Prisoner Release Checks

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I note that the Statement directly addresses strengthening prison release checks, but I put to the Minister that it is important to look at this in the broader context of the Home Office. I note that on Radio 4 this morning there was a list of schemes and programmes within the Home Office that are going wrong. The police national computer system replacement is six years late; the biometrics project is seven years late; and the emergency services communication system is a decade late and £3 billion over budget. Now, since the Conservative Front Bench did not, I will fully acknowledge that this is a situation that the current Government inherited; they cannot be held responsible for what arrived on their desk, but I read in this Statement about the extra checks, the new systems and governors that have been put into prisons to try to stop these releases going wrong.

We know that the reasons there have been problems with so many computer systems within the Home Office is that the rules have kept being changed and the problems with the quality of the data going into these systems have not been properly acknowledged. Can the Minister assure me that the Government are taking full account of the weakness of the Home Office and its systems overall, and the level of chaos that they inherited? Is it not time to think about a big restructure—a potential splitting up of a Home Office that is very clearly not working?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

Decisions such as on the noble Baroness’s last point are far above my pay grade, but I shall just mention two points. First, on release in error, any release in error is far too many and there is clearly a problem here that needs to be addressed. My style is very much, “Let’s deal with it and let’s work out what the problems are”, and I think that the investigation that Dame Lynne Owens will do will be very helpful as part of that process.

On the question of data, and making sure that we are effective and accurate in the work that we do, I spend a lot of time focusing on how we can embrace technology to ensure that, specifically, the Prison and Probation Service—which I know is within Justice, not the Home Office—has the ability to get things done more accurately and enables front-line staff to focus on what they do best, which is to rehabilitate people, not to fill out forms. Justice Transcribe—which uses AI to dictate what happened in a meeting with an offender, rather than the probation officer having to spend an hour writing it down afterwards—may sound like a very straightforward addition but is making a big difference already, saving hours of probation officers’ time. As someone who has come here from the commercial world, I am convinced that the more we embrace technology to enable our front-line staff to deliver excellent public services, the better.

Prison Capacity Strategy

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble and learned Lord for his detailed question. In the wider scheme of things, the best way to get value for money, as he says, is to reduce reoffending. Maybe in 15 or 20 years we will not need the prison places we have now because our reoffending will be much lower and the success of what I am trying to do in this job will be bringing results. One of the main areas of being sensible with money is not to lose cells, so we are making sure that our existing stock is maintained.

Noble Lords may remember that I mentioned HMP Preston. It first welcomed prisoners in 1798 and is still going strong. It has some elements that need a bit of work, but we also need to maintain them. The cost of building new cells in new prisons is £500,000 each. The cost of running them will be significant, because it is not just running buildings but staffing them and all the associated healthcare costs that go with it. Unfortunately, we do not have a choice to spend £10.1 billion at the moment—it was going to be a lot less than that—because we are in a position where we need to have spare capacity for the courts to do their job.

I am also looking forward to David Gauke’s review of sentencing to see the conclusions it comes to and the evidence it has looked at. A number of noble Lords will be feeding information into the sentencing review, which is due before 9 January. Running prisons is an expensive business. Reoffending, at £18 billion a year, is an incredible amount of money and waste. My job here, as a commercially minded person, is to look at why we are spending this money, and to challenge when we are spending what look like eye-watering amounts. I am challenging it, and I like to think I am starting to get some results.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I begin with an expression of sympathy to the Minister. What we have heard in your Lordships’ House—the focus on rehabilitation and reducing reoffending—is very welcome. However, we are discussing the Statement from the other place and asking questions about that. The focus of that Statement is on having capacity to meet demand. It talks about bringing in an annual statement to

“set out prison population projections”

and

“the Department’s plan for supply”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/12/24; col. 1090.]

This sounds rather like Defra promising us a plan for the increases in rainfall that climate change predictions suggest will happen. It is as though it is something being done to the Government rather than a result of the choices of the criminal justice policy the Government have in their own hands. This is very much a passive approach. The Minister might say that this promises an Independent Sentencing Review, but that is handing over the responsibility to a group of independent people.

As the noble Lord, Lord Maude of Horsham, pointed out, we have the highest per capita prison population in western Europe by a long way. I am not sure whether this should be a milestone or a mission; maybe we could just call it a target. Surely the Government should be saying, “We are going to aim, by the end of this term, to have a reduction”. We are currently at 159 people in prison per 100,000. Perhaps we could aim to match the next big country, France, which has 104 people per 100,000—that is a reduction of a third. Finland has 51 per 100,000, which is a long way away indeed. Perhaps we could aim for an average. Should the Government not have a target, milestone or mission to reduce the prison population by the end of their period in office?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness. I would love it if we could lock up fewer people, but we cannot: we need prison spaces to ensure that we punish people who have done very bad things. We also need to make sure we rehabilitate them. We need the capacity to cater for things such as the civil unrest we had in the summer. We are way off levels of prison population like those of the countries the noble Baroness mentioned.

This is going to take an awful long time to turn around, but the steps we are taking are very important. We need capacity, we need to have the sentencing review, we need to focus on reducing reoffending, and we need all the associated tools to do that. We know what needs to be done and what the evidence is. I see my job as delivering on that.

I also know that this is not a quick fix. If we go for a quick-fix solution, we will be in trouble. This needs to be very thoughtful and take time. The people we are dealing with in prisons and on probation are often very complex people. I want to make sure that what we do works.

