Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Simon Hughes and Mark Durkan

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

I apologise to you, Mr Speaker, to the Minister and to colleagues because I had to slip out briefly at the beginning of this debate, albeit for what I hope are appropriate reasons. I had to meet a press deadline to pay tribute to one of our party members—not a parliamentarian, but a man called Stan Hardy who had been a great campaigner on these sorts of issues. He died last Thursday at the ripe old age of 93. Not just Liberal Democrats or liberals but Labour and Conservative colleagues in London and beyond recognised Stan as a doughty campaigner for civil liberties as well as for the rights of the under-privileged.

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) on these sorts of issues, and I join my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) in paying tribute to his doughty campaigning throughout all the time he and I have been together in the place—now more than 30 years in both our cases. The hon. Gentleman’s amendment, supported by his hon. Friends, is designed to deal with a wrong in this Bill that I hope we can remedy.

There is a difference between amendment 95, tabled by the hon. Member for Islington North, and amendment 184, tabled by the hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis) and me. We argue for our amendment in our own right, but also on behalf of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Amendment 95 would amend clause 143, taking out from line 26 the words

“the person was innocent of the offence”

and inserting the words

“no reasonable court properly directed as to the law, could convict on the evidence now to be considered.”

The Joint Committee’s collective view was that we would do better to remove clause 143 as a whole—exactly the issue for which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) argued. I have been here long enough to remember and to have supported numerous campaigns to deal with miscarriages of justice, many of them very unpopular for the reasons we have all identified. Having looked at the issue again, I honestly believe that the removal of the clause would be the better way to deal with the problem. There are technical problems with amendment 95, so I strongly commend to the Minister the amendment to remove clause 143.

Finally, I shall not press the Joint Committee’s amendment to a vote, but we feel strongly about this issue as a Committee. I am sure the Minister knows that we will listen respectfully to what he says, but I hope he can be helpful and confirm that the principle of the Government’s proposal—that the provision should apply

“if and only if the new or newly discovered fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that the person was innocent”—

will be changed because that is not the test that should be applied to deal with miscarriages of justice.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I, too, rise to speak to amendment 95, to which my name is attached, along with that of the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn).

As the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes)and others have said, the history of serious cases of miscarriages of justice should bear very heavily indeed on all Members. I include in that the cases that were fought, promoted and championed against very difficult headwinds here in Parliament by Members of all parties. I recall Conservative Members like the late John Biggs-Davison and others championing those cases alongside Labour and Liberal MPs—but little thanks did they get for it from sections of the media and others.

My own predecessors and party colleagues in Parliament fought on those issues at that time. I remember working in John Hume’s office writing all sorts of letters to the Home Office. Of course, we were told that new facts and new evidence did not qualify as new facts and new evidence. Perhaps that issue still applies to clause 143. Even if amendment 95 were accepted, the question of what counts as a

“new or newly discovered fact”

still arises, although I hope that the wording of the amendment, which would provide that

“no reasonable court properly directed as to the law, could convict on the evidence now to be considered”,

would help. There were historical arguments about whether new evidence was indeed a new fact or a material consideration, and I would not want to legislate to produce more circular arguments or obfuscations like that for the future.

Clause 143 is pernicious. It seeks completely to reload the basic, long-standing presumption of innocence until proven guilty. It basically provides qualification of the notion of a miscarriage of justice, suggesting that when someone has suffered what most people would call a miscarriage of justice and when their conviction has, on subsequent judicial appraisal of relevant evidence, been overturned, they should still not be able to proclaim their innocence. There is an insinuation that if they were previously convicted, they are innocent and entitled to compensation as innocent only where they can prove that they are innocent “beyond reasonable doubt”.

For the people affected, many of their convictions will have taken place many years previously and they will be in no position to marshal all the evidence that could necessarily prove their innocence beyond what someone would call a reasonable doubt. Nobody has to meet that criterion at their proper and due initial trial, so why should anybody have to do that to receive compensation after a conviction has been overturned? Compensation is not the only issue here because it is not the monetary value that motivates the fundamental objections to this proposal.

