United Kingdom’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Friday 29th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I was rather hoping tonight to be able to crack open some champagne and celebrate the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. Sadly, I am more likely to be reaching for the anti-depressants. We are not leaving the European Union because Brexit has been treated as a problem and choreographed by people who do not have their heart in it, rather than as an opportunity to be grasped. My vote on this issue has always been to implement Brexit and it will continue to be so.

We need to restore the sovereignty that we have lost to the European Union over last 40 years. That is why I voted against extending article 50, to keep no deal on the table and twice against this deal, which has so many fundamental flaws. We have all witnessed how this House has voted to take over control of the Order Paper. We have seen how it has wanted to extend article 50 and to rule out no deal, as well as to consider a customs union and even no Brexit. I believe that we will witness it implement the softest of soft Brexits, if it implements Brexit at all, if this deal falls today.

There are some who still believe that, if this deal falls, no deal can somehow happen—that instead of accepting £1 billion a month off us, the EU will refuse to accept an extension of article 50—but I simply cannot see that happening at all. On the contrary, I believe that if we vote against the Government today, the European Union will extend article 50 for a lengthy period of time. We therefore have a choice today: to accept this deal and all its faults, or to risk losing Brexit completely. There is no certainty in either direction; it is a balance of risks, as has often been said on both sides of the House. However, my fear—my greatest fear—is that we will lose Brexit entirely if we vote this down today, and that is exactly what could happen.

I agree with many of the criticisms levelled against this deal, such as the impact it will have on Northern Ireland and the UK’s lack of ability to leave the backstop unilaterally. My decision to vote for this is in some ways harder than the decision I took to resign from the Whips Office. However, the circumstances have changed; I have not. We are now between a rock and a hard place. It is an unenviable situation in which we find ourselves, and we should not have been put in this position. It is this deal today, or we submit ourselves to a customs union and the potential of losing Brexit forever. I believe passionately that Britain’s best place is outside the European Union, and that is what I will be voting with the Government for.

Unduly Lenient Sentences

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered unduly lenient sentences.

It is a pleasure to have this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. The debate can be no surprise to the Solicitor General or to the Ministry of Justice. We have an hour, so I will keep to a couple of points that I have been making for the nearly 12 years I have been in the House, and I will leave it to other colleagues to raise other issues. I have purposely worded the motion so as to allow as many colleagues as possible to join the debate. The subject is not a controversy or party political in any shape or form. Some of this could have been addressed under the previous Labour Administration. Indeed, they tried to address it, as did the coalition; I certainly tried to address it when I was the Minister with responsibility for police, justice and, in particular, victims.

I come at the subject from the point of view of the victim. If the criminal justice system is to do what it says on the tin, it has to side with the victim. What worries me is that parts of court sentencing make victims feel, quite rightly, that the system is not on their side. There are two obvious anomalies. Anyone who has been found guilty has the right to appeal against the severity of their sentence. There is no argument about that. In a civilised society, that is right and there is a procedure for it.

In our courts, however, the procedure for victims, a victim’s representative or someone such as their MP to appeal against the undue leniency of a sentence is quite perverse. The guidance on the Government’s website, under “Ask for a Crown Court sentence to be reviewed”, is vague:

“Only certain types of case can be reviewed, including…murder…rape…robbery…some child sex crimes and child cruelty…some serious fraud…some serious drug crimes…some terror-related offences”,

and—without the word “some” this time—

“crimes committed because of the victim’s race or religion”.

The word “some” leaves things open in anyone’s mind, making it enormously difficult for the public we represent to understand what can and cannot be appealed against.

When I was a Transport Minister, I noticed the classic example of death by dangerous driving. Death destroys a family, and if drink and drugs are involved in the case, the sentence is appealable. A sentence for death by careless driving, however, is not. Although really serious offences are tried in the juvenile courts, my understanding is that it is not possible to appeal against undue leniency. If I am wrong, I am sure the Solicitor General will tell me.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Is he aware that more than 40% of sentences referred to the Attorney General are refused simply because they fall outside the scheme, and that has included at least one case of rape from the youth courts? Does he agree that that explains the clamour from the public to widen the scope of the scheme?

Crown Prosecution Service

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Teresa Pearce]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and I totally agree. Court cases are a very stressful time for people and delays just make matters more stressful.

I will say a few words about the current experiences of witnesses at criminal proceedings, although I anticipate that others may also mention it. There is a widening gulf between the ideal world of a system that should support victims and witnesses, and the real-world experience of a system that so frequently fails them.

