Draft Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Legal Aid for Separated Children) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2019

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 General Committees

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. This is the first time that the Minister and I have been together in Committee, and I welcome her to her new role.

The plight of vulnerable unaccompanied and separated children—many fleeing truly desperate and dangerous situations around the world—who have sought safety, refuge and sanctuary in the UK should alarm us all and induce us to action. The Opposition unreservedly support today’s measure to bring those cases involving separated children back into the scope of legal aid. However, we must note not only that access to legal aid should never have been taken from this vulnerable group, but that the Government never intended to introduce today’s measure, and would never have done so if left to their own devices.

We must be clear that we are here this morning to consider the order not because the Government have, all of a sudden, had a change of heart and realised that the misery, pain and suffering that they imposed upon the children affected was too great, but because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central alluded to, of a legal challenge to their decision under the 2012 LASPO legislation to remove separated children from the scope of legal aid by the Children’s Society, an independent, third-sector charity, supported by lawyers, barristers and other legal professionals.

The Government have not introduced the draft order willingly and out of their own compassion; they did so because they have conceded to the legal case that was brought against them, fearing another damning defeat. Migrant children are among society’s most vulnerable groups, and unaccompanied children are even more so given the unique migratory factors at play and the particular vulnerabilities that they have as children without caregivers. Indeed, the Government’s own impact assessment for this statutory instrument states that these children have “distinct vulnerabilities” and needs. According to the previous special rapporteur on human rights of migrants, writing in his final report to the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2011, children who are unaccompanied or separated from their parents are “particularly vulnerable” to human rights violations and abuses at all stages of the migration process. Even the Children’s Commissioner for England has stated that children arriving unaccompanied in the UK are some of the most vulnerable that they deal with, due to the triple vulnerabilities they face.

Yet despite that, and despite the fact that children need access to high-quality immigration advice to regularise their status and protect themselves while being unable to properly represent themselves, the Government have kept unaccompanied migrant children out of the scope of legal aid for six years. Consequently, vulnerable children have been forced to represent themselves in legal cases, even though representing themselves properly is impossible due to their age, language barriers and vulnerability. That is a complex enough cocktail of factors before we even get on to the myriad immigration rules and the intricate nature of immigration law.

That has led to unaccompanied children now being at a heightened risk of having to support and represent themselves through legal processes and procedures, being more likely to receive an unfavourable legal outcome, being less likely than other children to be able to fund and apply for legal advice, and also being at increased risk of exploitation through the need to fund legal services, as the Children’s Commissioner for England has found. This is damming. It is no way to treat vulnerable children. It is no wonder that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has declared that

“the Government’s reforms to legal aid have been a significant black mark on its human rights record”

and that children more generally are being denied the use of the law to assert their rights and legal needs following the changes under LASPO.

Where free legal support does exist, many children are also restricted and frozen out of it due to the postcode lottery of legal support that sees most free legal advice concentrated in certain areas such as London and the south-east, while the number of law centres and other advice services is in decline across the whole country.

Together with the scale of the challenge faced by these unaccompanied children and the urgency of the need to address their inability to access legal aid in order to prevent abuses of their human rights, we are also deeply critical of the length of time it has taken the Government to lay the order before the House. A year went by between a Minister making a written statement conceding that removing separated children from the scope of legal aid was a reprehensible decision and the order being laid in order to reverse the changes under LASPO. Yet the Minister responsible at the time had declared in her written statement:

“The amendment will be laid in due course”.

When dealing with such sensitive issues and such vulnerable children, we should expect a speedier response, particularly considering that the Government are doing nothing new; they are simply restoring what had been taken away by LASPO. Will the Minister identify just how many separated children have been unable to access legal aid support to bring their cases to court since July 2018, when that written statement was published?

I expect that the Minister will response to that question by repeating the words of her predecessor, the hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), in that written ministerial statement:

“Legal aid for other immigration matters is available via the Exceptional Case Funding (ECF) scheme”—

something to which this Minister has also alluded today—

“which is intended to ensure legal aid is accessible in all cases where there is a risk of a breach of human rights.”—[Official Report, 12 July 2018; Vol. 644, c. 47WS.]

However, if the Government were anticipating breaches of human rights as a result of their changes under LASPO, why did they enact those changes in the first place? Is the ECF scheme sufficient, and has it been so, given that the Children’s Society and the review of the Bach commission on access to justice found that it had failed to provide a safety net and still left children vulnerable? The Government’s own figures show that thousands of children and young people would have been helped through the exceptional case funding. The reality is that the number helped through that fund is in the tens, not the thousands. Again, the Government have some serious questions to answer on that.

Although we will not oppose the order—

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Well, no; you have just spoken in favour of it.

[Imran Hussain]

We will certainly not pat the Minister on the back and congratulate the Government, given that it has taken them more than a year to lay the order before the House after conceding defeat in the legal case, and almost a further three months to bring it forward for debate. During that time, inevitably, many more children have been unable to access the legal aid support that they have a right to, and many more children will have suffered as a result by being removed from the UK and returned to the desperate and dangerous conditions that they escaped from.

By putting off and delaying the order, the Government have neglected their duty of care to those vulnerable children and discarded their own humanity. We must never forget that, just as we must never forget that the Government removed those children’s access to legal aid to begin with, which put us in this sorry and deplorable situation. They cannot be proud of correcting such a colossal mistake and they must hang their head in shame that it has taken them so long to bring the matter back to the House.

