Safety in Youth Custody

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered safety in youth custody.

Thank you, Mr Wilson, for allowing time for this most important of debates. I am most grateful. The safety of our children and young people is of great and continuing interest to many Members of this House, and has been for many years. The question of safety has been discussed in numerous debates here and in the other place. In addition, it has been explored in numerous Select Committee inquiries—most recently by the Select Committee on Justice in 2013—and has been the subject of a tide of media attention, often following shocking revelations arising from the dedicated work of journalists. It is worth reflecting for a moment and asking ourselves why so many Members, people in our society, charities and third-sector bodies, and those in the media, are so tireless in their determination to protect the safety of our children and young people.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way so early in her speech, which I am listening to very carefully. Has she considered the situation of young adults? The Justice Committee is doing an inquiry about that at the moment, and we have learned that the development of the brain means that many young adults are still effectively children when they are sent into prison.

[Judith Cummins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that interesting point, which I hope to cover later.

My belief is that, no matter what someone’s upbringing is, and whatever their political affiliation and perspective on law and order, there is a shared and enduring view that the safety of children and young people is of paramount concern. Each and every one of us believes that we must ensure that each and every child and young person is able to feel safe, wherever in the country they live. As we all know instinctively, each child and young person deserves to grow up in a nurturing, encouraging and, most importantly, safe environment. That is true in all settings—in the home, in schools or, as we are debating today, in our custodial institutions. The setting does not matter because whatever the circumstances, and whatever children and young people may have done in their short lives, regardless of whether they have been found to have acted criminally, they remain children.

We have always quite rightly held children and young people to be different from adults. Children and young people with their whole lives ahead of them are still finding their way in life and learning what it is to make their way in the world. As we sorely know, too many children and young people, especially those who find themselves in custody and in the care system, far too often find their way in life in the most desperate of circumstances. Too many live in unsafe homes or go hungry. Too many see horrific things that no person, never mind a child, should ever see. Too many suffer from mental illness that is often unrecognised and untreated, or have not received the help and support that might, in better circumstances, have lifted them away from criminal behaviour and supported them into becoming successful, loving and humane children and young people.

At this point, I pause and acknowledge that we could very easily spend all day debating the desperate circumstances that so many children find themselves in, but that is not the topic today. Today, I wish to discuss just one very important element of the safety of, without doubt, our most vulnerable children—those who are held in our custodial institutions. In leading the debate, we cannot ignore the scandalous revelations of the past weeks, broken by BBC’s “Panorama”, concerning Medway secure training centre, an institution managed by G4S. I am sure we all recoiled with revulsion at the scenes that played out on our screens during the programme: young people subjected to the most horrific maltreatment and children struggling to breathe as they were restrained by apparent professionals. Such scenes in a documentary about prisons in developing nations would have sent a shiver up our backs, but those scenes took place in a UK establishment that exists to care for children while they are held in custody.

I do not propose to discuss the “Panorama” allegations in any great deal as they are subject to an ongoing police investigation but, as we debate this important matter, the scenes that we saw on our television screens should remain vividly in our minds because they confirm one thing: complacency is never an option. The safety of our most vulnerable children—those held in custody in establishments throughout the country—is forever fragile and under threat. We must be forever vigilant. Further incidents are only a hair’s breadth of complacency away.

With those thoughts clear in our mind, it is worth reminding ourselves of what this House passed into law in 1998. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 did two important things. First, it stated that the youth justice system’s principal aim was to prevent reoffending by our children and young people. Secondly, it established the Youth Justice Board, which was given the job of making that noble aim a reality. The Youth Justice Board, in setting its strategic objectives for 2014 to 2017, recognised that an undeniable cornerstone of successfully helping children back into society is

“to promote the safety and welfare of children and young people in the criminal justice system”.

In recognising that safety and wellbeing is a fundamental cornerstone of the successful rehabilitation of children and young people, the Youth Justice Board acknowledged in clear and unambiguous terms what we all know instinctively as parents, as brothers and sisters, as aunties and uncles and as other family members: where children and young people feel unsafe, insecure, intimidated and under threat of violence, everything else becomes background noise. Efforts to help children to socialise, learn and become confident in themselves stop and begin to regress, as do efforts to teach children the values and principles of choosing to live respectfully, humanely and in a law-abiding manner in society and communities.

If the principal aim of the Youth Justice Board is to prevent reoffending, safety in custodial institutions is not only key, but imperative. Without it, helping children and young people to become respectful, humane and law-abiding adults is an empty hope. Everything else is simply background noise. The question is: what success is our youth justice system having in ensuring that children and young people are being held in a safe environment while they are custody? Sadly, from the statistics provided by the House of Commons Library, the picture is depressing and worrying. That remains the case for the use of restrictive physical intervention—in layman’s terms, when staff restrain children—incidents of self-harm by children, assault on children and young people in custody or, most damningly and depressingly, deaths in custody.

Thankfully, the number of children who have been committed to custody in recent years has steadily fallen. All hon. Members would surely welcome this improving position but, although the number of each type of incident has dropped over recent years, the number of each type of incident per hundred children and young people in custody—the most accurate measure—has steadily increased. Whichever way we look at it, those in custody are becoming proportionately more likely to find themselves in an unsafe environment. With the “Panorama” revelations of the past weeks in mind and the erosion of safety in our custodial establishment only serving to bring the issue into sharper focus, it prompts the question: what are this Conservative Government doing to improve the safety of children and young people, and to help them to re-enter society, equipping them to become law-abiding, respectful and humane members of our communities?

In recent years, there have been a number of expert reports that have explored the safety of children and young people in custody. Inquest, alongside the Prison Reform Trust, released a report in 2012 raising important questions about the number of self-inflicted deaths in our custodial institutions. More recently, in 2015, Inquest released another report raising unsettling questions about deaths in our institutions. The Howard League for Penal Reform released a report in 2011 exploring the questions of restraint in our institutions—that work has become especially resonant following the “Panorama” revelations of the last week. I pay tribute to each of those organisations alongside so many others that I have not been able to mention which, through their continuing and valiant efforts, are successfully keeping the question of safety so firmly on both the parliamentary and public agendas.

