Legal Aid for Inquests

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

I had not planned on speaking, but when I saw the debate’s title, I realised that I come at the issue from a variety of angles and, sadly, with a great deal of experience. In about 1994, as a junior lawyer, I was sent—because I was cheap, I suspect —to sit in on inquests concerning elderly people who had died in old people’s homes. In those days, it was common practice for us to provide a report for insurance companies, which even junior lawyers were considered capable of, and inquests were viewed as the place where we could garner information.

As a junior lawyer, I thought that was exciting, and I was pleased to see a system that was inquisitorial and not that adversarial, and where real facts were teased out that could be of use, or not, to insurance companies that wanted to protect their assets from later claims. I remember being excited by the ancient nature of the coronial system, by how flexible it could be and by how it can adapt to needs today and later on.

Ultimately, I became a Government lawyer for 17 years and specialised in article 2 inquests. [Interruption.] I am glad to be described as the best of the best, and we were—indeed, we are, incidentally. In that respect, I had the privilege of taking part in some very sad inquests, including many relating to Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr Litvinenko’s inquest, the 7/7 bombings inquests, and far too many about prisoner deaths. As a Government lawyer, I hope that I was able to help and counsel families, and that we were able to come to the truth of what happened in many of those tragic situations. I also, rightly, protected the Government’s assets in terms of secret material, which is what I was usually there for.

[Jo Stevens]

The hon. Lady is making an interesting speech, but does she agree that it illustrates exactly the inequality of arms at inquests? Insurance companies and the Government have exceptional lawyers, but the bereaved families do not, and that is why the system is so disadvantageous for them.

[Victoria Prentis]

I partially agree with the hon. Lady, for whom I have great respect. I am trying to make a speech that is possibly slightly less political than the one that opened the debate, and to say that there are many reasons for inquests. As a Government lawyer I was useful in protecting the secrecy of what had happened. Often, in a war context, for example, important national security secrets had to be protected. It was not awfully much something that we were protecting from families—often families had been talked through the secret issue in the privacy of their home at an earlier date; it was just something that we did not want to have aired in open court. I am not anti-family at all, and I will come on to say why not, but I am trying to explain why, if the Government are lawyered up, it is, I hope, not often in an adversarial way. In my working life, I tried hard to make sure that it was not that way. I completely accept that it does not always look like that.

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. Others are waiting to speak. Can I drag the hon. Lady on to the legal aid for inquests side of the debate? I think that is what many of those who have put in to speak want to cover.

[Victoria Prentis]

Yes, Mrs Main. I should also say that I am the parent of a child who died, so I know how ghastly it is for people to think of the death of someone who matters so much to them being legalised. I am fully aware of the impact and full horror of the inquest process for families, which is why we are talking about whether they need legal aid.

The inquest usually comes at a particularly bad time for families. Is it often around the anniversary mark—sadly, in Mr Litvinenko’s case, it was seven years later—and it is often at a difficult time in the grieving process. Inquests themselves are horrible. Legal language is used about someone’s worst nightmares. In the inquest, the family will meet the other people who were there at the time of death, and hear evidence directly from people who might have been the last to talk to their loved one or, indeed, whom they might blame for causing the death. It is often the first time that that happens. It is really horrible.

Even in the most no-blame type of car accident the inquest may be the first time the family hears truly about the time of death. They will have been told at the time, “Oh, yes, he died instantly,” but at the inquest they might find out that he died two or three hours later. They may find out about the place of death: “Oh, yes, he died instantly at the scene.” Oh no, he did not; he died two or three hours later in hospital. Those are horrible, difficult issues for a family to deal with and very difficult to grapple with, but they are not legal issues, and that is the point I am politely trying to make. This does not have to be adversarial.

In my experience, coroners are very sensitive and well trained these days. Coroners’ officers should be lauded to the skies. They do a great deal of loving and supportive work with families.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

My hon. Friend speaks about a more inquisitorial system. Does she agree that if we are looking at a genuinely inquisitorial system of the kind that would be recognised on the continent, it might help if coroners were able to question and probe rather than being expected purely to be the independent arbiter and judge, which lends itself to cases being more adversarial?

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. Before the hon. Lady continues her speech, can I say that it is far broader than the debate we are having. Given the shortness of the debate, I would appreciate it if we could stick to the legal aid aspect that has been explored by the Member who moved the motion. I do not wish to interrupt, and I know that the hon. Lady has personal experience, but I would like her to get on to the debate.

