Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Garnier Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, yet again we are being asked to digest a lengthy criminal justice Bill which covers far too many diverse areas of conduct. Churchill might have said that this Bill has no theme. Before the Bill began its progress through the other place, the Government proclaimed that it contained 35 headline measures. Andy Slaughter, the chairman of the Justice Select Committee, said the Bill introduced 27 new criminal offences. I think he was congratulating the Government.

Had I been discussing the Criminal Justice Bill—that is to say, the Bill that my noble friend Lord Davies referred to, which fell at the last election—I would have said of that what I now say of this Bill. It covers too many subjects. It makes criminal activities that are already criminal. It has 430 pages, 203 clauses and 21 schedules. Just look at it: it is like a telephone book. It is a catalogue, in my view, of Early Day Motions rather than a practical answer to the problems it seeks to identify. It reminds me of the Criminal Justice Act 2009, which included provisions for, among other things, the appointment of senior police officers, prostitution and lap dancing, the supply of alcohol to children, gang-related violence, aviation security, border controls and extradition, and more besides.

I am sure that many of the measures in this Bill are, on their face, worthy, and, assuming they are not already criminal offences, no doubt good measures are taken from the Criminal Justice Bill. But passing laws is not of itself a solution to an actual or perceived problem. Movement is not productivity. Too often, Governments of all political persuasions think that sounding vigorous is a substitute for action.

Between 1815 and 1914, remarkably few laws—about 15 or 20 statutes—were passed that affected the criminal law. Several of them are still in force, in whole or in part. When Tony Blair was Prime Minister, between 1997 and 2007, more than 50 criminal law statutes were enacted. The Criminal Justice Act 2003—another doorstop of a Bill—even repealed earlier sections of earlier Acts of Parliament passed after 1997 that had not even been implemented. I tabled Written Questions in the other place, asking how many criminal law provisions had been implemented, how many had been repealed before implementation, and how many had been brought into force. The answer I used to get was roughly one-third had been implemented, one-third had not been implemented and one-third had been repealed before implementation or soon afterwards. I am not making a politically antagonistic point: I am simply pointing out that the early 21st century legislative equivalent of Dreadnought building is ineffective unless the Government—any Government—do more than pass laws and pat themselves on the back.

The court system is under strain. The police are under strain. Our prisons are under strain. Yet we blithely pile more and often repetitive legislation on them for political effect, without calculating whether the new provisions already exist or can be managed within the present creaking criminal justice system. The Lord Chancellor recently promised 1,250 new Crown Court sitting days. With the Crown Court trial backlog leading to serious criminal trials now being scheduled for 2028 or 2029, and with literally hundreds of courtrooms unused, 1,250 additional days is insignificant. A senior Crown Court judge recently told me that he could use those days in just his own court centre.

The Home Secretary’s Second Reading speech in the other place in March amounted to empty jargon interrupted by loyal Back-Benchers reading out interventions drafted by her spads or by Government Whips, and by the Opposition complaining that she was ignoring the previous Government’s achievements or claiming that they were her own. This is not a satisfactory way to amend the law, still less to create new law.

Of course, this Bill will—either in this version or some other version of it—pass into law, and the Government will proclaim its enactment as one of their great achievements at the next election. In the meanwhile, the IPP scandal continues, despite the heroic efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, and other noble Lords from across the House to release the ghastly grip of its talons around the lives and hopes of those hundreds of prisoners still in prison well beyond their tariff. Governments and Ministers say a lot. The voters watch carefully and remember what they actually do.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Debate on Amendment 184 resumed.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I will continue where other noble Lords left off. In particular, I commend the words of the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, who gave a very perceptive analysis of the problems that the noble Baroness’s amendment revealed. As he said, the amendment is legally coherent, and I also note that it is well motivated.

I add only this. We have adhered to the convention since 1951 or thereabouts, and it has not been domesticated into our law, as the European Convention on Human Rights has been, through the Human Rights Act 1998. I recall, when I was on the Opposition Front Bench in the other place, when discussing the Human Rights Bill, as it then was, and the then Government’s proposals to domesticate that convention into our jurisdiction, that one of the points I made was that one could be entirely in favour of our membership of the European convention—and I remain in favour of it—without necessarily supporting bringing it within the British domestic legal system.

