Civil Recovery (England and Wales)

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I am grateful for the opportunity given by Mr Speaker to have this debate and to the Minister for doing a back-to-back session by responding to two successive debates.

Colleagues who have looked at the Order Paper and seen that this debate is about civil recovery in England and Wales may not have realised immediately what the subject of the debate is. “Civil recovery” is not a phrase that people regularly use. I want to introduce the debate by giving two examples of incidents that came to my attention as an MP in Southwark and that precipitated my interest in the subject.

A constituent of mine came to me after her 15-year-old daughter was accused of stealing £6 worth of goods from a London store. The daughter was then sent a demand on behalf of the store from which she was alleged to have stolen those items asking for £137.50. The explanation given was that she was being asked to compensate the store for the £6 worth of items and to pay the rest of the costs of the administration, the store security and so on. Another constituent then approached me on behalf of one of her daughters, who had been with two friends at Primark. One of the three girls—not my constituent’s daughter—was accused of stealing, but demands for £87.50 were sent to all three girls on behalf of Primark. These two incidents alerted me to what I have since discovered is a very widespread practice.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

My right hon. Friend is right that this is a widespread practice. I want to draw to his attention to a very similar case involving a constituent of mine. She was stopped and accused of shoplifting. Nothing was found, and she was released by the police, but subsequently she received a letter from a civil recovery company saying that she needed to pay £70.

[Simon Hughes]

Like my hon. Friend, all Members of this House who are MPs for any length of time will discover, if they go through their casework files, that this practice is being brought to their attention. At the beginning of this debate, I unambiguously want to pay credit to the citizens advice bureaux and in particular to Richard Dunstan, who had done some work on this issue long before I became aware of it. On behalf of the CAB, he has brought together all the examples of this practice in the best possible place. As a result of his work, two briefings have been published by the CAB, which I recommend to colleagues and others who have an interest in this subject. The first, “Unreasonable demands?”, was published in December 2009, and the second, “Uncivil recovery”, was published in December 2010. The subtitle of the second briefing tells us succinctly what we are talking about. It is:

“Major retailers’ use of threatened civil recovery against those accused of shoplifting or employee theft.”

Colleagues in both the last Parliament and this one have shared my interest in this subject. In the previous Parliament, I know that Ian McCartney was particularly concerned about the issue, and in this Parliament I know that Baroness Hayter has already registered her interest in the subject. I am grateful to her for her continuing interest, which I think that she will want to pursue in the other place.

None of us who are here for this debate are defending shoplifting or employees who shoplift or take property from their employer. However, there are proper procedures, proper criminal processes and proper civil processes. What should not happen is that people who often are young—that is, under the age of majority—vulnerable, mentally ill, distressed or disturbed are intimidated, charged extortionate fees or threatened with what are, bluntly, bogus actions, either by the shops themselves or more frequently nowadays by those who are employed by shops to act for them.

I have discovered that this problem is significant. In each of the past three years, some 100,000 people have received one or more letters demanding a substantial sum of money as “compensation” for their alleged shoplifting or employee theft, and threatening civil court action and associated extra costs if the sum demanded is not paid promptly. Since 2000, more than 600,000 people have received such civil recovery demands, issued by one of a handful of agents acting for well known high street retailers such as Asda, Boots, Debenhams, Tesco and TK Maxx. In the great majority of those cases, the value of the goods or cash allegedly stolen was relatively low. If the accusation is of shoplifting, the value was just a few pounds. In four out of five cases, the goods were recovered intact for resale. In many cases, somebody was apprehended when they were accused of leaving a store with an item—for example, an eyeliner worth £2 or a grocery item worth £1.60—without having paid for it. They then paid for it and were released, but they still received the civil recovery demand later. Among those cases reported to the CAB, one in four of the recipients of such demands are teenagers, most of them aged between 14 and 16, and other recipients are particularly vulnerable.

In many cases, the alleged theft is strongly denied, so it is not always the case—indeed, it is normally not the case—that these allegations are accepted by the person who is charged. In some cases, there was clearly an innocent mistake; in other cases, there was an error; and in other cases there was confusion. However, it matters not, because these stores have behind them a small but growing army of lawyers and other companies that are making a hefty profit from this business.

There is a common feature in these cases. If the sum demanded is not paid, the threat of county court action is often repeated. There is a second threat and then a third threat, giving ever closer dates of notice. However, at the end of all these threats county court action does not materialise, because it was invalid and unjustified in the first place.

The most prolific civil recovery agent, a firm called Retail Loss Prevention, is the biggest player among a small army of players in this sector. It has confirmed that it has never successfully litigated a fully contested county court claim in respect of an unpaid demand. The CAB has also received advice, which I have seen, suggesting that there is no obvious legal authority for most of these demands. Taken together, those two facts suggest that the practice of threatened civil recovery relies on fear and/or shame, as well as ignorance of the law, for its effectiveness.

When I began thinking about how I would raise this issue, I wondered which Government Department I would, as it were, “summon to answer” to me in the first place, because it is very clear that this matter is not only the responsibility of the Ministry of Justice. However, I thought that I would start there, because it is a justice issue, and I am very grateful for the Minister’s presence today and for his Department’s interest in this subject. Shortly, I want to put to him some specific issues that I hope his Department can pick up, because I believe that it has a responsibility to do so and that it can do things.

There is no way that that we should continue to permit this system of civil recovery, and I hope that today’s debate will precipitate a working-together across Departments. Obviously, there is a Home Office interest in this issue and there is also an interest for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, as well as an interest for the Ministry of Justice, in trying to ensure that we shut down this business and make those who are involved, which are otherwise reputable major retail outlets, behave in a much more reasonable way.

Nobody condones retail theft. It is a big issue, and we need to ensure that stores are not pilfered and that there is the best possible policing of them. However, even if one accepts that retail theft is a big problem, the percentage of the money stolen from shops that is recovered by these means is a very small proportion of the total. So it is not as if the retailers involved are able to cover all their costs by doing this type of thing. I will turn to some examples.

[Tom Brake]

Has my right hon. Friend considered that we should take up this issue in a protection of freedoms Bill No. 2? It is probably too late for the Protection of Freedoms Bill that is about to start its Committee stage, but it could be considered in a future Bill.

[Simon Hughes]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s suggestion, and I hope that the Minister will address the areas that the Ministry of Justice can pick up. If over the next few weeks, with concentrated efforts in both Houses, we can get a coalition—as it were—of determination to do something, I, with my hon. Friend and others, will look for the earliest available opportunity to deal with the legislative changes that I think are part of the response that is needed.

On the protagonists, I have listed some of the major retail players, and I will now deal with the agents. In eight out of 10 of the cases reported to citizens advice bureaux the demand was issued by a Nottingham-based company called Retail Loss Prevention Ltd. Since 1999, that company has issued more than 550,000 demands on behalf of dozens of retailers, including Argos, E.H. Booth, Debenhams, Harrods, Iceland, Lidl, Matalan, Morrisons, Mothercare, Netto, Primark and Waitrose. The company retains some 40% of any money it recovers and the remainder goes to the retailer client. The owner and managing director of the company, who is being pursued by Citizens Advice and by others in the media, has said that the company is

“passionate in our belief that we are helping the community by going after the ‘soft’ criminals who are often seen as lower priority by the police”.

In seven out of 10 of the cases that have come to the notice of citizens advice bureaux, the demand was issued on behalf of one of just six retailers—Boots, TK Maxx, Tesco, Wilkinson, B&Q and Superdrug. The predetermined fixed sum demanded by RLP in most if not all shoplifting cases varies according to, and is determined by, the total value claimed of the goods or cash involved. If the value is between nothing and £10, the sum demanded is £87.50 and the 21-day settlement offer is £70; if the goods are worth between £10 and £100, invariably £137.50 is asked for, with a discounted 21-day-period amount; if the value is more than £100, £187.50 is asked for, with a quick-pay discounted amount of £150; and if it is more than £300, £250 is asked for, with a quick-pay amount of £200. It is clear that the company has never justified the legitimacy of its action. It has been asked persistently about the evidence for its actions, and it has repeatedly declined to produce any evidence that claims have regularly and successfully been pursued by means of county court proceedings.

The company has also clearly misrepresented the position. Until last November, RLP’s website stated that

“we have established operating procedures for Civil Recovery and agreed guidelines with the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland (ACPOS)”.

However, in October last year, the assistant chief constable who leads on retail crime for ACPO wrote to Jackie Lambert at RLP stating:

“Whilst there may have been agreements in the past about exchanging data and operating civil recovery with ACPO…there are no such agreements in place now and indeed on several occasions over the last few years I and my colleagues have asked that such references be deleted. Please remove from your website any and all references which state or imply that RLP operates its civil recovery in agreement or cooperation with the Police Service. Clearly if you have an agreement with an individual force you could make reference to that, but I know of none.”

In November last year, ACPOS said:

“At no time have ACPOS entered into any formal agreement with RLP or assisted them in any civil recovery”.

