Criminal Justice Bill

Rob Butler Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham).

This is an important Bill that highlights the Government’s commitment to improving our justice system and making our communities safer. I would like to focus the majority of my remarks on one aspect of the Bill that I am pleased to see has received so much attention, which is antisocial behaviour. Members across the House might well represent different parties or political beliefs, but I am confident that I can safely say that we will all have received complaints from our constituents about antisocial behaviour in one form or another. Although it is formally considered to be low-level criminality, the reality is that, left unchecked, antisocial behaviour causes frustration and misery to many, many law-abiding citizens; it is undoubtedly the area of criminal behaviour about which I receive the greatest amount of correspondence. I therefore particularly welcome clauses 65 to 71, which extend the maximum period of certain directions, reduce the minimum age for community protection notices and allow for the closure of premises by registered social housing providers. I am confident that those provisions will all bring tangible benefits to my constituents and those of hon. Members across the House.

I am also glad to see the proposals for reviews of antisocial behaviour by the local policing body, which I know are supported by the excellent police and crime commissioner for Thames Valley, Matt Barber. It can often be difficult to know where exactly responsibility lies for tackling antisocial behaviour—whether it is with the local authority or the local police force, or whether a particular act might straddle the responsibilities of both—as I highlighted in Home Office questions in May. Proposed new section 104A in clause 71 provides the opportunity to make real progress in resolving such difficulties, and as the PCC for Thames Valley, Mr Barber, told me, it should provide more power to enact change and really stand up for residents.

Tackling antisocial behaviour does not mean always acting after the event, though. Indeed, one of the most effective crime-fighting tools is to prevent crimes from being committed in the first place and to divert those at risk of offending to more meaningful pursuits. In my constituency of Aylesbury, we have some excellent local initiatives to provide activities for young people to help prevent them from becoming involved in criminality. I saw that for myself just last Friday, when I spent the afternoon with the Aylesbury neighbourhood community policing team, led by Sergeant Clare Farrow. Two of her PCSOs, Lee Abrahams and Rachel Matthews, joined me at Southcourt baptist church in Aylesbury, where they help to run a weekly boxing club alongside the pastors and other members of the local community. The club has 100 young people on its books, and engages boys and girls from all parts of Aylesbury’s very diverse community. For some children it has helped to build confidence, for others it has brought resolution between bullies and victims, and for all it has provided a constructive activity, keeping young people off the streets and away from the temptation to become involved in criminal behaviour.

So dedicated are PCSOs Lee and Rachel that they even give up their own time to go and help at the club when they are not on duty, and this service has rightly won them and their colleagues the community policing award for Thames Valley in the category of problem solving. It is problem solving that is key to successful neighbourhood policing, which needs special skills and talent. The social enterprise Police Now recruits officers specifically for that type of policing; I was pleased to meet one of its undoubted success stories, PC Elliott Jones, who has been working in Aylesbury for the past year. Spending just a few hours with that neighbourhood team was genuinely inspiring, and I thank all the neighbourhood teams in my constituency for their superb work.

Mindful of the time, I would like to touch briefly on a couple of the other measures outlined in the Bill, given my previous experience as a magistrate and at His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris)—who I am absolutely delighted to see on the Front Bench, having served with her on the Justice Committee—can help to provide a little more detail on these measures, either now or at a later date.

I absolutely recognise the reasons for the Government’s introduction in clause 22 of powers to compel attendance at a sentencing hearing. I entirely understand the anguish that has been caused to victims of crime when the perpetrator of the offence has simply refused to return to the dock, demonstrating, frankly, utter disdain for the harm that they have caused. But I am pleased that the power to produce the offender in court remains at the discretion of the judge, because it is the judge who will be best placed to decide on the individual circumstances of a case. I would be keen to hear more from the Minister about how that might operate in practice, particularly if an offender refused to leave prison to go to court in the first place. I am aware of cases where forcing somebody to leave his cell and get on to the van would have taken a very considerable number of prison officers. While one can reasonably say that that prisoner should be forced to hear his sentence and face justice in person, the reality is that the prison officers involved are taken away from their usual duties and responsibilities. That could—indeed, likely would—impact the normal regime of the prison, which in turn would prevent other prisoners from engaging in the work, education and training that can reduce their chances of reoffending. It is important that we get the balance right, and I am keen to hear how we will make sure that we do so.

