Queen’s Speech

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Fullbrook, on her maiden speech and look forward to clashing with her over the years to come. I look forward to the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, making her maiden speech today.

The right honourable Member for Haltemprice and Howden, speaking on the Queen’s Speech, said that he was concerned about an

“illiberal solution in pursuit of a non-existent problem.”

He was talking about the Bill to which the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, has just referred, but he might have been talking about several elements of other Bills as well. As with so much, there are elements of each of the pieces of legislation that have been put forward in this Session of Parliament with which you can agree; other parts lead to very grave concerns.

Very briefly, I will mention the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. I have got no problem dealing with anarcho-syndicalists who misuse and abuse the privilege of freedom to encourage others to do things they would never otherwise have done. I think we need, however, to be absolutely sure that we do not put the police in an impossible position, where they are making impossible judgments based on changes in the law, which will either not be implementable, and therefore ineffective, or will cause the exact opposite of the problem that they were trying to resolve. I hope we will be able to deal with this in your Lordships’ House effectively, amending those parts relating to public order.

I want to concentrate, in the short time available, on the issue of immigration. The Minister referred to border officials having the resources. Tell that to the people, in the limited numbers that are currently allowed in, coming through Heathrow. Either the decision by the Home Secretary is because of incompetence or indifference or intent. It has to be one of those three, and if it is intent, then the lack of application of resources is causing not only major hold-ups but, in doing that, causing the likelihood of a greater spread of infection. If we cannot get that right in the months ahead, how on earth are we going to deal with the complex piece of legislation that creates two tiers of asylum seekers, in circumstances where we claim that we can send people back to countries that will not have them and were not aware of their presence in the first place? Having pulled out of Europol, no longer having the European arrest warrant, having disengaged effectively from working on organised crime across borders and detached ourselves as an island, it ill becomes the Government to then say that we are going to find ways of returning people to countries that will not have them.

We need a much more sophisticated approach. In the year leading up to the pandemic, 32,000 people were turned away because of the measures that were taken in 2003 to put immigration and security officials on European soil, enabling us to turn people back not just on Eurostar but at the border itself so they did not actually reach Britain. More of that effective work, across countries, tackling the criminals that the Minister quite rightly referred to in his speech, would be the way forward. I hope we will be able to do that in a way that, in reference to the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Green, does not counterweight the decision to welcome Hong Kong residents—27,000 to begin with, but possibly half a million over the five years ahead—by making it impossible for other people to make their way to this country and claim their international rights. That would be a great disservice to the name of our country as well as, by the way, to those we are welcoming from Hong Kong.

In essence, there is a great deal we can do in this Queen’s Speech that will be extremely welcome out there—the victims Bill is an obvious one, and the online safety Bill is another. But let us also be clear that, if we do not get the measures right, instead of the bluster and frippery that substitutes for clear thinking and positive action, then we will let people down. In making it possible to take practical measures, we build trust. When we tell people—as I know from my time in Government—that we are going to do something that in our hearts we know is impossible, we lose their trust. While the Government are riding high at the moment, in a few years’ time some of the measures that have been outlined in the Queen’s Speech will catch up with them, and people will realise that they have been misled.

Civil Proceedings Fees (Amendment) Order 2021

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 19th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Blunkett (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation. I have joined the Grand Committee’s consideration of this instrument this afternoon as much to learn as to contribute. Given the expertise of those few Members online, I am hopeful that I will be more enlightened at the end of this discussion than I am now at the beginning of it.

I very much appreciate the importance of raising the funds necessary to enhance the tribunal and court system. I understand entirely from the explanation given of the £724 million that has been raised towards the £2 billion total cost of the process. However, I am unclear about the exact cost of this particular process—that is, the procedure in relation to the restriction of funds and property. I would be really grateful if the Minister could clarify this small point for me in his reply. He was good enough to indicate that more money is raised from these charges than the cost of the service itself.

I understand why the list of tribunal activities that the Minister gave us in his earlier contribution should be free. It seems right that the taxpayer should pick up those particular examples because, of course, they relate to very personal issues, such as mental health issues, that require us as a community to fund them. However, it appears that what is actually happening is we are asking those who use the procedure that we are discussing this afternoon to enhance payments in order to subsidise precisely those kinds of activities. It would therefore be useful to know the true cost of this particular element of the courts and tribunals system and of the procedure that we are discussing.

