Oral Answers to Questions

Joan Walley Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

Of course. That would be an enormous help to those of us who believe in the power of sport to achieve such outcomes, so perhaps my hon. Friend will also highlight the case to the Department for Work and Pensions and others interested in this area.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

But what is the Minister doing about swimming? Does he not realise that it is vital that we build on the Olympic legacy for swimming? Will he meet the Education Secretary to ensure that the Government follow through the recommendation of the Education Committee’s “School sports following London 2012” report that there should be a plan for all schools to access swimming pools? Will he also support my campaign to keep Holden Lane pool in Stoke-on-Trent open?

[Hugh Robertson]

We and the Department for Education are looking at the Select Committee report carefully. I was at a meeting on school sport at the Department for Education only yesterday, so I can give the hon. Lady an absolute commitment. However, I would be a little nervous about giving her an absolute commitment about her swimming pool without knowing the facts. There has been a problem that pools built in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s are no longer economical, for environmental and other reasons, whereas new pools have a much better performance, so I would need to be sure that her pool was not part of that group.

Points of Order

Joan Walley Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am happy to oblige the hon. Lady. I am sorry that it was her first point of order, but I am quite certain it will not be her last. My response to her point of order is twofold. First, my understanding—I do not wish to be pedantic, but I think it is factually correct and an important point—is that the question was not, as she put it, withdrawn, but transferred. Secondly, on how she should proceed, I would say that she is an ingenious Member and will know that there is plenty of scope for tabling questions, seeking Adjournment debates and raising matters during oral questions, and there are also the auspices of the Backbench Business Committee, so there are plenty of facilities open to her.

Although the Table Office seeks to advise hon. Members where there is a risk of an oral parliamentary question being transferred, the prediction of the allocation of ministerial responsibility is not an exact science. It is for the Government to decide where responsibility lies for answering a question, and I do not intervene in such decisions. I recognise that they can be the source of frustration or irritation, but they are not matters for the Chair. Furthermore, for the hon. Lady’s benefit and that of the House, I must make the specific point that nothing disorderly has occurred.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I am not sure there is a further to that point of order, but the hon. Lady has been in the House 25 years, so we ought to give her the benefit of the doubt.

[Joan Walley]

I, too, had an oral question down for answer during Justice Question Time, but was told at the last minute that it had been transferred to the Cabinet Office, because the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who is now dealing with it, was unable to answer it as part of the Justice Front-Bench team. Will you have regard to the difficulty of raising issues on behalf of our constituents owing to internal transfers within the Government?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order, but my earlier statement still applies: it is a matter for the Government. I say that not least because we are in the presence of the esteemed Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke)—[Interruption.] No, there is no need for him to rise from his seat at this point, though it is always a pleasure to listen to him. Nevertheless, I attach great importance to early decisions on transfer. If a question is to be transferred, it is for the convenience of the Member and the House as a whole that the decision be taken and the Member notified at an early stage. After his 42 years in the House, I know that the right hon. and learned Gentleman would be the first to assent to that uncontroversial proposition.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Joan Walley Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burley]

I meant “commissioners”.

In the time left, I would like to deal with a few of the objections raised today. People listening to this debate in the Gallery could be forgiven for thinking that only the Conservatives want to reform police authorities. This is simply not true. As I said in an earlier intervention, the case for reform of police governance has been made across the political spectrum. There is party consensus in favour of the democratic reform of police authorities, although I accept that there are differences about the best model. I have read out the Lib Dem manifesto, but I ask Members to consider the following quote:

“Only direct election, based on geographic constituencies, will deliver the strong connection to the public which is critical”.

It continues:

“under the current system, 93 per cent of the country has no direct, elected representation. This is why we have proposed the Green Paper model; so that people know who to go to and are able to influence their policing through the ballot box.”

