Family Justice
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and I will today lay before Parliament the Government’s response to the family justice review. The family justice review offered an extensive set of recommendations on how to reform the family justice system. We offer our gratitude to all of the panel members, and in particular to the chair, David Norgrove, for their dedication, creativity and hard work. The range and boldness of its recommendations offer a significant opportunity to improve the resolution of disputes in the best interests of children and their families.
In the first place, I wish to address the issue of shared parenting. This is a sensitive issue with strong opinions on both sides of the debate. The review rejected any legislative provision in support of shared parenting. Instead, it offered a range of recommendations, focused on education and parenting agreements, to help promote shared parenting—we will be taking these forward.
However, many people continue to have concerns about the proper recognition of the role of both parents by the courts. The Government accept the need to clarify and restore public confidence by a legislative statement emphasising the importance of children having an ongoing relationship with both their parents after family separation, where that is safe, and in the child’s best interests. The Government are mindful of the lessons that must be leant from the Australian experience of legislating in this area, which were highlighted by the review and led them to urge caution. We will therefore consider very carefully how legislation can be framed to avoid the pitfalls of the Australian experience, in particular that a meaningful relationship is not about equal division of time, but the quality of parenting received by the child.
The debate over shared parenting, however, must not be allowed to delay the implementation of the many other changes recommended by the review. As the review made it clear, the family justice system is under great strain. It is a system, characterised by distrust and delay. We must begin to work immediately on tackling these problems.
In public law, where the state intervenes to take children into care, our overriding priority must be to reduce significantly the unacceptable level of delay that currently exists. The average care case now takes 55 weeks and many take much longer. This delay, in practice, means months of uncertainty for a child, trapped in a difficult situation and with little stability in their life. This cannot continue.
We have already announced our intention to legislate, as soon as parliamentary time allows, for a six-month time limit on care and supervision proceedings. This will send a powerful and unequivocal message that the current level of delay is unacceptable. It will also provide a focal point for the broader changes to the system.
This six-month limit will not be achieved without fundamental changes to the way the system works. We will be introducing a number of other changes to create a more efficient and co-ordinated system. These changes include refocusing the courts on the core issues within the local authority care plans, removing duplication between the courts and adoption panels scrutinising cases already before the courts and ensuring that expert reports are only commissioned where they are essential to the case.
In private law, we are determined to provide a procedural framework that will support separating couples to resolve their disputes more reasonably and more quickly, without the need to resort to litigation in court, where it is possible to do so. To do this we will legislate to make attendance at a mediation information and assessment meeting compulsory for a person wishing to make an application to court in certain private law family proceedings unless a limited number of exemptions apply.
We will also work to make specialist parenting programmes available to separating parents earlier, rather than waiting until they come to court At the same time, we have begun to work across Government to create online support that can provide the range of information that separating couples need and will consider how parenting agreements could be used to emphasise the need for parents to consider how the child can maintain a relationship with other close family members including grandparents.
The review was also clear of the need to create a more coherent system, characterised by trust and co-ordination between the different courts and agencies involved. As the first step towards this, we will create a Family Justice Board to provide greater leadership and co-ordination across delivery agencies nationally and locally and prepare the system for the changes to come.
This Family Justice Board will bring together key Departments, delivery bodies, local authority representatives and the judiciary into a single forum to oversee the delivery of family justice. Its priority will be on driving improvements in the system’s performance, with a focus on greater cross-agency coherence, tackling variations in local performance and making progress against the six-month time limit for care cases. Additionally, the board will be tasked with driving the cultural change which is essential to transforming the family justice system. This will include better quality and more integrated training and increased information sharing across agencies. We will also bring court social work closer to other courts services by transferring CAFCASS to the Ministry of Justice.
Taken together, these steps represent a significant agenda for change. We are convinced that through this agenda we can transform the family justice system, improving the lives of thousands of children and families.
The document is also available online at:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/policy/moj/family-justice-review-response.htm.
Transparency and Consistency of Sentencing
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the work of the Sentencing Council and the transparency and consistency of sentencing.
I am glad to have the opportunity to debate this issue today. Public confidence in our criminal justice system rests on the principle that justice is dispensed independently by a judge in possession of the full facts of a case. It is normal to quote Magna Carta: we do not deprive people of their liberty
“without due process of law”
in this country. It is not the case in the United Kingdom, as it still is, unfortunately, in many parts of the world, that the Executive can order the detention and trial of people simply on the basis that they disagree strongly with the Government. Neither is it the case, as it is in some other judicial systems, that trials can be stretched out and rerun, until the “right” judgment is reached. Politicians do not sentence people in individual cases, judges do, and British Governments lose cases when they are parties in civil actions. I shall not go on, because we all know that those are the fundamentals of civil liberties and the rule of law in this country.
Independence is what we employ judges for, but alongside that fundamental truth lies an equally important principle—the discretion to do justice in individual case. Only judges see the full circumstances of each case, and they need the freedom to vary sentences in individual instances in accordance with the gravity of the offence. They have to bear in mind the circumstances of the individual offender and such mitigation as they may be able to offer. Sometimes the offence will be so aggravated that a higher than average sentence is required, as we saw, for example, after the riots in August. On other occasions, there will be significant personal mitigation, or relatively little harm caused to the victim, which means that a lower sentence than average will be justified. Just as we trust that our independent judges are the right people to make sensible decisions about the running of cases, so we generally trust them to apply the framework of criminal law across a range of different kinds of case of varying degrees of seriousness.
Keith Vaz
On the point about gravity, the right hon. and learned Gentleman will have noted the sentences that were given yesterday to a group of four al-Qaeda inspired fundamentalists, who as the result of a Goodyear hearing will, in effect, be out of prison within six years. Does he consider it important to revisit the whole notion of Goodyear hearings in view of the fact that people who were going to cause mayhem in London have got away with being in prison for only six years?
Mr Clarke
I am not yet familiar with the full facts of the case, so I certainly shall not comment. There is also a matter of principle. The custom is growing that Ministers conduct a running commentary on sentences in individual cases as they proceed. I do not think that that is wise. I believe in the separation of powers. The right hon. Gentleman is a senior and respected Member of the House, but my understanding is that those people will be sentenced next week. I will check. When the sentence is actually imposed, we have a system whereby the Attorney-General can put in an appeal on the ground of leniency and ask the Court of Appeal to reconsider it. I will inquire more closely during the course of the debate, as the right hon. Gentleman is obviously concerned.
Public confidence would not be well served if individual judges gave widely varying sentences in similar cases. We have one body of law as determined by Parliament, and the punishment should fit the crime. Parliament imposing the law is the guardian of public opinion. We are answerable to the general public and the maximum tariffs set by the House have to be taken as a guide by judges in all cases.
Different cases should attract different punishments. The question is how to ensure that our independent judiciary can make judgments that fit the facts of the case but are also consistent with each other: how to balance, on the one hand, the imperative of judicial freedom—such that they have the latitude to sentence according to circumstance—with, on the other hand, the need for a consistent approach across the system and in all our courts.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
My right hon. and learned Friend rightly focuses on public confidence. What assessment has he made of the current state of public confidence in sentencing? Does he have a view about the poll commissioned by Lord Ashcroft and carried out by Populus, which shows that more than 80% of the public, more than 80% of the police and more than 80% of victims think that sentencing is too lenient at the moment?
Mr Clarke
That has always been the case, certainly in my lifetime, and I suspect it always will be. I always wonder why that is the consistent public attitude. I shall not launch into criticism of the press, but I think it is because of the way these things are always presented to the public. The newsworthy cases are those where the newspaper decides to give a short version of the case and rouses the indignation of its readers by the apparent leniency of the sentence. Much though I respect opinion polls, particularly those obtained by Lord Ashcroft, the fact is that most citizens never go to a court of law. Most people, if we ask them, do not know what sort of sentences are imposed by the court. If all they read about are individual sensational cases, which a particular editor is trying to present as scandalous because of a lenient sentence, it tends to form public attitudes.
I shall not go further, but when we read a newspaper, we should not believe we are hearing all the facts of the case. The judge has probably heard hours of evidence from both sides, but what we read are two or three snappy lines summarising what is supposed to have happened in the opinion of the journalist.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Let us look at the facts. Perhaps the public are worried about this fact: 48% of burglars do not receive an immediate custodial sentence.
Mr Clarke
In a moment, I shall probably make another passing reference to the fact that the Sentencing Council guidelines make it clear that custody is undoubtedly a normal sentence for burglary. In my experience, it always has been, and it still is. There has to be a clear mitigating circumstance for anybody to avoid a custodial circumstance.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
My right hon. and learned Friend is correct in his assertions about lack of knowledge. It is not the fault of the public; it is the fault of the system that there is lack of knowledge in the public domain. That point is eloquently demonstrated and backed up by the findings of research conducted by Ipsos MORI for the Sentencing Council in May last year.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
You be the judge.
Mr Clarke
I am reminded by my hon. Friend.
The facts of a case are given and the public are invited to give what they think is an appropriate sentence. Then they are told the sentence the judge gave. In fact, members of the public tend to give more lenient sentences than judges impose, because they have been led to believe—I shall not carry on, because it will only lead to reprisals in the morning. Some of our right-wing newspapers, which I started reading when I was a very small boy, have been telling the nation about soft judges letting off criminals for as long as I can remember, and in my opinion that will be the theme of some of our leading popular newspapers in 50 years’ time, if they survive that long. I shall move on.
This is where the Sentencing Council comes in—the independent body established in 2010 and ably led by its chairman, the right hon. Lord Justice Leveson, to whom I am grateful. Its role is precisely to promote a clear, fair and, above all, consistent approach to sentencing, backed up by supporting analysis and research. As hon. Members know, it does that by publishing guidelines—carefully crafted analyses that set out a clear decision-making process for courts and give guidance on aggravating and mitigating factors to help inform the sentence.
The guidelines include examples of the different levels of harm that a crime can cause, both to victims and the community. They set out varying levels of culpability that apply to offenders, such as whether the offence was committed on the spur of the moment or whether it was carefully planned in advance. They suggest common starting points and ranges for courts to use for different levels of offence. Importantly, they are guidelines, not tramlines or a rigid framework. They are flexible, and judges are always free to depart from them in exceptional circumstances. The most valuable quality for any judge in any court is judgment, which is what, in the end, they bring to bear.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
The point that guidelines should be guidelines was demonstrated after the riots, when in extraordinary circumstances judges used their discretion and gave firm sentences. Guidelines are for ordinary circumstances, but for those extraordinary events judges were spot-on in using their discretion.
Mr Clarke
As it happens, I entirely agree with my hon. Friend’s opinion. Judges rightly reflected the fact that the background was a sudden, alarming outburst of public disorder and that they needed quickly to give firm and severe sentences, in some cases above the average normally imposed for the offence. That was a correct response to public need.
In the two years it has been operating, the Sentencing Council has done much valuable work not only to promote consistency but in its more general role of seeking to improve public confidence in the criminal justice system. However, it has on occasion been criticised for both its general role in developing guidance for the courts and the contents of particular guidelines. The case that I want to make today, before listening to the views of the House, is that the current system is the right one and that these criticisms are largely misdirected. Contrary to what one sometimes reads in the newspapers, sentencing guidelines take a proportionate and sensible approach to the punishment of offenders, and one in which the public should have great confidence.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
My right hon. and learned Friend, in his normal charming way, has encompassed some of the problems in his overview of the concerns about the faith and trust of taxpayers and constituents in the criminal justice system. He says that he does not want to set a precedent whereby Parliament provides a running commentary on sentencing, and he criticises the media prism in which sentencing is discussed, but surely he concedes the obfuscation of court procedures. When will the average taxpayer get a say on sentencing in this country?
Mr Clarke
That is what this debate is for. MPs, and everyone else, are of course perfectly entitled to make whatever comments they wish about the criminal justice system, which, like every part of the public service, is accountable to Parliament, and ultimately it is Parliament that determines the framework of law by which the whole thing is conducted. It seems to have become rather fashionable nowadays for a running commentary to break out about a series of cases, and I think that we should be more sparing. I also think that anyone who comments on this or any other matter should ensure that they have the full facts before going out and giving a considered opinion, rather than just reacting to something they read over their morning coffee.
Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
Will the Lord Chancellor give way?
Nicola Blackwood
I thank the Lord Chancellor, who is being extremely generous, for giving way. His points about press sensationalism, the separation of powers and not wanting to have a running commentary from politicians are well made. However, I think that the lack of public confidence is not just due to a thirst for punishment beyond reason, because there is also the fact that reoffending rates are high. The point about sentencing is that we want it to be an effective deterrent against reoffending. At the moment, 49% of all prisoners reoffend within a year of release, and for adults released from short-term prison sentences the rate rises to 60%. We have to convince the public that our criminal justice system is effectively deterring prisoners from reoffending, which is not an issue of sensationalism.
Mr Clarke
I could not agree more. In fact, in so far as I have brought anything into policy since taking up my current post, it has to put much greater emphasis on reoffending, which is the biggest weakness of our system, but covering the full range of reforms would be outside the scope of the debate. The system punishes first of all, but it would serve the public better if it also led to the reform of more offenders, so that we could get reoffending rates down to a more respectable level. My colleagues and I are trying to address that in everything that we do in the Department of Justice.
It is relevant to the debate to consider what is most effective in deterring reoffending. Some people have held the belief for years, quite understandably, that in order to cut reoffending we must deter people by sending more and more to prison for longer and longer sentences. My personal opinion is that the evidence completely refutes that view. That approach does not work, particularly if it makes prisons overcrowded and unresponsive places where prisoners toughen up and meet some rough friends before being released to fend for themselves in the outside world. We are making more intelligent use of the prison estate so that, in addition to the punishment of confinement, there is a process of reform based on a working environment that tackles drugs, drink, mental illness and all the other things in order to lead people to behave when they are released.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
I am very interested in what the Secretary of State is saying and agree with his view about the importance of deterrence as well as punishment, but there is a flaw in what he is saying about sending people to prison. When talking to police officers in my constituency a year or so ago, I was told that they took five or six prolific burglars off the streets and put them away for a year or two, which had a massive impact on burglary rates in the area, so it does work. Although they will be released eventually and might reoffend, the fact is that putting people in prison does have an impact in certain circumstances.