[Victoria Prentis]

My hon. Friend’s intervention was helpful, and the point I am trying to make is that I am not sure legal aid is the answer in all cases. I am quite sure that more support is needed for families. I am not sure that that support can be provided only by lawyers. I do support the idea of airline-style investigations—for example, in the health service. We are teasing this out at the moment; it is quite a new concept in the health world, and we have talked about bringing it into the prison world as well. That style of inquisitorial investigation is possibly more useful for families than legal aid. That is the point I am trying to make, Mrs Main—I am sorry if it does not entirely fit with the terms of your debate, but that is why I am not sure that legal aid for inquests—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

It is not my debate; it is the debate of the hon. Lady who introduced it, and it is important that it is on legal aid.

[Victoria Prentis]

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is here. He is a great man, and he recently managed to steer a private Member’s Bill on stillbirth inquests through the extraordinary system that we have set up for such Bills—I was involved tangentially in framing that Bill. I am not sure whether we need legal aid for the parents of stillborn babies who have inquests—I think the pass is still out on that. We do not want to over-legalise some of these very tragic events.

I welcome the review the Government had, although I slightly take issue with what the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) said about the timing of the review. I suspect, although the Minister may correct me, that the timing was meant to fit in with the legal aid review generally. I counsel hon. Members present not to over-politicise this issue. It is a difficult one. I, for one, am convinced that families need more support, but there might be better people than lawyers to provide it.

Youth Inmates: Solitary Confinement

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Emma Hardy]

I completely agree. That seems to be a sensible way to go forward with the problem. If we are to look at whether the use of solitary confinement is increasing, it makes sense to have a clear definition that everyone understands.

Most adult prisons have a dedicated segregation wing or unit, sometimes known as a care and separation unit, which allows prisoners to be moved off the main residential wings. That is mirrored in young offenders institutions, despite the fact that they hold much younger people. The conditions and rules for secure training centres, which hold even younger children, are a little better—children there are isolated in their own rooms or cells, or in empty classrooms or spaces, for shorter spans of time. We cannot escape the fact, however, that some children and young people are being held in conditions of isolation that are comparable to those for adults.

When assessing whether our existing segregation rules are fit for purpose, it makes sense to look first at the international rules setting out standards for the use of solitary confinement. The UN standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners, also known as the Mandela rules, state that given the devastating effect of solitary confinement on physical and mental health, it should be used only in exceptional cases, as a last resort, for as short a time as possible, after authorisation by a competent authority and subject to independent review.

The Mandela rules prohibit entirely the use of indefinite and prolonged solitary confinement—lasting more than 15 days—alongside its use for particularly vulnerable groups. Rule 45 explicitly states:

“The imposition of solitary confinement should be prohibited in the case of prisoners with mental or physical disabilities when their conditions would be exacerbated by such measures.”

Given that prohibition of solitary confinement for more than 15 days and for those with mental health disabilities whose conditions would be exacerbated by solitary, among whom we could reasonably include children, the UK clearly and worryingly appears to be straying into territory that might violate the Mandela rules.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree not only that children of themselves are obviously vulnerable, but that the children she is talking about are particularly vulnerable? A disproportionate number of children with autistic spectrum disorder are in prison, as are many children with mental health issues and many who have been in care.

[Emma Hardy]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. We know that from overwhelming evidence. So many children in our prison system have undiagnosed special educational needs and disabilities. As I said, what motivated my interest in this issue was all the work we are doing on children with special needs and disabilities, as well as the desperate need for early intervention and early support. When these children finally get to the point at which we as a society have failed them—when they are in prison—we should be pouring in money and resources, because how else will they ever have a chance to have some sort of effective life?

There are concerns right across the board about how segregation is used in the youth estate. Last October, after investigating those concerns, the Children’s Commissioner published her report on the use of segregation in youth custody. In it, she found excessive use of segregation in the youth estate, with children locked up and isolated in greater numbers, despite the overall numbers of those in custody falling at the same time—we are sending fewer children to prison, but those we are sending are more likely to end up in solitary confinement.

The Children’s Commissioner also found that the average length of segregation had doubled, with about 70% of episodes of segregation believed to have lasted more than a week, and many of those episodes involving the repeated segregation of the same children and young people. Again coming at that from an education point of view, I would say that any behaviour consequence that just results in the same behaviour over and over again is failing—it is not working, and it is time to try something else.

While the Children’s Commissioner notes that some children choose to self-isolate for a variety of reasons, which may be behind some rise in the figures, that does not account for all of it. If individuals self-isolate on a regular basis, surely that is an indication of serious problems with that young person. By self-isolating, they choose not to be part of the collective society of the institution, which is bad for their wellbeing, increases loneliness and isolation, and hampers their safety and mental wellness.