Those are not my words, but the words of the hon. Member for Gedling, the shadow policing Minister, in a speech in 2008.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about Staffordshire. People in my part of Staffordshire do not want £1 million spent on these elections. They want local policing and they feel that the directly elected councillors who sit on the police authority do a good job.

[Mr Burley]

The hon. Lady speaks for her part of Staffordshire and I speak for mine. I can tell her that people in my constituency do not feel that they have ample opportunity to influence the policing priorities in their area, they do not know what the police authority is, they do not know how to contact it and they do not know how to get involved in all these bureaucratic panels and committees that the hon. Member for Bradford East rattled off.

The Opposition’s latest form of direct accountability is not a million miles from what we are proposing—directly elected chairs of authorities. That is the Labour party’s proposal. It was an idea proposed in an amendment by the shadow Minister in Committee. I was on the Committee and remember him pushing it to a vote. In my view, that would be the worst of all worlds, because we would have an individual with a mandate but unable to deliver it because he could be outvoted routinely by a committee of appointees. This model would cost more and not produce the single focus of a police and crime commissioner.

Many Labour Members have made the point today about the cost of delaying the elections. I think that we should start by reflecting on some wise words:

“We’ve got to go further in demonstrating value for money and delivering efficiency. We are investing a lot of money in public services, it’s got to deliver results”.

That was the now shadow Home Secretary in an interview with The Daily Telegraph in January 2008, when she was Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I could not agree with her more. In fact, I also agree fully with the next quote from the interview:

“Margaret Thatcher did talk about, you know, the housewife adding up the sums. Every family recognises the need to make sure that you can manage each month.”

Quite right too! I am glad that she and I agree with Lady Thatcher.

As so often with Labour, however, when it comes to public spending, it is a case of, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Its NHS national IT programme had a budget of £2.3 billion, but has now cost £12.6 billion—an overspend of 450%. Its pensions transformation programme at the Department for Work and Pensions had a budget of £429 million, but the current cost is £598 million—an overspend of 39%. Its A46 improvement programme had a budget of £157 million, but the current cost is £220 million—a 40% overspend. But worst of all was the cost of the millennium dome. It cost £789 million to build and £28 million a year to maintain.

Oral Answers to Questions

Joan Walley Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

As we set out in the Green Paper, we are consulting on how the five pilot schemes should proceed in various sectors, in order to see how we can make payment by results work. The existing pilot, involving the Peterborough social impact bond, is also still running. Our intentions are to unlock the expertise of the independent and third sectors in order to reduce reoffending, and to examine how the public sector can participate in the schemes.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

In the corner of Staffordshire and Cheshire, we have a state-of-the-art community chaplaincy scheme, which has got reoffending down to 12 %, compared with the national average of 70%. In the meeting that the Ministers have promised to have with Staffordshire Members, will they undertake when considering rehabilitation to take account of the best practice shown by that scheme in Stoke-on-Trent?

[Nick Herbert]

Those are precisely the kind of schemes whose expertise we want to unlock, and we want to engage more of them where we can. The rehabilitation revolution will provide an opportunity to do that. The key is to upscale such projects and make them more widely available, which is why payment by results offers such an important opportunity.

Estates of Deceased Persons (Forfeiture Rule and Law of Succession) Bill

Joan Walley Excerpts

Friday 21st January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second Time.

It is an unexpected privilege to be here. I have signed the book for the ballot for private Members’ Bills every year since 1983, apart from four years when, due to the electorate, I was elsewhere. It therefore came as rather a shock to find that this year my name was in the top 20.

Of course, as the House will know, the ballot is only the start of the process, and today is only a little further down the long road that one has to take to seek to change the law of the land. Indeed, the statistics are not encouraging. I understand that only 10% of private Members’ Bills succeed, so a private Member’s Bill is a very fragile vessel. As I look around and see my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) in his place, and as I am aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) is in the building, I even wonder whether the word “fragile” is appropriate. Perhaps “brittle” is a more appropriate word. I hope that when I have explained the purpose of the Bill, they will decide that it is something they can support.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his positive remarks about considering the issue of private Members’ Bills. Does he agree that one of the problems of our archaic system and how we deal with private Members’ Bills is that a great deal of filibustering goes on in this place, rather than action that makes our Parliament fit for purpose?

