Sentencing Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

124A: Clause 35, page 65, leave out lines 22 to 34
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment, and others in the name of Baroness Jones of Moulescoomb, seeks to remove the power of providers of probation services to publish photographs of the offender.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 124A tabled by my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, I shall speak also to Amendments 124B to 124F. I note that there is also a Clause 35 stand part notice in this group in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Marks, which has the same aims—we have just taken different routes to the same intended outcome.

These amendments are linked with one aim. If we are serious about reducing reoffending and rebuilding lives, we cannot allow public humiliation to be smuggled into the justice system through the back door—but that is exactly what Clause 35 does. It proposes giving Probation Service providers the power to publish the names and photographs of people carrying out unpaid work as part of their sentence. What could be the purpose of this measure? What problem is it solving? It does not support rehabilitation. It is not going to reduce reoffending. It appears to make humiliation part of the sentence given to the offender, and not just the offender but the people around them—their family and friends, potentially. This is a significant departure from evidence-based practice and threatens to undermine the goals that we claim to be pursuing.

I note that the Chief Inspector of Probation has warned that naming and shaming offenders is likely to act as a disincentive to rehabilitation and that, instead of encouraging compliance, it risks pushing people away from engagement entirely. If someone is planning to turn up, do the work and meet the terms of the order, why on earth would we introduce a measure that is likely to be an active discouragement for that? The evidence tells us that reintegration into their community, into employment, is what prevents reoffending. Public exposure will have the opposite effect. Probation officers, through their union, have raised alarm about the outcome for families, especially for children, who can bear the weight of a sentence for a crime that they did not commit. We know of cases where children have been bullied, harassed and even forced to change schools because a parent’s offending has been publicly exposed.

This is not just the view of a few organisations; 24 charities and experts, people who are working day in and day out with children and families affected by the justice system, have put out a joint letter opposing this clause. They warn about photographing people on unpaid work and publishing the images online, where they may remain indefinitely. We now have photo recognition software, so we can expect this only to get worse in future, and that will follow people for life. It risks making it harder to get a job or secure housing; it risks vigilantism and violence, and it risks damaging the children. We have international obligations to uphold the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. We should consider the best interests of a child in every policy decision, yet this clause very clearly does not.

I can see that some other noble Lords wish to speak, so I will stop now, but I think there are very strong and unanimous feelings on this clause and the wrong direction that it is heading in.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. Parliamentary draftsmen have been appropriately euphemistic in the title of Clause 35, but they could have drafted it: “Naming and shaming of offenders in the community”. I oppose Clause 35, and therefore support the amendments in that vein, because it is contrary to the ambitions of the Bill as a whole, undermines rehabilitation and therefore the prevention of further crimes and is outwith the philosophy of the Bill. I hope and believe that the Government are better than Clause 35, and I know that my noble friend the Minister is better than this. With his characteristic humility, he described himself as a simple entrepreneur who ran a business to mend shoes, but he also ran a business to mend humans—in both cases attempting to save “soles”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Bennett, and the noble Lords, Lord Marks and Lord Beith, for tabling these amendments and raising their concerns about Clause 35. I also thank the noble Lords, Lord Foster and Lord Bach, for raising their concerns.

I am sure we can agree that people who commit crimes should show that they are giving back to society. This clause is about building public confidence in community sentences. Local communities should know that those who harm them are paying back and be able to see the positive work being done. As my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti pointed out, it is important that they can clearly see the benefits of community payback and have their say on the work undertaken by nominating projects in their area.

I understand there may be concerns about the potential impacts of this measure and I reassure noble Lords that careful consideration is being given to how it is implemented. I have listened to noble Lords’ comments and will take them away to thoroughly consider. I also reassure noble Lords that publication will not apply in all cases. Exemption criteria will be set out in secondary legislation. This will be used alongside clear operational guidance on the circumstances where publishing would not be appropriate. The criteria are to be determined but may include factors such as specific offence types or personal circumstances which present heightened risks to the offender, their families or others. Probation practitioners will use this guidance and their professional assessment to determine the right course of action. We should have confidence that they will use the power only where appropriate. I confirm to noble Lords that I have heard the points they have made and reiterate that we will reflect carefully before Report.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and take encouragement from the phrase “thoroughly consider”. I hope, speaking as a former newspaper editor, that the noble Lord, Lord Foster, is right that yes, sometimes newspapers are right. We can live in hope.

