Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Philip Davies and Robert Buckland(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Robert Buckland)
I do not have any immediate plans to extend the proposals that I made last week. I reassure my hon. Friend that public protection weighs very much in my mind when it comes to automatic early release—something about which I have long held strong views, from my days in the criminal justice system.
Philip Davies
The automatic early release of prisoners halfway through their sentences, introduced by the last Labour Government, is dishonest. It undermines public confidence in the justice system, and it lets people out halfway through their sentence even if they still pose a risk to the public and there is a risk of their reoffending. A Conservative Government should scrap that for all offenders.
Robert Buckland
I hear my hon. Friend’s strictures. He will be greatly encouraged by the announcement that I made last week to move that threshold to two thirds for serious, violent and sexual offenders. As I have said, this is about public protection and confidence in the system, and I am sure that he will fully support the Government’s measures.
Domestic Abuse Bill
Debate between Philip Davies and Robert Buckland(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Robert Buckland
I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for her work on this important issue and on getting that legislation through Parliament. I will make sure that that information is furnished to her in the course of the debate. Of course, we are brilliantly served by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), and she will respond to the debate.
We have talked about the moral case for pursuing this issue, but there is also an economic case—a case of financial responsibility. Research has established that the cost of domestic abuse was approximately £66 billion for victims in England and Wales in the year ending March 2017. The biggest component of that cost is the physical and emotional harm incurred by them, but the cost to our economy and our health service is also considerable. Domestic abuse makes up one third of all violent crime reported to the police. The case for removal is clear, but the challenge is not easy. The dynamics are complex and mean that much domestic abuse is hidden. Victims face significant barriers in seeking help and difficulties in escaping from an abusive relationship. That is why we need a cross-Government, multi-pronged approach to tackling it. The Bill is not only part of that approach but demonstrates the breadth of our ambition in showing strong leadership and taking decisive action to help to end the suffering and harm.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
May I say how much I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to taking a zero-tolerance approach to domestic violence and to sticking up for the victims? Following his welcome speech at the Conservative party conference this week in which he pledged to end automatic early release of certain prisoners, can he confirm that people who commit violence as part of domestic abuse will be included, and they will no longer be eligible for release halfway through their prison sentence?
Robert Buckland
Yes, I can. People convicted of offences with a domestic element will often be convicted of the most serious violent and indeed sexual offences. Under my proposals, automatic release will therefore apply at two thirds, rather than one half of the sentence. I have furnished the House with a written ministerial statement on that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Philip Davies and Robert Buckland(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
The Solicitor General (Robert Buckland)
The Crown Prosecution Service takes forced marriage very seriously and the prosecution of these crimes remains a priority. In May of this year the CPS secured the first two convictions under the specific offence of forced marriage in England. These successful prosecutions send a clear message that forced marriage is unacceptable and that those responsible will be prosecuted.
Philip Davies
We all know that women are much more likely to be the victims of forced marriage than men, but the Daily Mail reported yesterday that police in south Yorkshire had made history by issuing the first ever order to protect a male victim of forced marriage. What is the Solicitor General doing to ensure that the CPS is also aware of male victims of forced marriage?
The Solicitor General
My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue, and I am happy to tell him that the legal guidance and protocol used by the CPS have been updated to include the experiences of male victims, to help challenge myths and stereotypes and provide details of any support services for them. Indeed, a section on male victims was included in the forced marriage training session held in December of last year, which is now being spread locally throughout CPS areas by forced marriage leads.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Philip Davies and Robert Buckland(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
The Solicitor General (Robert Buckland)
We committed ourselves in our manifesto to extending the scope of the scheme. As a first step, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced that we would extend it to sentences in the Crown court for terrorism offences, and we are working with her to implement that.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for confirming that our manifesto commitment is still on track, but I should also be grateful if he was a bit more specific about the dates on which we might be able to make some headway, because these reforms are long overdue.
The Solicitor General
My hon. Friend is right to press the Government for a commitment to action. Work is being done with the Ministry of Justice, and both the Attorney General and I are committed to ironing out the obvious inconsistencies in the system, which cause understandable frustration among victims and their families.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Philip Davies and Robert Buckland(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
8. What costs were incurred by his Department in prosecuting the case of Vasiliki Pryce in both of her trials at Southwark Crown court.
