Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Lord Bach Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, briefly, I support every word of the introduction by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, of this amendment. On behalf of the Solicitors Pro Bono Group, which is sometimes called LawWorks, of which I am founder and president, I wholeheartedly applaud this amendment to Section 194, which can only be beneficial to pro bono.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, we congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, from these Benches. I thank him very much for his well deserved tribute to my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith. I have to say that I felt a slight tremor of envy when I saw this amendment on the Marshalled List. I have tried throughout the Bill to put forward an amendment that might have the name of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, attached to it, but have failed miserably. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, makes one attempt and it succeeds.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I will explain. The original amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, did not cut the muster as legal statute. As the noble Lord knows, I have qualifications in this area, so I tweaked it a little, on the basis of my knowledge of part 1 of the relevant material on English legal institutions, to make it fit for purpose. I was glad to do so.

I am also glad to associate myself with the intervention of my noble friend Lord Phillips, who is on a roll today. I commend LawWorks and its encouragement of pro bono work on the part of solicitors, the Access to Justice Foundation and the work of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, in this area. We hope that it will increase the stream of funding available for pro bono work. I have great pleasure in saying that the Government accept this amendment.

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I have asked four specific questions, although I have been sent many dozen more by the Magistrates’ Association. However, in the mean time, I beg to move.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I will comment briefly. My noble friend Lord Ponsonby made a good point. The question is whether the Bail Act 1976, which as he said has worked pretty well in a practical way at various levels—although no one would claim that it is perfect—needs to be changed by what appears at first blush to be a rather superficial alteration.

I am concerned about the matters raised by my noble friend, to which I hope the Minister will respond tonight, and about the prospect of a custody test and the expectation that a defendant will be given if he is granted bail on the basis that he will not receive a custodial sentence, because it may become absolutely apparent at the time of sentence, for whatever reason—and anyone who has been in a court knows that the facts sometimes do not emerge until very late on—that although the defendant’s expectation is that he will not get a custodial sentence, the court would not be doing its duty unless it gave him one.

The expectation that someone will have once they have been given bail is that they will not—to use common parlance—go down. In my view that is the wrong way around. Magistrates’ courts or Crown Courts should have the discretion that they enjoyed under the Bail Act 1976 to do what they consider to be right in the circumstances, subject to the terms of the Act. Therefore, my view is that the case for change has not been made, and that what is proposed is very superficial.

[Lord McNally]

I wonder whether one reason why the Magistrates’ Association found itself alone on this is that most other penal reform organisations welcomed a proposal that will prevent people being sent to jail. One of the big arguments that we have had about the inexorable rise in our prison population over recent decades is over whether as a society we are too quick to send people to jail. The no real prospect of custody test simply asks, “If you are not going to imprison a defendant if he is convicted, why should you be able to do so before he has been tried?”.

The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, tabled amendments that would remove the no real prospect of custody test from some, although not all, of the places in Schedule 11 where it appears. Amendment 152JA would remove the amendment to Section 7 of the Bail Act, which applies to the test to bailed defendants who have been arrested for absconding or breaking their bail conditions. Amendment 152JD would remove the amendment that applies the test to defendants who have committed offences that merit summary imprisonment. However, for some reason the paragraph in Schedule 11 that introduces the no real prospect test for indictable offences is left undisturbed. Amendment 152DA removes the definition of custodial sentences that is relevant to the no real prospect test, but Amendment 152JB appears to remove a consequential amendment that is not directly related to the test.

The noble Lord spoke of the risks to the safety of the public, but how much of a risk is a defendant for whom it can be said that there is no real prospect of custody? We also heard about intimidation. However, as we mentioned, intimidating witnesses is an offence in its own right that is not only imprisonable but likely to result in a custodial sentence. A defendant who is not facing custody for their original offence would be foolish to put themselves at risk of receiving a far more serious sentence by trying to interfere with a witness.

We recognise that special considerations may apply where the circumstances of the offence suggest that there may be a risk of domestic violence. That is why we have included an exception designed to protect those who might be vulnerable in this way. This exception in new paragraph 15 of Schedule 11 would in fact be removed by Amendment 152JC. I do not understand why.

