Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to go through the Bill and address various points. First, Part 1 is concerned with dangerous offenders, in Clauses 1 to 5 and Schedule 1. The effect of these new offences and new release conditions will be to increase the prison population—an increase of about 1,000 prisoners over the coming period, as the Government said in their impact assessment. When I attended the All-Party Parliamentary Penal Affairs Group around Christmas time, we heard from the Parole Board about the pressure that it is currently under. Given the existing backlog of cases for parole hearings and the Osborn judgment, I think it behoves this House to look very carefully at the Bill in Committee to examine how realistic it is that the Parole Board will be able to meet the increased expectations following the Osborn judgment and the provisions within this part of the Bill.

I move on to Clause 15 and the matter of cautions. I welcome the proposal to restrict cautions to summary and either way offences and to limit the use of repeat cautions. It is of extreme importance that cautions have public confidence. There has been legislation for scrutiny panels—which I have mentioned in previous Bills—to look at whether they are being appropriately administered. Scrutiny panels are being piloted in different parts of the country and I know there are schemes in place to look at the consistency of the various roles of scrutiny panels. It is clear from the legislation that it is for the police to lead the set-up of the scrutiny panels, but it is unclear to whom those scrutiny panels report and what is to be done with their findings. To give the House some idea of the scale of the issue, in the Metropolitan Police area in 2012-13 there were some 70,000 out-of-court disposals, and the current proposal within London is that there will be two meetings of a scrutiny panel each year in each judicial business group area. Therefore, I do not want to be too sceptical, but I am doubtful whether that level of scrutiny is going to be sufficient to assuage doubts about the proper use of cautions.

I move on to Part 2 of the Bill and young offenders, which are dealt with in Clauses 29 and 30 and Schedule 6. As we have heard throughout the afternoon, and Ministers will be very aware, there is near universal opposition to the secure colleges idea. The various pressure groups that contact noble Lords are universally against these proposals. I understand the Government’s objective to reduce the cost of detention training orders and to enhance the educational provision available to young offenders. I understand both those objectives. The objections to the secure colleges will be well known to Ministers: the families of children will inevitably have to travel further to the colleges, and there may well be a mixing of different age groups and ability ranges so the colleges will have to be very carefully managed so that the different elements of the college are appropriately separated. I know the Minister in the other place, Jeremy Wright, has promised to publish secure college rules. I would be grateful if the noble Lord the Minister could say when we might expect to see those and whether we could expect to see them before Committee stage.

I have two specific questions which, so far as I am aware, were not asked in the other place. First, will it be open for secure colleges to take 18 to 21 year-olds? Clearly, they would be managed separately from those under 18, but would it be open for secure colleges to take 18 to 21 year-olds if there was space available? The second question is whether it would be open for local authorities to refer young people to a secure college if they have no criminal conviction. My understanding is that this is the case—rarely but it is the case—in secure children’s homes, but would it be available for the secure colleges?

I spent some of yesterday afternoon looking at the Youth Justice Board’s website. There are 75 youths in custody in the East Midlands and 48 in the east of England. Therefore, when one considers the new build site for Glen Parva in Leicestershire, there is obviously an inadequacy of youths to go to that site, so it is self-evident that the youths would have to come from further away. However, we have had larger dedicated juvenile prisons in the recent past. First, Wetherby could take 360 prisoners plus a further 48 in a special purpose-built unit, but its capacity has now been reduced—mothballed—to about 200, so there is capacity there. Secondly, Hindley became a juvenile-only prison in 2009, with 450 places but because of falling numbers and after four and a half years it was resplit into 248 juvenile offenders and 192 18 to 21 year-old prisoners. The point that I am making is that building capacity is not the central issue, which is surely to provide the enhanced education. The £80 million cost is a lot of money. We do not know where it is coming from, but I suspect that many noble Lords, and certainly many pressure groups, would think that it would be better spent on enhancing education provision rather than building new buildings.

I move on to Part 3 of the Bill and the single justice procedures in Clauses 36 to 40. I agree with the Bill’s proposal that a single magistrate can convict and sentence high-volume, low-seriousness cases; this is when a defendant pleads guilty or agrees to the procedure or does not respond to notifications. I have sat on hundreds of these cases, and I am very glad to agree with the procedure. I say to my noble friend Lord Beecham, who is not in his place, that one magistrate is more than sufficient and you can, under current rules, sit with two magistrates. The Magistrates’ Association has raised a concern that this change in procedure should not be seen by the public as a lessening of the rigour with which criminal cases are dealt with in a magistrates’ court. To this end, the MA has come up with two alternative suggestions, which I may move as amendments in Committee. The purpose of the suggestions is to publish the courts’ list in a readily accessible way so that people can be confident that procedures are going through in a public way.

