Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kruger]

I am sure that the hon. Member for Spen Valley is delighted to have the support of the hon. Gentleman. I refer him to the point that I was making: this is an inappropriate process.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a superb speech, as I expected him to do. On the issue of process, I say this to the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice), my constituency neighbour: as he will know, I have introduced some very serious Bills, including the one that became the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. It was preceded by three independent reports and pre-legislative cross-party scrutiny by both Houses, which happened before the Committee stage. The point is that that process should take place before Second Reading, not after.

[Danny Kruger]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I will now run through the process before taking any more interventions.

As I have explained, pretty much anybody with a serious illness or disability could work out how to qualify for an assisted death under the Bill. Members may think that far-fetched, but it is what happens everywhere that assisted suicide is legal, including in Oregon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I have known well only one person who committed suicide: my former professor. I learnt after his death that he had been haunted by imagined demons for most of his life and, in the later part of his life, hounded by heartless humans. Had assisted suicide been available to him, I am sure that he would have died much earlier. After those demons first visited him, he had a loving wife and three daughters, so he had moments of joy, though most of his life was punctuated by pain. I am just as sure, because I knew him well, that he would have voted against this Bill today, for all our lives are a mix of sorrow and joy.

I will not amplify the arguments about process, although I think it is immensely naive to assume that this Bill could be changed substantially in Committee. As a shadow Minister and a Minister for 19 years, I oversaw many Bills in Committee, and I know what Committees do. They calibrate, refine and improve legislation; they do not fundamentally alter the intent voted for on Second Reading.

Neither shall I talk too much about what happens in other jurisdictions, except to say that it is certainly true that everywhere it has been introduced, assisted dying has expanded—not always by subsequent legislation, but often through judicial interpretation. The idea that we should put this charming but rather naive faith in the judiciary to make these decisions subsequent to the House passing the Bill is just that: innocent—that is the most generous way I can describe it.

What I will talk about is simply this: the Bill would change the relationship between clinicians and patients forever. It would say to the NHS, “Your job is not only to protect and preserve life; it is sometimes to take life.” I am not prepared for our NHS to be changed in that way. Beyond that, the Bill would change society’s view of what life and death are all about. This is not just about individual choices, as hon. Members have said in their interventions and speeches; it is about a collective, communal view on how we see the essence of life and death.

Finally, we have had a civilised debate in this place, but it is very different out there on the mean streets, as each and every one of us knows. There are many cruel, spiteful, ruthless and unkind people in the world, and there are also many vulnerable and frail people. When those two groups collide, the outcome is not good for the second.

I fear this Bill. I will vote against it. I will vote for what a politician in another place once called “the audacity of hope”—hope that we can improve palliative care; hope that we can do better. I fear for the disabled and vulnerable people who would be affected by the provisions of this Bill, which—regardless of the good intentions of its advocates—I believe will fan the flames of fear.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

My hon. Friend is right: the quality of prison education must continually improve if we are to achieve the best possible rehabilitation outcomes.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State make available—perhaps through a note in the Library—the number and type of foreign national offenders who, aided by deluded interest groups and dodgy lawyers, are resisting deportation by means of appeal, either to domestic courts or to European—foreign—judges?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that all the data that was published under the previous Government will continue to be published by ours.

Criminal Law

John Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have only three brief points to make.

First, we need an honest debate in this place about the purpose of prison. It is true that prison exists to protect those who otherwise might suffer harm—we incarcerate people because they are dangerous—but prison also matters for the reason of punishment. To incarcerate somebody who has done something wrong is to deprive them of their liberty to punish them. We should be straightforward that most of our constituents believe in just retribution. They do not spend their time, like so much of the liberal establishment does, agonising about the circumstances of criminals; they are more concerned about the circumstances of victims. Prison works for that reason above all else. It is a deprivation of liberty, endured by those who deserve to endure it. My constituents, and I suspect those of Members from all parts of the House, will be outraged by the idea that some of those people will now be let loose on our streets.

I accept that there are exceptions set out in the proposals before the House, but I have to say that had the previous Government introduced this measure, I would have voted against it, and I will vote against it today. I tabled amendments along with the former Home Secretary, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman), and many other colleagues that would have further altered these provisions. I will not go into those in detail, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I suspect you would not allow me to do so, but I advise the new Lord Chancellor to take a look at them to see what further steps can be taken to mitigate this unfortunate circumstance, for that is the least we can do.

My second point is about the specifics of this proposal. It has already been said that the way of dealing with the prison population is twofold in essence. One is to reduce the number of people on remand by improving the throughput of people from arrest to trial. The second is to reduce the population by dealing with foreign national offenders. Remand prisoners represent about 20% of the population. Foreign national offenders now number, as the Lord Chancellor will know, in the many thousands. We can take people out of the system by doing those two things, and we can also build more prisons. I accept that the previous Government should have done more, but this Government should look at urgent prison building. We were able to build Nightingale hospitals at a stroke, so why can we not have Fry prisons built as at least a temporary measure to accommodate people who would otherwise commit further crimes?

My final point, which has been made repeatedly— I am being brief, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I know you will want me to be so, and I want to support you as much as I can in your new role—is simply this: if this is a temporary provision, as the former Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) just said, why is there no sunset clause? It is all very well saying there will be a review in 18 months, but a sunset clause would mean that the measure had to come back to this House for further consideration. That is the difference between something written in the legislation and something promised in the form of a review.

I have no reason not to believe the promises of the Lord Chancellor—I take them at face value—but let us have some substance around those promises by building a sunset clause into the legislation. That would, at the very least, show the good faith that is a necessary component of good governance. Prison works. Let us build more prisons and say to our constituents that we will no longer pander to the predilections, preoccupations and prejudices of the liberal establishment, but will instead speak for them, for what they believe is what I believe: many more wicked people should be incarcerated for much longer. That is what they would say on the doorstep in any constituency; it is about time that it was said here, and I am delighted that it now has been—by me.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Ghani)]

I call the Lord Chancellor to make her closing remarks.

Sentencing Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

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

rose—

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I am extremely grateful—

[Alex Chalk]

Hang on, I haven’t given way yet. [Laughter.] I give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings.

[Sir John Hayes]

My right hon. and learned Friend is such a tease.

As my right hon. and learned Friend will know, 6% of the offences that attract a 12-month sentence are indeed for the possession of an article with a blade or point, in other words a knife, and a further 9% are for common assault and battery. Those are the kind of sentences that we are speaking about here, and if you are a victim of assault, you do not really worry about whether your attacker is literate or illiterate; you just worry about having been attacked.

[Alex Chalk]

There are some important points to make about this. As my right hon. Friend will know, there is a whole suite and hierarchy of offences of assault. There is common assault, but if there is even a reddening of a skin, that becomes assault occasioning actual bodily harm, which carries a five-year maximum sentence—although, of course, this applies only to those who are given sentences of under 12 months. However, if the skin is pierced in any way or there is any serious harm, that is charged as grievous bodily harm, either simpliciter or with intent, and carries a maximum of life imprisonment. We must therefore be very clear on what we are talking about and what we are not talking about, and we are not talking about grievous bodily harm. Let me also stress that the two highest categories of offence that fall within the 12-month sentencing period are driving offences and offences relating to class B drugs. However, I take on board the important points made by my right hon. Friend, and I refer him to the remarks I made to our hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies).

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

It is a product, I suppose, of living in an age infected with contagious liberalism that people in this place and elsewhere spend a lot of time speaking about freedom. I care about freedom too. I care about freedom from disorder and about freedom from the fear and actuality of crime. I think it was Burke who said:

“The only liberty that is valuable is a liberty connected to order”.

Disordered society is most terrible for those who live on the frontline of crime: those who have to cope with disorder; those who do not live the gated lives of the bourgeois liberal elite.

I approach the Bill with that in mind. Are the repercussions of the Bill likely to lead to a more ordered society, likely to protect people who might otherwise become victims of crime? There is much to welcome. The first part of the Bill deals with serious crime and the sentences it attracts. I am pleased by the further development of longer sentences for people who do terrible, wicked things. There is a caveat, because as you will know, Mr Deputy Speaker, the Home Secretary has always had the power to intervene personally and become involved where he or she believes that a sentence needs to be reviewed or extended, and has done so on a number of occasions to make sure that someone who might otherwise be released stays in prison. Will the Minister say whether that power will be curtailed or affected by the measures in the Bill? Will the Home Secretary still be able to intervene on those rare occasions on which they feel it is right to do so?

That is the best bit of the Bill—the part that deals with those serious crimes in the way I have described. Much of the rest of the Bill is lamentable. I am not going to vote against Second Reading because I think it provides an opportunity for further scrutiny and consideration. However, I am disturbed by the idea of turning all sentences of 12 months or less into suspended sentences. That is not quite what the Bill does, but it is its essence.

Let me explain why. Criminal justice has three primary purposes. The first is retributive. Let us be clear about that—the first principle of criminal justice is to punish people for a harm that they have done. That might be a terribly unfashionable thing to say, but it is what the majority of people in South Holland and The Deepings think, as well as the majority of people in Witham, Grimsby and even Bromley and Chislehurst. I will return to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill)—for I know Bromley and Chislehurst rather well, as I suspect he knows.

If that is the first purpose of criminal justice, does the Bill aid that purpose? To answer that question we have to consider this: is it more of a punishment to lose your liberty—to be incarcerated—or more of a punishment not to? Is it more of a punishment to be deprived of the opportunity to do all the things that you choose to do, or is it more of a punishment not to be? I have to say that in my view—and it is not just my view; it has been the view of almost every society in every civilisation over all of time—the principal way of punishing people is to incarcerate them, to deprive them of their ability to behave in the way they want, freely and openly.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful point with which I substantially agree, but does he accept that with the rise of technology, there are many different ways of depriving people of their liberty? If we can come up with ways of depriving them of their liberty that also make it less likely that they will reoffend at the end of their sentences, does that not serve a dual purpose, being both the absolutely right moral judgment as a punishment and a way of reducing the number of future victims who will subsequently need to be served by the criminal justice system?

[Sir John Hayes]

That is a plausible argument, except that having a tag on your ankle is not a deprivation of liberty in quite the same way as being in prison. Being able to go on eating fast food, watching telly and doing all the other things that you might do at home is not quite as much of a deprivation, is it?

Moreover, we have heard this so often before. It is true that technology has moved on and the tags are of a rather different kind, thanks to the work that was referred to earlier, but when tags were first introduced we were told that the technology was such—these things were so secure—that no one would be able to evade their application or use, only to find that all that was wanting. My hon. Friend will therefore forgive me for a certain degree of scepticism—not cynicism. I am cynical about nothing. However, I am sceptical about this.

The second principle of criminal justice is to provide respite for those who have been victims of crime, and others who might be, by taking people off the streets. That is to put the victims and others out of harm’s way by removing the harm—literally taking the harm beyond their purview—which is what prison does. It may be that if these tags work perfectly—if these people are constrained in the way suggested by the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend—I suppose the victims may be protected anyway; but I suspect that people in my constituency and elsewhere who have been victims of some of the crimes concerned would say, “I want these people to be as far away from me as possible, and as far away as possible from my children, my home and my community. I do not want to know these people or see them daily, because they have done harm witnessed by those who live in my locality.”

The third principle of criminal justice is that once you have caught someone, convicted them and sentenced them, you might take steps to prevent them from committing crime again. Of course I understand that. There has been a long-standing debate between those on the retributionist side of the argument, like me, and those on the rehabilitationist side of the argument, like my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, who believe that crime is essentially an ill to be treated, and that the circumstances of the criminal—those were my hon. Friend’s words—are more important than the event of the crime.

[Sir Robert Neill]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sir John Hayes]

Now we will hear some more about the circumstances of the criminal.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I hope that my right hon. Friend will gently withdraw the incorrect attribution. What I said was that, as part of the balancing exercise, the sentencer must take into account both the nature of the offence and the circumstances of the offender, which is wholly different.

[Sir John Hayes]

My hon. Friend did indeed say that, and it is the argument that I have heard repeatedly over decades—that if only we could understand more about the circumstances of the offender, we could dig down to why they ended up like this, and perhaps we could make the world a better place. It is a lovely idea and we can see the sentiments that drive it, which are probably quite noble in many ways.

