Draft Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Legal Aid: Family and Domestic Abuse) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2023

Shaun Bailey Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 General Committees

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate today and to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cardiff North. I had not intended to contribute to this debate, but it is quite a personal one for me as the son of a survivor of domestic abuse.

I saw the shambolic system under the previous Labour Government. After having lived through that and experienced that myself, I question the narrative of the land of milk and honey under that previous Administration. However, I agree with the hon. Lady. In the broader context of support for survivors, the order is long overdue. I welcome what my hon. Friend the Minister has done to ease access. I remember my mum’s own story as a survivor of domestic abuse. She struggled to access the justice system at the time, and she had to face down my father —who tried to throw her over the balcony of the court building itself during their hearings— in court because there was no way in which the evidence could be taken that did not involve her having to encounter him.

I support freeing up the system to make it more accessible. I particularly want to draw attention to the provisions around medical practitioners providing evidence, because I have seen at first hand how difficult it is for survivors to go through this system while staying safe. We need to couch this in terms of what it is: ultimately, when we talk about domestic violence, it is a threat to someone’s life. I have seen that at first hand, and I spoke about it when I got into this place. The reason I am here is because of the fights that my mum had to go through in order to just keep me and my sister alive, quite frankly, and to ensure that my father never got within five feet of us.

Making the system easier in any way is, in my view, the right thing for the Government to do, but it is probably 25 years overdue. That is not the Minister’s fault: Governments of all colours have had abysmal track records in this space. I am glad to see that we are finally going some way towards remediating and rectifying that. Of course, there is more I would like to see. We made steps in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021; we need to keep building on that legislation, and I implore my hon. Friend the Minister to do so. We have spoken many times about the work that he and right hon. and hon. Friends in his Department are doing.

It is also good to see an expansion of ease of access to legal aid, for once. Too often, we hear other narratives around legal aid, but it is such a vital part of this process. Just to give an example, during my childhood we were homeless, so accessing the justice system in the way that people currently have to do was just not doable. What my hon. Friend the Minister has done today would have meant that my mum could access that system more easily, and she would have been able to get to the end of this horrific process in a quicker way and one that kept her safe and ensured that she could keep us protected. That is who I think of as I make this speech. As I say, Mr Vickers, I had not intended to contribute to this debate, but the nature of this SI is personal to me. Quite often, we come into these Committees thinking that the piece of delegated legislation we are considering is quite odd and abstract, but this one is not. It is about people’s lives; it is about the experiences that so many people up and down this country are having to go through, but quite frankly, should not have to go through.

I thank the Committee for its indulgence in letting me speak to this piece of legislation. While it is overdue, it is very welcome, and I hope that it is not the end, but merely part of the process as we build a system that supports survivors. We have to remember that the people in these situations are survivors, not victims, and we can help them by ensuring they get access to justice and the systems they need, so that they can carry on with their lives. At the end of the day, if it were not for people like my mum, I would not be stood here right now—it is as simple as that—so I thank my hon. Friend the Minister. Let us hope that we can get some positives out of what is a horrendous situation.

Offenders (Day of Release from Detention) Bill

Shaun Bailey Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 2nd December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell), who gave an absolutely fantastic justification for the Bill. He was so articulate and measured in the way he put forward his argument that it makes it nigh on impossible not to support the Bill, given his efforts. I pay tribute to him for his work in this area, and for his work on the Home Affairs Committee. I know he has been a doughty voice on this issue for a considerable amount of time, and today we have seen the culmination of a considerable amount of work by him.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness for bringing the Bill forward, and he really hit the nail on the head when he talked about what it is. It is a technical and quite minor change to the existing legislation, and it does not require significant spend from the Treasury. Having reviewed it, I do not think the Bill requires a money resolution at all, so it seems a very straightforward piece of legislation, but it will have a considerable impact, which, ultimately, is what this is about.

Although the Bill might be a somewhat technical change, as we say, to existing legislation, it will have an absolutely profound impact on the broader society, on our communities, on the people we are here to serve, and on those who perhaps want a second chance more than anything else. From that perspective, it makes absolute sense for the Bill to pass its Second Reading. As Members can probably tell from my comments, I will support the Bill wholeheartedly as it passes its stages in this place, but I will talk a bit more about its impacts.

I, too, met representatives of Nacro last year and had a really interesting discussion about the impact of Friday releases, particularly on youth offenders. My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness touched on the issue in his comments, and I wish to bring it to the forefront of the debate. I cannot compute what that impact feels like for the 15% of incarcerated or imprisoned children who are held 100 miles away from where they live. More often than not, they find themselves in that situation because of other underlying factors in their life. They are often a young person with real vulnerabilities, who has effectively been left to society. Unfortunately, as a result, they have found themselves in horrendous situations that have ultimately led them to break the law and end up in custody. I cannot compute how much the longer-term impacts on a child are compounded by this situation. Some Members will have children of a similar age—I am not a parent, but imagine having a child who is 100 miles away from home, who has been through the system for two or three years, or even longer, on their own. Let us not brush this under the carpet: it is a tough environment for someone to come out of and effectively feel like they are on their own. More often than not, the young people who are going through the system—my hon. Friend touched on it, but I will tweak that a bit—are not being met at the gate by a familiar person with a loving smile ready to take them somewhere. They are on their own, or they are having to go back through the system.

