British Justice System and International Corruption Cases
Gareth Bacon Excerpts(4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Gareth Bacon)
I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate, and I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) for having secured it. He has been an exemplary advocate on the challenges that corruption poses to the rule of law and freedom of speech.
My right hon. Friend has raised some serious issues. As he will know, investigations are conducted independently of His Majesty’s Government, and we are unable to speculate or comment specifically on any individual allegations. This debate engages issues of fundamental importance to our democracy and values. We must confront the reality that, while our justice system stands as a beacon of fairness and equality for many, the corrosive effects of corruption can undermine justice here and around the world. In acknowledging that challenge, we affirm our commitment to uphold the principles of justice and to ensure that the rule of law remains steadfast. Corruption can threaten our national security and prosperity through a slow erosion of trust in institutions at home and overseas. Development is slowed when poorer nations have their resources drained away, which hampers their ability to mobilise revenue and facilitate growth and investment while undermining wider efforts to reduce poverty.
At its most extreme, corruption can fuel state capture, where private interests trump the public interest as corrupt actors take over the state institutions and decision-making processes to serve their own agendas. While instances of corruption may be isolated, their impact reverberates far beyond the confines of individual cases, undermining public trust and confidence in the legal system as a whole.
The British justice system has in recent years seen the rise of strategic litigation against public participation, which has a chilling effect on freedom of expression and civic engagement, deterring individuals and organisations from exercising their right to free speech for fear of legal reprisal. We know that free speech is critical in the fight against corruption, for it enables truth telling where corrupt actors rely on precisely the opposite. The climate of fear and self-censorship that SLAPPs create leads to stifled public debate, undermining the robust exchange that we hold as essential.
Fortunately, we can point to progress in countering SLAPPs in this jurisdiction. We were the first jurisdiction to legislate at the national level to combat SLAPPs relating to economic crime in last year’s Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act. Work is also under way to ensure that new procedural rules are designed to give the legislation effect, such that SLAPPs defendants have a fair fight when confronted with abusive threats or proceedings.
Just last week, the Government were proud to announce their support for a private Member’s Bill on SLAPPs introduced by the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), whom I congratulate on his commitment to challenging abusive litigation that undermines British justice. The Bill follows the approach set out in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, which as hon. Members know, introduces new defining characteristics in statute to empower judges tasked with identifying these cases, an early dismissal mechanism that cuts short cases with improper purposes at their heart, and a costs protection regime that will provide defendants with clarity around the costs risk they are exposed to when responding to SLAPP threats. The Bill passed its Second Reading, which is an essential step in legislating comprehensively against SLAPPs, no matter their subject matter or the cause of action in question.
I am pleased to note the support that we have received from stakeholders across media, law, civil society and both Houses of Parliament. It is a credit to our country that so many are prepared to come together to tackle this issue across the political spectrum. However, combating corruption and preserving access to justice requires more than just legislative solutions. It demands a cultural shift that places ethics and integrity at the forefront of our justice system.
We are fortunate in this country to have independent regulators that uphold the highest professional standards. The Solicitors Regulation Authority took swift action by launching a thematic review of SLAPP activity and published a warning notice early on when the issue came to light. That encouraged renewed engagement, with guidance on aggressive correspondence and the notorious letters often issued at the start of SLAPP claims: those marked “confidential” or “without prejudice”. Such labels are designed to intimidate people who may not have immediate access to legal advice, such that they withdraw from intended publications.
We are working together across Government to champion a co-ordinated approach to SLAPPs. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport leads the SLAPPs taskforce, which brings together actors in the media freedom space to propose non-legislative measures to stamp out SLAPPs. The taskforce is making progress across workstreams that seek to raise awareness and develop regulatory responses on the issue, benefiting from the depth of expertise among the media and law professionals taking part.
Aside from abusive lawsuits, let me address the Government efforts to combat corruption in the broadest sense. It is an undoubted benefit that the UK is an open economy with one of the world’s major financial centres in the City of London. That means that we need strong defences to prevent bribery and corruption here and abroad. The Government took decisive action on bribery by modernising UK criminal law through the Bribery Act reforms in 2010. That legislation set the international gold standard for anti-bribery and corruption laws, and was found to be an “exemplary piece of legislation” by the other place following post-legislative scrutiny.
In the past fortnight, the Serious Fraud Office has brought charges against two individuals for alleged bribery in the oil and gas sector in the middle east. The charges build on a number of critical enforcement milestones that have been met in recent years, including our largest ever financial penalties for bribery following the conviction of Glencore, which was ordered to pay £280 million in 2022.
I am proud of all that is being done to keep corruption at bay. Whether through action against illicit finance or legislation that protects public participation in the public interest, we must continue this work together to ensure that corruption finds no home in our jurisdiction.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gareth Bacon Excerpts(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Gareth Bacon)
Measures in the Sentencing Bill will ensure that those who commit the worst crimes will receive the most severe punishment. The Bill creates a duty for the court to impose a whole life order for murders currently subject to a whole life order starting point and for those that involve sexual or sadistic conduct, unless there are exceptional circumstances. The Bill will also ensure that convicted rapists must serve 100% of their custodial term in prison, followed by a licence period.
Nigel Mills
I thank the Minister for his answer and welcome those measures. The two worst cases I have had to deal with as an MP was where women were brutally murdered by a partner or ex-partner. What are the Government going to do in response to the Clare Wade review to increase sentences for people who commit those awful, vile offences?
Gareth Bacon
My hon. Friend is quite right to raise the issue of domestic homicide. We are determined to act to protect the victims of domestic abuse and ensure that the appropriate punishments are in place for perpetrators. That is why, following Clare Wade KC’s review, we are increasing sentences by introducing statutory aggravating factors for murders that are preceded by controlling or coercive behaviour, involve overkill, or are connected with the end of a relationship.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Does the Minister agree that wider society’s confidence in the judicial system is often determined by how dangerous offenders are treated? Does he agree that it is vital that we get the message out there, both to wider society and to potential offenders, that there is the ultimate price to pay, which is a long sentence in prison for criminal offences such as these?
