Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

At the annual general meeting of Liberty earlier this month, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said that the Government should reconsider their plans to remove certain categories of social welfare law, at least for a period while Government reforms elsewhere in the system—such as welfare reforms—create increased demand for advice. Will the Lord Chancellor accept that excellent advice from his right hon. Friend and protect those categories of legal aid, at least during a transition period?

[Mr Clarke]

We have consulted very carefully on legal aid, on both parts. We have made quite significant changes to what we originally proposed. On welfare benefits, we are still of the opinion that the welfare system was not intended to provide a source of litigation where legal advice was required to take an appeal in the last resort to a tribunal. That was not intended to be a legalistic activity but to try to apply what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security is trying to make more comprehensible by dealing with the rules of entitlement to social security in a sensible fashion. I do not think it is a promising area for legal advice.

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[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

In the short time that is available, let me highlight two or three points. First, in looking at meaningful and appropriate sentences, it is very important to ensure that community penalties are well designed and right. I welcome the recognition that Ministers are giving to the significance of such an aim. I am concerned that as further cuts have to be found in the justice budget, it will be probation that will bear the brunt.

The probation service in my constituency is already facing a 24% funding cut over three years. It has told me absolutely clearly that it cannot take any further cut without it compromising both the protection of the public and its ability to run programmes that will contribute to the reduction in reoffending that we all seek. It is particularly concerned that its ability to manage prolific offenders will be compromised if it has to undergo further cuts. The cuts will have an impact not just on the probation service, but—because of the multi-agency approach that it adopts for the management of prolific offenders—on those outside the ambit of the Lord Chancellor’s control, such as the police. The service is very anxious indeed that the cuts will have a damaging affect on its work.

Secondly, payment by results is a model that has been accepted across the House. None the less, it is important that we ensure that we design the models to secure the results that we want. In particular, we must not create short-term contracts. We cannot be rewarding organisations for keeping people out of the criminal justice system only for a very short period after they emerge from whatever sentence they have undergone. Let us ensure that these contracts are of a sufficient length to challenge providers to achieve long-term reductions in reoffending and that we make use of the best and most expert support from the private and voluntary sectors. There is much to be learned. I hope that the Lord Chancellor will use the experience that was gained from the provision and design of the Work programme. The role of voluntary and specialist providers was very much to pick up some crumbs from the private sector table rather than to have a proactive approach in helping to design the best- quality programmes.

Thirdly, let me briefly cover prisoner working. I welcome the intention to extend prisoner working and the comments that the Lord Chancellor made in response to a question from me recently in relation to ensuring that prisoner working would be not just any old work but meaningful work that would improve long-term employability, with an important link to prisoner education too. I hope that, as we consider the Bill, the Lord Chancellor can give us more information on prisoner working and tell us how exactly how the employability programmes run by the probation service will correlate with the DWP’s Work programme, which was alluded to by the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds).

I must tell the Lord Chancellor that there are some fears. For example, my probation service runs effective employability programmes for the offenders under its management that may not be what the DWP is looking for in the Work programme. It would seem extremely foolish to unwind effective programmes run in the criminal justice system, when a good bit of coherent planning across Departments could ensure that we have the best Work programme for those who are in the criminal justice system.

Finally, may I tell the Lord Chancellor that the prisoner working that has been available so far has not been brilliantly well-designed for women in custody? We need to consider how it can meet women’s needs while in custody and when they leave it, so that they can access the labour market. I am pleased that the Government are continuing with many of the reforms to the women’s custodial system that we began to put in place when in government, following Baroness Corston’s excellent recommendations, but I regret that we have now apparently lost a ministerial champion for women in the penal system. I strongly urge the Lord Chancellor to think about reinstating that important post to ensure that a focus on women in the custodial system remains centre stage.

Sentencing Reform/Legal Aid

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

We did have quite a lot of support and it was not all from wishy-washy liberals. We also had some opponents who opposed the policy for reasons that I completely disagreed with. I was impressed by the input I got from serious people in the criminal justice system who are all used to discounts for early guilty pleas. Anyone who has ever had anything to do with criminal justice knows that there has always been a discount for pleading guilty early. The public do not know that and they do not like it when they are first told it, but there are good reasons for it. However, a reduction by half proved to be too much and I could not find any other way of resolving the issue and getting over the undoubted difficulties, so if there are any bleeding-heart liberals left who still think we are going to have a reduction by half, I am sorry to disappoint them, but at least my hon. Friend and I are now agreed on where we are.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will be aware that many prisoners have very poor levels of skills and limited work experience. Will he tell us how his plans for prisoner working will improve their employability prospects when they leave prison and what plans he has to link education with prisoner working?