Mr Clarke
Burglary rates dropped in recent years because we had an economic boom, and I think that there is a serious danger that they will go up again—they are going up at the moment—if we do not get out of our present economic difficulties quickly. Better policing also counts. In my opinion, the police have become much better at targeting suspected offenders and arresting the people causing most of the crime. Of course prison is the right place for serious offenders, so the sentences that the hon. Gentleman describes sound quite light to me for persistent burglars, and everyone gets a rest while they are sent to prison. As I said when agreeing with my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), while such people are in prison, given that they will be released one day, we should make more intelligent use of prisons to try to ensure that we reform those people so that they are less likely to reoffend.
Philip Davies
The Secretary of State seems to be arguing that sending people to prison for longer would not help to reduce reoffending, but his Department’s own figures indicate that the longer they spend in prison, the less likely they are to reoffend. If he is not sure about that, I can tell him that the reoffending rate for people who spend less than 12 months in prison is 61%; for those who spend 12 months to two years in prison, it is 36%; for those who spend two to four years in prison, it is 28%; and for those who spend more than four years in prison, it is 17.6%. It is clear that the longer people spend in prison, the less likely they are to reoffend.
Mr Clarke
There is another debate to be had on that, which my hon. Friend will no doubt press for. If people are sent to prison for less than 12 months, we really do nothing whatsoever for them there. They are locked up, released at the end of their sentence and given no support when they leave, and there are staggering levels of reoffending. One thing that has always been done, by the previous Government and every Government, is that the more serious offenders are kept in prison for longer and more effort is made to try to keep an eye on them when they get out. That is a very brief summary of that debate. Once we start swapping statistics in this way, we could argue practically anything, particularly as most criminal statistics have been remarkably unreliable in recent years—I hope that they are now being improved. My hon. Friend’s view is not quite the same as mine, but I respect it.
Mr Stewart Jackson
My right hon. and learned Friend is being most gracious and generous in giving way. I wish to be helpful, if I can. I am puzzled by his view on the fact that putting people in prison does not work, because he will know about the possible great success of the social investment bond in HMP Peterborough, where 46% of the indicative income for keeping prisoners in prison will go back to St Giles Trust, Nacro and other third sector organisations. That approach will be rolled out across the whole country, if it is successful. Surely the point is that putting people in prison can work, if it demonstrably reduces recidivism in the long run.
Mr Clarke
I do not disagree. I have always held up the arrangement at Peterborough prison as a model of where we want to go. It is exactly what I wish to encourage. People are imprisoned, first, because they have to make their reparations to the public and be punished for what they have done but, as my hon. Friend has rightly said, there is now an extremely interesting situation in place where attempts to start reforming criminals start in the prison and are followed through outside by St Giles Trust, which is the partner of the private sector managers of the prison. We hope to replicate that pilot across the country, which is an example of where we ought to go. People get the punishment first and then proper efforts to stop them offending when they are released.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
To pursue that point further, is it not the case that if we have a system that faces constant increases in numbers, overcrowding and prisoners being moved around in order to accommodate the problems that the system faces, we will not get sentence planning, the careful structuring of sentences or measures to prevent reoffending, which are needed.
Mr Clarke
I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Indeed, that problem has constantly recurred with the extraordinary explosion in the number of people in prison in recent years.
As I have said, I am not saying that everything is perfect in the wider criminal justice system. I freely acknowledge that reporting and public understanding of our system is far from ideal, which is one reason why the coalition Government have a far-reaching programme of criminal justice reform as well as measures to promote transparency and public understanding. However, we should not muddle the problems of an overly complex body of law, which is too rarely reported accurately, with the rules governing how our judiciary apply the law in particular cases.
For the avoidance of doubt, it is worth saying that although the Sentencing Council is a recent innovation, the approach that it embodies is not new. Sentencing has operated in England and Wales for more than 100 years under broadly the same well-established constitutional settlement, in which Parliament sets the overarching legislative framework within which courts sentence, including the maximum penalty and, for some offences of particular public concern, the minimum penalty available to the courts. The role of independent judges is to work within that framework.
Since 2010, the Sentencing Council and its predecessor, the Sentencing Guidelines Council which was created in 2005, have provided courts with a decision-making process to assess the harm that offences cause to victims and communities, suggesting common starting points and ranges, and highlighting aggravating factors. The Sentencing Council has not fundamentally changed the basic division of responsibilities or the balance of power between Parliament, Government and the judiciary. Before the previous Government created the Sentencing Council, the Court of Appeal carried out this function. Its criminal division gave guidance to courts when it thought that discrepancies were beginning to occur. The Court of Appeal has not lost that power entirely and still gives guidance when it feels it necessary. However, the council now provides the great majority of such support to the courts.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr Clarke
If my hon. and learned Friend will forgive me, I ought to get on or else I will be running a seminar for a large part of the afternoon, which would not satisfy all my hon. Friends.
The Sentencing Council adds stronger checks and balances to the tradition. It does so, first, through its 13-strong membership. The majority of its members are judges and magistrates, but it also includes the Director of Public Prosecutions, the former acting Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the former chief executive of Victim Support. The council has not yet produced guidelines for any category of offences that have not received the support of the Association of Chief Police Officers. These are not simply judge-made guidelines for the courts; a range of backgrounds are represented on the council.
Secondly, the guidelines are determined independently and transparently, but with extensive public consultation. The consultations for recent guidelines have happened over 12 weeks and have elicited thousands of responses. Thirdly, the guidelines enjoy a proper level of parliamentary scrutiny. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and his colleagues on the Select Committee on Justice consider every draft guideline in detail, taking extensive written and oral evidence from a wide range of experts, including the chairman of the council. The Select Committee’s work ensures that there is meaningful democratic engagement in sentencing guidelines, without compromising the crucial principle of judicial independence.
Over the past 18 months, the council has published guidelines on a number of areas, on occasion attracting lurid headlines about excessive leniency and so-called soft judges. Let me address that directly. Our judges are far from overly lenient. The average length of prison sentences has increased by 20% over the past 10 years. I do not have proper figures but, having practised myself 30 years ago, I think that the increase has been even greater. We now send many more people to prison and impose longer sentences than was ever the norm until the past four years. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) pointed out, judges can still respond to things such as the riots in an appropriate way.
The guidelines are concerned centrally with ensuring that sentences properly reflect the seriousness of an offence. They are statutorily required to have regard to the impact of sentencing on victims and public confidence in the criminal justice system. Naturally, people seize on isolated parts of the guidelines and quote them out of context. However, when set against the cases that courts see every day, they are well-thought-out, carefully considered, serious pieces of work. For example, the guideline on burglary concludes that domestic burglary should habitually attract a custodial sentence, that the sentimental value of any goods taken must be considered alongside their financial value, and that the presence of children when a burglary is taking place will significantly aggravate its seriousness.
Mr Leigh
My right hon. and learned Friend is gracious in giving way so often, and he has made clearly his point that burglars should get a custodial sentence. Let me refer to my previous intervention. If we are talking about domestic burglary—which is the worst thing—in 2009, 37% of those convicted of domestic burglary were given a non-custodial sentence. Does it worry him that the courts are not following what he is advising, which is that the people who cause such misery should end up in prison?
Mr Clarke
Individual judges must have considered the guidelines, which are quite new. I am surprised by that figure, however, because burglary has always habitually required a custodial sentence. There must have been some feature in those cases that made people think—either because of a particular problem with the offender when it might have been better to send them on a drug-rehabilitation course, or some other mitigating feature—that on this occasion they would not impose a custodial sentence.
Like all criminal offences, burglary is a wide-ranging offence. It covers everything from someone who has opportunistically opened a door, nicked something off a shelf and run, to two men wearing masks and going into a building, prepared to be violent towards anyone who tries to stop them. There is bound to be a range of sentences, but the guidelines of the Sentencing Council state that domestic burglary should habitually attract a custodial sentence. I have always agreed with that, as does my hon. Friend.
I want to consider the guideline on drug offences that produced some headlines last week. That guideline helps courts to distinguish between organised criminals who, as we know, cause misery to families and the whole community, and those who have become involved in the drug trade through intimidation or a dependency of their own. Contrary to the rather inaccurate headlines that occurred last week, which claimed that street dealers caught with 6 kg of cocaine could avoid jail—that startled me when I heard it repeated on the radio—the truth is that possession of that amount of a drug would be a very serious crime. The starting point for sentencing would be at least seven years in custody, even for an offender playing a lesser role in a criminal operation, rising to a starting point of 14 years in custody for those who have a leading role. The wholly inaccurate headlines stating that drug offences would receive lighter sentences were based solely on the reduction of the sentence for so-called drug mules, if they are addicts and are being exploited to carry drugs for the person who is manipulating them. That sentence has been eased a bit, to the extent that sentences for drug mules who bring in 1 kg of heroin or cocaine now have a starting point of only six years in custody, whereas previously that might have been 10 years.
Significantly higher sentences were recommended for those who play leading roles in a criminal operation, which is why the guidelines on drug sentencing did not receive the slightest criticism from anybody who knows the criminal justice system, including the police and prosecutors. Frequently, the commonly made criticisms of our judiciary and of the guidance produced by the Sentencing Council are unmerited.
I do not, however, wish to defend the status quo uncritically. Anyone who is remotely acquainted with our justice system knows that there are genuine challenges facing it, and that we cannot afford any complacency in addressing them. Sentencing guidelines, and the work of the Sentencing Council, would benefit from further public scrutiny and understanding. The need to ensure that the guidelines receive due public and parliamentary focus is precisely why the Government have allocated today for this debate. I look forward to listening to right hon. and hon. Members and hope that the debate will make a small contribution to establishing public attitudes, and perhaps also to successfully scotching some of the myths that surround the Sentencing Council’s work.
More broadly on confidence in the criminal justice system, it is no surprise to me that the public find it difficult to make sense of the body of criminal law, given that it has grown like Topsy in recent years. Under the Labour Government, constant changes and 20 criminal justice Acts over 13 years left us with a system that even experts have struggled to make sense of. Top-down schemes, meddling and prescription left the system in a complete mess. There were thousands of new offences. I was greeted publicly at the judges’ dinner with the complaint that
“hell is a fair description of the problem of statutory interpretation”.
The net result? A sentencing policy so chaotic and badly managed that towards the end of the last Government’s time in office, they had no room for all the extra people they were putting in prison. They had to let 80,000 criminals out early who promptly went on to commit more than 1,600 fresh crimes. I approved of the new unpaid work community payback scheme, but the way in which it was put into practice meant that offenders serving community sentences usually completed only one or two days of unpaid work each week. That is why there is an urgent need to sort out sentencing, and why we are reforming it. We will simplify it and make it easier to understand, and the House has already considered the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which is currently in the other place and will introduce some of our far-reaching reforms.
Under that Bill, we propose to reform the statutory duty on courts and judges to explain the meaning and effect of their sentences and communicate them in plain English so that people can understand what will happen to the offender. We are simplifying the release framework so that all prisoners will be governed by one set of rules, making it easier for justice agencies to keep victims informed, and we are replacing the disgrace of so-called indeterminate sentences for public protection with a tough, determinate regime that can be easily understood by victims and the public. [Interruption.] I hear protests, but we all know that the guru on sentencing, Mr Thomas, described those sentences as an “unmitigated disaster”. In due course, we will also bring forward proposals to ensure that community punishments punish and reform more effectively.
Finally, I believe that our system suffers from a fundamental lack of information and openness. Public understanding of sentencing is critical to confidence in the system and to its effectiveness in ensuring that justice is done. We need to open up a system that to many people remains a rather mysterious world, to reassure people that the law is on the side of the law-abiding citizen. That is why I have announced measures that, in my opinion, collectively amount to a revolution in transparency in our courts.
One major item of progress is that we are developing legislation to remove the prohibition on cameras in courts and allow the broadcasting of sentencing remarks. That will be introduced in the Court of Appeal in the first place, but will be followed by extension to the Crown court at a later date. The filming of victims, witnesses, defendants and jurors will of course not be allowed under any circumstances. The change is intended to ensure that the public can see and hear sentences being handed down and hear the comments that judges make on cases. It is not so that our courts will become theatre. I hope that it will help to demystify the court process without undermining the seriousness and diligence that is so central to the quality of our justice system.
Alongside the televising of sentencing remarks, we are seeking to expand the use of restorative justice. Though the restorative approach is often seen as a means of reducing reoffending, for victims who want to take part it also helps to open up the court process. It allows victims to play an active role in helping the court determine how to deal with an offender, which is one reason why victim satisfaction levels with the approach are so high. Restorative processes can help to turn the justice system from one that does things to victims to one that does things with victims.
Last but not least, we are releasing more data than ever before on the performance of our courts. The radicalism of that policy has perhaps not yet been fully recognised, but it has the potential to deliver major progress in public understanding. For the first time, we are making available information on court performance, including delays and total times, and on sentencing decisions classified by offence. That will enable the public to see exactly what sentences are being handed down and where, particularly in their own locality, and it will help them to put that information in context.
What we are doing will represent a fundamental shift in how the justice system works. Justice must not only be done but be seen to be done if it is to command public confidence. The challenge is to deliver reforms to the wider system to simplify it and make its performance more visible to the public. As the measures that I have outlined suggest, I believe we are on the threshold of a step change in openness and transparency. The changes will complement and strengthen the sensible arrangements under which the Sentencing Council operates, which I readily acknowledge were introduced by the last Government, and its wider place underpinning the sound and long-standing division of responsibilities between the judiciary and the Executive in England and Wales. I look forward to the whole process being subject to parliamentary scrutiny, which we are taking a step further by having this debate.
