Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Judge Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, this is indeed major legislation—298 pages, and that does not tell us the whole story anyway; it is bunged full of regulations. There are 62 regulation-making powers, and, glory be, dear old Henry VIII comes to the fore to put right all 61 of the other regulatory measures, all 177 clauses and 20 schedules, which are eternal in their length. That is not the way to legislate.

I am not here to argue against any measure which promotes public safety, but I want to touch on one or two aspects of constitutionality that matter. If I really had the nerve and the time, I would simply re-read to the whole House the reports from the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers Committee.

Can we just look at Clause 36 and that group, on the extraction of information from electronic devices? It is done by consent of the user, unless there is a death, in which case no consent is needed. That is fine until we remember—particularly looking around the Chamber, where I do not see many people under the age of 30—how people aged under 30 behave in a way that we do not; they use their devices to convey just about everything you can care to think of about their own lives. They send that to recipients, and they receive messages back. That information is private to the recipient. It may be very rude about the recipient; it may tell him in the nicest possible way that he is to push off and other things that people say to each other on their devices. I sometimes wonder why I should not have one myself—[Laughter.] I did not mean that.

The serious point is that the communications are not protected in any way, shape or form, so a constable, who is an authorised officer for the purpose of the Act, can on complying with the conditions simply extract a whole lot of information which may be immensely personal to lots of people other than the user. We need to think about that; we are talking about young people who have to have confidence in our criminal justice system. We even need to think about the convention, which the Minister has said we are compliant with; I just wonder whether that will turn out to be the case, because I do not share her conviction about it.

I am very concerned about the casual way in which this has been done. We are waiting for regulations. The Secretary of State has to decide about protected information and confidential information. Do we know anything about what they are going to do? No. We are waiting for it in Clause 41. And so it goes on.

We then turn to the provisions on demonstrations, processions and assemblies. I am not going to enter into the debate on that; others will speak on it—whether this is right or wrong or consistent—but I want us to ask this. We are accepting all this on faith. We do not know what this Act means; we literally do not know. We are waiting for a definition from the Secretary of State to tell us. I thought the words were perfectly straightforward, but, no, the Secretary of State by regulation is going to tell us what “serious disruption” means. I think we know what it means, but we are nevertheless asked to enact this measure waiting for the Secretary of State to tell us what she thinks it means. The important point is that what she thinks it means will be in a regulation and that is what it will mean. We will not have the slightest idea whether we agree with it; we may or we may not.

Going on with it, we turn to—no, I shall not go on with it; my time is nearly up.

[Noble Lords]

More, more!

[Lord Judge (CB)]

Noble Lords are very kind.

I support the view of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, that we have to address the issue of the evidence in sexual cases. Judge Pigot has been dead years. He wrote his report way back in the 1990s. We have gradually introduced bits of it; we are still waiting. It is an eminently sensible, practical proposal. I shall support the noble and learned Lord’s amendment on that issue when I see it.

Can we do a bit more to protect women and children and victims of sexual violence? Can we please not wait for the report from the Law Commission? The consultation document outdoes even the Bill; it is 500-plus pages long without even an index and it is controversial. That Bill will not simply go through the House as a Law Commission Bill. Can the Government either amend the existing legislation or follow the amendment in the name of, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Russell—I am sure he will be talking about it—to add that safeguard?

I could not help reflecting on the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. Many years ago, I heard a programme on the radio in which people were allowed to say what conversation they would most like to have heard of which they had heard only two words. Two dons are walking down the road in Oxford, and the listener hears one old boy say to the other, “And, ninthly”. That is the conversation he would have wanted to hear. We heard all nine from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Judge Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Wednesday 27th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, perhaps we should leave the reorganisation of the police to another occasion. The first attraction of Amendment 55 is its utter simplicity and simple, clear language. You have no idea how anybody who has had to spend a lifetime looking at criminal justice legislation greets with acclaim a simple piece of legislation, which this is. There is no misunderstanding about it. It does what it says on the tin. Nobody can reconstruct it afterwards or say Parliament had a different intention—it is there.

More importantly, the argument is irrefutable. I had prepared quite a long speech to make today—long by my standards—but I will not make it. We have heard the arguments. This is a special, national problem—full stop. The best solution to a special, national problem is for it to be dealt with nationally. I therefore support this amendment.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, first, I have absolutely no doubt about the Minister’s commitment to dealing with the sorts of offences we are talking about today, particularly violence against women and girls. I also have absolutely no doubt about the Government’s commitment to tackling those issues. This makes the Bill even more puzzling. We support all the amendments in this group, but I want to look at this from a slightly different angle.

This group of amendments is intended to ensure that certain categories of crime are always included in the serious violence duty. It raises the wider issue of what this whole chapter of the Bill is about. Crime and disorder partnerships—noble Lords will know from previous debates that I am quite keen on these—have for many years been responsible for a multiagency approach to preventing and tackling crime and disorder in their areas, including serious violence. They have the advantage of being able to assess what local needs are and prioritise the crime and disorder that is a particular problem in their areas.

In light of these well-established existing partnerships, one must ask why there is a need for an additional serious violence duty. There has been much concern about knife crime in recent years and Scotland has demonstrated how successful a public health approach to the problem can be, where police enforcement is just part of a multiagency, multipronged approach to tackling knife crime. There may be characteristics of the knife crime problem in Scotland and solutions tailored to tackle them there that may not be completely transferrable to other parts of the UK, but the general principle is sound: law enforcement is only one of many approaches that need to be brought to bear on a problem.

If the Government were focusing solely on this type of serious violence, one could understand, in the face of the growing public concern, that a public health approach to knife crime might be mandated—but that is not what the Bill says. However, there are clues in other parts of the Bill that that is what the Government were initially thinking. For example, we will shortly come on to offensive weapon homicide reviews and serious violence prevention orders, which are all about knife crime.

The Bill talks about serious violence generally, including threats of serious violence but excluding terrorism. It goes on to talk—in Clause 12(4)—about a list of factors that must be taken into account, such as: the maximum penalty that a court could impose; the impact on the victim; the prevalence of the violence in the area, and the impact on the community. Presumably, other factors could be considered when the local area is considering its own serious violence. This effectively makes any violence serious—for example, hate crime. Hate crime should be considered serious violence because, by definition, it has a serious impact on the victim.

Amendment 55, from the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, says that domestic abuse, domestic homicides and sexual offences should always be included in the serious violence duty. As the noble Lord, Lord Polak, said, how can any of these offences not be considered serious violence? If the Government do not accept this amendment, can the Minister say what types of domestic abuse, domestic murder or sexual offence are not serious, or in what areas they are not far too prevalent? Amendment 56 also includes stalking, for the reasons that my noble friend Lady Brinton so powerfully argued.

Amendment 57, from the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, includes all violence that results in emergency hospital treatment, or GBH—for very good reasons. As I mentioned in discussion on an earlier group, as the noble Lord did just now, the Cardiff model—that of sharing depersonalised accident and emergency information on knife and gun crime with the police—has proved invaluable. Furthermore, as the definition of serious violence includes threats of serious violence, my noble friend Lady Hamwee is quite right to point out that social media and other electronic communication—the impact of which may go beyond the geographic area for which the authorities that have a serious violence duty have responsibility—require a duty that goes beyond a single area.

