Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, I should have declared an interest as chairman of the Bar Standards Board, which prohibits barristers from receiving or dealing in referral fees. If I gave the impression last week that referral fees that go to unions go direct to the political party and that is wrong, I apologise. My point is that it is happening in another way. I have not yet been corrected but my research on the internet showed that direct referrals from a party to a firm resulted in the firm paying a referral fee to the political party. Therefore, if it is not happening in one way, it may be happening in another.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I support the line taken by our Front Bench. Without any question, there are risks with referral fees but they are fairly minimal. The questions that the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and others should ask themselves are whether they believe that there will be more of the kind of litigants who at present benefit from the union offering these services, admittedly through using referral fees, especially given what we are doing to legal aid in this Bill; or whether there will be fewer people taking action. My view is that if these changes are put through, the likelihood is that unions will not be able to offer services on the same kind of basis that they have in the past. As a consequence, fewer people will pursue cases and the people who will not be pursuing those cases will be the ones at the bottom of the pile, and not those who are higher up with a fund of money to pursue the law without any trouble whatever. I put those very serious questions to those who are pursuing this line.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I shall intervene briefly. I declare an interest in that a firm in which I was a partner had major arrangements with a number of trade unions.

I say to the noble Lord who has just spoken that the unions and the firms who do their work will be able to adjust their arrangements. For a start, by not paying the referral fee, the solicitors doing the work will be able to drop their charges to take account of that fact, and the trade unions will be able to adjust their arrangements with their members, although it will not be a major adjustment. The point that the noble Lord reasonably made is capable of adjustment in a way that will enable the abolition of referral fees—which, in general, are extremely deleterious to justice—to be effected.

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[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, I, too, warmly welcome the alcohol abstinence and monitoring requirement that the Government have introduced, and I thank my noble friend Lady Northover for the hard work that she has put into bringing together all the parties in order to get an agreement. That is why we have this measure before us tonight. Perhaps I may also say that my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and my noble friend Lady Jenkin have worked over the past few weeks not only to bring this to the attention of the Government but to find a solution that will enable us to see this provision on the statute book before, we hope, too long.

These will be trials, of course, and I hope that they prove a valuable tool in addressing the issue of binge drinkers. During the working week many of these people, of whom there are increasing numbers, hold down responsible jobs; but at the weekend they decide that they have not had a good night out unless they get paralytically drunk, to the point where not only do they have to be helped home but—as the noble Baroness knows, having taken me to visit St Mary’s Hospital Paddington to see the work being done there—they take up huge National Health Service resources. I am sure that if we are going to tackle what in this Chamber we euphemistically refer to as binge drinking, these provisions will be valuable across a range of criminal activity and act as a deterrent for the particular group of binge drinkers who will find it difficult to comply with some of these measures during the working week. They may well start to take some responsibility for their behaviour.

The question of when alcohol dependency becomes a medical condition has already been mentioned. I would stress to my noble friend on the Front Bench that the Government should continue as they have started by ensuring that alcohol abuse does not remain the Cinderella of the drugs and alcohol scenario. It is important to ensure that people get appropriate treatment and that it is sustained so that they can recover. As we know, that takes a long time and it takes resources. It is not something that is easy to achieve, but it can be done. I hope that the Government will not take their foot off the pedal in terms of ensuring that proper treatment is available to those who become alcohol dependent.

Finally, these are trials, and as is the case with all trials, it may well be that some defects are identified by the end of the trial period. Some things may not work properly and could be different. If that is the case, I urge the Government not to abandon the trials and say, “Oh well, they didn’t work”—I am sure they will not do that—but to look for ways to modify the proposals, even if it means coming back to the House to make further changes to the legislation. I feel that this is one step on what will be a long journey to identify and address the systemic problems of alcohol abuse that we have in this country.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

I, too, welcome the Government’s statement. I am one of those who have been on this journey since we commenced it in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, I want to express my support for and gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. Her single-mindedness and determination have been extraordinary. She has been willing to accommodate the objections that come along, and on the route she has brought together a wide range of supporters for this change, not the least of which is the mayor’s office. Over the period people have quite significantly adjusted their responses.

The noble Baroness, Lady Browning, was also an important part of this process. I agree with what she has just said about how we should move forward with the Government. I also thank the Government for having shifted their position over the past few months. I believe that they have now presented to the House a workable set of propositions. They will be implemented on a trial basis, but they embark on an entirely new approach and are unlike anything we have tried before. It is probably the first time that the word “sobriety” has been used in legislation in this way. I may be wrong on that, but I certainly have not seen it while I have been here over the past decade. It gives us a platform on which we can try to build in the future.

I also congratulate the Government on bringing forward these proposals in advance of publishing their strategy on alcohol. How many times are we given papers and strategies, but not the teeth to accompany them? Yet in this instance the Government are taking action in advance of the words that no doubt will follow when the paper is produced. I think that people across the whole Chamber are very pleased indeed with the progress that has been made over the past months. We look forward to seeing how the trials pan out. They may need to be adjusted, but they will provide the Government and magistrates around the country with a new tool to help us tackle the pernicious problem of the abuse of alcohol.

[Baroness Newlove]

My Lords, I will not go on for too long because others have covered the issue. I welcome the Government’s take on this, and obviously I want to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, on her hard work. Her foot has been flat down on the pedal. As someone who has suffered and who is passionate about making a change in our society, I am really grateful for these pilots. As we have just heard from the noble Baroness, after 10 o’clock at night 80 per cent of all crime is alcohol-related. My husband was attacked at 10 o’clock, so I reiterate that this is very important.

I welcome these pilots, but as we have just heard, they are only pilots. However, we have to think outside the box. They are risky, but risks can be turned around. It is important that we do not wait for more victims and families to lose loved ones. We must do what we say on the tin and make communities feel safe and be happier places to live in. I receive many letters from people who hide behind their doors because they are scared of what they are going to face outside. I live with that every day and I want to make sure that we tackle this problem. I am very interested in these pilots and I wait with bated breath to see what they do.

Even the magistrates welcome this development; I have spoken to magistrates in two areas. Also, offenders will be helped to turn their lives around. Even so, their lifestyles are no justification. Drugs and alcohol are no defence for murder, but when it comes to sentencing they are seen as mitigating circumstances along the lines of, “Oh but for the alcohol”. We have to stop justifying alcohol abuse and make changes for the better. I really welcome these amendments from the Government.