Crime and Courts Bill [Lords]

Paul Goggins Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

My earlier ministerial responsibility in the Home Office tempts me to say a great deal about the Bill, which I recognise as a classic Home Office Christmas tree Bill. If time allowed, I would want to say more about why I believe clause 30 to be completely unnecessary, given the repeated assurances of the police and Crown Prosecution Service that if householders act instinctively and honestly in defending themselves they will always find the law on their side. I would also want to say a little more about my views on clause 38, although the Home Secretary has confirmed the Government’s position on that. I welcome that decision—[Interruption.] I gather that my welcome is welcomed, but I doubt that the sky will fall in as a result of the Government’s decision. We shall see.

In the time available, I want to focus on two particular areas. The first concerns clause 31 and schedule 15, which deal with non-custodial sentencing. I support part 4 of schedule 15, which deals with electronic monitoring. Tagging continues to play an important part in the criminal justice system, but there is a case for extending electronic monitoring beyond that and including location monitoring. In certain cases, the technology is available, at a cost that is coming down all the time, to allow individuals who pose a threat to others or the wider community to be monitored. I hope that the Home Secretary and other Ministers will take the new power when it is enacted and use it imaginatively to enhance public protection.

I have less problem than some of my good friends in the House of Lords with making it mandatory for community sentencing to have a punitive element. The Home Secretary is right. If victims and the public at large are to be expected to have confidence in community sentencing and if we are to ensure that prison is reserved for the serious and dangerous offenders, the public will expect a punitive element to that sentencing. Great care should be exercised, however, and it is important that the Minister should offer assurances tonight and in Committee about the care that is being taken to ensure that the punitive element is purposeful and offers protection for vulnerable offenders, particularly those who suffer from mental health problems. It is entirely possible for a punitive element to be rehabilitative at the same time. When we make such provisions, we need to trust the sentencers to ensure that they get the balance right between all the different principles of sentencing in each individual case.

I welcome part 7 of schedule 15, which could be renamed the Corston clause. It requires that special provision should be made for female offenders. We have talked about that for a long time and Baroness Corston did some amazing work in her report. She, like many others, continues to advocate that provision and part 7 gives legislative enforcement to her recommendations.

I am strongly in favour of part 2 of schedule 15, which covers the deferral of sentence to allow for restorative justice. We are all increasingly agreed that if an apology, explanation or some form of reparation can be offered to a victim of a crime that helps them to rebuild their lives following the trauma that they have had to face, we should all support that. That is at the heart of what restorative justice is all about. More detail is needed, and I hope that in Committee Members will have the opportunity to explore in more detail what might be required to use the provisions in the Bill as a launch pad for further development.

The Bill sets a time limit of up to six months for the deferral. That is too vague. I draw the Home Secretary’s attention to the Northern Ireland Youth Conference Service, which requires a deferral of four weeks only. Within that four-week period, a restorative justice conference must take place and a plan must be drawn up and brought back to the court. I can tell the Home Secretary that in 97% of cases, that task is performed and completed within the four-week period. There is a 70% victim participation rate and a 90% victim satisfaction rate. I commend that to the Home Secretary and I hope that in Committee the time scale issue can be given closer attention. It should be made clear in the Bill that victims have a right to attend a restorative justice conference. It should not be left to local discretion or priority; it should be clear in the legislation.

The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice will need to say more about how he intends to make sure that consent is obtained, particularly if deferral is being considered at the end of a trial which has been difficult, when emotions are raw and an understanding of restorative justice may not be at the forefront of people’s mind, especially if someone has been the victim of a crime. We need a better understanding of how consent is to be obtained, because the consent of the victim is crucial to the process.

The Minister also needs to make it clear, perhaps in the Bill as well, that restorative justice is not just for minor offences or for cases on the cusp of custody. Restorative justice offers extensive capability and opportunity, right across. I confess that I was sceptical about whether restorative justice could be used in, for example, serious sexual offences, but having met and heard a victim of rape speak about her restorative justice process and how it had helped her to rebuild her life, I think we should set no limits on the use of restorative justice if the victim of the crime feels that it can be helpful to them in rebuilding their life.