Frankly, however, these are the arguments that have permeated the debate since the Children and Young Persons Act 1969—my hon. Friend will remember that, but it was before my time—when intermediate treatment orders were introduced. Remember those? The Government then said that, because the circumstances of the offender were of such concern—because these people had had such shabby and difficult lives—they would impose an intermediate treatment order, which is a community sentence in the modern idiom. So young thugs, vandals and villains were sent off on holiday in the Brecon Beacons and such places, while their contemporaries who were law-abiding and just as poorly off—working-class fellows who had done nothing wrong—were lucky if they got a weekend at Margate. That is the kind of thinking that, unfortunately, has punctuated the debate on criminal justice for far too long.

Crime is not an illness to be treated; it is a malevolent choice to be punished, and that is what the public expect. In the paper on this subject by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, to which he drew the House’s attention a few moments ago, he makes this very clear on page 33:

“Lord Burnett of Maldon, Lord Chief Justice between 2017 and 2023, speaking in December 2020, said:

‘To my mind, there has been a perceptible hardening of the public and political attitude to crime, particularly sexual and violent offending, which has resulted in a general shift in the balance between culpability and harm when determining sentence.’”

In other words, to put it in a nutshell, people want those who do harm, damage lives and spoil others’ chances to be treated more severely, not less severely. Frankly, I do not think the Bill meets that test. I do not think that the emphasis on recidivism at the heart of this Bill—as I have said, it is understandable and perhaps even noble—will be welcomed by the vast majority of people, whose position has hardened in precisely the way my hon. Friend’s Committee’s report suggests.

My perspective on the people who commit these crimes is as follows. Let us look at what crimes most commonly attract sentences of 12 months or less. The most common is theft from shops. We have an explosion in shoplifting, as has been highlighted by Members on both sides of the House. It is something we should take seriously and act upon. That is about 13% of short sentences. Then there is common assault and battery. Yes, I agree that it is not grievous bodily harm, as the Secretary of State rightly said, but I suspect most people would feel that common assault and battery should result in a custodial sentence. That is 9% of sentences of 12 months or less. Then there is assault of an emergency worker. Can we think of anything more appalling than that—a fireman or ambulance crew turns up at an emergency and is assaulted by someone? My goodness! That is about 3%. Breaching a restraining order is 7% and possession of an article with a blade or point—in other words, a knife—is 6%. That is the list of sentences that most commonly attract 12 months or less in prison, which is the kind that are now to be suspended.

This proposal neither passes the test necessary to fulfil the key functions of the criminal justice system, nor passes the still more fundamental test of being likely to restore—I say “restore” rather than “maintain”, because I think it is a matter of restoration—public confidence in law and order. If we want once again, as we should in this place, to reflect and give life to public sentiment, frankly, this Bill will have to be amended very significantly indeed.

Disraeli said that

“justice is truth in action.”—[Official Report, 11 February 1851; Vol. 114, c. 412.]

My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst is a deductive thinker: he likes to look at the evidence and deduce an outcome. I am more of an inductive thinker: I believe in arguing from first principles, so the truth really matters to me. On that basis, I say to Ministers, “Let us amend this Bill. Let us take the best parts of it, and change those things that will not pass either of the tests I have set out.” I therefore reserve my right to oppose it on Third Reading, but knowing this new Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), and knowing our excellent Secretary of State, I rather suspect that they have heard those arguments and taken careful note of them—for I know too that they are the kind of politicians who want to do the right thing, rather than the easy thing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

There are parts of this Bill that I am sure my constituents will welcome, including the stronger sentences for serious criminals and the inability of people to be released early on parole, but there are areas that my constituents and I have serious concerns about, particularly with regard to the presumption of suspended sentences for crimes that attract a sentence of 12 months or less. I am particularly concerned about home detention. The word “home” is not about detention. Home is about home comforts; it is about people being able to do what they want to do, whether they have a tag on or not.

We know that repeat criminals, which most people who have home detention and home curfew are, have clever ways of working the system. In Grimsby and places like Grimsby, somebody who has a tag will find a way, through coercive control, of getting their partner to commit crimes, or get criminal associates to come to their home so that they can carry on their criminal behaviour. I also have constituents whose children and grandchildren have been coerced into committing criminal behaviour, because they are the ones who do not have a criminal conviction—yet. Quite often, those who are seen as minors will not have anything serious done to them with regard to sentencing, and they are being encouraged, either through payment or perhaps a lack of violence, to continue the criminal activity.

I am particularly concerned about some of the examples that have been given, and I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor for speaking to me about this yesterday. Yes, if somebody works hard for a living and they have made some mistakes and need help, we do not want to prevent them from being able to live in their house or apartment. We do not want them to lose their job or to be unable to carry on positive, healthy relationships with people, but my concern is that people who are on benefits and who are not working in legal jobs will be able to be at home doing pretty much whatever they want and working the system. My constituents would like to see those people doing visible community service to pay back to their victims and repair what is going on in the community. We need it to be long-term: community service orders of 200 hours are, frankly, derisory; community payback sentences should be 1,200 hours. It should be a year long so that it is inconvenient and involves things that people do not want to do.

We also need to stop the merry-go-round, operationally, that follows legislation. People in Grimsby know that offenders such as these often end up on a merry-go-round involving every state-funded service, but they do not take them seriously or do not take an active part in them, because they know that they do not have to. That costs the taxpayer huge amounts of money, but this is about not just the monetary cost but the cost to the community.

We have just passed the Victims and Prisoners Bill. What about the victims here? My constituents want to see that somebody is being inconvenienced and having to work hard to pay back. We have heard that people’s circumstances can result in their becoming a criminal, but lots of people come from those same circumstances and do not make the choice to become criminals and it is about time we started thinking about them. We need to make it clear to people that criminal behaviour is unacceptable, and ensure that they go out and visibly do good activities, with people watching them and keeping control of them. The reality is that if somebody is at home, they are on the internet, watching television, meeting their criminal friends and laughing at the rest of us.

[Sir John Hayes]

What my hon. Friend is talking about is stigma. There must be some stigma. Stigma is very unfashionable in the modern age—even to mention it is probably regarded as politically incorrect—but we have to stigmatise people who do really bad things among their contemporaries. If we do not do that, they will carry on with impunity.

[Lia Nici]

My right hon. Friend is, as always, absolutely spot on.

We need to start having these kinds of discussions. In my constituency of Great Grimsby, we have people who are repeat offenders in aggressive retail crime who are getting away without having to do anything positive to pay back society. Colleagues talked earlier about people who have a reading age equivalent of nine or 10 and who must improve their literacy. I have worked in further education for over two decades, and what happens with state-funded organisations is that people will be told, “Go and see a person who will help you with mental health issues. Go to a person who will help you with learning to read and write. Go to the probation office to register where you are.” These people do not go there. They cannot be controlled in any way, so it becomes extremely expensive and is a derisory way of using taxpayers’ money.

I and my constituents want there to be no home detention so that people have to get up in the morning to go and do their community service. They should be seen to be doing it, and they have to be doing it for the amount of time that they would have been inconvenienced by being incarcerated through any other sentence. Otherwise, it will not work. We will end up with an extremely expensive system where nothing works properly. Instead of sending people to go and improve their literacy, we should get them to work off their crime and learn how to read and how to interact with other professional people and what it means to be socially positive in those situations. They should not be sitting in pretend classrooms for hours and hours not doing anything.

We know that positive work and having positive role models in society is what will turn people round, but the proposed approach to sentencing will end up being an extremely expensive way for people to play the system and continue the merry-go-round. I would like the Lord Chancellor and the Front-Bench team to think seriously about what the majority of people in our communities would like to see.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Daly]

I agree. We cannot have a debate about criminal justice simply on the basis that everyone should be sent to prison; there has to be some form of alternative sentence. My experience over 17 years, however, is that none of it works—little or none of it—because this is about the individual.

I have not met an individual—unless they are suffering from severe mental health problems—who does not know what they need to do with their life to be a better person or to not commit crime, whether that is to stop taking drugs or drinking alcohol, or whatever it is. The vast majority of people who appear in court are not demented fools; they are intelligent, articulate people who are choosing not to make the correct decisions that could put their life on a more even footing. The range of sentencing options, such as a curfew, or all the types of modern technology we talked about, are nonsense. They will not make a blind bit of difference to anyone’s behaviour.

The point I am making is that the criminal justice system is, by its very nature, fallible. It will never be efficient or give us the outcomes that we want. The idea that any MP in this place could set up a structure that will deal fairly with every offender that appears before the courts is absolutely for the birds. My view is that the Bill does not make much difference to the position we are in. It is not something that colleagues should get overly concerned about, because having spent 17 years in front of magistrates, I can tell the House that they will still send people to prison on the basis of this Bill. A few people might well get a chance, with a curfew or something like that, but they will breach it in five minutes and will be sent to prison.

Under the Bill, someone is forgiven for the first breach, but they go to prison for the second breach. Whatever happens, they will go to prison at some point, because most of them breach the order that is imposed in the first place. I support the Bill because I support—

[Sir John Hayes]

Is my hon. Friend saying that the Bill is inconsequential? If it is inconsequential, why do we need it? The Bill is either as bad as I think it is, or it is as harmless as he thinks it is. Either way, we do not want it.

[James Daly]

Frankly, it allows our independent judiciary and magistrates, sitting throughout the country, to make decisions based on the individual circumstances of the case. I think it still allows them to impose an immediate custodial sentence in the vast majority of circumstances. I have read out the legal test, which can be applied any which way we want.

Violence Reduction, Policing and Criminal Justice

John Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

What a very kind offer. I am sure that call will be echoed by those in the SNP Benches in front of the hon. Gentleman. We, of course, would be delighted to share any best practice. He makes a very serious point. To do all the things we want to do to protect vulnerable people requires boots on the ground—it requires police officers. That is why we are proud of the fact that in this jurisdiction the number of police officers stands at, or close to, an all-time high. We would be happy to commend that approach to our friends north of the border.

On public protection, taking the most serious offenders out of circulation is how we stop them committing crime. But we also want to follow the evidence about what works to prevent reoffending, because that is also how we keep the British people safe. The evidence—not sentiment, evidence—shows that those on immediate prison sentences of less than 12 months are significantly more likely to reoffend than similar offenders who get sentences in the community. They are over 50% likely to reoffend, as compared to less than 25% for those who are required to adhere to tough conditions, with a risk of going to prison if they fail to comply. Let me be clear about what that means. Those who are on suspended sentence orders are required to comply with onerous requirements—be they unpaid work orders, alcohol rehabilitation requirements or whatever—on pain of going straight to prison if they fail to comply. The evidence shows that people see that as a powerful deterrent.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend will want to comment, in that context, on persistent offenders, because he will know that there are many offenders who persistently offend and commit crimes that would not attract a sentence of more than 12 months. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) spoke of shoplifting, for example. Criminal damage would be another example, as would antisocial behaviour. Some 30% of persistent offenders commit 80% of crimes. Is he really saying that none of them should go to prison?

[Alex Chalk]

On the contrary. I know that my right hon. Friend rightly, on behalf of his constituents, wants to ensure that those who destroy lives and have a corrosive impact on communities are brought to book. That is why the provisions have been carefully constructed and calibrated to ensure that those who are unable or unwilling to abide by an order of the court can expect to hear the clang of the prison gate. Not only will the proverbial sword of Damocles be hanging over them, but for those who commit an offence when they are subject to a court order—be it a supervision order, a community order or a non-molestation order—the presumption no longer applies. We send a clear message to criminals: obey the order of the court or expect to go to prison.

Judges will retain their discretion to impose immediate custody when an offender poses a significant risk of physical or psychological harm to an individual—this is to the direct point made by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford—so that domestic abuse offences and other violent offences against women and girls can and will continue to be punished, with immediate custody protecting victims. Nothing changes, but for those whose sentence is suspended, the courts will be able to continue to use a range of requirements, including curfews, electronic tags, community payback and exclusion requirements. Those who do not comply or who commit further offences can be brought back to court and risk being sent to prison.

Alongside that, we want to ensure that we have the prison places to keep serious and dangerous offenders locked up for longer, while allowing lower risk offenders to benefit from community-based restrictions to assist with their resettlement, get back into work and start contributing to society where that can be safely managed. For that reason, we are extending home detention curfew to offenders serving sentences of over four years and keeping our tough restrictions that prevent serious violent, sexual and domestic abuse offenders from accessing this facility.

