Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Goodman Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Damian Green
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I look forward to receiving the Select Committee report on this matter, which we are expecting shortly. I am happy to assure my hon. Friend that we are working not only with other Departments, including the Department for Communities and Local Government, but with the Youth Justice Board to ensure that young people have access to suitable accommodation on release from custody. The YJB is also working to improve resettlement on release from custody by encouraging local services to work more collaboratively to ensure that young people have suitable accommodation, which is an essential step in stopping them reoffending.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Under Labour, the number of first-time offenders fell by a third. Does the Minister believe it is realistic to think that that trend can continue when the cuts to local authorities are as deep as they are? He says he has a co-ordinated approach, but what is happening in practice?
Damian Green
I am happy to tell the hon. Lady that I do not need to project that things are carrying on in the right direction—they are carrying on in the right direction. In the past year, the number of first-time entrants to the youth justice system has fallen by 20%, from 45,900 to 36,700. I am grateful to her for giving me the chance to give those figures to the House.
Damian Green
I agree with my hon. Friend, not least because although they are police and crime commissioners, people may have focused too much on the policing aspect. The crime reduction aspect is at the heart of what these new elected bodies will do, and crime prevention and some of the things that we have been discussing earlier this morning, such as restorative justice, will play a very important part in each locality in improving the criminal justice system and improving public confidence in the criminal justice system. The PCCs will play a significant part in that.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Harassment, threatening behaviour and bullying on social media are all increasing. What training has the Department put in place to enable probation officers, magistrates, judges and the court services to deal with that?
Jeremy Wright
The hon. Lady is right that it is an increasing problem, and we will want to ensure that all those who have responsibility in this area understand it, and understand the reach of it. Of course, she will be aware that it is a problem that has, sadly, found its way into prisons also, so we want to ensure that we do everything we can to stamp it out, as she says.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Goodman Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
I absolutely believe that a householder who finds themselves in the unbelievably stressful situation of facing a violent intruder should believe that the law is on their side. I give my hon. Friend an assurance that I will make sure that that happens.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
18. If he will assess the effectiveness of the fitness tests that prisoner officers are required to take.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)
Prison Service fitness assessments test whether prison officers are capable of safely and competently carrying out control and restraint procedures on prisoners when necessary. The assessment has been validated by academic study. As with all Prison Service policies, it will be kept under review.
Helen Goodman
I am sure that the Minister has not yet had time to do the test, but it already means that a large number of prison officers are retired every year. Does he think that it is realistic for people to pass the test when he is raising the retirement age to 68?
Jeremy Wright
The hon. Lady is right; I have not yet had the chance to do the test, but I have to tell her that I fancy my chances, because I understand that the pass rate is something like 99%. For her reassurance, the pass rate for those prison officers who are over 60 is something like 98%. It is worth making the point that most of our constituents would regard it as sensible that prison officers, who have to do difficult, challenging and sometimes very physical work, are fit enough to do it.
Defamation Bill
Helen Goodman Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Jeremy Wright
I understand exactly what the right hon. Gentleman is saying, but he will appreciate that the limits of the Bill are quite constrained, and it is difficult within the confines of our discussion on Report to cover all the issues he raises. What I will say is that clause 5 attempts to strike a balance between protecting freedom of speech on the internet, which he and I are both in favour of, as I am sure is the whole House, and ensuring that there is a quick and effective method by which those who, for example, have their biographies on Wikipedia amended can address the wrong that is done to them. That is the balance we are attempting to strike and that we believe is struck by clause 5 as it stands, which is why I am afraid we cannot support amendment 7. We stand by clause 5 but believe that it can be improved, which is why we ask the House not only to reject amendment 7, but to accept amendments 5 and 6 and new clause 1.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Government new clause 1, Government amendments 5 and 6 and our amendment 7. Like the Minister, I will speak to them in that order. I would like to begin by welcoming the new ministerial team. It is great to see them in their places. We in the Opposition hope that they will have a more flexible approach—it already looks as though they will. I pay particular tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant). She is only the second black woman to speak from the Government Dispatch Box, and it is a great credit to her that she has achieved that.
New clause 1 will enable the court to order a website operator to remove material if it has been found to be defamatory. That follows amendment 44, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly) in Committee. It covers the point where website operators behave in an irresponsible manner and authors cannot remove the material. I must say that some cold water was poured on the proposal by the ministerial team at the time, who were very reluctant to consider it, but, lo and behold, when we saw the notice of amendments on Monday and the Under-Secretary of State’s letter on Tuesday, we found that the Government have thought again and tabled the new clause. We think that is sensible and in line with the issues we raised in Committee, so we support the change.
Amendment 5 is about what identifying the author actually means. It states:
‘For the purposes of subsection (3)(a), it is possible for a claimant to “identify” a person only if the claimant has sufficient information to bring proceedings against the person.’
That follows the spirit, if not the precise wording, of amendment 18, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello), and amendment 42, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, in Committee. The purpose of both amendments was to clarify the situation in which the defence is defeated because the claimant could not identify the author. Again, the Minister at the time, the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), said that he would consider it but was not very promising. He said that amendment 42
“would effectively require the website operator to provide the claimant with information that they are unlikely to hold, and that they would, in many cases, find difficult to obtain. The amendment would defeat the simple system that the Government intend to establish”.
On amendment 20, he said that the Government did not consider the processes set out in the Opposition’s amendments to be appropriate. He said:
“The aim of clause 5 is to remove the threat of liability from website operators provided that they assist claimants to identify an author of allegedly defamatory material. That process, which will be set out in regulations, will be quick, clear and practical.”––[Official Report, Defamation Public Bill Committee, 21 June 2012; c. 108-111.]
He went on to say that the Opposition amendments cut across the desire for a simple process.
We are very pleased to see Government amendment 5, which responds to the concerns we raised in Committee and it will ensure that claimants are not left in a position where they have insufficient information to take effective action against an author and would be prevented from defeating the web operator’s defence. We say amen to this amendment. However, I have some questions about amendment 5 and its coverage, which I hope the Minister will be able to clarify in his response. The first is the difficult issue of jurisdictions.
There are two aspects to jurisdiction and we discussed them in Committee. The first is the simple case in which the claimant is a UK citizen and the author is identified but lives in a foreign jurisdiction. In that instance, it might be fairly straightforward to bring proceedings in some foreign jurisdictions—if the author were French, for example, it would be a fairly straightforward matter. One can think of other places, however, such as the former Soviet states or some parts of Africa, where it would be extremely difficult to bring proceedings. The person might be properly identified, but because of the jurisdictional difficulties, it would be hard to bring proceedings. Does the Minister think this international problem is resolved? I suspect that it is not, so the Minister needs to tell us whether it is his intention to crack it or whether he thinks it is too difficult to handle here. I hope we will hear something about what can be done about this international problem.
The second type of international problem is where we have a sort of dog-legging situation: the claimant is in this country, the website operator is abroad, the author is in this country and the website operator is not playing by the rules. I would like the Minister to respond to this problem.
