Consumer Rights Bill
Debate between Philip Davies and Julian Huppert(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
The record will show that the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and I do not agree on many issues, but on this one I agree with him completely and utterly. He and I are supporters of the Internet Telephony Service Providers Association, which has had many concerns about abuses in this area. Does he agree that we are talking not just about transparency, but about setting a fundamental rule that such bias simply cannot be allowed? Does he agree that we should support net neutrality throughout and not simply tell people when it is being broken?
Philip Davies
It is a red-letter day for me when the hon. Members for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and for Walthamstow agree with me. I could not have envisaged such cross-party support, and if the Minister is able to withstand that I will be disappointed. We have a political consensus, of which I am usually very suspicious. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the principle of net neutrality is the most important point. It is not simply a question of transparency; transparency is the minimum that people can expect. With my amendment, I am trying to ensure that we have net neutrality and truly open access to the internet, and to put an end to protectionist and restrictive practices that are against consumers’ interests.
I am referring to services including voice over IP, which is similar to Skype. Voice over IP allows consumers significantly to reduce their phone bills by using voice over the internet, instead of their mobile provider’s phone minutes and messaging services that use mobile data rather than text. It is especially important for consumers that that market works efficiently given Ofcom’s research finding that a quarter of the UK’s poorest households are mobile-only and are wholly beholden to mobile operators’ tariffs to enable them to access crucial services.
It seems perfectly reasonable to me that if a consumer signs a mobile phone contract that offers internet access, he or she should be entitled to use any legal internet service that they deem fit, not just the parts of the internet that suit their mobile phone company. I hope that hon. Members understand that customers who buy a mobile phone package rarely have the time or inclination to read through all the minutiae in the small print, even if they have the foresight to imagine all the services that they might want to use over the two-year life of their contract. Surely, customers have the right to expect that an internet service will do what it says on the tin. Consumers should, therefore, be able to rely on statutory consumer protection regulations to protect them from such abusive practices.
Given the rapid evolution of the internet, I do not think that it would be wise for Parliament to attempt to define everything that the internet is and does for the future, but I am convinced that the current unfettered ability of telecommunications providers, whether they be internet service providers or mobile operators, to decide what customers can and cannot access is harmful to consumers and to the wider economy. As I have outlined, those practices not only create significant consumer harm but stifle competition—for example, in the market for non-geographic and international calls—which leads to exorbitant prices and discourages new entrants to the market.
There is also concern surrounding future innovation and economic growth. If innovators have no certainty that networks will carry their services, particularly if they rival products offered by the networks, companies will be less likely to invest in new services because the return on investment will be unpredictable. How can a provider who wants to build a mobile app have any certainty that the mobile network operator will not block his rival service and/or make it extremely opaque at the point of sale whether consumers can actually access those services? Such things should be of great concern to us, because they will stifle growth in a sector that is incredibly important to the future prosperity of the country.
When I asked representatives from Ofcom about the matter during a Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport hearing last summer, there was an acceptance that some undesirable blocking was being undertaken by certain mobile operators around specific internet services, and that more needed to be done to ensure that telecommunications providers were transparent and up front with their customers. Ed Richards, the Ofcom chief executive, outlined the industry voluntary code on the transparency of information given to consumers about traffic management practices. I have grave concerns about whether the information that providers are supplying to their customers is helping in any way, shape or form. Ofcom’s research in September 2013 demonstrated that consumers were not aware about traffic management practices when making their purchasing decisions.
Together with the internet code around transparency, the industry has created a voluntary self-regulatory code on maintaining the open internet. I believe that the code is a good one, and it will be an effective tool for protecting consumers and businesses. The significant problem is that some major providers are yet to sign up, nearly two years after the launch of the initiative. Given that there is no obligation on UK telecommunication providers in that area, those providers that are transparent and allow access to services could easily change their minds tomorrow and not be subject to any action.
