Policing and Crime Bill

James Morris Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ann Coffey]

I thank the Minister for that positive reply. When the Bill goes to the Lords, I look forward to seeing the Government’s response in amending it.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

I rise to speak to the new clauses tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) and by the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb). As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on mental health, I start my remarks with the caveat that the changes the Bill makes to sections 135 and 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 are very substantial and significant. Over the past few years, there has been considerable improvement in the way in which police forces and police officers deal with people in mental health crisis.

New clauses 42 and 43, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne, relate to police officers being deployed in psychiatric wards. New clause 42 raises some important questions about occasions when police officers are requested to take action within health-based settings, particularly acute psychiatric settings. That speaks to an important developing relationship between the police and the health service. Sometimes, because of the particular nature of an individual’s condition, or other circumstances, it may be appropriate for police to be deployed in psychiatric settings, but that should happen only in very exceptional circumstances. We might need to look at how acute psychiatric units go about risk-profiling patients who are currently in acute psychiatric settings in order to ensure that it is very rare and exceptional for police officers to be called on to take action within those settings. I broadly support the intentions of the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend, who has done a lot of very important work in this area, of which he is a champion.

I also have a lot of sympathy for my hon. Friend’s new clause 43, which is about Tasers. I agree that only in the most exceptional circumstances should Tasers be used within acute psychiatric settings and that we should have very clear guidance and guidelines as to the appropriate time for the deployment of that kind of force.

New clause 58, tabled by the right hon. Member for North Norfolk, who has not yet had an opportunity to speak to it, raises important issues in relation to implementing the changes to sections 135 and 136 of the Mental Health Act. It refers to the controversial idea of a person’s private dwelling being characterised as a place of safety. This speaks to the relationship between policing and the health service in terms of the operation of places of safety. We need to think about how we can provide a broader range of alternative places of safety, some of which might be based not in the national health service but in the voluntary sector or in crisis houses, and about the capacity of the system to provide appropriate places of safety.

[Mike Penning]

This is a really important point. To be brutally honest, unless we say, “No, we will be the port of last resort”, we will continue to be the first place that people come to, and that then pushes other Departments into getting their act together to do something. The police are now having to say, as we are saying in the Bill, that they will not hold people in police cells inappropriately, as they have been doing for too many years. That will force other Departments to do exactly what my hon. Friend is talking about.

[James Morris]

I thank the Minister for that intervention. There may be a role for police and crime commissioners to explore the need to work more closely with the health service and others to provide the capacity for appropriate places of safety such that police officers do not have to make the sorts of decisions implied by new clause 58.

The overall changes to sections 135 and 136 of the Mental Health Act are essential and quite transformative. We have to be very clear about what we mean by the exceptional circumstances in which people are detained, perhaps moving to a system where it becomes inappropriate in all circumstances even for adults to be detained in police cells. I recognise that there may be a need to define the exceptional circumstances in which that might happen. The proposed changes are positive. The new clauses I have discussed raise important questions that the Minister should consider in summing up.

[Norman Lamb]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris). I also welcome the contribution made by the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), who does an awful lot of campaigning on this issue.

I have tabled a number of new clauses and amendments. The first issue I want to deal with is whether we should disallow the use of Tasers on psychiatric wards. Before I get into the detail, I, like other speakers, want to acknowledge the inspiring leadership of many police leaders who, through force of strong moral leadership, have managed to change practice in many parts of the country. We owe them an enormous debt of gratitude.

On the issue of Tasers on psychiatric wards, the hon. Gentleman referred to Black Mental Health UK, an important campaigning organisation. As he said, it has drawn attention to the fact that

“in particular Black African Caribbean men”

are

“disproportionately over-represented in S136 detentions compared to the general population.”

That, incidentally, is a conclusion from the joint Home Office and Department of Health review of sections 135 and 136. It has also been reported that the police are more likely to use force against black African-Caribbean men.

I want to challenge the assumption that force is necessary at the level with which it is used at the moment. Black Mental Health UK refers in its briefing for this debate to the United Nations committee against torture, which has stated that Taser X26 weapons provoke extreme pain and constitute a form of torture and that in certain cases they can also cause death. Although they are termed non-lethal, almost 10 known deaths have been associated with the use of Tasers in the past 10 years.

I want to get a debate going on the subject. I am delighted that the Home Secretary herself has said:

“I have been hearing stories, for example, of Tasers having been used in mental health wards and you think, ‘Hang on a minute, what is happening here?’”

That is what we should all be doing: we should be questioning whether that is appropriate, and that is why I tabled new clause 40.

My amendment 124 would, in effect, prohibit the use of police cells as a place of safety for adults. I welcome the fact that the Government are implementing, through this Bill, the joint review’s recommendation to end the use of police cells for children and young people. However, the inspiring leadership of many police officers, working closely with mental health services, means that, in all but the most extreme cases, the use of police cells for such purposes has ended in some parts of the country. In London, for example, hardly any adults go into police cells as a result of section 136, and the same is true about the west midlands over the past two years. If those areas of the country with impressive leadership can do it, we should challenge every part of the country to do so, and the Bill should lead the way.

I welcome the fact that the Minister himself said on Second Reading:

“Unless we actually put a stop to that”—

the use of police cells—

“and say, ‘Enough is enough,’ we will not get the provision we need from other agencies.”—[Official Report, 7 March 2016; Vol. 607, c. 102-103.]

That is absolutely right. We cannot use the fact that the NHS is under pressure as an excuse not to do this. If it is wrong, it is wrong, and it needs to be challenged.

My new clause 45 would ensure that, in every case where there has been evidence of child sexual exploitation, the victims are referred for a mental health assessment. “Future in mind”, the report that I published in March 2015 following a taskforce that we set up to consider children’s mental health services, set out the need for trauma-focused care and for sexually abused and exploited children to receive

“a comprehensive specialist initial assessment, and referral to appropriate services providing evidence-based interventions according to their need.”