[Mr Knight]

If I may respond to that en passant, as it were, I accept that argument. The Procedure Committee has not yet considered this, but an argument can be made that we could consider bringing in a process whereby when a private Member’s Bill has had three hours of debate the question is then put. The Procedure Committee would wish to consider that option, although I would not wish to prejudge how it might decide to form its view on that proposition. That certainly could be done and it would mean that we would have more debates, which, in my view, is a good thing.

The next duty of anyone who comes fairly high in the ballot is to decide on the subject. Hon. Members basically make a choice in one of two areas. Either they choose a subject of great controversy or perhaps startling change and to have their day in the sun on Second Reading, knowing that the Bill will be opposed by the Government and even by the official Opposition and will be talked out, or they look for something less controversial but worthy in the hope that they can get it on to the statute book. I have to be honest and say that my first choice was to introduce a daylight saving Bill, but I was usurped by my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), who was higher up the ballot and who, to her great credit, has successfully piloted her Bill to Committee. I wish her well with it. Because of her decision, I decided to look around for another less controversial but worthy proposition, and I decided that I wanted to introduce a Bill that would make our law fairer in some way.

I had cause to look at some of the recent work of the Law Commission and of the Select Committee on Justice—I am delighted to see that the Chairman of that Committee, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), is in his place—and I observed some of their reflections on the forfeiture rule and the law of succession. I therefore decided on my present Bill. I accept that it is not likely to be the talking point of the week in the village pub, but it deals with three related areas where, in my view, a small change in our law is both warranted and desirable.

I must tell the House that due to the complexities of the subject, this will not be a speech full of soundbites. I shall give some background. The Bill seeks to amend the law of succession in England and Wales where a person disclaims—that is, rejects—an inheritance or is disqualified from receiving an inheritance by reason of the forfeiture rule. What is the forfeiture rule? It has long been a doctrine of the common law of this country and I think it is a good doctrine to which no reasonable person could take exception. It states that if a man or woman is criminally responsible for the death of another, neither he or she nor his or her elected representatives can be entitled to reap any financial benefit from that act. As Lord Justice Salmon said in the case of Gray v. Barr, which was reported in 1971, 2 All England Reports at page 974:

“it would in general, shock the public conscience if a man could use the courts to enforce a money claim either under a contract or a will by reason of his having committed such act”—

that is, the act of murder.

Experience has shown that there are some cases—they might be few, but they are hard cases—where the public conscience would not want the full forfeiture provisions to apply, such as those involving mercy killings, the survivor of a suicide pact initiated by the non-surviving party and perhaps a battered wife driven almost beyond the borderline of sanity by the cruelty of a violent spouse. In such cases, the criminal courts will normally have been merciful and might have not even awarded any custodial sentence in the criminal proceedings. It was to deal with these situations and cases like them that the Forfeiture Act 1982 was passed. That Act provides for discretion to be applied by the courts in cases of manslaughter—I emphasise the word manslaughter, because there is no discretion in cases of murder. In cases of manslaughter where mitigating circumstances exist, the courts can allow the forfeiture rule to be relaxed, where appropriate.

The current rule is defined in section 1 of the 1982 Act as meaning the rule of public policy, which in certain circumstances precludes a person who has unlawfully killed another or unlawfully aided, abetted, counselled or procured the death of that other from acquiring a benefit in consequence of the killing.