The Solicitor-General (Mr Robert Buckland)
The costs of prosecuting counsel directly attributable to the two trials of Ms Pryce were £46,012. The costs ordered against her in the sum of £49,200 have been paid. The difference includes an element of pre-trial costs.
Philip Davies
In the cases of Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce, the prosecution costs application to the court was £108,541 for Mr Huhne and £48,695 for Ms Pryce, despite the fact that Mr Huhne had no trials and Ms Pryce had two. Given that the court costs to the Ministry of Justice for Ms Pryce’s two trials were an estimated £30,000 on top of that, can the Solicitor-General explain the rationale for the discrepancy in those costs applications?
The Solicitor-General
We have to bear in mind that an appeal is in process in relation to the costs of the defendant Huhne, which is due to be heard at the end of this month. It would therefore be inappropriate for me to comment on the merits of that application. However, I will say that a large number of disclosure applications and other preliminary applications were made in the case of the defendant Huhne, which might have some bearing on the issue my hon. Friend raises.
Prisons (Property) Bill
Debate between Philip Davies and Robert Buckland(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Buckland
That is the point, and a very important one too, and yes it would concern me. Therefore, the question of the destruction of an item properly taken from a remand prisoner should not be resolved until the status of that remand prisoner has been dealt with by the court.
Philip Davies
I am slightly concerned by the direction that my hon. Friend is going in. If a remand prisoner is not allowed a mobile phone in prison, but we do not threaten the same destruction, it might encourage other prisoners to target remand prisoners to help them with their criminal activity. If somebody is not allowed a phone in prison, it should not matter whether they are a remand prisoner or not. The solution is in their own hands: do not have a phone in prison.
Mr Buckland
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but I am referring to the specific power to destroy the phone, rather than to confiscate it. I entirely support moves to confiscate contraband from prisoners, whether they be on remand or convicted. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) made concerned the question of destruction, and I think he was right to make it. If we are to respect the rights of people not convicted of any criminal offence, issues of destruction should await the resolution of the case.
Philip Davies
I want to press my hon. Friend on this point. Many people on remand are on remand for very short periods. The loss of their mobile phone for a day or so will not be much of a punishment at all, but they might be deterred from engaging in any other criminal activity within the prison, if they know that their phone will be destroyed.
Mr Buckland
I hear what my hon. Friend says; I do not agree with him. I think the mischief is cured by the confiscation of the telephone. At the same time, we can balance that with respect for the rights of people who are acquitted of the offence they are facing.
I do not want to detain the House unduly. I hope that I have illustrated two legitimate questions that should be answered during the passage of the Bill, which I fully support, and I am grateful for the House’s indulgence.
Transparency and Consistency of Sentencing
Debate between Philip Davies and Robert Buckland(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Philip Davies
My positive proposal appears to have escaped my hon. Friend. I think I am right in saying that he is a member of the new 301 group, which I thought referred to the number of seats we had to win at the next election; I did not realise it was the target for the number of people we should have in prison, which seems to be the approach advocated. What about the quality of life of many law-abiding people in this country? We talk about the rights of criminals, but what about speaking up for the law-abiding people who think that their quality of life would be improved if more people were sent to prison in the first place? Not only are all those people not being sent to prison, but we still have a system in which someone who goes to court with 100 previous convictions behind them is still more likely not to be sent to prison than to be sent to prison. How on earth can we have a criminal justice system in which that is the case?
Mr Buckland
I yield to no one in my admiration for my hon. Friend’s force of argument, but I query that last statistic. I have been looking at a sentencing survey that was conducted in relation to the Crown court for the six months from October 2010 to spring 2011, which says that 78% of offenders with 10 or more previous convictions were going straight into custody. That may not be the 100% he would like but it is a pretty hefty statistic by any reckoning, is it not?
Philip Davies
I think my hon. Friend is very good friends with Ministry of Justice Front Benchers and I suggest that he ask them some parliamentary questions, because those are the answers they have given. To be as helpful as possible, I will furnish him with the parliamentary answer that shows that people with 100 previous convictions behind them are still more likely not to be sent to prison than to be sent to prison. He might wish to take this up with his hon. Friends on the Front Bench.