Property (Digital Assets etc) Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Second reading committee
Wednesday 6th November 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise as the only female speaker in this debate, noting that, should we see a restructuring of your Lordships’ House in future, we might create some space for some female Members with interests in this area. I thank the Minister for a clear introduction to the Bill. It is not my intention in this speech to debate the legal detail or indeed to oppose the Bill, but I shall reflect on how the Government and other noble Lords have suggested the Bill will be used and its potential impact. I guess you could sum up this speech as one that sends a strong note of caution.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, that it is up to us how we deploy the powers in the Bill. That means it is a matter of choice. Like the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, I noted the broader international political context in which we debate today, although my perspective is rather different to his. I note that Susie Dent, the lexicographer, declared that the word for today is “recrudescence”, which means the recurrence of an undesirable condition. That is an appropriate term for the context we speak in today. It is also relevant to some of the points I wish to make, which fall into three main areas: the relationship between the kind of goods we are talking about here and corruption and fraud; the situation in the UK economy, where we have too much finance already; and the environmental impacts of cryptocurrencies, other digital resources and the things we are talking about here.

Since we are in Committee, I am reminded of a quote from the noble Lord, Lord Evans. He was then the chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, although speaking in a private capacity in a debate on corruption secured by my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. Referring to the most recent decade or two, he said that

“we have clearly, as a matter of policy, turned a blind eye to the perpetrators of corruption overseas using London for business or leisure purposes”.—[Official Report, 13/10/22; col. GC 156.]

If we look around the world at what cryptocurrency is associated with, we see that it opens up entirely new and lucrative avenues for scammers, terrorists, plutocrats, oligarchs and dictators. They have been using it. There is the well-known case of Sam Bankman-Fried from the exchange FTX in the US. Indeed, the most recent figures from the FBI, from September, show that, in the US alone, consumers have lost more than $5.6 billion through cryptocurrency-related fraud—a 45% jump from 2022. I note that, here in the UK, our officials—after a difficult, complex and no doubt expensive investigation—seized £3 billion-worth of bitcoin in April. The Chinese apparent owners of that bitcoin are now seeking to get it back. Think about the costs: they are very much starting to add up here.

I have to contrast that with the Government’s press release dated 11 September, which says that Britain wants to

“maintains its pole position in the emerging global crypto race”

and

“maintain its position as a global leader in cryptoassets”.

We are already a leader in global corruption and fraud. How much do we want to magnify that leadership?

Following on from the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, I note that this is very much an equalities issue, too. I am sure that many noble Lords have seen the no doubt expensive and high-profile advertising campaigns for cryptocurrencies. They clearly target young, minoritised communities that are suspicious —with good reason—of the traditional financial sector, with its association with colonialism and slavery, but are at risk of being exploited by a new Wild West of finance.

I come to my second point, which is about having too much finance. I shall quote a study; I have quoted it before, in your Lordships’ House, but it is worth going back to it. Back in 2018, the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute concluded that the UK had lost £4.5 trillion over two decades because of its oversized financial sector. We are taking scarce human resources—people with PhDs in maths and physics—and letting them go into sectors of corruption that crash and cost us all a great deal of money. The SPERI researchers concluded that, in the 30 years following Margaret Thatcher’s deregulation of the City, financial workers were overpaid by around £280 billion compared to people from similar financial educational backgrounds in other jobs, and financial services reaped £400 billion in excess profits.

Noble Lords may think, “Well, that is not in my political frame”. I point them to yesterday’s article from Martin Wolf in the Financial Times, headlined “More muddling through won’t deliver the growth Britain craves”. In it, Wolf says that

“pre-crisis GDP and GDP growth were either exaggerated, or unsustainable, or both”.

He suggests that a big source of that unsustainability is

“that the pre-2008 global financial bubble, from which the UK, home to a leading financial hub, benefited, also distorted GDP. It not only exaggerated the sustainable size of the financial sector, but also exaggerated the sustainable size of a whole host of ancillary activities”.

Let us think carefully about future bubbles.

My third point picks up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, about the environmental impact of the digital sector, which has been of increasing concern in the past year. Last year, United Nations scientists evaluated the environmental impacts of just one—although probably the biggest—cryptocurrency: bitcoin. They looked at the activity of 76 bitcoin-mining nations from 2020 to 2021; the study was published in the journal Earth’s Future. If bitcoin were a country, its energy consumption would have ranked 27th in the world, consuming 173.42 terawatt hours of electricity; that is about the equivalent of Pakistan’s consumption, with its population of 230 million people.

Energy footprint is just one aspect of this. The water footprint over a similar time was enough to have filled 660,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, which would meet the current domestic water needs of more than 300 million people in rural sub-Saharan Africa. The land-mining footprint of bitcoin activities was 1.4 times larger than the area of Los Angeles. We are talking about growing this and seeing how far we can make it go. What can the planet bear?

Those are my three main points but I have a couple of final questions, or comments, to put to the Minister. There has been some discussion about non-fungible tokens. Thinking about the way in which, through Brexit, a loss of government funding et cetera, our artists have been scrabbling around and struggling for financial income, securing non-fungible tokens might be a good thing in the art world. That would be something small to celebrate.

In his introduction, the Minister talked about virtual carbon credits being covered by the Bill. We know that carbon offsetting has been an area of massive fraud and corruption—an absolute failure of governance. Might the Minister, either in summing up or in a letter to me, be able to reflect on how the Government will deploy the Bill to ensure that that is not the situation?

