Prisons: Staff

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Keen of Elie

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

The position with regard to private prisons is, as I indicated before, that private providers are contractually obliged to maintain a sufficient level of staff to ensure safety and security within the prison, but particular numbers and ratios are not specified by the Government in those contracts. Those contracts are of course monitored.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister tell the House how many reserve prison officers have been recruited, from the proposal made by the previous Government’s Chief Secretary?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My understanding is that the number is very low indeed—potentially in single figures.

Rehabilitation of Offenders (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Keen of Elie

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 27th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for bringing this matter back for debate in the House today and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, on what I think is her first contribution to a Bill before this House. The Government share the noble Lord’s support for individuals with criminal records who wish to turn their lives around, and securing a job is often the first step on that journey. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 exists primarily to support the rehabilitation into employment of reformed offenders who have stayed on the right side of the law.

Perhaps I may provide a little background to the 1974 Act and how it can support ex-offenders. Under the Act, following a specified period of time which varies according to the disposal administered or sentence passed, most convictions resulting in custodial sentences of up to and including four years become spent. Where a conviction has become spent, the offender is treated as rehabilitated in respect of that offence and is not obliged to declare it for most purposes. This could include when applying for employment, but also when applying for insurance cover or a bank loan. However, the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 lists areas of activity and proceedings which are exceptions to the 1974 Act. This means that the employer or some other relevant body is entitled to ask for and take into account certain details of a person’s spent cautions and convictions. These activities are usually concerned with working with children or other people in vulnerable circumstances, or where sensitive information is handled and there is a risk to the public of an abuse of trust. For example, the exceptions order covers teachers, prison staff, healthcare professionals and employees of the Crown Prosecution Service.

Where an occupation is listed on the exceptions order, an employer is eligible for a standard or enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check that will contain details of certain spent and unspent convictions for the individual in question. Such DBS checks, as they are known, fall under the responsibilities of the Home Office. However, I would like to respond to certain observations made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. Thorough guidance on the DBS application process, eligibility for checks, and the disputes mechanism are available on the DBS website. It also includes a new electronic eligibility tool which can help individuals to check whether a particular role is eligible for a DBS check, so that information is publicly available. The DBS checks are submitted via a registered body which is responsible for confirming that a particular role is eligible for a DBS check, and a statutory code of practice is already in place setting out the obligations that apply to those registered bodies. Should an applicant feel that they have been asked to undertake a DBS check in relation to a role that is not eligible, they can ask the DBS to investigate it. The DBS provides support and guidance for registered bodies and will take steps to suspend, and where necessary cancel, registered bodies that do not comply with the code of practice. So the DBS seeks to assure people that registered bodies are compliant with the existing code of practice.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, referred to the 1974 Act as outdated but as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, pointed out, it was in fact reformed and amended by the rehabilitation provisions in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, which came into force in March 2014. As a consequence, a conviction resulting in a custodial sentence of four years or less, unless it is a public protection sentence, may now become spent. Previously, only convictions resulting in custodial sentences of 13 months or less could become spent, so a material change has been made. At the same time the coalition Government also reduced most rehabilitation periods. The present Government believe that these reforms are proportionate and that we have struck the correct balance between protecting the public and helping ex-offenders to put their criminal pasts behind them.

I turn to the specific proposals the noble Lord included in the Bill. First, we do not consider the proposals to amend the rehabilitation periods for offences necessary. It does not appear that the proposed rehabilitation periods take account of the 2014 reforms I just mentioned. As such, the Bill attempts to amend repealed legislation.

The Government have also introduced additional reforms to help improve the opportunities available to those with criminal records. In response to a Court of Appeal judgment in May 2013 we amended the exceptions order to the Act to enable old and minor convictions, cautions, reprimands and warnings to be filtered so that they do not automatically appear on a criminal record certificate. It remains the case that cautions and convictions for specified sexual and violent offences, and certain other offences relating to safeguarding vulnerable people, continue to be subject to disclosure, as do the most serious convictions for any offence that resulted in custodial sentences.

For other non-specified offences, however, cautions received as an adult do not need to be disclosed after a period of six years; for a conviction it is 11 years. In other words they are “filtered” out from the relevant certificates. This is dependent on the offence being the only conviction on an individual’s record. This addresses a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, on someone committing an offence in their youth and then finding at the age of 60 that this is necessarily disclosed. There is a filtering policy and process in place that means that such a minor offence that she alluded to cannot be taken into account by an employer. These periods are halved when the individual concerned was aged under 18 years at the time of the relevant offence. Again, youth offending is addressed in that context.

