Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Soley Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Soley]

My Lords, I strongly support this group of amendments. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and fully support her in what she said. We know how serious alcohol abuse is. We have known that for many years. At the end of the day, the difference between now and previous years is availability—in price and outlets. Clearly, it is difficult for any Government to increase price or reduce outlets dramatically. If we are not going to do that, we have to find another way of dealing with that. This amendment has real possibilities.

One thing that we ought to focus on here is the young person’s side. Indeed, the only uncertainty I have about the noble Baroness’s amendment is that with young people as opposed to older people there may be some desirability in giving the court an option on whether to make it subject to the agreement of the young person or compulsory. You might want to consider it being compulsory for young people if the parents are doing a fairly good job in parenting but struggle to manage the alcohol abuse of a young person who may have a predisposition to alcohol abuse because of the known genetic aspect of alcohol addiction. It may then be beneficial to have a back-up for the family if they are working with the young person. There may be a case for leaving it to the court as to whether it should be with the agreement of the young person or not.

That becomes much more difficult with adults, who tend to deny the problem much more emphatically. A young person will often admit that they got into trouble because of drinking. They will know that they have a problem. How severe that becomes depends on the support system that they have around them in terms of family and friends. We need not worry too much about the US example. I am sure it is very good but these things change culturally. The principles underlying it are what should apply.

We know that young people go out and drink heavily and consistently, over a period of time; that is the big difference from years ago, because they have the money to do it and the outlets are there and it becomes an ongoing problem. That is the time when we need to intervene and to take some action to address it. When I see very young people—and sometimes the same person on several occasions during the course of a week or two—you know that that person is already getting into deep difficulties, and you would like to intervene at that stage. Having an ability to put them on this sort of regime would be very good.

Other systems of conditional treatment have been tested and tried over many years; it is applied on mental aspects and on other issues relating to probation orders and other orders of the court. So it should not be beyond our ability to devise something specifically on alcohol abuse in cases like this. I also like very much the idea of doing it as a pilot scheme, because I would be the first to acknowledge that over the decades we have tried many things, not just with alcoholics but with other groups. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, mentioned the drug groups. We have tried many things that we thought were good ideas but which have not turned out to work as we thought they would. So I do not mind if we do this on a piloted basis, setting it up for a certain period of time.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, is absolutely right—and we all know it in this House—that the alcohol abuse problem is profoundly serious. The number of cases of young people, and increasingly young women at a very young age, with cirrhosis of the liver, which is one of the defining symptoms of alcohol abuse, is deeply disturbing. It is this issue of availability. If we are not going to stand up and say that we will reduce the outlet or increase the price, frankly we have to find something else. I cannot think of anything that is more effective than what is being proposed to the House today.

I have sat through sittings on this police Bill with various degrees of enthusiasm, but I have very great enthusiasm for this proposal. The House would be missing a very great opportunity if it did not back this amendment and if the Government did not give it a really good run for its money. It is a good idea and it is very likely to work. There are no guarantees in this game—we have thought that too often before—but there is a very good chance that it would work. It would be a missed opportunity if we did not put it in the Bill and give it a run. We owe it particularly to the young people in this country.

In the comments that I have just made, I do not want to include the older group of people. Of the current young group, many of them will not be able to stop drinking on their own in years to come; they will not just stop. Having in a distant past dealt with many people with severe alcohol problems, I think it is in many respects harder to get a person off alcohol abuse than it is from quite a few of the drugs available. The damage that is done to society is enormous. So I ask the Government to be generous and adventurous on this and to grab it and run.

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[Baroness Browning]

The noble Lord poses many challenges to me. It might be appropriate for me to remind the House that responsibility for drug and alcohol abuse is within my ministerial brief at the Home Office. I am conscious that, in addressing this part of the Bill, I have already spoken—perhaps extensively—in Committee about my commitment. While I hear what the noble Lord says about the Department of Health, which is very important and takes the lead on alcohol, this is none the less a matter that will have to be addressed by joined-up government. As has been said by several people, not least the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, who moved this amendment, we need to look at a holistic approach.

I put on record that the Ministers in both the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice would like to see a sobriety scheme. Since we met to discuss this scheme in Committee, there have been extensive discussions at ministerial and official level with Members of this House and the office of the deputy mayor. We have tried very hard to come to some accommodation to find a scheme that works. The principle of the scheme is not in dispute.

I shall outline to the House why I must reject the amendment of—I am tempted to say “my noble friend” because we have worked closely together on so many issues in the past—the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. She made her case very strongly. She will know that I have great respect for her expertise in this area and her dedication to resolving these problems, particularly that of crime resulting from alcohol. However, I must reject these amendments.