Prison Officers: Pension Age

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. In the brief time I have, I will start by thanking the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) for securing such an important debate. I think the whole House can agree that he made a powerful speech, much of which hon. Members across the House will agree with. I have to say that I disagree with him on the points he made about the privatisation of probation, but that is a debate for another day; I will park that for today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) also made a powerful speech. In particular, he gave accounts of some horrific assaults and attacks against our hard-working prison officers. Many other hon. Members contributed through interventions. The theme of much of the debate was that 68 is too late, and I will come to that shortly.

I thank our prison officers for the hard work that they do, often unseen and behind the scenes, to keep us safe. The job that they do on a daily basis is one of the most difficult, and in one of the most dangerous settings imaginable. Yet rather than treating them with the respect and dignity they deserve, for almost a decade this Government have treated them with anything but. Instead of overseeing a highly motivated and trained workforce on the frontline of reforming offenders, the Government have overseen years of declining morale, declining working conditions and declining numbers among our prison officer workforce. The raising of a prison officer’s retirement age is one part of that. It is an important one, but it is not the whole picture.

Last week, in a debate secured by the Select Committee on Justice, we heard how the Ministry of Justice budget has been savaged in the name of the Government’s ideological austerity agenda. Thousands of prison officers and tens of thousands of years of irreplaceable experience have been lost as a result. Between 2010 and 2015, close to 7,000 frontline prison officers were lost. Despite a recruitment drive once the Government realised the terrible damage they were causing to the prison system, we are still well short of 2010 numbers.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

It is very interesting that the Government have now decided to replace the numbers of police officers that they lost over the eight or nine-year period, but they cannot do the same for prison officers. I agree with the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) that a prison officer’s job is just as dangerous in some ways as that of a policeman or a fireman, but there is this disparity. Does my hon. Friend agree that public services over the last eight or nine years have been the recipients of some of the most vicious cuts that have been implemented by this Government?

[Imran Hussain]

I absolutely agree. Given the frontline work that our hard-working prison officers do, they should be an emergency service—a frontline uniformed service—as our other services are, and they should be rewarded and treated exactly the same. I have made that point before.

Like many other public sector professionals on the frontline of vital services, prison officers were also subject to the Government’s harsh pay freeze and public sector pay cap for many years. Even though the pay cap has now been lifted, prison officers are unfairly disadvantaged when compared with their public sector counterparts. For too many prison officers, it is too late. They still feel inadequately rewarded for the important work that they do.

Safety for prison officers has also declined dramatically, with a quadrupling of assaults against prison officers since 2010 and an alarming number of serious injuries, as found in the recent response to my written question, rising from 160 in 2010 to 850 last year. A number of examples have been given by hon. Members; time not permitting, I cannot go through them all, but the reality is that prison officers now go to work fearing for their safety—expecting to be assaulted, beaten or abused. It is truly horrific that they feel that way while this Government do little to address the underlying issues. Those are not the actions of a Government who respect prison officers or treat them with the dignity that they deserve, and nor is raising the retirement age of prison officers to 68.

The job of a prison officer is physically demanding and requires the satisfactory completion of a demanding fitness test. It requires fully fit personnel who are able to perform control and restraint techniques, exercise strength, maintain their fitness and stamina over long periods and react with agility in demanding and quickly changing environments, as alluded to by several Members. The public would not expect anything less from those who keep them safe—and neither, it seems, would the Ministry of Justice, which stated in its submission to the Cabinet Office that the changes were unacceptable. However, the Government have ignored serious concerns about prison officers’ ability to carry out their roles effectively as they get older, despite the Ministry of Justice’s own admissions.

The Government have repeatedly refused to engage with the Prison Officers Association and the prison officers that it represents. Instead of getting around the table to work with the POA to seek a solution, and to look for ways to resolve prison officers’ serious concerns about the retirement age, the Government have sought to pin the blame on it. I am deeply disappointed that Ministers—I appreciate that this Minister is new in her role and is not the Minister responsible for prisons and probation—have failed, quite frankly, to show the leadership needed. They have put the health and safety of prison staff at risk and made it clear that the Government see prison officers not as a vital workforce worthy of investment and support, but as a dispensable commodity.

Because of the way they have been treated by the Government, and with horrendous and dangerous conditions on the balconies and in the wings, many prison officers no longer see their role as a long-term career. It is little wonder that prison officers—both those who have served for years and those in their first year of service—are leaving at such a pronounced rate, creating a retention crisis and worsening the huge problems in our prison system that are of the Government’s making. That is why the next Labour Government will address this issue, and we will work with the POA and prison officers to make sure that they are properly trained and rewarded, and that they are physically capable of doing their jobs. Only then can we deliver a prison system that provides us with security and rehabilitation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gordon Henderson]

I will make just a few points, if I may. We have had consensus today, but I have to say to the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), that the last Labour Government did not cover themselves with glory in the eyes of the POA. Talk to my prison officers: they remember vividly how the Labour party embraced the privatisation of prisons with great enthusiasm. But that was then.

[Imran Hussain]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gordon Henderson]

I do not have time.

With regard to what the Minister said about the difference between prison officers and police officers, I revert to section 8 of the Prison Act 1952, which states that prison officers

“shall have all the powers, authority, protection and privileges of a constable.”

Yet because prison officers happen to be part of the civil service pension scheme, they have to work until they are 68 when the police do not. The Government might have to look at whether prison officers should be part of the civil service, or whether they should be a separate entity again.