The Criminal Justice Bill includes measures that deliver on three strategic objectives: first, protecting the public from violence and intimidation; secondly, enabling law enforcement agencies to respond to changing technology deployed by criminals, including by equipping them with sufficient powers to address emerging types and threats; and thirdly, strengthening public confidence in policing. We will protect the public from violence and intimidation by strengthening the law on the taking of intimate images without consent and expanding the offence of encouraging or assisting self-harm.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

It was a pleasure to listen to the Lord Chancellor open the debate with the characteristic moderation and eloquence that he brings to the Dispatch Box. I also welcome the two new Under-Secretaries of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon)—my constituency neighbour—and my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), to the Treasury Bench. They are both great assets to the Government team.

I welcome what the Lord Chancellor said in his speech. I will concentrate on justice-related issues, given the pressure of time. The Justice Committee has, in fact, already worked on some of these policy areas, and I am grateful to him and his ministerial colleagues for taking on board some of the issues we have raised. We may want to press them a little further as we see the details of legislation, but I welcome the moves they have made. I appreciate their courtesy throughout our dealings.

I will start with our recent report, “Public opinion and understanding of sentencing”, which is important in the context of the Sentencing Bill and some provisions of the Criminal Justice Bill. The report shows that there is a real problem with the lack of a coherent approach to sentencing policy in the UK, as well as an issue with public understanding of the objectives of sentencing. In particular, there is insufficient analysis of the potential impact of sentencing changes.

This is not unique to the last few years; it has been systemic for all the time I have been involved in politics, and probably for all the 30-odd years I spent in practice at the Bar, specialising in criminal work, before coming to this place. No Government takes particular blame, but systemically we have perhaps not done enough to adequately collect and efficiently and fully use data to drive evidence-based policy. I know the Lord Chancellor and his colleagues understand that, and I know the Department is making moves to improve it, which I welcome. These Bills are examples of where we can try to put some of that into practice. That is certainly what our report is looking to achieve.

Given the public’s view that public protection is the top priority—we came to that conclusion after a very detailed sentencing exercise, I might add—I do not think people object to stronger sentences for the most dangerous offences but, equally, we need to be alert to identify any potential unintended consequences. That means we have to level with the public. If we repeatedly enact measures that increase sentencing, with the mantra of being tough on crime, we have to be honest with the public by saying it will cost money. Keeping an adult male in prison costs £47,000 a year. If they are a danger to the public of if they committed the worst types of crime, that is money well spent, but the Lord Chancellor is quite right to look at alternatives, where that money could be better used, for those who are not a danger and who are, in many respects, inadequate and have been failed much earlier in their lives, leading to a chaotic situation.

Tougher sentencing is sometimes part of the mix, and rightly so, but smarter sentencing is usually what is important. I think the Sentencing Bill recognises that and gives us an opportunity to build on it. That is also important because of the capacity crisis we have identified in prisons through our study of the prison workforce, where we have real difficulties in recruitment and retention. That is also important, as we cannot have rehabilitation without sufficient and adequate staffing.

As Winston Churchill said, “There is, in truth, a golden treasure in the heart of almost every man.” Not everyone is redeemable, but very many are. Far more than people in politics sometimes think. It is a good thing if we can turn people’s lives around through the prison system, because that means less reoffending. That is why the presumption against shorter sentences is right. There are certain areas, which have been mentioned, where we must carefully look at the detail but, overall, the evidence is overwhelming that short sentences do more harm than good. Sentencing policy should be about evidence and preventing reoffending, not about soundbites and grabbing headlines. I know the Lord Chancellor has adopted that approach.

[Sir John Hayes]

rose—

[Sir Robert Neill]

I will give way once and once only, because time presses.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend. Those are the arguments that have been used for most of my lifetime: the idea that recidivism is caused not by punishment, or by retributive justice; that somehow this is less important than the fact that, as he said, the people who commit crimes have somehow been failed. For a long time this has been the prevailing view in criminal justice, yet it has brought no decline in recidivism—rather, the opposite.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before the hon. Gentleman comes back on that, I must point out that if those who are trying to catch my eye later intervene before they have spoken, they will be moved down the list.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

What a pleasure to follow the thoughtful eloquence of the new hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Michael Shanks). One of his predecessors, Tom Greatrex, shadowed me when I was the energy Minister and became a great friend. I hope that he, too, might become a good friend over time.

When I was a boy, still younger than the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Keir Mather), I attended my first Conservative party conference in 1975. Margaret Thatcher, the new Conservative leader, declared then that

“The first duty of Government is to uphold the law. If it tries to bob and weave and duck around that duty…then so will the governed, and…nothing is safe—not home, not liberty, not life itself.”

For a civilised society is an ordered society, and because it is the most vulnerable—the old, the frail and the less well-off—who live on the frontline of disorder, they must be protected from it. The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West spoke about the hopelessness that can lead to when people feel they are exactly that: on the frontline of crime. For that reason, a prerequisite of social solidarity is a civil order where law is enforced, justice prevails for all and the guilty are punished. We in this place must stand in defence of the gentle.

Yet too often in my lifetime, those who shape criminal justice have been impervious to the harm their doctrines do. Detached from the concerns of hard-working people, those with power are too often influenced by guilt-ridden, bourgeois liberals. Too many members of this opinion-forming elite have lost any sense of proportion about what matters and what does not. They are unable to gauge the significance of trivialities which waste time and resources; unable to tell the difference between the petty and the pertinent. Many people often believe, rightly, that the criminal justice system is more interested in hurt feelings than in the hurt that crime causes. They cannot understand why elements in the police appear to care more about silly social media than they do about burglaries and theft. It is preposterous that half the calls passed on to frontline police in recent years have been about social media.

Figures released in June revealed that the proportion of crimes resulting in a charge or summons was just 5.7%—a slight increase on last year’s figures, by the way—which means that 95% of crimes in England and Wales go unpunished, and that is leaving aside those that are not even reported. Meanwhile, in the five years to 2023, an incredible 120,000 people were recorded for “non-crime hate incidents”. Causing offence may be rude, but is it really worthy of police time? The liberal elite who offer a multitude of platitudes about equality are none the less content to see a two-tier justice system in which cultural relativism determines what is investigated and what is not. The law must be applied equally to all, whether they are eco-fanatics or Islamic extremists. For such characters, in the absence of a sense of proportion, anything can be legitimised in the cause of self-righteous purity, and that includes, when they glue themselves to roads, stopping ambulances taking the sick to hospital.

We must end the culture of excusing and rewarding deviant and wicked behaviour. I recall from when I studied criminology at university in the 1980s a seminal book, “Rehabilitation and deviance”, which showed that a rehabilitative ideal had become so institutionalised that the criminal justice system had become disconnected from the core concept of justice. Crime is not an illness to be treated. It is a malevolent option chosen by those who carelessly harm and damage people, largely out of greed or spite or malice, yet too many heinous and hardened criminals receive risibly lenient sentences.

We should not be letting people out of prison early, nor should we be suspending custodial sentences for persistent prolific offenders. That is not what the public expect, it is not what our constituents want, and it is not fair because it is not just. Crime must be punished, and punishment matters because the public want to see law-abiding, decent, patriotic people protected from the minority who seek to do them harm. Is that too much to ask? No authentic Conservative should vote for early release, and no authentic Conservative should vote for the end of custodial sentences. If any do, they must answer to their constituents.

Assisted Dying

John Hayes Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Danny Kruger]

I really do thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. She is absolutely right, and I thank her for allowing me to make it abundantly clear what I hope I made clear earlier: I recognise the enormous power of the campaign, and that the overwhelming majority of people want it for the best of intentions. All of the people campaigning for this, and the overwhelming majority of the people who imagine making use of this law, do so for the absolute best of intentions. Please can we not have a deliberate misunderstanding of the points I make? I represent a lot of people who think this way, and I am making the point in all sincerity.

I challenge Members, many of whom must visit their hospices and know what is acknowledged as the fact of elder abuse. Tragically, we have a rising epidemic of elder abuse in this country. Half of elderly people who are victims of financial crime are victimised by their own adult children. It is not just the elderly we need to be concerned about. It is no surprise that no disabled organisation supports the proposal. It is the most vulnerable people, who by definition rely on the support of other people—their families and professionals—who are most at risk of assisted dying laws being misapplied, which is what I fear would happen. Suddenly, every controlling and coercive relative, every avaricious carer or neighbour, every overstretched or under-resourced doctor or hospital manager would have the means to cut their cost, and I do not believe it is possible to design out the risks.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling case. We have heard a lot about quality of life, but who are we to judge what a quality life really is? Is someone who is profoundly disabled without quality? Is someone with profound learning difficulties without quality? Why do we assume that the only lives worth living are those that are perfect or of high quality in the eyes of others?

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. I fear that we shall never hear the answer to my right hon. Friend. We have to stick to the five-minute limit, and you get injury time only on the first occasion that you give way, I am afraid. That is a message for all Members.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading - Day 2
Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

When the Home Secretary said that she wanted criminals to “feel terror” at the thought of committing offences, she reflected the heartfelt sentiments of those who live on the frontline of crime, starkly contrasting the small clique of bourgeois liberals who use wealth to segregate and insulate themselves from the reality of disorder and have sought to amplify time and again, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) did tonight, the rights of thugs and villains and the civil liberties of the violent mob.

This week, Members of Parliament have rightly resolved to redouble our efforts to prevent violence against women. It is strange then that just months ago 70 Labour parliamentarians sought to block the deportation of 50 violent criminals, including those convicted of murder and rape, and that they will vote against a Bill tonight that cracks down on crime. It does seem that the Labour party is more motivated by the political posturing associated with what the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), whom I greatly admire by the way, typically described as headline grabbing, than it is with protecting the safety of the innocent.

As figures show, our police forces are continually challenged by increasing demands. Hard-working officers are frequently derailed by the malign advocates of the rights of criminals and distracted by the politically correct delusions of the ideologically motivated elite. Imagine the demoralising disappointment they must feel when, after working tirelessly to solve a crime, an unelected judge insists on awarding a derisory sentence, inhibiting the incentive to prosecute, weakening deterrence and undermining public trust.

Typically, custodial sentences are drastically reduced, and even the most ruthless criminals are released early. Many killers are released after a dozen or so years, while naive utopians in gated communities plead for even greater leniency. How the liberal left misunderstands the criminal mind, for deviant individuals who have chosen crime as a career weigh up the balance between risk and reward, cost and benefit. It is a measure of their trade.

The misassumption that crime is an illness to be treated has become so pervasive that it is barely questioned in the broadcast media, yet to see those who choose to profit from the misfortune of others in the same way that we regard the sick and infirm is to demean the latter and elevate the former to a status they do not deserve. This assumption that wickedness is a misfortune of less significance than the suffering it causes means relegating such acts and the victims of them. In this way, justice is neither seen to be done, nor done at all.

This Bill goes some way to regaining public faith by strengthening law and order and regaining that mantle for the Secretary of State and our party. All Members of this House who care about the innocent should vote for it, for our task is to be fierce in defence of the gentle.

Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill [Lords]

John Hayes Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 17th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Put simply, Labour supports this Bill. It is in line with Labour party policy. It sends the right message, we believe, many years later than it should have arrived in this place.

We support reforming some of the archaic and outdated hoops that people have to jump through if they want their marriage to end. People who may never have sought or needed a divorce may not know that there is currently no such thing as a no-fault divorce and that one of the parties must be “to blame” for a relationship ending. They may not know that if there is no blame to be laid, people must spend two years separated before they can file for divorce. They may not know that if one of the parties objects to divorce, the other must remain married to them for five years. That is why we hope that Ministers will reject amendment 1. I will turn specifically to that soon.

Marriage is supposed to be a happy and special occasion where two people come together in front of their loved ones and commit themselves to each other, and then set up their lives together. But we would be naive to think that all marriages will last forever. People change and life changes. Something that may have once seemed perfect will not necessarily be that way forever. There is no reason why, in situations where there is no fault, two people should be forced into a hostile situation where they have to find blame, keeping them married for long periods and preventing them from moving on with their lives.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Of course what the hon. Gentleman says is entirely reasonable—that where there is no fault it is right that that should be acknowledged. Where there is fault, should that be acknowledged, or ignored or concealed, or what?

[Alex Cunningham]

I think that is a matter for the individuals involved. Adults who are embarking on divorce are supposedly mature people and they should be able to sort these things out for themselves. If they want to blame somebody for some reason, that is very much a matter for them.

It is right that this Parliament is taking action to bring divorce law into the 21st century and recognise that in many cases there is no blame—there is just no desire to be together any more. We should be facilitating peaceful endings of marriages where that is possible. I am pleased that this Bill makes excellent moves towards achieving that.