That leads me to a broader question: what are we really trying to achieve in our criminal justice system? Within the confines of the Bill—I am not going to opine philosophically on that, Mr Deputy Speaker—one point springs to mind that could address what opponents of the Bill might say, although I cannot see that there would be many, if any, given how straightforward and practical it is. There is a balance between, on the one hand, the perception that that individual has served their time and, on the other hand, having a system that practically works.

Effectively, we are talking about tweaking things by a matter of days to ensure that we do not just throw someone out into the world without a support mechanism. If we truly want to see the readmission into society of people who know that they have broken the law but who have gone through our prison system as a result, served their punishment and done their time, and if we want them to become proactive members of society, surely we have to give them a chance on day one to start in the right way. That is common sense.

If they need access to a probation officer, that means making sure that they can access one. They might also need an advance payment so that they can get new clothes. My hon. Friend gave a vivid example that highlighted the problem of an individual whose clothes no longer fitted them when they came out, and it was cold and they needed to figure out where they were going to go and what they were going to do.

More often than not, when we are debating in the comfort of this Chamber, things can become quite abstract and we forget that we are talking about human beings and people’s lives. We have to remember that these people often want to reintegrate into society, but they need practical support to do that. Many of them are not asking for us to sort them out. They want to contribute, to go to work, to pay it back and to get on with their lives, but if we have a ridiculous situation where they are effectively thrown out on the street at 3 o’clock on a Friday afternoon and told, “Right, get on with it,” how on earth can we realistically expect them to have a chance? What my hon. Friend is trying to achieve with his Bill, therefore, is at the core of what all hon. Members believe: let us at least give someone a decent chance to have a go and an opportunity to make a start. Again, that is common sense.

I will touch on the practicalities in prisons, particularly on a Friday. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth), who practised as a distinguished barrister for many years, knows the intricate nature of the system full well, as will many other hon. Members. The administrative pressures in prisons on Fridays are acute. Often, there are people being prepared to go to court. If there are people who have hearings in front of judges, either the following week or sometimes over the weekend, they would be held there in preparation for those hearings.

On top of that, the situation is compounded by the pressure of significant numbers of people being processed for release on the same day. What we have effectively in that process, therefore, is almost like a pressure cooker. It builds up and up, and there is no way realistically to properly track how things are being monitored and managed. Staff have to effectively get people out because there needs to be turnover in the system. That is not to be seen as a criticism in any way, shape or form of the hard-working people in our prison system—they have to work with the systems and processes they have—but if we can alleviate the pressure on them with the small minor change that this legislation seeks to achieve, it makes perfect sense to do that. We know that, when people are under that amount of pressure, it is impossible to know exactly who is where, who is collecting who and how that impacts on so and so and to link with those agencies. The volume and pressure they are dealing with are so impacted and compounded, it is just not possible.

The other point I want to make on support relates to older offenders. When someone is coming out of prison after a significant amount of time, it is into unfamiliar surroundings and a system, a world and, in many respects, probably a society that have totally changed. That impacts not just on the practicalities of getting from A to B, but on them personally and their mental health. It might sound straightforward to say to someone who has perhaps come out of prison after 15 or 20 years, “Begone, get on the train to see your probation officer at 3 o’clock”, but it is not. That is particularly so when we add the fact that they are being released on a Friday, when these support services are not there, so any hope that this person may be able to get some degree of support is reduced—not eliminated, but reduced—and that again adds to the pressures.

From the perspective of ensuring reintegration, which is the overarching angle of the point I am trying to make, it is so important that we enable people to at least have a chance to access our support services and meet their own obligations, too, particularly the need to meet a probation officer or support officer, or any other condition attached to their release. If there are conditions attached to release, by releasing individuals on a Friday, we are not even giving them a chance to meet those conditions in the first place. From that perspective, the idea of fair play—as in, this person has done their part, so the state needs to do its part, too—is just not there in the current system, and that is another thing that the Bill seeks to address.

The other key perspective from an administrative point of view is how this power is delegated. In the legislation, that power would sit with the Secretary of State and would then flow through. Practically, it is likely that governors of prisons and directors of private prisons would be the ones exercising the power on a day-to-day basis, and that is absolutely right, because within the broader prison system and organisation, it is exactly those people who know the prisons. It comes back to my earlier point, which is that we are dealing ultimately with human beings. It is vital, therefore, that we leverage the existing relationships that prisons have with their prisoners, utilising the knowledge and skills of those who know them best to ensure that we can tailor release dates that work for them, clearly in line with the sentences handed down.

