Police (Detention and Bail) Bill
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
Perhaps I should explain to Members who were wondering why I was not standing up to speak that I was trying to give others a chance to make a contribution. Some of what I say may appear to repeat aspects of the debate we have already had, and although I do not mind being subjected to barracking, I hope I will not be subjected to barracking over and above what one might normally expect.
As we have now moved into Committee, let me go into a little more detail. To be fair to the Minister, a few moments ago he could have done with a little more time to address some of the measures he is trying to rush through. Clause 1 is essentially the Bill, so it is almost as if we are repeating Second Reading, but let me say again from the outset that we support the provisions in clause 1. We absolutely agree that we need to fast-track the Bill, and the reasons for that are well set out in the explanatory memorandum.
Earlier, the shadow Home Secretary was trying to elicit from the Government answers to two key questions on fast-tracking and the legal advice and preparation—or lack of it—that the Home Office made in introducing the Bill. First, our understanding is that the Attorney-General was asked by the Supreme Court to intervene in the public interest in the application for a stay of judgment. Did the Attorney-General intervene and support the Government? Was he involved in seeking that stay of judgment in the Supreme Court? As I say, we support the fast-tracking of the Bill, but secondly, will the Minister tell us when the Home Office commissioned officials to draw up draft legislation? It would be of interest to us all to know when that advice was commissioned, so that we could have greater clarity about the Bill and the speed with which the Home Office acted. Our view is that it did not act as quickly as it might or should have done.
We do not, in any way, underestimate the importance of and need for speed in this matter, as 80,000 individuals are currently on police bail. If hon. Members have not had the opportunity to look at the submission from The Trade Union and Professional Association for Family Court and Probation Staff—NAPO—I urge them to examine it. That body has put together some case studies that illustrate some of the difficulties that have arisen as a result of the judgments. I shall just discuss one of its examples, which relates to a 24-year-old man arrested on suspicion of an alcohol-fuelled assault and affray. He was held in cells overnight to sober up, and it is believed that that counts towards the 96 hours. His interview was then delayed for a further two hours to wait for the duty solicitor. He was then bailed on condition that he avoided the victim and the pub, and the police are now collecting witness statements and forensic analysis from the site. Five days have already passed since the incident, and so the bail conditions will fall. NAPO’s submission contains other examples, which are set out for the Committee. Those case studies are extremely important and they show why the Government have introduced this fast-track Bill.
In the previous debate the Minister started to respond to some of the questions posed by hon. Members from both sides of the House. If we examine what Liberty, Justice and many hon. Members have said about the Bill, we find that everyone accepts the need for it to be fast-tracked. However, we need to consider what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) was saying, as it goes to the heart of the matter. As he set out, the Bill contains no sunset clause and, irrespective of whether or not that is the right way to proceed, that does not mean that the Government should not consider some of the issues that people have raised. The fact that everyone accepts the need for it to be fast-tracked does not mean that we should not address the issues relating to time limits for how long somebody can and should be able to remain on police bail, and those concerning some of the conditions that are attached to bail.
I believe that the Minister said earlier that the system had been operating for 25 years without anybody raising such issues and so there was not previously a problem. I do not mean to misquote him, and apologise if I am doing so, but the fact—or not—that these issues have not been raised before does not mean that the Government should not consider examining those that have arisen as a consequence of the judgment. There needs to be a debate. Given that the Bill contains no sunset clause, will the Minister say whether he feels that there is a need for a debate about time limits and the application of conditions in police bail, just to see whether any change to the guidance should be made? There may well be no need as a result of that debate to make such a change, but all this throws up an opportunity for us to discuss with the police and others whether any change is needed.
Business of the House (Police (Detention and Bail) Bill)
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Lorraine Fullbrook (South Ribble) (Con)
I am grateful for being called to speak in this debate on emergency legislation for police bail. It is fitting on this occasion to extend our sincere sympathy and condolences to the victims of the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London. I am sure our thoughts are with them on this day.
This is a very short Bill, so I will make my comments brief. We are here to debate this emergency legislation today because—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. The hon. Member may be straying into the next debate. At the moment, we are debating just the programme motion.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Before I call the Lord Chancellor, I should say that this Second Reading debate is well subscribed. There is an eight-minute limit on Back-Bench contributions. I ask Front Benchers from both sides to use their restraint, so that more Back Benchers can speak. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I have never said anything so popular in my life.
Given the number who have subscribed, I ask Members not to approach the Chair to ask where they are on the list; those who have approached or written to Mr Speaker will be on the list.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. May I remind the House how many Members wish to contribute? Our mission should be to limit our interventions.