I shall come to a slightly more abstract area of consideration, then a concrete one. Taking the abstract first, digital spaces are now where many of us meet, gather, communicate, conduct politics and conduct democracy. They are in some ways a new kind of Commons, if we think about the Commons as a public space where people gather on the street. Again, I shall understand if the Minister would prefer to write, but I ask him to reflect on how this might affect the public use of digital spaces or digital knowledge.

I finish with this concrete question: how does the Bill interact with the decision taken at the COP 16 biodiversity talks to introduce a multilateral mechanism, including a global fund, in order to share the benefits from the use of digital sequence information on genetic resources—known as DSI—more fairly and accurately? It aims to share the benefits with the global South, indigenous people and local communities, and is known as the Cali fund. How will the Bill interact with it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to those noble Lords who contributed to today’s debate. All of them will, I hope, acknowledge the expertise in the Room. Committee stage is likely to be very expert as well; I look forward to it.

I am keen to emphasise, as the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Sandhurst, did, the great deal of work that has gone into the Bill: from the Law Commission, which produced an excellent report and followed that up with a consultation on the proposed Bill, and from the practitioners, businesses, academics and organisations that engaged with the process throughout. I give my thanks to all who were involved in that work.

The result of those efforts is a simple but elegant Bill. As has been said, most notably by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, it will support our efforts to remain a pre-eminent jurisdiction, with English and Welsh law the global law of choice, and it will signal that the UK is a leader in innovation and technology. As our society evolves, so too must our laws. The Bill is just one of the ways in which we are modernising our legal framework. I will endeavour to address some of the points made by noble Lords. If I miss any points in particular, I will of course write to noble Lords.

First, the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, asked a number of questions, and I will have a go at answering them— I recognise his expertise in this matter. The first question was on whether the Government are sure that the current categorisation is not exhaustive and unable to accommodate existing digital assets. The Law Commission considered this option as part of its extensive and detailed report. It acknowledged that it would be possible to recognise crypto tokens as falling within an expanded category of things in action—that is, to treat “things in action” as a catch-all category for all personal property that is not capable of possession. However, crypto tokens and similar assets are fundamentally different from other things in action, which can only be claimed or enforced through a court action. For example, unlike debt they can be stolen, which in some ways makes them more like things in possession despite them not being physical objects.

Digital assets could not have been conceived when the original categories of personal property were developed and so it is no wonder that these do not fit neatly into either category. The commission, and most of its consultees, concluded that it would be better for the law to recognise that this unique combination of features means that they belong to a different category. That is why we chose the third category option, which is promoted in the Bill.

The second point the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, made, was on the implications for our courts. One of the great strengths of the common law is its ability to evolve. We are, however, dependent on the right cases being brought to the precedent-setting courts. While we could have left the law to develop, there is no guarantee of if or when this would happen, and in the meantime the uncertainty would remain about whether digital assets could be treated as personal property. The underlying point of the Bill is to put into statute the way that the common law was developing in any case, and to allow the common law to continue to develop once this particular bit of legislation is in place. To that end, the Government took the decision to legislate to give the market confidence and clarity in English and Welsh law. It also provides a strong indication to the courts that Parliament then intends to develop common law and that there is a further category of personal property that some digital assets can fall within.

The third question the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, asked, was on what this means for the common-law community. The Bill does not put the law of England and Wales at odds with other common-law countries. Courts in New Zealand and Singapore have considered that crypto assets are capable of attracting property rights and question the appropriateness of there being only two categories of personal property. The Bill is consistent with further international legal developments —for example, the US, New Zealand, Singapore and the Dubai International Finance Centre have recognised crypto tokens as property, and the latter has recognised them as specifically belonging to a new category of personal property.

The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, asked about Scotland. Scotland’s law of personal property is distinct and does not share concepts of things in action or things in possession, so any legislative intervention in this area would have to be slightly different. I understand that the Scottish Government recently appointed an expert reference group to consider how Scots private law may best accommodate digital assets. It will be interesting to see how its work develops in this area. No noble Lord raised Northern Ireland, but the Bill could be extended to include Northern Ireland, subject to a legislative consent Motion at the Northern Ireland Assembly’s request.

The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, spoke about the importance of the financial regulation of crypto assets. The Bill supports and complements the work of the Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority, which are currently working on appropriate financial regulation of crypto assets.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, asked what impact the Bill will have on things such as illegal transactions, fraud and tax avoidance. I recognise her points, and the answer is that the Bill deals only with a specific issue of personal property law. Illegal transactions, fraud and tax avoidance are properly dealt with by other statutes and initiatives.

The noble Baroness spoke about the environmental impact of crypto in a wider sense, and my noble friend Lord Stansgate also made that point. Of course, the Bill does not have a direct environmental impact, as it does not mandate for an increase in the use of crypto tokens or other digital assets—digital assets will continue to be used and created regardless of the Bill. Rather, the Bill is about clarifying the legal status of digital assets that already exist when a dispute has arisen. The Bill will help keep the courts of England and Wales as a leading place to mitigate these disputes.

However, I agree that environmental issues are important. This falls to a much wider discussion on things such as improving energy efficiency and adoptable sustainable power sources, and that is best addressed by other statutes and initiatives. Conversely, it is possible that the Bill could bring positive environmental benefits by enabling innovative green finance for particular projects and things. Nevertheless, I take the noble Baroness’s point.