The Minister mentioned that staff on Sheppey are getting enhanced pay, and that it is up to £27,000 for new staff. I accept that, but it creates another anomaly in the system: the existing staff do not get that enhancement, so there will be some instances of new staff actually earning more than existing staff. Once again, that is something that we need to look at.

I will end with a little advert. I urge all Members present who have shown an interest in the debate to get involved in the Prison Service parliamentary scheme.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the pension age of prison officers.

Female Offender Strategy: One Year On

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Ryan, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) for securing this important debate on the first anniversary of the Government’s female offender strategy. She and other members of the all-party group for women in the penal system do excellent work in this field. They are tireless campaigners for a better, fairer, justice system, and I pay tribute to them.

I suspect that my neighbour, the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), will disagree with a lot of my speech, but as the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) pointed out, numerous reports and studies recognise that female offenders face several additional complex challenges that are separate to those faced by men and that act as drivers of offending and reoffending. Those drivers are key to understanding how we can deliver a criminal justice system that is fair and just and that acts in the best interests of society.

As Members have said, both today and in the past, a woman in prison is more likely to have experienced domestic abuse or to be homeless before entering custody and after leaving. She is more likely to suffer from substance misuse and to experience mental health issues. She is also more likely to have committed a non-violent offence—most probably an offence due to poverty, where meeting a need rather than material gain was the objective—and to be serving a short sentence. The vast majority of those women are not dangerous. They are deeply troubled, and it is clear that, for many, prison is not the best place to address their needs and challenges or the drivers of offending. That is particularly clear considering the high level of reoffending by women released from prison compared with those serving sentences in the community.

[Philip Davies]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Imran Hussain]

I have some stuff to put on the record, so on this occasion I will not.

The Corston report and others have stated that prison is rarely a necessary, appropriate or proportionate response to women who offend, and I completely agree. There is no reason why we should be locking up so many vulnerable women who have committed non-violent offences that are, in many cases, crimes of poverty.

Prison, regardless of the length of sentence, even if it is just a matter of weeks, takes away a woman’s job, home and family—everything that has been proven time and time again to reduce the likelihood of reoffending. For those who have committed dangerous offences that leave them a danger to the public, of course, custody is still necessary, but for many, many women, that is simply not the case. Indeed, the Government themselves have recognised the complex challenges that women face and acknowledged the need for change, setting out in their much-delayed female offender strategy that criminalising vulnerable individuals has broader negative social impacts, that short custodial sentences do not deliver the best results for female offenders and that good community management works.

To address those issues, the Government set out three main objectives in the strategy: fewer women coming into the criminal justice system; fewer women in custody, especially on short-term sentences, and a greater proportion of women managed in the community successfully; and better conditions for those in custody. However, despite their warm words in the female offender strategy, we have seen little from the Government about turning vision into reality.

At the end of June, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), who is not here today, issued a written statement on the progress that the Government had made. While he stated that he wishes to celebrate what he calls “improvements”, he should be doing anything but celebrating. What the Ministry of Justice has achieved is simply unacceptable for a year’s worth of work. It just is not good enough.

The first problem that the strategy encounters is woeful underfunding, setting out just £5 million over two years in community provision for women, including an initial £3.5 million grant. Not only is that money already earmarked and allocated elsewhere as part of the violence against women and girls funding, but it is well short of what experts have said is needed.

The Government’s own Advisory Board on Female Offenders told the Justice Secretary that the strategy requires at least £20 million, a view shared by the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), himself a former Minister, who has confirmed that the strategy is £15 million short. We often disagreed on things when he was my opposite number, but on this issue he had passion and vision, and I thank him for that.

Nor have we seen any progress on the development of the promised residential women’s centres, despite their forming a core part of the female offender strategy. The hon. Member for Charnwood told the House in his written statement that the Ministry of Justice has

“recently concluded our first phase of consultation with local voluntary and statutory agencies”,

but added:

“We will continue to consult with partners as we refine…the pilot.”—[Official Report, 27 June 2019; Vol. 662, cols 54-55WS.]

That is far from good enough.

The Corston report of 2007 made the recommendation to deliver the first network of women’s centres, and the Labour Government delivered it. We acted. We helped to develop and nurture that network, which has proven itself time and time again as a real, productive alternative to custody and has been met with praise by all those working with it.

Yet despite this body of evidence and the fact that their proposals are just a revision of the last Labour Government’s policy, the Government still feel that there is a need for an extended trial. They do not need to conduct a trial. We know that women’s centres work. Instead, they should either be getting on with their residential centres, or investing back into existing women’s centres and those who operate them to expand the network. Over recent years, it has been devastated following a series of cuts imposed by the Government’s reforms to probation, which led private probation providers to see their obligation to women as a requirement not to provide holistic support, but just to provide the option of a female supervisor.

Despite their stated desire to see fewer women in custody and on short-term sentences, the Government have also made little progress on reforming sentencing for female offenders. Women are still being sent to prison for non-violent offences where they are absolutely no danger to the public. They are still being sent to prison for poverty-related offences such as shoplifting or, quite disturbingly, for petty offences such as TV licence evasion—a point made earlier. The hon. Member for Shipley will want to know that women are sent to prison for that at a greater rate than men are.

Is that the society we want, where vulnerable women are sent to prison for petty offences such as TV licences? The Government are also still locking up vulnerable women whose needs and challenges cannot be addressed in prison. In particular, they are still locking up women who are homeless, and at a greater rate, with the number of homeless women sent to prison rising 71% from the 2015 figure.

