Interpreting and Translation Services

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) on initiating the debate and on the report of his Select Committee.

The right hon. Gentleman is known in the House for his understatement, and that is typified by his description of the system under the new contract as “shambolic”. That is as over-kind a description as it is possible to find. All the available information shows that the system is not only failing abjectly, but damaging seriously the administration of justice in this country. In addition, it is costing the taxpayer huge sums of money in abandoned trials and in other ways.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Does my right hon. Friend not think that the lesson can be drawn wider than for the translation services alone? The Ministry of Justice and others are obsessed with the contract culture. It distances Ministers from the immediacy of decisions and, at the other end, leaves the public and the victims in a much worse situation, with much less accountability on the delivery of services.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

I of course agree with my hon. Friend. The problem is that the Ministry of Justice has been administered with, on the one hand, a great deal of indolence, which is the charming characteristic of the previous Secretary of State—for which we are all fond of him—and, on the other, miscalculation. I offer my sympathy to the Minister, who has the awful problem of responding to the debate convincingly and at the same time honestly, but I point out that interfering with a system that works for ideological reasons is as barmy a reason as there ever was. If I have learned one rule during my time in the House it is, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The system was not broken—it worked perfectly well—and, because of an obsession of the kind that my hon. Friend described, we now have an unbelievable mess.

A number of my constituents have approached me about the matter, including Ali Hetherington, who has provided me with a good deal of information. She told me that the Ministry of Justice’s own performance figures indicate that levels of complaints and the number of ineffective trials relating to interpreter provision have risen steeply and shown no sign of abating. The Minister talks about savings of £15 million. The statistics provided to her by her officials cannot be verified or established in any way. First, we do not know what the savings are. Secondly, the calculation of those savings does not seem to take into account the huge sums of money that have been lost through failed and delayed trials and other failings in magistrates and Crown courts caused by taking on Capita to carry out the job.

Quality standards for court interpreters have been so dramatically lowered that the substandard service provided by Capita is in no way comparable with the quality of previous provision.

Let us look at the record. Capita took over the contract on 30 January 2012. Not once has it achieved its target for interpreter requests. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) said, there have been 6,417 complaints and more than 600 court trials have been abandoned over a 12-month period due to lack of interpreters, and the Ministry of Justice calls that a dramatic improvement. I would love to know what it would call a deterioration. Last month, Capita provided only 48% of required interpreters. Throughout the period of the contract, it has operated in breach of its contract. It has doubled the number of ineffective trials, primarily due to interpreter incapability, compared with a stable level in the previous five years.

I have been provided with a dossier of evidence, which no doubt other right hon. and hon. Members have seen. The indictment is appalling. We are talking about the justice system, and people being put on trial and being found guilty or not guilty. We are talking about what happens to their lives and the lives of their victims as a result of failed trials. In the dozens of examples in the dossier, again and again, interpreters have turned up late or not at all, or they did not speak the language they were hired to interpret. In an example on page 16, an interpreter who spoke Bengali turned up to deal with someone in the court who spoke the Congolese language of Lingala. Not only was the language wrong, but it was spoken on the wrong continent. That happens again and again.

I will give some more examples from the dossier. In one, a barrister said that in

“court this morning a Lithuanian interpreter…turned up for a Slovakian prisoner”.

It was just as well they both spoke Polish. In another case, there was no interpreter for a Kurdish appellant. The court asked for one, but it was not provided, and the case was adjourned to the following week. In a London court, a sex trial failed to proceed because the interpreter failed to attend. The waste of money was £10,000, and the witnesses were devastated. The dossier also states that, in another case, there were no

“Punjabi interpreters in London so”

one came from Derby, five hours late and left before seeing the client in the cells after the hearing. It would be difficult to invent such incidents, yet they happened and we are told that it is all part of a dramatic improvement. Another example came from Birmingham Crown court:

“Earlier this month I worked at one of my local police stations (they are not with Capita). The duty solicitor was appalled by the quality of Capita interpreters. He told me that apparently those who are Tier 3 cannot speak English, one Capita interpreter sent his brother-in-law to Birmingham Crown Court for a trial, because he couldn't make it himself...I got the impression that the brother-in-law wasn't even an interpreter. Apparently the judge was furious”.