My noble friend Lord Stansgate asked a number of questions. The first was: is the panel on the legal concept of control proceeding? I am happy to confirm that the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce, an expert group chaired by the Master of the Rolls, is taking forward this work, as a body that already has an internationally credible voice in the intersection of law and technology. In fact, I met Sir Geoffrey Vos last week, and we spoke about that very point.

Secondly, my noble friend asked whether the Bill would help in the division of matrimonial property on divorce—the noble Lord, Lord Meston, made this point as well. I am pleased to say that the Bill will help courts to say with confidence, in divorce cases, that crypto assets are matrimonial property. This is also a case for crypto assets on death.

The third question my noble friend raised was: will the Bill help people access the iPhone photos, for example, of deceased relatives? The situation for other digital assets, such as digital photos, is not addressed by the Bill, as the assets are not personal property. So it will not address that point as such, but it will be for the common law to develop the answers to those sorts of questions.

The noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, in a thoughtful speech of which he gave me good notice—I thank him for that—raised the impact of NFTs on the traditional art market. As he rightly said, there are many different aspects to this, and many uses for digital assets, giving rise to different legal, practical and other issues. This Bill does not purport to deal with all the issues that arise; that would be a very different and hugely extensive Bill. This Bill deals with a discrete issue of personal property law; it does not relate to the existing statutory framework of copyright law, artists’ resale rights or consumer protection law. Those areas of law raise different policy issues and need to be considered separately. I recognise the important work done by the CMS Select Committee on issues such as copyright infringement, and other bodies such as the Financial Conduct Authority on issues of consumer misinformation about crypto. These issues are too varied and complex to be brought within the present Bill, which is deliberately limited in scope.

On the noble Lord’s comments relating to AI, the Government believe in both human-centred creativity and the potential of AI to open up new creative frontiers. The AI and creative sectors are both essential to our mission to grow the UK economy. However, this is an area which requires thoughtful engagement. I understand that the Intellectual Property Office, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are working closely with a range of stakeholders, including artists, on issues related to AI, copyright and IP. This includes holding round tables with AI developers and representatives from the creative industries.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for his broad support for the Bill, although he asked whether this should be left to the common law. The idea is that this Bill will enable the common law to continue developing in this field. There will be new technologies, including things that perhaps we have not even thought about in this debate. The law of personal property is an area which has traditionally been developed through common law. If the noble Lord wishes to pursue the issue, we could develop it in Committee.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Will the Minister write to me about the issue I raised from COP 16 about digital sequence information on genetic resources, and the broader point about digital commons?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

Yes, I will be happy to write to the noble Baroness.

UK-US Co-operation on Using Atomic Energy for Mutual Defence

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford. I agree very much with his introductory remarks about the huge democratic deficit represented by the CRaG process—remarks echoed by most noble Lords taking part in this debate. Democracy? It would be a good idea; I hope most people would agree. I also agree very much with his concluding remarks that we are in a new world and we need new approaches. What we have before us looks very much like something out of the 20th century, rather than being fit for the 21st.

I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, and the International Agreements Committee, for their hard and rapid work in preparing the report, securing this debate and introducing it so clearly.

I note that the scrutiny period for the MDA ends on 23 October, which is today, and, for the AUKUS agreement, on 29 October. I might use a hashtag that I use frequently on social media: #NoWayToRunACountry. It would be nice to have more space and time for discussion and thought.

As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, set out, this debate occurs as the UK prepares to spend, and is spending, an enormous amount of money on new nuclear weapons. I must put on the record the Green Party’s opposition to the huge expense and risks of the Trident replacement programme in a geopolitical environment in which the majority of the world’s countries have backed the UN treaty for a global ban on nuclear weapons. I also note the related context in which the cost of the nuclear clean-up at Sellafield has spiralled to £136 billion, about which the National Audit Office has today expressed great concern. This is on a site where there have been very serious cybersecurity concerns and on which we have yet to find any kind of long-term solution for the storage of nuclear waste.

However, I will focus in particular on the AUKUS agreement, in part because the perspective of the Green Party of England and Wales lines up very much with that of the Australian Greens. We bring a different and widely supported voice to the debate in both our nations. Both our parties are opposed to the agreement, and that gives me the opportunity to draw the Committee’s attention to some important points that should, I respectfully suggest, give the Government and all parties pause.

I note by way of background that, in 2022, the Australian Greens had by far their best ever federal election result, labelled a “greenslide” by the leader, Adam Bandt. It saw the election of the first three Green MPs in Brisbane and a significant increase in Senate numbers, and state-elected representation has continued to grow since then. We are in a time of considerable political change in the UK, the US and around the world.

I also note, as I have previously noted to this committee, that two former Australian Prime Ministers and one former Australian Foreign Minister, who are not Greens, have all opposed the AUKUS deal.

I will begin with a longue-durée view and look over more than a century of Australian and UK military co-operation, which has been marked often by strong, even slavish, support for UK and US actions from the top of the Australian Government, although that has not always been backed by, or first checked with, the Australian public.

My speech might be taken as a balance and contrast to that of the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, not for the first time. First, I refer to the First World War. ANZAC Day on 25 April now marks the contribution of all those who have served militarily in Australia, but was initially founded very much around trying to get more people to sign up to the war, as historian Martin Crotty said, between 1916 and 1918, after the British-led military disaster of Gallipoli that claimed so many young lives, The Prime Minister of Australia, Billy Hughes, tried twice to extend service for conscripts outside Australian shores to feed more lives into the horrors of the trenches. When the flow of volunteers dried up, twice, the Australian public said no, and I note in passing that the Australian Labor Party subsequently split.