In conclusion, last year we were promised a strategy that we were told would change the way women are treated in the criminal justice system, building on the highly influential Corston report. But a year on—a year in which the MOJ could have radically transformed the criminal justice landscape for female offenders—we have seen nothing of the sort. The Government should be ashamed of the lack of progress that they have made in the past 12 months. There is an overwhelming consensus among those who work with women and among hon. Members here today that we should be doing more to help female offenders. If this Government will not do it, a Labour Government will.

[Joan Ryan (in the Chair)]

Minister, could you wind up your speech a few minutes before 4 pm, to allow the mover to wind up?

Courts and Tribunals (Online Procedure) Bill [Lords]

Imran Hussain Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 16th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

Let me begin by drawing attention to my registered interest as a member of the Bar.

As the House heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), we support the establishment of an online procedure rules committee and the goal of modernising our courts and tribunals. However, we believe that new technologies must be used in our courts only when they have been proved to improve access to justice and engagement with the courts system, and we are concerned about a number of other issues raised by the Bill.

Concerns have been expressed by my hon. Friends the Members for Bolton South East, for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) and for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) and by the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who, in his usual fashion, has been very fair in his analysis of the Bill and highlighted and accepted that we in the Opposition will have natural and genuine concerns.

There has not been as much participation in the debate on the Bill today as we might have expected so my task in summing up the debate has been made slightly easier, but none the less I shall seek to go through our main concerns. I reiterate that we support an online procedure rule committee and the goal of modernising our courts and tribunals, but we do have concerns.

First, digital exclusion has been referred to by a number of Members, and we are concerned that the measures in this Bill could without proper protections exclude those with poor digital literacy from our justice system. Vulnerable people in particular and those with English as a second language are disproportionately represented among defendants, and the Law Society has stated that insufficient weight and prominence will be given to the need for legal advice and representation. Further stoking these fears is the catastrophic failure of the MOJ IT system earlier this year, which, in the words of the Criminal Bar Association put our courts “on their knees” by locking legal practitioners out of their secure email services, leaving them unable to access wi-fi and forcing the adjournment of trials. This is an illustration of technology taking a turn for the worse and how that can impact our justice system.

We are also clear that those using the courts must be able to opt out of a digital proceeding and instead choose a traditional court procedure to prevent them from being digitally excluded, particularly in the light of the fact that there is little research into the different justice outcomes of different procedures and the Government’s record of lacking research, piloting or consultation, which has meant that many of their existing digital reforms have led to delays, a worsening experience for court users and reduced access to justice.

The make-up of the OPRC must be representative; that point was also made by a number of speakers. Its make-up must be representative in particular of the legal profession, as it has the power to dramatically alter the processes in court. It should therefore include at least one representative from each of the solicitor, barrister, legal executive and magistrate professions. Only through this can the committee access the experience of the different legal professional users; only they can see the system as professionals and through the eyes of the client to deliver the best result when creating new rules. While the Government have ceded ground on this issue in the Lords by increasing the number of representatives, which we welcome, they must not seek to reverse this position in Committee, and they must go further to ensure better legal representation on the committee.

Finally, we are concerned about the way in which the Justice Secretary as Lord Chancellor sought to exercise his powers, as the Bill entered the Lords without any real safeguards on his powers in what are now clauses 9 and 10. The Lords Constitution Committee declared its own fears that the Bill conferred broad powers on the Lord Chancellor, and while the Government were defeated and these powers were curbed, we are clear that they must not seek to roll back this progress in Committee. It is right to involve the Lord Chief Justice or Senior President of Tribunals, as the Constitution Committee also states, to ensure fair and efficient administration of the justice system for which they are responsible.

Dramatically reducing the content of my speech in the light of the debate today, I say in conclusion that, while we support the creation of an online procedure rule committee and support the goal of modernising our courts and tribunals system to bring it into the 21st century, we still have some concerns about the Bill, as I have outlined. I hope that the Minister will address those points, so we will not seek a Division today. However, we will in Committee push for amendments to ensure that hard-won rights are protected, that the OPRC is representative of the legal profession and that, in the 70th year of Labour’s landmark introduction of legal aid that made access to justice an achievable goal for everyone, the ability to access justice is not further eroded by measures in the Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Indeed, the service has started research on the effects on prison staff of second-hand exposure to psychoactive substances, in particular across 10 prisons. That testing programme will be extended. We have also established a drugs taskforce, because the best way to deal with the risk is to minimise the use of drugs in prisons. That is a tough challenge, but one that the whole service is working towards.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

Teachers, nurses, cleaners and many others are a vital part of our prison workforce. However, alongside prison officers, they are exposed to the dangers of the prison estate, which the prisons inspector just today has stated contains too much violence, drug use and inactivity, and frankly remains in a state of emergency. Staff have the right to work in a safe environment that is free from violence, abuse and danger, but violence against staff is reaching record highs. Will the Justice Secretary commit today to meeting the teachers I met earlier, and who are in the Gallery to hear his answers, to ensure the safety of all our staff in our prisons?

[Robert Buckland]

I am always interested in meeting staff from across the prison estate, and that includes the teachers who are here today. The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight Peter Clarke’s important report. That report contains significant findings relating to the ongoing challenges, but it also celebrates the professionalism, the caring and the well-run safe, calm parts of our prison estate that exemplify a successful history and pattern of working. I was delighted to be able to attend the prison officer of the year awards last week to acknowledge some of the outstanding service given by prison officers and other employees in HMPPS.

