Procedure for Appointing Judges

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman wholeheartedly. I will return to that point later. The exchanges that sparked those headlines came when the Attorney General was asked by one of his Back Benchers whether it was time for MPs to get involved in approving appointments at the Supreme Court level. The Attorney General responded:

“I do think that we are going to have to look again at our constitutional arrangements…there may very well need to be parliamentary scrutiny of judicial appointments in some manner.”—[Official Report, 25 September 2019; Vol. 664, c. 666.]

As I said, I think the subsequent headlines required considerable journalistic licence. It would be useful if the same headline writers would publish the subsequent remarks that the Attorney General made during Attorney General’s questions last week, when he said that

“certainly US-style hearings—would be a regrettable step for us in our constitutional arrangements.”—[Official Report, 3 October 2019; Vol. 664, c. 1360.]

Similarly, I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s words this morning at Justice questions in defence of judicial independence and against any notion of political appointments.

With impeccable timing, as soon as I received notification that I had secured this debate, I received a written answer from the Minister—I welcome him to his place—confirming that there were no plans to change the judicial appointments processes. The answer continued:

“Our judges are selected following a rigorous, independent, merit based process which is key to maintaining the quality, integrity and independence of our world class judiciary.”

That answer echoed the point made by the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell).

In the light of all those assurances, I wondered whether it was worth proceeding with this debate, but I think it is. I am grateful to hon. Members for staying to take part. It is still relevant to proceed because, despite the words of the Minister, the Attorney General and the Lord Chancellor, one fairly significant member of the Government does not seem to be singing from quite the same hymn sheet—perhaps not for the first time. Between the Attorney General’s original comments and his clarification, when the Prime Minister was asked about the consequences of the Supreme Court judgment by The Sunday Telegraph, he said:

“It will take a while to be worked through. But I think, if judges are to pronounce on political questions in this way, then there is at least an argument that there should be some form of accountability.

The lessons of America are relevant.”

Whether the Prime Minister was thinking about putting the UK on the path to a US-style system, under which Supreme Court judges are overtly political appointees, as The Sunday Telegraph interpreted it, only he knows—I very much hope not.

The pot was stirred even more firmly by a former Conservative leader who told The Times at the end of last week that

“more and more people are beginning to ask, with some legitimacy, whether it might be time to hold hearings as they do in America to find out what their political views are and what we can expect. We need to know more about these people.”

I could not disagree more strongly with that statement. A better response to the Prime Minister’s comments came from a former Cabinet colleague of his in an article for The Sunday Times this weekend:

“If he means we should learn from the weaknesses of the US system, he is absolutely right. If he means we should copy that system, he is wrong. It involves far too much political interference in the appointment of judges and also too much judicial law-making.”

My ambition in this debate is, therefore, quite modest: to achieve as broad a consensus as possible, saying clearly and loudly that we believe in the rule of law, the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary; that our appointments processes must always respect that; and, specifically, that we reject the politicisation of the judiciary, in particular through US-style appointments processes. The Prime Minister and some of the less sensible members of the Conservative party should stop stirring that pot.

I am not saying that the appointments processes in the UK are absolutely perfect, whether through the Judicial Appointments Commission of England and Wales, through its Northern Ireland equivalent, through the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland or through the appointments commissions that are convened for the purposes of selecting Supreme Court justices. No system is perfect, and they have all been criticised. It is absolutely right that we should keep those systems under review and scrutinise them to ensure that they deliver the appointment of the best judges.

Other hon. Members may want to make suggestions about how we can improve each of those systems, including to better protect judicial independence or to improve the scrutiny and accountability of judges through ombudsman and complaints processes. I have no doubt that more can be done to improve diversity on the bench, for example.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate, and I join him in congratulating the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) on the stunning cases that she brought over the past two weeks. Regarding diversity, the old system required the Lord Chancellor to make all the appointments of the judiciary on the advice of civil servants. Does the hon. Gentleman think that the new system, with the Judicial Appointments Commission, has gone far enough in reflecting the diversity of the community at large? Obviously, gender diversity has increased, because we have a woman President of the Supreme Court, but what about ethnic minority diversity?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I do not have a ready answer to that. The numbers show that it may not have gone far enough. I agree that there is more to be done to ensure that we have a bench that reflects the society that it serves, but I am not sure what the means and mechanisms for that should be.

