Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2011 Commons Chamber

The group of people I am most concerned about are those whose injuries will last a lifetime. The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd mentioned birth injuries, and I am particularly concerned about parents who need to ensure that care is provided beyond their lifetimes to their children. Many of us have dealt with elderly parents who have had worries of this kind for children with brain injuries. Members of this House and those in the other place need to be assured that this combination of measures—the willingness of solicitors and counsel to undertake cases as an appreciation of their significance and the public good, the availability of the Government’s exceptional provisions for some types of serious case and what remains of the CFA system—will between them cater for some of these very serious cases. This House and the other place will need to be given some assurance; otherwise, I strongly suspect that when the Bill comes back to us it will have been significantly amended.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I think I am unique in this House in that I have had a great deal of experience in clinical negligence and have practised for the best part of 12 years almost exclusively on behalf of claimants. I have conducted well over 100 clinical negligence cases, against a multitude of general practitioners, hospital trusts and the like. They were primarily insurance-backed or conditional fee arrangement cases, although some of them were occasionally legal aid cases. I believe that, in the great tradition of the Government, I have still been unpaid for some of that work, notwithstanding the fact that I have not completed any work as a lawyer since I was elected in May 2010. So I should declare an interest in that I believe I have some legal aid fees outstanding, not that I am pressuring the Minister in any way to beat a path to my clerks and my chambers to pay the bill.

I should also declare an interest as a former lecturer and a member of Action against Medical Accidents—AvMA. I have written extensively on this area and am a member of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers. I have given instructions to a multitude of different hospitals up and down the country, assisting them on how they can avoid clinical negligence claims. I was retained as counsel for several hospital and trust institutions, advising on how to avoid these claims and how to move forward. I should also declare an interest in that I am part of the team pushing for a culture of openness and have met the hon. Member who so very helpfully saved my life in May, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter). So I have also conducted an in-depth study of the NHS over the past six months in a way that I did not expect when I was first elected.

My final declaration is that I have great respect for the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), who occupies part of a seat that I fought in 2005 of the Lleyn valley and peninsula in what was Caernarfon. I know that he is an outstanding MP and barrister and I have great respect for the points that he makes, as I do for the submissions and proposals of the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner).

Let me address the proposals of the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd regarding the duty to come clean. It must surely be the case that NHS authorities should come clean at an early stage and I endorse some of the comments that were made about this being something to be addressed not so much in the Bill as in the NHS’s culture and approach. I regret to say that I disagree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) about this, and I have a copy of an article that I wrote for an Association of Personal Injury Lawyers publication on this exact point. In my experience there is ample evidence of isolated examples of an NHS trust deliberately defending a claim on an ongoing basis in the hope that the relevant individual goes away. That is a serious allegation to make, but it is not just me who says it—cases have been reported. I recommend very highly the amazingly well-written edition of APIL PI Focus, volume 20, issue 3, which I co-authored, which addresses that particular point.

[Stephen Phillips]

I make it clear for the fourth time that I have no experience in this area, and I have no doubt that such cases exist, but are they not exactly the sort of case that the civil procedure rules were introduced to deal with? Judges have powers to ensure equality of arms and if defendants behave badly they ought to be punished accordingly.

[Guy Opperman]

I totally endorse that point and such defendants are punished accordingly, particularly in the punitive elements of costs when they are assessed. There are punitive factors that my hon. and learned Friend as a judge would know one is able to impose in a civil court whereby—[Interruption.] I accept that he is not a civil judge—it shows. There is an ability to punish the offending NHS institution or doctor, but the fair point that has been raised and must be addressed is that the powers that would exist to a civil judge, were my hon. and learned Friend to be one, would arise quite far down the track in civil litigation and not at the outset. I come back to the legitimate and fair point that we should address this issue to NHS trusts and particularly to two types of individual, including, first, to chief executives. Regrettably, there are examples of a failure of leadership by chief executives because, clearly, they are mindful of their budgets and they do not like the idea of a culture of openness in which mistakes are admitted. In those circumstances, whether implicitly or directly, efforts are made to suppress litigation against NHS trusts.