Dangerous Driving

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I thank all hon. Members across the House who have spoken in this important debate and made some powerful points. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) did justice to this debate by setting a substantial tone for what I hope will be a serious but productive conversation.

I pay tribute to the petitioners—the parents, friends and family of Violet-Grace—for the strength and courage that they have shown in what must be the most difficult period. My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) set out those circumstances in her emotional speech, which no one could help but be moved by. Hon. Members from across the House went through some truly horrific and tragic personal cases that they have had to deal with. I look to my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), as we in Bradford are no different—some truly tragic cases have come to us.

I pay tribute to road safety campaigners such as Brake, which my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) referred to. I pay tribute to the campaign run by the Telegraph and Argus in my district and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South. It has led calls locally not just for much stronger sentences for dangerous drivers and those causing death by dangerous driving, but for increasing resources for the police, to enable them to crack down on dangerous driving—I will substantiate that point a little later.

Those who drive dangerously and sit behind the wheel while under the influence of drink or drugs do so with no thought for the consequences of their actions. They care little for the lifetime of grief and misery that they can end up causing the friends and families of those they kill with their reckless actions. While they never set out with the intention to kill, they conduct themselves behind the wheel in a way that makes it a very real possibility. Despite the life-shattering consequences of death as a result of dangerous driving or careless driving under the influence, the sentence that such an offence attracts, in reality, is far from what the public expect or want. As we have heard, in many cases those who have killed through dangerous driving receive a custodial sentence of just a few years.

The offences of causing death by dangerous driving and causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drink or drugs should be treated with the severity that they deserve, to match the consequences of those actions. However, we must be careful not to tie the hands of the judiciary too tightly, as we must respect its independence and ability to view and judge cases based on the evidence and facts that are brought before it. We must give it the power and flexibility that it needs to pass sentences that fit the crime of which the defendants are convicted.

Because of the backlash, referred to by some hon. Members, over short sentences imposed for such serious crimes, in 2014 the Government rightly stated their intention to launch a consultation on the matter. Many hon. Members have gone through the chronology, but I will look at the pertinent points. It took a further two years for the consultation to be published, and a further year for the Government to publish their response to the findings of the consultation, despite the fact that within days it had become one of the consultations most widely responded to that the Ministry of Justice had ever issued.

Despite being four years on from the Government’s statement of their desire to increase the maximum sentence available to judges, we are still no closer to the legislation that would bring such a desire into effect, as many hon. Members have said. Now we hear that they will bring forward legislation when parliamentary time can be found; they have stated as much to many hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), who is not in this debate.

The Government have used that excuse for the past two years, but the point has been made that time has been abundant for them to bring forward that legislation, and they have refused to do so. Perhaps the Minister will explain why they have left the words and promises they gave to victims’ friends and family to ring hollow. To be fair to the Minister, I am not levelling criticism directly at him since he was not in his role at the time. As I said, this issue is serious enough that we should work together on it. I hope that in his response, the Minister will say what everyone here wants him to say.

The massive cuts to police numbers have not taken up a lot of time in this debate, understandably, but they are important. I am attempting not to use the issue politically but to make a factual point: since 2010, £2.7 billion in real terms has been cut from police budgets across the country, and over 21,000 police officers have been lost for good. In my region of West Yorkshire, there are more than 700 fewer officers. Those cuts have fallen the hardest on specialist forces who are much harder to recruit, train and replace, such as our road traffic police who, according to The Times, dropped 11% between 2016 and 2018.

The loss is keenly felt on our streets, where the reassuring presence of the police no longer deters dangerous drivers. The Police Federation has said that dash camera evidence from drivers is no replacement for patrols; motorists regularly drive in an antisocial, dangerous and aggressive way because they are less fearful of being caught. Evidence shows that increased levels of road policing can reduce traffic violations and road casualties. We all know that prevention is better than the cure; we do not want to be in a position of sentencing those found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving, because by then it is too late—the irreversible damage has been done and another life has been needlessly lost. Instead, we want those who would otherwise drive dangerously to be deterred from ever setting out on the road, because of a near-certain chance of being caught. We want those drivers never to be able to take another life.

In addition to putting police back on our streets and our roads, we need to look at cases of dangerous driving where, thankfully, there is no death or injury, to look at what is driving people to make such foolish decisions behind the wheel. Such offences may rightly warrant a custodial sentence depending on their severity, but they certainly warrant much greater rehabilitative efforts to make sure that the next time a dangerous driver gets behind the wheel, they do not repeat their mistakes, drive dangerously and end up killing someone.

Those killed by dangerous drivers or careless drivers under the influence of drink or drugs deserve real justice. Their friends and family deserve to see punishment for those whose reckless and dangerous behaviour has left huge holes in their lives.

Assisted Dying

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

There is no doubt that this is a deeply sensitive debate on matters of considerable gravity, and I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to this important debate this afternoon. The topic of taking a life is not one that this House can or should debate lightly, and clear opinions—including strong points and robust arguments—have been expressed on both sides this afternoon, including by Members who have been directly affected. We heard from the hon. Members for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) and for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) and my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), who all referred to personal experiences. We also heard the passionate and emotional speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield). It is always difficult to stand up in this place and refer to very personal matters. Whether we agree on those matters or not, we should pay tribute to hon. Members who show bravery in talking about their experiences.

