Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I have every respect for my noble friend and appreciate the genuineness of his concerns, but I am not persuaded—and neither is the Opposition—that it is appropriate to change the age at which people can be married from the current age of 16, with the condition, to which my noble friend has already referred, of parental consent. We have to recognise that 16 year-olds and above are increasingly sexually active. They can serve in the Armed Forces. Many people, including me, feel that they should have the vote at 16; indeed, they will do so in the Scottish referendum next year.

I accept the legitimacy of the concerns cited by my noble friend. However, the number who might be involved in marriage from 16 to 18 is not clear—or, at least, the evidence is not before us—let alone the number who are adversely affected in the way that my noble friend described. It is a large step to alter, on the basis of what we have heard, what has been the law for some considerable time. This is quite different from matters such as female genital mutilation and the forced marriage issues which we have discussed fully today. The Opposition will not, therefore, support this amendment if it is brought forward again on Report.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for introducing this amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lady Tonge and for explaining that the rationale for it is, in effect, to raise the age of marriage to 18 years. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for his comments. This is one of those occasions when the two Front Benches are at one which people sometimes smile about.

[Lord Beecham]

Only when the Opposition are moving the matter in question.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I shall merely rise to reply, not rise to the challenge.

As noble Lords know, in England and Wales it is possible to marry from the age of 16, with parental consent, and from 18 without consent. The consequence of Amendment 8 would therefore be to make it impossible for a 16 or 17-year old to marry. While I understand my noble friend’s concerns, I do not believe this amendment is necessary because the law already provides adequate safeguards for children entering into marriages.

In England and Wales the provisions for the age at which a child can marry are contained in the Marriage Act 1949 and the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. Section 2 of the Marriage Act 1949 and Section 11 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 provide that any marriage, whether civil or religious, conducted in England and Wales, where either party is under the age of 16, would not be a valid marriage. If a marriage is solemnized and either or both of the parties is under the age of 16 that marriage will be void. For a child aged 16 or 17 to marry, the law requires the consent of the child’s parents or guardians, unless the child is a widow or a widower. These provisions recognise that, while children of this age may have the maturity to enter into marriages, it is still necessary to ensure that they are afforded some level of protection in doing so.

The Government believe that the current provisions provide appropriate safeguards for children entering into marriages. We therefore do not consider it necessary to amend the age at which people can enter into a marriage. The noble Lord has referred to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child but the convention does not address the issue of marriage. Accordingly the law relating to marriage, including the age at which a person can consent to marriage and can marry, is a matter for determination by the national law of those states, including the United Kingdom, that are a party to the convention.

My noble friend Lady Tonge is also understandably concerned, as we all are, about forced marriages. While I share her desire to do more to stamp out this abuse, the amendments as tabled are not the best way of doing this. We have just debated provisions to strengthen the law in respect of forced marriage, thereby making it a criminal offence to breach a forced marriage protection order and making it an offence to seek to force someone to marry. This is combined with a significant nationwide engagement programme and the work done by the Government’s Forced Marriage Unit to give direct support to victims and potential victims.

Amendment 12 to Clause 109 seeks to make identical provision in the case of Scotland. Marriage law is a devolved issue and Scotland has its own marriage laws. I therefore cannot comment on behalf of the Scottish Government. The noble Lord will be aware of the convention that the United Kingdom Parliament does not legislate on devolved matters in Scotland without the consent of the Scottish Parliament.

I take on board the noble Lord’s point about further discussions between stages of the Bill. I am always open to discussions on all these matters. As I said earlier, this is an important matter and this is about getting it right. If the noble Lord or my noble friend wishes to meet me I shall be delighted to do so. Based on that explanation, I hope that the noble Lord will be prepared to withdraw his amendment.

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Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

15: Clause 151, page 121, line 24, leave out “the person was innocent of the offence” and insert “no reasonable court properly directed as to the law, could convict on the evidence now to be considered”

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, this amendment is in my name and those of my noble friend Lady Smith and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan. It relates to Clause 151, dealing with compensation for miscarriages of justice where new evidence comes to light some time after—indeed, sometimes very long after—a criminal trial procedure has been concluded and the defendant convicted and sentenced, and which demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that the conviction was unsafe. In those cases, the Criminal Justice Act 1988 requires the Secretary of State to pay compensation where the conviction has been reversed or the claimant pardoned. It should be emphasised at the outset that such cases are few and far between, with only two cases a year succeeding out of around 50 claims.

