Cost of Living: Energy and Housing

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me so early in this debate, Mr Speaker. I commend both the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State for starting off our proceedings, but I am afraid that I will diverge from energy and housing issues to concentrate on other matters.

Although much has been said about the shortness of the Queen’s Speech—that it does not contain many measures—to my mind that is a quality. This House passes far too much legislation, and we ought to spend more time repealing legislation before we consider passing more. Although some say that its shortness is a fault of this Queen’s Speech, I say that it is a particular benefit.

There is one Bill in particular of which I am very fond: the pensions tax Bill. As a private Member, I introduced—I think in 2004—the Retirement Income Reform Bill, which intended to do away with the need for those at the age of 75 to buy an annuity. It passed Second Reading on a Friday afternoon, I think by a majority of 101. Unfortunately, the Labour Government crushed it. I hope that the Labour party has changed its mind and will support the Bill when it comes before the House again in the guise of the pensions tax Bill.

Another measure that I am particularly pleased to see in the Queen’s Speech which is not politically controversial is the modern slavery Bill. As a former law officer who has appeared in the criminal division of the Court of Appeal dealing with cases that concerned the trafficking of very vulnerable men and women from overseas to this country, some to be sexually abused and some to be abused in the world of employment, I am particularly pleased that the Government and, I hope, the House will pass that Bill in due course. It will add strength to the law that seeks to protect the victims of this most appalling form of criminal behaviour. We all know of examples of appalling gangmasters and people who traffic young girls and women into this country for sexual purposes. Anything that this House can do to protect the victims and to ensure that they are brought to a place of safety and allowed to lead fulfilling lives is much to be approved.

I want to see the modern slavery Bill advance for two other reasons. This morning, I received a letter from my constituent, Laura Palmer, who tells me that there is, in France, something called the Picard law. She writes that the law

“states it is illegal to take money off someone who has been mentally manipulated.”

That put me in mind of the case that was brought by the Moonies—the rather eccentric religious sect—some years ago against the Daily Mail, for which, I hasten to add, I was acting at the time. [Laughter.] It was a long time ago.

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

I hope it paid well.

[Sir Edward Garnier]

I got married on the strength of the case, thank you very much. Indeed, I bought my first house on the strength of it. However, I want to make a serious point.

The sting of the libel in the case was that the Moonies brainwashed children and extracted money from them for the purposes of the Moonie organisation. Of course, a lot of those activities took place overseas, particularly in America. However, if the modern slavery Bill can criminalise the suborning of vulnerable adults and children for the purpose of encouraging them to join such sects and to give up their independence and what money they have for the benefit of the leaders of such groups, it is much to be encouraged. If my constituent, Laura Palmer, is right about the Picard law in France, I hope that the modern slavery Bill that we are about to introduce into this House will take account of that law and learn from it.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Given the excellent points that the hon. and learned Gentleman is making about trafficking, does he share my disappointment at the lack of any mention of female genital mutilation in yesterday’s Queen’s Speech?

[Sir Edward Garnier]

That matter was certainly mentioned in yesterday’s debate. Of course, female genital mutilation is a crime under our law. I share the hon. Gentleman’s disappointment at the lack of prosecutions so far, if that is what he is driving at, but I think he will understand that one difficulty that the prosecuting authorities and the police have had is in the gathering of evidence.

This is too obvious a point, but I will make it anyway: FGM does not take place in public. It is difficult for independent witnesses to come across evidence, although there will be children who are examined in hospital or seen by schoolteachers or general practitioners. Now that the subject is increasingly coming into the public arena, I am sure that such people will be on their guard to ensure that those who are already victims of FGM find at least some protection under the law, despite what has already happened to them, and that children who may be vulnerable to FGM are also protected. The hon. Gentleman’s point is not one of controversy—he and I generally agree that the more we can do to protect those young women, the better and more civilised our country will be.

It is a tradition in this House to have at least four or five criminal justice Bills every Session, most of which do exactly what previous Bills did in earlier Sessions and no doubt repeat what was done in earlier Parliaments. By and large that comes under the heading of too much legislation—often too much ill-thought-through legislation. The previous Labour Government passed something like 65 pieces of legislation on criminal justice. That was utterly wasteful of parliamentary time and most of it achieved very little. However, it makes Ministers feel good.

