DRAFT JUDICIAL PENSIONS (FEE-PAID JUDGES) (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS 2023
James Duddridge Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Judicial Pensions (Fee-Paid Judges) (Amendment) Regulations 2023.
It is a pleasure to serve under you this morning, Ms Nokes.
The statutory instrument before us amends the Judicial Pensions (Fee-Paid Judges) Regulations 2017, which established the Fee-Paid Judicial Pension Scheme 2017. I shall refer to those as the fee-paid regulations and the fee-paid pension scheme respectively.
The fee-paid pension scheme currently only provides benefits for eligible fee-paid judicial service on and after 7 April 2000. The main purpose of the SI is to amend the fee-paid regulations to provide pension benefits for eligible fee-paid judicial service before 7 April 2000 and provide a remedy following the judgments in the cases of O’Brien against the Ministry of Justice, known as “O’Brien 2”, and Miller and others against the MOJ, known as “Miller”.
The fee-paid pension scheme commenced on 1 April 2017 when the fee-paid regulations came into force. It provided pension benefits for eligible fee-paid judicial service on and after 7 April 2000 that mirrored those for salaried judges under the Judicial Pensions and Retirement Act 1993, known as JUPRA. In 2018 the European Court of Justice found that eligible fee-paid judicial service prior to that date should also be taken into account for the purpose of calculating pension benefits. In addition, in 2019, the UK Supreme Court found that the time limit for fee-paid pension entitlement claims runs from the date on which the judge retired from judicial service, rather than the date on which they left the fee-paid office concerned. Even though the fee-paid pension scheme closed to further accruals on 31 March 2022, with pension accruals for all judges from 1 April 2022 being in the reformed Judicial Pension Scheme 2022, it is important that judges receive the pension benefits they are entitled to for their historical fee-paid judicial service. The instrument achieves that and provides a remedy for both of the judgments to which I have referred.
In order to achieve the required remedy, the SI makes a number of important changes to the fee-paid pension scheme. Most notably, salaried judges had access to different pension arrangements under the Judicial Pensions Act 1981 before the introduction of the JUPRA pension scheme in 1995. Those earlier arrangements for salaried judges had different accrual rates and scheme features and it has been necessary to retrospectively mirror those provisions and the associated eligibility criteria in the fee-paid pension scheme by introducing new “pre-1995” provisions. I hope that that is all clear—I jest, but it is quite a complex issue.
It is also important to update the schedule of eligible offices for the fee-paid pension scheme, to ensure that all judges who are eligible for a pension are included in the fee-paid regulations. Where eligibility has been established, those offices have been added to the schedule.
The SI also contains a number of other supplementary amendments that are necessary to ensure that fee-paid judges who are eligible for a pension settlement under the fee-paid pension scheme are given the correct settlement. One of those supplementary amendments is the inclusion of a facility for “small pension commutation”. Fee-paid judges do not always build up significant amounts of reckonable service, so we have included provisions that mirror the trivial commutation and “small’ pot” facilities that may be available in other pension arrangements.
The instrument also provides a further window for eligible judges—those with fee- paid service between 1995 and 2006—to purchase additional benefits in schemes constituted by the fee-paid regulations, or to vary purchases they have previously made. Again those provisions mirror those that were historically provided to relevant salaried judges.
The SI also updates the regulations that set out requirements for the payment of contributions by scheme members in respect of service prior to 7 April 2000; provides for a reconciliation of payments in lieu of pension, which have been made to judges, to formal entitlements under the amended regulations; and corrects some minor drafting errors in the existing regulations. Finally, the instrument regularises some partial retirement payments that were originally inconsistent with a restriction in the fee-paid regulations, holding that this option could only be exercised on or after 1 April 2017. That date restriction is also removed by the amendments.
We have undertaken on changes to the fee- paid pension scheme. The Ministry of Justice published a consultation on its proposals for amending that scheme on 24 June 2020, and 106 responses were received by the time the consultation closed on 18 September 2020. The responses were broadly supportive of the proposals, and on 10 December 2020 the Government response was published, setting out how the proposals had been refined to take account of those responses.
Officials at the devolved Administrations in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales have been kept apprised of the development of the amendment regulations, in particular in relation to the offices whose jurisdictions are in those countries, and their views have been reflected in the drafting.
In the case of three fee-paid judicial offices included in the eligibility schedule, targeted consultations, including with office holders, were carried out to provide assurance that the correct service limitation dates are being applied. The service limitation date marks the point from which a salaried comparator judge became eligible for a judicial pension.
In conclusion, I would like to assure Committee members that the amendments to the fee-paid pension scheme set out in this SI are necessary to ensure that judges with historical fee-paid service get the pension benefits to which they are entitled and, together with other measures on judicial pay and pensions, those amendments will help to ensure that we can continue to support our esteemed judiciary.
Sir James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
This process with judges and the McCloud judgment has triggered further things beyond judges’ pensions. It may disorderly and beyond the Minister’s remit, but could he write to the Committee to say what other public sector pension arrangements will be affected following McCloud? What will be the costs? Does it mean that we will have to come back for SIs for every single pension arrangement within the public service or, after this initial one is done, we can just come back once?
Mike Freer
My hon. Friend is correct that the McCloud judgment is an ongoing issue facing all pension schemes. The impact of that judgment is currently being worked through and any relevant changes that may be required will have to be brought forward for consideration. I will ensure that my hon. Friend gets a detailed letter explaining the processes.