Mr Clarke
I have already said that access to justice is fundamental, but the fact is that the taxpayer’s money cannot be used to give access to justice to large numbers of people in large areas of law where the ordinary citizen would not contemplate litigating because the ordinary citizen on an ordinary income would not think that they could afford to embark on it. That is why we consulted very carefully. We concentrated on vulnerable people and on those areas that were of such importance that society as a whole would plainly feel that there was a need to finance people of limited means so that they could have access to justice. I ask the right hon. Lady to judge all our proposals on that basis. Lady Hale seemed to think that we were abolishing other access on the basis that people were using it too much. That is not the reason. But we do have a system that is four times as expensive as that of New Zealand. We have to concentrate the mind and decide what it is justified to expect the taxpayer to pay for.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. There is an eight-minute limit on Back-Bench contributions, but clearly hon. Members do not have to take eight minutes. There is injury time for two interventions, but they do not have to take any of those either.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Before I call the next speaker let me say that a number of Members have complained about the near-sub-zero temperatures in the Chamber—I understand that it is a lovely day outside. I have informed the doorkeepers and this will be rectified.
Mr Burrowes
There is not time, unfortunately.
We will ensure that that is done across the country—paying people to get into work, to stop reoffending and to ensure that they get off drugs. We are driving through a much more ambitious agenda of recovery to stop this everlasting cycle of criminality—being on drugs, committing crime to feed a drugs habit, going to prison and so on. We will break that cycle of crime.
There are concerns, whether it is magistrates wanting to extend the period of imprisonment to the maximum of 12 months or on legal aid, but this is a good Bill that—
Sentencing
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Richard Graham
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I ask whether I correctly heard what the right hon. Gentleman said? Did he accuse me of misleading the House in the figures I mentioned in my question to him?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
As I recall, the right hon. Gentleman said quite the reverse: he said you were not misleading the House intentionally.
Richard Graham
Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Did the right hon. Gentleman therefore accept that what I said was factually accurate?
Mr Deputy Speaker
To save a bit of time, let me say that it might be more appropriate for that question to be asked in an intervention on the shadow Secretary of State.
Sadiq Khan
I am afraid I have no idea what that point of order was about, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. There is a six-minute limit on Back-Bench contributions, but if Members can get their points across in less than six minutes, they will be helping their colleagues.
Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the Secretary of State, who presented a familiar face. There was a mixture of pragmatism, an element of bluster and just the occasional shaft of precision in his argument.
I begin by making an obvious point, and I do so at the risk of sounding like Michael Howard, now Lord Howard. We often lose sight of part of the meaning of what he said on the subject. Prison does work, at least to a limited extent. It seems to me an incontestable fact that while somebody is locked up in prison, they cannot commit offences out in the community. There have been many cases in my constituency over the years in which people have been given a custodial sentence and been taken out of the community, even if only for three or six months, and there has been an appreciable difference in the crime rate. Local police inspectors and senior officers in my area, and I am sure in other areas, will attest to the fact that prison works in those circumstances.
In my remaining time, I wish to cover two issues, the first of which is sentencing in general, which is the main subject of the debate. I approach it from the vantage point—or it might be a disadvantage point—of having sat on the Gage working group, which reported in July 2008. I will refer briefly to that report, then I want to say a word about community sentences.
The Gage working group examined, among many other things, the causes of the increased prison population to which the Secretary of State referred. We highlighted nine points. I will not go through all of them—time forbids, and in any event the Secretary of State has already referred to them, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) has covered the same points. However, I wish to pick out one of the nine, because the Secretary of State made a great point of talking about reoffending. Point (5) in paragraph 2.2, on page 5 of the report, states that
“re-offending including breaches of supervision, licence recall, suspended sentences and community orders”
is one of the drivers that increase the prison population. I shall come back to that point later, but it is important to recognise that the prison population increased for reasons relating to the alternatives to prison sentences.
This month, the new Sentencing Council, which was established from the Gage commission and subsequent legislation, produced a survey, “Attitudes to guilty plea sentence reductions”, which is germane to this point—it is included in the note produced by the House of Commons Library. I shall focus on three of the survey’s findings that have some force, the first of which is a point that the Secretary of State used to criticised my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting. First, the survey states:
“The public assume that the key motivation for the guilty plea sentence reduction is to reduce resources (time and money)…There is a strong sense that the drive for cost savings should not impact on a system effectively delivering justice.”
Secondly, it states:
“For the general public, there was weak support for higher levels of reductions beyond the current guideline range of up to 33%”.