My key point is that we should never consider or undertake the politicisation of the appointments processes, because the arguments that have been put forward in support of political interference in the appointments process are flimsy and, I would say, misguided. There is an assertion that because judges have suddenly got involved in matters that are deemed to be political, their political judgment should be open to scrutiny by parliamentarians before they are allowed to sit, but to take that view is to misunderstand the role of judges completely. Although what they decide has important political consequences, the decisions they make are not political, but legal. Therefore, a candidate’s legal abilities alone need to be assessed and compared to those of their peers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend is right. There are two misnomers in this sense. Confirmation, in the strict sense of the word, is not really what we are doing. We are scrutinising the integrity of the appointments process, which is an altogether different matter and entirely consistent with our tradition. In the same way, I wonder, were the legislation for the Supreme Court being drafted now, would we call it a Supreme Court, as opposed to a Court of Final Appeal? That has rather unfortunate implications, but that is really what it is. It is not quite like the Supreme Court in the United States, and the name sometimes gives people the wrong idea about its function.

The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East is absolutely right to say that in the recent cases that have attracted press attention, the courts—both at first instance the High Court or the Court of Session and then the Supreme Court—were asked to answer legal questions, and they gave legal answers. It is as simple as that. The judges did their job as lawyers. The attacks on our senior judiciary by some of the press are an outright disgrace and a shame upon this country. They should be called out for what they are: gutter journalism. Would to God that we had a press in this country that had anything like the quality and integrity of our judiciary. We would be the better place for it.

We are fortunate in the quality of our judiciary in all parts of the United Kingdom. We have a rigorous selection process. I am particularly aware of the work of the Judicial Appointments Commission in England and Wales, but I am cognisant of the like work that is done in Scotland and Northern Ireland by their appointments boards. I pay tribute to the work of Lord Kakkar and his colleagues on the Judicial Appointments Commission for England and Wales. The Justice Committee has had the opportunity to observe and scrutinise its work, and it is accountable to us and to Parliament for the process it engages in. Recently it published its report for the year just gone; it is a substantial document that clearly sets out the methodology by which it works and the consequences.

[Keith Vaz]

I am most grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee for giving way. May I declare my interest, which I forgot to do earlier, as a non-practising barrister? My wife is a part-time judge. I put this to the hon. Gentleman: with the system we have now—as opposed to the old system, where the Lord Chancellor made the decision himself, and it was only men who were Lord Chancellor in those days—what does he think about laypersons being able to appoint judges to the highest judicial offices when they themselves are not legally qualified? I think the system is working well, apart from the diversity angle, but what does he think, not only as Chair of the Committee but as a lawyer, about people who are not legally qualified being able to opine on giving posts to those who are the most legally qualified?

[Robert Neill]

The right hon. Gentleman reminds me to refer Members to my entries in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I think I would approach the matter he raises in this way: for transparency and because the judiciary needs the confidence not only of the profession but of the wider population and the society it serves, there is a proper role for a lay element in the selection process. The set-up we have in England and Wales with the Judicial Appointments Commission, which has lay members together with experienced practitioners and members of the judiciary, is probably a pretty fair balance as far as that is concerned.

[Keith Vaz]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way for a second time and enabling me to tempt him a little further. The cut-off age has deprived us of some pretty distinguished judges. Does he think we should go that step further and raise the limit from 70 to 75? Can I tempt him down that road?

[Robert Neill]

The right hon. Gentleman tempts me and I fall into the trap willingly: I entirely agree with him. It is a great shame that we have seen the retirement recently of very distinguished and able judges simply by effluxion of time. Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, Sir Brian Leveson, Lady Hallett—I was delighted to see her gain a peerage—and others still have much to offer the bench. When we have real difficulty with the recruitment and retention of the highest quality judges, it seems absurd to me to set 70, which most of us would regard as the new 50—certainly those of us who are getting nearer to it—as the limit. We are cutting people off at the height of their professional powers. They have much more to offer and, interestingly, will very often be found, perfectly legitimately and properly, exercising their skills as arbitrators or mediators in commercial jurisdictions, when they would be very happy to continue exercising those skills in high public office as members of the judiciary.

I earnestly hope that one message the Minister takes back to the Lord Chancellor, who I know is apprised of the matter, is that if we have a legislative opportunity in the new Session, we should tack on a clause to increase the judicial retirement age to 75. That would be warmly welcomed. There is more that we need to do at the other end in terms of diversity. There have been improvements, but the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) is right that we need in particular to improve black, Asian and minority ethnic representation in the judiciary. There are signs of improvement, but there is much more to do.

We have made improvements in relation to gender diversity, but ethnic diversity is something that we still need to work on, as well as perhaps social background more generally. As a member of the Bar, I recognise the potential value of recruiting solicitor judges in broadening the social background base of the profession. There are now some very good and able solicitor judges, and I hope that we can encourage that too.