The other players are Drydens, a law firm based in Bradford, Nottingham-based Civil Recovery Solutions and, more worryingly in a way, a Florida-based law firm, Palmer, Reifler and Associates, which is a major player on the United States civil recovery scene but is not regulated to practise in the UK and uses Wigan-based law firm Goddard Smith as its agent. Lastly, there is the London-based firm Civil Recovery Limited, which acted for only Tesco and was closely related to a security company called TSS, which supplies security guards to Tesco, Boots and other retailers. Civil Recovery Limited ceased trading last summer.

Penultimately, there is of course a civil wrong if someone steals something from someone else. There is a tort as well as a crime, and there is a breach of contract if an employee steals from their employer. I am not arguing that there might not be proper civil proceedings, but this is a contrivance. It is an intimidation, with the protagonists selling their services to the retail fraternity and then recovering a large amount of money under clearly false pretences. What please can we do about it?

I would like the following from the Ministry of Justice. I would like it to ask the Law Commission, which has a report in the pipeline, to ensure that it urgently reviews the entire law on civil recovery, with a view to eventually ensuring, by law if necessary, that civil recovery is limited to cases involving serious, determined and/or persistent criminal activity for which there has been a criminal trial and conviction. I would like the Ministry, as a matter of urgency, to prepare and disseminate public information and advice on threatened civil recovery, and in particular on the options available to people who might receive a civil recovery demand from Retail Loss Prevention, Drydens or other civil recovery agents. That could be done through the Government’s public information service—Directgov—citizens advice bureaux and other advice outlets.

I also want the Ministry of Justice to talk to the Solicitors Regulation Authority to see whether it needs to take further action to ensure that the civil recovery practice of solicitors, including employed solicitors, is consistent with the solicitors’ code of conduct. I would then like the Home Office, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the retail industry and the police to identify and develop a range of alternative ways of dealing with those involved who, if they are young, mentally ill or vulnerable, are often better dealt with by cautions and the early stages of the pre-criminal procedure in my experience.

As the total amount recovered by the civil recovery agents for their retailer clients each year seems unlikely to be more than £16 million, the practice is clearly completely unacceptable, given that they say that they lose £4 billion every year as an industry. I hope that some major retailers will hear this debate and agree to review their practice. Most of all, it is clear to me that the practice has become an opportunity for great profit-making by a few at the risk of improperly influencing and intimidating people who ideally should not be in the criminal process, unless they are regular offenders, and certainly should not be the victims of communications that distort the facts, misrepresent the law and often put the fear of God into people who certainly do not have the money to pay large sums.

I hope that the Minister can be helpful, that he understands the importance of this issue to all our constituents, and that today will be the beginning of the end of this practice. I am very grateful to all those people who have brought the issue to the public’s attention, and I hope that there will be continued significant public reporting, until the practice is ended.

Young Offenders

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Paul Maynard]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that contribution, which raises a wider point about who owns the child when they progress through the criminal justice system. One of my concerns is that when someone transfers from their home local authority to the secure estate, their home council effectively washes its hands of them. When they have gone through pupil referral units—or educational diversity, as we call it in Blackpool—and then find themselves in a young offenders institution, it is almost like starting again. They are then released and, yet again, they start again when they are returned to their local authority. Again, there is a lack of cohesion.

I should also like to deal with the issue of the prison escort records of young offenders at young offenders institutions. I have been informed in a letter from the Ministry of Justice that the initial assessment of a prisoner’s language skills is made by the custody manager who completes the escort record, but there has been no national review of the quality or accuracy of those reception language assessments. There is no obvious evidence of the use of a tool that is approved by the professional bodies.

I do not believe that in custodial settings we have enough speech and language therapists. Speech and language intervention at Red Bank secure children’s home reduces the need for physical restraints from two to three times a day to just two times a week, but only 15% of youth offending teams have access to speech and language therapy. I am particularly concerned that the changes to prison health care and the re-assignment to the Department of Health risk worsening prison health care. I am concerned that a primary care trust in which a young offenders institution is located now has to take responsibility for all the young offenders in that institution. It is causing problems in relation to securing funding for the health care within that institution. Will the Minister comment on that and explain why the change has occurred and how he hopes to protect those in young offenders institutions who are in need of specialist health provision that PCTs now appear reluctant to fund?

We need to provide more exits in the community from the so-called conveyor belt. As I have said, I welcome the fact that we are trying to avoid the use of remand. I support the concept of local authorities bearing more of the burden of responsibility for the cost of youth justice in their community—a child from Blackpool does not cease to be a child from Blackpool when he is in Hindley young offenders institution—which was an idea raised by the recent Green Paper. Payment by results is another frequently cited intervention, but I am not sure that it is fully understood yet. I would welcome some reassurance that the schemes on offer are not merely a case of helping the low-hanging fruit first to demonstrate that the process works, but are focusing on those who are hardest to help.

Lord Bradley’s review, which I mentioned earlier, recommended that all youth offending teams have a suitable, qualified mental health worker with responsibility for making appropriate referrals. Child and adolescent mental health services are a particularly malfunctioning part of our health care system. The likelihood of CAMHS taking on a 15 to 17-year-old who presents for the first time with mental health problems is, I am afraid, pretty close to zero. Their view is that they will have to wait to be dealt with by the adult mental health care system. Structurally, that cannot be what is intended by any Government of any political persuasion. A child and adolescent mental health service has the word “adolescent” in it, which surely applies to the 15 to 17 age group.

I should also like to focus on the issue of transitional services for children entering adulthood, a period for which, in my view, there is no real age limit, because young people develop into adults at different ages. The issue will be covered in the forthcoming special educational needs Green Paper, but I hope that, just as early intervention was the public policy fad—if I may call it that—of the past decade, the transition phase will become the fad of the coming decade. It has been sorely neglected, which has had a damaging impact on the quality of public policy in this country.

We also have to consider the impact of arrangements for the release of young offenders. It is not acceptable to just hand them a travel warrant and £46.75 upon their release. I have suggested to the Minister that we increase that sum, because it is not enough. When I market-tested that with the professionals I met, it was not supported as much as I thought it might be. The point was made that, if we give them more money, cash in hand, we cannot control what they spend it on. Those professionals would far rather focus on handing out vouchers to meet the specific needs that those young offenders will face in their first 48 hours or so, rather than a cash payout.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a thoughtful contribution. Does he agree that one of the most useful things that can be given to young offenders when they leave an institution is somewhere to live, and that ensuring that they have secure accommodation is one of the best ways of ensuring that they do no reoffend?

[Paul Maynard]

That is perhaps an example of our target culture. We measure the number of young offenders on release who have accommodation available to them, but we do not measure the quality or sustainability of that accommodation. There could be an address to go to, but that might be someone’s sofa. For the purposes of ticking the box, that sofa is regarded as a long-term solution, and I do not believe that it always is.

I would like to touch briefly on the issue of doli incapax, which is the pretentious term for considering the age of criminal responsibility. This is something to which I have given a great deal of thought, because most in the criminal justice system focus on the need to raise the age of criminal responsibility to the age of 14. I have thought closely about this. There is clearly a humanitarian instinct lying at the root of that proposal. My concern is that what we are actually discussing is nomenclature, rather than outcomes. I realised at Barton Moss that many of the children it looks after in that setting—that secure setting behind a locked gate—are not there because they have entered the youth justice system. They are there because their councils have put them there for welfare reasons. If the age of criminal responsibility is 12, and we allow councils’ welfare departments to look after those children, the end result might be no different. I have a severe concern that, by leaving that to a council’s social services welfare department, we will lose the many safeguards that are in the criminal justice system to ensure that the law is adhered to. As we all know, in tragic case after tragic case, social services are becoming more risk-averse in how they treat young people. That well-meaning recommendation might well have perverse consequences and I would argue strongly against it.

It is true that we should celebrate every small progress that is made by a child. Merely attending two consecutive appointments can be a triumph for some. We have to stress, however, that the youth justice system is never the place to try to address all of society’s ills, as tempting as that might be. The youth justice system is perhaps a place that can be used to catch up and to address that which has been overlooked, but we have to start, as a nation, to accept that more must be done in the community. I realise that the Minister is shifting the Youth Justice Board back in-house. I would welcome an assurance from him that youth justice will remain the responsibility of a separate unit, within the Ministry of Justice, dedicated solely to the under-18s. The Youth Justice Board has issued many useful reports that have underlined the inadequacies of various stages of the youth justice process, and it would be a great shame to lose that independent voice. It is still important that, whoever we are and whatever our organisation, we still speak truth unto power. I hope that the civil servants responsible for youth justice do not recoil from speaking truth unto the Minister, where that is required.

Equally, if all exit points from the conveyor belt to crime, which I keep referring to, are bottlenecked around the secure estate, that risks still being a dumping ground for all the children whose problems cannot really be accommodated within society at the moment. In my view, they should be accommodated within society. We should be able to cope with those who have complexity of need. It is a damning indictment of this country that, to address those problems, we have to send children to a secure estate, lock them away from society, and say that society does not want to have to deal with those problems.