Thirdly, it states:
“The public (and some victims and witnesses) do not like the idea of a universal approach to reductions”.
There is therefore a strong disconnect between the Secretary of State’s proposals and how the public feel things need to be handled, which is a real problem. I accept that he is making a genuine attempt to address the issue—he is not one for eye-catching initiatives. However, he has not won over the public, and he certainly has not won over large numbers of his own Back Benchers, and for that—
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I have now to announce the result of a Division deferred from a previous day. On the question relating to local government, the Ayes were 297 and the Noes were 187, so the Ayes have it.
[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]
New Clause 5
Memorandum of Understanding
‘(1) The Secretary of State must publish a Memorandum of Understanding on the Operational Responsibility of Chief Constables detailing where their actions shall be independent of the Police and Crime Commissioner.
(2) The Secretary of State may by regulations made by statutory instrument bring into force the Memorandum of Understanding published under subsection (1).
(3) Regulations under subsection (2) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.’.—(Vernon Coaker.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mr Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 149, page 2, line 44, clause 2, at end insert—
‘such that the police and crime commissioner shall have no involvement in decisions with respect to individual investigations and arrests.’.
Amendment 155, page 4, line 15, clause 3, at end insert—
‘(8A) The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime must not ask, require or encourage the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis to act in a manner which could—
(a) put the Commissioner in breach of his attestation under oath in accordance with Schedule 4 of the Police Act 1996; or
(b) conflict with the Commissioner’s exercise of direction and control under section 4(3).
(8B) If the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis reasonably believes that the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime has asked, required or encouraged him to act in a manner that is prohibited under subsection (8A), he may notify the London Assembly police and crime panel.
(8C) For the avoidance of doubt, any purported direction by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime under subsection (8A) has no legal effect.’.
Vernon Coaker
This group of provisions is smaller, but none the less important. It is difficult for us to discuss new clause 5 without a draft of the code of practice, memorandum of understanding or protocol, as we are now to call it. He will know that in Committee I consistently and persistently asked for a draft to be ready for our consideration. To be fair, he did not say that one would be ready for Report, and I am not suggesting that he did, but I expected that a draft of a draft of a draft would be available, and I think that most members of the Committee would have expected the same.
A huge change to policing is being made. The Minister and the Government have accepted what I said and what was in the Home Affairs Committee report, which was that such is the importance of the protocol detailing the responsibility of the police and crime commissioner vis-à-vis the chief constable—others, for example, the police and crime panel, could be included, as has been suggested—we should have it, yet we are discussing it without knowing even what shape it will be. We do not even know what things might be included in it. The Minister will say, “Don’t worry, it will be ready for the House of Lords.” Why should this House not have a draft available to it, so that it can consider what is in the protocol and make representations about it?
We have no way of knowing what will be in the protocol. Let us suppose it contains things that members of the Committee think should not be in it. I do not know what influence the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) will have, but what happens if he does not agree with what is in it? He will have no opportunity to say anything about it. The hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) served on the Committee with the hon. Member for Cambridge. What happens if he thinks that the protocol should not include one thing but should include another? Why should we not be able to look at it?
If the Minister was stood where I am and I was sat where he is, he would be saying exactly the same thing to me. He would be saying that it is impossible for us to legislate properly because we simply do not know what we are legislating about. It is not good enough to say, “Don’t worry, it will go to the House of Lords.” We have the most fundamental change in policing before us and we have no idea what the Government’s protocol is, although they have accepted that we should have it—that is not good enough. I do not believe that hon. Members on either side of the House would think, either in public or in private, that that is acceptable either. How does, “It will be ready for the Lords” help us to discuss this?
New clause 5 states that any such protocol must have some statutory force. The Association of Chief Police Officers believes it should be enshrined in primary legislation. The Minister said that would be very difficult, so we looked at whether an order-making power could be introduced to allow us to consider the protocol, as it would then be subject to the affirmative procedure in this House and the House of Lords.
Anonymity (Arrested Persons) Bill
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
I shall begin with the usual courtesy of congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) on her success in the ballot and on introducing a proposal that has produced an interesting and thought-provoking debate. I applaud in particular her commitment to this issue, which is founded on a depth of relevant experience and genuine concern about the damage that inappropriate or excessive media coverage can do under certain circumstances. Very few hon. Members have her combination of qualifications and experience to address the issue with such authority, so it is not surprising that her success in the ballot should result in her introducing this Bill.