In a short speech, I wanted to reinforce what the Lord Chancellor, who is admirably playing his role in defending the independence of the judiciary, has said, and to recognise the point fairly made by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) that the independence of the judiciary is not just important in terms of the checks and balances of our own constitution, which are critical, but wholly consistent with our international obligations. My hon. Friend serves as a distinguished member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which is something that I have had the pleasure of doing, as have you, Mr Sharma. We all know that Britain is looked up to by our colleagues because of the independence of our judiciary. How would we be able to exercise restraint on some of the emerging democracies in eastern and central Europe, where such independence is not always to be found, were we to do anything that diluted our judicial independence?

It is important that we maintain judicial independence to meet our obligations under article 6 of the European convention, never mind article 14 of the international covenant on civil and political rights and, of course, the UN basic principles on the independence of the judiciary. If we want Britain to remain a world leader in high esteem, maintaining the independence of the judiciary is critical. I hope that the debate will enable us to send a message to all at large that we recognise the checks and balances that are implicit in, and that underpin, our constitution, and that the separation of powers, the independence of the judiciary, and the acceptance of its independence by all, whether we agree with an individual decision or not, are crucial to our national wellbeing.

Courts and Tribunals (Judiciary and Functions of Staff) Bill [Lords]

Keith Vaz Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 12th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

I, too, thank all hon. Members who have participated in the proceedings on the Bill today and throughout its passage for the considered and learned contributions they have made. I also thank the Public Bill Office, as well as organisations such as the Law Society, the Bar Council and Justice for the expertise and support that they have provided throughout these proceedings.

From the outset, we have made clear our reservations about the measures contained in the Bill: the fact that there is no proper parliamentary scrutiny of the delegation of powers to non-judicial staff; the fact that there are no minimum qualifications and experience for staff to whom powers are delegated; and the fact that there is no statutory right to reconsideration by a judge of the decisions made by authorised staff. We have been clear that we are not opposed to the principle of reform and change to our courts system. However, we cannot support the changes in this Bill without the protections that we, the Bar Council and the Law Society, among other organisations, and legal professionals have called for. Unfortunately, on these matters, we feel that we have been ignored, and therefore we will oppose the Bill on Third Reading today.

Judges hold considerable power in our courts system. They have the power to commit individuals to prison, to detain, to repossess, to grant injunctions and to issue search orders, among many others, and it takes judges years to develop the experience and qualifications necessary to wield these powers. That is why we should not take the handling of powers given to them lightly, yet that is precisely what the Government are doing in this Bill. They are passing powers currently exercised by the judiciary to authorised court staff and, most crucially, they are doing so without sufficient scrutiny. The delegation of powers exercised by the procedure rule committees will be done under delegated legislation, with no more safeguards than using a motion under the negative procedure. This is not simply a procedural matter, as the Government have stated today, but one that has the potential to change the nature of our justice system.

Under the Bill, authorised staff will find themselves able to wield considerable power. Although some decisions might seem insignificant, no court decision is small or inconsequential. The smallest decision’s implications can reach far beyond the here and now, well into the advanced stages of a case. We can easily see authorised staff making decisions that are contested because the procedure rule committees, not Parliament, are granting them the power and functions. The Government should have accepted our amendment today to require that when statutory instruments delegating judicial functions to authorised persons are introduced, they are subject to the affirmative procedure, allowing Parliament the necessary scrutiny, but they chose not to do so.

The lack of scrutiny of delegated powers and functions is even more worrying considering the lack of qualifications and experience that the Bill requires to wield them. We rightly expect a minimum standard of our judges, and so do the public. We expect that decisions in our courts are made by those with experience and the necessary qualifications, which is why we have restrictions and a thorough vetting process for those who wish to become members of our judiciary. Justices of the peace—magistrates who do not hold a legal qualification—nevertheless have considerable life experience and are still advised by trained, experienced and qualified legal staff. The Government, however, have imposed none of these requirements of experience and qualification on authorised staff.

In the Public Bill Committee in the Lords, the Minister responsible stated that the minimum standards we sought to impose then, and sought to impose in the Public Bill Committee in this House and again earlier today, would be more restrictive than those that are currently imposed on people providing legal advice in magistrates and family courts. However, that is no excuse and there is no reason why, when authorised staff are making decisions that were previously made by trained and experienced judges, we should not be upholding a higher standard. The Government counter that the decisions being made by authorised staff will be limited and that they will not be contested, but they cannot give that guarantee here today, for even the most basic decisions—extending time for service and taking pleas—may give rise to contention.