Gareth Bacon
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I agree with those sentiments entirely.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Gareth Bacon)
Although the Ministry of Justice collates statistics nationally on the principal criminal offence for which a perpetrator is prosecuted, convicted or sentenced, including data on their ethnicity, it does not collate data on whether the crime that they committed was part of joint enterprise, so unfortunately I am unable to provide the information that the hon. Lady requests. However, we are considering whether such data could be collected as part of the common platform programme, which aims to provide a single case management system that would enable the sharing of such evidence and case information across the criminal justice system.
Kim Johnson
I welcome that response, but the Minister will know that Manchester Metropolitan University has recently carried out some research into the cost of prosecuting under joint enterprise. Some £250 million is spent processing joint enterprises cases, and an extra £1.2 billion is spent incarcerating the just over 1,000 people who are convicted. Those are eye-watering amounts of money, so does the Minister agree that we need to review the doctrine of joint enterprise to ensure that only those who are responsible for significant contribution to a crime are punished for it?
Gareth Bacon
There is a cost to justice. People who are found guilty of crime based on the evidence presented to a court of law have been sentenced, and there is a cost to their incarceration. Simply put, the cost of incarcerating people is not a reason to review the law.
Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
Joint Enterprise (Significant Contribution) Bill
Gareth Bacon ExcerptsFriday 2nd February 2024
(4 months, 4 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Gareth Bacon)
I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) for introducing the Bill. I know the issue is of significant interest to her and indeed to other Members of the House. However, I must say at the outset that the Government are unable to support the Bill in its current form.
I will explain our reasons for that later in my speech, but let me begin by saying that the Government understand and recognise the importance of the law of joint enterprise and the consequences that result from convictions for such crimes. We recognise that they can be extremely difficult for defendants and their families to accept, but equally the impact of any crime is devastating for the victim and their family, particularly when the crime is murder. For any Government, there is a need to ensure that any perpetrator who commits a crime, or aids, abets, encourages or assists in one, is brought to justice. Victims and their families especially have an expectation that all those involved in that crime, particularly a crime as serious as murder, will be prosecuted.
We have heard powerful and sincere speeches from both sides of the House, and I pay tribute not only to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside, but to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler), the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), and the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby). For the benefit of the House, I will give further explanation of the law on joint enterprise and how it works in practice, and then I will outline why the Government are not supportive of the Bill today.
We have all read the headlines about joint enterprise cases—the individuals who are charged and convicted of crimes, despite stating that they did not commit them or were not there when the crime occurred. However, more often than not, those headlines reduce to a few sentences extremely complex cases involving a significant body of evidence that needs to be considered in detail in order to truly understand what happened. That is rightly the job of the independent courts.
As many right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned, joint enterprise is a complex area of law. It is a common-law doctrine that can be applied to most offences, and generally applies where a person assists or encourages another to commit a crime. The principles that apply to joint enterprise cases remain the same whatever the offence, and apply equally to planned and spontaneous acts of joint enterprise.
Where two or more individuals are involved in committing a crime, the parties to the offence may be classed as principals or secondary parties. Each offence will have at least one principal, although it is not always possible or necessary to identify who the principals are. A principal is the perpetrator of the substantive offence, and a secondary party is one who aids, abets, counsels, procures—more commonly known as assists—or encourages a person to commit the substantive offence without being the principal offender.
It is a fundamental principle of the criminal law that an accessory to a criminal offence can be tried, convicted and punished of an offence in the same way as the principal, even if it was not their hands that personally struck the blow, ransacked the house, smuggled the drugs or forged the cheque. Where they encouraged or assisted those physical acts and had the necessary intention, the law says that it is right that they too are found guilty. Similarly, an accessory to a crime shares culpability precisely because they encouraged or assisted the offence.
No one doubts that if the principal and the accessory are engaged together in, for example, the armed robbery of a bank, which was mentioned, the accessory who keeps guard outside is as guilty of the robbery as the principal who enters with a shotgun and extracts the money from the staff by threat of violence. Nor does anyone doubt that the same principle can apply when, as sometimes happens, the accessory is nowhere near the scene of the crime when it eventually transpires. The accessory who funded the bank robbery or provided the gun is as guilty as those at the scene.
Sometimes it may be impossible for the prosecution to prove whether a defendant was a principal or an accessory, but that does not matter so long as it can prove that they participated in the crime as either one or the other. That said, the threshold for anyone to be prosecuted and found guilty under the joint enterprise principle is very high. They must intend to assist or encourage the commission of the crime, and therefore must know of the existing fact necessary to make it criminal. If the crime requires the principal to have a particular intent, the secondary must intend to assist or encourage the principal to act with that intent.
Gareth Bacon
With the greatest respect to the hon. Gentleman, I am not going to take interventions. There are other Bills that need to be debated, and it is important that the Government’s case is put. We have had a lengthy debate. Section 8 of the Accessories and Abettors Act 1861 provides that a secondary party can be prosecuted and punished for the indictable offence as if they were the principal offender. That is the provision that the Bill seeks to amend.
Until the judgment given in the case of R v. Jogee, the courts had identified three ways in which liability for an offence committed with others might arise. The first is where two or more people join in committing a single crime in circumstances where they are, in effect, all joint principals—for example, where a group goes on a shoplifting spree, taking goods out of shops without payment. In such a scenario, those involved are joint principals. The second is where a person encourages another to commit a single crime; an example would be one person providing another with a weapon, so that they can use it in a robbery. The person providing the gun would be liable as an accomplice. The third is where two or more individuals participate together in a crime and, in the course of committing that crime, such as a robbery, one member of the group commits a second crime—for example, he shoots the security guard. The other members of the group may be prosecuted as accessories if they foresaw that the person with the gun was likely to use it. This type of joint enterprise is known as parasitic accessory liability.