I have been appalled by some of the populism I have heard in political debate about criminal justice in this House. It deeply disappoints me. The dignity of the individual is compromised by many of the conditions in the youth justice system. The victim, as well, fails to receive satisfaction. Satisfaction is the crucial word, because punishment has two elements: retribution and satisfaction. Retribution comes in the form of incarceration, which is a deprivation of liberty and freedom. That is where the victim receives recompense for the crimes done to them. Satisfaction, however, is just as important, because satisfaction is where there is recompense for the wider community whose laws have been offended. The key part of satisfaction is that we reduce the likelihood of reoffending—when a young person leaves the youth justice system, they are less likely to reoffend, and more likely to have a purposeful life in the community whose laws they offended in the first place.

If our youth justice system makes it more likely that the most vulnerable receive the harshest punishments, we, as a nation, must examine our consciences. Community solutions, at the appropriate moment, are the way forward. Equally, I recognise that to be done properly, those solutions must be intensive, with the costs up front. They are expensive, and I recognise that, but as the Audit Commission report in 2004 made clear, if only one in 10 of those who went into the youth justice system was catered for properly, the savings for the public purse could be as much as £100 million. We are back to the old argument that early intervention saves money, which requires ambition on the part of Ministers and the bravery to take decisions where the costs are up front, but the benefits are long term. I urge the Minister to continue on his well-meaning path towards trying to improve the youth justice system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) on securing this debate. As I said in an intervention, he has made a thoughtful and meticulously researched contribution—indeed, possibly even a liberal with a small l contribution. His emphasis on early intervention and ensuring that there is proper assessment of learning and communication difficulties among young offenders was a strong point.

I also congratulate the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), who made a strong contribution based on his experience as a Minister. I did not disagree with anything that he said, including his last point about the impact of cuts on youth services. We must be cautious about that, because of the potential for significant negative knock-on effects.

I apologise to you, Mr Streeter, and to others, because I must leave early to sit on a Statutory Instrument Committee that is looking at licensing hours in relation to the royal wedding. Clearly, we hope that more people will not join the criminal justice system as a result of extended licensing hours and their drinking longer and harder than they might otherwise have done.

The backdrop to what we are discussing must surely be, to some extent, public perceptions of young people. Members may be familiar with a YouGov poll commissioned by Barnardo’s that was conducted at the end of 2008. It found that nearly half the adults regarded children as increasingly dangerous to each other and to their elders, while 43% feel that

“something has to be done”

to protect society from children and young people. It is a sad indictment against not young people but adults, society and, perhaps, the media that we have arrived at a point where the perception of young people is as negative as that.

The poll goes on to state:

“The British public overestimates, by a factor of four, the amount of crime committed by young people.”

I wonder to what extent that perception affects sentencing policy. If people think that young people are committing four times as much crime as they actually commit, that may be reflected in the sentences that are handed out.

That is the perception, but, interestingly, the number of children in custody has fallen by one third since 2002, from 3,175 to just more than 2,000. That goes against the perceptions that that poll revealed, and may explain to some extent the fall to which the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys referred in terms of young people accessing services. Fewer children are going into the custody system.

That is the backdrop, and I shall now address the issue. A couple of months ago, I organised a sentencing round table. I invited many of the organisations involved in youth justice to come and suggest how to enhance the proposals in the Green Paper and to propose additional measures. They stressed the importance of the emphasis on diversion, discretion and judgment in what happens with children who go into the youth custody system. As an aside to the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, I hope that he will stick to his humanitarian instincts and consider why an age of criminal responsibility of 14 might be the appropriate course of action. Indeed, at the Liberal Democrats’ spring conference on Saturday, I shall open a debate on a motion that proposes precisely that.

The organisations had concerns about whether the Green Paper focused enough on custody of young people, and there was a lot of enthusiasm about what is happening to youth custody in Northern Ireland. Perhaps the Minister will respond to that, and confirm whether the Government are considering that as a way forward. Northern Ireland has far fewer children in the prison estate.

The organisations also focused on the need to address learning difficulties and mental disorders, as the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys said. He rightly drew on the briefing of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists—at least, I am drawing on it—and referred to the asset system, which is the tool designed to assess young people. The concern, as the hon. Gentleman has said, is that it is not designed to identify learning difficulties or communication disabilities. I have a specific question for the Minister. Can that system be looked at to ensure that it is adjusted so that it can do precisely that? As he has said, it is a significant issue. Current evidence shows that 60% of young offenders have such severe communication disabilities that they cannot access prison education programmes. I agree with the right hon. Member for Tottenham that good, strong educational programmes in prisons are key, but they could go further in allowing offenders to obtain qualifications.

When I visited the prison in the Minister’s constituency, the point was made that it is all very well an offender achieving an NVQ level 1, but they need to go further if they are to be competitive in the job market when they come out. Appropriate courses must be available. That prison—Highdown—has a gym, where prisoners like to go, and perhaps they should be able to achieve some qualifications in gym work that they could use when they come out.

The right hon. Member for Tottenham was right to say that employers need to do more, and I am sure that he will be familiar with National Grid’s scheme, which is fantastically successful. It trains prisoners, and its experience is that on release, because they take up a guaranteed job at the end of the training, they are less likely than the general population to offend. That is a real success story, and I wish other employers would emulate it.

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman will recognise that National Grid’s scheme works because the young offenders have often had day release or been out on tagging. Some of the public storm in the tabloids about young people leaving institutions must stop if such schemes are to work.

[Tom Brake]

That is a significant point, but unfortunately, there is an element of risk. The right hon. Gentleman was a Minister, so he will know that there may be occasions when something happens on day release, but overall the impact is positive. The Government must be willing to accept that there will be some risk, and that there may be some negative publicity if something regrettable happens, but the overall contribution of such schemes is positive, which is what must be borne in mind.

Other matters that were raised at the round table include transition, which is significant. When young people go from the youth estate into the adult estate, it is a huge leap, and that transition must be much smoother. That applies not just to 17-year-olds going into the prison estate, but to 18 to 21-year-olds, because many of them are not able to go into the normal adult estate without additional support.

An issue concerning young adults to which the Minister may wish to respond is that the law is being disregarded and they are mixed up in adult prisons. The law is clear, but I understand that it is not being applied. Another significant point that was made at the round table is the need for early intervention and early investment.

I have some additional proposals that I hope the Minister will consider. The police should be allowed discretion in how they tackle youth offending, perhaps adopting a problem-solving approach rather than unnecessarily arresting young people when they admit responsibility. It should be recognised that the criminal courts are not necessarily the most effective environment in which to deal with children, particularly those under 14 when, as the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys has said, they often do not have the slightest idea what they are going through in the court system, because it is too complex and completely opaque to them.

We must decriminalise children when they should be treated as victims, such as child prostitutes, and we should protect young people who are criminalised for victimless crimes. I am thinking specifically of consensual sexual acts between those under 16. On restorative justice, I hope that the Minister will respond on the Northern Ireland proposals.

As hon. Members have stressed, it is important to give local authorities responsibility for custody costs, so that there is a clear and strong incentive for them to invest in youth services, as the right hon. Member for Tottenham has said, if they can see a clear correlation, which I am sure that there is, between investment in youth services and a reduction in the number of young offenders going into custody with all the charges and costs associated with that.

This debate has been positive with well thought-through contributions, and I hope that the Minister will respond in kind; I am sure that he will.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

We are indeed doing that. The consultation on Lord Justice Jackson’s recommendations closed yesterday, and we have had a large number of responses. We will look carefully at those over the coming weeks and come back with our response to the consultation. I agree that this is an important matter in terms of legal aid and conditional fees arrangements in so far as half of clinical negligence cases are funded by the former and half by the latter.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

On budget savings, has the Minister had a chance to consider how much might be saved in the legal aid budget by not allowing cases of unaccompanied children and young people whose asylum claims have failed to be dealt with under legal aid, and indeed those who have fled domestic slavery? Will he look again at whether the savings derived are appropriate, given the impact that it will have on these categories of people?

[Mr Djanogly]

In all those circumstances—the hon. Gentleman mentioned a lot quickly—I think that we will be retaining access to legal aid.

Police

Tom Brake Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s support and I hope this approach will command support across the whole House, because it does make sense for the 43 forces to procure together where that will make savings; and the savings are quite considerable.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Pursuing that point, if there is some rationalisation among the 2,000 IT systems, would that not also lead to significantly more effective policing and a reduced risk, for instance, of systems being out of synch and data getting lost between different systems?

[Nick Herbert]

I agree with my hon. Friend that making these efficiencies and improvements in business processes is about not just saving money, but improving the quality of the service. Those two things are not incompatible, and it is time we stopped talking as though they were.

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[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I have a sense of déjà vu in this debate, partly because we had a dry run of it a few weeks ago, and partly because I heard an excellent opening speech from the Minister during that debate. I am afraid that mine will suffer because other Members may have the same sense of déjà vu when they hear some of my points.

