Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Spencer Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

Yes. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that four separate types of inquiry are to be conducted. Later today I will meet the chairman and chief executive of the Youth Justice Board and discuss those cases.

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

T2. Following the horrific murder of my constituent Kynan Eldridge, I wonder whether the Minister can assure the House and Kynan’s family that the perpetrators of such crimes, if they are foreign nationals, will be deported after their sentence ends? What work is he doing to ensure that that happens?

[Mr Blunt]

My hon. Friend will have heard the exchanges earlier about foreign-national offenders. We are doing everything that we can to improve the legal situation, so that we have more powers to deport people and can improve the administrative process through proper co-operation between the UK Border Agency and the National Offender Management Service.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Spencer Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

We are looking at that problem very seriously, and we hope to produce a substantial improvement on the present situation. In particular, I am working with colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions to try to ensure that offenders leaving prison can have instant access to the work programmes that we are developing for other people seeking work. Enabling people to get back into employment is one of the best ways of improving the chances that they will not offend again.

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

13. What assessment he has made of the effects on reoffending rates of his policy of payment by results to companies.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

The first results against which payment will be made in the two pilots at Her Majesty’s prisons Peterborough and Doncaster will be available in 2014. I am visiting Peterborough prison on Friday to make my initial assessment of the ONE service. I will look in particular at the methodology and evidence from case studies as it is too early for statistical data to be available.

[Mr Spencer]

The Minister may be aware of a case close to my constituency in which a paedophile was allowed out from a secure health unit on unescorted day release, only to commit a crime against a 10-year-old constituent of mine. I support the Minister’s plans to make improvements when these companies get things correct, but what plans does he have to deal with such companies when they get it wrong?

[Mr Blunt]

As my hon. Friend has made clear, that case involved a patient who was detained under mental health legislation, under which unescorted leave requires the approval of the Secretary of State, a risk assessment and a recommendation from a responsible clinician. There are no proposals for companies to make such decisions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Spencer Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

Will the Minister find time to meet me to discuss the case of a company based in Staffordshire that sold hot tubs and which defrauded many of my constituents? It took their money, went into insolvency and became a phoenix company.

[Mr Djanogly]

I shall listen to the circumstances of my hon. Friend’s case, but it might be one for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills rather than the Ministry of Justice. If it is relevant to my Department, however, I will be happy to meet him.

Dangerous Driving Offences (Sentences)

Mark Spencer Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Karl Turner]

I am very grateful for that intervention, and I am sure that the Minister has taken note of my hon. Friend’s comments. I hope that today’s debate will help the Government to rethink the policy that relates to this offence.

As I was saying, there is a large disparity in the law. Most of the time the victims suffer horrendous injuries, and the experience of being a victim is truly tragic in every conceivable way. The offence of death by dangerous driving carries, I think, a maximum 14-year sentence.

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman not only on securing this debate but on the other work that he is doing in this place to push this issue. Does he recognise the association between the unwillingness of people who commit this type of offence to secure insurance for their vehicles and the impact on the victims?

[Karl Turner]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. It is true that people who tend to commit this type of offence are often not insured, and that says something about the standard of their driving. I am keen to explain that my proposal is not to lock up everyone for poor driving—careless driving is very different from dangerous driving. In my experience, dangerous drivers have very little regard for themselves and other road users, and often do not bother to take out insurance.

Anonymity (Arrested Persons) Bill

Mark Spencer Excerpts

Friday 4th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that, and I completely agree. That is the difficulty. In the newspapers we see the headlines and the story but never what is behind them or, most importantly, what happens in the wake of them.

I was describing how, by googling on the internet or doing any research through newspapers—although googling is the quickest and smoothest way—I came across several cases of football players who had been arrested on allegations of rape. One case is relevant to my hon. Friend, because it involved a Leicester football player. I did not recognise his name, but that matters not at all. He received extensive media coverage when he was arrested on an allegation of rape, and again, within a matter of weeks, when he went back to the police station on bail he was told that he would not be charged and that was the end of the matter. The newspapers and local television station covered the arrest extensively, but the fact that no charges were brought barely received a mention. I have not found any case, anywhere, in which somebody’s not being charged has received exactly the same amount of publicity as their arrest.

There are cases of councillors—some might be known to Members—who have been arrested on all manner of allegations, be they fraud, corruption or sexual assault. Again, I have looked at the newspapers and on the internet, and their arrest often makes the front page of the local newspaper. The fact that they are never charged, however, does not get on the front page; if they are lucky, it might be on page 2 or 3 and amount to half a column, but it is never the same as the initial coverage they receive when they are arrested. That is not right or fair.

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

There was the case of a taxi driver who attacked female passengers, and when he was arrested other victims came forward. The publicity surrounding the case assisted other victims in doing that. What does my hon. Friend say to people who cite such instances?

