others the opportunity to comment more widely.
A commitment to abolish the pre-1979 “same roof” rule was announced in the “Victims Strategy” published on 10 September 2018. Today, with cross-party support I hope, we deliver on that commitment. Under the rule, applicants were not entitled to compensation if they lived with their assailant as members of the same family at the time of the incident. The rule applied to cases between 1964 and 1979, and affected victims who were adults or children at the time of the incident and claims for injuries from physical or sexual assault.
The amended scheme strikes out paragraph 19 of the 2012 scheme. That will enable victims of violent crimes who may not have applied due to the rule, or those who may not have been aware of the scheme, to consider applying. However, we have gone further in recognition of the unfairness attached to the application of the rule for more than 50 years. We have made provision in new paragraph 18A for past claimants who were refused on the grounds covered by the rule to make new applications.
We have also taken steps to avoid creating a new potentially discriminatory position whereby claimants who were adults at the time of one incident are treated more favourably if the incident happened before 1 October 1979. We have extended the post-1979 “same roof” rule of paragraph 20 of the 2012 scheme to a start date of 1964, to provide consistency in how the rule applies to all applicants who were adults at the time of an incident. The rule will be considered in the comprehensive review of the scheme that we announced in the “Victims Strategy” and to which I just referred. A public consultation on potential reforms to that overall scheme will take place later this year.
Requirements, eligibility rules, criteria and values of awards have changed over time. Members will recognise the importance of a fair and proportionate approach for all applicants, whether they are making a new first application or are reapplying following a past refusal on the grounds of the pre-1979 “same roof” rule. We have sought to enable as many of those victims affected by the rule as possible to consider and take up the opportunity to apply.
As I mentioned, this is the first time we are making changes to parts of an existing scheme and, uniquely, we are applying changes to past applicants. The complexity, therefore, of assessing applications made so long ago will be significant. Administratively, it will be challenging for the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority to assess and determine claims to the non-statutory or statutory scheme that was applied to previously, or to which a victim could have applied at the time had the rule not existed. We have addressed that by providing that new first applications or reapplications following a past refusal under the pre-1979 “same roof” rule should be made to the 2012 scheme—the existing scheme—and amending the scheme to that effect. We believe that that ensures equality of opportunity.
We have set a time limit for new applicants and past applicants who are reapplying that we believe is fair and consistent. They must submit their claim within two years, as applies to current claims under the scheme, beginning from the date on which the amended scheme comes into effect. We have retained the discretion in the 2012 scheme to extend the time limit where, owing to exceptional circumstances, an application could not be made within that timescale, thereby again ensuring consistency.
Placing a time limit on applications will help us to manage the significant financial liability potentially attached to the changes and to forecast the financial repercussions more effectively. However, where a victim meets all the relevant eligibility criteria under the amended scheme, an award will be made. I recognise that there may be challenges in meeting the evidential threshold required for a compensation award, and it is right to state that a successful outcome to a claim cannot be guaranteed, as they will all be considered appropriately in line with the scheme’s rules.
The changes to the scheme are designed to level the playing field for applicants to the amended scheme. All eligibility criteria in the 2012 scheme must be met. Cases will be assessed on their merits, and the authority will make appropriate inquiries with the applicant and relevant authorities as sensitively and as quickly as possible. All the circumstances of the claim must be considered as a whole to determine whether there is sufficient evidence on the balance of probabilities to support it.
The safeguards in the 2012 scheme will apply to decisions of the authority on an application. They include review by another officer in the authority and, if the applicant remains dissatisfied, the right of appeal to the first-tier tribunal. We intend to monitor carefully the operation of the amendments once they are implemented. It is important that we assess the impact of the changes in meeting our intention to offer an opportunity for redress for the unfairness under the existing 1979 “same roof” rule. We recognise that there is a challenge in raising awareness of the scheme—a point that appertains to the two-year time limit, which is the same limit as applies for other applications under the scheme—and we are looking at that more generally in our review of the scheme.
Given that her term comes to an end imminently, I wish to put on record my gratitude to Baroness Newlove, the Victims’ Commissioner, not only for her work in that role but specifically for her review into criminal injuries compensation. She has been a tireless advocate for the rights of victims of crime and for their voice to be heard. It has been a great pleasure and privilege to work with her in the role for the past 11 months. I am sure that all Members wish to put that on the record. I look forward to working with her successor, Dame Vera Baird, who will be known to many in this House. She will be an equally passionate advocate for the rights of victims.
In relation to the changes that we are introducing, work has begun to engage with external stakeholders on how to ensure that potential applicants are signposted to guidance and support in making a claim. We recognise that making claims to the amended scheme may prove difficult for some applicants, and the authority has made specific preparations to implement it. A small dedicated team has been set up, ready to support people making applications by phone or online.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
I simply wish to commend the choice of Vera Baird as the champion. She has done excellent work over many years, particularly on violence against women, both in a legal capacity and in the community.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her words. We were clear that we wanted the best person for the job. This is not about party politics or anything else. We wanted someone who would do an excellent job and, crucially, carry with them the trust of stakeholders, be they victims or organisations. It is fair to say that Dame Vera has that in spades.
Applicants will be given a named contact to assist them through the application process. The amended scheme and the Government’s intent are clear. The changes we are making are necessary, fair, reasonable and, I would argue, urgent. I commend the amended scheme to the Committee.
Edward Argar
We have had an interesting and important debate. This debate and what we are seeking to do provide an example of something not always seen beyond these walls: Parliament doing what it does, and doing it well. I reiterate my gratitude for the cross-party support for the measures, and in particular to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ashfield, for her engagement on this issue.
The hon. Lady raised a number of points, which I will endeavour to address. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we have been clear that, although this is not routine, the changes are in essence retrospective and people will have the right to reapply if their claims were previously rejected on the grounds of the “same roof” rule. Other criteria still apply to the scheme that will obviously have to be met, but that rule will no longer be a ground for rejection, as it has been in the past.
On building trust and communicating the changes to those who need to reapply, the hon. Lady is right that the success of the changes will be measured in people coming forward, and knowing that they can do so. We have imposed the two-year time limit because we believe that it is important that that is consistent with the rest of the scheme’s operation. However, I highlight two things. First, there is an element of discretion in particular circumstances that mean that someone is unable to come forward within the time period. We also have a clear emphasis on communication and stakeholder engagement, because it is right that people know, and know early, about the changes that we have made here, and that hopefully will be approved in due course by the House and the other place.
We have that stakeholder engagement and we have a dedicated team to support those who apply though the process; those applicants will get a named contact. I also encourage hon. Members to highlight the changes by whatever means they have within their power when the legislation has passed all its stages, as I hope it will.
The hon. Lady asked about payments for those who are deemed eligible and are successful. I assure her that victims applying to the amended scheme who meet the criteria will receive the award that they are offered, and funding will be available to ensure that they get the money that they are awarded.
The hon. Lady moved on to other aspects that fall more properly into the review that we have announced of the overall 2012 scheme, which we will introduce later this year. The scheme was last reviewed in 2012, when reforms were made to make the scheme more financially sustainable. As she said, that has affected the total awards made, although the volume of applications has also reduced since 2012. It is important to remember that our scheme remains the most generous in Europe; CICA paid out £154 million in compensation to victims in the last financial year.
The broad terms of reference for the current review of the scheme were announced on 18 December 2018. In that context, the hon. Lady made a number of points about the tariff for awards, the eligibility criteria more broadly, the consent rule in the context of the scheme and the previous convictions rule. The overall review of the scheme will be an opportunity for people, stakeholders and members of the public to comment on those and other factors; I am sure the official Opposition will wish to do so too. I am conscious that she and I are due to meet in the near future to discuss the review.
I will briefly mention the comments of the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, who, as ever, was measured, pragmatic and sensible in his response. I am grateful for his support, and that of his party, in this endeavour. I am conscious of the points that he made about Scotland. I am sure that he and his party will also wish to participate in the broader review of the overall scheme.
I hope that the Committee agrees that the proposed changes are small but an important step as part of a bigger whole. They are welcome and necessary to remedy an unfairness that has taken place for far too long.
Question put and agreed to.
Sharia Law Courts
Edward Argar Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson, not least because it protects me from being challenged by difficult questions from someone who did my job many years ago with great skill and knowledge.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) on securing this debate, which addresses an area of significant interest and importance. It is right that this House debates such issues. The work of the Council of Europe has no greater champion or more active participant than my hon. Friend. I am very pleased to be able to respond to the debate. It was due to be responded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), until his well-deserved promotion yesterday evening, so I confess that I am not an expert in this area, but I have been fascinated by the debate.
I am grateful to all hon. Members who have taken part late on a Thursday afternoon. I am particularly grateful to the hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah), not only for the passion and power that she habitually brings to her speeches, but for the depth of her knowledge and understanding of the subject. I am pleased she was able to be here.
I also recognise the contribution of the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), who spoke in his usual measured and sensible tone. His contribution was particularly valuable in highlighting the practice in Glasgow, which he touched on.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I omitted to mention the speech of the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) not because I did not think that it was impressive, but simply because I treated it as a Front-Bench contribution, not a Back-Bench one. I join the Minister in commending the speech.
Edward Argar
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention; I was about to respond to his speech. As ever, he made a powerful and sensible case. He highlighted, as other Members have, the importance of choosing our words with care when we speak in this House, not just on this subject but on all subjects, and the responsibility that we all have, and the broader responsibility of the media and others in this space, to choose our words with care.
I will set out the Government’s position on sharia law. As the Prime Minister has said, and as Members have mentioned today, there is one rule of law in the United Kingdom. In practice, that means, within each of the UK jurisdictions, a single system of law, legislated according to our constitutional arrangements by this Parliament or the devolved Administrations. Our judicial systems interpret, apply and, where necessary, enforce those laws. There is no parallel system of sharia law in operation in the UK; Her Majesty’s courts enforce our laws. My hon. Friend the Member for Henley was right to say that sharia law is not part of the British legal system. We must ensure that we do not succour such misinformation or misconceptions beyond these walls.
Our vision for our communities is that all British citizens, whatever their religious background, should be free to practise individual religious freedom. Many British people of different faiths and none benefit a great deal from the guidance that religious codes and other practices offer. Those values allow us to enjoy our individual freedoms and to lead varied lives in diverse communities. That is one of the great strengths of this great country; however, it has to be within a framework in which citizens share and respect common rights and responsibilities, with unfettered access to national law and our legal institutions to enforce those rights when necessary. Equal access to the law is a key benefit of living in a democratic society. As the hon. Member for Bradford West highlighted, that respect for the law is, I hope and believe, shared by everyone in our country, irrespective of background, gender, religion or any other factor.
If there is any conflict between religious practices and national law, national law must, and will, always prevail. In particular, I highlight the Equality Act 2010 and, as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), highlighted, our strong and important human rights legislation and the framework behind it. The Home Office and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government lead on the broader issues surrounding faith, community integration and British values. The Ministry of Justice is responsible for the operation of the justice system, including the use of non-court dispute resolution services such as mediation, and for the law governing marriage.
I heard the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley on the use of sharia religious principles and the operation of sharia councils. In particular, he highlighted concerns about various forms of discrimination on the basis of sex or religion in family matters, in particular divorce, in relation to the evidential weight applied. I acknowledge too the views set out by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in its resolution, passed in January this year, about the need to combat all forms of discrimination based on religion. As my noble and learned Friend Lord Keen of Elie has said, people may choose to abide by the interpretation and application of sharia principles if they wish to do so, provided their actions do not conflict with national law; however, that must be their free choice, and does not supersede national law.