At Second Reading we heard in a compelling and powerful speech from my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws of an inquiry that she chaired into sudden death cases of infants whose mothers’ convictions were ultimately overturned. We also heard of a case in which a woman whom she represented served 11 years in prison for an arson attack that killed two people but of which it eventually transpired she was innocent. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, reminded us of what might be termed the Irish cases, in which after a very long time compensation was also paid for serious miscarriages of justice.

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Clearly, as I said, we are going to return to this matter. What I have just stated is the considered government reasoning for bringing forward Clause 151 with all the legal advice at the Government’s disposal, but I am also extremely grateful to noble Lords—as I often say about the team that I have in the Liberal Democrats who occasionally advise me on these things, if we had to pay them, we could not afford them. We have had a range of thought-provoking interventions, which I will take back. I am encouraged that those interventions do not, for me, dismantle the case for Clause 151. In fact, I think that a balance of reading or a balance of listening gives me more confidence. I think, however, it would do us all well, as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, advised at the beginning, to listen carefully. I recommend that we read carefully, and we will return to this matter on Report.

[Lord Beecham]

The Minister has given an interesting and full reply to what has been a very interesting and compelling debate, demonstrating yet again that consideration of these matters goes further and deeper in your Lordships’ House than it does in another place, where, frankly, this issue was dealt with in fairly peremptory fashion.

I am grateful to all Members of your Lordships’ House, particularly the noble and learned Lords, for their contribution to the debate, and I will certainly be taking my own advice and that of the Minister and reading very carefully and more than once the contributions that have been made in this very difficult area, both philosophically and in terms of jurisprudence.

It is interesting that the Minister rejects the test that is advanced in the amendment as not acceptable and again repeats the mantra that applicants are not required to prove their innocence because, as he implies, the amendment suggests that everybody whose conviction is quashed should be compensated. That is not what the amendment is intended to achieve and not what it says. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, identified one category where purely procedural defects of a significant nature—for example, somebody being wrongly brought over to this country for trial— was sufficient to make a conviction vulnerable to quashing, and indeed it was quashed. That did not give rise to the sort of concerns that the amendment seeks to address.

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Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

16: Clause 152, page 122, line 11, leave out “£200” and insert “£100”

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, happily this is a relatively short matter and appropriately I shall be speaking to it.

The issue here is a change to the way in which shoplifting is to be dealt with. The thrust of the Government’s proposals is to make a summary-only offence of shop theft below £200. That would facilitate matters being disposed of without trial following a written guilty plea, with a fine then usually being imposed on an absent defendant. It might seem somewhat illogical for the Government to preserve the right to elect trial for somebody even on a charge for such a moderate amount, but they are absolutely right to do this.

The problem identified by members of the retail trade and the Magistrates’ Association in particular, and perhaps also by others, is that under the present system an on-the-spot fine can be given for a low-value shop theft if the penalty, which I believe at the moment is £80, is not paid within 21 days. Half of them, incidentally, are not. It then becomes a higher fine of £120 and the court system manages the collection. That is a reasonable way to approach first-time offenders. It should not, however, continue to be available for repeat offences. The penalty notice for disorder—we are into alphabetical descriptions again: the PND—is not an admission of guilt.

The police often caution offenders for shop theft—that does require an admission of guilt. It could be the next stage after a previous PND. A summons to court may follow after two previous incidences of shop theft. If the Government’s measures turn this into a kind of postal process only, there is the danger that repeat offenders will accumulate a succession of fines without really being stopped or deterred at all. The view of the Magistrates’ Association is that a great deal of shop theft goes undetected as it is, and some offenders detected under this process for the third time will have committed nearer to 30 offences. This is obviously not good for the trade. It is also probably not good for the offenders. Many of them have huge problems. They may be afflicted by homelessness and a consequent inability to claim benefits, or they may have problems of addiction to drugs or alcohol. Of course, those aspects will not be picked up on at all under this process. There is therefore a double risk, both to the trader and, indeed, very often to the offenders.

The purpose of the amendment is therefore to narrow the scope within which these new procedures can apply. The figure is one which simply triggers the debate. In the Commons, my honourable friend Mr David Hansen who moved the amendment did so with two figures, £100 and £40. It is irrelevant which figure one looks at, the question is whether the system as proposed will produce more problems rather than fewer for both traders and potentially for offenders, and whether—at the very least—a lower figure might limit that. I hope that the Minister will consider that area. I am not expecting a complete response tonight, but perhaps by the time we come to Report the Government could have had another look at this issue with a view to seeing whether some of these fears which have been expressed by those with an interest in the matter can be properly addressed. I beg to move.