I was shocked to receive a parliamentary answer showing the number of people who were given cautions for indictable offences, which are the most serious category of criminal offence and include murder, wounding with intent, abducting children and arson. That answer showed that 22 rapists, 24 people convicted of arson and 140 people convicted of unlawful intercourse with a girl under 16 have been given a caution. Bearing in mind the fact that cautions are given on admission of guilt, how on earth can we have a situation in which those people are not being sent to prison and are merely handed a caution? The Government are completely out of step with public opinion, particularly those highlighted in the Populus poll conducted by Lord Ashcroft, which showed that 80% of the public said that sentencing was too soft and that 70% called for life imprisonment to be made much harder.
There is this wrong idea that community sentences are far more effective at reducing reoffending and are also cheaper, but I want to point out that a Home Office survey found that the number of crimes committed per offender in the year before they were sent to prison averaged out at 140—or 257 for those on drugs. The typical cost calculated for those crimes was £2,000 each, which works out at £280,000 a year, in comparison with an estimated cost of £38,000 for a prison place, so perhaps we ought to think about what is most cost-effective.
In 2008, offenders who had completed a community sentence went on to commit a further 250,000 crimes in the 21 months following their sentence, 1,500 of which were serious offences including murder, rape and robbery. As I mentioned to the Secretary of State earlier this week, in 2008-09 some 6,600 people whom the probation service deemed to be high risk or very high risk were serving community sentences.
Then there is the myth that prison does not work. The reoffending rates for people serving short-term sentences is higher than any of us would like, but I have been to lots of prisons in the past 12 months, probably about a dozen—I even visited one in Denmark to see what they do there—and I argue that prison does work. It could probably work better but it does work. As I made clear in my earlier intervention, the longer people spend in prison, the less likely they are to reoffend. If prison itself was the problem, the longer people stayed there the more likely they would be to reoffend, but the opposite is true. I have given the figures: for people who spend less than 12 months in prison, the reoffending rate is 61%; for those spending 12 months to two years in prison it is 36%; for those spending two to four years in prison it is 28%; and for those spending four years or more in prison it is 17.6%.
Professor Ken Pease has used Home Office statistics to show that 13,892 offences resulting in conviction could have been prevented if offenders serving short sentences had been kept in prison for an extra month. That suggests an argument for sending people to prison for longer, rather than for not sending them to prison at all. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State complained, rightly, about the previous Government’s early-release programme that let people out of prison 16 days early, but the solution should not be not sending them to prison at all, which is what he seems to be advocating now.
When people are in prison we must try to rehabilitate them, but I do not understand why rehabilitation has to occur in the community. I have been arguing about this for quite a while with my Front-Bench colleagues. I should like a system modelled on the TBS programme that has been operating in Holland for many years. It treats prisoners with a personality disorder, of whom there are a large number in our prisons, and has achieved low reoffending rates. People are treated in prison, which is much easier because they do not have so many distractions—they cannot go off and do other things. In prison, they can be given proper targeted support, which is much harder when they are out of prison.
I very much support the Secretary of State’s promoting a stronger work ethic in prison. When I go round prisons, I am appalled by the lack of work ethic. Many prisoners are from families that have never worked; they are often the third generation who have never worked. Surely, one of the things we can do for them in prison is to get them into a proper disciplined routine so that they get up at a certain time in the morning and carry out tasks that get them into a work ethic. My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right to do that.
A study by Frances Simon in 1999 followed 178 prisoners until five months after their release. She found that 75% of those who had not sought regular work reoffended compared with only 28% of those who were actively looking for work and 15% of those in regular employment. That shows that even the discipline of going out and looking for a job can make a big difference to reoffending rates. Prison has to be the prime place where some of those people are given the discipline of a work ethic.
I think the Government are making a huge mistake about indeterminate sentences for public protection. Earlier today, my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) cast doubt on Ministry of Justice figures, but I trust my hon. Friends on the Front Bench. According to those figures, by the end of the 2010 calendar year, 206 people serving indeterminate sentences had been released from prison. Of those, only 11 had reoffended—a rate of about 5%, from my quick calculation. The criminal justice system as a whole would give its right arm for a reoffending rate of 5%.
