Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the importance of forensic science in convictions —increasing the number of cases that go through court and result in convictions—and therefore of the role it plays in reviewing cases post-conviction. If he wishes to write to me with further details of specific issues in that context, I will be very happy to write back to him responding to those points.

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

Both the Charlie Taylor and the Lammy reviews recommended changes to our criminal disclosure system for young people. On each count, this Government decided that they knew better, leaving us with one of the most punitive approaches to youth justice in the western world. Now that the Government have lost their case in the Supreme Court, will they recognise that our current disclosure system for children is outdated, ineffective and cruel?

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

Of course, the Attorney General has done a review in relation to disclosure more broadly. I am very happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss any ideas that she would like to put forward on those matters.

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

Since 2016, payments to consultancies by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service have shot up from £3 million to £20 million. The Government appear to think that expensive private consultants are the solution to all their problems, even in the face of spiralling costs. Does the Minister really believe that the way to increase access to justice is to hand over yet more public money to private consultants at a time when our courts are facing unprecedented cuts?

[Lucy Frazer]

We are in the process of a £1 billion court programme—one of the most ambitious across the world in relation to how we transform our justice system—and it is appropriate that we get the best and right advice to manage that process. Sometimes we find that it is cheaper to instruct experts than it is to develop that expertise internally, so we use consultants where appropriate.

Disclosure of Youth Criminal Records

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I thank the Justice Committee, its Chair and the hon. and right hon. Members who serve on it for the excellent report they have published. I also thank the Committee and House staff who do the painstaking work of writing the report and the recommendations. I was a member of the Committee from 2010 to 2015. I can honestly and sincerely say that today’s debate has been one of the best I have attended in the nine years that I have been in Parliament. Every Member of Parliament who has spoken today has spoken with real passion, conviction and sincerity and with a real desire to change a very important aspect of people’s lives. It will be a pleasure to be able to say that we were in the debate today.

Before I go into the details of my speech, I want to acknowledge all the Members who have contributed. The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) eloquently went through the whole report and explained in detail for us, and those watching, what the report said. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) for his review, which I will refer to later in my speech, and for the work that he has done. The report emphasises the high proportion of BAME children in the criminal justice system. The hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) talked about the impact of housing. Let’s face it: to have a decent life you need a decent home to live in. That is such an important factor.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) talked about the importance of employment and jobs, without which it is difficult to survive in life. I am so pleased that the hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) was able to hotfoot it from the Chamber. Clearly, with the work that she does, she is in the thick of it, as they say. Her contribution was absolutely brilliant. She went through the whole system and what needs to change. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham, she eloquently put the case for race and class and the effect that it has on whether people end up in the criminal justice system. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) alluded to the issue of class and he also made a succinct point. I understand that everybody has commitments and I want to acknowledge their contributions.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (David Hanson), a former Justice Minister, talked about education and employment, which are crucial. He touched on whether a conviction should be disclosed when someone applies for a job or whether it should be left to the end of the process, after someone has been considered on merit. That is an important point. Last but not least, my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) rightly talked about children in care. A lot of the children also have mental health issues and autism. We know that the child and adolescent mental health services in our local authorities have long waiting lists for children to be assessed. As she was speaking, I was reminded of a case that I had when I was a prosecutor many moons ago.

A young man of 14 or 15 was in a care home. He attended court to give evidence against his mother’s ex-boyfriend, who had been charged with indecent assault on his younger sister. He turned up at the court and, on seeing him, his mother went over to him and punched him in the stomach twice, and he burst into tears. He went back to the care home and set light to a curtain. He quickly realised what he had done and tried to put it out, but the fire brigade was called. That goes to exactly the point that my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston talked about. Because the young man was in a care home, the police and prosecuting authorities got involved. I wanted to recommend no further action on the grounds of public interest. Sadly, my boss overruled me and said that we must proceed, so we came to a compromise and she at least agreed to a caution. That illustrates the point that if that incident had happened at home, the outcome would have been different; sometimes when children do things in anger at home, nothing happens.

For me, listening to all the speeches today has been important, and I hope the Minister and the civil servants are paying attention. I will now return to my scripted speech.