I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. The hour is late, but we have had a very clear and engaged debate and a very clear direction of travel, even from the Conservative Front Bench. I think a fair characterisation would be that there is a great degree of scepticism about Clause 35.

I have just a couple of things to pick out. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, made a very important point about the relationship between probation officers and their clients. That really deserves extra consideration. I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for bringing their experience and knowledge and bravely delivering a clear message from the Government Benches.

Finally, I note that we have heard from both the current chair of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee and its former chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. The messages are coming to the Government from all angles. We reserve the right to bring this back on Report, but I very much hope that will not be necessary. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 124A withdrawn.

Sentencing Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I could not possibly improve on the speeches that we have heard so far, but my reason for speaking is that I think I am the only Peer here with previous judicial experience to have actually conducted a statutory resentencing exercise. Perhaps I could explain how that came about and what it meant for me.

When I became the Lord Justice General of Scotland —that is, the Chief Justice—in 1989, it was not the practice of judges to state a tariff when imposing a life sentence, whether discretionary or mandatory; that was simply open-ended. It was my job, as Chief Justice, to advise the Secretary of State when the time had come for the prisoner to be referred to the Parole Board for consideration for release. It was done in a system whereby civil servants sent the papers to me and I then had to conduct a paper exercise and, in effect, tell the Secretary of State how much longer the prisoner would have to serve before it was time for him to be released.

It was a different world, and the prisons were not crowded. Usually, they came to me when the prisoner had served about 11 years. My advice was to extend it by three or four years, so that they were being referred to the Parole Board quite early compared to what happens today. It was a paper exercise and I found it extremely difficult. There were about 50 life prisoners I had to consider. I was provided with enormous files, which described their conduct in prison, as well as the original offence itself. In order to equip me to understand them, I visited all the prisons in Scotland except one, which was too far away. I also spent several sessions attending the Parole Board to understand how it worked. I had to equip myself fairly well to understand the job I was doing.

About three years into my office, the law was changed. In the interest of transparency, it was decided that the Chief Justice in England and Wales and me in Scotland should establish a tariff. That brought to an end the system I was using, because, from then on, judges were going to produce a tariff when they passed their first sentence. That was a system that I worked with for a while and had to give up.

It is with that background that I am extremely interested in the very well-crafted amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, has advanced, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I have looked at it rather carefully and it seems that it requires the resentencing judge to look at four issues. First, what should the notional determinate sentence have been for the offence or offences which were committed, thereby identifying the tariff which would be applied for the purposes of reference to the parole board? Secondly, there is the additional point of whether a hospital order should be substituted, which is a very important safeguard in working through the system that he is describing. Thirdly, if the prisoner might appropriately have received a life sentence, is there a risk of committing a further serious offence resulting in serious harm if the prisoner were released; and, fourthly, if that is the case, should the IPP sentence simply be confirmed?

As I say, it is very carefully crafted and it has public safety in mind, as well as the interests of the prisoner. However, I think we have to be quite careful as to what this would mean for the resentencing judge. He or she would need to be equipped with a great deal of information, not only about the original offence but about what has happened to the prisoner since then, considering whether a hospital order is required or, if it is a life sentence, whether the safety of the public requires that the IPP sentence be confirmed. The Minister might also like to bear in mind the workload of the judges when considering what to make of this proposal. I suspect that the volume of material would be very considerable, and therefore judicial time needs to be found for that evidence to be assimilated and understood, and then a decision taken.

What is not clear at the moment—I think this is for the committee that the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, has suggested we set up—is how the exercise would be conducted. I assume that it is going to be a paper exercise rather than a hearing in court, but that is to be determined. I assume that it would require a written decision to be given—that was not required of me at that time, but I suspect that nowadays a written decision would need to be given—and of course there is always the risk of appeal or judicial review. So the decision-taking exercise has to be very carefully conducted.

In my case, in dealing with the cases I had to deal with, I had to give up two weeks of judicial time to conduct the exercise which I had to carry out. One has to assume that at least one day of judicial time per case would be needed here, because, otherwise, the decisions would be open to being set aside because they have not been properly considered. The whole point of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, is that the safety of the public is being protected by the care which would be taken in this exercise. So one has to bear in mind not only the nature of the exercise but the time that the judiciary would have to commit to it.