The resolution reiterated the obligation on Council of Europe member states to protect the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as enshrined in article 9 of the European convention on human rights. That right represents one of the pillars of a democratic society, and we share the Council’s view of that important principle. The resolution also noted that the exercise of the right to manifest one’s religion may be subject to some limitations necessary in a democratic society; it is not an unqualified right. Furthermore, it noted that the operation of religion should never act to limit or remove other convention rights or freedoms to which citizens in a democratic society are entitled, and we agree with that too.
While supporting and, I argue, even encouraging pluralism, the resolution expressed concern about the official or unofficial application of what it termed “sharia law” in several Council of Europe member states. As hon. Members have set out, in relation to the UK specifically the Council of Europe set out its concern about what it views as the judicial activities of sharia councils that, although not part of the British legal system, attempt to provide a form of alternative dispute resolution.
The resolution drew attention to members of the Muslim community, sometimes voluntarily but sometimes under pressure from peers or their own conscience, accepting the religious jurisdiction of such councils. The resolution further noted that it occurs mainly with regard to marital issues involving divorce, as the hon. Member for Bradford West said, and some matters related to inheritance and commercial contracts. The resolution expressed concern that the rulings of sharia councils could discriminate against women in divorce and inheritance cases.
The UK Government are clear that all rules, practices and bodies, including systems of alternative dispute resolution, must operate within the rule of law. Our law provides for a formal system of legally binding arbitration under the Arbitration Act 1996, which allows parties to consent to apply a system of law other than English law, with appropriate procedural safeguards to protect against duress or coercion. Arbitral decisions can play an important role, but only if the necessary procedural requirements and legal safeguards are satisfied. Most types of family dispute can be resolved in a legally binding way only if they are adjudicated by the courts.
The Government understand the concerns that some Members have set out about the operation of sharia councils. Indeed, the resolution on the basis of which the debate has been tabled acknowledged and welcomed the Home-Office-commissioned independent review, chaired by Professor Mona Siddiqui and commissioned by the now Prime Minister. That review looked at whether sharia law was being misused or applied in a way that is incompatible with domestic law in England and Wales, and whether there were discriminatory practices against women who use such councils.
Naz Shah
Does the Minister welcome, as I do, the finding in that review that, despite the fact that there is understood to be a conflict in very minute parts of sharia law, in terms of inheritance being discriminatory, in this country that would not apply because the rule of our law would override all of it in any case?
Edward Argar
The hon. Lady is right to highlight the primacy of our national domestic law in that context.
The review was published by the Government in 2018, with the Council of Europe calling the recommendations
“a major step towards a solution”.
The review found evidence of a range of practices across sharia councils, both positive and negative, and made three recommendations, which have been touched upon. Some of them mirror, or are very similar to, the UK-specific proposals set out in the Council of Europe resolution. I will run through them, as other hon. Members have, and respond on behalf of the Government.
The review’s first recommendation was to amend marriage law to ensure that civil marriages are conducted before, or at the same time, as the Islamic marriage ceremony, thereby establishing the right to a civil divorce and to financial protection on divorce. The law already provides the option to solemnise a legally valid Islamic marriage if it takes place in a mosque registered for worship and for marriage, as the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East mentioned. However, we understand and appreciate that many Muslims choose to marry at home and, as the hon. Member for Bradford West said, may be unaware that that means that their ceremony, while religiously recognised, is not recognised under national law.
We will continue to engage with key stakeholders, including faith groups, academics and lawyers, to test their views on the policy and the legal challenges of limited reform relating to the law on marriage and religious ceremonies. I am keen for us to make as rapid progress as possible, but as the tenor of this debate has shown and as hon. Members will recognise, this is a sensitive area that involves the expression of religious freedom, so it is important that we get any changes right.
With respect to the current marriage law, the second recommendation proposed developing programmes to raise awareness among Muslim couples that Islamic marriages do not afford them the legal protection that comes with a civil marriage—a point that the hon. Lady made very powerfully. The cross-Government integrated communities action plan, which is led by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, commits to supporting awareness campaigns to educate and inform couples and their children of the benefits of having a civil marriage alongside a religious marriage. The plan is a powerful opportunity to drive our vision for integrated communities in the UK. As the Prime Minister has said, we will use it to proudly promote the many values that unite us, including democracy, free speech, human rights and the rule of law—values that allow us to enjoy our individual freedoms and lead varied lives in diverse communities.
The third recommendation proposed regulating sharia councils by creating a state-established body with a code of practice for the councils to adopt and implement. The review team’s failure to reach a unanimous agreement on that proposal demonstrates the complexity of the issues involved. The Government consider that a state-facilitated or endorsed regulation scheme for such councils could confer on them a degree of legitimacy as alternative forms of dispute resolution and risk introducing what might be perceived as a parallel system of law. As the then Home Secretary set out at the time, the Government do not consider it an appropriate role of the state to act in that way.
Naz Shah
Does the Minister agree that the role that the Government have to play in these communities, as in any communities, is to support them in getting to where they need to be with sharia councils to make them compliant with our existing laws on non-discrimination regardless of gender?
Edward Argar
The hon. Lady makes an important point. I believe that the Government have an obligation in a range of areas to do what we can to ensure that all bodies and organisations comply with our national laws. She is right that it is incumbent on us all to encourage compliance with the laws that we make in this House.
The Home Office review found some evidence of sharia councils in England and Wales forcing women to make concessions to gain a divorce, of inadequate safeguarding policies and of a failure to signpost applicants to legal remedies. That is clearly not acceptable, as the hon. Lady made clear in her speech. Where sharia councils exist, they must abide by the law. Legislation is in place to protect the rights of women and prevent discriminatory practice; the Government will work with the appropriate regulatory authorities to ensure that that legislation and the protections that it establishes are being enforced fully and effectively.
The Council of Europe’s resolution calls on the UK authorities to do more to
“remove the barriers to Muslim women’s access to justice…step up measures to provide protection and assistance to those who are in a situation of vulnerability…conduct further research on the ‘judicial’ practice of Sharia councils and on the extent to which such councils are used voluntarily, particularly by women, many of whom would be subject to intense community pressure in this respect.”
The Government are clear that we must do more to support people in faith communities to make informed choices about how to live their lives. Key to that is our work on integration and on a shared understanding of British values and the system of law that underpins them. My colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government will consider those points further as work progresses on the integrated communities action plan.
Edward Argar
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight that point. I believe that our values, which include the rule of law and the belief in human rights and democracy, are shared throughout our whole country, irrespective of people’s background, gender, age or religion.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Henley again for giving us the opportunity to debate these important issues. I assure him that what he and other hon. Members have said today has been heard, and that my colleagues across Government and I will consider carefully all the points that have been raised on all sides.
I conclude by repeating what I said at the beginning of my speech: many British people of different faiths benefit a great deal from the guidance that their religious codes, beliefs and practices offer. Such values allow us to enjoy our individual freedoms and lead varied lives in the diverse communities that are a hallmark of our country, but that has to happen within a framework in which citizens can share and respect common rights and responsibilities as they share in the benefits of living in this great country. There is, and remains, one rule of law in the United Kingdom, democratically enacted by this Parliament and the devolved Administrations, and applied by our independent judicial system.
Today’s important debate has been conducted in a manner that does credit to this House, which those who watch our proceedings may not always think is the case. It has been a very worthwhile way of spending our afternoon.
Children’s Funeral Fund
Edward Argar Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
I am pleased to see you in the Chair, Mr Speaker, as it highlights the importance of this debate and—I say this having known you before you were Speaker—your interest in this area.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on securing this hugely important debate. It gives me the opportunity to update the House and to reaffirm the commitment made by the Prime Minister on something of huge importance not only to this House but across our country.
Before I begin, I want to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the hon. Lady for her tireless campaigning on this important issue, which, as she says, sadly touches the lives of many families. As she has so incredibly movingly reminded us today, she has herself suffered the tragic loss of a child—her son, Martin, who I appreciate will always be her little boy—and I feel deeply for her.
It is to the hon. Lady’s outstanding credit that she has been willing and able to draw on that most painful of experiences to press for so positive and important a measure. Her constituents and this House should be incredibly proud to have someone such as her representing them and as a Member of our legislature. I am very proud to say that, having got to know her since I have been in this House, but particularly since last year when I took up ministerial office, I can begin to call her a friend as well.
I know that many hon. Members across this House have supported the hon. Lady in her endeavour. It is right that I mention my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), who is now also the junior Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions with responsibility for this area—jointly with us in the Ministry of Justice. When it comes to delivering this, I hope she will accept that she would struggle to find two junior Ministers more determined and willing to deliver for her, both because it is the right thing to do for our country and because it is the right thing to do for her and for many other parents across the country. I pay tribute to the work of a number of campaigners and organisations across the country, and to bereaved parents who, like the hon. Lady, have summoned up the courage—however hard that is—to speak up and join this campaign.
The commitment to develop a children’s funeral fund for England was announced by the Prime Minister at Easter last year. As she said in that announcement, no parent should ever have to endure the unbearable loss of a child. Although nothing can ever truly heal the pain of such a loss, as the hon. Lady has shown, we must recognise that, as the Prime Minister said, in the darkest moment of any parent’s life there can still be a little light if there is the support and care that they need. The Government are committed to ensuring that that support exists for those who lose a child. I have known this Prime Minister for a very long time, and while she has many priorities, there are some that are particularly important and personal to her, which run through everything she tries to do, and I think that her personal commitment on this issue is very much there.
The children’s funeral fund is being established in recognition of the fact that it cannot be right for grieving parents to have to worry about meeting the cost of burying or cremating their child. It is in memory of the hon. Lady’s son Martin, and in support and memory of all parents who experience this most painful and tragic of losses, that the Prime Minister made the commitment to establish this scheme. Under the scheme, parents will no longer have to meet the costs of burial or cremation. These will instead be met by Government funding, meaning that parents will no longer be subject to the sometimes significant variation in charges across the country. The hon. Lady also highlighted the elements that she considers the basic essentials that need to be covered: the fees from the local authority and others, and the coffin. I share her view.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
I echo everything that everybody has said. I also consider the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) a friend. She has dealt with this campaign with what we Welsh would call hwyl, and she is to be congratulated on that. When these final decisions are being taken, may I just urge the Minister to bear in mind the phraseology that the hon. Lady used—that this is the last gift of a parent to a dead child? It is not just a pounds, shillings and pence coffin and headstone; it is the whole emotional issue. If we keep that in mind, we will get the right outcome.
Edward Argar
As ever, my hon. Friend puts his point simply but eloquently, and he is absolutely right about the prism through which we should be looking at this matter.
The scheme that we are envisaging will not just bring England into line with broadly comparable arrangements in Wales and Scotland. I am keen that we go a bit beyond that where we can. The children’s funeral fund will complement other measures to support grieving parents, including the social fund funeral expenses payment scheme and the Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018, which was enacted last September. But I do understand that, alongside the welcome for the fund across both sides of this House, hon. Members and others clearly and rightly want to see the scheme in place as soon as possible, and to be reassured of the continued commitment to and progress towards that.
