Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Bill

Julian Lewis Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and the way in which Ministers have merged two campaign asks in a single piece of natural justice is quite sensible.

I have some concerns. Personally, I think that Vanessa George should still be behind bars. I do not see how a woman who refuses to name the children she abused should be let out and, indeed, I believe that if someone abuses a child, the state should say that for the childhood of that victim the perpetrator should be behind bars. That would give those children the entirety of what remains of their childhood in a protected space away from the accused. The fact that Vanessa George has been released without naming the children she abused shows that something was not right with the law and the experience of many of the parents throughout this process has been to stumble across deficiencies and difficulties in how it has worked. That needs to be addressed.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

With all his experience in this tragic case, does the hon. Gentleman believe that the fault lay with inadequate powers for the Parole Board, in that it felt that it had no option, or did the Parole Board have the power not to release Vanessa George and choose not to exercise that power, in which case there is something terribly wrong with the recruitment practices for membership of the Parole Board?

[Luke Pollard]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I would not wish to sit on a Parole Board for all the money in the world. It must be incredibly difficult to choose whether or not to keep what are in many cases very serious offenders behind bars. As regards Vanessa George, I think the Parole Board had no choice but to release her, and that is why this change of law is so essential. Indeed, initially I called on the Secretary of State to reopen the investigation to ensure that no stone was left unturned, and no charge was missed that could be put against her to try to keep her behind bars. The dedication and professionalism of Devon and Cornwall police in reopening the file and ensuring that nothing was left in it showed that the system had done as much as it could do, which is why a change in the law is absolutely necessary in ensuring that we can keep someone like Vanessa George behind bars.

I would be grateful if the Minister could address my concerns about how the law will be implemented. Thankfully, there are very few cases like that of Vanessa George and very few cases in which there has been child abuse on this scale where, when it has come to light, the names have been withheld. But there are many more cases in which a charge of taking an indecent image of a child sits alongside other more serious charges, and reading the Bill I am unsure how these provisions will work alongside additional charges when the primary charge is more severe. If the conviction is spent on the first charge, does the ability to withhold information on a subsequent charge of taking indecent images mean that the whole sentence could be locked down?

There is a concern, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), who made a professional debut at the Dispatch Box, about what happens to Vanessa George regarding licence conditions. I am grateful to the Parole Board for setting such comprehensive licence conditions that mean that she cannot go back to Plymouth, that she should never bump into or to be seen near any of the children that she abused, and that she should never be able to access the internet. We can now buy internet-enabled fridges, so there is a real difficulty in enforcing some of the minor points of those conditions. May I ask the Minister whether, if a licence condition is now triggered and she is called to jail, the provisions in the Bill would apply? Or would they fall away, and would these provisions apply only to new offences?

Very briefly, as I am grateful for the time the House has given me to speak, the operation of the experience around Vanessa George has shown that it is not only the deficiency in the words of the law that needs to be looked at but the whole journey for victims, particularly those brave and courageous parents who gave evidence at the parole hearings. I would like the Government to look into introducing a system of video links through which victims—or, in this case, the parents—could give evidence. Going into a jail where the perpetrator of such heinous crimes against their children is being held—especially when that jail is far away from where they live—is a really harrowing experience for parents. The ability to give evidence via video link from the local court is common in the rest of the criminal justice system, but not in Parole Board hearings.

There is also a point about communications. Many of the parents who were involved in the Vanessa George case found out about her release on Facebook or via our local paper. That is not because of a lack of willingness from the authorities to keep those parents’ details. It is that there have been 10 years of changing email addresses and addresses. For some parents, the stress of the abuse even broke the relationship and couples went their separate ways, meaning that the communication point was held by just one person. The process needs to be looked at again. I encourage the Secretary of State to look at the principle that was adopted with the new organ donation law: an opt-out system. This would mean that everyone, especially for these most severe cases, would be automatically included in the system, unless—for very good reasons that I think we can all understand—those people choose to opt out of getting regular updates. Implementing such a system would make a substantial difference.