If there is one thing this country should be proud of above all else it is the administration of justice. People’s lives, the state of law and respect for the law all depend on sound administration of justice. Over and again, that is not happening because of the contract. Will the Minister answer the following questions? First, how long does the contract last? Secondly, how much does it cost? Thirdly, has there been any attempt to calculate the cost to the court system of the huge number of Capita’s failures in what, for want of other words, I will call its interpretation system, and what penalties are there?

The view of many people who have been damaged by the system is that the contract should be ended immediately. How can it be ended and why have the Government not done so? It is a sad day for this country that the system of justice of which we are so proud is so flawed as a result of the Government’s action, which should never have taken place.

Points of Order

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I hope there is just a possibility of an outbreak of harmony, but as the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) is on his feet I somewhat doubt it.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Will you confirm that right hon. and hon. Members have only two privileges that are not available to every citizen in this country? One is freedom of speech in this Chamber, subject to your rulings, and the other is access to Ministers.

[Mr Speaker]

I am reluctant to enter into a debate on this matter. The first point is unarguable; the second is something about which I have just opined. I know that the right hon. Gentleman would not seek to lure me further, because that would be unfair and the right hon. Gentleman would never knowingly be unfair.

Leveson Inquiry

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I will give way to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), and then I will conclude my remarks.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

Although it is clear that the provisions in the Leveson report on the backing up of self-regulation of the press must be carried out, does the right hon. Lady agree that if the House rushes to legislative judgment, that will be seen as Members of the House of Commons taking revenge on the press for what the press have said about them, including me? This is not about Members of Parliament; it is about ordinary people who are victims of press persecution.

[Maria Miller]

The right hon. Gentleman has made his point extremely clearly, and he is right that we must come at this issue in a measured way that looks to the long term, not just the short term. We must look not just at each other in the Chamber today, but beyond these shores as a country that champions free speech and democracy on the world stage. Can we credibly question and challenge others on issues of liberty and freedom if we have placed our own press in a legislative framework? Today is not about what is right here and now, this week, this month or in this Parliament; it is about a profound set of issues for our democracy that will have real and lasting consequences.

Lord Justice Leveson published his report into the future of press regulation last Thursday. Today’s debate demonstrates the Government’s commitment to finding a swift way forward. We have already held two cross-party meetings and will continue to hold more. Today in the Chamber we have the opportunity to discuss the findings of this report in full and to hear from all sides of the House. What we are debating today has profound implications, and we should remember the weight of that responsibility in days to come.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I was a staff journalist for 10 years. For nine of those years, I worked for the Daily Mirror, which at its zenith sold 5 million copies a day. I reported directly to the editorial director, Hugh Cudlipp, this country’s greatest ever popular journalist. Cudlipp was obsessive about factual accuracy and fair reporting. The excesses that led to the Leveson inquiry could never have happened in Cudlipp’s bailiwick. I was proud to be a journalist and remain a member of the National Union of Journalists to this day.

It would be difficult to retain that pride if I were a working journalist in the newspaper industry today. Respect for fact has almost vanished. When I was Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, a newspaper printed a big story about our Committee going to Los Angeles. I rang up the journalist who wrote the story and said, “It isn’t Los Angeles—it’s Scarborough.” The journalist replied, “Oh, it’s all the same thing.” Fair reporting: tell me another joke! The dictum in 1926 of C. P. Scott, the editor of The Manchester Guardian, is dead and buried. He said of the newspaper:

“Its primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted. Neither in what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in the mode of presentation must the unclouded face of truth suffer wrong. Comment is free, but facts are sacred.”