As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said on 6 February at Prime Minister’s questions, it is important that we get this right. We have therefore been working hard across Government to identify the most effective way to deliver the fund. For all the clear simplicity of what it seeks to do, it is none the less a complex and challenging policy legislatively and in delivery on the ground, bringing together a number of Government Departments, but it is a challenge that the Government and I have willingly accepted.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
My hon. Friend knows—as do you, Mr Speaker—that, inspired by the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), I have been a champion of this fund and have indeed highlighted funeral poverty more generally. He speaks about the complexity across Government, and I understand that, but there is an absolute need for clarity where parents are concerned. When people have lost a loved one, particularly a child, they are vulnerable, and they need a very clear indication, as does the funeral industry, of exactly how this will work in practice. Can he give us an assurance that that will be the case?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I should, in recognising the contributions made by Members across both sides of the House, recognise his contribution to this campaign and this debate, and indeed that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), who has taken a very close interest in it. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) has, I believe, just become chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on funerals, so he will continue to be active on this. He is absolutely right. We do need to get the scheme right. We need to make it effective and legal, but as simple as we can. We are working to devise a comprehensive publicity programme to ensure that both the funeral sector and, of course, bereaved families are fully informed and fully understand how the fund will work, and how they can access it, in advance of its launch.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
Could not the complexity be simplified if we just asked what they did in Scotland and Wales and replicated it? If it can be done speedily in Scotland and Wales, and in local authorities in Northern Ireland, why can it not be done speedily here, after the long and fantastic campaigning of my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris)?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He is right that we can draw on the lessons from the devolved Administrations, and I will touch on that subsequently. However, there are different arrangements in, for example, Wales around the provision of coffins. I agree with the hon. Member for Swansea East that that is an essential part of this. We are looking to see if we can bring that within the scheme in a way different from that used in Wales. There are differences, and there is also a different legislative context given the devolution settlement—I will touch on that in a minute.
I entirely accept that for those dealing with the terrible burden of bereavement, progress has been slow. I want to reassure the House that, as the Prime Minister announced in the House on 27 February, work is on track in each of the areas I mentioned: a clear policy, a legislative vehicle to ensure that it is legal, and a strong and robust delivery mechanism to deliver the fund this summer.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for the work that she has done in this area, which is really second to none. In November last year, I sat in the living room of one of my constituents as she lay on her sofa stricken by grief having lost her 16-year-old son to knife crime. Her grief was compounded by the family’s inability to pay for the funeral that she wanted to give her son. Will the Minister accept that with every passing week, there is more urgency to this issue and to delivering this money so that it can benefit families who are facing a situation than none of us would wish on anyone?
Edward Argar
I want to give at this Dispatch Box a very clear and succinct answer: I agree entirely with the point that the hon. Lady makes. I will come on in a moment to what I have been doing to take a close and personal interest in making sure that this is driven at pace.
Mr Duncan Smith
I mean my hon. Friend no criticism, because I am a huge supporter of his—I think he is doing a great job, as is the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), who I am incredibly pleased to see on the Front Bench—but I just want to press him slightly on this. Having sat in government for six years and run a Department, I know that when you really want to, you can get these things done—excuse my language, Mr Speaker—pretty damn quickly, so I simply say to him that there may be something else that has been blocking this. If it sits in the Treasury, then I would hope that he might indicate that, because he will find that the pressure on the Treasury should be enormous right now. These are not large numbers in economic terms but they are large in human terms. I simply say to him that if anybody is saying that this is an unjustified cost, I promise him that I will give him every support I can, as I have before, to chase the Treasury on this matter. It should be told: do it now.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. He is right to highlight that it is not about numbers; every single individual matters. I am clear that we must deliver on this commitment. This should not and will not be about the money. I hope that all Government Departments—including the Department for Work and Pensions and, I am sure, Her Majesty’s Treasury—will wish to play their full role in ensuring that this is delivered expeditiously and properly.
Since I assumed responsibility for this, my officials have been working hard to develop both the necessary legislative vehicle and a delivery mechanism to ensure that it works on the ground. That has involved detailed discussions with the devolved Administrations, which the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) asked about, to ensure that we learn from them, that we do not inadvertently create a cross-border gap in provision and that everyone has coverage.
More than that, as I alluded to earlier, this has required close working across Government to ensure that the children’s funeral fund is compatible and works well alongside other state provision and, importantly, that it fully fulfils the vision for the scheme of the Prime Minister and the hon. Member for Swansea East. To reflect that, our intention is that provision should be universal and free at the point of need.
As I mentioned, this work has been complex. However, I want to reassure the House that we are very close to putting the final details in place for all three elements. In response to the point made by the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) and others, I expect and am sure that all Departments will be equally seized of the importance of delivering this, and I reassure her that the priority I attach to this means that I have weekly project meetings with the officials delivering it and receive daily progress updates on each of the outstanding elements, so clear am I in my determination to deliver this.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
I do not doubt for one second the Minister’s sincerity, or indeed that of the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince). The Minister has mentioned the summer and says he is having weekly meetings, but can he set out a more definitive timetable for when this will be implemented? “Summer” could be any time from June to September. It would give some reassurance to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East and the families if we had a more detailed date or a month.
Edward Argar
I cannot give a detailed date. The hon. Gentleman, as a savvy Whip, will read into this what he will. I have said that this will require a legislative vehicle, and given my determination to do this for the summer and given that the House would need to be sitting to deliver on that, that might give him an indication of my intention.
Sir John Hayes
I want the Minister to know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), myself and, I hope, the hon. Member for Swansea East, will be going to see the Treasury Minister next week. I have just texted him to tell him.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East and others involved in this. What we are hearing from the Minister about how government works across England is really alarming. The fact that the Prime Minister driving a policy change is so complicated in England, whereas our friends and colleagues across the United Kingdom can make these decisions more quickly, is a lesson for Government in how England is represented in this place. I hope that lessons about the complexities through which the Minister has had to drive this will be learned for other policy areas.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, but I would say to her that, as I mentioned earlier, we are not seeking simply to replicate what has been done by the devolved Administrations. We are looking at other aspects and seeing whether there are ways in which we might go a bit further. That does add complexity, so it is not exactly replicating something that is already there. However, she makes her point, as ever, courteously but forcefully.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Edward Argar
I will not, I am afraid, because I am very conscious of time, and I want to conclude and wind up this debate properly.
I will endeavour to keep the House updated on progress—I know the interest in the House—and I will seek to provide more detailed information on both policy questions and delivery and, where I can, on the legislative timing as soon as I am able to do so. I would like once again to thank the hon. Member for Swansea East and other contributors to today’s debate. No parent ever expects to bury their child, but the sad reality is that it happens, and perhaps more often than many of us realise or wish to acknowledge. For those who suffer such a tragic loss, the emotional burden, as she has said, is unimaginable. It is simply not right that, in addition, families should have to worry about what is probably an unexpected and, for some, totally unmanageable financial burden.
My commitment, the Prime Minister’s commitment and that, I believe, of Members on both sides of the House is clear. Let us make the hon. Lady’s vision a reality in our communities. We will deliver on the Prime Minister’s commitment, we will finish that unfinished business this summer, we will give bereaved parents the support they need, and we will do it swiftly and effectively in tribute to all of them and to the hon. Lady.
Question put and agreed to.
Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Services: Redcar and Cleveland
Edward Argar Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.
I thank the hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) for securing this debate. We may not always agree on everything, but one thing we can agree on is that she is a doughty champion for her constituents and speaks up for them in this House at every opportunity. I know the subject we are discussing is, rightly, enormously important to many Members of the House more broadly. Sexual violence and abuse, as the hon. Lady has alluded to, are horrendous crimes that sadly affect too many in our society. As the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) said, they continue to be a huge problem for our society and our country.
I will start by saying how important it is to me, as a Minister with responsibility for supporting victims of crime, to ensure that support is available to them when and where it is needed. The right support is essential to help victims to try to cope with what has happened to them and to try to start rebuilding their lives. Ensuring that more victims and survivors of sexual violence have access to high-quality services remains a key priority. As the hon. Member for Redcar will know, I have visited a number of services providing vital support to women facing abuse and violence around the country, including in Cheshire and Brighton, and heard of the struggle many of these services face to secure long-term funding.
Those services tell me that there are three challenges: first, sustainability of funding; secondly, the need to move from a single-year, round-robin settlement to a multi-year settlement; and, thirdly, the need for the process to be made simple and clear. Often, particularly with the small local organisations mentioned by the hon. Lady, it is the same person who is the director running the organisation, delivering the service on the ground and sitting up until the early hours having to write multiple bids to try to build up the pot for a sustainable budget.
I have listened to those organisations, and in last year’s first ever cross-Government victims strategy we set out ways in which the Government planned to improve support to all victims of crime, particularly victims of sexual violence and abuse. My aims have been to ensure the provision of high-quality services, with sustainable funding and clear and simple processes that reduce the administrative burden while moving to a multi-year settlement, reflecting what those services say to me.
The national rape support fund, for which I am responsible, is one of a number of Government sources of funding for rape support services. A number of significant improvements have been made to that fund, the previous competition for which took place in 2014. The most recent competition commenced last November and, as the hon. Lady has said, the results were announced in March.
That funding will now be provided for three years, rather than annually. As the hon. Lady said, I also ensured a 10% funding boost overall for these essential services, with an extra uplift above that in London to recognise the differential demand levels there compared with other parts of the country. The rape and sexual abuse support fund now totals £24 million over three years. Far from cutting spending at the national level, we are increasing it, and I welcome the spirit in which she acknowledged that.
It is also important to note that this is not the only source of funding to which many of these organisations have access. As I mentioned, last November EVA and others were made aware that this would be a competition for the next three years. The hon. Lady would not expect me to do anything with public money other than to recompete it, at appropriate intervals and with appropriate criteria, to ensure that services continue to evolve and we continue to get the innovation and the highest quality of services that we would wish for.
I have always been clear that in the context of the support that victims receive, their needs must come first. In addition to trying to ensure geographical access for as many victims as possible, our competition ensured that stringent quality criteria were applied to all bids. As a result, 79 support centres have been awarded grants, including various small local providers, and the Ministry of Justice now funds more support centres than ever before and in all areas. For the first time, there are directly Government-funded services in all 42 of the country’s police and crime commissioner areas.
The number of PCC areas with Government-funded male support centres—we must recognise that men as well as women are victims of these horrendous crimes—has nearly quadrupled from 11 to 41 under this process. That is in addition to funding a national helpline and webchat service for male victims, following a significant rise in the number of men and boys coming forward to report crimes. Funding has also been extended to include those who suffered abuse while under the age of 13, recognising that many victims of child sexual abuse may struggle to access timely support.
We are also testing full local commissioning of sexual violence services with five PCC areas for three years, to explore the benefits for victims and service providers alike. Our aim is to better streamline services locally, including with the national health service, to reduce administrative burdens and challenges for centres so that more money be spent on frontline services.
Our final piece of the strategy was to increase spending from £31 million in 2018 to £39 million in 2020-21, to improve services for victims of sexual violence and abuse who seek support from sexual assault referral centres. We are working to ensure better service integration between statutory services such as the NHS and the third sector and charities, to provide joined-up and lifelong care and support for those who have suffered sexual assault and abuse and therefore need them. The NHS strategic direction for sexual assault and abuse services is an example of those commitments put into practice. It seeks to improve support for victims and survivors of sexual violence by joining up key agencies and ensuring we have a whole-system response to tackling sexual abuse.
That work is complemented by the investment the Government have made in supporting PCCs to commission support services locally, with £68 million of funding nationally going to PCCs. The Ministry of Justice is also funding much of the spending that PCCs do in this area. The PCC for Cleveland has been allocated more than £600,000 to provide support to victims, of which £45,000 is ring-fenced specifically to support victims of child sexual abuse. PCCs also, rightly, choose to invest some of their own funds additionally into these services.
As the hon. Lady mentioned, as a result of the recent competition in her Cleveland PCC area we will be funding Arch North East to provide support to men, women and children across the county. As with all centres receiving MOJ grant funding, the funding will be expected to support victims resident across that entire area, including her borough, irrespective of postcode. Her constituency will continue to be covered by the service.
Arch North East is approximately nine miles from Redcar town centre. This is where my geography may become a little hazy, but I think it is about a 30-minute journey by car or a journey of an hour or so on the 63 bus. I know the hon. Lady mentioned cost, and she is right to highlight the need to remove as many barriers as possible to accessing services.