If the Government are so obsessed with reoffending—the Secretary of State has said that he is—why on earth do they want to give up the part of the criminal justice system that probably has the lowest reoffending rate? It goes to show that the Secretary of State is not really preoccupied with the reoffending rate; he is preoccupied with reducing the number of people he sends to prison. That cannot be the right course of action and it is certainly not something that my constituents want.
Anonymity (Arrested Persons) Bill
Debate between Philip Davies and Robert Buckland(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in support of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who has introduced this Bill at an important moment in the development of our media.
So far, the debate has concentrated, quite properly, on press and print journalism, whether in the form of the local newspaper that we read every day or the web pages of such newspapers, which are read increasingly widely. Therein lies the important development—the internet. The internet has had an effect not just through local newspaper websites, but through Facebook, Twitter and the myriad ways in which individuals can share and disseminate information, and spread false information. Therein lies the problem.
I have said before in this place that the issues relating to reporting restrictions go wider than those of justice and move into the area of media and communications, which is the province of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Although it would be Canute-like to try to hold back the tide of the internet, we have a lot of work to do with local press, national media and networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to get a degree of consensus about when it is inappropriate to allow the spread of misleading and false material. The Bristol case is but the latest and most extreme example of the mischief that my hon. Friend seeks to cure. None of us has all the answers on how to deal with the proliferation of modern media, but we have to acknowledge that it lies at the heart of this matter.
In my view, the Bill goes some small way to resolving what is an entirely grey area: the stage between arrest and charge. The current situation is mixed. Hon. Members have pointed out that we have the Contempt of Court Act 1981, and I will come back to that in a moment. More relevant to the stage between arrest and charge is the police guidance. The police guidance on the naming of adult suspects is simple. The police will not usually name a suspect until charge, but it remains a matter for individual discretion. In other words, there are no hard-and-fast rules. It is not advisable to name a suspect, but sometimes there will be good reason to do so.
The Bristol case is significant, because the police never confirmed the name of the man who had been arrested. The information reached the media by different means. That relates to my first point about the viral spread of alternative media and means of communication.
Philip Davies
Of course, the other law that is in place to protect people is the law of libel, which prevents people from spreading untrue allegations. Is not the hon. Gentleman’s first point about the power of the internet one of the reasons why the Bill is flawed? In practice, the restrictions in the Bill would apply to newspapers, the broadcast media and perhaps some of the more responsible aspects of other media, but there would be no way of effectively controlling what was put out by websites based abroad—they are based all over the place.
Mr Buckland
I readily concede that my hon. Friend makes an important point about the practical implementation of the legislation. The Bill goes as far as it can to deal with the mischief. His point is sadly common in issues relating to the misuse of media. There are issues with cybercrime and with the use of internet sites that are based in far-flung places abroad, over which we have no control. This week, I heard about a nasty little website that deals with gossip among schoolchildren, which is based in Belize. It has caused a lot of misery for our schoolchildren, yet it seems that there is little we can do about it. My hon. Friend therefore makes a fair point about the natural limits of jurisdiction.
Mr Buckland
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. As I said earlier, people can be haunted by internet stories about—worse than a charge that is not proven—an innocent person, against whom false allegations, which did not pass the test of the burden of proof, are made. We must hold on to our principles and remember that young people have their lives before them.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) about demonising young people, but, sadly, as with adults, there is a majority of good young people and a minority of bad apples. I therefore make no apology for a robust approach to the miscreants in our communities, some of whom are, sadly, young people, who cause genuine misery to some of my residents, and those in constituencies throughout the country. It is perhaps a little too glib to say that we should not publicise the names of young people who are given ASBOs. I mentioned the difficulty with interim ASBOs, but the presumption should be in favour of publication.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend seems to place great faith in people applying to a court for a reporting restriction. Is he not concerned about the courts being clogged up with such cases, given that the Courts Service is already under pressure? What does he envisage happening if a newspaper won its case? Who would meet the costs? If the newspapers are for ever expected to pay the costs of the case, very few will want to go through that expense regularly.
