Police

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I welcome what is going on in the hon. Gentleman’s local authority, and it is exactly the same as what is happening in my local council, where the police front-line desk is coming into the local authority new forum building, freeing up space for things to be moved into a more cost-effective space where a better police station is going to be built. I therefore pay tribute to what is going on in his constituency and with his local authority, and I pay tribute to what is going on in mine, too. I would say, however, that this collaboration is all relatively new, and is happening somewhat sporadically around the country.

The collaboration I was referring to before I took the intervention of the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) is between forces. I am truly amazed that historically—and I still hear this quite a lot—forces would say, “We’re doing collaboration with the force directly next to us,” perhaps on human resources or IT. Well, that is great, as long as we are getting the most bang for our buck, because we are talking about taxpayers’ money, but Cheshire is, I believe, doing HR for Nottinghamshire, which is not exactly right next door, and is doing procurement and other things, and getting better value from these schemes. I have therefore been encouraging, and pushing for more joined-up procurement to make sure we get value for the taxpayer, while at the same time leaving that local decision to the PCCs. One PCC said to me, “I want to buy my officers’ white shirts locally.” I said, “I can perfectly understand that, as long as you’re getting value for money.” That is the crucial point. This is not about taking away localism from the PCCs and the chief constables: yes, there should be such localism, but they are spending taxpayers’ money and they must get value for money. I think that view is shared across the House, and I noted that the shadow Home Secretary was talking this morning about getting value for money. We know that the public trust localism more than they trust us in this House, and we should trust them to do what we need for us as we go forward.

The other change coming through that will also save money, time and effort within the criminal justice system is technology. I remember about four and a half years ago in the Conservative manifesto we had a commitment to bring forward roadside drug testing where the police felt that the driver was impaired. If they breathalysed a person who then passed the test and the officers still felt they were impaired, it was very difficult if they had not done the impairment course to arrest at roadside so the driver could be tested for drugs. As an ex-fireman I thought that was very important because on many occasions I had been to what used to be called RTAs—road traffic accidents are now road traffic collisions—and are now called RTCs—when I could smell the cannabis smoke still in the vehicle. The officers could smell that, but did not have the powers to do what they needed to do. They now have those powers, which have been approved. On 2 March officers will have the powers given to them by this House to arrest at the roadside based on a saliva test, which initially will be for two drugs. I have seen the type-approvals coming through from the manufacturers, and the tests will be for not only illegal drugs, but synthetic drugs—often called legal highs, but actually completely different—and prescribed drugs. There are many prescribed drugs that people should not take while driving. We need to work with the Department of Health to ensure that we give more details on the prescription: if it warns against driving heavy plant or operating heavy machinery, it actually means a motor vehicle in many cases.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I agree with the Minister’s central point, but if someone who is driving has taken prescribed drugs and has not been advised of the risk, is it the Government’s intention for that person to be treated in the same way as someone who is caught driving having taken illegal drugs?

[Mike Penning]

Being impaired when driving a motor vehicle is just that. When the legislation was taken through the House, that argument was put forward, but it is the responsibility of drivers who are driving a vehicle on the road to know what is in their bloodstream. This is a very important area, which is why I alluded to the need to ensure that the advice from the pharmacist when the drugs are given out is not confined to advising whether to take them after or before a meal, or not to operate heavy machinery. The hon. Gentleman is right, but it will always be the responsibility of people driving a vehicle to know what is in their bloodstream and whether it will impair them.

The level has been set by a scientific committee, so this is not about people who take one co-codamol that morning being over the limit; it is about ensuring that we have the necessary technology. Technology is moving fast and we expect another manufacturer to have type-approval on a roadside saliva test in the next few months. We expect to ensure that we keep officers on the streets as much as possible, because the time involved in implementing the existing scheme means that they are tied up for too long.

We also expect the technology to come through soon so that we have a roadside evidential base for drink-driving. At the moment our legislation is based back in the 1960s, when the breathalyser bag provided the base, then we could arrest and the machinery was in the station. If we can get an evidential base at the roadside, that will eliminate a whole swath of the bureaucracy that we have to go through to ensure that we get the necessary conviction of impaired drivers. Such drivers cause death, dismay and injury on our roads every day. We should not in any way be lightening the pressure on drink-drivers as we work on drug-drivers.

The most obvious piece of technology that will free up officers’ time is body-worn cameras. They are freeing up time, protecting officers and giving us an evidence base. We have already seen, in the brilliant work in Hampshire, Kent and other forces, that when the evidence is put to the accused, they almost immediately say—on advice from their solicitors, usually—that they will plead guilty. The amount of assaults on officers is down. When officers arrive somewhere on a Friday night obviously wearing cameras, the dispersal is interesting to watch, as I have seen myself from the videos.