Philip Davies
I think my hon. Friend is very good friends with Ministry of Justice Front Benchers and I suggest that he ask them some parliamentary questions, because those are the answers they have given. To be as helpful as possible, I will furnish him with the parliamentary answer that shows that people with 100 previous convictions behind them are still more likely not to be sent to prison than to be sent to prison. He might wish to take this up with his hon. Friends on the Front Bench.
I was shocked to receive a parliamentary answer showing the number of people who were given cautions for indictable offences, which are the most serious category of criminal offence and include murder, wounding with intent, abducting children and arson. That answer showed that 22 rapists, 24 people convicted of arson and 140 people convicted of unlawful intercourse with a girl under 16 have been given a caution. Bearing in mind the fact that cautions are given on admission of guilt, how on earth can we have a situation in which those people are not being sent to prison and are merely handed a caution? The Government are completely out of step with public opinion, particularly those highlighted in the Populus poll conducted by Lord Ashcroft, which showed that 80% of the public said that sentencing was too soft and that 70% called for life imprisonment to be made much harder.
There is this wrong idea that community sentences are far more effective at reducing reoffending and are also cheaper, but I want to point out that a Home Office survey found that the number of crimes committed per offender in the year before they were sent to prison averaged out at 140—or 257 for those on drugs. The typical cost calculated for those crimes was £2,000 each, which works out at £280,000 a year, in comparison with an estimated cost of £38,000 for a prison place, so perhaps we ought to think about what is most cost-effective.
In 2008, offenders who had completed a community sentence went on to commit a further 250,000 crimes in the 21 months following their sentence, 1,500 of which were serious offences including murder, rape and robbery. As I mentioned to the Secretary of State earlier this week, in 2008-09 some 6,600 people whom the probation service deemed to be high risk or very high risk were serving community sentences.
Then there is the myth that prison does not work. The reoffending rates for people serving short-term sentences is higher than any of us would like, but I have been to lots of prisons in the past 12 months, probably about a dozen—I even visited one in Denmark to see what they do there—and I argue that prison does work. It could probably work better but it does work. As I made clear in my earlier intervention, the longer people spend in prison, the less likely they are to reoffend. If prison itself was the problem, the longer people stayed there the more likely they would be to reoffend, but the opposite is true. I have given the figures: for people who spend less than 12 months in prison, the reoffending rate is 61%; for those spending 12 months to two years in prison it is 36%; for those spending two to four years in prison it is 28%; and for those spending four years or more in prison it is 17.6%.
Professor Ken Pease has used Home Office statistics to show that 13,892 offences resulting in conviction could have been prevented if offenders serving short sentences had been kept in prison for an extra month. That suggests an argument for sending people to prison for longer, rather than for not sending them to prison at all. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State complained, rightly, about the previous Government’s early-release programme that let people out of prison 16 days early, but the solution should not be not sending them to prison at all, which is what he seems to be advocating now.
When people are in prison we must try to rehabilitate them, but I do not understand why rehabilitation has to occur in the community. I have been arguing about this for quite a while with my Front-Bench colleagues. I should like a system modelled on the TBS programme that has been operating in Holland for many years. It treats prisoners with a personality disorder, of whom there are a large number in our prisons, and has achieved low reoffending rates. People are treated in prison, which is much easier because they do not have so many distractions—they cannot go off and do other things. In prison, they can be given proper targeted support, which is much harder when they are out of prison.
I very much support the Secretary of State’s promoting a stronger work ethic in prison. When I go round prisons, I am appalled by the lack of work ethic. Many prisoners are from families that have never worked; they are often the third generation who have never worked. Surely, one of the things we can do for them in prison is to get them into a proper disciplined routine so that they get up at a certain time in the morning and carry out tasks that get them into a work ethic. My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right to do that.
A study by Frances Simon in 1999 followed 178 prisoners until five months after their release. She found that 75% of those who had not sought regular work reoffended compared with only 28% of those who were actively looking for work and 15% of those in regular employment. That shows that even the discipline of going out and looking for a job can make a big difference to reoffending rates. Prison has to be the prime place where some of those people are given the discipline of a work ethic.
I think the Government are making a huge mistake about indeterminate sentences for public protection. Earlier today, my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) cast doubt on Ministry of Justice figures, but I trust my hon. Friends on the Front Bench. According to those figures, by the end of the 2010 calendar year, 206 people serving indeterminate sentences had been released from prison. Of those, only 11 had reoffended—a rate of about 5%, from my quick calculation. The criminal justice system as a whole would give its right arm for a reoffending rate of 5%.
If the Government are so obsessed with reoffending—the Secretary of State has said that he is—why on earth do they want to give up the part of the criminal justice system that probably has the lowest reoffending rate? It goes to show that the Secretary of State is not really preoccupied with the reoffending rate; he is preoccupied with reducing the number of people he sends to prison. That cannot be the right course of action and it is certainly not something that my constituents want.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I am sorry to intervene just after my hon. Friend and I were warmly agreeing on the need to get a working environment in prisons. I can tell him that I had an excellent meeting this morning at the CBI, with leading figures from British business and the Prison Service, and we are making progress. On that we are totally agreed. With great respect, the figures my hon. Friend uses for IPPs are, unlike some of his other statistics, not very reliable. A tiny number of people have been released from IPPs, so to make a comparison between the very small sample he cites and the very large numbers he was using earlier is ever so slightly misleading. Most people imprisoned under IPPs have not been released and do not know when they will be released. There is an enormous backlog of cases for the Parole Board, which is wondering what to do with them.
Philip Davies
The figures my right hon. and learned Friend dismissed are the ones supplied by his Department. All I can do is give the figures as they are. They indicate that of the 206 people who have been released having served an IPP sentence, only 11 have reoffended. It is up to hon. Members to draw their own conclusion from those figures. The principle that we should not release people from prison until it is safe to do so strikes me and my constituents as a rather good one to have in the criminal justice system. His suggestion that we should release people from prison regardless of whether it is safe to do so seems rather bizarre.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
I have today arranged for copies of the Government’s response to the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights to be placed in the Libraries of both Houses. The response was published on 30 January 2012.
The Committee issued its report on 19 December 2011. I am grateful to the Committee for its work in relation to the Bill.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
3. What steps he is taking to promote reform of the European Court of Human Rights.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
The United Kingdom has made reform of the Court the top priority for our current chairmanship of the Council of Europe. Our aim is to secure agreement on a package of reform measures. We have been talking to many member states and to key figures in the Court and the Council of Europe, and we are reasonably confident that we can gain agreement.
Stephen Phillips
I am extremely grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for that answer. He will have seen that the Prime Minister rightly condemned the Court’s decision effectively blocking the deportation of Abu Qatada despite the assurances that the United Kingdom obtained from Jordan. How long does he expect this reform process to take, and what steps are being taken now to ensure that the Court does not torpedo decisions of the UK courts in a way that undermines rather than supports human rights?
Mr Clarke
My hon. and learned Friend is at least as good a lawyer as I am—and practised more recently too—and will know that cases are often more complicated than they appear. We actually won the Abu Qatada case on the question of the assurances that we got about his possible torture. Irritatingly, we then lost it on a separate issue about whether prosecution evidence against him had been obtained by torture. Obviously, the Government, led by the Home Secretary and advised by the Attorney-General, are considering what to do next to take the case further. The reform does not turn on one case. However, one of the key reforms that we are urging is that the Strasbourg Court should not just be regarded as a court of appeal after the full process has been gone through in this country’s courts and issues of human rights have been properly considered. The issue that my hon. Friend raises is at the heart of the case that we are arguing with our colleagues in the Council of Europe.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
Does the Justice Secretary agree that much of the media speculation and attacks on the European Court of Human Rights are damaging to the interests of many people all over Europe who are suffering serious human rights abuses? This country, which prides itself on having a Human Rights Act, should support the European convention and the Court, and recognise that it is in everybody’s interest that we protect human rights in this country, as well as in Hungary, Russia or wherever else they are under threat.
Mr Clarke
This country is a great advocate of human rights throughout the world, and should continue to be so. The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and I have confirmed in recent speeches at Strasbourg our commitment to the European convention on human rights and our desire to see human rights maintained all the way from this country to the Russian Federation, which is the furthest-east member. However, we seek to strengthen the Court by making it operate properly. It should concentrate on the important cases and those that raise serious issues of principle obtaining to the convention. At the moment, it has 150,000 cases in arrears. It takes years to get them heard, and it sometimes gives judgments despite the whole issue having been properly considered by national institutions and national courts.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Will my right hon. and learned Friend be visiting judges in the European Court of Human Rights to explain the agenda for the British chairmanship of the Council of Europe? When our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister visited Strasbourg—very successfully—last Wednesday and gave a brilliant speech, delegates expressed concern that he did not have time to visit the Court itself.
Mr Clarke
First, I am delighted that my hon. Friend and I agree that the Prime Minister gave a brilliant speech in Strasbourg last week. It went down very well there. Yes, I meet judges. As I mentioned in an earlier answer, I hold discussions with judges. There is widespread acceptance in Strasbourg of the need for reform, so long as people are satisfied that we will continue to uphold the convention and we regard the Court as the right forum in which to consider serious issues of principle in all 47 member states. I am sorry that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was unable to meet judges, but I am sure that I can facilitate the opportunity for him to do so, if he or the judges wish it. However, the Foreign Secretary, the Attorney-General and I are in touch with the judges and our opposite numbers in all the relevant countries.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
May I ask the Justice Secretary for a short answer to a straightforward question? Does he share the apparent view of the Prime Minister and many of his Back Benchers that if the Government cannot persuade the other 46 Council of Europe members to reform the European Court of Human Rights, as set out last week, the UK should withdraw from the European convention on human rights?
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
17. What steps his Department is taking to support victims of crime.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Yesterday, in a statement to the House, I launched a consultation on far-reaching proposals on the support provided to victims and witnesses of crime.
Derek Twigg
The prisoner who murdered the husband of my constituent, Helen Hill, is coming to end of his tariff and is currently undergoing day release. The exclusion zone that my constituent has asked to be applied to the murderer has been ignored. If the Government are serious about giving full rights to the victims of crime, should they not ensure that victims’ wishes on exclusion zones are adhered to?
Mr Clarke
We are very serious about ensuring that the system works correctly. Victims should be given information—in this case, about the possibility of the offender being released—and consulted on their views. There are arrangements, through the probation service, for liaising with the victim. Of course, I cannot guarantee that the victim will always agree with the decisions that are taken, but they should be taken while keeping in mind the interests of the victim and, in this case, above all, the need to protect her. I will happily check on what has happened in this case, but I would say to the hon. Gentleman that we are trying to improve the present system to make it live up to his expectation that full regard will be given to victims’ interests.
Charlotte Leslie
Victims often feel that their rights are taken less seriously by the system than those of the perpetrator. What measures are the Government taking to ensure that victims, especially those of violent rape, and their families are financially compensated and supported following the often life-shattering traumas that they have experienced?
Mr Clarke
I announced yesterday that we were making changes to the compensation scheme, but we are making no changes whatever to the compensation for victims of rape and sexual offences at any level of the tariff. We accept that it is important to compensate those victims, and we are trying to strengthen the support that we give to the victims of sexual offences. We are also supporting outside bodies that give support to such victims. I think that my hon. Friend will find that nothing I said yesterday remotely reduces our commitment to the victims of rape and sexual offences, and that, since we have been in office, we have been steadily improving the services that we provide.
Rushanara Ali
Given that 61% of victims feel that the justice system is ineffective, and that the victims code will not be placed on a statutory basis, how will the rights of victims be properly protected by this Government?
Mr Clarke
I do not think that 51% of victims have a factual basis for saying that. I share the hon. Lady’s concern, however, that whenever questions are asked, if they are asked in the right way, we get that kind of answer. We have to get across to the public that the system does indeed punish offenders properly and attempt to reform them, and that we are steadily attempting to improve the support that we give to victims. It is extremely important that the criminal justice system should give the highest regard to victims, because protecting and giving justice to them and their families is one of the principal aims of the service.
Mr Burrowes
Will the implementation of the Government’s welcome victims strategy ensure that convicted offenders take personal responsibility for their crimes and make reparations to victims? Will it also, once and for all, take out of circulation the dreadful term “victimless crime”?
Mr Clarke
I share my hon. Friend’s view of the significance of this issue so that, wherever possible, criminals should make reparation for their crime and compensation should be paid to the victim. We are looking to take further action to reinforce the need for courts to try to make a compensation order whenever possible, and we are looking at ways of steadily improving how we collect the money from compensation orders when they are made. We are seeing steady improvement, but we need to go further.
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
The Secretary of State may be aware of the tragic case of my constituent, Clare Wood, who was murdered by a violent partner. It turned out that he had a huge history of domestic violence against other women. Will the Secretary of State support amendments to the Bill in the other place to ensure that victims like Clare can in future know about the history of their violent partners and make an informed decision on whether to continue in the relationship?
Mr Clarke
That is a familiar subject, which I believe is being reviewed by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. The right of women to know whether their partner or intended husband has a long history of domestic violence sounds like a worthwhile cause. I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend will be looking to the practical issues that would be involved in introducing an effective system.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
In opposition, we often made reference to the terrible effect on victims of crime of the fact that they thought the perpetrators had been sentenced to a certain term of imprisonment only to find them being released half way through it. Will the Secretary of State update the House on what progress we have made towards honesty in sentencing?