In defining serious violence in such a wide way, the Government must either accept that all violence has the potential to be serious, or risk being accused of saying that violence associated with hate crime, violence against women and girls, domestic violence, and almost any other form of violence, is not serious, or should not be treated as serious in every police area.

What the Government should have done, and what they should do now, is go back and look at crime and disorder partnerships, which are already established and responsible for preventing and tackling all forms of crime and disorder—as their consultation on this issue said they should. They should look at where crime and disorder partnerships need to be strengthened —whether, perhaps, to include partners not currently involved—or where legislation needs to be changed to facilitate co-operation and the exchange of information, instead of mandating others to provide information to the police to enable a police-led enforcement approach to tackling serious violence—whatever that means. Of course, we will support all the amendments in this group for as long as the Government continue with such a broad definition of serious violence.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Judge Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Monday 1st November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I think I am probably quite woke, and proud to be so; none the less, I support the broad thrust of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, subject to a couple of caveats. The first caveat is a slightly light-hearted one. As a serial offender, I gently say to noble Lords and friends across the Committee that the overuse of adjectives named for great writers does not always help the cause of human rights. We have all done it: “Dickensian” for socioeconomic rights and “Orwellian” or even “Kafkaesque” for civil liberties. “Chilling” is similar. In fact, an online wit once said of my overuse of these terms: “That Chakrabarti woman finds everything chilling. She sees refrigerators everywhere.” That is just a gentle point about the way we frame this.

I support the broad thrust of this, but the problem is not just about allegations of hate. It is about soft information, as it is sometimes called, or allegations that are not capable of sustaining a criminal charge and should not sit on databases for years and years, or indefinitely. This problem has been growing for many years with the rise of the database state and the potential to hold all sorts of data, even if it never matures into a charge. That is dangerous.

In my previous role as director of Liberty, I saw many cases of this kind. Not all involved free speech. I remember one woman who had allowed her small children to play in the park while she went to a kiosk, and people thought they were unattended. She was cautioned by the police because she was at the borderline, they thought, of neglect, but there was no question of pursuing a charge. None the less, this data sat around for years and was hugely detrimental to her when she sought to work in positions of care.

This is not just about the glorious culture wars that have got everyone to their feet today. It is not about your views on trans inclusion or not, but about whether so-called soft information or police intelligence that never matures into a charge should sit unregulated, off the statute book, as a matter of police discretion and administration. Whatever our views on the free speech point, we surely have to agree with procedural point that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, was right to make clear.

I remind noble Lords that free speech is a two-way street. It is not just about the woke and so-called cancel culture; it is also about protesters who feel that they attend demonstrations and sit on police databases for many years just because they have been caught on CCTV. We in your Lordships’ House would do a great service to the nation if, whenever we consider these so-called culture wars that centre around identity politics and in particular free speech, we remember that it is a two-way street. It is people on either side of very contentious arguments who sometimes want to “cancel” each other, and we should remember that.

My final point is a substantive one about the way I urge the Minister to take this forward. Given that the concern is about not just hate incidents but all soft information that may be held indefinitely, can the Minister’s response today—or on Report, with, I hope, substantive government safeguards—be comprehensive and address not just non-crime hate incidents but all soft intelligence and all police data about individuals that could be to their detriment going forward, whether it touches on free speech rights or other rights such as Article 8 rights to privacy and autonomy? Can this soft information that has been held administratively by the police be on the statute book and brought under proper regulation and control?

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, the issue is very simple. We surely have to decide whether hate crime and non-hate crime, and all their different manifestations, should be left to police guidance, or whether the issue is far more important than that and should be brought under the process of Parliament—legislative control and legislative process. To me, the answer is perfectly clear: the latter.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Judge Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Monday 8th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I want to provide my support for a remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in the course of his speech. He said that the emphasis should be more on disqualification than on imprisonment. One can understand that, when a jury or magistrate is considering what to make of the facts of the case, the threat of imprisonment may influence the decision to go for the softer option rather than the harder one, whereas disqualification does not have that connotation at all. There is a lot of force in the noble Lord’s point.

I also support the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. She talked about the patchwork of offences and the need for a much more balanced approach that looks at all the various offences across the board, rather than fitting together one or two things. That is what this enormously long Bill, which, I suggest, is really not suited for this kind of treatment, does.

Having made those remarks by way of support, if one examines the wording of the proposed new clause, one can see that it is a little risky to try to find new wording to replace the well-understood, well-trusted and frequently used phraseology that we have at the moment. For example, in the new meaning of dangerous driving, we are told that that would be where somebody

“commits a breach of … the Highway Code in a way that causes inconvenience, intimidation or danger”.

The word “inconvenience”, which is one of the three alternatives, does not seem appropriate for dangerous driving. I suggest that, if this is to go any further, this word should come out because it is not descriptive of the effect of dangerous driving at all. Similarly, the next subsection defines “careless or inconsiderate driving” and includes “intimidation”, which does not really fit with what one is talking about when one talks of careless driving or driving without due consideration for other road users.

I draw these points to the Minister’s attention because they show that it is a quite a delicate matter to alter the existing wording, which I would wish to preserve instead of trying to introduce a fresh definition.

Finally on definitions, in subsection (4), the words “serious injury” are equated with

“causing death by careless driving”

and the proposal is to insert “or serious injury”. What amounts to a serious injury is difficult to define but, if one is moving in that direction, one would have to introduce additional words, such as “serious injury”. One finds an example in Clause 66, where there is a definition by reference to the existing standards in the criminal court.

I am not sure that that goes far enough when one considers the consequences of some of these offences and the threat of imprisonment, but one has to give very careful thought to what is really meant by “serious injury”. Is somebody breaking their wrist due to falling on the ground enough? Is something that requires them to go to hospital enough? Or is one looking at something much graver? That brings it closer to the idea that one is trying to bridge what might seem to be a gap, where somebody is injured so seriously that it is only by the skill of a surgeon that death is avoided—I can quite see that there is something that needs to be addressed there—but just using the words “serious injury” may mean walking into a trap that it would be better to avoid.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly. The Road Traffic Act and all its many successors have left us with a law in which a simple textbook, Wilkinson’s Road Traffic Offences, is about as fat as a successful marrow. It is absurd that our law is so complicated on something that everybody, or nearly all of us, does every day. Our children will learn it; the day they get to the age of 17, they will want to drive, and so on and so forth.

I entirely agree that this is a patched-up proposal. Personally, I strongly support the idea that we should get this review conducted and analyse exactly what it is that we want to achieve with a modern law relating to road traffic. That law should address not merely the conduct of a person at the wheel of a car but the conduct of a person on an e-scooter or a person riding a bicycle, some of whom are appalling in the way they ride. It should also include pedestrians who step out into a path and make a driver pull away, causing them to knock somebody else over. We need synchronisation of our laws on these issues, which is why I support the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley.

That said, I want to make a different point and indicate how strongly opposed I am to a proposal that would enable a prison sentence to be imposed on a motorist who was not driving dangerously or taking deliberate risks, and was not under the influence of drink or drugs, but simply made a mistake while at the wheel. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that “road traffic accident” is not the right phrase to use. It is a road traffic incident, which must be examined, as the evidence shows.

