Prisons and Courts Bill

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Courts and Justice (Sir Oliver Heald)]

We have had an excellent debate this evening. I congratulate this very esteemed and experienced group of speakers: the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill); former Justice Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly); my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), another successful colleague who actually had my job; my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier), who did this as a shadow Minister; my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham), who has been a Minister in the Department; and former prisons Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous). I also congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), for Derby North (Amanda Solloway), for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) and for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), who all made excellent contributions. I will comment on some of the other speeches, which were generally very thoughtful. It is obvious that there is a good deal of support for the Bill.

As the Secretary of State outlined at the beginning of the debate, these are vital provisions if we are to make the justice system fit for the 21st century. We are talking about a major reform of prisons, and an important set of changes to the law on the courts that will underpin the transformation programme that is going on at the moment and has the support of the senior judiciary. I pay tribute to those who work in our prisons, courts and the wider justice system. Their commitment to public service and care of the most vulnerable in society is inspiring, and I know that many of them will be following the Bill, which means a lot for their work.

Before addressing some specific matters, I want to clarify how the Bill does some important things and does not do some things that might have been suggested. The provisions in the Bill mean better access to justice and the simpler resolution of cases for people. It is important to reiterate that the Bill has been prepared with extensive user testing and consultation with those affected by the measures. Access to justice will not be compromised by the Bill. Sacred principles of open justice and the rule of law will be protected in a modern system that reflects how people access public services in the 21st century.

A good deal was said in support of the idea of having the statutory purpose of prisons in the Bill—for the first time, it is about not just housing the prisoner, but having to keep the person and the public safe, carrying out reform and rehabilitation, and preparing people for a life outside prison. That new framework is there, and everything follows from it: governors’ contracts, the information that is spread about best practice, and training. As the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) said in her very thoughtful speech, it is also important to prepare the prisoner for release. Other Members, including the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), referred to the importance of the family and accommodation. Those things are there in the purpose in the Bill, so when we talk about the reform and rehabilitation of offenders, we are talking about tackling their mental health needs. When we talk about preparing prisoners for life outside prison, we are talking about housing, accommodation and good contacts with their family. Those things are all in the Bill, but the right hon. and learned Lady—

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

[Sir Oliver Heald]

I have not got much time, I am afraid.

I think the right hon. and learned Lady made the point that we might want to see whether there was a solution in secondary legislation, as well as in primary legislation, that might address some of the important points she raised. Of course, the prison rules are secondary legislation, and they already contain a lot of detail about the way in which prisoners should be treated. So it is possible to look at those issues, and I will certainly do that.

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) mentioned the Prison Reform Trust and its suggestion that we should add fairness and decency to the statutory purpose. It is right that those are important considerations in running prisons, but we need to remember that there is already an interlacing of legal obligations that apply in prisons. The right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham, with her background in the Joint Committee on Human Rights, mentioned that there are basic human rights—articles 2, 3 and 8—that apply to the way in which prisoners are treated. There is health and safety legislation. There is the duty of care that comes through the law of tort. So it would be wrong to think that there is not protection already, but this is certainly something we can examine further in Committee. I would like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North, who has done so much as the rapporteur for the JCHR on the issue of deaths in prison.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough and others asked what happens if a prison does not meet the purpose set out in law. The purpose of prisons is in the Bill, and it is underpinned by the inspectorate’s duty to inspect against the purpose and the aims. It is also protected by the Secretary of State having to respond. I would not say that it is impossible that a case could be mounted for judicial review—to even say that is to press the case too far—but I think it would only be in a case where an individual prison totally ignored or disregarded the purpose, or something of that sort, that it would be grounded. Possibly, these things could also be considered as a factor in another case, where other aspects were being raised.

The right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) asked about the update on HMIP’s protocol with the MOJ, and I pay tribute to his experience in this area. Earlier this year, a draft protocol was shared with the Justice Committee and other bodies. The final protocol will be available very shortly, and I can promise that it will be there before the Committee stage. [Interruption.] Very shortly—imminently.