There is a real opportunity to take some of the lessons learned from the Vanessa George case and not only to make better law, but to ensure better operation of the Parole Board’s processes. I believe that many of the children she abused still do not know what has happened to them. Many will not know how they feel or that they are feeling the way they do because of their childhood experiences; they will not know what is going on. Having spoken to many of the parents, I know that there is a daily worry. They ask themselves, “What happens if my child asks me about her?” or “What happens if they ask, ‘Did I go to that nursery?’” These are live questions for many of the parents.

The parents and children I have spoken about this afternoon have a life sentence ahead of them. There is no escape. Just as my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North mentioned that there is no escape for families who cannot have a body to bury, so there is no escape from the realities of this sentence. Now that Vanessa George has been released, she may be watching these proceedings. To her, I say: name those kids and let us give the families the peace that they deserve.

Streatham Incident

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

I do not know whether the hon. Lady, the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, heard what I said. The purpose of the emergency legislation is to end automatic early release at the halfway point. That will apply to serving prisoners, which is why I want to introduce emergency legislation, which will be introduced as soon as possible. That ends the automaticity element, which was the reason why this individual, who posed a risk, was released. There was nothing more that we could do, because the law, as passed by the previous Labour Government, was what we had to apply. That is what we are going to do, and I am more than happy to explain it further to the hon. Lady later.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

How seriously should we take the recent report that one of Lee Rigby’s killers claims to be a reformed character?

[Robert Buckland]

I have not seen that report. It is a matter for those responsible for the assessment of risk within the custodial estate to look at the evidence, to professionally assess it and to understand the particularly unique risks posed by the terrorist cohort. I think the thrust of my right hon. Friend’s question was precisely on that point, and it is well understood.

Worboys Case and the Parole Board

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

Yes, I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Ah, the good doctor—Dr Julian Lewis.

[Dr Lewis]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Does not the Worboys case illustrate the fact that there is a culture of consideration for rapists and murderers that puts the public gravely at risk? Will the Secretary of State be investigating the case of the two murderers who killed two people in two separate incidents in their own homes and who have just been convicted of the horrific rape, torture, throttling and murder by burning in a car while she was still alive of a young Vietnamese woman—not to mention the imminent release of another criminally insane individual who is being groomed for release in his guise as a woman, having previously been convicted of stabbing to death a young woman in her own home more than 66 times?

[Mr Gauke]

I suspect that a number of Members will have read about the case to which my right hon. Friend refers, which was covered this morning. Clearly it raises a number of issues. My focus has been on the particular circumstances of the Worboys case and the fact that there was a lack of probing of the information that should have been taken into account in making a risk assessment. These risk assessments are difficult, and sometimes they will be got wrong, but it is our responsibility to ensure that the processes are robust.

Parole Board and Victim Support

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

The hon. Lady raises a fair challenge. It is important that public confidence is maintained. It is also right, though, that the Parole Board, as an independent body, makes the decisions; I do not detect a consensus in the House that this matter should be returned to the discretion of politicians. However, the Parole Board clearly needs to be very mindful of public perception. It is, I know, very mindful of the risks that could be created on somebody being released. That is the test that the Parole Board must meet in making these decisions.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

When a minimum tariff is imposed, can it be challenged on grounds of undue leniency; and given that the tariff is a minimum, why does the sole test applied by the Parole Board appear to be simply whether the criminal still poses a risk to others? What has happened to the concept that the punishment should fit the crime?

[Mr Gauke]

Of course, the IPP cases are essentially historic in the sense that those sentences no longer apply; but while approximately 3,000 IPP prisoners remain in jail, it is a question of testing whether there is a risk to the public once the tariff has been met, as my right hon. Friend sets out. Of course, a different system applies to those who do not fall within the IPP test.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

As I explained earlier, we will take into account all the recommendations and findings of the Select Committee report as we chart the way forward.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Did the Secretary of State read the letter in the press by the widow of our late colleague, Ian Gow, contrasting the fact that the two IRA murderers suspected of killing him have no fear of arrest with the recent revelation that hundreds, if not thousands, of letters are being sent out to veterans of the troubles with a view to further prosecutions? Will he support the policy of a statute of limitations to put an end to this grotesque inequality of treatment?

[Mr Lidington]

The answer to my right hon. Friend’s question is that, yes, I did read the letter to which he refers. Those matters, as he knows, are the responsibility of my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who is very concerned to ensure that a proper examination of the past, and a search for the truth about the past, does not lead to the unfair and disproportionate arraignment of British soldiers who stood firmly for democracy and human rights in Northern Ireland.