The Children’s Commissioner is not the only one who has raised concerns; many others have done so for a considerable time. The Howard League for Penal Reform, the Prison Reform Trust, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal College of Paediatricians and Child Health all condemn the use of segregation and its impact on young people. They criticise the Ministry of Justice’s continued use of the practice. The Royal College of Psychiatrists recently argued that punishment for punishment’s sake brings out the worst in some young people, and does nothing to help them become positive members of society.

Rather than improving behaviour, solitary confinement fails to address the underlying causes, and creates problems with reintegration. I return to my previous point: what is the purpose of putting people in prison? Surely, it is twofold: it is punishment and consequence for their behaviour, and it is a chance for them to rehabilitate to become productive members of society. If we make that behaviour even worse by putting them in solitary, we are failing, because all they will do is leave prison, return to society, reoffend and cause grief and hassle for the people living in their areas.

The Howard League for Penal Reform, which does some excellent work in this area and provides legal advice and support to children in custody, reported more requests for assistance in respect of isolation than use of force. More people go to it upset about their child being isolated than about force, despite the fact that the media tend to cover the use of force more than they do isolation. In the written evidence submitted to the Joint Committee on Human Rights during its inquiry, a number of cases were highlighted, all of which make worrying reading and show that the numbers highlighted by the Children’s Commissioner are not just statistics but represent real children being harmed by segregation, who will go on to commit crimes again in their local area.

The evidence included a 16-year-old white British boy who was placed in isolation, locked in his cell for 23 hours a day for days on end and allowed out only for 30 minutes of solitary exercise. A 16-year-old black British boy was placed in a segregation unit, locked in his cell all day for 37 days and allowed out only with three members of staff. A 15-year-old Asian boy with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder was segregated while his mental health deteriorated. A 17-year-old black British girl with a history of trauma was forced on to a behavioural management plan that was reportedly not compliant with the Secure Training Centre Rules 1998, and was threatened with segregation if she did not comply. The mother of a 17-year-old black British boy said he spent over a month in segregation, and reported significant mental confusion in her son afterwards. Just as worryingly, the Howard League has reported that young people who experience solitary confinement often have their access to legal advice and support denied or restricted. Will the Minister look into this issue urgently?

Some might say, “It may be slightly excessive, but these children committed crimes and deserve to be punished.” They may say, “If the prison needs to segregate them to keep order, it should be allowed to.” But we have to look back to our guiding principle of balancing punishment and rehabilitation. It is undoubtable from the evidence I mentioned that the balance is wrong; if we had struck the right balance, incidents of segregation would be going down, not up. It is vital that we design our system to address the underlying issues that led to the young person being sent to prison in the first place if we want to prevent future crime.

The biggest effect that segregation has on young people is on their mental health, contributing to what is already a severe and dangerous mental health epidemic right across our prison system. According to a survey by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons, more than 30,000 people in the whole prison system are reported to have a mental health or wellbeing issue at any one time. That is around one in three of the average monthly prison population, which is a higher rate than in the general population, where one in four people are believed to have a mental health issue. However, given the poor screening and under-resourcing in relation to prisoner mental health, the widely held belief is that the rate is much higher.

The Howard League’s work on segregation—particularly its legal work to represent offenders who are subject to segregation—found that many prisoners who are removed from association are disturbed or damaged individuals who have behaved in a particular way as a result of their vulnerabilities, and who present no risk to security. Research published by the Prison Reform Trust into segregation units found that segregation was harmful to health and wellbeing, as over half of segregated prisoners said they had problems with three or more of the following: anger, anxiety, insomnia, depression, concentration and self-harm.

I keep making the same point: the problems will not go away by isolating children and young people—they will only get worse, which means these people will go out and reoffend. The Prison Reform Trust’s “Deep Custody” report found that more than two thirds of the 49 officers interviewed in segregation units said that most or the vast majority of segregated prisoners had mental health needs. Many offenders said they believed their mental health was a factor in the decision to segregate them.

Not only is the Ministry of Justice segregating people excessively, but it is doing it to those who are already dangerously at risk. The reason why that is so unhealthy and why we should be so appalled at the segregation of vulnerable young people is that a wealth of evidence shows that segregation has an adverse effect on anyone, let alone someone already with a mental health condition. The keys aspects of segregation noted by the Prison Reform Trust—social isolation, limited sensory stimulation, enforced idleness and increased, continuous control—are known factors in damaging an individual’s health and wellbeing.

[Victoria Prentis]

I do not know the answer to this question and I wonder if the hon. Lady does: is there a proven link between segregation and suicide risk?