I could say a lot about family engagement, and the Farmer review looks very much at it. It is well understood that maintaining family relationships is a key element in trying to set prisoners on the straight and narrow and that it is very important in rehabilitation.

The hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) asked about the time limits for responding to inspection reports. Action will be taken from day one of an urgent notification by the chief inspector, so immediate energy will be brought to bear. Twenty-eight days is the appropriate period in a really urgent case of that sort. On the Law Society’s concerns about safeguards for online conviction, defenders must opt in to the new procedure, and proper warnings will be available making it clear that if a defendant wants to challenge the case in any way—for example, if they want to argue that time to pay is needed for a financial penalty or that the penalty should be lower because of means or circumstances—then all these things will be made clear. The Bill also provides that in the event of a mistake made, for whatever reason, it will be possible to set aside the conviction or the sentence in order to have the matter dealt with in the traditional way. I am sure that we will discuss this more in Committee, but certainly the idea is to have those protections in place.

My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon asked about successful prosecutions of fraud cases in relation to whiplash. The insurance industry data show that in 2015 there were 70,000 cases of insurance fraud worth £800 million. The City of London police insurance fraud enforcement department has secured over 200 prosecutions in the past four years, resulting in over 100 years’ worth of jail time for insurance fraudsters. A lot of action is being taken on this.

On whiplash more generally, the Government note that over a 10-year period when we have seen the number of road traffic accidents falling and car safety improving, we have had a more than 50% increase in the number of whiplash-related cases. These cases are obviously exaggerated to some extent, and perhaps fraudulent. No Government could ignore these sorts of statistics and not take action. We have not taken extreme options but gone for moderate options such as a tariff of damages for the very minor cases. The tariff does not apply in a serious case of whiplash where the damages would be substantial—it is for cases where the pain and suffering lasts less than two years and is of a minor nature. Against that background, such a tariff is surely a reasonable approach. If there is any element of exceptionality in these cases, then there is a provision to uplift. We say that this approach is proportionate to the scale of the problem.

My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) talked about violence against prison officers. I do not totally agree with him about this. I think that if there genuinely is violence against a hard-working and dedicated prison officer—he has been assaulted and it is an offence—we should go further than my hon. Friend suggests. I think that the perpetrator should be prosecuted in court for that violent offence, that he should face swift justice, and that the court should give the full penalty that is right for the offence. I would not say that it is a question of him serving his full time for the original offence, but that he should serve the full time for a serious offence of attacking a prison officer. I take a slightly different view from my hon. Friend on that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

We have a legal aid budget of £1.6 billion, which is one of the largest in the world. By comparison with other common law jurisdictions such as Australia, Northern Ireland and Canada, we have double the expenditure per inhabitant. We have started a process and we will see it through. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that those in need of legal aid will be able to have it where it is necessary.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

15. What the Government’s policy is on the UK remaining party to the European Convention on Human Rights.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Dominic Raab)]

We cannot rule out ever withdrawing from the ECHR, but our proposals for a Bill of Rights are focused on remaining within the convention, which contains a common-sense list of rights.

[Neil Carmichael]

Does the Minister agree that a constitutional court could have primacy over decisions in Strasbourg and that such a possibility should be at the heart of any further consultations?

[Mr Raab]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. We respect the fact that the convention includes a common-sense list of rights, and we want to ensure that we have the proper interpretation of those rights. We also want to ensure that we have a Supreme Court that remains supreme. It should be said that where the goalposts of human rights shift, it should be elected Members here that have the last word.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

T7. Rehabilitation is likely to be on a smoother path if prisoners have access to good education in custody. What steps is the Department taking, in conjunction with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, to ensure that maths and English are promoted within prisons?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am inclined to take a leaf out of the Education Secretary’s book here. In a speech she is making today, she is making the point that we need to reform our testing system to know how well children are performing when they enter school and when they leave primary school. In our prison estate, we should have tighter monitoring of the educational attainment of prisoners when they arrive in custody and when they leave. I am delighted that we are ad idem.