Having the practical function of this power executed and managed by prison governors, with the prison staff underneath them feeding into that process, is absolutely right. It will enable us to ensure that the process is dealt with through the people with the best knowledge to manage it and ensure that individuals are identified in the right way. From that perspective of the Bill, it is absolutely right that we handle this in that way.

Of course, the overarching theme of my contribution is about giving people a fair go once they have left prison, and to me that is the core of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness touched on substance misuse as a real driver of reoffending and made the vivid point about people often being met at the prison gate, not by someone they know or a family member, but by their drug dealer.

The broader point about linking with support services—Nacro does an amazing job there, and I really commend its work—is a vital thread of this legislation. By enabling discretion on the timings of release, it allows us not only to mitigate exactly what my hon. Friend talked about, but to stand up the services to tackle the problem of substance abuse. I know from my own experience in my communities in West Bromwich West that that has been a real driver of crime and offending rates, particularly short-term offending, which is acutely impacted, in the research I have seen, by the issues the Bill seeks to tackle.

The Bill will enable us to ensure that, from a pragmatic point of view, we are eliminating—or at least making our best efforts to eliminate—the scenario of someone being met by their drug dealer at the gate, by enabling the discretion for their release to be timed in the right way. It at least gives that person a chance. It may sound as though I have portrayed a land of milk and honey here, so let me be clear: this legislation would not eliminate reoffending completely. There is always a degree of personal responsibility. It will also not entirely eliminate Friday release, because there may be good reasons why a prison governor allows it, or a sentence expires on that day and it works out in practical terms.

To be abundantly clear, I am aware that a technical change will not suddenly solve all the problems of reoffending, but to me, this is a vital but understated part of the broader machinery for dealing with them. I have just said it will not eliminate reoffending; there is a degree of personal responsibility and broader societal issues, which are outside the scope of the Bill, but which we must continue to work on. However, at least this Bill is an opportunity to give people a fair go and eliminate a technical construction that has exacerbated those issues.

To sum up, I think this Bill is pragmatic in what it seeks to do. It seeks to address an issue that may be understated, but none the less has an acute impact on prisoners affected by Friday releases. It enables people to access vital services, to start the road to reintegration and to get the support they need—or at least it provides the opportunity for that, and that is so important.

As I said, the Bill will not solve the broader issues with reoffending rates, but it is a part of that patchwork that we need to keep developing. It is part of the broader conversation we need to have. It is absolutely right that the mechanics of the Bill allow its application to be pragmatic, which I very much support. The people who know prisoners best are those who work with them during their time in prison.

At the heart of the Bill is giving a fair chance to people who want to turn their life around, which is something we can all wholeheartedly get behind.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Eastwood]

I was not aware of those specific comments, but obviously we do not want people sleeping on the streets or rough sleeping. I pay tribute to Kirklees Council and its rough sleeping team. If the Bill alleviated the problem, that would be a benefit, so it should be brought forward. I thank my hon. Friend for that.

Nacro, which has campaigned on this matter since 2018, has also called for an end to Friday releases. It suggests that more than a third of prison leavers are released on a Friday, which piles pressure on to offender managers, responsible officers, local housing authorities, accommodation providers, Jobcentre Plus officers and other community services. I suggest that the impact is wider than just the public sector and those offering such services.

I would like to name-check a number of charities that also want to help offenders. The Blast Foundation equips offenders, ex-offenders and their families to prepare for reintegration into lawful society through mentoring and training. Choices is a counselling service for those facing unplanned pregnancy and child separation. Moving on from what was said by my hon. Friend, HTB shelter and night shelters provide a safe place for rough sleepers in London. Mind provides advice and support to empower anyone experiencing mental health problems. One in Four supports people who have experienced child sexual abuse and trauma, and Prison Fellowship works through its volunteer members to support prisoners in a number of ways. Prisoners and offenders need access to those services as they come back into society. If they cannot have that on a weekend, of course they are more likely to be stood at the prison gates and tempted by the drug dealers and people who want them not to rehabilitate themselves—obviously, from a financial point of view, that would not help them.

A final organisation that I have much admiration for when it comes to prisoners and rehabilitation is Timpson, which does dry cleaning. It does my dry cleaning, although my suit probably needs to go back there next week—you will be pleased to know that I will bring in another suit next week, Mr Deputy Speaker. Timpson does great work with offenders—it has been known to meet offenders at the gates. It may not do that on a Friday—obviously it works on a six-days-a-week basis—but it is there to help stop reoffending.

[Shaun Bailey]

My hon. Friend is making a characteristically articulate speech, so I want to say well done for that; it is fantastic. He has mentioned a number of charities and third-party organisations. Does he agree that one of the good things about the Bill and the practical use of its discretion is that, as I touched on in my contribution, it enables a bit of forward planning? If we could enable further engagement with those organisations, we could plan a proper release strategy for prisoners, to at least try to mitigate some of exactly what he is articulating.