I have no objection to aligning the fee between paper and online in the way that has been described, although clearly it will be an increase for the vast majority of potential users compared with the situation today. It would be helpful to know just how much that additional contribution of between £9 million and £25 million, which will come in next year, will actually make given the cost of implementing the procedure as a whole.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)]

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, has withdrawn so I call the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 10th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will keep my remarks short, in view of the amount of work to get through today. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, who has shown the most incredible tenacity to get to this point. It is absolutely amazing, and an example to us all. Also, if I can say this without sounding anodyne or even boring, I congratulate the Government on picking this up. It was the right thing to do, and I am delighted. It opens the way for survivors of domestic abuse to seek justice and have a legal pathway to see their abusers punished. In later amendments, I will pick up on other areas where women are legally discriminated against very seriously, but for the time being, this is a fantastic move by the Government.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, in view of the pressure of time, I shall be brief, but I could not allow this amendment to pass without congratulating all those who have played such a significant part. The noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, has shown enormous tenacity. There are times in all our parliamentary, public and political lives when we suddenly realise that we can make a real difference to the well-being, and in this case the lives, of others. I congratulate her from the bottom of my heart. I pay tribute to those whom she generously paid tribute in her speech, and also to her co-signatories, my noble friend Lady Wilcox and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, who have stuck with this all along.

Unusually for these Benches, I congratulate, as my noble friend Lord Hunt did, the two Ministers, who have been assiduous in their preparedness to listen, respond and be flexible. This is the House of Lords at its best. Parliament is at its best when people listen to each other, where divides are narrowed and overcome, and where people of good will are prepared to find a way forward in the interests of the people whom we seek to serve in the country as a whole.

I have played a very small part in this, but I like to think that the Minister, as I said to him on another occasion, would not wish to put his parliamentary colleagues in the House of Commons in the invidious position of voting down such an important and critical measure. He certainly listened, as have the Government. Will we be able to do so on other issues?

Today there will be many votes. It should not diminish the importance of the Bill that we have continuing issues to raise, because this is a really important piece of legislation. I have one thing to put on the record on the statistics that the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, gave us this afternoon. This is about power and domination, never about love. It is about people who are prepared to use their manhood for ill, not for good. It is about inadequates who then inflict their inadequacy on the people they claim to love. If we can put that message out to young men in particular, we will have done a very proud job of work this afternoon.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, for what she has done. Many people will have cause to thank her in years to come.

[Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]]

My Lords, this Bill will be remembered in years to come for the many important changes and reforms that will be introduced through it, but without doubt one of the most welcome changes will be the recognition of non-fatal strangulation in law and, we hope, the effective response by the criminal justice system. I say “welcome”; this particular amendment will be most welcomed by the most severely abused women who suffer this particularly horrible crime. As others have said, the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, has done a superb job, supported by some pretty superb people, in steering the amendment to this point. She has said pretty well all that I would have said, and therefore I will be extremely brief.

The only point that has not been mentioned is that if we really want the amendment to achieve what it should achieve, which is the appropriate response by the police, the courts and so on, then training police officers so that they are aware of this stand-alone offence will be very important, and maybe a little training for doctors, although they should certainly be aware of what a strangulation looks like. Can the Minister say anything about that?

Like others, I say a tremendously sincere thank you to our Ministers, who have really listened. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, has been a marvellous Minister in this House for a long time now, and we now have the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson. We are very lucky to have those Ministers in this House and I pay credit to them.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I too welcome these amendments. However, if this law is going to be passed it should be accompanied by clear advice for the young. Having been guided around TikTok by a young, adult female, there seems to be something of a fashion for strangulation among young women. They say, “I like this”; they say that a boy who will not do it is a pussy, not sexy enough, not interesting enough and not man enough to do what the girl wants. Under those conditions, it is really important that the Government issue clear, unambiguous and easily found advice on the consequences that the introduction of this amendment would have for that sort of activity. I would be grateful if my noble friend would let me know what the Government’s intentions are in this regard, in writing if not this evening.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, the Committee has heard some extremely powerful and focused speeches this evening. I add my voice to those commending the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, and the signatories of these amendments, and give my support to Amendment 137. Given what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has just said, I hope that the online harms Bill will deal with social media outlets that perpetrate the kind of messages that he enunciated.

The noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, and all those who have spoken, have done so with clarity and unusual brevity for the hybrid House; I will try to emulate that. I have two things to say. First, women police officers who have spoken to me are crying out for this focused and clear piece of legislation, as enunciated in Amendment 137. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London said, they do not want a tick-box approach. They want to change the relevant form—124D—to be able to obtain the Crown Prosecution Service’s direction to take those who are perpetrating this crime through to a successful criminal prosecution. As has been said so often this evening, this is clearly about domestic abuse.

Secondly, why should this Bill be the vehicle to take this forward? There are two reasons. One is that it is self-evident from everything that has been said, the briefings that have been received and offline discussions, that everyone accepts that this legislation is needed and is needed now. There is no reason whatever to delay until another criminal justice or sentencing Bill which may take its turn after a forthcoming Queen’s Speech, somewhere down the line, where this amendment would have to be moved all over again. We would have to go through all the same campaigning, representations and speeches to gain something that the Government themselves have thankfully conceded is a necessary improvement to the law.

I have one plea for the Minister. He has taken to this House like a duck to water, but there is one lesson that those of us who have been around in politics know all too well: you do not ask your own colleagues in another House to vote down something that they know is eminently sensible and required, in some vain hope that they will forgive you for not having done it as quickly and effectively as possible because someone in the legislative committee of government—it changes its name from time to time—has decided that they do not want to have any further substantive amendments to the Bill. We all know that this would be arrant nonsense: the Minister knows it, and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, who has been extremely helpful on this, knows it. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Marks, in his erudite speech, indicated that even the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has changed his mind since Second Reading. I am glad if he has, because I was going to refer him to the excellent Second Reading speech by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, about his experiences in 1975.

All of us can coalesce and praise the Government and applaud the campaigners, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, for what is tonight a unified approach to dealing with a horrendous crime, which has led to so many deaths and can be stopped from doing so in the future by a single agreement by government Ministers.

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I speak briefly in support of Amendments 137 and 138, especially Amendment 137. It has been introduced extremely powerfully by the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove. I do not think that any of us would be here at this stage of the evening, late in the Bill, if we were not absolutely convinced of the importance of a stand-alone offence of non-fatal strangulation, and of course the Government also recognise this.

Perhaps we could pause briefly to pay tribute to, first, those victims of domestic violence—particularly those affected by non-fatal strangulation—and their bravery in coming forward, to the campaigning groups that have been willing to take up the issue on their behalf, and to the parliamentarians, both in the other House and in this place, who have been willing to respond to it. In a dark time, it is good to celebrate the fact that something is working in our democracy in this kind of way.

The key issue this evening for the Government to face is not whether there should be such a stand-alone offence—I think everyone is convinced of that now—but whether or not it should be in this Bill. It seems to me that the Minister has to face two real questions put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, and also very powerfully by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox of Newport, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and others. First, if 80% of non-fatal strangulations take place in the context of domestic violence, is there any reason at all why it should not be in this Bill? That is where it belongs. Secondly, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and many others as well, the police are crying out for something clear and associated with this Bill, because it will both raise awareness of this terrible form of cruelty and ensure that there is appropriate training in order to help the police to recognise it.

I very much hope that, when the Minister comes to respond, he will be able to look at these two issues in particular and agree that there is a proper place for this in the Bill.

Prisoners: Foreign Nationals

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, the House of course greatly respects the noble and learned Lord for his experience in this area, but it is a matter for the equally experienced Parole Board to decide whether or not it is safe to release these prisoners. It must not be forgotten that, in each of the cases, the relevant judge sentenced the defendant in accordance with the then existing powers for the protection of the public. It therefore becomes incumbent upon the Parole Board to decide whether it is safe to release them, notwithstanding the fact that they may have a short-tariff sentence. It would be easy of course for the Government to wash their hands of this, but they have taken a responsible view to unravelling this unfortunate provision, which was brought in by the previous Labour Government.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, it is probably not the moment for me to confess that I was the Home Secretary who introduced the idea. The original intention, which I hope is understood, was that only those who posed a really serious risk to the population would be subject to such orders. That did not come about, and I regret that very strongly. But is it not a fact that what is lacking are the courses and therapy to allow the Parole Board to make the necessary decisions as quickly as possible. so that the overly prolonged incarceration of many of these prisoners can come to an end?

