Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I shall try to observe your strictures, Mr Deputy Speaker, but this is a very large piece of legislation; I shall probably have to restrict the number of times I give way to interventions.
I am determined to reform the justice system in this country. Keeping the public safe, ensuring that those who break the law face the consequences and providing swift, cost-effective access to justice are fundamental responsibilities of the state towards its citizens. Yet the last 13 years of government have left us a system whose cost and scale have exploded and whose failings can no longer be tolerated.
In the area of criminal justice, more than 20 new Acts of Parliament, thousands of new criminal offences and a huge increase in the prison population cannot mask very deep flaws in the system. Briefly, our sentencing framework is a mess of byzantine complexity that even trained lawyers and judges—never mind the general public—find confusing.
Our punishments do not work. Community sentences are weak, asking little of offenders, and prisons have become so crowded that there is no space for governors to enforce regimes of meaningful work or reparation. Far too many prisoners are left idle in their cells, often on drugs. For that model, the taxpayer has the privilege of paying out an extraordinary sum—£44,000 per prison place per year. I have just been assured that the Ritz is even more expensive, so I slightly exaggerated, but £44,000 per prison place per year is enough to pay the salaries of two newly qualified nurses or teachers.
Mr Straw
I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor. We have heard about this alleged litany of failures. When the right hon. and learned Gentleman was Home Secretary, crime was at a post-war peak on both the measures that the Prime Minister used to discuss crime at questions earlier today. Since then, burglaries have dropped by 70%, thefts by 50%, and crime overall by 50%. Is the fact that the Lord Chancellor never, ever refers to the outcomes of our record due to the fact that that happened mainly under us or the fact that the process started under his successor, Michael Howard?
Mr Clarke
The idea that I set off a crime wave when I was Home Secretary is a charge that I will answer on some other occasion, frankly. As far as the decline in crime is concerned, the biggest decline has been in theft because car manufacturers made cars more secure. The courts used to be full of taking and driving away offences, but are no longer because it is more difficult to take the cars.
The fall in burglary coincided with an economic boom—one of the consequences that came from it. The 20-plus Bills that the right hon. Gentleman and his predecessors brought before the House—more than one criminal justice Bill a year—and the countless changes in sentences filled up the prisons, but in my opinion had no provable, demonstrable effect at all on the levels of crime in this country.
Mr Clarke
The right hon. Gentleman is an ex-Front Bencher. I will give way to him later, but I should observe the strictures of Mr Deputy Speaker, although I enjoy debating with the right hon. Gentleman. I should move on a little further into my speech.
As the right hon. Gentleman has heard me say before, reoffending rates are a national scandal; that is why the system is failing. Half of offenders—49%—have been reconvicted, in part because the system is not tackling the underlying causes of their criminality such as drug abuse, poor mental health and inadequate skills. The consequence of that failure is new victims of crime every day. Despite improvement, victims and witnesses too often still get treated as an afterthought, not a central concern of justice. That is why we need intelligent, radical reform of the criminal justice system to protect and serve the needs of law-abiding members of society.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Lord Chancellor give way?
Mr Clarke
I will later, but let me deal with what we are having to tackle in civil justice. The sad truth is that it, too, has serious weaknesses. Courts should be accessible and efficient, but generally turned to as a place of last resort, not a first choice. But we have a litigious society and far too many cases go down the court route unnecessarily. Last year, more than three quarters of claims in the civil system set down to proceed to trial were settled before the trial took place. Many of those cases might have been resolved earlier, with different approaches aimed at simpler dispute resolution. Ordinary citizens find the law an expensive, daunting nightmare, not a public service.
Mr Clarke
I will in a second. Courts are slow and burdened by high costs and bureaucratic processes and procedures. For example, the average length of a public family law case in 1989 was 12 weeks; by 2010, it stood at 53 weeks, with similar cases taking four times as long as they used to.
Chris Leslie
I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor. Many victims of crime will be shocked at his proposals to limit the freedom of judges to remand a defendant in custody. Why is he limiting and fettering the ability of judges to put those defendants on remand?
Mr Clarke
I was going to argue this later; I will try to avoid repeating myself. I cannot understand why people are so incensed that people who are not going to be sent to prison might not be kept in prison awaiting trial. Every year, 16,000 people are refused bail, kept in prison, convicted and immediately given bail. A quarter of all the people kept in custody are released when they come up for trial. I shall come back to the matter, although I shall try to avoid repeating the same arguments. It seems to me that unless one is trying to fill up the prisons with people, that is one of the more obvious steps we can take. If they are not going to justify imprisonment when they get to trial, it seems to me pointless to refuse them bail, except in the case of domestic violence cases, where we have agreed to make an exception because we cannot grant bail to someone who is going back to live with the alleged victim of the domestic violence.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
The Secretary of State will be aware that many people are remanded on bail because they refuse to turn up to court, causing the taxpayer all sorts of expense. Can he assure us that even if the crime committed is not one that would normally result in a jail sentence, people who consistently refuse to turn up to court will be remanded in custody?
Mr Clarke
No, I am sorry. I respect the right hon. Gentleman, but I must move on.
I have said that ordinary citizens find the civil law a rather nightmarish experience when they resort to it. Thanks to the present scope of legal aid and the way in which the no-win, no-fee system operates, many people and, in particular, many small businesses live in fear of legal action. I accept that access to justice for the protection of fundamental rights is vital for a democratic society—something on which I will not compromise. However, our current legal aid system can encourage people to bring their problems before the courts when the basic problem is not a legal one and would be better dealt with in other ways. The scope of legal aid has expanded too far. It cannot be right, for example, that the taxpayer is forced to pay for legal advice to foreign students whose visa applications are turned down. There are many other examples.
Our legal aid system also faces a completely unignorable problem of affordability. I have listened to arguments in the media today challenging that, but we have by far the most expensive system in the world, after Northern Ireland, where I am sure the same problem will be tackled. It costs £39 per head of population in this country, each year, compared with £8 in, for example, New Zealand, which has a similar system of law. In any circumstances our system would need reform; in the country’s current financial crisis reform is imperative.
I have some advice for Labour Members. I do not usually give gratuitous advice, but I think the Labour party is facing one of the problems that we faced in 1997. It should find the courage to admit that it made some mistakes and left some things in a mess. It has been acknowledged by my opposite number, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), that, on Labour’s watch:
“Playing tough in order not to look soft made it harder to focus on what is effective”—
wise words. I thought, when we set off on this process of consultation, I had the widespread support of many Opposition Members. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to reflect on the way in which he started his consideration before he gets on with the rest of the debate.
In fact, when Labour was in office, its strategy for our prisons and our courts was legislative incontinence combined with kneejerk populism. On prisons, the Labour Government made the mistake of being unable to make proper provision for the demand for places that they stimulated. Overcrowding devoured the very budgets that should have been used productively to cut reoffending and improve public safety in a lasting way. What was the final result that we all remember? They had to reduce the release point from two thirds to halfway through the sentence. They then had to resort to the financial chicanery of keeping the cost of building prisons off the balance sheet—the so-called Carter prisons. Finally—the ultimate absurdity—they had to let out 80,000 prisoners early, before the end of their sentence, to offset the cost of the allegedly tougher sentences that they had imposed. That is why we need reform now—to reverse that nonsense.
On wider justice matters, the Labour Government proved little better at getting a grip. They had 30 consultations on legal aid from 2006; they did not act decisively, put the system on a sustainable footing or address the litigiousness to which its excessively widely available funding contributed.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
My right hon. and learned Friend has had a consultation, to which I hope he has listened, particularly in respect of criminal negligence affecting children with multiple injuries that may have resulted from birth. It is not clear to me yet that the Government have found a way of ensuring that that very deserving and small group of people will have access to justice and to the settlements that they need.
Mr Clarke
We have addressed clinical negligence, a large part of which is now conducted on a no-win, no-fee basis. That is the way we should proceed. Clinical negligence cases of the kind to which the right hon. Gentleman refers are especially expensive and it is quite difficult to decide whether to proceed with them, so we are making special arrangements, particularly for the expensive medical reports that have to be obtained before a case can properly be decided on. We are making arrangements to make the insurance reimbursable in those cases. I would also like to see a system developed by the NHS litigation authority and the best of the practitioners to exchange expert medical reports at a very early stage, so that we can avoid unnecessary litigation about whether a tragic disaster to a newborn baby was actually a natural tragedy or the result of negligence, and so that such cases need not drag on for the many years that they can take to go through the courts. I accept that that is a special case, and we considered it carefully during the consultation. We made quite a lot of changes during the consultation, some of which were referred to dramatically in outside comment.
Nicky Morgan
I hear what the Secretary of State says about the failure of the last Government to tackle the burgeoning legal aid system. Did they not also fail to tackle the complexity of other departmental work that our citizens advice bureaux, which do such valuable work, help with—for example, Department for Work and Pensions forms? The Government’s response hints at a review of some of the other parts of legal aid which will inevitably have to be cut. Will the Secretary of State give more detail about that review and about whether the burden will be shared across Departments?
Mr Clarke
Yes, I will. I try to avoid jumping from subject to subject, because it is such an enormous Bill, but I promise my hon. Friend that I shall return to the whole question of alternative forms of advice and the CABs, and make an announcement at a later stage in the proceedings on the Bill.
Bridget Phillipson
Another aspect of the changes to legal aid is the removal of legal aid from women applying for indefinite leave to remain under the domestic violence rule. In an answer to a parliamentary question, the Minister for Immigration reported that only 710 women were granted that, so we are not talking about a considerable number, but they are very vulnerable individuals. Will the Secretary of State think again on that aspect of his proposals?
Mr Clarke
Indeed. Ministers have talked about the matter and considered it carefully, and I leave it to my hon. Friend to give an authoritative reply in his winding-up speech.
I hope that I have already indicated that the mess that we have inherited requires a bold, sustained and principled effort, not salami slicing and half-measures. The Bill is one part of the balanced package of reforms that is needed. Unusually, I made a full statement to the House last week on the subject, and it was debated for one and a half hours, so I do not propose to repeat in depth what I said then. Let me turn to the inevitable controversy that any measures on criminal sentencing are bound to provoke. It is a natural part of contemporary political debate to simplify the subject and to make extremes out of it all. I am resigned to the fact that on law and order issues above all there is a tendency to polarise, and to frame reforms as either dry and tough, or wet, soft and liberal. The truth is somewhere in between. The aim of the measures I proposed was to consult on a balanced package, and it remains so.
The measures address the weaknesses that we inherited. For serious crime, the public must have confidence in the system of effective punishment and just retribution, so my reforms include, for example, introducing a 40-hour working week across the prison estate to introduce productive hard work into prisons in place of enforced idleness.
The Bill toughens community sentences by allowing courts to curfew offenders for longer—16 hours a day for up to 12 months—and to ban them from going abroad. As I signalled last week, we intend to introduce measures to clarify householders’ rights of defence and to consult on criminalising squatting.
The Bill creates a new offence of possessing a knife to threaten or endanger a person, with a prison sentence of at least six months for over-18s to send a clear message to those who possess a knife to threaten others.
We are conducting a review with the intention of replacing the discredited sentence whereby people are locked up for an undetermined and indefinite time—the so-called imprisonment for public protection—with a tough determinate sentencing regime. I propose to deliver a system that offers better reparation to victims. The Bill will replace and augment the Prisoners’ Earnings Act 1996, which the previous Government never implemented—it was a Conservative measure. This will allow us to deduct wages from prisoners so that instead of their just being a drain on the system we can deduct money to help to pay for services for the victims of crime. The Bill places a positive obligation on courts to make offenders pay compensation directly to victims.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor mentions the review of indeterminate sentences. My concern is that he will reach the wrong conclusion. When he conducts his review will he look at experience in Northern Ireland, where extended and indeterminate sentences have been available since 2008 but where, crucially, the assessment of danger is left in the hands of judges? It is a smaller system, but in the three years since its introduction there have been only 63 extended sentences and seven indeterminate sentences. Public safety has been combined with manageable numbers: will he look at that experience?
Mr Clarke
We are having a review, so I will look at that. Legislation was enacted in 2003, in the belief that a few hundred people might be affected. It commenced in 2005. The previous Government, of whom the right hon. Gentleman was a member, tried to reform it in 2008, because it was already out of control. I proposed further reforms in the Green Paper, and a very large number of people in the criminal justice system said that the legislation should be repealed. Last week, I quoted David Thomas, the author of “Thomas on Sentencing”, who described the whole thing as an unmitigated disaster. I will look into the right hon. Gentleman’s suggestion to see whether some aspects of the Northern Irish system might be appropriate.
After punishment and reparation comes rehabilitation to reduce reoffending, which is at the core of our process of reform. Sentences must be punitive and reformative. The Bill will help to ensure that more offenders with drugs, alcohol or mental health problems are addressed and receive treatment at the earliest opportunity.This complicates our efforts—
Mr Clarke
Complements—it might do both, but I hope it will complement our efforts to tackle drugs in prison.
Drugs are widely available in prisons, but we shall start by introducing drug-free wings. My single most radical proposal on rehabilitation is a non-legislative change to introduce a fundamental shift in how we approach the issue by paying by results to unlock private capital, benefit from the innovation of the voluntary sector and get the whole system pulling in the same direction. We will pay providers a return on their ethical investment for what works in the public interest: turning criminals into ex-criminals should be an object of the system.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I am interested in the Secretary of State’s comments on the number of people in our prisons who, unfortunately, suffer from mental illness and need support and treatment, which is often inadequate. Will he recognise the greater problem: that many people who need support with mental illness or who are experiencing mental health crises do not get it, and there are insufficient resources and insufficient understanding among the police and others that the real cause of minor offences often is mental illness and nothing else. We need a more sympathetic, supportive and therapeutic approach to dealing with these poor, unfortunate people.
Mr Clarke
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health agrees with the hon. Gentleman and me. My ministerial team and my right hon. Friend’s ministerial team have been holding discussions. My right hon. Friend has a strategy for trying to improve mental health services to the population as a whole. As part of that we are addressing what can be done to help the mentally ill who find themselves in prison. Some of them should be diverted from the criminal justice system altogether; some can be better treated in secure accommodation in the national health service; and many can be treated better than they are at present when being incarcerated in prison is not suitable. I assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend and I share his concern.
Underpinning punishment, reparation and rehabilitation is what might be called system reform—simplification, restoration of discretion to judges and the relief of unnecessary pressures on the system. At the same time we must take a more robust approach to costs in the system, including that of prison. We have already shown that through competition it is possible to get prison costs down while improving service quality. Key measures in the Bill include reforming the use of remand. I dealt with this a moment ago. I have told the House that preventing reoffending is the central idea of my reforms. One of the main barriers to doing things in the past few years has been the fact that the prisons have been clogged up, sometimes with people who do not need to be there at all. I will not repeat the arguments that I made a moment ago that give rise to the part of the Bill that restricts the power of courts to remand those who have no reasonable prospect of receiving a custodial sentence, with the exception that I have already described of cases of domestic violence.
Mr Straw
In answer to the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies) the Secretary of State said that where a defendant failed to return to court on time, the court would still be able to remand him in custody so that he could get to court. The Secretary of State clearly spoke in error, because if he looks at page 166 of his own Bill he will see that paragraph (5) to schedule 10 makes it absolutely clear that even where a defendant has failed to surrender to bail and has been arrested he cannot be detained in custody to appear in court unless there is a real prospect of his subsequently being sentenced to imprisonment. How will the public be made safer or witnesses protected by that?
Mr Clarke
I will address the extent to which we retain discretion, as determined under the bail Acts, according to which bail is granted or refused. In 2010, more than 16,000 people were in custody but were released when they appeared for trial and either pleaded guilty or were convicted. Continuing a system whereby people are refused bail when everyone knows that they will not be imprisoned if convicted is a very wasteful use of a very expensive place in our prison system.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
Someone who breaches bail commits a criminal offence and can therefore, and usually does, receive a custodial sentence, especially if they did not attend court when they should have.
Mr Clarke
I am grateful. My hon. Friend has been in practice much more recently than the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) or I have. We will doubtless continue to study this after the debate.
The sentencing reforms are balanced. Again, I shall quote the words of my shadow, the right hon. Member for Tooting, who when I first published them in the Green Paper described them as
“a perfectly sensible vision for a sentencing policy”,
and they will in my view achieve a very significant transformation.
That brings me to the rest of the Bill covering legal aid and provision on litigation and funding. No Government look to tackle legal aid lightly, but the system as it stands is obviously unaffordable. Labour had 30 goes at fixing it between 2006 and the end of their period in office and we have sought to go back and think about what the taxpayer should pay for by way of litigation from first principles. Our priority is cases where people’s life or liberty is at stake, where they are at risk of serious physical harm or immediate loss of their home or where their children may be taken into care. After our reforms, legal aid will routinely be available in 25 areas, including for criminal cases, for most judicial review proceedings, for private family law cases involving domestic violence, child abuse and child abduction, for community care, for debt where the home is at immediate risk, for mental health cases and for cases concerning special educational needs. We modified our original proposals in response to consultation, listening carefully to the thousands of responses that we received.
Legal aid will no longer be routinely available in 13 areas, including most private family law cases, clinical negligence cases, non-discrimination employment cases, immigration cases, some debt and housing issues, some education cases and welfare benefits cases.
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
How does the Lord Chancellor square what he is saying with what Baroness Hale of the Supreme Court has said about this being a ludicrous Bill and how these provisions will disproportionately affect the most vulnerable in society, particularly people from ethnic minorities?
Mr Clarke
I have always had a high regard for Baroness Hale, who is a very distinguished lawyer, and I have heard of her opinions. I shall have to study them and perhaps even meet her to discuss them, because I am surprised by her response. Where we started from was ensuring that we did not damage access to justice for vulnerable people in matters of such importance that society as a whole would want to be sure that they were protected. Either she has misunderstood the effect of our proposals or why we are doing it. We have to get back to spending an affordable amount of money on paying for things that the taxpayer should actually pay for to defend the vulnerable. We all start as lawyers, let alone as citizens, with a slight bias in favour of legal aid because everyone is used to it, but the scale of legal aid has expanded, its scope is too wide and it needs to be reformed.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor for saying that legal aid will be available to defend the vulnerable. I declare an interest as one who has been a duty solicitor in the police station. I would like him to consult carefully about the practical implementation of proposals to limit legal aid for advice and assistance in police stations, given that his officials no doubt bear the scars of previous implementations that became bureaucratic nightmares. Losing the benefit of the informed legal advice that one needs in the police station can lead to inefficient justice.
Mr Clarke
We will look at that and consider it carefully as we proceed. At the moment, the Bill replicates a provision taken from an earlier Bill by the Labour party. It appears to give a power to take away the right to legal aid. It appears to give a power to take away access to legal advice in the police station. The last Government legislated to do that but never did it. We have no current intentions of doing it. We will consider the issue and no doubt my hon. Friend or others will return to it in Committee. I realise that there has been some concern.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
At the annual general meeting of Liberty earlier this month, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said that the Government should reconsider their plans to remove certain categories of social welfare law, at least for a period while Government reforms elsewhere in the system—such as welfare reforms—create increased demand for advice. Will the Lord Chancellor accept that excellent advice from his right hon. Friend and protect those categories of legal aid, at least during a transition period?
Mr Clarke
We have consulted very carefully on legal aid, on both parts. We have made quite significant changes to what we originally proposed. On welfare benefits, we are still of the opinion that the welfare system was not intended to provide a source of litigation where legal advice was required to take an appeal in the last resort to a tribunal. That was not intended to be a legalistic activity but to try to apply what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security is trying to make more comprehensible by dealing with the rules of entitlement to social security in a sensible fashion. I do not think it is a promising area for legal advice.
Joan Ruddock
I was present at Lady Hale’s lecture and wrote down what she said:
“Courts should be and are a last resort but they should be a last resort which is accessible to all––rich and poor alike.”
Let me tell the Lord Chancellor this now: my constituents are people who need advice on immigration, on welfare and on housing and whose very lives can be wrecked by the fact that they cannot get legal assistance. Where am I to send them? How are they to get justice with the provisions in his Bill on legal aid and on no win, no fee?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. May I remind the House how many Members wish to contribute? Our mission should be to limit our interventions.