Amendment 6 deals with the “defence is not defeated through moderation” theme. It relates to amendment 17 that was moved in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South. The Minister responded to what we proposed by saying that the defence was not affected by having a policy of amending content in terms of moderation. This is an important issue for raising the tone on the web. I have had conversations with local newspaper editors who say that they do not want to moderate abusive language because they have been told that, as the law stands, they then become liable for defamatory statements. Obviously, if we want people to use the web, we want the tone of debate on it to be civilised and reasonable. It is important that moderation that neither enhances a defamatory statement nor removes a defence against such a statement be allowed. To this extent, we believe that amendment 6 is a good one. We are pleased that the Minister has brought it forward; it was backed by the Joint Committee on the draft Bill, too. Of course, the former Minister, the hon. Member for Huntingdon, said that the amendment was not necessary, but I am pleased that the new team sees that it is.
I deal now with amendment 7, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South. I do not want anyone to think that, having accepted the Government’s improvements to clause 5, which is an extremely weak part of the Bill, we are somehow being churlish in wanting to debate leaving out that clause. When we say we would like to see clause 5 left out, we do not mean that the issue of web operators and defamation on the web should not be addressed. Obviously, we mean that we need a more thorough reform than has been offered by the changes announced by the Minister this lunch time. Let me spell out to the Minister in a little more detail what we see as the remaining problems with clause 5. I shall set out our concerns and I hope that he will take them into account and consider looking further at clause 5—if not today, then when the legislation goes to the other place, which is more likely.
Defamation Bill
Helen Goodman Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Sadiq Khan
I thank my hon. Friend for giving the important and outrageous example of people being trolled. It is worth saying for clarity that the clause deals only with defamation cases. I would not want the public to think that it was a panacea for all sorts of outrageous behaviour that takes place on the internet. He is right to remind us that other legislation, including criminal law, needs to be updated to allow authorities to take action against those who troll against innocent victims. We are all aware of the case of our colleague, the hon. Member who had outrageous words said against her, leading to a successful prosecution. If there is a lacuna, it needs to be filled, but we should be clear that clause 5 deals simply with cases in which a defamation claim is made.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
The situation that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) mentioned has two aspects to it. One is the aspect of comments appearing on a website, with which my right hon. Friend has dealt, but there is also the question whether defamation can be against a deceased person. The Bill does not address that. Does my right hon. Friend believe that it should be considered in Committee?
Sadiq Khan
As my hon. Friend will know, it has always been the case that a dead person’s estate cannot sue for defamation. It is worth the Public Bill Committee considering the issue of deceased people’s reputations and the injury that defamation causes to their family. I am not sure whether the Joint Committee did so. However, there are very good reasons why a deceased person’s estate has never been able to sue for defamation.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries), who has spoken a lot of common sense this afternoon. I recognise her descriptions of constituency cases. A constituent of mine who was a victim of domestic violence has been defamed in a newspaper, the family of a murder victim was trolled by the offender’s family, and there is also the case of the family of a soldier who died in Afghanistan, about whom remarks were made which, had he lived, would have been defamatory. All these cases are very alarming and serious.
The police are not up to speed on such internet crimes. When we go to the police with such issues, their mentality is such that they in effect say, “Well, it’s on the internet, so it can’t be too serious. Don’t worry about it.” As the hon. Lady pointed out, however, such cases are very serious.
The previous Labour Government initiated post-legislative scrutiny. I do not know whether the coalition Government are continuing with it, but it provides an opportunity for checking and reviewing the effectiveness of legislation.
While at the other end of town Lord Leveson is examining the practices and ethics of the press and is mainly focused on its misbehaviour, it is a pleasure to have before us a Bill which will perhaps offer a more positive agenda and support good quality journalism.
Change is undoubtedly needed, which is why the manifestos of all three main parties contained commitments on libel reform. There are four glaring problems. The first is access to justice, which is clearly lacking for most people. I do not know why, but libel in the UK is much more expensive than it is in other countries. Secondly, there is the problem of libel tourism, when cases that have nothing to do with British citizens are brought through the English courts. Thirdly, there is the chilling impact on scientific debate when legitimate criticism, especially of large companies and their products, is sometimes suppressed. Other Members have referred to the cases of Simon Singh and Peter Wilmshurst. Finally, the law needs to be brought up to date to address the new technologies and the internet.
I welcome the Government’s intentions in bringing forward the Bill, but I have some doubts about whether it goes far enough. I hope that the Bill Committee will consider making changes so that we do not miss the opportunities that the Bill presents. Ministers need to make it clear what they mean by “serious harm”: it must relate to reputation and not just to material harm. I agree that the threat of bringing libel proceedings as part of reputation management must end, but we need greater clarity from Ministers than we have had so far.
The Bill introduces a defence of “Responsible publication on matter of public interest”, in clause 4. That is an improvement and should strengthen journalists’ freedom to undertake serious investigations. Of course, everyone in the House favours a free press and wants it to fulfil one of its key roles in an open society of uncovering corruption and wrongdoing. Quite rightly, this defence should facilitate that. I am sympathetic to Ministers’ unwillingness to define “public interest” but I hope that they will be able to give some examples. For example, do they share the definitions in the current Press Complaints Commission code and Crown Prosecution Service guidance? It would be helpful to acknowledge that public interest covers both substance—the importance of the issue being debated—and process: how thoroughly journalists have checked the story they are publishing. What is not quite clear is why and in what respects the Bill has departed from the Reynolds defence. It does not match the Reynolds defence exactly and it would be helpful if Ministers explained why they have chosen to change the Reynolds defence in a number of respects.
Clause 5, “Operators of websites”, looks too weak in the sense that by abandoning the publishing role that exists for parallel situations in other media—for example with the letters column of a newspaper or the broadcasting of a TV chat show—clause 5(2) makes things very hard for a person who is defamed on the web because they would have to track down the originator even if they had been given the address by the website’s operator. That seems rather unfair. Surely it should be a basic principle, which we should establish across the board, that the net is not outside the law and cannot be, like the forest in the 14th century and the time of Robin Hood, a place of pure anarchy. The rights and responsibilities that we have developed in the real world should be reproduced in the virtual world. In some respects the net is different in that it is large, vast and global, so we cannot simply have the same rules to secure the same outcomes, but unless we tackle websites rather more effectively than the Bill appears to, I fear that a massive loophole will remain. One problem is that the measures produce unfair competition for newspapers, which are bound by more restrictive and tighter definitions.
Zac Goldsmith
Does the hon. Lady agree that there has to be a sense of realism in relation to the web? If every defamatory comment posted on Twitter, Facebook and so on was followed up with some kind of state action we would need a new Government just to police the web. That would be structurally and practically impossible. There has to be a sense that if a lonely Twitter tweeter with 15 followers were to make an insulting comment, that could not be anything like as serious as its being made by someone with 1 million followers. There has to be recognition of the fan base or platform at which insults are hurled.
