Sentencing Bill

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Baroness Hamwee

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I have Amendment 141A in this group, probing the position with regard to people who have been victims or survivors of modern slavery, human trafficking or domestic abuse.

The large majority of black and minoritised migrant women in contact with the criminal justice system are survivors of human trafficking and/or violence against women and girls. This often happens when a trafficker or abuser identifies their vulnerability, often resulting from unmet basic needs such as housing, income and healthcare. Their criminal convictions will have stemmed very often from the abuse they have suffered, and whether they were coerced into offending or acting under the influence of unaddressed trauma.

In the case of women, particularly, who have been trafficked, we know that the section—I forget the number—in the Modern Slavery Act that seeks to protect them is not working well. The very fact of deportation adds to the vulnerability to abuse; it often leaves the person subject to it without accommodation or income, and it removes community and support networks, in many cases leaving them in a place they are not familiar with. The risk of deportation has a similar effect. A person may be left without ways in which to meet their basic needs and in fear, and the fear itself adds to the vulnerability, which is capitalised on by abusers. This is particularly true for people who are already traumatised by previous abuse and exploitation.

We know that victims of human trafficking and modern slavery—and victims of domestic abuse—need specialist support and protection from re-exploitation and further abuse. I have used the term “she” because very often, mostly, it is a she. We know too that women have particular needs, largely stemming from their own backgrounds.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to the amendments in my name. I will also briefly comment on the excellent remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame. I too have great sympathy with his comments and have read the interesting article that Richard Ekins KC produced in the Spectator on 11 August. The noble Lord outlines the case very eloquently and I am minded to support his amendment because it is logical and sensible. It really goes to the heart of a philosophical debate about whether the Government’s proposals essentially forget the raison d’être of rehabilitation, re-education and punishment. If the system is predisposed just to deport someone then you are not really concentrating on some key aspects of the criminal justice system with regard to incarceration. The noble Lord’s comments and amendment are therefore logical.

I do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I think that, as usual, her heart is in the right place but, in this case, her amendment would gum up the system and be misused by, in my opinion, activist judges to prevent the deportation of people who should be deported for the public good, safety and security. I therefore cannot support it.

I will not dwell too long on Amendment 142. It is pretty straightforward and the hour is late, but I do want to discuss at reasonable length my Amendment 146. We are now reaching the end of the Bill; we are on Part 4 and Clause 42, which is on the deportation of foreign national offenders. My amendment seeks to ensure that all British citizens, including those in Northern Ireland, can rely on their Government and their sovereign Parliament in Westminster to enact legislation on their behalf, including Clause 42, which was passed without vote, as I understand, in the other place.

However, due to the iniquitous and unfair Windsor Framework and the capitulation by the previous Government—of my party, sadly—in putting it into legislation, thereby making Northern Ireland an effective colony of the European Union, this legislation will not apply to Northern Ireland. Its people, who are British citizens, subjects of the Crown and taxpayers, will again be treated as second-class citizens as a result of this Bill, if my amendment is not accepted. Article 2(1) of the Windsor Framework effectively disregards the will of the sovereign Parliament of the United Kingdom, of this unitary state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in favour of a foreign legal entity and a foreign jurisdiction—laws over which residents of Northern Ireland have no say and whose fundamental rights are circumscribed; they do not have equal citizenship with UK citizens in England, Wales and Scotland.

These people are subject to the direct effect of Union law—European Union law, made in a foreign Parliament, designed by a faceless, unaccountable bureaucracy and unelected politicians who appoint each other—by virtue of Section 7A of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which gives direct effect to such provisions automatically as part of UK domestic law, subject to those EU provisions. This, of course, trumps all UK domestic law, for the Supreme Court has opined:

“The answer to any conflict between the Protocol”—


that is, the Windsor Framework—

“and any other enactment whenever passed or made is that those other enactments are to be read and have effect subject to the rights and obligations which are to be recognised and available in domestic law by virtue of section 7A(2)”.

Yes, a Conservative Government legislated to make UK law permanently subservient to EU law in a significant part of the United Kingdom. In fact, this affects 300 areas of law across every aspect of life in Northern Ireland.

Sentencing Bill

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Baroness Hamwee

Committee stage
Monday 1st December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, rehabilitative activities, activities designed to reduce reoffending—whatever we call them; I do not disagree with my noble friend that what we call them is important—and treatments are often provided by the third sector. A lot of what is provided is excellent, but it is not enough, and it is not consistent across the country. The third sector’s role was acknowledged by David Gauke in his review.

We hear success stories, for instance of a middle-aged woman whose alcoholism was treated after she had been convicted several times for relatively low-level offences. She ceased offending when the alcoholism was treated and was able to lead an ordered life. I think too of a young man who, time after time, failed to connect with his probation officers. Then he found one—or she found him—whom he trusted. That enabled him to take proper advantage of the support that was available. Those are two examples of people the Justice and Home Affairs Committee met before my noble friend joined it.