Twenty years ago, the National Heritage Committee, of which I was Chairman, conducted an inquiry into privacy and media intrusion. What it said in its report, published in March 1993, might just as well have been written today:

“There cannot be a free society without a free press…a free society requires the freedom to say or print things that are inconvenient to those in authority…While continual antagonism between the press and persons in authority is unnecessary, critical tension between them is an essential ingredient of a democratic society and far preferable to collusion between the press and public figures…At the same time, in a democratic society there must be a right to privacy as well…it must not be ignored by those who claim that everything that everybody does is fair game, so long as it provides a saucy story to be published in the diary column of a broadsheet newspaper or across the front page of a tabloid…The Committee’s concern, in conducting this inquiry, has been mainly with the ordinary citizen who in the normal course of his or her life will never come into contact with the broadcast or written media except as a viewer, listener or reader; but who suddenly becomes of interest to the media, due often to circumstances beyond his or her control, such as becoming a crime victim or being related to the victim of a crime or terrorist act. Such people, as a result of injudicious, thoughtless or malicious reporting, can suffer additional distress at what is already a time of trauma and shock. Their family relationships, their jobs, their businesses and their careers can all be seriously damaged. The Committee does not believe that anyone has the right to inflict such harm on innocent persons.”

The Committee went on to say:

“A balance is needed between the right of free speech and the right to privacy. The Committee’s view is that at present that necessary balance does not exist, and in this Report it recommends action to achieve it. The Committee does not believe that this balance can or should be achieved by legislation which imprisons the press in a cage of legal restraint…The Committee would be deeply reluctant to see the creation of any system of legal restraints aimed solely and specifically at the press or the broadcast media. It believes that self-restraint or, as the Committee prefers to call it, voluntary restraint, is by far the better way.”

It recommended the enhancement of

“voluntary regulation by the press through the strengthening of the Press Commission (which the Committee recommends should succeed the Press Complaints Commission) and its Code, and expansion of the Commission’s scope”,

and the

“creation of a statutory Press Ombudsman, as a back-up to the Commission’s role.”

[Jim Dowd]

Do not my right hon. Friend’s experience and knowledge and the facts he has just regaled demonstrate how circular this argument has become and that we really ought to do something different, rather than simply repeat the inactivity and mistakes of the past?

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

My hon. Friend intervened just as I was about to go on to that very point. Twenty years ago, the National Heritage Committee made those recommendations. We analysed the disease and proposed a remedy. During the four remaining years of the then Conservative Government, nothing whatever was done. I am sorry to say that, during the 13 years of the Labour Government who followed, nothing at all was done either. We have known about this disease for very many years. The Leveson inquiry was founded because of new and horrific revelations about what the press did. What the press was doing 20 years ago should have been remedied then, but neither party did so. We face the same problems with the press that we faced in 1993, except that we now know far more about the malpractices of the press than we did then.

We can wait no longer. Even before our 1993 report, in 1989 David Mellor warned the press that they were drinking in the last-chance saloon. In the 23 years since then, the press have been on a prolonged pub crawl. Now this House must say, “Time gentlemen, please.”

I am as firmly opposed to statutory control of the press as I have ever been. That is the ethic of a free press in any country. We went to the United States and saw the way in which it could regulate the excesses of the press through privacy Acts protected by the fifth amendment. We could have had the same thing here. We could have had a privacy Act that applied not only to the press and that was protected by a public interest defence. It would have been valid, because when Clive Ponting was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act for revelations about the sinking of the Belgrano, he pleaded the public interest and the jury acquitted him. We therefore had a functioning system for protection, but what happened then is that my good old friend, Douglas Hurd, brought a Bill before Parliament to abolish the public interest defence under the Official Secrets Act.