The noble Lord asked me a number of specific questions about the August riots, curfews and the need for sufficient information to be given. It would be fun for me to try to reel off answers from the Dispatch Box, but it would be better, and certainly safer for me, if I wrote to the noble Lord and made that reply available in the Library of the House. He can then contemplate what he will do at Third Reading.

I am not sure that the Magistrates’ Association is on the right path here. We think this is a sensible proposal for keeping people out of prison when it is not strictly necessary for them to be there. I will try to give the noble Lord answers to his questions, but in the mean time I ask him to withdraw his amendments.

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[Lord Judd]

My Lords, it takes a good deal of cheek for me, as a lay man, to come in after three speeches like that. All I can say is that in the society in which I want to live, no matter how heinous or terrible the crime that has been committed—clearly, these crimes are about terrible things that have happened—that society should be based on the principle of hope of redemption and hope that even the worst offender can become a better and decent person, otherwise it has a very negative culture that undermines a lot more than simply the issue of the prisoner himself. It is about the values and self-confidence of society as a whole. It is high time that this situation was put right. I am very privileged as a lay man to support these well qualified views that we have just heard. I hope that the Minister will take them seriously.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I can be very brief because the speeches that have been made set out the case very well indeed. Proper caution has been taken in the way in which the amendment has been worded. We all know that the people whom we are talking about have committed the most terrible offences and in many cases—in practically every case, I suggest—it may well be, given the caution included in the wording of the proposed new clause, that these people will stay in prison for the rest of their lives. All that the noble and learned Lord is asking, as a matter of principle, is that for anyone after they have served—this is the caution— 30 years of a sentence,

“it shall be the duty of the Secretary of State, after consulting the Lord Chief Justice”—

of the day, presumably—

“and the trial judge if available, to refer the case to the Parole Board”.

Surely we have trust and faith in the Parole Board. The Parole Board has to be satisfied that,

“it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that the prisoner should be confined, and … that in all the circumstances the release of the prisoner on licence would be in the interests of justice”.

My argument is that the Parole Board has to make hard findings in any case, particularly in cases of this kind. Even if the Parole Board is satisfied on these matters, the amendment says only that it “may direct his release under this section”.

The amendment is extremely cautious, but it is humane, in the way that has been described, for people who sometimes may seem not to deserve the protection of a humane state. However, we live in one, and surely the point of the penal policy is for it to be humane when it can be.

I listened carefully to what the Minister said in response to this matter in Committee and it seemed to me then that the Government’s real case is—I put it crudely—that the Daily Mail would not like it. If that is really the level of the argument that the Minister is going to put again today, it is quite unsatisfactory for a matter of principle of this kind. I hope that, if the Minister opposes the amendment, he will find a better argument than that.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, the better argument is that if I accepted the amendment, the Labour Party would, as it has done on most law and order issues over the past 20 years, try to outbid the hard right to the right. If the noble Lord is announcing a new Labour Party policy on this issue, I shall give way. No, he is not, so let us not go too far down that road.

I acknowledge that this is a cautious amendment. We have heard from some very distinguished and learned Members of the House and I shall not try to match them in legal skills. However, I have been around politics for quite a few years and, in many ways, one has to make political judgments. If we had been debating this in the 1960s along with Sydney Silverman or in the 1970s with Roy Jenkins, we might have found a political atmosphere in which to discuss these issues. Sadly, things have moved on since then and if you are a legal reformer like me you try to make progress where you can.

Part 3 of the Bill carries us forward significantly in two areas of legal reform: reform of IPPs, which we will be discussing later, and the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. I believe that those are worthwhile measures. I do not think that we are in a position at the moment to move as far as this amendment suggests, cautious though that may be in rational terms. Just as there are passionate arguments about the possibility of ultimate rehabilitation for even the most dangerous offenders, there are equally passionate arguments that there are some prisoners who should never be released under any circumstances. Both views were reflected in the debate in Committee. I do not think that we are in a position—never mind the opinion of the other place—to carry public opinion with us on this matter.

