Queen’s Speech

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved on Wednesday 18 May by

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

, as amended on Monday 23 May

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:

“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament, but regret that the gracious Speech did not include a bill to protect the National Health Service from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership”.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Faulks) (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege for me to open the debate on Her Majesty’s gracious Speech in which we will be considering the Government’s priorities on the matters of home, legal, constitutional and devolved affairs in the year ahead. Underlying all these priorities, I should emphasise, is our commitment to be a one-nation Government who seek to extend opportunity wherever they can and help everyone in this country reach their full potential.

I turn first to the Government’s legal business. The prison and courts reform Bill included in the gracious Speech is, above all, part of a comprehensive strategy to reduce crime. It will reduce reoffending by making prisons places of education and purpose and ensure that our court system is accessible and proportionate. There is no doubt that our prison system is in need of reform. Those who work in our prisons—prison officers, governors, probation officers, charity workers and volunteers—do so tirelessly to support the individuals in their care and address the causes of their offending, and yet the system they work in hinders, rather than helps, their commitment to rehabilitation. They have to deal with an ageing estate, elaborate and centralised rules and regulations and increasing levels of violence and self-harm.

Those barriers to rehabilitation are reflected in reoffending figures. At present, nearly half—46%, to be precise—of adult prisoners are reconvicted within one year of release. The Government must therefore act to reduce those figures, cut crime and make our streets safer. The public would expect nothing less. However, an effective criminal justice system cannot afford to ignore the evidence on the causes of crime. We know, for example, that prisoners come disproportionately from harsh and violent backgrounds. Around two-fifths of them observed domestic violence as children, nearly one-quarter were taken into care and 47% do not have a single school qualification. So there will be a new emphasis on rehabilitation, based on a belief in the innate worth of every individual. Offenders, the Government argue, should be seen not simply as liabilities but as potential assets—people who can redeem themselves and contribute fully to society.

To achieve that, we need to unlock the potential not just of those in prison but of those supporting them, giving those at the front line the freedom to pursue what works. We will start by creating six reform prisons, where governors will be given more freedom over budgets, staffing and their relationships with business and charities. The Bill will support the creation of new reform prisons and provide that they are independently run and legally separate from the Secretary of State. The lesson of other public service reforms is that greater autonomy generates innovation. By giving such freedoms to governors we will allow them to choose the best education, training, healthcare and security for their prisoners. Reducing violence and self-harm will be a high priority since a calm, orderly environment is critical to the opportunity to rehabilitate.

These reforms will also allow for better accountability. There will be comparable statistics for each prison on reoffending rates, employment on release, and levels of violence and self-harm. That is how we will identify successful innovations and replicate them. These new freedoms for governors sit alongside our commitment to replace 10,000 places in ageing and ineffective prisons with new establishments better suited to the needs of prisoners today, to be built with £1.3 billion of investment announced at the spending review.

We also need to make sure that our courts and tribunals are operating efficiently and effectively and are able to deliver a system that is just, proportionate and accessible. The Bill will make justice more accessible to users by digitising the courts and tribunals system, making our systems easier to use and built around those who use them, while supporting those who are digitally excluded. It will enable us to get cases out of the courtroom that should not be there, so that a judge and a courtroom are used only where necessary. Across all jurisdictions, trained case officers will carry out routine case management, and technology will help to progress cases more efficiently and resolve more of them online. This will make for a more efficient courts estate.

We are making our family courts more focused on outcomes. More collaborative problem-solving approaches will be used, promoting better outcomes for families in the public and private family courts. We are also continuing the drive to make it easier for disputes to be resolved through mediation.

I turn now to the rule of law and to a crucial aspect of it: human rights, here and abroad. The Government remain committed to human rights, but we are committed to reforming domestic human rights law so that we can have a system that protects people’s rights but also commands the confidence of the public. This country has a proud tradition of respect for human rights, which stretches back centuries—long predating, I should stress, the Human Rights Act 1998. With that tradition embodied in Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, the Bill of Rights, the Claim of Right and other statutes, this country has always been a beacon for liberty and democracy. Indeed, our rights tradition has been exported all over the world.

That continues today. The UK has played a key role in dealing with the human costs of the conflict in the Middle East. We have contributed £2.3 billion to the Syrian crisis since 2012 and have committed to taking in more than 20,000 Syrian refugees by 2020. We have transformed the fight against sexual violence in conflict, persuading more than 150 states to agree for the first time that sexual violence should be recognised as a grave breach of the Geneva Convention.

That commitment to human rights and civil liberties is matched at home. The coalition Government scrapped ID cards and cut pre-charge detention. This Government brought forward the Modern Slavery Act 2015. The Government were elected with a clear mandate to reform the UK’s human rights framework. I know that noble Lords have eagerly awaited our proposals for a Bill of Rights, and I hope they will not be waiting much longer.