[Emma Hardy]

I would not want to say so without having the facts in front of me, but that is an interesting question, and I hope the Minister will pick it up in his remarks. There is certainly a link through the effect on children’s mental health problems. We will have to see what the evidence says, but it would suggest there is a link.

Symptoms found in children who have been segregated include anxiety, depression, unprovoked anger, lack of impulse control, cognitive disturbances, hypersensitivity, paranoia and full-blown psychosis—to name just a handful. Those are not just minor issues. Indeed, the Prison Service’s own guidance on segregation shows that it recognises the potentially damaging effect of segregation on mental health and on those who may be at risk of suicide and self-harm. Prison Service Order 1700 states:

“research into the mental health of prisoners held in solitary confinement indicates that for most prisoners, there is a negative effect on their mental well-being and that in some cases the effect can be serious.”

Not only does solitary confinement have a detrimental impact on the mental health of the children, but it increases their chances of harm to themselves and others and makes them much more vulnerable to reoffending when they are released.

Those reports and findings relate to investigations and studies in the adult estate, but considering the widespread problems in the youth estate, it is more than reasonable to assume that the same issues are present in the youth estate too. It is certainly reasonable to accept that the proven negative impact on adults applies more so to children and young people, particularly when it is a widely accepted medical opinion that mental development, during which individuals are more susceptible to mental harm, does not cease until around the age of 25. Children who are more susceptible and more likely to be influenced are at risk of greatest harm.

The impact of segregation on children and young people goes beyond just the medical, because of its widespread use to restrict the ability of a child or young person to be part of purposeful activity in the institution holding them. That restricts their ability to take part in classes, studies, workshops or training that helps them increase their chances of not reoffending and of achieving a better life on the outside after their release, compared with when they went in. The Minister will know how desperately low literacy and numeracy levels are among children in prison, and how that limits their ability and chances when they are released. Surely, taking them away from study would have a further negative effect when they are released.

In theory, removal from free association, through segregation, should not prohibit access to education, but in many cases children are in their cells all day and allowed out for only 30 minutes. They do not always have access to education packs while in their cells. That has a negative mental impact. If they had something to do, and something to keep them occupied and busy in a constructive way, it would help to stave off the damaging effects of isolation on their mental health.

When the child comes out, they are further behind their peers, have even lower prospects and become vulnerable to reoffending. These children will not leave prison to go on to become productive members of society; they will leave and reoffend. That is failing children, it is failing victims of crime and it is failing society. The only thing that is changing is that young offenders are becoming adult offenders, so it is time for the Ministry of Justice to think again.

Disclosure of Youth Criminal Records

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

I will start by apologising profusely for not having been present at the beginning of the debate, and I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), whose speech I missed a great proportion of, and to the Minister. My day job is slightly fraught at the moment, and I was engaged in the Chamber when the debate started.

Were this debate about anything else, I would not have come, but I feel more passionately about this subject than about practically anything else in the criminal justice sphere, and I have campaigned on it for many years. It goes to the heart of what our criminal justice system is for: yes, it is about punishment, rehabilitation, and keeping the public safe. But is it really about ruining the lives of young people who come before it because they are silly, unwise and have not yet grown up, as the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) said? Does ruining their lives serve any real, practical purpose for the rest of society? Many years ago, I came to the conclusion that it does not, and that we have the system out of kilter with the rest of the criminal justice system and with all notions of proportionality, so I really wanted to speak in this debate. I am going to go into the way the filtering system works—in some detail, I am afraid.

Of course, the criminal justice system needs to keep a record of what has happened and what crimes have been committed, but as far as I am concerned, unless there is a public safety element, nobody else needs to know. Criminal records are currently disclosed either by an individual—in person or on a declaration form—or via a check. The Disclosure and Barring Service issues official criminal record checks in England and Wales, and there are three levels of check: basic, standard and enhanced. There is a so-called filtering system that allows some spent criminal records to be filtered out, so that they will not be revealed in standard and enhanced checks. That system was supposed to allow the disclosure regime to operate in a more proportionate manner. However, it incorporates some significant exceptions, which means many offences are non-filterable.

Filtering operates in a mechanical fashion with no discretion, and there is no right of appeal. A single conviction can be filtered provided that it does not result in a custodial sentence, that it is not for a listed offence—that is, a serious offence—and that more than 11 years have elapsed since the conviction, or five and a half years if the person was under 18 when convicted. Single or multiple cautions for lesser offences can be filtered once six years have elapsed, or two years if the person was under 18—I hope you are still with me, Mr Walker; it is clear as mud, isn’t it? Convictions and cautions for listed offences and multiple convictions for lesser offences cannot be filtered, no matter how long ago they happened and regardless of the circumstances of the offence. Of course, many of the real injustices that Members have highlighted fall into those categories. In 2014-15, there were nearly 60,000 enhanced DBS checks in which cautions were disclosed, of which 8,500 related to under-18s.