Mr Clarke
These conventions got worse when our opponents were in office. I say that before the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) starts attacking me. I, too, have expressed views in the past about honesty in sentencing. What happens currently is that for most sentences, half the term is served in prison; beyond that, prisoners become eligible for release, but they are on licence and liable to recall for the full term of their sentence if they do not adhere to it. There are measures in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, currently in the other place, that address the penalties to be imposed for various offences. In place of indeterminate sentences for public protection, for example, we are going back to how sentences used to be so that people will have long determinate sentences, and will normally serve two thirds of it before they are released. That is at least a step in the right direction for my hon. Friend.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
It is fair to say that, until she left her post in early October last year, the Victims’ Commissioner was a bit of a thorn in the side of this Government and this Justice Secretary in particular. The consultation paper on victims and witnesses, which was published yesterday, was completely silent on the future of that important post. Will the Justice Secretary reassure the House that he will not abolish this important advocate for victims and witnesses? When will the post be filled?
Mr Clarke
First, I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that I got on excellently with Louise Casey when she served in that role; it is a pity that she went away to carry out another even more important role in dealing with problem families. That can be checked with Louise Casey, but I would be surprised if she did not confirm my view. She made a contribution to policy. We are looking at this post again, and as I reminded the right hon. Gentleman the last time he raised the fact that we were still considering it, the last Government legislated for it in about 2004 and then took five years before they appointed anybody. There is a variety of views—from those responsible for victim support and others—on the best way to give proper force to victims’ views in government. We are considering those views before we make any announcement.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
15. What recent steps he has taken to review the work of the Probation Service; and what his policy is on the reform of the service.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Public safety will always be of paramount importance when we are considering the way in which probation services are delivered. We are working on proposals to deliver more effective and efficient probation services, and will present them for consultation shortly.
Mr Clarke
We debated that at great length in the House. IPPs were regarded by most people in the field of criminal justice as a complete disaster when they were approved in the last Parliament, and our proposed reform of them was strongly welcomed by most who practised in that field. We are replacing them with tough determinate sentences, of which people will serve two thirds before they are eligible for release. Even then, they will not be released unless the Parole Board is satisfied that they have completed their sentences. We were acquiring an impossible system before that, under which thousands of people were accumulating in prison with no real prospect of a rational basis for their release.
Martin Caton
There is a real fear both inside and outside the House that introducing a payment-by-results approach to our Probation Service risks denying adequate rehabilitation support to those with the most complex needs. What will the Secretary of State do to mitigate that risk?
Mr Clarke
I think that it is key to public service to concentrate on what we are delivering that is of value to the people we are trying to serve. Focusing our resources on programmes that succeed in reducing the reoffending rate, thereby reforming former offenders and ensuring that they do not create future victims of crime, will help us to ensure that we secure value for money, and will also stimulate innovation and best practice. I think it very reactionary to suggest that we should abandon the payment-by-results approach.
Toby Perkins
As the Secretary of State will know, when probation is seen to fail and ex-offenders reoffend, it is often because the various organisations involved have failed to work together. What steps will he take to ensure that the marketisation of probation services, with many different providers potentially doing different things, does not lead to more fragmentation and more tragedies?
Mr Clarke
I agree. We normally need people to co-operate quite closely to achieve successful outcomes if we are trying to reform offenders. Those who are trying to attract funds by achieving successful results in their programmes will, I hope, enter into collaborative arrangements with other providers. It must be a good thing that we are contemplating the possibility of bringing in more voluntary, charitable, private sector providers alongside the probation service and deciding where to channel most of our money on the basis of the success they achieve.
Karl Turner
I recently met Steve Hemming, chief executive of Humberside probation trust. He is due to retire in April after 30 years of long, loyal and patient service to the trust, but he is concerned that his patience might be about to run out. When will the Government publish their long-awaited probation review?
Mr Clarke
First, may I pay tribute to the retiring chief executive of the hon. Gentleman’s probation trust? There are many dedicated people in the probation service doing very valuable jobs on behalf of the public they serve. I am glad our consultation document is so eagerly awaited; we have been taking some time over it as we are trying to get it right, but we shall produce it soon.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the probation service has substantially been financially protected when taking into account the overall demands on the budget of the Justice Ministry?
Mr Clarke
I am not sure whether that is right, but I shall check. What my hon. Friend may have noticed is that this year we cut some other services’ budgets more sharply than we cut that of the probation service, but that is because the previous Government had been cutting the probation service budget pretty sharply, once they finally woke up to the fact that we were in a credit crunch and a financial crisis. They hit the probation service first.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
In the last year for which I have figures for the Department, 6,600 criminals deemed high or very high risk by the probation service were serving community sentences. Does my right hon. and learned Friend think public safety would be better improved if some—or, indeed, most—of those people were in prison?
Mr Clarke
Sentencing guidelines should ensure that those who deserve to go to prison because of the severity of their offence, and those who need to go to prison in order to protect the public properly, do go to prison. Those who get community sentences are graded according to risk. More attention must be paid to those who are near the risk threshold of needing to go to prison rather than those who pose quite a low risk of reoffending. With respect however, I think my hon. Friend is slightly misinterpreting what is called the risk assessment for people on community sentences. People who should go to prison should be sent to prison by the courts, and they are.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is ridiculous that unaccountable managers in the National Offender Management Service can undo all the good work done by probation officers by putting an ex-offender back in prison purely for having been a conscientious employee who was kept on late at work?
Mr Clarke
If those are the facts of the case, I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. He is obviously concerned about this case, and if he thinks something has gone badly wrong, I know him well enough to share his concern. I have had a word with the prisons Minister about this case, and we will investigate the facts and come back to him. The events as described obviously should not happen; that is not how the system is supposed to work.
Mrs Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
I have listened to the Secretary of State’s responses on indeterminate sentences for public protection and payments by results and he is clearly feeling very optimistic. While we all like someone with a sunny disposition, when considering public protection issues it is also important to plan for failure. Does the Secretary of State plan to monitor the financial help given to providers of probation services in the community so that we avoid a criminal justice equivalent of Southern Cross?
Mr Clarke
When people provide services, of course it is necessary before giving them the contract to do one’s best to check on their financial health, but this issue has moved beyond arguments about whether a provider should be from the voluntary sector or a for-profit or not-for-profit provider. I wish to maximise the service given to the public by those who provide community-based sentences in this country, and we need to encourage innovation and best practice wherever we can.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
14. What arrangements his Department has put in place to deal with any future shortfall in prison places.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
On Friday 27 January, the prison population was 87,668 against a capacity of 89,399 places, providing headroom of 1,731 places, so there are sufficient places for those being remanded and sentenced to custody. We will keep the prison population under careful review to ensure that there is always sufficient capacity to accommodate all those committed to custody by the courts.
Kerry McCarthy
I thank the Secretary of State for that response. I understand that possible shortfalls are predicted in particular regions as opposed to on a national level. The Minister will know that maintaining family links during a period of imprisonment is a critical factor in reducing reoffending on release. Will he assure the House that steps will be taken to ensure that prisoners are kept as close to their family and their place of origin as possible?
Mr Clarke
In many cases, a high priority is given to trying to house prisoners in places where they are reasonably in contact with their family and home. Of course, the more pressure the service comes under, the more difficult it is to maintain that, but I am sure it remains an objective of those who allocate prisoners to the correct prison once they receive their sentence.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
16. What assessment his Department has made of the effect on women of his proposed changes to legal aid.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
May I update the House on the progress the Government have made toward implementing their proposals for payment by results, which I was defending a few moments ago? We have recently identified two probation trusts, one in Wales and the Staffordshire and West Midlands probation trust, to develop the community payment by results approach to probation services. We already have two well-established pilots in privately managed prisons and we hope to develop more; further pilots are being developed in public sector prisons. We are seeking proposals from the market for additional innovative contracts. We have selected a national framework of providers to support this work, which will assist us in meeting our commitment to roll out the principles of payment by results throughout the criminal justice system.
Andrew Stephenson
I hope the Secretary of State agrees with me that it is disgraceful that criminals who have created victims of crime are compensated under the criminal injuries compensation scheme. How much have criminals received over the past 10 years?
Mr Clarke
It is £75 million in the past 10 years, I think, and about 20,000 offenders have been compensated—I am remembering the brief for my statement yesterday. It is plainly insupportable that one week someone can commit a crime at his victims’ expense, and within a very short time claim that the taxpayer should compensate him because someone has committed a crime against him. We are bringing that to an end.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
T6. I thank the Secretary of State for saying, following my earlier question, that he would look at the case that I mentioned, but will he examine, or get his Department to examine, whether there is consistency among parole boards and prison governors when it comes to licence conditions relating to exclusion zones? There is nothing worse than a family bumping into the murderer of a loved one in the street, or in the locality. Will he look at the consistency of parole boards’ and governors’ decisions?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I will certainly look at that, because I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there should be consistency. That is why we have exclusion zones—precisely to make sure that the victims of a criminal do not find that they accidentally bump into him again, or even worse, are pestered by him when he is released from prison. We all take cases of the kind that he raises very seriously, and we will look into this one.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
T5. Devon Rape Crisis was launched last November and has already helped many victims of sexual violence across Devon, but it and Rape Crisis England and Wales are calling for changes to make it easier to identify the number of victims of crimes that are sexually motivated. Will the Secretary of State meet Rape Crisis and me to discuss how we can make such crimes more easily identifiable, and to hear about the excellent work of Rape Crisis?
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
T7. Will the Secretary of State explain how he thinks that axing 1,000 posts at the Crown Prosecution Service will help him to bring more criminals to justice?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General has ensured that, in making changes to the budget and staffing of the Crown Prosecution Service, he is not reducing the quality of service that it provides. These things are not best measured by whether a body has ever-expanding payrolls or budgets; that tended to be the approach of the former Government, in which the hon. Gentleman served. We are trying to produce better value for money, in order to cope with the appalling financial crisis that we inherited from our predecessors.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
T8. The trade unions directly benefit from current no win, no fee arrangements, earning huge amounts via their legal arms through inflated success fees. What assessment has the Minister made of the amount of success fees paid to trade unions, particularly in personal injury cases?
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
T10. Residents and organisations in my constituency will welcome the Government’s decision to update the law relating to scrap metal. When will the necessary amendments to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill be brought forward?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I share my hon. Friend’s concern to see the Government move on this matter as quickly as possible. I assure him that we are working carefully with colleagues on the drafting and hope to be able to table amendments to the Bill, which is currently before the House of Lords, as soon as possible.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
Many innocent victims of crime feel isolated and dissatisfied at the end of the justice process. Will the Secretary of State assure me that protection of, and justice for, the victim will be fundamental to the reformed criminal justice system?
Mr Clarke
I hope that I can assure the hon. Gentleman and that he will have the opportunity to study the consultation document I published yesterday. I concede that there has been a steady process of improvement over the years, compared with the situation not too long ago, when victims were regarded simply as people who had to come to court if they were needed, but we still have not gone far enough. We must ensure that the experience of being in court does not add to a victim’s suffering, that all proper support is given to those who have been badly and lastingly affected by what has happened to them and that there is a proper system of compensation. The object of the criminal justice service must be to give proper service to the victims of crime.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
It has come to light that barrister David Friesner recently defended a fraudster, despite having just been convicted for stealing £81,000. We had an absurd situation in which a criminal was representing a criminal, which brings the legal system into disrepute. Will the Minister look into the actions of the Bar Standards Board and consider mandatory suspension for those guilty of serious crimes?
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Is the Secretary of State aware that yesterday the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission registered profound concerns about the “Justice and Security” Green Paper’s proposals on closed material proceedings? Will he accept that moving to provide for secret trials and secret inquests has acute implications in the context of Northern Ireland, not least its impact on transitional justice and on the efforts to deal with the legacy of the past?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are consulting on those proposals in relation to that difficult subject. All I can say is that I certainly appreciate its special significance for Northern Ireland and the situation in Northern Ireland, and we will pay the most careful regard to the submissions that we receive from all those interested in Northern Ireland before we come to our conclusions.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
Throughout the 18 months to the end of September 2011, consistently more than half of appeal cases relating to employment and support allowance took longer than six months to be decided by the Courts and Tribunals Service, meaning that more than twice as many people as the service’s own target are waiting that long. What action is the Minister taking to ensure that they receive their decisions in good time?
Victims and Witnesses Strategy
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Today I have laid before Parliament a consultation on far-reaching plans to improve the way our criminal justice system deals with victims of crime. Proper protection and support for those who have suffered at the hands of criminals is a fundamental part of a civilised justice system, yet ours is falling short in some respects. Victims of crime should be able to rely on justice that is not only swift and sure, punishing offenders properly, but intelligent and effective. That means, among other things, a system that promotes reparation, requiring criminals to make amends to victims and society for the wrongs that have been done, and a system in which compensation is focused on serious cases and is not available to those who have themselves committed crime. Current arrangements do not always measure up well against those ideals.
There has been a good deal of criticism recently about the experiences of victims in the aftermath of a crime. For one reason or another, a consistently high standard of victims’ services is not available all over the country. The Government have a responsibility to ensure that practical and emotional support to help victims recover from the consequences of crime is provided when required. Of course, high-quality counselling and practical support costs money and perpetrators of crime should, wherever possible, contribute to the costs instead of taxpayers having to pick up the entire bill.
The process of justice, as experienced by the victim, also needs to improve. Investigation and trial involve inevitable stresses, but it is unacceptable that victims still frequently report being told too little, too late about the progress of their case, or being expected in court to sit next to the families of offenders. It adds insult to injury that, if something goes wrong in the process, victims have to choose between 14 different routes of complaint. Victims have already been badly hurt by crime. The system should not be rubbing salt into the wounds.
Finally, in this list of matters that we are addressing, there is compensation. In my view, no amount of money can make up for the injury or emotional trauma that often results from a crime. The criminal injuries compensation scheme, since it was set up in 1964 and then reformed in 1996, has offered a measure of support from the taxpayer to victims of crime. Successive previous Governments, almost from the first, have never been able to ensure that the scheme has been properly funded, and this has had the wholly undesirable consequence whereby claimants can wait months and, in some cases, years for the process to run its course and payments to arrive. Meanwhile, millions of pounds have been spent compensating people for minor injuries such as sprained ankles and broken fingers. Even more perverse is the fact that over the past decade more than £75 million has been paid in compensation to 20,000 claimants who are themselves convicted criminals. It is no surprise that the scheme, in its current form, is not sustainable.