Turning to the transfer of prisoners overseas, I am pleased that clause 28 makes provision for His Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons to inspect overseas prisons. However, as a former member of the independent monitoring board at HMP/YOI Feltham, I would be grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister outlined how she envisages conditions being monitored on an ongoing basis. The role of IMBs is not necessarily as well known as it should be, perhaps even in this House, but to quote the IMB website,

“IMB members are the eyes and ears of the public, appointed by ministers to perform a vital task: independent monitoring of prisons and immigration detention. They report on whether the individuals held there are being treated fairly and humanely and whether prisoners are being given the support they need to turn their lives around. This can make a huge difference to the lives of those held within these facilities.”

A critical element of that role is that IMB members can turn up at any time, unannounced, and go to any part of the prison they wish with their own set of keys. I would be grateful if the Minister set out what equivalent provision will exist for overseas prisons.

There is much else in this Bill that is important, including measures to respond to changing technology used by criminals, such as 3D printers. As someone whose own car was stolen by thieves accessing the vehicle by intercepting the signal from an electronic key, I particularly welcome clause 3. However, I do not wish to detain the House any further: I conclude simply by welcoming the Bill, and the many ways in which its provisions will make the people of my Aylesbury constituency safer and more secure.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman to wind up the debate.

Criminal Justice Bill

Rob Butler Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 15th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris]

I have heard what was said by the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) and made a careful note. The fact that this debate is split over two days may have contributed to that, but I have listened carefully and will take that point away.

It is an honour, again, to open this debate and bring this important Bill back to the House on Report. Its focus is on countering developing criminal threats, intercepting serious organised crime, and protecting vulnerable victims. I thank Members across the House for their constructive engagement on the Bill, as well as the police, leading academics, practising lawyers and campaign groups, some of whom appeared before us in Committee. They have all contributed to the Bill’s development. There are many topics to discuss today, and I look forward to hearing the views of Members.

The Government are bringing forward a number of amendments that we believe are appropriate and necessary to punish offenders and enhance the protection that victims deserve. Briefly, I will explain the key Government amendments, starting with those about which I anticipate there will be no dispute: namely, the extension to Northern Ireland of our new spiking measures in clause 13, and the statutory aggravating factor for grooming activity in relation to child sexual offences in clause 30. New clause 88 provides for equivalence in sentencing for terrorist offenders between England and Wales and Northern Ireland, as a consequence of the irregularity that was identified in the case of R v. Perry.

Government new clause 89 extends the time limit for the unduly lenient sentence scheme, and will extend the overall time limit to six weeks. A request must still be submitted by any prospective appellant to the Attorney General’s Office within the usual 28 days, but the Attorney General’s Office will have an additional 14 days to consider whether the case is appropriate for submission to the Court of Appeal. In recent years the number of cases referred to the Law Officers has increased, in part due to a better awareness of the scheme. We consider it to be in the interests of justice that each application is given due care and attention, even when it is submitted close to the 28-day deadline, and we believe that the new clause is a proportionate way of achieving that.

On attendance at sentencing hearings, a change has been initiated already in the legislation in response to public concerns about high-profile cases, such as those of Lucy Letby, Jordan McSweeney and Thomas Cashman, all of whom refused to attend their sentencing hearing.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that such cases, which have rightly gained a huge amount of public traction, are ones where it is appropriate for the Government to be making further announcements and putting in measures at this stage?

[Laura Farris]

I agree with that sentiment entirely. We are already creating an express statutory power at clause 28 to compel an offender to attend the sentencing hearing if they have been convicted of a crime for which the maximum sentence is life, but we have also listened to those concerned about offences that might not be caught by that power. I confirm that the Government has tabled amendments 148 to 150 to extend the measure to all offences that might attract a maximum sentence of 14 years or more.

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[Rob Butler]

Building on that point, does my right hon. Friend accept that, sometimes, vulnerable people might appear to be exactly the opposite? They might put up a façade of great confidence or even of arrogance, including in the criminal justice process, which I have witnessed as a magistrate. We need to look carefully behind that, to assess whether someone is arrogant or vulnerable.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I could not agree more. That is why I was insistent that the Government are clear in the guidance that coercion and other acts negate the idea that, superficially, the individual is declared to have given their permission. That needs to be investigated more deeply by the police before they say, “It’s all right, they gave their say so, it is fine.” It is not fine. That vulnerability needs to be examined. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point, and I am grateful to the Minister for making it clear at the beginning that that will be in the guidance.

