Public Bodies Reform
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Today I have laid before Parliament a public consultation response document; “Response to Consultation on reforms proposed in the Public Bodies Bill—Reforming the public bodies of the Ministry of Justice”.
The response confirms the Ministry of Justice’s intentions in relation to the Department’s bodies included in the Public Bodies Bill, which received Royal Assent yesterday. Reform of these bodies through the powers provided in the Public Bodies Act 2011 will increase Government accountability, eliminate duplication of activity and discontinue activities that no longer need to take place.
The response confirms the Government’s intention to abolish the following bodies: the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council; Courts Boards; the Crown Court Rule Committee; HM Inspectorate of Courts Administration; the Magistrates’ Courts Rule Committee; and the Public Guardian Board. The Department will also use the powers in the Bill to merge four bodies or offices to create The National Archives as a legal entity to reflect current administrative arrangements. These bodies and offices are: the Public Record Office, HM Stationery Office, The Keeper of Public Records and the Advisory Council on Public Records.
I have decided that the Government should not pursue the abolition of the Youth Justice Board (YJB) and that the office of the chief coroner should be established but without the bespoke appeals system that would have been attached to that office. Amendments to that effect were made to the Public Bodies Bill on 23 November during Lords Consideration of Commons Amendments.
The Government continue to believe that there is a need for reform of youth justice in order to increase direct ministerial accountability for this important and distinct area of the justice system. The Ministry of Justice will shortly bring forward new proposals for youth justice reform. The Department will also announce in the new year further details of the timetable for the implementation of the office of the chief coroner.
Orders that give effect to the decisions set out in the response paper will be laid from early in 2012. As provided for in the Public Bodies Act 2011, all such orders will be subject to the enhanced affirmative parliamentary procedure.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
3. When he expects to appoint a new Victims’ Commissioner.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
I am extremely grateful to Louise Casey for the work she did as Victims’ Commissioner and the advice that I received from her while she was in office. We are considering the future of the role and intend to make an announcement in due course.
Chi Onwurah
In 2005, teenager Jenny Nicholl was murdered. Her murderer was convicted in 2008 but her body has never been found. Her mother, a constituent of mine, tells me that she received little support while suffering aggressive media intrusion and insinuations. Murder victims’ families have no formal status in court, are offered no protection from the media and, on average, incur costs of £113,000. Mrs Nicholl found the Victims’ Commissioner a strong supporter and champion. To whom should she turn now?
Mr Clarke
When Louise Casey was Victims’ Commissioner, she advised me strongly on giving more resources to the support of bereaved families, and I thought that her advice that we should target our support to victims and their families was very sensible. We are working on that and will continue to do so. I propose to publish a consultation document on a general victims package covering a wide range of areas, and I can assure the hon. Lady that in all our work we intend to give even greater emphasis to the importance of looking after victims, as well as getting justice in their cases.
Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)
The outgoing Victims’ Commissioner, Louise Casey, referred specifically to the needs of children as witnesses and victims in the criminal justice system. How will the Justice Secretary work with the new Victims’ Commissioner to ensure that proper protections are given to vulnerable children in that situation?
Mr Clarke
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I will do that. We have made great progress in this country in recent years, including under the previous Government, on giving proper support to witnesses who have to appear in court. Obviously, it is most important to look after the most vulnerable witnesses, including children, who can be intimidated by the experience. We are looking at what we have in place now, and we hope to strengthen the arrangements.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
4. What steps he is taking to tackle first-time drug users in prisons; and if he will make a statement.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
7. What steps his Department is taking to support victims.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
In the current financial year, the Ministry of Justice is providing funding of approximately £50 million to voluntary sector organisations that support victims of crime. We intend to launch a consultation soon on proposals that will ensure that victims of crime are supported in the best way possible.
Jessica Morden
The anniversary of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai was on 26 November. In 2010 the innocent victims of overseas terrorism were led to believe that they would receive compensation, but they are still waiting. What is the Secretary of State doing to resolve the matter?
Mr Clarke
I will make announcements on what we propose to do for the victims of terrorism when we produce our package on victim support generally. We will certainly produce a package, and we will respect the previous Government’s proposal of an interim award for those injured in incidents such as that in Mumbai.
Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)
Delays to cases caused by defendants not appearing in court can be very distressing for victims. What guidance is given to the court to continue with the trial in the absence of the defendant?
Mr Clarke
This is the second reference in questions to delays in court, which cause immense inconvenience and sometimes considerable distress to witnesses and others, as well as to the victims of crime. We are looking urgently at how to improve the efficiency of the system and how best to proceed if people fail to co-operate. It is always possible to proceed with a trial in the absence of the defendant, but only once the judge is satisfied that the interests of justice will not be prejudiced. There is no point in starting a trial only for it to have to be started a week or two later when it is challenged.
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
8. What steps he is taking to reform the role of bailiffs in commercial rent collections and repossessions; and if he will make a statement.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
13. If he will bring forward proposals to extend the power of the Attorney-General to refer unduly lenient sentences to the Court of Appeal for crimes aggravated by hostility towards disabled people.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
We have no plans to extend the Attorney-General’s powers in this field at present. However, as my hon. Friend will be aware, we are considering this issue carefully in formulating our response to the recommendations of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s inquiry into disability-related harassment.
Mr Buckland
More work needs to be done to ensure that existing provisions allowing for longer sentences where offences are aggravated by disability hate are applied consistently. Would extending the Attorney-General’s powers of reference not help to establish greater consistency in sentencing?
Mr Clarke
I agree with my hon. Friend that this is an important area, because it is a particularly nasty element of crime when violence or something of that kind is provoked by hostility to a disabled person because of their disability. Sentencing guidelines already provide that this is an aggravating feature when someone is sentenced. Of course, if the Attorney-General uses his existing powers to appeal a lenient sentence, he can include cases where disability is a feature, for example, in an assault occasioning grievous bodily harm or something of that kind. But we are looking at the point again at the moment and I will bear my hon. Friend’s comments in mind.
Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
Will the Justice Secretary consider introducing offences on disability hate crime and other hate crime, including incitement, along the lines of the legislation that rightly exists on racially aggravated crime?
Mr Clarke
That is an option. Of course, as I say, offences provoked by prejudice against disabled people are regarded as hate crimes and this is an aggravating feature in sentences, but we are examining the whole area. We have to make sure that we do not overcomplicate sentencing, because if we keep thinking of things that make the most serious offences even more serious, we threaten the consistency that has been described. However, the right hon. Gentleman makes an important point and we are reviewing this field in the light of the report we have received.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State examine the possibility of extending the concept of disability hate crime to include disability by association, thereby bringing the concept into line with the other measures in the Equality Act 2010? If he does not do that, cases such as that of Fiona Pilkington will not count as disability hate crime as she herself was not disabled.
Mr Clarke
I shall consider that point in the course of the work we are doing at the moment, but I do not want to encourage my hon. Friend too far because overcomplicating this does not necessarily help. What is important is that sentences should be allowed to reflect, in the most appropriate and consistent way, the disgust that the ordinary public feel when a crime is motivated by prejudice against a disabled person. It does make a crime even more serious than it would otherwise be.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
I agree with a lot of what the Secretary of State says, but not with his claim that this move would overcomplicate things. One single principle underpins all hate crime: the principle of intent. If that principle applies in respect of one group, does it not apply in respect of other groups, for example, racial groups or the victims of homophobic crime?
Mr Clarke
The hon. Gentleman is quite right to say that the intent of the offender makes for a particularly unpleasant version of whatever crime it is we are talking about. I will certainly consider the hon. Gentleman’s points, just as I have said I will those made by other hon. Members, in the course of seeing whether the law needs any further improvement, but I think that sentences do already reflect the fact that it is a serious aggravating feature of crime if prejudice against disabled people is involved.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
14. What plans he has to permit the broadcasting of court proceedings.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
I am very clear that we must not allow our courts to become theatre; filming will be of judges’ remarks only. Victims, witnesses—wait a minute, wrong answer!
We are planning to legislate, as soon as parliamentary time allows, to remove the ban on cameras in courts, subject to certain safeguards, and we are working closely with the Lord Chief Justice on achieving this. Initially, we will allow judgments in the Court of Appeal to be broadcast for the first time, and will expand this to the Crown court in due course. We will not allow filming of juries, victims and witnesses under any circumstances.
If any supplementary question should resemble the point I have just replied to, I assure you, Mr Speaker, that I will use my own words in replying to it.
Christopher Pincher
I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for both answers. I quite agree with him that justice, if it is to be seen to be done, must not be seen to be fun. Will he say how he intends to safeguard court officials and lawyers from unwanted attention?
Mr Clarke
I share all my hon. Friend’s reservations about going too far. The judge, when he gives a sentence or a judgment, is a public official performing a public function; his words can be quoted, he will be reported and there is no real reason why he should not be filmed. The other people involved, I think, need to be protected because, otherwise the whole nature of the proceedings will be changed, some people will be intimidated and some people’s behaviour will be affected.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I note that the Justice Secretary said that the words he used earlier were not his own, whereas these now are.
One thing that really upsets victims is when the defence lawyer, having already admitted guilt on behalf of his client and going to mitigating circumstances, suddenly launches into a major attack on the victim of the crime, thereby, I believe, abusing privilege. Will the Justice Secretary ensure that that is not available for public consumption?
Mr Clarke
If taken too far, that can be stopped. Of course the lawyer is entitled to put forward mitigation for his client after the plea, but I strongly disapprove, and I am glad the hon. Gentleman would too, of any attempt for this to be used for people to make allegations against the victims, for the defendant to make a theatrical display in the witness box, for the jurors’ reactions to evidence to be filmed or anything of that kind. We are talking about the judgments and what is said as part of his official duties by the judge and, at this stage, I am not contemplating going any further.
David Wright (Telford) (Lab)
15. What arrangements his Department has in place to manage any shortfall of prison places.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
I recently launched a consultation on improving judicial diversity and appointments. The proposals include the following measures: first, looking to prefer the candidate from an under-represented background where candidates are essentially indistinguishable on merit; secondly, limiting fee-paid judges to three five-year terms; and, thirdly, introducing flexible working for the senior judiciary. Our aim is to deliver a judiciary that is reflective of our society, in which public confidence is enhanced and which retains its world-class quality.
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)
T2. Last month my right hon. and learned Friend prioritised the reform of the European Court of Human Rights during our chairmanship of the Council of Europe. Will he update the House on the steps that the Government are taking to restrain the Court’s influence over laws and customs that are properly the affair of member states?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
We have had the chairmanship of the Council of Europe since 7 November, and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and I have been seeking to move forward our agenda of reforming the Court in due course. Indeed, I will be lobbying two more Ministers tomorrow at a meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council. We are seeking to get the Court to concentrate on the most important cases which require some international jurisdiction to get rid of the huge arrears of cases clogging it up at the moment, most of which are inadmissible, and to make sure that the national courts and national Parliaments discharge their primary duty of delivering the convention.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
Perhaps the Justice Secretary will advise his right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary not to walk out of those talks while he is chairing them, if he does not get what he wants in the first few weeks. The Justice Secretary will be aware that the number of prison places is now just below 90,000. It has gone up over the past 18 months as a consequence of doubling up prisoners in prison cells and as the previous Government’s investment in capital programmes comes on stream. At the last Justice questions, the right hon. and learned Gentleman refused to answer my simple question about whether he thought prisoner numbers would go up, go down or stay the same, which is crucial for planning. He said that anybody who tried to predict prisoner numbers was “an idiot”. May I ask him another simple question? Perhaps he will rest the bluster and answer the question. Is he making plans for the usable operational capacity to go up, go down or stay the same during this Parliament?