The second area addressed by the noble Lord’s Bill is the specific rehabilitation periods. The Bill would allow community orders to become spent after 12 months or, in the case of young offenders, six months. Such orders may last for up to three years, so this could result in many such orders becoming spent before they have been served. I am sure that was the intention. It may be that the intention is to apply these periods after the relevant period of three years has expired. Again, there is an issue there. Community orders are available for almost all imprisonable offences—obviously in appropriate cases—and it may not always be appropriate for offences resulting in community disposals to become non-disclosable as quickly as the Bill suggests.

As I mentioned, the Government have recently reformed this legislation. The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 introduced reforms that commenced in 2014. The Government recognised in the interim that certain forms of sentencing practice had become more severe, as suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and that as a consequence fewer ex-offenders would benefit from the original provisions of the 1974 Act. That is why the revised rehabilitation periods take account of the punitive weight of the disposal, and hence the likely seriousness of the offending. They also take account of the reoffending data, which show the length of time for which people are most at risk of reoffending. We consider that those amendments, which were accepted by Parliament, bring about the necessary proportionality to the existing legislation.

Thirdly, the noble Lord’s Bill seeks to allow determinate custodial sentences of any length to become spent. I recognise that he would like the current legislation to go further by enabling determinate custodial sentences of any length to become spent, but the Government consider that the present amendments to the Act that came into force in 2014 achieve the correct balance between rehabilitation of offenders and public protection. This is a two-sided coin and these issues have to be balanced. We do not feel there is a case for the law to go further at this stage.

Reference is also made in the Bill to the service justice system. Officials in the Ministry of Defence have highlighted a number of inaccuracies in the draft Bill from an Armed Forces perspective. There are out-of-date references to the service justice system, in that the Bill refers to the Army Act 1955, the RAF Act 1955 and the Navy Discipline Act 1975.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

Before the Minister goes on, I mentioned that I had met with the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and discussed this, so I know that they are there. They were not corrected by me but I know what they are.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am obliged that the noble Lord knows what they are; I wanted to advise the rest of the House, since other noble Lords may not be as familiar with these matters as the noble Lord has become following his discussions with my noble friend Lord Howe. I am concerned with the underlying thrust of the noble Lord’s Bill, not with matters of minor detail, and I quite appreciate that in the context of a Private Member’s Bill it may often be of assistance to have discussions about how apparently repealed legislation can be removed from a Bill and the Bill improved. I appreciate that. I am not attempting to make some ad hominem observation or criticism of the noble Lord at all; I just want to underline that the proposals made regarding the Armed Forces are skewed.

The point I was coming to is that the Armed Forces Act 2006 removed many forms of disposal that were previously used by the Armed Forces. In fact, the reforms to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 have been adopted by the Armed Forces, so we have the same issues arising both for the Armed Forces and elsewhere.

In summary, the Government understand the noble Lord’s concerns and we are, of course, committed to helping ex-offenders who wish to make a fresh start and put their criminal history behind them. We are desperately anxious to ensure that people do not simply leave the prison gate one day and return another. Despite this, we do not support the noble Lord’s Bill, given the reasons I have already outlined. I note the noble Lord’s views, I understand them and I would welcome the opportunity to engage further with him about how we can increase the support that is available to ex-offenders. We have already made some progress in this area.

I acknowledge that these matters are all interconnected. Rehabilitation, disclosure, opportunity for education within prison, opportunity for employment as people go through the gate from prison—all these things are linked. Since 2016, we have been running a campaign to encourage more businesses to provide training and work opportunities for offenders and ex-offenders. This has been carried out in close collaboration with the Department for Work and Pensions See Potential campaign. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, cited a number of instances where employers have come forward. This underlines the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that our prison system has to provide hope and opportunity, not just punishment.

The present campaign emphasises the general advantage to society of securing employment for ex-offenders and thereby reducing reoffending and unemployment. I have other examples, further to those mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord McNally. Amey, the large engineering firm, is now expressly training offenders and then recruiting ex-offenders into its workforce. Bounce Back is a construction training organisation that employs people on release from prison and, indeed, is now training them in construction skills during their period of imprisonment—albeit some prison governors have become slightly concerned at the sight of prisoners erecting scaffolding in the prison yard. It is important that such skills are made available. I understand the challenges on the present prison estate, which is why that, too, is being addressed at the present time. It is also why we have sought to give further responsibility to individual prison governors to determine how they take forward issues of prison education and prison education funding within their own institutions in order to secure the best outcomes.