[Mark Eastwood]

Absolutely. These organisations are fully prepared to help people to reintegrate into society. Finally on Timpson, I have talked to people who work in its high street shops, and they do great work in this area. The only thing that they do not train offenders in is key cutting—for obvious reasons.

We have mentioned that Fridays are busy days in prison, which often results in delayed release. There is a higher volume of prison leavers, and those going to court are prioritised over those due for release, leading to later releases. There is less time to contact support services, as has been mentioned. That can lead to homelessness, which has a special impact on women and young people. Women are held, on average, 63 miles from home, but many are held 100 miles away or more. Eleven per cent. of children in custody are held over 100 miles from home, and 35% are held more than 50 miles away.

Services in the community may offer reduced services on Fridays, and reduced or no services over the weekend. That means that the window for prison leavers to obtain support from those services is incredibly limited on a Friday. Delays can mean that those people cannot access the support they need. That obviously leads to an increased risk of reoffending and sets them up to fail. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West alluded to, everyone should be given a second chance. We do not want people to fail and go back into the prison system. The high number of releases on Fridays puts unnecessary pressure on services, especially on bank holidays, which we have not mentioned. If someone has a Friday release and the Monday—or, on certain special occasions, Tuesday—is a bank holiday, the prisoner is left to their own devices and at risk. That needs to be taken into account in this Bill.

In conclusion, we need to support the Bill to help those who genuinely want to re-engage with society, to enable them to access the support available and to reduce the risk of reoffending due to lack of support and, therefore, reduce pressures on criminal justice services, so that they can adequately support more people. Finally, I congratulate the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness on presenting this Bill. He has my full support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) on introducing this important Bill. I thank Nacro for its campaigning work on this issue and the vital support it provides to prison leavers. As the hon. Member outlined, the Bill will allow the earlier release, by up to two days, of people in prison with high resettlement needs who are due to be released from prison on a Friday or the day before a bank holiday.

It will be no surprise to the Government that Labour supports the Bill wholeheartedly, not least because we tried to legislate for this last year. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) tabled an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 that would have provided this much-needed flexibility for Friday releases, but the Government at the time refused to support it. I am glad that they have now seen sense and recognise the value in Labour’s proposals—because let’s us face it, these proposals are common sense.

As the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness explained, prisoners released on a Friday face an almost impossible race against the clock to get all the support that they need in place before the weekend. In many cases, they are simply unable to access the same support as those released earlier in the week, because many crucial resettlement agencies run a reduced service on Fridays and no service over the weekend.

That means that prison leavers might end up sleeping rough or in unsuitable housing. They may be left for the weekend, unable to access important medication and health support, such as in the case of M, who was released on Friday before a bank holiday weekend after serving a year in custody. He had an addiction to heroin but, when released, was not given the prescription charts from the prison that were needed to determine the dose of methadone he needed. He was also not given a bridging prescription. As it was late afternoon on Friday, the GP from the substance misuse service had left, and M and his resettlement broker were unable to get his medication. He was vulnerable and entitled to priority housing, but the local authority did not deem him to be in priority need because it was a Friday afternoon. He did not have time to gather the further evidence that was needed to prove what he had said before the weekend. He spent the weekend sleeping in a known drug house and ended up using heroin. As part of his licensed conditions, he was required to give a blood sample and, lo and behold, he tested positive for drug use. Had he been released earlier in the week, he would have accessed the housing and medical support that he needed to help in his resettlement.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) has noted previously in Committee, Members of this House will be especially familiar with this matter. I am sure that many of us have experienced the same difficulties in getting the necessary support for our constituents in need last thing on a Friday, just as agencies and services are closing for the weekend. Indeed, very recently, I went with a constituent in housing need to my local town hall just to ensure that they were given the services that they needed. From my earlier life as a criminal practitioner who both prosecuted and defended, I can tell Members of the cases that were heard on a Saturday in the emergency court of people who had been released from prison and were back in court again because they had nowhere else to go. It was better to commit a minor offence, be arrested and be kept in a prison cell where they at least had a warm bed and three square meals. That was a better option for them.

We know that around 400 people continue to be released from prison, every month, directly into homelessness. Only 30% of people receiving treatment services while in prison are successfully transferred to the community on release. I hope that the changes proposed in the Bill will contribute to improving those worrying numbers. There is a window of opportunity for people when they are released from prison. That is when they are keen to move on and rebuild their lives outside prison. We should be seizing that opportunity by making the transition as easy as possible to give them the best chance of success and thus decrease the likelihood of their reoffending as much as possible.

The Government conceded in the summer that, under the current system, Friday releases can end up with ex-offenders spending their first days on the streets with little in the way of support, increasing the likelihood that they will commit further crimes, and they committed to legislate when time allows. However, under this Government, reoffending rates have remained stubbornly high, and the refusal to legislate for this change until now, and doing so through a private Member’s Bill, is evidence of how far this has fallen down the priority list of the Ministry of Justice.