Mr Clarke
The right hon. Gentleman’s remarks might best be addressed to Ministers in the previous Government, who obviously made some errors somewhere when they found that they had to release 80,000 prisoners before they had completed their sentence because they had no room for them on the prison estate. We are maintaining capacity to meet whatever demand we face from the courts. What I said last time, from which the right hon. Gentleman took the slightest extract, was that we respond to the decisions of the courts, we respond to the level of crime, and at present we have managed—[Hon. Members: “Have the numbers gone up or down?”] They have gone up. It is possible that with the prolonged recession and the long period of youth unemployment, there will be an increase in acquisitive crime. If that is the experience that we have in this country, we are responding to that. The Prison Service is responding very well to it at the moment, though of course we have to adjust the capacity of the estate.
Sadiq Khan
One way of reducing cost to the British taxpayer and at the same time increasing prison places is by removing the thousands of foreign prisoners in British prisons. May I refer to the European Union and events last week? Last week the European Union framework directive on prisoner transfers, negotiated and signed by the Labour Government, who stayed in the room and argued for our national interest and got a good agreement, came into force. Fifty prisoner transfer agreements with other nations were also negotiated by the last Government. When will the Justice Secretary be able to negotiate successfully this Government’s first prisoner transfer agreement, and how many nations does he expect the Government to sign agreements with during this Parliament, or is it the case that in addition to failing to repatriate any powers from Europe, this Government will fail to repatriate any foreign prisoners from this country?
Mr Clarke
Again, under the last Government the number of foreign prisoners in our jails soared until the Government eventually managed to stabilise it. We are maintaining roughly the same level of deportation of foreign prisoners who complete their sentence as was maintained under the previous Government. The new European arrangements have come into force, but not many states are yet ready to implement them. We are ready to implement them and they will provide some help. We are of course seeking to negotiate agreements with other Governments, but it requires the other Governments to be willing to undertake an obligation to take prisoners repatriated from this country.
Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)
T3. I am sure that we all welcome efforts to help reformed offenders back into work so that they can make a positive contribution to society, but one major barrier will always be the perception that employers hold of offenders. What changes does the Minister plan to make to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 2010 to overcome that barrier? As part of the process, will he also look at reducing the number of professions that are exempt from the disclosure limits on sentences?
Mr Clarke
We propose to make changes to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act in order to make some offences spent earlier and to ensure that those who really have put their convictions behind them are not inhibited in getting fresh employment by having to disclose them. That is, I know, a Liberal Democrat enthusiasm, and my noble Friend Lord McNally will introduce amendments to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, currently in the House of Lords, very shortly, setting out the details of what we propose.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
T6. The Justice Secretary will be aware that last Saturday was international human rights day. What is he doing to dispel the myths and misconceptions about the functioning of our Human Rights Act 1998?
Mr Clarke
I think there have been one or two colourful occasions when I have helped to dispel some of the misconceptions about the Human Rights Act, but I of course await the advice of the commission, which the Government have set up to advise us on those matters, so that we can decide whether a better way of complying with our obligations under the convention might be a Bill of Rights rather than the Human Rights Act. But there is no doubt: this Government will seek to abide by their full obligations under the convention on human rights.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
T4. I am sure the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), will join me in paying tribute to the work of the citizens advice bureau in Amber Valley. What progress has he made in his discussions with the Cabinet Office to secure future funding for such centres?
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
T5. Given that murder is a crime different from any other, does the Secretary of State agree that the only appropriate punishment for the crime of murder is, indeed, a life sentence?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
The Government have no intention of reopening that question at the moment, and the vast majority of Members would not contemplate changing the current arrangements, as my hon. Friend has described.
Mr Speaker
Order. May I ask the Secretary of State to face the House? We all want to be the beneficiaries of his eloquence.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
What action does the Justice Secretary intend to take against offenders who receive a community sentence instead of a prison sentence and then use social media to boast that they have “got away with it”? I am thinking in particular of comments posted on Facebook yesterday by Ryan Girdlestone, who mocked the court within minutes of receiving a restraining order for his part in a vicious attack on my constituent, Bernard O’Donnell, a man in his 80th year. Is that not sheer contempt for the court, and should he not be held to account?
Mr Clarke
I think that we had both better take legal advice on whether such behaviour amounts to contempt of court, but one of the things we are addressing is how we can make community sentences more effective. They have to contain an element of genuine punishment in most cases, and also of course be rehabilitative, but such an example is very offensive to victims and to the general public. Community sentences as a whole, however, have a very good record of improving the reoffending rate and deterring some people from wanting to commit crime again.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
T7. The Lord Chancellor will know that one of his responsibilities is to take care of the British Crown dependencies, so perhaps he will explain why, even today, they are not represented in the Commonwealth, have no seats at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting and have no status at all. Will he take the matter forward to ensure that all our Crown dependencies are given the status and the recognition that they rightly deserve?
Mr Clarke
I shall take my hon. Friend’s comments on board and consult my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary on whether the composition of the Commonwealth might be readdressed in that way. I assure my hon. Friend that my Department and my noble Friend Lord McNally take very seriously our responsibilities towards the Crown dependencies.
Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)
Earlier this year, I put down a parliamentary question about employment tribunals. I was told that information on the length of time was not held centrally. Subsequently, I have discovered that there is such information, but that it does not show what the Government intend to do, which is to extend the period in which a person has the right to apply to an employment tribunal. Why do the Government continue to drive such a policy when they do not have that information and there is no right to it?
Abolition of Committals
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
It is in the interests of victims and witnesses, and of the criminal justice system generally, that court procedures should be made as efficient as possible, for example by cutting out unnecessary court hearings. More than 10 years ago, committal proceedings were abolished in indictable-only offences, and replaced by a new “sending” procedure. The Government have decided that the time has come to complete that reform by extending it to offences triable either way. This will enable the Crown court to manage such cases from an earlier stage, and facilitate efforts to encourage defendants who intend to plead guilty to do so sooner.
The change will be effected by bringing into force schedule 3 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 on a phased basis from April 2012. Following the practice adopted when the existing sending procedure in section 51 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 was first introduced, commencement will initially be limited to certain geographical areas, which will be announced later. Subject to a satisfactory assessment of the first phase, the intention is to complete implementation over the next year.
The Government believe that this reform has the potential to contribute to their aim of reforming and improving the criminal justice system.
Legal Aid Reform (Competitive Tendering)
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
The Government set out their intention to introduce competition for the procurement of legally aided services in “Proposals for the Reform of Legal Aid in England and Wales” (November 2010). The consultation paper stated that the immediate focus would be on criminal legal aid, with civil and family legal aid to be addressed over a longer period. The response to the consultation (June 2011) stated that proposals for criminal legal aid competition would be published in a separate consultation paper during 2011. This statement provides an update on the Government’s position in relation to competition and criminal legal aid services, and a timetable for future activity.
The Government believe that competitive tendering is likely to be the best way to ensure long-term sustainability and value for money in the legal aid market. Pressure on legal aid expenditure is likely to continue, increasing the need for further reform of the current arrangements for administratively set remuneration rates in the absence of competition.
The Government believe that tendering criminal defence work for competition, alongside regulatory changes, has the potential to significantly modernise legal aid provision, improve the service provided to legal aid clients, streamline the procurement process and deliver value for money for the taxpayer.
Clearly the development of a competition strategy will be likely to have a substantial impact on the market for legally aided services, as will a number of other current developments. These changes will require significant levels of engagement between the Government and the profession. We plan to begin these discussions in early 2013 once the key components of our legal aid reform package, the regulatory changes allowing alternative business structures, and the introduction of the quality assurance scheme for advocates have had time to bed down. We will publish a full formal consultation document on the competition strategy towards the end of that year. The indicative timetable for the development of our competition strategy is therefore as follows:
Consultation paper published: | Autumn 2013 |
Response to consultation paper: | Spring 2014 |
Tender opens in first competition areas: | Autumn 2014 |
First contracts go live: | Summer 2015 |
I would also like to inform the House that we intend, subject to parliamentary approval of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, to implement all of the legal aid reforms in April 2013. This will include the abolition of the Legal Services Commission under the Bill and the creation of the new agency in its place.
Judicial Appointments
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(13 years ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
The judiciary play a critical role in the administration of justice. It is therefore vital that we select candidates for judicial office on merit, through fair and open competition, from the widest range of eligible candidates.
We consider that there is a need to address issues with the current systems. Those issues include: the length of time and amount of money it can cost to run a selection process; the degree of diversity in appointments; and the inflexibility of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, which means even minor process changes require primary legislation.
All of this supports the case for revisiting judicial appointments and today we have launched a consultation on legislative changes to achieve the proper balance between executive, judicial and independent responsibilities, improve clarity, transparency and openness in processes; create a more diverse judiciary that is reflective of society; and deliver speed and quality of service to applicants, the courts and tribunals and value for money to the taxpayer.
A number of our proposals give effect to recommendations arising from the report of the advisory panel on judicial diversity. Others come from the judiciary and those with a close interest in the appointment process.
I have formally submitted the consultation to the chair of the House of Lords Constitution Committee as part of our contribution to their ongoing inquiry into judicial appointments and diversity. The Government intend to consider the Committee’s findings alongside responses to this consultation.
The closing date for comments will be 13 February 2012.
It is available online at: http://www.justice.gov.uk/consultations.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)
4. What assessment his Department has made of the potential effects on other Government Departments of his planned reductions to legal aid for social welfare law.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
The impact assessment published alongside the Government’s response to consultation lays out the best estimates of the costs and benefits of the legal aid reforms. Ultimately, costs to other Departments will be driven by behavioural responses to the changes, and these are very difficult to predict with any real accuracy.
Julie Elliott
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Is it his Government’s view that it is acceptable for a whole swathe of the population to have no access to justice in the area of social welfare law?
Mr Clarke
We are not denying access to justice for anybody, but obviously a huge swathe of the population find it expensive to obtain justice and we have to ask ourselves for which people the taxpayer should pay for access to justice. We have concentrated on the most important issues, in which there is a general public interest in having people represented. It is wrong to represent changes in the way we pay lawyers and the amount that we pay as if we are somehow barring people from access to their legal rights.
Graeme Morrice
Does the Lord Chancellor not feel that the cut in the civil legal aid budget, which will clearly have a detrimental impact on the citizens advice bureau and law centre network, will hinder the notion of the big society?
Mr Clarke
Legal aid is not the principal source of public funding support for citizens advice bureaux, and legal aid changes will not take effect until 2013. Those and other voluntary bodies are taking a big hit from the reduction of local authority and other grants. For that reason, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has already announced £27 million of continued funding for citizens advice bureaux, and we have set up a transitional fund for the voluntary sector to manage the transition to a tighter funding environment. We have £20 million set aside this year to support voluntary bodies through their present difficulties, which are mainly because of local government cuts.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
I very much welcome the Government’s commitment to the extra funding for welfare and benefits advice, but will my right hon. and learned Friend update us on what progress he has made with the Cabinet Office about the allocation of those funds?
Mr Clarke
My hon. Friend has rightly been chasing me on this subject, and with her I have approached the Cabinet Office. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, hopes to make an announcement shortly about the distribution of the money. As the sort of people we are talking about need the general advice offered by such voluntary bodies, I very much hope that he will soon make an announcement on behalf of the Government.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Is it not clear that what most people will need with these changes is well-supported advice services, a user-friendly tribunal system, and Government Departments that give people what they are entitled to in the first place?
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Last week the Secretary of State confirmed that he was taking legal aid away from brain-damaged children and disabled people unlawfully denied benefits. In answer to questions from my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), the Minister with responsibility for legal aid, the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), admitted that the Department of Health pays up to £183 an hour for legal advice, Work and Pensions pays £201 an hour and Communities and Local Government pays £288 an hour. Some of those well-paid Government lawyers will be up against our unrepresented constituents, especially on appeal. Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman think that that is fair?