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[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), and I am glad that she has secured this debate. As I mentioned in my intervention, the Select Committee on Justice, including the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Marie Rimmer), has been investigating the experience of young adults in custody. A key point raised in that inquiry is that the distinction we make between young adults and youths is meaningless. The development of the brain is such that, at times, there are many people who are much more mature for their age and many people who are less mature for their age. Although those people will be treated as young adults in the prison system, they should be treated as if they were much younger. That is an important point that the hon. Member for Bradford South needs to take into account.

Yesterday we held an important informal seminar that was attended by a number of parents of people who were under 18 when they first committed their offences, some of whom have died in custody. It was very sad and moving to listen to their testimony. There were also young people who had been in custody, and it was clear that some of them should really have been treated as youths during that period.

One of the key points to come out was the issue of mental illness. I do not think that the prison system understands mental illness in its complexities or recognises it in individuals when they present with it. We even heard examples of where people had presented with some form of mental illness to start with and their records had been flagged up, but where nobody had had the time to check what the flag meant. If someone had checked that, they would have seen that there was some mental illness attached to that person and would have taken different action while they were in custody.

As I am sure the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston would agree, it was a very moving experience to listen to those testimonies from individuals and to hear the real experience of people who had been through the loss of a son or a daughter—in many cases they were sons rather than daughters—and the reasons for that. The point the hon. Lady made about mental health is a very good one, and it is one that we need our prison system to be more flexible in identifying, picking up and dealing with.

With that, I will leave my remarks there.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

rose—

[John Howell]

Sorry, I will happily give way.

[Jo Stevens]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for letting me in at the last minute. I am glad that he has raised the issue of the mental health of prisoners, because the prison ombudsman’s report, which I think came out today or yesterday, has highlighted that very issue—in relation, obviously, not only to children in prison, but to adults as well—and the lack of mental health services for prisoners. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it should be a priority for the current Government to address what are clearly failings in the current system?

[John Howell]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. I do not want to make this a party political piece; it is a duty of all Governments to identify the need for mental health services and to take that issue forward. She makes a valid point.

We also met some people who were dealing with this issue—for example, an organisation called A Band of Brothers—by taking young people in, giving them a role in life and helping them to overcome some of the difficulties they had experienced, including some of the mental health difficulties. I am therefore not saying that it is a forlorn hope that mental health will be dealt with: there are many different ways of dealing with it, and we saw some of those yesterday. I hope that the report we produce will be able to address some of them in the future.

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[Kelly Tolhurst]

Absolutely. We must value the work that people in these centres do; in fact, it can be one of the most rewarding things that anyone can do.

As someone who had worked in commerce, my experience of working with young people who had such terrible backgrounds and were facing such severe challenges was one of the best things I have ever done. The staff do go through a training programme, but again there are things that perhaps cannot be learned quickly, and things come up along the way. Every single child—young person, I should say—is different. Every single young person has a completely different set of circumstances that has led to their being in the system. I absolutely agree that this should all be about outcomes.

[John Howell]

Does my hon. Friend have a view on whether institutions for young people are a valid option or whether greater integration of young and adult institutions is a better option?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

Speaking from experience, I absolutely believe that institutions are the right place for some young people. For example, it may not necessarily be easy for them to be in a family. It is absolutely right that we have institutions where adults can be mentors, there to look after those young people on a daily basis and to work with them to rehabilitate them. My personal view is that young people should not be integrated with the adult prison service. They have different requirements, and sometimes the offences are different for particular reasons.

My biggest concern is that all these young people will eventually become adults. Whether they are looked-after children who have had a difficult background in different institutions, or whether they are unfortunate enough—maybe through fault of their own—to end up in a secure training centre, for me there is nothing more important than ensuring that we are doing all we can to ensure that the outcomes for those young people as adults are improved. The Government’s aim is to achieve that. I welcome Charlie Taylor’s review of the system. I would like to see a review in particular of the Medway centre and some of the safeguarding. I point out that I definitely have not seen all the footage and I have not been privy to the information that “Panorama” picked up during recording, but the centre is broken up into different units, and I believe that we are only looking at one element. I would like to hear some of the better stories that have come out of that centre, which I am sure exist.

Fundamentally, I welcome the debate and the review that is taking place. From a local council perspective, I was impressed as a local Member of Parliament by the immediate response that my local authority made to deal with the allegations. The local authority is carrying out due diligence in following through on the investigations in the local authority-designated officer review and in co-operating completely with the police.

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[Andrew Selous]

The hon. Lady asks the central question of the whole debate. I can tell her that I have thought long and hard about it since the “Panorama” revelations. I do not know whether she was in the House for the urgent question when my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice set out in some detail the considerable monitoring arrangements we have. Yet the fact is that they did not detect mistreatment and prevent it from happening. As the Minister responsible for youth justice, I have absolutely fully taken that on board and can assure her we will continue to review seriously how we monitor to ensure we do not find out that terrible things are happening from an investigatory television programme. I will elaborate further during the course of my speech.

My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell), who is a valued member of the Justice Committee, rightly drew attention to the issue of mental health. I can tell him and other Members who properly drew attention to that issue that a comprehensive health assessment is completed for every young person on arrival in custody. This includes an immediate assessment of needs during the first day or night, followed by a more comprehensive assessment as part of their induction programme. If an alternative placement is deemed appropriate, this will be referred back to the youth justice board placement team for consideration in consultation with healthcare professionals.