The new clause seeks to implement that recommendation.

In its briefing for this debate, the Local Government Association supports the intention, but again raises concern about investment. Are we really saying that the lack of availability of mental health services is a reason not to ensure that every child who has suffered sexual exploitation gets the chance to receive a proper assessment? Surely we have to set what is right in legislation and then ensure that we provide the facilities to make it happen. Anything short of that is not acceptable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Norman Lamb]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The fear is that that will become the default position in some localities because of the lack of resources available. That would be a big mistake. In circumstances where section 136 is used, surely the person should be taken to a health-based place of safety. A real effort is under way around the country—it is showing signs of success—through the use of approaches such as the street triage service, to reduce substantially the use of section 136 at all and to deal with issues in a more informal way. However, where it has to be used, we must make sure that the person is taken to the right place.

[James Morris]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that perhaps we need to think about the definition of “health-based place of safety”? The definition is in the control of the national health service, but perhaps it needs to be broader so that it can mean a voluntary organisation or elsewhere. That would be one way of improving our capacity.

[Norman Lamb]

I noted the hon. Gentleman’s remarks in his speech a few moments ago and he is absolutely right. A crisis house or a place of safety provided by a particular community for one of its people may well be the best place for them to go. We should be willing to open up the definition in an appropriate way.

New clause 59 centres on the right of those detained under sections 135 and 136 to an appropriate adult. Anyone detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 has a right to an independent mental health advocate, except when the detention is under sections 135 or 136. In such circumstances, the person may be very vulnerable, so surely the Bill should embrace the idea, as Mind has argued, that they should have a right to an appropriate adult.

Finally, I want to address the issue of when the clock should start. I welcome the fact that the Bill reduces to 24 hours the maximum length of time for which someone should be held under section 136 while the assessment takes place. There is a critical question, however, about when the clock starts. If there is pressure on resources and facilities, someone could be kept in a police van and driven around a city—that does happen sometimes. That time, under the Government’s proposed definition, would not count. Some hours could pass before the person arrived at the place of safety. Mind’s argument, which is contained in amendment 125, is that the clock should start when a person is detained rather than when they arrive at a place of safety.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

T9. Does the Minister agree that improving the mental health of prisoners should be a top priority and specifically that when a prisoner is released from prison with a known mental health condition, there should be close liaison between the prison authorities, local GPs and local health services to put a care plan in place?

[Andrew Selous]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I pay tribute to his long interest and great expertise in this particular issue. He will probably know that local commissioning groups in England and local health boards in Wales are responsible for services in the community. NHS healthcare staff in prisons are responsible there. It is their job to make sure that services provided in the prison are followed through in the community. We go to great efforts to make sure that happens.

Prisons: Planning and Policies

James Morris Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Robert Neill]

That is absolutely right. I remember going to Swansea some years ago, where there was overcrowding even then, and that continues to be the case. That variation is really not desirable. There is a raft of constraints, and that is why, again, the new-for-old policy is hugely important. HMP Thameside, for example, was almost specifically built with the intention that it should be crowded. It was almost designed on the basis of a lack of capacity—before this Government’s watch, I hasten to add. However, we do need to address some real issues in that regard.

The Government are right to say that there are constraints on reducing overcrowding, because this is a demand-driven activity. We rightly cannot seek to influence directly how the courts sentence individual offenders. There will come a time, inevitably, when it is necessary for judges to pass custodial sentences. I know, as does any practitioner, that they do not do that lightly but, at the end of the day, the Government have to provide the necessary capacity to deal with that sentencing regime. At the moment—the Minister may have more up-to-date figures than me—the National Audit Office puts the cost of eliminating overcrowding at about £900 million. I accept that it is not possible to afford that in the immediate term, but it is important to have a programme that, over time, through capital investment, will bring on the new estate that will make dealing with the issue much easier.

Overcrowding is going to be an issue, but we need to manage and deal with that. That is why the Committee was anxious to see more attention given to overcrowding than has perhaps been the case. I think that the current Secretary of State recognised that in several comments; he certainly did so in the evidence that he gave in the first session of the new Committee in this Parliament.

The recommendation was to develop a broad range of measures to reflect the realities of prison conditions. Frankly, the Government were not willing to take that recommendation on board. I hope that they will think about that. The measurement at the moment may not be realistic in terms of capturing the actuality on the ground. We need not be wedded to any particular formula. There is no magic about the way the measurement is done. It is a question of what the most efficient measure is. I hope simply that the Minister and his colleagues will reflect again on our recommendation, particularly in the light of the Government’s new commitment to rehabilitation. Perhaps that is something we can do, because it is important that we have a measure that is measurable. One piece of evidence that we were given in the previous Committee was that the current system of measurement makes it very hard to measure the improvements and the outputs and inputs.

The other matters on which we concentrated were benchmarking and staffing levels. The inspectorate of prisons uses a four-stage healthy prison test in relation to its benchmarking. The four key figures are safety, respect, purposeful activity and resettlement. I do not think that anyone would disagree with those. Sadly, there has been, according to the evidence that the Select Committee received, a fall in those standards in the past couple of years. Each year, the inspector of prisons makes their report and provides a percentage figure for the inspected adult prisons and young offenders institutes that have been rated as good or reasonably good. Regrettably, the percentage of prisons so rated has fallen on each of those criteria, particularly in the past year.