You can, perfectly reasonably, accuse someone who drives without due care and attention of being negligent, but criminal culpability is inevitably low because it is negligent. Driving without due care and attention is an offence; it is negligence. However, we do not send people to prison for negligent mistakes causing serious injury in the context of, for example, the medical profession. A mistake is made. It is negligent. There is an action. Various steps are taken in respect of the doctor, the nurse, or whoever it might be. The result to the victim is very serious. So, when we examine whether a doctor or a nurse may be prosecuted, we look not for evidence of negligence, a lack of due care or a mistake, but for something demonstrating that he or she fell far below the standards required by that profession of that individual in that job at that time. We must be careful not to introduce a different standard of approach to motoring offences. We must remember that this offence is also committed by the young mum whose children in the back of the car start howling because there is a wasp in the car, in the way that children do. Is she momentarily distracted? Yes. Should she have stayed rigidly looking to the front? I suppose so. Is it realistic to think that she, or most mums, would stay that way when her child is screaming in the back? No. Let us keep it realistic.

I am also troubled by the way we approach consequences in the whole of this road traffic law. We have situations where identical culpability can lead to completely different sentences because there has been a death. Of course a death is dreadful, but does the offence become more serious because there are two or three deaths? Personally, I think it does, but there is a question that needs to be answered: how far are we addressing the culpability of the driving as against the consequences? Death by dangerous driving is no trouble; after all, you are driving dangerously. Drink driving is no trouble; you choose to have a drink. Driving to take risks and show off to your friends is no trouble; you are driving dangerously. However, we need to be cautious about the introduction of prison sentences for people whose standard of driving amounts to negligence, not gross negligence.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I echo the sentiments of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in thanking the coalition of organisations that have briefed us on Part 5, because they are experts in the field. The short debate we have had reveals the crying need for a comprehensive review of driving sentences. The Government’s push is towards increasing penalties—longer prison sentences—and each of these amendments tackles an issue that needs attention that the Bill is really not going to provide.

The four amendments in this group have little in common with each other. I agree with the local and learned Lord, Lord Judge, on the difference between different offences which could have a very similar outcome. There is a world of difference between causing death while drink-driving or drug-driving, which is a conscious decision that you make, and causing injury or maybe death by carelessly opening your car door: that is at the other extreme. By chance, I saw such an incident last week. I saw a motorist drive up carefully and park, then get distracted by their passenger who had left something behind and who leapt back into the car to retrieve it at the last moment. The driver opened the car door in the path of a cyclist who was not showing lights and it was at night. Now, no great injury was caused in that case, but it could have been. I was standing there waiting to cross the road and I have absolutely no doubt that it was nothing other than distraction and carelessness from a driver who was driving carefully. There is a general push in the Bill towards stiffer sentencing, whereas we should be looking at more effective and appropriate sentencing for drivers, the overwhelming majority of whom are not of the criminal classes and do not have a criminal intent when they drive.

We also need to be designing our roads in a way that makes them much safer. The number of amendments tabled to Part 5 relating to road traffic reinforces my view, and that expressed here today, that we need a thorough review of the laws and penalties that govern driving. I shall say more about this later on my own amendment on this issue. Finally, I refer to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, who drew attention to the inconsistency of the current legislation. Add to that the fact that it is wildly out of date and there really is a need for government action.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, there is an obvious difference between an offence of careless driving and a health and safety offence: the health and safety offence is ongoing—someone is operating a dangerous machine, they have not done proper risk assessments—whereas an offence of careless driving can be a momentary lapse.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I wonder whether I should say that I am not going to make a second speech polishing up my first. I apologise to my noble and learned friend Lord Hope that I got my words in before he did.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I have to say that I find myself in the somewhat invidious situation of supporting the Government. The Labour Party supported this clause in the other place; we agree that it fills a gap in the law and allows the high level of harm caused by these incidents to be recognised.

The debate has focused essentially on the possibility of imprisonment for careless driving, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, made it clear in his speech that that was the burden of his objection and the reason he was moving his amendment proposing that the clause do not stand part of the Bill.

The burden of the argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, was that the mental element in the case of careless driving is no more than negligence and the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said that that would be a momentary lapse, which would have a serious consequence. But when one looks at health and safety legislation, you can indeed have momentary lapses which have very serious consequences. Magistrates occasionally deal with health and safety legislation as well. In addition to that, as part of health and safety legislation that I have seen, it is about a more systemic approach to health and safety within the environment of the factory or whatever you are talking about. Nevertheless, there can be momentary lapses that lead to serious consequences and there is the possibility—although it may be unlikely—of a prison sentence for the director of a company who is responsible for health and safety matters.

As I introduce this, I acknowledge that I find myself in an unusual situation of supporting this element of the Government’s proposals. Nevertheless, I would hope that it would be a very exceptional case, where there is such egregious negligence, that resulted in a prison sentence, when the vast majority of cases are momentary lapses, possibly with tragic results. I would have thought that those types of cases would not result in a prison sentence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

I am considering the proposed offence of carelessness. To be clear, my question is whether there are practical examples of sentencing courts sending people to prison for acts of carelessness. Maybe the noble and learned Lords, Lord Judge and Lord Hope, know the answer. I do not. I suggest it may be relevant.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

I would much rather the Minister answered that question.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, is very kind. I was going to say that, because I am standing up, I will spare the blushes of the noble and learned Lords, so that they do not have to get up. We will look at the exam question from the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. We have to be careful with our terms. It may come back to the point that I made to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas: we must be careful not to confuse “careless”, as in careless driving, with negligence. It is not necessarily the same concept.

I think I was about to sit down and allow—

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Judge Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Wednesday 10th November 2021 Lords Chamber

We share the profound concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, about sentence inflation, so often expressed by many Members of the House experienced in the criminal justice system. We imprison too many people for too long. Our prisons are overcrowded and underfunded and the record of prison in achieving the reform and rehabilitation of offenders is extremely bad. I reiterate what the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, said, to the effect that long sentences impede rehabilitation and reform, and that goes for adults as well as for young people and children. I beg to move.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I sometimes wonder when I read statutes that make provision for sentencing whether those who are responsible for the ideas behind them or those responsible within the department have any idea how difficult it is to pass a sentence. It is easy in a debate like this to talk about two years, three years, seven years, probation or whatever it might be, but it is not like that in the real world. When we have to consider minimum sentences—and I love the semantics about whether we are talking about an obligatory minimum sentence or mandatory sentence subject to exceptions—the ultimate requirement for a sentencing judge is to pass a just sentence. That is why I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Marks.

I am sorry that I am going to take time about this, but there are perhaps four ingredients of a sentence that we now have to consider. One is societal attitude to the crime. Judges get that from what Parliament says that the maximum sentence must be. Dangerous driving causing death, in my lifetime, has gone from two years to five years, 10 years, 14 years and now life. That is Parliament reflecting the seriousness with which society, reflected by Parliament, sees the crime. That always works in the sentencing process. On the rare occasions when a maximum sentence is reduced, as it was with theft, from seven years to five, that too is reflected in the sentencing requirements. However—and although I am used to it, it is no less pernicious—there is the minimum-term idea. Parliament has willed it to be so, and a judge has to be loyal to the Act of Parliament and the oath that he has taken. There it is: forget the semantics, but the starting point is X, and you can move from X only if circumstances permit it, which are now being elevated into “exceptional”.