As I have said, I am as opposed to statutory control of the press as I have ever been, but the press cannot go on pretending to regulate itself while not doing so. Although the Leveson report’s recommendations are not perfect—the gaps in the way in which the body is to operate are clear to anybody who reads the report and will cause problems in implementation—they are incomparably better than what exists now and the alleged improvements proposed by the press.

As someone who would be exceptionally reluctant to vote in this House for statutory backing of a voluntary press regime, I say firmly to the press proprietors, “Either you establish the Leveson regulation regime on a voluntary basis fast, without dragging your feet, and ensure that all proprietors, including Richard Desmond, participate, or you will be responsible for statute entering into press regulation.” It is up to the press. There is a short time for them to make that decision. They will be responsible if statute enters into press regulation. It is important for them to bear that in mind in the short period that remains before decisions are made.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Llwyd]

That is absolutely right, and I am concerned about it. I understand the need for the Government to look for some savings, but they are going after what they perceive to be a soft target. It is the wrong target. Even at the eleventh hour, I hope that they will think long and hard about it. Members in the other place argued long and hard; we were not allowed to argue sufficiently long in Committee or indeed on the Floor of the House, which is a disgrace in itself. Those who took time to go through all the available evidence concluded with an alternative view, and those people are right. If we have a vote, I will encourage all my hon. Friends, and any Member who has a conscience, to vote in favour of the Lords amendment and not to accept this mealy-mouthed excuse from the Government.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I encountered a Member of the House of Lords yesterday. She said, “I hope you will agree that we have done a good job on this Bill.” I said, “You have done a brilliant job, but it is all going to be overturned by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in the House of Commons tomorrow.”

The fact is that this Government, who do not need finance for their own legal aid, are forcing people to obtain legal advice by telephone operator. If they hold constituency surgeries, they will know that people cannot present a concise account of their problems. They have to discuss them, and when they have discussed them, it is possible to get to the core of what they need and help them—but these people do not care about that. I will say this, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is out of order in this House of Commons to accuse anyone of hypocrisy, so I—

Police

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ruffley]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

If the hon. Gentleman is so clear in his mind that the number of police on the streets does not necessarily correlate with the effective combat of crime, will he explain why the Liberal Democrat election manifesto—I realise he was not responsible for it—promised 3,000 more police on the streets?

[Mr Ruffley]

I am delighted to respond to both points.

First, I did not say that the number of police officers on the streets does not matter, but I will make it clear that the number of uniformed officers in any force does not equate to the number of police officers on the street; we absolutely can have more visible police hours on the street with a theoretically smaller number of police officers, and I shall explain how that comes about. Let me repeat: we can have more visible police hours on the street with fewer officers than we have now, and if the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton will bear with me, I will explain to the House how that is possible.

Secondly, on the Liberal Democrat manifesto, let me say why the party political to-ing and fro-ing is not terribly productive or profitable. The right hon. Gentleman’s party is campaigning—it would appear, from today’s debate—against the reductions in policing, which, it says, are cutting the number of uniformed officers and really will not do, but I just remind him of what the previous Labour Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), said on “The Daily Politics” just before the election. When he was asked whether Labour could guarantee that the number of police officers would not fall if it formed the next Government, he replied really rather elegantly, that no, he could not guarantee that police officer numbers would not fall. Most of us have a great deal of respect for the right hon. Gentleman, who has one other virtue, which is clear honesty. He was not guaranteeing that more officers would be paid for if Labour won the election; he was not even promising that the same number would be retained.

I shall explain briefly what I mean by “visible hours on the street”. There is a shocking statistic from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary—it was true under the previous Government and was still true last year—and it is that at any one time only 11% of the police officers in this country, of whom there are more than 140,000, are available for visible policing on the street. That is an amazing statistic: only one in 10.

The question is, how can we get more police visible on the street, given that there are more than 140,000 of them? There are two ways. First, we should reduce bureaucracy. Now, I do not suggest for one second that reducing bureaucracy will make up for the current tough public spending round, but the Government have already taken incredible steps in their first 18 months in office. They have abolished the policing pledge, the public service agreement targets, more than three dozen key performance indicators, the fatuous local area agreement targets and the stop and account form, which in fairness the previous Government had also proposed.