The consultation published today seeks views on a set of reforms to deliver a more proportionate, speedy and effective system to provide for the needs of victims of crime. I want to see a system that prioritises high-quality practical help to people in the aftermath of the crime, whereby we sort out compensation so that it is targeted at the most serious cases, and whereby criminals contribute to the costs of victims’ services, instead of being able to make claims as if they were blameless, law-abiding victims of crime themselves.
I propose therefore that we will introduce a new victims code, so that victims know what to expect during the investigation and trial process, and know where to turn when things go wrong; we will set out plans to make improvements to the practical and emotional support available to victims, raising up to £50 million from the perpetrators of crime through the victims surcharge and financial penalties; we will move decisions about local priorities for most victims’ services away from Whitehall, so that the vast majority of funding is in the hands of democratically accountable police and crime commissioners; and we will reform the criminal injuries compensation scheme, so that it is sustainable in the long term.
Compensation should be focused on those with serious injuries that have long-term or permanent consequences. We propose therefore that the top 13 bands—more than half the tariff bands—covering the most serious injuries continue to be compensated at the current level. We will also protect tariff awards at lower levels, if necessary, for the families of homicide victims, and awards for sexual crimes or persistent physical abuse.
In order to offer that protection, and to fund the scheme sustainably, we propose to reduce or remove awards for those with less grave injuries. Injuries such as sprained ankles, broken toes or bruised ribs, from which people tend to recover fairly quickly, will no longer be covered at all. In a further step, those who have committed crimes against others and have unspent criminal convictions will, in most cases, no longer be eligible to seek taxpayer compensation when others commit crimes against them.
The overall ambition of the changes is that total spending levels on victims—compensation, counselling and support—should remain the same. However, I believe that the proposals we are consulting on today will mean that finite funding is used more wisely. Instead of compensation going to those with less serious injuries and to those who have broken the law, it will be targeted where it counts most—on the most serious injuries. The support services, which many victims need as much as or more than compensation, will be available when required, paid for as far as possible by offenders and not by the taxpayer.
For families bereaved by homicide and those affected by serious violent and sexual crimes, the reforms will move compensation on to a sustainable footing and at the same time improve the quality and availability of practical support and advice. This constitutes intelligent, radical reform to sort out a system that is not working well and it will give a better deal to victims.
I wish to make good on the previous Government’s commitment—on which we agreed—to compensate victims of overseas terrorism. I believe that it is important that British victims of terrorist attacks abroad should in future qualify for compensation on a similar basis to victims of domestic terrorism. From April, we will make ex gratia payments to victims of past incidents, going back to 2002, on the basis of the current CICS tariff, as the previous Government proposed. I recognise the concern that was caused by the delay in confirming the details of these schemes and I thank all those who waited patiently for the announcement while the detail was being worked out.
Despite improvements introduced by successive Governments, victims still too often feel let down by the criminal justice system, yet they are the people to whom we have the greatest responsibility. Their needs should be dealt with sensitively, proportionately and promptly. I believe that the proposals that we are setting out today will ensure that victims’ services are on a more sensible and sustainable footing, and will go a long way to putting right the failings of the past. I commend the statement to the House.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
First, I thank the Justice Secretary for his usual courtesy in giving me advance sight of the statement, albeit a much-delayed statement that it has taken the Government 20 months to draft.
Our attitude towards victims should always be at the top of our priority list. Quite simply, without victims and witnesses there would be no justice system. Without victims having confidence that our justice system will effectively punish and reform offenders, fewer would report crimes or come forward with evidence as witnesses. That is one reason why we have a basic duty to treat victims of crime and witnesses with the dignity that they deserve.
Sometimes it is the little things that make a big difference, such as ensuring that victims and witnesses have court proceedings explained to them, so that they understand how the trial is progressing. However, sometimes it is the bigger things that matter, such as giving them the support that they need to recover from the trauma of a crime, or ensuring that sentencing is transparent and fair in delivering effective punishment. Many of those things do not cost anything.
As a result of Labour’s record on crime, there were 7 million fewer crimes a year by the time we left government in 2010 than in 1997. There were therefore countless fewer victims of crime. That is the most sure-fire way in which we can help. We must have policies backed up by adequate resources to ensure that people do not become victims in the first place.
This Government’s policy on law and order is all over the place. The way they treat victims of crime is a prime example. Over the past 20 months, their policies on bail, sentencing, the chief coroner, domestic violence and rape have shown them to be out of touch with victims of crime in this country.
I welcome the fact that, after nearly three years in government, in April 2013 the Justice Secretary will finally honour the commitment to compensate innocent victims of overseas terrorism. However, the time that it has taken to come to that decision, despite cross-party support, is shameful. Will he confirm that the funds for that policy will not come from the resources destined for victims of crime in this country?
On the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, the Justice Secretary focused on the £75 million that has been paid to those with unspent convictions, which was just 3% of the total over the past 10 years. Will he confirm that there will be no further cuts to the CICA budget?
I put it on the record that we continue to support the victims surcharge, which was introduced by the previous Government and under which offenders work and pay towards victims’ services and victims. Will the Justice Secretary assure the House that none of the services that are funded by the surcharge will face cuts because of the additional surcharge that he referred to, which will go to the CICA?
As well as presiding over a 43% reduction in crime, Labour sought to improve the experience of victims in the justice system. To be fair, the 98-page White Paper lists some of the advances made over the 13 years of a Labour Government. I am already on record as saying that Labour would commit to working with victims groups and the Government to introduce a victims law so that the rights of the bereaved families of homicide victims were honoured, and I am pleased that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has announced a victims code today. I am pleased also that he has taken on board the announcement that I made at the Labour party conference—I have no problems with his stealing our ideas, I just hope that he will go the whole distance and ensure that the code is enshrined in statute and not just another unenforceable and ignored code of practice.
We have a duty to support victims through all stages of the process, and today’s strategy will be judged against that duty. My fear is about whether the Government will be able to deliver the justice that victims in this country deserve, bearing in mind their record over the past 20 months. I hope that I am wrong.
Mr Clarke
The right hon. Gentleman first touched on the arguments that we have been having on a wide range of other justice and sentencing issues, and on one or two subjects on which I was not aware that we had any differences on policy. The fact that he started on that basis rather led me to believe that he was not really very opposed to a great deal of what we have put forward in our consultation document.
I shall deal with the right hon. Gentleman’s specific questions. We are able to go ahead with terrorism compensation. I quite accept that it has taken some time since it was announced, and supported by us, during the time of the previous Government. We are putting it on exactly the same basis as the domestic CICS, and the time has been taken up getting the details of that scheme right. The domestic compensation scheme was left to us with an enormous financial deficit, and we are striving to make it sustainable and financeable, I hope without significant further change, in a way that it has never really been since it was first introduced back in the 1960s.
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether I could guarantee that there would be no further reductions in criminal injuries compensation. As I have just said, I very much hope there will not be. The scheme was set up in 1964 and ran into financial difficulties almost straight away. It was altered in 1996, and the last Government kept consulting on it but not doing very much. By one measure, when I took over from my predecessor there was an unfunded deficit of £750 million. We have had to find a lot of extra money from the Treasury to deal with unfunded pre-tariff liabilities, and we are trying to put the matter on a set footing for the future.
The victims surcharge will be raised in a fairer way, and I do not think there is any question of any cuts being made. At the moment the surcharge is levied only on those who pay fines. It is fair that it should be levied also on those who go to prison or serve community sentences, and that is how we are changing it. We hope to get a substantially bigger contribution from those who commit a crime, to compensate the people who have suffered from it.
As we move the detail of the current services to local responsibility and to the new police and crime commissioners, we will still provide specialist services for bereaved families nationally. We have put extra money into that, and into specialist groups, on Louise Casey’s recommendation, but we will not reduce the support for Victim Support. Support will be provided more locally and sensitively by the commissioners, who will have to build up partnerships with a lot of local agencies. We have of course done such things as putting extra money into rape support centres to open some new ones and give the current ones long-term funding security for the first time.
I concede that the last Government made considerable improvements on victims and witnesses during their term of office. Awareness of the inadequacies of how the criminal justice system dealt with victims and witnesses began to grow in the ’80s and ’90s, and it has been a fairly continuous process from the early 1990s onwards. However, we are making a significant step forward. As I said when I began my reply, I believe that the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends will find it quite difficult to find very much with which they disagree.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I agree with and support today’s announcement of these reforms, but does the Lord Chancellor agree that nothing in them will stop the victims of crime receiving compensation directly from the offender when sentence is passed? Some would say that that is at the very heart of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which is currently going through the other place.
Mr Clarke
We are seeking to make it more of an obligation on the court to consider making a compensation order for the victim when they appear for a crime. We are also trying to address ways in which we can improve the collection of that compensation so it can be paid over. My hon. Friend touches on what ought to be a key feature of the justice system, and one that needs to be improved.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
Six months on from the riots last August, only 42 people have received compensation under the Riot (Damages) Act 1886. The Home Affairs Committee report suggests that there should be a review of the victims surcharge. Is that part of the Lord Chancellor’s strategy? Does he agree that compensation should go directly to the victim rather than to a general fund?
Mr Clarke
The victims surcharge has always been separate from orders for compensation for victims—or at least it has for a long time. Either way, as I have explained, we are hoping to get more from the victims surcharge to give more money to victim support services in general across the country, because there are still deficiencies in them. I think we are all agreed that it is a very good idea that courts should make compensation orders for the victims of crime.
We hope that that will be done more often as a matter of course in court, but it depends on the defendant’s means, so we must look at how the court gets better information on the assets available to pay for such things. That will come later as we work on the proposals. We must also improve the recoverability of compensation orders. We all believe that we should cover more by way of fines, compensation orders and so on, and that that steadily improves. The difficulty is that a large number of people before the court either do not have much money or will not co-operate in recovering it. As for all creditors recovering money from extremely reluctant and feckless debtors, it is difficult for us to raise that money, but we hope to have the assistance and advice of the Home Affairs Committee from time to time on how we might improve that record.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
May I clarify with the Secretary of State whether a mass murderer in prison will be entitled to compensation if they are beaten up by another prisoner?
Mr Clarke
There is a discretionary element in the current system so that a very bad criminal record can be taken into account. At least one mass murderer did not get compensation for an injury in prison. My answer to the question is no, he certainly should not get compensation. We are going much further; it is simply not right for someone one week to commit a crime against another member of the public, and the next week to say that the taxpayer must compensate him because somebody has committed a crime against him. There may be exceptions to that on the fringes, but we must go much further even in the straightforward case that my hon. Friend describes.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
I commend the Secretary of State for his statement, but what does he propose to do in cases—including a recent one in my constituency, to which I drew his attention—when an offender commits a serious offence and receives a community sentence, but then, via Facebook or other social media, claims to have got away with it, adding insult to injury for the victim? Will he consider a power of recall to the court so that such offenders can be held to account?
Mr Clarke
I will consider it. Such situations are extremely irritating, and in extreme cases could be contempt of court, but, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, no one has ever found a way to deal with them. There always will be cases when some miscreant leaves court and celebrates too vigorously the fact that he has not lost his liberty or in some other way. If he starts adding insult to the court or his victims, something should be done to find a way of dealing with him under the rules of contempt of court.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and the proposals, particularly on requiring offenders to pay more to compensate victims and on providing compensation to UK victims of terrorism abroad. On UK victims of crimes abroad, will the Secretary of State agree to meet a cross-party group of MPs to look at the issue of people who are victims of serious crimes of another nature, such as serious assault?
Mr Clarke
It would be very nice to do that, but that is the history of this scheme from the start, which is why the aspirations of Parliament and Government have always run rather ahead of the available funding. I would like to compensate people with broken fingers or sprained ankles, but that would get us into arrears and months and years of delay before anyone could be paid. We have to concentrate on the most serious cases. As far as people abroad are concerned, all kinds of nasty things can happen abroad, although we hope that they usually do not. People can have all sorts of crimes committed against them or catch all sorts of peculiar diseases, but we have to bear in mind that British taxpayers’ obligation to compensate in such cases has to be limited to a certain extent.
On terrorism, the case has always been that it cannot be insured against, and that is why everybody has agreed that the taxpayer should compensate in such cases. I would be reluctant to accede more readily to going further and adding yet more people whom the British taxpayer has to compensate for unfortunate experiences in Africa.
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The victims code is most welcome, although not as novel as one might think. I seem to have heard about it a few times before. How will delivery of the service uniformly across England, Wales and Scotland be affected by the fact that the Lord Chancellor has closed 40% of the court venues, that police numbers are falling and that thousands of court staff have been made redundant?
Mr Clarke
The victims code has been steadily improved over the years—it is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to be a little sarcastic about it; it has been renamed—and we intend to improve on that. The right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) says that he will make it a victims law, but it is the same thing. The one reason for not putting it on a statutory footing is that we are waiting to see what comes out of the European victims directive, which we have opted into, so that we can clarify the legal obligations. We will improve the service, and it has nothing to do with the closure of under-used courts in various parts of the country.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
One of the problems that my right hon. and learned Friend referred to with the criminal injuries compensation scheme has been delay. The backlog reached a high of 85,000 cases a few years ago under the previous Government, although the figure is coming down. What effect will these proposals have on reducing the appalling delays that victims of crime are suffering?