Mr Clarke
I have already said that access to justice is fundamental, but the fact is that the taxpayer’s money cannot be used to give access to justice to large numbers of people in large areas of law where the ordinary citizen would not contemplate litigating because the ordinary citizen on an ordinary income would not think that they could afford to embark on it. That is why we consulted very carefully. We concentrated on vulnerable people and on those areas that were of such importance that society as a whole would plainly feel that there was a need to finance people of limited means so that they could have access to justice. I ask the right hon. Lady to judge all our proposals on that basis. Lady Hale seemed to think that we were abolishing other access on the basis that people were using it too much. That is not the reason. But we do have a system that is four times as expensive as that of New Zealand. We have to concentrate the mind and decide what it is justified to expect the taxpayer to pay for.
Mr Clarke
I shall follow your helpful steer, Mr Deputy Speaker, and make progress. I realise that these are important matters, but I could find myself giving way to everyone in the Chamber.
Few of these are easy choices, but they often involve disputes about financial issues rather than life and liberty. It is sensible to give such things as financial disputes a lower relative priority. It is sensible, too, to address areas that the public consider unreasonable. For example, we are cutting out legal aid for squatting. Following representations from the Judges Council, we are ending legal aid for some repeat judicial reviews on immigration and asylum cases that have already had a hearing and where repeated review is being used only to obstruct and delay proceedings.
Across some of these areas, reformed no win, no fee arrangements will be available, but our broader ambition is that people will be encouraged to use alternative, less adversarial means of resolving many of these important problems. For private family law cases, the Government are increasing spending on mediation and legal advice in support of mediation by two thirds, or £10 million, to a total of £25 million a year. Mediation has a high success rate––about 75%––in resolving most of the family disputes that go before it.
We have made no blanket funding exclusions. The Bill establishes an exceptional funding scheme for exceptional cases, administered by a statutory office holder free of ministerial control. That will provide funding for an excluded case where in the particular circumstances the failure to provide support would be likely to result in breach of the individual’s right to legal aid under the Human Rights Act 1998 or European law.
Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)
Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?
Mr Clarke
Let me deal with this important point, because I have heard widespread concern, including from my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), about the future of not-for-profit advice centres. I agree that they do important work in providing quality, worthwhile advice of the kind required by very many people who should not need adversarial lawyers. Legal aid represents only one of several income streams for many organisations, with 85% of citizens advice bureaux funding coming from other sources. Half of all bureaux get no legal aid funds at all. This issue needs to be, and has been, considered on a cross-Government, interdepartmental basis. We are working with the sector and across Government to ensure that the Government reforms help to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the advice services available to the public, and we will provide up to £20 million of additional funding in this financial year to help achieve that. We are also, of course, mindful of the impact of reforms beyond this financial year and will continue to consider the issues arising from that.
Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?
Mr Clarke
Not at the moment; I shall carry on a little further.
In addition to the changes to the scope of legal aid, the Bill includes wider reform provisions, as some reform of the situation that we inherited is urgently and obviously needed. I do not believe the public understand a system that can pay out millions of pounds from taxpayer-provided central funds to compensate acquitted companies and wealthy people for their legal costs, whether that involves the £21 million paid to the firms in the Hatfield rail crash case, the £18 million paid to a number of pharmaceutical firms accused of price fixing, or the hundreds of thousands of pounds that have on occasion gone to celebrities accused of affray, assault and other crimes.
Part 2 of the Bill therefore establishes that defendants who decline legal aid and pay privately in the higher criminal courts will no longer be able to recover the costs of an expensive private lawyer if acquitted. In the magistrates’ courts, the sums recoverable will be limited to legal aid rates. Firms will be expected to insure against criminal prosecutions, and will no longer be able to recover costs from the taxpayer.
The Bill is therefore about delivering reform across the justice system, and we have tried to think about that in a joined-up way. Let us consider problems often affecting women—about which Lady Hale was concerned when she spoke the other day. For victims of crime, I have recently announced funding for 15 rape crisis centres on a more secure long-term basis than in the past and funding for four new centres. For women using the justice system, in our legal aid reforms we are prioritising those cases where there is greatest risk of harm, retaining legal aid for cases involving domestic violence, child abuse and child abduction, and we have broadened the range of evidence accepted.
In private family law, the taxpayer is increasing funding for mediation and legal advice in support of mediation. More broadly on family cases, part 2 of the Bill extends the powers for courts to require one party to pay towards the other’s legal bills in some cases where resources are not equal. For example, when a couple have parted and the man remains very prosperous whereas the woman is almost penniless and is seeking some remedy, the court will have the power to require one party to pay towards the other’s costs. In public family law, the taxpayer will still be providing more than £400 million for family legal aid.
For female offenders in the criminal justice system, we have not replaced—and I have never proposed replacing—short-term prison sentences with community sentences, but if we can increase confidence that community sentences will be meaningfully punitive, they could make the justice system more sensible in some situations, such as in ensuring that there are decent non-penal options for offenders with caring responsibilities where their being sent to prison would cause chaos for innocent children in their families. In dealing with women prisoners and offenders, we are, in fact, proceeding on a very similar basis to the previous Government.
My vision is a legal system that is substantially reformed. In addition to implementing changes to legal aid and the Jackson proposals on no win, no fee, my Department is developing and supporting work to improve civil legal processes, criminal justice efficiency and family justice. It is a measure of the challenge before us that the Bill, which on any measure is a huge Leviathan of a piece of proposed legislation, is only part of the overall reforms we need to deliver. The changes we are making are, of course, financially necessary, but they will also make the system more sensible and civilised.
I never shrink from robust debate about improvement to important and sensitive public services, and changes in the criminal law have always excited an extraordinary level of controversy, and they always will. If we get this right, however, the prize is a justice system that properly contributes to a safer, fairer society, and a justice system that is user-friendly, that works, that does not deny access to justice and that has less daunting waste, with costs under control. I would, in fact, have liked to introduce such a major reforming Bill 20 years ago, if I had stayed long enough at the Home Office. I now have the opportunity to do so, and I commend the Bill to the House.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
I usually take all interventions, but today I shall try to observe your recent stricture on that, Mr Deputy Speaker, as I know that many colleagues wish to discuss the Bill.
The Government’s approach to criminal justice is in tatters. We have a hotch-potch that does nothing to win the confidence of victims, of people in the justice system or of the public at large. This Bill is controversial as much for what is absent as for what has found its way in. Key policy areas that were consulted on are absent and others are to be the subject of further review, while there are some clauses on issues that were not consulted on at all. The Lord Chancellor knows as well as I do that within weeks, if not days, of this Bill moving to Committee, there will be a flood of new amendments and new clauses. After 13 months, three Green Papers and three consultations, there is no excuse.
Last week, the Prime Minister unveiled the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s legislation in his absence. A number of eye-catching proposals were announced on squatting, self-defence and knife crime. The favourable coverage they received was precisely the Prime Minister’s aim. Suddenly, because of the Prime Minister’s last-minute intervention, the Bill was spun as being tough on crime. Even the words “punishment of offenders” found their way into the name of the Bill, but we must be clear from the start: the clause on knife crime is still a Conservative broken promise. It is not what the party promised in its manifesto. The new offence of aggravated knife possession carries a mandatory six-month sentence, but applies to a much narrower category of cases of those caught carrying a knife. The offence of aggravated knife possession is using a knife to threaten someone, and that is already a crime; the sentencing guidelines already recommend a minimum sentence of six months. It is not even properly mandatory. A court will not have to hand down the sentence; it will be up to the judge to decide, given the circumstances of the case or the offender. Knife crime is a persistent and worrying concern, and it impacts in particular on young people and the disadvantaged. It is unclear how this hollow proposal will help communities blighted by knife crime.
Two other headline grabbers—squatting and self-defence against burglars—are not even in the Bill, but as the Justice Secretary has admitted today, the provisions on self-defence will not be a new law; they are just a reiteration of the existing law. This is yet another chapter in a rather depressing story that has been repeated since May 2010: a string of broken promises on criminal justice. Before the election, there was a commitment to match Labour’s prison building programme. Instead, spend has been slashed to almost zero. The Tories promised minimum and maximum sentencing, but that has now also been ditched, and the electorate were promised that those caught carrying a knife would face the presumption of jail, yet what we have been presented with is entirely different.
Let me also give an accurate account of our record. The Justice Secretary inherited levels of crime that were 43% lower than in 1997; crime went down under Labour. He inherited a system with a greater focus on diversion for those with mental health problems and drug dependencies. He inherited a capital programme upgrading and expanding our prison estate. He inherited innovative payment-by-results schemes, including the one he now boasts about in Peterborough. Reoffending, particularly among young people, fell under Labour, thanks to investment in effective intervention programmes now threatened by his Government. This Bill risks all that progress.
That has generated an impressive coalition opposed to the plans, from the judiciary, victims groups, legal organisations, charities that act on behalf of some of the most vulnerable in society, and some of the Justice Secretary’s own party’s Back Benchers—but not, I note, from the Liberal Democrat Benches. Briefing note after briefing note from organisations as diverse as Scope and Justice demonstrate that the Prime Minister’s perceived rescue of the justice Bill is fooling no one.
I support penal reforms, but these are the wrong reforms: carelessly thought out, badly framed, confusingly argued, weakly handled and grossly under-resourced from the start. It will be communities around the country that suffer.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I am glad to hear that the right hon. Gentleman is in favour of penal reform, but he has not, so far as I am aware, made a single suggestion on that. Will he give us one or two examples of the liberal reforms that he has in mind?
Sadiq Khan
The right hon. and learned Gentleman will be aware of our progress in relation to mental health, following the Bradley report, which he has now agreed to follow with a reduced budget. He will also be aware of the work done by Corston on diverting women away from prison, and of payment by results. He knows that he has under-resourced the work that we began, and he is putting our strategy at risk.
Shambolic, last-minute changes to the Bill have left a £140 million black hole in the Justice Secretary’s plans. The Prime Minister has said that that money will need to be found within the Ministry of Justice budget, and the Justice Secretary admitted this morning that he is not sure where he will find it. The House needs to know the exact details. The progress of the Bill depends on knowing where that money will come from, and what implications that might have on other spend.
Why do we have this problem? We have it because the Justice Secretary simply failed to argue his corner with the Treasury. He boasted that he did not wish to be involved in a “macho contest” with Cabinet colleagues over who could have the smallest budget cut. The figures are testimony to that: his budget cut of 23% is one of the biggest in Whitehall. As a result, that is how he justifies his ill-thought-out policies. Cuts to prison, probation and the legal aid budget all stem from his lackadaisical attitude towards the Treasury. He needs to realise that he is no longer the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but the Lord Chancellor. His justice policy is retrofitted around his prison population reduction target, which is in turn driven by the 23% budget cuts. Our justice system deserves a better advocate.
Sir Alan Beith
I must conclude, so I shall give way only to the Secretary of State.
Mr Clarke
The reason why we did not deal with that part of Jackson was because the Legal Services Board had taken it on itself to review the future of referral fees. We now have its report and the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), and I are considering referral fees. I take on board what my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) and the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) have been saying.
Sir Alan Beith
I am grateful to the Secretary of State. I know no one who agrees with the Legal Services Board’s conclusions, but I hope that the matter will be considered urgently to see whether the Bill can be used to complete the process of dealing with what is undoubtedly a scandal, which puts up costs for our constituents.
The Bill is part of a necessary process of reform in both sentencing and legal aid, but it needs a great deal of work before it leaves this House and a great deal of monitoring when it comes into force.
Mr Straw
No, of course I will not. The explanatory memorandum makes exactly the same point.
Let me address the issue of indeterminate sentences for public protection. I entirely endorse what my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) has said from the Front Bench. The Secretary of State made one of his sweeping statements, saying that those sentences have been discredited. No, they have not. Who has discredited them? He has, because he has been forced to save money on indeterminate public protection sentences having had to surrender the 50% cut in the bail discount, as he well knows. IPPs have worked.
The Secretary of State comprehensively failed to answer the hon. Member for Shipley yesterday, when the hon. Gentleman said that the reoffending rate for IPPs has been spectacularly successful—of the 1,449 people released, only 11 have reoffended. The Secretary of State laughs, but what we are dealing with here is the most serious offenders who, under the law, are expected to show that they would go straight, if they were released. He is laughing, but the laugh will be on the other side of the Conservatives’ faces when and if his measures go forward and people are released before it is safe for them to be released and they commit further offences. He will be the person to blame for that.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
The right hon. Gentleman is referring to the 200 people who have been released, but more than 6,000 of them are still in prison with no idea when or if they are going to be released. Their reoffending rate is, I agree, very low, but that is not a justification for the system. The vast majority of respondents to our consultation regard it as something of a disgrace that the measure has been put on to the statute book and is working in this way.
Mrs Grant
The problem is that not all cases can be mediated, and the difficult ones—the ones that we are dealing with—usually end up in court anyway.
The plans have telephone advice as an alternative to a trusted and recommended solicitor, but the law is complicated. The law can be an ass, and it is not easy to understand. Having tried to explain maintenance pending suit or some other aspect of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 to a frightened and vulnerable litigant, I can tell hon. Members that it makes clients feel frustrated and confused and leaves solicitors feeling quite inadequate.
The plans badly impact on women, especially in the categories of family, education and housing law. Some 75% of domestic violence victims are women, 90% of single parents are women, and 97% of those who are eligible for child maintenance are women. Women are more likely to be in non-unionised jobs, and men are more likely to be financially better off and able to pay privately.
Over the years, my firm has looked after about 14,000 clients in south London, Surrey and west Kent. The family profile that I describe is, sadly, not unusual. One mother presented with some learning difficulties and a history of self-harm and drug abuse, but says that she is now clean. She has three children, all girls, with three different fathers. The father of the eldest daughter sought a residence order and a contact order. Mother and daughter were resistant in view of the father’s history of bullying and drunkenness. There were no previous injunction orders, but many police call-outs. All the girls were having problems at school, and the middle daughter had been diagnosed with ADHD—attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The school had threatened suspension due to disruptive behaviour. The mother was on income support and was being chased by loan sharks due to debt. She was feeling suicidal and was on antidepressants. All the children were on the child protection register.
When I took instructions from that lady, judging by her physical appearance and demeanour, I thought that she was about 50. It was only when I asked her for her date of birth that I realised that she was just 25 years old. Under the current plans, that highly vulnerable woman would not be entitled to help with residence and contact applications, debt problems or her children’s educational difficulties. That is what family life is like for many in our country. Those are the people who rely on the family courts and legal aid to resolve their problems. Tragically, the children growing up in such families are watching and learning bad behaviour, have absent boundaries, and are breeding future generations of victims and perpetrators. It is a vicious circle.
Legal aid cost £500 million in 1982. The cost is £2 billion today. I make no case for ring-fencing from the cuts, and I see a genuine need for reform.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I have a high regard for my hon. Friend’s expertise on the issue, which greatly exceeds mine as a result of her practice. The case that she makes is moving, but surely such things do not lend themselves to litigation. Our argument is not that we will leave such people with no support at all, but that legal advice and litigation are not the best way of proceeding to resolve important social and family problems of the kind that she describes.
Mrs Grant
If matters such as residence and contact can be resolved without litigation, as they sometimes are, that is a good thing. Unfortunately, a woman in the situation that I have described and a man who has historically been difficult, drunken and abusive might not, regrettably, be able to sort things out.
We must accept that the past 50 years have created a social mess, caused largely by the demise of the family unit and stalling social mobility. We cannot pull the rug from under the feet of 500,000 people who have no genuine alternative. Civil liberty is about the freedom of our nation; civil legal aid is about protecting citizens. For some, civil legal aid is the only sword and shield in their armoury. We must therefore wear kid gloves when handling that delicate aspect of the public purse. For all the above reasons, I hope that further significant changes will be made to this important Bill in Committee and on Report.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
I want to speak today about legal aid and social welfare law, not because I am an expert in either, but by drawing on my many years’ experience in education and my year as a new MP. Before that, however, I want to comment on today’s debate. As with many debates, some hon. Members have popped in, ranted a bit and left, but overall this afternoon I have sat through some of the most informed and thoughtful contributions that I have ever heard in the House. They have come from Members on both sides of the House and indicate the level of concern on both sides. It was a shame that the Lord Chancellor was not here for the contributions from his colleagues the hon. Members for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) and for Dewsbury (Simon Reevell).
New Independent Assessor of Compensation for Miscarriages of Justice
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
I am pleased to announce the appointment of the right hon. Dame Janet Smith DBE as the new independent assessor of miscarriages of justice compensation under section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. The assessor is appointed under schedule 12 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988.
The assessor’s role is to assess the amount of compensation to be paid under section 133 once Ministers have decided that the eligibility criteria are met. Neither Ministers nor civil servants play any role in the assessment of compensation and I am required by section 133 (4) to accept the award made by the assessor. The assessor plays no role in deciding whether an applicant is eligible under section 133.
Dame Janet, who retired as an Appeal Court judge in May, replaces Lord Brennan of Bibury QC who has held the position since 27 July 2001 and whose term of office comes to an end on 26 July 2011. Lord Brennan indicated that he did not wish to be appointed for a further term. Dame Janet will take up her appointment on 1 July, which will initially be for two years.
The assessor is an “office holder” rather than a public appointment so the appointment rules of the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments (OCPA) are not required to be followed.
However, in considering who should be appointed to the role, I consulted the Lord Chief Justice and he recommended Dame Janet. I was delighted to accept his recommendation.
Dame Janet is eminently qualified for the role. She has extensive experience of the assessment of damages in personal injury litigation. As a former lady justice of appeal she will continue the robust independence which her predecessors have brought to the role. As well as my full confidence, she will have the confidence of applicants and their representatives.
Finally, I am extremely grateful to Lord Brennan for the very high level of service he has provided over the past 10 years.
Ministerial Correction
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
I refer to the debate following my oral statement on sentencing reform and legal aid, 21 June 2011, Official Report, column 165.
In my response to the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), regarding a reduction in foreign national prisoners at column 173, I gave an indicative comparative figure stating that there are now 1,000 fewer FNPs than when the previous Government left office.
I would like to correct the information I gave. As of 31 March 2011, there were 10,745 FNPs—622 fewer than on 31 March 2010, when there were 11,367 FNPs.
As I said in the debate, the Ministry of Justice continues to work with the UK Border Agency to remove FNPs at the earliest possible opportunity.
In my response to the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris), on the issue of legal aid funding for clinical negligence claims at column 174, I stated that 80% of clinical negligence cases are currently undertaken on a no win, no fee basis.
I would like to correct the information I gave. The precise data I now have, from the NHS Litigation Authority, show that in 2008-09 5,245 claims for clinical negligence were received by the NHSLA. Of the 3,993 clinical negligence cases where the type of funding was known, 1,821 (46% of cases where funding type was known) were funded by no win, no fee conditional fee agreements, 1,145 (29%) were funded by legal aid, 632 (16%) were self-funded, and 395 (10%) were funded by “before the event” legal expenses insurance. I understand from the NHSLA that the cases where funding type was not known are unlikely to be CFA-funded. Although the NHSLA covers clinical negligence cases against NHS bodies in England only, there is no reason to suggest that the breakdown of funding arrangements for all clinical negligence cases in England and Wales is significantly different.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
We have begun work to improve access to local criminal justice statistics. For example, criminal justice and sentencing statistics are now broken down to court level and are available online. In terms of individuals, pre-sentence reports provide the court with details of a defendant’s offending history and compliance with any previous sentences.
Mr Hollobone
That is not quite what I am after. Although it is important to have judicial independence, surely it is not beyond the wit of the Department that each judge and each magistrate should be given an annual report card on the effectiveness of their sentencing decisions. If they have given out a string of sentences and the convicts have reoffended regularly, that judge or magistrate will know that something is wrong with their approach.
Mr Clarke
As I said, we have begun work, and that is certainly an interesting suggestion. A massive amount of data would be involved in providing every judge and magistrate with full information about everybody they had ever sentenced, but I agree that we should consider the feasibility of doing so. I gather that someone in Seattle advocates that and has given interesting evidence to the Select Committee on Justice.
Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
There is considerable evidence that judges do not know enough about what happens once they sentence prisoners and those sentences have been disposed of. Will the Justice Secretary do what he can to increase the experience obtained by judges of those disposals and will he ask the Sentencing Council to advise, with a particular focus on what works in preventing offending and reoffending?
Mr Clarke
The Sentencing Council is already under a duty to provide information about the effectiveness of sentencing practice and I am sure that it supplements that advice and information in every possible way. As I have said to my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), we will certainly consider the feasibility of doing such a thing, as it would be valuable, but we are talking about a vast number of cases and not every judge will find it possible to find out exactly what happened in later years to everybody who appeared before him.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
4. What steps he plans to take to protect the public from persons convicted of violent offences.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
6. What progress has been made on the proposals in his Department’s rehabilitation revolution Green Paper.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
The Government published our response to the Green Paper last week and I made a statement to the House about it. We have also introduced the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill to give effect to proposals that require primary legislation. We will debate the Second Reading of that Bill tomorrow.
Tony Baldry
We need to encourage charities and social enterprises to invest in helping offenders and ex-offenders with their rehabilitation. In addition to payment by results, could my right hon. and learned Friend consider introducing Lord Chancellor’s awards for those charities, non-governmental organisations and social enterprises that are among the best at helping to support rehabilitation and prevent reoffending?
Mr Clarke
We all wish to give support to the many people who, through voluntary or charitable activity, try to help society as a whole by tackling the reoffending and rehabilitation problems of ex-offenders, so I shall certainly consider my hon. Friend’s interesting suggestion. I would love to give Lord Chancellor’s awards to a large number of worthy people, but unfortunately, the financial crisis that the Government have inherited does not enable me to give an instant response to his idea.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Surely the Secretary of State has gone backwards. He has done a U-turn on early guilty pleas; he is reviewing his review on indeterminate imprisonment for public protection; and he has made massive cuts to probation services. I have had letters from probation services, and in Gloucestershire the cut is 7.9%, in West Yorkshire, it is 9.8%, and in Kent, it is a staggering 13.6% this year. How can we have a rehabilitation revolution if there are no community resources?
Mr Clarke
As the hon. Lady knows, we are debating the Bill tomorrow, which is enormous—I apologise for that—and has huge implications, but we are having to reform fundamentally a criminal justice system that does not help society as it should, because it does not cut reoffending. We are having to reform on a very wide scale a legal aid and civil justice system that encourages unnecessary litigation and is not particularly user-friendly. We have taken over a mess, and we are going in for massive reform of it. We may have changed quite a lot of proposals in light of consultation, but the underlying need for a balanced package of radical reform is certainly there, and we will tackle it.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
According to the Ministry of Justice, the number of people released from prison after serving an indeterminate sentence was 206 at the end of last year. The number who have reoffended since they were released is just 11—a reoffending rate of 5%. The Lord Chancellor says that what is most important to him in the criminal justice system is reoffending rates, so why on earth does he want to scrap the single part of the criminal justice system that is best at reducing reoffending?
Mr Clarke
About 200 people have been released, but 6,000 are in prison serving indeterminate sentences, and we are adding about 80 a month. They are released only when they can demonstrate to the Parole Board that they are a minimal risk to society—that is the present test—but in a prison cell they find it almost impossible to satisfy that test, so they are in a Catch-22 situation. We need long, determinate sentences for serious criminals; that is the way that the criminal justice system works. The experiment introduced by the previous Government has most undoubtedly failed; we will have one in 10 of the prison population serving indefinite sentences if we do not find a better alternative soon.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
May I welcome the thrust of the Green Paper, and ask the Lord Chancellor or his officials to meet User Voice, a group that consists of ex-offenders who are very keen to work with the Ministry of Justice, and to work with current offenders to stop them taking a path of crime?
Mr Clarke
I am sure that I can arrange for one of the team to have a meeting with that interesting organisation. A large number of ex-offenders—not too many, but some—do very valuable work in stopping other people making the mistakes that they made. The social impact bond financing the payment-by-results contract that we have with Peterborough prison is largely delivered by an organisation called St Giles Trust, which has an excellent record of using ex-offenders as mentors. Anything that we can do to encourage that, where there are suitable ex-offenders who really are able to give valuable advice, would certainly be welcomed.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
A national inquiry, “Community or Custody?”, commissioned by Make Justice Work, has highlighted the success that effective alternatives to custody can have in tackling reoffending and diverting petty criminals from a life of crime. Does the Secretary of State expect his proposals to lead to a reduction in the number of offenders serving short-term prison sentences for non-violent offences and a rise in the number of those involved in tough community sentence programmes?
Mr Clarke
We need the right sentence for the individual circumstances of each offender. I have never suggested that we get rid of all short-term sentences of imprisonment because sometimes magistrates and others have absolutely no alternative, but we are interested in strengthening community punishments and giving more confidence to magistrates and the public that those can have a genuine effect. We are proposing to strengthen the community payback scheme, which is unpaid work. Improving the extent to which tagging and curfews are available is one part of trying to make sure that, where they are likely to work, non-custodial community sentences are employed with some confidence by the courts concerned.
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
7. What assessment he has made of the potential effect on group action litigation against multinational corporations of his proposals for reform to civil litigation.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
15. What recent representations he has received on the breach of court orders by those entitled to assert parliamentary privilege.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
We have received correspondence from a number of hon. Members on behalf of their constituents, raising issues relating to privacy and the use of anonymity injunctions and super-injunctions. In some instances this has included reference to statements made in Parliament concerning the identity of individuals who have obtained injunctions.
Stephen Phillips
I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor for that answer. He will share my concerns, and those expressed by the Lord Chief Justice, at the recent breaches of court orders by Members of this House, and indeed Members of the other place. The rule of law and the separation of powers require that we observe the self-denying ordinances to which we are subject, so may I ask whether my right hon. and learned Friend intends to have any discussions with the Speakers of both Houses on the subject, and if so, what the nature of those discussions will be?
Mr Clarke
This is obviously a point of concern. I agree that essentially it should be a matter for both Houses of Parliament, and Members of both Houses, to address themselves. As a parliamentarian as well as a member of the Government, I defend absolutely the rules of parliamentary privilege, but we have to consider whether it is a proper use of parliamentary privilege to defy court orders. I hope that the matter will be urgently addressed, as we all have to come to some conclusions on it.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
16. What recent representations he has received on his proposal to reduce sentences for certain offences for offenders who enter an early guilty plea.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
The proposal to increase to 50% the maximum sentence discount for a guilty plea at the first opportunity produced numerous responses when it was canvassed in the Green Paper “Breaking the Cycle”. The majority of those who commented were not in favour, including the judiciary, whose opposition was especially influential in persuading me that we should not proceed.
Bob Stewart
Can the Secretary of State assure the House that when a defendant pleads guilty at the last minute because he has been presented with overwhelming evidence against him, judges will still have discretion not to give him the maximum statutory sentencing discount of 33%?
Mr Clarke
I am glad to say that the guidelines have always said that, and it was never my intention to propose any change. The guidance on sentence reductions for guilty pleas recommends that a last-minute plea should attract no more than a 10% discount. It also says that where the prosecution case is overwhelming, even an early plea should receive less than the maximum, and recommends 20%. That is obviously a sensible rule. There is some discount because we are still saving the victim and witnesses the ordeal of going into the witness box, but the current one third, let alone 50%, is obviously far too generous for someone caught red-handed.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
If the Justice Secretary’s aim is to spare the victim, why does he not turn things round and insist on an additional sentence for offenders who waste court time in the face of overwhelming evidence and subject victims to further hurt by their behaviour in court?
Mr Clarke
It is simply a result of the culture of the last 50 years, at least, that this has always been described as a “discount” for a guilty plea. Most of the general public do not appreciate that a discount applies. If members of the public are asked whether a discount on the sentence should be given for someone who pleads guilty early, they say no. But if they are asked, “Should someone who puts the victim through the ordeal of the witness box get a longer sentence than someone who pleads guilty?” they answer yes. Because we could not find a resolution to the risk of some of the more serious offences attracting too short a period in custody, and judicial discretion could not be devised to cover that, we have now decided to stick with the long-standing process whereby a one-third discount is available for an early guilty plea.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
17. What steps he plans to take to reduce rates of reoffending.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
On Thursday the Government signalled their intention to lead by example by launching a new dispute resolution commitment. From now on, Government Departments and agencies are committed to using better, quicker and more efficient ways of resolving legal disputes, and to seeking alternatives to court action wherever possible. The commitment will save time, money and stress for those involved, and will reduce the number of cases unnecessarily clogging up the courts. This is an important part of our commitment to make the justice system radically more user-friendly and to cut down on the amount of expensive, painful and confrontational litigation in our society.
Mr Raab
I thank the Justice Secretary for that reply. Getting offenders clean of drugs is one of the best ways to get them to go straight on release. What progress has the Justice Secretary made in reducing the previous Government’s excessive reliance on methadone prescriptions, and increasing abstinence-based drug rehabilitation in our prisons?
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
Last week the Prime Minister announced the Justice Secretary’s new law on self-defence. However, there is no mention of it in the Green Paper, the Government response or the 119-page Bill. Is the Justice Secretary aware that the Director of Public Prosecutions is on record as saying that the current guidelines, which permit people to use reasonable force to protect their property, work well? Will he spell out how his proposal differs from the current law?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
We intend to clarify the law on self-defence by amending the Bill at the earliest possible stage. We are finalising the drafting of that. Essentially, we are clarifying the law. It will still be based on a person’s undoubted right to use reasonable force when they choose to defend themselves or their home against any threat from an offender.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
T2. Although I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend’s policy to create drug-free wings in our prisons, does he agree with me, and my constituents, that the whole of our prison estate should be completely free of illegal drugs? Will he explain to my constituents how that can be achieved?
Mr Clarke
I would love to announce just such a policy. My hon. Friend probably shares my comparative amazement that drugs are so readily available in our prisons. The fact is that that is so endemic in the system that we have to start from where we are. We have a definite programme to introduce drug-free wings. As soon as we establish those successfully, a prime objective of the Government is to eliminate the presence of drugs and to establish proper rehabilitation of offenders that does not depend simply on maintenance and methadone.
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
T5. To return to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), the Prime Minister said that there would be provisions on self-defence included in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, but the Bill as it stands is silent on the issue. Michael Wolkind QC, who represented Tony Martin, says that allowing householders to use any force that is not grossly disproportionate would amount to “state-sponsored revenge”. Can the Justice Secretary clarify how his legislation will differ from what is currently in place?
Mr Clarke
The Prime Minister was not advocating state-sponsored revenge, nor is anybody else. What we are doing is clarifying in statute the basis upon which people can use reasonable force to defend themselves in their property. [Interruption.] I am not quite sure what aspect of that Labour Members seek to oppose, but I think they will be reassured when they see the amendments that we propose to introduce.
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
T4. What steps is my right hon. and learned Friend going to take to ensure that the Government send out the strongest possible message on knife crime?
Jim Dobbin (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab/ Co-op)
T7. The Youth Justice Board has support right across the political spectrum. Indeed, the House of Lords voted to retain it. I cannot understand why a Government who pride themselves on listening to the people cannot do a U-turn that, on this occasion, would be popular.
Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)
T6. Last week I visited HMP Hewell in Worcestershire, where I met the restorative justice manager Clifford Grimason. He showed me the excellent work that has been done there with prisoners. Will the Secretary of State join me in commending HMP Hewell, and Cliff and his team, who have been working together with Conservative-controlled Redditch borough council on innovative schemes to help get prisoners ready to go out into the world of work?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I am sure that my hon. Friend’s description of that work is correct, and I readily commend the work that is being done there and in other places. The main feature of the reforms that I am introducing is the concentration on cutting reoffending, which means rehabilitating offenders. I try to avoid giving the impression that nobody is doing that already, but instead of looking to particular spectacular examples, I want to see that running through the whole system. To reduce crime we have to reduce the number of criminals who are going to offend again as soon as they are out of prison, which is an objective of reform that has been missed for many years.
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
T9. In the light of the Ministry of Justice’s own impact assessment, which says that increased criminality, less social cohesion and increased costs are all likely to result from the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, have the costs to other Government Departments been considered and costed? If so, what are they?
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
T8. I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State’s commitment to reducing reoffending rates. Does he agree that increasing the scope of judicial discretion, as outlined in the Bill, will go a long way to help to achieve that?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I do, and I can reinforce my hon. Friend’s point with a remarkable statistic showing how the last Government were falling down in that respect. Some 29% of all sentences for indictable offences in 2010 were given to offenders with 15 or more previous convictions or cautions—up from 17% in 2000. We need a more intelligent and sensible system of sentencing, and I agree that a proper degree of judicial discretion is an important part of the system.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
The Minister will be aware that in October last year, Citizens Advice in Manchester signed a three-year contract with the Legal Services Commission for the provision of community legal services, which involves four new advice centres, one of which is in my constituency. On the strength of that, Citizens Advice entered into a series of leasing and employment obligations. Will he cut through the increasing uncertainty and confirm this afternoon that that contract will be honoured in full?
Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)
Following the Milly Dowler trial, does the Secretary of State agree that measures need to be taken to protect the families of the victims of crime from intensive questioning in court? If a footballer can be afforded privacy from the public arena, cannot the father of a murdered child?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
It is obvious that members of the public generally were appalled by the experience through which that family were put as a result of that criminal trial going ahead and the nature of the defence. Such cases are exceedingly difficult, because any defendant has the right to put forward a defence, however distasteful or distressing that may be to the victims. That sometimes happens. The straightforward process of calling the victim a liar can be extremely offensive to someone who has suffered grievously at the hands of the accused.
The judge has a discretion to cut out all irrelevant and unnecessary lines of questioning. I have no reason to doubt that the judge considered his discretion in that case. The Crown Prosecution Service actually applied for an order to ban the reporting of the relevant pieces of the cross-examination. I respect the decision of the judge, who decided that the principle of open justice should prevail. It was therefore all reported. The newspapers made their own judgments on the extent to which they reported those incidents.
In that case, which was exceedingly distressing, there was never a question of an early guilty plea, but it is useful to remind ourselves of just what an ordeal it can be when victims and witnesses have to go to a court to face someone who is denying the crime.
Mr Speaker
Order. It is not an ordeal to listen to the Secretary of State—indeed, one might almost call it a leisure pursuit—but unfortunately, we have not the time on this occasion to do so uninterrupted.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
Does the Government’s U-turn on shorter sentences, which could have led to a reduction in the prison population, mean that in future under the coalition, any Minister caught in possession of an intelligent idea is likely to be doomed to a brief unhappy ministerial career?
Mr Clarke
I made a few slightly light-hearted remarks about U-turns last time—but the Government have a process of consultation, and this is another Catch-22 situation. If we modify our proposals we are accused of making a U-turn, and if we proceed with our proposals we are accused of being deaf.
We explored every possibility of encouraging more early guilty pleas. We still intend to make such proposals, and some of the legal aid reforms are designed to encourage early guilty pleas. Anything that can be done to get early guilty pleas saves a lot of people distress, and also saves a lot of wasted time and cost for the police, the CPS, the courts and the prisons.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
What message is sent to potential offenders and police officers—one of whom is my own brother—by the guidance of Sir Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, that even the most offensive language used against a police officer will not now result in an offence under public order provisions.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I want to ask about the drug-free wings that the Justice Secretary is introducing in prisons. Will prisoners be able to choose whether they enter a drug-free wing or a wing where drugs are rife?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
It might cost more to send a prisoner to prison than it does to put him in a room in the Ritz hotel, but there are limits to how much choice we give prisoners over the suitability of their accommodation. There will be a process of careful assessment. We wish to spread the provision of drug-free wings and eliminate drug dealing in prisons as rapidly as is practicable.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Will the Secretary of State consider, within a year of the legal aid proposals being implemented, assessing the ability of those on low incomes to access the courts, the availability of appropriately qualified lawyers prepared to undertake publicly funded work, and the sustainability of legal services provided by bodies such as Citizens Advice?
Youth Justice Board (Abolition)
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
I am today announcing further detail on the Government’s plans for the future national governance of youth justice. It is my intention to abolish the Youth Justice Board (YJB) and to bring its key functions into the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the Minister responsible for civil society, the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), will be bringing forward a Government amendment to reintroduce the YJB to schedule 1 (the list of bodies to be abolished) of the Public Bodies Bill currently before this House.
The Youth Justice Board was set up in 1998 to oversee what was then a fractured and immature system. In the past 12 years the system has changed considerably. In response to a lack of cohesion and collaborative working, the YJB has overseen the national roll-out of youth offending teams and the establishment of a distinct secure estate for young people. These core elements of the youth justice system are now fully operational in the local delivery of youth justice. Given these significant improvements, I believe that we no longer require a separate body to provide oversight of the youth justice system.
Effective oversight can be better achieved by bringing this function closer to Ministers; and it is right that Ministers themselves—not unelected officials in arm’s length bodies (ALBs)—should be responsible for youth justice, which is a critical area of Government policy. It is Ministers who should lead and drive forward the work that will result in further reductions in the numbers of young people entering the youth justice system, the numbers of young people reoffending and the numbers of young people in custody. By bringing youth justice closer to Ministers, the new Youth Justice Division I am establishing will be a powerful impetus behind future improvement, will be able to influence policy across Government and will ensure that other Departments play their part in stopping young people from becoming involved in crime and reoffending. An ALB does not have the appropriate policy leverage within Government to effect such change.
The abolition of the YJB will not have an adverse impact on the delivery of youth justice on the ground. The Government intend to retain youth offending teams, which are well embedded in local structures. My Department will also continue to place young people separately to adult offenders in a dedicated secure estate that is driven by the needs of young people. There will be clear ministerial oversight of this.
It is my intention to carry out the main functions of the YJB within a newly created youth justice division in the MoJ. The Youth Justice Division will continue this Government’s focus on meeting the needs of children and young people in the youth justice system and will deliver the main functions of the YJB—overseeing the delivery of youth justice services, identifying and disseminating effective practice, commissioning a distinct secure estate and placing young people in custody.
The Youth Justice Division will be a dedicated part of the MoJ and will sit outside of the National Offender Management Service. It will ensure that the commissioning of the youth justice secure estate and the placement of young people in custody will continue to be driven by people who have a dedicated focus on the needs of young people. The structure will also ensure that youth justice work in the community—primarily conducted by youth offending teams—remains closely linked to work with young offenders in custody. This is at the heart of our ambitions for a “rehabilitation revolution”.
I can confirm that John Drew, the current chief executive of the YJB, has agreed to lead the transition of the YJB into the new Youth Justice Division structure and to continue to lead it beyond that. I am confident that he will ensure there is continuity between the YJB and the new Youth Justice Division. He will also help to ensure that the new organisation is embedded in the MoJ while retaining the experience and expertise of YJB staff.
My Department will also strengthen its focus on youth justice by establishing an advisory board of stakeholders and experts to advise on youth justice issues and to provide expert challenge and scrutiny. In addition, Dame Sue Street, a non-executive director of the MoJ who brings experience and knowledge of youth justice, will be taking an active interest in youth justice within MoJ, and will have a direct route into the Department through the permanent secretary and Secretary of State.
In making this decision I have taken into account the concerns expressed by some interested parties and noble Lords about the abolition of the YJB and our plans for the future governance of youth justice. My Department will consult on the YJB’s inclusion in the Bill over the summer, and I will pay close attention to the responses. My reform proposals are also subject to the progress of the Bill through Parliament, and the abolition of the YJB will require me to lay an order, subject to affirmative resolution process. This proposal has therefore already been widely discussed with stakeholders and will continue to be subject to consultation and to full and appropriate parliamentary scrutiny.
Sentencing Reform/Legal Aid
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
With permission, Mr Speaker, and further to the written ministerial statement I laid in the House earlier today, I would like to make a statement.
Last autumn, the Government launched two consultations on far-reaching plans to reform punishment, rehabilitation and sentencing of offenders, and on legal aid in England and Wales. Today I have laid before Parliament the government’s responses to those consultations. I will also introduce the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill to give effect to the measures we are taking forward that require primary legislation.