[Lord Faulks]

I entirely accept that the intention was to protect the public and that this provision caught in the net rather more prisoners than it was expected to catch. It must be remembered, of course, that these courses are important because they can provide evidence that a prisoner has grappled with a particular problem, whether it is sex offending, violence, drugs or whatever it might be. It is not a prerequisite for their release that they have to have attended these courses, although it may provide some evidence. Equally, the fact that you attend a course does not guarantee your release. We have increased the availability of courses to these prisoners. I am aware that a letter was written to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, by my noble friend Lady Evans when this matter was last raised. I will ensure that that letter is placed in the Library. It gives a list of all the various courses which are now available to those prisoners.

Public Advocate Bill [HL]

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Friday 29th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to commend my noble friend Lord Wills for his work on the Bill and for bringing it forward to us. He and the noble Lord, Lord McNally, have concisely and clearly laid out why this legislation is necessary and that while there may be tweaks to the content and to the way it finally emerges, the need to get this right for the future is unarguable.

We make progress slowly. As my noble friend Lord Wills generously suggested, as Home Secretary I oversaw modest improvements to the coroner’s court system and greater transparency, with the considerable help of the late Paul Goggins, who as a Minister and Member of Parliament was an exemplar of how to get things done and to do so with care and thought for others—which is at the root of my noble friend Lord Wills’s proposition. At the very moment when people are hurt the most—in one sense disabled the most from being able to be advocates on their own behalf and for those loved ones they have lost—we need to assist them to be able to articulate that hurt and to seek redress. More important than redress itself is to be able to investigate and put right those aspects which can be identified as having gone very badly wrong so that others do not have to suffer in that way. Therefore an advocate is needed most at the moment of greatest hurt.

I suggest that it would be remiss of us to allow this proposition to fall, particularly during its process, on the grounds of cost. I know—and am learning as I go along—that we do not deal with finance in this House, but there are costs involved in picking up issues much later in the day, a number of which have been listed by the noble Lord, Lord Wills. When an inquiry is held, a process is set in train to bring comfort and redress, and to provide knowledge about what happened and what needs to be put right. The cost of that is much greater down the line than if that process is brought into play quickly and easily. The terrible hurt and trauma involved for the individuals who have fought with tenacity for what they see as justice, as well as setting the scene for others for the future, following the Hillsborough disaster —a fight that has been ongoing for 27 years—as well as other instances that have been listed, can be avoided.

It has been said to me that people are losing loved ones in tragic circumstances on a daily basis, and we should be cognisant of the fact—I am very mindful of this—that numbers are not always a reflection of that. Therefore, it will be important to get the terms right regarding when an advocate should be brought in to represent those who are bereaved, to speak on behalf of those who can no longer speak for themselves, and to unlock the systems which those of us who have been in government are all too familiar with. There is a tendency—I plead as guilty to it as anyone else—not to want to close things down but to hear what suits the moment best.

Until last May, I represented the area around the Hillsborough stadium in the city of Sheffield. I am deeply mindful that in the aftermath of the disaster, even with the Taylor inquiries, people did not know the truth and therefore were subject to listening to what others were saying, sometimes making unjustifiable judgments. We have to avoid that. The quicker an advocate can come on to the scene—the noble Lord, Lord McNally, mentioned Lady Justice Hallett—the more likely it is that we will get to the truth quickly and avoid myth and countermyth and the terrible hurt that goes with that.

