Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Touhig]

109: Clause 21, page 18, line 8, at end insert—
“( ) In fixing such an amount, and subsequent additions, account must be taken of the person’s relevant weekly income, excluding housing benefit and child related benefits, and allowance must be made for the protection of a reasonable financial subsistence level, in the manner used to determine the initial fine.”

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, the intention behind this amendment is to ensure that the new financial penalties imposed on people who make late or incomplete fine repayments do not in any circumstances force individuals or families below a reasonable level of subsistence. In particular, it seeks to safeguard the level of income necessary to sustain housing security and to meet the basic needs of dependent children. It is based upon the means-testing system already used to set fines which is accepted by the Government as a suitable mechanism for ensuring that, while offenders feel financial hardship, their welfare and that of their family is not jeopardised as a result. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, in a Written Answer to a Question I posed, stated:

“There is a very fine balance between protecting vulnerable debtors as well as ensuring that justice is served and the order of the court is met”.—[Official Report, 24/9/12; col. WA345.]

I believe that this amendment falls on the correct side of that line; it will prevent neither the penalisation of those who do not keep to their payment plans nor the unprecedented step of recovering operational costs in such cases. It will simply mean that in some situations where this process could hinder a person’s ability to pay for necessities such as rent or family meals, the precise amount recoverable will be adjusted.

The level of concern about the absence of any such safeguard in the Bill as it stands is reflected in the support for this amendment from a number of charities. These include Housing Justice, the largest Christian housing charity in the UK; the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust, a London-based charity for vulnerable debtors; Depaul UK, which works nationwide with disadvantaged young people; and the Catholic Children’s Society in Westminster, which works with some of the poorest families in this area.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for agreeing to meet me last week to discuss my concerns about this matter, but he knows that I left the meeting feeling somewhat concerned because I learnt that one of the most worrying aspects of Clause 21 is that the charging structures for the new penalties will not be laid before Parliament, but will be set following commercial negotiations with the firms contracted to collect fine payments—and this will not happen until after Parliament has passed the legislation. In effect, we are being asked to write a blank cheque for unknown contractors with no inbuilt safeguards to ensure that the most vulnerable individuals and families will be protected from threats to their basic subsistence income. With this clause, our system of justice will depend on the negotiating skills of civil servants pitted against private contractors out to make a profit.

The Courts and Tribunals Service, responding to a freedom of information request on October 3, said that the penalties will be set in proportion to the actual costs of chasing up a late or incomplete repayment. But I have discovered that the service does not hold information relating to the average cost of such processes. This means that any reasonable estimation of the likely amounts that people will be charged is impossible to make. In Committee on 2 July at col. 539 the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, admitted that in practice the actual amount may sometimes even exceed that of the initial fine. Moreover, we have seen no substantive analysis of the likely impact on children or on housing security, neither of which is explicitly addressed in the impact assessment.

The Courts and Tribunals Service, in a letter to the Caritas Social Action Network on 5 November, stated that, “we do not believe there will be significant impact on a child’s welfare”. But in another freedom of information request dated 3 September, I find that the service does not hold information on the family profiles of those sentenced to pay fines. It is therefore unable to project how many dependent children are likely to be affected. Similarly, the absence of information on the housing situations of those currently failing to meet fine payment plans prohibits any projection of how the new penalties will affect people’s ability to meet rent payments. In a letter to the Caritas Social Action Network, the service sought to provide reassurance by predicting that the penalties will be “small and proportionate”. But as those with experience of working to support people in financial hardship will know only too well, any amount regarded as small in some circumstances will in fact be very significant in others. This is particularly significant at a time when an increasing number of families are struggling to meet the costs of essentials including heating, food and rent. Even a small change in their income will often have serious consequences.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I am grateful for those interventions. The points made by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, are undeniable. There are people whose lives are so dysfunctional and chaotic that they can get into a complete downward spiral in how they manage their lives. It is extremely important that we try to make sure that what happens to them does not make that downward spiral worse.

I am pleased that the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Touhig, acknowledge that we are dealing with people who have offended, who have been before a court and who have been given a fine. As I said in my opening remarks, if they follow the instructions of the court, they should be able to avoid the worst of the kind of downward spirals that both the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, referred to. As a former Member of Parliament for Stockport, I could take a rough guess at the estate from which the young lady who was mentioned came. Her story is the other side of the penny to what can sometimes be the bleakest of stories. I have a great-niece who works for Blackpool social services and the stories that she tells me of the sheer dysfunctionality of the some of the families that she has to deal with are out of the range of most of our normal lives.

I do not underestimate this and although I will ask the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, to withdraw his amendment, I emphasise again that, in cases where the most vulnerable are sentenced to pay a fine, it may be deemed appropriate for the court to issue a deduction from benefits order, where a maximum level, which is currently set at £5 a week, can be automatically deducted from the person’s benefits to pay their financial penalty. This is capped at a level so that it does not significantly impact on the person or cause further hardship. This maximum weekly deduction from benefits will not be increased by the introduction of the collection costs, so there is some safety net there.

As I said in opening, the costs will be set at a level that is proportionate to the actual costs of collecting the fine. We are trying and we will be returning to this when we debate the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. On the one hand, we have to be aware of these dysfunctional individuals and families who come into the justice system. However, we have to operate that system and try to get the balance right between the instilling of proper responsibility when it comes to fines imposed by the court and the collection of those fines, so that they do not become a kind of option but are real and we have the means of making sure that they are enforced. At the same time, we must try to ensure that a just punishment of the court does not spiral into unjust impacts on other individuals associated with the person who has to pay the fine.

These are difficult and complex decisions. We hope that we have got them right. I certainly do not object to the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, bringing this matter before the House and his continuing interest in this area. I assure the House that the Government will continue to examine this carefully to see what reforms we can bring forward. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, referred to the operation of loan sharks. That is something that we need to look at with some urgency as well. In the mean time, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, when the Minister came to the Dispatch Box straight after I spoke, I did feel a sense of excitement—I thought he was going to accept my amendment. I thought, “My goodness, there is another Christmas card I will have to send this year”. I am disappointed that the Government do not feel able to support this perfectly reasonable amendment. I fully understand the point the noble Lord makes and I share the view that people who commit offences and are fined should pay those fines. However, I am sure that nobody in this Chamber knows the level and degree of poverty that the people we are talking about tonight experience. The fines might not be a large amount to us but £15 is two weeks’ electricity for a poor family. I fully accept that those who commit the crime should pay the penalty but it is their children and other dependants who ultimately pay the price and suffer far more, perhaps, than the people who are brought before the courts.

I welcome the noble Lord saying that there will be a further impact assessment. Perhaps I may tease him with this idea. Is he prepared to have some discussions about what could be included in that impact assessment? Those of us who have concerns, such as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and others, might be able to suggest what should be looked at. In that way, we might arrive at better legislation that will not make victims of the children and dependants of people who commit these crimes, who are innocent in all these matters and will have a more difficult life as a result.

[Lord McNally]

As I said in my opening remarks, I know how deeply concerned the noble Lord and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, are about these matters. I would be glad to have further talks with them on what is to be covered by an impact assessment.

[Lord Touhig]

What can I say? I am most grateful to the Minister and he will certainly be on my Christmas card list. In view of the lateness of the hour, I do not intend to test the opinion of the House at this stage. I am most grateful for the comments made in the debate and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 109 withdrawn.