Yet the Opposition have identified several related matters that we felt needed to be heard and considered. From the list of amendments, I see that some Conservative Members also felt that some changes were needed. I plan to address these in turn. Amendment 1 would extend the minimum legal period for a divorce from the six months in the Bill to a year. Wo did not see what value or benefit this would provide; it would simply force two people together for longer than they need to be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dame Rosie, and to follow the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham).

I listened with great care to the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). I have great respect for the sincerity with which she expresses her views. I have to say that I profoundly disagree with the fundamental basis of her analysis, but I do not mean that with any disrespect to her or others who take a different view. This is not a Bill on which we should be judgmental, any more than we should be judgmental in relation to divorce itself. The Bill is, to my mind, a sensible one. It reflects reality, which is often painful—painful not least for the parties and for their families. As I said on Second Reading, I start from the proposition—it also informs my approach to these amendments—that nobody gets married setting out to get divorced. Divorce arises only as a result of a great deal of hardship, heartache and heart searching.

In my experience, as a constituency MP and lawyer—I did not predominantly practise family law as a lawyer, although I did a bit at one time, and I have many friends who continue to do it at every level—divorce is not undertaken lightly, any more than any relationship breakdown is undertaken lightly. When it happens, however, it is better that it should be done with the minimum of conflict and the minimum of confrontation. Over the years, we have made reforms to the law of divorce to try to make it closer to the reality of the society in which we live, because, ultimately, that is what law has to serve. In this regard, I support the Bill for attempting, and succeeding in large measure, to do that. So although I understand that the amendments are well intentioned, I cannot support them.

[Sir John Hayes]

My hon. Friend will, of course, understand from the personal experience of his constituents and from other experience that he has enjoyed that the acrimony he described is often about the dispersal of assets and the custody of children. It is not about the process of divorce; it is about the business of divorce. The custody of children and the agreement about assets will continue regardless of the process. Acrimony is a feature of the human condition, not a legal process.

[Sir Robert Neill]

The only part that I agree with my right hon. Friend about is the fact that acrimony can be a feature of the human condition. I am afraid that I have to profoundly disagree with the rest of his analysis. I regret to have to say that a divorce process that entrenches confrontation absolutely has the reverse effect to that which he suggests. The reality is that the acrimony, sadly, has arisen in the course of the breakdown, which, all too often, may have been a long time coming and may have happened for a number of reasons, which cannot be laid necessarily always at the door of one party or the other. But the law, as it stands, does not fit that reality fairly and sensibly. Whatever its intention, it actually makes matters worse, so I do have to part company with my right hon. Friend on that.

There is much to be said— I will take it out of turn but I think it relates to the principle of this—for the various amendments that relate to improving the attempts to support marriage and conciliation. I understand that and hope the Minister will have more to say about what more we can do in that regard. The truth is that, by the time we get to the issuing of the proceedings for divorce, the horse has bolted. We should do more to prevent that from happening and help couples when they run into difficulties at the beginning, but that is not what this Bill is changing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Selous]

When we had the Second Reading debate on the Bill not so long ago, the Lord Chancellor made the very good observation that if we were serious about strengthening marriages and relationships in this country, we needed to do so through what was termed

“the right end of the telescope”.—[Official Report, 8 June 2020; Vol. 99, c. 677.]

I think he meant that we needed to have a greater focus on three areas: marriage preparation; marriage enrichment; and marriage counselling when marriages get into difficulty and relationship support for all couples. I like the phrase used in the Family Law Act 1996, which talks about marriage and relationship support, and as I said on Second Reading, although I am an enormous fan of marriage and always will be, I will always stand up for people who have never been married and those who are divorced as well as those who are married. I think that that would go for all my hon. and right hon. Friends on the Conservative Benches and no doubt across the House.

Returning to the Family Law Act 1996, a previous Lord Chancellor, Lord Mackay, was absolutely clear at that time that marriage and relationship support services were an entirely necessary part of divorce reform. That was a good, sensible point, and I do not want this Government, of whom I am an enormous supporter, to depart from that principle. What worries me a little is that the Government’s position appears to have moved slightly away from wanting to try to support saveable marriages. I say that because the previous Lord Chancellor, talking of these reforms, said:

“Sometimes, a marriage will still be reparable at the point at which one spouse seeks the divorce”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 March 2020; Vol. 802, c. 1431.]

The current law offers little opportunity for repair, but it was a clear commitment by the previous Lord Chancellor, not so long ago, that we should look at being able to save marriages even when a divorce is potentially imminent.

However, what the previous Lord Chancellor says contrasts with the view of the current Lord Chancellor, of whom I am also a great fan. I believe him when he says that he supports marriage and family life, but he did say that

“by the time a decision to issue a divorce petition has been made, matters have gone beyond that, to a great extent—not in every case, but in my view, in the vast majority of cases.”—[Official Report, 8 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 95.]

I am a huge fan of the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) , and I know that he is personally a great supporter of strengthening marriages and couple relationships, but perhaps he could explain why the Government’s position seems to have hardened a little in this area of marriage and relationship support over the past six months.

Looking at the figures, I note that in 2018 in England and Wales, there were 91,299 divorces. My parents also divorced, so I know the pain and grief that that causes. In some ways, I think it is a greater pain even than a bereavement. We know from academic studies that around 10% of people who engage in marriage counselling services, even when a divorce is starting to be undertaken, decide not to divorce. That would be around 9,000 divorces a year that potentially would not take place, were we to offer services that the previous Lord Chancellor seemed to say were sensible; Lord Mackay of Clashfern said they were an absolutely essential part of divorce law reform.

[Sir John Hayes]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling argument on an amendment that seeks to make what most sensible people would regard as a modest change to the Bill, which is simply to say that where we can support reconciliation, we will do so. The Government have been offered that compromise, and I am astounded, frankly, that they have not accepted it.

[Andrew Selous]

I agree with what my right hon. Friend says.

Eagle-eyed observers of the amendment paper will have noted that new clause 1, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), and amendment 7 are identical. In fact, I have a confession to make to the House: neither my hon. Friend nor I wrote it. In case we are accused of plagiarism, I think it came from Lord Michael Farmer in the other place. It was a good amendment; it was raised in the other place a couple of months ago, and it has stood the test of time. When it was in the other place, I noted that it had the support of Conservatives, a Member of the Democratic Unionist party, the Liberal Democrat Front Bench and the Bishop of Salisbury.

From what the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), said today, I think he supports the spirit of the amendment—not perhaps the actual words, but the objectives, as far as I understood him. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Chair of the Justice Committee, also said he supported the spirit of the amendment, so I think we have a great deal of cross-party consensus on this issue, which I really hope we can take forward.

New clause 1 and amendment 7 need not actually cost the Government anything. Although “may” changes to “must”, the measure just says “make grants” in respect, effectively, of marriage preparation, marriage enrichment and marriage support, and the same for civil partnerships and more widely for relationship support. However, it does not specify an amount. We are not imposing a financial requirement on a Government who, my goodness me, are already struggling with enormous financial demands on them at the moment, but we are specifying where this work should take place, and on a very good evidential basis.

It was noted in another place, when the Bill was debated there, that support for marriage and relationship support has seemed to depend a bit over the years on the whim of whoever was Prime Minister and whichever set of Ministers were in place. That is a pity because, until recently, there has been cross-party support on this issue. Labour and Conservative Governments, ever since the Denning report of 1947, have seen it as core business, and there is a greatly increased need for it, not least because of lockdown, which has been referred to.

We know that family relationships are under enormous pressure in the pressure-cooker environment of lockdown at the moment. We also know that families coming through lockdown perhaps slightly better than others are often those where there are strong family relationships, and they have helped children and others to cope well. I know that Marriage Care, which contacted me after Second Reading, is having many people come to it asking for support that it and other members of the Relationships Alliance, which my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton) quite properly mentioned, are unable to provide, because the financial means is not there, as Government support in the reducing parental conflict programme is quite narrowly focused on working couples where there is parental conflict—a laudable objective, but not actually wide enough.

Understandably, the Government are always nervous about new requests for spending, but the fact is that when these relationships go wrong, the Government pick up the tab big time. There is no debate about the benefits, the extra housing costs, the mental health support and other health support that will be paid out. We pay that out in our billions without question, so, as my hon. Friend said—and, indeed, as the Lord Chancellor said on Second Reading—let us put a bit more emphasis on the other end of the telescope to try to strengthen these relationships in the first place.

As we—hopefully—emerge from the pandemic, we need to rebuild not just a strong economy, but a strong society. All my hon. Friends were elected only last December on a manifesto that said absolutely clearly that a strong society is built on strong families. As one or two of my colleagues have said, we need evidence of that. That is a grand statement, with which we all agree. What are the actual building blocks to put that in place? I do hope that my hon. Friend the Minister, of whom I am a great fan—I was absolutely thrilled to see him be promoted—will give us some comfort on that, because very many of us really want to see it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I rise to speak to new clause 3, which stands in my name. It would replicate Scottish law, which replaces the two and five-year separation with a no-fault divorce after one year. It is a moderate compromise and I have no doubt that the Government will accept it.

I believe the Government are making a huge mistake. That is not just my opinion; the research is clear that liberalisation and expansion of no-fault divorce, wherever it has been introduced, has led to the most vulnerable in society being worse off. Look at the evidence from Sweden, Canada, and various US states—it all points in the same direction: we will have more divorces, and the worst-off will be hurt the most.

The Brining study in the US showed that 75% of low-income divorced women had not been poor when they were married. The Parkman studies show that, overall, women living in American states with no-fault divorce work, on average, 4.5 more hours a week than their counterparts in states with fault-based divorce. In this country in 2009, the then Department for Children, Schools and Families produced an evidence review that showed that a child not growing up in a two-parent household was more likely to be living in poor housing, to experience more behavioural problems, to perform less well in school, to need more medical treatment, to leave school and home when young, to become sexually active, pregnant or a parent at an earlier age, to report more depressive symptoms, and so on.

We now understand the intent behind the Bill: it is to make divorce easier and to propel more families, and particularly more women, into poverty. We know that, in reality, the Government’s intention is to speed up the divorce process, which they say will make it more efficient, but look at the side-effects I just described. Surely the cure is much worse than the disease? I realise that I am out of alignment with Government policy—a rare event for me—so I want to outline the purpose and rationale of the new clause. I admit it would constitute a rewrite of the Bill, but I think it is quite a moderate rewrite, and it accords with the central purpose of the Bill, which is to encourage no-fault divorce and, like it or not, to speed up the process.

Hon. Members will recall that the current law sets down the five facts that must be established before a divorce is granted. The separation ground does not require proof of fault, so we already have no-fault divorce, but the Government say the period is too lengthy. The problem campaigners have with the current no-fault divorce law is that it takes too long, and I agree. As Baroness Deech in the other place has said,

“the essence of the demand for reform is speed.”

I think the Government should be honest about wanting to speed up the whole process. Ministers do not like to be reminded that they are making divorce easier, but we must be honest: if a process is made easier, human nature being as it is, more people will do it. Of course, for many divorce is an agonising decision, but when married couples are having problems, the quicker and easier it is to get a divorce, the more likely they are to choose divorce, instead of choosing the hard work of talking out their problems.

My parents met at Bletchley Park during the war, and it was a great pleasure to attend their 50th wedding anniversary celebration in 1994, shortly before my father’s death. It was a shock for my sister and me to find some extraordinary and poignant letters written in the 1940s that showed our parents were clearly having enormous problems, but it was just as obvious that they were determined to make a go of it. People might say, “It was a previous generation,” but there were many couples like my parents in their generation. I owe them so much for keeping together and looking after us, and always being ready to help my brother, my sister and me. I am proud of what they did and the sacrifices their generation made, and I worry about what my own Government are doing in sending the wrong signal—sending the signal that marriage is not one of the most precious things in the world.

It has already been said that people can sign up to a mobile phone contract and be stuck with it for two years, in which they have to fulfil the obligations of the contract, but they can have a church or civil ceremony, profess lifelong fidelity before the law, before God, before friends and neighbours, and after just six months walk away. Basically, they just say, “I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you,” and that is that. What sort of message is our own Conservative Government sending to society? I believe we should be Conservative with a big “C” and conservative with a small “c”—socially conservative. I know that not a lot of people in Parliament agree with that message, but I have no difficulty with it. People out there understand what is at stake. In one poll, 72% of people said that no-fault divorce may make people more blasé about divorce. We do not need to look at a poll; it is obvious that it will make people more blasé about divorce.