Parasitic accessory liability was crystallised in the case of R v. Powell, which involved two defendants who went to a drug dealer’s home to buy cannabis, during which one of the defendants shot the drug dealer. Both were convicted of murder; it was held that the other defendant had foreseen that the other party might use the gun, and he was therefore convicted as an accessory. That case adopted the reasoning set out in the case of R v. Chan Wing-Siu, which involved three defendants who broke into a victim’s flat, with one defendant stabbing the victim to death and wounding his wife. All three defendants were convicted of murder, which resulted in the principle that if two or more people set out to commit an offence and, in the course of it, one of them commits another offence, the second person is guilty as an accessory to the latter crime even if he did not necessarily intend the commission of that offence; it is enough that he foresaw it as a possibility. The precedent was therefore established that a secondary party to a joint enterprise would be deemed to have intended to encourage or assist every one of the principal’s offences.
However, as we have heard, the case law moved away from that principle as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision in R v. Jogee. Ameen Jogee was initially convicted on the principle of parasitic accessory liability for the murder of former Leicestershire police officer Paul Fyfe in 2011. The Crown court heard at the time that Mr Jogee had “egged on” his friend Mohammed Hirsi, who stabbed Mr Fyfe in the heart. Mr Jogee argued that he was not inside the house when the incident took place and could not have foreseen what his friend intended to do. He was convicted of murder, with a minimum custodial sentence of 20 years.
Mr Jogee appealed against his conviction for murder to the Court of Appeal. Following this, in October 2015, he asked the Supreme Court to review the doctrine of joint enterprise and to hold that the court took a wrong turn in Chan Wing-Siu and the cases that followed it. Mr Jogee argued that the Chan Wing-Siu decision was based on a flawed reading of earlier authorities and questionable policy arguments. The respondents disputed those propositions and argued that even if the Supreme Court were persuaded that the courts took a wrong turn, it would be for the legislature to decide whether to change the law, since the law as laid down in Chan Wing-Siu had been in place for 30 years. The Supreme Court handed down its decision in Mr Jogee’s case in February 2016.
Gareth Bacon
I have already said to the hon. Gentleman that I am not going to give way.
Mr Sheerman
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. What is going on? There is a feeling at the moment that junior Ministers will not take interventions, which is against the whole spirit of a Friday open debate. What is the matter? All I want to know is whether the Minister is content with the joint enterprise situation at the moment. Will he please tell the House that?
Gareth Bacon
With the greatest respect to the hon. Gentleman, I gave my reasons earlier. It is not because I am trying to curtail this debate; it is because other debates are due to take place after this one. In answer to his substantive question, I am outlining the Government’s position on joint enterprise.
In considering Mr Jogee’s case, the Supreme Court considered the issue of parasitic accessory liability and concluded that a person should not be guilty merely for foreseeing that an accomplice might commit a second offence during the course of the original planned crime. It considered that the law should revert to the well-established rule that exists in relation to other types of joint enterprise offending—that is, that a person can be guilty of offences committed by other members of the group only if he or she intentionally encouraged or assisted those offences to be committed. Where somebody participated in an offence that involved a clear risk of harm, and death resulted, although with no intention that it should happen, he or she could still be convicted of manslaughter.
This led the Supreme Court to conclude that the law had taken a wrong turn 30 years earlier, by equating foresight with the intent to assist. The correct approach was to treat foresight as evidence of intent to assist in the crime. Following the decision, Mr Jogee was cleared of murder by the Court, but retried and found guilty of manslaughter. His previous sentence of life imprisonment with a minimum of 20 years was replaced by a fixed term of 12 years.
As a result of the decision reached in Jogee, parasitic accessory liability no longer applies as a basis for criminal liability. However, this narrow change to the law on joint enterprise has been widely misunderstood as meaning that all convictions under joint enterprise would now be found not guilty on appeal. In circumstances in which parasitic accessory liability previously applied, the principles applicable to all cases of secondary liability now apply.
The decision in Jogee effectively resolved what the Government view as the most troubling aspect of the joint enterprise law. The Government are aware that the ruling in Jogee was initially welcomed by the academic world and families of convicted offenders, but the change in the law also appears to have been widely misinterpreted as applying to joint enterprise overall, when the change is much more limited—that is, the change relates only to cases involving parasitic accessory liability. This has obviously led to defendants’ families feeling further disappointment that the decision in Jogee has had little or no impact on those serving time in prison for such crimes.
Let me turn now to appeals, which serve as an important corrective function for individuals, whether to correct a miscarriage of justice, such as the conviction of someone who is factually innocent, or to correct a legal error, such as a harsher sentence than is legally permissible having been imposed. They also serve important public functions in ensuring that the criminal law is interpreted and applied consistently and predictably.
I know that the substantive injustice test has previously been raised in the House in connection with joint enterprise—specifically, in respect of whether legislative change affects the validity of a conviction under the previous law. The Law Commission is considering that issue as part of its full and extensive review of the law in relation to criminal appeals and procedure.
On 27 July 2023, the Law Commission published an issues paper seeking evidence on whether reform to the law on appeals in criminal cases, including the tests applied by the Court of Appeal and the Criminal Cases Review Commission, is necessary. This will help to inform the wider consultation paper on appeals law that is planned for publication later this year. The Law Commission intends to produce a final report with recommendations in 2025, and the Government will consider them.
It is worth making the point that before anyone is charged with a crime, whether as part of a joint enterprise or not, the Crown Prosecution Service will consider prosecuting only if the case satisfies the full code test set out in the code for Crown prosecutors. That test has two stages: the first is the requirement for evidential sufficiency, and the second involves the consideration of the public interest.
At the evidential stage, a prosecutor must be satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction. That means that an objective, impartial and reasonable jury—or bench of magistrates, or judge sitting alone—properly directed and acting in accordance with the law, is more likely than not to convict. It is an objective test based on the prosecutor’s assessment of the evidence, including any information that he or she has about the defence. A case that does not pass the evidential stage must not proceed, no matter how serious or sensitive it may be. If the evidential stage is satisfied, the prosecutors must then go on to consider the second stage and whether a full prosecution is in the public interest.