The current Government have also streamlined stop and search procedures. In addition, they have made changes to health and safety, and in addition to that they have abolished the quite nonsensical target, which police thought unnecessary, of drug tests for 95% of those arrested on trigger offences. That is quite an impressive reduction of bureaucracy in a first few months, and there is more.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I will now have to put a time limit on speeches. I am sorry to hon. Members waiting to speak; they must take the matter up with others. There is now to be a 10-minute limit, although that might have to be reduced.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I completely understand what you have just said, but again and again when I come to the Chamber for time-limited debates, I find that huge amounts of time are taken. The Minister spoke for three quarters of an hour in a three-hour debate. I believe that in future there should be restraint from Government Front Benchers in time-limited debates.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I do not want to get into an argument about either side. I understand that having a time limit is frustrating. A 10-minute time limit is being imposed. Members making speeches should take on board the fact that others are waiting to speak. I have brought in the time limit to try to get everybody in. That is the best that we can do. As I said, the limit may have to be reduced even further for later speakers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

It is undeniable that under this Government, in the year and three quarters for which they have been in office, the police have suffered serious setbacks in funding and staffing, and are doomed to suffer far more. The excellent record of the Greater Manchester police force in crime reduction and detection is likely to suffer—it says so itself—to the severe detriment of our constituents, whom, in the end, this is about.

Yesterday evening, the chief constable of Greater Manchester came to the House of Commons to brief hon. Members about the situation faced by Greater Manchester police. We must consider it in the context of the crime reduction figures that it has achieved, which are exemplary, with reductions in every category. It is on target or within 10% of the target on all the main priority performance measures in the 2011-12 policing plan. There are excellent prospects of its achieving the end-of-year target for serious acquisitive crime, domestic burglary, vehicle crime and serious violent crime, and good prospects of its doing so for total crime, antisocial behaviour and theft.

Greater Manchester police’s detection rates are higher than this time last year in all priority areas, with good prospects of its achieving the end-of-year detection targets for serious acquisitive crime, domestic burglary, vehicle crime, serious sexual offences, robbery and rape. That is what it has achieved.

[Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

I will, although the hon. Gentleman has not been here for the debate and just came into the Chamber a few minutes ago. If he wants to intervene on me, he can do so.

[Gordon Birtwistle]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I did not intend to intervene in the debate, but his comments led me to do so. Should we not congratulate the chief constable of Greater Manchester police on delivering what he has delivered with less money, rather than complain about what is going on there?

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

The hon. Gentleman could have said that to the chief constable himself if he had bothered to turn up for the briefing yesterday evening.

The cuts that are going to take place will damage what Greater Manchester police has been able to achieve. There is a shortfall of £134 million over the four years to 2014-15, and funding is down for the predictable future. Already, there has been a fall of 4% in the number of police officers available to the force, and there will be a huge fall from 7,656 to 6,556 by 2015.

In considering what the feelings of Greater Manchester police are, I turn to Inspector Damian O’Reilly, one of the finest police officers in this country. He operates in my constituency and was the winner of the national award for community police officer of the year. He contacted me last evening and told me that I was welcome to quote him by name. He says that the cuts are

“cutting away at the muscle of the organisation, not just the fat…With cuts to pay and conditions we feel really undervalued.”

That is what one of the most outstanding police officers in the entire country has to say. He has a fantastic record of crime reduction and control, so his views are more authoritative than mine or those of anyone else in the Chamber.

Let us look at how other people are feeling about the cuts. I received a letter a few days ago from a police constable in my constituency. I will not mention her name, because I do not have her authority to do so, but she wrote:

“I have great concern in relation to the police pay and condition that I will be victim of this year, paying more in to my pension and working for longer hours for less pay…I work full time hours and have a mortgage to pay for, I am genuinely worried about my future with the police force and how it’s going to affect my financial status.”