We need to take things further. We need to ensure that the body-worn camera cannot be ripped easily from the body armour—some of the early cameras could be because they were on a clip system—and we are looking into that in my own force in Hertfordshire. We also need to ensure that the evidence that the camera is capturing cannot be tampered with. In other words, someone might rip the camera off and dispose of it, so we need to stream away the evidence from the scene. At the same time I am working closely with the Crown Prosecution Service and the rest of the criminal justice system to ensure that the technology flows through the system. When officers store the evidence, whether in the cloud or a secure system, the CPS should be able to enter that system and see the evidence without having to wait for it to be downloaded or burnt on to a CD-ROM.

I have also been asked whether Kent could trial statements being taken on camera, so we would not need to have them transcribed. That could be exciting, because it could put officers on to the streets for much longer, so that they did not have to sit in the stations transcribing something picked up on the body-worn camera. Such developments are world-leading. Police forces from around the world are coming to see us to see how we are using the technology. Only the other day, at a two-day international crime and policing conference in London, leading academics and other criminal justice professionals from around the world came to see how we had managed to lower not only crime, but the costs of it—in other words, how we were getting more bang for our buck—and to see the technology. Australia, for example, has had roadside drug testing for many years, but the Australian police need to take a 44-tonne articulated lorry to the roadside in order to test everyone passing through, which has huge cost implications. They are very interested in the technology that we have type-approved and are introducing.

We are still in difficult economic times. Money to the police has been cut, which was a difficult decision to make. Police forces around the country have predominantly done well at dealing with the cut. Most of them have budgeted for 2015-16 and the review for 2016-17 is still taking place—consultation continues to work—and I suggest that all colleagues, whether in the Chamber or not, work with their local police to see how best that consultation can be used for the benefit of their constituents.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary told us yesterday that the measures she has taken to deal with bureaucracy have saved 4.5 million hours of police time. If I may say so, that is a classic volume measure; it would be fascinating to understand how her officials arrived at it. I wonder whether the Minister is familiar with the work of Professor John Seddon. In his book “The Whitehall Effect”, he describes the phenomenon of “failure demand”; how many cost-cutting initiatives, such as setting up single call centres and outsourcing back office activities, can lead to failure demand, a constant inability to recognise and respond to the real problem while encouraging a referral culture and repetition of largely useless actions. Those effects are rarely spotted by the consultants who advise on the changes, because they measure their work in terms of volume—the volume of calls made or answered within a specified time, and the estimated hours saved. Volume does not measure problems solved or the quality of engagement, but rising failure demand leads to decreasing police efficiency. Would the Minister care to look at that as he considers the measures that he is taking forward?

As the Minister demonstrated earlier today, the Government are quick to tell us that crime is falling, and it is true that the most recent statistics show a continuing and welcome fall in many traditional crimes but, as we have heard, they also show a rise in violent crime, rape and sex offences, and an alarming and perhaps still under-recorded rise in fraud, identity crime and cybercrime. These serious crimes need to be tackled, and the changing face of crime needs to be considered. As the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) told us, crime is changing, and when we look at the crime figures and contemplate police budgets, we need to bear in mind that crime is not a static phenomenon.

Our police forces need to reconfigure some of their activities in order to respond to these new types of crime. That is much harder in an environment where the preoccupation is the constant search for cuts. As the largest force outside the Met, the responsibilities of the West Midlands force are enormous. I pay tribute to the amazing job that the force does, but I worry that it may be approaching the limits of what we can reasonably expect of it. It has seen £126 million cut from its budget over the past five years, with a further £100 million of cuts still to come if the Chancellor is able to make good his promise of another five years of austerity for vital public services.

The west midlands is hit doubly hard because it has a very low council tax base and therefore a very low police precept—the second lowest in the country. That means that we are more reliant on central grant than some other areas, and consequently the policy of flat rates cuts has a disproportionate impact on us. For example, whereas central Government provide 86% of the West Midlands police budget, other areas are reliant on grant for only about 49%.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a very interesting and important argument to the House. Does he accept that our position in south Yorkshire is similar to his in the west midlands, with exactly the same financial bind? Since 2010 the South Yorkshire police have faced cuts in excess of £30 million. In south Yorkshire, as in the west midlands, we are seeing the hollowing out of neighbourhood policing and the closure of local police stations such as Rawmarsh and Wath, and this is setting back a generation of progress over the previous decade.