Human Rights Act

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts, and to salute the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), the former Secretary of State for Scotland, for initiating and leading this debate. He dealt with the devolution issue extraordinarily well and none of us disagreed with his fundamental point that to unravel devolution agreements by challenging the Human Rights Act would not be wise.

I ask the Minister for his interpretation of “taking into account”. We need clarification of that, following the exchanges of this debate. When I tell someone that I am taking their views into account, I am usually saying, “I heard, but I’m not going to do it.” We need to recognise that that is really what the phrase means. That is why it is probably unwise of the Government to be quite so controversial in their proposals.

The other issue to consider is what a Bill of Rights looks like. Without giving a history lesson, we already have a Bill of Rights. It was passed in 1689, but it did not actually do the job that the Government will have in mind for any future such Bill. The danger is that once rights start to be defined they can be restricted. Calibrating or describing rights is not as easy as it first appears. The risk is that a Bill of Rights could be too tight or too loose. It is important that we see what the Bill of Rights might look like.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the problem with the rights debate in Britain has been that, unlike countries such as South Africa, we have failed to debate what to do when rights clash? For example, the right to private and family life and the right to protest clash, and we in Britain have not debated how to deal with those clashes.

[Neil Carmichael]

My way at looking at things in terms of English law is that I prefer to assume that I have a right unless Parliament has told me that I do not. That is how we should be operating.

Doing something different from what we have done in the past also has international implications. As we have already heard, the architect of the European Court of Human Rights was a former Conservative Home Secretary who was not a libertarian in the true sense of the word. Leaving the Court would be to depart from that tradition and would risk our international reputation while making it harder still for other nations to think in terms of their own aspirations for rights, and might not discourage others in their intention not to give rights. The issue is not only legal, but one of foreign policy.

In short, we must consider the matter carefully. I would prefer to have legislation that improves what we already have, rather than undermining and changing the structure that we have become used to.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Order. Joanna Cherry, the SNP spokesperson, will now have four minutes before I call the shadow Minister and then the Minister to speak for 10 minutes each.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

We and the Department for Education are looking at the Select Committee report carefully. I was at a meeting on school sport at the Department for Education only yesterday, so I can give the hon. Lady an absolute commitment. However, I would be a little nervous about giving her an absolute commitment about her swimming pool without knowing the facts. There has been a problem that pools built in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s are no longer economical, for environmental and other reasons, whereas new pools have a much better performance, so I would need to be sure that her pool was not part of that group.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Will the Minister join me in thanking Sport England for its investment in Nailsworth tennis club and the Football Foundation for its investment in Frampton football club? He will recognise that those are examples of the investment that is making a real difference to community sport throughout my constituency.

[Hugh Robertson]

I certainly congratulate Sport England, which deserves particular credit for the way in which it runs the “Places People Play” fund, which I suspect was responsible for the first of the improvements that my hon. Friend mentioned. That fund could not have been put in place without the increase in funding that sport got from the national lottery in 2010.

Rehabilitation of Offenders

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I can give that assurance. First, I am looking hard at the issue of Friday night releases. Secondly, the through-the-gate structure will ensure that whenever someone leaves prison they will be met at the gate by an organisation that will take immediate care over their lives. Thirdly, Members will see in the document that a joint project between the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health will be trialled to measure the impact of a more substantial through-the-gate rehabilitation treatment service, with a view to extending it more broadly as and when we know the results.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I welcome today’s statement for two reasons: first, its focus on reoffending, which is exactly the right thing to do; and secondly, the emphasis on continuity between being in prison and going out beyond prison, which is critical. Will the Lord Chancellor bear in mind, however, the importance of education during the rehabilitation process? In particular, young people who cannot read or communicate properly are at a disadvantage, and the process he envisages could well help in that field.