I think that the serious crime Bill will be better than that, although it concerns me—I say this gently—that there may be some rough edges to the proposed legislation. In parenthesis, I say to the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) that as I understand it, the Bill will strengthen this country’s ability to protect vulnerable children and women and extend the reach of powers to tackle FGM, and it will also make it an offence to possess paedophile manuals. There is plenty of good stuff in the Bill, but I am concerned that in dealing with the protection of vulnerable children, the Government may adjust section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 in a way that will have unintended consequences. I urge the House, and the Government, to be sure before they amend the 1933 Act that that does not do something that they should not or do not intend.

At the risk of being excessively prissy and overly legalistic—a very rare thing for me—let me tell the House what the Act currently states. It is an offence if someone wilfully assaults, ill-treats, neglects, abandons, or exposes a child

“or causes or procures him to be assaulted, ill-treated, neglected, abandoned, or exposed, in a manner likely to cause him unnecessary suffering or injury to health (including injury to or loss of sight, or hearing, or limb, or organ of the body, and—”

I stress—

“any mental derangement),”.

As I understand it, the new Bill follows a campaign from 2012-13 that wishes to extend that part of the Act to cover emotional distress. That seems to me a difficult area to move into when the Bill is already being interpreted in a constructive and protective way.

Some of my constituents, particularly those who are strongly religious, have written to me because they are concerned that the teaching of particular religious tenets—not just Christian or Muslim—would or could stray into the area of emotional distress. I have no view on that because I am not aware of the factual basis on which such things might be established. However, we need to be careful when wishing to send out these messages and signals—I am afraid that such phrases are used by the Government in their surrounding material for this Bill and others—because we are in danger of passing legislation that amounts to just a collection of early-day motions, rather than producing coherent, well argued and well constructed law.

Earlier this week, Libby Purves, the Times journalist, wrote an interesting article—which I recommend—headlined, “You can’t always bring ugly sisters to trial”, towards the end of which she said,

“is it not potentially damaging to ‘intellectual development’ to bring up a child in a strict religious belief that daily contradicts the evolutionary science they learn at school? Is it not detrimental to ‘social development’ to raise a girl—or boy—in the firm expectation that she or he will only marry by parental arrangement?”

She continued:

“Think how many things you could potentially include. Suppose a family has a baby by donor insemination, or indeed another father, and never tells that child…Is it cruel and diminishing to deny someone knowledge of their origins? Come to that, the emotional damage wrought by divorce is well-attested and divorce is a deliberate act by at least one partner: criminal?”

I place these suggestions before the House to encourage us to be careful, as we move forward with enthusiasm in the last Session of this Parliament, about passing laws that are eye-catching. They must have some utility as well. This also applies to the social action, responsibility and heroism Bill. I cannot think of a more wonderful title for an Act of Parliament.

[Geraint Davies]

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman explain how he seems to support the Picard law, which is about mental manipulation, but does not support the idea of dealing with emotional stress? Those are related areas. Does he support any move to tighten up on advertising standards, which is a form of mental manipulation, in relation to Wonga, for example, or breakfast cereals that are described as low fat but which contain high levels of sugar, and so on? How does he square these things?

[Sir Edward Garnier]

The hon. Gentleman, perhaps unwittingly, illustrates my point. If we were to criminalise advertising sugar-filled cereals, we would be stepping down a path that I have no intention of going down. I do not know enough about the Picard law to comment intelligently about it, but I understand from my constituent, Laura Palmer, that it outlaws the manipulation of people under a mental incapacity, or who are temporarily mentally disturbed, to extract money from them—this goes back to my Moonies example. That is not the same as extending section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, under which it is already an offence to do terrible things to children, including causing them mental derangement.

The better answer to the question posed by the 2012 campaign—and to what I fear may be the consequence of the relevant part of the serious crime Bill—is to reflect emotional or intellectual damage in the sentencing under section 1 of the 1933 Act, not to create a whole new category of offence based on intellectual or emotional damage or impairment.

I am just placing the arguments before the House—I do not want to be nailed to the cross on this point—but I am always cautious about this House’s being too ready to pass spuriously attractive pieces of legislation for the purposes of sending out a message or giving a signal without thinking about the consequences of doing so. The purpose of the various stages of a Bill—Second Reading, Committee and Report stages, and then its going through the House of Lords, where it is examined again—is to deal with rough edges or unintended consequences. However, there is no harm in pointing them out now, so that the Government are aware of at least some people’s concerns.

To my mind, those concerns also apply to the social action, responsibility and heroism Bill. I am sure there is much good intention behind the Bill. The Government say:

“All too often people who are doing the right thing in our society feel constrained by the fear that they are the ones who will end up facing a lawsuit for negligence”

and that they want to

“change the law to reassure the public that they can participate in good causes or intervene in an emergency. In the unlikely event that something goes wrong and they are sued, the courts will take full and sympathetic account of the context of their actions.”