Let me make one further point about the internet.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. That was a very long intervention, much as it might have been appreciated by hon. Members. If the hon. Gentleman wants to make a longer intervention—it is called a speech—he can try to catch my eye.
Helen Goodman
The hon. Gentleman’s intervention was so long that I cannot remember what he said, but I know that when I was listening I agreed with both his major points.
The solution of notice and takedown proposed by the Joint Committee on the draft Bill is a good, pragmatic one, recognising that although we cannot legislate for the net in exactly the same way as we do for other areas, we can reproduce the rights and responsibilities in the real world. I must say to Ministers, however, that given that the Joint Committee report was produced last October, they ought by now to have got parliamentary counsel to have drafted the regulations, so that we could see them and be confident that they were right.
Clause 10 is extremely welcome. We should probably call it the Private Eye clause. For years, high street newsagents refused to stock the Eye because they thought they might be sued over its potentially litigious content. The clause is welcome, therefore, given that we are all deeply dependent on the Eye for keeping up to speed with what is going on.
As is often the case with this Government, however, the problem is not so much with what is in the Bill as with what is not in it. There is nothing to tackle the lack of access to justice for ordinary people, whether as claimants or defendants. That inequity was demonstrated in the case of Trafigura, which damaged the environment in Ivory Coast, and in the case of Barclays and Freshfields concerning tax avoidance. Those large corporations were able to hide and threaten The Guardian, which was trying to publish stories about them. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly) will say more about those cases. When I am told, not by the editor of The Guardian but by the editor of another quality national newspaper, that his major, No. 1 problem is oligarchs threatening to sue his newspaper when he tries to report on them, I know we have a problem that needs addressing. The Libel Reform campaign, which campaigned for the Bill, has called for it to include a clause requiring non-natural persons to show actual or likely financial harm. The campaign is right. Such a clause should be inserted and would be a helpful strengthening of the Bill.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) said, the Government have done nothing to right the wrong of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 through their failure properly to implement the Jackson proposals on no win, no fee cases. The McCann and Dowler families would not have been able to take the newspapers to court under the laws that the Government have implemented. That is a complete disgrace. We want a justice system available to all and a free and responsible press, but we will not achieve the latter without the former.
Sadiq Khan
My hon. Friend is talking about access to justice. Does she accept that if the Government took on board the Joint Committee’s recommendation to have alternative dispute resolution much earlier, it would reduce costs and improve access to justice, notwithstanding her concerns about the changes in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act?
Helen Goodman
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. A further thing that we need to tease out is whether as much as possible has been done in the Bill to bring down the costs of libel cases. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively—if not this afternoon, in Committee.
Mr Buckland
My hon. Friend is right. However, we must always bear in mind the ineluctable fact that primary legislation, however useful it is, can often be seen as setting in stone, or setting in a particular moment in time, the law as it then stood. Because of the inevitable pressures in this place of the other priorities that we have to deal with, there is a danger that legislation does not keep pace with change and is not as flexible as judge-led law.
Helen Goodman
Surely the point made by the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) was that if we have the right architecture in the legislation, we can change the secondary legislation in a more flexible way as technology changes. I think that we can deal with technological development and that we should not be so nervous about it.
Mr Buckland
There is always tension in the minds of parliamentarians between wanting, quite naturally, to see as much detail as possible in primary legislation, because not only is that an accountable and democratic way of dealing with things, but it allows for full and fair debate, and the need to allow for flexibility through the use of secondary legislation. The hon. Lady’s point is an important one. Often in this place, in our enthusiasm to make primary legislation as prescriptive as possible, we fall foul of the danger that I highlighted just before her intervention.
The evolution of the law of reputational damage is interesting to note. In the 19th century, damage to reputation was seen as a very significant factor indeed. Reputation was seen as part of the property of an individual and something to be highly valued. It is interesting to note that at that time, when the privacy of the rich and powerful was easily protected—much more easily than it is now—the only windows into the private lives of the rich and influential were trials for libel. The evidence would be heard, sometimes by a shocked jury. Notable members of society would be brought to court to give evidence. The Prince of Wales gave evidence in a trial in the 1890s during the famous baccarat scandal. That arose from a libel action.
We have a somewhat romanticised view of libel, which stems to a large degree from the Oscar Wilde trials. It is important to remember that the first trial involving Oscar Wilde was the prosecution for criminal libel of the Marquess of Queensberry. It was not a civil case, but a criminal one. Through what would be regarded, on any objective analysis, as the clever advocacy of Sir Edward Carson, that criminal prosecution failed and, famously, the tables were turned on Oscar Wilde. We all have views about the injustice that was meted out upon that gifted poet and author. His words echo down the years and are a reproach to a generation that sought to criminalise the acts that were the subject of those trials. Those trials have contributed to the romance that surrounds libel trials and the involvement of juries.
That is why, although the interventions on my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor about the right to trial by jury were interesting, I believe that clause 11 is an overdue measure that reflects the reality of the modern situation when it comes to civil libel trials in England and Wales.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Helen Goodman Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Clarke
The cases that the hon. Lady mentions do not depend on a lawyer. When the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) was sitting behind her in the previous debate, he said that in his experience as an MP, when one discusses the matter with somebody, one gets clarity on what the real point is and how they should present it. A general adviser can help to sort somebody out in going along to argue their case by telling them what is relevant and what is not and giving them some guidance on what they should get evidence of in order to pursue their claim. That is not the same as legal aid. That is why we are producing the money for Citizens Advice and other voluntary bodies to give general advice. It is no good claiming that it is all about legal aid. Some lawyers are better at this than others. Just a friend who is a good advocate can be adequate in marshalling a case that is being argued on appeal about a question of fact as to whether, say, somebody is able to go back to work.
Helen Goodman
It would help the House if the Secretary of State could tell us what he means by a point of law. Does he mean that it is a disagreement about the proper interpretation of the rules, or does he accept that it might be about whether the rules have been properly interpreted, which is not a dispute about facts?
Mr Clarke
It would be reckless of me to try off the cuff to make a tight definition of a point of law. It is about a situation where a particular question arises out of the interpretation of a regulation and there is no clear and binding precedent for exactly what the law should be when it comes to applying it to the set of facts involved, and it is then up to the tribunal judge to decide. Following the concessions that I have introduced about upper tribunal and Court of Appeal cases, the judge will certify that a point of law is involved in a case because he thinks that it is one in which the guidance of the upper tribunal or the Court of Appeal is required on what exactly the law will say that it means. That is what is meant by a point of law. We have made considerable concessions. No one is arguing about the vulnerability of groups of people who are arguing about their welfare benefits. The Bill is about how much money the taxpayer pays to how many lawyers. We are trying to concentrate on spending that money on paying lawyers for cases in which a lawyer is required to sort out a welfare benefit dispute. That is the basis on which our amendments were produced.