Oral Answers to Questions
James Duddridge Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
I very much hope that the Foreign Secretary is beetling his way towards the Chamber as I speak, and I dare say that that will be the aspiration of the House. Either the right hon. Gentleman himself or one of his ministerial accomplices is required in the Chamber. We cannot ask the Lord Chancellor to deal with the next business; that would be unreasonable. [Hon. Members: “Border check!”] I do not think that the Foreign Secretary is between Islington and Camden. No, I am sure he is not.
Mr Speaker
No, I will not take points of order now. I am always interested in the views of the hon. Gentleman, but not now. We will hear from him in due course, and we look forward to that with interest and anticipation. Well done—the hon. Gentleman should stay in his seat, and we will hear from him in due course.
Draft Non-Contentious Probate Fees Order 2017
James Duddridge Excerpts(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. I thank the Minister for his explanation. However, we wish to oppose this draft statutory instrument, and I will explain why.
The reforms being introduced are a form of taxation by the back door. At present there is a simple, clear flat-rate probate fee, but these measures will impose a significantly increased sliding scale on all properties worth more than £50,000. It is not acceptable to place the extra burden of high probate fees on bereaved families in their moment of grief.
Grants of probate currently cost a flat fee of £155 when applied for by a solicitor and £215 when done by an individual. Under the new system, however, the costs will rise enormously. They will rise to £300 for an estate worth £50,000, and up to the enormous amount of £20,000 at the higher end. An estate worth £50,000 is not a large one. The fact that this Conservative Government think it is a reasonable threshold at which to start charging inflated fees shows once again how out of touch they are.
Yasmin Qureshi
I will just finish what I am saying. Recently, Royal London said that a freedom of information request it made to the Ministry of Justice showed that the MOJ could not provide the cost of handling applications broken down by the size of an estate. The MOJ said that it did not have such information,
“because there is no legal or business requirement”
for that.
Yasmin Qureshi
That reveals the extent to which the MOJ is woefully unprepared to introduce this new stealth death tax. Once again, the Government are exposed as unfair, incompetent and dishonest.
The Chair
Order. May I inform the hon. Gentleman that it is protocol for the two Front Benchers to make their presentations first? It is possible to intervene, but it is very clear that the Opposition spokesperson is determined to go through the first part of her address. There will be plenty of time to speak later. The hon. Gentleman has caught my eye, so if he delays his attempt to converse I will call him as soon as I can.
Yasmin Qureshi
Thank you, Sir Alan. The policy shows that the Government are being unfair, incompetent and dishonest. The previous Prime Minister said that the Conservative Government would take the £1 million family home out of inheritance tax altogether. Now this Government want to increase fees radically and hope no one will notice, which proves that their promises are not worth the paper they are written on.
James Duddridge
On a point of order, Sir Alan. is the word “dishonest” parliamentary language?
The Chair
The hon. Gentleman has raised a valid point. I do not think that that terminology should be encouraged. However, I am sure that the hon. Lady will redefine her description in the course of her re-address to the Committee.
Yasmin Qureshi
Thank you, Sir Alan. As you have rightly said, the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East will have plenty of time to contribute after I have spoken. The rule is that if I do not wish to take an intervention, I do not have to do so—[Interruption.] The Whip is speaking from a sedentary position.
Yasmin Qureshi
I am going to finish what I want to say. I think that everybody knows the context in which I used the word “dishonest”. It was clear and obvious.
The Chair
Order. I made a ruling earlier. The hon. Member for Bolton South East is currently trying to explain her use of the word and withdrawing it. I am giving her the opportunity to do that. Will members on both sides of the Committee please calm down? We are only eight minutes into the sitting. I would appreciate it if the Committee would give the Opposition spokeswoman the opportunity to explain herself and then we will move on.
James Duddridge
It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate, Sir Alan. The constituents of Bolton South East will have the opportunity to elect a better Member of Parliament who is less incoherent and more lucid. Had the hon. Lady had the good grace to take an intervention, I would have asked her how she reconciled her Opposition party’s policies on inheritance tax with the policy under discussion, which seems very sensible. I regret that she did not take that intervention. Although she did not have to take it, I think her electorate will judge her on that basis.
Oral Answers to Questions
James Duddridge Excerpts(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Dr Lee
Each of those cases is a tragedy and my condolences go to the family concerned. The right hon. Gentleman is right that it is important to hold prisoners in appropriate circumstances. We are working hard to improve the mental health training of staff, and we are in lengthy discussions with the Department of Health about the broader provision of mental health care.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
Dr Lee
We are working hard on continuity of care in the transmission of notes from the community into the custodial estate, so that we can improve our pick-up of mental health problems when prisoners arrive. There is ongoing training of staff, so that if mental health symptoms develop within prison they can be spotted and the appropriate care provided.
Mr Gyimah
That is certainly not the case. We do recognise, however, that by recruiting more staff and strengthening the frontline we will make it much easier for staff to challenge and support prisoners. That is why we have announced new investment to recruit 2,500 new officers for our jails, and we are also enabling a caseload of one prison officer per six prisoners, so that they can support our prisoners in the efforts to rehabilitate them.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
While significant progress is being made on foreign national offenders being returned, what analysis is there of foreign national offenders coming into the system—and, crucially, do we monitor whether there is a net reduction in foreign national offenders on the estate?