[Mr Clarke]

I agree with all that the hon. Lady has said and we will try to produce programmes that deliver what she obviously hopes we will do. First, we have all the work experience in prison that we are going to provide. We will try to organise serious work as much as possible with the collaboration of outside businesses which, for social responsibility reasons, are often very attracted to getting involved in this area. The work inside prison should be more meaningful and more like the ordinary disciplines of working life outside. It should, with luck, add to the training and employability of those inside. Then we have to tie in with the Department for Work and Pensions’ Work programme and what it is doing to try to get people skills and employment outside. Having a job to go to greatly increases the chances that an offender might not offend again and have more victims—that they might start to go straight—so this is a very important area and we are proposing to make very significant changes in tackling that side of the problem.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

That too is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and the question should be addressed to the Home Office first.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Legal aid to take family cases to court will in future be available only when domestic violence is an issue. Otherwise, couples will be expected to go to mediation. However, mediation may not be appropriate where there is a high degree of conflict, even when domestic violence is absent. What consideration is the Minister giving to how such cases will work after legal aid is removed?

[Mr Djanogly]

We are studying that issue very carefully through the consultation. We believe that mediation, as a cheaper, quicker and less stressful alternative, is normally the best way to go, but there will be circumstances in which it is not appropriate, domestic violence being one of them. We are considering the definition of domestic violence carefully.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

8. What progress he has made on his proposed reform of legal aid.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

15. What progress he has made on his proposed reform of legal aid.

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

The consultation for the reform of legal aid closed on 14 February and we have received some 5,000 responses from members of the public, lawyers and their representative bodies, advice providers, charities and many others. We are continuing to review all the representations received and we hope to publish our finalised proposals, which will include plans for implementation, after the Easter recess.

[Mr Djanogly]

We do not accept the figures provided by Citizens Advice, but we do recognise that early advice can certainly be helpful in a range of contexts. Often, people need general advice on welfare benefits or debt rather than legal advice.

[Kate Green]

The Government are announcing a huge programme of welfare reform, which means that, at least for a time, there will inevitably be confusion and uncertainty about entitlement. Will the Minister explain how it can be right to consider removing funding for legal aid for welfare benefits and social law matters right now? What guarantees will he give about continued funding for such advice?

[Mr Djanogly]

There is never a right time to do these things, but we feel that legal aid needs to play its part in reducing the deficit and that is what we propose to do. In terms of benefits, there could be an issue with more benefit claims coming through from the Department for Work and Pensions and we are working closely with that Department to ensure that we maintain a smooth service.

Legal Aid Reform

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I totally agree that there is scope for other funding provision, but that has not been available yet. In fact, provision is being withdrawn because of the withdrawal of funding for face-to-face advice from citizens advice bureaux.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend also accept that the need for advice is rising in the current economic climate, particularly on employment, social welfare benefits and debt?

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I completely agree. This is a time of great change for many clients, and the need for legal help is even more vital.

The suggested resolution to the problem is the community legal advice helpline, the gateway to civil legal aid services that will offer non-eligible clients access to paid services. First, I wish to take issue with the premise that the legal aid scheme has expanded beyond its original intentions. Actually, the Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949 was promoted with very wide objectives, which were explained as being intended to provide

“legal advice for those of slender means and resources so that no one will be financially unable to prosecute a just and reasonable claim or to defend a legal right”.

I am not convinced that a gatekeeping telephone helpline will promote that.

Access to telephone advice is important, and I would welcome any expansion of it, but it has to be implemented in tandem with face-to-face services. Clients need to have that choice. The community legal advice helpline uses an 0845 prefix, which is very expensive from a pay-as-you-go mobile. Many people with learning disabilities or mental health issues prefer to attend in person, to pick up on non-verbal signals and build the trust necessary to tell the advisers their problem. Citizens advice bureaux make a particular effort to reflect the communities that they serve, and that is why people use their services.

