Transparency of the Parole Board and Victim Support

Lord German Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I too express great gratitude from these Benches for the Statement from the Government today, which gives an absolute expression of sympathy for those who have been affected by this case. Because there has been an obvious breakdown in the structure and systems of criminal justice which we are talking about, I wonder whether an apology on behalf of the Government would have been more appropriate at this point.

The Statement we have just heard raises a significant number of issues, many of which link back to legislative processes and rules which have developed over recent decades. Therefore, an understanding of the scope of the review will be necessary to give confidence to the many people who are feeling pain, misery and disgust at what they have seen in recent days. If we are to assuage them and to bring appropriate satisfaction to much of our society, we need to look carefully at the scope of this review.

As the Statement itself expresses it, we are told that the review will answer issues in these two areas: first, transparency in the process for parole decisions and, secondly, how victims are appropriately engaged in that process. This is indeed a focus of public concern at present but behind it lies a set of deeper and wider issues which have been thrown up by this case. We need to ensure that we see a review that touches all these issues if we are to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion to a much deeper issue than that reflected in the Statement. An example which has been thrown up by this case is indeterminate sentences. Nine hundred people were expected to get indeterminate sentences, but by 2012, when they were abolished, 6,000 people had received such sentences. Will the Minister tell us whether there is pressure on the parole system to clear this backlog which has affected the way in which it has dealt with these cases? We need some reassurance on that, not just those of us in this Chamber but the public as well.

Public confidence in the justice system has already been alluded to, particularly in the CPS and the role it played in reducing the number of cases brought to prosecution. It is essential that the public know why that was the case and the impact it has had on the victims and alleged victims who have been so hurt in recent days.

Another area where the concerns of the public need to be assuaged is about the role of the Government and, particularly, of the Home Secretary at the time—she is currently Prime Minister—where two of the victims alleged that their cases were not taken seriously by the criminal system.

The two fundamental issues behind the Statement today are transparency and engagement with victims. The chair of the Parole Board has said that he has lots of plans for more transparency. We need to understand whether he made those views known to the Government and whether the Government took any notice of him in ensuring that openness and transparency occurred. Will the Minister tell us whether the chair of the Parole Board made those points to the Government and what the Government’s response to him was? That is fundamental to the understanding that victims will have.

The second fundamental issue is engagement with victims, which was mentioned in the Statement. We now know that as many as 100 victims did not have their cases taken to court, yet their names are known to the justice system. Will the review deal with those victims as well? This is fundamental. If the names of people who have come forward as being the most hurt—the people who turn to you and say, “I heard this on the television” or “I was asked by a reporter”—are known to reporters, are in the public domain and are well known, why has the penal justice system not brought these matters to their attention? It is clearly laid out in the Statement that at present that is not within the current rules and processes, so some quite significant change is needed to ensure that engagement with victims is properly executed.

The Government say that they are going to bring forward more information shortly. “Shortly” is frequently used in your Lordships’ House and it can mean anything: the next season, the next year, the next Government or whatever. It would be really helpful to know whether we are going to deal with this matter urgently. I know that the Government have said that they intend to bring this matter to a conclusion by March. That is the narrow review which I suspect is what is behind the two issues raised in the Statement, but we need to know a lot more about the processes. We need to understand what victims have gone through. We need to understand what the relationship between the criminal justice system and victims will be.

Fundamentally, there is difference of view as well on the role that the criminal justice system plays. The first stated aim of the criminal justice system is to increase public confidence in it—that appears in this Statement—yet the first aim of the Parole Board is to increase public confidence in its work as an independent body. Somehow or other there is a misconnection there between the one and the other, because having confidence in an independent body and having confidence in the criminal justice system, which is a responsibility of government, in some way do not actually fulfil the needs which this case has thrown up.

I share the anguish of many in this country in relation to the system which this case has thrown up. I share the anguish of many victims who have felt let down by the criminal justice system. I welcome the Statement in so far as it lays out the immediate action to be taken, but I suggest to the Minister that there is a much bigger case lying behind it for examining the whole structure of what happens in these matters.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lord, Lord German, for their contributions on this issue. It is clearly a matter of deep concern not only to the Government but to the public at large that these issues should have arisen in the way they did. I will seek to address some of the points that have been raised.

I am of course aware that there were a number of allegations directed against Worboys that were not the subject of prosecution. That matter of course falls with the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service, which has to apply its evidential test to the question of whether or not to proceed with a prosecution. The question remains whether there still could be a consideration of those cases that were not the subject of prosecution and which were not taken into account by any admission from Worboys himself. Therefore there is scope for other cases to be the subject of consideration by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service in due course.

As regards the question of how certain claims were dealt with, claims by two victims were of course taken to court, as alluded to by the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord German. Those cases were taken against the Metropolitan Police, and by the Court of Appeal stage damages had been awarded and upheld. The Home Secretary was not engaged in that litigation process at that time. The damages that have been awarded will not be clawed back in any sense—those awards of damages will stand.

However, the decision of the Court of Appeal raised a point of law, and it is because of that point of law that the Home Office became engaged in the appeal process. The matter being taken to the Supreme Court concerns an interpretation of a legal issue and that alone—it is not addressing the merits or otherwise of the awards of damages that were made in those cases. I wish to make that clear. The Home Secretary was concerned that an important point of law should be addressed by the Supreme Court, and I am not going to comment further on that because it is an ongoing litigation.

As regards the observations that were made about the victim contact scheme, that will of course be the subject of the review which is to be undertaken. The Secretary of State is determined that the review should be undertaken as soon as possible, which is why I referred to Easter. At present, there is a process whereby victims can be informed of a parole hearing by their own preferred method of contact, but they are not obliged to accept that there should be such contact. The noble Baroness raised the question of whether there should be an opt-in or an opt-out, and that is a question that may properly be addressed in the context of an ongoing review.

Victims of crimes that were not prosecuted do not fall within the present statutory remit of the victim contact scheme, but there is a discretionary contact process which can be considered by the National Probation Service. In this instance, there is no record of any request for discretionary contact, but again the question of discretionary contact is one that may properly be addressed in the context of the review that is to be undertaken. The resources of the probation service are important in two respects. First, the National Probation Service prepares and submits a risk management plan to the Parole Board for the purposes of the board setting licence conditions if there is to be a release of an IPP prisoner. We have to remember that an IPP prisoner is being released under licence for life, albeit they may have the option to apply after 10 years for the removal of that licence, and they are subject to strict conditions which, if breached, may result in them being returned to prison. Again, it is not open to me to go into the detail of the particular licence conditions because the circumstances of the Parole Board’s decision are not something that it is open to me to comment upon; indeed, I am not aware of them. The Parole Board acts in an independent fashion.

The difficulty that has been underlined by this case is that under present legislative provision the decision-making process of the Parole Board cannot be disclosed. I am not aware at present of any prior requests for a change in that legislative provision but, as the noble Lord, Lord German, observed, the chairman of the Parole Board had come forward to say that perhaps the time had come to address that issue. That will of course be the subject of the review that is going to be undertaken. I appreciate the comment made by the noble Lord, Lord German, about the need for us to consider carefully the scope of that review and its terms. That is why the Secretary of State, having only just come in to office, is going to take a reasonable opportunity to address the process of the review that is to be undertaken in order that we can address that point. If it is necessary and appropriate to change the legislative provisions with regard to the transparency of the Parole Board, that can be done by way of secondary legislation so it would not be held up by the need to contemplate primary legislation in this context.

I hope I have addressed the majority of the concerns raised by noble Lords. In light of the time constraints, I will rest my present submission there.