Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Buckland and David Burrowes

Thursday 14th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

14. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on the effect of the Supreme Court ruling of 13 May 2015 on local authorities’ ability to meet their legal duties towards people facing homelessness.

[The Solicitor General (Robert Buckland)]

I have to observe the proprieties of the Law Officers’ convention, but the Government welcome the clarity the judgment provided. It explains that any assessment of vulnerability must be made in the round, looking at all aspects of a person’s situation.

[Mr Burrowes]

A rough sleeper is likely die by the age of 47. Homeless people are inherently vulnerable. Can the Solicitor General assure me that, as the law currently stands, a safety net is provided for vulnerable and homeless people who are unintentionally homeless?

[The Solicitor General]

I commend my hon. Friend for the considerable work he has done on this issue, both in the capital and generally. The Government intervened in that case precisely because they were concerned that the test would disproportionately affect vulnerable homeless people. I am glad the Supreme Court has rebalanced the law in what I think is a fair way.

Adult Autism Strategy

Debate between Robert Buckland and David Burrowes

Wednesday 5th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Buckland]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I am grateful to him not only for his work on the all-party group but for his work as shadow children’s Minister and as children’s Minister in this Government. He played his part in ensuring that early diagnosis is a step closer to reality. The Children and Families Bill, which is shortly to be enacted, now incorporates education, health and care into one plan for young people who previously received statements of special educational needs. I am talking about children, but what my hon. Friend says is relevant. If we fail to take those early steps, the problems that manifest in later life become not only more difficult for the adults and their families but more expensive for the state. One example is that adults with Asperger’s are seven times more likely to come into contact with the criminal justice system than those without the condition. Why? Because Asperger’s is still a relatively unknown condition. It is not understood by many agencies that deal with it, and misunderstanding leads to sad results.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his extraordinary leadership and for having a positive impact in a relatively short time on the understanding of autism. On Asperger’s, he will share my concern for those who unfortunately fall into the criminal justice system, but how far do we need to go to ensure that all agencies properly understand Asperger’s? Just last week, a constituent told me that Atos did not have a clue on how to deal with it. His older child was completely let down by the work capability assessment.

[Mr Buckland]

My hon. Friend, of course, has constituency experience with the Gary McKinnon case of how we can reach a dreadful situation where, because of a complete misunderstanding of the condition, serious consequences can flow. He makes an important point about Atos, and we have seen the difficulties that it has got itself into. It is unacceptable that we have a system that does not properly recognise these conditions. Frankly, it is a scandal. We can do far better than that, not only for adults with Asperger’s but for the range of invisible conditions—I do not call them hidden conditions, because the word “hidden” has connotations of its own—right through the gamut of mental health. We do not have a grip of that, either in the benefits system or with some other agencies.

2014 JHA Opt-out Decision

Debate between Robert Buckland and David Burrowes

Monday 15th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab). In his excellent, detailed speech, he made an interesting political point about the importance of the Government setting out their philosophy on the future of justice and home affairs in the European Union. I am very enthusiastic about the economic progress of the European Union, but I have always been more cautious about justice and home affairs. That caution is in part based on my long experience as a common lawyer in the law of England and Wales, and I am glad that the Government have decided to opt out of what we used to call the third pillar.

Some of the differences between our jurisdiction and those of the other member states are sometimes a little over-dramatised. In this country, we rightly place great emphasis on the charging process and on the process that follows, from charge up to and including trial. One of the great differences in our way of proceeding in criminal matters is to be found following the decision to charge and during the detention of the defendant. In other member states, the process is often much more inquisitorial, with a heavy degree of judicial involvement in the investigation. It can involve a wholly different way of dealing with criminal proceedings from that of England and Wales, and indeed of Scotland.

That underlines the fundamental issue that we have with many of the proposals that emanated from the justice and home affairs pillar. Notably, one proposal that we rightly decided not to opt into related to access to lawyers. In this jurisdiction, we believe that access to lawyers is fundamental once a subject is charged and being interviewed formally in a police station under the terms of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. However, if we read the EU directive carefully, we see that the proposal applies to the investigative stage as well. I could not support that, and neither could the Government, bearing in mind the potential consequences for the admissibility of evidence in a trial and the burdens that it would place on the investigating authorities, which would have to ensure that lawyers were present at the early stages of the criminal process. That is why a process of opting in en bloc would have been wholly wrong. It would have embraced far too many aspects of justice and home affairs that are completely alien to the way in which we conduct criminal proceedings here.

I want to address what is probably the most politically contentious issue, the European arrest warrant. I shall remind the House of some further statistics relating to the arrest and surrender of people under the warrant. Between April 2009 and April this year, just over 4,000 people were surrendered from England and Wales to another EU country, of which only 181—or about 5% —were United Kingdom nationals. In reverse, 507 people were surrendered to the United Kingdom from another EU country in that same period, of which just over half were British nationals.

It is clear from looking at those statistics that the European arrest warrant is undeniably an important tool for the efficient administration of justice. We must have a debate on the consequences of subjecting the regime to the jurisdiction of the Luxembourg Court, but it would be wrong, and foolish in the extreme, to ignore the reality of the hundreds of victims and their families who are looking to the authorities to act swiftly to bring individuals to justice. And it does not stop there.

I have mentioned the arrest warrant, but it is right to point out that, in a large number of other measures, there exist helpful schemes of mutual recognition that will assist prosecutors—for example, when they are seeking to adduce evidence of previous convictions, where admissible, in certain trials. The mechanism will be much improved by which serious convictions recorded in other EU jurisdictions could become relevant for the consideration of juries in England and Wales. That is a good thing.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is bringing a lot of wisdom and experience to this issue. Given that we want to stand alongside the victims to ensure speedy and effective justice, does not the figure of 5% of British nationals that he mentioned give rise to concern? Let us take as an example the case of Andrew Symeou, which my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) mentioned. The present arrangements have done no service to the victim, given the length of time taken up by the process, and the fact that the charge was based on flimsy evidence and that the authorities had plainly got the wrong man.

[Mr Buckland]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) for the campaign that they have rightly pursued on behalf of that Enfield resident.

I made the point earlier about the distinction between our system of justice and certain others. Ours seeks to use proper evidence to identify individuals who are suspected of committing crimes, and then to proceed against them. We have to look at that in the context of other systems in which the investigation process is far too long and in which evidence that we would not regard as strongly probative can be used to launch an investigation that can result in someone being incarcerated for an inordinate period of time. The amendments to the Anti-social behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill, which will amend the Extradition Act 2003, are vital in this context. I was delighted to see that one amendment provides that, in the absence of a prosecution decision, a court would have to consider that factor before allowing extradition. In fact, it would be barred where there was no clear prosecution decision to charge or try the individual concerned. I believe that the sort of monstrous situation in which Mr Symeou and others have found themselves can in large measure be avoided.