As an aside, I should like to mention volunteers, who are mentioned in the consultation paper as another way for people to pick up advice if the proposed changes are made. However, I do not believe that that is true. Volunteers work best and most confidently when they are supported and encouraged by specialists. It was only when that support was provided that the number of volunteers and the depth of the work that they undertook increased significantly in the bureau that I managed.

There are opportunities to save money in the justice sector without placing the burden on front-line services. The Ministry of Justice intends to reform the Legal Services Commission, and there is a large amount of bureaucracy in the administration of legal aid. I spent 60% of my time managing 30% of the money that I got. A lighter-touch procurement, auditing and payment mechanism could be found, and that needs to be considered seriously.

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[Tom Brake]

Of course I am not accusing any ex-Minister of being personally dishonest.

I thank the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) for his intervention. I think that Members on both sides of the House regret the decisions that are having to be taken, but it is incumbent on Ministers and Members on this side to come forward with solutions. If the Opposition want to be taken seriously, they need to offer solutions as well.

[Kate Green]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the solution that the Government are proposing—namely, the wholesale removal of significant categories of social welfare law—is the most damaging and unsatisfactory way to proceed?

[Tom Brake]

I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), is listening carefully and that there might be some adjustments to what is being proposed. We need to hear solutions, however. We do not need to hear a list of concerns without it being followed by solutions. We all face this problem.

I want to use this debate as an opportunity to raise a couple of specific points, about which I have written to the Minister. I thank him for meeting me, Steve Triner and other representatives of my local citizens advice bureau to discuss their concerns about the proposals. I have also recently had meetings with three solicitors in my constituency office. Like other Members on both sides of the House, I too have received a wide range of briefings from various organisations. I received a briefing yesterday from the Equal Rights Trust, and I want to raise a specific point in that regard. I hope that the Minister will be aware of the points that have been raised with me, as I have already written to him about them.

The first point relates to medical negligence. There is concern about the impact that the changes could have, and whether particularly difficult and complicated medical cases for which the NHS would previously have taken responsibility might be passed over to social services, resulting in their having to take on the financial costs of, for example, the most serious obstetric mistakes involving brain damage in very young children. That is a very specific issue, and I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to it.

My second point relates to family law. Interestingly, in my meeting with the solicitors, they were not particularly concerned about the idea of a telephone helpline. They were, however, concerned about what would happen beyond that stage, in regard to referrals. They wondered whether there would be a means of identifying at the beginning of the process that someone could not be dealt with by telephone and that a face-to-face meeting would be required.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the question. We are already looking at the law on squatting; this, in a sense, is an associated issue. I shall be happy to examine it as well.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

T9. As part of the review that the Secretary of State is carrying out into implementing giving prisoners the right to vote, will he consider the issue as, in some ways, a positive opportunity to prepare them for reintegration into society? How is he approaching that?

[Mr Clarke]

Of course we would welcome prisoners preparing in any way for rehabilitation as honest citizens in society. I wait to see how many prisoners will actually take advantage of the opportunity when we decide the extent to which we have to go to comply with the Court judgment. It is conceivable that in some cases the vote would widen the mind of prisoners and prepare them for taking on the obligations of citizenship. I actually do not think, however, that we should take that too far.

Defendant Anonymity

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

No, it does not. I am delighted to say that the right hon. Gentleman has provided me with a cue to begin the next part of my speech, which deals with that issue.

In taking our position forward, we will examine the question of section 44 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, which I understand has never been implemented. That section grants anonymity at the pre-charge stage to persons under 18 years old who are involved in criminal investigations, including suspects. It already provides a statutory equivalent for children and young persons to the measures that we have in mind for adults, and as such is linked to the present debate.

Now, for the benefit of the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and other hon. Members, I should add a final note on the question of research. As hon. Members will be aware, the director of analytical services in the Ministry of Justice has been asked to produce an independent assessment of the current research and statistics on defendant anonymity in rape cases. We are aiming to publish this report before the summer recess, in the week commencing 26 July. It will cover all the available research and statistics on the subject and is intended to inform the debate.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Will the Minister clarify whether the published research—which will be immensely helpful—will include an analysis of media coverage, including, for example, statistics on coverage suggesting that the victim was in some way to blame? Or is media coverage to be excluded from the analysis?