But that is only the starting point. There is the actual crime itself. Is it a very bad case of its kind or not? This is of particular importance when using “exceptional”. There are many cases where more than one defendant is involved, and sometimes the sentencing judge has in front of him a gang. One member of the gang is a gullible gopher, the person chosen because he is a bit thick, who goes along with it. Do we start with him, with the same minimum sentence as all the others in the same gang? Yes, says this provision, unless it is exceptional. Then we have to remember the victim—the impact on the victim, how it has affected him or her, how long the awful or relatively minor effects will affect that person and how strong, weak, troubled or so on the victim may be. Then there is the defendant. Every single defendant is an individual. On one hand you have the gopher, while on the other you have the sophisticated criminal who does these crimes as a matter of ordinary employment.

My goodness, I could give noble Lords a lecture on this issue, I am not going to because I do not lecture the House, but I am looking at the Minister and members of his department when I use that word. All those ingredients go into making a sentencing decision, and the sentencing judge struggles to balance all of them, because there is a huge conflict on every occasion. If you introduce a minimum term, you have changed the nature of the exercise, which is not to decide in the light of all the ingredients of the defendant, the victim and the crime itself, because you have added a minimum term. The possibility that a judge should be required to pass a sentence that he or she regards as an unjust sentence on a particular individual in a particular case for a particular crime is really rather—I must moderate my language—appalling. A judge should never have to pass a sentence that he or she conscientiously regards as unjust. That is what is wrong with this provision.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

I support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for very much the same reasons advanced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. I very much favour the preservation of a judicial discretion; it is absolutely essential.

I worry very much indeed about sentencing inflation. When I was at the Home Office working as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the back end of the 1980s, I was a Prisons Minister. At that time, the prison population was around 40,000; it has now doubled—it is well into the 80,000s. Are the streets any safer? Does the community feel safer? The answer to that is manifestly that no, it does not.

The noble Lord, Lord Marks, is utterly right when he says that longer sentences mean more people in custody. What is the consequence of that? If you pack people into prison, there is overcrowding and the chances for rehabilitation and retraining are greatly diminished. I know that from my personal experience: for three years or so, I was on the monitoring board of a local prison near me in Lincolnshire—actually, it was just over the border—and the chances of prisoners getting proper courses were very small, so the chances of rehabilitation were thereby much diminished.

The purpose of this clause is to ensure that, in the generality of cases, a prison sentence is the starting point. That is what is intended by using the phrase “exceptional circumstances” as the proviso. That is to say that it will be disapplied in a small minority of cases. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, made a very important point that we need to keep a grip on: exceptional circumstances may not exist, but the sentence could be unjust. So the noble and learned Lord is in fact saying to this Committee—and he is absolutely right—that the impact of the Government’s proposals is to drive the judiciary in particular cases to impose a sentence that they know to be unjust, because they cannot find exceptional circumstances. I find that wholly deplorable.

The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, enlarges judicial discretion to make it more in accordance with the principles of natural justice. I very much favour that, and I hope that the Committee will do so as well.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Judge Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Monday 15th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I strongly support all the amendments in this group, not least because the cause of prisoners serving indeterminate sentences has been languishing ever since such sentences were formally abolished by LASPO in 2012.

I commend the tireless work of my noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood on their behalf. For nearly 27 years, since my first inspection as Chief Inspector of Prisons, I have been campaigning for changes to be made to the operational management structure of the Prison Service to bring it in line with the practice in every business, hospital or school: to appoint named people responsible and accountable for particular functions within the organisation concerned.

In the case of prisons, I have campaigned for separate directors to be appointed for every type of prison, and for certain types of prisoners—lifers, sex offenders, women, young offenders, the elderly, foreign nationals, and those serving indeterminate sentences. Imagine how easy it would be for Ministers interested in IPP, for example, to send for the relevant director and question him or her about what was happening or not happening to all prisoners in that category. I had hoped that somewhere in the 298 pages of this monstrous Bill, space might have been found for something so practical. However, as that is clearly not going to happen, I stringently commend the change to the Minister.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I find myself in a puzzle. The Government of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, who introduced this form of sentence, have indicated that they would not have introduced it if they had known how it would work. A different Government, the coalition Government, of which the present Government formed the majority, saw the iniquities of it and Parliament got rid of it. Therefore, we now have a strange system. We have people in custody under the old system and people with the same record, the same problems, the same issues arising, who are not subject to the same sentences as each other. That seems rather strange, but in terms of an Act of Parliament, it is an utterly illogical situation for the Government now not to at least address the consequences of the sentence having been abolished in the 2012 Act.

Quite rightly, that was not made retrospective. I see that retrospectivity must be avoided, but we have been going on with the sentence that has been abolished for eight or nine years now. We all know that something must be done. I am not making a personal comment about the Minister, but everybody knows that it must be done, including Ministers in the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. We must do something about it, in fairness and logically.

I added my name in support of the amendment tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, but all these amendments are asking one simple question: “You must do something, so will you now tell us what it is?” It is no good us being in a situation where “Something must be done” when “What is going to be done?” is the real question.

[Lord Macdonald of River Glaven (CB)]

My Lords, I hope that the Minister can acknowledge that this is one of those comparatively rare occasions when noble Lords from all parties and none and from across the House have come together in the face of overwhelming evidence that a great public policy, in this case a great criminal justice policy, has gone disastrously wrong. It is beyond argument that IPPs have resulted in periods of incarceration out of any reasonable proportion to the gravity of the original crimes for which they were imposed. That is wrong. It is beyond any reasonable argument that these sentences are beyond any proportion to the risk that continues to be represented by any of the offenders to the public. That is wrong. There is the strongest evidence before the Government that IPPs are observably responsible for persistent and continuing injustice. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, spoke very movingly about the reality of those injustices for those who are suffering under them.

I declare an interest as president of the Howard League and in doing so repeat what a number of noble Lords have said about the contribution made by Frances Crook. She has been a monumental figure in criminal justice, which is better today for her work than it would have been without it. The Government now have an opportunity to make a startling improvement to our criminal justice arrangements by the simple expedience of doing away with IPPs in their entirety; I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, in this respect. The evidence could not be clearer. I support all these amendments and urge the Government now, in the face of this overwhelming case, to act.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Judge Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Wednesday 17th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I participate in this debate and support this amendment with personal reluctance. I think I am allowed to say this: my wife spent the whole of her professional working life treating children born with genetic or birth injuries. Her whole ambition was that that little boy or girl should be able to lead a full and complete life as a member of the community. Some of them did lead absolutely full lives, but some were too—to use the word that was used in the days when she was working—disabled to do so. I know from her experience how crucial it is that opportunities are available to people who have either been born with or acquired disabilities of this kind so, on a personal level, I am reluctant.

However, on a professional level, I must remember that I served as a barrister, doing many jury trials, then as a judge, also doing many jury trials. I have dealt with interpreters of language and interpreters for the deaf. I will not say much more than Mr Pannick—the noble Lord, Lord Pannick—did, but I do want to say one or two things.

First, this paper misses that one of the most crucial facts in what a jury must decide is an analysis of who is telling the truth. It is obvious in almost every case. May I draw noble Lords’ attention to a case I had to deal with? A man was charged with rape. There was a long record; it was just after tape recorders were introduced and before the police had learned to realise that you do not bully people into confessions. There on the tape recorder was a clear admission: “I admit I raped her.” The counsel for the defendant gets up and says, “I want the jury to hear the tape recording.” “Why?”, asked the judge—me. “Have you not checked that it is correct?” “Yes, I have, my Lord”, said the defence. “That is why I want the jury to hear the tape. I shall be submitting to the jury that, if they hear the tape, they will realise that the admission that is plain on the paper simply was not a true confession.” Of course, I agreed. The case unfolded and the tape recording was heard. I have no idea what the 12 members of the jury thought about it but, to me, it was perfectly obvious that, after he had been told about 23 times that he had in fact committed the rape, the man said, “All right, I admit it”, in a tone of complete resignation. His mind was not going with an admission; he was just fed up with the fact that the police had not listened to him.