I move on to the committal of young offenders to the Crown Court, in Clause 41. I welcome this clause, which was introduced at the very last minute in the other place. If the Government have any estimate of the numbers of young people who they think will be sent up to the Crown Court under this provision, I would welcome that information. The Carlile report, which was a very good one, of course went much further than this in terms of trying many more cases concerning youths in the magistrates’ court. But this clause is a welcome step in the right direction.

On Part 3 and the costs of criminal courts, in my view it is wrong in principle that people should pay their court costs; it is the role of the state to provide the court’s services, so the state’s laws can be properly administered. I accept that my point of principle is weak when it relates to rich foreign businessmen who seek to resolve their contractual disputes in British courts. But from where I sit, as someone who regularly sits in magistrates’ courts, a very high proportion of the people I see are poor and on benefits. It is inevitable that imposing a mandatory court cost will make poor people poorer and more likely to plead guilty to reduce the potential court costs. Does the Minister think that that is fair? At the very least, magistrates and judges should have discretion about how much of the court costs are actually applied.

I want to make one comment on judicial review, and specifically on children, who are the most vulnerable. They cannot pursue these matters themselves and I would support any move in Committee that seeks to protect children with regard to judicial review.

Finally, in wrapping up, my noble friend Lord Beecham described this Bill as a pot pourri and then went on to give us a lesson in etymology—that it is not necessarily something that smells nice but could be a mixed pot of meat. We will see which is the correct interpretation in the coming weeks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, I said in opening that I anticipated that the Bill would receive scrutiny of the highest order by your Lordships, and this Second Reading debate has given an indication of the level of scrutiny that your Lordships’ House can anticipate where all these provisions are concerned.

It has been a full debate and I will have an opportunity to read carefully all the contributions that have been made—as indeed will the Secretary of State. I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if I do not respond to every single point that was made, time being what it is. If I single out some points, I hope those whose points are excluded will not feel that they have gone unrecognised or that they will not be appropriately responded to in due course. It has been an intensely serious debate, although references to Philip Larkin, John McEnroe and Walter Matthau provided slight light relief during its course. Unfortunately, few noble Lords were as brief or as accommodating as my noble friend Lord Black.

I can, however, begin with what I hope will be one or two reassuring propositions. First, there was a suggestion that there might need to be an amendment to deal with what has been described as “revenge porn”, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and my noble friend Lady Barker. There seems to be a great deal in that, and I am happy to meet them and consider any suggestions to include it in the Bill.

I said in opening that I would also consider amendments to satisfy, I hope, some of the concerns about the role of interveners in judicial review proceedings. I do not want to give the House the impression that I am thereby, as it were, handing over a blank cheque, but I am anxious, if possible, to accommodate some of the concerns of many noble Lords in this area.

The noble Lords, Lord Blair and Lord Low, referred to a campaign, if I can call it that, from Families Left Behind and the suggestion that there should be some statutory duty imposed on the sentencing tribunal to take into account the effect of the sentence on those who may be left behind when somebody is deprived of their liberty. In my limited experience as a judge, this, and the consequences thereof, will first of all be considered by a judge in sentencing. The probation service will be aware of the consequences and local authorities have their own duties that will usually be triggered by the information that is available in court. Noble Lords may be right that some slip through the net. I will certainly consider any suggestions along the lines that have been described.

On the question of the meaning of the words “et cetera”, raised by my noble friend Lady Barker in the context of malicious communications, I think it is defined in the Malicious Communications Act 1988. It deals with all the various communications one would expect it to cover in the light of modern media.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, raised, as he has done many times before, the question of IPP prisoners and their plight. I look forward to debating any amendments in that respect in more detail. I responded to a debate on 27 March this year—in some detail, I hope—but I fear I will not be able to satisfy him today. There are no current plans by the Secretary of State to exercise the power to amend the Parole Board’s release test for prisoners serving such sentences.

I noted that the party opposite was silent on IPP prisoners. I am still not quite sure what its position is, and whether it opposes the very fact that the sentencing power was repealed as a result of the intervention of the former Lord Chancellor. I fear that I cannot help the noble and learned Lord for the moment, but I hope he will acknowledge—if not overtly, then tacitly—the fact that Ministry of Justice officials have been endeavouring hard to help him by providing details for the purposes of preparing this speech, and, indeed, any further interventions.