My Bill gives effect, with some modifications, to the recommendations set out in the Law Commission’s 2005 report, “The Forfeiture Rule and the Law of Succession”. The subject of forfeiture and succession was referred to the Law Commission following the very unsatisfactory case Re DWS (deceased) 2001. Briefly, the facts of that case were that a person, whom I will call P, killed both his parents, neither of whom left a will. The court had to decide who was entitled to inherit P’s father’s estate under the intestacy rules, which are specified in sections 46 and 47 of the Administration of Estates Act 1925. P was not allowed to inherit because of the forfeiture rule, which I have just outlined. However, P’s child, the grandchild of P’s victims, could not inherit in place of P, because under the intestacy rules P was still alive and therefore P’s child could not take an interest in the estate. In that particular case, the victim’s estate therefore passed to a sister, which was unsatisfactory because by the time the court reached its conclusion the sister herself had passed away.

The Law Commission considered that the outcome of that case was unfair, and I agree. Equally unfairly, however, a situation might arise in which a killer forfeited an inheritance under a will. I do not believe that allowing a killer’s children to inherit from the victim in those narrow circumstances would encourage anyone who would not otherwise do so to commit a murder or attempted murder. The alternative is to stay with our present law and disinherit innocent children, which is most unfair. In any event, the law offers protection to prevent a killer from benefiting from a forfeited inheritance that passes to a minor, because the court has power on application to appoint two trustees or more where a minority interest arises on intestacy. It also has the power to pass over any person with a prior interest in a grant of letters of administration and appoint someone else to run the estate.

Similar problems can also occur where a person disclaims an inheritance under a will or on intestacy. For example, where in an intestacy—to the non-lawyers among us, that means where there is no will to say what should happen to the estate—the person who disclaims is the only child of the deceased, the inheritance will bypass the child’s descendants, because grandchildren can only inherit from their grandparent if their parent dies before the grandparent, in which case the inheritance passes instead to the deceased’s other, but more distant, blood relatives.

Let me give the House an example of how that might arise. Let us say that A, the deceased, dies and leaves a fortune, money which he lawfully made from his ownership of a nightclub and casino. He does not leave a will, but dies leaving a son, B, and two grandchildren, C and D. B is a strict follower of Victorian values and is a devout Baptist Christian, unlike his father. His views are similar to those of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the USA, which holds the views that God’s way is that we should earn what we get and that gambling is a sin. Because of those beliefs, B decides that he cannot in all conscience accept the legacy, so he disclaims—that is, he gives up his entitlement to money from his father’s estate. Under our law, in so doing he would prevent his own children, C and D, from inheriting, which applies even if they were to welcome the inheritance with open arms. Indeed, C and D might have embraced gambling as passionately as their own father had disowned it, but that would make no difference. Under our law, the inheritance would go elsewhere, which is neither right nor fair. That is why I am seeking to make a change with my Bill.

Defamation Law

Joan Walley Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my Select Committee colleague, the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly), who played a very substantial role in the Committee’s inquiry, both because of his background as an investigative journalist and as a strong proponent of the reform of libel law.

I am extremely pleased to have this opportunity to debate the Select Committee report. It occupied more than a year of our time, and the coming of the general election prevented it from getting the debate that I felt it merited. At the start, it was not the Select Committee’s intention particularly to focus on libel law. We realised that it was part of the agenda, but it was not the main issue. We were especially concerned with two things: the behaviour of the press in their reporting of the McCanns case, and what appeared to be the growth of a privacy law in the UK, particularly as a result of the judgment regarding Max Mosley. We devoted a lot of time to both those issues and were then slightly sidetracked into another important matter: the behaviour of the News of the World and one of its journalists in intercepting telephone calls. I do not wish to talk about that this afternoon; we spent a lot of time on it in the Committee. My main concern is to highlight the fact that, in my view, the report’s most important recommendations, which did not get the attention they merited because of the distraction caused by those other issues, were on libel, and on the concerns that are now widely felt, both in this country and around the world, about how UK libel laws operate.