[Anna Soubry]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, because he makes another important point. That is why the Bill, to cover exactly that situation, enables the prosecution to apply to a Crown court judge for leave to allow the media to publish the name and address of somebody if they believe it is in the interests of justice, which means a belief or a suspicion reasonably held that other people might come forward either to make a complaint or to assist the police in some way in their investigations.

The same exemption exists for the arrested person, because there are instances whereby somebody who is arrested might want their name published, especially in the local paper. For example, somebody might be arrested following an allegation by their employer that they have been stealing from work, and their defence might be not just, “I haven’t done it,” but, “I know my employer has made the same allegation against other workers and they haven’t done it. Somebody’s got their fingers in the till. It’s not me, but they’ve now pointed the finger at me because it suits them and is convenient, so I want my name in the newspaper and I am quite happy for my address and the fact that I work at such and such a place to be published, because I believe that x workers there or other people may come forward with information that will assist my preparation of my defence.” I have allowed for all that, because I do not like blanket bans on anything, and it is always important to recognise that there are exceptions to every rule.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) mentions police investigations, and we forget that in many instances the police are appalled by the sort of coverage that we all saw in relation to the first man’s arrest in Bristol. It is an injustice to the police to say that, in those instances where names and addresses have been leaked to the press, it is always their fault, because it is not. No doubt there are instances when the police give the name and address to a member of the media, and some cash might change hands. I do not have evidence of it, however; I am working only on what others tell me.

In a high-profile case such as the Bristol murder, however, with all the media attention it is almost inevitable that, if somebody is arrested, a neighbour, especially somebody in the proximity of either the deceased or the place where the crime occurred, will see or know that Bloggins has been arrested. The neighbour or somebody else will often just happen to know the person, as people do in any community, not just small ones, and they will give the name to the press. The police do not always do so, and it would be wrong to place all the blame on them.

I do not want to get into a blame game, but if anybody is to blame then responsibility lies with the media and, ultimately, all of us—everybody who buys newspapers, watches television and listens to the radio. If only we could gather together and say, “Enough is enough. I am not going to buy this newspaper, watch that television news programme, listen to that radio station or subscribe to that television channel,” we might make the progress that we all want and, as I have said, cure the mischief that we all oppose.

I very much want to deal with the Contempt of Court Act 1981, to which we have alluded. I shall tread carefully, because we do not want a debate about jurisdiction or to pick over the Act in detail, but, having read it, I and others take the view that in its current form it is not the device to cure the mischief that we all agree must be sorted out. Although the strict liability rule that it imposes—indeed, the whole nature of the Act—deals with people who have been arrested, the rule is clearly designed to deal with cases that, in effect, are in the court process. But if one is arrested, one might never go to court. That is the whole point: unless one is charged, one will not go to court. I hope I am explaining my point fully and in non-legal terms, because the Act does not cover the misdemeanours and wrongs that we all want righted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Buckland]

I readily concede that my hon. Friend makes an important point about the practical implementation of the legislation. The Bill goes as far as it can to deal with the mischief. His point is sadly common in issues relating to the misuse of media. There are issues with cybercrime and with the use of internet sites that are based in far-flung places abroad, over which we have no control. This week, I heard about a nasty little website that deals with gossip among schoolchildren, which is based in Belize. It has caused a lot of misery for our schoolchildren, yet it seems that there is little we can do about it. My hon. Friend therefore makes a fair point about the natural limits of jurisdiction.

[Mr Spencer]

What sort of weight does my hon. Friend think the general public attach to such information? Would they consider a report on the BBC or in a newspaper as factual but a report on a social networking site as perhaps not based in fact?

[Mr Buckland]

My hon. Friend is right to put a high degree of faith in the judgment and good sense of ordinary people in making the distinction between what they would see as authoritative sources of information and the sort of tittle-tattle that fills far too many social networking sites. A judge giving a direction to a jury can deal with such mischief and, if I may say so, my hon. Friend sounded a little judicial in his intervention, because I can imagine a judge saying to a jury at the beginning of a trial, “Please disregard any gossip you may see on websites. Don’t tweet. Don’t look at Facebook. Disregard all those websites.” There is a great difference between information and knowledge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

I do not intend to speak for too long, but I feel the need to be here to support my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), not only because her constituency is adjacent to mine, but because her Bill has great merit. She will be aware of how busy I am in my constituency office, given the debate over the forestry proposals and the fact that my constituency is Sherwood. None the less, I feel the need to be here to support her Bill. This matter truly requires more debate. Although I am committed to supporting the Bill in the hope that it can make further progress, today’s debate has shown that there clearly is a balance to be struck. I will try to address that balance during the next few minutes.

The case in Bristol, which my hon. Friend mentioned, was a good example of how the furore around such cases can develop its own momentum and take on a life of its own. Of course, this was not a good thing in that case, but we have heard of cases in which the opposite was true. I recognise that the Bill aims to limit the ability of the media to go off on their own mission, but I also like the fact that other clauses would assist people in getting names out in the media, if that would be of benefit. That is really important. There have been a number of cases in which an accused individual received publicity that allowed other members of the public to come forward and say, “Actually, I have been affected by this individual as well.” That enabled the police to build a case against that person.

