Victims and Prisoners Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 120, in clause 47, page 43, line 6, leave out from “office” to end of line 9 and insert

“only on grounds of proven misconduct or incapacity”.

This amendment would allow the Secretary of State to remove the Chair of the Parole Board only on the grounds of misconduct or incapacity.

I want to begin by providing some context about the justification for removing the Parole Board chair from office. The Parole Board is rightly independent from the Executive. That independence is well established in several court rulings and is crucial to how the board functions. There are elements of the Bill that would undermine that independence. The Minister will know that I am not alone in voicing those concerns, given that Members of his own party also did so on Second Reading.

The Minister has been open to hearing and taking on board the concerns of Members throughout our time in Committee, and I know that that has been much appreciated. Therefore, I hope that he will reflect on the concerns raised on protecting the independence of the Parole Board. A balance needs to be struck. Although Members on both sides of the Committee will recognise the need for the Secretary of State to have the power to remove the chair, what matters is how that is done. I do not wish to recount too much the circumstances of the removal of Nick Hardwick as chair of the Parole Board—Members will likely already be familiar with those—but it is important to recognise the challenge that placed on the independence of the Parole Board. The powers of the Executive must be appropriate. I consider the termination protocol devised after Nick Hardwick’s time as chair to have the better level of that appropriateness.

The current grounds on which the chair may be removed are set out in a clear way, and the criteria that must be satisfied are reasonable and measurable. There is a procedural fairness in how a recommendation for removal can be made. That is not to say that it is a perfect mechanism. It does not, for example, consider misconduct as a criterion for the chair’s removal, nor does it fully address the concerns raised by the High Court regarding recourse and appeal in the removal of the chair. Furthermore, it does not recognise the potential impact of removing the chair on the independence of the Parole Board. All these merit further consideration in determining how a removal mechanism should operate.

As it stands, I do not believe that the power being given to the Secretary of State to remove the chair addresses those points adequately. Its current wording is narrowly focused and too broadly interpreted. Maintaining the public’s confidence in the parole process is a perfectly reasonable aim, but it should not be the sole consideration in whether the chair is fit to perform the functions of the role.

If the clause ends up on the statute book, how will the Secretary of State measure public confidence? Will it be on the basis of a decision made on an individual case? Clause 47 goes on to say that the chair must not “play any part” or “influence the recommendations” in relation to an individual case. That would clearly make it unfair to dismiss the chair because of a decision taken on a single case.

The Parole Board’s job is to take decisions on complex and occasionally controversial cases. In a small number of examples, that may result in a certain level of unease, but unfettered ministerial power to remove the chair on fairly broadly interpreted grounds is not the proper way to resolve that unease.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I am very supportive of the argument that my hon. Friend is making, because there needs to be absolute confidence that the Parole Board is acting for the right reasons. Any indication of political influence would undermine public confidence in the system. That is why I support her amendment.

[Janet Daby]

I thank my hon. Friend for everything she just said, and I absolutely agree. Those are absolutely the points that I am making as well. I fear that the power is too subjective and, with respect to the Secretary of State, may be misapplied if not handled carefully. In evidence to this Committee, the chief executive officer of the Parole Board himself said that this risked the Parole Board’s independence, and the measure fails to note that the chair may need to be removed on grounds of proven misconduct or incapacity.

Although I do not intend to take amendment 120 to a vote, I hope that it will encourage the Minister to rethink how this clause is drafted, tighten up the removal mechanism, give greater consideration to protecting the Parole Board’s independence and privilege misconduct or incapacity as reasons for removing the chair.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ellie Reeves]

I rise to support clauses 48, 49 and 50. At present, 66 prisoners are serving whole-life sentences in England and Wales. Those sentences reflect some of the most despicable crimes imaginable—ones so serious that the prisoner will never be released from prison. For families trying to rebuild their lives after the devastation of a crime caused by that group of offenders, hearing news that they have been able to conduct a relationship in prison is unimaginable.

There is also often a safeguarding issue. Given the history of the prisoner, it is right that their motivation in pursuing a marriage is examined, as we know that such people often have great capacity for coercion and exploitation. I note the recent case of serial killer Levi Bellfield, who is serving a whole-life sentence for the murders of Marsha McDonnell, Amelie Delagrange and Millie Dowler, as well as the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy. He also had a long history of domestic violence and remains a suspect in other crimes. News that he has met someone, and has been able to marry her behind bars, has rightly been met with public outrage.

I can only imagine how the news has impacted Bellfield’s victims and their families, and it is concerning that he was introduced to his now wife by a fellow serial killer and was able to propose marriage in the prison visitors’ centre. Under current legislation there are no sufficient powers to prevent that from happening. I therefore welcome these clauses, which will put appropriate legislation in place to ensure that something like it does not happen again.

[Sarah Champion]

It is a pleasure to serve under your wise counsel, Mrs Murray. I am standing against clauses 48, 49 and 50, and against my Front-Bench team in doing so. I do not think that they should be in the Bill, and I would like to explain why.

First, fundamentally, everything I have done in this place is to support victims and survivors and their rights. At my very core, human rights and equality is what motivates me and gets me out of bed every day. It is because of that that I am challenged by these three clauses. Sometimes, we see legislation coming through that is, to quote the Minister, “common-sense legislation”, but it is brought forward for an emotional—or indeed a headline—reason. That does not make it good legislation, and I am concerned that that could be happening in this case.

I also seek to understand how the Government maintain that these measures are compliant with their obligations under the European convention on human rights. For me, the Secretary of State is coming over as God-like, to put it simply. I do not think that we have the right to take away someone’s right to get married or to have a civil partnership, and I question what the benefits of that will be.