Even if we were to provide tight restrictions in the Bill for decisions that were delegated to ensure that they were not contested, that would not alter the fact that even non-contested elements of cases require experience—a view supported by Sir Brian Leveson in his review of the efficiency of criminal proceedings. Furthermore, if staff were legally trained and qualified, they would still be without the benefit of the experience that our judges hold through their many years of service in our legal system. That is why experience is just as crucial here as qualifications, as shown by our amendments and by the support that they received from the Bar Council. There was no reason why the Government could not accept the amendments on this issue, and no reason for them not to hold authorised staff to a higher standard when they are granted the power to make decisions. Clearly, however, the Government thought otherwise of the Bar Council’s expertise.

Our final point is that the Bill fails to provide sufficient safeguards for the decisions that are made by authorised staff, with no statutory right to judicial reconsideration. Clearly, the Government have not taken heed of the warning to be vigilant when judicial powers are being exercised by non-members of the judiciary. The explanations that they have provided in their factsheets—that delegated decisions will not be contested—are insufficient, as are the safeguards provided by the procedure rule committees, which are too open to pressure to reduce the right to reconsideration to ease pressures and backlogs in the courts.

Any legal decision made in our courts must be open to review and appeal. It is a fundamental principle of the rule of law, and the decisions made by authorised staff should be no different, yet the Bill does not uphold that spirit by failing to make available a statutory right to reconsideration. In failing to provide that statutory right, the Government have undermined the expectation of the public that legal decisions will be made by a judge or can be reviewed by a judge, and they have undermined our courts and judicial system in the process.

The Bill is a poor replacement for what should have been a thorough Bill filled with real courts reform. We are disappointed that the Government have failed to take up the baton of reform and to change their punitive legal aid cuts, which have left thousands unable to exercise their right to access to justice, created barren legal aid deserts and allowed legal rights to degrade to the point where they are no longer worth the paper they are written on. They have failed to change course on a courts closure programme that forces people to travel miles, at great cost and difficulty, to get to their closest courts and uphold their rights, and they have failed to address the urgent need for protection for domestic violence victims being cross-examined and questioned in the family courts by the very same people who subjected them to the abuse.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, and I agree with everything he has said. There is one other aspect that I am sure he as a constituency MP, like me and others, has faced, which is the delays experienced by our constituents in the immigration tribunal, some having to wait up to two years for a decision on whether they can bring spouses into the country. Does he agree that the Government have failed to act to clear the backlog?

[Imran Hussain]

My right hon. Friend is a distinguished parliamentarian and, as ever, makes a really important point. It is not within the remit of the Bill—one of the problems with the Bill is that its narrow scope prevents important issues such as the one he raises from being discussed—but I absolutely agree with him.

The Bill is a shadow of what it could and should have been and fails to provide protections and safeguards on the changes the Government have introduced. It is on these grounds—the lack of protections for courts, judges and people seeking justice—that we will oppose the Bill today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, which I think has relevance not just to matters of penal policy but to social policy more generally. Many charitable and voluntary organisations are helping—for example, by bringing sport into prisons—to provide the adult male role models of whom he wants more. In the context of extremism, it is also important to pay tribute to the work of the imams in the prison chaplaincy service who are arguing, from a basis of scholarship and expertise, to rebut the extremist ideology that some have espoused.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Figures from the right hon. Gentleman’s own Department show that there are approximately 1,000 prisoners who have either been radicalised or are vulnerable to being radicalised. When they leave prison, those such as Khalid Masood, the Westminster terrorist, need to be effectively monitored. Is the Lord Chancellor satisfied that there is a sufficiently robust relationship between the police and the prison authorities to make sure that when such people come out of prison we know where they are and what they are doing?

[Mr Lidington]

The information we have is that only one of those involved in the recent attacks in London and Manchester had spent time in prison. That dated back to 2003 and there was no evidence to suggest that that man had been radicalised in prison. We clearly want the strongest possible joint work between the police, the Prison Service and the probation service. I believe that what we have at the moment is strong, but there are always lessons that can be learned and improvements that can be sought. We are committed not to be complacent but to continue with vigilance and determination.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

Absolutely. As I said right at the start, we have a new directorate within Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and a new team across the Home Office and the Prison Service, with new funding to tackle that and to roll out our anti-extremism strategy. The right hon. Gentleman, who is a member of the Justice Committee, will also be aware that just last week we announced the separation centres that Ian Acheson recommended in his review and that will remove the most poisonous individuals from the main population of our prisons.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

About 1,000 individuals have been identified as extremist or as vulnerable to extremism, so the creation of those separation units is welcome. However, the key is monitoring people when they come out of prison. Can the Minister reassure us that that will happen?

[Mr Gyimah]

To be precise, there are actually about 700 people of concern. Of those 700, about 180 are in prison or on remand for terrorism-related offences. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about what happens when people come into the community. The multi-agency protection arrangements with law enforcement mean that those people are subject to strict licence conditions, and if they breach those licence conditions, they can and do end up in jail. The police are obviously part of that.