Our report, comparing the figures for 2013-14 with those for 2014-15, showed that there had been a number of falls, which it is worth putting on the record. In relation to prisons inspected, the safety rating had fallen from 69% to 42%. The respect rating had fallen from 67% to 58%. For purposeful activity, it had fallen from 61% to 42%, and for resettlement it had fallen from 75% to 53%. It is fair to say that there has been an updating in the latest annual report, which I think was not available to the Select Committee at the time. It now shows safety at 52%, respect at 64%, but very worryingly from my point of view, purposeful activity at 39% and then resettlement at 57%. The linkage between purposeful activity and resettlement is, many of us would suggest, very significant. Although there are improvements on some scores, there is clearly more work to do. The Minister may have to hand yet more up-to-date figures, which I am sure he will share with us.

There is some improvement, therefore, but it does leave, overall—on the information that we have—the proportion achieving good or reasonably good ratings at about 40%. That means that 60% of prisons are not getting into that proper category. That is obviously a matter of concern. I know that the Government share that concern; I am very conscious that the Government are not complacent about the issue, but it is important that we put it on the record and see what is proposed to deal with it to take it forward.

Let me deal in particular with rehabilitative outcomes. I referred to the visit to Holloway by the current Committee. A number of my hon. Friends were on that visit. We were particularly interested to see how the restrictions on release on temporary licence sometimes denied mothers the chance to engage with childcare on ROTL and opportunities to work in the community before release. That is not, I think, for want of will among the staff involved, but it seems that we are not yet there in getting that delivered on the ground. I would be interested to hear from the Minister what more can be done on that.

The previous Committee called witnesses to find out as best they could what might have caused the fall in standards. The suggestion was that there was an issue about the incentives and earned privileges scheme—that, of course, allows prisoners to access benefits in exchange for responsible behaviour—and about staffing levels. That was the view put by the witnesses. It has to be said in fairness that the Government took a converse view, saying that essentially this is a demand-led matter involving unexpected and more challenging prison population levels and a cultural increase in suicide rates, which I think is accepted and is a matter that we have to deal with. There is no simple, one-size-fits-all answer to all this, but it does warrant our continuing attention and concern.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

The report alludes to some evidence of increased suicide rates in the prison population and other aspects in relation to mental health in prisons. Does my hon. Friend agree that one way of addressing demand and some of the issues that he has raised about rehabilitation is to look wholesale at how mental health is tackled in prisons? As he will know, there is a very high prevalence of mental health problems in the prison population.

[Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend’s intervention is very important. That issue concerned me when I was a practitioner. All too often I saw people with mental health issues, and frankly the estate and the arrangements were not geared up to deal with that adequately. On several occasions, one would find that the case had to be adjourned because the prison psychiatric service was not able to produce some of the necessary reports, never mind the ongoing care that was required. Often, particularly with short sentences, people are released, there are mental health issues, and there is not the follow-up. Everyone accepts that there is a need to do more about this. As I said, I am conscious that the will is not lacking; the issue is finding the best means of achieving our aim. I think that that is a most important point. Again, the age of the estate and the lack of activity contribute to the pressures on what are often quite fragile people. My experience always was that some people end up in prison because they are very bad people, but a lot of people end up in prison because they are vulnerable and fragile and their circumstances have worked out badly. They need some help to be rehabilitated. They are the people whom we can best rehabilitate, but often the facilities are not there to help them in the way that all of us would wish, so it is a very powerful point.

Understaffing of course contributes to those problems. We have seen that it affects the regime. The Government are of course doing their best in relation to restricted regimes and deploying staff on detached duty, but that is obviously not a long-term solution. We need to find a better way around the problem. It cannot be sensible in the long term that, for example, a laundry at Wormwood Scrubs, representing about £1.3 million of investment, was in effect inoperable for a period because there were not the staff there to deal with it. We have seen, for example, the inspection report on Her Majesty’s young offenders institution at Cookham Wood: 36% of boys are locked up during the core day. As the report by Lord Harris of Haringey legitimately and properly highlights, these are young and often vulnerable people. They have to be punished; they have to be detained. That is right to reflect what they have done, but it is very hard to do the rehabilitative work with lock-up for that amount of time. We ought to address that as a matter of urgency.

Detached duty of course involves a degree of movement of staff. That places pressures on the staff themselves. It is necessary sometimes—I do not think that anyone would have an issue with the principle of it—but it is not desirable in the long term, because of the element of disruption for the staff themselves, but also for the prisoners. It is very difficult to build up the relationships that one would wish if one is having to detach staff and send them away from their normal arrangements. Also, of course, other staff have to work harder to compensate. It is actually a rather costly way to deal with the issue in the long term.

We have, however, seen improvements in staff turnover. We were concerned about staff morale and turnover. It is a credit to NOMS that staff turnover appears to have decreased from 15% in 2014 to 8% in 2015—credit where it is due for the work that has been done on that. There is also a recruitment drive to remedy the shortfalls. I understand that the number of officer vacancies has fallen to about 3% below the benchmarking levels. Again, that is welcome, but it is important that we sustain it, and I am sure that the Minister will update us on the work that is being done in that area.

The Committee’s conclusion in its report was that the key explanation for many of the deteriorating performance levels was, in addition to the age of the estate, understaffing. That seems to be being taken on board, but I would like to know what is proposed to ensure that that is further borne down on and that we sustain the reduction in understaffing.

The Committee recommended that the Government should alter staffing benchmarks upwards to ensure that prisons returned to former levels of operational performance. The Government rejected that recommendation, and I would like to know more from the Minister about why they felt that it was not appropriate. I am sure we all agree that we ought to update and improve our statistics and benchmarking, and I would be interested to know the Government’s current view and their proposals for the future. Do they anticipate further upward calibrations in the staffing benchmark, and how do they propose to deal with the problem of restricted regimes?

I will leave my hon. Friends to deal with the question of self-harm. I am conscious that I have already taken 20 minutes to open the debate, and others wish to speak. I hope that the Minister will help us on current self-harm figures. According to the figures that we have at the moment, some 2% of prisoners are on the basic regime, 52% are on the standard regime and 45% are on the enhanced regime, which indicates levels of vulnerability that need to be addressed as a matter of some urgency.

