Queen’s Speech

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to close today’s debate, which has indeed been long and interesting, from the Opposition Benches.

I will go through the Bills fairly sequentially, starting with the draft victims Bill. Under the Conservatives, the criminal justice system is failing too many victims and letting criminals off the hook. Chronic underfunding and broken promises mean that victims are denied justice and have lost faith in a system that was set up to protect them. Since 2019, crime is up by 18% but prosecutions down by 18%. The number of arrests has dropped by 35,000. Anti-social behaviour is rife and fraud is soaring. The victims Bill has been promised in four Queen’s Speeches and three manifestos but not delivered. Even now it is only a draft Bill because the Government are failing to find adequate time. Meanwhile, many thousands of victims drop out of the criminal justice system because they do not see a route to justice.

The Labour Party has a ready-made Bill ready to go to end violence against women and girls, clear the backlog by increasing Nightingale courts and fast-track rape and sexual violence cases. The Government have listened to the Labour Party on strengthening rights of victims elsewhere, including victims of anti-social behaviour, but rejected making misogyny a hate crime. It has taken six consecutive Justice Secretaries to bring the victims Bill forward to this draft stage. Victims are still waiting for the Bill but we in the Labour Party will work constructively to make it a reality.

I move on to the proposed reforms to the Human Rights Act, the so-called Bill of Rights. Many noble Lords spoke about this: the noble and learned Lords, Lord Judge and Lord Hope, the noble Lord, Lord Beith, my noble friends Lady Chakrabarti, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws and Lady Goudie, and my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton. They all spoke critically of the proposals in this Bill.

However, we in the Labour Party ultimately believe that this is a short, short-sighted and weak distraction technique which distracts from the fundamental problems currently besetting our criminal justice system, and that it should be viewed in this context. We cite the following three cases where ordinary people’s rights have been protected through the Human Rights Act: first, the quashing of the original Hillsborough inquest verdicts; secondly, the “Do not resuscitate” orders which were wrongly placed on Janet Tracey without discussing it with her first; and, thirdly, the black cab rapist case, where two women complainants won their case because the police failed to properly investigate their cases. This was mentioned by my noble friend Lady Thornton.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, spoke about the Root and Branch Review of the Parole System, which I presume will be in this Bill but am not actually sure. It is a very important review, and I take the point he makes about the potential effect on IPP prisoners. Nevertheless, if we want to keep more people out of prison, we need a Parole Board and parole service which are absolutely on top of this game—as they were before they were put through so many reorganisations over the last decade.

In this House, we have three principal legal eagles: the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge—Pannick, Hope and Judge. I sometimes think that that is some sort of commentary on the Government’s approach to human rights reform and constitutional issues. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Thornton for thinking up that joke.

I turn next to the Public Order Bill, which was introduced in the House of Commons yesterday, as we have heard. The Government could have legislated to protect women by requiring specialist rape and sexual offence units in every police force area and by creating a national register to monitor serial sex offenders. They could have backed Labour’s plans to make it easier for police to close drug dens and introduce a national register for those convicted of county lines drug offences. They could have consulted on options to increase arrests and deal with the record low charge rate. Instead, having already completed one Bill on protesters’ rights, they are now simply doing the same thing again by reintroducing measures which they tried to tack on to the Bill last year. We will look at the detail of all legislation in the Queen’s Speech, but we have been calling for the Government to work with the police to use their existing powers, such as injunctions, to deal with people who block access to motorways. This point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick.

I now turn to the National Security Bill. The legislation has been promised since 2019. It was requested in the Russia report, but the Government have failed to bring it forward despite significant concerns about threats from states such as Russia and China, especially after the Salisbury poisoning. We believe, as I am sure all noble Lords do, that legislation must keep pace with the changing threats to the UK, and we welcome moves to update the law to keep us safe from state-backed sabotage. The Labour Party will scrutinise the Bill to ensure that the introduction of a foreign influence register scheme will be robust enough to deter and disrupt state threat activity in the UK.

I turn to the economic crime and corporate transparency Bill. This Bill must finally end Britain’s role as a global hub for dirty money and set a new standard for transparency and probity, while supporting honest businesses to trade and flourish. I might just point out that many Russians whom I know came here because they wanted an honest environment in which to work and a banking system and a legal system in which they could trust. The Labour Party’s amendments to the last economic crime Bill would have brought in reforms to Companies House and left oligarchs with nowhere to hide. We are relieved that the Government have finally taken action to increase enforcement powers over crypto assets and on information-sharing around economic crime. We welcome the efforts to broaden the Registrar of Companies’ powers.

On the modern slavery Bill, I agree with the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who asked about the checking procedures to see whether the requirements of the Bill are actually being observed. We think that legislation is long overdue, since it could be argued that the UK is no longer a world leader in this type of legislation. We would certainly welcome moves to strengthen protection and support for victims. We in the Labour Party previously tabled amendments to the Nationality and Borders Bill to ensure that victims were given the protection they need. In my experience as a youth magistrate, where the provisions of the Modern Slavery Act are very commonly invoked, it is a massive source of delay in getting cases through the youth system so anything that could be done to speed up those procedures would be welcome.

I turn to the draft Protect duty Bill, sometimes called Martyn’s law. We would back this Bill. I think my noble friend Lady Henig spoke about this. We will seek to ensure that it is clear where responsibility lies. There are multiple groups and the host areas have a proper duty to ensure that people are protected from potential terrorist attack.

On the Online Safety Bill, which is a carry-over Bill, I agree with my noble friend Lady Merron when she described this area as the new front line. Any noble Lords who have teenagers or even children who are in their 20s or 30s will know that young people spend a huge proportion of their time online. The Bill was first mooted a decade ago and it is nearly four years since it was promised. We will support the Online Safety Bill and look at ways of improving it as it proceeds through our House.

In conclusion, we believe that the Government have the wrong priorities. They are focusing on the Human Rights Act while crime rises, victims lose faith in the justice system and rapists go free, and on Channel 4 privatisation instead of online harms, gambling and protecting people from fraud. We believe that the Government have turned up late on all the key issues. We have been waiting for years for action on victims, children’s safety online, football governance and dirty money being laundered in the UK. The Government have failed to keep up with a changing world, and this programme is them playing catch-up.

I am proud to be British for lots of reasons, not least because of the cultural sector, but I want to be proud of our criminal justice system as well. I spend a lot of my time working in that system, but I feel that we let people down. I know that is absolutely not the intention of anyone who works in the criminal justice system, but we really need to try to build up the rights of all those who find themselves in the criminal justice system. That should be the prime objective of this Government.