Mr Gyimah
The number of foreign nationals entering our prisons is monitored by the Ministry of Justice. Our figures indicate that between 30 June 2008—the highest point—and 30 June 2016, there was a 14% decrease in the total foreign national prisoner population. This is good progress, but I acknowledge that there is still a lot more to be done.
Oral Answers to Questions
James Duddridge Excerpts(8 years ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey is working with drone manufacturers and leading a cross-Government taskforce to get in place the technology needed to do that. We are also employing solutions such as installing extra netting. Last week I was at HMP Pentonville, which now has patrol dogs whose barking helps to deter drones. We are using all sorts of solutions to deal with contraband entering our prisons.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
James Duddridge
Last year, I spent more than a month in a small room, unable to leave. I lost track of where I was. I became tearful over the slightest of issues. I felt that I could not breathe. I was not incarcerated in prison; I was in hospital following a physical illness, but the experience made me reflect on how easy it is to develop a mental health issue when confined in a small space and lacking orientation. With that in mind, what assessment has the Department made of people developing mental problems in prison, rather than going in with such problems, and what can be done to reduce that?
Dr Lee
I am glad to see my hon. Friend looking so well, following such a significant illness.
Prisoners are entitled to the same levels of care as those living in the community, but there are specific measures in place for their care. All prisoners have a health assessment on arrival, all prison officers receive training to help them to recognise mental health issues, and all prisons have on-site primary healthcare teams who can provide mental health care, refer to counselling, or refer for a further psychiatric assessment for serious mental illness.
Criminal Justice and Courts Bill
James Duddridge Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Jeremy Wright
I agree with my hon. Friend that it is important to review all the options. He has already made a powerful case for his preferred option in dealing with repeat offences of driving while disqualified, and I know he will continue to do so. I hope the review will give him and others the opportunity to make the case they wish to make. In view of that, I hope the hon. Member for Hammersmith will consider whether it is necessary to press his new clause to a vote.
Amendment 8 relates to cases where a defendant being tried under the single justice procedure has 12 or more penalty points on their record. Subsection (3) of proposed new section 16A of the Magistrates’ Court Act 1980, introduced by clause 28 of the Bill, specifies that a decision under the new single justice procedure must be made “in reliance only” on the documents sent to the accused, along with “any written submission” provided that aims to mitigate the sentence imposed. Under amendment 8, a defendant would additionally have to include in any written submission details of previous exceptional hardship pleas they had made to the court. I know the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) will make her case for the amendment in due course, but I presume that the intention is that the single justice procedure should be able to take that into account when considering any further submissions from the defendant requesting mitigation of their sentence.
The Government share Members’ concerns about drivers who continue to drive when accumulating penalty points that would normally result in disqualification. As I have said, we will conduct a review of the wider sentencing framework for driving offences, and as I said to the hon. Lady during Justice questions last week, it may well be that there is a strong case for the inclusion of such a measure.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
My hon. Friend knows that I am very much in favour of making newly qualified drivers carry a probationary plate on their cars for two years to indicate that they might be a greater risk. Will he consider requiring disqualified drivers who re-qualify to have that probationary plate, partly as a punishment but partly to highlight the potential risk to others?
Dangerous Driving
James Duddridge Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
My hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) has made some moving points. I recall being 16 and offering to help with the harvest. I was not used to the hard work and ripped my hands to shreds within a few hours. I was completely useless at baling hay and so was given the job of driving the tractor. I had no training, as I had not even started learning to drive a car. I think that 16-year-olds, like me at the time, need that greater degree of protection.
I also remember in 2004 offering to buy someone who was campaigning for me a beer. He expressed surprise, because I had absolutely no idea that he was 16. I bought him a diet Coke and said, “Not only can I not buy you a beer, but you cannot even drive.” He replied, “No, but I can fly.” He had a private licence and flew out of Southend airport. My point is that there should perhaps be a review of consistency and risk, as well as about what should be done.
This has been a great debate. It has not been difficult for you to keep order, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it has been difficult in other ways. I know that I shy away from some debates in the House of Commons that I would find too emotional. It is very brave of you to be here today, so thank you for that.
The hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) mentioned that this has been a very unpartisan debate. The very moving comments made about Burton or Bolton might have been made about anywhere by Members on both sides of the House.
I was particularly perturbed by the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), who talked not about individual but corporate actions in relation to the responsibility of schools. That made me reflect on schools in Rochford and Southend East. State schools in Southend have very good protections for passengers from errant vehicles, but that cannot be said about private schools. We should perhaps look not only at private schools, to make sure that they are treated in a similar way to public ones, but at nurseries. As the boundary between the definitions of public and private schools merges in the form of free schools, such protections may become even more important.
I want to speak in today’s debate because of a tragic incident that happened in 2009 at 9.45 at night only a few hundred yards away from where I live. With my young children, it had been a particularly difficult day and—unimaginably, once I had found out what had happened so close to my house—I slept through the entire incident, and was unable to provide any support at the time. Subsequently, I hope that I have been able to do a few things.
The hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) struggled to find the right words about this being a “good” debate, but we should not shy away from using such a word. Clearly, we all have horrific examples to bring to the House, but perhaps some good can come from those examples. That is why I am speaking about what happened at 9.45 pm on Friday 6 March 2009.