Therefore, I think it is time that the House recognised that unless more action is taken, certain industry players will continue to use clever marketing tactics and rely on the lack of consumer understanding to mislead their customers, distort the market and damage new and innovative internet services that threaten their own products. That is why I have proposed amendment 19, which would protect consumers from the practices that I have described. The amendment would ensure that anyone selling internet access, or using any similar term, will not be able to rely on any unreasonable or unusual definition of that term to restrict their customers’ access to legal parts of the internet.
I have made it clear, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Walthamstow for doing the same, that I do not seek in any way to limit the ability of internet service providers to block access to sites for the purposes of child protection. Nor would my amendment prevent internet service providers from offering age-related content blocks where customers request them. I certainly would not want to do anything to change that. That is why I would be happy to support the hon. Lady’s amendment if she seeks to divide the House.
Amendment 19 would give customers confidence that when they sign a two-year contract that offers internet access, they will get full internet access and will not be left with a contract that they cannot get out of that does not do what they thought it would when they signed up to it. It is essential to preserve and protect consumer access to the legal internet. We cannot allow internet service providers to decide for themselves, based on their own commercial interests, what customers can and cannot access while still marketing their service as internet access.
The protection offered by amendment 19 would benefit all consumers, but it would also spur innovation, growth and job creation in a sector that is vital for the future prosperity of the country. Therefore, I urge hon. Members to support my amendment or the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Walthamstow. I hope that we will not have to press the matter to a Division, because I hope that the Minister will understand the strength of the case that we have made and reaffirm that the Government will deliver on open internet access. If she is not prepared to do that, I hope that the hon. Member for Walthamstow will press her amendment to a vote, which I would support.
Criminal Justice and Courts Bill
Debate between Philip Davies and Julian Huppert(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Philip Davies
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and, of course, to the people of Brigg and Goole who are so ably represented by him in Parliament. He is absolutely right. Most people think that when somebody is sent to prison for whatever length of time the court hands down, they should be there for that period of time. It beggars belief that even when they are released from prison and commit another offence, they do not go back for the original sentence that was handed down.
There is no licence period for offenders serving less than one year in prison, and that covers about 60% of the prison population at any one time. Many of the remaining prisoners will be released on licence halfway through their sentence. Fixed-term recalls were introduced in 2008 to reduce the pressure on prison places. It was not done because it was the right thing to do, but because the previous Government got completely overwhelmed on the matter of prison places. Unfortunately, not much appears to be known by the public, nor—dare I say it?—by many colleagues in this House about how the system of fixed-term recalls works. A fixed-term recall occurs where the offender breaches their licence and is returned to prison for a mere 28 days, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) said—not for the rest of the prison term they were originally given, not even for most of it, but for just 28 days.
When fixed-term recalls were introduced, they excluded certain offenders. However, in his bid to reduce the prison population still further, the former Lord Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe, relaxed the eligibility criteria by way of a change in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. I always had my doubts about the fact that the punishment of offenders was mentioned in the title of that Act, because it seemed to do anything but punish offenders, and I was right to be concerned. As of 3 December 2012, fixed-term recalls were made available to previously denied prisoners. These were offenders serving a sentence for certain violent or sexual offences, those subject to a home detention curfew—that is, serving some of their prison sentence at home—and, most shockingly, those who had previously been given a fixed-term recall for breaching their licence within the same original prison sentence. I suspect that not many people realise that, and they certainly will not like it when they do.
One unbelievable thing that I recently found out is that in the nine months from January to September last year, 785 of the prisoners serving sentences of one year or more who had been released on licence before the end of their sentence were not only recalled to serve just 28 days for breaching their licence once, and then released, but subsequently recalled to serve another 28-day spell and then released again before the end of their original prison sentence. In nine months, 785 of the most serious offenders in our prisons were released from prison having breached their licence, returned to prison for 28 days, released again, and then, for a further breach of their licence, returned to prison for just 28 days and then released again. You couldn’t make it up, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is a complete failure of policy that is completely indefensible and unjustifiable. I am not easily shocked when it comes to any matters relating to justice, but this has to be one of the most unbelievable policy decisions of all time, and I doubt there is much support for it among the general public. I would love to hear the Howard League for Penal Reform, otherwise known as the prisoner’s friend, and other do-gooding organisations justify this kind of approach.