It is really important that we pick up what is an excellent idea and hone it into a mechanism that will work for the future. I hope we will ensure that we do not put people through years and years of distress, and very often anger, because systems do not work and because those in power and those with influence—who, understandably, are getting on with their job—are felt not to be listening and learning. If we can avoid that, we will do a great deal for individuals who are in that situation but we will also ensure that our democracy works better.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

I am not sure that it is going to enlighten the House very much if we try to decide how well educated or not well educated these young people are. One of the arguments was that young people spend a great deal of time on the internet or go travelling. The answer is that some 16 and 17 year-olds are extremely intelligent and well informed; others are not. The bigger point is whether, looking at them as a cohort, they have changed radically since, for example, Parliament considered this matter in the round in debating the Representation of the People Bill.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

This is my first ever intervention and I ought to explain to the House that I am a convert to the idea of 16 and 17 year-olds being able to vote. The great benefit regarding this particular cohort is that at least many of them, although not as many as I would wish, will have benefited from citizenship education in school, which is more than can be said for the vast majority of the population.

[Lord Faulks]

I am honoured to have been intervened on by the noble Lord, and I hear what he says.

I was endeavouring to address the House on the Representation of the People Act 1969, which was brought in by the party opposite when it was in power. At that stage, the question was whether to lower the voting age from 21 to 18. The debates in this House ranged over the issues that one would expect. Often, amendments were put forward suggesting that it be lowered only to the age of 20. There was no suggestion that it should be lowered to the age of 16. What has changed so fundamentally about adolescence between then and now?

Probation Service

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mudie]

My hon. Friend has taken the second part of page 2 by making an important point that I was just about to address.

It is no secret, and it is accepted, that reoffending rates are high. The figures for the period between April 2010 and March 2011 show that more than one in four criminals reoffended within a year, which is a reoffending rate of 26.8%, marginally up from 26.3% in the previous year. Over the 10 years in which records have been kept, the reoffending rate has gone down.

It is sad but interesting that the Secretary of State used a higher figure when making his statement to the House. He said that, in 2010, “nearly half” of those leaving prison reoffended. He was correct—the reoffending rate for those leaving prison is around 47%— but that suggests the overall reoffending rate is double what it actually is. It would have been more straightforward had he used the 26.8% figure to justify the programme.

It is interesting that the Ministry of Justice’s annual figures break down those figures. Some 26,000 of the 56,000 people who left prison reoffended, but 18,000 of those 26,000 were not covered by the probation service because they were serving sentences of less than 12 months, which is the point my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) made. If the aim is to eliminate or reduce reoffending, why must the Secretary of State use a figure attractive to him rather than giving a true reflection of the situation?

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I commend my hon. Friend on securing this debate, and I apologise to him, to Members and to you, Mr Crausby, for not being able to stay all the way through. Does my hon. Friend think that that is why the Treasury is so worried about the proposal? Would it not have been more logical to have tested and piloted the proposal for offenders serving less than 12 months with the probation service, given its growing expertise in working with the social enterprise and voluntary sector, in defined areas that coincide with police areas, so that people could work together? Instead we have prime contracts, detached from the community and the problem, with Serco and G4S taking over virtually all public services.

[Mr Mudie]

My right hon. Friend raises a number of points that I hope I will have time to touch on. They are all valid, not because they are in my speech but because they are important points about the attack on the probation service.

Any real scrutiny of the Ministry of Justice figures demonstrates that the reasons for our disappointing reoffending rates are complicated and numerous, but it is wrong and unfair to place them at the door of the probation service. As I have said, a major proportion of reoffending is outside the statutory remit of the probation service. I pay tribute to the proposal in the White Paper to bring it within the probation service’s responsibilities for the first time. It is one thing that I straightforwardly applaud.

Although I wish for improvement, due to those facts, and because of the quality and professionalism of the probation service, I am not convinced that there is a pressing need for the upheaval suggested in the consultation document, or for the pace and scale of change. I want to make it absolutely clear that reoffending figures should unarguably be improved, and that the proposals to address short-sentence prisoners are long overdue and welcome. I have no dogmatic opposition to the use of the private and voluntary sector in rehabilitation. My concerns are overwhelmingly about public safety, protecting the existing good work of the probation service, questioning the suggested and untested payment-by-results methods that will be introduced to the private sector, ensuring that management and structure changes are sensibly modified to suit the proposals and, importantly in this age of austerity, ensuring that the costs are acceptable. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, the costs are starting to worry the Treasury.