Mr Clarke
I am glad to say that the figure is coming down, but delay is the most serious symptom of the underlying failing of the system. For as long as I can remember, we have had deficits in the funding and an inevitable delay in payments because they cannot be funded. Every year, the Home Office previously and now the Ministry of Justice has had to find more money to put into the scheme to try to keep ahead of the claims. A realistic attempt to concentrate the funding on the most serious offences that have lasting or permanent consequences should enable us to pay those people more promptly, rather than paying quite as many people as we do at present for a wide range of injuries.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
There are many people who are victims of crime, but no prosecution follows because they are victims of racist harassment, neighbourhood terrorism or domestic violence. There is a problem of getting independent witnesses and therefore getting a prosecution. Within the context of the reforms, is the Secretary of State prepared to consider enhanced funding and support for professional witness schemes so that we can bring about a greater sense of safety for those people who are suffering serious racist harassment in our society?
Mr Clarke
One of the things that we are consulting on—we have not mentioned it much, but anything we can do would be valuable—is increased support for witnesses. It has got better in recent years, but support to enable witnesses to find the experience a little less intimidating than they otherwise might, and to explain to them the process through which they will go, is always valuable and needs to be improved. On people who are victims of crimes about which they do not complain or which have not led to a prosecution, we have considered that and are issuing a consultation document. But the underlying rule of the scheme has always been that, in order to get compensation, people must be prepared to co-operate with the police and the prosecutors to get the crime dealt with, and we have to keep that. We have dealt specially with repeated physical violence, and that is meant to address domestic violence and some of the other cases to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s statement, but does he understand that my constituent Trevor Lakin can never be compensated for the loss of his son Jeremy in the Sharm el Sheikh attack? He has been fighting for years for compensation for the sake of such people as Will Pike, who survived an attack in Mumbai. Will Pike is trying to rebuild his life and needs help from the Government to do so.
Mr Clarke
I agree with my hon. Friend, who has campaigned consistently on the issue since arriving in the House. Nothing can ever compensate people who suffer severe consequences or bereavement as the result of a serious crime, which is why the scheme has always aimed only to make a contribution towards easing the financial problems that such victims suffer. In the case of overseas terrorism, we are moving as we are and in future the direct victims of overseas terrorism will be able to receive compensation on the same basis as on the domestic scene. We are still imposing some limitations on claims by family and so on, but this is an enormous advance on the previous situation in which nothing was being done, as all parties agreed in the last Parliament that it should.
Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)
It cannot be right that children who have suffered sexual exploitation by multiple perpetrators then have to endure days of aggressive questioning by defence lawyers in court. What does the Secretary of State propose to do to support child victims giving evidence in court and make it a less distressing experience for them?
Mr Clarke
In the consultation document we address vulnerable witnesses, who often include children, particularly those whose evidence involves fairly traumatic events. There are arrangements now, of course: it is no longer necessarily the case that such children are exposed to open court. A certain amount of judicial discretion must be left, but in suitable cases video evidence and so on are now obtained. I hope that the consultation document will enable us to see what more can be done to ensure, first, that justice is done, but justice is best done when witnesses give evidence in the most suitable and justifiable circumstances. One cannot shield an adult from cross-examination, but one can certainly shield someone as vulnerable as a child of the kind that the hon. Lady described.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
It is fair to say that the Secretary of State and I have not always seen eye to eye on criminal justice matters, so it is a rare treat to be able to congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on his proposals for preventing criminals from accessing the criminal injuries compensation scheme. What assessment has he made of whether the proposal will meet the requirement of the Human Rights Act 1998, or indeed his beloved European convention on human rights? If it falls foul of them, what does he propose to do at that stage?
Mr Clarke
It is a rare treat for me as well to find myself agreeing with my hon. Friend. Who knows where it might lead? It might not lead to instant agreement on the Human Rights Act, but I see no jeopardy to the proposals in the consultation paper from any claims under the Act. I look forward to continuing to have interesting debates with him about the subject on other occasions.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
The Secretary of State used the example of millions of pounds being spent on compensation for sprained ankles and broken fingers, but he did not use the example that he used in the press of someone gaining compensation for being hit over the head with a bunch of flowers and the psychological damage caused. Will he outline to the House the details of that case, in the same way that he required the Home Secretary to outline the details of the cat in the immigration case?
Mr Clarke
The hon. Gentleman will notice that I did not use that example. [Interruption.] No, I have not. I might be quoted as having used that example, but I have not. He asked why I did not. I would like to make careful inquiries about exactly where that well-known case actually occurred, and what the precise circumstances were.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
On Friday, I was told by a constituent whose family were about to go to appeal court—they were victims, of course—that they were absolutely terrified of giving evidence again. The Secretary of State has said that there is no way to protect people giving evidence from cross-examination, but is there any system whereby these people, who are often very frightened when attending court, could be protected?
Mr Clarke
Nowadays, victim support officers will talk to witnesses before they attend court, and it is possible for witnesses to be shown the court beforehand—certainly they will be taken through the process that they can expect to be followed. It is essential to the rules of justice, however, that evidence be properly tested. If we are to deal severely with criminals, we have to ensure that the person convicted actually committed the offence. It is right, therefore, that he—or, better, his representatives—has the opportunity to test the evidence against him if he maintains his innocence. Judges have powers to intervene if the questioning becomes offensive or irrelevant, but in the light of recent cases we are considering how to strengthen those powers so that offenders do not gratuitously add insult to their offence. It is difficult, however, because one can treat an offender with proper severity only once he has had every opportunity to maintain his innocence and the court has found that he is lying and guilty.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
Following the question from the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), may I ask whether the Government have specifically considered whether convicted criminals excluded from an application under the scheme could take their case to the European Court of Human Rights? This is a legitimate point.
Mr Clarke
We must ensure that the approach is proportionate and the circumstances appropriate. The hon. Gentleman, who raises a perfectly serious point, will see his question canvassed in the consultation document. It is not for me to suggest circumstances in which difficulties might arise. However, if someone was convicted for shoplifting and then, a year or two later, was the victim of an extremely serious assault in unrelated circumstances, that might be an exceptional case. If someone with a previous conviction has got themselves injured intervening to protect another victim from another crime, that, too, might be an exceptional case. I do not want to sketch out all the exceptional cases, however, because there would not be many of them. Nevertheless, I think that we can protect ourselves against challenge as long as it is possible to consider those cases. However, the bulk of criminals should not be entitled to payment from the taxpayer when they are victims of crime themselves.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
The current maximum award available under the criminal injuries compensation scheme to the most seriously injured victims of crime is much less than they would receive from a civil law claim for damages. Do the plans contain any proposals to remedy this problem?
Mr Clarke
That was the problem when the scheme was first set up—I remember wrestling with it 20 years ago. At that point, we had slipped into a situation in which a compensation claim was assessed as though it was a personal injuries claim in a civil court, which meant that every case took ages to litigate, lots of lawyers would turn up to make representations on the basis of large numbers of medical reports, and the costs soared. Everybody accepted that this was completely unsustainable. The compensation scheme for criminal injuries is not meant to be full compensation; it is meant to be a contribution towards covering the financial consequences of the injury. As I said earlier, it would be nice if the taxpayer could pay everybody full compensation as if it were a civil award, but frankly that was never practicable from the moment it started, and it certainly is not affordable now.
Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)
May I return to the question of delays? Certainly for victims of serious crime—either threats of violence or violence itself—delays in the investigation and delays by the Crown Prosecution Service and in the court process simply add to the menace that victims suffer. The Secretary of State has made some suggestions on how to proceed, but will he assure us that this matter will be a key consideration when drawing conclusions from the consultation? Of all the matters I have dealt with, perhaps the most harrowing involve those who live in fear, suffering a sentence while those awaiting trial are free on the outside.
Mr Clarke
Most of the delays that I have been talking about are delays in payment of criminal injuries compensation, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is just as important that we do something about delays in the criminal justice system. We must improve the efficiencies of the court, avoid wasting as much time as is wasted currently, and so on. Together with the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), we are working on ways of improving the efficiencies of the court so that the more straightforward cases can be dealt with more promptly and those that are contested are handled more efficiently, to everybody’s advantage, including in terms of court costs, police costs, and everything else. Our system does not have as many delays as some of the worst in western Europe, but if someone is staying in custody for too long before they can get a trial, it is bad for justice. However, I agree that the biggest complaint we usually get from laymen in criminal cases that have gone slightly wrong is that it has taken too long to get to court and that there have been several abortive appearances that wasted their time before the case finally got dealt with.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
The Justice Secretary has generously recognised the concern felt by the families of Jeremy Lakin, a constituent of mine, and others who were either killed or injured in serious incidents such as those in Sharm el Sheikh or Mumbai, given that the original commitment was made by the last Government, before the last election. Given the delay so far, can the Justice Secretary assure them and others in their position that the announcement of April payments will mean that it will be possible to make payments soon after the beginning of the next financial year? What they need is certainty.
Mr Clarke
Yes, I can assure my right hon. Friend on that. We are not consulting on this because it has been around for so long. We are not having further delay while we consult on it: it is a non-consultative part of the document. We are going to implement the scheme in April, and I hope that will lead to prompt payment. It has taken far too long, and we will certainly do everything we can to make the payments as promptly as possible, though some will have to be assessed, in order to get the figure right in each case.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
One of the concerns in family law cases is that the victims of domestic violence can, in subsequent proceedings—perhaps on issues of custody or other things to do with children—be faced with a party litigant against them. Will not the changes to legal aid make that sort of thing more likely to happen, and that that is extremely oppressive to victims?
Mr Clarke
The hon. Lady has ingeniously raised a point that is wholly relevant to the legal aid provisions in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which is in another place, and not to this statement. In family law it is by no means unusual for the parties to face each other, and if one starts behaving badly towards the other, the judges just have to use the powers available to them to stop that happening. It is simply not possible to make every aspect of a dispute in court free of any stress or problem for both sides, because usually the parties in such cases are arguing about very stressful and emotional things about which both parties are considerably overwrought.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
I welcome this statement, and in particular the commitment to support British victims of terrorism overseas. As the Secretary of State implies, this is long overdue. As compensation goes, I think terrorism falls into a different category from a broken finger, which he mentioned, or a robbery. It is a brutal message from the state. Terrorists do not recognise borders, but our compensation system does. Will he confirm that Britons affected by terrorist attacks, such as those in Bali, Sharm el Sheikh or Mumbai, will be supported in the same way as those affected by 7/7, including for loss of earnings?
Mr Clarke
My hon. Friend has campaigned strongly on this subject—again, ever since he has been in the House—and I am very much aware of his views. What I have announced for the ex gratia arrangement—that is, the one that is paid under no legal obligation, but which we have agreed to pay for those whose claims will predate the new scheme’s coming into effect—is in exactly the same terms as what was announced under the previous Government, which was agreed to by both my party and the Liberal Democrat party. That arrangement does not include loss of earnings, and we are not going back to try to revalue it. However, in future claims will be eligible for compensation on exactly the same basis as they would have been eligible for compensation for a similar crime in the United Kingdom.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State confirm that the consultation will also look into the issue of prison officers who are assaulted by lifers? In such cases, the CPS routinely takes the view that it is not in the public interest to prosecute as the perpetrators are already in prison. Compensation matters, but so does justice, to prison officers such as my constituent Neil Walker, who, along with colleagues, was seriously assaulted by Kevan Thakrar. Some of those prison officers will never work again. They need compensation, but they also need justice.
Mr Clarke
Prison officers do an extremely important and sometimes dangerous job, so I entirely share the hon. Lady’s views on the need to look after and protect them. They are entitled to, and should receive, criminal injuries compensation on exactly the same basis as any other citizen. I would expect the CPS to take allegations of assault or violence against prison officers just as seriously as they would take such allegations relating to any other citizen, and I think that it usually does. I cannot intervene in individual cases, and there is always some discretion, but I agree that our prison officers deserve the fullest possible protection that we, as a society, can give them.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Will the consultation document cover the possibility of curbing payments of compensation to people who have been convicted abroad but now reside in this country?
Mr Clarke
I think it certainly should, but I will have to examine further how effective the administrative arrangements for detecting such cases will prove to be. We are always trying to improve the exchanges of criminal records, so that people bear the proper consequences of any criminal records that they have built up.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s statement. Will he confirm that the money raised by the increase in fixed penalties for motoring offences will also be used to support victim services?
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I very much welcome my right hon. and learned Friend’s statement. He is right to direct the services of the criminal injuries compensation scheme towards those victims who have suffered the most. People who develop mental health problems as a result of a crime often find that their conditions are difficult to quantify or are not readily apparent. What can be done to ensure that such people are not disadvantaged?
Mr Clarke
As my hon. Friend says, the problem is often one of obtaining a proper diagnosis, in order that the consequences of crime can be recognised. In order to concentrate on the most serious offences that have lasting and sometimes permanent consequences, we had to draw the line somewhere. Below that line, the amount of compensation starts steadily to be reduced under the tariffs, with the very lowest tariffs receiving no compensation at all. Mental illness occurs at various levels in the tariffs, according to the lasting consequences that are being suffered, and to their severity. We will therefore still have the problem of assessing and diagnosing each case accurately, to ensure that it is the serious, lasting problems that are compensated, as they quite properly are now.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
I commend the Lord Chancellor for his statement, which any right-minded person would regard as sensible and forward thinking. Does he agree that support services are as important as compensation for many victims? Does he think it right and proper that the taxpayer should not be asked to pay for those support services when the offender can do so?
Mr Clarke
Support services are sometimes more important. The trauma suffered by a victim is not always proportionate to the seriousness of a crime. Some people, for example, are hardy and can get over a nasty experience fairly rapidly, while some frail, vulnerable people can be severely affected for many years by a comparatively minor incident. We are trying to ensure that the support services are better targeted so that we can concentrate on those who really need the help, and that local priorities are determined more locally. It is obviously sensible to say—no one has disagreed with the view today—that those who commit crimes, including those who go to prison and those who receive a community sentence, should contribute to the cost of the support given to the victims of crime in general.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
As a result of funding from the Ministry of Justice, women who have been victims of sexual crimes in my constituency can now benefit from help and support from Devon Rape Crisis. As a patron of Devon Rape Crisis, I ask the Secretary of State to ensure that a sufficient amount of the £50 million that is going to be taken from convicted criminals will go towards long-term secure funding for rape crisis centres around the country.