Clause 1 abolishes all five fact grounds and replaces them with a system where one spouse can simply resign from a marriage and get a divorce in six months. My new clause would make a much less dramatic rewrite of the law. We can maintain the fault grounds for those who wish to use them, while substantially speeding up no-fault divorces, but still giving people time to reconsider. Far from giving couples in difficulty more options, this Bill takes them away. Is it a Conservative option to take away options, rather than keep them to provide people with different ways of getting a divorce if that is what they really want to do, and give them more time to reconsider?

We should think of the wife who is faithful to her husband for 30 years only for him to run off. She will have no way of getting a divorce that recognises who was in the right and who was in the wrong—that is taken away. Abolishing fault deprives spouses who wish to obtain a divorce on fault grounds any opportunity of doing so. We should think of the man or woman who is mentally or physically abused by his or her spouse. He or she will be unable to get any recognition of that through the divorce process. This new system will be blind to all suffering and to all injustice. The spouse being divorced against his or her wishes will have zero opportunity of contesting the divorce to try to save the marriage or to slow things down and plan for the future.

[Sir John Hayes]

But it is even worse than that because, as the Law Society points out, the respondent might not even know that they were being divorced. It will usually be a lady who is divorced by a man who has gone, as my right hon. Friend has described, and they might not know and then they would be divorced by January. That is the harsh reality we are facing and it is appalling that a Conservative Government should impose that on us.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Some of our amendments make it clear that there must be proper service and a reasonable length of time, and the respondent must know that the service is being made. Those are quite reasonable amendments, and I suspect that they will all be resisted by the Government.

My new clause simply mirrors the approach taken in Scotland—quite a sensible jurisdiction, you might think. It would leave open the option of seeking a fault-based divorce, while reducing the separation periods to one year with consent and two years without consent. Just 5% of divorces in Scotland now take place on fault-based grounds, so it is there for the minority who need it, while the majority can choose a no-fault option. This is Scotland. It works and it is not unreasonable. I see no reason why we should not replicate Scottish law, and that is what my new clause does. I cannot understand why the Government have not chosen a more sensible route such as that, as it would be far less controversial. Members will recall that the public consultation on these proposals met with considerable resistance—80% did not agree with the proposals, but they were ignored.

One argument made in support of the Bill has been that the waiting periods for separation encourage or force couples who want a divorce quickly to use fault facts rather than separation facts. If we really are worried about people using the fault grounds to speed up their divorces and allegations of fault increasing acrimony, what is wrong with the Scottish approach, where people can get a no-fault divorce on consent grounds in just one year and where only 5% of divorces now allege fault? Why not make no-fault divorce an option for those who want it, rather than forcing everyone to do it the Government’s way?

Again, we should think of the most vulnerable in society. Let us consider what happens in Sweden, a place that many Opposition Members praise. Even the extremely generous Swedish welfare state has proved totally ineffective at breaking the link between family breakdown and poverty. The incidence of poverty among children in single-parent families is more than three times that in families with two parents. The number of Swedish households in poverty headed by a single parent is more than four times the number of households in poverty headed by couples. It must be emphasised that Parliament does not exist in a vacuum. The laws that we make here will have repercussions in every community in the country. Do we want more children to be disadvantaged? Do we want to see women poorer and working longer hours? Do we want to deprive innocent spouses of having their blame business being recognised in the divorce process? I hope that the answer is no.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes]

We are already in that place. There was a time when what my hon. Friend says is right—that fault had to be established to get divorced at all. But for a very long time now, we have had a legal circumstance where people could get divorced without fault by being separated, and the significant majority go down that road.

[David Simmonds]

My right hon. Friend makes a very powerful point, but we also need to recognise that the context of our society today is very much of the view that five years is a long time to wait and that the process that is required where fault is established in order to undertake the divorce more quickly is one that inevitably leads to this degree of conflict. Let me move on to the key point—

--- Later in debate ---

I was deeply saddened a few weeks ago to hear one of my colleagues on this side of the House declare that to support this Bill is thoroughly un-Conservative. Forgive me, but that is not my understanding of Conservativism. The Conservativism that runs through me, and on which I was fortunate enough to be elected to this place, means giving people the freedom to live their lives, the freedom to love, the freedom to marry—I am so proud to represent the party that introduced gay marriage and equal marriage—and also the freedom to separate where that difficult decision has been made. To leave people trapped in unhappy or abusive marriages and deny them their freedom is not the Conservatism that I know.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

C S Lewis said:

“We are all fallen creatures and all very hard to live with.”

Since the fall from the state of grace, the prevailing condition of humankind has been imperfection. Because we are imperfect creatures the relationships we form are imperfect too. They are full of the joys, triumphs, disappointments and disasters that perpetuate through the human condition and that everyone in this place will have known during the course of their lives. So it is preposterous to suggest that a change in the process of divorce will iron out enmity or acrimony. The end of a love is by its nature acrimonious. It is full of disappointment and sorrow, and it will ever more be so. Let us not pretend that we are in a fairy tale, whereby if we change the business of divorce, we will change the content of that doubt and disappointment, for we will not.

As I said in an earlier intervention, the principal cause of that enmity is issues over children, and they will remain. The second cause is the sharing out of assets, and that will remain. Arguably the period of time that currently prevails gives a chance to sort that out, and certainly it gives a chance to take advice, to consider carefully, to contemplate and to reflect. One in 10 divorces that are begun do not end for that very reason—people do think again and when they think again, they often try again.

We are condemning many women, in particular, to a very sorry future, because for the most part it will be women who are left by men—not always, of course, but for the most part—and many will not even know they are being divorced, as the Law Society points out in its analysis of the Bill; divorce will be initiated, and women will learn that they will be divorced in a few months, but they will be given no cause, no reason, no justification and no explanation. That is what this Bill does. Thus I regard it as extraordinary that the imperfections that, as I say, have always been so are not recognised by this House as being bound to prevail regardless of this Bill.

Governments are imperfect, too. I spent 19 years on my party’s Front Bench, many of them as a Minister, so I know how imperfect Governments are. Governments bring legislation to the House that is ironed out during its scrutiny. I do not blame for a moment the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham, because he is a new Minister, a good man and a fine fellow, and he would not be calling the shots on this, but I find it extraordinary that the Government have not compromised.

All the time I was in government—people on both sides of the House will remember this—I used to listen to arguments from both sides to allow legislation to develop and mature through scrutiny and argument. Many times, I would go to my civil servants and say, “Well, the point that the shadow Minister is making is right, isn’t it? We ought to take that on board.” Yet this Government have remained entirely resistant to the measured overtures of the Bill’s critics. We conceded on the point about fault, but all we asked was that the Government think again about the time. The duration could be 12 months, as recommended.

[Jim Shannon]

The right hon. Member will be aware that the Government have said that they are going to reduce it to six months, but is he aware that the pilot scheme was able to do divorce proceedings in three months? In other words, a quick divorce could become a really, really quick divorce if we follow the process proposed by the Government.

[Sir John Hayes]

Yes, if the Government carry on down this road, we will have Las Vegas-style drive-through divorces. The hon. Gentleman is right. The Law Society suggested 9 months, and it was 12 months the last time reform of the law was suggested some years ago, so I am astounded, frankly, that we have come up with six months. It is an imperfect world, but a still more imperfect Government and, most of all, a wholly imperfect proposal, on which the Government have been resistant to amendment or change in any way.

The second thing I want to talk about is learning, because we learn from listening. The Government issued a consultation, and completely ignored the fact that most of the respondents did not want what the Bill now proposes. Most people felt that, even where they believed that the law should be changed, it should not be changed in this way. This is the most radical reform of divorce, with no public appetite for it, which completely contradicts the Government’s own consultation. That is how bad this is. I have seen many pieces of legislation come before this House as I have endured and enjoyed many Governments of many colours, but I can rarely remember a Bill that I would be less likely to vote for than this one.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir John Hayes]

I will happily give way briefly, but I do not want to truncate the Minister’s time.

[Carla Lockhart]

The Government did consult, and does he agree that, with three quarters of respondents disagreeing with the Government plans, this Government are making people disenchanted about consultations on such issues?

[Sir John Hayes]

With a mix of assiduity and diligence, for which she is becoming well known in this House, the hon. Lady has fleshed out my argument with the facts that I did not have at my disposal, so I am grateful. She is right. I mentioned that the consultation was not listened to, but she has shown just how much the Government ignored what they were advised by the people they consulted.

The third thing I want to talk about is time. It is absolutely right that we should take time over this sort of legislation, which is challenging by its very nature. The Bill is being rushed through the House at a time when we are enduring one of the worst health crises of all time—certainly, the worst in our memory—and families are under intense pressure and relationships are strained, inevitably. Yet the Government regard this as the right time to bring this Bill before us for consideration? I find that quite extraordinary—quite astounding.

In respect of time, let me say this. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who spoke at the beginning of the debate, is absolutely right that time is necessary so that people can engage with those services designed to encourage the very reflection I recommended. Counselling does matter. Time to think about how you are going to sort your life out, even if you cannot rebuild your relationship, matters. To limit that to a few months—what amounts, in practice, to a few weeks, because of the way the process is now going to work—seems to fly in the face of all experience, given what we hear from those engaged in that process of mediation and counselling.

[Dehenna Davison]

Does my right hon. Friend not agree, though, that a lot of that consideration is done before the point at which people will initially file for divorce? That six-month period is not really a six-month period, but is more prolonged.

[Sir John Hayes]

Yes, that is certainly true. Relationships do decline over time. Of course, my hon. Friend is right that in some cases the process of beginning a divorce will not be the start, but a fingerpost to a destination that had been established long before. In some other cases, however, a divorce will come as a complete surprise, because the Bill moves the emphasis towards the person who initiates the divorce and away from the respondent to such a degree that the respondent—usually, in my judgment, a woman—will be profoundly disadvantaged by this legislation.

Mr Evans, what a delight to have you in the Chair and to speak under your benevolent guidance. Finally, let me deal with the matter of family breakdown and children. A lot has been made of that in this debate. We know from all the evidence—I saw my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) in his place a few moments ago—and in particular the evidence from the Centre for Social Justice, that typically children do considerably worse in broken families. In broken families, children tend to do worse educationally and in all kinds of other ways. It is our job as a society to build strong and stable communities which comprise strong and stable families, and the Bill just will not support that objective. We want a better society. That is why we are all here across the House. Marriage is a key component in building that more wholesome and better society which will allow us to bring up children in a responsible and dutiful way to be the citizens of tomorrow.

The Bill undermines marriage, weakens families and risks weakening social solidarity. It is being rushed through the House by Ministers who refuse to listen to measured and moderate argument. If hon. Members do not agree with any of that, they can vote for it. On the other hand, if hon Members think that any of what I have said is meaningful, they should certainly vote against it. In doing so, they will be sending a signal from this House to the people that we care about marriage and, because we care about marriage, we want fewer people to be divorced.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)]

It has been a genuine privilege to hear the speeches today. They have been powerful, poignant and humorous, but above all, on every single occasion, principled. From whichever point of view people have approached this argument, it has been from a position of principle. As I say, it has been an enormous privilege to have heard it.



Before I respond to the amendments and new clauses, let me make some brief introductory remarks. First, there is a suggestion that the Government are somehow diffident about marriage; that is not so. We recognise—and we are not diffident about saying it—that marriages and civil partnerships are vital to society. Why? It is because they are a way in which couples can not only formally express their commitment to each other but, yes, contribute, through stable relationships, to stable communities. I support marriage and the Government support marriage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Chalk]

If that is right—I do not suggest that the hon. Gentleman is wrong about the statistics, although I have not seen the study—surely if we are in favour of reconciliation, we should be in favour of a process that does not so irretrievably toxify relations, so that there may be the chance of reconciliation. Instead, we are accessories to a system that encourages people to sling mud—mud that ultimately they cannot substantiate, which means that people can end up branded as unreasonable without the court having made a finding to that effect. That, in and of itself, reduces the chances of reconciliation.

[Sir John Hayes]

I say this in the spirit of generosity that characterises my view of the Minister, but we conceded that point about fault. The amendment suggests that the Government support reconciliation, irrespective of the fact that the Bill gets rid of fault. The amendments are incredibly measured and moderate—the Minister must know that.