At the heart of any proper youth justice system is an attempt to rehabilitate an offending young person while protecting their fellow members of society. Although those two aims do not need to be opposed to each other, a knotty issue they throw up is deciding what information those with convictions and cautions must disclose later in life. In many cases some disclosure is essential to ensure that offenders are not exposed to vulnerable people in dangerous circumstances. Unfortunately, it is increasingly clear that our balancing act between personal rehabilitation and societal protection is worryingly skewed in favour of the latter. In fact, our wrong-headed, punitive approach means that we might be shooting ourselves in the foot, as forcing people to disclose largely irrelevant information years after a crime often deepens pre-existing social divides, as we have heard.

As was noted in both the 2017 Justice Committee report and the Government’s response last year, forcing people to disclose their criminal record is a power that needs to be carefully applied. Past convictions can have an impact on a person’s capacity to find housing or to take up a place at an educational institution, and can have an impact on finding work. Sadly, by forcing people to reveal past convictions years after they have served their time, we throw up barriers and prevent them from becoming fully integrated members of society. For some, it leads to long periods on benefits, at significant cost to the state. Even worse, many return to the kinds of criminal activity that we should have provided every opportunity for them to escape, and end up in prison, at even greater cost to the national purse. Locking individuals into negative patterns is particularly foolish and cruel when they committed crimes as young people.

We are well out of line with other countries internationally. A 2016 report by the Standing Committee for Youth Justice compared the treatment of childhood criminal records across Europe and America and found that the system in England and Wales was distinctly more punitive. A criminal record acquired by a child in England affects them longer and in more restrictive ways than in any of the other jurisdictions studied. Not only do we criminalise an unusually high proportion of children, but the processes by which those criminal records can be hidden from employers are arcane and inflexible.

The 2017 Justice Committee review provided persuasive justification for wide-scale reform, listing 21 conclusions and recommendations. Although the Government’s response addressed each of the recommendations, I am afraid that in too many areas they chose to kick the can down the road. One justification for that was that they chose to take their case to the Supreme Court to defend our system of disclosures, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham said, the Government or the MOJ should have followed the Court of Appeal and dealt with the issue and not pursued it to the highest courts. It comes as no surprise to those of us who agreed with the findings of the original Select Committee report that a Supreme Court judgment this year found that our disclosure scheme is contrary to article 8 of the European convention on human rights on two key fronts: the rule that requires the automatic disclosure of all convictions where a person has more than one conviction, and the requirement that some childhood cautions be disclosed indefinitely. Importantly, we have a mechanism by which previous offences can be taken off DBS checks—a process termed “filtering”. However, that process also has major flaws. The current filtering will remove a spent childhood conviction from a DBS standard or enhanced certificate only when five and a half years has elapsed since the date of the conviction. It must also be the individual’s only offence and it must not appear on the list of exempt offences that will never be removed from a certificate.

I—and clearly, going by what they have said today, other right hon. and hon. Members—urge reform on all three counts. Although five and a half years is significantly less than would be required for an adult—there is an 11-year wait before filtering can take place—that is still an incredibly long and pretty much arbitrary period. It means that it is difficult for 19-year-olds to get jobs because of offences—often minor—committed at the age of 14. That makes no sense, especially when they have not committed other offences. During those years, most of us are growing, changing and maturing, and the law should be flexible and forgiving enough to recognise that.

The fact that convictions remain unfiltered if there has been more than one conviction or when the conviction is on the exempt offences list also holds back young people at a crucial time in their lives. The offences include those involving a degree of violence, drugs, and some sexual offences. That is a broad range of offence categories, and putting them on an unfilterable list prevents individual discretion and creates a single rule totally at odds with the need to achieve personalised restorative justice for young people. We need a child-specific system that recognises that the offences in the list are diverse and complex.