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[Lord Sharkey]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to this amendment. As your Lordships will recall, there is a provision in the Protection of Freedoms Bill which will, when it is enacted, allow all those convicted of homosexual acts subsequently decriminalised to apply to the Secretary of State to have their convictions disregarded. This provision was widely welcomed in all parts of your Lordships’ House. According to an estimate provided by the House of Commons Library, since the relevant laws came into force in 1885, 75,000 men have been convicted of such now-decriminalised offences. Of those 75,000 men, it is estimated that 16,000 are still living. The Protection of Freedoms Bill will allow these men to apply to have their convictions disregarded; this will provide real help and comfort to them and their families, relatives, friends and loved ones. It will help to put right a serious historical injustice.

As things stand, however, this comfort and rehabilitation will not be available to families, relatives, friends and loved ones of those convicted under these repealed statutes and who have since died. Our amendment simply proposes equal rehabilitation and straightforward equality of treatment for all those convicted under the repealed laws. Under the provisions of the amendment, the relatives of those now convicted under the repealed laws but now deceased would be able to apply to have the convictions disregarded in exactly the same way as those who are still living.

We believe that this very simple extension is fair and right in principle. It would provide some comfort and closure for the families, relatives, friends and loved ones of those who have been convicted but are not able to apply for a disregard for themselves. We believe that all those convicted under these repealed and cruel laws should have an equal opportunity for rehabilitation. The amendment would go a small way towards making amends to the many thousands of men who were cruelly and unjustly persecuted simply for being gay.

One of the men who falls into this category is Alan Turing. This is the year of the centenary of his birth, and the Royal Mail is to issue a commemorative stamp in his honour. I think that everyone would acknowledge that Turing’s work at Bletchley Park on cracking the Enigma code contributed greatly to our efforts in the last world war and that Turing is, of course, the father of modern computer science. I know that my noble friend the Minister is well aware of the injustice of Turing’s treatment and, by extension, is well aware of the injustice in the treatment of all gay men similarly convicted and punished.

In answer to my Question for Written Answer in February, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said:

“It is tragic that Alan Turing was convicted of an offence which now seems both cruel and absurd—particularly poignant given his outstanding contribution to the war effort”.—[Official Report, 2/2/12; col. WA 342.]

Those sentiments echo those of the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who, in writing in the Daily Telegraph in September 2009, said of Turing:

“The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. He was in effect tried for being gay”.

He continued by saying:

“I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him”.

Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted, under homophobic laws, were treated terribly. These many thousands of gay men were treated terribly, and our amendment would help to put some of that right. I hope that my noble friend will be able to give this amendment sympathetic consideration and I beg to move.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, from the opposition Front Bench I thank the noble Lord for the impressive way in which he moved the amendment, and an impressive amendment it is too. He could not have put the case better. We look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in reply, and we would be very surprised if it is not sympathetic.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Sharkey for putting his case, and indeed I have deep sympathy for it. The amendment appears to extend the provisions contained in the Protection of Freedoms Bill so that they are also available to those who are no longer alive. The provisions in that Bill allow a person to apply to have his historic convictions for consensual gay sex with over-16 year-olds deleted from official records, the effect of which is that those convictions will no longer affect that person’s life or career. This was a commitment made in our programme for government. However, the objective is not to rewrite history. The provision in the Protection of Freedoms Bill does not state that the person was wrongfully convicted, nor does it pardon them. It is just that they can now be treated for all purposes in law as someone who was not convicted of those offences.

The position in relation to those who have been convicted of this type of offence and have since died is different. I understand the strength of feeling about such convictions, and the cruelty of the laws under which they were imposed, and I know that this is particularly true in relation to the conviction of Dr Alan Turing. As Gordon Brown said in 2009, while we cannot put the clock back, we recognise that his treatment was utterly unfair and we are all deeply sorry for what happened to him. He deserved so much better. That said, I do not believe that the provisions for disregarding convictions, which are concerned with the practical consequences of conviction, are an appropriate means of putting right the wrongs done to people who are no longer alive to suffer those consequences. As my noble friend himself points out, the numbers involved are potentially very large. I understand his aim, but I am afraid that we cannot agree to his amendment. I realise that he will be disappointed, but I am afraid that I must invite him to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, on raising yet again this completely unnecessary clause towards the end of this long Bill. It is well described as unjust, unnecessary and, indeed, unaffordable. I shall come to those in a moment. We all know that homelessness is on the rise. Since we last debated the issue in Committee, figures show that in London the rise in the number of those who are sleeping on the streets is higher than it was 12 months ago and 24 months ago. That surely must be of concern to us. Of course we must make a distinction between those who are lifestyle squatters and those who are forced into squatting. Some 40 per cent of homeless people live in squats because they prefer that to living on the street. This is about housing, as the noble Baroness said in moving the amendment. It should be treated as a housing issue, not a criminal justice issue.