Can we pause and think of that case in the context of the proposal here? What is to happen to a deaf juror who cannot hear the resignation in the admission? The interpreter cannot do it. They cannot say how it is said—for example, “I think that he was reluctant” or “I think that it is a true confession”. The interpreter cannot help the juror, or they become part of the jury. What happens then? What happens in that case is simply a more vivid example of what happens in just about every single criminal case: someone, as the noble Earl suggested, is lying. It may be the defendant. It may be the witness. Perhaps a kind way to put it is that somebody is badly mistaken, if it is a witness. However, the analysis of who is right and who is wrong is a long, drawn-out process in which the jury must see and hear the witness and observe any hesitations or changes of expression. There are all sorts of little clues about how to make the decision on credibility. With great respect, somebody interpreting using sign language is not going to be able to get across the tone in which the evidence is given. It is simply not possible.

I move to another point—the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has made it already. Go with me into the jury room. I have seen jurors who are very cross and upset. You can tell that when they come back, because they are not agreed on their verdict and there they are: heated, anxious and worried. That is because every member of a jury, or virtually every member, I ever came across was determined to exert himself or herself to fulfil their public responsibility to reach a true verdict, so if they disagree about whether somebody is guilty, of course they are going to get steamed up. How will the dynamics work? Is it really being suggested that, within the jury room, the 12 of them should be together and that every time any one of the 11 who is not deaf makes a contribution, whether a comment, a long sentence or a paragraph, nobody can respond until such time as the interpretation has finished? I do not think that is real. I also think that, with the presence of interpreters—there will undoubtedly be at least two because half an hour of that work is extremely arduous—there will be at least 14 people. Go to any meeting that you are involved in and if somebody is there who is not actually involved, not responsible for what is going on, it changes the dynamic for all.

Let me leave the 13th or 14th person in the room and come to my fundamental objection. It will be the first time, as far as I am aware, when a jury room’s sanctity will be broken. We have always worked on the basis that what goes on in the jury room is private—not just confidential—to the 12 members of the jury. This is a very serious step for us to be taking. I can assure you that the next stage will be, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, suggested, “Well, somebody is not able to speak English but has a citizen’s obligation. He or she should serve on a jury with a language interpreter.” I can assure you too—and this is perhaps more urgent—that there will be a whole series of academic professors dying to get into the jury room to see how juries reach their verdicts. So far, we have resisted it—in England, at any rate. What will happen to the confidentiality and privacy of the jury system if we let this door open?

That seems a fundamental issue of principle; it is not a matter of practical possibilities—as things improve, as science and technology get better. We are setting a very serious precedent. Although, of course, we cannot imagine it ever happening, I cannot help feeling in my remote dreams that, one day, a Secretary of State for the Home Department may say, “Why are these people being acquitted? It is a very good thing for us to have somebody in the jury room just to make sure that they are following the judge’s directions to them.”

I have three further points to make. The first is the language point—I have made that. Secondly, what is the role of the deaf juror in the context of his or her obligations to do jury service? If somebody turns up at court who can use or understand sign language, will it be compulsory that he serves on a jury? Everybody else has to turn up; there has to be a very good reason—there is an obligation to act as a juryman. Do we say, “Well, in the case of the deaf person, there’s a special dispensation?” In which case they are not being treated like everybody else. We need to examine that, because I would have thought that there is many a deaf person who would be willing to serve on a jury, but there will be quite a lot who would not.

Finally, while we are examining the proposal made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, about possible shadow research, why are we not looking at the technology that is available? It is at least possible that my objection in principle could be addressed through technology. We all know that any time we turn on our television and some extraordinary language from the Baltic countries is being used, little lines come up to tell us what is being said. All members of the Bar with successful practices—and I never did have one—work in courts where all the evidence emerges on a screen as it is given. Why is that not being looked at? Why in relation to the principal issue are we not finding ways that a deaf juror can be accommodated within the jury room without any interpreters being present at all?

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, I ask the Committee to forgive me for using legal language. Some years ago, I had a case in Newport. It was a murder trial in which the victim was profoundly deaf, the defendant was profoundly deaf and four or five of the witnesses were profoundly deaf. This trial proceeded with three sign language interpreters always in the courtroom: one for the defendant, one for the witness and one behind the judge, positioned so that everybody, including the many profoundly deaf people in the public gallery, could see what was happening.

When I first looked at this provision, I thought, like everyone else would, that surely a person who is profoundly deaf should be entitled to carry out their public duty. But the practicalities of it make that an impossible idea. For a deaf juror, there has to be a succession of people interpreting what is going on in the court in sign language. First of all, that is an immense burden on him—he is different from everyone else; and, secondly, while what is said in the court can be heard by everyone else, we do not know whether the person doing the signing gets it right. Nobody can really tell if that is the case, unless, as in my case, you have someone familiar with sign language in the box with the defendant.

How can we be sure that that juror understands the nuances of a summing-up, in which the judge sets out the law that the jury is to apply? Can it be the case that some other person who knows sign language checks that the proper interpretation is being made of what may be very technical language? As I learned, the sign language interpreter is not translating word for word but is conveying ideas. During that case I also discovered that sign language interpreters and witnesses who give their evidence by signing are quicker than people using ordinary speech. It is not a slower procedure, rather it actually speeds things up; the rest of the court have to hold the sign language interpreters back.

However, in the jury room, there is no way in which a profoundly deaf person can follow the arguments being made—passionate and otherwise: nobody can be sure that every nuance of what the other jurors are saying is being transmitted, and nobody can be sure that an interruption or question from a profoundly deaf person is being accurately translated and represents his thoughts.

I take the argument of principle that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, put forward, but from a practical point of view, and from my experience of that trial, it is impossible for a fair trial to take place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I do not wish to be taken as suggesting that what works well in Scotland should necessarily be applied in England and Wales, but I think I am right in saying that there has been some attempt in Scotland to allow juries to be remote. The problem one has is that a judge cannot be in two places at once. I think it was thought more appropriate that the judge should be close to the place where the evidence was being taken, with the juries remote in some other room because of the need for social distancing and so on. My point is simply this: I suggest once again, with great respect, that the Minister should find out what has been happening in Scotland and what the experience has been. They may have decided, for the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that it should not be continued. I simply do not know, but it is worth exploring to find out exactly what the position is.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, despite Covid—I know it is not over yet, but despite the 18 months we have had—I have not heard it suggested that one solution to the problems that the courts face is that juries should act remotely. We have trial by judge and jury. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, but I want to be just a bit more down to the realities of it. What happens in court when the jury is unhappy with itself or with some of its members? The judge has a most delicate task to perform. On my old circuit—I am sorry to say that the Midlands circuit has this—one juror smelled; he stank, and the jury were extremely unhappy about it. Can all that be done remotely, when the judge is responsible for looking after the interests and needs of the jury as a whole? Do we send messages down the line? How is it accommodated? It requires huge tact, skill and, I think, the personal touch.