A 17-year-old pupil from Southend grammar school was driving a Citroen C1. That evening, there had been a birthday in the area. He had only recently passed his driving test, and he was showing off. He was attempting a handbrake turn to impress a group of about 14 of his friends. The police now estimate that he was travelling at about 47 mph in a residential road. He simply did not have the skills to control the vehicle, and he hit all the teenagers. Teenagers who gather and go from place to place for a birthday celebration tend to chat; getting from A to B is as much a part of the birthday celebrations as the actual outing to a location. Some of the individuals were knocked through a garden fence, and others were thrown as high as 15 feet into the air. The noise was evidently enormous, despite its not rousing me from my sleep.
Thankfully, the accident happened opposite a doctors’ surgery, and several of the doctors lived in the surrounding area. The fact that they were able to get to the scene within minutes lessened the final impact on those people. Fortuitously, some of the students or individuals who could get up off the ground and help had recently been through first aid training. Again, that may very well have saved a few people.
Ten youngsters were defined by the hospital as seriously injured, of whom eight had head injuries and broken limbs, and two had significant physical injuries. Eleanor McGrath, who was 14—she is the individual to whom I particularly wish to draw attention—was fatally injured and, sadly, her life support machine was switched off after the accident. Another individual, a young man of 16, has been profoundly physically and mentally impacted. A whole generation of people from Southend have been affected.
Although no one would wish such an event on anyone, the accident has had a profound and positive impact on a generation of people in Southend. Trying to find some rhyme or reason behind the event, Eleanor’s friends decided that they wanted to do something. They launched an awareness campaign called Driving with Grace—Eleanor’s middle name was Grace—and they sent a DVD to all schools in the United Kingdom. The campaign received support from our local Essex police and the Safer Roads Foundation. Indeed, many secondary schools still use the DVD now, and Eleanor’s friends received an award for their work from the police in 2010. Road crashes are the most common form of death and serious injury for young people. The Driving with Grace campaign seeks to highlight the importance, for someone driving, of thinking about what they are doing before they act.
Under-25s make up only a tenth of the population, but a quarter of the number of drivers killed on the roads, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, so they are clearly a massive danger. Far too many people, when they pop out to drive, do not feel that they are in a powerful weapon that they risk killing with: they have no idea of such possibilities. As young men, they feel invincible. I think that I can say that; I am sure young women also feel invincible behind the wheel. In my experience of observing drivers in my part of the country, Southend, I am certainly aware that there is a particular problem with young drivers.
Eleanor’s parents have engaged in extensive research over several years. They did not leap to react immediately, but have thought deliberatively about what needs to be done and have tried to be as constructive as possible. When people suffer such tragedies, they sometimes react by expecting absolutely everything to be done, including by encroaching on people’s liberties and incurring costs, but Eleanor’s parents have been very responsible. Specifically, they believe in the graduated driving licence, which was mentioned earlier—that a compulsory P plate should be displayed for three years after someone passes their test, signalling a probation period for new drivers.
People who have just passed their driving test can feel on top of the world—invincible—and it is a little less macho to have a big “P” on the back of their 1-litre banger or on a new car. I hope that that might change attitudes. I am sure that when hon. Members see a learner, they give them a little extra space. If they cut us up by accident, stall or are a little over-cautious, we think, “Well, I was there once.” The moment people pass their driving test and the L plate is removed, however, we expect them to be equally competent as a driver who has perhaps driven for 20, 30 or 40 years and passed an advanced driving test. The probationary plates not only allow other people to exercise a little more care around such drivers, but demonstrate to their peer group that they are still young adults and are still learning.
Graduated driving licence systems are in place in several states in the US, and in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France and Northern Ireland. We do not need to make up a new system to find a proven one that works. I call on the Government to introduce, initially, a simple three-year system, but there are several other options. In different areas, features of systems include compulsory logging of the initial 120 hours of driving experience, a minimum period of driving on certain types of roads or a two-stage probationary period, which in some places is recognised by the use of P1 and P2 plates. In some places, there are peer passenger restrictions, so that only a certain number of people of a certain age are allowed in the car after dark or late at night. I urge caution in considering that option, because it would have other implications such as young people being left on the streets. There are certainly many options for the Government to consider if they do not want a simple three-year probationary period.
The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), has been very good on this issue. I visited him with Eleanor’s parents at the beginning of the month and left him with a probationary plate to put on his desk as a reminder of Eleanor and of what I expect of him, which is to bring forward a solution. I am reassured to see the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), who is a very able Minister, on the Front Bench. I know that he will take these matters just as seriously. I ask him to speak to my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby, to ensure that these issues are joined up.
Being a wise Minister, I am sure that my hon. Friend will not have a knee-jerk reaction, leap to the Dispatch Box and announce 10 of the excellent ideas that we have heard today as Government policy, however tempting that may be. All too often with this type of debate, changes drip out subsequently. I ask him not to write to Members who have contributed to the debate straight afterwards, but to write to us six months to the day and say, “After calm reflection, this is what has happened over the past six months as a result of the debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) and the contributions that were made by Members across the House.” That would be a worthwhile initiative and I hope that the Minister will consider taking part in it.
Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill
James Duddridge Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Dr Huppert
It is a great pleasure to follow the excellent speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley). I also want to pay huge tribute to the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). It has been a great pleasure to work with her during the passage of the Bill, and her speech today set the scene extremely well. I pay tribute to her, although I am not sure whether that will help or hinder her future plans. I thought that she did extremely well.
There are two issues that we need to debate today. One is the principle of whether we should allow humanists to conduct weddings; the other relates to the process of how we might get there. This is all made much more complicated because our marriage laws are incredibly complicated. They have exceptions and exemptions all over the place. The Second Church Estates Commissioner, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry), who speaks for the Church of England, and who I imagine knows the Marriage Act 1949 quite well, has spoken of how the rules are all tied to places. Section 26 of the Act states that marriages may be solemnised in
“a registered building…in the office of a superintendent registrar”,
and
“on approved premises”.
It also permits
“a marriage according to the usages of the Society of Friends (commonly called Quakers)”
and
“a marriage between two persons professing the Jewish religion according to the usages of the Jews”.
So we already have an exception and, as far as I can tell, the world has not fallen apart since those provisions were passed in 1949. They have worked without any problems. There are other areas of marriage law that are just complicated. We do not have a simple, clear system, and we are not going to get one as a result of any legislation that we pass today. That will involve further work.
Let me turn first to the question of principle. Is there a desire to allow humanists to conduct weddings? This was mentioned by the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt). If any Member here in the Chamber disagrees with the principle of humanists being allowed to conduct weddings, I would be grateful if they intervened on me to say so. If no one expresses such a view, we will take it that there is no dissent on that principle.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is presuming; the fact those people who are currently in the Chamber do not express disagreement with him does not mean that he is right or that they all agree. That is blatantly obvious.
Mike Weatherley
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comment. He is absolutely right to suggest that we cannot speculate accurately about the views of the people who are not in the Chamber. It is clear, however, that no strong views have been expressed that challenge the principle of holding humanist weddings, and I hope that that will be useful if this is discussed further in another place. There has not been a strong chorus of speeches here expressing disagreement with the principle. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the views of all 650 Members have not been taken into account, however. It would be helpful to know whether the Secretary of State supports humanist weddings in principle. She is welcome to intervene on me to give me her view on that. There is a desire for this change among the general public. Indeed, most people I have spoken to have been surprised to learn that humanist weddings are not allowed.
There are problems with how the process would work. People who had a humanist wedding would have to have a register office wedding first. Some registrars are very helpful, and make it easy for that to happen. They make it a seamless experience. Others, however, are difficult. They ensure, for example, that the events take place in different locations, thus breaking up the ceremony, to the detriment of people who should be having one of the happiest moments of their life. Some people who have a humanist wedding celebration do not have a legal wedding. I presume they know that they are not legally married, but that can cause problems for them. So there are concerns about the way in which the process works at the moment.
We know that this is a pro-marriage step. We have heard a lot from the Government and the Minister to say that the aim of the whole Bill is to support marriage. We know that that is what it does. We know that in Scotland between 2005 and 2011 there was a very large increase in the number of humanist weddings—the figure I have for the increase is 2,404—and there was a small decrease of 418 in civil weddings. Overall, that is a very large number of extra weddings. That is surely something that a pro-marriage Government would thoroughly want to support.
Mike Freer
May I return to the topic of amendment 49, which I was very pleased to co-sign with the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas)?
Let me start by reassuring my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) that building a stable and cohesive society is one of the most fundamental roles of Government, so to be doing that today through debating this Bill is a highly appropriate use of parliamentary time. To those who ask whether we should be doing something else, I say that I can, perhaps unusually for a man, multi-task, so I think I can manage both to speak in this debate and to deal with other pressing issues.
Turning specifically to the amendment, it is important to distinguish between contracted-in and contracted-out pensions. This is quite a technical change and it does not apply to contracted-out pensions; it applies only to contracted-in pensions. As the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion said, two-thirds of pension schemes already allow spousal survivors in civil partnerships equivalent widow or widower benefits without having to be forced to do so by the law, but one-third of them are discriminating. What is worse, that is an optional discrimination; they are choosing to discriminate against surviving civil partners in contracted-in pension schemes.
Let me try to explain why that is so fundamentally wrong. The hon. Lady gave the example of John Walker. Had he married a woman, she would have got a pension on his death of £41,000, but his civil partner got a pension of just £500 per annum. That diversity is the wrong kind of diversity; that is pure discrimination. Let us assume two men or two women join a pension scheme on the same day, and they both have the same level of service, and they both enter into some form of partnership, but one gets married and the other goes into a civil partnership, and let us also assume that the day after they get married or enter their civil partnership, they are both, by some quirk of fate, killed in a car accident. The pension of the widow in marriage will be go back to the date her former husband joined the pension scheme, let us say some 20 years previously, but the civil partner only gets to go as far back as when civil partnerships came into law. That cannot be right by any stretch of the imagination.
When researching why the Government were resisting this amendment, I was told that one of the issues is the cost factor. Everything we as a Government do has a cost, so I thought there must be some huge cost—perhaps £4 billion, which was a ready price-tag yesterday. In fact, the cost of giving equal pension rights on contracted-in pensions to civil partners is £18 million—not £80 million or £80 billion, but £18 million. It is true that that is a lot of money, and I certainly would not mind having £18 million in my bank account, but let me put that into perspective. The assets under management of the pension industry amount to £360 billion, so the cost of removing this anomaly is 0.006% of assets under management. I do not think that is a price we cannot afford.