Why does this matter? We have heard from many Members, including the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves), that employers are very risk averse. They often assume that if there is a flag, they simply cannot hire, and we know that employers do not interview people who have ticked the box. As Lord Kerr has said,

“it is wholly unrealistic not to recognise that many employers, faced with a choice of candidates of roughly similar potential, would automatically rule out the one with a criminal record.”

A criminal record acquired as a youth is, in effect, a life sentence. Although a person can change and learn from their mistakes, their criminal record cannot. In the past five years, more than 1 million criminal records that relate to offences from more than 30 years ago, when the person involved was between 10 and 35, were disclosed through enhanced or standard DBS checks.

We have also heard from the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge that people do not apply for jobs, because they are embarrassed by their criminal records. We have no method of working out what effect that has had on people’s lives—we cannot prove a negative—but it is clear that, in many ways, it is affecting people’s employment possibilities. The DBS system anchors people to their past and serves as a second and continuing sentence. The system affects people with a criminal record more profoundly, and for longer, than elsewhere in Europe—or the world, as we have heard.

Our predecessor Committee held a private seminar with eight individuals who had been personally affected by the disclosure of criminal records. All had found that their employment prospects were adversely affected by their childhood criminal records, and they told us heartbreaking stories of repeated rejection before they succeeded in getting a job, frequently one that was well below their level of ability. It is not only employment that is affected by criminal record checks: most social housing providers ask about criminal convictions, and since 2011 have had the right to apply blanket bans. Croydon Council states that if a person has

“been involved in relevant criminal behaviour”

they

“will be disqualified from going on the housing register…Relevant criminal behaviour includes conviction of an arrestable offence in, but not restricted to, the locality of the dwelling.”

In addition to a criminal conviction, failure to prevent others from committing crime can be used as a reason to refuse housing. Bromford has said that

“where the unacceptable behaviour is committed by a member of the household other than the applicant or any person living with them”

it

“will rely on the failure of the applicant or person living with them to prevent or deter the unacceptable behaviour as a reason to treat this as unacceptable behaviour.”

University and college admissions are severely impacted. Although I am pleased to say that the criminal conviction box has now been removed from UCAS applications, many universities continue to ask all applicants for any criminal records, regardless of the course they are applying for. We have heard extensive evidence about how criminal records can affect insurance for cars, housing and travel, which can restrict self-employment opportunities. People with unspent convictions also pay disproportionately more for the insurance that they are able to obtain, and we have heard compelling evidence that it is often difficult for them to rent a house, as well. These young people are leaving the criminal justice system, and money and rehabilitation hours will have been spent on them. The last thing we want to do is cut off their opportunities to retrain, get a job, a house or a car, go on holiday or travel for work. We are ruining every aspect of their life, so it is important that we look at this issue holistically.

I was pleased that the right hon. Member for Tottenham was able to speak about his report—which I was intending to quote from extensively, but given that he has done so, I will skip that section of my speech. However, I will say that I was having an informal chat with a group of staffers recently, who were in their early 20s. As we would expect, they were well-spoken, well-educated young people who had had many opportunities in life and done well for themselves. I was talking about this subject, which I talk about quite often, and I asked them, “When you were a teenager, did you ever get into trouble with the police? Did you ever do something on the edge of what you should have been doing?” Every single one of the male staffers to whom I spoke recounted an episode that might have landed him in trouble with the police at the time he was involved in this slightly risk-taking and unwise behaviour. Had they been boys who were of a BAME background or were just less advantaged—less able to talk for themselves and less able to get their mum down to the police station to argue on their behalf—they all might have ended up in the criminal justice system, rather than just outside it.

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising the issue in the manner that she has. It is way more effective than I would be if I raised the same point. Does she know that there is a general statistic that child psychologists have found, which is that 70% of young people have committed a crime at some point? The vast majority were never arrested or caught. It is part of that journey to adulthood. Is she aware of this issue, which I have raised in the context of marijuana? Young people are sitting in a campus university as we speak, probably smoking a joint, and if you called the police, people would think you had gone mad. The same young people walking down Brixton High Road or in Salford will get arrested or a criminal record. That is the hon. Lady’s point.