[Lord Borrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment —I suppose because it comes from my Front Bench. However, I do not like the provision in the Bill at all. Shoplifting has been with us, as it were, for a long time. Correct me if I am wrong, but it is unprecedented for shoplifting to be singled out as a form of theft that should receive special attention. What is the gain to the public of that?

Shoplifting is of course prosecuted under the Theft Act 1968. When I was a young barrister prosecuting young shoplifters up and down Oxford Street, the notion was that very few people did other than plead guilty. They wanted to get it out of the way. They certainly did not want to go for trial and have to wait until a jury trial could be arranged. Therefore, they invariably preferred the summary trial. I would be surprised if that were any different today.

I see little point in this clause if it introduces for the first time special provision relating to one particular kind of theft. Why this kind of theft? Why not theft from one’s employer, or from one’s friends and neighbours? Why shoplifting, in particular? From my experience of years ago, I am afraid that the general public seem to think that shoplifting is not nearly as serious as real theft. It is something that most people engage in when they are young, or otherwise. However, to label this aspect “shoplifting” rather than theft in general, as the Government are doing, is perhaps to lend credence to the notion that shoplifting is not so important at all.

I suggest that the very least which could be done would be to adopt the amendment of my noble friend Lord Beecham. Really, however, the Government ought to withdraw the clause. Is the Bill not big enough, covering enough subjects, as it is, without dragging in something which has no relevance to any other part of the Bill?

[Lord McNally]

It is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Borrie. I have always thought of him as a complete Front-Bench loyalist but also acknowledge his considerable experience in this area. By the way, I am only teasing him about being a Front-Bench loyalist.

A long time ago I was director of the British Retail Consortium, and I know that it is one of the most irritating things for shopkeepers, large and small, when shoplifting is seen as some kind of victimless crime or childish prank. I often think, when looking at first-time offenders, that they should be listed as “first-time court offenders”. It is a scourge, and as the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, knows as a former champion of the consumer, in the end the consumer pays for the tolerance of shop theft. Therefore this certainly in no way trivialises shop theft. We intend to produce guidelines for the police on these provisions and we are currently working with the police and retail associations to draft guidance on them, which we hope will be available in time for Report. That will primarily cover the circumstances under which it would be appropriate to pursue the Section 12 Magistrates’ Courts Act procedure, which allows defendants to plead guilty by post.

The volume of people who go through the court is certainly a problem. Just over 120,000 people were brought to justice for shop theft in 2012, 40% of whom received out-of-court disposals. However, we do not believe that these changes will result in shop theft being treated less seriously; in the vast majority of cases they will affect neither where the case is tried nor the sentence that is imposed. Ninety-nine per cent of shop theft cases are heard in magistrates’ courts, and of those who are convicted 98% are sentenced there. Only 1,650 shop theft cases were sentenced in the Crown Court last year, and 90% of them resulted in a sentence that the magistrates’ court could have given.

It is true that there are remaining concerns about that in the retail sector. However, we believe that they flow mainly from a misunderstanding about what the provisions seek to achieve. Any incident of theft continues to be a serious matter. However, the changes we are introducing simply enable more efficient processes to be employed to bring such cases to justice quickly. They do not change the fact that 99% of shoplifting cases are already considered in the magistrates’ court and that 90% of cases involve goods worth less than £200.

Amendment 16 would reduce the number of shop theft cases to which Clause 152 applies by reducing from £200 to £100 the monetary threshold that defines these cases. However, I appreciate that that was a figure given to stimulate the debate. The purpose of the clause is to enable cases of low-value shop theft to benefit from more efficient arrangements that are limited to summary-only offences. In particular, it will mean that the procedure that enables defendants to plead guilty by post will be available, and the police will be able to make use in these cases of powers that they already possess, whereby they can prosecute certain offences where they are uncontested. The result will be to speed up the prosecution of these cases and to provide swifter justice for retailers.

Nobody would suggest that the theft of valuable property should be made a summary-only offence. A line has to be drawn somewhere, and the £200 threshold was chosen on the basis of research that was done in 2006 for the Sentencing Advisory Panel. That showed that 90% of all shop theft cases heard in magistrates’ courts involved goods worth £200 or less. Lowering the threshold to £100 would catch rather fewer cases—77% of them, according to that research. I am not sure what would be gained by excluding cases where the item stolen was worth more than £100. Almost certainly it would have no effect at all on where the defendants were tried or on the sentence that could be given. It would simply mean that the more efficient and speedier procedures would not be available in those cases.