Having set out the background, let me move on to the Bill before us, the purpose of which is to amend section 8 of the Accessories and Abettors Act 1861. The amendment to section 8 appears to propose that for a person to be
“tried, indicted, and punished as a principal Offender”,
they must
“aid, abet, counsel, or procure”
the commission of the offence by
“making a significant contribution to”
the commission of an indictable offence.
The Government note that the declared purpose of the Bill is to better reflect a defendant’s actual contribution to a crime where this is committed as part of a joint enterprise. We also note that the proposed change to section 8 retains both its application to indictable only offences and its territorial extent, which is to say that the Bill proposes that any amendment to section 8 will continue to apply in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The Government are unable to support the Bill because it is technically flawed, and the overall impacts of such a change will need very careful consideration. As I said, joint enterprise is an extremely complex area of law—
John McDonnell
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I do not wish to drag you into the debate; I am simply requesting a procedural clarification.
The Minister has just said that the Government are unable to support the Bill in its current form. In other words, they are not supporting it today. It is procedurally correct, is it not, that the Government could allow Second Reading and then delay any Committee proceedings until after the consultation on the Law Commission’s proposals and its examination of the issue overall, and amendments could then be tabled? If the Government fail to do that, it is difficult to see—unless they are committing themselves to introducing legislation—whether there is a serious or imminent proposal to reform the law in this instance.
I just wish to clarify that, because a great many people watching the debate will be confused by the process that we are going through. The opportunity is still there for the Government to allow the Bill’s Second Reading, thus bringing forward a reform that they may well wish to support at a later stage.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
The case that the right hon. Gentleman has just stated is correct procedurally, but after the Minister has finished his speech I will call Kim Johnson, with the leave of the House, to see what the Member in charge of the Bill wishes to do.
Gareth Bacon
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Section 8 of the 1861 Act is intrinsically linked with other inchoate offences such as those specified in sections 44 to 46 of the Serious Crime Act 2007: intentionally encouraging or assisting an offence, encouraging or assisting an offence believing it will be committed, and encouraging or assisting offences believing one or more will be committed. It is also linked to section 44(1) of the Magistrates’ Court Act 1980, which makes similar provision to that contained in section 8 of the 1861 Act, but in relation to summary only and triable either way offences.
Of key concern, however, is the fact that the proposed change to section 8 would place a requirement on the prosecution to identify the precise nature of a defendant’s role in aiding, abetting, procuring or counselling the commission of the crime committed in order to prove that the defendant had made a “significant contribution” —a threshold that does not currently need to be met. This change could lead to difficulties in securing a conviction and therefore bringing offenders to justice, even when there is significant evidence that the defendants did participate in the crime, simply owing to evidential difficulties in trying to establish the precise role that each party played—that is to say, whether they were a principal offender or an accessory—and how much weight should be given to those roles in terms of their “significant contribution”, which is not defined.
It is also unclear whether this change was actually intended, as the Government believe that the stated intention of the Bill is to clarify, and not to amend, the law on secondary liability. An additional concern is that no definition has been provided on what is to be determined by “significant contribution”. Without such a definition, that would mean that a perpetrator’s contribution to an offence could be determined differently, with the bar being either lower or higher depending on the assessment undertaken by the specific jury in question. In effect, there may be no real parity in such assessments, which in turn could lead to appeals on the basis of how a significant contribution to a crime has been assessed when compared with other such cases. That could result in an incoherent framework and would jeopardise the certainty of the law.
I am conscious of the time, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside again for her Bill, but the Government must oppose it for the reasons that I have outlined.
Draft Sentencing Act 2020 (Amendment of Schedule 21) Regulations 2023
Gareth Bacon Excerpts(5 months, 1 week ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Gareth Bacon)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Sentencing Act 2020 (Amendment of Schedule 21) Regulations 2023.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. Last July, my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor made a written statement to this House announcing the publication of the full Government response to the independent domestic homicide sentencing review undertaken by Clare Wade KC. The response announced a package of proposed reforms to ensure that the seriousness of domestic homicides is reflected in our sentencing framework. The draft regulations before us today are the first step in implementing those important changes.
In 2021, Clare Wade KC was commissioned to review sentencing in domestic homicide cases to establish whether the law and sentencing guidelines were fit for purpose. That followed concerns raised by a number of stakeholders, including the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and the Victims’ Commissioner, and by Carole Gould and Julie Devey, the mothers of two young women, Ellie Gould and Poppy Devey- Waterhouse, who were tragically murdered by their former partners in 2018 and 2019 respectively. I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Carole and Julie for their tireless campaigning following the deaths of their daughters, and to Clare Wade KC for her work on this important review.
About a quarter of all homicides in England and Wales are classed as domestic: that is, they are committed by the partner or ex-partner or a relative of the victim. Over the past 10 years, that represents an average of nearly 160 homicides a year, with almost 90 of those being committed by a partner or ex-partner. The majority of domestic homicides are committed by men against women. In many of these cases, the victim has been subjected to years of abuse before their death and many also involve sustained and excessive violence towards the victim, which I will refer to in this debate as “overkill”. When female perpetrators commit domestic homicide, they have often, although not exclusively, been the victims of abuse and have killed their abuser.
The legal framework for sentencing for murder is primarily contained in schedule 21 to the Sentencing Act 2020. Schedule 21 was first introduced in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, more than 20 years ago, and contains the factors to which the court must have regard when assessing the seriousness of murder. Although it always remains open to judges to consider aggravating and mitigating factors not contained in schedule 21, the schedule does not include any specific consideration of the seriousness of domestic homicides and the abuse that often precedes such cases. Over the last 20 years our societal and legal understanding of domestic abuse has evolved. The Government have made controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship a criminal offence under the Serious Crime Act 2015, and introduced the landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which created a legal definition of domestic abuse for the first time and made non-fatal strangulation a criminal offence.