In the short time I have, I will seek to summarise the debate so far. We have heard arguments made about why the law on assisted dying should be changed. The primary point that is put forward for changing the law is that it would end individuals’ suffering in the final days, weeks and months of their lives after having been put through the tortures of terminal illness. A further point about individual liberty is also made, with hon. Members stating that we have free will, are responsible for our own lives and should be able to choose the time and place of our passing when we face a terminal illness. Many state that the safeguards that would be absolutely necessary should assisted dying be legalised can be put into place to prevent abuse of the system. Several hon. Members have mentioned the finances and the fact that if one has means, one is able to travel out of the country, but none of these issues should ever be linked to one’s ability to pay.

There is resistance to changing the law, and as some hon. Members have pointed out, any attempt to legalise assisted dying for people with terminal illnesses represents a slippery slope that can start with legalised assisted dying but then escalate to legalised assisted suicide and legalised euthanasia. Such a situation, it is argued, would be beyond what was originally envisaged in legalisation for assisted dying and could lead to further issues. For instance, people with terminal illnesses or chronic conditions, particularly the elderly, could see themselves as being a burden on their friends and families and could opt to end their lives to allow them to escape those perceived pressures. Another concern is that the elderly and those with medical conditions could be pressured into ending their lives against their will by a number of different people.

There has been some resistance from the medical profession—the British Medical Association has set out its opposition to the policy, and the Royal College of Nursing has refused to advocate it—although a number of Members have rightly pointed out that the profession’s position has also been shifting of late.

One of the positives that will emerge from this debate is that we are talking about death, because, as a country, we do not do that enough. Death is one of society’s last great taboos, which we still have not overcome. We close up and do not discuss it, because we think that by not discussing it we can avoid it—can prevent it from happening to our friends and family, to those whom we care about and to ourselves. We do not have these conversations often enough or engage in them deeply enough, particularly when a friend or family member is suffering from a terminal illness and approaching the end of their life. That is one of the reasons why palliative and end-of-life care is not as good as it could be, and why too many people are reaching the end of their lives in hospital rather than in their own homes, surrounded by their families.

There is no reason why we, as a society, cannot provide end-of-life care that provides full pain relief and soothes mental distress. That is why we have committed ourselves to providing free social care for those on the palliative care register, starting with those with the highest needs, so that no one will have to die in hospital for want of a social care package of support.

Time does not permit me to say much more; I have already exceeded my allocated time by a few seconds. Let me end by saying that this is a clear issue of conscience. Members on both sides of the debate have advanced strong and robust arguments. If we are to take one thing from the debate, it must be a commitment to improving the care received by those approaching the end of their lives and to giving them dignity in death.

Child Imprisonment

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 25th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) for securing this important debate. She is a passionate campaigner for the rights and fair treatment of children, and the serious and substantial work she does is a credit to her. She made a brilliant speech and, along with the spokesperson for the Scottish National party, the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), covered most of the pertinent points, including on solitary confinement and segregation, which was the subject of a lengthy debate in this place not long ago. I will come to that later in my speech.

Another pertinent point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields and the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West was on the blurring of the lines. The Government are adamant that no child is subject to solitary confinement, but the line between segregation and solitary confinement is blurred. Although the Minister’s intentions are not to be doubted, we need further clarification. The other pertinent point made by all who have spoken was on the sheer disproportionality in BAME representation in our youth estate: more than 50% is the current figure, which is shocking and cause for concern.

It is widely recognised by innumerable studies, reports and testimonies that child and young offenders are some of the most troubled and challenged groups of people in our society. Although they face many of the same issues that all young people do, they also face challenges and have needs of a far more extreme and pressing nature, and their experiences are far from typical of those faced by other children. When compared with the general population and their peers, children in custody are far more likely to experience mental health issues. Figures published by the prisons inspectorate and information collated by the MOJ both state that around 1 in 3 children in custody suffered from emotional or mental health issues. That is worrying enough on its own but, from what we know about mental health issues in the adult estate and wider society, the figure is expected to be much larger in reality. In many cases, mental health issues are aggravated by substance misuse, with nearly half of children assessed as having a substance misuse issue on entering custody—that figure too will no doubt be higher in reality.

Children who have spent time in care, with all the emotional distress, the huge disruptions to their lives and schooling, and likely prior abuse and trauma that life in care brings, are also much more likely to end up involved in criminal activity, and they are disproportionately represented to a significant degree in custody as a result. Less than one in every 100 children in England are in care, but they account for around two in every five children held in secure training centres and young offender institutions.

The Government’s review of youth custody—the Taylor review, to which hon. Members have referred—found that around nine in 10 children held in custody had been excluded from school at some point. Forty per cent. of the under-18s surveyed reported that they had not been to school since they were 14 years old. Many young people in custody are also further hampered by a range of additional mental health challenges that affect their education and learning, with 30% of 10 to 17-year olds suffering from ADHD, more than 50% from dyslexia, and 20% from another learning disability. It is therefore no surprise that their educational attainment is much lower than the national average. The Taylor review further points out that half of 15 to 17-year-olds entering young offender institutions have the literacy or numeracy levels expected of a seven to 11-year-old.

Such a cocktail of challenges and disadvantages are at the core of the drivers of offending for many children and young people. However, despite the challenges, the youth custodial system is fit to neither hold them nor care for them. It is plagued by serious problems that the Opposition have repeatedly warned of, and it is incapable of both ensuring the safety of vulnerable young people and effectively rehabilitating them for life after their release.

We agree that all children should be safe, including those in custody, but on this Government’s watch we have witnessed a marked increase in violence. The Taylor review points out that the number of assaults each month per 100 young people in custody rose dramatically from nine in 2009-10 to 16.2 in 2014-15. Indeed, so bad is the level of violence that the chief inspector of prisons not only described worrying rates of violence and a staggering decline in safety in the youth custodial estate in his 2017 and 2018 annual reports, but was forced to declare that no young offender institution or secure training centre is safe to hold children and young people.