I take this opportunity to thank the police, especially those who protect us here as we go about our daily jobs.

Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend will have noticed measures in the Bill that we introduced last week to make it easier to test for drugs and deal with the problem of drugs in our prisons, and we are taking a lot of action on mobile phones. For example, new legislation under the Serious Crime Act 2015 has allowed us to turn off 160 mobile phones in our jails in the past few months. We are also working with mobile network operators so as to be able to switch off mobile phones in our jails. A lot of work is being done, but it will take time.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

These are worrying developments. Does the Minister share my concern that this action will have an impact on family visits? As he knows, the ability for prisoners to meet their families and see their children—there are 200,000 children of prisoners—is extremely important for rehabilitation. Can he confirm that this will not be affected?

[Mr Gyimah]

As I have said, strike action is unlawful. If prison officers withdraw their labour, that will make the regime even more restrictive, as the Chairman of the Justice Committee suggested. That is why we are urging hard-working prison officers to go back to work and make sure that prisoners can carry on with these regimes, whether in continuing important rehabilitative work or in making sure that our prisons are safe.

Prisons

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon]

I really do need to make progress, I am afraid.

The ambition set out in the White Paper to increase staffing levels is welcome, but 2,500 officers represent less than half the number of prison officers cut by Conservative Justice Secretaries since 2010, and in order to get 2,500 extra officers, 8,000 will have to be recruited in just two years. I wonder whether the Justice Secretary has confidence that that will happen, because I do not come across many in the justice sector who think it any more than a pipe dream under her management. In the year to September 2016, she had about 400 fewer officers. There is a crisis in staff retention; they are leaving more quickly than she can recruit them. The Prison Officers Association membership has very recently rejected a pay deal offered by the Government. What plans has she made to improve the offer and begin to make those jobs more attractive to the public? She currently faces a recruitment drive that is in danger of failing before it has begun.

Announcements that ex-service personnel will be recruited to the Prison Service might grab quick headlines, but in truth this is nothing new. There have always been former members of our armed forces taking jobs in our Prison Service. The role of soldier and prison officer are not exactly the same, by the way, as prison officers who have been in the Army have told me. The Secretary of State must explain how she can compensate for the fact that, as we have heard, so many experienced officers have left, and are leaving, our Prison Service.

Overseeing a transformation to a prison estate populated by more experienced prisoners and more inexperienced prison officers presents a clear and present danger. Inadequate staffing levels have a range of consequences. Prisons are less safe because staff are far outnumbered. Prisoners are spending more time in their cells because they cannot be managed outside, and prisoner frustration is heightened by the lack of time out of their cells.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I commend my hon. Friend for his excellent speech. Does he agree that one way to reduce the prison population would be for the Government to make better progress in the transfer of foreign national offenders? At the moment, there are 10,000 foreign national offenders in our prisons, representing 12% of the prison population. The Government sign agreements, but very few prisoners get sent back.

[Richard Burgon]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making that important point. In Justice questions yesterday, the Minister with responsibility for prisons, the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), said that he was in discussions with the Department for Exiting the European Union about the matter. We need to hear more about the progress of those discussions.

The Justice Secretary frequently points to the emergence of new psychoactive substances as a major factor in the current crisis. Does she know that in Scotland, where prison policy has been stable for some years and where staffing has remained constant, violence has not rocketed as it has across the rest of the prison estate? Scotland has NPS issues, too, but it did not axe staff in vast numbers.

Our prisons are overcrowded. Armley prison, in my city of Leeds, holds nearly twice the number of prisoners that it was built to house. Wandsworth, Swansea, Brixton and Leicester are not far behind; they are all full to capacity with another 50% on top.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are working on a strategy for women offenders that includes looking after women on community sentences as well as custodial sentences. I want more early intervention to deal with issues that lead to reoffending, such as mental health and drugs issues, and we will be announcing further plans in the summer.

We are investing in an additional 2,500 staff across the prisons estate, but we are also changing the way we deploy those staff to ensure more opportunities to engage with offenders, both to challenge them and to help them reform.

[Keith Vaz]

May I put to the Lord Chancellor the question I put to the shadow Lord Chancellor about foreign national offenders? She will know that an easy way to reduce the number of people in our prisons is to follow through on the excellent work of her distinguished predecessors, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who are both in the House today, in signing these agreements to send people back to their countries of origin. Why has progress been so slow?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments, and I am pleased to say that a record number of foreign national offenders were deported in the last year. We are making progress, therefore, but there is more work to do. My hon. Friend the prisons Minister is leading a cross-Government taskforce on this issue.