[Robert Neill]

I very much agree with the hon. Lady. Does she agree that her point about the need for a different approach for younger people is strongly reinforced by the conclusions in the February 2017 Law Commission report, which states precisely that the system bears disproportionately harshly on young offenders, and argues that some offences that might justifiably be non-filterable for adult offenders should be filterable for young offenders? She says that a different approach is needed, and the commission also said so.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman and with the Law Commission’s recommendation. I hope that the Minister and Ministry of Justice civil servants will also be listening, and will be reminded of what the Law Commission said. I hope they will take those things on board and that we will not find that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn said happened when he was a Minister, civil service-speak means we do not quite know what will happen.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham has spoken about the Lammy review, which he carried out. I will touch on it, because it is important. I am worried that its findings, which are relevant to the issue that we are discussing, are being ignored, as many other recommendations have been ignored. When we look at how unequal outcomes are for BAME children and for those in care when they pass through the criminal justice system at a young age, it is clear that there is something particularly wrong about tying them for the rest of their lives to crimes that they committed as children—worsening pre-existing inequalities. I hope that the Minister will be able to throw some light on that, and suggest what actions the Department is taking on issues set out in the Lammy review.

Another issue emphasised by the Select Committee was the need to recognise that young people mature at different rates up to their mid-20s—a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham. The right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), who is not in her place at the moment, concurred and reinforced the point. While I welcome the Government’s acceptance of that basic fact, will the Minister clarify what concrete steps are being taken to enshrine that recognition in law? Further, now that we have received confirmation that the Government’s disclosure rules are in breach of international law, can we have some clarity on the timescales on which the Government hope to bring their regulations up to date? Scrapping the current exempt list and the two-offence rule would be great first steps and I should like to know whether the Minister recognises that the Government need to make up their mind, make up for their inaction and move quickly. Finally, do the Government plan to take steps to introduce a review mechanism by which individuals can apply to have their convictions filtered? That would allow for a genuinely case-by-case approach to justice.

Draft Jurisdiction and Judgments (Family) (Amendment Etc.) (EU Exit) (No. 2) Regulations 2019

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 General Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma.

We will not seek to divide the Committee on the regulations. As the Minister set out, they are very much needed if we Brexit without a deal. This is a very narrow statutory instrument covering an important aspect of family law, so we welcome it.

I place on record my thanks to family law lawyers and to the Law Society. We consulted the Law Society, and it indicated that it accepted the necessity for this statutory instrument.

Draft Criminal Justice (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 General Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. We will not divide the Committee on the regulations. We understand the purpose behind them and the need for them. I will not go into the detail of what is being proposed—the Minister has adequately dealt with that—but I will draw the attention of the Minister and perhaps the Ministry of Justice to the fact that so far we have had no information regarding what the Government’s proposal is in relation to the European arrest warrant, Europol and Eurojust. What will the agreements be in relation to them? They are important to ensure that our criminal justice system works efficiently and smoothly.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is little late in the day not to have clarity about those matters?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I absolutely agree, which is why I am taking the opportunity to raise these important issues. The outline of the political declaration is vague on security and justice co-operation, which almost suggests that the Government have given up on trying to deal with key European Union security arrangements, such as the European arrest warrant.

The declaration talks about negotiating “swift and effective arrangements” on extradition, but not about remaining within the European arrest warrant. As everybody knows, that facilitates the extradition of wanted people across European Union borders and stops us having to go through the long and detailed extradition process that applies to countries that are not part of the EU. Hon. Members familiar with the workings of extradition know that, when it is applied to non-EU state members, our Government can be stuck for years trying to get people brought to this country or get people from this country extradited back for serious criminal offences.

Having access to Europol assists massively, in the sense that Europol police officers co-operate on many issues across the criminal justice system, as does having access to the European criminal records information system. I am told that at the last estimate, we used the information on that system about 500 million times in one year. That extensive database system exists across the European Union and has been of enormous help to police and security agencies throughout the European Union and in our country. It would be helpful if the Minister or the Ministry were able to tell us what their proposals are in relation to those matters, whether any discussions have taken place, and whether any statutory instrument is in process. Essentially, we do not know what is happening.

Ironically, those issues have been raised in at least two Westminster Hall debates, to which I responded on behalf of the Opposition. We have raised those issues time and again. We are now two weeks away from 29 March, and we are no further forward in dealing with those important issues, which will ensure that the criminal justice system and the security and safety of our citizens are being dealt with properly and efficiently.

Draft Law Applicable to Contractual Obligations and Non-Contractual Obligations (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 General Committees

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

I reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield, in the light of his questions to the Minister, that I have had the chance to go through this statutory instrument as a barrister and shadow Justice Minister, and that we have consulted the Law Society and the Bar Council. My hon. Friend has put his views about lawyers on the record, but I take no offence.