On 3 September 1939, Prime Minister Robert Menzies told the Australian people that they were at war with Nazi Germany. That came just an hour after Britain had declared war. While there is no doubt that the Australian public was, and remained, behind the Government, there was considerable concern and doubt, as there had been in the then dominions of Canada and South Africa, about the Australian Prime Minister’s assumption of automaticity. The slavish abandonment of any idea of Australian sovereignty has echoes which I will come back to.

Without doing a detailed trawl through Australian history, I will just stop briefly at the Vietnam war moratorium protests, the first of which took place on the 8 May 1970. These were then the largest public demonstrations in Australia’s history and represented growing resistance from a significant number of Australians to the Government’s commitment to the Vietnam War in general and conscription in particular. On 16 February 2003, more than half a million people took part in protests across Australia against the US-led invasion of Iraq, the largest anti-war protests in Australia’s history. The Committee can see the pattern that I am drawing out here and should perhaps reflect that Australia is, however imperfectly, a democracy and there is a strong chance that public views may eventually influence political choices.

Australian officials believe, and it has been widely acknowledged, although it is extremely hard to estimate the cost of the AUKUS programme over its life, that the long-term cost of the submarine plan is likely to be about 0.15% of Australia’s entire gross domestic product per year, on average. For context, in 2023, that was put as a comparable cost to boosting the resourcing of schools across the entire nation to what was seen to be an essential minimum standard. But the objections are not just about costs. I draw noble Lords’ attention to the Australian Greens’ dissenting report to the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade’s report on the Defence Legislation Amendment (Naval Nuclear Propulsion) Bill 2023. The dissenting report is readily available, so I will not discuss it at length but pick out a couple of key points. First, it states:

“There are environmental, health, security and social risks associated with every facet of the nuclear industry. These risks disproportionately impact First Nations peoples and their lands.”


I note that the very much unfinished business of the treatment of First Nations in Australia has recently been strongly highlighted. The report then states,

“that the two major parties have worked together to ensure a short time frame on the reporting of this inquiry and not enabled time for public hearings … the Australian public has not been properly consulted on the AUKUS proposal”.

We can see the clear echo here at the complaints that we have heard across this Committee. The report concludes that the deal undermines Australian sovereignty and violates international nuclear safety principles, and notes that Australia’s Defence Strategic Review rejected advice from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Australian Government’s own nuclear safety advisory council, which recommended that an independent regulator have oversight of the programme.

Finally, the report notes:

“The Australian public has rejected … nuclearisation … for nearly a century”.


It might be of particular interest to the Government that the Electrical Trades Union and the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union, two prominent Australian unions, strongly oppose the development of a nuclear industry in Australia or any end to the moratorium on nuclear power. That is the political context of the AUKUS deal. Noble Lords might think that that presents considerable political risks: they would be right.

I also note that that reflects the conclusion of a report published in the last week by the US Congressional Research Service, which says of the military context that

“the costs … of Pillar 1 could reduce, perhaps significantly, funding … for other Australian military capabilities”.

Crucially, it says that no alternatives were ever considered by any of the AUKUS partners. We come back to democratic scrutiny and consideration. To repeat, this report was from the US Congressional Research Service.

Finally, the timing of this debate all too acutely highlights the geopolitical context, of which our relationship with Australia is a small if significant part. There is the approaching US election, in which there is at least an even-money chance that we will see a second Donald Trump presidency and a risk that, even if that is not the result, we will see that candidate seeking to claim the presidency. I will not get into the details of today’s row, but this is not a politically stable time in US history to be making deals such as either of these. At the CHOGM meeting in Samoa, for which our Prime Minister may just about have landed after 26 hours, he will not be joined by the leaders of India or South Africa, because they are at the BRICS meeting hosted by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, in Kazan, where the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, is also in attendance. Canada too is sending neither its Prime Minister nor Foreign Minister to CHOGM.

As I said in our debate on the defence review, the UK needs to consider far more than defence in isolation. It needs to consider its place and relationships in a world of multiple security threats—not just the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the threats that China presents with its denial of the joint declaration in Hong Kong and the threats to the democratic entity of Taiwan, but the multiple security threats of the climate emergency, the nature crisis and multiple health threats. I draw attention to an extremely disturbing report in Vanity Fair about the H5N1 virus in US dairy herds and that country’s wholly inadequate public health response.

The agreements we are debating today already look like 20th-century relics, and in future will likely look even more so, sitting dangerously, expensively and unstably in the 21st-century world. The security of our country and the world cannot afford such outdated approaches.