[Victoria Prentis]

I could not agree more with the right hon. Gentleman. It is right that young people should be cut some slack generally, but it is not right that some people are cut greater slack than others. That is what I found very disturbing about his report. I was particularly disturbed by his section on Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, where the numbers of people in the community as to the numbers in the criminal justice system are truly astonishing. I was also disturbed by the effects on black women in the criminal justice system. I encourage anyone interested in this area to read his report properly, because there are some burning injustices in how the system operates. Like him, I have two teenagers at home at the moment, and how they behave and the risks they take are always a worry. We really do not want silly behaviour to ruin the rest of their lives. I cannot commend his marvellous report highly enough.

I am concerned that over the years, those of us who have campaigned in this sphere have not had big enough asks. I remember getting very cross, when I was first elected to this place, when campaign groups said, “Let’s ask for convictions to not be in boxes or asked about after two years.” I thought, “God, that is two years of a young person’s life when they should be working, going to university, getting car insurance and all the rest of it.” Those are not years or time that they should have to wait. The period when a young person comes out of the criminal justice system is the most important time that we have as a society to set them right and help them into a useful and fulfilling life. We cannot slam them by making box-ticking get in the way of everything they do.

In the report, we made recommendations. One was on consistency with the aims of the youth justice system, and it is important that we view this as part of a holistic whole. The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge talked passionately about the impact on employment. Clearly the Ban the Box campaign should be extended to all public sector vacancies. The Government should consider making it mandatory for all employers. Why do we have boxes? What are they for?

We made a recommendation on the impact on education, housing, insurance and travel, stating:

“We recommend that educational providers do not automatically use information about spent criminal records to deny access to courses…We urge providers to do everything they can to support students with childhood criminal records”.

Local government guidance for housing authorities should be amended as a matter of urgency. Guidance from the Association of British Insurers could easily be strengthened to leave insurers in absolutely no doubt that they must not expressly or implicitly request customers to disclose spent offences. With travel, we recommend that where there really are safety concerns, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office should raise them with relevant Governments. If there are safety issues, that is different, but that is not the case in the vast majority of cases. The 2014 revisions on rehabilitation periods do not go nearly far enough. For some detention training orders and youth rehabilitation orders, the rehabilitation periods have increased to a completely disproportionate level.

The Committee concluded that the operation of the filtering system is wholly inappropriate for the records and should be radically revised. The Law Commission’s detailed and authoritative report on non-filterable offences is excellent and we endorse its conclusions. We discussed the potential advantage of allowing an application to have a record sealed, and I suspect the Chair of the Committee mentioned it at the beginning. I am sure the Minister will talk to us later about his plans for revising the filtration system. We hope that the recommendations of the right hon. Member for Tottenham in the Lammy review will be taken into account in the production of a new and more appropriate system.

Our final recommendations were about the disclosure of police intelligence and the discriminatory impact of the disclosure regime. I endorse those recommendations absolutely. I have trespassed a long time on this debate, and I thank you for your indulgence, Mr Walker, given I arrived late. This report is one of the best pieces of work that has been done by the Justice Committee. I very much hope that the recommendations are taken into account. Next week, I am going with a group of concerned colleagues who span the whole political spectrum to see the Home Secretary about this issue. I very much hope that the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office are able to work together at the pace of the faster, not the slower, of those two great Departments and that we will sort this out once and for all.

Privatised Probation System

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

I absolutely agree. I could not have put it better. That is exactly what we are trying to achieve; that is exactly what the consultation is about; and its delivery is exactly what I expect people to judge me on over the next few months.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

The Minister has engaged fully with the Justice Committee’s report, which our Chair mentioned a moment ago, but I should be grateful for further clarification of what he intends to do about the increasing number of people who are recalled to prison. Specifically, I should like to know whether a way can be found to monitor that number. Transforming Rehabilitation increased the number of people who were included in work on reoffending, so it is difficult to establish whether or not the number of those recalled is in fact increasing.

[Rory Stewart]

One of the key measures in Transforming Rehabilitation was the supervision of 40,000 people who had not previously been supervised and whose sentences were shorter than 12 months. Previously, we had no idea what they were doing, because they were not being supervised by any probation officer. By supervising those 40,000 people—they tend to be a cohort of prolific reoffenders—we end up with many more recalls than happened previously. The answer must be to consider on a case-by-case basis whether the recalls are justified, but we must also acknowledge that it is a good thing to supervise 40,000 more people. When they were not supervised, the public were more endangered.

Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

The assaults on prison officers are genuinely shocking. That is why we have doubled the sentence for such assaults, and why we are investing in perimeter security. It is also why I have said that if I do not bring down the incidence of that violence, including assaults on prison officers, I will resign.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

When I last visited HMP Bullingdon, it was explained to me that much of prisoners’ mail is saturated with drugs. How is the plan to photocopy mail where appropriate going?