Before I come to the substance of the Government’s position, I shall reflect on the debate. We heard an admirably concise contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), who made clear his support for the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) made his usual learned contribution on the law in this area, and made an excellent contribution to our debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) is no longer in the Chamber, but he made it clear that the subject ought to receive consideration. Indeed, it received such consideration from my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), who made what I understand is his usual contribution to the examination of matters on a Friday.
The Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello), made clear his concern about the Bill. On reflection, he may reconsider the wisdom of taking interventions from my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe in future. We saw the first part of his argument exploded because of his misunderstanding of the Worboys case. Rather unwisely, he decided to take a another intervention on the point that he was making about the role of a bereaved family in an active case and the possibility of them having direct influence on the issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe delivered a one-two to the hon. Gentleman. I hope that I shall not provoke her too much in the course of my remarks, or ever find myself on the wrong end of a cross-examination by her if she returns to being a barrister.
My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) made an admirably liberal contribution—wholly commendable though, from my point of view, marginally unexpected, and with admirable regard for the need to respect the fiscal position of the Government and the taxpayers’ interest. He, like the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South, made clear the attachment to the principle of open justice. I noted the attachment of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley to full transparency, public knowledge and the need to avoid
“inaccurate and uninformed comment about proceedings.”
I may return to that later.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe explained, her Bill aims to protect members of the public from media reporting where they have been arrested but not charged with an offence. This proposal responds to public concern about an issue highlighted in a recent high-profile case. Clearly, the Bill touches on a controversial area of law and policy, with potentially wide implications for the way in which our press, our courts and our wider justice system work. It is the sort of area that, I am sure Members will agree, needs to be approached with some caution, forethought and careful deliberation.
With that in mind, I want to respond to my hon. Friend’s proposals in a thorough and structured way. I will look first at the current legal position, which is more complicated and detailed than is sometimes realised. I will examine in more depth previous proposals to change the law, which are highly relevant to the Bill. These include previous measures explored by the coalition to address the vexed issue of anonymity in rape cases. I will then turn to the substance of the matter—the general issues raised by the Bill, and its evidence base. In conclusion I will say a little about its detailed contents and make the Government’s position clear.
Let me say now that we do not at this time think that we can support a statutory prohibition on the reporting of arrests pre-charge, but I will go on to say what measures we will be taking, and I hope that they will provide my hon. Friend and her supporters with a degree of comfort.
Under the present law, the media are broadly free to report the identity of suspects at all stages of the criminal process—when they are under investigation, when they are arrested, and when they are charged. The media are free also to report criminal trials, subject to a range of statutory and common-law reporting restrictions, which are designed to protect the integrity of criminal proceedings. There are protections in the law to try to stop individuals being pilloried in the press, including libel provisions and, where comment may be prejudicial to any future proceedings, contempt.
Taken together, these arrangements reflect our long and proud common law tradition of open justice and article 6 of the European convention on human rights, which guarantees the open justice principle. In its words, in
“the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. Judgement shall be pronounced publicly”.
However, article 6 permits exceptions to the general rule of open reporting, as follows:
“the press and public may be excluded from all or part of the trial in the interest of morals, public order or national security in a democratic society, where the interests of juveniles or the protection of the private life of the parties so require, or the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice”.
It has long been the statutory position under our law in cases involving national security, for example, that the judge has the power to exclude the public and media from the courtroom during the trial.
There have been a number of proposals for changing the law in modern times, and this is one of those areas of recurring interest to Parliament. The real starting point was section 6 of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1976, which granted anonymity to defendants in rape cases. Of course, that measure applied only after charge, whereas the present Bill would grant anonymity between arrest and charge. The 1976 Act does, however, usefully flag up at the outset the fact that different options are available where the timing of the anonymity is concerned, and I will return to that subject later.
The 1976 Act’s provisions were duly repealed in 1988 and one has to jump forward 11 years, to 1999, for the next important developments. In that year the previous Administration enacted the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, section 44 of which imposed anonymity at the pre-charge stage to persons under 18 years old who are involved in criminal investigations, including suspects. Thus, the 1999 Act provides a statutory precedent to the measures in the Bill—a precedent expressly limited to children and young persons—but it is also important to understand that this legislation has never been brought into force.