Before I became a Member in 2005, I worked on the cases of the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven when they still needed and wanted a full and proper proclamation of their innocence, not least because many sections of the media and others were retelling the slur that these people had somehow secured just a technical acquittal. Their conviction was quashed, but the insinuation remained that they were not really innocent. That problem arose from issues surrounding compensation and other factors.

I recall being asked by Gerry Conlon, a friend of mine and one of the Guildford Four, if I could get a direct and clear statement of apology and a proclamation of the innocence not just of himself but of his late father, Giuseppe Conlon. I was also asked the same by Sarah Conlon, Gerry’s mother and Giuseppe’s widow. It was plain that Gerry Conlon wanted that clear proclamation of their innocence for his mother, that his mother wanted it for Gerry, and, of course, that they both wanted it for Giuseppe.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Simon Hughes and Mark Durkan

Monday 20th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

I absolutely share the hon. Lady’s view and am grateful to her for that prompt. I was here when clause 28 was being debated and opposed it on the record, including in Committee, where I served with my hon. Friend the then Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire, now Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope. We opposed it and spoke and voted against it. I understand exactly that hope. It is absolutely important that we do not prevent the discussion of homosexuality and different sexuality in the context of a loving and supporting school. I absolutely share her perfectly proper view and believe that I have always been as consistent on that position as she has.

My second question is about public officials. I have not signed new clause 2 but I have signed new clause 3, with which my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Down is also sympathetic. There is a difference between saying to somebody, if this Bill is passed, “The law of the land says there are same-sex marriages and you can’t expect to be a public official and not carry them out”, and expecting somebody who is currently a registrar, having taken the job not knowing that there would ever be same-sex marriages, to perform them. The transitional new clause is a good one, and I ask the Government to accept it, or something along those lines.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Like the right hon. Gentleman, I voted against Second Reading and the programme motion because we wanted to test these and other issues. Is he aware that if the new law were extended to Northern Ireland there would be a big difference between new clause 2 and new clause 3, because new clause 2 would lead to people being asked about their religious beliefs during recruitment?

[Simon Hughes]

That is why I ask the Minister to look at this issue. We do not yet necessarily have the right balance.

We must have free speech. People may still be arrested because of, or quizzed about, what they say. People should be able to say that they think that homosexuality is wrong or right and whether this Bill is appropriate. Although the Committee did a good job, as has another Committee in taking evidence, out there in the real world a lot of people think that there is not yet sufficient protection for people in expressing their views. I hope that Ministers will give thought to that to see how we can better protect the freedom of speech that people wish for.

Capital Gains Tax (Rates)

Debate between Simon Hughes and Mark Durkan

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah). He not only reflected on the beauty of his constituency but let us know that, just because people live in idyllic settings, that does not mean that their family or work circumstances are ideal. He has also given us a trailer for the many lively contributions he will make in this House, seasoned with strong personal reflections, which many Members will have taken on board.

Claims have been made that, with the coalition Government, we have a new politics. That new politics, we are told, is about honesty and rebuilding trust. However, we have at the heart of the Budget the departure of honesty, with parties justifying doing what they said they would not do. Parties campaigned to get votes on the basis that the last thing we wanted was a VAT increase, but it is the first thing imposed by this Budget. It is a Tory Budget with Liberal Democrat accessories. I concede that some of those Liberal Democrat accessories are attractive—and that is part of the political calculation behind the Budget—such as the triple guarantee on pensions, which is there so that the coalition can say to Labour opponents, “We have done something that you didn’t do, we have restored the earnings link and better.” I regret that Labour Ministers did not listen to all their Back Benchers during their 13 years in government and do something about the pensions earning link.

We need honesty all round. I welcome the intensity that is coming from some of my hon. Friends on the Labour Benches, but I hope it comes with a measure of honesty, point by point.