Mr Clarke
Most of those do not get legal aid now, and most personal injury cases are not brought using legal aid. They are brought using no win, no fee arrangements. As the hon. Gentleman knows, in the new proposals for how no win, no fee ought to work, we have made special arrangements for particularly difficult cases and the insurance of the costs of medical reports.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
2. What steps he is taking to ensure the provision of adequate legal advice in young offender institutions.
Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)
5. What steps his Department is taking to provide support for victims; and if he will make a statement.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
In the current financial year the Ministry of Justice is providing funding of approximately £50 million to voluntary sector organisations that support victims of crime. Before Christmas we intend to launch a consultation on proposals that will ensure that victims of crime are supported in the best way possible.
Sajid Javid
Too many victims of crime in my constituency feel that their rights are put behind those of criminals. Will my right hon. and learned Friend please share with me what measures he proposes to take to correct that sense of injustice?
Mr Clarke
Apart from continuing to give support to victims organisations, as I said, we are about to implement the Prisoners Earnings Act 1996, which will see up to £1 million taken from prisoners’ wages going into victims’ services. We have given Victim Support its three-year grant for the first time. It has never had such assured support—£38 million a year. We have honoured our coalition commitment to place rape support centres on a secure financial footing, giving them long-term funding, and we are about to open four more.
Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Secretary of State agree that the most important thing for victims is the prevention of further offences and reoffending, since what victims want is to know that they are not going to become a victim a further time after a bad experience?
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Does the Secretary of State agree that restorative justice can be key in helping victims, both in their hearing an apology from the offender, and in some cases hearing an explanation as to why the crime was committed?
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Can the Lord Chancellor imagine a more needy victim than a child brain-damaged at birth whose parents are unable to sue for its financial security?
Mr Clarke
It is not true that they are unable to sue. We have a dispute about how much the lawyers should be paid in the event of a successful claim, which is an important matter, but I do not accept the assertion that none of these actions will be brought unless we leave the present no win, no fee arrangements completely untouched.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
On 12 October the Prime Minister announced that he had appointed Louise Casey to a new job. The Secretary of State has had at least a month to arrange for a new victims commissioner to take up his or her role. A month on, not only is no one in post, but the position has not been advertised and the Government have not said what plans they have. Victims charities and organisations and the Opposition have urged the Government to move swiftly, so who is it to be? Sadly, we have seen empty words on victims’ rights, and in this case we also have an empty post.
Mr Clarke
I am extremely grateful to Louise Casey for the work she did and the discussions I had with her while she was in office. I find the hon. Gentleman’s question amazing. The post of victims commissioner was created by Act of Parliament in 2004, but the previous Government failed to appoint anyone for five years and a fresh statute was introduced to revise the post in 2009. Louise Casey was appointed in early 2010. We are reconsidering—again—the basis on which we make the appointment, but to be accused of tardiness by someone who was in the last Parliament is positively farcical.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
6. What assessment he has made of the causes of reoffending. [R]
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
8. What estimate his Department has made of the future size of the prison population.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
The latest projections of the prison population in England and Wales, published last week, modelled three scenarios. These track, as is the usual practice, the impact of three different sentencing trends on custodial convictions. By the end of June 2017, the prison population is projected to be 83,100 on the lower projection, 88,900 on the medium projection and 94,800 on the higher projection.
Nick Smith
The prison population is at a record high, and some 60% of the prison population have speech, language and communication needs. How will the Justice Secretary address communication disability as part of his rehabilitation revolution?
Mr Clarke
I am sorry, but I missed the second point. Is the point of the question communication disability? [Interruption.] Prison projections are very difficult to make, and that is why we have the equivalent of the fan-shaped projections that the Bank of England produces on inflation forecasts. It has always been the same with prison forecasts.
The future prison population will depend on all kinds of things beyond the control of the Government, but the prison estate is well placed to meet the demand. Eventually it will all depend on whether we have long and protracted youth unemployment, how far the recession has retracted, and how successful we are with our rehabilitation revolution, workplace reform, skills training, education reform and so on. The Prison Service is there to meet the demand, but we expect the demand to be reasonably stable.
Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)
I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend is aware of the importance of the construction of the Featherstone 2 prison, which is currently being built in my constituency, but can he assure the House that he will do all he can to encourage G4S, the operator, to employ people locally, so that we have not just the disadvantages of a prison being built, but some of the advantages?
Mr Clarke
Featherstone 2 is one of two new prisons that we have coming on stream in 2012, and I am sure that it will provide a very valuable source of local employment when it opens, as it is quite a large prison. It will also, of course, contribute to our battle against crime and to the need to punish serious criminals.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
I know the Justice Secretary does not like being reminded of this, and that is clearly why I am going to do so. He had a target to reduce the prison population by 3,000 by 2015, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) helped to remind the House, it is now 87,747, which is about 3,000 more than when the right hon. and learned Gentleman became Justice Secretary. As a consequence of this Government’s policies, which projection does he believe will be the case? Will the prison population in May 2015 be the same, more or less than it was in May 2010?
Mr Clarke
It is simply not the case that I have ever had a target for prisons, because as I have just explained it is not within the control of Ministers. That is why Ministers in the previous Government used to produce these various scenarios. I do not have a target. We make an estimate of the effect that legislative changes will have on the future prison population, and as the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill that the House has just passed will, other things being equal, which they never are, reduce the prison population by about 2,600.
Sadiq Khan
We have a complacent Justice Secretary who, one third of the way through this Parliament, has no idea whether the prison population will go up, down or stay the same. He has cut our prison building programme, cut capital investment in prisons, he is cutting probation officers and cutting prison officer numbers. Is he surprised that the chief inspector of prisons has seen no evidence of a rehabilitation revolution and thinks that there should be a rocket up this Justice Secretary’s backside?
Mr Clarke
The future level of crime depends on a huge number of variables, which are not within the control of any Government or Minister. What one does is to make sure that one does not exacerbate any problems, and that one accommodates those who come in. I am trying to establish in prisons a more intelligent regime that will achieve some improvements in reoffending rates for those who have to be punished by going to prison. If any of my predecessors ever gave an exact forecast of the prison population, two or three out, that predecessor was in my opinion an idiot. I do remember, however, that the previous Government so miscalculated things that they had to let 80,000 people out of prison, short of their sentence, because prisons were bulging at the seams and they had nowhere to accommodate them.
Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)
9. What steps he is taking to reduce the level of reoffending by people sentenced to one year or less.
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
11. What steps he is taking to increase prison tariffs for people sentenced for carrying knives.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Sentencing guidelines provide that the starting point for an adult convicted of knife possession is a custodial sentence. Where immediate custody is given, the average sentence length increased between June 2010 and June 2011. We are creating new offences so that those who carry a knife in a public place or school, and go on to threaten and cause immediate risk of serious physical harm to another, can expect to face at least a minimum custodial sentence.
Andrew Griffiths
Constituents in Burton will applaud the statements just made about sentences for the type of crime that is covered today on the front page of the Burton Mail, in which a young man was frogmarched to a cash point and forced to hand over money at knifepoint. They want to see that kind of tough sentencing as a deterrent. Will the Secretary of State back the Burton Mail campaign to make Burton a knife-free zone and to prevent these kinds of activities happening again?
Mr Clarke
If the newspaper report is accurate, then whoever carried out that crime committed quite a number of criminal offences, most of which carry very serious penalties, so I hope that the local courts deal with it with appropriate seriousness, having obviously considered all the circumstances. We are sending out, we hope, a strong message that we will not tolerate the use of knives. Threatening with a knife and putting someone in fear of injury is a very serious matter. I wish my hon. Friend every success in working with his constituents to try to reduce the scourge of knife crime in Burton.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
12. What steps his Department is taking in respect of prisoners serving indeterminate sentences who have completed their minimum tariff.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Tariff-expired indeterminate sentence prisoners will be released from custody only if the independent Parole Board is satisfied that they may be safely managed in the community. We are seeking to identify further improvements to the progression of those prisoners through effective sentence planning, which will require the engagement of the offenders themselves.
Steve McCabe
As I understand it, under the Lord Chancellor’s proposals a judge will be required to hand down a mandatory life sentence the second time someone is convicted of using a nuclear weapon. Allowing for all the Lord Chancellor’s wisdom and guile, would it not be an awful lot smarter to hold someone indefinitely the first time they committed that offence?
Mr Clarke
Certainly, the Government take a serious view of the use of a nuclear weapon; I hope that not too much of that breaks out in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. We discussed these proposals in the House only last week, and we achieved the House’s approval for them. There is an indeterminate sentence called a life sentence, which is the best and most established form of indeterminate sentence. Having got rid of the failed indeterminate sentences for public protection, we expect that quite a lot of people will get life sentences who hitherto would have been given the rather unsatisfactory IPPs.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State consider the problem of pre-release of prisoners where insufficient preparation is made for training or, particularly, for somewhere to live or some kind of community support? That means, in turn, that they either stay longer in prison or are released into the community, where they are inadequately supervised and end up back in a whole regime of crime.
Mr Clarke
We are looking at that problem very seriously, and we hope to produce a substantial improvement on the present situation. In particular, I am working with colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions to try to ensure that offenders leaving prison can have instant access to the work programmes that we are developing for other people seeking work. Enabling people to get back into employment is one of the best ways of improving the chances that they will not offend again.
Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)
13. What assessment he has made of the effects on reoffending rates of his policy of payment by results to companies.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
I do not currently have any plans to meet the Magistrates Association to discuss the recruitment and retention of magistrates.
Tony Baldry
Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that lay magistrates are feeling a bit unloved at the moment? They feel somewhat squeezed between the police increasingly allocating non-court disposals at one end and deputy circuit judges doing rather more work at the other end, and there are court closures and bench mergers. There has been no recruitment to the Oxfordshire bench for several years now. What can he do to ensure that lay magistrates feel appreciated?
Mr Clarke
I will heed my hon. Friend’s warning, but I think we probably all agree that the lay magistracy is one of the distinctive strengths of our justice system. It certainly makes a very valuable contribution, and I am glad to say that it is a popular form of volunteering. We obviously have to appoint strictly on merit, but we recruit more than 1,000 new magistrates every year and magistrates dispose of about 95% of the criminal justice work that goes through our system. I will take on board his points, and I hope that we can encourage people in Oxfordshire to carry on the essential work that they are doing for the good of the community.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
16. What steps he is taking to increase the use of restorative justice.
Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Yesterday, the UK took over the chairmanship of the Council of Europe. Our key priority is reform of the European Court of Human Rights, for which there is widespread support. We are pressing for consensus among all 47 member states on a package of reforms that will make the Court more effective. The Court is struggling under a growing backlog of almost 160,000 cases, which is undermining its authority. The aim will be for the Court to concentrate on the most serious issues of alleged failure to comply with the convention by a member state. The primary duty of compliance with the convention in individual cases should rest with democratic Parliaments and national courts.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
One cannot help but notice the good mood that the Justice Secretary is in today, which I am sure has nothing to do with the spot of bother the Home Secretary is in. May I ask him a question on a similar issue—foreign prisoners? He will be aware that in 2007, the Labour Government negotiated with the EU a prisoner transfer agreement, which comes into force next month, which will mean that no prisoner consent is required, and that the other country must comply with a request for a transfer. The Prime Minister promised the repatriation of thousands of foreign prisoners by personally taking charge of negotiations with individual countries. We all know that he likes to keep his promises, so can the Justice Secretary tell us how many new prisoner transfer agreements have been successfully negotiated with individual countries in the past 18 months, and how many foreign prisoners does he expect to be repatriated this year?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
First, I want to put the right hon. Gentleman’s mind at rest: I agree with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary in her handling of the current problems, so it is just my usual bonhomie; there is no particular cause for it today. It is true that this important transfer of prisoners agreement is about to come into force, and it will make a difference to our problem with foreign prisoners, although, of course, there are derogations to some important countries, such as Poland and Ireland, where it will not come into effect for a few years. The right hon. Gentleman hits on a serious problem, though: we need to find a way of reducing the foreign prisoner population. At the moment, we have only one international bilateral agreement near to conclusion, but we are continuing to work on it, because foreign prisoners take up more than 10% of places in our prison system.