Commission on Justice in Wales

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

The noble and learned Lord’s report was a large piece of work. As I said in my initial Answer, it is for the Senedd to take forward the vast bulk of the recommendations, and the UK Government are acting on some of the recommendations and are continuing to act particularly on the disaggregation of data. The Labour manifesto made clear that the principal objective of the noble and learned Lord’s report is not one that the current Government share. We want to work in practical ways for the benefit of Wales, and the examples that I gave of youth justice and probation are good examples of that.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, following on from the question from the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, who noted that the Labour Government seem, as in many things, to be following the path of the Tory Government, and picking up the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, if the Government wish to maintain the union, given that there is rising evidence of interest in independence in Wales, would it not be a good idea to explain clearly to the people of Wales why, as the noble and learned Lord said, the Government are going against this report of independent experts that was very carefully considered?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

It is worth saying that Welsh lawyers and Welsh law firms benefit from being part of the internationally-renowned English and Welsh legal system, and the Welsh people have consistently voted against devolution—the noble Baroness looks confused, but that is the context within which we are dealing with this question. We are clear that there are profound benefits from keeping a combined legal system for England and Wales. A couple of practical examples are in the context of prisons, where there is no women’s prison in Wales nor any category A offender prison. That is not a cost to Wales, but it is beneficial to the combined system as there are savings to be made through not repeating, for example, women’s prisons in different parts of the country. The benefit is there, and we want to protect it and manage the system for the benefit of the people of both England and Wales.

Fundamental Rights and the Rule of Law

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

Yes, I think I do agree with the noble Lord, Lord Carter. I spoke to Sir Peter Gross about this a number of years ago, and I will make essentially the same point that I have made in answering other questions from noble friends. There is a role for greater promotion within our schools, and that should be seriously looked at.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in a speech to the Institute for Government on 10 July 2023, the then Attorney-General said:

“Laws should be accessible, intelligible, clear, and predictable”.


The last two questions have referred to the difficulty and lack of understanding of the UK’s constitutional arrangements. Our constitution, accreted by centuries of historical accident, fails to fit the criteria the Attorney-General set out. Are the Government prepared to set out a path towards a modern, democratic, functional written constitution?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I think the short answer to that is no. The accretion of laws the noble Baroness refers to is the common law system. She is shaking her head, but that is an accretion of laws over centuries. All the lawyers I have spoken to are very proud of it and think it a flexible system. Many times, it is a better way of dealing with changing circumstances than primary legislation. We want to keep that flexibility in our current arrangements.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 31st January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I want to pick up the point made by the Minister about victim services going into the code rather than into the Bill. I feel I should apologise that although I have three degrees, none of them is in law—I often regret that these days—so perhaps I am wrestling with some technical questions here.

It seems to me that we are not just talking about restorative justice as a victim service. If you have been a victim of a crime, it goes to court, the police investigate and the criminal is punished; all those might be regarded as victim services but they are all in other Acts—they already exist as an absolute legal right that is laid down. What we do not currently have in any Bill is a right to restorative justice that is balanced. We are saying that restorative justice needs to be in there with an equal or at least appropriate level of weight, and it will not have that unless it is in the Bill.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, if I may say so, what one should put in the Bill and in the code are matters of judgment and balance. In relation to restorative justice, which we are on, there have already been extensive discussions in the other place. The Government have said, first, that the code should include the right of victims to receive more information about restorative justice, particularly at the point of sentence, and that the importance of restorative justice services should be included in guidance to police and crime commissioners under Clause 11. I think that partly meets, and maybe substantially meets, the point made by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, that you need to have in writing somewhere an emphasis on supplying restorative justice. The Government’s position on restorative justice is that that is a proper recognition of the importance of restorative justice.

One should also bear in mind in this context that restorative justice does not just happen; it also needs the consent of the offender, and is quite a delicate operation. You need a facilitator, and so forth. It is one of many services, mechanisms and procedures that are available. The Government’s position is that we should not spell out in the Bill all the mechanisms and procedures that are available but we should work hard to ensure that the code itself, the guidance thereunder and the arrangements for awareness that we will be discussing in due course together raise the profile of restorative justice so that it has its proper place in the system among other things. That is the Government’s position. No one is denying the importance of restorative justice. No one is saying it is a waste of time or should not be there; on the contrary, we are saying that its profile should be raised. The only argument is about how we do that, and Government’s position is that we do not do it by an amendment to the Bill itself.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I will not follow the right reverend Prelate down the byways of Manchester, or the sheep farmers and their signposts, but I support him and indeed the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, in the thrust of the amendments that they have introduced. I am part of a catholic gathering which supports the amendments tabled by the noble and right reverend Lord. I do it because I think it is a sensible, practical thing to do, but also because I have seen it work.

Many years ago, when I was the shadow Minister for Prisons in the other place and my noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton was the leader of the Opposition, I visited a huge number of prisons. I think I visited about 75 of the 145-odd prisons, secure training units and young offender institutions in England and Wales, and in a number of prisons, certainly adult prisons in London, in Wales and in other parts of England, I saw restorative justice in action.

It is a delicate process and one needs to be very careful that it is, as the amendment tabled by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, makes clear, carried out where appropriate and that it is available where appropriate. Not every victim is ready to enter into a conversation with the person who committed a crime against them. I have been in the room when RJ took place between prisoners and the victims of murder, the victims of serious violence and the victims of domestic burglary. It takes a very strong person to go into a room and listen to the explanation, the apology, the regret of a prisoner who has killed your husband or your son or your daughter. You need to be very strong and very brave. Equally—I suppose to some extent it is easier because there is, if you like, an advantage to the prisoner to be seen to be behaving in a humane way—I think it is fair to say that for many of the prisoners, some of whom were not very articulate, who had not been educated and who had many social, economic and other disadvantages, it was quite brave of them to come to terms with the horrific things that they had done. So I think “appropriate” is the most important word in the amendment tabled by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries.