Police

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and I know lots of colleagues from across the House will be standing up today and asking whether, as part of the review, there could be extra money for their constituencies. I fully understand that, but I also need the House to understand that policing in many parts of the country has fundamentally changed over the years. The demands and needs are now completely different from before, particularly in rural forces. As I suggested in response to the intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), we must put the arguments together into the consultation, which will be taking place across the summer, so that, although I am not sure everybody will be happy, the 2016-17 formula will be much fairer than the current system.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

It is encouraging that the review of the formula will bear in mind the need to ensure that more efficient police forces, such as those in Hampshire, are not penalised for their efficiency. What does my right hon. Friend think about the recent survey carried out in Hampshire which showed that more than 70% of respondents would be willing to pay more and see an increase in the council tax precept to 1.99% because they value the services they get from the constabulary?

[Mike Penning]

When we introduced PCCs, who are elected by the local people, we gave them the ability to make local decisions. Where PCCs have decided to raise the precept to a level below the need for a referendum, I fully understand and respect that. There is at least one force area at the moment—Bedfordshire—where the PCC is looking to go beyond that, so there will be a referendum there. If it goes ahead, it will be held on the general election date.

I do not want to talk only about Hampshire—although a couple of colleagues from Hampshire have intervened so far, and it was a pleasure to be in Hampshire only the other day—as I want now to touch a little more on the changes that have been taking place within the police in England and Wales.

Cyber-bullying and Digital Anonymity

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. That is one barrier; the other one, of course, is that people can just set up new accounts at will. They can do that through the dark net, and they can hide their IP addresses to make it harder to locate who they are. That is why I am coming to the point of saying that perhaps we should think about making people identify themselves if they want to set up an account, just as we have to do in so many other walks of life.

I recognise that the international nature of the internet makes it hard to tackle the criminality in this country, but I suggest that the police should make much more use of the Harassment Act 1997 rather than view this as a separate online problem. The behaviour is what they should go after. If behaviour is criminal, we cannot allow more latitude for it on the internet. There is not. Such behaviour should be subject to the same tests as if someone is confronted on the street with nasty face-to-face remarks.

I welcome the fact that the Justice Secretary has set out plans for serious cases of cyber-bullying to go to the Crown court and be subject to a sentence of up to two years. That is a welcome and encouraging start—a step in the right direction, saying that cyber-bullying is unacceptable. Nevertheless, let me set out three areas where we could go further.

First and most fundamentally, people need to take responsibility for their actions and not have the option of anonymity. We have cracked down on poison pen letters. Some of us may remember the problem of deep breathers—those who would pick up the phone and start calling random numbers and deep breathing at people to terrorise them down the line. Call logging put a stop to all that stuff, but now we need to deal with trouble caused when characters use anonymity to spout vitriol online. Anonymity, then, is the first issue.

Evidence suggests that people’s behaviour becomes worse when they are given anonymity, which is why it needs to end. Social media providers should ensure that they know people’s identity to discourage hate-filled attacks. If it is known who they are, people will not go around doing this sort of thing and neither will they be able to create multiple social media accounts to further their hate campaigns.

Some say, “We cannot do this; it undermines the principle of free speech. I should be able to say what I like.” I believe they are wrong to say that because the principle of free speech was dearly bought. People can state their own views in their own name. Mrs Mopp of Acacia avenue can say, “The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition are completely hopeless and not up to their job”, but the secret police will not come for them in the middle of the night. That is what free speech is about. It is not a right to go around anonymously terrorising and harassing people. That is an abuse of free speech. It is not free speech; it is pure cowardice, and it should not be tolerated. Neither should we confuse the issue of privacy to surf the internet, which we all believe in, with the idea of privacy in aid of anonymity as a means of launching attacks on people. There should be no hiding place for trolls.

Secondly, there is the issue of educating children on digital responsibilities. We cannot protect children simply by blocking access to the internet and social media. That will not work. Young people are at the forefront of technological change, so we need to educate them to understand that their online behaviour will be judged just as much as their behaviour in real life. Just as we teach citizenship and British values in our schools, so we should educate our young people about their online responsibilities and the importance of respect there, as well.