Protecting the public from crime and punishing lawbreakers are the most fundamental responsibilities of the state towards its citizens. The sad truth is that after 13 years of government, over 20 criminal justice Bills, more than 3,000 new criminal offences and an explosion in the prison population, Labour left the system in crisis. Most of our prisoners spend their time behind bars idling in their cells, with ready access to drugs. A bigger scandal still is our reoffending rates, which are straightforwardly dreadful. Within a year of leaving jail, half of offenders will have been reconvicted of further offences. The same people cycle round the system endlessly, committing more crimes against more victims. The best way to reduce crime is to reduce reoffending, and that remains the central feature of our programme of radical reforms.
Prisons must be places of both punishment and reform. Today I can confirm that we plan to deliver a full working week across the prison estate. We will legislate to extend powers to use money earned by prisoners to support victims. We have never proposed that community sentences should replace prison sentences, but we will introduce tougher, properly enforced community punishments whereby offenders work longer hours, unpaid, at least four days a week.
Drug abuse lies behind much, if not most, criminality in this country. It is not acceptable that drugs are too readily available in prison. We are taking forward plans to reduce addiction across the prison estate by improving security and introducing drug-free wings in jails. We must tackle other root causes of criminality, particularly alcohol addiction, mental illness and a lack of skills, but we will ensure that we put taxpayers’ money only into rehabilitation programmes that actually work.
Public confidence in the criminal justice system is unacceptably low. That is why we want to take forward plans for a new offence, with a mandatory minimum prison sentence of six months, for adults who use a knife to threaten and endanger. We will also consult on proposals to criminalise squatting, and we will bring forward legislation to clarify the law on self-defence. In addition, I can confirm our intention to improve the use of remand and reduce the number of foreign national prisoners in our jails.
Discounts for early guilty pleas have been part of the criminal justice system for decades, for good reason, and we consulted on changes to that system. Personally, I was particularly impressed by the representations of the senior judiciary and other criminal justice experts who said that increasing the maximum discount on offer for a guilty plea at the earliest possible stage might result in the sentence served being too short in some serious cases. I was hoping to address that problem, and I considered doing so by introducing a greater degree of judicial discretion, but we could not make that work. We have therefore decided to retain the present system.
The consultation also produced strong opposition to the indeterminate sentencing framework. It was introduced by the last Government and sold as a way of protecting the public from a small number of the most dangerous offenders, but it has never worked as Parliament intended. It has created a flawed system in which thousands of offenders have already served their normal sentence or tariff, but no one can predict when or if they might ever be released. That is why, as the Prime Minister confirmed this morning, we are reviewing so-called indeterminate sentences of imprisonment for public protection, with a view to replacing them with a more sensible, tough system of long, determinate sentences. That will see judges handing down life sentences in a greater number of very serious cases, including mandatory life sentences for the most serious repeat offenders. Serious sexual and violent offenders will spend at least two thirds of their sentence in prison, rather than being released halfway through. We intend to return to the best aspects of the system before IPPs were introduced in 2005 by new Labour.
I turn to legal aid reform. We have much the most expensive system in the world, except for Northern Ireland, costing £39 per head of population. That compares with, for example, £8 per head in New Zealand, a country with a broadly similar legal system. The last Government consulted on the subject more than 30 times since 2006, and still left us with the mess that we now have to tackle. In some cases the system encourages people to bring issues before the courts when other solutions might be better. In others it enables people to pursue litigation that they would not contemplate were they paying for it out of their own pocket.
Following careful consideration of more than 5,000 responses, I am bringing forward proposals that I believe will ensure access to public funding in the cases that most require it, encourage early resolution of disputes instead of unnecessary conflict and ensure much better value for money for the taxpayer.
I can announce that we will retain legal aid in cases where people’s life or liberty is at stake, where they are at risk of serious physical harm or immediate loss of their home, or where their children may be taken into care. In response to consultation, that will include strengthened provision for victims of domestic violence and for children at risk of abuse or abduction, and the retention of legal aid for special educational needs cases.
Legal aid will no longer be routinely available for most private family law cases, clinical negligence, employment, immigration, some debt and housing issues, some education cases, and welfare benefits. It will also no longer be available for squatters resisting eviction.
We have also decided not to abolish, as we originally proposed, the current capital disregards for pensioners and for equity in the main home in assessing an applicant’s eligibility for legal aid. We will not now introduce a £100 contribution from capital for those assessed as having £1,000 or more disposable capital.
All that amounts to a balanced and sensible package of reforms of the kind that the Government were determined to achieve when we published our proposals and started to consult on them. Our plans mean a return to common sense in the justice system. On legal aid, the overall effect will be to achieve significant savings while protecting fundamental rights of access to justice. On sentencing, we will deliver punishment, protection and a renewed focus on breaking the cycle of crime and reoffending. I look forward to debating the proposals on Second Reading and during the Bill’s subsequent stages.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
I thank the Justice Secretary for advance sight of his statement.
Our justice policy should be about protecting the public, punishing and reforming offenders, being on the side of the victim and bringing crime down. That underpinned our record in government, which led to a 43% fall in crime, reductions in reoffending and serious improvements in youth offending rates. However, the Government demonstrate that that is not what matters in their approach to crime and justice. Instead, it is about cutting cost, despite the impact it could have on communities across the country.
The Government have seen sense and taken heed of opposition to cost-driven proposals to reduce sentences by 50% on early guilty pleas. A coalition of victims, the judiciary, justice groups, the Sentencing Council and victims groups rightly questioned the motivation and effectiveness of that policy. Let us be clear: the policy had been agreed by the Cabinet. I asked the Justice Secretary during the Opposition day debate on sentencing whether the Prime Minister agreed with him. His response was:
“This was an entirely collectively agreed policy”.—[Official Report, 23 May 2011; Vol. 528, c. 672.]
It is therefore no good No. 10’s distancing itself from it. In oral questions last month, the Justice Secretary said that the policy would survive the consultation. Of course, some Government Members voted against our motion—although some had the sense not to—which opposed the proposal on 23 May.
Will the Justice Secretary outline why the Prime Minister ditched the proposal when the Government were so wedded to it only a matter of weeks ago? When was the decision made to change the Bill’s title from the Legal Aid and Sentencing Bill, as it was called up until late last week, to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and—I like this—Punishment of Offenders Bill? What did he hope to achieve by tinkering with the title?
We know from the impact assessment that was provided with the Green Paper that removing the option of remanding offenders in custody for certain cases could save £50 million and 1,300 prison places. I note that that proposal remains. Will the Justice Secretary outline the view of the Magistrates Association on the proposal and say whether he believes that the Police Federation and the Association of Chief Police Officers support the policy?
In the past 13 months, we have seen broken promises on minimum and maximum sentencing, prison building and knife crime. Today the Justice Secretary proposes a new offence of a mandatory custodial sentence for knife possession in aggravated circumstances, with a minimum sentence of six months. Even that proposal is less than that promised to the electorate in the Conservative manifesto, which stated that
“we will make it clear that anyone convicted of a knife crime can expect to face a prison sentence”.
That is still a broken promise, and tinkering with the Bill’s title will not change that.
On indeterminate sentences for public protection, I have consistently questioned the Justice Secretary on how he will ensure the safety of our communities when considering which offenders should be released and when. Again, the impact assessment helpfully tells us that financial savings will be “sizeable”. From that, it is obvious that the focus is saving money, not what is in the public’s best interests. Today we find that the Justice Secretary is to undertake an “urgent review” of IPPs with a view to replacing them. Will he explain to the House why he needs another review when he has had 13 months, a Green Paper and a consultation that he has consistently described as an opportunity to review IPPs?
How does the Justice Secretary reconcile losing thousands of front-line, experienced prison and probation staff with the desire to increase the numbers of offenders diverted into specialist drug, alcohol and mental health facilities, and how does he reconcile that with more prisoners working, because they will clearly need more supervision?
The legal aid proposals have been roundly criticised across the board as devastating social welfare law—[Interruption.] Has the Justice Secretary—[Interruption.]
Sadiq Khan
I am grateful, Mr Speaker.
As I was saying a moment ago, the proposals on legal aid have been roundly criticised across the board as devastating social welfare law. Has the Justice Secretary seriously considered the alternative funding options proposed by, for example, Justice for All? Does he accept that his changes will have a huge impact on the viability of many law centres, citizens advice bureaux and high street practices up and down the country that do an enormous amount to provide access to justice for some of our most deprived citizens? The Prime Minister claims that the whole point of a Green Paper is to listen and to be ready to change one’s mind, so why have the Government made no substantive changes to their proposals on social welfare legal aid?
This morning the Prime Minister said that savings that would have been made by the 50% sentence proposals will be found elsewhere in the Ministry of Justice budget. Can the Justice Secretary explain exactly where those savings will be made and when?
We are seeing cuts to the police and cuts to prison staff and probation trusts, but where is the strategy to cut crime? The Government’s policies on crime and justice are a shambles. We have always known that we cannot trust the Tories on the NHS, but now it seems that we cannot trust the Tories on law and order either.
Mr Clarke
Well, first of all I can confirm what the right hon. Gentleman says: the proposals that I presented for consultation and the Green Paper were the proposals of the Prime Minister, the whole Cabinet and I, and the proposals that I am putting forward today in response to the consultation and the comments that we invited are the responses of the Prime Minister, the whole Cabinet and I. Indeed, we had a discussion at Cabinet this morning. We run a collective Government.
I remind the right hon. Gentleman that we carried him with us on our Green Paper. His reaction to what the Prime Minister and I said at the time—it is all accessible in Hansard—was that this was a
“perfectly sensible vision for a sentencing policy, entirely in keeping with the emphasis on punishment and reform that Labour followed in government”.—[Official Report, 7 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 171.]
We carried him with us then, and I have hopes that if he looks at the consultation and listens to the arguments, we will carry him with us again. If he wants to turn and change his mind, he is free to do so.
Early guilty pleas were a genuine attempt to help victims and witnesses, who are mightily relieved if they hear that the accused decides to plead guilty. Had they worked, they would have saved a very great deal of money and time for the police service and Crown Prosecution Service, as well as for prisons. I do not know quite what the right hon. Gentleman’s view on this is, but I paid particular regard to the legal opinions that I was getting from serious members of the judiciary and others. The arithmetic just went too far in some serious cases. A week or two ago, I said that I thought the proposal would survive, because I thought that by introducing some judicial discretion, I could solve the problem, but I could not. For that reason, the Government are sticking with the present system. That is what consultation is all about.
We have consulted on our remand proposals, and we are pushing on with them. Carrying on with a system whereby people are refused bail when everybody knows they will not be sent for a custodial sentence if they are convicted at their final appearance is simply not the best use of a very expensive place in our prison system. It is cheaper to put our prisoners in the Ritz—and many of them would like to be there—but while the public prefer them to be in prison, we will keep them in prison. Nevertheless, the remand proposals are, I think, extremely sensible.
The proposal on knife possession has been made to send a message about its seriousness. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman expressed an opinion on it, but I would advise him to support this perfectly sensible measure. On IPPs, which I have said we are minded to repeal and replace with a better version of what preceded them, I refer him to the consultation and the attacks on IPPs from sensible people. David Thomas QC, who writes the bible on sentencing so far as criminal law practitioners are concerned—his book on sentencing is the book for those practicing in the courts—described IPPs as an “unmitigated disaster”. We are carrying out a review to decide what will replace them by way of a strong system of determinate sentences that protects the public.
On legal aid, I could rapidly find a quotation from the right hon. Gentleman saying that if the Labour party was in government, it would be cutting legal aid. He has nothing to say on legal aid that challenges the case I made a moment ago. On citizens advice bureaux and other forms of general advice, I hope to be able to say something on Second Reading—I am making advances, but we will see how much we can come forward with. We think there are better ways of resolving problems, and I agree that CABs and other voluntary bodies sometimes provide better advice than adversarial lawyers.
In commenting on the probation service and other matters, the right hon. Gentleman asked where the savings are coming from. I have held protracted negotiations with the Chief Secretary to sort out my Department’s finances, in the light of some of the problems left behind. We have now resolved all those problems. Over this period we will be making £2 billion of savings a year on the total expenditure of my department, and we are looking elsewhere for another £100 million. We are not cutting any particular area but achieving efficiency, and half of that will come from administrative savings. If we have further policies to find the money we are not saving, I will come forward with them. I prefer to proceed with proper policies in joined-up writing upon which I have consulted, and got the approval of, my colleagues, and after that to come to the House. I am now considering how to ensure that the final touches to the major savings we are making in my Department can be achieved in the light of this consultation.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Although the Justice Committee will continue to have concerns about the extent of the legal aid changes, may I press the Justice Secretary on sentencing? Do his Cabinet colleagues recognise that we will protect our citizens from crime not by tough talk or favourable headlines, but by appropriate sentences geared to making offenders face up to what they have done and changing their behaviour? Sometimes resources are required to do that and should not be commandeered by the prison system.
Mr Clarke
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Talking tough is easy and most politicians do it; delivering tough is rather difficult, as the Labour party discovered only too often. I will not use the quotes I have used before—the right hon. Gentleman knows them perfectly well. I agree that prison is of course the right punishment for serious and violent offenders, who will keep being sent there for long sentences whenever that punishment is justified, so that they can make reparation. However, we also tackle crime by trying to reform them, getting more of them to go straight, reducing reoffending and finding other ways of stopping the accumulation of more victims and more crimes committed by people coming through the system. I think that that is accepted by my colleagues. We are giving up the remorseless and hugely expensive increases in the prison population, and looking for a more intelligent way of protecting the public, which is our principal priority.
Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware—he certainly should be because I have told him a number of times—of the dire effect upon my constituents of the action he has taken already in attacking citizens advice bureaux, undermining legal aid and taking the wrecking ball to the South Manchester law centre? Is he further aware that what he has announced today will complete the process of making access to justice a prerogative of the rich?
Mr Clarke
I could answer each of those three things. Most of the cuts being made to citizens advice bureaux and so on are being made by local government; we are not the principal—[Interruption.] The Ministry of Justice is not the principal contributor to citizens advice bureaux. However, as I have already said, the Government as a whole will assist those who give quality, worthwhile advice of the kind required by the very many people who do not need legal aid and an adversarial lawyer, which is not the best way of proceeding.
We have debated court closures before. We inherited more than 100 underused buildings, which I am afraid we had to tackle and rationalise. Our package of legal aid reforms is tackling a system that has become bloated in recent years—a system that the right hon. Gentleman’s Government kept talking about reforming but never did, because an inability to take decisions about exactly what to do about an out-of-control Government was rather typical under the last Prime Minister. When we have finished what the right hon. Gentleman says are draconian reforms, we will still have by far the most expensive legal aid system in the world after I have made our so-called cuts.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
Does the Lord Chancellor agree that it was the last Labour Government who, having introduced IPPs, then changed the law for no other reason than to reduce the prison population? As for the thoroughly good idea that we now scrap IPPs, would we not thereby ensure that the public—the victims and, indeed, the offenders—were better protected and had greater justice?
Mr Clarke
I agree with my hon. Friend. I think that the reason the last Government introduced IPPs was that they were reducing the time of a sentence automatically served from three quarters to a half. They introduced what sounded like a tough measure, with these new indeterminate sentences. However, it immediately went wrong, and they introduced more legislation after two years to try to reduce the numbers. I regret to say that my first effort was to go in the same direction and reduce them even more. I hope that I have my hon. Friend’s support in saying that the best thing is to get rid of them and return to a sensible system of long, determinate sentencing.
Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
The right hon. and learned Gentleman should be aware that part of the problem with his original proposals was his failure to establish the case for community sentences as an alternative to prison. In his statement he refers to new, tough community sentences. Can he describe what the characteristics of a tough community sentence might be?
Mr Clarke
I never advocated—nor did the Government —the replacement, as it were, of short prison sentences with community sentences. I have some very curious opponents in sections of the media, and this was one of the bees they got in their bonnet almost as soon as we started, but we never proposed that. Community sentences need to carry public confidence so that magistrates can consider them properly as an alternative to prison in suitable cases—they do now, but more would. What I have in mind with tougher sentences is better organised sentences, so that, for example, unpaid work—which is one of the best community-based punishments that one can impose—doing genuinely worthwhile things for the community should be better organised and better disciplined. It should not have to be fitted in on the odd day over several years; it should be better organised on the day and based round a pretty normal working pattern of so many hours each week when it is under way. There are plenty of things that we can do—that and making more use of curfews and tagging—to build up public confidence in community sentences, which I am sure the right hon. Gentleman and I both agree would be a good thing to do, but which we would also agree is lacking at the moment.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
What on earth did my right hon. and learned Friend mean when he said that he would introduce drug-free wings in jails? Does he not understand that, for the public, that is an extraordinary statement? They believe that all parts of all jails should be drug-free. To them, this sums up the irretrievably soft attitude of our entire prison system. In particular, will he protect our people—vulnerable old people—from burglars, and promise the House today that all burglars of private dwelling houses will be put in prison?
Mr Clarke
On the first point, I share my hon. Friend’s amazement, as I am sure anyone would on their first introduction to the criminal justice system. The fact is, however, that drugs are very widely available in our prisons, and 9% of people who have taken heroin say that they first did so in prison, where they were introduced to the drug. I am sorry that I have had to refer to “introducing drug-free wings”, but that is what we are proposing to do, and we are going to address the problems of security and rehabilitation in order to do it.
Of course burglary is always a serious offence. It is actually one of those that are rising at the moment, although that has nothing to do with the sentence level. It is going up rather alarmingly compared with a year ago. I regard all burglary, but particularly household burglary, as a very serious offence. In the end, however, the punishment has to fit the particular crime. I shall consider what my hon. Friend has said, but I think that there should be a limit to the number of automatic sentences according to what it says on the label. Proper sentencing should be directed towards what we both agree is the first priority—namely, the proper protection of the public.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
In view of the mistakes that the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s team have made in their policies relating to women, what risks does he see in making domestic violence a gateway to access to legal aid? Does he think that that will make people sceptical about victims’ claims of domestic violence?
Mr Clarke
We have defined domestic violence, and we are not sceptical at all. Indeed, I hope that the hon. Lady will be pleased that we have looked again at this matter and extended legal aid to cases of domestic violence more than we had originally proposed. I think that our policies towards women probably have her fairly wholehearted support. We have a particular policy towards women in prisons; indeed, we are following the policy of the previous Government and the recommendations of Lady Corston. At the moment, the number of women prisoners is going down; it is the number of adult males that is still rising slightly.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Will my right hon. and learned Friend assure the House that, in spite of the proposed changes, support for children will remain, and that legal aid will be available in cases of domestic violence, child abuse, child abduction and enforced child adoption, to ensure that children do not suffer?
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Just so that we can judge the Lord Chancellor’s performance, will he tell us how many fewer foreign national prisoners there will be in our jails in June 2012? Perhaps he could also tell us which new countries he expects to sign agreements with over the next 12 months. From experience, I think that he will find that that is not as easy as he thinks.
Mr Clarke
The right hon. Gentleman will be surprised to learn that there are 1,000 fewer foreign national prisoners now than there were when the previous Government left office. I agree with him that this is very difficult to achieve, although we are pursuing transfer of prisoner agreements, and the new transfer arrangements with the EU are coming into effect. We are also working with the UK Border Agency to try to improve its effectiveness in moving people promptly. We are working at this, and so far, we are doing 1,000 better than he did.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Harlow Welfare Rights and Advice and the citizens advice bureau are deeply concerned about the proposed centralised telephone service for all but emergency cases. Will my right hon. and learned Friend assure us that that will not add an unnecessary level of impersonal bureaucracy or prevent advice from reaching vulnerable people? Will he also look into the availability of legal aid in cases of criminal negligence, so that those who have been harmed can have access to justice?
Mr Clarke
I had better refer my hon. Friend to the consultation document. He has taken up this matter in the past, and we have readdressed the question after listening to his and other people’s recommendations. We have defined much more closely the use of the telephone advice system and concentrated on those areas in which we think that it is of value. When he looks at our response to the consultation in detail, I think he will find that we have gone in the direction that he would have wished.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I note that the Justice Secretary has said that legal aid will no longer be routinely available in clinical negligence cases. That will cause a huge problem: people will be denied justice and compensation after suffering injury or worse as a result of malpractice or clinical negligence. Will he explain his justification for that decision?