[Steve McCabe]

Indeed. The effect of disproportionate cuts is that some areas, often areas with higher levels and different types of crime, are taking a much harder hit. As a result of what the Government are doing, we in the west midlands are losing about 22% of our funding, as opposed to about 12% in Surrey. Given that, as in my right hon. Friend’s area, we have higher crime rates and more complex policing needs, it is hard to see how anyone could regard that as fair or just.

In the west midlands the position is made worse by the continued use of formula damping. If the west midlands was paid grant according to formula needs, we would receive a further £43 million. I recall attending a meeting with the then Policing Minister over three years ago—I think my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) was also present—when the then Minister promised to take that factor into account. I know the Government are into re-announcements, but here we are, more than three years later, and the Minister tells us today that he is going to review the police formula. I think we have been here before. We want to know when we will see some action to address the unfairness. Of course, as the Minister was making that announcement, his hon. Friends were getting to their feet to say, “Don’t make any changes that will affect the situation that we are benefiting from.”

[Mike Penning]

To be fair, there is a cycle for reviews, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows. Changes to the review process were made under the previous Administration. They were not fundamental changes, merely tinkering, which is why we need such a fundamental review now, as the whole House would agree.

[Steve McCabe]

If the Minister’s fundamental review will give us some of the £43 million that we have been robbed of for the past few years, I welcome it. If we were just £10 million closer to our current entitlement in the west midlands, that would still mean that we were hit three times harder than any other force in the country. I hope that what the Minister is promising is good news, and I thank him for it.

The current situation is not fair. The people of the west midlands are paying the price for protecting policing services in more prosperous low crime areas in other parts of the country. That is what the formula changes need to address. Not only do we have to contend with more crime, but we have to respond to terrorist threats and public order demands without additional funding, which is steadily eroding the police’s capacity to respond to more localised crime. The latest west midlands strategic policing requirement report to the policing and crime board, which the Minister is familiar with, states:

“It has become increasingly challenging to maintain all local policing services during times of significant public order deployments…with the staffing reductions we have experienced in recent years…we are often compelled to delay non-emergency services beyond our normal service expectations.”

The chief constable is attempting to manage all this demand with 300 fewer officers than he had this time last year.

There has been a 23% reduction in the number of traffic police at a time when road deaths are on the increase, and there has been a 6% rise in child fatalities. Road accidents remain the largest single cause of child deaths in this country. I know that the Home Office cannot tell us how many hit-and-run incidents there are, or how many hit-and-run drivers are never caught and prosecuted, because it chooses not to collect those data, but I can tell the House that my constituent, young Phebe Hilliage, was knocked down while on her way to school by a hit-and-run driver who overtook and mowed her down on a pedestrian crossing. He shattered her foot and she may never walk properly again. I want to know, Phebe’s parents want to know and my constituents want to know that West Midlands police have the resources to track down that person and bring him to justice.

Behind today’s announcement there is the reality of policing: fewer officers, squeezed budgets, unfair application of the existing grant formula, more consultants most likely feeding failure demand, new and changing forms of crime, terrorists and public order pressures, and victims such as Phebe who deserve justice. There is an awful lot more that the Government need to do before we can be satisfied that their approach to crime and policing is the right one.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Simon Hughes)]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s continuing interest in this issue. I hope that we will be able to publish something before we break for the summer and elicit responses after that.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Has the Secretary of State looked at the damages awarded to triple killer Kevan Thakrar? Does he have any plans to change the rules so that serious offenders cannot profit from such compensation claims?

[Chris Grayling]

I regarded that as wholly unacceptable. It is a case that we defended in court, but, unfortunately, the judge reached a different view. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I have made sure that there is no possibility of somebody in that position receiving legal aid to pursue such a case. I have also asked my officials to look at any other ways we have to make it more difficult for prisoners to pursue such a case.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. I feel strongly that we must take a tough approach to someone’s causing death and serious injury while disqualified from driving. Too often, it turns out that the people who commit such an offence have been disqualified again and again and do not have a licence when it happens. That is an area that I am keen to address.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State’s colleague at the Home Office, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), announced in Cambridge on 28 August that he had asked the Sentencing Council to review this very offence. Is this another request today? When exactly will the Sentencing Council review the offence and make a decision?

[Chris Grayling]

I put in the original request to the Sentencing Council some months ago. It intends to put this into its work stream for next year and will make recommendations. Separately, I am also looking at the current law. I feel that there is still scope for tightening and I will bring forward my thoughts in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I can tell my hon. Friend that for as long as my right hon. Friend and I are in charge of prisons, they will not be places of luxury. We have made it clear that when prisoners want to wear their own clothes, and to have access to television or to more of their own money, they will have to earn those privileges. As my right hon. Friend said earlier, we are going further than that in saying that prisoners who cause damage to their cells will not only be punished for that within the prison system but will be expected to pay for the damage.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Has the review that was promised after the Reece Ludlow revelations about prisoners having access to graphic images of their victims been concluded, and has that practice now ceased?