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is right that basic skills are fundamental to helping somebody get a job. I hope and expect that we will now have a much greater connection between resettlement services and education courses post-prison. I want somebody who cannot read properly and might have started training in prison to come straight out of prison and into the local college to continue that work. With the kind of support we will be providing, that will be much more likely to happen.

Prisons (Property) Bill

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Friday 14th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend might well be right. That is the point I want to get to, because although I absolutely support what the Bill would do, I contend— I hope that the Minister will pay some attention to this—that we absolutely need to do more to stop such material getting into prisons in the first place, and perhaps the Bill can be amended in Committee to reflect that. Some of the checks are not what they should be. For example, there are what are known as BOSS chairs in prisons—body orifice scanners—that are used to try to stop prisoners bringing stuff into prison with them at the time they are sentenced by secreting it in ever more ingenious and, it seems to me, painful ways. The prisons have these body orifice scanners to try and detect that, but occasionally they will not be working properly or have not been working for a few months and no one has bothered to have them repaired. Alternatively, the prison officers may not have confidence that the scanners can pick up everything that they should. We should do much more to stop the stuff getting through in the first place.

Things also get into prison by being thrown over the wall for prisoners to collect on exercise. Lots of prisons have nets to stop that happening, but the nets should be more extensive.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Would he extend his comments to drugs, which are a serious issue in prisons? If someone who is not on drugs becomes a prisoner, they have a good chance of getting on them while they are in prison. We have to tackle that.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey made clear, drugs getting into prison is a massive issue. They damage the people there, and the fact that so many people take drugs for the first time while they are in prison should appal us. There is also the intimidation among prisoners as they trade this contraband stuff.

I made a point about nets, which should perhaps be mandatory around prisons to make sure that things cannot be thrown over walls. All that is quite easy.

We know that prison staff are sometimes responsible for stuff getting into prisons. That happens for a number of reasons. There is the normal reason of financial corruption: some prison officers are tempted by the money they can make from allowing things into prison, which is always very sad. Lots of prisoners, particularly long-term ones, can be very manipulative and find ever more ingenious ways of manipulating prison officers into doing things and ensnaring them into traps. If a prison officer goes out of their way to do a prisoner a favour, which may seem small and innocuous in the scheme of things, they have broken with procedure. The prisoner then feels that the officer is trapped and asks them to do ever more unacceptable things knowing that if the officer says anything they will be reported to the authorities and may lose their job. Manipulative prisoners sometimes lead prison officers astray in that way.

The Minister will know that, in an untypically timely manner, I have already been bombarding him with parliamentary questions. On one of his first days, I bombarded him with one that asked how many mobile phones and drugs were seized from prisoners in every prison in each of the past two years. I have the list here. Although the Ministry of Justice and I have gone our separate ways on many issues in the past two years, it is without doubt one of the most helpful Departments in giving proper answers to questions; I say that in all seriousness.

Typically, the Ministry gave a very full and thorough answer to my question. I can bore everybody rigid anyway without any props, but I shall resist the temptation to bore the Chamber by reading through how many things are confiscated from each prison. However, if anybody has a particular question about their local prison, I shall be able to help them.

Defamation Bill

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ian Paisley]

That point is worth dwelling on. Another speaker today mentioned that they had been trolled by certain individuals and had decided not to pursue them. Another Member of Parliament made clear their view that trolls should be pursued to the nth degree. I agree with the latter view and with my hon. Friend.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) was trolled on an internet site. It was said that he should be shot. In Northern Ireland such things carry a certain weight. I am glad that that person was prosecuted by the courts and fined. I do not believe that they received a custodial sentence, but I believe they were seriously fined. There needs to be deterrent activity, because people abuse the internet. When my father was in hospital recently, someone thought it was good fun to take a picture of him while he was on a life support machine and to try to publish that on the internet. That person has lost their job and I hope that they go to jail. I believe that that is a gross infringement of people’s privacy and people’s rights.