In answer to one of my recent parliamentary questions about the Bill, my hon. Friend the Minister said:
“Fixed term recalls will continue to be used in low-risk cases where a short period back in custody is sufficient to deal with the breach and the offender can then safely be re-released to continue with their rehabilitation under licensed supervision in the community.”—[Official Report, 3 March 2014; Vol. 576, c. 641W.]
My new clause would remove those who have committed serious offences from eligibility for the 28-day recall, as well as those who have already been given a chance on a 28-day recall and gone on to breach their licence conditions again. If what the Minister says is really the case, surely he and the Lord Chancellor, who is, I believe, much more in tune with public opinion and more on the side of the victim than the criminal—certainly compared with his predecessor—will do something to rectify this appalling state of affairs and support my new clause. Unless he can offer some sensible measures to address these points, I intend to press it to a vote.
New clause 31 proposes that time spent on tagged curfew would not count as time on remand. The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 amended the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to allow periods of time spent on tagged curfew, on bail, to count as credit towards any eventual custodial sentence. As I said on Second Reading of this Bill, I want an end to the ridiculous position whereby time spent on tagged curfew is credited as though it were time spent on remand in prison. The new clause would remove that entitlement. Currently, when someone is on bail on an electronically tagged curfew from, say, 11 pm until 8 am, and they then receive a custodial sentence, the amount of time they have to serve in custody is reduced by half a day for each nine hours or more spent on the curfew beforehand. I have never understood the maths of it. If nine hours is spent on a curfew, how does that equate to half a day in prison, even if the two things were comparable, which, in my view, they are not? I appreciate that some people will have had curfews longer than nine hours, but some of those who had nine-hour curfews will still be getting the benefit of this credit. The credit also inevitably means that some people avoid prison altogether. If they have been on a curfew for a certain period of time and then receive a custodial sentence of a certain length, they will never see the inside of a prison cell despite the court having deemed that only a custodial sentence was appropriate for the crime they committed.
I can do no better than repeat what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) said as shadow Minister in 2008 when this proposal was first being made by the previous Labour Government:
“One of the greatest concerns of the public is that the current system leads to dishonesty in sentencing. People do not seem to understand that when a person is sentenced to two years in prison, that actually means that he will be in custody only for one year. It provides yet another example of how the Government, in order to overcome the difficulties of prison overcrowding, are guilty of promoting an untruth.”
He went on to say that a curfew
“cannot be considered the equivalent of having spent time in prison awaiting sentence, but the new clause directs the court to take all that time—described as ‘the credit period’—into account in reducing the custodial sentence. I am afraid that the public will find that rather difficult to understand.”
He went on to say, as I quoted on Second Reading:
“If someone has committed an offence that crosses the custody threshold—an offence that is serious enough to warrant a custodial sentence—it will cause a great deal of scepticism, undermine public confidence in the justice system and make the Government look increasingly ridiculous if the court is then required to say, ‘By the way, all the time that you have spent at home in bed is time that can be taken away from your custodial sentence.’”—[Official Report, 9 January 2008; Vol. 470, c. 369.]
As it happens, back in 2008 the Conservative party voted against the then Government introducing this particular measure. Indeed, the Minister voted against it when in opposition. Has he changed his mind about this ridiculous system—if that is the case, he can tell us why—or does he still think it is ridiculous even though he does not accept my new clause? I would be extremely grateful if he could tell us why he intends to defend in this Parliament something that he thought was wrong and voted against in the last Parliament. We can only conclude that he has somehow changed his mind, but I am not entirely sure what caused that to happen.
My other new clauses, 37 to 42, all relate to open prisons and can be taken together. I am sure it will not have escaped anybody’s notice that open prisons have been a hot topic in the past week or two, with the absconding of the “skull cracker” from an open prison. The prison authorities might have thought there was a clue in his name before they decided to release him, but it appears that that was beyond them. This is a multiple armed robber who was serving 13 life sentences and had absconded from prison before—twice, I believe—but who somehow, unbelievably, found himself in an open prison and being released on temporary licence.