I say in relation to the 1951 convention that one could be entirely in favour of our remaining a member of it without introducing the problems that are caused when these international treaties become part of domestic law. I said in 1998 that by bringing the European convention into our law and permitting British courts to adjudicate on cases which had to do with disputes under the convention would introduce a dangerous political element into the deliberations of our courts. I do not think I was wrong to say that. The last 25 or 30 years or so have demonstrated that a number of highly political cases have found their way through the courts, both at the lower court level, but also right the way up to the Supreme Court. Whether that has been to the advantage of the litigants or to the development of justice policy and to the development of the law in this country is a matter of debate, but it has created inconveniences, and it has created clashes between Parliament and the courts, and that is not to be wished for.

I gently urge the noble Baroness, when she comes to consider the good sense of her amendment and whether to push it, that she might find it better to leave things as they are. We have adhered faithfully, I think it is fair to say, to the 1951 convention since we ratified it, and there have been immigration and asylum statutes passed by Governments of both parties—the Labour Party and the Conservative Party—since, which have not, in my view, been unfaithful to the convention, either in its spirit or its implementation. I leave it there. I urge her to think carefully about what the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, and others have said, and perhaps to allow the convention to exist as a convention and to allow Parliament, this Government and any future Government to make up its or their own mind about the way in which it should be implemented on the local stage.

Hong Kong Democracy Activists

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I reiterate what I said to the Liberal Democrat and Opposition Front Bench: we condemn this action. We have also seen the reports of letters being delivered to neighbours. We are trying to verify the source of those reports and of that information, but the police are certainly looking into this matter and are liaising with those who are in receipt of the letters. The police will assess, independently of government, whether action needs to be taken under any legislation we have to date.

I hope to reassure the noble Lord that, in the event of the circumstances he has described, the police and the Home Office would investigate whether illegal acts have been undertaken. It would be for the police, not the Home Office, to investigate independently in that event. I hope that our representations have been made very forcefully, and that the Chinese authorities will recognise them. We will monitor that situation accordingly.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I fully understand the balance that there has to be between protecting British citizens under British law and the need for good diplomatic and trading relations with China. It is a difficult balance and sometimes it leads to uncomfortable conclusions. However, in the event that, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has indicated, Chinese diplomats break the law and then hide behind diplomatic immunity, will this Government, through either the Home Office or the Foreign Office, make it abundantly clear to the Chinese Government not only that their behaviour is wholly unacceptable but that they will be publicly condemned by our Government so that our citizens know how much we disapprove of it, and that the individual diplomats from the Chinese embassy who misbehave will be promptly expelled?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble and learned Lord is tempting me to look at scenarios that may or may not occur. Any attempt by any foreign power to intimidate, harass and harm individuals or communities in the United Kingdom will not be tolerated. This Government will reflect on any actions like that, over and above the representations we have already made.

Rural Crime: NFU Mutual Report

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. He may not know that I served on the Metal Theft (Prevention) Bill Committee in Opposition in 2013. We pressed that very strongly. In co-operation with the then Government, we reduced metal theft by 50% over that period. More legislation and security allowed thefts to be tracked down through scrapyards and known routes of criminal activity. It was a really effective piece of cross-party legislation: we amended it in Opposition, the Government accepted it and improvements were made. Of course I will happily meet with him. There is downward pressure and there will continue to be downward pressure, but if he and his all-party group have suggestions, we will happily look at them and consider them.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister will understand that it is not just crimes of acquisition and anti-social behaviour that affect rural areas. They are also affected by fraud offences. Does the Minister have any idea when Section 199 of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, which provides for an offence of failure to prevent fraud offences, will be implemented? It cannot be implemented under the Act until six months after the publication of Home Office guidance. We have been waiting for the Home Office guidance. Does the Minister have any idea at what stage the consideration of that guidance is within the Home Office?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble and learned gentleman. I have been tasked by both the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary to be the Minister responsible for fraud. This week, I met with officials and I will be meeting with stakeholders. We have a potential examination of a future fraud strategy based on the work of the previous Government. The points that the noble and learned Lord makes are a part of our reflection on that strategy. I will certainly go away and inform myself of what happened under the previous Government in relation to that delay, and how I can expedite this as a matter of some urgency.