Just today the inspectorate published a report into Her Majesty’s Young Offender Institution Werrington that found that violence remains far too high. That follows a report into the notorious Feltham prison, referred to by a number of Members, which also saw a significant increase in violence. The Government like to praise the reduction in the number of children and young people in custody yet, as a result of their cuts to staff and budgets, those still imprisoned are in much greater danger. They have, like with the adult estate, pushed the youth custodial estate into a spiral of violence, where neither children nor staff are safe.

Children and young people imprisoned in the youth estate are also significantly more likely to carry out acts of self-harm as the vital support once available to vulnerable individuals is eroded and becomes yet another victim of cuts. Self-harm rates in youth custody have soared in a matter of just a few years, almost doubling from 5.1 incidents per 100 children in the year to March 2012 to nine incidents per 100 children in the year to March 2017.

Earlier this month, we saw that the rate of self-harm had doubled at Feltham, some cases of which were extremely serious and involved ligatures or significant cuts. The chief inspector of prisons warned that the

“care for children in crisis was inconsistent”

and that there was no action plan to address the rise in incidents. That is not helped by the fact that more than one in five children feel that it is easy to get illegal drugs into their young offender institution that are proven to aggravate mental health conditions and contribute to rates of self-harm. Nor is it helped by the excessive lock-up of children and young people inside their cells for much of the day—they are often allowed out for as little as 30 minutes for showers, telephone calls and exercise outside.

Thirteen years on from the independent Carlile inquiry into the use of restraint and solitary confinement, children and young people are still being subjected to those degrading and downright dangerous conditions. The internationally recognised Mandela rules state that solitary confinement—I make the point again that the Government call it segregation, and perhaps the Minister in responding could be clearer on what he sees as not the textbook differences but the practical differences between the two—has a devastating effect on physical and mental health, particularly among groups with mental health issues. Despite that, and even its acceptance in the Prison Service rules, in October last year the Children’s Commissioner found that the number of episodes of segregation in youth custody in England and Wales has increased in the past four years, even as the overall number of children detained has fallen.

Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons has also raised worrying concerns that the use of force in the youth estate remains too high, with disproportionate force employed against children. So widespread is the use of force and restraint that the UN Committee against Torture took the step of asking the Government to ban all forms of restraint that inflict deliberate pain on children. Perhaps the Minister could enlighten us on the Government’s response.

Finally, to a topical issue—the failures in the youth justice system and youth custodial estate are having a particular impact on BAME children. The failure to tackle needs, the drivers of offending and deep mistrust of the justice system among young people—particularly BAME children—are entrenching disproportionality in the system. Two years ago, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) published his landmark review on the treatment and outcome of those from a BAME background in the justice system. He found that, within the youth justice system, the proportion of those from BAME backgrounds rose from 25% to 41% in the decade from 2006 to 2016. That is a worrying American level of disproportionality that, as he says, leaves the UK sitting at

“the extreme end of the developed world in relation to disproportionality.”

We have heard today that the figure now is higher than 41%. That disproportionality should worry us all, particularly as a greater number of BAME children in the youth justice system live in poor housing, are disengaged from education and are more likely to suffer from mental health issues than their non-BAME counterparts.

The evidence we have heard is clear: the youth custodial estate is in dire crisis, the victim of years of underfunding and neglect by the Government. The Minister faces serious questions over the failure of the youth estate and the Ministry of Justice to keep children safe, treat them humanely, and properly prepare them for release. He must answer our questions and answer for the Government’s failure. He must also set out, as a matter of urgency, a plan to ensure that all children in the youth custodial estate are safe from violence and self-harm; a commitment to end the use of painful restraint techniques and solitary confinement; an explanation of the difference as he sees it between solitary confinement and segregation; and what the Government will do to reduce the unwarranted disproportionality of outcomes for BAME children. We have heard much about that in the last two years, but we have seen little in practice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. and learned Gentleman on his appointment. By now, he will know that since 2010 our prisons have been driven into a spiral of violence and a state of emergency as a direct result of his Government’s cuts, leaving staff, prisoners and the public less safe. Will he answer one simple question: when will our prisons return to being as safe as they were in 2010?

[Robert Buckland]

I think the work being done to recruit extra prison officers and the extra finance and resource given to my Department by the Treasury are allowing us to return to a position of greater safety. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his remarks, but I have to say to him that my experience of prisons stretches back a generation, and I know that many of the issues relating to prisons take a long time to resolve, but that will not stop me having a sense of urgency when it comes to dealing with problems of drugs, violence and safety more generally.

Prisons and Probation

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

Throughout this debate we have heard strong speeches on the dangerous consequences of privatisation in our justice system, with Members warning against heading further down this path. These contributions were made by those on both the Government and Opposition Benches. The point made earlier around the Tory ex-Secretary of State Sir Malcom Rifkind’s quote is pertinent and should be used again: he said that deprivation of liberty

“should not be the responsibility of a private company”.

And we can be left in no doubt that the needless privatisation of our probation system and the heavy involvement of the private sector in prisons have proved to be nothing less than a catastrophic disaster.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend, the shadow Secretary of State and I all share the same probation trust; it is run by Purple Futures, part of Interserve, which has gone into administration. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that this is a developing pattern, and that the former Secretary of State who transformed rehabilitation did not think it through, and we now need to remodel it and bring it back into the public sector?