Thirdly, international action is important. The internet is international: it knows no borders and it is changing all the time. Social media has existed for barely a decade, and the law needs to keep up with this rapid change. That is why we need international co-ordinated action. An organisation such as the OECD could play a serious role in co-ordinating what we all do collectively in the global village in which we live. Rogue nations that harbour trolls and online criminals can be tackled more effectively with international co-ordination.

To conclude, it is becoming increasingly clear that it is time to strip people of their anonymity on social media.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Before my hon. Friend concludes, I want to say that I think he will have an uphill struggle in managing to persuade people on an international basis that identity should be disclosed when people abuse the internet. He might find it rather easier, however, if firms were required at least to take down and block persistent abusers; and he might find it easier to get search engines to block firms that fail to do that. Perhaps he should include some of these more modest aims in his programme.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I agree that enforcement is a massive problem because of the international nature of the internet. The starting place should be to raise the issue and say that anonymity is the problem. It is the nature of the curtain that one could be stabbed from behind that we must look at and, having done so, we must ask how we pull back that curtain. First, we must get big social media organisations such as Facebook and Twitter voluntarily to make sure that they identify their users and take the actions suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). Secondly, we must have international action to make sure that international laws and regulations are co-ordinated so that we can work in lockstep. I realise that this is a new area that will develop over the next five years. I suspect that the issue will increase in importance rather than decline.

I want to put ideas out there for us to consider. We need to look at anonymity. We need to educate our children about digital responsibility and hammer home the message that hate tweeting is wrong and that if anyone abuses others anonymously from their keyboard, they will be found out. That would stop in their tracks the people who con, who threaten and who terrorise. We must take back the internet from the weirdos, from the trolls and from the cowardly.

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Mike Penning)]

It is an honour and a privilege to respond on behalf of the Government this evening to this very important Adjournment debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) not only on securing the debate but on getting colleagues to come in on a Thursday evening and support him.

I apologise because I am probably not the lead Minister who would normally deal with this debate, but it is important that my Department—I sit in two Departments—which has responsibility for part of the work that needs to be done to address this important issue is represented at the Dispatch Box. The cross-governmental responsibilities here include the Department for Education, the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Home Office and the Cabinet Office to name a few. There are probably other Departments that feel they have responsibilities, not least given the Prime Minister’s interest in recent years.

An Adjournment debate this evening will not allow the issue to have the time it deserves. Far be it from me to suggest what the Backbench Business Committee should and should not do, but this is a very important debate that needs more air time than an Adjournment debate in the House can give.

It is also my belief, and that of the Government, that there is no difference in law between what one does online and what one does in public: what one does face to face is identical within law to what is done online. My hon. Friend quoted at least three Acts. My officials think that five Acts may be in place to help with the issue: the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, the Malicious Communications Act 1998, the Communications Act 2003 and the Defamation Act 2013. They all apply to online trolls.

Perhaps I can address early on some of the specific points that my hon. Friend raised, particularly education. Education is very important. Since September 2014, not so long ago, e-safety has to be taught at all four key stages within the curriculum at our schools. It is massively important that young people have the education and knowledge that they need reinforced at every key stage going forward so that while they use the wonderful new media as much as possible, they understand the problems and dangers of internet bullying.

As my hon. Friend suggested, there are no boundaries or borders in this type of abhorrent behaviour. The internet is a wonderful thing, but I know as Minister responsible for child protection how dangerous the internet is in particular to young, vulnerable people.

I was in Washington at the beginning of the week before last, where I attended the global alliance conference on child online protection, and it was very obvious where the problems occur. It is an international problem; that is the case not only with trolling, but also with some of the other abhorrent things we see on the internet these days. People are earning huge amounts of money out of other people’s grief and poverty, and just getting a kick, frankly, out of abusing people online.

May I therefore reiterate again that in law there is no difference between standing in front of someone and abusing them and doing it online? That is very important, and we have seen some significant cases coming before the courts recently to make sure everybody understands that.

Let me touch briefly on three points, and in particular the anonymous nature of trolls. It is an obvious thing to say that someone should have their anonymity removed—or should they not have it in the first place? In the international spectrum, however, I do not want people living in Syria to have their anonymity taken away. I want people around the world who are living under repression to have the ability to tell the rest of the world what is going on in their countries—what is happening to them, to their families, to their political parties—without fear that their identity will be known.