It is our hope, now that the matter of education has moved from the Department for Education to the Ministry of Justice, that it can be expanded and improved within the prison estate. But, of course, expanding opportunity within the prison estate can be done only on the foundations of an improved prison estate itself. That is why the Government have made such a commitment to improving the physical prison estate in order to achieve greater and better results so far as recidivism is concerned, so far as opportunity is concerned and so far as the future lives of former offenders are concerned.

We are concerned to turn lives around and we do not wish to see them turned around and back to prison. We wish to see people given the opportunity for employment, given the opportunity for education and given the opportunity to change their lives. At this time we do not consider that the proposals of the Bill are appropriate. Nevertheless, I thank the noble Lord, and indeed all noble Lords, for their contributions to this debate.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I thank all those who have taken part. In particular I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, for her kind words, and welcome her to her first appearance on the Front Bench, which I should have done beforehand. Over the years I am sure that many of us came to welcome the briefs that were provided from Liberty when she was directing that organisation. We hope that that tradition will continue and we look forward to many contributions from her in her current position.

I have to say that I am extremely disappointed by the Minister’s response. When I represented the Bill as having been in close contact with a number of organisations—particularly Unlock, of which I am president, which is the national association of ex-offenders and therefore in touch with the difficulties that they are experiencing day after day—they did not put their concerns about the Bill lightly. As I said, these organisations and many of the ex-offenders do not understand all the conditions. The Minister may have mentioned that the DBS had a website, and so on. How many of them have access to that? I also said that employers did not understand, which was why there were so many ineligible requests for disclosure being made by employers. I made a particular plea for a mechanism to deal with that ineligibility, which the Minister did not answer.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

With great respect to the noble Lord, I pointed out that applications for DBS checks have to be made through a registered body, and that those registered bodies are subject to a published code of practice.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

But I remind the Minister that that is not happening. Even though there is the possibility of prosecuting people for making wrong approaches, it has never happened because the DBS says that it is not an enforcement body. Therefore, there is something missing.

I am very glad for the support for my proposal around the House. What I am suggesting is that in the context of the White Paper, it would be sensible for the Government to look at all aspects of resettlement, including this one. My offer to the Minister is that all those who have raised problems on the outside are more than willing to take part in that process. I hope that their evidence will not be taken lightly, because it has been drawn up over many years. As the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said, the list in Section 139 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, in response to the two consultations, Breaking the Cycle and Breaking the Circle, was all that the coalition Government could get through. There were many others—and, indeed, are many others—and some of them have been lying dormant since 2002. It is time that they were brought forward.

As I gave notice, I intend to table amendments in Committee. In the interim, I hope that the Minister will reconsider his rejection of what is on offer, because the issue is far too serious to be let go with the prospect of annual Bills and annual making progress on small points.

Prisons: Safety and Security

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Keen of Elie

Wednesday 21st December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am obliged to the noble Lord. Public protection remains a key priority in the context of how we deal with IPP prisoners. These people have been sentenced for offences involving serious violence and serious sexual crime. We set up a new unit within the Ministry of Justice to tackle the backlog with respect to IPP prisoners and we are working with the Parole Board to improve the efficiency of that process. We have an enhanced case-management system. We are diverting recall cases away from the Parole Board so that it can focus on reviewing IPP prisoners. In the past year, 38% of IPP prisoners who attended oral hearings completed by the Parole Board went on to be released. So matters are improving. Indeed, in the last year we released 512 IPP prisoners from custody—the largest number so far—bringing the total figure below 4,000.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, when a previous Government formed a judicial inquiry in 1978 to look at the state of prisons, it was largely because of concern over in-house inspection, which was causing public unease. The problems in our prisons will not be solved easily and will not be solved unless the problems facing the probation service, which my noble friend Lord Laming drew attention to, are solved. One of the results of the riots in Strangeways was the masterly report by my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf, which led to much examination of many issues. Can the Minister say whether or not the Government will consider appointing an independent outside observer, rather than the in-house person who has been appointed, to examine the Birmingham troubles?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, we have already made an appropriate appointment for the carrying out of a full investigation of the incident at Birmingham prison, and that investigation is now proceeding. I pause to allude back to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Beith, a few moments ago. He also asked about the reserve list of prison officers. That is maintained and relied upon. I apologise for omitting that from my previous answer.