Mr Clarke
Well, 80% of clinical negligence cases are already undertaken on a no win, no fee basis. Only 20% by number are done using legal aid. That is why we think that no win, no fee is probably the better way forward, and also why we will implement Sir Rupert Jackson’s recommendations to ensure that the costs to all parties are kept down and in proportion. Far too often under the pre-Jackson rules, the health service has found itself paying out at least as much in legal costs as in compensation to victims. On the whole, negligence cases have moved steadily towards no win, no fee arrangements for those who cannot afford the fees. That gives wider access, because legal aid is restricted through a very tight means test.
Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
Longer sentences on their own have clearly failed to cap reoffending. May I therefore urge the Lord Chancellor to press ahead with his radical and right-wing plan to get private companies into prisons to deliver serious rehabilitation that actually works?
Mr Clarke
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, with whom I agree. Of course one of the things that we should address is the cost of running prisons. We all want to address the efficiency with which prisons are run, just as much as we wish to address who is sent there and how many we can accommodate. I am glad to say that we have carried out a very successful tendering exercise and saved a lot of money, and I hope also potentially improved the regimes in those prisons. We intend to do the same thing again. Personally, I have no ideological hang-up about whether the successful bidder is a public sector or private sector bidder: we want the best bidder and the best quality regime at the lowest cost. That has to go hand in hand with sentencing reform. This is exciting, but it is also a much better way of running a prison system.
Mr Speaker
Order. May I gently and in a jocular fashion say to the Secretary of State that he should not be like a cruise ship in rotation? The House wishes to hear him. He swivels around, but it is helpful if he faces the House; I would be obliged to him if he did so.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has made much of his desire to have alternative dispute resolution, which he considers to be better—in family law, for example. Presumably, he is thinking of mediation. Has he made any realistic assessment of the costs and of on whom those costs would fall? Will they fall on individuals or will there be some cost to his Department, which might undermine the reductions he hopes to achieve in legal aid?
Mr Clarke
My apologies, Mr Speaker. Probably the problem with my political career is that I have not swivelled enough on occasions.
I believe mediation is a much better way of resolving all kinds of family and other disputes. The taxpayer will continue to pay for mediation; indeed, the mediators will be trained lawyers. Many people will take part in a much better process of resolving disputes. We are planning to increase the amount spent on mediation by £5 million, as the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) tells me, in order to make savings by reducing the amount of unnecessary adversarial litigation that we fund.
Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that mediation is no panacea and that it can fail badly in family cases where there is an imbalance in power?
Mr Clarke
My hon. Friend has much greater expertise on the practice of family law than I do, so I rely on her and listen to her opinions with great attention. I have discussed these matters with her before. We have to get the balance right. At the moment, the generosity of the legal aid system compared with other systems is bringing more things into adversarial litigation than would otherwise be the case. Expansion of mediation is the better way of proceeding, and I hope that my hon. Friend will contribute her expertise to our development of the mediation system.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has spoken about the need for alternatives to the courts, so will he tell us what alternatives are available to victims of human rights abuses by multinationals, as in the Trafigura case, if the success fee on which many of those cases depend is no longer recoverable?
Mr Clarke
If, as I gather from her question, that case was conducted on a no win, no fee basis—I am not sure about that—as I announced a few weeks ago, such cases will become much cheaper for all parties as a result of the changes that we propose to make in the light of Sir Rupert Jackson’s recommendations. Legal aid will still be available in suitable cases concerning human rights. We are not resiling from those areas where the taxpayer needs to finance the small man against the state or the giant administration.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I welcome many aspects of the Justice Secretary’s announcement, including greater clarity on sentencing, measures to tackle drugs, and improvements in the original legal aid proposals. Will he confirm that the Government remain committed to restorative justice, which victims give a high satisfaction rating, to probation, which is key to the tackling of reoffending, and to the not-for-profit sector? Will he confirm that no further cuts will be made in the legal aid budget or the probation service, and that he will work hard to ensure that the not-for-profit sector receives additional funds to support its work?
Mr Clarke
We have recommended the extension of restorative justice from the start. The more I come across it, the clearer it is to me that it is very welcome to victims and can be made very successful. We are continuing unswervingly in that regard, and intend to make more use of the system.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of the probation service in tackling reoffending. We should perhaps try to make the probation service better where it needs improving, but we will not be able to improve reoffending rates if no one is supervising the offenders or their behaviour on licence. I have seen reports suggesting that we are going to fill the so-called gaps in our funding—which are pretty small in comparison with what we are saving overall—by cutting the probation service, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that it has not been singled out more than any other area. We are looking for efficiencies everywhere, but we are not bouncing away from one possibility in order to cut the probation service simply to save money.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
Will the Lord Chancellor reconsider provision for citizens advice bureaux, given that last year my local CAB dealt with 14,000 of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people in my constituency?
Mr Clarke
Only 15% of CAB funding comes from my Department, and about 50% of CABs receive no legal aid funding at all. However, I agree with the hon. Lady about the value of good CABs. Their quality varies, but the best are very good. I am anxious for us to do what we can to strengthen CABs, as are my colleagues in other Departments: we are considering what we can do to help them across Government. I am doing my best, and we will settle on some support eventually. It will not be as much as the CABs want, but I think that we will be able to help.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on listening to the consultation and rowing back on some of the more damaging proposals. There is clearly much in the statement—although by no means all—that we can support. I understand, however, that the Government are proposing to make breaching suspended prison sentences punishable by a fine. Will my right hon. and learned Friend take this opportunity to make clear that only one punishment should be available to anyone who breaches a suspended prison sentence, namely being sent to prison?
Mr Clarke
I am grateful for the kind remarks with which my hon. Friend began his question. It seems that he agrees with a fair number of the judiciary on the proposal for a discount for early guilty pleas, and I hope that he is equally in line with the judiciary on such matters as the abolition of indeterminate sentences. We shall all begin to make some worthwhile progress on the whole field if we collaborate.
Those who breach suspended sentences are normally punished by having to serve the suspended sentence on top of any other sentence that has been imposed. However, all such cases require a little more flexibility. All that we are adding is the possibility of flexibility in some cases. Adding a fine might be preferable to making the total sentence far too long: it might be best to find some other way of dealing with an offender.
Parliament is, of course, entitled to specify sentences, but if we do that in too much detail we will fail to deliver justice, because we will not leave enough leeway and enough options for the judges and magistrates who sit and hear about all the facts of a particular case and all the circumstances of the offender.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Is the Justice Secretary now on probation, and does he anticipate time added on or early release?
Mr Clarke
I think that I have been on probation for the past few decades. Sooner or later I will get the hang of it, but I am working at it. I am not going to launch into a description of reports in the newspapers. I am sure that most of my colleagues envy my ability to get into the headlines, but the truth is rather far away from all that.
The Prime Minister and I, and the Cabinet, have developed these policies together. We have moved along together—[Laughter.] Yes, we have. We were saying the same things about policy 12 months ago, and we are saying the same things about policy today. What matters is whether the policy actually works. These proposals will be judged on whether in three or four years’ time people can see that we have sorted out the appalling mess in the criminal justice system that we inherited from Labour.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
Reducing reoffending will require not only painstaking work in prisons, but working with reoffenders when they leave prison—actually at the prison gate and afterwards. Will my right hon. and learned Friend say a little more about the funding for that, and about how voluntary and community groups will be able to access it to support offenders when they leave prison and in the critical few weeks and months afterwards?
Mr Clarke
That is why we have proposals to improve rehabilitation and reduce reoffending by introducing a payment-by-results system. That will normally involve consortia of people coming together to rehabilitate prisoners, and payment will be based on the results they achieve. The first pilots are already in place: we have contracts in Peterborough and Doncaster, and others are about to start in Manchester and several other local authority areas. Ideally, they will involve, for example, a private sector body raising the capital with a voluntary body and a not-for-profit organisation; they can come together in a suitable consortium, first to start doing something about the offender when he is in prison and then following up on that and trying to make it far less likely that he will reoffend after he leaves prison. The payment-by-results approach to rehabilitation is one of the Government’s most significant innovations in this field, and it is making very good progress.
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the availability of face-to-face welfare advice from advice agencies such as citizens advice bureaux and law centres in 2013 when the Welfare Reform Bill will come into effect at precisely the same time as welfare benefits are removed from scope?
Mr Clarke
I have already stated that I am not in a position today to say what we can do to support citizens advice bureaux and similar organisations providing advice in the legal field and other areas such as welfare. The Government are actively considering that, and I hope we will be in a position to make an announcement soon. Part of the problem is relevant to my field, but it extends into other areas such as welfare reform. The Government are conscious of the fact that we must do something to fill some of the unavoidable gaps that have been left at present, mainly by local authorities being forced to cut the grants they can give.
Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)
This Government inherited the most expensive criminal justice system per capita in the world. As £100 million is being spent on administering legal aid through the Legal Services Commission, and as there are three different departments of the National Offender Management Service all doing separate kinds of commissioning—not to mention the extremely high cost per prison place—may I suggest that there are many areas where savings can be found without cutting front-line services?
Mr Clarke
We are abolishing the Legal Services Commission. One of the most frequent complaints that I get about the system is the sheer bureaucracy, and it has had serious problems in the past. The Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), tells me that we will save £8 million a year simply by bringing this in-house, as we are doing, but we intend to save quite a lot more on the administration of the system than that. It is hopeless, given our prime duty of protecting the public, if we waste money in that area and make it one of the most expensive and fast-growing areas of Government expenditure. We hope to make the system effective and targeted, and for it to do what we should be doing, which is protecting the public from crime and giving access to justice to the vulnerable.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Legal aid is a lifeline to those in need, often at a time of crisis in their lives. This Bill, and Government cuts to local government expenditure, will cut that lifeline to tens of thousands of citizens in Birmingham and threaten the future of our citizens advice bureaux and advice centres. Does the Secretary of State not accept that justice for the better-off alone is no justice at all?
Mr Clarke
That is just a very broad-brush defence of what the hon. Gentleman believes is the need to carry on paying £38 a head per taxpayer for the current legal aid system. Of course some legal aid is absolutely essential—crucial—to the liberties of our subjects and it is one of the standards of our society that we provide legal aid for people in extremis who would otherwise have no means of urging their cause. We have this grand, across-the-board system that finances what we can sometimes see is an inferior way of resolving disputes if we look for better methods of doing so. That will apply in Birmingham as elsewhere. The previous Government knew that the system had to be reformed; they simply could not make up their mind about what they were going to do to reform it. We are making some very well-considered proposals, which have been consulted on and thus modified to a certain extent, for getting the system back to a sensible size.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor said that he had been personally impressed by the representations of the senior judiciary. Given that they said it would not be right as a matter either of principle or of practice to go beyond the maximum discount of one third, who are the wishy-washy liberals who have induced this row and all the fuss and problems that we have witnessed in the press over the past few weeks?
Mr Clarke
We did have quite a lot of support and it was not all from wishy-washy liberals. We also had some opponents who opposed the policy for reasons that I completely disagreed with. I was impressed by the input I got from serious people in the criminal justice system who are all used to discounts for early guilty pleas. Anyone who has ever had anything to do with criminal justice knows that there has always been a discount for pleading guilty early. The public do not know that and they do not like it when they are first told it, but there are good reasons for it. However, a reduction by half proved to be too much and I could not find any other way of resolving the issue and getting over the undoubted difficulties, so if there are any bleeding-heart liberals left who still think we are going to have a reduction by half, I am sorry to disappoint them, but at least my hon. Friend and I are now agreed on where we are.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will be aware that many prisoners have very poor levels of skills and limited work experience. Will he tell us how his plans for prisoner working will improve their employability prospects when they leave prison and what plans he has to link education with prisoner working?
Mr Clarke
I agree with all that the hon. Lady has said and we will try to produce programmes that deliver what she obviously hopes we will do. First, we have all the work experience in prison that we are going to provide. We will try to organise serious work as much as possible with the collaboration of outside businesses which, for social responsibility reasons, are often very attracted to getting involved in this area. The work inside prison should be more meaningful and more like the ordinary disciplines of working life outside. It should, with luck, add to the training and employability of those inside. Then we have to tie in with the Department for Work and Pensions’ Work programme and what it is doing to try to get people skills and employment outside. Having a job to go to greatly increases the chances that an offender might not offend again and have more victims—that they might start to go straight—so this is a very important area and we are proposing to make very significant changes in tackling that side of the problem.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Last year’s Conservative party manifesto stated:
“Many people feel that sentencing in Britain is dishonest and misleading.”
In order to start to restore the public’s trust and confidence in our justice system, if it is a good idea to introduce minimum prison sentences for certain knife crimes, why cannot we have such minimum sentences for other classes of crime?
Mr Clarke
The honesty in sentencing issue concerns the fact that it is not currently explained to people that sentences are likely to involve so much time in prison and a further amount outside on licence but subject to recall. We will see whether we can address that and make people understand more clearly what sentences actually imply. It was the previous Government, not us, who moved the amount of sentences being served from two thirds to half—a move that we intend to reverse in the cases of the most serious sexual offenders and violent criminals when we move away from imprisonment for public protection sentences to a more sensible system of determinate sentences.
Mrs Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
I welcome this latest and expertly executed U-turn from the Government. Cannot the Justice Secretary see that this whole row, as well as the cuts to probation, the cuts to youth offending teams, the banned people being allowed to volunteer in classrooms and the failure to close all the loopholes on the monitoring of sex offenders together create a very ugly picture of the Government’s attitude to victims of crime?
Mr Speaker
Order. I think Opposition Front Benchers have taken some sort of tickling powder. I have been listening with bated breath to the Secretary of State for the best part of 20 years and I want to continue listening to him.
Mr Clarke
We are aiming at a package of radical reform of sentencing to make it more effective in protecting the public, and at the same time making a substantial contribution to reducing the country’s deficit, which is vital to our economic recovery. We consulted on what is a leviathan of a Bill, with a huge range of proposals. We have changed some of it and have come up with what we intended, which is actually a better balanced package of good reform of the sentencing system. It achieves the savings we wanted. When I want to exercise a U-turn in future I shall give the hon. Lady notice, but this is not such a manoeuvre.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
The opportunistic shroud-waving of the Opposition obscures the fact that Labour never enacted the Prisoners’ Earnings Act 1996, which would have allowed victims to be compensated by the work of prisoners. Will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm the welcome news for my constituents that vexatious, long drawn-out and costly taxpayer-funded immigration appeals are coming to an end?
Mr Clarke
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for welcoming our moves on prisoners’ earnings and their use to support victims. I agree that we have too litigious a society, and we should not have a legal aid system that just contributes to it. Our legal aid reforms are much overdue and will get us back to looking at more sensible ways of upholding the rights of citizens and enabling them to settle their disputes.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
Will not this U-turn on sentencing mean that some of the long-term savings planned by the Ministry of Justice will no longer be achievable? If that is the case, which other parts of the justice budget will be cut to compensate?
Mr Clarke
Roughly, the spending reductions we are making are from £9 billion a year to £7 billion a year. The discount for early guilty pleas was meant to contribute about £100 million of that. The move away from indeterminate sentences to a more sensible determinate sentence-based system will in the long run save quite a lot of money, because at the moment thousands of people are in prison and no one has the first idea when or if they will ever get out. Of course we have to readdress the issue, now that we have consulted; we have now settled the financial position with the Chief Secretary and will look for more efficiencies and savings. I am quite confident that we will find them, because so far we are making very good progress in making considerable reductions in the bloated expenditure that we inherited.
Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)
Does the Secretary of State agree with me and my previous experience, not only as a wishy-washy liberal but as a serving police officer, that one of the major barriers to rehabilitating offenders is the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974? Thirty-seven years is quite long enough to wait for a reform. When shall we see it?
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Will there be specific provision in the Bill on children and legal aid? In particular, will children in local authority care be able to access legal aid to challenge the local authority’s decisions?
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
I particularly welcome the plans to introduce a full working week across the prison estate, and the fact that the money earned by prisoners will go towards supporting victims. As a former RAF officer who was involved in convening courts martial, I wonder what opportunity my right hon. and learned Friend has had to look at the work ethic in the military corrective training centre in Colchester.
Mr Clarke
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s welcome for our policy. Let no one underestimate: it is going to be difficult to extend the work ethic and a work programme throughout prisons. It will steadily be achieved and we are embarking on it. There are good examples in the Prison Service now—one or two, where a working week is in place for the prisoners. That needs to be rolled out throughout the estate. I will certainly take advantage of looking at the approach in the military prisons and their work-based ethic, which I understand to be the case, though I have not visited one for many years.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I am beginning to wonder whether it was a mistake to separate the Ministry of Justice from the Home Office, because we now seem to have one Ministry for arresting people and another for letting them go. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman wants to get rid of his reputation as a wishy-washy liberal, will he go the whole hog and rename his Bill the “Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (Hang ’em, Flog ’em and Birch ’em) Bill”. That might satisfy Members on the Conservative Benches.
Mr Clarke
I have to admit that I thought that was a rather extraordinary way of reorganising the Departments when it was first done, and so did the judges. They greatly resisted going into the Ministry of Justice because they could see that the vast explosion of expenditure on prisons would crowd out the budget for the courts. The Ministry of Justice is a bit like a nest with a cuckoo in it—[Interruption.] It is not me. The previous Government kept feeding the Prison Service—exploding the Prison Service—and then cutting expenditure on every other aspect of the Department’s activities as it was thrown out of the nest. We need to stabilise the prison population, get the costs under control, use it more effectively and have a more intelligent way of working with the rest of the Department to deliver things.
The long-term future of the Department will be looked at. In my experience, the reorganisation of Departments hardly ever achieves any worthwhile objectives, whatever the Prime Minister of the day thought he was achieving. Too much confusion is caused by moving them all around and it is best to stick with the structure that we have, but I would not have gone for the present structure in the first place, if I had had anything to do with it.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
Even after these changes, we will be spending between four and 10 times as much on legal aid as other countries, some with similar jurisdictions to ours. Does this not imply that there is a structural issue in parts of our legal system, and is there not more that we could do to address this structural issue in the years ahead, in which case we would make real savings?
Mr Clarke
My hon. Friend talks common sense about where we are with the legal aid system. I still think it is important to have a legal aid system to enable vulnerable people and people at serious risk to protect their rights, even when they cannot afford a lawyer, but there are plenty of other things wrong with the justice system. We are bringing forward proposals to try to improve the efficiency of the courts. At present the courts provide a daunting experience to any member of the public who finds himself unlucky enough to have to go through any form of litigation. The delays, waste of time and cost are almost endemic in the system.
We are tackling the efficiency of the criminal justice system—that applies to the civil justice system just as much—to try to ensure that the whole legal process becomes part of the public service and is there to be used by people who have to use it, or have to do justice, with rather more efficiency and rather less daunting waste and inconvenience than is often the case at present. The costs must be brought down through large parts of the service.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor is a respected parliamentarian. It has become increasingly clear during the statement that he does not agree with the sentencing policy that the Prime Minister has foisted on him in relation to the reduction of sentences. Why does he not be honest, be true to himself, retain respect and tell the Prime Minister where to go?
Mr Clarke
The Prime Minister, other colleagues in the Government and I have all had perfectly reasonable discussions about the criminal justice system. We all presented a package of proposals for consultation and we are presenting the same package today in response to that consultation. This is a sensible way of running a Government. I realise that politics has become a branch of the celebrity culture, but the idea that what is really interesting is whether the Prime Minister and I are arguing or whether the Prime Minister and I are agreeing is largely obscuring what I think is an extremely positive package of proposals which, after consultation, is better fitted to meet the aspirations that we all had when we embarked on the policy in the first place.
Jessica Lee (Erewash) (Con)
It is a sad fact that half of adults leaving prison are reconvicted within a year of release, a legacy of the previous Government. I therefore welcome the proposal for a work programme for offenders in prisons. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that this should surely provide prisoners with a brighter future and prevent them from becoming a menace to society again, not least to the law-abiding citizens of Erewash?