Evidence from the Prison Reform Trust highlighted the risks surrounding the first period of custody. I would be interested to hear the Government’s response to that evidence and their view on how we should deal with it as well as with the number of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults, which remain a concern. Those have risen, as have the number of assaults on staff.

The previous Select Committee quite properly flagged up a number of issues in this report. There is a broader resources problem, in both capital and revenue terms, which needs to be addressed. The Committee concluded that we need to re-evaluate how we use custody, and alternatives to custody, in a cost-effective way that best promotes the safety of the public and reduces crime. That is entirely in line with what the Lord Chancellor said in his evidence to the Select Committee in this Session. I look forward to hearing from the Government precisely how we should take that entirely legitimate and deserving objective forward.

West Midlands Police (Funding)

James Morris Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mike Wood]

Sorry, but whether we take our crime figures from the police or the victims of crime surveys, the general trend in the west midlands and nationally is down. Of course, some sections of crime—the hon. Lady is right to identify domestic violence as an issue—have had a large impact on recent crime figures. Domestic violence is, of course, an important issue, which West Midlands police has to address; and it is, in fact, working hard to do that.

The work being done to reduce crime across the west midlands has come at a time when the Government have had to take extremely difficult decisions, and they will continue to do so. That is despite the scare stories we have had since day one, when we were told that decisions that have now been taken would inevitably lead to apocalyptic outcomes, but that is not what we have seen. Of course, we all want the best funding settlement for West Midlands police, but we should be careful about accepting at face value some of the more apocalyptic predictions.

As I said, West Midlands police has achieved significant reductions with reduced budgets. We are fortunate to have a police force that is innovating and that has shown that it is, where appropriate, prepared to work with the private sector to deliver the police service we need. Its success in that field has been recognised as outstanding by HMIC.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the innovative work of West Midlands police, and I can think of one area where that has been somewhat understated. West Midlands police identified a problem with people with mental health conditions being put in inappropriate locations. They are now working in an innovative partnership with the NHS, and there has been a huge reduction in the number of people being put in inappropriate locations under the Mental Health Act 1983.

[Mike Wood]

I absolutely agree, and I was fortunate enough to join my hon. Friend on a visit to see that initiative. We accompanied the team as it responded to a call, which it dealt with in a way that ensured that the person involved received appropriate medical care, rather than ending up in a police cell, which was clearly the worst place for them. Police forces around the country could learn a lot from the work being pioneered in the west midlands.

The West Midlands police force is clearly being ambitious in its plans, but we have to ensure that taxpayers in Dudley South and across the west midlands get a fair deal. That means making sure not only that the funding settlement is fair to the west midlands, but that the money is spent effectively. The heart of the Conservative approach is that we must fix the roof while the sun shines.

That does not mean that things are perfect or anywhere near perfect. The police funding system does not work as it should—it is complex, opaque and out of date. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield said, the damping system seriously disadvantages the west midlands, and it has done so for the past 10 years, since the last Labour Government introduced it. That needs to be addressed as part of the review. That is why it is right that the Government focus on replacing the existing funding formula with a simpler one, but we must make sure that forces such as the West Midlands get the deal they deserve and need. The new funding formula needs to reward forces that innovate and that succeed in bringing down crime. It also needs to recognise the level of underlying crime that remains in the west midlands, as well as the need to tackle it and the resources that are required to do so.

The West Midlands force is the second largest in the country, and there is a need for funding that reflects that. However, too often it also seems that we do not get the full 100p for each pound of police funding, and we have seen questionable uses of that funding. Only last week we heard of a local police officer receiving almost £33,000 in overtime alone. I think there is perhaps rather more to that than appears in the newspapers, but that is clearly not an ideal or efficient way to allocate resources. The overtime bill for 39 forces in England and Wales rose by £6 million last year, and it has totalled more than £1 billion over the last three years.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

It is really important that we carefully monitor how mental health is regarded from within the community into the prison system and then back out into the community again. I know that the Secretary of State and the prisons Minister have agreed to meet the hon. Gentleman and I am sure that they will listen carefully to everything that he has to say.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

Further to that question, does the Minister agree that when somebody has had a psychiatric assessment in prison, the information about their condition should be shared with all services, including social services and the police, when they leave prison? That would ensure that we had continuity of information about their condition so that when they came back into society we were clear about what we needed to do with them.

[Caroline Dinenage]

Yes, in the community, community rehabilitation companies and the National Probation Service are required to ensure that offenders comply with court-ordered treatment services. Probation services also supply offenders with access to mainstream mental health treatment by referring as appropriate.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

James Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

With respect to the hon. Lady, it is seldom persons in that category who are the interveners; they are much more likely to be the bringers of the review. I will come to the role of interveners in a moment, but let me finish the point about the way in which there has been mission creep in judicial review and the sometimes damaging effect that that has on the decision-making process.

The situation is a little like what we found with local government finance at one time, when officials tended to play tick the box so that someone qualified for the right number of grants. There is an element of that sometimes in the decision-making process, where decisions are always taken with an eye over the shoulder at the risk of judicial review rather than getting to the merits of the matter. If these clauses help, as I think they will, to move away from that culture, that is a good thing, as it will then encourage imaginative and radical, but always fact-based, decision making. It will always have to be fact-based because, after all, the Wednesbury reasonableness test is unchanged; it remains in any event. There will always be scope for challenge of irrational decisions, or of decisions that are genuinely not based on evidence. But removing the threat of judicial review to the extent that it now hangs over decision makers is sensible and proportionate.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a good point about the impact of the threat of judicial review on local authority decision making. It has almost become the expectation before a decision is taken that it is liable to be judicially reviewed, adding a layer of bureaucracy and a length of time to decisions that sometimes need to be taken in a more timely fashion.