King’s Speech

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I gladly follow the noble Lord, Lord Browne. I could have made exactly the same speech that he has just made when we came into government in 2010. I spent quite a time as shadow Prisons Minister studying the state of our prisons in the period from 2005 to 2008, and I wrote a paper called Prisons for a Purpose. I suggest the noble Lord reads it; he will find a lot of what he has just said in it.

Before reading the Henley report into the Criminal Cases Review Commission’s conduct in the Andrew Malkinson case, I had intended to speak about prisons and indeterminate sentences for public protection. But I will now concentrate on the CCRC and rely on other noble Lords to say what needs to be said on those subjects —save to say that I reject the new Lord Chancellor’s assertion that the current state of our prisons is all the fault of the last Conservative Government. As I indicated to the noble Lord so politely, the Blair-Brown Government still have plenty to answer for, and the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, knows that as well as I do because he was the Minister for Prisons for part of that period. That said, I genuinely welcome him to your Lordships’ House. I shadowed him in the other place when he was Minister for Prisons and he was an honest and hard-working opponent for whom I have and had the greatest of respect. I know that he will bring his skill and determination to his work in the Home Office.

I also welcome the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, the former chairman of the Prison Reform Trust, of which, as I said in earlier business, I am a trustee. He has spent his adult life and fortune thinking constructively about caring for the welfare of prisoners and former prisoners. I congratulate him on his appointment and the Prime Minister on making that appointment. I also congratulate him on his fine maiden speech this afternoon. I urge him to achieve direct access to the Prime Minister on prisons policy, as he must be seen to be speaking with the direct authority of the Prime Minister. Without it, he could well be lost in the quagmire that is Whitehall. For far too long, under Conservative and Labour Governments alike, prisons policy has been delegated to Ministers without adequate political power—as a job to fill, rather than a central part of the conduct of good government. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, needs no welcome, but I congratulate him on his appointment within the Government.

The Henley report opens to urgent public examination a state of affairs that those in charge of the CCRC should be ashamed of. It should lead them to consider their positions. In 2023, the Court of Appeal quashed Andrew Malkinson’s rape conviction. In 2004, he had been sentenced to life imprisonment, and he spent 17 years in prison before he was released, with a further three on probation. Throughout that time, he steadfastly maintained his innocence, but it took 20 years and two Court of Appeal hearings for his conviction to be overturned. He made three applications to the CCRC in 2009, 2018 and 2021 to refer his case to the Court of Appeal. The first two were refused, and the third resulted in a successful appeal hearing in July 2023.

From 2021 to 2022, the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, and I co-chaired the Westminster Commission on Miscarriages of Justice. We were set up to review the work of the CCRC after 25 years of operation. It can refer a case to the Court of Appeal if it considers that there is a real possibility that the court will quash the conviction or reduce the sentence in the case. It receives over 1,000 applications every year.

Our report was written in ignorance of the Malkinson case and before the 2023 Court of Appeal decision. We recommended that the roles of the chair and commissioners should be strengthened and that the processes for their appointments should be reviewed. We also found that the CCRC was underfunded, a problem exacerbated by the financial restrictions on the public provision of advice and representation for applicants. But one has only to read the 2024 Henley report on the Malkinson case to see that, even without the hideous facts of that case, we reached very similar conclusions.

We urge that the test for the CCRC should be altered to something less predictable. It should refer a case if it considers that the conviction rate may be unsafe, that the sentence may be manifestly excessive or wrong in law, or that it is in the interests of justice to make a referral. That would encourage a more independent mindset. The CCRC is presently too deferential to the Court of Appeal. It needs bold and determined leadership. It is my experience, having read the Henley report, that it is simply not getting it.

After the 2023 Court of Appeal decision, I publicly criticised the chair of the CCRC, not least because she said nothing in public to recognise what had happened to Mr Malkinson or to atone for the CCRC’s failures. I met her so that she could explain her position, but I came away from that meeting even more convinced that the CCRC needed new leadership. Had the Westminster commission known in 2022 what Mr Henley now tells us, we would have been less kind.

Having read the Henley report, it is now my view—in this I agree with the new Justice Secretary—that the CCRC unquestionably needs new leadership. If the chair and the chief executive will not resign immediately, they should be replaced. The CCRC cannot move forward with them in post. We need a full-time executive chair, with at least the standing of a High Court judge, and full-time salaried commissioners rather than the current part-timers. It needs better and better-resourced case managers. The CCRC, as presently organised and managed, is moribund.