Mr Buckland
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point about the practicalities. Let me take the opportunity to tell him something that he may know—I ask him to forgive me if I am teaching granny to suck eggs. There is already a procedure in place in the Crown court for dealing with young people. Section 39 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 allows a reporting restriction to be granted on application when dealing with those who are under 18. It is the norm when a young person comes into the Crown court—obviously, for a more serious offence—that the application will have been made in the magistrates court, with a through-order carrying the restriction to the Crown court. Nine times out of 10, no objection is made to that, but there are occasions when local newspapers—reporters or the editors themselves—come to court and are allowed to speak directly to the judge and make representations.
It is very seldom, other than in cases of real public or national significance, that counsel and a panoply of lawyers come down to the court to represent, for example, a local or regional newspaper. It is quite a simple procedure. In my experience, many judges will hear a newspaper’s representations and then make a ruling. It is actually quite a short procedure and not unduly cumbersome, so I am not as concerned as perhaps my hon. Friend is about the possible clogging of our court system. He is right to make the point, however, because I have seen the baleful effects of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which suddenly filled the courts with loads of applications and led to lots of paperwork and lots more time and—frankly—money being spent by lawyers on procedures that could have been dealt with in a far more streamlined way. So it is an entirely proper point that we should all bear in mind when we consider the mechanisms of this procedure.
The one area where I could envisage some growth is in applications made to a court between arrest and charge. I accept that, but I would urge on those listening and the Government that if we are to make that change we ensure that we do it in a streamlined way that allows for simplicity. I want to emphasise the fact that these things have to be done quickly, and the idea of elongating and complicating proceedings should not form part of a court’s considerations.
Clause 13 of the Education Bill is highly germane to today’s Bill. That is the only reason I want to talk about it—I hope you accept that, Mr Deputy Speaker. It relates to a proposed reporting restriction on the publication of the details of teachers—as I understand the explanatory notes, that includes supply and peripatetic teachers—arrested for “relevant” criminal conduct following a complaint made by a “registered pupil” at the school where the teacher works. I welcome that long overdue proposal. We have seen some horrendous cases. My hon. Friend the Minister has had constituency experience of the problem, and I well remember quite a sensational case in south Wales about 10 years ago that resulted finally in either an acquittal or a variation of sentence on appeal. It was a highly publicised case that caused a lot of angst and anxiety for everybody concerned.
There is a strong public interest in preserving the privacy and reputation of teachers, who sometimes—sadly—are falsely accused of various criminal acts. However, like every exception to every rule, the boundaries and parameters of the restriction become quite difficult on closer examination. Let us consider the school environment. Clause 13 covers teachers, and the Government say that supply and peripatetic teachers are included in that, which is good news, but what about teaching assistants? They have a day-to-day role in the care and conduct of pupils and students. Are they to be treated differently? On the face of the proposal before us, it seems so. What about other members of the school staff, such as caretakers or people working in the canteen, who will come into contact with pupils and could be put into that vulnerable category? They are not included within the parameters of the Bill.
I make those points in the spirit of constructive criticism—but criticism none the less—because, as Members might acknowledge, there is a difficulty when we try to restrict these principles to one area of either the law or the community. That was the problem that we got into when we discussed the rape reporting restriction last summer. People could see the danger in singling out that type of offence, and the question was well put: if it is to apply to rape, why should it not apply to other sexual misconduct and types of conduct—violence, for example—between men and women? Quite rightly, the Government acknowledged that essential flaw as a result of quite a few debates in the House.
I am not saying that clause 13 creates the same level of problems as the rape proposals, but it is a problem none the less. I urge the Government to consider, in its widest context, the impact of the clause as well as the operation of the Contempt of Court Act 1981. I urge them to consider the problem on a more global basis and to come to a reasoned conclusion along the lines of the proposal in Bill presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe.
It is astonishing that, having reached the second decade of the 21st century, with a criminal justice system that has, certainly since the late 19th century, developed to quite a high level of sophistication, we still have a lack of clarity when it comes to the reporting of the details of arrested persons before charge. I say “astonishing”, because we have in this country developed—to far too great an extent, some of us would say—regulations to deal with all sorts of other types of perceived mischief. As a Conservative, I would say that a lot of those regulations have proved to be disproportionate and unnecessary. However, here we have an area where we have a fundamental balance to maintain—between the liberty of the individual and his or her reputation, and the wider public interest in knowing about the course of justice and the principle of open justice that has to underpin all criminal court proceedings. It is astonishing that we have allowed this grey area to prevail for so long. That loophole needs to be closed, which is why I commend the Bill to the House.