[Jeremy Wright]

I think the hon. Gentleman is referring to prisoners having access to legal papers relating to their cases. This is a difficult problem because, as he will recognise, prisoners have certain rights of access to their legal papers, but it is a cause for concern to us, and to him, that they might have access to materials that they can keep in their cells and show to other people. That is clearly inappropriate, and we are looking into how we can best restrict that access. He can rest assured that we are seeking to do that.

Transforming Legal Aid

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I entirely understand the concerns my hon. Friend raises. I obviously cannot comment on the specific case, but what I can say is that within our legal aid system both now and in the future discretionary funding will be available for the unexpected and unusual case that might not conform to the central rules of the scheme but where there is a clear need for support to be provided.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Can the Justice Secretary assure us that there is no connection between the original opposition to his proposals from Churches, charities and advocacy groups and the Government’s subsequent efforts to muzzle those organisations through the lobbying Bill?

[Chris Grayling]

That is a pretty absurd question, to which the answer is that that is complete nonsense.

Kamran Majid and the Legal Services Commission

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 Westminster Hall

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I am grateful, Mr Sheridan, for this opportunity to talk about a dispute that has been going on for three years, and which highlights serious concerns about the work and responsibilities of the Legal Services Commission. At its heart is an issue about the role of the commission in relation to duty solicitor slots and the application of the 2010 standard crime contract and section 6 of the contract specification.

My constituent, Mr Majid, suffered when the Legal Services Commission—the LSC—launched an investigation into fraudulent activities at Knights Solicitors, which resulted in its terminating Knights’ unified contract for crime. My constituent is the son of immigrants and he has represented this country as an Olympic sportsman, winning world and European championships in weightlifting. Through his own honest endeavour and hard work, he has achieved the position of solicitor and advocate of our Supreme Court—something of which one might think we would be proud. Instead, today I am telling the story of how the LSC set out to wreck Mr Majid’s career and reputation.

I want to highlight two main points: first, the injustice suffered by my constituent and the reluctance of the LSC to deal with the matter, admit its errors and seek to put them right and, secondly, the appalling performance of the LSC, and of other agencies one might reasonably expect to call upon in such circumstances, such as the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman—the PHSO—the Law Society and the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The last two bodies have distinguished themselves by washing their hands of concerns about the treatment Mr Majid received. The intervention of the PHSO leaves a great deal to be desired, and the behaviour of the LSC in dealing with the fraudulent activity of Sajjad Ahmed Khan of Knights Solicitors needs a great deal of scrutiny. It is not Mr Majid who should be suffering as a result of this affair. He is an innocent victim.

Mr Majid’s experience involves a catalogue of unsatisfactory behaviour by the LSC and an insipid response from the PHSO, which calls into question why we pay public money to support the two agencies. Mr Kamran Majid has done nothing wrong, but he has been dismissed as a nuisance and a pest by the agencies, because he is unwilling to accept their flawed reasoning, inadequate investigations and failure to address the core of his complaint. The matter has still not been resolved, despite three years of battling on Mr Majid’s part. During that time, my constituent has suffered unemployment, loss of income and damage to his reputation, and has been forced to accumulate considerable debts—he estimates that he is approximately £45,000 out of pocket.

Let me clarify a point that seems to have escaped the LSC, despite so many of its communications being mired in legal gobbledegook. Mr Majid was never an employee of Knights Solicitors. He was a freelance duty solicitor, an arrangement that the LSC approved and encouraged. The commission approved Mr Majid’s application to work as a freelance duty solicitor through Knights Solicitors, and on 7 May 2010 it approved his electronic registration for a CDS12—the duty solicitor application form. At that time, the LSC knew that Knights Solicitors was under investigation for legal aid fraud, and had been since 2009. On 27 May 2010, it terminated Knights Solicitors’ unified legal aid contract, having previously placed a contract sanction on the firm’s accounts.

When Mr Majid complained to the LSC about how he had been disadvantaged as a result, Mr Ross Lane of the commission attempted to muddy the waters by claiming that Mr Majid knew that Knights Solicitors had been under investigation since 2009. Mr Majid discovered details of the investigation only through a subsequent county court order, but the LSC attempted to use that as a reason for dismissing his claim. Mr Lane, of course, knew that the LSC was doing everything it could to resist Mr Majid’s freedom of information requests, which would have shed light on the fact that it negligently registered him with a firm that was under investigation for fraud and that it withheld that information.