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
T3. At Swaleside prison in my constituency, the Kainos Community programme has an 87% success rate in reducing reoffending by inmates taking part in the scheme. Will my hon. Friend acknowledge this success, and extend the scheme across the prison estate?
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
T4. Could I ask whether the Secretary of State will identify the amount of savings he will make in his planned reductions for legal aid in social welfare law and identify the amount of knock-on cuts to the Scottish budget through the Barnett formula? Could he confirm that, if there are cuts, the Scottish Parliament does not have to follow the savage cuts in welfare law legal aid?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
We debated all this last week. We are still spending £50 million on legal aid for welfare law, even as we have revised and cut it back, and cut out areas where, frankly, legal assistance is not necessary, appropriate or justified. Our proposals affect England and Wales only, and the provision of legal aid in Scotland is not a matter for me.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
T9. Do the Government agree that magistrates are a vital and integral part of the justice system, and that they must be supported and encouraged to play a part in neighbourhood justice?
Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)
T10. After the riots in the summer, courts such as Cannock magistrates court in my constituency sat late and ensured that the surge in work was dealt with smoothly and efficiently. These late-night sittings have been widely regarded as a huge success, not least by those magistrates who have full-time jobs that require them to work during office hours. What plans does the Secretary of State’s Department have to roll out these evening court sittings on a permanent basis?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
The work done after the riots is a tribute to the public spiritedness of all who sat on the bench—all the court staff, probation staff, police and duty defence solicitors. There was a widespread feeling that people should do their bit to restore order, and I am glad to say that the courts rose to the challenge. Normally, on an ordinary day, we do not have a shortage of court space, so there is no general need to have night or evening sittings. We can certainly improve the efficiency with which the more straightforward cases are dealt with. They can be brought on at an ordinary hour more quickly than they sometimes are now. We are working on that. It was a tribute to the court service and everybody who works in it that they all worked as well as they did.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
T7. I wrote to the Justice Secretary six weeks ago on behalf of my constituent Gary Thrall, but have not yet had an answer. May I ask him again to look at this case and at the fact that 16 months on from a vicious knife attack, Gary has yet to receive a final settlement from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority or to be advised of the likely time scale for the settlement, which is preventing the family from moving on?
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
According to figures from the Department, 10% of all crimes are committed by people on bail and 20% of burglaries are committed by people on bail. When the provisions in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill come into effect, which will make it harder for courts to remand people in custody, what estimate has the Department made of the number of crimes that will be committed by people on bail then?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
The changes we are making are to get rid of the anomaly whereby bail can be refused to someone who is charged with an offence in circumstances where it is quite obvious that they are not going to be sent to prison, even if they are found guilty. It is a reform that should have been made a long time ago. Serious offences are sometimes committed by people on bail, and we have committed ourselves to introducing a right of appeal when someone is given bail in the Crown court. There have been bad cases where serious offences have been committed. We hope to introduce an amendment in the other place that would allow the Crown Prosecution Service to challenge the granting of bail in the Crown court when a potentially dangerous prisoner is involved.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
T8. Constituents of mine with serious health conditions who have been turned down for employment and support allowance are still having to wait up to nine months for a tribunal appeal hearing. With more than 40% of them being successful on appeal, what is the Minister going to do to end this unacceptable wait?
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
The convictions of three world-class cricketers last week shows that even cricket is not immune from corruption. In his role as the Government’s anti-corruption chief, will the Secretary of State look into the problem of corruption in international sporting bodies such as FIFA, and see what Britain can do to drive corruption out of international sport? There has also been controversy involving the Olympics and Formula 1.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern, but the issue of corruption in sport is primarily the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport. I know that he is working with his European Union opposite numbers on specific measures to tackle it, and I am following his progress very closely. The recent convictions show that there are problems that need to be tackled in the interests of everyone who believes in the value of sport—but honest sport—to a community.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
The Government are committed to ensuring that women are not sent to prison in disproportionately high numbers. May we have an update on the Corston report?
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
The Money Advice Service has sacked 100 front-line staff in order to spend more money on publicity. Does the Secretary of State now regret removing nearly all debt advice from the scope of legal aid, and what cross-departmental discussions is he having about the future of such advice?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I am very sorry to hear what the hon. Lady has said, but I am not sure whether the issue is the responsibility of my Department; it may be the responsibility of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. However, I will certainly check, because it is extremely important for advice to be available at what is a difficult time for many people. Advice on debt is, unfortunately, one of the things that many people require—not only foreign Governments, but a fair number of our own citizens.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
A few months ago, the Minister said that the backlog of appeals on social security matters would be resolved through the employment of more people. That was before the summer, but the waiting times seem to be as long as ever. Why is that?
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Slaughter
This is an important group of amendments to part 2 of the Bill, which deals with a complex and vital area of access to justice. Because there are only 20 minutes left to debate this group, and I want to be fair to the Minister and give him 10 minutes to reply, I shall speak quickly in the hope of getting through the main part of my argument. I should make it clear at the outset that I wish to press to a vote amendment 21, which would undo the destruction of conditional fee agreements that the Government are pushing through in the Bill. I also ask, with the leave of my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), the lead signatory to amendment 163, that we press that amendment to a vote.
Conditional fee agreements, also known as no win, no fee agreements, were brought in by a Conservative Government to preserve access to justice for those on moderate means at a time when vast areas were being removed from the scope of legal aid and eligibility criteria were being removed. The provisions were amended, with a remarkable lack of contention from the Conservative Opposition, in the Access to Justice Act 1999, to create their modern form.
The idea of contingency fee agreements was to create a viable market in legal services by introducing success fees paid by losing defendants—wrongdoers, in other words—to compensate lawyers for the cases that they lost, for which, of course, they received no fees. For lawyers, that form of payment by results meant not that they would take on spurious cases, but that they were allowed to take on cases that might be 75:25 or 50:50. That has created a system that works, for the main part, very well. It has created a viable market in legal services and permitted access to justice for millions since it was introduced.
What sort of people have availed themselves of contingency fee agreements? More than half of those who have used them have had an income below £25,000 a year and only 18% have had an income of more than £40,000 a year. Government Members carp on about footballers and models using them, but the average claimant is the average constituent.
How do the Government’s proposals work? First, winning claimants will lose. Victims will have to pay the costs of their insurance and their lawyer’s success fees from their damages—up to 25% of damages, aside from damages for future care, can be taken by the lawyer, and the insurance premium will take up even more of those damages, perhaps wiping them out altogether. To make up for part of those losses, the Government plan a 10% increase in damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenity. Simple maths should be sufficient to show that that will not make up for all losses.
Losing claimants, including those bringing speculative and nuisance claims, will gain. They will benefit because it is unlikely that they will have to pay the costs of the winning defendant—that is part of the perverse, qualified one-way cost-shifting scheme that the Government intend to introduce when the Bill passes.
Losing defendants—wrongdoers, in other words—and their insurers will gain. Wrongdoers will benefit, because they do not have to pay the cost of after-the-event insurance or the victim’s lawyer’s success fees, thus limiting their liabilities and those of their insurers. Winning defendants will lose out. A winning defendant will no longer be able to reclaim the cost of their defence, thanks to qualified one-way cost shifting. To summarise, winners lose and losers win. That is simply wrong.
There was a time when the Conservative party worried about access to justice, but now it appears to be nothing more than the parliamentary wing of the insurance lobby, which according to an investigation by The Guardian has donated £4.9 million to the Tories since the Prime Minister became leader.
I have spent the past few months speaking to victims who have used contingency fee agreements to get justice. I have heard them tell me how our justice system helped them, and their fears that others who suffer in future will not get the help they need. A number of areas of law will be badly—
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr Slaughter
I would love to give way to the Secretary of State, but I have very little time—[Interruption.] If I have time at the end I will do so.
A number of areas of law will be badly affected by this legislation, and I should like briefly to touch on a few of them—[Hon. Members: Give way!]
Mr Clarke
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman had to be bullied to give way to me, but there we are. I do not want him to exaggerate his case. No win, no fee was introduced by the Major Government and worked perfectly satisfactorily until the previous Government amended it. We are talking about how much winning lawyers are paid. The principles of access to justice and of no win, no fee are agreed on a bipartisan basis. They are not threatened at all by the Bill.
Mr Slaughter
I began my speech by informing the house how contingency fee agreements came about. Because the Secretary of State has merely repeated that, I will penalise the Minister by taking a minute off his time.
The Secretary of State believes that there are faults in the current system whereby lawyers are unjustly enriched—he may be right, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and I, and many other hon. Members, would probably agree with him—but let us cure those faults. Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
At the conclusion of many hours of copious debate on the Floor of the House and in Committee, I pay tribute to members of the Bill team from my Department, who have been working throughout on this marathon Bill, and to my two colleagues, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) and the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt) who, I am glad to say, carried the burden of the day in Committee and most of it on Report as well. I am grateful to them all.
It is an enormous Bill representing a major reform of the criminal justice system and the justice system generally. It is overdue and the Government have made a good start on sorting out some of the problems facing the justice system. I shall mention briefly the legal aid reforms, which have been debated again today. They are extremely important. They make substantial savings and I acknowledge that we have had to make some difficult choices.
I am a lawyer and I have many friends who are practising lawyers. When I was given this post, I wondered whether I would retain any friends in the legal profession by the time we got to Christmas. I am glad to say that I have, but some difficult decisions have been taken at the expense of some members of the profession, who have already suffered reductions in their fees as a result of the previous Government’s changes, and have probably had a bigger reduction in their fee income, I concede, than almost any other group in the country. So let us acknowledge that there are people facing consequences as a result of what we have done, but it was much overdue.
We have, as we keep saying, the most expensive legal aid system in the world. It has gone far beyond what could be afforded. The previous Government made repeated attempts to reform it and kept consulting on reforms and making changes. Even then they found, by the end of their period of office, that real-terms spending on legal aid had gone up quite substantially, compared with when they took office.
What we have done is not just a cheese-paring exercise across the whole field of legal aid. We have gone back to first principles and asked what it is essential that the taxpayer pays for to assure access to justice on truly important matters for that section of society that must have access to justice in the public interest, so that we can all be assured that people get the protections that they are entitled to under our constitution. That is what we have debated, one by one.
I believe that the package that we have come up with will make substantial savings. As I was saying to the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) a few moments ago, the idea that we are launching some assault on access to justice and depriving people of access to justice is nonsense. We are not affecting the right. There is no change in the Bill to any particular course of action. Legal aid is available, but it is available to the poorest people for those really essential matters that affect their life, liberty, home and so on, and we have got it back under control.
Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
I know that the Secretary of State is aware of my concerns regarding the advice agencies that provide such vital support to the vulnerable, and I know that additional money has been provided for those agencies. May I press him to give us more detail about this so that we can be reassured that those advice agencies, such as my own in Hastings, will be able to continue their good work?
Mr Clarke
Those who can remember Second Reading will know that the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon and I kept stressing that we accept the need to maintain the funding for many voluntary agencies, particularly citizens advice bureaux, which give not only legal advice, but general advice to people suffering from problems of debt, housing and so on, which we all know are bound to get worse in these rather difficult times. A total of £20 million has been allocated to these bodies this year and we are looking ahead at how to continue that support.
I should point out that our legal aid changes will not take effect for a couple of years, so none of those bodies has lost any legal aid funding at the moment. What we are doing is finding money to make up for reductions in grant to those bodies that are largely from local authorities. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd) is about to announce how we will distribute the £20 million. I know that he is in touch with my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) and expects to be able to make the announcement imminently so that we can get on with that.