I return now to our work in recruiting 2,500 new prison officers and changing the role of prison officers. By recruiting these new staff, we want every prison officer to have a caseload of no more than six offenders whom they can challenge and support. Our staffing model aims to ensure that we have enough prison officers to do that. One-to-one support from a dedicated officer is at the heart of how we change our reoffending rates and keep our prisons and prison officers safe.

The hon. Member for Leeds East talked about the prison population, although I was none the wiser about Labour’s policy after he had spoken. The prison population has been stable since 2010, having risen by 25,000 under Labour. As was mentioned earlier, fewer people are in prison for shorter sentences—9,000 fewer shorter sentences are given out every year—but more people are in prison for crimes such as sex offences. Not only are we prosecuting more sexual offenders, but sentences for sexual offences have increased considerably, which is absolutely right and reflects the serious damage those individuals do to their victims.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow a fellow member of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). He has raised the issue of fixed-term recalls before, and I am sure that by the time the Minister responds to the debate, he will have got a grip on the matter and announced some changes that will satisfy the hon. Gentleman. If he does not, I am sure it will be raised again, not only in the Justice Committee but in the House.

In the short time available, I shall raise just one issue—foreign national prisoners. I agree wholeheartedly with what has been said by other right hon. and hon. Members about the crisis in our prisons. If we are thinking about having a club of ex-Ministers, I should say that I used to be a Minister in the Lord Chancellor’s Department, but at that time, responsibility for prisons lay with the Home Office, so I take no responsibility for what happened in the past. Perhaps a seminar of ex prisons Ministers, chaired by the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), the author of that definitive book on prisons, could meet to come up with the solutions that all Members would like to see adopted to bring the crisis to an end.

To return to foreign national prisoners, I am delighted that the prisons Minister is chairing the taskforce, about which we want to hear more. It remains a mystery to me why 12% of our country’s prison population happens to be foreign national prisoners. Half that 12%—more than 4,000 prisoners—are from EU countries. Bearing in mind the fact that we will continue to be a member of the EU for the next two years, it is extraordinary that we have not been able to send back more foreign national prisoners from our prisons. After all, what is the point of undertaking negotiations and signing transfer agreements with EU colleagues if they are unable to take back their own citizens? It must be a priority for the Government to ensure that, in the two years available before Brexit, citizens from countries such as Poland and Romania, which are top of the list in terms of numbers, should be returned to their countries.

I was surprised to hear in the Select Committee the Minister’s chief officer, Michael Spurr, tell the House that more prisoners would have been sent back to Poland under the agreement had it not been for a mistake. I think he said that 130 should have been sent back but had not been. As the Minister and the House know, the derogation for Poland ended on 31 December, so when the Minister responds I hope he will tell us that the matter is being looked at very carefully and that prisoners are being transferred. I am glad that a record number were removed last year, but the headline figure was so low that practically any additional figure becomes a record. We need to do much better than we are doing at the moment.

We have heard recently that, under the agreement with Albania, only 17 Albanian prisoners have been transferred from our prisons. It is not that we are against foreign national prisoners, we are just in favour of their being able to serve their sentences in their countries of origin. If that happens, it will reduce the prison population by 10,000 and save the taxpayer £169 million, so I very much hope that the Minister will give us some new information that will encourage the House to believe that this issue is being taken very seriously.

HMP Birmingham

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I should be very pleased to meet the hon. Gentleman.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

If the Secretary of State is looking for some light reading over Christmas, she would do well to acquire a copy of a book by the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), “Doing Time: Prisons in the 21st Century”, which contains a number of ideas. If I heard you correctly, Mr Speaker, you mentioned the hon. Gentleman’s intended marriage. Perhaps, if the Secretary of State were able to buy a copy, that would help with the cost of the wedding.

There are currently 9,971 foreign nationals in our prisons. In order to reduce the prison population, what further steps are being taken to return them to their countries of origin?

[Mr Speaker]

Book sales will no doubt increase manifold.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Lee]

Every death in custody is a tragedy. We are committed to reducing the number of self-inflicted deaths. We have reviewed the case assessment care in custody and teamwork process for prisoners assessed as being at risk and we are piloting revised safer custody training in response. All prison officers, both new and experienced, receive training to help offenders with mental health issues.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Statistics show that 50% of those who are in prison suffer from personality disorders. Does the Minister agree that it is important to assess such issues when people enter the criminal justice system—even at the stage of the custody suite—rather than after their incarceration?

[Dr Lee]

Of course the initial assessment is important, as is who does that assessment. In addition to our work on that, the care following the assessment and ongoing care, as well as the observation of prisoners, are being closely looked at.