The second group of individuals who should be involved is doctors and consultants. Because theirs is such a hierarchical profession, instead of having a culture of openness in which mistakes are readily admitted, there is, sadly, from time to time—I have professional experience of this—a failure to admit mistakes. As the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East will sadly and tragically have discovered—and I have been involved in several such meetings—there is a post-operative debrief within the health service.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

This is not really my field, but I know from my constituents that a large number of them who have experienced difficulties in the NHS are extraordinarily concerned about the lack of transparency and the weight of expertise against them, because they are not, of course, particularly skilled in that area. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is one of the big problems we need to address, as I hope we are doing in the Bill?

[Guy Opperman]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, but I will not deal with it in any great detail—I mean no disrespect to him—because I wish to go back to the point I was making. We must have a system within the medical profession that allows its members to start to accept that it is perfectly understandable that mistakes are made, because they are human beings, and that there is insurance to cover such matters when they take place. With the best will in the world, that should be accepted. That recognition, however, does not exist to the degree that it should.

[Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend think that that phenomenon is unique to the medical profession? Does it apply to many other professions, including his former profession, the legal profession, where mistakes are not openly broadcast and are dealt with internally, often unofficially, rather than publicly?

[Guy Opperman]

I did not expect to be attacked by my own side for my former profession. I agree that we all need to accept that when we make mistakes we should own up to them, and that goes for politicians, too.

In fairness, I should speak to the amendments. Surely the point is that there should be a statutory duty of candour in the health service, and that is what is missing. If it needs any encouragement, I know of three separate reports that deal with it: the Levinson and Gallagher report, “Disclosing Harmful Medical Errors to Patients”; the Robins report in the Law Society Gazette; and “Why do patients complain?”, from the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers. All three reports, and reports from across the world—there is good evidence in Australia and New Zealand—show that where there is openness and admission of blame, the amount of litigation subsequently goes down, rather than up. For nine out of every 10 clients I saw as a professional barrister practising on clinical negligence, the first two questions they asked were: “Why did they not apologise?”; and “What will be done to ensure that it does not happen to anyone else?” Nine out of 10 clients would fully understand that no doctor gets up in the morning and makes a mistake deliberately. They understand that it is because they are making clinical errors under intense pressure. In that respect, those are the things that need to be addressed by the Health Secretary, rather than in the Bill.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Guy Opperman]

I will, but for the last time.

[Mrs Laing]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the difference between mistakes made by his profession, which is also my profession—I speak to him with sympathy—and those made by the medical profession is that in the case of the latter the consequences can be truly tragic and cannot be put right? Therefore, there must be some mechanism that is open, understandable and available to the public as a whole to try to help when something goes tragically wrong and affects a person’s life.

[Guy Opperman]

With respect, there are ways forward on those issues, not least the idea of a joint report to be completed by a defendant and the claimant together. It would be easy for the Health Secretary to address that by ordering individual chief executives, particularly in relation to cerebral palsy cases, to provide an independent expert’s report assessing the birth. If that happened, litigation would go down, as would the funding to the taxpayer, and we would have speedier and better resolution of these issues. I regret to say that those sorts of things have been said by a number of Members in both Houses in the past and no one has addressed it. However, I stress that that is a matter for the Health Secretary, rather than one that arises out of the Bill.

I am conscious of the time and want to address the other points that have been made; I apologise that I did not do this on Second Reading, but clearly I could not be present in the House at the time. I accept entirely the points made by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East about the fear of the loss of legal aid, and I will address individual children’s cases, in particular, in a moment. The fear of the loss of legal aid is not something that is new to the legal profession, or in relation to negligence or the practice of personal injury law. Those same issues arose throughout the 1990s and 2000 in relation to the Woolf reforms, and many of us who were practising barristers at the time were concerned that individual litigants would be unable to go to the personal injury courts or elsewhere and bring litigation. With no disrespect to the submissions made, the matter has not been resolved, and on this particular issue conditional fee agreements have without question filled the gap. They have been extremely successful—some, including certain Ministers, would say almost too successful—at filling the gap where legal aid previously existed.

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[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am not absolutely sure in my mind, so the hon. Gentleman might wish to indicate, whether he was intending to allow the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) to have a brief opportunity to speak. I do not know whether he was intending it, but if he is I am sure he will be approaching the conclusion of his remarks.

[Guy Opperman]

I am grateful for the advice and assistance, Mr Speaker, and I will conclude in approximately one and a half minutes—

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

Too long.