I had been looking at this issue for some time before the “skull cracker” case, and the more I learn about it, the more I despair. The actual facts regarding open prisons and the sorts of people being let out on day or night release are shocking. People say that open prisons are an essential part of people’s rehabilitation and that, just before they are released and have gone through all their rehabilitation, it means they can gradually work their way back into the local community. We know that that is clearly not true, because of the police’s reaction when the “skull cracker” escaped from prison. If all of this guff about rehabilitation of people in open prisons were true, when the “skull cracker” escaped from prison the police would have told the public, “Don’t worry about it, because this man was rehabilitated. He was going to be released from prison very soon anyway, so he is of no danger to the public.” Of course, the police did not say that; they said, “This man is immensely dangerous and must not be approached at any price.”
Therefore, we know for a fact that the argument that people in open prisons who are coming to the end of their sentence are being rehabilitated is a load of old nonsense dreamt up by the do-gooders. I can see from the facial expressions of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) that the do-gooders are ably represented, as usual. He, along with the Howard League for Penal Reform, is the criminal and prisoner’s friend.
Dr Huppert
I hope the hon. Gentleman puts his new clauses to the vote so we can see how much of the House rejects what he is saying. Does he really not care about the research done by a huge number of organisations which shows that reoffending rates among those released from open prisons are far lower than the rates for those who are released from closed prisons? Rather than give his own personal opinions, surely the hon. Gentleman would like to see less reoffending and, hence, fewer victims of future crimes.
Criminal Justice and Courts Bill
Debate between Philip Davies and Julian Huppert(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I am in a slightly unusual position this evening, in that I rise to support the Government on this Bill. It is a particular pleasure to be able to support them on matters relating to criminal justice and courts, because that was not always the case when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice’s predecessor, the Minister without Portfolio, was in place.
I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on reversing the trend that we saw under his predecessor, which seemed to go against every Conservative principle on law and order. He was trying to send as few criminals to prison as possible, culminating —as the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) made clear in his remarks, with which I agreed—in his treatment of indeterminate sentences for public protection. That was the particular low point of this Government in criminal justice matters. I suspect that, as the right hon. Gentleman hinted at in his speech, if the current Secretary of State had been in place all the way through this Government, indeterminate sentences would still be in place. I do not think that he would ever have got rid of them, and some of the measures in this Bill are trying to undo the damage that was done by getting rid of those sentences in the first place. I am delighted that he has had the courage to revisit some of the issues that his predecessor failed on.
I say that I support the Government, and I do; I support this Bill wholeheartedly. However, as we have heard from other speakers, when we have legislation as extensive as this Bill—it is quite a wide-ranging piece of legislation—there will always be areas where one thinks the Government could have gone further, areas where there are missed opportunities and areas where one might have a few reservations. I am no different from other hon. Members in all those respects. I hope not to take too long, but I will go through a few of the areas where I particularly support the Government, where there have been missed opportunities, and where I have reservations, many of which I hope can be dealt with in Committee or on Report, so that in the end we have a much better Bill.
On clauses 1 to 3, anything that toughens up sentencing for criminals, particularly dangerous criminals, will always have my full support, so I am very pleased that the maximum sentence for certain dangerous offences is being increased to life imprisonment. Terrorists are a great threat to our national security, and measures to prevent them from carrying out their terrible crimes certainly have my full support.
With regard to clauses 24 to 28, I see no real problems with single magistrates dealing with very simple matters that do not require a bench of three to deliberate over. Should anyone object to the measure, I note the safeguards that are in place. I am pleased that single magistrates will deal only with straightforward and minor offences, such as television licence evasion. That should not be a criminal offence anyway, because a licence should not be forced on people; paying for a subscription should be a matter of personal choice, but that is a debate for a different day. Single magistrates will also deal with things like road tax evasion cases.