It was also in 1999 that I introduced the Sexual Offences (Anonymity of Defendants) Bill. As I reminded the House last summer, I have some form in this area. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe referred to it, but in the context of the debate about rape anonymity, and as I will come to reflect on, we have proposals that achieve the objective that I set out in the Education Bill that is before the House. The purpose of my Bill was to protect teachers from the consequences of accusations by children who have anonymity, and from the subsequent reporting of such allegations. As some hon. Members may recall, my Bill was prompted by the suicide of a constituent, Nick Drewett, a teacher who took his own life after being accused of behaving improperly with pupils in his care. This was a tragic example of the cost of unfounded allegations. The headmaster who was accused alongside him was subsequently acquitted. My experience here is one reason why I am delighted that the coalition is bringing forward legislation to deal with the problem of false allegations against teachers.
The subject was then debated in great depth during the passage of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Even before those debates developed, the Home Affairs Committee had recommended granting pre-charge anonymity to suspects in sexual offence cases. It will be noted that on this occasion the anonymity would have dealt with a narrow class of offences where there was thought to be particular difficulty—namely, sexual offences—and would not have applied to all criminal offences as the present Bill does.
The subject was debated in very great depth in this House and in the other place during the passage of the Act. As I hope some hon. Members will recall, matters began on that occasion when the Cross Bencher, Lord Ackner, the late former Law Lord, tabled an amendment to the Sexual Offences Bill in the other place. Lord Ackner's view was that defendant anonymity in rape cases had worked well between 1976 and 1988. He had, as he said,
“heard nothing to suggest that during those 12 years there were occasions when it worked to the disadvantage of justice. I have not limited my request to pre-trial because pre-trial is only part of the issue.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 June 2003; Vol. 648, c. 1095.]
The anonymity proposed by Lord Ackner would, in terms of his amendment, have been the same as that enjoyed by the complainant. It would therefore have applied from the point of the allegation for life, unless of course the defendant was convicted.
There was then, as I say, considerable debate in both Houses, not least about the point at which the anonymity should apply, pre or post-charge. The Government of the day accepted the desirability of pre-charge anonymity in sexual offence cases in principle, but preferred a non-legislative solution. Concerns raised during the passage of the Bill about media reporting in certain cases did not lead to a substantive change to the editors’ code of practice, which continues to contain no steer against pre-charge reporting of the identity of those suspected but not charged. The media’s guidelines accordingly differ somewhat from the approach taken in the guidance from the Association of Chief Police Officers, which makes it clear that police officers should not normally disclose the identity of suspects under investigation. That remains the position today. There has been some development in that guidance. ACPO’s media advisory group produced clear guidance and advice in December 2000 and in 2002, paragraph 1.1 of which states:
“Generally people under investigation should not be named but they can and will, with certain exceptions, be identified once they have been charged. This approach balances the principle of open justice with the rights of the individual to privacy, a fair trial and damage to the reputation of an individual if no charge is made against them”.
ACPO, in conjunction with the media, has produced an updated statement on the position today. It does not contain that paragraph, but that is because it is really a statement of what the position is. I have been careful to take advice and want to make it clear that the guidance to police remains exactly as it was in 2000 and 2002.
Most recently, our coalition programme for government contained two commitments on anonymity: first, to extend anonymity in rape cases to defendants; and, secondly, to give anonymity to teachers accused by pupils and to take other measures to protect against false allegations. The first was of course the subject of much debate inside and outside the House, and the question of the timing of anonymity in criminal cases again came to the forefront, as did the kinds of offences to which anonymity might apply.
Very properly, the examination in Parliament of our coalition agreement proposal helped to trigger a careful re-examination of the evidence base for the proposition set out in the election programmes of both coalition parties, and the role of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe in that debate was not insignificant, as was made clear in her excellent speech of 8 July. It was a very good debate, showing the House at its best. Using the resources of the excellent team of analysts in the Ministry of Justice, we reached the conclusion, which I announced to Parliament on 12 November, that the evidence base was not strong enough for the Government to proceed with the proposals.
However, our commitment to giving anonymity to teachers is being taken forward in the Education Bill, which I hope Members on both sides of the House will welcome. On that subject, we have said:
“We will give teachers the strongest possible protection from false accusations. We will give anonymity to teachers facing accusations from pupils. This Government want to put an end to rumours and malicious gossip about innocent teachers which can ruin careers and even lives.”—[Official Report, 7 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 12WS.]
In the case of the Education Bill, the anonymity will apply from the point of allegation to the point of charge, so again there is a difference from what my hon. Friend’s Bill proposes. The anonymity set out in the Education Bill applies to only a limited range of offences that are particularly likely to attract false allegations against teachers. Again, that represents quite a difference from my hon. Friend’s Bill.