[Alex Chalk]

I do not suggest that any of the amendments are improper or immoderate, but not all of them would have the impact that my right hon. Friend calls for.

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

We conduct this debate at a time when we are fighting a virus—an invisible enemy—and we are told perpetually that the virus might mutate, as viruses are inclined to do. Of course, terrorism mutates, too: terrorism is not a static thing; it metamorphosises, both in character and in method. That is precisely what has occurred as we have gone about fighting the prevailing terrorist threat in this country. It makes the challenge of counter-terrorism acute, because countering something is usually about anticipating and predicting what might happen next.

As terrorism metamorphosises and becomes less predictable, it becomes increasingly hard to counter. That is precisely what has occurred in this country and in other countries that have suffered the effects of terrorism in recent years. Terrorists have become more adaptable and more flexible. Their methodology has changed, and a key part of that has been the use of modern communications in the recruitment, indoctrination and radicalisation of terrorists, particularly using the internet.

I wish to talk about the character of that radicalisation. It is much like the kind of grooming with which we are tragically familiar in respect of children who are drawn towards paedophiles. People are groomed on the internet, and the method is disarmingly and shockingly similar. A lonely individual will be identified and told that at last they have a friend. That person will not reveal—indeed, will conceal—any connection to an extremist cause. Gradually, over time, that individual will be turned into the kind of person who will do almost anything for a cause and for their friends. That is made much easier in the modern age: the character of the way we communicate has altered, so this will happen in people’s homes, in their bedrooms, perhaps unknown to their family, certainly unknown to others and, of course, by definition therefore unknown to the security services and those who might do something about it.

Because of all that, our response has constantly to be reviewed, which is precisely what the Government are in the business of doing, and that is why over the years, including the time that I was the Minister responsible, the Government have looked again at whether they have the mechanisms in place and the resources and powers necessary to deal with the changed threat. The Bill goes about that in a number of ways, and I wish to draw out some particular aspects of it for closer consideration, if I may.

On the issue of TPIMs, they are always a contentious matter, and indeed it was a contentious matter in the days of control orders, which some of us will remember, under a previous Government of a different colour. It is vital that we use the powers that we have to restrict the activities of those who might do harm. The question becomes where we fix the bar. The Bill lowers the bar and, in my judgment, rightly so.

Perhaps I ought to admit that I was not a particularly vehement critic—in fact, I was not a critic at all, so I am understating it a bit—of control orders and the methods used by a previous Government. I do not know if it is quite polite to say that, but I am sure it will please one or two Members on the other side of the Chamber—although I am not sure it will please too many on the Front Bench. I saw the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) in her place and my remarks were half directed towards her. The right hon. Lady made the point that in changing the bar—in altering the criteria—it is right that we do so with care and that there is appropriate scrutiny.

I heard and read the remarks of the independent reviewer, but I simply add another point, which in a way mitigates the counterargument—if I can put it in those terms—and that is on the use of polygraphs, which have been used in other countries, particularly the United States. I am not making any great claim for them, and certainly no greater claim than the Government are, but it seems to me that testing the process of deradicalisation, assessing how far it has gone, and gauging whether someone has changed or simply seems to have changed, is vital as we gauge what should happen if they are not incarcerated—what should happen once they are out of prison and they are not in a secure location. The Government are right to explore that in the Bill. I suppose that one would say in truth that it is a work in progress. We, as a Parliament, as well as the Government, will have to consider how that goes. I know the Select Committee will do that in due course, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) mentioned. But mindful of that determination, illustrated by the provision in this legislation to look carefully at the character of the effectiveness of de-radicalisation, it is perfectly reasonable to introduce the changed measures on TPIMs.

[Mr Lammy]

rose—

[Sir John Hayes]

I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman and, in doing so, apologise for not being here for his opening remarks.

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. On the issue of polygraphs, does he note that the independent reviewer also says that there is an absence in the Bill as to how they will be used? Are they to be used against high-risk offenders, or very high-risk offenders, or are they to be used against low-risk offenders to assess their tendency to re-offend or offend?

[Sir John Hayes]

I should reveal to the House, for those who were not here yesterday, that I had a charming exchange with the right hon. Gentleman, where I described him as a “dear friend” and he described me as a “kind of friend”. I was rather slighted actually, but he made up for it later by saying that it was offered in good humour, and I took it in the same spirit, I have to say.

The right hon. Gentleman is right. One of the things that is important about debates on terrorism in this House is that they do not follow narrow party lines. We try to build consensus, as we face common threats and shared challenges. He is right. Rather like Prevent, we do need to be scrupulous about analysing effectiveness. It is right that the Government should do that and, again, without putting words into the mouth of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, still less provoking action on his behalf, the Select Committee will look at that, together, I imagine, with the Home Affairs Committee and others. There are all kinds of bodies in this august establishment that will play a role in ensuring that the application of what is a new development is effective. So I do not think that that is an unreasonable point, and I am more than happy, in the spirit that I have just described, to amplify it. However, I think that the Government are on the right track and I praise the Lord Chancellor for this in recognising that the bar did need to be lowered for TPIMs.

The other point that I want to make is in relation to Prevent and Channel. This is a complex area because, as I described, the character of terrorism is complex, as is our response to it. I am a pretty robust supporter of Prevent. It has critics; it has always had critics. It is certainly right that we have good oversight of Prevent—I tried to bring that about while I was the Minister and I do not think that that was always the case in the past—and that we measure its effect, too. I am not sure that that was always done as well as it could have been, and I am speaking about Governments of all colours here.

Having met Prevent co-ordinators and seen their work at first hand in various parts of the country, I know how much difference they make. It is not just about Islamist terrorism, although I suppose that is what most people will think that we are focused on today. It is much more broad than that. It is identifying problems of all kinds. I was proud, as the Minister, to introduce the Prevent duty, as some here will know, which engaged the various public bodies that are at the frontline of radicalisation—I am thinking of health professionals, schools and others—and also engaged communities and provided them not only with a responsibility, but, I hope, extra support in identifying those people, particularly young people, as it is often young people who are corrupted in this way, and in trying to act before they did something horrible, dreadful or shocking. I do support Prevent and, while I think that it should be reviewed, I also support the provision in the Bill to extend the review process. I make no comment on who should do it—that is for others to comment on—but I note that the Bill extends it and I think that is the right thing to do.

I come to the part of my speech that will perhaps be more challenging for some here—I hope not too challenging. None the less, I would rather be straight- forward, as I always try to be. It is about the issue of sentencing. Public order and faith in the rule of law depend on popular confidence in the justice system. The justice system is in part retributive. We have fallen into the trap of believing that the only purpose of criminal justice is to rehabilitate. Of course, that is a purpose—in the case of terrorism, as I have made clear, de-radicalisation is crucial—but public sympathy for all we do, and all our security and intelligence services and the police do, depends on people believing that justice is being done, and is being seen to be done. That is hard to reconcile with early release at all.

If we spoke to our constituents about early release, I suspect a very substantial number would find it pretty hard to cope with in the case of serious crime at all—or what they perceive as serious crime—and all the more so with terrorism. I think our constituents, whether they are in South Holland and The Deepings or Tottenham, or any other part of this kingdom, and regardless from which community they come, would be surprised if they knew we were releasing so many people who have committed those kinds of offences.

I am going to draw my remarks to a conclusion shortly—I can see you, with typical charm, combined with authority, moving to the edge of your chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I particularly welcome the Government’s approach to early release. It seems to me that the various provisions in the Bill that increase minimum sentences and provide the courts with the ability to look again at the tariff, and in some cases, increase maximum sentences, are entirely in tune with popular sentiment and the threat we face.

Let me end by saying this: the Bill, in my judgment, is apposite and appropriate. We are speaking of those whose purpose is to murder and maim—let us be under no illusion and have no doubt about that—and in the struggle for civilised life, in the cause of virtue, on our side there can be no fear, no guilt and no doubt.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Before we move on, we will now have to have a time limit. It will initially be 10 minutes, but I warn hon. Members that that is likely to reduce significantly in the near future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) and to hear his remarks, and it is a pleasure to participate in this debate.

At the outset, I place on record my appreciation for the considerable and considered engagement from the Minister. I have appreciated the discussions that we have had and that he has taken on board the concerns that we have expressed. I appreciate that engagement. I have also appreciated the engagement I have had with the Minister for Justice in Northern Ireland, Naomi Long. In listing and highlighting the successes and good engagement, it would be wrong of me not to place on record my congratulations to the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) on assuming a shadow Justice role. He and I come from opposite ends of Ulster and from different perspectives within Ulster, but it is great to see him assume the role and we look forward to his contribution later on.

There has been a lot of focus in this debate on terrorism in England and terrorism coming from Islamic and far-right extremism. There have been a number of references to Northern Ireland, but it is always good to commence a contribution such as this by reminding Members that I have been in this place for a short five years, and within that five-year period I have seen three constituents of mine murdered by terrorists. Often in this Chamber, it is easy to believe that the issues that plagued our society in Northern Ireland have gone away, but they have not. The threat to our society in Northern Ireland remains substantial. It is severe.

In those three years, Kevin McGuigan was shot dead in 2015 by mainstream republicans. Adrian Ismay, a serving prison officer, was killed by an under-car booby trap bomb in 2016 by a dissident republican, Christopher Robinson. Last year, Ian Ogle was stabbed to death by loyalist terrorists at the end of his street in my constituency.

During the course of those five years, many more have been targeted. I have had serving police officers who have survived. Many others within our communities feel under the cosh of paramilitaries who have not moved on and who continue to seek control. It is on that basis and that basis alone that our party would always support the Bill. Our party will support its Second Reading, but I will raise some issues.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He will know, as he said, that the Bill grows the capacity of the system to deliver extended sentences and cuts early release, but will he invite the Minister to consider the greater use of whole-life sentences, where a judge makes it clear at the time of sentencing that the person should never be released, because I certainly would?

[Gavin Robinson]

I am grateful for the contribution. I will touch on sentencing in a moment. I am not sure if the clock gets adjusted for that intervention; I was happy to receive it, but I would be even happier to receive the additional time.

I say to the Minister for reference—he will know why I raise this—that I was pleased to see, in paragraph 9 of the explanatory notes, the reference to counter-terrorism legislation being a reserved matter. He will understand the importance of why I raise that and go no further.

On TPIMs, it is important to say that the Law Society has raised concerns about control orders, how they were brought to an end, how there was a difficulty in engagement with human rights legislation and how the imposition of a control order may not have been proportionate, given the risk of the individual, which is why they were changed. It has raised concerns that the changes to TPIMs will take us back to that control order phase. It is for the Minister, in summing up, to assuage those concerns and to outline how the changes can proceed properly.

On sentencing, I am delighted that Northern Ireland is now included in the provisions. When we considered the Sentencing Act 2020 in February, I was not only concerned that Northern Ireland was left out, but somewhat perplexed by the reason given that article 7 and compliance issues with human rights legislation did not apply in England and Wales, but somehow did in Northern Ireland. We do not need to pursue that, because the Government have changed their position. I still have not got a satisfactory explanation, but we do not need one; I am grateful for the conclusion. It will engage some operative issues in Northern Ireland, some of which I know the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) wants to focus on as well. I think it can be appropriately defended and it is appropriate in the circumstances that we are included.

On a wider point that the Minister will not like, I am pleased that the Government are now engaging with the notion of mandatory minimums. I know that the Minister will indicate that that is not a change in policy generally and that mandatory minimums will not become the norm, but it is an important step forward. I have always railed against the view that there cannot be a mandatory minimum for any crime because it interferes with judicial independence. It is not our role to determine what a judge will ultimately decide, but it is our role as legislators to outline what we think any given offence should attract by way of a sentence, so I am pleased to see that.

On age, concerns have been raised about the application of the legislation, particularly to minors. I will not engage in the debate about the age of criminal responsibility, which is not for today and is not going to change. There are concerns, however, that young children—I say children and teenagers; minors—who are encouraged, abused or coerced into carrying out activity on behalf of older individuals who know better and who will not get caught themselves, will be considered under terrorism legislation. I ask the Minister whether in proposed new article 13A(6) of the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2008, inserted by clause 7, the requirement for the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland to designate for anyone under the age of 21 at least injects a bit of flexibility where our local devolved Department will have the opportunity to decide whether it will apply.