I can also tell the House that each site has healthcare teams and in-reach teams that provide appropriate treatment for young people with mental health issues. I get the seriousness and importance of this issue and will continue to work with colleagues in the Department of Health to ensure we keep a relentless focus on mental health.

[John Howell]

When he gets back to the office, will the Minister look at the transfer of people and how often the transfer of the information about their mental health does not actually follow them on time?

[Andrew Selous]

My hon. Friend raises an important and serious point. Yes, of course I will look into that matter. We have to have a joined-up system as far as health needs are concerned. He makes a valuable point.

My hon. Friend also made points about young adult provision. I know the Select Committee is looking at that at the moment, but I can tell him that a Government consultation on the management of young adults was paused while the Harris review was completed. This is now being reconsidered as part of our wider prison reform strategy work and alongside the youth justice review, about which I will say more in a few moments.

The hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Marie Rimmer), who is also an extremely diligent and engaged member of the Justice Committee, asked a general point about the threshold for custody for children. The threshold is high and the courts must state in open court why a youth community sentence with high-intensity supervision and surveillance is not appropriate. I will point out, as have others during this debate, that the under-18 youth custody population has halved in the past five years.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) for her contribution to the debate. She is not only the local Member of Parliament who represents Medway, but a ward councillor in that area, so she has detailed local knowledge that we all respect. I have had frequent dealings with her since the revelations came to light. I also thank her for praising the vast majority of decent staff who work very hard in a challenging environment. She was right to put that on the record, and I do so as the Minister as well. We will be relentless in dealing with staff who fall below the very high standards that we rightly expect of them and will continue to demand.

I thank the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) for her contribution. She pointed out that my domain as the Minister extends to England and Wales, and not to Scotland, but generally we take a serious interest in what happens in criminal justice matters and in the youth estate north of our border with Scotland. I have spent time with Scottish academics and others trying to learn what we can from the Scottish prison system, so I thank her for her contribution this afternoon.

The hon. Member for Neath, who speaks for the official Opposition, asked me a large number of questions, which I will do my best to answer this afternoon. I will write to her if I do not answer them all—she posed her questions just before my own contribution, so I will not manage to answer all of them. In general, I repeat what the Secretary of State for Justice said during the urgent question:

“the care and supervision of young offenders in custody is not good enough.”—[Official Report, 11 January 2016; Vol. 604, c. 573.]

We recognise that. That is why the Secretary of State has commissioned the youth justice review. There will be an interim report in due course and a final report in the summer. It is the right thing to do.

The hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) asked her hon. Friend the Member for Neath to ask me how many of Lord Harris’s recommendations had been implemented. The answer is more than half, but I would ask the hon. Member for Cardiff Central to look at our wider prison reform strategy, more of which will be unveiled over the coming months. She and others will see much in that that speaks to the important points that she and others have raised this afternoon.

The allegations made by the BBC in the “Panorama” programme on 11 January were profoundly disturbing and have quite rightly generated concern about the safety of young people detained at Medway. Let me put on the record, as the Justice Secretary did, my thanks to the BBC for the work it has undertaken to bring the serious allegations to light, although it should not have taken an investigatory television programme to do so.

We take all allegations about mistreatment of children in custody extremely seriously and make sure that they are swiftly referred to the local area designated child protection officer for immediate action. Although it would be inappropriate for me to comment on specific allegations while the investigation by Kent police and Medway Council is under way, I can assure Members that we place the highest priority on the safety of the children and young people committed to our care in custody.

It may be helpful for me to outline in further detail the action taken since the contents of the “Panorama” investigation were first reported. First, G4S suspended all seven staff members named by the BBC on 30 December 2015 and referred the allegations to Medway Council’s local authority designated officer, who is responsible for overseeing safeguarding concerns about children across the local authority, and to Kent police. G4S has subsequently dismissed five staff members, and three more are suspended.

Kent police and Medway Council’s child protection team have launched an investigation that will determine whether there is any evidence to justify criminal proceedings against anyone involved. Five members of staff have been arrested and bailed while police inquiries continue. It is important that the police are now able to complete a full and thorough investigation into each incident and to pursue all necessary lines of inquiry. I can assure Members that the Ministry of Justice and the Youth Justice Board will support and co-operate with their inquiries to the fullest possible extent.

Our immediate priority has been the safety of the young people in custody at Medway. As the Secretary of State indicated in his statement to the House on 11 January, we are meeting Lin Hinnigan, the chief executive of the Youth Justice Board, regularly to make sure that all necessary action to ensure the wellbeing of young people at Medway is being taken. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons and Ofsted also visited Medway on 11 January to meet representatives of G4S, Medway Council and the Youth Justice Board, as well as the children detained there. The findings of HMIP’s report are being considered carefully by the Secretary of State and me.

The YJB, which is responsible for commissioning the youth secure estate, has also taken immediate steps to safeguard the children and young people placed in Medway. It might be helpful for me to outline those steps to the House. The YJB has, with immediate effect, ceased new placements of young people to Medway until further notice—that addresses one of the shadow Minister’s questions. The YJB sought urgent assurance from the G4S director of Medway that the centre had safe staffing levels following the suspension and dismissal of staff. That assurance was received on 31 December and is being kept under review. The YJB has increased both its monitoring activity at the centre and the presence of other of its staff members, including senior managers.

I am concerned that the allegations were not readily identified by the checks and systems that we already have in place. It is clear that my Department and the YJB need to work together to make sure that monitoring in the youth secure estate is more effective and robust. We expect the highest standards from all the providers who operate the youth secure estate. We expect staff to want to work with children, to have the skills and training to engage with children positively, and to act with professionalism and integrity throughout. We expect our providers’ management teams to rigorously supervise their staff and drive a positive culture throughout their organisations.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who was a very distinguished Minister in the Ministry of Justice not so long ago. He is absolutely right. The concept of litigants in person is not new: it has applied for many years, indeed decades. To demystify the court process, we have put better processes in place—online guidance, guidance from court officers and judicial training—to ensure as much support from the judiciary and other legal advisers as possible.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

With the growth in litigants in person there has been a growth in McKenzie friends. There are two types: those who provide backgrounds to unfamiliar settings and those who act effectively as lawyers and charge for their services. What is the Minister going to do about the latter?