In addition to usual support services, Arch North East provides independent sexual violence advisers for victims, and they make home visits across the area, including the entirety of the hon. Lady’s borough. Home visits are also offered for children. The service is primed and ready to take on any victims that require support in the area, and reassures us that it has one of the shortest waiting times for services in the country. Arch North East complements services provided by Helen Britton House, a sexual assault referral centre in North Ormesby. The SARC provides 24-hour crisis intervention and support 365 days a year with dedicated specialist staff.
Additionally, the Rape and Sexual Abuse Counselling Centre in Darlington is an hour away from Redcar on the train and is served by good local train connections with nearby towns in Durham and Cleveland. Residents in the north of the PCC area of Cleveland—for example, up towards Hartlepool—would also be able to access services in Northumbria such as SomeOne Cares, Grace Northumberland Rape Crisis and Tyneside Rape Crisis Centre. For residents in the south of the PCC area of Cleveland, Survive North Yorkshire can also be accessed.
I understand that the hon. Lady will be disappointed that one of the centres, which she has highlighted today, was not successful in its bid to secure national funding. I reiterate what I said earlier: she is nothing if not a doughty campaigner for and supporter of her constituents and constituency. However, it would be inappropriate for me to discuss in this Chamber the specific detail of our evaluation of that organisation’s bid, although I will re-emphasise that all bids were measured against clear quality criteria, as well as geographical criteria, with awards made accordingly. The decision not to fund EVA Women’s Aid was not taken lightly.
I recognise the value that providers bring to those whom they support and to the local community and the point that the hon. Lady rightly makes about the need, in this space, for familiarity and trust at the heart of conversations. However, my primary consideration must be to provide the best-quality support to victims, even if on occasion that means taking a difficult decision such as the one under discussion. I regret to say to the hon. Lady that we will not be revisiting the decision. I know that she will be disappointed by that, but I feel it is important that I am honest with her.
As the hon. Lady mentioned, EVA Women’s Aid will receive a three-month extension of its current MOJ grant, to help it to adjust during this transition period. I understand that EVA was also not successful in a recent competition for PCC funding. The hon. Lady may wish to discuss with Cleveland’s PCC his decision in that respect as well; I imagine she probably will do so.
The House should be in no doubt that the Government are determined that victims of rape and sexual violence will be supported by high-quality, accessible services throughout their journey to try to cope and recover from these hideous crimes. I look forward to continuing to work with colleagues across Government, with the specialist support organisations that have helped to shape our victims strategy and with colleagues across the House on this agenda, to ensure that all victims of crime have access to the high-quality services that they need and deserve.
Victims of these most appalling crimes rely on all of us in the House, irrespective of whether we are in government or opposition and of whether we are a Front Bencher or Back Bencher, to represent their needs and to ensure that they receive the support to which they are entitled. It is a privilege to work with colleagues across Government and across the House. In this context, although she is not here given the nature of this debate, I also pay tribute to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero), with whom I work closely on these issues. She, too, is a doughty champion of victims of crime. We will continue to work to ensure that victims in Cleveland and in all areas of England and Wales are heard and supported.
In conclusion, I appreciate that the hon. Member for Redcar will be disappointed by the outcome of the process, but I again reiterate my commitment to continue working with her to ensure that her constituents get the services that they need. I again pay tribute to her dedication to her constituents in bringing forward this debate and thank her for doing so.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Edward Argar Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
Mr Speaker, I will endeavour to croak my way through my response.
We published the first ever pan-Government victims strategy in September 2018 containing 88 commitments, of which we have already implemented 24, to better support victims of crime. Among those is a commitment to consult this year on the revised victims code and details of victim-focused legislation, reaffirming our manifesto commitment to such a law.
Henry Smith
I am sure that the whole House will join me in sending condolences and expressing shock at the terrorist attack in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday. Sadly, it highlights the issue of the effect on victims of terror incidents, whether in this country or abroad. When will the Government come forward with a law to ensure that victims are properly supported, because all too many reports from victims in previous incidents suggest that that has not been the case?
Edward Argar
I join my hon. Friend in his expression of condolence and sympathy to all those who were affected by the horrific events in Sri Lanka over the weekend. It is vital that we get any new legislation right—hence our commitment to consult. We will first revise and strengthen the victims code and then identify any legislative gaps arising from that. We will consult on a victims law this year and bring forward legislation subsequently when parliamentary time allows.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the Minister and the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) for what they said. Many Members will have noted what is on the Annunciator, but for those who have not I simply give notice of the intention for us to hold one minute’s silence in respectful memory of those who tragically and horrifically lost their lives in Sri Lanka, and that will take place after the urgent questions and immediately before the first of the ministerial statements.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Minister agree that the tragic victims are those people who cannot speak because they have been killed by an accident or a violent crime? Will he meet me to discuss the case of a bereaved family whose little girl was killed 15 months ago as a driver crashed into a bus queue? The driver not only killed the little girl, an only child, but seriously injured another woman. They have not been prosecuted. Can we have a chat about that?
Edward Argar
I would not want to comment on specific cases on the Floor of the House, and although decisions on prosecution are not a matter for Ministers, I would, as always, be very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
If prolific repeat offenders spent longer in jail there would be fewer victims of crime in all of our communities. Does the Minister agree?
Edward Argar
I believe that the key to seeing fewer victims of crime is effective rehabilitation of offenders and breaking the cycle of offending. That is exactly what I and the Secretary of State are focused on.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
My constituent Kristian Thompson would have been 27 years old today had his life not been taken when he was 19 years old after he was the victim of a one-punch attack. His mam, Maxine, set up the charity One Punch UK. This week is One Punch Awareness Week when many people who have lost loved ones are pleading with the Government to follow Australia and Canada and create a one-punch law imposing a minimum sentence for perpetrators. Why are the Government continuing to resist doing so?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Lady and I send my sympathies to Kristian’s family and friends on the terrible events that she has just described. I am very happy to look at what she is proposing, and if she would like to write to me, I will respond as fully as I can.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
A vital feature of justice for victims is financial redress, so why have this Government presided over a near 60% fall in the number of victims of violent crime receiving payments from the criminal injuries compensation scheme?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the shadow Minister for her question. Our ongoing review of the criminal injuries compensation scheme has one simple aim: to make sure that it better supports victims and reflects their needs in the 21st century. Indeed, last year we awarded compensation of more than £154 million, and recently, we have announced that we are abolishing the “same-roof” rule so that many more victims can make claims. In respect of the specific issue to which she refers, which I believe was covered in The Guardian newspaper recently, I would sound a slight note of caution about the figures for 2010-11 being a benchmark as I understand there is a possibility that they were inflated that year due to a £30 million pay-out specifically for compensation for asbestos-related conditions. None the less, I welcome her engagement with the review that we will be undertaking this summer.
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
Significant reform has been undertaken since 2010, and we remain committed to driving further improvements. While fewer young people are committing crimes for the first time, with an 86% reduction in the number of young people entering the youth justice system for the first time, we still have more to do to break the cycle of reoffending. Working with youth offending teams in partnership is central to prevention, but for those who end up in custody, we believe our reforms to move to a secure school model will play a key role in reducing further offending.
Nigel Huddleston
The recent increase in knife crime has highlighted the very young age at which some of our most vulnerable young people get involved in crime. What steps is the Department taking to divert young people away from offending and reoffending?
Edward Argar
We work very closely with youth offending teams and youth offending services run by local authorities to help with that prevention. I pay tribute particularly to the team in Lewisham, whom I was lucky enough to visit the other day. We also work closely with the Department for Education on exclusions and the role they can play in causing offending behaviour.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
Feltham young offenders institution has had a difficult recent history and problems with sustainability of management. Following the recent attack on prison officers, I am grateful to the Minister for how quickly the management, the Prison Officers Association and the Department responded.
It is increasingly clear that the growing violence to which young inmates are subject, and which they experience prior to prison, is presenting new challenges. Will the Minister join me in welcoming new projects that use sport—such as Tough Cricket in Feltham, which works with faith communities—to support young offenders in more positive activity and help to develop an alternative set of values?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her work following the incidents of violence that she has mentioned. Once again, I thank the Prison Officers Association for its constructive engagement, and our thoughts are with the welfare of the injured staff. She is absolutely right to highlight the importance of sport as one of the positive ways we can divert young people away from violence and offending behaviour.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
Too many young people who get involved in crime have been failed by the education system or have special educational needs, which often go undiagnosed or are not coped with well by schools. What more can be done to ensure that young people do not fall foul of the system and end up with very few qualifications and very little hope for the future?
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Central to tackling the problem is partnership working, not only with youth offending teams but with colleagues in the educational sphere. We are fully engaged with Edward Timpson’s review of exclusions, and we are working very closely with the Department for Education on matters such as speech and language therapy, learning disabilities and other factors that can play a part.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The age and maturity of children is so important. The age of criminal responsibility here is 10 years, which is low; it is 14 years in Germany and 15 years in Italy. There was a 60% increase in the number of young offenders between 1996 and 2004. What has been done to reduce the number of young offenders?
Edward Argar
We have worked extremely hard across the Government, and with local authorities and other state and charity agencies, to drive down the level of offending. We have seen an 86% reduction in the number of young people coming into the criminal justice system for the first time, but there is more to do to break the cycle of reoffending for those who are already in the system, and that is what we are focused on.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
We are determined to ensure that support is in place for all victims of child sexual abuse. In particular, a range of special measures is available in court cases to assist and support victims of child sexual abuse to give their best evidence in criminal proceedings, including the provision of evidence via video links, recorded evidence-in-chief, screens around the witness box and access to an independent sexual violence adviser.
Andrew Griffiths
I recognise the good work done to support victims of child sexual abuse, but access to compensation is key to that. The Minister will know that in 2017, of the 6,861 cases in which someone was found guilty of child sexual abuse, in only 26 was a criminal compensation order awarded. That is 0.4%. Will he work with me and others in the House to ensure we get victims of child sexual abuse the compensation they deserve?
Edward Argar
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the very powerful and, indeed, very personal speech that he made recently when presenting a ten-minute rule Bill on this subject. I should be happy to meet him, with my officials, to discuss this further.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
Given that so many victims of child sexual abuse have spoken out about their horrendous experiences through the family courts, what consideration is being given to a full inquiry into the treatment in those courts of women and girls who have suffered domestic abuse and violence?
Edward Argar
I know that the hon. Lady speaks about this subject with passion and knowledge, and that she has championed a number of those who have suffered in the past. She has highlighted a very important point. As she will know, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), and I—along with members of the judiciary and others—are looking closely into what can be done to ensure that the family courts themselves continue to ensure that the voices of victims of child sexual abuse are heard, and that they are responded to appropriately.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
I know that my hon. Friend is a committed supporter of Care after Combat. Indeed, so committed is he that he will be running the London marathon next weekend in aid of the organisation, and I gather that all sponsorship is welcome.
As a member of the ministerial covenant and veterans board, I am happy to confirm that the Government’s new strategy refers explicitly to veterans in the justice system. We incorporate a wide range of military and non-military charities in our work on prisons and probation, including SSAFA, the Royal British Legion and, of course, Care after Combat, and we encourage the sharing of best practice on what works.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
Climate change is now receiving the public attention that it merits. Greta Thunberg is in the House today, and my party pays tribute to her work. All too often, however, our justice system restricts the ability of citizens to take legal action against environmentally damaging decisions. Last month, the United Nations criticised the Government’s failure to meet their international obligations relating to access to justice in environmental matters.
Labour’s 2017 manifesto proposed the establishment of a new type of environmental tribunal with simplified procedures so that citizens would have alternatives to prohibitively expensive judicial reviews. Will the Government follow Labour’s lead, and commit themselves to the establishment of a tribunal that would empower people to use our legal system to protect our shared environment?