I know the Minister knows all this, and he knows much more than I do, but I tabled this amendment because regional disparities are substantial and funding needs are acute. A friend of mine refers to some of these organisations as having something that is almost similar to an eating disorder—they simply do not have enough. That is not a very good way of putting it, but they are so hampered by lack of funding. It must be very difficult to work for one of these organisations, knowing that you can never do enough. I do not advocate that all services should be provided by the state, but it is a very sorry position that we are so reliant on voluntary charitable organisations, which are struggling to keep going—not always successfully.

As to Amendment 139B, my noble friend Lord Marks will say more about reporting on reoffending, giving comparative details between offenders who have completed community and custodial sentences. I would be surprised if that is not available to the MoJ now. Because one wants to see sentences that work and maintain the trust of the public in the operation of the justice system—we are becoming like a stuck record in mentioning the public’s trust—the more information in the public domain, the better.

I think Amendment 93A from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, is in a similar vein, though I do not come to the same conclusion about an automatic sunset of the Act. I beg to move.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to the amendments in my name in this group. The Committee will be delighted to know that I do not intend to go into detail on Amendment 86 as I think it is quite straightforward and others may wish to discuss it, including my noble friends on the Front Bench, but I do intend to elucidate on my Amendments 93A and 127.

The point of this group is transparency in the criminal justice system. The second of my amendments, Amendment 93A, is about the efficacy of reforms to community services. I tabled the amendment, which, incidentally—it goes without saying—is a probing amendment, because it is important to test, over a period of time, the efficacy of the quite substantial and radical policy changes that these clauses give rise to. It is a probing amendment that challenges the Government to account for the success or otherwise of these proposals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I too am intrigued and concerned as to how these conditions will be monitored and enforced. I did not support the amendments that are aimed at the same question in the previous group, because I do not think we should make, for instance, the licensee of a pub or the operator of a sports ground the enforcer of conditions. Many of us have been critical enough, in the area of immigration, about making landlords and so on enforcers of government legislation. But I think there is still a lot to explore in this.

I said that I assumed the answer was going to be electronic monitoring, but how is that to be done, unless we are requiring the offender to be confined to a particular place—to home, for instance? They are not as strict as that; they exclude certain events. So does somebody need to know where events—an Oasis concert, a Premier League match or a fringe theatre with a tiny capacity—are taking place? How is this actually checked? The Minister said that the probation officer will get the data from a tag. I do not know enough about how these work to know whether the probation officer can easily find out whether somebody has attended a Sheffield United match. How is that actually done in practice on a day-to-day basis? Does the probation officer have the GPS co-ordinates for everything that might be an issue? It would be helpful if we could understand more about this.

I am concerned about live facial recognition—if it is being used; I do not know whether it will be. It works on the basis of a watch list, which is created for a particular occasion but then, as I understand it, will be deleted; it is not something which would go on for several months. I had thought that live facial recognition was only for the period of surveillance. I am asking for much more briefing on this, which we would then want to be in the public domain, but we need to understand it first.

My noble friend Lord Marks will be speaking to our Amendment 106, but I cannot overemphasise the importance of this amendment, or something like it. The objective is reducing reoffending, so one must enable employment, education, rehabilitation programmes and so on. We know from the experience of other orders that, for instance, the requirement to report to a police station can be imposed with absolutely no regard to the demands on an individual, who is then forced to take a day off work. I am interested to hear how enforcement works with the support for the offender, which is implicit in the activities.

My noble friend Lord Foster of Bath, in making the overarching point about necessity and proportionality, has hit on what is, to my mind, a very important point. I wish I had thought of it, but I support him in this. I beg to move Amendment 60.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 61, 66, 102 and 104, standing in my name. I find myself in the unusual position of broadly agreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on Amendment 60.

This is an example of what I suppose could be called legislative drag, where time has elapsed between the publication of legislation—in this case, Second Reading in the Commons was at the beginning of September—and real-life events today. I want to talk about the broader context of how these proposals and policies may have an impact, in particular on the hospitality sector.

In principle, we do not oppose the creation of new tools to protect the public or manage offenders, but their success, as other noble Lords have said, depends significantly on enforceability. Clauses 14 and 15 lack any operational detail on how the bans on pub or event attendance organisations will be implemented or enforced, making them currently unworkable in practice. It is unrealistic and unfair to expect pubs, bars, off-licences and event venues to police court-ordered bans without a clear enforcement structure. The hospitality sector is already in severe financial distress, and I will return to that shortly. If enforcement is not intended to fall on venues, the Government must explain how probation and policing will manage compliance, given existing resources and the staffing crises that we discussed on day one of Committee.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Baroness Hamwee

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I do not think that either of the noble Lords were in the House when we put forward the same arguments about the burden of proof regarding blades and, I think I am right in saying, chemicals which could burn and disfigure, which can also be domestic—

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

Acid.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord— I knew there was a word for it. We do not deny that there are examples on the statute book, but we objected to them at the time.