The chaos and ministerial musical chairs that has been going on across Government over the past number of years has meant that, in the intervening months, thousands more prisoners have been released on Fridays and have been set up to fail. We are glad that the changes are coming and are pleased to support them, but it is a shame that the Government took so long to listen and to act.

On a final note, the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), who replied to the previous debate, made what I would call a really gratuitous political statement about how few Labour Members were present for today’s debates. The reason for that is that we agreed with the first Bill debated today and we agree with this Bill. The reason why there are so many Members on the Conservative Benches is that they are trying to talk out the last Bill that will be reached today. I do not think that Members should be making those comments.

[Shaun Bailey]

I agree with some of what the hon. Lady has said. However, on the point about participation, I get what she is saying, but, surely, if Labour Members were so enthusiastic, they would be here in the Chamber. The hon. Lady is here because she clearly supports the Bill. Where are her colleagues?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

My colleagues have no objections to these Bills. The reason that Government Members are taking so long on this issue is that they are trying to talk out the last Bill listed for today.

[Shaun Bailey]

rose—

[Yasmin Qureshi]

That is it. I will take no further interventions.

[Shaun Bailey]

I take real exception to what the hon. Lady is saying. I have seen at first hand the impact of this in my own community, and I have spoken to a number of charities. [Interruption.] Let me take the heat out of this. This is a common-sense Bill. We all agree on that. We have all seen the impact of this. Regardless of the back and forth—although, Mr Deputy Speaker, my contribution was not included—let us just agree that it is a great Bill; it makes sense, so let us just get on and support it. It is as simple as that. Does she not agree with that?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I agree. Indeed, I started off by saying that we support the Bill. Not only do we support it today, but we have been supporting it since last year, when we tabled an amendment on this.

Solihull Police Station: Proposed Closure

Shaun Bailey Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

I will open my remarks by paying due regard briefly—I know that the House will have a longer time to do this—to Jack Dromey, the late, departed, much missed Member for Birmingham, Erdington. Jack believed wholeheartedly in policing and he always believed in cross-party working. He was a friend of mine and, like many people, I am very deeply saddened by his loss. He would have been here tonight very much contributing to this debate, so he is much missed. I know that the House will have longer to pay tribute and I know that my colleagues will join me in those comments.

When we worked on policing, we did so with my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood), my good friend, to effectively raise the precept from its ceiling to provide greater resource for West Midlands police. As a result, band A, B and E properties in my constituency will pay a direct precept of £217 each year to the Labour police and crime commissioner for the west midlands. As a Conservative, I am not proud of that. I do not want to see tax money going in that direction, with such a high rise in taxes. In fact, £13.7 million has come from Solihull alone.

The reason why the departed Member for Birmingham, Erdington and my hon. Friend worked together on this was that we knew that there was a situation—as the famous note said, there was no money left—in which there had to be a series of financial savings across many parts of Government, and we wanted to help with the rebalancing of that. The agreement that we made at that point does not match what we have now seen—frankly, it was not about inflation-busting rises every year in order to more than make up for any previous deficit.

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. In Wednesbury, Oldbury and Tipton we are losing all three of our police stations. People up the road in Aldridge were promised a consultation—indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) has been fighting hard to make sure that that police station is safe. My hon. Friend just talked about the agreement; does he agree that a key part of that agreement is the principle that there will be consultation and that it is utterly disgraceful to disregard it in the way that the PCC has?

[Julian Knight]

It is an absolute shambles, frankly. The announcement was originally made in a press release and, basically, the same insult has been followed through. We all knew what the result was going to be as soon as the PCC election was decided. Lo and behold, here we are with a PCC in the West Midlands who has been elected through Momentum. If we look around the Chamber, we can see that it is Conservative Members whose local police stations are being closed. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and although my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) cannot speak in tonight’s debate, she is also a fervent defender of her local police station.

We hoped that the money that we agreed to would be adequately spent. Let us have a look at it for a moment. More than £20 million has been spent on Lloyd House, the PCC’s head office—that is a lot of wallpaper, is it not? When the previous PCC’s original decision about the police station was announced, without consultation, there was more than £100 million in the reserves. That would keep my local police station going for more than a century. The £20 million-plus that has been wasted—well, not wasted but spent, or I suppose they would say it has been invested; I would say, “Nice comfortable chairs—£20 million”—would effectively keep my local police station open for 40 years. Despite the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull having contributed £13.7 million in precept allocations in this financial year, we are about to be robbed of our main police station.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Shaun Bailey Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading - Day 2
Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:

“this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, notwithstanding the need for a police covenant and for tougher sentences for serious crimes, including child murder, terrorism and dangerous driving, and for assaults on emergency service workers, because the Bill rushes changes to protest law and fails to introduce a single new measure specifically designed to tackle the epidemic of violence against women and is therefore an abusers’ charter since domestic abuse rates have spiked and victims of rape are facing the lowest prosecution rates on record, and because the Bill fails to criminalise street harassment, fails to make misogyny a hate crime, fails to raise minimum sentences for rape or stalking, and fails to give whole life orders to those found guilty of abduction and sexual assault and murder of a stranger.”