My starting point for the debate is the same as the Minister’s, which is that there are some inconvenient facts: we have the worst deficit in the G20 and the largest peacetime deficit since the second world war, and we are spending £120 million a day on the interest alone on our debt. Those are inconvenient facts, but they are givens, or known knowns, as Donald Rumsfeld might say.

[Mark Tami]

I seem to remember that the Lib Dem manifesto promised 3,000 extra police officers on the streets, so the cut equates to 13,000 fewer than they promised. Does that indicate how we should treat Lib Dem manifestos?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his rather predictable intervention, but immediately before it I was explaining—he clearly was not listening—why the Government are having to take these decisions. He and the former Ministers on the Opposition Front Bench must accept responsibility for that.

I listened carefully to the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), because we expect the Opposition to come forward with some solutions, but during her speech I detected only one sentence in which she referred to the £1 billion of cuts that they would make and said that they would do something about back-office functions and procurement. So that is the Opposition’s solution. That is the one sentence that the Opposition’s spokesperson provided, stating how they, if in government, would have resolved the problems that we face.

[Stephen Twigg]

Will the hon. Gentleman not acknowledge that, in that one sentence—I think it was more than one sentence—of my right hon. Friend’s speech, she referred specifically to the report of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary? The figure is not one that we have plucked off the top of our heads; it is based on the HMIC’s view of the savings that can be made without damaging front-line services.

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Of course he is right, and the Government have based their measures on the HMIC report as well, but people who read and listen to this debate will want to hear exactly what impact HMIC’s recommendations, if implemented, will have on, for example, staff numbers, a point to which the official Opposition’s spokesperson did not respond. She ducked and dived on that point.

The Opposition can pretend that the £40 billion of cuts that they intended making, including 20% cuts throughout Departments, would have gone unnoticed, would have had no impact on front-line services and would have left police forces throughout the country unscathed, but we know, they know and people outside know that that is completely untrue.

There is no point disguising the fact that the settlement is tough. That is true, and it impacts on police budgets. As the Minister said, in 2011-12 there is a 4% reduction in cash terms. In 2012-13, there is a 5% reduction, but, thanks to the HMIC report and the measures that police forces are already taking throughout the country, much of the reduction can be made through greater efficiency.

Police forces are already delivering many examples of such efficiency. In one local example, Sutton and Merton police forces are looking at sharing a custody suite, and if successful in those two force areas, the idea might be rolled out across the whole Met police force area and in others further afield. That is exactly the sort of measure that police forces and police authorities should pursue.

The Minister quite rightly identified what is possible through IT systems savings and, as I said in an intervention, we can derive not only cash savings from that source, but great improvements in efficiency and the likelihood of resolving cases, as the communications problems between different systems are addressed.

One issue that I raised in the previous debate, and on which I hope the Minister has had time to do some work, is training for senior officers. The HMIC report identifies that there was no commonly held belief that those officers needed a detailed understanding of how to ensure that the efficiency savings—the mergers—took place effectively. The Government, HMIC or others might be able to assist with training to ensure that officers are equipped to take such tough decisions, because there are real differences between forces’ proposals.

Some forces are coming forward with a headline figure for the number of officers they are going to cut, while others are coming forward with a range of options—particularly on back-office and procurement—that could identify significant savings without the need to cut staff numbers, which some forces seem to have gone for as the first rather than the last resort.

I want to raise some specific Met issues. The Minister will be aware that the force has not yet taken a decision to cut sergeant numbers by 300; it is considering the idea, but it says it

“will be directed by final analysis and must reflect operational delivery.”

I urge the Met to maintain those officer numbers, but if that is not possible, to look at some of the proposals that I mentioned, particularly on sharing back-office functions, joint custody suites and the like to ensure that the number of police officers in the safer neighbourhood teams is maintained at the level at which it is currently set.

Equally, as I said earlier, safer neighbourhood teams may be undertaking tasks that are not their responsibility. I mentioned the example of drive-outs from petrol stations, which are taking up an inordinate amount of time in the case of at least one of my safer neighbourhood teams. After I raised that case, the local force have asked to meet me to discuss it as a wider issue, so it clearly affects not just one safer neighbourhood team but several in the borough. If a large proportion of their time is spent trying to deal with a problem that the petrol companies should be able to resolve technologically, we should look at the issue carefully to try to free up officer time to concentrate on things that really do need police intervention.

[Mr Burley]

If we want to help the police with their finances, does the hon. Gentleman agree that perhaps now is the time for premiership football clubs to start thinking about making a greater contribution to the costs of policing their football matches instead of all those police being deployed purely at taxpayers’ expense?

[Tom Brake]

I entirely agree. Given the stringent financial circumstances in which the Government are operating, that is exactly the sort of thing that needs to be considered.

The Minister referred to the review of staffing and overtime arrangements. Although I agree that very high levels of overtime are costly, and that needs to be looked at, such overtime often allows the police to undertake special tasks that they could not do otherwise and can do without the need to grow the number of full-time police officers. This requires some flexibility. Simply saying “No more overtime” would severely constrain some of the activities that the police are undertaking and that people clearly welcome and want to happen.

There are clearly many measures that the police can take to cut back to ensure that they are making the right level of efficiency savings. If the police undertake such actions, which are documented in the HMIC report, and if they look at the best practice that exists in police forces around the country, they can make the savings that they are being required to make without an impact on front-line services.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Twigg]

Absolutely; I concur with my hon. Friend. Of course, that is not the only promise that the Liberal Democrats made to the British people last May that they have broken. They made that promise knowing, as my hon. Friend said, what the Budget position was. It was a deeply irresponsible pledge to make.

[Tom Brake]

Does the hon. Gentleman not also agree that it would have been appropriate for the Labour Government to announce that the structural deficit was £12 billion higher than they led the public to believe?

[Stephen Twigg]

The figures were very much in the public domain. To be fair to the Conservative party, it did say that it would prioritise cuts. There is a specific issue about the Liberal Democrats having said one thing in opposition and saying the complete opposite now that they are part of the coalition Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to be called to speak in this important debate, especially as cuts in policing will impact so greatly on my constituents. We heard earlier from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) about how Merseyside police force is heavily reliant on funding from central Government, and I shall reiterate some of the important points that he made.

Some 82% of the force’s budget comes from the formula grant. Only the City of London, Northumbria and West Midlands forces are more reliant on formula grant funding. Can the Minister explain to the people of Liverpool why the real-terms percentage cut facing Merseyside in the 2011-12 financial year is 5.8%, while Surrey— which receives only 51% of its funding from central Government—is receiving a cut of just 3.7% in real terms?

The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice said to the Liverpool Echo on October 15 last year:

“The priority is...helping police officers working on the front line.”

Merseyside police chief constable, Jon Murphy, has said that his force is doing, and will do, everything it can to maintain front-line policing. In fact, since 2004 Merseyside police have made maximising police numbers on the streets a priority. As a result of rigorous efficiency savings, which have been recognised nationally by the Department, and reinvestment in frontline policing, Merseyside police have increased police numbers by hundreds of officers. But we are very concerned that the Government have made no allowances for the extensive efficiency savings already made, before cutting the formula grant so harshly. It will now be impossible to maintain front-line police levels when Merseyside police will see real-terms funding cuts of 7% in 2011-12 and 8.8% in 2012-13.

Merseyside police are having to cut 200 police officers and 80 police staff by March of this year. In addition, a moratorium on police recruitment is continuing until 2012, and this will result in roughly another 200 police officers going in that financial year. That means that Merseyside police will lose close to 10% of its police officers by March 2012. Tough choices have already had to be made, including the closure of the dedicated antisocial behaviour unit.

To substantiate those savage cuts, the Policing Minster has said that there is no simple link between police numbers and crime levels. However, I would like to bring to his attention a number of studies that contradict that. A study of crime rates and police numbers across Europe published on 7 January by the think-tank Civitas—I mention Civitas because it is a think-tank that the Government are normally inclined to listen to—suggests that there is indeed a clear link. Using the most recent data from the “European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics”, Civitas compared the number of police officers per 100,000 of the population and recorded offences per 100,000 of the population. Civitas said that the data suggest

“an association between police officers per head of population and crimes per head. A nation with a larger proportion of police officers is somewhat more likely to have a lower crime rate. A nation with fewer police is more likely to have a higher crime rate.”

However, that is not the only study to suggest such a link.

[Tom Brake]

Is it not also true, however, that the Civitas report says:

“police numbers and resources are far from the only contributor to police effectiveness”?

Anonymity (Arrested Persons) Bill

Tom Brake Excerpts

Friday 4th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who made a measured and thoughtful contribution. I have not had an opportunity to have any dealings with her before, so I made some discreet soundings about her among my Liberal Democrat colleagues, and there was broad agreement that she is a very sound, responsible and dignified Member of Parliament. I am therefore pleased to have the opportunity to support some of her comments.