Such things have an impact on young people in particular. Young people are driven to suicide because of accusations such as that a girl is too fat, or about how they look in school, the job they do or the way they have combed their hair. That can have a debilitating effect on a person’s life, especially in the light of the all-prevailing and all-invasive presence of the social media. We need to take steps to protect people from that.

Lord Mawhinney offered some commendable suggestions in the other place in relation to the requirement for significant penalties for defamation. The law must provide protection against unwarranted or serious damage—in other words, gossip. Gossip has a very damaging impact on the lives of ordinary people and we have to find a way of protecting individuals from that. We must make access to justice a priority and a possibility, but the costs involved currently prevent that from happening. Apologies must be printed in a way that is a deterrent. As I said, a front-page slander, when it is proved to be so, often results in a postage stamp-size apology. That is wrong. Apologies must be printed in a meaningful size, style and weight. I also believe that there should be prior notification before publication, because damages are largely inadequate as a remedy when a person’s reputation has been damaged.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is right about gossip, defamation and the connection to harm, but does he agree that the Bill quite properly expects there to be a definition of serious harm behind a successful prosecution?

[Ian Paisley]

I would like to see the definition of serious harm and think that we might do so in advance of the details in Committee or on Third Reading.

It was Oscar Wilde who said that the truth is rarely pure and never simple, and I think that is why we need a good, sensible and practical law in this field. It is not just a simple matter of something being a lie and someone therefore being able to sue and get a claim; it is the innuendo that the press often uses, the “nudge nudge, wink wink” interpretation that can ruin a person’s reputation and often does more damage than a blatant lie can do. Blatant lies, because they are normally so blatant, are not always believable, but the “nudge nudge, wink wink” innuendo, which is almost a lie but not quite, does more damage and is more reckless. We need to ensure that these laws properly address that type of abuse. As children we often sang the little chorus, “Be careful little tongue what you say,” but the fact of the matter is that the press are not careful in this regard.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Buckland]

My hon. Friend is right to outline, in a better way than I could, the intended progress of any reform to the law of privilege. However, I reiterate that we tamper with article 9 at our peril and should listen carefully to those who urge caution.

I raise this issue to illustrate the piecemeal way in which defamation law has been dealt with. We have let the courts, in their wisdom, develop common law, and that has happened in what many of us would regard as an acceptable way that reflects evolving views about reputational damage but is fundamentally not as directly accountable to the people we serve as it should be. That is why introducing primary legislation of this nature is the right and just thing to do. It shows the people of this country that Parliament is prepared to take a lead on an important issue such as defamation.

[Neil Carmichael]

My hon. Friend is making a good point in connection with the whole basis of the Bill. One of the dangers that we can enter into is to talk too much about technologies and systems, which will move on, change and develop as we go along. I hope he agrees that we need not necessarily just common law but primary legislation that will give us a sound legal footing to deal with defamation.

[Mr Buckland]

My hon. Friend is right. However, we must always bear in mind the ineluctable fact that primary legislation, however useful it is, can often be seen as setting in stone, or setting in a particular moment in time, the law as it then stood. Because of the inevitable pressures in this place of the other priorities that we have to deal with, there is a danger that legislation does not keep pace with change and is not as flexible as judge-led law.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Buckland]

I am grateful for that question. I think that we can reassure ourselves and the people whom we serve by saying the following: when the liberty of the individual and the criminal law are involved, the right to trial by jury should be preserved and enhanced. That is why I was pleased by the provision in the recently enacted Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 that rolled back restrictions on the right to trial by jury in criminal fraud trials. However, we are dealing here with the civil context. If damage to reputation is so important as to merit trial by jury, why is not physical personal injury equally worthy of it? There is a utilitarian argument that demands a system using scant resources and taking scant time, which means that we should be very cautious about extending jury trials to a whole range of civil cases.