It is an honour to close this debate on behalf of the Opposition and to move the reasoned amendment standing in my name and that of the Leader of the Opposition. It is a debate that has involved the lion’s share of Members across this House, and of course we meet at a time of a national cry to tackle violence against women and girls.

It was in June last year, on one warm evening, amid the deep concerns about the pandemic at that time, that my wife and I, on learning and reading the news, wept together as a friend of mine, Mina Smallman, and her husband Chris lost their two beautiful daughters, Bibaa and Nicole, to terrible violence on a horrendous night in west London. We wept again just a few weeks ago because, on the evening of 3 March 2021, Sarah Everard, after visiting a friend in south London and walking across Clapham common, was spotted on CCTV at 9.30 pm and then she disappeared. The whole country and both sides of this House are mourning Sarah’s disappearance, kidnap and murder.

No story is more telling of the fact that we need tough sentences on the most serious crimes to deter criminals and protect the public, but we must not make the mistake of thinking that this horrific incident of violence against a woman is a one-off. The press may not report it, but women of all backgrounds, from all parts of the country and of all ages are killed every week. In 2016, 125 women in the UK were killed by men. In 2017, the number was 147. It was 147 again in 2018. Over the past decade, 1,425 women have been murdered in the UK. That is roughly one woman every three days.

It is not only murder; all kinds of violence against women are endemic in our country. In one year alone, 3.1% of women—510,000—experienced a sexual assault. Domestic violence has skyrocketed during the pandemic, with 260,000 domestic abuse offences between March and June. The Government knew about the crisis of violence against women and girls before this week, but when they were drafting the 20 schedules, 176 clauses and 296 pages of this Bill, they chose not to mention women once.

Maybe this Government do not like to talk about women because they know they have failed them. A decade of cuts, court closures and failed ideology is letting women down. Half the courts in England and Wales closed between 2010 and 2019. There are 27,000 fewer sitting days than in 2016. Under this Government, just 1.4% of rapes end in conviction. That is a record low and should shame us all.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) rightly asked, why are the Government not fast-tracking rape victims through the CPS and the courts? The Crown court backlog is now a record high of more than 56,000 cases. The Government like to pretend that is only because of the pandemic, but they have no answer to why they let the backlog grow to 39,000 before covid even hit. The result is that victims of crime are being asked to wait up to four years to get to court. Many witnesses are dropping out of the justice system entirely because of delays. Violent criminals are being spared prison because of it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) rightly pointed out, discussions on the justice system must always start with delays in the system and the inadequacy of legal aid. Instead of tackling violence against women, the Government have prioritised giving the police the power to prohibit the fundamental freedoms of protest that the British public hold dear. By giving the police this discretion to use these powers some of the time, it takes away our freedom all of the time. The Government’s Bill targets protesters causing too much noise and says that those who cause annoyance could be jailed for up to 10 years. I am thankful that the draconian limits on the power to protest were not in place during the great protests of the 20th century that led to real change.

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Lammy]

I will not give way for the moment.

When the suffragettes marched for the right to vote, some of them were prepared to break the law to make their point just outside the House of Commons. Does the Secretary of State believe that those women who shouted noisily should have been arrested, too? Protesters marched from Jarrow in Tyneside all the way to London to demand the right to work in 1936. Does the Secretary of State think that the police should have had the power to stop them before they had even passed York? The anti-apartheid movement, of which I was part, marched continuously on Trafalgar Square for black and white people to be treated as equal. Does the Secretary of State seriously believe that they should have been arrested because they caused an annoyance?

Throughout Britain’s history, protest has been a fundamental method for the public to voice dissent. Pandemic aside, what is it about society that has changed exactly that means that the police need more powers to control protesters today than they did yesterday? What is it about the images of police tackling a mourning woman to the floor last weekend that makes the Secretary of State think that the police do not have enough as it stands? The truth, as has been briefed to his favourite newspapers, is that the Government are introducing these measures because they dislike Black Lives Matter, because they hate Extinction Rebellion and because both tell too many hard truths.

[Shaun Bailey]

When the Opposition vote against this Bill tonight, does the right hon. Gentleman not think that the Labour party’s position will have finally changed to: weak on crime and weak on the causes of crime?

[Mr Lammy]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is just getting started, but the party that introduced whole life orders—the Labour party—will not, I am afraid, take any lessons from him.

The former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), was right in this debate when she said that there was a fine line between “popular and populist” and that our freedoms depend on it. The Conservative party’s principles are rooted in liberty and against the overreach of the state. I call on every member of the governing party who still believes in freedom to join the Opposition and vote against this Bill tonight.