Like the hon. Lady, I will try to avoid mentioning any names. She did such a good job in disguising the details of one of the earlier cases that she mentioned, which related to a TV personality, that I am not sure whether she was talking about the person to whom I am going to refer, in very vague terms, who was also a TV personality and who, several years ago, received press coverage indicating that he had committed some very serious offences. Only yesterday, my researcher, who had been looking at the Bill, pointed out to me that that person was in fact found not guilty of anything at the end of the process. It was lodged in my mind, and I suspect the minds of millions of other people around the country, that this person was guilty of something, and that is what remained from that coverage. The hon. Lady’s point is therefore a very good one. The press leave people with the clear implication that people who have been arrested are guilty of a crime, and although that subsequently proves not be the case, the thought is lodged in people’s minds that they are guilty.

The hon. Lady’s Bill, as she has clearly stated, would prohibit the publication or broadcast of the name, address or image of a person arrested for an offence if such information would lead members of the public to identify him or her as the person suspected of committing the offence in question. She has set out the necessary safeguards to provide that a Crown court judge would have the power to direct that reporting restrictions should not apply in a particular case—for instance, where identifying a suspect in the press might lead to the coming forward of additional complaints or information that would assist the police investigation of the suspect. I wonder whether she thinks that that would have allowed the Crown court judge in the most recent case that she mentioned to have lifted reporting restrictions. Perhaps in a case such as that, as in many others, the lifting of reporting restrictions could lead to the coming forward of additional complaints or additional information of assistance to the police. It is therefore hard to see where the line would be drawn between assisting the police and protecting the individual who has been arrested but has not been charged. The Bill rightly makes it clear that existing constraints on reporting, such as those relating to people under the age of 18, would still apply. It proposes no changes to those constraints.

Some counter-arguments to the Bill have been expressed in interventions. One relates to the degree of protection for people who are arrested under the current arrangements and then have their name publicised. As I understand it, the Bill is flexible enough to allow an arrested person to seek to have their own name put into the public domain if they feel that it would help them to prove their innocence or to protect them by making people aware of their arrest, for example in cases where there are concerns about what might happen in police custody.

I promised to keep my remarks short, and I will keep that promise. To conclude, I think that the hon. Lady’s Bill has merit. She has explained succinctly, using much supporting information, what she is seeking to achieve. She has identified an area in law that requires greater clarity. We need to improve the protection for innocent people who are wrongly implicated by the press as potentially having committed a serious crime. It is clear from the comments of press editors that even they think the law is unclear in this respect. Perhaps they are using that as a protection or justification for some of the things that they do. However, if the law was clearer, they would not be able to fall back on that as a defence for the fact that they often put information into the public domain that should not be there.

[Philip Davies]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that in many high-profile cases there would be no end to the speculation, rumour and gossip in the local community? In many cases, the media printing a factual piece of information giving the name of a person who has been arrested prevents gossip and rumours that would vilify other people in the local community who are not in any shape or form involved.

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Gentleman highlights why this is not a straightforward issue. Although the hon. Lady’s short Bill makes an important contribution and moves the debate on, I suspect that it does not cover all the hon. Gentleman’s concerns, or, indeed, mine. There are other issues with the Bill, such as its non-applicability to Scotland. There is therefore the potential for matters to be raised in the Scottish press and thereby get some coverage here. Clarification is also required on how the internet and websites would be addressed.

The hon. Lady referred to the Press Complaints Commission. In responding, perhaps the Minister will update us on the PCC’s progress in relation to the most recent case to which the hon. Lady referred. We want to hear that it is taking the matter seriously.

I would be happy to see the Bill make further progress. However, if its fate has been sealed by a shadowy cabal of conspirators behind closed doors, I hope that the Attorney-General will consider its merits and take on board the hon. Lady’s legitimate concerns.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Buckland]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. It is not about gagging the press. The Bill tries to strike a proper balance between the interests of justice and the wider public’s right to know about what is going on in their community. It is a sensitive balance. None of us can pretend to have all the answers, but it is incumbent on us as legislators to do our best to meet the pressures of modern life and the dangers and abuses that can occur, as happened in Bristol, and try to be the guardians of essential liberties.

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Gentleman used the phrase, “sensitive balance”, and I want to bring him back to ASBOs and publicising the names of young people who are subject to them. I have no time for people who have an ASBO slapped on them, but does not the hon. Gentleman, like me, worry that in Britain, more than any other country in Europe, there is a negative attitude to young people?

[Mr Buckland]

That point is powerfully made. I have said many times, in my constituency and here, that we are in danger of demonising the younger generation. We have all, as Members of Parliament, had some encouraging experiences when we meet groups of young people in our constituencies. I find them to be engaged, alive to the issues that confront them as youngsters, keen to participate in their communities and interested in the world about them. In a way, despite our concerns about some aspects of the syllabus and the direction of education, they are much better prepared for the vicissitudes of life than perhaps people of my generation and previous generations were.

Legal Aid Reform

Tom Brake Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) on opening the debate and on setting out her genuine concerns about the impact that some of the changes could have on her constituents. I accept that, as a new Member, she can to some extent deny responsibility for what came before, because she was not a Member under the previous Government. I look around her, however, and see ex-Ministers who know full well that they would have been taking the same decisions as we are, and I find their tutting and shaking of heads intellectually extremely dishonest.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

I should like to reinforce that point. There were no fewer than 30 consultations on legal aid between 2006 and 2010, which gives the lie to the argument that there is a divide on this matter. Both parties were faced with the same challenges, so let us approach the debate on that basis.

[Tom Brake]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman responds to that intervention, I hope that he will confirm to me that he is not accusing any Member of being personally dishonest, because we cannot have that in the Chamber.

[Tom Brake]

Of course I am not accusing any ex-Minister of being personally dishonest.

I thank the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) for his intervention. I think that Members on both sides of the House regret the decisions that are having to be taken, but it is incumbent on Ministers and Members on this side to come forward with solutions. If the Opposition want to be taken seriously, they need to offer solutions as well.

[Kate Green]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the solution that the Government are proposing—namely, the wholesale removal of significant categories of social welfare law—is the most damaging and unsatisfactory way to proceed?

[Tom Brake]

I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), is listening carefully and that there might be some adjustments to what is being proposed. We need to hear solutions, however. We do not need to hear a list of concerns without it being followed by solutions. We all face this problem.

I want to use this debate as an opportunity to raise a couple of specific points, about which I have written to the Minister. I thank him for meeting me, Steve Triner and other representatives of my local citizens advice bureau to discuss their concerns about the proposals. I have also recently had meetings with three solicitors in my constituency office. Like other Members on both sides of the House, I too have received a wide range of briefings from various organisations. I received a briefing yesterday from the Equal Rights Trust, and I want to raise a specific point in that regard. I hope that the Minister will be aware of the points that have been raised with me, as I have already written to him about them.

The first point relates to medical negligence. There is concern about the impact that the changes could have, and whether particularly difficult and complicated medical cases for which the NHS would previously have taken responsibility might be passed over to social services, resulting in their having to take on the financial costs of, for example, the most serious obstetric mistakes involving brain damage in very young children. That is a very specific issue, and I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to it.

My second point relates to family law. Interestingly, in my meeting with the solicitors, they were not particularly concerned about the idea of a telephone helpline. They were, however, concerned about what would happen beyond that stage, in regard to referrals. They wondered whether there would be a means of identifying at the beginning of the process that someone could not be dealt with by telephone and that a face-to-face meeting would be required.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that people with mental health issues might not get equal access to justice when they are involved in family disputes?

[Tom Brake]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point, and I hope that Ministers will listen to such points in the debate and during the wider consultation.

In family law, people are rightly encouraged to pursue mediation in cases that are currently supported through legal aid. During the meeting, the point was made to me that Government bodies and associated organisations are often unwilling to pursue a route that involves mediation. Government Departments and associated bodies will be required to show a willingness to engage in mediation, if that is now the direction the Government are moving in.

I have already made a couple of points about telephone advice, but there are also concerns about whether any local knowledge will be embedded in any telephone advisory service, and about conflicts of interest that might arise as a result of that, particularly if there are a limited number of suppliers to whom a case can be referred.

During the meeting, CAB representatives expressed the concern that they would now be in the position of having to take up very personal cases, and therefore be very much in the front line rather than acting as an independent body, so they might end up having to represent a particular individual against the other party in the case. They are worried about how that would impact on their independence. They are also worried that a lot of court time would be lost, particularly if more people ended up representing themselves. There is a good job to be done in making that process clearer and simpler, so that if more people do represent themselves there is less risk that they fail to turn up with the right papers or on time.

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman says these changes rely on people being able to help themselves, but what about people with learning difficulties or mental health problems, or people who cannot speak English very well, and what about people who are too frightened to face their opponent?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. The Minister has heard those concerns, and I hope he will seek to address them.

The chair of my local CAB has highlighted the fact that the financial inclusion fund will close at the end of March. I understand that transitional funding proposals are being looked at, and perhaps the Minister can respond on that point.

The Equal Rights Trust raised with me the issue of stateless people, who will now be unable to claim legal aid unless they apply for asylum. Some unexpected consequences may flow from that. I hope the Minister will respond to that point at the end of the debate.