I want to believe that there is a restorative purpose for people going to prison. I want to know that by maintaining one relationship, they are able to change and improve. The fact that someone may be seeking marriage gives me hope that there is potential within some of the most wicked and deplorable people whom I have ever had the misfortune to come across. There is hope that they might be able to maintain a meaningful relationship.

[Jess Phillips]

I truly appreciate my hon. Friend’s fundamental point: everybody hopes for rehabilitation. With this, the only case we have to debate is that of Levi Bellfield, as mentioned. Having worked with some of his direct victims and the families of those victims, while I do not disagree that we sometimes chase headlines and make bad legislation in doing so, with his case I am not sure, from previous behaviour, that I would categorise it as rehabilitation. I would categorise it as behaviour to get headlines. The desire in Levi Bellfield’s case, as has been put to me by many of his victims, is that these schemes keep him constantly in the media, and that is incredibly painful for them. There is a bit from both sides of the argument in this debate: trying to stop the headlines and allowing rehabilitation.

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend makes a strong argument that I agree with on many levels. It also confirms my suspicion that the provisions could be around an individual, and responding to the horror of that individual. Therefore, I want the Minister to explain to me all the consideration of unintended consequences on this. There are two subsections that allow a prisoner to get married if they have written permission from the Secretary of State. There are also conditions as to why the Secretary of State may be unable to give that permission. Can the Minister tell us again what the exceptions for giving permission, or being unable to give permission, are? Those are not clear in the Bill or in what he has said in Committee.

The Prison Reform Trust was deeply concerned in its written evidence, stating:

“The introduction of specific carve-outs from human rights for people given custodial sentences contradicts one of the fundamental principles underlying human rights—their universality and application to each and every person on the simple basis of their being human.”

Despite the actions of certain offenders, we should not prevent people from having their human rights.

The Prisoners’ Advice Service also stated in its written evidence that the practice will have very little impact:

“A whole life tariffed prisoner will die in prison, and the nature of their crimes renders them unlikely to ‘progress’ to open conditions or to access resettlement facilities such as unescorted release on temporary licence from prison into the community. Thus any marriages or civil partnerships contracted by such prisoners, before or after their conviction leading to the whole life tariff, will in practice have little or no impact on the conditions of imprisonment—and would have no significant impact on victims or their families. It is a point of principle only, ostensibly to show the public that the Executive is not ‘soft’ on those who commit the worst crimes. Behind this flashy headline, is another attempt by the Executive to remove a basic human right from a group of people who are unpopular with sections of the population and the press, for political advantage.”

Given the arguments that those organisations have put forward, I do not think the Minister has made a clear enough argument for why the provisions need to be in the Bill. I ask the Minister to explain the logic, the exceptions and whether the provisions apply retrospectively to people already married. Fundamentally, people have a right to practice their religion, and marriage is part of their religion. I am very concerned that the Minister is looking to take that right away.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Rotherham for their comments.

On chasing flashy headlines, I have to confess that in my eight and a half years in this place, five of them as a Minister, I have sought to do everything I possibly can to avoid them—I was not overjoyed, then, that I found myself appointed as a Health Minister three months before a pandemic—but the hon. Member for Rotherham raises important points. I do not think anyone could ever question or call into doubt the decency, sincerity and integrity with which she makes points in this Committee and more broadly throughout the House in championing the causes that she does.

On the question of whether the measures make law based on an individual case, I do not think that is the case. On occasion, an individual case may shine a light on something, which then reflects a broader concern or issue. We in this House should always seek to legislate for the general, rather than for the specific individual, and I think we are doing that in this case. It just so happens that an individual case has thrown a light on the matter.

I do not always disagree with the hon. Lady—I possibly agree with her rather more often than not—but I do disagree with her on this issue. I find it challenging to accept that those whose actions have robbed others of any opportunity of happiness believe that they should be able to pursue it irrespective of what they have done in the past. To address a point that the hon. Lady raised, my understanding is that the change is not retrospective. I take her point that tough cases can make bad law, if we look at them individually, which is why we are looking at the matter more broadly.

The shadow Home Office Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, spoke about individual cases and alluded to something that I want to develop a little more. Although I take at face value what the hon. Member for Rotherham said about redemption and people wishing to reform, I do not underestimate the cynicism of some of these offenders, their manipulative and exploitative behaviour or the potential that, in pursuing marriage, they seek to exploit an opportunity that, in effect, could create another victim further down the line. I believe that the Bill strikes a proportionate balance.

The hon. Member for Rotherham asked about possible exemptions—I think I saw the shadow Minister mouthing it and she was absolutely right—and those would be, for example, deathbed marriages if someone has a long-term partner but they are not married, in the case of a terminal illness or similar, at the end of life. It would, though, be exceptionally rare in those circumstances.

[Sarah Champion]

Why is it all right for someone who is dying but not for someone who is not? I do not understand that distinction, and I am a woman who used to run a hospice.

[Edward Argar]

The point is that the only circumstance in which I could envisage the provision being used is where the long-term partner is also a whole-life prisoner and both are in prison at the end of life. Even then, I am not necessarily anticipating that the Secretary of State would give permission, but the hon. Lady asked for a hypothetical example of how it might work, given the concerns expressed by the shadow Home Office Minister, by myself and by others. That is an illustrative example for her. She knows that I have huge respect for her and her integrity and sincerity, but we approach this issue from slightly different perspectives. I am afraid that on this occasion I must resist her entreaties to either withdraw or change the clause, but I am grateful to her for airing her views.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 48 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 49 and 50 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 51

Financial provision

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.