Having summarised the somewhat convoluted background, I believe that it casts important light on the Bill in a number of areas. First, there is the question of the evidence base. Some people will no doubt argue that recent events, about which I will make no specific comment, prove that there is a case for replacing media self-regulation in this area with a statutory prohibition, such as that set out in the Bill. My hon. Friend herself has been quoted in the press as saying that
“since the media don’t seem able to regulate themselves, Parliament should do something about it”,
which puts the point with commendable directness.
I urge a degree of caution. The Government only recently withdrew our commitment set out in the coalition programme to grant anonymity in rape cases to defendants, having discovered on closer examination that there was insufficient evidence either for or against the proposal. That ought to alert us to the sensitivities of intervening in this area. We need to be a little wary of assuming that individual hard cases, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) said, however hard or egregious they might seem, constitute evidence of a widespread or pressing social problem sufficient to justify interference with long-standing freedoms.
This country has a long and proud tradition of media independence, an important part of which is self-regulation. It is not impossible to question how effectively that self-regulation is operating, but we should not interfere with it lightly. Any interventions on the subject need significant reflection and widespread consultation, and they should proceed as far as possible on the basis of consensus.
Secondly, it is noticeable that, compared with previous initiatives, the Bill imposes anonymity on an all-crime basis, applying to all criminal offences alike, including purely summary offences. That represents a departure from the view, evident in previous proposals, that anonymity may be justified only to address specific difficulties—for example, where particular kinds of offence are concerned.
Thirdly, on timing, the Bill applies the anonymity from the point of arrest to the point of charge only. That interesting approach has received little if any attention in the past, and I shall reflect on the detailed contents of the Bill by looking more closely at the issue of timing.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe has explained, the Bill’s intention is to impose a general restriction on reporting from the point of arrest to the point of charge. The choice of the point of arrest as the starting point for anonymity means that a person who attends the police voluntarily for interview will not be subject to reporting restrictions, whereas there will be a media blackout for a suspect who is arrested. At first sight, the comparison is a little worrying, and it certainly prompts further thought.
Perhaps more importantly, as I have noted, the Bill prohibits the reporting of any arrested person’s identity, whatever the offence, without a court order. That is perhaps the greatest question raised by the Bill’s contents: whether there should be a prohibition on purely factual reporting merely by virtue of the fact that it concerns an arrest. There is clearly an argument that, in some cases at least, the media should have the right to report the facts unless there is a court order to the contrary. Again, we would like to reflect further and deliberate fully ahead of taking action on a clear issue of general principle.
I commend my hon. Friend for the safeguards that she has incorporated in her Bill. Clause 2 enables the restrictions to be waived either by the court itself or on an application by the person who has been arrested, the police, a prosecutor or any other person with a sufficient interest, which we take to include the media. That helps to address the admirable liberal arguments that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) advanced in an intervention concerning potential police access. I am looking to see whether he is in his place, but he is not, which is a shame, because I have one or two things to say about another of his interventions, in that case on our hon. Friend the Member for Bury North, which was not quite as helpful or as accurate.
Reflecting on the determination of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley to avoid inaccurate or uninformed comment about proceedings, I want to put on the record the fact that his statement about the Government being in the business of releasing prisoners before they have ended their sentence is wholly and woefully inaccurate. He has misunderstood the admirable speech in June by my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor, who made clear the inefficacy of short sentences in rehabilitating offenders. It led him to the conclusion that we would not have short sentences at all and all those people would otherwise be released. That is wholly and woefully wide of the mark.
If one is going to try to avoid—in some circumstances—short sentences, one is going to be taken in two directions. One will need more effective community punishment, with more public confidence in the idea that people can be punished effectively and rehabilitated more effectively in the community; but at the same time one might need longer sentences, particularly for the sort of people to whom my hon. Friend referred. That does not mean I spend my time in the Ministry of Justice signing Executive release orders to drive the prison population down. That is not the case.
We estimate that by the end of this Parliament the prison population will be 3,000 lower than it is now. I want to make it clear that that is an estimate, not a target. This Government will continue to incarcerate those whom the courts send to prison. I hope that that clarification will serve my hon. Friend well when he reads it in the record, and that we will not hear any more of the inaccurate nonsense suggesting that our proposals on offender management—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I have given the Minister a bit of latitude, but could he now get back to the Bill?
Mr Blunt
I am extremely grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker. Given that our policy is so widely misrepresented, I intend to take every opportunity to make it clear what our actual policy is until not only am I bored rigid by it, but so is everybody else.
My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley expressed concern about the cost to the courts and the Prison Service of all the people who would be arrested and locked up under the proposals of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe. I am happy to say that that is not one of the Government’s objections. However, these are very difficult times economically, and we would want to consider carefully the practical implications of the application procedure and whether the Crown court or the magistrates court would be the appropriate venue.