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Edward Argar
Having also recently visited Downview, I know what the right hon. Gentleman is talking about, and I fully agree that restorative justice and the work of charities such as the Sycamore Tree project can have a vital role to play in making our prisons safer and more rehabilitative. Restorative approaches are already used across the youth estate and, as the right hon. Gentleman highlighted, in a number of other prisons. They have real benefits, in terms of both defusing conflict and repairing harm after an incident in prison.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I welcome the fact that a family impact test on the Government’s proposed divorce law changes has been published, but what is the justification for the Government cherry-picking not just public opinion, which, according to the responses to their own consultation, is 80% against the proposed changes, but the evidence they rely on, with Ministers seeming to ignore evidence that there will be an immediate spike in divorce rates, which will impact negatively on the families involved?
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. As he will be aware, we have brought forward the draft Domestic Abuse Bill, which we are currently considering in the Joint Committee. We would very much welcome any reflections he has as part of that process before we draft definitive legislation to bring forward to the House.
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
During an earlier answer, my hon. Friend the Prisons Minister mentioned the roll-out of PAVA spray. When will it be completed?
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. I know that she has a sustained interest in this area. She will be aware that we increased funding for specialist rape and sexual abuse support services, including for child sexual abuse, from April this year. That means a 10% increase in funding, a move to three-year rather than annual settlements, and support for 96 centres across England and Wales—the highest number that the MOJ has ever funded—ensuring that support services are available in each of the police and crime commissioner areas.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
The law regarding the sentencing of offenders has grown piecemeal and become ever more complex, even for experienced judges and practitioners. Bearing that in mind and noting that comparatively uncontroversial legislation is being sought for a future Queen’s Speech, would not paving legislation for the Law Commission’s sentencing code consolidation Bill absolutely fit the bill?
Youth Inmates: Solitary Confinement
Edward Argar Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, but I suspect I will not detain the House for 42 minutes.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) on securing what is—she is absolutely right—an important debate. I am grateful for the opportunity to respond. The issue has attracted much scrutiny in recent months, and rightly so. As the hon. Lady will be aware, I gave evidence on the subject to the Joint Committee on Human Rights last year. I will of course carefully consider the recommendations from the inquiry.
I am responsible, through my ministerial portfolio, only for under-18s institutions in the youth custodial estate, and of course Aylesbury is not in that group. However, in response to a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell), I want to point out that in the adult estate segregation should be used only as a last resort, when prisoners pose such a risk to themselves or others that no other suitable location is appropriate, and where all other options have been tried or are considered inappropriate. However, there is a specific approach for the under-18 estate.
I want to reassure hon. Members from the outset that children are never, and should never be, subject to solitary confinement in the UK. There is no universally agreed definition of solitary confinement, but rule 44 of the UN standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners—the Mandela rules that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle referred to—state that
“solitary confinement shall refer to the confinement of prisoners for 22 hours or more a day without meaningful human contact.”
Removal from association, or segregation, is different. I appreciate that the shadow Minister referred to it as segregation, while others refer to it as removal from association, but I think we are talking about the same thing. It is a last resort for the protection of the child or others. It should never be used as a punishment and our rules are explicitly clear on that. To reiterate, it can be used, and is used, only when a child in custody is putting themselves or others at risk, when no other form of intervention is suitable to protect both the individual or their peers, or staff. I just want to mention in that context that segregation can be removal to one’s own cell rather than to a segregation wing. I shall talk later about the statistics and the impact that that matter has on them.
As to safety, the shadow Minister referred to the 2017 report, and I am sure that he would acknowledge that the chief inspector of prisons subsequently acknowledged that there had been improvement, and that the 2017 verdict on the youth estate was not the current one. However, the hon. Gentleman is right to highlight what was said in 2017, because it was a shocking and important report, and we rightly considered it carefully.
Under rule 49 of the Young Offender Institution Rules 2000, children may be removed from association for the maintenance of good order or discipline, or in their own interests, for up to 72 hours. The presumption is that children should be separated—placed in their room —rather than segregated to a segregation unit, wherever it is possible to do so. Children in YOIs cannot be segregated for more than 72 hours without the authority of senior managers in conjunction with the independent monitoring board and healthcare assessments. Segregation can be authorised by the young person segregation review board for up to 14 days at a time to a maximum of 21 days; a prison group director’s authority is required for anything beyond that. The prison group director must review any segregation of a young person that continues for 21 days, and for each subsequent period.
The youth custody service closely monitors the number of children removed from association under rule 49 of the Young Offender Institution rules, to ensure that all relevant management checks are in place—in a moment I will come on to points about mental health and educational assessments, which I know are of particular interest to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle. Those checks include the number of instances of children being removed for more than 21 days, which require a prison group director review and approval. The PGD will review the situation again after each subsequent 21-day period.
The reasons why children may be removed from association for longer periods of time vary. As the Children’s Commissioner and my hon. Friend the Member for Henley said, some may choose to “self-isolate”, and refuse to engage with the regime or mix with other children. That can happen for a variety of reasons, some of which I may come to. Other children have been involved in multiple violent incidents, and display violent behaviour towards other children or staff. Each individual case is carefully considered and reviewed to ensure that when children are removed for long periods of time, the reasons for that are appropriate, especially if they are putting themselves, or others, at risk. I labour the point about rules because it is important to be clear that safeguards are in place, and such measures are regarded very much as a last resort, often driven by safety considerations.
As I said to the Joint Committee on Human Rights—the hon. Member for Bradford East rightly highlighted this issue—accurate data is vital for the operational running of any organisation, and to understand what is happening. I asked the chief executive of the youth custody service to look into how data can be better collected and collated in a consistent format. Such data is often reported by different institutions in different ways, which limits our ability to draw the clear conclusions that we need to make evidence-based policy.
It is not true that during removal a young person will have no meaningful human contact. The child will continue to have regular contact with staff, and individual regime and reintegration plans are agreed, with the primary aim of reintegrating children back into regular association and a normal regime as swiftly as possible. Staff are expected to focus on helping children to manage their behaviour, so that they are able to return to regular association. Such reintegration plans can include visits back to residential units for activities such as association, and they could even include sleepovers in the child’s normal room as part of that process.
A member of the healthcare team must be informed within 30 minutes of a child being removed from association in a YOI, and they must complete an initial removal health screen for the young person within two hours. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle is right to highlight mental health needs, which we seek to pick up through those screenings. Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), the hon. Lady mentioned safety in custody and the risk of suicide or self-harm. She is right to suggest that in other contexts some evidence has established a link between isolation in any context and increased mental health challenges, but in England and Wales there have been no deaths among under-18s in prison custody since 2012. As she said, we must do everything possible to ensure that mental health is protected and there is no harm, but thus far we have been partly lucky, and—more importantly—thanks to the diligence of staff in our YOIs and STCs, there have been no deaths in prison custody of under-18s.
While removed, the child must be monitored at a frequency determined by an individual and tailored assessment of their needs. It is desirable to have greater interaction between staff and the child in segregation, to help that child manage their behaviour and return to regular association more swiftly. Such interaction will also alert staff to any concerns about mental health issues, and any risk of self-harm or worse. Every child who has been subject to rule 49 of the YOI rules for a continuous period of seven days must have a detailed short-term assessment of needs initiated. Children removed for a continuous period of more than 30 days must have a detailed care plan drawn up that states how their mental well-being is supported.
John Howell
I hear what the Minister is saying. Will he do me a favour and ensure that he keeps an eye on the situation he has outlined, so that it occurs in every case?
Edward Argar
I am always willing to do my hon. Friend a favour, and he is right to highlight that point. It is important to have processes, but we need to know that they are followed. In a number of cases, I ask for random individual updates and snapshots of information, so that I can get a feel for whether things are being done the way they should be done, and I look at those files as appropriate.
Wherever possible, children should engage with the regular regime, and other children, during their time in custody. However, there are occasions when it is necessary to remove a child from association because their behaviour is likely to be so disruptive that keeping them in an ordinary location would be unsafe, either for them or for others.
Imran Hussain
Perhaps that is one of the reasons why. I did not intervene earlier because I wanted to allow the Minister to progress his points, but does he draw a distinction between solitary confinement and isolation? Does he think that they are two different things? The European Prison Observatory states that those are just alternative terms, and even the former Chief Inspector of Prisons, Nick Hardwick, says that although the terminology may change, those things are the same.
Edward Argar
As I said clearly to the JCHR, removal from association and segregation is different from solitary confinement or isolation. The Mandela rules mention having no “meaningful human contact”, but that simply is not the case when someone is segregated or removed from association. I set out previously just how much direct, meaningful human contact continues throughout that time.
When a child in a YOI is to be removed from association, they must be supported in making representations, with governors taking into account literacy levels, whether they need help from the advocacy service and what might be behind their behaviour—I have met the Howard League, and others, who make that point forcefully and reasonably. Prior to a segregation or removal from association, our experienced staff will do everything they can to de-escalate the situation in other ways. If a young person is removed from association, it is not a case of, “That solves the problem”. That is a reaction and a last-resort response based on safety considerations, and the focus throughout will be on what can be done to support that young person back into association, and address their underlying issues or concerns.
Rule 36 of the STC rules states that a young person who has been removed from association and placed in their room cannot be left unaccompanied for more than three hours in any 24-hour period. Providers keep records on staff observations, which must be undertaken at least every 15 minutes. Authorisation for keeping children “removed from association” is escalated during that three-hour cycle, with authorisation from the duty director to extend beyond one hour. All episodes are discussed at monthly performance meetings as part of the governance and oversight arrangements. In contracted-out STCs, the YCS monitor is informed within 24 hours about any removal from association. The monitor is given a summary of every occurrence of a child being placed in their room within 24 hours, and they receive detailed incident reports that articulate the circumstances that led to that removal.
As I explained to the JCHR last year, when a child is removed from association, they are given as much access as possible to the usual regime, including education and healthcare. That includes not only the provision of education packs and in-room learning but teachers attending to children in their rooms to teach them in person so that they have regular human contact. Children in YOIs are also given time in the open air, as the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle said, and access to healthcare, physical education and legal advice, even when they are removed from association.
Individual regime plans designed around the child’s needs are agreed and reviewed frequently for each child by a multidisciplinary team. Staff in all under-18 YOIs have been given additional training on the use of segregation or removal from association, on the rules governing it and on how to ensure they comply with them. The use of segregation is heavily monitored by the youth custody service and the independent monitoring board, and indeed by me through my regular meetings with the chief executive of the service.
I am absolutely clear that the safety and wellbeing of the children and young adults in our care must be our highest priority, and I am committed to delivering wide-ranging reform to ensure that we are able to meet that priority in an increasingly challenging environment. The shadow Minister suggested that we needed a review of how youth justice, or youth custody, is conducted. I point him to the review conducted a few years ago by Charlie Taylor, which did exactly that. That review set out for us the direction of travel, which we are pursuing with the new secure schools programme, for example. I will touch on that before I conclude.
To provide some context, as hon. Members stated, there has been a sustained fall in the number of children entering the youth justice system in recent years. In the decade to 2018, juvenile cautions decreased by 91%, the number of first-time entrants into the youth justice system reduced by 86%, and, importantly in the context of this debate, the number of children in custody fell by 70%. The latest official statistics I have indicate that there were only 812 children in the youth secure estate as of January this year, a significant reduction from the almost 3,500 to 4,000 around a decade ago.
Those figures represent significant successes and are a testament both to the work and dedication of those who serve our youth justice sector in all capacities, and to the determination on both sides of the House to focus on rehabilitation and give young people the opportunity to reform and live a productive and successful life rather than being condemned at an early age to a life of going in and out of prison. However, that overall decline has resulted in a concentration in the youth secure estate of children who are convicted of the most serious offences—those who pass the bar above which custody is deemed the last resort for someone under 18 and demonstrate very complex behaviour.