Mr Majid has a further complaint about the LSC. When he discovered that Knights Solicitors had lost its contract, he asked if he might be able to transfer his slots to another law firm. The LSC was quick to deny him the opportunity, and drew his attention to section 6 of the standard crime contract specification. It is unable, however, to offer any explanation as to why 14 other solicitors, identified by Mr Majid, have been given that same opportunity. I could name those people—people to whom the LSC afforded an opportunity it denied my constituent, people who have suffered no financial loss and no damage to their reputation or career—but I will not, because Mr Majid has no desire to cause them distress. I am happy, however, to share their names with the Minister, because the time for trying to brush what has happened under the carpet is at an end.

Let me further point out that some of those people benefited from the opportunity to transfer their slots before Knights Solicitors lost its contract, and some afterwards, so the LSC’s attempts to argue that it was an error that it has now put right do not stand up to scrutiny. It allowed flexibility in contract arrangements to safeguard the finances and reputation of 14 other people, but denied the opportunity to my constituent and attempted to cover that up.

We also need to ask some wider questions about the LSC. For how much public money is it responsible? I believe it is about £2 billion. To whom is it accountable? Can the Minister say in all candour that it is an agency in which he has confidence, or that its transition in April of this year to the Legal Aid Agency will have a significant impact on its behaviour? Mr Sajjad Ahmed Khan of Knights Solicitors—the real villain—is involved in a fraud that might run into millions of pounds, as a result of claiming legal aid fees for services that were never provided. It would appear that, after four years, Sajjad Ahmed Khan is finally likely to be brought before the solicitors disciplinary tribunal, but as yet there has been no effort to recover the millions he fraudulently obtained, and he still practises as a solicitor.

No wonder that the Government are being forced to make swingeing cuts in legal aid, which risks bankrupting thousands of small, decent law firms and calling the whole of our legal system into question. If the Legal Services Commission and its successor are allowed to cover up a multi-million pound fraud and penalise the innocent, because they dare to bring that fraud to the attention of the authorities and get too close to the truth, something rotten is going on.

I have attempted to assist my constituent since the summer of 2011. I have had numerous exchanges of correspondence with the LSC and the PHSO. Gina Brady of the LSC’s complaints handling team replied to my inquiries with a rather curt note confirming that the LSC was of the opinion that Mr Majid had received a full response to all his complaints and that it would not respond to any further inquiries. I am here today because the LSC is judge and jury—not willing to engage with a Member of Parliament, and not accountable to anyone. When it comes to malpractice, misuse of public funds, incompetence and cover-up, that agency might be top of the list.

I also find it shocking—I hope the Minister does as well—that the PHSO comes out of this case as toothless and hopeless, and all too ready to drop Mr Majid’s case on the say so of the LSC, whose arguments simply do not stack up. On 5 January 2012, PHSO’s assessor Michelle Yore wrote to me that it had now concluded its investigation. It used a familiar approach: it asked the LSC about Mr Majid’s complaint. The LSC denied there was any substance to it and, relying on that, the PHSO told my constituent that he had no grounds for his complaint. When he objected, and argued that it had not looked properly at the substance of his complaint, the PHSO investigated its own procedures and concluded that it had complied with them.

I hope that the Minister can see how unsatisfactory that is, and what a waste of public funds. The whole thing is all process and expensive form-filling. Like too many investigations we have come across recently, this is yet another example of investigators being more interested in process than in getting at the truth and delivering justice—wasting public money in endless hours of process, rather than finding out who did what wrong and what is required to put it right. I cannot believe that these people accept their bloated salaries and can sleep at night. No wonder there is a crisis of confidence in our public services.

Who is the responsible person? Is it the current chief executive or the former chief executive, Carolyn Regan, who, I understand, departed with the usual large pay-off after questions were asked about financial controls at the LSC? I do not know how many people work for the agency and its successor, but so far I have come across Stephen O’Connor—he seems to have played a major role in not enforcing section 6, other than against my constituent—Mr Rimmer, Mr Williams, Mr Forrester, Ross Lane, Sarah Aylwin, Natasha Hurley and Gina Brady. With so many fingers in the pie, it might be better if one person had set out to get to the bottom of the affair.