[Guy Opperman]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that observation—from his usual sedentary position. If he had taken more exercise, he could have stood up to say it.

In broad terms, will complex cases concerning children be subject to exceptional funding? That is the first point that the Minister needs to address.

The second point that I ask the Minister to take away with him is whether, in a complex child case and, particularly, in cerebral palsy cases, a joint or an independent report could not be commissioned, so that there is an assessment at that stage of whether there is a case to answer. If there is a case to answer, the obtaining of legal aid would clearly follow thereafter; if there is not, the matter would not proceed.

On that quiet note, and with apologies to the sedentary hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), I resume my seat.

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[Mr Djanogly]

My hon. Friend’s point goes back to children and their eligibility on the basis of income. A certificate is issued in the name of the minor or the patient and it is their resources that are assessed in the normal way, not those of the litigation friend, children’s guardian or guardian ad litem who is bringing or defending the proceedings on their behalf.

However, in family cases where the applicant for funding is a child, the resources of a parent, guardian or any other person who is responsible for maintaining him or her, or who usually contributes substantially to his or her maintenance, are required to be treated as his or her resources unless, having regard to all the circumstances, including the age and resources of the child and any conflict of interest, it appears inequitable to do so. The applying solicitor should submit appropriate means forms for the child and parents or others responsible for or contributing to his or her maintenance or, more usually in the first instance, explain in the application itself why non-aggregation of means would be appropriate in the circumstances of the particular case, having regard to the position of each of the parents or others on the issues in the case and the party status of the child.

Where children have sufficient understanding to decide that they want to seek an order in family proceedings for themselves and actually start proceedings, there may be no conflict with one or both parents and it may be reasonable to take the means of the parents, or one of them, into account. However, where a child is joined as a party in ongoing proceedings by an order of the court, the assessing officer is likely to accept that the party status of the child justifies non-aggregation.

I hope that that answers my hon. Friend’s point.

[Guy Opperman]

On the tricky issue of cerebral palsy among children, would the Minister consider persuading NHS trusts in all such cases, of which there are not many, to commission an independent report as a first step, before any application for legal aid is made?

[Mr Djanogly]

My response to that applies more broadly than to just cerebral palsy. We believe that the NHS Litigation Authority should more frequently take the initiative in the preparation of reports. Where possible, there should be joint reports, not least to help cases along more swiftly.

Our approach means that public funding will not be available for each and every claim involving a public authority, but it will be available for the most serious cases and to address serious abuses. Most claims for damages will be removed from the scope of legal aid because we have sought to focus our limited resources on cases where the client’s life, liberty, physical safety or home is at risk. Therefore, we do not consider that most claims seeking financial compensation from public authorities merit public funding. However, the Bill ensures that legal aid is available for the most serious damages claims that concern an abuse of position or power, or a significant breach of human rights by a public authority.

Gangs

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Caton, for allowing me three or four minutes to sum up this matter from the Back Benches. I speak as someone who spent 15 years at the criminal Bar. I was involved in nine different murder trials and prosecuted far too many punch-ups in the pub and knife crimes, in criminal courts up and down the country. I was also a specialist in relation to special educational needs and the special educational needs and disability tribunal. I advised multiple local authorities on the matter of statements.

I may represent 1,150 square miles of beautiful Northumberland countryside, but the east end of Hexham is a complex and difficult area. Sure Start, the Hexham East Number 28 project run by the Hexham community partnership and the Hexham East residents association, and the local police have dramatically turned the area around.

I notice that there is nobody here from Scotland, which is a great shame. Although I do not denigrate the amazing work that has been done by so many in London, there is no question that the essence of gangs derives from Scotland, both in relation to the knife crime that was alluded to by the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and the tremendous success in dealing with the issue. I applaud the work of Karen McCluskey who is pioneering the Community Initiative to Reduce Violence, which is based on Operation Ceasefire that was used in Boston. It is a fantastic scheme and should be supported. Sadly, because of illness, I missed the House’s debate on the riots, but the Prime Minister was right to praise and support the work of Karen McCluskey. Thanks to her there has been about a 50% reduction in murder and knife crime in her city. I urge the Minister to support her scheme and use it as a model to be rolled out in other places.