In saying that, the police do have a way of finding out very quickly where such a communication came from. I know that myself as, sadly, my bank account was hacked fairly recently, but the IP addresses were made available enormously quickly by my internet bank to the police and subsequently arrests have been made. They cannot hide, therefore: “If you abuse someone using the internet, no matter what technology you use, invariably you will be discovered, and if you break the law, you will be prosecuted.” What we must do, however, is ensure people have the confidence to come forward, not necessarily directly to the police every time because it can be very difficult for young people to do that, but to someone they trust within their school or family or community, to tell them what is going on so we can prosecute.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Is not the problem that this would be regarded by the police as a pretty low priority unless it had reached a level of great seriousness, and therefore is not the solution, as I suggested before, that the main companies must have easy ways of reporting abuse before it gets to that level and that they should be likely to block it irrespective of whether or not the person’s identity is known?

[Mike Penning]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and he has touched on a point I was coming to in the next few minutes. On his first point, this sort of offence can now be heard in the High Court and it does carry a penalty of up to two years. That is relatively new, but that actually happens. Standing here not as a Justice Minister but as the police Minister from the Home Office, I can say that the police should, and will, deal with this in the same way as they would deal with an offence offline. That is vitally important, and perhaps a message from the Dispatch Box from the police Minister to the police on that point this evening will not go amiss.

This country leads the way in working with these big companies. While I was in Washington the American Administration said to me that we have a rapport and a relationship and get things done with the big companies in a way that they do not. We need to use that relationship, and of course in early December there will be a global conference here in London, headed by the Prime Minister, on online protection of children and these sorts of issues will be discussed.

Trolls need to know that they will be prosecuted and that the action that will be taken is international. I can assure my hon. Friend that I will have international meetings in this difficult area. I will also let the Ministers in all the different Government Departments know what I have said at the Dispatch Box today, and tell them that we are coming together as a Government to ensure that we do this in a departmental way and that the lead Department leads the process. I can assure my hon. Friend that we are doing something about this.

Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

All I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that if he were right, this move would not have been as widely welcomed as it has been by the voluntary sector, for precisely the reasons I gave. It has been widely welcomed by that sector, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole would be happy to share his experiences with another Yorkshire Member of Parliament.

Clause 4 therefore addresses these concerns by giving reassurance that heroic behaviour in emergencies will be taken into account by the courts in the event of a negligence claim being brought. The Bill will therefore apply in a wide range of situations in which employers or others have demonstrated a generally responsible approach towards the safety of others during an activity or in which people have been acting for the benefit of society or have selflessly intervened to help others in an emergency.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I realise that the point I am about to make slightly stretches the parameters of the Bill, but given that the Secretary of State has been praising people who heroically intervene is he not as surprised as I am that the people who heroically intervened to help Lee Rigby and confronted the people who had killed them have not seen their bravery recognised? Most of us expected them to get the George medal once the trial was over, so is it not a shame that their bravery has not been recognised?

[Chris Grayling]

I think that every one of us in this House would pay tribute to those people. I am sure that my hon. Friend’s comments have been noted and he is right to highlight the degree of bravery shown on that tragic afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sadiq Khan]

If the Bill was really about social action, responsibility and heroism, those sorts of measures would be in it, but clearly it is not.

Let me remind the House of the conclusions of the Government’s own inquiry, which the Justice Secretary referred to, but not fully. Lord Young of Graffham, in his 2010 report, concluded:

“The problem of the compensation culture prevalent in society today is, however, one of perception rather than reality.”

There we have it, from the Government’s mouth: it is a perception, not a reality. The report goes on to highlight:

“One of the great misconceptions, often perpetuated by the media, is that we can be liable for the consequences of any voluntary acts”.

The report then refers to advice given to people in the winter of 2009 about not clearing snow from the front of their houses in case someone slipped and sued them. The Lord Chief Justice said that he had never come across someone being sued in those circumstances, yet the Justice Secretary has wilfully reported that old chestnut in articles he has written before today. I am happy to give way if he would like to intervene and list the occasions since 2010 when such incidents have occurred. No? Well, there we have it. His silence is telling, as he knows there are no such cases.