The shadow Minister and others referred to the report by the Children’s Commissioner. We studied that carefully, but we challenged a number of her assertions, as I did openly at the JCHR. There are several reasons behind our challenge. The first is the change in the nature of data collection in the period that she looked at. That is not the only reason why we have seen the number of incidents we have, but we need to be careful about the data. Previously, if a young person was segregated in their own cell, it was not recorded as a segregation; a segregation was reported only if they went to a segregation unit or wing. It is important that we have clear data on any segregation or removal from association. That is one factor. It is not the only one, but it is a factor, so I just sound a slight note of caution there.
The other reason goes back to that really concentrated cohort of people convicted of the most serious offences. The average number of children held for violence against the person has increased by 11% in the last year. The proportion of children in custody for more serious offences, including violence against the person, robbery and sexual offences, has increased from 59% to 70% over the last five years. That is due to the increase in violence against the person offences, which now account for 41% of the youth custody population. The changing mix of offenders who make up that smaller overall number plays a part in both the rising levels of violence and the challenges faced by our youth custody estate.
Furthermore, as I think the shadow Minister touched on, despite the reduction in overall numbers, there has been an increase in the proportion of children from the black, Asian and minority ethnic community in custody. They currently make up around 45% of the custodial population. I am deeply concerned about the proportion of BAME children in custody, and understanding and addressing that is a key priority for me. Since my appointment, I have had the great pleasure of working with the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on implementation of the Lammy review. We have created a dedicated youth justice disproportionality team, which is working with stakeholders and criminal justice agencies to follow the principles we set out in response to the review, either to explain clearly why this is the case or to change the way the system works to ensure that there is not unwarranted disproportionality of outcomes for BAME children.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle is absolutely right about the importance of not giving up on anyone, however challenging they are. Young people in custody are some of the most challenging people in our society, for a variety of reasons, as my hon. Friend the Member for Henley said. People may be challenging for mental health reasons or as a result of substance misuse. Often, people are challenging because they come from a background in which they experienced significant adverse childhood experiences or trauma, family breakup or domestic violence. There is a whole range of factors behind that. Where the severity of a crime justifies and requires a custodial sentence, our judiciary must have the power to impose one, but we should not give up on any of those young people, and we should work with them in custody to try to address the challenges and background issues they face.
John Howell
One of the other times children are at risk is when their parents are in prison. We at the Council of Europe have been very keen to ensure that there is very good treatment for that. Has the Minister come across that?
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight that factor. I have seen in my work on the female offender strategy the impact that a mother going to prison can have on a young person. It can put them at greater risk of offending or of becoming a victim of crime. I am not aware of the specific work by the Council of Europe, but I know that my hon. Friend is not only an extremely active and valuable participant in the Council of Europe but a strong advocate for its work, so I suspect that he will collar me outside the Chamber and raise with me the research and work it has done that I should consider carefully.
Like my hon. Friend, I believe that every child and young person in custody should have access to and be engaged in meaningful activities, including education and physical activities. The regime should be purposeful, meet the needs of the individuals, keep children occupied and active all day, and deliver the highest quality of education. That is why we have provided an additional £1.8 million of education funding for our YOIs in this financial year, and we are looking at the next iteration of the contracts for the provision of those services.
I am a particularly strong believer—even if my physique does not necessarily demonstrate it—in the benefits that sport and physical activity can bring, particularly in custody. As well as the obvious health benefits, they can provide children and young adults with a sense of achievement, discipline and purpose, and enhance their self-esteem, allowing them to take steps to transform their lives. That is why we are supporting organisations that want to work with children in the justice system and developing new partnerships between establishments, sports clubs and providers to increase access to such activities for those in custody. Members may well be aware of the twinning project that was launched last year to pair prisons with football clubs to deliver new coaching qualifications—33 premier league clubs are now signed up to that—and of the parkrun partnership, which currently operates in 11 prisons across the country, including Feltham, and is expanding.
As I said, engaging activities need to sit alongside effective behaviour management so that children can be out of their rooms and able safely to participate in the regimes and activities provided. That is why we have developed a new approach to behaviour management. Our new behaviour management framework for the youth estate, “Building Bridges”, which was published in February and began its implementation yesterday, draws on research and best practice across our establishments and those of related sectors. It introduces a range of requirements designed to create the right conditions to encourage positive behaviour and proactive, positive cultures, and sets high-level expectations for supporting positive behaviour across all sectors of the youth estate. That will sit alongside a conflict resolution strategy, applying restorative justice principles, and the custody support plan, which will provide each child with a personal officer to work with on a weekly basis in order to build trust and consistency.
I have been encouraged by the progress made by these safety initiatives so far, but there is no room at all for complacency, as both the recent report on youth custody by the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse and the latest HMIP “Children in Custody” annual report, which the shadow Minister alluded to, have made clear. There is more work to do to ensure that youth custody is a safe and effective place for children to turn their lives around.
The HMIP report highlighted the disproportionate use of restraint and segregation in youth custody for BAME children in particular, so we have identified that as a priority area, within our wider strategy, to address race disparities within the criminal justice system. The IICSA report made a number of recommendations aimed at strengthening safeguarding arrangements for children in custody. Despite its shocking findings, we are grateful to IICSA for highlighting those issues. I have written to the inquiry’s chair, Professor Jay, to confirm that we will respond as soon as we are in a position to do so.
More broadly—I come to my penultimate point—we are underpinning all of these reforms with investment in our workforce. The shadow Minister has raised that issue not just in relation to our youth estate but more broadly; I know that he takes a close interest in it. Since October 2016, we have increased the size of our frontline workforce across the prison service by more than 4,700 officers to relieve day-to-day pressures and enable the delivery of more proactive, positive initiatives such as those I have mentioned and the key worker scheme in the adult estate. But we do not only need more staff; we must invest in their training and development to provide them with the knowledge and skills needed to meet the complex needs of those in custody. That is why I was pleased to see that the Prison Officers Association endorsed our reform proposals for the youth custody workforce last week.
We are introducing a new youth justice specialist role and funding all of our youth custody prison officers to undertake a foundation degree in youth justice and transition to that new role on promotion and at a higher pay grade. The training and duties of the role will allow staff to engage with the root causes of children’s offending and more effectively build positive and proactive relationships. More than 300 frontline staff have already voluntarily entered into the qualification, and I look forward to welcoming the first specialists on to the wings in the coming months.
It is crucial that the workforce in the custodial estate are as representative as possible of the group of children they serve. Following the Lammy review, HMPPS made a commitment that at least 14% of new recruits would come from BAME backgrounds by December 2020. I am pleased with the progress we are making in this area; between January 2017 and December 2018 18.5% of the formal offers that were accepted for recruitment to the YCS were from BAME candidates.
Finally, as I said, we continue to work on our proposal to develop secure schools, which we believe are the transformational step in a new approach to youth custody. At present we have prisons with an educational element. What we seek with the reform, and the first secure school planned for Medway, is to reverse that presumption and create instead a school with security, with the education and progress of the young person at the heart of the vision.
I am under no illusions about the challenge we face. We are talking about children who display the most challenging needs and behaviours, and considerable vulnerabilities. Our reforms will support establishments to provide better levels of care, help meet young people’s needs and reduce the likelihood of the need to use separation. If it would be helpful, I am happy to meet the hon. Lady separately outside the Chamber to discuss the education screening, education work and mental health issues raised.
Ultimately, like all of us here, the Government wish to see a change in our system, with fewer young people entering it in the first place and, for those who do, a clear focus on rehabilitation and reducing the risk of reoffending, giving those young people a better chance at life. We want to see more children safer and happier, spending more time engaging in purposeful and constructive activities with a greater hope of a meaningful and crime-free future. I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to the debate.
Disclosure of Youth Criminal Records
Edward Argar Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, as ever, Sir David. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), the Chairman of the Justice Committee, for securing a debate on an important report. I pay tribute to all the Members who have spoken today and, indeed, all members of his Committee for their work. It is a pleasure as always to serve opposite the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi). I know and welcome her commitment to this area of work, and to working collaboratively and in a bipartisan way when we have a common goal to achieve.
The Chairman of the Select Committee and many others present today have worked hard to champion the potential of children who offend, and their capability to move on from their previous behaviour to live rich and fulfilled lives—and, indeed, to make our shared commitment to rehabilitation a reality. My hon. Friend is right to say that although the issue is technical and legal, it is about more than that. It affects real lives and, as hon. Members have said, continues to affect them for years after the offence is committed. We are grateful for the Committee’s recommendations.
My hon. Friend set out with his typical eloquence and polite forcefulness how the system operates and what he feels does not work well. As hon. Members have said, at the heart of the debate there is a question of balance—striking the appropriate balance, as the shadow Minister said, between protecting the public and giving young people the opportunity for rehabilitation and to have a second chance and a future.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice recently set out his vision for a criminal justice system and the principles that should be at its heart. I am clear that the criminal justice system must have multiple aims—to deter, to ensure that there is both punishment and rehabilitation, and to protect society from crime. That means the system must be proportionate and, in the case of disclosures, relevant to those objectives. My right hon. Friend set out the need to move away from debates about soft or hard justice, and to think instead about smart justice that achieves what we would all want for society. That means knowing that, alongside appropriate safeguarding measures for children and vulnerable people, employment for those who have previously offended can support public protection. There are, as the right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson) said, few better tools for reducing reoffending than a regular pay cheque. We have made it clear that we want more employers to look past someone’s offending history and see their future potential, and I believe that rehabilitating people and getting them into employment is the best outcome for us all.
On taking office in 2016, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made a pledge that the Government would fight against social injustice and give people back control of their lives. She set out a vision whereby all British citizens could go as far as their talents took them. Nothing should hinder that, and it should also apply to children who commit crimes or make an error. This must be reflected in the disclosure of criminal records.
I agree with the core position laid out by the Committee: employers should not regard the disclosure of a criminal record as an automatic barrier to employment. A balanced judgment should be exercised, having regard to factors such as a person’s age at the time of the offence, how long ago it was, and the relevance to the application or post in question. The Committee’s report goes beyond this and rightly highlights the need for proportionality, clarity and fairness, as well as seeking to ensure that the systems designed to protect the public and facilitate rehabilitation keep up to date with the reality of the modern world.
The Secretary of State for Justice has already identified that one of the best ways to help those who have offended to get meaningful employment is by working more closely with employers and expounding the benefits of hiring those with criminal convictions. That is why—to address one of the key themes in hon. Members’ speeches—I am happy to see the Government leading by example by rolling out Ban the Box across the civil service in 2016 and continuing to encourage its implementation across both the public and private sectors.
Whenever I see the right hon. Member for Delyn in a debate that I am speaking in, my heart both rises and sinks. It rises because he brings great expertise and knowledge of this subject; it sinks possibly for exactly the same reason, as I know he will ask me various challenging questions. He asked a number of questions, and I will try to answer some of them—if I do not answer them all, I will happily commit to write to him next week with detailed answers.
David Hanson
I am glad to see I serve some purpose, if there is anything wrong with the Minister’s heart—rise and/or sink, depending on his mood. He just mentioned the roll-out across Government, and it is important that he puts on record, either now or by letter, whether any Department is not operating Ban the Box.
Edward Argar
I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point. I am not aware of any Department not doing it. There may be some roles, perhaps in the policing or security aspects of Government, where there might be more complex considerations. I undertake to write to him with a clarification on that in due course, when I will answer a number of his other questions.
Robert Neill
Further to that point, will the Minister also commit to letting us know whether any of the Ministry of Justice’s contractors are not operating Ban the Box? The Ministry has considerable procurement leverage in these matters. Subject to the caveats about security, we would like to know that, too.