[Imran Hussain]

I absolutely agree and will come on to that point shortly. I would have liked to say a lot more but have been given firm instructions by the Deputy Speaker that I must stick to a strict time limit, so have had to cut a lot of my contribution.

Much of the focus of today’s debate has been on the privatisation of probation, and I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (David Hanson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), who made important contributions which I will come on to later. The Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), spoke about the impact on probation and made the point that there have been numerous reports, all of which highlight the failure in probation.

We have seen offenders released into the hands of private companies whose concern is not the public and their safety, but shareholders and profits. It is right that this has been a key focus, for the Government have not transformed rehabilitation but have destroyed it—crushing rehabilitation, not transforming it.

The failure of private provision companies on reoffending is singled out for particular criticism, as while the principal aim of the plans was to reduce reoffending, the MOJ’s own proven reoffending statistics instead show a rise in reoffending. The blame for this lies squarely with the privatisation of probation and the horrendously delivered through-the-gate services, which are so ineffective that prison and probation inspectorates found there would be no impact at all if they were removed. It is easy to see why they reached this conclusion, as private probation companies have consistently failed to deliver effective support for offenders around accommodation, welfare and employment, all of which are factors determining the likelihood of reoffending.

But it gets worse, as inspections of private probation companies routinely found that they were not just delivering a poor level of supervision of offenders but were carrying it out in non-confidential open public spaces such as libraries, and shockingly in some cases through texts, rather than in private locations. So poor is the record of the community rehabilitation companies in providing support that a 2016 report found that none of those serving a sentence of less than 12 months who were met by the inspectorates had been helped into employment or training after release by through-the-gate. That is absolutely shocking.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for breaking his extremely good speech. The people trying to deliver these services are, whoever they work for, incredibly dedicated and want to do an extremely good job, which many of them are capable of doing, but the problem is the fragmentation of the service, about which I warned the former Secretary of State, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (David Hanson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). The former Secretary of State’s words were: “I don’t need any evidence, I don’t need to pilot it; I have inner belief that this will work,” but he was wrong.

[Imran Hussain]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who raises important points on staffing, on the two-tier workforce and on staff morale, which has also been impacted. Time does not permit me to go into detail on that today, but the 4.5% pay gap between those who work in the private sector and those in the national public service illustrates the massive difference between them.

The privatisation of probation has proved to be not just a disaster but a costly one, with the taxpayer being forced to stump up a total of £467 million to bail out private probation companies in what is nothing short of a reward for their damning failures. In return for this bumper payment, the public have received no guarantee that the services delivered by probation companies will improve and no certainty that they will make any investment to achieve that. And all the while, the Ministry of Justice remains happy to continue to throw good money after bad. Despite this colossal bail-out, the financial difficulties of probation companies remain, with a number forecasting losses and with Working Links collapsing and Interserve entering administration earlier this year. The financial failure and collapse of a probation provider, a key component of the justice system, should be unthinkable, but under this Government’s privatisation agenda, that is exactly what is happening as they erode key functions of the state that should remain in public hands and hand them over to private companies.

We have also heard today about the failings in the private prison estate. The hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves), the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), my hon. Friends the Members for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) and for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) and my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) and for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) all made important points on this. One of the important things about this debate is that Members on both sides of the House have made pertinent and important points highlighting the serious emergency and the dire situation in our prison and probation systems at the moment. It is disappointing that the Secretary of State opened his speech by referring to the shadow Secretary of State’s contribution as “simplistic, dogmatic and bombastic”. We have an emergency in our prisons, we have a safety issue in our prisons and we have a crisis in our probation service, yet the Secretary of State comes to this important debate and uses words such as those. I find that quite disappointing.

The issues in our prisons were most recently brought to the fore by the prisons inspector’s highly critical report on HMP Birmingham, which has been mentioned a number of times today. The fact that conditions there were so bad and the prisoners so violent forced the removal of G4S as the private operator of the prison. Many Members have referred to individual prisons today, including those in their own constituencies, with particular reference to safety. The Ministry of Justice’s own statistics show that private prisons are disproportionately more dangerous, with 156 more assaults per 1,000 prisoners in private prisons compared with those run by the public sector, and that three private prisons appear in the list of the 10 most violent ones. That highlights the points being made by hon. Members today.

As we have heard, the Government know about the huge problems associated with private prisons and they are aware of their failings, yet they are pressing on with opening two new prisons, at Wellingborough and Glen Parva, which will be operated by private companies rather than public sector operators. If the Government are so confident of the ability of private companies, why will they not allow HMPPS to bid to operate Wellingborough and Glen Parva, rather than burying the evidence on why they have not done so? The Prison Officers Association has repeatedly asked for the HMPPS estates and transformation report, but it has repeatedly been denied access to it. This shows that the Government’s plans are driven not by a desire to deliver the best benefits for the public but by ideology, and we are seeing a complete failure by the private sector to stand on its own merits when compared with the public sector.

In conclusion, this debate not only demonstrates the colossal failure of the Government’s privatisation agenda, but represents a staggering row about the Government’s plans for further privatisation in our prisons and to hand larger contracts to the same private companies. There can be no half-measures in the Government’s actions. They must commit not only to ensuring that Wellingborough and Glen Parva are run by HMPPS, not private companies, but to bringing probation back into public control for good. The Ministry of Justice says that it has learned its lessons, so now is the time to prove it. I urge Members to support our motion today.