[Robert Neill]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who leads me neatly on to the next point I wanted to make. It is suggested somehow that this is the state seeking to prevent challenge. Very often, those on the receiving end of unmerited judicial reviews are local authorities—democratically elected bodies who find their decision challenged by some vested interests. Very often, that vested interest is propped up by an intervener. That is why the proposed changes are legitimate and proportionate. My hon. Friend is quite right. That is an impediment not only in areas such as development and planning matters, but in relation to other forms of decision making such as housing and other types of policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Morris]

I want to reflect on the impact of the growth of judicial review on local authority decision making, which was a point well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). Its growth has undoubtedly had an impact on the way local authorities go about making key—

[Mr Slaughter]

There has been no growth in judicial review. If one exempts immigration cases, for the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), the number of judicial reviews against local authorities and others has remained stable for the last 10 years.

[James Morris]

Whatever the statistics, the essence of the point is that the threat of and culture created by judicial review has had a distinct impact. Before becoming a Member of Parliament, in my previous life as chief executive of Localis, the local government think-tank, I spoke to many local authority leaders and chief executives about the way the judicial review culture that now surrounds local authorities was impacting on their decision making. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst pointed out, it has created to some degree a culture of risk-aversion in local authorities. A bureaucratic layer has been added to the taking of often very important decisions that have big impacts on local communities, resulting in long delays. One example is the politically controversial decisions taken on the potential closure of care homes in many different local authorities. The impact of the threat of judicial review is now being perceived as part of the decision-making process, and that has had a detrimental impact on the quality of some community services.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

As someone who served on a local authority for six years, I have to say that I do not recognise the picture the hon. Gentleman is painting. Does he not agree that the risk of judicial review can lead to thorough, considered, well thought-out decision making and does not necessarily result in a slowing down of and delay to the process?

[James Morris]

Nobody is arguing that there is not an important balance to be struck, taking into account, as others have pointed out, the importance of democratic accountability for decisions taken. Nobody is arguing that judicial review has no role to play in this context, but there is a strong argument to be made about where the culture that has developed is leading. I speak regularly to local authority chief executives, and it is having a very detrimental impact on local authorities’ ability to make long-term decisions.

[Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend is making a very important point. Does he agree that the concern about the growth of judicial review, rather than the concept, is shared by all parties in local government—I have spoken to local authority leaders, of all parties—and by many experienced chief executives and senior officers?

[James Morris]

I agree with my hon. Friend. We need to take measures such as those in the Bill, which I support, to get the balance right in respect of the culture that has developed over the past few years.

As has been mentioned, there is the question of the public perception of what judicial review actually is. As a result of the culture that has built up, there is a public perception that if a judicial review goes ahead, the decision will somehow be overturned. It is felt that the review is to do with the decision rather than with a discussion about the process. For example, a group of residents in my constituency approached me about a judicial review of a fire authority’s decision, which I did not think had been great, to close a local fire station. They raised funds to take the matter to the first stage, but even if they had successfully demonstrated that the authority had not followed due process—I am not a lawyer, but on the face of it there were some grounds for saying so—the likely outcome of their spending something north of £100,000 on a judicial review would have been the authority simply re-presenting the same proposal. That example shows that we must be careful about raising public expectations about what a judicial review can achieve.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes, but it is not borne out by the facts. From a local government perspective, judicial review has been one of the most effective methods by which local councils have held Government to account and ensured that they follow due process. I rarely do this, but I praise the London borough of Hillingdon, my own local authority, for effectively using judicial review over issues such as the third runway at Heathrow to ensure that the Government abide by their own legislation.

[James Morris]

There is a balance to be struck, and direct accountability is an issue. We want a culture in which local authorities and Government can be held to account democratically. That is how decisions should be taken. We should not be developing and enhancing a culture—

[Mr Slaughter]

rose—

[James Morris]

I will not give way again. I am drawing my remarks to a conclusion.

We should not create an environment in which people have the expectation that going for a judicial review will somehow impact on a decision. I welcome the changes in the Bill. We need to improve the balance between judicial review and local democratic accountability to enable public bodies to make long-term decisions on behalf of communities and constituents.

[Julie Hilling]

I rise to speak with some trepidation as I face a Chamber full of lawyers and barristers; I am neither, and never have been. I want to put it on the record that I am a member of the Howard League for Penal Reform.

All those who gave evidence to the Bill Committee spoke as one against the clauses under discussion. They said that the Government should not be making such moves. This is one of the nastiest bits of the Bill: it is very much a David and Goliath situation. From my perspective, and that of my constituents, the Government have already curtailed legal aid, and are now further curtailing access to justice. I understand why the Government want these changes. As a parent, an employer or a Minister, we never want our decisions to be challenged. I am sure that when Labour is in power, I will not want our decisions to be challenged. However, politicians are not always right. I know that that might come as a dreadful shock, but it is the truth.

Interestingly, Government Members on the Bill Committee were very concerned that interventions were coming from some of the most dreadful left-wing groups; in fact, the challenges came from everywhere. People were saying, “Actually you have got things wrong and we want them to be looked at again.” This is about people having access to justice and being able to go to judicial review; it is about David being able to stand up to Goliath. Those organisations that are prepared to support people are helping to hold the powerful to account. They are organisations that Members on both sides of the Chamber support, through subscriptions and fund raising, to help those who are least able to find the financial means to take their cases to court.

Much of this Bill is about secrecy and limiting access to justice, but David does need help to fight Goliath. By placing financial barriers in the Bill, we are saying that those organisations should not be part of our judicial system, but they are the part of civil society that ensures that society stays civilised. They are not a barrier to ensuring that the law is imparted properly, but part of ensuring that everyone in this country, whatever their means, has access to justice.