An editorial in The Independent last year said that

“procedures are designed with little consideration of the needs of the victims and witnesses in whose interests they are supposedly working.”

Anyone who has ever attended court—I have, as a witness in a criminal case—knows how difficult it is to understand court scheduling. Someone might mentally prepare all day for an appearance that does not happen or that is adjourned till another time, and decisions are rarely explained or laid out.

Sometimes the situation is even more difficult. In my case, I was witness to a very violent crime outside my house. It was arranged that I would be able to give evidence behind a screen, so that I could not be identified. However, when I got to court, I was put in the waiting room with the family of the accused, which meant the whole experience was absolutely terrifying for me.

If courts were private businesses, witnesses would be the “customers” of court proceedings and they would be well within their rights to complain about the service they receive. The Ministry of Justice agrees with that view. It has admitted:

“For victims and witnesses, the criminal justice system can be baffling and frustrating, and their experience all too often falls below the standards they might expect from a modern public service”.

Staff cuts have hit hard. Between 2010 and 2013, the number of witness care managers, whose job is to aid victims and witnesses, fell by 43%. The services that witness care managers provide are little known to the public, especially when compared with those provided by the police and the CPS, and given the current rate of cutting, there is genuine concern about whether they will even exist in future.

My constituency is partly within the London Borough of Bexley, and the magistrates court observers panel operates in Bexley. It has suggested that if the public were more aware of witness care managers, that would encourage more victims to come forward and report crimes, especially in cases of domestic violence, hate crime and sexual assault, because awareness of such managers might give them the confidence they need to pursue a complaint.

The magistrates court observers panel has expressed its concerns, particularly about domestic violence cases and the fact that a high number of complainants

“withdraw their statements or fail to attend the trial”.

Its most recent report states that in more than 65% of the trials that it had examined in which the CPS offered no evidence, it was because the complainant or witness had withdrawn or failed to attend court.

I understand that that lesson has been learned, and that a separate team has now been set up to deal with domestic violence cases, which is an intelligent move. I hope that it will allow skilled professionals to prepare cases in a thoughtful way and give the support that is required to move matters forward.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. I certainly agree with her that we need to put the victims of crime at the centre of the criminal justice system and its work.

I have worked at Bexley magistrates court, to which the hon. Lady referred. Does she welcome the work of the witness support service there, which has assisted, over many years now, both prosecution and defence witnesses when they attend court? And does she also—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that interventions are usually brief and of a singular nature.

Unduly Lenient Sentences

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, I am pleased to secure this debate to highlight the unfair situation that exists with appeals against sentences in our criminal courts.

At present, the defence is able to appeal against sentences that are too harsh in almost all situations, whereas only in a very limited number of situations can the prosecution appeal against a sentence that is unduly lenient. Sentences given out for serious assaults such as actual body harm, malicious wounding, cannot be appealed against by the prosecution. Neither can sentences given for burglary, distribution of child pornography or causing death by careless driving, to name but a few. A worrying situation also affects youth court cases, as no sentence imposed there can be appealed against by the prosecution, and yet the youth court deals with some serious matters, including a limited number of rape cases. It is simply wrong that no safety net is in place for the victim of crime to respond to sentences that are too lenient.

I spent 20 years working in the criminal justice system. In my experience, judges and magistrates generally get sentences right, but it would be naive in the extreme to believe that that is always the case—it simply is not. Sometimes our courts get things wrong and impose sentences that are unduly lenient, and it is wrong that in most cases absolutely nothing can be done about it. We should not be telling victims of a serious crime who have had their suffering compounded by a pathetic sentence that there is nothing that can be done, but that is exactly what happens today. It is something of a cliché, but we need to see the scales of justice balance—they should not favour one side or the other, if possible. That is not the case now in appeals against sentence. That needs to change.

During the previous Parliament, I sponsored a private Member’s Bill to widen the scope of situations in which the prosecution could appeal against lenient sentences. Unfortunately, that Bill did not make it on to the statute books, but I was pleased to ensure that the Conservative party manifesto included a commitment to tackle the issue. I am sure that the Solicitor General knows every word of the Conservative party manifesto, but for those who are unaware of it, page 60 of the manifesto specifies that

“To tackle those cases where judges get it wrong, we will extend the scope of the Unduly Lenient Scheme, so a wider range of sentences can be challenged.”