I was also told that it is wrong to force pension providers to make retrospective calculations on which they did not base their pension actuarial decisions. That, too, is a flawed argument. As the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion said, the actuaries behind a pension scheme make a whole variety of assumptions about longevity, how many of their pensioners will die in service and how many of them will die as a pensioner, and how long they will stay in the pension, and the accrual rate will be based on an assumption that most of their members will get married. It is complete nonsense to suggest that pension providers cannot allow civil partners who survive to get the same benefit as a widow or widower because it has not been accrued, as there is absolutely no evidence that the actuaries have not been able to make that calculation. If they made the calculation that X% of their pensioners would get married, they could simply make assumptions about a man in a civil partnership. They will have had no knowledge of whether that man or woman would have decided to get married or to enter a civil partnership and there is no logical or financial reason why the anomaly cannot be removed.
I hope that the Minister will give some commitment from the Government that the anomaly will be reconsidered. I know it was mentioned in Committee and that the Government are resisting the amendments, but I urge my ministerial colleagues to address the issue.
James Duddridge
I totally support the comments my hon. Friend is making about removing the anomaly. Is there a list of companies that are already doing the right thing and, crucially, those that are doing the wrong thing? Are those companies named and shamed? Often, when we flick through the glossy corporate reports they say lots of glowing things and that the company is doing the right thing, but are they putting their money where their mouth is and supporting equal rights?
Mike Freer
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I have tried to dig around to find out the size of liabilities and which companies are doing this, but unfortunately I cannot find that information. It is fair to say that many corporates take great pleasure in trumpeting in their annual reports what they would regard as their social responsibility, but I think that they should be saying loud and proud—to coin a phrase—that they are treating civil partners in the same way as heterosexual widows and widowers.
I hope that my ministerial colleagues can give some ground and say that the Government are willing to reconsider the matter. The cost is not even a rounding error in the Government accounts or for the pension industry, but the benefit to the recipients is beyond value.
Oral Answers to Questions
James Duddridge Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
On the subject of the equal marriage consultation, I call James Duddridge.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
In the course of her discussions on equal marriage, did the Minister discuss with the Church of England the fact that it would continue to bless marriages, whether of same-sex or opposite-sex couples, that have taken place elsewhere?
Maria Miller
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that many churches already offer the opportunity for couples who are in same-sex relationships to have their marriages blessed in church. These are matters for the Church to deal with, whether they relate to the performance of marriages in church or to blessings. The Church must deal with these issues itself.
Presumption of Death Bill
James Duddridge Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
The Scottish example, where there has been only one revocation, is often cited. I have not seen anything about the Northern Ireland example. Is that because there has not been a revocation of any particular measure there?
John Glen
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question. I am not certain on that point, so I would need to examine things further. However, my understanding is that such situations are extremely rare and it is quite probable that there has not been a revocation from the Northern Ireland legislation.
Let me return to the point I was making. The Justice Committee said that
“the fact that, in 34 years, only one person who was the subject of an order under the Scottish Presumption of Death Act 1977 has reappeared is a compelling argument that the legislation provides a clear, robust court process to resolve the question of whether a missing person is alive or dead. We therefore recommend that the Ministry of Justice introduce legislation based on the Scottish Act.”
It continued:
“The law relating to the affairs of missing people will only affect a limited number of people. It will, however, allow families placed in extremely difficult emotional circumstances at least to resolve the financial and legal affairs of their missing relatives. We believe the time is long overdue to extend to English and Welsh families the protection that is available to Scottish and Northern Irish families.”
At present in England and Wales we do not have a single certificate procedure that deals with a situation where somebody goes missing and is presumed dead. This, as the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) said, contrasts sharply with Scotland and Northern Ireland, both of which have legislated in this field. Scotland has the Presumption of Death (Scotland) Act which has been in place since 1977, and Northern Ireland has the Presumption of Death Act (Northern Ireland) 2009. If the Bill progresses and is enacted, it will put England and Wales on a par with Scotland and Northern Ireland in this respect.
It may be helpful for hon. Members to know that there are currently about 360,000 reports of people going missing annually, and 25,000 of those remain open for more than a week. About 2,000 people remain missing for more than a year, and in 2010 the charity Missing People had 346 cases on its UK database which were more than seven-years-old.
At present, when a person goes missing and is thought to have died and there is no corpse, a death certificate cannot be obtained in the usual way. This means that there can be difficulties for surviving spouses or civil partners, and property cannot be distributed in the way that it would if death were confirmed through the production of a body. There are a number of procedures that must be gone through in order to deal with the missing person’s affairs if they are presumed to have died. These include dissolving a marriage, applying for an inquest, sorting out probate, and dealing with benefits and other administrative matters.
All these are separate processes and involve considerable time, stress and legal advice, not to mention costs, to complete. Of course, there is great uncertainty and a lack of direction as the expertise and experience available among the police and legal profession is not generally available with sufficient depth in one single place. Therefore, a single process that provides a document that would act like a death certificate would be a great improvement for families going through this awful, traumatic experience.