Let me turn finally, and as briefly as I can, to clinical negligence and legal services for children. That has been debated throughout the passage of the Bill in this House and in another place. We have listened carefully to the concerns that have been raised about the impacts of these reforms on children. I can again assure the House that the provisions in the Bill will safeguard the vast majority of the spend on cases involving children, because we have covered all the most serious cases of clinical negligence—about 96%.
I remind people that the underlying problem in the tricky area of clinical negligence cases is that all the money that we spend on compensation, legal advice, expert witnesses and so on comes out of the budget of the national health service. That now takes up a proportion of the NHS budget of a kind that I would never have contemplated all those years ago when I was a Health Minister struggling with what I thought were difficult budgets. The more one allows to be taken out of the budget for lawyers and expert witnesses in claims for compensation, the more one cannot ignore the impact that that is having on what is available for patient spend. There is no doubt that this has been a bit of a growth industry in recent years, particularly since the changes to the no win, no fee arrangements about 10 years ago. There has been an increase of 50% or so in the number of claims in the past five or six years. The last annual report of the NHS Litigation Authority estimated that the unfunded liabilities for clinical negligence claims totalled £16.8 billion, which is a cool doubling of the figure since 2006.
The bills paid to the lawyers of criminal negligence claimants more than doubled from £83 million in 2006-07 to £195 million in 2010-11. The damages paid to claimants have gone up somewhat more slowly, but the lawyers’ bills have increased substantially. One reason for that is that the fees paid to and costs incurred by the lawyers and expert witnesses acting for the plaintiffs are about three or four times as much as the Litigation Authority, as the defendant, pays for its lawyers and expert witnesses. The costs and the claims are rising exponentially. Although this is an area that we should approach with care, the clinical negligence industry has been doing well over recent years, and that has been funded entirely by budgets that would otherwise be available for patient care.
Having given that somewhat stark background, I will turn to Lords amendment 171, which seeks to bring all such cases back into the scope of legal aid when a child is a party. In our opinion, that would be unnecessary and wasteful. As I have said, under our plans, the overwhelming majority of the existing support for children will continue. For the record, that includes child protection cases, civil cases concerning the abuse of a child, special educational needs cases, and legal aid for children who are made parties to private family proceedings.
In addition, we have made funding available in the final set of amendments under consideration in this group for cases of clinical negligence involving claims for babies who suffer brain injury at or around the point of birth. I state categorically that as a result of the Government’s Lords amendment 216, any baby who, through clinical negligence, suffers brain damage during childbirth, resulting in severe disability, will receive legal aid. The amendment provides legal aid for clinical negligence claims for babies who suffer brain injury during pregnancy, at birth or in the immediate post-natal period, leading to a lifetime of care needs. I also make it clear that if a baby were to be injured in an operation, say at six months, legal aid would be available through the exceptional funding scheme, where necessary, to ensure the protection of the individual’s right to legal aid under the European convention on human rights.
When we introduced the Bill, we believed that we had covered all those cases through the exceptional funding scheme. Doubts were expressed continually in this House and in another place about that, so we now have this set of amendments to put it beyond doubt in the Bill.
By contrast, we cannot support Lords amendment 172, as I have said. That amendment would provide public funding for the remaining minority of medical negligence claims with child claimants, despite the fact that many of them are relatively simple, do not involve lengthy and detailed investigations of the kind that we are trying to catch in Lords amendment 216, and are suitable for funding through a conditional fee agreement in exactly the same way as for adults. In line with the principles that underpin the Bill, the state should not fund cases that can be provided for by alternative means.
Mr Clarke
Babies, yes, although exceptional funding rules will apply to other serious cases involving children. Under the European convention on human rights, one must plainly provide someone with access to funding to have a fair resolution of a dispute. We therefore think that we are covering most cases. The amendments that I am suggesting that the House should disagree with cover all kinds of routine cases. They state that simply because a person is under a particular age, they should get legal aid in cases for which an adult would not receive it.
Mrs Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
What a shambles. The Government have had more than a year to consider the Bill, and at the very last minute, with only two or three hours to consider this group of Lords amendments, they make an attempt at a concession on domestic violence. We welcome that concession, but I am afraid it does not go nearly far enough. I echo my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State in saying that this wide-ranging group of amendments demonstrates both the scale of opposition to the Bill and the Government’s failure throughout to provide sufficient time for deliberations on it. We have just two hours to consider the Government’s defeats on domestic violence, welfare benefits advice, children with civil justice problems and clinical negligence.
The Opposition will not press Lords amendment 2. Furthermore, given the Government’s amendment to Lords amendment 193, bringing it into line with Lords amendment 192, which was the result of a Division, we are satisfied that the Secretary of State now accepts the otherwise settled cross-governmental definition of domestic violence: any incident of threatening behaviour, violence or abuse, whether psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional, between individuals who are associated with each other. It is a shame that it has taken him so long to agree to something that is otherwise agreed on across Government, by external campaigners for women’s rights and by many Government Members. [Interruption.] I am glad the Lord Chancellor finds this so amusing.
Despite the Government’s acceptance of a common definition of domestic violence—a very welcome concession—there remain legitimate and pressing concerns that the Government seek to use an evidential gateway that in no way implements the spirit of the agreed definition.
Lords amendments 194 and 196 are the result of Government defeats in another place. They would place in statute forms of evidence that a victim can present to get the help that they need to escape their abuser and protect their children. That list of forms of evidence is already used by other Government agencies. For example, the UK Border Agency uses it for the purpose of proving abuse in immigration cases. It is not just Labour, nor the 84% of Cross Benchers who voted in favour of those amendments, who support the use of that list. Mumsnet, the Women’s Institute, Rights of Women, End Violence Against Women and more groups all warned that the Government’s originally proposed list of acceptable evidence would prevent many abused women from asserting their right to live free of violence.
The new list that the Lord Chancellor proposes significantly omits certain domestic violence services. In another place, my noble Friend Baroness Scotland put a case that I imagine helped to persuade him that she was right. It is a pity, however, that he seems unable to accept the list of forms of evidence that she proposed. She said:
“We should look at the average case, such as when a woman has run from her home. She manages to go to her GP”—
many such women do not—
“who sees the injuries and notes them and then sends her to hospital because there are fears that she may have cracked a rib or another bone. She is seen by the medical staff and they verify that the injuries that she complains of are genuine. Her neighbours may have come in to rescue her from an assault. They may not have seen the assault taking place but have noted what was happening and taken her away. Social services may have come along and examined the children, spoken to them and heard what they had to say. All of that might have been used by the police who then came along and arrested the man. He may then acknowledge that he has indeed committed the offences that are alleged against him. Even if all those things had happened, under these provisions the woman would not be entitled to legal aid.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 January 2012; Vol. 734, c. 595.]
I can see why the Lord Chancellor was persuaded by that, but it is a shame that he has not been persuaded to accept what Baroness Scotland went on to recommend. That cannot be right.