The Legal Services Commission has sought to deny that Mr Majid has a valid complaint. It must know perfectly well that it should not have accepted his registration, given that it knew that it was investigating the firm and that action was imminent. The LSC was wrong to allow 14 other solicitors to transfer business between law firms before and after the action against Knights Solicitors, to attempt to disguise what had actually happened and to quote a contract specification that it had failed to follow in other cases, but insisted on using against my constituent. Mr Majid suffered compared with his contemporaries. The LSC told the PHSO that Mr Majid knew about the investigation into Knights, which was not true, and it deliberately sought to avoid explaining that it was responsible for sitting on FOI requests that would have confirmed the basis of his complaints. It also behaved appallingly in the way that it handled the Sajjad Ahmed Khan fraud, and it gives no confidence that it is fit to discharge its public duties.

I would appreciate anything that the Minister could do to recognise how much my constituent has suffered and that he deserves to be compensated. I would welcome a thorough investigation into the agency. I believe that there is a precedent for a judicial review in a similar case, because too many people are gaining from the public purse who are not doing the job for which we are paying them. Someone is getting away with a cover-up, and it is plain wrong.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) for calling this debate, and I appreciate the passion with which he presented his case. I should also put on the record my appreciation for the information that he sent me before the debate, so that I could consider the points he proposed to make.

I will make some general remarks, and then move on to the hon. Gentleman’s specific points, but I note at the outset that an entirely independent body, the PHSO, has rejected Mr Majid’s case. I hear what the hon. Gentleman says in criticism of that body, but it is worth noting that it is entirely independent of the LSC and of the Government more widely.

I have obviously listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said. I hope that he agrees that we should be very proud of our legal system: it is a valuable contributor to our society, and the Government recognise that legal aid is a vital component of the system. I am well aware of the important role that duty solicitors, such as his constituent, play in the criminal justice system.

I have always made it clear that defence lawyers are central to the criminal justice system. Throughout this year, I have taken their views on how to make the system more efficient and on what we can do to help them work more efficiently. Today, there are about 6,500 duty solicitors—qualified professionals who can offer advice and assistance to those who, without their own lawyer, are being questioned by the police or facing charges before the courts. The system ensures that all eligible people have access to legal advice from suitably qualified legal representatives, whose role is crucial to ensuring that the criminal justice system can operate efficiently.

Last year alone, there were 734,000 acts of assistance to people being questioned by the police, at a cost of £160 million to the taxpayer. A similar scheme for solicitors in the magistrates court operated at a cost of almost £22 million, providing help to individuals in courts across England and Wales. The Legal Aid Agency—as the hon. Gentleman correctly said, that is what the Legal Services Commission has become—has a statutory responsibility to run and maintain both the police station and the magistrates court duty solicitor schemes in England and Wales, which it does by entering into contracts with firms of solicitors. The last tender process was for the 2010 standard crime contract, with contracts starting on 14 July 2010.

The case made by the hon. Gentleman is that his constituent raised a concern with him about how the then LSC dealt with his complaint regarding the allocation of duty solicitor slots in the summer of 2010. From his contribution, I can appreciate that the period in question and since has been extremely distressing for his constituent. What I can usefully do now is explain a little more about how the process works so that we can understand more about how the issue arose in the first place.

The first point on which to be clear, and this directly addresses one of the hon. Gentleman’s points, is that contracts are not awarded to individual duty solicitors, but to legal aid firms. The proportion of slots that each organisation receives is determined by the number of duty solicitors that it has registered with the LAA, formerly the LSC. The allocation of slots is typically refreshed every six months, and organisations are required to submit the necessary forms to demonstrate how many duty solicitors they employ. A deadline is set to ensure fair and equal treatment for all the firms involved.

[Steve McCabe]

Does the Minister think that it was just bad luck that, with those 14 people I mentioned, there was no effort to implement that part of the contract—for those who were granted the exemption before the termination of Knights Solicitors’ contract and those granted it afterwards—or that my constituent has clearly been dealt with differently from the other 14 people?

[Damian Green]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. He kindly gave me advance notice of some of his points, so I can happily guarantee that I will go away and look at some of the details. However, there are some details that are worth setting on the record now.

I have talked about the deadline for slot allocation, and there are two advantages to that approach. First, it ensures that firms have six months of stability of duty solicitor slots, enabling them to plan their workloads. Secondly, it provides administrative benefits to the LSC as rotas are issued at fixed points without the need for many amendments. That is essential given the scale of the task in assembling the rotas. There are more than 250 individual schemes with almost 800 rotas generated at each point.

In the case of the hon. Gentleman’s constituent, there was a deadline for all firms to submit their list of duty solicitors by 14 May 2010. It would not have been possible to accept new submissions in June 2010 without treating firms differently in the tendering process. Owing to the finite number of slots available, late additions would affect the allocation set for all firms that work on those schemes. No other firm was requesting an extension to the May deadline. If a firm wishes to challenge its duty slot allocation, there are options available to it to appeal under the terms of its contract. However, the approach to slot allocation has been the subject of attention during 2013 as part of the debates that have been taking place following the publication in April of the Government’s proposals to transform legal aid.