Let me turn to the Bill and explain what it contains. It will introduce a new court-based procedure that will enable those left behind to obtain a declaration from the High Court that the missing person is deemed to have died. The High Court will be able to make that decision if it is satisfied that the missing person has died or has not been known to have been alive for a period of at least seven years. When the declaration has been made, a copy will be sent to the Registrar General for England and Wales and the details will be registered in a new register of presumed deaths, which will be linked for research purposes to the register of deaths maintained under the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953. The certificate will be conclusive as to the presumed death and effective for all purposes and against all persons.
Following this, property can then pass in the usual way, as if the missing person had been certified dead in the normal way. His or her marriage or civil partnership will end, just as a marriage or civil partnership ends on death.
There will be, in effect, a certificate of presumed death that can be used by those left behind to deal with the property affairs of the missing person as if he or she had actually died and a death certificate had been issued. There is provision to allow the declaration to be revoked should emerging facts require it, and of course the register would then be amended. Based on the Scottish experience, it is anticipated that we would expect, on average, 30 to 40 declarations per year.
It may be helpful at this point to reflect on what is really involved. The situation can obviously be incredibly traumatic for many of these families. Families who have worked with the charity Missing People highlight the constant mental anguish and uncertainty as to what has happened to their missing person. On top of this, dealing with various financial affairs—changing mortgages, selling equities or other investments, drawing on pensions, or selling or disposing of property—can be particularly difficult. Many have pointed out that engaging a solicitor to deal with these affairs can be prohibitively expensive. I realise that the Bill will not be able to address the trauma and constant anxiety and concern that is inevitable when somebody goes missing, but it can simplify the complexity of dealing with an individual’s affairs and bypass the need for expensive legal advice and services.
I should now like briefly to go through the Bill and outline, clause by clause, its precise provisions. Clause 1 enables the High Court to make the declaration of presumed death, and it sets out who will be able to apply for this declaration—usually a close relative, spouse, civil partner, parent, child or sibling of the missing person. However, the Court can also hear an application from someone it believes has sufficient interest. There must also be a connection with England and Wales, either via the missing person or the person making the application. The missing person must either have been living in England or Wales at the time of the disappearance or habitually resident for the previous year, or the person making the application must satisfy similar rules.
Clause 2 relates to the two bases that the Court has for making the declaration. They are distinct. The Court must be satisfied that the missing person has either died or has not been known to be alive for at least seven years, although the person does not have to have been missing for seven years for the Court to believe them to have died. This part of the Bill also sets out when the Court deems the person to have died, which can be extremely important in determining property interests.
Clause 3 goes on to explain the effect of the declaration—that it is conclusive proof of a missing person’s death, and as such effective for all purposes against all persons. The declaration also ends a marriage or civil partnership, just as a marriage would end when someone has died. It also extends to matters of property ownership, and it is final once it is no longer subject to an appeal or any previous appeal that has been dismissed or withdrawn.
Clause 4 allows the Court to make any order it considers reasonable in relation to any interest in property acquired as a result of the declaration. For example, it requires that even if a variation or revocation order is made, any interest is not recoverable under certain conditions or under any conditions. Some hon. Members have raised the scenario of when a revocation is necessary, and clauses 5, 6 and 7 deal with this. Variation orders involve important safeguards. They allow the High Court to vary or even revoke a declaration of presumed death. That means that if evidence comes to light that the missing person is not dead, the Court can determine to revoke the order.
If that happens, there might be issues regarding property that has been disposed of as a result of the original declaration. The Bill addresses such circumstances. If a variation order is made it will not necessarily affect the property that has been acquired as a result of the original presumption of death declaration, but it will allow the court to make further orders that it deems reasonable and necessary as to the property acquired. A variation order does not revive a marriage or civil partnership; otherwise, subsequent marriages or civil marriages could be invalidated.
Schedule 1 provides for the establishment of a register of presumed deaths, to be maintained by the Registrar General. As I have said, the register would be linked to the register of deaths maintained under the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, so it would be searchable in the same way as the register for death certificates.
Finally, clause 17 gives the Secretary of State the power to amend certain periods of time specified by the Bill—for example, the seven-year period in which a person has not been known to be alive.
The rest of the Bill is fairly self-explanatory, but I want to address a couple of points that hon. Members might raise. Guardianship is one of the most difficult issues that I encountered as I contemplated this Bill. I know that the Justice Committee has recommended that laws should be put in place to address this issue, and many people I have spoken to would like a provision to appear in the Bill. I also acknowledge the views of Peter Lawrence, who explained to me a couple of weeks ago how he found it frustrating that we could not make such a provision at this time. Guardianship would give a suitable person certain powers over the property and affairs of the missing person, but without having to satisfy the standards for a full presumption of death certificate. It would, in effect, be an interim measure that could then be superseded at a later point by a presumption of death certificate, if appropriate.
Such a system exists in Australia, where a court can make an order only if there is a need for decisions to be made about the missing person’s property, if the decisions are made in their best interests, and if all people with a relevant interest are notified. However, after consulting widely and taking advice from a number of respected experts in this field, I decided not to include guardianship in the Bill, despite my firm belief that it needs to be legislated for in the future—in fact, as soon as possible.
I was concerned that including guardianship would have caused problems for the passage of the Bill, because the structures of guardianship are very complex and require far more work than it is possible to undertake during the time frame available for this Bill. Ideally, there would need to be a consultation about the exact form that guardianship orders should take and the criteria that should be applied in making them. That would make this a more contentious Bill, so I took the view that it is more important to work towards getting presumption of death legislation on to the statute book for England and Wales, so that they can be on level ground with Scotland and Northern Ireland. I did not want the debate and concerns about guardianship to prevent that from happening.