Dr Huppert
The hon. Gentleman talks about road tax evasion; he is presumably aware that road tax was scrapped in the 1930s.
Philip Davies
I am not entirely sure what the hon. Gentleman is on about, but people do evade their road tax.
Philip Davies
Their vehicle excise duty. I am afraid that the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) has reinforced his reputation for concentrating on the things that are not important, and not concentrating on the things that are.
Philip Davies
I certainly will not give way to the hon. Gentleman again. We have wasted enough time on his nonsense; we will not waste any more on it. I have learned a lesson tonight: not to give way to him. Many people learned that lesson a long time ago, but in my naivety I had yet to learn it. I have learned it now.
I was making a point about single magistrates. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) expressed a reservation about the provision being extended to cover more than just the most basic and simple crimes. I share that concern. A system of single magistrates will never be appropriate for cases such as shoplifting, because magistrates have very different ideas about what should happen to offenders, particularly persistent offenders, in those types of cases. I hope that the power will not be extended. I sometimes worry that when a power is granted, it will be the thin end of the wedge and the power will be rapidly extended to other areas. I hope that will not be the case for this power. It will be introduced for very basic offences, and I hope it will stop there, and not be extended.
On clauses 37 to 39 and 40 to 48, I understand the concerns that have perhaps influenced the introduction of the new offences relating to jurors, especially given changes in technology. We already have the Contempt of Court Act 1981, so I am not entirely sure how necessary some of the measures are, but they may well be necessary.
I note the reasons given for increasing the maximum age of jurors from 70 to 75. I could not agree more with the rationale for that change, but I am tempted to table an amendment—my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) mentioned this—to extend the change to magistrates and judges. I cannot see any difference between a juror of that age being able to determine the guilt or innocence of somebody in a serious criminal trial, and a member of a bench of magistrates or a judge of that age passing sentence. I do not really see why a person is capable of doing one of those things between the ages of 70 and 75, but not the others.
As the Ministry of Justice helpfully explained,
“According to the latest figures published by the Office for National Statistics, the healthy life expectancy of both men and women at age 65 is at least 10 years in England and Wales.
The existing age limit for jury service, which was set in 1988, does not reflect the current health of older people. Official figures show that healthy life expectancy of 65 year olds in England and Wales has risen since 2000.
We believe the selection of jurors should reflect that fact.”
If that is the case for jurors, presumably the case is exactly the same for magistrates and judges. There would be a cost saving if we extended the measure to magistrates, as they can claim for loss of earnings when they sit, and clearly magistrates who are aged 70 to 75 are less likely to be earning, or concerned with covering their loss of earnings, than those who are younger. Magistrates would still be subject to appraisals, so their competence would not be an issue. I have raised the issue of increasing the age limit before in this place. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) once pointed out, it was ironic that the then Lord Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), was past the retirement age for the magistrates of whom he was in charge. The amendment that I would like to see would rectify that anomaly.
I very much welcome the changes relating to judicial review. I hope that they mean that we will have less interference with decisions by judges who hear such cases. Parliament should set the law. Very often, as people will know, I do not particularly agree with Parliament’s decisions, but that is the price of democracy: sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. Parliament should set the laws of the land, and judges should implement the law as it stands. I do not like—we have seen this far too often in recent years—judges thinking that they should determine the law. If judges want to decide what the law is, they should give up being judges and put themselves up for election like everybody else. If they are not prepared to do that, they should accept the will of Parliament, whether they—or I—like it or not.