I was not aware that I had the pleasure of a meeting forthcoming with the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, to describe better the definition of rape on the internet. I look forward to that. I am sure that the Government, the Opposition and all noble Lords have similar intentions where this is concerned. We welcome any advice on trying better to define what the evil is that we all aim to stem.

I respectfully endorse what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, said about personal injury claims and the evil that the Government are trying to eliminate. Frankly, we do not think that a judge will have any difficulty recognising fundamental dishonesty. We are talking not about a schedule that contains some slight exaggerations or minor inaccuracies, but about fundamental dishonesty. If we ask a jury to decide a question of what is dishonest or not, surely we can entrust a judge to decide whether, in appropriate cases, there is fundamental dishonesty. The Government are appalled by the explosion of litigation in claims that involve, frankly, lying and fraud. Whether through the Claims Management Regulator or through this particular clause, I am sure that we share with all noble Lords the desire to reduce, and, if possible, eliminate it.

The redefinition in statutory terms of misconduct in public office was broadly welcomed, although not by the noble Lord, Lord Blair. There are some areas where it may not possibly apply. We do not think that police officers should be singled out, but on the other hand they are in a position where they serve the public in a very high-profile context. We cannot avoid the fact that there have been instances of police corruption. The Government consider that putting a clear offence on the statute book is not to persecute the police or to single them out as opposed to other public employees but to make clear the nature of the offence and, in appropriate circumstances, to provide the basis for a prosecution.

A number of noble Lords asked about the Parole Board and about the impact on its workload of the provision in Part 1. The provisions that will have the greatest impact on the Parole Board are the new discretionary release arrangements for extended determinate sentences and certain child sex and terrorism offences. However, it will be quite some time before the first of these cases starts to filter through the board and we have taken account of that. We are working with the Parole Board to assess the impact of the Osborn judgment. Additional in-year funding has been provided to the board, as well as an increased budget allocation for 2014 and 2015.

The offence of wilful neglect was mentioned by, among others, my noble friends Lord Hunt and Lady Barker. The House is well aware of the background to this offence and why it was considered necessary to make it part of the statute book. I listened carefully to concerns about the range of legislation that may apply in neglect cases and I accept that there may be a degree of overlap. However, where that occurs, it is for the police and the CPS to determine the most appropriate offence to pursue. The CPS regularly provides guidance in this respect. We think that it is far better to close any gap in working practice to arrive at the best solution than to retain even the possibility of any lacunae in the law.

My noble friend Lady Barker had a specific query in relation to Section 44 of the Mental Capacity Act. If I may, I will consider the point that she raised and write to her.

I come to the area of perhaps the most difficulty—the question of secure colleges. The noble Baroness, Lady Stern, said in her excellent and informative speech that it was one thing to point out the number and cost of young offenders who were currently accommodated in various institutions and who reoffended but another to move to the proposition that secure colleges were the answer. I hope that I do not mischaracterise what she said. Equally, one could turn that round and say that those bare facts simply do not justify the status quo. The status quo is not, we suggest, an appropriate response to this dreadful cycle of reoffending. We suggest that secure colleges, with their emphasis on education, are a solution. Of course, no one can guarantee the success of any solution to this recurring problem but we hope that this one will provide a real concentration of education, which most of these young people have never had before.

A number of anxieties were expressed in very firm terms about secure colleges: the question of different ages and different genders, and the possibility that secure colleges will be remote geographically. I will be hosting an open session for interested Peers to share our initial designs for the pathfinder secure college. As I mentioned in my opening speech, we will consult on our approach to the secure college rules ahead of Report.

I was asked whether it was our intention to replace all secure youth accommodation with secure colleges. Our long-term vision is for a network of secure colleges across England and Wales. That transformation cannot happen overnight, and we are committed to improving existing provision for young people in custody.

I very much hope that as a result of no doubt probing amendments and further information, which I shall be happy to provide, your Lordships’ House will share the Government’s vision of secure colleges to deliver high-quality and broad-ranging facilities that can meet the diverse needs—often special needs, I accept—of young people in detention. It requires something that simply cannot be achieved in a small local facility—desirable though such facilities are, as was well described by my noble friend.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede]

Before the noble Lord leaves the point about the network of secure colleges, does it follow that there would be three secure colleges to deal with the whole of England and Wales? There would be around 300 children in each college, making about 1,000 altogether? The noble Lord said that a few secure children’s homes would be retained. Does it therefore follow that there are to be three secure colleges for the whole of England and Wales?