If this Bill were enacted, it would be entirely right to push for guardianship. In fact, I believe that the Bill lays the foundations for that to happen very quickly. I consider it a first step in that process, and should the House wish for it to proceed it will be a stepping stone for further legislation.
It makes absolute sense for there to be an interim measure whereby the closest relatives of a missing person can be legally enabled to take control of their assets. Of course, many issues need to be considered and resolved, but if other jurisdictions have managed to overcome those obstacles and develop the appropriate legal framework, it seems incumbent upon this legislature to do so as quickly as possible, learn from their experiences and develop an appropriate guardianship system for England and Wales.
I anticipate that some people will be concerned about the costs of using High Court applications for declarations of presumed death. After consideration, however, I have decided that it is right that the High Court is used because of its expertise in the area. It should be the Court to take the decision in the first instance. As Members will be aware, the presumption of death is a decision of great seriousness and requires the careful weighing of evidence, as it has enormous, life-changing implications for those involved.
There is also merit in the point that the High Court should test the standards that will need to be applied in all cases. As there will be perhaps 30 to 40 cases a year, it would be sensible to have them at one court that has expertise and can establish those standards, rather than at a number of courts that may not be fully conversant with the protocol owing to it not having sufficient cases to develop expertise. However, I recognise the possibility that cases could be devolved to certain county courts under secondary legislation at a later date, if it seemed that the expertise was in place at those courts to deliver the same reliable outcomes as the High Court.
The time is right. In fact, I think it would be fair to say that it is now long overdue to pass legislation in this area. Not only is it right from the perspective of the numerous relatives and friends of those who are missing, but the need is generally accepted by all parties in both Houses. The Government’s response to the Justice Committee’s report was clear, stating:
“Introducing a single procedure to obtain a general purpose certificate of presumed death equivalent to a death certificate in England and Wales will bring the law of England and Wales into line with the law in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The new procedure will replace the existing range of procedures providing specific limited outcomes, which taken together currently provide the equivalent protection to that available in Scotland and Northern Ireland. This simplification should make it easier for those left behind to deal with the affairs of a missing person, who is thought to be dead, notwithstanding the very difficult circumstances in which they have been placed.”
That clearly indicates that there is wide and deep understanding of what should be done.
I hope that the Bill will bring some measure of finality to distressed families who have to live daily with the emotional trauma and distress of not knowing whether they will see their loved one again. Allowing friends and families to obtain a certificate of presumed death, after careful deliberation by a judge on all the evidence, will enable them to move forward and deal with the missing person’s affairs, and perhaps begin to rebuild their lives. I ask Members to support the Bill so that it can proceed quickly to Committee and move forward as soon as is practicably possible.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
I rise to support the Bill, and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) on introducing it. I know—not from personal experience, but from speaking to colleagues who have been lucky in winning the private Members’ Bills raffle—that hon. Members are put under a lot of pressure by different organisations. My hon. Friend has wisely chosen to introduce a Bill that is at the heart of his experience and that will make a tangible difference to individuals’ lives. I hope it is deliverable, and I urge the Minister to support it.
Cases involving deaths are among the most harrowing that Members of Parliament deal with—they are the cases I felt least prepared to deal with as a new Member of Parliament in 2005. I have been asked to be involved in five cases when constituents have passed away, and surprisingly I have dealt with three cases of missing persons—all three went missing overseas.
I should like further debate in Committee—I am keen to serve on the Committee, and do not want to detain the House too long today—on deaths overseas and the role of the Foreign Office, and on what information local embassies need to trigger the certificate to allow the presumption of death to be dealt with exactly the same as it would be in the UK.
I asked my hon. Friend about Northern Ireland, and am grateful to the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for clarifying the absence of information on revocations in Northern Ireland. I accept his word that there is no information because there are no revocations, which is most reassuring.
I am also reassured, as other hon. Members will be, by the involvement of Lord Boswell, previously of this place. Like my hon. Friend, he was admirable in the discharging of his duties for those less fortunate.
We need to clear up the patchwork of complexity that my hon. Friend has described—that has been pushed for by organisations such as Missing People. I have read more about Missing People over the past few days, but through my own inadequacies I have not linked up with it when dealing with cases. The more we can do to publicise its good work in helping people in their moment of need, the better. I was amazed when looking at the fact sheets on its website at the numbers involved, which have been mentioned by hon. Members. In addition, the numbers mentioned by the Serious Organised Crime Agency are horrific. When people are at their lowest ebb and hoping that their relative is missing and not dead, it is difficult for them to take responsibility within that patchwork of complexity. The Bill will tidy that up, so that when people are dealing with the emotional strains of having a missing relative who has probably passed away, they will not also have to deal with the complexity of the law.
I urge hon. Members to keep the Bill focused. Like the hon. Member for Islington North, I would have liked it to deal with guardianship, but I recognise the wisdom of my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury in keeping the Bill clean and clear-cut. Equally, I would have liked a Foreign and Commonwealth Office provision in the Bill—perhaps the Bill will be amended in Committee—but I would not want to include it if it held the Bill up.
I wish my hon. Friend well and congratulate him on his choice of Bill, and look forward to seeing it in Committee and in practice.