I am not suggesting that this is not a very good way of finding an answer to the problem we are faced with. However, if the Minister is not inclined to adopt it, I would very much adopt the proposal from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and, if that does not succeed, there is of course the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, which I would also support.

I hope that what I have said has been of interest, to give some background to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, which has my support. I suggest that it has to be seen in its full context and what it really means for the judges who have to conduct the exercise.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the expert contribution of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. My noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb signed Amendment 89 and I would say that that judicial time, if it is necessary, needs to be allocated. Society and the Government have a responsibility to people whom we have put in this impossible situation to find a way out and that amendment implements the Justice Committee’s recommendations.

It is a great pleasure to follow all the noble Lords who have taken part in this debate thus far, many of whom are veterans, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said, in trying to sort out this mess. I did not speak on this group at Second Reading and I apologise for that. However, as I said, my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb signed Amendment 89. She very much regrets that she has to be somewhere else at the moment and so your Lordships’ House gets me instead. I did speak on the issue of IPP prisoners at Second Reading of the Victims and Prisoners Bill in 2023. I said then that it was an extremely knotty and long-running problem. That is what we have heard and what has been reflected here.

However, we can see from that debate in 2023 and today the power and force of the contributions. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, someone perhaps not usually given to such language, spoke about “blood on our hands”. The noble Lord, Lord Woodley, spoke about “creating gulags”. We abolished this sentence in 2021 because it was wrong, yet the people subjected to it are living with its consequences every day and we have a responsibility to sort this out. There is also the practical point that, if the Government want to reduce the prison population, here is a group who should be at the forefront of looking at how to do that. Instead, far too many of them are in prisons that are wholly unsuited to their progression—30%, according to the latest figures. We cannot claim to be serious about reducing the prison population while leaving this situation to fester. There are other amendments in this group that take us some way forward, but Amendment 89 is the best one. This is the bare minimum of justice for a relatively small group of people who were handed a sentence that Parliament has already acknowledged was a mistake.

I will make one final reflection. What is behind this tragedy is a reflex that we have seen from far too many politicians over far too many years. Under pressure, the reaction is, “Lock ‘em up” or “Lock ‘em up for longer”. That is a reflex that we cannot allow to run loose in future.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I will say a brief word and apologise that I have another commitment in 15 minutes, so may not hear the Minister.

I back up what all speakers have said this afternoon—in particular the passionate and convincing words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas. We all believe that the Minister’s heart is in the right place and we need to encourage him to go back to anyone who is putting constraints on what he can do and ask them to read the speeches from this afternoon. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, said, the state has recognised other cases—the Post Office Horizon scandal, infected blood, to some extent Hillsborough, and others—where it has created a major injustice and has tried to make up for those miscarriages. This is not a technical issue, it is an ethical issue, and we are all begging the Minister to deliver the justice that has been called for from all sides of the House this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

I look forward to the Minister’s response, and I hope that all of us involved in this look forward to working with the Government and colleagues across the House to ensure that the Bill’s reforms—which I think we all agree are desperately needed—do not bring undue harm to victims and survivors in the process. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 118, to which my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb has attached her name.

I will start by referring to the basic intention of the Bill, which is to use our prison places more effectively and to focus custody on those who most need to be there—an aim that many support. We all want a system that is proportionate and effective and that reduces the pressure on the prison estate, but we cannot pursue those aims at the expense—whoops, I think I am speaking to the wrong amendment. Are we discussing Amendment 118?

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

Yes.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thought so, but I got confused.

Amendment 118 responds to a serious problem: automatic release after 56 days of individuals who have been recalled specifically because they breached the licence condition relating to the victim of the original offence. In other words, they have shown, as the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said, that they are willing, even while on licence, to breach restrictions designed to keep that victim safe. This is a behaviour that may indicate continuing risk, which, under Bill as it stands, will not be assessed before release.

The victims, overwhelmingly women in these circumstances, must not be put in this potential danger. The amendment is essential to ensure that if there is a victim-related breach, the individual is not released automatically. If necessary, the case must go before a parole board—an expert independent body whose very purpose is to assess risk. The Government have been very clear through the Bill that their aim is to ensure that public safety remains paramount. This amendment seeks to deliver on that aim.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to my Amendments 111 to 113. When asked by the Deputy Chairman, I said that I did not wish to do so, but that was because I did not realise that we had jumped an amendment.