I have left the debates on legal aid to the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon because, as everyone has seen, he is a walking expert on the subject. There seemed to be no point in my taking part in debates on amendments and having to turn to him if a particularly difficult question was asked. However, I have been present throughout the debates and listening to how Labour Members have tackled the matter. They seem to have lost all touch with common sense. When in government they were reducing expenditure on legal aid, or trying to and failing. In their manifesto they committed to reducing spending on legal aid, stating:
“we will find greater savings in legal aid.”
As recently as January this year the leader of the Labour party said, in relation to reductions in legal aid:
“Labour has shown it is ready to make difficult cuts that we believe are necessary for the long term health of our economy.”
As far as we can work out, the various amendments tabled by the Labour party in the course of our debates on the Bill would add £245 million to the legal aid bill, compared with the Government’s proposals.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Evidently, some of the amendments we tabled were not reported to the Secretary of State, because we also tabled amendments intended to speed up the collection of fines, on which the Ministry does not have a good record.
Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr Clarke
I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman, but I must press on. Other Members wish to speak and I do not want to take up all the time.
I will turn to the sentencing provisions. We have gone through major reforms in sentencing that contain many common-sense measures, which have not been debated much but which are intended to simplify the system and give greater professional discretion in many cases. The biggest controversy has concerned the repeal of indeterminate sentences, which was accepted very readily by most Members yesterday. That is a much overdue reform. The introduction of indeterminate sentences never worked as people intended. It was a major mistake and a major blot on our justice system that would not have survived challenge in either the British courts or in Strasbourg if it had carried on much longer. We have put in place a system of long determinate sentences for the most serious criminals, which I think gives protection.
We have not debated the other difficult area, knife crime, over which there was some controversy. The Government are determined to get the message clearly across to the public that knife crime will not be tolerated. We wish to stop people believing that knife crime will not be punished properly in the criminal justice system. For that reason, we tabled proposals introducing a mandatory sentence of six months for adults who are guilty of threatening with a knife in circumstances where it might cause physical injury, which is a new offence we have created. That is in line with the six months already specified in the sentencing guidelines for that kind of offence, but it makes it clear that that sentence should normally be expected automatically for that offence, unless it would otherwise be unjust to do so.
Amendments were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) and by the Opposition seeking to extend that proposal to juveniles. I am glad to say that, following discussions with my hon. Friends the Members for Enfield North and for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes)—the latter is a Parliamentary Private Secretary and so cannot table amendments—we finally agreed, that as 30-odd Back Benchers supported the amendments, to introduce a mandatory offence for 16 and 17-year-olds. Again, that sounds rather formidable, because I am not very keen on mandatory sentences for juveniles, but the offence is very serious, and it is only for 16 and 17-year-olds and—
Mr Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)
Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?
Mr Speaker
No. It is uncharacteristic of the right hon. Gentleman to be suffering from a persecution complex, and I hope that it will not be repeated. He is just unlucky today.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I was about to give way to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox), but I have the highest regard for the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke), whom I have known for years, and this is the first time that I have rebuffed him, so I will give way, as he insists. He is obviously getting worried about this.
Mr Tom Clarke
I recall the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s reference to the junior Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), and his walking intelligence and so on. All I have tried to do through my interventions is to secure what non-governmental organisations and aid agencies want to hear regarding amendments 150 and 151, and to find out the Government’s attitude to British and international firms that are involved in abuses overseas.
Mr Clarke
My hon. Friend the Minister referred to the Trafigura case a moment ago, but we do not believe that our changes to the no win, no fee system will prevent access to justice. Only a few moments ago we heard my hon. Friend point out that, even in the Trafigura case, the millions of pounds paid to the lawyers far exceeded the millions of pounds paid to the claimants. The average citizen of the Ivory Coast got £1,000 out of the action that was brought. We are not stopping the actions; we are getting the costs in proportion to the claim. All those disputes about legal aid and no win, no fee are not about access to justice; they are about the profitability of the actions for lawyers.
I am a lawyer, and I have the highest respect for lawyers and no intention of offending the legal profession, but in the lobbying of this House and the upper House we have had an army of lawyers advancing behind a front of women and children—vulnerable claimants who they say would not be represented if they are not paid as much as they are now. I am afraid I do not believe that.
The fact is that we introduced no win, no fee. These actions were brought because my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Mackay insisted on introducing no win, no fee to this country, and the system worked from the time of the Major Government perfectly well. The previous Government were persuaded to make it more profitable by making the changes that they made, but the costs have got out of all proportion to the claim.
Let me turn to knife crime. There is a serious problem in Enfield, and I had discussions with my hon. Friends the Members for Enfield North and for Enfield, Southgate because of that serious problem with knife crime. It exists throughout the country, but it is localised and can be very bad.
Nick de Bois
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for allowing this intervention. Does he agree that the important thing about the introduction of the measure to the Bill is that for the first time in youth sentencing services it is clear that, if a 16 or 17-year-old carries a knife and uses it in a threatening and endangering fashion, they will go to jail? Indeed, it sends a very strong message to the courts, so my constituents will rest a little easier when it is passed into law.
Mr Clarke
That is entirely true, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on his advocacy, but we should both point out that we are talking about the minimum sentence. When we look at the nature of the offence we have created, we find that it is a serious knife offence, and many people—adults and juveniles—will be sent away for longer than the minimum that we specify in the Bill. The minimum catches people who might not otherwise have got a custodial sentence. In really serious cases, juveniles should get more than a four-month detention and training order and adults should get more than a six-month sentence, but there will be a spread of seriousness among individual cases. What we have put forward is a mandatory minimum; in the case of juveniles, my hon. Friend and I agree that it is right that the special way in which the courts treat offenders who are under 18 should be applied. That is where we are.
Mr Clarke
I am sorry but I shall not give way because other people want to speak.
Let me conclude by going back to the Labour party. Obviously, I am familiar with our own proposals but I have been listening to what the Labour party has been putting forward, which tells us a lot about whether that party is ready for government. I have been facing the Labour movement for a very long time now—particularly the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill, with whom I am familiar. I do not know what he thinks is happening to his party because the Opposition’s position on this has been pitched at a section of the tabloid press that I have never heard the Labour party aim at so far as they have been doing. I did not expect that from the shadow Justice Secretary. Let me quote from the BBC’s Politics Show on 31 October 2010—a year ago—when he said that he was “not going to say” that I am being
“soft on crime…because he is asking the right questions about rehabilitation rates”.
More recently, when he gave the Howard League lecture on 17 October 2011, he said:
“Reforming prisons to reduce re-offending ultimately means safer communities up and down the country”.
The Shadow Justice Secretary has made extraordinary proposals in relation to the Bill, the most preposterous of which were about knife crime. He tabled a new clause advocating mandatory sentences for 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15-year-olds. I never expected to see even the most reactionary of Labour Members—even the right hon. Members for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett)—putting forward such a proposition. We cannot estimate how many schoolchildren would have been caught by such measures, but our best estimate is that about 350 would have had to be sent away. We would have had to build secure children’s homes to hold them and all the special provisions under the Children Acts would have been set aside. That was not a serious contribution to the debate, and serious contributions are what we should make.
I think the Bill is balanced. As I have said, it has been attacked from the right and the left, and it will be scrutinised carefully in another place. I think we have started to redress some of the problems that the previous Government left behind. It is the inheritance of Tony Blair, a man whom I admire in many ways. By the time he had finished in office he was getting very keen on reforming public services such as health and education. In my modest opinion, he was very good on health and education by the time he finished, but he had no real interest in law and order and the criminal justice system.
Tony Blair shadowed me when I was Home Secretary and he produced a good soundbite but no policy. He produced the phrase,
“Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime,”
but he did not know what he meant. He had no real interest in the subject and all he did was encourage the right hon. Members for Blackburn and for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough to produce populist stuff that filled the statute book with quite useless criminal justice legislation. This is serious reform to what was caused by that Government, and the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) who shadows me should look at his party’s record. He should not make things worse by going on proposing preposterous things, as he has done in this debate. I advise him to go away and reflect on the many hours he has spent here, to reflect on the wisdom of my hon. Friends the two Under-Secretaries and to do better next time.
Sadiq Khan
I have been in correspondence with the Justice Secretary and, to be fair, he responded to my letter. I am happy to allow him to intervene to put on the record the assurance that he gave me.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I was not here during the incident to which the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) referred, but I am sure that he was not swatted away. There was probably anxiety to finish the debate.
I am happy to repeat the undertaking that the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) gave then and in Committee. We accept that in principle there is a good case for saying that there should be appeals against the allowing of bail in the Crown court. We are working on the details of that, and we propose to table amendments in the House of Lords to meet that point. There is no difference in this case, and I have already written to say what we are striving to do. We intend to table an amendment to meet the wishes of the right hon. Members for Dwyfor Meirionnydd and for Tooting, and some hon. Members on the Government Benches.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(13 years 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 the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government new clause 31—Life sentence for second listed offence.
Government new clause 32—New extended sentences.
Government new clause 33—New extended sentences: release on licence etc.
Government new clause 34—Power to change test for release on licence of certain prisoners.
New clause 3—Determination of minimum term in relation to mandatory life sentence—
‘In Schedule 21 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003—
“(a) Substitute paragraph 5(2)(g) with—
“(g) a murder that is racially or religiously aggravated or aggravated by sexual orientation or disability,”
(b) Substitute paragraph 5A(10)(b) with—
“(b) the fact that the victim was at greater risk of harm because of age or disability,”.’.
Government new schedule 4—‘Life sentence for second listed offence etc: new Schedule 15B to Criminal Justice Act 2003 Offences listed for the purposes of sections 224A, 226A and 246A.
Government new schedule 5—‘Life sentence for second listed offence: consequential and transitory provision.
Government new schedule 6—‘New extended sentences: consequential and transitory provision.
Government new schedule 7—‘Release of new extended sentence prisoners: consequential provision.
Mr Clarke
The new clauses and schedules relate to the abolition of sentences of imprisonment for public protection, known as IPP sentences. They were introduced in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and have been in operation since 2005. Since their introduction, there have been numerous problems with them. The Government’s policy is that they must be replaced, and we have brought forward proposals to do so. My proposals to replace them with tough determinate sentences have inevitably aroused criticism from both the right and the left—the story of my life, as I complained yesterday. We are replacing a regime that did not work as it was intended to with one that gives the public the fullest possible protection from serious, violent and sexual crime.
The sentences in their present form are unclear, inconsistent and have been used far more than was ever intended or contemplated by either the Government or Parliament when the sentence was first created. The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), who is in his place, was very much involved in their introduction. I have no idea exactly what his view is now, but I am sure that he never imagined that thousands of people would be detained in prison indefinitely under these sentences. The debates at the time contemplated only a few hundred people.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
I shall be extremely brief, given the time. It would be helpful, following the Secretary of State’s meeting with me and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins), if he assured the House that reconsideration of the detail will take place in the House of Lords. There is no difference between those of us who accept that the original intention has not been followed through and those who think that the changes that my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) introduced have not fully bitten as intended, but the propositions before us this afternoon do not meet the specific need that was identified back in the early 2000s by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn, and which I carried into being.
Mr Clarke
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, and I will remember the need for extreme brevity. I am grateful for the discussion with the right hon. Members for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough and for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins), and I will follow up the account by the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East of the experience in Northern Ireland. We all acknowledge that where we are is not where anyone intended us to be. That is why we are addressing how to deal with serious and violent offenders.
I am sure that the words of the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough will be noted in the House of Lords. He speaks here with great authority. We will reflect on what is said by those who say that of course we have not got it quite right.
Mr Clarke
Normally I would give way, and if we had a full day of debate, I would have expected to give way to Members on both sides of the Chamber—[Interruption.] It is not my fault. Let me first finish explaining the general case. I will then try to give way as generously as I can. It would be quite possible to take so many interventions that they filled the remaining time, but I have no intention of doing so.