Mr Clarke
The Government will continue to look at rape crisis centres as a national responsibility and consider funding them from the centre. We have been able to open, I think, four new ones since we came to office, but for all existing ones we have for the first time pledged funding for three years, providing them with more sustainable security than under the previous year-by-year changes. I can assure my hon. Friend that we will continue to give very high priority to improving support for such valuable centres as much as we possibly can. I think she agrees and is prepared to say that our record so far is pretty good. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary certainly helps me to ensure that we keep concentrating resources in this area.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
I recently visited Cambridge victim support, which does an excellent job, but there is no doubt that greater help is needed for victims and witnesses. I welcome that much of the statement, but will the Justice Secretary clarify his comments about those who have been convicted? I accept that we need to stop those who simply take advantage of the scheme, but he will be aware that some convictions are never spent. Is he arguing that someone who was convicted for such an offence 50 years ago should still not be eligible for any compensation, irrespective of what happens to them?
Mr Clarke
As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Government are committed to introducing amendments to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, currently in the other place, in order to amend the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. This is very much a Liberal Democrat initiative, and it will make the difference between spent and unspent sentences a little less rigorous. We are consulting on exceptions to an absolute bar. It is right that someone injured in their 60s does not necessarily lose all right to compensation on the basis that he had quite a serious conviction when he was 19. Without opening the gates too wide, we are, as it were, canvassing views on how to accommodate such exceptional cases—so long as they are rare and exceptional.
EU Treaties
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
The Home Office and the Ministry of Justice have prepared the second annual report to Parliament on the application of protocols 19 and 21 to the treaty on European Union (TEU) and the treaty on the functioning of the European Union (TFEU) (“the treaties”) in relation to EU Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) matters. The report is submitted on behalf of both my own Department and that of the Secretary of State for the Home Department.
On 9 June 2008 the right hon. Baroness Ashton, the then Leader of the House of Lords, made a statement setting out commitments by the Government to Parliament in respect of the scrutiny of decisions to be taken by the Government in accordance with protocol (No. 21) to the treaties on the position of the UK and Ireland in respect of the area of freedom, security and justice (“the Justice and Home Affairs opt-in protocol”). These commitments were designed to ensure that the views of the Scrutiny Committees should inform the Government’s decision-making process.
This included a pledge that the Government would lay a report in Parliament each year and make it available for debate, both looking ahead to the Government’s approach to EU Justice and Home Affairs policy and forthcoming dossiers, including in relation to the opt-in, and providing a retrospective annual report on the UK’s application of the opt-in protocol.
On 20 January 2011, the Minister for Europe confirmed in his statement to Parliament on enhancing parliamentary scrutiny of decisions in the area of EU Justice and Home Affairs that the coalition Government have undertaken to maintain this commitment, and this is the second such report. It covers the period 1 December 2010 to 30 November 2011. For completeness the report also covers the application of protocol 19 to the treaties on the Schengen acquis integrated into the framework of the EU (“the Schengen opt-out protocol”). The Government’s decision-making process for this protocol is the same as for the Justice and Home Affairs opt-in protocol.
Detainee Inquiry
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I wish to make a statement.
This Government stand firmly against torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. We do not condone it, nor do we ask others to do it on our behalf. In July 2010, the Prime Minister announced a package of measures to this House designed to deal with allegations about British involvement in the mistreatment of detainees held by other states overseas. As he told the House then, those allegations are not proven, but their consequences are serious. In his words:
“Our reputation as a country that believes in human rights, justice, fairness and the rule of law—indeed, much of what the services exist to protect—risks being tarnished. Public confidence is being eroded, with people doubting the ability of our services to protect us and questioning the rules under which they operate.”—[Official Report, 6 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 175.]
No one should be in any doubt about the vital nature of the work that our security and intelligence agencies perform on our behalf or the debt that they are owed by all of us. Without public recognition, the men and women of the services take the gravest personal risks to protect the security of our country. So in his statement 18 months ago the Prime Minister set out a package of measures designed to ensure not just that we can get to the bottom of allegations of mistreatment, but that we learn any lessons, improve the framework for litigation where sensitive material is involved, and enable our security and intelligence services to get on with their vital job.
Since July 2010 the Government have taken a number of steps to fulfil this commitment. We have published for the first time the consolidated guidance for intelligence officers and service personnel on dealing with foreign liaison services regarding detainees held in their custody, to make clear the basis on which our security and intelligence services operate. We have also secured a mediated settlement of the Guantanamo Bay civil damages cases, about which I made a statement to this House on 16 November 2010. I also made a statement to this House on 19 October 2011 on the publication of the Government’s Green Paper on justice and security, which aims to improve our courts’ ability to handle intelligence and other sensitive material and to strengthen the parliamentary and independent bodies that oversee the security and intelligence services. We will set out our response to the consultation on the Green Paper in due course.
We also established an inquiry under Sir Peter Gibson to examine whether, and if so to what extent, the British Government and their intelligence agencies were involved in the improper treatment of detainees held by other countries in counter-terrorism operations overseas, or were aware of improper treatment of detainees in operations in which the United Kingdom was involved. Since then, the Gibson inquiry has been in a preparatory phase, with the panel focusing on a review of key underlying material. The inquiry has had the full co-operation of Departments and agencies during its preparations and has received a large volume of material in response to its requests for information, which it is in the process of considering. We have always been clear, however, that the detainee inquiry would not be able to start formally until all related police investigations had been concluded.
Last week, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Metropolitan Police Service made a joint statement that they would not charge any named individuals in the Security Service and Secret Intelligence Service in relation to the investigations in Operations Hinton and Iden. However, they also announced that allegations made in two specific cases concerning the alleged rendition of named individuals to Libya and their alleged ill-treatment there were so serious that it was in the public interest for them to be investigated now rather than at the conclusion of the Gibson detainee inquiry. I made a written ministerial statement on Monday this week explaining that the Government were considering the implications for the detainee inquiry of these new police investigations.
The Government will continue to co-operate fully with the police and the Crown Prosecution Service in their investigations, and we remain committed to drawing a line under these issues. As part of this process, the agencies will continue to review their records, and we will ensure that this process is thorough and comprehensive. We and the agencies are absolutely clear that where there are any questions about knowledge of improper treatment of detainees, they must be fully examined and, where necessary, investigated. Looking to the future, we will carefully review the responses to the Green Paper about the oversight of the agencies.
However, these further police investigations into the Libyan allegations may take some considerable time to conclude. The Government fully intend to hold a judge-led inquiry into these issues, once it is possible to do so and all related police investigations have been concluded. But there now appears no prospect of the Gibson inquiry being able to start in the foreseeable future. So, following consultation with Sir Peter Gibson, the chair of the inquiry, we have decided to bring the work of his inquiry to a conclusion. We have agreed with Sir Peter that the inquiry should provide the Government with a report on its preparatory work to date, highlighting particular themes or issues which might be the subject of further examination. The Government are clear that as much of this report as possible will be made public. We will continue to keep Parliament fully informed of progress. The Government fully intend to hold an independent, judge-led inquiry, once all police investigations have concluded, to establish the full facts and draw a line under these issues. Meanwhile, however, the police inquiries that have now commenced must obviously continue. I commend this statement to the House.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. The whole House unequivocally condemns torture, and inhumane, cruel and degrading forms of punishment. We must not condone it or ask others to do so on our behalf. One of the marks of a civilised society is that we will do everything in our power to champion human rights, both at home and abroad, and that we will properly investigate, prosecute and punish those alleged to have committed such crimes in this country or on behalf of this country elsewhere across the globe. So, allegations that members of our security and intelligence services may be involved in the improper treatment of detainees held by other countries, with acts that contravene these basic levels of human decency that we hold so dear as a nation, need proper and full investigation.
The investigations in Operations Hinton and Iden relate to serious and highly sensitive matters involving, as they do, allegations about members of the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service. Operation Hinton followed a referral from the former Attorney-General, my right hon. and learned Friend Baroness Scotland, in November 2008 and Operation Iden followed a referral, also by the former Attorney-General, in June 2009. These independent investigations concluded on 12 January this year, as has been said, with a decision not to charge any named individuals in relation to the investigations in Operations Hinton and Iden.
Our security and intelligence agencies perform vital work on our behalf and we owe them a debt. Without public recognition, the men and women of these services take the gravest personal risks to protect the security of our country. But it is clearly right that, in the light of the further, specific allegations of ill-treatment made recently, the Metropolitan Police Service and the Crown Prosecution Service investigate these thoroughly. Although it was also right that the inquiry led by Sir Peter Gibson was put on hold while investigations into criminal proceedings were ongoing, I would ask the Justice Secretary why he has decided not to have a further hold in Sir Peter Gibson’s inquiry while these further investigations are carried out. It is also important that the pause is used as an opportunity to ensure that the former detainees and the human rights and campaign groups who chose not to engage in the Sir Peter Gibson inquiry are brought back into the fold.
May I ask the Justice Secretary what his views are on the representations made by those acting on behalf of the detainees, non-governmental organisations and others that an inquiry conducted with the current terms of reference and protocol does not comply with articles 3 and 6 of the European convention on human rights? It is clearly important that any inquiry has legitimacy, and I invite the Justice Secretary to use the period while the allegations are being investigated by the police to work with ourselves, NGOs and other experts to ensure that the new inquiry has as much legitimacy as is possible. I also ask the Secretary of State when and how he intends the work of Sir Peter Gibson, or as much as is realistically possible, to be published.
The key point is that we must get to the bottom of what happened. We are firmly of the view that there must be an independent inquiry as the quicker these questions are answered, the quicker we will be able to draw a line under these issues.
Mr Clarke
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his broad support for the aims we are pursuing. I agree with everything he said about the security services and I think we owe it to them, as well as to the reputation of this country, to draw a line under these matters as quickly as possible, which involves investigating them all properly and making the position clear as well as considering matters such as the supervision of the services in future.
The right hon. Gentleman asked why we did not have just another pause in the Gibson inquiry, as we were previously just waiting for the outcome of the police inquiries into the Guantanamo Bay cases. With great respect, it is not even fair to the team to keep things going on in that way. I had hoped to be able to come to the House and say, if anyone asked me, that the Gibson inquiry was now under way, that it was starting its proceedings and that all was going smoothly. We now have to wait for an as yet unknown period of time while the Libyan investigations are carried out and while we see where they go. The Metropolitan police took three years to look into the Guantanamo Bay cases and I think everybody is anxious that we should be quicker than that as we look at the Libyan cases, but we have no idea how long it will take.
Sir Peter and his colleagues have done some work and the sensible thing is to publish the outcome of their preparatory work now, wait to see what happens to the investigations and to set up an independent judge-led inquiry as soon as it is feasible, which might require a fresh team of people to carry it out. We have the terms of reference for Gibson because we think the Gibson inquiry itself should not take too long and I have discussed the terms of reference with NGOs, representatives of former detainees and so on. I will quite happily continue those conversations and I have been trying to persuade them that the Gibson inquiry meets their needs and that they should actively participate and engage in the process. I will continue that and I will listen to their views, too, about the nature of the inquiry. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman and those outside the House who have an interest that the Government will hold an independent judge-led inquiry. We are where we are, and the Gibson proposals are our proposals.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)
As a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, may I endorse the observations made by my right hon. and learned Friend and by the shadow Justice Secretary about the contribution that the security services make to the security of the nation? When the Gibson inquiry was first conceived, the hope was expressed that it might complete its work within one year. As events have subsequently proved, that prognosis was rather optimistic. May I say to my right hon. and learned Friend that I think that he has inevitably had to bow to the changed circumstances and that his announcement today is entirely sensible and will preserve all the issues that would otherwise have been dealt with by the Gibson inquiry?
Mr Clarke
I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. The point that lies behind the debate I have been having with NGOs and detainee representatives about the terms of reference is that our aim would be that the judge-led inquiry might conclude within a year. We do not want an inquiry that takes years and years and becomes too legalistic. We are still open to discussions about that, but the right hon. and learned Gentleman obviously shares my view that it would be much better if we were able to get things under way and hold this inquiry. I am grateful for his support for the inevitability of holding fire and getting Sir Peter to produce what he has done so far.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
Sir Peter Gibson is a retired senior judge of the highest integrity and skill and I am personally quite certain that had he had the opportunity to continue this inquiry, he and his colleagues on the panel would have been able to do a most thorough job and would have gained the confidence of the NGOs and others in the course of that inquiry in exactly the same way as Sir William Macpherson, who was faced with a high degree of scepticism when he first began the Lawrence inquiry, was able to assuage the concerns of many of those involved in the course of the proceedings. May I also say to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that I believe that he is absolutely right to do what he has and that in practice he has had no alternative?
Mr Clarke
I am grateful for that view and for the right hon. Gentleman’s support because I keep trying to assure people that there is no conspiracy here. The Government actually want these things to be properly investigated and want the full facts to be shared with the general public so far as they sensibly can be, consistent with the interests of national security.
Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)
It was widely held that the Gibson inquiry’s approach to the investigation set out in the protocol and in the interpretation of the terms of reference was defective in a number of important respects. I have brought those to the attention of the Government already and have discussed them in correspondence with the Prime Minister, as my right hon. and learned Friend will know. In particular, there was no intention to cover detainee transfer in theatre and no intention to appoint an investigator or even to try to investigate all the cases of credible allegations brought forward. Will my right hon. and learned Friend undertake to review fully all these aspects of the Gibson inquiry’s proposed work so that we can rectify these defects when an inquiry reconvenes?
Mr Clarke
I will continue the conversations I have been having with my hon. Friend and others about the basis on which the Gibson inquiry is proceeding. I have been trying to persuade people to be more co-operative with the Gibson inquiry, but I am also quite happy to listen to points that people make to me about why they have reservations. The Government wanted to proceed with the Gibson inquiry on the present terms of reference and would have done so if we had not had this final delay. We have more time to consider the matter, although we did not want more time, and I am happy to discuss these matters with my hon. Friend and others again.