We need to understand how the deferral process interacts with other objectives which the court might have—for example, setting time limits on delay. We could not have a court that was making good use of restorative justice being penalised because that was leading to delay in the outcome of the court process. We await further detail from the Minister about how that will happen.

My final point in relation to schedule 15 and the restorative justice element, about which I hope we will see more detail as the Bill is considered by a Committee, is that all this must be underpinned by appropriate training and quality standards for restorative justice right across the country. The Restorative Justice Council, to which I pay tribute for the tremendous work that it has done over a number a years, is leading this work, and I know that Ministers respect and appreciate the work that it is doing. I look forward to hearing assurances from the Minister that the Restorative Justice Council will have the resources, status and support necessary to make sure that at long last restorative justice can be brought from the margins of our criminal justice system firmly into the mainstream.

The other issue that I wanted to touch on in my brief remarks relates to part 1, the creation of the National Crime Agency. I am not against the creation of the National Crime Agency. I want to see a powerful agency co-ordinating and leading the fight against organised crime, but having read the Bill, I do not see the great advantage—the great move on—that the legislation is going to bring about, over and above what we have already. Of course we want an agency that can defeat organised criminal gangs and take their criminally gained assets away from them, but we already have that with the Serious Organised Crime Agency. The Home Secretary was completely wrong to dismiss the efforts of previous Governments, as if they had never made any attempt to counter organised crime. That is nonsense, and if the right hon. Lady is honest with herself, she knows that.

When the Serious Organised Crime Agency was launched in 2006, it had two key issues to address in respect of its organisation. One was to bring the staff together from four different organisations and later from the Assets Recovery Agency. The second was to build operational relationships with the police. Anybody who has followed this over the years knows that it has not been plain sailing all the way, but a huge amount of progress has been made. There should be much greater ministerial acknowledgement of that and the good work that the Serious Organised Crime Agency has done—a base from which the National Crime Agency can begin to build in the future.

There are three specific issues that I want to touch on. The first is about the so-called super-affirmative order. I firmly support its removal from the Bill, which happened in the other place. There is a judgment and a decision to be made about who should be in the lead on counter-terrorism. It rests with the Metropolitan police, and if there is to be a change, the Home Secretary should come to the House and argue for and justify that change. I find it ironic and incomprehensible that the Home Secretary, who thinks that enhanced terrorism prevention and investigation measures and any decision about extending beyond 14 days the period of pre-charge detention should be allowed only through primary legislation, was proposing to give herself through secondary legislation such a key strategic decision. I encourage her to leave the Bill as it is and not to be tempted to seek secondary authorisation through the Bill.

Clause 4 sets out the operational relationships between the National Crime Agency and other organisations. This should be extended to key strategic relationships, not least with police and crime commissioners now that they are established in England and Wales.

My final point is about the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, which I was proud to launch in 2006—a unique partnership between children’s organisations, law enforcement and those who operate in the internet industry. When the consultation began, which the Home Secretary started, many feared that the National Crime Agency would mean a downgrading of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. We have had firm assurances and the explanatory note, and the Home Secretary herself has spoken about the four commands, one of which is the child exploitation and online protection command. I have yet to be convinced of why that requirement should not be in the Bill. If there is to be a change, it should not be left to a Minister or to the director general of the National Crime Agency. If there is to be any change to CEOP, it is this House that should have the final word.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I join other hon. Members in welcoming clause 38 as a sensible, proportionate adjustment with regard to public order. Clause 29, which the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has touched on, would remove the offence of scandalising the judiciary in England and Wales. However, the change is being made because a Member of this House found themselves cited on exactly that charge in the courts of Northern Ireland, so the issue is not being addressed where the problem arose. Will the Minister clarify whether, when and if the Northern Ireland Assembly gets around to having a legislative consent motion, that consent could allow the Bill to be further amended so that the removal of the offence of scandalising the judiciary in Northern Ireland could be accommodated?