It is shambolic to present us with the new list at the very last minute. If the Government’s gateway excludes domestic violence cases from legal aid, it is not fit for purpose. Rights of Women has conducted a survey of abuse victims showing that 46% would have been excluded by the Government’s original list. All of them, however, would be covered by the provisions of Lords amendments 194 and 196. There has not been an opportunity to assess how many would be excluded under the Lord Chancellor’s new list.
The Government claim, in defiance of our Lords amendments, that they do not want to be hamstrung by a list of forms of evidence that may need to change over time. I accept that it might emerge that one of them is prone to abuse, but were that the case, the Government have powers under clause 9(2) to vary or omit acceptable forms of evidence in schedule 1. If the Government provided evidence of abuse of the system and could demonstrate the need to change the list, we would of course not oppose that. I say to Government Members who express concern that one or more forms of evidence on the list might be open to abuse that that is the best route to fixing it.
For now, the list that we have suggested—I say once again that the Government already use it to decide whether individuals have the right to settle in our country—should also be used to decide whether our fellow citizens who suffer abuse should have basic advice and representation. To abandon them to mediation or self-representation in the courts system, with no one to help them deal with their abuser, would be simply cruel. Furthermore, it would go against the long sweep of decades of cross-party harmony on dealing with the horrors of domestic abuse.
According to Home Office figures, the joint governmental strategy to deal with domestic abuse, which was led by my noble Friend Baroness Scotland between 2003 and 2010, cut domestic violence by 64% and saved the state £7.5 billion a year. For the practical, moral and economic reasons that I have mentioned, I urge the Government to think again about domestic violence services that support 125,000 women, only 17,000 of them in refuges. Should they not do so, we will seek to press Lords amendment 146 to a vote, but owing to the inexplicably compressed time scales, we will not force a Division on Lords amendment 148. We will seek to address both matters in another place should the vote be lost.
I move on to Lords amendments 168 and 169, on welfare benefits advice. I welcome the Government’s decision to accept the essence of the latter, which would allow funding for advice and representation on appeals to the upper tribunal, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court on matters relating to welfare benefits.
Helen Goodman
I was slightly confused by what my hon. Friend said about the Lords amendments on domestic violence. Is she saying that she will press for a vote on Lords amendment 194 or on Lords amendment 196?
Mrs Chapman
On Lords amendment 194.
Campaigners have advocated for nearly two years the funding that I described, and we are delighted that the Government have now seen the light. However, they continue to fail to do so when it comes to reviews and first-tier tribunals, which are the only mechanisms by which fact can be challenged. We seem to be a bit fuzzy about points of law and fact, so I point out that higher courts deal only with points of law.
Before the debates in another place on legal aid funding for advice on welfare benefits, the noble Lord Pannick QC wrote to all peers making the case for welfare benefits advice. He made a simple and powerful case for those unlawfully denied disability benefits having access to advice. The case is well understood by Government Members, and I can only imagine that that is how they managed to eke out the concession from the Lord Chancellor at the very last minute.
Before the election, the Prime Minister wrote a powerful piece for The Independent on his experience with the benefits system. He said that
“life for parents of disabled children is complicated enough without having to jump through hundreds of government hoops. After the initial shock of diagnosis you’re plunged into a world of bureaucratic pain. Having your child assessed and getting the help you’re entitled to means answering the same questions over and over again, being buried under snow drifts of forms, spending hours on hold in the phone queue…I am determined to make life simpler for parents.”
Later, he posited a solution in a speech, saying he wanted to help disabled people when they have a problem accessing the benefits system. He said:
“For the sake of these families’ sanity we are looking at the evidence and considering…pulling professionals like doctors, paediatric nurses, physiotherapists and benefits specialists together in one team to act as a one-stop-shop for assessment and advice.”
I have no doubt the Prime Minister wrote openly and honestly, so it is baffling that his Justice Secretary is taking specialist advice away from disabled people and, worse still, from children, who have absolutely no ability to navigate the justice system alone.
We can see the problem and there are obvious solutions, but the Justice Secretary has broken the promises that have been made. Here is another example of those broken promises. Asked by The Guardian what the big society was, the Prime Minister immediately pointed to his local citizens advice bureau, but Citizens Advice, the primary agency that delivers welfare benefits advice, is facing massive cuts because of these changes. Alongside law centres and other neighbourhood advice services, citizens advice bureaux are both value for money and valued by the communities they serve, but now their future is very uncertain.
Dr Wollaston
I welcome the significant improvements that have been made in respect of domestic violence, so I shall concentrate on Lords amendment 168.
The Secretary of State says that because welfare appeals often involve arguments about points of fact rather than points of law, welfare appellants should not qualify for legal aid. However, justice is about facts. Many of the people whom we meet in our surgeries have fallen through the gaps in Atos assessments. They may not have ticked the right boxes, but within five minutes it is abundantly clear that the wrong decision has been made. In my experience, the expert and professional advice marshalled by the citizens advice bureaux makes all the difference to whether our constituents receive justice. Cost-shifting might be reasonable, but only if the £20 million per year went far enough to fill the gap that has been created.
Historically, South Hams CAB in my area has received 60% of its funding through legal aid. It was not a question of local authority cuts; the authority had not funded the CAB in the first place. Although some of that £20 million has gone to my local CAB and will make a significant difference, the CAB has nevertheless had to cut staff, and has lost 45 hours per week of high-quality professional time. Of course we all pay tribute to the volunteers, but it is mostly the detailed and specific marshalling of facts by specialists that determines whether the right decision is made at a tribunal.
I believe that the employment of more decision-makers would make a big difference, but I also believe that the work done by CABs saves us a great deal of money in the long term. I ask the Secretary of State to think again about how much more we can do to fill the gap so that our CABs can maintain the incredibly high-quality professional service that they provide for all our constituents.
Helen Goodman
Once upon a time the Tory party was the party of liberty, and was particularly energetic in defending the liberties of the individual against the power of the state, but such activity has been completely abandoned this evening, particularly in the Secretary of State’s approach to welfare benefits. It is wholly objectionable for the welfare system to operate without a proper right of redress and recourse unless there is a disagreement about a point of law. That opens the gate to maladministration and low standards, and to a continual lack of proper administration of people’s benefit entitlements.
Not for the first time, the Secretary of State has revealed a perspective that is complacent, out of touch and gender-related. The absence of a woman in the justice team has been highlighted again today. As I have said to the Secretary of State before, I wish that he would telephone the Prime Minister and ask him to replace the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) with the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), because she would make an excellent Under-Secretary of State. She would do a great job, and above all she would improve the policy. That is what interests us.
I intend to focus on two issues. The first is domestic violence. The hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald drew attention to the problem of the time limits in the Government’s definition. Taking such a strongly legalistic approach to the evidence base and refusing to accept Lords amendment 194 removes the context of the pattern of domestic abuse. We know that by the time women go to the police they have experienced an average of 35 instances of domestic violence, which is why we want the Bill to provide for a different evidence gateway.