I am grateful for the way in which the polygraph section is constructed in the legislation, in that it is permissible but not forced on us in Northern Ireland. I see no practical benefit in it and I would not encourage our justice system in Northern Ireland to engage in polygraph testing. I am concerned about how it is creeping in continually, first for sex offenders on licence, then in the Domestic Abuse Bill for those on licence at the start of this year, and now in counter-terrorism legislation. It is easy to pick those three, because very few people will say, “I want to stand up for or defend sex offenders, domestic abusers or terrorists on licence”, but I still believe in the rule of law and I still have fundamental objections about the rigidity and the validity of polygraph tests. I do not think they are safe or secure.

When I consider offenders of those three offences, they tend to be the least likely to live in the real world and understand the difference between right and wrong or truth and untruth. They are probably the least likely to be susceptible to polygraph testing. We do not need Jeremy Kyle-style show trials in this country. If there are to be real-world consequences for breach of licence, we need to at least assess them robustly and in a way in which we can defend.

My time has elapsed. I look forward to engaging further with the Minister on these considered issues. In giving support on Second Reading, I look for further progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott). I will not take up much of the House’s time.

I am sure that all of us in this place wish that this Bill was not necessary and that we could be sure that our towns and cities will never again have to fear attacks like the horrors of Fishmongers’ Hall last year, Streatham earlier this year, the Manchester Arena bombing, and the attack on Parliament, which was referred to earlier. All of us want to better protect the public and to somehow find the time and the means to rehabilitate those who want to visit that violence on our society, and to persuade them of a better way. Although I wholeheartedly agree with and support that motive and aim, I cannot agree that parts of this Bill will be effective in doing that.

As the hon. Lady said, keeping people in prison for longer will not de-radicalise them. It may, in fact, radicalise them further or give them the opportunity to radicalise others in prison. Keeping them off the streets for longer will certainly succeed in keeping them off the streets, but will that actually be effective if, in fact, they become more radicalised or radicalise others so that they are even more dangerous when they come out?

There are other flaws in that approach. If we are to prevent people from reoffending after they leave prison and encourage them back on to a lawful path away from terrorism, they need to feel the security of a home and a job. However, the release on licence, which is vital to that, will be shortened by this Bill. Similarly, probation is currently under-resourced, and it would be undermined by the Bill in its ability to de-radicalise.

[Sir John Hayes]

I do not know the answer to this, but I am extremely doubtful whether there is any reliable correlation in respect of the known terrorists that have committed such awful crimes in this country over recent years and unemployment or their family situation in terms of homes; in fact, I rather suspect the opposite. We need to be careful about making such correlations unless there is really strong evidence to suggest that they are meaningful.

[Christine Jardine]

I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point, but I was going to come on to a different correlation. Surely, we want to stop terrorism happening in the first place. Longer sentences only happen after the fact. Surely, what we want to do in this country is root out of the causes of terrorism—to make people feel secure, to give young people an alternative, to keep them away from radicalisation and, if they are in prison for another reason, to ensure that they are not radicalised by someone who is in there on a long sentence and has the ability to radicalise them.

I believe that the key is reaching young people to prevent them from going down the wrong route in the first place. That is why I believe that we have to strengthen the licensing system, strengthen probation and look at ways of ensuring that our young people, whether they get into trouble or not, have the security of a job and a way of seeing their future positively. That way, we can identify those who might go on to threaten our way of life. We should work with the education system and agencies. We should tackle inequalities. Longer sentencing will do none of that.

There is also a dangerous assumption that one size fits all. As in other areas, that cannot be the case. It is vital that we recognise in the way we proceed that there is a different dynamic in Northern Ireland. In clause 30, there may be an implication that people already serving sentences will have their terms changed retrospectively and will have grounds for challenge at the European Court of Human Rights. We have to be very careful how we proceed.

Although we all desire a way of limiting the threat of terrorism and de-radicalising our young people, simply acting with more force—longer sentences—after the fact will not be enough. We have to get to the root cause first.

Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill [Lords]

John Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 8th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who served for a considerable period in the Department I now have the honour of leading. He is right to talk about the financial consequences of breakdown. It is important to note the commitment made by my noble and learned Friend Lord Keen in the other place by way of a letter dated 16 March to Baroness Deech, which has now been placed in the Library of each House, that we will consider how a review of the law governing financial remedies provision on divorce may take place. I give him that undertaking.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for giving way. The Law Commission also recommended that rather than reducing the time that people can get divorced within from two years to six months, it should be reduced to nine months. Given his willingness to concede on the previous point, will he at least look at that again?

[Robert Buckland]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. I know that he, like me, is a doughty champion not only for the family, but the need to reduce conflict. I know that he makes his point passionately, but I would argue that the way in which this Bill is constructed makes the so-called quickie divorce a thing of the past. The minimum terms that we are talking about provide an equality of approach that will no longer discriminate in favour of those couples who perhaps have the means and the wherewithal to either separate and live separately or to employ the sort of lawyers who can, shall we say, get things done in a more expeditious way.

I stress to the right hon. Gentleman that the six-month term that has been naturally focused upon is a minimum. There will be divorces that take longer than that for reasons of complexity relating to each relationship. The point is that there will not be divorces that can take place in as quick a time as eight weeks, as is currently the case.

Reform of divorce law is supported not only by the lawyers, judges and mediators, but by the Marriage Foundation and, importantly, by evidence from academic research. It is evident that the law does not do what many people think it does. It cannot save a marriage that has broken down, nor can it determine who was responsible for that breakdown. Allegations made in a divorce petition by one spouse about the other’s conduct give no advantage in any linked proceedings about arrangements for children or financial provision for a spouse, yet the current law can perversely incentivise conflict. It requires an applicant for divorce or for the dissolution of a civil partnership to provide details to the court of the respondent’s unreasonable behaviour if their circumstances mean that they need to divorce before a two-year separation period. The incentive at the very start of the legal divorce process to attribute blame can only serve to antagonise parties at the most difficult time in their lives. Moreover, the court in practice has limited means by which to inquire into such alleged behaviour and must often accept what is said by one spouse at face value. This can be a source of real resentment for the other spouse.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Buckland]

My hon. Friend will recall his Court of Appeal appearances, where the tribunal might have said, “Mr Neill, that’s your best point. You needn’t go any further.” He makes an important point on the issue of blame; it does not help anybody when it comes to these issues.

The clear purpose of the Bill is to reduce conflict, because conflict does not help when it comes to the legal end of a marriage. That can only be to the advantage of divorcing couples and their children, because children’s best interests are most clearly served by the reduction of conflict and the co-operation of divorcing parents who work together to ensure that they co-parent effectively. The Bill will help couples to focus on a more constructive way of collaborating in making future arrangements that are best for their family—in essence, looking forward rather than backward.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for giving way a second time. The acid test is: as a result of this legislation, will there be more divorces or fewer? It is my contention that if we make something easier, people are more likely to do it.

[Robert Buckland]

I understand entirely my right hon. Friend’s concerns. The number of divorces has declined in recent years, but that perhaps goes back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester about the beginning of it, because the number of marriages has declined in proportion since 1972, just under 50 years ago. Taking the long view, one should focus upon the beginning of the process—the nature of the commitment, the solemnity of that commitment and the importance of that relationship and that commitment—rather than the detail of the end process.

This Government’s proposals will apply equally to married couples and civil partners. While I conveniently refer to the concept of marriage and divorce, the principles and effects apply equally to civil partnerships and their dissolution. Husbands, wives and civil partners will no longer need to produce or face a real or perceived catalogue of failings in respect of their most intimate relationship. There is a strong common view underlying the proposals in the Bill, built upon the foundation of a significant evidence base.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his speech introducing this important piece of legislation. Labour welcomes this Bill, which offers a common-sense approach that continues to respect the institution of marriage and civil partnerships, but avoids unnecessary antagonism and costs for people dealing with an often incredibly difficult time in their lives.

Sir James Munby, the former eminent president of the family division, has described the current divorce laws and procedures as “hypocritical” and based on “intellectual dishonesty”. As Sir James pointed out in his damning judgment in the infamous case of Owens v. Owens, the requirement of many couples to evidence unreasonable behaviour can lead to farce.

It was 30 years ago now that I studied Evelyn Waugh’s “A Handful of Dust” for A-level English, and as the Secretary of State might recall, in the case in Waugh’s novel, the character Tony is forced to spend a platonic weekend in Brighton with a sex worker to fake evidence to allow his divorce. That, of course, was set in the early period of the 20th century. It is surprising that it has taken that long to update these laws.

Divorce is an unhappy event in the lives of many. It has a profound effect on families, and on children in particular. It is important that the law does not force couples into an adversarial contest when a breakdown in a relationship occurs, but allows and encourages them to resolve matters in a constructive way. The Bill modernises the law, which has been fundamentally unchanged for more than half a century, so that it better reflects the realities of a breakdown in a relationship, better protecting the most vulnerable who attempt to come out of an abusive relationship and simplifying the process of ending a marriage or civil partnership without undermining its social and cultural importance.

The divorce process today is archaic and confusing to most people as they enter into an emotionally fraught process. The law forces parties who are going through a divorce to choose between evidencing one of the three fault-based facts about their partner: unreasonable behaviour, adultery or, less commonly, desertion. If neither party is willing to make such an application, the parties must separate but remain married for a period of two years, or five years if one party disputes the divorce. The option for couples today is entering into a lengthy and costly adversarial legal proceeding, or delay and legal limbo.

Both routes lead to difficulties for all and a real risk of harm to others. Couples who enter the process amicably can be quickly pulled apart by the law. There is an incentive for each party to make accusations about the other’s conduct, and that cannot be right. Some couples can easily live apart and bide their time, but for others, moving into separate accommodation without a finalised divorce and any financial settlement is impossible. That is why so many charities and campaign organisations that work with victims of domestic abuse have called for reform in this area for many years.

The new law will allow and promote conciliation and compromise. That will be of real help for families and children of broken relationships. Importantly, it will reduce legal costs that can quickly reach eye-watering sums, quite unnecessarily.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am so pleased to see the right hon. Gentleman back on the Opposition Front Bench. He is a dear old friend, but he is quite wrong about this. These provisions declare at the outset that the marriage is irreconcilable. If that happened at the end of the process rather than the beginning, he would be right; an opportunity for reconciliation, and perhaps rethinking, as a result of counselling might be possible. That is not the case with the proposals we have before us tonight.

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Ever since I first came into this House, it is true: we have had a sort of friendship across the aisle. I say that with a degree of humour, to which I know he is disposed himself. He raises an important issue, but I think the point is that the Bill allows for a period in which couples can reflect, and for mutuality between partners. We in this country are taking an important step, whereby two adults contemplating the breakdown of their relationship can reflect and pause, or come to a mutual agreement and step away from some of the antagonism that the system used to create.

First, the new law does not force couples into an adversarial dispute, but allows for an account of the breakdown in the relationship to reflect nuanced reasoning. That is provided by a simple statement. Importantly, for the first time couples will be able to make this statement jointly. In many circumstances, this will help couples to work together constructively to put a legal end to a relationship that is already broken. Indeed, the new law means that couples will now have the option of a joint application for divorce—a welcome and sensible new provision that must be good for children in particular.

This approach strikes the right balance between respecting the profound role marriage and civil partnerships play in our society, while also allowing for amicable resolution to relationships ending. This is not the introduction of shotgun divorces. The process will still take time, providing for reflection and perhaps a reunion. The new law has been welcomed by many relationship and family charities, such as Relate, which has long called for reform in this area. The minimum time for the application to a final divorce will be 26 weeks, which Relate has welcomed as providing the time to reflect, to give things another go if appropriate, and to access counselling and mediation. In reality, of course, couples have often contemplated and discussed separation for a long time before legal proceedings begin.

Secondly, the Bill ends a reliance for amicable couples unwilling or unable to make allegations about one another to separate and remain married for a further two or sometimes five years. This leaves couples in limbo, married but unable to make other arrangements. The current law is often counterproductive to any hope of reconciliation, as it can put off couples from moving back in with one another for fear of having to start the separation process once more. This can also be incredibly dangerous. Women’s Aid has highlighted the barrier for many women leaving abusive relationships, which is compounded by current divorce law. With over half of survivors of abuse shown to be unable to afford to leave the family home and with the decline of refuge accommodation, women are forced to rely on fault-based facts in any divorce proceedings, making accusations in litigation that can often increase their risk of harm. Indeed, figures show that 77% of women killed by their partners are killed in the year following separation. The current law also drags out the process of separation, which can affect the vulnerable in society. Many women have reported that lengthy divorce proceedings, and the adversarial nature of them, have given an opportunity to abusers to continue to torment them. It may be claims of a lost marriage certificate, not attending court or issuing spurious cross-allegations, but a perpetrator can prolong proceedings, causing more harm. Some people’s circumstances require a faster conclusion to the legal relationship. The Bill will go some way to helping them.