These three amendments concern recall for a fixed term. The first point is the question of whether recall should be for a maximum of 56 days rather than a fixed period of 56 days. As presently structured, recall to prison is to an automatic release date 56 days after the recall occurs. The purpose of my three amendments is both to make the 56-day period a maximum period, not a fixed period, and to make automatic release subject to the exclusion in those cases where it applies—and in that it has much sympathy with the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. The process for determining the period will need to be fixed by regulations, but the intention is clear, and I am happy to discuss how substituting a flexible period for a fixed period might be implemented.

The fact is that recalls happen for a number of reasons, some of which may be relatively trivial breaches of conditions. I am concerned—as was my honourable friend Jess Brown-Fuller, the MP for Chichester, who moved similar amendments in the other place—about the effect of a blanket fixed period of recall irrespective of the seriousness or otherwise of the breach that brought about the recall, and believe it may be inappropriate.

It may be that 56 days or eight weeks, which is quite a long time, is far too long for a prisoner who faces recall for missing a probation appointment, for example. It would almost inevitably interfere with work where an offender had found work. It could interfere with housing and educational or rehabilitative programmes in the community. Community programmes are, I understand, typically held open for four weeks, so eight weeks would mean that they were closed. An eight-week recall might have a damaging effect on mental health treatments which a recently released prisoner was undertaking. Addiction programmes might be undesirably affected. A shorter recall might avoid that.

Furthermore, an unnecessarily long recall for a minor infringement of conditions would do nothing to reduce the prison capacity shortage as it continues, while a shorter recall would mitigate it. Other recalls may be much more serious. In such cases, 56 days may be too short a period. The 56-day automatic release provision in our Amendment 113 would take effect subject to the provision excluding automatic releases in serious cases, so that those who had committed more serious offences would not be automatically released at the 56-day point. That might be particularly appropriate if an offender who had been guilty of domestic abuse or stalking had been recalled for intimidating, harassing or stalking their victims. While they would presently be required to be released under the proposals as I understand them, our amendment would rectify this.

Criminal Court Reform

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

They are not all dealt with by lay people at all; they are dealt with by district judges as well. They are state appointees. They used to be known as stipendiary magistrates—my noble friend knows this perfectly well; he has practised in those courts. Stipendiary magistrates have a part to play and so do lay people. The important thing is that they have to give reasoned rulings. We have to have a system that is proportionate and fair and deals with everybody’s interests, not just those of a few.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, my question follows on very clearly from that of the noble Lord, Lord Boateng. I declare an interest, since a number of my friends and colleagues have been acquitted by juries of charges against them relating to actions of political protest. My question focuses on democracy. Does the Minister agree that juries are not just part of our legal system but important defenders of our right to protest, something our democracy is built around? Given the repressive anti-protest legislation passed in recent years under the previous Government, which it appears this Government have no intention of repealing, are these plans not a serious threat to our democracy as well as our legal rights?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. I will repeat what I have already said. Over 90% of criminal trials are already heard in magistrates’ court, which does deal with some protest cases without a jury. It is likely that many protest-related offences are dealt with there. The important thing is that no one group of defendants is more important than any other. Everyone is equal before the law. We cannot have a carve-out for a particular group of offences or a particular group of people. We have confidence in a professional judiciary, highly trained in things such as diversity. They will do a good job.

Prisoner Releases in Error

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I have been to a number of young offender institutions over the years, and they are quite challenging—I would describe them even as harrowing places sometimes—but also places of hope. Sadly, a few of the foster children who I lived with when I was growing up ended up in young offender institutions and then came back to us; in fact, one of them still works in the Timpson business and is doing very well. It is important to understand what was said in the Rademaker review, which was a look into some of the behaviours and actions that happen in HMPPS. Some of them we are not proud of regarding the way that individual staff treat each other. We should have a culture of care because we are trying to rehabilitate people so that when they leave, they do not come back.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

The Minister referred to the importance of having experienced prison officers, yet prison officer unions point out that 2,600 prison staff face deportation because the Home Office has raised the salary threshold to £41,700. Is the Minister talking to the Home Office about this situation and seeking a solution?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that these staff are doing fantastic work and we are lucky to have them, but it is also important that net migration comes down. We are supporting those colleagues and having ongoing conversations.

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.