According to the Government, not only those who cause annoyance but those who damage statues of slave owners should be locked up for a decade. Unlike the Government, the Opposition will never condone criminal behaviour, but this Government’s priorities are backwards; they are upside down. Unlike women, memorials are mentioned in the Bill eight times. The Government think that people who damage statutes should spend up to 10 years in prison because of their emotional value, but it is fine to give five-year sentences for rape. This is not hypothetical: Anthony Williams strangled his wife to death, but received only a five-year sentence; John Patrick raped a 13-year-old girl, but got only seven years in jail; Ferdinando Orlando and Lorenzo Costanzo were jailed for seven and a half years for raping a woman in a Soho nightclub; James Reeve raped a seven-year-old disabled girl, but got only nine years; and David Nicholson raped an 11 year-old, but was given a sentence of nine years and four months. What does this Bill do to address those injustices that many people feel?

The Government would rather blow a dog whistle against minorities than make women safe. Measures in the Bill will further compound the inequalities experienced by Gypsies and Travellers who are already the most disproportionately represented group in the justice system. Those found guilty of trespass in the Bill could receive a higher sentence than someone convicted of stalking. Once again, this Government’s priorities are skewed. Even police forces do not support the Government’s criminalisation of trespass. The National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners said:

“Trespass is a civil offence and our view is that it should remain so.”

Why are the Government determined to lock up Gypsies and Travellers, even against the advice of their own police?

Many of the other measures in the Bill will compound the biases that the Secretary of State knows exist in the justice system. The Prime Minister likes to boast of following my review and recommendations, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) argued so convincingly, too often young people are still considered to be perpetrators, when in fact they are victims. Earlier this year we heard the roar “black lives matter”, and it is clear by the fact that no full equalities impact assessment accompanies the Bill that the Secretary of State simply does not agree.

The Bill contains some important proposals that Labour supports. Most of the best measures come from campaigns by Labour MPs, many of whom have spoken eloquently about those campaigns in this debate. Labour supports my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) on dangerous driving, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) on reform of the disclosure and barring service. Labour supports my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) regarding sexual abuse by people in positions of trust, and my hon. Friends the Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Halifax (Holly Lynch) on protecting the protectors. As the shadow Home Secretary so powerfully said, why can those protections not be extended to shopworkers, social care workers, and other front-line heroes? The Opposition are behind those measures, alongside others to keep the public safe from terrorists, child murderers, and other dangerous offenders.

However, Labour cannot vote for a Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that ignores the intimidation, violence and abuse that women face. We cannot vote for this Bill when it fails to increase sentencing for rape and stalking. We cannot vote for this Bill when it fails to criminalise street harassment, or to make misogyny a hate crime. We cannot vote for this Bill when it fails, on the watch of the Secretary of State, to give whole life orders to those found guilty of abduction, serious assault, and murder of a stranger. We cannot vote for a Bill that fails to outline a strategy to tackle the culture of misogyny that underpins it.

Courts and Tribunals: Recovery

Shaun Bailey Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. and learned Lady raised three distinct issues, which I will deal with in turn. First, with regard to obligations to victims of sexual offences, I reassure her that the way in which cases are prioritised in the courts in England and Wales very much bears in mind that important provision in terms of listing. I can give her the encouraging statistic for the most serious offences—sadly, many of them will be sexual offences—that just over 80% of those cases where someone has been remanded in custody have been listed for trial between now and spring 2021. Indeed, we keep a close eye on the progress or otherwise of other cases of a sexual nature. May I say to her that my officials and I have been watching the position in Scotland carefully and talking with colleagues in her jurisdiction about the approaches being taken? We are learning from each other in terms of development.

The position on employment tribunals is that, as I said, the number of cases being heard now has reached pre-covid levels as a result of the increased use of technology. That was an issue to begin with in the employment tribunal, but we are dealing with it. Of course, we have more money allocated next year for that further recovery.

If I may, I will come back to the hon. and learned Lady in correspondence on her specific point about limitation periods. I think I have dealt with all the matters. If I have not, I will write to her.

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his statement. As we come out of the pandemic, the challenges, difficulties and errors made along the way need to be reviewed. Will he assure me and colleagues in Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service in the Black Country that, as he looks at that, he will take an all-encompassing, lessons learned approach that reaches out to all stakeholders, including the profession and HMCTS staff?

[Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He is right to say that, while covid has been a huge challenge for all of us, we have learned many things about the way in which the system works together, the way in which we use technology and the blend that we can achieve with regard to hearings being partially remote and partially in person. We will never go back to the position prior to the pandemic because, of course, we were already investing over £1 billion in our court reform programme, which was all about improving the technology on the court estate. He is right to make that important point.

Oral Answers to Questions

Shaun Bailey Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to reduce reoffending.

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to reduce reoffending.