Finally, the vast majority of young men who were involved in the incidents in London and in various other parts of the country had a criminal record or had undergone some sort of custodial treatment, whether in a young offenders institution or in prison. Clearly, one cannot generalise but I must do my best in the minute that is left to me. The three issues that we must address in relation to young offenders institutions and prisons are literacy, which dovetails into education—clearly, the literacy and education of these young men and women is extremely poor—skills, and the revolution around drugs. If we address those issues, as part of the reform of prisons and young offenders institutions, we will be able to grab the people who have slipped through the net at an earlier stage.

Courts Service Estate

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

My hon. Friend made a very cogent case for the retention of his court, and put the local case very strongly. I have to say that the judgment was finely balanced, but ultimately this decision was taken because the utilisation rate in the Surrey courts has been below 80%, and transferring work to Staines and Guildford magistrates courts will result in the rate increasing to 89%.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I disclose my former profession as a barrister. Tynedale in Northumberland has almost 1,000 square miles without a court. The consultation used poor-quality figures and they were badly applied. If they are wrong, does the Minister accept that the claim is capable of judicial review?

[Mr Djanogly]

We do not believe that the figures we consulted on were wrong.

Police Funding

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. One thing I hope we can avoid at all costs is the kind of knee-jerk reaction that he mentioned. I would hate the police service to be subject to the same kind of reorganisation that we have had in the NHS in the past 20 years under the previous Government and the one before that.

I do not intend to go on for long, because many right hon. and hon. Members wish to contribute to the debate. The Home Affairs Committee hopes to assist the Government in this difficult process—we want to approach the proposals in a comradely and constructive way. I am glad to see so many members of the Committee in the Chamber. Our longest-serving and most distinguished member, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) is here, as are my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak. The hon. Members for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) and for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) are members of the Committee, and sitting behind them on the Government Benches is a non-member, the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti). The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) is also in the Chamber. She was a member of the Committee but was poached within weeks of her appointment by the Minister to become his Parliamentary Private Secretary. I am sure she is doing a great job.

The Committee has decided to undertake a trilogy of reports on three different aspects of the proposals to assist the Government. It is rather like “The Lord of the Rings”. We have just published our report on police and crime commissioners. As the Minister knows, members of the Committee have different views on the desirability of police and crime commissioners, but I hope he found our report helpful. It outlined a number of issues that we feel could be of value to the country.

We were very concerned that the figures for the cost of police and crime commissioners came out only after we had published our report. Indeed, the proposals came out on the very day that we published our report. Perhaps we can improve our co-ordination. I am not saying that we should be like “Strictly Come Dancing”, but if the Government and the Committee communicated a little bit better, we might be able to see the proposals before we commence our reports, which would make what we say more valuable.

The second report was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak and my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth, and we will look at the CSR in the light of the decisions that the Minister will make imminently about how much police forces will have as part of that second report on a reduction in police bureaucracy. There is common ground on both sides of the House about the need to reduce police bureaucracy. When my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) was the Minister with responsibility for the police, he also said that he wanted to cut red tape. In the 23 years I have been a Member of Parliament, Ministers have always said that they want to cut red tape, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we need to ensure that it actually is reduced. That is why I hope that Jan Berry will have her term as the police bureaucracy tsar renewed, so that rather than just writing a one-off report she can continue to monitor the situation.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that savings would have to be made whichever party was in government? Will he give us a preliminary figure that he—personally or as the Chair of the Committee—would accept for the reduction in police budgets and numbers?

[Keith Vaz]

I am afraid that I cannot give him a personal figure. The Committee has not met and has not discussed this matter, nor have we conducted our report. Members of the Committee would be most concerned if I started speaking on behalf of the Committee on a matter that we had not considered. I know that the hon. Gentleman has a great interest in policing matters, and we will look at this very carefully. We will of course take evidence from the police and from others.

The final report that we intend to produce is on the new landscape of policing. The Government have not finally decided precisely where every bit of the old landscape will fit in the new landscape and we hope to help by setting out a landscape that will be accepted by the Government and the Opposition, so that whatever happens on 5 May 2015—or whenever the fixed-term election will be held—and if the Labour party is returned to power, we will not have another reorganisation, as we have had in the health service. Let us reach a consensus about how to proceed.