Against that backdrop, it is critical that these large-scale reforms of our rehabilitation and probation policy are well thought through, investigated from all angles and brought together on a basis that puts evidence first. What is before us is none of those things. It is hasty, ill thought through, dogmatic, cobbled together and risky. I have indicated my concerns, and I will expand on them.

First, the Secretary of State describes the approach as revolutionary, but there is a clear need to demonstrate that the policy changes are evidence-based. The former Secretary of State, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), started a number of pilot schemes in that area of work, which were abandoned within days after the present Secretary of State took office. When questioned by the Select Committee on Justice, the present Secretary of State admitted that he was unable to provide MPs with any evidence to support his change in policy. He excused his peremptory ending of the pilot schemes by stating that it

“will take us much of the rest of this decade to see through to a conclusion, evaluating the data and coming up with an analysis. We are talking about the core principle of trusting the professionals and making them take a bit of the risk themselves”.

We are less worried about the professionals than about the public taking the risk of the proposals.

When pressed by the shadow Secretary of State to produce evidence to justify, for example, the controversial payment-by-results proposal, the Secretary of State derided what he termed the Opposition’s obsession with pilots, saying revealingly:

“Sometimes those in government just have to believe in something and do it”.—[Official Report, 9 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 318.]

That warms the heart, but it worries us to death.

Leveson Inquiry

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I have a registered interest, including in respect of News International. My family are in receipt of damages from News International, and I am also a key witness in a forthcoming trial. I have been a victim, but I will not go through the details tonight, because anything I experienced was as nothing compared with what happened in the very high-profile cases involving missing children and the death of children, and it would be unthinkable to draw any comparison. In any case, I have eschewed making any remarks publicly about what happened to me in order not to rerun what happened, for the sake of the people who were involved and were closest to me.

Suffice it to say, on a slightly lighter note, that in more than 50 cases I succeeded in getting retractions, and I was able to get some limited redress. However, as Lord Leveson pointed out, that was because I could afford to go to law. In most cases, I was unable to get any redress through the Press Complaints Commission. On 20 August 2008 The Guardian published a diary piece which said my lawyers were the fastest in the west and mentioned Sky TV, Mirror Group and News International, all major media organisations with which I have had dealings over the last eight years, and which have had to apologise or cough up in one way or another. None of what happened was edifying, however, and I would not want anybody to go through what I went through.

In some respects, what happened was more to do with morality and decent professional standards than with regulation. As well as all the print newspapers, I had a right time with Channel 4 over More4. Ofcom was equally useless. I had a real problem with the BBC, too, which reported that guns and drugs had been found in my house—the story was not about me at all, of course—and that I had been partying with a high-profile woman all night who then attacked her husband, when in fact I had left her at 6.15 after having had a cup of tea.

All of us in public life face such situations, of course. What we are now trying to do—and what I hope we will be able to do—is achieve something very much better for people who do not have the same opportunity of redress that I had, or who have never stood for public office or put themselves on the line in that way.

I want tonight to address what happened pre-Leveson and where we should go post-Leveson, about which I have not spoken since Thursday afternoon. As has been said, pre-Leveson there was some hyberbole, and many things were said on all sides that upped the ante. The Leveson recommendations are different from what people expected, however, and so much so that as Shami Chakrabarti moves one way, I am moving the other. On hearing her this morning, I was slightly confused about quite where she was, and I was also confused tonight about quite where the Secretary of State was.

I think that those who have taken different sides on this matter are so close together that if we take a step back, we will find a way forward. The Secretary of State has indicated that if the media do not accept in full the Leveson principles in respect of the establishment of the independent regulator—the board—the Government will be prepared to act. I presume that means that the Government will take legal steps. If they are prepared to do that, and as the official Opposition and the minority coalition partner have already indicated that they would be prepared to act, we appear to have, across the coalition and the Opposition, a stated principled position that when media representatives meet the Secretary of State tomorrow, they will have to agree to the full Leveson principles in relation to the new independent regulator.