The second issue involves children. I find it incredible that although the Secretary of State expresses concern about child abduction and people seeing their children taken into care and says that in those instances legal aid should be available, when it comes to the needs of the children themselves he is prepared to abandon the 6,000 who will lose their entitlement if the amendment is not retained. It is clear that vulnerable children who are leaving care or estranged from their families may experience significant legal problems involving such complex issues as debt, housing, education, law and benefits. It is impractical to expect young people who already face significant difficulties to bear the additional burden of dealing with the justice system.
It is not clear that what the Government are doing is in accordance with the UN convention on the rights of the child. In another place, Lady Walmsley warned that if children’s access to legal aid is not protected, the Government
“will be taken to the international court. It is as simple as that.” —[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 January 2012; Vol. 734, c. 443.]
I ask Ministers whether they have taken into account the extra costs that will be associated with further appeals to the international courts. We need a proper system that is sensitive to the most needy children in our country.
Mr Buckland
I rise to deal with several points raised during consideration of this group of amendments. First, I welcome the Government’s sensible concessions in respect of domestic violence. The Secretary of State and his colleagues will know that when these matters were last before this House I expressed concerns about the role of undertakings in proceedings. I was concerned that undertakings would not be part of any process of assessment for legal aid. I am glad that the Government have accepted the concern expressed by me and others on that, and have accepted a range of other sources of evidence, including, most notably, that from women’s refuges and medical reports. I accept the Government’s argument that it would be better to incorporate that list of criteria in regulations, rather than in primary legislation. Experience shows that regulations can be more quickly amended if obvious problems and abuses occur in the system. It would be a tragedy if, through delays in legislative procedure, people in genuine need went without legal aid. For that reason, I am able to support the Government’s approach in the context of domestic violence.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Helen Goodman Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Clarke
Those who can remember Second Reading will know that the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon and I kept stressing that we accept the need to maintain the funding for many voluntary agencies, particularly citizens advice bureaux, which give not only legal advice, but general advice to people suffering from problems of debt, housing and so on, which we all know are bound to get worse in these rather difficult times. A total of £20 million has been allocated to these bodies this year and we are looking ahead at how to continue that support.
I should point out that our legal aid changes will not take effect for a couple of years, so none of those bodies has lost any legal aid funding at the moment. What we are doing is finding money to make up for reductions in grant to those bodies that are largely from local authorities. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd) is about to announce how we will distribute the £20 million. I know that he is in touch with my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) and expects to be able to make the announcement imminently so that we can get on with that.
I have left the debates on legal aid to the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon because, as everyone has seen, he is a walking expert on the subject. There seemed to be no point in my taking part in debates on amendments and having to turn to him if a particularly difficult question was asked. However, I have been present throughout the debates and listening to how Labour Members have tackled the matter. They seem to have lost all touch with common sense. When in government they were reducing expenditure on legal aid, or trying to and failing. In their manifesto they committed to reducing spending on legal aid, stating:
“we will find greater savings in legal aid.”
As recently as January this year the leader of the Labour party said, in relation to reductions in legal aid:
“Labour has shown it is ready to make difficult cuts that we believe are necessary for the long term health of our economy.”
As far as we can work out, the various amendments tabled by the Labour party in the course of our debates on the Bill would add £245 million to the legal aid bill, compared with the Government’s proposals.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Evidently, some of the amendments we tabled were not reported to the Secretary of State, because we also tabled amendments intended to speed up the collection of fines, on which the Ministry does not have a good record.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Helen Goodman Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Djanogly
If the hon. Lady will allow me to get on, I will clarify precisely that.
The definition should also be seen in the light of the Bill’s structure and the purpose of the paragraph in which it appears. Paragraph 10 reflects the underlying policy of ensuring that a party to private law family proceedings who has been subjected to domestic violence by the other party and is likely to be intimidated or otherwise disadvantaged in presenting his or her case should, as a result, be able to have access to legal aid. It does not provide that any individual who has been the subject of, or who is at risk of being the subject of, abuse as defined in that paragraph will qualify regardless of what evidence of abuse might exist. Not every such individual will be intimidated or otherwise disadvantaged in the way the paragraph is intended to address. It establishes a description of legal services and whether an individual qualifies for those services in any specific case. It requires that an individual not only falls within the category in paragraph 10, but meets the criteria to be established in regulations made under clause 10.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
We raised with the Government a couple of months ago the possibility of seeing the regulations in draft before reaching this Report stage. Many Members feel that that would have aided our consideration of these provisions. Why has the Minister not produced those regulations?
Mr Djanogly
Because the Bill and relevant clauses are still going through the House and still have to go through the other place. The regulations will be produced once the Bill comes into law.
Those criteria will set out the specific requirements on evidence of the fact of abuse or the risk of abuse. The definition of abuse itself is therefore only a preliminary part of the picture. In that sense, it might be argued that it makes little difference whether definition takes one form or another arguably rather similar form. However, we are still not convinced that the definition should be changed in the way suggested in the amendments.
Mr Djanogly
Yes, it will be. The hon. Lady makes a very important point, which has come up in consultation and has often been misconstrued. For such individuals, legal aid will be provided for the application for a non-molestation order, for example.
It might be helpful if I give an idea of the prevalence of these forms of evidence. About 24,100 domestic violence orders were made in 2010, about 74,000 domestic violence crimes were prosecuted in 2009-10 and there were 53,000 domestic violence convictions. Further, about 43,000 victims of domestic violence were referred to multi-agency risk assessment conferences in the 12 months to June 2010.
Helen Goodman
Surely the Minister can see that there is a 21,000 gap between the numbers of those prosecuted and those convicted? Surely he is also aware that the Crown Prosecution Service goes ahead with prosecutions only when there is a reasonable expectation of success in the case? Surely, therefore, he can see that we are not dancing on the head of a pin, as we are talking about 21,000 women every year?
Mr Djanogly
Those numbers may overlap to some extent; in other words, someone might not have been prosecuted as there may have been a civil injunction, or perhaps a multi-agency risk assessment conference made the decision.
The forms of evidence we intend to accept will meet a high standard of objectivity. We are concerned that many of the additional forms of evidence suggested in the amendments would rely on the word of those involved and would provide an incentive for allegations where none currently exists. Let me make it clear that I am not questioning the integrity of genuine victims. However, during the legal aid consultation many people were concerned about providing an incentive for unfounded allegations, and the Government share that concern.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
In Committee, our debates on domestic violence were among the most heated, because of the seriousness of that offence. In my own borough, 40% of violent offences relate to domestic violence. I know that the Minister is aware of the difficulties that arise for women who are experiencing domestic violence—admitting that it is taking place in the first place, giving evidence, and so on—and I am sure that he appreciates the challenges that they face. I know that he will have looked carefully at amendment 74, tabled by the Opposition, which seeks to widen the definition of domestic violence.
I should like briefly to speak to amendment 23, to which I have added my name. My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), highlighted her concerns about the discrepancies, or perhaps lack of consistency, in the definitions of “domestic violence” that are being used. Despite the Minister’s response, further clarification is needed on why different definitions are appropriate in different places. He will have heard Members on both sides of the House express concerns about undertakings, in particular. That point has come across very strongly today, as it did in Committee.