If the Justice Secretary’s point was that the threat of litigation is putting people off clearing snow, the Bill will do nothing to address that. In fact, the MOJ’s own statistics show that the total number of money claims in civil courts has been following a downward trend in recent years, rather than going up. In any case, the Bill deals with cases that have already reached the courts, so nothing in it will reduce the prospect of being sued. It will not reduce, as he describes it, the “stress and strain” if someone is sued.

Instead of preparing this Bill—the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner asked this question—the Secretary of State’s energies, and those of his officials, would have been better spent rebutting some of the myths about negligence and health and safety. That would have been a better way of tackling the fear of litigation, given that the likelihood of a negligence claim is pretty small. In fact, that was the advice of Lord Dyson, the Master of the Rolls. In a speech entitled “Compensation culture: Fact or fantasy?”, he argued that the perception of a compensation culture

“is not however as grounded in reality as had been suggested.”

He also suggested:

“All of this may also require a substantive educative effort on the part of government, the courts and the legal profession to counter-act the media-created perception that we are in the grips of a compensation culture. It may also require greater public legal education.”

Perhaps that education should have begun with the Justice Secretary.

I have already welcomed the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims to his new post and congratulated him on his promotion. I am sorry that he is not here to share the joys of the Bill with his line manager, because in his previous job at the Department for Work and Pensions he understood exactly the importance of exploding myths about health and safety. In January, in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) on health and safety, he said that

‘it is very important that health and safety is taken seriously in the workplace and in public areas. Right across the Christmas period, I went public about the need to ensure that Christmas was not spoiled by stupid comments, and stupid local authorities saying, ‘We shouldn’t do this or that’—throw snowballs, or have Christmas trees in certain areas—‘because of health and safety.’ That is wrong, and it has nothing to do with health and safety; it is an insurance risk.’—[Official Report, 13 January 2014; Vol. 573, c. 579.]

I hope that although the Minister is absent today he will be able to import some of his common sense into the current MOJ team. After all, as drafted, this Bill will not help. The Government are seeking to legislate to deal with how we perceive risk, real or otherwise. If he were serious, the Justice Secretary would tackle the misconceptions about the risk of being sued, but that is a trickier task that he has chosen to duck.

In introducing this Bill, the Justice Secretary said a lot about how it will protect the responsible employer. That prompts this question: where are the dozens of examples of courts having had a case before them where an employer has done the right thing and an employee has not, and yet they have found for the employee? There are no examples of such cases. He talked about members of the emergency services not going to someone’s rescue in case they breach health and safety rules. Will he tell the House what representations he has received from the fire, ambulance, police and coastguard services in support of that contention? Silence again.

I would like to pick up an important legal point. The Bill seems to conflate health and safety and negligence cases. The former are usually strict liability and the latter are not. That confuses civil liability with criminal liability.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I think I know how the right hon. Gentleman will respond to this point, but, for clarity, I am going to put it anyway. There have undoubtedly been cases, have there not, where policemen have said, for example, that they were not prepared to pull an apparently drowned victim out of a pool for fear of not being suitably qualified to do so? Is he saying that some measure other than this Bill will try to prevent that in future? Such cases clearly do exist, as they are widely reported to a horrified public.

[Sadiq Khan]

I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman, but he was not in the Chamber when I referred to the Master of the Rolls. We need to make sure that employees who do not know the position are educated and told the position, and that those who are not properly trained are properly trained. Debating a three-clause Bill today, and even passing it in the next few months, will not make a jot of difference. We need to make sure that the public and those who work in the emergency services are better educated and know what obligations and duties are placed on them, without the risk and fear of litigation.

Let us be clear: this Bill is targeted at negligence and not at health and safety at all. When the Justice Secretary claims, as he does, that his Bill will

“finally slay much of the ‘elf and safety’…culture”,

he must be honest about the fact that he is being disingenuous, to say the least. If this Bill were really about health and safety, he would be telling the House about the conversations he has had with the Health and Safety Executive and its views on the necessity for such legislation. Again—I think for the seventh time—I will happily allow him to intervene on me to update the House on those conversations with the Health and Safety Executive. Silence again.