With sentiments and misgivings of that kind, how can she and her colleagues be expected to continue to give their full heart and attention to preventing crime? Of course detecting crime is important, and Greater Manchester’s figures on that are excellent, but we need to prevent crime. If we send a police constable who feels like that out on to the streets, she will still work as hard as she possibly can. How should we feel about exploiting such people and not giving them the recompense and recognition to which they are undoubtedly entitled?

The issue is not simply police detection, but, as the previous speaker pointed out, social environment. In constituencies such as mine, where unemployment is at 10.3%, and youth unemployment is twice that, we are forcing kids out on to the streets. The overwhelming majority of young people are decent and law-abiding and will never commit a crime, but if they are out on the streets, with no facilities, having been forced out of higher education by the abolition of the education maintenance allowance, they are put in temptation’s way. It is essential that we stop that.

As the chief constable concurred in our discussion yesterday evening, although the sharp end of policing is important, so is the social background and context. He explained how his people work with social organisations both to reduce crime and to reclaim those who have committed crimes. If we shove young people into prison or detention when we could do other things to make them good citizens, they will learn how to be criminals. If they are out of prison and not committing offences, they can learn to be good citizens.

An organisation in my constituency called Reclaim does marvellous work to reclaim young people who have offended and give them socially useful tasks. It incorporates them into an organisation in which they know and respect one another. The police work with Reclaim, which is one of the most important bodies in stopping young people turning away from law and order and into crime. I very much hope that its recent application for £125,000 from the social action fund, administered by the Cabinet Office, will be favourably considered. Money spent on policing is important, and I deplore the cuts in the moneys available to spend on policing, but money to reclaim young people from potential lives of crime and make them into good, valuable, positive citizens with a social commitment is even more important.

The police, and certainly those in Greater Manchester, do a fine job. They have wonderful connections with the local population. Inspector O’Reilly does “report back” meetings, the most recent of which was attended by 600 people, which shows the extent to which the police are connecting with the people in Gorton and the rest of my constituency. They do a fine job and deserve far better.

My constituents want to feel safe when they go out on to the streets and in their homes. That is not being helped—it is being damaged—by this Government of cuts and stunts. The chief constable has said how valuable co-operation is, and I agree with him. I hope we can work together to reduce crime and to give the members of our police force the confidence that we in the House of Commons support them in the essential and often dangerous work that they do.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

This Bill has not had a good reception on either side of the House of Commons. Several hon. Members have referred to the impact of these changes on women who suffer domestic violence and who will be ineligible for legal aid under the Bill because the evidence that they will be required to present is far too restrictive. Because of these proposals, there is likely to be an increase in the number of women being cross-examined by a perpetrator in detail about the physical or sexual violence that they have experienced. That will mean that a woman who is already a victim will be re-victimised.

My constituency is one of the most deprived in the country. The latest figures show that we have 9.7% unemployment. What the Government have done across the spectrum in ending the health in maternity grant, ending the education maintenance allowance, cutting Sure Start and increasing tuition fees will mean that life is harder for the people who sent me to Parliament. This Bill is yet another instalment in what they are doing to the people of Gorton and the people of Manchester. In the past two years, two independent advice centres in my city have closed down. Manchester Advice, which had about 100 staff providing advice on welfare rights, housing and consumer affairs and debt, closed in April. All that is left is the community legal advice service and a couple of solicitors who have a contract for rather less than £3 million over three years but are facing a 10% cut in October. In any case, none of the specialists’ work will be funded when the contract expires in two years’ time.