I remind the House that in June the Prime Minister announced that the Government intended to replace IPP sentences. He and I had agreed on that. We had originally proposed in our Green Paper greatly to restrict the number by raising the threshold above which IPP sentences were given. The sentencing parts of the Bill were received extremely well in public consultation because those who responded were largely those involved in the criminal justice system, but we received many representations saying that IPP sentences should abolished completely, which is why we have moved on.
Mr Clarke
I said that I would give way when I had finished my general points, and I will do so in a few moments.
I was referring not just to my opinion and that of the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough. I shall remind the House of some of the people who have said similar things. Louise Casey, the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses, whose appointment to deal with problem families has been welcomed, said that she was pleased there would be a review of indeterminate sentences as they
“often leave victims in a horrible situation of not knowing when a criminal may be released from prison”.
She welcomed the proposal that tougher determinate sentences will be sought instead. Tim Godwin—as we all know, he was acting Metropolitan Police Commissioner until recently, and is now deputy commissioner and the criminal justice lead for the Association of Chief Police Officers—said he welcomed the review of IPP sentences and its focus on robust alternatives that will ensure the public is protected from the most serious offenders, as it is a source of frustration for victims and their families as to what a sentence actually means.
I cannot resist adding that the shadow Justice Secretary has suddenly taken up an extraordinarily far right position on this issue at the last moment. I have looked up what position he took, or at least what position Liberty took when he was its chairman in 2002, when indeterminate sentences were first introduced. At that time Liberty, under his chairmanship, denounced IPP sentences as
“a convoluted sleight of hand”
which aids neither accessibility of law for transparency in the sentencing process. His successors at Liberty have not changed their mind. I said yesterday that tomorrow he would press an amendment that has mandatory sentences for 12-year-olds. Old Fabians must be spinning in their graves as the former chairman of the Fabian Society takes up a totally opportunist position.
What is wrong is that indeterminate sentences are unfair between prisoner and prisoner. The Parole Board has been given the task of trying to see whether a prisoner could prove that he is no longer a risk to the public. It is almost impossible for the prisoner to prove that, so it is something of a lottery and hardly any are released. We therefore face an impossible problem.
As I have said, IPP sentences are piling up, and they have been handed down at a rate of more than 800 a year even after the changes made in 2008. At the moment, more than 6,500 offenders are serving those sentences, of whom more than 3,000 have finished what the public regard as their sentence—the tariff for what they have done. If we do not do anything about it, the number of IPP sentences will pile up to 8,000 or 9,000 by 2015—10% of the entire prison population. Sometimes, their co-accused who committed the same crime and were given a determinate sentence were released long ago. That is unjust to the people in question and completely inconsistent with the policy of punishment, reform and rehabilitation, which has widespread support. Only Opposition Front Benchers are still in favour of a punishment that leaves a rather randomly selected group to languish indefinitely in prison, for their lifetime if necessary.
Derek Twigg
Has the Secretary of State been listening to police officers such as the one in my constituency who has written to me to say that IPP sentences are working? He gives the case of an individual who set fire to a house, causing danger to others, who clearly presented a serious risk to the public. That police officer states:
“IPPs are a very useful tool for the Courts and I respectfully suggest that they should be retained and any issues with how they are implemented be looked at instead.”
That is a police officer serving on the front line.
Mr Clarke
I do not claim rank for Mr Godwin, but I quoted what he has said on behalf of ACPO. Of course there are always dissenting views—I have never presented any proposal on anything that has had 100% approval—but the overwhelming majority of responses from those involved in the criminal justice system suggested that IPP sentences should be repealed. Those are not people who wish to be soft on crime, but they believe that IPP sentences have not worked as intended, as we have already heard in today’s exchanges, and need to be replaced. To reassure policemen, such as the one that the hon. Gentleman mentions, that a tough new regime will give them protection, I will spell out elements of the new regime.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Is not the fact of the matter that indeterminate sentences have a very low reoffending rate, and that most members of the public rather like the idea that people are not released from prison until it is safe? What will my right hon. and learned Friend do to ensure that people who are released go through all the necessary treatment and programmes to address their offending behaviour before they are released?
Mr Clarke
My hon. Friend’s last point is perfectly fair, and I am about to make some points that should reassure the great bulk of the public. Of course we must have in place a very effective method of dealing with all those who commit the worst sexual and violent offences. No one is suggesting that we do not need an effective regime for that.
For the very serious offenders, the ones who are among the worst of the likely inhabitants of Her Majesty’s prisons, there will be a new mandatory life sentence. That will apply in cases in which the offender has committed, on two consecutive occasions, two very serious sexual or violent offences, when each of which has been serious enough to merit a determinate sentence of 10 years or more.
I was criticised from the left in another place, and probably will be here, for introducing a new mandatory life sentence. We have only one at the moment, which is for murder, and everybody accepts it. As I have said, however, the new mandatory sentence is mainly intended to reassure those who, like my hon. Friend, are worried that the worst offenders might occasionally get out. We are talking about very serious offenders, most of whom would get a life sentence anyway if they had committed two offences meriting determinate sentences of 10 years or more. I do not think that many such people would avoid a life sentence, but as hon. Members can see, a life sentence in the new clause is subject to a caveat—the offender will receive a mandatory sentence unless their circumstances or the circumstances of the offence
“make it unjust to do so”.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman explain the practical difference between an offender who is given an IPP for, say, a minimum tariff of five years, who will then be released by the Parole Board on proof of meeting certain conditions, and someone who is given a discretionary life sentence with a tariff of five years who is released by the Parole Board on exactly the same conditions? What is the difference?
Mr Clarke
Well, there are differences in the regime, the sentence planning and so on, but not very many. I will go back to the point about the regime that we want to introduce for people with extended determinate sentences, but the right hon. Gentleman makes my point. What is wrong with saying that the courts should use the ordinary life sentence? They will use a life sentence when they judge that a case is so serious, and when future risk is so high, that it is the only proper sentence.
For other offenders, we are introducing a new extended determinate sentence. The offender will receive a custodial sentence plus a further long extended period of licence set by the court. Those will be quite long determinate sentences, and the offenders who receive them will serve at least two thirds of them. In serious cases, offenders must apply to the Parole Board for release, and the board may keep them inside until the end of the determinate sentence.
Mr Clarke
I shall just finish explaining this point and then answer questions.
The new sentence can be given for any sexual or violent offence, provided that the court thinks the offender presents a risk of causing serious harm through reoffending, and that the offence meets the four-year seriousness threshold that is currently in place for IPP sentences and extended sentences for public protection. The new sentence can also be given when the offender does not reach the four-year threshold, but has previously been convicted of an offence listed in proposed schedule 15B. I will cut out further detailed explanation, but that means that any offender who would previously have received an IPP will be eligible for the new sentence if he has not received either the mandatory life or the tougher, discretionary life sentence.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I very much agree with what my right hon. and learned Friend is trying to do, but he is writing what is the likely practice of the court into the statute book. He mentioned the Parole Board and new clause 34, which causes me concern. He appears to be giving to himself and the Executive the power to direct a court when dealing with existing IPP prisoners, because the Parole Board is regarded in law as a court, and he will give directions to it under new clause 34.
Mr Clarke
I shall come to the Parole Board before I conclude my remarks, but we are not taking away its power: nobody who previously had an IPP will be released, even at the two-thirds point, unless they have first satisfied the board.
The most obvious difference between life sentences, which will now be used more widely, and IPP sentences is that, in the case of life imprisonment, licences are for life and subject always to recall, whereas IPP sentences are not. However, as I said, criminals who complete an extended determinate sentence must then serve extended licence periods, during which time they will be closely monitored and returned to prison if necessary. The courts have the power to give up to an extra five years of licence for violent offenders and eight years for sexual offenders on top of their prison licence.
There are further protections. Some people believe—the Labour Front Bench team certainly affect to believe—that we are exposing people to risk by making this much overdue change. We are also introducing—not in the legislation, but I undertake to introduce them—compulsory intervention plans for dangerous offenders while they are in prison, so that they are supported to change their ways and not commit more crimes when they are eventually released. By the end of sentence, offenders should therefore have undergone interventions—made in a more certain and organised way than at present—to address their offending behaviour.
There is rightly concern that those currently serving IPP sentences should be supported in progressing through their sentences and achieving release on licence. However, we will be using our best efforts to improve the progression of these prisoners through sentence, including with improvements to assessment, sentence planning and delivery, and parole review processes. We continue to monitor outcomes to ensure further improvements in this area.
There are yet further protections available to the court. We do not believe that our proposed changes put the public at risk or weaken our risk-management regime. Most sexual or violent offenders sentenced to 12 months or more in custody will fall under the multi-agency public protection arrangements framework, which means that the relevant authorities will work together to co-ordinate assessments of risk and risk-management plans for the offender once they have been released on licence. Robust risk-management systems are now in place for a range of offenders. Court orders are also available to manage the risk of serious sexual and violent offenders who appear to present a risk at the end of their sentence. Violent offender orders and sex offending prevention orders place restrictions on these offenders, and if they breach those orders, they can be sent back to prison.
In the sentencing Green Paper, we raise the question of whether the Parole Board’s test for release in these cases is the right one, because only a tiny number of people ever emerge from prison at the moment—the rate is less than 5% a year—and we are acquiring people who are still in prison years after they finished the tariff that the judge imposed on them. This is a question that we will explore further. The amendments give the Secretary of State a power to change the release test used by the Parole Board, which is set in statute for IPP prisoners and for prisoners serving the new extended sentence. The power will be subject to the affirmative procedure. We will consult carefully and see what happens to the Parole Board and the courts once we have made the present form of sentence extinct for former prisoners.
The trouble now is that someone who has finished his tariff has to stay in prison unless he can persuade the Parole Board that it is safe to let him out. [Interruption.] That is it; that can be difficult, sitting in a prison cell, although we are going to produce some management plans. On the other hand, if we are keeping someone in beyond their tariff, it is certainly arguable that we should have some positive reason for fearing that there is a risk that he is going to offend when he leaves. We have to reflect—we will consult on this—on whether we have been giving the Parole Board an almost impossible task. It is no good pretending that it can come to a scientifically certain conclusion in each case. None of us would like to say, if we met a range of prisoners, which were now reformed and which would offend again. The Parole Board gets it wrong now: some of those it releases offend again, while some of those in prison are never going to offend again, if we can actually get them out. We will consult on whether the current release tests for IPP sentences and the new extended indeterminate sentence ensure effective public protection while allowing everyone to be satisfied—as far as they can ever be satisfied in this world—that the offenders can now be safely managed in the community.
Mr Straw
Some 40% of discretionary and mandatory lifers are post-tariff. They have to prove that it is safe to release them. Can the Secretary of State please explain what the difference is in substance between someone on a life sentence who has to satisfy the Parole Board that it is safe to release them and someone on an IPP?
Mr Clarke
It is not. What I think the right hon. Gentleman is saying—I will listen to him in a moment—is that he proposes to defend what is left of the last Government’s proposals, the author of which acknowledged quite early in my speech that they plainly needed to be changed. If I get the chance, I will listen to what the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) is trying to argue, but he seems to be reassuring us that life sentences fulfil that requirement for the very worst people—that they are looked at carefully before being let out again—and those people will be on licence for life: once they start going in for aberrant behaviour, they can be recalled to prison and punished once more.
Apart from the very outlying people on the right and the left, I hope that I have satisfied everybody. It is high time that we reformed indeterminate sentences. Personally, I am amazed that they have survived judicial review and challenge in the courts thus far, but if something was not done, they would not survive very much further, which would lead to unfortunate consequences if a court suddenly started ordering us to release such prisoners and decided that they were being held unlawfully. I have recently described them as a “stain on the system”. I said that at a private meeting in the House of Lords—although it soon found its way into the press—but it is my opinion. What we are putting in place is protection for the public: far more rational, certain, determinate sentences, which is much more in line with how we think the British system should behave.