Mr Clarke
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The figure she repeats—one in two ex-offenders will be caught and convicted within a year of leaving prison—is truly extraordinary. I agree that proper change is needed. We need to protect the public from the worst of that, and where prisoners have the gumption to respond and try to get themselves out of their way of life and become honest citizens again, we should make more of them do so. I am sure that that would be appreciated in Erewash, as it would across the rest of the country.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State invited us to look at what the situation will be four years down the line. Does he not expect there to be a larger and more expensive prison population, with prisoners serving very long sentences for some of the offences for which he is increasing the tariff, and that there will be a large number of people denied access to legal aid, fewer advice services, fewer CABs and a lot of people very disgruntled that justice is not available to them because they are too poor?
Mr Clarke
I always believe that policy is best judged by results and that half the fuss that surrounds policy making completely fails to predict what will go right and wrong thereafter. I firmly believe—I am quite confident—this package of policies will not have the results that the hon. Gentleman fears, but we will both know in four years’ time. The whole purpose of the policies is to achieve the precise opposite of what he holds up as a possible outcome. We had to have radical reform, and it has to be carried forward in a business-like and sensible way to deliver a criminal justice system and access to civil justice of the kind we require.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
My constituents will welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement today that serious sexual offenders, such as those recently convicted for rape and assault in Barton street and Eastgate street in Gloucester, will now serve two thirds of their sentence in jail, rather than half. They will also welcome the fact that illegal immigrants will no longer have access to taxpayer-funded legal aid. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that successful drug and alcohol rehabilitation programmes run by organisations such as the Nelson Trust near my constituency in Stroud have an important role to play in these new policies?
Mr Clarke
I agree with my hon. Friend. It is far more sensible to have an appropriate determinate sentence, and serious sexual and violent offenders—those serving longer sentences—should go back to having to serve two thirds before being eligible for release. Indeed, if the Parole Board thinks that they should not be released, they should probably serve their whole term. That is far superior to the lottery of the IPP that we have at the moment. I strongly agree that we must do something to encourage the many people in the voluntary sector who want to work with ex-offenders and can successfully help those who can be rehabilitated to get themselves out of a life of crime.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Parliamentarians on both sides of the House will welcome not only the Secretary of State’s statement, but the whole process. To be helpful to him, I wonder whether he could solve the economic problem overnight by sending the 11,000 foreign nationals incarcerated in prisons in England and Wales back home on a plane tomorrow and forget their human rights.
Mr Clarke
There are some measures in the consultation on the release of foreign national prisoners after they have served their tariff and conditional cautions for people who go away on the basis that we will not let them come back. Those are intended to reduce the rather ridiculous proportion of foreigners in the prison population. We are working with the UK Border Agency on the difficult problem of how to get people out of the country when they have no papers and the receiving country will not take them. My instincts are entirely those of my hon. Friend’s. It is quite absurd that 13% of the prison population are foreign nationals and we must work to get that figure down.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
On legal aid for medical negligence cases, can the Secretary of State reassure the House that he has made an assessment and we are not going to end up transferring additional costs to the NHS Litigation Authority?
Mr Clarke
Obviously, the NHS Litigation Authority has been involved in our consultation, but at the moment I see no reason why that should be the consequence at all. Indeed, I think—I hope—that the NHS will be spared some of the more speculative litigation that has taken place, whereby people really hope that somebody will pay a kind of settlement to avoid incurring the further costs of resisting the claim. In genuine cases, we have to ensure access to justice, of course, because clinical negligence claims are very important, and we think that the no win, no fee system, as modified, is the best way of doing so.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor said in his statement, “Public confidence in the criminal justice system is unacceptably low,” and sadly that is the case. Does he agree that only when sentencing policy more truly reflects public opinion will that confidence return?
Mr Clarke
Of course, and that is why I have stressed some of the measures that we are introducing today to try to send the right messages about serious violent and sexual crime and about knife crime. No sensible or civilised person in this country suggests anything other than serious punishment for crimes of that kind.
It is very difficult to win public confidence, because in the course of an ordinary life most people’s contact with the criminal justice system is very sporadic indeed, so most people do not know anything about indeterminate sentences, discounts for early guilty pleas or any of the things that we talk about here. I have a rather sad feeling that for as long as I can remember opinion polls have always said that people think sentences are too short and the criminal justice system is too lax, but, on sensible public opinion, we are their servants and we are trying to reassure them that the criminal justice system will, indeed, protect them, as it should do.
Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that time in prison should be time well spent and, therefore, that education and training, rather than just leaving prisoners to languish in their cells, is absolutely essential?
Mr Clarke
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, who has expertise in that subject, and I am working very closely with my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department for Work and Pensions. What they are doing to improve the training and work opportunities of people in this country has to include ex-offenders, and we have to ensure that in parallel we do more to get our ex-offenders settled in work wherever the ex-offender is prepared to make the effort to get into honest employment.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and, in particular, the abolition of legal aid for squatters resisting eviction. Can he clarify how much was spent on that in the past 10 years?
Mr Clarke
No. I shall have to write to my hon. Friend with that information, but I am grateful for his welcome. I do not know whether anyone would oppose this, but it is plainly wrong to make legal aid ordinarily available to people who, by definition, are squatting in properties for which they do not have a legal claim.
Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
Although I acknowledge the need for cuts to legal aid, may I share with the Secretary of State my concerns about local advice agencies, which sometimes provide essential local advice to the most vulnerable? Will he work closely with his ministerial colleagues to ensure that some provision is made for such agencies to continue?
Mr Clarke
I will take back to my ministerial colleagues the fact that several respected Members have made that point quite strongly in the course of these exchanges. We are discussing it, and we know that we have to respond to it. On the question of which Department will eventually announce the outcome, I am not quite sure, because several Departments are involved, but we are all seeking to find a solution to it.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
The Howard League for Penal Reform’s recent report on short sentences makes it clear that one reason for the devastatingly high level of reoffending after sentences of under six months is a lack of adequate resettlement support for those leaving prison. In retaining shorter sentences, will the Secretary of State reassure me that more will be done to ensure that such prisoners are helped to have a useful and purposeful life after leaving prison?
Mr Clarke
I agree with my hon. Friend’s analysis. The reoffending rates are very bad for short-term offenders because they are often let out again without the follow-up that is given to more serious criminals. Of course, the problem is that one cannot simply extend the sentence. Short-term sentences remain suitable for some people. Indeed, some people do not really need help but would benefit from being put in prison—for example, uninsured drivers, about whom I was talking earlier today. People who are otherwise respectable and take no notice of the law by driving while uninsured will soon take notice if they are given a short prison sentence. They do not require rehabilitation when they are released; most will almost certainly not drive without insurance again. As for the others, we are where we are. Some people leave the magistrates no alternative because everything else has been tried and they keep offending. If we could get stronger community sentences and make them more magistrate-friendly, some of the people about whom my hon. Friend is concerned might be put on to a more constructive path that will help them to stop offending.
Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
As a London MP, I warmly welcome my right hon. and learned Friend’s proposal to introduce mandatory sentences for adults who use a knife to threaten and endanger. He will know that many knife crimes are committed by younger offenders. May I implore him to send a similarly unambiguous message to those offenders?
Mr Clarke
I think the message from the whole House is that we disapprove of the carrying and using of knives. We keep striving to reverse what recently became, particularly in parts of London, almost a fashion for knife crime. I am sure that the offence that we are going to introduce will reinforce the message we are giving. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has also announced a whole package of measures on knife crime. The Government will take my hon. Friend’s advice in giving very high priority to this subject.
Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)
The Justice Secretary touched on the issue of clinical negligence, particularly in cases where litigation costs can often far exceed the actual sum insured. To echo the sentiment expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), can he give the House any guidance on measures that can be introduced to ensure an early resolution? The NHS Litigation Authority, trusts, GPs and consultants are often loth to admit liability, and that leads to undue costs and delayed and protracted negotiations.
Mr Clarke
A lot of that lies within the province of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. Many people in the health service realise that the key way to proceed is to settle claims and pay up promptly when someone has obviously made a mistake, while fighting resolutely cases brought by people who are acting speculatively. Many cases could be resolved by better complaints procedures or by attempts to discuss the matter. One of the things we are exploring is the early exchange of reports so that both sides know exactly what expert evidence is available to them and do not hold their own evidence back, because that paves the way to a resolution of the claim. I am sure that everyone in the NHS is as anxious as my hon. Friend and I are to see some progress on this. Perhaps making legal aid less available in this area will stop some people being quite so litigious and make them a little more constructive about how to sort out a proper remedy.
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
My right hon. and learned Friend’s statements about knife crime will be welcomed by my constituent, Yvonne Upton, who has been campaigning since she lost her son, Connor, to somebody who chose to carry a knife on a night out.
As regards drugs in prison, does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that under the previous Government too many prisoners were on long-term methadone prescriptions and parked in state-induced dependency, and that getting those prisoners drug free with an abstinence programme is key to proper reform?
Mr Clarke
There are people with better clinical expertise on drug rehabilitation than I, but I share my hon. Friend’s instincts. We are seeking to make proper drug rehabilitation programmes work. There is obviously a danger that it sometimes becomes easier to maintain people on methadone, and that is going nowhere in some cases. I am sure that methadone has a place in all this, because people with more knowledge than I have insist that it does, but we are looking for proper rehabilitation wherever possible, with the aim of abstinence and making the person drug free.
Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)
I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to making our prisons more drug free. A constituent of mine has become addicted while in prison and is desperate to get off his addiction lest he be drawn into circles of crime on his release. Can my right hon. and learned Friend make a commitment to do more for such people who want to get clean and go straight?
Mr Clarke
I hope that we can do more. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health is looking at drug rehabilitation services generally for people who do not offend, as well as for people who get themselves into trouble with the law. This is a very important area. The majority of crime in this country is linked directly or indirectly to drug abuse of some kind. The majority of prisoners have indulged in the abuse of drugs shortly before their admission to prison. It is essential that we respond to my hon. Friend’s plea that such programmes are supported and made more effective.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
My constituents will welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement that more life sentences will be available to judges when dealing with serious, repeat and violent offenders. What offences that will cover and, specifically, which repeat offences will eventually carry the life tariff?
Mr Clarke
I think there will be an automatic increase in the number of life sentences when we get rid of IPPs. When indeterminate sentences were introduced, some of the people who were given IPPs were in really dangerous categories and had been convicted of offences for which life imprisonment was already the maximum offence. When we change it, judges will put such people back on life sentences. The whole IPP experiment was a mistake. We have indeterminate sentences in this country—they are called life sentences. They are better managed and are the proper way to deal with the most serious offenders. I think that some of the most serious offenders who get IPPs now will in the future get life sentences, just as judges always gave them before.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
Many of my constituents want reassurance that the victims of crime will be properly catered for in the new Bill. What discussions has the Secretary of State had with the victims commissioner, and will he tell us a little about them?
Mr Clarke
I have very welcome conversations with the victims commissioner from time to time, and very much hope to involve her more closely than has been the case in the development of policy. Obviously, the concerns of victims should be at the heart of all that we do. I was told as I came in that the victims commissioner, Louise Casey, has just issued a statement about our announcements today. It is quite long and I will not read it all. [Hon. Members: “Go on!”] Well, I will read just the first sentence. She says that she sincerely welcomes
“the government’s response to the Green Paper consultation”
announced today. I will try to keep her support because it is extremely important that victims have confidence in what we are doing.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
The transfer of foreign national prisoners is obviously not a simple issue. However, last year, Humberside police and East Riding of Yorkshire council brought to my attention the case of an EU national who had committed 33 crimes against the good people of Goole. We were told that deportation, if it did take place, could take up to two years. Surely it is completely and utterly unacceptable for any EU national to be in a British jail; they should be in their own countries in their own jails. Any EU nationals who are released from our jails should be deported immediately.
Mr Clarke
I am glad to say that there is an agreement on the transfer of prisoners within the European Union—[Interruption.] Yes, it was negotiated by the previous Government and it will come into force in November this year. Off the top of my head, only two countries, Ireland and Poland, have derogated from it and are delaying implementation. I look forward to the proper transfer of prisoners to all the other countries. It means that British criminals will be brought to our prisons to complete their sentences and that foreign prisoners will be returned elsewhere. We will see who benefits. It is obviously very sensible from every point of view.
We constantly consider with the UK Border Agency the quicker removal of prisoners who are due for deportation. I concede to the UKBA that deportation is not always as simple in individual cases as it is made to sound. It is difficult to get some countries to accept former prisoners, and it is, of course, difficult to get some people to go to other countries. Sometimes, their very identity or nationality is the subject of constant dispute.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Should not judges and magistrates be made aware of the success or otherwise of their individual sentencing decisions, by being kept informed of the reoffending rates of the offenders whom they send down?
Mr Clarke
There is a lot of work going on about the transparency of justice and the publication of local figures. We all need to know more detail about what is being done at local level and what the consequences are of the administration of justice in our localities. I am sure that all the best magistrates would welcome some feedback and more information about what is happening as a result of their sentencing policy.
Sentencing Reform/Legal Aid
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Today I will lay before Parliament the Government’s responses to two important consultations on the future of the justice system—“Breaking the cycle: effective punishment, rehabilitation and sentencing of offenders”, which was launched on 7 December 2010 and “Proposals for the Reform of Legal Aid in England and Wales”, which was launched on 15 November 2010. I am also introducing the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill to give effect to those measures requiring primary legislation. I will be making an oral statement this afternoon.
Protecting the public from crime, ensuring those who break the law face the consequences, and providing swift, cost-effective and fair access to justice are fundamental responsibilities of the state towards its citizens. Yet the last 13 years of Government have left a justice system in urgent need of reform.
In the area of criminal justice, a tidal wave of criminal justice legislation has left the system in crisis: neither punishing offenders properly for the crimes they have committed, nor giving adequate protection to the law-abiding public.
In civil justice, we have a system burdened by spiralling costs, slow court procedures, unnecessary litigation, and too limited an awareness of alternatives to court—all of which add to a fear of a compensation culture. In particular, our current system of legal aid too often encourages people to bring their problems before the courts, even when they are not the right place to provide good solutions and sometimes for litigation that people paying out of their own pocket would not have pursued.
The package of reforms I am bringing forward today aims to reform radically our justice system to focus it on fundamental priorities.
Punishment, rehabilitation and sentencing of offenders
Within a year of leaving jail, half of prisoners (49%) are reconvicted of further crimes, creating new victims and harm to society. While they are behind bars prisoners face hours of enforced idleness, free from the discipline of hard work. Underpinning these problems are widespread drug and alcohol abuse, and poor mental health. The previous Government’s responses have left a dysfunctional cycle of persistent crime, inadequate punishment and failed rehabilitation. Over 20 Criminal Justice Bills in 13 years created an unworkable sentencing framework and a statute book littered with over-prescriptive law that undermined the expertise of professionals.
The consultation set out wide-ranging plans to deliver tougher punishment, to introduce a rehabilitation revolution to prevent offenders committing further crime, and to ensure that the sentencing framework is sensible and workable. The Government have listened carefully to the points raised in more than 1,200 submissions and are seeking to take forward measures under five themes, including:
Punishment
Creating a working week in prison of up to 40 hours instead of enforced idleness.
Introducing tougher, properly enforced community punishments. This includes: allowing courts to impose longer curfews; enabling courts to ban overseas travel; and properly enforced financial penalties, including seizing assets from those who do not pay.
Introducing a mandatory custodial sentence for knife possession in aggravated circumstances.
Payback
Creating more ways in which offenders make reparation. We will begin by implementing the Prisoners’ Earnings Act 1996 and legislating to extend our powers to deduct and use money earned by prisoners to support victims; and
Overhauling unpaid work obligations so that offenders work longer hours, carrying out purposeful, unpaid activity that benefits their local community.
Progression
Getting more offenders off drugs and alcohol for good, by piloting an initial five drug recovery wings and by cracking down on the use of illicit drugs in prison. The MoJ will also work closely with the Department of Health to tackle inappropriate use of prison to house low-risk individuals with mental illness.
Extending the use of payment by results to cut reoffending, with services delivered by the voluntary, independent and public sectors. Already, at HMP Doncaster the provider, Serco, will pay back 10% of the contract price unless they reduce reoffending by 5% points from current levels. In July six new pilots will begin in areas including Greater Manchester and London.
Transparency
Opening up justice so that the public has a clearer view of how the system is working for them.
Creating a more proportionate justice system, focusing resources where they will be most effective, including creating a clear national framework for the use of out of court disposals, reforming the use of remand, and reducing the number of foreign national offenders. We will also conduct an urgent review of the indeterminate sentence of imprisonment for public protection with a view to replacing the current IPP regime with a much tougher determinate sentencing framework.
Clarifying the law on self-defence.
Alongside these measures, there should be no misunderstanding about things the Government have never proposed and are not doing. Contrary to some reports, the Government have never proposed targets to reduce the number of prison places, abolish short sentences or the mandatory life sentence.
What all the proposals we are taking forward amount to is a clear break by the Government from the mistakes of the past. By implementing this bold but realistic package of reforms, we are seeking to deliver a system which effectively punishes the guilty while substantially improving the national scandal of our reoffending rates. They should also reduce costs and improve delivery. This is a new, more intelligent course for the criminal justice system and one that we anticipate will make a tangible difference to addressing crime and helping victims in England and Wales.
Reform of legal aid
We are also committed to overhauling our system of civil justice, including through an independent review of family justice, wider access to alternatives to court, measures to streamline civil justice, a criminal justice system efficiency programme and improvements to the “no win, no fee” conditional fee regime. The overall aim is a fundamental shift in the justice system towards greater effectiveness and efficiency—and a move away from the sorry situation in which the average citizen dreads recourse to the law.
Legal aid reform is a crucial element of this wide-ranging agenda. The current system of support too often encourages people to bring their problems before courts. In addition, legal aid has expanded into areas far beyond its original scope. It is now among the most expensive systems in the world, second only to Northern Ireland, costing over £2 billion a year, or £39 per head of population compared with £8 per head in New Zealand, a country with a broadly similar legal system, and as low as £5 per head in some EU countries. In the current fiscal climate, this is simply unsustainable.
The proposals in the consultation set out to address these problems by: ensuring access to public funding in those cases that most require it; encouraging early resolution of disputes instead of unnecessary conflict; and improving affordability and value for money for the taxpayer.
Our plans attracted more than 5,000 submissions. Following careful consideration, today’s response makes some significant changes in matters of detail, but seeks to take forward the substance of most of the reforms published in November, including:
Retaining routine availability of legal aid for cases where people’s life or liberty is at stake, where they are at risk of serious physical harm, or immediate loss of their home, or where their children may be taken into care. Following consultation, we are strengthening specific provisions to ensure availability in private family cases for victims of domestic violence, for children at risk of abuse or abduction and for special educational needs cases.
Pressing ahead with introducing a more targeted civil and family scheme. Prioritising critical areas means making clear choices about availability elsewhere. Legal aid will no longer routinely be available for most private family law cases, clinical negligence, employment, immigration, some debt and housing issues, some education cases, and welfare benefits.
People will instead use alternative, less adversarial means of resolving their problems (notably, in divorce cases, where the taxpayer will still fund mediation). Fundamental rights to access to justice will be protected through retention of certain areas of law within scope and a new exceptional funding scheme for excluded cases.
In sum, the Government intend to implement the substance of the legal aid reform package, refined in specific places. This constitutes an extensive set of very bold reforms, the overall effect of which should be to achieve significant savings while protecting fundamental rights of access to justice.
Coroner Reform
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
Further to the ministerial statements on 14 October 2010, Official Report, column 37WS and 19 May 2011, Official Report, column 38WS, I am today announcing the detail of our plans for coroner reform without proceeding with the Office of the Chief Coroner. This statement sets out the functions which the Government propose to transfer from the Office of Chief Coroner to the Lord Chancellor or Lord Chief Justice. It also sets out proposals for a ministerial board to oversee the non-judicial aspects of the service provided in England and Wales.
It is my intention that the Office of Chief Coroner be listed in schedule 5—Power to modify or transfer functions: bodies and offices of the Public Bodies Bill which will allow for the transfer of certain of the chief coroner’s statutory functions without the abolition of the Office of Chief Coroner. This takes into account concerns expressed by stakeholders and Members of another place about the abolition of the office. The transfer of functions is, of course, subject to the outcome of the progress of the Bill through Parliament and a subsequent order to transfer functions made under the Act.