My other concern about this provision was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick—it is the usual one, I am afraid; you have all heard me talk about it. Why should we give these huge powers when we do not need to give them?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, there are a number of amendments in this group to which I would like to speak. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, made the overarching point that he is suspicious of broad powers being taken in legislation. It seems to me that those amendments which are not the Government’s address the broad powers which the Government are seeking to take in this group.

Amendments 245A and 245B, in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, would remove children from the application of Clause 167, providing that remote observation and recording of court proceedings may not occur in cases where a party to the proceedings is a child under the age of 18.

Under Amendment 259A, also in the name of my noble and learned friend, a court may not give directions for live links in criminal proceedings where a party to them is a child under the age of 18. The amendment in my name, Amendment 259BA, would require that all defendants who might appear on a video or audio link from a location outside the court should be subject to a health needs screening. Screening information must be made available to the judge responsible for listing before the listing is finalised.

We have all had a variety of experiences of dealing with remote links. I have done it many times over the last 18 months and in a number of jurisdictions. I was pleased that the Minister referred to Sir Andrew McFarlane’s report about trying to increase the transparency of family courts. I have read that report and it is interesting. There is the idea there of permitting journalists to observe family courts remotely. However, there is another side to this coin. Yes, we pat ourselves on the back for getting through a difficult situation—I have done it myself—and we have all managed to make the various parts of our lives work, including this House, but I do not think that anyone would say that the manner of getting through things within the court system or within this House or this Committee is as good as doing it in person.

The amendments I have spoken to look at arguably the most vulnerable people who potentially proceed through the criminal system and at whether there should be a form of review around whether that is indeed suitable. The amendments I have referred to talk about people under the age of 18, but there is a wider point, because there has been criticism of the way in which we in the family court system have proceeded remotely. I have literally taken away a child from a mother remotely, by telephone. It was the best thing to do in the circumstances, but nobody would argue that that was the best way to proceed when the court system and other forms of support should be in place and available.

There are overarching and broad powers being sought through this group of amendments. The amendments in my name and those in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, are basically looking for exceptions to this, where the situation is so sensitive that these overarching powers should not be taken and there should be further research and assessment of their appropriateness. The amendments in my name deal with young people under the age of 18. I have had a number of hearings with such young people. Sometimes they go okay; sometimes they simply switch off and do not have a clue what is proceeding within the court system.

I hope that, when the noble Lord comes to sum up, he will be able to say something about ongoing reviews of particular appraisals of young people being able to participate in these types of hearings, and that there will not be a blanket approach, as is proposed in his group of amendments.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Judge Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Monday 22nd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

My Lords, I should have opened those other amendments, and it is an error on my part that I did not. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, because he has done a bit of the work that I should have done.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

If the noble and learned Lord decides to open them, which I would welcome, I would like to respond generally. So far, this debate has rushed along, and we were rather waiting for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, to tell us why he strongly supported all these amendments, and then we will answer them.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

The reason I did not tell noble Lords why I strongly supported all these amendments was because I made a mistake and did not realise that they were in the same group until the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, mentioned it. I apologise to the Committee for that error.

May I just go through them? I have done Amendment 268, which concerns Section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act. The next is Amendment 286, which proposes to insert a new clause into the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 and would exclude the admission in evidence, whether by the prosecution or the defence, of any sexual behaviour of the complainant with a third party, for the purpose of showing consent or lack of consent, while leaving evidence of sexual behaviour with a third party admissible if it is relevant to any other issue in the case.

In addition, it sets out a further requirement that, where such evidence is sought to be introduced in relation to an issue other than consent, that material must be more probative than prejudicial, and it sets out the considerations the judge must have regard to in considering that extra requirement. The purpose of this amendment is to give the clearest possible signal that evidence of any sexual behaviour of the complainant with a third party—that is, not the defendant—should be regarded as completely inadmissible on the issue of consent. This is important because it is intended to mark a change from the past, where all too often such evidence is admissible in circumstances where it is of very limited probative value, and the ability of that evidence to be admitted makes people—complainants—incredibly wary of coming forward and making complaints. This is the legislature giving a clear signal that it wants a change in relation to that. That is why it is there.

--- Later in debate ---

I apologise for not opening these issues before. They are very important and I hope I have assisted the Committee.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I once tried a case where the most compelling evidence was given by a black woman who alleged that a white dentist had raped her. His case was that, as she sat in the dentist’s chair, she undid his fly and started sucking his penis. Her answer to the question put to her was, “I would never do that with a white man”, and it was compelling. If there had been evidence that in fact she had, that very compelling piece of evidence would have lost some of its compulsion. We have to be very careful not to send messages through legislation—messages we all share—because that is not the point of legislation.

I should add that there are plenty of times when evidence is inadmissible in law which may be probative, but there are, as far as I am aware—I cannot think of any; perhaps I will be corrected if I am wrong—few times where evidence which may assist the defendant is deemed inadmissible. That is an important step.

My other intervention is that, deep down in all this, there is a rather alarming—strange, really—new idea, which is that the Secretary of State should involve himself or herself in some of these important decisions. Let us look at the arrival of a friend, or an advocate’s friend—it does not matter what we call it; I personally wonder why that is necessary, when the prosecutor is supposed to be there as a minister of justice. I am looking at paragraph (e) of proposed new Clause 43A which would be inserted by Amendment 289. Why on earth should the Secretary of State be making regulations setting out procedure relating to hearings or appeals under this section? There is a perfectly good Criminal Procedure Rule Committee which produces Criminal Procedure Rules and is referred to in paragraph (b). With great respect, this has nothing whatever to do with the Executive. This is about the way cases are being conducted in court. Therefore, if there are going to be regulations, they should be produced either by primary legislation here or by the Criminal Procedure Rule Committee addressing the issues.

On Amendment 291, I am even more alarmed. Subsection (2) of the proposed new clause gives the Secretary of State the power to decide which judges may hear which cases. We do not allow that. It is an essential division that there is an Executive and that cases are tried by judges; the Executive have no say whatever in which judge will try which case. It would be very strange: “I think I would like Mr Justice So-and-so, or Mrs Justice So-and-so, to try this case”. It is unheard of.

More importantly in relation to the judiciary and to the whole of Amendment 291, I can confirm as a matter of certainty—I suspect this has been true since the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, was Lord Chief Justice—that judges are not allowed to try cases involving rape or serious sexual offences unless they have attended Judicial College training and continue to be refreshed in the various ways in which the law, the principles, the understandings and insights have been developing. As I say, though, my real concern is that if this is going to be statute, then for heaven’s sake, it should not be in the hands of the Secretary of State.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

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Committee stage
Wednesday 24th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness spoke for nearly 20 minutes and I am attempting to speak for about two minutes.

We ought to avoid drawing the distinction to which I referred. However, there is a clear difference between a lawful expression of protest drawing attention to a particular issue, wanting it to be heard, and a deliberate and aggressive attempt to disrupt the lives of the general public. That is what we have seen over recent weeks. It is entirely reasonable that we look carefully at the current legislative settlement and examine what can be done with the existing powers. I hear the remarks made that the police have the powers that they need. Some feel that they do and others do not. That matter should be carefully looked at.