Those proposals have focused on criminal legal aid, which accounts for around £1 billion of the overall legal aid budget of just under £2 billion. Obviously, no sensible Government can overlook such a sizeable portion of Government spending, which is why we have embarked on the proposals to transform legal aid to deliver a more credible and efficient system.

The Law Society, as part of its response to the consultation, has highlighted some inefficiencies within the current system. In particular, it has focused on the precise issue that the hon. Gentleman has raised today—that of the duty work allocation methods. The Law Society has described the current approach to slot allocation as inefficient. In its response to the consultation, it described the incentive that firms have to employ more and more duty solicitors to gain more slots, even though the total size of the market is declining. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman recognises that that is not a sustainable approach. The Law Society has also highlighted a practice that it calls “ghost solicitors”, which refers to solicitors who have minimal links to a firm receiving a payment that is neither a salary nor linked to work done for the firm.

The Law Society has called for a new method that no longer allocates work to firms on the basis of the number of duty solicitors employed. The Government have been working with the Law Society to explore those proposals and are considering all the other responses to the consultation. There is a real general issue here. I appreciate that most of the hon. Gentleman’s speech was about the specific things that his constituent suffered, but it is worth putting that in context. I will deal briefly with some of his individual points now, but I will also take them away and look at them further.

The hon. Gentleman said that the LSC approved Mr Majid’s application to work as a freelance duty solicitor through Knights Solicitors, and on 7 May it approved his electronic registration for a CDS12. Mr Majid did not personally make an application to the LSC to work as a freelance duty solicitor for Knights. The LSC accepts only applications from firms, and those firms are required to declare that the solicitors are employed by them. Therefore it cannot be said that the LSC approved of any specific employment arrangement between Mr Majid and Knights in May 2010.

The hon. Gentleman also said that the LSC negligently registered Mr Majid with a firm that was under investigation for fraud and withheld that information. Again, I have to be clear that the firms themselves submit their own lists of duty solicitors. The LSC simply received the application in May 2010. On the allegation of withholding information, I should be clear that this was a police investigation, so the LSC was not acting inappropriately at the time.

The hon. Gentleman also said that the LSC has behaved appallingly in the way in which it has handled the fraud and therefore gives no confidence that it is fit to discharge its public duties. It is fair to say that the LSC acted promptly on concerns that Knights breached its contractual duties, and that led to the termination of the contract. The LSC, or the LAA as it now is, is always there to act to protect taxpayers’ money.

The hon. Gentleman also made some remarks about the PHSO. Experience tells us that the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman always acts robustly with organisations such as the LSC and on this occasion, it mounted a full investigation. It was completed without any further action being required. We have all been in this situation, whereby our constituents have gone to the parliamentary ombudsman and not had the result that they required. I have heard what the hon. Gentleman has had to say about the PHSO, but I can only repeat that sometimes it comes up with a result that we regard as satisfactory and sometimes it does not, but it is an entirely independent organisation. It is designed to be a court of appeal outside governmental structures, so that people can have some confidence that they are getting an independent response, and that is what it did in this particular case.

[Steve McCabe]

Is the Minister willing to have a further meeting with me to discuss some of the other aspects of this case that have not been aired today?

[Damian Green]

I suspect, and I will happily discuss this with the hon. Gentleman afterwards, that the most useful meeting he can have is with Matthew Coats, who is the chief executive of the new organisation. That might be a better way to take his case forward. If he is happy with that suggestion, I will just say that I am grateful to him for giving us the opportunity to discuss what is clearly a vital issue to his constituent and an important issue to him.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

In terms of reducing reoffending, will the Secretary of State look urgently at the case of John Cronin, a convicted sexual predator who was originally given a life sentence? He has now been released on licence and has broken the terms of that licence, and apparently has not been returned to jail and cannot be put on the sex offenders register. He is a very dangerous man. Will the Secretary of State look urgently at that case?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. He is indeed, by all accounts, a dangerous man, but it is not immediately apparent what the relevance of his case is to the issue of financial inclusion programmes—

[Steve McCabe]

I was talking about reoffending.

[Mr Speaker]

Indeed, but not financial inclusion, which was the purport of the question. However, the Secretary of State is a dextrous fellow, and I am sure he can respond appropriately.

Legal Aid Reform

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)]

I declare any interest I might have as a practising solicitor, although not one who has ever done any legal aid paid work.