[Mr Vara]

The concept of McKenzie friends is relatively new. [Hon. Members: “No, it’s not.”] I said relatively new. We are keeping an eye on advice and what fees, if any, are being charged.

Prisons: Planning and Policies

John Howell Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is, as always, a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker, and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). I was going to say that I am the last surviving member of the previous Justice Committee, but that would appear to suggest that all the others were dead. Given that the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) were two prominent members of that Committee, that is probably not the case. It was interesting to serve with them.

I am one of the few Members left on the Justice Committee, if not the only one, who had a role in preparing the report that we are debating. It was the Committee’s first major report on prison policy. There were good reasons for undertaking it at the time, because prison policy was the subject of much reform. We wanted to look particularly at benchmarking and the new-for-old programme, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst has referred to. I want to comment on a couple of the points that he raised about resettlement and rehabilitation, and the engagement of prisoners in purposeful activity. Those are crucial, and they are very much interlinked in the whole programme.

As part of the preparation of the report, the Committee had a trip to Denmark and to Germany. Members might imagine, from anecdotal evidence, that the two places were very similar; in fact, we found them to be radically different. That was particularly true of Denmark. Although the feeling on the street may be that its regime is easy for prisoners, we found it to be quite stiff, and some good lessons arose from the experience. For example, we visited an open prison in Denmark that was surrounded by an enormous steel fence. That came as a bit of a shock to us, because one does not expect to see such a thing around an open prison, especially in Denmark. We asked why it was there, and the answer that we were given was that it was not so much to keep prisoners in as to keep the drug pushers out. That brought home to us the first point of similarity between the Danish system and our own: the acknowledgement that the use of drugs in prison is a major problem that has to be overcome. When we went to Germany, we found that there was the same level of drug use but, interestingly, it was not recognised to be a problem.

On our visit to Denmark we gained a particularly interesting insight into rehabilitation, which we bring out in a recommendation in the report, when we went to see how the prisoners cooked their food. I suppose that phrase gives the game away—the prisoners did not eat at enormous benches where food was slopped out to them in the style of the television series “Porridge”; the system allowed them to earn money in the prison and go to buy food, which they could cook communally for themselves and other prisoners. It is true that the knives used in the process were chained to the wall, but such a precaution is only to be expected in a prison.

That single activity was very important, because it created a sense of prisoner responsibility, which was absolutely conducive to the idea of rehabilitation. We pointed out that the Government should consider that for prisons in the UK, and I was pleased to see in their response that they would look to increase the opportunities for self-catering where appropriate. Perhaps I can push the Minister to confirm that that is happening—particularly in new-build prisons, where I think it is perfectly feasible and appropriate to work in such an arrangement.

Something else that we noted on our trip—this was most obviously the case in Germany—was the amount of industrial or commercial activity that the prisoners undertook. We visited a furniture operation in part of the prison, which involved prisoners in a tremendous amount of work producing excellent furniture for sale at a later stage. Such work is absolutely crucial: not only does it give prisoners dignity in work, which we have claimed to be important throughout the process, but it helps with their rehabilitation by giving them the ability to manage their own time and responsibilities. I am conscious that the ability to provide such a facility in prisons in this country is lacking. I ask the Minister what has been done, and what continues to be done, to take that forward.

Our impression from both trips was positive about prisoner rehabilitation. When I looked again at the situation in the UK, I saw that, as we demonstrate in the report, a lot of emphasis is placed on health and safety, on the safety of prisoners in prisons and on the sorts of figures that my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst mentioned concerning the performance of the prison estate. I cannot help but feel that those things are linked—that the decrease in safety and the increase of attacks in prisons are due to the difficulty of trying to make purposeful work happen.

Another issue that we point out in the report is the role of prison governors, who are seen by the general public as being almost like latter-day Roman governors in their own prison. In fact, they are not. We visited one prison governor who had virtually no control over the educational activities taking place in his prison. There needs to be some move back to giving prison governors control of the places they run and what they do in them, which will improve the workings of the prisons and the outcomes for prisoners. Implementing the key recommendations of the report will help.

Dangerous Driving Penalties

John Howell Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I, too, praise my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma) for securing this important debate. I also praise those who lie behind it, not only for backing the debate, but for their petition.

This important issue has been raised with me by constituents on a number of occasions. I, too, have raised it with the Ministry of Justice, and I will refer to that later. A huge concern is that with the increase in traffic comes an increase in dangerous driving, which can have a big effect on our constituents. Only yesterday I was at a meeting of the joint all-party group on rural issues and policing, where a startling statistic was revealed, that the fear of crime in rural areas was much increased over the reality—although in the case of dangerous driving, the reality is all too visible. More than 63% of people who had responded to the survey had a fear of road traffic crime. It was a huge and sad number, and behind it is the public reaction to lenient sentences in the area. Happily, the Select Committee on Justice, of which I am a member, has picked up on the matter a number of times. Only this week, we had the opportunity to question the Attorney General on lenient sentences.

A letter that I received from the Ministry of Justice in 2013 explained:

“When considering the appropriate charge, it is the driving behaviour that is the deciding factor, that is, whether the driver was careless or dangerous, rather the outcome of the incident however tragic.”

I suspect that at some point that ought to lead us to a review of sentencing guidelines, which are produced independently of government. The Justice Committee is a statutory consultee of the Sentencing Council, which produces the guidelines, and I shall certainly take it upon myself to respond and to try to achieve the things that my hon. Friend set out in this debate, so that is an important contribution that I can make.