To that end, I was very pleased that the Minister was able to come to the summit meeting that was organised in the constituency of the hon. Member for Cannock Chase a few weeks ago. I hope the Minister took away the message that there are stakeholders in the policing process who want to be engaged in what the Government are doing. We heard an excellent speech from my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary, and other Members of Parliament attended. We now have, in people such as Hugh Orde, Denis O’Connor, Paul Stephenson, Paul McKeever and others, some truly outstanding leaders in the profession, but we—Parliament and the Government—need to work together to ensure that we have a permanent landscape and to deal with the reductions in a particular way.

I am very concerned that there will be a reduction not only in the number of police officers but in the number of police community support officers. I was deeply concerned by the press statement issued by the chief constable of Lancashire police—which covers the area of Chorley, if my geography is correct, Mr Deputy Speaker—to the effect that every PCSO has been put on notice that they may lose their posts. They have been a terrific addition to policing.

I recently went to a residents meeting in London—I normally speak at residents meetings rather than attend them, but I was attending as a constituent of the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr Offord). The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) was also there. We heard an excellent presentation from a local PCSO about the work that he does, which includes reducing the work load of police officers, enabling them to do their jobs effectively.

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[Steve McCabe]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that point. He is absolutely right.

I have one last point to make. As I said at the outset, I am in favour of the Minister’s plans to try to modernise the police force and get greater efficiency. I genuinely wish him well, and I think that some of the things that he talks about are things that we should try to do. I also think that they need a longer lead-in time. Time will tell who is right about that. However, there is one priority that I would not adopt at the moment, especially against the background of the cuts and the reorganisation and efficiency changes that we are about to experience. I would not totally change the management and accountability structure of the police at the same time. It seems ludicrous that we should be subjected to the idea of elected police and crime commissioners now. It might be a good idea—although I think that the Minister is wrong about that as well—but what on earth is the pressing need for something that will have a further destabilising effect on the police, at the very time when they have all those other issues to contend with? If the proposal is a good idea, surely there is plenty of time to discuss it, and to pilot it and see what the consequences—the benefits and downsides—are.

[Guy Opperman]

In 2008, when the previous Government made the proposal and were considering it in their draft legislative programme, was my hon. Friend in favour of it or against it?

[Steve McCabe]

I am glad to hear that the hon. Gentleman is now my hon. Friend. I do not know whether that means that he shares some of my concerns about policing, or whether I have at least one ally on the Government Benches who will talk to the Minister about such issues. Actually, it was never the Labour Government’s proposal to have directly elected police commissioners, so no, I was never in favour of that.

This is not the time for that experiment. The Minister has enough on his plate. He needs to get on and get the best deal and the best arrangements that he can from his Treasury colleagues, in order to prevent some of our worst fears from being realised. He would be better off concentrating his energy on that. We can deal with the question of police commissioners another time. What is proposed sounds like a Government in too much of a hurry, with too few resources and too few of the right priorities. If the Minister gets this wrong, not only will he suffer personally in a ministerial capacity, but our constituents throughout the country will suffer as a consequence of reckless behaviour that damages the police.

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[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I have a background in criminal law, and have spent a large part of my time down the years prosecuting and defending people in various trials, including murder trials.

I have been out on the beat with members of the Hexham constabulary, who do an amazing job in supporting the police and the community. They undoubtedly need our support, and we should provide that support unequivocally—for the police force and for the operational command—if at all possible; but if we are to do that, we must change the position that we acquired on 7 May. There is currently a significant financial deficit, and that means that we must make choices. Whether we like it or not, we have had to make cuts. That gives no one any pleasure, but we have been forced to do it by our present position.

We are adopting a good procedure in attempting to do a series of things at the same time. There will be a settlement. My local chief constable, who has done an amazing job, wrote to me outlining the cuts that she might have to make, which are undeniably significant. My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) and others have pointed out that the cuts are a problem that we must address, but choices need to be made, and the chief constable is dealing with them very well. There will be a reduction of 450 officers or civilian staff. In this context, I should remind the House that she was the chief constable who looked after Raoul Moat and all the difficulties and problems that followed on from the events in the summer. She has done a sterling job in trying to hold everything together, but when I asked the Chairman of the Select Committee on Home Affairs what he would cut and what his approach would be, he initially said, “I can’t really answer that question,” but at the very end of his speech he said, “This will require the Home Secretary to go back to the Chancellor and ask for more money.”