On clauses 29 to 31, I certainly understand the principle in the Bill that criminals should contribute to the costs of running courts. I note that the proposed criminal courts charge means that in future, somebody could be ordered in court to pay the following financial penalties: a fine; a victim surcharge; compensation; prosecution costs; and now this extra courts charge. The victim surcharge, which is basically a tax on offenders, has been a rather unhelpful development, particularly when it applies to people who are being sent to prison for long periods of time. When it was first introduced, for most offences, it was levied in cases where there was no victim. It seems bizarre that the victim surcharge was paid by offenders solely in cases where there was no victim. If the courts charge replaced the victim surcharge, that might make more sense. I certainly agree with the principle of making offenders pay; I just have reservations about how these things tend to work in practice.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me in this important debate. For far too many years we have had a tradition of Governments—Conservative and Labour—trying to talk tough on crime and repeatedly aiming for the tabloid commentary, rather than dealing with the underlying causes of crime. That is why I am pleased that we are taking a different approach now, ensuring that we work on rehabilitation and reducing reoffending and initial offending, and tackling the causes of crime together with other Departments. That is an important process and it is good to have restorative justice and various things such as that in the proposals.
The mark of a good and functioning society is low prison numbers and low crime, not how many people we can fit into prison. In 1980, the prison population was 44,000. The then Home Secretary, Willie Whitelaw, described that as “dangerously high”, yet we saw numbers continue to rise year after year, helped of course by the previous Government’s 3,600 new criminal offences. We saw a huge 54% increase in the prison population under the previous Government, who wanted to increase capacity to 96,000—almost two and a half times the number described by Willie Whitelaw as “dangerously high”. That is deeply alarming.
It is not just me who thinks that the previous Government made a huge mistake. It is good to see the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) back in his place. He has said:
“in office…it was a mistake to not focus more on the issue of reducing reoffending. We became hesitant in talking about rehabilitation and the merits of investment in bringing down re-offending rates. We got into the position whereby a focus on rehabilitation and reducing re-offending was seen as being soft on crime when in fact it is effective in reducing crime.”
He was right then—he clearly had not been previously—and it is good that this Government are acting on that, because it does make a huge difference. What we saw was a Government who jailed more people than anywhere else in Europe just to sound tough. We can take a better approach that will reduce crime, and that makes a big difference.
That applies to young people in particular. It is astonishing to look at the figures for young people. We have managed almost to halve the number of children serving custodial sentences, from 2,136 in May 2010 to 1,168 in December 2013. I am incredibly proud of that. In 2009, 600 children aged between 12 and 14 were locked up, some for summary offences. There may well be rare cases where somebody as young as 12 should be locked up, but they should be incredibly rare and I find it bizarre that hundreds of children suffered in that way. The Howard League for Penal Reform states:
“the refreshing approach of police forces across England and Wales to reduce the number of unnecessary child arrests, has allowed a renewed focus on crime prevention and alternatives to custody. Youth justice reinvestment pilots in Manchester and inner London boroughs have also shown how investment in diversion rather than criminal justice can yield benefits in terms of public safety.”
We can make the public safer and not lock children up.
Dr Huppert
No. We heard enough from the hon. Gentleman in his rather long speech earlier. I know he disagrees with Churchill. He probably finds Churchill far too liberal for his own tastes, as he probably was when he criticised road tax.
What I do not want to see is children and young people languishing in detention and coming out and reoffending. That is absolutely not the right thing to do. It is not right for anybody—the Offender Rehabilitation Bill aims to help people with short sentences, which will help—but it is particularly the case for young people. I was pleased to hear the Justice Secretary and the Deputy Prime Minister say that we will double the time that young offenders spend in education from 15 hours a week to 30 hours a week by 2015. That was a manifesto commitment we made in 2010—the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) very much remembers that—and something that we are delivering. It makes a difference. Education is a really important thing for these people, so that they can leave custody with skills and an education they can build on.
The secure college has to have an educational focus and that is what makes it good and worthwhile. By making it progressive rather than punitive, we will really engage with people, give them skills and help them to have a life later that does not involve going into crime. Many of these young people are vulnerable and damaged. We have to provide them with care and support in a safe and secure environment to help turn them back into citizens who will reintegrate into the community on release.
That is all very good, but I have some concerns that I will explore in Committee. Schedule 4 allows restraint to
“secure good order and discipline”.
That sounds worryingly Victorian. The courts have already said that that is not appropriate. I hope we can have clarity from the Government on what exactly is intended. I hope that that is not the intention of this Government.