This is clearly a very difficult issue for the Government, and I know the Minister will do everything he can to address it effectively. We do not like being in the position we are in, but we have to address this issue now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

At the moment, more than 3,000 people on an IPP sentence have completed their minimum tariff, which is the punishment for the crime for which they are sent to prison, and a very small proportion of those are being released. The numbers are piling up all the time, and recommendations are frequently made to the Department that the matter has to be re-addressed, because we have more than 3,000 people whose release from prison is totally uncertain. We are now consulting and there will be legislation in the spring, which will have to be enacted and improved by the House before a new system comes into effect. That system will retain the need for the Parole Board to make a sensible assessment of whether the risk posed by those in question can properly be managed in the community.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

13. What recent research his Department has (a) commissioned and (b) evaluated on rehabilitation and reintegration of prisoners into society.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

We continue to commission research and evaluation on that important subject. We have just commissioned an evaluation of the Peterborough social impact bond. We have also recently published the evidence report on the Green Paper on sentencing and rehabilitation, in which we reviewed and evaluated a large volume of research.

[Tom Brake]

Voluntary sector organisations such as Nacro and St Giles Trust play a significant role in delivering services to offenders, and in providing related research and evaluation. As we move towards payment by results and outcome-based commissioning, which is taking precedence in the voluntary sector, what role does the Minister envisage for voluntary sector-related research and evaluation?

[Nick Herbert]

I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of the voluntary sector in helping us reduce reoffending. The great advantage of payment by results, which we will pilot for community orders and post-release supervision of offenders, is that the providers make the evaluation and take the risk, and we will pay for what works. That is different from the situation until now, whereby Ministers backed projects without necessarily knowing whether they worked in reducing reoffending.

Firearms Control

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to do so. In an emergency of this kind, many people are involved in alleviating the pain and distress of members of the local community—the list is endless. I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham), to the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed), who wanted to stay for the entire debate but had a long-standing commitment that he could not break. The debate was scheduled after that commitment was made. We all remember the way in which my hon. Friends the Members for Copeland and for Workington and others represented the views of their constituents day after day on a 24-hour basis, and we all hope that we will never be in that situation in our own constituencies.

This is, in a sense, a House of Commons day. There was not a single area of disagreement between the two Front-Bench teams. There are points that Members in all parts of the House will want to emphasise, but there is agreement that we should look carefully at the reports that have been produced. I pay tribute to members of the Select Committee. Again, I apologise on their behalf. Most of them very much wanted to be present for the debate today but the severe weather and constituency commitments have prevented them from attending. They worked hard to make this a unanimous report where consensus was the order of the day. The report is not intended to have a go at any group in society.

I knew very little about firearms when I began the inquiry. That is why I was delighted to be involved in it—not delighted for the reasons that I mentioned, but pleased to gain some expertise in an area that I know nothing about. As Members of Parliament, we are supposed to be experts on everything, and it is not often that we say we know nothing about a subject. However, I knew nothing about firearms. The nearest I had got to a firearm was a water pistol when I was much younger.

I thank the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) who was extremely helpful to the Committee in a number of ways and to me personally. We asked that firearms be brought into the Committee so that we could look at the various types. Sometimes it is difficult for lay members—I am a lay member—to understand the difference between a section 1 firearm, a shotgun, a pistol and an air weapon. The hon. Gentleman arranged for that to happen. I thank the Serjeant at Arms and the Deputy Serjeant at Arms for allowing us to bring the weapons into the Committee. I think we gave them a bit of a fright when the firearms came in, but it was important for us to look at them.

I valued immensely my visit to Bisley, where I met so many talented individuals who had represented our country in shooting at the highest level and had won gold medals at the recent Commonwealth games. They were not bulky men with big muscles, though there were some of those about—not members of the Committee. Some were women, who had shot so successfully. One of them hung all four of her gold medals around her neck. I no longer need to be convinced of the importance of the sport. When we look at the figures, showing the hundreds of thousands who apply for a licence in good faith, with excellent characters, and get their licences, we know that we must be careful if we try to change the law.

That is not what the Committee suggested to any great extent. Like the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal, we suggested measures that we think can improve the situation. Hindsight is a wonderful gift and none of us possesses it. We do not know what is going to happen in the future. It is terribly difficult for the Government of the day, having had so many difficulties to deal with in the events that took place in Cumbria and Northumberland, to call it right. If anything happens in the future, and the odds are that it will—the evidence before us suggested that it will happen at some stage—we do not want people to be blamed for having failed to take action.

Some of our proposals are direct recommendations: we made 22 recommendations. Some are an invitation to the Government to consult further—for example, on the age at which children may apply for a licence. I was confused about that, as were the Clerks and members of the Committee. Therefore, for the convenience of the House, we set out the current law in a table that appears on page 42 of the report.

As the table shows, it is possible to apply for a licence for a shotgun at any age, but for a section 1 firearm, one can apply only from the age of 14. One may use a shotgun under supervision at any age, but, for a section 1 firearm, in certain circumstances, it is from the age of 14 with a certificate. To be in possession of a firearm unsupervised, the minimum age is 15 for a shotgun and 14 for a section 1 firearm. To purchase or hire a firearm and/or ammunition, the age is the same—18.

We did not suggest an age to the Government. We recommended that the Government look at the various ages. They may decide that there is no empirical evidence that a change is needed. However, we suggested a number of areas for consideration: the age at which an individual is permitted to shoot under supervision in the controlled environment of a shooting range, the age at which an individual is permitted to shoot under supervision outside such a controlled environment, and the age at which an individual is permitted to shoot unsupervised.

No age is specified in the report, although Mr Whiting said when I pressed him that he thought it should be 10. That was under pressure from the Chairman seeking to get him to alight on a particular figure. I was very surprised that there were 26 children aged 10 who had shotguns, even though I have a 15-year-old son who is in the Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme. When he heard that I would be speaking about the subject, he said, “You’re not going to ban us from doing this, are you?” I said, “I’m not going to ban you from doing anything, apart from being on the computer for too long.”

We have asked the Government to consider the question of age. The hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal need not fear. We are not coming to a conclusion; we are just saying that the matter requires further thought.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I heard the right hon. Gentleman this morning on Radio 4 on this subject. It was not clear from his response why he felt the need for a review. He did not seem to be suggesting that there was any particular problem in respect of the age at which children could hold a licence or could shoot.

[Keith Vaz]

I was trying to hedge a little because we have our personal views based on our interest in the subject, but the Committee as a whole took no view. I think it was right not to take a view because we had not taken a huge amount of evidence on the age limits. We therefore did not want to interfere with the current arrangements. We thought further examination was merited. As I said at the beginning of my speech, I am not an expert on these matters so it came as a surprise to me that children as young as 10 were able to shoot. It had to be explained to me at Bisley what they were all up to and that they were doing it for a purpose. I understood much better when I had heard that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I welcome the opportunity for this debate today. I suspect that whatever day the Government had chosen, some hon. Members might have felt it inappropriate, but the fact that the debate is taking place today has not stopped us from having a well-informed discussion with Members who clearly have an interest in the subject. I welcome also the fact that the matter is under active consideration by the Government.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Members for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) and for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) and, indeed, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who, as the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North has said, have given the matter mature consideration. The whole debate has been approached in a consensual and mature manner.

I further welcome the Committee’s revisiting the report from 10 years ago. One of the Committee’s strengths is that it revisits reports and checks whether recommendations have been implemented. I also welcome the recent innovation of placing recommendations on the website, so that we can see what progress is made against them. Whether the Government see the 66 recommendations in the last three reports as separate targets, I do not know, but, given that the Government are duty-bound to respond to the Committee’s reports, it might be appropriate for them to respond to the recommendations as well.

It is perfectly appropriate and right that, after the tragic incidents involving Derrick Bird and Raoul Moat, the House should consider our gun control laws and approach the issue in a suitably sombre and non-political atmosphere. We owe that to the families, who suffered so grievously from those senseless murders, and to the emergency services, who had to deal with those matters on the day and in the aftermath. It is incumbent on us to propose solutions that reduce risks not only effectively, but proportionately, and we must rely on policies with a sound evidence base. So, we, as a House and as a Government, should propose solutions that identify the differences between and risks associated with legal and illegal firearms.

On illegal firearms, I am sure that there is a consensus in the House that the current Government, just like the previous Government, must maintain pressure on those who import and convert weapons, and on the gangs that use weapons. As the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal has said, we need to rely on the border force to try to intercept weapons as they come into the country. We also need to rely on the national crime agency, when it is set up, to deal with what is a national issue, and we need to ensure that the duty of co-operation that will be placed on the elected police and crime commissioners operates effectively, so that they can deal collectively with a matter of national importance.