The reason it does not have to be treated as a criminal justice issue is because it is quite clear that the current law is comprehensive and effective. According to the Law Society:

“The proposals in this consultation are based on misunderstandings by the media of the scale of the problem and a misunderstanding of the current law”.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, mentioned the Criminal Law Act 1977 and its powers to deal with this menace when it really is a menace. I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Northover: what is the need for a new criminal offence as far as this is concerned?

One of the justifiable criticisms of the last Government is that they too easily brought in new criminal offences—

[Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay]

They did.

[Lord Bach]

I am very glad to have the support of the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott. But one of the principles of this Government, as I understood, was that it would not bring in this kind of new criminal legislation unless it was really necessary to do so. What, apart from a hostile media, makes it necessary for the Government to bring in this piece of new criminal legislation?

As far as unaffordability is concerned—and this is a matter I would like the noble Baroness to deal with—a methodology and use of government data endorsed, as I understand it, by a range of academics and legal practitioners has been used to calculate that this clause could cost £790 million to the taxpayer over the next five years. This is far in excess of the £350 million that the whole Bill is supposed to save, although some of us think that is a completely false figure, particularly as far as Part 1 is concerned.

The Government’s impact assessment estimates the costs as £25 million over five years. No attempt, it seems, has been made to account for the costs of rehousing and rehabilitating those who currently squat, and estimates of the costs to the criminal justice system are far too low. The organisation ALTER, which is Action for Land Taxation and Economic Reform, says:

“This change is contrary to the interests of UK taxpayers. It would provide a valuable state funded benefit to wealthy tax avoiders”.

One of the vice-presidents of ALTER is the present Deputy Prime Minister.

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, for her Amendment 157A, and if she were to ask to vote on it, even at this late hour, we would be happy to support it. We like it particularly because she has kindly taken notice of what was said in debate in Committee last time, and the six months is now 12 months, which seems to me, personally, to be a better timescale for the building being empty. However if, as may happen, she does not press this amendment to a vote, I hope she does not drop this issue. In fact, I am sure she will not, and will do her very best to make sure that it comes back before the Bill moves on and this ridiculous, silly clause becomes the law, and we start to criminalise the vulnerable and homeless, who should not be criminalised.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord McNally has explained in previous debates why Clause 136 is important to the Government. If somebody stole a car, a handbag or a phone, most people would expect there to be criminal consequences if the offender were caught. Yet, where squatters deprive a person of their residential property, some do not regard this as a crime. We do not accept that logic. The occupation of other people’s homes causes misery, and squatting in residential property should be a criminal offence.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness so early in her comments, but it is a crime. The Criminal Law Act 1977 makes it a crime. Why does she insist that it is not?

[Baroness Northover]

I will come to that in a minute. As I say, occupation of other people’s homes causes misery, and squatting in residential property should be a criminal offence just as the theft of a car would be.

Nor do we agree that squatting is a reasonable answer to homelessness, which is the key point here. In fact it is often dangerous and bad for health, and ideally people should be in mainstream services. We share my noble friend’s concern about homelessness, but squatting is not the answer.

We are therefore proposing a balanced approach: clamping down on the squatting in residential buildings on the one hand, while ensuring that genuinely vulnerable people who might be at risk of squatting or rough sleeping are given the support that they need to find alternative forms of accommodation. We are investing £400 million in homelessness prevention over the next four years, with the homelessness grant being maintained at 2010-11 levels. We also announced in December the first ever £20 million fund to prevent single homelessness. That will help to ensure that single homeless people get the help and advice that they need, and do not have to resort to sleeping on the streets or in squats.