Philip Davies
No, I do not agree. I do not want the decision about whether to name people who have been arrested to be left in the hands of the police. I like the fact that the media are out there, investigating what the police are doing and holding them to account and in check to ensure that their power is not being abused. The media are an essential control on the state.
Mr Buckland
The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) makes is that we want to revert to the position that existed some years ago, whereby the press said, “A local man has been arrested,” or, “A local man is helping the police with their inquiries,” rather than going into the further detail that causes the mischief about which we are concerned.
Philip Davies
I am not a fan of restricting the information that people can give when it comprises simple fact. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South made the point particularly well. These things normally work through reports such as “A 25-year-old man from Hastings has been arrested for a crime.” I do not understand how that damages the judicial system. In many respects, the Bill is a solution looking for a problem because, in the vast majority of cases, crimes tend to be reported in the way in which my hon. Friend wants.
Philip Davies
My right hon. Friend knows that no one in the House admires him more than I do, although we do not always agree. Indeed, many people have said that he did not become leader of the party because my support for him was disclosed far too early. There is some truth in the assertion that his candidacy went downhill from the very moment that I declared my support for him. The fact that he still talks to me is testimony to his courtesy.
However, if it is damaging to someone who is arrested that their name is mentioned, because they can be vilified through a “no smoke without fire” approach, that applies not only to them, but to those who are charged with an offence, those who go to court and those who are acquitted. I am sure that my right hon. Friend would acknowledge that, in many cases, people go to court and are acquitted, and local people still say, “He must have been up to something; they wouldn’t have arrested him for no reason.” In dealing with the “no smoke without fire” issue and in arguing that people should not be vilified just because they have been arrested, the ultimate logic of the Bill is that we should not name anybody charged with something until they have been convicted. My right hon. Friend might consider that desirable, and it is a perfectly respectable view to hold—although I do not know whether he does hold it—but it is not one I agree with. It would not be a positive, but a negative development.
The thing that I most wish to defend is not just the freedom of the press—although that is important—but the important principle of open justice in this country. A Government research paper last November entitled, “Providing anonymity to those accused of rape: an assessment of evidence”, helpfully included the reasons why an open justice principle is so important to this country. It is important because it
“helps ensure that trials are properly conducted”,
it
“puts pressure on witnesses to tell the truth”,
and it
“can result in new witnesses coming forward”,
which is an important point made by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South. It also
“provides public scrutiny of the trial process”,
which is also an important factor, and
“maintains public confidence in the administration of justice”.
I am a big believer that the more information the public know the better. Finally and crucially, it
“reduces the likelihood of inaccurate and uninformed comment about proceedings”.
That final point is one of the most crucial. Following a high-profile case, no matter what laws the House decides to pass, we cannot prevent people from speculating on what has happened, on who was involved, on who might be guilty or on who they think it is. I am sure it happens in many households around the country following a crime; I am sure that every household has its resident Inspector Clouseau listing who they think is guilty—“It must be somebody they knew,” “It’s probably a relative,” and all that kind of thing. That is not going to stop, no matter how many laws we pass.
Mr Buckland
I am pondering whether my hon. Friend meant Clouseau or Poirot—but it does not matter. He is right to mention open justice, but I think that the document from which he takes those important points was a Judicial Studies Board document on reporting restrictions in the criminal courts and relates only to proceedings in court. However, the Bill deals with the period between arrest and charge. It deals with a stage before that and covers a different issue.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. However, my point is that these principles are just as important at this stage of the process as they are at the court stage. I personally do not see any great distinction; I do not see why these principles should not apply at this stage too.
It is inevitable that this sort of frenzy will follow a high-profile case. However, it can be more damaging for certain individuals to be the victim of rumour and innuendo in their local community based on no facts whatsoever; and it can be more damaging to have their character unfairly vilified because nobody actually knows what is going on. A simple factual statement by the police in the media stating that a certain individual has been arrested might not be liked by the particular individual, but it might come as a great relief to the lots of other people in the local community suffering from smear and innuendo—“Was it them who was arrested?”, “Have they been arrested?”, “Why haven’t they been arrested?” and so on. In more cases than not, the media help rather than hinder the progression of cases. The fact that the media can put information in the public domain does more good than harm.