Reallocation of the Statutory Functions of the Chief Coroner
The table below details those statutory functions of the chief coroner, as set out in the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, which the Government propose to transfer to either the Lord Chief Justice or the Lord Chancellor. Where a function is not to be transferred from the chief coroner, this is because it is not possible to implement them in a cost-neutral manner as required in the current economic climate.
Section | Description of Statutory Function of Chief Coroner | Transfer of Function |
|---|---|---|
1,2,3 | Chief coroner to direct a coroner to conduct an investigation. | Lord Chief Justice |
12 & 13 | Chief coroner to notify Lord Advocate that an investigation should take place under the Fatal Accidents and Sudden Deaths Inquiry Act 1976. Chief coroner to direct a coroner to conduct an investigation in England or Wales where the body is brought into Scotland. | Lord Chief Justice |
14 | Chief coroner to designate medical practitioners for the purpose of performing post mortems. | Lord Chancellor |
16 | Senior coroner conducting an investigation which is not completed within one year to notify the chief coroner of that fact and notify the chief coroner of the date on which the investigation is completed. Chief coroner to keep a register of notifications given under this section. | Lord Chancellor: function limited to collation of reports and keeping of the register. |
17 | The chief coroner must— Monitor investigations into service deaths. Secure that coroners conducting such investigations are suitably trained to do so. | Provision not to be implemented: training to be dealt with under section 37 (see below) |
18 | Lord Chancellor to consult the chief coroner before making regulations relating to medical practitioner notifications | Lord Chief Justice to be consulted in lieu of the chief coroner |
36 | Chief coroner to report to the Lord Chancellor each year. Coroners to report action to prevent other deaths to the chief coroner. | Requirement for an annual report to be submitted to the Lord Chancellor not to be implemented. Reports from coroners on action to prevent other deaths to be submitted to the Lord Chancellor in lieu of the chief coroner. |
37 | Chief coroner to make regulations on training. | Lord Chief Justice |
40 | Chief coroner to be responsible for a new appeals system. | Not to be implemented |
41 | Investigation to be conducted by the chief coroner, Coroner for Treasure, judge, former judge or former coroner. Chief coroner to request that the Lord Chief Justice appoint a judge or former judge so to act. | Lord Chancellor to request the Lord Chief Justice to appoint a judge. |
42 | Lord Chancellor to issue guidance on the way in which the coroner’s system is to operate in respect of interested persons following consultation with the chief coroner. | Lord Chief Justice to be consulted in lieu of the chief coroner. |
The proposed reallocation of functions has been agreed with the Lord Chief Justice. In practice it is likely that the Lord Chief Justice will delegate the exercise of these functions to another judge. As the functions to be transferred are limited, and the Office of Chief Coroner not filled, neither the judge nor any other individual will be responsible for the leadership, culture or behaviour of coroners. As now, complaints about a coroner’s personal conduct should be made to the Office for Judicial Complaints; all complaints about the administration of the coroner service or the conduct of coroners’ officers should be raised with the relevant coroner or the local authority (if it relates to the service provided).
Proposals for oversight of the non-judicial aspects of the service provided by coroners and how we achieve, maintain and monitor changes to those services in the absence of a chief coroner are set out below.
Non-statutory Reform
Since the parliamentary debate on abolition of the chief coroner during Lords Committee stage of the Public Bodies Bill on 14 December 2010, colleagues and I have had positive discussions with MPs, peers and civil society groups about how best to ensure oversight of the non-judicial services provided by coroners in the absence of a chief coroner. This is necessary because it is not possible to transfer these non-statutory functions formally through the Public Bodies Bill.
These discussions have resulted in a proposal for a ministerial board which would be focused on matters of policy, the standards of service and other administrative aspects of the delivery of the coroner service which are non-judicial in nature. The board would be responsible for advising the Lord Chancellor on his statutory duties and on the setting of priorities for action with regards to policy on coroners at a national level, where these do not impact on judicial independence or judicial matters. It would be advised and supported by a Bereaved Organisations Committee, which would be independently chaired, and represented on the ministerial board. The committee would have a particular remit in monitoring the non-judicial “National Charter for the Coroner Service” which we published for consultation on 19 May 2011.
The ministerial board would be able to look at specific issues that may exist and consider whether there may be appropriate action to address these. In addition, the board would consider national statistics gathered from the coroner service in England and Wales to support the action plan for reform. The routine quarterly publication of progress on inquests of service personnel killed in operations and exercises overseas provides a model for transparency.
This proposal enables representatives of those who use and are affected by the coroner service to give direct feedback to Ministers on the overall administrative standards of service that coroners provide. The terms of reference for the ministerial board will reflect the judicial independence of coroners; the board will have no remit to look at those judicial services delivered by coroners.
Copies of the “Reallocation of Statutory Functions of the chief coroner” table have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses, in the Vote Office and in the Printed Paper Office. Copies of the consultation on the national charter were placed there on 19 May.
Sentencing
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:
“deplores the previous Government’s failure to tackle the national scandal of reoffending and its mismanagement of the justice system; notes that discounts for guilty pleas have been an established principle of common law for decades, and that they can speed up justice and spare victims and witnesses the ordeal of waiting and preparing to give evidence at trial; and welcomes the Government’s intention to overhaul sentencing to deliver more effective punishment for offenders and increased reparation for victims and to reform offenders to cut crime.”
I welcome the shadow Secretary of State’s coming to the Dispatch Box and moving the motion, which took me rather by surprise when it was tabled at the last minute last week. At one point, he gave a clear exposition of the opinions of the Leader of the Opposition on the encouragement that is given for an early guilty plea. No doubt we will discover at some stage how many days ago the Leader of the Opposition came to that conclusion, but I think it is rather more the right hon. Gentleman’s than his leader’s.
The shadow Secretary of State also, quite fairly sometimes when giving way to interventions, said that there were substantial parts of the proposed reforms with which he was in broad agreement with the Government, and he offered to work with my colleagues and me in that regard. However, he tried to get away from that by saying that he would support me if it were not for the reductions in public expenditure in my Department to which I am submitting. I regard it as being in the national interest to make reductions in public expenditure in most Departments. If the right hon. Gentleman believes that my Department should be totally exempt from any reductions in public expenditure at all, perhaps he would indicate in which other part of the public service he would volunteer reductions. With respect—I do not normally tender such advice—the weakness of the Labour party is that it does not have the first idea when it is going to stop denying the need for any reductions in public expenditure. There are some perfectly reasonable reductions to be made in the criminal justice system, but that is not the principle motive for reform. The principle motive is to make the criminal justice system better and to tackle some of the problems we have inherited, as my right hon. and hon. Friends have touched on.
Mr Clarke
The right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) was very generous in giving way and we all appreciated that, but there will be no Back-Bench speeches if I give way too frequently. I will give way in a second.
Let me get one thing out of the way first. I have always believed, along with every sensible person, that Britain needs a criminal justice system that is effective in properly punishing offenders for their wrongdoing and in protecting the public from further crime. When I took office as Justice Secretary it seemed to me perfectly obvious that that had to be the first priority for all my policies. That is self-obvious; it is a platitude. The Government’s policy, and my first duty, is to punish crime and have an effective system for protecting the public from further crime. The problem that I face, which causes the reforms, is the fact that I inherited a system that was not effective in protecting against offenders’ committing further crime or even in punishing offenders. So that is at the forefront of where we are going.
Without going over all the exchanges that we have just had, let me explain briefly what we have taken over, which causes the need for the proposed reform. Our prisons are pretty nasty, unpleasant places, far from the holiday camps they are sometimes made out to be. The people in most of them pass their days in a state of enforced idleness, quite a few of them making some tougher friends than they have had in the past, and not facing up to what they have done. That is not what I think of as a satisfactory and effective punishment. But a bigger scandal still is our system’s failure to protect the public from future crime committed by offenders after completion of their time inside. Reoffending rates in this country, as we have taken over the system now, are straightforwardly dreadful.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
The Secretary of State has made much of the fact that short-term prison sentences lead to higher rates of reoffending than longer-term prison sentences. Given that his proposals now are to give people a 50% discount on their original sentence, plus they will be let out 50% of the way through their time in prison, and given that short sentences do not work, as he says, why is he so determined to make long prison sentences into short prison sentences?
Mr Clarke
The point that I make is not the one that hair-splits the variations between different forms of sentence. All our reoffending rates are very bad. I have no intention of addressing the sentencing tariffs for any offence in this country. I have no proposals for reducing the overall powers of the courts to deal with any crime. What we are talking about is the difference between someone who pleads guilty, particularly at an early stage, and someone who makes the witnesses and the victims go through the crime. That is what I will address.
Ever since I published the proposals five months ago, although we have not faced any clear alternatives or views from the Opposition, I faced a debate about my apparent desire to let prisoners out and reduce the sentences. I have no such desire; nor do I use statistics to illustrate the need for that. What I am talking about—
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?
Mr Clarke
Let me continue briefly. I want to get on to the quite small proposal in our overall reforms that this debate and the publicity of the past few days have focused on. Let me explain what the reoffending problem is, because that is at the core of the Government’s policy and my proposals.
Within a year of leaving jail, half of Her Majesty’s guests will have been reconvicted of further offences. For adults released from short-term sentences the figure is 60%. For young offenders leaving custody it rises to three-quarters. The same people cycle around the system endlessly, costing endless suffering to victims and, for those released from short sentences alone, costing between £7 billion and £10 billion a year to society. That is the key part of the penal system that is not working. I offer this analysis because it throws into sharp relief the record of the Labour politicians who are now criticising bits of our proposed reforms. What I have just described is part of the legacy of the previous Government.
Mr Clarke
Let me finish describing the legacy of the previous Government, then we will move to the more constructive matter of my reforms and I will give way to my hon. Friend.
I have not forgotten, and I am sure the public have not forgotten either, what 13 years of Labour government was like in this field, despite the attempts of the right hon. Member for Tooting to skate over some of it. We had 13 years of eye-catching initiatives, schemes, meddling and prescription that made a complete Horlicks of the criminal justice system. We had more than 20 Criminal Justice Acts. Thousands of new criminal offences were created. Senior judges complained that
“Hell is a fair description of the problem of statutory interpretation”
when talking of this stream of legislation. We had a 39% increase in the number of prisoners in our jails—it was not planned and it was not policy—with the cost to taxpayers rising by two thirds in real terms.
And what for? That was meant to be the embodiment of the policy of being tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime—an attempt to give reality to an admittedly rather catchy slogan. What we got was a sentencing policy so chaotic and badly managed that, as my hon. Friends quite rightly keep emphasising, the previous Government had to let out early 80,000 criminals, who promptly went on to commit more than 1,000 crimes, including alleged murders and one rape. We had a system under which more than 1,000 foreign national offenders were released without being considered for deportation—the total number of foreign prisoners in our jails doubled during Labour’s period in office. We had a system under which offenders serving community sentences in practice usually completed only one or two days of unpaid work each week. Above all, as I keep emphasising, there was the national scandal throughout Labour’s period in office—not a new problem—that the exorbitantly high reoffending rates went completely ignored.
Why was that? A recent quote from the right hon. Member for Tooting is worth repeating, as he gave an extremely good description of what went wrong and what was driving Labour’s policy. Speaking to the Fabian Society about New Labour’s record on this subject just two months ago, he said that
“playing tough in order not to look soft made it harder to focus on what is effective”.
He gets a murmur of approval from the Conservative Back Benches, and certainly from those of us who had to witness the effect of that policy.
Let me move on to our proposed reforms, including the one to which the Opposition’s motion refers. What are the problems that we are now tackling and that our large package of reforms seeks to address? First, criminal trials are needlessly long, drawn out and expensive. The court experience is often deeply unpleasant and almost always uncomfortable for victims, witnesses, jurors and most people who have anything to do with it. As I have said, at least half of all crimes are committed by people who have already been through the criminal justice system. More than one in 10 adults in prison have never been in paid employment, almost a fifth of prisoners who have used heroin did so for the first time while in prison, and one in five appears to have mental health problems. If we wish to take this subject seriously and really want to protect society and the victims of crime, we must recognise that that is the context of today’s debate.
Fiona Mactaggart
I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way at last. He is talking about practical studies on how to deal with prisoners with mental health problems, such as the work done by the Bradley review. I will go along with him on those issues, but I do not understand what studies he has done on the precise issue that we are debating today and on the effectiveness of early guilty pleas. It is clear that already two thirds of Crown court cases that result in a conviction involve people who have pleaded guilty. More than 10,000 of those cases in 2008-09 were at the door of the court but could easily have been dealt with in a magistrates court. Why is he not acting to ensure that those guilty pleas happen in a magistrates court, rather than having this widespread policy that will lead to violent criminals being let off?
Mr Clarke
On Lord Bradley’s report and the problem of mentally ill people in prison, it seems plain from the hon. Lady’s intervention that she agrees with me. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and I are working on ways to divert people from prisons, in proper cases and with proper protection of the public, to places where they can be more sensibly and suitably treated. In that respect the hon. Lady and I are in total rapport.
What I am suggesting about the system of guilty pleas, and the reason I have described the unpleasantness of going to court for most people who unwillingly go there as victims and witnesses, is that although most cases wind up with guilty pleas, more should do so and far too many such pleas are made ages after the event and at the last possible moment. I shall explain in a moment how we are addressing that problem, because the long-standing system we have at the moment is not working well enough.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
Let me just take our proposal on early guilty pleas. Let me get into that. I am sorry to be unkind to my hon. Friend, but I have to bear in mind the people trying to be called, otherwise there will be no BackBenchers’ debate, and as someone who was until recently a Back Bencher for many years, I always used to find it irritating when we had a short Opposition day debate.
Mr Clarke
An advantage the hon. Gentleman will have one day.
From the proposals of the right hon. Member for Tooting, I cannot quite see any difference in principle between the two sides of the debate. It is, and always has been, a well recognised and fundamental practice in this country that those who lie their way through a trial and are ultimately found guilty should face a greater punishment than those who own up early, take responsibility for their crime and commit to making amends. That has taken place for at least the past 40 years. I suspect that anybody here who does enough research will find that, for the past century, people who fought it out and braved it out got a longer sentence than those who put their hands up early and pleaded guilty.
What is the purpose of that practice? The public are sometimes startled when they hear that that is the practice, though it always—always—has been in the courts of this country. The purpose is, as we have already stressed, because of the situation of victims and witnesses, above all. No one should underestimate the relief that is felt by anybody who is a victim of crime and has complained to the police about it when they are told that the offender is going to admit to it, and that they, the victim, are not going to be put through an ordeal in court. The witnesses feel equally relieved. It is far, far worse when someone fights on, because often the victim finds that on public evidence and in a court of law they are being accused of lying, of bad behaviour, of promiscuity or of whatever it is that the defendant is trying to run. That is why the justice system of this country has always included the practice. It also saves an awful lot of police time, an awful lot of Crown Prosecution Service costs and everything else.
Mr Clarke
I will give way on that point, but I just say finally that it is a pity practising lawyers have always referred to the practice as the guilty plea “discount”, because that is not actually the best way of explaining it to a sensible member of the public. I give way to my hon. Friend at last.
Dr Lewis
I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for his generosity in giving way. He talks about what victims feel, and I always thought that victims felt very unhappy with the previous Government’s policy of letting many criminals out automatically halfway through their sentences. When in opposition we always used to talk about honesty in sentencing, so are we going to change that policy, or are people going to be let out automatically halfway through a sentence which has already been reduced by half as a result of the new measure under discussion?
Mr Clarke
Halfway through the sentence, people are released on licence, therefore they are liable to recall. If they reoffend, they are brought back; they are not free of their conviction for some time. We are going to address not just release on licence or supervision on licence, but what more can be done once people are out of immediate custody in order to increase the chances of their not reoffending. That is where we get into payment-by-results schemes, and that is why I already have a contract at Peterborough prison, which I inherited, and a new one at Doncaster prison, whereby we will pay more to providers who stop such people coming back when they leave prison. That is not for today, but it is a key part of our reforms, and I do not think that any Member opposes it.
Let me move on to what we are debating. We have the decades-long principle of offering for an early plea a reduction of up to one third on the sentence that a judge hands down. The previous Government made that clearer, because they calmly allowed the Sentencing Guidelines Council to spell out the one third, and it was actually made more binding on the courts in 2009. If anybody in the Opposition is against in principle the idea of what I say is unfortunately called a “discount” for a plea, why have they not mentioned it for the past 13 years? Why was the previous Government’s policy based on that principle and on the arguments that I have just raised? Why are we readdressing this?
Mr Clarke
Ah, here we are—somebody who supports the idea. The trouble is that if a discount is not given and the man gets to the court door and finds that there is not much coming off his sentence any more, he might as well instruct his lawyer to have a go and see whether the defence can shake the story. That is why no lawyer has ever objected to the discount for a guilty plea.
Emma Reynolds
The right hon. and learned Gentleman knows full well that there is a big difference between a 30% discount and a 50% discount. Will he turn his mind to the evidence that has been suggested by the Sentencing Council, which says that the 50% plea discount will not bring forward any more criminals to plead guilty? What does he say to that?
Mr Clarke
I do not agree with that. It is not evidence; there are a variety of opinions. However, it is a perfectly good question. We have got down to the fact—I can be precise—that the difference appears to be 17%. That is what we are arguing about. I do not think that anybody in this House has any principled difference whatever on the policy.
The present system is not working effectively, so we have gone out to consultation on proposals that might improve the encouragement offered to people to plead guilty earlier. In over 10,000 cases listed, the trial stops right at the courtroom door; judge, jury, victims, police officers, probation officers are all amassed for a full trial, and then at the last minute the person pleads guilty. Those long delays are wrong, not only because of the cost to the police and the waste of time of everybody attending for any purpose connected with the trial, but because victims and serious witnesses have to endure the uncertainty of it all as they prepare for the ordeal of reliving the trauma of what are sometimes very harrowing experiences.
I hope that the right hon. Member for Tooting will forgive me for saying that saving a bit of cost to the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service and the public purse might be advantageous, although I know that it was not new Labour’s approach. If we could get more of those involved in these cases to plead guilty earlier, an awful lot of victims would feel that they have been better treated by the system.
Sadiq Khan
The right hon. and learned Gentleman has enthusiastically set out the case for why he believes an increase in the discount of up to 50% should be carried through. Does the Prime Minister agree with him?
Mr Clarke
This was an entirely collectively agreed policy on which we went out and consulted, so the answer is yes, of course. The Prime Minister runs a scrupulously collective Government, and I am an extremely loyal Minister much used to collective Government. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has much experience of collective Government, but I commend the system to him—and to the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), who was of course fiercely embattled on one side in the previous Government.
We agreed that this was a reasonable proposition on which to consult because, as I said, the system that we inherited is not achieving the benefits that the previous Government presumably thought it might achieve when they set it up.
Sadiq Khan
I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for generously allowing me a second bite of the cherry. He has correctly said that the Prime Minister signed up to the consultation, which ended on 4 March this year. He talked about collective responsibility. Can he confirm that last Tuesday morning the Cabinet Committee signed off on this proposal?
Mr Clarke
Even in a collective Government, one does not analyse what happens in Cabinet Committees before coming to one’s final conclusions. I am not going to disclose the contents of the Cabinet Committee’s proceedings for at least 20 years. The right hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to know that we do go to Cabinet Committees, but we have not yet finished our consultation process. [Interruption.] He is persisting, so let me repeat what I asked earlier: how many days ago did he and the Leader of the Opposition decide that they were going to run with this? Was it by any chance connected with the slight flurry of excitement in the media at the end of last week? He and his party, and his Front-Bench team, have not had a policy on this or any other subject to do with criminal justice for the past nine months. Let him study the processes that this Government follow, and no doubt they will guide him if ever he is lucky enough to get into great office.