[Simon Hughes]

The hon. Gentleman’s views are much respected, but may I say that I was always clear on this point? We did not want a VAT increase, although we had it under the last Government when it went up and then came down again. We were hoping that it would not happen, but certainly I said—as did all my colleagues, as far as I know—that it could never be ruled out. For many of us, the current position is that it may be one of the least worst options.

[Mark Durkan]

I am not sure if that was the least worst defence of a significant U-turn on a significant campaign issue. People did not just imagine that the Liberal Democrats campaigned aggressively on the issue of VAT increases, so to mount new politics on the basis of honesty and trust against that background is dangerous indeed.

I acknowledge that the Budget has Liberal Democrat accessories that are attractive, as are other aspects, such as the increase in personal allowances. But Liberal Democrats perhaps need to consider that this may be as good as it gets in the coalition. I recall a famous observation in Irish politics by a member of the Irish Labour party. Some time next year, the self-image of Liberal Democrats will change. They will realise that they are no longer in the vanguard of social justice and civil liberty, but instead have become the mudguard of a hard cutting Conservative Government. That will be their role in this Government.

It is not the case that the whole Budget is wrong, and from a study of the Budget notes it is significant how many of the measures build on aspects of the Finance Act 2009 and other Acts passed in the last Parliament. There are tweaks here and there, of the good, bad and neutral variety, but we should not pretend that there is no continuity. When the Chancellor made his statement, he said we would not have to look anywhere else for the Budget, because we would get it from him. He said that there would be no details hidden in the Red Book. However, when we compare his speech with the Red Book, we see that it is littered with phrases such as “We will produce proposals on this”, or “Other proposals will be published after we have the spending review in the autumn.” The details are all to come elsewhere, so we did not actually get them straight from the Chancellor.

This Government gave us some show-cuts on 22 June. Those cuts were for purely presentational purposes to show that this is a new Government, and to try to mark difference. The Chancellor even told us last week that that was one of the messages he wanted to go out from the Budget, so that people would know there was a difference. That is why the shadow Secretary of State was right to say that the Budget had an underlying ideological push. The scale of the cuts that will come in the autumn is there to drive a political narrative that pain has to be imposed, change will happen and those who do not like it should blame Labour, rather than the Government who are imposing that change. That is the narrative that the Government want, and that is why significant cuts will come in the autumn.

Where will we be then? The poor, who are being asked to pay more in VAT, will then see the services on which they rely squeezed. That is when the full toll of this Budget will be felt, contrary to what the Chancellor told us about getting it straight from him on the day in his statement. We know that this will be pain and penury by instalments, over time, so that they can maintain the narrative of blaming it all on Labour.

I agree with the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) about the need for a Budget committee in this House. When we consider the scale of the banking issues that this House has to deal with, they should not all be left to the Treasury Committee. The scale of the public expenditure issues we will have to cope with means that we need a discrete Budget committee that has a full and proper handle on them, as well as one for the banking issues. If we are serious about giving priority to cutting waste in government, we should also have a committee that tests Government expenditure in real time. The Public Accounts Committee looks at spending post hoc, and there is nobody who challenges spending plans in real time. We do not have a committee that permanently interrogates waste in government, proofing for good priority and busting waste, but that is what we need. There is no point setting up ever more independent offices of this and independent offices of that, when we do not give this House the tools it needs to provide joined-up scrutiny. We hear a lot about joined-up government, but we do not have joined-up scrutiny. We should take added measures, on top of those put through in the last Parliament.

I urge the Government to lead us in changing the Budget by reclassifying the Budget lines, so that we have one for front-line services, say, and one for spending that does not go fully to front-line services but broadly supports them. We should have three or four, but no more than five, classes of Budget line so that we know immediately if a measure affects front-line services or just administrative spend. We could then be more honest when we say that we are defending front-line services, because we would have a Budget information system that allowed us to do just that.