We are also delivering on our rape review action plan, tackling violence against women and girls strategy and tackling domestic abuse strategy, and more than quadrupling funding for victim and witness support services by 2024-25, up from £41 million in 2009-10. However, as Clare Wade KC highlights in her review, our sentencing framework for murder does not yet fully reflect the increased seriousness that society now recognises in offending committed in a domestic context. Nor does it adequately account for the reduced culpability of a victim of abuse who snaps and kills their abuser. The measures that the regulations introduce will change that.
First, the draft regulations introduce both a statutory aggravating factor and a statutory mitigating factor for murder in relation to controlling or coercive behaviour. Cases of domestic murder are rarely isolated incidents. They are often the culmination of years of abuse underpinned by coercion and control. In the majority of cases, although not all, the abuse has been committed by the perpetrator of the murder, who is usually a man, against the victim, who is usually a woman. The new statutory aggravating factor will apply in those cases where an abusive partner or family member has killed their victim, in recognition of the seriousness of the preceding abuse and the experience of the victim before death.
However, a minority of cases involve a victim of abuse who has killed their abuser, often after years or even decades of abuse. In most of those cases, the perpetrator of the killing and the victim of the abuse is a woman. The new statutory mitigating factor will apply in those cases where a victim of abuse has killed their abuser, in recognition of their experience of abuse which preceded the killing and its impact on their culpability.
Secondly, the statutory instrument introduces a statutory aggravating factor for murder in relation to overkill, which it refers to as “sustained and excessive violence”. The prevalence of overkill in domestic murders is striking. It was identified in more than half the murder cases analysed for the review. In all but one of those cases, the perpetrator was male, and in more than two thirds, the perpetrator had also exhibited coercive or controlling behaviour towards the victim. Overkill causes intense distress to victims’ families. The horror of overkill, and the anguish that knowing that the body of their loved one was violated in such a way causes victims’ families, will now be recognised in statute.
Although the SI is an important first step in the Government’s response to the domestic homicide sentencing review, it forms part of a wider package of measures that we are taking forward in response to the recommendations made by Clare Wade KC.
The final legislative measure in the package is being taken forward separately in the Criminal Justice Bill. It will make the connection between a murder and the end of a relationship, or the victim’s intention to end a relationship, a statutory aggravating factor. In 40% of the murder cases analysed for the review, the murder occurred at the end, or perceived end, of the relationship. In all those cases, the perpetrator was male. Killing in those cases is the final controlling act of an abusive partner and its seriousness will now be recognised in law.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
When describing the overkill provision in the statutory instrument, the Minister referred to the body of the victim. That matter was raised in our recent consideration of the Victims and Prisoners Bill. Is the provision applicable when such desecration took place after death, or does it apply only if it happened during the course of the murder?
Gareth Bacon
It will be applicable if the desecration took place after death as well as during the course of the murder, because the state of the body causes anguish to the relatives who are left behind.
As part of the Government’s response to the review, my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor wrote to the independent Sentencing Council to propose that they revise their guidelines in the light of the recommendations and the Government’s response to them. I am glad to inform hon. Members that in response, the Sentencing Council is consulting on amending the aggravating and mitigating factors in the manslaughter sentencing guidelines to include a history of controlling or coercive behaviour. That consultation also seeks views on adding an aggravating factor to the manslaughter sentencing guidelines for strangulation, suffocation or asphyxiation.
Finally, the Lord Chancellor has invited the Law Commission to undertake a review of the use of defences for murder in cases involving domestic abuse, and to consider in particular whether there is any evidence to suggest that defences are used in different ways, or to different effect, depending on the gender of the defendant.
Although I hope that hon. Members will support the Government’s important changes in response to Clare Wade KC’s review, I recognise that some Members may want us to go further. We have therefore launched a public consultation to ensure that all options are fully explored. We recognise that there are issues and options that would benefit from further consideration, beyond the recommendations made in the review. The consultation seeks views on a minimum term starting point for murders preceded by controlling or coercive behaviour against the victim, and for all murders committed with a knife or other weapon. The consultation will close on 4 March and the Government will carefully consider the responses to determine whether further reform is required. We will update the House on the outcome of the consultation in due course.
Murder is the most serious crime that a person can commit, and we must ensure that in every case the sentence is commensurate with the seriousness of the crime. Our sentencing framework must reflect the seriousness of violence and abuse committed by those closest to the victims.
I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Gareth Bacon
I thank the hon. Member for Cardiff West for the Opposition’s support for an important SI. He raised several points, which I will attempt to answer in order.
We covered one aspect of overkill. The hon. Gentleman asked whether it would apply to all cases of murder. The short answer is that it will. All statutory aggravating factors in schedule 21 apply to all murders, and that will be the case for overkill. We anticipate that most cases captured by the change will be domestic murders, but the provision will apply in every case.
The hon. Gentleman asked about progress on the other recommendations. He specifically asked why all the measures in response to the DHSR are not being introduced in the same legislative vehicle. The new aggravating factors in the SI were announced in the Government’s interim response to the DHSR last March. At that time, no primary legislative vehicle was available, so we committed to acting quickly and introducing the legislation as soon as we could. The measure in the Criminal Justice Bill to make murder at the end of a relationship a statutory aggravating factor was announced in the Government’s full response to the review in July and was included in the King’s Speech. It was not possible to include the measure in the SI without delaying its introduction due to the consultation that is required. That is why we have done that in a slightly different way. We decided to proceed with the SI to ensure that important changes could be made as soon as possible, and to include the final measure in the Criminal Justice Bill.
The new statutory mitigating factor relating to controlling or coercive behaviour was announced in the Government’s full response in July. Due to its similarity to the equivalent aggravating factor, it was possible to include it in the consultation with the Sentencing Council without delaying its introduction. That is a long way of saying that speed led to its inclusion.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether we should have wholesale rather than piecemeal reform. We do not accept that the SI represents a piecemeal change. It is part of a package of reforms that the Government are introducing at the same time to update schedule 21 in response to an independent review. As he knows, it was an in-depth review, which Clare Wade KC undertook, that involved extensive research and engagement with stakeholders across the sector. The review found that schedule 21 needed to be updated to reflect our improved societal and legal understanding of fatal domestic abuse. That is exactly what we are doing. That does not preclude a future review of schedule 21, but the Government took the view that the priority was to change the law now, rather than delay.