As a matter of principle, I do not think that people who have been arrested by the police or other authorities should be anonymous. That is a vital principle of open justice. As I said, it is also in the interest of the arrested person. That principle has been gained over many years. The opposite principle is much more likely to be seen in a totalitarian regime, where people are taken from the streets, arrested and never seen again, without anybody ever knowing what happened to them in the first place. I do not want to see the worst aspects of that kind of regime introduced in this country.
That principle is particularly important at a time of high interest in crime and fear of crime. I cannot speak for my hon. Friends, but whenever I do surveys across my constituency and I ask people what their biggest concerns are, whatever else happens to be in the news, the fear of crime tends to be at the top of the list. Against that backdrop, it would be extraordinary for the public not to have a right to know who might have been arrested for certain crimes in their area. As the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South said, the naming of suspects can also enable further evidence to be gathered to help the administration of justice, by encouraging people to bring it forward.
My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe made the perfectly fair point that her Bill would allow people to appeal to a court to provide for an exception to the reporting restrictions. I certainly welcome a step in that direction, and some people may well be satisfied with that safeguard, but I do not see how it will work in practice. The Government have just gone through a process of closing down a number of courts around the country. The capacity of our courts system will be less than it is currently. At a time when we are closing courts down, I do not see why we would want to introduce legislation that would only have the effect of clogging up the courts, as individuals, local communities, the police or the media went to court to ask for exceptions to the reporting restrictions.
My hon. Friend might have mentioned this when I was not here—I apologise profusely for missing the first part of her speech—but I did not hear her say how many extra cases she thought would be heard by the courts, as people applied for exceptions to the reporting restrictions. I do not know whether she or the Government have made any such assessment, but if the Minister has done so, it would be particularly interesting to know what his assessment is, because I fear the courts being clogged up with people asking for reporting restrictions to be lifted. Such applications may or may not be granted. However, if very many applications were granted, that would indicate that the law is an ass and it would need to be changed anyway, and if not very many were granted, I would argue that that would amount to an unfair restriction on the public’s right to know and the media’s freedom of speech.
It would also be interesting to know the possible costs of running such cases. My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) said that newspapers could go and represent themselves, and that there would not be a great legal bill at the end of such cases. However, I am slightly cynical about these things, because whatever happens, there always tends to be a big legal bill at the end of such cases. However, even if there is no great bill to the newspaper, there will be a cost to the Government of cases being heard in court and the courts system being clogged up. I would be interested to know what that cost would be, who would meet it and whether anyone applying for an exemption to the restrictions would be expected to contribute. If they were expected to contribute, it is quite extraordinary to imagine that people would volunteer to pay such a cost on a regular basis, especially given what we have heard about the dire financial straits of many newspaper groups, and particularly of local newspapers. Therefore, even though there is a safeguard, in practice I do not see how it would be fashioned.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I do not know whether it is envisaged that reporting restrictions would be lifted in most cases. If so, would it not be more sensible to have a legal framework in which there is a presumption that everything could be published and in which people could apply for their details not to be published in exceptional circumstances? That would be a more sensible way forward than doing it the other way round. The proportions in the Bill are the wrong way round. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe might be right to say that some cases involve particular issues, but it is those cases that should be treated as the exception, rather than the vast majority that take place without incident. The Minister will know the figures better than I do, but let us think about the number of people who are arrested in this country every year. How many of those cases give rise to concern? It seems completely disproportionate to make a presumption that reporting restrictions should apply in all cases and that people would need to apply for an exemption. All the evidence suggests that it should be the other way round.
Mr Buckland
My hon. Friend is making some very fair points in his practical analysis of the matter. Further to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), may I suggest that the Bill could be amended to allow for the arrested person to give their consent to the release of their details? They could sign a consent form or give their consent through a solicitor at the police station for the publication of their name in the newspapers or on the internet. That would be a practical solution.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his suggestion. That would certainly make the Bill better than it is now, but I am not entirely sure that it would totally address my concerns. I shall certainly take his intervention in the spirit in which it was intended, however, because his suggestion would be a helpful step in the right direction.