I do not want to detain the House further, because other Members want to speak and there are a large number of amendments relating to domestic violence. I hope that some progress will still be made on this issue, if not through an immediate response from the Minister, then perhaps when the Bill reaches the Lords.
Helen Goodman
As the Minister said, we debated this issue in general at some length in Committee. I shall speak in support of amendments 23, 74 and 96 to 98.
A central concern is the narrow and restrictive definition of “domestic violence” that the Minister is putting into the Bill. Once again, we have heard remarks from him that demonstrate his lack of understanding and his lack of sympathy for people in this situation. He said in Committee, and he said again today, that his criteria
“all avoid self-reporting and involve a significant level of state intervention.”
That is indeed the case. The problem is that in taking that approach, he is treating women as if they are not adults capable of self-reporting. That is why many Labour Members feel that he is taking us back 30 years. He said:
“We are concerned that to include admission to a refuge in the criteria would be to rely on self-reporting”.
He said that he is
“not persuaded that the medical professionals would be best placed to assess whether domestic violence has occurred”
even though
“they may witness injuries”.
He said that he does not believe that, in themselves, allegations of domestic violence are objective. He said, as he said again today, that the tests he wishes to use
“are designed…to minimise the risk of false allegations.”––[Official Report, Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Public Bill Committee, 6 September 2011; c. 359-64.]
That is a problem. If his objective is to minimise the risk of false allegations, then his objective is not to maximise the support that women need.
Following the extremely concerning debate that we had in Committee, on 8 September I wrote to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), who is responsible for issues relating to women and equalities. On 25 October, I finally received a reply, in which she says:
“You make the point that the definition of domestic violence used in the Bill is much narrower than the ACPO definition. My understanding is that the definition of “abuse” in the Bill is a broad one…We have been assured by the Ministry of Justice that the definition used would not exclude, for the purposes of legal aid and private family law cases, any of the types of abuse covered by the definition used by ACPO.”
This letter is quite extraordinary. She goes on to say:
“The Government is clear that objective evidence will be needed to ensure that legal aid in private family cases is focused on those who may be intimidated and unable to assert their rights as a result of domestic violence or the risk of harm by the other party to the proceedings”.
Her reliance on the assurances from the Ministry of Justice that its definition is the same as that used by ACPO leads me to ask two questions. First, what is the point of a Minister for Equalities who does not check with the rest of the world what is going on? Secondly, did the Minister tell her that his definition was the same as the ACPO one, when everybody knows that that is not the case?
The Minister for Equalities could easily have listened to the Bar Council—not, one would think, a wild group of left-wingers who are determined to promote a feminist picture of the world. One would think that she might have listened to it. It wrote to many Members this week.
Mr Djanogly
It is the case that the ACPO definition and the definition in the Bill are broadly similar.
Helen Goodman
Broadly, yes, but not precisely—that is the problem. About an hour and a half ago, the Minister accused hon. Members of dancing on pinheads. He is now the one who is doing that. We have demonstrated that under his definition, some 20,000 victims of domestic violence will not get legal aid each year who would get it currently. That is the problem.
I remind the Minister of what the Bar Council is saying:
“The narrow definition of domestic abuse, which is more restrictive than that used by the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers and will limit legal aid to victims of certain ‘types’ of abuse”.
It states that there are:
“Excessively narrow referral mechanisms for victims of domestic abuse, who will not be eligible for civil legal aid if, for example, they have been admitted to a refuge but have chosen not to bring proceedings against their abusive partner”.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s impact assessment shows how narrow the definition is? Is this not yet another attack on women by this Government?
Helen Goodman
It is indeed. We heard that from the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), who made some excellent interventions. We see once again that the Ministry of Justice is at a severe disadvantage because it has no women in its ministerial team. My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
The Bar Council is also concerned, as are many hon. Members, about the impact on children, referring to:
“The decision to exclude most adults in private family law cases from the scope of legal aid, even in cases of significant difficulty involving legally represented children, which may result in children alleging abuse being cross-examined by the alleged abuser.”
The problem is that the Minister is so determined to use a definition that he believes is watertight that he is ignoring the reality. The reality is that most women experience 20 episodes of violence before they report it to the police. By insisting that only a report to the police followed by various court actions is required for legal aid, the Minister is condemning more women to suffer domestic violence in silence.
Simon Hughes
I will speak briefly on amendment 145, which the Minister has addressed and on which I asked him a quick question. If I may, I will amplify that point.
My point is not about the important matter of domestic violence, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) has spoken about and on which there is continuing concern across the House, but about the families of those who are rightfully admitted to this country as refugees or beneficiaries of humanitarian protection. Many Members, including me and my neighbour the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), encounter such cases routinely in their constituency surgeries. This is not an irregular occurrence in our work.
Somebody who is granted the ability to stay in this country as a refugee because of race, religion, nationality, membership of a social group or their political opinion, or somebody who is given humanitarian protection because they are at risk for some other reason, might have applied for their family members to come with them as dependants or their family members might have made separate, parallel applications. In such cases, their family members can be dealt with in the same way.
However, we all know that when people come here as refugees, they do not often do so in an orderly way as a family. It might be that one family member comes here from one country and other family members from another. For example, when Sierra Leone had its civil war, people fled from it with some ending up in Gambia and others elsewhere. It might be that one family member comes at one time while another is left in a refugee camp. It might be that other family members had disappeared when the application was made. It might be impossible for the mother, the wife or the daughter to make an application at the same time. It is those cases that I am concerned about.
I accept that often there are straightforward applications that do not have complications, but sometimes there are significant complications and we need to ensure that people are not disadvantaged because they cannot match the state in argument.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Goodman Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Clarke
This is a difficult subject, and it certainly needs to be looked at all the time. I agree: my experience in my part of the world is that many Travellers do not travel as frequently as they are supposed to, and they are fond of occupying vacant land and building houses on it, while still describing themselves as Travellers. The subject is more complex than that, and if we can make any improvements to the law that protect the legitimate interests of society as a whole, we will certainly do so.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Last week, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), defended the Government’s narrow definition of domestic violence in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill with these words:
“We are concerned that to include admission to a refuge in the criteria would be to rely on self-reporting…We are not persuaded that medical professionals would be best placed to assess whether domestic violence has occurred. Although they may witness injuries…nor would the fact of a police investigation without more evidence provide sufficient evidence”.––[Official Report, Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Public Bill Committee, 6 September 2011; c. 359-60.]