Courts IT System

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

As I identified at the start, this issue was caused by an infrastructure failure in our supplier’s data centre. It is not the result of cuts. My Department received some funding in relation to the building of a prison in the recent Budget, and it received investment into the courts service and into its estates. We are investing £1 billion in our courts service.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

I should declare that as a judge my husband has been affected by these outages, and I am lobbied heavily on this matter at home. In the light of that, I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed my understanding that 75% of court staff are now back online and working normally. When will the rest of them be?

[Lucy Frazer]

I am disappointed that my hon. Friend’s husband, whom I should declare I know, is affected, and I send my apologies to him. Indeed, more seriously, I send my apologies to all court staff, judges and professionals who have been affected. This has obviously been a disruption to their business and I am truly sorry for that. As my hon. Friend mentioned, we are working hard to ensure that these issues are resolved, and in fact 90% of staff have working computer systems today. We expect our court sites to be fully operational by the time they open tomorrow morning.

Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

I agree 100%. That has now become easier to enforce through recent legislation, but we continue to work very closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. There are local councils that are doing fantastic work in housing ex-offenders, but it is true that ex-offenders can fall through the gaps. In particular, the pilot in Bristol, Pentonville and Leeds is an opportunity to demonstrate how we can work better with local authorities.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

I am proud to have become a trustee of Nacro recently. Will the Minister continue to work with me and Nacro to reduce the number of prisoners who are released at the end of the week, which thereby reduces the number of services available to them?

[Rory Stewart]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work she has done with Nacro. Indeed, we had an excellent hour-long session with Nacro on the issue of Friday releases. We are looking at this, but it is worth bearing it in mind that we cannot simply solve this by releasing people on Thursday. That would mean dealing with everybody who will otherwise come out on Friday, Saturday and Sunday as well, so we would have four times the workload on a Thursday. We are, however, looking for solutions to this problem.

Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Lady is right to identify the separate and distinct legal arrangements that we have in Scotland. We negotiate and work very closely with Scotland and the Scottish Government on all these matters. In relation to no deal planning, there is almost weekly contact between my officials and those in the Scottish Government.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

Our legal system is respected throughout the world. What steps are being taken to ensure that that continues through Brexit and beyond?

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Although Europe is a key partner for us throughout our services and legal services industries, there is a world beyond Europe. We in the Ministry of Justice are supporting, through our Legal Services are GREAT campaign, the continued work and co-operation of legal services abroad. We have been to Kazakhstan and to Nigeria.

Civil Liability Bill [Lords]

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on getting a helter skelter of nonsense into one intervention, with every prejudice and false statement that has been made in the tabloid press about these matters for about the last 10 years—well done on that. I could make a long speech dealing with the specific issues of—[Hon. Members: “Go on!] We have got time, haven’t we? No, I will not. I could go into detail about some of the myths about whiplash and soft tissue injuries and what is actually happening in relation to accidents, the insurance industry and premiums, because I have been an observer of that for a long time. However, let me limit myself to a fairly narrow point.

I have listened to the arguments from Government Members, and they are just non-sequiturs, frankly. We have heard that insurance premiums are the issue. Let us imagine that we give the benefit of the doubt there, which I certainly do not, and say that premiums are likely to fall significantly and that that is a factor relating to claims rather than to insurance companies’ profits, the other activities that they indulge in and the way that their businesses are run. I do not accept that, but let us assume that we do for a moment.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) is no longer in his place, but he made a surprisingly illogical—for him—intervention. He said, “Look, people will still get special damages.” Of course they will get special damages, but special damages are what the name suggests—they are to compensate for specific items of loss. Why should the fact that someone still gets compensation for their loss of earnings or their medical bills, or something of that nature, mean that it is right to diminish their compensation for pain and suffering and loss of amenity? These are all non-sequiturs. The worst calumny of all is to say, “We are reducing the level of damages from slightly mean levels to absolutely parsimonious levels because of fraud”, which is exactly what we heard in relation to the small claims limit. So many members of the senior judiciary and indeed, of Select Committees, including not just the Justice Committee, but the Transport Committee, have said that it is plain wrong to say that because there may be instances of fraud, of which very few are identified, all litigants should suffer by having their damages reduced.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying about quantum, but I would be interested to know, theoretically, whether he objects to the idea of tariffs being appropriate for this sort of compensation. I remind him that Lord Brown said

“I am in broad agreement with the whole idea of tariffs for injuries, certainly for lesser injuries, and indeed even of reducing awards in respect of a number of these lesser injuries.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 10 May 2018; Vol. 791, c. 306.]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that tariffs can be appropriate with, for example, criminal injuries compensation?