Fundamentally, this debate comes down to a balance between what is interesting to the public and what is in the public interest. That is very difficult to legislate for. When I was a teenager in Nottingham in the 1980s, there was a real issue with the red light district in the city. Nottinghamshire police ran a great campaign to arrest people who were kerb crawling. The Nottingham Evening Post would then print the names of the individuals who had been arrested, and I could never resist buying it just to see whose names were in it that week.

[Philip Davies]

Was my hon. Friend looking to see whether his name had been published?

[Mr Spencer]

Unfortunately, as a 15-year-old boy, I could not get there on my scooter. Clearly publishing those names was interesting to the public, but was it in the public interest? The honest answer is: probably not. Did it add anything to the criminal justice system? Probably not.

[Anna Soubry]

I, too, recall that; indeed, I reported on a number of those cases. I can still remember some of the names of those people. One was quite a senior police officer in Lincolnshire, and there was another who was connected with the law. However, if my memory is right, was it not the case that those people had not just been arrested, but almost immediately charged? I am reasonably confident in saying that their names were published only because they were charged immediately after they had been arrested. That is why the press reported those names. If those people had merely been arrested with a bail back, I doubt whether the press would have reported their names.

[Mr Spencer]

I concede that my hon. Friend’s knowledge about this issue is superior to mine. I merely make the point about what is interesting to the public and what is in the public interest.

My hon. Friend has referred to celebrities and TV personalities. The recent case that comes to mind is that of the Sky football commentators. Although they were not charged with any crime, there was large furore around those individuals. As I understand it, she is proposing a complete separation of such cases from those that end with a criminal prosecution. That is an important distinction to make. It is also one that leads me to support the Bill and to allow it to progress through the House so that we can debate its merits further. Many other points have been made, and I do not want to prolong this debate any further than is necessary, so I shall commend the Bill to the House and will support it during its progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend raises a crucial point. The difficulty that I have with the Bill is that I am not sure how enforceable it would be. I am not suggesting for a moment that we should not attempt to deal with the problem merely because it is difficult. However, because of the nature of the internet, it might not be possible for us sensibly to enforce the law in any meaningful way. The fact that the media in all their forms—particularly, in this context, the electronic media—publish the identity of an accused person has led to the Bill being brought to the House today. That is also what gives rise to one of the Bill’s potential flaws.

[Mr Spencer]

May I draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the weight that the public attach to a news report? If that report is on Sky News or the BBC, or in a newspaper, the general public will attach great merit to it and expect it to have been researched. However, if it has been posted on a social networking site by, say, my brother’s uncle’s mate’s niece, it will simply be viewed as gossip and will have no impact on someone’s ability to get a job in the future.

Police Grant Report

Mark Spencer Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

I am grateful to be called in the debate. I will support the Government today, but with the proviso that we look at the funding formula. I am not blessed with the deficit denial that some hon. Members seem to be blessed with. The fact that we find ourselves in such dire financial circumstances leads me to the conclusion that we clearly need to take action, but we need to create a balance amongst some of the police forces. There will always be strains between different regional authorities and regions, but only one region loses out across the board, and that is the east midlands. In particular, Nottinghamshire police has had enormous problems in terms of getting its fair share of the funding formula.

The hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) referred to the strain on the Northumberland police created by the Moat case. I know he will have been grateful for the expertise of the Nottinghamshire firearms department, which assisted in that case despite the enormous disparity between those two police authorities. It may be worth pointing out that last year in Nottinghamshire there were 23,122 violent crimes, and in Northumberland there were 20,868. Clearly, Nottinghamshire has more violent crime. However, Nottinghamshire receives £141 per capita, whereas Northumberland receives £171 per capita, an enormous difference of £30. That manifests itself in the number of police officers that are available to each authority. In Nottinghamshire, we have 2,380 officers; Northumberland has 4,028. There is no doubt that such a disparity in the funding formula leads to the criticism of Nottinghamshire police, which many hon. Members will have seen in the press, and praise for Northumberland police. Will the Minister commit to implementing at a much greater speed the recommendations of the Flanagan report, and the Lyons report which preceded it, in balancing the amount of cash to our regions and authorities.

I welcome many of the policies that the Minister is bringing forward. I look forward to elected police commissioners. Many constituents tell me that the police do not recognise their priorities, and having an elected police commissioner will focus the minds of those police authorities on their genuine needs and priorities, and make sure that they are addressed. I welcome the examination of the procurement process nationally. I cannot help but notice that after 13 years, the previous Government started to talk about that in their last year, and within nine weeks of coming to the Dispatch Box, the Minister is driving that forward and moving us in the right direction. That really highlights the difference between talk and action, and I welcome the fact that the Government will take action and ensure that we get the right results.