South Manchester Law Centre in my constituency struggles on with a small immigration contract. The situation is such that the law centre may well be destroyed, and that is the body to which my constituents with immigration problems have to turn. That means that they will increasingly have to turn to their Member of Parliament or pay exorbitant sums to grasping, greedy solicitors. There are now only two legal aid immigration advice providers in Manchester, but within three miles of South Manchester Law Centre there are 50 solicitors firms, and at least the same number of non-solicitors, all anxious to part vulnerable people from their money. On Friday evening, I shall have my constituency surgery, and people will come to me and tell me of the hundreds of pounds they are being forced to pay because of the lack of adequate free advice that is so essential to them.

Again and again, this Bill damages the people who can least survive the damage. In Manchester, there will be some £2 million-worth of cuts in the civil legal aid budget, approximately two thirds of which are directed at people who are currently eligible for legal aid, while one third will come from remuneration cuts to providers who will be expected to do the same work for less money. All that affects the same people who have been hit by the cuts in public service delivery. The majority of the 6,500 people in our area who have used the civil legal aid service come from low-income households, and they are predominantly women, black and minority ethnic people and sick and disabled people. People with mental health problems and other disabilities experience much higher rates of unemployment, homelessness and discrimination, and they will be disproportionately affected.

Again and again, we hear examples of how people in my constituency and more widely will be damaged. The areas of welfare benefit, employment and debt, except for cases in which the client’s home is at immediate risk, will be removed completely from the legal aid remit, and such access as there will be to legal aid will become more difficult. For example, the community legal advice helpline has an 0845 prefix, which is expensive for people to dial and, in addition, people want and need face-to-face advice. They do not want to talk to somebody who will not be able to see or assess them; they want advice from other human beings who care about them.

People with learning disabilities and mental health issues prefer to receive advice in person in order to pick up on non-verbal signals and to build the trust necessary to talk about their problems, because people are shy, reluctant and, sometimes, ashamed to talk about their problems. Women who suffer domestic violence put up with it because they are ashamed to talk about it and ashamed about getting into the predicament.

We are faced with a Government who are taking away from people who need the services that members of the Government do not need and have never needed, so they do not understand the damage that they are causing. I say to the Government and to the many Government Members who have had the decency to talk about their misgivings, let us try to improve the Bill, because people’s lives, well-being, peace of mind and domestic situations all depend upon it. We cannot go on like this—victimising those who are already victims.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Sentencing Reform/Legal Aid

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Talking tough is easy and most politicians do it; delivering tough is rather difficult, as the Labour party discovered only too often. I will not use the quotes I have used before—the right hon. Gentleman knows them perfectly well. I agree that prison is of course the right punishment for serious and violent offenders, who will keep being sent there for long sentences whenever that punishment is justified, so that they can make reparation. However, we also tackle crime by trying to reform them, getting more of them to go straight, reducing reoffending and finding other ways of stopping the accumulation of more victims and more crimes committed by people coming through the system. I think that that is accepted by my colleagues. We are giving up the remorseless and hugely expensive increases in the prison population, and looking for a more intelligent way of protecting the public, which is our principal priority.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware—he certainly should be because I have told him a number of times—of the dire effect upon my constituents of the action he has taken already in attacking citizens advice bureaux, undermining legal aid and taking the wrecking ball to the South Manchester law centre? Is he further aware that what he has announced today will complete the process of making access to justice a prerogative of the rich?

[Mr Clarke]

I could answer each of those three things. Most of the cuts being made to citizens advice bureaux and so on are being made by local government; we are not the principal—[Interruption.] The Ministry of Justice is not the principal contributor to citizens advice bureaux. However, as I have already said, the Government as a whole will assist those who give quality, worthwhile advice of the kind required by the very many people who do not need legal aid and an adversarial lawyer, which is not the best way of proceeding.