The criteria for lifting the restrictions on a case-by-case basis, as set out in clause 2, are very broadly drawn. They would enable the restrictions to be lifted on human rights grounds, in the interests of justice, or in the public interest. The fact that the exceptions to the reporting restriction are so broadly drawn highlights once again the central question of principle—that of whether the default position of a prohibition on factual reporting is the right one. Again, we would like to reflect further on that.
Turning to the territorial extent of the provisions, the Bill would apply to England and Wales only. This point was made by my hon. Friends the Member for Bury North and for Carshalton and Wallington. The more usual position is for legislation imposing reporting restrictions to apply on a UK-wide basis. It is a question of enforceability, as we heard repeatedly during the debate, and also of policy consistency between the three jurisdictions.
Clause 3 raises the interesting question of consent. It would require the Director of Public Prosecutions, the director of the Serious Fraud Office or the director of Revenue and Customs Prosecutions to give their consent before anybody could be charged with an offence under the Bill. Other legislation gives the power to consent to certain highly sensitive prosecutions to the Attorney-General, and the coalition would need to take its own view on which the appropriate consenting authority should be.
In summary, I warmly welcome the debate that this Bill has prompted on a matter about which I recognise there has been recent public concern. However, I think that Members will not be surprised to hear my overall conclusion. Largely for the reasons I have set out, I regret that the Government are unable to lend the Bill their support. This is, in part, a matter of the detail of the proposals, be it on timing or on the precise nature of the safeguards. More substantively, it prompts the question of whether the use of legislative solutions is the right answer or whether more proportionate approaches are available.
I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe shares my concerns about the quantity of legislation that has been passed here in the past 13 years. There have been 21 criminal justice Acts of one sort or another in that period. Of all the people in this House, my hon. Friend, as a former practising criminal barrister, will have been the victim of all the changes imposed on the law and will have kept up to date with it. I am sure that she would wish it had been otherwise.
The question was posed as to how many thousands of new criminal offences have been created in the past 13 years. I fear I must tell the House that there have been so many thousand new criminal offences coming from so many different Government Departments of one sort or another that it is difficult to get a wholly and reliably accurate answer about the exact number that have been put on to the statute book. It is tricky getting it to the nearest one or two when there are so many thousands, particularly as they come from all sorts of different legislation brought to Parliament by several different Departments. I am reminded of St Bernard’s maxim, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Perhaps another relevant aphorism is, “Legislate in haste, repeal at leisure.”
Although I thank my hon. Friend for airing these issues, we cannot support them today. What is at stake is the balance between competing interests and we need to get that right. I support the idea that we need to avoid unfounded slurs and speculation damaging the lives of innocent people. Punishments before and without trial are wrong. Equally, the media have raised the prospect of a world of
“secret arrests and anonymised justice”.
That is not where we would like to end up either.
What I can say, which I hope will offer a degree of reassurance to my hon. Friend, is that the Government do not intend to ignore the issues she has raised. We intend to consider whether the laws on contempt and pre-charge reporting contain gaps that may impede justice. I note the contributions of my hon. Friends the Members for Bury North and for South Swindon on the operation of the Contempt of Court Act. The laws on contempt and pre-charge reporting merit further consideration because of the complexity of the regulation in this area and the interests that need to be balanced carefully. This debate is important enough to deserve clarity, not confusion. That may take some time. I know that there are strong views on all sides of this debate and I look forward to debating them further in due course, having had the benefit of further consideration by the Attorney-General.
Legal Aid Reform
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)
I had hoped to speak for about 25 minutes, but I find that I have to cut my speech down to four minutes, so I shall be to the point and abrupt.
I wish to make a plea to the Minister about lawyers who fight against corporate, local government and Government bodies that are under serious pressure to make serious cuts and sometimes get things wrong to the detriment of the most vulnerable in our communities. I wish to set out a particular case to the Minister, because I believe that the Legal Services Commission is already taking action to cut expenditure sizeably, but should not be doing it in quite the way that it is.