Before I leave the subject of the number of people in prison, it is worth highlighting the changes in the female prison population, which has declined substantially. It was more than 4,000 when we came into office; it is now substantially below 4,000. That makes a big difference. Women’s prisons will become resettlement prisons, so that offenders serve their sentences as close to home as possible to maintain crucial family relationships, especially with children. There are times when women need to be punished in this way, but we need to help to ensure that afterwards they are able to engage better into society and do not suffer the problems that they could be left with.
I am concerned about the criminal courts charge. I heard what the Justice Secretary said, but I am still concerned that it will end up being unenforceable and skew the way our system works. Justice has made it clear that it is
“concerned that the imposition of a charge may have an unfair bearing on the exercise of a person’s right to plead not guilty, and therefore the presumption of innocence.”
How will it apply to appeals? Will people not be able to take advantage of their right of appeal because of concern about cost?
I was interested by what the Justice Secretary said about the £1.4 billion that was owed to the Courts and Tribunals Service. He talked a lot about dead people; I did not fully understand what he was saying. However, if another charge is added to the list, given that he said that that this would be the lowest priority, far less of it will be collected than the 80% that goes to the top priority. That seems obvious, because it will decay faster and faster.
The Justice Secretary said that if people did not reoffend, the charge would be written off. I should like to know more about how that would operate, but, again, far less would be collected. I am also very concerned about how the charge could be recovered without disproportionate enforcement costs, particularly in relation to the contractors involved. I am also worried about whether there is sufficient discretion in the process.
I am still concerned about tagging. I believe that there have still been no successful prosecutions for violations of tagging curfews when people have challenged the prosecutions and pleaded not guilty. Professor Ross Anderson of the University of Cambridge and others have been expert witnesses in cases that have been dropped on the basis of their evidence, because the tags have been proved not to be sufficiently reliable. I should have thought that there were better ways of spending money, especially given that the tags are not satisfactory.
I am very pleased that the Justice Secretary has given ground on judicial review. Many of us have been pressing him on that for some time, and I am glad that he has now taken some sensible steps. It is really important for ordinary people to be able to challenge the Government. We need transparency, and the Government are pushing for it; shielding the Government from legal challenge by clamping down on judicial review would run completely contrary to that. However, I am still concerned about the changes in relation to interveners. Third parties add important value and expertise to cases, at great cost to themselves and in the wider public interest. I did not think that the Justice Secretary addressed my concern about cases in which people intervene, as opposed to cases involving the “human shield” that he described. That is not the only kind of case involved.
Courts already have strong powers to control interveners. They accept only interventions that are in the public interest. Baroness Hale, the deputy president of the Supreme Court, has said:
“Once a matter is in court, the more important the subject, the more difficult the issues, the more help we”
—the judges—
“need to try and get the right answer… interventions are enormously helpful… . They usually supply arguments and authorities, rather than factual information, which the parties may not have supplied.”
Interveners play a very important role, but the Bill would require them to bear not just their own costs—which are not recouped, which I understand—but those of other parties whose involvement results from their intervention. The application of that could be incredibly broad. If someone intervened and that person’s intervention generated extra work to be done by someone else, the intervener would be billed for all of it. That would deter experts from giving useful and potentially instrumental evidence. We would shoot ourselves in the foot: court decisions would become worse, as the courts themselves have said.
The courts already have discretion to control who intervenes, how people intervene, and for how long they can intervene, and they can fine interveners whose interventions are unreasonable. That strikes me as a sensible balance. I think that the Bill goes too far in clamping down on interventions, and I hope that the Government will look at it more carefully. I understand that there may be cases in which intervention is inappropriate, but the Government must protect appropriate and important interventions,
There is much else that we shall need to consider in Committee, because the Bill contains a great deal of detailed material, but I think that the focus is right. I welcome much of what the Government are doing, but I think that they should concentrate even less on how many people can be locked up, and more on how much crime can be reduced.