Prisons

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Keen of Elie

Thursday 20th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the call by the Prison Governors Association for an independent public inquiry into the state of prisons in England and Wales.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)]

My Lords, safe and secure prisons are a fundamental part of our reform ambitions. The scale of the challenge we face is clear from the recent incident at Pentonville. However, we are determined to modernise the prison estate and empower governors so that we can tackle issues such as drugs and violence. That is key to making prisons safe. We will set out plans for prison safety and reform in a White Paper in the coming weeks.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Tuesday’s horrendous murder in Pentonville drew yet more attention to the fact that our prisons are in crisis. I regard the call for a public inquiry into their state by the very reputable Prison Governors Association as a vote of no confidence in the years of purely in-house tinkering with the system by successive Ministers and officials. The then Home Secretary, Kenneth Baker—now the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking—called in my now noble and learned friend Lord Woolf and the then managing director of British Aerospace to conduct inquiries after the prison riots in 1990. I ask the Minister to advise the Secretary of State for Justice to listen carefully to those most affected by the current crisis and to acknowledge that an inquiry may well find that the in-house approach has been a prime contributor to, if not a main cause of, the current crisis.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

It is not thought that a public inquiry is the way forward when we are about to publish a White Paper on prison safety and reform, in which we will address these issues. Of course, the Prison Governors Association has expressed concerns. Like the Secretary of State, it wants safe prisons as the foundation for prison reform. It has welcomed the fact that initial funding has recently been made available, with the announcement of a £14 million pilot scheme for new public sector prisons operating in 10 selected sites.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Keen of Elie

Tuesday 10th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

Leave out from “House” to end and insert “do disagree with the Commons in their Amendment 84C, and do insist on its Amendment 84”.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)]

I beg to move that this House do not insist on its Amendment 84 and do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 84C in lieu and disagree with Motion A1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, which seeks to reinstate Amendment 84. I shall speak also to Motion A2 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, which would amend Amendment 84C to reduce the time limit for automatic bail referrals from four months to two months.

I start by reminding the House of what it has already achieved in its role as a reviewing and revising Chamber. There can be no doubt that the spirited debate in this House has added considerably to the quality of this legislation. This House has done its job, and more. This is indisputably a better Bill for it and, particularly, it does more to protect the interests of the most vulnerable. However, we must now make sure that we deliver what the British public voted for last May and pass this Bill into law.

The Immigration Bill delivers important reforms to our laws, and it is right that we ensure that there is proper consideration and debate of its content. The House’s achievement includes ensuring that the detail of the important reforms in the labour market and illegal working provide an effective mechanism to enable us to clamp down on those who exploit vulnerable migrants. The House has delivered improvements to the provisions on the criminal offences and ensured that the duty to have regard to the need to safeguard the welfare of children underpins all the provisions in the Bill. It has pressed the Government for the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, to do more to help refugee children, and the Commons yesterday accepted that amendment.

On detention, the Government recognise the strength of feeling on this issue, the need to ensure that detention is for the shortest period possible and that, in particular, there is proper provision to ensure that those who are vulnerable are detained only when necessary and for the shortest period possible.

On time limits on detention, while we do not agree that those are appropriate, we have listened to the concerns expressed in this House. We have listened to the concern that some people may be unaware of their ability to apply for bail or are unable to make such an application. That is why we have proposed our Amendment 84C, which ensures that, unless the detainee has already had a bail hearing, there will be a bail hearing after four months and every four months thereafter. That is an important safeguard, and this House deserves credit for it.

Amendment 84 places an upper limit on detention for all those who are not being deported of a maximum of 28 days in total, which may be extended by the tribunal only on the basis of exceptional circumstances. It might be helpful to remind noble Lords that we will seek to detain and enforce the removal of only those migrants with no basis to remain in the UK who are unwilling to depart of their own volition or who are non-compliant.

As I have stated before, this arbitrary time limit is frankly unworkable and would provide non-compliant migrants with an easy target to aim for in order to secure their release from detention and frustrate their removal. It would lead to meritless asylum claims being made, meritless judicial reviews being lodged and individuals refusing to co-operate with the documentation process. The aggregate limit of 28 days would cause difficulties if we need to redetain a person when a travel document is delayed or where a person disrupts their removal and needs to be taken back into detention until new removal arrangements are put in place.