The Howard League, in its evidence, said that when experts receive permission to address the court through the provision of argument or evidence, they do so neutrally with the aim of assisting the court, and I very much believe in that. It has always been an established principle that the loser pays the winner’s costs, yet neutral interveners are unable to win or lose as another party may, and are almost always unable to recoup their costs. The proposals reinforce the position, and even make it worse, as they put additional costs against the interveners.

The proposals create perverse incentives. The better the case put forward, the more chance of higher costs being charged against the interveners. Let us think about those situations in which third parties have intervened. Last year, the Howard League intervened in a successful case brought by Just for Kids, which established the right of 17-year-olds to see an appropriate adult on being taken into police custody. Members might remember the tragic deaths of two 17-year-olds who were denied that right. In that case, the court recognised that many important arguments emerged from the intervener’s submissions. The Howard League said:

“It would have been perverse for the charity to be saddled with the costs of the government in responding to our legitimate and expert legal argument that was designed to aid the court in its decision making.”

The changes to the cost rules on interventions go directly against the advice of senior judiciary in their response to the Government consultation on the reform of judicial review in September 2013. Indeed, the courts can already impose cost orders against third parties, but the fact that such orders are rarely made shows that courts benefit from hearing from third parties.

Given that the Government took the advice of the judiciary not to bar third sector organisations from bringing claims by changing the rules on standing, the decision to introduce onerous cost consequences for those seeking merely to assist the court defies logic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

If the Minister had listened when I explained the case of Donald Banfield, he would know that it was pretty obvious that the mother and daughter were there. Everybody accepts that, yet those women are still walking free, and it seems that the Minister is not prepared to do anything about it.

Finally, new clause 36 would decriminalise insulting words and behaviour. Courtesy of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 was amended to remove the word “insulting”. As of 1 February this year, it has not been an offence to use insulting words or behaviour contained within a section 5 charge. The law change did not, however, affect sections 4 and 4A of the same Act. I was delighted that the word “insulting” was removed from section 5 of the 1986 Act, but I think it must follow that it should be removed from all sections of it. If we are to be consistent, why not? Section 4A is very similar to section 5, and I would like to see all references to “insulting” removed from the legislation. I have focused on this particular issue for the purpose of today’s debate on the amendments. The word “offensive” would remain; only the word “insulting” would be removed. As the Minister said, section 4 needs to be coupled with the threat of violence, whereas someone can be found guilty of an offence by intentionally insulting someone under section 4A and could be sent to prison for six months.

I am not alone in wanting this change. The Joint Committee on Human Rights said in its report of October 2011:

“We also support the amendment of the Public Order Act to remove all reference to offences based on insulting words and behaviour. This would enhance human rights and remove the possible incompatibility with the right to freedom of expression.”

Peter Tatchell—an unlikely ally of mine, Madam Deputy Speaker—said:

“Section 4A of the Public Order Act is sufficient to convey all the exceptional circumstances requiring prosecution (although its criminalisation of mere insults should also be repealed for the afore-mentioned reasons).”

I believe that it is totally unacceptable in a supposedly free country with alleged free speech that we should have any reference to the term “insulting” in the laws of our land. I think most people are fed up with political correctness, so abolishing any further criminalisation of insults would be a great step to restoring faith in this place, showing that Britain is a country where free speech is cherished. A ComRes poll showed that 62% of people did not believe that the state should ever criminalise insults—a viewpoint supported by Liberty and the National Secular Society.

I think these are important matters, but I do not intend to press the new clauses to a vote. I am appalled and depressed, however, that the shadow Minister thinks all of these issues that affect people’s lives are not even worthy of consideration. He should be ashamed of himself; I look forward to his apology at some future point.

[James Morris]

I rise to support new clauses 6 and 7, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois). I would like to pay tribute to the great work that he, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), has done on this issue—one that is not entirely confined to London.

An incident took place in my constituency when Christina Edkins was killed on her way to school on the number 9 bus travelling from Birmingham to Halesowen. Her death was a devastating blow to the community in Halesowen. I had the privilege of meeting her parents and her uncle to console them and to try to understand the devastating consequences of this incident on their lives. That led me to ask the Prime Minister in Prime Minister’s Question Time whether the Government would consider mandatory sentences for knife possession. Having discussed these matters with my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North and others, I am pleased that appropriate measures to introduce this mandatory sentence, which I think is absolutely necessary to tackle this issue, have been tabled for today’s debate. I owe it to the family and friends of Christina Edkins to support them.

I believe that the new clause also sends a signal that is important for deterrence. It is not a straightforward issue, but I think the community listens to the signals sent from this place. Shortly after this incident in my constituency, I took part in a knife crime debate in Birmingham. I was on a panel with the police and others concerned about the spread of knife crime in and around the Birmingham area. I spoke to various members of the West Midlands police and they were absolutely convinced of the need for a mandatory sentence. From their work with the community in trying to identify individuals and communities at risk from knives, they were clear about the need for legislation to send the very important signal that carrying a knife has consequences and that that those consequences mean that people should not be carrying knives. The police were very clear on that. It is very important to send a clear signal that we do not tolerate the spread of knives under any circumstances.

On the argument that someone carries a knife for self-protection, I would ask whether the same argument would apply to carrying a gun. The distinction between carrying a gun and the intention to use it does not stand up, and we should take the same attitude towards carrying knives. I agree that this is not the only way to continue the effort to clamp down on knife crime. There is a lot of work to do to educate young people that carrying weapons is simply not acceptable and will have consequences, and that there are other things to do with one’s life instead of ending up getting involved in street violence as if it is some kind of status symbol. I hope the House will vote for the mandatory sentence, but I do not think it is a panacea. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North that they are both sides of the same coin. We must tackle the issue on both levels.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

I am listening with great interest to my hon. Friend’s correct analysis of the situation. Of the many young people I represented and dealt with in my time in the criminal courts as a barrister, I heard the same reason for carrying a knife over and over again: “It is for my own protection.” It is that sort of culture that we have to move away from if we are to deal with the scourge of knife crime that can affect children as young as 10—or even younger in some cases.