Edward Argar
I am happy to include that, if it is appropriate, when I write to the right hon. Member for Delyn—I will copy it to the Chairman of the Justice Committee, who makes a good point. I do not know whether that data exists, but I will endeavour to get it. The right hon. Member for Delyn also asked, I think, about the direct impact on the Ministry of Justice. My understanding is that of those people with a previous conviction who applied through the approach that has been taken in the civil service since 2016, 92% subsequently secured employment, which is a positive outcome.
Beyond the guidance for employers, I am proud of the rehabilitative support we have offered in the past. As I say, I will write to the right hon. Member for Delyn with some detailed answers to his questions about the specific list of activities undertaken to ensure that responses and commitments went beyond responses and commitments and followed through into actions. One thing that he mentioned, to which I can respond directly now, is about the education and employment strategy, which was published in 2018 and was explicit, as I understand it, in referring to this. I will give him the detailed action plan that sits beneath the strategy.
I am proud of the rehabilitative support we offer to people who have offended in the past. Our education and employment strategy, published in 2018, sets out how we will transform our approach to ensure that those in the adult custodial estate develop the skills they need to secure employment on release. We are giving governors the power to commission education provision and engage with employers to take on ex-prisoners—for example, via the New Futures Network.
A number of hon. Members have mentioned the debate about the age of maturity and its impact on criminal justice. There is a live debate on whether it should be 18, 25 or somewhere in the middle, reflecting different scientific papers that have been put forward. I think that even the Lord Chief Justice has commented on this ongoing debate. It is something of which I am very much aware. A degree of caution needs to be exercised, if only because the age of 18 is when we deem people mature enough to enjoy certain rights and benefits. If we were to look at whether it should be 18 or 25, would that lead to a wider debate? If we are saying that someone is not criminally mature, what other rights and benefits come with a particular age? I am not setting out a particular view on that, but it does lead to a wider debate. We should not be afraid to engage in that, but we should be conscious of the wider implications.
As hon. Members have mentioned, the Supreme Court recently handed down its judgment in the case of P and others, which considered the disclosure regime. On the most fundamental point, the Court found—for the Government—that it was proportionate and practicable to make disclosure decisions in accordance with a clearly defined and unambiguous system, through the operation of legislative rules agreed by Parliament. However, as has been set out, the Court went on to find that two key features of the filtering regime are disproportionate as framed: the multiple conviction rule and the disclosure of youth reprimands and warnings. I will not recount the detail of how they operate, because hon. Members have already done so.
My Department is working closely with the Home Office to give proper consideration to the judgment. The Justice Committee’s report touched on something that is relevant. It highlighted the fact that responsibility in this area is split between the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office. Indeed, in some of the issues we have touched on, which I will turn to later, other parts of Government also have a relevant interest, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government being an obvious example.
I saw the Committee’s suggestion that placing responsibility on a single Department could enhance coherence. We did not accept that recommendation for a simple reason: we come back to the balance at the heart of the system, that balance between a focus on rehabilitation—giving people a second chance—and an element of public protection. Part of that sits with the Home Office and part sits with the Ministry of Justice, which can lead to a creative and hopefully positive tension and balance. Where we must strive to avoid problems is when that balance and those counter-positions or counter-interests can lead to things taking a lot longer than they might do otherwise. In a few moments I will turn to the matter of timing, because the Chairman of the Justice Committee is a deeply patient man but does not have infinite patience.
We work closely with the Home Office to give these things proper consideration. Although that judgment has been handed down, the order behind it has not yet been sent over to us. We await that order. When it is received, it is important that we are speedy and timely in addressing it.
Robert Neill
One thing that might be able to speed these matters along is for the issue to be discussed by the Criminal Justice Board, a mechanism that is there precisely to give an overview across the whole criminal justice system, and which involves the two principally concerned Departments and others. Will the Minister undertake to have it raised on the board’s agenda?
Edward Argar
I will raise that very good point with the Secretary of State, who sits on that board. Although I cannot go into the details in advance of that order, I can say, and Members can read into this what they will, that I generally find justices to be wise and sensible in their opinions. They consider what they say extremely carefully and open-mindedly. I believe, from my experience in this role so far, that when one receives a judgment from the Supreme Court, there are often opportunities to look at it in broad, rather than narrow, terms. I will endeavour to reflect on that when the order comes through.
We previously committed to considering the Committee’s recommendations for reform of the criminal records system on receipt of that judgment, and we remain committed to that, because it is appropriate for us to consider any recommendations about the disclosure regime in the light of that authoritative ruling. The Committee’s recommendations sit neatly alongside it, so it makes sense to consider them in the round.
I now turn to a number of issues that came up in the debate. I am grateful to the Committee for highlighting such a wide range of issues in its report, particularly on access to housing, travel and insurance. I recognise the acute impact that lack of access to those things can have, as well as the cumulative impact on children who have offended. I will take each of the points in turn, but before I do so, I pay tribute to the speech made by the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer), who rightly highlighted the need for us to understand not just the requirements of a regime but the context for each individual. She highlighted the impact on the behaviour of young people who have been looked-after children, who have had adverse childhood experiences and who may even have been victims of child sexual abuse or other forms of abuse. That should be a consideration, and she was absolutely right to raise the issue. Those individuals have a passionate advocate in her. She made her point forcefully and well, and I will certainly reflect carefully on what she said.
The Committee’s report concluded that the criminal record system undermines the principles of the youth justice system. Although we do not share that view, the Committee’s work highlights further opportunities not yet taken that can enhance the principles and the work of the criminal justice system if we reflect on how the disclosure regime operates more broadly. Children who come into contact with the police and youth offending teams are some of the most vulnerable children in our societies, as the hon. Lady highlighted. We all agree that rehabilitation is important in improving their life chances. Society has a right to expect that we will do everything possible to ensure that all people with convictions desist from crime. Those who offended as children are no different. We have a particular responsibility to children who fall into the categories that the hon. Lady highlighted.
We know how important employment, education and other factors raised by the Committee are in enabling rehabilitation. The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) highlighted that issue and touched on some powerful examples. We are committed to supporting children to turn their lives around. In 2013, the coalition Government changed the law so minor offences no longer needed to be disclosed. It takes significantly less time now for offences committed by children, as opposed to those committed by adults, to become spent, after which they no longer need to be disclosed for most purposes. Those features of the disclosure regime all relate to the fact that children who offend are often highly vulnerable and might not be as mature as adults who do so. There has been progress, and the hon. Lady would expect me to say that, but given her comments about pre-emptive action, I will not say, “That’s progress. That’s job done. We are in the right place,” because I believe that there is clearly more to do.
The Committee raised concerns about equality and disproportionality. I am committed to reducing disproportionate outcomes for BAME children in the youth justice system, and I share the concerns voiced by the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) in his 2017 report. I reassure the shadow Minister that we take that report incredibly seriously. Since I was appointed to this role last summer, I have met the right hon. Gentleman a number of times. We announced last November via the Cabinet Office the cross-Government “one year on” update on the progress that has been made in that area. I have regular roundtables with those with an interest in this issue to chase up progress. We have a director general in the Department who is directly responsible for bringing officials from a range of parts of the Department together to drive forward progress on reducing disproportionality and implementing the recommendations in the right hon. Gentleman’s report. That reflects the fact that I recognise the need for systemic change. A key focus is on explaining or changing disproportionate outcomes for BAME children in the justice system.
I am also aware of the over-representation of vulnerable groups with multiple and complex needs—particularly looked-after children, excluded children and those with mental health issues. Again, it is a fundamental priority for the youth justice system to ensure that those children receive the support and intervention they need to fulfil their potential.
A number of Members touched on the disclosure of police evidence. In our response to the Committee’s report, we noted that disclosure of police intelligence can be an important aspect of the regime. That was a key finding of the Bichard report after the Soham murders. It plays a vital part in ensuring that children and vulnerable adults are protected. The police cannot automatically disclose all intelligence. Disclosure of non-conviction information is subject to a statutory relevance test, so the chief officer has to consider whether the information is relevant and ought to be disclosed. That includes consideration of the individual’s age at the time of the offence, its seriousness and how long ago it occurred, but once again, as hon. Members have emphasised, the key is proportionality and relevance.
My Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) touched on housing. Social housing is a precious resource, so ensuring that it is allocated fairly, as he set out, is crucial. We recognise the need to understand better how the allocation system is playing out in local areas, so we know whether it is striking the right balance between fairness, support and aspiration. In the social housing Green Paper, the Government propose an evidence collection exercise to help us to understand how the allocations framework is working across the country in different areas. Following that exercise, we will consider whether changes to legislation, regulations or statutory or best practice guidance are necessary, but we believe that making changes prior to having a clear evidence base would be premature. My Department continues to work closely with MHCLG colleagues to ensure that the points that my hon. Friend and others made, which are directly relevant in this space, are considered in that broader piece of work.
Robert Neill
I am grateful to the Minister for the constructive dialogue that we can have. In carrying out that evidence exercise, will he particularly bear in mind the evidence that we received from the Standing Committee for Youth Justice? Like me, the Minister comes from a background in London local government, and that organisation’s findings were that some 13 of the 30 London local authorities it looked at had housing policies that tended to have an unreasonable impact on the allocation of housing to former offenders. If, as he said, a pay cheque is one way of stopping offending, secure accommodation is another.
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend alludes to our shared past in London local government, where I first met him many years ago, when I had a little more hair and it was not quite so grey. He is absolutely right: I meet with the Standing Committee on Youth Justice and consider its reports and input with great care. It is for local authorities to ensure that their allocation schemes are lawful, taking account of any relevant decisions made by the courts. No authority may breach section 4 of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, which requires that a person who has a spent conviction be treated as if the offence was not committed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Henley also touched on education. As we set out in our response to the report, most higher education institutions are autonomous, independent organisations, and as such admissions are a matter for each individual institution. They are best placed to decide which applicants are the most suited for their organisations and the courses that they offer. Similarly, further education providers, including colleges, are independent organisations that can set their own entry criteria for qualifications, in line with those published by the qualification owner.
That said, we expect providers to take account of the Committee’s recommendation as part of a transparent admissions process. On universities, I am happy to say that for the 2018-19 cycle, UCAS has dropped the automatic requirement for all applicants to declare unspent convictions, regardless of whether they are relevant to the course for which the applicant is applying. The eligibility for Disclosure and Barring Service standard or enhanced certificates applies to work placements in the same way as other paid or voluntary employment. If a course does not involve a work placement that is eligible for a check, the university can only ask about unspent convictions.
Hon. Members raised the matter of insurance, the Association of British Insurers and other matters. The ABI published a good practice guide in 2011—it was updated in 2014—that sets out high-level standards of how insurers should treat people with convictions or related offences. The guide makes it clear that insurers should not ask for spent convictions. When an insurer is unable to provide full or any cover because of a consumer’s unspent conviction history, the insurer should provide information about alternative sources of help.
The hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston touched on the UN convention on the rights of the child and similar. As stated in our response, the Government consider that the disclosure regime is compatible with the convention. It treats convictions and cautions received by those under the age of 18 differently from those incurred by an adult and, although I hear that hon. Members feel that those people should be treated more differently, we believe that we are compliant with the convention. In the light of the Supreme Court judgment, any future changes to the regime will take the convention into account.
I want to touch on the passionate speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), and her passionate campaigning work. I am very pleased that she was able to dash from the main Chamber to deliver her speech. I know that she is a passionate advocate for the Ban the Box campaign. She speaks with eloquence and with great knowledge and experience, having worked on this issue for some time. I would be very happy to meet her to discuss that campaign more broadly if she feels that that would be helpful. If the right hon. Member for Delyn and others wished to join us, I would be very happy for them to do so.