We need to do something to take forward work on the subject, which has never been more required. I can illustrate this with a couple of cases from my own postbag. For example, a constituent wrote to tell me that his nephew had been run over and killed by a hit-and-run driver. His nephew was a 22-year-old student who was knocked down on a pedestrian crossing by a driver who went through a red light at twice the legal speed. The killer received a sentence that means he will spend less than two years in prison. That example from my constituency makes the very point that my hon. Friend was making and shows why the law needs to be changed.

Another constituent wrote to me asking for an urgent review of how such criminals are allowed to turn the law on its head. One wrote:

“To make a difference we need larger fines to act as a deterrent”—

although I am not sure that larger fines are the only answer. We should submit proposals to the Sentencing Council to review the guidelines.

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

My constituency has the fifth worst record in Britain for serious incidents involving people being killed and seriously injured. The issue of sentencing and fines has come to my postbag as well. For example, an individual was banned from driving for 12 months and ordered to pay a fine of £300 for a drink-driving incident in south-east Sussex. In another incident, the driver who was behind the wheel of his car while twice over the alcohol limit was banned for six months. Another individual was caught with herbal cannabis and admitted to smoking the drug, but was only banned for 12 months and fined £300. I would like some clarity on sentencing and some sort of order to the convictions—sentencing is erratic and often depends on which part of the country an individual is in. Clarity would be useful.

[John Howell]

I thank my hon. Friend for her excellent remarks and for providing yet more examples of what my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West was discussing when he opened the debate. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to the various cases. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Nusrat Ghani) made about the criminal process is a good one, and one on which I would like to see action.

I fully support the case made by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West and his call for consecutive sentencing, because that will help to overcome some of the problems that he illustrated. I echo his call for the information requested to be provided, so that we do not have such a situation again.

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[Andrew Selous]

The hon. Gentleman is a former Minister, and he knows how such things work. I am sorry that I am not able to be more specific, but I can tell him and every other Member here that I get it. There is clearly huge concern on both sides of the House about dangerous driving. A commitment has been made to have the review, and I assure the hon. Gentleman that my officials and others are working on that in earnest. I would be extremely grateful if he were good enough to accept that for now.

The hon. Gentleman made an excellent speech, and he is right that we all want safer roads. He spoke about the language we use in such matters, and I agree that using drink, drugs or phones does not make it an accident. Getting the language right matters, and I hugely agree that enforcement is critical, as my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West also said. As a former road safety Minister, the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) brings great experience and knowledge to this debate. The issue of prevention resonated most strongly with me, and the public reporting of drivers who break the rules is an interesting idea. He also said that the punishment should fit the crime.

I assure hon. Members that Ministers and officials in the Department for Transport will be sent the transcript of this debate so that they can study what has been said, because that is an important aspect of our proceedings. The hon. Gentleman specifically asked about prosecutions and, despite the increased number of cars on our roads, the number of incidents and, more significantly, the number of deaths on our roads have fallen very significantly. As a result, there are fewer prosecutions for causing death by dangerous driving, but the sentence length has increased, which is part of a long-term trend.

I listened with great interest to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham). Safety near schools is incredibly important, and I commend her for continuing to campaign on that issue. She made an important point, which links to the point raised by the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse, about the need for effective enforcement. Again, I will ensure that that point is passed on to the Department for Transport.

The three Es mentioned by the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West)—education, engineering and enforcement—are right. She also made a useful contribution to our proceedings. My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) told us of a personal experience from his constituency. He speaks as a member of the Select Committee on Justice, so I welcome his contribution. I am struck that 63% of respondents in his constituency expressed a fear of road traffic crime. I agree that that is a significant finding, and one of which we should take note.

[John Howell]

That was 63% across the UK, not just in my constituency.

[Andrew Selous]

I thank my hon. Friend for that correction, which makes the finding even more significant. Like him, I was deeply shocked by the case he mentioned of someone driving at more than twice the legal speed limit through a red light, killing someone, and the sentence that was passed down. I tell him, and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire, that sentencing guidelines make it clear that driving without care in the vicinity of a pedestrian crossing, hospital, school or residential home are all to be taken into account as aggravating factors when determining an appropriate sentence. I note her further comments on these matters.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey) also made an excellent contribution, and he highlighted the tragic case of Sean Morley. We were all extremely moved by his description of the highly distressing circumstances of that utterly terrible case. I have taken very careful note of what he said.

Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), in another powerful speech, told us of an horrific incident in which a couple riding a tandem bicycle were tragically killed in his constituency. He said that the former Secretary of State for Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), has visited the spot. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood that the similarities between a knife, a gun and a car are fairly strong when it comes to taking someone’s life or causing horrific injuries. I note the judge’s comments in that case, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s persistence in raising such matters. He said that the Justice Secretary can raise the maximum penalty, but that is not correct; it is actually for Parliament to set the maximum penalty for an offence, but I understand his point.

The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman), who speaks for the Scottish National party, talked about the reduction of the legal alcohol limit in Scotland. Those powers are devolved to Scotland and are the responsibility of colleagues in the Department for Transport. I will pass on his comments.

The shadow Minister also has a long-standing record of personally campaigning on dangerous driving. He told us that he has previously been to see the Prime Minister, which led to a change in the law. I pay tribute to him for that, and for the contribution that he has made on the issue. A recent inspection report on Crown Prosecution Service practice has recommended better training and more specialist road traffic prosecutors. I am sure that he will be grateful to know that, and I will write to him on the further specific details for which he asked.

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to go in some detail through the matters brought before us in this debate. On the particular case that my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West brought before the House, the driver entered a guilty plea to a number of offences, including two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and driving while disqualified. He received a sentence of 10 years and three months on 16 April 2014, and he was banned from driving for 15 years.