The Government have given a very clear explanation of how, under any reckoning, this country spends by far the most of any in the world on legal aid and will still do so after these proposed savings, which have to be made in these times of tough spending decisions.

Let us first acknowledge that the difficulties in providing criminal legal aid are not new. Indeed looking through my old notes for the debate, I found my question asking a Justice Minister in the previous Labour Administration what he was going to do about the then crisis, with barristers going on strike, some 25% of criminal law firms having closed shop in the previous four years and rates having been frozen for a decade. The then Labour Government acknowledged that the system was unsustainable and prepared, but subsequently failed, to introduce contracts for criminal legal aid tendering. Admitting their inability to reform the system, they then went for the relatively easy route of making savings through further rate cuts.

Even then, the Labour Government were so frightened of initiating the cuts that they organised them to take effect after the general election. That was the position that this Administration inherited and one of the main reasons why we decided to reform civil legal aid first to allow the criminal legal aid market to settle after Labour’s cuts.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I have no argument about whether the savings should be made, but why does the hon. Gentleman think it is right to have a widespread attack on legal aid when the chair of the Criminal Bar Association has said that banking fraud cases are taking up 45% of the legal aid budget?

[Mr Djanogly]

They do. The consultation considers very high cost cases and identifies them as a specific area that needs to be looked at. I agree with that.

During debates on what is now the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, Labour spokesmen said that we should be looking at making savings by contracting criminal legal aid rather than touching civil legal aid. Now it seems that they have made another U-turn and are saying that they do not want criminal contracting at all. The position of Labour Members is not only inconsistent but deeply irresponsible, because they still acknowledge the need for legal aid savings but do not have a clue how to deliver them in practice. That is not the position of a party that can be serious about government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Green]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I do not have time to cover immigration in detail, save to say that we are talking about people who may be returned to face homophobia, torture and appalling treatment when they have lost asylum cases or are failed immigration seekers, yet they are being denied access to legal advice contrary to the assurances that we were given in this House.

We know that people in prison are more likely to have learning difficulties or mental health problems, or to be poorly educated. They are often the product of disruptive and difficult childhoods. Many of them have arrived in prison having spent most of their childhood, to our great shame, in public care. Those people are particularly poorly equipped to advocate for themselves and to use the internal prison complaints system. It is therefore particularly important, not only in their own interests but in the interests of the smooth running of the prison, that we take the steps that we should to ensure that they are given effective opportunities to make their case.

[Steve McCabe]

I agree that people are often not very well equipped to use the complaints system. Is it not also the case that if they are driven to the prisons and probation ombudsman, the average cost of a complaint is about £1,000 more than it would be if we referred them to a legal aid lawyer?

[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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We are now all agog.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Very agog, Sir. Will the Secretary of State say when he plans to end the scandal of making welfare benefit payments to prisoners serving a sentence?

[Chris Grayling]

That is a matter for the Department for Work and Pensions but I am absolutely of the view that benefit payments should not be made to serving prisoners. I hope and expect that the DWP will deal with that issue. I believe that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has already taken steps to ensure that the system we inherited, in which that kind of thing could happen, comes to an end.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

Yes, I can. We are saying that there should be an element of punishment in every community order, unless there are exceptional circumstances, but that does not prevent a sentencer from passing whatever other measures in the order they believe appropriate for the purposes of rehabilitation. My hon. Friend is right to identify some of those, but there are of course many more. This is all about reducing reoffending. That is partly about punishment, but it is also about ensuring that someone does not go right back to the same cycle of offending.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Work in the community is obviously a valuable element of punishment, but it is quite a crowded field, with various voluntary youth organisations and the unemployed also jostling for that work. What other specific types of punishment does the Minister have in mind? Will he give us a flavour of what will happen?

[Jeremy Wright]

It is first worth pointing out that we have toughened up the work requirement, so we will now expect people sentenced to community payback to go and do it very soon afterwards. We expect them to do it for four days a week and we expect them to do it properly. If they do not, they will have breached the order and there will be consequences. The answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is that there will be other elements to a community order which can properly be seen as punitive, whether it is a restriction on movement, an exclusion order from certain places or a financial penalty. There is a range of options available to the court, but we think—and I think his constituents would think—that each order should include a punitive element.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

I can assure my hon. Friend that we have made no changes to the plans. We always listen carefully to outside bodies, but no changes have been made and we are not considering making any.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

In view of the Qatada decision, has the Secretary of State considered requiring courts to take into account the likely cost to the public purse of their bail decisions, particularly in serious and high-risk cases?

[Chris Grayling]

I am happy to consider that matter further and write to the hon. Gentleman.