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

Like the other Departments.

[Guy Opperman]

That is an interesting observation, but when the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) was Home Secretary he famously said there would not be enough money to pay for various things, and the home affairs budget would clearly have gone down. It is not in dispute that that will present the Department with a significant problem. Efforts are being made, but a choice had to be made, and I applaud the Government on the choice they made and for going ahead with it.

I asked the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) whether he supported the police and crime commissioner changes. We find from talking to our constituents that the centralisation of control under Labour over the past 13 years is a significant problem. The legislation that the Labour Government brought in put ever more work under Whitehall control. The Home Secretary was given ever stronger powers to intervene and to direct police authorities. Labour’s approach failed to recognise the fundamental problem of policing, which is that those who should be in the driving seat, and those who suffer when things do not work, are the public, not the Government.

In the last year prior to the change in Government there were 52 documents of central policy guidance, and a further 60 on planning. The average length of the manuals was just under 100 pages, and they included 4,000 new promises. The principle is very simple: the police are there to serve the local community, not Whitehall, but for too long they have been serving Whitehall.

[Jack Dromey]

The hon. Gentleman’s esoteric dissertation on central Government diktats is all very interesting, but does he not accept this simple reality: as a consequence of what Whitehall is now doing in front-loading major cuts to the police service—7% and 6% in the first two years—local police services generally are faced with a nigh-on impossible problem and the West Midlands police service in particular will lose 400 police officers by 1 April next year?

[Guy Opperman]

I make this simple point: what would Labour have cut? All parties would now be facing this difficulty and, frankly, it is fanciful to argue there would not have been any cuts whatever to, say, the Birmingham or Northumberland police forces.

I want to turn now to the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill. When under the leadership of the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), Labour planned for elected representatives. In the 2008 draft legislative programme it announced that its Policing and Crime Bill would include proposals to provide

“a clear and powerful public voice in decision making through directly elected representatives”.

To my untutored mind, having done nearly 20 years at the Bar, that sounds remarkably similar to what we are introducing now. Labour referred to elected representatives in a policing Green Paper published in July 2008. I accept that I was in another place.

[Chris Ruane]

The House of Lords?

[Guy Opperman]

No, you are wrong. The promotion is delightful, but it is premature. Mention has been made of “Strictly Come Dancing” and other things, but I was not in the House of Lords then. Instead, I was probably somewhere near the Old Bailey. My point is that even Ed Balls has conceded that there is more to do on accountability.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. When Members are mentioned they must, of course, be referred to by their constituency not their name, and there must also be no references to “you” or to “me”—after all, I have made no decisions in this area.

[Guy Opperman]

The shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), has said that there is more to do in respect of accountability, and there is more we can do to deepen local and force-based accountability in policing.

[Mr Winnick]

If I understand correctly, the hon. Gentleman was criticising the previous Government for having proposed elected police commissioners and for then abandoning the idea. That is what happened, but that is part of the democratic process. The Home Affairs Committee—which by no means has the final say in such matters—heard representations from the police authorities and senior police officers. We discussed the matter and we came to the conclusion that the Government should not go ahead with the idea. That was not decisive in influencing the Government, but there is nothing wrong with a Government listening, and in my view they made the right decision.

[Guy Opperman]

There were two efforts in respect of this particular proposal, and it is right that certain people have had reservations as time has passed, but let me give one particular example. Sir Hugh Orde was previously a very vocal critic, even predicting that some officers would resign, but following the Queen’s Speech he has changed his position. He now welcomes a commitment to local accountability and says he would work with the Government to protect operational independence. As he put it:

“Policing has always been about serving and answering to local communities. Those are the origins of policing in this country and chief officers”—

and I stress this point—

“welcome the commitment towards local accountability.”