I want to talk about the effect that a blanket restriction would have on local papers. National papers cover all sorts of gossip and showbiz, but local papers are all about providing information on issues of massive importance in the local area. If a massive event had taken place in an area, attracting a great deal of local interest, the local paper would be at a huge disadvantage, compared with the websites that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) mentioned, if it could not publish all the information that the public needed. Such a restriction would certainly not prevent all the rumour and innuendo from being published on the internet, perhaps on websites in other countries and all sorts of different backdrops. It would put local papers at a huge disadvantage if people in the local community could not find information in the paper that was readily available from other sources.
Not being able to name an arrested person would place a huge restriction on anything being reported about a case, because there could be a danger of inadvertently identifying the person by publishing other information. There could therefore be a danger of not reporting crimes that people ought to know about, and that would previously have attracted huge media interest. Such restrictions could have a “chilling” effect on local newspapers. They might not actually fall foul of the provisions in the Bill, but their fear of so doing could have a “chilling” effect that would prevent genuine informative reporting from taking place. That could force local communities to get their information from other sources. It would be incredibly sad if we were inadvertently to put another nail into the coffin of local newspapers, but I fear that that could happen.
I again commend to the House the Select Committee’s report on press standards, privacy and libel, and our other report on the future of local media, which will give hon. Members a feel for the dire straits that many of the regional and local media are now in. We should be very wary of doing anything that could have a negative impact on them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North made an important point about the rules applying only to England and Wales and the effect on media in other countries, especially in the United Kingdom, and I am not sure whether his exchange with my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe on the matter was resolved satisfactorily. How would reports in newspapers in Scotland and Scottish editions be tied in? As the laws apply only to England and Wales, The Scotsman might feel emboldened to print the name of somebody who had been arrested for a high-profile crime in England that was newsworthy in Scotland. That would be an extraordinary situation, given that we live in the United Kingdom.
The fact that many Scottish editions of papers are sold in England is an added complication. The Scotsman is also sold in London, as many people here want to buy it. Is the market for which that paper was intended the key factor? Would the law be breached by a newspaper that was intended for a Scottish market but that had somehow found its way into England? Would there be a due diligence defence? The Bill is unclear on that. We might end up with a strange anomaly whereby information that people are not allowed to know in England is available through print or broadcast media in Scotland. There is neither rhyme nor reason to such circulation being legitimate in Scotland, but not in England.
Philip Davies
But it is a question of how effectively that would be enforced. I do not know whether a claim that the paper that had been caught out had been intended for a foreign audience might serve as a “due diligence” defence. It is impossible to know that at this stage.
Mr Buckland
I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) that the Contempt of Court Act does apply in Scotland: it contains provisions dealing with penalties relating to offences in that country. It is important to note that it has that cross-jurisdictional application.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention. The Bill, of course, does not have that benefit, as it applies only to England and Wales.
As the vast majority of newspapers throughout the United Kingdom have signed up to the code of practice of the Press Complaints Commission, there is bound to be some uniformity in their behaviour, whether they happen to be in England, Scotland or Wales. There is no way that the press would sign up to the provisions in the Bill as part of their code of conduct, and the Scottish papers would therefore feel no need to observe those provisions. I still feel that there is a potential for anomalies. Indeed, such anomalies already appear frequently in the newspapers.
Barely a week goes by without the appearance of some salacious story about a celebrity—a footballer, a broadcaster or some wealthy individual—who has issued an injunction with the aim of preventing the publication of information that has been passed to the newspapers. More often than not, after a few days the identity of the person concerned comes to public recognition through the internet. The story is published in a foreign country, and then turns up in chat rooms and rumour mills.
I do not know a great deal about websites of that kind, being a fully paid-up member of the Luddites, but what I do know is that, by one means or another, the names of such individuals tend to come to the surface at some point. It has always struck me as extraordinary that when everyone in the pub—virtually everyone everywhere—knows the identity of some individual who is involved in one thing or another, the only place where no one can discover it is the newspaper, because of some bizarre injunction.