Legal Aid Reform

Debate between Seema Malhotra and Kate Green

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The £4 million cost savings are very likely to be eaten up not only by the cost of using the complaints and ombudsman systems but because of the impact inside prisons if prisoners are unable effectively to have their case made.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech on the needs of prisoners. Does she agree that another cause for great concern is that prisoners will often go through this process when they have exhausted other routes and had unsatisfactory outcomes? Without adequate investment in the prison complaints system, there will be even greater miscarriages of justice.

[Kate Green]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point.

What kinds of situations are we talking about when we say that prisoners need representation? It is about issues such as segregation and categorisation. It is about mothers separated from their babies who need to make the case to be with them in mother and baby units. It is about prisoners who need to access programmes that will be a prerequisite of their being considered for parole. It is about cases of bullying or discrimination, or cases where people are denied access to health treatments that they ought to get. These are really important entitlements that we must ensure that we protect for all people. We should not deny them to people simply because they are in prison serving a sentence for a criminal offence.

If we fail to deal with these cases adequately, we will, as my hon. Friends have said, drive up costs both outside and within the prison system. We will have more people in higher category prisons for longer. We will have more problems caused by failing to address their underlying health and well-being needs, and that will play out in continuing disruptive and difficult behaviour inside prison and on release. I invite the Minister, who is a very thoughtful Minister, to take account of the much broader context in which these apparently cost-effective measures will impact inside our prisons.

I particularly ask the Minister to comment on youth offenders, who are the most vulnerable group in our prisons and in our penal system. Are they too to be hit by this lack of access to legal representation? They, of all prisoners, will be especially poorly equipped to represent themselves. I hope that the Minister will at least be able to give us some assurances on young offenders.

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Seema Malhotra and Kate Green

Tuesday 16th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green]

That is absolutely right. One of the great dangers of the Government’s proposals is that they assume that the problem is sorted and we can take our eye off the ball when that is clearly not the case.

It is important to think about the language we use and the provisions we make in legislation, because that sets a context, an ambition and a sense of priority for the country and for the institutions within it. Equally, beginning to weaken that language and remove provisions sends the message that this is not all that important and other things are more important.

I am particularly concerned that these changes are being made in the context of an enterprise Bill, as though equality were in some way inimical to enterprise, when in fact it lies at the heart of successful enterprise. The most socially and economically successful societies are also the most equal societies. It is wrong to seek to weaken our commitment to equality in an enterprise Bill, of all places.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend raises the very important issue of the “Innocence of Muslims” film and the inter-faith concerns that have been caused. Does she agree that a strong equalities body is vital for promoting a sense of good will, cohesion and understanding between communities that will not be there without the mechanisms in society to help to deliver that?

[Kate Green]

It is absolutely right that we need a strong institutional infrastructure to promote and encourage greater equality, respect for human rights and good relations between different sectors in society, particularly as regards the interests of marginalised and more vulnerable groups.

--- Later in debate ---

[Seema Malhotra]

Does my hon. Friend share my grave concern that the removal of the general duty under clause 51—now clause 52—was described by the Business Secretary as

“a bit of legislative tidying up”?—[Official Report, 11 June 2012; Vol. 546, c. 75.]

Does she agree that it is far from just “tidying up” and that it is in fact a watering down of a duty that is vital for our social well-being?

[Kate Green]

It is shocking that the Secretary of State regards this simply as legislative tidying up, because it goes to the heart of our vision for equality and human rights. I am also concerned that it has been suggested—indeed, the Minister alluded remarks—that other bits of the legislation are going to be good enough and we are not going to lose anything really. For example, the Government have mentioned the possibility of relying on the public sector equality duty, but that, too, is being reviewed by this Government.

What we have had with the red tape challenge, with this Bill and now with the consultation on the public sector equality duty is the piecemeal dismantling of our equalities infrastructure. It is utterly disgraceful that the Government have set about it in this way. They have made proposals today on the statutory questionnaire and on third-party harassment. The consultation on those has just closed and there has been no formal response from the Government; we have simply seen proposals brought forward in this legislation. The Secretary of State assured me personally on Second Reading that he had no plans to bring forward such measures, yet here they are today appearing in the Bill so I am very concerned that the Minister’s assurances that the equalities context is safe in the Government’s hands and that other aspects of legislation will continue to protect it are simply not worth the paper they are written on, given the Government’s track record on this matter over the past few months.

I now wish to examine the good relations duty, a really important duty that has been in place since the time of the Commission for Racial Equality and some of the shocking racial discrimination that we saw in earlier decades. That all culminated in the Macpherson report following Stephen Lawrence’s murder. That was a time that brought home a real shock to our society about how we had failed to address discrimination and inequality in our country. As I say, we have made progress in the intervening decades in our treatment of, and the opportunities afforded to, some minority groups in our society, but victimisation, discrimination, hate crime and disrespect to minorities continue today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington highlighted some of the groups that, even today, experience that discrimination: disabled people; people with mental health difficulties; and Gypsies and Travellers. There is still racism and there is still religious hatred. There are still women who are experiencing and are victims of violence, or who are at risk of it. All those groups continue to suffer from derogatory language, discriminatory behaviour, prejudice and public hostility. It is quite wrong to think that we do not need to continue to protect in legislation a positive duty to promote and improve good relations, particularly to protect the interests of minority and disadvantaged groups.

The situation is not helped when some of this hostility is whipped up by Ministers’ own language; it is not helped by language that implies that people on disability benefits are benefit scroungers or that Gypsies and Travellers are all involved in illegal encampments, arriving one Friday night, parking up with their tents and disappearing by Monday. There is too much condemnation based on anecdote, which fuels this culture of hostility. It is really important that we have a strong commission that is able positively and proactively to tackle that and promote good relations between different groups.