Research from the Centre for Social Justice and Justice and Care highlighted that, despite the terrible impact on victims, taking control of a person’s home in this way is not specifically a crime. The specific offence of cuckooing is therefore needed to rectify the harm done. It has been claimed endlessly that civil orders do the job, but they do not because they are short term. They can be obtained quickly but they are not lasting and do not do anything—perpetrators are back into the process because they are not criminal orders. That is the point: if we make this a criminal offence, suddenly these perpetrators will have to think twice.

I am being brief because I welcome the Government’s decision to amend their own Bill and put it into law. I am grateful for that, and it will be celebrated up and down the land by many people who have felt abandoned. The issue is linked in many senses to what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley said earlier about vulnerability. It may open a wider debate about how vulnerability is recognised in criminal law.

New clause 57 would create an offence of causing death by serious injury and dangerous, careless or inconsiderate cycling. If accepted, it would ensure that cyclists are held accountable for their actions, enhance road safety and provide justice for victims and their families. Simply, it tries to bring in what has, for some reason, been completely left out of the normal criminal codes and highway code with regards to some of problems caused by the increase in cycling. Let me make it clear that I am very keen for more cycling to take place—it is good for individuals and the environment. I recognise all that. This is not anti-cycling, despite what many people say about it—quite the opposite. It is about making sure that cycling is safe and reasonable.

I want to raise the case of Matthew Briggs, who has been campaigning for a law recognising death and serious injury. He is in the Gallery, witnessing these events. His attempt to get a cyclist prosecuted after his wife was killed in central London in 2016 involved a legal process so convoluted and difficult that even the presiding judge has said, since she has retired, that it made a mockery of the law. It needs to be addressed that the laws do not cover what happened to Matthew’s wife and a lot of other people. They had to use a Victorian law made in about 1850, about wanton and furious driving, which referred to horse riding. Nothing has been done ever since. It is quite a different offence, to be frank, and it certainly is not about cycling.

As far back as the 1950s, it was recognised that juries were slow to convict in motor manslaughter cases—that is recognised in a report that I will come to in a second—which led to major changes in the law for drivers. The case for changing the law on cyclists is now urgent. By the way, it is not just me saying that. Back in 2018, the Department for Transport commissioned an independent inquiry into this very issue. Some of the points it made are really relevant, but nothing has been done since. It stated:

“there is a persuasive case for legislative change to tackle the issue of dangerous and careless cycling that causes serious injury or death; in order to bring cycling into line with driving offences.”

It is interesting that it referred to a number of countries that do incorporate that. It has not led to a fall in cycling in those countries—it is still increasing—but it is done on a lawful basis. The report quoted a barrister—this is a key component:

“I consider that this legislative change would have a positive effect on all road users.”

They went on to say that it

“would have a positive impact purely and simply on the basis of cyclists being well aware that if they were to ride in a careless or dangerous manner and were unfortunate enough to kill someone”

laws would proceed against them. They went on to say:

“I would like to think that it would have a positive impact for people to think ‘I am going to slow down, I’m not going to do anything stupid’”

because it could put them in danger with the law. As I said, that independent report is from 2018, but nothing has been done since. That has made this more important. Matthew Briggs and other campaigners often have faced a lot of abuse from people who simply do not want change to happen. It is time for us to recognise the impact of this issue.

Under the current 1861 law, even if someone on a bike has killed a pedestrian, they can only be jailed for a maximum of two years. That creates a clear discrepancy between different forms of dangerous behaviour on roads, and the punishment does not always fit the severity of the crime or achieve justice for victims. In one case, Mr Justice Mitting stated:

“If the vehicle ridden by”

the suspect

“had been motorised he would have had no defence to a charge of causing death by dangerous driving, an offence which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment.”

There have been calls for legislative change for some time—I mentioned the report—but the numbers are growing.

It is worth looking at some other cases, which show that Mr Briggs’s case is far from isolated. Families who have lost loved ones or who have suffered injuries are desperate for change. In July 2020, Peter McCombie, 72, was killed by cyclist Ermir Loka, who had jumped a red light. In June 2022, Stewart McGinn, 29, was jailed for a year after he sped on his bike around a corner in Monmouth, south Wales, hitting Jane Stone, 79, who died four days later.