I will, of course, be followed in this debate by the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan). I have already expressed my amazement at his position, and I have found some other quotations from him in my time. I cannot understand how he can match up to his present position. For example, when we both started in July last year, his leader—the current Leader of the Opposition—said:
“I don’t think we should try to out-right the right on crime,”
and said that I was
“opening up an opportunity for us to redefine part of the debate about criminal justice.”
Only a few weeks ago, addressing the Howard League, the right hon. Member for Tooting said—in a lecture that I thought put him in a very convoluted position between his conscience and where he is at present—that
“our big challenge is to communicate that punishment and reform can and should go hand-in-hand…To deliver this calls for an honest debate”.
The right hon. Gentleman, the shadow Justice Secretary, is a radical lawyer from south London—he is more radical than I am—and he is trying to “out-right” me in what is an absurd and hopeless case. What we are putting in place is an altogether rational and sensible system.
Sadiq Khan
I thank the Justice Secretary.
“Public safety remains our primary concern and indeterminate sentences will always be appropriate for the most serious crimes”—
not my words, although I agree with them entirely, but those of this Government’s Green Paper, “Breaking the Cycle”, which was published in December 2010. How things have changed in just 11 months: instead of what was said then, at the last minute—and after interference from No. 10 Downing street—there was suddenly no mention of indeterminate sentences when the Bill was published in June, more than four months ago. At the last possible moment—at one minute to midnight—we are presented with new clauses that propose the total abolition of indeterminate sentences.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
The right hon. Gentleman seems to be using his time to complain about not having enough time. Before he develops any conspiracy theories, may I make my position clear? I have spoken out against indeterminate sentences in the House before. The Green Paper proposed to restrict them, and I explained why. The announcement in June was made after the most careful discussion with the Prime Minister. We both agreed it, and the idea that I have been forced into accepting the abolition of indeterminate sentences is complete nonsense. The consultation process encouraged me to believe that serious people in the justice system were prepared to go for total abolition, and I leapt at the opportunity, as should the right hon. Gentleman, as a former chairman of Justice and of the Fabian Society. I cannot imagine where he thinks he is taking the labour movement to.
Sadiq Khan
We now know that, when this Government review policy, it means that they abolish it. This is the same Justice Secretary who signed off the Green Paper last December.
Not for the first time, the Government will have to leave it to colleagues from all parties and none in the other place to perform the scrutiny that this Bill deserves. The Justice Secretary is presenting us today with a blueprint that will risk more crime, more victims, and more serious and dangerous offenders being out on the streets. It is as simple as that, and he knows it. No amount of smoke and mirrors can disguise the fact that, by abolishing indeterminate sentences, he is risking the safety of communities in each and every constituency.
“Many dangerous criminals will be released, including repeat offenders, regardless of the risk they pose to the public.”
Those are not my words, but those of the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), now the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, back in 2008, when he was commenting on the changes to indeterminate sentences that we made when we were in government. We made changes to them, but this Government are now proposing to abolish them altogether. What happened to the party that believed in law and order?
I spent a few minutes this morning finding recent cases in which judges had given an indeterminate sentence to a convicted offender to protect the public. I will not give the names of the offenders or the victims, as I do not want to cause the victims further distress. A South Wales police press release from September this year bears the heading “Indeterminate prison sentence for convicted rapist”.
It goes on:
“A Cynon Valley man described as a ‘dangerous individual’ has been given an indeterminate sentence for the rape of two women and wounding of another…D, who the judge described as a dangerous individual, will not be considered for parole for six years. D’s victims have released the following…statement: ‘Our lives will never be the same after the trauma D has put us through. We were physically, mentally, financially and emotionally abused and controlled by him. We are satisfied with the court’s decision to give him an indeterminate sentence and relieved that no-one else will suffer like we have.’”
In this October’s online version of the Birmingham Mail was the headline, “Teenager jailed for stab attacks on father and son in West Heath”. The article stated:
“A teenager has been given an indeterminate sentence for stabbing a father and son while they tried to protect a ‘petrified’ youngster who sought refuge in their Birmingham home…Judge William Davis QC said: ‘You stabbed both the householder and his son causing both of them significant injury. It is a very serious offence because two people were attacked on their own door step and one of them left perilously close to death.’ The judge said he believed J to be a ‘dangerous young man’. After sentencing”,
the victim said,
“I am extremely pleased the judge recognised the seriousness of the offence. It shows the public that carrying knives will not be accepted in society today.”
This month’s North-West Evening Mail contained the headline, “Caustic soda brute loses appeal against sentence”, and continued:
“A ‘dangerous and manipulative’ thug, who scarred a teenager for life by pouring caustic soda on her face, has been told by top judges he deserved his indefinite jail term…On Thursday G challenged his indefinite jail terms, with his lawyers also arguing the minimum five years he was ordered to serve before applying for parole was ‘excessive’. But his appeal was thrown out by judges sitting at London’s Criminal Appeal Court, who described G as a ‘very dangerous man’ who should not be released from prison until the Parole Board considers it safe to do so…Sentencing him, the crown court judge said he was a ‘controlling, manipulative, emotionless and uncaring man’ who was a danger to women…The appeal judge”,
Mr Justice Spencer,
“said: ‘The judge was quite correct to conclude that the appellant should not be released until the Parole Board deems it safe for him to be released.’”
Mr Kenneth Clarke
Can the right hon. Gentleman think of any good reason why, given the remarks he has provided about the sentences, that the perpetrators would not have been given a life sentence? Normally, people like that would get a life sentence. Since there have been IPP sentences, some people have got them, but in the cases the right hon. Gentleman describes, judges will go back to the normal practice of giving a life sentence.
Sadiq Khan
They will not. The right hon. and learned Gentleman’s proposals require there to have been a first offence, and the schedule provides for sentences of 10 or more years. The person found guilty will have to have come back for a second offence and be found guilty of an offence that also requires a sentence of 10 or more years. In all these cases—the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows this—the Government will have taken away from the judge who has heard all the evidence and knows the facts of the case the power to give the IPP sentence.
Mr Clarke
There is no qualification for a life sentence. People can be sent down for a life sentence for their first offence if it is serious enough and demonstrates the danger posed to the public. We are not introducing any qualifications at all to the power to give life imprisonment.
Sadiq Khan
I could not have demolished the arguments better than the right hon. and learned Gentleman just has. He makes the exact point for me. Under the proposals we are presented with today, our judges will be stripped of the power to prevent the most serious criminals from being released and going on to be a danger to society. We can imagine a scenario—and an horrific one at that—of someone committing a serious and violent assault being caught, charged and found guilty. Under the Government’s new proposals, I accept that they might receive an extended determinate sentence and be eligible for release after two thirds of their sentence, should the Parole Board be satisfied. However, even if the Parole Board were not satisfied after two thirds of the sentence had elapsed, there would be nothing to prevent release at the end of the full sentence handed down by the judge. Dangerous individuals would be released at the end of their extended determinate sentence irrespective of whether they posed a risk to the public. Under the new proposals, judges will be able to do absolutely nothing about that. They will be powerless to deprive the offender further of his liberty in order to keep the public safe. I should be happy for the Justice Secretary to intervene on that point, but he apparently does not wish to do so.
Mr Clarke
The right hon. Gentleman clearly did not understand my question. He gave some dreadful descriptions of dreadful cases, featuring what—when the full circumstances are known—are clearly some of the worst examples of violence and sexual offences that could be found. The point is, however, that such people will receive life sentences, because such sentences are available to the court, and they will not be released until someone is satisfied that they are no longer as great a risk as they were. They will be subject to licence for the rest of their lives, and it will be possible to recall them if they start behaving in any sort of threatening way. The life sentence fills the gap that the right hon. Gentleman claims I am creating. We are not changing the position at all.
Sadiq Khan
I realise that the Justice Secretary has not practised law recently, but if a judge could deliver a life sentence for such offences now, he or she would do so. It is because judges have the power under the IPP sentence to deliver indeterminate sentences to protect the public that they deliver those sentences. I am afraid that the Justice Secretary is not right.
A critical weapon will be absent from a judge’s arsenal, preventing that judge from handing down the most appropriate sentence. The judge will simply not be able to sentence the offender with the condition that only when the authorities are satisfied that he is not a risk to society will he be released. I know that that will free up prison places and save the Government money, but taking risks with public safety is plain wrong, which is why we will oppose new clause 30.
Public safety will also be compromised by the proposed “two strikes and you’re out” sentences. That is a great media soundbite and a sure-fire way of making the Government seem tougher than they really are, and it is precisely the kind of thinking that lies behind the inclusion of the words “punishment of offenders” in the Bill, but policies relating to public safety cannot be determined by a public relations strategy.
We do not have to scratch very far beneath the surface to see that the Government’s plans are riddled with problems. Not only are they a rehash of failed Conservative policy from the 1990s, but they introduce a worrying amount of risk—risk that will undermine public safety. Through their “two strikes” policy, the Government absolve themselves totally of any responsibility to identify the serious, violent offenders who are most likely to reoffend. That should be done at the time when the first sentence is handed down for the commission of a heinous crime. It was for the purposes of precisely this scenario that the previous Government created indeterminate sentences, but this Government are making no effort to protect the public from those who are most likely to commit further serious and violent crime following their release. They will address the problem only once the offender has committed a second crime.
Kate Green
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right and he has raised this issue in the House and with the Lord Chancellor before. Many disability organisations and the families of victims of such crimes have contacted him and me to express their very deep concerns. I am particularly indebted to the Disability Hate Crime network, to Katherine Quarmby, an independent journalist, and to the Royal Association for Disability Rights. I am also especially indebted to Christine Oliver, the sister of Keith Philpott, who was a learning disabled victim of murder, for taking the time to talk to me about her family’s experience in relation to my bringing the new clause before the House.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I am sorry to intervene but, for the benefit of the debate on the other subject, may I assure the hon. Lady on behalf of the Government that we agree with her and my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard)? I am advised that the new clause is defective in its drafting—I can tell her why—and I can assure her that we will table amendments in the other House to give effect to what she is asking for. We also propose to cover the transgender issue. I think that will help us to get on with the debate.
Kate Green
I am extremely grateful to the Lord Chancellor, as will be the many disabled people and their families who have been in contact with me. I am delighted that a Government amendment will be brought forward in the other place and I shall not detain the House further.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
May I correct the right hon. Gentleman? The impact statement will show the Bill as amended. Other things being equal, with no changes in the crime level—which depends far more on how long a recession we have, the levels of youth unemployment, how successful we are in dealing with drugs and how far we get with prison reform—the Bill will reduce the prison population by 2,300. The measure we are now debating will have no effect on the prison population in the period to 2015. The reduction in the prison population is achieved by measures already discussed and approved in the Public Bill Committee.
Mr Straw
It would have been helpful to have the impact statement before the House today rather than tomorrow. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is saying—picking up the point made by the hon. Member for Shipley—that no prisoner who cannot be released until he has proved that he is not a danger to the public will not be released in the future, what on earth are these convoluted changes for?
The original design of the legislation in 2003 was unsatisfactory because it led in some cases to tariffs that were ludicrously short—in one case, 27 days. That was never the intention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) and it was causing a major problem. I, with the approval of the House, sought to change the law. It is worth Government Members remembering, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting pointed out, that we got no assistance whatever from the Conservative Opposition at the time. Their complaint was that we were going soft by introducing this change. It was absolutely extraordinary. I do not remember the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), now the Lord Chancellor, standing up either in the House or outside suggesting that there was an alternative. We made that change and, interestingly and wholly contrary to what was said, it has led to a stabilisation of the numbers on indeterminate public protection sentences. According to the Lord Chancellor’s statistical bulletin, in the most recent year the number of such sentences rose by only 3% over the previous year and the number of those receiving IPP sentences was 958 for the year ending March 2011, compared to one short of 1,000 for the year ending March 2010. The changes that were introduced are working.
