Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord German Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord German (LD)]

Before I sum up on behalf of these Benches, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, for his wise and thoughtful speech. Now that he is out of that Box, I think we are all going to benefit from his wise words in the future. I must pay absolute tribute to him for a splendid maiden speech in this Chamber.

This Bill is heading on the right track, but there is a substantial number of bumps, deep potholes and curves which will need sorting before it will be best suited to reach its destination. It is sad that this Bill is of two parts—a victims’ part and a prisoners’ part. As many noble Lords have said, it tends to deflect from the importance of one or the other, and probably this would have been better in two separate pieces of legislation. But, while this Bill is on the right track but needs amending, it falls very short. I am going to mix my metaphors a little, because this Bill has been late out of the station, but in this House we have a duty to ensure that it gets to its destination in a fit and proper state.

I will speak largely about Part 4 of the Bill, but I want to pay tribute to my colleagues who have spoken about earlier parts of the Bill and it is important to recall the main issues my noble friends have raised. My noble friends Lady Brinton, Lady Burt, Lady Hamwee and Lady Benjamin all raised the gaps in the definition of victims, including the rights of rape victims, victims of anti-social behaviour, victims who are coerced and, as explained by my noble friends Lady Brinton and Lady Benjamin, children who are subjected to sexual and domestic abuse—crimes of the most heinous kind.

My noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lady Brinton emphasised the need for the victims’ code to have a statutory basis, with a statutory duty for public services to deliver the new rights to these victims. The costs of this provision are strangely absent, as is an impact assessment. I ask the Minister: will we have an impact assessment to cover Part 1 at some stage in this process?

My noble friend Lady Hamwee raised the issue of victims having to pay for transcripts. Can noble Lords imagine the outcry if the public had to pay to download Hansard? I think that would probably shake at the roots of what we try to do in this Chamber.

My noble friends Lady Brinton, Lady Hamwee and Lady Burt spoke of the need for an immigration firewall—we need to protect migrants’ rights to data privacy to ensure that they are free to come forward in the same way as other victims, and my noble friend Lady Burt pointed out quite rightly that currently six in 10 victims do not receive their rights.

This is indeed a catalogue worthy of change, which we on these Benches will pursue during the passage of the Bill. As my noble friend Lady Brinton put it, there are a lot of “shoulds” in this Bill which need to be changed to “musts”.

In Part 4, I want to raise several issues, but the one at the root at some of them is what I call the “public confidence” issue. It is twice used in the Bill, first as the judgment to be used by the Secretary of State to refer a case heard by the Parole Board to the courts and secondly as a judgment test for the Secretary of State to remove the chair of the Parole Board. In other words, it hands power to the politician from the independent board. The problem is that the public confidence test is both undefined in the Bill and subjective. The director general operations of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service in another context said that using these words

“is highly subjective and, as a result, has been difficult to apply in practice”.

The Howard League for Penal Reform points out, from a High Court judgment this year, that

“this policy criterion … adds nothing”.

The court found that all matters said to be relevant to the issue of public confidence were aspects of the prisoners’ risk, with no factor going to public confidence being distinct from a risk factor. The Howard League further states that public opinion should not influence the independent judicial process. I wonder whether the Minister agrees with that statement.

I turn to the disapplication of Section 3 of the Human Rights Act, mentioned by many noble Lords. It is a growing trend within this Government. First, it conflicts with the statement in the Bill. I know that the Minister has asked for us to understand why it says on the face of the Bill:

“In my view the provisions of the Victims and Prisoners Bill are compatible with the Convention rights”,


when, later on, we are asked to disapply the convention rights. I hope that he can tell us how both those statements are correct. What is the justification for the difference of fact between those two statements in the same Bill?

Secondly, on a more general point, could the Minister tell us what the Government object to in Section 3 of the Human Rights Act? It would be good to know what it is.

Thirdly, as many noble Lords have said, a human right is applied universally. As soon as you carve out that a right does not exist for one group of people, it ceases to become a universal human right. Does the Minister agree that a human right applies to all humans, not just some of them? As my noble friend Lady Hamwee put it, the penalty for crime is the loss of liberty but not the loss of rights.

Many noble Lords have spoken about the problems with the IPP section of this Bill. The changes made by the Government in the Commons are welcome, but they do little or nothing, as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, pointed out, for those still trapped in the system. There are around 1,200 people sentenced under the IPP rule who have never been released, and about 1,600 who were in custody who were released on licence but have since been recalled. This cohort will first need to convince the Parole Board that the risk to community has been reduced enough for them to be released on licence and remain out of prison on licence for a further two years before the provision to cancel their licence will apply. As many noble Lords have said, the Justice Committee in the Commons recommended re-sentencing as the best way in which to bring this dreadful and much-abused sentencing policy to an end. Will the Minister give attention to using the Justice Committee’s approach for this cohort of IPP prisoners?

There are also practical issues with this Bill that need sorting out. The impact assessment, which needs updating, states that a further 640 prison places will be required. The prison estate, as we all know, is already full. The extra cost to the public purse of building additional prison places will be £250 million over the next decade; the cost of running them will be £28.7 million a year. If those figures are no longer correct, because they were put in place and outlined before the changes were made in the House of Commons, perhaps the Minister can tell us whether there will be a new impact assessment that is to alter those figures. If they are to stand, they are somewhat important to our knowledge and understanding of how the Bill might work.

Additionally, can the Minister tell the House whether there will be a disproportionate impact on black and ethnic-minority prisoners as a result of this Bill? There are also questions around the availability and suitability of community support once people are released from prison and, in particular, the need for mental health services.

I turn to the impact the Bill will have on Parliament and the way it can deal with matters relating to it. Clause 59 basically says that if the Government wish to amend primary legislation, to change it in some way or to repeal or revoke it, they can do that by the affirmative measure of a statutory instrument. It further states:

“Any other statutory instrument containing regulations under this Act is subject to”


the negative procedure. I am sure that the Committee of this House will want to look at that very carefully, but certainly I find that a very strange way in which both Houses of Parliament will have the opportunity to scrutinise major change to the Bill when it comes about. These are all issues that will need exploring as the Bill passes through the House.

Finally, there are the issues relating to the Parole Board which need further examination. My good colleague, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, expressed that in his normal, vigorous, Welsh manner. It is not just because I am Welsh also that I absolutely agree with him and the manner in which he put it. What is the need for the use of the public confidence test for the removal of the Parole Board chair? Does not the existing power for the removal of the chair provide an appropriate safeguard? Besides which, are we prepared to have a politician making decisions, rather than an independent body which has judicial functions? I would be grateful if the Minister, in replying, could also lay out the reasons for excluding the chair from having a role in individual parole cases. If the chair is to be responsible for the operation of the Parole Board, why on earth can the chair not have a part in those deliberations?

The Bill falls short in an important range of areas, and it will need amendment. I look forward to future stages of our work on it to ensure that it can meet its fundamental objective of an effective, efficient and just victims’ rights system, and a just system for rehabilitation of offenders. To return to my earlier metaphor, this train is years late leaving the station, but when it does leave, it must be in the best condition for those victims who, unfortunately, have to travel on it, and for them to have their rights known, available and enforced.