I wish to talk about a company called Hossacks Solicitors, which is one of the 78 legal companies that fight on behalf of community services. It has done a tremendous job—I have been on the wrong end of it on occasions in the past. However, in 2010 the LSC, which had granted a contract to Hossacks to fight a legal matter, said that it had issued the contract in error. The company disputed that fact on the grounds that it had entered into a binding legal contract with the LSC. The LSC replied on 6 January this year, terminating the contract in its entirety. The company appealed and was told that the appeal would be heard within two weeks. It has now been told that it will not be heard until the end of March, by which time many of the budgets will be set and many of the cuts will be beginning to bite. That is too late for the vulnerable people Hossacks was going to represent.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Is the hon. Gentleman talking about a live case?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I call Karl Turner, who can take two minutes. You have to sit down at 5.35 pm, please.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) on securing the debate.
In the two minutes that I have, I shall concentrate on the citizens advice bureau in my area. I met the chief executive, Lesley Thornley, on Tuesday, and she highlighted the real problems that she thinks the CAB will suffer from. There seems to be a triple whammy. First, the financial inclusion fund will be gone. Some 50% of the advice that the CAB in my area provides is debt management advice, and she is concerned about what will happen to the people affected as a result of that cut. Secondly, there are the real-terms cuts to legal aid, and thirdly there are the cuts to the local authority, which she tells me will lead to 42% cuts to her CAB. She highlighted the fact that the Birmingham CAB is closing as a result of cuts, and she is very worried that the CAB in my area will also close.
I have spoken on numerous occasions to solicitors in my area, including very recently to Mr Waddington of Williamsons solicitors. He tells me that this issue is about access to justice. Publicly funded lawyers do not go into the job to earn big sums of money, just as teachers do not go into teaching to do so. Will the Minister ensure that he looks very seriously at the proposals? Vulnerable people will suffer as a consequence of the Government’s programme.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I will ask that your short speech does not count against you in relation to the number of times that you have spoken.
Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, whose leadership heads the most incompetent quango in the country, has today published a “name and shame” of Members of Parliament who, in its mind, have made claims to which they were not entitled. Among those names is mine, but I have to tell the House that the payment was made to me in full on 13 December. IPSA knew that. Admittedly, it took two months to pay, but it acknowledged that the claim was legitimate and it was paid. However, my name appears in a list of those who had a claim refused. What action can be taken by Members who have been maligned—one could argue libelled and slandered—by this incompetent organisation?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I believe that the hon. Gentleman is a member of the Speaker’s Panel on IPSA, and I am almost tempted to ask him to refer this matter to himself, but I will not do that. He knows that the matter that he has raised is not a procedural point for the Chair, but he has put his views on the record and he knows that there are other ways of taking the matter further.
Public Disorder (NUS Rally)
Nigel Evans Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Ed Balls
I will repeat the question, because some hon. Members did not want to hear it. I am asking for assurance from the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice and the Home Secretary that they are confident that the police will have the resources they need in the coming year to deal with threats to our national security, to tackle organised crime, to ensure safe and successful Olympic and Paralympic games, to continue to provide neighbourhood police visible in all our communities, and to ensure public order at major events without stretching the thin blue line to breaking point.
Nick Herbert
Neither I nor the Government have anything against bearded people—or even against anti-capitalists, although we may disagree with them. We do, however, take issue with those who resort to violence, criminal damage and intimidation. It is clear that a small minority came along to yesterday’s demonstration intent on pursuing those acts. They have been disowned by the president of the National Union of Students, as the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) pointed out, and it is only fair not to characterise the rest of the demonstration by association with the actions of that thuggish minority.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I think that Mr Efford will be reassured by that response.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
Speaking as a hirsute Member of Parliament, I am pleased that the Policing Minister is not going to discriminate against my minority. It is important that we all condemn the violence that took place and commend the officers who acted very bravely in difficult circumstances, but we need to remember that more than 50,000 students and lecturers protested peacefully yesterday, as is their right. There was just a tiny minority whom the Prime Minister described as
“a bunch of people who were intent on violence and destruction”.
Perhaps he was recalling his Bullingdon club days. Given the intelligence gathering done by the police, why were they taken by surprise when so many people travelled quite a long way to get to London in order to protest? Surely they should have been aware of the numbers of people likely to be there. There is a history of this, as I know from my previous profession, having been caught up in a previous demonstration when students blocked some of the bridges in London. Why were the police not prepared?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Please may we have no more statements, just questions? Otherwise a great many Members will be disappointed.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
When the Minister reviews the way in which the event was policed, will he confirm that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary’s recommendations on adapting to protests were followed by the Met in this case?
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
Yesterday’s demonstration was organised jointly by the University and College Union and the National Union of Students, and 50,000 people came and were well behaved. However, witnesses have said that when the assaults on the building took place, that was organised by telephone and people pulled up their hoods: it was an organised event. Why was there a failure in the intelligence, therefore? Why was the building not—