Yes, it is right that we should look in more detail at the Northern Ireland experience to see what other changes can be made, but it is entirely wrong for the Secretary of State to try to set up a new system that will lead either to the release of dangerous people who are serious and persistent offenders, thousands of whom are in prison for violent offences and sexual offences—in the main—or make no difference at all.
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I am in favour of the Government’s decision to scrap IPP sentences in this instance. Liberty, among others, has said that IPPs could be a back-door measure to introduce life sentences for a huge range of offences. They were intended to be given only sparingly but of course they have been used far more frequently than expected. In March 2011, there were 6,550 IPP prisoners, half of whom served 240 days beyond their tariff, at a cost to the Exchequer of about £68 million. That is quite apart from the whole question of whether they were being held unlawfully, which worries many of us.
As it stands, the IPP regime has been a costly mistake. Furthermore, the indefinite legal limbo created by IPP sentences has in many instances undermined rehabilitation, leaving prisoners and their families uncertain when, if ever, release will be granted. Like the Lord Chancellor, I wonder why those sentences have not been challenged in the courts. I have campaigned on the matter for a long time. In February, I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill seeking the abolition of IPP sentences, so I am pleased about the Government’s decision.
New clause 32 would mean that prisoners serving an extended sentence of at least four years in custody, who have a prior conviction for one in a list of serious offences, will be required to serve two thirds of their sentence, instead of being considered for release at the halfway point. I argued for such a provision when I introduced my Bill, so I am pleased that it has been introduced. However, like the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), I have concerns about new clause 34. I have grave concerns about interference in individual parole decisions. That proposal must be looked at in the other place. We do not have time to debate it properly today and I am sure that many Members, whatever their views, would have appreciated a sensible timetable.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I shall correspond with the right hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith). The new clause was tabled at my request so that we can contemplate changing the test for release by statutory instrument. I shall explore whether it gives rise to the problems described. I certainly have no intention at the moment of intervening in individual cases and making judgments about IPP prisoners.
Mr Llwyd
That is certainly reassuring, but had we had a decent amount of time to discuss the proposals we could have probed them earlier. There is also some confusion about new clause 33, which will no doubt be picked up in the other place.
I know that I have done nothing for my street credibility, and even less for the Lord Chancellor’s, but I believe that the IPP system has been brought into disrepute. It is only right that we do away with it, and to that extent I agree with what the Government seek to do.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(13 years 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 have been fascinated by the proceedings while I have been waiting to move the motion. I beg to move,
That, notwithstanding that such provisions could not have been proposed in Committee without an Instruction from the House, amendments may be proposed on Consideration of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill to—
(a) provide for measures against the payment or receipt of referral fees in connection with the provision of legal services,
(b) create a new offence relating to squatting, and
(c) amend section 76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 (reasonable force for purposes of self-defence etc).
The motion seeks to widen the scope of the Bill in order to provide for measures to be introduced on the payment of referral fees, on the creation of a new criminal offence relating to squatting and to amend the law that governs the use of reasonable force for the purposes of self defence.
I hope that this debate will be focused on the resolution and therefore be a short procedural debate. Obviously, there are points of substance to debate in the three areas that we are bringing into scope, but the obvious time to debate those issues is when we reach them in the course of your selection of amendments, Mr Speaker. We are all anxious to debate other measures in the Bill, for which we will have three full days on Report, so I think we should deal quickly with procedural matters and get on to the substance.
On sentencing, quite a lot will come tomorrow which I look forward to debating. I am being attacked from the right and from the left—that is the story of my life—but I regard all those attacks as entirely misconceived and I hope to answer them tomorrow. More importantly, today we have a lot of amendments on the Order Paper regarding legal aid and it is important that we get on to consider their merits on the Floor of the House in the light of debates in Committee. I hope, therefore, that the House will be satisfied if I merely explain why we are introducing measures on these three topics and bringing them to Floor of the House rather late in the day, on Report.
Referral fees are a familiar subject and have been discussed on the Floor several times in recent months. Since they were introduced—or since the ban on solicitors’ paying referral fees was lifted—in 2004, they have increased very rapidly and have contributed to an unwelcome increase in personal injury cases in our courts. They have tended to encourage the introduction of speculative claims and have certainly raised the cost of contesting litigation. The reason we have waited until Report to introduce amendments on the subject is that the proposals have been out to consultation for a few months and the consultation closed only recently. Even during the consultation we were under pressure from the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) to do something about this issue; I entirely agreed with the points he made and the Government are now responding.
On squatting, the Prime Minister announced on 21 June that we were again about to consult briefly on the possibility of introducing a criminal offence of squatting in the Bill. The consultation closed on 5 October. Anyone who has suffered from the presence of squatters in their property knows the distress and misery they cause. We have restricted the new criminal offence to residential properties precisely to avoid opening up the wider debate that might have ensued on squatting and I am not aware of any strong reaction to what we are doing. Existing laws provide some safeguards for property owners, but our making squatting in residential buildings a criminal offence will provide rather greater protection in circumstances where the harm caused is most severe. Again, I am not aware of much objection in principle to those measures. Personally, I have always found it difficult to see the difference between taking somebody’s car and taking somebody’s home. There is a need for a criminal offence.
Finally, the Prime Minister also announced on 21 June that we would put beyond doubt that home owners and small shopkeepers who use reasonable force to defend themselves or their properties will not be prosecuted. We think that further action on self-defence is necessary to reassure members of the public that they are allowed to use reasonable force to defend themselves or their properties against intruders or others.
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
How will this law differ from the common law right to defend property and the existing law on self-defence under which one can use proportionate and reasonable violence to defend oneself?
Mr Clarke
I will address that when we reach the amendments in two days’ time—[Interruption.] Well, that is exactly where the Labour Government were two years ago. We are attempting to clarify the law and reassure people that the use of reasonable force is indeed legitimate in English law. The main thing it deals with is the fact that there is no duty to retreat when facing a dangerous or threatening attack, but we will discuss that when we come to that part of the Bill. If that was a fundamental change in the law, I would probably face objections to its introduction on Report. It is an attempt once more to build up public confidence in the perfectly reasonable right people have to use legitimate force when defending themselves and their property.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I happen to be sympathetic to all three things the Secretary of State is trying to do, but surely he must take account of the fact that the procedures of the House, which he is trying to bypass, provide that there should be a general discussion on the principle of doing something, followed by a detailed discussion in Committee of how it can be done and then an opportunity to make further amendments on Report if necessary. Does he not have to mount quite a strong case that that is unnecessary in these circumstances?
Mr Clarke
The case I am making is that there are essentially no surprises here, because Members have been perfectly well aware of the proposals for all three subjects. They have been debated widely and consulted on, and we are introducing them in a form that I do not think adds a great deal of controversy to the Bill. As we all know, the Bill is very large and included some very important elements. These three subjects are relevant to what we are trying to do to the justice system. The right to self-defence was in the coalition agreement when the Government were formed, so everyone knew that we would return to it, and the Prime Minister announced it again in June. Banning referral fees was in Lord Justice Jackson’s report on reform of civil litigation costs, which we are already acting on, as far as no win, no fee arrangements are concerned. We delayed making proposals on referral fees because we were waiting for the Legal Services Board to give its opinion following consultation. We have been consulting on squatting, as I have said. The inclusion of these subjects is hardly surprising. All three have been referred to and debated on the Floor of the House, so I hope that it will agree to extend the scope of the Bill.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I think that my right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right and I do not agree with the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith). There is plenty of time to debate this, it was well heralded and is not a great departure. I wish my right hon. and learned Friend well with it.
Mr Clarke
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I think that we should move on to the important debates on legal aid today. I hope that the House is genuinely satisfied that these are three sensible subjects that are closely related to reform of the justice system and will allow us to widen the scope of the Bill, as I propose.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I am sorry to say to the Secretary of State that I wholly deplore the use of this procedural device, because we have a very good, established system in this House of three Readings, Committee and Report, with gaps in between so that people can consider the amendments that have been passed and consider whether other amendments should be tabled so that Opposition Members or Back Benchers can look at what the Government have proposed and suggest amendments of their own in good time. None of that is possible in this situation.
If the measures were for some emergency, I might understand why the Secretary of State had made such a suggestion, but he has suggested absolutely no emergency in relation to any of the three issues today. In fact, his argument, in so far as I can understand it, is that basically, “Nobody really cares about this stuff; it’s all agreed on by everybody”—[Interruption.] If he is seeking to intervene, I am happy to give way.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I share the hon. Gentleman’s sensitivities about the scope of a Bill being widened in the ordinary course of events, but I have already explained how all three things have been canvassed. There has been consultation—indeed, it stopped us introducing them at an earlier stage—and, as he well knows, the pressure on parliamentary time is such that quite a lot of rather worthwhile criminal justice reforms are not enacted for years because no one can find a slot in the legislative timetable for them—[Interruption.] There are details, and the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), who spoke a moment ago, raised a particular detailed point, which will be heard here, and then in the upper House, about exactly what limits there might be on residential property, but this is a sensible process and we should not be sticklers at the expense of worthwhile reform.
Chris Bryant
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for allowing me to intervene on his intervention, but his basic argument is, “This is just for the convenience of Government”—and for no other reason.
In relation to reasonable force, the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s argument, in so far as I could see it, was that basically, “It isn’t going to make the blindest bit of difference, so why not just let it go through?” When Ministers say, “We have to change the ordinary processes for the Government’s convenience, and we know we can do it because we have a majority—by definition, because we are the Government,” we almost always end up with bad legislation, as it is not sufficiently scrutinised. It certainly happened when we sat on the Government Benches, and I am absolutely certain that it will continue to happen now.
Chris Bryant
Precisely, and it is a bad idea to add to a Bill that is already pretty much a Christmas tree Bill a few more baubles at the last stage before it reaches Third Reading. It is a fundamental mistake and a bad way of proceeding, and I can tell from the body language of the Secretary of State and Lord High Chancellor that he is a little embarrassed about coming forward in this manner—
Chris Bryant
If Secretary of State is not embarrassed, as he now suggests, he has gone down in my estimation.
The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) said that all these matters have been extensively debated, but it is one thing to debate a matter in its general application and principles but quite a different matter to look at the wording on the page when it actually comes to legislation.
As I understand the rules of this House, given that we have not yet carried the motion before us, no amendments to which the Government have referred can possibly yet have been tabled. So, they will be tabled tonight and appear on the Order Paper tomorrow, and consequently we will not be able to table amendments to those amendments until after that. I can see the Clerk saying “No, no, no”, so perhaps I have got that completely wrong—[Interruption.] He is nodding now, so I hope that hon. Members will feel free to ignore the last part of my speech and remember everything I said at the beginning of it, and that they will oppose this ludicrous process.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (Programme) (No. 2)
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sadiq Khan
I underscore the important contribution from my right hon. Friend, who chairs the Home Affairs Committee. When we discuss knife crime on Wednesday, we will also discuss legal aid, litigation funding and costs, sentencing, bail, and release and recall of prisoners. The suggestion that we can have anything like the substantive debate that our constituents demand is folly.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
To assist the right hon. Gentleman in his preparation for the debate on knife crime, the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee will recall that I was particularly hostile to mandatory sentences for young children. The Order Paper includes an amendment tabled by the official Opposition on mandatory six-month sentences for 12-year-olds and above. I do not think anything I said to the Select Committee should encourage the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) to think I will agree with him when we come to that subject.
Sadiq Khan
If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is so happy to have a debate, why is he so scared? Let us have proper time for the debate. Let us set aside time for it, and discuss the matter. Let us not have knives in the programme motion. Why is he running away? Let us have the debate, at any time, in any place—[Interruption.] We have no choice but to press the programme motion to a Division. It is important that the other place sees what happens in this Chamber. The Government claim that they want debate, but when it comes to important issues of huge significance to our constituents, what do they do? They run away.