The hon. Gentleman touched on cost and the £100 million. As he said, that is over 40 years. The Ministry of Justice’s annual budget is £14 billion, so although £100 million sounds like a lot of money in isolation, compared with the overall budget, it is not as much as he suggests.
The hon. Gentleman asked about longer sentences and pointed out that the impact assessment estimates that the measures will require a set number of prison places. The good news is that that will not be for at least 15 years because the measure will not kick in as an aggravating factor until beyond the minimum term for a murder conviction, which is 15 years.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned public infrastructure, particularly with regard to prison places. The Government are currently engaged in the largest expansion of the prison estate since the Victorian era, with £4 billion being invested in creating 20,000 additional prison places.
The hon. Gentleman was correct that I do not have a brief on his final point about parental responsibility because it is not within the confines of the SI. As he suggested, I will write to him by the end of next week with a full response on that.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gareth Bacon Excerpts(5 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Gareth Bacon)
A 2019 Ministry of Justice analysis of a matched cohort of 30,000 offenders shows that those serving sentences of immediate custody of less than 12 months reoffend more often than similar offenders serving a sentence in the community—55% of those sentenced to less than 12 months’ immediate custody were convicted in the following 12 months, which compares with 32% among those serving their sentence in the community.
Sir Desmond Swayne
For years, I was a visitor at the Scrubs and at HMP Wandsworth. Persuade me that community sentences can be really tough.
Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)
Many, many more offenders will be serving their sentences in the community as a result of the measures in the upcoming Sentencing Bill. We all know that the Government have had to rush these measures out to deal with the prisons capacity crisis that they have created, but it is essential to recognise that these measures will rely heavily on a functioning probation service. With only one of the 33 probation delivery units inspected being rated as “good”, and all others being rated as “requiring improvement” or “inadequate,” what additional resources have been put in place to ensure that potentially dangerous criminals are being properly monitored?
Gareth Bacon
We have recently increased the budget for probation by £155 million and ramped up recruitment, with an additional 4,000 staff recruited over the last period of time.
Shabana Mahmood
That is a four-year-old announcement dressed up as something new and, given the extensive changes in the Sentencing Bill, I am afraid that it will just not cut it. Under the Conservatives, our vital probation service has been taken to the brink of collapse, and on current performance it simply cannot handle the additional pressure that these measures will bring and keep the public safe. So will the Minister commit to ensuring that the measures in the Bill will not come into effect until there is not one probation delivery unit still rated as “inadequate”?
Gareth Bacon
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. We will keep this under review as the Bill passes through the House, and we will make further announcements on it in due course.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
Sentencing Bill
Gareth Bacon Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Gareth Bacon)
As this is the first time I have faced the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) across the Dispatch Box, I would like to start on a point of agreement. I agree with him that this has been a strong and thoughtful debate, and I am grateful to all those who have spoken.
As my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor said when he opened the debate, the Bill builds on our record of cutting crime, and it will protect the public and cut crime even further. The most dangerous offenders will remain behind bars for longer, and we will take action to prevent those who have committed low-level offences from falling further into lives of crime. Right hon. and hon. Members have raised a wide range of points and questions. Unfortunately, in the time I have I will not be able to respond to all of them, but I am of course happy to engage with Members individually later—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
Order. There are a lot of Members entering the Chamber, for reasons that are apparent, who have not taken part in or heard this debate. I hope the House will do the Minister the courtesy of listening to his winding-up speech.
Gareth Bacon
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will respond to Members I do not mention individually either in writing or in person, especially on any points that I miss.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood), who opened the debate for the Opposition, started her remarks by saying that the Government are doing nothing to address prison places. It is true that the prison population has risen under this Government, and that is because more people are going to prison for longer under this Government. It is not true to say that the Government are doing nothing about prison places. We have set about the largest prison building programme since the Victorian era. We have set about building 20,000 new prison places, backed by £4 billion of investment, and we have delivered 5,500 of those places already, with a further 2,000 coming on line later this year. By the end of 2025, we will have delivered over 10,000 places in total. We are building six new prisons. HMP Five Wells and HMP Fosse Way have opened in the last two years. HMP Millsike is under construction in York, and three further prisons in Leicestershire, Buckinghamshire and Lancashire are going through the planning process.
The hon. Member went on to attack us over probation. She is right that some prison capacity measures will increase the demand for probation, but we are committed to ensuring that probation has the resource it needs to meet demand. This year we have already increased funding for the probation service by £155 million, to recruit staff, bring down case loads and better deliver the supervision of offenders in the community. We continue to focus on recruitment and retention, and we have accelerated the recruitment of trainee probation officers to increase staffing levels, particularly in areas with the most significant staffing challenges. As a result, we have increased staffing in the probation service by over 4,000 people since 2020.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood finished her speech with the claim that Labour is in favour of tough sentences, but the fact of the matter is that Labour has opposed every single measure this Government have introduced since entering office. It was Labour that introduced the halfway release point for serious offenders under section 244 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and it was Labour that voted against us when we toughened sentences for serious offenders.
Labour voted against our Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, preferring to keep dangerous criminals on our streets rather than behind bars. That Act introduced whole-life orders for child killers and life sentences for drivers who kill while intoxicated, ended the automatic release of dangerous and violent sexual offenders, and gave the Secretary of State the power to refer to the Parole Board high-risk offenders who would otherwise be automatically released. Labour voted against all of that, so we will take no lessons from them.
The hon. Member for Cardiff West ran through the list of speakers. I will not do the same, but I will pick out a few. The Chairman of the Justice Committee and my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), gave a characteristically knowledgeable, thoughtful and balanced speech, substantially supported by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North (Sir Michael Ellis) and my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler). He set out the statutory purpose of prison, and he suggested that we should have smarter sentencing—we will look at that. He also made the sensible point that short sentences disrupt community ties, relationships, jobs and home life, and that the loss of these can lead to greater reoffending.