Other aspects of the Bill also relate to Northern Ireland. The right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) has just come back into the Chamber at the wrong time, because he will hear from me the familiar refrain that he used to hear when he was security Minister for Northern Ireland. I think that, in his book, I and my party colleagues are Patten pedants. We are insistent on keeping to the precise architecture, thrust and spirit of the Patten policing reforms and to protecting the Patten dispensation. The previous Government did some injury to that as a result of moves to put national security policing in Northern Ireland in the hands of MI5. Those activities were moved beyond the purview of the accountable policing structures in Northern Ireland, such as the scrutiny undertaken by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland for the Northern Ireland Policing Board, which is where the ombudsman had been sensibly and deliberately placed.

The establishment of the National Crime Agency adds a further complication, because the Bill will create an additional police force and constables. Indeed, special constables will be created again in Northern Ireland. Having many years ago, courtesy of the civil rights movement, seen off the B Specials, we now face the potential appointment of NCA specials by the director general of the National Crime Agency. If we look at the Bill’s schedules, we will see that some people can be both NCA specials and Police Service of Northern Ireland officers, but that anything they do in one capacity cannot be cited in relation to anything they do in the other. The Bill provides that they can hold, coterminously, those two sets of constable powers, which will have serious implications for the Policing Board with regard to its key oversight role on policing. It will also create potential difficulties down the road for the police ombudsman in dealing with any complaints, and it means, presumably, that officers who are both NCA specials and PSNI officers will be subject to two separate complaint authorities.

[Paul Goggins]

My hon. Friend is making some important points that the Committee will need to consider in detail when the Bill is scrutinised line by line. Does he not agree that the most important thing is that, when a Serious Organised Crime Agency officer and, in future, an NCA officer acts with the powers of a constable in Northern Ireland, they should be as accountable to the police ombudsman as they would be if they were a police officer of Northern Ireland?

[Mark Durkan]

That is one of the things that has to be tested and clarified. If we look at some of the ousters that seem to be built into the schedules, we see that it appears that somebody cannot be cited in one capacity for something they do in another. That needs to be tested in Committee.

The Bill provides for a compulsion to be issued to the Northern Ireland Policing Board. There is obviously provision for there to be co-operation and engagement between the NCA and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, but there is also provision for directed assistance, which allows the Department of Justice to direct the Policing Board to provide particular assistance, whether or not the Policing Board wants to make that provision. It seems to me that the director of the National Crime Agency will be in a position almost to require the Department of Justice to, in turn, impose a requirement on the PSNI via the Policing Board. The Policing Board was given specific, deliberately assembled and properly protected powers in the Patten dispensation. It seems to me that those are being casually injured in these provisions.

Many people in Northern Ireland will judge the performance of the National Crime Agency on whether it improves on the work that has been undertaken by SOCA and the Organised Crime Task Force, which is linked in to HMRC, SOCA, the PSNI and the Garda Siochana and deals not least with the issues of fuel smuggling, drugs and waste trafficking. People will ask about the difference between the NCA and SOCA. We know that the NCA will have four command areas and a bigger brief. I suppose that it is like the old advert for Baxters soup: “The difference is in the thickness.” People will want to know whether the difference is in the effectiveness of the way in which the agency works. In Northern Ireland, many of us are also concerned about the effectiveness of its partnership and engagement with others, such as the PSNI and the oversight mechanisms. It seems to me that not enough sensitivity has been shown so far to the interests of the Northern Ireland Assembly or the Policing Board.

This is an example of a Bill that could have particular implications in Northern Ireland. Yet again, the Government tell us that there will be a legislative consent motion from the Assembly, but no legislative consent motion has been put. This is another example of there not being joined-up scrutiny between legislators in this Chamber and in the devolved Assembly. With the Welfare Reform Act 2012, we had a different device. That legislation has passed through Parliament and it is just assumed that a karaoke Bill will be taken through the Assembly, with people able to change very little. They can sing it in their own accent, but no significant details can be changed, and yet it appears on paper as though it is a Bill. The legislative consent motion from the Assembly for this Bill will probably come after it is done and dusted. There needs to be better, more joined-up scrutiny on such matters.

Finally, I join other hon. Members in expressing concern about clauses 34 and 36 in relation to immigration and visas.