I should also make the point that this proposal has not come from out of the blue. It has been proposed in the past, and it has also been tried in different contexts in America. If we can harness this new proposal and reform the justice system in the way that, without a shadow of a doubt, it requires, we can make a genuine effort to engage in a three-pronged attack to take this matter forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

No, it has always been the case that some people are held indeterminately, and certainly those on life sentences. The purpose of IPP sentences was to have a sentence below a life sentence for dangerous people for whom life was not quite justified. The right hon. Gentleman will accept that such sentences never worked as intended, which is why, when he was Secretary of State, he introduced an Act of Parliament to try to correct some of the mistakes that had been made. We are now considering how the sentence works in practice, and we will introduce considered proposals in due course.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

2. What proposals he is considering to increase the level of efficiency in the administration of justice.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

Following the spending review, the Ministry of Justice must make a total budgetary saving, including resource and capital spending, of 25% in real terms between 2010-11 and 2014-15.

[Guy Opperman]

I remind the House of my former profession of barrister. Eleven years ago, the Labour Government introduced the Woolf reforms, which changed all manner of process in the civil courts. What detailed proposals does the Minister have for the same telephone case management in criminal work, particularly post-not guilty pleas, and after-guilty pleas and sending matters for pre-sentence report?

[Nick Herbert]

We are certainly interested in improving the efficiency of justice by looking at case management, and some encouraging pilots have been run in London, in which costs have been saved through integrated case management arrangements between the Crown Prosecution Service and the police. We are also very interested in employing the greater use of technology, such as virtual courts, and I would be very happy to talk to my hon. Friend about other ideas as well.

Legal Aid and Civil Cost Reform

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

Given the restrictions that will apply in relation to education funding, can we be clear that there will be no legal aid funding, in whatever way, for special educational needs provision or other forms of education work?

[Mr Clarke]

Not normally, unless in an exceptional case we are under a legal obligation to provide legal aid. Education cases include all kinds of things, such as litigation regarding exclusion of particular pupils, and whether someone has been granted a place at the school of their children’s preference and so on. All such disputes can be litigated. The special educational needs cases are the most difficult. I repeat what I said before: these are educational problems, and there should be a process of resolving them that does not involve going all the way through the courts. I heard that the Supreme Court was hearing a special educational needs case. Although I am sure it came to the right decision, I am not sure whether it was the best way to resolve the problems of how to educate a particular child with particular problems.

Courts Service

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

Hexham constituency used to have three magistrates courts and now we have only one. We are the second biggest constituency in England and, if Tynedale magistrates court goes, an area well in excess of 1,150 square miles will have no magistrates court whatsoever. I have great sympathy with the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), whose position is similar to mine. As a former practising member of the Bar I find the idea that that would work on a regular basis astonishing.

[Mr Jim Hood (in the Chair)]

Order. For his two minutes the hon. Gentleman should face the Chair.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

I am sorry, Mr Hood.

From many parts of the constituency there is no bus that would get me to Newcastle or Bedlington in the morning. The Government will clearly have to examine the way in which they look after rural services. Rural services and the rural economy must be reappraised. Many things have happened in the past, but I should not like the first step of this Government to be the immediate institution of a situation in which there is no magistrates court for 1,200 square miles.

Defendant Anonymity

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies]

No, I would not agree. I heard of a recent case where such suggestions were made about clothing and all the rest of it by the barrister in putting the defendant’s case. That is still the backdrop. We can all pretend that we do not live in the environment in which we do. The environmental context is pulled in when such cases are considered, and that is another reason why people do not want to come forward. They say, “Oh no, I was out on a Saturday night and I’d had a few drinks, so it’s an I-was-asking-for-it type of thing.”

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

To be fair, in the past 13 years, the hon. Gentleman’s own Government made immense efforts with the judiciary to change previous judicial thinking, however misinformed it may have been, as the judiciary would tell him. The previous Government did a huge amount; does he not agree with that?

[Geraint Davies]

I must agree with that. A huge amount was done by the previous Government in this direction; that is completely true. My simple point is that the statistical backdrop is horrendous, the direction of travel of the proposal is regressive, and the cultural backdrop is sexist. As was said, the previous Government did a lot to move in the other direction. As was pointed out by the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), the sort of arguments that I mentioned are frowned on, but what about the image of the system held by the people whom it serves? We have a situation where 100,000 people are not coming forward into that system because they have no confidence in it. At the same time, a dog whistle is being blown, as regards defendant anonymity. I genuinely think that such anonymity will protect more serial rapists and lead to more rape.