On short sentences, I make it clear that we are not abolishing sentences of immediate custody. There is no proposed ban. The courts will retain wide discretion to impose immediate custody in many circumstances, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) correctly observed. Where a sentence is suspended, the courts have a range of robust powers to ensure that offenders are effectively managed, including electronic monitoring to ensure that curfews of up to 20 hours a day are observed, and exclusion zones so that they stay out of areas where they are most likely to get into trouble. There are also various high-tech solutions, such as alcohol tags that are so sophisticated they can take a reading of an offender’s sweat every 30 minutes to make sure they are confronting the issues with alcohol that landed them in trouble in the first place.
It is also true that more than 50% of those who are sentenced to less than 12 months will go on to commit another offence within one year of their release. When offenders are given suspended sentences in the community, with conditions, the reoffending rate is much lower at around 24%. The Ministry of Justice’s own robust evidence suggests that similar offenders, given community sentences or suspended sentence orders, are four percentage points less likely to reoffend than those sentenced to short custodial sentences. That might not sound like a great deal, but it could mean that up to 21,000 fewer offences are committed, meaning that fewer of our constituents become victims of crime.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) rightly mentioned remand and how the significant rise in remand is contributing to prison demand. There are various reasons for the increase in remand, but the court backlog driven by the pandemic and the subsequent Bar strike are substantial reasons. We are doing everything in our power to bring down the backlog, but he will understand that the judiciary is fully independent. It is not within our gift to dictate which cases are taken to court. Nothing in this Bill diminishes our efforts to reduce the backlog and reduce demand pressure. I will be happy to meet him to discuss this further.
Protecting the public from crime is our top priority. The most effective way to do that is to reduce the amount of crime being committed, which is why we are introducing the presumption to suspend short sentences. The Government are taking resolute, evidence-based action to ensure that low-level offenders break the cycle of offending, because reoffending devastates communities and creates more victims.
The measures concerning whole-life orders were welcomed on both sides of the House. These measures will ensure that the very worst murderers will spend the rest of their lives in prison. There will be no possibility of release by the Parole Board for such offenders. By making those changes, we are sending the very clear message that for the most heinous, horrific cases, a whole-life order will be the correct sentence. That can only be prevented if the court believes that there are exceptional circumstances—and they would have to be exceptional circumstances—that would make such a sentence unjustified.
Murders of a single victim that involve sadistic or sexual conduct will also be punishable by the imposition of a whole-life order—again, unless there are exceptional circumstances. Such offending is so serious, and causes so much anguish to victims’ families and wider communities —as we have seen following the brutal killings of Zara Aleena, Sabina Nessa and others—that it is only right for such perpetrators to be locked up for the rest of their lives.
A number of Members referred to sexual offences, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel). I will focus on rape. Rape is a uniquely serious crime and one that causes terrible trauma for its victims, so it is right for those found guilty of rape, and other equally serious sexual offences, to be subject to a punishment that reflects the severity of their offending. These measures will ensure that rapists serve the whole of their custodial sentences behind bars. They will no longer be subject to any automatic or discretionary early release, but will have to spend every single day of their custodial term locked up, as directed by the court. That will be followed by a robust period on licence during which such offenders will be supervised by the probation service and will be subject to a possible recall to custody if their risk cannot be safely managed in the community.
It is clear from the debate that there are strong views on the Bill, but it is the first stage of a legislative process, and we welcome engagement from Members on both sides of the House as we seek to strike the right balance in sentencing. I personally can see the merit in ideas such as reviewing some measures and perhaps even a power to switch them off, and it is right that we consider the use of these measures carefully. Having heard the points raised by several Members about knife crime, I will look closely at that issue.
Our aim is to ensure that we can keep the most dangerous offenders in prison for as long as necessary to keep the public safe from harm, while ensuring that sentences do not trap the redeemable in a revolving door of offending. I therefore commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
SENTENCING BILL (PROGRAMME)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Sentencing Bill:
Committal
(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Committee of the whole House.
Proceedings in Committee, on Consideration and on Third Reading
(2) Proceedings in Committee of the whole House shall be taken in the following order: Clause 1; Schedule 1; Clauses 2 to 6; Schedule 2; Clause 7; Schedule 3; Clauses 8 to 11; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill.
(3) Proceedings in Committee of the whole House shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion five hours after their commencement.
(4) Any proceedings on Consideration and proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion six hours after the commencement of proceedings in Committee of the whole House.
(5) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings in Committee of the whole House, to any proceedings on Consideration or to proceedings on Third Reading.
Other proceedings
(6) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Aaron Bell.)
Question agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gareth Bacon Excerpts(7 months, 1 week ago)
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Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Gareth Bacon)
In 2019 we expanded the unduly lenient sentence scheme to include 14 new offences, including further child sexual offences and coercive or controlling behaviour. We have no immediate plans to extend the scheme further, but we keep it under constant review.
Gareth Johnson
I welcome the new Minister to his place; his is an excellent appointment and I wish him every success. The fact that malicious wounding, actual bodily harm, burglary and even rape, when dealt with in the youth courts, do not come under the unduly lenient sentence scheme is plain wrong. Will he please review that situation, which time and again lets down the victims of those serious crimes?
Gareth Bacon
The unduly lenient sentence scheme is intended for use in serious cases for offenders sentenced in the Crown court. The Attorney General has the power to refer a sentence to the Court of Appeal for review if they believe it is unduly lenient. A youth court can sentence a child to up to two years of detention only. Where a child’s offence is likely to attract a sentence of more than two years, the case must be passed to the Crown court for sentencing, where the scheme therefore applies.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
Stiffening unduly lenient Crown court sentences is all very well, but there will still be delays in the system if there are backlogs in prosecuting in the courts. Up to 25% of criminal barristers have left the profession over the past five years, so what action are the Government taking to address the exodus of criminal barristers?