Foreign National Offenders

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the return of foreign national offenders to prison in their own country.

I am grateful to you, Sir Alan, for your time in the Chair, to Mr Speaker for granting me permission to hold the debate, and to my constituents who have sent me here to articulate their concerns. I welcome other hon. Members to the debate, and declare myself open to as many interventions as they care to make.

My main contention is that there are too many foreign national offenders in prison in this country and that they should be in prison in their country of origin. I invite the Minister to update the House on the latest figures, first on the number of prisoners in our jails. I think it is something like 85,000, which basically means that our prisons are full to bursting. It is good that we catch people who do bad things and lock them up, but my understanding is that more than 10,000 of those 85,000—something like 12%—are foreign national offenders. At a time when our prisons are full to bursting, when we, by the Government’s own admission, do not have enough prison officers and when public expenditure is tight at best, it seems that we need to redouble our efforts to ensure that we send those foreign national offenders back to their own countries.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Hollobone]

It would be an honour and a privilege to give way to the former Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Keith Vaz]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Earlier today, the Minister gave evidence about this very issue to the Justice Committee and I asked him a question about it. Does the hon. Gentleman think it is inexcusable that there are 4,270-plus EU nationals in our prisons? If there is one group of prisoners we should return to their country of origin it is prisoners from EU countries, because they are costing the British taxpayer £169 million. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is essential, as part of the Brexit negotiations, that we get that problem sorted out once and for all?

[Mr Hollobone]

I do think we should get the situation sorted out once and for all. I pray in aid the excellent report by the right hon. Gentleman’s previous Committee, which looked into the issue. I quote, I think, from that report:

“The public would expect our membership of the EU to make it easier to deport European offenders, but this is clearly not the case, and we continue to keep thousands of these criminals at great and unnecessary expense.”

There is in place an EU prisoner transfer directive, which means that countries can compulsorily return prisoners to their country of origin within the European Union. The last time we managed to wheedle a figure out of Her Majesty’s Government on how many EU nationals we had returned to their country of origin, I think the number was 101—pathetically low. Legislation, in the form of that directive, exists with which to do that, but we are simply not getting on with it. Perhaps the Minister in his response will confirm how many EU nationals are in our prisons, how many we have returned to their country of origin, and why we are not sending thousands more of these individuals back.

I have to tell the House that, beside EU nationals, there are representatives of 160 nations from around the world in Her Majesty’s prisons. Not only are we a cosmopolitan society at large, we are also a cosmopolitan city in Her Majesty’s jails.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Ind)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Keith Vaz]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Hollobone]

I will be delighted to give way to both Members, but I feel I should give way to Rochdale first.

[Mr Hollobone]

That is a very sensible suggestion. I am not aware of all the details of the horrific crimes that that unpleasant gentleman has committed, but I do not see why British taxpayers should pay for him to be in prison—Pakistani taxpayers should. In fact, I would go further. I take the view that if a foreign national in this country commits a crime for which they are potentially imprisonable, they should be deported and banned from ever returning, whether they are in prison or not.

[Keith Vaz]

I felt that I had walked into an early edition of “Top of the Pops” when the hon. Gentleman did the countdown from 10 to one—I suppose that from his point of view it is “Bottom of the Pops”. In respect of that list, with one or two exceptions they are either EU or Commonwealth countries. We would expect, as far as the Commonwealth countries are concerned—Nigeria, Jamaica and the others—that Ministers would be able to elicit a better deal than the one they have. Only yesterday, the Polish Prime Minister was in the country. I asked the Minister this question earlier in the Justice Committee meeting. Should this issue not be the No. 1 concern when our Ministers are meeting the leaders of other countries? It would save the British taxpayer a lot of money and would enable those countries to imprison their own citizens. We would be happy to take back our prisoners who are in their countries.

[Mr Hollobone]

As always, the right hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point. From the list of 10, four are EU countries and four are Commonwealth countries. He is absolutely right. I hope that in the Prime Minister’s discussions with the Polish Prime Minister yesterday, she raised the fact that Poland was top of the list of shame and asked the Poles what they were doing to take their citizens back. I understand that Poland has a derogation from the EU prisoner transfer directive until this month. I hope that the Minister will get on to his Polish counterpart at the end of the month to say that we look forward to triggering the proposals that have become live.