Turning to the specific issues that my hon. Friend raised, he will know as well as I do that sentencing is a matter for judges, who are independent. The judges decide on a sentence, having considered the full details of the case and the offender. They are best placed to decide on a just and proportionate sentence. The duty on the courts is to follow guidelines or, if they do not, to say why. That leads to greater transparency in the sentences likely to be imposed, and will hopefully lead to increased consistency in sentencing practice.

As my hon. Friend mentioned, the appeals procedure allows the Attorney General to make a reference to the Court of Appeal in serious cases if a sentence is unduly lenient, or if the offender believes the sentence is unduly harsh. In this case, the offender appealed the sentence. I was particularly struck by the care taken in the case by the Court of Appeal to consider not only the appalling driving involved but the harm that it had caused to the families. I know that the appeal would have been a difficult experience for the families, and I hope that its dismissal has brought some reassurance.

A reduction for an early guilty plea is not just about saving money and time; it is designed to ensure that wherever possible, victims, their families and witnesses are not required to relive or be cross-examined about dreadful events in court. It can also lead to swifter justice. In keeping with the current law and guidelines, the driver in this case had his sentence reduced for pleading guilty to the offence at an early stage. A guilty plea at the earliest opportunity will normally attract the maximum sentence reduction of one third, but judges retain discretion in regard to that reduction. In this case, as the evidence against the driver was overwhelming, the judge exercised that discretion and did not apply the full discount. Taking account of a lesser discount for the early plea, the 10-year sentence imposed is close to the 14-year maximum penalty for the offence. The Court of Appeal gave a clear judgment upholding both the sentence and the judge’s decision not to grant the full reduction for the early guilty plea.

Turning to my hon. Friend’s calls for changes in the law, I should say that he raised two main points. The first relates to the imposition of maximum and minimum penalties; the second is that when more than one person is killed, the court should make the sentence for each additional death follow on from the first, so that they are served consecutively rather than concurrently. On maximum penalties, it is worth stressing that although sentencing is a matter for the courts, setting the framework within which the courts work is for Parliament. The 14-year maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving was set by Parliament to cover the worst imaginable case of that specific offence.

When deciding what sentence to impose within the maximum available, the court is required to take account of all the circumstances of the defence and any mitigating or aggravating factors. Where there is more than one victim, that will be taken into account and will aggravate the seriousness of the offence, meriting a longer sentence. The sentencing guidelines for causing death by dangerous driving specifically mention that the courts should take account of the higher harm caused by the offence where there is more than one victim. That is exactly what the court did in this case; it took the very high harm caused by two deaths, applied a smaller than normal reduction for the early guilty plea and arrived at a sentence close to the maximum.

It would be contrary to our system of justice to impose a maximum penalty for any death in any circumstances, in road traffic or in any other offence. The Government do, however, want maximum penalties that allow the courts to respond appropriately to the full range of cases as they are likely to take place. Where there is a clear failing in the law, Parliament has moved to remedy it. In the past, where offenders have left a victim with serious injuries, the maximum penalty for the offence has related to the driving, not the harm caused.

In the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, a new offence of causing serious injury by dangerous driving was created, with a five-year penalty, as the Opposition spokesman told us. That change in the law means that there is now a range of offences and maximum penalties dealing with dangerous driving that more properly reflect the harm caused. In addition, under the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, the maximum penalty for disqualified drivers who kill or cause serious injury has been increased. The previous maximum was only two years for causing death, but it has now been increased to 10 years. The measure came into force in April 2015. I hope that hon. Members will see that there has been action in response to the quite proper parliamentary pressure in that area.

I am aware of your strictures, Mr Hollobone. Everyone else has obeyed them, so I feel that I should as well. I could say more, but it is right that I give the remaining time available to my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West. I thank him again for what he has said. I realise the strength of feeling on this extremely important matter, and I will continue to engage with him and other hon. Members on it.

Cremation of Infants (England)

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of the cremation of infants in England.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. Speaking as a father, I do not think that there could be anything worse in life than the loss of a child. I wanted to raise with the Minister and fellow parliamentarians the tragedy that some of my constituents have faced when they lost a child in infancy and were told by Emstrey crematorium in Shrewsbury that they would not receive that child’s ashes. Rather than the traditional burial, the parents decided to have their child cremated and were told that there would be no ashes. I am sure hon. Members appreciate that when families have been through such a traumatic experience as losing a child—just a few days previously in some cases—it was not an optimum situation for them to be robust in challenging that information. Some families went along with a cremation under those circumstances. There was a lack of clarity in some instances, which is clearly unacceptable.

I pay tribute to BBC Radio Shropshire for its tremendous work over the past year. I was first notified of the tragedy a year ago, and I pay particular tribute to Nick Southall, the Radio Shropshire senior reporter who has doggedly persevered with this story, not only in Shropshire but across England. We are starting to hear anecdotal evidence from other places where similar situations have occurred. This situation is not peculiar to Shrewsbury; we hear evidence of it happening in other parts of England. I look forward to hearing the perspective of other hon. Members.

One of the first things I did when I heard about this case was to contact the leader of the council, Keith Barrow. We have a new unitary authority in Shropshire that has taken over the running of our council, and the difficulties with the crematorium in question predominantly occurred under a previous administration and before the change to a unitary authority. Keith Barrow has done a superb job, and he called for an independent inquiry into the whole tragedy.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

What excuse was given by the crematorium? Perhaps my hon. Friend will come on to that.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I will come on to some of the report’s findings later in my speech, but I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.

I thank the chairman of the report, Mr David Jenkins, who has a lot of experience in local government and is an independent expert. Mr Jenkins and his research assistant, Mr John Doyle, have spent an inordinate amount of time engaging with many of my constituents with great sensitivity, professionalism and care. They heard at first hand some of the trauma that my constituents have experienced. Before the general election, I met some of my constituents in a church in Shrewsbury, and it was one of the most emotional meetings I have experienced in my decade as a Member of Parliament.