I believe that the removal of libel cases from the right to trial by jury leaves us with only malicious prosecution, false imprisonment and a limited number of other civil cases in which one can argue that there is a legitimate public interest in still involving juries in making decisions about the acts or omissions of public authorities. Malicious prosecution cases could involve an act of a prosecuting authority, and we should bear in mind the power that such an authority has vis-à-vis the individual. False imprisonment cases may involve the acts of police officers or a police force in unjustly imprisoning an individual.

[Neil Carmichael]

The question of trials with juries is interesting, because it is about whether a judge is the right person to define and decide what constitutes defamation. He is likely to reach a swifter decision than in a jury process. Surely the quicker that cases about people’s reputation are resolved, the better.

[Mr Buckland]

My hon. Friend is right, and one has to draw a distinction between matters of law, which are always the province of a judge irrespective of whether a jury is involved, and matters of fact. The Lord Chancellor made the point that there may well be cases in which there are classic conflicts of account between individual witnesses. Such cases may require the shrewd judgment of a randomly selected jury of members of the public, who use their experience of the world and their good sense to judge whether, on the balance of probabilities, the claimant’s case is made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Buckland]

Such changes to the civil procedure rules could, and I think should, take place. They would not affect the passage of this primary legislation, so they would not require amendments to the Bill, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point about the need for minds to be concentrated so that the Joint Committee’s noble aspirations can be translated into reality. That point is well made and entirely relevant in the context of the Leveson process. If Leveson achieves nothing else, I want it to provide a mechanism by which the ordinary person in the street can obtain redress of grievance with the minimum cost and at the maximum speed.

Before I was slightly diverted by interventions, I was making a point about the changing context of libel. In the 19th century, the only window into the private lives of the rich and famous was often through the device of the libel trial. How the world has changed. We live in a world in which we have an open door into celebrities’ private lives for the instant gratification of millions of readers, in many cases by the choice of the celebrity concerned. For many celebrities, that is a means by which they make a living. I do not seek to make any pejorative comment about that, but it is a simple fact of modern life.

Not only does the risk to reputation continue to be important, but joined with it is intrusion into people’s private lives. The two issues are different, and I accept that privacy cases are not about correcting falsehoods, as defamation proceedings are. However, they become inextricably linked in many ways when we examine the issues that characterise the debate in both scenarios.

I was part of the Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions, along with the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly) and others. We were grateful to have among our number the noble Lord Mawhinney, who chaired the Joint Committee on the draft Bill, and his input was invaluable in informing us speedily of the progress and deliberations of the latter. The outcome of the investigation by the Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions was somewhat less co-ordinated than that of the Joint Committee on the draft Bill. There were a number of views and a multiplicity of divisions, but at the end of the process I believe that our contribution to the debate about privacy was important. We characterised some of the issues that have been raised today.

The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), who is not in his place now, made remarks about changing and codifying the law. I would not go so far as to support his assertion that we need statutory regulation of the press, but I thoroughly agree with his observation that now is the time for Parliament to take a lead on codifying the law of privacy. Indeed, I put that proposal to the Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions at the end of its deliberations. I was not successful in persuading the majority of members of its merits, but I make no apology for returning to the subject today. I believe not only that the law of defamation should be codified, as it is in this welcome Bill, but that Parliament should take a lead and do likewise to the law of privacy. We should bring together data protection legislation and all the other areas of legislation that deal with intrusion into individuals’ private lives.

[Neil Carmichael]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way for the third or fourth time. I want to talk about an important aspect of the Bill—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman may have read the conventions of the House, which have been re-circulated. An intervention is on a point relevant to the one that the speaker who holds the floor has just made, not a list of abstract points that the hon. Gentleman might want to make. His intervention should be relevant to the point that Mr Buckland has just made.