I assure noble Lords that we do not expect all cases of low-value shop theft to be dealt with by post and prosecuted by the police in the defendant’s absence. That is not the intention. It may well be appropriate for prolific shoplifters to be charged and bailed to appear in court, to be dealt with in person. That would not only be suitable but necessary in cases where a custodial sentence was in prospect. The new provisions do not prevent this: whether the “guilty by post” procedure is used is discretionary. This is a matter for guidance which we are developing, as I have just said.

Amendment 17 would exclude from the ambit of Clause 152 any case in which the defendant had already received a caution, conditional caution or penalty notice for disorder in respect of shop theft. It is not clear why a case should be excluded from the scope of these provisions simply because the defendant had previously received a caution or other out-of-court disposal. That sort of disposal is not an unusual outcome for a first offence of shop theft.

The Government are aware of concern about people being given a succession of cautions for similar offences and have considered this as part of the simple cautions review, the outcome of which we will announce shortly. The expectation will therefore be that defendants who have already received an out-of-court disposal will be prosecuted. Prosecution for low-value shop theft under the streamlined procedure permitted by the new section seems an obvious and appropriate next step, and it would be perverse to rule that out. A person being prosecuted for the first time for offending at this level is most unlikely to receive custody, and is therefore very suitable to be dealt with under the new procedure.

I am grateful for the contributions made and hope that the amendment prompted the debate for which the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, hoped. I also hope that my explanation will provoke him to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Beecham]

I always enjoy being provoked by the Minister. On this occasion I am happy to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 16 withdrawn.

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[Lord McNally]

My Lords—

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords—

[Lord McNally]

I know that the noble Lord is under pressure.

[Lord Beecham]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I just want to say that we entirely support the amendment moved by my noble friend and hope that the Government will give it serious and prompt consideration. It seems to make an absolutely unanswerable case and one that could lead to the saving of public money, quite apart from any other consideration, avoiding, for example, children having to be taken into care or extra services being required in an emergency, which would save the public purse. That is another reason for supporting the amendment and I hope that the Minister will be able to say something positive about it.

[Lord McNally]

I am reliably informed that the noble Lord might have to quit, and I fully understand that; I know how reliable east coast trains are.

This issue raised by the noble Lords, Lord Hylton and Lord Judd, and by my noble friend Lady Hamwee is serious. I sometimes think that we are too ready to leap on the idea that the cold and uncaring state is not concerned about these matters. Sometimes some of these cases arise because an accused person has not informed anybody of children or dependants at home, and it is difficult in those circumstances to deal with matters. Courts already have a duty to take account of mitigating factors in every case, including the fact that an offender has primary care for children or other dependants. It is important that the presence of dependants is brought to the court’s attention, but the duty proposed in this amendment will not and could not force convicted offenders to tell the court about the existence of dependants.

The case law in this area makes it clear that a judge must perform a balancing act when making a sentence, weighing up the welfare of the child against other factors, such as the length of sentence and the necessary limitation on the offender’s rights by reason of their imprisonment. Where necessary, the court must obtain information on the consequences of the sentences on any children. It is important, therefore, that the existence of dependants is brought to the court’s attention. There will, however, be cases where the seriousness of offending is such that despite the existence of dependants a custodial sentence is necessary. I can also say that the changes in the women’s estate which I recently announced will try to make sure that women who are in prison and with family responsibilities are as close to home as the estate allows.

I appreciate that both noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Touhig, come to this from a deep concern. What they are proposing would place a duty on a criminal court following a decision to sentence an offender to immediate custody or to remand a defendant in custody to ascertain what arrangements had been made for the care of any child or dependant. I completely understand the sentiment behind the amendment. It is right that we should be concerned for the welfare of the children and dependants of those who are about to be deprived of their liberty. I am also aware of the Families Left Behind campaign from the Prison Advice and Care Trust—PACT—which also represents the views of a number of children’s charity and penal reform groups. Indeed, a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield, referred to this campaign in the Second Reading debate.

I have now seen a very helpful letter from Bronwen Fitzpatrick of PACT that explains in more detail the context of this amendment. Let me say at the outset that I do not disagree with the sentiment behind the amendment. I do, however, have real concern about the details and the practicalities of what is proposed. I will mention these concerns briefly without going into too much technical detail. I should also say that I would be happy to meet Bronwen Fitzpatrick, as she asks in her letter to me. PACT has already met the Children’s Minister, Ed Timpson, but I would be equally happy to see Bronwen Fitzpatrick with the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, if that would help.