On legal firearms, Members have quoted some of the statistics. According to the briefing that Members have received from the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, it is difficult to demonstrate a relationship between gun crime and legitimate gun ownership. The association provides statistics showing that, for instance, in Scotland in 2005-06, although gun crime fell by 6%, and was 28% lower than nine years previously, there was an increase in privately owned firearms, the number of which was at a five-year high in that country. So, there does not appear to be a correlation between gun crime and legitimate gun ownership, and the association provides a number of other statistics to support that contention. Indeed, handguns were banned following Dunblane, but they continue to be regularly used and are the weapon of choice in gun crime.

One should not draw any rapid conclusions about how to address the issue of gun crime through the licensing of legal weapons. We have heard the comments of the right hon. Member for Leicester East, the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, on the subject of young people and shooting, and I understand why his Committee called for the review. I, too, am surprised about the different age groups and about the issues on access to guns and ammunition and when someone needs to be supervised and when they do not. Therefore, it is perfectly right for him to pass the buck to the Government, which is something the Committee rarely does. He did not quite use that phrase, but I think he was quite happy to hand over responsibility for that review to the Government. I can see the need to do so, although I am not sure whether he has identified a particular problem that requires such a review to be undertaken.

On legal firearms, there is the matter of the number of firearms on private premises. Hon. Members will know that the British Shooting Sport Council does not consider the number of guns held by an individual to be an issue. That therefore does not necessarily need to be considered when discussing gun controls, particularly in relation to legal firearms. When dealing with that issue, it is essential that we rely on the evidence of what the risks are and how they can be addressed. I want to draw Members’ attention to a couple of the Home Affairs Committee’s recommendations, which warrant further investigation. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the 34 laws. I am sure it would be of great advantage to clarify or simplify that matter. There should be tighter restrictions and clearer guidance to the police on the granting of firearms and shotgun licences to individuals who have engaged in criminal activity. Again, the Government should consider more carefully whether people subject to suspended sentences should be allowed to hold firearms.

The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North, raised a strong point about the need for greater consultation with domestic partners, both current and ex-partners. That matter is certainly worthy of Government investigation, as is the greater enforcement of air weapon offences. The media have also been drawn into the matter as a result of how they sensationalise these crimes. In passing, I shall refer to a case that involves Newsquest. That organisation has done some good work on, for example, ensuring that there are no sex ads in its newspapers. However, I regret that in relation to a murder—not a gun-related murder—in my constituency, it has pursued a particular case again and again. The victim’s family are suffering the consequences because, any time there is a development in the case, it gets covered locally and the family, who want to put the matter behind them, see it constantly reported on the front pages of the paper. Clearly, that may currently and in the future affect all the families involved in the Cumbrian incident and, indeed, the incidents involving Raoul Moat. The media should carefully consider that matter themselves and take appropriate action.

The final thing that I want to mention about the Select Committee report is the fact that, interestingly, it did not recommend centralising gun storage. In the Select Committee’s view, there were perhaps advantages in having gun storage in different places, rather than in a central point. If guns were in a central point, it could be more attractive to someone who wanted to get hold of a large number of guns in one location. Will the Minister say whether he has received representations from any organisations or individuals on changes proposed by arm’s length management organisations? An ALMO in my area, Sutton Housing Partnership, has introduced a policy of not allowing people to store guns in their properties, because it is concerned about those guns getting into illegal hands. However, the evidence that we have before us perhaps suggests that, in some respects, those guns might be safer there than they would be if they were all located in one particular point. When the Minister responds, I hope he will discuss that point.

It is clearly right that, as the House—and, indeed, the Select Committee—addresses these issues, we consider the risks associated with illegal and legal firearms. Collectively, we should formulate a response that addresses those issues and ensures that the families affected by these tragedies can see that the Government have responded proportionately. The Government need to take measures that reduce the risk of similar incidents occurring in the future, without having an undue impact on a sport that millions of people enjoy. Indeed, my wife enjoyed the sport of shooting when she was a teenager. We do not want to have a disproportionate impact on a fraternity who pursue a sport in a perfectly legal fashion. When the Minister responds, I hope that he will take on board those two, at times, conflicting considerations. It is the Government’s responsibility to ensure that both those matters are addressed in a proportionate manner.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) on his promotion to the Front Bench and wish him well in his new role. This has been an interesting and well-informed debate, which has highlighted some of the themes that emerge when considering the difficult and, at times, emotive issue of the control of firearms.

People who possess firearms legally usually conduct themselves safely and conscientiously and are among the first to condemn the criminal misuse of firearms. However, following the tragic events in Cumbria and Northumbria, there has been a ready recognition of the need for a debate about firearms laws and licensing. At the outset, I pay tribute to all those who have been touched by those desperately sad events—the families of those who have lost loved ones; the victims who have survived such traumatic incidents; and the police, the emergency services and other organisations, such as Church groups, that have been involved in all those incidents. Our thoughts and prayers are particularly with the families and those who have been touched by this in some way.

During the debate, there have been calls for consideration of the issues to be thorough, proportionate and having due regard to informed opinion on what, as we have heard, is undoubtedly a complex and emotive subject. We have had an interesting and wide-ranging debate that has met all those considerations. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice said in his opening remarks, the Government are very much in listening mode, and today’s debate has been invaluable in setting out the main issues and the arguments for and against particular changes to the law. We will reflect carefully on everything that has been said and wish to take into account any other views from interested parties before deciding what further measures might be needed to improve public safety.

We have already taken delivery of Assistant Chief Constable Whiting’s useful and informative peer review of the tragic shootings in Cumbria, and we have also seen the report by Assistant Chief Constable Sue Fish on behalf of ACPO’s criminal use of firearms group. I have met them both since the publication of their reports and discussed with them in detail their recommendations.

In the course of the next two months, we will respond to the recommendations made by the Home Affairs Committee, which has just reported on its own investigation into whether there is a need for changes to the way in which firearm and shotgun certificates are issued, monitored or reviewed as a means of preventing gun violence. We will consider that carefully. As part of that, we will also consider the need for a broader debate and consideration. The Government will seek to strike a balance in ensuring that our controls are targeted fairly and proportionately.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Copeland (Mr Reed), who has been unable to be here today for reasons that I fully recognise. I am sure that he will want to be part of the continuing considerations and discussions on this important and sensitive issue. We will seek to continue bilateral discussions with him as matters progress.

I will seek to reply to a number of the points made during this wide-ranging and interesting debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) made a well-informed, thoughtful contribution that highlighted many of the themes that come through in Assistant Chief Constable Whiting’s review, as well as the need to grapple equally with the criminal issues and those of the law, which I will reflect on in later comments. As the Chair of the Select Committee has said, those of us with a non-classical education have also been educated in the use of Latin.

I thank the Chair and his Committee for their very helpful and informative report and pay tribute to the detailed and careful examination that they have conducted. I will respond in slightly further detail on the issues relating to age and to the role of doctors, but let me deal now with changes to the law and consolidation. As I said to the Select Committee when I appeared before it to give evidence on this specific point, I recognise that there are two potential themes. The law itself is complex, but so is the way in which it is interspersed in several different pieces of legislation. I therefore hear the calls for consolidation as well as simplification.

We will have to consider the matter carefully, because, as I said to the Select Committee, when one starts to change the law, new avenues for legal challenge can be opened, and there is a lack of certainty attached to new legislation. We will carefully consider the points that have been raised by the Select Committee, and in the interim we will consider the need for revised Home Office guidance to present the existing legislation as clearly and simply as possible. This matter has been raised by other hon. Members, ACPO and other interested parties, and we will consider their points in detail.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) highlighted the important contribution of firearms in sport, and thereby raised the broader context in which we must consider this issue. He raised a specific issue about arm’s length management organisations in social housing. I have not received any representations on that point, but perhaps there are specific issues with regard to landlords and tenants that fall outside the issues that we have been debating. I am willing to consider any specific points that he subsequently wants to raise.

[Tom Brake]

Does the Minister have a ministerial view, or a personal view, on whether it is appropriate for an ALMO or a council to introduce a ban on the possession at home of legally held firearms?

[James Brokenshire]

There may be matters relating to landlords and tenants. We must consider carefully the issue of storage, as the Home Affairs Committee has done. I am happy to reflect on that matter further, but we must be careful and cautious so that we do not impose restrictions without properly considering their implications. Such restrictions might create more risk, rather than reducing the risk. However, he has fairly highlighted the issue.

The hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) described the shocking impact of gun crime by highlighting specific examples and issues. This will always be an emotive issue, on which there are strongly held views, and I thank him for bringing that context to this evening’s proceedings. He wanted further clarification on GPs, and I will come to that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) discussed the Olympics, which is a matter that we have corresponded on and discussed. I have inquired of the Minister for Sport and the Olympics whether the existing restrictions are hampering preparations for the 2012 games, and I am advised that they are not. We will review the arrangements post-2012 to consider whether further changes are required.