[Neil Carmichael]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I apologise. The point I was going to make—it is relevant—is that the Bill is not just about defamation and privacy, but about protecting freedom of speech. Does my hon. Friend agree that that must be considered in the debate?

[Mr Buckland]

I shall not disagree, because my hon. Friend supports my point that, in many ways, privacy and defamation are inextricably linked.

I made the point about support for codification of the law on privacy because I believe in Parliament. I come from a legal background and have spent many years dealing with cases in the courts of this land, but I believe it is incumbent on legislators to take a lead and to represent the people of this country by saying, “The law needs updating. It needs to be brought into the 21st century and it needs to reflect the reality of life.” On a daily basis, individuals—famous, infamous or obscure—find that their fundamental rights to privacy are being interfered with, intruded upon and trampled over, not just by an over-mighty press, but by individuals who use social networking tools and the internet, as we have heard.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

That is not part of the Bill as it stands. No doubt, from what the hon. Gentleman says, this is a matter that will be discussed.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

13. What measures are in place to encourage the teaching of literacy in prisons.

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

The basic skills of English and mathematics underpin almost all other learning. Assessing prisoners’ learning needs, and then meeting them, is at the heart of the reforms set out in “Making Prisons Work: Skills for Rehabilitation”, the new offender learning strategy published jointly last year with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

[Neil Carmichael]

Given that a large number of prisoners do not accept the formal education system within the prison, what measures can the Minister use to encourage the Shannon trust’s “toe-by-toe” mentoring scheme?

[Mr Blunt]

I recently met David Ahern, the chief executive of the Shannon Trust, and I assured him that we will continue to support his excellent scheme. I would be surprised if the new arrangements we have put in place for getting the commissioning of offender learning much closer to prisons and the institutions themselves did not see a much greater take-up of schemes such as toe-by-toe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Blunt]

The right hon. Gentleman is on to the very important issue of the continuity of care that is required, particularly for drug and alcohol addicted offenders, from custody into the community. I am delighted to say that the Department of Health’s drug treatment pilots look likely to be a vehicle by which we will be able to identify to areas when prisoners are being discharged to their area, so that they will know when a drug-addicted offender is being discharged to them. We will see how those pilots go, but I think we will have a much more effective system of ensuring that we deal with the gap in provision between when people are in custody and when they are in the community.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

T4. rose—

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

It’s contagious.

[Neil Carmichael]

I have just got a new BlackBerry and I was so impressed with it.

What is the Minister’s overall assessment of the recent Brighton declaration in terms of the European Court of Human Rights?

[Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. It is fair to say that the Brighton declaration was an excellent achievement for Britain. In his speech to Strasbourg on 25 January the Prime Minister outlined three achievements that he hoped for, the first of which was that there should be subsidiarity, with more decision making at the national level in the courts. That has been achieved. The second was that there should be more efficiency in the whole court structure, and that has been achieved. Thirdly, he hoped we would have a greater and better quality of judges in the Court, and that too has been achieved. We are going to have fewer cases going to Strasbourg and those that go will be dealt with efficiently. We dealt with 46 other countries, representing a total population of 800 million citizens, and I think it is a wonderful achievement on the part of Britain’s chairmanship to have got agreement between so many countries.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

There will be a full presentation of all the statistics and evidence relevant to the matter. I assure the hon. Gentleman that matters are in hand and that ALS’s performance is improving significantly. Particular problems remain with two nationality groups of interpreters, who are causing difficulties, but plans are in hand for them, too. [Interruption.] I do not wish to name them at the moment. The matter was in hand within two weeks of the system’s going live. There are weekly reports to me and daily management oversight from the Ministry of Justice. The matter is improving.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

T8. Until now, prisoners who were on the run often managed to stay on the run because the authorities were unable to name them. That is an obvious barrier to their recapture, so will the Minister outline his plans for improving that state of affairs?