[Mr Blunt]

I will direct the attention of the director to the hon. Lady’s remarks, to see whether it is possible to achieve that objective. If we were able to come to intelligent conclusions that would assist the debate, I am sure that that would be useful. We shall have to see whether this will be possible; we will examine the matter and try.

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[Simon Hughes]

I absolutely agree with that. I was very critical, publicly and in the House, of the fact that it took so long for Ian Huntley to be brought to justice for the Soham murders, given that although he had not been convicted before, he was on the radar of the police in Lincolnshire, I think, and on Humberside, before he moved to Cambridgeshire. I was also very critical of the fact that John Worboys, who lived in my constituency, was not brought to court until he had committed at least 70 offences. I think that the police have gradually learned the lesson and are improving their system, as the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), who has relevant ministerial experience, knows, but it took a lot of work to get the police to change their attitude and to take these issues much more seriously all the time. There have been many cases relating to offences in my constituency and elsewhere—in the latest one, a man who was a serial offender was arrested in relation to offences in south-west London—where the pattern of serial offending was such that clearly there could and should have been earlier intervention; the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) is quite right.

Without repeating what others have said, let me quickly remind hon. Members of how we got to this point. In 1976, we legislated to give anonymity to complainants in rape cases. That was extended to other sex offences in 1992. In 1976 we legislated to give anonymity to defendants in rape cases for the period until 1988, when the law was then changed. After a period of just under 12 years, the law went back to where it was before, and where it remains. Since then, despite the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which was a major piece of legislation, we have not changed the law in this area. The same year, the Home Affairs Committee came up with its recommendation that we should change the law, but we have not done so, and it was against that background that my party—it is not a secret—had a long debate specifically on rape at the 2006 Liberal Democrat conference, because of the concern about the low number of convictions. That was what precipitated the debate, and I want to share its conclusion because, yes, the source of this policy is indeed my party’s deliberation.

We noted that the rate of conviction is only about 5%—a figure that we have often heard and that is much lower than that in many other places in Europe. Reported rape is rising every year, but successful prosecutions are not rising; indeed, they are falling. The number of rapists who are given a caution and freed almost doubled in the previous decade. The health-related costs of rape are phenomenal, let alone the other social costs. The Sentencing Guidelines Council allowed the perpetrators of rape to avoid jail if they showed remorse—not something that I would ever countenance. Amnesty International produced a worldwide report that challenged the perception—this point was made by the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson)—about self-induced offences and said that it was far from the truth in most cases. Clearly, such offences are as far from any other from being self-induced.

We also flagged up the tainting of those who were accused and then acquitted. I want to step back for a second. I am sure that colleagues on both sides of the House know that the people who are most vilified in prison and those in the community who are viewed with most suspicion are those accused and either convicted or not convicted of the most serious sexual offences—more so than other offences of violence, apart from the most horrible ones, such as child murder or domestic violence and the rest.

[Kate Green]

I accept that the vilification of sex offenders inside and outside our prisons is a factor of which we must be mindful, but it is important that we have more information on different experiences of sexual offence. The vilification of sexual offenders who have committed offences against, for example, children is quite different in my experience from how the media and the public respond to sexual offences against women—particularly, for example, young women who have been drinking or who are known to their attackers.

[Simon Hughes]

I accept entirely what the hon. Lady says. She is right, which is why we need to proceed with caution. These areas are both sensitive and ones in which there is still prejudice and misinformation, and it is very important to distinguish between different categories of offence and activity.

We did not debate the whole issue of anonymity in the criminal justice system, nor other ranges of offence, but we concluded that a whole raft of changes should be made, only one of which was the proposal for anonymity. We suggested making more progress with special prosecutors for rape cases and an expansion in the number of sexual assault referral centres. Rape victims should be examined only by properly qualified forensic specialists who are trained in examining rape victims. A national rape helpline should be established. Special awareness training and education should be given to police officers and health and social care professionals to support male victims of rape. We opposed the Sentencing Guidelines Council’s proposals to allow the avoidance of jail for the perpetrators of rape if they show remorse.