However, where there are gaps and where the police require additional powers to take those finely balanced judgments, it is entirely legitimate that we look at that in the Bill while maintaining a clear balance and making sure that we do not trespass too much on some of the issues that have been raised around, for example, noise. In essence, there are grounds for a constructive debate and finding that balance. It is never going to get everyone’s support but we all ought to look beyond the Westminster bubble and consider the reaction of the general public when they see their lives and critical national infrastructure such as transport being substantially disrupted and when the police are unable to deal with it effectively.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I am not sure that I would have been elected Convenor of the Cross Benches if my colleagues had known that I, too, was once a protester.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Judge (CB)]

I wanted to join the general acclaim for people who had been protesting. I was 17 years old and I was idealistic. I believed in what I was doing.

My point is this: no one has spoken at all to Amendments 295 and 306, which were intended, according to the script, to remove new triggers. I hope that that was on the basis that Amendment 298 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Beith, and Amendment 308 in my name covered that point. If anyone wants me to cover the point now, I shall do so, but would it not be better for me to sit down?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, this is a simple and straightforward amendment implementing the wishes of our Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. It deals with the “serious disruption to … an organisation” and “serious disruption to the life of the community” provisions, which, instead of being set out in the Bill, are to be the subject of a statutory instrument, a draft of which, or parts of which, have already been circulated by the Government.

The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee was quite clear that the affirmative procedure for a statutory instrument is wholly inadequate to anything as important and fundamental as this. An affirmative statutory instrument, being unamendable and debated only once in each House, was not in its view adequate. It considered that the definitions of the expressions in question should be added to the Bill to give Parliament the opportunity fully to debate them. It said:

“We consider that the definitions of the expressions ‘serious disruption to the activities of an organisation’ and ‘serious disruption to the life of the community’ are of such significance that they merit the fuller scrutiny afforded to Bill provisions and should therefore appear on the face of the Bill.”


It is not clear to me that it was necessary to have got into this territory at all. There is a complex potential conflict with ECHR provisions which will probably lead to the matter being resolved in the courts in any event. For us to allow Ministers to proceed by statutory instrument on a matter which could have such a profound effect on how these provisions operate in practice does not seem wise. I therefore strongly support the views of the Delegated Powers Committee and believe that either the Government should go ahead and include these provisions in the Bill or they should take this element out altogether.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, we have not had time yet for all of us to read the report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee or, for that matter, that of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, whose paper is entitled Democracy Denied? The Urgent Need to Rebalance Power between Parliament and the Executive. I have read that, but I did not get round to the first.

We have to support our committees—that is why we have them; they are cross party. This is a tiny amendment of significance. The amendment does not propose any interference with the power to address the problem of serious disruption. It is not intended to address that. The submission is that the way in which the legislation is drafted, in Clause 55(4) and Clause 56(6), is completely unnecessary to enable justice to be done in whichever way the Government think it is appropriate for justice to be done.

Secondly—this is a bit naughty of me—I think the provision reflects a growing constitutional wheeze, what I call the “blank cheque wheeze”. It is this: the Executive tell the legislature to please legislate, and the legislature legislates—and, when it legislates, the Executive then tell the legislature what the legislation means. That is a blank cheque that we are being asked to give in these clauses.

As to the words, I know that it is quite late at night and so I shall be short, but do any of us here not understand two simple English words—“severe disruption”? I mean, come on, even the lawyers among us cannot think of a lot of differences. “Severe”, “serious”—get out your thesaurus. They are simple English words, and the two words put together make a perfectly clear picture of what is being addressed and sought to be protected.

This is unnecessary and a wheeze. We really must not allow the Executive to start treating this way of legislating—called in more elegant terms tertiary legislation —by saying, “We’ll tell you what it means when we get around to it”. The Secretary of State has started to tell us what it means. The place where we should be told what it means, if it does not mean what it says—and I think that it does mean what it says—is in a definition clause within the primary legislation.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I put my name to Amendment 308 in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Judge and shall say a few words in support of what he has just said. It was quite clear from the reply by the Minister to the previous group that these words, “serious disruption”, are the key to the proportionality of the clauses that we are considering. They are absolutely central to the whole proportionality of the scheme. Of course, if something does not amount to a serious disruption, the police take no action; if it does amount to that, within the ordinary meaning of the word, the police have authority to do so.

I mention that because, while I support entirely what my noble and learned friend has just said, there is an element of risk here, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, hinted at in his comments in the last group. It is the risk of lowering the threshold. Why else is the power being taken? If it is not in the present Home Secretary’s mind to lower the threshold, the risk is there. It is for that reason that I suggest there is a risk here that should be avoided.

There is also the point about the clarity of the legislation. One element of the rule of law is that the law should be accessible, and the more you attempt to define words by regulation and not in primary legislation, the more inaccessible the true meaning of the words becomes. It is not a way to go down—it is unnecessary, as my noble and learned friend said—and I hope very much that the Government do not proceed with this scheme.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

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Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Lords Hansard - part one & Report stage
Wednesday 15th December 2021 Lords Chamber

I very much hope that my noble friend will accept the modest changes effected by this amendment. I hope that noble Lords will bear in mind not only the plight of the offenders affected by this sentence but also that of their families, who have stuck with them in many cases and struggled and fought for them and whose lives, as a family, have been disrupted, damaged and, in some cases, come close to destruction by the injustice done and the practical impossibility of recovering the life of a free citizen. I hope to hear encouragement and undertakings from my noble friend. If not, I give notice now that, reluctantly, I may wish to test the opinion of the House.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

It is such a folly, is it not, for legislatures to impose strict, rigid, statutory tramlines on sentencing decisions? That is what this problem stems from and I very much regret that the current Bill finds some more rigid, statutory tramlines to affect the sentencing decision.

What is the problem with this? It is very complex but I will try to sum it up. With the IPP, many of those subject to it or sentenced to it found that their dangerousness as an individual was being predicted on the basis of strict statutory assumptions of general application. That is not the way that we should legislate.

No one wants anybody dangerous to be released. I do not mean to be light-hearted about this, but nobody has ever thought that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, was a soft, lily-livered—I do not know what the right epithet would be, but he has never been one of them. He was responsible for this Act. He was the Minister and, if I may say so, I greatly admire his courage in coming to Parliament to say that something went wrong.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Judge (CB)]

We all know that IPPs are a failure. They were abolished years ago. They are not available. Why on earth do we continue to keep people subjected to them, incarcerated, unless they are indeed dangerous.

May I take a completely trivial example? My daughter is in South Africa. She hit the red line four days after the new virus appeared. If she comes back, she is subjected—or was—to 11 days’ incarceration in a hotel, which is trivial compared to anybody in prison. That has changed and the red lines have gone. Is it really being suggested that those who were in a hotel, in quarantine, should now continue to be in quarantine although people coming in from South Africa will no longer be subjected to it? Of course not; it is completely daft.

I regret to say that I think the current situation is daft. We really must try to help the Government get rid of this absurdity and—can we also remember?—enable justice to be done to a large number of individuals.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

I think the last point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, needs to be said often and loudly. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett—I praised him in Committee—was brave enough to admit that this form of sentence was wrong. My noble and learned friend Lord Clarke of Nottingham abolished it when he was Secretary of State for Justice, but we are left with what I may call the detritus of this admitted mistake. What we must do now is clear it up. We have got rid of the sentence. As the noble and learned Lord said, it is no longer available. We are left with, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, just pointed out in a highly effective speech—and in Committee —hundreds of people remaining in prison long beyond their punishment tariff and others, as my noble friend Lord Moylan pointed out, on licence well beyond any sensible period.