We have also brought together eight government departments through the Ministerial Working Group on Homelessness to tackle the complex causes of homelessness. The group published its first report, Vision to End Rough Sleeping, in July 2011, which sets out joint commitments to tackle homelessness. The working group will publish its second report on preventing homelessness later this spring.

We are also tackling the number of empty homes that often attract anti-social behaviour, vandalism and squatting. We recently announced £70 million of funding to bring more than 5,600 homes back into use as affordable housing. We will announce a further £30 million shortly, including funding for community and voluntary groups.

My noble friend’s Amendment 157A would exempt squatters who occupied buildings that had been empty for a year or more. We believe that that is wrong in principle. We would not accept that after a year of non-use it would be defensible to deprive owners of their other assets such as cars or phones. Moreover, there are many legitimate reasons why a residential building might be left empty for a year or more—for example, when a property is inherited following a death and probate takes some time to be sorted out.

The amendment would also make the offence more difficult to enforce as it would enable squatters facing a charge to argue that the property had been empty for years even if they had no idea whether that was true. Instead of legal arguments turning on the true issue at stake—the criminal occupation of somebody else’s residence—this would muddy the water and put the focus back on the police or the home owner to show how long it had been empty for.

Amendment 157B would remove the definition of “building”, leaving it unclear what “building” in the offence covers and leading to legal arguments on this matter. Amendment 157C would delete the definition of “residential” in Clause 136 and replace it with a new definition. The only residential buildings which would be covered by the offence as a result of the new definition would be those which are used for the purposes set out in class categories C3 and C4 of the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987.

The amendments would introduce confusion and complexity. The advantage of the existing clause is that any structure—permanent or temporary, moveable or immoveable—is covered by the offence if it has been designed or adapted for use as a place to live.

My noble friend’s Amendment 157D would further weaken the offence by exempting squatters who entered a building prior to commencement of the offence. This would clearly not be in the interests of home owners. It would not make sense if an offender who entered a property the day before commencement, for example, could not be convicted if they continued to live in the premises against the wishes of the property owner after the offence commenced.

Amendment 160B suggests that the Secretary of State should report to Parliament prior to commencement on likely costs of the new offence to the criminal justice system and local authorities. We published an impact assessment which included costs to the criminal justice system. The impact assessment also recognised that there might be an impact on local authorities if squatters approached them for support. Requiring the Secretary of State to report further on these issues prior to commencement is therefore not necessary.

I know that when my noble friend met the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Crispin Blunt, one of her main fears was that there would be a surge in applications for social housing in the days following commencement. We have taken my noble friend’s point on board. I can assure her that through the Ministerial Working Group on Homelessness, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office will work together to ensure that any local enforcement against squatting is carried out in partnership with local homelessness services to mitigate against an associated increase in rough sleeping.

We will also liaise with local authorities in advance of commencement to ensure that they are aware of the new offence if squatters approach them for help and to remind them of their duties towards homeless people. We will encourage authorities to make use of the good practice advice letter and an additional £20 million of funding to prevent single homelessness, both of which have been developed recently with input from Crisis.

My noble friend Lady Hamwee and the noble Lord, Lord Bach, asked about the current law and why this was not sustained by what was already there. Why the need for a new offence? The current law can be improved so that it does more to deter squatters from entering and occupying a residential building without permission in the first place. We believe that there should be a specific criminal offence that protects people from those who squat in their residential buildings and that this offence should not be limited to cases where a squatter refuses to leave when required to do so. In addition, the offence under Section 7 of the Criminal Law Act 1977 does not protect residential property owners who are not displaced occupiers or protected intending occupiers. Currently, they may need to seek repossession of their properties in the civil courts, which can be time-consuming and expensive. That is why we feel that the law needs to be changed.

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[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying the fact that it is still open. Therefore, it is free for me to bring the matter back before your Lordships at Third Reading.

[Lord Bach]

I do not think that that is quite what the Minister said. She said that it was open—I do not think that she said that it would be open for the noble Baroness to bring it back at Third Reading. Perhaps the noble Baroness should ask her again and see what her answer is.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

I would be pleased to ask her again, because it is very important before I make a decision on what to do with this amendment.