There is always a balance to be struck between giving the employers the information that they need to make informed recruitment decisions and having a criminal records system that enables rehabilitation. I look forward to our bringing forward proposals both in response to the Supreme Court judgment and to formally address the issues set out in the Committee’s report. As I said, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst is a patient man, but not infinitely patient—nor is his Committee. Hon. Members quite rightly highlighted that although words are important, and this place uses an awful lot of them, they must lead to action.
I am clear that we must, and will, act to address the issues raised and the Supreme Court judgment when the order comes forward. I hope that we can all believe and support a system that believes in redemption, rehabilitation and a second chance. More than ever, that should apply to children who, at a young age, make a simple mistake that should not blight the rest of their lives. I commit to working closely with the Committee in the coming months to respond to and address its points as well as those raised by the Supreme Court judgment. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to speak on this subject.
Stillbirths: Coronial Investigations
Edward Argar Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
I am pleased to announce the publication of a consultation on introducing the coronial investigation of stillbirths in England and Wales (CP 16), which has been laid before the House today.
Under current legislation coroners cannot investigate a death when it is known that the baby was not born alive. If there is doubt whether a baby was born alive, a coroner can investigate—which could include holding an inquest—but must halt that investigation if they determine that the baby was stillborn. Our consultation considers the case for coroners investigating stillbirths and sets out proposals for how these investigations could be undertaken. The proposals seek to deliver three objectives:
to bring greater independence to the way stillbirths are investigated;
to ensure transparency and enhance the involvement of bereaved parents in stillbirth investigation processes, including in the development of recommendations aimed at improving maternity care;
and to effectively disseminate learning from investigations across the health system to help prevent future avoidable stillbirths.
The consultation delivers the Government commitment to consider enabling coroners to investigate stillbirths, made in November 2017, when the then Secretary of State for Health launched a suite of maternity safety strategy initiatives and committed to halve stillbirth rates by 2025.
It is thus a joint undertaking between the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health and Social Care. I and the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jackie Doyle-Price) are grateful to the many people and organisations that have worked with officials in both Departments as we have developed our proposals.
Since the November 2017 announcement, meetings have been held with a wide range of interested parties including bereaved parents and supporting charities, the chief coroner and a number of senior coroners, NHS representatives, healthcare safety investigation branch officials, officials in the Welsh Government, academics and the Royal Colleges of Pathologists, Midwives, and Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Their insight and expertise have been invaluable in helping us develop our thinking.
The consultation seeks views on the merits of coroners inquiring into the causes of stillbirths and contains proposals as to when and how those investigations should take place, reflecting existing processes and arrangements for coronial investigations into child and adult deaths.
We propose that all stillbirths that occur at or after the 37 week of gestation should be in scope of an inquest and our proposals cover such matters as access to documents and medical examination of the stillborn baby.
A coronial investigation would provide greater transparency in stillbirth cases. Under our proposals evidence would be available to all interested persons, including the bereaved parents, who may not otherwise have the opportunity to hear or read everything that is presented when a stillbirth is reviewed. The coroner would bring judicial independence which would help build confidence in the conclusions of the investigation.
We propose that coroners should identify where lessons can be learnt from individual stillbirths in ways that will deliver system-wide improvements to the delivery of maternity services and the general care and safety of expectant mothers.
Whilst we have been developing our proposals, the private Members’ Bill promoted by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), the Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill, has been progressing through Parliament. The Bill, which is supported by the Government, seeks among other things to place a duty on the Secretary of State to prepare and publish a report on whether, and if so how, the law ought to be changed to enable or require coroners to investigate stillbirths. The consultation document takes account of the views expressed by members of both Houses during the debates on the Bill.
The consultation document and an impact assessment have been placed in the Library of the House and are available online at: https://consult.justice.gov.uk/digital-communications/coronial-investigations-of-stillbirths/. Copies of the consultation document and the impact assessment are being sent to the stakeholders listed at annex A of the consultation document.
We look forward to hearing from anyone with experience of, or an interest in, this important and sensitive area.
The consultation closes on 18 June and the Government will publish their response later this year.
[HCWS1448]
Justice
Edward Argar Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Edward Argar
I pay tribute to Fern Champion, who has been incredibly courageous in speaking out recently about this hugely important issue. We provide funding for 89 rape support centres. From April, we will increase funding by 10% for them all, with a 30% increase in London, and move to a three-year funding settlement.
[Official Report, 12 March 2019, Vol. 656, c. 183.]
Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar):
An error has been identified in the response I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge).
The correct response should have been:
Edward Argar
I pay tribute to Fern Champion, who has been incredibly courageous in speaking out recently about this hugely important issue. We provide funding for 89 rape support centres. From April, we will increase funding by 10% for these services, with a 30% increase in London, and move to a three-year funding settlement.
Oral Answers to Questions
Edward Argar Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
The hon. Lady has done so much on this issue and on campaigning for victims more widely. While a range of special measures already exist, we can and will do more. As she will recall, last September we published the victims strategy, which sets out the steps to support victims of crime further, including in court, and those steps have recently been added to with our commitments in the draft Domestic Abuse Bill.
Sarah Champion
I thank the Minister for his answer. Adult survivors of child sexual abuse often wait decades to see their abuser face justice. While survivors are often key witnesses, there is no statutory duty for them to get paid leave. I have met many survivors who have to take unpaid leave or holiday, but cases could unravel without their attendance. Once again, victims are being penalised for the abuse that they have suffered, so will the Minister review the matter and ensure that no victim experiences a financial loss for getting justice?
Edward Argar
I mentioned the hon. Lady’s work campaigning for victims, and she is particularly active in campaigning for the rights of those who have suffered child sexual abuse. She makes an interesting point, and I would be happy, as always, to meet her to go into it in more detail.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Victims want criminals to face the full justice of the law and to be sure that the punishment fits the crime. What are we doing to ensure that, once sentenced, criminals serve their time in jail in full?
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Victims expect justice to be done, and when someone is convicted of a crime and sentenced, they expect them to serve that sentence. Of course, sentencing is a matter for the independent judiciary, and we have complete confidence in its approach.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Is the Minister aware that it is not only victims who are affected, but everyone else? A member of my family has just done jury service, and she was amazed by the inefficiency and poor quality of management in the court process, which wastes the time of those on jury service and is wrong for victims. It is wrong for everyone, because it is a badly managed process. Let us get more money for the Ministry of Justice so that it can do things properly.
Edward Argar
The hon. Gentleman makes his point powerfully, as always. We have undertaken a number of reforms of the court system and the criminal justice process, and he will have seen in the victims strategy our clear commitment to improve each stage of the process for victims and witnesses. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), has been doing a lot of work to ensure that cases run more smoothly, with fewer adjournments, so that victims and witnesses know that when they come to court they have a high chance of actually being heard on the day on which they expect to be.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I welcomed the publication of the victims strategy back in September but, as my hon. Friend will know, giving evidence is one of the most stressful parts of seeking justice for any victim of crime. Will he reassure me that he will also be working with people such as police and crime commissioners to ensure that there is no patchwork quilt of support for victims across the country?
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend is consistent in speaking up for victims’ rights, and I believe that his county’s police and crime commissioner has spoken about such rights more broadly. He is right that the victims strategy seeks to adopt an approach that will give a more consistent level of support across the country.
Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Ind)
I welcomed last week’s announcement of an end-to-end review of how rape and sexual violence cases are handled across the criminal justice system. Am I right in my understanding that the review will also consider the effect of rape myths on juries?
Edward Argar
The hon. Lady highlights an issue that the House has quite rightly debated on several occasions. I hope that all such relevant considerations will be examined in the end-to-end review.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
Back in October, I raised with the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), the case of a Nottinghamshire woman whose husband, despite being convicted of her attempted murder, is able to continue a cycle of abuse through the courts by claiming entitlement to their financial assets, including her home. The Minister offered to look into my suggestion of a change in the law that would ensure no financial entitlement to spousal assets following attempted murder, and to provide me with an update. Five months later, can we now have that update?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the shadow Minister for once again highlighting an important and distressing situation. I am reassured that my hon. and learned Friend the Under-Secretary of State continues to look carefully at the matter. I appreciate that the shadow Minister will want rapid progress, but it is important that we get this right, so my hon. and learned Friend is examining the issue and will report back in due course.
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has regular meetings with Cabinet colleagues relating to the UK’s exit from the EU and issues such as our approach to human rights and the ECHR. The UK is committed to membership of the ECHR, as my right hon. Friend has previously set out, and we will remain a party to it after we have left the EU.
Gavin Newlands
In a letter written last year, the Minister implied that the Human Rights Act would come under threat post-Brexit. He said that
“our manifesto committed to not repealing or replacing the Human Rights Act while the process of Brexit is underway. It is right that we wait until the process of leaving the EU concludes before considering the matter further.”
So, for the avoidance of doubt, will he rule this out today?
Edward Argar
This country has a long tradition, which long predates the ECHR or the EU, of championing and setting the highest standards on human rights. The Human Rights Act 1998 reflects that and gives further effect to the ECHR in our domestic law, and we are not considering amending or repealing it.
Dr Whitford
Despite the Prime Minister’s previous wish for the UK to leave the ECHR, the Brexit White Paper committed to membership of the convention. However, the political declaration talks only of respecting the ECHR, so can the Minister explain the change of language and clarify whether the Government plan to repeal or protect the Human Rights Act after Brexit?
Edward Argar
I do not accept that our position on the ECHR is ambiguous. Both the political declaration and the White Paper make it clear that our future relationship with the EU should be underpinned by our shared values of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and this includes our ongoing commitment to the ECHR. As I have just made clear, the HRA gives further effect to the ECHR in our domestic law, and we are not considering amending or repealing it.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
Human rights are, of course, not a reserved matter, and the Scottish Government have an advisory group on human rights in relation to devolved matters. Will the Minister commit to full consultation with the Scottish Government about his future plans for human rights protection across the United Kingdom?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. and learned Lady, as ever, for her question. We work closely with the Scottish Government. I am always willing to listen and speak to them, and I will continue to do so.
Joanna Cherry
The Scottish Government’s advisory group on human rights reported in detail on 10 December, setting out three guiding principles for Scotland’s approach to human rights:
“non-regression from the rights currently guaranteed by membership of the European Union; keeping pace with future rights developments within the European Union; and continuing to demonstrate leadership in human rights.”
Can the UK Government commit to each of those principles for the whole of the UK? If not, why not?
Edward Argar
The hon. and learned Lady will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe Professor Miller chairs that advisory group. We debated this issue in Westminster Hall some weeks ago and I read his report with interest. We note with interest the measures being considered by the Scottish Government to enhance human rights in Scotland, and the principles and seven recommendations set out in that report. Of course, Scotland’s legal system is separate and distinct from that of England and Wales, but I am considering that report, and others, with great care.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
The “Female Offender Strategy”, which we published last summer, sets out a raft of specific commitments underpinned by our vision to see fewer women coming into the criminal justice system, a greater proportion managed successfully in the community and better conditions for those in custody.
Edward Argar
Every death in prison is a tragedy, and we are committed to improving the safety and support available to all in our prisons. The rate of self-inflicted deaths in women’s prisons is lower than that seen in the male estate, but we recognise that the rate of self-harm is nearly five times the rate in the male estate. Therefore, we know that we need to do more. That is why we have set up a specialist safer custody team dedicated to the women’s estate and are rolling out revised and improved suicide and self-harm prevention training.
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend the Minister outline what plans he has to increase support for rape crisis centres?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
I pay tribute to Fern Champion, who has been incredibly courageous in speaking out recently about this hugely important issue. We provide funding for 89 rape support centres. From April, we will increase funding by 10% for them all, with a 30% increase in London, and move to a three-year funding settlement.[Official Report, 21 March 2019, Vol. 656, c. 12MC.]
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)