I do not wish my hon. Friend to think that somehow we are succumbing to what the Government want us to do. We have been doing our homework and have scrutinised this statutory instrument. My hon. Friend may be aware of the legal concepts of public international law, which is treaty based, and private international law, which is also known as conflicts of law. Conflicts of law are general provisions that set out the laws to be applied in the event of a dispute, such as a dispute over a transaction that has taken place, a custody dispute or any kind of dispute between people from two different jurisdictions.

Let me give an example of countries outside the EU, because these regulations will apply after we have left the European Union. The current position is that if the matter is a private, personal or family law issue, such as custody or divorce, the accepted norm is that the domestic domicile laws of the individuals will apply. If the issue is to do with business, the laws that apply could be to do with where the business took place or where the companies are based. There are already set rules determining different types of conflicts of law that arise outside the European Union.

The benefit of being part of the European Union was that we did not have to have any of these arguments about which law applied to which situation, or about how to get a judgment given in one country executed in another; these arguments do happen when countries are outside the European Union. Just as with goods and services, the European Union gave a seamless transfer of rights and contracts.

All the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield outlined are clear. When we are part of the European Union, the process is seamless. However, if and when we come out—depending on what happens —we will need to deal with such problems. The purpose of this statutory instrument is to address that lacuna—the gap that will be left if we leave without a deal.

As the Minister said, Rome I and Rome II regulations are the two basic treaties that currently cover this statutory instrument. If we leave the EU, Rome I and Rome II will not operate and that would cause all sorts of chaos.

[Mr Sheerman]

My hon. Friend is confusing me a bit. I am having an Alice in Wonderland moment. As far as I can see, the Minister and the shadow Minister are saying that this is such a little change that it does not really matter. Why are we here? Why are the Government producing this SI and why, once again, does the person representing the Opposition seem to be agreeing? A very small number of these Committees ever divide. I do not know what the purpose of having an Opposition is, if we are always going to agree with the ministerial position. The Back Benchers have to pick up the cudgels. I do not want this to be described as discrimination; to get the balance right, I do not like lawyers or accountants.

[The Chair]

Let us get back to the subject of the SI, if we can.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but what I am saying—and what the Minister was also saying—is that there are issues that need to be addressed. The statutory instrument will address the gaps that will be left if we leave without a deal. Let me provide some examples, which I hope will reassure my hon. Friend that this statutory instrument is needed. If we Brexit without a deal, we need to have these provisions in place.

The Rome I and Rome II regulations set out the rules by which the law is to be applied to a case with a cross-border dimension. For example, the parties to a contract can choose to apply English law to the dispute, even though the case would be heard in France, and the French court must apply the English law to the dispute. Under Rome I, if the parties agree on English and Welsh law—or any other—as the governing law of the contract, this has to be respected by the courts of the EU member states. Given that it applies to third countries and there is no need for reciprocity, recognition of the choice of English laws should not be affected, as long as Rome I remains unchanged.

Rome I states that consumer contracts will be governed by the law of the country where the consumer lives if the business operates or undertakes marketing in the consumer’s country. As many consumers undertake cross-border transactions, Rome I will ensure that any dispute undertaken can be dealt with using the laws with which they are familiar. That is why it is important to keep Rome I, which is one of the things that this statutory instrument will do.

Rome II outlines rules for determining which law governs non-contractual obligations, for example in relation to a tort, where the general rule is that the national court must apply the law of the country in which damage was done. There is no need to secure reciprocity or mutuality of the arrangements, because the Rome II rules apply automatically to third countries, and the courts of European Union member states will continue to apply English and Welsh law when the rules dictate so.

In essence, the draft regulations are giving effect to the two Rome convention treaties. They are needed, so the Labour party will not press the Committee to a Division or oppose the introduction of the statutory instrument. It is required.

Draft Services of Lawyers and Lawyer’s Practice (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 General Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson.