More broadly, the law as it stands discriminates against those on low incomes. For some who can afford to live separately, a no-fault divorce is perfectly viable, but others must make accusations of the other’s behaviour if they cannot afford such an arrangement. The Law Commission recognised that all the way back in 1990, stating:

“It is unjust and discriminatory of the law to provide for civilised ‘no-fault’ ground for divorce, which, in practice, is denied to a large section of the population.”

This Bill rights that wrong and it is long overdue.

Thirdly, the Bill removes the opportunity to contest a divorce. However, in reality, even now a party cannot simply argue that they want to remain in the marriage, but must identify a legal reason why the divorce must be refused. The law as it stands does not prevent disputes or help to bring about reconciliation, but instead only serves to aggravate a conflict that can be manipulated by perpetrators of domestic violence to further torment a partner. The Bill safeguards important procedural challenges—jurisdiction, fraud, coercion—but it will prevent the unnecessary dragging out of traumatic proceedings.

Finally, the Bill modernises the language of divorce. While a modest reform, many family practitioners in this area speak of their clients’ bewilderment at terms such as decree nisi and decree absolute. More accessible phrasing is important. It is a reminder that the law must serve all people, not just those who are legally trained.

Therefore, Labour welcomes this Bill, but these reforms must be put into context. The cuts to legal aid over the past decade mean that parties do not receive any support—none at all—in divorce proceedings, whatever their financial circumstances. In the year immediately preceding the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, 58% of parties were recorded as having legal representation in family cases that had at least one hearing, but that has reduced to just 36%, which means more people are acting as litigants in person during the divorce process. If a separation is acrimonious, the lack of legal advice can make an already stressful situation even worse. In courts across the country the effects of that are being felt: hearings take longer; more are emotionally heated without a focus on the law, because there are no lawyers representing the parties; and the process is more burdensome and stressful for all concerned—the judiciary, who have to hand-hold the parties through the process, and the parties who have to represent themselves.

The lack of legal advice can also lead to delay. Despite the Government introducing online divorce applications, the average time from the first stage to completing the divorce was 58 weeks last year, an increase of three weeks. The delays have effects on the couples, who often want to get on with their lives but are held back by a lack of early legal advice. Without such professional advice, the process for the parties, their families and, in particular, children, is inevitably emotionally strenuous. As Baroness Hale said, upon leaving the bench:

“It’s unreasonable to expect a husband and wife or mother and father who are in crisis in their personal relationship to make their own arrangements without help”.

She has also highlighted something else that is not fair, which is the potential for an imbalance in resources because of the lack of access if, for example, there is a wealthy applicant and a respondent without access to funds. Some studies suggest that legal fees for divorces can cost £8,000, on average. That is simply unaffordable for large groups in the population, but there is no legal aid provision at all. Ironically, the legal aid system introduced by the Attlee Government with the aim of guaranteeing access to justice was initially focused on divorces, where numbers rose exponentially after the war; after a decade of a Conservative Government, it is not provided for at all in these circumstances. The Bill will certainly help couples going through this process, but further investment in legal aid is necessary to ensure that justice is being done fairly for all. I hope that the Secretary of State might say something about the position on legal aid during the course of this Bill, but Labour supports this Bill and will support the Government in the Lobby.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

When my party won an 80-seat majority in the election, I knew that it was about much more than getting Brexit done; it was also about responding to the working-class community’s desire for an alternative to the liberal agenda which has dominated politics for so long. So it is with deep regret that I see this Bill brought to the House tonight. We need a Government prepared to back communities, build families and cement social solidarity, and this Bill is injurious to all those objectives.

The biggest shake-up of divorce law in half a century is based on a misunderstanding of what marriage is and the human ideals from which marriage derives its meaning. This Bill reduces marriage to the legal status of a tenancy contract—one that can be dissolved at minimal notice by either party, without any expectation of permanence or any explanation.

Hegel said that marriage is a “substantial tie” that “begins in contract” to “transcend” contract, by abolishing the separation between the parties. Hegel’s point can be put more simply: essentially, a marriage is not a contract but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) said, a vow. That is why it has such great significance to us and why it is traditionally surrounded by so much ceremony. Roger Scruton put it this way:

“That we can make vows is one part of the great miracle of human freedom; and when we cease to make them, we impoverish our lives by stripping them of lasting commitment.”

It is through our ability to limit and constrain ourselves that we express our true freedom.

Life is not a dreary succession of consumer choices, but a journey marked by moments of transcendental significance, and marriage is one such commitment.

Our existing law is founded on the ancient understanding of what marriage is: a vow. Progressive activists for the Bill, such as the Lord Chancellor’s old ally, David Gauke, say that alleging fault increases acrimony in a divorce, but that notion is based on a misunderstanding of marriage. Changing the law may cheapen marriage, but it cannot change the idealism in which the commitment of one human being to another is founded. Acrimony is almost bound to follow the breaking of such a vow. Regardless of what the law may say, enmity is not a product of the process, but a characteristic of human relations when they break down, and to pretend otherwise is to attempt to deceive this House and the people who vote for us. The current law reflects these facts of life and reflects the significance of the vow that has been made. Fault necessitates expectation.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

It is said by the supporters of this Bill that the divorce process can damage children, but that is only if parents seek to involve children. One thing that is absolutely certain is that divorce itself damages children, and if we make something easier, it will happen more often.

[Sir John Hayes]

I agree, and the Bill essentially turns divorce into an administrative formality, removing the breathing space that allows around 10% of divorces that are initiated to be averted. About one in 10 divorces that are started are never actually completed, and that is because of the time available for counselling, for reconciliation, for reconsideration and for trying again. The Bill removes that opportunity. It removes protections for individuals whose spouses seek to terminate their marriage in times of hardship or illness. For many, the changes could mean that faithful, committed husbands lose access to their children, while women cruelly abandoned by errant husbands will have no way of marking that betrayal and no reason offered for why their marriage has ended.

What is most disappointing is that the Government ignored their own consultation. Some 83% of public respondents opposed change. The Bill provides a 20-week period at the start of proceedings, which Ministers say will allow time for reflection, but 20 weeks is not long enough to settle the matters of property or to secure the welfare of children. In any event, the Law Society points out that most of the 20-week period could pass without one respondent to the divorce even knowing about it. Unbelievably, the Bill does not require the applicant to serve a notice on the respondent at the start of the 20 weeks. When that matter was raised in the House of Lords, Lord Keen gave a lukewarm response. He is never the most persuasive Minister. I say it is a basic injustice that must be remedied, not by the Family Procedure Rule Committee, as he suggested, but on the face of this Bill.

We are in perhaps the most challenging time that anyone can remember, yet we bring forward a Bill with such insensitivity that we challenge not only the stability of families, but the very nature of marriage itself. Divorce marks the end of a partnership—the death of a love. As a family ends, all of society is a little weaker. The Lord Chancellor will come to regret this Bill because it is fundamentally un-Conservative. As it makes divorce easier, it makes marriage less significant and will make it less valued, and that is a price that no one here can afford to pay.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)]

I am grateful to all Members who have contributed to this debate with such powerful speeches. A wealth of insight and poignant personal experience has been brought to bear, and this debate on such an important issue has been enriched by it. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) and for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) and the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) for sharing their experiences with the House.

Before responding to the points raised, let me make some brief introductory remarks. Marriages and civil partnerships are vital to society as a way in which couples can formally express their commitment to each other. I support marriage. The Government support marriage. This Bill is not anti-marriage; rather, it is anti-bitterness. In those sad cases where a marriage has irretrievably broken down, the Bill removes unnecessary and artificial flashpoints to reduce the scope for pain, recrimination and, crucially, harmful impact on children. We must accept the reality that some marriages do end. The Bill replaces a broken system which for decades has not operated as its framers intended. I note that it is supported by Resolution, which represents over 6,000 family justice professionals in England and Wales who have to grapple with the current framework every day.

One of the principal problems of the current statute is that it incentivises conflict. It does so in relation to those who wish to divorce before a two-year separation period because of the specific need to particularise the respondent’s unreasonable behaviour and to do so in a way that fits a 50-year-old statute’s prescriptive categories. The trouble is that words have consequences; they can do damage, so that where once there was grief, anger comes; where once there was sadness, bitter resentment follows. The academic study, “Finding Fault?” found that 43% of those identified by their spouse as being at fault disagreed with the reasons cited in the petition. That resentment is not just damaging for the parties themselves; others, particularly children, can be harmed by it too, because it toxifies the atmosphere in which a couple then approach negotiations over arrangements for children and finances. No wonder the president of the Law Society has said:

“For separating parents, it can be much more difficult to focus on the needs of their children when they have to prove a fault-based fact against their former partner… Introducing a ‘no-fault’ divorce…will change the way couples obtain a divorce—for the better.”

[Sir John Hayes]

Leaving aside the issue of fault, will my hon. Friend commit to looking, during the passage of this legislation, at increasing the six-month period, at dealing with the issue of both parties being notified at the outset of the divorce, and at ensuring that there is properly funded counselling and support for reconciliation? If he looks at those things, I think he will satisfy some of the critics of this Bill.

[Alex Chalk]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, and I pay tribute to the characteristic clarity and eloquence with which he made his representations. Although I cannot give any commitment to specific points, he has made powerful points. On behalf of the Government, I commit to continuing the conversation in Committee.

Part of the problem is that the court has limited means to investigate the circumstances. Having marched the parties up to the top of the hill by requiring petitioners to make allegations, the system rarely inquires into whether those allegations are true. It simply does not have the means to do so. In fact, just 2% of cases are contested, and only a handful progress to a contested court hearing. For more than 40 years, English and Welsh courts have not routinely held divorce trials to prove the allegations set out. That is because most people nowadays recognise that marriage is a voluntary union. When consent disappears, so, too, does its legitimacy.

That lack of inquiry is a problem because allegations may bear little resemblance to reality, but they are presented as established facts. The scope for injustice is obvious. To satisfy the statutory provisions, minor incidents may have to be dredged up and artificially repackaged as a pattern of behaviour. A respondent who, in truth, is a perfectly reasonable individual will have their behaviour branded unreasonable. Conversely, a respondent may have behaved despicably—a point made by the Lord Chancellor —but because of the fear of repercussions, a petitioner may seek to rely on two years’ separation instead. At the end of it all, in the eyes of the law, the culpable respondent will never have been publicly rebuked, and will exit the relationship apparently blameless.

All too often, the law does not do what people think it does. That is not just the Government’s view. Sir Paul Coleridge, a former family judge and chair of the Marriage Foundation, no less, said that the current system

“is, and always has been, a sham”.

I think I may be the fifth person to quote him this evening, but Sir James Munby, former president of the family division, criticised the current law for being

“based on hypocrisy and lack of intellectual honesty”—

a point powerfully made by the Chair of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). The same is true of academia. Professor Liz Trinder, who has conducted extensive research on the divorce process, has branded the current arrangements “a meaningless charade”.

I want to address the points that have been made with great force by my hon. Friends the Members for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and for Devizes (Danny Kruger), and my right hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) and for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). To paraphrase—I will not do justice to the way in which they expressed it—the concern that they have raised is that the Bill will undermine the institution of marriage by making divorce more attractive. That is an important argument, and it has to be addressed.

The point is that it is a very sad circumstance indeed when a marriage breaks down, but some marriages do end. The legal process of divorce is not the driver for a marriage breaking down; it is the consequence. That is the point that my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor was making about the telescope. Petitioners do not issue speculative applications for divorce. In the overwhelming majority of cases, they take that step only after reaching a settled conclusion. In those circumstances, we must do all we can to mitigate the pain experienced by the couple and their family, especially the children. We cannot have a system where the legal process works to exacerbate acrimony and suffering where divorce is simply the process of bringing a legal end to a personal relationship that has ceased to function for both parties.

The point that is so often made by practitioners is that very often, individuals are surprised by the convoluted and artificial process that they are presented with. International evidence shows that long-term divorce rates are not increased by removing fault from the process of obtaining a divorce. In short, divorce and dissolution are a sad reality, but one that is sometimes unavoidable. This Bill prevents hardship and misery, and it will help people at a vulnerable time. I commend this Bill to the House.