That brings us not so much to underpinning as to oversight, because not only do we have to establish some way of providing the panel that will appoint the independent regulator, which could perhaps be done through the Commissioner for Public Appointments—a key recommendation—but we then need to translate whatever that panel might be into an oversight recognition body that will actually be able to take the annual report from the independent regulator and assess whether that regulator is standing up to its own laid down code and standards.

I am against that oversight body being Ofcom, partly because it is a regulator. I was trying to work out in my head over the weekend how to ensure that we do not have a regulator of a regulator, because otherwise we will have regulation. Ofcom is a regulator, so let us try to find another mechanism as an oversight and recognition body that is so light touch that not even the most vehement opponent of what Leveson was supposedly going to say could now believe that Leveson’s actual requirements and recommendations take us down the road of the statutory regulation of the press. Clearly, they do not.

There are major issues around data protection which I am sure can be negotiated, with solutions found. If we can get to a point where everyone is agreed on the principles that have been laid down for the independent regulator, which is actually independent, and on a mechanism for getting the membership of that body in place, we can then ensure that we have the oversight that is necessary and that people in this House seek. There would then be a chance that we might have cracked it.

I do not have a final answer; as the child said, “Mother, if God made us, who made God?” I have been struggling with that question ever since I was a Methodist in Sunday school, but we are going to have a find a solution to it, one way or the other. I think it is possible to do so with good will, but there has not been a lot of good will. I have been as careful as I can in what I have written and spoken about, and I am now convinced that we can avoid underpinning through that oversight. However, that will take people sitting down in the next few weeks and being prepared to bury the hatchet and put behind them what was said prior to last Thursday. If we can do that, we will have achieved a great deal, and not on our behalf and not in terms of revenge. Looking back over our shoulder and seeking revenge is not like sending an e-mail; it actually rebounds on us. That is why I have not, in any way, been bitter about what has happened to me, because we have to get on with life, rather than constantly reflect on the past.

At the moment, we live in a emotional, retro society, where we are very much looking over our shoulders to the misdemeanours and catastrophes of the past. I am therefore simply making a plea tonight that we pick up Leveson, deal with those things we can agree on and move on to the future. We will thus retain an independent, vigorous, sometimes extremely aggravating and sometimes unpleasant media, but we will do so with the kind of oversight that will protect people, by their own code and their own lights, from the kind of horrors that have been demonstrated in front of the Leveson inquiry.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

The new clauses and schedules relate to the abolition of sentences of imprisonment for public protection, known as IPP sentences. They were introduced in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and have been in operation since 2005. Since their introduction, there have been numerous problems with them. The Government’s policy is that they must be replaced, and we have brought forward proposals to do so. My proposals to replace them with tough determinate sentences have inevitably aroused criticism from both the right and the left—the story of my life, as I complained yesterday. We are replacing a regime that did not work as it was intended to with one that gives the public the fullest possible protection from serious, violent and sexual crime.

The sentences in their present form are unclear, inconsistent and have been used far more than was ever intended or contemplated by either the Government or Parliament when the sentence was first created. The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), who is in his place, was very much involved in their introduction. I have no idea exactly what his view is now, but I am sure that he never imagined that thousands of people would be detained in prison indefinitely under these sentences. The debates at the time contemplated only a few hundred people.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I shall be extremely brief, given the time. It would be helpful, following the Secretary of State’s meeting with me and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins), if he assured the House that reconsideration of the detail will take place in the House of Lords. There is no difference between those of us who accept that the original intention has not been followed through and those who think that the changes that my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) introduced have not fully bitten as intended, but the propositions before us this afternoon do not meet the specific need that was identified back in the early 2000s by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn, and which I carried into being.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman knows that he should make a short intervention, not a speech at this stage.

[Mr Blunkett]

I have finished.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that he may have finished, but he should not take so long in future.

[Mr Blunkett]

I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Mr Clarke]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, and I will remember the need for extreme brevity. I am grateful for the discussion with the right hon. Members for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough and for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins), and I will follow up the account by the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East of the experience in Northern Ireland. We all acknowledge that where we are is not where anyone intended us to be. That is why we are addressing how to deal with serious and violent offenders.

I am sure that the words of the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough will be noted in the House of Lords. He speaks here with great authority. We will reflect on what is said by those who say that of course we have not got it quite right.