I am a signatory to my noble friend’s amendment but, as I said in Committee, I could have signed any of the amendments to do with reforming IPPs. I say, as both a Member of this House and as a fellow trustee of the Prison Reform Trust with the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, that we have got to the stage now where nobody who has sense of justice or common sense could defend what we now have. All we are looking for is a way in which the Government can complete the task that my noble and learned friend Lord Clarke began when he was Secretary of State for Justice and which for some reason has not been completed in the eight or so years since the sentence was abolished.

Now is the time. If we are to have a Bill as huge as this, let us make good use of it by adding into it just provisions that do justice and which prevent men and women being incarcerated or on licence still for no very good reason. If I may say so, let us also get rid of this provision that is not doing the victims of their crimes any good either. Victims of criminal activity want justice both for them and for the defendant, but this is not justice for either the defendant or the victim.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Judge Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 12th January 2022 Lords Chamber

As your Lordships know, the Home Office has rushed in an amendment to partly tackle that illegal behaviour by the College of Policing. It will be dealt with on Monday, so now is not the time or place to talk about it. I will say more on it on Monday. However, it seems to make the point abundantly clear that when guidance is invented not in an Act, not even by secondary legislation, but by a third party outside parliamentary control, the rights of the subject can be imperilled, no matter the decency or the integrity of the people making those regulations. The College of Policing no doubt does some good work, but it should be an arm’s-length government body approved by Parliament, not a private limited company. All I want to hear from the Minister tonight is when this organisation will be put on a statutory footing in an Act approved by Parliament. I beg to move.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I put my name to this amendment because it raises some important and delicate issues. I follow the noble Lord in asking: can we please have a date? Can we at least be told that somebody is considering the position of the College of Policing? As he said, it is a company under the control of the Secretary of State with no statutory basis.

There is no problem with the College of Policing issuing guidance to police officers about how police officers should go about their responsibilities, as that is what it is there for. However, the college, a non-statutory body, is being required or invited by the schedule to this Bill—we are not going to look at that now, because it is too late and we all want to go home and there is a lot more business to come—to issue guidance which will impact on bail decisions. Bail is a question of liberty; it will impact on that. We are told not to worry because there is no liability one way or the other for not following the guidance, but we are also told that a court considering an issue such as this may take into account whether the guidance issued by the College of Policing on this issue has been followed. My point is very simple and very small compared to the major issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. It is: should instructions or guidance issued by the College of Policing have any impact whatever on a decision made by a court that a citizen should or should not be granted bail?

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Blencathra. He and I have been chasing down issues with secondary and, tonight, tertiary legislation for some months and have produced reports to that effect that I think have found favour in your Lordships’ House, bearing mind the number of noble Lords who wished to speak in the debate tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Cavendish, last Thursday.

Government by Diktat, the title of a report by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which I chair, is alive and well and living with the situation that my noble friend wishes to remedy. The issues of regulation and guidance, of who provides the guidance and of how enforceable it is are questions with which the SLSC has been struggling. However, if we have been struggling with that, when it comes to this latest idea the guidance will not even touch the sides of the regulatory process of your Lordships’ House. We as a House will be presented with a series of faits accomplish, and unless somebody is able to persuade the usual channels to find time to debate something, we will just be told, “There it is and off we go”.

That is not a satisfactory situation. It is part of a much wider issue of how we deal with secondary and, in this case, tertiary legislation, but my noble friend Lord Blencathra has done a valuable service by bringing this case to the surface. We will make progress in this area only if every time we see this sort of thing emerging we raise it, talk about it and try to deal with it. That is why I support the amendment and put my name to it.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Judge Excerpts

3rd reading
Tuesday 25th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, with the agreement of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, I rise to thank my noble friend the Minister. I know from conversations with him that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who cannot be in his place today would join me in expressing our appreciation to my noble friend the Minister for the integrity, openness and engagement—and consequently the trust—he has engendered since Report. This is an example of government and the House working constructively to improve the operation of the criminal justice system and those affected by it.

The amendment moved by my noble friend addresses one limb of the amendment in my name in Committee and again on Report. It puts into effect the Government’s own previously announced policy of making the termination of licences automatic. I welcome that, but I still hope that soon the Government will also adopt the second limb of that amendment to reduce the qualifying period from 10 years to five. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, said, the Justice Select Committee in the other place is considering this whole case.

I hope that when my noble friend replies he will be able to say that, if that committee recommends a reduction in the qualifying period from 10 years to five, the Government will be quick to adopt that amendment and put it into effect. Both measures—the automaticity of the referral and the potential reduction of the qualifying period from 10 years to five—are primarily aimed at IPP prisoners out on licence, not those in prison, though I appreciate that my noble friend has pointed out that those on recall may gain some benefit from this.

This is the first crack in the wall of this regime made in the last 10 years. It would be very easy for noble Lords to think that now is a moment when we could perhaps relax; the Government, having made a concession and implicitly recognised an injustice, will move, quietly perhaps, to resolve the whole matter quickly. But that is not what the Ministry of Justice is expecting to see happen.

In a Written Answer given in the other place by my right honourable friend Kit Malthouse on 3 December last year, the Ministry of Justice set out in round numbers how many IPP prisoners it expected to see released on licence in each of the next five years. It came to 800. But when asked how many of those out on licence it expected to see recalled to prison over the same period, the total came to a staggering 3,400. The Ministry of Justice expects 2,600 more IPP prisoners, net, to be in jail over the next five years than there are today. That is nearly a doubling of the number of IPP prisoners in prison today. This problem is not resolved; we have not even begun to resolve it. This problem is going to get worse and the Government are obliged to take it seriously.

My noble friend referred on Report to the existence of an action plan. He said that the ministry had an action plan for dealing with the problem. Requests to see the action plan have been met with a response from my noble friend to the effect that it will be available shortly, or it is not currently available, but we may look forward to it. I do look forward to it; we might all look forward to it, but we would like to see it soon. We would like to see it address this problem and put this scandal properly behind us as soon as possible.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister, who has found himself wallowing in a misery of injustice and has done a great deal at least for the issue to be recorded in statute. For me, that is the only advantage of this amendment, but I respect very much the efforts he has made to produce an amendment at all.

Beyond that, I entirely agree with the observations from my noble and learned friend Lord Brown and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. We have not got to the end of the beginning of this, but the end of the beginning has possibly come into sight. For me, after the shambles of this dreadful piece of statutory—I could get carried away and then I would be speaking unparliamentary language, but noble Lords all know what I mean; I shall just stick to shambles—we can begin to make up for what has gone on over too many years.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the amendment. He has followed through on a commitment he made on Report, which is greatly appreciated. However, like all the other noble Lords who have spoken, I wish the Government had gone further. Indeed, our little cross-party team put several other amendments forward, a number of which have been alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan.

This is one small improvement to a system that needs to be abolished for this group of prisoners caught on the wrong side of history. It is, however, a movement in the right direction. When the Minister spoke to me on the day that he made the commitment to bring the amendment forward, he quoted Newton’s second law. For noble Lords who, like me, do not have a clue what Newton’s second law is, it says that it is easier to move an object already in motion than one at rest. Well, the object is in motion and we—and, I believe, he—will try to push it along as far and as fast as we can whenever the opportunity arises. The ball is rolling and we will keep on pushing for justice and fairness for those whom the law has left behind.