Women in this country will be appalled by those remarks. Would the Under-Secretary like to take them back, and also change his definition in the Bill?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)
It is not a question of taking them back; it is a question of making them in a very transparent way in our consultation. Having looked at the consultation, we came back and reassessed the definition of domestic violence, broadened what is included, and we are prepared to debate it in Committee. That is the process that is under way, and the Government stand by that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Goodman Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Clarke
We all wish to give support to the many people who, through voluntary or charitable activity, try to help society as a whole by tackling the reoffending and rehabilitation problems of ex-offenders, so I shall certainly consider my hon. Friend’s interesting suggestion. I would love to give Lord Chancellor’s awards to a large number of worthy people, but unfortunately, the financial crisis that the Government have inherited does not enable me to give an instant response to his idea.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Surely the Secretary of State has gone backwards. He has done a U-turn on early guilty pleas; he is reviewing his review on indeterminate imprisonment for public protection; and he has made massive cuts to probation services. I have had letters from probation services, and in Gloucestershire the cut is 7.9%, in West Yorkshire, it is 9.8%, and in Kent, it is a staggering 13.6% this year. How can we have a rehabilitation revolution if there are no community resources?
Mr Clarke
As the hon. Lady knows, we are debating the Bill tomorrow, which is enormous—I apologise for that—and has huge implications, but we are having to reform fundamentally a criminal justice system that does not help society as it should, because it does not cut reoffending. We are having to reform on a very wide scale a legal aid and civil justice system that encourages unnecessary litigation and is not particularly user-friendly. We have taken over a mess, and we are going in for massive reform of it. We may have changed quite a lot of proposals in light of consultation, but the underlying need for a balanced package of radical reform is certainly there, and we will tackle it.
Sentencing
Helen Goodman Excerpts(12 years, 12 months ago)
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Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Last week, the Justice Secretary showed us how out of touch he is with the women of this country, and this afternoon we have had a demonstration of how out of touch he is with communities on the issue of crime. In recent days, the Justice Secretary has said that he does not want to change sentences for serious crime, and he said that again this afternoon. He is playing word games with the public, however, because he knows perfectly well that under his proposals people could spend just one quarter of the sentence given to them by the judge in prison. The safety of our communities is too serious for us to play these word games.
No wonder the public lose trust in the system.
“many people feel that sentencing in Britain is dishonest and misleading.”
The Tories said that in their manifesto, and they promised to improve transparency; another broken promise. As my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) said, they promised to redevelop the prison estate and increase capacity. Instead, they are cutting the prison building programme. The one manifesto promise the Justice Secretary has fulfilled is to
“stop talking tough and meting out ever longer prison sentences”
That promise was in the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto, of course.
My hon. Friends the Members for Llanelli and for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart)—the latter was an excellent Home Office Minister in the previous Government—have spoken of their concerns about the way the issue of rape was treated last week. That revealed that the ministerial team does not know the facts and does not know the law.
Unfortunately, most of the 1,000 rapes that are committed every week in this country are committed by partners and ex-partners. Also, the law has changed since the Secretary of State was practising at the bar in the last century, and he should know what it now is. Consensual sex between an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old is unlawful, but it is not rape.
The Labour Government ended cross-examination by assailants, and they ended questioning on people’s sexual pasts. The way to win the confidence of women in this country is not to cut the sentence for people convicted of rape; rather, it is to keep the specialist police, maintain local authority support for sexual assault referral centres, and listen to the groups and lawyers working with victims. The Ministry of Justice needs a woman in the team, and the Prime Minister should find one PDQ.
Many Members have spoken about the legacy that was left for the current Government. Government Members should remember that Labour cut crime by 43%, and cut reoffending by 15%. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) pointed out, the Labour Government understood the role that prison plays, which is why we increased the number of places by 26,000.
Everyone wants to cut reoffending and tackle the underlying problems, and the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) made an excellent speech on the issues faced by women offenders. The points she made highlight why we followed the recommendations in the Corston report and the Bradley report on prisoners with mental health problems, and why we invested £170 million in literacy and numeracy skills, and set up new workshops in prison.
Early guilty pleas can speed up trials and reduce the pressure on victims, but the real reason why the Government are going ahead is to save money, as the Secretary of State made clear. The Government’s own estimate is that a discount of up to 50% would reduce the number of prison places by 3,500 and save £130 million. The proposal in the Green Paper appears not in the section on victims, but under the heading
“Efficient, effective use of the courts.”
That is the real motivation. Of course cutting the deficit matters, but it is not the only thing that matters, and it is not possible to put a price on justice.
What is so radically wrong with the Government’s proposal to introduce a 50% discount for early guilty pleas is that it undermines the justice of the sentence that is finally served. Many criminals who would have pleaded guilty early anyway will benefit. Can the Minister tell us how many thousands of prisoners fall into that category? The Ministry of Justice estimates in its impact assessment that the average discount will rise from 25% to 34%, and that is totally unjustified.
As was pointed out by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Justice, Ministers have produced no evidence to suggest that the proposal will affect the number of people pleading guilty early. Indeed, the Sentencing Council will say that the strength of prosecuting evidence is the crucial factor, and the Council of Her Majesty’s Circuit Judges feels that many offenders are
“irrational or dysfunctional and will not face up to the realities until the last possible moment.”
As the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) pointed out, short sentences are known to be ineffective—that is obviously why the Ministry of Justice wants to increase the number of people on them. Another problem with the proposal is that the reduction is formulaic, so those who have committed the worst offences get the biggest cuts in prison terms—that is simply not fair. This proposal will apply to terrorists and last week Lord Carlile said:
“The release of every prisoner convicted of a terrorist offence has a national security implication and the sooner they are released the greater the national security implication.”
The overwhelming problem is that the punishment will not fit the crime. My hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) and for Darlington (Mrs Chapman) pointed out that victims will feel let down and the public’s confidence will be shattered.
Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)
The hon. Lady speaks with her usual passion on this subject, but did she speak with this passion when the previous Government introduced a 33% discount for an early guilty plea?
Helen Goodman
The hon. Lady should have listened to the debate; we have gone through that argument already.
I want to move on to the important issue of the Secretary of State’s “rehabilitation revolution”. That is what he has promised, but the cuts programme he has agreed—23% over four years, with a loss of 10,000 prison and probation staff—will make it impossible. He says that he wants to increase the number of hours that prisoners work from 22 to 40, but his own impact assessment says that that will need more up-front capital and ongoing staff costs to supervise prisoners for longer. He has already cut £170 million from prisons, which means that prisoners will be locked up in their cells for longer. We are already seeing cuts to education and restorative justice work with offenders.
He says that he wants more community sentences, but effective community supervision is impossible with the huge cuts to the probation trusts. As the Chairman of the Select Committee pointed out, we need to reinvest in community supervision, but this year Nottingham’s probation trust faces a cut of 7%, and the trusts of Norfolk and Suffolk, Devon and Cornwall, and West Yorkshire face cuts of 7.2%, 7.8% and a staggering 9.8% respectively.
The strategy is just not credible; nor are the Ministers. The year began with the prisons Minister standing in front of a burning prison as the third riot of his tenure took place. Last week, he said that “a moment’s reflection” would make it clear that giving half off a sentence would help to protect the public. He has now had a week’s reflection and we see from the Order Paper that the Government are stubbornly sticking to their policy. So I urge all hon. Members to reject the amendment and vote for the Opposition motion.