Perhaps it will be helpful if I first reiterate what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, and others. Sobriety, in itself, will not always tackle alcohol-related offending. Many offenders will require clinical treatment and support to aid their recovery. I choose those words carefully. Mention has been made of treatment but it is the Government’s intention, on both drugs and alcohol—there is often a combination of the two—that we should move on from treatment into recovery, which has to be the end goal. A lot of valuable work has gone into treatment. Nobody in any way suggests that treatment programmes are not an essential part of the journey. However, the end of the journey must now focus, for both alcohol and drugs, on recovery; it must not just end with treatment. I have to say that it is rather unclear whether the purpose of the amendments before us is punitive or rehabilitative. I see nothing in the amendments that gives us a steer as to how we should view this.

[Lord Soley]

Surely the purpose of provisions such as these is preventive and educational, particularly for young people. I accept what the Minister is saying but treatment is rather a different ball game.

[Baroness Browning]

I accept what the noble Lord says on that and do not dispute it at all. I support the principle of a sobriety scheme that seeks to tackle the problems caused by alcohol-related offending—particularly by binge drinking, which can blight communities—but I must still resist these amendments. Contrary to what the noble Baroness has said, an effective and robust sobriety scheme can be implemented using existing powers. Piloting this approach will provide us with firmer evidence on which to consider the need for legislative changes such as those proposed. I believe that a scheme could be started almost immediately.

My noble friend raised a number of concerns about piloting a sobriety scheme using conditional cautions. I wish to take a moment to focus on those. A scheme based on conditional cautions which is already on the statute book is favoured by the Government. Indeed, there is already interest in some parts of the country in looking at a scheme based on conditional cautions. However, I understand that London supports the scheme put forward by the noble Baroness.

It has been suggested that conditional cautions would not allow repeat offenders to be targeted by a sobriety scheme. While serious and persistent offenders should obviously be prosecuted at court, conditional cautions can be considered where an offender has committed previous offences. For example, a pattern of alcohol-related offending which has previously resulted in an offender receiving a penalty notice for disorder, a simple caution or perhaps even being prosecuted for a low-level offence may well be appropriate for a sobriety condition as part of a conditional caution.

It has also been suggested that offenders are unlikely to consent to a sobriety condition, but I believe that many will consent when they are informed by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service that the alternative is to be prosecuted for their conduct and to face the prospect of the prosecution applying for a drinking banning order on conviction. In these circumstances I believe that very many offenders will consider that accepting a sobriety condition—which can include requirements to undergo testing, and to pay for those tests, and which has clear consequences for non-compliance—is by far the preferable option. The noble Lord, Lord Soley, talked about the educational aspect and the right reverend Prelate talked about a change of culture. As I hope I have already reassured the House, I am adamant that we will pursue a change of culture. I will not go into too much detail because I have probably said this two or three times now, but I find it unacceptable that we have a culture in this country whereby it is acceptable for people to be seriously drunk in public places either as individuals or collectively. That is a significant change of culture that many of us have witnessed in our lifetime. Using the toolkit—that is the terminology—I am looking for every opportunity to change that culture. I do not underestimate how long that will take as the problem has taken decades to present itself as we see it now, but I hope to impact on it as much as possible.

I note the changes that the noble Baroness has made to her amendments since they were previously discussed. I also note that she and the Deputy Mayor of London have received legal advice on the amendments. There were question marks over the differing legal advice that the Home Office and the Deputy Mayor of London had received, particularly around matters to do with offenders’ convention rights. Although I agree that a sobriety scheme as the noble Baroness envisages it could be compatible with an offender’s convention rights, I believe that any primary legislation in this area would require careful consideration about when such a scheme would be proportionate and what safeguards might be needed to ensure that a court does not impose an alcohol monitoring requirement that risks breaching an individual’s human rights. This is a difficult area and one which the results of piloting conditional cautions would help to illuminate, as well as providing us with evidence of the scheme’s effectiveness.

I have touched on the issue of treatment leading to recovery, which is the Government’s aim. As has been mentioned, extremely serious criminal consequences can arise from alcohol abuse. It is important to distinguish between what we might euphemistically describe as binge drinking and those very serious crimes, in which I of course include domestic violence, where the way forward may well be a conviction. Whether it is associated with a conviction or not, it will require a most extensive package to address what are often the complex needs of the offender.

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[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

I must admit, my noble friend has always been known for his self-control. We have known each other for 30 or 40 years. The simple answer to his question is that, as I explained a moment ago, the Director of Public Prosecutions wishes to include in the guidance that he proposes to give the public interest test, at the first part, in considering the threshold test. He has said that binding guidance to that effect—

[Lord Soley]

I do not understand that. I want to know—it is important—whether the answer is yes or no.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

The answer is no; it is obvious. That is why I do not propose to press this amendment to a Division. It is as simple as that. That is what I was about to say. The Director of Public Prosecutions has indicated that his views will find their way into the Code for Crown Prosecutors once the legislation has been passed. We are content with that. Failure by Crown prosecutors to follow the code renders their decision-making susceptible to potential challenge by judicial review. I repeat, to make myself completely clear: I do not propose to press this matter to a Division. However, I am interested in the Minister’s response on this important, and clearly slightly divisive, question. I beg to move.