The Opposition will not seek to divide the Committee on the draft regulations. I agree with everything that the Minister said about the impact of the treaty and how the agreement will work. I just want to add one thing: as I am sure the Minister is aware, the new agreement does not make any provision to allow United Kingdom law firms to operate in Switzerland under their current structures. Some law firms will therefore face challenges and will have to amend their corporate structure. We hope that the Ministry of Justice and other Departments will work through the issues that arise from the future trade agreement with Switzerland in relation to law firms.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

As I mentioned, when we undertake court closures—they are undertaken very carefully, and the Lord Chancellor does not undertake these decisions lightly—we look at court utilisation rates, and the courts that are closed are often those that are not performing in terms of capacity. On the case the hon. Lady refers to, I am happy to take it up with her and to look at any backlog or delay.

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

The Government have been forced to announce a one-year delay to their £1 billion court reform programme. Many people are concerned that this programme is simply a smokescreen for sacking staff and closing courts. Will the Government take this opportunity to have a public debate about the issue and to allow Parliament to debate and scrutinise these changes?

[Lucy Frazer]

Our court reform programme is one of the most ambitious in the world. We recently held a seminar at which at least 20 other countries were represented. They talked about their reform programmes, and none of them was as ambitious as ours in streamlining, making more effective and modernising the court process. The delay in the programme is to ensure that we can efficiently and effectively manage the programme going forward.

Draft Judical Pensions and Fee-Paid Judges' Pension Schemes (Amendment) Regulations 2019

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 General Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham.

The Opposition will not seek a Division on this statutory instrument—we understand that it is purely a one-year extension of an existing scheme—but I wish to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that we are quite unhappy with the way that judicial pensions have been dealt with for a number of years. The Government have tried to deal with the issue for at least four to five years. One case went to an employment tribunal, where the Government were held to have acted illegally by changing the dates and years of pension requirements. That case, which is going to the Supreme Court, deals with the concern that some judges were being paid more and would retire with a higher pension than those who had done a similar job. Basically, younger, newer judges were being discriminated against. One of the reasons the employment tribunal held that the provision was discriminatory was that younger judges were often women and members of the black and minority ethnic community. In essence, that was the main reason why the Government were found to have acted wrongly.

The Ministry of Justice and the Government are aware that there is currently an acute shortage of High Court “red” judges. One reason why is that a number of senior lawyers and practitioners are not putting themselves forward for High Court appointment. A substantial number of positions have been vacant for years and it does not seem that they will be filled in the next few years. One of the main reasons for that has been the big change in judicial pensions. In any country, for people to have confidence in the law and in law enforcement processes, we do not need just good laws; we need able and good people who can implement those laws properly. To ensure confidence, we need the best people to be our judges, tribunal panel members, tribunal chairs, district judges, county court judges and circuit judges, but they have to be remunerated properly for that to happen.

Although the Government have been carrying out consultations, the Ministry of Justice needs to sit down with the judges and have a proper discussion, so that we do not have these interim ad hoc yearly renewals. The Senior Salaries Review Body has made a number of recommendations that the Minister has not mentioned. All the Ministry is doing by extending the current provision is kicking that SSRB report even further down the road. It is important that the Ministry have that discussion with the judges and, as it does not appear to have done so, considers the SSRB’s recommendations. The SSRB has come up with some excellent recommendations, and if the Government applied their mind to them, they could probably resolve the issue a lot more quickly and smoothly.

In essence, the Ministry’s handling of the issue has not been great and there is discontent among the judiciary. A solution has been put forward. The issue of judicial pensions needs to be addressed but, as I said, we will not seek a Division on these regulations.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

Reducing reoffending is a key goal of the prison system, as we set out in the White Paper. Plans such as the New Futures Network show that we are serious about this. Research published by the Ministry of Justice last year showed that prisoners who have undertaken learning activity have a significantly lower reoffending rate on release than their peers, with a one-year proven reoffending rate that is 7.5 percentage points lower. Offenders who found P45 employment in the year after leaving prison had one-year reoffending rates that were six to nine percentage points lower than similar offenders who did not find employment.

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

While the total number of children in prison has declined over the years, the number of black and minority ethnic children in the prison system has remained static. How can the Lord Chancellor reassure BME communities that their children are not being disproportionately targeted?

[Edward Argar]

The shadow Minister makes an important point, building on the point made earlier by the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). I am concerned about the black, Asian and minority ethnic people in custody. As the Lord Chancellor has said, we take this matter very seriously. This runs through our response to the Lammy review and the race disproportionality work that we undertake in the Department. I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady on this topic, if she would like me to.