That was the wording of the manifesto that Conservative candidates stood on at the recent general election. I hope that the Solicitor General will ensure that that commitment is honoured and that we implement this extension in a timely manner.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

In Northern Ireland, we had an animal cruelty case where a father and two sons were sentenced but the judge could not give a custodial sentence, even though he wanted to. Sometimes we have an opposite effect to the one the hon. Gentleman describes. Is it not also important to have laws that can actually punish people for doing wrong things?

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman hits the nail on the head, because the criminal justice system is there to ensure that justice prevails. It is incredibly frustrating and hurtful for victims of crime not to see justice being meted out on their behalf. In both the situation I was describing and the one he described, what happened was wrong. The system has failed if it does not ensure that people are punished appropriately. I am happy to accept that it is not always the judge’s or magistrate’s fault; sometimes their hands are tied. This place therefore needs to look at how it can improve the law to ensure that such situations are eradicated as much as possible.

Let me take this opportunity also to thank the Solicitor General for taking this issue incredibly seriously and for going about things in his customary courteous manner. I pay tribute to the way he has approached this whole subject, and I am grateful to him. This is a serious issue. There have been a number of examples of offenders having been given weak sentences for nasty offences, yet when a complaint has been made to the Attorney General to seek an appeal, the Attorney General has been powerless to act.

Just this year, at a secondary school adjacent to my constituency, we had a case where a teacher had entered into an inappropriate relationship, over an 18-month period, with a 15-year-old pupil. That teacher received a suspended sentence, and when that sentence was, understandably, referred to the Attorney General by aggrieved persons, there was absolutely nothing the Attorney General could do about it. Under my proposals and the Conservative party manifesto, that would change. This basic protection for the victims of crime needs to be introduced. Just as it is right to have a safety net for the defence, there needs to be a safety net for the prosecution. The criminal justice system is there to protect the vulnerable. Its primary function is to protect, and it currently fails to do that in a host of situations where an unduly lenient sentence is imposed on an offender. That situation has to change.

John Downey

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

I hope very much that no one will have to deal with side and shoddy deals. It is a matter of opinion as to whether the process of assurances to the on-the-runs was a proper one to pursue. It is a matter for political debate.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

The ending of criminal proceedings against John Downey is deeply disturbing, so will the Attorney-General confirm that while criminal proceedings are preferable and what we all want to see in the House, there should be no bar to civil proceedings against Mr Downey by the victims’ families?

[The Attorney-General]

Civil proceedings are for the individuals concerned but, no, the letters do not amount to any sort of bar on civil proceedings.

Voting by Prisoners

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I start my comments in light of the doctrine of the supremacy of Parliament, as set out in Hood Phillips’s “Constitutional and Administrative Law”. As paragraph 3.13 clearly states:

“The legislative supremacy of Parliament means that Parliament (The Queen, Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled) can pass law on any topic affecting any persons, and that there are no fundamental laws which Parliament cannot amend or repeal.”

Secondly, all our main legal authorities—from Dicey to Coke and Blackstone—assert that Parliament has the right to make or unmake any law whatsoever. Thirdly, no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having the right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament.

In that light, if the House were to vote to confirm the current legislative provision that prisoners should not have the right to vote, that must surely be respected. Once a document is recognised as an Act of Parliament, no English court can refuse to obey it or question its validity. That is our common law, as established in the case of Manuel v. Attorney-General of 1983. The courts of our land must therefore respect the wishes of Parliament.

Schedule 3 to the Representation of the People Act 1983, as amended by the Representation of the People Act 1985, makes it quite clear that someone convicted and sentenced to imprisonment loses the capacity to vote.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that no one is being forced to forfeit their vote? Criminals choose to forfeit their votes when they decide to break the law. All that people need do in order to retain their votes is comply with the law.

[Rehman Chishti]

My hon. Friend has highlighted the fundamental point that people have rights and responsibilities.

Successive Governments have made it plain that when people are convicted and sentenced to imprisonment, they lose the moral authority to vote. In 2003, Baroness Scotland of Asthal clearly stated that those who were convicted and imprisoned would lose that moral authority. The earlier legislation was right then as this legislation is now, and we should respect that.

Parliament’s supremacy has been challenged by the European Court of Human Rights. That cannot be right. It cannot be right for judges from developing judiciaries in eastern European countries to challenge the supremacy of our Parliament and our judiciary.

It is ethically and morally wrong to allow prisoners the right to vote. The concept that those who commit a crime must pay the price with their liberty and the withdrawal of certain rights must be correct.