We have debated court closures before. We inherited more than 100 underused buildings, which I am afraid we had to tackle and rationalise. Our package of legal aid reforms is tackling a system that has become bloated in recent years—a system that the right hon. Gentleman’s Government kept talking about reforming but never did, because an inability to take decisions about exactly what to do about an out-of-control Government was rather typical under the last Prime Minister. When we have finished what the right hon. Gentleman says are draconian reforms, we will still have by far the most expensive legal aid system in the world after I have made our so-called cuts.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ann Clwyd]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is not aware of the facts. The fact that there have been 10 applications and that only two were granted means that the judges who currently implement this legislation are absolutely spot on. They do not take frivolous applications—quite the contrary: they are only too careful. They are experienced judges, not ordinary magistrates. The current system works comparatively well, and no one can point to any frivolous applications.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend might be aware that a document issued by the Liberal Democrats in June last year stated:

“The issue of the arrest warrant for a war crime is decided only by specialist legally qualified magistrates such as the most senior district judge at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. They are well qualified to decide whether the high threshold of evidence, liability and jurisdiction has been met and that no immunity applies…The removal of the right of public prosecution in such cases would have the effect of turning our country into a safe transit point for war criminals, torturers and those guilty of genocide from all over the world.”

[Ann Clwyd]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. Indeed, all the human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Redress and Justice are opposed to this change in the law.

In Committee, the Minister conceded:

“The problem is not that large numbers of warrants are being issued—the Government are aware of only two”.––[Official Report, Police Reform and Social Responsibility Public Bill Committee, 17 February 2011; c. 682.]

It is incredible that the Government think that that is too many, and that there should be rather fewer. The fact that two arrest warrants have been granted in 10 years should be a matter of concern, not because it is too many but because it is too few.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

There are two minutes remaining, as I will call the Minister at 6.54 pm.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

We heard one Liberal Democrat voice. May I, in the remaining two minutes, quote the Liberal Democrat document which I have already quoted with regard to Tzipi Livni, who has been mentioned? It says:

“Tzipi Livni, as Israeli Foreign Minister, was one of those responsible for authorising these attacks”—

on Gaza, which deliberately targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure—

“and made public statements that appeared to encourage the Israeli military to use disproportionate force and engage in deliberate destruction with no legitimate military objective.”

[Dr Huppert]

rose—

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

I will not give way, because I have only two minutes.

That is the person whom this lot are trying to acquit of the right even to be prosecuted, and even the issuing of a warrant against her. Her parents were terrorists who murdered great numbers of people. She was an Israeli spy in Paris when the Israelis were murdering people all over Europe and were changing the law to suit this war criminal.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

No, I do not, because we are not proposing to remove legal aid when imminent homelessness is a possibility. Legal aid will be retained in that situation.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

Is the Under-Secretary aware that there is deep resentment in my constituency about the attack on the South Manchester law centre, which is hugely valued, and about the attacks on advice bureaux? Will he understand that the activities of the malign Legal Services Commission will remove access to legal services for people on limited means?

[Mr Djanogly]

Just to be absolutely sure, neither my ministerial colleagues nor I, as far as I know, have attacked the South Manchester law centre in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency. If he would like to give me details of exactly what he is talking about, I would be happy to take it up.

Legal Aid and Civil Cost Reform

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

Taking into account the Lord Chancellor’s wish, stated this afternoon, to encourage more efficient resolution of contested cases, will he press the Legal Services Commission to negotiate a settlement with South Manchester law centre ahead of the scheduled judicial review next month, given that the LSC lost a judicial review to the Law Society at immense public expense on the same kinds of points? It is essential, both to my constituents and more widely, that the South Manchester law centre continues to be able to help people on low means.

[Mr Clarke]

I will inquire into the case that concerns the right hon. Gentleman, but I must point out that the Legal Services Commission is currently a totally independent body and is not subject to ministerial control. We propose to change its status and make it an agency, which would make it more directly accountable and would enable us to exercise more control over efficiency, but we would still proceed on the basis of having no ministerial involvement in individual applications for legal aid, as it would be quite wrong to seem to politicise individual cases. Nevertheless, I hope that the dispute is resolved rapidly and I shall make inquiries as to whether the speeding up of a resolution can be facilitated.