[James Morris]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point with which I totally agree.

We have a responsibility in this place to support the amendment. It is the right approach. It sends a tough signal that we do not tolerate the possession of knives. There should not be a distinction between knives and guns. We need to address this scourge, so we can redouble our efforts to ensure we do not have the type of tragedies that occurred on the number 9 bus as it was coming from Birmingham towards my constituency. I support the amendment.

[Sir Edward Garnier]

The minimum for guns is five years, not six months.

[James Morris]

It is the principle, really. We can go into fine distinctions, but the principle is that a mandatory sentence sends a powerful signal about our attitude towards knives.

[Sir Bob Russell]

At Prime Minister’s questions, I asked:

“Why is he ignoring knife crime?”

In reply, the Prime Minister said:

“As well as tackling gun crime, we are introducing tougher sentences for the possession of knives as illegal weapons.”—[Official Report, 28 February 2007; Vol. 457, c. 924.]

That is what Tony Blair told me on 28 February 2007. I mention that because I want to put it on the record that this subject has interested me deeply for more than seven years.

Like other hon. Members, I have a constituent who lost a son to a knife crime. I am not proud of the fact that in Colchester, which is a relatively peaceful town with a relatively low crime rate, we have witnessed three knife murders over a period of eight or nine years. In two cases, the perpetrators were convicted and are in jail. In the third, which is still very much live and which the Essex constabulary are investigating, the victim suffered more than 100 knife wounds. A few weeks ago, someone else was attacked by two people with knives. Such things can happen even in a relatively peaceful town with a low crime rate. The perception of crime in Colchester is the same as it is everywhere else: the perception is that a lot of crime is taking place. That is not the case in reality, but when something so horrendous happens, something clearly needs to be done.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

As with any other citizen of this country, if the hon. Lady’s constituent has evidence of criminal behaviour, she should take it to the police directly.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that now is the time to introduce a mandatory prison sentence for those caught in possession of a knife so that we can send the strongest signal that carrying knives is unacceptable and will be punished?

[Chris Grayling]

As my hon. Friend knows, this is an area where our party has wanted change for a considerable time, and where I personally want change. Policy options are currently under consideration by the Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The argument for consolidation in the legal aid world goes back well before the last election to reviews carried out, and arguments made, by the previous Government. Our current reform proposals allow those firms to retain own-client work, which is what they argued for. What we are setting out around duty work is designed to ensure that, in tough times, we can guarantee that everyone arrested and taken to a police cell will always have access to legal advice.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

T8. I welcome the Government’s transforming rehabilitation programme to cut reoffending, but will the Secretary of State reassure me that those suffering from mental health problems, both inside and outside prison, will also get the help they need? Will he outline what steps or initiatives his Department is taking, in conjunction with the Department of Health, on the matter?

Mental Health (Police Procedures)

James Morris Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this important debate under your chairmanship, Mr Brady.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow). The three of us came together to secure this debate. I also speak in my capacity as chairman of the all-party group on mental health.

As the hon. Member for Bridgend said, the police are often on the front line in dealing with people who are suffering a mental health crisis. As she mentioned, it is estimated that up to 40% of police activity is related to mental health issues. In my region of the west midlands, West Midlands police estimates that 20% of all incidents that it deals with involve individuals with mental health problems.

Police officers are often asked to deal with complex and challenging situations on the ground. As the hon. Lady pointed out, they have specific powers under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983, and it might be worth dwelling on that section’s specific wording:

“If a constable finds in a place to which the public have access a person who appears to him to be suffering from mental disorder and to be in immediate need of care or control, the constable may, if he thinks it necessary to do so in the interests of that person or for the protection of other persons, remove that person to a place of safety within the meaning of section 135 above.”

The latest figures show that some 21,814 people were detained using section 136 powers last year. As the Royal College of Psychiatrists has pointed out—the hon. Lady mentioned this—far too many of those individuals are still detained in police custody suites. The Royal College of Psychiatrists talks about 36% of those people being detained in police cells, which are essentially a proxy for a health care place of safety.

There were 15 deaths in police custody last year, of which seven could be attributed to, or were related to, specific mental health concerns. A number of the deaths followed the use of the police’s section 136 powers. A number of the deaths are currently being investigated.

Section 136 is part of the 1983 Act, which built on the Mental Health Act 1959. In 1959, there were still a considerable number of asylums in Britain; the whole complexion of our approach to mental health care was completely different from today’s. Thankfully, we do not have asylums and we are making huge efforts to treat people in appropriate settings and in the community.

The reason for section 136 is essentially to give the police powers when someone has absconded from an asylum-based setting. There is a strong argument, which I put to the Minister, that we should consider reviewing the section 136 power in the context of how we approach the treatment of crisis care in mental-health settings in the 21st century. I am not saying that the police should not have the power, in certain circumstances, to detain people, but we should have a full review of how that power is used.

The relationship raises a number of important issues, not just about how the police are using the power but about how they interact with the health service when dealing with people detained under section 136. As the hon. Lady said, we should work towards ensuring that places of safety are located in appropriate health care settings.

As the hon. Lady also said, we must ensure that the police have adequate training to deal with the often difficult and challenging situations that they face. However we reform the system, there will always be circumstances in which the police have to deal with people suffering from severe mental anguish and difficulty. The police need the appropriate intensive training necessary to deal with such difficult and challenging circumstances, but it is also true that other agencies and public bodies, such as the national health service and the ambulance service, have a responsibility to work with the police. We must ensure that all those agencies are working in alignment.