Police Funding

Tom Brake Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

It gives me great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), because it gives me an opportunity to express some concern about the fact that I listen to the same statements and participate in the same debates as him, yet I hear different things being said. If he looks carefully at what the Secretary of State for Justice said yesterday about prison sentences, he will see that he was clear that prison is entirely the right place for criminals to be. However, there are a limited number of cases, involving non-violent prisoners who have been given very short prison sentences, in which if it can be proved that a community sentence would more effectively address their reoffending behaviour, that is the appropriate course of action. That, the hon. Gentleman will find, is what the Secretary of State said yesterday, and there is broad agreement in all parts of the House that it is a sensible thing for him to have said.

I am pleased that we have the opportunity to hold this estimates day debate today. The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) referred to “Strictly Come Dancing”, and said that he was a little worried that the timing of Government announcements was not in keeping with the publication of his Committee’s reports. One could perhaps make the same comment about the timing of this debate in relation to the police settlement. Clearly, Ann Widdecombe and Anton du Beke have had some involvement in the timing of this particular choreography, and I suspect that we will have to have a further debate once the police settlement has been announced.

[Keith Vaz]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. Unfortunately, this was not in the hands of the Select Committee, although we did ask for the debate. May I also take this opportunity to acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s presence at the seminar in Cannock Chase, and the contribution that he made to those deliberations, for which we were very grateful?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I commend him and his Committee for their excellent work, and for the advice, recommendations and guidance that they provide for the Government.

The recent report produced by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, the Audit Commission and the Wales Audit Office on police spending, and the ways in which efficiencies can be achieved, is pertinent to the debate. It shows that police spending has grown significantly—by nearly half—since 1997-98. During that same period, the council tax contribution towards police expenditure has gone up by nearly 150%, so the increases have clearly had a big impact on council bills. It is also worth pointing out that only half of the efficiency savings achieved by the police in 2008-09 were used to reduce budget pressures. There is clearly a potential for more efficiency savings to be achieved, and for those savings to be put back into dealing with budget pressures.

All this has to take place while maintaining public confidence in the police. The report is helpful in pointing out that the forces that have achieved the highest cashable efficiencies do not have lower levels of public confidence. One would therefore hope to be able to square that circle, and the report supports that proposition. A priority for police forces must be to ensure that their threat, harm and risk assessments are finely tuned to value for money considerations and to the savings that they need to achieve, so that there is a clear linkage between them.

For me, the strongest point in the HMIC report was that forces are going to need strong leadership to achieve those transformational changes. If they are going to get beyond the typical 3% annual efficiency savings that have been made in recent years, that will require transformational change and significant leadership. The report goes on to state that this is perhaps not always recognised by chief constables. It states that less than a third of chief constables identify leadership skills as important in securing better value for money. I hope that the Association of Chief Police Officers will look into that, because transformational change will clearly need to involve collaboration with other organisations, other forces locally and other partners, and that is not easy to achieve. It will require significant leadership behind it. The report also flags up the fact that more than half of chief constables said that local police unit commanders lacked the financial skills to deliver the savings. Again, that illustrates the need for additional support to ensure that the necessary training is given, so that the significant savings that some forces have already achieved can be achieved by all of them.

Another important barrier highlighted by the report relates to the need to reassure the public that what matters is not the number of police officers, but what the police do. I have to confess that I am a recent convert in that regard. I am sure that there are Members here who received campaign literature from the Liberal Democrats that talked about additional police numbers. That is something that I cannot disguise, and I will not attempt to do so. However, recent reports have made it clear that we need to improve on the figure of only one in 10 officers being visibly available at any one time, and it is surely not impossible for forces to look into that in greater detail. The public are worried about the perception of police numbers and the availability of police on the streets, but that concern can be addressed if we can achieve a better turnout of officers, even if there is a requirement to reduce force numbers.

Others have talked about police overtime. I do not want to overemphasise what can be achieved by reducing overtime, because there are clearly occasions when police forces do not have control over that factor. Tuition fees demonstrations spring to mind. By allowing overtime to be used, local police forces are often in a position to provide additional tasking to hit a particular problem at a particular time. Having said that, it is clear that some forces are achieving significant savings by reorganising the way in which their overtime works, and one would expect other forces to be doing the same thing.

Members on both sides of the House will support the need for more sensitive and more effective procurement. The fact that 14 forces will have managed collectively to save £18 million by 2012-13 through the national forensics consortium leads me to hope that the other 29 forces that are not part of the consortium will actively consider participating in it, because of the potential collective saving of up to £40 million if they were to join it.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman was part of the Select Committee when we published the report “Policing in the 21st century”, in which we mentioned procurement. This is a no-brainer, is it not? Why do all those police forces still buy on their own, even if it is in collaboration with 14 others? Surely there should be more effective leadership, whether from the National Policing Improvement Agency or from the Home Office, to ensure that they buy in bulk.

[Tom Brake]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. That is indeed a no-brainer, whether it involves vehicles or IT systems. We need to be careful, however, particularly when the “no-brainer” centralised procurement involves taking existing IT systems and moving them on to a common platform, as that can be quite a complex undertaking. Certainly, projects of that nature in the NHS have proved technically challenging, and such projects need to be dealt with very carefully.

The report identifies up to £1 billion of savings that could be derived without hitting the front line. I take the point made earlier, that it is wrong simply to say, “Front line, good; back office, bad,” particularly if the work going on in the back office involves officers engaged in detection and investigation. It is not possible to achieve a simple transfer. However, Members who have seen the HMIC report will know that there are currently 200 officers working in human resources departments. That might be a police role in some shape or form, but I find it difficult to imagine that all 200 of those officers working in HR are working on tasks that require a trained police officer. There is therefore scope for savings in those areas, and in others.

I have mentioned the fact that between the point at which a crime is reported and the final appearance in court, about 100 different processes take place. Some of those involve the police, and it is clearly a labour-intensive process. Anything that can be done to simplify it, while keeping all the usual safeguards in place, will, I am sure, help to improve efficiencies for the police, for the court system and beyond.

The report makes a number of recommendations; I shall highlight a couple of them before finishing. It underlines the need for police authorities to set savings targets for their forces that are more ambitious than those of previous years. I know that that will be a tough call for police authorities at the moment, and it is fair to say that they are not unanimously behind the coalition Government’s proposals for elected police and crime commissioners. I know that the police are all professional in their approach, however, and a number of them want to put their names forward for election as police and crime commissioners, so I am sure that they will want to demonstrate their commitment to achieving significant efficiency savings.

I have underlined the importance for the police of making sure that the threat, harm and risk assessment is closely linked with any financial or business planning, and I have also underlined the need, if these transformational changes are to be made, for some clear leadership from senior officers. The changes are not going to happen by themselves; they will need someone to drive them. The Government’s role should be to ensure flexibility to allow partnerships between forces and other partners to develop so that substantial savings can be achieved. If a carrot were provided by introducing a linkage between future grant allocations and the efficiency savings that forces achieve, I believe that that would help.

[Steve McCabe]

On that point, does the hon. Gentleman think that individually elected police and crime commissioners all pursuing their own individual political agendas is more or less likely to encourage force co-operation?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which I think makes a strong point. It has been put—no doubt by him, by me and by others—to the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, who is well aware of it. The legislation will clearly need to set out the requirement for police and crime commissioners to collaborate and co-ordinate activities with others. When they take on this role, they will also have to bear efficiency savings in mind, so making them will also be in their interests. We are watching that issue closely, and we will want to ensure that elected police and crime commissioners understand the need to co-ordinate effectively with their neighbours.

I believe that the report by HMIC, the Audit Commission and the Wales Audit Office provides a substantial body of evidence to support the case that opportunities are available to make significant efficiency savings. I think that they can be achieved, so long as those at the head of the forces provide the necessary leadership to drive the changes through.

Rehabilitation and Sentencing

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

This is about both our budgets, so I had better not pre-empt my discussions with my right hon. Friend. I hope that he gave a helpful response to the question, because the two of us, together with our Departments and our officials, are working very seriously on trying to improve the situation for mentally ill people who ought not to be in prison or ought to be better treated in prison. It is not an easy subject. The reason we have so many people in prison who obviously ought not to be there because they are suffering from mental illness is that it is difficult to devise services that will not only help them but improve their behaviour and make them less of a risk to the community at large. At this stage, we are consulting on it. However, I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that there is a genuine commitment on the part of my right hon. Friend and me to ensure that the Department of Health, the NHS, the National Offender Management Service and the Prison Service work together properly so that people are dealt with in a more suitable and civilised fashion. The main benefit one can give to the public regarding those whose main problem is mental illness is to help them to cope with the behavioural problems that are causing the crime.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Can the Secretary of State confirm by how much he expects the number of vulnerable women and women with babies in prison to reduce as a result of these very sensible proposals?

[Mr Clarke]

I will not go into another precise estimate, but we need to reduce the number of women in prison. The previous Government worked on that. It is important to realise that women who go to prison—many fewer do so than men—tend to have a particular combination of problems. Compared with men, a much higher proportion of women in prison have a history of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, domestic violence and a disordered life, in all kinds of ways. Focusing on that is likely to reduce the women prison population, and we will do that. Of course, as with men, there is a hard core of women who are hardened criminals or antisocial people, and they must be incarcerated for long sentences when they do something that deserves it.