Also, tailoring the scheme, or the particular episode of restorative justice, to the needs of that particular victim is so important. It is not just a blanket answer: putting two people in a room with a presider, if you like, to make sure that it goes well. You need to think about it extremely carefully and treat the individuals concerned extremely carefully; it cannot be forced and it cannot be rushed.

But I believe that restorative justice is a hugely important factor in the reduction of crime and recidivism. It brings together people who have been perpetrators and those who have been victims in what can only be a traumatic experience—namely, the experience of the crime but also the experience of meeting the person who committed the crime against you or a loved one.

I am delighted that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, has tabled his amendment, as I am that the right reverend Prelate and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, have tabled theirs. This is a subject which has been discussed many times but has never been properly resolved. It has to some extent been seen as a luxury add-on to the criminal justice system; it is not—it is vital and fundamental in the appropriate cases. I say this as someone who has looked at the practical effects of it not only as a shadow Minister but also as a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust, which has been well-invested in this aspect of the criminal justice system.

Finally, I thank the noble Baroness for tabling her Amendment 13. I thought I knew quite a lot about the criminal justice system, but I had absolutely no idea that the oddity she highlighted this evening existed. It needs correcting.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is perhaps particularly appropriate that I follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, as a way of highlighting the fact that the amendments in this group addressing restorative justice, a number of which are in my name but have already been introduced by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, are not party-political. This is a conviction, understanding and belief that goes right across the political spectrum and, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, said, has arisen from practical experience. Speaking to other noble Lords in the Corridor who have seen my amendments, I have had many people who said, “I wasn’t really convinced and then I saw restorative justice in action, and now I am totally a convert to this idea”. The Government are getting a clear message from right across your Lordships’ Committee that, as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, said, what was said in the other place—the idea that “Oh, we can put something in the code”—really is not going to do it; we need this in the Bill as a step forward.

I went through this at Second Reading, so I will not repeat it all, but if we look at what the Government are offering now, in their wording is a suggestion that restorative justice is nice when we can find the resources, so you might be lucky enough that there might be the resources available in your area or you might not. That is simply not good enough.

Briefly, I agree very much with all the amendments in this group and echo the comments about Amendment 13. The noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, has found something that the Government can surely pick up, because it so obviously needs to be sorted out.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, as I so often find myself saying in your Lordships’ House, in the Green Party, when we are talking about justice policy, we would not start from here. Green political philosophy puts at its heart restorative justice. That means putting the victim at the centre in aiming to restore—or ideally, improve—their condition comparative to what it was before the crime, and ensuring that the offender’s rehabilitation is built on making amends both to the individual victim and to the community.

Paragraph CJ201 of our Policies for a Sustainable Society sets out, as one of its key objectives:

“To assist the victims of criminal acts as much as possible”.


I note that, when I look at the CPS website, there is a restorative justice page that was updated in February this year. It notes that restorative justice can play a part at any stage of the criminal justice process. It does, however, go on to note that it is most often associated with conditional cautioning. A phrase that particularly caught my attention was,

“where trained personnel are available, it should always be considered”.

My question for the Minister now—or perhaps he could elaborate later in writing—is: where do the Government see restorative justice? I have looked carefully at the Bill and there does not seem to be an obvious way in which that is considered part of it. I would be interested to see whether there is any part of the Bill that is seen to be associated with that and to learn how the Government see restorative justice as part of the overall system.

Of course, if we were approaching the Bill from that perspective, any Bill by definition would involve both victims and offenders—but that, of course, is not where we start with this Bill. So I begin by sharing the disappointment expressed by many that this is now a victims and prisoners Bill. Surely, we would be in a better place if there were now two separate Bills, with a chance for both Houses to fully focus on victims in particular, their care and support, rather than finding ourselves at the same time dealing with some extremely knotty and long-running problems, notably the clear injustice of the IPP—imprisonment for public protection —sentences.

Looking at that focus on victims, we come back to the issue of resources, but also of commitments of resources. I note the excellent briefing from Victim Support, which calls for the Government to commit in the Bill to ensuring that all the rights of the victims’ code are monitored and reported on by criminal justice agencies, not just some of the rights. It says—and I suspect this will find a great deal of support in your Lordships’ House—that this has to be written on the face of the Bill. Victim Support also says—and I have to concur—that the Government should be sharing and publicly consulting on the data proposed for the monitoring of victims’ rights while the Bill is progressing through your Lordships’ House. So often we find ourselves saying very similar things.

In discussing the word “must”, I have to associate myself with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, about the need to replace many of the “shoulds” in this Bill with “musts”; although we might have to bring in the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, at that point, because she has her own inimitable perspective on those particular debates.

Talking again about resources, the lack of support for community-based services, particularly for victims of domestic abuse, is something that I have been talking about for at least a decade. So many of our community-based services have to rely on a year-by-year, bid-by-bid state of total uncertainty about funding. We have seen some changes and improvements on that in the most recent years, but still we need to ensure that, if we are going to identify needs through the joint strategic needs assessment introduced by the Bill, there is actually the ability to deal with those needs. It is really important, when we look at the independent domestic violence adviser role, that that has to be an absolutely independent role. We have seen from the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, for example, how strong and important such advocates can be right across the functioning of our society.