I would like to put on record a few words of thanks. My thanks go to the staff of the Committee, who had to work very long hours over a lengthy period—not just the staff of my own Committee under Tracey Garratty, our principal Clerk, but Hannah Stewart, who was seconded to us from the Justice Committee. We also had the benefit of the advice of Professor Brian Cathcart and Sara John. We also had a lot of help from lawyers. None of the members of the Select Committee were lawyers and we were dealing with very technical and often complicated legal issues, which required several towels around the head on many occasions. We had a lot of advice particularly from people who came and gave up their time: Sir Charles Gray, recently retired from the High Court, Alasdair Pepper of Carter-Ruck, Andrew Caldecott QC, and Desmond Browne. If they had billed us at their normal rates, the House of Commons would probably have been bankrupted. They gave advice as part of a pro bono publico exercise, which was greatly appreciated.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Members of Parliament who do not have the time to sit on a Select Committee or who are not appointed to one owe a debt of gratitude to those who do serve. As a Member of Parliament who is not on a Select Committee, I should like to say that many of us have really valued the very detailed, technical and legalistic work that has been done by this Select Committee. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that makes it all the more important that the Minister, in his response, should recognise that these are not just the recommendations of this particular Committee as a result of the work done by people such as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly) and others, but that this is the Select Committee speaking on behalf of the whole of Parliament? That is why it is important that the Government respond to the individual detailed recommendations.

[Mr Whittingdale]

I entirely endorse the hon. Lady’s comments. That is exactly the value of Select Committees, and I am pleased to say that they are becoming more widely recognised. When we set off, we did not anticipate that the inquiry would be quite as long and detailed as it was. It was, however, one of the most fascinating and satisfying inquiries in which I have participated. At the same time as we were having the debate in the House, there was a substantial debate and a growing clamour outside the House. I should pay tribute, as my colleague from the Committee has already done, to the work of Index on Censorship, English PEN and Sense about Science. As part of their campaign they mounted a petition, which I think received 52,000 signatures, and I imagine that every Member of the House will have received e-mails from constituents expressing their concern about the operation of the libel laws. It is not an immediately obvious subject for generating great concern, but it is becoming such an important issue that a lot of people feel very strongly about it.

The two principal conclusions that we reached—I will go into a little detail in a minute as to why we reached them—were that, in this country, the way the libel laws are balanced and the costs attached to going to court in a libel action are having a seriously damaging effect on investigative journalism, standards within the press and legitimate scientific debate. As a passionate believer in freedom of speech and in the essential role that a free press must play in a healthy democracy, I believe that that matter should be of concern to every Member of the House.

However, as if that were not enough, the Committee also discovered that Britain is now cited alongside authoritarian countries as a place where the press is being suppressed because of the actions of the state—in this case, the libel laws. Committees are sometimes criticised for going on foreign trips, but, in this example, it was immensely valuable that we were able to go to America and talk to some of the people who were directly affected, including authors and journalists. We also discussed with the American judiciary how they viewed our system, and we spoke to legislators at state and federal levels. I shall deal later with libel tourism, which is very important.

A host of different issues affect the operation of our libel laws. Some of them are being dealt with, or at least addressed, in Lord Lester’s Defamation Bill, and I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Minister speak about the Government’s intention to examine all the issues and, in due course, to produce a draft Bill that we can debate at length. It is reassuring that they have taken on board the necessity of addressing the matter urgently. However, as the hon. Gentleman said, probably the biggest issue affecting the whole libel system in the UK—how much it costs for somebody to defend a libel action—is not covered by Lord Lester’s Bill. None of us imagines that lawyers are ever cheap, but, in the case of libel, trials are often very long, no legal aid is available, and solicitors and barristers charge, frankly, eye-watering sums.

We had a slightly surreal debate in the Committee between various lawyers as to whether the average was £400, £500 or even £600 an hour. To most people, any of those three figures is extraordinary, and, given the time that can be taken, it is easy to see how the clock ticks quickly and the amount of money increases rapidly, to the extent that it is now said that the cost of a libel case in the UK is some 140 times the European average.