They also tell me that the proposed law is

“designed to bring some common sense back to Britain’s health and safety culture. We will put the law on the side of people who are doing the right thing and building better communities.”

That is all well and good, but if one descends into the potential detail of the legislation a number of concerns arise. They are illustrated by an article written by the Secretary of State for Justice headlined, “Our Bill to Curb the Elf and Safety Culture”. I am as great an admirer of the advocates of the saloon bar as anybody else, but I think we need to be a little careful when we are framing laws that affect the way in which our courts treat litigation between citizens.

My right hon. Friend is perfectly right that there have been a number of cases where people have felt constrained—for example, from taking children on school adventure trips and so on—for fear that they, or the school they are employed by, will be sued if somebody breaks their leg or falls into a river and comes to harm through no fault of the school or the individual supervisor, be they a schoolmaster or schoolmistress. As I understand the law of negligence, if it is just an accident, then by and large the courts will recognise that it is just an accident and liability will not be attached to the supervisor.

[Andy McDonald]

Is it not the case that all that is ever expected when people take children on a school trip is that they take reasonable care? They need to have some forethought as to the risks they run, but nobody is expecting a counsel of perfection. If an accident happens that could not have been foreseen, and there has been no carelessness or negligence, then no liability will ever attach.

[Sir Edward Garnier]

I agree. I hope that common sense already exists not only for those contemplating taking children away on trips. That is to say, we do not have to worry about this. If we set in place proper arrangements—we make sure there are lifejackets if people are going out in canoes and all that sort of stuff—then it strikes me that common sense is already in play.

What I am concerned about, however, is the concept of heroic negligence. I would be very interested to hear from a Minister from the Ministry of Justice the definition of heroic negligence. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr Pickles), is the embodiment of political heroism—that is easy to understand—but I think even he would be pushed to find a cogent definition of heroic negligence. When he goes to the next Cabinet meeting and discusses the important things they discuss in Cabinet, I wonder if he could encourage the Attorney-General and the Secretary of State for Justice to think carefully about the concept of heroic negligence, because it will lead to derision, if not amusement, if it is pushed forward.

I accept fully that this is not a courtroom and that the people who draft or think about legislation are not always thinking entirely legalistically. I plead guilty to occasionally being rather prissy about that, as I said a moment ago. However, I am a politician and in the Chamber there are other politicians, so we all understand the need for the political backdrop to the things we do. Governments will of course send out their messages and their signals. At some stage, however, somebody has to apply this law. At some stage, a judge in a county court or in the High Court is going to be faced with a case in which a fireman has been sued by someone he has rescued. He will not just personally be sued—the fire authority will also be sued.

One will have the most complicated litigation. Perhaps expert witnesses on heroism will be called, who will say, “Well, this was heroism that strayed into the area of negligence. It was foolhardy. On the other hand, this chap up the other ladder was heroic in a common-sense way.” One needs to go through these slightly absurd examples in order to demonstrate that somebody needs to think a little more carefully before this aspect of this very important Bill goes forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)]

Yes.

[Sir Edward Garnier]

I am very glad that my right hon. Friend will be responding because not only is he the embodiment of political heroism, he is the embodiment of political common sense. I know that because I have heard him say things that are eminent common sense. I dare say that in winding up the debate this afternoon he will do no more than utter eminent common sense, but with a delightful Conservative political tinge that I would be disappointed if he did not show.

I was elected to this House as a Conservative. I cannot wait for a single-party Conservative Government. I cannot wait for Robert Jenrick, the next Member of Parliament for Newark, to take his place in this House. Given that this debate continues until next Thursday, I hope he will be able to make his maiden speech during the Queen’s Speech debate, if he is fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr Speaker.

I am now getting into the area of waffle—[Hon. Members: “No!”] I finish on a serious point. This Queen’s Speech is full of good things and good intentions but I say with the greatest deference to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench that we need to be a little careful when we construct laws that do no more than send out a message. If I want to send out a message, I will use semaphore.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Just before I call the next speaker, may I impress upon the House that although there is no formal time limit on speeches, a certain self-denying ordinance would help? I invite hon. Members to help each other in these matters. Although in terms of courtesy, legendary as it is, there is much to be said for Members seeking to imitate the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier), there is no need for them to feel the need to do so as far as length of speech is concerned.