I made those parents certain promises. I promised them that they would have a meeting with the Minister, that there would be a formal parliamentary debate in the House of Commons on this issue and, most importantly of all, that if there were aspects of the report that I considered relevant for Parliament to investigate and scrutinise with a view to changing, updating and modernising legislation, those considerations would be aired and we, as parliamentarians, would have the opportunity to debate those points and make recommendations. I am pleased to be trying to fulfil my three promises to those parents.

I pay tribute to the Minister. She is new to her post and, if I may say so, the Prime Minister made a very good decision in appointing her. I brought some of the parents—some from Shrewsbury and Shropshire and some from other parts of England, too—to meet the Minister last week, and she was genuinely interested in hearing what they had to say. I am sure she will speak for herself, but I think she was moved, and I was extremely impressed with the way in which she interacted with those constituents. I thank her very much for her and her officials’ time and consideration. Following our meeting, the parents and I went to No. 10 Downing Street to present a petition signed by more than 63,000 petitioners from across our country.

My constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne), is a Minister and is therefore unable to participate in this debate, but he has taken an interest in the issue because the Emstrey crematorium also serves his constituents in south Shropshire. One of the babies whose remains were not returned to her parents was baby Kate. She suffered a tragic, avoidable death in 2009 following a complex midwifery delivery at Ludlow community hospital. My hon. Friend supports the campaign to prevent similar suffering for other parents. He feels as passionately as I do about this issue, and he wanted me to put that on the record for him.

Other hon. Members wish to speak, so I will concentrate on some of the recommendations that I have picked out from the report and some points that have been specifically reinforced in my mind by my interactions with my constituents. Other parliamentarians may have other points of view, but these are the specific points from the report that my constituents from Shrewsbury want me to raise. First, they believe that there should be an inspector of crematoriums throughout England and that it should be a full-time position. I understand that there is a part-time inspector of crematoriums in Scotland, which has only 50 crematoriums; we have more than 250 in England. Many of my constituents believe that we should have a formal, independent inspector of crematoriums. We live in a society with ombudsmen and regulators, and many aspects of Government activity are rightly regulated and overseen by independent inspectors. My constituents believe that if we are to have a uniform level of service and professionalism across all crematoriums, we need an independent inspector who is able to investigate by going to see crematoriums to ensure that they comply with expected standards.

My constituents also expect that crematoriums should have to report to the inspector when they are not confident that ashes have been created in a particular case. That is important because it is a proactive step that the facility in question—Emstrey crematorium in our case—would have to take if, for one reason or another, ashes had not been or could not be produced. If a crematorium believed that to be the case, it should have to be proactive in informing the inspector so that the inspector had it on the record.

I spent an afternoon inspecting Emstrey crematorium in Shrewsbury, and it has subsequently invested a lot of money in new machinery and better practices. Procedures are now in place to ensure that babies are cremated later in the day, rather than when the machine is first switched on and is at optimum heat. The procedures ensure that babies are cremated at the end of the day, when the ovens are at their coolest, to maximise the possibility that ashes are delivered.

My constituents also want a national cremation investigation team that is able to investigate historical cases. If the Minister agrees about the need for an inspector, and if an inspector is created, he or she will be busy ensuring uniformity of best practice across the country. My constituents want an independent team that will help families like Mr Perkins and his partner, and the other families in Shrewsbury who have suffered in the past. They want more information and need more help to come to terms with what has happened. They also believe that greater transparency is needed with regard to cremation paperwork. I will not go through all the details now, because there simply is not time, but in some cases paperwork has been lost, destroyed or not kept for the appropriate amount of time.

I would be grateful if the Minister told us how we could update legislation and regulations for crematoriums on paperwork and other matters. The Minister may correct me if I am wrong, but we have had no legislation on the running of crematoriums for a long time, so this is an optimum time for us to discuss these concerns. The families believe that the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs need to co-operate on changing the regulations and conditions on emissions from crematoriums at times when infants are being cremated—that is a technical point. I hope that the Minister has read the part of the report about how emissions and such things are regulated and is aware of that point.

The answer to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell), is in the report commissioned by Shropshire Council, published last month, which says that poor training and out-of-date equipment were mainly to blame. I am pleased that more than £3 million has now been spent on new machines at Emstrey crematorium in Shrewsbury; I have inspected them and seen how the ovens operate. I hope that this tragedy will ensure that training for staff at crematoriums, whether run by the Co-op or councils themselves, is reinvigorated, and that all crematoriums in all areas are supervised to ensure that they are investing appropriate time and money in bringing new equipment to the fore.

About 60 families are believed to have been affected by failures at Shrewsbury’s Emstrey crematorium between 1996 and 2012. I do not yet know the final figure, because more people are coming forward all the time. To those Salopian families, I can only take this opportunity to express my sincere condolences for the loss of their children and my sincere sadness that they have had to go through this extraordinarily painful experience in their lives. Having spoken to them, I know that their main goal is to ensure that such a travesty does not happen again, so that no other family in England has to go through what they went through. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in response to those points.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

No I do not. We inherited a really difficult situation with the economy when we came to power, but the way we have reorganised rehabilitation and training is vitally important. The key to rehabilitation is to ensure that people do not reoffend, and education and training are often the best ways of giving them an opportunity in life.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

In the last Parliament, I visited a prison in Denmark with the Justice Select Committee. One of the biggest contributors to preventing the prisoners from reoffending was their ability to cook their own food. Does the Minister agree that that ability is not a reward for good behaviour but an essential part of dealing with reoffending?