The current system does not get enough early pleas and is a complete waste of resources. The police, the Crown Prosecution Service and others in the legal system use up millions of hours preparing cases that never make it beyond the door of the courtroom. That has to be changed. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, has called for
“a reorientation of our approach so that guilty plea cases can be dealt with as swiftly as possible, leaving us to devote our valuable time and resources to cases that really require them. That way we may just begin to tackle the delays that still bedevil criminal justice.”
We are still considering the responses to our Green Paper proposals to increase the maximum discount for the very earliest pleas to one half, and to then have a taper, to encourage the earliest plea and disincentivise the late plea. We received many calm and reasoned responses over many months. There was no loud opposition at all to the principle of the proposal until last week. The rush for this debate is slightly pathetic and slightly comic. I do not know where it came from. I have a feeling that the Leader of the Opposition, not yet having decided what he was for, was wandering the streets looking for a passing bandwagon and prodded the right hon. Member for Tooting into putting down a motion.
Some people are claiming that the proposal is simply to reduce the sentences available for criminals, and that is worrying some of my colleagues. As I began by emphasising, it is no part of our reforms to reduce sentences, the protection of the public or the punishment for serious crime. That is not what the Government or I are about. In response, I say very clearly that judges will continue to have discretion in setting the appropriate sentence in individual cases. I will not shorten the length of sentences available to them in any kind of criminal case. I do not think that the Opposition contest the principle, as has been emphasised. I do not understand the argument that they would be in favour of my reforms if they were not combined with saving public expenditure. That is not a compelling point. Reforms to the efficiency and effectiveness of the system are required.
Mr Clarke
I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, but I really should sit down soon.
Let me deal with what we are trying to reform and why. The former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), said in the Daily Mail on Friday that I should
“order a wholesale review of how the court system works”.
He went on:
“my own jury experience left me staggered by the sheer waste of time and public money resulting from the chaos in our courts.”
Mr Clarke
After 13 years, they say it is the judges. It is actually that the system does not facilitate the disposal of cases in the best possible way in the interests of victims, the police, the taxpayer and, above all, justice itself.
I have found quotations from the former Lord Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who unfortunately is not in his place. He is the one who placed a more onerous obligation on judges to follow the early guilty plea guideline. Perhaps he is not here because, like me, he cannot understand what on earth got into the head of the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) in thinking that this was a suitable subject for debate.
I remember the right hon. Member for Tooting declaring in this House that he welcomed plans for a clear sentencing framework. In December he thought that they were
“a perfectly sensible vision for a sentencing policy, entirely in keeping with the emphasis on punishment and reform that Labour followed in government”.—[Official Report, 7 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 171.]
I pay tribute to him for being so helpful and constructive in response to our proposals. It is a pity that he has been bullied into picking out bits and distorting them in this debate. The principle of a more efficient system of justice is not wrong, and the principle of the early guilty plea is not wrong—I am afraid that it is the state of the Opposition that is really wrong. That is what has brought the debate to the House.
The former Prime Minister’s old speechwriter, Phil Collins, apparently said last Friday:
“Labour don’t have a particularly strong position on crime of any kind”.
Well, we will help them. We have a policy, and it is very clear. We will reform the criminal justice system to focus it on punishing offenders, protecting the public and tackling the scourge of reoffending. We intend to make prisons places of hard work, not enforced idleness. We will get prisoners off drugs, and drugs out of prisons. We will toughen up the current weak and failed system of community sentences, and we will introduce a radical payment-by-results approach that will introduce innovative public and private sector solutions focused on what really matters, which is breaking the devastating cycle of crime.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is clutching at straws. The Secretary of State made it clear that as a result of the proposal fewer people would be in prison. That is the whole purpose of the measure. My hon. Friend ought to reflect on the fact that this is an arbitrary proposal, because there is absolutely no evidence suggesting that more people will plead guilty as a result. If that does not happen, will the Secretary of State return to the House in a few months suggesting a three-quarters discount for pleading guilty in order to get a few more convictions? Where will it end? Why not scrap prison sentences altogether? This is a slippery slope. It is ludicrous and not based in evidence.
Most people think that punishment is not heavy enough. It has been estimated that between 2007 and 2009, criminals on probation have been responsible for 121 murders and 44 cases of manslaughter, along with 103 rapes and 80 kidnappings. In total, they were responsible for more than 1,000 serious violent or sexual offences in the two years from April 2006, while almost 400 more suspects are awaiting trial. Most people looking at these figures would conclude that too few, not too many, people were being sent to prison, and most would conclude that people are not being sent to prison for long enough, not that they should be let out even earlier.
As we have heard, a senior judge, Lord Justice Thomas, warned that as a result of these proposals, a rapist facing five years in prison could get off with a sentence halved to just 30 months by pleading guilty earlier. However, because of what the previous Government did, which the Secretary of State appears to support, that offender would then be released after only 15 months behind bars. Fifteen months for a five-year sentence! That is what is happening under a Conservative-led Government.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
The example given by my hon. Friend is fanciful, because the average sentence for rape is eight years. Sentences will vary but in the end the judge will decide what justice and the seriousness of the offence justify. Needless public alarm is caused because the public find it difficult to know what the sentences are. If it reassures my hon. Friend, however, I can say that I would regard someone being released from the prison part of their sentence after 15 months as quite inadequate in a case of rape.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
2. If he will estimate the number of existing injunctions granted on the grounds of invasion of privacy.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
The Ministry of Justice currently holds some limited data on the numbers of injunctions applied for in the county courts, but they do not allow identification of anonymity injunctions. The Department’s chief statistician is currently considering how robust data on the number of anonymity injunctions issued by the courts might be collated in the future.
Mr Whittingdale
Is my right hon. and learned Friend concerned about the possibility that the large number of injunctions that appear to be being granted on a routine basis suggests that the courts are paying insufficient regard to section 12 of the Human Rights Act 1998, which was intended to protect press freedom? Given that, and given the huge speculation on the internet about the identities of those who have obtained injunctions, does he feel that the time is approaching when Parliament may need to revisit the issue?
Mr Clarke
I do not think any of us know whether the number is increasing. As far as I am aware, there have been two super-injunctions since the John Terry case, but the word “super-injunction” gets used very widely. I realise there is increasing concern, however. I personally have strong views on the secrecy of justice. We have a tradition of open justice in this country. Plainly, I believe in the freedom of the press and freedom of speech in this country, even when it is sometimes exercised provocatively, as it is supposed to be in a free country, but there are also areas where an individual is entitled to have their privacy protected. The time is certainly coming when the Government are going to have to look at this matter, although we will probably wait until we have had the report of the Master of the Rolls, who is looking rather more closely at the procedural aspects.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor is right to remind us that it is important that we get the balance right between freedom of speech and an individual’s right to privacy, but he will be aware of the public disquiet about the use of the anonymity injunction or super-injunction, both in terms of its abuse—or alleged abuse—and its circumvention, for example by the use of Twitter. As he has said, the current situation is not satisfactory, but the Master of the Rolls is simply looking at the process, rather than the substance. What does the Lord Chancellor intend to do about that, so as to provide leadership on this issue?
Mr Clarke
First, I agree that the Master of the Rolls is looking at process, and I am sure what he says will be very valuable. As I have said, we will wait until he reports back before starting to take a proper look at the issue, but I think the Government will now have to study it and decide whether there is a case for intervening. There will never be unanimity on all these judgments, precisely because it is so difficult to balance the competing parts of the convention on human rights and the competing interests involved. There have been cases where we have certainly needed to know—such as where people are disposing of waste material by dumping it off the coast of Africa. That is easy in one direction, but in the other, every time I watch a football team I do not think I necessarily need to know about the sex life of each of the players.
Sadiq Khan
As is often the case, I find myself agreeing to a large extent with what the Lord Chancellor says, but let me say this. Super-injunctions are not granted by European judges using European law; they are granted by British judges using British law, and Parliament has supremacy over that law and those judges. If clarity and guidance is required and suitable, and bearing in mind the fact that we have the draft Defamation Bill and the forthcoming justice Bill, why does he not just say that he will use those vehicles to provide clarity and guidance?
Mr Clarke
We will consider these matters, and it is probably right that Parliament passing a privacy Act might well be the best way of resolving the issue, but we need to get somewhat nearer a consensus and to know exactly how we are trying to strike the balance before something is submitted for the judgment of Parliament. We may well not have to wait until the end of a long, controversial process such as that, and instead find some other way of tackling the issue, but we are considering it and we will come back with proposals in due course. If there were debate on a privacy Bill, there would be an interesting range of opinions even in Parliament, but I have not met many people yet who seem to have the perfect answer as to how to get the balance right.
John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)
Some of these injunctions serve to prevent information from being passed to the police or other regulators. Does the Secretary of State believe the law should be changed so that regulators can always have information passed to them?
Mr Clarke
That is one of the arguments which the judge who decides whether to grant the injunction will no doubt have in mind. Whether it is reasonable and in the public interest for the injunction to be granted is what the judge is meant to try to establish. The question for us is how we can make that clearer and more defensible, and how we can know more about what is happening so that we are all satisfied that injunctions are granted only in cases where the right to privacy of the individual is, indeed, being interfered with unjustly, but I know of the hon. Gentleman’s interest in this topic, and we will bear his views in mind—
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
3. What reforms he is pursuing of the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
I will try not to talk this one out, Mr Speaker—although I will be tempted to do so.
Reform of the Court will be a key aim of the forthcoming UK chairmanship of the Council of Europe. We will be pressing in particular to reinforce the idea that the Court’s role is a subsidiary one, which means that states, not the Court, have primary responsibility for protecting convention rights.
Mr Bain
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. In supporting reforms that cut the backlog of cases and reduce the delays that many people experience in the Strasbourg Court, does he agree with Amnesty International and 270 other non-governmental organisations which have founded a petition to campaign against the introduction of fees in the European Court of Human Rights, as they believe those could, in some cases, represent an insurmountable barrier to justice?
Mr Clarke
I certainly think that one of the things that needs to be tackled and can be tackled without too much difficulty is the thousands upon thousands of cases awaiting a hearing at the Court, many of which are completely outside the sphere of the convention and could be disposed of reasonably straightforwardly. The question of fees will have to be decided in due course by the Ministers of 47 member states of the Council of Europe, but there is not much evidence at the moment that people are feeling excluded from the jurisdiction by the threat of any imminent costs.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
There would be very little problem with the jurisdiction of the Strasbourg Court if we repealed the Human Rights Act 1998, withdrew from the convention and replaced it with a British Bill of Rights. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is about time that that happened?
Mr Clarke
If we repealed the Human Rights Act, which is one of the matters being looked at, we would just go back to having the convention applied directly by Strasbourg. The issue attracts a wide range of views, which is why we have set up a commission to consider them—[Interruption.] We have indeed set up the commission. It is composed of serious people who have expressed a very wide range of views in the past on the subject. They will strive to reach a consensus and it will be useful to get a properly informed and expert assessment of what the various options might result in. I am sure that the package of measures recommended by my hon. and learned Friend is one of the matters they will be considering in the course of their discussions.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
4. When he plans to bring forward proposals on the future of sentencing.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
8. What steps he is taking to promote work opportunities in prisons.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
We have made clear our intention to make prisons places of work and industry. In the Green Paper, “Breaking the Cycle”, published last December, we set out our proposals to break the destructive cycle of crime. That included proposals for prison work. Our response to the consultation on the Green Paper will be published soon.
Tony Baldry
Can my right hon. and learned Friend kindly tell me how many more work and training opportunities there are in prisons today than there were this time last year?
Mr Clarke
No, I cannot. [Interruption.] The system requires considerable transformation. We intend to introduce as widely as possible a system in which it is normal for prisoners to have a working day doing proper work, getting into work habits and acquiring skills. We have some—comparatively few—outstanding examples of workshops run by outside companies and we are attracting wide interest from companies in how we can do that. Prison Industries will have to be addressed and we will probably have to put it on a different and more commercial footing. We are looking for work that can properly be done in prison without jeopardising legitimate small businesses outside. A moment ago I was accused of rushing everything. The great thing about such reforms, which will transform the prison system, is that there is no point in delivering straight away experiments that have not been thought through. I intend to change the atmosphere of prisons very substantially once we have got down to practical ways of doing so.
Mrs Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
The introduction of work-based regimes more widely will be warmly welcomed by people who know about rehabilitation, but victims are concerned about reparation. Will the Secretary of State make sure that any wages earned as part of a work-based regime go directly to benefit victims or the communities that have been victims of crime?
Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend’s response on increasing work opportunities in prison, but will that extend to more education and training in prison?
Mr Clarke
A great deal of education and training is delivered in prisons now, but it needs to be improved; it is patchy. We are not losing our focus on making sure that the basic problems of literacy and numeracy are tackled, let alone other further education delivered, and we hope to make sure that the contracts for provision of education and training services are of universally good quality.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
My right hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) has a ten-minute rule Bill which would make it mandatory for those sentenced to two years or more to undertake a relevant offender management programme before being considered for early release. Do the Government intend to take those proposals forward?
Mr Clarke
We sentence people to prison terms as reparation for the wrong that they have done to their victims and society, and when they have completed their sentence we release them. Under existing rules they may be released from prison halfway through the named sentence, but they are on licence thereafter, subject to recall, and that has to be made meaningful. I do not want to add to the number of people in prison who are serving beyond any sentence that they have had imposed upon them for the crime that they committed, but who are waiting to go through some loophole which shows that they qualify for release, not least because it is very difficult to organise true opportunities for prisoners to be able to satisfy such requirements.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
10. What steps his Department is taking to involve the charity sector in prison-based initiatives.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
I shall begin with a topical statement. On 26 April, I attended a Council of Europe ministerial conference in Turkey on the future of the European Court of Human Rights. I was clear that the Court must focus on truly important cases and have proper regard to the judgment of national Parliaments and courts. I met a number of Ministers from other member states and senior figures from the Council of Europe and the Court who were receptive to this view.
Mr Raab
In a recent and novel ruling, a man convicted of robbery defeated a deportation order on human rights grounds because he had a girlfriend—a relationship that the court described as that of a courting couple and no more. Will my right hon. and learned Friend consider amending the Human Rights Act 1998 and the human rights clause in the UK Borders Act 2007 to prevent this kind of judicial legislation under article 8 of the European convention?
Mr Clarke
I have not seen that case, but I agree that it sounds like a rather sweeping interpretation of the right to family life, which is what the European convention confirms. If my hon. Friend will let me have the details, I will inquire into the case to see how it reached such a startling conclusion. It is possible that the report that he read, in whichever newspaper he read it, did not bear a very close resemblance to what actually occurred.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor has announced plans—this was raised by the previous Lord Chancellor—to reduce by half the sentence for an offender if he or she pleads guilty. In a remarkably flippant response, his junior Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt), asked us to pause and reflect on the thoughts and views of a victim of rape. It is not only Labour MPs who think this is nonsense, nor only judges or victims groups: the Lord Chancellor’s own Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses says that it is bonkers. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman reconsider?
Mr Clarke
We are going to give the outcome of our consultation shortly, but I think that that proposal is likely to survive. The fact is that we have always had a reduced tariff for early guilty pleas in this country. It always startles the public when they discover that this has underlined our sentencing policy for many years. It is true that we are thinking of putting up the reduction to a half. It makes an enormous difference to costs, police time and the involvement of unnecessary preparations for trial if everybody leaves guilty pleas to the last possible moment. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary rightly said, victims and witnesses are put through an ordeal if they are preparing for a trial where they expect to be accused of lying because the man has not been induced to plead at an early enough stage. Those are the considerations that lay behind this proposal.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
T2. Last month, I visited Kirklees restorative justice team, who, in Kirklees alone, need to keep only two offenders out of prison for a year to cover the whole of their budget. However, does the Minister agree that probably one of the most impressive elements of restorative justice is the immeasurable improvement in victims’ perceptions?
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
T3. The Secretary of State will be well aware of the tragic loss of five young lives on the secure prison estate in recent months. Will he outline what work he and his officials are undertaking to look into those tragic deaths, and what measures he intends to put in place to prevent future occurrences?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
We have had an unfortunate instance, but we will obviously investigate each of those tragic cases. Unfortunately, there are always extremely vulnerable people in young offender institutions, and steps have to be taken to protect them against self-harm. I have no reason to believe that anything has changed significantly that connects these deaths. I assure the hon. Gentleman that each and every one of them will be carefully considered to see whether anything went wrong or whether something can be improved.
Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
T4. Does the Secretary of State share my concern and that of my constituents that prisoners are not spending their time inside constructively? Will any future Bill address that issue by ensuring that prisoners spend more time at work than in their cells?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
As I explained earlier, I feel that concern strongly. The matter does not so much require legislation as sensible organisation, change in the structure of Prison Industries, and more leeway for governors to arrange work when there is a sensible opportunity to do so. A significant change in the culture of parts of the Prison Service would add to the good work that goes on at the moment, which is quite rare and is scattered across the prison estate. I agree with my hon. Friend that that is an important aim.
Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
T6. Earlier this month, the foetal anti-convulsant litigation against Sanofi Aventis was discontinued after six years’ preparation. The claimants and their families have been denied their day in court because legal aid funding was withdrawn at the last moment. Will the Minister say what funding arrangements will be available for multi-party actions in future so that such families are not denied access to justice?
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
Will the Justice Secretary take this opportunity to update the House on his policy on the office of chief coroner?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
We are considering our policy in the light of the debate and the result in the House of Lords. I have been discussing the matter with various interest groups, various Members of another place, and one or two Members of this House. Some of the lobbyists attribute to the chief coroner powers to tackle all kinds of failings in the system that the legislation never gave him or her. We could deliver some of the substantial changes that need to be made to the coroner system rather more quickly by distributing the functions elsewhere, rather than by creating unnecessarily a whole new office. I am considering the arguments. We ought to concentrate on what outcomes we are trying to produce, rather than argue about structures and new institutions.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Has the Secretary of State read the research commissioned by Lord Ashcroft and conducted by Populus called “Crime, Punishment & The People—Public opinion and the criminal justice debate”? If he has read the report, which I commend to him, will he confirm that its findings, which will make sobering reading for him, will be part of the proposals on sentencing?
Mr Clarke
I shall look at the report to see whether it is the source of my hon. Friend’s views on the subject of crime and punishment, which he frequently gives, and then I will try to find some counter-reading to recommend to him. I will try to study it if I get the chance.
The purpose of sentencing in this country is to punish offenders effectively and proportionately for what they have done. The purpose that I intend to add to that more clearly is to try to reduce the number who simply offend again and come back into the system. If we cut reoffending, it will mean fewer crimes and fewer victims, and we will make a positive contribution instead of recycling the same old people through the same old not very well functioning system.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State take a look at the case of Shrien Dewani, a British citizen who faces extradition to South Africa? He has shown me convincing evidence that he will not face a fair trial there. Can we reconsider extraditing that citizen?
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
T10. The Home Secretary recently announced her intention for police to do 80% of charging. I can see how that is to the benefit of the police, but has the Justice Secretary had any discussions about how we can ensure that it is not to the disbenefit of justice?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
That too is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and the question should be addressed to the Home Office first.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Legal aid to take family cases to court will in future be available only when domestic violence is an issue. Otherwise, couples will be expected to go to mediation. However, mediation may not be appropriate where there is a high degree of conflict, even when domestic violence is absent. What consideration is the Minister giving to how such cases will work after legal aid is removed?
Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
Prisoners who reoffend cost the UK economy £10 billion a year. Is not the real solution for the Secretary of State to continue his excellent record as a public service reformer by incentivising private companies to rehabilitate prisoners and letting them earn a profit when they cut reoffending rates?
Mr Clarke
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has worked with me on public service reform in the past. I am glad he shares our objective because, as he says, it saves the economy substantial amounts and reduces the number of victims and further crimes if a higher proportion of those who finish their sentence do not go on to reoffend and get convicted again. The approach that we are adopting to improving the reoffending reduction programmes, which is to pay by results and make it quite clear that charitable and ethical investors can get a return on their capital if they succeed in delivering that objective, is a valuable and innovative way of trying to achieve real results rather than strive needlessly.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
Mr Dean, a constituent of mine, is still waiting after three years for full payment of a compensation award from a persistent offender. What action are the Government taking, and what action will they take, against persistent non-payment of compensation awards by persistent offenders?