In June 2022, Hilda Griffiths—this is a very important case—who was aged 81, was run over by a cyclist, who was racing along at 29 mph in a 20 mph zone on a high-performance racing bike. She subsequently died. The extent of Hilda’s injuries were so severe that all the NHS medical professionals at St Mary’s Hospital could not believe that the collision had been with a bicycle. At the time, they thought they had misread the notes and that it must have been a motorbike or a vehicle that caused such extensive, life-threatening injuries. The case was unable to proceed because the speed limit does not apply to cyclists. These anomalies need to be resolved.

On 1 May, I met Paolo Dos Santos, who was knocked unconscious after she was hit by a speeding cyclist who was overtaking a car—overtaking a car—at the same spot. She suffered several facial injuries and now requires reconstruction surgery for her upper jaw socket. Without initial surgery, she would have lifelong discomfort and pain, and would not be able to use her mouth properly to chew, or anything else. In 2016, Diana Walker, 76, died when a cyclist hit her in Pewsey, Wiltshire. In June 2020, Ian Gunn, 56, died in south Manchester, yet the cyclist was cleared of wanton and furious driving.

It is interesting: I am talking about not just deaths, but injuries. I hope colleagues note the age of most of the victims. It is older people who are affected and it is worth recognising that this is a real problem.

The Department for Transport produces statistics on pedestrians involved in road collisions in Great Britain as reported by or to the police. Between 2018 and 2022, 2,000 pedestrian casualties in Great Britain occurred in a collision involving a pedal cycle. Of those, nine were fatal, 657 were very serious injuries and 1,292 were injuries. The number of pedestrians hit by cyclists has increased by a third since 2020, and in 2022, the most recent year for which figures are available, 462 collisions between cyclists and pedestrians were recorded by police. According to data from NHS England, 331 pedestrians were admitted to hospital after a collision with a cyclist between 2022 and 2023. Six of those patients were over the age of 90, and 11 were under the age of four.

We can see a pattern here: the elderly and the very young are becoming the people most affected. It should also be borne in mind that most of these injuries and accidents are not reported to the police because most people do not think anything will happen—unlike motor accidents, although I take the point made earlier by the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) that even motorists try to abscond.

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[Sir Robert Neill]

I am always happy to talk about it. It is my conviction that a single piece of legislation purely on one-punch manslaughter is not the answer. If there were to be legislation, it should be a wholesale reform of the law of homicide. The Law Commission recommended a reform of the law of homicide as long ago as 2006, but that was not acted on. That would deal with not just the issue of unlawful act manslaughter, but the other forms of manslaughter, including gross negligence manslaughter, reckless manslaughter and the interplay between murder and manslaughter; manslaughter is often an alternative verdict. Then of course we have the special defences in relation to diminished responsibility, which reduce, under certain circumstances, murder down to manslaughter. That is a slightly complicated field. The law is difficult for juries to follow, and we oftentimes use law that goes back to almost the 17th and 18th century. As for the right way forward, we should do two things. First, all the work being done around the information campaigns, including one-punch awareness and the “walk away” message, takes exactly the right approach. Secondly, we should look again, cross party, at a wholesale reform of the law of homicide, which could pick up those issues.

Joint enterprise remains a problem. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) for the work that she has done, and for her amendment. I am not convinced that its wording is right, but we have to return to this matter, for the very important reason that many families of those who have been convicted under joint enterprise had hoped that the Supreme Court decision in the case of Jogee, which reversed what it described as the wrong turn taken in the case of Chan Wing-Siu in 1985, would see a number of people’s convictions quashed. In reality, subsequent decisions of the Court of Appeal have tended to narrow the approach in Jogee, very often because of the factual situations, which vary greatly. We do therefore need to look at this issue. I am not sure that the wording in the amendment is the answer, but I hope that we can work constructively on that. There are certain circumstances in which there is a role for joint enterprise, but the expansion of it beyond what most people regard as reasonable is a matter of real concern. I hope we can continue to work cross party to find a better solution.

[Rob Butler]

A concern that the Government have raised previously when joint enterprise has been considered is the use of the word “significant”, and the term “significant contribution”. The Government have argued that that is too vague. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that “significant” is commonly used in criminal justice, and that judges and magistrates are very experienced in advising juries or lawyers on deciding what “significant” means? The Government need to come up with something a little more compelling than the suggestion that “significant” is not a meaningful word.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. “Significant” is a good starting point for the work that we need to do. The intellectually rather convoluted approach that we have to joint enterprise at the moment is really not tenable. A jury will understand “significant”. If we are to have an indictable offence, we need a test that a jury will readily comprehend. “Significant” is comprehensible to jurors.