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
Our intelligence agencies do a hugely important job for this country, but it is essential that they operate and are seen to operate within the highest standards of human rights ethics and a proper legal framework. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is essential in the current circumstances to take forward his proposals in the Green Paper on justice and security to strengthen the role of the Intelligence and Security Committee so that we can have the legal powers and the necessary resources to be able to scrutinise fully the work of our intelligence agencies?
Mr Clarke
I assure the right hon. Lady that there is no delay to that aspect of our policy. We will shortly be responding to the consultations on our Green Paper, the first of which concerned the basis on which courts and other proceedings can handle intelligence material in a way that improves their ability to try cases without jeopardising national security. The second concerned the important matter that she raises of the supervision by this House and elsewhere of the security services.
Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend’s approach to this matter. Does it remain his hope that at the end of this process we can avoid the situation that arose in the previous Parliament when my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) and others were reassured over and again on the Floor of the House that there was no United Kingdom involvement in any respect with any extraordinary rendition, which subsequently turned out not to be the case?
Mr Clarke
Like my hon. Friend, I was a member of the all-party group on extraordinary rendition being led by my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), so I was as anxious to see the outcome of the police and other inquiries as everybody else. The whole point is to dispel all this because we must have an effective national security system and effective agencies. People who work in those agencies do very brave work that is essential to this country. We must draw a line under all this and investigate fully this legacy of allegations in order to find out exactly what happened and work out how to proceed and how to scrutinise the services in future.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
The Justice Secretary clearly has the support of both sides of the House in the decision he has taken today. Could he clarify whether this was his decision or whether Sir Peter came to him and asked to be relinquished of his responsibilities in view of the fresh investigations? I know that the Justice Secretary cannot give us a timetable, but does he envisage this lasting for months or years?
Mr Clarke
It was discussed with Sir Peter Gibson and he agrees that this is the way to proceed. I did not personally have the conversation, but in the light of last week’s inquiry it was decided that it was sensible to discuss this with Sir Peter and he agrees with the decision we have taken to proceed in this way. I wish I knew how long the Metropolitan police investigations will take. I hope that they will not take as long as the Guantanamo Bay cases, but there is absolutely no basis on which I can properly intervene with the police. We want these matters to be investigated thoroughly so we will wait and see.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
It looks increasingly clear that this is going to take years rather than months. Can my right hon. and learned Friend assure me that in the intervening time he will take particular care in defining the terms of reference on the Libyan dimension, which in my opinion is much wider than just rendition? What about, for example, the training of Libyan forces at the defence academy at Shrivenham? We need to narrow down the issues when it comes to Libya so that we can avoid the pitfalls that have beset the Gibson process thus far.
Mr Clarke
The intention was that the Gibson inquiry would cover that aspect of the Libyan allegations, particularly the two allegations of rendition, that fitted with the terms of reference the inquiry already had for the Guantanamo Bay cases, but a lot of issues have been thrown up by the Libyan allegations and we will consider how best to handle them. Unfortunately, the Metropolitan police are bound to take months at least, I should have thought, so we have time to consider how best to handle these matters.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
I wholeheartedly agree with the statement that the Justice Secretary has made today, but how can we ensure that the security and intelligence agents who do such sterling work on our behalf are protected against false allegations against them?
Mr Clarke
I have never been able to protect anybody against false allegations but the easiest way of handling such allegations is to investigate them quickly and dismiss them. I have no doubt that allegations that turn out to be false will be quickly dismissed by Sir Peter Gibson and I hope that any future inquiry will get rid of malicious or politically motivated allegations, to which people who work in this field are bound to be exposed. However, that is not a description of the things now being looked at. The questions being raised here are serious and this issue calls for some explanation. We want the Libyan cases to be investigated very thoroughly and we look forward to the police conclusion and the results of a judge-led inquiry on the whole matter.
Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)
Last July, my right hon. and learned Friend confirmed to me at the time of his statement on the Gibson inquiry that he wanted Shaker Aamer, the last British resident detained in Guantanamo Bay, to be available to give evidence to it. Does not this pause give a fresh opportunity to press the case that he should be released and be available to give evidence to any new inquiry?
Mr Clarke
My hon. Friend is probably right. That is another good reason why we would like Shaker Aamer to be released and I will bring her remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. We keep making representations and trying to get him released and brought back.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
When some of us were calling for a public inquiry led by a judge into phone hacking at the News of the World, we cited the Gibson inquiry as one that had been set up even while criminal investigations were ongoing, and the Secretary of State said that it was important that Gibson was able to secure whatever evidence there was that might in other cases be destroyed. I hope that he can still make that assertion today.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
We must get to the bottom of the allegations of mistreatment as soon as possible. The credibility of the intelligence services depends on it. To that end, how soon after police investigations are concluded does the Secretary of State expect a successor detainee inquiry to be established? In the interim, is there an enhanced role for the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation that might require him to have a salary and an office outside the Home Office to review these matters independently and effectively?
Mr Clarke
We have not taken any decisions yet about the exact point at which we will start constituting a new judge-led inquiry or approaching a judge and people who might wish to serve on the inquiry. What we did this time was to set up the Gibson inquiry in the belief that we were about to start imminently—going into the full formal stage after a few months of preparation. Presumably, we will try to repeat that, but at this stage it is impossible to know when we will be in a position to do that. At the moment, we want to review the facts of these cases so I do not feel the need to create a new appointment to review the legislation in this area; indeed, I would argue, subject to what emerges, that the law in this area is reasonably clear. It is the facts that we hope to investigate, and then the application of the law to those facts.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Is not the real lesson of Gibson that important inquiries such as this cannot proceed properly without the full confidence of all interests and participants? What is the Justice Secretary doing to ensure that any future inquiries will have the full confidence of all human rights groups and all lawyers involved in such cases?
Mr Clarke
I have met a very wide range NGOs, human rights groups and those with an interest, and I have been trying to persuade them that the Gibson inquiry is something that they should get engaged with. I very much hope still to see them doing that. I am still having meetings about the Green Paper on security and justice and of course on the supervision of the security services. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was here earlier; we will continue to engage. I agree that it would be very much better if we could get the NGOs and others to accept that this is the way to proceed. We will continue to listen to their arguments about why they feel that they cannot, and we will do our best.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. Does he agree that under procedure there is no other way than to allow the Crown Prosecution Service to make those investigations before carrying on with the inquiry?
Mr Clarke
I am glad to hear that my hon. Friend believes that. I think that is right. The problem of letting the inquiry go ahead while the police are carrying out the investigations is obviously that one could hopelessly compromise the other. We cannot have witnesses giving evidence about events when the police are in the middle of inquiries into the self-same events. [Interruption.] Well, that was the basis upon which we started, and everybody accepted that Gibson could not start until the police investigations had finished. There are sensible reasons, as my hon. Friend says, why we are in that situation.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
Our country has a reputation around the world as one which protects human rights. When allegations of extraordinary rendition were made, it tarnished that image. I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s inquiry into the whole issue and the support given by the shadow Secretary of State for Justice. I ask the Lord Chancellor to take on board the points that the shadow Secretary of State for Justice mentioned.
Mr Clarke
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. It is extremely important that we maintain this essentially cross-party approach to these matters and that the House gives its full support to our attempts to get to the bottom of these matters. As she says, it is in the interests of this country and of the Security Service that we do so.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
For quite a long time, together with the security services and the police, I was responsible for detainees and for interviewing them. In all that time we took huge care to comply with instructions, particularly about human rights, when interviewing detainees. It is very difficult and sometimes dangerous work for the officers concerned. I hope—I know—the Secretary of State will agree that instances of poor practice are few and far between and are very sad indeed.
Mr Clarke
My hon. Friend speaks with much greater authority than I on the subject and puts forward an opinion with which I wholeheartedly agree. That is why it is in the interests of the vast majority of those brave men and women who serve in those services, often in very dangerous situations, that we tackle these allegations of malpractice. I am sure the allegations are against a tiny number of officers and it may be that they will turn out to be unfounded. The sooner we can clear this up and draw a line under it, the better.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Will the Justice Secretary accept that the allegation that British security officials handed over suspects to places abroad where they were tortured is a matter of great concern for Britain’s reputation? I said “allegation”, but in the case last week of the two Libyans, the letter which was found from the MI6 officer confirms that that was not merely an allegation. The two were sent over to Libya and were tortured. As we know, one of them, who holds a high position now in post-Gaddafi Libya, is accordingly bringing legal action against the UK Government.
Mr Clarke
Those are the serious allegations which need to be investigated and are being investigated by the police. On the principle of the matter, which the hon. Gentleman underlines, this Government are absolutely clear that we do not engage in torture, we do not condone torture, we do not get engaged in torture in any way, and we are not remotely going to get involved in the cruel and inhuman treatment of detainees in any way. The sooner we investigate the serious allegations that have emerged from Tripoli, the better.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
The Secretary of State said that in pursuit of the Libyan allegations “the agencies”, which I presume are the security agencies, “will continue to review their records”, and that the Government will ensure that the process is “thorough and comprehensive.” Is there any room for independent oversight of that review by the agencies of their records and of any lack of records that might be identified? How exactly can he assure the House that that process will be thorough and comprehensive, as it seems that the subsequent police investigation will be entirely dependent upon it?
Mr Clarke
One must adopt a sensible approach to this. We did not expect the Libyan revelations to appear until they emerged from that office in Tripoli. For that reason a most thorough review of records is being undertaken and will continue. To bring in fresh people to review the review—one gets carried away. I have no reason to doubt that at present the most thorough review is taking place to make sure that we know where we are and we can put an end to the matter by having it properly and independently investigated, eventually by a judge-led inquiry.
The Detainee Inquiry
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
On 12 January 2012 the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Metropolitan Police Service issued a joint statement on the outcome of two investigations into members of the Security Service and Secret Intelligence Service. They also announced that allegations made in two specific cases concerning the alleged rendition of named individuals to Libya and the alleged ill-treatment of them in Libya were so serious that it is in the public interest for them to be investigated now rather than at the conclusion of the Detainee Inquiry.
The Government stand firmly against torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. We do not condone it, nor do we ask others to do it on our behalf. We have always been clear that the Detainee Inquiry will not be able to start formally until all related police investigations have been concluded. We will need to consider the implications of the joint DPP and MPS statement, in consultation with Sir Peter Gibson, the inquiry chair, and will make a further statement in due course. We remain committed to drawing a line under these issues.
Compensation Act 2006
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
I am today laying before the House the Government’s memorandum to the Justice Committee on post-legislative scrutiny of the Compensation Act 2006. Copies have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
The Compensation Act 2006 contains provisions relating to two separate and distinct areas: part 1 contains provisions restating and clarifying the law of negligence and breach of statutory duty, and provisions addressing a practical difficulty that had arisen in relation to proving liability for the asbestos-related disease of mesothelioma; and part 2 provides the framework for the regulation of claims management services.
These reforms have been implemented, in line with the stated objectives of the Act, as detailed in the memorandum.
Fines, Confiscation Orders and Fixed Penalties
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (“HMCTS”) has prepared a trust statement providing an account of the collection of revenues which, by statute or convention, are due to be paid to HM Treasury. The statement includes the value of fines and confiscation orders imposed by the judiciary; fixed penalties imposed by the police; the value of collections; the balances paid over to third-parties including victims of crime, the Home Office and HM Treasury; and the balance of outstanding impositions.
Enforcement of all court impositions is a priority for this Government. The Ministry of Justice has been working closely with the Home Office, Crown Prosecution Service, the Serious Organised Crime Agency and others to improve enforcement through a range of current and planned measures. These include “Operation Crackdown”, a targeted blitz on persistent defaulters, telephone and text chasing, action to increasing deduction of court fines direct from salary and benefits, greater use of tracing tools like credit checks, and 24-hour telephone and internet payment facilities.
We are also exploring how we can reduce the level of “aged debt” on the Government’s books—including fines, compensation and costs orders which have been imposed but have yet to be successfully collected after a minimum of 12 months. In some cases, these date back a number of years—some as far as the early 1990s. We are piloting new approaches with three commercial suppliers to establish the collectability of financial penalties over a year old, testing a combination of techniques and innovation and providing evidence on which to develop a strategy to manage this debt in the future.
The statement shows that in 2010-11 over £497 million of cash was collected by HMCTS—an increase of £25 million on the previous year. The overall total of outstanding impositions increased from £1.5 billion to £1.9 billion. The principal driver for this has been an increase in the use of confiscation orders, which have been more aggressively imposed in the Crown Court over the last year to deprive criminals of assets—their use by the courts in 2010-11 rose by 158%, and accounts for £1.2 billion of the total. In some cases, such as joint criminal enterprise, two separate orders can be issued for the total sum—in one case two individuals are separately liable for the same sum of £92 million, a total order of £184 million.
The Ministry of Justice is responsible for the direct collection of 16% of confiscation orders by value. Enforcing confiscation orders presents a challenge right across Government, as criminals use increasingly complex ways to mask or offshore their assets—it is estimated that over 60% of the total are “hidden” assets or held overseas. All agencies involved in confiscation orders are committed to improving enforcement performance.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) has today published a report on the trust statement, and provided a disclaimer with his certificate. This reflects the fact that the IT systems used in the enforcement of impositions are live “case management” systems, rather than accounting systems: they are fully effective in reporting the value of money owed to ensure targeted enforcement, but cannot be used for retrospective reporting of individual transactions for audit. The IT system was rolled out in 2007-8: the requirement to produce a trust statement first arose for 2010-11. We estimate that to implement a new accounting system for these purposes would cost at least £3 million, and would not present good value for public money. We are, however, taking steps to ensure that we are better able to evidence the robustness of the historical figures for audit purposes in future.