It may help the House’s understanding if I illustrate this with some real examples. Mr R’s student visa was curtailed when he failed to enrol at university. He was encountered when giving notice of marriage to a British citizen, which was found to be a sham, and he was detained. The day before he was first due to be removed, he submitted a humans rights claim. He was subsequently removed after 30 days in detention. Mr M was encountered by the police and subsequently detained after his visa had expired. An emergency travel document was applied for, but when he lodged a judicial review he was released on bail. Once the judicial review was resolved he was redetained for removal. He disrupted the first attempt to remove him, so removal had to be rescheduled for a charter flight. Mr M’s two periods of detention totalled 130 days. Neither of these examples is likely to qualify as “exceptional circumstances” which would allow the Secretary of State to apply for extended detention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, I am obliged to noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. I acknowledge the work done in the past by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, on detention and on the revising of the immigration and detention rules. I must, however, take issue with the suggestion that access to bail is merely theoretical and that there is an absence of judicial oversight.

The access to bail arises immediately on detention and a tribunal must be persuaded that there are substantial grounds for believing that detention should be maintained. This is not a theoretical right; it is an obligation on the part of the Home Office to persuade a tribunal that detention should be maintained. So far as the period of detention is concerned, I can confirm to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that, after a period extending to four months—which is highly unusual—there will be an automatic bail hearing. In these circumstances, I renew my Motion to the House.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all those who have spoken, not least to my noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood and my noble friend Lord Pannick. It is rare for me to find myself in disagreement with them and I bow to their superior legal knowledge in this case. We have probably gone as far as we are able. I am pleased that, during the passage of the Bill, we have been able to raise so many issues. I sincerely hope that the Home Secretary and her officials will focus on these, not least when they concentrate on the reports that they have commissioned from Stephen Shaw and the report on the mental health arrangements commissioned by NHS England. I fear that the writing is on the wall for my hope of progressing further with this amendment during the passage of the Bill. With a heavy heart, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Keen of Elie

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

How prescient I have been, it would appear.

In those circumstances, I respectfully suggest to this House that the Government have responded in a reasoned, reasonable and proportionate way to the issues that have been raised, and I invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his response and to all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate.

Referring first to the Minister’s comments I would say yes, of course it is open to a person to ask for bail. What I sought to illustrate was that although that may be so in theory, in practice many of them simply do not know what to do. I accept that there have been many applications for bail. However, just out of interest, I would like to know at what period in their detention those people made the bail application and how long they had been there. In report after report of inspections of immigration detention centres, both the Chief Inspector of Prisons and the chief inspector of immigration have pointed out the absence of interpreters and legal advice and the fact that they were approached by many detainees asking how they could get help. We will not resolve this situation in this House tonight, but it is clearly unsatisfactory as seen through the eyes of the people on the ground, who are making the applications. I absolutely accept that the 1999 automatic bail provision was repealed because it was unworkable, but I am just interested that automatic bail should be substituted for it.

If I might refer to the comments of my noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I never said that immigration detention should be limited to 28 days. What I said was that nobody should be submitted to administrative detention—that is, detention ordered by civil servants—without judicial oversight of that detention within the shortest time possible. A period of 28 days is entirely reasonable. It was the decision taken by the commission which the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Lister, and I, were on, and which was agreed to by the other place in a debate last September. Bringing in judicial oversight of immigration detention as quickly as possible must be the aim of any system. Yes, it is said the expert advice is available, but it is not in fact, as I have tried to illustrate.

My contention is that a principle is at stake here. If we wish to remain a civilised country, we cannot go on with a system in which civil servants are allowed to put people in immigration detention for unspecified periods which, as we all know, have stretched to months and even years. Anything longer than a month, in circumstances which I inspected for a long time—I think I know a little bit about them—is not successful. Therefore, without more ado, I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Keen of Elie

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

With that encouragement, perhaps I may take just a little longer, knowing that I have noble Lords’ ears if not their best wishes.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, raised a number of questions. I would be perfectly content to respond to them in writing, albeit that no commitment can be given. Putting the matter shortly—yes, the Scottish Law Officer is somewhat verbose, I am afraid—it is the intention of the Government to reflect on the matter of the detention of pregnant women. They do not consider that it would be appropriate for there to be an absolute rule. To give one very short and simple example, if an illegal immigrant arrives at an airport and it is possible to return them almost immediately, it may be necessary for there to be detention even for a very short period. However, the Government will reflect on this and will have considered the matter by Third Reading. I hope that that will reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, at this stage.

In these circumstances, and with your Lordships’ benign encouragement, I ask that Amendments 84 and 85 be not pressed and that Amendment 86 be agreed.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all those who have spoken and to the Minister for that careful but rather depressing exposition. I shall be brief.