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to reduce reoffending.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Buckland]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, because the evidence is that the completion of any prison education reduces reoffending by 7.5%. We plan to strengthen rehabilitation further by creating a prisoner education service that will be focused on work-based training and skills. The Prison Service’s new future network is doing great work to build partnerships between prisons and employers to ensure that prisoners are job ready on release.

[Shaun Bailey]

Reoffending rates in the Black Country currently stand at around 30%, and it is clear that we need to take a local stakeholder approach. What work is my right hon. and learned Friend doing with local stakeholders in the Black Country to ensure that we can bring reoffending down? Will he meet me to discuss a long-term strategy to tackle reoffending in the Black Country?

[Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who speaks with knowledge on this subject, and I would like to thank him and the Mayor, Andy Street, for their continued work on helping to tackle reoffending. We know that offenders typically have complex needs, and the community sentence treatment requirement programme, which went live in the Black Country in June this year, aims to improve access to appropriate mental health and substance misuse services as part of community sentences. Of course I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this and other issues relevant to West Bromwich in detail.

Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Bill [Lords]

Shaun Bailey Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

I promise that I will try to keep my comments as brief as possible. It is a bit of an intimidating experience to follow such distinguished lawyers, particularly as I was only sitting my legal practice course finals some two years ago, so to be here debating with the Lord Chancellor on private international law is an interesting one.

A really important point was raised at the start of the debate, which was about making the Bill applicable to real life. To reiterate that point, which was articulated particularly well, I must say, by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), this affects real people’s lives. This is about how businesses operate and how some of the most vulnerable children and young people in our society are protected. I think about the exporters in my region of the west midlands who account for a quarter of a million jobs. The export value of the goods sent out from the black country was something like £3.81 billion in 2018-19. The Bill is really important, because it relates to people’s livelihoods. It is absolutely vital that we get it right.

On the protections for young people who need financial support from absent parents, I have 3,000 lone parents in my constituency who rely on support for their children. Looking at my caseload, I would say that many of them do not get that support. We spend time having to fight very complex battles to receive very complex levels of support, so we must relate this to the situation on the ground. I think of businesses in my constituency, such as KTC Edibles in Wednesbury, which rely on these provisions to do their day-to-day business. It is as simple as that: they rely on private international law to ensure they can trade and can keep their employees in a job.

Turning more widely to the provisions in the Bill, I want to touch on the clause 2 that was removed by the other place. We have heard articulate arguments about that today. In my preparation for this debate, I read the comments in the other place. To an extent, I have sympathy with what was said on the possibility of utilising the delegated powers as some sort of Executive power grab. What I would say—I think this was articulated by my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor—is that the preceding system was one of direct effect, so in a way it took those powers away from this place in the first place. Having said that, however, equally we cannot just remove the role of this place entirely. We cannot allow that to happen. I am somewhat reassured that, through the affirmative procedure, there is a degree of scrutiny. I appreciate that for some Members it is not the desired level of scrutiny, but I have been very impressed by my hon. Friend the Minister’s openness in taking forward suggestions on how it could perhaps be improved on.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

Apart from diluting the number of lawyers here for my hon. Friend’s comfort—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davis]

I am the client of the House today.

The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) made the very important point that these prospective pieces of legislation, only under secondary legislation, could actually create criminal offences and therefore impinge directly on the rights of our citizens. They could, when I think about it, even put the rights of those citizens under foreign laws, as has happened with the European arrest warrant and other such measures. Does my hon. Friend think that that specific test of whether it creates a criminal offence that might impinge on our citizens might require rather more than simply secondary affirmative legislation?

[Shaun Bailey]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. He raises a really important point very eloquently, which I would need to explore. I do not want to give him a definitive answer right now, because I would need to explore it further. If I were to do that I would want to formulate my opinion based on the fullest research, but he makes a really important point that is certainly one to take forward and one that I have listened to with great interest in this debate, which has sort of formed my opinion.

Moving forward with this, and conscious of the fact that I want to keep my remarks as brief as possible, I would say that my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) made an important point, which was supported by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood): we have got to ensure that, as we move forward now, this country is at the forefront of improving private international law. We cannot just pass this legislation and think, “Right, okay, there we go. We are an observer, or we are just partaking.” We have to be a leader on this, because when that campaign was happening four years ago and people made that decision, whatever people’s views on that, one premise of the campaign was that we would once again be a leader in the world. To do that, we have to ensure that we take a proactive and positive approach.

I am heartened to see that there has been respect for the devolved Administrations, particularly for Scots law. We need to respect the unique legal structures and legal framework in Scotland. I am pleased to see that in the Bill.

To round up my comments, I would say that this is a Bill that, on the face of it, has broad support from all sides. There are some interesting debates still to be had as it proceeds on its passage and I am heartened by the way those on the Treasury Bench have been open to discussions and to listening. We might think this measure is technical and convoluted—the joy of legal debates among lawyers in the Tea Room—but it is people’s lives. This is every day. This is about keeping people in jobs. This is about ensuring that the most vulnerable in our society remain protected. I commend the Bill to the House.