Those top 10 nations account for 5,617 prisoners, but we have imported—I am afraid this is absolute truth—a wave of crime from eastern Europe with the accession of eastern European countries to the European Union. Poland has 951 of its citizens in our jails. In 2002, before Polish membership of the European Union, there were 45 Poles in prison in this country. I urge the Minister to get on with it, but I also urge him to speak to his counterpart in the Department for International Development. My list of shame of 10 countries could be cross-checked with the 28 countries that receive large amounts of aid from DFID. Indeed, I asked a few years ago how much aid we give in total to Jamaica, Pakistan, Nigeria, Somalia, India and Bangladesh, and the answer in that year was almost £1 billion, yet those six countries provide us with almost 3,000 foreign national offenders. It costs us more than £100 million a year to incarcerate those people in our jails, yet we are giving those countries £1 billion in international aid assistance.

I think we should do more things such as those we are doing in Jamaica, where we are using international aid money to build a prison to which we can return its nationals. That is a sensible use of the international aid budget. In Jamaica, we signed an agreement in 2015 to build a 1,500-bed prison. It will be built with British taxpayers’ money, and Jamaican nationals in prison in this country will go back to prison in Jamaica as soon as it is completed. Will the Minister urge DFID to look for similar arrangements in the other five countries that I mentioned?

Perhaps more worrying than those foreign national offenders in prison is the very large number of foreign national offenders who are in this country, but not in prison. Alarmingly, it takes the Home Office 149 days on average to deport a foreign national offender. That is simply too slow. The latest figures I have are for March this year. They show a total of 5,895 foreign national offenders living in the community awaiting deportation. These dangerous people are not even in prison. They are free to go about their business on our streets. Of that 5,895 FNOs, 84% have been at large for more than one year and 30% have been at large for more than five years. That is a national scandal. Very large numbers of those individuals will have committed further offences in this country since they have been outside prison. My contention is that those foreign national offenders also need to be deported. If they are not going to be in prison, they need to be walking the streets of their country of origin, not those of our country.

This is an alarming state of affairs, and I am looking to the Minister—he has a solid reputation for being enthusiastic about his portfolio and being skilled and articulate in arguing the case to get things done—to knock heads together in his Department and the Home Office to say that it is not good enough. The previous Prime Minister said to the Home Affairs Committee that the Government’s performance was not good enough, and I am sure the present Prime Minister would admit that. The issue is costing British taxpayers more than £800 million a year. Almost 5,000 foreign national offenders are at large on our streets. Some 10,000 are in prison in this country when they should be in prison in their countries at the expense of their own taxpayers. My constituents in Kettering are looking to the Minister to get it sorted out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank the hon. Lady for her very forcefully put question. I do not have those data to hand, but if they are available—I look to my officials—I will be happy to write to her with the detail.

There is a huge amount of activity under way on each stage of the FNO process, from the point of arrest to appearance in court, being given a prison sentence and removal back to the home country. For example, the Government have introduced clauses in the Policing and Crime Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, that will strengthen police powers with regard to early identification of nationality and will require anyone appearing in court to state their nationality. Those provisions are designed to help to speed up early identification of FNOs and so assist with their quick removal from the UK.

[Keith Vaz]

Will that include the production of their passport? Telling the court their nationality is very important, but the production of the passport is absolutely critical. Is that included in those measures?

[Mr Gyimah]

I believe that is included in the process that I have outlined. In other initiatives, my Department is currently working on proposals to introduce a new fast-track appeals process that will apply to all detained foreign offenders. That process will make sure that appeals are determined as efficiently as possible, so that foreign offenders may be removed from the UK more quickly.

We have also strengthened our ability to deport foreign offenders through new powers introduced by the Immigration Act 2014, which contains a discretionary power allowing us to deport first—the FNO can appeal later. That means that foreign offenders cannot delay their removal with frivolous appeals and are instead required to appeal from abroad, but only if the Home Secretary certifies that removal pending the outcome of any appeal would not risk serious irreversible harm following their return. More than 4,100 foreign offenders have been deported under that new provision since it came into force in July 2014, with many more going through the system.

In terms of wider cross-governmental work, which I have touched on, I am determined that we make extensive use of the influence and worldwide reach of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development, which my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering so articulately focused on, so that we can bring our relationships to bear in discussions, to make sure that we fast-track the process.

Safety of Prison Staff

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure the right hon. and learned Gentleman is keenly interested in the contents of the speech, and it may be a sentiment more widely shared. If that supposition on my part is judged to be accurate, perhaps the Secretary of State will place copies of the said speech in the Library of the House.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

We all look forward to reading the speech; whether or not it is in the Library, we will get a copy. The root cause of the problem is overcrowding, which creates stress on the staff and on other prisoners. Currently, there are 13,000 foreign national prisoners in our prisons, and the prisoner transfer arrangement with the EU has been going painfully slowly so far. We have now decided to come out of the EU. What further steps can be taken to get countries to take back their own citizens?