In the west midlands, for example, West Midlands police has developed a good working relationship with the West Midlands ambulance service such that, when West Midlands police is dealing with people suffering from severe mental issues under section 136, an ambulance, rather than a police car, should take that person to a place of safety, thereby not creating the context of criminalisation. There is a good working relationship in my area, but I know there are many examples across the country of where that is not the case and of where there are barriers that prevent such important co-ordinated working, which supports people who are suffering from severe mental health crisis.

Michael Brown is a particularly interesting police inspector in the west midlands; he tweets under the name MentalHealthCop. He has been writing on his award-winning blog about some of the police’s difficulties when interacting with the national health service and about some of the blockages in the system. As the hon. Lady pointed out, one of those difficulties is often the reluctance of local NHS staff, particularly in A and E, to play a role in the section 136 pathway, if I may use that phrase. Staff are reluctant to take responsibility, and there are often confused lines of responsibility between the police and the NHS about who will take responsibility for the care of an individual.

The hon. Lady alluded to the assumption in certain parts of the NHS that the most clinically complex patients, who are often suffering from a mental health problem related to the overuse of drugs and alcohol, should somehow be left in a police cell until they sober up or recover. That situation is not acceptable in any circumstances—no one suffering from a complex mental health condition should normally be placed in police cells.

Police cells are simply not the right environment for such people to end up in. I am not saying that there are no circumstances in which such a person should be held in police cells—there may be particular circumstances in which they should—but we should move to a situation in which we do not, in a civilised and compassionate society, house people in police cells when they are suffering some of the most desperate moments in their life.

Like the hon. Lady, I welcome the street triage pilots that the Government have been running across the country. Police and community psychiatric nurses are working together to resolve issues on the ground, and I look forward to the Minister’s view on how those pilots have been working and when we can expect a coherent evaluation of their success. We need to move quickly to roll out those pilots across the country.

There is a broader point on our approach to mental health crisis care in general. This is ongoing work about which many Members are concerned, but we must ensure that there is better integration between the health service, the police and local crisis care teams, often with the involvement of social services. I understand that the Government are working on a crisis care concordat, which will outline the roles and responsibilities of all agencies in relation to crisis care. One way of reducing the police’s use of section 136 is to ensure that we have a coherent and integrated approach to dealing with mental health crisis care in Britain. We need to tackle the problem head on. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has said that we

“need to focus on reducing the need for section 136 by ensuring that patients, their families have ready access to appropriate and timely crisis care.”

I want to dwell for a moment on the role of police and crime commissioners. Although they have come in for some criticism, some incredibly good work has been done on this issue by PCCs over the past few months. In Staffordshire, the PCC has been able to take a strategic view of the relationship between the police and local health services and has put in place processes to start tackling the problems.

We need suitably staffed hospital-based places of safety. That is an absolutely critical and crucial part of the picture. A police station should be used in exceptional circumstances only. I ask the Minister to consider reviewing the section 136 powers and updating the definition of an appropriate place of safety, which is set out in the 1983 Act.

I want to mention a particular case that is tangentially related to today’s debate and illustrates the importance of all agencies—police, probation, social services and prisons—in dealing with mental health. Members may remember the tragic case of Christina Edkins, who was brutally killed on her way to school from Birmingham to Halesowen earlier this year. It was a particularly tragic and brutal killing, which shocked the whole community in my constituency.

It turns out that the killer, Phillip Simelane, who had been in prison several times and had a history of disturbed and violent behaviour, had been given a psychiatric assessment in prison. That assessment had raised some serious issues about his mental condition, but, following a breakdown in the process, when Simelane was released from prison he somehow got lost in the system. The relationship between mental health services—I think it was the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust—police, probation and social services was not close enough and Simelane was lost to the system. That loss resulted in an absolute tragedy for a totally innocent young girl on her way to school.

I raise that case in the context of this debate only because the importance of all those who deal with people with severe mental heath issues can be seen in the story. The consequences of failure can be devastating for individuals and families. Each agency has an absolute responsibility to ensure that we avoid such tragedies, which can have a devastating impact on communities.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that this is about not only the police and the national health service, but the courts? Better training must be available to the courts, so that they are better able to deal with such issues.

[James Morris]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Mental health training and awareness need to exist throughout the criminal justice system, because, although I am not going to discuss this in my speech, I think that victims of crime have disproportionate levels of mental health problems and other issues.

In a compassionate and civilised society, we owe it to the most vulnerable and those suffering from acute mental distress, anguish and confusion, who get picked up by the police and are subject to section 136, to treat them with the dignity they deserve at a time when they may be experiencing some of the most difficult situations of their lives. It is incumbent on the police, mental health services, social workers and the Government to be responsible for ensuring that we achieve that goal of health-based places of safety where people can be treated in a compassionate and civilised way and can get back on a path to recovery. It is incumbent on us all to work together, both in government and in local communities, to ensure that that happens.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Oral Answers to Questions

James Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

The purpose of the measures is to try to ensure a reduction in the number of whiplash claims. At the moment, we have the highest whiplash claims in Europe. Given the quality of driving in some other countries—I will not name them—we have to accept that the number of whiplash claims is seriously flawed. That is what we are trying to address, and that is why we are introducing these measures.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

23. What steps he has taken to reduce reoffending and relieve pressure on the courts system.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

As I mentioned earlier, we believe that the best way to reduce pressure on the criminal courts is to reduce reoffending, and we seek to do that both inside prisons and out in the community.

[James Morris]

What role does he see for new generation GPS tagging in tackling reoffending?

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend is right that new generation GPS tags have huge potential. They will help us to enforce more effectively various provisions of community orders and conditions of licence. We have only to imagine the potential of GPS tags to enforce both curfews and exclusion zones to see what they might be able to do. We seek to take full advantage of that new technology.