According to the Local Government Association’s briefing—I declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA—the Bill states that PCCs, health bodies and local authorities must work together in commissioning support services for the victims of domestic abuse, serious violence and sexual violence. That is a great objective, but we all know just how incredibly stretched local government and all such services are. The recent report by the domestic abuse commissioner noted that insecure and insufficient funding was a key driver of services struggling to meet demand. I have pointed out in a number of different contexts that it is important to acknowledge the needs of victims of crime and bereaved families from abroad, ensuring their right to access support in England and Wales. I have raised in Written Questions the issue of ensuring that people who are British residents but not British citizens, and who were victims of crime abroad, get consular support and support when they return home.

Observant noble Lords may have noticed that I am speaking on issues that more regularly fall within the purview of my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. I am sure that she will be picking up on some of these during the progress of the Bill, but there are a couple of issues on which your Lordships’ House may well hear from me again. One is protecting and supporting victims of major incidents and government wrongdoing. The Minister is already aware of my interest, which I raised with him during the Hillsborough Statement repeat, in the “Truth About Zane” campaign, which concerns the tragic death of young Zane Gbangbola. I am pleased to tell the Minister that Zane’s parents are keen to take up the offer to share with the department their experience of having an extreme inequality of arms in Zane’s inquest, with fully lawyered-up public bodies against a grieving family forced to resort to crowdfunding and pro bono support.

I note that the proposed independent public advocate, added after pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill and without consultations with organisations such as Inquest, Justice or any related to Hillsborough, is being instructed at the discretion of the Secretary of State, rather than the circumstances in which it is to be appointed being set out in statute. That surely cannot be right. I also note that there is no equality of treatment between the victims of major incidents and the victims of state wrongdoing and other crimes, nor any government justification for this disparity. In another revisiting of issues—I see a very familiar cast in this area—I particularly associate myself with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on the importance of services for victims of crime with no recourse to public funds, an issue which many of us addressed during consideration of the Domestic Abuse Bill, and the firewalling of immigration matters from victims of domestic abuse and other crimes.

I see that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, is not in his place, but hopefully he will see in Hansard later that although he and I are perhaps not very often aligned on economic matters, I very much associate myself with his remarks about the victims of economic crime. He focused on corruption and overseas victims of economic crime—I would add victims of economic crime in the UK. To quote UK Finance, we are

“the fraud capital of the world”.

We are not doing enough for fraud and corruption victims around the world. I hope that I can work with the noble and learned Lord on those issues.

Hillsborough Families Report: Government Response

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. Something—a combination of many things—went very badly wrong. As often with tragedies on this scale, it is a series of things going wrong that makes the ultimate result so difficult and tragic.

If I may express a personal view at the Dispatch Box, those families reflect and embody the true spirit of this nation and their communities. For that reason, we should be proud of them, salute them and commend them on their efforts. I know that does not bring their loved ones back, but we should do what we can to recognise their achievement.

In this instance, certain servants of the state, in certain situations, did not behave in the way that we would expect citizens of this country to behave. That has to be remedied and tackled, and we have to do our best to make sure that it does not happen again, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has said. I associate myself with his remarks about the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and the magnificent speech he made on behalf of Liverpool and the families.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, on the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester. It was a hugely powerful moment. I should perhaps declare that although my involvement is much less than that of others this evening, I have taken part in a number of events in Sheffield with the Hillsborough survivors’ association, usually in conjunction with the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign. I echo the remarks of others thanking Bishop James for the exceptional work that has gone into this report.

I appreciate the Minister’s careful and deep—unusually deep from the Dispatch Box—explanation of why the Government have not chosen to head down the statutory route in terms of the duty of candour. However, it is important to put on record that the Hillsborough survivors’ association has already said that it thinks we need that law. That law should not be focused on junior officials who may be trapped in circumstances beyond their capacity. When we are talking, as we are in this case and others, about very senior people who may have a lot to lose by not being open—not showing candour—I am not sure that we do not need a legal framework to deal with them.

I very much welcome the acknowledgement in the Statement that justice unfunded is justice denied. There is in far too many of these cases a deep inequality of arms between families and official bodies that establish an array of KCs—very powerful and extremely well-paid lawyers—against what can be a crowdfunded legal team or one with very limited funding. On that point, I refer to paragraph 38 of the Statement from the other place, which acknowledges that:

“Bishop James talks broadly about the proper participation of bereaved families at inquests where the state is represented. We will seek to further understand the experience of these individuals”.


I raise the case of seven year-old Zane Gbangbola, who was tragically killed by lethal gases in 2014 in Chertsey, Surrey. If the Minister looks into that inquest he will see that there was a massive inequality of arms between the situation of the family, which basically crowdfunded and got a tiny bit of legal aid at the last second, versus nine public bodies that all had their own representation. The case of Zane and the continuing fight of his father, Kye, and his mother, Nicole, to get an independent inquiry into that case is ongoing. The call has been backed by Sir Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham. Acknowledging that the Statement mentions seeking to

“further understand the experience of these individuals”,

can the Minister commit that the department will listen to the experiences of Kye and Nicole when it is considering the experiences of families?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness rightly makes a point about the distinction between junior officials and senior officials. The present public accountability Bill does not make that distinction. It is drawn in very wide terms. Without offering any commitment, I think that the point that she makes will be registered in the ongoing discussion of this issue. The equality of arms is a deep problem, probably in most justice systems. As noble Lords will have seen from the Statement, a number of measures are proposed which the Government will undertake to try to redress that balance. On the specific question about the case of Zane and similar cases, the Ministry of Justice is always ready to have its attention drawn to particular circumstances. If she is kind enough to do so, I will ensure that this is looked into.