We will use the Committee stage of the Bill to scrutinise in more detail its ramifications, both intended and unintended, because it might end up having the opposite effect to that which the Justice Secretary wants. A single act or omission is all that is needed to be negligent. That act or omission might be so serious, causing injury, pain or even death, as to outweigh any amount of good behaviour. He likes talking about hypothetical situations, so what about this one? You are the parent of a child. Would you want them to go on a trip knowing that if they are injured owing to a fault on the part of the school, youth club or scouts, they will not get compensated? The Bill creates the impression that this is the Government’s intention. Or this one: the chairman of a local football team cuts corners when vetting volunteer coaches working with children in the belief that he is protected by the law because in providing coaching for children, he is, to quote clause 2,

“acting for the benefit of society”.

The ramifications of this Bill are that children risk being more exposed to risk. Is that the Government’s intention in introducing it?

If that is not the Government’s intention, this three-clause Bill will not make any difference to the current state of play, as the former Solicitor-General made clear in his intervention. When assessing negligence claims, courts already take into account whether somebody is doing something for the benefit of society, as is recognised by the impact assessment of the Ministry of Justice. That is why organisations have insurance. Although they may be defendants in a claim, they would not be financially liable and their insurer would pay out.

That leads me on to another point. It is interesting that the impact assessment states:

“Insurers and other defendants may gain from slightly reduced aggregate compensation paid and this may feed through to lower insurance premiums.”

However, there is no attempt whatsoever to quantify that, and nor is there any undertaking from insurance companies that it will be passed on to customers—all of which leaves us questioning whether any of that will actually happen in practice, or will insurance companies just end up with higher profits? We all know, by the way, that those companies have donated millions of pounds to the Conservative party’s coffers over recent years.

The House must also steel itself for the inevitable last-minute tabling of a slew of Government new clauses and amendments. The Justice Secretary has a very bad habit of doing that. Such proposals get a cursory amount of scrutiny at best, but they are designed to get the good media hit he so craves and to raise a cheer from his beleaguered Back Benchers. We are very alert to the possibility of new things being added to the Bill at later stages.

Short though today’s Second Reading debate will be, given the paucity of Government speakers, it would be helpful if the Justice Secretary could provide a number of reassurances. Will he reassure us that the Government have no intention of watering down the duty on businesses, particularly small firms, to take out employers’ liability insurance, and that there are no plans to make individual employees take out their own insurance as an alternative to employers’ liability insurance?

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Gentleman will not be shocked to learn that I do not have that figure in front of me. As I said to his hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop), the Opposition need to think carefully about what they are really worried about. If they are worried about prisoners having access to books, I have reassured them that they do not need to worry about that. If, however, they are worried, as the shadow Secretary of State told us he was, about the influx of drugs and other contraband substances into prisons, they might want to reflect on the sense of restricting packages as they come into prisons. That is what we are proposing to do. What are they going to do?

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

What progress have the Government made towards their aim of greater honesty in sentencing so that the public at large and victims of crime in particular know that when a sentence is handed out, the time served will correspond to a greater degree to the sentence handed out?

[Chris Grayling]

As you know, Mr Speaker, I believe that in an ideal world 10 years would mean 10 years. I do not have the resource to deliver that immediately because of the financial constraints upon us, but I have started by ending automatic early release for the most violent and unpleasant offenders in our society so that they can no longer expect to be released automatically halfway through their sentence, and have a possibility of release ahead of time only if they are demonstrably no longer a threat to the public as assessed by the Parole Board.

EU Charter of Fundamental Rights

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Our view is that there is not a legal need to legislate. We will test the point in a forthcoming case. If the point proves that the legal position is different from what we understand it to be, we will of course have to return to this House.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I noticed that my right hon. Friend said that a future majority Conservative Government would want to take steps to reassert this House’s sovereignty over EU legislation. Does that mean that we would not be able to take such steps if the Liberal Democrats were part of any future Government?

[Chris Grayling]

It is clear that there are many things that have united us politically in the past three years where we have done good work for this country but that there are areas—European issues and issues of human rights—where we take a different view. The mature approach in a coalition is to accept that those differences of views exist, to work collaboratively together when we agree and to be honest when we do not. That is what we will continue to do. I will certainly be on the doorsteps at the next general election arguing very strongly indeed for a Conservative approach that deals with many of these issues.