This is a key moment for the Government, with regard to the future of justice in cases of sexual violence. I very much hope that they pull back from what I regard as a retrograde, regressive, sexist and backward position.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

Like many people in this debate, I have specific experience of the problems, having served as a prosecution barrister on behalf of the Attorney-General for many years and, more specifically, having run a free representation unit that provided criminal injuries compensation assistance, and having worked with Victim Support. In fact, the previous Government gave me an award for the work that we did for Victim Support; I accept that that will not happen ever again, but I pray in aid the fact that that award was for the work that we were trying to do on behalf of those who were so grievously affected by the issue that we are discussing.

I would like to think that we have grasped an important, serious issue, but we have done it improperly. The coalition agreement says:

“We will extend anonymity in rape cases to defendants”,

when ideally it should say, “We will consult on the issue.” If it had said that, many things would have been a lot easier, as they also would have been if it had followed the Select Committee on Home Affairs 2003 report in respect of sexual offences. We all understand that mistakes may have been made in the drafting of the coalition agreement, and I see no difficulty in these matters being reconsidered and handled in a better way upon reasoned conclusion over the coming months and years.

All of us must accept that the conviction rate is too low, and all of us must also accept—as I attempted to explain in my intervention on the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies)—that much was done by the police and the previous Government, following on from work done down through the years, to provide greater assistance on this issue, and it continues to be done.

I comprehensively reject the idea that the judiciary are fundamentally biased against individual persons. That is not the experience of those of us who have spent a lot of time in the courts. Whatever may have happened in the past, my experience is that it does not happen in the present day and age.

I support the broad principle that we should consult on, and review, this issue. There is rightly considerable concern that people who are acquitted of certain offences should not have their lives ruined—and in some cases their lives are comprehensively ruined. It is accepted that in some types of cases, particularly serial rapist and sex offender cases, the widespread publication of certain details makes a difference to the conviction. That is one of the inherent flaws in the argument for going down the proposed route, but it is patently possible—this is done in a variety of other scenarios in judicial contexts—for these situations to be dealt with in a way that allows judicial flexibility. Also, the police can in certain limited instances apply to publicise such details precisely because they wish to go down what we might call the Warboys route as they think there are other related sexual offences and they want them to come to light. That similar fact evidence is already inherent in the system and followable in the system.

However, I have represented someone who was wrongly convicted of a criminal offence. I have absolutely no doubt of his innocence, but that gentleman was convicted and it took me one year and about two weeks to get the Court of Appeal to overturn the decision. That young man was desperately affected, and I do not think he will ever be the same again. It was no comfort thereafter that the individuals involved were subsequently prosecuted. That is but one example of many. Plenty of other people, such as Peter Bacon and Matthew Kelly, have been in similar situations where these matters coming to light makes life very difficult.

We should look back at the best evidence. For me, that comes at present from the Home Affairs Committee 2003 report. It is worth while contemplating the fact that some sensible and very serious luminaries were serving on the Committee at the time: Janet Dean, Chris Mullin, Bridget Prentice, the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), Gwyn Prosser, the hon. Members for Bradford West (Mr Singh) and for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson), Ann Widdecombe, the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick), my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), the current Prime Minister. Those are the names listed on the Home Affairs Committee 2003 report, and their proposals were clear. As was explained by the current Select Committee Chairman, there were good reasons why on balance they came down in favour of anonymity not for rape specifically, but for sexual offences. As is well known, they had the support of the Metropolitan police, which is relevant because the police have been often mentioned today. They had that support because the Metropolitan police made the point in relation to sexual offences, particularly sexual offences involving children, that the publicity was damaging for everyone involved, not just the defendant.

So I submit that the favouring of the move is based on the current evidence that is best before us, and that evidence comes from the Home Affairs Committee. I endorse, however, the proposals of the Chairman of that Committee and the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) that this is patently something that should proceed by way of proper consultation, ideally by both that Committee and the Select Committee on Justice working together and addressing all the evidence as they progress. I am certain that if they did that, a productive and useful process would be engaged in and the matter would move forward.

I wish briefly to discuss the issue of teachers and doctors, because I endorse entirely the proposals in respect of them, having also represented teachers who have been affected and been subject to allegations. This is a question that this House has to grasp, because although schools are not being paralysed, they are being considerably affected by the way in which teachers are struggling to cope with these issues. I finish by saying that I support the proposal in broad terms, but it is capable of great improvement.