[Mike Penning]

I am not the prisons Minister but I have visited many prisons, not least the ones on the edge of my own constituency, and I have seen that happening in our own prisons. Giving people life skills is vital, as is giving them somewhere to live when they come out.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

7. What plans he has to ensure that young offenders leave custody better equipped to avoid a life of crime.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

11. What plans he has to ensure that young offenders leave custody better equipped to avoid a life of crime.

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

The Government will introduce a new pathfinder secure college in 2017, which will equip young offenders with the skills and qualifications they need to pursue a life free from crime. We are also enhancing education provision in young offenders institutions, and taking steps to improve the resettlement of young people leaving custody.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Wright]

We want to see a cross-Government approach to this, and my hon. Friend is right to say that many other Departments have an interest in what we are doing. He is also right that a period of stability is vital. It may be a relatively short period of incarceration for those young people, but it is probably one of the few opportunities they have had to be clear about where their next meal will come from and where they are going to sleep, and to give us the space to address some of their significant problems. That is a large part of what we intend to do.

[John Howell]

As well as providing support to young offenders to turn their lives around, will the Minister say what regime is in place so that a young offenders institution becomes a deterrent for going back there?

[Jeremy Wright]

It is certainly important that the environment of a young offenders institution does not encourage those in it to think it is comfortable and to want to go back. For that reason, my hon. Friend will be encouraged to hear that we are looking at changes to the incentives and earned privileges scheme in young offenders institutions, in the same way as we have considered changes in the adult estate. We want to ensure that where young people have access to privileges, they get them only when they have earned them.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those comments. A considerable amount is being done at the moment. and he will forgive me if I say that I have not reached the relevant page in my briefing pack yet, but I will write to him with the answer, which I hope will satisfy him.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his answer, but how much harder will all these changes make it for rogue bailiffs to operate?

Church of England (Women Bishops)

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bradshaw]

My view is that the Church should make every reasonable effort to accommodate those views, but the feeling of the overwhelming majority, both of Synod and of the Church of England, is that concessions have gone far enough. As I shall explain, the danger for opponents is that they may have overplayed their hand at the last Synod, and they will not get a deal as good as the one that was on the table then.

I want to make one more point to those who argue that this is none of our business. Many of us are members of the Church of England, and those who are not have constituents who are. Any Member of Parliament who has had contact with Churches in their constituency in the past two weeks will be aware of the enormous shock and hurt among many Anglicans about the Synod vote. We have had women priests for 20 years. The majority of new ordinands are women. Some of the deans of our great cathedrals are women. The Church has been debating women bishops for years.

Everyone thought that it was a done deal. The dioceses voted 42 out of 44 in favour. In Synod itself, the bishops voted 44 in favour and two against, with two abstentions. Three quarters of the clergy voted yes and even in the House of Laity, 64% voted in favour, but that was 2%—just six votes—short of the required two-thirds majority. If we look at the analysis of those who voted that was helpfully provided by the Thinking Anglicans website, we can see that supporters of women bishops in the House of Laity all voted yes. The blocking minority was made up, as the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) indicated, of opponents from the conservative evangelical and conservative Catholic wings. The composition of Synod is not due to change until 2015, so unless some of those who voted no this time can be persuaded to change their mind, I doubt whether the bishops can be confident of getting a revised Measure through before 2015 under the normal or even an expedited procedure that requires a two-thirds majority in every House.

The only way we might persuade some of the opponents to change sides is by offering them more concessions, but that would be anathema to the majority and would not get through Parliament. There is no guarantee, of course, that if we wait until after 2015, it would be any different.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Is the right hon. Gentleman as surprised and delighted as I was by a petition that began in one of my smaller villages to try to persuade the Bishop of Oxford to have a shorter, much simpler process in a week? That petition has already gained 1,500 signatures.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I should begin by declaring an interest, one that is in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am a church organist. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) rather surprised me last night when he told me that he has left in his will a stipend—hopefully a sizeable one—for me to play at his memorial service when the dread day comes.

The argument has been about Church governance and whether we should let the Church get on with it or take an interest in it ourselves. I am encouraged by the speeches that have been made, because they will allow the church to make its way through to achieving a resolution. When I was asked, prior to Synod, what members attending it should do, I told them to beware of the House of Laity; its members are representatives, not delegates, just as we are, and will vote as they wish. I said that because there is nothing unspiritual in recognising that the Church of England has to indulge in reason and discourse. I pray in aid Richard Hooker, whom the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) mentioned. He established that there were three pillars on which the Church of England rested—scripture, tradition and reason. His firm belief was that God’s purpose can be worked out as much through discourse as scripture and tradition, and that it was therefore absolutely right to indulge in that. I am not going to dissent from that view except to say that this has to be worked out at the level of the parishes, not at Synod level.

I was very much taken by the news that one of my local villages, which has a socking great abbey in the middle of it, but which is quite a small village now, was putting forward a petition to the Bishop of Oxford to try to get in place a simple, smooth process for resolving this issue. Within a few days, 1,500 people, which, by my estimate, is about double the population of the village, had signed the petition and were going to get a move on with it.

I come from a completely different wing of the Church than my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), but I would not dissent one iota from what he said about the way to tackle this and the process that needs to be sorted out.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

I have been in correspondence with many of the people whom the hon. Lady mentions, and I repeat that the Government believe that it will still be possible to bring claims against multinational companies once our reforms are implemented.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to change incentives for claiming compensation.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)]

The Government introduced the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill on 21 June. The Bill contains provisions to take forward a fundamental reform of no win, no fee conditional fee agreements, as recommended by Lord Justice Jackson. These changes will encourage claimants to take an interest in the costs being incurred on their behalf, and will deter frivolous or unmeritorious claims from progressing to court.

[John Howell]

Does the Minister believe that implementing Lord Justice Jackson’s proposals will clamp down on bloated compensation payments, given that in the past some solicitors have profited from cherry-picking claims and are claiming high success fees from defendants, particularly public authorities?

[Mr Djanogly]

My hon. Friend is right to raise the position of public-funded authorities such as the NHS Litigation Authority and local councils, which currently have to pay substantial additional legal costs to conditional fee agreement claimants. We believe that our proposals will ameliorate that position.