[Andy Slaughter]

There is an element of semantics going on here. We have guidelines at the moment. Judges do not pluck figures out of thin air. They look at the guidelines and hear submissions, or they would have heard submissions when representation was available—it seems it no longer will be—and they make a decision, but they have discretion around the individual circumstances of the case. That is a basic and fundamental principle of law, but one that we are deviating from. I cannot say strongly enough that that is wrong.

To add insult to injury—if I may put it that way—rather than taking the average in the guidelines and having a rough rule of thumb that someone will get a bit more or a bit less than their individual case deserves, or going for an average and calling that a tariff, we are saying that a tariff should be a tiny percentage of the current award. This is nothing but an attempt to say, “We do not wish to pay out money in this way. We wish to diminish both the ability to make a claim and the compensation paid.” Whatever one’s view on fraud, the massive majority of cases will be meritorious and honest cases in which people have genuinely suffered injury.

I will conclude with the words of the former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Judge, on Report in the other place:

“What I cannot accept is a solution which means that a dishonest claim is handled in exactly the same way as an honest one. We cannot have dishonesty informing the way in which those who have suffered genuine injuries are dealt with. That is simply not justice. There should not be any idea that an honest claim for a whiplash injury made by the victim of a car accident should be less well compensated than an identical injury suffered by someone at work.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 June 2018; Vol. 791, c. 1600.]

That is what the Government are doing in the Bill and what is so inherently unfair, and they are doing it at the behest of special interests. They may genuinely believe that there is a problem to be resolved with whiplash. I could dispute that—we could go on for a lot longer than we are today—but even if they are right, there are other, better and fairer ways to tackle that issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Merriman]

My hon. Friend is spot on. In the seven years before I came to this place, I managed the legal team that was unwinding the Lehman Brothers estate. In many instances, we looked to sue, but of course, we considered the cost of the claim and then worked out whether settlement was a better option. Settlement should always be a better option. For someone running a business, it will always be the better option if it is cheaper to settle than to pursue. All businesses operate in that manner.

It is all well and good for the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), who is no longer in his place, to say that there should be a duty on insurers to take those cases forward, but they will not because it is not cost-effective. In addition, it is difficult to disprove those particular injuries.

[Victoria Prentis]

Does my hon. Friend accept that there is an emotional gain from settlement? Even those of us who are lawyers and enjoy the cut and thrust of the legal process know that bringing cases forward is a stressful experience for all claimants. It is important that we put energy and effort into making claims settlable at an early stage.

[Huw Merriman]

My hon. Friend is right. When I was running the legal team, it always distressed me when we settled because, as a lawyer, I found the whole court process incredibly interesting, but those on the financial side insisted that we settle because that was the better business decision to make. However, my hon. Friend is right about the distress of individuals going through the process. Of course, insurers have to focus not just on the money, but on the valuable human resource implication—the manpower it takes to fight the claims.

That comes back to my point that it is not an issue for insurers if ultimately their costs are covered because the price of premium for everybody else goes up. It is no skin off the bone for them to settle, and that is what occurs. For change, Government action is required. Although I readily accept that a tariff situation is genuinely not to be found in common law, the position that we have got ourselves into means that we need to look at the system akin to the way that we consider the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, which fixes the tariff in the same way. That is not unusual if we look at our European friends such as Italy, France and Spain, where similar systems are in place.

I represent a largely rural constituency of 200 square miles. I have many younger constituents who find the price of insurance too great. Studies show that, for those aged between 18 and 21, 10% of their wage will be taken just to cover their insurance. In a rural constituency, there is no choice. If people do not have a car, they find it very difficult to travel. The bus services are not as they were and, without a car, people cannot get from A to B or go to work. That has a knock-on effect because 28% of my constituents are over 65—the national average is 17%—so I have a lot of older constituents who need looking after. We have high social care bills. If we lose our younger people to the cities because they cannot afford to travel around a rural constituency, the balance goes completely.

Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Lady makes an important point, because everyone who takes part in our justice system, as in politics, should reflect the society that it represents. That is not only juries; it is the professions that are there to support the judiciary on the bench. It is important that we look at the position in relation to juries.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

Following the decision to close courts in Bicester and Banbury, will the Minister agree to meet me and a group of local magistrates to discuss the provision of a mobile court locally, such as people have in Kent?

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend has campaigned hard on the closure of her court. I am always happy to meet with her. She made a lot of submissions to me during the consultation on the closure and put in a fair report. I am happy to meet her, and I know that she is very keen on alternative provision.