Gareth Bacon
In recent years the Government have invested an extra £141 million in criminal legal aid, which should expedite a solution to the situation.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Gareth Bacon)
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 increased the maximum penalty for causing death by dangerous driving from 14 years to life imprisonment. In June 2023, the independent Sentencing Council published revised sentencing guidelines for motoring offences, including for causing death by dangerous driving. It is too early to assess the outcome of those changes, but we regularly publish sentencing statistics on gov.uk. The Sentencing Council also monitors all guidelines in accordance with its statutory duty.
James Wild
I welcome my hon. Friend to his position. It is over a year since Parliament legislated to increase the maximum sentence for death by dangerous driving to life imprisonment. However, three members of my constituent Summer Mace’s family were killed in a horrific incident, and in June the offender got only 10 and a half years. That is totally inadequate. As RoadPeace has shown, far too many sentences are too short. Will my hon. Friend meet me to discuss those sentencing guidelines, so that we can ensure that they reflect what Parliament actually legislated for?
Gareth Bacon
I was very sorry to hear of the death of Paul Carter, Lisa Carter and Jade Mace in January 2023 in a collision caused by Aurelijus Cielevicius, and the devastating consequences for their family and friends. I know that my hon. Friend has campaigned hard on this issue, and I read his Adjournment debate earlier this month. Sentencing is entirely a matter for our independent courts, based on the facts of each case. In July 2023, after Cielevicius was sentenced, the revised Sentencing Council guidelines for causing death by dangerous driving came into force, following the increase of the maximum penalty introduced by the PCSC Act 2022. I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that further, should that be helpful.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
The man who was convicted of causing death by careless driving when he killed my young constituent Gregg was sentenced to only nine months in prison. However, because he was charged with causing death by careless driving, not dangerous driving, Gregg’s family had no right to appeal under the Attorney General’s unduly lenient sentence scheme. Will the Minister agree to discuss this with the Attorney General and look into revising the scheme to include causing death by careless driving?
Gareth Bacon
I was very sorry to hear the details of that particular case. I will, of course, be very happy to raise it with the Attorney General.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Oral Answers to Questions
Gareth Bacon Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Lucy Frazer
Our statistics are that 4.2% of the female prison releases were to rough sleeping and 14% were released as “other homeless”, but the numbers, whatever they are, are too high. The hon. Lady rightly identifies that we are talking to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and that a spending review is coming up; Members will have heard the Lord Chancellor talking about our absolute commitment, and we will be looking at a number of things—education, employment and tackling homelessness on release.
Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)
I hugely value the work of criminal defence lawyers, who play a vital role in upholding the rule of law, testing prosecution evidence and ensuring that the innocent walk free. To support the profession through the pandemic, we sought to improve the cash flow for it by making it easier to draw down payment for work already collected, halting the collection of debt by the Legal Aid Agency and relaxing LAA contract requirements to ensure that more staff can be furloughed.
Gareth Bacon
According to Government figures, in 2010-11 there were 1,861 firms with criminal legal aid contracts, whereas now there are only 1,138, which represents a 39% decrease. In addition, there appear to be significant recruitment shortages in the profession. According to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, in 2017 fewer than 3% of 11,000 trainee solicitors were working in criminal law. That raises real issues as to people’s ability to access justice. What plans does my hon. Friend have to address this decline?
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend raises an important point. We want criminal law and criminal defence to be an attractive, sustainable profession, which is why we put £23 million into the advocates’ graduated fee scheme last year, which can benefit solicitor advocates, and why we put, as the first wave of criminal legal aid, up to £51 million into the profession. It is a great and important job, and we want people to go into it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gareth Bacon Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Chris Philp
The data on court listings and hearings is published regularly and available for everybody to see. On the administration of justice, it is for the judge in each case to make sure they are satisfied that justice is served by a remote hearing or by an in-person hearing. Ultimately, decisions about whether a case is heard in person or remotely are taken by the judge, having regard to the circumstances of that case. Making sure that every defendant gets a fair hearing and every witness and victim is treated properly and fairly must remain always at the heart of our approach.
Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Robert Buckland)
The Government took the necessary action through the Coronavirus Act to ensure that landlords could not start proceedings to evict tenants until at least September, and on Friday, at my request, the judiciary passed a new rule to protect renters by making sure that evictions would be suspended until 23 August. I intend to introduce the necessary secondary legislation. The Housing Secretary and I will continue to work closely with the judiciary and others to protect vulnerable renters.
Gareth Bacon
I do not want anyone to be unfairly evicted at such a difficult time, but could my right hon. and learned Friend offer guidance on two constituents who have written to me separately as landlords, the first having served notice to quit on a tenant whose behaviour had become very nasty, and the second on a heavily pregnant lady who had to return home from working abroad when she was repatriated during the health crisis and who, along with her family, is now unexpectedly homeless?
Robert Buckland
My hon. Friend knows that I am more than happy to hear more detail about those individual cases if he writes to me this week. On the general point, I can assure him that this was not a matter I took lightly. I am bearing very much in mind the issue of small landlords in particular and—shall we say—egregiously continuing breaches, which is why we excluded, for example, trespassers from the provision, because clearly there is a social necessity to deal with them. Other measures are also available to deal with antisocial behaviour, but I will look at the two cases he raises.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gareth Bacon Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Chris Philp
The hon. Gentleman is quite right. Following the 2017 Unison case, employment tribunal fees are due to be refunded. The programme is under way, and many tens of thousands of fees have already been refunded. The hon. Gentleman can rest assured that the Ministry of Justice is looking carefully at the position to ensure that everyone who is eligible for a refund does indeed receive one.
Mr Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)
Lucy Frazer
My hon. Friend—whom I welcome to his place—is absolutely right. We have looked at the system and recognised that it could be improved, and we have made those changes in Wales, where the national probation service has taken responsibility for supervising all offenders. I look forward very much to visiting Wales on Thursday to see how those changes have been implemented. I understand that the transition has proceeded very smoothly, and I look forward to speaking to staff there in order to ensure that when the same transition takes place in England, it too will proceed smoothly.